Guild Wars 2

I havent played in a while. So VS a war with a near full-circle stun chain is utterly annoying. Can’t dodge. Can’t do anything. No stability means it just takes them longer to pound on me until im dead. So for starters, what can you do to combat that? Other than spending 30 points in a trait line I find not so attractive unless I want to be some bunker which seems to be their only role in that case.

Second question is a general one. Has this game really tuned into some rock paper scissors class type of game? If no then pls let me know.

My final question is for any dev who might read this. Why is there no stability on an attrition class? A class who’s only chance of winning a battle is over a longer period of time should have access to surviving…. longer. Not get knocked down a tremendous amount of times and not even building up your DS because you can’t even land a blow…

Last time i checked this “attrition class” was dealing burst condition damage -_- I really hate to nag the people who make this stuff but it’s really freaking absurdly confusing when the answers seem so simple. Idk why necros have terrible lack of mobility and stability and are not really a threat to anyone who can stunlock you into submission.

so.. answer or not im gonna go play.. another game lol

Foot in the Grave, that’s all I’m saying

RedSpectrum.1975:

Foot in the Grave, that’s all I’m saying

Only if DS become stun-breaker with this trait..

The problem here is, you’re asking for something ANet’s guys have said is not getting added to Necros. Which is rather meh, when one also considers the “DS Overflow fix” that got patched in. So, you can’t shake off CC, but you also are penalised for trying to outtank the incoming burst damage? What the Kitten?
An idea I put out some time ago was: why not tweak DS (with Traits, if need be) to
“absorb” or “repel” CC more. Things like Reaper’s Protection and similar Traits are
a precedent for “repelling” CC…why not work more with that kind of concept?
And Consume Conditions shows that the idea of “absorbing” could also work out.

I don’t have a problem with necros having a noteable weakness to stuns, knockdowns, and launches. Every class has their weaknesses (Guardians are also pretty immobile and have little in the way of debuffs, Mesmers lack the ability to remove many conditions, eles are inherently squishy, etc.)

It has actually been a while since I’ve had issues with being CC’d to death since the Well of Power buff. Good use of Death Shroud #3 can also help, but especially with those warriors, if they can CC you, they can be kited. If they can catch you, they can’t CC you without a weapon swap. Use that to your advantage.

And Plague. They HATE Plague.

However, if we can’t avoid or negate the CC, we do need much better ways of dealing with it. Another stunbreaker would be fun, but I prefer things like “gain retaliation when stunned”. Necros already have decent access to Retaliation, so this isn’t a strange and new idea. Necros need traits and skills that can be used to discourage people from taking advantage of the stun.

The problem is that it’s arguably the wrong weakness, Drarnor. You create an attrition class that you then give issues with making attrition a viable combat strategy. A class that wears its opponent down to inevitable Death should, logically, be able to itself survive. Things like lowering the ability of DS to absorb enemy burst, and a weakness to CC defy that ideal. Indeed, one can argue that Necromancer should’ve been the immovable, implacable foe in a fight … but Guardian got that rep.
But, yes … they do hate some Plague. Heck, most any profession hates the Blind/Chill combo of Plague of Darkness/Chilling Darkness.

Yeh, 30 points for 3 sec, doesn’t brake stun. But they did give us more ‘brake stun’ on diff things, (with less than 90sec CD!)
They did also rework how spectrals work. So I usually use Spectral Armor & DS, so you get Protection & Stability.

Of course, this doesn’t always work. I’ve had it added to the bugs list.
I’m not sure if it’s ‘lag’ related, as I live in Australia. If it is, it’s a double kick in the cats, as it will still put DS on CD from when I pressed it, eat up the lifeforce, then give me the 1sec +lag CD for leaving DS before I can heal.

Oh, I agree that the nerf to death shroud hosed the attrition play we should have. However, I disagree that the weakness to CC was a poor choice for us. Yes, it sucks being a ping-pong ball. However, necros are supposed to embody Aggression. This is why we have to hit things to siphon and gain life force. Hard CC is the ideal way to ensure it doesn’t get too strong (or keep the numbers too low, like has been so far on siphons, but that’s another issue).

However, since necros aren’t going to get blocks, evades, or Stability, we need something else. In keeping with the aggression theme, I think we need ways to discourage CC used against us. Reaper’s Protection is a good start. If somebody wants to lock down a necro, they need to question if doing so is really the best idea.

Now, while I don’t think the weakness to CC was a bad idea, I DO feel that they made it too much of a weakness. As an attrition class, we generally lack burst damage as well Yes, you could pop two wells after dagger immobilise, hit lich form/deathly Perception and get some decent burst there, but it is difficult to pull off the burst effectively. We are kind of forced into the attrition combat style (which is overall okay, since the necro was advertised as being around that style).

TLDR: Being vulnerable to CC was the right move for ANet, but they made it a highly exploitable weakness instead of just a con of the class.

That goes into the idea I myself had. If one could absorb or repel CC to a degree, that would allow the counterplay of “Sure, I can lock this death-mage mofo down … but what’s it going to cost me to do so?” And, the (current) exploitability of CC vs. Necro is the hinge-point. Enough weakness versus Too Much.

Advent.6193:

The problem here is, you’re asking for something ANet’s guys have said is not getting added to Necros. Which is rather meh, when one also considers the “DS Overflow” fix that got patched in. So, you can’t shake off CC, but you also are penalised for trying to outtank the incoming burst damage? What the Kitten?
An idea I put out some time ago was: why not tweak DS (with Traits, if need be) to
“absorb” or “repel” CC more. Things like Reaper’s Protection and similar Traits are
a precedent for “repelling” CC…why not work more with that kind of concept?
And Consume Conditions shows that the idea of “absorbing” could also work out.

