The unique profession mechanic for the necromancer
The weapons that necromancers can equip along with their associated skills can be seen in-game by opening the Hero window [H] and selecting the Skills and Traits tab on the left. You can see a list of available weapons for the necro below, or also by clicking to view a larger version of the image shown to the right.
| Main Hand | Off-Hand | Two-Handed | Aquatic |
| Axe | Dagger | Staff | Spear |
| Dagger | Focus | Trident | |
| Scepter | Warhorn |
Life Force and Death Shroud
The unique profession mechanic for the necromancer is called Death Shroud. This is a temporary state that you can enter that will grant you access to four additional skills both on land and while underwater.
You can activate Death Shroud at any time by pressing the [F1] key, though first you must have built up sufficient Life Force. Life force can be gained through active use of weapon and utility skills which can be further augmented through Traits. Your total life force will be displayed directly above your weapon skills as shown in the image below.
Upon entering death shroud, your life force will slowly drain over time, but will also serve as a temporary secondary health pool. In other words, instead of taking damage to your health while in death shroud, incoming damage will instead reduce your available life force. Once your life force has been depleted you will automatically exit death shroud, but can also do so at any time by pressing the [F1] key again.
This mechanic can be used to greatly enhance your survivability, and there are a number of traits that provide additional benefits to using death shroud, slow the rate at which life force drains, or even factor in strong team support components.
Assaulting a resource camp, tower, or keep can seem like a daunting task in Guild Wars 2, but it’s not that difficult once you understand the basics. There is a control point that is guarded by an NPC. Once that NPC is disposed of, the control point spawns and if there are more allies than enemies in that spot then the resource camp, tower, or keep is claimed for your world. The difficult part, of course, is getting there.
The tower/keep lord is the penultimate challenge, the control pad is your final quest for tower/keep dominance.
WvW is a complicated beast – but also a simple one, so simple that voice communication for non-guild non-alliance teams isn’t necessary – arrive at the conflict and do your part to help the world, everything helps. Some helps more than others, but remember – the ultimate goal is to have fun. GW2 is built around the premise of letting everyone have fun in different ways, but achieving the same goal.