Guild Wars 2

Now when I say ‘worst’ i don’t mean effective wise. 2 gives regen to allies and bleeding to foes, 3 and 4 can be used as a self cross combo, and 5 is an aoe fear, so its not bad when it comes to actual game play.

The problem I have with staff necro is that It is supremely lacking in imagination and its easy to tell that this was rushed.

Excluding attack number 1(the basic attack, spec grasp or whatever) Every other staff move has the same exact animation and they are all aoe. Seriously, this reeks of lazy design. I’ll admit I have not played all the classes and know all other move sets, but my point remains clear:

Having a weapon with all of a single type of attack, (AOE, Line, Single Target, etc.) is a horrible decision. I could same the same about the main hand dagger, but that’s only 3 skills(counting basic attack) but I excuse that because that’s a one handed weapon(though improvements are required there as well) and if you have double dagger the off-hand ones hit muli targets. (one automatic, the other a large aoe.)

But the staff is just 1: Single target long range, 2: Aoe, 3: Aoe, 4: Aoe, 5: Aoe. No variety cept the types of conditions each aoe causes. Like I said, before, I’m not saying the staff is useless. Heck, its probably the most viable of all the short amount of weapons necros can use. But at least the other weapons have a variety of different skill types.

Staff 1 is the worst… has to be the slowest moving projectile in the game.

Even a Dolyak could dodge it.

Only compensation is that it can hit multiple targets.

Our staff does have the second longest range in the game (after Longbow traited for range increase), though. It says 1200, but in actuality it’s about 1420 on the auto-attack plus the mark radius can go beyond that 1200 nicely.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Our staff does have the second longest range in the game (after Longbow traited for range increase), though. It says 1200, but in actuality it’s about 1420 on the auto-attack plus the mark radius can go beyond that 1200 nicely.

If I saw you extended the range out for staff 1 necro past 1200 I would report you for exploiting. The range is 1200.

Did you guys even bother reading my post before responding? Its not about how effective it is now, its that it has no variety at all.

BobJoeXXI.2493:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Our staff does have the second longest range in the game (after Longbow traited for range increase), though. It says 1200, but in actuality it’s about 1420 on the auto-attack plus the mark radius can go beyond that 1200 nicely.

If I saw you extended the range out for staff 1 necro past 1200 I would report you for exploiting. The range is 1200.

Its not an exploit if the ability does that naturally. The tool tip says 1200, but its actually farther. This can be construed as either a bug, or a tool tip error. Not an exploit.

I feel like the underlying mechanical consistency along with the skills being otherwise completely different gives the staff both a strong personality and plenty of variation.

Also, by your criteria I doubt necro staff is the worst. Take eng for example, the grenade kit is only capable of launching grenades unless I’m mistaken, that’s 6 skills if you include the belt skill (even the “auto attack” is something you must aim).

I think instead of that god awful Necrotic Grasp with it’s annoying loud/bad sound effect should be replaced by triple scythe that is on Focus (of course keep the same effect but different visual for Focus), but give it another effect, like spreading Conditions, bouncing from enemy to enemy.

Wasn’t axe rushed? Wasn’t dagger MH rushed?

Just as much as staff.

The amount of creative and technical work put into necro weapons in comparison with other professions’ weapons is absurd. Nothing new. Not gonna change.

Just reroll a warrior and let this sloppy profession die.

Cast times are way too long with staff. By the time you cast a mark, the melee guy next to you just hit you 5 times or the guy with the bow just shot you 7 times.

Couldnt agree more OP… I use the staff because it is the best AOE spamming. (I do alot dungeons so AOE is needed in my group usually)

But it has so boring animations, sounds and everything is the same kitten over and over. But then again, i have a 80 warrior, so i can just play on that char. whenever i get bored of this necro

LezardValeth.9453:

Did you guys even bother reading my post before responding? Its not about how effective it is now, its that it has no variety at all.

Necros can swap weapons, so the staff doesn’t have to be unique all by itself. It’s our Marks weapon, mainly, and Marks are a nice mechanism.

Now the #1 audio is another matter… needs to be changed!

Kravick.4906:

Its not an exploit if the ability does that naturally. The tool tip says 1200, but its actually farther. This can be construed as either a bug, or a tool tip error. Not an exploit.

Personally, I think it’s ANet’s way of allowing you to get some pierce at max range. (And by my estimate, you can go around 1500 with manual attack.) But not an exploit.

leman.7682:

Wasn’t axe rushed? Wasn’t dagger MH rushed?

Just as much as staff.

The amount of creative and technical work put into necro weapons in comparison with other professions’ weapons is absurd. Nothing new. Not gonna change.

Just reroll a warrior and let this sloppy profession die.

