Guild Wars 2

Spartacus.3192:

Im sorry but Necro is the only class in the game that gets stronger the longer it lasts in fights which is WHY it gets focused early. To kill a DH is just as hard at start of fight as it is later in the fight. Same as Ele or Mesmer etc. Necro is the class that is easiest to kill early on rather than later on so of course it will get focused first. Its just simple efficiency. Kill something that’s easier to kill earlier in the fight.

And then you realize that in late fight when the necro has “gotten strong” the class is still mediocre.

Also building life force doesn’t make the necro more dangerous, it’s just gives the necro a larger HP cushion.

Necro always focused doesn’t matter have or don’t have LF. Why focused? Because its easy to make necromancer total useless with hard focus in solo q where most of the time you are on your own to survive 2v1 3v1 4v1 etc without good defenses and/or mobility/disengage.
You have to deal with 2v1 3v1 a lot as most solo players don’t care about you they just let you die if you are getting focused most people don’t know how to play with necromancer in group, they don’t even try to help, cc enemy off me or burst it or something, They don’t know their team is a lot stronger if they help their necro stay alive, but in reality what they do is blame the necromancer why he/she dies fast vs 2-3 melee classes on him etc. A lot of people play it like a brainless solo game they don’t care about anyone only themselves then if team losing or getting farmed. Blame necromancer because always dies to focus.

Spartacus.3192:

Im sorry but Necro is the only class in the game that gets stronger the longer it lasts in fights

Wrong.

More life force means you can mitigate more damage, but it doesn’t make you stronger.

Also, even if your statement made sense (which it doesn’t), what about adrenalin, astral force or rev energy?

Spartacus.3192:

Necro is the class that is easiest to kill early on rather than later on so of course it will get focused first. Its just simple efficiency. Kill something that’s easier to kill earlier in the fight.

You do realize that life force doesn’t reset to a certain amount out of combat, right?
So it’s very possible that in later fights during a match a necro will start with 100%.
But the bottom line is always the same: necros are the easiest target to focus because – unlike the ability to avoid damage entirely – having more hp doesn’t scale with increasing numbers of attackers.

sigh…..extra lifeforce doesn’t make you stronger as in more dps but if you survive longer that effectively makes you “stronger”. Just ask scrappers. They don’t have the biggest dps but when their sustain was off the charts they could kill anyone because they could wear people down. The HP cushion that lifeforce gives you enables you to have enough time for your condis to kill the enemy.

And yes I know life force doesn’t reset and can be carried from fight to fight which is again why necro are targeted right at the start of the match to stop them from ever getting any life force.

And Adrenaline for warrior is used to burst (ok it helps with adrenal health) but a warrior is still tanky at start of a fight and most have headbutt which if they are not complete garbage they can land very early on in a fight and have instant adrenaline.

Rev start combat with 50% energy so no problem there.

Astral force is easy to generate for druids especially with the way dolyak runes are broken for druids.

I made it to Legendary easily (2:1 win ratio) solo-queueing with a minion/condi reaper but the complaints in this thread are pretty accurate.

In every fight, I am the first to be focused and will die without support – especially in the first teamfight because I have minimal life force. It’s just frustrating because it’s almost entirely out of my control. If I get focused, I’ve got 2 dodges and a health pool. Granted, it is a pretty big health pool, but it doesn’t stand up to DH traps + pulls or Rev hits.

Spartacus.3192:

…

Maybe you should play necro yourself once in a while, because the way you’ve argued so far makes it pretty obvious that you don’t.

The more they power creep then the stronger evades, invulns become and the weaker extra health becomes. It isn’t rocket science.

Necro has always been the most balance profession because there has always been counter play to it.

In addition, necro is one of the only classes whose elite profession isn’t strictly better than the core profession, which makes it even more puzzling that they still haven’t buffed base necro’s death shroud to be competitive with reapear shroud (or death magic/blood magic line). Most other classes have elite specs which just improve the base spec (which is terrible, lazy, power creeped design). Look at mesmer, their elite spec is just a 5th skill…..so nobody is ever going to play base mesmer again. They should have made elite mesmer have replacement skills for the base mesmer and not additional skills. Chronomancer should not get distortion, the new skill should have replaced this.

Lordrosicky.5813:

The more they power creep then the stronger evades, invulns become and the weaker extra health becomes. It isn’t rocket science.

The amount of evades has nothing to do with how strong extra HP is. The strength of extra HP is determined by how much DPS is in the meta. Shroud works well in low DPS metas (like the s1 and s2 metas) and performs badly in high DPS metas.

In addition, necro is one of the only classes whose elite profession isn’t strictly better than the core profession, which makes it even more puzzling that they still haven’t buffed base necro’s death shroud to be competitive with reapear shroud (or death magic/blood magic line).

They actually have buffed base shroud post-HoT. The problem is that Base shroud is fundamentally flawed in terms of design. Base shroud pre-hot was designed as a close to mid range shroud. It also reflects the pre-hot design of necros can’t have combos. On top of this not one of base shroud’s abilities lead into each other very well which creates a lot of damage set-up issues. Post-hot the devs tried to turn it into a ranged shroud with the Life Blast change, however they didn’t change the rest of shroud, which left base shroud with even more synergy problems.

Reaper’s shroud is basically the devs apologizing for how bad base shroud is.

