Guild Wars 2

Just curious how well condition necromancers do in pve and dungeons. I love caster classes but I am getting a tad bored of my mesmer and ele. Thanks

they do great !

Epidemic. That’s really all that needs to be said.

I am doing ok`ish. A bit disappointed with the damage and the bleed cap though.

Just like Bawb said, “Epidemic”, when timed perfectly it is like dropping an atom bomb of sparkly joy on your enemies. Sadly though Safka is also correct in mentioning that the caps on conditions tend to ruin your master-plan for destruction. Still, I am having a lot of fun with my condition necromancer and in dungeons my character has been a valuable part of the team setup.

Try it!

I will say hybrid necro is your best bet. That way you won’t feel utterly useless when you are trying to hit that flame thingy at the end of COF 2, or those devour nests. And those bazillions of structure kitten you need to put up with killing slowly because they are not affected by condition.

Bhawb.7408:

Epidemic. That’s really all that needs to be said.

Seriously. Adventuring with my boyfriend on his earth ele is super easy mode, because we just apply all the bleeds and then I hit Epidemic, and it’s all over. XD

They’re kinda meh until you hit 20 – 25.

Then you become a Wrecking Ball. Because the stats on Gear start to build up and you’ll have some decent Traits under your belt.

Again, Epidemic is where it’s at.

If you want to do dungeons, and have a mez and ele… use ’em.

Yes, necros are much better now, but they aren’t that much better, and personally, unless the dungeon is face-rolling easy, one of the last classes I’d want in my group is a necro.

Compared to the other classes, necros just don’t have much in the way of group support.

Ezeriel.9574:

If you want to do dungeons, and have a mez and ele… use ’em.

Yes, necros are much better now, but they aren’t that much better, and personally, unless the dungeon is face-rolling easy, one of the last classes I’d want in my group is a necro.

Compared to the other classes, necros just don’t have much in the way of group support.

Wells.

15/char

Yeah, I know how much people just hate permanent regen and 6k healing, along with plenty of life steal/blind fields and an elite that basically lets you face-tank every mob in the game at once.

Necros have plenty of team support.

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, I know how much people just hate permanent regen

Hate to point out the obvious, but the only way, and I mean only way a necro is giving a party permanent regen is if the party all stacked up in a 600 meter radius (extremely stupid and impractical for… everything) and you’re completely sacrificing all of your damage by using staff. Extremely inefficient way to play the game. As for everything else, you’d be serving your group better by not going out of your way to achieve these things. If you need to face tank anything your group composition sucks. Surprisingly, most people in this game still don’t understand how combo fields/finishers work. Even if they did, the cool downs for our dark fields are too long for any of it to make a difference. Especially considering that all auto attack projectiles only combo finish 20% of the time despite what the little heart thing popping up says. Dark fields don’t do anything special for melee types.

Besides, warriors do it better with banners. Bigger radius and it gives additional stats (soon to be buffed to ridiculous levels) on top of the regeneration. Or you could just bring a guardian instead since everything they do is way better utility wise.

I know you’re trying to see necromancers in a positive light, but no else is going to when everything this class does is out done by someone else, and everyone knows it.

Kravick.4906:

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, I know how much people just hate permanent regen

Hate to point out the obvious, but the only way, and I mean only way a necro is giving a party permanent regen is if the party all stacked up in a 600 meter radius (extremely stupid and impractical for… everything) and you’re completely sacrificing all of your damage by using staff. Extremely inefficient way to play the game. As for everything else, you’d be serving your group better by not going out of your way to achieve these things. If you need to face tank anything your group composition sucks. Surprisingly, most people in this game still don’t understand how combo fields/finishers work. Even if they did, the cool downs for our dark fields are too long for any of it to make a difference. Especially considering that all auto attack projectiles only combo finish 20% of the time despite what the little heart thing popping up says. Dark fields don’t do anything special for melee types.

Besides, warriors do it better with banners. Bigger radius and it gives additional stats (soon to be buffed to ridiculous levels) on top of the regeneration. Or you could just bring a guardian instead since everything they do is way better utility wise.

I know you’re trying to see necromancers in a positive light, but no else is going to when everything this class does is out done by someone else, and everyone knows it.

