Necromancer PvE | Dungeon Dagger/Warhorn, Dagger/Focus | Damage DPS Necro for PvE

Weapons

For weapons you should have the following (all berserker):

- Main hand Dagger with a DPS sigil (force/night/slaying)
- Warhorn with a sigil of frailty/strength/energy
- Focus with sigil of frailty/strength/energy
- Staff with sigil of energy
- Stacking weapons with perception sigils
- Axe with a DPS sigil

Additional optional weapons:

- Rampager/Berserker scepter.
- Rampager/Berserker offhand dagger.

Your main weapon set will be dagger + warhorn with a focus in the second set. Staff is useful for more difficult skipping sections where you might need to cc some mobs to get passed. You want to equip your stacking weapon/weapons whenever you are about to clear some trash mobs and swap to your main dps weapons once fully stacked. I also recommend having a warhorn and focus with energy sigils for skipping sections and more difficult boss fights such as Lupicus. The main hand axe is an option you can take in your second set if you aren’t completely comfortable staying full melee (This is recommended for less experienced players especially when starting out). Its also fairly decent for fights like the legendary imbued shaman or Dredge Powersuit/Ice Elemental where most groups tend to kite them between the lava buckets.

The optional weapons are simply for better aoe, especially when swapping to a hybrid build for certain fractals. Also the offhand dagger can be used for extra aoe weakness which is helpful in the dredge fractal.

Utilities

For your standard skill bar you want to take Well of Suffering and Signet of Spite most of the time. This leaves one situational utility slot. Well of Suffering is a must have due to the damage and vuln it provides, it is especially useful for aoe’ing groups of mobs. Also be aware that Well of Suffering may get in the way of your groups might stacking in fire fields, so try to use it after a fire field is placed down (first field placed down takes priority). Signet of Spite is also important simply for the passive (180 power).

The 3rd slot is situational. If you don’t need any extra blinds, condition removal or a stunbreak there are several dps options. The most common one and probably the most beneficial for single target dps is Blood is Power. This provides 10 stacks of might for a pretty reasonable duration. You can use this without line of sight (LoS) or without a target to get the might without inflicting bleeds on yourself. Blood is Power is wasted if your group can keep permanent 25 might on you, so keep that in mind when choosing the 3rd slot. The other option I use quite often is Well of Corruption. This provides some extra aoe and is particularly useful for mobs and bosses that stack boons. If im about to reach a large group of trash I will usually take this for a more potent aoe combo.

For some encounters you may find that having signet of spite or well of suffering isn’t worth the loss of utility and that’s fine. Go with whatever you feel you need. If you need a stunbreak or swiftness for running sections then I find Spectral Walk is the best choice, especially when traited. Another utility I occasionally use is Summon Bone Minions. The reason for this is the blast finishers. You can summon the bone minions before engaging on a boss and if your group is pre stacking might with a fire field you can detonate the bone minions for 6 stacks of aoe might. Or you can detonate 1 bone minion for 3 stacks of aoe might and then swap it out for another utility before getting put in combat.

Elite
Your elite slot is also pretty situational. Most of the time I run with Plague because it has great access to aoe blind and its an instant cast 30 second stability transform. If you engage in fights where minions should survive for a reasonable amount of time then you can take Flesh Golem and abuse the charge into a wall for some pretty nice damage. Flesh Golem is your standard dps elite. Lich Form is rarely used and doesn’t scale properly when down levelled but it can be useful if your group decides to range certain encounters.

Heal
For your heal slot you will probably stick with Consume Conditions. Blood fiend can be good for improving dps slightly if it doesn’t die. Well of Blood is very situational and not really worth it most of the time especially as the light field could overlap your groups fire fields. Vampiric Signet can be used as a middle ground between Blood fiend and Consume Conditions. It will heal for less while also helping your party members slightly and it will be less of a dps loss than casting consume conditions.

