Guild Wars 2

I’m doing a full review of each class’s Elite Specializations here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/All-Elite-Specializations-Analysis/first#post5574892

The following is my analysis of the Reaper.

I’ll be covering the following things in this review…
01) General Descriptions
02) New Traits Analysis
03) New Weapon Analysis
04) New Skills Analysis
05) Gearing Options
06) Rune/Sigil Synergies
07) PvE Usefulness
08) PvP Usefulness
09) WvW Usefulness
10) Overall Opinion

Necromancer – Reaper

General Description
The Reaper is a class that really re-defines how we look at Necromancers. Traditionally Necromancers are viewed as one of three different things…

1) Condi Overlords – dishing out conditions constantly and removing/consuming/transforming/ or transferring them to other players when conditions are applied to them.
2) Power Gods – using Lich Form to boost their Power stat temporarily these Necromancers focus on sheer devastating power to destroy their foes.
3) Minion Masters – summoning many minions to either tank damage, remove/apply conditions, or overwhelm your target with numbers. These Necromancers are the most classic type and used by many beginning players because of the simple learning curve. They provide a decent presence in all game modes and can be very good anywhere there isn’t lots of powerful AoE.

The Reaper can enhance any of these basic types and also make for some interesting hybrid options. The Reaper is primarily designed around being a close-combat style class which is unlike most Necromancer play-styles. However, it provides many defensive and support options to sustain itself in battle. The most notable feature of the Reaper is that it becomes more terrifying the more enemies you have around you. This makes it incredibly useful in all game modes.

New Traits Analysis

Minor Traits
Shroud Knight:
This grants access to Reaper Shroud and the Greatsword
Reaper Shroud is an augmented version of Death Shroud in which all 5 of your skills are changed into Reaper Shroud variants. These will all inherit the mechanical changes that other traits would provide to a standard Death Shroud skill. For example: If a trait says you gain Might by using your Shroud 1 skill – this will apply to either Reaper Shroud’s or Death Shroud’s first skill. Most mechanical features of each Death Shroud skill have been preserved in one way or another in the Reaper Shroud variant.
Shivers of Dread:
Inflicting Fear causes Chill.
Due to Reaper Shroud’s #3 flip-skill having Fear it won’t matter how you build your Necromancer – you’ll always be able to make use of this trait.
Cold Shoulder:
Chill lasts longer and Chilled foes deal -10% damage to you.
This has amazing synergy with the rest of the normal traits and skills of this class.

Adept Traits
Augury of Death:
Shouts siphon health and recharge faster for each foe hit.
Fantastic synergy if using shouts and surrounded by enemies.
Chilling Nova:
Critical hits against Chilled foes cause an explosion that damages and chills
adjacent foes. — 10s ICD
If focusing on maintaining Chill – this can be a great trait.
Relentless Pursuit:
Reduces Immob, Cripple, Chill durations by 33% and 66% while in shroud.
This is more a utility trait and likely not going to be widely used.

Master Traits
Soul Eater:
Reduces recharge on greatsword skills and Gravedigger (GS #3) steals health on hit.
This can be good if you have a lot of high health enemies to spam Gravedigger on or if you just have 4+ Reapers running around you can spam Nightfall for perma-blind.
Chilling Victory:
Striking a Chilled foe grants Might and Life Force. — 1s ICD
With the 1s ICD this skill isn’t as powerful as it may seem at first, but it is still a decent way to add a bit more Might into your build if needed.
Decimate Defenses:
Striking a foe with vulnerability increases your critical hit chance.
This is a very powerful trait if used correctly and can open up a very large array of new possibilities for the Necromancer in general.

Grandmaster Traits
Blighter’s Boon:
Gain Life Force when you gain a Boon. If you are in Reaper’s Shroud, gain health instead.
This trait is very unique allowing for you to heal your own health bar while in Reaper’s Shroud. Many traits can pair very well with this allowing for some amazing recovery methods.
Deathly Chill:
Chill deals damage, with additional damage to foes below 50% health.
With all the Chill options available now this can lead to some very interesting combinations of traits. A good synergy option is to pair this with “Terror” which makes Fear deal damage too.
Reaper’s Onslaught:
Attack faster while in Reaper’s Shroud. Killing a foe in Shroud reduces all Shroud skill recharges by 5 seconds.
Depending on circumstance – this skill can leave you permanently in Reaper’s Shroud – making you unkillable. This is because your #4 skill can regain Life Force as it hits foes. If you hit enough foes and kill a few weaker ones fast enough you can spam Soul Spiral until everything is dead.

