Guild Wars 2

I agree – I kill nearly every class by just not running away and fight! Staff, wells, dagger, warhorn, DS are just superior if you KNOW how to apply and stay calm. Thanks for the info that you can exit DS early. However a thief is just a pain, because if he cannot kill you he will run away… In WvW with the delay it just sucks like hell… I have yet not seen a thief not starting to run away if it is obvious he will die. Also if you do not react in seconds you have no chance if the thief knows its class. I think the thief should not be that powerful on opening attacks.
If you do not skill your necro as a “glass cannon” you can nearly kill any class. Yesterday I had a fight against a Warrior for about 2 minutes – he went down, but a ally helped him in the last moment…
And now there are still a tons of bugs..

Getting away from a profession without its own escapes (i.e. Necro) should be a skill based challenge. Right now it is not. Most can escape us if they want.

Thief is the most egregious, but that is vs anyone. That’s fine if they should be good at escaping, but not so good it is practically impossible to kill them.

The other day in WvW, I was guarding Yaks/supply lines, and a thief harassed the same general area for about 30m, and I could do little but let him attack me when he wished and then chase him off over and over when he failed to defeat me. We went through the same routine about 6 times.

Luckily I was near friendly positions, so that I was able to get to safety as well, but if it had been a neutral area, I have little doubt he would have succeeded in killing me on one of his attempts. I don’t see where this is proper balance or working as intended.

Eventually after the nearby tower was upgraded, I just waved and moved on. He was still jumping up and down on a nearby hill, as if saying come get me. Totally silly and not very fun combat style.

Thief ability to vanish half a dozen times in a fight, heck, stay invisible more than visible really, is outrageous. That may be in part a bug/coding issue with players appearing properly, but either way the end result needs to be fixed.

Part 1.

With respect, the idea of an ‘attrition class’ needs to be thrown out for a number of reasons:

1. It has pidgeonholed the career into being a Condition Spec only, at the cost of both the Minion and Power lines of alternative play- sadly this specialisation it also means the option of being a hybrid of one and bits of the other two are also returning mediocre to very low performance.
The fact other careers do the Condition-Spec line so much better than we do, even with all the specialist transfers and so forth, has just sidelined so many potential players. Not being lazy and I have stuck it out longer than most to accept the challenge of playing this career, but I see no reason why ‘doing things the very hard way’ is appealing to anyone?

2. There is no dedicated support mechanisms currently working which will let my necro survive in a stand up fight against dedicated melee or ranged burst-dps classes. To the point I have submitted bug-reports every time someone blows half my 22200hps off in less than 3 seconds. Thieves, Engineers & Warriors have and will do that.
Against full glass cannon thieves I have dropped in under 6 seconds because of being:
A: Im feared for 3 second +5500hp of damage from the Steal of my 1sec fear no less!
B: Stabbed for 11,000hp and a couple of 2500-3500hp
C: By the time I’ve recovered I have about 15-20% health left and down before I can fire off a heal.
(Pinot is running as much Prec-Tou-Condition Damage gear, +tertiary gear in Vit-Power stats with 30pts in the Toughness line… she is as tough as Necro’s can come)

3. Avoidance is highly effective against being dead.
We have low armour levels, the stability we have is often just not working in Plague Form (which IMO is as ‘bunkered down and tanky’ as it gets) and its very easy from many classes to stack up to 10+ levels of Vulnerability on us without even trying very hard.
Having logged a lot of time on this character, 85-90% of the time in WvW against other players, staying static is a dead necro, I must constantly move and position myself exactly as an Elementalist does to keep arms length ‘distance’ to both avoid dying and get the time required to get some ticks of damage in.

Part 2.

4. Pressure
Applying pressure is the key to being a successful Necro, you must constantly have the enemy looking to remove all the crap you put on them, while your team does the big-hits that down them. BIP, Epidemic (and now to some extent, Corrupt Boon) Staff-Marks are excellent ways of doing this.
However, at that point-plank range where YOU WILL GO DOWN, the other ways of applying pressure are not good.
A: Death Shroud, at best it delays the inevitable, I actually mostly use it to soak ticks of condition damage in between Heal cool-downs, it is terrible at an offensive or defence level because at best, its a slightly improved ‘Downed’ line. Im sorry, but it is junk.
B: Plague & Lich Forms, completely remove all our other traits, including healing, (which in the case of many other careers, they still have all access to their elites) so their application is very subjective. One makes you a huge target with slightly improved DPS, the other does minimal damage with an improved damage absorb.