Just to note, the overflow absorb wasnt “fixed” it was nerfed/removed, they actually patched it in a couple of times to absorb stuff like fall damage (when they removed wvwvw orbs) and lifesteal healing (3 day pre release day 2) not to go trough the absorb limit.

What i really want is just to return shade. Ok let it not be full effect, let us be chilled, feared, pulled and knocked down in DS (it kinda makes sense), hell even launched (thats not the same as knockback), but to stop our cast and ping pong necros around is just sodding annoying… Or just making FITG increase DS cd to 17~ seconds, make its cooldown start while in DS but also make it a stunbreak.

I should have put “fix” in quotes, Andele. Trust me, that reference is meant to be all sorts of sarcastic. Meh, text and inflection strike again.

Yeh, I fully concur and would love that.

I also see good reasons for ANet to nurf DS blocking. The more life force, the more mitigation. Makes sense, and make DS builds more viable, and I’ve had some super fun times 30points in Soul Reaping, partially Queens Jewb.

The other thing I could see working with CC, is it making us stronger. 66% damage removed while CC’ed. (Numbers and idear might need some tweaking)
Something that made it so ‘CC and focus the necro’ wasn’t best intro in PvP, and god I hate getting knocked back into more mobs/CC chained to death somewhere like Lychroft Mere (Kessex Hills, not even Vet mobs level 15-25 vs my big 80)

I also think they really need to work on making us good at attrition. Or, if they fix up Condi’s in PvE, and decide were just hybrid DPS squishy types, give us the option to un-soulbind things like Pick/Axe/Sickle. (As I’d rather farm crafting mats on my guard then)

Oh oh oh! Here’s a good answer. As the war jumps in for the hurt or while being hurt, throw up death shroud and….

Fear.

THEN FEAR SOME MORE! Muawhahahahahah

It’s nice that we can cast fear while in DS whenever we want. Even while knocked down.

Edit: I would like to add that my Necros has more burst and aoe burst than any class I have played yet. More than my HgH engineer, shatter mesmer, or meditation guardian. Pretty sure we are good on burst dmg. Heck even our condition builds do crazy burst dmg with dhuumfire.

We don’t talk about Dhuumfire. Hell, a Trait that made Chill do a certain % of damage per application would have been a better idea than that little addition. IMHO, of course.
Fire just doesn’t scream “Necromancer” to me.

As regards Fear application: like any other ability, there are limited amounts of Fear that can be tossed out. And when the Fears are all on C/D, DS is your major mitigation. A mitigation that did eat a certain degree of beating. Although, at least they fixed the amount of EHP provided by DS. It’s just the massive weakness to CCs that shafts things.

PlayerX.5307:

Oh oh oh! Here’s a good answer. As the war jumps in for the hurt or while being hurt, throw up death shroud and….

Fear.

THEN FEAR SOME MORE! Muawhahahahahah

It’s nice that we can cast fear while in DS whenever we want. Even while knocked down.

Edit: I would like to add that my Necros has more burst and aoe burst than any class I have played yet. More than my HgH engineer, shatter mesmer, or meditation guardian. Pretty sure we are good on burst dmg. Heck even our condition builds do crazy burst dmg with dhuumfire.

Because its not like the enemy has stability (that lasts for 8s+ each) or immunity to skills… or blocks… or runes and traits that reduce the impact of your cc/condis. Also its not like there are Shatters, 100b, Nades, Bombs, Traps, Scepter/focus eles or any type of thief in terms of burst.

I like the trajectory of these suggestions. They lie at the heart of what I would want a Hammer Necro to look like. Essentially, if you wanna tangle with the Necro, you’d better make sure it’s worth the cost.

Maybe aura that apply conditions on hit? “Hit me, but you’ll stack chill and weakness on you.”

Maybe Plague-like pulses keeping melee at arms-reach unless they wanna take direct-damage pulses?

Maybe re-work Retaliation with a Necro mechanic that amplifies damage back to the attacker?

Something. As it stands, there’re quite a few possibilities.

Andele.1306:

PlayerX.5307:

Oh oh oh! Here’s a good answer. As the war jumps in for the hurt or while being hurt, throw up death shroud and….

Fear.

THEN FEAR SOME MORE! Muawhahahahahah

It’s nice that we can cast fear while in DS whenever we want. Even while knocked down.

Edit: I would like to add that my Necros has more burst and aoe burst than any class I have played yet. More than my HgH engineer, shatter mesmer, or meditation guardian. Pretty sure we are good on burst dmg. Heck even our condition builds do crazy burst dmg with dhuumfire.

Because its not like the enemy has stability (that lasts for 8s+ each) or immunity to skills… or blocks… or runes and traits that reduce the impact of your cc/condis. Also its not like there are Shatters, 100b, Nades, Bombs, Traps, Scepter/focus eles or any type of thief in terms of burst.

There’s not like condition removals and blinds…. if you die from a warrior CC, you are doing something wrong. The only way a warrior could 100-1 you is if you were running a berz build with 0 life force.

PlayerX.5307:

There’s not like condition removals and blinds…. if you die from a warrior CC, you are doing something wrong. The only way a warrior could 100-1 you is if you were running a berz build with 0 life force.

