Guild Wars 2

Just learned the hard way that Power Necros are totally useless against Pistol/Dagger thieves…
they are in-out of stealth, outside well range, dodge spectral grasp, easily avoid Dagger 3 …
So if you see one – avoid (to make matters worse, he danced and laughed at how pathetically bad I was- Which was nice)

Power necro is too easy to kite — you will be countered by hardhitting ranged weapon users like any competent rifle warrior/thief and even ranger or ele.

Power necro only works on people that don’t know how necros work — they don’t dodge spectral grasp or Dark Path’s obvious cast time and don’t move out of wells.

I suggested making Dark Pact like the attack orrian necromancer mobs use where they teleport in a black swarm to you. Add the root after it hits and it will be a better gap closer. Necromancer projectiles in general need to be a lot faster.

Also, power necromancers simply need a 1200/900 range option or the staff needs a better direct damage component to scale with power, because power necros don’t have ranged options (no, a 600 range axe is not it).

Either way, this will do little against thieves so long as stealth stays the way it is+culling. A cnd thief can pretty much negate damage at will since he will remove conditions in stealth so marks are useless against him and thieves only need cnd and autoattack to wear you down. Thief autoattack actually hits hard and it can take a while before they render when they hit you.

Yea I was fighting a couple a few times last night. I could probably do ok if I could just target them longer than a split second or so. My aoe’s just arent enough. Very infruriating, not because of losing, but the nature of of it. Like swatting at mosquitos you can never hit. I notice lots of other people dying easy with no chance, glad I’m level 80 in exotics, they went down in about 2 seconds.

Adding a bit of toughness and retaliation to my build because of it.

yeah I have been a power necro for awhile now, ankittenrying to come up with what I want to do next. These days roaming solo or in a duo, the majority of what I encounter are thieves and confusion mesmers, and a power necro with horribad range isn’t cutting it. Kinda a shame as I really enjoy the class, but am not too interested in going back to full conditionmancer spec.

what the hell, it censored “and trying” must have been a funky typo on my part to get it censored

Power necro isn’t bad, what is bad is that you are trying to use melee in these situations. Staff hits very hard in a power build, and 4/5 staff skills work very well with power, it’s not a ‘condition only’ weapon.

Chillblains does some decent damage, but is used for it’s chill, Putrid can do some insane damage if it crits, and having an AoE fear is hardly useless. The only skill I would avoid using is Blood Mark, as you can rip out higher numbers with just your auto attack.

Going conditonmancer isn’t going to make it any easier. You’ll just apply some conditions and then have the thief cleanse them going into stealth anyways. What’s the difference?

EzRemake.1860:

Power necro isn’t bad, what is bad is that you are trying to use melee in these situations. Staff hits very hard in a power build, and 4/5 staff skills work very well with power, it’s not a ‘condition only’ weapon.

Chillblains does some decent damage, but is used for it’s chill, Putrid can do some insane damage if it crits, and having an AoE fear is hardly useless. The only skill I would avoid using is Blood Mark, as you can rip out higher numbers with just your auto attack.

Going conditonmancer isn’t going to make it any easier. You’ll just apply some conditions and then have the thief cleanse them going into stealth anyways. What’s the difference?

Staff auto is so easy to dodge you barely have to try. So basically ur staff damage is putrid mark with its long recharge? o.0

Theifs remove only 1 condition in stealth every 3 seconds. Conditionmancers apply more than just bleed. Theres about 4 other conditions you can use to cover your bleed. If that is the theifs only form of condition removal it wont help him much.

OMNIBUS.2913:

Theifs remove only 1 condition in stealth every 3 seconds. Conditionmancers apply more than just bleed. Theres about 4 other conditions you can use to cover your bleed. If that is the theifs only form of condition removal it wont help him much.

90% of thieves run Hide in Shadows as their heal. It removes all damage over time effects. Bleeds, poison, and burning all at once regardless of any other conditions on the thief. Because of the way condition removal prioritizes, you cannot “cover” your bleeds against a thief. Heal skills that remove conditions will also always remove the condition before the heal, so poison doesn’t cause 33% less healing.