Having things like Wells that move with the character as a PBAOE pulse, would improve this career drastically to the point people would NOT want to come near you because its LETHAL. We are currently not lethal.

5. Weapons
Sceptre-Focus/Warhorn/off-Dagger work ‘ok’, they have terrible baseline damage which limits their application against inanimate objects and sometimes, you just need to beat something to death.
Raw, unadulterated damage and a lack of it, is career and interest-limiting for most players because it does have its place in the game and it does have a place for the Necro.
Axe, horrible weapon which makes you close to a range, with any melee character that will actually make you dead in short order. Combined with its rubbish damage is just not an option. If it was an ‘Actual Axe’ that worked at Melee range with a cleave ability with improved damage would be great.
Dagger, possibly the most disappointing weapons on the whole line, which is even worse than Axe, because the return rates detailed in many threads for the vampiric-drain abilities just don’t Scale-up. getting 180-200hp back out of a 20-22,000hp class with terrible armour is just a ludicrously infinitesimal amount!
It would literally have to be 5x more to make it worth considering.
Staff, the marks are good, to the point you will want one of these for ranged stand-off, the Attack 1 is just so bad its not funny and that’s very disappointing. We all know why, we’re not going to cover this again.

6. Minions
Hey mate, I know you think the little skinned rabbits and other stuff are cute, but let me help you here because I don’t actually want you to end up ‘hating’ your career.
The great necromancer secret is, they don’t actually work at all and you need to (Insert Spec-Traits) to actually be viable.

Thats not being mean, thats what I tell people, because otherwise they don’t enjoy the game and I have to res their dead remains whenever another career bends them over and donkey-punches their lights out without any resistance!

Minions have reached an appallingly bad level, where if you even gave them away to me for-free, without have to put skills into them, I would have to say no thanks. Cheers, but I don’t need that kind of crippling handicap in-game, I’ll be ok on my own.

I didn’t read all your post, but if you’re getting killed in <3seconds against a lone person you’re doing something wrong, as necro’s are one of the best classes to beat a burst spec. The only way this would ever happen is if you have 0 LF, but I doubt you’re running around the entire game without any, since there are ways to get it. If you don’t have any LF or decent ways to gain it in combat, then don’t put yourself in situations where you take massive amounts of damage.

It would be nice if when we went into DS it gave us a glimpse into the spiritworld and we could see everyone’s spirit. Therefore Thieves in stealth would be seen as a spirit form and would not be stealthed and a Mesmer would be also seen as a single target in spirit form and his illusions would be not visable. (similar to wearing the ring in LotRs movies) This would provide an excellent boost to DS and would allow the Necro to have a counter to these classes.

I’m insulted by a few things related tot he necromancer.

1. Certain traits, namely the death trait ones. But that’s a topic that’s already been covered.

2. Dagger main hand. I like the fast combo, but as mentioned life steal is pointless. And dark pact? This Skill BARELY WORKS. The range is inconsistent, and the immobilize doesn’t last long for what its worth. Oh, and off-hand dagger deathly swarm lasting 6 and a half seconds? Bull. It doesn’t even last a full 2 seconds. This is a flat out tooltip LIE.

3. Minions, but already covered.

4. NERF THIEVES, or remove them from the game completely.

5. All of the staff moves are marks. I don’t know about you guys, but I just find that plain BORING. Why no variety? Yes i know all the marks do different conditions and such but its still uncreative and wasted potential. Sad part is the staff is the most usable weapon for necros.

6. We need one more weapon, preferably a two handed weapon. How come we’re stuck being typical scholars with mostly scholar type weapons? Mesmers get a greatsword, so its only fair that we get one too. That or hammer. Either works imo. And you might argue that axes aren’t scholar, but they manage to make even that look like a scholar based weapon.

Now I believe those broken traits are more important than what i’ve listed, so its only fair to focus on what’s not working properly first. However, my points I will continue to hold dear, because seriously, stop favoring thieves and give us necromancers the buffing we deserve.

