Guild Wars 2

Even with the improvements to Reaper we are still faced with a PvP reality of being the primary focus target. What would it take to put the pressure somewhere else?

More mobility or active defenses like blocks and blinds to enable us to counter bursts or just say nope.

You wont. It’s already engrained.
Especially at the start of a match. Everyone knows we are at our most vulnerable at 0 LF, and they try to kill us before we can get into that first shroud.

Complete skill negation (evade, block, invuln, etc.) or heavy disengage. So basically only skill negation, since we’ll never get disengage.

To me it’s like the “Focus the Healer” mentality, adapted to GW2’s difference in style. You pick the class that has a potentially large influence on a fight, that can be shut down, and you shut that class down. It’s the job of the Necro to do what he/she can to survive, and it’s the job of your team to help peel/punish the other team enough to come out ahead in the engagement, even if you die as the Necro.

Embrace the situation and work with it, not against it. Sometimes you and your team might come out ahead, and sometimes you won’t.

To change that we’d obviously had to launch a full-blown propaganda campaign to further our cause.

#necrosarenottheenemy #minionlivesmatter

Bhawb.7408:

Complete skill negation (evade, block, invuln, etc.) or heavy disengage. So basically only skill negation, since we’ll never get disengage.

I’ll add to that the possibility to get healed while in shroud. If you look at the meta teams right now, they have a lot of AOE healing, and this is a great part of their sustain. But if a necro gets focused, he does not have much tools to survive, and his team does not have much tools to help him either…

Any time I feel like I’m going to just get hammered, I put on a Soldier’s amulet, Trooper/Soldier runes, all shouts -YSIM, axe + X, greatsword, and run around like a chicken with my head cut off while people beat on me. If you can hold onto the retaliation boon, and your teammates are at least pressing buttons while targeting your opponents, it can be a pretty fun experience! I feel really, really hard to bring down while also feeling like I contribute to the fight.

What’s unfortunate is that you never know when someone will actually ignore you, or you actively have to consistently take a tough-to-kill build or just avoid teamfights. : /

Actual team play should do it and you will not find that in Yolo PUGs. Your team should be using you as both bait and trap.

Necromancer AoE condition effects scale rapidly up the more players get too close but that situation is totally bad news for a solo Necro. Your team should treat you as the point to defend and stay on tight orbit. It is kind of like players running boon sharing builds. Ideally, put a strong boon sharer with strong condition-mancer to maximize advantage for three others.

PvP arenas are large and have too much going on for consistent 5v5 team fights. When I PUG it, people die, get separated, or break off for solo/duo stuff. Necromancer is designed more for AoE debuff than anything else. The other team really wants you separated or dead to keep your effect on the match minimal.

Unfortunately, PvE and even WvW content trains players to not work well together.

Cogbyrn.7283:

To me it’s like the “Focus the Healer” mentality, adapted to GW2’s difference in style. You pick the class that has a potentially large influence on a fight, that can be shut down, and you shut that class down. It’s the job of the Necro to do what he/she can to survive, and it’s the job of your team to help peel/punish the other team enough to come out ahead in the engagement, even if you die as the Necro.

Embrace the situation and work with it, not against it. Sometimes you and your team might come out ahead, and sometimes you won’t.

Just ran into something like this. Enemy team was zerging in Khylo and aggravating everyone on my team (naturally.) Well, this Reaper got tired of it so camped their kitten spawn. I’m not proud of it, exactly, but if you’re gonna try zerging in PvP, you’re gonna have a Reaper at your doorstep slowing you the hell down

Just play some MM tank build with Soldier amulet.

Then they can focus you all they want but you are “going down slow”:

(Song included not for drugs reference but for quote: “I’m going down I know, but I’m going down slow”.)

We actually had it for a bit with old Blighter’s Boon. People were complaining Reapers were impossible to kill in teamfights, The tactic to solve that issue was to cut off the Reaper’s boon supply, but very few people figured that out instead of bashing their heads against the wall, following the strategy that has been so ingrained into players to a T.

All we need is the ability to be properly supported by allies while using our defense.

