Guild Wars 2

Necromancers right now are a realy rare sight in tpvp, and that has good reasons.
The main reaons is that Necromancer doesnt do anything better than any other class, the key role of Condition pressure in teamfights is already taken by the HGH engi, who does alot better at it. Also Necromancers have no way to mitigate dmg or disengage and are tehrefore the first taregt in every fight if positioning allows it, but here engineer is again better cause of bigger range and access to swiftness in a viable build.

A short breakdown of this misery:

Classes with no access to invulnerability:
-Necromancer
-Thief (but stealth breaks targeting, so still in a better spot)
(-Warrior)
(-Ranger)

Classes with no access to vigor:
-Necromancer

Classes with no disengage mechanic on their weaponsets:
-Necromancer
-Engineer

Classes with no access to swiftness in viable builds:
-Necromancer
-Thief

Classes with no Block/Evade skills:
-Necromancer

Classes that can’t prevent being stomped:
-Necromancer
-Engineer
-Guardian
-Ranger
-Warrior

Well we do ahve a 2nd HP-bar, which seems to balance this all out…………
But even if it owuld balance this out, it’s at 0% at start, you can exploit it to around 20% in some builds if you are fast and ahve the right trait allocation and dont plan on using fleshgolem or SPectral walk (switch to knights amulett, and teh trait that gives lifeforce on use of spectral skills, activate spectralwak, replace spectralwalk by the skill you realy want to take, summon fleshgolem, switch fleshgolem to the elite you realy want to use, change the spectral trait to teh trait you realy want to use and then switch the amulett ot teh amulett you realy want to use…)
So do realy have a 2nd healthbar you have to win the first fight (which you have to do anyway when you bring a necro or he will just be trained down and you lose the game), but with 0 survivability that is not teh easiest thing to do.

“Classes that can’t prevent a stomp” I’d argue Necros have very high access to stopping stomps, since boon corruption/removal will negate stability stomps (same as thief stealing stability then interrupting), and every single Necro carries an uninterruptable, near instant cast interrupt; Doom.

Edit, saw that you changed it (or I misread it). You can ignore this part as it isn’t relevant.

Also, you say “viable” builds. Are you meaning the condition build that everyone and their mama knows about, or are you actually looking at all necro builds (I’ll answer for you, its the first). The problem with Necromancers right now, is that our well known role of Condi pressure has been taken by Engis. We don’t have the ability to roam either. But by far our biggest weakness is just that people aren’t creative. People don’t take time to theory craft on a team level except with the Meta in mind.

Necromancers will continue to be low-tier as long as people refuse to look past Condi pressure as their sole niche. When there are enough people and teams that are finally comfortable enough to really start trying to try non-Meta builds, they will find Necromancers have a variety of Niches to fill in team comps.

Edit: Also I think this problem applies to a number of builds that are in other classes as well (although not to the same degree, since Necromancers are fairly balanced, albeit with a few lackings). Engis and Rangers both come to mind as having viable builds that just are rarely seen or wanted because they don’t fit the generic meta comp people want to run so they don’t need to think.

Bhawb.7408:

“Classes that can’t prevent a stomp” I’d argue Necros have very high access to stopping stomps, since boon corruption/removal will negate stability stomps (same as thief stealing stability then interrupting), and every single Necro carries an uninterruptable, near instant cast interrupt; Doom.

Also, you say “viable” builds. Are you meaning the condition build that everyone and their mama knows about, or are you actually looking at all necro builds (I’ll answer for you, its the first). The problem with Necromancers right now, is that our well known role of Condi pressure has been taken by Engis. We don’t have the ability to roam either. But by far our biggest weakness is just that people aren’t creative. People don’t take time to theory craft on a team level except with the Meta in mind.

Necromancers will continue to be low-tier as long as people refuse to look past Condi pressure as their sole niche. When there are enough people and teams that are finally comfortable enough to really start trying to try non-Meta builds, they will find Necromancers have a variety of Niches to fill in team comps.

I think more of what it is, is new Necromancers looking to get into PvP expect to be as viable in a solo hotjoin as they can be in a team setup. When they see that this isn’t the case (as in, it’s harder for a Necro to do well solo compared to other professions) they reroll something that has a stronger place in both hotjoin and tPvP metas. Something that might be easier to use, or easier to do well with, or simply more viable.

Necro is a great profession, definitely. This, however, doesn’t show a lot of times to those new to it or those getting their feet wet in PvP. Many people play solo and even more do not partake in tPvP because of this.

