Guild Wars 2

digiowl.9620:

Thing is that Anet went a step further and more or less eradicated tank and healer in the process.

Tank in that there is no consistent aggro behavior. This again mean that there is no consistent way for one or more toon to act as designated tank.

Healer in that there is no reliable way to put a heal on a single toon or group without walking in the middle of them with a PBAOE.

End result is that everyone either bunker up, or go out and out damage hoping they can use self heals and dodge/mobility as a way to outlast the mobs.

Which requires a different way of thinking that the trinity discourages.

By definition, a designated tank and healer setup means more mindless play for most players. The great DPS masses simply go all-out once the tank has grabbed aggro firmly, and it’s up to the tank to hold aggro and it’s up to the healer to keep everyone alive. DPS has zero responsibility and can basically follow set rotations unless the encounter is scripted to frustrate that in arbitrary ways, or unless healers have enough influence to just let the DPS die when standing in the fire. It’s a stupid system.

Right now, the state-of-the-art of aggro in GW2 is in flux. Most players are used to WoW-style games where there are two choices: 1) damage/healing/taunt aggro, or 2) scripted/random aggro, and they thus assume that since it’s not choice #1, it must be choice #2. But there are lots of hints that’s not true.

Distance matters. Characteristics (vitality/toughness/etc) matter. Rezzing matters. Perhaps the capability to do AoE damage/healing matters, even if you haven’t done it yet. Perhaps equipped skills/traits matter. Oh yeah, and damage/healing matters, too. Yes, DPS may have to worry about being able to kite that mob they aggro’d over the rest of the group. Yes, DPS may have to use some mitigation and healing that benefits their group. Yes, there is no one that whack-a-mole heals. Yes, there is no one that spams taunts.

Personally, I think that’s the future of MMO’s, and it was a major mistake to fall into the Tank/DPS/Heal pigeonholing in the first place, in my opinion.

The biggest issue with GW2 dungeons, in my opinion, is not that there’s no Trinity to promote mindless play, mindless competition among professions, and pigeonholing. It’s that 1) bosses have all kinds of unique mechanics that you can’t really be prepared for, and 2) some trash mobs are too difficult in comparison to actual bosses.

As someone posted in some forum a long time ago, trash mobs before a boss should have a scaled-down version of the mechanic so a team can learn it before the more serious encounter. And you shouldn’t have to dread the 3-archer combination of trash mobs that randomly confronts you before you hit the push-over boss.

What I see is a lot of people who haven’t looked at other forums or perhaps played other classes past L30.

You want to see unhappy people? Go talk to Engineers outside of sPvP. I myself have decided to devote time to necro because at least this class is fun. A lot of people also forget how brutally unforgiving Mesmer and Thief can be. Go just roll a thief and jump in sPvP with no practice and see what happens.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Did I mention I run epidemic? I can keep bleeds, vulnerabilities and chills up on most enemies at most times, so 6% by myself, not including all the times I damage targets while they’re weakened, crippled, immobilized, feared, blinded (this is quite often). Then throw on all the other times targets are confused, burning or poisoned along with any other classes who apply the same conditions I do. I’d imagine it’s considerably higher than the 2% you seem to think. Or maybe I’m playing my class wrong.

no you just arent paying attention most likely, even running with a zerg in WvW i rarely see more than 6 conditions on anything for more than a second.

things like fear or blind are gone the next second

the 2% is the amount more than the 10% that warriors get with just a bleed which would be 6 different conditions on a target. This was to make a point that obviously went right over your head.

in most 5 man groups I see 4-5 conditions maintained usually depending on the group make up.

In wvw most targets are dead before they have 6 conditions on them. lets say i got one of my highest ever crit lifeblasts (4.7k) off just after achieving 6 conditions that would be a whopping 94 damage for that extra 2%

yeahhhhh…….I think I’ll just take the 10% for one bleed if I had the choice

@dredlord- i do hope you’re being sarcastic ^^
If not…
Ele’s have 5 weapon skills over 4 attunements= 20 skills. They can’t change weaps in combat but they can change attunements in a similar manner. Their weapon choices are dagger (main and/or offhand) staff, sceptre, focus- for underwater they only have a trident but again 20 skills due to 4 attunements+5 skill slots.

I’m actually considering rolling an ele alt, but that means i’ll have taken each mage-type class and i think i want a bit more playstyle variety…

Druitt.7629:

Dredlord.8076:

Druitt.7629:

Fiery Greatsword is a niche at best. It has a cooldown, a time limit, a charge limit, and it replaces your 20 weapon skills (counting attunements) while active.

Holy kitten cat katface!!!

you guys get 20 weapon skills????

surely to get to use the extra 10 you lose access to your heals and utility skills as that is double what most other classes get for weapon skills?

