Profession lacks coherency of design
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I am specced 30/30/0/0/10 and with just gear change and changes to the major traits,I go from power to condition and vice versa on the fly in dungeons.
Usually I go power when the trash mobs are relatively low hp and are numerous (which is the case in most dungeons) OR there is another condi build in the party who can stack 15-20 bleeds on their own who most likely is unable to change their build quickly.
Apologies to those who may find my posts on GW2 forums offensive and hateful.
(edited by Khal Drogo.9631)
I completely agree with the OP. With the Necro you need to respec for every aspect of the game. Trying to find a build that is strong in more than one facet of the game is rare.
Compared to a Elementalist, throw 20-30pts in water 20-30 in arcane rest in any tree and you can do pretty much anything in any weapon configuration.
The lack of boons and damage increasing traits make this class a second rate class. One spell for fury off of a trait, One spell for stability through a trait.
If Elementalist skills were like Necro skills the elementalist when attuning to fire would apply burining on themself , blind them when they attune to air, cripple when attuning to earth, chill when attuning to water then it would be on par with the necromancers weapon skills and utilities.
Why are we the only class in the game that gets penalized for using utility skills? Blood is Power, Epidemic anyone?
I’m not even going to touch D/S
Of 3 different necromancers dueling 1v1 tonight, not one duel was won by any of them in 2 hours of dueling vs any class they faced.
It was probably the most demoralizing night of GW2 as a necro.
Please Anet give us some synergies that are useful. Buffing damage on one or two weapon skills isn’t going to make the class viable. Some combo finishers and fields and finishers would be nice too.
All valid points.
The power spec is ‘getting there’ (but I wouldn’t call it anywhere near on par) and people are still getting mixed results with minions.
The condition spec is becoming worse as people figure out how to run group dynamics on their removal so that nothing sticks for very long and we cant overwhelm it as easily. Think out of all MMO’s I’ve played the necro has the worst synergy and dynamic out of all the classes I’ve played and a big part of that seems to be that at some point the designer just started bundling ‘gimmicks’ on them like Deathshroud, Plague and Lich forms as a way of making them unique. But not actually very good.
Then getting hung up on condition removal, application and so forth, which makes such abilities unavoidable even if you want nothing to do with them. Unlike say a warrior or thief who if they chose to be condition spec or power spec can easily avoid anything to do with the other.
Pinot Noir (Necromancer) Pinot Blanc (Warrior)
KnT Blackgate
KnT Blackgate
I dont know about condition build, but power build is really good. I think we make the best range nuker in the game, even better than elementalists, since they have to worry about cooldowns and people just leaving the aoe radius. We also come tankier to take range damage better. Combine that with some of the best range cc going, there is strong synergy imo. Its not a insta-win class by any means, but there is a place for us.
Kilger – Human Ranger
alts: Fangyre (Necro), Hardrawk (Ele);
Jade Quarry
alts: Fangyre (Necro), Hardrawk (Ele);
Jade Quarry
Necro, being marketed as “the condition class” also suffers from the general issues condition builds have in this game. What’s especially bad is that some of the traits and skills would lend themselves very well to a hybrid build, but hybrids don’t really work well, since your itemization choice is always either power/prec/critdmg or condmg/duration, which both don’t benefit from each other at all.
Personally, I’d love to see the dilemma solved, maybe by allowing conditions to somehow inherently benefit from precision and critdmg (yes, that could mean that they can “crit”), since the minor procs they get from traits etc. don’t even nearly compare to what power builds get out of it.
The class needs a retooling that will probably never happen.
Even when I play the ‘good’ necro builds, I feel like I could be adding so much more to the group if I was on my other characters.
It’s a bad feeling.
I would say that necro has the most subtle synergies in its trait lines. It takes time and trial and error to find good builds. Here’s two builds for you that actually have quite good synergy:
Spectral crit build (this is a WvW build)
Traits: 10/20/10/0/30 – Spiteful Spirit, Weakening Shroud, Spectral Attunement, Shrouded Removal, Spectral Mastery, whatever, and Near to Death.
So you can see there is some synergy in the traits already. DS is on a 5-second cooldown, and every time you enter it you get 3s retailiation, 5s fury, and remove a
condition, plus you might proc Enfeebling Blood too. So you can just toggle and dagger spam forever and crit like a madman.
Now let’s look at the stats we get from the trait lines. Most importantly, 200 precision and 30% critical damage. This is great! That is a good boost to offense and focuses us toward a power/crit build. But we’ve also increased our survivability with Shrouded Removal, the 100 toughness and 10% boon duration from that line, bonus life force, and investing in the spectral skills.
With Spectral Attunement and Spectral Mastery, you can get 14s of protection from Spectral Wall, and it’s on a 32s cooldown. Thief beating on you? Drop it and stay near it. Spectral Walk is good for juking and gives you life force, Spectral Grasp is great at snatching people out of a zerg and gives you life force, and you get Spectral Armor for free because of traits. Also all these skills give you 5% life force on use because of Spectral Attunement. Often when I am getting hit in WvW and lose all my life force, I will cast all three of my utilities, and my life force bar is full again by the time the 5s cooldown is up. Plus with a full life force bar you get bonus power from the SR 25 minor.
So you can see this build uses the defensive nature of the spectral skills and DS to stay alive while also gaining a great boost to direct damage from passive bonuses. If that’s not synergy I don’t know what is.
Terror hybrid build (this is an sPvP build)
Here’s the link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-hybrid-Terror-build-for-sPvP-updated/
This is a mix between power and conditions that also squeezes in the Terror trait and 100% bonus fear duration (at least once they fix the Nightmare runes, apparently they’re not giving any condition duration atm). Check out the videos, the build works very very well.