Aga.8641:

I didn’t read all your post, but if you’re getting killed in <3seconds against a lone person you’re doing something wrong, as necro’s are one of the best classes to beat a burst spec. The only way this would ever happen is if you have 0 LF, but I doubt you’re running around the entire game without any, since there are ways to get it. If you don’t have any LF or decent ways to gain it in combat, then don’t put yourself in situations where you take massive amounts of damage.

I’ve been spreading this screen shot around from a match last night because I think it will give people some perspective on how useless strategy and skill is most times as a necromancer. This kind of thing happens to me regularly. My build that I use in SPvP has over 26k health, with some investment into death magic for the greater marks, however, all is for naught. In the time it takes for you to realize you’re being attacked, you’re HP pool is bursted away, and you’re left on your back pitifully waving your hand in the air. This is not a “you should have reacted faster” issue. You literally have no time to use a single skill or attack. I think people don’t seem to understand you literally die faster then it takes skills or attacks to activate. The counter argument to get more armor or health is so ridiculous on so many levels, I’m not even going to get into it.

largusmeans.9340:

It would be nice if when we went into DS it gave us a glimpse into the spiritworld and we could see everyone’s spirit. Therefore Thieves in stealth would be seen as a spirit form and would not be stealthed and a Mesmer would be also seen as a single target in spirit form and his illusions would be not visable. (similar to wearing the ring in LotRs movies) This would provide an excellent boost to DS and would allow the Necro to have a counter to these classes.

That’s the coolest thing anyone has ever said ever.

samkong.2719:

I’ve been spreading this screen shot around from a match last night because I think it will give people some perspective on how useless strategy and skill is most times as a necromancer. This kind of thing happens to me regularly. My build that I use in SPvP has over 26k health, with some investment into death magic for the greater marks, however, all is for naught. In the time it takes for you to realize you’re being attacked, you’re HP pool is bursted away, and you’re left on your back pitifully waving your hand in the air. This is not a “you should have reacted faster” issue. You literally have no time to use a single skill or attack. I think people don’t seem to understand you literally die faster then it takes skills or attacks to activate. The counter argument to get more armor or health is so ridiculous on so many levels, I’m not even going to get into it.

If you have 26k HP, it means your toughness is low. Sure you will see high number sometimes, but generally speaking necro (with decent build…) > thieves, in 1vs1 situations.

Aga.8641:

samkong.2719:

I’ve been spreading this screen shot around from a match last night because I think it will give people some perspective on how useless strategy and skill is most times as a necromancer. This kind of thing happens to me regularly. My build that I use in SPvP has over 26k health, with some investment into death magic for the greater marks, however, all is for naught. In the time it takes for you to realize you’re being attacked, you’re HP pool is bursted away, and you’re left on your back pitifully waving your hand in the air. This is not a “you should have reacted faster” issue. You literally have no time to use a single skill or attack. I think people don’t seem to understand you literally die faster then it takes skills or attacks to activate. The counter argument to get more armor or health is so ridiculous on so many levels, I’m not even going to get into it.

If you have 26k HP, it means your toughness is low. Sure you will see high number sometimes, but generally speaking necro (with decent build…) > thieves, in 1vs1 situations.

First of all not necessarily true, high HP does not always = low toughness. Second of all what you’re suggesting, is that something like this could be avoided had I invested heavily into toughness as opposed to vitality, because clearly HP pool is a non issue. Maybe you’re saying I should have invested heavily into vitality and toughness, making me a bit more hardy which is also true. Maybe if I spec heavily into toughness and vitality in PvP I wouldn’t be bursted to death in less than one second. These are all valid arguments, however when you think of the implications, this argument becomes ridiculous.
What you’re implying is that all players in PvP have the ability to combat burst, if they invest a majority of their stats into toughness and vitality so it’s not a big deal. By your logic because you have the ability to combat burst by catering your build to deal with burst it’s okay. We aren’t even talking about glass cannons here, you’re saying anything that doesn’t go high vit and high toughness will be bursted down, and by you’re logic any build that can be bursted quickly isn’t a decent build (“but generally speaking necro (with decent build…)” ). So should all necromancers in PvP run tank builds or be prepared to be bursted down before given a chance to react? Because again by your logic anything other than tank is not a decent build.

I have around 1700 toughness and 20k hp on my necro, not a tank build, and I can honestly say I’ve never been instagibbed. Maybe I’m lucky, maybe I react and use DS quickly, who knows. That being said, thief burst is still far too high and needs to be toned down.

