Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

ShakeItOut.6781:

But it’s useful and strong and this is why all the best necros right now are using it.

This is a sweeping statement, and one that isn’t at all accurate.

Well, if you are talking about the relevance of this skill, consider that every shatter mesmer has to disengage once he got it, same for thieves. It is also the only skill who lets necros kill a bit faster an hambow (and yet the fight is still long and, as Henrietta said, hambow can still have berserker stance a second time). Moreover, if we consider the top 100 players in team q, we have indeed max 10 players who play as main necro: in this group, the builds change a lot; but the skills are indeed almost the same, except few differences like for instance Djoooce who sistematically uses epidemic instead of signet of spite. It’s a general analysis taking for sample a group of 5-10 necros max who are in top 100, even top 50 only.

ShakeItOut.6781:

Well, if you are talking about the relevance of this skill, consider that every shatter mesmer has to disengage once he got it, same for thieves. It is also the only skill who lets necros kill a bit faster an hambow (and yet the fight is still long and, as Henrietta said, hambow can still have berserker stance a second time). Moreover, if we consider the top 100 players in team q, we have indeed max 10 players who play as main necro: in this group, the builds change a lot; but the skills are indeed almost the same, except few differences like for instance Djoooce who sistematically uses epidemic instead of signet of spite. It’s a general analysis taking for sample a group of 5-10 necros max who are in top 100, even top 50 only.

I’m not saying the skill is necessarily bad (I should have specified), but saying “all the best necros use it” is a sweeping and untrue statement. I’m sure some people take it, its good for spiking as you said and that can be very helpful, but there are also people who don’t. Also I don’t take top 100 as the pool of best Necros in the game, not enough people take the queues seriously for me to really do that.

Poplolita.2638:

@Bhawb,
1. What do you suggest instead attrition wise? I thought a better access to debuff such a chill may be the best thing to do.

Chill is a great place yes, but that would be best accomplished through spreading out small buffs to all chill sources, not just Dark Path (which is already pretty strong). Really we need overall good access to blind, chill, poison, weakness, and cripple, not necessarily to the point where every single AA applied it, but we should be able to get decent uptime on all of them. Fields and finishers would help this immensely, especially ice, poison, and dark (need some ice fields, maybe another poison field or two).

Also, some better overall LF generation. Scepter needs a buff to the LF on #3, especially a flat value that gets a bit higher per condition on the target, and Axe needs a more reliable LF source instead of a single ability that does all the damage and sustain for the weapon.

However I think the first is more important, because it could help solve the LF issue by letting us actually take different traits/skills.

2. I think AA is already strong as it is. Puting 1 stack of torment every 2 sec just by spamming AA will make it over the top imo. If I recall, arenaNet already removed 1 stack of bleed on #2, so why not add 1-2 stack(s) of torment in #3 scepter to balance it out? The 10 sec cooldown will balance it out, and avoid some spam. Make it require bleed and poison on the target in order to put torment (See fire grab with elementalist), thus people can predict #3, and cleanse/dodge before it lands in order to counter it.

I would revert the Dhuumfire-related nerfs, the nerfs to our various bleed stacks that came up as a result of Dhuumfire. Then I’d take a few abilities, such as Scepter/Staff 2 (as an example) or Dark Path and change the bleeds to torment. The issue with straight buffing #3 is having it do too many things that aren’t related to each other. As it is now its a scaling direct damage/sustain spike skill, adding a bit of torment makes little sense. If they added torment I’d remove the scaling direct damage and instead have scaling torment (have it like Focus 5, you apply additional torment stacks/higher duration ones).

Big issues with Necros right now is lack of weapon-based condi pressure (which causes a reliance on utility skills for pressure, instead of being able to get actual utility), all of our over time damage being focused on bleed stacks, low sustain, the heaviest weakness to focus/CC, awful finishers, lack of fields on certain builds, Death Shroud’s various issues… There are just a number of things that don’t necessarily need a ton of work each, but combined together make bigger problems. Yes you can play around them since we are in a boon-based meta with Corrupt Boon, but that is literally the only reason you bring Necromancers right now.

People asking for increased cast time on signet of spite? with all the blocks, stealth, evades, people that los all day and blinds spam prevelant in this game… It alrdy has to be carefully landed as an all or nothing attack so i dont like the idea. If its too op for u then nerf a bleed lol, assumign it wont b removed anyway. Also i like the new dhuumfire as is, never bothered to use life blast before in condi build but now i always do.(its way more fun then a random proc) You can now control the condi burst too. The downfall to the new dhuumfire is all the ai pets running around body blocking the blast and taking the burning. I also feel for a grandmaster 3 sec burning is not very long.

yeah long cast time will make it much harder to play necro.

