Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing necro for a long time, I don’t post on here much.

I do a lot of solo-queing, and honestly? Terrormancer just feels weak. And I know I must be doing something wrong.

I can’t win 1v1s on it, I don’t feel like I’m making a difference in teamfights. Nobody dies, I can’t really do any worthwhile CC, and when I corrupt boons they just fall off and come back. Condi application is pathetically slow, to boot.

It feels… So underwhelming.

When I play power, I can shred people with my dagger, blow up a point and deny all kinds of access with wells, support with staff while I build lifeforce and deal some pretty heavy damage with lifeblasts from the safety of the corner.

But I just can’t make myself feel useful on terrormancer, and I can’t help but feel I’m doing something wrong.

Help?

Im personally not a terrormancer heck not even a necro main but here’s my 2 cents. Allow the fears to run their full course before applying another one bacause 1 stunbreak or condi cleanse can get rid of allyour fears if you use them at once.
Use signet of spite for condition burst and to cover your other conditions.

It is entirely likely you aren’t playing perfectly, but the reality is that Condi Necro is pretty underwhelming in general.

I play loads of terrormancer in sPvP (power is boring imo). I made a video how I as condi necro play spvp, most of the tips shown are general. If you want a link to it, just tell!

The biggest tips I can give is that you burst as quick as possible a class down with little to no condi removal (engi,pewpew ranger and mesmer), give priority to the pew pew ranger, above all. Use your chill mark, your fear mark on the ranger (he will prob stunbreak if not land spite) , go into ds use Dark Path , doom , tainted shackles, spam ur marks on him or your scepter skills and keep close to him and los his lb, after dark binding os over it will immo the ranger, you use signet of spite and use your skills on him. If he uses some kind of stab source corrupt it.

I play both condition and power.

I wouldn’t bother with Condition Necromancer right now. It just doesn’t stand a chance in the meta.

You’re right. It is weaker, and harder to play to boot. Doesn’t help that both downstate and death shroud favor power builds either. Too bad, cause it’s a lot of fun when it works.

I stop using traditional terromancer and I’m doing decently I run 6 6 0 0 2 scepter/dagger & warhorn,frality and torment sigils,balthazar runes,SoL+CB+WoP+Plague. Normal condition necro doesn’t have enough cover condition and lacks fast application so I make them only downside as always is loss of dps through DS but new dhuumfire could fix that.

Edit: not a true terromancer but it’s more effective right now
Double edit: terror feels very situational now but I can’t decide if I should let go of it, only fear I have is doom and converting stab, that more of anything feals like it’s falling off especially when I stopped using staff and S.Wall to even nightmare runes.

Shoutbot.

Just one makes all condi builds non viable. And we all know what the actual shoutbow/per game numbers are.

here is the thing, anet created the necro to be in part, a good condi class, then went on to give every class multiple condi clears, which effectively renders the condi necro null and void, especially in situations where there are multiple enemies, or you have no power at all to do damage outside of conditions. In addition, terror/fear can be cleansed and stun broke, so its not a great cc, and in order to do anything on the kitten class, all the freakin stars have to align, the guy has to be out of stun breaks, clears, and dodges (or all of his buddies have to be out of group clears) for you to be effective. Essentially you are “ok” in a 1 v 1, but in a 2 v 1, 3 v 1 we are rubbish.

The necro on paper is awesome, in application anet failed hard, yet still maintain that the necro is in a good spot.

multiple tournaments, no necros, except one in NA.

good spot?

I stopped playing terrormancer when shoutbows became popular. A lot of ele and engi players seem to have gone to shoutbow, which means that with less engis, there is also less reason to bring terrormancer. A good condi necro could kill eles or engis, but with shoutbow it’s hard to justify any condi class.

Between engis and shoutbows there’s so much aoe condi clear right now that conditionmancer is useless in team fights, which used to be where they were strongest. 1v1 you can still kill things but it’s totally dependent on getting a good matchup, and right now there are more bad than good matchups around.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYWjc00cbxN+2wfbibhC6AYAm2I3gKgy5oMA-TZhHABBt/AAnBAkKDEwhAA4HAAA

With this build i’ve had a lot of fun and success. Don’t play terror like you play power.