To do anything other than conditions as a Necro is hard without a team to support you, so many Necros try it once and give it up once they realize they could do the same task, more easily, on another profession.

Zeke Minus.5720:

To do anything other than conditions as a Necro is hard without a team to support you, so many Necros try it once and give it up once they realize they could do the same task, more easily, on another profession.

I agree. Putting a Necro on your team is basically acknowledging that in some fashion you are building your team with whatever role they have in mind. They don’t just fit on a team, a team is fit around them.

Surely Arena Net has been watching the recent tournaments and has taken note the complete lack of Necromancers on any team worth their salt. Hopefully something will be done to make Necromancers a viable option in the near near future. I know they’re working on a new DS 5 skill, but I hope that is not all we’re going to get.

Necro is often believed to be the class with the most build variety. The problem is every build is equally mediocre in pvp.

Mausser.7530:

Surely Arena Net has been watching the recent tournaments and has taken note the complete lack of Necromancers on any team worth their salt. Hopefully something will be done to make Necromancers a viable option in the near near future. I know they’re working on a new DS 5 skill, but I hope that is not all we’re going to get.

Lack of necromancers? We must be playing different games because right now in EU is 1-2 necro for team in tPvP…so you must be playing another game not other option

The last tournament had no Necromancers. Obv this means no teams anywhere run necros (yeahno).

I definitely agree, there is no niche for Necromancer left.

Sword/Dagger thief brings off-cd boonstrip boonsteal! – Effectively taking over all what was left of Necromancer’s unique teamcentered play in one minor patch…

Traits suffer from bugs. Utilities have huge cooldowns (wells) pared with low usefulness (spectral skills) and are uneffective against players compared to mobs (wells / minions).

Our weaponsets lack versatility. Both axe and focus see limited play (let’s just forget about warhorn after gear lock).
Staff is brilliant, no question. However, second weaponset requires main hand: scepter (condi) or dagger (power) with off hand: dagger.

I’m intrigued by the new condition that will be added to Deathshroud, but I can’t imagine it will resolve the issues which are holding Necro back at the moment as listed above.
It’s obvious a condition centered class will be outshined by all others if it has no access to burning, so maybe with this new condition Necro will be on top on conditions.

Perhaps Fear could be more prominent: fear distance/run speed/duration – right now, it plays as weak variation of a knockback with shorter duration.

I feel Deathshroud in general has a lower skillcap than the developers seem to think, so it will never be altered similar to Ranger’s pet skills.

Anet devs play mesmer and thief so…

IMO, the biggest problem the Necro has is that it is almost completely obliged to fight whenever engaged and when it does it has minimal means to sustain itself. It does have an obscenely high HP pool but recovering or sustaining that HP isn’t all that feasible or available. It has minimal mobility and extremely limited escapability by design. And that’s fine, until you realize that fighting under those circumstances requires sustainability, and the primary source of sustainability in PvP comes from boon production which is where Necro’s are extremely deficient. They have no access to vigor, limited access to regen, life stealing skills and traits have no scaling but are located in the +Healing and HP tree, no access to water fields, some access to protection, minimal (almost zero) access to stability, and no access to aegis. Combined with their inordinate amount of lengthy cast times, essentially turns Necros into a glorified pinata or punching bag for any class with a few CC skills.

They can still lay waste to entire groups when they have a group properly supporting them, but it’s too much of a chore and too inflexible for a team comp IMO.

I suggest they should revert Necromancer to Beta state, but keep most if not all of the buffs they’ve received since then.

Plus fix some of the glitches, and allow Leeching to scale with damage/healing.

That would make Necromancer strong again, but I doubt it would be anywhere near OP compared to the other classes.

Bhawb.7408:

The last tournament had no Necromancers. Obv this means no teams anywhere run necros (yeahno).

I’ll eat my words when there are teams with Necromancers that are participating and WINNING in the Master of the Mists.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Allow Leeching to scale with damage/healing.

Yes, it would be interesting to hear why it currently doesn’t.

Would be amazing if Necro could heal off an enemies HP somehow, maybe with the new condition syphoning health from their regeneration?

One niche the necromancer has: Flesh Golem can nearly destroy Turret in Kyhlo in one charge.

2 Charges, if traited, Actually.

But yes, I would like Leeching to scale with damage. 20% of the damage you inflict heals you.

So if I hit for 2k, I am healed for 400, plus any of the other leeching. So I could receive 700+ HP for such powerful hits. Sigil of Blood could be reworked to heal for 5% of your damage output.

