Guild Wars 2

I feel this discussion really needs to take place for Necros to see improvements, so here it is:

What makes you want to have a Necro in your party/team/zerg/etc. over a member of another profession? What do they bring or provide in a superior manner to other porfessions? This is for all areas of the game. Specifics are preferable, here.

Hopefully, by identifying why people currently want to have Necros with them, ANet can make changes to improve the profession’s standing overall.

Theres two ways to answer this. One would be to mention the things necro already has which is desirable but explain why its not enough. The other would be to explain what would be the bare minimum you would want to justify taking a necro.

Ill start from a PvE perspective.

For the first. We currently have well of darkness and plague for high radius blinds. The problem is these dont pulse as fast as old dark powder. Or they are on far too high cooldowns and are completely outclassed by glyph of storms. Our range of control conditions is definitely nice but not really any better than any other class and a lot of it is single target. We lack the finishers to contribute to group stealth/swiftness/might stacking. We have some on minions but they are clunky and slow to use. Blasts on weapons are vastly superior due to stacking out of combat.

Dark fields are nice. Unfortunately there arent enough encounters that make them worth while. Any boss with low hp and invuln phases would make dark fields favourable (jade maw). Increasing the effectiveness of combo lifesteal could be another approach to fixing this. Our base durability makes us very resilient in a group which means you dont have to worry about a squishy player getting down constantly. But we arent very good at surviving on our own in more difficult encounters thanks to the lack of damage avoidance. And ofcourse we have some decent boonhate but its not much better than some other classes and there isnt enough reason for it in PvE.

Overall the only reason i would want a necro in my group is for the 20 second blind pulse on plague (but there are very few situations where the superior sandstorm isnt enough) or for dark fields on jade maw. The other things are just minor contributions but they dont really compete with alternatives well enough.

For the second approach. The bare minimum to get me to not feel guilty about playing necro in PvE would be to give us more finishers, a projectile defence skill and more AOE control conditions such as chill and immobilise.

This is a difficult thread to respond to in the manner you wish us to respond. I’m not even going to bother to try. I’m going to just give you my raw feelings of the class and try and provide some option to improve it.

PVE: I wouldn’t bring the class. Even if I didn’t know their damage was lower than most other classes, the mere fact that the class provides no utility to the group and has no niche mechanic to use on a specific boss fight makes it an easy class to ignore. They need to find someway to improve the class’s overall sustained damage to compete with the likes of Thieves and Elementalists without impacting their burst damage too much because their burst really isn’t that bad.

PvP: I haven’t played too many ranked games and focused mostly on unranked solo queue. That said, the class is in a precarious spot. Overall the class is useful because the niche it provides is useful to the current meta. The game is currently dominated by Elementalists, Engineers, and Warriors. While alone, the Necro only does well against one of these, their other tools can allow them to hold their own against the other 2 for long enough to have allies come. So long as PvP has a hybrid/condi meta dominated by classes heavily reliant on boons the Necro will have a place.

My concern is when it doesn’t as the Necro really is a rather weak condi class and their power build is far to reliant on outside assistance to pull off a win.

WvW: Another area where the niche the class provides is useful. The problem is if Wells were given to any other class, that class would be in the meta and the Necro would be left outside. People often talk about how hard lifeblast hits for, but a traited longbow Ranger has the same DPS from 1500 range whereas a Neco needs to be up close to get that kind of damage. The survivability of a Necro is great because of the Deathshroud mechanic, but having limited access to stability, poor range, no gap openners and the worst mobility in the game really leave it no other options.

These are my opinions of the class overall. To solve these issues is honestly quite simple imo…

Improve the classes sustained damage so it’s more valuable in PvE.
Give it some utility so groups will take it more seriously.
Increase the value of other class mechanics so it does more than well bomb in WvW.

becouse i like it

At the moment :

PvE : sadly, there is no reason to pick a necro over any other profession.
PvP : corrupt boons
WvW : Corrupt boons

After HoT (with what we know at the moment) :
PvE : Dark field… wait… no, any other profession will do better and add utilities.
PvP : corrupt boons.
WvW : corrupt boons.

This sum it all.

Pvp is basically boon corruption to put pressure on boon heavy classes, but that’s the only reason to bring a necro specifically. In wvw we have quite a lot of AOE damage and big zergs are places that our support can actually start to show a little bit. Plus we can take more of a punch than an Ele can so wvw zergs make sense for us.