I mean at the very least while using all these extra weapon skills your UI is mostly removed right? one shouldn’t get that many weapon skills and still be able to see things like endurance and buff and conditions, amiright?

We get one weapon — no swapping as all other professions except Engineers get — and with that one weapon we get the standard 5 skills which change depending on which of 4 attunements (air, fire, water, earth) we switch to. So we end up with 20 weapon skills versus most professions’ 10. Engineers, however, could equip four kits and thus end up with 29 weapon (plus toolbelt) skills.

We only get five weapon skills at one instant, just like other classes, so the UI is just like other classes and weapon swaps. The Fiery Greatsword, however, replaces our weapon and doesn’t change based on attunement, so we go from 20 weapon skills (with attunement changes) to 5. If we drop the Fiery Greatsword, it disappears and we can’t swap back until the cooldown is up and we can resummon it.

(OK, technically, when we summon it, we get one in our hand and one falls on the ground and can be picked up by anyone. If no one else picks it up, we could use that one if the first one is dropped or uses up its charges. It’s still subject to the time limit and will disappear after the allotted time, even if it has never been picked up.)

if you were wondering what just flew over your head…

it was death shroud.

its all good though man most necros don’t know what it is either

Well by “group situations” I was referring to group PvE, not PvP/WvW. That’s what I’m using 25 Curses for.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Well by “group situations” I was referring to group PvE, not PvP/WvW. That’s what I’m using 25 Curses for.

oh PVE….

yeah I would still take the 10% for one bleed

Dredlord.8076:

no you just arent paying attention most likely, even running with a zerg in WvW i rarely see more than 6 conditions on anything for more than a second.

things like fear or blind are gone the next second

Running with a zerg is hardly the alpha or omega of WvW. There is no such thing as a significant contribution for you when you’re running with 40+ people in a pack; everything except another zerg or being utterly outplayed can stop you. You are there to provide 1/40th of the damage output of the zerg and no one cares how much that number is.

The very opposite situation is the case when defending a fort from a zerg, or choke points, or when you get into that fun situation where a coordinated group tries to stall or disperse a zerg.

Dredlord.8076:

yeahhhhh…….I think I’ll just take the 10% for one bleed if I had the choice

I actually think they’re about even.

Dredlord.8076:

if you were wondering what just flew over your head…

it was death shroud.

Ouch! I read just enough to see “rant” and figured I’d be helpful. Should’ve forced myself to read the whole thing.

Still, I’d refer that poster back to Tornado. The worst transform in the game. No skills to exercise, low stat bonuses, and the ultimate perk: its knockback is farther than its attack radius. Being able to see all of your other (locked) skills, etc, only makes the train wreck more terrifying. It’d be better if it blanked out the GUI like DS. At least you could die in ignorant bliss.

(Seriously, you may have better results playing while (new-and-improved) Moa-morphed than playing in Tornado Form.)

Flaming Greatsword is obviously geared towards letting another profession do Elementalist-like things, and oh yeah, you get one too so you can BOTH have fun together. I guess unless you’re an Elementalist who wants to be able to have three sets of meteors falling from the sky at once (two of them watered down and not as effective as alternative elements).

KirinDave.6451:

Dredlord.8076:

yeahhhhh…….I think I’ll just take the 10% for one bleed if I had the choice

I actually think they’re about even.

I think that’s a pretty fair evaluation. 10% for one bleed is going to provide more damage the majority of situations, but the damage potential of the Necro’s is potentially quite a bit higher, and encourages a higher skill cap to get the most out of it. I think they are both very good minor traits, regardless.

Hardly a major issue in the scale of class balance, though.

Well we are not completely broken, but we do have certain things that are holding us back from being what we are meant to be. I am a 400+ hour necro main and I can see alot of these things.

1) Minions. Everyone knows that their AI is horrible. I dont use them but it would be nice to know that I could if I so desired.

2)Life siphoning. Now I this may be because I played a blood necro in GW1 but this department leaves something to be desired. I was also very disappointed that the traits did not recieve a boost from from something like healing power. They were just set and there was little I could do about it.

3)Death shroud. For some reason you can not rez in it, you can not finish in it, talk to npcs, harvest nodes, or even see what sort of conditions are still on you. It’s a great feature that I love but it is really being held back by all the things I can’t do with it as opposed to what I can.

4)Yes the bleed cap! No I saw there other ways around this and most of the time it doesn’t bother me at all because I live in dungeons, but the cap really hurts your pve necros. When farming in orr and I come across a boss event it seems impossible for my septer to put out enough damage to be effective and forget about me 33% longer conditions being useful. Can I be using another build when I am doing that? Sure. But I shouldn’t have respec for an event that I wasn’t planning on coming across. We should all be able to play the game the way we want to play it.