With the amount of evades from thief (acro) /mesmer. Most good players will initiate with stealth (so unseen) burst you down then spam evade takes a long time for a necro player to deal with. These long cast time aren’t helping either. The amount of CC some classes bring like interrupt mesmer or a hambow warrior long cast times dont help.

The amount of blocks a condi warrior can have with berserker stance/sword 5.
Necros also have SLOW projectiles adding to the long casting time like dagger 4(deathly swarm – xefer 3 condi and blind) or death shroud dark path (skill #2 on DS – chill and bleed if hit/ can corrupt 2 boons if traited) these are so easily avoidable with the amount of blocks and evades this game offers but none to necros. Also not to mention you need to be in LoS to get those skills to function, doesn’t kittening help when you’re getting trained down and you can’t do anything but take the damage.

Things that can help:
Increase duration to weakness or change some skills to give weakness like tainted schakles ( DS 5).
Increase swiftness duration on spectral walk
lower casting time for wurm.
Increase life force gain? pretty plz?
Do class balance changes every 3-4 months not every 6-8 months.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Necro needs a way to be really tanky AND have massive damage AND has decent mobility/disengage skills.

Change “mobility/disengage” to “cc” and you pretty much just described a necro. They are not weak.

Are you guys kidding? Necro is the only class with such huge cast time skills, which is a disaster when you couple it will no stability or mobility. Getting interrupted can only really be stopped by being really smart about wurm/spectral walk OR by line of sighting etc.

Consumer conditions is a 1.25s cast. Getting this interupted is so easy to do for the other team. SOOOO easy. It is no coincidence that the best classes don’t have heals which get interupted:
Warrior – healing signet
Guardian – Shelter
Thief – Withdraw
Ele – Signet

Then you have long cast times on all staff skills.

In fact staff isn’t even good. The auto attack is basically non existant after all.

The main problem is for necro you actually have to choose. Do you want sustain, in which case you wont have enough damage to even get close to killing an ele/warrior. Or do you go the other way and have more damage BUT never have any life force which owns you HARD in this game. A necro without life force is in trouble offensively and defensively.

The fact you have to choose between barely adequate damage and barely adequate sustain just makes necro bad when warrior/thief/ele you can just spec for both really easily.

I spec for more sustain and so I can survive quite long. But it means 1v1 I just don’t have the damage to beat anything…or almost anything.

Warrior impale is on a 15s cd, its ranged. Has a tiny cast. Cant be cleansed immediately AND does so much damage over the length of the skill. They can just fire it off without thinking. On necro if you waste a mark like this or a fear or a corrupt boon then you might as well just give up because your damage will be woeful.

O and berzerker stance should either be nerfed in duration or should not let them contest the point. If warriors need it to deal with the engi burning spam then just nerfed that burning trait too.

Yasha.5963:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Necro needs a way to be really tanky AND have massive damage AND has decent mobility/disengage skills.

Change “mobility/disengage” to “cc” and you pretty much just described a necro. They are not weak.

Necros aren’t tanky at all. Not at all. There is so much damage that blocks/invulns/evades are how you mitigate damage. Not life force. Those eviserates are going to melt through you whatever your health pool.

The myth of “condi bunkers” just because necro used to wear rabid amulet is what got necro 8 months of nerfs from the devs. It was nerfed 7 months after it stopped being a part of most successful rosters, or being powerful in solo queue.

A necro with rabids has the same armour as a guardian in zerker. There is no way a necro has even been considered tanky in the slightest. Even if you spec for tankiness you will die in no time at all in some 1v2 scenarios.

Lordrosicky.5813:

It is no coincidence that the best classes don’t have heals which get interupted:
Warrior – healing signet
Guardian – Shelter
Thief – Withdraw
Ele – Signet

I spec for more sustain and so I can survive quite long. But it means 1v1 I just don’t have the damage to beat anything…or almost anything.

Warrior impale is on a 15s cd, its ranged. Has a tiny cast. Cant be cleansed immediately AND does so much damage over the length of the skill. They can just fire it off without thinking. On necro if you waste a mark like this or a fear or a corrupt boon then you might as well just give up because your damage will be woeful.

O and berzerker stance should either be nerfed in duration or should not let them contest the point. If warriors need it to deal with the engi burning spam then just nerfed that burning trait too.

-Shelter can be interrupted, healing signet maybe apply poison..
-If necro is bad in 1v1 situations that doesnt mean its useless class or bad. Its same like with mesmer its really bad and basically useless to do things for solo roam etc but in team fights if u have good supp, teamwork, coordinate ur burst with ur allies than its op and one of the best dps class in the game. Sometimes things that looks like trash on paper can be actually really usefull if u have good teamwork, gw is a team game.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Warrior – healing signet
Guardian – Shelter
Thief – Withdraw
Ele – Signet.

