Guild Wars 2

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

Can a necro blast effectively? Does a necro provide any useful Combo field? Can a necro maintain 25% stacks of vulnerability while doing max damage? Does the Necro have unique group buff (empower allies, Spotter, banners, Frost spirit)? Can a necromancer shield a group from projectiles or reflect for the group? Can necro provide stealth for the party? Can necros create portals for the party?
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.

LughLongArm.5460:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Trooper
Boom, You guys have support

Condi clears are a dime a dozen. In PVE we have Mesmers, Guards and Engineers with easy access to condi clears via glamours/mantras, consecrations/shouts and elixir gun / healing turret. In PVP? It’s even worse when you’re practically guaranteed a shoutbow Warrior and a Guardian in every group.

Warcry.8914:

LughLongArm.5460:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Trooper
Boom, You guys have support

Condi clears are a dime a dozen. In PVE we have Mesmers, Guards and Engineers with easy access to condi clears via glamours/mantras, consecrations/shouts and elixir gun / healing turret. In PVP? It’s even worse when you’re practically guaranteed a shoutbow Warrior and a Guardian in every group.

Ya, it was mostly a joke, but i’m almost sure necro shous will have a trait associated with that grant support – like ranger shouts, they do nothing for allies but hey have
“Nature’s Voice – Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies.” I also almost sure some of the shouts will be blast finishes(kinda make sense) .

Vizardlorde.8243:

What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.

Some of those things will change in Hot though. Blind will be useful against champions since it will help breaking their defiance bar. And i wouldnt put it past Anet if we would get mobs that will heal/dodge etc. making weakness and poison more useful.

Muchacho.2390:

Vizardlorde.8243:

What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.

Some of those things will change in Hot though. Blind will be useful against champions since it will help breaking their defiance bar. And i wouldnt put it past Anet if we would get mobs that will heal/dodge etc. making weakness and poison more useful.

I would love that but we(necro, engi, guardian) have to suffer with an insignificant blind in pve thanks to thief perma blind. They cannot make the blind too strong against defiance cause of thieves.

Necros today bring group support. Traited wells grant protection, and they have quite a bit that cleanse conditions. You don’t have to run minion builds, you know.

What you mean is that they bring nothing for might stacking.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

Can a necro blast effectively? Does a necro provide any useful Combo field? Can a necro maintain 25% stacks of vulnerability while doing max damage? Does the Necro have unique group buff (empower allies, Spotter, banners, Frost spirit)? Can a necromancer shield a group from projectiles or reflect for the group? Can necro provide stealth for the party? Can necros create portals for the party?
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.

The Reaper Profession probably brings us close to max damage with lots of blinds, lots of chill and vulnerability stacks when you use Chilling Darkness+ Bitter Chill together. For example Well of Darkness applies up to :

- x5 AoE Blinds 3 seconds in duration.
- x5 AoE Chills from Chilling Darkness at 1 second duration per pulse for 5 seconds total.
- x5 AoE 5 stacked Vulnerability with an 8 second duration from Bitter Chill. 25 stacks at the end of pulsing.

One skill that makes an area of enemies chain miss, while slowed both in movement and skill CD by 66% and take 25% more damage.

Dark Fields will be more useful in HoT as blinds will be used to take down defiance bars. Well of Darkness +other Wells + Leap/Blast finishers will equal lots of blinds.

Our unique group support is condi manipulation that converts boons/condis instead of removing them. Hopefully we see a lot more places where this can be taken advantage of in HoT PvE (evidence in Silverwastes of this already).

Again if the Silverwastes is anything to go by, mobs will have healers and heal.

See above why blinds are now useful.

Protection on Wells is actually not too bad in combination with their additional powers and it will be bundled with Vampiric Wells/Ritual Mastery as a GM trait.

Nick.9572:

Necros today bring group support. Traited wells grant protection, and they have quite a bit that cleanse conditions. You don’t have to run minion builds, you know.

What you mean is that they bring nothing for might stacking.

Or blast finishers. Or projectile defense. Or vigor. Or fury. Or stealth. Or good combo fields.

