Guild Wars 2

Combo Finisher

Anyone who played Elementalist or Engineer(or any other class, but those 2 are really well made with combo), know how useful and cool using Combo can be.

It adds a deph to the game, and can be really impressive to find what you can do with them.

Yet, after played most of classes, I feel like Necromancer really lack combo finisher.

We do have some projectil and blast, but most of our combo finisher are …

underwater ability…

Even those on land are hard to use combo finisher.

Putrid Mark -> Our best combo blast, yet usually combo with chillbain or wells. Nothing much to say about it, tho marks can be unreliable for combo finisher sometime.

Bones minions -> Rare are the build using them. The bugged AI(pathing) make it unreliable in PvE and WvW. You also never know which one will explod, so it can be hard to time your field. Especially if they are far from each other, or you lose sight of them in the middle of the fight.

Flesh Worm -> Really our worse blast finisher. And I love this utility. In WvW I nearly have it on every build. Yet the blast finisher is useless. You never use it to port in a combo field. You keep it to escape, You would have to cast a combo field away from you, then cast your worm, then port. I really fail to see the concept here. Even the activate damage are worthless on the worm.

Then we have staff as projectil, and 2 minions projectil.

Everything else is underwater.

Am I the only one that love combo field, and yet feel like they are limited to AoE weakness with chillbain and putrid.

There is no reason why necromancers don’t have more combo finishers. Putrid mark is not something you can reliably use, because it depends on the enemy walking into it. Because of its usefulness and the relatively long cooldown (not like the 4 second Mighty Blow), you don’t ever want to waste it.

Would improve necromancer’s limited defense greatly if you could cause blinds and weakness with the combo fields, without relying on someone else using them. There’s certain moves that appear to be blast finishers, but aren’t.

If the bone minions stuck to your location they could be half-decent, but as of now they are usually all over the place and explode outside of the combo fields, usually not even hitting the enemy.

So I agree that Necros feel kind of lacking in terms of combos, but there’s a few things I wanted to point out.

Kardiamond.6952:

Putrid Mark -> Our best combo blast, yet usually combo with chillbain or wells. Nothing much to say about it, tho marks can be unreliable for combo finisher sometime.

Putrid Mark decides its finisher when it’s placed, but activates it when it’s triggered, so you can make a sort of Chaos-Armor landmine out of it, which I think is kind of funny.

Kardiamond.6952:

Bones minions -> Rare are the build using them. The bugged AI(pathing) make it unreliable in PvE and WvW. You also never know which one will explod, so it can be hard to time your field. Especially if they are far from each other, or you lose sight of them in the middle of the fight.

While it’s definitely hard to keep track of them in a busy fight, I want to make it known that the minion that is closer to you, the necromancer, will always explode first.

Kardiamond.6952:

Flesh Worm -> Really our worse blast finisher. And I love this utility. In WvW I nearly have it on every build. Yet the blast finisher is useless. You never use it to port in a combo field. You keep it to escape, You would have to cast a combo field away from you, then cast your worm, then port. I really fail to see the concept here. Even the activate damage are worthless on the worm.

Yeah I’m not sure on this one. On the bright side, now it self-combos with Death Nova! But still, generally not used to charge into a fight.

We actually have a lot of combo fields, the problem is that most of them are wells, and it seems kind okittenward to put in just one or two wells in most builds – I could be wrong, maybe they’re great here and there, but often it feels like if you go wells, you go all wells.

Are you sure about the minions thing? I did a test long time ago, and it didn’t seem to be about distance or not.

I rarely find useful to “precast” Putrid mark. Since it better used as a situational marks, because of the condition transfer.

We do have a good amount of field, not the best if you ask me (except Ethereal, this field own), but I feel like we lack the finisher.

Some people say Weakness is good, but I’m not a fan. Half of it effect are useless on crit class, the only useful part is the endurance regen.

Its only difficult to get bone minions to pop finishers if you are ranged, and even then its not so much getting them in the right position but getting the enemy to stand on top the the field anyway.

