Guild Wars 2

Kicked the necro, eh? Guess they didn’t want

*Fastest recharging AoE rez in the game (Signet of Undeath)
*Spammable AoE blast finishers (Bone Minion)
*Ample Boon Hate (Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, Spinal Shivers)
*High vulnerability stacking (Well of Suffering, Axe, Reaper’s Touch, Spectral Wall)
*Protection stacking (Spectral Wall)
*AoE Blinds and Chills (any well + bone minion, Well of Darkness, ChillBlains, Plague Form)
*Mob Pulling (Spectral Grasp)
*Clerics (Well of Power, Plague Signet, Putrid Mark, Well of Blood)
*Disabling conditions like weakness and cripple and chill.
*Head asploding condition application (EPIMOTHERKITTENDEMIC!)

People really have no idea how awesome epidemic is until they’ve run a necro. When I go full condition offense (carrion mixed with rampager), I have 1510 condition damage and 153%/90%/70% condition duration (scepter bleeds, bleeds, other conditions), and this is before using Blood is Power, which gives me 1860 condition damage. I do 135 damage per tick with bleed because of this. Epidemic, as you all know, copies the conditions on one target onto up to 5 additional targets in a 600" radius. So, at its peak, epidemic will be copying 25 bleeds and poison (and chill and cripple and vulnerability and all that jazz) to 5 targets, and lets assume the average duration is 10 seconds of those 25 bleeds. This is average, so some are longer and some are shorter.

So, 25 bleeds x 135 damage / second x 10 seconds x 5 targets + 270 poison damage / second x 10 seconds x 5 targets =

(25 × 135 +270) x 50 =

168,750 +13,500 = 182,250 damage.

So Epidemic can do up to 182,250 damage, 18,250 DPS… every 12 seconds. Epi-mother-kitten-demic! You’ll know you have a good necro on the team when, after concentrating on the first silver mob and killing it, every other silver mob in the room is at 1/3rd health and everything less is already dead. Any epic boss’s or champion’s adds might as well not exist when a conditionmancer is around.

Conditionmancers do not suffer from the condition cap like other classes. They want more condition builds on the team. The reason why is because Necros wait for conditions to build up on a single target, and once they have a substantial amount of bleeds only then do they start using epidemic. When a condition necro is by themselves, it takes awhile to get 15 or so bleeds on a single target. But when paired with other condition damage builds, they use epidemic quicker and more frequently.

For all the problems the Necromancer has, the class does have some pretty cool stuff.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

For all the problems the Necromancer has, the class does have some pretty cool stuff.

That line is an excellent summation of the class as a whole. Lots of problems and some really cool stuff.

I’ve read so many times on these forums different people say the following, “I know it’s not the best class, but I play it the most because it’s fun.”

Tired of being kicked from dungeon groups? Tired of people arbitrairily looking down on your class? Do you want to be part of something bigger then yourself???

Then come join the mist wars! Your adventure awaits you!

Ezeriel.9574:

I really wish people would stop defending what is considered to be one of the two worst classes in the game.

Being dishonest about it is not doing you, the game, or the new players any good

Going around the forums shouting “necros are useless in dungeons!” is not doing anyone any good. How do you expect ANet to take anything the necromancer subforum says seriously when so many posts are outrageous exaggerations?

Ezeriel.9574:

Yeah sure, you did a dungeon, with a guild or pug blah blah blah… does that suddenly make the class good for dungeons? No, it doesn’t.

Here we have a Mesmer that turned a 7 minute CoF run into a 10 minute run, and got kick from his group for the effort.

CoF is not the end-all-be-all of dungeon play, and zerker warriors are not the end-all-be-all of dungeon groups. If a certain build isn’t working well for you in dungeons, you should try something else.

kidbs.8920:

Again, for the last time I said 8-10k. I didn’t not say 10k every single time, and admittedly that is more of a rare outlier. The 8k+ range is the norm. I also run Sigil of Bloodlust on my staff so I generally always have 25 stacks of that up which gives me a constant 250 extra power. I am also talking about numbers which I generally see in my daily fractal runs, not spvp or WvW.

