Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. So I was thinking about the current 4 warrior/ 1 mesmer CoF run, and I was wondering: Can a 4 berserker necro team pull similar/better times?

Reasoning:
1. Berserker necros with enough life force generation can pull similar numbers to warrior damage. Nemesis’s bursting necro vid showed that life force blasts can put out damage comparable to 100 blades FROM RANGE, and under the effects of Time Warp could hypothetically surpass hundred blades.
2. We can keep up 25 vuln stacks easy as well.
3. Many of the tactics used to exploit maximum GS warrior damage could help us too. Example: On the first boss mesmer knocks the boss against the wall so warriors can get max damage from whirlwind attack. This would let us increase our damage from the Flesh Golem charge as well. (The damage from that thing against a mob on wall is pretty intense).
4. 4x Lich Form Time Warp. Yarg.
5. Necrmancers are naturally more survivable than warriors with our death shroud. This would make accidents (IE: One player getting downed) easier to avoid, and areas like the second fight (killing acolytes) easier to deal with without said accidents.

Anyways, this thread serves 2 purposes.
1. Thoughts and comments? Would this work? Can we improve it?
2. Who wants to test it with me? Im almost done with my full exotic bererker set for my necro, and would love to get a group together to try this out, do timed runs, and maybe post some youtube videos.

If we can pull comparable completion times as a 4 warrior/1 mesmer group, then we could REALLY shake up people’s perceptions of what the necromancer class is capable of.

To do this, we’d need to figure out the ideal build/weapon/skill set, and have all 4 necros run it. The ease of the CoF warrior comes from an agreed upon build and gear set.

So… let’s get to work.

Who’s with me?

You missed the under 30 minutes All-Necro run we did earlier in the week. We completed 2 paths of CoF in under an hour, and that was with a 3 man start on path 1. 5 Necro’s absolutely torched the place. We had 1 guy downed and no deaths in path 1 and 1 death in path 2 that we finished in 35 minutes solely because I got lost.

The builds weren’t even optimal for a fine tuned run. We had a staff/dagger power build, a condition mancer, One dagger/well hybrid, one condi Hybrid, and a Minion Master.

To top it all off we killed everything, we skipped no pulls, ran past nothing. Let me repeat we did a full clear no cheese kill of everything in COF P1 in under 30 minutes.

That’s correct an all-necro team was able to accomplish what the “burst killing” team does while skipping things. It’s too bad Necro’s are the weakest class in the game.

Its an interesting theory.. but the cooldown on lich form would be a problem. I also think the big difference would be you inability to stack might like a warrior group. You can keep up 25 vuln, but not 25 might. No fire fields and few blast finishers.

And Bas, I think he is talking about simulating a speed run, meaning you would be finishing COF 1 in under 8 mins or so. The mesmer/warrior teams can do it in about 6 mins or so. While I love our all necro groups, that is something I think that because of cooldowns and might would be out of reach.

Too bad because we have to be friendly to each other, we cannot have an in game damage meter where we could theory craft how this would work.

Rennoko.5731:

Its an interesting theory.. but the cooldown on lich form would be a problem. I also think the big difference would be you inability to stack might like a warrior group. You can keep up 25 vuln, but not 25 might. No fire fields and few blast finishers.

And Bas, I think he is talking about simulating a speed run, meaning you would be finishing COF 1 in under 8 mins or so. The mesmer/warrior teams can do it in about 6 mins or so. While I love our all necro groups, that is something I think that because of cooldowns and might would be out of reach.

Too bad because we have to be friendly to each other, we cannot have an in game damage meter where we could theory craft how this would work.

They finish a COF p1 run in 8 minutes by mad rushing to bosses they skip every single pull along the way. I have no doubt if we had done that we could have pulled it out in 8 minutes. I am not sure if we did a full clear in 25 or 28 minutes so I said under 30.