To be fair, shelter shouldn’t be in the list. Once you interrupt shelter with a CC that ignores block, the guardian will get 0 heal + 30sec reset.

I think the only heals that could be a little bit too strong are: healing signet, and Withdraw.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Yasha.5963:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Necro needs a way to be really tanky AND have massive damage AND has decent mobility/disengage skills.

Change “mobility/disengage” to “cc” and you pretty much just described a necro. They are not weak.

Necros aren’t tanky at all. Not at all. There is so much damage that blocks/invulns/evades are how you mitigate damage. Not life force. Those eviserates are going to melt through you whatever your health pool.

The myth of “condi bunkers” just because necro used to wear rabid amulet is what got necro 8 months of nerfs from the devs. It was nerfed 7 months after it stopped being a part of most successful rosters, or being powerful in solo queue.

A necro with rabids has the same armour as a guardian in zerker. There is no way a necro has even been considered tanky in the slightest. Even if you spec for tankiness you will die in no time at all in some 1v2 scenarios.

They have a lot of life and I know from experience, as would anyone, that it takes a long time to take them down. It is easier to hit them than most other classes, but they can take it, while melting lower hp classes.

They also have their neat tricks, like chain fear, fear when attacked etc- other classes have different tricks.

Maybe they aren’t as strong as meta warriors, dd eles, or engis- or maybe in the right hands they are. But weak? No way.

“A bunker guradian shuts down a necro”

/thread l2p

Yasha.5963:

They have a lot of life and I know from experience, as would anyone, that it takes a long time to take them down. It is easier to hit them than most other classes, but they can take it, while melting lower hp classes.

They also have their neat tricks, like chain fear, fear when attacked etc- other classes have different tricks.

Maybe they aren’t as strong as meta warriors, dd eles, or engis- or maybe in the right hands they are. But weak? No way.

They have high HP if they have built LF, which is only going to happen after you win a fight, generally. Otherwise they have Warrior level HP with light armor and no ways to actually negate damage. Necromancers are the easiest profession in the game, bar none, to focus in teamfights.

Necros aren’t awful, but the only reason they are viable right now is because of boon corruption in a boon-heavy meta. If you remove Corrupt Boon you remove Necros.

Tage.7045:

Lordrosicky.5813:

It is no coincidence that the best classes don’t have heals which get interupted:
Warrior – healing signet
Guardian – Shelter
Thief – Withdraw
Ele – Signet

I spec for more sustain and so I can survive quite long. But it means 1v1 I just don’t have the damage to beat anything…or almost anything.

Warrior impale is on a 15s cd, its ranged. Has a tiny cast. Cant be cleansed immediately AND does so much damage over the length of the skill. They can just fire it off without thinking. On necro if you waste a mark like this or a fear or a corrupt boon then you might as well just give up because your damage will be woeful.

O and berzerker stance should either be nerfed in duration or should not let them contest the point. If warriors need it to deal with the engi burning spam then just nerfed that burning trait too.

-Shelter can be interrupted, healing signet maybe apply poison..
-If necro is bad in 1v1 situations that doesnt mean its useless class or bad. Its same like with mesmer its really bad and basically useless to do things for solo roam etc but in team fights if u have good supp, teamwork, coordinate ur burst with ur allies than its op and one of the best dps class in the game. Sometimes things that looks like trash on paper can be actually really usefull if u have good teamwork, gw is a team game.

You are right, but the big difference between a mesmer and a necro, who basically share more or less the same problems now in this condi-bunker meta, is that mesmer has little cds, a great mobility and lots of possibilitis to disengage. Of course if team gameplay works, necro is in a better situation, but if you are against a good team (I am talking about a top 20 team more or less) where they are playing 3 warriors, a spirit ranger and a guardian, do you think my dps will be essential and decisive? It’s like your mesmer was against 3 thieves: go defend your mesmer against that…

Lordrosicky.5813:

Seiishizo.7162:

there isn’t a single team searching for a necro… i think that says enough

The game has been out for 2 years I think. In this peroid necro has been in the best comp for 1 month out of 24 months. The one time necro was really powerful anet actually did a hotfix to stop it being broken. Ele/warrior/thief/guard have been OP for most of 24 months.

Those are the facts.

For over the first year of release warrior was, by all accounts considered the weakest profession. By stating they have always been considered Op shows your memory of history is questionable.

