Guild Wars 2

Anet, will you make the necessary changes to make Necromancers practically viable (and not just theoretically viable) in PvE, tPvP, or WvW through the Core Specializations before the expansion?

a simple yes or no and some quick bullet points on why will suffice so i know whether or not my efforts to get Necromancers some parity in viability is something i should even bother with.

(WvW main)
@WvW viability:
Necros, as long as they have Death Perception, will be a core part of the WvW meta. The sheer amount of damage they put out with this 1 trait alone cannot be ignored in terms of a zerg group.

I can’t speak for after the reaper hits but I’m guess all zerk or valk/zerk will be the meta until the xpac hits with lines: Spite, Soul Reaping, Blood Magic.

I know exotics/ascended is a sore point for people atm but you can get karma gear in Orr plus the TP that would allow you to approach the core build for all-in-all about 20-30g + a few 100k karma.

My question to you is, why are they not viable in PvP and WvW? What exactly makes them unviable to you?

Dirame.8521:

My question to you is, why are they not viable in PvP and WvW? What exactly makes them unviable to you?

in PvP they only bring damage and very limited soft CC some of which is being gged with next week’s patch. due to Shoutbow being meta and instant press and forget condi clear, condi Necros are not viable. MM Necros though while being cheese are also not viable in Ranked play. Power Necros as well are not viable in high ranked play unless they are baby-sat and even then they are a liability due to their inability to handle focus fire due to limited evades, no blocks, kittenty access to stab, etc

as for WvW, they are only viable in zergs, roaming is so much harder as a Necro due to limited in and out of combat mobility and with the nerfing of soft cc on leaps, professions losing to you will just disengage, reset and come back and kill you while you are looking at your cooldown timers waiting so you can actually fight back.

Dirame.8521:

My question to you is, why are they not viable in PvP and WvW? What exactly makes them unviable to you?

I don’t know about WvW since I don’t ever touch that garbage, but in PvP necros are just weak compared to every other class, with very few exceptions. I’ll point out my favorites:

Complete lack of stability
Sure, we have a stun break/ 2s of stability on entering DS but that requires us to trait into a GM trait while there are far better choices everywhere else. Lich Form applies one stability for 3s every 3s which is useless when fighting a thief, mesmer, warrior, engi, ranger, guardians, and even other necros because you just spam CC on them until the timer wears off. Plague form is a little better but still only 3 stacks of stab per 3s which, granted, is the same as rampage on the warrior but rampage has movement abilites and do we even need to compare the difference in damage between the two? Ha. Not to mention our other 3 stun breaks are all on at least 40s cooldown, while EVERY OTHER CLASS has 1) far more stun breaks and 2) stun breaks on a lower cooldown. our only other source of stability is on well of power which is on a 50s cooldown and only applies ONE SECOND of stability.

What’s the point of fears anymore?
Now this is more a personal problem, but something i feel the need to bring up. It feels like 90% of the time when i try to fear someone they are suddenly immune to fear or i just blew a cooldown trying to fear them for no reason. Engis are the worst because of Transmute (Incoming conditions have a chance to convert into boons, even though the chance is 100%) but then to add insult to injury when i fear them again they now have a stack of stability on them so i just blew all of my CC on them for nothing. Commence engi kb domination. This is just one example, but EVERY other class can shrug off our fears as though its nothing. And no one can argue for the terrormancer build because that is no longer viable.

General lack of utility skills outside of Condi builds
I don’t really feel the need to explain this since all of our self support skills are on ridiculously long cooldowns, our wells are just silly (you can walk out of them), minions are broken STILL (2 years waiting for a fix), corruptions just got a nerf (apply an extra condition onto yourself) but HEY maybe shouts won’t suck.

No life force at the start of a PvP match
Not a huge issue but one I think i’d like to bring up. Every other class starts a round of PvP with the ability to use their class abilities. Sure, you can slot your expendable minions to give yourself a lifeforce boost at the start, but now you’re stuck using 1-3 useless minions for the rest of the match. You could trait a spectral skill and pop it as soon as you get into combat but then you’ve just burned a stun break on a 40-50s cooldown to get on par with your adversary. So, unless you’re moving in a group (to be fair you should be doing this anyways depending on your build) you’re at half power until your team can carry you and kill someone.

Minion builds
See above, they’re just broken and completely unreliable. Not to mention if we are transformed (i.e. moa morph) they ALL GO ON COOLDOWN. So, potentially a heal, three utilities, and an elite all go on cooldown. Name another class that has that problem. Please, humor me.

Ranged damage
Our two main sources of ranged damage are staff and life blast while in DS. I’d love to see a necro take out another player at range using only the staff. Try range fighting a warrior or thief or ele or engi or ranger with a staff. Life blast: really? Sure it hits hard but it’s super telegraphed and stupid slow. Just walk away from it or go around a corner. Or better yet, spam CC because we can’t break out of it while in DS.

