Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!
What is the best Thing about necro? What are they good at?

Truthfully, other than the Flavor-of-the-month Dhuumfire Terror build, necros aren’t really great at anything, but they do a lot of things okay.

Necros are not much good at anything. There is always another profession that is batter than necro at doing certain role.

People below me might say – Necro is good in spvp. This is untrue, just a few condition remover disables condition necro’s performance; guardians make better bunkers; necro dont have much burst potential to be worth being built to DPS like thieves; Necros hardly have much support skill.

People below me might say – Necro is good at condition. This is untrue, other classes like ranger and engi cant stack more types of condition, mesmer can stack more damaging condition (confusion), gurdians can stack longer conditions (burning), warriors cant inflict more stacks of bleeding with less effort, etc. Edit: forgot to mention the 25 bleed stack limit.

People below me might say – Epidemic. This relies on other professions to be truly effective.

People below me might say – Jake of all trades, master of none. This is untrue, elementalist makes a better jake of all trades due to their attunement swap.

People below me might mention things necros are best at, simply because they are the only class that has access to it.

They bring the creep factor. I mean who wouldn’t want to play someone reanimates corpses then makes them implode for their sick pleasure.

We are pretty good at fighting hopeless fights, since we can’t get out of any. Don’t ever forget that!

EDIT:
I forgot to mention our useless traits, like Reanimator, and Protection of the Horde, and Dark Armor! We are pretty good at having messed up trait lines!

we are also very good at whining and feeling bad about ourselfs.
the thing i can think of that necros are better at than other classes would be managing conditions.
were pretty good at removing them from friends, dragging them on us, or turning them into boons, or throwing them back at the enemy and spread it among them.
some classes have abilities that can do a couple of these things as well but the necro has more options.
just give it a try.
if you can put the class-x-is better-at-that-thought aside the necro can be a strong and fun to play class.
i have to say that im still enjoying my little necro in pve, spvp and wvw and id say I do fairy well at all of them.

Necros are decent at quite a few things.

The big one being epidemic, which is the only force multiplier in the game other than quickness. And despite what others above me have said, it dosn’t rely on other professions at all. A good condi necro can stack 12 to 13 bleeds in an AoE rather quickly, and then follow that up with epidemic puts 4 enemies at bleed cap, then 2 enemies half way there. No other class has nearly this potential. This also comes with all of the other conditions that get stacked along the way, such as cripple, weakness, poison, burning, chill, torment, and blind. Throw in other players, and confusion and vulnerability are also multiplied. The biggest advantage here is that epidemic, being a force multiplier, benefits from other players laying down conditions instead of losing out. Necromancer is the only condi class that can claim this, and a good condition necro will disable an entire room of mobs mere moments after entering a room, while doing a ton of damage to boot.

For a good example of what Necros can do, just look at what they do in sPVP. Despite what others above have said, the AoE and disabling potential of Necromancers transfers well to sPVP. The biggest advantage that necros have over other condition classes is that the necromancer can burst long duration conditions. Engineers, rangers, and mesmers all have to slowly build up conditions, or their conditions are extremely short duration. But necromancers lay down long duration conditions, then seal the deal with their deadliest sPVP trait: terror. With terror, the necromancer has a high damaging stun that also prevents condition cleanses, and much to the dismay of low HP classes this can kill an unprepared build outright. They get enough conditions to overwhelm cleanses, which makes them effective in the sPVP scene.

The big confusion people have is that they assume support = buffs and heals. That is a rather shallow definition. While necromancers can give everyone regeneration with marks, protection with spectral wall and wells, and random boons with Well of Power, most of the necromancer support is offensive. Necromancers have the best access to weakness in the game, cutting the direct damage of enemies by 25%. Necromancers are good at stacking vulnerability, which increases the direct damage of all other players by up to 25%. They have good AoE cripple, Chill, and Immobilize, which prevents enemies from escaping as well as prevents enemies from catching up. Then there is boon corruption and blinds, which while some other classes have more access (other classes being thief), necromancer blinds and boon corruption is still extremely useful to the team. Necros also have condition transferrence and corruption, which is superior to cleansing.

One of the cool things necros also have is extremely high Effective HP or EHP. In larger fights the necro has a weakness to being focused, however in smaller fights, Death Shroud provides a large amount of survivability. There are many bosses in the game that have rapid but weaker attacks, and against these bosses the necromancer can face-tank these bosses in bersrker gear. In PVE, against groups of enemies Life Force can regenerate surprisingly quickly, letting the necromancer sit back and blast enemies with a might stacking, vulnerability inflicting, piercing attack that hits for 6k to 8K a shot at range. Necromancers have a high sustained damage, and high EHP combines well with this to make, in all but the worst circumstances, a very deadly combination.

