Guild Wars 2

So there’s been so much sadness and negativity going around the necro forums lately.
About how to be useful in raids there has to be sixteen different gimmicks going on at once or how we get blown up in pvp if a power teef or memesmer decides they think we’d look better as a red stain against the walls.
Or how this or that etc.

And none of these are invalid complaints. But lets take a step back and just remember that this class is amazing.
Honestly and truly just amazing. At least, in my opinion.

It has so much potential for theory crafting and experimentation. It can be run condi or power with fair amounts of success in either route. And not only that, but it has multiple ways it can do both of these things that are at least reasonably good.
Power greatsword, power dagger, condition scepter, condition shroud, power shroud, condition greatsword… and then there’s crazy hybrids of any of these things!
… Some a bit less spectacular than others… But how many other classes can say they can pick up one of their weapons and say “this is now a condi weapon” one day, then “I feel like making this power” the next.

Then there’s the raw simplicity of its mechanics.
No worrying about your defensive abilities being ready for some sort of mechanic, no stressing you don’t have the endurance to avoid some big nasty hit.
There’s no long complex rotation …. aside from the weird chilling combo field raid build but lets not talk about that for now.

Most of the time you just press your buttons and do your damage. Your hp is innately higher than most other classes and your shroud is there to push you EVEN FURTHER BEYOND. So really, dying in pve at least is a CHALLENGE.
Even in raids, few classes will stand as many screw ups as a necromancer can.

It does make me sad that the class is struggling to find a place in the higher tiers.
But that really does just come from a lack of utility. Nobody honestly cares about personal dps in real raids. The biggest cause of wipes due to enrage is either group inexperience/failed mechanics or simply one of the UTILITY classes not upkeeping boons properly.
If there is NO quickness that is going to hurt group dps significantly more than if the mesmer who IS keeping up quickness is doing literally zero damage to the boss.

But that’s a topic for another thread. Here lets just remember why we picked up necromancer and why we continue to play it.

For me, it’s the flexibility and simplicity. While I won’t be the best healer there is… I can definitely do it. … Sort of heh.

But necromancers lack damage AND support, how is that amazing for raids?

vicious.5683:

But necromancers lack damage AND support, how is that amazing for raids?

What he say is : “Don’t care about the lack of damage and utility, it’s not important. What’s important is that you can screw up more than other class and still survive. Who care about being usefull when you can take a beating?”

Which is almost right.

I don’t know… tbh it’s a bit disheartening when 8/10 u will get outdpsed by ps warriors. I don’t play much necro but most necros i had in pugs (both fractals and raids) fall really behind apart from the occasional epidemic. The class itself has a big variety of playstyles and can solo anything in this game but it’s missing that thing that makes it special….also being able to take a beating becomes irrelevant when you become good at avoiding dmg.
I hope that changes with next expansion cause right now there isnt a way to buff the class and still keep it within the “necromancer” concept.

necromancer is amazing. There’s so much builds you can do and every build work really good for what it is intended. MM, power, vampiric, healer (you can do a healer build with reaper), condition, aoe centered condition, fear, corruption skills, boon corruption, bunker 8both direct and condition).
The necromancer is the Only class that have all his skills (or for shure more than 75% of them) useful in some possible build and the class that can do more roles in this game.

Sadly, is the only class doomed to don’t have any kind of boon support, have a mediocre damage both in direct and condition (it’s an Attrition class, as ANet want, not a dps class), the bunker build can be good only in pve and while bunker the damage go to 0 (making it totally useless in pve…), in WvW can’t roam (unless you’re a ultra super skilled pro that find mediocre players or good players not in the mood to fight another good player), don’t have mobility in any reasonable way, don’t have any kind of defensive skills, making us the easier class to kill in every PvP situation (expecially in sPvP), in sPvP our only role is corrupt stability and then die and be ressed by someone (then repeat, and repeat, and repeat), LF is good but in sPvP is more a problem than a resource, unless your team is able to fight in 4v5 for the first minutes of the match granting you time to charge your lfbar, the GS grant us a high dps but still subpar if paired with any other dps class and is frequently just bad because you’re only dps chance is spam gravedigger and if you miss a hit you lose your dps for 8 seconds (reason why a large amount of direct damage builds in pve use dagger/wh+vampiric, that inflict higher and easier damage) and our condition damage is good now only because ANet granted us 3 cleed every chill instead of 1 (but only in PvE) but anyway we have a lower condi damage if compared to other classes.

On the paper the necromancer is a perfect class able to make thounsand builds, be able to fight in every situation and counter every enemy, but is not stronger enough to make that theory true and lose in every single situation because there’s a lot of classes that do it better (and frequently better on a totally different level). No dps, no group sustain, no group support, only a defensive selfcentered meatshield with the Shroud.

That’s the problem of the necromancer: is good in almost everything but shine in nothing.

Build variety is what originally attracted me to Necromancer. Unfortunately, the builds were all bad back then. Still, I was able to play how I wanted, moment to moment and stuck with it.

Necromancer build variety is still good and the profession is no longer absolute trash. I can find a way to contribute using all weapons and nearly all utilities.

The one, big gap left is in group utility. The blood magic rework helped. Greatsword’s cleave and the shouts helped, too, but the profession does not have enough support to give it a raid slot or PvP slot.

We have had a lot of discussion on this and many suggestions to Arenanet. Second tier dps is fine if there is another reason to slot one Necromancer.

I love my necromancer, but once I start needing to use corruptions and start applying bleeding, torment, poison to myself. that extra base hp and sometimes even a portion of the shroud doesnt count for as much. We have good spell variety for most situations but as others have said, our support is poor , damage is mediocre and is generally outshined by other professions.