Necromancer sPvP | Tournament Staff, Scepter/Warhorn | Roamer The Condi-Vulnmancer
Table of Contents
Summary
This build has been made to maximize the potential Necros have to increase their condi damage with vulnerability using traits like Bitter Chill and Rending Shroud. This build is also future-proof for the Reaper condi Spec.
I. Weapons and Skills
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
-
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
- 0Might: 15 s
Weapon and Skill Details
WEAPONS
STAFF
Staff is a very important weapon for any necro build because of it's utility. The fear and it's ability to transfer conditions are essential to this build.
SCEPTER/WARHORN
Other Necros usually take Scepter/Dagger in this area but I've gone for Scepter Warhorn because I've found that the Warhorn is essential to performing powerful chain stun combos that will leave your opponent without any breathing space. Using Banshee's Wail at the right time can be the difference between someone healing/cleansing and surviving your condi burst or someone managing to land a combo on you. Off-hand Dagger has it's uses but I prefer Warhorn.
UTILITIES
Consume Conditions: Lately a lot of Necros have been going for the full signet build due to it's ability to handle boons on targets really well. But I personally like rolling with the old Co-Co because (I'm in love with the Coco) of it's utility against other condition classes. Believe it or not but certain engie specs are pretty good against you (it's just that no one plays them) and other necros can be a pain with the ping-pong transfers. Having something that totally cancels that out can be a lifesaver.
Spectral Grasp: This can be replaced by Flesh Wurm, Signet of Spite, Epidemic, Spectral Walk, Poison Cloud, literally anything you're most comfortable with. The only reason why I run Spectral Grasp in this slot is because of the additional CC and the good burst of Life force I can get from it to start a combo. It also enables me to pull people close so that I can combo other skills into it as seen here; http://youtu.be/mYxb3yKxTuA?t=133
Corrupt Boon: This skill is the counter to all Eles and Guardians and shouldn't be underestimated. It's essential to this build and cannot be replaced by anything, if you do replace it with a signet, you'll find that all the boons a target can place will cover the boons you actually want to reach.
Plague Signet This skill is mainly here for the amount of condis that can be piled on you while you're stunned. You can easily transfer these condis back with this utility because it is instant. There are moments where it can be annoying like when you're out of combat and running to a point but because your teammate is close by and he has chill, you take the chill from him and become chilled yourself or you're on low health and you all of a sudden get 6 stacks of bleed because you just took it from your friend. Apart from those annoying moments, this utility can be great and allows you to mess with people's boons due to the traits we've selected.
Plague The Elite is plague because of it's immense utility against Rampage, it's ability to get safe stomps and for rezzes. It's also a good way to stall on a point till your friends get to you. You can apply a good amount of bleeds with it too.
Traits
Spite
- Reaper’s MightShroud skill 1 grants 1 stack of might for 15 seconds.
- Spiteful TalismanReduces focus skill recharges by 20%. Increase damage to foes with no boons by 5%.
- Spiteful RenewalStriking a foe below 25% health consumes a condition from you and heals you when the condition is removed. (ICD 5s)
- Bitter ChillInflicting chill on a foe also inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds.
- Death’s EmbraceIncreases damage while downed by 25%. Striking foes below 33% health inflicts 1 stack of vulnerability for 5 seconds.
- Chill of DeathCast the focus skill Spinal Shivers when attacking a foe below 50% health. This trait now benefits from the recharge bonus of Spiteful Talisman.
- Rending ShroudWhile in shroud apply 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds to foes around you.
- Unholy FervorReduces recharge of axe skills by 20% and deal 10% more damage to vulnerable foes.
- Siphoned PowerStriking a foe below 50% health grants 2 stacks for might for 10 seconds. (1s ICD)
- Signets of SufferingReduces recharge of signet skills by 20%. Signets grant 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds on cast and convert up to 2 boons on affected foes to conditions.
- Close to DeathIncreases 20% damage to enemies below the health threshold (50%).
- Spiteful SpiritEntering shroud casts the axe skill Unholy Feast. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus of Unholy Fervor.
Curses
- Barbed PrecisionCritical hits have a 33% chance to inflict bleeding. The duration of your applied bleeding stacks is increased by 20%.
- Plague SendingWhen you have 3 or more conditions on you your next critical hit casts Plague Signet on your target. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus of Signets of Suffering.
- Chilling DarknessBlinding a foe inflicts chill on them for 2 seconds. 5-second internal cooldown
- Furious DemiseWhen you enter shroud, gain fury for 5 seconds.
- Master of CorruptionReduces recharge of corruption skills by 33% but causes corruption skills to apply additional conditions to you when cast. (Condition applied varies per skill.)
- Path of CorruptionShroud skill 2 converts boons on struck foes to conditions.