Though necromancers do have their flaws, don’t let that cloud your judgement. There are many things necros do wel.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros are decent at quite a few things.

The big one being epidemic, which is the only force multiplier in the game other than quickness. And despite what others above me have said, it dosn’t rely on other professions at all. A good condi necro can stack 12 to 13 bleeds in an AoE rather quickly, and then follow that up with epidemic puts 4 enemies at bleed cap, then 2 enemies half way there. No other class has nearly this potential. This also comes with all of the other conditions that get stacked along the way, such as cripple, weakness, poison, burning, chill, torment, and blind. Throw in other players, and confusion and vulnerability are also multiplied. The biggest advantage here is that epidemic, being a force multiplier, benefits from other players laying down conditions instead of losing out. Necromancer is the only condi class that can claim this, and a good condition necro will disable an entire room of mobs mere moments after entering a room, while doing a ton of damage to boot.

For a good example of what Necros can do, just look at what they do in sPVP. Despite what others above have said, the AoE and disabling potential of Necromancers transfers well to sPVP. The biggest advantage that necros have over other condition classes is that the necromancer can burst long duration conditions. Engineers, rangers, and mesmers all have to slowly build up conditions, or their conditions are extremely short duration. But necromancers lay down long duration conditions, then seal the deal with their deadliest sPVP trait: terror. With terror, the necromancer has a high damaging stun that also prevents condition cleanses, and much to the dismay of low HP classes this can kill an unprepared build outright. They get enough conditions to overwhelm cleanses, which makes them effective in the sPVP scene.

The big confusion people have is that they assume support = buffs and heals. That is a rather shallow definition. While necromancers can give everyone regeneration with marks, protection with spectral wall and wells, and random boons with Well of Power, most of the necromancer support is offensive. Necromancers have the best access to weakness in the game, cutting the direct damage of enemies by 25%. Necromancers are good at stacking vulnerability, which increases the direct damage of all other players by up to 25%. They have good AoE cripple, Chill, and Immobilize, which prevents enemies from escaping as well as prevents enemies from catching up. Then there is boon corruption and blinds, which while some other classes have more access (other classes being thief), necromancer blinds and boon corruption is still extremely useful to the team. Necros also have condition transferrence and corruption, which is superior to cleansing.

One of the cool things necros also have is extremely high Effective HP or EHP. In larger fights the necro has a weakness to being focused, however in smaller fights, Death Shroud provides a large amount of survivability. There are many bosses in the game that have rapid but weaker attacks, and against these bosses the necromancer can face-tank these bosses in bersrker gear. In PVE, against groups of enemies Life Force can regenerate surprisingly quickly, letting the necromancer sit back and blast enemies with a might stacking, vulnerability inflicting, piercing attack that hits for 6k to 8K a shot at range. Necromancers have a high sustained damage, and high EHP combines well with this to make, in all but the worst circumstances, a very deadly combination.

Though necromancers do have their flaws, don’t let that cloud your judgement. There are many things necros do wel.

You are right, I was a bit dishonest in my last post. Necromancers, if not treated right, can be an extreme threat, even if outnumbered (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kTecZPdro Vid of me and flow taking down a group of 4-5 people.). We excel at condition managment and crowd control. We do an insane amount of condition damage, and while other classes do that too, we stack the right conditions, by keeping enemies chilled and poisoned, the whole fight. 50% heal reduction and skill recharge nerf can hurt quite a bit. Even with our bad traits and strange trait setup, we still are dangerous. We are also quite good at tanking for prolonged periods of time, without having to buff ourselves (yes. we have basically no defensive buffs). And epidemic is one of a kind spell. It can hurt you really badly, if you are cought off position with your group.

What Deesis and Blood Red Arachnid said.

Don’t put too much stock in what the whiners say. Every profession forum is littered with people who are only here to QQ about how their profession of choice is hysterically underpowered. Necros have their issues, to be sure, but they’re still tons of fun and really strong when used carefully.

One cool thing about the Necro is that we have many viable specs. Anet’s been trying to increase build diversity across the board, but the Necro has had a bunch of good specs for quite a long time. Direct damage, condi builds, 30/30/x/x/x hybrid glass burst, Minion Master, wells, Fearomancers, even healing support builds all have their places in the game.

