These are some builds I use for PVE that are not what the average player seems to run, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
Nec/Rang:
1+1 Blood.
12+4 Death.
10 Wilderness.
9 Soul reaping.
2+1 curses.
Enfeeble.
Consume Corpse.
Virulence.
Animate Bone Horror
Blood Ritual.
Serpents Quickness.
Barbed Trap.
Flame Trap.
I've experimented with this build alot, and it's very effective.
The primary point is laying down massive conditions, both actively and passively.
The secondary point is being able to heal yourself, generate energy, and give out doses of energy for your teammates without killing yourself in the process.
I start with enfeeble, a nice cheap condition giver that casts fast, then lay in with Virulence. This stops most melee attackers cold, and if you are careful to watch necros, mesmers, and monks you can sneak in the conditions.
They heal or remove them or try to interrupt you, but the spell casts fast enough you needn't worry 90% of the time--and enemies chain casting condition removal spells aren't doing anything they normally do.
The traps are limited primarily because having too many traps doesn't give you additional damage capacity--maxed out at -10 and given another -5 does nothing.
They do add in substantial amounts of damage, and give you a nice backup set of damage you can toss in while waiting for your teammates to kill those you've hurt.
So the chain is:
Serpents.
Lay traps.
Enfeeble to pull, Virulence.
Lay more traps as you can, often I lay them right on enemies which is always a good idea--most Rangers don't want to stop Barraging but I am very mobile.
Once enemies start dying, start summoning pets.
If there enemy necros around using the corpses, spam Consume Corpse to clear their ability to use them. Much better than trying to keep up with fallen enemies and friends corpses by using Animate, Necrotic, Putrid, etc.
I dole out blood ritual when needed.
Comments:
I searched for the longest time for a effective way of making a necro do substantial damage--I can do serious amounts of damage to large amounts of enemies throughout the battlefield, unlike a normal elementalist or ranger that requires the enemy be grouped up.
Often as not, I run to the enemy support casters and start giving them conditions.
While I use blood and curses spells, I do not have to have them at a high level. Alot of people can more than make do with 9 seconds of energy regen, and 8 seconds of enfeeble are more than enough to toss virulence onto your target (or uhhh yeah short bus, get on it!).
You can (and I do) swap blood ritual, animate, and serpent's quickness for spells that I do need for the task. Sometimes I'll focus on minions, other times on nature spirits. Since I also have monk, elem, warrior, and mesmer sub classes I can setup as a protector; nuker/condition giver, be defensive with stances, and go anti-everything with mesmer.
I like this setup best for PVE, since it works almost everywhere and can still give people energy and provide minions (stuff people want from a necro, after all). I hope this helps someone.
Ayama Coventina
