Guild Wars 2

feel free to add your own if you think something else is useless.

-Summon Jagged horror when you kill an enemy.

-5% power is a bonus to healing.

-When you kill a foe, you lose a condition /facepalm.

-Well skills use ground targeting, Now this is good, my problem is that wells should come with ground targeting use already. We shouldn’t need to upgrade them to do that considering how bad we already suck.

-Gain +20 toughness for each minion under your control. This is actually good, IF YOU USE MINIONS, derpherp. IF they stay alive. Those are two really BIG IF’s… Those necros out there who have builds that require toughness but find minions to be useless or do not use minions, well this is just a completely useless bonus. The bonuses from these traits should be versatile. It shouldn’t be directly at specific builds like this.

-Gain 5 seconds of regeneration when your health reaches 90% …. ha .. hahahahaha ….. hahahahahaahaha. Wait what? This is useful ? yeah, my thoughts exactly.

-Deal 5% damage when your health is above 90%.. um yeah, cuz that’s really so viable in spvp, hell, even pve this would suck. We already have crap damage, and basically NO burst dps, and we get a trait such as this? Lame. Lame lame lame lame…. LAME.

-Siphon health whenever you hit a foe. Sounds good on paper, but while your hitting enemies all the time and not seeing anything get healed because it’s healing for like 5-10 hp it’s kinda obsolete. Same goes for the crit one.

-Gain might when hit and under 25% health… Again we have NO damage as it is, and NO high burst fire DPS like other classes. So why are we getting buffs to damage when we’re just about dead? This does not make sense!!!!!!!

- Gain stability for 3 seconds when you enter death shroud. – Seriously does ANYONE on any server in this game use this? Has anyone used this EVER?

- 20% increased bleed duration, I’m not sure if this actually works properly or not, or if the bleed duration is such a lower number that 20% isn’t actually enough to matter, or if it doesn’t work with 33% scepter bleeds….

Can only stack like 8-9 bleeds so this seems like it should be more like 40% increase bleed duration for it to even be useful. Or it should be 20% increased condition damage or something instead of this useless 5% bleed bullcrap (where the hell is our damage at?)

As a lvl60 necro I would say many of these things are just a rant. I am aware that you wrote it from a PvP point of view, but the difference in usefulness is not so big that it should matter. I do not say that you are completely wrong, some of the traits seem pretty useless to me as well, but I would like to address at least some of them which in my opinion are useful. (I will give my opinion on all that you wrote about)

-Summon Jagged horror when you kill an enemy
Now I am not playing an MM build, but in heavily MM focused build, another minion can be only good

-5% power is a bonus to healing
There are power focused builds out there and with this you also get some more healing? win-win!

-when you kill a foe, you lose a condition
Now I could not agree more with you on this one. I have like zilion other ways to deal with conditions and one enemy killed – one condition down is the most uneffective of them all.

-Well skills use ground targeting,
Now when I agree it would be a lot easier to play them if they were ground targeted from the start, it is purely a game design decision. They are useful also without it and maybe the devs though something like “Hey, the wells are pretty strong AoE, we should nerf them a bit, but the ground targeting should not be taken out completely, let it be a trait” and I can be ok with that.

-Gain +20 toughness for each minion under your control.
This one is pretty great for a MM build. If I was playing MM necro, this would be a must have for me. When you get also that jagged horror one mentioned earlier, you are beginning to have a LOT of toughness.

-Gain 5 seconds of regeneration when your health reaches 90%
Although I agree that most people do not care about healing when they have 90% of health, but hey, it is a heal and a heal can never be bad. (well, unless you are killing yourself for death nova, but that is kind of utterly stupid with 90% health)

-Deal 5% damage when your health is above 90%
As I said, there ARE power focused builds (dagger/dagger I am looking at YOU) so more damage can never hurt (at least not you)

-Siphon health whenever you hit a foe.
I cannot say anything to this as I would have to test it first, but I have some vague memory from beta that it was a crappy amount of health and if it is not already, it should be tied to some stat… if it is and it still sucks, I am all in for a boost

-Gain might when hit and under 25% health
And again I say there ARE power focused builds

- Gain stability for 3 seconds when you enter death shroud.
Now this one is one of those that made me post this. Maybe it did not happen to you in PvP, but in PvE when you are surrounded with like 3 enemies with heavy knock downs or something, you hit DS and they cannot interupt you while you cast your skill 4 AoE? PERFECT!

- 20% increased bleed duration
Well, without it you get like 6 stacks of bleed. The rest is just a math.

All in all, you should try to look at things also from other points of view and some of them may give much more sense

Wouldn’t it be easier to list those that actually work and are usefull?

Shelledfade.6435:

- Gain stability for 3 seconds when you enter death shroud. – Seriously does ANYONE on any server in this game use this? Has anyone used this EVER?

