Guild Wars 2

In the first two seasons, and pre-HoT, necros where the quintessential selfish bruiser. Necros where slow moving but tough. However a year ago necro’s role was flipped on it’s head. Necro was changed from a self-sufficient bruiser to a support-dependent ADC. Necro went from being one of the tanky classes to the squishiest.

Now at that time the change to being support-dependant ADC (that specialized in killing supports) wasn’t all that bad because much of the meta revolved around teamfights and support duos. However the combination of repeated nerfs to supports and the enforcement of solo/duo has killed the teamfight meta and the support duo.

Necros as they stand now, are a class that is designed for a meta that doesn’t exist. We are designed for countering supports that don’t exist anymore, and are dependent on having those same non-existent supports on our team.

What are you doing with our class Anet?

need some solid ranged pressure for power builds. axe is not very great at pressuring aware ppls, and base shroud is garbaggio.

Hopefully, the new expansion will change things up, and give us some new tools and class mechanic to play with.

Agreed with the support we play with and against. To be honest, most of us are running Necro only because we want to, and not because we’re relevant. A lot of the time before and after the patch, I feel I owe my success to my opponents being unaware/less competent/not in voip. Without dedicated support, any coordinated team can drop you quickly and tilt the teamfight in their favour.

Or maybe I just need to kite more.

Crinn.7864:

In the first two seasons, and pre-HoT, necros where the quintessential selfish bruiser. Necros where slow moving but tough. However a year ago necro’s role was flipped on it’s head. Necro was changed from a self-sufficient bruiser to a support-dependent ADC. Necro went from being one of the tanky classes to the squishiest.

Now at that time the change to being support-dependant ADC (that specialized in killing supports) wasn’t all that bad because much of the meta revolved around teamfights and support duos. However the combination of repeated nerfs to supports and the enforcement of solo/duo has killed the teamfight meta and the support duo.

Necros as they stand now, are a class that is designed for a meta that doesn’t exist. We are designed for countering supports that don’t exist anymore, and are dependent on having those same non-existent supports on our team.

What are you doing with our class Anet?

dont exagerate, necros are not the squishiest class, necros are the most dangerous class in a team fights(not only have a good amount of aoe dmg, they turn defenses(boons) into dmg) cuz this the strategy is “kill necro firts” and no class cant resist a focused spike, and a focused spike is the thing necro gets when apears in the big team fight cuz not doing so is losing the fight

HoT PVP is simple.
Movement skill + damage ouput + cc + healing + def skill + CD timing.
We call them spammmm. You can ref that two OP class – teef and DH.
This is a ratotion and system.
But Nec and Ele they are out of this system.

megilandil.7506:

Crinn.7864:

In the first two seasons, and pre-HoT, necros where the quintessential selfish bruiser. Necros where slow moving but tough. However a year ago necro’s role was flipped on it’s head. Necro was changed from a self-sufficient bruiser to a support-dependent ADC. Necro went from being one of the tanky classes to the squishiest.

Now at that time the change to being support-dependant ADC (that specialized in killing supports) wasn’t all that bad because much of the meta revolved around teamfights and support duos. However the combination of repeated nerfs to supports and the enforcement of solo/duo has killed the teamfight meta and the support duo.

Necros as they stand now, are a class that is designed for a meta that doesn’t exist. We are designed for countering supports that don’t exist anymore, and are dependent on having those same non-existent supports on our team.

What are you doing with our class Anet?

dont exagerate, necros are not the squishiest class, necros are the most dangerous class in a team fights(not only have a good amount of aoe dmg, they turn defenses(boons) into dmg) cuz this the strategy is “kill necro firts” and no class cant resist a focused spike, and a focused spike is the thing necro gets when apears in the big team fight cuz not doing so is losing the fight

“kill necro firts” Not because of nec are dangerous. Because the damage output will not be wasted by block, dodge, movement, inv…. , Because nec can’t pass any key and make any damage when they are be focus(CC spam), Because you can make a lot of pressure on the enemy, Because nec is a role of punching bag in a match. This is all because of the highest efficiency.

Necromancers have the highest Hp pool of the game, but that is all they have. Without a single block/evade/immunity skill they’re the easiest class to kill because they eat everything you throw them. Conditions, Power Burst combos, CC, everything. You will Never Miss a necromancer, you will keep him under pressure all the time long and he can’t do anything to stop you (unless active 2 fear skills that you can ignore with stability, or if they’re lucky corrupt your stability to apply fear. Nothing more).

The damage of necros is medium, a little better than eles but not enough to make real burst of Power or Condition damage like all the other classes can do. Only the actual ele meta inflict lesser damage, but is one of the strongest and useful class of this meta. frequently if you have an ele in your team you win because grant a large amount of support, heal and is able to ress you, and have Immunity end Movement skills, that save him if is under a focus.

The only role fo the necromancer since pre hot is corrupt boons. nothing more. You corrupt boons, inflict poison and die. Respown and repeat.
We had only a moment of glory in the season 2 (if I don’t get wrong) where we was able to kill someone in 1v1 and had a good dps compared to the meta of that season (still bunker meta). But we was nerfed (chill damage brutally nerfed to 1 bleed), we got our only decent defensive skills nerfed, even more patch by patch, and the bunker meta ended, forcing all the other classes to go in dps and granting them high damage. But all the other classes have Real Defensive skills, we don’t. And our damage is even worst than the season 2!
But what is worst is that there’s no need to corrupt boons because there’s no more boon spamming builds, because to survive and to Burst now there’s no more needs to spam boons.
The only role of the necromancer is corrupt Stability. if the enemy don’t have stability we can hope to corrupt Might into weakness, reducing his damage by a little. But nothing more. Our role is gone.

We can only hope to obtain a new Elite that grant us a New Role.