Personally i dont have a problem with cc warriors (or warriors in general) since i run hydro sigils and constantly keep DS2, S3 and try to keep WH5 up when the enemy aint chilled (pvp and pve), but vs any build with 2+ hard cc and a cc warrior you cannot even think of running, while every other profession has a easy get out of jail card in such a situation. Thats the problem.

Andele.1306:

PlayerX.5307:

There’s not like condition removals and blinds…. if you die from a warrior CC, you are doing something wrong. The only way a warrior could 100-1 you is if you were running a berz build with 0 life force.

Personally i dont have a problem with cc warriors (or warriors in general) since i run hydro sigils and constantly keep DS2, S3 and try to keep WH5 up when the enemy aint chilled (pvp and pve), but vs any build with 2+ hard cc and a cc warrior you cannot even think of running, while every other profession has a easy get out of jail card in such a situation. Thats the problem.

How is that a problem? Stability doesn’t last forever and I bet at least 1 person has a boon removal. I have yet had a problem stability in team fights. Only time it’s a issue is when I want to fear while downed. But guess what? I made them pop their stability on my down. I believe stability has the shortest boon duration.

P.S. I like your signature quote. lol

Almost every class has a weakness somewhere. Ours is CC. Personally I’m OK with that.

PlayerX.5307:

How is that a problem? Stability doesn’t last forever and I bet at least 1 person has a boon removal. I have yet had a problem stability in team fights. Only time it’s a issue is when I want to fear while downed. But guess what? I made them pop their stability on my down. I believe stability has the shortest boon duration.

P.S. I like your signature quote. lol

Because Fear doesnt go trough stability n defiant (since it wasnt cc, but a control effect on a condition) like it used to, guess what we got longer cooldowns than other professions and you dont “make them pop stability” they use it, cc you (you SB they cc again) and you die, thats the thing, so unless you got a defensive mechanism in something that cannot be cced (e.g. weapon swap aoe chill) or you cannot be cced at all (invul) or can blink away (kinda possible but both require prep time that you more often than not dont have) the necro is free meat.
Also its ok to have a weakness (ours is actually low/weak mobility), its not ok to have a instant loss effect because the devs are too afraid to return parts of a strong old build that people didnt even bother to counter since they just patched it out post the 2 days it was used.

Carry corrupt boon if you’re worried about CC warriors with stability. They almost never have too many boons to cover stability up, so it’s just another fear for you.

Andele.1306:

PlayerX.5307:

How is that a problem? Stability doesn’t last forever and I bet at least 1 person has a boon removal. I have yet had a problem stability in team fights. Only time it’s a issue is when I want to fear while downed. But guess what? I made them pop their stability on my down. I believe stability has the shortest boon duration.

P.S. I like your signature quote. lol

Because Fear doesnt go trough stability n defiant (since it wasnt cc, but a control effect on a condition) like it used to, guess what we got longer cooldowns than other professions and you dont “make them pop stability” they use it, cc you (you SB they cc again) and you die, thats the thing, so unless you got a defensive mechanism in something that cannot be cced (e.g. weapon swap aoe chill) or you cannot be cced at all (invul) or can blink away (kinda possible but both require prep time that you more often than not dont have) the necro is free meat.
Also its ok to have a weakness (ours is actually low/weak mobility), its not ok to have a instant loss effect because the devs are too afraid to return parts of a strong old build that people didnt even bother to counter since they just patched it out post the 2 days it was used.

I am not sure what your point is. Is it that Necros lack CC and defense, which they clearly don’t, to be valuable against hard CC classes? We have a butt load of weakness and chill debuffs from weapons on top of DS which is crazy strong in 1v1 settings. Fear is one of the strongest CCs in the game, especially when it is traited to last 50% longer. I honestly think you got smacked around by a really good warrior in a hot join and now freaked out that a good warrior can kick your butt. There are ways to counter them. Chills are your friend.

PlayerX.5307:

I am not sure what your point is. Is it that Necros lack CC and defense, which they clearly don’t, to be valuable against hard CC classes? We have a butt load of weakness and chill debuffs from weapons on top of DS which is crazy strong in 1v1 settings. Fear is one of the strongest CCs in the game, especially when it is traited to last 50% longer. I honestly think you got smacked around by a really good warrior in a hot join and now freaked out that a good warrior can kick your butt. There are ways to counter them. Chills are your friend.

Point is that necros need stronger either passive defense or cooldowns n cast times as low for offensive skills as other professions in comparison to effects since devs dont want to give necros the mobility, invuls and vigor other professions have.
Fear is the WEAKEST hard cc since its also a condition, even daze is stronger.
And please dont repeat what i said (using hydro sigils and chillblains) and apply what happened to you to some imaginary version of me who bothers to play necros in pvp anymore (seriously its way more fun being on a guardian or thief and just annoying the crap out of the enemy while eating a sandwitch or watching youtube on the side).
Hell even if i was beaten by some good warrior (if i played pvp seriously enough to meet one), its still a fact that devs are afraid of the old Necro thus wont give us the tools we need to be efficient on our own.

Andele.1306:

PlayerX.5307:

I am not sure what your point is. Is it that Necros lack CC and defense, which they clearly don’t, to be valuable against hard CC classes? We have a butt load of weakness and chill debuffs from weapons on top of DS which is crazy strong in 1v1 settings. Fear is one of the strongest CCs in the game, especially when it is traited to last 50% longer. I honestly think you got smacked around by a really good warrior in a hot join and now freaked out that a good warrior can kick your butt. There are ways to counter them. Chills are your friend.

