Guild Wars 2

The problem is Strength that I LOVE playng my necro, I LOVE the them and the entire idea behind the class. I just want what other classes have (high dps and dps group support). While I understand my wants are niche to a paeticular part of the content that I take part in I don’t think it’s wrong to ask to be better. And I don’t JUST pve either. I’m loving WvW with my guild and have recently gotten into spvp. When I’m in wvw with no group people say “oh get that guy, he’s a geared necro”. I want that in all areas of this game just like warrioa, thieves, elementalists, etc.

Finisher Total
Blast One triggers only if an enemy wanders into the mark
Whirl None
Leap None
Projectile One *20% chance to proc

Yup it’s all fine. I’m tired and frankly done with the nonsense. Yep it’s fun to play until you realize that it really isn’t. I hoped all the recent community dialogue would at the very least encourage Anet to speak up a tad and defend their designs or explain their upcoming plans but clearly that isn’t important.

I don’t want to shock any one but Necros now are quite garbage in PVE ….. as necro is especialy hard to find a team in fractals lvl 50 ;/ 90 % of time there are only meta classes ..
In HOT we may be a bit better but not sure yet …But for sure I know I will not use shouts …they seems as useless as our pets .
Necro can become best tank in game with hiest dmg mitigations … but this dosent give us anything as in PVE every thing is about DPS

It is always the same problem (for pve at least)
Is necro efficient: YES
Is it as efficient as other classes: NO
I agree we have condi… almost useless until recently and not quite as usefull as pure DPS atm. We can be tank but it’s quite useless and always was. We can support… oh wait no we can’t. Sure the bloodline is better now than it was but it still useless considering what other classes provide. We can DPS, yes we can even though we’re far behind others.

And to be honnest I don’t believe this will ever change. It won’t make me stop playing my necro as my main since I love so much the gameplay of this profession. But it doesn’t mean I’m not seeing that huge gap between us and the others. And it seriously kitten me off.

BUT

HoT is supposed to bring new types of events, new AI, new type of spell. So maybe we will rise. But I don’t believe the necro will be the way to do it. I think it will happen with elite spe. Devs said that they have 3 elite spe / profession for HoT. The way I see it, Reaper is build for pure DPS, after all it suppose to be the reincarnation of Pyramid head. Sure, so far what we’ve seen is pretty “bad” (auto censured) compared to Mes and Ele (i’m quite disapointed at DH) but it is not the final Reaper.

I really believe that I will have a lot of fun with my Reaper and just wait for HoT before taking any decision. Or at least a Beta when we have acces to Elite spe because they will need more than one beta to balance it, just take a look at the Rev. I mean the last beta has convinced a lot of player that rev isn’t gonna be worthy unless a big rework of the its spells (wich they did ^^).

A bit off topic:
I don’t understand how Ele got break bar and Reaper didn’t. I mean, pyramid head is this unstopable monster that nothing can stop with a god-like DPS and we have 1 stab and average DPS and yet we’re 25% slower than anyone. It would be logical to us to be impossible to CC (at least for a time) and have at least 25% MORE dps than anyone since we’re 25% slower. It would fit the theme.

Were is your source on this mate

Devs said that they have 3 elite spe / profession for HoT.

The information I seen so far have stated 1 elite for each profession for Hot and they will add more later at an unspecified time.

During 1 live, don’t remember wich one, they said they have plan 3 elite spe for HoT but only 1 will be available at the release.
Nowhere in my post you can read 3 elite spe at release.
My guess is, the rest will follow in LS3 & 4

Necro needs some rework that’s right.

In general necros are not wanted (same as rangers) , right now the players are testing them because of the upcoming reaper. That’s all.

MattyP.6954:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If you somehow think this post is supposed to say that necro is useful then I don’t think we can help you as you fundamentally misunderstand how GW2 combat works.

Yeah, I mean what use do hitpoints, revives, light fields, and area of effect debuffing have in this game? Everyone knows that Vulnerability doesn’t increase your damage and everyone has an unlimited supply of HP

/snark

My elementalist with 9k hp goes down exactly as many times as my necro does… almost never.

I have no use for revives as I don’t go down and neither does any other good player

light fields are quite possibly the worst thing that exists in this game as they overwrite actual good fields

Why would I waste my time debuffing an enemy when no one ever goes down?

Vuln is naturally applied by every class, and is always capped at 25 in a competent group.

I do have an unlimited amount of HP because my teammates understand the combat system and use blinds, blocks, reflects, and positioning to avoid 99% of all incoming damage, the 1% that does get through is easily recovered via self or passive healing.

As I expected you have no idea how GW2 combat works and as such your opinion is of little consequence. I’d rather discuss this with players who understand the game and the problems and subtleties of it. Please keep your factually wrong statements out of the discussion as they distract from the actual issues, thank you.

As a necro main I have faith in the reaper. No rule says I need to use the silly new shouts, (especially that jagged horror one…dear lord that’s pure trash) wells will do fine still and the dps increase with gs and reaper shroud will be welcomed. In pvp, necro is already fairly viable and it will be with the reaper as well, maybe even better than we think giving them the lime light for once since dhuumfire days. Reap will have amazing synergy with tempest and chrono as well. One thing is for sure, the reaper has to be well executed, if it isn’t then dark days for the class will continue.