PVE there is no reason that I’m aware of. Mesmers can strip boons more consistently than we can and offer more utility. Perhaps some of the PVE changes in HOT will help make necros more relevant.

pve for dps. loads of dps.

pvp for cc and forcing cleanse/heals. boon strip too. some condi dmg

wvw for dps.

in all situations, more survivability would be swell

The only mode we are lacking in is pve and I’ll take a well played necro over and decently played class. If the player is good I don’t think the class matters unless you’re going for record speed clears.

PvE was already covered well by spoj, so I’ll leave that.

PvP I will address both what we have and what we are really close to having or have had in the past:
Burst Boon Removal – we have some of the best burst boon removal in the game, with Corrupt Boon allowing our next advantage
Burst Condi Application – this has been lessened a lot, but CB, along with Fear chaining and a pretty strong burst condition rotation that can be fully covered by fear with nearly every single condition in the game makes it really strong, and not something that others can bring (other condis have more spread out pressure)
Area Condi Pressure – while this isn’t strictly unique to Necromancer (Engineer can do it slightly better), the classic Engi/Necro combo has always been a staple of condi pressure. Unfortunately mass condi removal has really slowed this.
Off-Point Defense – again, this isn’t something we see currently, but Necromancer has historically had great 1v1/2v2 builds that can do really well because of really strong defense in small fights, as well as a good mix of offensive pressure/CC/defense/healing.
Lich/Plague – game changing elites are really rare in this game, and we have two of them. If left uncountered Lich is a free teamfight win, and Plague is a free 20s melee counter.

Bhawb.7408:

PvE was already covered well by spoj, so I’ll leave that.

PvP I will address both what we have and what we are really close to having or have had in the past:
Burst Boon Removal – we have some of the best burst boon removal in the game, with Corrupt Boon allowing our next advantage
Burst Condi Application – this has been lessened a lot, but CB, along with Fear chaining and a pretty strong burst condition rotation that can be fully covered by fear with nearly every single condition in the game makes it really strong, and not something that others can bring (other condis have more spread out pressure)
Area Condi Pressure – while this isn’t strictly unique to Necromancer (Engineer can do it slightly better), the classic Engi/Necro combo has always been a staple of condi pressure. Unfortunately mass condi removal has really slowed this.
Off-Point Defense – again, this isn’t something we see currently, but Necromancer has historically had great 1v1/2v2 builds that can do really well because of really strong defense in small fights, as well as a good mix of offensive pressure/CC/defense/healing.
Lich/Plague – game changing elites are really rare in this game, and we have two of them. If left uncountered Lich is a free teamfight win, and Plague is a free 20s melee counter.

Condi is really only decent in WvW zergs, but staff power necro is still superior atm. Condi is aweful when roaming in WvW and gets beaten down easily in sPvP. Too many classes can deal with the conditions easily for you to manage to build up condis. You do nothing more than tickle someone while they bash your head in.

Lich form, from my experience, is situational. It’s the only elite i consider viable in sPvP and that’s only under the condition where you’re either 1) not being focused or 2) in a 1v1. Even then, pray they dont have boon stripping otherwise they’ll be ccing you to nevernever land.

Plague is good only in WvW zergs.

So the “pressure” you refer too is non-existent at the moment.

Power necro is really the only good option if you want to be useful, but necromancer overall is a pretty terrible class. No sustain. No survivability. Easily countered. You cant 1v1 most of the classes if the player is good. And its not so much that we dont have the damage, but we cant survive/sustain ourselves long enough to get it out. Between the amount of cc’s present from other classes, we’re at a big disadvantage since we have no stun/knockback and only 2 fears, 1 which is staff (which you dont run in spvp).

So…dont play necro.

Iridi.8473:

snip

Bhawb.7408:

PvP I will address both what we have and what we are really close to having or have had in the past:

Bhawb.7408:

Iridi.8473:

snip

Bhawb.7408:

PvP I will address both what we have and what we are really close to having or have had in the past:

I dont see the relevance in discussing what we had in the past because that was the past. Who wants to play a class because “Well, it used to be good.”

Logic.

Iridi.8473:

Bhawb.7408:

PvE was already covered well by spoj, so I’ll leave that.

