Guild Wars 2

Greetings all, not sure where to post this question, but i been wondering what to roll.

My 2 friends started to play and one of them decided to play warrior, the other one is playing guardian, for that i thout i will play some long ranged class. ( with a lot of direct damage or nuke prefered)
I usually play casters and support anyway

I did play Ele to 40, and i dont like it, i propably was waiting a bit more “wizard” then the current class.

So i was left with the Mesmer and Necro.

I did hear a lot of negative things abaut necro, trough that would be my first pick, since i usually play it, and it fits my taste, but after 20 i realized its not the thing i am looking in a Necromancer. Its not like it is usually.

So i was wondering, should i stick with Necro? You think it will get major changes? Maybe a partial redesign? Or should i stay with it for the current skillset?

What are pros and Cons on Mesmer and Necro? Do they have a “support” build? Like Ele can heal and guardian can protect?
Are they viable as long range nuker?
And so on….

Go watch gameplay videos on YouTube. But in short— Necro.

Unless I just haven’t been playing Mesmer correctly at all I don’t think you’re going to be able to act as a long range nuker…

Our AoE is severely limited and kind of fickle to pull off. If we want to shatter on someone in the crowd we have to bring up 3 (for max damage) clones/phantasms and get them into the middle of the group (hoping that the person you summoned them to attack is still inside the big group of enemies [and also still alive, or they will disappear]) and then shatter them. You can do that every 12-15 seconds depending on your traits (and some utilities make it even faster). And you can add more damage if you trait yourself to shatter, but then you have to be in the mix as well.

Then we have Feedback, but they have to do ranged damage to get the reflection. If you trait glamour and add in null field you will be able to blind and confuse a lot of enemies too, but confusion is only going to hit so hard, even when specced into condition damage.

I am basing all of this on WvW, where you have 10-100 enemies running in a semi-tight group. I get about the same bag as some eles, though they aren’t AoE specced, and less bags than the necros. Bags usually correlated to your damage and # of enemies you have damaged.

If you are only going to play PvE, then you will have a lot better chance of dpsing well, you’ll be a little squishy I think but if you keep up the shattering you will be ok. Normally I didn’t fight over 4 mobs at once. So, that shouldn’t be a problem.

When you get in a 1v1 fight, WvW or PvP, you can dish out a lot of damage. But I wouldn’t consider that a long range nuker, as most of the time you are pretty close to your opponent.

I’ve never seen any necromancer actually nuking something in long-range, outside of lich form.

Hello,

Let me try to help you decide by listing PROs and CONs (strictly PvE speaking)

Single Target Mobs/Champions/etc: Mesmers

Why?
Mesmer: Very good damage output from Warden/Zerker/Duelist in terms of raw damage. Very survivable against single targets due to clone on dodge traits, decoy, and other escape mechanics. If built as glass cannon, has more survivability than Necros built as glass cannons due to escape mechanics and threat drop
Necro: Not so much straight up damage except for dagger (which requires you to be up close and personal). Minions die easily (even if going minion master build) to dungeon bosses. Minions will also be detrimental in dungeons as they might accidentally pull mobs (due to very bad AI)

—

Hearts: Any of the two

Why?
Mesmer and Necros play very differently but based on experience, you’re fine doing hearts with any of these two. Mesmer has a slight advantage by dying less often especially after you get the clone on dodge trait but a decently skilled and traited Necro should have no problem. In terms of speed buffs, necros have slight advantage as they have 1 weapon speed buff (warhorn #5), a signet that gives a passive speed buff, and a utility skills that gives you 30 seconds of speed on a 60 second cooldown. My conclusion in this area is that choose whatever character suits your playstyle.

—

Dynamic Events: Necros

Why?
Mesmers: are one of the worst (if not THE worst) AoE classes in this game. We have limited AoE skills, and 1 AoE weapon (sword) that that requires you to be in melee range to be effective. AoE options as Mesmer would include equipping focus for the Warden (which has great AoE damage) but he doesn’t really move from where he appears initially so your targets have to be stationary plus he takes a really long time to do another round of attack. Another AoE option is the berserker from the Greatsword. Both are phantasms and die VERY easily once enemies attack them.
Necros: on the other hand are one of the best AoE damagers in this game. between the staff skills, the marks, the traited lifeblasts that pierce and give vulnerability, the aoe poison, bleeds and weakness from scepter and off-hand daggers = YUM YUM LOOT.

