Guild Wars 2

…our weapon choices just dont cut it. Let me give you a quick overview:

Staff: This belongs in any power build, yet the auto attack is just sloooow and hardly hits anything that moves. You can actually outrun the projectile making this a laughable source of dps. The marks are OK but once they’re on cd staff becomes a joke.

Axe: It used to be good in bwe1 or so, but now it neither has good range nor good damage. Its only burst skill is channeled and easily gets interrupted by simply dodging(or other skills) leaving you with sub par overall damage (compared to other professions’s ranged weapons).

Dagger: This actually does good damage but you’re stuck with the 130 range on the auto attack. The only burst skill is once again channeled and thus easily negated by any decent player leaving you with a melee weapon that does comparable damage to other professions melee minus the burst ability (100b,eviscerate, pistol whip, you name it). You wanna be a poor man’s warrior? Go for dagger.

And that’s it folks. Right now i feel forced to play as a conditionmaster, everything else is just meh.

I play a power necro and enjoy it. You can dish out some pretty good damage and have decent survivalbility while speccing glass cannon because of the extra life bar with DS.

But yes, you are correct that it’s simply easier to play another class for the same results. In order to burst down an enemy I have to blow through all my utility skills (wells), use all my weapon skills, switch weapons, use all those weapon skills, pop into DS for fear + life blast, pop out of DS, and then possibly switch weapons again — when I could just roll a thief and spam pistol whip

I would give power necro a try though and see if you like it, rather than just building for conditions because it’s the “best”

I am shooting for power necro as of now, I had a blast with epidemic and condition anger in WvW, but I like the power style more.

The axe is a complete joke on damage. I just switched to main hand dagger and have been alternating between focus and dagger OH trying to figure it which Iike better, for PVE I like the OH Dagger as you really need a blind when you are up close and personal with multiple mobs, I think I prefer the focus for pvp as the chill and regen are pretty nice.

With the staff I hardly ever use the auto attack unless I’m waitin on the weapon swap timer, I swap to staff pop down all of my marks, then right back to dagger. Auto attack on the staff definitely kills dps, just because it is slow. Using the staff just for marks allow me to keep my dps higher as the dagger auto attacks are higher than the staff in my case, and they fill life force with every hit just like the staff. The staff can provide some decent burst and burst conditions if you drop all of the marks instantly then swap.

As another poster mentioned recently here, I think necros are forced to depend too heavily on their utility slots. They can do ok damage.. but not with any weapon skills. Axe and dagger #2 are pathetic, compared to what other classes get, but if you drop wells and stack bleeds, etc, etc, they do an passable job of contributing to that.

It would be nice if we had at least one good single target burst skill, for when we’re not AOE farming events, and just want to kill individual mobs that get in out way, without needing to make the choice between it taking embarrassingly long, or blowing utility cooldowns.

Well if you’re doing a power Necro, Death Shroud Life Blasts will be your main attack, since that does way more than any of your weapon’s besides maybe Dagger Auto’s.

It’s still not burst, but wells/Lich Form is for the burst.

When I was doing Power Builds it was basically Staff/Axe-Focus. Focus Vuln skill + Spectral Claws —> DS Life Blasts —> Staff Marks —> Axe —> DS etc.

I’ve ended up veering into a full Mark/Well build with dual dagger off set. 4 Marks + 4 Wells and Lich (with 3 Marks of its own) tends to do well in damage, and if you slot vampiric wells, you have substantial healing as well if you’re decent at grouping, boon removal, decent conditions, and very respectable damage.

However, I do very much agree with the consensus… the note that all classes can perform all roles does not apply to Necromancer… Necro you are a tank and CC. That’s it. Anything else you try to put together is trumped by any other class.

People who claim they can DPS as a Necro… when you can deal 9,000 PvP damage (13,000 in PvE) in 1 hit easily and consistently like a Warrior, then we’ll talk. Hell, if you can do half that, I’d be giving you credit.

People who claim they can heal as a Necro… when you are standing next to a Water Elementalist, I don’t honestly think you’ll still claim that for very long.

Don’t get me wrong… I am happy with my Necro… but saying a Necro is capable of DPS is like saying an Aion 1.0 (not 1.5+) Templar was capable of the same.

I’m playing D/D Power Necro in tPvP (that and defensive condition spec, depending on what my team needs), and I usually do really well for my team.

What most Necro players don’t seem to realize is that you can’t play the Necro the same way you play a Warrior, or a Thief. You don’t just run in and unload all your CDs (HB warrior) or all your initiative (Thief) and then hope that when the dust settles your opponent is dead.

