Guild Wars 2

This is for 1 vs 1 mode.

Necro gameplay has been too passive.
Whether it is versus power or condi enemies, the answer for many players is to sit and deathshroud to tank and soak up the damage. Yes we only have 2 dodges but those 2 are there for a reason.

The worst offender is against condi enemies because necros have so many means of transferring the condi, they don’t actually pro-actively attempt to dodge condi bursts. They just soak up on the condi and then transfer it back to the enemy.

And USUALLY, you have a dead enemy. And then the community complains that Necro is too OP against condi builds. (But then they forget about Diamond Skin Eles).

But what if one day, the enemy actually knows how to prevent a necro from transferring the condi back to him? What if one day, a necro finds most of his condi transfers missing or failing?

I hope to see that day come. I hope to see the day when necros actually seek to learn and dodge bursts, condi or power. I hope to see the day when necros don’t sit in shroud thinking it is sufficient. I hope to see the day when necros don’t blindly soak up on the condi bursts thinking a simple transfer is going to work.

So here I bring up to the community, the ways to fight a necro using condi.

I think I am very well-placed to explain condi transfers since I use all the available transfers a necro has in my build. I’ll even teach you how to counter. All these are my own experiences as well as the knowledge that the Necro community has shared with me. I think there may be some errors here and there so feel free to correct me!

• 1) plague sending / Trait
  -when there are 3 condis on the necro, next crit by the necro on the opponent transfers 5 condis
  -blind and block only effective to delay the crit from happening, does not stop the transfer once crit happens cause it is instant
  -How to counter: Don’t instantly condi burst him. hit him with 3 or more different condis, then when you see a signet break above his head, you probably triggered his plague sending. Load him after that. This trait also works on the nearest enemy, not on the targeted enemy. So if you have images, clones, pets, minions, summons etc, try not to be the one closest to the Necro.

• 2) Deathly Swarm / dagger 4
  -900 range dagger skill that travels and appears as a thin dark-green swarm
  -can be dodged or blocked,
  -cannot be blinded as it will transfer the blind back? not sure about this because I don’t remember missing it before
  -transfers 3 condi when it connects
  -How to counter: if you have loaded him with condi, watch for a dark-green-black swarm thing that travels out from the necro. it moves relatively slowly and can be dodged or blocked. Don’t let it hit you if you don’t want to eat all your own condi damage.

• 3) Plague Signet / Utility
  -Instant cast stun breaker. Very OP against condi foes. transfers up to 5 condis back.
  -Can be dodged or blocked
  -Cannot be blinded? (if you loaded him with 6 or more condis, chance a Necro will miss?)
  -How to counter: you can see this icon in the necro status bar as a signet icon. if you see it, and you are condi, load him up with condi but right after that, dodge, block, invulnerable, invis, blink away. Do anything you can right after you load him with condi to prevent his plague signet from hitting you. It is instant cast so you have to pre-empt this transfer. the longer he takes to transfer it back to you, the more damage the necro takes. This is like pre-empting an invisible foe, where you need to count his stealth timing and dodge or block or evade etc. Same thing for a necro, because it is instant cast, most necros when they are loaded with condis they will want to activate this to transfer it back. Don’t let them do it easily. Pre-empt them with all your evasive skills. If you do that, there is a very good chance that they will miss the cast or take too long to transfer it and by then they will be almost dead.

• 4) Putrid Mark / Staff 4
  -1200 range aoe mark. Casting animation is the same as all the marks so you can’t really tell whether he is casting this or some other mark
  - Can be evaded/dodged
  - Might be able to block unless the Necro traited unblockable marks
  - Cannot be blinded
  - Transfers 3 condis back on hit
  - How to counter: Same as plague signet, since you can’t tell whether he is casting this mark or some other mark, you have to pre-empt him. Load him with condis and pre-empt him by doing all your evasive/invis/dodge/blink/invulnerable skills so that he can’t transfer it back to you.