Necro is skill based. There is no forgiving build perse’. You either know the profession extremely, or you don’t. I do believe a number of their previous nerfs need rescinding after the dhummfire change. Apart from that they are much like warrior. Buffed up, but now currently more nerfs have been applied than buffs, so on paper they are weaker. However both are still ‘good.’ However after the all stars release of preferred professions, it did show how unfavorable necro/ranger are considered by -top/invited- players.

Bhawb.7408:

Yasha.5963:

They have a lot of life and I know from experience, as would anyone, that it takes a long time to take them down. It is easier to hit them than most other classes, but they can take it, while melting lower hp classes.

They also have their neat tricks, like chain fear, fear when attacked etc- other classes have different tricks.

Maybe they aren’t as strong as meta warriors, dd eles, or engis- or maybe in the right hands they are. But weak? No way.

They have high HP if they have built LF, which is only going to happen after you win a fight, generally. Otherwise they have Warrior level HP with light armor and no ways to actually negate damage. Necromancers are the easiest profession in the game, bar none, to focus in teamfights.

Necros aren’t awful, but the only reason they are viable right now is because of boon corruption in a boon-heavy meta. If you remove Corrupt Boon you remove Necros.

ele/engi..especially the turret boon spam has negated necro. Whatever you corrupt will be stacked again in a jiffy. Currently running my mesmer again, when I stole the warrior 22 stacks of might/swiftness/fury..they lost them. When I did the same thing to the engi, they were all back up in remarkably swift time. This kinda shows even boon corrupting isn’t as useful now as boon stealing..which they can’t do at all.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Currently running my mesmer again, when I stole the warrior 22 stacks of might/swiftness/fury..they lost them. When I did the same thing to the engi, they were all back up in remarkably swift time. This kinda shows even boon corrupting isn’t as useful now as boon stealing..which they can’t do at all.

Running Arcane thievery is such a waste..

Yea sure once in a while you can cleanse a few condies(3) and steal some nice boons(3), its too situational for me it’s one condi clear which can be RNG dodged evaded, or just fails to work sometimes on a high cooldown.

A lot of people prefer Decoy for their third utility… I prefer mirror images for another two clones to boon strip do Damage etc. Your other two should of course be portal and blink.. since this game is basically unplayable without those two.

People need to learn to play more as a team. necro shouldnt be a 1v1 class its a class to be in a teamfight just like mesmer. necro has great condiburst und utility (corrupt,plaque). If People try harder to protect their own necro im sure it will be viable.
Its just as good as mesmer. Giving Necros more mobility or disengage isnt a good idea in my opinion. Every class should lack in some points to make teamplay essential. I think buffing necro would end up in having op necros again, but maybe it would help to fix some things with supporting necros. So i would suggest to improve the UI, so people can see if the necro is in DS or in his normal healthbar or maybe let heal and regeneration work even if the necro is in deathshroud

Amaterasu.6280:

“A bunker guradian shuts down a necro”

/thread l2p

telling on of the best necros in Eu its a l2p-issue

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

ele/engi..especially the turret boon spam has negated necro. Whatever you corrupt will be stacked again in a jiffy.

That is true, boon removal/corruption isn’t about debuffing the enemy anymore. They just get reapplied SO QUICKLY. But it’s still useful for spiking down an opponent when they’re low. 5 new condis on them overwhelm their cleansing, and if you corrupt stability can make it easier to stun-lock them while bursting them down.

ANet have gone overboard, imho, with the boon spam they’ve given to players. The frequency of boon application (especially passive boon procs from runesets and turrets) have made boons less meaningful. I would rather the procs were less frequent, but applied deeper stacks of boons (eg 2 stacks of might with a 10" ICD instead of 1 stack with 5"). And I think they need to introduce some counterplay as well, in the form of something like Well of the Profane from GW1

Also, I really think Corrupt Boon needs to be re-examined. It’s not a weak skill by any means, but the arbitrary priority list it uses to remove boons in makes it extremely situational in the current meta. There’s just so many boons, that it becomes pretty much compulsory to combine it with a Path of Corruption or a Chill of Death proc to get anything important off them. That’s why so many necros prefer Signet of Spite: you’re just guaranteed certain pretty damaging conditions, no matter what boons your target has. It’s also the reason SoS is so hated: it’s unconditional, idiot-proof damage. I don’t agree that it’s overpowered, not in itself anyway (only when combined with a Corrupt Boon and some Terror-backed chain-fearing). But the condis from SoS themselves don’t do that much damage, there IS counterplay to it (though maybe the cast time should be slightly longer), and the reason people aren’t packing more cleansing is precisely because there’s so few necros in the game right now!

