Guild Wars 2

Try playing a condition build with epidemic and watch everyone melt to trident auto-attacks.

I never have an issue running minions underwater, since there they lack the pathing issues and, unlike most of our utilities, they work just fine underwater.

Besides, not many other classes can solo fight hostile players, quaggans, and krait simultaneously underwater and win. I’ve done this multiple times, and all but the most recent time have been without many exotics or any ascended gear.

I actually find that my Necro performs exceptionally well when I fight underwater on my (power) Necro. The weapon skills (and underwater death shroud) are utterly ridiculous.

Between Deadly Catch, Dark Spear, Sinking Tomb, Frozen Abyss and Wave of Fear, as well as access to a dash and swiftness, you’re kitten near unbeatable even with mediocre utilities underwater.

I make a habit of jumping into water if I’m ever badly outnumbered in WvW just because our weapons are so kitten strong down there.

Necro is OP underwater, i love camping the bay water portal when it’s being camped just to kill people in the water!

It’s not that bad imo, i use spectrals and a spear under water. Propeller attack hits pretty hard and have a short CD. Also have a leap attack,. and a AoE pull. A ST pull with spectral. If you get loaded up with conditions enter death shroud and get rid of em. I can pretty much take on 4-5 enemies at the same time under water without it being much on a issue. Activate the locus swarm like abillity and propeller 4-5 mobs and life taps will pretty much bring you up to full hp.

In general i think moast people just focus on the wrong stats for Necros and that makes em to squishy for moast people to play em properly. Seriusly, add tougness and healing power, and your will se how much easier this class plays.

I definitely agree. I know some people say we can do amazing underwater in a condition build, but I say screw that.

I don’t play a condition build, I play a well bombing, dagger using, DS critting power build. The only utilities I actually use are disabled underwater, basically leaving me with using minions just to fill the slots, add a bit of extra dps and hopefully take some aggro. It is really annoying.

I’m not a big pvp’er, but i’ll hotjoin some matches and as soon as it comes to raid of the capricorn I ditch.

is this about pvp or pve?

Powernecro(pve) here, i love underwater battles.

Spear#2 does good Aoe-damage, spear#1 is decent and AoE-too (thats what dagger should be like: AoE-damage on 3rd chain-skill)
spear#3 is nice too, spear #4 is awesome to pull mobs together.
trident#2 is always useful and trident#5 probably deals the highest damage possible as a power necro (and its AoE too).

with my thief or mesmer, underwater battle are much worse

Levian.6742:

I don’t play a condition build, I play a well bombing, dagger using, DS critting power build. The only utilities I actually use are disabled underwater, basically leaving me with using minions just to fill the slots, add a bit of extra dps and hopefully take some aggro. It is really annoying.

Might I recommend slotting Blood is Power, Spectral Walk and Signet of Spite?

Given that you’re relying on weapon damage, I find it best to play to your strengths

On another note, I empathise with OP about Flesh Golems not working underwater, Lich form doesn’t either for some reason (probably because it uses marks.)

However the Flesh Golem thing could probably be fairly easily fixed. If it’s a problem with the way the minion itself works, why not use that one idea someone had about the Flesh Golem being replaced with an undead Shark or something when underwater, like how Rangers have seperate underwater pets.

I don’t like underwater, even in PvE. Normally I can kite like hell on land, and not get touched at all while taking out 10 enemies at once. Underwater, there are almost as many enemies tightly packed as in Orr, and many are long range making kiting useless.

I suppose I could use Blood is Power, although I don’t ever plan on being underwater very long unless I absolutely have to. I usually do run with Spectral Walk though, it’s always useful.

Its definitely annoying not being able to use Flesh Golem. I have NO idea why our other minions work fine underwater, but he can’t even be used. It just seems like a big error right from the start.

I don’t use pets because they suck horribly. I long for the days of GW1, before the minion cap, standing at the enemy spawn with an army of 20 bone fiends…those were the days.

