A Necromancer’s Tale
The necromancer profession in Guild Wars 2 arrived with the game’s launch in August 2012 as one of the eight original professions, defined by its distinctive interaction between death, life force and the spectral transformation known as Death Shroud. From the start, necromancers were designed as practitioners of death magic, curses and blood magic who thrive in the presence of dying enemies, drawing in ambient life force from nearby deaths or specific skills, then spending that resource to assume a more resilient form and access an alternate set of skills. The profession’s identity blends direct damage, damage-over-time conditions, and minion summoning, with a marked emphasis on attrition, battlefield manipulation, and survival through resource management rather than traditional protective boons or frequent evasion.
Necromancy’s lore in Tyria has deep roots in the original Guild Wars, where death magic and the worship of Grenth underpinned many necromantic rituals and practices. Grenth, the human god of death, judgment and ice, replaced the more absolute and punitive death god Dhuum, whose rule allowed no exceptions to mortality or resurrection. With Grenth’s ascension and Dhuum’s imprisonment, the first game established a world in which necromancy and limited manipulations of death could be tolerated within strict boundaries, casting necromancers as controversial but not automatically condemned. By the time of Guild Wars 2, this history sits behind ambient dialogue and fan-discussed lore in which necromancers are often portrayed as devotees of Grenth whose practices are acceptable when sanctioned by him, while creatures raised by the Elder Dragon Zhaitan are considered abominations because they bind both bodies and souls under draconic control rather than operating within divine law. This distinction shapes the in‑universe view that player necromancers work on the edge of moral and religious norms without being equated outright with the dragon’s undead legions.
Mechanically, the core necromancer revolves around life force, a secondary resource represented by a bar that fills when nearby enemies die or when certain skills deal damage or explicitly generate life force. Once enough life force has been gathered, the necromancer can enter Death Shroud, replacing their weapon skills with a spectral bar that consumes life force instead of health, effectively providing a second health pool that absorbs damage. Classic shroud skills include close‑range cleave attacks, forward charges that destroy projectiles and defensive abilities that reduce incoming damage while offering the option to shatter the protective shell to fear nearby enemies. Trait lines such as Death Magic, Curses, Blood Magic and Soul Reaping were built to reinforce different ways of using this mechanic, ranging from minion‑centred play and condition pressure to life‑steal support and shroud‑heavy builds that lean on frequent life force use. Balance updates over the years have refined details such as life force generation, damage coefficients, and survivability, but the dual‑resource structure and the emphasis on corruption, degeneration, and drawn‑out engagements remain central to the profession’s design.
At launch, necromancers had access to a weapon set that reflected their focus on ranged pressure, control and close‑range attrition, including staff, sceptre, dagger, axe, focus, warhorn and off‑hand dagger. Staff was built around marks that triggered delayed or trait‑modified area effects, a sceptre with off‑hand focus or dagger supported condition‑heavy mid‑range play, and an axe with focus or warhorn leaned towards more direct damage. Alongside these weapons, the profession received core skill categories that helped define its identity: signets offering passive bonuses with active effects, wells that created persistent ground effects, corruptions that inflicted conditions or granted boons at the cost of self‑inflicted negatives, and spectral skills that interacted strongly with life force and shroud. Minion skills, based on undead summons such as bone fiends and flesh golems, drew a clear line back to the minion master playstyle in the original Guild Wars, but without the earlier requirement for fresh corpses as a resource; instead, minions are conjured directly through skills and maintained with cooldowns and health bars. This shift from corpse‑based resource management to cooldown‑based minions reflected broader engine and design changes between the two games while preserving the association of necromancers with command over the dead.
The first major evolution of the necromancer in Guild Wars 2 came with the Heart of Thorns expansion in October 2015, which introduced elite specialisations and granted each profession a new weapon, trait line and modified mechanic. For necromancers, this took the form of Reaper, a specialisation that pivoted the profession towards melee combat and heavy cleave while maintaining the underlying relationship with life force and shroud. The expansion’s jungle‑themed narrative and encounter design pushed professions towards highly mobile and often close‑quarters engagements, creating an environment in which a tougher, melee‑friendly necromancer variant made sense both mechanically and in-world.
