Corpse exploitation

Many necromancer skills target corpses. In Guild Wars parlance, these skills are said to "exploit" a corpse to achieve their ends.

Basics of Corpse Exploitation

 * Both dead enemies and dead allies may be used as targets for these spells. Because of this, it may be useful to make use of an ally's corpse before that ally is resurrected.


 * An exploited corpse becomes visually darkened to make it clear that it is no longer useful.


 * Any given corpse can only be used one time. This means that you may be competing both with enemy and allied necromancers to make use of corpse-based magic.  If teaming with other necromancers, do your team a favor and communicate about the spells you will each be using.  Likewise, when fighting in areas where enemy necromancers abound, it is often useful to carry a fast casting corpse spell to prevent your enemies from using them against you.  You may also wish to take advantage of equipment that allows you to cast these spells faster.  These include Bloodstained Boots and weapons or focus items that grant bonuses to casting speed for Death Magic or Blood Magic.


 * You can begin casting corpse spells with multi-second casting times about 1 second before there is a corpse available. Paying close attention to the health bar of your opponent and casting just before his death will help you get to that corpse before the enemy does.


 * Necrotic Traversal is a very effective way to shutdown all available corpses of being exploited, as it is the corpse-targetting skill with the fastest activation time (3/4 second). A wise use of this skill can really hurt an enemy necro relying heavily on corpses.


 * It is not necessary to directly target a corpse to make use of it. In general, if you do not have a target, the corpse closest to you will be used.  If you have an enemy or ally targetted, then the corpse closest to your target would be used.


 * You must be within standard casting range of a corpse when you cast the spell. You will not run to the nearest corpse to get close enough.  Attempting to cast corpse-based spells when too far away from a corpse will result in an "invalid target" message.  No power will be lost, however.


 * Several types of opponents do not leave behind corpses to be exploited. These include nightmares, skeletons, elementals, golems, some but not all titan types, and minions.  Relying on corpse-based magic will put you at a distinct disadvantage when facing these enemies.  In some cases, however, a boss version of one of the above types of opponents may be usable even if the basic type isn't.

Blood Magic

 * Well of Blood
 * Well of Power

Death Magic

 * Animate Flesh Golem
 * Animate Bone Fiend
 * Animate Bone Minions
 * Animate Bone Horror
 * Animate Vampiric Horror
 * Consume Corpse
 * Necrotic Traversal
 * Putrid Explosion
 * Soul Feast
 * Well of Suffering
 * Well of the Profane