Is the necro viable in raids and fractals? I’m thinking about powering a necro to 80 for raids and fractals as my main. I haven’t really played since release. I figure with the elite spec and hot to might be pretty good.
Keep in mind, pretty much everything is viable in this game, but viable =/= optimal, so some people might not want to have you in their party for various reasons.
low dps and not a lot of group support. this will somewhat change when HoT comes out (the dps part atleast). However, a lot of the new elites seem to self sustain might and boons, so it will be interesting how everything plays out
Necro is a very selfish class, it lacks meaningful team support and utility. We have some, but it is either very niche or other classes simply do the same things much better.
In addition to that, our damage is on the low end when compared to other professions as well. Reaper addresses that to a certain extent, but it is not nearly enough to catch up I feel.
On the other side, we still don´t know yet what exactly raids and 50+ fractals have in store for us. Maybe our natural sustain and self-sufficiency will give us an edge over other professions in certain scenarios, but we´ll have to wait and see I guess.
The ability to strip boons, prevent health loss while downed, vampiric aura, healing from DS #4, etc… I see that as doing a lot to help the party. Also, I have always seen my necro as a tanky healer. I can get into the midst of the fight and survive a long time, healing other melee people and, if they go down, I can keep the boss’s attention while other team members finish reviving them.
Selfish? No… not in its basics. People playing them selfishly… totally can see that in any class.
However, if you find people that are going to QQ about what class you play… block em and find better people to play with. Elitists are in and ruin every game, you just have to avoid them.
Lets examine the basic reason for forming a party/group. Strength in numbers…essentially being stronger as a group…making each other better. That’s exactly what the necromancer/reaper does not do anywhere near as well as any other profession. I see people listing all the things that other players generally are not looking for teammates to provide…as strengths of the reaper in instanced play…and it baffles me (help ressing, tiny heals instead of spike healing, tanking, self-ish sustain). What pve instanced parties are generally looking for are things that make the group and the individuals stronger at the same time. They generally want things that are going to keep them from getting downed in the first place. They generally want things that are going to kill the enemies faster. They are generally looking for teammates that will provide things they don’t already have…or in a more efficient manner than they can already. Unfortunately necromancers/reapers are still lacking in that…apparently by design. I will say that the reaper is absolutely amazing in open world though. It was far and away the most fun and easiest profession to play in pure open world PvE…pretty much where teammates and group contribution does not matter.
Lets examine the basic reason for forming a party/group. Strength in numbers…essentially being stronger as a group…making each other better. That’s exactly what the necromancer/reaper does not do anywhere near as well as any other profession. I see people listing all the things that other players generally are not looking for teammates to provide…as strengths of the reaper in instanced play…and it baffles me (help ressing, tiny heals instead of spike healing, tanking, self-ish sustain). What pve instanced parties are generally looking for are things that make the group and the individuals stronger at the same time. They generally want things that are going to keep them from getting downed in the first place. They generally want things that are going to kill the enemies faster. They are generally looking for teammates that will provide things they don’t already have…or in a more efficient manner than they can already. Unfortunately necromancers/reapers are still lacking in that…apparently by design. I will say that the reaper is absolutely amazing in open world though. It was far and away the most fun and easiest profession to play in pure open world PvE…pretty much where teammates and group contribution does not matter.
So your saying the other classes are weak and need other classes to stay alive? About right.
Necros doen’t need the rest of the group to stay alive. I usually find myself in pugs scraping the noobs off the floor after they die.
Ignore the META Elite nonsense. Once the OP’ed Frost Bow gets nerfed to the ground and the NOOB STACKING of might goes away. The games going to change. At least I hope it is.
Remember a dead player puts out ZERO DPS. Necros don’t die very easy. Funny because in 90% of my pugs.. my NECRO doesn’t get out DPS’ed very often. Are they usually high dps.. NO but the META perfect class only puts out perfect dps if the moon aligns and all the other classes are played perfectly aligned with META. That doesn’t happen often. Play what you like. Ignore the Elite META bullies and just dungeon with a group of 4 other necros… :P
from what I’ve seen from the raid content playable this weekend the first 3 mini bosses require you to strip boons and another is only vulnerable to condis which reaper can pump out very nicely so yes I think it will be optimal to include reaper in raids.
Lets examine the basic reason for forming a party/group. Strength in numbers…essentially being stronger as a group…making each other better. That’s exactly what the necromancer/reaper does not do anywhere near as well as any other profession. I see people listing all the things that other players generally are not looking for teammates to provide…as strengths of the reaper in instanced play…and it baffles me (help ressing, tiny heals instead of spike healing, tanking, self-ish sustain). What pve instanced parties are generally looking for are things that make the group and the individuals stronger at the same time. They generally want things that are going to keep them from getting downed in the first place. They generally want things that are going to kill the enemies faster. They are generally looking for teammates that will provide things they don’t already have…or in a more efficient manner than they can already. Unfortunately necromancers/reapers are still lacking in that…apparently by design. I will say that the reaper is absolutely amazing in open world though. It was far and away the most fun and easiest profession to play in pure open world PvE…pretty much where teammates and group contribution does not matter.
So your saying the other classes are weak and need other classes to stay alive? About right.