Actually if you see someone play necro is not because is strong but only because is cool and funny to play, still if it’s the worst sPvP class of the moment.

xeonage.1253:

“kill necro firts” Not because of nec are dangerous. Because the damage output will not be wasted by block, dodge, movement, inv…. , Because nec can’t pass any key and make any damage when they are be focus(CC spam), Because you can make a lot of pressure on the enemy, Because nec is a role of punching bag in a match. This is all because of the highest efficiency.

By your logic, why even run Necro? What’s the point if the class has all these downsides? Shouldn’t I just counter this efficient focus strategy and reroll another class?

As people have already mentioned, Necro doesn’t do a lot of condi damage as Condi, does ok damage as Power, and has poor utility defensive skills (and class mechanic) which makes the class weak to focus fire.

The only selling point is Boon Corruption, which allows Necros to break sustain bunkers and collapse teamfights when they would otherwise go on unendingly. They used to be valuable enough to overlook their weaknesses and even build a team around Necro to make this class work.

However, as the OP correctly (as I see it) mentions, the bunker playstyle is long gone, everyone has gone more and more into damage-focused Power comps (with a side of Condi), and Necro has become, basically, how to put it…

Irrelevant.

The only time you see them being run in PvP, is because players want to play the class and find it fun (we all have our “goth phase”), while in reality all you are doing is helping carry the enemy team. Because any other class you bring will contribute that much more in the current meta. (Reminds me of DRK in FF14… total Edgelord but take 300% effort to be 80% as good…)

Granted, Necro is easy to play and with minimal effort, you can be helpful to the team; but without any support or peels specifically set up to help you do your job, you won’t be going to the next level with your gameplay.

You will be going back to spawn.

Ralkuth.1456:

xeonage.1253:

“kill necro firts” Not because of nec are dangerous. Because the damage output will not be wasted by block, dodge, movement, inv…. , Because nec can’t pass any key and make any damage when they are be focus(CC spam), Because you can make a lot of pressure on the enemy, Because nec is a role of punching bag in a match. This is all because of the highest efficiency.

By your logic, why even run Necro? What’s the point if the class has all these downsides? Shouldn’t I just counter this efficient focus strategy and reroll another class?

As people have already mentioned, Necro doesn’t do a lot of condi damage as Condi, does ok damage as Power, and has poor utility defensive skills (and class mechanic) which makes the class weak to focus fire.

The only selling point is Boon Corruption, which allows Necros to break sustain bunkers and collapse teamfights when they would otherwise go on unendingly. They used to be valuable enough to overlook their weaknesses and even build a team around Necro to make this class work.

However, as the OP correctly (as I see it) mentions, the bunker playstyle is long gone, everyone has gone more and more into damage-focused Power comps (with a side of Condi), and Necro has become, basically, how to put it…

Irrelevant.

The only time you see them being run in PvP, is because players want to play the class and find it fun (we all have our “goth phase”), while in reality all you are doing is helping carry the enemy team. Because any other class you bring will contribute that much more in the current meta. (Reminds me of DRK in FF14… total Edgelord but take 300% effort to be 80% as good…)

Granted, Necro is easy to play and with minimal effort, you can be helpful to the team; but without any support or peels specifically set up to help you do your job, you won’t be going to the next level with your gameplay.

You will be going back to spawn.

Ahh… if you are a good nec. You will know how the punchbag do their hero job in a team fight. If they cannot kill you in a short time. Your teammate will let them pay for it.

Ahh… nec is a good punchbag. So that is easy to make your enemy to spam their CC, damage skill , movement skill…. when those are over…. then we reap….

xeonage.1253:

Ahh… if your a good nec. You will know how the punchbag do their hero job in a team fight. If they cannot kill you in a short time. Your teammate will let them pay for it.

That picture is hilarious.

I’m not a good Necro.

Oh you mean running out of LoS with pro Reaper Shroud #2 kiting while a Warrior/Mesmer/DH/Thief 2-man team is waiting for you to pop out of Shroud and interrupt your heal which takes 5 million years to coalesce into health (hint: bait those headshot spammers with sheathing)?

Dazing with Wail of Doom or stunning with CTTB! while behind a wall? Around-the-corner or jump puzzle turn-around RS #5 ambush tactics (hint: they don’t work on good players)?

Or simply just staying out of focus so you have the privilege of dying last (hint: sometimes it works and you win teamfight. Amazing!)?

The only time you actually win a 1v2 kiting game is when both of them just used up all their CDs (hint: which, you know, they used to kill your teammates) and you have enough skills available to down one of them. Then you make a beeline for the downed player, cleave like crazy and hope the other player is dumb enough to try a rez (hint: but not interrupt/try to kill me like a decent player).

Around the 200 games or so I’ve been casually playing since last month (160 unranked, ~50% winrate; scrub v scrub), successful 1v2 occurred probably 2 or 3 times. Awkward 1v2 punchbag fiesta usually ends after 20-30 seconds of running around pillars, and happened maybe in 10+ or so games. I’ll admit the first half of games I had Fire + Air sigils to pressure people off me, and after the patch I had to have better positioning.

Pro Necros pls share.

Ralkuth.1456:

xeonage.1253:

Ahh… if your a good nec. You will know how the punchbag do their hero job in a team fight. If they cannot kill you in a short time. Your teammate will let them pay for it.

That picture is hilarious.

I’m not a good Necro.

Oh you mean running out of LoS with pro Reaper Shroud #2 kiting while a Warrior/Mesmer/DH/Thief 2-man team is waiting for you to pop out of Shroud and interrupt your heal which takes 5 million years to coalesce into health (hint: bait those headshot spammers with sheathing)?

Dazing with Wail of Doom or stunning with CTTB! while behind a wall? Around-the-corner or jump puzzle turn-around RS #5 ambush tactics (hint: they don’t work on good players)?

