Guild Wars 2

Currently have all 8 classes completely maxed out and rotate through meta builds in SPVP. My goal is trying to learn the strengths and weaknesses of each one to become a better player as I plan on farming various things through the reward tracks.

I consider myself a moderate player, not good but not terrible. My ping is also not an issue as I play on a way above standard quantum line.

So far necromancer has been the most frustrating experience. I’ve tried every variation of the Terrormancer (w/ foot in the grave, w/ soul marks, w/ greater marks, w/ fear on stun). I’ve tried MMs, powermancer.

Maybe it’s personal preference but all of the experiences have been terrible. While I find I can beat a handful of classes with some specs (i.e. thieves in terrormancer and some mesmers), I outright get destroyed via 100% hardcounter by the others (i.e. warriors with zerkerstance that straight up hardcounter necrocondi, 1500m longbow rangers that see an arrow pinata with 40k health, or a 1 rapid fire kill on powermancer).

To me there is no real even play on necro. If you run into certain classes on one of the 3 working spvp specs (MM camper, Terrormancer/Dhumfire, or Powermancer), your gonna get outright destroyed with no means of fighting back.

I’ve noticed a few other things.

-Corrupt boon seems to fail for no reason. No sure what causes this but I’ve had instances where I’ve feared people and ensured they didn’t have aegis or a dodge and there was no boon conversion. I think this is caused by elevation issues. I noticed when enemies run up hills or behind corners even after the cast time of boon completes the skill fails because the effect seems to apply like .5 to 1 full second after the cast bar ends.

-Signet of Spite seems to have a delayed application of conditions and seems to arbitrarily fail as well. Same issue as above with corrupt boon.

-Necros get wrecked in team fights. With few escapes (save for the crappy wurm and precognition using spectral walk) your gonna get focused down first and completed destroyed.

-Weird animation bug with scepter three canceling skills out (posted by another user, ran into this issue as well).

Overall the play feels very clunky and I feel like I’m playing at a slower pace than the flow of Gw2 combat, with skills arbitrarily failing and my pressure output not being able to keep up with what other classes are doing. I feel like a giant pinata that just kind of sits there doing very minimal activity unless I have high damage teammates that can capitalize on my fears.

Even with conditions the damage feels abyssmal with meditation guardians surviving through an entire corrupt boon on over 12 buffs -followed by a signet of spite on their contemplation of purity. Somehow they survive all of those conditions and still burst me down in 2 combos.

I have a deep respect for necromancers out there somehow making this work, possibly playing with very advanced teammates that can take advantage of the debilitation window they create. I won’t deny that necromancers have a place in ultra high end play where teams are working together at a level of cohesiveness that is beyond 80% of the playerbase where the most matchmaking actually takes place.

To the average player, I feel like this class is unappealing and plays like a total train wreck (with pro necros having to play with the perfect companions and going through months of horrible experiences to somehow emerge from this cocoon of terribleness to be something actually useful).

Or the powermancers that can somehow contribute to fights in the two minutes between each lichform where they are only truly really effective.

I’ve also looked at rating boards in both SPVP and TA, I notice that necromancers traditionally gain LESS points on boards than other classes because their damage output being so dismal that players usually run away before they can score kills (which is sort of a victory on their own, until a 2v1 happens against the necromancer which is almost an autolose because the lack of pressure needed to effectively kill two people).

In light of all this, I decided to shelf the necro and play the other 7 classes until major changes occur (as what happened with ranger in the large balance patch several months ago that made them good snipers, which was sorely needed).

Please note that this is personal opinion for about a rank 50 moderate skill player. Perhaps this is not the class for me, but I can’t help but to feel that there are more issues with necro rather than my unenjoyment playing the class and getting my face pushed in.

I truly do hope that this class finds its place soon and gets some much needed attention. Until then while not actually playing one, I will continue to completely destroy them on my other classes.

Because easy points are easy points.

I’m never going to get back the 2 minutes it took to read this. thanks.

