Guild Wars 2

Blackmoa.3186:

Hi, some of you might know me but for those that don’t:
I am playing necromancer since the open Beta period nearly exclusively in all parts of the game with heavy focus on tpvp. I was known as one of the last “competitive” necromancers in EU before the dhuumfire patch, probably mostly known for being a annoying kitten sitting in the water on temple xD. After the dhuumfire patch I was recruited by the then falling apart MiM to fill up their roster again and played for them in the PAX qualifiers. I just recently came back to PvP after an ~6month break from the game ankitten ow the co-host of the SOAC necromancer podcast. I certainly am not among the top necromancers in pvp at the moment as my play got kinda sloppy after my break but I think I know enough about necro to say a thing or two about the current state we are in.

But first lets take a look at the “history of necromancers” in pvp. At release necromancers where able to dish out quite a bit of punishment as teams where lacking experience in fighting them, but builds like pistolwhip thieves made live quiet hard for aspiring necromancers. As an answer to that we learned to stay on the edges of fights, and the 30 30 10 carrion double well necro with rezz signet was born. And man we caused mayhem. Teams where not used to someone just standing on a high-ground and spamming AOEs with a build that was 100% optimized for never even getting attacked, and with the added rezz we basicly dominated team-fights. But like always teams adapted and learned to counter that playstyle, which led necros to drop the wells and go for other stuff instead, but the “focus the necro as soon as you see him” mentality that people learned during the double well period made it close to impossible for necros to sustain through teamfights and they faded from the meta. This basicaly stayed the same until the addition of dhuumfire which just over-tuned necros and together with other buffs enabled them to completely zone people form ~1200 range away and even 100-0ing mesmers from that range quite easily. They became an insanely strong 1v1 class that dominated teamfights and also had lots of CC. Of course well deserved nerfs happened afterwards, but the most important thing was that hambow warriors made it into the meta.
The combinations of warriors “hardcountering” necros(well necro could win 1v1 vs a warrior still but it took all his cooldowns and you would lose a node almost certainly) and that nerfs made necro a kinda hit or miss class for pvp. They stayed in the meta cause if you where able to protect your necromancer they where still really good in teamfights. But now with the featurepack the necromancer dps was reduced quite a bit with the nerf to dhuumfire, making it really hard to use in condi burst rotations, and also a not reliable way of applying burning in teamfights. Also the AOE pressure of necro was now lower than before the dhuumfire patch because other skills got nerfed since then. At the moment necro is in a state similar to before the Dhuumfire patch, if not even worse.
Basically necro is really strong against inexperienced players but gets rather weak against good teams up to a point where having a necromancer is a burden for your team

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-state-of-Necromancers-in-PvP/page/2#post3994926

Blackmoa.3186:

So what are the problems of necromancers in PvP?

1.) Low mobility. PvP is mostly about good rotations and having a necromancer on your team slows you down and forces you into a team-fight play-style and therefore making you less flexible than other compositions
2.) Bad downed-state. A downed necro can’t do anything about getting stomped. This further encourages teams to focus a necro before other classes.
3.) No sustain. Necro is supposed to be a sustain class according to anet, but their lack of boons(most importantly vigor) combined with point 2 of this list make necros a dangerous choice in longer fights.
4.) Toxic gameplay. Playing against necromancers is 100% anti-fun. Winning against one doesn’t feel like an accomplishment most of the time while losing to a necro feels like being cheated.
This 5 points need to be addressed in order for necromancers to get a healthy spot in the meta.

Proposed changes to achieve this:

1.) Increase range of Flesh Wurm and make it exchange place with the necromancer on reactivation instead of killing it. If used with poor positioning the Wurm will quickly be killed. If used to get out of a bad situation the effect will be nearly the same as now. For balance reasons maybe increase the summoning cooldown.
2.) Give necromancers a way to prevent a stomp. Maybe make their #2 ability “Your downed health becomes lifeforce and you enter deathshroud for up to 3 seconds. Afterwards you are downed again with your remaining lifeforce as hp” You could still dps them down but stomps would be prevented and the necro could get into a better position to be rezzed
3.) Flavorful access to vigor. A prime candidate for this would be the Spite 5 point trait(former 25) siphoned power. Proposed new trait:”Gain vigor when you remove a boon”(with internal cooldown of course). Maybe a buff to lifeleech trait base values but addition of an internal cooldown.
4.) Remove fearstacking. Fear and Immobilize are the only forms of CC that stack in duration and seriously, they shouldn’t do that (I still think immobilize stacking was the worst thing anet ever introduced including the loading screen bug which at least wasn’t intentional). Also maybe don’t make fear duration increase with condition duration, it simply is no fun to be feared for ~4 seconds just because the necro you hit had nightmare runes equipped. CC chaining someone should be at least somewhat reliant on team coordination and not just spam everything. Maybe lower dmg of terror and add more utility like a 1sec chill at the end of the fear.

That’s it from me, pls discuss

Pvp is all about mobility for rotations and Necromancers have none.

The only time you saw Necromancers was when Dhuumfire turned the class into a burst caster.

The game right now is all about rotations and utility.
All the necro has is dps that is often negligible.

Necro needs some valuable changes, but not like Dhuumfire. They need more utility/mobility/sustain to make them viable.

How the game is all about mobility and rotation, seriously?
You guys seem to play a whole different game.

Rotations is just as important as teamfight capabilities and Necromancers are great at that.

sorrow.2364:

How the game is all about mobility and rotation, seriously?
You guys seem to play a whole different game.

Rotations is just as important as teamfight capabilities and Necromancers are great at that.

Every single top tier player will tell you the same thing, coordinated PvP is about rotations.

hope the devs read&acknowledge this, especialy now that everyone (2-4k ) ppl saw whats currently going with PvP.

1) Mobility.

a) Id love flesh wurms range increased to that of thief shadow trap. A necro-selfish, 1-person only portal, which
-can be destroyed, then go for backcap
-CANT TRAVEL BACK . you can set a 2v1 or unfavorable matchup trap
-at least the necro is out of teamfight and needs to walk back

b) 1x small leap added to like or DS#2 (note: if used defensively it wont hit and convert 2 boons)

c) 1x leap taken away from thief. thief is my absolute 2nd. The problem i see is not him getting decap, but having enough of his CDs/initiative left for a escape AND instagib when returning to teamifght. Not necro related, but had to mention the apex predator

2) Downed state

3x port , 2x aoe CC , 3x single target CC. Yes were in the worst 3 group, but other than a way to skilfuly clear single blinds (not the field) would be enough.

3) Bad sustain.

a) healing in DS. like actual heals from allies and my own regen boon. percentage unknown

b)buff siphons, in 2v2 , add the 5% condiheal to them. Switch GM. heal tree gets condiheal, power tree gets the well trait (extra tick for wells, the current GM is a joke)

c) “Always focus the necro”. its such effective strategy even hotjoiners learned it. If we manage to not get the red-circle on head even if were full and other target is lower hp, then i think we wont need the unbalancable sustain we would need to face-tank damage from 5x players.

