(edited by Kuldebar.1897)
I had an epiphany about my Necromancer.
Glad you’re enjoying it.
Meanwhile, I’m deathhammering my way through sPvP, WvW, FotM and Explorable mode.
41kehp with 3.5k attack is enough to deal with most issues. First in, last to die, and I hurt everyone around me the whole time I’m there.
Mad Skullz | 80 Necro | Piken Square
Someday someone will design a system that works for all builds. Someday.
Seri Kali [Me] – 80 Necromancer -Yak’s Bend
That’s is the Necromancer’s problem in a nut shell: too narrow of a focus, lacking the relative versatility of the other professions in the game.
It’s interesting because I think the necro’s problem is the other way around: not enough focus and too much trying to be too many things at once. Let’s take the profession design of the others (except engi cause I haven’t played it yet):
Warrior’s profession design is simple: get in people and things’ faces and hack away, and tank the damage via hp pool and shouts, etc.
For thief it’s mobile, stealthy glass cannon.
Guardian is a long-lasting straight up damage dealer that relies on buffs and heals to survive.
Ranger is about your pet taking the aggro for you while you do damage relatively unhindered.
Mesmer’s all about illusions and the whole class is designed around using them to do damage in the form of phantasms and shatters.
Ele is about direct magic damage and using spells and attunements to out-heal, tank, or flee from enemy damage.
Necro is different. The profession’s trying to be a condition master, a minion master, and an AoE master all at the same time. It’s almost literally like the skill and trait list is split into three sections and you’re forced to commit to one or use some relatively weak hybrid of all of them. Unfortunately you’re not superb even if you commit because the entire profession’s design hasn’t been focused to support and enable a fully-commited conditionmancer, minionmaster, or well/aoe type of caster. Commit to any one of the three major necro build categories and you’re missing out about 2/3 of the entire profession’s potential.
Compared to the other professions, which all are relatively focused on one, simple idea of a class and the entire profession’s available skills, traits, and class mechanics have been built around that one idea.
It feels like anet had an “image” of the necromancer, as a dark caster who’s surrounded by undead minions and is inflicting curses and such on his or her enemies. Then they tried to build a profession to invoke all of those conceptual elements of a necro all at once, and ended up with a profession that lacks focus in any one of them.
If anet buffed each of the three groups of necro builds, then maybe we’ll have a profession that can choose to be one of or a hybrid of the three current types and succeed well relative to other professions.
(edited by Incarmine.1953)
@Incarmine.1953
OK, that’s weird, I agree but it appears we are saying the same thing using different words.
In short, I find Necromancers who wish to maximize potential of a certain play style not as flexible by a rather large degree as the other professions.
We have a lot more versatility than other classes, we just don’t have the “standard” simple builds everyone looks for, and therefore no one tries to explore for more creative ways to accomplish something.
We have a lot more versatility than other classes, we just don’t have the “standard” simple builds everyone looks for, and therefore no one tries to explore for more creative ways to accomplish something.
Hey bhawb, you notice that your replies and mine have gotten a lot shorter since we started doing the podcast? haha
It is a natural cycle of forums. You start reading, then get super excited and post a lot of huge wall-o-texts, then realize no one listens, and they get shorter. The podcast just accelerated all that, so now I feel like a weary old man when I read the forums.
Necro
dmg = weaponskills + utlity skills
utility = weaponskills + utility skills
Others
dmg = weaponskills
utility = utility + weaponskills
Kinda feel its part of the necro problem along with death shroud being a very hard thing to balance.
And the Death shroud abilites still makes no sense #1 is powerbuild with no condition option, #2 is the only condition skill yet it teleports you so its maybe for dagger?, #3 is like the reason people use DS for interrupts, #4 is an ok aoe i guess although rather long channel and long cd (war longbow #3 does a greater job and is actually a blast finisher) .
I know that people make it work in different things and it can do content its just that so many many things make little to no sense at all and when ANET did their philosophies on what it was suppose to be it only made it worse.
From Dec. 14 patch.
Necro
The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health
(edited by wiazabi.2549)
That description gives exactly what necromancers are capable of doing…?
1) We have highest HP
2) We don’t have escapes or damage reduction
3) We have other ways (LF/DS, weakness, soft CC, healing, condition transfer, blinds, chills, etc) to win attrition
4) We have poison on 2 of 4 main weapons (multiple)
5) We can easily do condition and raw damage at once (why hybrid necros work so well)
6) Daze + fears to interrupt
7) Every single necro weapon has at least 1 way to disable mobility, with every set having 2.
I would say that description was perfectly reasonable?
Glad you’re enjoying it.
Meanwhile, I’m deathhammering my way through sPvP, WvW, FotM and Explorable mode.