The only time you actually win a 1v2 kiting game is when both of them just used up all their CDs (hint: which, you know, they used to kill your teammates) and you have enough skills available to down one of them. Then you make a beeline for the downed player, cleave like crazy and hope the other player is dumb enough to try a rez (hint: but not interrupt/try to kill me like a decent player).

Around the 200 games or so I’ve been casually playing since last month (160 unranked, ~50% winrate; scrub v scrub), successful 1v2 occurred probably 2 or 3 times. Awkward 1v2 punchbag fiesta usually ends after 20-30 seconds of running around pillars, and happened maybe in 10+ or so games. I’ll admit the first half of games I had Fire + Air sigils to pressure people off me, and after the patch I had to have better positioning.

Pro Necros pls share.

Yeah! you’re right. lol. This is all Nec can do now. This is all punchbag can do now.
You eat that all kitten then go die and your teammate will go to reap them!
Punchbag hero. Look at my pic, Just is a joke. don’t be serious.

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

Cynz.9437:

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

Movement is the main issue. You have Movement that mean your take helf part of this game. And I don’t think a punch bag need a block!

Cynz.9437:

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

What healing? What defenses? What kind of damage? Didn’t we already clarify that necro has at best medium damage and is a walking punching bag?
Taking even more damage away would make him into a tickling runaway whose only job is to provide some corrupts so that his teammates can break through the enemies defense.
And this could actually work….had GW2 a better pvp with defined roles, but that’s not the topic here.

What you could take away however, as many people already suggested, is the shroud.
Just ignore the second health bar (which is being torn down within seconds anyways), give him blocks, invulns, teleports, a useful heal skill, bring back some toughness amulets and then we can talk.

• Flesh wurm could be a great escape skill without a kitten 1.5sec cast time. Make that 0.25 seconds and it’s an actual escape. (Or make it break stun on the actual cast and take away stunbreak on the teleport to make it an actual instant escape like many other classes have)
• Increase the cd on spectral armor to 50sec and make it a 3sec invuln so it matches obsidian flesh. Give the protection and life force gain to spectral walk instead. Also add a small damage reduction while the shroud is active to actually encourage life force gathering.
• Make death’s charge a 1sec block with projectile reflect. That would make it 1sec block every 6 seconds matching about warrior’s shield stance only that a) you wouldn’t even be able to cast it on cd due to shroud recharge b) you can’t be stationary with the skill and c) you’d have to use it more tactically due to the low duration.
  This however wouldn’t help core necros.
• Lower the cast time on Consume Conditions. This skill feels atrocious to use. 0.75sec would be the absolute maximum in my eyes. As a Dh player having to deal with purification I can however say that even this is on the very edge of playable.
• While we are at it…make other heal skills useful. Change the healing signet so that the stacks are only healing you, reduce them to about 10 Stacks and take away the one stack per second limit. At the cd of 35 seconds you want to aim at about 8k heal. Perhaps even a bit more to reward you for managing to take down all stacks. Also reduce the cast time.

These are only a few things and nothing of that would make necro horribly overpowered but bring them in line with other classes, assuming we cut the “second health bar”
In team fights it would require you to decide to which extend you want to hunt the necro down without being able to focus on any other enemy or if you’d rather wait for your thief (your job right here) to arrive and help with the matter…also someone they couldn’t run away from.

the plan for necros?
I have no problem with them in PvP.
I use chill and fear a lot (I usually play necro in conjunction as a support class, so never run around alone).
And when I get down, my downed kill 1 sometimes heals me faster than people kill me.
I mean, it’s not overpowered, but I’d say there are classes in worse positions

Cynz.9437:

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

We have the worst defensives and the worst self healing in the game. Meta thief has better self healing than necro does.

Our damage? You realize necro has no damage modifiers on our trees right? You realize that outside of Greatsword our skills have mediocre coefficients and condi application?

Our “dmg” is purely boon corrupts, but with ArenaNet constantly nerfing boon generation I’m not sure how much longer boon corrupts are going to be relevant.

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

We have the worst defensives and the worst self healing in the game. Meta thief has better self healing than necro does.

Our damage? You realize necro has no damage modifiers on our trees right? You realize that outside of Greatsword our skills have mediocre coefficients and condi application?

Our “dmg” is purely boon corrupts, but with ArenaNet constantly nerfing boon generation I’m not sure how much longer boon corrupts are going to be relevant.

Close to death is a damage modifier. Spiteful talisman is a damage modifier. Strength of undeath is a damage modifier. Target the weak, Lingering Curse, Deadly strength all qualify.

babazhook.6805:

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

We have the worst defensives and the worst self healing in the game. Meta thief has better self healing than necro does.

Our damage? You realize necro has no damage modifiers on our trees right? You realize that outside of Greatsword our skills have mediocre coefficients and condi application?

Our “dmg” is purely boon corrupts, but with ArenaNet constantly nerfing boon generation I’m not sure how much longer boon corrupts are going to be relevant.

Close to death is a damage modifier. Spiteful talisman is a damage modifier. Strength of undeath is a damage modifier. Target the weak, Lingering Curse, Deadly strength all qualify.

None of which are taken on a reasonable build because they require giving up traits relevant to our functionality. They are also very weak modifiers that all have prerequisites.

Also Target the Weak and Deadly Strength aren’t modifiers, they stat additives which are no where near as potent as a multiplicative modifier.

You could always play some bad power build and delude yourself into thinking your doing well. That’s what it seems most are doing. Mine is on the shelf for now.

Close to death is arguably a good pick instead of spiteful spirit because of how broken spiteful spirit currently is.

Also necromancer generate more vulnerability than most classes by relatively doing nothing at all if you take the spite trait-line. There are the crit chance traits as well, they are huge modifiers. Also the amount of might necro passively tend to generate when traited for spite is again a huge modifier since it requires relatively no effort or investment.