4) I dont see fear-stacking as a problem, but the nightmare fear proc is just….. a total 1v1 on-trick pony. Absolutely lower to 1s. then maybe:
-lower CD or make it individual for each person hitting u if posible?
-give enough power to necro tam aybe take other runes to compliment problems. speed runes are a great start with mobility+vitalty

5) My own points

a) corrupt boon prioritize stabilty as #5 boon. lower CD boon removals wont be able to take it, but corrupt SHOULD
b) epidemic useless in 1v1.

sorrow.2364:

How the game is all about mobility and rotation, seriously?
You guys seem to play a whole different game.

Rotations is just as important as teamfight capabilities and Necromancers are great at that.

How can a necro win a teamfight that ends before he or she joins it?
Rotations are EVERYTHING.

Bhawb.7408:

Every single top tier player will tell you the same thing, coordinated PvP is about rotations.

Really? I don’t think so.
PvP is about rotations as much as teamfights. You can rotate as good as you want, but if you lose teamfights, you’ll lose the game because you haven’t the staying power to defend your nodes, nor to cap them back.

Try to play with 5 high-mobility professions and without a guardian, which is the Teamfighter (with capital T) and let’s see how your team holds up.

I’d really like to hear top tier player saying that teamfight capabilities don’t matter with a straight face.

leman.7682:

How can a necro win a teamfight that ends before he or she joins it?
Rotations are EVERYTHING.

If the teamfight ends before the necro has the chance to joins it, then it means that your team is full of unskilled squishies. In that case, I don’t think the issue is the Necromancer.

Seriously, though, you can clearly see what a lack of Necromancer (or an engineer which does pretty much the same) does to a team if you watch the last tournaments (both ToL and ESL weeklies), when a node (usually mid) stays contested for almost the whole match because both teams don’t have enough teamfight capabilities to get it.

Of course if you get outplayed because you play a teamcomp with Necro as you would with an high-mobility team comp you’re going to have a bad time, but again, this is not a problem of the Necromancer profession.

sorrow.2364:

Bhawb.7408:

Every single top tier player will tell you the same thing, coordinated PvP is about rotations.

Really? I don’t think so.
PvP is about rotations as much as teamfights. You can rotate as good as you want, but if you lose teamfights, you’ll lose the game because you haven’t the staying power to defend your nodes, nor to cap them back.

Try to play with 5 high-mobility professions and without a guardian, which is the Teamfighter (with capital T) and let’s see how your team holds up.

I’d really like to hear top tier player saying that teamfight capabilities don’t matter with a straight face.

The thing is – there are many other professions that are good at team fighting which also have good mobility for fast rotations. Warrior, ranger, ele are the most noteworthy of those. As a necromancer you are forced to run either speed/traveler runes or spectral walk/warhorn to have a decent uptime of swiftness/movement speed. Necromancers are great at team fighting but need other professions to protect them. When you meet a high mobility team that forces you to keep an eye out for every point on the map – you do not always have those other professions to protect you which means that you are easily kitten by faster rotating teams.

The last ESL 6v6 tournament is a pretty good example for showing how good necromancers are at team fighting with the right support. But conquest brings totally different scenarios and requires a good deal of mobility/sustain(staying power) for you and your team to be succesful. Necromancer by itself does not have that.

djooceboxblast.9876:

The thing is – there are many other professions that are good at team fighting which also have good mobility for fast rotations. Warrior, ranger, ele are the most noteworthy of those. As a necromancer you are forced to run either speed/traveler runes or spectral walk/warhorn to have a decent uptime of swiftness/movement speed. Necromancers are great at team fighting but need other professions to protect them. When you meet a high mobility team that forces you to keep an eye out for every point on the map – you do not always have those other professions to protect you which means that you are easily kitten by faster rotating teams.

The last ESL 6v6 tournament is a pretty good example for showing how good necromancers are at team fighting with the right support. But conquest brings totally different scenarios and requires a good deal of mobility/sustain(staying power) for you and your team to be succesful. Necromancer by itself does not have that.

Necromancer is the only profession who is able to melt anyone he wants if played properly while dealing a decent amount of AoE condition pressure.
No other profession has this teamfighting capabilities, that’s why it should carry also an opportunity cost with it.

If Necromancer also had good mobility and even higher sustain, then they would be a must-go in any team and will eventually outshine any other profession at it. There aren’t that many profession who can solo a bunker easily, if I’m not wrong.
So why would you bring a Warrior or an Ele when you can bring a Necro which provides better staying power, better CCs and outputs higher pressure?

What I tried to say before is that if you are running a Necromancer and get outrotated by an high-mobility team comp it is probably because you’re playing their game.
The point of high-mobility team comps is to split fights on three nodes and win on small scale combats, so if you’re playing for three points you are obviously going to be out-rotated because you’re adopting a playstyle which isn’t suited to the build you’re running.

Also, Necromancer has an huge deal of sustain. Of course they can’t survive to team focus from extensive amount of time, nor they can disengage the fight (this is an issue of other professions too), but they are tanky enough to eat a good amount of damage. Death Shroud, after the double damage bug has been fixed, provides an huge amount of tankyness to Necromancers and Plague has always been extremely good for holding points against multiple people and to force enemy players out of it.

sorrow.2364:

djooceboxblast.9876:

The thing is – there are many other professions that are good at team fighting which also have good mobility for fast rotations. Warrior, ranger, ele are the most noteworthy of those. As a necromancer you are forced to run either speed/traveler runes or spectral walk/warhorn to have a decent uptime of swiftness/movement speed. Necromancers are great at team fighting but need other professions to protect them. When you meet a high mobility team that forces you to keep an eye out for every point on the map – you do not always have those other professions to protect you which means that you are easily kitten by faster rotating teams.

The last ESL 6v6 tournament is a pretty good example for showing how good necromancers are at team fighting with the right support. But conquest brings totally different scenarios and requires a good deal of mobility/sustain(staying power) for you and your team to be succesful. Necromancer by itself does not have that.

Necromancer is the only profession who is able to melt anyone he wants if played properly while dealing a decent amount of AoE condition pressure.
No other profession has this teamfighting capabilities, that’s why it should carry also an opportunity cost with it.

If Necromancer also had good mobility and even higher sustain, then they would be a must-go in any team and will eventually outshine any other profession at it. There aren’t that many profession who can solo a bunker easily, if I’m not wrong.
So why would you bring a Warrior or an Ele when you can bring a Necro which provides better staying power, better CCs and outputs higher pressure?

What I tried to say before is that if you are running a Necromancer and get outrotated by an high-mobility team comp it is probably because you’re playing their game.
The point of high-mobility team comps is to split fights on three nodes and win on small scale combats, so if you’re playing for three points you are obviously going to be out-rotated because you’re adopting a playstyle which isn’t suited to the build you’re running.

Also, Necromancer has an huge deal of sustain. Of course they can’t survive to team focus from extensive amount of time, nor they can disengage the fight (this is an issue of other professions too), but they are tanky enough to eat a good amount of damage. Death Shroud, after the double damage bug has been fixed, provides an huge amount of tankyness to Necromancers and Plague has always been extremely good for holding points against multiple people and to force enemy players out of it.

What game are you playing? :O

sorrow.2364:

Necromancer is the only profession who is able to melt anyone he wants if played properly while dealing a decent amount of AoE condition pressure.
No other profession has this teamfighting capabilities, that’s why it should carry also an opportunity cost with it.

