Guild Wars 2

I was digging around on wiki and various build sights when I was researching dodges and vigor.

What I noticed is that Necromancers have a pretty nice on dodge trait that gives regen and causes bleeds, but they have no way to increase energy replenishment.

There are no vigor skills that I can see which are readily available, short of converting conditions to boons every 60 seconds (48 if traited).

So my question is now, do Necros dodge? Seems like one of the least capable class at avoiding damage.

I guess Death Shroud is your form of avoidance to a good majority of damage? If so then, a Necro that focuses on survivability would want to maximize life force replenishment, correct?

(I main a guardian so I don’t know much about other professions. I have one of each, just don’t play them much)

Well its pretty common to have Energy on the Staff as a necro so its a so so thing, the main necro weaknesses is in fact lack of mid combat mobility (Dark path being the only mobility skill that isnt a utility – i dont count locust swarm on WH because its a waste if used for swiftness and it often hits invisible/in ground objects slowing you to base speed either way).
DS in itself is a great damage migration tool, as is our plethora of chill/weakness/blind applications and fear for interrupts.
Guardians and warriors have to go deep into defensive setups to be able to tank as much as a necro on a baste level, but if they do go all out for damage migration they are way better than full defensive necros.

If you want more dodges, you can put a sigil of energy on both weapon sets, and eat +30% endurance regeneration food (which is pretty cheap, 70c or so). I run with that, but I generally play more defensively than many people, so you might prefer a different setup.

While I think we ought to have some access to vigor, since dodges are a pretty important mechanic and every other class has access to it, in PvE it’s only really an issue when doing high level fractals (not sure how important it is there, I’m only at 15) or soloing dungeons.

PvP/WvW is a different story, but I think the real killer there is a lack of almost any in-combat mobility, rather than strictly dodges per-se. (Disclaimer, I don’t WvW much and haven’t done SPvP yet, so this is mostly secondhand.)

Awesome answers guys, thanks for the info!

The core concept of the necromancer is that yes, we are supposed to use our DS to mitigate incoming damage. Rather than avoiding the damage completely like every other class does, we’re supposed to just take it, but shrug it off because of our large HP pool and DS. The flaw that many people soon realize after playing the necromancer in PvP is that when you compare them to classes with blocking, invulnerability, invisibility, teleports, the ability to stack vigor, and other general mobility skills (swiftness is not mobility, its a speed buff, different mechanics) it falls way, way behind in terms of survivability and keeping up/away from your opponents. DS is fine for avoiding damage in PvE. Nothing ever hits hard enough for DS not to protect you there. Hell, it completely avoids the instant kill hit from Jade Maw. Sure, it eats all your LF, but you have tons of ways to generate LF in PvE, so that should never be a problem. It isn’t til you start doing PvP that you start to see the major flaw in its design.

In s/tPvP, its an extremely scarce resource for many builds, and you have to rely on other people to help you make kills to generate that LF. This is why people say that necromancers need support in s/tPvP. Every time you start a match, any LF you have is always set to 0. This leaves us at a huge disadvantage starting each match. Its also rather difficult to continuously generate LF, as it requires you to be in actual combat with players. Chances are you’re also going to use up any LF you may have generated during your fights just to stay alive. Its also possible for your LF to be gone the instant you use DS because of burst combos from certain classes. Sometimes they wait for you to use it just so they can burst it all away and leave you disadvantaged for a while.

In WvW, LF generation is a lot less of a problem because there are NPCs and critters you can go beat on to generate it. However, you’ll soon discover that the second you go into DS, it disappears almost instantly because of how much burst is being thrown at you (even more so in WvW than s/tPvP). I’m not even joking when I say a mesmer or a thief can burst all of your LF away in a single attack combo, and a warrior can literally one shot all of your LF with eviscerate or hundred blades. This is mainly why people have taken up the habit of “flashing” DS to use a single skill. Go in DS, use your skill, get out of DS before it gets eaten up. In Zerg vs Zerg, DS isn’t going to save you, because by the time you need it, its already to late.