5)Jagged Horror. I suspect this was meant to scare necros more than the enemies. This little minion slows you down, aggros everything, and takes way too long to die. Often I find myself responsible to pulling mobs in dungeons with spectral grasp and I have to wait a considerable amount of time before I can pull again because if I target with this little hellion alive he will charge the group we are trying to weaken and ruin my day. This is all thrown in with the fact that it an unavoidable stat if you desire death magic toughness or the benefit of staff enhancing traits like I do. Something like this should NEVER be a 5 point skill. You trolled us good ANET!

There are plenty more things that hold us back but that is all I will say for now. Anet did fixed the major issues with life siphoning and made out plus life force trait actually work so it is a step in the right direction!

1. I posted this thread in other threads to bring the other threads to the top of the forum to prove a point. There are a lot of new players, and many butthurt players not giving the class a fair shake.

2. all of the “weaknesses” that people are stating in a rage on this thread, stating that other classes have it better, they don’t realize that it doesn’t mean EVERY SINGLE MESMER/EVERY SINGLE WARRIOR/BLAH has access to that trait/mechanic/spec to outdo us. It is foolish to claim that everyone is better than us because they simply have access to something more efficient. Most of the time, if someone specs towards that mechanic, they produce other weaknesses in their build.

3. 2s fear is an amazing and very long fear for battles. every 15s, that’s a very good tool. don’t underestimate fear. What I don’t like, though, is how long a warrior’s knockdown lasts. This does not mean we suck, it means other classes may have slightly unbalanced skills.

4. Transform elites. On my necro, i can pop BiP, have 4k attack, then pop Lich, and get 6.5k attack. hitting lich3 for knockdown and setting lich1 for auto-attack will absolutely EAT a player’s health bar in 5 seconds or less. NOBODY can complain that you can pretty much get these results just by slotting BiP and lich. No traiting required. Stop complaining that it sucks.

I think a lot of people don’t want to see that necros have it well off. we have a HUGE variety of extremely useful utilities. Our class design isn’t a tight one, it’s a widespread one. The reason why other class traits seem better is because a lot of their inherent playstyle revolves around their f1 skill (i.e mesmer traits are a lot about phantasms and what they do, thief traits are geared towards mobility, stealing, fury for crit, and power) but as necromancers, we have traits that improve MANY of our weapon sets, utility types, and class mechanic efficiency. for example, 30 points in Soul REaping and your DS mechanic becomes this super-recharging fast-cast fast-cooldown trolling machine. I’m not blowing hot air. I’ve made builds that can walk across a whole WvW borderland with 4 people chasing me, not dying no matter how hard they try to chase.

another point: has anyone ever tried using focus chill, blindness chills, and using Epidemic to slow down the whole head of a wvw Zerg? do you know how valuable that is for one necro to be able to give a low-manned counter zerg an escape?

Storm of the Ages.9076:

Well we are not completely broken, but we do have certain things that are holding us back from being what we are meant to be. I am a 400+ hour necro main and I can see alot of these things.

1) Minions. …

2)Life siphoning. …

3)Death shroud. …

4)Yes the bleed cap! …

5)Jagged Horror. …
There are plenty more things that hold us back but that is all I will say for now. Anet did fixed the major issues with life siphoning and made out plus life force trait actually work so it is a step in the right direction!

I already stated that minions suck. pretty sure almost everyone, save for newbs, is aware of that. it doesn’t force anyone to play that way. in that respect, people need to work past it until it’s changed and stop crying about it. It clouds the forums when people can better use their time for looking at useful information.

Life siphoning is actually very strong, but shouldn’t be your main build core. I think people are expecting vamp necros to be godly unkillable players that can spam dagger2 and regen all their HP. Do you want the class to become a bwe1 ele with healing staff? No. If you use vampiric traits in combination with tanking, control, and conditions, you’ll understand that its a very strong and solid mechanic as it is.

Death shroud.. Try hitting F then F1 closely after. You’ll be surprised what you can do in Death shroud. (i’ve sit with high tough/vit necro healing a whole HP bar on a dead player while tanking burn mobs all around me. that’s pure gravy)

Did you know you dont need power or condition damage to maintain Minion Damage? minions’ damage scales with level only. if you’re really whining about /afking in front of a boss spamming scepter1 and hitting a bleed cap, go swap out for full minions and watch them do ~1.5k dps while you watch TV. Players who sit playing with the exact same utils as a necro are throwing away the potential inherent in our utilities for each scenario.

And personally, i’ve never had a problem with the jagged horror aggroing things. If you’re walking through an area, maybe you shouldn’t be killing random mobs then trying to run through a sea of red mobs. personally, every time the JH spawned for me was when i was taking out at least 10 mobs at once. In those cases, it was minimally helpful. But still helpful.

