Guild Wars 2

Hey necro community! This is my first time making a thread, but that’s aside from the point I wanted to make. I’m sure this topic has come up before.. but I just wanted to get a new viewpoint since I haven’t seen this topic brought up.

Anyways, as we all know, every class has a special mechanic. Thief = Steal, Warrior = Adrenaline, Mesmer = Shatters, etc. etc. Anyways, all these special abilities require little to no set up. What I mean by that is that as an Elementalist, I can switch attunements freely or as a mesmer I can shatter as long as I have one clone up (or you can act as a clone if you’re traited properly).

But when I play necro, especially in PvP, I find myself being a walking target. It’s bad enough that necros have very, very limited stunbreaks/escapes, but the fact that we have to build LF to even access DS is a serious disadvantage, especially in a competitive, PvP scenario.

So my questions to the community is, is there a way to build LF prior to engaging in combat? Or, do you guys have any possible solutions that ANet could implement that could (not increase the rate at which LF is generated, that could be seen as OP) allow necros to at least begin a fight with 25%-35% DS? I hate starting a PvP match or just roaming in WvW, getting attacked, and just having to soak up dmg until I can build just enough LF to mitigate the dmg from one attack.

Don’t wanna sound like I’m QQing, just wanna get feedback from my fellow necros.

Necro advantage = walking dead

Punish me. I like it!

There – you have the answer.

The only easy way’s is to summon minions before a match begins and replace it with your regular utility’s that will build up some life force or hit destroyable objects on maps with your staff auto attack…….i really don’t know why it depletes itself.When you start playing with decent players as soon as you turn it on you will get cced by everyone,beat to death,then left there to get stomped later so you don’t get respawned right away.Even if you trait it for stability you would have to give up something else most likely damage like dhuumfire in which the opponent will just immobilize you making you either sit there or exit DS to get rid of it either option being bad.

3x staff = 3,9s , 2x dagger chain is also around 4s.

Is it fair to not being able to acces 5 of your proffesions and defense mechanic skill for first 4s of a fight? No.

Since damage overflows to normal hp, do we even need a 10% limit? No.

Does arenanet have any plans to balance or actualy fix this nonsense? No, because there are other areas where were too strong and therefore we dont deserve anything thats a buff.

Now for what you can do. This works only with shadow, bone fiend and golem minions. I suggest going for 2 only since for all 3 u need to b fast and 10% LF is not worth risking being stuck with a utility u dont need.

1) put shadow minion on ur #7 slot

2) wait for 10s countdown before game start

3)press 7 to sumon minion

4) press the arrow above #7 to swap utility. this will “kill” the minion and give you 10% LF

5) the select 2nd minion
6) summon him

7) Final: select the utilty u want.

You and all other necros around u now have 20% LF. Dont rely on others since 9/10 necros dont do this, unlike 9/10 eles who do try to make up their existence with the 1min swiftness

Edit: Is this onetime 20% LF OP? yes, its broken, I kill 3 wariors and any planet or star alligned with my lifeblasts.

Sevendreamz.4621:

Hey necro community! This is my first time making a thread, but that’s aside from the point I wanted to make. I’m sure this topic has come up before.. but I just wanted to get a new viewpoint since I haven’t seen this topic brought up.

Anyways, as we all know, every class has a special mechanic. Thief = Steal, Warrior = Adrenaline, Mesmer = Shatters, etc. etc. Anyways, all these special abilities require little to no set up. What I mean by that is that as an Elementalist, I can switch attunements freely or as a mesmer I can shatter as long as I have one clone up (or you can act as a clone if you’re traited properly).

But when I play necro, especially in PvP, I find myself being a walking target. It’s bad enough that necros have very, very limited stunbreaks/escapes, but the fact that we have to build LF to even access DS is a serious disadvantage, especially in a competitive, PvP scenario.

So my questions to the community is, is there a way to build LF prior to engaging in combat? Or, do you guys have any possible solutions that ANet could implement that could (not increase the rate at which LF is generated, that could be seen as OP) allow necros to at least begin a fight with 25%-35% DS? I hate starting a PvP match or just roaming in WvW, getting attacked, and just having to soak up dmg until I can build just enough LF to mitigate the dmg from one attack.