Couple tips for playing Terrormancer, especially in solo-queue:

1. Do not ever play the frontline. You will be focused, and taken out of fights before you can do anything.
2. Your best role is as a +1 in an ongoing fight. This gives you the element of surprise, and the ability to lay down your rotation.
3. Don’t be afraid to bring out all the stops in a 1v1. Plague Form on top of a point can delay the enemy a great deal, denying them points. Them killing you quickly and capping hurts your team greatly.

I love, love, love playing Condition/Terrormancer, but as others have mentioned it has a rough time in the current meta. Your best bet is to find some people to queue with, explain to them your ideal tactics and work together. I’ve had great success this way. Some people are even willing to play a class to support you.

Yet everytime I do ag whatever team I’m on always wants me to play terrormancer instead…. no matter how many times I’ve tried explaining everyone and their grandmother is running condi clear.

Anybody with a ranged weapon to swap to is going to shred reapers

nekretaal.6485:

Anybody with a ranged weapon to swap to is going to shred reapers

Disagree. Also isn’t this a terrormancer thread? Pretty sure you can still be triple ranged as condi. No one’s forcing you to use a gs. But even if you did you could still have one ranged weapon. And sk has a leap. As well as a decent amount of condi reduction.

Terrormancer has issues due to the ramp up time on the damage and the ubiquitous presence of condi clears.

I find i engage mostly two types of PvP targets…..

ones that evade most of my attacks by dodging, going invis and blinking away, like Mezmers and Thieves.
Against good players it is impossible to accumulate any kind of meaningful Condi pressure as you just cant land enough attacks, and they can just take all day to chip you down or burst you and blink out

and 2ndly ones that just clear off the condis like Eles and Guards who put out signifigant damage pressure at the same time

or L/B rangers who just beast you from 1500 before you can get close to them

TBH All of the same problems exist for Power Necros….except you can output enough burst to upset the offensive rhythm and perhaps turn the fight with a lucky crit or a well timed fear

The only problem with running the 0/6/4/0/4 or 0/6/2/0/6 builds is that your condi duration is super tiny. Couple that with a shout warrior and your damage will be really low. Recently I’ve had a lot of success with 6/4/0/0/4 and Traveler Runes and geomancy sigils with Rabid Amulet. You’d have 40% condi duration to all condis (including fears) so you don’t have to take Master of Terror (I take Soul Marks for nice sustain, and Vital Persistence). Master of Terror + Nightmare Runes could probably work too (95% longer fears) but I haven’t tried that.

I would suggest sitting in the background and coming into fights carefully. Sometimes the people I fight stream their games and when I watch those streams, my Necro has a target above his head 24/7… so if you rush in with a Necro you’ll melt pretty quickly when focused by an engi+thief+mesmer. If you have a frontliner, I’d suggest staying in the background, then coming in. Most likely they’ll have a someone who will still go for you (thief/mesmer/medi guard) so I’d suggest trying to burst those who go for you. If not, you’re free to do whatever and life blast —> Doom —> Dark Path —> Tainted Shackles —> weapon swap —> Reaper’s Mark a squishy target

I find that shout warriors can be problematic, but their cleanses are sorta limited. They have only a few AoE cleanses and the best time to lay down your condis is once you see them use their warhorn skills. Their #4 skill removes every single slow/immob that you put down and +1 extra condi, so if you see them use their warhorn skills, then that would be a good time to lay down your slows (I know, I know, easier said than done) and other condis. If they use Shake if off —> no more stun break for them. If they used Fear Me —> long cooldown.

I dunno, I’d say to play careful but that probably isn’t much help.

I think that just over time, people figured out Necromancer base rotations through and through. Not like PvP population is increasing, it’s mostly the same people playing for over a year, so they had time. Unlike right after July 2013 patch when almost nobody knew what Necromancers actually do and that such skill as Epidemic exists.

