Guild Wars 2

Was my thread deleted? I got a strange message and I wasn’t being profane in anyway.

Lily.1935:

Was my thread deleted? I got a strange message and I wasn’t being profane in anyway.

I guess not. So strange.

Corpses as a “resource” needed to go. You were useless in any kind of PvP that wasn’t FA, JQ, or ABs, and even then you were incredibly weak until you took 2 AI controlled camps or rolled through another group. PvE certain types of minion builds (mostly ones that focused on Death Nova or the hero controlled discord way) were far too powerful in some areas, and then absolute crap in others; there was never middle ground, you were either trainwrecking content or doing nothing. This was okay in GW1 because they had a lot more skills and so if a few were useless then whatever, but we can’t have 2 entire types of our skills useless in a lot of content.

Bhawb.7408:

Corpses as a “resource” needed to go. You were useless in any kind of PvP that wasn’t FA, JQ, or ABs, and even then you were incredibly weak until you took 2 AI controlled camps or rolled through another group. PvE certain types of minion builds (mostly ones that focused on Death Nova or the hero controlled discord way) were far too powerful in some areas, and then absolute crap in others; there was never middle ground, you were either trainwrecking content or doing nothing. This was okay in GW1 because they had a lot more skills and so if a few were useless then whatever, but we can’t have 2 entire types of our skills useless in a lot of content.

except necromancer could do allot more then just summon minions. This was only a small number of builds. And I do agree that wells shouldn’t be effected by this, minions on the other hand lose allot of flavor because of this. They also lose allot of their use(By allot I mean almost all) by not being spammable.

Also, the MM wasn’t needed for any area. I’ve run powerful group builds that didn’t use a MM at all. It was also a very tempting option to take. The necromancer of GW1 wasn’t broken by any stretch of the imagination. The Mesmer fixed that(for those who don’t know, quite a few necromancer skills where nerfed because of other professions that used it better then the necromancer). The necromancer was just an all around good profession. To really see who was broken in GW1, just look at the professions that where required to easily farm areas. Aka, mostly the monk and Assassin.

You also have to remember that combat in GW1 was much quicker then it is in GW2. Fights where decided within the first second where as in GW2 the fight can swing much easier. So it may seem that Minions just steamrolled everything, that really isn’t the case. That was more the way the game was designed and had little to nothing to do with how the minions functioned.

Lily.1935:

Why can’t I use corpses to summon minions?

Because it’s a mechanic that becomes more restrictive than it is interesting.

Softspoken.2410:

Lily.1935:

Why can’t I use corpses to summon minions?

Because it’s a mechanic that becomes more restrictive than it is interesting.

I disagree. I STRONGLY disagree. I find that putting all my minions on a very long cool down that doesn’t even trigger until after the minion has died is far far more restricted then requiring a corpse.

(Edited to be an actual response, rather than a botched edit to my first post)

I wouldn’t call the minion recharges long, honestly. Especially in comparison to almost any other necromancer utility skill.

I’m going to go on record that this thread was more interesting the first time I read it, but I hope this one can manage to create interesting discussion somehow.

You have to admit that GW1 got a little out of control once you realized that an Assassin was the best tank, an E/Mo Elementalist was the best bonder, and a BiP Necro was the best for team energy regen. The 2 builds that screamed Necro in GW1, the MM and the lifesteal necro, just aren’t as good in GW2.

The main complaint I have with GW2 Necro is that it isn’t as versatile as the other scholar professions, the Mesmers and Elementalists.

I just wish that the necro would have A skill that could be used for Offense, Defense or Utility like some of the many skills from Mesmer and Elementalist Profession.

Only 2 minion skills are on longer than a 30 second CD, one of them is an elite, and the other is going to be 32 seconds in most minion builds (with CD reduction trait).

Minions were a really fun build in GW1, but the base mechanics were not done well; they were made fun by skills like death nova and jagged bones that made them a very difficult and rewarding experience to play. But don’t even try to tell me that if you were in AB and you didn’t wet yourself a little when you saw an MM fully loaded up with 10 minions charging you down.