Well necro can stay up while party goes down… I’ve been the last living soul in dungeon parties often…. but I run a glass hybrid terrormancer setup.. dps necro is boring.
When hot arrives I’ll enjoy perma chill… WITH damage

Atherakhia.4086:

And this goes back to that scam ANet’s trying to peddle about difficult content.

There’s no trinity to force group composition and we already have content that is designed to kill you in 1 hit unless you dodge. That’s pretty much the most extreme PvE you can muster in a game like this… if you mess up even once, you die.

The only way you make content like this harder is put a DPS check in there so if you don’t beat the boss in X seconds, he’ll do his 1 hit KO even faster until the point you can no longer dodge them. But that would be our worst nightmare considering the Necro in particular would have no hope.

Mmm interesting topic. I’d probably say that claiming ANet is pushing a scam is a bit hyperbolic, but lets look into it.
I think the whole importance of trinity is commonly overblown. Having trinity does not mean content can be made more difficult then when we don’t have trinity, all it means is that we have 3 distinct roles. Nothing more nothing less. As for group composition… eh really don’t believe “LF 1 More Heal Ele” is the way to go.
Now that said it does seem (looking at revenants and elites) that we might be going for a soft trinity of sorts, which might indicate the direction in which they want to go with challenging content. But I do believe there are ways to add difficulty beyond simply adding 1-shots. Things such as positioning the boss (something like dredge fractal), needing to use environmental items (something like jade fractal), having to avoid environmental hazards (something like the end fight in the aether fractal) or having to interrupt abilities (like seems to be a thing when breakbars become a thing). And this is not including boss specific abilities (such as when to dps when not to dps) are also possible means of adding difficulty.
Mind you all of these do become easier via rote, but other than adding dynamic elements to a boss fight all things become easy with enough rote. I think this is a major problem with current content, it’s been out too long, everyone knows the tactics by heart.

WSG Delen.9203:

It boils down to balancing across the board… which A-Net have been notoriously bad at with GW2.

I’d argue that balance isn’t the problem, it’s the lack of proper challenging content.
Currently the meta is zerk-zerk, that means when a profession doesn’t do enough dps then it becomes ‘unbalanced’. Unfortunately this mindset ignores all other aspects of a class.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Finisher Total
Blast One triggers only if an enemy wanders into the mark
Whirl None
Leap None
Projectile One *20% chance to proc

The reaper gets few more finishers

Soul Spiral: Whirl Finisher
Death’s Charge: Leap Finisher
GraveDigger: Whirl Finisher

The big one is Gravedigger. As you know, it recharges instantly when striking an enemy at or below 50% health. This means that Reapers get a highly spammable whirl finisher.

For the necro inclusively, this means quite a bit. By just having reaper, necros get access to dark fields and ice fields. If you have the trait Bitter Chill, each of those ice bolts will inflict vulnerability. Combine this with nearly every other trait we’ll get, and necromancer vulnerability stacking is going to be quite good. Dare I say, worth it to bring a Reaper just for that.

Darkness Fields are another useful one. The leeching bolts do a special kind of damage that bypasses protection effects, and also heals. So, while under a darkness field, Gravedigger will spam damaging + healing bolts in addition to its own damage.l

If running well of blood, reaper’s also get to use cleansing bolts in a light field. This isn’t too useful, but it does mean that well of blood gets an additional cleanse mechanic that it lacked before. The poison fields aren’t that useful, and the ethereal field is too hard to use. But this is still group synergy: Any fire fields that get laid down will result in endless stacks of burns being applied by the necro.

Personally I don’t get a lot of the QQ from the PVE side. Yes, shouts are sub-par, but that is the only bad thing about the Reaper, period. The Greatsword is awesome, Reaper’s Shroud is awesome, the traitline is scary good, and the chill gimmick is fun to play with. We get plenty more finishers, better fields, insane vulnerability stacking, the unique ability to get 100% crit chance without a single point invested in precision, an AoE pull that was previously reserved for guardians, and a pulsing stability skill.

My biggest fear now is that regular Necro will be completely obsolete once the reaper hits.

I just did a few dungeon runs with two necro and me a ranger. It was quite smooth. You don’t need to have optimal setup to run a dungeon. Also, I noticed Necro has some group buffs, at least that’s all the symbols they spread around in groups. Doesn’t that help?

ProtoGunner.4953:

I just did a few dungeon runs with two necro and me a ranger. It was quite smooth. You don’t need to have optimal setup to run a dungeon. Also, I noticed Necro has some group buffs, at least that’s all the symbols they spread around in groups. Doesn’t that help?

Not atm to the meta people since they got their own healing so necro vamperic aura is useless and they never go down (heavy sarcasm there) alot of the people who think they are meta do go down frequently, so the aura that make them unable to bleed out is useless to.

There are a top click of players that the necro dont help at all I admit that and bow my head to them.

Well, we all know that they are selfish, but they do damage. A run with a good necro takes maybe 1-2 minutes longer than let’s say thief. So really, who the kitten cares. 99% of the guys online don’t know about this anyways.

The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.

Linken.6345:

The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.

Exactly. The only thing wrong here is the perception perpetuated by ‘pro PVE’ players that having anything BUT the accepted highest DPS setup is unacceptable. Then you got muppets that adopt that same thinking but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. That leads to a complete mis-application of the ‘rules’ that generally, necros/rangers are ‘bad’, so people shouldn’t team with them.

