Guild Wars 2

To the original poster, you wanted to know what was wrong with necro so you got some loaded responses, but at the end of the day its still a viable class. It has a unique flavor and can be played in quite a few ways. You can be quite successful with a power/crit build, since the necro has some tanking built in, and can pretty much go all out power and still take a few hits.

From what I understand its a lot different from the first guild wars, so if you’re looking for the same experience you’re not going to get it.

I’ll avoid the stuff that’s been covered. I main a necro (have all 8, 6 are 80’s) and really like the class. We have numerous issues…see above.

Can’t speak to much for PvE as I don’t do dungeons or fractals, but farm a lot and WvW a lot.

As for general mobs, necro is fine. Personally I have found staff and wells to be most effective, especially for a power heavy necro. Dagger/focus offset for the dps (as dagger is really the only dps weapon we have – tried axe, dagger is better dps overall).

As for WvW, our role was mostly the hard counter to bunker builds. Sure we can pressure and condition, but those usually vanish quickly (too fast to be effective, as most people have a cleanse or someone nearby does it for them). Sadly, with the boon hate that warriors and thieves are about to get, the necro once again becomes “not as good as other classes at”…insert argument here.

I think Anet really has no concept for necros, so they are fine with the way the class is now. It’s not so much that we are broken (buggy as hell yes), but if you are looking to excel at one thing in particular, and that is what you want above all else, find the class that does it best (it will rarely if ever be necro). However, if you like the “thought” (seriously open to interpretation since Anet isnt’ sure what this is either imo) of the necro, and are not prone to rage, than roll one.

Personally, I like the class, I’m just saddened at times when I know others are doing what I do faster and more effectively.

One thing to note is that we really aren’t as buggy as a lot of folks say we are. We used to be, sure, but the vast majority of those bugs have been fixed, leaving only a couple I’m aware of (minions have become a lot more reliable, but still don’t always attack, and I don’t think the “no healing in death shroud” has ever gotten a response as to if it is intentional or not. Death Shroud lockout is a rather new bug that we know started after the January patch)

Heya,
I started GW2 with mesmer and got an engineer, ranger and condition necro at 80 too. I mostly play WvW roaming around solo, sometimes grouping up with small gangs or zergs.

About mesmers.
They’re insanely good and versatile in WvW once you figure out how to play with clones. I’d easily rate them up there with thieves and D/D ellies to be the best classes for WvW. Lots of stealthing skills, blink, leaps, time warp, portal, confusion, high burst on demand etc. Mesmers however can have lots of trouble with hard hitting classes that can read you and see past the clones(or simply AOE them). Most of the times one of your numerous escaping skills saves your skin tho. I die very rarely in WvW on my mesmer, and I often take 1v2 to 1v5 fights, depending on situation and opponents.
It’s worth noting that mesmers dont have access to reliable movement speed bonuses without runes.

About (condition)necromancers.
Compared to mesmers, necro’s playstyle is almost the opposite. Where mesmers survive by hiding behind clones, stealthing, blinking and generally confusing opponents, necros survive by kiting, controlling their opponents via conditions and facetanking with high(ish) EHP. Necros have only 2 “blinks”, both with high cooldown and both pretty bad compared to other classes.
Where things get intresting is outnumbered fights. Necros are probably the worst stompers in game, so even if you manage to get one bad guy down, it’s really hard to pin without getting yourself killed due no access to invulnerability/stability.
Because you lack blinks/stealth/leaps your chances of running from fights are pretty slim, which means you’ll likely die if enemy zerg sees you.
It’s in group fights where necromancers really shine. Traited marks are big and powerful, wells are good for both offense and defense, epidemic is plain awesome and our elite, plague is superb with blinding pulses for diving into enemy groups and taking their rage while your buddies can push forward.

Biggest cons for necros are in my opinion:
-We are the only(?) class that doesn’t have access to vigor or endurance traits. Avoiding damage plays a big part in GW2, and sadly we are really bad at it. I’ve heard this was justified by giving us bigger hp pool and death shroud. I’d trade that ~3k extra hp compared to mesmer’s anytime for +50% endurance regen trait.
-Death Shroud. Power based builds may find this mechanic good, but as conditionmancer I don’t like this. Skills are very meh and I usually use this only for the fear, teleport rarely, and the #4 for a bit of extra survivability. Sure it’s nice that life force protects me from damage, but I wont be really doing anything better while in it. For a special ability DS is pretty weak unless you trait for it.
-Long cooldowns on our defensive utilities.
-Bad mobility in combat.

Necromancers are really fun and you get more satisfaction when you succeed with it compared to mesmer, simply because mesmers are so much better overall.
Necros aren’t really as bad as these forums(and probably this post) make it look, we have lots of issues but the class is far from being broken. You should totally roll one!

Noss.4105:

Where things get intresting is outnumbered fights. Necros are probably the worst stompers in game, so even if you manage to get one bad guy down, it’s really hard to pin without getting yourself killed due no access to invulnerability/stability.