So you used a meta build in spvp and it did’nt work? Classic.
After all that text what do you want to know? Our opinion? A build?
Imo necro are very nice, it took me a year to play it correctly, yes you MUST work to get your kill but if i can tell you one thing, keep playin/practicing.
I have a warrior, ranger and a thief, i prefer my necro, i just like the feel.
About the build, what do you want to play? condition, power or hybrid? Find the sweet spot for each attributes and try lots of things.

Vortok.6975:

So you used a meta build in spvp and it did’nt work? Classic.
After all that text what do you want to know? Our opinion? A build?
Imo necro are very nice, it took me a year to play it correctly, yes you MUST work to get your kill but if i can tell you one thing, keep playin/practicing.
I have a warrior, ranger and a thief, i prefer my necro, i just like the feel.
About the build, what do you want to play? condition, power or hybrid? Find the sweet spot for each attributes and try lots of things.

Necro is good at condition application, and only that. If you’re going to play power you have the least defensive mechanics while rolling zerker as opposed to any other class. Tanky necros are a joke. We are the most underpowered class hands down.

Jelzouki.4128:

Vortok.6975:

So you used a meta build in spvp and it did’nt work? Classic.
After all that text what do you want to know? Our opinion? A build?
Imo necro are very nice, it took me a year to play it correctly, yes you MUST work to get your kill but if i can tell you one thing, keep playin/practicing.
I have a warrior, ranger and a thief, i prefer my necro, i just like the feel.
About the build, what do you want to play? condition, power or hybrid? Find the sweet spot for each attributes and try lots of things.

Necro is good at condition application, and only that. If you’re going to play power you have the least defensive mechanics while rolling zerker as opposed to any other class. Tanky necros are a joke. We are the most underpowered class hands down.

Yep, this is how I feel. Master of nothing. FYI I was playing 30 SR power, Terrormancer, Dhuufire, and MM. This was over the course of about a 2-3 week period until I said eff this and just went back on mesmer and ranger.

Jelzouki.4128:

Vortok.6975:

So you used a meta build in spvp and it did’nt work? Classic.
After all that text what do you want to know? Our opinion? A build?
Imo necro are very nice, it took me a year to play it correctly, yes you MUST work to get your kill but if i can tell you one thing, keep playin/practicing.
I have a warrior, ranger and a thief, i prefer my necro, i just like the feel.
About the build, what do you want to play? condition, power or hybrid? Find the sweet spot for each attributes and try lots of things.

Necro is good at condition application, and only that. If you’re going to play power you have the least defensive mechanics while rolling zerker as opposed to any other class. Tanky necros are a joke. We are the most underpowered class hands down.

I can give you a zerker necro that’s pretty tanky, it’s not considered meta but it’s not a horrible build

lordhelmos.7623:

I’m playing at a slower pace than the flow

Well, of course you do. I’ve been playing necro for a lot longer than you :P

You’ve pretty much explained why you’ve not been successful with this class already. Some classes have a linear learning curve and you can see players getting better gradually as they play them more often. Some other classes need a huge time investment until it clicks. Imo necro is the worst offender in that regard. It really takes more than a casual effort before you can break through this thin barrier that seperates “good” and “dying all the time”.

So, since your necro’s only purpose was to get to know the class in order to have more knowledge when encountering them with your other classes, I’d say shefling was the right call here.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from playing necro in general, just know that you’ll have to go through a rather long period of being a liability to your team before it gets better.

flow.6043:

lordhelmos.7623:

I’m playing at a slower pace than the flow

Well, of course you do. I’ve been playing necro for a lot longer than you :P

You’ve pretty much explained why you’ve not been successful with this class already. Some classes have a linear learning curve and you can see players getting better gradually as they play them more often. Some other classes need a huge time investment until it clicks. Imo necro is the worst offender in that regard. It really takes more than a casual effort before you can break through this thin barrier that seperates “good” and “dying all the time”.

So, since your necro’s only purpose was to get to know the class in order to have more knowledge when encountering them with your other classes, I’d say shefling was the right call here.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from playing necro in general, just know that you’ll have to go through a rather long period of being a liability to your team before it gets better.