If Necromancer also had good mobility and even higher sustain, then they would be a must-go in any team and will eventually outshine any other profession at it. There aren’t that many profession who can solo a bunker easily, if I’m not wrong.
So why would you bring a Warrior or an Ele when you can bring a Necro which provides better staying power, better CCs and outputs higher pressure?

What I tried to say before is that if you are running a Necromancer and get outrotated by an high-mobility team comp it is probably because you’re playing their game.
The point of high-mobility team comps is to split fights on three nodes and win on small scale combats, so if you’re playing for three points you are obviously going to be out-rotated because you’re adopting a playstyle which isn’t suited to the build you’re running.

Also, Necromancer has an huge deal of sustain. Of course they can’t survive to team focus from extensive amount of time, nor they can disengage the fight (this is an issue of other professions too), but they are tanky enough to eat a good amount of damage. Death Shroud, after the double damage bug has been fixed, provides an huge amount of tankyness to Necromancers and Plague has always been extremely good for holding points against multiple people and to force enemy players out of it.

A Hambow warrior can bring better sustain, mobility, AoE condi pressure and CC.

What are you even thinking when you compare that to a Necro? Lucky epidemics? With the amount of nerfs the Necro received on his AoE bleeds, combustive shot alone deals much higher and sustained AoE condi damage than a Necro can output with bleeds.

I have actually started to hate this game from how bad necro is at spvp… I know its only a game but when a class you like is destroyed by giving it a weakness that literally renders you incapable of doing anything its just infuriating

you can have all the utility in the world but it does not matter when you cant use it -.- the only viable damage we have is litch form and even then it can be beaten once the stability wears off

djooceboxblast.9876:

What game are you playing? :O

The same you do.

Kiriakulos.1690:

A Hambow warrior can bring better sustain, mobility, AoE condi pressure and CC.

What are you even thinking when you compare that to a Necro? Lucky epidemics? With the amount of nerfs the Necro received on his AoE bleeds, combustive shot alone deals much higher and sustained AoE condi damage than a Necro can output with bleeds.

The hambow mobility is rather bad.
The sustain has been nerfed and it is not as good as it used to be.
The condi pressure is carried only by the runes of strength 25 mightstacks madness.
Other than burning, there is nothing left as “condi pressure”: no poison, no AoE bleed, no AoE torment, no chill.
The CC is superior on Necromancer by far.

Still, an hambow warrior does not provide boon removal which is quite of an huge selling point for Necros.

I really don’t want Necros to be crazy OP. What you’re suggesting is giving Necromancer mobility, even more sustain and even more condi pressure? Pretty much you’re saying “let’s wipe away any downside of the profession so we can be good at everything”…
Then we’ll be back at june of last year.

sorrow.2364:

djooceboxblast.9876:

What game are you playing? :O

The same you do.

Kiriakulos.1690:

A Hambow warrior can bring better sustain, mobility, AoE condi pressure and CC.

What are you even thinking when you compare that to a Necro? Lucky epidemics? With the amount of nerfs the Necro received on his AoE bleeds, combustive shot alone deals much higher and sustained AoE condi damage than a Necro can output with bleeds.

The hambow mobility is rather bad.
The sustain has been nerfed and it is not as good as it used to be.
The condi pressure is carried only by the runes of strength 25 mightstacks madness.
Other than burning, there is nothing left as “condi pressure”: no poison, no AoE bleed, no AoE torment, no chill.
The CC is superior on Necromancer by far.

Still, an hambow warrior does not provide boon removal which is quite of an huge selling point for Necros.

I really don’t want Necros to be crazy OP. What you’re suggesting is giving Necromancer mobility, even more sustain and even more condi pressure? Pretty much you’re saying “let’s wipe away any downside of the profession so we can be good at everything”…
Then we’ll be back at june of last year.

How on earth does necromancer have better cc than a hambow warrior? Soft CC maybe, but hammer brings way better hard cc. Oh and the AOE bleed, poison and chill that gets cleansed every 5 seconds. I encourage you to get good at necro and play against decent teams.

Stop trolling and go away please! You are starting to annoy me.

sorrow.2364:

djooceboxblast.9876:

What game are you playing? :O

The same you do.

Kiriakulos.1690:

A Hambow warrior can bring better sustain, mobility, AoE condi pressure and CC.

What are you even thinking when you compare that to a Necro? Lucky epidemics? With the amount of nerfs the Necro received on his AoE bleeds, combustive shot alone deals much higher and sustained AoE condi damage than a Necro can output with bleeds.

The hambow mobility is rather bad.
The sustain has been nerfed and it is not as good as it used to be.
The condi pressure is carried only by the runes of strength 25 mightstacks madness.
Other than burning, there is nothing left as “condi pressure”: no poison, no AoE bleed, no AoE torment, no chill.
The CC is superior on Necromancer by far.

Still, an hambow warrior does not provide boon removal which is quite of an huge selling point for Necros.

I really don’t want Necros to be crazy OP. What you’re suggesting is giving Necromancer mobility, even more sustain and even more condi pressure? Pretty much you’re saying “let’s wipe away any downside of the profession so we can be good at everything”…
Then we’ll be back at june of last year.

But their mobility and sustain are still better than a Necro’s even after the nerfs.
Signet of rage with dogged march, Adrenal Healing and Healing signet are objectively better than anything the Necro can bring.

Huge AoE constant burning with might stacks is better AoE condi pressure than a Necro can dish out with all the other conditions.
Hammer CC is imo a lot better than the fear stacking a Necro can output and with more damage to boot on a lower cooldown.

Besides that there’s also the matter of better 1vX mitigation and stability for stomps.

The only thing you said that can be objectively done better by the Necro is boon strip, but that seems like a bad trade-off for everything else.

Kiriakulos.1690:

sorrow.2364:

djooceboxblast.9876:

What game are you playing? :O

The same you do.

Kiriakulos.1690:

A Hambow warrior can bring better sustain, mobility, AoE condi pressure and CC.

What are you even thinking when you compare that to a Necro? Lucky epidemics? With the amount of nerfs the Necro received on his AoE bleeds, combustive shot alone deals much higher and sustained AoE condi damage than a Necro can output with bleeds.

The hambow mobility is rather bad.
The sustain has been nerfed and it is not as good as it used to be.
The condi pressure is carried only by the runes of strength 25 mightstacks madness.
Other than burning, there is nothing left as “condi pressure”: no poison, no AoE bleed, no AoE torment, no chill.
The CC is superior on Necromancer by far.

Still, an hambow warrior does not provide boon removal which is quite of an huge selling point for Necros.

I really don’t want Necros to be crazy OP. What you’re suggesting is giving Necromancer mobility, even more sustain and even more condi pressure? Pretty much you’re saying “let’s wipe away any downside of the profession so we can be good at everything”…
Then we’ll be back at june of last year.

But their mobility and sustain are still better than a Necro’s even after the nerfs.
Signet of rage with dogged march, Adrenal Healing and Healing signet are objectively better than anything the Necro can bring.

Huge AoE constant burning with might stacks is better AoE condi pressure than a Necro can dish out with all the other conditions.
Hammer CC is imo a lot better than the fear stacking a Necro can output and with more damage to boot on a lower cooldown.

Besides that there’s also the matter of better 1vX mitigation and stability for stomps.

The only thing you said that can be objectively done better by the Necro is boon strip, but that seems like a bad trade-off for everything else.