Usually any stacks of vulnerability in my daily group all get applied by me with my Well of Suffering and Lifeblasts (from trait), so I don’t have a heavy vulnerability or might stacking dungeon group. It is generally best to pop LT while Well of Suffering is up so that you can enjoy the damage boost and huge nuking potential of mobs.

Just as an aside, you do generally realize that when you see these huge Warrior 100b numbers it is when they have 25 stacks of might/vuln plus other buffs all stacked. You won’t see them running in completely unbuffed pulling insane numbers.

I never mentioned warriors (I don’t think), I was simply pointing out that if you throw out big numbers, you need to make sure you qualify the statement that it is in a group setting in PVE, which is not the same as everywhere else. I see now you have done that in your last post so I can move on.

I am not comparing necro to warrior, I am comparing your comments about Power damage and its viability against what it actually is – in general- which is without the AOE might and other things a group setting brings, not as great as other class power builds.

If you take best case group scenarios and use that to base your damage, that is misleading to anyone who sees that and thinks they are going to have that potential in WvW/sPvP. Having been reprimanded numerous times over my overstatement of condition power (using food buffs and stacks), I am just pointing out adding in group debuffs/buffs just skews the data farther.

Also Hybrid builds do very well in PVE, since I have run Nem’s build with Rampagers in Fractals for some time now, but that doesn’t stop the fact that we lack the main advantages in fractals and general group settings (aoe buffs and reflects). For raw damage you shouldn’t take a Necro, you should for condition control, which unfortunately just isn’t that critical right now in any PVE environment.

Rennoko.5731:

kidbs.8920:

Again, for the last time I said 8-10k. I didn’t not say 10k every single time, and admittedly that is more of a rare outlier. The 8k+ range is the norm. I also run Sigil of Bloodlust on my staff so I generally always have 25 stacks of that up which gives me a constant 250 extra power. I am also talking about numbers which I generally see in my daily fractal runs, not spvp or WvW.

Usually any stacks of vulnerability in my daily group all get applied by me with my Well of Suffering and Lifeblasts (from trait), so I don’t have a heavy vulnerability or might stacking dungeon group. It is generally best to pop LT while Well of Suffering is up so that you can enjoy the damage boost and huge nuking potential of mobs.

Just as an aside, you do generally realize that when you see these huge Warrior 100b numbers it is when they have 25 stacks of might/vuln plus other buffs all stacked. You won’t see them running in completely unbuffed pulling insane numbers.

I never mentioned warriors (I don’t think), I was simply pointing out that if you throw out big numbers, you need to make sure you qualify the statement that it is in a group setting in PVE, which is not the same as everywhere else. I see now you have done that in your last post so I can move on.

I am not comparing necro to warrior, I am comparing your comments about Power damage and its viability against what it actually is – in general- which is without the AOE might and other things a group setting brings, not as great as other class power builds.

If you take best case group scenarios and use that to base your damage, that is misleading to anyone who sees that and thinks they are going to have that potential in WvW/sPvP. Having been reprimanded numerous times over my overstatement of condition power (using food buffs and stacks), I am just pointing out adding in group debuffs/buffs just skews the data farther.

Also Hybrid builds do very well in PVE, since I have run Nem’s build with Rampagers in Fractals for some time now, but that doesn’t stop the fact that we lack the main advantages in fractals and general group settings (aoe buffs and reflects). For raw damage you shouldn’t take a Necro, you should for condition control, which unfortunately just isn’t that critical right now in any PVE environment.

The thing is, what you are saying is also simply not true. None of the other class power builds hold a significant dps advantage over necro power builds. Any large damage numbers that are being reported by other classes are also while under the affects of food buffs, might stacks and vulnerability stacks. The might stacks are generally group wide and everyone gets the same benefits from vulnerability on a mob.

There is no way that a warrior is pulling substantially higher dps on a boss than I am with my dagger when I have the same buffs as he does.