Sigmoid.7082:

Close to death is arguably a good pick instead of spiteful spirit because of how broken spiteful spirit currently is.

Also necromancer generate more vulnerability than most classes by relatively doing nothing at all if you take the spite trait-line. There are the crit chance traits as well, they are huge modifiers. Also the amount of might necro passively tend to generate when traited for spite is again a huge modifier since it requires relatively no effort or investment.

Well see our might access and vulnerability access is precisely why our damage is so poor.

Power necro’s damage coefficients and modifiers are balanced around power necro generating 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vulnerability.
The problem with this is that in PvP you don’t get consistent target uptime which means you can’t get those 25 stacks of might and vuln. I run a power necro with Runes of Hoelbrak and Sigil of Courage. That’s pretty much the maximum might gain you can get and yet I find that I spend most of my time sub 15 stacks of might, the exception being while in shroud where I can get the stacks.

Haven’t really played much recently, but when I played a couple of matches post patch, I had the impression that necro/reaper damage is really low without geo-/hydromancy/fire/air/blood sigils, which is not really surprising as the sigils both, the most reliable and one of the highest single hit damage source available to necro. Pretty much all the class damage skills are either too easy to avoid or low damage or both (scepter 2 being more or less the only exception).

edit: @Crinn: Power necro dps is abysmal. It has always been trash and it probably will always be trash.It was only playable in pvp, because of the combination of chill of deaths and sigil procs, which resulted in a “spike” against targets below 50% health. The build was carried by fire/air sigils, because necro has literally 0 good power damage skills.

edit2: the plan for necros is probably to not bring one, as rev+thief can easily train necro to death with the high amount of cc+power damage. At the same time, they have so many evades and blocks/blinds that is pretty much impossible for necro to counter pressure either of them.

Crinn.7864:

Sigmoid.7082:

Close to death is arguably a good pick instead of spiteful spirit because of how broken spiteful spirit currently is.

Also necromancer generate more vulnerability than most classes by relatively doing nothing at all if you take the spite trait-line. There are the crit chance traits as well, they are huge modifiers. Also the amount of might necro passively tend to generate when traited for spite is again a huge modifier since it requires relatively no effort or investment.

Well see our might access and vulnerability access is precisely why our damage is so poor.

Power necro’s damage coefficients and modifiers are balanced around power necro generating 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vulnerability.
The problem with this is that in PvP you don’t get consistent target uptime which means you can’t get those 25 stacks of might and vuln. I run a power necro with Runes of Hoelbrak and Sigil of Courage. That’s pretty much the maximum might gain you can get and yet I find that I spend most of my time sub 15 stacks of might, the exception being while in shroud where I can get the stacks.

I would say what you are pointing out only has strong precedence in PvE. Because there those things are readily available and the lack of other mods ends up overall weaker. As long as you have that traitline, which is the classic power damage traitline you have to invest pretty much nothing more. No blast finishers, no elixirs nothing. Same with crit chance, relatively little investment to hit 100% one of 3 ways.

I wouldn’t say up time is a huge issue either because the application and generation is incredibly rapid.

Also the coefficients on necromancer skills arent that low. Some are actually incredibly high. Look at the new ghastly claws. This ability is the strongest single target ability necromancer has and is one of the strongest damaging abilities in game in the PvP game mode.

I just disagree with

You realize necro has no damage modifiers on our trees right?

as its incredibly hyperbolic

Ralkuth.1456:

Or maybe I just need to kite more.

needs more warhorn 5.

Necros need serious changes right now. And for those of you hoping the next expansion fixed the problems, I don’t share your optimism.

Necros are forced into taking two traitlines: Reaper and Soul Reaping. Nec is essentially unplayable without them. You need the survivability from SR. Also, Reaper shroud is so much better than Death Shroud that there really is no contest between the two. Death and blood are both jokes right now because the Necro has NO survivability outside of shroud.

So now that you’ve been forced into two traitlines, you have one degree of freedom. But we all know that you’re choosing either Spite or Curses. Blood’s life steal is far too impotent to take, and Death gives you the illusion of survivability. Death also centers around minion-based builds that don’t cut it in spvp.

If you go Spite, you’re probably in a power build; with Curses you’re in a condi-based build. With both options, you’re only option for stability is RS 3. If you go foot in the grave, you tale a serious DPS decrease for quite frankly a medicre GM trait. I don’t know anyone who makes that sacrifice.

As a Power necro, you can take wells. But you don’t have the Blood traitline to decrease their cooldown. Because you have few stunbreaks (with your lack of stab) you are forced to take those for utilities. Condi doesn’t lend itself to wells because now you don’t have the dps to justify them. So because you need a stun break, plague signet is a no-brainer.

All of this is to say is that Necro has no build diversity at all. And the builds we’re forced to use underperform because our high hp pool is misinterpreted as survivability in the HOT world of power creep.

So I’m with others: My Necro is shelved.

Sigmoid.7082:

I would say what you are pointing out only has strong precedence in PvE. Because there those things are readily available and the lack of other mods ends up overall weaker. As long as you have that traitline, which is the classic power damage traitline you have to invest pretty much nothing more. No blast finishers, no elixirs nothing. Same with crit chance, relatively little investment to hit 100% one of 3 ways.

Vuln isn’t available in PvP. You’re not going to stack 25 vuln in PvP outside of a RS 5>4 combo with Chilling Darkness.

You need to realize that the might and vuln generating traits in spite have specific prerequisites that suck the value out of them.
Death’s Embrace only applies vuln to targets below 33% health. Siphoned Power only grants might for hitting targets below 50%. Reaper’s might only works on shroud autoattack. Axe auto only applies two vuln for hitting targets below 50%.

I wouldn’t say up time is a huge issue either because the application and generation is incredibly rapid.

Only if your hitting targets below 50%. Above 50% you can barely reach 15 and only after prolonged uptime.