It wasn’t in a good place, every MM was a mini boss waiting to happen, until they achieved their transcendence to god mode they were like taking your 5 year old brother to a gang fight, and if they were finally allowed to evolve to a higher life form than any mere mortal on the enemy team had to run for their lives or surrender their pitiful existence.

Bhawb.7408:

Only 2 minion skills are on longer than a 30 second CD, one of them is an elite, and the other is going to be 32 seconds in most minion builds (with CD reduction trait).

Minions were a really fun build in GW1, but the base mechanics were not done well; they were made fun by skills like death nova and jagged bones that made them a very difficult and rewarding experience to play. But don’t even try to tell me that if you were in AB and you didn’t wet yourself a little when you saw an MM fully loaded up with 10 minions charging you down.

It wasn’t in a good place, every MM was a mini boss waiting to happen, until they achieved their transcendence to god mode they were like taking your 5 year old brother to a gang fight, and if they were finally allowed to evolve to a higher life form than any mere mortal on the enemy team had to run for their lives or surrender their pitiful existence.

It is a long cool down. You don’t just have the normal cool down you see, you also have to wait for that cool down to trigger until after you minion has died. Which means that a “mere” 20-30 seconds is a lifetime in combat. That is 20-30 seconds your damage is cut immensely. And unlike other professions, mainly the engineer, if their turrets die then they at least have a utility skill to back it up. I have problems with the turrets as well, but that is also a discussion for another topic. And the Guardian’s spirit weapons are designed to be burst damage attacks. The minions are not.

Only 2 minion skills are on longer than a 30 second CD, one of them is an elite, and the other is going to be 32 seconds in most minion builds (with CD reduction trait).

30 seconds is a pretty long time in this game. Especially for a skill that is supposed to be disposable. In combat, 30 seconds is excruciatingly long if its something you rely on for damage.

Kravick.4906:

30 seconds is a pretty long time in this game. Especially for a skill that is supposed to be disposable. In combat, 30 seconds is excruciatingly long if its something you rely on for damage.

Epidemic is the single only utility skill that we have that is on a lower CD than all our minions except our elite and Flesh Wurm, and Flesh Wurm dies the least of all our minions. By that, I’d say minions have manageable CDs.

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

30 seconds is a pretty long time in this game. Especially for a skill that is supposed to be disposable. In combat, 30 seconds is excruciatingly long if its something you rely on for damage.

Epidemic is the single only utility skill that we have that is on a lower CD than all our minions except our elite and Flesh Wurm, and Flesh Wurm dies the least of all our minions. By that, I’d say minions have manageable CDs.

Thats the point I’m trying to make. The other classes utility slots are actually filled with utility skills. Necromancers are the odd ball class and we actually have to use our utility slots for damage. There are very few attack skills with a cool down that long on other classes. If they are that long, its usually because it does a truck load of damage or offers some amazing utility along with it.

30 seconds for a basic offensive skill is extremely long by comparison.

I don’t cast a minion and then lose all my damage for 20-30 seconds, I cast my minions and then have most of my damage except for a 20-30 second interval on death. Minions work completely differently from other damage skills.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t cast a minion and then lose all my damage for 20-30 seconds, I cast my minions and then have most of my damage except for a 20-30 second interval on death. Minions work completely differently from other damage skills.

Good point. Still, 30 seconds is too long for them to be considered disposable. Especially since they do not regenerate their health in between fights. You might win your first fight with them, but as soon as the second one starts, I guarantee those minions aren’t going to last longer than a few seconds. This will severely hurt your damage.

Bone minions sit at a 16 second CD, and are the only ones you will be actively disposing of often during a fight. Shadow Fiend/Bone Fiend both sit at 24 seconds, and Bone Fiend can be kept alive very nicely with proper aggro management (making sure you engage back away from where you fight). Flesh Wurm pretty much never dies until you activate him, and then Flesh Golem is going to die, but frankly he needs to die with how strong he is. They aren’t going to be dying often enough that they need really short CDs (they sit around 10k HP if I remember correctly) except bone minions, who do have that short CD.

As for the second fight, all but 1 of your minions in the standard minion build (Shadow Fiend is rarely used) can be “refreshed” by killing them off, which works fine unless you are expecting a fight right away. Although I tend to think they they should have out of combat regeneration added in.

