On necros being "broken"
I’m sure you read A LOT of complaints about it and I apologize in advance if bringing it up gets under your skin
Personally, it does not get under my skin, because you’re speaking in qualified, informed, and reasonable terms. The only thing that gets under my skin is, “NECROS IZ BROKE CAUSE MINIONS SUXORS!!!” posts, of which there are quite a few.
My graduate degree is in Artificial Intelligence, and it’s not an easy problem. But evidently GW1’s minion AI was quite reasonable, and even WoW’s minion AI was reasonable, so there’s something going on with GW2 minion AI. Not sure if they tried to be too clever and so it works in non-intuitive ways, or if their seemingly deep issues with LOS and pathing in general is killing pets, or if it’s just buggy and there aren’t many Necros so minion AI is at the end of their queue.
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.the reason why i don’t call thieves OP (as i play one myself) is that by holding at least 2300 armor and 24k hp as a necro (which is super easy to do) you don’t die from those combos, and the thief in question is left with 0 initiative and 3 utilities to pull from to get away from you until they regen initiative. and they are locked out of stealth for 3 seconds.
my juggermancer takes 3 consqecutive BS combos to get to 0 hp, and i also have a ridiculously tanky and powerful DS and lich form doubles my stats for the duration. sooo…..
really, we have a lot more potential than a thief does. They were built to blow their load like a rhino, but after that they need to dodge like mad or use roll for initiative, or just plain run away until they catch you by serious surprise.
I feel like you don’t have much experience with a thief. First off they aren’t out of initiative after a BS combo, they have 6 left and more than likely 7-8 from regen. Second of all at the very least that BS combo is doing 15k damage(bringing you below 50% health) opening you up for HS spam to finish you. They also aren’t "stuck out of stealth for 3s vs a necro considering they get a stolen 3s fear, giving them ample time to finish you. If you get into DS dodge out of life transfer range then come back and just pummel you. Lich form is a bit tricky but that’s the only time I’d actually run away, mostly just to waste the cooldown :P.
A BS combo is not the end of the thief, that’s the opener. If it doesn’t kill you there are a multitude of things a thief can do to kill you. Only when things look grim is it time to leave. A good thief is going to BS combo and continue to kill you, not run away and wait for another BS combo. Personally, I don’t even play a BS thief. I play a high damage but decent health/toughness build that is built around dodging, stacking might, using auto-attacks+quickness to get people quickly into HS butter zone. I haven’t had any issues with necromancers, but it’s not like there are a ton of them running around.
I play both classes though. The necro has some neat stuff, it’s just not nearly as cohesive as what the thief has. Even though the thief probably has less overall variety, what it does have all works together very well. I truly await the day that the necro gets an overhaul and becomes cohesive. I also await the day I can make a vampire thief or use traps…
cloak and dagger… 6 initiative
backstab.. 0
Heartseeker.. 3 initiative/per.
base thief ini bar has 12 initiative… executing C+D and Heartseeker twice in a row will blow your initiative to zero. maybe you’ll have 2 left by the time you regen. (regen rate is 1/1.6s) And also, i don’t get hit for 15k damage with the combo, i have 3k armor. at most, i’ve felt maybe 8k total. even on crits. and if you didn’t know, i have 28k hp. So the only loser in that battle would be the thief.
There are a lot of necro players who don’t build PTV-wise and usually bite the dust that quickly. (although I do not. you claim one combo brings me below 50% but in all honesty, it brings me down to 80% at best.. which i can recover with one mark of blood and an immobilize+dagger2.)
i’m sure there is a thief out there that is specced for the long-haul to take me down, but truly i have yet to experience one vs. my necro. besides, the thief can’t exactly heal themselves for battles that last longer than 30s. especially if my power-necro can auto for 2k dps.
I don’t want to say Necros don’t have problems, but the forums are too negative.
The last time i saw something like this was on the ffxi dragoon forums.
And we successfully managed to damage our reputation in the game to the point
that when you entered a party, at least two people instantly left and just said “loldrg”
in party chat before doing so. Or they asked the leader to kick you.Thank you! An excellent illustration of what I’m trying to say. It’s already started happening, if some of the posts here (“I see ‘LFG, no Necros’”) are true.
There are people that are definately taking it too far.
PvE especially we’re fine, although if you played other classes up to 80 you may be jelly of their weapon skills, since alot of our dmg is baked into death shroud or utilities.
Higher levels of Fractal may be alot tougher for us necro’s though since agony does twice the dmg to our death shroud which is absolutely insane. I’ve experienced it for myself. So who knows for high end stuff.
Thanks for the post, helped out a lot, I usually like to run a class that has summons or sort of dot damage type (warlock, witch doctor, gw1 necro, etc). The only thing I have beef with right now is the lack of AI that the minions have. I’m sure you read A LOT of complaints about it and I apologize in advance if bringing it up gets under your skin, but as a huge fan of being a summoner in other games, I hope you understand what I’m trying to get at. I recently got back into playing and noticed they added a new set of gear called Apothecary (condition, toughness, healing. I think) I wanted to craft that for my necro thinking that could be good for either MM or condition based necro with scepter/dagger combo with staff as swap. Wanted to get your opinion about it and about MM Necros, your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
MM isn’t completely useless. although the AI is in fact terrible, i have seen it used sparingly as a lock-down bunker for s/tpvp nodes in organized play. tanking+healing for your minions is a good way to frustrate someone.
Even in PvE, if you really painstakingly avoid random minion rages that pull docile mobs, you can level with a minion master pretty efficiently, and in dungeons, it will allow you to play a more supportive role as well as drop 1-2 of your minions for the situational well.
I don’t want to say Necros don’t have problems, but the forums are too negative.
The last time i saw something like this was on the ffxi dragoon forums.
And we successfully managed to damage our reputation in the game to the point
that when you entered a party, at least two people instantly left and just said “loldrg”
in party chat before doing so. Or they asked the leader to kick you.Thank you! An excellent illustration of what I’m trying to say. It’s already started happening, if some of the posts here (“I see ‘LFG, no Necros’”) are true.
There are people that are definately taking it too far.
PvE especially we’re fine, although if you played other classes up to 80 you may be jelly of their weapon skills, since alot of our dmg is baked into death shroud or utilities.
Higher levels of Fractal may be alot tougher for us necro’s though since agony does twice the dmg to our death shroud which is absolutely insane. I’ve experienced it for myself. So who knows for high end stuff.
i have experienced the same problem. but what can we do? it’s a bug. At least its only fractal that contains agony.
I don’t want to say Necros don’t have problems, but the forums are too negative.
The last time i saw something like this was on the ffxi dragoon forums.
And we successfully managed to damage our reputation in the game to the point
that when you entered a party, at least two people instantly left and just said “loldrg”
in party chat before doing so. Or they asked the leader to kick you.Thank you! An excellent illustration of what I’m trying to say. It’s already started happening, if some of the posts here (“I see ‘LFG, no Necros’”) are true.
There are people that are definately taking it too far.
PvE especially we’re fine, although if you played other classes up to 80 you may be jelly of their weapon skills, since alot of our dmg is baked into death shroud or utilities.
Higher levels of Fractal may be alot tougher for us necro’s though since agony does twice the dmg to our death shroud which is absolutely insane. I’ve experienced it for myself. So who knows for high end stuff.
i have experienced the same problem. but what can we do? it’s a bug. At least its only fractal that contains agony.
Hopefully one of many that will be fixed soon. =/
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.Warriors can easily get that amount of HP, armor and attack while having also heavy armor (better damage reduction). All professions can get similiar stats without counting HP, but they still have better defenses as I’ve listed.