PvP I will address both what we have and what we are really close to having or have had in the past:
Burst Boon Removal – we have some of the best burst boon removal in the game, with Corrupt Boon allowing our next advantage
Burst Condi Application – this has been lessened a lot, but CB, along with Fear chaining and a pretty strong burst condition rotation that can be fully covered by fear with nearly every single condition in the game makes it really strong, and not something that others can bring (other condis have more spread out pressure)
Area Condi Pressure – while this isn’t strictly unique to Necromancer (Engineer can do it slightly better), the classic Engi/Necro combo has always been a staple of condi pressure. Unfortunately mass condi removal has really slowed this.
Off-Point Defense – again, this isn’t something we see currently, but Necromancer has historically had great 1v1/2v2 builds that can do really well because of really strong defense in small fights, as well as a good mix of offensive pressure/CC/defense/healing.
Lich/Plague – game changing elites are really rare in this game, and we have two of them. If left uncountered Lich is a free teamfight win, and Plague is a free 20s melee counter.

Condi is really only decent in WvW zergs, but staff power necro is still superior atm. Condi is aweful when roaming in WvW and gets beaten down easily in sPvP. Too many classes can deal with the conditions easily for you to manage to build up condis. You do nothing more than tickle someone while they bash your head in.

Lich form, from my experience, is situational. It’s the only elite i consider viable in sPvP and that’s only under the condition where you’re either 1) not being focused or 2) in a 1v1. Even then, pray they dont have boon stripping otherwise they’ll be ccing you to nevernever land.

Plague is good only in WvW zergs.

So the “pressure” you refer too is non-existent at the moment.

Power necro is really the only good option if you want to be useful, but necromancer overall is a pretty terrible class. No sustain. No survivability. Easily countered. You cant 1v1 most of the classes if the player is good. And its not so much that we dont have the damage, but we cant survive/sustain ourselves long enough to get it out. Between the amount of cc’s present from other classes, we’re at a big disadvantage since we have no stun/knockback and only 2 fears, 1 which is staff (which you dont run in spvp).

So…dont play necro.

Lol? Its completely the opposite.. Condi is completely useless in zerg situations with all the stray Condi removal not mention all melee running what -70% Condi duration? With purging flames for an emergency. Condi is very potent in wvw roaming particularly in a solo setting.

Why would you want a necro?
Well, I’ll do WvW.
Ever heard of a thing called GWEN? Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, and NECRO!!! And what profession do you see the least of? Necro! That’s right, we are a rare breed. And why, you may ask? Not because necro is boring, as very few people would tell u that necro mechanics are boring. INFACT, people sometimes call us OP and too easy. That’s the biggest misconception ever. Necro is one of the hardest professions to play in WvW because of lack of mobility. Hitting people with necro skills is next to impossible, and the long CDs make it even more difficult. Despite all of this, necro is fun, and when u play well, really, REALLY good.
So tell me, why would u want a class that has great boon denial, viable condition and dos builds that are top of the line, is very hard to kill while simultaneously doing high end dps, has great condition removal/transfer, and has possibly the best control in the game via fear/immobilize/chill?

So to answer ur question simply, people play necro because it is fun and effective.

I am not asking why someone would play a Necro. That is up to the individual and, personally, I can hardly imagine tackling new content with anyone but my Necro.

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

right now, im not really sure. Spoj already layed out pve, and we all know we are rubbish in pve when it comes to group utility. Yeah, we can do some damage, ok, but who cares, so can other classes and still benefit the group. Condi damage is not necessary and we definitely do not stand out from the application of condi damage, and only really shine when we spread condis to trash mobs (which does not really seem to help). Defiance makes our fears and CC’s worthless, so there’s that angle. We do have some boon stripping, but boon stripping brings.. well nothing in pve.

