Guild Wars 2

I’ll preface this by saying I only got to play for a very limited amount of time yesterday. I main a thief and a necro. Standing around in the mists I heard everyone talk about how necro is OP now and the new FOTM.

There were a few trait changes and some weapon skill changes along with the addition of Torment to death shroud. Being pretty familiar with the class I was excited for these changes as I’m pretty sure everyone can agree necros needed some work.

My question is why are people suddenly calling them OP?

They got exactly one more fear in the Spectral Wall utility. The duration of wall is very short now and it’s a wall, it’s avoidable and stability negates any effect so I can’t imagine everyone else is saying this skill alone made necros OP.

Torment is neat. The damage is rather meh though. I can’t imagine those three ticks of torment hitting for 78 are turning the tides of battle suddenly so I don’t think it’s this skill either.

Power necros got somewhat of a boost. The burn on crit is nice for sure but power necros suffer from a major lack of burst (unless you get caught in multiple wells) and a major lack of survivability. I don’t think people are complaining of being axed/daggered to death.

Terror has always done good damage and is nothing new to the class but is limited by somewhat long cooldowns and again negated by stability, cleanses etc.

So what is it that people are concerned about now? I’m genuinely curious to the communities reaction and thoughts on this. Are there just suddenly more necros out there so people are being exposed to them more? Is there a new build I haven’t played with yet that is just destroying people? What is it that is now making everyone say necros are the new flavor of the month and the new OP class?

It’ll smooth over. Necros are indeed strong now but nothing way over the top. Honestly I’d of rather seen a penalty for cleansing condi instead of burning on necro, it makes them too similar to hgh engies. Just trading a bit of sustain(dps&surv) and range for a bit of cc(terror) and utility(currupt/epi/sig of undeath). Condi necros fall over quick if they don’t have plague up.

Honestly I think the biggest problem right now is the fact that terror is bugged – you can get multiple ticks from terror without having 100% fear duration(you can get it almost every time with as low as 40% on a 1sec fear) – therefore you don’t even need the fear duration talent which creates a huge problem in the lay out of traits. They made sure that you couldn’t get burning + terror + staff marks are larger + fear duration in the same spec for a reason – but are they aware you don’t need it? If you have 2-3 condis on a target before you drop the fear you’ll get the second tick consistently. Most of the time you only need a few bleeds and it’ll land.

Could you imagine condi being op without staff traits? or if fear only did 1.2k damage instead of 2.4k? considering you’ll land at least 2 back to back with relatively low cool downs that makes a big difference. it wasn’t a problem before because terror was just a “pretty good but not top tier” spec as it was – their strength lied in their utility.

As far as power necros – I don’t think glass cannon power will ever be actually viable its just a fun hotjoin/gimmick spec. Although hybrid mid support wells could probably make a team now. 80% uptime aoe protection – high aoe dps on the point even with soldiers- stability every 10 seconds for stomps – high toughness – 27k life with good life force generation – boon & condi stripping – aoe fear + big heal on resses and plague form to pop in between cooldowns/delay. prob won’t see anyone courageous enough to try though.

People are talking about Necro being over the top, but is isn’t.

Well Bombs are a legit threat from power Necros, so don’t stand in them. They can Shroud Bomb in addition to Lich Bombing now making it far more frequent to get blasted by one. This is dangerous, but obviously an easy counter.

Terror Necros are still dangerous just like they were, so focus them down fast. No News here other than they can pull a Terror burst a little more frequently and for a little more damage thanks to the massive DS3 buff.

DS1 can be traited to hit like a truck, so when you see a necro that is power based go into shroud CC the hell out of him, or LoS, or get some distance, or interrupt his 1.25s cast, or block it or evade it, or focus him so he can only get 2 shots off before losing shroud.

I haven’t tested a Heavy Siphon build to any serious extent, but with the little testing I’ve done it seems like it will be a pretty sustainable tank that can do moderate damage. Certainly nothing special, but just enough damage to be a threat and enough sustain to apply continuous pressure. Meh.