I completely agree!

djooceboxblast.9876:

How on earth does necromancer have better cc than a hambow warrior? Soft CC maybe, but hammer brings way better hard cc. Oh and the AOE bleed, poison and chill that gets cleansed every 5 seconds. I encourage you to get good at necro and play against decent teams.

Stop trolling and go away please! You are starting to annoy me.

Yes, Necromancer have better soft CC and on-par hard CC.
Hammer may have CC on lower cooldown, but Necromancer brings range and more reliability. Better is a matter of opinion, I think that the reliability of Necromancer’s hard CC is better and, of course, hard CC is not the reason of why people bring warriors in their team comp.

AoE bleed, poison and chills will of course will get eventually cleansed if your enemy can play properly and save its cleanses for crucial conditions, but it is also up to you to watch out for the cleanses and use your cooldowns in the proper moment. Cleanses are not unlimited.
Or do you want to win by just spamming your skills on cooldown, do you?

I’m not trolling, I’m just trying to bring some reasons to someone who clearly don’t want to see any.

Kiriakulos.1690:

But their mobility and sustain are still better than a Necro’s even after the nerfs.
Signet of rage with dogged march, Adrenal Healing and Healing signet are objectively better than anything the Necro can bring.

Huge AoE constant burning with might stacks is better AoE condi pressure than a Necro can dish out with all the other conditions.
Hammer CC is imo a lot better than the fear stacking a Necro can output and with more damage to boot on a lower cooldown.

Besides that there’s also the matter of better 1vX mitigation and stability for stomps.

The only thing you said that can be objectively done better by the Necro is boon strip, but that seems like a bad trade-off for everything else.

Necromancer sustain himself through Death Shroud. You should now that any life force you gain is somewhat comparable to an equivalent amount of healing you get. The fact that you don’t see green numbers does not mean that sustain insn’t there.

Burning is not better than the amount of conditions that Necros can pull out AoE.
Poison, chill, torment, bleed, cripple, weaknees are all better compared to a single condition damaging condition fueled only by situational buffs. And you can even transfer conditions you have on enemies in an area if those are not enough.

Hammer CC is not that better compared to fear stacking. As I’ve pointed out above, Necromancer’s hard CC are more reliable but can be spammed less, while soft CC is way better.

True that Necromancer can’t stomp, but they can cleave insanely good and supply poison on downed bodies, which is something warriors can’t do. The 1vsX mitigation is called Plague and Spectral Armor in Death Shroud. Other than that, there are very few professions who can mitigate 1vsX focus for an extensive amount of time and they are both supposed to be tanks.

It is not only the boon strip, but also the damage output on team focuses and the soft CCs.
Also, you underrate boon strips. Boons strip is a requirement if you want to bring down fast enough a boon bunker (ele or guardian) and the other two professions who can strip boon are Thief and Mesmer, but both are way worse compared to necro.

sorrow.2364:

Necromancer sustain himself through Death Shroud. You should now that any life force you gain is somewhat comparable to an equivalent amount of healing you get. The fact that you don’t see green numbers does not mean that sustain insn’t there.

Burning is not better than the amount of conditions that Necros can pull out AoE.
Poison, chill, torment, bleed, cripple, weaknees are all better compared to a single condition damaging condition fueled only by situational buffs. And you can even transfer conditions you have on enemies in an area if those are not enough.

Hammer CC is not that better compared to fear stacking. As I’ve pointed out above, Necromancer’s hard CC are more reliable but can be spammed less, while soft CC is way better.

True that Necromancer can’t stomp, but they can cleave insanely good and supply poison on downed bodies, which is something warriors can’t do. The 1vsX mitigation is called Plague and Spectral Armor in Death Shroud. Other than that, there are very few professions who can mitigate 1vsX focus for an extensive amount of time and they are both supposed to be tanks.

It is not only the boon strip, but also the damage output on team focuses and the soft CCs.
Also, you underrate boon strips. Boons strip is a requirement if you want to bring down fast enough a boon bunker (ele or guardian) and the other two professions who can strip boon are Thief and Mesmer, but both are way worse compared to necro.

DeathShroud is not sustain. This is a huge misconception shared by the developers which resulted in the attrition class with worst sustain I’ve ever seen in any game. DeathShroud is at best mitigation, which doesn’t scale with the number of attackers and which you can be forced out of.

Combustive shot’s fire field negates most condition removal by reapplying the burn when it’s removed, that’s not something the Necro can replicate with his AoE conditions.
Fear can be negated by both condition immunity as well as stability, that makes me consider it less reliable than normal stuns, but you are correct about Necro’s having a range advantage for their CC.

Blocks and damage immunity is 1vX mitigation, protection, Spectral skills with ICDs and plague while they do mitigate damage, they scale horribly with the number of enemies. Spectral skills actually don’t scale at all because of their ICDs.

Necros can’t cleave, this is a fact. Stomping is a very important part of combat, it can rally allies and finally remove foes at the same time, a single stomp can swing team fights so having a class with reliable stomping is very attractive, so this is an important feature that Necros mostly miss out on, except for the DS FitG stomp.

I don’t think that Hambows need the boonstrip to deal with bunkers like a Necro does because their damage output is already high enough even while the enemy has defensive boons, the Necro’s isn’t.

My point is that anything that you state a Necro can do, a Hambow can to it more reliably, more easily and with more room for error, so why would you pick this profession if a single build can outperform almost everything it does?

Kiriakulos.1690:

DeathShroud is not sustain. This is a huge misconception shared by the developers which resulted in the attrition class with worst sustain I’ve ever seen in any game. DeathShroud is at best mitigation, which doesn’t scale with the number of attackers and which you can be forced out of.

Combustive shot’s fire field negates most condition removal by reapplying the burn when it’s removed, that’s not something the Necro can replicate with his AoE conditions.
Fear can be negated by both condition immunity as well as stability, that makes me consider it less reliable than normal stuns, but you are correct about Necro’s having a range advantage for their CC.

Blocks and damage immunity is 1vX mitigation, protection, Spectral skills with ICDs and plague while they do mitigate damage, they scale horribly with the number of enemies. Spectral skills actually don’t scale at all because of their ICDs.

Necros can’t cleave, this is a fact. Stomping is a very important part of combat, it can rally allies and finally remove foes at the same time, a single stomp can swing team fights so having a class with reliable stomping is very attractive, so this is an important feature that Necros mostly miss out on, except for the DS FitG stomp.

I don’t think that Hambows need the boonstrip to deal with bunkers like a Necro does because their damage output is already high enough even while the enemy has defensive boons, the Necro’s isn’t.

My point is that anything that you state a Necro can do, a Hambow can to it more reliably, more easily and with more room for error, so why would you pick this profession if a single build can outperform almost everything it does?

Death Shroud is sustain.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve listed Healing Signet, Dogged March and Adrenal Health, which don’t scale with attackers too, right? So why are those sustain and Death Shroud isn’t? A percentage of LF gained is the equivalent of gaining a less valuable amount of HP.

I’ve already pointed out that Combustive Shot provides only burning, which is nowhere close to the amounts of conditions that Necros can apply AoE. Of course you can permanently mantain torment, poison, cripple, bleeds, chill and weakness on AoE permanently (CPC goes close to it, though), but you’re not supposed to do so, otherwise necros will turn in a mindless AoE spam machine, which is the kind of gameplay anyone hates here, right?