Yeah, but you’re kinda seeing the issue with the game mechanics & class balance within PvE right there…

Warriors & Guardians do EVERYTHING better…which is the problem:

Ranged? Warrior with a Rifle…

Utility? Banners or Guardian anything…

Heavy DPS? GS Warrior…

Healing? Altrustic Healing Guardian…

Heavy Defense? Mace & Shield Guardian…

Condition Removal? Purity + Shout Guardian…

The only thing those classes can’t do VERY well is condition damage…but at this time, conditions suck for most classes anyway (structure damage, etc).

From a PvE perspective, you don’t need any other classes besides those 2. Because whatever an Engineer, or a Ranger, or a Thief can do, a Warrior or a Guardian can do it just as good if not better.

The only possible exception would be a Mesmer, with Portal, Mass Invis, Time Warp, etc.

Faction.4013:

Yeah, but you’re kinda seeing the issue with the game mechanics & class balance within PvE right there…

Warriors & Guardians do EVERYTHING better…which is the problem:

Ranged? Warrior with a Rifle…

Utility? Banners or Guardian anything…

Heavy DPS? GS Warrior…

Healing? Altrustic Healing Guardian…

Heavy Defense? Mace & Shield Guardian…

Condition Removal? Purity + Shout Guardian…

The only thing those classes can’t do VERY well is condition damage…but at this time, conditions suck for most classes anyway (structure damage, etc).

From a PvE perspective, you don’t need any other classes besides those 2. Because whatever an Engineer, or a Ranger, or a Thief can do, a Warrior or a Guardian can do it just as good if not better.

The only possible exception would be a Mesmer, with Portal, Mass Invis, Time Warp, etc.

Valid points, all of them.

Funny thing is, warriors complain about guardians being better, and guardians complain about warriors being better. No one ever complains about necromancers being better.

I see epidemic but when in tspvp, i dont find it to be as universally good, seeing as i find myself in a lot of smaller fights where people dont always stand close together (or its just 1on1). Its not bad, but i dont think its overly incredibly either in this mode.

Epidemic in a dungeon is pretty meh.

Sure there is gonna be one or two pulls where there are a million spiders or what not, and it’s fun to tag everything and watch the numbers fly, but is that really enough of a reason to bring a necro along?

Lets be practical here; if you want to make a make a group you want a guardian and a warrior… or two of each.. or two guards and three warriors… or one hammer guard and four warriors.

Do we want an ele? Massive aoe, Massive healing (direct heals, passive regen and regeneration), Massive group condition removal, protection, swiftness and might….

Do we want an engineer? 24/7 healing light field that removes conditions, turret regeneration, solid or massive aoe….. and if they spec for it with healing bombs and kit refinement their aoe/healing is insane.

Do we want a ranger? If they spec for it, their pets can tank better than a lot of players. 100% burn uptime, 100% protection uptime (even for ranged classes), healing light field that removes conditions, AOE root, AOE slow

Theif? 24/7 blind with pistol, stealth rez’s, group stealth for skipping combat
…personally, I don’t skip content, and I don’t invite thieves unless I know that they like to spam black powder/smoke field

Mezmer? I’d rather see a boss swatting illusions than swatting me, but for the most part, I dunno what mesmers do. Now that portaling to out of the way spots for boss fights has been nerf’d I’m not impressed with mesmers.

..and necros. Average aoe damage (no better than what the guardian tanks are doing) with aoe regeneration for melee classes. Lousy, and I mean lousy direct damage for condition builds (this make killing ‘objects’ and roots nearly impossible for them, and although rare it does happen), AOE blind. Lots of ways to apply poison.

So there ya go.

Now if you are just facerolling TA or CoF for the umpteenth time, you can grab a guard, and a water ele, and not care what the rest of the group is. But if you are doing Arah storyline, or a high level fractal then it’s not uncommon for people to straight up say that they don’t want any necros.

On the bright side, if you want to make a high-damage ranged condition class that can provide tons of group buffs and regen, it’s easy to level a warrior or engineer.

Is there no value in dungeon running in AoE Weakness, Chill, and Cripple; or easy boon-stripping access; or easy Vulnerability stacking?

I haven’t done a lot of dungeons on my Necro, and am still deciding on my build. It seems we have a lot more to offer than AoE Blind and bleed/poison spamming.