I have done a speed run on my necro it’s boring as spit and it’s just run, run, attack. Skip every pull until you get to the boss. Do the boss run to the next. It’s the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Mine took 15 minutes because the Mesmer and two warrior died 4 times, so i had to solo until we coudl rez them.

I know I am debating semantics here, since we would have to test it to prove anything. I am just saying an 8 minute run that skips all mobs except bosses proves what? A full clear of an entire phase killing everything in that path without deaths and only one downed in under 30 minutes is much more impressive.

Well Lich form would only be used twice: Boss 1 and Boss 2. The cooldown would be irrelevant, as enough time passes in between the two.

Blood is power gives us 10 might, and honestly most of these groups don’t keep up a reliable 25 stacks of might, the bosses go down too fast. 4 warriors with 4 great justices is 12 stacks, with your signet of rage is about 15. Blood is power is an instant 10, only a 5 stack difference.

That damage is more than made up for by our builds. A greatsword warrior damage build does NOT have full trait points in the critical damage line. Ours would, it’s optimal for a berserker necro to go full down that tree. the extra 15-25% critical damage would more than make up for the difference in might stacks.

I am not saying that there is anything skillful, fun, or interesting about speed running COF1, I was just saying that is the benchmark if the end result is to prove that a group of zerker necros can do what a group of zerker X do. But what it does prove is that the DPS output of group A beats the DPS output of group B, which I think was the point of the post.

And to Zy, you are forgetting signet of inspiration, which makes that 25 stacks for the entire fight. I am not familair with the raw damage numbers on a GS warrior enough to know how it would stack up against Dagger necros, I was just pointing out the weaknesses to taking 4 necros and a mesmer.

You find 4 zerker necros that want to run it a few times to try and get a solid speed run down for timing, I can bring the zerker mesmer. My necro isn’t zerker geared, and likely never will be as my power builds are short lived and tend to use knights gear.

Zyfram Tyrjala.4561:

Well Lich form would only be used twice: Boss 1 and Boss 2. The cooldown would be irrelevant, as enough time passes in between the two.

Blood is power gives us 10 might, and honestly most of these groups don’t keep up a reliable 25 stacks of might, the bosses go down too fast. 4 warriors with 4 great justices is 12 stacks, with your signet of rage is about 15. Blood is power is an instant 10, only a 5 stack difference.

That damage is more than made up for by our builds. A greatsword warrior damage build does NOT have full trait points in the critical damage line. Ours would, it’s optimal for a berserker necro to go full down that tree. the extra 15-25% critical damage would more than make up for the difference in might stacks.

Full GS build is 20-20-0-0-30. (there’s others) So yes, they can get 30% increased crit damage. They also get perma fury, and have at a minimum, of 15might 24/7. The Greatsword trait also gives them might for EVERY CRIT they do, no cooldown, so after your first whirl or HB you’re at 25might till the end of the fight, and the target is at 25 vuln they entire time due to GS 1 spam, mesmer, and On My Mark. Necros can’t keep might up, and would loose any perma fury they have instantly if the went into death shroud to blast, or lich form. They doo have plenty of vulnerability tho between focus and wells^^

I’ve taken, and gone as my Necro to CoF farms plenty of times, its really fun, jus warriors have alot more group beneficial stuff that works really well for everyone

Someone mentioned this earlier, buuht I <3 using fleshgolems charge on anything aginst a wall or structure~ Its hillarious the amount of damage it does ^ O ^)/!

Bas, you’re kind of hilarious, really. You torched CoF P1 and P2, congratulations.

If you get a group of people together and would find yourself unable to beat these two paths, then you should probably stay away from dungeons anyway; so finishing that is hardly an achievement.

And please enlighten me, what exactly did you fight extra in this path, other than the bridge? Because there is nothing else you can skip and if that takes you 30 minutes instead of 6 to 7, then i don’t see what exactly is awesome about the whole deal.

bytes.1650:

Bas, you’re kind of hilarious, really. You torched CoF P1 and P2, congratulations.