This game is designed with dodging and mobility as its primary method of avoiding damage. When you then add a class that cannot dodge as effectively, and completely lacks the necessary in combat mobility required to perform adequately in comparison to the other classes, you end up with a rather lack luster profession. Seems like it might work on paper, but in practice, it fails to deliver up to expectations. This is mainly why necromancers are regarded as the worst roaming class in the game.

TLDR: DS is good in PvE and works great. Because of the obscene amounts of burst that other classes are capable of dishing out in PvP, plus our general lack of mobility, DS is a very bad mechanic is sadly holding this class back.

those that dont dodge, dies

we do have acces to vigor via Well of Power and Blood is Power self bleeding. You can also just well of power when you got 8+ stacks of bleed on you to get 30+ secondes vigor. I once go1 minute vigor no joke -_-

Necros have a lot of access to blinds, along with death shroud, so our need for dodging is not as serious as say Rangers.

Be fair, it isn’t just vigor. No blocks, no invulnerable, no attacks that evade, terrible mobility, no knockdown (except Golem), knockback (except lich #3), or launch, no stun (daze is not the same thing), no reflect or absorb projectiles.

Necro does a lot of things well, but avoiding hits isn’t one of them. Thats ok, just really makes building a good one more difficult.

BTW, popping 2 utilities in exchange for 10s vigor is not what I consider to be sound tactics, so you really shouldn’t even count that as an option.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Be fair, it isn’t just vigor. No blocks, no invulnerable, no attacks that evade, terrible mobility, no knockdown (except Golem), knockback (except lich #3), or launch, no stun (daze is not the same thing), no reflect or absorb projectiles.

Necro does a lot of things well, but avoiding hits isn’t one of them. Thats ok, just really makes building a good one more difficult.

BTW, popping 2 utilities in exchange for 10s vigor is not what I consider to be sound tactics, so you really shouldn’t even count that as an option.

Doesn’t hide the fact that necromancer does have access to vigor via well of power. Did you ever try converting 10+ stacks of bleed in pvp? It gives you 30+ seconds of vigor.

Poplolita.2638:

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Be fair, it isn’t just vigor. No blocks, no invulnerable, no attacks that evade, terrible mobility, no knockdown (except Golem), knockback (except lich #3), or launch, no stun (daze is not the same thing), no reflect or absorb projectiles.

Necro does a lot of things well, but avoiding hits isn’t one of them. Thats ok, just really makes building a good one more difficult.

BTW, popping 2 utilities in exchange for 10s vigor is not what I consider to be sound tactics, so you really shouldn’t even count that as an option.

Doesn’t hide the fact that necromancer does have access to vigor via well of power. Did you ever try converting 10+ stacks of bleed in pvp? It gives you 30+ seconds of vigor.

Its more efficient to just transfer them back at this point. You don’t need dodges against other condition builds. There is no point in avoiding them when you can turn their own attacks against them. Its the burst builds you need dodges for.

Kravick.4906:

Poplolita.2638:

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Be fair, it isn’t just vigor. No blocks, no invulnerable, no attacks that evade, terrible mobility, no knockdown (except Golem), knockback (except lich #3), or launch, no stun (daze is not the same thing), no reflect or absorb projectiles.

Necro does a lot of things well, but avoiding hits isn’t one of them. Thats ok, just really makes building a good one more difficult.

BTW, popping 2 utilities in exchange for 10s vigor is not what I consider to be sound tactics, so you really shouldn’t even count that as an option.

Doesn’t hide the fact that necromancer does have access to vigor via well of power. Did you ever try converting 10+ stacks of bleed in pvp? It gives you 30+ seconds of vigor.

Its more efficient to just transfer them back at this point. You don’t need dodges against other condition builds. There is no point in avoiding them when you can turn their own attacks against them. Its the burst builds you need dodges for.

This
/15chars

Kravick.4906:

Poplolita.2638:

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Be fair, it isn’t just vigor. No blocks, no invulnerable, no attacks that evade, terrible mobility, no knockdown (except Golem), knockback (except lich #3), or launch, no stun (daze is not the same thing), no reflect or absorb projectiles.

Necro does a lot of things well, but avoiding hits isn’t one of them. Thats ok, just really makes building a good one more difficult.

BTW, popping 2 utilities in exchange for 10s vigor is not what I consider to be sound tactics, so you really shouldn’t even count that as an option.