Now, with less heals!
The necro healing skills are just laughable now with the consume conditions nerf. Blood fiend (when it works) is just unreliable for a heal because it just gets AoE’d to death and you’re of all sources of significant healing. Signet of Vampirism, get healed when you take damage (what? lol) or apply a stack of life drains that ANYONE can use. so you could be healing your minions, an idiot ranger on your team, or even a stupid NPC hitting the target. Right. Well of Blood wouldn’t be too bad, if it wasn’t on a 40s cooldown (32s traited i believe?) but even then it only heals 6640 (base) and that’s only if you stand in it. Consume conditions now applies 10 stacks of vulnerability on yourself for using it and had it’s cooldown increased by 20%, from 25s to 30s. Not to mention if you’re using a condi/corruption build it will also apply a SECOND condition on yourself. So, after using the healing skill you are now able to take back the damage you just healed in just as little time.

These are just some of my favorites, but i’m sure there are others. i’m leaving out a few specific scenarios but this encompasses the majority of my issues. I can’t go into specifics but whatever necros CAN do every other class can do it better.

Odeezee.7362:

Dirame.8521:

My question to you is, why are they not viable in PvP and WvW? What exactly makes them unviable to you?

in PvP they only bring damage and very limited soft CC some of which is being gged with next week’s patch. due to Shoutbow being meta and instant press and forget condi clear, condi Necros are not viable. MM Necros though while being cheese are also not viable in Ranked play. Power Necros as well are not viable in high ranked play unless they are baby-sat and even then they are a liability due to their inability to handle focus fire due to limited evades, no blocks, kittenty access to stab, etc

This might change with the new traits in Blood magic if people aren’t stuck trying to make their old builds work.

Fact is, people need to start thinking like the Warriors and Guardians. Warriors haven’t used their Strenght line in ages, Guardians don’t even touch Zeal, why are we so adamant about using Spite? Because of some procs?
I mean just look at the current Mediguard. If you wanted to deal damage, those traits are in no way the traits you should take but they took them and they are viable in the meta somehow after years of people saying Hammer isn’t viable, Mediguard isn’t viable etc etc.

Odeezee.7362:

as for WvW, they are only viable in zergs, roaming is so much harder as a Necro due to limited in and out of combat mobility and with the nerfing of soft cc on leaps, professions losing to you will just disengage, reset and come back and kill you while you are looking at your cooldown timers waiting so you can actually fight back.

This is true. I guess Reaper might remedy that somewhat.

Dirame.8521:

[…] why are we so adamant about using Spite? Because of some procs?

The answer is acually quite simple. We dont have the sustain to play the long game against most meta builds. So our best chance is to kill fast. And spite simply happens to be one of the better traitlines for that.

Dirame.8521:

Odeezee.7362:

Dirame.8521:

My question to you is, why are they not viable in PvP and WvW? What exactly makes them unviable to you?

in PvP they only bring damage and very limited soft CC some of which is being gged with next week’s patch. due to Shoutbow being meta and instant press and forget condi clear, condi Necros are not viable. MM Necros though while being cheese are also not viable in Ranked play. Power Necros as well are not viable in high ranked play unless they are baby-sat and even then they are a liability due to their inability to handle focus fire due to limited evades, no blocks, kittenty access to stab, etc

This might change with the new traits in Blood magic if people aren’t stuck trying to make their old builds work.

Fact is, people need to start thinking like the Warriors and Guardians. Warriors haven’t used their Strenght line in ages, Guardians don’t even touch Zeal, why are we so adamant about using Spite? Because of some procs?
I mean just look at the current Mediguard. If you wanted to deal damage, those traits are in no way the traits you should take but they took them and they are viable in the meta somehow after years of people saying Hammer isn’t viable, Mediguard isn’t viable etc etc.

Odeezee.7362:

as for WvW, they are only viable in zergs, roaming is so much harder as a Necro due to limited in and out of combat mobility and with the nerfing of soft cc on leaps, professions losing to you will just disengage, reset and come back and kill you while you are looking at your cooldown timers waiting so you can actually fight back.

This is true. I guess Reaper might remedy that somewhat.

This post, and the post above it are 100% gold. You guys nailed it. Dirame, the idea that warriors/guardians don’t need to trait for damage (i.e., go into the power line) is really insightful and thought provoking. I will point out, however, that guardians have a leg up: they don’t need to trait into Zeal for damage because their damage modifiers are naturally high on the canonical “burst” skills. Look at GS 2, Hammer 2, Mace 3, Torch 4, Focus 5—a medi guard can be bursty with ~2.1k power (just a power rune and zerker amu) because of the inherent “fast cast” (except GS 2) and high damage coefficients these skills offer. Necro doesn’t really have anything comparable—[perhaps] because of its vampiric traits (i.e., the way the class was designed), it relies on long-lasting but with numerous fast-hitting skills. Life blast is probably the closest thing, but it isn’t burst.

The bottom line is that the dev’s never intended necro’s to be bursty, but to be an attrition class. The current meta requires some kind burst (unless you’re some kind of support role, which necro cannot fulfill). As a result, necro’s are kind of “forced” to go full into power. Unfortunately, their burst fundamentally isn’t as impressive as the other classes, and they can’t stand any focus. You can start to see the problem.

TLDR: If Necro wants notable “burst”, the best way is through traiting into power for spinal shivers, whereas classes like guardian can trait defensively to cover their weaknesses because their weapon skills are inherently bursty.