PinCushion.7390:

Is there no value in dungeon running in AoE Weakness, Chill, and Cripple; or easy boon-stripping access; or easy Vulnerability stacking?

I haven’t done a lot of dungeons on my Necro, and am still deciding on my build. It seems we have a lot more to offer than AoE Blind and bleed/poison spamming.

Our vuln stacking isn’t as great as you might think, and there are much better options, like GS warriors. The other AOE effects are very nice on trash, but….. its trash….. which means you really didn’t need the help anyhow.

Part of the big picture here that is hard to grasp, is that there really is no hard content outsede of the higher end fractals, where agony caps play a big role. I think aoe chill and cripple would be more valuable if the PVE content was actually difficult and had mobs that required you to keep those debuffs on them. As it stands right now, a line of warding is sig. better than any aoe diabling conditions, because mobs are stupid and just crash into the wall for 5 seconds.

Think urban fractal, where the mobs will charge you and cast from range. AOE chill/cripple are good, because they can prevent some of the mobs from getting in range, but line of warding and wall of reflection prevent them from even hurting you behind the line. Plus they group up nicely for AOE at that point.

weakness.. it’s a bonus…
but non-crit damage isn’t what kills tanks

chill… it’s not bad… for the skill recharge increase.. but for kiting it’s meh. Other’s can cripple a boss just as easily. An engineer can easily keep something crippled forever, and still have roots as well, with net turret and swapping to rifle.

Most classes do some form of vulnerability, ice ele’s are good for 10ish stacks, grenade engineers are good for 20.

… but look at the difference.

An ele using his almost spammable #2 staff water skill is still healing away, and I’ve seen my #2 hit for over 5k damage.

A engineer spamming grenades is doing massive damage, and may or may not be keeping up a healing light field.

..but a necro is doing sub-par damage with axe #1, and not a whole lot else. So the damage boost they are giving is offset by the lack of healing or damage that they aren’t doing.

Blind on the other hand is awesome, plague form is about the greatest thing a necro has. The downside is a decent thief can do it far more often, and do decent damage while applying it. A necro basically stops doing everything in order to apply it.

Poison is awesome for those healing bosses floating around out there. Sadly scepter is our best weapon for keeping it up, and it’s not good for much else.

I think that might be the biggest issue for necros.

If you are applying one debuff, you’re not doing something else, and group support is about doing lots of things at the same time, but we find ourselves giving up so much in order to do what other classes were gonna do just as part of their normal gameplay anyway.

Easy Vuln stacking is more Mesmer than Necro. Particularly high-Domination Shatter
buillds. Now, I will agree on AoE Weakness, only class that slaps that down past Necro
(and does so “easily”) is either staff-ele with combofield outta Air, or choking gas/cluster comboing SB Thief.
Now, OTOH, I can see a high-range Condimancer ripping fools up, using Traited Plague/Wells/Marks. So, tbh, I can’t see where Necros are considered some kind of … Dungeon Undesirable.

Advent.6193:

So, tbh, I can’t see where Necros are considered some kind of … Dungeon Undesirable.

Because we don’t have aoe buffs/might, most of our combo fields either do AOE blindness, or AOE weakness (arguably weaker than other combo fields), and you can sub in almost any other class without issue.

As was pointed out, between the blindness well, and plague form 2, used with chilling darkness, we become very good on big mob number pulls. The problem with that is, the hardest mob pull where that would help, is dredge…. where they are immune to blind. Why waste your time blinding and chilling mobs when you can just block them from attacking with a LOW or knock them down, or pull them away?

It’s always an issue of what significant game changer does the necro bring. And well…. we don’t… That doesn’t mean we don’t work fine in dungeons, and it doesn’t mean groups are screwed when they take a necro. It just means there are many occasions where they would be better off taking a guardian or a mesmer.

So, what I’m reading here is that because PvE is generally very easy debuffs aren’t needed. But, since PvE is generally very easy, buffs to damage are desired because they make easy PvE content go by much faster (e.g. Might stacking, Vuln stacking, etc).

The current quadwarrior/timewarp fad for CoF1 is just a comical exaggeration of general PvE, where Necros aren’t very good at anything anyone really needs.

Does that about sum it up?