• 5) There is still the traited minions transfer on hit I think but I don’t really play with minions much…

Class Example : Mesmer

• You can use your images to block dagger 4 from hitting you.
• You can use your images to eat the plague sending because there is a good chance the crit from the necro will land on your image. Just make sure you are not the closest to the Necro.
• Load the necro and go invis and stay there as long as you can.
• Interrupt the necro if he tries to heal.
• If necro transfers the condi on to one of your image, then pop right out of invis and load him again. then go back into invis.
• Even better if you come out of invis with aegis. After your aegis breaks, try to dodge or chain dodges.
• Use your blink to widen the gap so the necro becomes harder to transfer it back to you.
• Use your sword evasive skill to pre-empt any transfers.
• Use f4 invulnerable shatter skill to defend yourself against transfers.

Mesmers have many pre-empt skills against a necro.
Having said that, it can still be a very close fight though, especially if you don’t have condi cleanses yourself.
One good transfer and fear from the necro = a dead mesmer.
if you are condi PU and you run condi cleansing mantra as well, then the necro will have a much harder time since he needs to catch you with a good transfer/burst at least twice.

For other classes, just do whatever you can to pre-empt and prevent the necro from transferring back to you and you have a dead necro.
For example, a condi engineer running MOA, after loading the necro with condis like burn, MOA the necro. You have a very dead necro.
For example, a condi ranger, use your shortbow to evade, use your sword/dagger to evade, use your dodges, use your pets to taunt/control the necro. You have a very dead necro.
Important thing is to pre-empt after you load the necro because very often, reacting is too late.

TLDR: if you are condi and fighting a necro, after you load him with condi, you need to pre-empt him by using all your evasive/defensive/control skills so that he can’t transfer it back to you successfully.

==============

This is for 1v1.

Recently I wrote a post here on how condi players can fight against a necro’s transfers.
Called ‘Forcing Necros to Evolve’.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Forcing-Necros-to-Evolve/first#post5506485

In there, I focused mainly on how a condi mesmer can overcome a Necro’s ability to transfer condis back. But not just a mesmer, many other classes running condi can, with their own skills, not have to feel powerless when they face a necro. (Necros are not OP against condi builds if you know what to expect and what to do).

Now I want to help not just necros, but also other classes, figure out a Power Shatter Mesmer.

There are in general two main things you want to defend against:
1) Burst rotation from Greatsword skill 2 + Shatter (somtimes with blink + mantra of stun)
2) Burst rotation from Sword skill 3 + skill 2 + Shatter (sometimes with mantra of stun)

And they like to bait dodges/defenses before doing the real shatter burst. It could come from GS or Sword. So don’t let your guard down.

The most terrible and hardest to dodge is imo the burst from stealth at point-blank-range. Especially if you don’t have a very good connection or reflexes. One point-blank-range burst will just destroy you if you are glass. Not impossible to evade, but you really need to be extremely focused to get out of this if you don’t have any means to pre-warn it like a necro laying down a staff mark.

Here I present a video and the build I am using.

Video:

Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRQQNAW7Yjc0QlN2ZDO2A/NOwFKaa0GfBsNDgFIu157HA-TVCFABAcFAKU9HkUOIwDAIJlc0s/Qa6GW4gAolSwAAIAzcmJzyM4oH9oH9oHtZuzZe0je0CBIYCA-w

you do know shroud is all a necro has to defend its self right? you talk as if there is some other magical option to mitigate damage… 2 standard dodges can only get you so far

Reported for spreading condi mesmer tips.

1) Says necro gameplay is too passive
2) Lists skills that have to be landed on opponents to work
3) Lists how to counter the skills with things like blinds, blocks, and invulns which necros largely don’t have.

Also, marks all have different animations (seriously look for the glowy hand). Now, I think plague sending and is really cheap and needs to be attached to a skill, or made avoidable (chill of death needs to be removed). However, I don’t know how your arguing necros are passive when literally all of their defense requires you to get hit or to hit someone, while literally every other class just gets free passive regen, and sustain while also having invulns, blocks, and evades that pretty much always work.

