Guild Wars 2

I’m a Mesmer main that just got my Bifrost, and I’m starting to look at alts to play and max out. Necro’s aesthetic has caught my eye and the amount of conditions they apply are interesting. I’m hesitant to start playing one though because it seems like they have no real mobility in combat. I’m used to the in and out playstyle of my Mesmer and find that to be incredibly fun and rewarding. In what ways are Necros rewarding and fun to play for WvW, sPvP, and Dungeons, both support and damage?

Yay! Another one who wants to level a Necromancer because they just got buffed!

Anyways, if mobility is your type of fun, then you will never enjoy a Necromancer, we will never have the ability to be mobile, because this isn’t into our profession. We are supposed to be hard to kill and put great pressure onto enemies. So if you want mobility other than mesmer, go thief.

Support? You can put points in Blood Magic for those:
Transfusion Life Transfer heals nearby allies
Deathly Invigoration Heal in an area when you leave death shroud
Vampiric Rituals Wells also siphon health every time they pulse
and 10 in Death Magic for:
Ritual of Protection Wells apply protection for 3 seconds when cast

But other classes provide way better support. So might as well just level a guardian or Elementalist if you want support and damage.

Azraeel.1238:

Yay! Another one who wants to level a Necromancer because they just got buffed!

Anyways, if mobility is your type of fun, then you will never enjoy a Necromancer, we will never have the ability to be mobile, because this isn’t into our profession. We are supposed to be hard to kill and put great pressure onto enemies. So if you want mobility other than mesmer, go thief.

Support? You can put points in Blood Magic for those:
Transfusion Life Transfer heals nearby allies
Deathly Invigoration Heal in an area when you leave death shroud
Vampiric Rituals Wells also siphon health every time they pulse
and 10 in Death Magic for:
Ritual of Protection Wells apply protection for 3 seconds when cast

But other classes provide way better support. So might as well just level a guardian or Elementalist if you want support and damage.

Okay well thank you but no, I’m asking about Necros because they have a cool aesthetic. Thanks for proving yourself an kitten though.

I don’t understand these threads. How can anyone convince you that something is fun/rewarding to play when those are both subjective? Why are you reluctant to play one? Are you going to suffer agonizing death if you try and don’t enjoy it?

If compared to a mesmer

Mobility = mesmer is better
Damage PvE = Necro does more
Dungeons = Doesnt matter, they are dungeons and can be played by anything
Support = Both have roughly the same effectiveness and bring different tools
PvP = both are good
WvW zerg = necro is better
WvW roam = mesmer is far better
WvW havoc = both have equal effectiveness

Basically, just play one and see for yourself.

The only really good thing about necros is the aesthetic and condition builds really… Everything the necromancer can do other classes can do better…. Except heavy condition pressure which the necros have a bit better time of due to epidemic and terror.

Support wise necromancers don’t really rely on healing but more on aoe conditions chill/cripple, weakness so that other players take less damage or are able to get away… They do have some moderate heals but the scaling with healing power is somewhat low.

Mobility wise we’re like a snapping turtle…. We have no real mobility…. We do scare people away or do moderate damage in the form of a snap but outside of that there’s not much going for us in the mobility department… Only class with absolute 0 ways to get vigor outside of relying on other classes.

We can pull of hybrid builds really well which is good but it feels kinda odd in some aspects…. The builds are a hit or miss with people… either you’ll love it or hate it…..

My suggestion is just level a necro regardless you’ll find some way to play them that you’ll find fun… Honestly I love mobility but I just like the necro because how dynamic you can make them…. I run a axe/focus power based build that has good survival because of my setup… It’s flexible enough that I can switch to a power staff or well build and have moderate group support due to the utility setup I use….

Mentioned wvw/zerg/even group condition pressure is boredline useless due to the aoe cap.

Condition pressure will also be nerfed in 1v1 situations next patch, by the time you began to lay down your conditions, you are dead already or they have escaped.

Oh don’t listen to these spoil-sports.

The Necro is a lot of fun, but since fun is subjective I can’t really convince you of that. You’d have to roll a Necro and see for yourself.

That said, I’ll see what I can do about selling you on the Necro.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: mobility. Specifically, our lack of it. We have a targeted blink in our profession mechanic (but it rarely works), a cutrate version of Portal (but only for ourself with a much lower duration and you can only move once), and a 1200 unit blink with a 1.5 second casting time, and that’s just about it. The Necro isn’t supposed to have all that much mobility. We’re supposed to grab onto our opponents and just not let go until someone is dead. We even have a skill called Spectral Grasp, a 1200 targeted pull that also chills your victim. If you have any sort of group with you and time it right, that’s a near-guaranteed instant kill right there.

The Mesmer wants to deceive and misdirect. The Necro just wants to do all kinds of nasty things to you. We can be just as tricky as Mesmers, but in a throw-down fight, we’re all about turning out enemies’ strengths against them. Chills cripple, and weakness are our mainstay “kitten you!” tools, but we also debuff like crazy and toss out Fear like it’s candy. Most professions hate getting attacked with conditions. Necros love it. Load me up with conditions and I’ll just throw them back on you, or use them to heal harder.

Much like Mesmers, Necros have a bunch of viable builds. Right now, the 30/30/10/0/0 build has so much more damage than our other builds that it’s edging them out, but the other builds are still effective in a more absolute sense. You can run condition-stacking builds, power builds, well builds, even support builds (though those tend to be quirkier). Some of our weapons have small problems, but they’re all usable depending on your build. We have some of the nastiest utility skills in the game and many of them are usuable in multiple builds for different reasons. Oh, and even if you run glassy, good use of our profession mechanic, Death Shroud, can hep keep you alive and kicking.

Necros are one of the strongest WvW professions for zerg fights. It can be difficult to fight 1vX since we lack strong disengage and mobility, but few professions can output as much AoE condi pressure as the Necro. Land a good Epidemic, place a good Spectral Wall, drop a Well of Darkness and you can turn zerg fights around.

PvE is dead easy, especially compared to Mesmers. Minions will let you take out just about anything in the open world with incredible ease. We have multiple specs that do well in dungeons, providing DPS and support sometimes in the same skill.

Give Necros a try. We’re have some glaring flaws and we still need some love from Anet, but we can be incredible fun if you make it past our relatively high skill floor.

Oh also, here’s Nemesis’ YouTube channel. He does a lot of nifty Necro guides which you may find useful.