Balekai.6083:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

Can a necro blast effectively? Does a necro provide any useful Combo field? Can a necro maintain 25% stacks of vulnerability while doing max damage? Does the Necro have unique group buff (empower allies, Spotter, banners, Frost spirit)? Can a necromancer shield a group from projectiles or reflect for the group? Can necro provide stealth for the party? Can necros create portals for the party?
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.

The Reaper Profession probably brings us close to max damage with lots of blinds, lots of chill and vulnerability stacks when you use Chilling Darkness+ Bitter Chill together. For example Well of Darkness applies up to :

- x5 AoE Blinds 3 seconds in duration.
- x5 AoE Chills from Chilling Darkness at 1 second duration per pulse for 5 seconds total.
- x5 AoE 5 stacked Vulnerability with an 8 second duration from Bitter Chill. 25 stacks at the end of pulsing.

One skill that makes an area of enemies chain miss, while slowed both in movement and skill CD by 66% and take 25% more damage.

Dark Fields will be more useful in HoT as blinds will be used to take down defiance bars. Well of Darkness +other Wells + Leap/Blast finishers will equal lots of blinds.

Our unique group support is condi manipulation that converts boons/condis instead of removing them. Hopefully we see a lot more places where this can be taken advantage of in HoT PvE (evidence in Silverwastes of this already).

Again if the Silverwastes is anything to go by, mobs will have healers and heal.

See above why blinds are now useful.

Protection on Wells is actually not too bad in combination with their additional powers and it will be bundled with Vampiric Wells/Ritual Mastery as a GM trait.

We dont know yet about reaper I was talking as of currently in game

Atherakhia.4086:

The Necro’s damage would need to effectively be doubled to both close the gap between it an eles/thieves and give it a large enough DPS premium over those classes to offset the lack of utility the class brings.

I highly doubt we’re going to be seeing that kind of damage.

Don’t forget Ele is getting a pretty hard nerf in dps due to 3 traitlines limit and removal of damage buffing traits.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Balekai.6083:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

Can a necro blast effectively? Does a necro provide any useful Combo field? Can a necro maintain 25% stacks of vulnerability while doing max damage? Does the Necro have unique group buff (empower allies, Spotter, banners, Frost spirit)? Can a necromancer shield a group from projectiles or reflect for the group? Can necro provide stealth for the party? Can necros create portals for the party?
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.

The Reaper Profession probably brings us close to max damage with lots of blinds, lots of chill and vulnerability stacks when you use Chilling Darkness+ Bitter Chill together. For example Well of Darkness applies up to :

- x5 AoE Blinds 3 seconds in duration.
- x5 AoE Chills from Chilling Darkness at 1 second duration per pulse for 5 seconds total.
- x5 AoE 5 stacked Vulnerability with an 8 second duration from Bitter Chill. 25 stacks at the end of pulsing.

One skill that makes an area of enemies chain miss, while slowed both in movement and skill CD by 66% and take 25% more damage.

Dark Fields will be more useful in HoT as blinds will be used to take down defiance bars. Well of Darkness +other Wells + Leap/Blast finishers will equal lots of blinds.

Our unique group support is condi manipulation that converts boons/condis instead of removing them. Hopefully we see a lot more places where this can be taken advantage of in HoT PvE (evidence in Silverwastes of this already).

Again if the Silverwastes is anything to go by, mobs will have healers and heal.

See above why blinds are now useful.

Protection on Wells is actually not too bad in combination with their additional powers and it will be bundled with Vampiric Wells/Ritual Mastery as a GM trait.

We dont know yet about reaper I was talking as of currently in game

Even so, we have to look towards the future HoT content and future class changes, since that’s where the game is heading mechanics and PvE wise. Even from what we know about Reapers’ GS AA combined with Bitter Chill, will offer cleaved 1 second chills + 5 vulnerability stacks for 8 seconds every third attack.

Of course Necro core doesn’t need to take the Reaper Specialization to take advantage of the new blind/poison usefulness.

