Guild Wars 2

My main is a Mesmer. I’ve tinkered with Necro but only for a few levels. I’m really interested in the class, and at least it’s pretty cool-and-stuff for the beginning.

I was thinking I’d like to level a Necro alongside my Mes, or at least get more into it, so I start checking the forums everyday, and it’s all so bad.

Is the class really as bad and broken as it’s made out to be? I’ve seen some complaints on mesmer forum that are easily dismissed as learn to play issues, but mostly alot of love for mes that I can relate to. I’d really like to level a necro, but it seems pointless to try from the forums.

Is it really a horribly broken class? Is it a vocal minority of bad players filling the forums?
If the class really is so bad, why is anyone even playing it or discussing it so passionately?

I hope this isn’t taken as trolling. I’d really like to get into necro, but forum basically says don’t bother.

I think the justification most players have for their necromancer complaint(s) is:
“Why play a necromancer when it takes 2 minutes to create one of the more reliable classes for s/tpvp.”

And unfortunately, they are correct. Take a look at the next few pvp games you play, and count the ratio of mesmer/thief/warrior to necromancer. Players that continue to use the necromancer in s/tpvp enjoy the play-style, regardless of good or badly it performs. This doesn’t mean they entirely ignore the problems with the class, but choose to look past them for an enjoyable experience.

In PvE, you can basically roll with any class, in any spec, and still do well when combined with other players doing the same thing. It may not be optimal, but as long as you kill the boss, finish the instance, and collect your loot, it doesn’t really matter. Yet again, this doesn’t mean necromancer is in a good spot. Just take a look at the bug post, and I’m sure you’ll begin to understand why so many necromancers are expressing their frustration.

Even though I’ve seen how awesome Mesmers can be in PvP, I have yet to PvP any in this game. I just PvE and done a couple dungeons so far.

I’ve noticed most of the mesmer complaint threads are about mes being hard in pve. I can’t really speak about pvp, but it seems to me I see twice as many necros out in the world as mes.

I’ve looked over the bug list, and I’ve read alot of posts and tried to discern what is really wrong with the class. The impression is just that alot of people want to like the class, but that even your best efforts won’t be worth it. I watched Nemesis videos, and even though he has an 80 and seems to know what he’s talking about his methods have been trashed as well.

Kayotik got the right idea here… pve is… it doesn’t really matter you can go w/o a single trait point spet and no utilities and still faceroll.
In pvp however… necro is trash period. There is 1 spec that works. But is easily overpowered by the fact that engineer can out perform in that field.
And for the… necro is support class claims. Elementalist/guardian/mesmer/engineer and to a degree even ranger is miles ahead.
The absolute HIGHEST damage you can get is 5k… which last for few shots. If you got your mesmer anywhere you know 5k is easily achievable with every other class. Necro also has no CC at all. There are few 1 sec fears which really don’t make kitten for difference.
All in all… just open bug compilation topic which is even stickied. Forget balance and sanity and being competent compared with other classes. Just look at the bug list. Don’t even need to look at our “made in china” trait trees. Just bugs alone.
Been necro since about ~10 seconds after servers went live for early access and necro is still my only char. I got 1 more char which is place holder for a name. But I haven’t logged on that name holder since i made it about… 20 seconds after i finished making my main.
God is my witness I think necro is by far the most pathetic class in mmo I have seen in… well… probably since warlock at wow launch. But it was simply unfinished class. Here its just broken. And any attempt to ask anet on wtf is going on is met with topics deletion/locking.
We were officially promised and told necro class needs love and we will get it. Back at BWE… what happened you ask? Scepter was almost halved. That was biggest nerf we got so far.
Then we were ignored in first patches completely for a month or so. While fully functioning classes were getting balanced/fixed. We finally got few fixes which ended up as nerfs. BIP to name 1… was single reliable way for our one and only working pvp spec to get life force… now its gone.
I won’t reroll but neither will I ever recommend to anyone to bother with this kitten class.

Ya :/

I guess the only thing I can ask again is: Why is anyone playing a necro?

Necromancer has some very good concepts for it, but bugs and glitches are happening faster than they are removed from the game. That is the most demoralizing thing about the class.

We aint bad, just broken to the very bones, just as the ones we return to life.