P.S. Dark Path is bad and the dev who made it should feel bad.

Crinn.7864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The more they power creep then the stronger evades, invulns become and the weaker extra health becomes. It isn’t rocket science.

The amount of evades has nothing to do with how strong extra HP is. The strength of extra HP is determined by how much DPS is in the meta. Shroud works well in low DPS metas (like the s1 and s2 metas) and performs badly in high DPS metas.

You’re just confirming what Lordrosicky said:
Evades (or any other form of negating damage completely) always work equally well, extra hp only works when you don’t take a lot of damage.

Crinn.7864:

They actually have buffed base shroud post-HoT.

The only Death Shroud buff since HoT was baselining piercing Life Blasts.
Pathetic.

flow.6043:

You’re just confirming what Lordrosicky said:
Evades (or any other form of negating damage completely) always work equally well, extra hp only works when you don’t take a lot of damage.

No I’m not confirming what he said.

Lordrosicky is trying to argue that HP buffer defensives become worse the more mitigation is in the meta. That’s completely wrong. The viability of buffer defensives is determined purely by the DPS of the meta.

Evades can only mitigate attacks, if you are being hit for crap then they will mitigate for crap. LF generation works regardless of how much or how little damage we take.

If life force generation scaled off of our DTPS rather than our ability usage then we wouldn’t have the problems we have. Of course we’d also be weaker in low damage meta. (like s1 and s2) since buffer defenses work really well in low DTPS metas.

The only Death Shroud buff since HoT was baselining piercing Life Blasts.
Pathetic.

They removed the range scaling on Life Blast. Used to be it only dealt max damage at close range. Now it deals max damage at all ranges.

Which is what I was referring to when I said that they tried to make base shroud ranged.

Except they failed because the other 4 skills on base shroud are still crap.

I think something needs to be done with cast-times too, specifically on scepter. Long cast-times vs multiple evade frames makes it difficult to apply any sort of pressure.

More or less every other elite spec buffed they’re already existant mechanics (mesmer), adds a new mechanic (druid) and frequently granted them a new way to play the class (guardian with a finally really strong ranged weapon).
The necromancer obtained only a needed rework on his Shroud. Not a chance to chose what Shroud use, we just got struck in a new shroud. the new shroud granted us some needed fixes to the old one (a Field, a Combo, a real Condition damage skill and, finally, Stability. And, yes, a leap…with an aftercast that make it useless to flee and sometimes make you miss the enemy), but also struck us in a Melee fight, that is the worst place to be for a necromancer. Now enemies no more some to burst us down, they kite us bursting from distant or waiting that the shroud degeneration make us even easier to kill while we’re unable to land a hit.
I hoped to obtain shouts aviable also in shroud, like for the druid glyphs and celestial avatar, with the same or empowered effect, but no, we don’t deserve to have any kind of utility skill while in shroud.

But we had a good damage! A damage comparable to the current dps classes/builds. But for ANet a necromancer don’t have to inflict any good damage then they nerfed chill damage to the ground. To be true, they don’t nerfed it, they changed it to make it viable in PvE. But that made it barely useless for sPvP and WvWvW.
If we have that damage back, we’ll be able to inflict good damage, comparable to other condition classes. But no, ANet will never make it happen.
Also because the Reaper is a Direct Damage Elite Specializzation, still if it’s best build is a Conditon damage build.

Now, taling about the sPvP life of a necromancer, the necromancer is a strong class if in a team that babysitter him all the kitten time and ress him every 20 seconds (sometimes literally every 20 sec…). Don’t support the team’s defence (only help to clean conditions stealing them from his allies with the plague signet), don’t inflict good damage (if compared to al the other classes dps), his best skills are all highly thelegraphed and easy to avoid. But can corrupt conditions and make the enemy a little easier to kill (highly depending on the enemy class build because now not every class rely on buffs, it’s mainly used to corrupt stability and might).

It’s strength is his team.

Now, have I to remember to everyone that from the next Season the Ranked Arena will no longer be a Team Based Tournament?
Yes, we’ll be able to join at best as 2.
Then, if you don’t keep with you your personal engineer to ress you all the kitten ed time you fall downed, how will you hope to play as a Necromancer?
We totally rely on our team and we’ll no longer be able to make one.
If we don’t get a little rework, a new misterious powerful build, a new elite specializzation to play with that grant us any kind of chance to survive to a 5 seconds focus, how can we hope to be viable in the next meta as a necromancer?

I keep hoping the next espec will grant us a real ranged shroud.

To bad we still have at least another year possibly two before that.

Spartacus.3192:

sigh…..extra lifeforce doesn’t make you stronger as in more dps but if you survive longer that effectively makes you “stronger”. Just ask scrappers. They don’t have the biggest dps but when their sustain was off the charts they could kill anyone because they could wear people down. The HP cushion that lifeforce gives you enables you to have enough time for your condis to kill the enemy.

And yes I know life force doesn’t reset and can be carried from fight to fight which is again why necro are targeted right at the start of the match to stop them from ever getting any life force.

And Adrenaline for warrior is used to burst (ok it helps with adrenal health) but a warrior is still tanky at start of a fight and most have headbutt which if they are not complete garbage they can land very early on in a fight and have instant adrenaline.

Rev start combat with 50% energy so no problem there.

Astral force is easy to generate for druids especially with the way dolyak runes are broken for druids.