Reaper will have trouble dealing with condi removal depending on weapon setup, as the only weapons that remove condi’s are o/h dagger and staff. We have nothing else but our heal. I’m hoping a shout has a condi clear on it if we have some way to shed them

Gryph.8237:

Reaper will have trouble dealing with condi removal depending on weapon setup, as the only weapons that remove condi’s are o/h dagger and staff. We have nothing else but our heal. I’m hoping a shout has a condi clear on it if we have some way to shed them

Maybe we get a version of this shout from GW1

Gryph.8237:

Reaper will have trouble dealing with condi removal depending on weapon setup, as the only weapons that remove condi’s are o/h dagger and staff. We have nothing else but our heal. I’m hoping a shout has a condi clear on it if we have some way to shed them

They could take Well of Power, but it may be hard to find any room for it. I could definitely see a shout have some condi/boon conversion of some type. Could even see it being a trait (on shout use).

Gryph.8237:

Reaper will have trouble dealing with condi removal depending on weapon setup, as the only weapons that remove condi’s are o/h dagger and staff. We have nothing else but our heal. I’m hoping a shout has a condi clear on it if we have some way to shed them

Staff will work rather well with the reaper spec though. It has chill and fear for more chill. And staff gives 1200 range, something the gs and the reaper shroud will not have.

Shiki.7148:

pepper.6179:

i never rolled my necro for support, only pure damage

Only that power warrior outdamages power necro while still bringing teamsupport. The Necro GS would have to do INSANE damage to make it look viable to those dungeonfarmers. Courtesy of the designflaws in current PvE-content.

Then again, we know almost nothing for now. Let’s wait and see what tomo—-uhm, todays PoI brings.

oh, well i play mainly wvw and stuff like wells+DS +Lich form AA are devestating

We debuff our enemies thats our support.. everyone cries that we dont give stab or might… well not everyone gives stab and according to everyone… everyone gives might.. so why would necro need to give might if everyone is giving it and it caps at 25..
kitten that id rather give the debuffs out.. the only thing we was lacking was more dps.. and with the gs .. we have it

However… that being said.. we could very well do with a combo blast finisher to help those who can create fields for might.

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

HardRider.2980:

We debuff our enemies thats our support.. everyone cries that we dont give stab or might… well not everyone gives stab and according to everyone… everyone gives might.. so why would necro need to give might if everyone is giving it and it caps at 25..

Because no one cares about debuffs in PVE. It is irrelevant. Most damage is negated completely by healing and protective boons already, without even speccing in them. So it is all about damage.

Plus, a lot of bosses have reduced condition effectiveness (or immunity), where as DPS has no such counter in PVE. So yeah, great that you can chill or blind that boss for like a second. That will not help your group kill it any faster.

Nick.9572:

Necros today bring group support. Traited wells grant protection, and they have quite a bit that cleanse conditions. You don’t have to run minion builds, you know.

What you mean is that they bring nothing for might stacking.

Throw down those dark combo fields in dungeons instead of fire like the speedclears want and see how fast you get kicked from the run… :p no I don’t agree with doing that but it is what it is. Also that “protection” is flimsy at best, they have to be inside the well when it is cast, otherwise they don’t get it. They can’t wander into the area for some protection, it doesn’t work that way- for whatever reason Anet in their infinite necro wisdom – decided to design the trait that way

Aenesthesia.1697:

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

They won’t even give us sustain for ourselves, why would they give us group-wide sustain? lolz

What blast finisher do you mean? We have only 2 blast finishers: the explosive minions, hard to use out of a combat because you can’t chose where they spown, and the Mark of the staff, that blast only when a enemy go on it, then you can blast only while in fight.

And a prerogtive of that game is make every classes able to play any role (more or less). Then, give a little stack of might isn’t something that go out of our class.
We already give protection with the spectral wall, why can’t we give might?
About stability, we don’t have it for us, how can we hope to share it with others?

We don’t need to be the best support ever, only to have 1 or 2 blast finisher activable at command easy to use and give to our allies a little of might if we’re not in a perfect team that walk with always 25 stack of might all the time.
If I go into a casual dungeon team, there’s not always a perfect team and frequently I don’t go up 15 stack of might. If we can add some might to that and share it with our allies and not only take it with our selves, that can make the others happy to have us with them.

Sadly, when Anet had the opportunity to fix Signet of Vampirism, they decided to tweak one of the numbers a little, to the point where it made no difference what so ever. They tend to do that whenever they notice that a skill is rubbish, but they are unwilling to make it good. They’ll do some flavor fiddling with the internal cooldown, instead of actually fixing the skill.

