Guild Wars 2

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes(1), and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher(2). While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast(3), they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights(4). They have access to poison on multiple weapons(5), they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage(6), and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills(7). Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities(8), while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health(9).

This post is going to assume that the dev statement on Necros is an accurate vision of what they want necros to be, and for people to make suggestions to help make that vision an actual reality. If you can, please preface each suggestion by quoting the line of the dev statement you address.

1, 2 and 3 are obviously true, though that doesn’t mean suggestions to improve that would be unwelcome. 5 is true but could be made more true by making axe 1 poison enemies as well.

They are able to combine condition damage with raw damage(6): Needs help. The curses traitline makes some small steps in this direction, but fails at the end because power/prec/critdam is synergistic and condition damage is NOT. Here’s the ways they interact:

2% damage per condition GM trait: There are 11 total conditions, which makes the total attainable damage boost 22%, which sounds impressive until you realize that 5 of them are at the extreme end of short-duration, with some of the rest being low duration or ones a necro can’t keep up. Compare this to the guardian, who has a 10% damage trait vs burning enemies, and another 10% trait for any condition at all.

66% chance on crit for a bleed. Good chance, microscopic duration.

That’s it. That is all the necromancer interactions between condition damage and other damage. Might stacks both, but we have limited access to that. Traited BiP has 50% uptime (boon duration extends this, but we aren’t a boon class that sees much other benefit from boon gear).

There is no way within the existing damage framework for any type of non-condition stat to increase condition damage.

Suggestion: Reduce BiP untraited to 24 seconds because more reliable access to might rewards combining condition damage with raw damage. Make reaper’s might apply a flat 6 stacks (while in DS only) to give condition users a reason to rotate into death shroud.

Suggestion: Increase target the weak to 2.5% per condition. More than 6 conditions on a target for any significant time is rare.

Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities(8), while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health(9).

In practice, a necro is going to seldom chase down someone who’s running away. It certainly isn’t going to compete with a high-mobility class in that regard. One aspect of the problem is that CC means you merely knock the necro down then run.

Suggestion: Make entering DS a stun break. This is a big change, but this or something very like this would need to happen in order for the “allows them to chase down enemies” to inspire fear rather than derisive laughter. DS is already a tightly controlled state, and if dying doesn’t qualify as a stun break, I’m not sure what would.

Suggestion: Add immunity to fear to Master of Terror. This would make lore sense and make it so that at least some necros will be spending more time spreading fear than suffering from it :P

Space for other suggestions. Remember to quote the dev vision statement!

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes(1), and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher(2). While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast(3), they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights(4). They have access to poison on multiple weapons(5), they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage(6), and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills(7). Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities(8), while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health(9).

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes(1), While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast(3) – These statements are true.

@ and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher(2) – true

they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights(4) – my personal view is, this is true, but if in wvw, most of the time, when you almost get the target down, there’s more enemies appear, you have to run. ( in short, the longer the fight, the more chance that more enemies backup will appear, so.. yea, run)

They have access to poison on multiple weapons(5) – true.

@ they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage(6) and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills(7) – true.

Necromancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities(8) – true.

while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health(9). – back to statement (4)

@ to apply these statements, you have to sacrifice few of your important traits. And from time to time, swapping weapon and utilities skills is a Must. And basically Necro traits are really a mess.

Conclusion (my personal view) – Necromancers, fun to play, and i really enjoyed it, and still enjoying it a lot. Cheers =)

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes(1)

True

and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher(2)

This will be true if we would have a full Life Force bar every time we use DS, which we don’t

While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast(3)

I think this is a “so-so”, blinds and fears have us halfway decently covered.

they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights(4)

True, well, more like “not to loose”.

They have access to poison on multiple weapons(5)

False, only Scepter and Staff (And Trident, buy hey…), 6 second to 20 recharge on staff and 2 seconds on the third Scepter 1, pretty pathetic.

they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage(6)

Sure, and also we’re able to dodge and regen health out of combat… c’mon, everybody can do that, and we’re not excelent at it…

and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills(7)

Not so many, we have DS 3 Doom, an awesome skills, and then… Staff 5 (40 secs recharge) and Warhorn 4 (30 secs recharge), maybe we can count Flesh Golem charge,

Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities(8)

Anybody who have tried to chase someone with a necro will know that this sound nice in theory but not in practice, most of that abilities are conditions, so they get usually cleansed almost immediately and fear is useless to slow down someone if you’re chasing him, leaving us with Golem Charge and Dagger 3, wich also is a condition.

while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health(9)

False, low health has nothing to do with that, F1 Steal and Heartseeker x2 is actually a good way to “chase down enemies who are low on health”, we don’t have anything that gets influenced by enemies life except one trait

I’m going to be honest, I refuse to accept this is what Anet developers think this class is, or almost any of them in their Class Philosophy because that would really mean they don’t have the most minimal clue about what they have created.

It’s not sarcastic, my brain refuses to believe it, it’s absolutely impossible to say things like this if you play the classes, let alone if you actually created them, I hope this is what they want them to become.

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes(1), and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher(2). While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast(3), they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights(4). They have access to poison on multiple weapons(5), they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage(6), and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills(7). Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities(8), while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health(9).

1) True
2) Only semi true since DS remove your skill bar and replace with its own. DS should replace your red hp with green hp, and add skills to F2 to F5. F1 is for reserved for exiting DS.
3) This balances with #1. So all that extra hp from #1 is naturalized.
4) Attrition fights should only be considered a win if necros can catch their prey. Buff necro snares and we would have a case. For example that immobilize on the dagger is only 600 range. I guess in sPvP its good. In WvW it is useless. In WvW anything 600 range or below is pretty much melee range.
5) Poison needs to stack damage instead of stacking duration. Bleed goes to 25 too fast. Poison is not as common.
6) Only partly true. For example neither dagger or wells uses condition damage. For this to be true, every single necro skills needs a condition damage. So lower their power damage, and add a condition to the skills.
7) They got a few fears. But their interrupts are nothing to write home about.
8) Refer to point 4.
9) Refer to point 4.