Point is that necros need stronger either passive defense or cooldowns n cast times as low for offensive skills as other professions in comparison to effects since devs dont want to give necros the mobility, invuls and vigor other professions have.
Fear is the WEAKEST hard cc since its also a condition, even daze is stronger.
And please dont repeat what i said (using hydro sigils and chillblains) and apply what happened to you to some imaginary version of me who bothers to play necros in pvp anymore (seriously its way more fun being on a guardian or thief and just annoying the crap out of the enemy while eating a sandwitch or watching youtube on the side).
Hell even if i was beaten by some good warrior (if i played pvp seriously enough to meet one), its still a fact that devs are afraid of the old Necro thus wont give us the tools we need to be efficient on our own.

I still don’t understand your reasoning. Thief are, in my opinion, one of the hardest classes to do well in sPvP. Guardians are balanced and easier to understand.

Necros are fine and very efficient. Want to come play a few hot-joins to see? I would be more than happy to show you rather than sit here and talk about all the scenarios with no proof. I think many others would agree with me that Necros are great as they are now.

Necros are not great as they are now. One singular build-type is fine, if not a little strong due to other class’ lack of cleanses, the rest are okay, but still need fine tuning to be as good.

But CC/stability isn’t the problem there. CC and focus fire in general will always be the weakness of an attrition class, but what we need is more realistic (and skill-based) ways of surviving focus fire.

Our Weakness is mobility, escape, CC, and Attrition.

Our Siphon/Vamp is a total joke. 25 for traits vs 200 non-traited other class’s. Minions Siphon sort of keeps up, if you spend many traits & 2 util+1 elite on it, and they not dead.
DeathShroud sort of covers the constant low damage times, excluding you get no heals from others while using it.

Where were massively behind other class’s is avoiding them big spikes/1shot’s. No Vigor, Endurance Regen. No block/invul/extra evade skills.

Because we need to ‘actively/aggressively’ constantly attack to do any defense. It makes CC even worse for us.

Say what you like, but I don’t see us Bunker a node in PvP like a guard/war/eng/ele/mes/ranger. We also stuffed in PvE dungeons in Attrition boss fights after 30seconds.

PlayerX > Your right, a hotjoin PvP round def covers all play in this game.

Thief def doesn’t have any access to anything defensive in PvP. Quick look at the wiki shows all they get is:

On weapons:
Evasive leap + cripple, Shadow Return (Invis Tele), Evade & Stab, Gain Endurance, Leap, Evasive + bleed, stealth, shadowstep away, evade + vuln, block, evade.

Skills:
Roll backward + heal + evade + immob/chil/cripple, Stealth, Stealth, Tele + condi clean, block + blind, refill endurance, teleport, reflect.

Oh there siphon is 4x as strong as ours with no trait cost…

Oh god, I’d better not start on traits…

Why don’t they make stabo reapply every second with Well of Power? I get that a fear would turn it into stabo, but if there’s no necro you are fighting, 1 second of stabo is insignificant. I mean, at best with no conversion, you’d get like 6 secs of stabo on a 42 sec CD. /shrug

Bweaty.9187:

Oh there siphon is 4x as strong as ours with no trait cost…

Their siphon is… a whopping 100. Our heal is 926 per attack. For them to beat our heal, they’d need to hit 9 times in three seconds. And no, it isn’t a siphon, its a heal on attack.

Why does it even matter? Siphoning gets (ignoring scaling) double effectiveness, because a siphon of say 50, actually has an overall health swing of 100; the enemy loses 50 hp while you gain 50. Of course differences occur, because siphoning scales slightly differently than flat healing.

Siphoning is fairly limited to our class, and I believe one thief trait for venoms.

PlayerX.5307:

I still don’t understand your reasoning. Thief are, in my opinion, one of the hardest classes to do well in sPvP. Guardians are balanced and easier to understand.

Necros are fine and very efficient. Want to come play a few hot-joins to see? I would be more than happy to show you rather than sit here and talk about all the scenarios with no proof. I think many others would agree with me that Necros are great as they are now.

How? What? Ok just give me the drugs you are on; all you need to do on a thief is drop your TP trap, slot in shadowstep and backcap/keep one point neutral the entire game and sometimes pick off a person running around low on hp, its a instant win because people either lose people on defending the point or lose points, as for guardian i dont think that “balanced” is what you call when putting a cat on the keyboard and still living after a fight vs 2 people.
Feel free to run your dumbfireterror build and ignore all problems the profession has had since official release. Ill go back to Tequatl killing.

Bhawb >
I meant defensive only. Vampiric vs there #6. 100 per hit, vs out 25.
Anyway Chalk vs Cheese.
I also get, that Thiefs not exactly a bunker either.

Think this thread was prob answered with ‘we got foot in the grave and a sec stability on a well’

Us theory crafting, chatty necro’s should all come to Au, and down to the pub I think ;-p

Advent.6193:

The problem here is, you’re asking for something ANet’s guys have said is not getting added to Necros.

Well of course they would put their foot down on something that fractures an entire class but when it comes to adhering to their “hardcore” crybabies about endgame content they didn’t think twice about debunking their whole “Yeah, this game IS ALL endgame. Meaning there is no real endgame.”

That shows they are not interested in how the game works but how it will generate income. Which is fine and reasonable for developers to do but just don’t pretend like your game is sooooo different and a “game made by gamers for gamers”… when it’s not. It’s concept was clearly too unique for even them to handle and making obvious needed changes to certain classes is not their primary concern.