Aga.8641:

I have around 1700 toughness and 20k hp on my necro, not a tank build, and I can honestly say I’ve never been instagibbed. Maybe I’m lucky, maybe I react and use DS quickly, who knows. That being said, thief burst is still far too high and needs to be toned down.

Agreed, what people have to realize is the thief burst damage simply makes many builds nonviable, or at least fodder for thieves. It makes SPvP a glorified game of rock paper scissors, essentially making player skill and experience moot. That being said there are nerfs and balances that are needed for all classes, but the thief burst damage is probably the most visible, and most frustrating for players.

All this theorycrafting sounds really interesting, but we already knew that!

There is a problem with something else.

1) The Necromancer isn’t as ‘cool’ as mesmer, thief and ele just because his weapon and utility skills are plain boring. We understand it goes with the philosophy, but what Mr. Karl wrote is just unrealistic. You cant catch a guy with it, since EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE in this game has very powerful mitigation and escape tools. Everyone except the necro. This directly contradicts the design philosophy.

From blinks, teleports and jumps, through vigor and dodges, to invulnerabilities and stealth these things are hard counters to necros POOR chasing abilities. Chill? Cripple? Dark Path? Just use an elixir or Mist Form or Blink or RtL or Bladetrail or Swoop or Shadowstep. GG. You just did escape necro’s unevitable attrition!

2) Necros are mostly about spamming aoe’s and occasional fear to rupt some important actions. There is no dynamic to necro. For me, it’s a deal breaker.

It’s not about necro being weak, you just designed a boring profession. Boring to play and boring to watch. So boring.

The proof, a weak one, but still, is the BWE video collection where there wasn’t a SINGLE Anet dev playing a necro. All the streamers, including Mr. Karl preferred to play ele and mesmer, since they are just better designed, more awesome and dynamic.
We cannot blame them though, who would like to jump around spamming marks and scepter.

Ohh and while we’re here – give the ranger and warrior some real elite skills since those they have are just a contradiction of awesomeness so I can actually play the dynamic game that was marketed.

I feel I wasted my time on necro.

I’m insulted by …
…. This is a flat out tooltip LIE….
4. NERF (X), or remove them from the game completely.
…Mesmers get a greatsword, so its only fair that we get one too. That or hammer….
… seriously, stop favoring (X) and give (Y) the buffing we deserve.

Please – I sincerely appreciate the devs stepping in here and paying attention to the issues raised seriously.
However, this sort of post made ME want to stop reading in disgust, I can’t imagine it inspired them to feel any sort of empathy for the issues we face.

1) your “feelings” don’t matter; this is their livelihood and if you think they take it less seriously than your emotional histrionics, you’re sorely mistaken.
2) Might want to read up on Hanlon’s Razor. “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” To say something is a lie, is to say that with malice and intent, something was deliberately misrepresented. In this case, that’s just absurd. Thus, using the word as a way of “really meaning that you’re upset” just looks childish.
3) They’re not going to remove a whole class from the game because you routinely get owned by it. “Dear Devs, Nerf Rock, Paper ok. Signed, Scissors.” Even if tru, rock/paper/scissors isn’t a bad gameplay model, if complex enough – if prevents any FotM class from dominating PVP through a natural evolution. Again, just looks childish.
4) “they get X, we should git it too….it’s only FAIR”; Bull. Again, this is their livelihood and their game. They would like you to be happy, sure, but no more than the other 1.5 million (?) that bought the game. “Fair” is a worthlessly subjective term.
5)(not exemplified above)“If you don’t do this, I’ll quit playing”….see #4 above.

I think this thread has been filled with insightful and thoughtful comment. Please let’s try to keep the discussion at an adult, civil, and constructive tone.

For my point, I enjoy my 80 necro tremendously but I feel fairly kittened in PVP. Part of it is that the necro set really ‘feels’ like “stand there and take it/dish it out” unfortunately that’s not PVP gameplay at all.