Don’t wanna sound like I’m QQing, just wanna get feedback from my fellow necros.

Use ambient creatures in WvW to build your LF, usually there’s quite a bit of them around the starting point of your server. For Spvp, either use the summon/dismiss golem trick or log into WvW. :P

Flumek.9043:

Now for what you can do. This works only with shadow, bone fiend and golem minions. I suggest going for 2 only since for all 3 u need to b fast and 10% LF is not worth risking being stuck with a utility u dont need.

1) put shadow minion on ur #7 slot

2) wait for 10s countdown before game start

3)press 7 to sumon minion

4) press the arrow above #7 to swap utility. this will “kill” the minion and give you 10% LF

5) the select 2nd minion
6) summon him

7) Final: select the utilty u want.

You and all other necros around u now have 20% LF. Dont rely on others since 9/10 necros dont do this, unlike 9/10 eles who do try to make up their existence with the 1min swiftness

Edit: Is this onetime 20% LF OP? yes, its broken, I kill 3 wariors and any planet or star alligned with my lifeblasts.

as the above poster stated use minions at the start of a match to help you and fellow friendly necromancers. this is an excellent tip that not many necromancers care to utilize

Well, wait a minute. Warriors start with 0 adrenaline, have to build it up, and it decays when out of a fight so the comparison falls a bit flat. I agree though that LF is harder to build up initially, especially for PvP matches. It would be nice to have a skill that fills LF, akin to Healing Surge.

Are you joking? DS is probably the most powerful class mechanic of all of them, and by a good margin. Necros already have the highest hp in game, and DS scales with it giving you absolutely massive effective hp, and great sustain too when using a power build with dagger and spectral utilities. It’s almost trivial to keep up life force with such a setup… enemies will burst your ds down, then you pop spectral armor (and heal to recover your main bar) and you’re almost immediately half full of lf again.

On top of that, the damage from +50% crit chance life blast (plus might and vuln stacks) is probably the best ranged sustained damage in game. And 4 and 5 do great aoe damage… and you have an instant cast fear… and teleport with chill (one of the best conditions in game). I’ll take that on any class, any day.

Jabberwock.9014:

Are you joking? DS is probably the most powerful class mechanic of all of them, and by a good margin. Necros already have the highest hp in game, and DS scales with it giving you absolutely massive effective hp, and great sustain too when using a power build with dagger and spectral utilities. It’s almost trivial to keep up life force with such a setup… enemies will burst your ds down, then you pop spectral armor (and heal to recover your main bar) and you’re almost immediately half full of lf again.

On top of that, the damage from +50% crit chance life blast (plus might and vuln stacks) is probably the best ranged sustained damage in game. And 4 and 5 do great aoe damage… and you have an instant cast fear… and teleport with chill (one of the best conditions in game). I’ll take that on any class, any day.

LOL, what about toolbelt skills, virtues? or shatters and clones considering that is like half of a mesmers damage. How do you justify death shroud being the strongest?

Jabberwock.9014:

Are you joking? DS is probably the most powerful class mechanic of all of them, and by a good margin. Necros already have the highest hp in game, and DS scales with it giving you absolutely massive effective hp, and great sustain too when using a power build with dagger and spectral utilities. It’s almost trivial to keep up life force with such a setup… enemies will burst your ds down, then you pop spectral armor (and heal to recover your main bar) and you’re almost immediately half full of lf again.

On top of that, the damage from +50% crit chance life blast (plus might and vuln stacks) is probably the best ranged sustained damage in game. And 4 and 5 do great aoe damage… and you have an instant cast fear… and teleport with chill (one of the best conditions in game). I’ll take that on any class, any day.

Exactly, its an old problem, especialy lately as DS is getting fixes.

1v1 a full 100% at start is A LOT. too much to be called fair, especialy in builds who can generate almost another LF bar during the fight. It can force a warrior on short retreat.