Mostly, though, the Necro is about having nasty moves that just tear our opponents up. Whether it’s something as simple as Fear that deals extremely high damage or utilities like Epidemic or Corrupt Boon or even AoE debuffs like Well of Darkness or Plague, everything we do involves being so very mean to our enemies. Spectral Grasp is a hoot and a half to use in WvW: a 1200 range targeted pull that also chills your target, and it’s pretty much a guaranteed kill if you land it on a foe with a zerg around you to melt them. Spectral Wall is another nasty move. Used under ideal circumstances, you can keep someone chain feared for 5+ seconds at a time.

Pretty much all out skills are like that: very nasty and brutal. I spend an unreasonable amount of time cackling when playing my Necro.

Alright, everyone who says necros are useless and/or not the best at anything: wrong!

If you read something like this you can instantly tell that this person plays only PvE or not a necro at all:

Shafi.8952:

Necros are not much good at anything.
…
Necro is good in spvp. This is untrue
…
Necro is good at condition. This is untrue
…
Epidemic. This relies on other professions to be truly effective.
…
Jake of all trades, master of none. This is untrue

If you think necros are weak in pvp then you have never met a good necro, simple as that. Or you are oblivious to the fact that every top tPvP team runs 1 or even 2 necros these days.

Just some (out of many) examples what necros are best at, simply because they are the only class that has access to it:

Turning boons into conditions: Corrupt Boon and Well of Corruption. Those two skills are the only ones in the entire game which are able do that.
Transfering conditions to your target: There are 5 skills in the entire game. The mesmer’s Arcane Thievery, the other 4 belong to the necro (Putrid Mark, Deathly Swarm, Plague Signet, underwater Life Blast).

So with all those skills, the necro truly is the best condition class in any pvp environment. Other classes might be able to stack faster, but they don’t have those transfers and they don’t have corruption skills.
And saying that necros have less access to different types of conditions: We already had access to every condition in the game before the last patch because of corruption and transfer skills. But since last week at the latest, with Runes of Perplexity, we really have reliable access to every condition in the game.

And btw Dhuumfire fotm builds are not the only strong ones out there. Power builds will rip any bunker class appart just as easily as a corrupting condi necro.

An elementalist dropped this pearl of wisdom on me yesterday in WvW (attachment):
He said he can usually tank 4-5 players, but necros are op and need a nerf because I could kill him easily (and I didn’t use Dhuumfire or Perplexity against him). Dat logic! xD
So if you think that eles are better roamers than necros, you might want to reconsider when you come accross a proper necro.

Necros are amazing (right now) in pvp, situationally strong in wvw, and struggling in group based pve. This all comes down to the fact that we do insane condition damage – condi is the meta in pvp rn, but it suffers in pve because of condi caps and boss mechanics. We also lack good single-hit spike damage mitigation, which is not so common in pvp but is all over in pve, especially in dungeons or fractals.

Shinya.8014:

Hello everyone!
What is the best Thing about necro? What are they good at?

Necromancers are debuffers above all. When balance is a bit better, we will be somewhat bruiser-y debuffers with good innate sustain.

Crowd control and farming those crowds are two of Necromancer’s strongest abilities. Details have already been discussed, above. Chill, blind, cripple, poison, bleed, torment, condi transfer or boon conversion – all these things are a core part of the play style.

I can fill 45 bag slots in the Crown Pavillion in less than half an hour. This morning I was on for 20 min and had only 4 bag slots open out of something close to 50. Almost everything was junk that I salvaged and ended up with about 8 minor runes and sigils that I’ll feed the mystic porceline with. I ran my MF gear and MF food so maybe that is not impressive. I ended up with 1 rare and 1 exotic, though, so it seems to pay off.

When I run my L47 ele, I get less than a third the loot. That could be just the level and MF difference but my Necro has always been good at tagging lots of trash mobs. Most of the time, I cannot find mobs clustered densely enough to fully utuilize my farming ability.

I have no idea how this compares to others’ experience and other professions. Comments from the forum are welcome but I believe Necromancers are best at wiping trash mobs in high densities where other jobs need to kite and take them out a few at a time.

oh boy ^^ i thought of adding “no l2p whining” to my text but i didn’t cuz that would’ve made me look like a jerk (and i certainly am not).
It’s good to see that people are acctualy saying serious stuff if you scroll alittle

Despite what is said above about our relative effectiveness etc…and I am sure they can all support what they say…the Necromancer is fun to play…you have to work at it….but it is FUN to play.

