Guild Wars 2

Yes, this is a common issue with all condition builds. But honestly. Usually we just check our builds for runs. And if I see another 2 condition builds in a group, I swap to my Guardian. There is no problem with 2 condition builds in one group.

The real problem comes in world events. You don’t do that much damage be cause of the 25 stack cap. But in all honesty: who cares? The events are faceroll things, you get your reward and do another. It simply doesn’t matter how much damage you deal, be cause you ‘win’ the fight anyways. And btw with the bosses dishing out a lot of damage like Dwayna, most of the beserker warriors are kissing the floor for about 1-2 third of the time. They don’t deal damage at all. Still: doesn’t matter.

I’ve read it all and i can agree on so many points, it’s more a warlock profession than a necromancer, i played necro a lot in GW1 also, and the feel is just not there at all, disease condtion and sacrificing life was what made the necromancer unique compared to other games i have tried.

Also, one of the major impact is that hexes are removed from the game in GW2.

I agree that it’s the worst profession based on the GW1 necromancer, however i will keep playing it and just hope they do something awesome for us GW1 veterans that loved how the necromancer used to work.

tbh the whole new game design adopted in GW2 kind of screwed the thematic design of classes since they wanted a more slim down bar UI and combat system.
The trait system is extremely shallow in my opinion, which lends to the fact that players don’t feel like they’re making a big difference in progression with their character unless they get uber gear.

in the end, yes… the necro isn’t really necro-y. in fact, our well of suffering animation has hearts and puzzle pieces in it. like, really? wow.

This is like reading people compare morrowind and oblivion. Yes I completely agree that morrowind is lifelong classing that will not be forgotten while oblivion was trash on horrible engine done by alien mexicans. But they are still two different games that only share the setting… and even then the lore was butchered to be more kiddie friendly and more easily streamlined god forbid someone is forced to use their head or even worse imagination. And even more so when we move further down the toilet drain.
But that’s that. They are different games with different mechanics. Don’t compare potatoes and chips. Even if they are made of the same stuff they aren’t the same thing.
I fail to see how most of gw1 necro mechanics are even necromantic in the first place but again that’s comparing two different things in my case it would be comparing my personal opinion which is sort of based on more general idea behind the concept with someone elses idea on necromancer in a fictional setting. Two different things.
Still agree that its a wonky, creaky and definitely unfinished product that doesn’t feel fun after initial woomp wears off.

Blaine Tog.8304:

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…

I think that this is one of the biggest misperceptions about the class, at least as pertains to WvW.

Necro is not really an attrition class, because we do not have the defensive tools and mobility to play the attrition game. I’d also argue that our single target condition damage is not really all that great, especially considering the massive amounts of direct damage that’s given up in order to play conditions. (Unless you’re playing rampager, in which case you’re glass and not by definition attrition.) Honestly, if you want to play a real attrition class, play P/D thief or guardian or bunker engi or something.

What necro is in WvW, is more or less heavily armored but somewhat slow ranged damage support and AOE artillery. Staff / wells / epidemic are all amazing in this role, scepter / dagger is too, probably the best offensive use of DS is for stepping in and out of life transfer, plague form, lich form, etc.

This is not to say that there aren’t people and specs that make necro work 1v1 and who bunker by getting survivability and mobility using spectral talents, minions, heavy soul reaping and blood magic etc. These people are pretty impressive, but my feeling is that to do this you’ve got to give up being amazing at being AOE artillery in order to become middle-of-the-road at these other tasks.

sas.6483:

Necro is not really an attrition class, because we do not have the defensive tools and mobility to play the attrition game. I’d also argue that our single target condition damage is not really all that great, especially considering the massive amounts of direct damage that’s given up in order to play conditions. (Unless you’re playing rampager, in which case you’re glass and not by definition attrition.) Honestly, if you want to play a real attrition class, play P/D thief or guardian or bunker engi or something.

First off, you said if you want to play the attrition class go play builds X, Y, or Z. That isn’t an attrition class, those are specific builds that play the attrition game quite well.

Attrition is extending a fight out over a long period of time, and having tools that make the fight easier for you. Boons, healing, mobility, stealth can all do this, but so can weakness, poison, DS, cripple, chill, life siphoning, condi transfer, etc. You can argue that at this moment in the game they aren’t as strong as those other builds’, but it remains that every single Necromancer build, regardless of how much you decide to take advantage of it, has access to these very attrition tools, whereas every other class needs to use a very specific build to achieve attrition results.