We’re most cast-oriented and telegraphed profession after Warrior. That’s why, with our amazing cast times and visible animations vs. instants, we rely on all the procs we can get as Power to have instant damage. Modifiers help.

Conditionmancer is known and has little instant traps in his sleeve. That’s why barely any decent Thief or Mesmer/Guardian fear Condi Necro. High mitigation+burst capability+instant cast times and you have Condition Necro trasher. Not even like they run much condition cleanses anymore. Last time you saw Null Field on a Mesmer engaging you as Condi Necro? Yeah.

Yea, I’ve found dhummfire builds to be a lot stronger right now than traditional terromancer. The extra pressure you get, along with chill of death is necessary in this meta of people with a bunch of condition clear and sustain. Also, the 300 power from spite on a carrion amulet puts you at 1800, which is enough to make your life transfer, and life blast hurt much more. Basically, you need to minimize your damage build up in this meta otherwise you’ll never get enough conditions on people to kill them.

My strategy right now is to kite around, apply low cooldown skills, build LF, and dodge most of your opponents attacks (double energy is a must imo). Then use fear to make them pop cooldowns, corrupt boon, and burst with DS. The toughest class too fight is medi guard because they have a stupid amount of cooldowns. Shoutbows take a while to kill 1vs1 and thus aren’t worth engaging, but if I really have to I kill them eventually most of the time because I can send back most of their condition damage.

Terrormancer is weak in this meta . Shoutbow nullify your damage and make you useless in team fights . You are still a big threat in 1v1 but the meta specs and classes can rotate faster than you can kill your opponent 1v1 . Let’s not forget you will certainly lose the point in the 1v1 because terrormancer requires good kite . It’s totally normal that you feel weak , because you are , it’s not only terromancer , pure condi builds have no place in this meta

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

It’s a good thing. However, we would have to balance it very carefully.

Warlock with Unstable Affliction was very often “cast and forget”, especially in Burning Crusade and Wotlk. Besides UA, we would need something like Haunt, possibly in one package. Another case where having concept of using Life Force as a resource for certain effects would come a long way. But hey, ANet.

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

Or maybe a new condition which deals damage whenever that target cleanses a condi however many condis cleansed —> that much damage.

Condi necro has never been worse. You can do ok with it. But in the whole every popular build hardcounters it.

D/p thief = you can never ever heal so u get farmed.

Dps guardian = aoe condi removal

Shoutbow = aoe condi removal

Those are probably the 3 best builds in game. So yeh, condi necro is horrendously bad. Like so so bad.

Better off playing power necro and 1 spam. Even power necro counters condi necro hard. It is so brainless too, 1 spam.

wonder if anyone is paying attention?

prob not, they will give more condi clears to classes.

Gryph.8237:

here is the thing, anet created the necro to be in part, a good condi class, then went on to give every class multiple condi clears, which effectively renders the condi necro null and void, especially in situations where there are multiple enemies, or you have no power at all to do damage outside of conditions. In addition, terror/fear can be cleansed and stun broke, so its not a great cc, and in order to do anything on the kitten class, all the freakin stars have to align, the guy has to be out of stun breaks, clears, and dodges (or all of his buddies have to be out of group clears) for you to be effective. Essentially you are “ok” in a 1 v 1, but in a 2 v 1, 3 v 1 we are rubbish.

The necro on paper is awesome, in application anet failed hard, yet still maintain that the necro is in a good spot.

multiple tournaments, no necros, except one in NA.

good spot?

Necro has been the worst class in pve and pvp for most of the games life.

The Only time necro was part of the meta and required in the best comps was for about a month after dhuumfire till it got hotfixed. Apparently requiring a thief for 3 yrs and 1/2 warriors for 2 yrs is fine. But teams wanting a single necro was so serious it required a hotfix

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

I’ve recently suggested something similar of an initial necro-only concept. It wouldn’t be cleanse-able by the normal means but it’s intended to force continuing a battle and risk receiving sizable damage or flee in order to minimize it.

I think we are in agreement Lordrosicky.