Yes necros only have 2 dodges, but that doesn’t mean we should eat bursts!
the idea here is to use our 2 dodges to evade the bursts.
Especially against condi because hey what if the enemy knows how to prevent a transfer? dodging their bursts twice early will set the enemy back quite a bit.

by passive, apart from using shroud to tank power/condi bursts, i also mean that we don’t pro-actively dodge condi bursts because we think that we can transfer it back easily and many don’t even know what to look-out for because most of the time, they don’t need to know how an enemy condi burst looks like.
They only know: “I have a lot of condi on me, I need to transfer it back”

EremiteAngel.9765:

by passive, apart from using shroud to tank power/condi bursts, i also mean that we don’t pro-actively dodge condi bursts because we think that we can transfer it back easily and many don’t even know what to look-out for because most of the time, they don’t need to know how an enemy condi burst looks like.
They only know: “I have a lot of condi on me, I need to transfer it back”

You do know in some cases this Apis actually a viable form of counterplay and using an an enemies own attacks against them? It’s kind of like reflecting a rangers rapid fire in a way. On one of my 3 necro’s for instance I run a boon convert/ condition transfer build and I sometimes get conditions intentionally. Elementalists burning field for instance, I will sometimes purposefully run bbck and forth through it just to get burning stacks and send them back to the ele, it’s viable and it’s pretty effective in some cases. There’s nothing wrong with the build or the class, it’s just another kind of playstyle.

Howdy parner. I think it would have been more useful if you referenced an ele instead of Mesmer because Mesmers have always done well 1v1. Cele signet necro is a threat to d/d eles atm.

I play a variety of Mesmer and necro builds and power necros are anything but passive. At the beginning of each match, I think it is the weakest possible build available due to its dependency on LF.

cakeonroof.7385:

Howdy parner. I think it would have been more useful if you referenced an ele instead of Mesmer because Mesmers have always done well 1v1. Cele signet necro is a threat to d/d eles atm.

I play a variety of Mesmer and necro builds and power necros are anything but passive. At the beginning of each match, I think it is the weakest possible build available due to its dependency on LF.

hey i think thats great that you don’t have much problems with necros.
but from the many posts calling necros too OP against condi builds, I think many other players will find these tips very useful when fighting a necro and will no longer think that a necro is OP against a condi build.

Mesmers in general don’t have much problems with necros. I don’t think necros are OP when I am on my Mesmer. On my d/d ele, necros can be a pain so I minimize my use of drake and rof.

Necros, not the glassy power kind, is harder to kill especially if they have full LF. So yeah they seem OP that way but you also have to take consideration that they don’t have access to easy disengage and stability. A condi Mesmer does more attrition damage than the meta necro.

Also, just by skimming through pvp forum threads, there are way more complaints against mesmers than they do necros

+1 to OP for putting the effort to writing and sharing this guide. Im sure some mesmers will find the tips to be useful.

Plague sending transfers 5 condis, not 3 – just like plague signet.

1v1 is all fine and lovely.

But when necros get focus fired, they’re a giant marshmallow to be squished. And most of the important fights are team-based.

Blocks, invulns, sustained evasion skills, and stealth all shutdown focus fire like that. Necros have…let’s see…ah, yes, none of those. They have the super effective “stand there and take it” approach.

Please stop hating on necros for doing the only thing they can. S’how the class works. Giant HP sponge. And it’s semi-effective at best.

Only thing I want to see removed from necro is that trait that triggers death shroud when they’re about to die. While they’re at it they can remove vamp runes, traited elixer s, traited endure pain, and every other stupid ”save your kitten passive garbage that triggers at 25% health.

This game is supposed to promote active combat, quit giving people these lazy traits.

bhagwad.4281:

Plague sending transfers 5 condis, not 3 – just like plague signet.

Yes, but it triggers when you have 3+, I think thats what he was trying to say

Also you do understand the reason we have the transfers is because we don’t have many cleanses or vigor or blocks….. I would love it if my necro could dodge like my ele then I might actually dodge condi bombs instead of eating them…. instead I’d rather use my dodges on CCs you know the thing that counters necros really hard.

Lets see. Necromancers have :

- No innate vigor/endurance regeneration abilities. The best you can do is Well of Blood to convert bleeding on you into vigor, but that’s it. And you’d need Blood is Power as well to even use that on your terms, and for a miniscule amount of vigor not worth the trouble.