Daze is only 2 second from warhorn. Immobilization hasn’t actually any defensive capability. Fears are much more of interrupts rather than defensive skills. Chill and snares aren’t that worty in a game in which every profession run with at least one ranged weapon and melee weapons are filled with leaps and movement skills. That would have made sense in Guild Wars, but in Guild Wars 2, snares are worth almost nothing.
Other professions have access to multiple CC skills at the same time which isn’t only the 1s fear. Take Mesmers, for instance. They have a bunch of CC skills, while still having visual confusion and invulnerability.
obviously you’re a player in the minority of necromancers that suck, otherwise you wouldn’t be arguing that the class sucks. all of those conditions you’re trying to discredit are actually great tools to use when you’re fighting someone. if you’re ignoring them, then you’re not using about 1/3 of the utilities/skills in your bar.
immobilize does have defensive capability. if you use it on someone, break their line of sight (as in, get behind them), they can’t cast the majority of their utilities or skills on you. not to mention the extra second it takes for them to turn around and look at you.
2s daze is great. it’s not crap at all. you talk about it like it’s not enough.
if you stack chills, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chill its a 66% snare and 66% cooldown debuff. if you’re so set on arguing that other classes can just dance around you, chain their uber skills like there’s no tomorrow, maybe you should try chills sometime, and watch them hit a slog.
we have two main fears: staff5 which is an AoE (always useful for gaining footing in a 1v3) and Ds3. Ds3 is nearly instant cast. (hit F1 and 3, it registers pretty quick) and provides you a fear that works as an interrupt, even if you’re on the ground.
I would like to point out a valid part of your argument, about mesmers having a bountiful amount of CC as well as the clones and invuln, and i have found them really difficult to kill even when i have my eye on them. i pray that they get nerfed again someday. but still, this does not make the necro a crap class. it only states the mesmer as an exceptionally strong class.
Warriors can easily get that amount of HP, armor and attack while having also heavy armor (better damage reduction).
You make it sound as if there are actually different qualities of armor. As far as I can tell, Heavy Armor simply has higher armor values. So if a cloth-wearer and a plate-wearer both have 10,000 armor and 2,000 toughness, they are have exactly the same mitigation.
Or was this just a typo?
But, while having the same toughness, and bonus toughness cap is the same across all professions, not counting traits (in which Necromancers are inferiors anyway), Warriors still have an extra damage reduction of about 200 toughness compared to clothies. I’ve read somewhere it is 9%+ extra damage reduction on 1800 toughness (900 bonus toughness).
Plus, warriors have access to shield, which is another toughness booster.
wow! 200 toughness! and a shield! what an OP advantage warriors have over us, ranged and melee, controller, condition toting, spectral walking, life leeching, blood boiling reapers of souls with many many many lifebars! -_-
oh god, not to mention we are CLOTH WEARERS. we’re like, on the other end of the armor spectrum, right? i’m surprised there isn’t more of a gap. (as i trait in Dark armor for the extra 400 toughness to piss on the nearest warrior with his disk of metal)
….
Necromancer traits are useless
Best decision I ever made for my necro (Sarcastic, now a Warrior)
Why do you play Necromancer? (Request to convince them Necro is worth it)
Necromancer Sigh
Necro Sucks -Proof
A Necromancer’s Worst Nightmare
Necros are so worthless….
So really how is the Necro? (Talks about how crappy Necros appear based on forums)
Serious Problem Starting to Trend…….. (Talks about “LFG except Necro”)
I Think I Know Why
conditionmancer for wvw still a jokeAnd that’s not even counting how many threads get side-tracked with “Yeah, but Necros suck anyhow, so…” kind of replies within threads.
this is pretty much the leading point of my original post. funny how nobody wants to discuss THAT problem, and instead add on to the conga line of “this sucks, wait, no, this sucks!” rants.
If i had one wish for christmas, it would be for all the sour necro players who claim the class sucks to just stop posting their negative comments in the forums and just let it be known that there is already a well organized bug thread, and a company filled with passionate developers who actually do treat GW2 like their latest crowning achievement.
we’re not even 4 months in… give it a rest. Use the strong parts of the necro. And if you can’t find the strong parts, don’t play it. Because it is just too much of a hands-on class to play for you.
I don’t want to say Necros don’t have problems, but the forums are too negative.
…
Yes. This. Point. Exactly. And it needs to stop.
Arenanet made a post about players giving positive and constructive criticism vs. boiled down ranting that ruins the image of the game.
It needs to change.
@Druitt
Yes. We are likely a negative bunch. In some sense I think it is justified (we should be getting tired of buggy launches as consumers), in another it is probably self-fulfilling (people have real complaints which manifests itself as negativity which manifests itself as unreasonable complaints).
I think this is exacerbated by an almost telling silence on the part of the developers. Something like “In the next patch we are releasing a few fixes. These are not the big fixes you are hoping for (like Minion AI), but rest assured we are working on those” would go a very, very long way.
I also do not think we are in it alone. I think Rangers (from what I can tell) and Eles could certainly use some love. That said, they still feel more complete than we do. We feel not liked a bugged class but rather more like a beta class.
I should add I am speaking mostly about sPvP. I actually think we are quite strong in solo PvE.
My magic 3 to making me a happy necro:
Fix our bugs.
Give us real, meaningful build options (both weapon and traits).
Focus DS so its use is actually as cool as its concept (I love actually using it… but hate it as a skill… does this make sense?).
I know people are going overboard with the QQ, but honestly I don’t blame them at all. As said above, some of it is justified.
Frankly all this thread is 2 different sides of necro calling each other out, and at this point it’s some necro’s telling other necro’s to shut up and L2P over and over, this thread isn’t constructive either. And really it just feels like some people want to brag about how “pro” they are being a godlike necro and trying to hide the profession’s flaws doesn’t help get them buffs/fixes they need.
So why don’t we go back to making more constructive threads offering suggestions (and easy/realistic ones at that) to fix certain parts of the class, because in the end, we all just want the necro to be more fun and less buggy.
Fix our bugs.
Give us real, meaningful build options (both weapon and traits).
Focus DS so its use is actually as cool as its concept (I love actually using it… but hate it as a skill… does this make sense?).
Oh, and this. =p
(edited by Knote.2904)
I’m sure you read A LOT of complaints about it and I apologize in advance if bringing it up gets under your skin
Personally, it does not get under my skin, because you’re speaking in qualified, informed, and reasonable terms. The only thing that gets under my skin is, “NECROS IZ BROKE CAUSE MINIONS SUXORS!!!” posts, of which there are quite a few.
My graduate degree is in Artificial Intelligence, and it’s not an easy problem. But evidently GW1’s minion AI was quite reasonable, and even WoW’s minion AI was reasonable, so there’s something going on with GW2 minion AI. Not sure if they tried to be too clever and so it works in non-intuitive ways, or if their seemingly deep issues with LOS and pathing in general is killing pets, or if it’s just buggy and there aren’t many Necros so minion AI is at the end of their queue.
According a a recent dev response, Anet does not even consider necro minions as an issue.
But if you really do know AI development you also know that the AI they use is not creature specific. So your entire premiss seems a bit silly.
It really seems most likely that necro minions have an artificial parameter that all other minions do not have or that client/server communication errors cause a logical loop to occur preventing the AI from proceeding with its behavior.
All other minions, even those controlled by Necro NPCs, work well according to my observations and a lack of any feedback on the forums to the contrary.
