User:Gelbrekt/Heroic Refrain Team/Necromancer Builds

Necromancer - general stuff

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Generally useful Necromancer skills

• Soul Reaping is - while not exponential disprop - a very powerful energy management source, and as discussed, any energy management is disprop.
• Minion skills - All minion skills are disprop, for at least 2 reasons:
  • Higher DM means higher cap on the amount of minions.
  • All minions have the same natural health generation. For level 1 minions, this is completely devastating, since when maxed, the minions will die - and their health is reduced linearly - in just 5 seconds. But when at level 20, the minions last much longer, which also means they have more time to get healed from skills like AoD and Life.

General skills from the Main Page (disprop skills)

• Unholy Feast
• Animate Vampiric Horror
• Rend Enchantments
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Energy Management skills

• Blood is Power - Since all energy management skills are disprop, skills that grant allies energy are especially useful.
• Blood Ritual - Noteworthy because it's a a non-elite BiP.
• Foul Feast - Cool because it grants 60 HP and 3 energy per condition, which could in theory be a powerful self-heal if dragging conditions between players. Could also be effective for the rit, in order to clear conditions from players if there is no dedicated healer.
• Signet of Lost Souls
• Cultist's Fervor
• Angorodon's Gaze

Particular skills to use when Necro SECONDARY

• Death Nova - Great for the mesmers, since they have extreme fast casting, and there are tons of minions present.
• Consume Corpse - Due to being an energy management skill that is not from Soul Reaping.
• All minion skills are interesting here when used as Ritualist, due to spawning power (This is disprop because even though the health increases, the natural degen does not; Minions with 800+ health can survive for 40 seconds even when max degen, and this buys them lots of time to be healed by AoE heals.).
• Weaken Armor - Has multiple interesting effects that the party benefits from
  • (1) Increases damage of minions.
  • (2) Triggers a few skills, In particular Body Shot, and if using a Trapper's Focus ranger, it triggers Piercing Trap.
  • (3) Triggers Fragility, especially if using skills that can remove conditions, such as Hypochondria or Crystal Wave.

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Discusion about Malign Intervention + Verata's Gaze

• The idea here is to use Malign Intervention on some teammates with high Death Magic, which then OTHER teammates take over with Verata's Gaze. This has many advantages here:
  • (1) Boosted attributes mean that the players with Verata's can control many minions, which allows for the team to have a large amount of minions in total, without too many minion masters. Since all attributes are boosted by HR and many other sources, this means that even if a player has minimal investment in Death Magic, he can still use this skill effectively (and it will be guaranteed to exceed the threshold so it won't fail)
  • (2) Malign Intervention does not consume the corpse, allowing for the minion armies to grow faster.
  • (3) This is ESPECIALLY powerful the player is a Rit, because the minions then have a massive health increase due to Spawning Power. (Also, the rit can afford it due to many strong energy-management skills, like Attuned Was Sonkai).

• Using this DOES close several doors due to limiting the secondary profession to Necromancer, there are many workarounds for this:
  • The Mesmers lose the ability to use Serpent's Quickness, but their CD reduction can still be covered using Ebon Wisdom Standard.
  • The Ranger can make use of the necromancer profession by for example being a Touch Ranger.

• An inconvenience is that HERO AI is not great at using Verata's Gaze quickly enough; They seem to have to TARGET the minions in order to
  • TO TEST: Maybe this changes if their battle stance is changed?
  • THEORY: it is possible that the minions can, due to their increased health and level, survive long enough for the AI to have time to use Verata's Gaze on them before they die, after which the Dervish can quickly heal them up with AoD.

Builds

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Optionals

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Support Necro (Curses/Blood Magic)

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No-brainers

• Mark of Pain - Epic skill and synergizes with mass minions.
• Weaken Armor - Since the ritualist's skill bars are limited, this is great to use here to free up their slots, while also being stronger due to actually focusing on Curses.
• Chilblains - While it caps at 2 enchantments, the extreme energy gain from soul reaping allows this to be spammed. HOWEVER this might be too expensive if using prot (in this case, also bring Signet of Lost Souls)
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Protection Prayers

• Spirit Bond - Must-have
• Shield of Absorption - Great and Disprop. Bring enchant staff if using it!
• Aegis - Great, and Disprop.
• Protective Spirit

Blood Magic

• Blood is Power
• Blood Bond - Able to heal Bone Fiends, since anyone attacking these targets are affected.
• Strip Enchantment
• Mark of Fury - Useful IF multiple adrenaline fighters are present.
• Oppressive Gaze - If noone in the party inflicts poison already.