I have to say..
Playing exclusively as a necro, it takes some time to really understand their capabilities. Necros are quite viable especially in tpvp where people say otherwise.
Necro’s are just not straight forward. They dont spam a single skill to get a kill. They require some practice and for all the variety in build options it can be difficult to find one that suits your play-style.
I wont argue that some of the other classes have some perks. The ele is getting fixed, so i hear. The game is still a bit new and if you dig deep enough and play around with the necro enough you might realize as many have that they are not terrible.

The necro’s only real downer for me is DS. I don’t mind it as much as I have and enjoy using it. Though maybe after some time Anet might give it some bling.

TheDevice.2751:

I have to say..
Playing exclusively as a necro, it takes some time to really understand their capabilities. Necros are quite viable especially in tpvp where people say otherwise.
Necro’s are just not straight forward. They dont spam a single skill to get a kill. They require some practice and for all the variety in build options it can be difficult to find one that suits your play-style.
I wont argue that some of the other classes have some perks. The ele is getting fixed, so i hear. The game is still a bit new and if you dig deep enough and play around with the necro enough you might realize as many have that they are not terrible.

The necro’s only real downer for me is DS. I don’t mind it as much as I have and enjoy using it. Though maybe after some time Anet might give it some bling.

Careful, you might get banned for saying half of this

I’m sorry, but I laughed when I read Kravik saying that Ranger pets are better than Necro minions. I’ll say this now, while it’s true the Ranger pet heals itself outside of battle and that can help quite a bit, the problem is that the AI for it is so horrible that the pet itself is a joke. Not to mention most people ignore the pet and aim straight for the player, which is easy to do since you only have to avoid 1 thing, compared to 4. I’d rather have your 4 minions than my pet, especially since those 4 minions can keep people occupied long enough for the necro to kill the opponent (it’s how I keep losing to necros in 1v1 in WvW, especially since they keep hitting for decent damage). The Ranger pet, however…you’re lucky if anybody aims for it. <_<

Also, Necro’s not the worst class to play as. If anything, it requires some skill, similar to Engineer and Ranger (and surprisingly I’m starting to like necro as much as my ranger because of some of the similarities they have for my playstyle).

RyuDragnier.9476:

I’m sorry, but I laughed when I read Kravik saying that Ranger pets are better than Necro minions. I’ll say this now, while it’s true the Ranger pet heals itself outside of battle and that can help quite a bit, the problem is that the AI for it is so horrible that the pet itself is a joke. Not to mention most people ignore the pet and aim straight for the player, which is easy to do since you only have to avoid 1 thing, compared to 4. I’d rather have your 4 minions than my pet, especially since those 4 minions can keep people occupied long enough for the necro to kill the opponent (it’s how I keep losing to necros in 1v1 in WvW, especially since they keep hitting for decent damage). The Ranger pet, however…you’re lucky if anybody aims for it. <_<

Also, Necro’s not the worst class to play as. If anything, it requires some skill, similar to Engineer and Ranger (and surprisingly I’m starting to like necro as much as my ranger because of some of the similarities they have for my playstyle).

Grass is always greener I suppose. What you describe isn’t the problem necros have, however. I wasn’t arguing the usefulness of the pets themselves like you seem to think I am. I was arguing the ability to control pets directly being more useful, and better, than what necromancers currently have. Its actually getting necromancer pets to attack is the problem, not the pets themselves. If you’re new to using necro minions you’ll run into this problem eventually. Especially the melee minions. The ranged ones don’t have this problem for whatever reason. People say its because of pathing, but I’ve had them bug out on completely flat terrain just as much.

Pet AI is bad across the board and isn’t exclusive to necromancers. We just see it more often because we cannot directly control them. Unlike Mesmers, whos clones/phantasms will stick to its target like glue until it dies, necro minions have a habit of randomly losing aggro and standing around, not doing anything. Flesh Golem is very prone to doing this for some reason. Rangers never see it as badly as we do because they have a simple override function in the ability to tell their pet to attack. Once a ranger sends his pet on you, especially in tPvP, they stick to you like glue for the most part. I’ve had ranger pets chase me all the way from one point to another in tPvP, well beyond what people would consider normal aggro range. Extremely annoying and keeps me in combat, preventing me from regenerating.