So I have given up hope of that skill ever being remotely decent.

Aenesthesia.1697:

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

This exactly. When that first came out I was very excited that maybe the lifesteal build would be viable, too bad the signet’s numbers fell flat on it’s face.

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Invictus.1503:

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

If you are optimistic about lifestealing, then perhaps you haven’t been paying enough attention. Life stealing has always been mediocre, even back in GW1. Now it is mediocre again in GW2. They have had 3 years to fix it, but when Signet of Vampirism was introduced, once again they dropped the ball (and made the most useless skill in the game). Then some time later, there’s a big patch, and SoV is on that list. Once again, still useless, because the patch did nothing to improve SoV.

Over 10 years of life stealing being rubbish! Is there any reason to be even remotely optimistic about life stealing ever becoming good?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Invictus.1503:

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

If you are optimistic about lifestealing, then perhaps you haven’t been paying enough attention. Life stealing has always been mediocre, even back in GW1. Now it is mediocre again in GW2. They have had 3 years to fix it, but when Signet of Vampirism was introduced, once again they dropped the ball (and made the most useless skill in the game). Then some time later, there’s a big patch, and SoV is on that list. Once again, still useless, because the patch did nothing to improve SoV.

Over 10 years of life stealing being rubbish! Is there any reason to be even remotely optimistic about life stealing ever becoming good?

Being cautiously optimistic does not mean I haven’t been paying attention. It just means that I choose to believe that we will eventually get a fix to it even though we haven’t seen it yet. Maybe not even in this elite spec, but in a future one that they choose to take inspiration from another classic horror film icon (vampires).

As for GW1, life stealing wasn’t too bad. It just got overshadowed by the incredibly versatile MM (and in some elite content Orders). Not to mention the Touch Ranger was very much alive and dreaded for a long time.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

HardRider.2980:

We debuff our enemies thats our support.. everyone cries that we dont give stab or might… well not everyone gives stab and according to everyone… everyone gives might.. so why would necro need to give might if everyone is giving it and it caps at 25..

Because no one cares about debuffs in PVE. It is irrelevant. Most damage is negated completely by healing and protective boons already, without even speccing in them. So it is all about damage.

Plus, a lot of bosses have reduced condition effectiveness (or immunity), where as DPS has no such counter in PVE. So yeah, great that you can chill or blind that boss for like a second. That will not help your group kill it any faster.

People care about vulnerability and it appears a Bitter chill Reaper will have that in spades in addition to chill (5 stacks for 8 seconds each time chill is applied). If we add in Chilling Darkness, blinds will add chill and therefore vulnerability as well. Another big question is what happens in HoT PvE. If trash/bosses start stipping boons on players for example, then Might stacks and the like will be a lot less dependable.

As for soft condis against PvE bosses, defiance is getting a big change that makes condis more important. Not to mention the removal of condi caps and poison/burning stacking in HoT. Like I mentioned above blind is going to be a defiance stripper. Although Anet stated that Defiance Bar stripping will be balanced boss to boss and that they will balance various cc differently, Dark Fields combined with Blast/Leap finishers seems like a great way to spam defiance down.

We can have three Dark Fields (one that pules blinds itself) that will now have 900 range as a baseline. Basically Dark Fields along with Smoke Fields could become the Fire Fields of Defiance phases. I could see “Defiance Bar up, Dark fields on the left of commander and Smoke Fields on the right” and having people blast/leap in Dark Fields and whirl/projectile through Smoke fields.

The life steals from other Dark Fields combos may be more affective than normal damage during Defiance phases if some bosses gain near complete immunity to normal damage (like Evolved Jungle Wurm Husks).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Invictus.1503:

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

If you are optimistic about lifestealing, then perhaps you haven’t been paying enough attention. Life stealing has always been mediocre, even back in GW1. Now it is mediocre again in GW2. They have had 3 years to fix it, but when Signet of Vampirism was introduced, once again they dropped the ball (and made the most useless skill in the game). Then some time later, there’s a big patch, and SoV is on that list. Once again, still useless, because the patch did nothing to improve SoV.

Over 10 years of life stealing being rubbish! Is there any reason to be even remotely optimistic about life stealing ever becoming good?

