Guild Wars 2

Jonathan Sharp, Game Designer said:

Class balance philosophies
We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.
When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

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 do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

So is it official they dont even acknowledge minions as even part of the necro’s abilities? They mention illusions(pets) as a major part of the mezmer but completely ignore minions when talking about the necro. The same with Rangers. They mention pets as being a major part of the class. So does this mean we should just give up on minions ever being worth using?

Keep in mind that illusions and pets are part of the Mesmer and Ranger class mechanics, respectively. Minions are not a class mechanic for Necromancers, it’s just one of the possible utility sets they can spec in. So, of course it wouldn’t be the main focus of their balance.

Minions have their uses but Necromancer was not designed as a pet class. Minions are just a nod to GW1 but are tooled to make up for poor direct damage in PvE. Use them for farming and to aid mobility (through sacrifice.)

So minions MIGHT get a fix before the first expansion?

Anchoku.8142:

Minions have their uses but Necromancer was not designed as a pet class. Minions are just a nod to GW1 but are tooled to make up for poor direct damage in PvE. Use them for farming and to aid mobility (through sacrifice.)

Why even name it “Necromancer” then ? What is the point ? They could have came up with other, better names, for the class.

Shafi.8952:

“Necromancer: A person who practices necromancy.
Necromancy: Any sorcery or witchcraft, involving raising or reanimating the dead.”

When I bought this game, I thought playing necromancer without minion would be like playing ranger without bow (melee range) or playing thief without stealth /mobility.

Necromancy (/?n?kr??mænsi/) is a claimed form of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily – for the purpose of divination, imparting the means to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge. The term may sometimes be used in a more general sense to refer to black magic or witchcraft.¹² – From Wikipedia

We’ve had several discussion threads about this topic before. Summarized, necromancer historically has mean someone who dealt with spirits for divination purposes, to gain insight and power – not someone who raises zombies like the popular culture trope.

Necromancer: A Class that is whatever a developer wants it to be in their game.

In all honesty, the concept hasn’t changed overly much between GW1 and GW2 so I’m pretty happy not being lampooned into a pet class. I’d have played Ranger if I wanted some AI following me around everywhere. Minion Masters were glorified baby-sitters in GW1 and my brief usage of Minions in this game was very much the same. Not a fan of the style personally.

In all seriousness though, can we please stop de-railing every thread on this forum with complaints that this isn’t a Necromancer? The entire argument is so subjective at this point that 50 different people can give 50 different answers as to what a Necromancer should be that everybody just bashes skulls against one another trying to convince the world that their vision is the only true one.

Necromancer as someone that raises skeletons and zombies to fight for them is a relatively new use of the word.

necro in gw2 drains life force from corpses and can raise them. it’s perfectly fine with every definition of necromancer you suggested in this thread.

also I don’t want a ranger 2.0. i like that they focused on life force for necro instead of a pet. also having more minions to sacrifice suits necro more then only one pet to directly control (like ranger).

don’t forget that necro pets don’t have a time limit, unlike guardian spiritual weapons, so they’re inferior to ranger’s pet, but still better then the other minions.

I do find this kind of strange.. Especailly considering that so many traits are built around it and the fact that we have a 5 trait that raises one too. One of the first things that we see when we roll a necro is the minion healing skill and we learn then just how underwhelming they are. I’m not a minion fan but still think that it should be fixed in some way, even if it just starts with a change in philosophy.

Kidel.2057:

necro in gw2 drains life force from corpses and can raise them. it’s perfectly fine with every definition of necromancer you suggested in this thread.

also I don’t want a ranger 2.0. i like that they focused on life force for necro instead of a pet. also having more minions to sacrifice suits necro more then only one pet to directly control (like ranger).

don’t forget that necro pets don’t have a time limit, unlike guardian spiritual weapons, so they’re inferior to ranger’s pet, but still better then the other minions.

I’ve never met a guardian who mained spirit weapons, but kitten that Hammer knockdown is bloody useful, more useful for knockdowns then our Elite Minion at least…

Kaleygh.1524:

Anchoku.8142:

Minions have their uses but Necromancer was not designed as a pet class. Minions are just a nod to GW1 but are tooled to make up for poor direct damage in PvE. Use them for farming and to aid mobility (through sacrifice.)

Why even name it “Necromancer” then ? What is the point ? They could have came up with other, better names, for the class.

The traditional necromancer in other games is very different from what necromantic arts historically concerned. Same with a Ranger which was based on Aragorn and the LotR Rangers rather than the typical “we use a Howard shoot you” Rangers of other games.

Arena Net are attempting their own takes at classes rather than using predefined ones from other games. They have multiple sources and what they seem to be doing with the stereotyped classes is looking ack at the traditional pre MMO classes as well as considering modern MMO/RPG classes.

Anchoku.8142:

Minions have their uses but Necromancer was not designed as a pet class.

^This. The fact that necromancers have one elite minion skill, and that it doesn’t work underwater, clearly shows that ANet does not consider minions to be an integral part of the necromancer concept. Hell, the idiot flesh golem dies if you even get your booties wet.