You could say “hey don’t go being mean to devs who put their heart and soul into this game and blahhhh” They do it to get paid. They do it generate profit for the ones who have rights to it. I’m not interested in games that market them as this sense of “breakthrough”, “next-level”, “new class” of game when it’s all just a salesman’s pitch to generate a playerbase.

It’s almost like i feel duped into having gotten this game sometimes lol. They are so quick to alter the fundamental concepts that made this game so interesting but say they won’t change certain mechanics about a profession because it would stray from the core role they see them as. -_- Really?? That’s why you’re not going to fix anything? Stray a little, please.. I still don’t understand how surviving longer in a fight conflicts with the role of attrition.. I still don’t get it lol.

If only 1 person focuses a necro, that necro is dead in the water unless the necro is playing the previously stated duhmmfireterror slop and enter in a condition war, which is just a ridiculously uninteresting form of pvp btw. There is no counter play… none. You are forcing necros to play a certain way not opening avenues for builds.

The way it is set up you are giving the necro’s only viable role a burst role………. LOL that is what this class is. It is a burst caster. Whyyy is there so much backwards thinking on this. You are saying that “well if the necro survives longer he will kill people so we have to completely kitten his survivability so that other classes have a chance” which turns out isnt giving them a chance it’s giving them a kill and is also saying You Made A Broken Class.

Why do i want to play a class that takes too long to kill anyone which is irrelevant since the class has no reliable survivability to get me there? WTF is GOING ON!? So now they just said “we don’t want to really look at necro’s playstyle or mechanics we are just going to add another condition and call it a day”. Now ITS A BURST CLASS lol

I don’t see how people are missing the purse insanity of this logic. They want it to remain an attrition class, they’ve “put their foot down” about it but have countered that logic ALREADY! It’s a burst class! Nobody wants to get pounded in the face all day and not be able to do anything about it. Thanks for the new stun-breakers they have fixed everything. That’s why people run dumbfireterror builds because now they feel that their necros can win an attrition fight -_- (sarcasm) No. It’s because they want to fear-lock their opponents (who btw will have more escapes than you do)

It’s all a mess. But at least there is a Late Game!! Yay! Go grind my friends… Go grind. FLY-FLY! Off to the grind fest with you. XD

I still don’t see why they won’t just make stabo pulse with Well of Power. It’s so obvious a tweak. 50 second cooldown for a 5 second buff, hardly too much to ask.

Advent.6193:

The problem here is, you’re asking for something ANet’s guys have said is not getting added to Necros.

The bigger problem is understanding why they’ve drawn this line, when in a lot of ways it doesn’t make sense other than “we want every class to be different”.

Don’t get me wrong Necro can be one of the stronger classes played right, but still doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly frustrating and not as interesting to play, when you don’t have the proper counters for certain situations, mainly, getting kicked around and locked out of your abilities a lot in a fight. That just isn’t fun.

If they aren’t giving stability, aren’t giving access to vigor for lots of dodging, no invulnerable defenses, AND no escape mobility, you are really neutering the type of play styles that will actually work for the class.

They talk a lot about build diversity and increasing it, but the above facts kind of lend to the same fight mechanics for the Necro regardless of your build, whether you are going power or condi, etc. You always have those same weaknesses and limitations.

It’s too straight-jacketed of a design I think.

If they would actually make good on their claims of Necro locking opponents down, so they also can’t escape, just like you can’t as a Necro, then the trade-off might make sense.

My complaint wouldn’t even be so much about power or balance, as I don’t lose too many solo matchups, but rather in a game that is supposed to be fast paced, reactive combat, the Necro by far feels the clunkiest and slowest – not in run speed out of combat – but as far as in combat activations and mechanics. Feels like you are moving in mud vs some of the other profs.

Bweaty.9187:

Our Weakness is mobility, escape, CC, and Attrition.

Very valid point as well. I don’t think we really get stronger as a fight goes on. Maybe if you are talking beyond the first 5 second burst of a shatter mesmer, stun lock warrior, or thief, sure, but once the fight goes beyond 10 or 15 seconds, we have nothing special as far as sustain unless you are in some kind of rare all out spectral life force recharge build, which is sub-optimal due to other sacrifices. And our sustain is a joke up against the best sustain builds in the game over the course of its evolution.

Any sustain I have in my Necro is entirely based on gear I have chosen and not internal mechanics of the class, which is a shame and oversight on the part of the design imo.

If we can’t escape battles, can’t stop fast classes from escaping us, and have no total damage nullification from massive burst, then we should definitely sustain as one of the best classes in the game. Right now only a full life force bar gives the illusion of that, but its still a finite resource, a giant pitcher that you die when its empty, instead of a ever refilling cup, that skilled play can extend enormously in a long fight.

I don’t want more total power for the Necro, what I would like is a rebalancing toward where skilled play can extend the upward ceiling of the class, to pull off things that great players on other profs can do. Without Anet ever relaxing any of their dogmatic positions on what the class is or isn’t, not sure that is possible.

It’s so kitten hard to finish someone in pvp without stability =_=

Pendragon.8735:

The bigger problem is understanding why they’ve drawn this line, when in a lot of ways it doesn’t make sense other than “we want every class to be different”.

They want Necromancer to be an aggressive, always-in-the-fight, sustained damage class. That means high in-fight attrition, lots of offense, lots of sustain based on making enemies weaker, etc.