HiSaZuL.2843 – Not true, you cant faceroll dungoens no matter what unless you have a good trait and utility setup and a good team (at least the non exploitable ones), but that is intended, final PvE is always 10 times harder than any type of PvP since it involves fighting the unbalanced.

MrMacAndCheese.3907 – because… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHeonscEzdI

Mesmers are truly awful creatures to level-up in pve, to the point I’m thinking of levelling mine through crafting or just not wasting the matts and finding something else to do. That is offset by my Necro, who admittedly is tooled out with shiny gear, but even when it wasn’t, was relatively steady to level and I did 75% of it in wvw without feeling inordinately disadvantaged.
Part of that I would put down to being in early release, everyone else is running around in crap gear with crap skills, barely any traits and no hit points, so lighting them up with dots tended to cause them a lot of pain…. In the contemporary period, 10,250+ kills later, its still causing a lot of pain, I’ve found a few more ways to keep people dying and I don’t die that much so its not completely boned to the point of un-playability.

Dunno about the little instanced matches as they don’t interest me, people do play them there, but they do complain a lot more than I do. That is also, not to say they are not unwarranted complaints either, necros have “the most” bugs in the game that are getting fixed at roughly the speed of continental drift, (we’re still finding a couple more from time to time) and calling minions anything less than complete and utter morons would be an insult to village idiots everywhere.

You get one of ‘the best’ self-heals in the game, lots of hit points and a couple of dual-purpose skills like Spectral Walk, Blood is Power and Epidemic which are also excellent and I spray them about like an excited puppy (ok, thats really only because everything else is factually bugged or completely mediocre imo)

Specs, there’s a mediocre but mostly functional condition spec, the power spec is either love it, hate it a lot (consensus is mostly hate) and then there is the minon spec which is something of a liability to your own sanity and safety.

Depends just what you want to do I guess

Andele as much as I loved raiding in wow more then the rest of that game combined. PvE npcs don’t think. They do same thing. Its a matter of learning what npcs do and when then using a strategy to win. And dungeons are one part of pve in most cases. Once you consider grind for legendaries/karma/mats etc… Dungeons are also a small part of it.
I cleared explorables that were supposedly mega hard with a full group of ranged… I mean we had no guardian no warrior and no thief… We still finished it. Even tho not a single one of us was there before and knew who does what and when. It was simple perseverance. Didn’t not have rage quiters simple as that.
Guess all im trying to say as much as i prefer pve over pvp. PvP is still part of the game. And in our case a bigger part of the game. We don’t have raids we don’t have anything that works in that fashion. We do have more then usual PvP related content. SPvP,tPvP WvW… WvW also carries weight. And determines state of server. If server does kitteny in WvW it tends to loose people fast. As much as I dislike getting involved in pissing contest over who got bigger kitten and more “skills” at pressing buttons. In GW2 case pvp carries more weight.

@Thresher.3049
Lol brother.
I play so much pvp as condition I honestly can’t deal with pve in any other shape then full MM. Granted like i said its pve so I actually don’t have much problem. Its still buggy still requires patience of an Egyptian sphinx statue and tolerance of an angel… but im just sick of swinging scepter.

Everyone is sick of swinging the sceptre.
I actually went out and spent some of the 300 odd skill points I had lying around (none invested in minions except the Flesh Idiot… boy, that was a mistake) and bought the Snow Leopard Norn skill the other day for a laugh :p
Sneaky cat necro!
(Ok it doesnt kill much either but I did laugh)

Dude… the human tree shape is epic. Sadly i found it more useful then death shroud. Talk about sad state of affairs. Kinda wish I could use race skills in spvp -_-

HiSaZuL.2843 – say that to Giganticus Lupicus, SE story golem 2 (that took 4 times as much time and coordination than all other bosses together in SE), most undead priests in seer path (the non afk kite ones) and a nice chunk of other bosses will not like that you said that. Also you can finish all dungeons with a full ranged team, but one still needs a “tank”/main meat shield to hold aggro or kite.
Consume conditions is far from the best, it is strong for 1v1, but best are Healing Signet, Troll Unguent and Signet of Resolve.

Necro doesn’t feel like a broken class to me. I think the main problem that Minion spec is broken, and let’s face it, a lot of people drawn to necros would want to play that. There are other bugs, but if you fixed minions, the other bugs would seem more reasonable.

