Guild Wars 2

We all know that Necromancer is a little lower tier in Dungeons. But what about other aspects of PvE?

With the introduction of “organized” PvE maps, like Silverwastes and Dry Top, classes can exce where otherwise would not be useful in dugneons.

What sorts of uses does a Necromancer have in these Open-World PvE maps?

As the Necromancer community, we should organize a list of the Necromancer’s strengths and niches, both general, and specific to a map.

Off the top of my head…

General:

- Able to stack and mantain 25 stacks of Vulnerability faster than any other class. (Use Focus #4 + trait Unyielding Blast + trait Death Shiver)

- Able to draw conditions from allies and keep teams cleasned at a very fast and consistent rate. (Also able to reflect those conditions back)

- Very good at tagging (Warhorn #5, Life Transfer, Plague Form, Wells, etc…)

For Dry Top:
- During the Race event, similar to guardians use Spectral Wall to block Inquest from reaching their goal.

- During N Mines event, use a Necromancer’s healing skills (Life Transfer and Life Blast when traited) to heal Zephyrites and keep them alive.

- When approaching the Inquest Suit boss, use Spectral Walk to eliminate falling damage during the fall into the Inquest Cave.

For Silverwastes:
- Use Epidemic against groups of Husks in order to spread offensive conditions. (Keep in mind the radius is 600, which is HUGE!)

- When overloaded with mobs, pop Plague Form and ctrl+right click (auto) skill #2 in order to have a perma blind with a HUGE radius. Able to trait for chill as well, holding foes in place.

Some “other” notes:

- For Crash Victims event in Dry Top, although Necromancer can use a resurrection signet, the skill itself does not have a large radius, in comparison to Warrior and Ele res skills. Resurrecting more than 1 crash victim is rare as a Necromancer.

- Minions scale up events? (Research needed!!!)

- Minions scale up defiance? (Research needed!!!)

Necro is pretty crappy at basically everything in PvE. Every other class does it better, except maybe the Mesmer in certain scenarios (but at least the Mesmer can reflect and Portal in those cases). I use my necro because it’s my favorite class, but make no mistake my DPS is lower than the other class’s, my support could be done better by the other classes, the other classes have evades/invulns/blocks/vigor for tough spots, and so forth.

Still, if you’re a good player you’ll do a good job and likely shine far more than mediocre players on Warriors or Guardians or what-have-you. That’s what keeps me going, at least.

Just reminding, you dont need to Ctrl+M2 in plague form, its always the last skill of the 3 you press that will keep autoatacking .

Necros are actually better off in the new zones than we are in many of the others. Large are spread out fighting is what where good at. We have liberal sources of soft aoe cc. And and even have innate hard cc that ALL necros have access to regardless of build. Control is more viable in large areas such as this because it means we can take more dangerous mobs out of play before they butcher another player.

What most people can’t handle is that its a play it by ear kind of thing. Take the mordrem for example. The enemy were currently fighting and likely hte most dangerous pve force currently in the game. Were better at taking our large groups of mordrem simultaneously in a 1vx scenario than most are. A decent MM running a no vampiric build can solo a gate defense of any difficulty tier. And even perpetually hold a legendary while others complete the defense with no trouble.

As for things a necro can do that other classes cant. We can casually negate a group of menders. Stop several teragriffs charging another player with ease. Even our power builds can kill husks quickly while still being tanky enough to survive the attention theyl get.

Were better at holding large groups of mordrem in a single area than pretty much anyone else thanks to aoe chills/immoblize/fear/poison and weakness which means were really useful as partners to squisher builds like zerk staff ellies. Because we can hold groups of mordrem still long enough for an ally the get a full meteor shower off on the entire swarm.

Most people forget that open pve isn’t the same as dungeons. And with mordrem its generally a bad idea to have everyone there stacked in one location. (3 or for mordrem slingers will kill half hte stack. and enough mordrem teragriffs charging into you will spell death for pretty much anyone not a bunker. So natrually controlling classes like necromancers get a decent chance to shine since combat in the new zones are more about defending locations than smashing your face repeatedly into a dps rotation and calling it “skill”

Simply being able to hold 10+ mobs in a location long enough for someone on one of hte defense locations acs to start firing on it is more than possible for a necro as long as you understand the games agro mechanics. (which many people never learn because dungeons are a lolfest.)

You havent listed anything that a necro does better than other classes. You can wishful think all you want.

spoj the point of my post wasn’t to state just the things that we can do better (which I FIRMLY believe we CAN actually do better than other classes in the situations the new zone has given us) But to expand on the list of necro capabilities as far as new pve content is concerned.

Its pretty well established were bottom of the pack in the old content "dungeons being the key part there) However in newer content were MUCH more competitive to other classes on the field largely because the kinds of fights were getting are better suited to the classes capabilities.

I wouldnt even go that far. Yes we are slightly less worse off because necro has a range of control conditions and decent base survivability. But thats as far as it goes. As for all the scenarios you listed. I can think of much easier ways to handle them with almost every other class and how other classes have much better skill sets for doing the things you mention sadly. :<

I always think of these type of threads as a place for people to show off their wishful thinking and delusions. Which is unfortunate because thats how its going to remain until Anet addresses the issues.

