Guild Wars 2

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Never understood how that worked. logically as the weaks class defence wise. We should be producing top class dps as a counter balance. yet some how we aren’t.

Guys, Ele is a support profession and is meant to stay in Water with Monk Runes! You will survive just fine…..maybe…. :p

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Never understood how that worked. logically as the weaks class defence wise. We should be producing top class dps as a counter balance. yet some how we aren’t.

Except eles have the highest DPS of all classes…

Ele should stay in the back and cast infuse health on his allies than heal himself back. Truly supportive character.

Support builds don’t need survivability because they stay in the back.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Never understood how that worked. logically as the weaks class defence wise. We should be producing top class dps as a counter balance. yet some how we aren’t.

This has me baffled as well. I play a Mesmer (light armour class), I expected it to be squishy, but I also expected it to be among the top damage/CC classes, but it isn’t. We are light armour but that trade off brought no other dividends. I spend most of a fight evading, kiting (harder as the GW2 camera sucks), breaking LOS, popping survival skills and putting out relatively moderate damage. It forces me to go mostly for glassy cannon builds so fights in WvW don’t last forever.

Maybe what you are looking for is already in the game and you don’t know about it? Also true of the mesmer.

Tman.6349:

Guys, Ele is a support profession and is meant to stay in Water with Monk Runes! You will survive just fine…..maybe…. :p

lol, was quite a good joke !

Anyway, ele can do great damage in D/F and even S/F with quite good survability even in the highest fractals, that’s why the zerk nerfing won’t change many things in my opinion.

I thought that’s what Mesmers were supposed to do?

But regardless, are staff builds effective damage wise for Ele’s? They’d better be, otherwise I would agree that ele’s need a dps buff.

I main an Ele and a Warrior, both full Zerk. I have a way easier time surviving as an Elementalist. Takes a lot of practice and time to figure it all out though.

Zhaneel.9208:

I thought that’s what Mesmers were supposed to do?

But regardless, are staff builds effective damage wise for Ele’s? They’d better be, otherwise I would agree that ele’s need a dps buff.

Staff builds are extremely effective damage wise. The problem about them is that you need someone to tank the enemy for you, or you’ll die easily. But for big events with lots of players I felt like I was the only one doing damage on the champions, since I really could see the health going down by my spells. For the people saying that an ele should be supporting only have never played an elementalist before or seen what eles can do. For single player I recommend using a build which grants you a lot of mobility. If played right you won’t get much damage from enemies. Although I agree that eles need a serious buff for their survivability without hopping around a lot.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Never understood how that worked. logically as the weaks class defence wise. We should be producing top class dps as a counter balance. yet some how we aren’t.

eles are top dps in pve. just saying.

I don’t know if its a play style thing, but I went D/D after reading it had great burst DPS and great survivability. However I really started to struggle, especially once getting to Orr. I found survivability to be very poor (0/10/0/30/30), and I became frustrated with the class.

I switched out to staff, and found my dps increased and also using a full rotation kept my survivability up as well, and found it considerably more enjoyable.

/endthread

TheKillerAngel.3596:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OefEpdItXeM

/endthread

That’s not 7 seconds because the video is faster. Like 3x or 4×. So it’s more than 20 seconds. Still, this video has nothing to do with Elementalist survability, only the synergy between 5 Elementalists.

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Warrior is easy as hell, ranger is also easy if not running the proper weapon. Necro is pretty easy as well and ele? Easy as well, just run S/F with cleansing fire and rock armor this will keep you up in most situations. Most people who die as an ele built them wrong or dont have the right skills for the dungeon. Ele is a class that thrives on different weapons and skills. Doing AC? icebow and FGS. doing ascolonian fractal? staff. Doing cliffside/grawl fractal? condi heal. Doing TA? S/F + cleasing fire. I think you are just having a L2P issue.

Embrace The Bold.7619:

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Warrior is easy as hell, ranger is also easy if not running the proper weapon. Necro is pretty easy as well and ele? Easy as well, just run S/F with cleansing fire and rock armor this will keep you up in most situations. Most people who die as an ele built them wrong or dont have the right skills for the dungeon. Ele is a class that thrives on different weapons and skills. Doing AC? icebow and FGS. doing ascolonian fractal? staff. Doing cliffside/grawl fractal? condi heal. Doing TA? S/F + cleasing fire. I think you are just having a L2P issue.