In pvp, its slightly different, in that boon stripping is imp with the plethora of warriors, guardians, and eles running around, stripping becomes a staple. stripping boons we are average at, depending on the setup, but i have always felt that we get focus fired, slammed around with cc, and cannot compensate so are shut down, which makes it hell trying to land the strip. Our cast times are rubbish, so dodging our skills is all to easy, or predictable. With regard to team setup, sure there are some teams that run a necro, and they do well, but the team has to be extremely tight, and almost built around protecting the necro… it limits diversity of the team (imo). I feel we are ok at the 1 v 1, but rubbish at team play.

in wvw, which is not pvp, we are great at the gwen model, but i find blob wvw boring and would rather solo roam, or engage in small group tactics. Are we good solo roamers, eh, if I am being honest, not really, we have no mobility, no ability to really lock a player to us, and no escape mechanism other than a 40 sec cooldown spec skill or warhorn, which is dependent on eithe not hitting someone, and actually getting out of combat to run fast enough. (which rarely happens) oh yeah, as a necro, you can wreck some players in a 1 v 1, and sometimes a 2 v 1, if you play it right, but usually, you roll out, get into a 1 v 1, kill that person, and then get rolled by the blob, or killed in a 3 or 4 v 1 situation if you happen to be sol. why is it diff ffor necros? because we cannot disengage. you see the blob coming, or reinforcements, you’re locked in and not going anywhere. Thieves, mesmers, eles, warriors, and rangers can all scoot out if they need to disengage, and we cannot, thus solo roaming is really solo dueling, if you can find the right scenario. Plus, CC is our bane, and we are all to easily locked down.

So like you all, i enjoy this class, i like my solo pve, and roaming in wvw, but its not the end all be all. I think they really need to tweek our traits, and give us access to more group utility skills, as well as an increased capability to mitigate focus fire, other than pop deathshroud and hope you have enough DS to eat the damage, which still does not prevent the ping pong.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I am not asking why someone would play a Necro. That is up to the individual and, personally, I can hardly imagine tackling new content with anyone but my Necro.

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

But is the necro subforum the best place for this question though?

I mean you would go only in the necro subforum when you play one, wouldnt you? Well atleast for me it is the case, i go only in the subforums which i am interested in…

So i would guess all the answers come from people, who play necro more regularly, and thus you have a more biased pool of data…

Muchacho.2390:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I am not asking why someone would play a Necro. That is up to the individual and, personally, I can hardly imagine tackling new content with anyone but my Necro.

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

But is the necro subforum the best place for this question though?

I mean you would go only in the necro subforum when you play one, wouldnt you? Well atleast for me it is the case, i go only in the subforums which i am interested in…

So i would guess all the answers come from people, who play necro more regularly, and thus you have a more biased pool of data…

Oh, I know it’s biased. Just posing the question here first as I contemplate the best way to phrase the same question for the PvP, WvW, Living World, and Dungeon forums.

Have to phrase it in a way that doesn’t get them all moved to the Necro forum by mods -.-

Well i can tell you the answer you would get in the dungeon forums. To save you the trouble.
“I would never take one.”

The question you are asking is kind of difficult to answer because the whole reason it needs to be answered is because noone wants to take necros. I would personally rephrase the question to be “What would make you take a necro in your groups? And if you already do then why?”.

Maybe you could try to phrase your title like this :

What classe would do you want in your groupe in [PvE/PvP/WvW] and why?

And then, in your post, you could add : and on contrary, what classe don’t you want and why?

People will then give you the rôles that they expect for each class and express what limitation they expect from classes they feel in a bad spot.

If he’s a Charr, there’s always a place for him in my group.

This just goes to prove what I’ve always suspected…

No-one loves me

In pvp: You want a necro if that necro is Noscoc, otherwise you don’t.

In pve: You don’t.

In wvw: It is always worth it to babysit necros here.

If they dont suck they are welcome to join any group of mine :p

spoj.9672:

For the second approach. The bare minimum to get me to not feel guilty about playing necro in PvE would be to give us more finishers, a projectile defence skill and more AOE control conditions such as chill and immobilise.

Weird of you to say that. The necro does have aoe chill (traited with chilling darkness). I use it when i want to troll players in spvp. (otherwise i prefer to auto troll myself with the flesh golem that watches as i get ripped to pieces not even charging when it’s told to)

I used to main a necro who is now retired to spvp. I use an elementalist for dungeon speed runs, and a guardian for fractals (for open world i may still use the necro, as she is the only one with 100% map completion).

For regular dungeons, i see no reason not to carry a necro. But i see no reason not to do it with 4 people only either.

For fractals, the necro doesn’t offer anything other than blinds. Very poor contribution to the team, made even worse by the fact necros have probably the worse pack fighting set of skills (limited cleave with dagger, conditions not doing anything to already dead foes, etc).