Linken.6345:

The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.

Actually, the problem is that players on average have a discouraging experience either playing with or playing these classes.

I have a confession to make: I hate playing with rangers. I still do, of course, but every time I see a ranger I steel myself for hard times ahead. This is for two reasons, first being that the ranger is a newb class, and the second that they are generally ineffective.

The ranger is a class with a lot of appeal to newbies, which is unfortunate because it does the worst job at teaching the game. A new player on a ranger can get to 80 just by bearbowing, never learning the intricacies of how they’re actually expected to play. So, when one joins a group, all they’ll do is use the longbow at point blank range, spamming skills when they’re off cooldown, ruining enemy positioning and defiance. Their pet will be an uncontrolled nuisance that will attack the wrong monsters, draw aggro, and ruin skips and stealth.

Even when played well, the ranger adds very little. It starts with vulnerability, it ends with frostspotter, and there’s very little in between. Miniscule random offensive buffs, mostly. When I see a ranger on my team, I know that despite their best efforts they will not save me. They don’t have powerful defensive utilities, healing, synergy, or unique utilities to accomplish a goal.

The reason why it is rare to see a good, experienced ranger is because as a player levels up, they quickly see their own ineptitude when compared to other classes. When a thief stealths, a memser time warps, a guardian reflects, an ele ice bows, or a warrior caps might, that is a visible, distinguished, and potent contribution.

I’ve thought on this issue so much that I actually made a ranger to see what the deal was. Now, the ranger is arguably the most extreme case. Were I to rank the classes in order of peer hatred:

#1: Ranger
#2: Necro
#3: Engi
#4: Mesmer

With all other classes not hated. Mesmer straddles the line. I’ve already spoken at length on rangers, so I’ll talk about the others for a bit.

Necros are hated a lot for their petting zoo, which is an uncontrolled ranger pet x6. Necros are also hated because they are slow, and they lack evasion (which is far more important than taking the hit in many circumstances).. The last straw is how the necro’s best skills are all dark fields, which override the more useful ones. That said, Necros are in a better place regarding support, especially when running blood magic. Necros apply plenty of weakness, strip boons, give minor bouts of regular healing and damage. They can cure and transfer conditions when needed, give the whole team protection, and are decent at vulnerability.

Engineer’s are a weird one. I’d argue quite strongly that engineers are the second best class in the game. And yet, it is so painful to play next to them. Why? Well, the engineer is the hardest class to play well. It is so difficult that it actually hurt my hands, which is why I reluctantly rolled out of the class. Anyway, to be at its best, the engineer needs to be flexible with their utilities and traits, never settling on a single cookie cutter build like all other classes do. This contrary nature makes playing Engi well a rare skill. Instead, you’ll get random kit spam and inappropriate turrets. While the engineer can do nearly anything, all too often I find them doing nothing at all.

The mesmer is not really hated per se. However, a lot of players see them as inferior guardians. Mesmers only do a lot of damage when their phantasms are up, so unless that rare fight occurs, the mesmer is left lightly plinking away at the enemy with their sword.

Obtena.7952:

I was thinking the exact same thing about my own Necro when I logged in, traited for Reaper and did some HoT content.

The listed swing time for Ranger’s GS Maul is .75 seconds. This skill is moderately difficult to land on a player without some form of CC or quickness because its so slow and the huge bear (and roar) that happens when the ranger does it says “dodge now bro”.

The listed cast time for Necro GS Gravedigger is 1.25 seconds. It’s going to be very hard to land, you don’t need HoT to see that.

(that this is a wvw/pvp complaint comes from the OP’s line of logging out).

I can’t tell if we’re talking about PvP or PvE. Since when did necros stop being stupid strong in PvP? Are we preemptively getting upset that Reaper won’t also be stupid strong in PvP because of slow attack speed on one specific weapon?

If you are having trouble in PvP as a necro, perhaps you are playing it wrong? There are far weaker classes in PvP than necro.

PvE is a completely different story, and attack speed means nothing so long as average DPS is strong. It’s not like the enemy NPC is actively dodging your attacks…

The discrimination against necro has always been based on the weakness of condition stacking. Never heard of PvP necro discrimination.

Obtena.7952:

Linken.6345:

The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.

Exactly. The only thing wrong here is the perception perpetuated by ‘pro PVE’ players that having anything BUT the accepted highest DPS setup is unacceptable. Then you got muppets that adopt that same thinking but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. That leads to a complete mis-application of the ‘rules’ that generally, necros/rangers are ‘bad’, so people shouldn’t team with them.

The problem with this approach is it sounds more like you’re advocating to change the image/perception of the Necromancer as opposed to the root problem that all those perceived problems the class has in PvE are true.

Give the class 25% more DPS or give it some group utility/worth to warrant the DPS defeceit and things would work themselves out. Ignore the problem and you have what we see today…

Draknar Necros are not stupid strong in pvp, the cele signet build is the first decent all around build necros have ever had. If your team can’t kill a terrormancer or powermancer in pvp it’s cause your bad. Necros in pvp can be countered completely because of large cast times and inability to get out of focus fire.