- No reliable stability.

- No blocking/invulnerability skills.

- No reliable escape skills for when they’re outmatched. And don’t even try counting that worthless Flesh Wurm minion.

- No reflects/projectile mitigation of any kind, at least until Reaper comes out. And even then, it’s only one skill, bound to the Reaper Shroud.

- No decent heal skills ever since they decided to mess with Consume Conditions.

- No good elite skills. Flesh Golem is garbage unless you’re going full no-skill minionmancer, Lich makes you a huge target and your attacks can easily be avoided/countered, and Plague also makes you a huge target unless you can keep using blind on a group to slow the damage, and even then, all they have to do is immobilize you.

“Necro is too passive”. Plays condi mesmer. Kek

Good for you for helping people fight Necros, but dude… Forealsies did you even think when you tried making your points?

EremiteAngel.9765:

But what if one day, the enemy actually knows how to prevent a necro from transferring the condi back to him? What if one day, a necro finds most of his condi transfers missing or failing?

Those are all available. Transfers don’t go through Evades or Invulns, which every class but Necro has. Burst -> Invuln/Evade isn’t complicated and people with experience already do it.

I hope to see that day come. I hope to see the day when necros actually seek to learn and dodge bursts, condi or power. I hope to see the day when necros don’t sit in shroud thinking it is sufficient. I hope to see the day when necros don’t blindly soak up on the condi bursts thinking a simple transfer is going to work.

Seek to learn? We don’t dodge often because we can’t. I don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Do we want to dodge this burst or the next burst? Or that knockback…or the burst coming after the knockback… If we didn’t have at least some transfers we would be on the ground all the time thanks to our lack of defenses.

abc.5790:

+1 to OP for putting the effort to writing and sharing this guide. Im sure some mesmers will find the tips to be useful.

laem caer baer

abc.5790:

+1 to OP for putting the effort to writing and sharing this guide. Im sure some mesmers will find the tips to be useful.

i think you got it spot on =D best post I’ve seen in a while. unlike all the negative posts you know? like in that 1v1 tournament thread which i believe will get closed. so much bad manners in there.

cakeonroof.7385:

Also, just by skimming through pvp forum threads, there are way more complaints against mesmers than they do necros

True but I want to help condi builds fight necros so that necros are forced to evolve. And people will stop thinking that necro is naturally > condi builds.

bhagwad.4281:

Plague sending transfers 5 condis, not 3 – just like plague signet.

ah yes i corrected it thanks!

This is for 1v1.

Recently I wrote a post here on how condi players can fight against a necro’s transfers.
Called ‘Forcing Necros to Evolve’.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Forcing-Necros-to-Evolve/first#post5506485

In there, I focused mainly on how a condi mesmer can overcome a Necro’s ability to transfer condis back. But not just a mesmer, many other classes running condi can, with their own skills, not have to feel powerless when they face a necro. (Necros are not OP against condi builds if you know what to expect and what to do).

Now I want to help not just necros, but also other classes, figure out a Power Shatter Mesmer.

There are in general two main things you want to defend against:
1) Burst rotation from Greatsword skill 2 + Shatter (somtimes with blink + mantra of stun)
2) Burst rotation from Sword skill 3 + skill 2 + Shatter (sometimes with mantra of stun)

And they like to bait dodges/defenses before doing the real shatter burst. It could come from GS or Sword. So don’t let your guard down.

The most terrible and hardest to dodge is imo the burst from stealth at point-blank-range. Especially if you don’t have a very good connection or reflexes. One point-blank-range burst will just destroy you if you are glass. Not impossible to evade, but you really need to be extremely focused to get out of this if you don’t have any means to pre-warn it like a necro laying down a staff mark.

Here I present a video and the build I am using.