Armor of Earth which has a 90 second cd? that skill should have a 30-40 second cd.
ArenaNet can’t balance classes. A light class with a defensive utility skill has 90 second cd. At least they are reducing it to 60 in the feature update, but still.
Elementalist is inferior.

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Zoid.2568:

Armor of Earth which has a 90 second cd? that skill should have a 30-40 second cd.
ArenaNet can’t balance classes. A light class with a defensive utility skill has 90 second cd. At least they are reducing it to 60 in the feature update, but still.
Elementalist is inferior.

I think it’s entirely a matter of skill in this case; If you learn to use almost all of the Elementalist’s tricks I think you’ll find that it’s way easier to survive in PvE as an Ele than a Warrior. Takes a lot more button presses though

Zoid.2568:

That’s not 7 seconds because the video is faster. Like 3x or 4×. So it’s more than 20 seconds. Still, this video has nothing to do with Elementalist survability, only the synergy between 5 Elementalists.

What makes you think that video is faster? And there are 3 elementalists with no synergy. That word means different thing than you think.

…does anyone in this thread know how to dodge?

I’ve been running a full zerker ele for awhile, and I don’t have trouble surviving. Granted, it is harder to survive as an ele, but that is largely due to how the particle effects obscure my vision, making it harder to properly dodge enemies.

Two builds that I run. One is a 30/20/0/0/20 staff DPS build. Take the vigor on crit trait, and you’ll rarely ever have to leave fire. In the overworld, this does so much damage that I don’t even bother with dodging regular enemies. They die too quickly under the combination of lava font + blast finishers. In rare circumstances, I’ll have to alt to Earth for the reflection + immobilize, or water to cure condis and blast heals, but otherwise the combination of vigor + fiery retreat + other staff utilities for emergency leaves me with quite the survivability.

That is nothing compared to my other build. 0/30/0/20/20, fresh air build. Uses any combination of weapons, but I like D/D the most. There are 4 things in this build that make surviving against trash mobs a cinch: glyph of elemental storms makes a blind field while in Earth Attunement, Lightning Hammer causes blind on auto attack, Elemental Attunement gives me constant protection AoE and regen, and the water line gives me spouts of AoE heal and cleanse. That is all before getting into the weapon sets and their abilities.

At this point, I’d put the survivability of the second build as higher than my zerker engineer.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Never understood how that worked. logically as the weaks class defence wise. We should be producing top class dps as a counter balance. yet some how we aren’t.

But eles are top class DPS.

While some Elementalist builds can indeed be squishy (even “squishiest” in theory), the fact is that the DPS is actually tremendous-even ridiculous. The 30 Fire Staff build is very powerful. It’s a good trade-off, IMHO, though as mentioned above, only annoying when one shotted because you can’t always see attacks coming in the midst of too many particle effects. Still, I feel that the survivability vs damage output is rather good, and my Elementalist is without doubt my strongest direct damage character.

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <→ lowest survivability. seems fair

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

I don’t know why people keep saying that eles are top dps. All the clips you showed had at least one warrior who provided Banner of Discipline. Of course not every mob is standing next to a wall for the FGS to be effective and the Frost Bow has big cooldown.

A warrior is able to do 4x the damage an elementalist is having in the long run.

If you really want to be tryharding, if a warrior gets a FGS and uses Rampage while having 25 stacks of might and banners around him, he will blast anything off the map.

Trixie.7614:

if a warrior gets a FGS and uses Rampage while having 25 stacks of might and banners around him, he will blast anything off the map.

YMMD.

As an Ele main, I can not agree with the OP.

Now I can only speak for Open-World PvE but I have no problem soloing almost anywhere in Tyria. Sure there are some Champions that I can not do alone but then Champs are not meant to be soloed generally.

Example: I just spent the last hour and a half running in Orr and I don’t believe my health ever dropped below half. I am still in Exotic Armor though I do have an Ascended Staff and 4 Ascended Trinkets. Honestly survival as an Ele is just not that hard if you are outfitted properly and understand the mechanics of the different elements.

Granted if I went up against someone in PvP I would surely get crushed but in PvE… No problem

I nuked my first ele from orbit at lvl72 because I simply could not survive.