1) Get into melee range of enemy, drop well/wall
2) Blow up minion
3) ???
4) Profit

And seriously though, there are very few builds that get a meaningful amount of combo fields and finishers in one setup, with Elementalists being the most noteworthy.

Kardiamond.6952:

Are you sure about the minions thing? I did a test long time ago, and it didn’t seem to be about distance or not.

I rarely find useful to “precast” Putrid mark. Since it better used as a situational marks, because of the condition transfer.

We do have a good amount of field, not the best if you ask me (except Ethereal, this field own), but I feel like we lack the finisher.

Some people say Weakness is good, but I’m not a fan. Half of it effect are useless on crit class, the only useful part is the endurance regen.

I’m quite certain on Bone Minions. It was a few months ago that I first heard about it and specifically checked it, but I don’t think it’s changed since then. You’re right that Putrid Mark probably shouldn’t be pre-cast, I just think it’s a funny (but strangely appropritae) behavior to ‘store’ blast finishers inside it.

Axe 2 should be a whirl finisher(it already looks like one)
Axe 3 should be a blast finisher (also looks like a blast finisher)
Warhorn 4 should be a projectile finisher
Focus 4 should also be a projectile finisher

As for Putrid Mark, I hope they let you remotely activate it like Throw Mine.
IE: Press Putrid Mark again to trigger it manually
It would make it stronger since you can have more uses for it if it is manually activatable.

Flesh Worm should trigger a blast finisher where you use it, that way you can still escape but can benefit from combo fields.

Yeah, moving from an Elementalist to Necro, one of my biggest adjustments was learning to live with far fewer blast finishers. I use Putrid Mark in Lightning and Fire fields though (I play WvW exclusively) and it works well enough. I do wish there were more options though.

Super Riceman.8702:

Axe 2 should be a whirl finisher(it already looks like one)
Axe 3 should be a blast finisher (also looks like a blast finisher)
Warhorn 4 should be a projectile finisher
Focus 4 should also be a projectile finisher

Also Dagger 5 should be a blast finisher.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Super Riceman.8702:

Axe 2 should be a whirl finisher(it already looks like one)
Axe 3 should be a blast finisher (also looks like a blast finisher)
Warhorn 4 should be a projectile finisher
Focus 4 should also be a projectile finisher

Also Dagger 5 should be a blast finisher.

I totally agree with this. The spell animation even kind of looks “blastfinisherish”.

You know what, I am sick of complaining. I am sick of trying to do anythign to support this class, to help this class, to be positive, to be constructive…. etc.

Anet needs to wake up, get their heads out of thier kittens and play their kitten game. Necro is so kitten compared to a memser, its so kitten compared to practically any other class.

I am sick of their overwhelming bias towards certain classes (LIKE THE MESMER) that I am sick of even trying anything. One thing that has always kept me going was the hope of logic and expectency that the devs would see facts that are right in front of their kitten faces. But forget it. Forget their complete lack of vision with this class, and their utter complacency, meanwhile their favorite classes continue to shin.

Well, i truly hope the other games coming out wipe the floor with you. You have no endgame, but wvw, which is mindnumbingly a repetitive act, which is now, what? full of 1000s of mesmers and thieves, and the rest just zerg zerg zerg. Yet you want to go esport, and hope that will benefit all aspects of your game. Good luck, GW2 is not LoL, and never will be. Your balance is such crap, and you too much bias towards certain classes which rules out any type of kitten diversity. You have to much flawed logic.

SO raging right now at this crap. Good luck all. Done on this forum for sure, let alone this game.

I’d like to note that Putrid Mark actually acts as a double finisher (it’s not just a display bug, for instance Putrid Mark in Chillblains will apply 10 seconds of Weakness)

I’ve watched this very carefully.. it’s always the closer bone minion that is blown up with putrid explosion.

As for using them in combo fields — if you’re in a big field and you cast the minions and immediately blow them up, you’ll get the combo. If the minions have already been cast, they’ll usually be everywhere except in the field. If the field is small and you cast and immediately blow up, you’ll usually get one combo out of the two as one is almost always outside of the field.