If you get a group of people together and would find yourself unable to beat these two paths, then you should probably stay away from dungeons anyway; so finishing that is hardly an achievement.

And please enlighten me, what exactly did you fight extra in this path, other than the bridge? Because there is nothing else you can skip and if that takes you 30 minutes instead of 6 to 7, then i don’t see what exactly is awesome about the whole deal.

I have a feeling regardless what I say, you will say that’s not true, making it an entire waste of my time. I didn’t say COF was Hard, I said we fought every single creature we fought everything you could or couldn’t see. The bridge fight alone is 3 different fights. 25 minutes is probably high on the amount of time, but we had a guy watching the video so it added to it. Regardless those three fights can add 3-5 minutes per fight to your total time.

We also did the same thing in AC which is typical skip 50 percent and run to the next boss fight saving yourself nearly 20 minutes by skipping. CM we did all of them as well (that was the longest I have ever seen a fight). SE we did the same thing, HoTW they did as well. My point is clearing everything quickly with minimal deaths is way more impressive than someone zerging through skipping 10-15 minutes of down time.

Doing the math is difficult I know, but attempting to mock me when you could actually do the math is probably not the best way to win friends and influence people :P.

On a side note, I am a pretty funny guy so thank you.

It would be interesting to see if we could hit the 6 minute barrier without a Mesmer.

I neither try to mock, nor befriend you. It’s just that you seem to be forums go-to guy (among a few others) that will pick up every single critique someone makes about the necromancer and say “no actually it’s quite good, i don’t know what you’re talking about”.

This attitude almost always goes along with posting alot and very frequent, so if any dev ever would actually take a look into the class forums they’d get the impression that everything’s fine.

Meanwhile the class can not compare in the aspects of damage, utility, group-buffs or debuffs even.
Because the one’s you actually need; others can put up even easier, faster or at least just as well.

In the end we’re at a point already where the game has the so often dreaded trinity. Instead of bringing the rest of the classes up to par, a few guys in the class forums scream and shout “no it’s fine, leave it and screw the elitist speedfarmers!”.

bytes.1650:

Meanwhile the class can not compare in the aspects of damage, utility, group-buffs or debuffs even.
Because the one’s you actually need; others can put up even easier, faster or at least just as well.

In the end we’re at a point already where the game has the so often dreaded trinity. Instead of bringing the rest of the classes up to par, a few guys in the class forums scream and shout “no it’s fine, leave it and screw the elitist speedfarmers!”.

I can’t speak for the highest level of play where people are trying to clear dungeons in the fastest time possible, but the vast majority of the game is played completely without the trinity or any semblance of it. Even in the first post, you’re running 4 glass cannon builds with a mesmer to double the damage output, since when did 4 DPS 1 support fit the trinity?

And necros are different, thats the point. We don’t try to stack bleeds the fastest, stack boons the fastest, heal our team the most, its not what we do. You will very rarely, outside of specific builds, see big numbers as a necro, if that bothers you, necro isn’t your class. We do things differently, doesn’t mean we are worse, doesn’t mean we are better, but we reach the goal just fine.

I am not saying everything is fine, nor have I said we are completely great. I simply point out that there are a few forum people who do nothing but post endlessly about how broken this or that class is when it’s not true.

As the game stands right now there is no class except Ranger that is completely broken. The Warrior and thief have a few abilities that make them easier to use, and the mesmer has the single best utility in the game. You combine that utility with the two highest damage specs in the game and boom you have a winning zerg in most cases.

That does not mean that our class is broken or in need of a major overhaul or has a litany of bugs. The goal of the all-necro guild and runs is to point out that not only do we offer a great synergy with other players, but that we can deal as much damage as the “BIG NUMBERS” classes in a different way. When you are rolling with 5 Necros or even 4 Necros you notice things that normally get over looked. Such as at first the damage drops slowly than it plummets down so fast you only have time to do one run through of your attack.