Back to the topic, in pve necros have been the worst class since launch. A lot of people are saying that this is only relevant to the top 1% of players. That simply isn’t true, even decent parties want to get through dungeons quickly, and bringing a necro makes that more difficult. Perception is part of it, but if you want to finish a dungeon as quickly as you can and one class isn’t as good at that as others it is only natural to exclude them. You would think after 3 years this problem would have been fixed, but it hasn’t.

Raven.9603:

Obtena.7952:

I was thinking the exact same thing about my own Necro when I logged in, traited for Reaper and did some HoT content.

The listed swing time for Ranger’s GS Maul is .75 seconds. This skill is moderately difficult to land on a player without some form of CC or quickness because its so slow and the huge bear (and roar) that happens when the ranger does it says “dodge now bro”.

The listed cast time for Necro GS Gravedigger is 1.25 seconds. It’s going to be very hard to land, you don’t need HoT to see that.

(that this is a wvw/pvp complaint comes from the OP’s line of logging out).

Except that isn’t a problem because this thread isn’t about PVP.

Atherakhia.4086:

Obtena.7952:

Linken.6345:

The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.

Exactly. The only thing wrong here is the perception perpetuated by ‘pro PVE’ players that having anything BUT the accepted highest DPS setup is unacceptable. Then you got muppets that adopt that same thinking but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. That leads to a complete mis-application of the ‘rules’ that generally, necros/rangers are ‘bad’, so people shouldn’t team with them.

The problem with this approach is it sounds more like you’re advocating to change the image/perception of the Necromancer as opposed to the root problem that all those perceived problems the class has in PvE are true.

Give the class 25% more DPS or give it some group utility/worth to warrant the DPS defeceit and things would work themselves out. Ignore the problem and you have what we see today…

I’m not really sure that’s relevant because PVE in GW2 doesn’t require all profs to have access to the highest levels of DPS or team support to be successful. As an example, any dungeon can be completed with a team of 5 DPS/team-support deficient necros. So how can someone argue they CAN’T team necros, etc… because they don’t have DPS and team support? The only people that should complain are the ones that want to run speedruns, and they won’t randomly team a PUG necro anyways, so the argument is moot.

There IS alot of perception based stuff. I know necros aren’t winning DPS awards or gifted with the most team support, or any. That’s not really important, not more so than the person who is actually behind the keyboard playing the character.

Leo G.4501:

Mind you, Quickness is a thing and the more slow casting a skill is, the greater effect you net from having it. While Necro might not be able to achieve lots of quickness itself, if we’re looking at a PvE scenario, that just makes such support all the more useful and desired.

Riranor.6315:

with good teammates and smart actions you should be able to set up for some massive blows.

That’s the biggest problem I see with necros, and why I don’t like having them around.
What does a necro bring?
No, damage isn’t everything in this game.
A great player on ele, a great player on necro. Which would you pick… well, I let them play what they want, if they’re friends, but I don’t like carrying people I don’t know.

Necros are kittened up, and it’s all anet’s fault. Just as most of ranger’s traits and weapons are kittened up; just as pets are kittened up. Doesn’t mean necros are completely useless, thankfully, just as rangers aren’t.
Still…

What’s insulting: necros used to be at least great at vuln burst (bad at maintaning it), but now they gave vulnerability to kittening everyone and their mothers: tar—-dragonhunters will stack 25 by themselves, engis maintain 15+…
Let’s not even talk about torment, hah.
The most insulting thing, though: they’re not even the best at condi damage. Warrs and engis are miles ahead in that regard.
It’s stupid.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

-snip-

And it is people like you that make me hate PvE. #1 No necro in their right mind uses minions in dungeons. Not a single one. Second, it is not like enemies have great mechanics like “if they deal damage they get a shield” or anything which would require high evasiveness instead of facetanking. Dark Fields don’t matter at all as long as the Necro places them AFTER a firefield – if you didn’t know (which, apparently, you didn’t), they DO NOT override it but the field placed first is the one making the combos. If the Necro places his fields first, there is a nice feature in the game called a “party chat”, and a concept called “communication”. Just tell him to wait on his fields until after the fire field(s) have been placed.

Actually, you can do that to help out new ranger players too. Tell them when to stop their pet from being on crack, and to never use LB-push. Easy. If they decide to troll and ignore you, there is always the votekick.

And I’ve had enough eles and warriors charge in, pull 6 mobs and dying because they were new to the classes/dungeons, maybe even MMOs in general. If a Necro takes 6 minions and spams dark fields everywhere, thats the player’s fault in that case, just like a warrior mindlessly spamming all skills on cd (although I admit that yields a higher efficiency than Necro being played properly…thats why the Necro forums are so salty all the time. Me included, not gonna lie).

Obtena.7952:

Atherakhia.4086:

Obtena.7952:

Linken.6345:

The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.

Exactly. The only thing wrong here is the perception perpetuated by ‘pro PVE’ players that having anything BUT the accepted highest DPS setup is unacceptable. Then you got muppets that adopt that same thinking but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. That leads to a complete mis-application of the ‘rules’ that generally, necros/rangers are ‘bad’, so people shouldn’t team with them.

The problem with this approach is it sounds more like you’re advocating to change the image/perception of the Necromancer as opposed to the root problem that all those perceived problems the class has in PvE are true.