Video:

Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRQQNAW7Yjc0QlN2ZDO2A/NOwFKaa0GfBsNDgFIu157HA-TVCFABAcFAKU9HkUOIwDAIJlc0s/Qa6GW4gAolSwAAIAzcmJzyM4oH9oH9oHtZuzZe0je0CBIYCA-w

EremiteAngel.9765:

cakeonroof.7385:

Also, just by skimming through pvp forum threads, there are way more complaints against mesmers than they do necros

True but I want to help condi builds fight necros so that necros are forced to evolve. And people will stop thinking that necro is naturally > condi builds.

Excuse me but what do you exactly mean with “Evolve”?
Because we’ve been evolved so much in this time following the “meta” trend that we finally find a single kitten ed spot why we’re good to kill eles by corrupting they’re boons and sending back they’re conditions and you say that we have to Evolve?
WTF?

Seriously: in what do you want to make us evolve exactly? HOW?

You’ve made a list of things that we can do to be the best pg ever without considering that we have only 2 dodges and a blind that tranfer conditions that you’ve perfectly explained how to evade.
How can we evolve to be more “active” if we haven’t a single active defence out of that condi transfer and boon corrupter skills/traitedskills?

I play necromancer and I play MM in a personal build. Then I can say to you that I have to play better with that build than with my dps guardian and I have to active more skills and with better timing with that build than with my dps guardian, that have a large amount of block/immunity/blind/movement/clean skills to survive and deal damage.

The necro haven’t a single defensive skill out of DS that is both our defensive and offensive power, making it the worst mechanic ever.
is like if the warrior to active it’s endure pain have to consume 3 bars of adrenaline (why a complete DS can “block” lesser amount of damage than a Endure Pain, expecially in some focused situations, the reason why everyone focus on the necromancer: they’re easy to kill but if you let them the DS they will deal high damage, then focus-kill-bye bye damage). That will make the warrior chose between active it’s adrenaline to attack or spend it all to survive a little longer, exactly like necromancers do.
(that’s only an example)

Then, I’ve dodged a burst, dodged a condi burst and then the enemy is attempting do active another burst skill. How can I protect me? I can active the wurm ang teleport away (if there’s nothing in the line of sight of the wurm that waste my skill) or simply take all the damage, hoping it’s a condition damage to send it back and don’t be insta-killed. or I can chose to sacrifice my LF to obtain more health and survive that boost, losing my damage DS AA source.

And to “force the necros to evolve” what do you do? Explain some mysterious hidden skills and traits that will help us to be more active and obtain finally a sort of defence?

NO!

You explain to everyone how to kill us!!!
How to make useless the only build we have! The only reason we are not kicked out of every team we found!

Thanks, EremiteAngel, Thanks!

You’re the guru of the Necromancers! The chosen one that will make necromancer finally move they’re a** and be more active, why we have a incredible amount of active-style builds that wait only to be used that will bring us to the victory!

Seriously, what’s the point in all that?

How will you help us writing how to kill us with the only kind of builds we are good to defeat?

Guy, your’ post is totally against necromancers and focused on destroy us more than make us better.

Why actually the Necromancer Can’t “Evolve” in anything better than that dps/corruption meta that you tried to destroy.

Then, please, play with your mesmer condition, kill your necromancers and be happy by yourself, don’t try to help us, we don’t need your help to “evolve” in anythyng.
Thanks for your try.

But when the Reaper will come up, the “meta” in HoT will change and some new builds will come up, please, don’t try to make us evolve. You’ve done enough for us. Go to help other classes. Bye.

zapv.8051:

1) Says necro gameplay is too passive
2) Lists skills that have to be landed on opponents to work
3) Lists how to counter the skills with things like blinds, blocks, and invulns which necros largely don’t have.
.

4) Makes long post about how o counter a build which has been dead for a while now
5) Ignores Burn Guardians which literally burn you to death then channel blocks so we can’t transfer conditions more than once.

Sorel.4870:

“Necro is too passive”. Plays condi mesmer. Kek

Lol. Last night, I literally had a ranked condi Mesmer run up to Quarry, stealth moa me, popped clones, stealthed again then went for a dual shatter Burst right as I was leaving Moa. They ate their entire burst right back plus an immob and WoS. Died in like 3 seconds. Then raged in /say about how cheesy Necros are and my faceroll carry build. :/ I play power variant with 19k hp….