Some of these points are true, but I think the reason people dump on this class is that it’s the most boring of all the professions. That combined with the long list of bugs…makes for less than appealing playtime with the necro. It was the first profession I got to 80 and put alot of time in, but after starting up new toons…I could never go back to necro because of the lack of exciting gameplay imo. All wells, marks look the same basically. The sound effect on the staff is really annoying. The auto attacks on scepter and dagger are both mind numbing.
If i had one wish for christmas, it would be for all the sour necro players who claim the class sucks to just stop posting their negative comments in the forums and just let it be known that there is already a well organized bug thread, and a company filled with passionate developers who actually do treat GW2 like their latest crowning achievement.
we’re not even 4 months in… give it a rest. Use the strong parts of the necro. And if you can’t find the strong parts, don’t play it. Because it is just too much of a hands-on class to play for you.
You need to understand the people that complain are hardcore pvpers, not talking casually doing spvp or wvw. If you play casual you just wont notice the imbalance or you might notice them but be able to overcome them due to spvp being so casual if you have a few bad games no big deal.
If you are a champion phantom owning it up in tpvp with dedicated team and a great win rate, hats off to you then your a great player.
Xomox ~Human Necro/Engineer ET
guys try condition/power based build 30/30/10 with wells it works quite well weak in 1vs1 but you are beasts in team fights
I think this is exacerbated by an almost telling silence on the part of the developers. Something like “In the next patch we are releasing a few fixes. These are not the big fixes you are hoping for (like Minion AI), but rest assured we are working on those” would go a very, very long way.
No argument there. I’ve been amazed how devs in various MMO’s go through a negative feedback cycle where they don’t communicate, or they give hints like “Big Patch Coming!!” and then the patch turns out to have very little substance, etc, and user frustration and speculation mounts, then the forums become hostile (not as hostile as this forum, but more hostile) and the devs start avoiding the hostility, figuring it’s all the user’s fault… Having made vague promises and falling through, they stop saying anything in advance, etc. Good, honest communication, including “Yeah, at the last minute the bug fix everyone wants broke something else so we had to roll back. We’ll figure out a way to fix the bug, please be patient.”
I also do not think we are in it alone. I think Rangers (from what I can tell) and Eles could certainly use some love. That said, they still feel more complete than we do. We feel not liked a bugged class but rather more like a beta class.
That’s a huge part of my point. To read these forums, we are in it alone. Every other class has way better skills, way better traits, is much tougher in a fight, and doesn’t have the horrible bugs we do. The fact is, most classes have similar issues.
Im sorry but your first statement in your post is that Necro´s isnt broken and just that is a lie, a Huge advertised class mechanic of Necro is broken, Our minions do not work, when the class was announced and advertised it was a class that can raise creepy ( frankly ugly things i wish were skeletons…) undead beings to serve you, atm they are utter trash and the developer who allowed that broken AI through shouldve been fired. Fact is Huge part of necro is broken, you cant say with a straight face it isnt broken when one of its key parts doesnt work, heck since release a whole freaking traitline wasnt working, it just got fixed receantly after several months of beta and live. Your statement is just false. Sure some of our Abilities work ok…. but doesnt negate that huge part of necro is still broken. And the fact that after all these months of not one peep out of developers about the broken AI of our Minions or their utter crap when they are used ( Wont regen health between fights along with long CD ) or the other bugs, oh or my favorite “Learn to use DS and youll be the scariest thing around” post by John its understandable people are negative.
(edited by Demonical.1039)
You need to understand the people that complain are hardcore pvpers, not talking casually doing spvp or wvw. If you play casual you just wont notice the imbalance or you might notice them but be able to overcome them due to spvp being so casual if you have a few bad games no big deal.
True, with two major caveats.
1. “Imbalance” depends on the situation. Obviously PvP has different concerns than PvE. A profession can be “OP, face roll” powerful in PvE and “free kill” in PvP because different mechanisms are important. On top of that, as you say, different kinds/levels of PvP will also perceive balance differently. (Some of this due to skill, but some due to appropriately different mechanisms being important.)
2. I seriously doubt that extremely serious, highly-competitive PvP’ers become emotionally attached to a particular profession and go ballistic on these forums. A serious competitor plays every profession, so they can get inside their opponent’s head and anticipate their moves. A serious competitor views their character as a tool, and a serious craftsman has multiple tools in their toolbox. If Warriors are OP in competitive PvP, play a Warrior. To do anything else is basically showing that you’re more of a casual role-player who has gotten attached to your Necromancer Prince of Darkness.
(Yes, I know that it’s painful to level and equip multiple professions. At the same time, this is an MMO, and MMOs are rebalanced on a regular basis and if all of your eggs are in one basket you will spend a lot of your time being angry. Not to mention that any game where a PvPer can enter a match with a gear advantage is crazy stupid, in my opinion. Serious competition requires equal gear for all characters, so that it boils down to player skill rather than time spent grinding for gear.)
In that sense, I think it’s the mid-level PvP’ers that complain the most. Casual PVP’ers, as you say aren’t invested enough to know. Highly-competitive PvP’ers, though, aren’t attached to a single profession and realize that winning means doing what you need to do, so I doubt they rant on forums rather than adapt and win. It’s the mid-level folks who are invested in their profession, but also PvP a lot and really want to win, that keep hitting the wall until they believe “Necros are broken and worthless”.
(edited by Druitt.7629)
Im sorry but your first statement in your post is that Necro´s isnt broken and just that is a lie, a Huge advertised class mechanic of Necro is broken, Our minions do not work, when the class was announced and advertised it was a class that can raise creepy ( frankly ugly things i wish were skeletons…) undead beings to serve you, atm they are utter trash
No. This is hyperbole. The Necro core mechanic is not minions, it’s Death Shroud.
To be sure, minions are prominent in Necro lore, and some players definitely choose the Necro because they imagine themselves being the Evil Masters of the Undead!!!!!!!!! Bwahaa haa ha. And based on AN advertising, someone like that has every right to be disappointed that minions have many issues. Agreed.
BUT even with stupid AI, minions are not totally borked. I run without minions because I’ve chosen a different legitimate Necro playstyle. But when I do encounter a situation where I want to equip and use a minion, I’ve never had them not work as advertised. Not saying they don’t need serious attention, but the appropriate description of minions is that their AI has problems that strongly affect minion-based Necros.
(As a side note, you may not like that they don’t regen HP, but that seems like a legitimate choice by AN: other classes have summonables which exist for a limited time, while Rangers have pets that are permanent unless overwhelmed. Minions fall between those two extremes: they are not time-limited, neither are they permanent. And our elite minion is actually pet-like, bridging the gap.)
At any rate, there are multiple mechanics that are signatures of the Necro: Forms (especially DS), Marks, Minions, manipulation of boons/conditions, an unusually tough cloth-wearer, Fears, etc. There are multiple trait lines — none of which are dedicated to minions, by the way.
Yes, the dev remark about DS is ridiculous and provocative and deserves our scorn. Yes, Minion AI is problematic. But the class is not broken, and when the fanatics flood our forums with this unqualified “Necros are broken” thought, they turn away many prospective Necros who would not make minions the center of their builds. (Heck, pets/minions have been problematic in dungeons in every MMO I’ve played, so it’s historically been hard to be a super-pet/minion-focused build in groups.)
YOU are sorely disappointed in the class and it does not deliver what you imagined, based on AN’s advertising. You have a right to be unhappy. Saying that the class is therefore broken is misleading and counter-productive.