Give the class 25% more DPS or give it some group utility/worth to warrant the DPS defeceit and things would work themselves out. Ignore the problem and you have what we see today…

I’m not really sure that’s relevant because PVE in GW2 doesn’t require all profs to have access to the highest levels of DPS or team support to be successful. As an example, any dungeon can be completed with a team of 5 DPS/team-support deficient necros. So how can someone argue they CAN’T team necros, etc… because they don’t have DPS and team support? The only people that should complain are the ones that want to run speedruns, and they won’t randomly team a PUG necro anyways, so the argument is moot.

There IS alot of perception based stuff. I know necros aren’t winning DPS awards or gifted with the most team support, or any. That’s not really important, not more so than the person who is actually behind the keyboard playing the character.

Assume you were starting a PUG and you didn’t have all day to spend clearing the instance. You just wanted to do the paths in 30mins or less to get your gold and tokens as quick as possible.

Would you choose a class known for doing low damage and providing nothing to the group over a class known for having the highest DPS potential and providing the most group utility?

Why would anyone choose the former unless they knew the person?

You can make up whatever situation you wish to justify your position, as could I.

What I say is true. People more often than not, forget, or don’t even know, what is important when making a team, so these rules are adopted because it’s the best they can do without thinking about it themselves. I think it’s funny that in your example, you give yourself 30 minutes to get through a dungeon … am I to believe you’re implying that taking ‘bad professions’ is going to blow your whole schedule away? The truth is you can take a low DPS, no team support class in your scenario and still accomplish your dungeon with minimal impact …. unless your talking about speedruns here.

If making a random PUG, you can set whatever conditions for who’s in it for whatever reason. That doesn’t change the fact that profession-based restrictions are there due to a player’s perception of what is good or bad and why.

Shiki.7148:

snip

Except that I see necros run a petting zoo in dungeons all the time. I see necromancers pre-empt other fields all the time. It doesn’t matter how often you think it happens. What matters is that it happens enough that anyone who’s run a dungeon either encounter this problem or is the problem. The issue isn’t just the fact that a necro player is more likely to be incapable, but the fact that the necromancer, when played well, still doesn’t bring a lot. Selfish support, niche utilities, bad fields and no good finishers. Things can only go wrong with a Necro.

Likewise, the lack of evades is a very serious problem. Countless enemies, especially in high level fractals, do so much damage that you can’t face-tank them. There are also many enemies (I.E. abominations) that gain bonuses when hitting players, actually making things worse for the rest of the team. Granted, there are also many circumstances where being able to facetank is valuable, such as the Clockheart or Svánigandr, but these are far and few between.

What is also really unpleasant is having to ride a new class like a bicycle to make sure they’re competent. You’d be amazed how often it is that I’ll get a ranger on my team who doesn’t even have a melee weapon, because “rangers range!”. Of course I can just kick them and wait for someone else, but that is still an inconvenient time waste that leaves no one happy.

The classes are hated for legitimate reasons. As much as I’d like to just say it’s a filthy elitist problem and that it is all sunshine and rainbows over the hill, the fact is that it isn’t.

necro has always struggled in group pve.
-No evades/blocks
-No access to vigor either, but that’s ok because:
-mark of evasion procs out of combat, making stealth skips more difficult
-Their warhorn swiftness skill easily puts them in combat. Making stealth skips more difficult. So they have to waste a utility slot just for swiftness.
-They are literally the only class without any access to reflects.
-No group offensive buffs.
-NO BLASTS, kitten that’s the main teamwork in this game.
-The few blinds they have are way less useful than thieves blinds
-Terrible dps
-Also terrible movement skills. Deathshroud teleport puts them in combat and is almost the same speed as walking. Wurm will easily put them in combat too. Oh, they can teleport back to where they were 15 seconds ago, great thats useful in arah to run the jotun stone, light orb solos, cof running bombs, etc. Except a mesmer can do that for the entire team and provide reflects, and provide timewarp, and provide stealth, and have better dps and still evade damage.

So what do they bring to the table? Chill? Ele does it better with a LOT more dps/utility/blasts. Brazil has some cool videos showing the group heal/res abilities of a necro, and I give him a lot of credit for trying to improve the situation. Because it is complete bull kitten to players that rolled necro however long ago without knowing what they were signing up for.

3 years into the game, its no longer the players faults for being elitist/exclusionary, its anet’s fault for not balancing it. And then they give necros non group oriented shouts. LOL are you kidding me? Are. you. kidding. me.

EDIT: Sorry everyone, the fixed the mark of evasion problem. So, you know, credit where it’s due.

mark of evasion procs out of combat, making stealth skips more difficult

no it doesnt.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Shiki.7148:

snip

Except that I see necros run a petting zoo in dungeons all the time. I see necromancers pre-empt other fields all the time. It doesn’t matter how often you think it happens. What matters is that it happens enough that anyone who’s run a dungeon either encounter this problem or is the problem. The issue isn’t just the fact that a necro player is more likely to be incapable, but the fact that the necromancer, when played well, still doesn’t bring a lot. Selfish support, niche utilities, bad fields and no good finishers. Things can only go wrong with a Necro.

Likewise, the lack of evades is a very serious problem. Countless enemies, especially in high level fractals, do so much damage that you can’t face-tank them. There are also many enemies (I.E. abominations) that gain bonuses when hitting players, actually making things worse for the rest of the team. Granted, there are also many circumstances where being able to facetank is valuable, such as the Clockheart or Svánigandr, but these are far and few between.