But 1v1 a zero 0% LF is a huge hindrance. You cant absorb 1-shots, so its just unfair ur a sitting duck.

The cumunity would trade a DS reduced to 80% but now auto-regenrates to 10-20% anytime, it would make necros more stable and easier to balance. But we you know how much they listen and how much they act.

Flumek.9043:

Jabberwock.9014:

Are you joking? DS is probably the most powerful class mechanic of all of them, and by a good margin. Necros already have the highest hp in game, and DS scales with it giving you absolutely massive effective hp, and great sustain too when using a power build with dagger and spectral utilities. It’s almost trivial to keep up life force with such a setup… enemies will burst your ds down, then you pop spectral armor (and heal to recover your main bar) and you’re almost immediately half full of lf again.

On top of that, the damage from +50% crit chance life blast (plus might and vuln stacks) is probably the best ranged sustained damage in game. And 4 and 5 do great aoe damage… and you have an instant cast fear… and teleport with chill (one of the best conditions in game). I’ll take that on any class, any day.

Exactly, its an old problem, especialy lately as DS is getting fixes.

1v1 a full 100% at start is A LOT. too much to be called fair, especialy in builds who can generate almost another LF bar during the fight. It can force a warrior on short retreat.

But 1v1 a zero 0% LF is a huge hindrance. You cant absorb 1-shots, so its just unfair ur a sitting duck.

The cumunity would trade a DS reduced to 80% but now auto-regenrates to 10-20% anytime, it would make necros more stable and easier to balance. But we you know how much they listen and how much they act.

Or how about we just don’t have a game balanced around avoiding and blocking attacks and then add a profession who is balanced around not avoiding and blocking attacks.

Once when I was thinking about DS and imbalance that it is providing. I got an idea about new necro mechanic. This is an combination of few mechanics that other class have.

Make life force like initiative and connect it to new f2-f4 skills working like engi toolkit (from utility skills). DS now working like elementalist attunement.

And now balance necromancer. It would need to add new defense skills.

This idea requires a lot of traitwork and a lot of new skills. So I think It will never happen.

Putting some context in:

DS1 – mobile downed form

DS2 – secondary resource making the player invul, if exited/used up would shadowstep player back to original position (aka spectral walk on crack), link can be broken and your body pulled to current location in trade of being weakened (aka first Swalk), had ground targeted shadowstep as DS2

DS3 – Wall mechanic of permanent retaliation and stability (not real since one of the push/blowback/knockback/whatever they call em and pulls could interrupt, but both couldnt be stripped) with DS2 as a ground targeted shadowstep, worked with our utility skills and we could weapon swap in it

DS4 – id rather not talk about it

DS5 – Implemented damage overflow prevention, players above 1.2k toughness took more damage in DS than normal hp, DS2 is a projectile, cant weapon swap in DS

DS6 – Removed damage overflow prevention, fixed damage taken to be less, reduced DS hp from 110% value to 70%~ value, damage taken reduced by 50% (and yes im sticking too this since of how out of combat and fall damage now interacts with DS) as long as it doesnt remove all of your life force, has DS5 as tshackles, still cant weapon swap in DS.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Necromancer_traits

#BringBackShade and DSSwap

Within the context of the current game, Shade sounds like it would be the most imbalanced thing ever. I don’t trust anyone who hash tags anything about bringing Shade back to contribute constructively to the conversation.

And I agree that DS is potentially the most powerful profession mechanic in the game. As much as I agree with Flumek’s analysis that 100% LF in a 1v1 feels like too much, but starting a 1v1 with 0% is a very strong handicap, I just can’t shake the fact that I like how the LF mechanic is unique in how it behaves. In sPvP I think it’s potentially the biggest problem, but in something like WvW, preparation is a huge key to success while roaming on Necro, whether it’s preparing your LF or preparing your utilities for the enemy comp ahead.

I’d like to see something done I think for the sake of sPvP since using minions from utilities to get a head start is, in my opinion, an irritating work-around, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal for WvW.