So I’ve been doing dungeon runs with a group of friends lately and we have a little problem, one of them is a necro. Now the problem is that as we see now, a necro doesn’t really contribute much to the party in pve (as far as many people in the game told me). Necro’s dps is no. Jigh as far as I am told, he doesn’t really buff us with his current build, and conditions don’t help as much as boons against bosses.
Is that really it? Can he contribute in any way? Cuz he doesn’t have another level 80 char atm, and I don’t want to think that Necro is really totaly useless in pve, mostly because we all want to play what’s fun to us.
So my question is: Is there any build for necro which in he provide a significent contribute to the party? I’ll appreciate any help and build suggestions!
Necro dungeon issue
Necros aren’t useless, they just don’t bring anything special to the table in dungeons. Most of this is due to dungeon design, but the Necro can very much be a contributing member of a dungeon party. Any dungeon path with significant underwater portions, I’d actually prefer a Necro over most other professions.
Depends on your group. Are you trying for 100% efficient speedruns? If so, then Necro really isn’t going to work out for your group.
Are you just an average group going through dungeons? Then a power necro build is good enough. Unless you’re trying to shave off a minute or two from your dungeon runs, optimizing classes really isn’t needed.
People often confuse optimal and viable. Necros aren’t optimal in dungeons, but they are plenty viable.
There are 2 cases that you really want want to squeeze out every drop of juice from your character.
1) Speedrun.
2) When other teammates are crap, you want to make as much might to the party, or bring reflect/aegis to help them survive, at the same time to maintain high dps.
@OP: Define “significant contribution to the party”, because that definition is going to vary based on your goals. For example, my significant contribution was often the fact that I didn’t die to mechanics and did reasonable-enough damage. That’s basically class agnostic, and if your Necro is a solid all-around player, you’re going to be able to do most all of the content in the game without issue.
If you’re going for land speed records, your Necro might be up kitty creek for now. It’ll basically come down to what your goals are and if playing with the person is reason enough to bring a “sub-optimal in max-efficiency groups” class/spec.
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
The problem is the game has been out for long enough now where sufficient research has been done and people’s opinions can be impacted by ‘theory’.
People will simply know by word of mouth the X class is bad and will boot them from their group despite having no first-hand knowledge of the problem.
It’s not just Necros either. I’ve been in parties where as soon as the Ranger zoned in and they noticed he had a bow in his hand, he was removed from the group. I’ve also done all PvE content in this game with a group of 5 rangers.
Fact still remains that each class should be able to provide something meaningful to the group. Especially with PvE raids soon becoming a thing.
If you still want to give him the best necro build, go for 6/6/0/0/2 dagger focus/warhorn. Utilities vary, mainly 2 wells+ sig of spite.
But yep, what the people about said.
Necro should build selfishly as if the run were a solo.
Group support is horrid. Everyone knows that. Don’t bother with it unless the PUG is so bad you have to carry it.
Necro dps is good but one of the prime design themes, conditions, is directly countered by Unshakable, meaning a core mechanic is completely wasted.
I blame Warrior’s Fear Me for that.
OP:
Have you already been running with the necro? As he is a friend, and you seem to have already been doing things…
And while running with the necro, have you failed a dungeon path, wiped multiple times, or not been able to get past certain content?
If not, then why bother? No point in excluding your friend because he doesn’t have an “optimal” build or bring enough useful boons or utility to the table.
If you are having a problem, than considering asking him to roll another character may not by out of order, but might make your friend feel useless and unwanted.
In the end all that matters of you are all having fun. If not, than maybe its not just the friend that needs to change…
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”
Necro dps is good but one of the prime design themes, conditions, is directly countered by Unshakable, meaning a core mechanic is completely wasted.
I blame Warrior’s Fear Me for that.
It’s a bit extreme to say all conditions are countered by Unshakable, as it’s mainly the ones that they probably had a difficult time balancing around (weakness, blind, vulnerability, and controling effects). Also, last I played Condi, I thought that fear damage still applied while Fear was on a target, even if the target wasn’t actively being feared. In other words, Fear still applies and lasts for a duration to do damage, but doesn’t actually send them running away.
Did that change/am I crazy?
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Many bosses are completely immune to fear though (lupi for example). For regular champions and some bosses with regular defiant stacks fear does still apply and strip defiant stacks.