Your statement falls flat for a number of reasons and demonstrates your ignorance of how the class works.

The comparison with scrapper isn’t a fair one and doesn’t make any sense as there’s little parity between the two; namely, ‘HP cushion’, as you put it, vs active defenses (blocks, invulns etc.) which scrapper has access to and enabled it to shine in a bruiser role. Now, if scrapper were in the same armour class and had a similar mechanic to necro in the form of a second healthbar, you might then be able to attribute their success to that.

I don’t believe lifeforce is so easily/quickly built up as astral force or adrenaline.

Your comment about necros gaining the upper hand as a fight drags out (attrition) was part of ANet’s conceptual ideas for how it might function as a class. But that’s all it is. Talk. In practice, that doesn’t translate very well…

When necros are focused and CC’d, they’ll probably pop DS (which usually only prolongs the inevitable) and, even if they manage to get a stunbreaker off and owing to the long and easily interrupted cast time on Consume Conditions, will probably die unless they’re supported. There is no Renewed Focus or Defiant Stance. An HP sponge simply isn’t enough. That’s consistent across all necro builds though, of course, therein lies the problem with balancing.

And sitting in DS while you wait for your condis to kill your target doesn’t work. They’ll cleanse or, if you’re a decent thief with some common sense, reset and range you down. Please do some more reading so that the discussion might be more constructive.

Crinn.7864:

Lordrosicky is trying to argue that HP buffer defensives become worse the more mitigation is in the meta.

No, he isn’t.

Crinn.7864:

Evades can only mitigate attacks, if you are being hit for crap then they will mitigate for crap. LF generation works regardless of how much or how little damage we take.

You still don’t get it.

Evading or blocking or whatever means you take zero damage, regardless of wether that damage would’ve been 1k or 10k. When you have to face tank everything, however, it certainly does matter how much damage you actually take. Thus, more hp is almost worthless when you get focused by several opponents.

Crinn.7864:

The only Death Shroud buff since HoT was baselining piercing Life Blasts.
Pathetic.

They removed the range scaling on Life Blast. Used to be it only dealt max damage at close range. Now it deals max damage at all ranges.

You’re right. But my point was: nobody cares about Life Blast and any buff to it is meaningless.

Crinn.7864:

they tried to make base shroud ranged.

No they didn’t. They just finally saw that the ranged damage reduction is pointless, and that the old iteration of Unyielding Blast was never taken by anyone ever so it was only logical to baseline it.

Crinn.7864:

the other 4 skills on base shroud are still crap

I disagree.
There’s clearly less internal synergy among those skills than the Reaper’s Shroud skills, but they aren’t bad individually.
Also, the only thing DS really needs to compete with RS is some stability, perferably on Tainted Shackles, but that has been suggested a million times since HoT already.

Crinn.7864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The more they power creep then the stronger evades, invulns become and the weaker extra health becomes. It isn’t rocket science.

The amount of evades has nothing to do with how strong extra HP is. The strength of extra HP is determined by how much DPS is in the meta. Shroud works well in low DPS metas (like the s1 and s2 metas) and performs badly in high DPS metas.

In addition, necro is one of the only classes whose elite profession isn’t strictly better than the core profession, which makes it even more puzzling that they still haven’t buffed base necro’s death shroud to be competitive with reapear shroud (or death magic/blood magic line).

They actually have buffed base shroud post-HoT. The problem is that Base shroud is fundamentally flawed in terms of design. Base shroud pre-hot was designed as a close to mid range shroud. It also reflects the pre-hot design of necros can’t have combos. On top of this not one of base shroud’s abilities lead into each other very well which creates a lot of damage set-up issues. Post-hot the devs tried to turn it into a ranged shroud with the Life Blast change, however they didn’t change the rest of shroud, which left base shroud with even more synergy problems.

Reaper’s shroud is basically the devs apologizing for how bad base shroud is.

P.S. Dark Path is bad and the dev who made it should feel bad.

The problem with shroud is that ds4 is just bad, it needs to pulse conditions. It should just pulse poison like repear shroud 4 and then we have something good there. And stability on ds5 as flow said.

In addition the necro death magic and bloodmmagic trait lines are just terrible, which again hurts base necro. Some serious reworks are required to these.

None of these changes are risky as base necro sucks. They have a chance with base necro to add to build diversity because they actually designed repear as an alternative to necro instead of a strict upgrade. They will never be able to make base mesmer or ranger good because of the really bad core design of their elite specs to add stuff and not replace it.

Crinn.7864:

flow.6043:

You’re just confirming what Lordrosicky said:
Evades (or any other form of negating damage completely) always work equally well, extra hp only works when you don’t take a lot of damage.

No I’m not confirming what he said.

Lordrosicky is trying to argue that HP buffer defensives become worse the more mitigation is in the meta. That’s completely wrong. The viability of buffer defensives is determined purely by the DPS of the meta.

Evades can only mitigate attacks, if you are being hit for crap then they will mitigate for crap. LF generation works regardless of how much or how little damage we take.

If life force generation scaled off of our DTPS rather than our ability usage then we wouldn’t have the problems we have. Of course we’d also be weaker in low damage meta. (like s1 and s2) since buffer defenses work really well in low DTPS metas.

The only Death Shroud buff since HoT was baselining piercing Life Blasts.
Pathetic.