Downed people cannot cleanse. I find it amusing to cover a downed person with all the conditions I can muster, plus a lot of staff marks, then use Epidemic when someone attempts to rally them. If I time it right it’ll down both guys at once. I won’t be able to stomp either of them, but it makes for a laugh.

It isn’t ideal, but it’s amusing.

And I’m terrible in PvP/WvW, but I’m not really there to win. I’m there for my own personal amusement.

1.minion master suffers from sluggish minion AI and AOEs decimate most of your damage.
2. Well necros bring a small bit of support but little to no damage.
3. the spectral skills have some sort of use in PvP, but are all but worthless in PvE.
4. some traits are in lines that make absolutely no sense (targetable wells being in the condition damage trait line, wells don’t apply any condition damage.)

I wouldn’t mind an engineer. One thing that seems constant is that Necromancers are fun. I really wanted to do MM but I’ve seen power builds and they do look fun too.

Navani.5281:

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys!

I was thinking of going minion master with an emphasis on survival. Does that sound viable? I’ve always been a fan of having a pet, I guess because my first MMO character was a Warlock in WoW =p

I’m most recently coming from SWTOR which I really really enjoy, but the emphasis on buying things is turning me off so I purchased this instead (Because they wanted me to buy things, I bought something else .. go figure)

While a bit off topic, I just wanted to reinforce your decision to make the exodus. GW2 has done a really good job at implementing it’s F2P system. You’re not asked to pay for such ridculous crap like UI functions and basic game content. The gem shop is entirely focused on cosmetic gear and some buff items. I’ve been watching SWTOR’s implementation of its cash shop and it’s pretty offensive.

Anyway, while minions have AI troubles and their survivability is poor in content like dungeons (where bosses send out tons of AOE and do it alot), they’re fairly decent open world skills. The necromancer itself is a very stalwart tanker, usually the last man standing if you know what you’re doing.

Terok.7315:

Navani.5281:

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys!

I was thinking of going minion master with an emphasis on survival. Does that sound viable? I’ve always been a fan of having a pet, I guess because my first MMO character was a Warlock in WoW =p

I’m most recently coming from SWTOR which I really really enjoy, but the emphasis on buying things is turning me off so I purchased this instead (Because they wanted me to buy things, I bought something else .. go figure)

While a bit off topic, I just wanted to reinforce your decision to make the exodus. GW2 has done a really good job at implementing it’s F2P system. You’re not asked to pay for such ridculous crap like UI functions and basic game content. The gem shop is entirely focused on cosmetic gear and some buff items. I’ve been watching SWTOR’s implementation of its cash shop and it’s pretty offensive.

Anyway, while minions have AI troubles and their survivability is poor in content like dungeons (where bosses send out tons of AOE and do it alot), they’re fairly decent open world skills. The necromancer itself is a very stalwart tanker, usually the last man standing if you know what you’re doing.

Has the minion AI been addressed more specifically by the devs? I haven’t read anything up on that but I feel like it’s something that should be prioritized since it’s one of the necro’s most distinguishable features. I’ve always liked the idea of being a tanky clothy caster so that’s another reason I chose Necro as my first class.

SWTOR I actually love, don’t get me wrong.. I really enjoy the plots and the voice acting and cut scenes but you’re right, it almost is offensive how in-your-face it all is. They should’ve followed the Guild Wars model in keeping the initial cost relatively high. Anyway, I’m on GW2 now and I’m pretty excited

Navani.5281:

Has the minion AI been addressed more specifically by the devs? I haven’t read anything up on that but I feel like it’s something that should be prioritized since it’s one of the necro’s most distinguishable features. I’ve always liked the idea of being a tanky clothy caster so that’s another reason I chose Necro as my first class.

SWTOR I actually love, don’t get me wrong.. I really enjoy the plots and the voice acting and cut scenes but you’re right, it almost is offensive how in-your-face it all is. They should’ve followed the Guild Wars model in keeping the initial cost relatively high. Anyway, I’m on GW2 now and I’m pretty excited

Hola! I also came from SWTOR, and was one of the leading guide and pvp writers for the Bounty Hunter class. I helped popularize some of the most common non-Pyro builds if you read any of the older stuff I was known as theopf. I really loved SWTOR’s story and some of the open world stuff. After playing GW2 though it shocked me as to how linear SWTOR was and now whenever I look at another game they feel limiting.

Anyways, Necro’s are a unique class that require time to work through. As one player pointed out earlier, we are really good at doing the hidden things that make runs easier. We are not burst class we are condition management classes. We also offer some of the most unique utilities in tournaments out there.

For the players that say we are no good in tournaments are a joke. In high-end tournament play, there are very few thieves and warriors (which many players assume are the great classes) because they can only play one way and are typically crushed. In fact, in one of our most listened to podcasts Symbolic from Team Paradigm describes top tournaments to be Guardian/Mesmer/Elementalist/Ranger/Necro in about 90 percent of the cases. We are too good at condition management that we are brought in as the control class.