Tage.7045:

-If necro is bad in 1v1 situations that doesnt mean its useless class or bad. Its same like with mesmer its really bad and basically useless to do things for solo roam etc but in team fights if u have good supp, teamwork, coordinate ur burst with ur allies than its op and one of the best dps class in the game. Sometimes things that looks like trash on paper can be actually really usefull if u have good teamwork, gw is a team game.

Agreed, it’s not useless, but it’s sub-optimal, and there’s only 5 slots on the team. Isn’t that why your team aren’t running one, Tage?

Tage.7045:

Lordrosicky.5813:

It is no coincidence that the best classes don’t have heals which get interupted:
Warrior – healing signet
Guardian – Shelter
Thief – Withdraw
Ele – Signet

I spec for more sustain and so I can survive quite long. But it means 1v1 I just don’t have the damage to beat anything…or almost anything.

Warrior impale is on a 15s cd, its ranged. Has a tiny cast. Cant be cleansed immediately AND does so much damage over the length of the skill. They can just fire it off without thinking. On necro if you waste a mark like this or a fear or a corrupt boon then you might as well just give up because your damage will be woeful.

O and berzerker stance should either be nerfed in duration or should not let them contest the point. If warriors need it to deal with the engi burning spam then just nerfed that burning trait too.

-Shelter can be interrupted, healing signet maybe apply poison..
-If necro is bad in 1v1 situations that doesnt mean its useless class or bad. Its same like with mesmer its really bad and basically useless to do things for solo roam etc but in team fights if u have good supp, teamwork, coordinate ur burst with ur allies than its op and one of the best dps class in the game. Sometimes things that looks like trash on paper can be actually really usefull if u have good teamwork, gw is a team game.

True. Necro has good utility and you can build around it. But when you only PUG, duo queue or solo queue then you find that if you can’t do everything you are at a massive disadvantage. 1v1ing is hard as necro (imo). And if you spec more for 1v1 (which you can with signet of spite etc) then you get weaker to focus fire in team fights. Whereas warrior and ele can do everything. Can 1v1, can hold point, can team fight, it doesnt matter which.

So I agree with you, gw2 is a team game, but 95%+ of people dont play in teams. And then it becomes hard to be a necro. Besides, even if necro “can” work, it doesn’t mean that bringing something else can’t work better.

Dat mod title change though <3

NeXeD.3042:

Something that bothers me in soloq is at the beginning of a game I’ll be running to mid on necro and I’ll notice my teammates slow down or something to let me go ahead….. then start yelling at me when instead of going right on point I range and build a little more lf (I do the minion trick too). These engis, guards, and warriors genuinely want me to go in first all the while knowing I’m just going to get focused and immob spammed if I’m not using wurm it’s not going to matter how many stunbreaks I have I’m going to die from a decently coordinated team

I simply refuse to leave spawn before anyone else, when i reached mid i’ll climb up the 1st rise and hide behind the little house untill someone targets something, if noone targets then that is my Q to go far. easy as that.

@ Darnis
Staff Skills need some animation changes; Supposedly we should be able to tell by the symbol on the mark what the skills is.

I was i favor for coloring the marks a while back, but now i realize the marks not having a color has a purpose.
Example: you are capping a point an enemy comes charging at you and you trow down a mark. now the decision is for the enemy to, walk around, dodge or run trough it. If marks were color coded everyone would basicly run through them or trow up an easy counter, besides when the marks are already cast, why take the risk?

So, waste a dodge, waste time running around, waste a stability or waste a cleanse or immunity,block, evade, leap etc after walking through the mark.

If you color code you take the uncertainty away you have already made the choice for the player.

So now i believe color coding is bad. Besides the marks already have a difference in animation and color, even though it’s a small difference.

Yeah I won’t go in either I’ll sit there and staff 2 and auto attack until my LF is completely full or my team decides they aren’t going to be sacrificing the necro today.

NeXeD.3042:

Yeah I won’t go in either I’ll sit there and staff 2 and auto attack until my LF is completely full or my team decides they aren’t going to be sacrificing the necro today.

Fine but then you won’t be helping the team much. Sitting on a ledge auto attacking isn’t going to help you much vs resonable people. You need to kite all over the place to be honest. And you need to do damage WHILST being focussed. Otherwise your team will just get wrecked whilst you sit there staying alive.

Positioning might be important in this game but imo at least people confuse this with sitting out of the fight on a ledge. You gotta constantly keep moving and applying pressure to the other team. Also to spike being up close is kind of required. To get boons off a guardian sometimes you need to come in and out of the fight.