Now if the ranger pets themselves are useless or have bad in combat functionality, I don’t know. Don’t have a ranger. Just know from observation that when a ranger pet is sent after me, they never drop aggro unless I kill them. Its easy to bug out necro minions if you know how to do it. I do it all the time on my thief by abusing stealth. Getting the necro pets to reengage mid fight is often problematic for necromancers.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I’m sorry, but I laughed when I read Kravik saying that Ranger pets are better than Necro minions. I’ll say this now, while it’s true the Ranger pet heals itself outside of battle and that can help quite a bit, the problem is that the AI for it is so horrible that the pet itself is a joke. Not to mention most people ignore the pet and aim straight for the player, which is easy to do since you only have to avoid 1 thing, compared to 4. I’d rather have your 4 minions than my pet, especially since those 4 minions can keep people occupied long enough for the necro to kill the opponent (it’s how I keep losing to necros in 1v1 in WvW, especially since they keep hitting for decent damage). The Ranger pet, however…you’re lucky if anybody aims for it. <_<

Also, Necro’s not the worst class to play as. If anything, it requires some skill, similar to Engineer and Ranger (and surprisingly I’m starting to like necro as much as my ranger because of some of the similarities they have for my playstyle).

I have a Ranger and a Necro and i can tell you now that from my perspective the ranger pets are light years ahead of the Necro minions.

The raven’s blinding slash is just awesome – it does huge damage…. there are so many other pet variants for different situations… the confusion on the reef drake is another great utility.

This is the way it should be as well – ranger pets should be the best bar none, and i believe that they are. Like all pets they suffer from AE damage and get wiped out easily, but that’s another issue.

Lily.1935:

If you compare the Engineer or Mesmer, Engineer would be Red/Blue, which I love the feeling of that and Mesmer would most defiantly be blue. Since the Engineer wasn’t in the first game we will talk the mesmer. The Mesmer in GW1 was blue as they come. There was no profession or anything else in any other game that actually managed to capture that blue feel. The GW2 mesmer may not be exactly like it is in GW1, but it still has a very blue feel to it which I can enjoy.

If you play or have played Magic the gathering, I hope this makes sense to you.

Interestingly enough, I only very recently picked up any familiarity with Magic after receiving a free 30-card deck from a PAX swag bag. I wanted to give it a try so my roommate and I played our decks against each other (both white) and quickly realized that neither deck could kill the other unless one side got seriously mana-hosed, and both decks had an Exiler of Immortality so the game would never end that way either. He went and made two decks out of his other cards and we played them against each other.

I guess if you want to categorized GW2 professions as broadly as all that, I guess the Mesmer would be Blue in both games but I maintain that the profession plays dramatically differently. GW1 Mesmer was more about denial. It was about telling your opponent they couldn’t do things. The GW2 Mesmer, on the other hand, is more about deception and mind games. You don’t so much provide single-target lockdown as you do sheer out-of-game confusion and general slipperiness. Mesmers in GW1 were one of the easier professions for Warriors and Assassins to kill (as long as they got the drop on them) whereas a good Mesmer is a Thief’s worst nightmare.

Conversely, I don’t see why GW2’s Necro couldn’t be grouped in with Black, given how broadly you’re throwing the net. Reading through this wiki, I gotta say, it sounds a heck of a lot more like they fit into Black than Red or White. I’ll ask my roommate tomorrow for a consult as he knows a lot more about Magic than I.

My main is a jaguar beastmaster Ranger

the big difference between the ranger pets and necro pets is you don’t have to slot anything specific to the pet if you want, or you can go all out supportive of it with skills and traits. With the necro, you can support minions through traits, but not with skills since it takes all your slots just to bring them at all. They also just have different purposes- there’s the tanky ones, or the DPS ones and so on, but if you’re a MM you get 4 secondary abilities total and can bring boon ripping, healing, poison clouds,etc.

personally i think BM ranger is more viable because you can have 3 utilities to do with what you want whereas necro just has minon abilities and weapon skills

i like the ranger pets quite a bit, and i don’t think their AI is horrible beyond the whole AOE thing, which you can usually manage around with call backs and the right skills like signet of stone

I agree w/Talentless that “this thread is so serious,” however, as new player to the profession, I find it very difficult to get my head around even the simplest talents available to the Necro.