My question is this: why do you want stability? Or vigor? We want this for a few reasons: to be able to actually do the above class-design; to be able to survive huge burst and get past CC to get to our target. Why do we need those things in specific though? Why do we need to dodge damage, instead of being manly-men (or women), and face-tanking their best damage while beating their face in? Why should we worry about being CCed, instead of eating it up like and then after start serving out knuckle-sandwhiches for dessert?

The problem with all of these threads is they are far too simple thinking. Yes ANet could have made one class, given it a bunch of buffs, vigor, dodging, etc, and had us all play the same class on the same build against each other. But we don’t want that. I don’t play the Necro so I can dodge abilities, or so I can walk through CC like a Guardian, I play Necro to play that unique playstyle. So give me the ability to deal with things in a uniquely Necro way, instead of these boring already done methods. If I wanted to play a Guardian, I have one sitting there ready to go. I log on to my Necro for a reason.

Bhawb.7408:

Pendragon.8735:

The bigger problem is understanding why they’ve drawn this line, when in a lot of ways it doesn’t make sense other than “we want every class to be different”.

They want Necromancer to be an aggressive, always-in-the-fight, sustained damage class. That means high in-fight attrition, lots of offense, lots of sustain based on making enemies weaker, etc.

My question is this: why do you want stability? Or vigor? We want this for a few reasons: to be able to actually do the above class-design; to be able to survive huge burst and get past CC to get to our target. Why do we need those things in specific though? Why do we need to dodge damage, instead of being manly-men (or women), and face-tanking their best damage while beating their face in? Why should we worry about being CCed, instead of eating it up like and then after start serving out knuckle-sandwhiches for dessert?

The problem with all of these threads is they are far too simple thinking. Yes ANet could have made one class, given it a bunch of buffs, vigor, dodging, etc, and had us all play the same class on the same build against each other. But we don’t want that. I don’t play the Necro so I can dodge abilities, or so I can walk through CC like a Guardian, I play Necro to play that unique playstyle. So give me the ability to deal with things in a uniquely Necro way, instead of these boring already done methods. If I wanted to play a Guardian, I have one sitting there ready to go. I log on to my Necro for a reason.

Big problem, guardians are supposed to be the people defending the squishyies, not the actual frontline (they would be in the line with old Necros Mesmers, some Monks, some Paragon and some Rit builds, maybe even the off barrage ranger here and there in the mid line), but the strength of boons and how easy/cheap it is to apply tons of them plain pushed them into the frontline, while the lack of boons and very much hex like/dervish ech dance like combat of the necro combined with the knockback and instakill fetish a-net had (they are getting better with each release… kinda) just pushed em back into the middle where they were when we could punish a enemy for: Moving, Not moving, casting, not casting, healing, not healing, attacking, not attacking, regening, having degen from condis, having hexes, cleansing hexes and… well i think you get it that a necro could be plain made to punish anything that annoyed you or stopped a build OR be a frontline with sword + focus and use the touch rotation if secondary sin or monk to be a pve immortal tank for anything that isnt a boss since bosses werent dps but mechanics checks, forcing players to be better.
Something very important was lost with GW2 (and release of Wrath of the kitten queen for wow) in the design portion of mmos, despite a lot of new good mechanics and better options in the engine being possible.
If anyone know these references, think of the first time meeting Baron Geddon or the Twin Emperors or Onyxia during the flight phase? Yeah that was a awesome challenge that was fair for a good party (sadly quite unfair if even one person was a idiot, but that can be solved with all the new scaling and adaptability of fights we got in the 5-8 years from then).

knbBlackTemplar > It’s also so easy for a necro to be stomped as 1 target fear isn’t exactly a uba defense LoL.

Bhawb > Totally agree! We need a ‘something’ for PvE tho. Vigor being the easiest band aid. I’d also love for some sort of system where CC didn’t worry us. Rather than it not only putting us out of combat & getting damage we can’t avoid, but also shutting down our defensive aggressive stuff.
It should be like ’I’ll stand here and wait, gather my thoughts a minute, while you tire yourself out.’

TheDevice > Very true. But I will say. The dev’s do seem very cool in some ways. They seem to have the love and the passion for what they create.
Some of this game is the best evar! I deeply love the graphics style, toons are prob my fav out of any game to date. Some of the personal story, was best I’ve seen in a game. Love the no fighting to ‘tag’ mobs or farming nodes. Lots of the maps are very well done, and the down-scaling/giving things for players to do in not just ‘the’ top map, is kinda cool.
But some things, just hurt my brain.

No player trade/3mails per min/no CoD post/5% TP listing fee + 10% selling fee. (Destroys much crafting + personal trade)

Minipets bags/despawn.

Condi stacks/objects dont take condi dam. (WHY oh WHY)

‘Hard mobs’ immune to CC, Crit. (There go’s lots of skilled play, and lots of builds/gears)

Heals/Support struggle to get credit/tag mobs.

High level layered ‘raid like’ fights, done in world. With ‘Turret Trolls’ and other huge issues.

That’s before we even get on to the huge issue’s of the necro.
ESO is going to fill the ‘RPG online in a big world’. WildStar is looking to fill the ‘active combat, heaps of fun MMO’. ANet really needs to get the fundamentals down, before it’s not the ‘coolest new MMO’ kid on the block.

I got a idea: Make Foot in the Grave be Shade in pve! (also increase its base duration to 4 in pvp and wvwvw).

