Guild Wars 2

I agree it is an over exageration to claim that no one at Anet is playing the class regularly and I agree with your statement:

“Ever since the betas they have been telling us that they playtest all the classes internally so that they can come up with and nerf overpowered builds before they came into play in the lives servers (acting proactively).”

I think Olbugga is one of many trying to relay that whatever conclusions Anet is finding out about the class internally is not necessarily translating into the real time scenrios happening in WvW and PvP (just as the orb idea seemed good internally and played out not so good externally).

They have a certain vision for the class that is admirable and sounds awesome but has yet to realized in the current gaming environment. I for one am willing to wait for this vision to come to fruition and it is not my intention to come across as completely bashing Anet. They have given us a great product for which I am grateful.

Yes, I agree with you and I think that putting our thoughts in that manner sounds way more serious and respectable. It makes the necromancer community look more like the passionate bunch we are, and less like the rabid zealots we tend to look like when posting on this forum. I understand that the month after month of disappointment can easily get under your skin, but the best we can do is keep being constructive.

First, allow me to apologize for the impending text-wall …

Gryph.8237:

You are asking the Dev’s not only to educate us, but to care about the Necromancer class, and to care what the necro community thinks. However, let’s be honest, they don’t. The necro class is an afterthought class, and the classes the devs do play, have steadily been addressed and fine tuned. You can tell mesmers, thieves and warriors are their babies.

Take it from a guy who mains Mesmer [and is working on a Necro atm] ; Mesmer is – most assuredly – not ANet’s baby.

Fact is, many of your ‘successful’ Mesmer spreads (especially pvp-wise) are based around the same few tricks: massive clone generation/shatter/rinse and repeat. Failing that, then it’s generally high Toughness/condition dmg builds. As for downsides:

-Phantasms and the failure to summon them due to wacky ‘LoS’ issues. (Frankly, if the enemy can see me to attack, why can’t I consistently drop a Zerker or Duelist on his kitten )

-The slowest movespeed in game, especially after every other prof packs at least +25 movement, and Mesmer’s closest analogues are: Focus 4 [12 sec swiftness/20 sec c/d, untraited] or Signet of Inspiration [random % swiftness].

-Mesmer’s own version of ‘strange trait synergies.’ For instance, I’ve been experimenting with a glamour-reliant high-confusion build [mainly for pvp]. The traits modifying confusion are spread over 3 gods-kittening Trait lines, ya know [Domination – (confusion on glamours)/Dueling – (confusion on clone-death)/Illusions – (longer confusion duration)].

-The recent sneak-nerf to Illusionary Membrane trait [3 sec. protection when you gain regeneration, now with a 15 sec. in-built c/d]. This somewhat reduces the effectiveness of ‘tank’ Mesmers.

As for my Necro, I’m definately in agreement with the following issues:

-Minion AI/Reanimator problems. There’s a reason my current spread is slanted towards Fear dmg/BiP/Wells/Marks/Plague Form, and my weapon spread is s/d, staff for marks.

-CC would be much better if things like S. Grasp or Dark Pact were a bit more trustworthy for hit proccing.

-If ANet truly considers Necros to be poison-heavy, then – absolutely – I would like to see a few more methods to work that into the mix. As is, my main source of poison is currently Plague Form, since I can slap a few more conditions alongside the basics.

-Stability. Seems a lot harder to manage as a Necro.

Personally, all I want [for any class, tbh.] is the same degree of foresight and dedication applied across the board, so that no class needs to utilise a limited set of ‘cookie-cutter’ build options to succeed.

Scepter-Warhorn/Staff. Utilities being Consume Conditions, Spectral Grasp, Corrupt Boon, Plague Signet, Flesh Golem.

Warhorn gives us Locust Swarm which is probably the hardest skill to get away from without leaps (curing cripple means jack when it’s almost immediately re-applied, and the Swiftness means they can’t be moving faster than you), and surprisingly large AoE daze (for an interrupt, even on stealthed foes).

Scepter grants access to Grasping Dead for AoE cripple at decent range for a good duration. It is also our most reliable poison to limit healing and, once again, limits the effects of condition removal, since it can be re-applied quickly.

Staff, of course, is a sort of standard weapon for necros since it fulfills a variety of purposes, including poison and snare (Chillblains), Bleeding and healing (Mark of Blood) Condition transfer (Putrid Mark, also a blast finisher), interrupt (Reaper’s Mark), and life force generation.

Spectral Grasp, while buggy, is yet another interrupt, pulls the target toward you (undoing whatever escape they had accomplished so far) and chills preventing further escape. Also generates the most life force of any skill we have so far.

Corrupt Boon is just an all-around good one to have. They’re running with swiftness? Now they’re running with cripple. They used For Great Justice? Now they’re weakened and blind. Reatliation? Now confusion. You get the idea.

Plague Signet is more condition transfer and removal. Honestly, Spectral Walk is probably better here just because it is two stun breaks instead of one, but it has far fewer offensive applications.