Necros doen’t need the rest of the group to stay alive. I usually find myself in pugs scraping the noobs off the floor after they die.
Ignore the META Elite nonsense. Once the OP’ed Frost Bow gets nerfed to the ground and the NOOB STACKING of might goes away. The games going to change. At least I hope it is.
Remember a dead player puts out ZERO DPS. Necros don’t die very easy. Funny because in 90% of my pugs.. my NECRO doesn’t get out DPS’ed very often. Are they usually high dps.. NO but the META perfect class only puts out perfect dps if the moon aligns and all the other classes are played perfectly aligned with META. That doesn’t happen often. Play what you like. Ignore the Elite META bullies and just dungeon with a group of 4 other necros… :P
Its strange watching someone react to things that never happened. I say this since no one had anything to say about a meta in this conversation until your verbal barrage here. The OP asked a question and answers were provided. Apparently that means you attack as a result? If you have personal issues, try to contain them please. The answers in this thread were logical answers. The only response in this thread that looks like it came from a bi-polar person is the one with caps lock turrets syndrome and grade school name calling. I’m sorry you don’t like anyone to talk about the way necros/reapers are designed, but that does not change the way they are designed…just because you don’t want to hear it. They are the least contributors to PvE instanced groups in regards to the things that people would generally group for (boons, buffs, utilities). That’s not something an evil elitist bully made up to exclude you with. That’s pretty much a design intent from ANET…they have said as much multiple times. They are showing you that with their continuation of that intent with the new espec. That does not mean that they are not PvE viable, and I did not say they weren’t. This has nothing to do with any elitists or any meta. This is a logical conclusion from design of the game and the content type the OP asked about. Boons do not look to be a thing they are phasing out anytime soon. Boons and utilities are the primary mechanisms by which party members increase each other’s potential. I’ll just leave it at that as far as letting people come to a conclusion as to the ranking of professions in that context. It has nothing to do with any profession being weak. If the strongest person in the world was grouped with an equally or comparatively strong partner…clearly that only improves their potential.
On a side note, I find it hilarious how the most negative and aggressive posts are always from the people calling everyone else names like elitists and bullies.
from what I’ve seen from the raid content playable this weekend the first 3 mini bosses require you to strip boons and another is only vulnerable to condis which reaper can pump out very nicely so yes I think it will be optimal to include reaper in raids.
The problem with boon stripping is that Thieves and especially Mesmers are much better at it. They can do it without specifically having to trait or slot certain utilities for it, while simultaneously bringing other valuable things to the party.
Mobs that are only vulnerable to conditions aren´t helping us either unfortunately. Necros are good at controlling conditions, but our condi application is very slow. I haven´t played around much with condi Reaper, but I´m pretty sure that e.g. Engineers and Rangers still outclass us in that department as well (I´ve also heard people theorycrafting about crazy things like Venom-share Daredevils =P).
That being said, this is purely about optimization. As is, optimized groups have not been necessary to complete anything in PvE. Don´t let the fact that Necro currently isn´t part of that turn you off from playing the class!
Most of the people who point at Necro now, will still point at us. But who cares, the block list seems to be endless
Play with people that prefer to have fun, not with kittens!
The community is very hostile towards anyone who isn’t a warrior/guardian/ele/mesmer sometimes thief. So unless things change you will continue to see elitist players who will try to kick you just for playing necro. The fact is necromancers have high survivability and are viable for whatever it is you like. If you like how necromancer plays, absolutely go ahead and level it up
I have played most classes mained a thief for a while when the game came out then a ele for the most part recently switched to necro coz never played it before and wanted to see how the class is specialy coz i liked the look of reaper. I love necro the game play the wells in wvw and pvp and have not evan played reaper yet . im sticking to necro dont care what ppl say about dmg/ support ect the goal is no have fun and enjoy the game , if someone complains in pve block them.
Chill to the bone !
Level 80 Necro, elementalist, thief, ranger, mesmer, warrior
Well its good to see all the posts and discussion from you guys, but why is arenanet explicitly designing necromancers to have less group buffs? I know that for a long time there hasn’t really been a large focus on pve for guild wars, but I feel like there would be some normalization of buffs between classes so that they atleast bring alittle something more to the table.
I know the answer is going to be pvp balance, but oh well.
Anet will have to make surviving a bigger part of raids for necros to be accepted along with the new changes catching us up in the dps category a bit.
The plus necro has is survivability without taking away from DPS too much. Thanks to our bonuses like Decimate Defenses and +50% critical chance in shroud, we can ignore precision and take something like valkyrie(power, precision,ferocity), maybe sprinkle some toughness in there if needed and lose very little offensive capability, especially in an environment where the raid group will quickly stack vulnerability on important dps phases, virtually eliminating our need for precision.
Each point of vitality is more useful to necro because of shroud than it would be for other classes. Necro can also go pure tank with soldier gear and the death magic line, which makes us very tanky especially against large packs of mobs.
Also if mechanics force the raid to split up, necros don’t need anyone to stack might and vulnerability. We also now have a decent projectile block and we can boon strip. While we lack boon sharing, hopefully thsee things combined with our des and survivability will make necros seem like less of a burden for groups.
so yes I think it will be optimal to include reaper in raids.