Im sorry but your first statement in your post is that Necro´s isnt broken and just that is a lie, a Huge advertised class mechanic of Necro is broken, Our minions do not work, when the class was announced and advertised it was a class that can raise creepy ( frankly ugly things i wish were skeletons…) undead beings to serve you, atm they are utter trash
No. This is hyperbole. The Necro core mechanic is not minions, it’s Death Shroud.
To be sure, minions are prominent in Necro lore, and some players definitely choose the Necro because they imagine themselves being the Evil Masters of the Undead!!!!!!!!! Bwahaa haa ha. And based on AN advertising, someone like that has every right to be disappointed that minions have many issues. Agreed.
BUT even with stupid AI, minions are not totally borked. I run without minions because I’ve chosen a different legitimate Necro playstyle. But when I do encounter a situation where I want to equip and use a minion, I’ve never had them not work as advertised. Not saying they don’t need serious attention, but the appropriate description of minions is that their AI has problems that strongly affect minion-based Necros.
(As a side note, you may not like that they don’t regen HP, but that seems like a legitimate choice by AN: other classes have summonables which exist for a limited time, while Rangers have pets that are permanent unless overwhelmed. Minions fall between those two extremes: they are not time-limited, neither are they permanent. And our elite minion is actually pet-like, bridging the gap.)
At any rate, there are multiple mechanics that are signatures of the Necro: Forms (especially DS), Marks, Minions, manipulation of boons/conditions, an unusually tough cloth-wearer, Fears, etc. There are multiple trait lines — none of which are dedicated to minions, by the way.
Yes, the dev remark about DS is ridiculous and provocative and deserves our scorn. Yes, Minion AI is problematic. But the class is not broken, and when the fanatics flood our forums with this unqualified “Necros are broken” thought, they turn away many prospective Necros who would not make minions the center of their builds. (Heck, pets/minions have been problematic in dungeons in every MMO I’ve played, so it’s historically been hard to be a super-pet/minion-focused build in groups.)
YOU are sorely disappointed in the class and it does not deliver what you imagined, based on AN’s advertising. You have a right to be unhappy. Saying that the class is therefore broken is misleading and counter-productive.
You seem pretty awesome Druitt, I do like your points although I am against most of them, what build is your Dark Prince?
As a potential Minion Master myself I do dislike the system in this game, especially when they got it so right in Guild Wars 1, I loved Necros in that game, Spitful Spirit, Blood of the Master all these things are what necromancers are supposed to be…
This game is more versatile and because of that every class is similar, we do have points that are better in certain areas but we are not focused, and that focus is what defines our class..
With the Necros I think they were scared, and its why its nerfed so badly in terms of damage and ability.
Its a shame really… I loved GW 1 =[
[SinS] Clan Leader – www.SinfulShadows.com – Stormbridge Isle – Necromancer
in Beta our DS was originally our Downed state, they changed that too what it is now and its design is flawed because original concept for it was our downed state, Now when our class is highly advertised as a minion spec you exspect that to be the thing that acctualy works with the class it doesnt ( they AI is broken you have to admit that sometimes they attack other times they grab popcorn and stare at a monster beating you too death ) Fear was good until they nerfed it too 1 sec ( only class who got their fears nerfed like this btw others have theirs still at 2-3 sec ) and add in the fact the huge amount of bugs people have a full right to be negative, When a key part of the class is not working properly its my theory its broken ( again i mentioned some parts of it work but Minions are a keypart so ill stick with my broken comment )
According a a recent dev response, Anet does not even consider necro minions as an issue.
Haven’t seen that one. I know they’ve made flippant responses which can be interpreted as they don’t care, but I’ve not seen a posting that says, “Minions are working fine and you’re imagining they’re not.”
But if you really do know AI development you also know that the AI they use is not creature specific. So your entire premiss seems a bit silly.
Yes, I really know and do AI. I don’t know how they have coded their minion/pet/summonable AI, and unless you DO know your statement that AI is not creature-specific is pure speculation. Of course, it would be good practice to have a common AI code base and then specialize that, but things don’t always work that way and sometimes in the heat of deadlines you find out that your AI code doesn’t generalize as well as you thought and you take expedient measures.
You also know that Rangers, for example, have a single pet out at a time. Elementalists might have as many as two summonables out. But only Necros might have eight or more minions out. They are obviously different even before you begin to dig into particulars.
It really seems most likely that necro minions have an artificial parameter that all other minions do not have or that client/server communication errors cause a logical loop to occur preventing the AI from proceeding with its behavior.
You’re saying that AN has a BROKEN flag that they set to TRUE for Necros and FALSE for all other professions? And you think my idea was “a bit silly”?
If I had to speculate, I’d say that it’s due to either: 1) pathing/LOS issues that due to subtle differences between minions and pets cause minions to not be able to find a path/LOS and thus not acting, or 2) problems with sending multiple targeting information to multiple minions/pets that don’t show up with pets and summonables because you can’t have multiple pets out and don’t tend to have multiple summonables out. (It’s obvious that there are LOS issues in the game, which have shown up as Elementalist Ride the Lightning not working, as minor inconveniences for some professions, and as major issues for some classes like post-patch Mesmers. My feeling is this is strongly affecting minions for subtle reasons.)
All other minions, even those controlled by Necro NPCs, work well according to my observations and a lack of any feedback on the forums to the contrary.
I only equip and use a single minion for specific situations, and I’ve never had a minion fail to work as I expected. That doesn’t prove anything, and neither does your “all other minions” anectodal evidence. It does provide clues as to what might be going on, but not having access to their code and design goals, it’s all speculation.
For all we know, NPC minions are not actually minions but rather additional NPCs with minion names and skins. It would be logical to reuse minion code for NPCs as well, but in the real world what’s logical, what’s feasible, what’s kludged under time pressure, etc, are all different issues.
Evidently GW1 had very reasonable pet/minion AI, so it’s not like AN is incompetent at it. Something else is happening that is causing legitimate issues for heavy users.
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When a key part of the class is not working properly its my theory its broken ( again i mentioned some parts of it work but Minions are a keypart so ill stick with my broken comment )
No different than, say, Thieves and poisons. By history, lore, and advertising, poisons and traps are important for Thieves. In actuality, poisons and traps aren’t that great and I’ve seen claims they’re “broken.” But Thieves don’t turn around and say, “Our profession is broken because traps and poisons are broken!!!!!!” They’re realistic about a serious playstyle issue.
Our core mechanic is Life Force (and Death Shroud), just as the Thief core mechanic is Initiative. It doesn’t matter if Death Shroud didn’t work that way in Beta or not, it’s the Release core mechanic. It may be a rough mechanic because it was changed late in the development process, but it’s not broken and the class is not “broken”.
What you have is that a particular set of builds — prominent, historical builds, perhaps — have serious problems with a key mechanic. To be honest, if minions worked flawlessly, it’s not clear to me that the majority of Necros would even equip minions, much less trait and build around them. The Necro toolbox is much larger than that.
So when you say that AN featured minions prominently in their advertising, you have a point. AN needs to deliver and shame on them. You have a right to say that sucks and you didn’t get what you were promised. But the class is not broken: what was important about the class to YOU (and others) is broken.
As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t trait for minions or even equip them, except for specific situations, and there are many Necros like that. You’re not handicapped by not building around minions. And, in my occasion-based use of minions I’ve never had any issues, so I think minions are broken with a certain trait/play-style and not in general.
Anyhow, be as black-and-white in your opinion as you want. Just try not to convince prospective Necros who visit these forums that because Necros absolutely don’t work to your expectations, they can’t possible work for anyone and are BROKEN.
