Guild Wars 2

For pug dungeons & solo roaming:

Both full zerk, Dagger/x
How is the damage output? Is Necro anywhere close to Thief?

For party Utility I’m guessing Thief is much better because of Blast finishers and Stealth?
What else should I take into consideration?

I have seen ‘meta zerk – no necro’ LFG descriptions, what are the reasons? Lack of party support/bad dps?

Necro has barely any party support but has pretty high consistent damage. It’s the party support that people don’t want necros. They can inflict aoe weakness but that’s about it I think.
I still love my necro and my thief all the same though, unless an lfg is being too picky I have to choose.

How does Necro compare to Thief?

It doesn’t.

Thief is so valuable to a team as far as efficiency is concerned, that just about every speedclear team reserves a space for a thief.

Necro on the other hand weighs the team down like an anchor.

The most useful necro utilities for a dungeon team would be blindness through well of darkness and plague form…. and a thief can outperform a necromancer with blinds 24/7.

Thief also brings stealth like you said, which separates it from necromancer entirely and makes this comparison absurd.
and finally… thieves deal insane single target damage while flanking or attacking foes from behind… comparable to how hard a necromancer could hit a target in lich form….. only all the time.

There are 3 main things that people look for in a class:

1. Damage
2. Party Support (might sharing, blast finishers, group buffs)
3. Utility (reflects, stealth, etc…)

Here is how necro and thief stack up:

1. Thief does ~20% more damage than a power necro and 30% more damage than a condition necro

2. Necro provides no party support, thief provides venoms, boon sharing, and unlimited blast finishers

3. Thief provides stealth, a reflect, a projectile block and some blind fields. Necro provides a way to easily rez people because you are all dead for bothering to bring a necro.

I can’t think of a single situation in which you would want to bring a necro over a thief in a dungeon.

It’s like asking how a 5 year old would compare to a professional athelete in a sport, they’re so far on the opposite ends of the spectrum with thief being so much more useful/better for PvE.

The 3 items ZudetGambeous describes are generally what a 5-man party look for. He’s wrong about number 2 in regard to necro (wells, vampirism, BiP, condi control and more) but most players remember those pre-buff or still find them lacking.

The thing about necro is that it has loads in of capacity in another role that most people don’t either require or fully grasp well – debuffing. A condi necro can keep up weakness, cripple, chill, vulnerability while throwing in a lot of blinds and fears. These are great for more challenging game segments (so, very rarely) and not much else.

In HoT I expect necro to be a lot more popular but the jury is out on whether it’ll get that place at the table that it hasn’t had since day 1.

what about the vampiric aura and that vampiric heal thingy that the necro has?
maybe they will be needed in HoT?

rogerwilko.6895:

I have seen ‘meta zerk – no necro’ LFG descriptions, what are the reasons? Lack of party support/bad dps?

Eh elitism mostly. Necro isn’t horrible, but yes a thief is better in terms of overall dps. Mind you since there really isn’t hard content (maybe high level fractals, but not really that either as far as I can tell) in the game it really doesn’t matter.
However because necro does objectively output less dps people don’t want them in their groups because of their perceptions of necros. Like I said necros aren’t horrible you can take them into any content and do fairly well (not as well as other classes but you’re not going to case the group to fail).

Haleydawn.3764:

Necro has barely any party support but has pretty high consistent damage. It’s the party support that people don’t want necros. They can inflict aoe weakness but that’s about it I think.
I still love my necro and my thief all the same though, unless an lfg is being too picky I have to choose.

Sorry but you’re a little too optimistic about necro’s damage.

It’s not like, obscenely lower than the other classes’ capabilities damage-wise but it’s certainly lower. Thief is one of the highest damage classes, so yeah…

Not only does thief totally outclass necro for group utility, personal utility, and mobility in general but it outclasses necro in both solo and group settings damage-wise as well. This includes both sustained DPS and burst.

One thing that thief is pretty awful at is ranged damage, but as we all know ranged combat is hardly ever a necessity anyways… and necro doesn’t have high DPS there either.

It doesn’t compare.