Reaper reframes Death Shroud as Reaper’s Shroud, visually presenting the necromancer as a scythe‑wielding figure and mechanically focusing on melee cleave, heavy strikes and frequent chill application. On entering Reaper’s Shroud, necromancers gain access to a new bar of shroud skills that encourage close‑range engagement, including sweeping attacks, mobile gap‑closers and skills that apply chill to control enemy movement and trigger damage‑boosting trait interactions. The specialisation also unlocks greatsword as a new weapon, providing high‑damage cleave that synergises with traits rewarding being surrounded by multiple foes. In contrast, trait design leans into the profession’s reputation for durability by offering reduced damage taken, increased life force generation in close combat and improved critical hit potential while in shroud. Thematically, Reaper ties closely to imagery associated with Grenth’s reapers and classical depictions of death, reinforcing the profession’s link with grim, scythe‑bearing executioners in Tyria’s lore.
The second necromancer elite specialisation, Scourge, arrived with the Path of Fire expansion in September 2017 and marked a notable break from the traditional shroud model. Instead of entering a separate health pool, Scourge removes access to Death Shroud entirely and replaces it with shade‑based abilities that consume life force directly to create effects in the world. Life force stops acting as an alternate health bar. Instead, it becomes a dedicated resource spent on projecting sand shades and triggering skills focused on barrier application, condition transfer and area control, a configuration that draws on the desert setting of Path of Fire and the necromantic and ritualist traditions of Elona that trace back to Nightfall.
In practical terms, Scourge grants necromancers the ability to summon sand shades that mark locations and allow subsequent shade skills to affect areas around those points, enabling barrier support for allies and conditions such as torment and burning on enemies without entering shroud. The specialisation introduces the torch as a new weapon, adding tools for condition‑focused builds that align with its emphasis on burning and other damage‑over‑time effects. Its trait options include lines that enhance barrier strength, improve condition cleansing for allies and increase shade damage, enabling builds that run from offensively oriented condition dealers to barrier‑heavy supports. In terms of ambience and narrative, Scourge fits naturally into the Path of Fire setting, reflecting the influence of necromantic customs in the Crystal Desert and Elona, and presenting a branch of necromancy concerned with guarding the living through sand, shadows, and wards rather than withdrawing into a personal spectral shell.
The third elite specialisation, Harbinger, arrived with the End of Dragons expansion in February 2022, set in Cantha and its blend of jade‑powered technology and esoteric magic. Harbinger adds a main‑hand pistol and a new shroud variant in which the necromancer trades part of their traditional durability for increased offensive potential and mobility, reflecting the expansion’s broader theme of risky, experimental magic and technology. The specialisation is closely tied to elixir skills and the Blight mechanic, which reduces maximum health while offering compensating bonuses to damage and other attributes.
Harbinger Shroud differs from Death Shroud and Reaper’s Shroud in that it no longer acts as a second health bar; entering shroud grants a new set of offensive skills that raise damage output but leave the necromancer’s actual health pool exposed, turning life force into a purely offensive resource rather than a defensive buffer. Blight is central to this identity: as certain elixirs and shroud abilities are used, stacks of Blight accumulate, lowering maximum health but increasing strike or condition damage and, through traits, converting vitality into offensive or supportive statistics. Harbinger traits include damage‑scaling choices such as Wicked Corruption, Septic Corruption and Cascading Corruption, along with traits like Alchemic Vigor and Twisted Medicine, which provide self‑healing or boon sharing tied to Blight, producing a variant that can move between aggressive condition or power damage roles and boon support that provides quickness and other boons while accepting a persistent health penalty.
Pistol supports Harbinger’s hybrid design by combining condition application with life force generation at range, with skills that fire bouncing or piercing projectiles applying torment and vulnerability while building life force for later shroud use. These tools let Harbingers pressure multiple targets while maintaining shroud access and capitalising on Blight‑related damage bonuses, encouraging a mobile playstyle that mixes ranged harassment with occasional dives into close or mid‑range to exploit shroud skills and area effects. In the context of End of Dragons, with its focus on Canthan alchemical experimentation and the historical presence of ritualists, Harbinger reads as a blend of necromantic and ritualistic ideas filtered through a modern, elixir‑based approach.