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@Druitt
I share your same thoughts. It’s not just a “broken AI” because the AI in truth really works: minion can attack, can get decision, can change target, can avoid obstacles and so on. They just get this decision too quickly or too late (mostly this case: the target or the master is dead before the AI cycle pick an option from it’s states).
I also think, and fear, another problem: the AI cycle is kitten slow and too heavy for the server so they have a tick of several milliseconds, or even worse they have a separate queue for AI jobs. Technically is much better but that would enqueue too many actions which overflow the AI system.
These are speculations too, as developer I may think such system because it’s more efficient talking about CPU cycles. But also it’s also incredibly bad for gameplay purpose (the responsiveness of the minons).
Also I’ve notice a great, great flaw in the system and I don’t think this is easily patchable: any AI controllet minion is not capable of off-links between paths or the path system (I think they use a standard navigation mesh) do not support at all off-links. For simplicity: the minions can’t jump off a cliff. For PVE is not a great deal but for PVP is a great problem since you can’t jump and try to save your self without letting your minion behind.
In my opinion if off-links cannot be done they could simply reduce the teleport time and distance when you are too far away from your minion. You may travel the whole Battle of Khylo map sometimes before a minion come back at your side.
@LoVeRSaMa: “what build is your Dark Prince?” Sorry, it’s not some clever build. (I wish I did have some cool build to share with folks.)
It was just my way of personifying role-playing expectations. Personally, I just like the Warlock/Necro class, but I don’t envision myself as some dark master of the undead, seething in evil and terrifying all those before me. (When I think of it that way, I don’t actually like it. I’m not a bad guy in real life and other than my thoughts towards those who cut me off in traffic, don’t get any pleasure from imagining myself as a bad guy.)
But some people enjoy role-playing some kind of Prince of Darkness and hope that the Necro might support that. A top-notch competitor doesn’t care what facade is placed over the mechanics, they just care about using the mechanics to their advantage, and if Class A has stronger mechanics than Class B, that’s the way to go. You don’t stick with Class B because you like the uniform colors.
(Heck, in WoW I had a friend who chose inferior armor because he couldn’t stand the clown-like appearance of mixing the better gear. Fortunately, GW2 features color palettes, so you never get the bozo effect.)
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Also I’ve notice a great, great flaw in the system and I don’t think this is easily patchable: any AI controllet minion is not capable of off-links between paths or the path system (I think they use a standard navigation mesh) do not support at all off-links. For simplicity: the minions can’t jump off a cliff. For PVE is not a great deal but for PVP is a great problem since you can’t jump and try to save your self without letting your minion behind.
Most games I’ve played had issues with pets following you when you jumped. Some were (in PvE, in my opinion) too eager to teleport and so the broke my suspension of disbelief too easily, others only teleported when you were physically far away and thus could aggro an entire instance as the pet followed the mesh to you, while others made the poor decision to despawn the pet when it couldn’t reach you. My initial impression of GW2 was that there was enough of a delay that it felt like the teleport had some justification. Haven’t run pets/minions in PvP, though, so I see your point.
P.S. For debugging purposes, Id suggest that the devs add two new emotes, vocalizations, symbols, or “boon/conditions” that help clarify the actual issue players are experiencing: 1) “I can’t get to him”, “I can’t do that”, “tricky devil”, or some kind of indication that a target is selected but the pet/minion can’t find a path/LOS to it, and 2) “I’m thinking”, “What should I do?”, or some kind of indication that a target is not selected and the AI is aware that something is happening (master has entered combat, say) but is still figuring out what to do/target.
That would make it easier to figure out, in the real world, whether it’s an issue of being unaware that action should take place, lags or hangups in calculating actions, or pathing/LOS issues.
Unfortunately, a simple fix would be that if it’s a path/LOS issue to teleport to the target, but a similar behavior was exploited by Mesmers and it’s very unfair so it can’t be done that way.
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@Druitt
In PvP it’s mandatory to have reliable pets. Who care of the aggro?
But it’s important they follow you. Off-links are a technique widely used in many games (I didn’t tested but I know Borderlands 2 have a sophisticated technique for dynamic off-links, hell even I was able to create off-links for my software and I’m a junior developer). I don’t have details on the path finding system of this game however off-links are a solution but it may be not possible on the actual system. If offlinks cannot be done then the teleport of minions is an ugly workaround but give reliability to them. I thinks this is an important matter but first of all the responsiveness of the minion is a priority. If I switch target they must change target immediately, no matter what, no matter if I keep switch target 100 times per second.
Im sorry but your first statement in your post is that Necro´s isnt broken and just that is a lie, a Huge advertised class mechanic of Necro is broken, Our minions do not work, when the class was announced and advertised it was a class that can raise creepy ( frankly ugly things i wish were skeletons…) undead beings to serve you, atm they are utter trash
No. This is hyperbole. The Necro core mechanic is not minions, it’s Death Shroud.
To be sure, minions are prominent in Necro lore, and some players definitely choose the Necro because they imagine themselves being the Evil Masters of the Undead!!!!!!!!! Bwahaa haa ha. And based on AN advertising, someone like that has every right to be disappointed that minions have many issues. Agreed.
BUT even with stupid AI, minions are not totally borked. I run without minions because I’ve chosen a different legitimate Necro playstyle. But when I do encounter a situation where I want to equip and use a minion, I’ve never had them not work as advertised. Not saying they don’t need serious attention, but the appropriate description of minions is that their AI has problems that strongly affect minion-based Necros.
(As a side note, you may not like that they don’t regen HP, but that seems like a legitimate choice by AN: other classes have summonables which exist for a limited time, while Rangers have pets that are permanent unless overwhelmed. Minions fall between those two extremes: they are not time-limited, neither are they permanent. And our elite minion is actually pet-like, bridging the gap.)
At any rate, there are multiple mechanics that are signatures of the Necro: Forms (especially DS), Marks, Minions, manipulation of boons/conditions, an unusually tough cloth-wearer, Fears, etc. There are multiple trait lines — none of which are dedicated to minions, by the way.
Yes, the dev remark about DS is ridiculous and provocative and deserves our scorn. Yes, Minion AI is problematic. But the class is not broken, and when the fanatics flood our forums with this unqualified “Necros are broken” thought, they turn away many prospective Necros who would not make minions the center of their builds. (Heck, pets/minions have been problematic in dungeons in every MMO I’ve played, so it’s historically been hard to be a super-pet/minion-focused build in groups.)
YOU are sorely disappointed in the class and it does not deliver what you imagined, based on AN’s advertising. You have a right to be unhappy. Saying that the class is therefore broken is misleading and counter-productive.
By advertising Minions so heavily as part of the Necromancer Anet themselves made it one of our core mechanic. DS and Minions and for months both were broken and one still is ( DS Trait line didnt work at all…. took them months to notice and fix that ) Your opinion is that they arent broken, thats you. After playing Mesmer,Warrior and massive amount of Necro´s that arent realy happy ill still stick with my opinion they are broken and the utter lack of any word other then demeaning post from Developers about the fact we need too L2P just keeps me firmly in the belief that they dont care.
obviously you’re a player in the minority of necromancers that suck, otherwise you wouldn’t be arguing that the class sucks. all of those conditions you’re trying to discredit are actually great tools to use when you’re fighting someone. if you’re ignoring them, then you’re not using about 1/3 of the utilities/skills in your bar.
immobilize does have defensive capability. if you use it on someone, break their line of sight (as in, get behind them), they can’t cast the majority of their utilities or skills on you. not to mention the extra second it takes for them to turn around and look at you.