That is really the only stuff to be concerned about. Yeah Necro is good at damaging stuff now, but all of it has counters. I think people are crying because now they have to get used to playing against a necro that is actually dangerous. They’ll have to learn a few tricks to counter the Necro builds that have become viable, but I am not scared of a necro all of a sudden.

dejay.2598:

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Honestly I think the biggest problem right now is the fact that terror is bugged – you can get multiple ticks from terror without having 100% fear duration(you can get it almost every time with as low as 40% on a 1sec fear) – therefore you don’t even need the fear duration talent which creates a huge problem in the lay out of traits…

Terror is not bugged. Fact that you can get 2 damage ticks from 50% condi duration is because all condis share an internal cooldown. So, when you first put some bleeding on a target(or any other condition), internal cd starts counting, and if you hit terror at the right time, you are able to get 2 ticks, which wouldn’t be a case if you didn’t put additional conditions on your target beforehand.

when 5 from 8 per team are same class in hotjoin you can be sure this class is op^^ – golden rule

Necros are pretty strong (maybe OP as most teams are getting one) for imo two reasons:

1. even with a conditionspec they have access to burning now and
2. they have can have a huge weakness uptime on multiple targets

i am not playing necro myself but i have watched others play it and played against it.

we have to see how it turns out. in the past necros had problems with thiefs killing them pretty fast but now with the new weakness and the lack of stunbreakers for all those fears and the conditions (especially burning) ticking on them necros lost their “natural enemy”..

Romek.4201:

when 5 from 8 per team are same class in hotjoin you can be sure this class is op^^ – golden rule

eh… So Hot Join is now the litmus test for balance? Naw, dude. Get serious. HJ was still filled with trolling D/P thieves when they were in a terrible place balance wise before the buff to S/D.

This is a typical reaction to a major balance pass. People see that a class gets new toys and they want to try to capitalize on it. The meta will shift and it will go from “no teams have a Necro” to “Some teams have a Necro”, but I don’t see Necro becoming a requirement by any stretch of the imagination.

So people are mad that Necros are like a real class now?

necro was strong(very strong) before patch – the only thing they needed was something to can avoid a fight so enemy dont zerg the necro down

they dont needed a buff in dmg and this will never stay how it is atm or necro will be the first banned class on tournaments^^

Romek.4201:

necro was strong(very strong) before patch – the only thing they needed was something to can avoid a fight so enemy dont zerg the necro down

they dont needed a buff in dmg and this will never stay how it is atm or necro will be the first banned class on tournaments^^

I will assume this is a troll because necros before were not strong at all. They had a single spec that was viable and even then other classes could do it better. You needed a team BUILT AROUND the necro because you couldn’t do kitten on your own AND the only reason you got to go was for your Signet of Undeath (which was probably OP).

Romek.4201:

necro was strong(very strong) before patch – the only thing they needed was something to can avoid a fight so enemy dont zerg the necro down

they dont needed a buff in dmg and this will never stay how it is atm or necro will be the first banned class on tournaments^^

I think you’ve missed your guess here. CB got nerfed and so did Signet of Undeath. Those were crutches that made taking the sub-par necro conceivably playable on a team that really needed those functions. People were carrying necros when they needed those things.

Now Necro is more of an offensive threat with marginally better sustain, but CB will probably be off a lot of those skill bars and signet isn’t as sure a thing anymore.

Bottom line is that necro is still extremely susceptible to focus fire, but is more likely to put a major hurt on you before you can drop them if you just rush in.

Still not the best burst frequency. Still not the best bunker. Still can’t boon kitten for a whole team the way other classes can. Still has no mobility. Still can’t strip boons as well as others and is in fact now worse than pre-patch at it.

What Necro does offer is a ton of diversity and flexibility in builds. If anything needs a balance look, then signet might still need to come down a bit, and Wall might need some tweaks to prevent double procs, but let the meta settle and people learn to play the new trait systems and we’ll see where it lands.

I like the changes. They have added more options and versatility to a largely unplayed class, as far as tournaments go, without sacrafising their stance on how Necro ought to perform.

I think the rearranged traits give the class more staying power without focusing on player demands for the need of increased mobility.

Spectral skills not cancelling when you DS is a huge quality of life change! Which does not noticably affect balance as far as I can imagine.

Spectral wall is quite amazing, but requires strategic use on the Necro’s side and insight on the opponents side, which will result in more dynamic playing.
@Myrmidian: people just shouldn’t run through it twice… you can dodge through it, no?

Torment is a decent peel as far as DS goes, more seperate conditions makes the Necromancer stronger.

Signet of Undeath cast time increase is admirable, now we have an excuse not to run it… these kinds of full resses are slowly disappear from SPVP anyways.

Corrupt Boon nerf was not required, it has a significant cooldown, but it’s clear Anet are having trouble balancing this skill: Should it be unblockable? Should line of sight interrupt the casttime?
Still think S/D thief is a gimmick that instantly appeared and took over the Necromancer’s niche.

If anything the interesting build paths got buffed (Fear / Power) and the passive ones (Minions) were left largely untouched for a change.

Warrior with cleansing ire is fine.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Warrior with cleansing ire is fine.

