Guild Wars 2

Johnathan Sharp posted this in the patch notes at the last part.

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

This is a opinion thread so if you don’t like what someone says don’t flame… I’m going to post my opinions on this view and the current state of the necromancer vs other classes…

“They have access to poison on multiple weapons” I have to comment on this first because we only have access to poison on 2 weapons… Chilblains 20 second cooldown and scepter 3rd auto attack… I’m not arguing about this but we are not the only class with multiple poisons on weapons linking the wiki for poison so you can see for yourself http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison .

“While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights.”

Ok I’m not sure if this has been thought of but the thief,engineer and mesmer all do this much better then us due to escape mechanics and damage reduction…. We are not a attrition class like this post is attempting to claim and that’s something I wanted the necromancer to be…. I wanna be able to do sustained damage and slowly gain the edge as the fight wears on.. The escape and damage reduction capabilities of other classes is something they need to think about as well….. Even if a ele has 13-14k health the damage absorb + other survival and escape abilities/traits can make it so that the character has well over 20-30k EFFECTIVE health… Necromancers have a high base health true but with the lack of survival mechanics our effective health is actually really low vs other classes unless we build spacificly for survival and skimp on the damage/conditions….

“they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills.”

As a axe user on the necromancer this one doesn’t hold much to me and makes me feel as though they only want us using the weapons that you can mix staff/scepter/focus/oh dagger The main hand dagger may not have conditions but it has health steal and high sustained damage on top of a Immobilize…. I would like to be able to play a attrition class that is using sustained direct damage with small spikes over a period of time and the axe fits this best but because the unreliable sustain from the no.1 it kinda falls behind in that regard… I posted a simple fix for this that would also help it to be combined with conditions to give the axe a more attrition feel because the small damage boost to the 3rd hit + small chunks of life steal that depend on the number of conditions on the target… This post was simply ignored by not only players but devs as well…

The Scepter+dagger/staff combo is really our best attrition combo at the moment but I would like them to go forward and look at direct damage attrition with the dagger/axe and really look at what’s making the thief/engie/mesmer all preform attrition roles better at the moment…

TL;DR

Just my personal opinions on what was said about the class…. If we are to be a attrition class we should excel at it and be able to alternate between direct damage based attrition and condition based attrition… The rest are just my personal opinions that have no bearing on anything.

We’re actually the worst attrition class in the game IMO.

Everything about us lends towards bursty fights actually, despite the fact that condition builds are about DoT.

We have a second health bar, so overall a large hp pool (in pvp though you don’t have access to it right away lol), and secondly we’re EXTREMELY cooldown dependant, attrition and cooldown dependant doesn’t mix.

We go in with x2 health pools, and some good cooldowns and fight, then we’re done and we wait.

Look at our bunker builds, our actually “attrition” style build, 100% cooldown dependant. Like 80% of our healing in said bunker build comes from Well of Blood, 32 seconds. Maybe 20 seconds to refill death shroud w/o spectral utilities, then the 2 min or so cooldown from Plague Form. You bunker by rotating these large and powerful cooldowns (which gives people solid windows of opportunity).

Our passive healing is a joke, you can’t refill death shroud enough to make it as good at absorbing burst dmg like evasion/invulnerability/mobility skills on other classes do, especially since it is a flat hp bar, it won’t be as good against higher levels of burst dmg.

And since it is a flat hp bar, if we COULD regen it fast enough to readily use it for burst constantly it’d be OP because it can be used to absorb smaller amounts of dmg.

It also makes us 100% dependant on defensive stats compared to other classes that can get away with going glass cannon.

Best bandaid fix would be to increase the life force decay as well as life force generation which would ultimately make it better and more readily available against burst, while weaker against sustained dmg, BUT, since death shroud also doubles as some of our best dmg (in power builds) and utility, we have to waste the cooldown and life force to access those.