We aren’t going to get combo finishers. Why? Because you aren’t supposed to be able to combo off of yourself too much, they put this system into the game to provide team support; not necessarily solo support. Generally speaking, you either have lots of fields, lots of finishers, or somewhere in between, and a lot of them are based on weapon skills.

Here is the problem, we are completely off the norm. We get our fields almost exclusively off utility skills, which means adding anything to weapon skills gives us a lot to combo off of. So where are our finishers? Minions. In fact we have one of the highest field/finisher builds possible in Death Nova + minions.

Also, actually take a look at how the fields/finishers are spread out before you post here. There has been a bunch of stuff said that is flat out false.

Personally I would like a leap finisher on land. Not really sure how they would fit it in but it would add a little bit more mobility to the class, which I feel is very lacking over all.

Enfeebling Blood (dagger 5) and the corresponding trait Weakening Shroud (Curses IV) should be blast finishers. That is all.

Well, the class with the lowest amount of self-combo potential is the Warrior (they only have a single fire field tied to the Longbow). Highest potential is probably the Guardian (two weapons that can self-combo, plenty of other fields) or Elementalist.

While I agree that we could use more finishers, it is honestly rather low on my concern list.

Bhawb.7408:

We aren’t going to get combo finishers. Why? Because you aren’t supposed to be able to combo off of yourself too much, they put this system into the game to provide team support; not necessarily solo support. Generally speaking, you either have lots of fields, lots of finishers, or somewhere in between, and a lot of them are based on weapon skills.

Here is the problem, we are completely off the norm. We get our fields almost exclusively off utility skills, which means adding anything to weapon skills gives us a lot to combo off of. So where are our finishers? Minions. In fact we have one of the highest field/finisher builds possible in Death Nova + minions.

Also, actually take a look at how the fields/finishers are spread out before you post here. There has been a bunch of stuff said that is flat out false.

Forr Bawb, you ,maybe, should check how they are spread.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Table_of_necromancer_combo_skills

Then you can check every other class.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Not counting projectil, we have 3(Wow!) finisher, also we don’t more combo field then anyone else. Most class have as many field then us (And better field if you ask me). Only warrior are getting the shaft in the field departement, but yeah warrior need help as much as we do.

Anet said we weren’t supose to be able to combo with the SAME weapon (yet we can). They didn’t say anything about ourself.

Talking about my main classes, my engineer, my ranger, my elementalist, my thief..

ALL those class can combo by themself. I can freaking perma stealth with combo field with my thief. I can stealth/might and so many other thing with my engineer. I can stack so many thing with my Elem it’s crazy. And with my ranger, I never stop getting leap finisher when using trap.

Why are we getting the shaft once again in that departement?

Is that another tax for having Death Shroud?

Man you are right, we do have the highest amount of poison field in the game if traited. Hooray? This is, in my opinion, the worse field in the game. Anet themself said on the PvP forum said they were not happy with weakness the condition. Yet that whats we are good at with combo field.

And Bawb, bones minions when going melee might work in spvp, but it doesnt work in other area.

By the time they get to the ennemy (with the pathing issue they ether never achieve it, or do it by stopping each 2 step), they are ether dead, or have so much distance between each of them that you can’t get both blast.,If you ever time it wth a field before they die/move around.

I know you are again anything that could change a bit how necromancer works, but I don’t want combo field/finisher to be stronger. I want them because it’s fun! Add a depth to the class, and much more possibility.

AoE weakness is all but fun. Illogic/unreliable blast finisher isn’t fun. Skill that combo by themself aren’t fun ether.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Well, the class with the lowest amount of self-combo potential is the Warrior (they only have a single fire field tied to the Longbow). Highest potential is probably the Guardian (two weapons that can self-combo, plenty of other fields) or Elementalist.

While I agree that we could use more finishers, it is honestly rather low on my concern list.

If you get used to combo, you won’t ever say that again. Learning to use combo field is one of the funniest thing in this game.

While we’re at it. Life/Plague blast and Deathly Claws should be 100% projectile finishers.

Engi are beasts too with self combos, I don’t agree that necros should suffer the “can’t solo combo” theory. It really add depth to the gameplay and open up more possibilities.