As for minions, in tournaments we can only make it to mid level as any high aoe class will wipe out your minions, and while you are still strong, you lose as significant portion of your survival. I run with Minions everywhere, and 75 percent of the people have no idea how to beat a MM player with some semblance of skills. The great players will find a way.

In pve and dungeons, we are perfectly fine except for high-end fractals where Agony wrecks the minions too fast. A-net is working on implementing shared agony resist, but I still don’t think that will be enough to help the minions at that level. However, Necro’s are absolutely fine in high end fractals. I have had several Necromancers on my podcasts who are well over fractal 40 in multiple different builds.

TLDR: Check out our podcasts for some great advice, and Necros are the ultimate team player.

I read every post! If someone writes up a lengthy reply, I make sure to read it all because you took the time to type it. I played an inquisitor so I haven’t read your guides.

I’ll watch the podcasts! I couldn’t find anything too useful on YouTube anyway, someone here was dead on- you only see PvP when the opponents are outnumbered or preoccupied. How do most people play their necros? I’m going to play around like first suggested to find what I like, but I enjoy reading other builds so that I may add my own little twists to it. Sort of how I do with LoL.

Navani.5281:

I read every post! If someone writes up a lengthy reply, I make sure to read it all because you took the time to type it. I played an inquisitor so I haven’t read your guides.

I’ll watch the podcasts! I couldn’t find anything too useful on YouTube anyway, someone here was dead on- you only see PvP when the opponents are outnumbered or preoccupied. How do most people play their necros? I’m going to play around like first suggested to find what I like, but I enjoy reading other builds so that I may add my own little twists to it. Sort of how I do with LoL.

I’ve played my necro as conditionmancer most of the times. Spent lots of gold and karma for power gear, but I just couldn’t make the power or DS builds work for me as well as condition builds. And it was the manipulation of conditions that made me roll necro in the first place. :P
For builds I usually run 0/30/20/20/0, 0/30/10/30/0, 0/30/10/20/10, 0/30/10/15/15 or something like that, you get the idea. 30 in curses is kinda mandatory for the improved condition duration for scepter and rest is pretty much what you like. For runes I have 2x Lyssa and 4x Lich atm.

I can warmly recommend leveling your necro in WvW. I leveled mine from around 30 to 75 in WvW and had a blast. Trait 10 in Death Magic for larger marks and your bags get full really fast. You’ll be rolling in badges and gold once you hit 80.

Kravick.4906:

Elementalists are pigeon holed into 30 arcane and at least 20 in water with their trait trees because the other 3 are so god awful. This is why you see nothing but dagger/dagger elementalists every where. Staff is ok in dungeons but you can’t PvP outside of a zerg with staff as an elementalist without getting curb stomped. Scepter is dependent on skills that are extremely hard to hit moving targets with and focus is a pure utility weapon.

Its more that 30 into arcane is pretty overpowered giving them 1 additional skill pre set without cast time (not that they already had 2 more weapon slots than other classes), both fire and earth are great for what they are set to do, Its just that in trying to give every trait line the same type of bonus, they gave some useless (20% bonus while under 33% hp is really bad if you think longer about how much you invest) and some overpowered (on 1% increase in damage for everyone that you can proc on crit, you get a additional 20% damage, really?).

@;Navani.5281 – necros are nice, really efficient and their whole kit always has a good base utility (thus being reliable solo PvE chain farmers and team supports in dungeons), but thus their biggest hitters are on utility cooldowns (1 of our wells that have between 30 to 60 second cooldowns ususally have about as strong max damage as slot 2 casts of a primary burst weapon of other classes that are on 6 to 12 second cooldowns), in terms of elite and healing skills we got the ones with highest solo potential and probably the strongest tanking elite in game (even outdoing the 3 second invul of the guardian) with plague form.

For a new necromancer id suggest using the following skills: Consume Conditions, Blood is Power, Well of Corruption, Well of Darkness, Spectral Walk, Epidemic, Plague Form
Primary weapon set depends on damage type you wanna go for, but having Staff is a must.
For traits getting 10 in DM for greater marks (great training wheels in PvE and mandatory in WvWvW and sPvP) and 10 in Soul Reaping for Gluttony/Unyielding Blast seem like musts for me since they greatly improve PvE play. If still leveling and under 50~60 going all minions is pretty fun because you wont ever get hit… they do die but the enemy dies pretty fast too and the personal story can be done by chain summoning bone minions while having a wurm hold you in combat and blowing them up while being at a safe distance.

Also except for the Theif (because of long stealth), then Necro is probably the top class to roam around the world and explore/do jumping puzzles, Death Shroud can take any fall since a patch and even if you dont have life force Spectral Walk ensures you get a second try at a jump.

drrobotnic.9387:

Been playing my necro for about a week, I use a Hybrid, condition/power build and i love it.

Lots of good points here about it’s flaws, but freakin A, it’s fun. These people complaining about it must like it if there willing to sacrifice there time to trash on it.

I played an engi; very versatile but Necro is easy to pick up if you take some time to learn the character as opose to running to 80 and expect greatness.

