Necromancer is Guild Wars 2’s light-armor profession built around Life Force and Death Shroud. Life force is gathered passively from nearby deaths and from taking or dealing damage; spending it fuels Death Shroud, a spectral form that replaces your health bar with your life force pool and swaps your skills for a shroud-specific set. Once life force runs out, you’re kicked back to your normal form with your real health untouched — meaning Death Shroud absorbs mistakes rather than costing anything permanent. Despite being a light-armor scholar profession, necromancer shares one of the two highest base health pools in the game with warrior, so that shroud buffer sits on top of health that’s already unusually large for a class in light armor. Necromancer has no restriction on swapping between its two weapon sets in combat.

Life Force: how the resource works

Your maximum life force pool is a fixed 69% of your maximum health, so raising vitality raises how much life force you can bank as well as your health. Nearby deaths — enemies or allies, roughly within a 1,200-unit range — replenish 10% of your maximum life force each, on top of the many weapon, heal and utility skills that generate it directly. Pressing your profession mechanic key (F1 by default) spends that stored pool to enter Death Shroud, Reaper’s Shroud, Harbinger Shroud or Ritualist’s shroud depending on your elite spec. Because life force decays slowly out of combat and drains while shrouded, the core skill of playing necromancer is basically managing that meter: bank enough before a fight, and don’t dump it all at once.

Necromancer gathers Life Force from dying enemies and incoming damage to fuel Death Shroud, a second health bar it can drop into to absorb mistakes. One of the two highest health pools in the game (tied with warrior) plus minions and spectral skills make it the most forgiving caster in the game.

Core Necromancer specializations

Before touching an elite spec, core necromancer already offers five trait lines. Spite focuses on strike damage, might generation and applying vulnerability, and enhances axe, focus and signet skills. Curses is built around inflicting and improving condition damage plus benefiting from critical hits, and enhances scepter and corruption skills. Death Magic is the defensive line — carapace, protection and condition removal — and enhances minions. Blood Magic focuses on support through healing, life-stealing and reviving allies, and enhances dagger and warhorn skills. Soul Reaping improves Shroud itself and life force generation, and enhances marks from staff skills. All five core lines are available from level one; the four elite specializations below unlock only once you own their respective expansion.

Minions, AoE and open-world necromancer

Necromancer’s minions, marks and wells all reward fighting groups rather than single targets, which is a big part of why it does well in open world content: many farming routes stack packs of mobs together so a single AoE mark, well or Reaper’s greatsword swing can hit all of them at once. Reaper in particular leans on this — a deep health pool, life-steal on its weapon skills and Reaper’s Shroud give it enough self-reliance and sustain to clear packs of enemies with minimal downtime, which is a big part of its long-standing reputation as a strong solo farming pick.

Each elite spec swaps in a new weapon, new skills and a changed profession mechanic. You run one at a time.

Necromancer is viable in every game mode — open world, fractals, raids, strikes, WvW and PvP — and its oversized health pool plus Death Shroud make it one of the most forgiving professions to learn on. Reaper is a long-standing solo and open-world favorite; Scourge brings barrier support and boon corruption to organized groups; Harbinger offers a higher-risk, higher-reward damage loop; Ritualist is the newest option for players who want spirit-based support or strike damage. Necromancer’s minions, wells and marks also make it comfortable for players who prefer area control over constant repositioning.

Every Necromancer build we publish lands here automatically. Each links to the full write-up with gear, skills, traits and the in-game build code.