They removed the range scaling on Life Blast. Used to be it only dealt max damage at close range. Now it deals max damage at all ranges.

Which is what I was referring to when I said that they tried to make base shroud ranged.

Except they failed because the other 4 skills on base shroud are still crap.

No i was saying extra hp becomes worse relative to evades and invulns when power creep happens. For example, everytime they reduce the cd of a skill which does damage or buff its damage, or improve a damage trait then it makes extra hp worse relative to evades.

Lordrosicky.5813:

No i was saying extra hp becomes worse relative to evades and invulns when power creep happens. For example, everytime they reduce the cd of a skill which does damage or buff its damage, or improve a damage trait then it makes extra hp worse relative to evades.

There have been no notable buffs to damage skills since s2 (which was when we where last meta)

Our current state is caused by nerfs and amulet removals that resulted in the meta being pushed into a high DPS meta. Compare this to s2 where everyone was running paladin bruisers that we could hold against with LF gen.

Lordrosicky.5813:

The problem with shroud is that ds4 is just bad, it needs to pulse conditions. It should just pulse poison like repear shroud 4 and then we have something good there. And stability on ds5 as flow said.

The problem with DS vs. RS is that RS works equally well for power and condi and has lots of synergy with itself whereas half of DS skills work for only power or only condi and it has 0 synergy with itself. For example, in Reaper Shroud, you can RS #3 fear + RS#2 for corrupts, fear + RS#4 for easy burst land, fear to lead into RS #5 to lead into RS #4 or auto attacks with Dhuumfire, RS#5 then RS #2 for corrupts AND ice aura etc. Excellent synergy with itself.
Reaper Shroud also has a kitten ton of survivalbility built into it. Nice amount of chills —> gives you lifeforce and you take 10% less damage from chilled foes. We get a leap and some access to ice aura. We get a bit of stability too.

Deathshroud? Auto attacks are useless with condi (even with Dhuumfire). Slow….slow attacks that apply 1 burn stack if you’re not busy getting perma-CCed. Dark Path isn’t good for power builds really – it needs a boost to the power damage it does, imo. Life Transfer is terribad for condi but decent for power and it’s unbelievably lack-luster – it desperately needs a buff.
Finally… Tainted Shackles is decent for condi and sucky for power… and it’s ALSO lack luster – 3 torment stacks and an immob? Meanwhile Soul Spiral 11 poison stacks. lol… what the hell?
In terms of synergy with itself, the only thing Deathshroud has going for it is Dark Path + Doom for landing Dark Path. No juicy combos. Compared to Reaper Shroud, it has 0 synergy.

With all that though, I still think base Necro is very very close to being excellent. I do really well with it in sPvP and I think in some ways it’s stronger than Reaper and can lock people down better than Reaper… BUT it neeeeeds some kind of buff to its Deathshroud spells so that they’re equally useful for power and condi playstyles like Life Transfer pulsing poison. It also needs a bit of a survivalbility boost – Tainted Shackles giving stability per pulse, per enemy shackled? Or life transfer becoming an evade? Maybe Dark Path leaving behind a dark trail on the ground to your target and if you hit someone and teleport to them, you can press the skill again to teleport back to your initial spot? I’m kind of surprised they aren’t buffing or reworking these skills yet tbh. There’s so much potential in each of them…

MethaneGas.8357:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The problem with shroud is that ds4 is just bad, it needs to pulse conditions. It should just pulse poison like repear shroud 4 and then we have something good there. And stability on ds5 as flow said.

The problem with DS vs. RS is that RS works equally well for power and condi and has lots of synergy with itself whereas half of DS skills work for only power or only condi and it has 0 synergy with itself. For example, in Reaper Shroud, you can RS #3 fear + RS#2 for corrupts, fear + RS#4 for easy burst land, fear to lead into RS #5 to lead into RS #4 or auto attacks with Dhuumfire, RS#5 then RS #2 for corrupts AND ice aura etc. Excellent synergy with itself.
Reaper Shroud also has a kitten ton of survivalbility built into it. Nice amount of chills —> gives you lifeforce and you take 10% less damage from chilled foes. We get a leap and some access to ice aura. We get a bit of stability too.

Deathshroud? Auto attacks are useless with condi (even with Dhuumfire). Slow….slow attacks that apply 1 burn stack if you’re not busy getting perma-CCed. Dark Path isn’t good for power builds really – it needs a boost to the power damage it does, imo. Life Transfer is terribad for condi but decent for power and it’s unbelievably lack-luster – it desperately needs a buff.
Finally… Tainted Shackles is decent for condi and sucky for power… and it’s ALSO lack luster – 3 torment stacks and an immob? Meanwhile Soul Spiral 11 poison stacks. lol… what the hell?
In terms of synergy with itself, the only thing Deathshroud has going for it is Dark Path + Doom for landing Dark Path. No juicy combos. Compared to Reaper Shroud, it has 0 synergy.

