Guild Wars 2

I feel we are fine. We need bug fixes for sure, but we three scholars perform fundamentally different roles; without actually going into it too much, here’s an example:
Necromancers are tanky while applying condition pressure and removing it from themselves and having some CC.
Elementalists are high dps with high pressure, or can be tanky support with little to no pressure.
Mesmers are high dps with CC or middle road midrange with tons of utility.

I stopped reading after tanky lol. My elementalist is more tanky then you could ever be with full toughness/vitality gear and any build. Don’t even mention mesmer.

Right now, Necromancers are quite weak compared to other 2 scholars for some reasons:

1. Lack of direct damage output. Traits are awful if you want to build on high damage and the only weapon you can use is the MH Dagger spamming your autoattack. The 2 skill isn’t even worth using…
2. Death Magic traitline. Really, it is a real mess and really needs a full rework.
3. Lack of real defensive mechanic excluding DS. Right now, DS if not traited and built around it, it is quite weak as defensive mechanic and, without it, we really lack of any protection/invulnerability/stability.
4. Signets. They are the most awful thing I’ve ever seen.
5. Minions. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve played Necro for at least 2 hours.
6. Boon control is subpar compared to Mesmers.
7. Awful trait distribution. Every build you want to make, you have to do a real mess with traits because useful major traits are split around many traitlines.
8. Fear duration.

And more, but it doesn’t come in my mind right now.

I have 80 mesmer 65 necromancer and 42 elementalist. If you think we are lacking (pve) you are serious wrong. Perhaps guardian/warriors are better but they are close combat, and it must be your style of gameplay. I will always prefer mage for some reason. And Necromancer (if you know how to play it – aka kit, and build up condition damage) is by far the easiest so far. I’ve only had like 8 repairs for equipment so far. Ele + mesmer i had 200+ repairs so far, that it became so much of a problem i quit them.

Ele = you must casrt all skills (aoe) you got to get same damage as other class BUT they have incredible long cast time, making them way to slow and never catch up. This is a serious lack. Add the way to low hp and imo they are underpowered.

Mesmer is ok but clones don’t work properly in pve. Clones are illusions, distractions. Players can hit the wrong one thinking it’s you. Mobs ALWAYS attack you. Only if they by coincidance hit first they might hold agro few secs. So clones in pve tend to be useless apart from shattering. Shattering is to slow in ineffective, they run to mob and still miss the target. Aoe damage is weak. Etc. It’s not a bad profession. But necromancer is better at the same thing as mesmer, keeping your enemy distracted, and kite away. Mesmer is more of pvp class anyway.

So if you think it lacks, I must disappoint you, the others lack even more.

The Necromancer is the most “tanky” scholar; however, if you setup any class to be more durable you’re going to notice a huge difference. But, you can’t take that as a reflection of the class as a whole. The Necromancer has the most health out of almost any class, and only ties in health with the Warrior. I realize more goes into survival that just health, but having a bunch of health is a great start. Gear has a seriously big effect on effectiveness, and if you don’t gear for your intended purpose then it should be obvious that you’re going to come up short.

Necros are meant to be a cc based class . roll in put marks or wells on the ground , fear , cripple , blind , freeze . or give targets with minions so that they act as a meat shield so they get auto targeted first over the players . but tend to play the roll of support instead . and as for being a damage based class , uh no look elsewhere for that . because clearly necros are not meant for damage .

Mesmers are the true cc class and elementalist are the damage . so in the end necros get shoehorned into being the support . now how does that make us play ? depending on what you are running , the best option for necros right now is just stick with the support because we cant clearly do anything else as good or better then any other class in the game and it’s all because the class is bugged currently .

I’d like to point out a bit of a fallacy here. Necromancers aren’t the support type; if built correctly, we can deal a good amount of damage, tank a lot of damage, and hit things with status effects to whittle them down as well. I play a Minion Master Necro with a Staff/Dagger and Warhorn, switching when necessary. All my skills are taken up by minions, and so far they’ve been ripping even bosses apart in PvE, and in my brief foray into PvP they did quite well as well.

So, while I wish they’d fix the numerous issues with the Flesh Golem (grunts sound like a charr, it rushes off to fight everything in a 50 meter radius without letting you know first, andit has no walking animation, which is weird for the elite skill because all the other minions have a walking animation other than the wurm) I wouldn’t say that Necromancers are weak. I’ve also been able to work out a very good condition build which can murderize enemies very quickly. We’re not looking at a support type here when we can do damage like I’ve been doing.

With my Necro, I haven’t had problems beating Elementalists and Mesmers in sPvp.

Generally, Necros have the initiative when fighting any class (if you use marks).

As is always the case I believe it depends on which profession fits your playstyle. I have made all 3 of the scholars mentioned and I feel the Necro is the strongest. Tanky, deals tons of damage with plenty of utility.