Flesh Golem has more DPS and cripple, but nobody can out-run a Flesh Golem charge. If they kill it (which they can), they aren’t focusing you, so free damage.

Death Shroud gives us Life Blast (for damage), Dark Path (outrunning teleport doesn’t go over so well, plus it throws on a chill), Doom for another interrupt, and Life Transfer for decent AoE damage that hits stealthed people.

I’d say it’s possible to make a build that fits all of the criteria. The problem isn’t with the necro not having the tools, the problem is everyone else having leaps and teleports that let them get away anyway.

Why do people always say spectral walk is two stun breaks? I’ve tested this multiple times with different CC, and I’m still under their effects after spectral recall, I merely don’t have the dazed/knocked down animation (and sometime don’t the debuff listed on the bar either), but it’s definitely still there.

Drarnor : I’m ain’t sure at all about the build you are suggesting ahaha.

Scepter and warhorn? I tried every weapon combo for fun, and this one didn’t work really well. In PvP, I don’t want to go melee with Scepter. Why I would want that? If I get to melee, they will outdps me with Melee weapon. I was rarely ever using WH abilities because I was trying to keep my distance.

And like you say, WH #5 is really good in practice, but not so much in pvp. Too many leap, blink, knockback ect..

I agree with you on Spectral Graps. While it can be good, so many times it’s doesn’t work. Each time I cast it, I feel like I have a 50% of failure. Same thing with Dagger #3.

Corrupt Boon. A really fun skill, tho it’s not always useful. I have it failing a lot because the range is 900, and I tend to stay at 1200 range. In the heat of battle, I tend to outrange it a lot, wasting it. I would have loved might boon to be converted to bleed.

Plaguesignet is just another life transfer, the passive is bugged so I’m not a fan.

Flesh Golem won’t attack 70% of the time, I only rely on the stun. And since it won’t attack, it won’t always be in range to stun. Lot of moving during a fight, if your ennemy outrange the golem it’s a waste.

Also, this build miss the attriction criteria. You won’t become stronger as the fight goes, since you don’t have any regen. The longer the fight goes, the weaker you get.

I usually use dagger off-hand instead of warhorn. Really Warhorn works best with dagger or axe main-hand (axe, since it shares the range of 600, dagger because that’s the best way to use locust swarm). Dagger off-hand gives you another blind, condition transfer, and AoE weakness (not much help against high-precision builds, but everything else it has noticeable DPS mitigation)

Corrupt Boon, however, works well with Scepter as they share the same range. Using the scepter means you won’t be out of range for Corrupt Boon.

Flesh Golem is not as bad as everyone says it is. It usually does attack rather than not (seems to be the most aggressive minion, though Flesh Wurm lacks pathing problems). Still, the long range and rapid speed of Charge results in a successful blowout most of the time.

Attrition requires trait investments. I was not originally going to get into that part of the build. Skill-wise, you have numerous conditions doing damage, healing and damage mitigation, and a very strong healing skill in Consume Conditions, plus death shroud (the extra health bar does help significantly, especially with Life Transfer)

Besides, “Attrition” does not mean that you get stronger as time goes on, it means you are more likely to win the longer a battle goes on. There is a world of difference between the two. The approach the devs decided to take with necros is to have such a massive pool of resources that their opponents simply cannot out-last them. Yes, this was poorly executed, but it was their intent.

As I said before: it’s not that we don’t have the tools to fit the dev’s vision for us, it’s that every other class has multiple things that allow them to completely negate what we have.

I may have a solution to the devs dilemma with this challenge. We can change the vision simply by adding the word MAY or OR at strategic places in that vision with very occasional others…..

Lets have a go:

“Necro

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher.

While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they MAY have a ways to win attrition fights.

They MAY access to poison on multiple weapons, OR
they MAY BE able to combine condition damage with raw damage, OR
they MAY CHOSE have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. OR
Necomancers MAY have multiple movement disabling abilities, WHICH MIGHT allow them to chase down enemies who are low on health."

There…that looks more like thew necro I CAN BUILD. Bit lame isn’t it. Notice most are mutually exclusive because of the deliberate trait tree hotch potch.

I wish they would just look at the class from a players perspective.

I dunno about attrition and chasing people down. Putting conditions on a guardian usually means death for me and I can’t chase thieves who I don’t burst down fast enough.

I have just seen this post and agree 100%. Thanks Oldbugga for creating it.

Since launch, I have trying and trying to play necro as the attrition profession. All to no avail; everything I do to try to pin people down is negated by leaps, condition removals or hard CCs and my damage simply isn’t high enough to compensate.

I’d really like to see an Anet response here to get their view. If they think the class is fine then we can all just move on.

Necromancer is a “Attrition” class right? I would say a prolonged fight is around 120 seconds (2 minutes). Then how come the thief class can out DPS the necro in a 120 second time span? How come the thief can survive 120 seconds against 4 players, while the necromancers cannot survive for more than 30 seconds against 4 players?