Necromancer is my absolute favorite class. Tried Elementalist, Engi, Warrior, Thief, and a little mesmer, and nothing comes close to my joy with Necro. It isn’t the best class for sure, but I like that it’s harder to kitten smack enemies, and the various builds while although underpowered, sure have more variety than some classes. I’ve spent about 60-70% of my time for gear and experience with juggermancer and condtionmancer, and I’m not going to let you tell me that I should make a warrior (which I have, gets boring IMO).

I do agree staff 1 could use a better audio. But hey, on their company site they said they are hiring an audio programmer

BobJoeXXI.2493:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Our staff does have the second longest range in the game (after Longbow traited for range increase), though. It says 1200, but in actuality it’s about 1420 on the auto-attack plus the mark radius can go beyond that 1200 nicely.

If I saw you extended the range out for staff 1 necro past 1200 I would report you for exploiting. The range is 1200.

With the added on AOE range of the 2-5 attacks the ranges exceeds 1200. It goes to about 1420. The auto attack does not exceed 1200 though.

TJV.6239:

BobJoeXXI.2493:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Our staff does have the second longest range in the game (after Longbow traited for range increase), though. It says 1200, but in actuality it’s about 1420 on the auto-attack plus the mark radius can go beyond that 1200 nicely.

If I saw you extended the range out for staff 1 necro past 1200 I would report you for exploiting. The range is 1200.

With the added on AOE range of the 2-5 attacks the ranges exceeds 1200. It goes to about 1420. The auto attack does not exceed 1200 though.

I believe it does. I can hit things my warrior’s rifle auto cannot, standing in the same spot.

Yes i hate staff also, the slow projectile and wow a mark oh 2 marks wait a 3rd mark? 4marks Oo, bit copy paste happy doing the staff skills huh ANET?

Looks at greatsword warrior 5 uniqe abilites looks at necro staff, 2 uniqe abilites, you should be ashamed of yourself ANET employee responsible for the necro mess!

Kinda funny they took the time to give each attunement for elementalist 5×4 uniqe staff abilites but necro had to be…just sigh.

Dont think ive ever in any game been so disappointed in a class as this gw2 necro.

Staff is pretty much our only source of AoE damage and marks are good even untraited. The only thing i would add to the staff is more direct damage on all of the skills, cos when those marks are on cd, it’s #1 spam which is, frankly, lacklustre.

Kaede.9314:

TJV.6239:

BobJoeXXI.2493:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Our staff does have the second longest range in the game (after Longbow traited for range increase), though. It says 1200, but in actuality it’s about 1420 on the auto-attack plus the mark radius can go beyond that 1200 nicely.

If I saw you extended the range out for staff 1 necro past 1200 I would report you for exploiting. The range is 1200.

With the added on AOE range of the 2-5 attacks the ranges exceeds 1200. It goes to about 1420. The auto attack does not exceed 1200 though.

I believe it does. I can hit things my warrior’s rifle auto cannot, standing in the same spot.

It can hit further than 1200, but it will not auto-attack unless you are in 1200 range from your target.

Similarly, Dark Path (DS2) can hit further than it’s 900 range, but will not track your target if it was casted out of range and it will only port you 900.

This seems to be a property that is shared with other projectiles (but not all), as you can read here. (For the record, I’m ‘Ki’ there :P)

I personally love marks but yes, autoattack is a tad slow.

LezardValeth.9453:

Now when I say ‘worst’ i don’t mean effective wise. 2 gives regen to allies and bleeding to foes, 3 and 4 can be used as a self cross combo, and 5 is an aoe fear, so its not bad when it comes to actual game play.

The problem I have with staff necro is that It is supremely lacking in imagination and its easy to tell that this was rushed.

Excluding attack number 1(the basic attack, spec grasp or whatever) Every other staff move has the same exact animation and they are all aoe. Seriously, this reeks of lazy design. I’ll admit I have not played all the classes and know all other move sets, but my point remains clear:

Having a weapon with all of a single type of attack, (AOE, Line, Single Target, etc.) is a horrible decision. I could same the same about the main hand dagger, but that’s only 3 skills(counting basic attack) but I excuse that because that’s a one handed weapon(though improvements are required there as well) and if you have double dagger the off-hand ones hit muli targets. (one automatic, the other a large aoe.)

But the staff is just 1: Single target long range, 2: Aoe, 3: Aoe, 4: Aoe, 5: Aoe. No variety cept the types of conditions each aoe causes. Like I said, before, I’m not saying the staff is useless. Heck, its probably the most viable of all the short amount of weapons necros can use. But at least the other weapons have a variety of different skill types.

Despite what people think staff as a a main set weapon is used as a support weapon, therefor it does fit it’s role well.
If you want to use it in a damage build, let’s say condition build, it is used as an offhand weapon set and it fills that role well as well because of the bleeding and combo fields.