Also boon rip and condi clear are things.

Also the coefficients on necromancer skills arent that low. Some are actually incredibly high. Look at the new ghastly claws. This ability is the strongest single target ability necromancer has and is one of the strongest damaging abilities in game in the PvP game mode.

Spread across a channel. And rarely hits harder than 6k for a full channel.

Necros are still technically tanky, but tankiness doesn’t mean squat when damage is so high. It’s evades, blocks and immunities that are needed now to counter high damage. Necros only have dodge, so their natural tankiness is meaningless. That’s why they have to rely on support and go for a heavy offence build. There’s no other role for them.

Crinn.7864:

snip

Just going to agree to disagree. Clearly have different views. Also if you cant get axe #2 to hit harder than 6k you are doing something wrong.

Sigmoid.7082:

Crinn.7864:

snip

Just going to agree to disagree. Clearly have different views. Also if you cant get axe #2 to hit harder than 6k you are doing something wrong.

Between Protection, Weakness, or some random active defense/CC stopping part of the channel, it’s really not difficult to see how 6k is an incredibly typical cap at any play level other than the lowest.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sigmoid.7082:

Crinn.7864:

snip

Just going to agree to disagree. Clearly have different views. Also if you cant get axe #2 to hit harder than 6k you are doing something wrong.

Between Protection, Weakness, or some random active defense/CC stopping part of the channel, it’s really not difficult to see how 6k is an incredibly typical cap at any play level other than the lowest.

Must be how I play because 6k is fairly mid range for me.

Crinn.7864:

babazhook.6805:

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

I am curious, would necro be willing to give up some of their dmg and HP/healing/defensives for more mobility/blocks?

We have the worst defensives and the worst self healing in the game. Meta thief has better self healing than necro does.

Our damage? You realize necro has no damage modifiers on our trees right? You realize that outside of Greatsword our skills have mediocre coefficients and condi application?

Our “dmg” is purely boon corrupts, but with ArenaNet constantly nerfing boon generation I’m not sure how much longer boon corrupts are going to be relevant.

Close to death is a damage modifier. Spiteful talisman is a damage modifier. Strength of undeath is a damage modifier. Target the weak, Lingering Curse, Deadly strength all qualify.

None of which are taken on a reasonable build because they require giving up traits relevant to our functionality. They are also very weak modifiers that all have prerequisites.

Also Target the Weak and Deadly Strength aren’t modifiers, they stat additives which are no where near as potent as a multiplicative modifier.

This is both cherry picking and moving the goalposts in one.

First anything that increases damage is a damage modifier. If I can get 200 more power on an attack due to a trait then I have increased my damage output and modified it. (in this case around the same increase sigil of force provides)

Claiming it does not qualify as a damage modifier because it not as effective as the ones that add straight percentages is like claiming Sigil of night is a damage modifier and sigil of force is not.

Secondly across all classes there are conditions on many of those modifiers. Thief Executioner is a carbon copy of Close to death. If close to death does not qualify as a damage modifier, neither does executioner.

As to none “qualifying” because they mean you have to give up another trait, that has nothing to do with whether or not it a modifier. If a thief gives up UC to take Bound, he can not say Bound does not function as a damage modifier because he gave up UC to get it.

Bound is a damage modifier. Revealed training is a damage modifier. Close to death is a damage modifier deadly strength is a damage modifier. They operate in different ways and some less effective then another but they all serve to modify damage and increase damage dealt.

What is really being discussed here is the relevancy of Necro in the current patch.

Does it have enough burst? On-demand damage clearly dropped a tier when Fire + Air is removed and Necro can’t quadruple proc with 2 trait 2 sigil using Axe 2. Will damage modifier traits save the class?

Is boon corruption relevant? Will a player contribute more, simply by choosing another class?

What about defenses? No invulns mean non-scaling defense in the face of power creep that HoT introduced. Sure, Reaper Shroud is a lot of offensive pressure, but LF bar is still a damage sponge.

Weakening of the [burst + added boon corruption utility] selling point may bring Necro survivability issues to the fore.

First off, i didn’t talk only about traits that increase damage, i was talking about damage capability in general. I think some necros really don’t realize how much of the threat they are to the enemy team if they are left to freecast.
Since you decided to bring up the thief (apparently someone is really jealous), i would like to point out that thief (along with warriors actually) have mainly single target damage. In the team fight, they can pressure only one person where necro can pressure entire enemy team.
The condi pressure + procs are also great weapons vs most classes.
I personally do not understand why people think that high HP + shroud from necro is so useless. Once again, go play thief/dh/ele with zerker amy – you will get one shot by everything, literary. Maybe it will teach you the difference between low HP pool and highest HP pool in game. As necro you can at least take few hits and still have time to react. As low HP class – you are instantly in downed state. There is no room for reaction anymore.

Now i can see the point of some necros being tired of being dependent on having support babysitting them. On the other hand all i saw so far is them asking for more survival and mobility. But here is the joke, let’s assume necros would get those buffs – wouldn’t it make them second warriors/revs (s1 version). Mobile, tanky juggernaut pressuring whole team? Have we forgot s1-s2 where necros were absolute nightmare? Do we really need more powercreep (i am sure engis wouldn’t appreciate necro buffs)?

Every class has to sacrifice something for their perks. Eles are great supports but they are not doing so well as dps atm; wars maybe be good bruisers but they don’t really bring any team support, mobility or much aoe (see cleave) for that matter; engis are great point holders but they lack in mobility department; thieves are hands down are best roamers atm but they can’t hold point to save their live (or 1v1 most classes for that matter). That was the reason for my question: what would necros be willing to give up for getting things from other areas (see mobility, survival etc).

Necro’s traits suggestion:

1) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fear_of_Death
Your fear effects have increased durations.
Inflict fear on foes when you are downed. (90 sec cd)
Gain 10 energy when you inflict fear on a foe.

2) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soul_Eater
Reduces recharge on greatsword skills.
Gravedigger steals health if it hits.
When above the life force threshold your greatswords attack steals energy.
Life force Threshold: 90
Energy stealed: 5

Cynz.9437:

I personally do not understand why people think that high HP + shroud from necro is so useless. Once again, go play thief/dh/ele with zerker amy – you will get one shot by everything, literary. Maybe it will teach you the difference between low HP pool and highest HP pool in game. As necro you can at least take few hits and still have time to react. As low HP class – you are instantly in downed state. There is no room for reaction anymore.

So you are telling me that instead of having the ability to run away from what kills you it’s better to not be able to do anything about it but at least survive 3 hits before you get killed? That makes no sense at all.
If a Warrior stuns you and starts his 100b your deathshroud is instantly gone and he’ll keep attacking you, but If you teleport away he first hast to get close to you which gives you a lot more freedom. Also you aren’t locked in aoe fields when you have he ability to just get out there which is why the shrouds usefulness goes down exponentially the more people are in the fight and since necros rely solely on team fights… I guess I don’t need to go further.
Perhaps you should start playing necro for once instead of telling everyone to try out thief. Because I did play both last season and playing daredevil is a joke compared to necro… And don’t start with your “but core thief” again. You have daredevil and can use it.

Entenkommando.5208:

Cynz.9437:

I personally do not understand why people think that high HP + shroud from necro is so useless. Once again, go play thief/dh/ele with zerker amy – you will get one shot by everything, literary. Maybe it will teach you the difference between low HP pool and highest HP pool in game. As necro you can at least take few hits and still have time to react. As low HP class – you are instantly in downed state. There is no room for reaction anymore.

So you are telling me that instead of having the ability to run away from what kills you it’s better to not be able to do anything about it but at least survive 3 hits before you get killed? That makes no sense at all.
If a Warrior stuns you and starts his 100b your deathshroud is instantly gone and he’ll keep attacking you, but If you teleport away he first hast to get close to you which gives you a lot more freedom. Also you aren’t locked in aoe fields when you have he ability to just get out there which is why the shrouds usefulness goes down exponentially the more people are in the fight and since necros rely solely on team fights… I guess I don’t need to go further.
Perhaps you should start playing necro for once instead of telling everyone to try out thief. Because I did play both last season and playing daredevil is a joke compared to necro… And don’t start with your “but core thief” again. You have daredevil and can use it.

- can’t run away if you get hit and get one shot
- those teleports have CDs, necros have flesh wurm (actually on shorter CD than shs, fyi)
- enemy is actually effectively locked in aoe due to nature of conquest. Surely i can run out but i would lose the point.
- once again, i get the idea of necros being tired relying on having support which keeps them alive in team fights but this is how the class is designed atm. If they were to change it, necro would have to give up something. Regardless the class, i don’t think we do need more powercreep. Plain buffs would however lead to it.

Actually necro is my second most played class (because it has the lowest skill floor in game and one of the easiest class to start with, especially if you need to switch, imo). Also, i think you really should try to play classes that struggle vs necros; necros are pure nightmare for scrapper for example.

“As necro you can at least take few hits and still have time to react”
Ok, how would you react? As a thief you have teleports that break-stun, stealth, high mobility, if you need to save yourself you can di it easy. Maybe you lose the point but is better than lose the point And grant +5 point to the enemy because killed you.
What can do a Necromancer to stop the enemy to kill him, to CC, to spam burst and conditions on him? The necro have only few damage reduction, but not a single Block/Invul/evade skill. Not a single one. How will you react to save your skin if you need to? Maybe you can try to spam a fear and flee, but you don’t have any Mobility skill and the RS2 have an aftercast that make it useless to flee.
The wurm is your ONLY escape skill, but have Different Problems: You need to place it Before you need it (if you want to place it when you need to flee you’ll never be able to do it in time), You can’t Move the Wurm (if you don’t want to flee in that direction, you don’t have choice because is the only place you can teleport to), The Wurm can be Killed (any haldbrained player that see a wurm will kill it easy and fast, removing your only escape skill, making you an even easier prey), If you’re not on the same level of there’s objects between you and the Wurm you will not be teleported to the Wurm but only to the nearest place, frequently just few meters away from where you was before.
And that is our ONLY escape skill.

How would you ever React to a burst without any kind of skill to survive an enemy assault?

I play necro and guardian. I used guardian as main character for years and frequently with the Berserker amulet. And I can tell you that a guardian with 12kHP survive five time better than a Necromancer with Full LF. Meditations that Heal, different Block/Immunity/Blind/Immobilize skills. With a so low amount of HP I can tell you that I survive seriously better with a class with a lot of Block and Immunity skills than on a class with three times more HP.

There’s a large amount of reasons why Active defences are way better than HP pool, you can block an unlimited amount of damage, condition stack and CC for X seconds without any problem, while if you have only tons of HP you can’t evade a single hit, you’re forced to eat every condition, burst or CC the enemy throw you, totally unable to make him miss a single hit.

Also there’s different reasons that made the Necromancer so strong in S1 and S2: it was able to inflict good and sostenute damage with Chill (now brutally nerfed to 1 Bleed every chill application), had good defensive skills, hugely nerfed time by time (for example Rise! was able to adsorb 50% hp at his release and minions had higher HP). There was also a lot of condition builds in game and the necro was able to continuously spam conditions back to his enemies, obtaining a LOT of Free DPS from his enemies, but now there’s a near to pure Power Burst Meta. The Meta was Bunker, the DPS overall was seriously poor if compared to the actual one. The meta was full of Boon Spammer Builds, everything was related on Boons, both damage and defence. Who spammed more Might was the best dps and who spammed more heal, Protection and Regen was the best Bunker. In that meta the necro was the class able to kill all the classes made to spam boons, becoming a threath able to kill people. Actually to kill you a warrior don’t need any stack of might, only few stun and a burst skill. Also the necromancer was strong but seriously hard countered by every single thief or mesmer, without any chance to kill them. Also any team focus was able to kill a necro because they’re defensive skills was still only damage reduction skills, not enough to save him from a coordinated burst.