And if I hit with a channeled attack such as Axe 2, and it hits for around 5k (Not hard to get) I would receive 1k HP just from the 20% Leech. Which is not OP at all, considering Rangers heal for more than that just from their kitten Regeneration.

I’d actually be happy with something like: “Death Shroud now heals you while in use.”

That would give bunkers and condition builds a tool to try to outlast, and it would give direct damage builds another mechanic to mess with and balance with the current life leeches.

The problem is two-fold: Necromancers don’t have a condition like burning, so HGH engineers are almost always going to better for condition damage because burn provides a lot of damage and cleansing protection. Necromancers also don’t have much in the way of mobility and require 900 range to do decent damage, so they’re very easy to focus down as an organized group.

Symbolic from Team Paradigm covered this well enough in a Reddit post recently:

In my opinion necromancer just doesn’t work in the current EU meta, you don’t deal enough damage (your only damaging condition is bleeds). Shout guardians/cantrips elementalists effectively neutralize that damage. You don’t have consistent poison like an HGH engineer with their pistol #2 and poison grenades(thieves probably get the best of it having a spammable poison field on shortbow 4, which is more useful than corrosive poison cloud). You rely on the third hit of your scepter for single target poison, which is a small poison duration and chillblains which is also a fairly short poison duration, however chillblains in itself is a hugely useful utility although the poison duration isn’t huge/repeating.

Effectively you’re a corrupt boon/epidemic/res bot that can tank with plague form. Plus the fact you’re so easily diveable from thieves/mesmers/warriors etc. Sure you can rely on positioning but when you’ve got a pistol dagger thief spamming blinds on you while doing huge damage or a sword/dagger thief spamming evades, disengaging when he wants.

At the moment the necromancer is currently only good in condition cleave comps with a mesmer/hgh engineer so it can spread pressure from an initial target as the necromancer doesn’t in itself deal a huge amount of pressure. Plus the fact if you’re positioning properly you’re realistically only going to be pressuring the guardian and anybody who overextends. Necromancer lacks too much disengage and has no real ‘gtfo’(disengage) ability(you could run flesh wurm I guess?) so it can go into a fight and get off its damage, so it has to deal damage to low priority targets, and the targets it does deal damage to you’d probably be better suited having an hgh engineer pressuring that target.

Symbolic summed up perfectly why condition necromancers do not do well. I think it serves even better to reinforce my point that people never even consider Necromancers running something other than conditions, and as long as that feeling persists we will be highly subject to the whims of FOTM builds and whatever the very few players at the top determine to be the meta (and players at the top have 0 incentive to try new things).

Mausser.7530:

I’ll eat my words when there are teams with Necromancers that are participating and WINNING in the Master of the Mists.

A pool of a whole few hundred competitive players isn’t exactly conducive to a meaningful meta. Why use your brain when you can just copypasta what works and is easy to do? Its also part of the reason (in my mind) teams are so difficult to put together and keep together. The second FOTM changes and your team isn’t meta, the team disbands; everyone that is still in line with the meta joins a new team, and those who aren’t are stuck solo queueing until they are in favor again.

Things I want on necro:

Better stunbreakers – Our stun breakers are on 90 and 60 sec cd’s respectively. The 90 sec cd one gives a measly 6 secs protection while ele’s armor of earth gives them protection AND stability, all while they have better access to boons.

Make Spectral Walk a teleport like blink as an additional effect on activation — it’s still double the cooldown of blink and 15 secs cd longer than Lightning Flash.

Make Spectral Armor give longer prot and stability. We NEED stability — the class feels like a pinball if you don’t have 30 points in Soul Reaping. If you don’t want to give necro boons, at the very least give spectral armor a mobile black powder effect so it keeps with the necro’s condition theme as a defensive skill.

Gives us access to vigor or better endurance regen — the lack of vigor hurts this class greatly in all game formats because DS is nowhere near adequate for tanking burst trains as effectively as dodging a CC>burst attempt.

—

Fix our heals. They are REALLY bad. The necro will never be a bunker despite being promoted at the beginning of the game by devs as the hard caster to take down.

Necros have horrible recovery options. They can absorb initial damage, but that means little if you can’t recover like actual guardians and engineers and eles and rangers do. Necro healing needs to be improved. Our heals heal for too little and we have so little healing unless we trait into Blood Magic — whose heals are crap anyways.

Master of conditions? Don’t think so. With the abundance of condition clear in this game, the necromancer is spanked by the engineer BECAUSE he can only apply one damaging condition, while the engineer has 2 damaging conditions, including the strongest (burning) that the necro doesn’t have, and he can layer those two conditions very easily and in aoe sustained fashion (necro only gets aoe through epidemic).