To often people are focusing on what our class cant do rather then what it can. While it does largely depend on what you want to do. Necromancers can bring many things to the table other classes cant. Right now where the only class that can strip and manipulate boons so easily. This and epidemic have made us hated in WvW and PVP. We can spit out 15 or more Aoes a minute sometimes. This is matched by elemantalists. Making us great at anti-hoard

If you want to play in PvE Going anti-hoard is the best route for us due to our sheer number of Aoes coupled with arguably the 3 best elites in the. We however struggle against many champions simply due to defiant and 1 Kill attacks that seem to be everywhere but don’t let that dissuade you. There a many situations where having a player who can melt hoards is handy so you will find a place in PvE.

In WvW and PvP where 1 hit kill mechenics are rare and our conditions shine we do a lot better and right now where actually feared by a lot of players. Without 1 hit attacks we are 2nd only to guardians when it comes to bunkering so we can both hold down points well, Unleash storms of AOEs on zergs and thanks to plague can shut down entire attacks for 20seconds and with the exception of thieves and stun warriors are currently the best 1vs1 class in pvp. Conditionmancers, Power mancer and even tanks. Theres a lot you can do if you want it. We are a fun class so try to focus on the things we can do rather then cant and you’ll go along way

Dissatisfied people will go on the forums and write a lot of untrue things… in many cases it’s a l2p issue cuz necros are hard to learn, especially when coming from mobile classes such as an ele. I’ve played a necro since launch and at this point I find it more effective than any other class I play in WvW (other than a Warrior, but they both have different strengths and weaknesses).
I don’t often play a power Necro, but the things I find the necro to shine at is this:
-AoE
-Conditions
-Crowd Control
- Tanking (although not as good as a focus ele)

Whoever tells you opposite is wrong.

Necromancers are magicians of the dark arts, they can summon minions and create wells. Personally I prefer using wells, but then again I play half the time in WvW where minions can die easily when it comes to Zerg vs Zerg, and wells also aid your team members. Necromancer are extremely proficient in applying condition damage, so if you’re level 80, it’s best you increase your condition damage, by buying some good sigils and runes.

Staff (conditions applied): Bleeding, Poison, Chill, (Condition allies are suffering from) and fear
Scepter: Bleeding, Poison, Cripple
Dagger (off hand): Blindness, Cripple, Bleeding

Those are the weapons I use in WvW and it’s a really big help (especially the scepter in 1 to 1 combat).

flow.6043:

Alright, everyone who says necros are useless and/or not the best at anything: wrong!

If you read something like this you can instantly tell that this person plays only PvE or not a necro at all:

So? To be fair, the majority of the player base plays either PVE and WVW. So if they complain regarding those aspects of the game, those may be valid complaints.

I also play mainly PVE, and the necromancer is pretty rubbish in PVE. Oh, I do just fine in groups, but I can certainly see the weaknesses of the class. We are Anet’s least favorite profession. All of our traits were broken on release, and we’re still struggling with the various broken/bad traits that remain. Our trait lines are also horribly divided, often limiting our build potential (like having to invest heavily in a rubbish trait line like Death Magic, just to get Greater Marks or Staff Mastery).

Our Death Shroud has always been a poor ability. It used to be our down state, but instead they removed this and made it our primary class mechanic…. and gave us nothing in return. Necromancers are pretty much dead meat in their downstate, with no ability to stealth or move out of the way. And after the recent tpvp Pax change to overflow damage in DS, we are even worse off with our Death Shroud ability.

This bring us to our lack of defense against spike damage, which dominates PVE. Many bosses have one-hit kill attacks (often poorly telegraphed as well), and we have no defense against it, especially now that damage taken in Death Shroud leaks into our actual health pool (great job devs!). And we also don’t have access to vitality for extra dodge rolls, or to invincibility, evade or block.

We are severely handicapped in PVE due to the cap on conditions, which is reached easily when playing with other players. This limits our damage potential greatly, since our class is almost entirely focused on conditions. We are also pretty poor at DPS, due our lack of access to a cleave attack.

All bosses in the game have Defiant, which makes them immune to fear (our primary defense basically, next to Death Shroud). And fear is also often despised by dungeon groups, since it makes common enemies flee, when you typically want them to cluster them into a tight group. Fear is also a bit buggy, since sometimes enemies don’t run away at all, or are rooted in place by default.

Our minion ai is messed up for a very long time now. Minions often do not attack their target (and just stand around), or attack the wrong target (drawing unwanted aggro), or even run away from their target. This is enough reason to not invest at all in minions or Death Magic. Moa Morph also instantly kills all our minions if we’re hit by it, and our Flesh Golem dies underwater.

The Staff is our only real ranged weapon, but it’s projectiles are so slow that players can actually outrun them easily.