Doesn’t hide the fact that necromancer does have access to vigor via well of power. Did you ever try converting 10+ stacks of bleed in pvp? It gives you 30+ seconds of vigor.

Its more efficient to just transfer them back at this point. You don’t need dodges against other condition builds. There is no point in avoiding them when you can turn their own attacks against them. Its the burst builds you need dodges for.

I’m not talking about efficiency, I’m talking about accessibility.

“What I noticed is that Necromancers have a pretty nice on dodge trait that gives regen and causes bleeds, but they have no way to increase energy replenishment.”

“no way to increase energy replenishment”

Note the context next time when you are responding. Thank you.

Andele.1306:

Guardians and warriors have to go deep into defensive setups to be able to tank as much as a necro on a baste level

not just wrong, Sofa King Wrong!

Poplolita.2638:

I’m not talking about efficiency, I’m talking about accessibility.

“What I noticed is that Necromancers have a pretty nice on dodge trait that gives regen and causes bleeds, but they have no way to increase energy replenishment.”

“no way to increase energy replenishment”

Note the context next time when you are responding. Thank you.

Yet again you’ve proven you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not even going to bother dismantling your post again. You’ll just respond with more trolling and word twisting like you did before.

Kravick.4906:

Poplolita.2638:

I’m not talking about efficiency, I’m talking about accessibility.

“What I noticed is that Necromancers have a pretty nice on dodge trait that gives regen and causes bleeds, but they have no way to increase energy replenishment.”

“no way to increase energy replenishment”

Note the context next time when you are responding. Thank you.

Yet again you’ve proven you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not even going to bother dismantling your post again. You’ll just respond with more trolling and word twisting like you did before.

Could you at least try proving me wrong instead of throwing me, yet again, another one of your ad hominem? At this point, your use of the word “trolling” comes as an excuse from your misunderstanding of my posts. I even clarified that I was talking about accessbility on an on demand vigor buff the op was asking for ( blood is power+well of power gives 10sec vigor ) and not if t was efficient or not.

Poplolita.2638:

Could you at least try proving me wrong instead of throwing me, yet again, another one of your ad hominem? At this point, your use of the word “trolling” comes as an excuse from your misunderstanding of my posts. I even clarified that I was talking about accessbility on an on demand vigor buff the op was asking for ( blood is power+well of power gives 10sec vigor ) and not if t was efficient or not.

I’m sorry, but looking at your post history, and my past dealings with you, you’re just not worth trying to have discussions with. Every time I have tried, all you’ve done is twist my words around and throw insults. Even when other people, people whom I don’t even know, come and point out your flaws in logic, you still flip out, insult people, and try to twist things around in your favor. You’re also entirely too hung up on semantics and you just argue in circles. Its pointless.

No offense, but I really don’t feel like wasting my time with people like you. I come here for intelligent discussion. Not trollling.

Kravick.4906:

Poplolita.2638:

Could you at least try proving me wrong instead of throwing me, yet again, another one of your ad hominem? At this point, your use of the word “trolling” comes as an excuse from your misunderstanding of my posts. I even clarified that I was talking about accessbility on an on demand vigor buff the op was asking for ( blood is power+well of power gives 10sec vigor ) and not if t was efficient or not.

I’m sorry, but looking at your post history, and my past dealings with you, you’re just not worth trying to have discussions with. Every time I have tried, all you’ve done is twist my words around and throw insults. Even when other people, people whom I don’t even know, come and point out your flaws in logic, you still flip out, insult people, and try to twist things around in your favor. You’re also entirely too hung up on semantics and you just argue in circles. Its pointless.

No offense, but I really don’t feel like wasting my time with people like you. I come here for intelligent discussion. Not trollling.

I do recall I did twist your words (not sure about insults, I think you are Over-exaggerating) for no reason, I don’t remember the thread though. But I do remember it was 3am, and I wasn’t in a good mood. If you felt offended whatsoever, I apologize.

Didn’t mean to cause an argument. I did see in my original research that necros have condition conversion on a 60-48s timer depending on if traited or not.

I did ask if it was readily available as in, can you maintain vigor throughout the duration of a fight.