You try burning a bunker ele. Still post nerf with cantrips that ele is going to be clearing bleed stacks 24/7 and the necro won’t have any options.

—

Power setups are deficient — the axe is a mere 600 range, with a horrible auto, and the only aoe/control weapon we have is the staff, which is a condition weapon with one of the worst autoattacks in the game.

Dagger has only one gap closer built into the weapon with a 1 sec cast time that is easy to dodge. Power necros have very poor staying power because they do high single target sustain but little of it is burst so burst classes like thief and mesmer can counterburst you much more quickly and effectively.

Axe should be increased to 900 range, the autoattack needs a substantial buff, and it’s #3 skill should do more aoe damage considering it’s the only aoe damage a power necro has access to besides life transfer.

Life Force generation: It’s abysmal outside dagger autoattack and staff with soul marks trait. Both scepter and axe have horrendous life force generation.

It also seems like the necromancer is balanced in his survival around a full LF bar, but more often than not he has to engage encounters against someone with less than a full life bar, and death shroud doesn’t offer enough offense to compensate for the lack of mobility and eating burst.

Life Blast should do the same damage regardless of life force levels — in a situation where you are getting trained you will rarely get to use life blast to counterpressure because the damage below 50% is terrible.

These are my main complaints. The necro is just really easy to shut down with pressure since you can train him to the ground and he doesn’t have the tools like guardian or bunker ele to facetank damage.

great post zenith

Bhawb.7408:

Necromancers running something other than conditions, and as long as that feeling persists we will be highly subject to the whims of FOTM builds and whatever the very few players at the top determine to be the meta (and players at the top have 0 incentive to try new things).

A pool of a whole few hundred competitive players isn’t exactly conducive to a meaningful meta. Why use your brain when you can just copypasta what works and is easy to do?

Zenith summed up a lot of my thoughts on the matter.

However, to say people don’t have the initiative nor incentive to try new things is fairly offensive. Before we think about playing builds in scrims we test them out beforehand, just because you’re not seeing them doesn’t mean they aren’t used. . I’ve tried so many builds with my necromancer and the best I can come up with is condition, it’s the best build to use that another class can’t outshine in great fashion. The only builds I haven’t tried are with bone fiend/shadow fiend. I have 3-4 builds that I actually feel useful on however these builds are still outshone by other classes.

Oblivion, I’ve experimented with Necromancer builds considerably, and I’ve found viable high-level tPvP builds for every possible role: From bursting, to bunking, to tanking, to supporting, to roaming each one with different variations.

If you want to try out any of them, PM me. However, the bunker build is a bit of a secret.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Oblivion, I’ve experimented with Necromancer builds considerably, and I’ve found viable high-level tPvP builds for every possible role: From bursting, to bunking, to tanking, to supporting, to roaming each one with different variations.

If you want to try out any of them, PM me. However, the bunker build is a bit of a secret.

The problem I have with these builds is they generally feel substandard or unreliable comparable to other classes, I’ll test out your build however (I don’t mean to be offensive), I don’t think it’ll be as effective as say a guardian. I’d be interested to try it out though for sure.

I find it unlikely that people at the top have really played around that much. Maybe we are totally off base and you have tried every build out there, but I find it highly unlikely. I feel confident saying this because competitive gamers in every game tend to play quite a bit, and just not notice the power of something. They stick to FOTM because they know it will work, and frankly there is no incentive to take the chance.

Its not that I don’t doubt that people play around with builds, but at least from the perspective of someone on the outside, few if any make a full effort at using them. By full effort, I mean build a team with the idea of the Necro being in whatever niche spot, and then having the team work around it. This is pretty much necessary for every necro build, and I’d be surprised if teams had attempted this for every single Necro build out there (it just isn’t feasible in many cases, a competitive team is focused on doing things that work).

I also say this because after having talked to great Necros, there is an overwhelming sense of their knowledge being great, but not incredibly creative. They know far more about how to play the class than I probably ever will, but talk to them about anything outside of condi or glass builds, and you get this feeling that they tried some builds, and then gave up. This isn’t always the case, there are a few who are more open to innovation and creativity, but even they seem to have those other builds more for fun to solo queue with, not attempt in serious play.