2s daze is great. it’s not crap at all. you talk about it like it’s not enough.
if you stack chills, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chill its a 66% snare and 66% cooldown debuff. if you’re so set on arguing that other classes can just dance around you, chain their uber skills like there’s no tomorrow, maybe you should try chills sometime, and watch them hit a slog.
we have two main fears: staff5 which is an AoE (always useful for gaining footing in a 1v3) and Ds3. Ds3 is nearly instant cast. (hit F1 and 3, it registers pretty quick) and provides you a fear that works as an interrupt, even if you’re on the ground.
I would like to point out a valid part of your argument, about mesmers having a bountiful amount of CC as well as the clones and invuln, and i have found them really difficult to kill even when i have my eye on them. i pray that they get nerfed again someday. but still, this does not make the necro a crap class. it only states the mesmer as an exceptionally strong class.
Without considering the uncalled insinuation about my skill, you have listed all the Necromancers defensive capability which still are way subpar compared to other professions.
Want some raw comparisons?
Take, for instance, the Warrior, which is more similiar to Necromancer due to the high health pool.
An hammer warrior can easily outperform all the CC capability of Necromancer with just weapon skills, all this without considering the tons of CC skills Warriors have as utilities (lol Fear Me, Kick, Stomp, Bull’s Charge). So, if in your opinion CCs can be considered as defensive features, Warriors are still better than Necromancers.
Warriors are in a better position also when talking about Immobilization.
Just to say few:
Throw Bolas, Pin Down, all cripples + Leg Specialist.
So, as you can see, about CCs and Immobilizations, warriors are still above Necromancers, while having better armor, better damage reduction skills, invulnerability, better mobility etc.
As I said many times, snares isn’t a great deal because of the huge amount of leaps, huge amount of condition removals and short duration of chills. Also, I have noticed that usually Chill doesn’t trigger the increased cooldown time, just try from yourself.
So yes, Necromancers are weak when comparing to other professions.
wow! 200 toughness! and a shield! what an OP advantage warriors have over us, ranged and melee, controller, condition toting, spectral walking, life leeching, blood boiling reapers of souls with many many many lifebars! -_-
oh god, not to mention we are CLOTH WEARERS. we’re like, on the other end of the armor spectrum, right? i’m surprised there isn’t more of a gap. (as i trait in Dark armor for the extra 400 toughness to piss on the nearest warrior with his disk of metal)
So.
9% extra damage reduction on 900 bonus toughness and 18% with no bonus toughness are worse than a trait which gives you 400 toughness while channeling and prevents you to take Greater Marks… lol
About the list of Necromancers “advantages” just read above.
LOL @ Life Leeching
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If the necromancer was not “broken” this thread wouldn’t exist.
No, if people didn’t come here ranting about an entire class being uniquely and utterly broken, this thread wouldn’t exist. This thread exists because calling Necros “broken” is an emotional exaggeration and not even close to true.
Have problems, including problems that break some builds? Yes. Needs to be fixed. But all professions have similar problems. None of this is an entire profession that’s broken, just particular builds in particular settings. That’s a reasonable and accurate statement, and that’s why this thread exists.
@Druitt
If I switch target they must change target immediately, no matter what, no matter if I keep switch target 100 times per second.
What happens if you clear your target, does it return to you? What if you change your target but do not attack? (You’re tabbing through all enemies, you’re checking the health/conditions/buffs of enemies, etc. It would send your minion on wild goose chases.)
So it seems to me that what your minion does when you switch targets (at least in PvE) is something of a design call. It could be legitimate to say that the minion continues to attack any target it begins to attack and only stops when that target is dead or out of leashing range.
What does your minion do if you attack without target? (AoE, Traps/Marks, auras, etc?) Personally, I think the whole target/combat issue is a factor in minions standing by and doing nothing: there’s an AND where there needs to be an OR and Necros are more likely than other professions to not be fulfilling both parts of the equation.
By advertising Minions so heavily as part of the Necromancer Anet themselves made it one of our core mechanic.
Minions are not unique to Necros: other professions have pets and summons. Minions are an important part of (generic) Necro lore, and a prominent part of AN advertising, so they matter and need to be fixed. But the class is not broken.
If you go to the GW2 website and follow the link to Necromancers, the first main section thing on the page is LIFE FORCE, with a subheading of Death Shroud. The second main thing is Special Skills, which has two subheadings: Minions and Wells. If you look at the sample videos, only one out of five even shows Minions. If you look at the summary blurb on the page with all the other professions, it mentions six things Necros do, of which “summon the dead” is one.
Not saying that Minions are not important or that they don’t have problems, but they’re one thing among several and not the CORE you’re making it out to be.
It’s like saying your car is broken because the premium sound system doesn’t work. That’s maybe the primary reason you bought that model, but a reasonable person would be upset that something about the car was broken, not that the entire car was broken. A reasonable person hearing “My car is broken” would assume that it cannot move or was unsafe to move.
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On the minion AI topic, I have issues with them only when I have at least three minions out at once It’s quite possible that the game’s AI for pets is only properly set up to handle 3 “summons” at a time. If I only have Bone Minions, they are very quick to respond. If I have Shadow Fiend, Bone Minions, Bone Fiend, and Fleshie all out, then I start hitting issues with the bone minions watching a show and the bone fiend running up beside me in melee. Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem have very good “attack this fool” commands.
What happens if you clear your target, does it return to you? What if you change your target but do not attack? (You’re tabbing through all enemies, you’re checking the health/conditions/buffs of enemies, etc. It would send your minion on wild goose chases.)
You are partially right. What I said is exagerated and you pointed right: switching target should have a cooldown. A very very small cooldown, like 0.5s.
That would need testing, and tweaking. But the minions now simply do nothing so a fix is mandatory, a tweak may follow later. In PvP it’s mandatory they follow orders, otherwise they are simply useless and without minion our profession is half unusable (maybe a third, but still unusable).
So it seems to me that what your minion does when you switch targets (at least in PvE) is something of a design call. It could be legitimate to say that the minion continues to attack any target it begins to attack and only stops when that target is dead or out of leashing range.
I don’t think so and I hope it’s not. Mesmer’s Illusion are like this but mostly because you can pop up them continuously. Our minions are different since you can’t create them in the middle of fight, you have to precast them, and they must follow your order. If you get the wrong target they must follow.
Anyway I partially disagree with you: yes we are “broken” with the meaning that a lot of skills and traits doesn’t work (broken in the programming side), many of those are unknown if they work or simply have so little advantage that are negligible (see Gluttony, but as I said in a my previous post it must be bugged), we lack diversity of builds (broken in design) meaning traits/effects are too sparse on the lines, we lack stability and useful buff (or they are too short).
So yes, we are broken. Completely useless? No way! Fun to play? Hell yeah! Competitive? I don’t think so.
Anyway I partially disagree with you: yes we are “broken” with the meaning that a lot of skills and traits doesn’t work (broken in the programming side), many of those are unknown if they work or simply have so little advantage that are negligible (see Gluttony, but as I said in a my previous post it must be bugged), we lack diversity of builds (broken in design) meaning traits/effects are too sparse on the lines, we lack stability and useful buff (or they are too short).
I hear all of these things in several other forums as well and see similar things in other professions I play. When you say “a lot of”, and “many”, I think you’re exaggerating. Again, I’ll just say, play other professions (other than Warrior and Guardian), and follow their forums. They, too, say that they lack a diversity of builds (usually stated as “we have only one viable build”), that many traits don’t do much (or are bugged), that entire areas of their mechanics are weak, etc, etc, etc.