PVP is about a combination of mobility, stability, blocks/invulns, evades, stealth, and condi clears, and the 5 key classes (guard, warrior, thief, ele, and engie) typically have several, if not all of the above aspects, giving them the ability to survive, contribute to the team via damage/condi clears/heals, and the ability to GTFO when things go bad, and rotate.

The necro has DS, two dodges (at present 1 stability not tied to a form), no team skills/abilities outside of damage, which is odd because it does not do more damage than any of the 5 above classes, and mobility which is tied to wyrm and SW (which is not really a mobility skill imo, as it requires you to run away to get back to your original spot. not amazing imo. (I don’t count swiftness as mobility as every class has this).

In addition to the above limitations, the Terrormancer is even in a worse spot because generating life force, our sole defense in reality, is difficult at best. Our condi application is slow, and cleared quickly, which means we cannot even contribute to the dmg pool reliably. Furthermore, we cannot survive focus fire … at all (we can’t evade it, we can’t block it, we can’t stealth and get away, etc.) All we can do is DS and soak, and hope to regen DS.

Not sure why Anet does not see our issues, or attempted to address them in spvp. While I did not ask for it, i enjoyed the brief stint with dhuumfire as I was wanted on team compositions, and i liked being competitive, which sadly was tied to dmg output, and not quality play or the ability to enact defensive mechs to survive fights and contribute longer

Gryph.8237:

I think we are in agreement Lordrosicky.

PVP is about a combination of mobility, stability, blocks/invulns, evades, stealth, and condi clears, and the 5 key classes (guard, warrior, thief, ele, and engie) typically have several, if not all of the above aspects, giving them the ability to survive, contribute to the team via damage/condi clears/heals, and the ability to GTFO when things go bad, and rotate.

The necro has DS, two dodges (at present 1 stability not tied to a form), no team skills/abilities outside of damage, which is odd because it does not do more damage than any of the 5 above classes, and mobility which is tied to wyrm and SW (which is not really a mobility skill imo, as it requires you to run away to get back to your original spot. not amazing imo. (I don’t count swiftness as mobility as every class has this).

In addition to the above limitations, the Terrormancer is even in a worse spot because generating life force, our sole defense in reality, is difficult at best. Our condi application is slow, and cleared quickly, which means we cannot even contribute to the dmg pool reliably. Furthermore, we cannot survive focus fire … at all (we can’t evade it, we can’t block it, we can’t stealth and get away, etc.) All we can do is DS and soak, and hope to regen DS.

Not sure why Anet does not see our issues, or attempted to address them in spvp. While I did not ask for it, i enjoyed the brief stint with dhuumfire as I was wanted on team compositions, and i liked being competitive, which sadly was tied to dmg output, and not quality play or the ability to enact defensive mechs to survive fights and contribute longer

I enjoyed dhuumfire too. For once i realised what it must be like to main thief or warrior in pvp. Just have the power to dominate games.

for me the main issue with necro is cast times. This game is alot of spam. A ton of evades, blocks, dodges, interrupts, damage, air sigil procs, swap weapon procs.

in pvp cast times are everything. All the meta classes have non interruptable heals for a reason. Because with an interruptable heal you die over and over to headshot or fear me interrupts from thieves for example.

Staff is also an exceptionally weak weapon. Marks just take too long to cast and have too long cds.

that is why i was vocal about hating the new shouts. Once agai we got long cast time skills. There is just no way you can use a 1.25 s cast skill in gw2, espically those as bad as the reaper shouts. But even if they had exceptional effects they wouldnt be viable at all because the cast times bury them. You dont even need to read about anything else. Once you see huge cast times its over, instantly not viable. Necro badly needs an uninterruptable heal that is exceptionally strong. Or they need to nerf other uninterruptable heals and also nerf skills like thieves headshot which is probably the most broken skill in gw2 in pvp

I agree with you guys, the problem with necros is they have almost nothing that is low cast time. Furthermore, there isn’t any uncounterable defense on the class. All of our defensive skills either require hitting a target (LF generators, condition transfer, conditions), them hitting you (Spectral Armor, Walk), or have a big cast time. These all have direct counters, comparing to other classes they either get straight up healing instantly, boons instantly, blinds instantly, invlunerability instantly, teleport instantly, etc. Basically, necros need some instant uncounterable defense, which they don’t currently have.