However, compared to Mesmer (in PvP at least) Necro is going to feel a lot worse. Mesmer is still slightly OP if you ask me, and Necro isn’t.

Cribbage.2056 – dude under a specific trait setup (20 into curses and 30 into blood) with vampiric trait we are actually able to troll/grief people by healing the enemies with wells, especially if you got a lot of crit chance… Not to mention the copy condition, not stun break unless targeted and overall pretty anal plague signet, most skills having under a 40~50% ratio with power, conditions being derped because people whiled that they were “too good” if they didnt have a condition removal (that was the freaking point of necros) and axe being useless… yeah just a little bugs… hell minions seem appealing if you actually think about some bugs other trait lines have, but the fact that horrors revive downed enemies upon death (and they die in 2 seconds) just is the final ruin. We are good on paper, but we are broken since most our class doesnt work on paper. Best reason why to play a necro, grief thiefs and mesmers with chills and the lovely sadly pretty projectile bugged spectral grasp, you will feel like a kitten krait each time you yank someone.

Minion ai can go to hell… I got a full bag of bugs that chase me from ever bothering with anything other then conditions.
Hell since they “fixed” epidemic and bip i don’t want to play condition any more either.
Maybe instead of fixing we should ask to be left a lone? Any more of anet fixes and this class is going to be actually fully unplayable.
Yep like andele said…
I do love healing my enemies… it makes perfect sense.
While mesmer can moa you… and dispel all your minions your kittenhroud your plague and your lich form all in 1 swooping motion.

My main is a Necro. They’re helpfull on wvwvw or pvp, because if someone flees from a fight you can stun and cripple. So I don’t think they are that bad :| they are just support

I think the thing that makes warrior, mesmer and thief rule PVP is the human element.

Warrior simply hit hard. So if they can blindside their target, bam they are down. This because anything other than another warrior, necro with full LF, and perhaps guardian, are a soft target.

Mesmer because they have the potential to confuse the hell out of players. One clone retreat that break target lock and you have the ball rolling.

Thief because of stealth. If their initial attack fails to gain them a serious advantage they can stealth and find some other target.

The rest of the professions are not that lucky. Sure, elementalist can hit as hard as a warrior. But any protracted fight and the player really needs to know his keyboard so he can move and switch attunements as required by the flow. Necromancer and guardian can bunker up to try to outlive their opposition, and the rest can basically run in circles while spamming ranged attacks.

Tried necro in spvp for the first time tonight. Easy mode.

While some of the bugs are unacceptable, the class is still playable. If the bugs ever get fixed it will be OP.

I play Necro partly because of the aesthetics, partly because so few play it and partly because I want to master it.
Also I just plain enjoy it for whatever reason.

Many of the complaints are true.
Most of Necro’s traits are just plain bad or don’t work, Dagger and Axe builds are underpowered (and are getting a buff at some point!) which really only leaves us with the Staff and Scepter while we wait for bug fixes and buffs.

However the Necros using Staff/Scepter are pretty alright in PvE, Dungeons included.
Well of Darkness is great in Dungeons, it works a lot like Elementalist’s Sandstorm to help the people in front lines.
If you get the trait that makes your Blinds inflict 1 second Chills that’s 5 pulses of Chill as well!

While many Professions can stack conditions faster than a Necro you can take advantage of it and use Epidemic to transfer that 25 bleed stack from the main target to 5 other enemies around it.

Flesh Wurm allows you to completely skip some of the traps in Dungeons, just don’t forget to swap it out for actual combat.
Death Shroud is insanely useful in dungeons as well.
The constant deaths feed your Life Force like crazy, especially things like graveling hatchlings that just swarm everywhere.
…I’m not surprised if that’ll actually get nerfed, much how GW1’s Soul Reaping got a delay mechanic.

If a melee creature knocks you down you can hit Death Shroud+Doom and often survive it without a stun breaker.
Not always, but quite often. You just need to be fast.
While Doom is a very short Fear it’s instant cast and thus works even while knocked down.
Fear seems to ignore most Crown Control protections the nastier monsters have, which means you can interrupt a lot of really nasty attacks.
It’s something you learn to use over time.

Necromancers have as much health as Warriors do, so you can often res people where an Elementalist or a Mesmer would just instantly melt. (Just don’t res Defeated people in combat!)