You’ve fallen victim to the exact same thing that you said I did by believing the dps numbers that other classes report. Everyone reports their damage while fully buffed.

With the exception of very few select encounters no class makes or breaks a dungeon group in this game. No, not even a Ranger.

Certain classes will help to complete a dungeon much faster or safer though and the rest just makes up the numbers. Necro is part of the latter group and as long as ANet does not revamp the content completely, no amount of lamenting by a few posters on this forum will change that.

For the same reason warrior zerker teams are so effective, i.e. dungeons being super easy once you know them and are at least a somewhat competent player, most PUGs won’t care much what class you are however, because you can beat the existing content with pretty much any combination. It just might take a little longer and one or two more wipes.

Just avoid GW2lfg adds looking for super rush jobs or specifically war/guard/mes and you should be fine. If you want to run CoE for the first time you really have to tell your group beforehand though. If even one group member doesn’t know certain mechanics this dungeon can be a huge pita.

kidbs.8920:

The thing is, what you are saying is also simply not true. None of the other class power builds hold a significant dps advantage over necro power builds. Any large damage numbers that are being reported by other classes are also while under the affects of food buffs, might stacks and vulnerability stacks. The might stacks are generally group wide and everyone gets the same benefits from vulnerability on a mob.

There is no way that a warrior is pulling substantially higher dps on a boss than I am with my dagger when I have the same buffs as he does.

I can think of a number of reasons why a warrior would put out substantially higher DPS, but the primary one is 100 blades. It deals insane damage with a base cooldown of 8 seconds. Necro has nothing that comes even close to that, even ignoring the fact that it and everything else they are doing in melee range is AOE while ours is single target.

Boons and buffs aside, the numbers do not add up for just using the autoattack chain on dagger 1 (since that is the highest DPS we can achieve), and comparing that as equivalent to a warrior using GW swings and 100 blades.

But frankly how wrong would it be if we did out DPS them by autoattacking? I can see why it is the way that it is, since our skills on dagger 2 and 3 are mostly utility (a heal/semi ranged attack and a root).

Our raw dps will always be lower because we can bring more utility to the fight. The problem is the difficulty of the PVE doesn’t really require that utility. I am not advocating that people avoid power necro, I am just pointing out that it doesn’t match raw DPS of the DPS king. And as long as people have the option of taking the king to the ball, they don’t want the prince, or the valet, or the janitor.

kidbs.8920:

Rennoko.5731:

kidbs.8920:

Again, for the last time I said 8-10k. I didn’t not say 10k every single time, and admittedly that is more of a rare outlier. The 8k+ range is the norm. I also run Sigil of Bloodlust on my staff so I generally always have 25 stacks of that up which gives me a constant 250 extra power. I am also talking about numbers which I generally see in my daily fractal runs, not spvp or WvW.

Usually any stacks of vulnerability in my daily group all get applied by me with my Well of Suffering and Lifeblasts (from trait), so I don’t have a heavy vulnerability or might stacking dungeon group. It is generally best to pop LT while Well of Suffering is up so that you can enjoy the damage boost and huge nuking potential of mobs.

Just as an aside, you do generally realize that when you see these huge Warrior 100b numbers it is when they have 25 stacks of might/vuln plus other buffs all stacked. You won’t see them running in completely unbuffed pulling insane numbers.

I never mentioned warriors (I don’t think), I was simply pointing out that if you throw out big numbers, you need to make sure you qualify the statement that it is in a group setting in PVE, which is not the same as everywhere else. I see now you have done that in your last post so I can move on.

I am not comparing necro to warrior, I am comparing your comments about Power damage and its viability against what it actually is – in general- which is without the AOE might and other things a group setting brings, not as great as other class power builds.

If you take best case group scenarios and use that to base your damage, that is misleading to anyone who sees that and thinks they are going to have that potential in WvW/sPvP. Having been reprimanded numerous times over my overstatement of condition power (using food buffs and stacks), I am just pointing out adding in group debuffs/buffs just skews the data farther.