New Weapon Analysis
The Reaper gains access to the Greatsword.

Auto-Attack
This attack chain will gain you Life Force and Chill your target upon completion. Depending on your traits you may also gain Might each time you complete the attack chain.
Gravedigger — 8s ICD
This attack is your single most powerful hitting attack when not in Lich Form or Reaper’s Shroud. If any foe hit is below 50% health this instantly recharges.
Death Spiral — 12s ICD
This attack is great for building Vulnerability and Life Force.
Nightfall — 25s ICD
A simple Blind field that grows in size.
Grasping Darkness — 30s ICD
A simple Pull that Chills and grants Life Force.

New Skills Analysis
The Reaper gains access to Shouts.

“Your Soul is Mine!” — 20s ICD
Heal self, damage foes, and gain Life Force per foe struck.
Decent heal and Life Force gain.
“You are all Weaklings!” — 30s ICD
Damages and Weakens foes while granting you Might per struck foe and Breaking Stun.
Great way to start a fight strong.
“Suffer!” — 30s ICD
Damages foes Chilling them and transferring 1 condition from you to each foe struck.
Good way to keep damage down and condi-cleanse.
“Nothing can save you!” — 25s ICD
Damages foes while converting 2 of their boons into Vulnerability. Your attacks become unblockable for a duration based on the number of foes struck.
Powerful in group fights.
“Rise!” — 40s ICD
Damages foes while summoning Shambling Horrors per foe struck + one for using the skill. These minions absorb 50% of the incoming damage to their master as long as they are attacking.
Amazing in group fights. This can have some incredible synergy with Death Magic.
“Chilled to the bone!” — 90s ICD
Damage and stun all enemies around you inflicting Chill and gaining Stability for each foe struck.
Very strong in group fights and has a long Chill application.

Gearing Options
The following are acceptable gearing types to consider for a Reaper.

NOTE: These are types that can work depending on the overall goal of your build. They are not all equal as some are much better than others.

Power: Berserker’s, Soldier’s, Valkyrie
Precision: Rampager’s
Toughness: Knight’s, Cavalier’s, Settler’s
Vitality: Sentinel’s
Condition: Sinister, Carrion, Rabid, Dire
Healing: Cleric’s, Apothecary’s

Rune/Sigil Synergies

NOTE: These are types that can work depending on the overall goal of your build. They are not all equal as some are much better than others.

Superior Rune of (the)…
Power: Elementalist, Hoelbrak, Mad King, Scholar, Strength
Precision: Eagle, Lyssa, Ranger, Thief
Toughness: Svanir
Vitality: Exuberance, Ice, Lich, Radiance, Trooper (Soldier)
Condition: Adventurer, Aristocracy, Grenth, Krait, Necromancer, Nightmare, Scavenging, Undead
Healing: Water

Superior Sigil of…
Attribute Bonus: Force, Malice
Duration Bonus: Agony, Chilling, Paralyzation, Peril, Smoldering, Venom
Chance on Hit: Ice, Water, Purity
Chance on Crit: Air, Blood, Fire, Generosity, Nullification, Rage, Strength, Torment
On Kill: Luck, Restoration, Bloodlust, Corruption, Cruelty, Momentum
On Swap: Battle, Cleansing, Doom, Hydromancy, Leeching, Renewal

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

PvP Usefulness
Useful in team fights – less so in solo fights.

WvW Usefulness
Much like the PvE note – it is very powerful when involved with a group of players and groups of enemies. But, much like the PvP note – this is not the most ideal for roaming.

Overall Opinion
I personally find the Reaper very easy to play. It has great synergy with many of the other specialization choices and has a multitude of options when it comes to viable builds. This is something I would recommend to any new player just trying out HoT due to the much simpler learning curve involved.

Some very interesting opinions, also an overall pretty “rosy”, superficial look at things. Nothing wrong with that, but it reads more like something ANet would use as a specialization preview than a real review of the specialization.

As a note, Reaper’s Onslaught is easily the strongest and most widely useful adept trait in PvP/WvW, and Soul Spiral generates no LF.