Considering you get 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds, it’s awfully good. I’ve been rolling with full soul reaping tree for a while now and just lately decided to change the grandmaster trait from 50% less cd for death shroud to this, and I have to say that if you learn how to use it properly, it’s a lifesaver.

One specific place I found it very useful in PvE context: Lieutenant in AC explorable. And that’s just one example. It is contextual, but if you have the trait and know when to use it, it’s really handy.

man who gives a crap about the pve this game was easy sauce. I’m talking about spvp man.

our traits are pure crap compared to the other classes dude.

But on the PVE note, yeah, we are being outshined easily in the DPS department. Warriors do 10k pops and whatnot. We probably do half their damage during an entire boss fight lmao….

A lot more people would listen to your ideas if you did something besides rant and flame everyone who disagrees with you. Some of the points in here are extremely valid, but the whole post is soured because of the childish remarks and the whining.

As far as what I agree with, Jagged horror definitely needs work, and all of the life siphon traits need TLC as well. The condition loss on enemy kill is indeed lackluster, I feel with all the tools we already have to manage our conditions it doesn’t help much. Also, if I’m trying to transfer conditions instead of remove them, it could be pretty counterproductive. As far as PvE goes, you have pretty clearly never set foot in an explorable dungeon, because those things are hard. And with boss fights, a Well necromancer can perform pretty gloriously, since sustained dps is where we shine the most. Drop your wells in rotation, and let them pulse while stacking bleeds and poisons. You’ll do at least as much damage as everyone else, if not a tad more. Also, death shroud can throw nice 4-5k numbers up pretty consistently.

Shelledfade.6435:

What am I a 13 year old girl? Christ if you can’t handle reading the issues like it is, then go away. I’m just sayin’ it like it is, if you can’t handle it then take a period pill or swap a new tampon.

This. This right here. You’re not “saying it like it is”, you’re flaming. Even in this post. Insulting people is never going to be a good way to get something fixed. A lot of us have tried giving you advice on how we succeed as a class with the necro, in both PvP and PvE, but you don’t want to hear it. You seem to just want everyone to validate your belief that you’re not doing well because your class is useless, not because your build needs work or your spell rotation is off. Have you ever considered that maybe, even after “200 hours”, you still have things to learn about the class? I know I do. That’s why I’m in the forums. Not to troll people and complain.

Shelledfade.6435:

dude get off my back troll. no, after 200 hours I’ve explored every possibility there is with this class, it’s bad. Now, is there an ignore button somewhere I can use on you?

Well i hope there there is an ignore button for you.

Shelledfade.6435:

What am I a 13 year old girl?

I strongly am under that impression.

Don’t flame him. Just because someone kicks dirt, doesn’t mean we need to kick it back. These forums are brand new, and we have a golden opportunity to make a helpful, tight-knit community here that can effect real change in our beloved game. I would hate to see it devolve into people hurling insults over minor differences.

How about you clear these trolls outta my thread by deleting their posts instead of closing my threads every 20 minutes. Thanks, that may actually benefit the community.

I agree that a lot of Necro traits are plain useless and just not viable in any case, all of the traits you listed are useless, but I think there are more.

To the guy who said about power build: Necro can’t run power build, since they lack of damage also when you are fully specced in Power/Critical damage compared to the other professions. So, who needs trait useful to a build that anyway you won’t use?

sorrow.2364:

To the guy who said about power build: Necro can’t run power build, since they lack of damage also when you are fully specced in Power/Critical damage compared to the other professions. So, who needs trait useful to a build that anyway you won’t use?

Have you tried Power/Precision wells? It makes them hurt a LOT more than you would think.

Skliros.1058:

sorrow.2364:

To the guy who said about power build: Necro can’t run power build, since they lack of damage also when you are fully specced in Power/Critical damage compared to the other professions. So, who needs trait useful to a build that anyway you won’t use?

Have you tried Power/Precision wells? It makes them hurt a LOT more than you would think.

Tried. Full Power/Precision/Critical Damage with no defenses at all, can’t make more than 5k of damage with Ghastly Claws (which has an horrible casting time of 3 seconds). Quite disappointing when you know that a warrior, a thief, a guardian, a ranger or a mesmer can pop out much more damage in less time when specced like this and sometimes also at higher ranges.

sorrow.2364:

Skliros.1058:

sorrow.2364:

To the guy who said about power build: Necro can’t run power build, since they lack of damage also when you are fully specced in Power/Critical damage compared to the other professions. So, who needs trait useful to a build that anyway you won’t use?

Have you tried Power/Precision wells? It makes them hurt a LOT more than you would think.