With all that though, I still think base Necro is very very close to being excellent. I do really well with it in sPvP and I think in some ways it’s stronger than Reaper and can lock people down better than Reaper… BUT it neeeeeds some kind of buff to its Deathshroud spells so that they’re equally useful for power and condi playstyles like Life Transfer pulsing poison. It also needs a bit of a survivalbility boost – Tainted Shackles giving stability per pulse, per enemy shackled? Or life transfer becoming an evade? Maybe Dark Path leaving behind a dark trail on the ground to your target and if you hit someone and teleport to them, you can press the skill again to teleport back to your initial spot? I’m kind of surprised they aren’t buffing or reworking these skills yet tbh. There’s so much potential in each of them…

I agree with you. Hence why poison on ds4 and stability on ds5 would help. Then at least ds would be reasonable for condi. Ds5 is so bad maybe it should apply more torment. And maybe ds1 should apply bleed. None of this would be op, it would still be bad compared to reapear

Crinn.7864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

No i was saying extra hp becomes worse relative to evades and invulns when power creep happens. For example, everytime they reduce the cd of a skill which does damage or buff its damage, or improve a damage trait then it makes extra hp worse relative to evades.

There have been no notable buffs to damage skills since s2 (which was when we where last meta)

Our current state is caused by nerfs and amulet removals that resulted in the meta being pushed into a high DPS meta. Compare this to s2 where everyone was running paladin bruisers that we could hold against with LF gen.

Just a reminder: s2 was before Deathly Chill and Infusing Terror was nerfed.
Also, even though you could use mercenary amulets, necro’s survivability back then was just as terrible as it is now.
Everyone running takier stats was completely irrelevant to necro’s viability (which even in s2 was debatable btw).

Lordrosicky.5813:

MethaneGas.8357:

it neeeeeds some kind of buff to its Deathshroud spells so that they’re equally useful for power and condi playstyles like Life Transfer pulsing poison. It also needs a bit of a survivalbility boost – Tainted Shackles giving stability per pulse, per enemy shackled? Or life transfer becoming an evade? Maybe Dark Path leaving behind a dark trail on the ground to your target and if you hit someone and teleport to them, you can press the skill again to teleport back to your initial spot? I’m kind of surprised they aren’t buffing or reworking these skills yet tbh. There’s so much potential in each of them…

I agree with you. Hence why poison on ds4 and stability on ds5 would help. Then at least ds would be reasonable for condi. Ds5 is so bad maybe it should apply more torment. And maybe ds1 should apply bleed. None of this would be op, it would still be bad compared to reapear

I don’t share yours and Methane’s pessimism for Tainted Shackles, but I do agree with every suggestion for buffing DS skills.
Reaper’s Shroud is better in almost every way, and it still would be if you buffed every DS skill significantly.

Dark path needs to not be a projectile that everyone and their mother can outrun.

flow.6043:

Just a reminder: s2 was before Deathly Chill and Infusing Terror was nerfed.
Also, even though you could use mercenary amulets, necro’s survivability back then was just as terrible as it is now.
Everyone running takier stats was completely irrelevant to necro’s viability (which even in s2 was debatable btw).

Even if DC and IT where not changed we’d still have massive survivability issues currently. I doubt Mercenaries would save us either.

My mention to paladins meta was because paladin builds do substantially less damage than ferocity amulets. season 2 had substantially less damage in it, which allowed our LF generation to be effective.

But really we are arguing for the exact same thing just with different conceptualizations of the problem.

When ever I read threads like this I have to wonder where people get their info…. Are necros deadly in team fights? Yes
Are necros going to hurt if you let them live too long? uhhh yeah…
Are necros going to alone tear your team apart? haha…. no….
A necro in a team fight is there to apply massive aoe pressure, apply large amounts of CC and control things like stability and aegis output.They are not going to 100-0 your team alone but if they are playing right they can put enough pressure on a team that your teams power DPS can follow through and pick them off. Their entire role is control and pressure not to massacre a team. That role is deadly if a good player has it. Which is why as a class with weak escape they are focused quickly.
“necros are kept in check by focus fire”

A lot of these posts are complaints about death shoud not matching up to reaper shroud.

Do guardian virtues match up in any way to DH virtues?
Do Mesmer shatters match up in any way to continuum split?
Etc.

Thread has become a place for people to cry not discuss balance.

Gwaihir.1745:

A lot of these posts are complaints about death shoud not matching up to reaper shroud.

Do guardian virtues match up in any way to DH virtues?
Do Mesmer shatters match up in any way to continuum split?
Etc.

Thread has become a place for people to cry not discuss balance.

The thing is… DH virtues didn’t remove anything from DH – they just got a straight up flat buff. They didn’t “lose” or “sacrifice” anything in terms of their virtues. Their F1 was buffed like hell. F2 heals like crazy and is a leap, F3 is a long @$$ block. Literally buffed.

Mesmer’s also didn’t lose anything. They were just gifted an additional shatter – F5. They lost nothing, just gained an extra shatter.

Rangers gain OP pets and cele form – straight up buffs.

Necro? Necro loses Deathshroud. It’s not like we gain an F2 for Reaper shroud. You lose 5 skills and gain 5 new, different ones, and that’s the difference. Sure, Reaper Shroud can be considered a buff, but we lose everything Deathshroud had to offer. And as it stands, there’s no reason why Deathshroud shouldn’t be buffed to provide a viable alternate playstyle. And it does provide a different playstyle but it’s not AS viable… which is why Reaper is the most honest of Anet’s elite specs – “providing a different playstyle” and not straight up buff… Anyway…

And people ARE discussing balance. Aside form discussing Necros in teamfights, Necro’s survivalbility, etc., the facts are DS does not match RS in its power. Same thing with every single other base profession – most suck when compared to elite specs. Saying that they suck isn’t really crying, it’s fact…

MethaneGas.8357:

Gwaihir.1745:

A lot of these posts are complaints about death shoud not matching up to reaper shroud.