Bhawb.7408:

sas.6483:

Necro is not really an attrition class, because we do not have the defensive tools and mobility to play the attrition game. Honestly, if you want to play a real attrition class, play P/D thief or guardian or bunker engi or something.

First off, you said if you want to play the attrition class go play builds X, Y, or Z. That isn’t an attrition class, those are specific builds that play the attrition game quite well.

Attrition is extending a fight out over a long period of time, and having tools that make the fight easier for you. Boons, healing, mobility, stealth can all do this, but so can weakness, poison, DS, cripple, chill, life siphoning, condi transfer, etc. You can argue that at this moment in the game they aren’t as strong as those other builds’, but it remains that every single Necromancer build, regardless of how much you decide to take advantage of it, has access to these very attrition tools, whereas every other class needs to use a very specific build to achieve attrition results.

I think that the distinction between “class” and “build” is somewhat pedantic here, and doesn’t address the point that necro does not play the attrition game well. But:

1) Fair enough – we can agree that P/D thief for example plays the attrition game far better than nearly any if not all builds of necro.

2) Boons are generally better than conditions, and it is easier to build an attrition class around boons than conditions. You’d think that boon corruption would solve this, but we all know it doesn’t. Weakness does not compare well to protection. Cripple and chill only really work if you can kite, which often you can’t because of your lack of stability and the ready availability of gap closers and ranged damage for other classes. Siphoning … to get maximum siphoning you’re required to go 20-30 deep in blood magic and use minions. My educated guess (I used to play this) is that such a commitment will net you the equivalent of 1.5 unbuffed regens as long as your minions are up and attacking. Poison is reasonably good in group play, but doesn’t do much when your DS and health gets burst down while you’re chain immobilized because you haven’t gone 30 in soul reaping and don’t have plague form up.

3) Attrition is simply about slowly whittling down your opponent, and making sure that your opponent whittles you down even more slowly. Not all necro builds will be able to do this. The necro builds that make an attempt at doing this are generally outclassed by other attrition builds / classes (in WvW, point defense in PvP is possibly a little different). That is because necro is not really an attrition class; necro just doesn’t have strong enough defensive tools to be one.

For what it’s worth, I like playing necro, because I am OK with hanging around in a WvW group, nuking stuff and getting lots of bags. I truly love looking at a stacked zerg and then dropping 7-10 AOEs right on top of it. But I don’t think you can force the class to be something it isn’t, no matter what the devs say the class is about. We don’t do attrition as well as other classes / builds, and it’s OK.

This thread should be retitled “GW1 NECROS CAN’T STAND THE GW2 NECRO: Since GW1 was so much better according to them”

Since that title is too long I have found a simpler way to state it. “GW1 Fans Angry about GW2” or “Things you don’t care about unless you played GW1”

Seriously guys this is the most unproductive thread I have yet to seen. Everyone gets it, GW1 Necros are sad the class isn’t the same as it was then. Fantastic when they roll back Nostalgia day you can feel great, but the incessant whining for a bygone era that has no bearing on the current game, and in most cases would be ridiculously tough to implement with the current playstyle.

GW1 ain’t walking through that door. The game was overcomplicated and ridiculously one sided in a majority of the fights. There was a reason it wasn’t that popular with the common gamer. Let’s move forward to a more constructive and informational overload on this game, and stop complaining about what didn’t make it over.

sas.6483:

2) Boons are generally better than conditions, and it is easier to build an attrition class around boons than conditions. You’d think that boon corruption would solve this, but we all know it doesn’t. Weakness does not compare well to protection. Cripple and chill only really work if you can kite, which often you can’t because of your lack of stability and the ready availability of gap closers and ranged damage for other classes. Siphoning … to get maximum siphoning you’re required to go 20-30 deep in blood magic and use minions. My educated guess (I used to play this) is that such a commitment will net you the equivalent of 1.5 unbuffed regens as long as your minions are up and attacking. Poison is reasonably good in group play, but doesn’t do much when your DS and health gets burst down while you’re chain immobilized because you haven’t gone 30 in soul reaping and don’t have plague form up.

Just a little nit-pick here.

Weakness negates Vigor and reduces non-crit damage output.
Vulnerability mitigates Protection (poorly)
Cripple negates Swiftness and then some
Poison negates Regeneration (with its damage) and reduces all healing output

In 3 of these 4 cases it is worse to have a boon + matching condition than it is to have the boon stripped altogether. Vulnerability is just bad when compared to Protection, though there may be balance reasons for this that I’m unaware of.