Until we see some kind of hard to counter defense we will continue to get focused down in teamfights. They have made steps with reaper, the low cooldown stun break that applies weakness, 1/4 second aoe blind cripple, and pulsing stability will help greatly. Now they just need to add a few more things like that to the base class. Basically, I want them to buff our stunbreaks. Well of power should pulse stab, walk should have a teleport at the beginning or last longer, wurm should be instant cast or 5k range, armor should last a little longer or grant stab (note some of these might be a little op). Stuff like that, so that we can either create space to land skills, or have stability to land skills. This is because all of our defense relies on hitting foes, which makes us simply to vulnerable too coordinated cc.

I’ve probably had the most success using a terrormancer build that runs 4/6/0/0/4, you’re more focused on ripping and corrupting boons with this build, for example dark path —> corrupt boon will corrupt 7 boons on someone for massive amounts of pressure, which is pretty good in this meta with the amount of boons everything runs. However as with every necro build it is still pretty susceptible to being bursted down if your team isn’t going to help you.

Couple of nice things to note about the build, with the condi duration if you’re using your fears (with any other condi on the foe) are going to land 2 ticks of them, even 3 ticks with a close ranged doom, which substantially increases your damage. If you do it without any condi’s on them though you only get 1 tick.

Probably the thing that really wrecks terrormancers right now is that Terror doesn’t actually benefit from partial damage ticks, meaning having low condi duration reallyyyyyyyy ruins your damage (considering terror has such a high base damage).

On the build itself, you can run a lot of things in the free utility slot, I personally run with spectral wall for the extra fears and prot (if you’re good enough with it you can hit fears when you cast it) as well as it being a nice zoning tool on points. In terms of Sigils the reason I run Generosity is that it improves every match up you’re going to face, power builds cause quite a bit of condi damage and when you transfer them back it uses your stats so that’s great. Leeching is more personal preference, I like that 974 damage + heal on swap but there are plenty of other options floating around.

I think a following trait (can be master tier in curses) would be awesome:

New curses master tier trait – Panic: applying fear applies 8 stacks of confusion for 4s.

Simple – when enemies are feared they just run and can’t perform any actions. And that’s fine. If they choose to do something like stunbreak or condi cleanse, they’ll eat the confusion spike penalty.

Now there is still little isssue of passive condi cleases, but those aren’t that controllable nor strong as the active ones. Also if you cover that fear and confusion with more conditions…well it might get fun;)

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

We need a condition that negates boon effect.

Sagat.3285:

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

We need a condition that negates boon effect.

Or just revert the nerfs to corrupt boon.

Roe.3679:

Sagat.3285:

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

We need a condition that negates boon effect.

Or just revert the nerfs to corrupt boon.

1 skill to save us all is not the best design, an actual condition specifically that condition is more manageable and helpful I am not sure who thought resistance was a good idea right now.

Terrormancer was nerfed for Dhuumfire and has had multiple other nerfs while condition resistance on other professions has been buffed.

Arenanet does not want condition Necromancer builds strong. They want power builds.

Sagat.3285:

Roe.3679:

Sagat.3285:

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

We need a condition that negates boon effect.

Or just revert the nerfs to corrupt boon.

1 skill to save us all is not the best design, an actual condition specifically that condition is more manageable and helpful I am not sure who thought resistance was a good idea right now.

Well I agree that 1 skill to rely on isn’t the best design, but I also don’t think that adding another condition is a good idea. More conditions will probably mean more condition removal, which could end up biting us again. I think more boon corruption is a better path.

I still run terrormancer in WvW roaming from time to time, and in there it’s not as reliable as it used to be. As others said it takes a while for us to ramp up the damage, and most of the time the enemy will either cleanse or just run and reset because terrormancer only has ds2 to gap close, and that thing is not reliable at all unless used within 600 range.

