[8] Guild Wars 2 Builds - Necromancer: Scepter/Dagger - Staff, Dirty AOE for sPVP | WvWvW | PVE

By: Soul Step 

Click here to view build

One aspect I loved about the Necromancer profession that carried over from Guild Wars 1, is the ability to apply conditions (debuffs) on enemies and spread them. It's like another way to deal damage aside from a direct damage route. This build is solely for that purpose, apply and stack conditions to multiple foes. You will be using Scepter/Dagger skills along with the Marks from the Staff set and Wells and Corruptions from your utility skills to get the job done.

Healing, Utility, and Elite Skills:
Healing: (6) Well of Blood - I chose this because it fits the AOE theme of the build and works in conjunction with Ritual Mastery.

Utility: You'll be using 2 Corruption skills and a Well skill

(7) Corrupt Boon 

A very handy and useful skill. There are enemies who apply a number of boons on themselves and using this will take that advantage and turn it against them. In PVP, I like to use this on boon heavy players (*cough cough* Guardians).

(8) Epidemic

One of my favorite skills in Guild Wars 1. This one is all about spreading the love haha. Epidemic is essential when it comes to condition spiking mobs or opponents. Also ensures that no enemy is left clean. One of my favorite quick condition spike combo is using Corrupt Boon on a target followed by Epidemic.

(9) Well of Power

This is your other support/survival skill. With GW2 being a condition heavy game, it's good to have a skill that can negate them and give you buffs for a short time.

Elite:
(0) Plague

This is perfect for the build. Condition spiking FTW!


Traits: This is a 20/30/0/20/0 build, concentrating on Curses, Spite and Blood Magic.

Spite:

This is to synergize with your Mark skills from the Staff weapon set:

I believe the increased damage is applied to the damage per tick of the condition.

Your other chosen trait is Chill of Death as it will grant you a free cast of Spinal Shivers to a low health enemy.

This is very convenient, especially in PVP because when a player is low on health, they'll start to apply regeneration, defensive boons and Spinal Shivers will negate that.

Curses:

This is beneficial for

 from the Scepter/Dagger skill set

 from the Staff skill set

In sPVP and WvWvW I found that the majority of time, I'll be using the Scepter/Dagger longer than the Staff. With that in mind, this trait works really well as your scepter applied conditions have a longer duration.

This is for your 2 Corruption Utility skills. Shorter cooldowns means you can use it more over a period of time and making them more effective.

Blood Magic:

Simply to make the 2 Dagger skills more spammable as they are great AOE condition applying skills with mid-length cooldowns.

Same reason for choosing Dagger Mastery, lower cooldowns for wells FTW!


As you have seen most of your damage is done indirectly through condition application. Stacking conditions to your foes is another form of bringing an enemy down. One damage skill that does benefit from this build is
Feast of Corruption

In an optimal and perfect scenario, the most conditions you can have applied to a foe is about 7 in this build. From experience, I would have about 4-5 applied on average with 6 on occasion when cooldowns synced properly together. That said, it's 32-40% additional damage and with Curses maxed and 2/3 of the Spite line, Feast of Corruption will hit hard, especially when you get a critical hit.