Tried. Full Power/Precision/Critical Damage with no defenses at all, can’t make more than 5k of damage with Ghastly Claws (which has an horrible casting time of 3 seconds). Quite disappointing when you know that a warrior, a thief, a guardian, a ranger or a mesmer can pop out much more damage in less time when specced like this and sometimes also at higher ranges.

yep, war’s pop 10k crits so I’m told by a warrior friend of mine. I think they do more with another ability where they slash you a bunch of times quickly.

Axe DPS is pretty low. The real damage from the build comes from buffing Well of Suffering with all that power and crit, and then watching it slice away health from a boss while WoD and WoB keep your allies safe. The key with dungeons and most endgame PvP isn’t massive damage, it’s outlasting the boss, and a well necro does that very, very well.

Skliros.1058:

Axe DPS is pretty low. The real damage from the build comes from buffing Well of Suffering with all that power and crit, and then watching it slice away health from a boss while WoD and WoB keep your allies safe. The key with dungeons and most endgame PvP isn’t massive damage, it’s outlasting the boss, and a well necro does that very, very well.

Except the point that WoS has a really high cooldown and uses a slot skill.
By the way, we are not arguing about Wells being bad, we are arguing about the Axe DPS being pretty bad, making it useless, since it’s main focus is DPS.

Couple of notes
Stability when entering Death Shroud is actually a pretty solid trait, I have no clue why you’re hating on it. There are also a lot of terrible traits you didn’t touch upon, but I’m instead going to take the easy path and list the good traits

SPITE
As we only have 1 combo of weapons that are condition damage (not including the staff as it’s pretty much just in any build regardless), the rest do scale with power, so we have to give those traits some credit. That said, the solid traits in this tree are Spiteful Talisman, Spiteful Spirit, Reaper’s Might, and Close to Death. However the last one is bugged and doesn’t work on condition damage, and having only 4 decent major traits is very limiting. In terms of minor traits, Siphoned Power is kind of there, but the other two are pretty terrible. Power + Condition Duration is also somewhat synergetic, as the Power weapons do inflict non-damaging conditions.

CURSES
The big issues I have with this tree are the fact that condition damage cannot crit, which forces you to take a Proc build as the extra damage is somewhat worthless. Otherwise I can pretty much just list the bad traits, as it’s a decently laid out tree. Terror does no real damage, Spectral Attunement is bad becausae Spectral skills are bad, Banshee’s Wail is weak, and Reaper’s Precision doesn’t do that much. The big bugs are that Hemophilia and Lingering Curses don’t stack for some godawful reason and that needs to be fixed.

DEATH MAGIC
This line is really hard to talk about because minions are garbage right now. However, my big issue with it is that Minion traits should all be Major slots, not Minor. It’s the Toughness branch, which is exceedingly important for everyone including non-Minion Masters. Sure you can have more Minion traits here, but don’t force them on anyone and make for a solid tree for both MMs and non-MMs. Oh, and Boon Duration is pretty much completely useless, but I guess it has to go somewhere.

BLOOD MAGIC
Okay, this is the life siphoning tree. Sadly, Necros have 1 weapon skill in their entire arsenal that siphons life in the MH Dagger. This is a TERRIBLE idea to build a tree around, coupled with the fact that there’s more bugs than usable traits in it. There’s also the fact that if you want to Siphon Life, Toughness is the skill it should be associated with; adding more HP makes Siphoning less effective % wise, while adding more eHP via Toughness makes it more effective.

SOUL REAPING
Okay, Crit Damage, while not an extremely strong stat, is still going to be solid both on Power and Condition Damage based builds because both of them build a decent chunk of Precision. The minor traits are pretty solid, although Last Grasp is currently very bugged and doesn’t do half of what it should. It’s actually a pretty solid tree, although there are some stinkers. Spectral Mastery is pretty bad for the reasons stated above and Path of Midnight is pretty weak. Otherwise it’s not plagued with the forced speccing of Curses nor the horrid layouts of the other trees. Easily the one with the most thought put into it.

Got to be honest, to call them useless seems a bit harsh. You have to remember that a lot of people play this game for reasons other than dominating in PvP or PvE. They may not havee a use to you, but they do add something to the game. As a random example, the jagged horror. My girlfriend thought it was awesome when the little guy popped up out of the ground when she killed something on my necro. Its fun. She plays the game to enjoy it, and she finds that fun.

I understand that from a PvP perspective for instance, it sucks that the horror doesn’t spawn and end worlds. Okay, over the top, but I get it, it does suck that the minion isn’t a bit more useful. You just have to remember that not everything is designed and placed in the game to make huge differences.

I have read a few of your topics and opinions across the forums OP, and I know you want to see changes happening to the Necro soon. Give ANet a chance? The game is new and exciting and before they rush into anything give them a chance to get the full picture, as opposed to just changing little things here, there and everywhere and possibly makes the imbalance worse.