I have 4 level 80 characters (Ranger, Guardian, Mesmer, Elementalist). I so wanted to bring my necro up as well but I find it is not as fun to play no matter what trait setup I use, as any of my other characters. In fact I am seriously thinking of discarding my necro completely.

Considering I am not necessarily a melee player, I still did try the dagger/dagger and the dagger/focus with my staff as my ranged weapon. It still feels ‘meh’ to me. I can see now why no group wants a necro when running dungeons. My ranger does better than the necro in dungeons (even without a pet).

lynspottery.6529:

I can see now why no group wants a necro when running dungeons. My ranger does better than the necro in dungeons (even without a pet).

Credibility just went to 0. Very few groups, and only those that are looking to hit the very extent of min/maxing PvE content have issues with Necros. In fact, I’ve ended up with those legendary elitist warriors a few times, and as of yet I’ve never been called out, but they’ve said things along the lines of “oh great, an engi, i’m not 4 manning a dungeon”. That isn’t to say that it will never happen, because I’m sure it does, but as long as you aren’t joining CoF farming groups that want you to ping gear and maybe super high level fractals (which you should be running with an organized group anyway) you will not find many people who take issue with Necros. Necros take far more issue with Necros than most other classes do.

After reading over and over and over again negative threads on the necromancer forum, I decided to make this thread in Wvw just to see what the community as a whole really think about necromancer : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/How-good-is-necromancer-in-Wvw/first#post1866857

And let me tell you that I was quite suprised of all the positive responses I got.

Poplolita.2638:

After reading over and over and over again negative threads on the necromancer forum, I decided to make this thread in Wvw just to see what the community as a whole really think about necromancer : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/How-good-is-necromancer-in-Wvw/first#post1866857

And let me tell you that I was quite suprised of all the positive responses I got.

I’m not surprised at all. Necromancer is an incredibly well-built class. Most of the negativity you read on the Necro forums stems from the lack of Big Numbers (Warrior Envy), lack of insane mobility (Elementalist Envy), lack of Invuln/Teleports (Mesmer Envy), and lack of “Get Out of Jail Free” cards (Thief Envy). The one class you don’t read a lot of envy over is Guardians, but that’s because Necro is basically a Guardian built backward. They heal/buff their team. We AoE/debuff the enemies. They get Heals/Aegis. We get Death Shroud/Fear.

Honestly, all they’d need to do to get rid of 90% of the crying is give Necros a Greatsword with a Charge, a Big Number skill, and a short duration Invuln/Block on a freakishly long cooldown (call it Deathly Parry or whatever). But then other players would cry because Necro was OP (and they’d probably be right).

And then there’s the monthly thread griping about how the GW1 Necro was so much better. That’s a matter of taste, really. I think the GW2 Necro is a marked improvement over the GW1 Necro, but we’re all entitled to our opinion.

PinCushion.7390:

Necromancer is an incredibly well-built class.

Opinions. I find necromancers to be haphazardly slapped together and the trait tree to be a complete mess compared to the other classes I’ve played. But again, opinions.

I don’t care about big numbers. Not my beef. My beef is the general problem of anything we can do, someone else does better. I would just like ONE THING that we are exceptional at, and asked to bring. Then there is the major problem of not being able to 1vX anything in PVP with half a brain. 1v1, whatever. 1v2, you’re dead unless you’re facing exceptionally bad (or new) players or up levels.

Regarding the WvW post, I found the comments evenly divided. Good in WvW zergs, bad or “not up to par” in everything else. Seems to be the same sentiment on these boards.

I don’t think anyone has ever complained about necros in WvW zergs. But lets be honest here. Does it really matter what you bring to a zerg?

Its necros in PvE and WvW roaming that people have always had problems with.