Chill is a special condition in that it doesn’t really compare to Swiftness, because it also increases all cooldown times while it’s up. Chill is often doing triple duty because it’s reducing mobility, reducing damage output, and reducing healing output by increasing cooldown times.

This isn’t incredibly pertinent to the current debate (is Necro an “Attrition Class” if such a thing exists). I just think it’s important to how this profession functions in general, as applying lots of conditions is something all builds do in some way or another.

Blaine Tog.8304:

@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.

I run magic tournaments, I’ve read that page along with all the other color pages, I know how each of the colors work. Especially how Blue and black work. I’ve been a active magic player for years. And on the surface the necromancer looks to be black. But that blackness is only skin deep. And the minions are decidedly red. If they where it wouldn’t require you to lose so much and gain so little from it. Minion do not have a long term plan. Attrition isn’t really black’s style either. That is more blue/white’s style. Especially blue. There is a term in magic used by the devs called grind. The Players call it mill. A mill deck has a long history for stalling out the game and gaining incremental advantages while slowly milling out the player. One of white’s strategies is to literally defend itself, dragging the game on until they can pull off a win. This doesn’t fit into black’s style who will steal information, sacrifice their own creatures, health and cards to gain some sort of advantage over the opponent.

Philosophically, Yes, the necromancer is black. Mechanically, no, it is not.

Bas.7406:

This thread should be retitled “GW1 NECROS CAN’T STAND THE GW2 NECRO: Since GW1 was so much better according to them”

Since that title is too long I have found a simpler way to state it. “GW1 Fans Angry about GW2” or “Things you don’t care about unless you played GW1”

Seriously guys this is the most unproductive thread I have yet to seen. Everyone gets it, GW1 Necros are sad the class isn’t the same as it was then. Fantastic when they roll back Nostalgia day you can feel great, but the incessant whining for a bygone era that has no bearing on the current game, and in most cases would be ridiculously tough to implement with the current playstyle.

GW1 ain’t walking through that door. The game was overcomplicated and ridiculously one sided in a majority of the fights. There was a reason it wasn’t that popular with the common gamer. Let’s move forward to a more constructive and informational overload on this game, and stop complaining about what didn’t make it over.

Have you played GW1? GW1 necros are a lot more fun to play than GW2 necros. Telling us that this is a different game only goes so far when its a game within the same series. People kind of expected certain things, and those expectations failed to deliver. A good developer takes everything that was fun and awesome from the previous title and improves on them in the sequel, not discard those things and then make them worse.

I hope Dev. wont do life sacrifice and corpses for MM, because this are things i didnt like in gw1. Necro is only class that i really enjoy to play with here even that it is atm the weakest class.
Only thing that necro need is a little balancing tunning and thats it!

Kravick.4906:

Have you played GW1? GW1 necros are a lot more fun to play than GW2 necros. Telling us that this is a different game only goes so far when its a game within the same series. People kind of expected certain things, and those expectations failed to deliver. A good developer takes everything that was fun and awesome from the previous title and improves on them in the sequel, not discard those things and then make them worse.

That doesn’t apply when game mechanics are being completely reworked. This isn’t Call of Duty 18, where they change guns, maps, and maybe have some cool additions from 17, because in “true” sequels mechanics and overall design is largely preserved; the mechanics are hugely different here.

Also, a lot of things that are being complained about don’t necessarily fit within the current framework for what they wanted. For example the Hex system, while fun for some people, was also badly beginner unfriendly. Balancing such huge number of skills was also unmanageable, and with reduced skills overall, build diversity cannot be maintained.

Heck, even some of the most unique mechanics were best used by other classes. Life stealing as an entire build (for example) wasn’t really that popular for Necros. It was good as a secondary couple of skills to keep your HP up, but Rangers were better at using our life stealing than we were. Using sacrifice as a way to have low CDs was also rarely a main mechanic, but more side thing you put into your build to be able to use when needed (Masochism builds were niche).

There just was no feasible way to transfer over every single tiny niche build and mechanic that every class had. They preserved themes, but with such a huge mechanics overhaul, there was a lot that had to go, or be marginalized; and it was, frankly, handled pretty kitten well.

http://img.pandawhale.com/post-15416-Necromancer-mouse-summoning-th-uX3l.gif

Skrittmancer

Necroskritt

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Have you played GW1? GW1 necros are a lot more fun to play than GW2 necros. Telling us that this is a different game only goes so far when its a game within the same series. People kind of expected certain things, and those expectations failed to deliver. A good developer takes everything that was fun and awesome from the previous title and improves on them in the sequel, not discard those things and then make them worse.