PinCushion.7390:

So, what I’m reading here is that because PvE is generally very easy debuffs aren’t needed. But, since PvE is generally very easy, buffs to damage are desired because they make easy PvE content go by much faster (e.g. Might stacking, Vuln stacking, etc).

The current quadwarrior/timewarp fad for CoF1 is just a comical exaggeration of general PvE, where Necros aren’t very good at anything anyone really needs.

Does that about sum it up?

Yep, pretty much.

The point that needs to be reiterated is that while necros can blind/weakness/poison/vulnerability spam, there is another class that can do exactly the same thing but without giving up large amounts of damage while doing it. Any condition a necro wants to apply continuously requires the necromancer to drop all damage output in order to maintain it. Other classes don’t have that problem and will continue to stack up the damage, or provide some other utility along side of whatever condition they’re stacking.

Its all about efficiency in PVE. Thats what its always about.

Zinwrath.2049:

I see epidemic but when in tspvp, i dont find it to be as universally good, seeing as i find myself in a lot of smaller fights where people dont always stand close together (or its just 1on1). Its not bad, but i dont think its overly incredibly either in this mode.

PvP outside of organized group play is just TDM with 3 big circles telling people where to go to kill people.

In group play, a conditionmancer will run with a group of 3 others to mid for fights. You want to specifically look for that big group fight because Epidemic can tag everyone on their team with 15 bleeds and everything else thats been stacked on that one target. And that forces everyone to start popping condition removal, which means in 15 seconds when epidemic is back up, no one is going to have the removal to stop the new huge stack of conditions.

Kravick.4906:

Yep, pretty much.

The point that needs to be reiterated is that while necros can blind/weakness/poison/vulnerability spam, there is another class that can do exactly the same thing but without giving up large amounts of damage while doing it. Any condition a necro wants to apply continuously requires the necromancer to drop all damage output in order to maintain it. Other classes don’t have that problem and will continue to stack up the damage, or provide some other utility along side of whatever condition they’re stacking.

Its all about efficiency in PVE. Thats what its always about.

Well, that’s a bummer.

Necro always plays like it’s been overbalanced, tbh. My other toons have lots of abilities that do multiple things, and traits that can combine in interesting ways to make even more new abilities. RTL on Elementalists is used to attack, escape, chase, or just cut down on travel time. Auras are used to do whatever it is they do, or proc other traits like Zephyr’s Boon, or share with other people. Engineers have loads of weird combos like that, whether they’re combining toolkits with weapon swap sigils, turrets with combo fields, or just interesting traits (When you get Swiftness you also get Vigor.)

Necros seem very much a WYSIWYG class. Beyond Corruption skills giving you conditions that you can then eat for more healing….there doesn’t seem to be a lot under the hood to work with.

Now we are getting back to a very old complaint: Necromancer is an attrition profession that has few skills that scale up. Necromancer’s best support for high level PvE bosses may be in non-damaging, non-resisted conditions like chill, blind, and cripple. Fear got nerfed by defiant so it’s out. Bind and knock-down are often resisted and pets are often one-shotted by top bosses.

The number of players actively using Necromancer as their main should mean something to Arenanet so do not give up hope. Maybe we will get a mechanism / skill that that will stand out better in boss battles.

To Kravick I understand that you think Necro’s don’t really do crap in PVE and Warriors and Guardians can do everything in the game that other professions can. I get it and think everyone out there know’s that. Why don’t A net just get rid of the other professions then. I on the other hand enjoy my Necro I roll as Condition I use a Staff, Scepter/Dagger oh. I love the playstyle everyone knows in my guild I do not have high single target dps and am never expected. But I know one thing I control huge mobs using Well of suffering, posion cloud, and epidemic, throwing my chill up, and cripples kiting mobs that is what a Condition Necro is supposed to be used for aoe control. I am not trying to be bash on you but people want advice on trying to play a Necro and it seems like you just want everyone to stop playing them until they get fixed or it’s not up to par with you saying you would rather never see a Necro in a group. Well in my eyes they are not broken one bit. They don’t put out crap loads of dps but we do enough where I have fun and that’s what it’s about having fun not being the top dps in the game!

The Warrior forum is filled with “Wars are [expletive deleted] in wvw” complaints. Some of them are more deleted than others.