Silverkey.2078:

I’ll add to that the possibility to get healed while in shroud. If you look at the meta teams right now, they have a lot of AOE healing, and this is a great part of their sustain. But if a necro gets focused, he does not have much tools to survive, and his team does not have much tools to help him either…

Strictly speaking any balanced sustain we have will never suffice. Blighter’s Boon gave us what you are talking about, which was effectively such obscenely unbalanced sustain (in the situations we’re talking about) that it might as well have just been us negating all damage taken. But any balanced level of sustain won’t cut it, you’d have to be able to sustain through the coordinated burst of 5 people, which by definition isn’t balanced.

In my opinion we already had it with the original blighters boon… aaaand it got nerfed in a matter of days because people had to think differently from ‘focus the necromancer’.

Zetsumei.4975:

In my opinion we already had it with the original blighters boon… aaaand it got nerfed in a matter of days because people had to think differently from ‘focus the necromancer’.

Unfortunately, it goth nerfed because it was too strong. And the problem with its original version is that it was hard to balance. It could be god-mode in some team comps (like running 2 glint revenants) or poor in others. Unfortunately, a-net decided to change it so that it does not fit its original purpose.
I do think a more intelligent fix would have been “you are healed/gain LF every second for each boon you have on you, max 4 boons”, this way there is an upper limit to how much you can receive, but yet do benefit from having allies around since it is hard for necros to gain different boons alone.

In any case, this would be only a bandaid to what really needs to be done:

• nerf necromancer passive sustain (potentially by “a lot”)
• give necromancer some active sustain (I think at least one spectra skill should make you evade/invuln, since this would be very thematic; I think it would be nice also with a corruption: trade some non-scalable damage to get scalable defense)
• allow necromancer to receive ally heal in shroud

Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself after reading this thread?

Do we even need to end the “Focus the Necro” mentality? Or is that fine as part of the game?

Personally, I like Anchoku and Dead’s combined answer. It’s a matter of teamplay and/or building specifically tanky to prolong their attempt to burst you. If you prove enough times that them leading on the Necro loses them the fight, maybe they’ll stop.

Or they’ll cry for Necro nerfs. I don’t know, it’s difficult to say with MMO PvP communities. But I think that’s the proper course.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself after reading this thread?

Do we even need to end the “Focus the Necro” mentality? Or is that fine as part of the game?

Personally, I like Anchoku and Dead’s combined answer. It’s a matter of teamplay and/or building specifically tanky to prolong their attempt to burst you. If you prove enough times that them leading on the Necro loses them the fight, maybe they’ll stop.

Or they’ll cry for Necro nerfs. I don’t know, it’s difficult to say with MMO PvP communities. But I think that’s the proper course.

TankyReaperMeta2k15 – The biggest pain in the kitten this side of….well. Anything, really

Easy fix: give us 50% Life Force to start. As I understand it, sPvP teams like to focus the Necro not so much because we’re so important to take out or even so easy to kill, but because we’re easiest to kill before we’ve had a chance to build up our primary defense.

I dunno if that would be enough or too much, but it’d be a start.

Run with Cavalier armor and SR/Blood Magic/Death Magic, 2 wells and take one for the team.

In all the matches I am top damage received but it took the enemy team so much time to kill me because that armor and constant protection, my team decimates the other team.

And when I drop my 2 wells, quickness and %70 crit chance in DS, actually you don’t want to be on me but hey, Necro is an easy kill isn’t? Reverse psychology

Silverkey.2078:

Zetsumei.4975:

In my opinion we already had it with the original blighters boon… aaaand it got nerfed in a matter of days because people had to think differently from ‘focus the necromancer’.

Unfortunately, it goth nerfed because it was too strong. And the problem with its original version is that it was hard to balance. It could be god-mode in some team comps (like running 2 glint revenants) or poor in others. Unfortunately, a-net decided to change it so that it does not fit its original purpose.
I do think a more intelligent fix would have been “you are healed/gain LF every second for each boon you have on you, max 4 boons”, this way there is an upper limit to how much you can receive, but yet do benefit from having allies around since it is hard for necros to gain different boons alone.