Synergies: You don’t have much power because of either Rampager’s or Carrion amulet, but you offset this by taking Axe Training, which increases its damage by 20% (and a nice CD reduction). However, taking this boost to damage also increases your condition duration! So now your bleeds will do more damage overall and your fears will tick for damage twice. Additionally, the 20 in SR for Master of Terror gives you critical damage! So now your direct damage is even better and you aren’t even using a power amulet.
So again, the synergies are subtle and harder to find than other professions, but they are there. Both of the builds are also usable in any area of the game, so you won’t have to constantly switch things up. Give them a try and you will see how it all comes together.
(edited by lettucemode.3789)
Agreed, OP.
This is something I’ve been saying since the first month after release. I’ve recently even wrote a post to one of the coolest devs out there asking about some of those things.
Alas, there has never been any substantial response. Even the latest necro DS change regarding weapon sets is something that remains unanswered and it is huge and has far going consequences.
I’m trying my best not to mock the devs for this, I really do. but seeing that DS UI remains unchanged and that we have an undocumented change that is unexplained pushes me to my limits of acceptance. In the meantime, the devs posted something like 4 posts in mesmer forums.
It makes me want to quit the game, something I invested a lot of time, effort and passion into. They are not helping me… us carry on.
Leman
OP, i have to disagree. Necro class has some of the smoothest synergy i’ve seen. It just takes a bit more than other classes to get used to it. This is one of the main reasons that this is by far my favorite class in the game.
I would say that necro has the most subtle synergies in its trait lines. It takes time and trial and error to find good builds. Here’s two builds for you that actually have quite good synergy:
Spectral crit build (this is a WvW build)
Traits: 10/20/10/0/30 – Spiteful Spirit, Weakening Shroud, Spectral Attunement, Shrouded Removal, Spectral Mastery, whatever, and Near to Death….
Great post! Curiously, I have already settled into a very similar build relying on Spectral Skills and DS. I am no great damage dealer outside of DS but I have huge staying power and survivability and can roam alone with near impunity and offer DS nuking in groups and stacking vulnerabilities.
OP, i have to disagree. Necro class has some of the smoothest synergy i’ve seen. It just takes a bit more than other classes to get used to it. This is one of the main reasons that this is by far my favorite class in the game.
I will concede that some synergy can be gleaned in the Necromancer Trait tree, but I’d hardly call that “smooth” -it’s very rough actually. And by synergy, I am talking about all the working parts not just one or two aspects of the profession working together.
The Necromancer has mostly disjointed mechanics, the Death Trait line is a great example of how contrary one trait line can be to the over whole. It’s not just wasted Trait points like +20 Toughness per Minion for non minion masters who just want to focus on an entirely different aspect of the line.
I also think it was a huge mistake to tie weapon skills to trait lines or have Wells and Mark related traits spread out over at least three trait lines.
I can understand why this may have been intentionally done, but it was not done well or very prettily for that matter, and doesn’t lend itself to any sense of identity of purpose.
@kuldebar
actually, if you really look at the traits and the weapons it is the total opposite of what you describe. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but it sounds a little bit like you want to be able to max out every trait line you want, all at the same time. unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. The traits come in pairs for a reason. I won’t get lengthy and spend a lot of time explaining but just take a look at death magic and blood magic for minion and/or support builds. coupled with staff skills? Big synergy, might as well be a roadmap there for you. Or look at spite and curses for the bleed/hybrid sceptor/axe builds. Again, just some real solid stuff to work with in there. As an aside, here is my current build (Bleed+Burst+CC):
Use sceptor to bleed and CC
Axe/focus for burst+CC+boon stripping,
DS for more burst+might+vitality,
etc etc.
I love this build and have had a lot of luck with it. Also, as far as I can see, everything synergizes very nicely.
If you’re having trouble with a build the forums are a great place to ask questions. Also, i tend to start either in the trait tree or with a weapon set. Then move to traits and gear up to fill in the gaps. using these methods I have been very happy with the flexibility, versatility, power AND synergy of this class.
I 100% agree with the OP. Especially since I’ve seen what solid synergistic trait trees actually look like in the warrior and thief.
I’ve dumped hundreds of gold into my necromancer. Even have a set of T3 armor for it. I have 6 different full exotic sets, including accessories. I’ve tried every build imaginable. Everything I’ve tried feels like I’m fighting with one hand and one leg tied behind my back. Without mobility skills, this class is at a huge disadvantage. It doesn’t matter how much vitality or toughness you have. In the end, the attrition class gets out attritioned by everyone else.
Condition mechanics in this game are also a serious WTF. PVE, it doesn’t matter, NPCs don’t clear em. PVP is an entirely different matter. There are so many traits, runes, and abilities that clear conditions its one of the weakest specs for PVP currently. Yeah, I’ve heard all the arguments on why I’m wrong. Simple fact of the matter is, conditions do not kill zergs. Direct damage, however, does. “But I just epidemiced that guy who had 10 stacks of bleeds on him. Now he and 4 other people are taking loads of damage!” Yeah, and his guardian and warrior friend standing next to him just cleared them all 3 seconds later. Your epidemic did nothing substantial. Lets also remember how going into downed state clears all conditions on someone. All that time spent building up enough bleeds to make epidemic worth casting. Then trying to land an epidemic before your target goes down before the cast time ends, only to have him go down at the last second. This has happened to me a lot. Wasted potential. Never have that problem on any other class I’ve played.
I’ve gotten more milage out of my other two level 80s and I’ve spent less gold, time, and effort while doing it. This class needs an overhaul to be viable.
Stuff goes here.
(edited by Kravick.4906)
@kravick
a couple of your statements seem to indicate that maybe you just don’t quite fit with the playstyle of the class? i don’t mean that as an insult.
“I’ve seen what solid synergistic trait trees actually look like in the warrior and thief.”