Optionals

• Shadow of Fear - General good skill
• Verata's Gaze - Good since he is a necromancer already.
• Signet of Lost Souls
• Well of Darkness - Extra chance to miss. The hex req is easily met, it lasts a long duration, and doesnt consume too many corpses due to its CD
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• Elites
  • Blood is Power - Great general energy management, but requires blood magic.
  • Spiteful Spirit - General great skill, but somewhat QUESTIONABLE since this has bad synergy with PI.
  • Soul Bind - Anti healing skill; about 100 damage when healed, with a 30s duration & 5s cooldown.
  • Divert Hexes - Since the build HAS space for an elite, and this is a powerful hex removal. HOWEVER the mesmer can already spam Shatter hex.
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Curses & Blood Magic

• Adtanges: Both BiP (extremely useful for mesmers) and Mark of Pain are very useful for this team.

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Curses & Protection Prayers

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[PROMISING] Blood Magic & Protection Prayers

• The ADVANTAGE here is that both BiP and Protection Prayers benefit from enchantment staff.
• A big advantage of this build is that all skills are dependent on reasonably good targeting (especially BiP) which the AI has very good skills in.
• BONUS: If Curses can be brought up to 3 [and then become 8 if using HR and Grail],

MINIMUM Attribute requirements

• 8 OR 13 Blood Magic [Making the difference between +6 and +7 energy from bip].
• 9 OR 12 Protection prayers [Threshold for SoA is 14 and 17. 12 Might be hard given that this build requires multiple attributes, but is very powerful since SoA will then last 10 seconds!
• ? Soul Reaping -> No particular limit, but needed for energy management.
• 3 Curses -> Chilblains will remove 2 enchantments if buffed [3+5].

Attribute Suggestions [Reasons why are discussed on the HR necro page]

• 12 Protection Prayers
• 9+1 Blood Magic
• 9+2 Soul Reaping
• 3+1 Curses

Gear

• Staff: Of Enchanting, Increase Max energy
  • Reasons for the staff to increase energy Cap: (1) Casting time is not useful to increase, since most skills have quick activation. (2) Health is not interesting due to sactifice. (3) Energy is interesting due to 2 very energy-intense skills.

Suggestion

	Elite

• It is debatable if Weaken Armor should be used over Guardian

[PROMISING BUILD] Contagion / Dark Aura Saccer

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DESCRIPTION

• Contagion is Disprop; its sacrifice is reduced to just 3%, which can allow for much more frequent triggering of Dark Aura (which in turn is empowered by HR).
• Foul Feast - As mentioned before, this is disprop energy management, in addition to TRIGGERING Contagion, Removing CONDITIONS from allies, and providing a SELF HEAL which scales with attribute.

Must-haves

• Contagion, Dark Aura and Foul Feast are described above.
• Top skills to TRIGGER DARK AURA:
  • Masochism - Absolute no-brainer; It triggers DA on EVERY SPELL. Also the actual effect of increasing attribute is very useful EVEN THOUGH the attributes will ultimately be 20 anyway; this is because this frees up attribute points to spend in for example Blood Magic & Curses.
  • Dark Pact - Basically also a total no-brainer; It is a sacrifice skill that is also a SPELL - Unlike Touch of Agony - while also having a shorter recharge time. This means that you trigger Dark Aura TWICE on a skill with very short CD.
• Plague Touch -> To remove Daze from self, if applied; This is LIKELY to be applied since the necro will be on the front line AND use Foul Feast frequently. WARNING: I have noticed the AI might have a hard time using this skill, since they spam it endlessly whenever conditioned, including if it's just useless conditions like bleeding from a jagged horror.

• Animate Vampiric Horror - Strongly consider this: This skill is Disprop since its health, damage and quantity (due to increased DM) is increased, as well as its healing. The healing then helps to make up for the lost health from Dark Aura and Contagion. Also, the team is built around heavy AoE heals, allowing these minions to survive longer.
  • However, it is possible that the lost healt will already be easily covered by the other heals, such as from AoD and Foul Feast.
• Animate Shambling Horror - Due to its "synergy" with Vampiric Horror; With these two skills together, no other minion skills are needed.