In any case, this would be only a bandaid to what really needs to be done:

• nerf necromancer passive sustain (potentially by “a lot”)
• give necromancer some active sustain (I think at least one spectra skill should make you evade/invuln, since this would be very thematic; I think it would be nice also with a corruption: trade some non-scalable damage to get scalable defense)
• allow necromancer to receive ally heal in shroud

Meh the issue here was the revenant not the reaper, I think the wrong class got nerfed/tweaked. I also think this was a great compromise for not being able to receive heals in shroud and only highlighted the boon spam problem in the game.

posthumecaver.6473:

Run with Cavalier armor and SR/Blood Magic/Death Magic, 2 wells and take one for the team.

In all the matches I am top damage received but it took the enemy team so much time to kill me because that armor and constant protection, my team decimates the other team.

And when I drop my 2 wells, quickness and %70 crit chance in DS, actually you don’t want to be on me but hey, Necro is an easy kill isn’t? Reverse psychology

How are you getting quickness?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Easy fix: give us 50% Life Force to start. As I understand it, sPvP teams like to focus the Necro not so much because we’re so important to take out or even so easy to kill, but because we’re easiest to kill before we’ve had a chance to build up our primary defense.

I dunno if that would be enough or too much, but it’d be a start.

Thank youuuu. Finally someone else understands it’s not because we are more or less dangerous than other classes. It’s strictly because our survivability is completely tied to our lf. If you focus the necro he can’t build lf. Give necro something like glints heal

Dristig.9678:

posthumecaver.6473:

Run with Cavalier armor and SR/Blood Magic/Death Magic, 2 wells and take one for the team.

In all the matches I am top damage received but it took the enemy team so much time to kill me because that armor and constant protection, my team decimates the other team.

And when I drop my 2 wells, quickness and %70 crit chance in DS, actually you don’t want to be on me but hey, Necro is an easy kill isn’t? Reverse psychology

How are you getting quickness?

Either sigil of rage sigil of speed or he is using chrono runes.

NeXeD.3042:

Dristig.9678:

posthumecaver.6473:

Run with Cavalier armor and SR/Blood Magic/Death Magic, 2 wells and take one for the team.

In all the matches I am top damage received but it took the enemy team so much time to kill me because that armor and constant protection, my team decimates the other team.

And when I drop my 2 wells, quickness and %70 crit chance in DS, actually you don’t want to be on me but hey, Necro is an easy kill isn’t? Reverse psychology

How are you getting quickness?

Either sigil of rage sigil of speed or he is using chrono runes.

Yeah, since he mentioned wells probably Chrono runes. I forgot about those.

NeXeD.3042:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Easy fix: give us 50% Life Force to start. As I understand it, sPvP teams like to focus the Necro not so much because we’re so important to take out or even so easy to kill, but because we’re easiest to kill before we’ve had a chance to build up our primary defense.

I dunno if that would be enough or too much, but it’d be a start.

Thank youuuu. Finally someone else understands it’s not because we are more or less dangerous than other classes. It’s strictly because our survivability is completely tied to our lf. If you focus the necro he can’t build lf. Give necro something like glints heal

Ohhhhhh I like this. A heal that turns damage into LF would be amazing. Something like Defiant Stance on Warrior.

Why change that? I count on it when I play necro. I run a tanky build anyway but it’s hilarious to see people come to die at my feets

Adding LF isn’t a good way to fix the issue. The issue is a result of us having no ways to stall against burst except hope we have more HP than they have damage. What we need is negation, which we should have, its a big part of the game. All that LF does is says “Necromancers have so much HP that maybe you can’t burst them no matter how well you play”, which sucks the opposite way.

Bhawb.7408:

Adding LF isn’t a good way to fix the issue. The issue is a result of us having no ways to stall against burst except hope we have more HP than they have damage. What we need is negation, which we should have, its a big part of the game. All that LF does is says “Necromancers have so much HP that maybe you can’t burst them no matter how well you play”, which sucks the opposite way.

To play devil’s advocate, if starting us off with 50% LF creates a toxic offense/defense dynamic, then aren’t you really saying that that the Deathshroud mechanic is fundamentally toxic? Once we get some LF together, our defense is basically having so many hitpoints that we can’t be burst down. If ANet gave us significant negation on top of that, wouldn’t they then have to nerf Deathshroud into the ground (if not remove it entirely) just so we couldn’t have a giant HP pool on top of negation?