Bhawb.7408:

We aren’t going to get combo finishers. Why? Because you aren’t supposed to be able to combo off of yourself too much, they put this system into the game to provide team support; not necessarily solo support. Generally speaking, you either have lots of fields, lots of finishers, or somewhere in between, and a lot of them are based on weapon skills.

Here is the problem, we are completely off the norm. We get our fields almost exclusively off utility skills, which means adding anything to weapon skills gives us a lot to combo off of. So where are our finishers? Minions. In fact we have one of the highest field/finisher builds possible in Death Nova + minions.

Also, actually take a look at how the fields/finishers are spread out before you post here. There has been a bunch of stuff said that is flat out false.

Bolded is my complaint. If you take staff, you get a 20% projectile finisher on a slow recast (meh) a short-lived poison field (again, kind of meh) and a ranged blast finisher. (Pretty good)
If you don’t take staff (stop laughing) you have no combo effects on your weapons, which means you’re only going to play the combo game with your utility skills.

On reflection, my earlier claim about wells was exaggerated. There are other combo fields in ethereal wall and CoPoClo. The popularity of those skills is lacking, but I have to acknowledge that they could be put into a wider variety of builds for their combo field effects.

Edit:

Kardiamond.6952:

check how they are spread.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Table_of_necromancer_combo_skills

Then you can check every other class.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

Not counting projectil, we have 3(Wow!) finisher, also we don’t more combo field then anyone else. Most class have as many field then us (And better field if you ask me). Only warrior are getting the shaft in the field departement, but yeah warrior need help as much as we do.

Hm. They don’t include the minions in either of those lists, and the projectiles from bone fiend are actually kind of impressive. I wonder how I edit that…

ReMortis.4287:

Enfeebling Blood (dagger 5) and the corresponding trait Weakening Shroud (Curses IV) should be blast finishers. That is all.

If weakening shroud was a blast finisher I would be forever satisfied by that.

Kardiamond.6952:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Well, the class with the lowest amount of self-combo potential is the Warrior (they only have a single fire field tied to the Longbow). Highest potential is probably the Guardian (two weapons that can self-combo, plenty of other fields) or Elementalist.

While I agree that we could use more finishers, it is honestly rather low on my concern list.

If you get used to combo, you won’t ever say that again. Learning to use combo field is one of the funniest thing in this game.

My secondary is a Hammer Guardian that spams blast finishers in the fields. Usually just getting retaliation, but I do appreciate the power of self-combos.

The problem with our finishers is that they are based around minion skills, which are a love/hate relationship with the community.

If you take that into account, however, we can have 6 finishers on three skills, with them creating their own combo fields, to also combo off of. Death Nova + Bone Minions + Bone Fiend + Flesh Wurm = 6 finishers (blast/projectile) and 4 combo fields (though all Poison) on fairly short CDs. This leaves room for WoB to spam on for retaliation, or drop 1 and you can pick up a well for Dark field, which will have your minions stealing HP for themselves and causing blindness.

Compare to Elementalist, who people love to, and you’ll see what I mean. Staff ele, which has 6 fields, only gets 3 finishers, all of which are located on different attunements (earth finishes, water/air/fire sets fields). D/D only gets 2 combo fields, both fire, and 2 finishers each, both earth. Scepter has no combo field but 4 finishers, Focus has 1 field and 2 finishers. That isn’t many fields/finishers in one set, following the rules I stated.

Engineers are more similar to us in that their combo fields/finishers are mostly utility related. Each weapon set gives a few (comparable to staff) finishers, and then they get fields through using weapon/device kits, which have limited ability to combo off themselves, and require you to swap to another kit to combo off your previous one. They have decent ability to combo off themselves, but again it requires switching.

This is no more than my ability to drop WoB and have minions finish on top of it. The sole different between our ability to combo off ourselves and other classes is that ours are less reliable because they are based on semi-independent entities, which require microing, and because many people don’t like those entities. The core amount of finishers/fields are there, most people just aren’t using them.

@Bhawb

Those entities are unreliable in a big part of the game (PVE,WvW) they are are AI controlled.