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

Sadly, Organized PvE content is more about what you bring to the party outside of your DPS than just DPS. Dagger auto attack have always been pretty good. I think the reaper/necromancer need more support (It’s always been the case), today it’s still stand in the same place as it always have : Just a DPS.

Bhawb.7408:

As a note, Reaper’s Onslaught is easily the strongest and most widely useful adept trait in PvP/WvW, and Soul Spiral generates no LF.

Reaper’s Onslaught is a Grandmaster trait and certainly useful, but it was noted that the +15% attack speed was still broken making it less impressive to use last I read the bug listings.

Also Soul Spiral does actually generate LF along with Healing if using Transfusion.

Soul Spiral: “Spiral and damage nearby foes, dealing high damage. This skill inherits traits from Life Transfer.”

Life Transfer: “Damage nearby foes and steal their life force.”

Dadnir.5038:

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

Sadly, Organized PvE content is more about what you bring to the party outside of your DPS than just DPS. Dagger auto attack have always been pretty good. I think the reaper/necromancer need more support (It’s always been the case), today it’s still stand in the same place as it always have : Just a DPS.

There is certainly a fair amount of support options available depending on perspective. I might suggest looking into Trooper (Soldier) Runes and Shouts or how well you can Blind foes, transform boons into condi’s or condi’s into boons, provide leeching for your party, etc.

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Reaper’s Onslaught is a Grandmaster trait and certainly useful, but it was noted that the +15% attack speed was still broken making it less impressive to use last I read the bug listings.

Also Soul Spiral does actually generate LF along with Healing if using Transfusion.

Soul Spiral: “Spiral and damage nearby foes, dealing high damage. This skill inherits traits from Life Transfer.”

Life Transfer: “Damage nearby foes and steal their life force.”

Sorry not Reaper’s Onslaught, Relentless Pursuit. 100% our strongest Adept trait.

And no, Soul Spiral doesn’t. Transfusion allows you to heal allies only while in Shroud using the 4 skill. Life Transfer gets the life force baseline, not as a trait. So all Soul Spiral inherits is the healing.

Bhawb.7408:

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Reaper’s Onslaught is a Grandmaster trait and certainly useful, but it was noted that the +15% attack speed was still broken making it less impressive to use last I read the bug listings.

Also Soul Spiral does actually generate LF along with Healing if using Transfusion.

Soul Spiral: “Spiral and damage nearby foes, dealing high damage. This skill inherits traits from Life Transfer.”

Life Transfer: “Damage nearby foes and steal their life force.”

Sorry not Reaper’s Onslaught, Relentless Pursuit. 100% our strongest Adept trait.

And no, Soul Spiral doesn’t. Transfusion allows you to heal allies only while in Shroud using the 4 skill. Life Transfer gets the life force baseline, not as a trait. So all Soul Spiral inherits is the healing.

Relentless Pursuit is a bit circumstantial in my opinion. It’s something I’d turn on if I knew I needed it, but I’d otherwise default to Augury of Death

Also, I believe both of us will have to go and re-verify that Life Force point at a later date because I recall quite clearly being able to recover my Life Force bar using Soul Spiral while in Reaper Shroud – otherwise I’d not have written that in my review and have just said you were right ^^;

Did you have Chilling Force equipped? It could proc off Soul Spiral.

Also, Augury is niche, it requires you having shouts and wanting to be involved in teamfights, neither of which are required to Reaper. Just like Chilling Nova requires a fairly high crit chance and chill uptime to trigger.

Relentless Pursuit however will never not be useful in WvW/PvP, since snares are extremely common. With food in WvW it makes you completely immune to snares while in Reaper Shroud unless your opponent has condition duration, and with Melandru runes it reduces condition duration to a mere 9% (meaning anything with less than 10s duration won’t even last a second) while in Shroud. This not only makes you basically unstoppable in RS since you can’t be snared or CCed with Infusing Terror, but it also significantly improves your effective condition removal since snaring conditions have such low (or no) duration that they won’t stick, and can’t cover for other conditions well.

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Bhawb.7408:

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Reaper’s Onslaught is a Grandmaster trait and certainly useful, but it was noted that the +15% attack speed was still broken making it less impressive to use last I read the bug listings.

Also Soul Spiral does actually generate LF along with Healing if using Transfusion.

Soul Spiral: “Spiral and damage nearby foes, dealing high damage. This skill inherits traits from Life Transfer.”