But, maybe its just because I don’t play at a competitive level, and the builds I see as viable just don’t work when transitioned up to that level of play. It is certainly possible that at the very top Necromancers just don’t have anything to offer besides condi pressure, and the rest of us just can’t see it because high level organized team play is so rare. I don’t mean to be offensive in any way, I just think that the class is so often underappreciated even by the people who play it the most, and are plagued by trying to force Necros into a niche that are far better filled by other classes (which I won’t argue at all, there are a lot of things we just are just not as good at).

And what are we good at besides stripping boons and rez signet? Everything else other classes can fill while bringing things of their own, and even boon stripping a mesmer can fulfill pretty closely while getting to keep his own class strengths.

I just think they made a serious miscalculation with high hp = high survival. Avoidance has always been superior to facetanking, especially on classes without good recovery.

There’s quite a history, most recently in games like WoW where the warlock class suffers pretty highly from being trained and their damage over time pressure is outperformed by the efficacy of mage/rogue archetype burst/cc/control benefits.

High hp and high ramp up condition damage is just very one dimensional in application while mobility, cc, and burst can be used defensively and offensively. They’re just much more versatile tools than being a damage sponge with big ramp up that is also highly susceptible to rampant condition clears.

Necro and warrior are the red headed step childs =(

The main dmg from an HGH is coming from burning,.
The main dmg from a necromancer is coming from bleeding.

The problem is that bleeding stacks in intensity and hurts only above 6+ stacks. Burning on the otherside is stacking in duration and is in every second painfull.
As necromancer lacks in burning and has a really hard time to get several stacks bleeding on a player, due to ele’s and shout-guardians, this surely puts him behind the “grenade-spammer”.
Meanwhile the engineer is constantly putting burning on a target, which doesn’t require stacking, ergo doesn’t require time to get intense.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The main dmg from an HGH is coming from burning,.
The main dmg from a necromancer is coming from bleeding.

The problem is that bleeding stacks in intensity and hurts only above 6+ stacks. Burning on the otherside is stacking in duration and is in every second painfull.
As necromancer lacks in burning and has a really hard time to get several stacks bleeding on a player, due to ele’s and shout-guardians, this surely puts him behind the “grenade-spammer”.
Meanwhile the engineer is constantly putting burning on a target, which doesn’t require stacking, ergo doesn’t require time to get intense.

Engineer also has good base power with his grenades. Try killing a Trebuchet as an HGH Engi. Then try to kill the Treb with a condi Necro. It will take you about 3 minutes longer. Or atleast it feels that way. When I’m getting nades lobbed at me, I “feel” the high inc damage right away.

Mausser.7530:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The main dmg from an HGH is coming from burning,.
The main dmg from a necromancer is coming from bleeding.

The problem is that bleeding stacks in intensity and hurts only above 6+ stacks. Burning on the otherside is stacking in duration and is in every second painfull.
As necromancer lacks in burning and has a really hard time to get several stacks bleeding on a player, due to ele’s and shout-guardians, this surely puts him behind the “grenade-spammer”.
Meanwhile the engineer is constantly putting burning on a target, which doesn’t require stacking, ergo doesn’t require time to get intense.

Engineer also has good base power with his grenades. Try killing a Trebuchet as an HGH Engi. Then try to kill the Treb with a condi Necro. It will take you about 3 minutes longer. Or atleast it feels that way. When I’m getting nades lobbed at me, I “feel” the high inc damage right away.

You can’t apply conditions to a trebuchet. So it’s just about direct dmg. But ye the might helps alot.

Blackmoa.3186:

Necromancers right now are a realy rare sight in tpvp, and that has good reasons.
The main reaons is that Necromancer doesnt do anything better than any other class, the key role of Condition pressure in teamfights is already taken by the HGH engi, who does alot better at it. Also Necromancers have no way to mitigate dmg or disengage and are tehrefore the first taregt in every fight if positioning allows it, but here engineer is again better cause of bigger range and access to swiftness in a viable build.

Some teams stopped using HGH engineers because they die to fast. You write a lot about disadvantages but not about the benefits (fear is great for example).

But since no top team is running with a necro I guess you are right. Necro needs love.

So many true things here. I used to have a Necro main, then i shifted to mesmer, cause i was amazed by its mobility (thing that necro doesnt have at all).
I can understand the point of view of devs, to keep Necro low-mobility, no-disengaging class, but if so, some way to keep up in the fight are really needed.

What would be really great, is to make lifesteal really worth it, since its the true Necro-only mechanic (it should have be Fear, but actually many other classes have better ones lol).

I would really love what was suggested some posts above here, make lifesteal scale with the damage. Lets do a quick analysis.

Bunkers – why are they bunkers ? they have many tools to survive through high defence + high recover abilities usually paired with some stability/invulnerability to land them.

