Guild Wars 2

Thank you for this subforum. I am very excited.

I want to discuss the PvE Necromancer in the current PvE meta.

Necromancer is my favorite class. It has been for my entire time on Guild Wars, and I’ve lost countless hours to my current Necromancer in Guild Wars 2. Although this conversation is going to talk a lot about the problem with conditions vs. pure damage in dungeons, I think Necromancer suffers most from this because of our lack of AoE power options.

Our best builds have the potential to be in conditions, but the PvE environment does not allow for this. Low HP pools of mobs, no real reason to use support/control options, excessive bleed stack ramp time, etc. Conditions being useless coupled with not so viable power builds due to lack of cleave (power builds only optimal on single targets) create a chasm in the Necromancer’s playability.

I have a few suggestions that would make Necromancer power builds more effective in PvE.

1. Axe#2: Change to ground target skill that hits all foes in area.
2. Higher percent increase on Target the Weak (Curses 25).
3. Addition of Sword/Greatsword/Hammer
4. Self buffs made party-wide
-AoE Fury on Deathshroud (when traited)
– Blood is Power giving AoE might, and self-bleed based on # of allies affected
-Life Blast giving might stack per attack, party-wide (when traited)

There is a lot of potential for the necromancer’s very unique and interesting traits. There are other options that may be explored as well:

- Well durations extended/CD reduced
- Blind stacking intensity (# of blind stacks) rather than duration
- Endurance siphon ability/less clunky vigor mechanics
-Revert life pool overflow from DS in PvE
- Foot in the Grave moved to 10pt trait in PvE

Agreed.

Necro really needs to be able to provide more for the party in dungeons, be it offensive or defensive buffs along with better cleave damage.

good god. blind stacking intensity???? maybe not
a great sword or hammer would be unreal and doesn’t fit the general lore of a necromancer. However, I do see a sword fitting well with it.

I see what you’re trying to get at, but some of the things you want buffed would be extreme. AoE 10 stacks of might?

Thanks for the reply. I’m hoping that this subforum will be the beginning of bringing attention to lackluster professions, and serve to at least shed light on what exactly is happening in PvE. If this present no changes but helps guide development direction even in the slightest, to provide more numerous effective builds, it will be fantastic.

CMstorm.8679:

good god. blind stacking intensity???? maybe not
a great sword or hammer would be unreal and doesn’t fit the general lore of a necromancer. However, I do see a sword fitting well with it.

I see what you’re trying to get at, but some of the things you want buffed would be extreme. AoE 10 stacks of might?

maybe it’s a bit extreme, but some effective offensive support will make up for our low numbers elsewhere. I think BiP would be interesting if it worked similarly to Guardian’s Empower on staff, even.

I wish they would bring back some GW1 skills from necros to give this class a unique role in dungeons.

Ie.

Barbs (like a signet of vampirism that doesn’t suck)
Mark of pain (see above)
Order of Pain (generic party might buff)
Blood is power (Group vigor?)

etc….

It’s interesting, if you go on the wiki and look at a lot of the traits that were not included in the game, it seems that they had a very unique and familiar vision for the Necromancer that resonated with the GW1 counterpart.

Lower axe AA damage by 20%, give it cleave up to 3 targets.

That will solve some of the cleaving issues.

Axe auto attack is already garbage.

Theres some threads on the necro forums where suggestions were made which could benefit necro in pve.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Traitworks/page/3#post3474249

I just leave this summarize here, i hope Guang wont mind it. Source here.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I was going to post this over on Guru but I figured I might as well address a larger audience even though I know most of the responses are probably going to be stupid as result. Nonetheless, here’s the issue:

Necros are crap in PvE.

There is an effective role for every other class in this game except for the necro. That doesn’t really help the necro’s desirability since there is basically nothing they can do any other class can’t do better:

1) Bad DPS. That’s both burst and sustained. Daggers + minions output okay DPS (slightly higher than warriors) on a single target but the conditions for reaching that damage are much more difficult to meet and due to minion AI and unsustainable cooldowns on summons (as opposed to mesmers who can just resummon phantasms quickly) there’s no way to necros to operate as an effective minion AI class. Well burst DPS is average at best and compared to other classes with much higher burst potential (thieves, guardians, warriors, eles) wells are nothing special especially given the severe sustained DPS loss after the initial burst.

2) Bad survivability. Despite having high health and the extra Death Shroud life pool, necros get screwed in a lot of “one shot kill” fights because they lack vigor or other defensive cooldowns. Necros are pretty much always the first down on a slow Alpha kill because they’re the only class that can’t avoid the spike burst more than three times in a row and Death Shroud isn’t enough to absorb all that damage. On top of that, being tanky doesn’t even help the group because you can’t hold aggro in this game.

3) Poor offensive support. Despite having a bunch of skills that allow the necro to buff itself (i.e. Blood is Power) the necro lacks ways to buff up other players. That means that all you’re doing is mitigating your own bad DPS at best, compared to the ranger and warrior. who also have relatively bad DPS but make up for it by boosting the rest of the team’s DPS significantly via area buffs like spirits, banners, and might/fury.

4) Poor defensive/utility support. Guardians, thieves and mesmers have, by default, tons of reflects, condition removal, block, blinds, stability, etc. to buff other party members, while engineers and elementalists pump out raw healing numbers like nothing, even on a full DPS spec. These aren’t always necessary (sometimes they are) but they certainly don’t hurt. By comparison, the necro has? A blind on long CD (readily accessible by many other classes), another long-CD one-shot AOE condition removal. A small, long-CD AOE heal? Is that it? I don’t even know.