It’s funny, my first toon was a necro. My second was a warrior. The first thing i said when i looked at the warrior traits was, “where’s the synergy?” lol. But i found it. and i enjoy warrior very much. but i wouldn’t say that it’s any better or worse in trait lines.
“All that time spent building up enough bleeds to make epidemic worth casting.”
Epidemic has a 15 second cooldown. So, pop it every 15 seconds. Also, if you are running a bleed build and you have to work that hard to get bleeds, Then you may want to take a look at your build.
I disagree completely.
Necros are in a good place, and of course you have to redo your traits for a different builds and dedicate those traits for that build.
Has any one not noticed that ALL of our weapons are viable!!!! Some classes wish they had all good weapon sets.
condition build- every one here knows how powerful it can be.
Power builds- completely viable now. Any many ways to play a power necro.
MM- the most underestimated builds. mm is one of the strongest 1v1 dueling builds in the game. if you disagree with that you don’t now kitten. Ntm great in pve besides high lvl fractals.
Necros have many great builds and weapon sets more so then a lot of other classes.
I disagree completely.
Necros are in a good place, and of course you have to redo your traits for a different builds and dedicate those traits for that build.
Has any one not noticed that ALL of our weapons are viable!!!! Some classes wish they had all good weapon sets.
condition build- every one here knows how powerful it can be.
Power builds- completely viable now. Any many ways to play a power necro.
MM- the most underestimated builds. mm is one of the strongest 1v1 dueling builds in the game. if you disagree with that you don’t now kitten. Ntm great in pve besides high lvl fractals.
Necros have many great builds and weapon sets more so then a lot of other classes.
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Attrition – A pretty name for taking longer than anyone else to kill something.
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Could you please explain how this doesn’t create the “You have to use X weapon or you’re playing your class wrong” problem?
Mixing insults with your post is like pooping in a salad.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
@kravick
a couple of your statements seem to indicate that maybe you just don’t quite fit with the playstyle of the class? i don’t mean that as an insult.“I’ve seen what solid synergistic trait trees actually look like in the warrior and thief.”
It’s funny, my first toon was a necro. My second was a warrior. The first thing i said when i looked at the warrior traits was, “where’s the synergy?” lol. But i found it. and i enjoy warrior very much. but i wouldn’t say that it’s any better or worse in trait lines.“All that time spent building up enough bleeds to make epidemic worth casting.”
Epidemic has a 15 second cooldown. So, pop it every 15 seconds. Also, if you are running a bleed build and you have to work that hard to get bleeds, Then you may want to take a look at your build.
My builds where fine. Its hard to screw up a condition build on a necromancer anyway. All you need is 30 points in curses. Runes are simple. 2x krait/centaur/afflicted or 3x krait/afflicted or 6x undead. Sigil of earth and agony. Tuning Crystals Vegi Pizzas for food. 1700 hours played on this account over the last 6 months. Over 1000 of them on the necromancer. I’ve done my research. I’ve tried the Juggermancer build, I’ve tried Nemesis’ hybrid build (OP damage in PVE I’ll admit), Lupi’s conditionmancer build (but that was a standard build long before she made a post about it). You name it, I’ve done it.
Necromancers have the slowest bleed stacking. If you’ve ever played another class that has a condition build you’d know this.
I’m also guessing you’re not familiar with the warriors shout heal build. Guardians have a similar build that does the same thing, but since I don’t have a guardian, I can’t give specifics.
6x runes of the soldier – Shouts remove conditions on yourself and allies.
“For Great Justice”, “On My Mark”, “Shake It Off” – Very short cool downs by themselves. When traited, can be 20 seconds. “Shake It Off” removes 2 conditions on yourself and others with the runes listed above. Shouts heal for about 1500 each with the proper trait.
“Charge” – Grant swiftness to yourself and allies, while curing chilled, crippled, and immobilized. When traited, also converts other conditions into boons for yourself and allies. 16 second cool down with this traited. With this trait, “Call to Arms” also converts conditions to boons on yourself and allies.
Mending – Heal yourself and cure two conditions.
You honestly believe they’re blowing ALL of these cool downs when conditions start flying around? Stagger these abilities out in 5 second intervals and you’ll never stick a condition long enough to mean anything, let alone stack your bleeds up to a respectable level. Any damage you do happen to do gets counteracted by the 1500 HP shout heal. Direct damage wins fights because you can’t cleanse direct damage.
“Zee conditions, zey do nossing!”
Don’t even get me started on my thief. Clearing a condition just by going into stealth, and if I remain in stealth it clears another one in 3 seconds. Shadowstep clearing 3 conditions. Infiltrator’s Strike being an on demand condition removal skill and stun breaker with no cool down, as a weapon skill no less. Hide In Shadows removing bleeding, burning, and poison all at the same time…
Oh hey, and then there are elementalists who also have crazy condition removal abilities that work on allies as well.
Conditions might actually be worth while if ANet didn’t see fit to give every class 50 ways to clear conditions. Well, except maybe rangers. I hear the only condition removal ability they have is to remove poison. Poor rangers… They get pooped on by everyone.
Now necromancer power builds are a lot more viable in PVP. Unfortunately, mobility is king in this game. If your class doesn’t have it, you are fodder for the classes that do have better mobility. Power based utility skills also suffer from having ridiculously long cool downs that other classes don’t have to suffer.
Stuff goes here.
(edited by Kravick.4906)
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Could you please explain how this doesn’t create the “You have to use X weapon or you’re playing your class wrong” problem?
That’s a problem? You would be playing the class wrong.
Attrition – A pretty name for taking longer than anyone else to kill something.
(edited by Kiriakulos.1690)
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Could you please explain how this doesn’t create the “You have to use X weapon or you’re playing your class wrong” problem?
That’s a problem? You would be playing the class wrong.
Well, you’ve then created a lot of false options for players, and narrowed build variety to the point that people know exactly what to expect the moment they identify someone as a particular class.