The GS ils a slow weapon with single hits that hits multiple enemies.
If actually life steal work only on the dagger, that hit very quickly, with the GS Life Stealing will be tuned down even more because of the slow attack rate.
GS users will never be able to use properly a life steal build

Silv.9207:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Invictus.1503:

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

If you are optimistic about lifestealing, then perhaps you haven’t been paying enough attention. Life stealing has always been mediocre, even back in GW1. Now it is mediocre again in GW2. They have had 3 years to fix it, but when Signet of Vampirism was introduced, once again they dropped the ball (and made the most useless skill in the game). Then some time later, there’s a big patch, and SoV is on that list. Once again, still useless, because the patch did nothing to improve SoV.

Over 10 years of life stealing being rubbish! Is there any reason to be even remotely optimistic about life stealing ever becoming good?

The GS ils a slow weapon with single hits that hits multiple enemies.
If actually life steal work only on the dagger, that hit very quickly, with the GS Life Stealing will be tuned down even more because of the slow attack rate.
GS users will never be able to use properly a life steal build

I agree. The only GS Reaper build that would have adequate lifesteal is a MM based one. Or some shout spamming AoE centric Reaper constantly surrounded by 5 enemies.

Silv.9207:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Invictus.1503:

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

If you are optimistic about lifestealing, then perhaps you haven’t been paying enough attention. Life stealing has always been mediocre, even back in GW1. Now it is mediocre again in GW2. They have had 3 years to fix it, but when Signet of Vampirism was introduced, once again they dropped the ball (and made the most useless skill in the game). Then some time later, there’s a big patch, and SoV is on that list. Once again, still useless, because the patch did nothing to improve SoV.

Over 10 years of life stealing being rubbish! Is there any reason to be even remotely optimistic about life stealing ever becoming good?

The GS ils a slow weapon with single hits that hits multiple enemies.
If actually life steal work only on the dagger, that hit very quickly, with the GS Life Stealing will be tuned down even more because of the slow attack rate.
GS users will never be able to use properly a life steal build

Well, you are right and wrong, I saw at least a spinning skill with GS (out of DS) in the video. Which mean that there is hope for a whirl combo that will let necromancer trigger a life steal combo from it’s Wells. Will this be sufficient to make it work? I doubt it but, maybe with the proper runes, all the siphon traits and the right food, it could be at the same level as it is right now…

Invictus.1503:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Invictus.1503:

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

If you are optimistic about lifestealing, then perhaps you haven’t been paying enough attention. Life stealing has always been mediocre, even back in GW1. Now it is mediocre again in GW2. They have had 3 years to fix it, but when Signet of Vampirism was introduced, once again they dropped the ball (and made the most useless skill in the game). Then some time later, there’s a big patch, and SoV is on that list. Once again, still useless, because the patch did nothing to improve SoV.

Over 10 years of life stealing being rubbish! Is there any reason to be even remotely optimistic about life stealing ever becoming good?

Being cautiously optimistic does not mean I haven’t been paying attention. It just means that I choose to believe that we will eventually get a fix to it even though we haven’t seen it yet. Maybe not even in this elite spec, but in a future one that they choose to take inspiration from another classic horror film icon (vampires).

As for GW1, life stealing wasn’t too bad. It just got overshadowed by the incredibly versatile MM (and in some elite content Orders). Not to mention the Touch Ranger was very much alive and dreaded for a long time.

3 more years to go.

Sagat.3285:

3 more years to go.

Hahahaha! I love being quoted on that.

If Necromancer shouts include a lot of Taunt, that might have good group support by gathering opponents in a small area for nuking. Of course, without a lot of sustainability the Necro dies, too.

Anchoku.8142:

If Necromancer shouts include a lot of Taunt, that might have good group support by gathering opponents in a small area for nuking. Of course, without a lot of sustainability the Necro dies, too.

We wont be getting taunt.

See
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9691/Guild-Wars-2-Jon-Peters-on-the-Reaper-Elite-Spec.html

Muchacho.2390:

Anchoku.8142:

If Necromancer shouts include a lot of Taunt, that might have good group support by gathering opponents in a small area for nuking. Of course, without a lot of sustainability the Necro dies, too.

We wont be getting taunt.

