This class has such poor recovery options and ordinary sustained damage (while lacking burst), that I don’t understand how it can be called an attrition class or a hard class to put down.
There is a reason why the necro is usually a priority target, and it isn’t just because he can strip boons and interrupt with fear. It’s because the class has such little escape options, and thus must facetank damage. But, the class has poor sustained tanking options.
Want to look at attrition classes? They are called bunkers. D/D or s/d ele, guardian, and BM specced evasion tank rangers are attrition classes — BECAUSE THEY CAN RECOVER after absorbing damage. The necro has the capacity to absorb a good amount of initial damage with death shroud and a large health pool, but once life force is gone, your HP is not going back up. Your damage is mediocre relative to other classes, and you will be worn down.
Life steals for the necromancer need to be substantially higher, and so does life force gain need to be outside traited staff. Life force should regenerate outside combat — a necro without life force is a sitting duck because of no Blurred Frenzy, no Diversion, no vigor, no shadowstep, no plate armor, no blocks, no aegis and no endure pain, and no teleports/gap creation tools. Starting matches or skirmishes at 0 life force is an unnecessary disadvantage that should be removed.
Another issue is the class mechanic, Death Shroud. By entering death shroud, your already poor damage drops substantially. You don’t apply nearly as much conditions — you block yourself out of mainhand dagger damage (which is infinitely better than life blast), your bleeds expire without being renewed.
Classes like the ele and mesmer, guardian and thief and warrior can remain offensive with their defensive tools, which means they can continue to pressure while playing defensively. The necromancer drops his offense the moment he resorts to survival tools. His stun breakers are on ridiculously long cooldowns as well.
Then we have the issue of mobility/gap closers. You simply cannot play without a staff, because otherwise you will be kited to death. Death Pact has clear, significant cast time and animation that requires you to be close to even land assuming they don’t dodge. Deathly Swarm, like most of the necro’s projectiles are so ridiculously slow with the amount of dodges many classes have at their disposal. Because dagger has no cleave, you NEED the staff as it is the only aoe weapon. You cannot play the power based weapons of axe and dagger because the axe’s range is too limited to deal with savvy players who will dodge the aoe cripple and outrange the axe’s meager 600 range. The axe itself only does notable damage during Ghastly claws, and the autoattack damage is dreadful.
If you play a condition build, the ele and thief and axe/torch trap ranger and engi are so much better at pressuring with condition spikes. The necro has a really unenjoyable ramp up to his damage relative to the damage intake he sees. The class is slow at dealing damage, slow at moving, and yet it is also slow in recovery so it cannot weather prolonged fights against high damage classes in the way good bunkers can, especially a good roamer ranger.
The class simply needs better recovery options, better damage (if you refuse to give it spike, its sustained should be significantly better/more reliable than other classes to compensate), and better mobility tools on the dagger/axe weapons.
It was said that this the class that once you lock horns with, you commit, but it’s not true. It’s such an easy class to get away from. This is not a chaser class, and a couple of 3-4 second chills is not going to make it a better chaser than a heartseeker/infiltrator’s arrow thief or charging warrior or leaping ranger or RTL/burning speed ele.
P.S. I don’t want your WvW videos; save them. Show me sPvP/dungeons or don’t bother at all.