The other thing is I run this build in PVE and can usually make my conditions hit pretty hard. Sure it’s not zerker damage but I can still kill most bosses pretty quickly. But that’s running BiP, CPC and Epidemic. So no stunbreaker a which is just not viable at all in any way shape of form in PvP.

TheLastNobody.8319:

I still run terrormancer in WvW roaming from time to time, and in there it’s not as reliable as it used to be. As others said it takes a while for us to ramp up the damage, and most of the time the enemy will either cleanse or just run and reset because terrormancer only has ds2 to gap close, and that thing is not reliable at all unless used within 600 range.

The other thing is I run this build in PVE and can usually make my conditions hit pretty hard. Sure it’s not zerker damage but I can still kill most bosses pretty quickly. But that’s running BiP, CPC and Epidemic. So no stunbreaker a which is just not viable at all in any way shape of form in PvP.

That is sad to hear because wvw condi necro is still in much better shape than pvp condi necro.

I don’t think terrormancer and condimancer have to be the same thing but regardless, I’ve always been of the opinion that Necromancer is more suited for condition duration and not condition damage. I think our most powerful conditions are chill, blind, poison, fear and weakness. Because of that I prefer to run Berserker with a small focus on condition duration for weakening and cc’ing the enemy zerg.

Your job as a condition Necro is to be a pest. You aren’t going out there to kill your opponents, but rather to force them into taking non-ideal skills on their bar or to blow their good skills so that your friends can blow them up.

Stay with the group. Stay in the back. Keep on pestering with pestilence.

mtpelion.4562:

Your job as a condition Necro is to be a pest. You aren’t going out there to kill your opponents, but rather to force them into taking non-ideal skills on their bar or to blow their good skills so that your friends can blow them up.

Stay with the group. Stay in the back. Keep on pestering with pestilence.

I agree with that, and it’s how I try to play a condition Necro, but you quickly run into problems. Without a team you can communicate with, you will be focused quickly the moment you show up, which brings us to our next problem. You have no answers to that. No mobility, little stunbreaks, no viable stability outside of transforms. It’s a catch22. Condition Necro needs ramp time, but very little survivability.

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

I’ve been playing necro for a long time, I don’t post on here much.

I do a lot of solo-queing, and honestly? Terrormancer just feels weak. And I know I must be doing something wrong.

I can’t win 1v1s on it, I don’t feel like I’m making a difference in teamfights. Nobody dies, I can’t really do any worthwhile CC, and when I corrupt boons they just fall off and come back. Condi application is pathetically slow, to boot.

It feels… So underwhelming.

When I play power, I can shred people with my dagger, blow up a point and deny all kinds of access with wells, support with staff while I build lifeforce and deal some pretty heavy damage with lifeblasts from the safety of the corner.

But I just can’t make myself feel useful on terrormancer, and I can’t help but feel I’m doing something wrong.

Help?

Terrormancer is weak against any decent player with stun breaks or classes with alot of condi removal.

Another thing that really limits terrormancer and condi in general is shoutbow warriors a meta ‘hardcounter’ to condi.

You are doing nothing wrong.

I’m a die-hard condi necro but have been rolling power lately. When I do condi its my special brew, still take terror of course but I always felt the pure terror build (as seen on metabattle) was not optimal. It works fine I win the vast majority 95% of 1v1s in ranked however still think power is better by a fair margin right now.

I am really really out of practice. But I tried a bit of the old terrormancer earlier and it wasnt very fun.

Obviously I could do with getting good again as I have been in and out of the game for 12 months (more out than in) and I have not played this spec basically at all since december.

Having said all this I still know roughly what I am doing, and I understand the game.

It is easy to see why condi necro is horrendously bad right now. Just compare it to the other specs, which will do below:

Shoutbow – total hard counter. Worse in team fights, but terrible 1vs1. They have massive amounts of cleanse. If you run rabids you will die very very quickly to their condis. If you run carrion then have large direct damage too. All while you can inflict little on the enemy.

DPS guardian – hardcounter. They again have AOE condi cleanse. Blocks and blinds too. All of which kill a necro. They have a ton of condi cleanse and even a full cleanse. Again it is simply a hardcounter. In team fights the guardian ring can be devestating too as we have no stability or blocks to wait it out. Our hope is to have flesh wurm, but often this dies OR we use it at the start of the game to get 10% life force and then are just automatically dead.