I would bring necros to fractals if they could add more support. I know that it seems against the class mechanics (the support thing), but maybe a special condition only necros appply, that increases the damage received by the foe in x%, a few blast finishers so we reach the might cap more easily, increased damage and a cleaving weapon that doesn’t make us unusable in trash fights.

Aenesthesia.1697:

spoj.9672:

For the second approach. The bare minimum to get me to not feel guilty about playing necro in PvE would be to give us more finishers, a projectile defence skill and more AOE control conditions such as chill and immobilise.

Weird of you to say that. The necro does have aoe chill (traited with chilling darkness). I use it when i want to troll players in spvp. (otherwise i prefer to auto troll myself with the flesh golem that watches as i get ripped to pieces not even charging when it’s told to)

Yeah its not very effective though. Its radius is so small it may aswell be single target. Not to mention if using on a group it will probably get body blocked and only chill the mobs at the front of the pack even if you are trying to hit one in the middle.

And all the rest of our chill is single target except for staff. When i think of AOE chill i think of frozen ground on staff ele.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

In PvE, I would never want a Necromancer in my group with the sole exception of Epidemic at the Triple Trouble Wurm world boss.

In PvP, I would want one, maximum, Necromancer in my group for condition burst and spike boon removal.

In WvW, I would want Necromancers in my zerg for AOE boon corruption and AOE damage in general, and I would want a Necromancer in my small roaming group for condition pressure and boon hate (similar to PvP).

I only play WvW so I’ll just say I’d want necros for well bombs. Necros have some of the best aoe spike damage and boon stripping. Yes yes, rangers can out damage us pew pewing but it’s single target damage. Necros go for the aoe boombs. Rangers should always focus backliners and soft targets, where necros bomb the melee trains. They have totally different roles.

When you run in a zerg/blob or guild groups, and have at least 5+ necros, the well bombs will stop a melee train cold in its tracks. Nothing like watching you down 5-10 players at once upon a charge. That in itself would tip the battles in your favor all in a few seconds.

Well this is the necro section of the forum so this is definitely a biased answer towards wanting my Necro to be invited to teams, but…

When I run fractals with my friends, who main Ele and Engie, I don’t want to feel like a liability. The role I focus on is making sure bosses have 25 stacks of vulnerability as well as stacking might to deal damage and throwing in weakness and blinds besides that.

To keep doing my job while in Death Shroud I use Unyielding Blast, which has also become my main way of hitting groups of adds.

When in the swamp fractal I switch out a skill for Flesh Worm because it can be used as a discount portal to get 1 of the Wisps into the tree stumps without having to worry about walls popping up and blocking you in the Swamp fractal. It is a definitely a discount portal, because sometimes Mossman decides to pop up and kill the worm when nobody is near it.

If only Unyielding Blast turned Life Blast into a piercing channeled beam that could crit multiple times over it’s 1 sec cast time. That would make it a decent group killing tool, 1 sec cast time is just sooo slow.

fracture.9754:

maybe change WoP to lower cooldown with only condi removal, not change condi to boons.

So basically remove the best part of it? How about no.

fracture.9754:

Give necro a reliable way to stack some might (maybe not exactly 25 solo like ele, but you know…something. I said RELIABLE, not the stupid way currently possible) <snip>

You mean like this? =P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXoUe8e4qT4

on topic: My Necromancer is the very first character I made and leveled up to 80, because I enjoyed the flair and gameplay of their GW1 counterparts.
But sadly I rarely play my Necro these days because of several reasons – below-average performance in group-based PvE (team support = next to zero), in WvW only really useful in zerg fights (which I rarely participate in) and mediocre performance in solo roaming and sPvP (because of lacking mobility and proper defense against cc).

For me it just is not a fun class to play anymore, except for occasional WvW roaming/havocing with my guild and… camping rich ore nodes.

Right now I´m hoping HoT will fix the team-support and sustain issues the class has and not just introduce a gimmicky specialization, leaving the classic Necromancer out in the rain :,(

Edit: personal résumé – Necros provide very limited/niche utility in a group setting (blinds, chills, boon-removal, vulnerability, fears), great AOE spike damage and decent sustained damage, but suffer to much from being outperformed by other classes in many areas.

The signet mastery might stacking is not reliable. It heavily fluctuates and it depends on a condi runeset and nerfed battle sigils.

I know, I was responding to the “not the stupid way currently possible” part of the comment.