To be specific, I analyzed in detail the talent points for the Necro, and came to some clear conclusions:
- condition-stack building – even on a specc’d conditionmancer – is FAR too slow, compared to what my thief or warrior can do, to say nothing of elementalist. Applied conditions are quite short (with a couple of exceptions), seemingly shorter than other classes.
- pet AI is execrable, attacks relatively feeble if not bugged, and pet control is nonexistent (although this is rationalizable in the context of the ‘demons from hell’ thing…however this should be understood to be a net-balance-minus…a significant one), and the fact that they vanish to c/d on swim/surface makes them a pain to use. If you’re going for the GW1 necro “summon everything at combat just for the combat” fine, balance that way. If you’re going GW2 necro = persistent pets, then fix them.
- the talent points are really scattershot and non-synergistic. DS-only-benefit talents are scattered throughout the trees, making any effort to build toward them as an alternative skill set (instead of a ’last resort oh I need hp!") almost futile, and certainly crippling to whatever other utility the necro has in NON-DS mode.
- crazy number of bugged/nonfunctioning talents.

Thanks again for your attention. I enjoy playing the necro. I don’t want OP/IMBA. I don’t want to be the FotM. I do want to feel that with judicious application of talents and a decent amount of skill, I can be competitive.

samkong.2719:

largusmeans.9340:

It would be nice if when we went into DS it gave us a glimpse into the spiritworld and we could see everyone’s spirit. Therefore Thieves in stealth would be seen as a spirit form and would not be stealthed and a Mesmer would be also seen as a single target in spirit form and his illusions would be not visable. (similar to wearing the ring in LotRs movies) This would provide an excellent boost to DS and would allow the Necro to have a counter to these classes.

That’s the coolest thing anyone has ever said ever.

This post should not be lost!

I think people have to bare in mind that what they think isn’t what everyone thinks. Just because YOU think Necro is boring doesn’t mean it is to everyone. I LOVE the condition build for the Necro. I love been able to transfer them on to other players, spreading them with Epidemic, and I love the survivability. Yes there are no escape tools but that means you need to be more aware of your position NOT get more escape skills, since Ele’s have very low HP and die very fast if caught. Necro’s can last long enough to drag a lot of people back to their team mates. In other words if you know where your team mates are you shouldn’t be straying too far from them.

I think Anet has it spot on in what they want the Necro to be. It’s about conditions, attrition and survivability. If that is not what you want to play, and you find it boring compared to an Ele, then their is your answer really……..go play an Ele.

Frizz thats fine and all but I cannot pull anything. Heck I can barely keep then in range if they are smart.

Maybe I’m just doing it wrong. It seems as soon as I hit our great DS mechanic, everyone keys in on me in PVP/WVW and I’m #1 target for Knockdown, Knockback, Stun, Immobilize, Fear, and Root. By the time I recover from this, or even hit a button to break one of the above CC, I’m out of DS lifeforce and just a sitting duck. I mean, if I’m supposed to be that guy you don’t want to engage with, why can just about everyone counter my ability with CC right off the bat?

largusmeans.9340:

It would be nice if when we went into DS it gave us a glimpse into the spiritworld and we could see everyone’s spirit. Therefore Thieves in stealth would be seen as a spirit form and would not be stealthed and a Mesmer would be also seen as a single target in spirit form and his illusions would be not visable. (similar to wearing the ring in LotRs movies) This would provide an excellent boost to DS and would allow the Necro to have a counter to these classes.

Oh, my. Any developer would have been proud to come up with this idea!!

samkong.2719:

Aga.8641:

I have around 1700 toughness and 20k hp on my necro, not a tank build, and I can honestly say I’ve never been instagibbed. Maybe I’m lucky, maybe I react and use DS quickly, who knows. That being said, thief burst is still far too high and needs to be toned down.

Agreed, what people have to realize is the thief burst damage simply makes many builds nonviable, or at least fodder for thieves. It makes SPvP a glorified game of rock paper scissors, essentially making player skill and experience moot. That being said there are nerfs and balances that are needed for all classes, but the thief burst damage is probably the most visible, and most frustrating for players.

Yeah, except we are supposed to be paper to the thieves rock and let me tell you, that rock rips the kitten out of our paper.

gamefreak.5673:

Frizz thats fine and all but I cannot pull anything. Heck I can barely keep then in range if they are smart.

I see this problem all the time in SPvP and WvW. Necro’s think because they are robust they should run in the midst of things, but because you don’t have escape abilities this is the last thing you should be doing. You need to be unnoticed on the sides dot’ing people, and spreading the conditions. You don’t pull them they will HAVE to come to you or you will eventually load them with so much conditions they will die. Now that gives you a big advantage. You can set yourself up in a position that suits you. You can put marks around yourself to break and thieves out of stealth if they come to you.