Capicorp.1537:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There are 3 main things that people look for in a class:

1. Damage
2. Party Support (might sharing, blast finishers, group buffs)
3. Utility (reflects, stealth, etc…)

Here is how necro and thief stack up:

1. Thief does ~20% more damage than a power necro and 30% more damage than a condition necro

2. Necro provides no party support, thief provides venoms, boon sharing, and unlimited blast finishers

3. Thief provides stealth, a reflect, a projectile block and some blind fields. Necro provides a way to easily rez people because you are all dead for bothering to bring a necro.

I can’t think of a single situation in which you would want to bring a necro over a thief in a dungeon.

Necromancer and thief are very different specializations. Saying Necromancer has no party support means you don’t know much about necromancer. Necromancers bring bring defensive support through AoE weakness, AoE protection, minor AoE healing, healing power buff, AoE condition conversion, AoE blindness, AoE daze, AoE vulnerability, and are the best reassurectors in case a teammate gets downed. They have high AoE cleave damage with wells, locust swarm, and tainted shackles. They also have tricks to beat certain challenges in fractals (swamp, heat room, laser wall room).

I’m not sure if this is sarcasm, a troll post or just ignorance, so i’ll just assume the later.

AOE weakness- I assume you mean through CPC, which is not only not needed in any of the current content, it is actually harmful to the group since the poison field overwrites the good fields.

AOE blindness- Does have certain uses, but is vastly outmatched by thiefs 100% uptime AOE blindness

AOE daze- Very short daze, ok for stripping stacks off, but terrible for actual stuns, vastly outmatched by thief once again. Also not ever needed in current group content

AOE vuln- probably the best use of a necro currently, but unfortunately with the recent updates and changes pretty much every build of every class can keep 25 vuln stacks on a target, so not something unique to necro or a reason to bring one.

I covered rezzers already, the only reason you need to be rezzed in the first place is because you brought a necro instead of a thief. Also I think thief stealth rezzing where no one can hurt them is probably better than necro rez traits anyway.

Necros have one of the worst cleaves available in the game, in fact until a year ago they actually have no cleave and were limited to single targets only. Once we get reaper they will get their first actual AOE weapon and this might change, but right now they are one of the worst classes in the game at AOE.

Wells are terrible for PvE because they override fire fields preventing the team from getting might, fire bolts and fire auras. If you are dropping wells on an enemy you are actually making your group worse and it would be better if you weren’t even there.

The only true party support that necro brings is with the new vampire aura, which is simply terrible. We are talking heals/damage for 60-80 damage… it is so sad it is almost funny.

It really doesn’t matter, both will kill stuff in PvE. Thief is faster but in the end both will get their jobs done. All people screaming necro is nothing are right cause it will cost you 1 thing….

Necro’s cannot stealth your party through dungeons. In the end it’s this little piece what matters in some dungeons.

DPS? When stacked 25 might and fury with banners both will do good dmg, d/d thief will do more, but wells will do good dmg as well. After your spike ends it will not matter anyways casue in thief cases it will have been dead boss in 8 seconds and in necro cases 10 seconds. Who cares?

In WvW Necro’s will be meta Zerk Necro’s can run through enemy zergs and stay alive, most other classes will or would die (most cases you’d be mad to try. only weakness of necro in WvW is lack of stability.

Condi Necro, is a bit underwhelming atm. Formerly the kings and queens of condition dmg they are now not even mid class. Only thing they tend to do well is return conditions to their enemies when they we’re mistakenly stacked upon the necro. Seems nice but other classes will probably do better in HoT.

Vampiric aura will heal a 1000 dmg in 25 hits, on fast hitting weapons that happens very fast.

Necromancers are better now with the new blood traitlines and reduced well cooldowns, they can do some pretty high AoE spike damage, group stability inside wells, protection, vampiric aura…blood is power provides a little bit of might, they can suck in conditions off of allies pretty easily, trait their shroud 4 to revive people which is nice. I’ve seen necros now get people out of some sticky situations…so it’s looking better than it was before.

Most classes can spread might pretty easily though so they shouldn’t rely on just one class to do so, They also have pretty good access to vuln.

also lots of dark fields, which will cause people to lifesteal, which will deal more damage, in turn.