And no, before anyone brings it up, Epidemic isn’t a useful skill in the PvE meta. Spreading a few conditions around to multiple targets doesn’t help when other classes can put all the conditions you want on all the targets by default and can do so much more reliably without relying on another player’s conditions.

So let’s talk gimmicks that can give this class a role that doesn’t make me automatically go “dude just take a mesmer/thief/engineer for that” when i hear it.

tl;dr I’m pretty sure this class is bad, prove me wrong.

Something id like to see is make furious demise group fury and move it to 25 in curses. Then put target the weak as 25 in spite. Find a new minor for curses 15.

Withering precision needs to be reworked or replaced. Id like to see something to do with vuln or chill as a grandmaster.

Strength of undeath should be 10% damage boost. Its the only damage boost 25 point minor that is weak compared to other classes.

Awesome, thank you guys. Glad to have your input in this thread.

Agree 200% totally on the life pool overflow from DS.

Yet no on the Axe #2 skill. That skill is perfectly fine as it is, good burst+LF generation.
Axe#3 has pbaoe and gives pretty much perma Retaliation and strips boons with ok dmg.
The only thing you should change on axe is the AA; remove the 2 chain and change it into just 1 attack (little less dmg maybe 10-15%ish) and give it a cleave, 3 targets at minimum.
DS#4&5, piercing life blast, wells are all good aoe dmg skills for necro (power build wise).

They should change on of the minor traits (in Death Magic perhaps) to 10-15% faster endurance regen. Would be a hell of a lot better than that useless minion you spawn on kill.
I mostly play wvw/tpvp but I do try to do a dungeon daily.
And it’s absolutely a huge difference when say fighting Alpha in coe on necro than on my mesmer (fight him normally and not hurr durr stack here and dps).
As mesmer I don’t even need to dodge, you can just stand there and attack, evade from sword #2, block on sword #4 and shatter f4 is all you need.
Yet necro hardly regens endurance fast enough to dodge every aoe he drops. And you can’t soak it up in ds anymore as well since it just goes into your main hp.

Edit: Just read the Guang post and just no lol.

1) Bad dps? Necro doesn’t have the dps warrior or burst d/d thieves have but in no way we have crap dps.
Try playing a Ds build; life blast hits like a truck, stacks might and vulnerability. Not to mention the aoe dmg from ds#4.

2) Bad survivability? Again no, with proper use of DS a necro can often out sustain where others might die (low hp and heal on cd? pop ds and wait it out).
Though it is annoying fighting Alpha on necro, though if you keep range and dodge wisely it’s doable. Not like we insta die or anything lol.

3) As far as offensive support goes, there are classes that do this better but necro can surely manage. Yet if you really need a support class so badly in your group, might as well ask a support guardian then.
Transfusion (Life Transfer heals nearby allies) is quite good. It even heals when you don’t hit any targets. This get’s used by necros is wvw guild raids too who play well/support.

maybe allow pet to scale with power? youd bring decent damage as well as a somewhat efficient way to control crowds

I would like axe was range 900 or something…600 range is so awkward, maybe a damage increase. Also, I would like more party wide buffs rather than user only ones. It would be awesome if I could spread my 25 might and almost perma fury to the rest of my team mates with a skill/trait.

Something I felt would be kind of cool is if spectral wall had some sort of projectile absorption ability to make necros not feel completely useless in almost every dungeon.

kyubi.3620:

maybe allow pet to scale with power? youd bring decent damage as well as a somewhat efficient way to control crowds

I don’t think it would help much. More (direct) damage is always welcome but that’s not what we lack the most. Control still has minimal impact if unshakable stays the current way.

Spectral Wall absorbing projectiles and granting % endurance per projectile absorbed rather than fearing in PvE would be neat.

I find we are very viable in everything except dungeons, and possibly solo roaming in WvW.

The reason we are not viable is because we are selfish in dungeons. Sure we can do amazing DPS, but we don’t synergize to do it. Other classes do amazing DPS and they make other classes better. This is supposed to be offset by the fact that we are weakening the enemy, but in dungeons all the eliteness of the enemies lowers our traits. I’m talking fear immunity, blind reduction, weakness reduction, etc.

Another thing is this whole “attrition” thing that completely falls apart in dungeons. We cannot out attrition anything because we don’t have all the tools other classes have to completely avoid damage.

It just seems like for dungeons necromancers are… okay. They don’t seem to bring much synergy to be desired. Perhaps it’s just the meta is so heavy-armor centric with mesmers that other classes are all accidentally undervalued.

Gnat.9405:

Spectral Wall absorbing projectiles and granting % endurance per projectile absorbed rather than fearing in PvE would be neat.

I think that’s the point where splitting PvE and PvP would get a bit much. They should still have more or less the same functionality in both areas in the game, but with different intensity.

My thoughts on necros in PvE; some kind of way to spread those boons out that you get from entering Death Shroud would be cool. Maybe a Death 5/10/15 trait to spread those boons to nearby allies when you enter Death Shroud?

Add the ability for Dagger #1 to cleave, requiring no target (just like other melee weapons except for Thief Dagger) and fine :P

Sarrs.4831:

Gnat.9405:

Spectral Wall absorbing projectiles and granting % endurance per projectile absorbed rather than fearing in PvE would be neat.

I think that’s the point where splitting PvE and PvP would get a bit much. They should still have more or less the same functionality in both areas in the game, but with different intensity.

My thoughts on necros in PvE; some kind of way to spread those boons out that you get from entering Death Shroud would be cool. Maybe a Death 5/10/15 trait to spread those boons to nearby allies when you enter Death Shroud?

Fear is mostly useless and sometimes annoying when used a lot. Why not have projectile effect rather than fear. Unless they will try to make fear viable in PvE? :P

I like your idea for entering DS, I totally agree with that.