Made another (eventually) and put it in Soldier with an elehammer build. It does just fine now, even if I don’t like the class.

Zoid.2568:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OefEpdItXeM

/endthread

That’s not 7 seconds because the video is faster. Like 3x or 4×. So it’s more than 20 seconds. Still, this video has nothing to do with Elementalist survability, only the synergy between 5 Elementalists.

That video is not sped up. If you look at the animation speeds of Lupicus they are entirely normal.

A couple of points (note, these are based on my experiences, and may not be true depending on your play style).

I found that dodging around lowered my DPS considerably. So whilst you can increase survivability by “learning 2 dodge”, for me, it was at the expense of DPS. Part of this for me was due to the fact that dodging and running around made me quite error prone to misclicks, and it made it more difficult to properly place fields and such.

I also found that having a good rotation across all four attunements is critical. Back when I was running D/D I found the rotation I was using only really worked well from going Air/Fire. However, when switching to Staff, I found a much quicker rotation going Air → Water → Earth → Fire. Jumping into Water (with condition removing) and Earth increased my survivability dramatically without having to dodge as much, thus giving good consistent DPS.

Obviously the above is very build/play-style dependant, but that is what worked for me.

OneManArmy.9732:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

you have never played a necro have you…
they are really good at support, can heal whole groups of players, let other players do conditions otherwise difficult to do and you call necro’s selfish?
man oh man, talk about not checking the facts……

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

you have never played a necro have you…
they are really good at support, can heal whole groups of players, let other players do conditions otherwise difficult to do and you call necro’s selfish?
man oh man, talk about not checking the facts……

Necros aren’t the best in anything other than having the highest hp pools. They have no cleave, which is HORRIBLE for PvE, deal very low damage in comparison to the other classes, and don’t even support the best.

There’s no reason to ever want a necro on a team. Support on this game is with control, blinds, reflects, blocks. All of these a necro isn’t known for. The only control necros really have is fearing which is a burden in dungeons.

Purple Miku.7032:

There’s no reason to ever want a necro on a team. Support on this game is with control, blinds, reflects, blocks. All of these a necro isn’t known for. The only control necros really have is fearing which is a burden in dungeons.

I have a message for you from “Epidemic”

The contents read ’Hey, what?"

You know ele have the best dps,it crazy OP if you go as staff zerker

I have no problems with my ele. I run a D/F Fresh Air build and use Hammer/FGS in dungeons and do absolutely fine. Sure there’s sometimes when I’m tired that I don’t focus and my health with drop in the blink of an eye but most the time I’m usually the last one alive. I played my girlfriends level 80 guardian and I couldn’t believe how easy it was to survive, I could just stand there and tank damage.

It’s all about knowing good rotations though with an ele. You have to swap through all attunements if you want to be a good balanced player. I regularly get compliments from people saying that ele’s look cool to play right after we’ve ran a dungeon together.

I’ve even started playing PvP and can hold my own.

The problem in this thread is that it is NOT defined which content you mean. Open world PvE is so easy, you will not have any problems. Compare this to high level fractals or Arah and it looks different.

I have a nearly maxed out geared Berserker Warrior and a bit less good geared Berserker Ele and while the Warrior’s damage is very good the Ele’s one is even better, sometimes totally sick. Also you have a lot of access to defensive skills since you have 20 weapons skills at your disposal it needs more player skill and active thinking. My Warrior is very facerolling and super easy to play. As an Ele you have to be constantly on your toes.

Purple Miku.7032:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

you have never played a necro have you…
they are really good at support, can heal whole groups of players, let other players do conditions otherwise difficult to do and you call necro’s selfish?
man oh man, talk about not checking the facts……

Necros aren’t the best in anything other than having the highest hp pools. They have no cleave, which is HORRIBLE for PvE, deal very low damage in comparison to the other classes, and don’t even support the best.

There’s no reason to ever want a necro on a team. Support on this game is with control, blinds, reflects, blocks. All of these a necro isn’t known for. The only control necros really have is fearing which is a burden in dungeons.

There’s no reason to ever be a jerk like this towards the Professions you don’t deem as “efficient” in the game.