See
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9691/Guild-Wars-2-Jon-Peters-on-the-Reaper-Elite-Spec.html

Well, Poo. Thanks for the link.

Necros are getting Vampiric Aura and ressing Transfusion plus more offensive support. All I need.

My hope, i l put it here: Necro Commander → stab or/+defiance. 2 class is boring

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Aenesthesia.1697:

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

They won’t even give us sustain for ourselves, why would they give us group-wide sustain? lolz

I suppose it’s because it would be op. But it doesn’t have to. Just make it so only 10% of the health siphoned actually heals you, and there you are: a powerful group damage boost that also sustains a bit while burning the enemy, and necros would be a thing in pve.

They don’t do it because they approach every necro skill with balance in mind, but they don’ t do the same with any other profession and that’s how necros are now: useless.

Invictus.1503:

Aenesthesia.1697:

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

This exactly. When that first came out I was very excited that maybe the lifesteal build would be viable, too bad the signet’s numbers fell flat on it’s face.

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Lifesteal builds could be interesting in pvp. In pve, where damage and active defense are kings, a life steal build would either be a waste of dps (hence, unwanted) or the most op thing, if you are able to deal top damage and heal yourself on top of that.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

To a group but damage..?

I assume you’re talking PvE / Fractal wise?
In both aspects a good Necro brings the reliability of being self-sufficient and sustaining (atleast I do) without the need of group buffs or help while maintaining high DPS. The Reaper would now bring Vampiric Aura, can now really use Unholy Martyr to full affect since it helps sustain KS for upkeep of now sustained high damage w/ vuln stacking and CC of mobs. If Anet delivers on the new AI reworks coming to HoT and brings some truly challenging PvE raid like gameplay requiring the control of mobs. Reaper would play an almost neccesary part in this aspect. A self-sufficient alive dps is better than a dead or constantly downed player requiring to much help in raid or high level fractals.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Invictus.1503:

Aenesthesia.1697:

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

This exactly. When that first came out I was very excited that maybe the lifesteal build would be viable, too bad the signet’s numbers fell flat on it’s face.

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Lifesteal builds could be interesting in pvp. In pve, where damage and active defense are kings, a life steal build would either be a waste of dps (hence, unwanted) or the most op thing, if you are able to deal top damage and heal yourself on top of that.

I do just that in 40+ fractals with my Necro and am able to sustain myself without party support.

Actually, im fairly certain necros will beable to maintain high vulnerability stacks while doing max DPS with the new proposed changes. Will take some testing once it actually comes out, but with a bit of luck, yeah.

So hopefully that will put our damage inline with the newly nerfed ele. Then its a matter of: do you want an ele and fury or a necro and 25 vuln.

Granted, the meta set up for dungeons will likely become guardx2, warr, theif, other. The other will likely still be ele, but we might get close enough with damage and high vuln stacks to be an acceptable replacement.

Darwec.3784:

Actually, im fairly certain necros will beable to maintain high vulnerability stacks while doing max DPS with the new proposed changes. Will take some testing once it actually comes out, but with a bit of luck, yeah.

So hopefully that will put our damage inline with the newly nerfed ele. Then its a matter of: do you want an ele and fury or a necro and 25 vuln.

Granted, the meta set up for dungeons will likely become guardx2, warr, theif, other. The other will likely still be ele, but we might get close enough with damage and high vuln stacks to be an acceptable replacement.

True that’s what the meta would probably do, but at this point with the dungeons and fractals. Any competent player in his or her class wearing semi dps gear can speed run. Soon Necro will be able to heal you, take away conditions to sustain his KS and continually apply x25 stacks of vuln most likely. I’d say that’s pretty good.

Necros will be vuln stacking beasts in PvE now.

Muchacho.2390:

Anchoku.8142:

If Necromancer shouts include a lot of Taunt, that might have good group support by gathering opponents in a small area for nuking. Of course, without a lot of sustainability the Necro dies, too.

We wont be getting taunt.