That may not be a problem for you, but I like profession choices to be a starting point for what a character can do, rather than limiting them to one specific build if they want to be effective.
Mixing insults with your post is like pooping in a salad.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
Conditions might actually be worth while if ANet didn’t see fit to give every class 50 ways to clear conditions. Well, except maybe rangers. I hear the only condition removal ability they have is to remove poison. Poor rangers… They get pooped on by everyone.
Just to nitpick, rangers have:
healing spring
bear’s shake it off
Empathic Bond
Signet of Renewal
They have more than one condition removal ability.
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Could you please explain how this doesn’t create the “You have to use X weapon or you’re playing your class wrong” problem?
That’s a problem? You would be playing the class wrong.
Well, you’ve then created a lot of false options for players, and narrowed build variety to the point that people know exactly what to expect the moment they identify someone as a particular class.
That may not be a problem for you, but I like profession choices to be a starting point for what a character can do, rather than limiting them to one specific build if they want to be effective.
I read his comment and stopped at Warriors have great synergy.
The problem is they only have great synergy with GS. They are the absolute worst class at every other facet in the game, but hey 100b!!!!!!!!!
100BBBBBBLLLLLLLLLAAAADDDDDDESSSSS!
Anyone who things warriors have great synergy and multiple builds is playing a different game. Essentially if you are in a group with a warrior who isn’t carrying GS and claims to be dps he is not viable.
Why would I ever take a single warrior who wasnt 100BBBBBBBBBLLLLLAAAADDDEEESSS!!!!
You should have given up hope on convincing him once he said the warrior and theif are the two most synergized classes, when every single tournament player and regular dungeon runner says they are the two bottom of the rung only one way to play.
Example Top Tournament teams – Zero Warriors unless you are really really good, and the whole team is built around making that warrior effeective. Zero Thieves because they have the least effect on a game, unless the theif is extremely good, and even then they are easily ignored or killed by a good player.
Elementalist, Necromancers, and Guardians on the other hand can completely change a game or map.
Why are we the only class in the game that gets penalized for using utility skills? Blood is Power, Epidemic anyone?
I think it is attempting to capture the spirit of the GW1 necromancer, where various skills would put a health drain on you (never mind actually remove a percentage of you health) that you could then turn into a weapon the next.
I agree that there isn’t a huge amount of synergy, but it can be easily worked around with a good build. Despite any real of imagined lack of synergy this class is not broken.
What Necros lack in my opinion are more combo fields and finishers. Give us some play synergy there and I would be ecstatic.
Traits are absolutely a problem, but my major beef as of late has to be the offhands. None of them jump out to me as skills I want to use, are effective, or at all fun. I end up running Warhorn on my Power Necro just for the swiftness…
The necro was more than coherent… In GW1.
With the new condition system all that’s left is an empty shell.
What Necros lack in my opinion are more combo fields and finishers. Give us some play synergy there and I would be ecstatic.
We have access to the two most powerful fields in the game (ethereal and poison) and a blast finisher on a 25 second cooldown that can be cast at range quickly and with pin point accuracy. I’d say we’re pretty kitten good as far as fields go.
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Could you please explain how this doesn’t create the “You have to use X weapon or you’re playing your class wrong” problem?
That’s a problem? You would be playing the class wrong.
Well, you’ve then created a lot of false options for players, and narrowed build variety to the point that people know exactly what to expect the moment they identify someone as a particular class.
That may not be a problem for you, but I like profession choices to be a starting point for what a character can do, rather than limiting them to one specific build if they want to be effective.
I read his comment and stopped at Warriors have great synergy.
The problem is they only have great synergy with GS. They are the absolute worst class at every other facet in the game, but hey 100b!!!!!!!!!
Anyone who things warriors have great synergy and multiple builds is playing a different game. Essentially if you are in a group with a warrior who isn’t carrying GS and claims to be dps he is not viable.
You should have given up hope on convincing him once he said the warrior and theif are the two most synergized classes, when every single tournament player and regular dungeon runner says they are the two bottom of the rung only one way to play.
Example Top Tournament teams – Zero Warriors unless you are really really good, and the whole team is built around making that warrior effeective. Zero Thieves because they have the least effect on a game, unless the theif is extremely good, and even then they are easily ignored or killed by a good player.
Elementalist, Necromancers, and Guardians on the other hand can completely change a game or map.
Have you even played a warrior? I’m guessing no. They have plenty of other builds other than GS. Shout Heal/Banner Heal builds are pretty popular in WvW. Those builds use hammers. I see plenty of axe warriors running around. You’ve also got your sniper builds, though not as popular. Are you even playing the same game I am? Warriors have plenty of synergy with their traits, but you go ahead and keep thinking otherwise. It doesn’t take smart person to figure it out. Especially since warriors offer more than just DPS. But hey, who am I to argue. I’ve only leveled one to 80 and PVPed with one to great success. Longbow and sword are kinda meh, but only because conditions are in such bad shape right now. If conditions were truly equal to direct damage, warrior sword and longbow would be on equal footing with their direct damage weapons. As it is, warriors do more damage in direct damage gear with both of these weapons than they do in condition damage gear.
Never said warriors and thieves are the “most synergized”, but you go ahead and keep putting words in my mouth that were never said. For the record, I said “solid synergistic”.
Also, no one cares about sPvP. sPvP has been dying a slow death since launch. I don’t know why ANet keeps wasting so many resources on it. There is nothing gained from it. Every time I see the listings theres a ton of empty rooms with only a few rooms at max capacity.
If necromancers are in fact fine, as some of you keep insisting, then why are there so few of them?
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(edited by Kravick.4906)
I agree that there isn’t a huge amount of synergy, but it can be easily worked around with a good build. Despite any real of imagined lack of synergy this class is not broken.
