Guild Wars 2

Hello. This is an opinion thread, i hope you will agree.

4 weapons isn’t enough to make necro charming and doesn’t give enough variety.

Recent changes made staff a bit more useful with the fear but still, after playing mesmer and ele its clear that Necromancers need more variety than the axe, scepter and dagger.

Note: These are merely the observations of a junior necromancer. This assumption comes from the fact that dagger is a melee weapon and not fitting to a light armor on various situations, making the viable 2 builds, power/condition, forced to choose scepter and axe. Staff, with fear being buffed, is more of a PvP weapon and useless in long range, failing to function well in PvE or offer good playability combos with trait lines.

I believe we need more options like a vampiric greatsword. Spectral dark knights with greataxe. Maybe use a one handed sword+torch, or mace+shield. A weapon to do decent damage from long range.

All the best.

Hakkology.3189:

Recent changes made staff a bit more useful with the fear…

Staff, with fear being buffed, is more of a PvP weapon and useless in long range, failing to function well in PvE or offer good playability combos with trait lines.

Reaper’s Mark didn’t get a buff.
Fear (or Terror damage) in general wasn’t buffend except an extended base duration for Doom and Spectral Wall now doing fear instead of vulnerability.

The staff actually got a big hit in the nuts with the recent patch:
Putrid Mark is bugged, no more ally cleansing and only 3 conditions per enemy transfered (…everyone hopes it’s just a bug and not a stealth nerf).
Also every mark goes on full cooldown if the cast is interrupted or canceled.

However, if you trait and gear properly you can make it work for PvE as well as PvP.

On topic: sure, everyone would be happy to see more weapon choices.

Which makes staff even worse than what i thought, i wasn’t able to test its changes since i’m playing a power build nowadays .

What i was trying to say was, fear became more popular due to recent changes, which make Reaper’s Mark buffed indirectly. Still sad to hear about the bug.

Quite sad really…

necro could definetly have use for some more variety in weapons, but then also some other classes too.

in general i feel if anet wants to give steampunk(ish) feeling to gw2 we need firearms to every class and also more “victorian” style gear overall instead of generic mmo style.

Agreed. I would love to have a sword with cleave

Necromancers actually have a pretty nice selection of weapons compared to other classes. We’re right about in the middle. I’d honestly love for more weapons, and there is a very high possibility we will see them in the future, but I would much prefer that they start getting the game really balanced out first, and then look at expanding.

Bhawb.7408:

Necromancers actually have a pretty nice selection of weapons compared to other classes. We’re right about in the middle. I’d honestly love for more weapons, and there is a very high possibility we will see them in the future, but I would much prefer that they start getting the game really balanced out first, and then look at expanding.

Honestly, I don’t think we’ll see real balance anytime in the near future. They seem to get all their “balance” ideas from pvp forum posts and their pvp sotg chat sessions. They need to implement some type of test server realm and actually use accumulated data from that to really balance this game.

In the meantime, while they figure that out, they could definitely stand to flesh out some glaring discrepancies in game mechanics for the various classes. Examples being lack of melee cleave for necromancer weapons (axe, dagger). Lack of stability/anti-projectile options (intentionally) for necromancers. I understand the need for classes to be different, but there are certain core mechanics to the game design that you need to have all classes work with/against appropriately. Single target only auto attacks when 90% (made up number) of the encounters are aoe situations. Getting bounced around by knock downs, knock backs, etc…making you unable to even use our core class mechanic (DS).

As for the topic, I would definitely love a couple of additional weapon choices. A 1h sword would definitely be welcome if it meant gaining melee cleave. I’d be happy for a melee 2h weapon as well. I prefer powermancer builds, so I’m looking for weapons that don’t rely on damaging conditions. Chill and vulnerability would be great.

I love our weapons. I think the only thing we lack is a melee weapon that cleaves

I would love to see spear an ‘on land’ weapon.

Actually they at most get ideas from forum posts. They have their own idea of what perfect balance will look like for each class and the game as a whole, they look to us to see what is unbalanced (if there are tons of posts about something, it obviously needs looking at, although it isn’t always changed). I’d say the forums are a good source of info for them, but that is all I see them using the forums as.