This is good advice

Contrary to popular belief, necro actually takes work and skill to play. Knowledge of rotations and positioning are much more needed with this class or otherwise you’re more of a liability to your teamates.

There you showed that a necro ain’t so faceroll as all the whiners about fear might believe. It takes some practice, and certain other profession builds cen be very hard to beat as a necro 1v1. Necro’s might get less points in general because they are not very suited for on-point defending, cuz then you might get destroyed by decent warriors/eles most of the time. Take some more time to practice with necro, and they can be fine in pvp.

Not sure about your troubles with corrupt boon, but when playing terrormancer, there is nothing more hilarious than a hambow warrior opening with stability w/o bezerker stance and having that stability turned to fear.

You have to remember that some people just randomly dodge around and it is very possible to evade a boon corruption that way. Also the reason necros get focused in teamfights is exactly because they are so strong then. Those fears and conditions can quickly turn a fight around. A power necro can shred weaker classes. That is why positioning is so important. Never stand in the middle of a team fight, always on the edge. Berserker stance you just have to wait out, it’s only 6-8 seconds though.
And I find the wurm to be an excellent escape tool once you get used to it.

I’m having a complete (life) Blast with Daggershroud zerker lately, bit fiddly at first but once you get the hang of it you can just demolish people.

phoenix.3465:

You have to remember that some people just randomly dodge around and it is very possible to evade a boon corruption that way. Also the reason necros get focused in teamfights is exactly because they are so strong then. Those fears and conditions can quickly turn a fight around. A power necro can shred weaker classes. That is why positioning is so important. Never stand in the middle of a team fight, always on the edge. Berserker stance you just have to wait out, it’s only 6-8 seconds though.
And I find the wurm to be an excellent escape tool once you get used to it.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. People don’t focus on the necro because we are just so dangerous, they focus us because we are easy to lock down and it’s beneficial to focus us early before we can actually use our class mechanic.

NeXeD.3042:

phoenix.3465:

You have to remember that some people just randomly dodge around and it is very possible to evade a boon corruption that way. Also the reason necros get focused in teamfights is exactly because they are so strong then. Those fears and conditions can quickly turn a fight around. A power necro can shred weaker classes. That is why positioning is so important. Never stand in the middle of a team fight, always on the edge. Berserker stance you just have to wait out, it’s only 6-8 seconds though.
And I find the wurm to be an excellent escape tool once you get used to it.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. People don’t focus on the necro because we are just so dangerous, they focus us because we are easy to lock down and it’s beneficial to focus us early before we can actually use our class mechanic.

It is quite funny that we are actually the easier target to focus when there are mesmers and thieves running around doing loads of damage but the necro still ends up being target number one. Disclaimer: we are targeted when we use literally almost any build because it is just so easy to cc chain and kill us!

I’m very sorry guys that you have that much problems with the necro.I played necro since betas i’m a very good necro player now and i tend to think that if i can do it everybody can. You guys just need to practice a lot, read all traits and make your own build, learn positioning. There’s no magic build that will make you win by itself you(the player) need skills earned with playtime.

Vortok.6975:

I’m very sorry guys that you have that much problems with the necro.I played necro since betas i’m a very good necro player now and i tend to think that if i can do it everybody can. You guys just need to practice a lot, read all traits and make your own build, learn positioning. There’s no magic build that will make you win by itself you(the player) need skills earned with playtime.

Yes yes I’m am sure you are an excellent clerics vamp hotjoin necro.

The learning curve is kind of steep when you play a profession susceptible to pretty much everything.

Lopez.7369:

Condition necromancer is amazing. The problem is it’s terrible until a player reaches a certain skill level — and most people (even some supposedly good necromancers in tournaments) don’t seem to be aware that positioning even exists as a consideration in PvP.