As for underwater, we do fine. I tested this the other day in TC BL. There is a patrol of Krait that does a big loop around the lake…about 25 if you can tag the ones that just hang out nearby too. You can solo the entire group at once as a necro. Trident 2 and 5 are awesome, and even though the utility skills underwater are meh, plague is awesome.
Grab the whole pile, circle around to get everything, as they draw near F1, than 4, just to get them bunched. Once in, trident 2 than 5 than plague…and just sit there. When plague drops most of them are dead, if you still have more than 10 on you F1 again, rinse and repeat.

Against players, only classes that pose trouble are ranger and mesmer.

Again though, it seems you’re running a condition build. We shouldn’t have to run a specific build just to make it work. I personally don’t like cond builds and I’m certainly never going to switch to one just so I can play underwater.

My biggest problem with it is like I said, they disable all of the utilities I normally use, Wells. Also Death Shroud is different which still messes me up, even after 300 hours of playing a Necro. I expect it to work a certain way and then underwater, it doesn’t work at all how it does on land. Underwater, the only ability in DS I can rely on is the fear.

Most of my gear is pow/vit/cond or pow/vit/tough, I run without food 3k power and I’ll have to check my condition. Sadly, my prec and crit is crap. 21% chance and 9% dmg.

@OP

Your logic is broken.

Minions are kittene underwater. Then again, minions are kittene on land too. Power and condition builds are fine underwater – perhaps a little on the OP side.

Highlights are trident 4, DS 4, and all the spear attacks with the possible exception of 3.

Necro’s rock underwater. Their harpoon skillset is pretty much the guardian greatsword skillset; which rocks.

the only annoyances i have with water necro is the lack of elite options (though im a condition build; so its fine for me) and inability to use wells

go play ele underwater and you’ll see necro in a new light ;]

i don’t know guys… complaining about Necro being UPed on land is one thing, but necro’s definitely one of the better ones underwater, borderlining on ridikulusness.

edit – if the whole GW2 is underwater like a gigantic kittened up version of Atlantis, then hell yeah you’ll see people asking for nerfs for Necro ( QQ necro too op)

I am going to have to agree with general consensus. Necromancers are VERY well equipped underwater compared to other classes. I have had success underwater with all builds, because our weapon kits are very strong. If you are having problems with it, then (no offense meant) you are doing something wrong.

I don’t really care too much about underwater combat since I avoid it, but I’m just now thinking that we better not complain about it, or else we risk getting only underwater buffs on future patches instead of much needed bug fixes

Minion necros suffer less from pathing issues than on land.

Condition necros work just as well as they do on land.

Power necros (including those that use wells) do exceptionally well compared to many other classes just using their weapon abilities.

I don’t really see how you could not be strong underwater as a necro if your build works on land.

both necro condi and pwr is great uderwater….condi obviously but if u need help with pwr ill give u a quick good setup. utilities, spectral grasp spectral walk bone minions. bone minion summon time is 1/2 sec and 1st explosion instant upon summon(2nd one has a little delay from 1st) so if u want u get in mlee range summon and instant explod 1st and wait for 2nd to adjust himeself to target(i do 1.5k-2k non crit dmg on my targets with 2.9k pwr on my nec). as for using spectral grasp u want a good combo? pull ur trident out b4 u go inot combat and if u are in copmbat and they are running/have a distance just auto attack them or ds after u get trident out to wait for weap swap cd to be done if u want major combo dmg if not then here u go. sink them with #4 and then immedietely use grab(unless there is a target in front of them to get grabbed i land about 90% of my grabs doing this)right after grab immdietely start channeling frozen abbys then use #2 right after, there u have it lots of burst. for more then do a quick wep swap and use #3 on spear then #4 then spin and watch them continue to melt. also b4 u use grab u can also summon ur minions since u can explode them while using other skills. so u could either use #3 summon minions while keeping close to ur opponent then use #2 spin and explode them while spinning for massive dmg or….with the trident combo summon minions then sink then grab then while channeling frozen explode the minions.

ur guide for necro underwater pwr =)

The greatest thing about fighting under water with the necro is DS.
Under water it actually manages to lower your abysmal damage even further thanks to life blast having a greatly increased casting time and reduced damage on top.