- TerrorCauses fear to deal damage per second scaling with your condition damage stat. Damage is increased vs foes that have at least one other condition on them.
- Target the WeakYour critical hit chance is increased by 2% for each condition on your target. Additionally you gain condition damage equal to 13% of your precision.
- Weakening ShroudCritical hits inflict weakness for 5 seconds (10s ICD). When you enter shroud cast Enfeeble on nearby foes (Enfeeble is functionally identical to the dagger skill Enfeebling Blood.)
- Parasitic ContagionYou are healed for 10% of your outgoing condition damage.
- Lingering CurseGain 150 condition damage while wielding a scepter. The base duration of all scepter conditions is increased by 50%.
Soul Reaping
- GluttonyIncrease life force gain from skills by 10%.
- Unyielding BlastShroud skill 1 pierces an inflicts 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds to targets it hits. Increased number of targets pierced to 5 from 4.
- Soul MarksMark skills are now unblockable and generate 3% life force when triggered.
- Speed of ShadowsIncreases movement speed while in shroud by 25% and decreases recharge of shroud by 30%.
- Last GaspGain Spectral Armor when your health falls below the threshold (50%).
- Spectral MasteryReduces recharge of spectral skills by 20% and increases duration by 50%. Additionally, when you activate a spectral skill you gain 5% life force.
- Vital PersistenceLife force drains 50% slower while in shroud and the recharge of shroud skills is reduced by 15%.
- Fear of DeathFear duration is 50% longer. When you are downed, fear foes around you for 1s.
- Strength of UndeathIncreases maximum life force pool by 15%. While above 50% lifeforce you deal 5% additional damage.
- Foot in the GraveWhen you enter shroud gain 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds and break out of stun.
- Death PerceptionWhile you are in shroud you have an additional 50% chance to critical hit.
- DhuumfireShroud skill 1 inflicts 1 stack of burning for 3 seconds when it hits.
Trait Details
The traits can be specced in several different ways but the above is the standard edition. Other editions include replacing Soul Reaping with Blood Magic and speccing 3/3/2 or replacing Soul Reaping with Death Magic and speccing 2/2/3. Give them a try because they both have their merits and you may find them interesting.
Blood Magic instead of Soul Reaping gives you access to more bleeds through Mark of Evasion, life steal through Vampirism and access to another passive signet. taking Blood Bond, Vampiric Aura and Unholy Martyr and you'll see that you have a bit more damage and survivability. Blood bond grants you might when it procs because of Signet of Suffering and Vampiric Aura heals you for a good amount when you use Life Transfer in Deathshroud. Unholy Martyr works really well in team fights as it gives you a good amount of Deathshroud when you enter Deathshroud, allowing you to stay in it longer. But for solo play, it doesn't work well, the other two traits in this line alleviate that though.
Death Magic on the other hand, gives you more access to fears and self cleanses. By taking Reaper's Protection, Shrouded Removal and Unholy Sanctuary, you give yourself more survivability in Deathshroud but your Deathshroud generation whilst running this line is not great.
SPITE:
This is the line that makes it all happen. The ability to improve your damage overtime and to play the attrition game, comes from this particular line. The Adepts in this line bolster both power and condi damage and you'll see how as I explain the reasons for my trait choices.
ADEPT:
Bitter Chill: This trait makes your chills apply vulnerability and you may be asking, why do you want to do that? Well Vulnerability now increases your condition damage as well as your direct damage and we currently have skills that apply chill on this build this includes, Spectral Grasp, Dark Path, Chillblains. You can also take Sigil of Hydromancy but I think that's overkill (though it would be pretty sweet overkill).
Spiteful Talisman is only useful if you run Focus and Spiteful Renewal is a great alternative to Bitter Chill because of the healing you'll get from it when fighting other hybrid or condi classes.
MASTER
Rending Shroud: Rending Shroud allows you to keep up a consistent amount of vuln on your target should they decide that getting close to you is a good idea or if you land Dark Path, it's a perfect way to keep applying vuln.
Chill of Death is viable as it synergizes with Bitter chill and removes boons from low targets but that's a decision for you to make. I personally like the synergy between Dark Path and Rending Shroud or Spectral Grasp and Rending Shroud.
GRANDMASTER
Signet of Suffering
Signet of Suffering gives you 3 stacks of might, reduces the cooldown of your signets and makes them remove 2 boons from your target.
With this trait, you can decide to go full passive, allowing you to take Plague Sending in Curses and Blood Bond in the Blood magic line, giving you 2 passive signets. One of which procs very reliably and on a 16s cooldown.
I mainly use this trait for the added utility it gives plague signet, allowing me to deal with boons whilst granting myself might.