I challenge players who claim ____ sucks on a necro to actually stop and say _ rocks on a necro. Then go play another class to 50-80 and understand how well off we are. We have LOT of strengths. It doesn’t mean we have no weaknesses. Every class has a weakness. But the fact is, we have a lot of strengths.

I’ve lead way too many fractals where the party would send ME in SOLO to go revive people one by one because i was skilled enough and lucky enough to have plague/ds/hp/consume/WoP/WoD/Staff5/Staff3/staff4/DS3/DS4 and having them all cooldown well before i need to say “oh kitten*” Because honestly, we can kite for days. If you’re a player who keeps whining that the necro sucks, obviously you don’t know how to change out your utilities, hit ` for your other weapon set mid-battle multiple times, or how to bubble up in Death shroud.

Sheobix.8796:

another point: has anyone ever tried using focus chill, blindness chills, and using Epidemic to slow down the whole head of a wvw Zerg? do you know how valuable that is for one necro to be able to give a low-manned counter zerg an escape?

Only if the zerg is a bunch of pve heroes who don’t know about condition removal.

Necros arn’t bad but they are definitely broken. Not in the sense of being unplayably bad but in the sense of having a bunch of bugs that fundamentally break aspects of the class. Minions being the most obvious, but DS itself is still horribly limiting the way it cuts off access to your utilities and heal skill, doesn’t let you finish, doesn’t show what conditions are on you, etc etc.

sorrow.2364:

I’ve played 350 hours on my Necro and 500 hours on all my character and I partially disagree with you.

Of course, Necromancer isn’t that broken to be unplayable, but it is by far on the weak side.

I’ll list you some reason because I think Necromancers are worse than other professions:

dot dot dot.. blah…

I’m only going to address your “lack of defensibility” statement.
My necro has 3000 armor. 28k hp, and 3400 attack. There are a good portion of endgame warriors that don’t even have that. What are you talking about, not being able to defend? we have daze, immobilize, two fears, and a chill if you go d/horn + staff. plus, in DS, your armor still protects you. if you’re running berserkers with no points in death magic, you’re going to die 5x faster than i will. Period. i don’t even have to press any buttons or combos to prove that.

digiowl.9620:

Sheobix.8796:

Death shroud is not a useless power build tool.
Trait 25 points into blood magic, DS4 will heal you for roughly 1/5 your hp as well as heal your teammate’s hp bars by 1/5 to 1/4. (Thieves and guardians with low vit will thank you a lot)

Huh?

Unless you time it so that you start DS4 the moment you are about to run out of LF, it will cut off the instant you try to drop out of DS.

Btw, did you really need to spam 5+ threads with a link to this one?

the Life transfer trait does not heal your hp bar. its an outwards heal. other sources of vampirism such as food, sigils, or runes WILL heal you. Wells that tick for hp also. if you notice what threads i posted this in, you’ll understand the problem with many new player being turned away from the class.

All classes in GW2 are playable and the differences in performance are smaller than in msot other titles even after years of “balancing”. Necro is the least polished though and really needs a pass ( or two ) over traits and abilites. Many traits just outright suck and the setup of the trees is terrible.

Druitt.7629:

digiowl.9620:

Druitt.7629:

Mesmer clones are made of paper and certainly don’t buy you anything in PvP.

In terms of damage perhaps. but they excel at confusing the human element at the other end. This more so than PVE mobs that can happily ignore clones and make a direct line for the toon.

From what I’ve read, an experienced player can straightforwardly tell illusions from the Mesmer. They don’t necessarily hold the same weapons as the Mesmer, they stand still and use their weapon skill #1 repeatedly, you can throw a mark on the real Mesmer and it sticks, etc. I’d be fooled, but that’s not saying much. I’d also imagine that AoE or bouncing damage eliminates illusions rather quickly as well.

Not useless, but not some huge defensive capability that Necros can’t make up for.

I always know the real mesmer from the clones. simply look for the player outside both of your and their own ranges, trying to run out of your sightline. a lot of mesmers drop their clones and let them do the work, and try to run out of your sight. every clone standing still, walking slowly towards you while attacking, or not using any skills are clones.

Just look for the guy not walking in a line towards you. target him with Ctrl+click and stack chill/fear. it will keep him from popping his clones.

blurps.2340:

All classes in GW2 are playable and the differences in performance are smaller than in msot other titles even after years of “balancing”. Necro is the least polished though and really needs a pass ( or two ) over traits and abilites. Many traits just outright suck and the setup of the trees is terrible.

not completely, but i do agree it could use some degree of polish. personally, i wish the trait line attribute bonuses were set up like the thief’s.

Yukishiro.8792:

Sheobix.8796:

another point: has anyone ever tried using focus chill, blindness chills, and using Epidemic to slow down the whole head of a wvw Zerg? do you know how valuable that is for one necro to be able to give a low-manned counter zerg an escape?