Life Stealing is underpowered. It is currently not strong enough in my opinion, to be entirely viable.

We lack escapes. We used to be able to dive off cliffs in DS, but that was recently changed. Sure, you can place a Flesh Wurm (with it’s absurd cool down time) in advance, and hope it’s not dead when you need to use it. But apart from that, we have no ways to escape. This is especially a problem in WvW. And I’ll ignore Spectral Walk for a moment, because that’s going to get nerfed soon too.

Yeah, we are a pretty broken class in PVE. All those complaints are valid. The only reason I’m still playing one, is because I hope at some point our class gets fixed… and I’m just very stubborn.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Yeah, we are a pretty broken class in PVE. All those complaints are valid. The only reason I’m still playing one, is because I hope at some point our class gets fixed… and I’m just very stubborn.

How about you just stop playing the class you dislike?

That should fix all your problems. Leave the class to those who actually like it .

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

flow.6043:

Alright, everyone who says necros are useless and/or not the best at anything: wrong!

If you read something like this you can instantly tell that this person plays only PvE or not a necro at all:

So? To be fair, the majority of the player base plays either PVE and WVW. So if they complain regarding those aspects of the game, those may be valid complaints.
…

Yeah, we are a pretty broken class in PVE. All those complaints are valid. The only reason I’m still playing one, is because I hope at some point our class gets fixed… and I’m just very stubborn.

Did you even read the entire thread?
Or the title? It says “what are necros good at?”, not: why we suck at PvE. Your complaints may be valid but they are off topic.
And my comment was regarding a post claiming that we aren’t good at anything, which is simply not true.

…Getting lots and lots of bags in WvW….

flow.6043:

Did you even read the entire thread?
Or the title? It says “what are necros good at?”, not: why we suck at PvE. Your complaints may be valid but they are off topic.
And my comment was regarding a post claiming that we aren’t good at anything, which is simply not true.

The OP wanted to know what we’re good at. I took that to mean “where do we shine?”. Every class can apply conditions, that’s not exactly unique to necromancers. And we’re not the only class that can use fear either. So what is it necromancers are really really good at? Where are they better than the other classes?

And the sad answer to that is, they aren’t any better anywhere. We do not shine at anything. You were being overly dismissive to a previous poster, because he was just some guy whining about PVE. Well, newsflash! Most people play PVE and WvW! So to discard his comments about our broken PVE state shows pure ignorance and disrespect. Do you see any pugs asking for necromancers, and asking them to bring a particular handy skill? Have you ever seen anyone specifically ask for necromancers in GW2’s PVE?

MethaneGas.8357:

How about you just stop playing the class you dislike?
That should fix all your problems. Leave the class to those who actually like it .

Because I actually care about the state of our class!

I’ve been playing a necromancer since the release of GW1, and let me tell you, necromancers were a GREAT class. Tons of pugs asked around for minion masters for various missions, because that made a mission so much easier. They had excellent damage, and were meatshields on top of that. And lets not forget how useful Blood is Power was in The Deep. Or how everyone was asking for Spiteful Spirit in Underworld and Fissure of Woe. And people were asking for necromancers to bring Spoil Victor for various bosses like Rotscale and Shiro.

We were a GREAT class in GW1’s PVE. Now look at what our class has become in GW2. We do not shine at anything.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You were being overly dismissive to a previous poster, because he was just some guy whining about PVE.

Shafi.8952:

People below me might say – Necro is good in spvp. This is untrue, just a few condition remover disables condition necro’s performance; guardians make better bunkers; necro dont have much burst potential to be worth being built to DPS like thieves; Necros hardly have much support skill.

Apparently you didn’t read the thread.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Most people play PVE and WvW! So to discard his comments about our broken PVE state shows pure ignorance and disrespect. Do you see any pugs asking for necromancers, and asking them to bring a particular handy skill? Have you ever seen anyone specifically ask for necromancers in GW2’s PVE?

Again, I’m not arguing about PvE. And again, that’s not the point of this thread. The question was: what are we good at? Answer: PvP, that includes sPvP and WvW.

Coming from a PvP power necro, we are good at something that’s in the grey area between burst and pressure, a good chunk of it being aoe. A necromancer burst takes some 5 seconds or more, but it can deal ridiculous amounts of damage.

There have been times when I’ve wiped out entire teams foolish enough to all stand on the point..

Gauntlet & Pavilion zerg farming. I really think Pavilion is necro’s heaven.