If PvE design is going to continue to include attacks that can down anyone regardless of their damage mitigation, then I agree that it’s going to be difficult to balance Death Shroud against the block/evasion/invuln effects of other professions. If sPvP is going to focus around bunkering and heavy teamfights, then it’s likewise going to be difficult to get DS/RS to sit on the middle of a slider between “useless” and “too much.” But I really don’t see a way for us to have both DS and damage negation effects, not without one or the other being hilariously weak.

Blaine Tog.8304:

To play devil’s advocate, if starting us off with 50% LF creates a toxic offense/defense dynamic, then aren’t you really saying that that the Deathshroud mechanic is fundamentally toxic? Once we get some LF together, our defense is basically having so many hitpoints that we can’t be burst down. If ANet gave us significant negation on top of that, wouldn’t they then have to nerf Deathshroud into the ground (if not remove it entirely) just so we couldn’t have a giant HP pool on top of negation?

Yes and no. There is far less intelligent play associated with using Shroud vs a time-limited defense to mitigate burst, because Shroud is just more HP (note, there is SOME play, mainly around shroud’s CD, but much less than tracking defensive CDs and all the play around that). The interesting play comes through building LF while in combat, and applying mitigating mechanics like weakness, which I think just throwing LF for free at Necromancer gets rid of. At least spawning with LF you previously generated has the play of you purposely using the last fight to generate LF, but making the decision that it is more beneficial for you to spawn with LF for the next fight than extend this one by a little bit. On the other hand having 50% more LF is just adding 34.5%-69% HP (15% more w/ SR) to passively mitigate burst in the first fight. If we need LF to start fights, we should just have some/more viable options of generating LF quickly (like making SGrasp not garbage).

I don’t think adding some negation would make us OP with this either. By design it would come at the cost of something else in your build. Ex: a buffed Unholy Sanctuary that is good at anti-burst comes at the cost of an entire trait line in your build, a defensive OH means you can’t have another OH, defensive utility means one less utility, etc.

I don’t think we need many, but look at how massive of an improvement Infusing Terror was for our lack of stability, and that was just one addition of accessible stability.

Bhawb.7408:

Yes and no. There is far less intelligent play associated with using Shroud vs a time-limited defense to mitigate burst, because Shroud is just more HP (note, there is SOME play, mainly around shroud’s CD, but much less than tracking defensive CDs and all the play around that). The interesting play comes through building LF while in combat, and applying mitigating mechanics like weakness, which I think just throwing LF for free at Necromancer gets rid of.

I just don’t see the point in keeping us so weak for the opening moments of the first fight of a match. We’ll have enough LF to hop into DS for the second fight pretty much regardless of how it goes, so really all the first fight is, is a death tax. Die once at the start of the match and then the rest of it will proceed normally.

To be clear: I’m not suggesting we should start each life with 50% LF, just that we should start the match with it. This would still force us to make decisions about how to build and spend LF throughout the match, it just wouldn’t leave us with this one glaring spot at the very beginning where we’re abnormally weak through really no fault of our own. Regardless of how strong or weak we are, forcing us to start each match hobbled is going to make the Necro feel really terrible to play, and the very worst game design is when something that’s actually objectively strong feels very weak. Then no one has fun with it.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t think adding some negation would make us OP with this either. By design it would come at the cost of something else in your build. Ex: a buffed Unholy Sanctuary that is good at anti-burst comes at the cost of an entire trait line in your build, a defensive OH means you can’t have another OH, defensive utility means one less utility, etc.

But what could we give up that would be meaningful to us? Everything is negotiable. No single weapon is necessary for the Necro to function, nor any particular set of trait lines. There are some that are better than others, of course, but if the trade-off were immortality through the correct layering of DS and negations, I can’t think of any individual component that wouldn’t be worth losing.

This means ANet would have to nerf DS itself, which means we’d be weaker overall if we were using a build that didn’t take advantage of the negation. ANet could avoid that by sticking the negation into DS itself, but then enemy teams would only want to spike us down in that first fight even harder than they already do.

The easier solution would be to give us half our LF at the start of each match… and maybe to allow our DS to block the entirety of whatever attack breaks it again, just to give us a chance against huge nasty boss attacks. I know that’s probably never going to happen, though.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I just don’t see the point in keeping us so weak for the opening moments of the first fight of a match.