What is also really unpleasant is having to ride a new class like a bicycle to make sure they’re competent. You’d be amazed how often it is that I’ll get a ranger on my team who doesn’t even have a melee weapon, because “rangers range!”. Of course I can just kick them and wait for someone else, but that is still an inconvenient time waste that leaves no one happy.

The classes are hated for legitimate reasons. As much as I’d like to just say it’s a filthy elitist problem and that it is all sunshine and rainbows over the hill, the fact is that it isn’t.

Then, again, it is the players that are completely stupid. Tell them to stop it, and if they don’t, kick them. Don’t kick all Necros preemptively for the handfull of idiots playing the class.

thrag.9740:

necro has always struggled in group pve.
-No evades/blocks
-No access to vigor either, but that’s ok because:
-mark of evasion procs out of combat, making stealth skips more difficult
-Their warhorn swiftness skill easily puts them in combat. Making stealth skips more difficult. So they have to waste a utility slot just for swiftness.
-They are literally the only class without any access to reflects.
-No group offensive buffs.
-NO BLASTS, kitten that’s the main teamwork in this game.
-The few blinds they have are way less useful than thieves blinds
-Terrible dps
-Also terrible movement skills. Deathshroud teleport puts them in combat and is almost the same speed as walking. Wurm will easily put them in combat too. Oh, they can teleport back to where they were 15 seconds ago, great thats useful in arah to run the jotun stone, light orb solos, cof running bombs, etc. Except a mesmer can do that for the entire team and provide reflects, and provide timewarp, and provide stealth, and have better dps and still evade damage.

So what do they bring to the table? Chill? Ele does it better with a LOT more dps/utility/blasts. Brazil has some cool videos showing the group heal/res abilities of a necro, and I give him a lot of credit for trying to improve the situation. Because it is complete bull kitten to players that rolled necro however long ago without knowing what they were signing up for.

3 years into the game, its no longer the players faults for being elitist/exclusionary, its anet’s fault for not balancing it. And then they give necros non group oriented shouts. LOL are you kidding me? Are. you. kidding. me.

To be fair they did fix mark of evasion!

However everything else you said is spot on.

And lol at people arguing about keeping dungeon runs under 30 min. You guys have been allowing too many necros into your parties. Most of the zerker pug groups I join with my ele finish dungeons in 8-12 minutes. If your dungeons are taking 30 minutes then you are part of the problem.

zapv.8051:

Draknar Necros are not stupid strong in pvp, the cele signet build is the first decent all around build necros have ever had. If your team can’t kill a terrormancer or powermancer in pvp it’s cause your bad. Necros in pvp can be countered completely because of large cast times and inability to get out of focus fire.

I disagree completely. The giant health pool, constant conditions, they are one of the strongest PvP classes in the game. Even with 2 or 3 condition removal abilities it does nothing against them.

Maybe you haven’t been playing against good condi necros? Because they clean up in PvP.

Draknar.5748:

zapv.8051:

Draknar Necros are not stupid strong in pvp, the cele signet build is the first decent all around build necros have ever had. If your team can’t kill a terrormancer or powermancer in pvp it’s cause your bad. Necros in pvp can be countered completely because of large cast times and inability to get out of focus fire.

I disagree completely. The giant health pool, constant conditions, they are one of the strongest PvP classes in the game. Even with 2 or 3 condition removal abilities it does nothing against them.

Maybe you haven’t been playing against good condi necros? Because they clean up in PvP.

Maybe you can show us all these awesome necros playing high level PvP at the upcoming PvP tournament? Surely since necros are so good they will be highly represented there right?

Shiki.7148:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Shiki.7148:

snip

Except that I see necros run a petting zoo in dungeons all the time. I see necromancers pre-empt other fields all the time. It doesn’t matter how often you think it happens. What matters is that it happens enough that anyone who’s run a dungeon either encounter this problem or is the problem. The issue isn’t just the fact that a necro player is more likely to be incapable, but the fact that the necromancer, when played well, still doesn’t bring a lot. Selfish support, niche utilities, bad fields and no good finishers. Things can only go wrong with a Necro.

Likewise, the lack of evades is a very serious problem. Countless enemies, especially in high level fractals, do so much damage that you can’t face-tank them. There are also many enemies (I.E. abominations) that gain bonuses when hitting players, actually making things worse for the rest of the team. Granted, there are also many circumstances where being able to facetank is valuable, such as the Clockheart or Svánigandr, but these are far and few between.

What is also really unpleasant is having to ride a new class like a bicycle to make sure they’re competent. You’d be amazed how often it is that I’ll get a ranger on my team who doesn’t even have a melee weapon, because “rangers range!”. Of course I can just kick them and wait for someone else, but that is still an inconvenient time waste that leaves no one happy.

The classes are hated for legitimate reasons. As much as I’d like to just say it’s a filthy elitist problem and that it is all sunshine and rainbows over the hill, the fact is that it isn’t.

Then, again, it is the players that are completely stupid. Tell them to stop it, and if they don’t, kick them. Don’t kick all Necros preemptively for the handfull of idiots playing the class.