What Necros lack in my opinion are more combo fields and finishers. Give us some play synergy there and I would be ecstatic.
Maybe not broken, just not well designed or as fun as they should be for the player.
Some interesting points. The trait trees are definitely all over the place, and it seems like the devs weren’t entirely sure what direction to take the necro’s design.
Compare the Necro to the Mesmer, and you’ll notice that every mesmer’s playstyle will use illusions in some way, showing that the mesmer was designed with a specific goal in mind, and their traits all have synergy with illusions too. You look at the playstyles of different necros, and the only thing that’s common across most builds is death shroud (which is a great mechanic, don’t get me wrong).
If I were to redesign the necromancer, I would make life force matter in more ways than one, or make death shroud more malleable instead of always being the same four skills. I would build the class around life force/death shroud interactions, maybe even things that trigger when you gain life force and depending on the amount of LF gained. Minions interacting somehow with life force would be interesting too.
Some interesting points. The trait trees are definitely all over the place, and it seems like the devs weren’t entirely sure what direction to take the necro’s design.
Compare the Necro to the Mesmer, and you’ll notice that every mesmer’s playstyle will use illusions in some way, showing that the mesmer was designed with a specific goal in mind, and their traits all have synergy with illusions too. You look at the playstyles of different necros, and the only thing that’s common across most builds is death shroud (which is a great mechanic, don’t get me wrong).
If I were to redesign the necromancer, I would make life force matter in more ways than one, or make death shroud more malleable instead of always being the same four skills. I would build the class around life force/death shroud interactions, maybe even things that trigger when you gain life force and depending on the amount of LF gained. Minions interacting somehow with life force would be interesting too.
Beautiful post, Looska.
I have a character of every class and with maybe the exception of the engineer, all the trait trees seem to flow and have an integrity of design, the Mesmer being my favorite closely followed by the Elementalist and Guardian.
I think you’re confusing viable with mediocre. I’d rather use a single weapon that was extremely good instead of having my choices of kinda ok.
Could you please explain how this doesn’t create the “You have to use X weapon or you’re playing your class wrong” problem?
That’s a problem? You would be playing the class wrong.
Well, you’ve then created a lot of false options for players, and narrowed build variety to the point that people know exactly what to expect the moment they identify someone as a particular class.
That may not be a problem for you, but I like profession choices to be a starting point for what a character can do, rather than limiting them to one specific build if they want to be effective.
I understand your concern, but here’s where our points-of-view differ.
I don’t see the Necromancer as having multiple builds just because they are all equally effective, IMO he has no good builds because they are all equally ineffective, by which I mean being outdone by another profession’s application of it.
Given at least ONE build/weapon/style which excels, which we could all agree that the Necromancer does that best, at least we’d at least have something to tide us over while waiting for the other options to become appealing.
Attrition – A pretty name for taking longer than anyone else to kill something.
/whine
Good God this is tedious.
Sorry, I thought we were playing a game involving vomiting opinions passed off as facts.
Dabbling in sincerity for a brief moment, truly my experiences playing necromancer are at complete odds here.
It works. It’s not perfect, granted but it certainly could be worse.
That other Psy guy
Why are we the only class in the game that gets penalized for using utility skills? Blood is Power, Epidemic anyone?
Well, actually this is one of the few things they got right with the necro, since these are very powerful abilities.
Anyhow, back on topic, I think the problem is that Anet was mostly like “But they have 2 life bars” and used that a reason to make the necromancer terrible at well… you name it. Thus the whole Death Shroud thing remains the elephant in the room. The other being of course, the 25 stack cap which hurts others other than necros. So maybe they’ll care more in this case.
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
(edited by ArchonWing.9480)
I’m honestly confused by the amount of times I see this argument about our Corruption skills. We have Dagger and Staff 4 to transfer conditions directly from us to another person, as well as DS 1 when underwater. We also have access to Well of Power to transform those conditions into boons (bleeding becomes Vigor, FYI). Oh, and we also have a Healing Skill that is more powerful for each condition that we cleanse off of us. These condition’s don’t make us weaker, they are better viewed as additional weapons to enhance the skills or to get the maximum benefit from them.
“I have begun my journey in a paper boat without a bottom.”
I am amused that some people still claim the class is good.
Lets be realistic,all the gw1 main necros can see what anet did there.
They just stripped the class of everything unique it had and made it a one trick pony.
The class now all it can do is manipulate conditions and some ground,and that still isnt stable to begin with.
Lets skip on gw1 for the sake of discussion,and lets see what we have here.
Do a compare of the necro trait lines and the warrior and ele trait lines and you can see how much thought was given on the necro traits.
DS was our downed state and now we have it as a class mechanic with a ui that doesnt show boons and conditions and in which the moment you hit #4 someone tosses a hard cc on you and you lose a huge ammount of dmg and time.
Also the range of life blast is pathetic enough that on wvw you cant hit anyone on top of a wall besides that you are bound to encounter a projectile block or reflect or a dodge or aegis or a clone in the path or another pet in the path.
And then we reach mm builds and the recent buff,which by all means was welcomed but when a mesmer can insta kill all your minions and shut you down as well by forcing a transform on you with the press of a button it also shows how halfkittened that was.
Downed state on pvp?you are lucky if you manage to throw #3 before you get stability/stealth stomped.
And list of bugs and complaints goes on and on but hey at least playing support necro isnt that bad.
If people stayed in the kitten wells it would be even better,but they have no reason to stay in them.
Bottom end everything points that when it came to necro,they wanted to make it a support class but they forgot to put anything really appealing to it.