Like I said, worm doesn’t make any sense. You don’t cast your worm in a field. You also don’t want your minion to die to be able to use a combo? Except bone minion.

Elem : Not many fields/finisher? You only need 1 efficient field to be good at it. Stacking around 21 might with Scepter/focus? Yes sire Same with DD.

Engineer : Switching is not an issue. Kit swaping is part of engineer. You do it every 2-3 sec. So requiring switching doesn’t change anything. With one build, i can choose to get 3k more healing, 9 more might, or a good amount of stealth.

Now with necro finisher, we can get a wooping long duration weakness on people.

@Softspoken

I didn’t really count projectil, but yeah they can be useful. Tho most class have way more projectil then us.

You can certainly argue that they have better fields to combo off of, or that they have better utilities to use to combo off of, I certainly won’t argue that; because its true. I completely agree that we have less desirable combo fields, I’d love to see an ice field added (it fits lore/our purpose).

But that wasn’t the point of my post, nor has it been a large point in this thread that I have seen. The point was people are saying we don’t have finishers, and that is false.

Sure… So here is the major issue with combo finisher as a Necromancer :
No combo finisher on 1 hand weapons —> create the “I must have a staff situation”
No combo finisher on our core classe méchanism (Death shroud) which is a transformation that remove all our utility.

For me I just think a Whirlwind combo on DS4, a blast on axe 3 and making dagger 3 (like Ele earth dagger 3) a leap finisher should greatly help diversity on Necromancer weapon choice.

And … well, I may play with words but that’s our minions that have finishers not us.

PS.: Bhawd, on Ele you forgot all conjure weapon blast and combo finisher (utility skill) and arcane finisher.

Even if we have as many finishers as everyone else, the fact is that several of our finishers are deeply flawed.

• Flesh wurm — I really can’t think of a situation where you’d be willing to use it as a finisher.
• Bone minions — if you’re in PvE, fighting a single foe who doesn’t move, they’re great combo finishers. (I actually do encounter this setup, but it’s still really situational) … otherwise, you’ll blast outside of the field most of the time.
• Staff #4: you need to hit a foe for it to be a finisher — that makes it far less useful.
• Flesh wurm, bone fiend finishers are ok, but their attack rates are really slow and you have no control over when they’ll attack. The result: fields often don’t last long enough to get a combo off.
• Staff #1: 20% change + slow attack rate + slow projectile velocity = you pretty much never combo with staff #1.
• we do have a bunch straightforward reliable of water finishers

Bhawb.7408:

You can certainly argue that they have better fields to combo off of, or that they have better utilities to use to combo off of, I certainly won’t argue that; because its true. I completely agree that we have less desirable combo fields, I’d love to see an ice field added (it fits lore/our purpose).

But that wasn’t the point of my post, nor has it been a large point in this thread that I have seen. The point was people are saying we don’t have finishers, and that is false.

Again playing with the word, just like AI and pathing

Take it the way you want, turn it the way you want.

Our combo finisher are bad.

My mian thread explain exactly that.

Ig you want to play on word, we do have many combo finisher! We have like 5 under water! Who got that? Godmode necro!

Staff already have it all, why is it also the only finsher we have on weapon?

Wells and bone minions are a decent combo with AOE blindness. But that’s the only reliable one besides spamming one of our best abilities in Putrid Mark.

Axe 3 and Dagger 3 could easily be finishers. Plus Scepter 2 or Dagger 5 could leave dark fields. I have no idea why we don’t have that aspect of gameplay.

If we put minions in our utilities, then we normally can’t combo off ourselves. As an engi I can put down a 4 sec water field, and do 3-4 Blasts within that 4 sec, I can even put a Fire field and do that same 3-4 blast in it for AoE Might, and a light field for AoE Retal, Smoke field for AoE stealth etc etc. I can bring a lot of fields, and I can do multiple finisher at the same time because I have the option to do it, regardless of build.

With necro, you gotta put 30 point for Death Nova to gain the 7 fields you’re talking about. And then it means that your utility skill is dead, so it may means that you don’t have as much finishers ready. If you spam wells, you only have one blast finisher and one 20% projectile finisher. Try casting wurm inside a 2-3 sec well and good luck getting much out of it.