Some of this is true, some is exaggeration, just as with Necros. They all need fixing, some professions, profession builds, and uses (PvE, WvW, sPvP, etc) have more substantial problems than others, but none are “broken”.
And no, 1/3 of the Necro toolbox is not centered around Minions. Unlike, say, the WoW Warlock, we have enough traits and skills that we can successfully play without minions and not even miss them. (In fact, less micromanagement and other issues that invariably accompany pets.)
It’s an entire line of trait: Death Magic. For me it’s 1/3. Do you want to discuss the right number?
Exageration? Have you see the sticky post above about our problems?
I think it’s not fun when I spec in Death Magic but I can’t use minions.
I think it’s not good condition damage is Curse Trait line forcing me to use critical strike.
I can’t see the reason why the Critical Damage is on the Soul Reaping tree forcing me to use the Death Shroud.
I can continue forever.
I don’t get your point anyway. The other classes have problems? So? They have the right to complain exactly as we are doing right now.
We do not demand fix prior to anyone, we do not demand to get buffed to overpower, we do not demand the game should concentrate with us.
We demand our class have to work and be fun.
It’s an entire line of trait: Death Magic. For me it’s 1/3. Do you want to discuss the right number?
Sure, but the answer is in your sentence. “An entire line of trait” which is one trait line of five, so even in your case it’s down to 20% before we start arguing if Death Magic is “the minion trait line”. The other key part is “For me…”: yes, for you and your expectations and playstyle the issues are more severe than for others of us. That doesn’t mean it’s meaningless, but it does mean unqualified claims of the entire class being broken for everyone are simply exaggerations.
Exageration? Have you see the sticky post above about our problems?
Yes. First, the list is not more extensive than most other professions. Second, the list includes things (DS while Moa Morphed) that have been fixed. Third, the list includes aesthetic issues (Staff not turning into a Scythe). Fourth, things are considered bugs that may be design decisions (marks triggering on inanimate objects). If you look through for really back-breaking bugs (like minions standing idle during combat) there aren’t “a lot”.
I’ve never said that there aren’t issues, including issues that severely impact various builds, playstyles, and activities. But “broken”, “a lot”, “many” and all of those other statements are exaggerations. Especially when put in the perspective of how other professions (except Warriors and Guardians) are faring.
I think it’s not fun when I spec in Death Magic but I can’t use minions.
I think it’s not good condition damage is Curse Trait line forcing me to use critical strike.
I can’t see the reason why the Critical Damage is on the Soul Reaping tree forcing me to use the Death Shroud.
I can continue forever.
As you could with any MMO in general and with any profession in GW2. I could, too. But things aren’t unqualified “broken”.
I don’t get your point anyway. The other classes have problems? So? They have the right to complain exactly as we are doing right now.
What you’re not getting is that there are things that need fixing, and it’s fine to point them out and it’s right to expect fixes. But throwing out words like “the class is broken”, “1/3 of the class is useless”, etc, are just exaggerations, and when you compare to other classes you gain some perspective. Especially since many of the “broken” claims are relative to other classes and how much better they perform and how much better their talents are and…
Yeah I see walls and walls of text yet no amount of typing is going to change the data/facts.
If necro was a solid pvp class it would be used in more Tpvp teams. Necros currently are not a good pvp class if you goal is to be part of a winning team you will need to play something else or hurt your team.
If you just PvE/WvW and Spvp time to time any class you enjoy will do just fine..
If you are a casual player perhaps you should just ignore people asking for balance in a game mode you dont even play instead of making posts saying how every Tpvp is bad at necros and even tho you dont Tpvp you know they are bad because you kill mobs in pve with really strong well builds.
Xomox ~Human Necro/Engineer ET
(edited by Xom.9264)
Necro dps sucks.
And since this is by now a pve game THIS IS IMPORTANT.
I dont care if everything is viable, i care how fast they can do it.
Proposed solution: buff all necro skill damage by 100% in pve only.
Pvp: who cares it is a joke anyway
I thought necro was fine as a durable, attrition class…
Then I read the Thief trait lines. Multiple condition clears on stealth. Multiple condition clears at 75% health. Regen on stealth. AoE vigor on steal. AoE Blind on stealth. AoE Blind at 25% health. Vigor on heal use (which also stealths). Cripple on Dodge. etc. etc.
Let’s not forget that stealth (unlike DS) is a total DPS break most of the time. Even popping into stealth for 1 second will break people’s target lock on you, causing them to stop all attacks for a bit. Many people will also completely lose track of where you are.
DS basically just screams “I can’t see my buff bar so condition bomb me please.” Our traits, especially our “On Death Shroud” traits, are rather underwhelming. Our escape tools are clunky and have annoying cooldowns. I’ve basically accepted that every fight on my necro will be a fight to the death, take a long time (unless I’m fighting newbs), and will probably involve friends showing up.
I know comparing any class with Thief is bound to cause a lot of envy, but the design seems somewhat strange. Thief is designed to avoid damage, an integral part of the game. Necro is designed to ABSORB damage, which doesn’t work very well with the game mechanics. For example, Protection cuts DPS by 33%. DS cuts DPS roughly in half until you run out of Life Force. On the other hand, stealth cuts DPS by 100% most of the time. Teleport and defensive Dash/Charge skills cut DPS by 100% most of the time. Clones cut DPS by 100% some of the time, but is effected by skill.
So, who’s the better “Tank?”
Didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant, but it was a rough night in WvW last night. I like the class, and it really shines in certain situations. Those situations seem more and more to be rather uncommon.
I thought necro was fine as a durable, attrition class…
Then I read the Thief trait lines.
[EDITED]
Well, I always bring up Warriors and Guardians as the exceptional professions because they seem to work so well and have relatively few true issues, but many regard Thieves as OP so that’s not the best class to compare to.
Also, reading traits/skills can be misleading for several reasons:
1. Bugs. They don’t work.
2. Technicalities. They don’t work as you imagine because of things like hidden cool downs, or technicalities like AoE only affecting up to 5 targets. Or Reanimator’s Jagged Horrors, which have a stupidly long appearing animation and come pre-conditioned with a serious bleed on them. (And since they continue to bleed after death, can at times hold you in combat after it’s done.)
3. Limited trait and skill equipping. You can’t get all the traits you want, or even exactly what traits you might want, and you can only equip a limited number of skills. Further, some skills may require certain equipment, enhancements, traits or spec benefits from certain trait lines in order to be powerful, which may conflict with what’s needed for other skills you like.
4. More complex mechanics. For example, Thief skills might have a cooldown and also an Iniative cost and it’s easy to not think if Iniative cost coming from a Necro perspective. Thieves also have the Revealed condition to limit stealth, though rendering and other bugs can allow them to appear to be perma-stealthed.
That said, I do like my Thief. He’s about level 25 or so, and I’m pursuing a very defensive path with him. Using Sword/Pistol and other blind/stealth skills I can basically stand toe-to-toe with up to 3 (melee) mobs and never have to strafe or dodge because I’m got the blinded or am evading so much of the time. Of course, it takes me 2-3x longer to kill those mobs than an offensive-oriented Thief who enjoys strafing and dodging, so it’s a tradeoff.
I do have to say that Shadow Refuge is, in my opinion, the most amazing PvE skill in the game. You literally approach the space in which you operate differently with that and other stealth skills. It’s one of the skills I’ve encountered that I don’t just find helpful or powerful, but downright inspiring. (In PvP, not quite as amazing, in my opinion, but I’m not really a PvP’er.)