Optionals

• Other skills to trigger Dark Aura
  • Signet of Agony - Good because (1) Triggers Dark Aura Twice due to triggering the sacrifice from Contagion, and (2) inflicts AoE bleed.
  • Enfeebling Blood - Good general Anti-martial skill. This is NOT INTERESTING because for example the Dervish already has multiple skills for this (Armor of Sanctity, Attackers Insighth and Shield of Force.
  • Touch of Agony - While not epic, it lets the hero AI gets into touch range. This is however NOT NEEDED if the hero uses an AXE + shield (which can be a good idea to give him better protection). ALSO the necro ALREADY has Plague touch.
  • Poisoned Heart - AoE poison - This is NOT INTERESTING because max degen is likely achieved anyway; the paragon inflicts burning with Blazing Finale, and other skills such as Shambling Horror inflicts bleeding, getting to the cap (10).
• Signet of Lost Souls - In addition to being an energy management skill (which are all disprop), it also provides self-healing against the lost health.
• OPTIONAL: Since Masocism can trigger Dark Aura, it might be viable to choose a DIFFERENT elite (Although this seems like a stretch; Contation is good for many reasons described elsewhere). Aside from these skills I doubt there are any other Necro elites are better for a build that relies on Dark Aura (in addition to synergizing with the mermer's Fragility):
  • Spiteful Spirit - Great general damage dealer, however has bad synergy with PI, just like skills like clumsiness. At the same time, it removes Contagion's Synergy with Fragility.
  • Icy Veins - Good general skill.
  • Soul Taker - Epic skill, but despite being a PvE skill, Contagion is a strong contender due to its abilit to trigger DA.
• Resurrection:
  • "We Shall Return!" - Normally this would be too expensive, but not for the current bar, having crazy energy.
  • Flesh of My Flesh - Res. Also note this is a sacrifice
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Specific build suggestions

Important notes

• NOTE: I use Plague Sending instead of Plague Touch. This DOES have the clear disadvantage of being vulnerable to Daze, and it makes the hero AI potentially less likely to get into touch range, however there are many reasons why Plague Sending is most likely way better:
  • Plague Sending inflicts AoE, which synergizes much better with Fragility.
  • The Ai is not necessarily good at using Plague Touch (He spamss it too fequently)
  • When it happens, Daze problem can be solved by the ritualists using Mend Body and Soul.
  • the necro can already get to melee range by using a melee weapon.
  • Plague Sending is a SPELL that SACRIFICES, causing it to trigger Dark Aura twice, unlike Plague Touch which doesn't trigger it at all.
• Note that VAMPIRIC HORROR SHOULD BE KEPT since the build deals massive damage to self, while the healing from Vampiric Horror is increased by "Go for the Eyes", Ebon Ward of Honor, and Cracked Armor.
• Note that while the build fairly easily has enough energy for Bone Fiend (due to high soul reaping) this should NOT be used since:
  • (1) The team (at the time of writing) has a fairly limited amount of melee minions (and an abundance of bone fiends due to 2 rits)
  • (2) Jagged Horrors inflict bleeding, triggering Fragility.
  • (3) Not using Bone Fiend makes it much easier to get higher defense, by using Shield instead of Focus and using Minion Master Insignias.

Attributes

• Below are the MINIIMUM stats; These leave some SPARE attribute points. Suggestion: Spend these to increase the ranks by 1 to cover the lost stats from weakness.
• 11+2 Death Magic (No need to be higher; at 13, it gets to 7 through +5 [BR/Grail] and +2 from Masocism)
• 9+1 Soul Reaping -> Soul Reaping is not very much needed aside from Masocism (The energy management is already very good)
• 6+1 Curses -> At this rank, the +5 buff brings it up to 12, causing it to transfer 3 conditions instead of 2. While this is NOT CRUCIAL, it is WORTH IT because both DM and SR can be maxed due to Masocism.
• 4 Swordsmanship -> To deal damage w swords. NOTE: Sword is picked over axe, since it SHOULD have a higher overall damage (since the minimum damage is much higher). "Go for the eyes" does benefit axes more, but the lowest damage of axes is way lower.
• 4 Tactics -> To use Shield. Note that this is most likely BETTER Than a focusk
• 0 Blood Magic - Dark Pact is the only Blood Magic skill, and it is 1/3 as effective with rank 0 (boosted to rank 5), and the whole point of using it is to trigger Masocism+Dark Aura. As such, investments here have very low impact.