They will get around to balancing things up and when they do, it will be successful. GW1 PvP is a perfect example of that.

CC Eva.6742:

Hi everyone,

I would ask all of you to stay on the topic. The subforum Necromancer was created specifically to discuss questions that concern this class and we welcome them as long as they do not result in hostile environments.

Thank you very much.

Then you may want to check the other topics, this isn’t the first one that he has come across as being hostile.

getzzzonked.7609:

Got to be honest, to call them useless seems a bit harsh. You have to remember that a lot of people play this game for reasons other than dominating in PvP or PvE. They may not havee a use to you, but they do add something to the game. As a random example, the jagged horror. My girlfriend thought it was awesome when the little guy popped up out of the ground when she killed something on my necro. Its fun. She plays the game to enjoy it, and she finds that fun.

I understand that from a PvP perspective for instance, it sucks that the horror doesn’t spawn and end worlds. Okay, over the top, but I get it, it does suck that the minion isn’t a bit more useful. You just have to remember that not everything is designed and placed in the game to make huge differences.

I have read a few of your topics and opinions across the forums OP, and I know you want to see changes happening to the Necro soon. Give ANet a chance? The game is new and exciting and before they rush into anything give them a chance to get the full picture, as opposed to just changing little things here, there and everywhere and possibly makes the imbalance worse.

They will get around to balancing things up and when they do, it will be successful. GW1 PvP is a perfect example of that.

Well, I think we know that ANet is very good at balancing but what’s wrong to point them out what in our opinion doesn’t work good?

The Jagged Horror is useless also because it spawns only one which lasts a couple of seconds before it dies, because not every Necro puts point on Death Magic to be a minion master and becouse in the time the Jagged spawns and the time it finds a target to attack, it is already dead.

Stability when entering DS is a lifesaver!

That said, I’m quite disappointed in the Blood Line – Life Siphoning is pretty weak and several of the traits appear to still be bugged/not working at all.

It’s interesting that they have made lifesteal for the Necromancer so weak since the class lacks burst damage – perhaps they were trying to balance the fact that DS gives great survivability if used correctly, and that lifesteal would make us beast disease tanks (which I would have no problem with!).

Then again, I thought every class was built to fill every role? If so, more skills that add % dmg per condition (a la feast of corruption) could solve that problem pretty effectively

Baji.3417:

Stability when entering DS is a lifesaver!

That said, I’m quite disappointed in the Blood Line – Life Siphoning is pretty weak and several of the traits appear to still be bugged/not working at all.

It’s interesting that they have made lifesteal for the Necromancer so weak since the class lacks burst damage – perhaps they were trying to balance the fact that DS gives great survivability if used correctly, and that lifesteal would make us beast disease tanks (which I would have no problem with!).

Then again, I thought every class was built to fill every role? If so, more skills that add % dmg per condition (a la feast of corruption) could solve that problem pretty effectively

If necro fills a roll, burst damage isn’t one of them.

I was interested in the blood traits as well. The healing just isn’t good enough to be useful. If they were afraid to touch it they should have just removed life leech and made daggers have very high dps for necro, and just let us use the siphon skill for heals since we would need that in melee. That siphon skill definitely needs to be better though.

I didnt see this posted in this thread yet. From Team Paradigm who are very good pvpers: http://www.teamparadigm.net/forums/Necromancer/374/The-Sorry-State-of-the-Necromancer-in-SPvP-Long-Post/

Essentially Necros have a ton of bugs right now and a crapload of totally useless traits as well as wonky minion AI and some really bad weapons skills.

Right now the best Necro is a Mesmer.

I agree that the Jagged Horror is extremely useless as it is – it hardly ever even reaches the foe before dying.
Also, the Trait about increased size of marks and marks become unblockable? Works only for about half of the marks, sadly.

Having played the necro since launch in PvE and PvP, I have to agree with you on most of your points.

However,

-5% power is a bonus to healing.

• This is not useless. With a high power/healing build (and there’s gear to support it) that gives me like an extra 75 Healing.

- Gain stability for 3 seconds when you enter death shroud. – Seriously does ANYONE on any server in this game use this? Has anyone used this EVER?

• I certainly have in some builds. One of the more frustrating things I’ve experienced is to pop into Death Shroud and hit Life Transfer only to get pushed/pulled/stunned/etc, which blows half of the reason for my using it. Stability lets me reliably get that channel off, and in general to use Death Shroud to break an orchestrated CC chain being executed on me.

These:

-Summon Jagged horror when you kill an enemy.

• As noted, doesn’t even live long enough to find and attack an enemy and doesn’t do any noticeable damage even if it does get a hit off.

-When you kill a foe, you lose a condition.

• I need condition removal to assist me in killing that foe (not to like, staunch the bleeding afterwards or something)

-Gain +20 toughness for each minion under your control.