41kehp with 3.5k attack is enough to deal with most issues. First in, last to die, and I hurt everyone around me the whole time I’m there.
Every time I saw ds necro they were by far the squishiest and least problematic enemies even compare to really bad glass cannon eles that drop like flies but then again I’m necro… I know where to put a stick so it hurts. Also ds necro is about as interesting as a giant hulking half nude guy swinging a club.. and swinging and then swinging some more followed by angry roars and more swinging. Mashing 1 button is so exciting to me I simply can’t help but be a kitten about it.
I’ve found M&M works quite well in most dungeons. Add that to your pve adventures.
Funny how in wvw folks aren’t as interested in 1 on 1 anymore.
Xryl Xyn, Tsarcasm, SoR
Because unless you are doing 1v1 just for fun, doing 1v1s in WvW are pretty useless. You aren’t doing anything for your server, and because of the fact that your opponents will rarely be fully geared/fooded up, and how mobility means most people will just run from fights, it is hardly a reliable test of skill. Plenty of fun, still, but really only for fun.
That description gives exactly what necromancers are capable of doing…?
1) We have highest HP
2) We don’t have escapes or damage reduction
3) We have other ways (LF/DS, weakness, soft CC, healing, condition transfer, blinds, chills, etc) to win attrition
4) We have poison on 2 of 4 main weapons (multiple)
5) We can easily do condition and raw damage at once (why hybrid necros work so well)
6) Daze + fears to interrupt
7) Every single necro weapon has at least 1 way to disable mobility, with every set having 2.I would say that description was perfectly reasonable?
Sure, if you says so. But all this means nothing when you realize that every other class does every single thing on this list better, which illustrate the point Incarmine was making. Necromancer is trying to do to much at once and thus becomes good at none of them.
1) Tied with warriors, who have the same burst capacity as thieves AND wears heavy armor AND has a metric kittenton of mobility on top of it.
2) Neither do guardians, but they DO have damage reduction. A LOT of damage reduction. Hell, their hammer gives them permanent protection for them and their entire group as long as they’re swinging their auto attack. Necromancers have access to protection for 5 seconds… on a 90 second cool down… for themselves only. Well, I suppose there is spectral wall too, but I have never seen anyone use that skill, ever. Probably due to its long kitten cool down which seems to be a problem that plagues (hur hur I made a funny) all necromancer skills.
3) Guardians are better at attrition. Thieves are the king of attrition. Why would you bring a necromancer to an attrition fight when guardians and thieves do it better?
4) Thieves are better at applying poison. Their burst weapon (dagger) applies poison on the third strike. Interestingly, the second strike in the chain also restores endurance as well which fits very well with the class theme ANet has for the thief. Dodgy and mobile. Why doesn’t necromancer scepter attacks give LF since the core of the necromancer class is supposed to revolve around the use of LF? Thief shortbow #4 drops a poison field that will stack 5 seconds of poison for each pulse for 4 seconds. This can be used every 4 seconds forever (initiative will have regenerated by the time the field ends), and in between each poison field the thief can do other stuff as well.
5) Really? Guess you haven’t seen what the warrior can do with their sword/sword using rampagers gear. Right now you’re saying, “Well why don’t I see more sword/sword warriors then, huh?” Simple. Because the warriors greatsword blows it so completely out of the water at everything its supposed to do. Raw damage, mobility, you name it. Greatsword does it better. So why would anyone purposefully handicap themselves by using sword/anything as a main weapon when you’ve got the greatsword? Necromancer does not have a greatsword equivalent. Everything is mediocre like the warriors sword, so thats all you get.
6) Thieves daze better. A lot better. Every 4 seconds, for 3 seconds, using sword, and whenever the thief wants as long as they have initiative using pistol #4. No cool downs. Fears? Man, I only wish. Warriors and thieves have better fears. Not only are theirs AoE, but they last 3 times longer too.
7) Have you even looked at other classes weapon sets? I don’t even…
This is why no one listens to you. Its hard to take you seriously when anyone who has played both the necromancer and any of the other classes to level 80 can plainly see the necromancer shortcomings for themselves. Once people take the time to learn those other classes, as they already have by now, it becomes very obvious as to why this class has such a low population. Well, that and the incredibly long bug list stickied at the top of this forum that the original compiler simply gave up on trying to keep updated. Most likely he either quit the game or rolled other classes like the rest of us.
Stuff goes here.
(edited by Kravick.4906)
Just because you personally don’t find the necromancer enjoyable doesn’t mean that Bhawb and Bas are wrong. I personally didn’t enjoy my D/D elementalist, but it’s widely considered one of the better classes in both PvE and especially WvW.
I’m not going to claim that necromancers are currently perfect. There are bugs and there are skills I think could probably be tweaked. But I will disagree that any of the current problems are game-breaking. (With the possible exception of the condition cap for condition build in group settings, but that affects several classes, ANet has said they are working on, and many people seem to still run condition builds. I haven’t played a condition build, so I can’t comment that much).