SoS Defence and Emergency commander
If you see a gear above my head……run
If you see me Offline,its totaly not a trap
If you see a gear above my head……run
If you see me Offline,its totaly not a trap
@grave of hearts Would be rather fun if they wanted to make necro a support class but forgort the part of support called boons but they didnt cause necro is awesome for team buffing when they umm give uhh mmm if mm no this cant be right hmm spectral wall? nah that kinda sux what about……okay you know what nevermind boon buffing is other classes job. Necro is the master of debuffing for teamsupport we can debuff with things that other classes wish that had cause we can….hmm…..weakness yeah thats kinda ok but not really specific to us what about fear mm only 1sec well its more a 1sec daze then and others have 3sec fears so thats not really any good and knockback/down is faar better anyway.
Atleast condition dmg is great on necro whether its an event where you really get to appreciate the cap of 25 or if its when this nice mesmer drops quickness and you go full speed into the bleed cap wall, its things like this that make you appreciate just how well certain things in the game are made.
It’s funny that they succeeded on a completely new class, Mesmer, and failed so hard on a tried and true class, Necromancer.
Master of attrition fighting? With my 38hp heal on every attack? Sounds legit.
It’s funny that they succeeded on a completely new class, Mesmer, and failed so hard on a tried and true class, Necromancer.
Master of attrition fighting? With my 38hp heal on every attack? Sounds legit.
Pretty much this. Every class is going to have some issues. Some more than others, but necromancers? My god, what was ANet thinking?
“Hey, I have an idea. Lets design a game around mobility as its primary defense mechanic and then leave a class without any mobility skills. What? Won’t work? Bah, you don’t just don’t have vision my friend! Ok, ok, how about I give them some life steal to compensate. That should work… 38hp per attack sounds about right… but only if they go down a certain trait tree. Oh, hey guys, lets give thieves and warriors an attack that can do 10k damage. This will be the most balanced game ever, you’ll see!”
Sarcasm aside, regeneration and life steal abilities in this game are pathetic in the face of what people can dish out for damage. If ANet really wanted to make necromancers an attrition class they really need to take a hard look at allowing Necromancers to heal and give themselves protection better. Otherwise they need to revamp the necromancer and give them mobility skills. A really good example of this is the guardian. They only have one mobility skill and its on their greatsword. Even though they have really low base HP and low mobility, they’re one of the hardest targets to take down because of their healing and defensive boons. The guardian is the perfect example of an attrition class if I’ve ever seen one.
Then again, every bad class in every MMO has had their die hard fans that scream to the high heavens that their chosen profession is fine and we all just need to learn to play. This, of course, is despite the fact its one of the lowest, if not the lowest, populated classes in the game.
That said, one thing I do find necromancers good at is area denial in sPvP. But then again, sPvP is a joke and no one takes that seriously.
Stuff goes here.
(edited by Kravick.4906)
All necros need is a cleave weapon and some slightly more power related traits in the curses tree. And DS UI needs to sorted. Its a joke that my party members can see all my conditions and boons but I cant just because ive popped my life line ability. What good is that if I cant tell when bleeds run out or if my fury is still up.
@grave of hearts Would be rather fun if they wanted to make necro a support class but forgort the part of support called boons but they didnt cause necro is awesome for team buffing when they umm give uhh mmm if mm no this cant be right hmm spectral wall? nah that kinda sux what about……okay you know what nevermind boon buffing is other classes job. Necro is the master of debuffing for teamsupport we can debuff with things that other classes wish that had cause we can….hmm…..weakness yeah thats kinda ok but not really specific to us what about fear mm only 1sec well its more a 1sec daze then and others have 3sec fears so thats not really any good and knockback/down is faar better anyway.
Atleast condition dmg is great on necro whether its an event where you really get to appreciate the cap of 25 or if its when this nice mesmer drops quickness and you go full speed into the bleed cap wall, its things like this that make you appreciate just how well certain things in the game are made.
Couldn’t agree more. I want to know what necros did to kitten off the combo finisher guy? Also the boon guy the condition cap guy and the one second fear guy. I commend you lovers of all that is necro, but this class is right at the bottom with regards to fun factor. They made an action game and I’m waiting on mobs to bleed to death.
I’ve been having problems with the necromancer ever since I started. It has been both frustrating and disheartening going around trying to use the type of build I want to use only be to out class at my own game by other professions that have more options then I do. I play a condition necromancer and I’ve been struggling with the gear to maximize my damage as much as possible.
I build up about 9-14 bleed stacks and I have to put half my skills on cool down in order to get that much not only that I have to work to maintain those bleeds extremely hard. And underwater I can hardly get up to 6 stacks let along go up as far as 14. Where as my mesmer under water, with out even trying gets up to 15 stacks with in a relatively short time.
I use Epidemic to help out, and it is the best skill the necromancer has. But its really the only thing that I feel is useful in group Events. Seeing as other people are getting the extra bleeds I need along with other conditions I can take out the little guys with out a problem by just targeting the champion. Epidemic has basically been the necromancer’s saving grace in my eyes.
Death Shroud feels like a punishment. If I enter death shroud any time during a fight, its either so close to the end that I can finish them off with a little bit of damage, or I am losing. Using it in the middle of the fight HURTS my build so much. I enter with 14 bleeds stacked on my foe and exit DS with 3 or less.. Its extremely counter productive to my play style. Not to mention some of the DS skills just seem off. Dark path is something I almost never use because I don’t want to get close to my foe and Every other skill of death shroud was designed for range in mind.
Fear has to be the worst part about the necromancer. It was supposed to be the necromancer’s big iconic thing. And I can’t help but feel like 4th best at using it. And There are only 4 professions that can use it! I thought there was supposed to be a split between PvP fear and PvE fear? I thought Fear was supposed to be 2 seconds in PvE? It is underwater, but the hit box for that skill under water is extremely fickle and I have quite figured out how to make it hit most the time. We have 4 skills to reliable apply fear, and one of them is the downed state skill and its trigger is so slow that I’m usually killed before I can use it… If Fear is that big of a problem, just give us a knock back. It would be more useful. Its especially insulting when a dog has a better fear skill then the master of death…
Confusion was another thing that got to me. Anet stated that the necromancer would have access to confusion but not as much as the Mesmer. Okay, fine. I was perfectly okay with that. But we have no skills with it? Bleeding and poison doesn’t have high enough damage alone. And necromancer isn’t allowed to cause burns so we need another option. And Terror doesn’t cut it. Its frustrating especially seeing as my mesmer is both better at surviving and dealing damage then my necromancer at that level.