Would have done a bit better if you didn’t eat 8s of CC. Can’t burst when you are under fear.

They put burning on the power line for some stupid reason, so no condi necros will be taking it now as you need soul marks still from soul reaping and the staff traits from Death Magic.

The only necros that are taking Dhuumfire are hybrid necros which are basically glass and have no survivability — they run it in WvW zergs.

30/30/10 is not doable in spvp as you will be trained to the ground without soul markes or staff cd’s or Reaper’s Defense.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Warrior with cleansing ire is fine.

Would have done a bit better if you didn’t eat 8s of CC. Can’t burst when you are under fear.

It’s amazing to me why a warriour wouldn’t take bull’s charge, balanced stance, and dolyak signet now.

You can now get an adept trait in discipline for vigor on stance use, you have 2 long sources of stability alongside 2 sources of swiftness, and with condition removal you’ll have plenty of uptime.

Where exactly is OP the necro? If anything the game has become a lot more varied and fun to play ….In Karl we believe

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Warrior with cleansing ire is fine.

Would have done a bit better if you didn’t eat 8s of CC. Can’t burst when you are under fear.

Bit hard in group fights

Get stability. They only have so many strips, you can get 2 sources of it, plus one from your guardian.

Zenith.7301:

They put burning on the power line for some stupid reason, so no condi necros will be taking it now as you need soul marks still from soul reaping and the staff traits from Death Magic.

The only necros that are taking Dhuumfire are hybrid necros which are basically glass and have no survivability — they run it in WvW zergs.

30/30/10 is not doable in spvp as you will be trained to the ground without soul markes or staff cd’s or Reaper’s Defense.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Warrior with cleansing ire is fine.

Would have done a bit better if you didn’t eat 8s of CC. Can’t burst when you are under fear.

It’s amazing to me why a warriour wouldn’t take bull’s charge, balanced stance, and dolyak signet now.

You can now get an adept trait in discipline for vigor on stance use, you have 2 long sources of stability alongside 2 sources of swiftness, and with condition removal you’ll have plenty of uptime.

Most of the necros haven’t been running Soul Marks in condi builds even pre-patch, as they were taking 50% fear duration instead of it, and stability if they went 30 into soul reaping. Even with soul marks, if you get focused, you are going to get a hard time(better now that you can get some stunbreakers on a bar, because of signet and CB nerf).

Scoobaniec.9561:

Bit hard in group fights

Group fight? I see only Necro skills there.
You were playing 1vs1.

But yeah, I guess using Stomp in group fight when feared is too hard.

Krilce.7864:

Zenith.7301:

They put burning on the power line for some stupid reason, so no condi necros will be taking it now as you need soul marks still from soul reaping and the staff traits from Death Magic.

The only necros that are taking Dhuumfire are hybrid necros which are basically glass and have no survivability — they run it in WvW zergs.

30/30/10 is not doable in spvp as you will be trained to the ground without soul markes or staff cd’s or Reaper’s Defense.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Warrior with cleansing ire is fine.

Would have done a bit better if you didn’t eat 8s of CC. Can’t burst when you are under fear.

It’s amazing to me why a warriour wouldn’t take bull’s charge, balanced stance, and dolyak signet now.

You can now get an adept trait in discipline for vigor on stance use, you have 2 long sources of stability alongside 2 sources of swiftness, and with condition removal you’ll have plenty of uptime.

Most of the necros haven’t been running Soul Marks in condi builds even pre-patch, as they were taking 50% fear duration instead of it, and stability if they went 30 into soul reaping. Even with soul marks, if you get focused, you are going to get a hard time(better now that you can get some stunbreakers on a bar, because of signet and CB nerf).

Soul marks is what helps me get LF from 0 at the beginning of a match to a manageable amount for when I eventually get focused. Without soul marks, my life force generation is negligible.

This one of my gripes with power necro as they basically gave axe an extra 2% LF regen and scepter1% extra per condition, and that won’t make the issue of those weapons’ terrible LF generation go away.

Anyone dodge your axe 2, bam, you have no LF outside bringing your 2 spectral skills.

I feel as a power necro now pretty much required to bring spectral armor and spectral wall to have any LF generation while focused, and that means I must lose well of suffering or corrupt boon (they compete with each other for the final slot).

And they certainly didn’t fix lich form as this warrior with a rifle at 600 range was still sidestepping the projectiles. It’s sad really how bad necro projectiles are.

Spectral Grasp is also a clearly inferior version of Scorpion wire. It doesn’t even home in on a target; it just flies in their direction and more than one time an ele with swiftness has just walked to the side and avoided it.

