Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 sporadically since launch. I’ve never really reached a high tier of endgame content and I’m looking to branch out into late PvE content like Fractals. I want to do this with a Necro but all I ever read/hear about them is how useless they are at endgame PvE content, particularly because they are mostly obsolete in groups. I don’t really care if I’m not dealing the most dps, or if I’m not providing the most support, but if I’m going to be completely useless at level 80 then I might not bother.
Based on the current Meta, should I bother?

“completely useless” makes no sense. that’d be standing around at the entrance of the dungeon doing nothing

i was in a fractal run with my necro, and i didn’t feel useless. that was even before i adjusted my build to a stronger one.

If you are ok with being the least useful of all other classes then sure roll a necro. They can still be helpful when played right. If you enjoy being really useful and helpful to your team I would consider other classes before making your final decision.

maybe, gonna tel u something, I just made a necro about 2 weeks ago, am lvl 59 so far and Im loving it, I wish I had try necro class after my war, and before my thief and my engie, and my ranger, and my ele specially my ele ,hated ele class not my style at all.

I do recommend to watch youtube video about necro builds, necros can be challenging to play since they work very different than other classes, and it is easy not to take chance of their inherited advantages.

look for videos from a guy named “I am one and I am legion” he seems to have put some real work on that class, its worth a look.

im building my necro around this, in spite of the date the build appears to be solid still, according to comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG5fqtiP2x0

there are more videos with interesting results.

Necro’s might not have the most damage or be the most useful in terms of PvE content but they do have utility that can certainly be of help (i.e, blindness on wells, Fear, minions that can draw aggro though that may be good or bad, etc). It takes awhile for a Necro’s DPS to ramp up, but in that time most mobs are already bursted down.

However in WvW and PvP they are far from useless. They are arguably the best condition bombers, applying a wide variety of conditions and can completely shutdown people who lack condition removal. They have decent survivability in group fights (though lack mobility). However many people tend to focus Necro’s because they are deadly and can in turn be shutdown themselves. But if you pack utilities like Spectral Wall and Well of Darkness (Fear and blind) and have decent lifeforce generation or have stability on DS, you can be difficult to focus down.

They are far from useless, as far as WvW and PvP is concerned and are a really fun and rewarding class to play if you play them well.

If you roll a necro, every other class will be better than you in something. Worse yet, you will not be the best on anything…

…yet, necro is my favorite class. I have 3 of them maxed out, and thinking about maxing one more. XD

As a necro, you may be not helpful for your teammates, but believe me: you will be waaaaay far from useless. And, if you learn how to play it well, you will kick kitten s not only on PvE, but on PvP and WvW too.

So, c’mon, give the necro a try.

When we’re not really that helpful and strong in executing current endgame content based on “stack and zerg”, I can see ANet devs thinking more and more how to avoid this painful and skillless/tacticless situation in future.
I believe that they’ll try to expand PvE content to be something more than “dodge or die” or “stack in the corridor to win”/total abuse of fight mechanics/skipping 80% of the content/bosses being a free lootbag with zyllions of hp. I think we may see bosses who actually do some damage besides one-shotting/nothing, when Death Shroud, health pool may be useful.
We also may see some content more dedicated for us – bosses using troublesome, meaningful boons/some condition pressure besides insta-gib 25 bleeding stack from one attack over the fight.

Yea, it’s a good point to start leveling your Necromancer. We’re not perfect or suited for mindless zerging. But we may face new content better than any other class in future

All of the trolls who say “every class is better than you” are nuts. Necro can hold there own in DPS again ex the best of them, the only classes that IMO are untouchable in terms of dps are Warrior and Ele.

As far as utility goes I’ll agree that boons > conditions but if you have both in the group it’s quite solid.