I worry that a lot of the issue can be found in their more general tank vs spike vs DD vs DOT. Tank is nonviable right now, as you can’t really take a spike to the face and laugh about it. Spike and DD overlap so much that i wonder why they broke it down that way, and DOT can be cleared out in a myriad of ways. End result is that the game has ended up being all about DD spikes, something that we know warriors and thieves excel at.

If you read down the Class Balance Philosophy list it’s obviously sorted in order of armor (heavy to light). But if you swap Elementalist and Mesmer, you also get an obvious descending order of clarity, coherence, and power of vision.

The Necro is at the bottom of the list and the description is a list of bullet points that don’t seem coherent or even compelling. Look at the Warrior: it’s obviously a strong melee, physical damage class that can dish out and take a lot of physical damage but is weaker against magic (boons & conditions) and at range.

The Necro, by contrast, is a list of bullet points that might add up to being a strong attrition class, but there isn’t really a concise, focused, coherent class description.

I’d add that many of our “movement inhibiting” skills are snares which slow running, but most classes have multiple leaps/teleports to open up gaps even if they’re snared. Not to mention that we’re a caster class so keeping an enemy in melee range is only one possible build/strategy.

I really don’t know who wrote the class balance philosophies, but they do not understand consistent tone and it really shows the issues that exist. For classes that are not an issue, the tone is flat and points out traits everyone knows and addresses nothing.

e.g.
Ele
We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

Engineer
The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

For the classes that have the most issues, being UP or OP, the tone changes to analysis of play and borders on argumentative.

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

Thief
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Simple conclusion, it is well known which classes are struggling and which are not and the writer of the philosophies knows it. Personally I think there is a lot of denial going on at ANet about how well certain classes perform.

Let’s look at this one part of the Necromancer Philosophy:
They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

Many classes have access to poison, more than half of the classes do, and we are not even the best at it. Also, all classes combine condition damage with raw damage, so that means nothing. Finally, our disables are, at best, average compared to other classes.

In fact, the philosophies only pointed out to me that they know the situation with the classes and while they believe class balance works, the understand that the community does not and as JS so clearly points out live: “We just need to teach others how to play sPvP.”

Hmmm, I wonder if that’s what the game designers at Tabula Rasa where saying just before they switched off the servers…

Necromancers are the worst attrition fighters, even their condition builds. Seriously have they ever fought another attrition class as a necromancer?

Almost everything noted in that thoughtless philosophy, other classes can do better than the necro. GG anet.

“lots of access to poison” like what? 2 weapon skills? Sure as a minion master I have a lot of poison, but that’s only because of death nova and my minions constantly being destroyed by AOEs.

Yeah, pretty disappointing. I swear there are no necro devs, and the devs are too tired when they get to the necro to give a kitten. Seriously, wake up devs, your vision is faltering with this class, if a clear and concise vision ever existed.

This is a bloodmancer, conditionmancer, kitteneddemonspawning spankmancer, or diseasemancer, but it has nothing to do with necromancer.

Well, you can poison yourself then transfer the poison off with dagger 4.

Necro’s one the best attrition classes if you build it to be that way. An attacking based necro may have trouble with burst, but a tanky necro can laugh it off any day.

“Our passive healing is a joke, you can’t refill death shroud enough to make it as good at absorbing burst dmg like evasion/invulnerability/mobility skills on other classes do, especially since it is a flat hp bar, it won’t be as good against higher levels of burst dmg.”
I like to think of spectral walk as my DS heal, as the buff it gives makes my LF skyrocket. Better yet, all LF gain skills are percent based, so it does not hurt my high vit DS. Even without SW, staff1 grants a modest amount of LF.

“Necromancers are the worst attrition fighters, even their condition builds. Seriously have they ever fought another attrition class as a necromancer?

Almost everything noted in that thoughtless philosophy, other classes can do better than the necro. GG anet."
Fought and won (sometimes). Tanky Guardian v. Tanky Necro is usually a draw. Tanky Warrior and Mesmer is about 50/50. Everything else just can’t compare. This is not to say a Necro can win against anyone. I’ve been beaten up my fair share by well-played Ele’s, Warriors, etc., but I’ve yet to face a build that can burst me down in seconds.