In many parts of the Dungeons where you usually want a Warrior or a Guardian to defend something you can substitute it with a Necro.
Just don’t try to tank the way Warrior and Guardians do. (Life Stealing is useless atm)
Kite in circles, use Grasping Dead, Chillblains and traited Well of Darkness and you’ll live for a very long time unless you get unlucky or mess up.

I also like using Mark of Evasion and the Staff’s Mark of Blood to keep up Regeneration on myself.
It doesn’t heal much but every bit helps!

Putrid Mark isn’t as good as some of the Condition removal other Professions have, but since it’s a Staff skill you usually have it right there with you without having to fit it in an Utility slot.

In WvW you have Elementalist’s Range and Warrior’s Health, so you won’t die very often if you play it safe.
On the downside your damage is nowhere near that of Elementalists and in 1vs1 you’ll probably lose unless the other guy is just running away mindlessly.

Epidemic can be very good in WvW though.
Marks also have the advantage of hitting instantly, while Elementalist’s spells take time to do their thing.

I don’t know much about sPvP, but from what I’ve read Necros are just plain underpowered there.
You’ll constantly run out of Life Force and deal nowhere near the damage everybody else does.
People are too smart to stand in wells unless you hit them with Dark Pact and get them messed up that way.

I’ve seen videos of people kicking butt as a Necro in PvP, but it’d be easier to do the same with any other Profession from the sound of it.
That’s just hear-say though. I don’t do sPvP so I don’t know. Sorry.

on tournaments exist important bugs that make this class not so great, a condition build necro with corruptt boon (miss lot of times for no reason) and plague signet broken(BS dont even work many times, is a BS should just need hit plague signet and work period and dont forget dont do almost nothing to support your team) cant be defined as great.

to defend a point exist better classes than necro for that job…

on pve are one of worst classes to farm rare item on events. full condition necro are amazing crap to farm material on DE lvl80 because most of mobs are weak mobs that die very quick with AoE wich dont give you time to apply damage with bleeds.
to farm with necro the only option is have at least 1500 power, WoS and WoC (or BiP) and the obvious spectral walk because you need to jump from one event to another very quick (warhorn even traited in not enought) unless you dont care about karma and just want rare material.
so two weapon are obvious, the warhorn and the staff, but what other weapon choose? dagger MH is useless to farm DE, so we have axe and scepter, but i prefer scpeter , actually my farm build have near 2k power and lot of precision and i still prefer scepter to axe since i dont need any retaliation on DE (mobs dont even have almost any chance hit someone unless they are bosses) and axe only AoE is unholy feat that do almost same damage than grasping dead that have lower CD and more range.

you need lot of power so you can hit hard with WoS, LF and marks, epidemic is useless to farm since mobs die in 2-4s, so between the 1s cast time of epidemic plus put any significant amount of bleeds to spread and the fact that probably almost mobs around will be almost dead if arent dead already make epidemic terrible to farm DE.

minions on GW2? i never see so bad AI on ’pets" in any mmorpg i ever played, lot of time they just dont do nothing if you atack with scepter and staff (that basically are the weapon almost every necro use).

dungeons: so far i did AC, TA, CM and CoF all were easy but necros are great on dungeons, good survivability and epidemic, WoD, spectral wall , plague are amazing to support your team

so why i still play with necro? because i like the playstyle of the class and arah light armour only look good on a Necro xd

Dear OP.
Stop reading on the forums and follow your hearth.
If you want to try it just try it
I have been main tanking for 5 years (in wow) and never had a ranger class.
Now my main is a Necro here in GW2.
Guess why?
Because she is really cute.

Who cares of “performace”… I just want to have some fun while playing

My main is a Mesmer but in sPvP I play Ele and Necro because they are fun for me. Both have a large number of bugs (last time I counted the ones in the Ele bug thread there were 95 listed bugs, which included function, visual, and tooltip bugs of course) but I really enjoy the playstyles of each.
I think you can make any profession work for you, whether it’s in PvE or PvP. Some have it easier than others but not to the point where the convenience outweighs the fun factor.

Short answer is “No, we aren’t really that bad”.

We have bugged traits and abilities like any other class, and we suffer from a very lackluster overall trait design.

However, we do do pretty decent in PvE, and perform very well in large scale WvW. For sPvP you obviously don’t need to invest much energy in a new toon to figure that out.