Every prof could use a tweak here and there, but still enjoy my necro. Woot Woot

Necro is fun, but it has an unshakable clunky feeling hammered into it with a toy nail (not even the nail is sturdy). None of the necromancers weapons feel like they were actually made with each other in mind and feel more like a collection of conditions that the players have to piece together in between their auto attacks. This extends well past just the weapon skills, into the utilities, traits, and class mechanics, but my issue is with the weapon skills.

If the necromancer had some synergy between his weapons and killing potential outside of auto attacks and CD heavy skills (looking at you wells), you could almost ignore the problems with utilities, traits, and class mechanics (or atleast I could). I do have a lot of fun jumping in and out of death shroud and my spectral abilities to draw out the fight, but when it’s time for me to go on the offensive, I honestly begin to lose interest in the fight.

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

Navani.5281:

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

The official comment on Necromancers is that Anet wants to move the rest of the classes to where we are in terms of build variety, but that we could use a few more ways to lock down or work over a defender.

The main issue that a majority of people have are simply perception issues. The problem with a lot of forum posters is they feel disrespected or angry because they feel the Necromancer should play a specific way and when it doesn’t they lose it.

Examples:

People complain about DS that it’s really weak, but never put points into Soul Reaping, and either never use it defensively or never use it offensively. It’s an incredible skill when used correctly. Are there issues with it? Sure, but only UI issues and DS 2 getting random misses for no reason.

People complain about Minion AI and Lifetime. However, if you do any sort of moderate testing you will find out how simple Minion AI is, and they aren’t pets so expecting them to live forever is stupid. Only valid complaints currently about Minions is in regards to Agony and Flesh Golem’s random stand arounds the rest are simply unfounded accusations by players who expected them to be pets and not utilities.

There has been nearly no dev activity in the necro forums since we lynched Jon Peters for making stupid comments shortly after the launch of the game. Don’t expect to see any red posts here.

On the other hand this has made the necro community one of the more friendly ones, and many people here are willing to help you out when you got a problem.

Bas.7406:

Navani.5281:

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

The main issue that a majority of people have are simply perception issues. The problem with a lot of forum posters is they feel disrespected or angry because they feel the Necromancer should play a specific way and when it doesn’t they lose it.

Examples:

People complain about DS that it’s really weak, but never put points into Soul Reaping, and either never use it defensively or never use it offensively. It’s an incredible skill when used correctly. Are there issues with it? Sure, but only UI issues and DS 2 getting random misses for no reason.

People complain about Minion AI and Lifetime. However, if you do any sort of moderate testing you will find out how simple Minion AI is, and they aren’t pets so expecting them to live forever is stupid. Only valid complaints currently about Minions is in regards to Agony and Flesh Golem’s random stand arounds the rest are simply unfounded accusations by players who expected them to be pets and not utilities.

This is just so… wrong. All of it.

Look, I’m not going to repeat myself. Its already been said by not only myself but many many many MANY other people. Minion AI is still breaks often enough for it to be a problem. Rangers don’t have this issue. Mesmers don’t have this issue. This is a problem specific to Necromancers only. The other points are just Bas trying to speak for people as usual. Bas and Bhawb both have a bad habit of doing this.

Kravick.4906:

Bas.7406:

Navani.5281:

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

The main issue that a majority of people have are simply perception issues. The problem with a lot of forum posters is they feel disrespected or angry because they feel the Necromancer should play a specific way and when it doesn’t they lose it.

Examples:

People complain about DS that it’s really weak, but never put points into Soul Reaping, and either never use it defensively or never use it offensively. It’s an incredible skill when used correctly. Are there issues with it? Sure, but only UI issues and DS 2 getting random misses for no reason.

People complain about Minion AI and Lifetime. However, if you do any sort of moderate testing you will find out how simple Minion AI is, and they aren’t pets so expecting them to live forever is stupid. Only valid complaints currently about Minions is in regards to Agony and Flesh Golem’s random stand arounds the rest are simply unfounded accusations by players who expected them to be pets and not utilities.

This is just so… wrong. All of it.

Look, I’m not going to repeat myself. Its already been said by not only myself but many many many MANY other people. Minion AI is still breaks often enough for it to be a problem. Rangers don’t have this issue. Mesmers don’t have this issue. This is a problem specific to Necromancers only. The other points are just Bas trying to speak for people as usual. Bas and Bhawb both have a bad habit of doing this.

Have you ever talked to mesmers or rangers? I have spoken to some of the top mesmer’s in the game. Their AI is worse than ours, and Rangers have the same complaint about F buttons not working because the pet doesn’t always respond. So your complaint is again ridiculously ignorant.

Bas.7406:

Have you ever talked to mesmers or rangers? I have spoken to some of the top mesmer’s in the game. Their AI is worse than ours, and Rangers have the same complaint about F buttons not working because the pet doesn’t always respond. So your complaint is again ridiculously ignorant.

Yes. Skills not working is not the same as minions just uselessly standing around not doing what they’re supposed too. I’m aware of Lick Wounds/Search and Rescue not functioning sometimes. At least their pets actually move when ordered to do so. Mesmer illusions also don’t just uselessly stand around half the time either. We’re talking about AI, not abilities here. Please Bas, stay on topic.