Life Transfer: “Damage nearby foes and steal their life force.”

Sorry not Reaper’s Onslaught, Relentless Pursuit. 100% our strongest Adept trait.

And no, Soul Spiral doesn’t. Transfusion allows you to heal allies only while in Shroud using the 4 skill. Life Transfer gets the life force baseline, not as a trait. So all Soul Spiral inherits is the healing.

Relentless Pursuit is a bit circumstantial in my opinion. It’s something I’d turn on if I knew I needed it, but I’d otherwise default to Augury of Death

Also, I believe both of us will have to go and re-verify that Life Force point at a later date because I recall quite clearly being able to recover my Life Force bar using Soul Spiral while in Reaper Shroud – otherwise I’d not have written that in my review and have just said you were right ^^;

No bhawb is right. Soul spiral doesnt generate lifeforce. The lifeforce generator skill in Reapershroud is the last hit of the autoattack.

Also for pvp relentless persuit is actually the best adapt trait hands down, for pve however i would guess it depends.

Muchacho.2390:

Also for pvp relentless persuit is actually the best adapt trait hands down, for pve however i would guess it depends.

Actually, I was running Shout cooldowns. The reduction in cooldown with many targets and the small hit/heal that was added was very useful for maintaining my Shambled Horrors. It let me burst my might, not to mention how useful a reduced cooldown Chilled to the Bone is.

My condi build was amazing and I have several posts about actually needing to nerf it in some areas… stacks of 4-15 bleed, 8-26 stacks of poison (with corrosive poison), chill that deals damage of about 5-6 bleeds, access to fear, stability and unstoppable stomps (chilled to the bone around a corpse).

This isn’t happening to one target, but all targets within range. Meaning the low range of my estimate is on “secondary” targets and the high end is on my “main target”. In addition, with the staff+give+life force trait, nearly everlasting Reaper Shroud if you use your escapes correctly. Fear + Reap Stun on targets that reach about 60% health with 12 bleeds, 12+ poison, chill, weakness, and start auto attacking to stack burn up to 5 and they are dead.

I could still win a fair amount of 1v1’s (chrono, interrupt mesmers, and some rangers got me).

And I won almost every team fight for my team by using staff from far, waiting for an opening target (chill, bleeds, poison from staff on target, target about 80%). Rush in with scepter and apply more, attempt Torment (50/50 hit) and switch to shroud in their face, (traited Enfeeble, Bleed+chill on swap sigils), stability, chill, spin baby spin. fear and spin if the target is a thief. instantly overwhelming them with conditions and then fearing or stunning to prevent their removal…

maintain huge chill uptime and you already have good condi damage going out. 3+ bleeds on a normal swap, swapping into shroud or “flashing” can increase bleed stacks and apply more chill…

It’s in a very good place. I honestly believed that the Chill damage they previously had was correctly tuned. even when the damage was 50% of what it is now, it was an okay trait, especially with high uptime of chill.

Bhawb.7408:

Did you have Chilling Force equipped? It could proc off Soul Spiral.

No, I was using decimate defenses.

I was, however, using Blighter’s Boon – which could be causing me some confusion based on my other traits I had on, but I still remain fairly certain of watching my Life Force meter rise significantly during Soul Spiral.

I’m now genuinely curious and want to go back and test! xD

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Dadnir.5038:

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

Sadly, Organized PvE content is more about what you bring to the party outside of your DPS than just DPS. Dagger auto attack have always been pretty good. I think the reaper/necromancer need more support (It’s always been the case), today it’s still stand in the same place as it always have : Just a DPS.

There is certainly a fair amount of support options available depending on perspective. I might suggest looking into Trooper (Soldier) Runes and Shouts or how well you can Blind foes, transform boons into condi’s or condi’s into boons, provide leeching for your party, etc.

Do you even PvE? (since I clearly comment on PvE)

Did you tried the raid? None of the boss/trash applied any condi. The only boon to remove was a prot stack, leeching provided to your party amount to a 2 digit number to take down something that probably have million life point. Blind soft condition does nothing.
The only usefull support you provide is well of blood every 34 second.

The necromancer have tools that are well tune for PvP situation but these tools fall short as soon as you enter into PvE situation.