Every single boss before Liadri in gauntlet was done in single try (except the light dude because I didn’t know the mechanic, but once I know, he’s dead). I didn’t get the Doobroosh achievement at first so you know how fast it dropped.

Zerg farming, just spam epidemic and all your aoe.

The best thing about Necromancers? The fun and the challenge. I’ve tried other classes supposedly better at this, or that, but they are not as much fun to me. Easy choice.

You’ll find me at mid-range, focusing on conditions and positioning. This worked for me in PvE and lately in WvW, haven’t tried PvP yet.

Necro’s are great at PvP. They are great at survival, they have a lot of tools at their disposal and with the right build, can be pretty much unstoppable. You don’t even have to be a highly skilled player to rock with a necro. Check out my build video I just made, skip to 11:30 if you want to see him in action in sPvP. I’ll even take on the Lord with my build, with little help and opposing team attacking.

http://youtu.be/Y8vTQkQG0Fw

I love seeing new forum messiahs. You will go away soon enough. The amount of necros thats been here since day 1… is rather low at this point and most of them don’t go spewing this level of …. meh.

Necros are good at detecting good GW2 players. Remember than each time someone says “necros are a crappy profession”, he is really saying “you need to be a really good player to use a necro in a competitive way”.

Conversely, when someone says “my char’s profession is soooo easy”, he is really saying… well, you know.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros are decent at quite a few things.

The big one being epidemic, which is the only force multiplier in the game other than quickness. And despite what others above me have said, it dosn’t rely on other professions at all. A good condi necro can stack 12 to 13 bleeds in an AoE rather quickly, and then follow that up with epidemic puts 4 enemies at bleed cap, then 2 enemies half way there. No other class has nearly this potential. This also comes with all of the other conditions that get stacked along the way, such as cripple, weakness, poison, burning, chill, torment, and blind. Throw in other players, and confusion and vulnerability are also multiplied. The biggest advantage here is that epidemic, being a force multiplier, benefits from other players laying down conditions instead of losing out. Necromancer is the only condi class that can claim this, and a good condition necro will disable an entire room of mobs mere moments after entering a room, while doing a ton of damage to boot.

For a good example of what Necros can do, just look at what they do in sPVP. Despite what others above have said, the AoE and disabling potential of Necromancers transfers well to sPVP. The biggest advantage that necros have over other condition classes is that the necromancer can burst long duration conditions. Engineers, rangers, and mesmers all have to slowly build up conditions, or their conditions are extremely short duration. But necromancers lay down long duration conditions, then seal the deal with their deadliest sPVP trait: terror. With terror, the necromancer has a high damaging stun that also prevents condition cleanses, and much to the dismay of low HP classes this can kill an unprepared build outright. They get enough conditions to overwhelm cleanses, which makes them effective in the sPVP scene.

The big confusion people have is that they assume support = buffs and heals. That is a rather shallow definition. While necromancers can give everyone regeneration with marks, protection with spectral wall and wells, and random boons with Well of Power, most of the necromancer support is offensive. Necromancers have the best access to weakness in the game, cutting the direct damage of enemies by 25%. Necromancers are good at stacking vulnerability, which increases the direct damage of all other players by up to 25%. They have good AoE cripple, Chill, and Immobilize, which prevents enemies from escaping as well as prevents enemies from catching up. Then there is boon corruption and blinds, which while some other classes have more access (other classes being thief), necromancer blinds and boon corruption is still extremely useful to the team. Necros also have condition transferrence and corruption, which is superior to cleansing.

One of the cool things necros also have is extremely high Effective HP or EHP. In larger fights the necro has a weakness to being focused, however in smaller fights, Death Shroud provides a large amount of survivability. There are many bosses in the game that have rapid but weaker attacks, and against these bosses the necromancer can face-tank these bosses in bersrker gear. In PVE, against groups of enemies Life Force can regenerate surprisingly quickly, letting the necromancer sit back and blast enemies with a might stacking, vulnerability inflicting, piercing attack that hits for 6k to 8K a shot at range. Necromancers have a high sustained damage, and high EHP combines well with this to make, in all but the worst circumstances, a very deadly combination.

Though necromancers do have their flaws, don’t let that cloud your judgement. There are many things necros do wel.

Thank you for your remarkably cogent post! I appreciate the insight!

For some odd reason those dancing white numbers I see In large groups just puts a big grin on my face more then any other class.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

flow.6043:

Alright, everyone who says necros are useless and/or not the best at anything: wrong!

If you read something like this you can instantly tell that this person plays only PvE or not a necro at all:

So? To be fair, the majority of the player base plays either PVE and WVW. So if they complain regarding those aspects of the game, those may be valid complaints.