Bhawb.7408:

My question is this: why do you want stability? Or vigor? We want this for a few reasons: to be able to actually do the above class-design; to be able to survive huge burst and get past CC to get to our target. Why do we need those things in specific though? Why do we need to dodge damage, instead of being manly-men (or women), and face-tanking their best damage while beating their face in? Why should we worry about being CCed, instead of eating it up like and then after start serving out knuckle-sandwhiches for dessert?

The reason why I want those things is that because face-tanking has little to do with skill. Without consistent stability, dodges, invuln, you are pretty much eating burst regardless what your strategy is, and thus fights just come down to if your stats/build is good enough to outlast the damage, instead of having something you can actually do inside the fight, skill based, or reactionary, that can mute some of the damage to turn the tide.

This is especially apparent in a 1v2 or 1v3, where because of the above defenses on other classes, mobility, deception, resistance to being locked down, other professions can come out on top in those situations based on skill increasing their ceiling. For a Necro if a quality 2nd player shows up, because we just have to ‘be a man’ as you say, or facetank both their damage outputs, you just die, because two (decent) players have more damage than one, without being able to skillfully avoid some of it. The mechanics just aren’t there or strong enough to do it.

Now if they can add in that elasticity in other ‘new’ ways not yet implemented, that’s fine too. But so far not seeing this creativity, and devoid of them showing it, would be better to just give us mechanics that are tried and true and could actually make true our class philosophy statements they put out, instead of waiting around endlessly with these specific short-comings..

In past mmos in raiding events there was a term given to certain fights or bosses called a ‘gear check’. This was usually a simplistic fight where a boss just had a ton of health and winning or losing a fight was simply based on if your raid had enough DPS within a certain sustained time period (before the boss put out enough damage to kill everyone), to win the fight. It wasn’t a skill based challenge, and there was little you could do in such a fight except burst at your max DPS level, and you either had enough damage or not, based simply on your gear, to win.

Right now fighting a Necro, or as a Necro, is a bit too much like this scenario. There is not enough leeway for variation or surprising outcome.

Let’s say in theory you could trade 200 toughness (or vitality, either one) for a skill that made you invulnerable for 2 seconds. We’ll call it ’’wraith form" or whatever thematic name. Now suddenly you have added a risk/reward mechanic in for the class that could make them worse – or better – but all dependent on play skill.

If I take “wraith form” and drop some of my tankiness, I could potentially come out stronger if I pop it at the exact right time, to eat a proper burst, where it saves me more damage than the 200 toughness would. But if I use it stupidly to eat some auto attacks, its actually going to make me worse than the 200 toughness. But either way, you are moving more of the fight outcome over into the hands of the player’s ability – a good thing – instead of the outcome being so reliant on just their pre-built stats or big sack of static HP and life force.

“Well but that’s just like what an Ele has, we should be different.”

Different is fine if equal, but we are not equal. You might say to eat the burst a Necro can (and should) just pop Death Shroud. Fighting one player, that is fine, your trade off of life force is probably equal to the ele blowing his mist form. The difference is when its a coordinated burst from 2 to 5 players all hitting you. An ele pops mist form is still alive and max health at the end of his skill. Where if a Necro pops death shroud against coordinated burst, he is probably dead at the end of it regardless. This is the problem with face-tank as the only defense.

Bhawb.7408:

My question is this: why do you want stability? Or vigor? We want this for a few reasons: to be able to actually do the above class-design; to be able to survive huge burst and get past CC to get to our target.

Hey yo, my WvW frontline tank necro already has the capabilities to survive huge bursts and can get past CCs to get the enemy…..it is called using Melandru runes, using -condition duration food, and knowing when to double roll….oh, and not running squishy kitten builds like most necro seems to run these days whether in WvW or PvE. The ONLY time I have any type issues is when I get seriously focused fire and I have eventually learned/developed some strategies to survive those instances.

Pendragon.8735:

Let’s say in theory you could trade 200 toughness (or vitality, either one) for a skill that made you invulnerable for 2 seconds. We’ll call it ’’wraith form" or whatever thematic name. Now suddenly you have added a risk/reward mechanic in for the class that could make them worse – or better – but all dependent on play skill.

If I take “wraith form” and drop some of my tankiness, I could potentially come out stronger if I pop it at the exact right time, to eat a proper burst, where it saves me more damage than the 200 toughness would. But if I use it stupidly to eat some auto attacks, its actually going to make me worse than the 200 toughness. But either way, you are moving more of the fight outcome over into the hands of the player’s ability – a good thing – instead of the outcome being so reliant on just their pre-built stats or big sack of static HP and life force.

“Well but that’s just like what an Ele has, we should be different.”

Different is fine if equal, but we are not equal. You might say to eat the burst a Necro can (and should) just pop Death Shroud. Fighting one player, that is fine, your trade off of life force is probably equal to the ele blowing his mist form. The difference is when its a coordinated burst from 2 to 5 players all hitting you. An ele pops mist form is still alive and max health at the end of his skill. Where if a Necro pops death shroud against coordinated burst, he is probably dead at the end of it regardless. This is the problem with face-tank as the only defense.

Solid post. Personally I wish for a change to life force that allowed it to refill faster. I think a smaller pool, but with more ways to generate life force, and a way that scales in regards to enemies, is the only legit answer. Then you can have some sort of skill in regenerating life force (hopefully) allowing for skillful play and counter play of some sort.

Roe.3679:

Pendragon.8735:

Let’s say in theory you could trade 200 toughness (or vitality, either one) for a skill that made you invulnerable for 2 seconds. We’ll call it ’’wraith form" or whatever thematic name. Now suddenly you have added a risk/reward mechanic in for the class that could make them worse – or better – but all dependent on play skill.