We have lesser damage, lesser defence, lesser conditions to send back and lesser boons to corrupt than in that meta BUT we are in a meta where every single class can burst us down easy and fast or survive to everything without boons and without conditions.

We play with a class weaker than ever (since HoT release) in a meta where everyone is ten times stronger than in the first seasons.

What kind of thing can we leave to have something better?
Our damage is medium, our survavibility is bad, our AoE are chained to the Shroud combo, don’t have mobility, our access to stability is really bad (and recently Nerfed), our Boon Corruption is frequently Useless and the only good thing to corrupt is Stability (if we’re lucky to corrupt stability and not other random Boons), the meta don’t need Boons to survive or burst, our mechanic is bad designet for any kind of sPvP fight and we’re forced to chose between inflict good damage and be useful or survive 3 seconds longer wasting a full LF bad without do any damage, our only team utility is corrupt boons in a team fight but if the enemy see us put a target and we’re dead in few seconds without mercy.

Any other class can bring better things than the necro. better damage in single target or aoe, better support, better mobility to steal the enemy point, better point holding ability.

Necromancer is probably the best balanced class (others are over the top with everything and THEY need to be toned down) (however on Reaper (yeah separate class) I wouldn’t of buffed infused terror like they did…….. should of been 10% dmg reduction no idea why 20% was thought to be good idea) and Necromancer needs DS2 having a AoE targetable area finally to put that in the spot it should be but it still hasn’t got the attention as REAPER REAPER REAPER is the major focus for balance of anything apparently now. But still out of al lthe classes Necromancer is the best balanced

Btw im a necro main.. and im still puzzled on all th recent buffs to Necormancer in the past 6 months…. with scepter boon strip and axe which I felt were fine as they were… Axe 3 should of been left alone as that retaliation was a major use to necormancers skills… No idea why that was touched for a conditional dmg buff which barely helps like retaliation did. I would call that a nerf to axe for sure.

Cynz.9437:

- can’t run away if you get hit and get one shot

You have 17k HP on thief, nothings going to one shot you.

- those teleports have CDs, necros have flesh wurm (actually on shorter CD than shs, fyi)

Yeah with a 1.5second cast. Also we don’t have unhindered combatant, and we don’t have infiltrators arrow. To even compare necro disengage to a thief is a meme.

- enemy is actually effectively locked in aoe due to nature of conquest. Surely i can run out but i would lose the point.

Why are you point brawling on a thief? Do you seriously not understand how thief in sPvP?

Actually necro is my second most played class (because it has the lowest skill floor in game and one of the easiest class to start with,

I though you said DH was the lowest skill floor in the game? Oh wait no you said Warrior was the lowest skill floor in the game. Or was is scrapper? It’s hard to tell when you change your mind every thread.

more conditions and stealth , just wait for next pve gimmicks

Silv, you really don’t get it – downed thief won’t be able to port and run away. Honestly, it is like talking to a wall here.
You act like pvp is all about 1v1 which is not. Once again, it is job of your teammates to peel for you and support as necro. This is how necro is designed atm. You have spectral walk (funny how you conveniently excluded it as escape tool), flesh wurm, shroud and CC if things get too hot – don’t act like necro is completely naked there.

You are actually asking to buff necros becuse they die when focused by multiple teammates? Are you serious? Guess what? ANY CLASS DIES WHEN FOCUSED!
Boonspam is still a thing in pvp, actually one of the biggest issues. Don’t act like it is not and necro is not solution to it. Less damage, less defense etc.? Newsflash – EVERYONE GOT NERFED, including oh so hated thieves. Maybe read patch notes once in a while.

Funny how good players can survive burst on necro but you can’t. So odd. I suggest you to check some necro pvp guides.

Necro is weaker and everyone is stronger? Wat?`Every class got nerfed. Forgot revs that are the actual weak class atm?

Necro damage is not medium, they probably have the highest damage in teamfights (outside of lol zerker staff ele and maybe traps dh). Necro survival is not bad, i would argue that revs die faster kek. Staff and wells are not aoe now? That is new to me. Another newsflash – necros weren’t designed to be a mobile class and probably never will be; if you don’t like it you are playing wrong class. Actually quite few classes have bad access to stab, what is your point? How is boon corrupt useless? Please elaborate.

Not every class brings everything better to pvp. As stated before thieves and wars have basically only single target damage; thieves can’t hold points nor deal with engis/DHs unlike necros; engis are not very mobile and can basically only tank points.

Ofc you would survive better on DH than on necro (althrough i would love to see 12k DH staying alive, i call bs) because (omg i am getting tired to repeat myself) necro is designed around teamplay and needs support where guards are bruisers for most part and are more independent.

@Crinn.7864: 17k HP is achievable only with vitality amulet. That means dps loss, point is, assuming necro and thief would be using zerker amy, the thief would die instantly, where necro would still have a sec to react (e.g. heal, los etc). Nothing stops necros to pick amy with vitality as well and have more HP.

Spectral walk is instant, so is traversal (flesh wurm port). I didn’t start the comparison between thief and necro, it is the very same necro mains here that started it crying for having same mobility as thieves because apparently it would be somehow balanced.

Who said i would sit on point brawling as a thief? It is not my job. The guy claimed that ppl don’t sit in aoe where the nature of conquest forces at least half of the team on points.

The difference between necro and DH is, both have low skill floot and really easy to learn however mastering necro is completely different dimension compared to DH. From my experience scrapper is actually pretty easy to play, core is hard. I don’t change my mind unless classes get patched drastically, you can stick your sarcasm and reminders somewhere else.