Stability can be corrupted… in fear. Also, all warrior’s CC are tied to a pretty clear animation. Doom is instant cast if I’m not wrong.

Are you trying to say that Necros are supposed to sustain team focus for an unlimited amount of time? Warriors have endure pain and blocks, true, but once their effect wears off, what do they have?

About cleave, I probably used the wrong term. With “cleave” I mean using AoE on the downed body, which is in many situations a way better tactic compared to stomping. There are professions that simply can’t be stomped reliably, that’s where you’d rather have a Necromancer with poison and AoEs rather than a warriors with stability ready.

Do you think that an hambow warrior can solo a boon bunker? Well, they can’t. Not even close if the enemy isn’t completely incompetent. Necromancer, on the other can, can easily do it.

An hambow can’t do what a necro can do better.
Where is the poison on hambow?
Where is the AoE condition pressure (other than on a single condi on bow) on hambow?
Where is a reliable ranged weapon like staff on hambow?
Where is an instant-cast CC like Doom on hambow?
Where is chill to shut down your enemies on hambow?
Where is the AoE weakness to mitigate the enemy damage output on hambow?
Seriously…

sorrow , plz go play necro , u camed here talking about smt u have no clue. Necro dont fit to the game , he is in worst situation ever , bad mobility , bad sustain ( DS its not sustain it will give u 2s more before u will die ) , dmg on necro is super low atm , ofc necro can kill guardians but what decent team will let guardian 1v1 necro? Thief will just jump in necro dead thats why u cant even go for 1v1 situations , necro just lack defensive mechanism.

And idk why u compare necro to war??!! Ofc war is superior , atm with streaght runes its way over the top , try to 1v1 good ele with 0/0/2/6/6 build , i just started to play staff ele , when i see necro its simple free kill for me.

Before u will say smt more , go play necro , go see how it is . And its not only like ppl focus necro becouse if they dont they will lose every fight , atm gaurdian + ele can completly counter necro condi , they focus him becouse its free 5pts.

Forsaker.9213:

sorrow , plz go play necro , u camed here talking about smt u have no clue. Necro dont fit to the game , he is in worst situation ever , bad mobility , bad sustain ( DS its not sustain it will give u 2s more before u will die ) , dmg on necro is super low atm , ofc necro can kill guardians but what decent team will let guardian 1v1 necro? Thief will just jump in necro dead thats why u cant even go for 1v1 situations , necro just lack defensive mechanism.

And idk why u compare necro to war??!! Ofc war is superior , atm with streaght runes its way over the top , try to 1v1 good ele with 0/0/2/6/6 build , i just started to play staff ele , when i see necro its simple free kill for me.

Before u will say smt more , go play necro , go see how it is . And its not only like ppl focus necro becouse if they dont they will lose every fight , atm gaurdian + ele can completly counter necro condi , they focus him becouse its free 5pts.

Who talked about 1vs1 situations? As much as no competent team will let the guardian fight alone vs a necro, no competent team will send a Necro 1vs1 against a guardian.
In case you missed, nobody here even mentioned 1vs1 situations in which I’m well aware it is not optimal to send a Necro alone. And no, I don’t think people focus necro first because it is a freekill, thieves or mesmers are much more a freekill, but more likely because if you leave him untouched your team will melt one by one.

But yeah guys, go on with your madness and “you’re not a necro, go play it” and keep whining for buffs.
Maybe someday ANet will go crazy again and will wipe away any downside of Necromancers, so you guys can walk in SoloQ melting people with fearchains, spamming conditions like no tomorrow while having permavigor, mobility and HS-like sustain.
How crazy are you sorrow for pointing out that a profession like Necro is supposed to have some downsides and counters!
Better buff everything to the roof because warriors can get 25 stacks of might and eles can cleanse conditions instead of being a Necro pounchingball.

lol at Necro in the worse situation ever.

sorrow.2364:

And no, I don’t think people focus necro first because it is a freekill, thieves or mesmers are much more a freekill

Wow, please stop embarrassing yourself.

Erzian.5218:

Wow, please stop embarrassing yourself.

Thieves survive only because of the mobility and some evades, if they stay on a node for more than 2 seconds, they die.
Since when thieves have started to hold nodes and survive in teamfights for prolonged periods of time? Maybe I’m not up to date and the meta has completely changed in the two hours I haven’t played the game.

sorrow.2364:

Erzian.5218:

Wow, please stop embarrassing yourself.

Thieves survive only because of the mobility and some evades, if they stay on a node for more than 2 seconds, they die.
Or are you going to say it isn’t true?

If they stay on a node? A thief is never a free kill in a team fight. A decent thief with initiative and shadowstep/refuge will almost always be able to get away. A necromancer on the other hand cannot just get away. Now necromancers are almost always the first to be targeted because they are a threat if left alone but more so because they are an easy target.

And please keep replies/posts civilized – i dont want this thread to be locked!

djooceboxblast.9876:

If they stay on a node? A thief is never a free kill in a team fight. A decent thief with initiative and shadowstep/refuge will almost always be able to get away. A necromancer on the other hand cannot just get away. Now necromancers are almost always the first to be targeted because they are a threat if left alone but more so because they are an easy target.

sorrow.2364:

Thieves survive only because of the mobility and some evades, if they stay on a node for more than 2 seconds, they die.

Getting away isn’t exactly staying on a node. And by staying on a node I mean contesting it. If you focus a thief, either he has a stunbreaker available or he’s dead if you manage to land a single CC on him.

Point is that Thieves can’t stay in teamfights at all, which is fine as they are designed to do so, but Necromancers can while also holding a quite good amount of focus.

Necromancer isn’t the only profession incapable to leave teamfights at will. Guardian, Warrior, Ranger and Engineer have all not the best of time while trying to leave teamfights.

Necromancer aren’t a that easy target. A necromancer with empty life force bar, plague on cooldown, spectral armor unslotted and no flesh wurm available is an easy target.

guys plz just ignore his posts

Forsaker.9213:

guys plz just ignore his posts

Yeah, sounds like a good getaway if you’re not able to sustain a discussion with actual argumentations.

Ignore the posts of the one person trying to turn this thread into an actual interesting discussion on what a Necro can and cannot do in PvP? This isn’t a support group thread where Necros agree with one another about how much of a bummer their lives are in top-tier PvP, and I’m glad for that. Part of the reason there’s back-and-forth is because sorrow is actually arguing another side of the coin. You want that to get the most out of a discussion.

I’m not saying he is right or wrong, but he’s healthily adding depth and value to this conversation, and to try to completely disregard his posts by telling others to ignore him or by telling him to “just go play” is really damaging to the initial argument that Necros need help. Nothing undermines an argument/point more than when the people defending it are completely unwilling to consider the fact that they are wrong.

For someone who doesn’t really sPvP, it’s interesting to see both sides of the coin. As long as sorrow isn’t being condescending/insulting (I don’t think he has been so far), I think he should continue to argue his side if there is still an aspect of his side left to argue.

Death Shroud is not sustain.
You can´t reset a fight as a Necro, the class has NO sustainability. It has mitigation but it doesn´t scale with the number of enemies or incoming damage.
Warrior sustain doesn´t scale with enemies, but his mitigation does and while he´s not taking damage he´s healing by a very good amount, the Necro can´t come close to the amount of damage a warrior can negate and health resored during a single Endure Pain.