Do guardian virtues match up in any way to DH virtues?
Do Mesmer shatters match up in any way to continuum split?
Etc.

Thread has become a place for people to cry not discuss balance.

The thing is… DH virtues didn’t remove anything from DH – they just got a straight up flat buff. They didn’t “lose” or “sacrifice” anything in terms of their virtues. Their F1 was buffed like hell. F2 heals like crazy and is a leap, F3 is a long @$$ block. Literally buffed.

Mesmer’s also didn’t lose anything. They were just gifted an additional shatter – F5. They lost nothing, just gained an extra shatter.

Rangers gain OP pets and cele form – straight up buffs.

Necro? Necro loses Deathshroud. It’s not like we gain an F2 for Reaper shroud. You lose 5 skills and gain 5 new, different ones, and that’s the difference. Sure, Reaper Shroud can be considered a buff, but we lose everything Deathshroud had to offer. And as it stands, there’s no reason why Deathshroud shouldn’t be buffed to provide a viable alternate playstyle. And it does provide a different playstyle but it’s not AS viable… which is why Reaper is the most honest of Anet’s elite specs – “providing a different playstyle” and not straight up buff… Anyway…

And people ARE discussing balance. Aside form discussing Necros in teamfights, Necro’s survivalbility, etc., the facts are DS does not match RS in its power. Same thing with every single other base profession – most suck when compared to elite specs. Saying that they suck isn’t really crying, it’s fact…

Could be worse you could have been like ele and go from an “adaptive damage dealer” to a healer

Actually, guardians did lose something – they lost instant activation of virtues. It’s a pretty small loss compared to what they gained (particularly since traited Shield of Courage grants stability on activation now, rather than only granting stability on completion), but it isn’t a total ‘there is no downside’.

Mesmers also lose something in that mesmer is a profession where all of the traitlines offer something that you’d really love to have. Chromomancer probably does beat them out since it combines increased illusion generation with the ability to double up on elites, but even with that it took longer for mesmers to reach a consensus that you should of course be running the elite specialisation than other professions did.

flow.6043:

Also, even though you could use mercenary amulets, necro’s survivability back then was just as terrible as it is now.
Everyone running takier stats was completely irrelevant to necro’s viability (which even in s2 was debatable btw).

Actually, it does make a difference. People running tankier stats – both the necro and their enemies – means that DPS is lower. Lower DPS means that the theme of the reaper – where you can just facetank damage because you’re going to heal by stealing the enemy’s life force faster than they can kill you – actually has a chance to work.

When everybody’s running glass cannon stats, including the necromancer because they have no other choice, however, then the blocks and invulnerabilities that absorb all damage over a period of time become much more important.

This is also why losing Cleric was such a big deal to Tempests – the high Toughness on Cleric reduced incoming damage in many situations to something they can outheal. Mender gives them bonus vitality instead, but that just means it takes a little bit longer to wear them down rather than allowing them to outheal damage.

I can kill anything on my Necro.
It carried me to Legendary last season,and whenever I play it,it simply destroys any other class 1v1 and is still one of the better force multiplier classes in game.
Maybe if people didn’t just copy builds from meta battle and put some effort in finding their own builds we wouldn’t have posts like this one.
If you play a Necro you know you will be focused at the start,adjust your build and play style accordingly.

draxynnic.3719:

flow.6043:

Also, even though you could use mercenary amulets, necro’s survivability back then was just as terrible as it is now.
Everyone running takier stats was completely irrelevant to necro’s viability (which even in s2 was debatable btw).

Actually, it does make a difference. People running tankier stats – both the necro and their enemies – means that DPS is lower. Lower DPS means that the theme of the reaper – where you can just facetank damage because you’re going to heal by stealing the enemy’s life force faster than they can kill you – actually has a chance to work.

You’re refering to 1v1s, but the defensive scaling when being focused in team fights was the same. Even if some opponents used tankier stats, when it mattered the most it didn’t make a difference to necros at all.

Aenaos.8160:

I can kill anything on my Necro.
It carried me to Legendary last season,and whenever I play it,it simply destroys any other class 1v1 and is still one of the better force multiplier classes in game.

Cool story.
Getting to legendary was no big deal in any season, regardless of what class you used to get there.

Aenaos.8160:

Maybe if people didn’t just copy builds from meta battle and put some effort in finding their own builds we wouldn’t have posts like this one.
If you play a Necro you know you will be focused at the start,adjust your build and play style accordingly.

Oh ok. If only we knew this before… thanks.

What we need is LF source that scales off of incoming damage.

Crinn.7864:

What we need is LF source that scales off of incoming damage.

you mean like spectral armor/walk?

TheDevice.2751:

Crinn.7864:

What we need is LF source that scales off of incoming damage.

you mean like spectral armor/walk?

Spectral armor gives you 8% of your life force per hit. It does not scale on damage taken.

I want a percent of damage taken given as life force type of skill or trait.

Maybe instead anet can put shroud on a timer like berserker and get rid of life force degeneration and then buff defensive capabilities of necro. I think they are concerned with giving necro too much sustain through utilies and skills which would no doubt get way out of hand. But if they make shroud time based like, idunno, 10 or 15 sec, then they are free to buff necro elsewhere. Maybe they can even buff shroud damage to make it more menancing when a necro actually uses it.