Only if the zerg is a bunch of pve heroes who don’t know about condition removal.

Necros arn’t bad but they are definitely broken. Not in the sense of being unplayably bad but in the sense of having a bunch of bugs that fundamentally break aspects of the class. Minions being the most obvious, but DS itself is still horribly limiting the way it cuts off access to your utilities and heal skill, doesn’t let you finish, doesn’t show what conditions are on you, etc etc.

and when they blow their condition removal, they waste a utility or trait cooldown. go figure. drop another chillblains. turn and /epi again.

I do love my zero recast epidemic!

P.S. You do realize epidemic only spreads to 5 targets, right?

Yukishiro.8792:

I do love my zero recast epidemic!

P.S. You do realize epidemic only spreads to 5 targets, right?

and chillblains hits 5 targets with greater marks. if you’re good with fastcast enabled, you can get 10 people when you turn around for 6 seconds. not a big deal. play for a while and it becomes second nature. (3 + 7) or if you remap your binds, it’s even easier.

Epidemic is somewhat hit and miss. If you get to cast it on an opponent with many conditions it is fantastic, but that just doesn’t happen that often. Maybe it depends on the bracket you’re fighting in as well, I’m usually in EU T2 and people know how to use their condition removals. The servers we’re fighting against usually have plenty of shout warriors and other specs specifically tailored to that task.

I just wanted to make sure you’re aware of how unrealistic and exaggerated most of your suggestions are.

They are not exaggerated at all. if you don’t experience the same success that I’ve had because I’ve practiced much longer with the tools given to me, then that is solely your loss.

Your suggestion was to use focus chill followed by epidemic to slow down a zerg so your team can escape. That hits 6 targets maximum. That isn’t going to slow down even a zerg that isn’t constantly curing conditions, as most zergs are. It is a joke of a suggestion that sounds like it came from a theorycrafter who has never actually done it.

Not to mention it’s completely outclassed by tools that actually CAN do that, like guardian staff 5 gandalf if terrain provides a funnel, or mesmer wall of swiftness/cripple that arn’t target limited and therefore can impact a zerg.

KirinDave.6451:

Dredlord.8076:

no you just arent paying attention most likely, even running with a zerg in WvW i rarely see more than 6 conditions on anything for more than a second.

things like fear or blind are gone the next second

Running with a zerg is hardly the alpha or omega of WvW. There is no such thing as a significant contribution for you when you’re running with 40+ people in a pack; everything except another zerg or being utterly outplayed can stop you. You are there to provide 1/40th of the damage output of the zerg and no one cares how much that number is.

The very opposite situation is the case when defending a fort from a zerg, or choke points, or when you get into that fun situation where a coordinated group tries to stall or disperse a zerg.

Dredlord.8076:

yeahhhhh…….I think I’ll just take the 10% for one bleed if I had the choice

I actually think they’re about even.

no no and no they are not even close to about even

thank you for proving my point by “explaining zergs” to me, it is the example of where you will see the most conditions in the shortest time, where you will see more damage bonus quicker…..and you are right it won’t make a difference because the zerg killed it anyways.

bleed is the most common condition so if something is bleeding you get 10% damage

that means when switching targets to assist a friendly chances are its bleeding and you get the 10% bonus.
what are the chances your target will have 6+ conditions on them?
next you’ll be telling us you only switch targets after epidemic….

your very first attack = bleed you get the 10% bonus necro gets 2%

someone just cleansed all their conditions? no prob they gonna be bleeding again in a second or 2 = 10%. necro? have fun building up 6+ conditions again

these 2 abilities are so far apart its stupid

the only time its going to be better is on a long boss fight and the only builds that are speccing up that high are condition builds looking for cond dur on the GM trait making the extra damage that applies to direct damage only pretty underwhelming.

The posting is being weird so I am going to see how well this works =P

Firstly.. No one is crying or whining. I am trying to tell you that people have a valid reason to be upset about the class. I personally love the necro and wouldn’t swap it for the world. But you can not let people think that it doesn’t have its faults. You just need to warn them about it in a mature way. So stop making assumptions of tone based on your biased view of people on this forum.

Now you are mistaken about life siphoning. It is not strong. I have speced for it and it was disappointing. Most of time it ticks for 25 which is only useful when you are attacking and that is only really useful when using a fast attack like a dagger. The least it should do is match the power of regen which does much more and scales with healing power. The fact that it isn’t being rewarded by ANY stat is undesirable. Yes you could go dagger and have the power of the life siphon skill itself but that is restrictive and not every wants to go so close in a game that punishes you for using melee.