You seem under the impression that Staff is bad, but I almost never unequip it.
It’s a wonderful secondary weapon!

Bleed, Regen, Poison, Chill, and Fear… all AoE, with short cast times and unblockable.
So long as you take Greater Marks, of course.
Running Staff without Greater Marks is silly, the Marks are way too small by default.

I’d say that the worst Necro weapon is main-hand Dagger.
After the buffs to Axe Mastery and Life Blast the Axe is just plain better than the Dagger is.

The Dagger doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.
The Life Siphon skill and high Life Force generation imply that it’s a “tank” weapon.
As does Dark Pact, which goes together nicely with Wells.

Honestly if it’s auto-attack also stole life and crippled and Life Siphon was replaced with something more useful it’d be much more interesting.
A melee weapon with no block, no leap and no cleave? Meh.

With that said I used it quite a bit in PvE before Axe was buffed, simply because the Dagger has high DPS and vs some enemies being in melee doesn’t matter if you position yourself well and time your dodges.

Axe Mastery+Close to Death+Life Blast combo is just way better now.

Please no more greatswords in this game…I’m sick to death of seeing greatswords everywhere! My eyes bleed everytime I see yet another GS warrior, guardian, or mesmer stomping around. Now a scythe, I could totally get behind getting a 2-h scythe with some cleave attack built in. If they wanted to get away from full melee weapons I would even be satisfied with a cleave scythe with the same kind of functionality as axe with the semi-melee/semi-ranged type play. I don’t forsee our staff getting changed soon, seems they like it as-is. I don’t particularly want yet another offhand either so I think another 2-h is the way to go.

Also, if we can’t weapon swap in DS, a bug that’s now a feature… Could we have DS dam going off your highest dam weap? (Sick of swapping weapons to enter DS)

With the PvP/PvE split rules, could we get some more range on PvE weapons. In a dungeon, it’s staff or stack out of range on a lot of fights.

LastDay.3524:

I’d say that the worst Necro weapon is main-hand Dagger.
After the buffs to Axe Mastery and Life Blast the Axe is just plain better than the Dagger is.

The Dagger doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.
The Life Siphon skill and high Life Force generation imply that it’s a “tank” weapon.
As does Dark Pact, which goes together nicely with Wells.

Honestly if it’s auto-attack also stole life and crippled and Life Siphon was replaced with something more useful it’d be much more interesting.
A melee weapon with no block, no leap and no cleave? Meh.

Agreed….main hand dagger definitely needs a complete rework.

ODB.6891:

LastDay.3524:

I’d say that the worst Necro weapon is main-hand Dagger.
After the buffs to Axe Mastery and Life Blast the Axe is just plain better than the Dagger is.

The Dagger doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.
The Life Siphon skill and high Life Force generation imply that it’s a “tank” weapon.
As does Dark Pact, which goes together nicely with Wells.

Honestly if it’s auto-attack also stole life and crippled and Life Siphon was replaced with something more useful it’d be much more interesting.
A melee weapon with no block, no leap and no cleave? Meh.

Agreed….main hand dagger definitely needs a complete rework.

Theres nothing wrong with dagger mainhand except maybe the #2 being weak.

spoj.9672:

ODB.6891:

LastDay.3524:

I’d say that the worst Necro weapon is main-hand Dagger.
After the buffs to Axe Mastery and Life Blast the Axe is just plain better than the Dagger is.

The Dagger doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.
The Life Siphon skill and high Life Force generation imply that it’s a “tank” weapon.
As does Dark Pact, which goes together nicely with Wells.

Honestly if it’s auto-attack also stole life and crippled and Life Siphon was replaced with something more useful it’d be much more interesting.
A melee weapon with no block, no leap and no cleave? Meh.

Agreed….main hand dagger definitely needs a complete rework.

Theres nothing wrong with dagger mainhand except maybe the #2 being weak.

Being in melee range and only being able to hit one target at a time….fail. Having only one actual decent attack..and that’s the auto…fail. Any weapon when the only thing viable to do is auto attack?!? Main hand dagger is outclassed by main hand axe now…largely due to the melee range requirement with no actual benefit to being in melee range (no cleave) combined with the trait set up for main hand axe…that also benefits death shroud damage.