I also play mainly PVE, and the necromancer is pretty rubbish in PVE. Oh, I do just fine in groups, but I can certainly see the weaknesses of the class. We are Anet’s least favorite profession. All of our traits were broken on release, and we’re still struggling with the various broken/bad traits that remain. Our trait lines are also horribly divided, often limiting our build potential (like having to invest heavily in a rubbish trait line like Death Magic, just to get Greater Marks or Staff Mastery).

Our Death Shroud has always been a poor ability. It used to be our down state, but instead they removed this and made it our primary class mechanic…. and gave us nothing in return. Necromancers are pretty much dead meat in their downstate, with no ability to stealth or move out of the way. And after the recent tpvp Pax change to overflow damage in DS, we are even worse off with our Death Shroud ability.

This bring us to our lack of defense against spike damage, which dominates PVE. Many bosses have one-hit kill attacks (often poorly telegraphed as well), and we have no defense against it, especially now that damage taken in Death Shroud leaks into our actual health pool (great job devs!). And we also don’t have access to vitality for extra dodge rolls, or to invincibility, evade or block.

We are severely handicapped in PVE due to the cap on conditions, which is reached easily when playing with other players. This limits our damage potential greatly, since our class is almost entirely focused on conditions. We are also pretty poor at DPS, due our lack of access to a cleave attack.

All bosses in the game have Defiant, which makes them immune to fear (our primary defense basically, next to Death Shroud). And fear is also often despised by dungeon groups, since it makes common enemies flee, when you typically want them to cluster them into a tight group. Fear is also a bit buggy, since sometimes enemies don’t run away at all, or are rooted in place by default.

Our minion ai is messed up for a very long time now. Minions often do not attack their target (and just stand around), or attack the wrong target (drawing unwanted aggro), or even run away from their target. This is enough reason to not invest at all in minions or Death Magic. Moa Morph also instantly kills all our minions if we’re hit by it, and our Flesh Golem dies underwater.

The Staff is our only real ranged weapon, but it’s projectiles are so slow that players can actually outrun them easily.

Life Stealing is underpowered. It is currently not strong enough in my opinion, to be entirely viable.

We lack escapes. We used to be able to dive off cliffs in DS, but that was recently changed. Sure, you can place a Flesh Wurm (with it’s absurd cool down time) in advance, and hope it’s not dead when you need to use it. But apart from that, we have no ways to escape. This is especially a problem in WvW. And I’ll ignore Spectral Walk for a moment, because that’s going to get nerfed soon too.

Yeah, we are a pretty broken class in PVE. All those complaints are valid. The only reason I’m still playing one, is because I hope at some point our class gets fixed… and I’m just very stubborn.

This post has merit… kinda. PVE necros have nothing that they’re good at. In sPvP and WvW they’re great but PVE they don’t bring anything unique to the table except epidemic. The funny thing about all this is that the reason Necros are so awesome in sPvP and WvW are also some of the reasons why we suck in PVE (in comparison to other classes).

It isn’t accurate that we bring nothing unique that we excel at in PvE. It is the exact same stuff all Necromancers excel at. The problem is there is absolutely no need for it in PvE, and that other mechanics can accomplish the same or better effect more easily.

For example, Necromancers excel at conditions, yet boons are superior in every way in PvE. We had (ANET FIX PUTRID MARK FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS COLD AND DEAD) amazing class-wide condition removal and great sustained healing, but rarely do you need a lot of condition removal (more than a character can handle themselves) or sustained healing (you either dodged it or it 1 shot you, little in between). Its not an issue of everyone doing things better, its an issue of ANet made terrible mechanics for DPS Races 2, and seem to refuse to admit that their content is so badly designed that it blatantly favors three classes over all others.

Team wide condition removal is not unique to the necromancer and I would argue they’re not even the best at it. I would take a guardian or elementalist for condition removal over a necro any day. And definitely don’t have great sustained healing. I would say that once again guardian and elementalist have us beat by a mile on that one as well as engineers, rangers, and cleric geared warriors with vigorous shouts.

In the end though none of that matters because like you said the meta is all about going full berserker and DPSing a boss down in seconds.

Condition removal is only part of the thing. We are the master of condition, remove, convert, consume, apply, spread, transfer. Thing is 75% of the condition is scaled down by defiant. Also dungeon mobs don’t apply enough condition/sustain to make support build worth taking. And hence the pve meta we now have.

We got a strong and in a reasonable timeframe repeatable condition burst (<20 sec), strong AoE capabilites through marks, wells and epidemic.