As far as the ignorant comment, I could say the same about you trying to put words in my mouth about why “I” have problems with this class. I am, as well as others, are perfectly capable of expressing these issues on our own without you making grave misconceptions of your own about why I and other people are getting fed up with this classes mechanics. We really do not appreciate you and Bhawb coming in here and telling us how we’re all wrong and you guys are the god all mighty authority on necromancers.

Monoman.2068:

If the necromancer had some synergy between his weapons and killing potential outside of auto attacks and CD heavy skills (looking at you wells), you could almost ignore the problems with utilities, traits, and class mechanics (or atleast I could).

An attrition class should most of all never had to rely on long cooldown skills, that if they miss or the opponent simply dodges at the right time, your offensive punch just went down the drain. It’s just counter to the design.

Yet many of our utilities are on long cooldowns, not just the wells either. But most of our signets and even spectral skills, spectral armor at 90 seconds is just ridiculous for its short lasting time span.

Plague lasting 30 seconds is also a head scratcher to me. Would be far more useful at 15 seconds and half the cooldown. At least for PVE and WvW, can’t think when you ever need to be in plague that long. Then again, probably yet another area where sPVP was the driving force in making the skill, and it translates to hurting us or being less good everywhere else. It doesn’t really matter so much if you get immobilized with it in sPVP as your are already where you want to be bunkering in the circle. In other modes though its used as a getaway or get out of dodge mechanic and immobilize negates it, vs a blink or invulnerable.

It really does seem like Necromancers are kind of kitten when it comes to abilities, are there ways of countering the poor minion AI or anything like that?

The biggest problem with Necro’s especially on this forum is that Everyone wants to spec like a glass cannon and they get mad when they get killed in 3 seconds by a GC thief.

Get some toughness get some vitality and get back to reality that the necromancer can’t spec glass cannon and live vs other glass cannons with more mobility.

Have a nice day!

Navani.5281:

It really does seem like Necromancers are kind of kitten when it comes to abilities, are there ways of countering the poor minion AI or anything like that?

I feel the strong need to point out that you need to stop listening to all these people on the forum and go try it for yourself. You’ll see pretty quickly, that while the minions do bug, it’s very far from a gamebreaker and is no reason at all to label our class as worthless or unsalvagable. Yes I do agree with some that a lot of our skills were intended to work with at least 1 minion utility, if not more, but doesn’t mean we can’t work around that. the devs have no clue what they want to do with our class or even where to begin addressing it, so it’s left to us to make it work. Once you do it becomes hands down the most fun class in the game to play. Even on days when I dread going out to farm or run yet another dungeon path just to battle the RNG, once I hop on the necro, the dread goes away, because I just have fun with what I’m doing and I forget I’m out there grinding my day away. You’ve seen the complaints about the class, now try it for yourself and see if those same complaints are valid for you. I find half of what people complain about don’t apply to me at all. Doesn’t mean it invalidates their problems with it, just means that for me I can either find a way around it or live with it.

Bas.7406:

Navani.5281:

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

The official comment on Necromancers is that Anet wants to move the rest of the classes to where we are in terms of build variety, but that we could use a few more ways to lock down or work over a defender.

The main issue that a majority of people have are simply perception issues. The problem with a lot of forum posters is they feel disrespected or angry because they feel the Necromancer should play a specific way and when it doesn’t they lose it.

Examples:

People complain about DS that it’s really weak, but never put points into Soul Reaping, and either never use it defensively or never use it offensively. It’s an incredible skill when used correctly. Are there issues with it? Sure, but only UI issues and DS 2 getting random misses for no reason.

People complain about Minion AI and Lifetime. However, if you do any sort of moderate testing you will find out how simple Minion AI is, and they aren’t pets so expecting them to live forever is stupid. Only valid complaints currently about Minions is in regards to Agony and Flesh Golem’s random stand arounds the rest are simply unfounded accusations by players who expected them to be pets and not utilities.

This is terribly presumptuous.

I certainly didn’t come into the class with any particular expectations of how it would work. I played with it until I got a feel for the class (and overall, I’m kitten happy with how it plays). If anything you’re working against the strengths of your class when using minions in their current state. I’ve actually recently started using minions out of impatience (can’t wait forever for a fix) lately. I’ve grinded up nearly all of my arah armor pieces using a minion build. Those two problems that you shrug off as a ‘learn to play’ issues are actually fairly serious and not as trivial as you’d like us to believe.

Stop thinking we’re all inexperienced players stamping our feet because we think the class should work our way. That isn’t the case and never was, it’s a red herring and simply untrue. Let’s make the necromancers forums a place for discussing the class honestly, with all the pimples and warts. I mean, you do agree that the minion AI doesn’t work correctly, right? I know you think the problem is trivial, but you do agree that it needs attention?

