Guild Wars 2

As of present day, it remains the opinion of the community that Necro is very far surpassed by other professions in both Open World and Dungeon gameplay.

Issues remain such as the lower damage than most other classes, mobility, blocking, and contributions to the team.

Minions also remain highly buggy, refusing to attack when I’ve personally been attacking enemies in the Silverwastes.

Our next Feature Pack will be in March.

I would like to call upon ANET to, in their internal discussions, please consider a Necromancer rework for PvE.

Who’s with me on this? Who else wants ArenaNet to examine Necros for PvE?

If you can, please list any specific issues with Necromancers in PvE (Open World and Dungeons), so that ArenaNet might discuss them in their internal discussions!

To be honest, I never really got the impression that my necro was dealing low damage. I’ve not done the maths though, but from personal experience I’m quite satisfied with the amount of damage I deal.

As for minions, yes I agree they could need some tweaks to their AI. I’ve experienced the same thing you have in this aspect.

Another bug I have noticed is Life Blast some times not hitting enemies when it should. I’ve noticed it on some world bosses and the graveling mounds in Ascalonian Catacombs where it happens to me the most.

Necromancer should have a separate life bar in the party UI when in Death Shroud.

As to actual revamps of the class, I think what necro needs the most in order to be desired in PvE groups is good party utility. The few ways we can boost a party are done better by other professions, we need something unique that is actually gonna be useful.

Another thing necro lacks is any form of mobility or damage mitigation, this is more of a PvP problem than it is a PvE problem I guess – but it could be useful to have in PvE too I think.

These changes could be introduced by giving us new traits, utilities and possible new weapons (please?), or by tweaking old ones.

Some ideas for this could be to make Spectral Wall reflect projectiles, Blood is Power grants party might, maybe add a trait that grants the party ferocity or condition damage passively in combat.
There are plenty of other things that would help, but these are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head.

Another change I wish we could have is to allow heal effects in Death Shroud, this would create a much better synergy between a lot of traits, especially considering most of the Blood Magic trait line basically becomes useless in Death Shroud.

OlliX.1705:

To be honest, I never really got the impression that my necro was dealing low damage. I’ve not done the maths though, but from personal experience I’m quite satisfied with the amount of damage I deal.

I’m sorry, but feelings mean literally nothing in the face of evidence. Mathematically, necros are the worst class in pve. They have average dps, and can only improve group dps through vulnerability.

Yeah Anet needs to get the ball rolling on trait redesign because so called build diversity can’t happen until every trait in all the trait lines for all professions are made worth using besides just the measly few that are used over and over again.

indeed dark mezmer in general there isnta any diversity in builds because generally people choose the meta builds that EVERYONE uses and stick with it i ve been in guilds that tell me bah necro sux dont use him with us in dungeons bah necro doesnt do any damage minion master?! pff please sincerely i ignore all those comments but i really want Anet to balance all the traits and weapons to make it possible for a player to do what he wants. and movement wise since the recent teleport nerf my mobility as a minionmaster has been VASTLY reduced indeed. didnt understand why since u couldnt teleport to all surfaces even in jumping puzzles. certain rules would have to be met for that to happen…

i honestly in all my target classes im going to use all summon builds minion master turrets conjure weapons spirit weapons and spirits on ranger and i dont care about what people say because im going to do what i like and i will make it work. Anet should make it possible for me to do that in an easyer manner. (yes its hard do balance all the platforms all the builds all the weapons and stuff but please bring true diversity to the table in any means possible stop backing up the meta builds.)

zapv.8051:

OlliX.1705:

To be honest, I never really got the impression that my necro was dealing low damage. I’ve not done the maths though, but from personal experience I’m quite satisfied with the amount of damage I deal.

I’m sorry, but feelings mean literally nothing in the face of evidence. Mathematically, necros are the worst class in pve. They have average dps, and can only improve group dps through vulnerability.

Never claimed that necro dps was any higher than average, what I meant was that it’s high enough that I’m not really fussed about it.
That being said, I’m not against increasing necro dps at all. I welcome any buff to the necro. If they are not gonna give us any good ways to support our party, I absolutely think we should get a boost to personal dps.

Bring back hex skills! I want Life transfer & Barbs back in the game.