In sPVP I rarely will be with the zerg but will be on the outside, at maximum range, dotting and AOE’ing and then spreading it to the group. When someone does decide to come and get me by the time they have made their way through all my marks I lay in front of them on their journey they are pretty much toast. And it is at this point you will see the survivability of the Necro because now you have set up a situation where they have had to leave the pack and come to you and it’s one on one and generally a Necro will do very well. IF you feel like you are losing you simply bait them along as you walk ever closer to your friends (who remember you should be on the outside of) and they will help finish them off. Because you have DS etc you should easily be able to survive that long.

Anyway hope this helps. Works for me. You just need to remember you are still a mage and you need to keep that backline mage mentality. Necro is a finesse class, and I love it. On my Ele if I get caught out, especially by a thief, I die in seconds. It’s a whole different playstyle, and I would hate to see the two merged into one.

I love all this stuff about the Thief and the Necro. What about the mesmer? As a thief, I’ve hardly ever single-handedly taken out a mesmer. There was one time I managed to take out a mesmer, but one of his illusions took me to downstate and killed me in 3 seconds! Mesmers is pretty much every class in one, and does a much better job at playing certain roles.

Honestly, I think necromancers are more tanks then anything else. Have to go through 3 health pools sometimes to take one out.

The thing about mesmers is that they are very strong in PVP but so so in PVE. This because mobs can, and often will, ignore a mesmer clone. But players have a very hard time telling one from the other, and the targeting tools are not helping beyond the “call target” trick when first encountered.

When a thief stealths to break lock, opposing players can basically auto-target them the moment they re-appear, unless there are other enemies in the area. With a mesmer, once a target lock has been broken, there are 3-4 targets in the area to sort thru before one consider the issue of other enemy toons.

Mobs however maintain a perfect situational awareness at all times and can tell who the mesmer is and who the clones are continually. It is actually harder to build a realistic game AI than one that can stomp all players at all times.

As such mesmers, even more so than thiefs, rely on playing the meta-game. They bypass the stats and mechanics and play the human element.

leman.7682:

All this theorycrafting sounds really interesting, but we already knew that!

There is a problem with something else.

1) The Necromancer isn’t as ‘cool’ as mesmer, thief and ele just because his weapon and utility skills are plain boring. We understand it goes with the philosophy, but what Mr. Karl wrote is just unrealistic. You cant catch a guy with it, since EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE in this game has very powerful mitigation and escape tools. Everyone except the necro. This directly contradicts the design philosophy.

From blinks, teleports and jumps, through vigor and dodges, to invulnerabilities and stealth these things are hard counters to necros POOR chasing abilities. Chill? Cripple? Dark Path? Just use an elixir or Mist Form or Blink or RtL or Bladetrail or Swoop or Shadowstep. GG. You just did escape necro’s unevitable attrition!

2) Necros are mostly about spamming aoe’s and occasional fear to rupt some important actions. There is no dynamic to necro. For me, it’s a deal breaker.

It’s not about necro being weak, you just designed a boring profession. Boring to play and boring to watch. So boring.

The proof, a weak one, but still, is the BWE video collection where there wasn’t a SINGLE Anet dev playing a necro. All the streamers, including Mr. Karl preferred to play ele and mesmer, since they are just better designed, more awesome and dynamic.
We cannot blame them though, who would like to jump around spamming marks and scepter.

Ohh and while we’re here – give the ranger and warrior some real elite skills since those they have are just a contradiction of awesomeness so I can actually play the dynamic game that was marketed.

I feel I wasted my time on necro.

Yeah they’re just bornig basically.
So far of the classes I’ve played only elementalist has really felt like a proper mmo class (i haven’t really tried engineer properly so idk about them). Mesmer was too passive and easy although it certainly does seem to have a lot of options/builds which could make it fun to mess around with.

I thought the thing with necro was they were goign to be very painful to kill i.e. if you did not burst them or chain cc them in the first ten seconds the odds would be heavily in their favour and they would be the class which just wouldnt die. Last game I played was swtor and sentinel could chain together its survival cooldowns to not die, and although the frontload damage was not great, damage over time was high and class had self heals so longer fights were usually to its favour.

gw2 just had a lot more damage than I expected. More damage than many games with healers lol. (and it has chain cc too so ??). And it feels like things like necro life steal etc are balanced for a game where the damage is not so high.