Also if new bosses follow the same trends as the ones in open world living story. Then we can say goodbye to fear, cripple, chill, immobilize and all forms of CC. Indomnitable is such a lazy mechanic. I can only assume they added it to prevent bosses which have scripted movement paths from bugging out when getting interrupted.
(edited by spoj.9672)
Cogbyrn, fear applies damage but is on a longer cool down and automatically proc’s Defiant x group.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unshakable
I do not remember ever being in a group that did not cap Defiant at some point.
Necromancer’s sustain and group support are closely coupled with the conditions Defiant is designed to minimize.
Necromancer is not bad but Unshakable makes it so.
Edit: think about what would happen to the dungeon meta if Defiant caused all boons within 1500 to have 10% of their normal duration.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
Isn’t immunity to CC/kite mechanics a staple of PvE boss content? Perhaps that’s just the WoW experience talking, but being able to CC/snare/heavily debuff a boss at all seems crazy to me. Coordinating against Defiance stacks for the occasional CC feels like a fairly nice middle ground, but I’ve always thought snaring a boss felt dirty, cheap, and somewhat boring.
I get that we’re out of the normal role triumvirate model, but with dodging and environmental interaction being possible in this game, I feel like they could do so much more with bosses than I’ve seen in the various dungeons. Some of them have interesting interactions, but if you feel like you need to be snaring/CCing a particular boss, I can’t help but feel THAT’S the lazy design, given the game’s potential.
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Well yes. But bosses become very stale in how you deal with them when you make them completely immune to CC and debuff conditions.
Put it this way. Mossman isnt immune to anything and he just has your regular defiant stacks. Hes still considered a very challenging boss. And there are many ways to fight him because he is not immune. So you can kite, debuff, CC, block or dodge his attacks. But of course you cannot stunlock him and you cannot trivialise the encounter without advanced and skilled teamwork.
The defiant stack system is good. The unshakeable buff works pretty well apart from its blind implementation. Blind should be 5% chance to apply and then always work when it does apply. The excessive immunities ruin a lot of bosses and make them boring just dodge or block the attacks. Lupi’s is kind of justified although cripple and fear should definitely apply even if they have no effect (i lose 2% dmg from target the weak because cripple doesnt apply).
(edited by spoj.9672)
As others have mentioned above, there isnt really anything that necros do better than oyher classes. AoE? Ele is better. Condi removal? Guardian. Single target DPS? Thief.
The necro can still be useful if one of the above are missing. The necro however should know each path of dungeon and what utilities to swap just like a good guard. For instance in AC after spider queen before traps there are knocking down gravelings. If you dont have guard for stability, a necro could drop well of darkness for a smooth battlr with tons of blinds. Or in skip runs the necro could go plague form, keeping aggro on and spamming blind while rest of you follow on his tail. But as i said earlier you would rather just have a thief to stealth you. Well of Power is similarly a substitute for purging flames.
The necro should indeed spec selfishly for own DPS. He can also rez squishy allies and kite if needed thanks to death shroud. The absolute best way to support your team as a necro in most encounters is, kill your enemy before they wipe your team
Necro dps is actually higher than most ppl know/want to admit. The problem is that necros dont bring much to the group except the potential of high vuln. stacking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnV6mTF53cA
What is this “utility” everybody is speaking about, 95% of the dungeon runs I do is people using bad skills and doing what ever they want. As long as you are geared full zerk, know how to press 1 and learn to dodge, you can finish a dungeon with your eyes closed.
What people don’t understand with the necro is that you don’t bring utility to the team, you bring utility to the mobs by weakening them so much you can cut trough them with a butter knife plus regen for the whole team with a focus.
for the party a necro can give vulnerability stack on the enemy, remove conditions (plaguesignet and DS if traited with unholy martyr -blood magic line), heal allies with life transfer (blood magic line – Transfusion), AoE stability and condi removal with Well of Power.
A necro can’t gie might but a necro can clean all your conditions and give you a lot of heal. And give high damage in direct damage berserker equipment.
Condition damage is good, but you need to be the only one that apply it. If you have one or more player that do bleed but play in berserker they steal bleed stacks to your necro condi build and reduce it’s damage.
But condition damage is good. not good as a direct damage, but grant you high damage and high survavibility.
The problem now is: your friend want to change all it’s build and play in direct damage zerk mode?