• I take Death Magic in most PvP builds because toughness is one of the most useful stats and Death Magic is needed to support the Staff. However, that is a waste of a trait slot for anyone and everyone in PvP except for that oddball guy with a utility minion out.

-Deal 5% damage when your health is above 90%.

• This is such a marginal buff with such a specific and unlikely precondition as to be nearly worthless.

-Siphon health whenever you hit a foe.

• Siphon health does maybe 10hp base.
• Siphon health with 1500 Healing (not sure it even affects the value) plus the 50% boost heals for maybe 17hp with an attack (out of 25k+???). Assuming roughly 1 attack/second with the scepter or axe, that’s a paltry 1k hp over a full minute-long battle. Absolutely worthless.
• Siphon health doesn’t even work with Staff auto-attacks.

are all just as useless as you make them out to be.

I’d like to add:
- Increases the area of marks and marks cannot be blocked.

• Marks can definitely be blocked, specifically with the Aegis buff and possibly other active abilities.
• None of the marks show an increased targeting reticle.
• Mark of Blood does not show increased area when put down.
• #3 triggers against foes in an increased area but only actually applies its effects (damage, chill, etc) to foes within the smaller area, so it actually misses anyone stepping into the area of the mark after it has been cast on the ground.

getzzzonked.7609:

Got to be honest, to call them useless seems a bit harsh. You have to remember that a lot of people play this game for reasons other than dominating in PvP or PvE. They may not havee a use to you, but they do add something to the game. As a random example, the jagged horror. My girlfriend thought it was awesome when the little guy popped up out of the ground when she killed something on my necro. Its fun. She plays the game to enjoy it, and she finds that fun.

The main issue is that you get no choice when it comes to minor traits, so while it might be fun for some people, its also forced on other people who don’t find a waste of a trait slot fun and who get tired of the character voice for the minion spawning and dieing overlapping because it dies the moment it finishes spawning

Shelled, I see more of your posts on the Necromancer forum than everyone elses combined, and you’re always raging. If you want to lose some of the ‘trolls’ and be taken a bit more seriously it might be beneficial to drop the doom and gloom and grrr.

I agree with some of the list, but far from all of it. Some of them are very good.

Let’s start with 20% bleed duration. That’s actually amazing. That’s practically 20% extra damage if you’re Condition Necromancer.

Five seconds of regen helps everyone, but it especially helps tankromancers or heal specced ones. Even the Healing boost from that trait line will help.

Gain Stability for 3 seconds is really useful too. Maybe a weak duration for a 30pt Trait, but I always pick it over the other option. Now, halving the cooldown on Death Shroud, which is the other 30 pointer, I find bad. Who really needs to switch that much? No one who can manage cooldowns. Back to Stability, this is three seconds of immunity to most CC. Pretty snazzy.

The gaining Might one is ‘okay’. Could be better, but Might never hurt anyone. 25% is a bit low though, usually you are playing defensively around then.

5% of Power to Healing is good if you often stack Healing Power like me. However, the placement of it in the DPS tree of Spite is off. Really, 5% is nothing to a DPS Necro. In heal spec I have perma regen from my staff for the team, Well of Blood for the team and Life Transfer’s heal from traits too. But a DPS Necro? It’s utterly ignorable.

The extra toughness for minions is useless for non-Minion necros, I 100% agree. I suspect it works for having a Jagged Horror out which everyone with the toughness per minion trait will have, but that’s such a weak arguement. This is the one I’d -really- like changed.

Losing a Condition when you kill a foe is terrible, truly. Just one and only once your target is dead. Far too weak.

Dealing more damage when you’re above a certain point isn’t so bad, but 5% is too low. Elementalist, another light armour class with more damage gets a whole 10% atleast.

Now all the siphon ones, not just siphon on crits, are pretty bad as far as I can tell. 50% more siphoned, siphon on hit, siphon on crit, wells siphon, minions siphon… They’re not good. Not by a long way. With all 5-6 minions out I notice something from the minions, but I suspect it may just be my Bloodfiend. They all need buffing still.

I’d like to speak about the increased marks and about them being unblockable. Yes, they can still be blocked. That’s a bug. Yes, it nerfs your 3 button snare circle hard, something I personally struggle with a lot. However, it increases the size of your Bleed and Regen circle (even if the graphic is bugged small), it increases the size on your condition cure/transfer and increases the size of your fear. And the increase is big. What if it said it nerfed your 3 button but made all the others bigger, as if it was intended? That would still be useful and taken in my opinion, yet even better when they fix it. As it is I know it is a very popular trait regardless of the bugs.

displacedTitan.6897:

I didnt see this posted in this thread yet. From Team Paradigm who are very good pvpers: http://www.teamparadigm.net/forums/Necromancer/374/The-Sorry-State-of-the-Necromancer-in-SPvP-Long-Post/

Essentially Necros have a ton of bugs right now and a crapload of totally useless traits as well as wonky minion AI and some really bad weapons skills.

