Guild Wars 2

Hi,

so this is probably a l2p issue (in a strategic regard) for me, so I hope you’ll help me out. Ranting about class stacking is as old as the game, so… Is this like the old turret engie issue? Namely: on a somewhat equal skill level there was no point fighting a turret engie 1v1, rather go 4v5 on the other 2 points and let him just camp their home node. I thought the same about this necro issue. ‘Dont get involved in huge team fights because they just melt everybody. They are slow, run them out. Decap, juke, whatever… just do something they are not good at.’ (My first approach was to get on my druid or tempest and heal/cleanse the kitten out of my teammates. It never worked…) Problem is running them out does not seem to work either. I run up and down on my thief, decapping stuff, but there are no fights to +1. All my other teammates just die in 4-10 seconds from engaging. (Me too if I choose to play a skirmisher class.)

Still there must be a way to counter them, otherwise we would have seen 5 necro teams before class stacking got outruled. Im a noob, but I need to understand what to aim for when facing 3+ necros. Because it just cant be true that all my multi-necro games were lost due to them being much more skilled than my team. It happens 3-4 times, but does not 30 out of 30 games. So there must be something in the game mechanics that favors necro play style on low skill level / unorganized gameplay…

Class stacking is bad. Going ele is a strong counter, but it only works when your teammates can take advantage of it. In fact the strongest counter is double ele, at which a team with 2+ necros pretty much autoloses.

But you can’t get that coordinated in solo queue so the best way you can deal with solo queue necros is probably power ranger, if thats your sole focus. It counters necro very well, but it sucks against pretty much everything else.

Also, condi mesmer (if you can actually get really tight with your rotations), completely dunks on them. Well, it dunks on everything. This build has the MOST impact on games right now.

have you tried playing reaper yourself ?

good reapers will still melt average reapers quickly.

and there are lots of average reapers out there.

Split necros up… meaning, play sides.

Start by opening with a 2-3 split… let them cap mid… they will nearly always split up and you get max 2 necros on one point, which you should be able to handle.

KreatE, btw… Im usually doing the same tactic when facing stacked eles/rangers. They eventually split up and then they die. Or they stick together but the rest of the team leaves them, then the rest of the team dies.
And Im sorry to say this, but… I have only met one condi mesmer that managed to outplay me (reaper) in teamfights…. rest usually dies to their own conditions… unblockable marks are such a nice thing.

Divide and conquer… works every time.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

have you tried playing reaper yourself ?

good reapers will still melt average reapers quickly.

and there are lots of average reapers out there.

So true.

thief is quite strong against reapers. Do you run dash and escapist absolution?. Take these and you can run a fairly offensive build, since you don’t have that many boons that necro could corrupt.

UBcktieDL.5318:

thief is quite strong against reapers. Do you run dash and escapist absolution?. Take these and you can run a fairly offensive build, since you don’t have that many boons that necro could corrupt.

You can’t kill him fast enough. You dont have enough initiative. While he can use 1 skill and you lost 50% hp (stun + freeze), another skill and you are dead.

I see two problems with necro:
1) Exceptional sustain with offensive builds. Fighting him on points is not worth time spent.

2) Chill spam you can’t have enough condition clean skills. Normal utility skills with 40 seconds cooldwon will have 66 seconds cooldown. On one moment you can’t use skills at all, only spam 1-1-1-1-1, while he can spam anything.

Boons is not a problem really.

Thief can be quite good against reapers purely dependant on the reapers build. If they are running the defensive curses/shouts build thats popular right now, its pretty much NEVER going to be worth it to try to train a necro 1v1as a thief. At the start of the game before he has life force possibly, but thats the only time.

Uhhhmmm… Theif is an AMAZING 1 against necro… Just stay at ranged and wait for the second they leave shround… pistol 5, leap, backstab, use steal mid animation of backstab, instant 10k dmg, follow up with a few autoattacks and a HS or two and you’ve got a dead necro… throw your elite out instead of HS and you’ll stomp him without him ever going into downed state…

If your against a team with 3~4 necros the theif should push far as a necro without LF is just fodder for a theif, they will chew that necro up in the matter of seconds

As for the never ending chill… If anet would change the sigil of ice to be on “on crit” effect it would go a LONG way towards balancing reaper…

30% Chance on Hit: Inflict Chill (2 Seconds)
(Cooldown: 10 Seconds)

30% for an on hit that is about 1k damage for reaper… So yea, sigil of air/fire/blood don’t do that much damage and are on crit… Nor do they apply a continuous effect

Easiest match to carry. However you need 2 people willing to change for the win. For example on legacy of foefire;

You change to mesmer.
Another person swaps to ele or druid.

Run a 2-3 split.

Send bunker+support to home.
let them swarm mid.
you+ 2 others push far and annihilate their home defender.
before home defender is stomped drop portal and begin to move towards mid. Send one person to attack door. When they split to capture their home use decoy and blink to start uncapping mid. When they begin to contest home drop portal and bring your team to mid to cap and outnumber anyone on mid.

At this point they have either send someone back to base because it under attack. If they do, have that person disengage and stay at stones throw from far. If they don’t send someone back, then crack the lord a few times before disengaging to cause confusion that lord is under attack.

When their home defenders cap home and begin to move back to mid..have the person who just pushed lord early to decap far or join at mid if you feel you have a chance.

Keep using portal to move your team around from mid to far.

Eventually when they regroup and try to have some strength in numbers have one of the 2 home defenders move forward to the broken gate and push lord again. Either they’ll send someone back, in that case disengage, if they don’t try for an early lord play.

necro’s aren’t that mobile. Their biggest offense is chill which has a max duration so spamming it won’t make them more effective. One agile mesmer with portal or thief can exploit their poor mobility to the point they find it difficult to keep 2 points contested in any serious way.

They push mid..you portal to far
They defend their home..your home defender push mid.
They push your home..you push mid and far
They try to push far and home..you capture mid and threaten base.

One mesmer can entirely ruin a mostly full/full necro team simply by not trying to fight them at all unless you have them outnumbered and just positioning yourself so they are always having to move without much assistance from swiftness.

What’s the difference between a good and bad reaper? Good reapers know their “limits” (which are trivialized on a small point when contesting it or with a mesmer portal) and have map awareness and when to rotate.

“But you didn’t say anything about mechanics and what skills to use!”

Exactly.