You misunderstand what I said. I’m not sitting their auto attacking if my team is going to fight. I do it it when they let me go ahead of them and wait for the other team to focus me. kitten that kitten. Chances are I have one MAYBE 2 stunbreaks not counting the da minor. I’d much prefer it if a class that can handle getting focused stand on point while I use the 900 range weapon and the 1200 range weapon I have as a condi necro. I promise if my team can stop me from getting focused I’ll make it worthwhile.

necro is the only class in the game that can pick traits and utilities to give them favorability in any match-up while still having a viable build.

any Guard — POC, corrupt boon and greater marks
any Warrior — same as guard
Engi — well of power and plague signet
any Thief — signet of spite and reaper’s protection
d/d Ele — POC and corrupt boon

and on and on…

Necro is insane in 1v1s it just require good positioning and dodge management. They are just a terrible class when it comes to dealing with outnumbered fights, every other class has some way to escape or sustain themselves. Necro just needs a coordinated team that can call numbers and a peel for the necro.

I’d rather be an ele and use one spec and still kill everyone. That’s why other classes are better in tpvp. Sure as a necro you spec to specifically kill one class. Meanwhile we have eles, guardians, engineers, and theives that can kill all classes on 1 or 2 specs…. I wonder why most of the best teams are made up completely of those 4 classes…..

Also I don’t think we are that insane in 1v1s I’m willing to bet the best duelists in this game are not necros

hehk.8705:

necro is the only class in the game that can pick traits and utilities to give them favorability in any match-up while still having a viable build.

any Guard — POC, corrupt boon and greater marks
any Warrior — same as guard
Engi — well of power and plague signet
any Thief — signet of spite and reaper’s protection
d/d Ele — POC and corrupt boon

and on and on…

Necro is insane in 1v1s it just require good positioning and dodge management. They are just a terrible class when it comes to dealing with outnumbered fights, every other class has some way to escape or sustain themselves. Necro just needs a coordinated team that can call numbers and a peel for the necro.

Yes, if only I could choose all those utilities at once while also having a build to help my team in teamfights and still have everything else I need. This is why players like Nos (Noc? w/e their name is) do so well in the 2v2 tournaments, because with smart adaptation (like yesterday when he picked up WoP + plague signet) you can counter specific situations.

However in an s/tPvP match you can’t. If you want to be viable at all you need Corrupt Boon, if you want to have good teamfight condi pressure you need Epidemic, if you want to spend any time not respawning you need Flesh Wurm (and sometimes Spectral Walk), if you want to be able to rotate you need Traveler/Speed runes, then if you want specific 1v1 matchups you need those other things. Sure if we could have 10 utility slots Necromancer might be OP, but we don’t, and those limitations still affect us, and unlike all the professions that are top tier, we have no way of overcoming our multiple weaknesses on our own. And not only that, we have weaknesses that aren’t even designed weaknesses, they are weaknesses due to oversight, over-correction after Dhuumfire, or just plain ignorance of how we work by the balance devs.

Leeto.1570:

First and most important change that necro requires is deleting signet of spite from game, then we can talk about other changes.

Only you would be wrecked by “signet of spite”……/facepalm.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Seiishizo.7162:

there isn’t a single team searching for a necro… i think that says enough

The game has been out for 2 years I think. In this peroid necro has been in the best comp for 1 month out of 24 months. The one time necro was really powerful anet actually did a hotfix to stop it being broken. Ele/warrior/thief/guard have been OP for most of 24 months.

Those are the facts.

This simply isn’t true. Warrior was complete garbage for a LONG time in spvp (gg quickness nerf). Ele was godmode for the first year or so, then cantrips got nerfed and it became garbage for awhile too. Guardian and thief are the only 2 classes that haven’t been iced out of the meta at least once. Mesmer got iced out when ranger got popular, engineer wasn’t popular at all until five guage and ostrich eggs started theorycrafting OP builds like HGH and 100nades; which made the class more accessible in competitive play (before then you’d have to master one of Teldo’s crazy kitten 4 kit bunker builds just to stay alive).
As for Necro, it has been on both sides of the spectrum. I remember a time when necro was considered inferior to engi/ranger as a condition dps, and last year dhuumfire made it godmode for like 4 months.
Power necro is the kitten right now anyways. Just get with it man. Don’t you play thief anyways?

Discuss all you want about necro’s if they are good or bad… But lets look at facts:
how many necro’s were there in the top teams of ToL? In fact I don’t know but not much.

Even better fact. There are 0 teams searching for a necro in the “looking for team” forum part.
And there are a lot of very good necro’s searching for a team without finding one.

I think that would say enough about necro’s being good or not.

Atleast you can kill off pesky engies and thieves fairly easily with necro. Better place than mesmer imo.

brb getting 2-shot by lich

MrJackk.2417:

Discuss all you want about necro’s if they are good or bad… But lets look at facts:
how many necro’s were there in the top teams of ToL? In fact I don’t know but not much.