That doesn’t apply when game mechanics are being completely reworked. This isn’t Call of Duty 18, where they change guns, maps, and maybe have some cool additions from 17, because in “true” sequels mechanics and overall design is largely preserved; the mechanics are hugely different here.

Also, a lot of things that are being complained about don’t necessarily fit within the current framework for what they wanted. For example the Hex system, while fun for some people, was also badly beginner unfriendly. Balancing such huge number of skills was also unmanageable, and with reduced skills overall, build diversity cannot be maintained.

Heck, even some of the most unique mechanics were best used by other classes. Life stealing as an entire build (for example) wasn’t really that popular for Necros. It was good as a secondary couple of skills to keep your HP up, but Rangers were better at using our life stealing than we were. Using sacrifice as a way to have low CDs was also rarely a main mechanic, but more side thing you put into your build to be able to use when needed (Masochism builds were niche).

There just was no feasible way to transfer over every single tiny niche build and mechanic that every class had. They preserved themes, but with such a huge mechanics overhaul, there was a lot that had to go, or be marginalized; and it was, frankly, handled pretty kitten well.

Frankly, I disagree with most of this. The mechanics haven’t really been reworked. The GW2 engine is just a modified GW1 engine, and most of what we’re seeing is just the same information being presented differently. I’m willing to bet money that the reason that bleeds are capped at 25 is because of the “degeneration” system GW1 had. It was hard capped at 10 pips of degeneration in GW1, and coders couldn’t figure out a way to fix it, which is why we probably still don’t have it fixed here. Hexes are really nothing more than conditions, mechanically speaking.

Everything else you’ve said (except ranger siphon builds, they did do it better) is, quite frankly, opinions. I don’t like arguing opinions. You can’t change them.

No, conditions are capped because of technical limitations. Every condition on every mob in the game is tracked by the server, they instituted a cap so the server wouldn’t be too stressed just keeping track of them.

Bhawb.7408:

No, conditions are capped because of technical limitations. Every condition on every mob in the game is tracked by the server, they instituted a cap so the server wouldn’t be too stressed just keeping track of them.

Thats the same excuse they used in GW1, only then later admitted it wasn’t the case, but an engine limitation. Maybe they can’t make up their minds.

Kravick.4906:

Bas.7406:

This thread should be retitled “GW1 NECROS CAN’T STAND THE GW2 NECRO: Since GW1 was so much better according to them”

Since that title is too long I have found a simpler way to state it. “GW1 Fans Angry about GW2” or “Things you don’t care about unless you played GW1”

Seriously guys this is the most unproductive thread I have yet to seen. Everyone gets it, GW1 Necros are sad the class isn’t the same as it was then. Fantastic when they roll back Nostalgia day you can feel great, but the incessant whining for a bygone era that has no bearing on the current game, and in most cases would be ridiculously tough to implement with the current playstyle.

GW1 ain’t walking through that door. The game was overcomplicated and ridiculously one sided in a majority of the fights. There was a reason it wasn’t that popular with the common gamer. Let’s move forward to a more constructive and informational overload on this game, and stop complaining about what didn’t make it over.

Have you played GW1? GW1 necros are a lot more fun to play than GW2 necros. Telling us that this is a different game only goes so far when its a game within the same series. People kind of expected certain things, and those expectations failed to deliver. A good developer takes everything that was fun and awesome from the previous title and improves on them in the sequel, not discard those things and then make them worse.

What is “fun” is not an universal fact, but rather a matter of preference.
Personally I main a Necro in GW1 and enjoy it less than I enjoy the Necro of GW2.
In fact I just plain don’t like GW1 nearly as much as I like GW2.

I am not at all surprised that some people prefer GW1 as the two games are quite different.
Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

sas.6483:

What necro is in WvW, is more or less heavily armored but somewhat slow ranged damage support and AOE artillery.

That’s how I always described what I do when explaining how to play a necro to other guildies.
What do you do?
I’m a bipedal arrow cart.
Yeah, sure I group channel-heal, clear some conditions, do line-denial with boon-ripping and hamper the enemy heavies with blind/chill. But mostly I’m very selfish in that I just cover the enemy with Ebola, make em all fall over and die.