If I take “wraith form” and drop some of my tankiness, I could potentially come out stronger if I pop it at the exact right time, to eat a proper burst, where it saves me more damage than the 200 toughness would. But if I use it stupidly to eat some auto attacks, its actually going to make me worse than the 200 toughness. But either way, you are moving more of the fight outcome over into the hands of the player’s ability – a good thing – instead of the outcome being so reliant on just their pre-built stats or big sack of static HP and life force.

“Well but that’s just like what an Ele has, we should be different.”

Different is fine if equal, but we are not equal. You might say to eat the burst a Necro can (and should) just pop Death Shroud. Fighting one player, that is fine, your trade off of life force is probably equal to the ele blowing his mist form. The difference is when its a coordinated burst from 2 to 5 players all hitting you. An ele pops mist form is still alive and max health at the end of his skill. Where if a Necro pops death shroud against coordinated burst, he is probably dead at the end of it regardless. This is the problem with face-tank as the only defense.

Solid post. Personally I wish for a change to life force that allowed it to refill faster. I think a smaller pool, but with more ways to generate life force, and a way that scales in regards to enemies, is the only legit answer. Then you can have some sort of skill in regenerating life force (hopefully) allowing for skillful play and counter play of some sort.

DS already generates fast enough if you build with DS and LF in mind, problem is necro is seriously crippled if you dont do that (so like having focus as offhand in pve as a scepter user or using soul marks in pvp).

Pendragon.8735:

The reason why I want those things is that because face-tanking has little to do with skill. Without consistent stability, dodges, invuln, you are pretty much eating burst regardless what your strategy is, and thus fights just come down to if your stats/build is good enough to outlast the damage, instead of having something you can actually do inside the fight, skill based, or reactionary, that can mute some of the damage to turn the tide.

Face tanking doesn’t have to be non-skill based, its just about how they implement it. Frankly, the way they’ve implemented damage avoidance is even less skillful, how much skill does it take to press 3 on a thief, with constant dodging? Yet on other classes, the abilities are much more well designed.

It all comes down to how they do it, and I don’t want them to band-aid fix us by slapping vigor, stability, and other boons all over our skills and call it a day, killing all of our flavor in the process.

Bhawb.7408:

Pendragon.8735:

The reason why I want those things is that because face-tanking has little to do with skill. Without consistent stability, dodges, invuln, you are pretty much eating burst regardless what your strategy is, and thus fights just come down to if your stats/build is good enough to outlast the damage, instead of having something you can actually do inside the fight, skill based, or reactionary, that can mute some of the damage to turn the tide.

Face tanking doesn’t have to be non-skill based, its just about how they implement it. Frankly, the way they’ve implemented damage avoidance is even less skillful, how much skill does it take to press 3 on a thief, with constant dodging? Yet on other classes, the abilities are much more well designed.

It all comes down to how they do it, and I don’t want them to band-aid fix us by slapping vigor, stability, and other boons all over our skills and call it a day, killing all of our flavor in the process.

I just don’t see face-tanking as viable in something like 48 fractals. There are traps in dungeons that will insta-down you, regardless of your HP, that require some form of complete damage mitigation. It’s clear that there are environmental hazards and boss attacks in high end pve that were designed with block/evade/distortion/invulnerability in mind. Unless we are given monstrous HP/DS, I don’t think face tanking will be a realistic strategy in those scenarios.

The only thing I imagine they could do is maybe a special ability with spectal armor or DS that granted protection, scaling with the damage relative to the percent health you would lose. For example if you were to take 25% of your health in damage, it might mitigate 15%, a 50% hit might be reduced by 30%, 75% by 60%, and a 1-hit KO would be completely negated. (obviously not the perfect numbers, but you get the idea). So it wouldn’t help against sustained DPS, but the bigger the burst the more you would absorb. That might preserve the face tanking flavor while still giving us some form of one-hit damage immunity.

Adding in a “siphon health when hit” mechanic would go a long way toward helping necros be able to face tank multiple opponents, but it does require the numbers to be good (it would probably be an active skill as well). Still wouldn’t help much against the one-shot mechanics, but I expect we will slowly see those phased out. The new content hasn’t had that lately (save a couple of easily preventable ones in the Queen’s Gauntlet).

You guys have to think outside the box. Any suggestions you come up with should be fairly simple to implement as well. Arenanet is clearly determined not to give us more access to defensive boons, like stability. Well, there are skills/traits in place already that would serve the same purpose. They would just require a tweak here and there in the code. Please stop asking for things like invulnerability, blocks, etc. As long as the Necro has DS, you will probably never see those things. While I can sympathize with the case for stability, since it doesn’t prevent damage, I’m also not going to keep beating that dead horse. Keep in mind people that getting focused fired is how a Necro dies, not why they died.

I agree that life force is straight jacketing us in this way. But I think the solution is easy. A skill that uses and eats a ton of life force at once, probably at least 50% but for a return of giving us something we otherwise don’t have, and aren’t allowed to have.

Whether that is a short range teleport to help escape / mobility, whether its a short invuln, or stability for 5 seconds, something that mimics these well known mechanics we have been talking about lacking for months.

Then it becomes a choice, do you want to keep your attrition life force for a battle, or do you want to blow it all on some super important moment in a fight to get access to some defense or ability that we otherwise never get, but almost every other profession does get. You could also do a long cooldown for this ability such that even with a high LF regen build it could not be used again for a fairly long time.