Suggested final attributes

• 13 Death Magic
• 10 Soul Reaping
• 8 Curses
• 7 Swordsmanship
• 5 Tactics

Gear

• Minion Master Insigninas [Good because: (1) The necro needs armor due to being on the front line, (2) The necro does not need high max health due to the percentage sacrifice.]
  • WARNING: It is likely NOT a good idea to bring the Bloodstain Insignia on this hero, because I have noticed this can cause the hero to steal too many corpses from other heroes (in this case, the ritualists)!
• Sword: +33% poison OR Armor Penetration, +5 Armor, "Don't Think Twice"
• Shield: +30 Health, "Shielded by Faith

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Alternative - Use bone fiend and let the rit use animate Shambling Horror (For the "First Draft" team)

• NOTE: There is a long list of advantages with this. This has been included in the corresponding Ritualist HR build (see the other document) that has the Shambling Horror.

	Elite

ALTERNATIVE - Drop Plague Sending and add skill from another prof

• Reasons:
  • The damage and protection from the weapon and shield is very small, and these weapons can be used even without these attributes.
  • A skill like spirit transfer can help quickly regaining health from health lost (also heals BiP).
  • There is sufficient energy available for a skill like spirit Transfer, especially if brining a focus.
  • Removing Plague sending also removes the need for Curses, allowing a third attribute to be very high.
  • The condition removals should NOT be a big problem since the party has Recovery AND Mend Body & Soul.

Attributes

• 11+2 Death Magic
• 9+1 Soul Reaping
• 10 [In another attribute]
• 0/1 Blood Magic

GEAR

• Most likely a FOCUS item is better
  • A shield provides just 8 armor, while a Focus Item with e.g "Hail the king" provides 5 armor (albeit conditionally)
  • A focus provides 12 max energy, which is very relevant considering Soul Reaping (with 12 energy it takes more time to become capped).

• Suggestion: Focus with:
  • HCT for spells (10%)
  • (Any source granting 5 armor, e.g Hail the King or Faith is my Shield)

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Potentially interesting skills

• Spirit Transfer - Good because (1) Fast activation times (allowing rapid self heal on this necro, or the bip - when they sacrifice health). (2) Can consume lots of energy on a single slot, which fits this build very nicely since it has limited space but great energy management.
• Mend Body and Soul - Nice because of its condition removal; Note that any conditions that are pulled thorugh Foul Feast are already applied to enemy targets through Contagion. The problem with Daze remains, but this is less of an issue considering that (1) Plague Sending also struggles with Daze, and (2) There is at least 1 other rit with Mend Body and Soul, which can remove it.
• Spirit Light - NOT interesting - Spirit transfer is obviously better in this context (since spirit light also requires a spirit; a 17% sac isn't worth it even though it triggers dark aura).

Optional tweaks

• Replace: Animate Shambling Horror + Animate Vampiric Horror for Animate Bone Horror in order to save an additional slot.

Other builds

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Likely BEST alternative

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• Advantages over the build with Spirit Transfer and SoLS.
  • Mirage Cloak & Veil of Thorns provide much better protection than Spirit Transfer and SoLS.
  • Mirage Cloak IS maintainable; if using an enchantment mod, it goes from 7-8 seconds, and Essence of Celerity reduces cd from 10 -> 8.
  • Mirage Cloak & Veil of Thorns both deal damage, unlike Transfer and SoLS.

DUAL Contagion

• [Based on the previous contagion build.]

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Build 1

Attributes & Gear

• ALMOST same as the previous one -> Only difference is that lower curses rank is needed (since Plague Sending isn't used). ATTRIBUTES:
• 11+2 Death Magic
• 11+1 Soul Reaping
• 2+1 Curses
• 7 Axe Mastery
• 5 Tactics

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Build 2

Attributes

• 10+2 Death Magic
• 11+1 Soul Reaping
• 10 Protection Prayers

Gear

• Sword/Shield (For melee range) OR Staff

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• IDEA: Two necromancers using Contagion can pull conditions between each other, triggering both Contagion and Masochism.

• ADVANCED: Only use Dark Aura on 1 necro (since it can target allies)