Want me to run up and smash people in the face on a personal level with stupid-levels of DPS, CC and Mobility, (and group heals… and the condition removal and group buffs… etc, etc) let me hop on my warrior and show you how. Because I sure as heck can’t do that, even with a different spec on my Necro to any where near the ability of my Warrior. You can try, but its pretty much doing things ‘the extremely hard way’ and I personally tap out at ‘the hard way’ for fun, sanity and sense of achievement.

That said, there’s a lot to be agreed with though in terms of how the class was assembled poorly, how completely awful minions are, condition vs power damage deficiencies, all the unfixed bugs and of course, just how utterly rubbish Deathshroud actually is.
I think a lot of people don’t necessarily want drastic changes to the necro (because Anet isn’t realistically going to do any), what we’d probably be happy with is viable ‘Options’ in terms of how a Necro can be played.

This thread is just a nostalgia issue, really. If you can’t stand it, then play a different class. I like it and I played the necro in GW1 a lot.

The statement that the GW2 traits are shallow is stupid. GW1 was by far less complex. The only complex was the interaction between skills (which was not that much, when the game launched). There were no traits, only some stat points, no sigils, only some runes with much less diversity.

To those who are new to GW2: don’t believe those ‘self-proclaimed-gw1-veteran’-guys posting everything was better. It’s just nostalgia. Same with fans of bands, movie sequels etc.

How to recognize a conditionmancer?
The poorest, ugliest outfit run at the end of the group.

prothorin.5849:

How to recognize a conditionmancer?
The poorest, ugliest outfit run at the end of the group.

I’d prefer that over this superawesome Thief in full CoF armor.

Lily is absolutely right. This is what I have been preaching since day 1.

The bottom line is the “Necromancer” in this game is not a necromancer… its an entirely new class which would have been fine if it was advertised as such (and given a new name).

The “Necromancer” of Guild Wars 2 was obviously rushed or forced. I really can’t understand how many of you cannot understand this post. Unless, the guild wars 2 necromancer is the first necromancer that you have played. The mechanics for this class are severely flawed from a Necromancer’s and Lore/perspective.

eg. To apply bleeds the “Necromancer” spams his 1 skill on his sceptre… wtf?… Are you trying to tell me… this “caster”… this necromancer’s main source of bleeds are from swinging a sceptre…

Before you flame or troll me think about this concept. This is an example of how it is being FORCED..

Conclusion:

I believe that majority of the concept of the classes of this game was done pretty well from a lore perspective. But when I look at the design behind the guild wars 2 necro.. I get the same feeling I got when I watched X-Men 2 at the movie theatre. You know that bad taste in your mouth when you realized that the exceptional lore and x-men story was completely defiled when they decided to just kill half of the kitten main characters.

Edit for spelling

Gotta say…I don’t agree with Anet completely throwing out everything form GW1. It was a great game, and should have taught them tons of stuff which they could have taken across into this game, but instead they scrapped it all in favour of starting completely from scratch.

I agree with many of the points made, and I find it frustrating that after so many months, and probably enough community posts to fill an encyclopaedia, we still haven’t had ANY response from the devs…

Why are the lesser classes (cause let’s be honest, we not alone in this boat as necros) getting the cold shoulder. Our classes are poorly designed, just look at the traits! Reanimator?! WTH with that bullocks? And I HAVE to take it to get greater marks, which IMO should be the default mark size anyway…

In closing…the necro class was a hatchet job, was rushed, and nerfed to oblivion to balance PvP. I didn’t even get to see the old Death Shroud that was apparently so much better :<

The Mesmer shatter system is everything i wish we had. Instead of illusions we have minions. They do everything better than us, and have more interesting mechanics.

Lily.1935:

Blaine Tog.8304:

GW1 player here too, since the beta. I haven’t put nearly as many hours into GW1 as you but I did put quite a few on regardless and I did play a Necromancer fairly regularly.

I would agree that the GW2 Necro is a much different beast, but I don’t think that that’s all that special to the Necromancer. ANet put /every/ profession through the ringer for GW2. All those I’ve played play quite differently from their predecessors with only echoes and homages to their prior selves popping up here and there.

Mesmers in GW1 didn’t have clones or illusions to shatter and they certainly didn’t want to regularly get into melee range outside of strange specs emphasizing secondary professions. Elementalists were primarily known for their big burst damage, not for their versatility and how difficult they were to kill (though GW1 Earth Eles could make themselves literally unkillable for certain groups). Can you imagine the Ranger’s shock when suddenly they weren’t spending all their time twitch-interrupting everything their opponent wanted to do? Or what about the poor Ritualist? They were cut up and sewn onto darn near half the professions in the game! Even the Thief plays quite differently from the Assassin; both are about spike damage but gone are they days of pressing 1234567 repeat until everyone’s dead.

