Guild Wars 2

This isn’t necessarily necro-specific, but it’s my highest level ranged character, so it goes here.

Let me describe leveling with each of my two mains as an illustration:

Necro: Toss out a few ranged abilities, independent of weapon type. Maybe throw out a stun or slow, but inevitably have the target reach you with >50% health and proceed to circle kite until the target finally dies. Two targets are a headache, more than two are usually an indication that it’s time to run away. Survivability is low, time to kill is best described as “interminable”.

Guardian (GS): Leap, symbol, spin, AA chain, repeat. 5 at once? No problem. I just got done taking down a pack of 2 veterans and 3 normal mobs all at the same time before the server restarted. Same general experience with my warrior- I jump in, murder things, then move on.

Am I doing it wrong? Is there a burst- or control-heavy build or play style that I’m missing here? Or is the ranged play style in this game’s PvE characterized by one long game of “not in the face”?

(I ask because the inverse seems to be true in WvW- ranged dominates while melee gets to choose between “blaze of glory” and “spectator”.)

For me, levelling 1-80 I never once stopped kiting. I used a staff and axe+dagger and I abused the hell out of all my AoE’s, and used wells.

With a setup like this you can cripple and chill your enemies and have them chasing you all bunched up while you place marks on your feet, and all of them hit it. I found I took out a group of enemies, 2-10 of them just as fast as I could take out one enemy. Thats not saying a lot though as it takes a long time to burn down a single enemy with this setup

Level, build and armor setup would help.

Leveling as Necro in your definition seems weird. :P

I’ve had no issues with more than 1 mob. I usually actually have an easier time then. The amount of AoE and the CC in the staff makes multiple mobs quite easy. I’ve had no issues surviving 5-6 skritt at once, just with the Staff and Death Shroud.
Yes there is a fair bit of kiting involved, but I rarely have any true issues with soloing groups. Necromancer is the strongest class when it comes to surviving packs that I’ve played.

I mainly focus on Blood Magic Traits, so I may have a bulk of health and bonus healing you don’t, which might make a difference. But I really can’t say I’ve had issues with multiple mobs at once.

Necro is 20, all points in spite. I’ve tried every weapon and weapon combination I could find.

Guardian is not quite 40. But the discrepancy between the two has been marked since the get go.

Well there’s one difference to my style. I went to max Blood Magic first, which improves my healing and health. I am a lot bulkier than you, but I am also 26 levels above you so I have more traits available.

I’ve noticed that with Blood Magic/ the power stat trait line that I cannot name right now, I am fairly tanky, my Well of Blood heals a fair bit, and the staff conditions do a metric ton of damage. :P I think your problem is that you’re a bit too focused on the damage, and so forth are a bit squishy.

Blood definitely makes the Necro more tanky, but it’s still the same game – just keep kiting. That’s exactly how you it in PvE ranged with necro – just keep or circling. Or I just take on 1 or 2 mobs at one time and just let my daggers auto-attack when I can’t be bothered to move my mouse.

Meh, just go staff-aoe the kitten out of them then come close for some dagger kitten then dodge back/forward change to staff-aoe and so on.

Despite minion AI being what it is… broken, i still trust them to do the tanky spanky.
Most of the time it works without any problems, for me at least. So why not.

1. Drop Well of Suffering and Well of Darkness.
2. Use staff skills.
3. ????
4. Profit.

You may need to wait until you’ve got enough skill points to get the relevant wells, but I rarely-to-never kite on my necro (level 45) during solo PVE and I’m fine with several mobs, a veteran in the mix, etc. Ranged can still be a pain because they’re difficult to round up tightly but otherwise, it’s pretty smooth sailing. On the rare occasion when you have too many or it’s taking too long, Death Shroud for a bit until your wells are back off cooldown again.

for leveling, power based with wells and marks will be the most efficient way to go. mob difficulty gets harder as you level up, so once you hit level 48-50 change to a heavy conditionmancer build that uses scepter/dag staff and use epidemic, blood is power, and any third util. elite should be plague.

for the conditionmancer days you’ll be spending from levels 48ish-80, work on getting some power based gear other than berserkers, as endgame playstyle consists of FotM, WvW, tPvP with guilds, and arah/cof for sexy armor. The good builds that fit each of those will be toughness centered builds. Best complement to toughness is vitality and that can best be found in power major bonused gear.
Knights/Valk/soldier/etc.

(some people won’t agree with that endgame build theory but i’ve tested about 13 builds now at lv80 and i find that toughness+vit just makes you the MVP and hardest to kill mofo in any situation)

For levelling up, conditionmancer with sceptre/dagger and staff.

Sceptre 2 > dagger 5 > Blood is Power > dagger 4 > Epidemic > switch to staff and spam AoEs or sceptre 2 then staff spam.

That’ll kill 5+ mobs without you getting touched.

This is the end effect of Anet making the defense in this game rely more on the player than the toon. Dodges, projectiles with actual flight time (allowing them to miss a strafing target) and other design elements favors the mobile combatant. And when you’re mobile, it helps to attack from range. End result is kite kite kite.

Unfortunately Necros have no ways of negating any damage they receive , and no using DS isnt negating damage. Dodging(Vigor is required to do it properly), blocking, stunlocking etc. are all negating damage and Necros have none. It’s just the way ANet unfortunately designed Necros.

We cant kill fast enough to not receive damage like Thiefs and Warriors for example, and we cant negate the damage either like everyone. ANet might think that conditions like Blind, Weakness etc. are the replacement but they suck kitten in reality.

Swadow.6213:

Unfortunately Necros have no ways of negating any damage they receive , and no using DS isnt negating damage. Dodging(Vigor is required to do it properly), blocking, stunlocking etc. are all negating damage and Necros have none. It’s just the way ANet unfortunately designed Necros.

We cant kill fast enough to not receive damage like Thiefs and Warriors for example, and we cant negate the damage either like everyone. ANet might think that conditions like Blind, Weakness etc. are the replacement but they suck kitten in reality.

this is the most hilarious thing i’ve heard on this forum.

Well of Darkness can give you 5s of absolute untouched bliss in the middle of 20 orrian Juggernauts.

vit+toughness invested toons can literally /afk in deathshroud in the middle of a group of 5 risen krait and slowly tick away.

We don’t have any sources of blocking. So please go back to the guardian or warrior forums.

Dodging with the mark of blood trait does wonders. offensive/healing/mobile ability wrapped into one. stop QQing because you can only dodge twice before you actually play smart.

Weakness can turn a thief’s backstab+hs combo into a half-kittened grazing hit failure.
WoD can also COMPLETELY negate their combo, revealing a CD-lockedout thief with a pale face.

Necros can achieve 30k HP and 3100 armor using Dark Armor trait with Dagger2, Ds4 and using vitality gear. That’s THREE consecutive Backstab+hs combos from a glass cannon thief, and over 2-1/2 minutes of absolute warrior dpsing. (if you play right)

are you aware of how well off necros are in terms of tanking?

I really do wonder how wildly the human perception of time can vary.