See
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9691/Guild-Wars-2-Jon-Peters-on-the-Reaper-Elite-Spec.html

Oh interresting, I thought they previously said that the necromancer’s elite spec would come from Marjory, but in fact it’s a Traherne thingy

JP: The origin of the Reaper is tied to a variety of elements in the history of Tyria. Who is to say which came first the Chicken (Trahearne) or the Egg (Reapers)

KashimKudal.2961:

Darwec.3784:

Actually, im fairly certain necros will beable to maintain high vulnerability stacks while doing max DPS with the new proposed changes. Will take some testing once it actually comes out, but with a bit of luck, yeah.

So hopefully that will put our damage inline with the newly nerfed ele. Then its a matter of: do you want an ele and fury or a necro and 25 vuln.

Granted, the meta set up for dungeons will likely become guardx2, warr, theif, other. The other will likely still be ele, but we might get close enough with damage and high vuln stacks to be an acceptable replacement.

True that’s what the meta would probably do, but at this point with the dungeons and fractals. Any competent player in his or her class wearing semi dps gear can speed run. Soon Necro will be able to heal you, take away conditions to sustain his KS and continually apply x25 stacks of vuln most likely. I’d say that’s pretty good.

Unless they take future content away from being DPS meta and make non-dps support classes relevant, max vuln + max dps is the way to go for a necro, unfortunately.

By this i mean: all content thus far in the game is stack and burn and dodge incoming damage. None of it requires regen or heals of that sort. Necros support comes in the form of small semi-frequent heals, not in the form of immunes and blocks, so it doesnt fit this meta. The only time a play style like this becomes useful is when you’re in a group thats not experienced enough to dodge small damage properly.

So unless they can make necros support style relevant, it wont matter. And if you look at their track record, if you look at the type of game anet is trying to make, this seems unlikely. They intentionally made a game that doesnt require tanks or healers.

KashimKudal.2961:

Aenesthesia.1697:

Invictus.1503:

Aenesthesia.1697:

If only signet of vampirism was buffed tenfold, we would have the offensive support we need to be viable in pve

This exactly. When that first came out I was very excited that maybe the lifesteal build would be viable, too bad the signet’s numbers fell flat on it’s face.

I really hope to see a boost in lifesteal and shouts that spread lifesteal out will happen. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Lifesteal builds could be interesting in pvp. In pve, where damage and active defense are kings, a life steal build would either be a waste of dps (hence, unwanted) or the most op thing, if you are able to deal top damage and heal yourself on top of that.

I do just that in 40+ fractals with my Necro and am able to sustain myself without party support.

oh, i used to take my necro to fractals. Stopped. First, you don’t deal top damage, just reasonable damage if people don’t melee (if they do it like pros and melee the bosses, then necro falls way back in the dps meter).

Just to give you an idea of how bad the dps of the necro is, i took my elementalist for a fractal 50 run. It was my first time with the ele in fractals, and my first time using the dagger/focus build, since i usually run staff or scepter/dagger for speed clears.

The dps i could dish was unthinkable with the necro. And the worst part is, I didn’t even have to stay at melee range all the time.

Second, ok, you can sustain yourself, boo ha! So what? if everybody ends up dead then it’s no use. If everybody doesn’t die then you didn’t do anything special. That’s why necros are considered trash in pve. The only useful things i found for fractals are the blinds, and the reasonably high ranged damage with the hybrid build, for when people don’t feel like bursting down bosses at melee range.

Balekai.6083:

Atherakhia.4086:

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

List the available support the class brings that is applicable on your generic boss encounter in a dungeon.

I think that was sort of his point. “Generic boss encounters” are going to be restricted to older PvE content and Fractals (although less so with Fractals due to new Frac content being added and the existing ones being easy to rework to HoT style PvE). Dungeons are pretty much a thing of the past as the focus becomes open world wvw-esk maps (minus the player vs player of course).

In HoT, Anet seems to be striving to make all forms of support more useful with better PvE mechanics that we can take advantage of, like more opportunities for condi/boon manipulation. So he’s basically saying if you want to might stack as support play a might stacking class in old dungeons while he enjoys his alterative support in newer content.

Whether that argument will be truthful remains to be seen, but better PvE AI and mechanics could make us more meta without might stacks, fury access and the works.

No, the point he was trying to make was the Necro was fine in PvE because the utility the class provides isn’t as blatant as might or fury stacks.

Unfortunately, he’s completely wrong and the class provides no viable utility and his only rebuttle was for me to reroll.