I’ve constantly been reading in the Ranger forums how “Rangers bring nothing to the table, everything they do another class does better…” It’s the same old song and dance, and people seem to be doing it here too, except you guys are missing the one thing necros do better than everybody else…CONDITIONS. From playing the class for the first 10 levels so far, I’m seeing more weapon skills set up for condition damage than anything else. Sure this is only the first 10 levels, but the weapon skills usually tell you exactly how a class can be set up, as can the slot skills. Speaking of which, I’ve already gotten the 2nd tier of utility skills unlocked and available to buy/look at, so I’m seeing quite a lot of skills aimed at controlling conditions like the weapons.

The people who complain “oh my necro can’t bring anything to the table” can shove it, because Necro has something it’s good at, just like Ranger.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Sure this is only the first 10 levels…

The people who complain “oh my necro can’t bring anything to the table” can shove it, because Necro has something it’s good at, just like Ranger.

Keep playing.

And rangers are right, too. Its not just necromancers with this issue either. Rangers, engineers, and necromancers are not in a good place right now. If they were, you’d see a lot of “OMG YOU GUYS ARE OP” posts and a lot more people playing these 3 classes. When was the last time you saw an engineer in a dungeon group?

Last night. 2 Engineers, 3 Rangers. We utterly destroyed all the paths of CM.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Last night. 2 Engineers, 3 Rangers. We utterly destroyed all the paths of CM.

I haven’t seen one in months outside of tPvP.

I see them all the time in dungeon parties, along with necros, other rangers, thieves, etc.

Grenade engineer is a perfectly good addition to any dungeon group—provides good vulnerability, blindness, condition removal, and decent aoe damage. I don’t know why I don’t see more of them—I did dungeon master and fractals through 30 on my engineer and only encountered maybe a handful of other engineers.

I talked to a developer ingame today. Long story short, I feel better about where Necromancer will be.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

I talked to a developer ingame today. Long story short, I feel better about where Necromancer will be.

So what did he say? You must tell us the secrets.

Necros will be fine once we get that build where every other profession has a post “how to beat an ‘insert build name here’ Necro”.

I’m not about to become the press, hopefully that way if I ever get a chance to talk to another developer ingame they won’t be like “Omg no” and give me absolute rehearsed answers.

They are surprisingly approachable, and one of the more notable things was that I stated “I feel like Necro doesn’t have enough variety in conditions” and the Dev agreed, so I don’t know if that will mean anything but hopefully it will. Bottom line, they understand the problems of Necro and Warriors.

That was a small tidbit of our convo, but I just feel more reassured and decided to try to pass along that feeling to you guys. Whether it will pay off or not, I don’t know.

Someone slap up a summary to that hogwash please? I had to stop after the third time of seeing “where” vs “were”. It just makes me think the OP has no clue WTH is going on in this game, or life in general.

Swamurabi.7890:

Necros will be fine once we get that build where every other profession has a post “how to beat an ‘insert build name here’ Necro”.

Or threads like:

OMG Nerf warriors! Hundred blades/Kill shot/Eviscerate is OP!
OMG Nerf thieves! Heartseeker/Stealth/Backstab/Mug is OP!
OMG Nerf guardians! Guardians never die!
OMG Nerf mesmers! Confusion is OP!
OMG Nerf engineers! Hundred ’nades/HGH is OP! (grated this was only in sPvP and no where else)

Yeah I got nothin for rangers.

OMG Nerf Rangers! Birds are so OP!

Blaine Tog.8304:

Lily.1935:

If you compare the Engineer or Mesmer, Engineer would be Red/Blue, which I love the feeling of that and Mesmer would most defiantly be blue. Since the Engineer wasn’t in the first game we will talk the mesmer. The Mesmer in GW1 was blue as they come. There was no profession or anything else in any other game that actually managed to capture that blue feel. The GW2 mesmer may not be exactly like it is in GW1, but it still has a very blue feel to it which I can enjoy.

If you play or have played Magic the gathering, I hope this makes sense to you.

Interestingly enough, I only very recently picked up any familiarity with Magic after receiving a free 30-card deck from a PAX swag bag. I wanted to give it a try so my roommate and I played our decks against each other (both white) and quickly realized that neither deck could kill the other unless one side got seriously mana-hosed, and both decks had an Exiler of Immortality so the game would never end that way either. He went and made two decks out of his other cards and we played them against each other.