Ritualist was introduced as the fourth necromancer elite specialisation with the Visions of Eternity expansion in October 2025, alongside new specialisations for other professions and a Castoran‑centred storyline about cross‑cultural magical exchange. In official reveal material, it was described as a deliberate return to themes from the original Guild Wars ritualist, combining spirit summoning and weapon spells with the existing necromancer framework and tying this hybrid discipline to Canthan ritual traditions that have spread through the Tyrian Alliance. Within the narrative, necromancy and ritualism are portrayed as historically separate but increasingly overlapping practices, as improved political and scholarly links allow necromancers to adopt ritualist techniques without being assumed to be aligned with hostile or exploitative spirit magic.
Mechanically, Ritualist replaces the familiar, self‑oriented shroud focus with Ritualist Shroud, which channels life force into offensive and supportive spirits rather than a purely defensive second health pool. On entering this shroud, necromancers gain access to skills that summon spirits such as Anguish, Wanderlust and Preservation, each delivering a strong initial effect before lingering to provide ongoing damage, control or support in a way that echoes the behaviour of ritualist spirits in the original Guild Wars. These entities sit somewhere between traditional minions and stationary spirits, and traits and build choices allow players to emphasise either persistent area control and support or stronger opening bursts by modifying the spirits’ initial attacks and lingering presence.
Ritualist utility skills revolve around weapon spells, temporarily imbuing the caster’s and nearby allies’ weapons with additional effects such as offensive bonuses, defensive improvements or condition cleansing. Traits like Wielder’s Remedy hinge on this system, cleansing conditions when weapon spells are used and encouraging frequent use of these utilities as part of a sustained support or hybrid damage pattern. Other traits link weapon spells and spirits, boosting spirit output or causing extra triggers when weapon enchantments are applied, creating a layered interaction between life force, shroud, spirits and weapon buffs that sets Ritualist apart from the more straightforward shroud usage of core necromancer and Reaper.
Within the wider necromancer catalogue, Ritualist occupies a distinct niche alongside Reaper’s melee‑focused Reaper’s Shroud, Scourge’s shade‑and‑barrier system and Harbinger’s Blight‑driven high‑risk shroud. Reaper retains a second health pool through shroud, Scourge abandons shroud in favour of sand shades and barrier, and Harbinger converts life force into offence at the cost of personal durability, while Ritualist directs life force outward into spirits that shape the battlefield indirectly. Together, these specialisations give necromancers options ranging from close‑range shroud brawlers and barrier supports to mobile Blight‑bearing damage dealers and spirit‑centred ritualists built around orchestrating persistent summons and weapon enchantments.
Across these iterations, necromancy’s broader place in Guild Wars 2’s lore and community discussion has continued to develop. Player conversations about how the world views necromancy often highlight that, while some cultures remain wary of death magic, it is frequently integrated into society through institutions and religious traditions associated with Grenth, and necromancers may operate openly so long as they respect legal and theological boundaries. At the same time, the existence of powerful undead created by Elder Dragons and other hostile forces sustains a tension between sanctioned necromantic practice and the more extreme forms of soul‑binding and corpse manipulation seen in enemies such as Zhaitan’s Risen. This contrast supports a narrative distinction between the player character’s use of necromancy and the indiscriminate, often cruel necromantic magic wielded by antagonists, even when similar visual motifs and mechanics—such as raising minions, draining life, and so on—appear on both sides.
From a developmental perspective, each elite specialisation has been introduced in response to both gameplay feedback and the thematic needs of its expansion. Reaper addressed a perceived lack of melee‑oriented options for necromancers, offering a greatsword‑focused, shroud‑heavy playstyle that matched the close‑range demands of Heart of Thorns encounters. Scourge introduced a barrier‑oriented, support‑capable alternative aligned with the large‑scale events and group content of Path of Fire, allowing necromancers to provide protective and control effects without relying on a personal second health bar. Harbinger responded to interest in more mobile, high‑risk options by combining pistol, elixirs and Blight into a variant that can deal damage and share boons while giving up some of the profession’s traditional toughness, and Ritualist extended the profession into spirit‑and‑weapon‑spell support and hybrid roles in step with Visions of Eternity’s focus on ritual traditions. Ongoing balance adjustments, trait passes, and skill updates continue to refine how these specialisations relate to one another and to the core profession. Still, they all remain anchored in the central themes of life force, the manipulation of death and the morally ambiguous space necromancers occupy in Tyria.