They wont increases the condition side of us so give us a new angle!

Barbs – (25 sec) Target takes bonus 25 damage per melee attack (maximum of 100 attacks per sec) (Cooldown 50 sec)

Life Transfer – (10 sec) Target looses 250 health per second for 12 seconds (3000 damage total), you gain 50% of this back as health. (is affected by traits that affect life siphon) Cool Down 25 Sec

Insidious parasite : Every time targets attacks it looses 1000 health, you gain 50% of this back as health. (Is affected by skills that affect life siphon) Cool-down 30 sec

Mark of Pain: (10 sec) Every time target foe is attacked, all adjacent take 200 damage.
Cool Down 25 sec

New Elite – Spiteful Spirit (10 sec), Every time Target foe attacks or uses a skill, all nearby foes take 1000 damage. (Cool-down 120 sec)

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_hex_spells

I really want hexes and orders but i doubt we will ever get anything on that level.

Mobility would surely make us rotate easyer but i dont think it would help us much, other than delaying what should happen for 1-2 sec. I think that because of our poop auto attacks (as condi necro). I experianced many times if not every time against warrior/engi/ele/guardian/ranger (against thief and other necro is also problem but little different) that if i stop using my spells and do just autoattacks, my previously applied condis, on them, will be removed quickly either by their short duration or by passive cleanses and they will start regenerating their hp faster than you can deal dmg with autoattacks, eventhough our scepter has poison.

So yeah i think autoattacks need some work on and staff 1 could do also like 1 bleed. Other problems i see in long casting time, 3/4 sec is too much. For what? For a cripple and 2 bleeds (if you fighting 1v1 this gives you almost the same dmg as if you would do autoattacks, jsut that this tends to be dodged or missed easyer)? And classes with many dodges and (random?) blinds can, if played good, realy counter every spell we can cast. There are far more dangerous spells with shorter casting times. And as condi necro i see also problem in lf generating. Without doing something radical i would just lower cd on scepter 3 to something like 4 sec so it can be used more frequently and increase its power ratios for some hybrid builds and it should give some lf even if no condis are on target.

Edit: But on other hand i also think that some spell animation necro has, looks to similar to one another. Maybe they could clean also that up if we get shorter casting times on those spells.

Personally I think all the necro’s weapons autos should give LF on their chains to help with LF buildup with the only difference being how much actually builds up based on attack animation.
Another thing would be to give necros more access to torment like on staff#3 applying torment and chill instead of poison or maybe replace the bleeds on barbed precision with torment. Cuz I don’t understand how a condi that can be real helpful to Necro sustain be given to other classes with way better access to it. Anet logic or just tossing darts at a board while blindfolded to see who gets better uses of it.

i think they should create new conditions specifically for the necro to give him an identity i take the idea from the dark souls games: toxic stronger version of poison faster and stronger dot damage with added heal ability reduced to 50% on enemies. curse reduces enemy max health by 20% and all conditions applied during that curse deal 5% more damage and damage dealt returns as 70% hp to caster. festering wounds inflicted bleeds deal 5% damage based on max hp every 5 stacks. these are some ideas that popped on my head that could increase damage to help a party and your survivability.

and i thought about a specific thing to increase survivability and reinforce his identity: during deathshroud all condition duration is halved and inflicts poison on enemies. deathbringer when a condition hits you gain reaper stacks wich means you can feast on a condition to gain 10% heal from it and teleport to or away from an enemy in a burst of shadow that gives 2 secs stability creates a combo field dark that blinds on entering and teleports any summoned minions with you as well. (yes i thought of this to be a new profession skill.)

DarkMezmer.5198:

Personally I think all the necro’s weapons autos should give LF on their chains to help with LF buildup with the only difference being how much actually builds up based on attack animation.

Ive always felt that lifeforce should build up in pretty much the same way as adrenaline. But obviously not as quickly. So there would be no lifeforce tied to skills (could maybe have some exceptions such as scepter 3). But every hit gives some. Traits could obviously boost this.