We are the masters of condi/boon manipulation. Apart from one mesmer skill we are the only class that can transfer condis to enemies. Condi removal, especially group wide, is still better done by guards.
We are also the only class that can turn boons on enemies into condis. Again the remove is better handled by another class (S/D thief).
But since we got access to condi transfer and boon corruption at the same time we got that going for us.

Our innate survivability is pretty strong with Deathshroud but due to the recent change to overflow damage we are worse of in PvE where dodge & deeps > everything.
We can get really strong sustain in a zerker build, around 800+ hps, with a minion build but this requires little to no AoE and the only PvE encounter in which this was useable to its full potential was Subject 7.
Also in the survivability departement: We got the best access to wide area blinds. A thief has higher uptimes on blinds if he just equipps pistol offhand but for fighting multiple mobs, like in the 2nd half of the ascalon fractal, well of darkness and plague really come in handy as a group wide defence tool. The usefulness of this is still highly situational.
We also did master the art of gimping ourselves by using our class mechanic. 2 out of 3 possible heals don’t work in DS and regen and lifeleech don’t work. This fate is probably only shared by rangers, whose pets get destroyed by rnd death AoE in probably half of all existing PvE encounters.

So overall we are the master of condiburst & fearlock and collecting lootbags from zergs (be it PvE or WvW), making us a good choice for s/tpvp and open world as long as you don’t want another power class.

Bhawb.7408:

It isn’t accurate that we bring nothing unique that we excel at in PvE. It is the exact same stuff all Necromancers excel at. The problem is there is absolutely no need for it in PvE, and that other mechanics can accomplish the same or better effect more easily.

For example, Necromancers excel at conditions, yet boons are superior in every way in PvE. We had (ANET FIX PUTRID MARK FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS COLD AND DEAD) amazing class-wide condition removal and great sustained healing, but rarely do you need a lot of condition removal (more than a character can handle themselves) or sustained healing (you either dodged it or it 1 shot you, little in between). Its not an issue of everyone doing things better, its an issue of ANet made terrible mechanics for DPS Races 2, and seem to refuse to admit that their content is so badly designed that it blatantly favors three classes over all others.

This. Necros have their strengths, and are very good at those strengths. However, what I said earlier wasn’t false either. We do a lot of things okay, but what we’re great at is inconsequential in PvE due to enemy design.

If more enemies had liberal use of boons (right now, it’s only some Dredge) and conditions (the occasional Risen, but they only apply one or two conditions at a time), then a Necro would go from being general trash tier in PvE to being a much-wanted profession.

Oh, and a revamp on many bosses. It’s bad enough so many bosses have Stability that can’t be removed, but do they really need Defiant too?

Bellamy.9860:

Also in the survivability departement: We got the best access to wide area blinds.

My guardian begs to differ. Traited virtue of justice paired with 1h sword’s #2 skill. I can pop virtue of justice every time I kill something and 1h sword #2 is also on a very short cool down.

Bhawb.7408:

Its not an issue of everyone doing things better, its an issue of ANet made terrible mechanics for DPS Races 2, and seem to refuse to admit that their content is so badly designed that it blatantly favors three classes over all others.

Your a bit behind with that statement. In the last few months its been proved that some classes are way above the old trinity and that all classes are very strong picks when built right. The only exception is necro because theres nothing special that they can bring thats useful in dungeons. The dps on my zerker build is up there with all the other classes, its just not worth taking over another class that can do the same or better damage while contributing to buffs or better utility. At the moment necro only has access to high cooldown condi removal and blind fields and moderate cooldown boon removal. The only time i would consider a necro is to replace the mesmer when you dont need feedback and theres a few boon fights to deal with. You also have to consider whether the group can maintain 25 stacks of might while the necro doesnt even carry any blast finishers.

Keep in mind also that boon removal is pretty much useless in PVE anyway. I mean, we don’t exactly excel at it, but even if we consider the boon-corruption ability (which is unique to the necro), it is still made irrelevant by the PVE opponents that we face.

This is because:

• Hardly any enemies use boons at all, nor boons that need to be removed.
• Boons last pretty short to begin with.
• Many of the bosses that use boons, instantly renew their boons the second they’ve been removed. So you might as well not bother.
• The only boons that could benefit from removal, aren’t boons, but irremovable special abilities, such as Defiant.

Boon stripping and range aoe damage.

You can put down boon stripping all you like but as a set up for taking down an enemy nothing beats it. Boon strip/convert and you can follow up with a huge can of whoop a** in the form of stuns and pulls, etc they will not recover from.