Guild Wars 2

There are several issues with the Necromancers, as you have most likely read in the forums.. I’m well aware that Necromancers are not meant to be a pure damage dealer, but we are weak. In comparison to our former Guild Wars Necromancer’s, we don’t hold a candle to them.

Currently, the best viable combination for weapons in PvE are Staff/Scepter-OH.
Through out my PvE experience I feel as if I just kite mobs around non-stop. Playing with axe just seems useless. Dagger’s seem to be fairly viable in PvP but in PvE, seem lackluster.

DS as well seems weak, I do like the fact that we have some controlling tactics using DS. Doom and Dark Path have been a life saver at times, but they are largely situational. I find myself using life Blast and Life Transfer as part of a rotation depending on the mobs I face. Life Transfer is the best AoE damage ability we have. Besides it’s occasional use of fear and CC, Death Shroud is largely another health bar that I’ll use when I’m waiting for my healing skill to get off cool down. As our signature ability, I would hope this would be a bit more promising, but it isn’t. It’s a let down.

Minions AI are finicky and I don’t trust them at all for PvE, besides just controlling them, once they are alive, gameplay just seems boring, utility skills are almost null and void. In PvP, they only because a minor annoyance to the enemy.

For individual skills:
Necrotic Grasp – The sounds on this became extremely annoying – fast. I actually stopped playing staff for this reason, even though I enjoy the combat using the staff, I just cannot take that annoying sound anymore. This game sounds beautiful, and the only game I haven’t listened to Pandora while playing, but the loud and repetitious sound the staff produces drives me crazy.

Necrotic Slash/Stab/Bite – It’s a rather weak amount of damage, but I can get past that, what I cannot get past is Necrotic Bite’s final ability. No Condition Damage, a slight bit of burst damage and .. “Gain Life Force.” Gaining Life Force should be mandatory, or at least placed into Necrotic Stab. Or give stab a bleed, and bite life force. When I play this.. it’s not Necrotic Slash/Stab/Bite, it’s Slash/Slash/Bite. Scepter at least stacks 2 bleeds and a poison, and you would figure, being slashed and stabbed by a knife would make you bleed. Getting hit by a scepter wouldn’t.

Life Siphon – In Theory, this skill should be amazing, but for the most part it’s not. It’s ability to siphon health seems low, but more over, it’s damage seems low. I would be much happier if damage from siphoning was slightly higher and the health gained stayed the same.

Wail of Doom – Either this cone radius is extremely small, or the distance is small. I swear this effect barely hits targets in front of me.

Spinal Shivers – The casting time seems rather long and damage seems weak to consider using this. I don’t know about others (input please?) but the Focus is just weak. Grasping Dead, Chillblains, Fears, and Locust Swarm seem to be much more reliable and instant forms of controlling an opponents movement speed. I’d prefer the old school Spinal Shivers and just make it an interrupt.

Signet of the Locust – A weak heal with a insignificant run speed enhancement. I use it when running place to place, but as an actual viable utility skill, it’s about worthless due to the signet’s long recharge time.

Prayer to Kormir – Myself I use Consume Conditions as my main heal as getting 3 conditions on me will be the greatest self heal we can get. But I can see where this would be useful, PvP more so than PvE, but the recharge time makes me think picking another utility skill would serve a more worthwhile purposes. Plague Signet for example is extremely helpful with your group, can be damaging to the enemy, breaks stuns, and it’s only 20 seconds longer of shorter if you are specced for it.
Prayer to Lyssa – I’m willing to bet.. NO ONE uses this. In PvP, certainty trumps random, regardless how low the recharge time. In PvE, it’s the LAST thing I would pick, and the conditions and boons are weak, like 1-2s swiftness? Cannot stack, cannot increase time, did nothing for us as a Boon. As a condition I just hope I get a additional bleed or a poison on them. On top of that, this does not fit the Necromancer mindset, at all. Mesmer sure, Necro.. No.

Lich Form – I actually like this skill, but it looks sokittencool I don’t want to use the others. Reaper of Grenth makes me look like Death Shroud, and Plague just makes me look like Death Shroud but without a body. It’s as if those two elites, you just gave up on the animations.

I also hate water combat. It’s not that I don’t like the skills.. They are actually rather fun. I love the animations, and I think you hit that nail on the head for the most part minus the weak Death Shroud Water skills of course.. In a large group it works fine, solo or +1, it’s just meh. And after getting so used to using DS as a extra health bar, it just seems I take MORE damage. But my main complaint with Water Skills is that in general.. water combat is difficult by the massive amounts of mobs so tightly packed together. I have little room to maneuver around and kite my mob as is, but using a AoE ability is sometimes asking for murder. We are already squishy, and getting attacked by any more than 2 mobs is almost a insta-death. So I tend to just use auto-attack for the most part.. Which gets boring.. and the trident sound get’s annoying as it repeats more often and faster than the staff skill.

But to make matters worse, out of our 2 under water healing skills, one will die the moment you enter or leave the water. Causing a wasted cool down and leaving us to die. I learned quick, fast, and in a hurry to NEVER use the Blood Fiend in or near water. As it will ultimately make your day a little bit more gloomy.

Also, why is we can’t have a skill that pray’s upon Grenth? We have Prayer to Dwayna, Prayer to Kormir, Prayer to Lyssa, and Avatar to Melandru. Yes we do have Reaper of Grenth.. but I would figure we could beseech our God of Death and Ice for something! Granted, that’s my own thought process.

And why can you not view your Death Shroud Skills from the Hero Menu? Can we add it under Weapon Skills as “Death Shroud”

In closing, I don’t feel like a Necromancer. I feel like a warlock. I don’t expect, or demand to be OP. I want a challenge, but I do always want to feel as if I matter as a necromancer. Our two biggest deals as a necromancer is our ability to control the dead and our conditions, both damage and control. If we don’t have good weapon damage, can we get better condition damage? If our weapon doesn’t give good condition damage, can we get better burst damage?

Prayers are human skills, not Necromancer skills.

But yes, most human skills are also weak.

Edited Post for easier reading, sorry not TL:DR version. :P