Guild Wars 2

This thread is to compile all the possible counters when facing all other classes with the necromancer in WvWvW. Please feel free to add suggestions so that all necromancers may benefit to playing better.

I run:
Juggermancer Build

Feral Shadowmancer

My counters are viewed on those but some counters apply to just our main class and aren’t needed to spec.

Thief Counters

Thieves
thieves usually rely on heavy initial burst damage. The longer you drag out the fight the better the chances of survival.

1. Retaliation: Retaliation is the bane for all burst dmg dps. We have two traits in the spite trait line called Spiteful spirit and spiteful vigor. Both apply retaliation either on deathsrhoud or healing.

2. Deathshroud: Practically our “Oh Kitten” button. Use it to take most of the hits initially and as above if it gains retaliaition you will dish out dmg.

3. Staff Circle standing: As soon as you see a thief stealth put down all your marks in one spot and sit on them.

4. Fears+daze(Dagger 4): When you see a thief low on health they will most likely try to stealth. This is when you will daze them with dagger 4 or pop your staff fear and deathshroud fear to give your conditions time to hit them for more.

5. Stealth bubble Whenever a stealth bubble/house pops up the thief will be waiting in there until its gone for the buff. This is the time you place all your marks on it and pop deathshrouds life transfer.

6. Condition theif: Consume Conditions heal + Transfer condtions with Staff 3 and sometimes use Deathshroud to absorb condition dmg.

Guardian Counters
The guardian is usually a beast of a tank and will absorb pretty much anything with its +healing abilities and boons. Damage can still be reasonable but not much to worry about.

1. Removal of boons: This is key to fightning a guardian. If you can’t remove the boons then your in for a tough fight. Spinal Shivers (Focus 5) removes three boons, well of corruption does Dmg and removes a boon with a tick and corrupt boons removes all boons and poisons you. All are viable counters.

2. Conditions don’t help: If it all possible do not apply conditions on the guardian as they can convert said conditions into boons. If you are doing so make sure you can corrupt them back so that his condition to boons is on Cooldown. Which means open up with conditions and if you see all your conditions removed and the guardian buffed, pop your corruptions.

Engineers
I haven’t seen many engineers in WvWvW but there is really only one you need to worry about or that you might have troubles with and this is the TANKCAT build.

1. Retaliation is not your friend: Simply put if you see retaliation on the engineer , corrupt it, remove it or stop attacking. This engineer is usually built for tanking and uses retaliation so that you kill yourself.

Elementalist
Another class that most people hate fightning. Elementalists usually run a Dagger and Dagger build with boon coverage and healing power.

1. Removal of boons: Removing the elementalist bunker build’s boons will utterly make them squishy.

2. Interrupt their chains: A elementalist will purely hate you if you interrupt their combos. This can be easily achieved with fears/daze. This also will throw off the timing of changing their earth/water/fire/lightning.

Reserved for further class thingies and further stufff for DEM NECRO GUIDES

Also learning when to dodge helps a ton.

A flaw in one of the strategies you mentioned in regards to thieves: placing all your marks on one spot may not be a good idea, it lets the thief dodge all four of them at once while stealthed and puts them on cooldown. Not to mention many thieves use the trait that removes a condition every 3 seconds while in stealth, which means if you hit them with bleeds while they are stealthed, chances are most of it will get removed quickly.

Shadow Refuge: Staff 5 is your friend here. Seriously. If you can fear the Thief out of the Shadow Refuge, they will not only lose their stealth, but also become revealed for 3 seconds before they can stealth again.

Maintain range against thieves at all times, unless it’s obvious you have the upper hand and will win anyway. Most thieves need to close to melee range to damage you (D/D) or to cloak themselves using cloak and dagger. Even pistol/dagger thieves must close to melee to do this, so staying at max range will make them waste initiative/cooldowns to close the gap to you. A D/D thief who has to spam heartseeker to get in range isn’t going to have much left to actually deal damage to you with.