As far as the death shroud you are mentioning. That is a bug/exploit. For all we know, this is something that is/will be fixed. New players(Which you are trying to turn onto necros) don’t know about this. Most probably won’t. It shouldn’t be a exploit it should be in the game. I should be able to gather a rich vein in death shroud because it is my class mechanic and it should be working with me not against me. Surely you must agree with that. You would not rage on the forums if you saw that they allowed it in the next patch notes. You would probably smile and do a small victory arm pump. ((We all would))

As far as the “Sea of random mobs” you should know that it is for farming nodes in or which a lot of people do. Every now and then you must kill a couple of mobs to stay alive or save your running buddy. And you will pay the in combat speed reduction for it on your way to your next ori node. And as I stated, it is in dungeons that the jagged horror is most problematic. Spots like in CM right before the last boss when you have 2 snipers on the bridge and no guardian. Team switches to long range weapons because the snipers are on the bridge and on the stairs leading to them these is a mob or 10 enemies. If jagged horror is up I have to wait for it to die before I can join because if I don’t the little hellion will charge up the stairs and passed everyone we were putting off on fighting. The worst part is that some necros are unaware that it happens because not every necro is as good as the next. And one again, it is practically a required trait.To all newbies reading this. Please try the necro because it is very fun and a play style that is unmatched in my opinion. Just be educated in things you will have to work around for now.

Yep they really arn’t even close to even. 10% on bleed is clearly superior to 2% per condition in most situations. No amount of theorycrafting can change the reality that 2% per condition is only going to be reliably superior when fighting big PVE mobs.

Not to mention the trait is totally useless because it only affects normal damage and it’s deep in a tree that is clearly designed to be a condition damage tree if you spec that far into it.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Did I mention I run epidemic? I can keep bleeds, vulnerabilities and chills up on most enemies at most times, so 6% by myself, not including all the times I damage targets while they’re weakened, crippled, immobilized, feared, blinded (this is quite often). Then throw on all the other times targets are confused, burning or poisoned along with any other classes who apply the same conditions I do. I’d imagine it’s considerably higher than the 2% you seem to think. Or maybe I’m playing my class wrong.

So what your saying is you first have to get chill on the target THEN you have to get poison on the target THEN you have to get weakness on the target THEN you have to get your bleeds on the target for you to get 8% extra damage THEN you have to rely on ANOTHER class to get burning on the target THEN you have to rely on ANOTHER class to get confusion on the target for the 12% damage increase

OR a warrior just needs to auto attack to get 10% extra damage

Dredlord.8076:

these 2 abilities are so far apart its stupid
the only time its going to be better is on a long boss fight and the only builds that are speccing up that high are condition builds looking for cond dur on the GM trait making the extra damage that applies to direct damage only pretty underwhelming.

I’m 30 curses and don’t use scepter. I am split condition/power build, with axe and dagger, the most typical power weapons. It is useful on more than boss fights. Although once again, I think spending all this time on the differences between these two similar traits isn’t even really appropriate for this thread, and doesn’t even scratch the surface of why necro’s are so often considered “broken”. Curses is one of the better trait trees, I’d say.

Until we’re living up to this…

JonathanSharp.7094:

<snip>

The Necro, on the other hand, should be the dude you CANNOT get away from. It’s an attrition based class, so the idea is that if you lock horns w/ a necro, know what you’re getting into: you’re fighting a class that’s built for attrition. It can dot you, dps you, rip your boons, and severely hinder your movement. AND it also has the ability to soak up a lot of damage. So the longer the fight goes, the stronger the Necro should get. That’s the idea behind Death Shroud, but little escape ability.

…. then we’re still broken.

Debate over.

Futuro.8036:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Did I mention I run epidemic? I can keep bleeds, vulnerabilities and chills up on most enemies at most times, so 6% by myself, not including all the times I damage targets while they’re weakened, crippled, immobilized, feared, blinded (this is quite often). Then throw on all the other times targets are confused, burning or poisoned along with any other classes who apply the same conditions I do. I’d imagine it’s considerably higher than the 2% you seem to think. Or maybe I’m playing my class wrong.

So what your saying is you first have to get chill on the target THEN you have to get poison on the target THEN you have to get weakness on the target THEN you have to get your bleeds on the target for you to get 8% extra damage THEN you have to rely on ANOTHER class to get burning on the target THEN you have to rely on ANOTHER class to get confusion on the target for the 12% damage increase

OR a warrior just needs to auto attack to get 10% extra damage

Yep, pretty much this. It’s pretty obvious the 2% per condition trait is just poorly thought out.

Futuro.8036:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Did I mention I run epidemic? I can keep bleeds, vulnerabilities and chills up on most enemies at most times, so 6% by myself, not including all the times I damage targets while they’re weakened, crippled, immobilized, feared, blinded (this is quite often). Then throw on all the other times targets are confused, burning or poisoned along with any other classes who apply the same conditions I do. I’d imagine it’s considerably higher than the 2% you seem to think. Or maybe I’m playing my class wrong.