1) Warriors are great in the current PvE farming meta. They are laughed about in PvP/WvW and aren’t particularly great (or bad) in harder PvE content. Personally farming CoF path 1 all day sounds incredibly boring, but warriors are good at it.
2) We don’t have a lot of escapes, but we have death shroud, which can be amazing at the right times (it’s saved me from a couple Subject Alpha hits that protection would have done nothing against). We also have flesh wurm, which isn’t the best teleport skill around by any means, but is still pretty amazing when used at the right time.
3) Guardian’s are awesome at sustained fights. They have some other shortcomings that necromancers don’t (poor ranged weapons for one). Thieves are awesome at PvP attrition, but aren’t better at attrition in hard PvE content.
4) Fair enough, other classes have a lot or more access to poison as well.
5) Warriors are great DPS in PvE. No argument there. I haven’t heard of them being any more viable than a hybrid necro in PvP/WvW, but maybe that is the case.
6) The post just says we have multiple disables. We do. That doesn’t mean some other classes don’t or shouldn’t as well. Not all classes have as many as are available to a necro.
7) We’re better than guardians at slowing down enemies. That’s the only other class I’ve played to 70+ so far, so maybe all the other classes have a lot more mobility reduction than necros, but I would be surprised if all of them did.
People do listen to Bas and Bhawb. They can be zealous sometimes, but they have to put up with a lot of whining among the few legitimate complaints.
I’ve played a guardian to 74 as well (but got bored, I’ll get it to 80 eventually). I enjoy the necromancer more and don’t find it to be any less viable in dungeons or world PvE. I’m not any good at WvW with either yet.
While the bug list is mostly accurate, I don’t find any of the bugs to be game-breaking.
I don’t think necromancers are perfect. But they can be fun and viable in all the major game modes. While complaining about broken things or underpowered elements can be helpful, complaining that the class is broken and useless isn’t. The original post was an attempt at being constructive. The derailment about class philosophy being wrong is not. I’m happy to discuss parts of the necromancer class I enjoy, but this post has gotten long enough.
Dungeon Master ~ Litter of Lions [Arch] Admin ~ Devona’s Rest
They can be zealous sometimes, but they have to put up with a lot of whining among the few legitimate complaints.
And that right there is the problem. Despite evidence shown that the minion AI code is still borked, he still insists that everything is 100% perfect with it and that its everyone else who doesn’t know how to make it work, or some such kittenry. Did you listen to the podcast with Symbolic? I couldn’t help but shake my head through the entire thing at the things that where being said by both of them. They’re wearing rose colored glasses and giving a false impression of the class that everything is A-OK with it, when its not.
Stuff goes here.
Minion AI isn’t perfect, I readily admit that Bone Minions and Flesh Golem go full kitten every once in a while, but overall it is very reliable. I have next week off, I’m planning to make a video showing the AI patterns, and I guarantee a bunch of people here will completely ignore video evidence and say minion AI sucks.
We can all talk about how terrible most of our signets are, we can all talk about how spectral skills are incredibly niche, everyone knows that well builds can be unreliable because they have huge CDs. The reality is everyone is familiar with the faults of necromancers, come on this forum and pick out a random thread, and you will be bashed over the head with both real faults and completely made up faults. We don’t need more people who are pessimistic about every single little imperfection in the class, and that is why I don’t mention our faults often; you can find 50 other people who are more than happy to write page after page about it.
The reason I still come on these forums is because I have people who genuinely learn from the posts I make, and I keep posting with the hope that I can make the game more enjoyable for others.
Necro
dmg = weaponskills + utlity skills
utility = weaponskills + utility skillsOthers
dmg = weaponskills
utility = utility + weaponskills
You bring up a good point that’s worth expanding on. I think the comparison is more like,
Other classes:
dmg = weapons + small amount from utilities
utility = utilities + small amount from weapons
but Necro:
dmg = utilities + small amount from weapons
utility = utilities + small amount from weapons
Or to put it simply, other classes rely on weapons to do the bulk of their damage and rely on their utilities for the bulk of their utility. Necros, however, rely mostly on their utilities for both damage AND utility.
What are the most valuable Necro skills? Corrupt boon, epidemic, the wells, blood is power, and so on. What’s the common factor between all of these? They’re ALL utility skills.
There are some kinda decent to nice weapon skills, such as marks, dagger 4, dagger 1 and 3, or scepter 2. Despite the usefulness of those skills, they provide some utility but they don’t form the foundation of a necro’s offensive power. Even a power build with dagger involves wells. The things that really nuke enemies are stuff like corrupt boon or epidemic, and those are all utilities. Skills that have cooldowns, and take up your valuable three utility slots.