My point is, the closer you expect GW2 to match GW1 the more dissapointed you’re going to be, because they’re not the same game. GW2 isn’t just a systems update. It’s not intended to be just GW1 with a modernized combat system and better graphics. GW1 still exists so there’s no real point in making it over again. I’m not going to say the Necro in GW2 is perfect as-is, but I do think it can do nasty, grisly thinks to its enemies and control a fight like few other professions. Minion Mastery still leaves you as an unstoppable wall of corpses crushing everything before you. Death Shroud still rewards you for killing things.

Also, I think you’re unfairly undervaluing the Necro’s Fears. In addition to simply having more of them (more of a short CC is better than one slightly longer CC particularly since, as you note, it can be stunbroken out of), the Necro can also apply them much more quickly. Death Shroud’s fear is basically instant if you get good at swapping into Death Shroud quickly. The Ranger’s wolf fear has an insanely long cast time and a ridiculous delay preceding the cast, making it difficult to use except as general distruption. The Necro can be surgical in its use of Fear, and no one else can dish out Fear that deals damage.

Long story short, ANet took the game in a different direction from GW1 and the Necro reflects that. However, it still has echoes of the old Necro if you want to see them and it’s a rather fun class in its own right. You just gotta be ready to expect something a little different.

Lily.1935:

To this day I’m not sure why the necromancer has such a large life pool.

It’s a light-armor profession that’s supposed to win wars of attrition, and it’s supposed to be better at manipulating conditions than other professions. It doesn’t get blocks or invulnerables or serious mobility options so it’s supposed to be able to deal with spike damage simply by having a bigger health pool (and using Death Shroud for clutch absorbs).

Except Ele feels like ele, Theif feels like Assassin, warrior feels like a warrior, Ranger feels like a ranger, and even the mesmer feels a bit like a mesmer. The necromancer feels nothing like a necromancer. It feels like a warlock. And that is my problem. Its not that I’m expecting it to be the same game, I’m expecting it to feel right. And it doesn’t feel right. It feels wrong and forced. My post was never about balance of the profession it was about its over all feel. If it doesn’t FEEL right it doesn’t matter what your argument is to support it. It still feels wrong. All wrong.

I totally approved what you’ve said in this forum.
+1 The necromancer doesn’t feel like the necro in GW1.
All spectrals skill are useless and all minions too except Flesh Golem (except when it doesnt attack) I totally agree that the minion should be easy to create, easy to die and easy to destroy for damage. That’s the way to was and that’s the way it should always be for a NECROMANCER in GW. This class embrass dead but only like some minion instead of an squishy army. I also think that it like a weird mix between a Necro and a Warlock from Wow.

Kravick.4906:

Lily.1935:

Alestes.4081:

Lily.1935:

Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better.

If you think necromancers only have a few conditions then you still have a lot to learn about the class.

Anything less then all but one condition for the master of conditions is “only a few” In my eyes, the only condition the necromancer shouldn’t have access to is burning. And fear doesn’t count because its going to end before you finish casting epidemic.

I can’t remember when this was said, shortly before BWE or during BWE, but necromancers were promised access to confusion. 8 months later and we’re still waiting.

You have access to confusion via spectral wall, it’s just not as reliable as we hoped, but it is there. What I would like to see more of is more ethereal fields like spectral wall for us. I love the fact they finally fixed the combo field location on wall, but the field box on it is impossibly small still and doesn’t work a lot of the time. That’s my only beef about it, but we do have confusion as well as chaos armor too. Just gotta know how to use it ;-)

I, like you, played necromancer almost exclusively in gw1. The class is awful in this game for former gw1 necros. It went from a squishy to a tank, lost everything that made it unique and fun, and has an extremely boring play style. I leveled my necro to 80 within the first few weeks of release and logged over 300 hours of trying different builds before I decided to give up on the class entirely. I would highly recommend the Mesmer if you are seeking something more similar to the gw1 necro. Confusion stacking is a lot like the old spiteful spirit, insidious parasite build. Their phantasms are quite similar to a combo between necro minions and ritualist spirits. Also, they have a much more active play style that promotes skill, much more so than they did in gw1. I absolutely loathed mesmers in gw1, and now they are quickly becoming my favorite class because of their similarities to the gw1 necro. I really just wish they had the aesthetic of a kitten master of death, but I enjoy play style over looks so I can live with it.