@Nemesis.8593 So what your saying is that necro’s 2h non support weapon must have been scrapped during devolpment? Along with our cleave melee weapons :o.

Build diversity is awesome for this class huh :>

wiazabi.2549:

@Nemesis.8593 So what your saying is that necro’s 2h non support weapon must have been scrapped during devolpment? Along with our cleave melee weapons :o.

Build diversity is awesome for this class huh :>

In my opinion, they tried to make classes “play and feel different”, if they would make the staff – 2h damage dealing weapon, it would resemble a bit the elementalist. They don’t want to have same class spells in a different color with a different name and particle effect like 99% of the MMOs out there. You can see a pattern if you play more classes…
Heal boons + a bit of damage from guardian staff
Heal boons a bit of CC + a bit of damage from necromancer staff
Different form of boons from a mesmer staff…
and so on…

You can use staff into an offensive damage build, just use an MM build, and the support the staff offers keeps your minions up which in return continue doing the damage for you. Your DPS is from the minions.

This is how i see it…

@Nemesis.8593 It’s still a problem or boring if you ask me that necro is the only class who doesnt get 5 uniqe abilites but 2. Play and feel different doesnt work if they have 4 abilites thats a copy/paste of oneanother.

And if we wanna take guardian staff as example
Guardian
1 : Cone aoe 600 range
2 : Slow moving orb that can be detonated on 2nd click range 1200
3 : Ground target aoe , swiftness allies , dmg enemies , lightfield
4 : Channel might to yourself and allies , heal allies nearby when ends.
5 : Create a line infront of you that foes cannot cross.

5 Very very uniqe abilites.

Necro staff

1: SLOWWW piercing projectile, gives LF on hit.
2 : Mark , bleed on enemies , regen allies
3 : Mark , Chill poison , combofield poison
4 : Mark , Transfer condition from allies to enemies , blast finisher.
5 : Mark , aoe fear 1sec.

Why are we the only class in the entire game who needed to have weaponset with 2 different abilites ? unless the class was rushed.

MM build is still not worth it while the AI still doesnt work proper + no out of combat regen + no proper minion scaling + minions die incredible easy and cooldowns first activates on their death making their cooldown the number showed + time they managed to somehow survive.

Spell effects is pretty much alot of copypaste if you look at em most is just a tiny change in color or different icon on the ground. If you wanted to see some really awesome looking and uniqe effects from the different abilites you should have seen the stuff they made in DAOC , mjollnir aoe hammers , aoe spears from runemasters , imploding balls (eldritch), fireballs from wizards , theugist pets , paladin chants.

Could go on but point is still why should it today always be acceptable to be given a half class that feels so rushed and contain a crazy amount of bugs + lazy copypaste work and ontop of it all there is almost 0 communication about where they are taking the class what kinda changes to expect , if when there is gonna be drastic changes.

Its strange but i feel like the necro staff is the most “caster” of any of the caster classes i have played.

The biggest problem I have is with the flight speed of the missile. If it was anything like the bow, rifle or elementalist fireball it would be in the right place.

An even bigger problem is that marks can only be triggered by creatures and not structures – which essentially breaks the staff AoE usefulness versus any other weapon (it’s unique in its inability to aoe structures).

I actually think the staff is unique BECAUSE all of its abilities are AOE ground target marks. I really enjoy that aspect of the staff and it is the reason that I went with a staff necromancer as my alt. No other weapon in any class offers this type of game play.

I do agree that the animation could differ between the marks more, to make the abilities more visually appealing. Mechanic-wise, however, I don’t feel that the design is “lazy”, just different.

Thats right “downwithdragons” the staff is uniqe becuase all but 1 ability is an aoe mark but the staff skills arent uniqe because all but 1 ability is an aoe mark.

I understand where you are coming from wiazabi, I just don’t agree that its a bad thing to have a weapon that is almost exclusively aoe marks.

I don’t think the reason our staff is the way it is because of rushed production. I think it is by design. I prefer to have weapons “feel” different and the necromancer staff is very different from any other weapon out there. I like the play style that the staff offers and use it as my primary weapon. I’m not saying it is a powerful weapon or not, just that having access to all those AOE marks and grounded targeted wells makes for an enteraining and unique play style. All in my opinion, of course.

Avigrus.2871:

Staff 1 is the worst… has to be the slowest moving projectile in the game.

Even a Dolyak could dodge it.

gasp Dolyaks can dodge?

The biggest problem of Staff is 1. It doesn’t fit anything. IT depends of power while pretty much rest of the staff is about conditions. It’s slow.
It needs to be replaced with some instant hit condition aoe attack, that spread condition around targeted foe.

iniside.4736:

The biggest problem of Staff is 1. It doesn’t fit anything. IT depends of power while pretty much rest of the staff is about conditions. It’s slow.
It needs to be replaced with some instant hit condition aoe attack, that spread condition around targeted foe.

