I've got a ton to write about and now I've finally got a good reason to get around to it. Two days ago my Necromancer, Desyrel, hit 80. Since then I've mostly been working on map completion and crafting while slowly collecting information on what comprises the endgame. Here's what I've learned so far:
-Explorable mode dungeons give tokens for corresponding sets of armor and weapons. The armor sets are all level appropriate to the explorable mode dungeon it corresponds to. The weapons are all several levels higher, starting at level 60 weapons from Ascalon Catacombs and then finally reaching level 80 at Twilight Arbor and up. Unless you are going for the asthetics, explorable mode dungeons are not really "endgame". So far I've finished Ascalon Catacombs and Honor of the Waves on exploration mode once each.
-The most readily available sets of level 80 gear are the Tier 3 cultural armor sets and the faction armor sets available from either the Order of Whispers, Durmond Priory, or Vigil depending on which you chose during the story; any of these sets are available for purchase with gold. I compared the Sylvari cultural set and Whisperer set last night and found they had the same stat values, however the Whisperer set was both cheaper and had slightly higher armor values.
-From what else I've been able to gather, the big armor items come from karma vendors that spawn at the ends of strings of events in the Orrian zones. These armor sets are referred to as the God Temple sets (this refers to said events)--there are evidently 6 sets amongst each armor class corresponding to one of the human gods.
--At this time I don't know which god corresponds with which set but I do know the names of the sets. The names of the armor pieces are Light/Medium/Heavy Arcon/Armageddon/Aurora/Mortal/Rubicon/Whispering X. If you want a sneak peak at the stats head on over to GW2DB and simply search for "light", "medium", or "heavy" and they all pop up in the item list (they're all ironically amongst the few items in the game that simply have the title of the armor class right in the equipment name).
--They all have rather hefty karma costs, as in 60k+ per piece.
-Karma "cultural" weapons are also available at similar karma costs to the armor pieces above from karma vendors in the race capitals.
-The super duper big ticket weapons are the legendary weapons. I don't know much about these aside from the fact that they require a max level crafting profession, some absurd amount of skill points (reportedly 200, remember that once you hit 80 you continue "leveling up" and getting skill points this way), and supposedly involve a lot of bind on account stuff to keep it from turning into a market game.
-All of the above, as far as I know (except explorable modes obviously), are doable solo. There's evidently no strict need for an endgame PvE guild.
Also, I've written and just now updated a fairly popular Necromancer Minion Master build. Check that bad boy out.
Right now I'm working on a zone a day for map completion and finishing up jewelcrafting and the story on my Necromancer while trying to decide which character I want to play second.
Necromancer is fun to a point but I feel that overall it's a weak class. I feel like it provides very little utility that isn't available to other classes, or at least I haven't completely found Necro's niche. I think that niche may be something like condition removal but that's only useful in some situations. Necro also feels pretty week in PvP; it can be VERY tanky in the right build and situation but often lacks the oomph to nail home kills on a consistent basis.
Death Shroud as a mechanic is very weak. All the abilities in Death Shroud are very marginally useful and while in Death Shroud you have no access to your slot skills. It's basically only incredibly useful as a tanking mechanic--and naturally in a game where tanks aren't a central mechanic I feel this further dilutes Necromancer's overall usefulness. It really needs some kind of tweak somehow.
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