Guild Wars 2

Lately I’ve seen a lot of complaints about how the necro has supposedly become “OP”… I have every class at level 80 and have played all of them in WvW pretty extensively. Necro is right where it should be, people just haven’t learned to fight it yet.
I will briefly explain how to actually beat a necro using the other classes, obviously player skill will always decide the battle. I’m assuming equally skilled players here. (I also roam and do small scale havoc, zerg battles hardly test how good a build is)

This is more of a starting point for players looking for some tips, if your already experienced in WvW or what not, you probably have your own way of beating them, whatever works for you! These are my opinions from fighting necros on each of my classes, as well as from what doesn’t work against my necro.

Thief: You have a tremendous number of ways to beat a necro, at one end you have burst potential that can shred even the toughest necro in a matter of seconds. You have several spammable interrupts available (head-shot comes to mind). On the other end you have a massive number of evades that render the necro’s long cast time skills painfully hard to successfully use. Part of the complaints are likely from the stunningly large number of thieves that I have recently been encountering that run up unstealthed, activate basilisk venom, and shadowstep to the necro expecting to win. This tactic will result in you being turned into a puddle of thief flavored jello. Another thing, DON’T use Hide in Shadows, ten feet in front of me, I know what it does, and will interrupt it with doom. Stealth first THEN use hide in shadows. Most of all be patient, stealth and take pop shots until you win. We will win if you try to take us head on, but your a thief, do what the class is best at. Finally full evade builds are even more capable of beating a necro than stealth builds, we can still hit you in stealth, if your dodge rolling and evading like a mad man we will struggle to stack any conditions on you.

Ranger: Unfortunately you guys are limited on options as your condition removal is far to weak to handle a good necro. That being said, your fast and can kite a necro down. Longbow is actually decent at beating a necro, stay at max range and cripple, knockback and keep the necro as far away as possible. Condition based tank rangers on the other hand probably won’t win, if your in range to effectively use melee or 900 range weapons, expect to have conditions, and a lot of them. Runes of Melandru + condition duration decreasing food might make it possible though. Also be warned, I tend to stack conditions on your pet and then use epidemic to give them to you. The pet doesn’t dodge, so beware of this.

Engineer: CROWD CONTROL, you have a load of options, rifle, slick shoes, battering ram, magnet, Elixir X. Necro’s aren’t exactly the best class to survive being stunlocked. Elixir X is a powerful elite skill can be a royal pain, and the rifle is also frighteningly good at controlling the battle. Rifle also gives you plenty of damage even on tanky builds. Supply crate will work alright against players that don’t know what it is, everyone else will typically laugh, dodge the stun and walk around the turrets. You also have plenty of ways to handle a necro’s conditions, Elixir C, 409 etc. Now…for what I typically run into…condi engies and various nade engies…I consider these builds a tasty snack, any conditions you decide to apply will promptly be returned to you along with a few new ones. Any good necro WELCOMES enemy conditions, they make us more powerful. If your running a condi engi in a group expect me to use your conditions to kill your teammates. If your an alpha damage based grenade engi, I’ll bet on my jagged horror beating you. Oh and automated response, if this triggers and you happen to also have runes of melandru and condition duration decreasing food, I’ll kill you with life-blast or life-siphon. Though that may help against the hordes of new necros that have appeared.

Warrior: Plenty of options, you can stunlock like a boss as well as kite pretty well. You also have traits and skills that can make you very obnoxious to kill with conditions. (Warhorn condition removal, beserker’s stance, dogged march etc). If your running a full glass build with shake it off as your only condition removal, that’s your own fault. Warrior is a class I would advice to be ultra aggressive, you can down a necro but don’t blow your condition removal on one little bleed, the necro struggles with taking a lot of focus, this is something the warrior can do. May take a bit of practice, but I have no trouble beating even good necros with my warrior. If you panic and let up for even a second though you will lose, the necro will wreck you if you stop pressuring it for even a few seconds. Your a warrior, stand and fight.

Guardian: Okay lets be honest here..if your dieing to conditions your build probably needs some work. You can both do some serious damage and tank. You have more ways to deal with conditions than I care to count. But as I said for warrior, pressure the necro. If you panic and run around trying to clear the conditions as fast as I apply them you have already lost. Most of the better necro’s I know are stubborn and hard to panic. Many of the guardians I fight panic and blow a ton of skills trying to keep my conditions off, keep your head on you and don’t let up, a good necro won’t panic even at low health, you shouldn’t either, you have plenty of ways to recover that health, our ways are a bit limited. (Also as a side note, if our marks our huge, they are unblockable, so don’t expect your blocks to save you.)

Mesmer: Where the necro lacks in mobility, you do not (in combat mobility mind you). You have burst, annoying interrupts, stealth, teleports and plenty of other annoying tricks. If you try and tank a necro (something I’ve been seeing a lot of lately), your going to die, similar to the thief, you can win by patience, catch us in a burst, dart off, repeat. Also as much as I loath to give you the idea, moa morph is stunningly annoying when cast from stealth. Oh and watch your heal skills, I’ll interrupt them as well as mass invis, so be careful when using them or use distortion to make sure I don’t.

Elementalist: Again your a class that has plenty of condition removal, you have crowd control, some annoying invuln etc. You also have a ton more options for in combat mobility. Your sadly better at the attrition game than a necro, you also have the ability to escape and recover before charging back into battle. Take advantage of this, the necro won’t be able to recover from damage as quickly as your ele, do some damage, and dart away and heal up. Rinse and repeat until you beat them. Again if you stand and try to tank a necro your going to lose (unless you can stunlock them the entire fight).

Obviously there are other ways to beat a necro, and even if I said something won’t work, such as condi engineers, that doesn’t mean you can’t win by being a better player. These are also my opinions, if your able to beat every necro you fight with some other tactic that’s great, keep it up.

P.S. If your complaining about spectral wall being OP, stop walking into it…