I agree with this thread. Necro was my main in GW1 after I got sick of getting my bum handed to me in cantha by putrid explosion on my war/ele

I loved having true expandability with minions, keeping them leashed by healing them, getting health in return, slaughtering all enemies in my path. It was satisfying.
I was disappointed in GW2. I mean- its ruined past the point of being a necromancer, it feels like a shell of the masochistic master of GW1.
There isn’t even a point in using conditions honestly outside of epidemic. Why even apply conditions when you get other classes who stack weak durations and max out the stack to the point you can’t override it?
I gave up DoT conditions and have been straight flat damage since.
Epidemic itself is also a crutch, since it kind of forces you to have a lot of conditions to make it worthwhile. Rangers, warriors and mesmers can stack better conditions than even the highest con-damage necro could.

Condition builds? Epidemic is all you need
Minion builds? What minions? You mean those jokes that are called minions? the elementalist t2 summon tanks better then the elite flesh golem
All you can really do is play straight power in my opinion, maybe except in PvP since most people glass canon in there anyways.

GW1 necros should give Mesmers in GW2 a try like others have said.

Xom.9264:

GW1 necros should give Mesmers in GW2 a try like others have said.

Have done. Mesmers are fun but nothing like gw1 necro’s. Only similarity is confusion with hex’s. I became very bored of the gw2 necro pretty quick while lvling. Only find them fun in organised dungeon runs. But even then i find the necro much more entertaining. Even though gw2 necro is no where near as fun as gw1 necro.

Talentless.5708:

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

Agreed, with one exception.

A good dagger/pistol thief that exploits constant restealthing via heartseeker in their blind field is very difficult to beat.

Oozo.7856:

Talentless.5708:

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

Agreed, with one exception.

A good dagger/pistol thief that exploits constant restealthing via heartseeker in their blind field is very difficult to beat.

Oh nonononono

According to every Thief on these forums, that’s completely underpowered.

Xom.9264:

GW1 necros should give Mesmers in GW2 a try like others have said.

Ya know, I actually did and I stuck with it for a long time. I hated Mesmer; wanted to bash my head against a rock after playing it for 30 minutes or so.
Unlike other people though, I prefer the new Guild Wars 2 Necromancer… I suspect that as we speak, there is an angry mob gathering to burn me at the stake as a witch for saying so, but I do. It fixed a lot of the frustrations I had with Guild Wars 1 Necro (even though it was my main).
There are some real issues with necromancer, but they are very few, and they keep fixing a lot of them as we go along. The main problem is that other classes have unique/overpowered/specialized abilities that are just flat-out better at specific things than any other class coughTimeWarpcough. But Necromancer really represents the ideals I think GW2 is going for. We can do most things well. Not as well as other classes that have those aforementioned abilities, but well.

……….I think I just agreed with the Dev’s opinion of the profession. I can see the light of the torches reflecting off pitchforks and hear the screams of “he’s a witch! BURN him!” now.

The necro of Gw2 in compare with Gw1 Necro it’s pathetic, but I think that it’s not even the worst class….

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Kravick.4906:

Lily.1935:

Alestes.4081:

Lily.1935:

Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better.

If you think necromancers only have a few conditions then you still have a lot to learn about the class.

Anything less then all but one condition for the master of conditions is “only a few” In my eyes, the only condition the necromancer shouldn’t have access to is burning. And fear doesn’t count because its going to end before you finish casting epidemic.

I can’t remember when this was said, shortly before BWE or during BWE, but necromancers were promised access to confusion. 8 months later and we’re still waiting.

You have access to confusion via spectral wall, it’s just not as reliable as we hoped, but it is there. What I would like to see more of is more ethereal fields like spectral wall for us. I love the fact they finally fixed the combo field location on wall, but the field box on it is impossibly small still and doesn’t work a lot of the time. That’s my only beef about it, but we do have confusion as well as chaos armor too. Just gotta know how to use it ;-)

I could never get that combo field to work. I have a hard time understanding why most my projectiles don’t work on my other professions through their combo fields either. My engineer combos with her fields about 10% of the time with projectiles while my necromancer’s projectiles have never worked with spectral wall. Not once. Not only that, my necromancer’s projectile has only ever comboed with a light field And about 99% it doesn’t even work there. I can’t seem to get anything else to work. I don’t know if this is a bug or it was intentional.