There is almost no scenario where it is better to use main hand dagger now versus main hand axe.
1. you want your DS to hit harder…axe or dagger? Clear winner is axe due to axe training.
2. you want to deal more damage…trait spite or blood magic? Clear winner is spite..which has the axe talent..and not the dagger talents.
3. you are attacking in melee range and whatever you are attacking drops a red circle on you. With dagger…you move out of the way and all you have to attack with is siphon…with axe…you have 100% of your attacks still work.
4. you want to hit multiple targets..with axe..you at least have one skill that does aoe..and it cripples (axe #3). With dagger…you have nothing.
5. The only things dagger has going for it are possibly higher damage auto (but with less uptime due to melee range and you take more damage due to melee range) and higher life force generation due to the auto. Even if you take the blood magic traits…I’m pretty sure the general consensus of the community is that the vampric traits are sub par and not worth the trade off of another trait line.

Not quite sure how you can say there is nothing wrong with main hand dagger when you consider the alternative.

ODB.6891:

spoj.9672:

Theres nothing wrong with dagger mainhand except maybe the #2 being weak.

Being in melee range and only being able to hit one target at a time….fail. Having only one actual decent attack..and that’s the auto…fail. Any weapon when the only thing viable to do is auto attack?!? Main hand dagger is outclassed by main hand axe now…largely due to the melee range requirement with no actual benefit to being in melee range (no cleave) combined with the trait set up for main hand axe…that also benefits death shroud damage.

The same situation goes for a lot of dps weapons on other classes (warrior axe, guardian sword, ranger sword), all of them you just auto attack for max dps. Its a dagger, it doesnt make sense to cleave, theif dagger doesnt cleave. Necro dagger actually does more damage than thief dagger auto attack (ignoring backstab). The benefit of being in melee range is far superior damage. Making dagger cleave would be massive mistake and the devs wont do it so theres no point trying to argue it. Having a new weapon like a sword cleave however, is possible if anet ever decide to introduce more weapon choices for classes.

Also you claiming having low dps uptime with dagger because its melee, is a learn2play issue. Axe is pathetic, only useful for burst lifeforce generation or a DS build (which is lower dps than dagger).

spoj.9672:

ODB.6891:

spoj.9672:

ODB.6891:

LastDay.3524:

I’d say that the worst Necro weapon is main-hand Dagger.
After the buffs to Axe Mastery and Life Blast the Axe is just plain better than the Dagger is.

The Dagger doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.
The Life Siphon skill and high Life Force generation imply that it’s a “tank” weapon.
As does Dark Pact, which goes together nicely with Wells.

Honestly if it’s auto-attack also stole life and crippled and Life Siphon was replaced with something more useful it’d be much more interesting.
A melee weapon with no block, no leap and no cleave? Meh.

Agreed….main hand dagger definitely needs a complete rework.

Theres nothing wrong with dagger mainhand except maybe the #2 being weak.

Being in melee range and only being able to hit one target at a time….fail. Having only one actual decent attack..and that’s the auto…fail. Any weapon when the only thing viable to do is auto attack?!? Main hand dagger is outclassed by main hand axe now…largely due to the melee range requirement with no actual benefit to being in melee range (no cleave) combined with the trait set up for main hand axe…that also benefits death shroud damage.

The same situation goes for a lot of dps weapons on other classes (warrior axe, guardian sword, ranger sword). Its a dagger, it doesnt make sense to cleave. Necro dagger actually does more damage than thief dagger auto attack (ignoring backstab). The benefit of being in melee range is far superior damage. Making dagger cleave would be massive mistake and the devs wont do it so theres no point trying to argue it. Having a new weapon like a sword cleave however, is possible if anet ever decide to introduce more weapon choices for classes.

Also you claiming having low dps uptime with dagger because its melee is a learn2play issue.

Lol Learn2havecommonsense. Common logic tells you that a melee weapon will have lower up time than a ranged or semi ranged one. That’s simply because you will have to move out of melee range from time to time based on encounters. The damage the weapon deals will have to be far superior to the other options to compensate for this basic common sense fact that you don’t seem to grasp. With the only viable thing main hand dagger can do being auto attack…I doubt that is the case.