Dagger would still have faster lifeforce generation because of its attack speed. But condi builds would be slightly better off. Obviously this could be very overpowered if lifeforce is too generous. So you might have to make DS a bit weaker as well as make the lifeforce per hit very low.

spoj.9672:

DarkMezmer.5198:

Personally I think all the necro’s weapons autos should give LF on their chains to help with LF buildup with the only difference being how much actually builds up based on attack animation.

Ive always felt that lifeforce should build up in pretty much the same way as adrenaline. But obviously not as quickly. So there would be no lifeforce tied to skills (could maybe have some exceptions such as scepter 3). But every hit gives some. Traits could obviously boost this.

Dagger would still have faster lifeforce generation because of its attack speed. But condi builds would be slightly better off. Obviously this could be very overpowered if lifeforce is too generous. So you might have to make DS a bit weaker as well as make the lifeforce per hit very low.

Yeah ofc the amount of LF gained from the hits would have to be tested and adjusted to make sure they don’t get out of hand. Just as long as scepter, staff, and maybe axe see some kind of increase in their lifeforce generation I would be a happy necromancer.

I’d really like another profession ability. I don’t know what it would do, but it would be nice if Necromancers had more versatility. Maybe remove spectral walk and make a fast spirit form tied to life force that has a return to position as one of the abilities or something. That could be kind of cool.

I keep playing my necro because I like the theme, though compared to my warrior, guardian and mesmer, it’s the mentally damaged runt of the litter.

It’s as complex as mesmer in slightly different ways to squeeze all it’s potential out, but maybe half as rewarding. In terms of straight damage, it’s irrelevant. Condition damage can be great iiiiiif the conditions can persist to do their damage.

My warrior, on the other hand, can do more damage in ten seconds than my necro’s minute plus worth of stacked bleeds and such can or shall ever do.

Part of the problem seems to be this expectation that pets make up for pathetic straight damage. They don’t. They can’t. They’re too feeble, are often instantly dead in Amy real fight and have AI issues. We have no sooty to direct or own pets past activating their special, which really stinks.

But, it’s basically been this way since the game released. It’s never going to be changed. My conclusion?

Don’t play necro if you’re.concerned with being good and desirable for teams. Absolutely shun it if you’re a power build aficionado. If you like pet classes, don’t look to this one to amount to much in that arena either.

Do play necromancer if you like playing for self indulgent challenge of seeing if you’re good enough to make the mediocre shine, and necro does have it’s moments.

Not more though. Just occasional moments of feeling pretty impressive.

The theme and animations are solid, so do play one if you’re concerned with style over substance and like the necro style.

Pvp with one if you like. Just accept that it’s basically electing to hardmode – you will work twice as hard to kill anyone and stay alive. There is no trade off upside if the challenge itself isn’t you’re cup of tea.

Necro can be fun. You just have to accept the realities that aren’t going to change about it and either love it for what it is, and get good at making it shine where possible, or play something else.

spoj.9672:

I really want hexes and orders but i doubt we will ever get anything on that level.

They can always add them as NPCs unique conditions.

Sorry folks but this is not going to happen.. By the way do the devs even read the froums? I don’t think so.. We have been saying the same kitten thing since beta and nothing has changed. Necro and Ranger’s have the same issue’s even Eng…. All you guys have to do is read through all the Patch Notes from the when the game came out to now… "Ele buffed or improved. Warrior buffed/improved/nuffed/buffed again, Guardian same as with Ele and Warrior but less, Necro nerfed, buffed, nerf, nerf, nerf,…..1year………2yrs….. Then barley notthing.. Rangers pretty much the same and also Eng………..

Man this game really breaks my heart… I can’t really say that this is a mmo….. FOr anyone that wants to try this game out then I say to just buy the game when its on sale play each race and any profession you want to lvl 80 then get rid of the game and play something else……. If you like pvp then the game is ok depending on the profession and you skill. PVP is mostly about kiling your target in 1 to 3 seconds…. I would say 80% is like that and the other 20% is manly Ranked/WvW where it takes longer to kill a target…

How long has the game been out now? Did the necromancer ever have a place in pve? I just wish my necro was good at something. I feel like I’m a second class citizen when looking for groups. I don’t care that they’re “OK” in pve when every other class can fill the same role but better. I’d like them to play more like the warlock from WoW, with dots etc

Even necromancer is one of the most important class is WvW or GvG, it’s still a broken class.