The intent of my original research was that guardian’s have a trait called vigorous precision which provides vigor on crit for 5 seconds. With a moderate amount of crit any guard can keep vigor going. In turn they have Selfless Daring in the same trait line that provides a heal on dodging.

While I was looking around I was seeing if the game was intended for everyone to take dodge traits to increase survivability and every class had “on dodge” effects but necro did not have easy access to vigor.

I don’t consider the blood is power+well of power easy access but it is there if you need it. Smart use of condition conversion in natural combat would also provide a lot of useful boons as mentioned with the 1m of vigor on high stacks of bleed.

I did see a recent necro lupicus solo who had smart use of Death Shroud to avoid attacks, so I inferred that DS was the necro dodge. Good points on the speed of regeneration and PvP vs PvE making it seeming lackluster though.

Hope I cleared up your argument, but I did learn a lot from you all. Thank you!

To be fair, I found the tip on Blood is Power + boon conversion to be pretty interesting, as I hadn’t connected those dots myself yet. Obviously, taking both Blood is Power and Well of Power is a pretty unattractive way to achieve Vigor. Still, this little ‘tip’ sparks creative thought and makes me smile a little inside. The way I read it, that was pretty much the point of the post… I’d take these types of posts over yet another essay about how bad we are any time of the week (and twice on sunday :P), as we have way too much of those and they just make me (us?) feel depressed.

To take this idea a bit further: I wouldn’t be surprised if they would change Shrouded Removal to a condition conversion instead of a removal at some point (imo, it’s in line with some of the other changes they have done/plan to do) and then this idea of self-bleed+conversion suddenly becomes a lot more attractive…

My guess is that Necros don’t get lots of Vigor because we have lots of access to Weakness, which is effectively the same thing. If you have Vigor and I don’t your endurance regens 50% faster than mine. If you have Vigor and Weakness then we’re even. If you have Weakness and I don’t then I effectively have Vigor because my endurance regens 50% faster than yours. Add to that all the Blind/Fear/Chill access we have and it makes sense in a “Looks good on paper” kind of way.

PinCushion.7390:

we have lots of access to Weakness

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness

Lots of people say this, but its not actually true. If you look at the number of skills that apply weakness, we’re tied with thief, and warrior has a much, much more effective way of applying weakness on a target, and keeping on that target, with mace auto attack. TBH, there are actually very few skills in the game that apply weakness after looking at that list. It might seem like we have more access to weakness, but if you look at it more closely you’ll see something else entirely. We only have 5 skills that apply weakness. Two of them are under water skills, which we can’t use on land where 95% of combat happens. One is tied to a utility skill that, TBH, I’ve never ever seen a necromancer use after level 10, and has questionable use in any PVP environment. One is an ability on plague form, which most necromancers never use because blind spamming is so much more effective. Why reduce an enemies damage when you can negate it all together, right? We also have to be IN plague form and glued to a target to keep it applied, which means we can’t do anything else. The 5th skill is tied to a weapon that is only used by condition necros, which leaves power necros high and dry. 2 of these skills apply the weakness to us instead of our target, so we need a second ability just to transfer it, and usually by then the condition has expired.

I suppose if you want to include blast finishers you can say we have access to 6 ways to apply weakness, but then you have to include other classes ability to do this. This still ties us with thief. TBH, they do it more reliably because Poison Gas lasts longer, can be kept up indefinitely, and the thief can spam Cluster Bomb on it to stack the duration a heck of a lot better than we can, and still maintain decent AoE DPS. From a PVP stand point, in order for us to blast finish weakness, we would have to use one of our condition transfer abilities, which IMO is a waste for using just to apply weakness.

EDIT: I totally didn’t scroll down far enough. Missed the traits that apply weakness passively. This now pushes thieves ahead of necromancers. Thief has a minor trait which applies weakness every time they poison someone. Because of the way that tree works for thieves, they automatically do this when they steal through 2 minor traits. Thieves only need 15 points into this trait line to do this. This now means that Poison Gas can naturally cause weakness and thieves don’t even need to spam Cluster Bomb to blast finish. Thief dagger auto attack chain now also applies weakness on the 3rd strike, which means they can keep weakness up continuously. Spider Venom now has a dual purpose, poison and weakness. Necromancers obtain the ability to apply weakness through the 30 point trait “Target the Weak” in curses. Lets be honest, if you’re going that far into curses, you’re condition or hybrid spec, and you are not taking Target the Weak.