I’m not suggesting we do. But just adding a huge amount of HP (we’re talking even glass Necro builds starting the game with essentially 30k+ HP, a Soldier build would have closer to 45-50k HP) isn’t going to lead to fun or skillful defense, all it does is create the same stat check as now, but delayed: do you have enough burst to burst the Necro? If yes do it. That’s exactly where we are at now, except you’ve just made it a higher number. There is nothing more skillful on the Necros part, they just have a ton more passive defense.

I’m suggesting we get active defense, both in the form of better burst LF generation and things like damage negation. You shouldn’t just be a vegetable and either live or die through their burst by merit of whether your HP is high enough or not, you should have to actively do something.

But what could we give up that would be meaningful to us? Everything is negotiable. No single weapon is necessary for the Necro to function, nor any particular set of trait lines. There are some that are better than others, of course, but if the trade-off were immortality through the correct layering of DS and negations, I can’t think of any individual component that wouldn’t be worth losing.

Immortality through layering isn’t balanced, that’s what we had with BB and it was rightly nerfed. But yes, giving up OH dagger or WH in order to gain access to active defense is a very meaningful tradeoff, that means you either have less transfers (both damage and anti condi defense lost) or you lose WH’s speed around the map and AoE CC. Both of those are really meaningful trade offs for a bit of active defense. Everything else is the same, giving up damage trait lines in order to get some anti-burst is a fair exchange, you survive better but aren’t going to impact fights as much.

Bhawb.7408:

I’m not suggesting we do. But just adding a huge amount of HP (we’re talking even glass Necro builds starting the game with essentially 30k+ HP, a Soldier build would have closer to 45-50k HP) isn’t going to lead to fun or skillful defense, all it does is create the same stat check as now, but delayed: do you have enough burst to burst the Necro? If yes do it. That’s exactly where we are at now, except you’ve just made it a higher number. There is nothing more skillful on the Necros part, they just have a ton more passive defense.

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the issue, then. Are Necros perpetually focused in sPvP matches, or is the hyperfocus limited to first fights, after which they tend to tank a more nornalized amount of enemy player aggro?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Bhawb.7408:

I’m not suggesting we do. But just adding a huge amount of HP (we’re talking even glass Necro builds starting the game with essentially 30k+ HP, a Soldier build would have closer to 45-50k HP) isn’t going to lead to fun or skillful defense, all it does is create the same stat check as now, but delayed: do you have enough burst to burst the Necro? If yes do it. That’s exactly where we are at now, except you’ve just made it a higher number. There is nothing more skillful on the Necros part, they just have a ton more passive defense.

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the issue, then. Are Necros perpetually focused in sPvP matches, or is the hyperfocus limited to first fights, after which they tend to tank a more nornalized amount of enemy player aggro?

Perpetually.

NeXeD.3042:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Bhawb.7408:

I’m not suggesting we do. But just adding a huge amount of HP (we’re talking even glass Necro builds starting the game with essentially 30k+ HP, a Soldier build would have closer to 45-50k HP) isn’t going to lead to fun or skillful defense, all it does is create the same stat check as now, but delayed: do you have enough burst to burst the Necro? If yes do it. That’s exactly where we are at now, except you’ve just made it a higher number. There is nothing more skillful on the Necros part, they just have a ton more passive defense.

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the issue, then. Are Necros perpetually focused in sPvP matches, or is the hyperfocus limited to first fights, after which they tend to tank a more nornalized amount of enemy player aggro?

Perpetually.

Yeah the culturally accepted pug group targetting mentality tends to prioritze targetting necromancers, rangers, and mesmers, though for mesmers its more because people don’t want to get confused by clones, so thats why mesmers tend to take stealth to deal with that. Now that ranger has druid, they can deal with focus fire a bit better, though thats dependent on having enough astral force to become godmode sustain for a bit.

In reality though, thieves/warriors should be focused first, since they literally die like flies if you breathe on them too hard (well after the warrior’s stances are up).