The only utility the class provides is vuln stacks, something that aren’t uncommon and are quite easy to stack.

The argument that PvE is going to change is also nonsensical. Fractals, dungeon runs, and world bosses is still going to be the top end PvE content in this game regardless if ANet releases new dungeons or not. Dungeons will continue to be the best money. Fractals will continue to be the only challenging content. World Bosses will continue to be the only encounters with useful loot. In these areas, the Necromancer is at the bottom of the barrel and nothing we’ve seen has changed that.

No one cares if Necros aren’t kicked out of SW or DT, which is where HOT PvE is headed. No one is kicked out of there and people can afk and turn #1 on auto to provide enough to carry their own weight. It’s also not challenging content and is all zone wide zergs, just like what HoT will provide.

Atherakhia.4086:

Balekai.6083:

Atherakhia.4086:

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

List the available support the class brings that is applicable on your generic boss encounter in a dungeon.

I think that was sort of his point. “Generic boss encounters” are going to be restricted to older PvE content and Fractals (although less so with Fractals due to new Frac content being added and the existing ones being easy to rework to HoT style PvE). Dungeons are pretty much a thing of the past as the focus becomes open world wvw-esk maps (minus the player vs player of course).

In HoT, Anet seems to be striving to make all forms of support more useful with better PvE mechanics that we can take advantage of, like more opportunities for condi/boon manipulation. So he’s basically saying if you want to might stack as support play a might stacking class in old dungeons while he enjoys his alterative support in newer content.

Whether that argument will be truthful remains to be seen, but better PvE AI and mechanics could make us more meta without might stacks, fury access and the works.

No, the point he was trying to make was the Necro was fine in PvE because the utility the class provides isn’t as blatant as might or fury stacks.

Unfortunately, he’s completely wrong and the class provides no viable utility and his only rebuttle was for me to reroll.

The only utility the class provides is vuln stacks, something that aren’t uncommon and are quite easy to stack.

The argument that PvE is going to change is also nonsensical. Fractals, dungeon runs, and world bosses is still going to be the top end PvE content in this game regardless if ANet releases new dungeons or not. Dungeons will continue to be the best money. Fractals will continue to be the only challenging content. World Bosses will continue to be the only encounters with useful loot. In these areas, the Necromancer is at the bottom of the barrel and nothing we’ve seen has changed that.

No one cares if Necros aren’t kicked out of SW or DT, which is where HOT PvE is headed. No one is kicked out of there and people can afk and turn #1 on auto to provide enough to carry their own weight. It’s also not challenging content and is all zone wide zergs, just like what HoT will provide.

It’s a perfectly logical argument and realistic. The final result remains to be seen, but Anet is trying (based off their own statements) to make HoT content “the most challenging yet” to paraphrase. I will take them at their word for now. Silverwastes is pretty easy granted, but it is LS content not expansion content where I hope World Bosses are in between VW/Tequatl organization and Evolved Jungle Wurm.

We also have plenty of evidence of changes in the Silverwastes and less so in Dry Top. We also know about defiance changes among other things that clearly open up opportunities.

Top end content is what’s the most challenging for the sake of challenge, fun, keeping your interest while also giving top end rewards. Fractals and World bosses falls into this category. Old Dungeons do not. I don’t even think Anet has a dungeon Dev team anymore so I doubt we will see new ones (at least ones of the same vein).

What I do agree on is that Dungeons will continue to be a great source of money to buy new mats etc. and other HoT goodies off the TP instead of playing the new content (unless it’s all made account bound to keep it HoT specific). My guess is a lot of people buying HoT will actually want to play the content and get mats and new goodies directly from the source. Especially if it proves to be vastly more fun and replayable than chain dungeon running.

I was surprised to see the Silverwastes, and even more so Dry Top, actually retain full maps to this day with lots of activity. I wasn’t expecting that. People really enjoy those open world maps easy or not. I would like Necros to be designed around new challenging content that is actually fun with a unique playstyle, rather than around old content with cookie cutter-like builds that grow more stale as time goes by, around a meta that matters less and less. At least for me personally.

The only pve utility the necro provides is high weakness uptime for high level FoTM and even that is easily replaced if others carry skale venom consumables.