From what i understand, BW2-3 necro was very difficult to kill thanks to DS. So Anet nipped and tucked between BW3 and release, and the result is what we are playing right now. Necro can still be difficult to kill, but it will require jumping in and out of DS nearly as often as cooldown allows. This to spread the damage between LF and health, while picking up various boons and such from the transition.

^ I gotta say, it feels a little unfair Mesmer/Thief/Guardian are allowed to faceroll in pvp, have varied builds and have more fun overall than us.

Should’ve just left us the way we were. =/

It’s not like being nerfed that early warranted any earlier buffs.

“Allow the necromancer to shut down the class mechanics of the mesmer and thief with one button”

Sounds REALLY lame.

Well i was not present at the time, but from what i read it could take whole groups of opponents to take down a single necromancer. So i guess the pendulum swung a bit far the other way in response, and is likely to swing back a ways at time goes on. Just mean we need to maintain patience.

Also, i find that MH dagger can be nasty in PVE when i manage to mix in some DS properly. Still get flattened by concentrated groups of mobs tho, but i can often clear out a dredge mining suit and friends even when i forget to target the suit first.

put DS on alt as a alternate bind, so i can hit it with my thumb quickly btw. sped up my ability to go DS and fire of 2 and 3 as comboes considerably. Should play nice with engineer and mesmer alts as well as it means i have the heal or shatter within quick reach.

Darnis.4056:

“Allow the necromancer to shut down the class mechanics of the mesmer and thief with one button”

Sounds REALLY lame.

As i think about it i suspect that the transforms are kittenized spawn code. Meaning that when we transform we actually gets respawned in a new form, and everything related to our previous form gets trashed. This may also be why DS retains its reworked down state form.

Anyone know how summons interact with the Asuran power suit or Norn spirit forms?

edit: Ah, i see that the wiki articles on the form warn that transformed rangers loose access to their pet…

I would like to say that necro shouldnt be only condition class I personally love dagger/focus spirit necro so pls buff life leeching so its viable.

largusmeans.9340:

It would be nice if when we went into DS it gave us a glimpse into the spiritworld and we could see everyone’s spirit. Therefore Thieves in stealth would be seen as a spirit form and would not be stealthed and a Mesmer would be also seen as a single target in spirit form and his illusions would be not visable. (similar to wearing the ring in LotRs movies) This would provide an excellent boost to DS and would allow the Necro to have a counter to these classes.

+1 to this, I love this idea.

Munster.3058:

largusmeans.9340:

It would be nice if when we went into DS it gave us a glimpse into the spiritworld and we could see everyone’s spirit. Therefore Thieves in stealth would be seen as a spirit form and would not be stealthed and a Mesmer would be also seen as a single target in spirit form and his illusions would be not visable. (similar to wearing the ring in LotRs movies) This would provide an excellent boost to DS and would allow the Necro to have a counter to these classes.

+1 to this, I love this idea.

I play Thief and I don’t play Necro but I love this

“GLF an exorciser.”

…Dark Path used to be a ground targeted port? What I wouldn’t give to have that back instead of this pile of dolyak dung…

JonathanSharp.7094:

So, quickly, on the design philosophy at play here (you can feel free to disagree, but this is what I feel):

We want the Thief to be the class that most “slips through your fingers”. Other classes like the Ele and Mes have some of it too (and rightly so), but if anyone is escaping a fight, that should be a slippery Thief.

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.

So we don’t want that attrition class to also have great ways to escape. This used to be the case, and we felt the Necro was just too strong if it was great at attrition as well as movement/escape. We wanted the Necro to be more about attrition, and for other classes (Thief, Ele, Mes) to be more about escaping and mobility.

Hope that makes sense.

I appreicate the attempt to put some lip stick on this piggy but it would be nice to hear from a dev that actually plays necro currently. This guy may have played it during beta for a few minutes.

The part about design philosophy was full of lol and hope it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. If it is, I think you guys may have fell a little short of that mark. More than likely someone is telling him to hop in the necro forums and make it look like they are listening and/or care.

I feel like if Necro is supposed to be hard to escape from the class needs a lot more and more powerful hard CC than it does right now. The amount of CC of pretty much any other class I have played so far greatly exceeds that of my Necromancer.