So about the might and vuln generation. I did some testing on the indestructible golem. I used rune of Hoelbrak and sigil of courage. I found that when the golem was above 50% HP I could only generate 13 stacks of vuln with axe, and only had 7 stacks of might. Below 50% I could generate 25 stacks of vuln and might.

Note this was on a golem, in actual pvp the numbers for both will be lower. However you can realistically get 25 stacks of vuln for a short time by using the shroud 5>4 combo with Bitter Chill trait.

In other news we are the buggest profession too.

-Death’s Charge doesn’t destroy projectiles like it’s supposed to.
-Spiteful Spirit doesn’t grant retaliation like it’s supposed to.
-Greatsword skills don’t work on any incline greater than ~10 degrees.
-Death’s Charge randomly overshoots or undershoots it’s target, and/or charges off in a random direction unrelated to where the target is.
-The shroud flip skill occasionally double activates resulting in shroud going on full cooldown. This has been a problem since 2012. Interestingly when Revs had the same issue with their Facets, the bug was fixed within a week, when engis had the same issue with their turrets after the turret rework it was fixed within two days.

Doing fine with my necro, and prefer not to play condi. I’m still somewhat on hybrid build. At least not a meta build

It’s hilarious reading wall-of-text arguments. It’s really not that complicated.

If ONE class is the ONLY class called out at the beginning of EVERY match to focus, then you have a problem…simple as that…nothing to argue.

Well…I take that back…someone will argue ANYTHING nowadays, so let’s play devil’s advocate.

Let’s assume it’s INTENDED for ONE class to be weaker than all others and subject to focus. Then, you would have to compensate by saying they should be OP against MORE than one opponent with full life force….or…at a minimum…OP against just 1 opponent with full life force. However, neither is the case.

Ok…Maybe the compensating factor is that necros have more mobility than others…nope

Maybe the compensating factor is that necros stomp better than others…nope

Maybe the compensating factor is that necros rez better than others…nope

In fact, they are near the bottom in all of those areas too.

Bottom line is simple…if you stop hearing “focus the necro” at the start of a match, then Anet did their job correctly….if you don’t, they failed and necros have a right to complain.

You guys can pull one outlier player here or there all you want and keep arguing, but if everyone is saying the same thing at the start of a match, then that’s as good as it gets for evidence of a problem.

weakness uptime, spectral armor, rise, infusing terror… all together are the best way to survive in team fights. weakness being the most important.

would making wurm an insta-tele/summon make it op? perhaps. maybe spectral walk could get superspeed instead of swiftness like someone else mentioned before. or we could see some meaningful updates to death/blood magic… haha yeah riiiiight.

Necro Community: “I don’t want to be dependant of a support class!”

Anet: “In this balance period we’ve reduced Necro’s AoE damage output by 50% but gave him 40% more health and 20% more auto attack power!” -Anet.

Necro community: “We can’t do anything in team fights that other classes can’t do better! Halp!”

Cynz, i don’t cry because the necro got killed if focused, the problem is that a necromancer can’t win a single 1v1, can’t survive a team fight unless it’s babysitted by one or two allies.
I will have not a single problem if the necromancer would be able to win a lot of 1v1. Strong in 1v1, seriously weak in team fight. That’s good, not a problem. But atm we’re the worst class in 1v1 and a mediocre class in common team fight.
Also becaus the necromancer was created for organized teams, not for play in SoloQ, where you don’t have anyone to care about you.

Spectral Walk is good but have a Lot of problems in sPvP: do you need to flee? it’s a stunbreak but… where would you flee? You obtain swiftness but is that enough to survive to a burst? Move away by foot? It’s not a teleport, at last not a conventional one. You can activate it and then reactivate it but the only thing you can do is teleport Back to where you was. Yeah, good, you try to flee from your enemy on the point and your brilliant move is teleport Back to there, making you easier to kill for your enemy team. If you active it you have 8 seconds before the effect ends and then you’ll no more able to teleport back. What do you want to do? Active it, run in te fight and then teleport back in 7 seconds? Wow, you will do a really good work in that 7 seconds, expecially at the start of a match…
There’s a reason you don’t see any necro use it…

Staff is AoE but is so Weak that I doin’t even calculate it as damage. It’s used Only to obtain LF and for condi transfer and fear, nothing more. It’s the Worst damage skil of this game.
About AoE, the only well used is Well of Corruption, that is dangerous because corrupt boon but don’t inflict so much damage, and if you go conditions it don’t inflict any damage.

The necromancer have one of the Worst dps of this game…
Unless the elementalist and the necro, every single class can Burst (with power or condi). And the necro dps is chained to the Shroud (expecially in condition damage), with some good damage from the Axe if go power, but still with the Axe2 there’s a huge difference between a necromancer and what other classes can do.

Silv.9207:

necromancer can’t win a single 1v1,

That’s a lie, necro beats engi and support ele. It just loses vs the other 6 classes.

Erzian.5218:

Silv.9207:

necromancer can’t win a single 1v1,

That’s a lie, necro beats engi and support ele. It just loses vs the other 6 classes.

and warriors…. just saying~

As for discussion, it is pointless to type anything it seems, people just read what they want to read and if they see what they can’t accept or can’t provide proof against it they just dismiss it with various irrelevant excuses or continue to claim same crap without any actual facts (e.g. necro has weakest dmg in game…. based on what exactly? Or they just go on about thief when the discussion is not even about thieves but the fact that necros HP pool gives them more time to react compared to low HP classes like thief/ele/guard and there is reason why those classes have dodges/blocks and necro doesn’t -_-‘… but noooo we would rather twist the words for the sake of flaming).
Bottom line, i don’t think necro needs buffs. We don’t need more powercreep. Elites need more nerfs /thread.