I remember the necromancer from GW1. Second best profession in PvE and formidable in PvP. They could do everything and anything. we had a wall of minions to block off foes from the back line. We could nuke with the best of them with Spiteful Spirit and archane echo. We had teams dedicated to us. Both Subway and Discordway. We could easily replace the monk or ritualist if needed. I didn’t expect them to be as good as they where in GW1 but this pull back on there abilities is a bit too much for my tastes.
Please Arena Net, Make me excited to play the necromancer again like I was in GW1!
Some interesting points. The trait trees are definitely all over the place, and it seems like the devs weren’t entirely sure what direction to take the necro’s design.
I think perhaps ANet crammed a bit too much into the humble necro. We share “mode switching” (death shroud) with kit engineer and elementalist, and pet/minion with ranger, mesmer and turret engineer. We also do boon/condition manipulation alongside mesmers, and top it all off with life siphon and marks.
DS was our downed state and now we have it as a class mechanic with a ui that doesnt show boons and conditions and in which the moment you hit #4 someone tosses a hard cc on you and you lose a huge ammount of dmg and time.
And then we reach mm builds and the recent buff,which by all means was welcomed but when a mesmer can insta kill all your minions and shut you down as well by forcing a transform on you with the press of a button it also shows how halfkittened that was.
Downed state on pvp?you are lucky if you manage to throw #3 before you get stability/stealth stomped.
I generally like the class but I have to hand it to you on these points, some future tweaking could be used. I still dont understand why they removed stability in shroud form during beta, it seems like it belonged. I rearranged a bit so I could get foot in the grave back in my spec since it was too discouraging to shroud just to get knocked down, since imo its supposed to be our ace up our sleeve.
Still feel its a great class, but there are a few annoying parts that could use some polishing I concur.
Kilger – Human Ranger
alts: Fangyre (Necro), Hardrawk (Ele);
Jade Quarry
alts: Fangyre (Necro), Hardrawk (Ele);
Jade Quarry
I did not follow this entire post, but I will tell you that the biggest problem right now with group synergy, is that we have so little to offer in the way of AOE buffs, fire fields, practical blast finishers.
Since the name of the game is fire and forget AOE’s in wvw while zergging, we do fine with all that, but in dungeons you really want someone who brings something to the table for group play. Since we have no AOE might or fire fields, and our blast finishers are all on fairly long cooldown, it is impossible for us to say synergize with a warrior/guardian/elementalist in that respect. Having been with a group that can get up to 25 stacks of might just by using its skills, it feels wrong being a necro and just soaking it up with my personal +10 might.
I don’t tend to agree about the traits being a mess. Having spent a lot of time looking over and playing other classes, many of them have a similar situation. I think the most noteable issue with necro is there is no really overpowered tree everyone feels inclined to go into. Like the healing on stealth for thieves in sub, and dodge clones at 20 points in crit for mesmers.
You could call that a weakness or a strength for the class in that it is not pigeon-holed like so many others, but lacks that super strong – borderline OP trait line.
I do think that if the following ever becomes true necros will be a much better fit:
1. Conditions in PVE become more dangerous, and aoe condition removal from other classes gets scaled back. Currently things like “well of power” are comical compared to the aoe condition removal that warriors/guardians get with shouts, other personal condition removal skills. If there was more mobs like in arah, that stacked 25 confusion or 25 bleed, people would be more inclined to look at those condition manipulation skills necros have more positively.
2. Necros had a way to take conditions on them and benefit from this. IE the necro deals 5% more damage per condition stacked on him. So instead of just passing conditions back or self causing conditions, we would have an active reason to pull conditions from allies aside from the novelty of it.
3. Some sort of unique synergy that would help them fit better in a group sense. Some increase damage trait that could be taken that would apply to the team, or some condition that would allow the mob to take extra damage etc. Heck even if you make well of power flip all your debuffs, and then apply those buffs in a 240 radius around you, think how much better that would feel.
To fix the issue of death shroud clashing with certain builds, it would be cool if death shroud skills depended on the weapons you’re holding. I think it would make the class a lot more fun and varied too.
When looking at skills and traits, what strike out at me is the total lack of objective for the necromancer. They do not support an overall battleplan.
For example you can’t just say that we have Death Shroud. You have to ask yourself, how is DS helping me achieve my goals? What are “you” trying to “do” with DS?
You can’t just say that we have signets. You have to ask yourself, how are the signet helping me achieve my goals? Are there better options?
You can’t just say that we have a ton of health. You have to ask yourself, how are the extra health helping me achieve my goals? What’s is the battleplan here?
You can’t just say that we have Spectral Armor. You have to ask yourself, how is Spectral Armor helping me achieve my goals? What’s is the battleplan here?
Then we can look at what the necro lacks. We don’t have block. We don’t have any damage avoidance. We have very poor mobility. Our damage is mediocre for the most part. So how big of a hindrance are these to the players in achieving their goals?
I can make many other examples. But I think the biggest problem for necro is that they do not have a clear objective. Everything traits and skills they got is very “vague”. When a newcomer look at the necro, they get very confused. They often just move on to a profession with much clearer objectives.
For example:
Thief=stealth+high damage. And they got skills that help them achieve their battleplan.
Ele=AoE nukes and high mobility. And they got skills that help them achieve their battleplan.
Mesmer=Clones and portal. And they got skills that help them achieve their battleplan.
