Knight/Cavalier/Valkyrie build for the necromancer

[Sabetha]

So, I've been pondering some alternative builds for the necro after taking a look at the new traitlines and the upcoming Reaper skills, and I think Berserker's may well cease to be the agreed-on necro meta for any existing power builds, if my hunch is right.

Essentially, Berserker's gear may well fly out the window because of this Death Magic trait:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deadly_Strength

7% of your existing toughness as damage at all times, and 14% in Death/Reaper Shroud sounds incredibly tasty. Throw in some runes that increase toughness, and you get a hell lot of damage -- and also the ability to tank physical damage thrown at you.

The only downside to using toughness in your gear would be that you lack precision or ferocity, but the latter can be solved with Death Perception, which grants 50% crit chance in Shroud, and if you're a Reaper, Decimate Defenses, which grants increasing crit chance for every stack of vuln you put on an enemy:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Perception
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Decimate_Defenses

And there's always a problem with condi damage (but a necro can toy with condis anyway). I can forsee this build getting quite some use in PvE, maybe even PvP and WvW (I have no understanding of the latter two though, so don't quote me on that).

As for Valkyrie's, it'd increase the amount of life force you have, and therefore it'd allow you to stay longer in Shroud; you'd hit for less but have longer, more consistent damage, and be more resistant to condi damage. Personally, I prefer to go in hard and burst down the enemy with everything I have in a few blows.

So, thoughts? Is anyone interested in testing it out? You'd need Runes of the Brawler, I think. I'd do it now but I still need another set of ascended armor before I decide to test it.

[xadine]

So yeah Sabetha I confirm it is me on the official forum XD.
Therefore you know what I think about this build ^^.

Currently I'm running an ascend Cavalier / assassin gear and it is pretty fine to be honnest. I used to run zerk and honnestly the only difference I see since I switch to cavalier is that I tank like hell with almost the same DPS.
I like the idea of valkyrie though. I'll try it in exo for a while before I craft my new ascend armor (will change the assassin pieces, no need as a reaper).

But  think it is too soon to start talking "metabuild" since it will probably require a couple of weeks before we could say "this is working and this is not". But based on the first beta I think having tanking isn't a bad idea ^^.

[Sabetha]

So yeah Sabetha I confirm it is me on the official forum XD.
Therefore you know what I think about this build ^^.

Currently I'm running an ascend Cavalier / assassin gear and it is pretty fine to be honnest. I used to run zerk and honnestly the only difference I see since I switch to cavalier is that I tank like hell with almost the same DPS.
I like the idea of valkyrie though. I'll try it in exo for a while before I craft my new ascend armor (will change the assassin pieces, no need as a reaper).

Yeah, like I said I did the calculations for both builds. Base Cavalier without Shroud has about 2300-ish power:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQJBIhNSSD90YRN4SDc44IXok7wWnvwAoBWBaZsGNLA-TxBBABfq+TaKBB4EA4lyPF1Dc1+DB8AAAA-e

While base zerk necro has 2626 without Signet of Spite (dat symmetry):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQJBIhNSSD90YRN4SDc44IXok7wWnvwAoBWBaZsGNLA-ThBBABYt/o8DgTAQe6BC4BAUp6PnpEEA-e

However, throw in the 14% bonus you get from toughness while using Shroud (when using a certain trait), and you get 2509 power, with the caveat that you need to stay in it. Zerk Necro can go up to 2721 in Shroud, however.

Ultimately, the problem with Cavalier gear is that power isn't the primary stat. If it were, it'd be a lot higher. For now, I see it as being a niche soft-tanking build -- where you can still hit hard and take hits. Given the likely-difficult nature of raids though, I think it'll come in pretty handy.