Where is the poison on hambow?
Why is this important? Hambows can deal enough damage without needing poison.

Where is the AoE condition pressure (other than on a single condi on bow) on hambow?
This is weird, you want me to give an example besides the example.
Combustive shot is a fire field that´s huge, reapplies burning if it´s cleansed and deals continuous damage to foes who stay in it. What more do you need? It´s like a huge Necro well that applies a huge amount of bleeds.

Where is a reliable ranged weapon like staff on hambow?
What is a Bow? Warriors may complain about it but compared to staff auto, bow’s auto attacks hurt and are projectile finishers, on the weapon with the HUGE fire field.
Also look at pindown for even more utility and damage.

Where is an instant-cast CC like Doom on hambow?
Warriors have no instant CC. But they do have good access to stability so that their CC doesn´t get interrupted.

Where is chill to shut down your enemies on hambow?
No chill.

Where is the AoE weakness to mitigate the enemy damage output on hambow?
This is actually funny, Fierce Blow grants small AoE weakness with a very nice uptime on the CC weapon for the class with the best passive survivability in the game. Yes, I do think it´s ridiculous.

Again, SOME builds have sustain, MOST don’kittens an issue of accessibility of enough necromancer sustain options, and most builds just can’t do that and remain impactful.

Also, death shroud is definitely part of sustain. There is no single mechanic in the game that can give you sustain, it is a combination of a lot of small things that gives you sustain. Guardians aren’t bunkers because they have one big heal, they are bunkers because they have a bunch of blocks, and a bunch of cleanses, paired with high armor, and a ton of boons and healing spread over basically every skill they have.

Death shroud isn’t sustain because no competitve build can reliably generate enough life force to continue a fight over a long period of time. Due to its regular degen, the fact that heals don’t work and very few ways to generate life force without being exactly in the fray – which we also have some trouble with – you can’t keep up with many specs. You can create a spec that can create a lot of life force – but it likely won’t be very competitive. All these issues combined with the limited mobility and stability makes it so it doesn’t matter a whole lot because you can never generate enough life force to survive getting focused. Hence the ‘focus the necro’ strategy. They aren’t getting away and aren’t lasting very long without them being a great player with a strong team.

Until that is different, that likely wont change.

I wouldn’t mind if death shroud’s total HP pool was cut by a large percent, but life force generation was buffed by quite a bit. That way you can’t just sit in death shroud, but a well played spec could balance life force generation and death shroud usage. You’d have to watch to not spend life force generating moves when your pool is full, and use it to soak hits and use skills, but not as an alleged “2nd health pool.”

If someone ever created a thread where people posted their own definitions/ideas of what the words “mitigation”, “sustain”, and “attrition” meant with respect to GW2, I bet no two people would have the same idea for all three.

Death Shroud is a sustain mechanic, regardless of whether or not the tip-top competitive teams currently have a Necro who uses it to sustain for a long period of time in a fight. It just isn’t currently balanced to be usable in a tip-top tier situation without sacrificing too much for the team in the current meta of Conquest mode. That’s a very specific situation, and does not in any sense mean Death Shroud is just no longer a sustain mechanic for the rest of the game.

Exactly what Cog said. Also note that the reason top tier builds don’t have LF generation is because there is no point to, not because LF itself is bad. Its because no one defensive mechanic is enough, and as it is now they can’t get enough defensive mechanics together to make all of them work to what they need Necro to do. So just having high LF generation doesn’t matter when you die within one skill rotation.

You guys need to try a good power necro build; every necro needs to hop off the condition bandwagon. Don’t say that there isn’t one because that is all I use.

Cogbyrn.7283:

If someone ever created a thread where people posted their own definitions/ideas of what the words “mitigation”, “sustain”, and “attrition” meant with respect to GW2, I bet no two people would have the same idea for all three.

Death Shroud is a sustain mechanic, regardless of whether or not the tip-top competitive teams currently have a Necro who uses it to sustain for a long period of time in a fight. It just isn’t currently balanced to be usable in a tip-top tier situation without sacrificing too much for the team in the current meta of Conquest mode. That’s a very specific situation, and does not in any sense mean Death Shroud is just no longer a sustain mechanic for the rest of the game.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sustain – no, by book definition DS is not a sustain mechanic.

Yes, both Power and Condi Necros are really strong. Like most people said, the problem lies with their mobility. If only Mesmers aren’t so out of the meta, we’d see more Necro + Mesmer pairings.

So please Anet, buff Mesmers aside from their cheesy but not so useful in tPvP PU builds.

Jelzouki.4128:

You guys need to try a good power necro build; every necro needs to hop off the condition bandwagon. Don’t say that there isn’t one because that is all I use.

Its okay in solo play. In competitive you are only useful for dropping wells on a downed body. You’re just too squishy and reliant on melee range and someone standing in a circle. Compared to other damage builds, you have the worst active defense, awful escapes, slower and less reliable bursts, and no mobility to roam. Its like an old version of the fresh air ele, only if you took away all their mobility and nerfed their damage and support.

And tanky power hits issues in that there is no good tanky support power weapons. You’re basically playing without 5 skills to match your build.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Death Shroud is not sustain.
You can´t reset a fight as a Necro, the class has NO sustainability. It has mitigation but it doesn´t scale with the number of enemies or incoming damage.
Warrior sustain doesn´t scale with enemies, but his mitigation does and while he´s not taking damage he´s healing by a very good amount, the Necro can´t come close to the amount of damage a warrior can negate and health resored during a single Endure Pain.

Necromancers have a set of conditions that can be easily used with defensive purposes, the soft CCs I was talking about are great if used defensively.
True, you can’t pop endure pain and eat any damage, but you’re making it look like endure pain makes warriors immortal to team focus for an unlimited amount of time. Endure Pain is just a skill to delay the damage you would take anyway for a couple of seconds, it does not provide warriors protection, nor a bigger health pool, nor defensive conditions and soft CCs.

And, again, Death Shroud is sustain. If it wasn’t as you’re claiming, then you would be able to take away any Death Shroud use without losing survivability, which is impossible as Death Shroud is the strongest source of survivability for Necromancers.

Also, it looks like you’re ignoring the point I’m trying to make. Each time you regenerate Life Force, it is somewhat the equivalent of regenerating HP. It is true that regenerating HP is much more valuable than regenerating LF, but it is also true that you regenerate much more LF than a warrior can regenerate HP.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Where is the poison on hambow?
Why is this important? Hambows can deal enough damage without needing poison.

If you think poison is valuable just because of damage, I’m afraid I’m starting to doubt your PvP competence.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Where is the AoE condition pressure (other than on a single condi on bow) on hambow?
This is weird, you want me to give an example besides the example.
Combustive shot is a fire field that´s huge, reapplies burning if it´s cleansed and deals continuous damage to foes who stay in it. What more do you need? It´s like a huge Necro well that applies a huge amount of bleeds.

Damage is not everything.
It does not apply weakness or chill or poison or cripple. And warriors have only combustive shot as AoE condition skill.