Anyway, I don’t want to derail this thread any further and I apologize to the OP. Do some testing with the different abilities and see what works for you. When you find a certain setup that you find enjoyable, let your fellow necromancers know and perhaps we can give you some advice.

Bas.7406:

Kravick.4906:

Rangers don’t have this issue. Mesmers don’t have this issue.

Have you ever talked to mesmers or rangers? I have spoken to some of the top mesmer’s in the game. Their AI is worse than ours, and Rangers have the same complaint about F buttons not working because the pet doesn’t always respond. So your complaint is again ridiculously ignorant.

Ranger pets do have attack controls, but you still cannot control their skills or movement patterns causing for some funny teleports (not to mention that half their F2 skills dont do what is said in their description) thus Kravick you are wrong on that point. On the mesmer side (from the 20 levels i got in pve and 15~ matches in pvp) i have never seen them be useless, they work for their role and how they are summoned, being ultra aggressive copies that die when their summon target dies, the only one i can think of that is a idiot in terms of attacking is Phantasmal Warden because he wont continue casting Whirling Defenses if there are no melee enemies near him but projectiles are hitting him, thus here Bas you are wrong (it would be nice that the clones shatter on the selected target, but them shattering on their attack isnt a real problem since you can always use distortion (defensive) or cry of frustration (offensive) if you need the clones gone and not waste the 2 higher damage shatters.

Terok.7315:

Stop thinking we’re all inexperienced players stamping our feet because we think the class should work our way. That isn’t the case and never was, it’s a red herring and simply untrue. Let’s make the necromancers forums a place for discussing the class honestly, with all the pimples and warts. I mean, you do agree that the minion AI doesn’t work correctly, right? I know you think the problem is trivial, but you do agree that it needs attention?

I think i said it before (and i dont mean it as a actual insult, but it is a good description), but when you try to talk to bas about minions he goes troll mode.

It does crap damage and doesn’t offer utility that an elementalist or guardian can’t do better.

You can spec for prot on wells, but a guardian can do the same effect at 100% uptime, and an elementalist can do it with a single trait at higher uptime and no sacrifice of utility slots.

Most importantly, the staff is not an optional ranged weapon. It’s your one and only aoe weapon. Necro melee doesn’t cleave like the rest of the classes.

I can’t play that much while at school which is a major reason I’m getting feedback from the community. Since I can’t play much, it is nice to hear the different opinions of builds and play styles being discussed here because like I said before, it gives me educated options when I begin to flesh out my build!

I also like how I’m not the only person whose autocorrect turned a word into “kitten”.

Someone mentioned a guy on the forum who was “lyynched” and now we’re on our own.. Is he a mod? What exactly happened?

Navani.5281:

I can’t play that much while at school which is a major reason I’m getting feedback from the community. Since I can’t play much, it is nice to hear the different opinions of builds and play styles being discussed here because like I said before, it gives me educated options when I begin to flesh out my build!

I also like how I’m not the only person whose autocorrect turned a word into “kitten”.

Someone mentioned a guy on the forum who was “lyynched” and now we’re on our own.. Is he a mod? What exactly happened?

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

Kravick.4906:

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

You must add that he is also the person (well one of many devs) that said you should use DS before you die…

Andele.1306:

Kravick.4906:

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

You must add that he is also the person (well one of many devs) that said you should use DS before you die…

Oh yeah, thats right. One of the worst possible ways to use DS. Now I feel even worse. Its comments like this made by devs that seriously make me wonder how they got their jobs.

Kravick.4906:

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

So that’s the context behind the l2p death shroud statement I see floating around occasionally. I have to say that I wish I came to the forums earlier to figure out if power, toughness, and healing power worked on necromancer to see those fireworks.

Pendragon.8735:

Monoman.2068:

If the necromancer had some synergy between his weapons and killing potential outside of auto attacks and CD heavy skills (looking at you wells), you could almost ignore the problems with utilities, traits, and class mechanics (or atleast I could).

An attrition class should most of all never had to rely on long cooldown skills, that if they miss or the opponent simply dodges at the right time, your offensive punch just went down the drain. It’s just counter to the design.

Yet many of our utilities are on long cooldowns, not just the wells either. But most of our signets and even spectral skills, spectral armor at 90 seconds is just ridiculous for its short lasting time span.

Plague lasting 30 seconds is also a head scratcher to me. Would be far more useful at 15 seconds and half the cooldown. At least for PVE and WvW, can’t think when you ever need to be in plague that long. Then again, probably yet another area where sPVP was the driving force in making the skill, and it translates to hurting us or being less good everywhere else. It doesn’t really matter so much if you get immobilized with it in sPVP as your are already where you want to be bunkering in the circle. In other modes though its used as a getaway or get out of dodge mechanic and immobilize negates it, vs a blink or invulnerable.

I believe the design intent was for us to blow our utilities (especially our heal), then go into DS to wait out the cooldowns as much as possible, then do it again. That is not the current “optimal” playstyle, really. It’s more defensive, and centered around dragging fights out while maintaining a consistent amount of damage output.