I guess if you want to categorized GW2 professions as broadly as all that, I guess the Mesmer would be Blue in both games but I maintain that the profession plays dramatically differently. GW1 Mesmer was more about denial. It was about telling your opponent they couldn’t do things. The GW2 Mesmer, on the other hand, is more about deception and mind games. You don’t so much provide single-target lockdown as you do sheer out-of-game confusion and general slipperiness. Mesmers in GW1 were one of the easier professions for Warriors and Assassins to kill (as long as they got the drop on them) whereas a good Mesmer is a Thief’s worst nightmare.

Conversely, I don’t see why GW2’s Necro couldn’t be grouped in with Black, given how broadly you’re throwing the net. Reading through this wiki, I gotta say, it sounds a heck of a lot more like they fit into Black than Red or White. I’ll ask my roommate tomorrow for a consult as he knows a lot more about Magic than I.

Oh an interesting conversation. Well, taking the necromancer’s abilities and removing how they look we can see the underlying mechanics of how they work. If we take a few of what they do and change the style of it from being all dark to a more neutral style, but the moves still do the exact same thing we can begin to see what I’m talking about. Death shroud, in essence, is a power shield. The art of preventing something from dying and keeping things alive goes along very well with what White does.

The Minions are far more red then back and I’ll explain why. Both Red and black use their creatures to sacrifice for something. But it is more common for Red to use their creatures for damage then black. Think of goblins that go in and die. Although black can do this as well, black tends to be able to replace their creatures fairly quickly with the corpses of creatures that have died on either side of the field. On like that of red who’s creatures once they are spent they are spent. Red has a major problem with surviving the long game and wants to go about it as quick as possible. The necromancer minion’s lack of a long game plan making them feel far more red then black. I could just as easily see the GW2 minions be put under the elementalist, they would function almost exactly the same but would be elementals instead.

Even cursing has an element of red to it. Even though you are dealing with conditions the fact that a few of the traits care about conditions in the form of damage feels like a bloodthirst ability. Whcih bloodthirst falls neatly in the red side of things.

While I should point out that Blood magic feels most necromancer to me. And that is the most black of the traits you can get it still has a black white feel to it.

What really defines black is the sacrifice for power. Which the necromancer of GW1 did allot of that. GW2 necromancer sacrifices nearly nothing for its power, so its black feel is toned down almost to non-existent levels.

I like both GW1 Necro and GW2 Necro, but there are some things I miss from GW1.
I miss skills that sacrifice Health but have a very powerful effect.
I also miss GW1’s Death Nova, it was very powerful and very amusing.

I think that GW2’s Minion system will work better than GW1s as far as balancing goes.
The Minions in GW1 were either completely useless (an area with no corpses) or ridiculously powerful. (Enough corpses for max Minions on 2 or 3 Necros, Whoo!)

The Minions in GW2 have problems but they can be fixed without a complete rework of the system.
They need a better AI, everything else is fixed by changing health/damage/skills/recharge rates/traits.
At most I could see them getting some sort of AoE damage reduction or F2 skill to call them back to you or to heal or destroy them.
Blood of the Master , anyone?

As for things special to Necro in GW2:
Death Shroud.
Convert Boons into Conditions.
Convert Conditions into Boons.
Easy access to Chill and Fear.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

OMG Nerf Rangers! Birds are so OP!

No, we already got one.

OMG Nerf Rangers! Traps are so OP!

@Lily,

Well, I asked my roommate and he was adamant that the GW2 Necro would be Black. I even made him stop and reconsider but that didn’t change his opinion.

I think, ultimately, the problem this comparison runs into is that every profession is designed to be able to do everything. Thieves have a skill slot specifically dedicated to healing. Does that make them White? Guardians have burning on their attacks but that doesn’t make them Red. A Magic deck is going to be specialized by necessity but ANet designed GW2 so that you could run with a support Warrior, a DPS Guardian, and a tank Elementalist if you wanted. Just because a class can buff doesn’t mean it’s “White.” It means it has elementals of all five card types.