Necro has really few way to actually recover, except the standard heal, we get like 1 or 2 sources of regen (from 75%hp trait and from staff 2), lifesteal just suck in term of recovering, it heals at best 1200, dagger life syphon, which is a 3-4 sec channeled, that can be interrupted easily and ….. how many fractions of a second do any class need to do more than 1200 damage ? so that skill is definitely not doing it fine….
The only real good way for a necro to bust its survivability with lifesteal is with a full minions build, but… yeh, try to use it in a teamfight, once minions are all melted with AoE you dont even have a heal to use :p

Glass cannons: they usually have some skill that deals a big amount of dmg in a short time, they die quickly but usually have mobility to survive.
Lets say a Power Necro can produce some really good dps, cause that true, i often use a power necro in tpvp, but…. what is it actually ? Its like a Dagger thief with higher dmg on skill 1, with 4k more hp + DS, but….. without stealth….. without backstab…… without vigor …… without shadowstep, often without stunbreaker, mh….

To tell the truth i had lot of fun with this spec, but only untill the other team realize that the biggest damage they are getting comes from me, then i usually get focused and melted in matter of seconds…… 2 seconds. I have to be more sneaky than a thief to use that spec, cause once i engage there is no way to get out of there.

In conclusion i think that if necro really has to stay a class with no mobility and no way to disengage, at least it deserve some decent ways to survive in a fight, and dont tell me DS is enough, cause once focused life force gives just u the time to say “i’m going down”.
In this game evasion and disengaging >> soaking dmg for 2s.
Improved Lifesteal would provide us a way to recover, but still we miss a way to disengage, a little mobility is still needed.
My suggestion was to make Dark Path (DS #2) a ground target skill, so that it could be possible to blink away from the focused fire, and then try to recover.

Lupanic.6502:

Blackmoa.3186:

Necromancers right now are a realy rare sight in tpvp, and that has good reasons.
The main reaons is that Necromancer doesnt do anything better than any other class, the key role of Condition pressure in teamfights is already taken by the HGH engi, who does alot better at it. Also Necromancers have no way to mitigate dmg or disengage and are tehrefore the first taregt in every fight if positioning allows it, but here engineer is again better cause of bigger range and access to swiftness in a viable build.

Some teams stopped using HGH engineers because they die to fast. You write a lot about disadvantages but not about the benefits (fear is great for example).

But since no top team is running with a necro I guess you are right. Necro needs love.

Every class has pros and cons. But compared to engineer the nec is just not viable enough anymore. While engineers are good in 1v1 situations and able to kill bunkers solo, necros can’t. Some teams also tend to push far with a kit-engineer, which puts a huge pressure on the opposite team. Same goes for S/D thief. Necro has just not that many options.

I hope that DS#5 and new condition [that will get necro first] will set necro in better state)

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Lupanic.6502:

Blackmoa.3186:

Necromancers right now are a realy rare sight in tpvp, and that has good reasons.
The main reaons is that Necromancer doesnt do anything better than any other class, the key role of Condition pressure in teamfights is already taken by the HGH engi, who does alot better at it. Also Necromancers have no way to mitigate dmg or disengage and are tehrefore the first taregt in every fight if positioning allows it, but here engineer is again better cause of bigger range and access to swiftness in a viable build.

Some teams stopped using HGH engineers because they die to fast. You write a lot about disadvantages but not about the benefits (fear is great for example).

But since no top team is running with a necro I guess you are right. Necro needs love.

Every class has pros and cons. But compared to engineer the nec is just not viable enough anymore. While engineers are good in 1v1 situations and able to kill bunkers solo, necros can’t. Some teams also tend to push far with a kit-engineer, which puts a huge pressure on the opposite team. Same goes for S/D thief. Necro has just not that many options.

You are playing at top level so I do not answer back to your arguments. On low skilled games the necros doing well if they go to decap a guarded point.

Bhawb.7408:

I find it unlikely that people at the top have really played around that much. Maybe we are totally off base and you have tried every build out there, but I find it highly unlikely. I feel confident saying this because competitive gamers in every game tend to play quite a bit, and just not notice the power of something. They stick to FOTM because they know it will work, and frankly there is no incentive to take the chance.

If you think you have invented a super build that others necros and top necros have not tested you’re nuts. Most are just not forum warriors and spend their time playing.

I used to think the same thing you did about bunkers builds power builds, dagger builds etc… I thought they were good because i did very well with them, until I started playing against better players. Flat out there are other classes that do it better.