With too many condition clean skill + negative condition duration, condition necro are useless in 10+ fight (still good for small group roaming).

MM never be a good build from the beginning. Those low IQ minions doesn’t do anything good in a group and too much trouble to control them.

Signet necro doesn’t exist, vampiric necro with siphon is more like a troll build than something that work seriously.

Therefore, the only necro that can get a good job in gw2 is power necro for WvW. However, the AOE DPS role should belong to Ele instead of our evil necro

What I would like to see added are F2-F4 skills that uses % of LF in form of support skills. This would work great with power builds as they tend to generate LF rather easily, tho condi weapons would need LF generation buff.
These are some raw ideas and since its a boring day at work I had some toughts about them.

F2(Bone wall) – Create spectral bone wall that reflects projectiles. Duration 8s, instant cast, 50% LF, 35s CD(maybe less cuz it already needs LF to create one). I said spectral so it could be transperent. Imagine a huge bone wall infront of your group, you couldn’t see anything.

F3(insert name) – Create unholy fire ring that gives your group fury and ability to siphon health. Duration 5s, 1/2s cast time, 25% LF, 20s CD and it’s a fire field.

F4(insert name) – Create pulsing well that gives your group stability and protection with each pulse. Duration 5s, 3/4s cast time, 33% LF, 45 secs CD, maybe make it ligh field?

As I said, these are some raw ideas and would need balancing. I like them because it gives me more incentive to use LF and gives us necros such needed party support.

I would like a better control for minions, as well as a look into the class mechanic to make it more useful.

Don’t lose faith!

Going slightly off-topic – There was an ongoing strike of Elemental Shamans recently in Warlords, asking for re-work. Because it grew “a little bit”, Blizzard decided to bandaid it with constant, almost daily, buffs across whole class which doesn’t look like it’s going to end in near future.

I wish the same to Necromancers ^^.

I feel that if we make as much noise possible, and we show ANET that we truly care about our beloved Necromancers in PvE, then it may be possible to influence the Feature Pack to buff Necromancers.

Please don’t give up hope! Share this thread, and get the word out!

Would love a well type elite skill that applies a constant pull to everything in and near its center while applying cripple to things on the fringes of the well. Name it Well of the Abyss with a 1 3/4 cast time, 10sec duration, and 200 sec cool down.

Oh one can dream*sigh*

I know the necro is broken, but it has improved since launch. They’ve improved dagger, axe (yes axe was worse) and staff. They improved the traits; they were a lot worse than now. Deathshroud was improved, or at least you can interact with others now—downing foes in WvW or reviving allies.

Some skills have been nerfed, others improved, but overall I’m happier with the class than I was at launch. I think it’s heading in the right direction.

As far as MM builds or MM AI? I have yet to play a game that has good pet/minion AI. At least they fixed Death Magic traits so you don’t have to have minions summoned to gain more toughness—I hated being locked into that trait.

Anyway, I still enjoy the class and it seems this team is improving the game.

I would defiantly support more “F” 2 3 4 etc buttons.
It would give us a more support role in the parties while remaining “Necromancers” .. As long as they don’t do “Dark fields” or and “Blinds”
There are loads of ways a necro can remain necro while offering stuff like protection, reflects maybe fury and go as far as stab (tho stab for me isnt really a must have.. Ill be more happy with reflects and protection.

As fruitless as this is… Just commenting to push this thread back on the top. A gram of hope left that’ll they actually do something.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind if the class was completely reworked and not focused on Condi/Minions, rather give it something special. The class is always going to fail if they design it around condition due to the condition cap/plethora of removals. Minions are just too freaking dumb. Having them replaced with new skills would be a welcome change for me. I’ve only used them a handful of times, hated every second of it.

Of course, all this is just wishful thinking that will never happen.

It boggles my mind we don’t have Test Servers for GW2… It’s been 2 years and still nothing. This is where they can test and have the feedback of the community. Instead, they still rely on a handful of people that dictate the outcome of every class related patch. Not to mention we’re all kept in the dark till the last minute.

Blizzard was able to rework classes and improve them with the help of the community and the test servers. Constantly communicating with their player base on upcoming changes and additions for the classes.

