Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I have been lurking these forums for a little bit and I just purchased this game. When I first started I could not decide which profession I wanted to play (between Necromancer, Mesmer and Elementalist). I just took an Ele then a Necro into PvP Mists to take a look at the abilities a level 80 would have. I loved what I saw with necro!

However, I have been reading A LOT of negativity towards necros. What makes them so bad? Am I going to be passed over trying to get into dungeon/fractals thus ruining my fun?

Edit: I should note that I noticed the staff was all AoE which in theory should be fun tagging in WvWvW but other weapon combos should be acceptable for single target?

And it LOOKs like they can bring enough support to be wanted?

I am mainly looking to play dungeons and WvW

You won’t get passed over by anyone who is a decent player and has a basic concept of the game down. If you are playing strictly pve. I will give you my three step process to learning about the Necromancer

1) CHIPSSS Encyclopedia of Necro skills

2) Nemesis Tutorials

3) SOACGaming Podcast - sittingonacouch.com for audio only

Each of these are fantastic ways to get immersed into the spirit of the Necromancer and what they bring to the table.

Ignore the hate. The Necromancer does have a learning curve, but the more you play it the more you will enjoy it or find that maybe it’s not for you.

Good luck and if you have any specific questions as you level, don’t be afraid to come back here!

I’ve never gotten passed over in pick-up dungeon groups. The only time that’ll happen is when you try to join a group that’s specifically asking for another class. For the typical pick-up group not to include a Necro they either have to be elitist, ignorant, stupid, or any combination thereof, and therefore not worth playing with in the first place.

The negativity you’re hearing has to do with endgame performance compared to the other professions. The main theme is “we can’t do anything that another profession can’t do better.” I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with that, but I will say that right now Necro does have a niche and rather than being great at a few things, it’s good at many things. Keep experimenting!

Ichor.9360:

The negativity you’re hearing has to do with endgame performance compared to the other professions. The main theme is “we can’t do anything that another profession can’t do better.” I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with that, but I will say that right now Necro does have a niche and rather than being great at a few things, it’s good at many things. Keep experimenting!

Yeah I am not worried about this. I have played MMO’s before and one week/month/year one class is the bees knees the next it’s at the bottom of the barrel and visa versa.

Well now that that is settled just need to choose between Human and Sylvari!

I suggest looking at galleries of the armor sets for each race, as it is the only real difference you will find between them. I love the human armor, so I have only one sylvari right now that I am thinking of deleting for a human.

Unhygienix.2834:

Yeah I am not worried about this. I have played MMO’s before and one week/month/year one class is the bees knees the next it’s at the bottom of the barrel and visa versa.

Well now that that is settled just need to choose between Human and Sylvari!

Sadly unlike in WoW with shammies and Spriests, necros were high in beta but low since because while not being able to perfect any of the roles, they excel at being good in all of them (only a example; instead of 10, 3, 3, 3, 3 you get a 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 in terms of damage, survivability, control, support, tricks), only engies being able go push out as much general build utility, but being tied down with lower build versatility.
Also if you have any interest in lore might i suggest going sylvari, they have by far the most interesting starting plot arcs (being based on the legends from the British Isles and not making a character you meet later on as much of a kitten pull as he seems to be).

Despite all the short comings, this class is still fun as hell to play. More fun than anything else I’ve tried so far, IMO. Necromancers aren’t bottom of the barrel, but they’re not top of the food chain either. Its a very middle of the road class. Capable of doing a lot, but none of it can be pushed to the max like other classes can. In other words, we lack the ability to specialize. Like was said above, if 10 is the best possible you can be at a particular role, necromancers can only achieve a flat 7 across the board.

Your typical dungeon run you won’t get passed over. Its only when you try to attempt level 30+ fractal runs (completely irrelevant really, you can still get everything in the lower levels just fine) and certain speed run groups do you see this kind of behavior. This has more to do with the insane min/maxing that warriors, guardians, and mesmers can achieve when grouped together and less about what necromancers are capable of doing, though.

Now to answer your question about what makes necromancers bad. What makes necromancers bad is entirely subjective, and really only you can decide if it will effect your game play or not. As an example, our class defining skill, Death Shroud, has been said by ANet to be an intricate part of everything we do as a class. Unfortunately, Death Shroud doesn’t have much synergy with condition builds. You’re also going to build life force at an incredibly slow rate as a condition build. If you don’t care about this, then it won’t affect your game play at all. Whats unique about this class is if you don’t like a particular aspect of it, you can actually ignore it and still play just fine. Don’t like minions? No problem, you have plenty of other options to choose from. Conditions not your thing? We have a few power builds that are pretty decent. Hate melee combat? You’ve got plenty of options when it comes to condition and even hybrid builds.

There is also a lot of quirks you have to work around with some of our skills, such as Corrupt Boon, and now Epidemic. Its hard to explain and is something you’ll have to experience to understand, but its pretty difficult to get those skills to work in PVP due to several factors. Our minion skills also suffer from some pretty bad AI problems currently and are not viable in most dungeon settings and WvW. However, they’re absolutely awesome in an open world setting doing heart quests, and they can work in sPvP/tPvP. We also have a lot of skills that are very slow to activate when compared to other classes. Since we have very little options to get stability, you will get interrupted a lot. This can be a tad frustrating. All of our projectile skills are also incredibly slow and are easily sidestepped/dodged by players.

We’re also facing the issue of how ANet envisioned our class. They’ve said necromancers are supposed to be the masters of attrition, but like everything else, necromancers are only average at attrition style combat. There are classes that do attrition style combat a lot better. Maybe this will get fixed some day, who knows.

Now, if you want to tag things in WvW, you’ve picked the right class. With the right build, you’ll rake in the bags like nobodies business. A lot of what necromancers do is AoE so once you figure things out, you shouldn’t have a problem tagging things in WvW. In zerg fights, where you can hide in the numbers, necros are actually pretty awesome. The more people you have around you as a necromancer, the stronger you become (Dance minions! DANCE!). Conversely, thieves are very strong in small scale fights and 1vOutnumbered fights, but the more people around them, they weaker they actually become.

Don’t let the negativity dissuade you from at least trying the class. I guarantee you will still have fun. It really only becomes frustrating when you try to min/max with this class.

My necro has been kicked from more fractal groups than I have done.

Even on my guardian, I did not have a good time in there. To make matters worse the people that do fractals have done them so many times, they have no patience for new people trying to learn them.

My advice, forget fractals.

Gear in this game is easy to come by, and fractal gear isn’t all that impressive, if can even be considered an upgrade.

You can now get just about every exotic stat combo in the game from Karma and WvW , and dungeons are challenging enough for most folks.

…but yeah, grouping is about damage, healing, tanking, and mitigation, and the necro is defiantly a B-team player.

Necromancers are always welcome in WvW and we are one of the few classes that have a use other then mindlessly spamming 1 in groups of 50+. Bunker blind with siphoning can quickly turn a fight in your favor in large scale fights.

Ezeriel.9574:

My advice, forget fractals.

Gear in this game is easy to come by, and fractal gear isn’t all that impressive, if can even be considered an upgrade.

Ascended Rings and Backpacks offer a decent jump in stats and are well worth investing your time in getting. Alot of people forget you farm your Fractal Ascended gear whilst making money.