You also need to educate yourself on those other class’ weapons and what they do. I play a guardian as well and I know for a fact that the guardian 1h sword does hit multiple targets as part of its attack chain. So does the warrior axe…which I also have an 80 warrior which currently uses axe as my mh weapon.

Just because you feel it does not fit the dagger to hit multiple targets in melee…does not mean it does not need to in order to fulfill its role as a pve melee weapon for this specific class. This is not a game from 1980 where the focus was still on single targeting each mob down in coordination with others in a wow style raid. Most modern games have progressed past that concept now…hence all the aoe and cleaves. This class is the sore thumb in that respect.

It is a learn2play issue, you obviously dont realise 99% of pve content is done in full melee and people ducking out of range actually screws the group over more because they arent sharing damage anymore. Melee is what you always do in a proper group. When some people dont melee while the rest are in melee dealing with trash mobs, it causes problems. When the whole group is in melee and stacked, its smooth.

Necro isnt worth taking in these sort of groups though due to the lack of cleave and lack of party buffs. They do provide good damage but thats not good enough even with burst aoe for trash(its a selfish class). The lack of cleave is an issue only because necro doesnt have damage buffs for the entire party or some other useful utility/support. Cleave would help necro become more viable but it shouldnt be put on dagger.

My comments about the other classes weapons wasnt regarding cleave it was regarding that you only use auto attack to maintain maximum dps. The other skills on those weapons are situational, just like necro dagger.

It wouldnt fit or be fair to give cleave dagger on necro and not give it to thieves.

Hakkology.3189:

Staff, with fear being buffed, is more of a PvP weapon and useless in long range, failing to function well in PvE or offer good playability combos with trait lines.

Naw man, Staff is awesome for PvE.

Are you at a farm event and trying to tag things? Staff is pretty great at that.

Are you trying to DPS down a boss from a distance? Staff 1 is ok damage, but more importantly, it gives consistent Life Force, allowing you to shift to DS for #1 spam. DS#1 has 1200 range and hits like a truck.

Are you condition-specced? Staff has a low-cooldown AoE bleed, moderate-cooldown AoE poison field, and AoE Fear, which deals hella damage with Terror.

Conditions aren’t usually such a big deal in PvE, so that means you can gleefully use #4 as a blast finisher with decent AoE direct damage. 3+4 = Area Weakness, which is very strong in PvE.

Hakkology.3189:

I believe we need more options like a vampiric greatsword. Spectral dark knights with greataxe. Maybe use a one handed sword+torch, or mace+shield. A weapon to do decent damage from long range.

More weapons would be nice, but we actually do have really good weapons. None of our weapons are bad, even if they could use a few tweaks here and there.

spoj.9672:

Necro isnt worth taking in these sort of groups though due to the lack of cleave and lack of party buffs.

Au contrair, mes ami. Necros are a bit light on direct buffs, but they’re incredibly good at debuffing foes. Their CC, if used properly, helps throttle the pressure mobs can output, thus leading to fewer party deaths.

DS: Can be traited to heal when the Necro exits.
Life Blast: can be traited to stack Vulnerability
Dark Path: Chill (CC + slows down rate of damaging skills)
Doom: Fear (CC)
Life Transfer: can be traited to heal in an AoE
Tainted Shackles: roots (CC)

Mark of Blood: low-cooldown AoE regen
Chilbains: Poison debuffs healing effects, also Chill
Putrid Mark: full condi cleanse for the full group (albeit this seems to be bugged right now)
3+4 combo: AoE Weakness, rips apart mobs’ damage
Reaper’s Mark: hard AoE CC

Axe 1: stacks Vulnerability
Axe 3: Cripples and removes a boon

Scepter 1: Poison
Scepter 2: AoE Cripple

Dagger 3: very long-duration Root
Dagger 4: Blinds, can be traited to Chill as well
Dagger 5: AoE Weakness

Focus 4: Vulnerability on foes, Regen on allies
Focus 5: Chill + boon stripping

Warhorn 4: AoE interrupt
Warhorn 5: PBAoE cripple field

Well of Blood: one of the few heal skills that can heal multiple targets, and does so without applying Regen (which means it stacks with Regen)

Corrosive Poison Cloud, Corrupt Boon, Summon Bone Fiend, Spectral Grasp, Well of Darkness, Well of Corruption, Well of Suffering: All these apply strong debuffs to enemies. Some of them are situational but you should always be able to find something useful.