So basically my nice and high condition damage is meaningless with that skill because I have no way to combo with my own field without taking minions. And lets face it I’m not wasting a utility slot for minions.

Lily.1935:

I could never get that combo field to work. I have a hard time understanding why most my projectiles don’t work on my other professions through their combo fields either. My engineer combos with her fields about 10% of the time with projectiles while my necromancer’s projectiles have never worked with spectral wall. Not once. Not only that, my necromancer’s projectile has only ever comboed with a light field And about 99% it doesn’t even work there. I can’t seem to get anything else to work. I don’t know if this is a bug or it was intentional.

So basically my nice and high condition damage is meaningless with that skill because I have no way to combo with my own field without taking minions. And lets face it I’m not wasting a utility slot for minions.

The answer to this problem is simple. Most projectile finishers and all auto attack projectile finishers only have a 20% chance to actually combo off a field. Even though you still get the heart popup that says “Weakness/Confusion/Cleansing/etc”, you’re not actually getting it every time. There are only a few projectile abilities that have a 100% chance to combo on a field (side note, most of these 100% projectile finishers belong to the thief class, and can be spammed with enough initiative), and they all have long cool downs. So that 10% number you gave isn’t really that far off from the truth seeing how RNGs can be streaky. Only blast finishers are 100% every time.

Hi all, necromancer is my 1st lv80, and been playing it as my main for wvw and pve.
Rather than ‘weak’ i prefer necro to be called as ‘unique’.

Plague form allows me to attract and initiate attacks to camps veterans with no.2 skill, and my DPS build thief friend, taking those veteran one by one.
Lately, on 3vs3 or 3vs5 small raid party, my 3 person party mostly won the battle, because i narrowed their vision and attacks to me, where my partners taking them down one by one. Blinding wells, and combo staff no.4 blast finisher for area blindness supports my team.

Chasing fleeing foes would be easy with no.2 DS skill, change back to normal and use scepter no.2, or staff no.3 to slow them down, and let my team mates do the rest.
with necro in the team, maybe the team DPS fell, but the survival rate is boosted.

Classes with low hp pools usually is my main target during team combat in wvw, why? Bleeding doesnt concern armors, with its fixed DoT. 133ish stacked bleeding is annoying TBH.

So…the more you understand necro skills, and how it works, it would be very interesting class to play.
Then again, its not the gun, but the man behind the gun.

ditchy.8792:

Hi all, necromancer is my 1st lv80, and been playing it as my main for wvw and pve.
Rather than ‘weak’ i prefer necro to be called as ‘unique’.

Plague form allows me to attract and initiate attacks to camps veterans with no.2 skill, and my DPS build thief friend, taking those veteran one by one.
Lately, on 3vs3 or 3vs5 small raid party, my 3 person party mostly won the battle, because i narrowed their vision and attacks to me, where my partners taking them down one by one. Blinding wells, and combo staff no.4 blast finisher for area blindness supports my team.

Chasing fleeing foes would be easy with no.2 DS skill, change back to normal and use scepter no.2, or staff no.3 to slow them down, and let my team mates do the rest.
with necro in the team, maybe the team DPS fell, but the survival rate is boosted.

Classes with low hp pools usually is my main target during team combat in wvw, why? Bleeding doesnt concern armors, with its fixed DoT. 133ish stacked bleeding is annoying TBH.

So…the more you understand necro skills, and how it works, it would be very interesting class to play.
Then again, its not the gun, but the man behind the gun.

It’s more that their just so different from the GW1 necro

that was a very long read, but i definitely agree with everything said here. i never played gw1 necro, but from the way it was described, it sounds like a really awesome profession and on top of that, sounds like its suppose to play like an actual necromancer should, the king/queen of death. it is a shame that they didn’t take the time or have the imagination as they did back then.

The necromancer reminds me of the dominator archetype from City of Villains. They were balanced around a mechanic similar to deathshroud ( except it was way better in that it rendered the dominator immune to all forms of crowd control while greatly boosting the dominator’s own ) and this lead them to being overbalanced and woefully underpowered compared to the other archetypes. I played that game for almost two years and the disparity was never addressed.

I can’t help but see a repeat of that in the Guild Wars 2 necromancer.

Ever, no but in GW2 YES! I believe Anet over weighted Death Shroud and due to that has toned down the burst/damage of the class way too much.