Well I primarily solo q and so usually I end up ranked 95%. Since the patch its been easier to carry teams so I getting my rating to around 500 I expect. So I am happy

Zenith.7301:

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Soul marks is what helps me get LF from 0 at the beginning of a match to a manageable amount for when I eventually get focused. Without soul marks, my life force generation is negligible.

….

If you are a power necro spamming marks for LF, then you are doing it wrong. Hit some Staff 1’s or run a dagger for the superior DPS over Axe.

Necro is not without its issues, but neither is any class in this game. Generating LF should be one of your lesser complaints on a power necro though, and generally I never found Soul Marks good in a power build. Always went a different way, because it was a trait to augment what was already a strength in a power build.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Zenith.7301:

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Soul marks is what helps me get LF from 0 at the beginning of a match to a manageable amount for when I eventually get focused. Without soul marks, my life force generation is negligible.

….

If you are a power necro spamming marks for LF, then you are doing it wrong. Hit some Staff 1’s or run a dagger for the superior DPS over Axe.

Necro is not without its issues, but neither is any class in this game. Generating LF should be one of your lesser complaints on a power necro though, and generally I never found Soul Marks good in a power build. Always went a different way, because it was a trait to augment what was already a strength in a power build.

I’m not going into melee with 0 life force to hope I’ll regen enough via dagger auto before I get torn apart.

That is just signaling those lovely D/P thieves and eles “hey, you can kill me even quicker than you expected to!”

My staff 1’s are getting sidestepped 24/7.

Terror builds…tainted shackles into fear chain, boom headshot

I really don’t know if I can cope with it for much longer , I’m so close to just quitting the game sadly.

I can’t log in without getting people whispering me “oh how does it feel playing the most op class in the game” or spamming builds and burst rotations that have been known for months.

It’s so great to just be called op after you’ve been practicing this profession since beta. This honestly just leaves me so frustrated.

People are being very obnoxious by saying Necro is OP or even stating that Necro was “very strong” before the patch. Necros are now on par with the other professions and rightfully so.

Expansive.3716:

People are being very obnoxious by saying Necro is OP or even stating that Necro was “very strong” before the patch. Necros are now on par with the other professions and rightfully so.

Ahahahahahaha

Don’t really know what changed since I don’t play necro and have no interest in them, but certainly have more presence.

Hybrid necros got more damage and spectral skills are more useful. That’s about it.

These threads make me “Lol”.

I bet most of the complainers are thieves that aren’t getting carried by their s/d cookie cutter builds anymore.

Pyriall.5027:

Terror builds…tainted shackles into fear chain, boom headshot

Pretty much, did a tPvP a couple minutes ago, 4 necromancers and they just wiped the floor with us.

Any Stability I had was removed in a second.
With so much condition stacking, no one could do a kitten thing.
All the Necromancers were basically glass cannons, it didn’t matter as weakness they stacked lasted for 30 seconds or more.

Congrats ArenaNet, sPvP is unplayable.

Whatb the guy above me said. I played a necromancer monoe mono and it was fairly balanced and fine..however when the other 3 joined,..well my team got face melted horribly. Too much conditions, being stacked too fast for us to do much. Too much crippled in wells, too much tormented and feared.

I find it remarkable the phatntasm mesmer build which only thrived 1 vs 1 got nerfed, but necromancer got some nice buffs, but when in a team they become overwhelming.

I guess guild wars 2 balances some cases as if it is a 1 vs 1 game and others as if they will be the only one of this profession per match..which is again remarkable, considering you need 5 to start a match. (Even though at times it will start you with only 3.)

lol if you really wanna know rangers and necros swapped in their ability to work in spvp

Nova Stiker.8396:

Pyriall.5027:

Terror builds…tainted shackles into fear chain, boom headshot

Pretty much, did a tPvP a couple minutes ago, 4 necromancers and they just wiped the floor with us.

Any Stability I had was removed in a second.
With so much condition stacking, no one could do a kitten thing.
All the Necromancers were basically glass cannons, it didn’t matter as weakness they stacked lasted for 30 seconds or more.

Congrats ArenaNet, sPvP is unplayable.

someone actually got it.

necromancers access to conditions (especially weakness) is too much right now.. and they still lack mobility/the ability to disengage fight.

Weakness needs to go down for a start.This kitten paired with protection completely shuts down power classes..I dont get why they had to buff it to this level..and why is it rng?
If you play a class that relies on hitting a few high damage ability and you get bad luck and get affectd by weakness its over..you just lost 50% of most of your damage only by this EASILY APPLIED VERY LONG DURATION debuff

Nova Stiker.8396:

Pyriall.5027:

Terror builds…tainted shackles into fear chain, boom headshot

Pretty much, did a tPvP a couple minutes ago, 4 necromancers and they just wiped the floor with us…… Blablabla……

Congrats ArenaNet, sPvP is unplayable.