CHIPS.6018:

Necromancer is a “Attrition” class right? I would say a prolonged fight is around 120 seconds (2 minutes). Then how come the thief class can out DPS the necro in a 120 second time span? How come the thief can survive 120 seconds against 4 players, while the necromancers cannot survive for more than 30 seconds against 4 players?

Because we have DeathShroud.

I’d bet everything wrong with the Necro can be traced back to their re-balancing after DS was changed from a downed state to a toggle.

Too many things at launch were bugged with Necros because of DS being initially designed as a downed state, some remain even now like our DS lacking any meaningful UI.

Our skills, weapons and traits had to be rebalanced in a much shorter time than other professions and this was done near the game’s launch, meaning all of this was done during “crunch” time.

What we have is the least developed, under-designed, rushed profession in the game, all because our core mechanic was changed much too late in development.

Agree Dev. Come out here. Talk. Proof Necro is viable. Every time I jump on my necro, i leave it again, as I feel so weak, both damage, and armor wise. The high hp pool barely helps, (same for DS). Survival tools work much better (dodge, vigor restoration – necro don’t have any – stun, etc.)

When I saw ~raw damage~, I laughed. Then I laughed some more. Then after my tears of laughter I cried a bit. Because the devs are so out of touch with that raw damage means.
When I think raw damage, I would think axe, but the axe is garbage. The dagger does more damage. The only problem with the dagger is it falls flat on its face too.
So were is the raw damage, I turned to death shroud. Okay slightly better numbers.. still piddly compared to a warriors basic attack.
I never found the raw damage. I’m sad.

Where is the raw damage Anet?

@Anet and everyone caring about necro as much as I do:

After hundreds of hours played as necro since BWE1, good chunk of it being competitive PvP I can say necro is definitely capable of some insane plays.

With that said there is much wrong with the execution of class implementation.

1. Warriors need someone to take care of their conditions. Current necro design requires the necromancer to have someone to help them kill fleeing targets. You either are a DPS and cannot catch disengaging foes or you are CC-specced and your only role is to try to prevent your enemy from fleeing. You can’t reliably do both. Others can (mes, ele, thief).

2. The amount of invulnerabilities/stealth that can be used to reset fights is insane and works directly against necro (he doesn’t have any). With most classes having access to powerful boons like Stability or Vigor, CC-speccs (not only on necro) do not work. What is wrong with a designer that gives one profession a low cooldown teleports that allows them to mess with verticality like a madman and leaves necro having to run for 15 seconds. Your attrition class cannot catch a stealthy thief with a shortbow or a mesmer or an ele.

3. Necro has the most poorly designed weapon sets in the game. Other classes have a great deal of diversity in their weapons. Necro follows very simplistic formula of auto-attack, ground-targeted/channel skill, and cast-and-forget additional skill in dagger scepter and axe sets. Same for the staff which is very powerful but also utterly boring.

Which leads me to…

4. The gameplay is just dumb with spamming Wells or Marks or stacking bleeding. Of course there is place for great plays. My favourite was catching a thief fleeing from Windmill in Kyhlo by chasing him with Dark Path. The hand reached him under the Clocktower when he used the SB teleport and shadowstepped to the nod teleporting me with him. Countering condition thieves by intentionally standing in Caltrops and casting big Putrid Mark just to see him melt is another example. Triple rupt of stomp utilising Corrupt Boon, both fears and Wail of Doom also comes to mind.
There is a huge potential and the profession is strong.

It is just a big mess. Just compare it to the Elementalist, who has greatly designed weapon sets (D/D is the gem of design).

MY SUGGESTION IS:

Why not just rework necro weapon sets so that they offer something more than button mashing. Since it is the ‘attrition class’, give it some reliable and interesting CC.
I am not talking cripple and chill. I’m talking a whole weapon set designed to toss the enemies around. Guardian has bubbles and walls. Warrior has KD/immobilise/stun sets. Give necro pulls and pushbacks (similar to skill 3 in Lich Form).

That change not only makes necro more interesting to play, but it also defines necro’s role as a interrupter and area denial profession. One that (as it is currently) lacks mobility, but is the king when it comes to playing longer battles in one spot. One that cannot escape when overwhelmed, but can overwhelm you when you stay for too long and try to escape.

And Anet, please, take it seriously. Necro needs more interesting weapon sets. Not in numbers but in mechanics. Take it seriously and rework it, until it is too late.

You have Karl McLain (hope I spelled it correctly) who is an ele guy. Let him tweak with necro kits so we can see some quality in this profession we all love

EDIT: One more thing, delete Reanimator and replace it with some endurance regeneration trait or vigor provider. Endurance is the most important thing in this game and currently necro is crippled when it comes to endurance regeneration (unlike other professions).

Now the devs are back from their break maybe we could get a response to this plea.

I keep lurking on the necro forums hopping that a necro-prodigy will come and give us that “wooow” moment. The problem as I see it, even if a prodigy do show up, he has nothing to work with on a necro, and he will just move on to another class.
And as others have stated, I don’t think a dev will come here and educate us. But we can still hope.