Warrior=tank and melee. And they got skills that help them achieve their battleplan.
Guardian=buffs. And they got skills that help them achieve their battleplan.
This “vagueness” of the class description and design carries on. For example “attrition” is a very vague term, since all other professions can survive too. “Summoning” is a very vague term, since many other professions can summon. When the class design got nothing specific and nothing outstanding, it really confuses the players.
When a in-game player ask me about necro, I don’t know what to tell them. I can give them a very biased opinion on the build that I am currently using. But that won’t paint the complete picture. The strength of my build comes from the objective that I am trying to complete. If that guy that I was talking to have a totally different objective, my opinion won’t matter to him.
So instead, I would ask the player “What objective are you trying to achieve?” If he says AoE nukes, I tell him eles are better. If he says survivability, I tell him guardians are better. If he says damage, I tell him thief and mesmer is better. If he says wvw group support, I tell him mesmer and guardian is better.
So did I just said necro sucks? Nope. But it is just so hard to recommend the necro to a new player because necros don’t have any clear objectives. It just won’t be fair. It often seems like just a bunch of skills, traits and idea throw together in a chaotic salad mix. Necro is a class that you got to experiment, build up and play for yourself.
For other professions, you have an objective before picking your class. For necro, you have to pick your class first and then find your objective. And many necros never found that objective, since it takes a lot of exploring and time. Many players just moves on.
Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
(edited by CHIPS.6018)
@grave of hearts Would be rather fun if they wanted to make necro a support class but forgort the part of support called boons but they didnt cause necro is awesome for team buffing when they umm give uhh mmm if mm no this cant be right hmm spectral wall? nah that kinda sux what about……okay you know what nevermind boon buffing is other classes job. Necro is the master of debuffing for teamsupport we can debuff with things that other classes wish that had cause we can….hmm…..weakness yeah thats kinda ok but not really specific to us what about fear mm only 1sec well its more a 1sec daze then and others have 3sec fears so thats not really any good and knockback/down is faar better anyway.
Atleast condition dmg is great on necro whether its an event where you really get to appreciate the cap of 25 or if its when this nice mesmer drops quickness and you go full speed into the bleed cap wall, its things like this that make you appreciate just how well certain things in the game are made.
I am not trying to troll you. But I had seen so many posts like this defending necro, or saying necros are great. I want to point out why this doesn’t work.
Necro got spectral wall. So what? What are you trying to achieve here? Are you going to say in team chat “Hi everyone! Walk into my Spectral Wall plz! ^^” ? In wvw it is way too chaotic and laggy to get anything like that done. Heck, even telling a zerg of players to rally to the commander is difficult. Players just don’t listen ever. For “buffs” there are far better options.
Necro got debuffs and conditions. So what? What are you trying to achieve here? No one in the enemy zerg would even notice, since all conditions get removed in seconds.
And necro start off with 0 condition damage just like any other professions, without traits and equipments. It aren’t like they get higher condition damage to start with.
If you objective is to buff, a guardian can buff much better. If you objective is to kill, direct damage is much better, and can be done better on other professions. Debuff is indeed a unique necro mechanic, but its effect in wvw is very minimal. Other professions can re-apply buffs faster than you can debuff them.
Unless you know the objective of the guy that you are talking to, you cannot convince him that necro is great. You need to know that guy’s end game. Pointing out specific traits or skills won’t work.
For example, when I was running a MM build a while back, I found that Bone Minions dies way too fast against zergs. To fix this problem, I use Spectral Wall to buff my Bone Minions, so they can survive long enough to reach someone, before I blow them up with Putrid Explosion.
So is Spectral Wall great or sucks? Well I can’t say either way. It really depends on what you are doing with it. It depends on your objective. My objective was to keep the Bone Minions alive in a zerg, so I can use Putrid Explosion. For that purpose, its great. But if another player have another objective, it might not work like this. This got nothing to do with L2P. Its purely objective based.
As you can see it is very hard to explain this to a new player. Necro objectives are often very specific. And that’s why it is hard to recommand this class to a new player. It is hard to explain.
Chipsy Chips(Necromancer) & Char Ashnoble(Thief)
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
(edited by CHIPS.6018)
Most classes have a “power” build and a “condition build”.
Our class is at least gaining notability in one area: WvW. In WvW skilled groups bring necros. Nobody does the AoE better then us. Wells, Marks, DS siphon and countless other AoE’s on all of are other weapons not to mention Epidemic.
But if we’re talking class focus, its condition and boon control. Even our power builds apply conditions and strip boons. Our focus, from a skill focus point of view, is on ‘conversion’.
We turn enemy boons into liabilities. We apply mass conditions to the enemy while removing them en masse from our own team. We steal their life, and add it to our own hp. We turn the tables on the enemy like a see-saw. Do we do the highest damage? No, our bleeds aren’t the strongest, our burst isn’t good and our defense is meh. Yet we win so many battles. That is because we take away the enemies ability to make war.
I’ve seen necros destroy in 1v1 duels yeas its harder then playing other classes but a
0/30/10/0/30 s/d staff fear damage necro can destroy people 1v1 if they are good cuz when I use it I suck but am getting better have beaten some good people with it
Our class is at least gaining notability in one area: WvW. In WvW necros follow the mindless zerg. Nobody tags the enemy better then us, without dealing any noticeable damage. Wells, Marks, DS siphon and countless other AoE’s on all of are other weapons not to mention Epidemic.
fixed that for you. Seriously, wells are not at all good damage, people use them because they tick often and do just enough damage in an area to get the tag, but they hardly ever kill anyone. Ironically, epidemic doesn’t even really work with wells that well (power builds).
Seriously, go to the mists, make a full power build and drop a well at a golem’s feet. It will scrape off health very slowly, and the target has to stand inside the circle for the full duration, which no non-braindead opponent would ever do…
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