Guild Wars 2

Ok, I’d argue that the best and most viable necromancer build in tournaments is the conditionmancer (and its varieties). Some might not agree with me, but that’s what I believe.
However, this is not what I want to talk about, yeah, forget what I said.

As much as my post might give you guys the impression, this is not my attempt to call for nerfs or complain (if I wanted to do that I’d be in the engineer forum not here). I’m here to vent my frustration with engineers running Automated Response and Elixir R and search for a solution.
Automated Response makes engineers completely immune to conditions under 25% health. Elixir R makes the engineer’s already amazing downed skill set, even more amazing by allowing them to rez themselves.
When I’m running a condition build with rabid, using scepter/dagger and staff, I have pretty much close to no raw damage and almost all of my control mechanics come in the form of conditions. I fight the engi, he goes below 25% health and becomes immune to everything I throw at him and the laughable raw damage left to me is not enough to kill him. At this point, the engineer doesn’t even try to heal himself cause he’s practically immune to a conditionmancer.
If by any chance, the engineer fails to survive my condition/control lock on him and fails to remove the conditions already on him at 25% health (something any half-decent engineer can do because they have enough in their disposal for that), he will die… but it’s not over cause he has a pull and an aoe knockback… but that’s not a problem… he has elixir R to rez himself, wipe the dust off his clothes, stretch a bit and start over. The only thing I can do against such an engineer solo, is to just grin, wave and run away.
At least that’s been my sad experience against them. I would like to hear the opinion of other necromancers and their tactical advice when I face something like that as a pure conditionmancer.

TL&DR: As an experienced necromancer, I am seeking advice on how best to tactically face an engineer running Automated Response and Elixir R as a pure conditionmancer.

Well i’m not sure if my answer will fit you but, let’s try.

Firts of all, I aggre with you, Engeneer a really resilient. I play mostly a powermancer with vampiric focus (Yeah that’s not imba but it give me the survivability I need in most of the situation I encounter). The Engi you’re describing seem to be an HGH stereotype with load of boons and against boon there is only two ways to go :

- corrupt boons : mostly with our utility skill
- remove boons : focus skill 5 (this one is pretty effective against Engi)

And when they are down, condition transfert. Yes their down attack is a condition based damage skill. The elixir R heal should be reduce by applying poison effect. Oh and a last thing, flesh golem active skill on a down player bump him out of elixir R heal zone.

Dadnir.5038:

Well i’m not sure if my answer will fit you but, let’s try.

Firts of all, I aggre with you, Engeneer a really resilient. I play mostly a powermancer with vampiric focus (Yeah that’s not imba but it give me the survivability I need in most of the situation I encounter). The Engi you’re describing seem to be an HGH stereotype with load of boons and against boon there is only two ways to go :

- corrupt boons : mostly with our utility skill
- remove boons : focus skill 5 (this one is pretty effective against Engi)

And when they are down, condition transfert. Yes their down attack is a condition based damage skill. The elixir R heal should be reduce by applying poison effect. Oh and a last thing, flesh golem active skill on a down player bump him out of elixir R heal zone.

Nah, nothing with HGH. He has Automated response which takes up the trait slot for HGH.

I don’t know that it is realistically possible for you to kill him if you didn’t get him very close to death with the lingering conditions you had. Thankfully (to my knowledge) almost no one actually runs this trait, but it is an issue that will come up eventually.

Burjis.3087:

Elixir R makes the engineer’s already amazing downed skill set, even more amazing by allowing them to rez themselves.

I stopped reading there. Why? Because you sincerely just made the stupidest comment I have ever seen. ‘’Amazing downed skill set?’’ Im sorry, can you not press F whilst he is downed? Yea, #2 pulls right away but after thakittens insta death due to the extremely long cooldown on #3. Yes, Elixir R toolbelt skill will revive him if he can get it down. Thats just one of their skills. Man, Im sorry but their downed skills are not amazing.

kitten i thought the thread would be a smart pun on how imba charrior banners are for necro (as in they do more dps than any of our weapons) with a typo…

Stopped reading at “amazing downed skill set.” Engineers have the worst down state in the game, unless you include that ours is bugged. As far as a solution to automated defense, 25% for an engineer is about 4k-5k health, so you could pop lich form and end em pretty quickly. And if thats down, death shroud should provide enough damage, so be sure to pop it late in the fight against engineers.

Loooooooooooooooool, best down state in game, looooooooooooooooool,

Since my main is an Engi, I almost spit up my drink when I read this.