I agree with you, although i bet their premise was to make the staff the long range weapon so necromancers are not lacking maximum range. Also to give it a bit of bursting on top of the conditions just in case people decide to use staff only/staff main weapon (cause there are many) and some monsters simply do not like conditions, some monsters take 10 times more damage, in some scenarios, from bursting type damage only.

Even so i agree, make that projectile more reliable or turn it into something else.

Necro staff may have its flaws, but at least the #1 sound is so lovely and laud…

I don’t think it’s unimaginative at all.

It’s a weapon, weapons are designed to perform a function.

This one sets traps and uses a long ranged piercing attack to lure target crowds through a pathway of death.

The ar-15 rifle is “boring” too, but equally elegant in its operation and function.

Change the number 1 skill to something more useful, faster and non-power dependent, and I’ll be happy with the necro staff. I like them marks!

Hellgaunt.1734:

The biggest problem I have is with the flight speed of the missile. If it was anything like the bow, rifle or elementalist fireball it would be in the right place.

An even bigger problem is that marks can only be triggered by creatures and not structures – which essentially breaks the staff AoE usefulness versus any other weapon (it’s unique in its inability to aoe structures).

I agree. Staff1 and the inability to damage structures with staff AoEs are pretty much my only problems with Necro staff. I love the Marks because I use Dagger/Warhorn as my other weapon set and I only use 1 Well in my build, so the fact that staff gives me 4 AoEs comes in handy.

However, daggers for some reason have terrible targeting or whatever when it comes to structures and if I’m trying to destroy something like a catapult, most of my attacks miss even though I am standing next to the structure. And because structures don’t trigger staff AoEs, I am stuck standing there for 5 min, slowly whittling my target down with Staff1. Takes forever.

i agree necro staff may not be the best way to deal proper damage, although the main purpose is that it can give you the ability to hit and run. I use necro staff and when I beat an add that is 3 or 4 levels higher than me, I’m able to win while at full health. Minions can take the damage for you and you can just stand there and beat the s*it out of the mob.

Aoi Ikazuchi.8420:

Avigrus.2871:

Staff 1 is the worst… has to be the slowest moving projectile in the game.

Even a Dolyak could dodge it.

gasp Dolyaks can dodge?

LOL year may b…but skill1 staff very useful when I use Spectral-grasp mix in attack.
Enemy will not notice what is real one or fake one.

I think the staff is a bit lackluster in terms of design and damage. I dont mind having 4 marks on it. I consider it our specialized AOE weapon. But they should make it more interesting. Give a Mark an effect on a second activation. Let a temporary fleshwurm rise after a mark is triggered. Stuff like that would make the staff more interesting.

Also the build diversity and the traits are horrible: we have FOUR traits that are scattered all around all trait lines that all improve Marks marginally.

-double sized marks: is basicly a must. I feel marks should have that range by default, replace that trait with something better

-marks deal 10% more damage: really 10% more damage? our only real damage comes from staff#4, and a 10% damage increase is really really low and not worth a trait on its own.

-marks generate lifeforce when triggered: it helps a bit, most marks have a long cooldown and compared to other classes traits thats boring. combine it with the 10% Damage trait and it would be fine and justified to use it.

-staff cooldowns recharge 20% faster : only really affects marks. Its nice and noticeable, makes Staff#2 much more fun to use. But compare it to similar traits of other classes: they give a 20% lower cooldown, a second effect, OR affecting a second underwater weapon. I think this trait also should reduce Trident cooldowns, as we have not a single trait that improves our underwater combat.

Last the Autoattack: thats the REAL horrible thing and the most weak and unrealiable autoattack in the entire game. Its our our only 1200 Range weapon, it should be reliable. Look at Warriors Rifle, look at Mesmer Greatsword, both have a secondary effect, deal much more damage, and the most important point: they are RELIABLE. A Mesmer can keep us at 1200 range and deal reliable and high sustained single target damage, while easily avoiding every single necro autoattack by strafing only. Thats a real issue in my eyes.

Possible solutions:
Quick and boring:

-Projectile moves faster and homes 100% reliable.

Or for the people who want something more unique with more imagination:

-Fires 3 small projectiles deal low damage and home onto multiple targets. If the target is isolated all 3 will home onto the target.

-Would be reliable, kinda new, would benefit Lifesiphon builds well and so on.

-Traits could improve the projectiles to 5 or increase the Range to 1500.

-Could also be a channel spell, think of it as some kind of anti air battery, shooting lots of small, low damage projectiles in quick sucession while the marks are on cooldown.

-Numbers are a balance thing, but i think you can get the design idea.

-Fits the necro well – unending stream of projectiles that terrorizes foes.

-Is much more fun to use compared to a slow rubbish unrealible projectile that makes annoying sounds.