In PvE it tends to be faster to just load up on damage and save DS for when you’re out of endurance and need to soak a big hit. In PvP it’s a different story, and smart DS use can be a real life saver. Not because you’re “soaking all this damage.” It’s because you’re soaking damage while your heals/utilities are refreshing, so when you run out life force you can heal again.*

Now, that’s most likely “Designer Intent.” What happens in actual game play is rarely what the designers intended.

*Note – I am fairly awful at PvP, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I’m just commenting on what ANet probably intended when they designed necro, and what is probably the source of their L2DeathShroud comments.

Kravick.4906:

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

That’s the most stupid thing I ever heard.. Do you have a permalink to the post?

Stupid because you’re not a child and even if people are blowing you up and saying you’re wrong, you should either A) Prove it right Admit you may be wrong or C) Address the other concerns and put this on the back burner.

So what, is the Necromancer forums a free for all now? I’ve been reading the patch notes and there really aren’t THAT many things for Necromancers, taking all of this conversation into consideration.

So, as a dev, you would rather spend hours of your time talking to a bunch of people you are convinced have no idea what they are talking about, instead of actually working?

Face it, there is no way he could prove that he is right, admitting he is wrong wouldn’t do anything if he isn’t wrong, and any post he makes that isn’t about DS is going to garner questions about… wait for it… DS.

Terok.7315:

This is terribly presumptuous.

I certainly didn’t come into the class with any particular expectations of how it would work. I played with it until I got a feel for the class (and overall, I’m kitten happy with how it plays). If anything you’re working against the strengths of your class when using minions in their current state. I’ve actually recently started using minions out of impatience (can’t wait forever for a fix) lately. I’ve grinded up nearly all of my arah armor pieces using a minion build. Those two problems that you shrug off as a ‘learn to play’ issues are actually fairly serious and not as trivial as you’d like us to believe.

Stop thinking we’re all inexperienced players stamping our feet because we think the class should work our way. That isn’t the case and never was, it’s a red herring and simply untrue. Let’s make the necromancers forums a place for discussing the class honestly, with all the pimples and warts. I mean, you do agree that the minion AI doesn’t work correctly, right? I know you think the problem is trivial, but you do agree that it needs attention?

Anyway, I don’t want to derail this thread any further and I apologize to the OP. Do some testing with the different abilities and see what works for you. When you find a certain setup that you find enjoyable, let your fellow necromancers know and perhaps we can give you some advice.

Terok, alot of this is a discussion for another thread. I am not attempting to be presumptuous. I simply dislike hearing people spew angry comments that haven’t been true in months, and then when I disagree, I get treated like an idiot who never plays the game. When in reality they haven’t tried that specific thing since Beta or spent 2 minutes in a set ability.

I am all for discussing the necro class, and open discussions are great. I have never once said that everyone should shut up and leave Minions or any part of the class alone. I simply stated that people embellish the negative regularly and I think it needs to stop. If you want to have a rational discussion about improving the class, than by all means do it.

Occassionally Kravik will post something that’s right on point, but other times he delves into personal attacks, and spends his time calling out people who want to positively talk about the class. Then when we brush him off, we are attacked for attempting to build a positive community to talk about what the class can do.

I want to talk about making what we can do better, not discussing everything we can’t do. Because alot of what we can’t do won’t change.

Here is what we know.

All Pet AI in this game is bad. There is no fixing it completely because it’s the way they did it. So now we have to learn how to work within the system for the time being in order to see how to make it better. They won’t completely fix it because it’s so expansive that it would create other issues that we aren’t aware of. Perception and Reality

Signets are 75 percent of the time awful. No one disagrees with this. We all use one or two of them, but a build around them or using more than one of them in a build is just a bad idea.

We will never get a regular use of Vigor or Stability. I think Anet realizes how badly those two were implemented into the game, that they may actually bring some classes usage of it down (this is all supposition on my part). I don’t like it, no one likes it, but getting up every morning to hit the forums to complain about it won’t get results.

You cannot heal while in Death Shroud, and the slow cast time and slow speed of Life Blast is brutal. They tried healing while in Death Shroud in Beta 1 in backfired in a major way, then they tried allowing us to build Life Force in Death Shroud and again it turned us into unstoppable machines. They tried giving us major boon access to stability and retal, and we would literally park on a spot and let people kill themselves on us. I honestly believe they don’t know what to do with Death Shroud.

This is probably a completely different thread that should be made to discuss each of these points. I am only trying to limit the complete negativity about the class that is completely unfounded and based on a few misconceptions. I readily agree we need fixes, but not on the same level as Rangers do or Engineers did. We are not broken, there are a couple of classes that have crazy niche roles, that could use some reworking.

@Andele – I occassionally troll. I had a wall of text refuting my extra awesome trolling habits, but I feel minions should be their own thread.

Bas.7406:

Signets are 75 percent of the time awful. No one disagrees with this. We all use one or two of them, but a build around them or using more than one of them in a build is just a bad idea.

We will never get a regular use of Vigor or Stability. I think Anet realizes how badly those two were implemented into the game, that they may actually bring some classes usage of it down (this is all supposition on my part). I don’t like it, no one likes it, but getting up every morning to hit the forums to complain about it won’t get results.