Signet of Undeath: Still one of the best res skills in the game.

Well of Power: AoE pulsing condi removal that applies boons.

Flesh Golem, Plague, Lich Form: The Necro’s Elite skills are a cavalcade of CC and debuffs. Flesh Golem can even help tank for your party.

spoj.9672:

It is a learn2play issue, you obviously dont realise 99% of pve content is done in full melee and people ducking out of range actually screws the group over more because they arent sharing damage anymore. Melee is what you always do in a proper group, when some people dont melee while the rest are in melee dealing with trakitten causes problems. When the whole group is melee and stacked its smooth.

Necro isnt worth taking in these sort of groups though due to the lack of cleave and lack of party buffs. They do provide good damage but thats not good enough even with burst aoe for trash(its a selfish class). The lack of cleave is an issue only because necro doesnt have damage buffs for the entire party or some other useful utility/support. Cleave would help necro become more viable but it shouldnt be put on dagger.

My comments about the other classes weapons wasnt regarding cleave it was regarding that you only use auto attack to maintain maximum dps. The other skills on those weapons are situational, just like necro dagger.

It wouldnt fit or be fair to give cleave dagger on necro and not give it to thieves.

I’m amazed at how ignorant and arrogant you are. I guess it takes all kinds to make the world work. That aside, I’ll bite. Your comment indicating that necromancers do not even belong in group play is borderline kittened. You need to take some time to actually read about and learn the mechanics of this game. Yes, boons are great, no boons are not the only thing that benefits the party. The necromancer is designed to and does benefit party play by debilitating the enemy instead of empowering teammates. Blind is just as powerful of a benefit as aegis is. Chill is just as powerful of a benefit as quickness. Spectral wall’s fear is just as effective as a guardian’s line of warding. Spectral wall also offers protection for any ally that passes through it. Wells also offer aoe condition cleanse/conversion of conditions to boons as well as boon stripping. In short…you need to take your own childish catch phrase to heart…L2P.

You also seem to be missing a primary point of these forums. That point being letting issues be known, so they can be corrected and improved. Its just stupid to even think that a class should just be excluded instead of being improved. Hostile and ignorant comments regarding such things is pointless. Ultimately its not up to you to fix things in this game…its the developers and you never see them on the forums spouting ignorance.

You keep going back to thieves in your comments about dagger cleave. I don’t play a thief, never have and probably never will. That being the case I have no idea what aoe capability their main hand dagger has…so I won’t even bother to look it up as I really don’t care about that class in particular. I will say that if they don’t have it..then I think they should too. It does not make much sense in a game with such significant aoe encounters to have only single target attacks on your melee weapon.

Your initial statement in the above post also baffles me. Do you actually believe that 99% of pve content is designed to stand in the red circles and melee? If so…that’s the biggest learn2play issue I have ever seen anyone openly admit to. Not only is that 99% the most exaggerated overstatement I’ve heard in a while, but that defeats the entire purpose of the dodge system this game is based on. That defeats the entire purpose of the red circles to begin with..as they are a warning to dodge. Seriously…I hope whatever issue you are having today is only temporary and that it doesn’t spill over into whatever you may have to do of some actual importance today.

I have to stand by spoj on this.

Aegis > blind. Reason is unshakable.
Quickness > Chill. It’s to buff your own dps. And unshakable.
Line of warding > fear as it doesn’t ruin your pull. (on a side note, I freaking hate those idiots who knockback/fear my perfectly pulled mobs.) ALSO unshakable.

We need melee cleave. I think most can agree. whether it should be on dagger is another question. Personally I want cleave on dagger because ele has ranged and aoe dagger, so why can’t ours cleave? But if they can simply introduce a new (to us) melee weapon that cleave, it’s even better.