Elixir R is good yeah, but by no means is it great or OP, If you want OP look at the necro rez signet, rez up to 3 guys instantly? From range? Looooooooooooool. Elixir R is is on a huge CD, very risky to throw down for a self rez because if you don’t end up going down, you just wasted it for nothing, and it’s not even a guaranteed rez, it just helps you regen up faster. You have no idea how many times I have thrown this down to no avail. Automated response Engi’s are few and far between, because in the Engi community HGH is viewed as the bread and butter so almost no one even considers this amazing ability and it’s potential at completely shutting down pure condition builds. Example: On my bunker engi I was holding a point against and HGH engi, and 2 necro’s that were pure condition, they dropped me to 25% health in about 15 or 20 seconds, my auto kicked in, and my health stayed steady for around 2 minutes before my team came in and wiped them. Does this mean the ability is op? No, it means that my build was a perfect counter to their build, and even given this, they should have killed me easily. All they had to do was think instead of mash their conditions over and over again. The engi should have gone pure grenades but he only popped in to throw his 2 and 4, then back to pistols he went, so I just saved dodges for those, the necro’s were idiots, just mashing scepter skills and staff skills, so I paid them 0 attention because my health didn’t even flinch on their 100 points here or there considering I have perma regen greater than that, they should have coordinated their attacks by going into DS and 1 spamming me into the ground, with only 5k health, they could have taken me out fairly easily, as good players who see my health not dropping when I hit this point recognize.

Condi Necros do struggle with Automated Response Engis.

No their downed skills are not amazing, but the self-rez is strong, and Necro can’t do much to get stability, so if they get down the R and hit the pull, then you are going to lose.

With that said…

As others mentioned Lich Form (even on a condition build) puts out enough damage to burn them down at 25% and you have a chance to get them with Shroud #1+Shroud #4 when they are low. Unfortunately you can’t interrupt Toss Elixir R, but if he pops it when you are in Lich use #3 to knock him back before you down him or if you run Golem you can CHarge him out.

Once he is down you can blind with Dagger 4 (if you are running that) or Well of Darkness before attempting the stomp. Supposing there is a turret around you might get a lucky bounce on Dagger 4 to double blind him and get the stomp. Alternatively a Plague Stomp (though a total waste of an elite) works and if you run Foot in the Grave, then they are an easy shroud stomp. Flesh Wurm/Spectral Walk Tele Stomp would work too, but the odds that you are running both and they are both off CD are slim.

It is a tough match up for Necro, Engineer just has better tools in general, but if you get him down, then you should be able to get the stomp 75+% of the time.

I don’t know how high you rank in the leaderboards Brannidus but you fail by suggesting lich form on a “pure” conditionmancer.
Engineers are the only class with two downed state hard CC and the necromancer is the class with little access to stability for downing foes (except for the FitG and plague exploit). Your so-called “extremely long cooldown on #3”, Maketso, is as long as the necromancer’s #3 which, through actual practice and not theoretical babble, has quite a normal cooldown. The chance of an engineer managing to cast #3 on a necro without stability is roughly 50/50 depending on various factors.
But have you read my post fully, you would have realized that’s not my immediate issue. It’s elixir R (which usually takes effect before he even needs #3) and much more important than that, Automated Response. So far, thanks for dodging the actual issue and for the useless comments.

There’s one particular suggestion here that I like from Dadnir and Myrmidian:

Oh and a last thing, flesh golem active skill on a down player bump him out of elixir R heal zone.

I usually already have my golem’s charge used in the fight (for control lock as well as depriving the AR engineer the time he needs to remove his conditions), but that’s surely something I’m going to consider next time I face an engineer with elixir R.

@ Galandor:
Although my title is a bit misleading, I think I made it clear in my post that I’m not calling anything “OP”. Whether AR or Elixir R are OP or not is not mine to decide although I would still argue against “perfect” counters which applies to your scenario.
Besides, I trust you have the ability to distinguish between “amazing downed skill set” (my wording) and “best downed skills in the game” (your interpretation).

IDK maybe it is just how familiar with Engi’s I am and know their animations really well and their major weaknesses, and what kills them, but Engi’s are one of the classes I have struggled the least with so far in my brief time with the Necro.

I don’t have too much problem facing engineers in general when I’m using my bunker-breaker conditionmancer. It’s the AR variation that gives me trouble.

Engineers can’t kitten a condi nec. Never. if you know your own class.

And condi is the best.

I’m not an expert in tourneys as I never done them before, but logically if your problem is an Engineer with 25% health left, go lich form perhaps and finish him off?