Also, this game is not only about Dungeons speedclears, and in any case, ANet does disagree with your perfectly mathematical approach to the game, where only the efficient matters and everything else shall be culled. "But my spreadsheets say ANet intended Necromancers to be out of “serious” Dungeon play!" They have stated otherwise, regardless your all-holy math calculations.

(Spreadsheets are fine-being a jerk because of them is not. Humans play this game, not Asura Golems.)

Taku.6352:

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Zoid.2568:

Elementalist still have the worst survival and they are a light armor class. My main is a Warrior and i have a Necro, Ele and Ranger alt at 80. My Warrior is superior in PvE content.

The Elementalist need a huge buff in survival. They have to sacrifice too much survival to be able to do damage or they have to sacrifice too much damage to be able to survive. Same with Ranger as well. Elementalist still has one of the best supports though. Necro is close to Warrior imo.

Edit: The Evade on Burning Speed is a good buff to Ele survival.

Never understood how that worked. logically as the weaks class defence wise. We should be producing top class dps as a counter balance. yet some how we aren’t.

Except eles have the highest DPS of all classes…

^
Ele’s, if spec’d, have the highest raw damage of any profession. Yes they lack some survivability, but they have plenty of boons and cleanses to make up for that. In the nicest way possible, you may just need more practice. I’ve fought many Ele’s and even the glassy ones can endure a good bit of punishment.

Purple Miku.7032:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

you have never played a necro have you…
they are really good at support, can heal whole groups of players, let other players do conditions otherwise difficult to do and you call necro’s selfish?
man oh man, talk about not checking the facts……

Necros aren’t the best in anything other than having the highest hp pools. They have no cleave, which is HORRIBLE for PvE, deal very low damage in comparison to the other classes, and don’t even support the best.

There’s no reason to ever want a necro on a team. Support on this game is with control, blinds, reflects, blocks. All of these a necro isn’t known for. The only control necros really have is fearing which is a burden in dungeons.

yep, you also never played a necro, i suggest you ppl actualy play a necro before spouting non-sense like this.
i have a necro from point 1 and it’s actually more powerful in support then ppl want to admit, they are so scared of it that they can’t see the obvious power gap even if it stands right at front of them.

sorudo.9054:

Purple Miku.7032:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

you have never played a necro have you…
they are really good at support, can heal whole groups of players, let other players do conditions otherwise difficult to do and you call necro’s selfish?
man oh man, talk about not checking the facts……

Necros aren’t the best in anything other than having the highest hp pools. They have no cleave, which is HORRIBLE for PvE, deal very low damage in comparison to the other classes, and don’t even support the best.

There’s no reason to ever want a necro on a team. Support on this game is with control, blinds, reflects, blocks. All of these a necro isn’t known for. The only control necros really have is fearing which is a burden in dungeons.

yep, you also never played a necro, i suggest you ppl actualy play a necro before spouting non-sense like this.
i have a necro from point 1 and it’s actually more powerful in support then ppl want to admit, they are so scared of it that they can’t see the obvious power gap even if it stands right at front of them.

Actually Miku is correct. You are just biased and i suspect you havent played any of the other classes to a decent level. So your view is warped.

Protip for ele survival:

1. Equip staff
2. Take Arcane Brilliance as your heal skill
3. Put down a water field at your feet and then hit your heal skill

Congrats you just burst healed for over 10k hp

I’ve survived quite well on the elementalist over open world Pve, dungeons, Living story events.

Dodges, blasting water fields, utilities, blind on 3rd hit of LH. Plenty of tools. A bit more tricky than other classes I played doable.

Staff ele is my main… I don’t generally have an issue with survivability. I tend to do fine on scepter/x as well. Little bit of an issue on d/d but not as much as on my thief. I also tend to get squished on my war guard, but do perfectly fine as a melee necro or mes.

My guild mate has the exact opposite issue. She plays an awesome war or thief, but can’t survive as a light armor character, even playing ranged.

I simply chalk it up to we all have different styles. shrug

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Staff ele is my main… I don’t generally have an issue with survivability. I tend to do fine on scepter/x as well. Little bit of an issue on d/d but not as much as on my thief. I also tend to get squished on my war guard, but do perfectly fine as a melee necro or mes.

My guild mate has the exact opposite issue. She plays an awesome war or thief, but can’t survive as a light armor character, even playing ranged.