So what your saying is you first have to get chill on the target THEN you have to get poison on the target THEN you have to get weakness on the target THEN you have to get your bleeds on the target for you to get 8% extra damage THEN you have to rely on ANOTHER class to get burning on the target THEN you have to rely on ANOTHER class to get confusion on the target for the 12% damage increase

OR a warrior just needs to auto attack to get 10% extra damage

It sounds so much harder when you put all those "THEN"s there.

Point is, it’s not a bad minor trait. Curses easily has the strongest overall minor traits, and that one is probably the best Grandmaster minor trait. Why do you have such a bone to pick with this trait? What about the other grandmasters like
You do 5% more damage if you have more than 50% life force.
or
Deal 5% more damage while your health is above 90%.

Those get you way less damage than this one will most the time.

Yeah it’s called a ramp up time. Once the debuffs are flowing they keep flowing.

Those are in trees where you’d actually benefit from the +direct damage. The main problem with 25 curses is that it gives a direct damage boost to what is pretty clearly a condition-focused tree and the trait itself is based on applying a large number of conditions.

I mean part of the problem is that pretty much ALL the necro minor traits are garbage. But this trait is certainly one of the garbageish traits.

Yukishiro.8792:

Those are in trees where you’d actually benefit from the +direct damage.

A defensive tree and a utility tree.

Yukishiro.8792:

The main problem with 25 curses is that it gives a direct damage boost to what is pretty clearly a condition-focused tree and the trait itself is based on applying a large number of conditions.

I understand what you’re getting at but when you word it like this it doesn’t sound like too awful design. A condition trait in a condition tree encouraging you to use conditions.

Yukishiro.8792:

I mean part of the problem is that pretty much ALL the necro minor traits are garbage. But this trait is certainly one of the garbageish traits.

I respectfully disagree. I’ve focused my build around split power/condition and it synergizes excellently. I don’t think any direct damage dealers would mind the 250 precision. I think the tree was designed with that in mind. Condition dealers still benefit from crit thanks to crit related traits, and direct damage benefits from all the precision and fury you get, alongside the 25 pointer. I think the tree designers certainly had that split build in mind. If they wanted curses to be purely conditionmancers they probably would have made stat gains condition damage/condition duration, and thrown away the crit traits.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

I understand what you’re getting at but when you word it like this it doesn’t sound like too awful design. A condition trait in a condition tree encouraging you to use conditions.

While I agree, the fact that it doesn’t apply to , you know, conditions, makes it rather stupid.

If it amplified all damage, it would be a great trait. It doesn’t affect conditions, though.

Dredlord.8076:

no no and no they are not even close to about even

The really fun part of talking to you: you do not even have enough respect for this audience to punctuate your stream-of-consciousness ramblings. It’s like Timecube.com-guy-explains necromancer only with more fake math.

Could you please take the extra 20 seconds on a post to make it readable? Look at what you just wrote and ask yourself, “Should anyone take me seriously?” I’m not committing a genetic fallacy or ad hominem here, I’m begging you for the sake of the conversation to just type like a human.

Watch now as I do my best to read what you wrong. Hope I got it right…

Dredlord.8076:

bleed is the most common condition so if something is bleeding you get 10% damage

that means when switching targets to assist a friendly chances are its bleeding and you get the 10% bonus.

what are the chances your target will have 6+ conditions on them?
next you’ll be telling us you only switch targets after epidemic….

I’m not sure what we’re arguing here for anymore… My argument is that target the weak is a nice, solid damage boost for Necro in team scenarios, and the Zerg is not really a team scenario.

Last time I checked the trait, it worked on individual conditions and not stacks of different conditions. So a natural response is to use this with the Axe. Something I’m sure I’ve seen done to me by the horde of WvW gankomancers who just run up out of nowhere with that kitten axe. Having 5 vulnerability and 2-3 bleed against a necro with that trait while they are switching to dagger-dagger and dropping wells is pretty scary.

Dredlord.8076:

someone just cleansed all their conditions? no prob they gonna be bleeding again in a second or 2 = 10%. necro? have fun building up 6+ conditions again

Well with that Axe+Earth I just described, it’s usually the work of about 1.5-2.25 seconds with a 50% crit, and can be even less depending on other traits.

But, small unit play has a lot less random condition cleansing going on. You seem to think it happens constantly. If that’s the case, then all condition builds are useless, conditions are useless, and necromancers with condition builds should stay out of WvW. Now, conventional wisdom suggests that’s not true but you’re welcome to that opinion.

Dredlord.8076:

the only time its going to be better is on a long boss fight and the only builds that are speccing up that high are condition builds looking for cond dur on the GM trait making the extra damage that applies to direct damage only pretty underwhelming.