When you play as any other class, a new game unfolds before you, and this is where new tactics and possibilities can grow. I would like necro to have more part in that game, and I think this could be a good way to make us more group-friendly.

Bhawb.7408:

You can certainly argue that they have better fields to combo off of, or that they have better utilities to use to combo off of, I certainly won’t argue that; because its true. I completely agree that we have less desirable combo fields, I’d love to see an ice field added (it fits lore/our purpose).

But that wasn’t the point of my post, nor has it been a large point in this thread that I have seen. The point was people are saying we don’t have finishers, and that is false.

There are many specs which do not have either fields or finishers.

One of my specs which runs staff technically gives me access to 1x projectile and 1x blast but in play they are rarely put to effective use. If you are staff autoattacking, God save your soul, the blast from putrid is nice, but is tied to such a niche ability that often gives me no benefit [I cant use it to combo off of friendly water/ethereal fields because half of my condition removal is tied to the ability hitting an enemy, what if they are far away/not within a field?].

Fields are so fun, I really want to be able to use them as much as other professions can

Bhawb, I think the issue is while we do have finisher abilities, many of them are often so unreliable or conditional that they may as well not exist. With the other classes they feel like they are a nice bonus on top of something you already want…on Necromancers, it feels like to get a decent amount of combos off that are useful, you gotta gut yourself in some way. Or run in a group 24/7 and hope that your team mates are smart enough to capitalize on the fields you are dropping.

Overkillengine.6084:

Bhawb, I think the issue is while we do have finisher abilities, many of them are often so unreliable or conditional that they may as well not exist. With the other classes they feel like they are a nice bonus on top of something you already want…on Necromancers, it feels like to get a decent amount of combos off that are useful, you gotta gut yourself in some way. Or run in a group 24/7 and hope that your team mates are smart enough to capitalize on the fields you are dropping.

Exactly this. The cost/benefit of actually using our combo finishers is often not worth it, it means sacrificing one of our minions, blowing our condition removal at a time when we may not need it, or spamming a very lacklustre autoattack for a slim chance at applying 1second of condition.

On my guardian/mesmer/thief I see combo fields and jump on them right away, they all have amazingly low cooldown/low ‘cost’ abilities which take advantage of the fields and make the ability better. Deliberately using Putrid mark to proc a combo field could, if anything, make the ability’s effectiveness overall worse.

Haunt (on the Shadow Fiend) should be a leap finisher
Charge (Flesh Golem) should be a whirl finisher
Summon Flesh Wurm on summon should be a blast finisher as well so necro has more self combos.
Spectral Grasp should be a projectile finisher since it does have a slow projectile, long cd and a limited effect.
Life Blast (on land and water) should have 20% projectile finisher chance and Dark Path should be 100% projectile finisher
Wells should have different combo field types (we have enough dark) so necro gets access to more boons and conditions.
Well of Power should be a water field so it fits w/ the boon support
Well of Suffering can be a lighting field that way necro gets more swiftness/more ways to CC and more vulnerability
Well of Darkness can be a smoke field because it fits w/ the blinding, also gives necro access to stealth

Just return Ngrasp to be 100% and make LB also a 100% projectile finisher and all problems are gone, Dark finishers give life steal and blind (tanking) Light gives reactive support and Eitheral (that should be a dome that repllies short duration prot not kitten wall) is chaos armor, pretty much the skinny uncool cousin of SS from GW1. All i wish is for Chillblains to be a ice field not poison since that way we could have ice armor and more chill, but its more personal preference.

Putrid mark – I love the thing and cannot live without staff mastery. Wish I had more finishers as much as you do.

Bone minions – Been playing since beta so, naturally, I laugh with glee when I blow up the little buggers. (Yes, I do run them when on a mini-zerg binge. Unfortunately, I often get a bit trigger-happy with all my minions – bad memories from before the myriad patches, sorry.)

Flesh wurm – You are totally correct: I save its death for the teleport or keep it alive for its damage. (Still, I like making it dead, again, a bit too often.)