Also Hybrid builds do very well in PVE, since I have run Nem’s build with Rampagers in Fractals for some time now, but that doesn’t stop the fact that we lack the main advantages in fractals and general group settings (aoe buffs and reflects). For raw damage you shouldn’t take a Necro, you should for condition control, which unfortunately just isn’t that critical right now in any PVE environment.

The thing is, what you are saying is also simply not true. None of the other class power builds hold a significant dps advantage over necro power builds. Any large damage numbers that are being reported by other classes are also while under the affects of food buffs, might stacks and vulnerability stacks. The might stacks are generally group wide and everyone gets the same benefits from vulnerability on a mob.

There is no way that a warrior is pulling substantially higher dps on a boss than I am with my dagger when I have the same buffs as he does.

You’ve fallen victim to the exact same thing that you said I did by believing the dps numbers that other classes report. Everyone reports their damage while fully buffed.

I can believe this for single target dps, but there are other factors, e.g.
1. aoe dps. It’s not as on demand/spammable. Lack of cleave autoattack (why anet). Having to use utility slots for dmge, which have long cd anyway. Ramp up time of ae condition.
2. how much u multiply group dps by with your buffs and debuffs. e.g. the warrior may be giving fury, and some might and vuln stacks + banner buffs. Necro can do some vulnerability but is lacking here. The group of heavies/mes is greater than the sum of its parts, a full necro group not to the same degree.
3. Heavies do similar damage but get more hp and/or armor by default which is like free extra stats.

I don’t really care what class is in group cause i am casual, and outside of one specific boring situation (speed clearing the saem path over and over and over where a slightly slower run adds up) I don’t really see why it should matter for anyone. If you’re only doing 1-2 paths kicking a player and looking for someone new adds on extra time and might erase any time saved.

Also they have alrdy change some skills (i beleive some guardian skill, also thief shortbow 2) to have different characteristics pve and pvp so I don’t see why they can’t change skills for pve. Additionally there is the design of the mobs themselves which favours certain specs. e.g. generally condition specs get screwed a lot. At this point too, surely, it’s a pve game. I mean afaik the pvp scene is dead. So start balancing pve.

Rennoko.5731:

kidbs.8920:

The thing is, what you are saying is also simply not true. None of the other class power builds hold a significant dps advantage over necro power builds. Any large damage numbers that are being reported by other classes are also while under the affects of food buffs, might stacks and vulnerability stacks. The might stacks are generally group wide and everyone gets the same benefits from vulnerability on a mob.

There is no way that a warrior is pulling substantially higher dps on a boss than I am with my dagger when I have the same buffs as he does.

I can think of a number of reasons why a warrior would put out substantially higher DPS, but the primary one is 100 blades. It deals insane damage with a base cooldown of 8 seconds. Necro has nothing that comes even close to that, even ignoring the fact that it and everything else they are doing in melee range is AOE while ours is single target.

Boons and buffs aside, the numbers do not add up for just using the autoattack chain on dagger 1 (since that is the highest DPS we can achieve), and comparing that as equivalent to a warrior using GW swings and 100 blades.

But frankly how wrong would it be if we did out DPS them by autoattacking? I can see why it is the way that it is, since our skills on dagger 2 and 3 are mostly utility (a heal/semi ranged attack and a root).

Our raw dps will always be lower because we can bring more utility to the fight. The problem is the difficulty of the PVE doesn’t really require that utility. I am not advocating that people avoid power necro, I am just pointing out that it doesn’t match raw DPS of the DPS king. And as long as people have the option of taking the king to the ball, they don’t want the prince, or the valet, or the janitor.

The necro dagger auto-attack chain actually does higher dps than a warrior’s GS auto-attack. I do agree that their overall dps will be higher with their auto if there is more than one mob around and yeah 100b is a bit OP. Now if our wells had a shorter cooldown then I would say that our dps would be completely equal to a warrior b/c those moments when I can drop both of my wells and then lay in with my dagger, I know that am pulling ridiculous damage.

So we may not match up to warrior’s dps, but I would say that necros are right up there with thieves in the 2nd/3rd place for dps especially on single targets.