Personally I avoid water at all costs. No reward, event, or great scenery can outweight the pain it is to bear how kittened the necro is under water.

Also you can’t run minions under water because the only elite you can use (plague) kills every minion you have if you use it. This is a poster example of how much thought ANet put into the development of the Necromancer.

Even though the golem can’t be used underwater, other things more than make up for it. The weapon skills are superb, not to mention DS AoE fear. I feel far weaker when I play other profs underwater (except for engi :P).

Another couple things i forgot to mention, For all above me saying ds in bad, its not just has its uses.DS underwater=aoe fear, aoeblind+poison(amazing when ur target feels like sitting still in it and getting constant blind on himself) and also ur very powerful #1, While #1 doesnt hit for much underwater(unless ur pwr prec with some crit dmg) it has a secondary effect, transfer one condition to ur opponent per shot. Ever fight a bleed stacking ranger underwater? his dmg when u go into DS literally drops to almost 0 as u hit him with ur life blast dmg and give him all his bleeds as he applies them to u. On another note, Plague Form underwater with blind added=pulses faster than an eles whirlpool so if they pop whirlpool just go into plague hit #2 and laugh at them as they miss every one of their pulses so they do no dmg to both u and any allies(also no cc from what they add)

nolop.8095:

The greatest thing about fighting under water with the necro is DS.
Under water it actually manages to lower your abysmal damage even further thanks to life blast having a greatly increased casting time and reduced damage on top.

Personally I avoid water at all costs. No reward, event, or great scenery can outweight the pain it is to bear how kittened the necro is under water.

Also you can’t run minions under water because the only elite you can use (plague) kills every minion you have if you use it. This is a poster example of how much thought ANet put into the development of the Necromancer.

Since they decreased Plague Blast’s casting time( November I think?) BiP has been an incredible asset underwater.

Also, Deadly catch is an AoE pull that combos marvelously with Bone Minions + Whirl or Trident 2 and since you are just blowing them up Plague doesn’t really matter.

Necromancers have some of the best weapon skills underwater because of how diverse and actually useful the skills are, the only problem really is that both weapons have average to bad LF generation.

Kyskythyn.6471:

Try playing a condition build with epidemic and watch everyone melt to trident auto-attacks.

^This
Also MM builds aren’t “necromancer builds” as some sort of original, or coveted form of perfection for a necromancer. Yes necromancers are supposed to be spell casters that work through the dead/death, but that doesn’t automatically mean they have to summon armies of undead in order to be a “real” necro.

Minion Master builds are weak in PvP, period. You can make it work on land, but it’s subpar to running a power or condition based build.

At the moment condition necros are really strong underwater, they may even be borderline OP. The profession as a whole though is not inherently bad underwater, not after the december patch.

@ OP:
Are you high? Even with a minion build necros dominate underwater. Granted you can’t run a full minion team, but you won’t have to respec just to go underwater. Learn to use other utilities that compliment your minions. With the new addition of more combo fields for us and combo finishers on the minions, we have much more viable options. The bone minions explode and do blast finishers, use that in any of our combo fields for devastating effect, use the bone fiend to immobilize and then spread immobile to all enemies around it with epidemic, there are soooo many ways you can still dominate underwater, think outside the box my friend and experiment. As far as plague goes though, I rarely use it anyway, and use it when your minions are dead and you’re waiting on recharges, problem solved. You won’t be missing out on anything by not using it underwater I promise.

Just like any other class actually

Spear > Trident. Try it and you’ll see. My necro is arguably more powerful underwater than on land.

Martacus.4085:

Spear > Trident. Try it and you’ll see. My necro is arguably more powerful underwater than on land.

This is very true, use spear #4 (I think it’s 4) will pull everything in to you, hit 3 to get your vampy shrimp going, then 2 for your Spin O Death, I use the trident more for bosses when kiting is more important, and only swap to spear for a few quick death spins on it then back to trident