There are a ton of builds all over the place for all classes, dont think for a second I and other necros have not tested and tested again anything you think is a god build.

I predicted this months ago, Necros would not have a top spot once players became better and learned how to counter other classes. People figured out very fast how to take a necro out of the picture and how easy it is to control the necro in a fight.

Its a playable class for sure but a one trick pony. Still I do expect to see more necros again when corrupt boon stops failing so often, a faster recharge would help also.

Speaking of engi burning damage, I think I set a record once when I was stalling on a point with an engi bashing on me….the damage log showed a whooping near 40k damage from burning.
Gasp

Well, about dmg logs, i think they are bugged, cause sometimes….. i do the sum and it comes up i sohuld have like over 100k HP….. you might think it had to be a very long fight…. nope usually like 30s.
Mainly happening with conditions, burning, bleeding and retaliation seems to show more ticks than what they actually did.

It wasn’t a bug, I was alternating between full ds, plague form and another set of at least half full DS with some heals inbetween. It also doesn’t take very long to burn down a target forced to sit on a point, especially after dropping the crate.

yes, got 118k bleeding damage from a ranger last time. Fight was ~1min long. It was the first fight in tPvP.

necro isn’t bad…it just has a higher skill cap than engi..that’s why all the players prefer to play the easier class…
in my guild team I play only necro and it works pretty good…if we would have more time to play right now, we would easily play always in the top200 if not in top100 EU..

like someone already said in this thread, you just need to be creative with the builds..at the moment I play 5 viable builds, all selfmade…for every map a suitable build..for example on temple I play crit-dmg with wells on niflhel MM to beat the rangers etc.

P.S. every of these builds has swiftness

This gem of a thread most definitely belongs here:

anoobis.6179:

Deathshroud 5 should, in all honestly be a necro only condition. The fact that it will be for every class is already gimping the necro even more so than it is now. You want to balance the necro with a Deathshroud 5. Make it an ungodly peel. Necros have next to no survivability. Also, Deathshroud 5 should put more than 1 condition on the target. Give me burning, please. Also, if you want to make Signet of Spite viable – give it every other kittening condition that Necro’s do not easily have access to.

But in all seriousness the Deathshroud 5 should summon a random Thief out of hotjoin to peel for the necro. This can be used once every 2 minutes. Thief will encounter a giant loading screen at random in hot join and be presented with the text “PREPARE TO PEEL FOR NECRO”. Once in said thief will be given every boon in the game and immediately start spamming hear seeker on the Necro’s target. When he presses a button Thief will be in control and in for one minute. Immediately after the Thief is returned to the Heart of the Mists.

PEEL FOR NECRO, NAO!
Awesomeness.

rEaPeX.8415:

necro isn’t bad… … … … I play 5 viable builds, all selfmade…for every map a suitable build..for example on temple I play crit-dmg with wells on niflhel MM to beat the rangers etc.

P.S. every of these builds has swiftness

Necro isn’t bad tot he extent of being entirely unplayable, but it also isn’t optimal,

What exactly are you doing for your team in your 5 “viable” builds? Look at it in these terms: The nature of the game in its current form is that everyone on a team must fill a role. For simplicity sake lets just say that means Bunker, Roamer, Close Point Defender, Far Point Assault are your choices.

If you are Bunkering with a necromancer, then you are doing your team a disservice, because Guardian, Elementalist, Engineer and Ranger all have better tools for the job. Each of them is more suitable to bunker than Necro, and the most bunker-ish necro build you can come up with will be deficient compared to any one of these classes built to bunker (some of which can actually bunker better than your “best” bunker with a non-bunker build). If you play bunker necro effectively, then you are just out-skilling opponents. It isn’t because the build is suited to the purpose.

If you are Roaming with a Necromancer, then what are you providing your team that someone else can’t do better? First of all, mobility is at a premium as a roamer and even if you are using a traited Spectral Walk with high death magic for the huge swiftness uptime you still lack the mobility of a thief, ele, ranger or warrior playing the same role due to a lack of movement skills. Mesmer is arguably even better in terms of mobility, and absolutely provides more roaming utility to a group with portal. Supposing you are just roaming to bunker bust by stripping boons the long CD on Corrupt Boons is a glaring weakness compared to the relative spamability that Mesmer and Thief have on their boon removals. Other necromancer strips are simply too easily avoided. You will almost never hit a good player with focus 5 if he doesn’t want you to due to the long cast (beside the point that focus is rarely used anyway) and Well of Corruption is unlikely to hit a good player more than a tick or MAYBE 2 before going on its long CD. If you are running some kind of sustain DPS roamer team, then you lack any kind of reliable gap closer, so you have to count on a teammate’s assistance to optimize your DPS which still isn’t as good as other professions.