Spite
The first adept trait you take is Spiteful Talisman because focus is such a good offhand to have and having reapers touch on a 14 second cool down is just amazing. You have several options for the master tier major trait. Chill of Death is good for long boss fights as it will proc multiple times (every 20 seconds) once the boss is below 50% hp. Another option is Spiteful Spirit which is good for clearing trash as it adds to your aoe damage when hit. If you are running Flesh Golem you can take Training of the Master to boost his damage and make Golem Charge hit that much harder. Just go with whatever you prefer or feel is more useful for the situation.

Curses
For curses we want to go all the way in for the 25 point minor Target the Weak. This is one of the best traits a power necro can get, 2% damage per unique condition is nothing to smirk at. In an average group you can easily see over 5 conditions permanently on a boss which amounts to a permanent 10% boost with the possibility of going even higher. All the traits we take in curses supplement this trait. The 5 point minor, Barbed Precision, allows the necro to sustain permanent low duration bleeds which guarantees a 2% damage boost with Target the Weak. The 15 point minor (Furious Demise) boosts personal dps when flashing DS assuming your group doesn’t already provide permanent fury. For major traits we pick Weakening Shroud and Banshee’s Wail. Weakening Shroud adds to our dps when flashing DS, making it worthwhile even when the group provides perma fury. It does some nice aoe damage on your location and provides weakness and bleed for a few seconds which boosts your damage by another 2% thanks to weakness synergising with Target the Weak. The second major we take is Banshees Wail. This is a must have when using the warhorn, it increases the uptime of locust swarm by a huge amount making locust swarm a pretty good dps increase. Also allows us to interrupt with Wail of Doom more often.

Soul Reaping
For soul reaping we now go 25 points in for Strength of Undeath and Near to Death because weakening shroud no longer has an internal cooldown. For the adept trait its personal preference. I take Path of Midnight because I like to be able to burst aoe more often. But if you find you use life blast every now and again you could take Unyielding Blast. You could also take spectral mastery for reduced cool down on spectral walk (decent stunbreak). For the master tier trait we want Near to Death. This allows us to flash DS more often for fury and Weakening Shroud procs, it also allows us to access our emergency defence more
often.

Alternative Traits

There are three alternative trait setups you can use. If you want better aoe burst you can take 5 points out of Spite and put it into Soul Reaping for Deathly Perception
(15/25/0/0/30). This also gives you the option to take Stability on DS. This is the second best dps option in a group. I would never personally recommend this trait setup but I thought id mention it for those who feel they need stability or they really want deathly perception. With precision food, perception stacks, banner of discipline and fury you should have atleast 97% crit chance so deathly perception definitely isn’t needed most of the time.

The other option is the best for solo content. Basically you sacrifice Banshees Wail and Target the Weak for more power and Close to Death (30/15/0/0/25). This gives you decent fury uptime, fairly good group dps and less reliance on conditions to do damage. This is best for solo content due to the necro only being able to maintain 1-2 unique conditions permanently. So Target the Weak is somewhat wasted in a solo situation. As soon as you start adding extra members to the group the better it is to take Target the Weak. This trait layout when solo works better with full beserker instead of assassins armour.

The old trait setup (30/25/0/0/15) still provides the highest effective power and so it should produce the highest dps but it is only slightly stronger than 20/25 and it doesn’t have access to Near to Death. Which now has amazing synergy with both Weakening Shroud and Furious Demise. The old build is still worth using in an organised group. Its personal preference between this and 20/25 as the difference is minor. I had hoped that Strength of Undeath was going to get buffed to 10% damage which would of made 20/25 superior in damage and versatility but that proposed change seems to have been left out in the latest patch unfortunately.

The most important thing is to learn to adapt and use the right skills/weapons at the right times and in the right situations. This all comes with experience and these are just guidelines. Feel free to give feedback, ask questions and alter as you see fit. If you think I’ve missed anything please let me know.

Thanks for reading.