I really don’t think necromancers need a rework, which is good, because I don’t think we’ll ever see a rework on the scale that some in this thread may want.

I think if you reduce some cooldowns across the board, add some finishers on skills, buff dark fields, and buff some other skills like signet of undeath and corrupt boon, we’d be in a better place. Otherwise the more “reworking” types of things we could use are healing in death shroud, and some sort of unique group buffs, like shared siphons, for example.

I would love to see all of those things done; I think it could be really fun to have a siphoning wellomancer that is healing their whole group and blasting dark fields for a dark aura that siphons with attacks and upon being attacked, all the while working through DS. If they made a new blood trait that shared siphons, and merged the well siphon trait with well cooldowns, you could have a ton of group support with 8 trait points (thinking protection on wells and well of blood, at least).

Speaking as someone who plays pretty much all the classes I have to say that necro is by far the most useless in PvE.

It also has a few design problems with mechanics conflicting.

There is also the fact that a couple of the weapons are complete & utter crap. (guardian shield & torch also suffer this problem)

Last but not least a good 20 of the traits are either poorly designed, conflict with other mechanics or just plain severely under perform (granted necro is not alone in this regard, guardian also suffers in this department)

Maybe in the next few days I’ll compile a complete list of the traits, skills & weapons/attacks, utilities etc… for the necro that need to be looked at by arena.net.

Roe.3679:

I really don’t think necromancers need a rework, which is good, because I don’t think we’ll ever see a rework on the scale that some in this thread may want.

I think if you reduce some cooldowns across the board, add some finishers on skills, buff dark fields, and buff some other skills like signet of undeath and corrupt boon, we’d be in a better place. Otherwise the more “reworking” types of things we could use are healing in death shroud, and some sort of unique group buffs, like shared siphons, for example.

I would love to see all of those things done; I think it could be really fun to have a siphoning wellomancer that is healing their whole group and blasting dark fields for a dark aura that siphons with attacks and upon being attacked, all the while working through DS. If they made a new blood trait that shared siphons, and merged the well siphon trait with well cooldowns, you could have a ton of group support with 8 trait points (thinking protection on wells and well of blood, at least).

I’ve actually been suggesting for a couple years that they change the “Vampiric Rituals” grand master in blood magic.
What I have been suggesting is that they change it so that it causes all hits to siphon health from the enemy & share said health with nearby allies. (healing would go through death shroud)

It’s insane that the tree that is meant to be for support & sustain has so little of it & that all of it that it does have conflicts with the main source of necro sustain.

I’ve seen the suggestion before, I think I heard it on one of the podcasts? Either way it’s a great idea and makes a lot of sense. There is so much synergy just waiting to be made useful with some common sense changes.

Arena net, please listen to the cries of the necromancer community. We need help.

We do need a redesign, or rework. Right now:

• We lack team support
• We lack DPS
• We lack stability
• We lack cleave, still
• Signet of Vampirism is useless!
• DS doesn’t allow healing or regen
• We lack combo-fields. Which is really absurd
• Our minion ai is borked since release, and gotten a lot worse since
• The Axe sucks

Many of our traits needs attention. I’ll get around to making a comprehensive list of every bad trait for PvE.

I think the simplifierd concept of universal conditions and boons over all classes is a fail. It limits one game type drastically: the whole damage over time (DoT) is irrelevant in PvE.

Why did they do this? Don’t know. Why did they do this and limit the max condition stacks to 25? That’s just extremely amateurish and should have never found its way into the game. Even after more than two years and even after concerns during the beta(s) this has never changed.

Kain Francois.4328:

Many of our traits needs attention. I’ll get around to making a comprehensive list of every bad trait for PvE.

We got a pretty massive thread about that long time ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Traitworks-Dead-Last

In order to make things a bit easier for the us all, I’ve reorganized the forum so that we could see what the Skill Balancers see when they browse the forums.

Too busy listening to the Clannad OST, methinks

Jelzouki.4128:

Arena net, please listen to the cries of the necromancer community. We need help.

I think the only solution we’ll be provided is to play something else if we don’t like necro as it is. They couldn’t be more clearly uncaring about this or anything to do with it.