Contrast to other classes which rely on their weapon skills and class mechanic F1-F4 to deal damage to the enemy, and only use those three utility slots mainly for utility things. Skills that help give you an edge in a fight, but they don’t form the bulk of your offense.
PS: Now I sound like I hate the necro class, but I do like it. It makes pve a breeze compared to say mesmer, which when levelling early on is like flogging yourself. And necros are so well-suited to nuking guardians which are so lauded for their survivability. But the flaws are there.
Well to stay on topic … minion master is great for pve. I leveled mostly as a MM. It can be good for pvp against non-aoe peeps but has the huge drawback of your skill slots being taken up by minions. As I’ve posted before for me at least necro does have a best all purpose build and that’s staff/scepter/focus condition/fear/terror with Spectral Walk and I also usually have Signet of the Locust. 0/30/20/0/20 obvious build.
That description gives exactly what necromancers are capable of doing…?
1) We have highest HP
2) We don’t have escapes or damage reduction
3) We have other ways (LF/DS, weakness, soft CC, healing, condition transfer, blinds, chills, etc) to win attrition
4) We have poison on 2 of 4 main weapons (multiple)
5) We can easily do condition and raw damage at once (why hybrid necros work so well)
6) Daze + fears to interrupt
7) Every single necro weapon has at least 1 way to disable mobility, with every set having 2.I would say that description was perfectly reasonable?
Sure, if you says so. But all this means nothing when you realize that every other class does every single thing on this list better, which illustrate the point Incarmine was making. Necromancer is trying to do to much at once and thus becomes good at none of them.
1) Tied with warriors, who have the same burst capacity as thieves AND wears heavy armor AND has a metric kittenton of mobility on top of it.
2) Neither do guardians, but they DO have damage reduction. A LOT of damage reduction. Hell, their hammer gives them permanent protection for them and their entire group as long as they’re swinging their auto attack. Necromancers have access to protection for 5 seconds… on a 90 second cool down… for themselves only. Well, I suppose there is spectral wall too, but I have never seen anyone use that skill, ever. Probably due to its long kitten cool down which seems to be a problem that plagues (hur hur I made a funny) all necromancer skills.
3) Guardians are better at attrition. Thieves are the king of attrition. Why would you bring a necromancer to an attrition fight when guardians and thieves do it better?
4) Thieves are better at applying poison. Their burst weapon (dagger) applies poison on the third strike. Interestingly, the second strike in the chain also restores endurance as well which fits very well with the class theme ANet has for the thief. Dodgy and mobile. Why doesn’t necromancer scepter attacks give LF since the core of the necromancer class is supposed to revolve around the use of LF? Thief shortbow #4 drops a poison field that will stack 5 seconds of poison for each pulse for 4 seconds. This can be used every 4 seconds forever (initiative will have regenerated by the time the field ends), and in between each poison field the thief can do other stuff as well.
5) Really? Guess you haven’t seen what the warrior can do with their sword/sword using rampagers gear. Right now you’re saying, “Well why don’t I see more sword/sword warriors then, huh?” Simple. Because the warriors greatsword blows it so completely out of the water at everything its supposed to do. Raw damage, mobility, you name it. Greatsword does it better. So why would anyone purposefully handicap themselves by using sword/anything as a main weapon when you’ve got the greatsword? Necromancer does not have a greatsword equivalent. Everything is mediocre like the warriors sword, so thats all you get.
6) Thieves daze better. A lot better. Every 4 seconds, for 3 seconds, using sword, and whenever the thief wants as long as they have initiative using pistol #4. No cool downs. Fears? Man, I only wish. Warriors and thieves have better fears. Not only are theirs AoE, but they last 3 times longer too.
7) Have you even looked at other classes weapon sets? I don’t even…This is why no one listens to you. Its hard to take you seriously when anyone who has played both the necromancer and any of the other classes to level 80 can plainly see the necromancer shortcomings for themselves. Once people take the time to learn those other classes, as they already have by now, it becomes very obvious as to why this class has such a low population. Well, that and the incredibly long bug list stickied at the top of this forum that the original compiler simply gave up on trying to keep updated. Most likely he either quit the game or rolled other classes like the rest of us.
Normally when I quote long things I like to shorten it, but Kravick is dead on with his post. Granted, I still play my necro as my main, but I have all 8 classes and only the engineer and ele aren’t 80. It’s amazing the disparity between the classes. I’m not looking for balance (cause it’s not possible), but they (A-net) really should read/re-read/and then read some more Kravick’s post. Then…take notes into a meeting room somewhere and THINK about it. (and maybe some day 8 years from now take action)
Lost in the Maguuma [TC]
Te Nosce [TC]
Te Nosce [TC]