You’ve missed the point entirely. I don’t kick other players or make “No ranger” LFGs. The point is that the discrimination against these classes isn’t some kind of hyper-elitist conspiracy. These classes are disliked for legitimate reasons that ultimately stem from their designs.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I have a confession to make: I hate playing with rangers. I still do, of course, but every time I see a ranger I steel myself for hard times ahead.

To be perfectly honest, it looks really cool for fighting in large groups in PvE, but for single 1v1 PvE, it might need some work. Then again, it might not be designed for PvE.

First off we don’t know what they will change between now and launch, secondly I don’t know about you but I remember when dhuumfire happened, and all the cry babies started to quit.

The fact is people who play this game and want meta changes such as necro buffs will just cry when the meta change actually happens. Case in point mesmers sucked for quite a while, now they are better, but the only thing you see are cries for nerfs to mesmer since the buff.

Frankly the community that plays this game needs to make up it’s mind on what it wants, changing the meta means new things will be op, this causes the cry babies to quit, so Anet knows they need to walk on eggshells about how they balance or the crying starts. If you want necro buffs tell people to shut up when changes we ask for actually happen.

TLDR; If you want better necro pve dps, you better be prepared to get destroyed by necros in pvp/wvw..

Personally, I think all the talk of Meta-builds is at least half the problem when critiquing the game in general… I do not subscribe to the meta-or-bust mentality and believe it is something A-Net need to deal with – the focus on Meta-builds from some quarters is killing the game for others IMO.

The problem with rebalancing and A-Net seems to be that they tend to overdo the rebalancing to ensure they appease those that are complaining about balancing in a given area.

Really hoping for an elite spec beta to test out reaper because eles shouts do seem to kitten on oura

Jelzouki.4128:

Really hoping for an elite spec beta to test out reaper because eles shouts do seem to kitten on oura

well be prepared to be massively dissapointed since half our enemies are immune to chill so that’s 5 traits out of the window and spamming gravedigger (using nothing but gravedigger) is weaker then dagger auto attack.

I feel the OP is a cheerio hater. I can not further support. :C

WSG Delen.9203:

Personally, I think all the talk of Meta-builds is at least half the problem when critiquing the game in general… I do not subscribe to the meta-or-bust mentality and believe it is something A-Net need to deal with – the focus on Meta-builds from some quarters is killing the game for others IMO.

The problem with rebalancing and A-Net seems to be that they tend to overdo the rebalancing to ensure they appease those that are complaining about balancing in a given area.

Players are predictable. The exclusion of necros is anet’s fault for leaving them so weak in pve. Anet should deal with it, by buffing necros in pve. Necros should have been given the ferocious strikes trait + group oriented shouts.

No one ever kicks an extra thief in the party for a 2nd staff ele, because the difference is small. The difference between a 2nd ele and a necro, is not small at all.

More of a problem isnt necro, though it is a issue, but more how pve is designed in general. Because of pves terrible design you dont need anything besides damage to complete anything. This is something colin himself said and something they are working on. As well as that its the terrible mob ai that couples with that that makes it all to easy and needing nothing but zerk gear to complete.

I will wait to see the changes to mob ai and new pve content before writing things off completely.

Sigmoid.7082:

More of a problem isnt necro, though it is a issue, but more how pve is designed in general. Because of pves terrible design you dont need anything besides damage to complete anything. This is something colin himself said and something they are working on. As well as that its the terrible mob ai that couples with that that makes it all to easy and needing nothing but zerk gear to complete.

I will wait to see the changes to mob ai and new pve content before writing things off completely.

How is that true at all? Blinds, blocks, evades, aegis, swiftness, cleanses, heals, blasts, stealths, stuns, reflects, tanking, all of these things are used in pve all the time. The problem is, necro is weaker at all of them than anyone else.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Draknar.5748:

zapv.8051:

Draknar Necros are not stupid strong in pvp, the cele signet build is the first decent all around build necros have ever had. If your team can’t kill a terrormancer or powermancer in pvp it’s cause your bad. Necros in pvp can be countered completely because of large cast times and inability to get out of focus fire.

I disagree completely. The giant health pool, constant conditions, they are one of the strongest PvP classes in the game. Even with 2 or 3 condition removal abilities it does nothing against them.

Maybe you haven’t been playing against good condi necros? Because they clean up in PvP.

Maybe you can show us all these awesome necros playing high level PvP at the upcoming PvP tournament? Surely since necros are so good they will be highly represented there right?

Nos from Team Abjured plays Necro….

…..but either way, I guess you’re saying that everyone who plays PvP is at tournament level then?

You honestly think that if it wasn’t played in PvP tournaments then it isn’t good in PvP?

This has been proven time and time again to be merely perception. I’ll see if I can find that article on Smash Bros, where for forever everyone said Jigglypuff was terrible, low tier, no one played him in tournaments at high level. Time went on and tournament players started playing (and winning) with Jigglypuff, then suddenly Jigglypuff was considered top tier.

All of this because a bunch of casuals base everything off of what a few people who have spent hours and hours mastering a character play.

The kicker, of course, was that Smash Bros had done absolutely no rebalancing. The characters that are accepted as top tier changed based on who was winning in the tournaments.

This also goes for pretty much any MOBA. A character is considered terrible, until suddenly OMG a pro is playing that character, now it must be like the best ever!

My point is, a good player on a necro will own 99% of regular players. Whereas if the class was truly broken, a good necro would get owned by even a mildly competent ele/mesmer/whatever you feel is the current meta based on what other people are playing, which isn’t true.