To be fair, and even taking this in consideration, there is no class that gets punished harder for badly positioning themselves aside from Mesmer I think… And considering the badly made joke of the class that is supposed to have “attrition” as it’s main core design, it is laughable that Necromancer should avoid being in fights rather than keeping classes in combat
Playing a Necromancer is like flying a kite, it requires setup and you should know your leash range – once you get those both, you will do fine… However, since people now have drones, playing a kite is old-fashioned and considered a drag…

Then again, get a team with two Necromancers rather than one… Hilarity ensues as the cries of Elementalists and Engineers fuel your damage more and more…

Put simply necro doesnt match its core design description.

yey, my ban is lifted.
So i’ll start by spending my one comment per 2 hours on this topic, by stating the whole class is in disarray and i am starting to notice the DS “Revert/bugfix”

The OP makes a clear point and is not exaggerating at all. Clear honest logical explanations without much to add.

Except maybe that you should simply reroll if you are still playing this profession.
Im playing faceroll engie and ranger now, winning more matches without a clue how to play this profession, but hey i guess necro is just That OP.. cough cough)

Heck , im getting complete strangers asking me why i am not playing a Necro when i skip trough a overflow. Simple answer for someone who plays necro 24/7/52/12
because the class is being torn apart by patches that don’t do nothing for us yet promise the world.

Simple as that.

Vortok.6975:

I’m very sorry guys that you have that much problems with the necro.I played necro since betas i’m a very good necro player now and i tend to think that if i can do it everybody can. You guys just need to practice a lot, read all traits and make your own build, learn positioning. There’s no magic build that will make you win by itself you(the player) need skills earned with playtime.

well that was very pretentious and condescending, thank you.

A dps necro probably shouldn’t use Plague. Maybe the necro is tankier, but it also has less options to get out of a fight. If the blood magic traitline would be tweaked we might have options to become a truly effective bunker like you say, bit like a staff ele probably.

Lightsbane.9012:

Vortok.6975:

I’m very sorry guys that you have that much problems with the necro.I played necro since betas i’m a very good necro player now and i tend to think that if i can do it everybody can. You guys just need to practice a lot, read all traits and make your own build, learn positioning. There’s no magic build that will make you win by itself you(the player) need skills earned with playtime.

well that was very pretentious and condescending, thank you.

I’m being condescending when i say to people to stop thinking in the magic build and just practice the necro a little more instead of giving up to another professions. I’m kind of sick reading how bad the necro is or how good he is to do only one thing.(like conditions)
When you see a video of a necro in WvW doing some 3v1 and managing not only to survive but to kill them, how bad that necro is? Does he have a magic build that will magically kill 3 guys or the player parctice a lot?

Doesnt matter how good you are with a certain class. If you’ve played all of them to a decent level you can quite easily tell that some are in a pretty poor state compared to others. Yes you can make up for it with skill to a certain degree but against equally skilled players with a superior class you are going to have problems which are more than just being directly countered.

Vortok.6975:

Lightsbane.9012:

Vortok.6975:

I’m very sorry guys that you have that much problems with the necro.I played necro since betas i’m a very good necro player now and i tend to think that if i can do it everybody can. You guys just need to practice a lot, read all traits and make your own build, learn positioning. There’s no magic build that will make you win by itself you(the player) need skills earned with playtime.

well that was very pretentious and condescending, thank you.

I’m being condescending when i say to people to stop thinking in the magic build and just practice the necro a little more instead of giving up to another professions. I’m kind of sick reading how bad the necro is or how good he is to do only one thing.(like conditions)
When you see a video of a necro in WvW doing some 3v1 and managing not only to survive but to kill them, how bad that necro is? Does he have a magic build that will magically kill 3 guys or the player parctice a lot?

Things like that happen in wvw all the time, people in wvw typically just suck 1v1 2v2 1v2 1v3 2v3 etc. Sure you run in to the occasional condi theif who isn’t bad 1v1 but it is his build that is making him decent.

I would be much more impressed if it happened in even hotjoins pvp. I find the average hotjoin player is typically better in the small scale fighting that some of the people I’ve played with who have hundred of hours in wvw.

It’s not that your being condescending which you are =)

It’s that most of us know you are probably full of kitten, the only areas necros can complain about is pve and possibly pvp. We rock in wvw.

Pve we’ve accepted we just aren’t optimal.