Even better fact. There are 0 teams searching for a necro in the “looking for team” forum part.
And there are a lot of very good necro’s searching for a team without finding one.

I think that would say enough about necro’s being good or not.

I am starting to hate this statement…

In a normal pug match there is no way a Mesmer can peform above average, yet Helseth mains one and won the last ToL with it…
Funny enough, in this same pug match, having a Necromancer will not have you bleed that much (pun not intended)…

There are still a lot ESL weekly teams running a Necromancer – the teams are familiar with it, and the players can utilize them to their very best (Think of Teh Prototype and Ventari, though BooN has not been playing much lately)

ToL is but a “moment”…

There are a lot of things wrong with a Necromancer, but the statement that teams disregards the actual power of a Necromancer based on “the mainstream” is just stupid…

CobOfCorn.6352:

brb getting 2-shot by lich

Thief complaining about being 2-shot, oh the irony!
Just use some of your arguments about why stealth isn’t broken and you’ll do fine.

CobOfCorn.6352:

brb getting 2-shot by lich

Personal View: CnD+Thief Guild+Steal to remove Stability+Fear+Continue condition combo

Honestly necro is strong 1v1 I think people just limit themselves. Team fight is another thing but the other light armor classes without a sustain build are easier to kill thus stating most necros I see are not even close to having a little bit of sustain in their build.

Necro view: I’ll just DS in case I’m dying no need for blind,CC,chill or any thing that can trouble my foe. I’ll pop Plague and Lich since my stability is permanent.

Agree with lordrosicky. Watched a fight between a necro and an ele yesterday. The ele does not give a kitten about the condis.

If I see (as a condi engi) a terrormancer. I start to run. No possibility to beat him.

people have forgotten how powerful the AI lameness of MM can be in 1v1 situations.

and also power necro is one of my favourite specs right now, popping deathshroud and lasting through tons of damage while spamming out 4-5k “guaranteed-crit” lifeblasts is amazing!

Liewec.2896:

people have forgotten how powerful the AI lameness of MM can be in 1v1 situations.

and also power necro is one of my favourite specs right now, popping deathshroud and lasting through tons of damage while spamming out 4-5k “guaranteed-crit” lifeblasts is amazing!

Just like spamming HS on baddies while playing a thief, isn’kitten
And if anyone tries to engage you just enter stealth, oops I mean death shroud, as long as you have LF of course.

Necromancers are dead since the nerfflood.

There is NOTHING more to say to this point. All arguments who deny this fact are invalid.

For a few weeks someone posted this in the Necromancer section:

1vs1 = okay
1vs2 = dead
2vs2 = dead
2vs3 = dead
3vs3 = dead

Absolutely true.

IKaikiasI.1932:

Necromancers are dead since the nerfflood.

There is NOTHING more to say to this point. All arguments who deny this fact are invalid.

For a few weeks someone posted this in the Necromancer section:

1vs1 = okay
2vs1 = dead
2vs2 = dead
3vs2 = dead
3vs3 = dead

Absolutely true.

Posts like this don’t help much in my opinion. What you need to explain is that other classes can run away or stall longer for help than a necro can. Otherwise no class should win an outnumbered fight, I mean, what other result would you expect?

Roe.3679:

Posts like this don’t help much in my opinion. What you need to explain is that other classes can run away or stall longer for help than a necro can. Otherwise no class should win an outnumbered fight, I mean, what other result would you expect?

I know I didn’t use a specific argument. But you know what? We already know everything about this issue.

No mobility, no stability, not enough viable sustain and so on. The point is people still don’t pay enough attention to it.

IKaikiasI.1932:

Roe.3679:

Posts like this don’t help much in my opinion. What you need to explain is that other classes can run away or stall longer for help than a necro can. Otherwise no class should win an outnumbered fight, I mean, what other result would you expect?

I know I didn’t use a specific argument. But you know what? We already know everything about this issue.

No mobility, no stability, not enough viable sustain and so on. The point is people still don’t pay enough attention to it.

Agreed, but when you make posts that imply, even if out of context, that you should be able to 2v1 and live, the more people are going to disregard the idea entirely.

I know what you mean but I’m saying lets just make the argument the right way.

Liewec.2896:

people have forgotten how powerful the AI lameness of MM can be in 1v1 situations.

and also power necro is one of my favourite specs right now, popping deathshroud and lasting through tons of damage while spamming out 4-5k “guaranteed-crit” lifeblasts is amazing!