Thieves and warriors have better ways of kiting and disengaging, we don’t. Mobility is king, and necros/reapers are just so bad at it. Unless our mobility changes, or we get some sort of active defense, people will always focus the necro (as they should, I would).

nearlight.3064:

NeXeD.3042:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Bhawb.7408:

I’m not suggesting we do. But just adding a huge amount of HP (we’re talking even glass Necro builds starting the game with essentially 30k+ HP, a Soldier build would have closer to 45-50k HP) isn’t going to lead to fun or skillful defense, all it does is create the same stat check as now, but delayed: do you have enough burst to burst the Necro? If yes do it. That’s exactly where we are at now, except you’ve just made it a higher number. There is nothing more skillful on the Necros part, they just have a ton more passive defense.

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the issue, then. Are Necros perpetually focused in sPvP matches, or is the hyperfocus limited to first fights, after which they tend to tank a more nornalized amount of enemy player aggro?

Perpetually.

Yeah the culturally accepted pug group targetting mentality tends to prioritze targetting necromancers, rangers, and mesmers, though for mesmers its more because people don’t want to get confused by clones, so thats why mesmers tend to take stealth to deal with that. Now that ranger has druid, they can deal with focus fire a bit better, though thats dependent on having enough astral force to become godmode sustain for a bit.

In reality though, thieves/warriors should be focused first, since they literally die like flies if you breathe on them too hard (well after the warrior’s stances are up).

Nah, Thieves and Warriors die to cleave. You shouldn’t focus them. lol

I feel like targeting guard first in team fights is best so he cant do their rez shenanigans.

Necro/Reaper is focus’d because once it enters it cannot escape, also because of how much damage it can really put out if left to its business, a team cant realistically afford to take the Damage output and Endless Shroud timers if they werent pressuring the necro constantly.

we’ll only lose that pressure if we lost Shroud and Lich, making us ALOT less of a primary Target, we’d also have to prolly lose alot of our cleave, given the fact Reaper Shroud hits everything near you.

and to claim this is a “pug groups mentality” is crazy, Noscoc was Focus’d TONS throughout Tournaments for being a necromancer, even before reaper came, Necromancer will always be the victim of pressure they just have too much to not pressure.

Necromancer is kinda balanced with the fact it’ll be focus’d for what it is, if they took it out they’d have to also do things to the skillsets as We’d simply become Overpowered without pressure :P

Why would u focus a thief? the AoEs in a teamfight would destroy a thief, and warriors dont need focusing, Mesmers are focus’d because how strong their bursts get why wouldnt u focus a Squishy who can blow anything and anyone up not to mention give their team endless CDs with Alacrity if left to set it up, Rangers arnt really all that focus’d as much.. if they’re drudis they’re a bunker.. built to take damage and if they’re a power Ranger.. for the same reason as Mesmers.. Necros are Just scarey if left alone.

Necromancer’s lack of mobility and its strong AoE conditions mean at least part of the team should be playing around it, not outpacing or abandoning it.

Put a Necro on a point, have a Ranger perched ready to snipe, and someone stealthed nearby. When the other team sees a lone Necromancer and rush in for the easy kill, jump them after the Necro lays out condition spam.

1. No good disengage (still a factor, better on Reaper tho)
2. Mobility (together with Guardian still in the bottom, also abit better with Reaper)
3. No dmg reduction skills outside Shroud (before Poison Cloud & RS#2 we had nothing)

MM Builds tho tanky isnt working at high end sPvP, the only one we saw was the Chiese Team last time around and well… yea.

Signet-Cele still seems to be Meat but I think its mainly cause the few Necros/Reapers in T-PvP havent added anything useful in Meta after HoT. I see some streamers aso trying other stuff then Signets and going some Ramp,Viper or Marauder stuff. We will see

The only way to end that would be to nerf necro into uselessness. Being the class everyone focuses is good in that you’re at least powerful and threatening.

emikochan.8504:

The only way to end that would be to nerf necro into uselessness. Being the class everyone focuses is good in that you’re at least powerful and threatening.

Depends. Average Elementalist or Meditation Guardian is powerful and threatening, but they’re not the focus targets usually.

The first focus target is always the one that is easiest to kill and turn the fight into a 4v5 (or whatever the numbers actually are, but giving your team the numbers advantage regardless).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The first focus target is always the one that is easiest to kill and turn the fight into a 4v5 (or whatever the numbers actually are, but giving your team the numbers advantage regardless).