My point has alwasy been that the class isn’t broken we have a few little bugs that could use some work and fine tuning, but it’s our thought of the class that has to change. We are not a big numbers class we are an attrition class. The sooner we learn to think differently the sooner we can fine tune the problem areas.

But synergy is just one of my points; where is it coming from as a necro? To pick up the warrior/guardian/mesmer example; the guardians provide the security, warriors the offensive buffs, the mesmer doubles and extends them and boosts the auto-attack aoe damage of the whole team.
Coupled with easily stacked vulnerability, this makes for a good combo.

The necro though does not fit very well in this equation, nor can i see any potential to amplify what we do in a combination with the rest of the classes.
There simply are no buffs at all, nor debuffs which can’t be applied by someone else.

What does corrupt boon do, if the conditions are already on the target anyway? Pretty much wasted; a mesmer on the other hand could at least steal them if he wanted too.

I think it’s a bit short-sighted to say we do things differently when really we aren’t doing a whole lot. As you say, the usual role of a necro or warlock class is attrition and nuissance, but conditions as a whole are already overabundant and applied by anyone.

So what is left? Sure it’s funny to trick someone with spectral walk and epidemic (if it weren’t for the awful cast-time) has it’s obvious uses, but other than that it’s a bit dry.

The necromancer was one of the classes where the devs said, at the end of the last beta-event, that it needs some love. And many, many months later, it still does.

I’m seeing a lot of necro hate in the posts on this thread, in the forum, and in the game as well.

That’s EXACTLY why I want to do this. If we can prove with video evidence that necros can speed run (Note I said speed run, as people seem to think this is the end all be all) just as well as warriors, then maybe some of the necro hate will stop.

Thanks for the volunteer Rennoko, I will be messaging you in game.

I have an exotic berserker necromancer myself. I will need 3 more.

If anyone wants to volunteer, please post here or message me in game. My necro is Zyfram Tyrjala.

Note that we will not be running the map once. We will probably take at least an hour or two to run it multiple times to optimize what builds/skills are most use for the speerdun, and then try to get our time as low as possible. The run will be taped and put on youtube.

I also have done runs on my warrior, (sub 7 minute runs or so). I plan to make a video that shows the necro run and the warrior run side by side for comparison. Especially during the bossfights, as that is the most important comparison in terms of raw dps.

Let’s see if we can prove the GW2 community wrong and show that necros are still awesome.

I have a berzerker build though I want to sub out my Shoulders first. I need exotic shoulders and exotic trinkets still.

Hello I main a necro and I hate that necro is so hated, so yeah, just ping me up in game, maybe we will not be in same timezone though, but I’m a hardcore COF p1 farmer so I should know what I’m doing.

As for my necro she basically has full exotics of every build you can dream of for a necro, so yeah ping me up. I’m interested to support such a gallant effort

Necro’s name: Catchachan

Good enough, as long as its mostly berserkers we should be ok. That’s 3 necros and a mesmer, I’ll message you all in game and we’ll set up a time to do this.

I would love to join, but my necro is only fully geared as a conditionmancer at the moment. I agree that there is too much hate on Necro’s and this thread is a really good idea as to prove it once and for all. Sure Warriors and other classes can do stuff better (Try hanging out at the ranger thread and they seem to think they are the worst class ever, the warrior forums are also filled with whiners) but I’m fully supportive of people who play Necromancers that tries to do something like this.

Players like Nemesis and Sheobix have made tons of worthwhile contribution to the class so when they speak, I listen coz they know what they’re talking about.

For the whiners, all you do is propagate that we as a class suck. While we have our bugs and all, I think a large amount of this is because it has been said again and again that we’re not that good. It became the mentality that people are not trying anymore. As long as I can see players actually doing something to be the best in this class the more their words has weight compared to the “woe is the necro” whiners.

Forum whiners compare the Elite 3% players of other class to the worst necro players.

How did this go? Please do post a link if you get the chance because I’d be interested to see it.