As a Close Point Defender Necro is just sub-par in every possible way. 2 people chaining CC on a Necro means a dead necro, regardless of build, in a matter of seconds. 30 Reaping is basically required for this purpose (otherwise you just get the point neuted in 4 seconds by anyone that can push you off point and lock you down). Basically you can’t hold off 2 assaulters long enough to get teammates there, and you can’t hold the point in a 1v1 against anyone with a brain and a moderate amount of CC. Even if you get past these deficiencies of the necro in this role, you still are stuck with the inability to assist at any other objective due to the lack of mobility. As soon as a Necro defender is off-point too many other classes can get to it faster than you and neut it.

As a Far Point Assaulter you need to be able to disengage when opponents respawn and out number you. Necro cannot do this. With any build. Under any circumstance other than simply out-skilling the opponent. Furthermore, you need to be able to get across the map fast. You can’t. Too many other professions do all of this better.

Basically to make a necro worth bringing into a match against skilled opponents at least one and usually 2 of your team mates need to be focused on making up for the myriad deficiencies that the profession has, and since even when compensated for there is always a class that can provide the same function at a comparable level the return on investment just isn’t good enough to justify it.

1.) Yes, bunker is not a good choice for a necro..and that’s also something I’ve never played in tourneys

2.) roaming is most of the things I do…I play always with warhorn (the 2 sec. daze is so awesome) with this, you are almost as fast as an engi..
and the condi dmg is probably not as good as the one from engis, but you have boon remove..wich I like more than a little bit more dmg…(and anyways, I also think that engi is in general a bit better and needs a little tweak, but that doesn’t make necro a bad choice if you can play it)

Of course you aren’t that fast like an ele, mes, warrior etc. but you have other advantages. (like boon remove ;P)

3.) & 4.) for that you play MM…with the right build you will beat even rangers in 1v1…I have never fought against teldos updated far point assault build so till now.. so I don’t know if that is beatable but till last weekend..I’ve beaten every class in 1v1 as an MM.

and to summarize it:
I never said you can do something better as an other class..but you can do it good in an other way

Of course you aren’t that fast like an ele, mes, warrior etc. but you have other advantages. (like boon remove ;P)

Mesmer has way more boon remove than necro though

MM = mightmancer or what is MM?

Blackmoa.3186:

Of course you aren’t that fast like an ele, mes, warrior etc. but you have other advantages. (like boon remove ;P)

Mesmer has way more boon remove than necro though

more, but not that good (no changing in condis :P)

Lupanic.6502:

MM = mightmancer or what is MM?

minion master…

I know the AI is not that good…but for pushing and defending the close point against a ranger, it’s enough

rEaPeX.8415:

Lupanic.6502:

MM = mightmancer or what is MM?

minion master…

I know the AI is not that good…but for pushing and defending the close point against a ranger, it’s enough

True, but not that usefull in other situations and sure not that effective on what other classes can do.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

rEaPeX.8415:

Lupanic.6502:

MM = mightmancer or what is MM?

minion master…

I know the AI is not that good…but for pushing and defending the close point against a ranger, it’s enough

True, but not that usefull in other situations and sure not that effective on what other classes can do.

that’s true..but in our team it’s the only way to counter the ranger, because we play without one on niflhel
and of course because I like it to play

I think anet believe the necro is too dependent on bleeds which is too easily cleared so they are addressing this by adding a new DoT condition to the necro deathshroud which should give the necro much needed condition variety.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I think anet believe the necro is too dependent on bleeds which is too easily cleared so they are addressing this by adding a new DoT condition to the necro deathshroud which should give the necro much needed condition variety.

A-net may believe that, but what is a new DoT on a #5 skill DS long CD really going to do to solve this? The answer is not a thing, and especially not if other professions also get access to the condition. Effective DoTconditions in tPvP need to be covered or so diverse that cleanses can’t get all of them fast enough. The only way a Necro gets covers is bleeding. The only way to get a condition worth covering is Terror, and its duration is so short that you are miles ahead by just bringing someone with burning. If you just stack bleeds, then your ramp up is too long and you have to start over on pretty much every cleanse. Now Scepter 1 changed to bleed on 1st rep, confusion on 2nd, poison on 3rd, then you would be talking. Adding one odd ball condition that you will have access to every 60s or so isn’t gonna do squadoosh, even if it is double the damage of burn.