Right now the best Necro is a Mesmer.

He lost me when he claimed that BiP is useless.

BiP is blood is power I take it? He doesnt say its useless, he says Mesmers get a version that is 100x better AND lasts longer. I agree BiP isnt useless but its not particularly good either. One condition per tick is far too low considering how fast people can stack different conditions on you. Also, if its removing say 1 Vulnerability stack instead of 10 Bleed stacks its pretty bad.
I even like taking BiP but its more because its usable as compared to a host of really really poor skills rather than because it is intrinsically good.

displacedTitan.6897:

BiP is blood is power I take it? He doesnt say its useless, he says Mesmers get a version that is 100x better AND lasts longer. I agree BiP isnt useless but its not particularly good either. One condition per tick is far too low considering how fast people can stack different conditions on you. Also, if its removing say 1 Vulnerability stack instead of 10 Bleed stacks its pretty bad.
I even like taking BiP but its more because its usable as compared to a host of really really poor skills rather than because it is intrinsically good.

You’re thinking of Well of Power. BiP is the Corruption skill that gives you 20% life force which is very useful considering how hard it is to build life force in many situations.

I would just like to point out I think the tooltip on the regeneration when you reach 90% health is bugged. I play a necro that takes the toughness/vitality lines and I notice that this trait activates SEVERAL times during my fights. I think its meant to say whenever health is below 90% you gain the regeneration for x seconds on an x cooldown.

Skliros.1058:

sorrow.2364:

To the guy who said about power build: Necro can’t run power build, since they lack of damage also when you are fully specced in Power/Critical damage compared to the other professions. So, who needs trait useful to a build that anyway you won’t use?

Have you tried Power/Precision wells? It makes them hurt a LOT more than you would think.

I use a power condition damage necro. I do tons of damage. POWER also adds to healing, so 5% power add to heals is great. Many of our spells combo themselves. Yes I agree some traits are not as greatas others but they aren’t worthless just have to know how to take advantage of them.

Baji.3417:

Stability when entering DS is a lifesaver!

That said, I’m quite disappointed in the Blood Line – Life Siphoning is pretty weak and several of the traits appear to still be bugged/not working at all.

It’s interesting that they have made lifesteal for the Necromancer so weak since the class lacks burst damage – perhaps they were trying to balance the fact that DS gives great survivability if used correctly, and that lifesteal would make us beast disease tanks (which I would have no problem with!).

Then again, I thought every class was built to fill every role? If so, more skills that add % dmg per condition (a la feast of corruption) could solve that problem pretty effectively

This just gave me an idea. The thought of condition tanking for a group sounds like it could be fun and along those lines what about some traits in the blood line that boost us per condition on us?

We already can eat conditions to restore health, what about something that boosts our power or crit chance/dmg per condition on us? If that were combined with the plague signet we could siphon off our parties conditions thus boosting ourselves and then eat them when we they become a bit too much. Just something unique that could be added to Necros.

Reevac.1748:

Skliros.1058:

sorrow.2364:

To the guy who said about power build: Necro can’t run power build, since they lack of damage also when you are fully specced in Power/Critical damage compared to the other professions. So, who needs trait useful to a build that anyway you won’t use?

Have you tried Power/Precision wells? It makes them hurt a LOT more than you would think.

I use a power condition damage necro. I do tons of damage. POWER also adds to healing, so 5% power add to heals is great. Many of our spells combo themselves. Yes I agree some traits are not as greatas others but they aren’t worthless just have to know how to take advantage of them.

I don’t know that is tons in your scale, but I suggest you to try out thief/warrior/mesmer/ranger or any other profession and then come here to say again that Necro do tons of damage.

sorrow.2364:

I don’t know that is tons in your scale, but I suggest you to try out thief/warrior/mesmer/ranger or any other profession and then come here to say again that Necro do tons of damage.

Actually, I use wells too, and I’ve played a mesmer, thief, and necro and necro wins over and over and over again for AoE dps. Have you ever played a necro?

People hear necro and want minions which is cool, but they aren’t viable enough IMO. Wells + traits + Death Shroud = Death.

I can get surrounded by 5 or 6 trash mobs and kill them all with well, well, DS, mega drain.

Even veterans are already half down by the time I’m done my w-e-r F1- 4 rotation. (I use qwert instead of 6-0) and that doesn’t include plague as an elite with + cond dmg that rapes mobs by itself. So much AoE damage. And the 20% reduced CD on wells = GG.