PvP si full of boon/conditions, foes don’t have gigantic health pool, damage are balanced between each profession and player aren’t immune to soft condition. And the necromancer’s tools take full advantage of that. The necromancer is balanced around the fact that he can send back condition or corrupt boons.

PvE is the exact opposite. The necromancer’s support face against monstruous health pool, it’s support via condition is negated by the mobs, mobs don’t survive thanks to boons nor do they apply enough condition to waste some utility/weapon to send them back.

The necromancer in PvE is like a thirsty man in the desert and it’s been like this since ages.

Dadnir.5038:

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Dadnir.5038:

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

Sadly, Organized PvE content is more about what you bring to the party outside of your DPS than just DPS. Dagger auto attack have always been pretty good. I think the reaper/necromancer need more support (It’s always been the case), today it’s still stand in the same place as it always have : Just a DPS.

There is certainly a fair amount of support options available depending on perspective. I might suggest looking into Trooper (Soldier) Runes and Shouts or how well you can Blind foes, transform boons into condi’s or condi’s into boons, provide leeching for your party, etc.

Do you even PvE? (since I clearly comment on PvE)

Did you tried the raid? None of the boss/trash applied any condi. The only boon to remove was a prot stack, leeching provided to your party amount to a 2 digit number to take down something that probably have million life point. Blind soft condition does nothing.
The only usefull support you provide is well of blood every 34 second.

The necromancer have tools that are well tune for PvP situation but these tools fall short as soon as you enter into PvE situation.

PvP si full of boon/conditions, foes don’t have gigantic health pool, damage are balanced between each profession and player aren’t immune to soft condition. And the necromancer’s tools take full advantage of that. The necromancer is balanced around the fact that he can send back condition or corrupt boons.

PvE is the exact opposite. The necromancer’s support face against monstruous health pool, it’s support via condition is negated by the mobs, mobs don’t survive thanks to boons nor do they apply enough condition to waste some utility/weapon to send them back.

The necromancer in PvE is like a thirsty man in the desert and it’s been like this since ages.

Well first i’m going to say that you have a very limited and unfair scope for PvE and the Necromancer in general.

I’m first going to explain why you’re wrong when considering the Reaper.

The whole thing about the Reaper is that it offers great melee options. I’m not going to say what gear type is incredibly powerful because that is somewhat subjective, but I will say that if you truly understand what each stat in the game does – the math behind their functions – you will see some glaringly obvious exploits available to the Reaper. Adding in the Runes of the Trooper (Soldier) + Shouts for condi-cleansing is not entirely designed for support of the party, but can be your main source of cond-cleansing if you so choose to make it that way.

Also, “support” is anything that “helps” your party. Blind can be very strong support. Protection can be very strong support. Might can be very strong support. All of these and more are things that the Necromancer can provide depending on how you spec.

In regards to your PvE statements.

I understand that you are a Berserker Speed Runner because you just used the term “trash mobs”, but here is where you’re sorely mistaken. The Reaper has amazing tank and spank options where every slash of their auto-attack in Reaper Shroud is 3k-5k+. This is in some cases exceeding normal Berserker builds on a hit-to-hit perspective. In terms of total DoT, due to your attack speed, you match or surpass some Berserker builds just with the auto-attack. As soon as you get a foe below 50% HP Gravedigger becomes stupid powerful. There are just too many extremely powerful options to list here in regards to the Reaper. As long as you have Soul Reaping and trait to make your Shroud degen slower – you’ll be able to keep up your DPS at almost all times. If you run out of LF you can simply use your shouts and Death Spiral to rush back to 100% pretty quickly.

I love speed running and I loved using the Reaper for speed running. Therefore I think you have a large misconception on how the Reaper can work in PvE.

Are there any leaps? Escapes? Stability? Stealth?

People say it’s strong, but it seems they’re pretty weak when trying to not be killed, but then I play WvW a lot, so vanilla necro seems to be lots of damage in a big AoE, but no way to not be killed if any enemy decides to focus on you.

Well, I am not a berserker speed runner (To be exact I was 1.5 year ago but my interrest for dungeon droped since then).

But, and you should admit it, the necromancer due to it’s limitation can’t compete in any kind of support with other classes. It would be a relief if BiP was able to at least maintain it’s 8 might stack but it doesn’t. Beside every profession can tank, that’s not an issue, it’s a matter of gameplay and build. For example, It may be an heresy for some people but you could easily tank with a thief, you only need a sword/pistol setup and proper trait.