You can do it with 4 Thiefes,Mesmers,Guardians,Eng ,Ele……

A single necro is not out of line with other professions, but they seem to stack with extreme efficiency, and I think that is what worries people.

2 Necros at a team fight are very strong, but they still suck and managing downs from every perspective unless they are running the signet (and even then they only don’t suck once every 3 minutes for a rez), and they are still very susceptible to focus fire and CC.

3 Necros that are specifically condition based just completely overpower condition removals. Can’t do a thing about it unless you burst them down fast and get a stomp. The same could be said for 3 Grenadier Engis, so I don’t really see why this is a huge point of discussion now. If you don’t have the burst to take them down fast, then just out maneuver them. Stacking 3 necros can kill stuff near them, but they move like old people fork. Split aggressively and they won’t be able to get point to point fast enough to defend anything. If they pop their Spectral Walk to get around fast then they are without a stun break for an extended period of time. CC at will and plow them into the dirt. You can also easily harass a Necro in transit from point to point and wear them down since they can heal for squadoosh on a long 25s or longer CD (I don’t count Blood Fiend because it is obviously useless).

Frankly, I think the Weakness buff is a good thing, but would have preferred a flat reduction (perhaps 20-25% flat reduction) to this RNG stuff. The debuff conditions are still not strong enough for the most part to really necessitate cleanses in a lot of situations and I think bringing them up a bit is a good thing.

Protection has been too strong without a real counter condition (25 stacks of Vulnerable completely mitigated and then some by 1 application of Protection) for way too long. If you nerf protection I think it all falls into place. Even if you just make protection a 20% reduction rather than 33%, I think it makes everything better.

You drama queens saying that PvP is suddenly unplayable are out of hand. Stop it. Try to put together some strategies that beat them and experiment with counter-comps. The stale meta got shaken up and the stuff you’ve done for the last 8 months doesn’t work as well any more. That’s what happens. Sack up and find a way to beat it. You haven’t exhausted all of your options in the 48 hours since the patch.

If multi-necro comps are still face-rolling people in a few weeks then they may need to be taken down a peg or adjusted, but I don’t think we will see that. Necro got much stronger offensively with this patch, but there are still plenty of working counters for them.

Arenanet seems to censor this thread – Here another post from my perspective.
I was thinking about necros the last two days and I think in 1vs1 they are fairly balanced, however like with engis before the patch and with ele’s the patch before they are beyond OP when it comes to stack classes.
With 1 Necromancer decent cleansing is possible (if well timed) when you have 2 Necromancer or 1x Nec + 1x Engi or in worst case 2x Nec + 1x/2x Engi you cant cleanse on purpose. You get kitten d by condition after you cleansed them. I didnt know that the game has so much different conditions before I faced a team with the last mentioned combo. And its not like you get 1x stack of bleeding – its about 10x stacks+ burning+ weakness+ poison+ chill+ cripple + blind+ torment+ confusion and if he plays smart he spread it with unblockable epidemic on a 10 sec cd and your hole group is kittened because you have to waste major cd to cleanse or you just die in an upcoming fear. That’s whats people complain about – The stacking potential is fairly huge. A guard is nearly becoming worthless because that condition burst will kitten him quite easily and you need huge spike to kill the nec+engi fast. And while its possible to shut down an engi with no stunbreaker pretty fast its not possible for necros though. If they recognised they get focused, they will use their deathshroud and afterwards plaque form.
The damage of necromancer was already in a good state before the patch – Necros complained about susceptibilty to cc and spike damage. Now you increased the damage and necros dont even have to dodge to kill you – Thats not what I call clever balancing. Instead of doing your own kitten Arenanet just listen to the feedback of the community. I think giving necros burning was never necessary.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Whatb the guy above me said. I played a necromancer monoe mono and it was fairly balanced and fine..however when the other 3 joined,..well my team got face melted horribly. Too much conditions, being stacked too fast for us to do much. Too much crippled in wells, too much tormented and feared.

I find it remarkable the phatntasm mesmer build which only thrived 1 vs 1 got nerfed, but necromancer got some nice buffs, but when in a team they become overwhelming.

I guess guild wars 2 balances some cases as if it is a 1 vs 1 game and others as if they will be the only one of this profession per match..which is again remarkable, considering you need 5 to start a match. (Even though at times it will start you with only 3.)

Guess it’s time to revise your builds and skills.