A lot of people like running hybrid condition+powermancers, and they pull it off to some degree. It’s a sweet gig if you can afford the gear.

he’s fighting a mega losing battle here

and once you post a reply to him you can’t get away from him….

Kirin Dave it looks like you are the only one having trouble understanding it.

why don’t you tell us again how the Zerg isn’t a team scenario before you completely embarrass yourself lol

better yet, win the argument by using "genetic fallacy’ and “ad hominem” !

everyone else in the thread believes it’s an underwhelming trait for many reasons

get a clue buddy, reread the whole thread so all those reasons are fresh in your mind and move on.

IMO, Target the Weak is merely a means to boost direct dmg in a condition based build where power is generally in short supply. I feel my assumption is accurate based on A.) % based dmg modifiers having no effect on condition dmg, and B.) Power based weapons aside from staff generate very few conditions in their main hand skills, even when factoring in on crit procs such as bleed and weakness as are found in the same tree.

If you want to augment your direct dmg in a power build then I’d suggest looking at Spiteful Marks, Close to Death, Axe Training, and/or Stength of Undeath. At worst you get +5%, at best +35%. Might stacking is also a viable means for Necros to improve both condi and direct dmg, rather than relying on applying and maintaining a decent amount of condi dmg.

if you think necros are fine in spvp, go play a mesmer, then report back. I have full glass cannon phantasm mesmer and kill/survive/escape/control 100x easier than a necro that specializes in any of those.

In PvE they are ok

KirinDave.6451:

Dredlord.8076:

get a clue buddy, reread the whole thread so all those reasons are fresh in your mind and move on.

It was pretty cool how you didn’t actually address what I said.

that’s because it has already been said in this thread, were you too lazy to scroll up? or are you just trolling now?

reread my quote here, this time try not to be butthurt, take the advice and be learner for once…

Hoggie.2769:

I started a Necro two weeks ago, I have a 80 Ranger and 80 Warrier and i must say I love the Necro. I have got to level 30 so far and things are getting better with the necro, i think i still need to do some reading up but i am very happy with it so far.

Yeah, great thread from Sheobix. I’m a slow-poke casual Norn necro, been playing since launch & only just hit 52 (playing 4 alts as well). I’ve decided to go full minion build, as I loved my pets & miss the D2 zookeeper. In PvE having 6+ pets out rocks! Lots of fun & survivability, switch out one pet with Spectral Walk for an ‘Oh Kitten!’ escape button from most sticky situations & live to fight another day (or in a minute or so, he, he).

I find the necro hugely versatile & flexible. I’ve even got the Norn wolf shifting skill, which I’ve experimented with a bit into the mix. Considering we have DS, Lich form AND Plague to choose from, all available at the flick of a button just before entering combat, I’d say it’s only a matter of using a little bit of foresight & trial & error to overcome any reasonable situation. I’d love to experiment more with shape-shifting & various non-pet builds, which I will do for dungeons & WvWvW, which I plan to do a smattering of.

I’m probably the exception to the rule though guys, being almost exclusively a solo carebear & doing very little PvP. If nothing else, I never feel lonely!

Dredlord.8076:

KirinDave.6451:

Dredlord.8076:

get a clue buddy, reread the whole thread so all those reasons are fresh in your mind and move on.

It was pretty cool how you didn’t actually address what I said.

that’s because it has already been said in this thread, were you too lazy to scroll up? or are you just trolling now?

reread my quote here, this time try not to be butthurt, take the advice and be learner for once…

I did. You were wrong about the axe before, you’re still wrong about it now. With this trait and vulnerability and bleed generation with a reasonable crit rate, you’ll exceed the effectiveness of the warrior trait within 2 auto-attacks in the worst case. It’s not exactly the grim scenario you insist on painting where every player has a condition curing fairy floating after them.

This is not “difficult.” This is not “hard.” This is not “good luck waiting for 6 more conditions.” This is trivial, the matter of 1.5-2.25 seconds.

And that’s just one way of many. For a power spec.

Power builds are underwhelming in s/tpvp right now, and any bunker necros are outshines by other bunker classes.
Bleed caps hurt the dps of necros who choose to go the condition way, which should not.
Necros are not useless in dungeons, but its just the current mindset.
Death shroud is great.

Could a mod kindly remove the posts from KirinDave and Dredlord? Honestly, you guys can start another thread talking about the effectivness of target the weak, but dont hijack this thread.
Personally, I dont find necros weak, however, to simply perform on the level of a noob thief who justs mugs, backstabbs and then spams HS, you have to put in a lot of effort. Thats probably why most people complain. That, and because our trait lines are just messed up and lack any form of co-ordination. And minions arent exactly reliable (if they dont stand around and actually attack they usually get wiped out with one AoE attack). So yeah, thats my 2cents.