The necromancer is just crippled by to much things in PvE to be desired. And what he lack the most is some meaningfull support. I’d love to grant siphon to my teammate but… it’s 42 hp/hit… it’s meaningless in PvE. I’d love to debuff our foes but the whole breakbar thing make it meaningless outside of very small window during the fight. I’d love to blind my ennemy to prevent them from damaging my allie but that’s view as to strong (outside the fact that a thief would do a better job without breaking a sweat).

What I tried to explain is that all the strenght of the necromancer are PvP strenght. I respect that and I think that the dev do a good job in this area. But, the necromancer can’t achieve the same level of effectivness of the other profession in an environment that simply ignore it’s strong point. It’s not a misconception on how the reaper can work, it’s just realism. The necromancer simply lag behind other profession due to the fact that it’s strenght lie in an area that does not fit PvE. Your party as a whole lose some effectivness in PvE when taking a necromancer as they are right now.

That depends on how you define support tho. Necromancer can AOE condi clense pretty effectivelly, AOE heal lots aswell, provide AOE protection, AOE blinds, soft and hard CC. The problem is the game itself, only support u really need is to blast firefieds and provide DPS modiffiers. Necromancer is not the problem, the game content desing is just a failure.

Hopefully that will change in the future when they actually decide to make less kittened PVE content. Honestly at this point after 3 years if you play this game for the PVE u are doing it wrong.

Rampage.7145:

That depends on how you define support tho. Necromancer can AOE condi clense pretty effectivelly, AOE heal lots aswell, provide AOE protection, AOE blinds, soft and hard CC. The problem is the game itself, only support u really need is to blast firefieds and provide DPS modiffiers. Necromancer is not the problem, the game content desing is just a failure.

Hopefully that will change in the future when they actually decide to make less kittened PVE content. Honestly at this point after 3 years if you play this game for the PVE u are doing it wrong.

The problem with everything you listed is other classes can do that as well, but still output good DPS, or at least boost the groups DPS or bring unique utilities.

Really our life siphons should just be a flat percentage, why they are designed the way they are only healing messily amounts makes no sense to me.

From what I saw during beta is that Reaper can hit like truck. But said truck is made of Fiberglass, not steal. meaning they can do a lot of dmg but don’t really have any real way to negate dmg and have to rely on other people to cover for them. Like I did with my DH using Shield of Courage( as long as my Reaper friend was in the space between me and the half circle of fire I could block everything for him). The other thing I notice is that it pairs well with other classes such as tempest and DH to cover short comings. (because we go to remember GW2 success isn’t just about singular dmg, but teamwork to cover shortcomings of other classes) example reaper covers for dmg I loose traited in DH but inexchange I give him victims that are lockdown for the reaping.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Rampage.7145:

That depends on how you define support tho. Necromancer can AOE condi clense pretty effectivelly, AOE heal lots aswell, provide AOE protection, AOE blinds, soft and hard CC. The problem is the game itself, only support u really need is to blast firefieds and provide DPS modiffiers. Necromancer is not the problem, the game content desing is just a failure.

Hopefully that will change in the future when they actually decide to make less kittened PVE content. Honestly at this point after 3 years if you play this game for the PVE u are doing it wrong.

The problem with everything you listed is other classes can do that as well, but still output good DPS, or at least boost the groups DPS or bring unique utilities.

Really our life siphons should just be a flat percentage, why they are designed the way they are only healing messily amounts makes no sense to me.

Necro is designed heavy arround big AOE DPS tho, like is the kind of DPS the class does best, other than staff ele nothing can match necro on that, it is also pretty strong on single target DPS, necro AOE healing skills scale pretty well on healing power contrary other classes. Necro provides the best all AOE CC in game with the best AOE boon stripping. Obviously those things are not really important currently with the limited PVE content this game has but, who knows maybe sometime in the future they will create content where necros can shine as they do in PvP.

Svarty.8019:

Are there any leaps? Escapes? Stability? Stealth?

People say it’s strong, but it seems they’re pretty weak when trying to not be killed, but then I play WvW a lot, so vanilla necro seems to be lots of damage in a big AoE, but no way to not be killed if any enemy decides to focus on you.

Yes on the first 3 – no on stealth.

And yes, there are great options available for sustain and DPS