I agree with whoever said Necros do huge dmg because they do if you spec them right. Mesmers are weak as kitten vs groups and so are thieves IMO but thieves are great 1v1 of course and so are mesmers. Necros steamroll groups.

Let’s say a mesmer does 4,000 dmg (this is just a toss up estimate – no truth behind it) per rotation on single target

and a Necro does 2,500 dmg PER TARGET a rotation.

Who does more damage?

“I have read a few of your topics and opinions across the forums OP, and I know you want to see changes happening to the Necro soon. Give ANet a chance? The game is new and exciting and before they rush into anything give them a chance to get the full picture, as opposed to just changing little things here, there and everywhere and possibly makes the imbalance worse.”

This ^ My necro is level 50 and I feel it is terribly underpowered and ineffectual in PvE. But I have 50 levels under my belt and don’t want to give up. I can only hope that ArenaNet will empower the class at some point.

HyDraLiNsK.2470:

sorrow.2364:

I don’t know that is tons in your scale, but I suggest you to try out thief/warrior/mesmer/ranger or any other profession and then come here to say again that Necro do tons of damage.

Actually, I use wells too, and I’ve played a mesmer, thief, and necro and necro wins over and over and over again for AoE dps. Have you ever played a necro?

People hear necro and want minions which is cool, but they aren’t viable enough IMO. Wells + traits + Death Shroud = Death.

I can get surrounded by 5 or 6 trash mobs and kill them all with well, well, DS, mega drain.

Even veterans are already half down by the time I’m done my w-e-r F1- 4 rotation. (I use qwert instead of 6-0) and that doesn’t include plague as an elite with + cond dmg that rapes mobs by itself. So much AoE damage. And the 20% reduced CD on wells = GG.

I agree with whoever said Necros do huge dmg because they do if you spec them right. Mesmers are weak as kitten vs groups and so are thieves IMO but thieves are great 1v1 of course and so are mesmers. Necros steamroll groups.

Let’s say a mesmer does 4,000 dmg (this is just a toss up estimate – no truth behind it) per rotation on single target

and a Necro does 2,500 dmg PER TARGET a rotation.

Who does more damage?

Thieves are incredibly powerful vs groups. First off you can cluster bomb spam 5 times in a row if you’re using the 15 initiative trait. That is not only a ton of direct damage but also puts on more bleeds than your rotation as well as being faster. Admittedly, you need to be close to the enemies to do this spam, but it is very easy to run in a circle and do this.Death Blossom is just like cluster bomb. It does good direct damage, evades attacks, and applies bleeds to everything in that area, which is surprisingly big. Finally you have death blossom which is just pure fun in huge groups of mobs. I use all of these to AOE on my thief with great success. You would be very surprised at how quickly a thief can take down 5 mobs!

All of the Necro AOE’s except 3 do low direct damage for the price of also applying a condition. The one staff mark does decent direct damage, ds drain, and the well of suffering(iirc). All of which are are fairly long cooldowns(20+ seconds) where a thief can use clusterbomb every 3 seconds or so.

Now which is better is a toss up since different situations call for different AOE. Soloing? Thief. Dynamic events? Thief(DD and low cooldowns is best for tagging mobs). WvW? Necro, thief AoE’s require near melee range and in WvW that means death. Dungeon? Necro, the utility of marks and wells is just awesome.

I can’t speak for mesmers though, but thieves are anything but weak in AOE.

Blood is Power is terrible. It’s two stacks of Bleed, four if you pop Plague Signet or Deathly Swarm. For Life Force I’d much rather take Spectral Armor despite the cooldown being much longer. It’s just not a huge enough burst of Life Force for me to waste the slot on such minimal damage.

Also, pre-Elasticity, I have a much easier time dealing with world mobs as a Necro than a Mesmer. Hell, we’re actually a really good world PvE class due to how much cripple/AOE Bleed can be thrown out coupled with Minions, regardless of their AI, taking Aggro. I actually think mass AOE is where the Necro shines; regardless of their issues Necros are a top tier class in WvWvW and do great in mass mob DEs (although single boss events tend to be their bane)

The Major trait Dark Armor doesn’t actually give you 400 toughness when channeling.

It roughly gives you 100.

Sigma.9746:

Blood is Power is terrible. It’s two stacks of Bleed, four if you pop Plague Signet or Deathly Swarm. For Life Force I’d much rather take Spectral Armor despite the cooldown being much longer. It’s just not a huge enough burst of Life Force for me to waste the slot on such minimal damage.

Also, pre-Elasticity, I have a much easier time dealing with world mobs as a Necro than a Mesmer. Hell, we’re actually a really good world PvE class due to how much cripple/AOE Bleed can be thrown out coupled with Minions, regardless of their AI, taking Aggro. I actually think mass AOE is where the Necro shines; regardless of their issues Necros are a top tier class in WvWvW and do great in mass mob DEs (although single boss events tend to be their bane)

I agree. Cond. + AOE is where the necro shines.