The issue with Necro PvE isn’t necromancer at all, it’s PvE, all of the Dungeons are super easy and the events are a joke. There are no mechanics that require groups to play at there best (combining spike damage and pressure, applying boons and conditions)

If you can time your dodge then it’s best to just go full class cannon blow through content and move on to the next pug

Now is the worst time to try out necro. With heavy handed nerfs coming down the line, and most likely many more on the way in an attempt to “balance” the entire game around a single game mode, necro is in a pretty sore spot. When they finally realize balancing a 3 mode game around a single mode is a bad idea, necro might not be so bad off (and when they finally either scrap or fix whatever they are trying to do with death shroud)

Thanks for the replies guys! I think I’ll give it a go but take my time and enjoy the levelling process rather than get to 80 ASAP.
I’ve always liked the idea of playing necro!

Just bare in mind that we are kind of a broken class, and there is very little interest from the developers to fix the core issues with our class (you can tell by the cobwebs that cover the forum. No living soul has been in this forum for decades).

So while a necro can be effective in PVE, they will always be handicapped by the lack of design that has gone into the class. Most balance patches tend to nerf our traits and skills further, without addressing core issues, and any Live Stream usually skips over the necro quickly. There’s just not a lot of love for our class, which means we’ll probably have to sit through a gradual deconstruction of our class with each update. The class is already less fun to play than it was on launch. I suspect things can only go downhill.

You can take any combination of classes into any PVE encounter and succeed – if you want to play your necromancer in particular there isn’t any reason not to.

Having said that, stuff like chained reflects, AoE pulls, group buffs, stealth etc all help to make runs smoother and easier depending what fractal you are doing, and you’ll notice that things will often get a lot more challenging if the party is lacking certain tools.

That’s not important though. You’re playing for yourself in the end – not for other people, not for the sake of speedruns or faster loot – and you don’t have to take the easy way through everything.

I love my necromancer in WvW because the conditionmancer is a very strong pvp class. If you want to do pve or both pve/pvp, then you’re better off rolling a mesmer/guardian/warrior. Of course a necromancer in PvE isn’t completely useless but.. the pet of a ranger isn’t useless either, yet no one would play it as a class.

Necro was my first char in this game. Since then I have rolled everything to 80 minus thief and engie and I will tell you, necro is very lackluster in a dungeon. Dungeons more or less are about stack here and burst. Necro doesn’t bring that except for DS and even that wont compare to a warrior or ele. As far as having useful skills, again, classes like guard and Mesmer will bring better. It’s not that necros really suck, its just you can only have 5 people in a group and there are far better choices than a necro. This is pure PVE too, not PvP.

My first character was a Necromancer and I don’t regret it even for a moment.
Trust me, you won’t be useless in dungeons or any other kind of content.

“Completely useless” and “not as good” are two terms these forums never manage to separate. There is too much hyperbole and the masses are fickle, the meta and the game changes as the game gets changed.

it is true that in PvE, the necro’s strengths are just not as needed. Bosses are immune largely to control effects and boons reign supreme. You don’t really need condition manipulation. However it doesn’t mean that if you step into a dungeon you will die instantly and do 0 damage. Don’t bother with conditions in PvE; they are broken due to the 25 condi cap. That is an issue to consider.

If you want to grind hundreds of gold in a short amount of time, then don’t roll an necromancer. You would be a little bit slower. But in these cases, you’re not concerned about rolling a class, rather you’re rolling a farmer and there are better classes for this need— it would be redundant to spend all that time and resources to start up and set up a new toon solely for gold gain and in that case you would be better off just sticking with your established ones.

I think in the majority of situations the difference is harder to notice than some profess and frankly, in your situation you should pick the class that is most fun. It doesn’t matter if you pick a class that is 25% faster if playing every moment feels like a chore.

If you have any interest in WvW though, roll a necro.

I agree with pick a class you like since you are the one playing it but don’t be surprised if sometimes you get booted from groups based on being a necro. It happens with rangers and imo I would rather have a ranger who is running spotter and frost spirit in my group than a necro. But then again, in a perfect world, I would rather have neither in my group. And I’m not spewing hate since I got a ranger and necro both and I like them. I love my ranger for open world events and stuff but for dungeons, I personally stick with the “loved” classes of either my guard or warrior.