This. It doesn’t matter if the Necromancer on the other team is a terrible player who isn’t contributing at all, bringing the enemy down a player is a huge advantage (this is why +1ing a fight is such a big deal as well). It can also drive the enemy team to blow defenses on the Necromancer, a lot of support-containing builds will try to help the Necromancer peel, they might try to res the Necromancer, etc., so not only do you quickly bring the fight to a better position player wise, you can also often burn a lot of the enemy team’s defenses.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the issue, then. Are Necros perpetually focused in sPvP matches, or is the hyperfocus limited to first fights, after which they tend to tank a more nornalized amount of enemy player aggro?

Necromancer is the #1 target in every single situation when it comes to generalizations. The only form of disengage we have is running away, which anyone can follow relatively well, and Flesh Wurm for a Z-axis port, which a lot of builds can follow. Thre are situations where you wouldn’t focus a Necromancer, if they happen to be built extremely tanky and you have an easier target, but that’s pretty rare.

But as others said, targeting in teamfights actually has significantly less to do with how much teamfight impact each player has, and is based primarily on how easily you can kill them. Most other professions have either plentiful blocks/invulns, these abilities mean no matter what you do, they can generally stall for quite a few seconds (whereas a Necromancer cannot truly stall, especially not when it comes to focus fire with concentrated CC), and the few builds that don’t have negation all have multiple Z-axis teleports and/or stealth, all of which also stall out the fight (as a note, this is why a lot of zerker builds get eaten alive by Thieves, they can match any amount of Z-axis ports you have). Also, this has been true since launch. I remember my PvP guild in the first month of play having a general target list we used, and Necromancer was always #1 because they have the worst ability to deal with focus fire.

As a side note, the other reason I dislike LF in general is because it is really difficult to appropriately scale. A 3s negation scales perfectly into teamfights, 3s is 3s no matter who is hitting you. HP doesn’t scale as well though, even LF generation that linearly scales with people hit doesn’t truly scale into teamfights because of things like more CC holding you down longer making it harder to land those hits.

Firstly, focusing the necro is “grand-fathered” in the minds of Pvpers.

Why?

No reliable disengage. The damage you deliver to necros are never wasted because they cant escape. No escape = easy opportunity for your team to 5v4

We have Wurm which is meh and uses a utility slot. Most classes have some form of disengage or even blocks through weapon skills

Vapour.7348:

Firstly, focusing the necro is “grand-fathered” in the minds of Pvpers.

Why?

No reliable disengage. The damage you deliver to necros are never wasted because they cant escape. No escape = easy opportunity for your team to 5v4

We have Wurm which is meh and uses a utility slot. Most classes have some form of disengage or even blocks through weapon skills

I feel like our utility weapon (staff) should get some sort of block/disengage skill. I mean, being useful in multiple ways is its whole purpose, right? it’s not great for power or condi builds, but it’s used by both anyway because it has a lovely set of tools (though, mark of blood just…. sigh) And we need some mitigation somewhere. So… shrug why not there?

Focusing the necro is known by 98% of all ranked/unranked pvpers. It’s also one of the reason I’m hesitant playing the class outside of a premade.

Yes, all of you soloQing necros have the biggest balls in the game for playing a class that’s known to be the primary target.

So my question is, does playing an Asura make a difference for necro/repear?

cakeonroof.7385:

Focusing the necro is known by 98% of all ranked/unranked pvpers. It’s also one of the reason I’m hesitant playing the class outside of a premade.

Yes, all of you soloQing necros have the biggest balls in the game for playing a class that’s known to be the primary target.

So my question is, does playing an Asura make a difference for necro/repear?

I play a Sylvari Reaper. Being tough as an old root helps with the focusing

I actually thought having stability on shroud would help us a lot. And to a large extent it does. But as soon as I leave shroud I feel like I come back to being a punching ball/billard. I can’t get my heal (because necros for some reasons deserved the longest cast heals), I can’t use my elite which would give me stab for my heal… Just boring. Sometimes I hate that I love necros…

I guess I’m the only person that loves to be main target.

being focus’d is part of the Necro Experience its actually alot of fun when fights are going in ur teams favor haha… it is suprising how long a Necro can really survive for xDD..