And let me tell you, axe is still crap. Yes, you get invul, but it’s traded from lowering your own dps compare to using dagger. In open world boss it is always capped so your invul is useless anyway. In dungeon it’s down to 5 people. Axe damage compare to dagger is so weak I don’t even know if there really is any increase in total group damage. Also if it happens to have 2 warriors in the group, Invul is gonna capped in no time and you will be left with a weapon with no damage.

Axe #2 is ok for life force generation and axe trait is great for DS1, but that’s it. I recommend you never use axe as main weapon. Only swap to that before DS, and use axe 2 right after you pop out, then goes back to the dagger for damage and life force.

Oh, did I mention line of sight? A ranged weapon with crappy range doesn’t make it a melee even if you use it in melee range.

Afya.5842:

I have to stand by spoj on this.

Aegis > blind. Reason is unshakable.
Quickness > Chill. It’s to buff your own dps. And unshakable.
Line of warding > fear as it doesn’t ruin your pull. (on a side note, I freaking hate those idiots who knockback/fear my perfectly pulled mobs.) ALSO unshakable.

We need melee cleave. I think most can agree. whether it should be on dagger is another question. Personally I want cleave on dagger because ele has ranged and aoe dagger, so why can’t ours cleave? But if they can simply introduce a new (to us) melee weapon that cleave, it’s even better.

And let me tell you, axe is still crap. Yes, you get invul, but it’s traded from lowering your own dps compare to using dagger. In open world boss it is always capped so your invul is useless anyway. In dungeon it’s down to 5 people. Axe damage compare to dagger is so weak I don’t even know if there really is any increase in total group damage. Also if it happens to have 2 warriors in the group, Invul is gonna capped in no time and you will be left with a weapon with no damage.

Axe #2 is ok for life force generation and axe trait is great for DS1, but that’s it. I recommend you never use axe as main weapon. Only swap to that before DS, and use axe 2 right after you pop out, then goes back to the dagger for damage and life force.

Oh, did I mention line of sight? A ranged weapon with crappy range doesn’t make it a melee even if you use it in melee range.

You know what…I can mostly get behind you on this. boons do generally outperform debuffing conditions. The only reason I agree with the blind versus aegis issue is that some mobs are immune to blind and blind can’t stop an aoe hit. Chill versus quickness…they serve two different purposes…one is defensive and the other is offensive. What I can’t get behind is what he was saying about lack of contribution and necros not having a place in groups. I also can’t get behind being a complete kitten on the forums. I have also not given dagger a fair shake at max level play yet due to lack of melee cleave…so you are probably right on the damage output. The vulnerability stack limit probably makes the difference there depending on group composition.

Thank you for not being a tool like that guy…I have no problems with a reasonable discussion. Its only reasonable to acknowledge the need for melee cleave on a melee weapon, and yes..I agree that a sword would probably be optimal for the cleave…or a scythe like many others have posted. I’d even think the axe auto should cleave.

If you are standing by him on the other issues…I don’t even know how to respond to that though. All melee group requirements for pve? Necros not allowed in pve parties. Face tanking every red circle in pve? The logical concept of dps up time when you have to move away from your target? I agree that the damage is probably not there for certain abilities and weapons yet..but that is the point of posting about it.

When i said “these types of groups”, i was referring to optimized/speedrunning groups…. Necro has no place in those groups at the moment due to the reasons I and Afya mentioned. I find it kind of amusing that your telling me to learn game mechanics….

Anyway i started off with a reasonable discussion but you took my comment as if i was calling you kitten. I wasnt. Heres the comment again:

Also you claiming having low dps uptime with dagger because its melee, is a learn2play issue. Axe is pathetic, only useful for burst lifeforce generation or a DS build (which is lower dps than dagger).

Let me clarify. If you know the mechanics and have an organised coordinated group you dont need to come out of melee and so you dont lose dps uptime (a l2p issue). I wasnt saying you need to learn to play. I apologise if it offended you, wasnt my intent.

You keep seeming to mention face tanking red circles. You are meant to use your dodge key to avoid things like that. Every powerful boss attack can be avoided and countered with smart mechanics and in melee. The exceptions where people dont melee are shaman boss in fractals, dredge boss while kiting (can jump in for melee under the lava, captain ashym when he gets to 25% hp (stops him using fiery gs). Most people tend to also dive in and out on colossus fractal boss but thats about it.