Nothing annoys me more on necro than the lack of tools to deal with cc. With almost no acces to stab and too long cast time on some skills, reacting to an enemy can be almost impossible, much less 5. Maybe they can:

1.give spectral walk stability. it’s already a stun breaker.
2. make well that applies blindness, insta cast.
3. give gs defensive utility. make gs3 apply blindness every 1 sec instead of 3 sec.
4. make poison cloud insta cast

Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk have 1 sec of internal cooldown and that make them not truly good when under the attack of multiple enemies. Sometimes, that make them not good even in 1v1 fights…

Also, we need a power up of the weapon LF generation, exeption for the staff. That will make them more viable and maybe the staff not the must be weapon that do a lot of things but not damage.

I think general problem with necro is that it shines in team fights like ele or DH. If you play solo-q only playing teamfighting build is just crying loud ,,plz carry me!". It sucks to main such class and try to climb in ranked when decisions of your mes, rev, engi, thief, war or druid has more impact then yours (good or bad).

In perfect word in team fight after first ress necro should destroy enemy team…but in typical soloq?

Sigh when i read after first rezz … This sounds totally wrong …
But yes in solo Q rules are diffrent. You have to adapt playing without comunication and trainign as a team. This means you need to carry yourself before you can carry others …

The main problem now is: What Team?
In the next season we will no more be able to play as a team, my team will be divided in 2+2+1 that join separatly and hope to find someone that is not a totally noob to try to win a match.

All these reply that say “the necro is good in team” will be totally useless because we’ll no more play as a team.
If ANet don’t do some serious changes on the necromancer (damage, survavibility, team support, whatever they want), it will be the bottom of the barrel, simply because is strong but Only in a Premade Team that work together and ress the necro all the time to make it work (that is a big problem by itself if you spend a second to think about that…).

The necro is the worst class in SoloQ and we’ll be Forced to play in SoloQ.
Then, the only option to really play the necromancer will be play it only in Unranked.
A shining future for every necromancer…

Wolfric.9380:

Sigh when i read after first rezz … This sounds totally wrong …
But yes in solo Q rules are diffrent. You have to adapt playing without comunication and trainign as a team. This means you need to carry yourself before you can carry others …

yea it is wrong…new procmancer meta build is pure example of this design – pros decided to forget about any necro self sustain (beacuse it’s trash anyway) and they just go for keeping necro alive till he charges shroud to drop aoe proc hell condi nuke…this might be fun premade tactic… but .in solo/duo que?

At least damaging things sounds more fun than healboting from ele perspective…

flow.6043:

draxynnic.3719:

flow.6043:

Also, even though you could use mercenary amulets, necro’s survivability back then was just as terrible as it is now.
Everyone running takier stats was completely irrelevant to necro’s viability (which even in s2 was debatable btw).

Actually, it does make a difference. People running tankier stats – both the necro and their enemies – means that DPS is lower. Lower DPS means that the theme of the reaper – where you can just facetank damage because you’re going to heal by stealing the enemy’s life force faster than they can kill you – actually has a chance to work.

You’re refering to 1v1s, but the defensive scaling when being focused in team fights was the same. Even if some opponents used tankier stats, when it mattered the most it didn’t make a difference to necros at all.

Actually, a lot of necromancer sustain does scale – core necromancer has a lot of skills where LF gain or even healing efficiency increases with the number of targets hit, and reaper dialled this up.

In the S2 meta in particular, necromancers were at their happiest in big teamfights. Reaper shouts would hit multiple targets, Signet of the Locust is practically a second heal if it hits enough targets, reaper skill 1 would give you a lot of life force when it cleaved, and so on. People developed the habit of targeting the necro first in matches to get them down before they could build LF, but with a bit of additional support, pressure, and CC from their team (at the level you could expect from decent PUG players) preventing the enemy from being able to just pour fire into the necro, it was common for the necro to be able to survive a lot because they would outheal and out-LF whatever came their way while dishing out damage in turn.

The issue is, sustain by outhealing damage (either directly or through LF generation) is highly sensitive to the balance between the damage your enemies can dish out and your ability to mitigate and heal damage. Removal of good toughness amulets for necros and the nerfing of Rise means that necromancers are now taking more damage even if their enemies haven’t changed their builds, and since more people are running with glassier builds, the balance has tipped to a point where necromancer sustain largely can’t cope even with the scaling it can benefit from in teamfights.

A summary of what obvious things you can learn in this topic.

Op is a solo player.
ESL is not Solo Queue.
Things work out differently when you are coordinated and when you’re not.
no /s

draxynnic.3719:

flow.6043:

You’re refering to 1v1s, but the defensive scaling when being focused in team fights was the same. Even if some opponents used tankier stats, when it mattered the most it didn’t make a difference to necros at all.

Actually, a lot of necromancer sustain does scale – …

I never said there aren’t any skills that do scale.
But you’re saying it like they actually work as a true alternative to the defensive mechanics of other classes. They don’t! Non of them, not even close and not even if you use them all at the same time.

draxynnic.3719:

… the balance has tipped to a point where necromancer sustain largely can’t cope even with the scaling it can benefit from in teamfights.