How viable would be Necromancer if the only AoE condition skill is a combustive shot-like one? I’d say close to zero.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Where is a reliable ranged weapon like staff on hambow?
What is a Bow? Warriors may complain about it but compared to staff auto, bow’s auto attacks hurt and are projectile finishers, on the weapon with the HUGE fire field.
Also look at pindown for even more utility and damage.

I talked about RELIABILITY.
Staff marks always hit and if traited are also unblockable.
Longbow skills are slow, with an huge tell, are projectiles (so subject to LoS fails) and can’t be traited to be unblockable.
It would be stupid to argue that staff is a much more reliable ranged weapon compared to LB, even for the most biased warrior hater out there.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Where is an instant-cast CC like Doom on hambow?
Warriors have no instant CC. But they do have good access to stability so that their CC doesn´t get interrupted.

But can be dodged. Very few people waste an interrupt on an incoming CC rather than dodge or a blind.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Where is the AoE weakness to mitigate the enemy damage output on hambow?
This is actually funny, Fierce Blow grants small AoE weakness with a very nice uptime on the CC weapon for the class with the best passive survivability in the game. Yes, I do think it´s ridiculous.

Fierce Blow is a melee small cleaving skill.
Compared to Enfeebling Blood (and Weakening Shroud), CPC, Corrupt Boon on might (quite popular these days) and Signet of Spite, it is much less valuable.

sorrow.2364:

Necromancers have a set of conditions that can be easily used with defensive purposes, the soft CCs I was talking about are great if used defensively.
True, you can’t pop endure pain and eat any damage, but you’re making it look like endure pain makes warriors immortal to team focus for an unlimited amount of time. Endure Pain is just a skill to delay the damage you would take anyway for a couple of seconds, it does not provide warriors protection, nor a bigger health pool, nor defensive conditions and soft CCs.

The fun thing about endure pain is that unlike the necromancer counter part makes sure that a hit is a wasted effort. With all the necromancer defences combined does not do that , more damage on a necromancer will make him die faster.

sorrow.2364:

If you think poison is valuable just because of damage, I’m afraid I’m starting to doubt your PvP competence.

Correct but warrior has reliable acces to poison (sigil of doom + fast hands means 50% uptime of poison with one sigil)

sorrow.2364:

Damage is not everything.
It does not apply weakness or chill or poison or cripple. And warriors have only combustive shot as AoE condition skill.

Necromancer do not have reliable acces to aoe chill (unless you count epidemic).

sorrow.2364:

How viable would be Necromancer if the only AoE condition skill is a combustive shot-like one? I’d say close to zero.

Well, you have to consider that necro with aoe condition skills is actuallly a condition spec while the hambow is a power spec. By the way fan of fire is AOE.

sorrow.2364:

I talked about RELIABILITY.
Staff marks always hit and if traited are also unblockable.
Longbow skills are slow, with an huge tell, are projectiles (so subject to LoS fails) and can’t be traited to be unblockable.
It would be stupid to argue that staff is a much more reliable ranged weapon compared to LB, even for the most biased warrior hater out there.

Wrong, cooldowns come into play in this discussion. 3 out of 4 marks have 20 seconds cooldown or higher and mark of blood has a 6 second cooldown. Warrior longbow 3 skills with a cooldown lower or equal to 10 seconds. So while the necromancer marks hit easier (I’m not even sure about because fan of fire has a low tell). The warrior can use his skills more often and have more chances to hit someone thus more reliable.

sorrow.2364:

Fierce Blow is a melee small cleaving skill.
Compared to Enfeebling Blood (and Weakening Shroud), CPC, Corrupt Boon on might (quite popular these days) and Signet of Spite, it is much less valuable.

Fierce blow has incredible uptime of weakness unlike all those other skills. 75% uptime untraited, ungeared is alot more then 25%, 20%, 30%,25%, 16% uptime.The necromancer has at least with 3 of them to reach the same uptime then Firece Blow.

Hold the phone.

People are actually complaining about Necros in PvP?
The condibombers in condi meta, oneshotsignet, two lives Necros?

No wonder PvP is in the state it is atm.

Tim.6450:

Correct but warrior has reliable acces to poison (sigil of doom + fast hands means 50% uptime of poison with one sigil)

So can Necro. The only difference is that Necro isn’t forced to use a valuable sigil slot to apply poison.

Tim.6450:

Necromancer do not have reliable acces to aoe chill (unless you count epidemic).

Chilblains is a reliable access to chill.

Tim.6450:

Well, you have to consider that necro with aoe condition skills is actuallly a condition spec while the hambow is a power spec. By the way fan of fire is AOE.

But it still applies burning. Even in full condition build, all of the warrior’s condition are single target, except for burning.

Tim.6450:

Wrong, cooldowns come into play in this discussion. 3 out of 4 marks have 20 seconds cooldown or higher and mark of blood has a 6 second cooldown. Warrior longbow 3 skills with a cooldown lower or equal to 10 seconds. So while the necromancer marks hit easier (I’m not even sure about because fan of fire has a low tell). The warrior can use his skills more often and have more chances to hit someone thus more reliable.

Cooldown isn’t related with the reliability of a skill.
Casting a skill isn’t like rolling a dice and hoping that the skill lands.
Also, you, purposely or unpurposely, have ignored the LoS factor which is quite big in competitive play.

Tim.6450:

Fierce blow has incredible uptime of weakness unlike all those other skills. 75% uptime untraited, ungeared is alot more then 25%, 20%, 30%,25%, 16% uptime.The necromancer has at least with 3 of them to reach the same uptime then Firece Blow.

Uptime matters very little when you have to stay in melee range and can’t reliably mantain it.
Throw Torch has a much higher uptime compared to Incendiary Powder, but that doesn’t mean that Throw Torch is better compared to Incendiary Powder in terms of burning application.

sorrow.2364:

Tim.6450:

Correct but warrior has reliable acces to poison (sigil of doom + fast hands means 50% uptime of poison with one sigil)

So can Necro. The only difference is that Necro isn’t forced to use a valuable sigil slot to apply poison.

Tim.6450:

Necromancer do not have reliable acces to aoe chill (unless you count epidemic).

Chilblains is a reliable access to chill.

Tim.6450:

Well, you have to consider that necro with aoe condition skills is actuallly a condition spec while the hambow is a power spec. By the way fan of fire is AOE.

But it still applies burning. Even in full condition build, all of the warrior’s condition are single target, except for burning.

Tim.6450:

Wrong, cooldowns come into play in this discussion. 3 out of 4 marks have 20 seconds cooldown or higher and mark of blood has a 6 second cooldown. Warrior longbow 3 skills with a cooldown lower or equal to 10 seconds. So while the necromancer marks hit easier (I’m not even sure about because fan of fire has a low tell). The warrior can use his skills more often and have more chances to hit someone thus more reliable.

Cooldown isn’t related with the reliability of a skill.
Casting a skill isn’t like rolling a dice and hoping that the skill lands.
Also, you, purposely or unpurposely, have ignored the LoS factor which is quite big in competitive play.

Tim.6450:

Fierce blow has incredible uptime of weakness unlike all those other skills. 75% uptime untraited, ungeared is alot more then 25%, 20%, 30%,25%, 16% uptime.The necromancer has at least with 3 of them to reach the same uptime then Firece Blow.

