Guild Wars 2

I am the most indecisive person you’ll ever meet, and I’m trying to choose a main.

I want to play a support role in a small 5-10 man WvW group, and was thinking about rolling a Necro as I’ve leveled one to 10ish and am enjoying it so far. However, after reading on this subforum, I’m a little worried that I’ll ding 80, try WvW, and discover that I don’t enjoy the class as much as I thought or that I’m wasting a slot in the group.

So, after watching some staff Elementalist videos, I’m considering rerolling my main. I want to know if all the hullabaloo on this subforum is true; can Ele out-heal, out-dps, and out-everything Necromancers right now? Would I be better off rolling an Ele, or will Necro suffice as the main support role in my small-man group?

Also, I understand that classes are buffed and nerfed constantly, and that one day the tables may completely turn on this subject. However, there’s no guarantee that will happen or how soon it will happen.

Thanks in advance.

Support eles outheal/damage/whatever because of combo fields. If you don’t include that, then a support ele (just like all other ones) can do what you are mentioning but never at the same time. Yes a fire attuned ele will outdamage a support necro, but then they aren’t doing any healing. A water attuned ele will heal a lot, but their damage falls to nothing. Oh, and god forbid someone actually attack the staff ele, heck even a stray flake of grass would give them a concussion.

A support Necromancer does just fine, and realize that eles are going to eat a lot of nerf wands over time (they are going to be nerfing AoE, and that is the reason eles are so strong right now). It really comes down to which playstyle do you like more, both will fit into a team just fine.

I actually have to say that Elementalist is in an amazing place right now. While it’s true that Elementalists don’t have the toughness of Necromancers in certain specs, that’s their only weakness. Frankly, they just bring more to a group, with any weapon, than a necromancer does. That can be said for any class though, Elementalist is meant to be able to switch and change due to the situation.
And while it’s true that they can’t do everything all at once, they can normally switch around to deal with it all one right after another. Team taking damage? Water attunement, healing rain. Now that their Health is stable, switch to Earth to do some crowd control or Air to help the team get out of there. You tried to run and they caught you? Switch to Earth, crowd control/condition, and then fire to try and finish some of them. Still aren’t dead and now your team is hurting? Back to water and start the process again. It’s fluid, it’s always useful, and it handles whatever is gettin’ your team down.
Necromancer brings more of a personal, solid feel. We can’t handle all the situations Elementalists can, and we have some decent amounts of set-up time. We either have to have summoned minions or applied conditions before the epidemic, or need time to build up that 25 stacks of vulnerability, or whatever. We aren’t always useful regardless of spec in every situation, but we do survive longer to set up the things we need to.
Elementalist is fluid and quick and always useful. Necromancer is solidly built and useful in certain situations and given a little time.