Now I don’t know enough about Magic to argue point-by-point why X Necro mechanic is or isn’t Black, but I will say this: in a game that seems determined to take away as many costs as possible (no mana management whatsoever, most abilities allow you to keep moving while casting, almost everything can be traited to have a lower cooldown, etc), the Necro still has abilities that incur negative effects on themselves as part of their use (Corruptions).

Additionally, I can’t think of any other professions that work so hard to punish their enemies for buffing themselves. Other professions, such as the Mesmer, have boon stripping but the Necro can turn boons into conditions and then spread those conditions like crazy.

Necro minions are also decidedly disposable: the Necro transfers his own conditions to them, has two minion types he explicitly destroys, has no ways of buffing them directly, and can trait for them to steal life for him, explode with poison on death, and rip boons off foes.

Finally, Necros aren’t, by and large, about beating people to death with big spiky numbers. They’re about attrition, about doing nasty things to them over and over until they die, which sure sounds like Black Magic to me. White is more about becoming so big you can just steamroll your opponents while Red is about direct attacks, neither of which really describe the Necro in GW2. If anything, that sounds a lot more like certain Necro builds in GW1.

But again, I’m not saying the Necro doesn’t do some white things and some red or blue things. I’m saying they do everything, because everyone does everything in this game. The challenge is finding a build that does what you want it to do at the level you want it done.

The only class that is currently broken in an OP state is Mesmers. All others can be killed equally depending on player skill.

Fun reading.

Trying to contribute a bit, too.

First things first, there are a lot of GW1 veterans who claim that necro is lackluster (or downright bad). Harsh truth is, GW1 and GW2 are not the same.

I have mained a necro since pre-release. I decided on this as soon as the class was announced. I also decided on my weaponsets then, which happened to be dagger-dagger / staff. Since that time, I’ve managed to get all professions to 80, tackle various aspects in this game, experimented a lot with various builds. After all this, I still end up playing my necromancer the most, in PvE and PvP. I have done most of the dungeons on necromancer and I am yet to see someone complain about it.

Yes, I’ve had some doubt from time-to-time on my ability to contribute compared to other professions, but this has been mainly influenced by the general attitude in the forums, map chat, etc. However, I still feel necromancer is one of the best professions in GW2, for me.

I play Necro a lot, mine is on lvl80 and i run it with full condition build. With blood is power and epidemic. It is pretty awesome. I can easily stack 15-20 stacks of blood, poison, vulnerability, weakness and use epidemic. I heal up my guildmates with well of blood and give them a short protection. It is a very good build and utterly versatile. With a few minor trait changes, I do very fine in WvW. I don’t get the complaints.

I also played GW1 the past 7 years and the necro was different, but I never felt the new necro is bad. The minions need some work, but otherwise, everything is fine. The damage (with conditions), utility and survivability is quite good (i use full rabid exotic gear and some ascended trinkets).

It just seems, that about 90% just don’t get that the necromancer isn’t about direct damage but an absolut boss in applying conditions. Make EVERYTGHIG to apply a kittenload of conditions. I manage to apply 15-20 blood ticks, each blood one does around 150-1kittenage with buffs etc. You can – if traited in corrruptions – use epidemic quite often and the bleeding lasts (as i am traited for this) for very long, usually 20-30 seconds.

As a comparison, I have a Guardian bunker build – all with extoic/ascedned stuff. OK this one isn’t intended for damage, but for healing. Of course the necro outdamages him. My Mesmer however is insane, single target damage with duelist and warden + applying conditions like bleeding and confusion through the glamour combo fields is very nice. On the other hand, this build is full glass cannon and i need to rely on my phantasms, who are easily wiped through aoe.

Ppl simply forget that damage over time constantly is way more reliable than a full berseker warrior who has to dodge and rely on other classes (ie Guardian) to stay alive. A dead player does 0 damage.

Thing is that direct damage stacks to infinity. Conditions hit a brick wall at 25 stacks, if they stack at all. And they are only really reliable because the AI is too dumb to use removal (tho apparently there is a risen mob that will dump them back in your face if you pile on enough).

As I stated from my little talk with the developer, Necromancer would be good with an overhaul to conditions. We need more variety, possibly some special conditions that utilize effects like Dwayna’s Lament does.