Once all of this happens, the thief then goes stealth, and if traited for it, the thief condition removal in stealth now occurs. The trait is also miss worded. It removes one condition immediately on stealth, and another one 3 seconds later if you’re still in stealth. This basically makes CnD a condition removal skill the thief can use every 3 seconds.

Because of how easy it is to remove conditions in this game, and because of the ridiculous amounts of traits that remove conditions passively, condition builds in this game are really at a severe disadvantage in PVP. This is why I will never play one in PVP.

P/D thieves are one of the, if not the best 1v1 spec in the game, dont feel too bad for losing to one.

I havent spent much time dueling on my necro, but I do play as power, and I am usually able to burst p/d thieves down, or at the very least, force them to run away(winning imo). Most of them do not run stunbreakers, they rely on spam dodging and stealth heals to survive, so if you dodge their cloak and daggers, and catch them in one cc you can tear through their low armor pretty quick.

My favorite combo is dagger 3 > warhorn 4 > well of suffering > back to back bone minion explosions > dagger auto. You wont always hit him with everything, but if you do, he is done, and even if you dont, he is very low.

I’ve fought many a p/d cheeser thieves and the only times I was able to beat them was when I outsmarted them and made them blow all their initiative. Even then, though, it boiled down to a little dumb luck in the end. The best counter for a p/d thief, besides godly DS timing, is make them chase you endlessly. If they’re wasting time chasing you or kiting/hiding they’re not fighting. Or just run away all together. Most of them won’t give chase too long because it stretches their stealths thin if they’re spending more time running than fighting. I play a thief too on occasion so I understand the limitations of the build and use it to my advantage as much as possible

Kravick.4906:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Theifs remove only 1 condition in stealth every 3 seconds. Conditionmancers apply more than just bleed. Theres about 4 other conditions you can use to cover your bleed. If that is the theifs only form of condition removal it wont help him much.

90% of thieves run Hide in Shadows as their heal. It removes all damage over time effects. Bleeds, poison, and burning all at once regardless of any other conditions on the thief. Because of the way condition removal prioritizes, you cannot “cover” your bleeds against a thief. Heal skills that remove conditions will also always remove the condition before the heal, so poison doesn’t cause 33% less healing.

>.< cant believe i missed that smh.. i dont play theif much so i assumed it just did healing.

OMNIBUS.2913:

Kravick.4906:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Theifs remove only 1 condition in stealth every 3 seconds. Conditionmancers apply more than just bleed. Theres about 4 other conditions you can use to cover your bleed. If that is the theifs only form of condition removal it wont help him much.

90% of thieves run Hide in Shadows as their heal. It removes all damage over time effects. Bleeds, poison, and burning all at once regardless of any other conditions on the thief. Because of the way condition removal prioritizes, you cannot “cover” your bleeds against a thief. Heal skills that remove conditions will also always remove the condition before the heal, so poison doesn’t cause 33% less healing.

>.< cant believe i missed that smh.. i dont play theif much so i assumed it just did healing.

Yeah trying to attrition out a thief isn’t possible, well, nearly impossible. That one heal alone is ridiculously op. Heal/regen/ condition removal/ stealth= easy mode button. I’ve actually wanted to use other heals on my thief because on paper it looks like they’d work wonderfully, but nah, HiS is too op to use anything else lol.

The only reliable way to beat a p/d thief is basically be skirting out his range. He has a gap closer in steal for a crutch cnd, but after that he needs to maybe burn his shadow refuge or shadowstep to catch up to someone who starts to kite him. Their ranged damage is crap if they can’t land their stealth opener, so save your dodges for when they are about to open with their stealth attack.

If he can’t cnd, he’s dead. That’s the problem with the necro though, that because he has no mobility like blink or Burning Speed or RTL or many of the ranger’s evasions (Monarch’s Leap away) he can’t create effective range to break the thief down.

Also, staff does crap damage at range on a power build, please. It even does crap damage to a single target on a condition build. The mesmer greatsword, ranger shortbow, warrior rifle, engi pistols/rifle, and thief pistols or shortbow outdamage it by a long shot, and it has to do with the projectile speed of necrotic grasp and its low damage.

The only ranged weapon that may do as low sustained single target or burst as the necro is the guardian’s crappy scepter. And the necro staff has aoe so the guardian scepter is indeed worse.