I dont see how you can compare necro damage with warrior right now.
My necro has more berserkers equiped than my warrior but a simple comparison.
I go to cursed shore attack a 80 undead mob. Warrior can just do 100 blades and its 15-16k damage each time the mob is dead in 3.5 sec. No banner/on my mark, just perma fury from signet/FGJ

My necro does very low damage in comparison, even with a dagger which i would never use in any dungeon. It slowly hits mobs hp down. Only time i burn mobs down fast is with both wells or lich form but that isnt a good comparison due to long recharge.

Axe im seeing 800 crit autoattacks and the channel ability only doing around 5.5-6k, its single target only so why should it be doing 1/3 100 blades ‘AOE’ damage? The weapon alround seems bad
The attack speed on life blast is so slow also, and forces a weapon switch to staff to do full damage. It still slowly chips away at mobs hp the bars arent dropping anywhere near as fast as a warrior.

Overall my necro slowly reduces mobs hp, which im fine with because the survivability is there. My warrior is so squishy in comparison.

Sazgo.9842:

I dont see how you can compare necro damage with warrior right now.
My necro has more berserkers equiped than my warrior but a simple comparison.
I go to cursed shore attack a 80 undead mob. Warrior can just do 100 blades and its 15-16k damage each time the mob is dead in 3.5 sec. No banner/on my mark, just perma fury from signet/FGJ

The thing is, you really can’t. Warrior has much more damage himself, while also bringing that much more damage buffs for the team (FGJ, banner with +90 prec, +10% crit damage).
Actually, I find it kinda funny how people want to prove that necros are worthy with that one cof speedfarm, because that doesn’t even play to the strengths of the warrior, and even there he’s got the necro beat.
Remember that cof consists of almost exclusively single target encounters, except that very short skirmish at the start. Now for necros to even get in the same ballpark in single target dps as warriors, they have to wear single target daggers for weapons, while warriors actually deal aoe damage the whole time.
While this is hardly noticeable in cof, it does have much more impact in encounters with multiple enemies, like higher fractals for example. There, you can usually bring a guardian to pull the mobs together and have your warriors squash them with ease (while also having much more durability thanks to omnom pie procs), while necros would have to pick them off one by one.

It would be amazing to see a coordinated necro group and a mesmer do this because of the class mechanics. 4 lich with timewarps or 4 DS necros with life blast/flesh golem in timewarp would be the thing to see, wells also would do great damage with life transfer even though of its cooldown, but these would most likely be used the fight beforehand to take out the beginning 2 npcs and turrets. Dagger does have great damage and even though its single target it works just fine in CoF Speed Runs.

I don’t think anyone is making the case that necros are better or faster at doing this run that warriors, but rather that their damage is not as horrible as everyone thinks. This is in large part a way for the community to try and dispell the “LF1M (NOT NECRO)”. Most rational people already know that taking a necro over a warrior is basically reducing their overall potential in most every fight, HOWEVER, the disparity is not as bad as people think, and a good necro is still going to outdps a bad warrior.

But yeah, I agree on the comments about COF 1, and the single target nature of the encounter. After thinking about it more, I wouldn’t be surprised if a 4 necro group and mesmer could clear it in 6 minutes. That entire path is devoted to single target DPS, where 4 time warped liches could burn down both bosses very quicky. As fast as 4 warriors? I don’t know, but it is worth testing.

The only real burst Necro has is Well of Suffering + BiP + axe 2 or dagger 2. or hope for a Life Blast crit. I personally think axe is absolutely junk. It has sub par damage, and it only has a single target auto attack. Warrior’s does twice as much damage at twice the speed while hitting multiple targets. Lich Form damage is just barely better than dagger auto attack damage, and that is a problem to me. I love my Necro, but you won’t kill as fast as a Warrior. I’d love to see a video though.

Still working on finding a time when everyone is free together. I’ll post here when we get it done.

If it’s on EU, I am in too. Got Perfect exo/ascended berserker gear.