Guild Wars 2

Aside from all the bugs that the necro has, whether it be utility skills or traits not working, the major issues of the profession lie in the categories i mention in the title: Trait Synergy, Damage, Builds and Tradeoffs.

Trait synergy with this class is paltry at best. If we are going for a condition build, then we have to take precision and condition damage, even though conditions cannot crit and the only reason we need the crit is for a 1 second bleed, which cant crit! The other problem with this build is life force generation, which is now even worse with the change to Blood Is Power, although it does give us a good conditon damage boost which you can spread with epidemic. However, if we want to improve condition duration, we need to invest points in the Power tree. As for a power build, you are losing damage because it is being wasted in condition duration and damage. Minions are worthless in pvp, so the current toughness tree is only good for the staff traits. A survivability support role is somewhat possible, but it is still horrible compared to other support classes. These need to be adjusted so that the different builds can be played at their best.

The second problem is damage. A lot of abilities are dodgeable, and we get probably the lowest numbers in the game. This could be fixed easily by changing either base damage of specific attacks so we at least compare to the damage of other classes, or to balance the trait trees, which would also be a major factor in improving damage.

Necros also have build choices which can all be fulfilled better by another profession. A guardian or warrior can support a group much better than necros, and most classes have abilities to support the group. Our best support skill is our Plague Form elite where we spam blind(which i love). Other than that we have a weak regen, small protection wells that will hit only those you are standing around, some blinds and some condition transfers from a well and staff 4. Power builds are better with other professions, which goes back to damage, and same goes for condition builds. The best thing we have is the condition build because of its condition control, but not because of its damage. The condition control is amazing, but apart from that we lack in damage. Along with that, bleeds only stack to 25, so if there is any other class that stacks bleeds, then we lose a lot of damage(which a lot of condition professions do). Our survivability is good when you trait for it or gear for it, but that leads to the last major problem, tradeoffs.

If we want to be a support player, you have no damage. But if you want to give up survivability and gain more damage, you don’t gain enough damage to justify giving up the survivability. We have no glass cannon build, because we cannot generate enough damage to do it. Our support build is lackluster, and you have barely and damage. We also have tradeoffs in our traits, as mentioned above. We need to get crit for condition builds, but they cant crit.. etc.

This is a little side note, but i have always loved the greatsword weapon. I think a damage oriented greatsword build for the necro would be awesome. Thoughts on that?

All in all the necro class has a good foundation. I am able to top the leaderboards in sPvP, and do some real harm in WvW. I am not trying to take the skill out of the class, because it is a class with a bit more involvement ( i picked up a thief in sPvP and was able to employ all the tactics within minutes of joining the game). All we need is to have the synergy that other classes have, that make the profession and our builds fun, instead of making us choose certain builds only, without the ability to perfom the tasks as well as other professions can.

Let me know what you guys think.

I played a necro for a few hours within the first few days of release. At low levels it seemed great, but after reading the forums and talking to people in-game, I can see that necro has its problems. I clicked on the link because I saw greatsword in the title lol. I agree. I usually play a melee hybrid in my games. In FFXI I was a Dark Knight, Shadow Knight in EQ1/2, The Elder Scrolls a greatsword using/dark magic casting machine, GW1 I was a Dervish/Necro, and later a Necro/Dervish (It works, I promise.) While I thought the Guardian would cover my hybrid gameplay, I was mistaken, and now I have an 80 Guardian that I probably won’t use for much aside from farming Orichalcum. Personally, I think every class should have a wide range of weapon choices to open up much more variety in playstyles. And Necro Greatsword would be used by me instantly, even if it is mediocre damage.

I have always been a huge fan of the hexblade in DnD. A necro using a greatsword would be the closest thing this game has to a hexblade so I support it 100%.

Much like Xecil, I wouldn’t care how much dmg it did just as long as it was an option. Hell, I would even pay for something like that (insert “take my money” meme here)

I agree one million percent with our trait lines being so ineffective it seems it was done on purpose. The greatsword thing I could care less about, but if you are going to give us a weapon like that may as well give us 1h sword first.

I feel that Necro is a reminiscence of old design logic and was balanced with something else in mind than the other classes. Necromancer as a whole feels slow and clunky when compared to every other class, it’s like if someone took a class straight from a tabletop RPG and ported it straight into an action RPG.

I agree with your post OP, think it is well thought-out.

I have gone 2 different specs so far.
Staff/sceptre condition spec. i.e. rampager/carrion/dungeon tough gear
Wells (tanky) power spec. i.e. knight/dungeon pow tough vit gear
Also throwing in minions when I feel like, since can add minions easily to either spec.

I am building gear for a third spec which will for once spec deep into soul reaping tree (i.e. berserker gear).

I didn’t go berserker for my well build since why give up the survivability for damage which is still gonna suck. I don’t plan to get gear with healing power, ever, since necro healign options are subpar to other classes’ options and scale very poorly.

I feel like many of the grandmaster traits are not good enough for grandmaster traits (& why so many involve minions when minions suck. also my guess is the blood and death magic ones invovling minions do not even work…)

I am also very put off by all the precision i get. Maybe when sigil of earth didn’t suck it was worthwhile for a condition build but now it is worth very little. I would rather tough/vit or even power. Both prec in the trait tree and prec in gear (rampager and the tough/prec/condi gear). For my gear I would like condi/vit/tough but this doesn’t exist even though the power/tough/vit gear does exist. For carrion you get power which is worth more than prec damagewise imo but as a necro I would prefer toughness over carrion’s vitality.

In fact this is one of the things which makes me hate condition spec. You are really squishy, even with rabid (imo) but lack decent teleport stun break or cc. And the precision is giving you very little (36% chance for 5 sec bleed on 2 sec internal cd, 36% chance for a 1 second bleed; sorry I would much prefer more vitality and toughness). You need to survive long enough to stack bleeds but are squishy. Seems to do ok against a tanky spec or against some other burst condition spec which stacks conditions fast, but most ppl in hotjoin are glass cannon. You have so much precision but it is doing very little for you, so essentially handicapped having so much of a (relatively) useless stat instead of something good.

Other things I don’t like:
-wells not ground targetable by default (i feel same way about traps)
-feeling forced to have power build in dungeons due to condition stacking issues
-feeling forced to use staff/sceptre in wvw (tho probably same for every class, I can at least e.g. use melee weapons for my thief or warrior since they have more mobility)
-not seeing a purpose for axe ever
-why is axe grandmaster trait 10% when the other trait is 20% and averages otu to 10% for ALL wepaons anyway
-lack of aoe on axe and dagger, forcing to use staff in almost every build
-why is well prot miniscule compared to protection options of other classes (and most of our support options in general. We get conditions but they are fairly meh, and useless against bosses unlike boons, & it’s not like other classes don’t also have access to these conditions in addition to more buffs).