Uptime matters very little when you have to stay in melee range and can’t reliably mantain it.
Throw Torch has a much higher uptime compared to Incendiary Powder, but that doesn’t mean that Throw Torch is better compared to Incendiary Powder in terms of burning application.

a) Why are you comparing utility conditions to active defense? The two have about as much in common as losing a boss vs skipping him or doing a wall immob on him (as in getting the bosses hitbox and pathing stuck in a wall to keep him in combat and on low hp while in forced pathing like lupi on the lower right door). Yes you do get the same results, but one requires effort/a trade of skill and focus for it while the other is easy effortless and with almost no cost.

b) Dont even freaking dare compare a aoe utility weapon with a less than 2.5 times power ratio (on actives not aa) with long cooldowns to a might stacking condi weapon with 4.1 times power ratio (not counting burst skill in addition to not counting aa which have the same 0.6 as necro staff) with low cooldowns.

c) Are you telling me that a 8s cd gap closer with a 1s stun does not allow you a reliable 3/4 cast time hit despite having minimum 3 more cc and maximim 7 more? Because that is bs…

Andele.1306:

a) Why are you comparing utility conditions to active defense? The two have about as much in common as losing a boss vs skipping him or doing a wall immob on him (as in getting the bosses hitbox and pathing stuck in a wall to keep him in combat and on low hp while in forced pathing like lupi on the lower right door). Yes you do get the same results, but one requires effort/a trade of skill and focus for it while the other is easy effortless and with almost no cost.

b) Dont even freaking dare compare a aoe utility weapon with a less than 2.5 times power ratio (on actives not aa) with long cooldowns to a might stacking condi weapon with 4.1 times power ratio (not counting burst skill in addition to not counting aa which have the same 0.6 as necro staff) with low cooldowns.

c) Are you telling me that a 8s cd gap closer with a 1s stun does not allow you a reliable 3/4 cast time hit despite having minimum 3 more cc and maximim 7 more? Because that is bs…

a) If you want effortless gameplay, there is warrior for you. Developers have said multiple times how Necromancer is supposed to defend himself and dumbing down everything to the Warrior level just because there is a profession which is newbie-friendly doesn’t seem a wise choice in my opinion.

b) I dare. Staff is a much better weapon compared to longbow and its utilities along with the traits it can be paired with, and it is worth way more than any LB in any build.
Again, if you don’t like the playstyle of Necro, you shouldn’t play it instead of posting a rant on the forum on how LB is way better in your opinion.

c) What?

Anyway, this is not a topic about Necromancer vs Warrior.
Nobody here has denied that Warriors require futher tuning, but the fact that Warriors are much easier to play and a little bit too strong at the moment isn’t a justification to give Necromancers unneeded buffs, nor to dumb down the gameplay to match Warrior easiness.

Andele.1306:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If someone ever created a thread where people posted their own definitions/ideas of what the words “mitigation”, “sustain”, and “attrition” meant with respect to GW2, I bet no two people would have the same idea for all three.

Death Shroud is a sustain mechanic, regardless of whether or not the tip-top competitive teams currently have a Necro who uses it to sustain for a long period of time in a fight. It just isn’t currently balanced to be usable in a tip-top tier situation without sacrificing too much for the team in the current meta of Conquest mode. That’s a very specific situation, and does not in any sense mean Death Shroud is just no longer a sustain mechanic for the rest of the game.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sustain – no, by book definition DS is not a sustain mechanic.

Did you even follow your own link?

“to provide what is needed for (something or someone) to exist, continue, etc.”
“3 : keep up, prolong”

DS prolongs a Necromancer’s existence in a fight. Without it, a Necromancer would have a much shorter life.

These are the facts. Which definition did you choose to satisfy your desire to think that DS is not a sustain mechanic?

sorrow.2364:

Tim.6450:

Correct but warrior has reliable acces to poison (sigil of doom + fast hands means 50% uptime of poison with one sigil)

So can Necro. The only difference is that Necro isn’t forced to use a valuable sigil slot to apply poison.

The conditon necromancer has to either take a staff or take a scepterand spam auto attacks.

Tim.6450:

Tim.6450:

Necromancer do not have reliable acces to aoe chill (unless you count epidemic).

Chilblains is a reliable access to chill.

forget that one, you’re right then.

sorrow.2364:

Tim.6450:

Well, you have to consider that necro with aoe condition skills is actuallly a condition spec while the hambow is a power spec. By the way fan of fire is AOE.

But it still applies burning. Even in full condition build, all of the warrior’s condition are single target, except for burning.

Cleave is AOE, a small cone but still AOE. So technically bleed and burn are AOE.

Tim.6450:

Tim.6450:

Wrong, cooldowns come into play in this discussion. 3 out of 4 marks have 20 seconds cooldown or higher and mark of blood has a 6 second cooldown. Warrior longbow 3 skills with a cooldown lower or equal to 10 seconds. So while the necromancer marks hit easier (I’m not even sure about because fan of fire has a low tell). The warrior can use his skills more often and have more chances to hit someone thus more reliable.

Cooldown isn’t related with the reliability of a skill.
Casting a skill isn’t like rolling a dice and hoping that the skill lands.
Also, you, purposely or unpurposely, have ignored the LoS factor which is quite big in competitive play.

Yes it is, a shorter cooldowns means that it can used more often which means that are is a bigger chance the enemy has no defences left. Which means it is more reliable.
Also about LOS staff has LOS problems with marks, see attachments.

Tim.6450:

Tim.6450:

Fierce blow has incredible uptime of weakness unlike all those other skills. 75% uptime untraited, ungeared is alot more then 25%, 20%, 30%,25%, 16% uptime.The necromancer has at least with 3 of them to reach the same uptime then Firece Blow.

Uptime matters very little when you have to stay in melee range and can’t reliably mantain it.
Throw Torch has a much higher uptime compared to Incendiary Powder, but that doesn’t mean that Throw Torch is better compared to Incendiary Powder in terms of burning application.

First the basic principle of high level pvp is apparantly on point combat which is melee range, so in pvp it is very reliable. It is also has 10% more range. Also torch in incendintary powder have around same uptime of burning.

1) Some ppl always talk about Necro with his full LF pool , but we only start with 30% of it and in the first team fights you don’t really have the time to chill and make your LF get to 100% …

2)Ppl saying necro’s life force is it’s sustain … OK … go for that idea … but in team fights if you “sustain” with your LF , tell me how you are supposed to use it to do your damage … great i used my 46% Ds to temp some thief / war burst … but i can’t put my burst in the game now cause i have to recharge the LF bar … so you got invulns which allow you to do damage while using it, on war (exemple), BUT remember necro is ping pong balling while caught in CC and have 0 way to deal damage , and to do some damage once the ping pong game is done you have to wait like 10 sec to charge up some LF …. GREAT !

I could go on like this forever , making counter exemples to the super ideas flying around … some time i ask my self if we really play the same game.

You really wan’t to know what i think about global balance right now go check : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Balance-Competitive-GW2/first#post3995121

lazycalm.5186:

Hold the phone.

People are actually complaining about Necros in PvP?
The condibombers in condi meta, oneshotsignet, two lives Necros?

No wonder PvP is in the state it is atm.

You do realize Necromancers are heavily falling out of the meta, right? We’re not debating hotjoin heroes here, this is about high tier viability, and as of right now it just doesn’t really exist.