Guild Wars 2

I’m playing condition-mancer since GW2 start. I really like how it works, but now i’m having some troubles in WvW. The server who we are fighting right now usually play with big zergs (40-60 ppl). I’m feeling quite useless on this way, because against those zergs always there are some support-condition removal and my condition are not active the time enough to do a big damage.

I’m thinking in going to power-mancer. What do you think about that?

Ranged wells, marks and lich should work ok in WvW.

However, since big zergs that have some people focus firing are usually bad news for a necro(you do not have invincibility and they know it), what you might want to do instead is roll with a smaller group to contest the smaller objectives, where your strengths would shine better.

Necro’s generally perform better with a larger number of enemies. While this means that these groups will have larger condition removal, you also have more allies that will also be placing conditions — which is great for epidemic. Also means you have more chances to find professions with several buffs (specifically Retaliation) for Corrupt Boon → Epidemic.

Don’t get discouraged if you get a stack of bleeds removed, just keep spreading poison and chill, which are very strong conditions despite the lack of numbers flying on your screen.

We have plenty of ranged options, and in WvW you shouldn’t have any issue with keeping a large amount and/or maxed life force, so your survivability will be a lot higher than most professions.

I completely agree with avoiding big zergs. Many classes have a bad time in huge zergs and find it mind-numbing. Going conditions is even worse because the people that overextend get blown up in 1 second, and if you try to stack conditions on someone, YOU overextend and get blown up.

If you insist on it the poster above me has some decent advice, but I personally don’t like wells. If I find myself in a zerg, I try to epidemic the guardian who thinks hes hot running around the front lines with 20 stacks of bleeding from the zerg, gives it to everyone around him and its pretty nice.

Zerging is awful though…. no question.

I LOVE big fights! I spam staff marks mainly, while using Epidemic every chance I get. Death Shroud is a great tool to staying alive in a zerg versus zerg fight. Of course if you get caught IN the enemy zerg, you’re going to die, but that is usually through your own fault.

Sure, everyone might have condition removal, but most people aren’t going to spam it the second you cast your bleeds. Every ~6 seconds you are putting 3 bleeds on people in a large aoe with staff 2, and every 15 seconds you’re spreading those 3 bleeds to everyone else.

Also, think of it this way: while you are leisurely dropping marks, you are forcing a lot of enemy players to use their heal spells/condition removal abilities, leaving them open to attacks from the rest of your team. No heal spell = they fall back.

Also with Epidemic ignoring LOS there’s nothing like dropping bleeds on somebody who is on a wall, then when they run out of LOS, you cast Epidemic and bleed all the people around them who though they were safe.

Epidemic spam.

Seriously, call out a target (default is crtl+T iirc) then watch thier conditions. If you have anyone smart on your side you will see them spike with conditions and right before they die you epidemic them. Now you just spread your zerg’s condition stack to a ton of people. The conditions themselve probably won’t kill anyone but you will do a TON of damage which will ultimately help you the fight.

For attacking forts/keeps watch for the NPCs on the walls too. Players might be smart enough to step back but NPCs aren’t. Load em up with conditions and use epidemic on them. Having a small team of necros covering the walls in marks works amazingly well too. Remember you can Fear enemies off of the siege too.

Any condition class is nearly worthless in large scale pvp. At this point arrow carts are nearly worthless in pvp, and your conditions are no where near as good as an arrow cart.

if they have just two guardians in their group, and those guardians are aoe-sharing their passive heal, they will out heal your damage in the long run, since you are only going to get a half dozen tic’s of damage before something cures it…

and then there’s all the other aoe healing classes do when they self heal.. engineer turrents.. just forget it, you don’t matter in zerg battles

also, just think of all the classes that a condition-mancer is a free kill for. elementalists, theifs, engineers, some warriors…

now think about it, any zerg is going to have lots of those classes….

Honestly, mark of blood spamming on the walls in order to pressure archers is all you are really going to be good for.

So get used to manning the trebuchets

Ezeriel.9574:

Any condition class is nearly worthless in large scale pvp. At this point arrow carts are nearly worthless in pvp, and your conditions are no where near as good as an arrow cart.

… This is not the result we find on Borlis Pass. Well placed Arrow Carts are important, particularly for the snares.

As for 1 person’s contribution in a Zerg, It Just Doesn’t Matter. It Will Never Matter, except for maybe guardians and mesmers (projectile reflection). You should not be trying to stand out in a zerg, you should ride the XP train.

Ezeriel.9574:

Any condition class is nearly worthless in large scale pvp. At this point arrow carts are nearly worthless in pvp, and your conditions are no where near as good as an arrow cart.

if they have just two guardians in their group, and those guardians are aoe-sharing their passive heal, they will out heal your damage in the long run, since you are only going to get a half dozen tic’s of damage before something cures it…

and then there’s all the other aoe healing classes do when they self heal.. engineer turrents.. just forget it, you don’t matter in zerg battles

also, just think of all the classes that a condition-mancer is a free kill for. elementalists, theifs, engineers, some warriors…

now think about it, any zerg is going to have lots of those classes….

Honestly, mark of blood spamming on the walls in order to pressure archers is all you are really going to be good for.

So get used to manning the trebuchets

A conditionmancer can put out AoE conditions faster than any profession can cure them.

yeah… maybe I’m just feeling a little too down on the whole necro thing.. but maybe not…

My grenade engineer (that people complain is weak) is very similar to a staff necro, except he does about 1000-1500 direct damage with his #1 skill, while his #2 is basically the same as mark of blood

and he has constant minor regeneration, turret healing, the potion gun heal, blah blah blah, and if anything ever comes close to killing him, he just shrinks and runs away.

and after loving my engineer… or guardian.. or whatever… i get back on my necro, and I get facerolled by an elementalist, that is already half dead from fighting a miniboss, and just end up feeling completely worthless.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin to fix this class

Ezeriel.9574:

My grenade engineer (that people complain is weak) is very similar to a staff necro, except he does about 1000-1500 direct damage with his #1 skill, while his #2 is basically the same as mark of blood

and he has constant minor regeneration, turret healing, the potion gun heal, blah blah blah, and if anything ever comes close to killing him, he just shrinks and runs away.

The Necro is in such better shape, both design-wise and bug-wise, to the engineer it’s almost painful to contemplate.