However, this would seem to be a build issue rather than class. It is unreasonable to have to build to be an attrition fighter when the class overall is supposed to be that way. So while Necro can make an excellent attrition class, it is not always that way.

Kyskythyn.6471:

Necro’s one the best attrition classes if you build it to be that way. An attacking based necro may have trouble with burst, but a tanky necro can laugh it off any day.

“Our passive healing is a joke, you can’t refill death shroud enough to make it as good at absorbing burst dmg like evasion/invulnerability/mobility skills on other classes do, especially since it is a flat hp bar, it won’t be as good against higher levels of burst dmg.”
I like to think of spectral walk as my DS heal, as the buff it gives makes my LF skyrocket. Better yet, all LF gain skills are percent based, so it does not hurt my high vit DS. Even without SW, staff1 grants a modest amount of LF.

“Necromancers are the worst attrition fighters, even their condition builds. Seriously have they ever fought another attrition class as a necromancer?

Almost everything noted in that thoughtless philosophy, other classes can do better than the necro. GG anet."
Fought and won (sometimes). Tanky Guardian v. Tanky Necro is usually a draw. Tanky Warrior and Mesmer is about 50/50. Everything else just can’t compare. This is not to say a Necro can win against anyone. I’ve been beaten up my fair share by well-played Ele’s, Warriors, etc., but I’ve yet to face a build that can burst me down in seconds.

However, this would seem to be a build issue rather than class. It is unreasonable to have to build to be an attrition fighter when the class overall is supposed to be that way. So while Necro can make an excellent attrition class, it is not always that way.

Necro has no viable attrition build that is functional in a competitive PvP or Control/AoE dungeon encounters. Any knockback, fear, interupt, etc.. renders Necro useless you spec for stability on DS. Then you can use Stability once to die about 10% slower that you would otherwise.

Don’t sugar coat things. Necro is fun. Necro solo’d very very well against overland PvE content and some Dungeon content that has no CC/AoEs. But other than that Necro is the bottom rung in all content. 40% of the Traits offer no benefit and half of that 40% are outright broken.

There is no silver lining to this cloud. Just Chocolate Rain.

Gryph.8237:

Seriously, wake up devs, your vision is faltering with this class, if a clear and concise vision ever existed.

/applause

For what it’s worth, the engineer is in at least as bad a shape as the necro. Despite what others have posted here, no the grass is not greener over there. At least with the necro you have a general idea what it is you are supposed to do with your profession. Jonathan Sharp’s characterizations of the good points about the engineer are provably incorrect, as a quick review of the engi forums would show. And the engineer has few escapes. It’s survivability comes from control not defense or heals, which means those skills are usually on cooldown when they are needed and are usually useless when facing multiple foes or bosses with defiance.

Now that’s a whole paragraph about the engineer, so I should at least mention my thoughts on the necro. I WvW and PvE, and in both cases I feel pretty good with my necro, knowing I can survive quite a bit, and long enough to outlast my enemy. I could certainly kick my engi’s butt in a war of attrition, and my engi is my main. This is with a power build using dagger/warhorn & staff. Heh, just thinking about it all 10 weapon skills are useful in that build, but with my engi with a kit I get utility out of maybe 6 or 7.

I think the parts about winning a war of attrition and being able to prevent enemies from escaping are, for the most part, accurate. Necro does need lots of work, but don’t look at engineers as an example of a profession that works.

the problem is we don’t really have 2 health bars, we have 2 down states, and one is much weaker than the other. Why not give us some simple fixes like, be able to rez allies in DS, or better yet, treat it like an environ weapon rather than a 2nd downstate, only replace our first 5 skills, give access to the otherside of the bar also. sure forms should knock you out of DS (plague form, or lich) but otherwise I don’t see how this would be game breaking.

I feel like players are supposed to feel like “Oh no! he built up enough energy to go into death shroud!” instead of “hey, he’s almost dead better just burst away at him since he really only has a tiny fear to stop me”