If I try to think of Necro skills inspire me like that, I have to admit it’s a bit hard. Plague Form (with blinding) comes to mind. Some people hate on Lich (which I don’t have yet), but that also looks interesting. Oh, the signet that AoE revives up to 3 others (at full health) is very cool, though pretty situational.
So, strangely, I find my Necro more fun to play (PvE, WvW) than my other professions, but if you ask me which professions have skills/traits that delight me, I think of Thieves and Elementalists before Necros.
(edited by Druitt.7629)
Attrition gameplay at work. I understand that it’s a highlights reel, with all the embarrassing deaths edited out. Still, it’s pretty sad when a “Burst DPS Class” is better at the “Inescapable Attrition Meat Grinder” style of combat than the “Inescapable Attrition Class.”
in Beta our DS was originally our Downed state, they changed that too what it is now and its design is flawed because original concept for it was our downed state, Now when our class is highly advertised as a minion spec you exspect that to be the thing that acctualy works with the class it doesnt ( they AI is broken you have to admit that sometimes they attack other times they grab popcorn and stare at a monster beating you too death ) Fear was good until they nerfed it too 1 sec ( only class who got their fears nerfed like this btw others have theirs still at 2-3 sec ) and add in the fact the huge amount of bugs people have a full right to be negative, When a key part of the class is not working properly its my theory its broken ( again i mentioned some parts of it work but Minions are a keypart so ill stick with my broken comment )
Death Shroud being a downed state during beta explains why it feels like such a half arsed implementation. It never lost the “downed state ability” feel.
I’m curious what the stable “class mechanic” was prior to Death Shroud then? Anyone know?
Death Shroud being a downed state during beta explains why it feels like such a half arsed implementation. It never lost the “downed state ability” feel.
I’m curious what the stable “class mechanic” was prior to Death Shroud then? Anyone know?
Yeah, I’d been comparing it to the Swimming On Top Of Water GUI, but once he mentioned this, it made sense that it’s essentially a Downed GUI. Considering we have two other Forms that accomplish basically the same thing but do it in a standard, informative manner, I’d hope they could eventually make DS look like Plague and Lich.
in Beta our DS was originally our Downed state, they changed that too what it is now and its design is flawed because original concept for it was our downed state, Now when our class is highly advertised as a minion spec you exspect that to be the thing that acctualy works with the class it doesnt ( they AI is broken you have to admit that sometimes they attack other times they grab popcorn and stare at a monster beating you too death ) Fear was good until they nerfed it too 1 sec ( only class who got their fears nerfed like this btw others have theirs still at 2-3 sec ) and add in the fact the huge amount of bugs people have a full right to be negative, When a key part of the class is not working properly its my theory its broken ( again i mentioned some parts of it work but Minions are a keypart so ill stick with my broken comment )
Death Shroud being a downed state during beta explains why it feels like such a half arsed implementation. It never lost the “downed state ability” feel.
I’m curious what the stable “class mechanic” was prior to Death Shroud then? Anyone know?
It was Death Shroud, actually. Necros didn’t have an active unique mechanic originally. They were supposed to make up for it with Death Shroud being a LOT stronger than other downed states, making you tons more likely to rally than any other profession. Admittedly, with this particular setup, necros were probably a little too hard to kill.
in Beta our DS was originally our Downed state, they changed that too what it is now and its design is flawed because original concept for it was our downed state, Now when our class is highly advertised as a minion spec you exspect that to be the thing that acctualy works with the class it doesnt ( they AI is broken you have to admit that sometimes they attack other times they grab popcorn and stare at a monster beating you too death ) Fear was good until they nerfed it too 1 sec ( only class who got their fears nerfed like this btw others have theirs still at 2-3 sec ) and add in the fact the huge amount of bugs people have a full right to be negative, When a key part of the class is not working properly its my theory its broken ( again i mentioned some parts of it work but Minions are a keypart so ill stick with my broken comment )
Death Shroud being a downed state during beta explains why it feels like such a half arsed implementation. It never lost the “downed state ability” feel.
I’m curious what the stable “class mechanic” was prior to Death Shroud then? Anyone know?It was Death Shroud, actually. Necros didn’t have an active unique mechanic originally. They were supposed to make up for it with Death Shroud being a LOT stronger than other downed states, making you tons more likely to rally than any other profession. Admittedly, with this particular setup, necros were probably a little too hard to kill.
No wonder current DS implementation feels like a band-aid.
According a a recent dev response, Anet does not even consider necro minions as an issue.
Haven’t seen that one. I know they’ve made flippant responses which can be interpreted as they don’t care, but I’ve not seen a posting that says, “Minions are working fine and you’re imagining they’re not.”
But if you really do know AI development you also know that the AI they use is not creature specific. So your entire premiss seems a bit silly.
Yes, I really know and do AI. I don’t know how they have coded their minion/pet/summonable AI, and unless you DO know your statement that AI is not creature-specific is pure speculation. Of course, it would be good practice to have a common AI code base and then specialize that, but things don’t always work that way and sometimes in the heat of deadlines you find out that your AI code doesn’t generalize as well as you thought and you take expedient measures.
You also know that Rangers, for example, have a single pet out at a time. Elementalists might have as many as two summonables out. But only Necros might have eight or more minions out. They are obviously different even before you begin to dig into particulars.
It really seems most likely that necro minions have an artificial parameter that all other minions do not have or that client/server communication errors cause a logical loop to occur preventing the AI from proceeding with its behavior.
You’re saying that AN has a BROKEN flag that they set to TRUE for Necros and FALSE for all other professions? And you think my idea was “a bit silly”?
If I had to speculate, I’d say that it’s due to either: 1) pathing/LOS issues that due to subtle differences between minions and pets cause minions to not be able to find a path/LOS and thus not acting, or 2) problems with sending multiple targeting information to multiple minions/pets that don’t show up with pets and summonables because you can’t have multiple pets out and don’t tend to have multiple summonables out. (It’s obvious that there are LOS issues in the game, which have shown up as Elementalist Ride the Lightning not working, as minor inconveniences for some professions, and as major issues for some classes like post-patch Mesmers. My feeling is this is strongly affecting minions for subtle reasons.)
All other minions, even those controlled by Necro NPCs, work well according to my observations and a lack of any feedback on the forums to the contrary.
I only equip and use a single minion for specific situations, and I’ve never had a minion fail to work as I expected. That doesn’t prove anything, and neither does your “all other minions” anectodal evidence. It does provide clues as to what might be going on, but not having access to their code and design goals, it’s all speculation.
For all we know, NPC minions are not actually minions but rather additional NPCs with minion names and skins. It would be logical to reuse minion code for NPCs as well, but in the real world what’s logical, what’s feasible, what’s kludged under time pressure, etc, are all different issues.
Evidently GW1 had very reasonable pet/minion AI, so it’s not like AN is incompetent at it. Something else is happening that is causing legitimate issues for heavy users.
There is a great deal of information on how they developed GW2 readily available. Do some research. Much can be inferred without having to whip out and lay my junk on a table in their office building.
Also the artificial parameter I was eluding to would have to do with limiting minion pathing, range, and collisions to make them hold their priority formation…remain with the player…avoid teleporting behaviors…etc; and likely keep them from performing quite so well, or as quickly as NPCs.
Could you imagine if each necro minion behaved fully like an NPC of their class type? Farmers wouldn’t need bots anymore. Just 1 afk Minion Master Necro. Which I just assumed was obvious.
So yes. I think you are silly.
edit: NPC Necro minions refer to temporary minions only.
(edited by XiL.4318)