My main is a power necro and find this misleading. We start out with 0 LF and have to survive our initial encounters without DS or stability while being glassy. The “guaranteed” 4-5K lb crit is untrue. LB has a long cast time and it could easily be dodged or interrupted aside from the fact that it does not reliably land on opponents. Also, enduring through lots of damage on DS will use up our LF and could no longer make the guaranteed 4-5k crit you mentioned. But you main an engie (or was it thief) so I understand your resentment towards the counter class.

Pimsley.3681:

But you main an engie (or was it thief) so I understand your resentment towards the counter class.

my necro is my first 80 and i’d consider them my main, though i usually play every class when i log on for pvp.

if you have a decent amount of crit percentage then you should have no problem gaining and maintaining life force, the “lifeforce from crit” trait helps immensely, also i run with 2 wells and traited warhorn so i can keep locust swarm up for most of the fight which procs crits and even more life force.

My main is a power necro and find this misleading. We start out with 0 LF

By freecasting Minions prematch and switching back to normal utilities you start out with a whole lot more then 0 LF.

Liewec.2896:

my necro is my first 80 and i’d consider them my main, though i usually play every class when i log on for pvp.

if you have a decent amount of crit percentage then you should have no problem gaining and maintaining life force, the “lifeforce from crit” trait helps immensely, also i run with 2 wells and traited warhorn so i can keep locust swarm up for most of the fight which procs crits and even more life force.

You run into melee, without LF, with a high precision amulet, with locust swarm and think THAT is survivable?
Do you at least pack a spectral skill in the remaining utility slot?

Are people just no focusing you because they don’t consider a power necro an immediate threat or are you playing the smallest asura ever?

Darnis.4056:

My main is a power necro and find this misleading. We start out with 0 LF

By freecasting Minions prematch and switching back to normal utilities you start out with a whole lot more then 0 LF.

Lol, that reminds me of teams in Tombs in GW1 who would bring a Blood is Power necro to life-sacrifice himself to death pre-match so their MM could summon minions :p

Poplolita.2638:

I think the first step to achieve this is by making our debuff harder to remove. Wouldn’t making some skills work like impale be the answer? I gave an example with dark path.

Yep, that’s one way to do it: have a debuff that “marks” an opponent and applies conditions gradually over time, rather than stacking them all immediately for easy removal.

The other way would be lower cooldowns on some of our direct applications, whether these are skills or trait procs (with lower durations to compensate). Withering Precision is the perfect candidate for this: 3" duration/10"cd would make it reasonable. Combined with Weakening Shroud that would give reasonable uptime.

Another way would be skills (or traits) that applied an “aura” to the necromancer which applied debuffs to enemies either around the necro or hitting the necro. We already have stuff like this, think of stuff like Locust Swarm or Reaper’s Protection. But imagine if we had a trait that modified Spectral skills so that they also blinded anyone hitting the necro during their duration? Or something like the mesmer’s Chaos Armor?
Obviously, the more “active” the conditions for the proc, the more severe the condition would be. THAT’S what “attrition” is, stuff that punishes you for hitting me!

2. I think AA is already strong as it is. Puting 1 stack of torment every 2 sec just by spamming AA will make it over the top imo. If I recall, arenaNet already removed 1 stack of bleed on #2, so why not add 1-2 stack(s) of torment in #3 scepter to balance it out? The 10 sec cooldown will balance it out, and avoid some spam. Make it require bleed and poison on the target in order to put torment (See fire grab with elementalist), thus people can predict #3, and cleanse/dodge before it lands in order to counter it.

I agree, sceptre AA is pretty sick already. What we need is different conditions on the rest of the skills. How about 1 stack of Torment on Grasping Dead rather than 2 stacks of bleed? And something else on 3 (Feast of Corruption), cause atm it’s useless. As it is it’s trying to do 2 things: it wants to be both a “finisher” skill that gives the necro some direct damage to burst their target down with after they’ve loaded them up with conditions, and it’s a life force-building skill, which means you have to use it during the fight as well, because death shroud is your only defence and a big source of damaging conditions. But currently it fulfils neither of those roles well: the physical damage isn’t enough to act as a finisher (I’d much prefer SoS→fear lock), and trying to use it to build life force results in a huge drop in DPS because you’re not autoattacking.
They should instead give it some conditional functionality that does something different to a target without any conditions (possibly gain additional life force – A LOT of it), and change the bonus damage so it’s a flat amount that doesn’t scale with your power rather than +8% of the base damage.

Darnis.4056:

My main is a power necro and find this misleading. We start out with 0 LF

By freecasting Minions prematch and switching back to normal utilities you start out with a whole lot more then 0 LF.

I remember it was something like 10% base LF from necrotic traversal upto 12% depending on points in soul reaping. I stopped bothering with it after getting stuck with the minion a few times.

This wont help anyone in pvp but we also get LF after viewing vistas