1. Anet first needs to restore functionality to all the traits so they work as intended.

2. Then comes the number tweaking, so that traits actually MATTER.

3. Then we can consider if they are actually worth it.

4. If they aren’t, we have to discuss the core design issue. I.e. does it fit in with a certain play style. Does it synergize with the entire tree. Is the skill fundamentally flawed. Is there gaps in traits we should actually have…

Got to say, I’m really enjoying my Necromancer. That being said, I have to agree that several of the Traits don’t seem to work that well.

Under Spite:

• Parasitic Bond: Gain life when you kill anything. Life gain seems to be a bit low. I barely notice it. Not saying that it has to fill things up, but a bit more health or triggering Regeneration for a bit so it scales with healing would be nice.
• Spiteful Removal: When you kill a foe, you remove a condition. Seems a bit weak to me, but I don’t have any suggestions for changes there.

Curses: Honestly, I like the curses tree pretty well. Crit chance in the tree that I use for condition damage doesn’t seem too useful but crits are never a bad thing so I don’t really mind.

• Reaper’s Precision: You have a 33% chance to gain 1% life force on a critical hit. Seems like too many variables for too little payoff to me, but I don’t play crit builds most of the time so take that as you will.

Death Magic

• Reanimator: Summon a Jagged Horror when you kill a foe. Interesting trait and I like it in theory. If the little monsters are as useless as it sounds like though, it’s not as useful as it could be. I could see it being cool in conjunction with other traits to empower minions though, so maybe it would be better as an optional trait?
• Protection of the Horde: You get +20 Toughness for every minion under your control. I like this trait. I really do. However, it only has any use for minion builds. That makes it highly inefficient for any other build to put points into Death Magic. Not saying to get rid of it, just make it an optional trait. I like being able to dive weak mobs, so not being able to spec for toughness traits is frustrating.

Blood Magic

• Vampiric: Siphon health whenever you hit a foe. It’s been mentioned several times that this needs to be made more powerful, so I’m not going to go into depth.
• Blood to Power: Deal 5% more damage while your health is above 90%. Seems too limited-use. I could see advantages for initiation though. Question: Does it apply to condition damage or just direct?
• Vampiric Precision: Siphon health whenever you critical hit. See ‘Vampiric’

Soul Reaping:

• Near to Death: Death Shroud recharges 50% faster. Don’t really know any situations when I would have to switch that fast. Doesn’t seem useful enough to be a Grandmaster level trait.

I am playing necro and I am level 62 atm, and so far I have enjoyed the most part of the game. I am playing Conditioner and now I am facing issue of low dps, this could be solved if Anet would give trait to necro which gives 10% chance on condition to make a critical. What do you think?

Shelledfade.6435:

- Gain stability for 3 seconds when you enter death shroud. – Seriously does ANYONE on any server in this game use this? Has anyone used this EVER?

This may quite possibly be our best pvp trait. Stability is key to winning spvp battles, and having it on that low of a cooldown is rather crazy.

I cant see the topic so I am writing this message to see if it is gonna fix it o.o

This thread should be resurrected every time theres a big patch (april 15) and useless traits are added.

• pets have terrible responsiveness
• parasitic contagion doesn’t heal enough to be effective sustain, and is arguably in the wrong traitline
• too many traits are separated such as Staff Mastery, Greater marks, Soul Marks, Spiteful marks. there is no logical reason as to why 2/4 of these traits can’t be combined.
• dagger #2 was buffed but hardly gets used because it is technically a dps loss as you cannot get the full cast/heal off due to the long cast time + after cast which tends to be a huge pattern with necromancers. after-cast should be a lot quicker i.e focus #4
• axe auto attack is still bad, should have been a cleave attack resembling axe on warrior
• for axe to be effective it needs to have a greater range than 600 OR refer back to the above (cleave)
• focus #4 casted from long range will almost always get randomly obstructed or dodged due to its long after cast time (once again, why is there a super crippling cast/aftercast on so many necromancer skills??? we dont have enough counter moves besides Doom to be able to get these skills off efficiently!!!)

make a new thread

CC Eva.6742:

Hi everyone,

I would ask all of you to stay on the topic. The subforum Necromancer was created specifically to discuss questions that concern this class and we welcome them as long as they do not result in hostile environments.

Thank you very much.

OMG you shocked me. I checked the Necro forums and looked a the threads, noticed a red Anet sign besides this one and thought to myself. Wow, a sign, it´s not a rumour, the devs exist, read the forums and try to comunicate with the players about classes. Then i got disappointed when reality catched me by reading this post, just another “please be nice” reminder

Pls don´t do that, you hurt my feelings.