—

Party Support: If you are skilled = Mesmer. If not so skilled = Necros

Why?
In terms of utility to a party, mesmers and necros are about even when you’re talking about just sheer potential to be useful to partymates. HOWEVER, it takes so much more skill to be useful as a Mesmer than as a Necro. As Necro, your staff skills and Wells will already do AoE damage +benefit your allies. It really doesn’t take a skilled player to make Necros do a ton of help to other players. As a Mesmer, you get access to exotic effects like ethereal effects, chaos storm, phantasms that provide infinite regen to party mates (as long as they are alive), and so on. However, you need to be more skilled in playing the game to be as equally beneficial to the party as a Necromancer can be with his eyes closed.

—

Future Outlook: Necros

Why?
This is purely from a personal point of view and you are welcome to take my opinion any way you want but based so far on impression from the way developers are handling the Mesmer class, they seem to want to drive this class to the ground with numerous nerfs and such (primarily to balance PvP, but which hurt PvE). Mesmers don’t get as much attention as Necros (as you can obviously see by the lack of amount of developer interaction in the Mesmer class forum) as opposed to Necros. If you look at the patch notes since release, Mesmers have been continually receiving nerfs, while Necros sometimes get nerfed, sometimes get buffed. A developer also already commented in one of the threads here in the forum that they are actively looking at making the Necro better. However, no such information, not even a hi-hello, has been given to the Mesmer class.

Source: I have an 80 Mesmer and a 48 Necro.

EDIT: Btw, I forgot to add, you can totally make a ranged nuker warrior if you want a straight up nuker. If you need more information, head to the ranger forums (strange advice, I know). They are crying rivers of tears because they claim both theif and wars are better at ranged than they are. You might be able to figure out in their forums exactly why.

Winds.3087:

I’ve never seen any necromancer actually nuking something in long-range, outside of lich form.

I think that’s because their only long range nukes are on staff weapon. Staff autoattack deals very low damage and is single target, the rest are various ground-targeted AoE effects. That’s not really what you call a “long range nuker”.

Actually necros are fun in zerg/siege fights in WvW. You can cover your entire screen with AoE. But in small skirmishes this is not helpful. Many necros use dagger (=melee weapon) in small fights. Again, this is not what you call a “long range nuker”.

A mesmer with greatsword has “long range nukes”, but he lacks some serious AoE capabilities. In siege fights (attacking/defending towers and fortresses) the mesmer is pretty useless right now. They shine in smaller fights.

In PvE they are both slow. Especially when it comes to cash farming, both necro and mesmer are awful.

it sounds like what you want is ele. they can be built for massive heals as well as huge ranged aoe damage.

Long range nuker = rifle warrior or grenade engineer. Both also have strong support builds.

Neither Mesmer nor Necro fit that bill.

Having said that, Mesmer4Life! They’re much more fun.

Snoxx.7943:

Winds.3087:

I’ve never seen any necromancer actually nuking something in long-range, outside of lich form.

I think that’s because their only long range nukes are on staff weapon. Staff autoattack deals very low damage and is single target, the rest are various ground-targeted AoE effects. That’s not really what you call a “long range nuker”.

Hi Snoxx,

Staff#1 skill is actually a piercing attack so it damages enemies along a line.

For example imagine this scenario:

U = Your character
X = mob 1
Y = mob 2

Set-up:
U —-——- X —-——— Y

If you attack X with Staff#1, you will not damage Y unless Y is just directly behind X.

If you attack Y and X is in the line between you and Y, X gets damaged as well.

That being said, to maximize staff damage, you choose the enemy farthest from you and then position yourself such that it will hit other enemies between you and targetted mob.

Life Blast can be traited to work like this as well but has reduced range. See http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unyielding_Blast for details.