I simply chalk it up to we all have different styles. shrug

For D/D, spec at least 10 into earth and 20 into arcana. With enough boon duration, you can have near 100% protection buff uptime. Keep in mind that your frost aura also has a 10% damage reduction effect that stacks with protection. You also have an extra evade on air 5

Reverence.6915:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Staff ele is my main… I don’t generally have an issue with survivability. I tend to do fine on scepter/x as well. Little bit of an issue on d/d but not as much as on my thief. I also tend to get squished on my war guard, but do perfectly fine as a melee necro or mes.

My guild mate has the exact opposite issue. She plays an awesome war or thief, but can’t survive as a light armor character, even playing ranged.

I simply chalk it up to we all have different styles. shrug

For D/D, spec at least 10 into earth and 20 into arcana. With enough boon duration, you can have near 100% protection buff uptime. Keep in mind that your frost aura also has a 10% damage reduction effect that stacks with protection. You also have an extra evade on air 5

Didn’t realize frost aura stacked with prot. Have to look at that.

I have all sorts of fun with updraft. grin

Purple Miku.7032:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

sorudo.9054:

OneManArmy.9732:

Ele’s are highest dps in game. top dps <-> lowest survivability. seems fair

then why is my main, a necro, more powerful in general PvE and survives like mad?

what did you mean by “more powerful”? powerful in what?
damage? no
support? no
buffs? no
survival? yes
necro’s are selfish and useless for party in any pve/wvw/pvp scenario

you have never played a necro have you…
they are really good at support, can heal whole groups of players, let other players do conditions otherwise difficult to do and you call necro’s selfish?
man oh man, talk about not checking the facts……

Necros aren’t the best in anything other than having the highest hp pools. They have no cleave, which is HORRIBLE for PvE, deal very low damage in comparison to the other classes, and don’t even support the best.

There’s no reason to ever want a necro on a team. Support on this game is with control, blinds, reflects, blocks. All of these a necro isn’t known for. The only control necros really have is fearing which is a burden in dungeons.

Actually, necros have excellent access to blinds. And taking conditions from you, spreading them around your foes, turning them into boons, group heal, …
You can specc necros for very decent support – problem is, you sacrifice a ton of damage by doing so.
Our biggest problem though is our difficulty of acquiring (and sharing) boons reliably and timely…
And that people will keep pushing foes out of wells all the time -_- (Also, how is fearing worse than knockbacking enemies out of AoE circles? A well placed Staff 5 has saved many a sqhishy party member of mine when rushing through certain dungeon areas…)

That being said, having played a necro from day 1 has kind of ruined me for eles – I am SO bad at surviving and doing damage on my ele…will probably have to consult a couple of guides for that.

If you are running D/D or S/D and you aren’t swapping elements regularly, then you are only doing yourself a disservice DPS-wise.

I’ve met a number of ele players that were running D/D or S/D and complain about their DPS, and when I watch them fighting they stick with 1 element the entire time. Maybe the occasional swap to Fire.

There’s a reason Elementalists can’t swap weapons, but rather can swap between 4 elements.

Frotee.2634:

That being said, having played a necro from day 1 has kind of ruined me for eles – I am SO bad at surviving and doing damage on my ele…will probably have to consult a couple of guides for that.

Just keep playing ele. Especially D/F and you will get the hang of it eventually. I was kind of spoilt having played warrior and necro so much. And guardian, though unforgiving at times, has so many “oh kitten” buttons its a similar situation.

Learning to attune swap efficiently for those defensive weapon skills is the most challenging and important thing about learning ele. Its much more micromanagement than warrior or necro thats for sure.

Technically ele only reaches the highest DPS with either a rigid might rotation then LH or by sitting permanently in fire with staff and 2 spamming.
If you actually use your weapon skills/non-fire skills respectively you lose almost all of that pretty DPS and stop being top tier.
The third way to DPS is FGS rush against a wall which is just obviously an oversight of the devs and will most likely be fixed eventually, and that is situational.

Also, pretty much no team that can survive a dungeon run will ever want a necro. Conditions are painful in PvE, they don’t have enough damage, and they don’t bring enough group support. The ONLY time you will ever want a tank is if your group is unable to beat a boss.