4 more ways for thief, 1 more way for necro.

DOUBLE EDIT: Forgot Weakening Shroud. Unfortunately, it has an internal cool down of 15 seconds, so won’t always apply every time you go into DS.

You’re forgetting the trait ‘weakening shroud’—it provides a very high up time pbaoe weakness.

Lolicia.6502:

You’re forgetting the trait ‘weakening shroud’—it provides a very high up time pbaoe weakness.

This. 10 points in Curses, and you can swap it for Chilling Darkness when you feel like it.

15 second cooldown on 10s Weakness is pretty decent.

When I said “lots of access to Weakness” I wasn’t saying “a lot of our skills cause weakness.” I meant that we can have permanent up-time on Weakness with minimal build altering. 10 in Curses and off-hand dagger is about all you need.

Or, if you can’t spare the 10 in Curses, you can just slot Corrosive Poison Cloud and off-hand dagger. Use the dagger condi transfer to send the CPC self-weakness to your target. No build altering needed. Just keep a spare dagger in your bag.

Kravick.4906:

Why reduce an enemies damage when you can negate it all together, right?

Weakness: Endurance regen decreased by 50%; Also does other stuff.

Handy for getting our slow cast time skills to actually land. I’m always amused when some newbie will bottom out his endurance dodging Life Transfer in WvW. Not that I’m awesome at WvW. I just find it amusing.

Lolicia.6502:

You’re forgetting the trait ‘weakening shroud’—it provides a very high up time pbaoe weakness.

Ah hah, I did. Thank you for that. Unfortunately, it has an internal cool down of 15 seconds, so won’t always apply every time you go into DS.

just so you know yes you get a trait that makes your dodge place a mark however the cooldown of that dodge trait is the same as it takes to regain the 50% energy used up so increasing energy regen is nice to dodge more attacks unlike some other classes like theif you will see no other benefits

PinCushion.7390:

Kravick.4906:

Why reduce an enemies damage when you can negate it all together, right?

Weakness: Endurance regen decreased by 50%; Also does other stuff.

Handy for getting our slow cast time skills to actually land. I’m always amused when some newbie will bottom out his endurance dodging Life Transfer in WvW. Not that I’m awesome at WvW. I just find it amusing.

This quote is out of context. It is in relation to Plague Form. How are you casting anything when in Plague Form? You can only do 1 of 3 things there. Bleed, Blind, or Weakness/Cripple. Cause someone to completely miss their attacks, or cause them to do half damage 50% of the time? What would you choose?

Kravick.4906:

PinCushion.7390:

Kravick.4906:

Why reduce an enemies damage when you can negate it all together, right?

Weakness: Endurance regen decreased by 50%; Also does other stuff.

Handy for getting our slow cast time skills to actually land. I’m always amused when some newbie will bottom out his endurance dodging Life Transfer in WvW. Not that I’m awesome at WvW. I just find it amusing.

This quote is out of context. It is in relation to Plague Form. How are you casting anything when in Plague Form? You can only do 1 of 3 things there. Bleed, Blind, or Weakness/Cripple. Cause someone to completely miss their attacks, or cause them to do half damage 50% of the time? What would you choose?

If they’re hitting me or group members I’d use Blind. If they’re trying to run away from me or my group members I’d use Weakness/Cripple. If I have Chilling Darkness traited (which is rare) I’d almost always use Blind.

Aside from weakness reducing endurance, there’s also a decent amount of chill which slows people by so much that it often forces a dodge. So no, we can’t really dodge much but we can stop other people from dodging as much.

Necromancers; very much the bitter, neglected spoiler of a little brother.

Would be nice to see any damage taken feeds life force, and any damage in DS regains HP. You could still kill us but you would be forced to get us between DS cooldowns. Would go a long way against being zerged to death while others walk off with their shields or roll away.

I would say at least any direct damage, and make it proportional the amount we are taking so that we are not unkillable to one target, but several people ganking a necro would actually increase his lifespan. Same result as 10 people blowing attacks on a 3 sec invul.