You guys need to understand that top tier PvP teams practice and practice. You can’t generalize a class as bad because tournament winners aren’t playing it at the time (even though some top rated teams have Necros as I’ve mentioned).

EDIT: http://forrestthewoods.com/unbalanced-design-of-super-smash-brothers/
This is the article I was mentioning. Shows character rankings in SSBM over 12 years. Note the ups and downs of Ice Climbers and the growth in popularity of Jiggly. Nothing changed in the game balance wise. Tourny winners just started using some of the lower ranked characters and thus their perception changed.

Same concept here.

Leo G.4501:

Mind you, Quickness is a thing and the more slow casting a skill is, the greater effect you net from having it. While Necro might not be able to achieve lots of quickness itself, if we’re looking at a PvE scenario, that just makes such support all the more useful and desired.

A++ on this and +1. Run a party with one of your friends as a mesmer (better yet chronomancer) and you will be totally floored at the faster casts and more DPS you can do with that “slow GS” in PvE and competitive scenes.

Draknar.5748:

zapv.8051:

Draknar Necros are not stupid strong in pvp, the cele signet build is the first decent all around build necros have ever had. If your team can’t kill a terrormancer or powermancer in pvp it’s cause your bad. Necros in pvp can be countered completely because of large cast times and inability to get out of focus fire.

I disagree completely. The giant health pool, constant conditions, they are one of the strongest PvP classes in the game. Even with 2 or 3 condition removal abilities it does nothing against them.

Maybe you haven’t been playing against good condi necros? Because they clean up in PvP.

I’ve fought most of the necros in NA, so yes I have fought good condi necros. They certainly don’t clean up pvp, condi necro is dead right now. Cele necro is where it is at. Also, if you bring enough condi clear and are still struggling consider learning to dodge the attacks that apply conditions. Necros condition damage per second is way worse than pretty much every other class.

On to the point of large health pool and constant conditions. Yes necros have a ton of health, they give up burst damage, invulns, vigor, stab, useful ports, projectile destruction, reflect, and their support is miles behind every other class. That health pool seems a lot less valuable when you consider that, and the fact that you can chain cc/immobilize in this game and necros can do almost nothing to get out.

Then you reference the one necro on a good team in NA. One guy whose team makes sacrifices to have him there does not make a class strong. As for your reference to ssb. That’s irrelevant, pro players not using jiggly was completely about them not understanding all the tech on the character. That would be the same as necro players not having the right build, or not knowing how to use the weapons right. We are 3 years into the game, we are well beyond the point of L2P (which is what your saying whether you know it or not). Then you talk about MOBAs, MOBAs balance changes every few weeks, of course you will see pros changing builds. Also, this is a game of 8 or 9 classes that you have to level to 80, in MOBAS or SSB it is ok for one class to not be good because their are at least 20 chars in the game and there is no punishment for switching classes. Here, every class needs to have good representation in every gametype because many people only have one level 80 character.

Necros don’t get taken in pve and pvp because their group utility whether that be in the form of dps, group buffs, unique utility, healing, survivability on point, mobility, condition application or whatever else is subpar compared to other classes. In pvp, this is changing a little bit with the cele signet build (still needs stab on spectral armor), but in pve this is simply fact (as in people have done extensive math to show necros are really really bad). Even guys like brazil that run necro in pve admit its really subpar and depressing. Similarly in pvp, nos has said necros need buffs.

Now, I do see other problems with necros, they do have too much base health, chill of death is bs, down state damage is lame, and autoproc plague signet is broken. Despite those broken things, necros still aren’t taken 2 at a time on pvp teams like eles (they shouldn’t be, but if they were OP as you say they would be taken 2 at a time), so they need some significant fixes before we start addressing the other stuff. The fact of the matter though is that in PVE, base necro needs significant buffs and REaper needs to be really good, or the class will never be taken by any half decent groups (not just speedruns, but anyone who wants to do dungeons quickly). It isn’t because you can’t do a dungeon with a necro or 5, but because your far better off taking something else.

@atros, how does quickness buff slow weapons anymore than fast ones? Not necessarily disagreeing, but to me 50% attack speed is 50% attack speed. A thief will still do way better dps than necro regardless of if both have quickness or not.

Quickness helps slow weapons more because of after casts maybe? the tool tip times are not always accurate.

thrag.9740:

Quickness helps slow weapons more because of after casts maybe? the tool tip times are not always accurate.

HMM, guess I need to know more about how quickness works. If it effects all weapon animations including pre and after casts, quickness wouldn’t be any better on necro than other classes. If it only effects the main animation and not pre and after casts, it would hurt classes with long pre and after cast times (aka necro). Not seeing how quickness helps necro the most.

It’s probably because quickness helps classes with good auto attacks now that I think about it. With quickness you’ll get through your non-auto attacks faster, therefore spending more time auto attacking (which is 90% of necros pve dps build). Considering other classes still have better autos though, I doubt this will make a big difference (other classes have better autos because necros don’t have % damage modifiers).

This also illustrates the problem with necros pve builds. Only 4-5 of the 20 skills necros get are actually worth using in pve. Things like dagger 2 life siphon, focus 5, and the Ds skills need to be dps increases, or at least not dps losses over autos.