You cannot heal while in Death Shroud, and the slow cast time and slow speed of Life Blast is brutal. They tried healing while in Death Shroud in Beta 1 in backfired in a major way, then they tried allowing us to build Life Force in Death Shroud and again it turned us into unstoppable machines. They tried giving us major boon access to stability and retal, and we would literally park on a spot and let people kill themselves on us. I honestly believe they don’t know what to do with Death Shroud.

This is probably a completely different thread that should be made to discuss each of these points. I am only trying to limit the complete negativity about the class that is completely unfounded and based on a few misconceptions. I readily agree we need fixes, but not on the same level as Rangers do or Engineers did. We are not broken, there are a couple of classes that have crazy niche roles, that could use some reworking.

50% of the time, Undeath is probably the best signet in game if you look at the uses (Cd brings it down to the middle ground where all of them should be), Plague if its active worked right (not just targeting requirement for conditions but stun break part too vs knockdown) would be awesome and Locust is needed for roamers (i guess).

Vigor – no, Stability – i wish, the amount of time a necro takes to dish out their set base damage is stupid, but the strongest hitters (wells and dagger 1) are almost instant, that is plain bad. If DS entry/exit was a stun break like it used to be it would be fine, but only 3 sources of stabilty with 2 being elites is bad…

The LF in DS wasnt such a problem, it was the no set trait choices (no adept master grandmaster) and general lack of play knowledge that was. True there were obviously unfair things with perma SS retail (aka stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself) and so on, but that wouldnt be a problem with the current setup.

On terms of minions, i went a bit into my old GW screenshots and realized, the minions use same ai, the same shambling horrors running into walls or moonwalking golems they used to, its just that this time we dont have 10+ of random minions that die every 3 seconds in a gory glory of bile and death and then 5 new ones spawn within 3 seconds, but 5~ that have longer recharges than the stronges used to have.

Last but not least we all like to troll a bit, its just that sometimes the minion talk does get obnoxious since both sides go so much over the top after a while that Charlie Sheen, BRIAN BLESSED, William Sh(KHHHAN!!!)tner and Arrrnold Schwarzenegger would make a intervention.

Bas.7406:

We will never get a regular use of Vigor or Stability. I think Anet realizes how badly those two were implemented into the game, that they may actually bring some classes usage of it down (this is all supposition on my part). I don’t like it, no one likes it, but getting up every morning to hit the forums to complain about it won’t get results.

If they upped foot in the grave to 5 seconds, that would be a nice compromise. I take it now because its all we’ve got, but at 3 seconds you have to be very tight on your timing to make it useful.

I will say I already feel like the facerolling burst meta getting hurt by quickness and stealth nerfs is making my necro feel stronger in SPVP today. I know that guardian/ele bunker-ish builds are going to be proportionally stronger as well though and probably better than necro. Boon hate is going to hurt them more than us though.

Occassionally Kravik will post something that’s right on point, but other times he delves into personal attacks, and spends his time calling out people who want to positively talk about the class. Then when we brush him off, we are attacked for attempting to build a positive community to talk about what the class can do.

I have not personally attacked anyone. The only thing I have done is called two people out on of the crap they’ve trying to force on others, and only because those two people keep talking like they have the final authority on what is and is not a problem. Especially the stuff about minion AI. The egos from these two are honestly unbearable at times.

As far as promoting the community thing, that great and all, but it can be done without pretending these issues don’t exist. Both of these two people keep attacking people who point out that something doesn’t work, and it honestly confuses me as to why. If something doesn’t work, I would figure it would be in everyones best interest to find out why, and then have it brought to the attention of the devs so it can be fixed. Pretending its not broken or that, “Minion AI is actually more complex than people think!” is crap. Its isn’t. Its just flat out decides to stop working sometimes. Especially when things like elevation, classes that repeatedly stealth, and going into the downed state comes into play.

Also, don’t be surprised when someone pushes back. No one likes being told they, “Don’t have a clue what their talking about.” when the broken traits and wrecked minion AI is staring everyone in the face.

Ignore everyone saying that necromancers are absolute kitten (unless it is about minion ai, then believe it with a grain of salt), then ignore everyone saying they are magnificent golden gods (99% of the time it will be Bas and Bhawb on this side of things). The necromancer is a resounding meh and seeing how the other classes go up and down, and down, and down with each patch I am fairly happy with that.

The one thing about the Necromancer that I can never seem to fit into my build is the Boon Duration under the Death Magic trait line. Nothing I find to be an interesting build for me really includes much in the way of boons. How many of our skills and weapons give boons?

Stone.6751:

The one thing about the Necromancer that I can never seem to fit into my build is the Boon Duration under the Death Magic trait line. Nothing I find to be an interesting build for me really includes much in the way of boons. How many of our skills and weapons give boons?

Probably better off starting a new thread, but swiftness, fury and might are boons we can have up a lot. We are definately a “boon-lite” class imo.