WvW we are part of the meta.

PvP we are the answer to the boon spamming celestial meta. We still have our problems though.

So what gamemode are you talking about? If it’s PvE your full of kitten we suck it’s known but pve content is so kittening simple it just doesn’t matter.

WvW? No one’s complaining lol.

PvP here is where we run in to a lot of l2p issues. Which is what you basically said everyone needs to l2p like you! Except I’m willing to bet you don’t spvp and would probably get rekt.

spoj.9672:

Doesnt matter how good you are with a certain class. If you’ve played all of them to a decent level you can quite easily tell that some are in a pretty poor state compared to others. Yes you can make up for it with skill to a certain degree but against equally skilled players with a superior class you are going to have problems which are more than just being directly countered.

Exactly this…

Thing is, for a mediocre player (me), I can safely tell most that I peform better in a team in PvP as my Elementalist, Warrior, Guardian and Mesmer, of which the latter has the same positioning issues a Necromancer has – although with more means to position yourself better/quicker…

Despite this, it is not as if I underpeform with Necromancer, I usually do good enough to win say 2/3 matches – but on average, I notice how much of an easier time I have playing different classes (and yes, I am fully aware those fill different roles)…

You can tell people all you want that there is no mystical build that will make you a pro, however, this will not change the fact that the Necromancer is somewhat flawed within it’s design especially considering that the class mechanic serves as both it’s unique aspect as well as it’s tool for survivability…

I have been playing Ranger and Guardian lately but decided to try out the Silverwastes on Necromancer and kind of enjoyed it. The mobs and bosses spam enough conditions and are, in turn, susceptible to Necromancer’s soft CC like chill, blind, and cripple. I wish all of PvE could be like this for Necro so the profession would not perform so poorly. Against bosses with Unshakable, Necro is severely handicapped. I always hated trailing behind the group as they skip the only content Necro could contribute to.

@ OP,
Necro is a little weird like that. I think for most people when you start with Necro as your very first class and get used to it, THAT’s when it’s a bit easier. But even then… it’s super easy to get un-used to the Necro playstyle. When I play Mesmer or Ele, or even Guard for a long period of time without touching Necro, the first few days of playing Necro are frustrating and you always feel like your health is low because they have such a huge health pool but the healing they get (if they are alone) is not too huge, but that’s where DS comes in.. and when you forget that you have to rely on DS you just get… well… killed. Edit: even then I think DS doesn’t solve everything… but anyway. Other people have already said it… but it’s sort of like a threshold that you reach with Necro and just “get it”. Before that it’s basically just frustration… especially if you come from an ele, guard, thief, mesmer… things that heal a lot or are more freely mobile. I think I’ve had at least 4-5 friends who wanted to try out Necro in WvW (when coming from another class) and none of them stuck with it…. except one friend but that was in sPvP. That being said, I think so far Necro is proving to be a beast in sPvP. And I don’t think it should be a huge problem if a team specced to cover each other’s weaknesses.

NeXeD.3042:

PvP here is where we run in to a lot of l2p issues. Which is what you basically said everyone needs to l2p like you! Except I’m willing to bet you don’t spvp and would probably get rekt.

In spvp it’s another thing, i have the chance to play with a good team so i don’t get ’’rekt’’. I just wanted to said to lordhelmos practice makes perfect, because he seemed to give up on necro. I like playin necro so i just wanted to tell him that he need more time to be as good as he want to be. So i apologize if i sounded condescending, it was’nt intended.

Your example just sucked is all 3v1s in wvw do not show skill

Playing as a Necro use to be fun but its so much easier to run around as a staff ele then waste the time trying to get anything done as a necro. Im stuck as a necro since its the char im using to do the LS with but if I wish to farm silverwaye or drytop then my ranger or ele does it far better.
I do have to agree that it seems we as necro’s have received a nerf to the amount of timeslices we receive compared to other classes.

I’ve played Necro since GW1 first came out all the way to today.

Our greatest weakness is our vulnerability to CC. Being bounced around the battlefield like a cheap basketball is no fun.