D/P thief – hard counter. In team fights and tbh if well played 1 vs 1. Having a 1.25 second heal just doesnt work against a class with spammable ranged dazes. They dont even need to time it well, they can just spam it and know they will get your heal eventually.

Mesmer – Hard counter when combined with any other dps class. A mesmer probably has the edge on a necro if they are clever about their ports. Combined with a thief or any other dps and the necro will literally get one shot in a team fight. Mesmer/thief combi has countered necro in pvp since release. It still exists.

Power ranger – I used to play a ton of WvW and power ranger was the hardest spec to fight against. In pvp it is similar. The build is basically a hard counter to condi necro. You just take too much damage.

Power necro – hard counter. A necro has to run carrion currently or you die to random celestial burning and weapon swaps (I know its stupid isn’kitten. So as soon as you run carrion you are susceptable to spike damage. It has been that way since release again. A power necro has the most HP in the game as they can actually get life force. And obviously HP counters conditions. So the result is power necro is a total hard counter to condi necro.

Staff ele – hard counter. Probably the hardest 1v1 in game, harder than shoutbow. Just too much cleanse. They dish out a lot of damage if you are carrion and if you are rabids again you just die to burning/bleeds.

d/d ele and cele engi are 50-50 fights. Maybe condi necro is slightly ahead vs cele engi but im not sure that is the case since the cele engis learnt how to play.

These are facts by the way. It is based on simple maths and reasoning

Also, it is worth remembering that as classes will get MORE traits after the next update it means even more specs can spec into condi removal. Meanwhile a condition necromancer will get totally screwed, because we mathematically dont have enough conditions. We NEED burning AND confusion to stay competitive post patch. This will not happen and condi necro will be as unviable as, say, a condi thief is now.

Condi necro also struggles to get life force after the nerf to life force stacking in pvp. This makes things 100% worse. It is just hard to get life force unless your team is dominant. So mesmers whine and whine about 1 class hard countering them. Yet they have a ton of things they can do. Condition necro is countered hard not by 1 or 2 builds. It is hard countered by every class, and usually by that classes most popular spec.

I have played terrormancer for 2+ years and been a consistant active rank 1 player in solo queue on it. I know what I am talking about, and I can guarentee to you all that condition necro is horrible. You either run rabid and die to random cele condis. Or you run carrion and get kittened by air sigil procs. Pick your poison…both end the same way. With a dead condition necromancer.

There is too much resistance to, and access to, conditions in this game while the dev’s insist Necromancer remain handicapped.

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

Necro used to have several hex skills like that in GW1, hell necros used to be able to punish you for doing anything really, forcing you to either play intelligently, or die by spamming. When they removed that type of counterplay from this game, they effectively cut off necro at the knees.

My question is, its obvious that condi necro has huge issues, and I would even argue that some other class builds play condi a lot better than we, but was this even mention in the specialist report? If not.. ima gonna be sad if we cant play a viable condi necro for pvp without being steamrolled.

Nothing to really add to this other than to agree. I feel in 99% of situations Double well/power outperforms Terrormancer. I still play it from time to time, but it falls short due to the over abundance of individual and group condi clears that are currently available in the meta.

At one point it was really viable and strong, but the constant nerfs to our skills removal of bleed stacks, dhumfire nerf, and the introduction to so much anti-condition removal skills, has essentially rendered the terrormancer very underwhelming in most situations. There are still classes that the power necro is really hard countered by, but not as many, and overall your ability to spike people is much higher, as is your overall contribution in a group fight. It also helps that the powermancer has the ability to generate life force at a decent rate. Just my 2cents.

MethaneGas.8357:

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

Or maybe a new condition which deals damage whenever that target cleanses a condi however many condis cleansed —> that much damage.

That would be lethal…. For necros!

Really,i would mean they could apply a condition on you and, when you needed to heal, it would kill you! Or you would have to forget about consume conditions, one of our stronger skills.