I think this sentence sums up your entire post. And both of your implications are simpy not true.

There never – in the entire history of the game – has been a time when necros had decent enough sustain, especially in team fights.
Necro’s defensively scaling skills are and always have been extremely poor. The skills you’re refering to add some more life force or healing, but even when you hit as much targets as possible, they can’t compesate for the extra damage, debuffs and stuns of just one extra opponent.
And as a cherry on top, despite the almost non-existent scaling against multiple opponents, necros can’t even be healed through Shroud by allies or most of their own skills and trait.
It’s beyond ridiculous.
And to suggest that there was ever some sort of balance here that has “tipped” because other players do more damage, is an insult to everyone who has ever played necro.

So just to be clear, there has never been a tipping point in balance and/or meta that would’ve made necros go from viable to liability. At best you could argue that external factors made the ever present weaknesses of necros even more obvious.

And regarding all the post saying that it’s only an issue for solo que: you’re wrong.

9% of my PvP games are necro.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but keep in mind that splitting evenly would come at around 11%, and they’re not split evenly. What that actually translates to is that necromancer is my 4th-most played profession in PvP, although elementalist is catching up.

And yes, my experience was that until the amulet removals and mitigation nerfs, necromancers (or, rather, reapers) could survive quite well if played well – and, in fact, I found I tended to do better when playing necro by diving into the teamfights than fighting 1v1 (although I won a few of those and the odd 1v2) – because of the way the skills I was using scaled in teamfights. At the time, the necromancer had enough damage mitigation and healing that it could compensate for the lack of blocks, invulnerabilities, and so on. (Now, if everyone on the enemy team focused on you and your own team did nothing to help you’d be in trouble, but that’s the case for any profession.)

The balance has shifted because the amount of damage flying around has increased while the ability to reduce the damage you take (through toughness amulets or “Rise!”) has decreased. Since most blocks don’t care about how much damage those attacks would otherwise have done, while the necromancer’s forms of damage mitigation do, this has shifted the balance in favour of professions who can simply ignore damage.

But yes, there was a time when necromancer’s survivability was comparable to that of the other strong professions at the time. That time is not now.

In S2 the necromancer was really strong and was able to kill and survive.
But a lot of things has changed from then:
- No more defensive amulets (for a calss that can use only his stats as defence that’s a huge hit)
- Nerf to Rise! (lesser damage assorbed from minions and minions with lesser HP)
- Nerf to Damage (Chill don’t inflict damage, that’s one of the true reasons the necromancer now is bad and not feared at all)
- “No more” bunker builds (that mean a large amount of DPS all over the classes, unless for the necro, and that with the lack of defencive amulets and different nerfs make the necro fast killed by a lot of enemies just because the overall dps had increased)
- Some damage improvements to different other classes
- No active defences and defensive skills still struck into 1sec ICD that make them bad in team fight (if you really think that spectral armor give 8%LF Every time you’re struck from an enemy you’re wrong, the same for spectral walk)
- Weapon skills that inflict poor damage because we have “high survavibility”, because we have “two health bars”. The necro can’t condibomb you, a lot of other classes can. Still with our best combo (RS5+RS4 and the trait, that is the easiest skill to see and evade, or clean in the exact moment it end) it’s our only good condi skill/combo we can use to inflict damage, all the other skilsl are bad for that. And that combo have Leser DPS that a warrior F1 spam or a mesmer scepter rotation.

Back in time, the necro was feared for his Chill damage (more than all), the ability to send back conditions (in a new condi era that was what made it great), Rise! (that finally granted to him a decent way to survive) and the boon corruption, that made every elementalist killable (finally!).
Now we don’t have the Chill damage (it was 800-100/sec, more or less 1/3 of our dps, and now is gone), there’s even fewer conditions to send back (only few classes use sometimes condi builds), no more a good survavibility skill (rise nerf) and some classes no more need boons to burst down people (guardian, warrior, mesmer, thief) or can spam it all the time without any problem (revenant).

We lost every source of damage that made us great and every survavibility chances (also corrupt boons was a survavibility way at this time because players needed a full stack of might to inflict half of the current damage and remove it granted a real advantage over them).

We lost everything that made the necromancer feared and got nothing.

I get annoyed by the fact that condi warrior running defense & discipline with defensive stances has equivalent damage output to a full glass necro.

Necros are literally corruption bots and nothing else.

But hang on…

Necromancer
We feel that necromancers have been faring quite well gamewide, providing play and counterplay in many spots over the last few months.

Avigrus.2871:

But hang on…

Necromancer
We feel that necromancers have been faring quite well gamewide, providing play and counterplay in many spots over the last few months.

Well there is definitely lots of counterplay…..

Wasn’t it funny how at one time Mesmers were QQing about their only purpose in high level play was support via portal. Being portal bots. They qq’d hard and Anet came to their rescue as soon as possible.

Now, when necro’s are put in this stale corrupt bot state and the MAJORITY of necromancers are upset; they say, and I quote:

“Necromancer
We feel that necromancers have been faring quite well gamewide, providing play and counterplay in many spots over the last few months.”

The only people who believe that this is a minority of necormancers and non-necromancers (which would include Anet devs themselves). The latter is simply due to lack of personal interest / investment. (they dont care what the playstyle is like because they don’t play them).

Necros remain the masters of death

Artaz.3819:

Necros remain the masters of death

*dying