For D/D Power build to work, you need to use a bunch of different abilities in the right order at the right time. If I land my combo on my target, they’re dead. Period. Close to 20k damage for full combo on 2000ish Toughness target, during which the target is either immobilized or knocked down for most of the combo.

Sometimes you want to open with the combo right away, other times you want to chip away at them a little first, then unload full combo on them. It depends on the spec/prof you’re fighting, and sometimes depends on previous encounters with them in that match.

I’ve had several players from very good teams complement me on my Necro in tPvP, after some very close tPvP matches.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/442/gfdgdfgdi.jpg/

PS: Little tip, save your #4 dagger for when you get immobilized or have lots of bleeds on you, and share the love with your opponent (sends up to 3 conditions from you to your target).

My only gripe with Necro is that the minion AI is horrible (and that I can’t dismiss them or put them to passive when I want to disengage and go elsewhere), and that we really have no stability buffs we can use to stomp people with, as all our stability buffs come from shape shifting into forms that can’t stomp (DS, Plague & Lich).

Interesting Sarcasm. I wouldn’t mind fighting you to see first hand.

Axe 2 isnt really bad. It channels a lot faster than dagger 2 and has a real short cooldown. 4k damage every 6 secs isnt bad, aswell as being able to give yourself retaliation off the Axe 3, which scales with power.
The short cooldown on Axe 2 also helps a lot paired with a spectral build to gain life force back.

And as another poster said, your burst comes from Death Shroud as a power build. Spamming 3.5k crits non stop hurts, you know? Use the Axe/Dagger combo to chip at them then burst the rest with Dagger 4 (you should have at least 1 cond by now) Axe 2 and DS spam.

what kind of runes are good for a power build?

Psy

Axe 2 isnt really bad. It channels a lot faster than dagger 2 and has a real short cooldown.

Got a rare axe drop my level a bit ago, decided to give it another chance.. and bah, still can’t stand it. Feels like even dagger #1 has higher DPS. I guess it’s meant to get a boost from all those stacks of vuln, but even with 10 stacks on a mob, I don’t really see a difference in damage.

I like scepter/dagger and dagger/focus(or warhorn), the staff auto attack is actually faster than my mesmer’s auto attack, and hits harder. Never really liked the dagger/dagger combo, I dunno why so many people like that combo (especially with elementalist).

I used the axe once and got all the attacks unlocked, then tossed the axe away, I looted a rare axe and never even thought about it using it, I don’t like the axe attacks.

Got a rare axe drop my level a bit ago, decided to give it another chance.. and bah, still can’t stand it. Feels like even dagger #1 has higher DPS. I guess it’s meant to get a boost from all those stacks of vuln, but even with 10 stacks on a mob, I don’t really see a difference in damage.

That’s because Dagger #1 is more DPS. Axe is more or less completely useless. In fact you can outdamage it with the staff.

I think my low level thief already doing similar dmge to my necro.

Vzur.7123:

Psy

Axe 2 isnt really bad. It channels a lot faster than dagger 2 and has a real short cooldown.

Got a rare axe drop my level a bit ago, decided to give it another chance.. and bah, still can’t stand it. Feels like even dagger #1 has higher DPS. I guess it’s meant to get a boost from all those stacks of vuln, but even with 10 stacks on a mob, I don’t really see a difference in damage.

Dagger 1 is more dps than Axe 1. But Axe 1 has range, dagger does not.
Axe 2 is more dps than Dagger 2, simply because it channels faster and has a talented 6 sec cooldown. Mine does 4.5k, thats 9k every 12 secs compared to my guardians 6.5k every 12 secs. Think of damage to cooldown time, not just the 1 number you see.

Axe 3, with power build, is ridiculously good too. It does a steady aoe damage off the bat followed by a long duration retaliation if you hit multiples, which scales heavy with power.

Axe really isnt bad, its only bad to the noobs who like to see a big number in 1 hit.

I think our sustained DPS is good, but the problem is burst. Minimal cooldown basic weapon skill burst. It’s just a pain, that it takes the necro so much longer to kill trash mobs, that other classes kill in 2-3 hits. Other classes don’t have to worry about cooldowns in basic PvE, because they kill before sustained DPS even matters.

Course sustained DPS can be much more valuable when it really counts, but it’d still be nice not to get bogged down fighting every little mob, when every other class I’ve played just tears through them. Without blowing any utilities.

In more of a trinity game, I understand the balance, but not sure why the same would apply here. and just to Necro.

Go dagger/focus with staff as your offhand. Abuse dark pact and chill to keep ranged enemies in melee and melee enemies at range. Works well enough for me. The key is flexibility. You obviously don’t want to melee a GS warrior.