Close to Death does not affect condi builds unfortunately so it's useless to us but Spiteful Spirit could be used instead of Signet of Suffering. This would give you access to retaliation when you enter Deathshroud. Retal can be useful against classes with multi-hit skills like Mesmers, Warriors and even Eles.
CURSES:
ADEPT
Plague Sending: This allows you to deal with enemies who focus on conditions. This only procs on crit so if you're running Carrion, making sure you have the intelligence Sigil on at least one of your weapons is quite important. Other traits in this adept tier will not help you.
MASTER:
Terror: This allows you to deal damage with your fears. Your fears are your main spike damage in this build apart from the amount of bleeds you can stack. Without the fears, you'll be killing things too slowly.
GRANDMASTER
Weakening Shroud: This trait applies weakness when you crit and allows you to apply weakness and 2-stacks of bleed to targets when you enter death shroud. Weakness reduces endurance regen on your target and has a 50% chance to make enemy attacks glancing blows (Glancing blows deal 50% less damage). This is really powerful against burst classes because you can make their burst set-ups useless.
I mainly use it in this build for the always up weakness, because it acts as a cover condition, and the bleeds when I go into deathshroud add to my damage. You can take Lingering Curse instead in this line but the baseline duration is really good currently. Applying more stacks of bleed through Weakening Shroud and being able to stack weakness, just adds more utility to the build. Way more utility than Lingering Curse.
SOUL REAPING
ADEPT:
Soul Marks: This trait makes your marks unblockable and gives you life force when you use them. This means that you have better life force generation and are able to counter Guardians and other block abilities better.
You can also use Unyielding Blast which gives you more vulnerability in this build but that would be at the detriment of your life force generation and lack of unblockability.
You can also take Speed of Shadows which will allow you to reduce the recharge of your deathshroud by 30% allowing you to have access to it more often. But that does not benefit this build as much as Soul Marks does.
MASTER
Fear of Death: This increases the duration of your fears allowing you to have 2-second fears from Deathshroud, without it, you fears won't last that long. This improves your damage with Terror and allows you to get the most out of your fears. But you can also go with Spectral Mastery or Vital Persistence.
Spectral Mastery: Improves the effectiveness of your Spectral grasp by giving you more life force for using it and reducing it's cooldown so you can use it more often.
Vital Persistence: This improves your survivability in deathshroud by reducing the amount Life force you lose whilst in deathshroud, meaning you can stay in it for longer.
Each of the traits in the master line offer something different and it's up to you to decide the playstyle you prefer.
GRANDMASTER
Foot in The Grave
This trait allows you to deal with those nasty stuns from all types of classes. As long as you have Deathshroud that is. Having this trait shouldn't stop you from using Deathshroud to deal damage, you have 3 other stun breaks afterall (Passive Plague Signet, Passive Spectral Armour and the main Plague Signet). This trait also allows you to safe stomp certain classes as well.
Death Perception
When using Carrion Amulet with this build, this trait works extremely well. The power from Carrion allows this trait to really shine and is the basis for the "Hybrid" version of this build. With this trait and the Carrion Amulet, not even Diamond skin Eles can stand in your way.
Dhuumfire
People believe that Dhuumfire is currently not viable but burning has never been something the Necro should depend on. In this build your main damage is your fears, burning, is just an addition. You can maintain 3 stacks of burning on your target really easily but you'd have to stay in Deathshroud to keep that going which would kill your condition pressure. If you're using this trait, best thing to do is to apply two stacks of burning and then do something else. You can already stack vuln, bleeds, poison, chill and fear, you don't need all that extra damage if it's going to be detrimental to you.
Dhuumfire is powerful and really shoots up your damage if used smartly. But it has to be used smartly.
III. Stat Specifics & Effects
Primary Stats
- Health 19212 (+0)
- Vitality 1000 (+0)
- Armor 2820 (+900)
- Toughness 1900 (+900)
- Attack 2111 (+0)
- Power 1000 (+0)
- Critical Hit 47% (+47%)
- Precision 1900 (+900)
Secondary Stats
- Condition Damage 1622 (+1622)
- Condition Duration 15% (+15%)
- Damage 1111 (+0%)
- Defense 920 (+0)
Boons
Conditions
Control
Fields & Finishers
IV. Runes, Sigils, Accessories & Jewels
Armor & Runes
- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
Rune Stat Totals
- Condition Damage 175
- Condition Duration 15%
Rune Bonuses
PvP Rune of the Nightmare- Condition Damage: 25
- Condition Duration: 5%
- Condition Damage: 50
- Condition Duration: 10%
- Condition Damage: 100
- 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 seconds. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)
Accessories & Jewels
Accessory Totals
- Precision:900
- Toughness:900
- Condition Damage:1200
Weapon Set Sigils
- Weapon Strength: 985-1111
- Weapon Strength: -