To clarify. I think its fine if you are describing things because you find the way necro does them fun. I dislike when people falsely claim something. Sugar coating the class is kind of irritating as it doesnt solve anything and just causes misinformation for new players.

No offense intended. Just giving my honest opinion.

Hmm I guess weve just had different experiences with the classes in question then. Or we play our classes in different ways. The only way to really test that would be to come up with scenarios and proposed solutions and test them. But that would be a drag on both our time as interesting as it would be. Id like to eventually test it though since this is one of those situations thats harder to figure out since open world pve especially against the current enemies there releasing tends to be a bit less static than the dungeon content that necros are typically held up against.

I guess my biggest pet pieve on the matter is how often necros capability of debilitation is ignored. (something we do inately as part of our normal play even if we choose not to focus on it) its worthless in dungeon content but as far as the kind of fighting ANet seems to be leaning towards is much more valuable than its ever been.

Shadelang.3012:

stuff, mm, stuff, more stuff

This sounds really sweet on paper, but what is it like ingame? What specific builds succeed, and how are they better than other professions at it?

Mob type and difficulty has nothing to do with why necro isnt popular.

Going back to dungeons. If you look at it from a meta builds standpoint. All classes except necro have a place. All classes meta builds have some kind of group support or group buffing. The design philosophy for theorycrafting in the meta is to take the minimum support and defence you need and then take as much damage as you can afterwards. The only class that isnt in the meta is the only class thats meta build is pure dps. The reason for that is because any support necro gets is pretty poor and you lose too much damage if you try to trait for it further.

These differences in the classes can be applied in open world, dungeons and fractals. They are all equally relevant. Its just people focus more on dungeons when they are talking about the PvE meta. Because its the base 5 man content. And obviously its difficult to balance around zergs.

That’s… Unfortunately just a lot of buzz for “we do the same thing in PvE every single class should do”, except it doesn’t touch on the fact that we’re worse at it not just in dungeons, but everywhere. We’re worse at it.

“Necros are definitely on the front line” like every other class should be, melee DPS.
“We’re capable of having very high levels of toughness and vitality” like every other class is capable of, noting that doing this is always bad on every class.
“We have many ways of purging ourselves of debilitating effects” just like every other class.
“Our specialty is debilitation” which is tragically way worse than just murdering a mob in every scenario.

Literally the only two things a necromancer can do that nothing else can do is convert boons into conditions and spread conditions with Epidemic, neither of which are really worth it. While Well of Corruption is great, the times you’re using it to convert boons are few and far between, and converting swiftness into cripple or one of the other conversions really isn’t that valuable. I hate to be that guy, but it’s just not worth it. The few times you manage to convert Protection, just remember that converting it is only so good and classes like the Mesmer remove those boons on autoattack, completely belittling what you bring to the table.

In every single scenario where I have to use Weakness or something like that to kite or survive a mob, I wish I had 4k more DPS instead to outright kill that mob faster so I wouldn’t need to kite in the first place.

Rising im not sure how you managed to twist it that much but I gotta say its impressive. Sadly its 6 A.M. and ive gotta be on the road. Ill try to remember to give a more detailed reply when I get back.

The main thing is that the things ive stated are dependent on the ease at which we do it. Some of the things ive mentioned we do innately that every single necromancer build is capable of. Others are more specialized.

Its obvious though were looking at two different things here. not that it matters. Since I wont be able to honestly respond likely for a few days.

Ill delete my previous two posts in this forum as theyl only cause contention at this point. When I get back Ill try to reply with a more clear version of what I was attempting to put forth. If you want to discuss it in more detail send me a message. Id love the chance to prove you wrong once I get back.

(Note im serious about that last bit. Id like to actually be able to discuss it with you if you have the time at that point as ive found the majority of the playerbase shares your opinion. I think since wev had similar opinions the only way to break it through honest conversation and if necessary demonstration of necromancers strengths outside of a pure zerk environment)

Against Aetherblades Necro was not so badly outclassed, iirc. Anyway, any situation where Epidemic is useful is decent enough. Unfortunately, there are remarkably few of those situations. Epi defines Necro and possibly limits the profession because with it, a vet or better target, and 4+ adds, Necro has strong AoE, without those conditions, Necro AoE is fair to poor compared to other professions.

Any more uses in open world PvE?

As much as I love my necro, he only has any sort of use in PvP, and even there there are others who can do it much better. Although solo, a necro can do very well, in a group setting not so much. the main problem is the lack of group support. Yeah, there is some healing to be had, but you sacrifice too much in DPS to even make it worthwhile in a group where killing the mobs the fastest is the safest way to go. But there are very few and situational uses for necro in PvE/dungeons. Thats why most people (at least those in speed clears for dungeons) don’t like them.

I break out my Necro as she is the only spell caster that I actually enjoy using. I’ve got a mesmer but seriously don’t enjoy the mesmer play style. Tried ele and definitely didn’t like it. She comes out when I don’t really feel like melee and I’ve pretty much only done the LS with her. I find that she is more interesting to use with all the mordrem to deal with. Sure I could go with my ranger or warrior, perhaps even my guardian who I leveled to 80 but almost never play except for crafting armour, but for some reason my necro is just so interesting to play, despite all the deficiencies in the class