Guild Wars 2

if you think necro is ‘bad’, play an ele. You’ll be pining for your necro before you know it.

Not surprised that bunker builds work, as that is what Anet tuned the necro around after the last beta. There bunker necros were fond to be nigh unkillable.

And even if eles have it worse, it still means that we are in 7th place at present. Not exactly a position to be cheerful about.

ele’s aren’t worse, they have less viable builds, but are still strong.

I would agree with the OP that the profession ISNT under performing. I believe that being Necro just requires a bit more finesse. I would suggest those who think Necros are bad to stop playing Necro and let those who can/want to find a way play it instead.

Some comments I have on complaints on this thread:
1. DS fills slowly: You need to spec for DS. We’re already one of the highest Vitality professions, to give DS (essentially another health bar) a high recharge would make Necro broken.
2. Life Buffs: We have DS. To have high Vit, DS AND life buffs?!?! Other professions would complain and get Necros nerfed. I think the current setup is good.

I like being the underdog. I like a challenge. If the class is too easy to play, or if the builds are generic, where’s the fun in it?

Apart from Minion A.I (Flesh golem is annoying in PVE) and the loud effects on staff we are just fine.

My 45 Necro farms AC explore faster than my thief with less deaths and has more PVP victories than him. This class is fine , it takes skill and practise to create effective Utility/Builds combos. It is the lazy ones that give bad reputation

I somewhat agree with the whole OP but seriously, why DO people keep saying “free to play”?! This is not Nexon and Maple Story, this is Guild Wars (2) and ArenaNet for the love of Tyria… You buy the game and play it for free, you don’t play it for free from the very start. It’s a clear difference :@

Depends on the spec:

1. Corruption
Ranges from great to good depending on the situation. Maybe could use either a tad of a dps boost or a dispel protection on the bleeds. In team play they get wiped so often

2. Power
The dps in conjunction with being a squishy and the low range makes the spec problematic because melees are right on your toes. Either the range should be buffed on e.g. the axe or the dps of the spec.

3. Minion Spec
Who knows how effective the spec really is? The minion AI is so terrible that no one can really say for sure because often they do nothing at all. The spec is dead anyway because a mesmer would just moa the necro – which kills the entire spec.

No control over the minions make also for a bland playstyle and is just the icing on the poo pile.

4. Death Shroud
Nice idea. However, getting life force should be a tad easier and DS should have better synergy with corruption builds. Also…it is a bit bland and not seeing the new debuffs is a problem, too

How on earth. Are you bunkering as a necro effectively? I have NEVER seen a half decent bunker necro, nor i have seen ANY kind of effective necro aside from conditionmancer. I have tried and tried to make a bunker necro and it simply doesn’t work. Our heals aside from consume conditions are just not up to snuff to compete with the healing of ele or guardian. I know for a FACT you arent healing as much as a bunker ele and HEALS are what make a bunker a bunker. Please post build and a video because i simply don’t believe it. I had a 3 necro 1 v 1 match one day. The other 2 necros and I built our builds to suit the occasion. Only they used condition builds, and I used a power DS focused build. Or in other words as close to a bunker build as I could get suited for necro fights. I won 1 fight out of all of them. Each fight lasted about 10 minutes, but I simply could not beat them past the first victory when they retooled.

Also, why are you folks above me saying eles are bad? I just played my ele today and against 2 people alone had absolutely no problem surviving AND dishing out the little dmg bunker eles do, until help arrived and killed them nonchalantly.

Eles are not bad in the numerical sense. But as a player you really need to ride that keyboard to keep up with the pack. This in comparison to other professions outside of necro (DS) and engineers (kits). us necros have a lesser version of this because our gap closer and (relatively) short cooldown fear are both hiding inside DS, meaning we have to really drill the sequences to be able to time them right.

Funny enough, i ran into someone describing how to be a healing warrior over on reddit. And at one point he included that one step you could do was to pick up a specific banner and use one of the granted abilities. But he considered doing so cumbersome for the heal granted. But that is exactly the kind of thing that elementalists, necromancers and kit engineers have to keep doing.

Perhaps i should start to talk about them as being “mode changers”. Because each element, DS or kit is a different mode. And you have to be continually flipping between modes to really keep up while the rest stay in one mode and steamroll the opposition.

I think Necros under perform.

Our condition build is pretty decent, but damage wise is quickly outshined by other classes. That said, we do well because we are fairly tanky as far as condition builds go. I wish they were shorter duration (Here’s an idea… instead of +condition duration, make it -condition duration while keeping the overall damage ie bigger ticks), but generally when I complain about Necro, it isn’t in the context of a condition build.

We also ostensibly do well as a bunker build. It is hard to get any consensus on this. There are those that say we are teh worst bunker and those that say we are the best. Even assuming we are the best, I am hoping for bunker nerfs across the board. It is a stupid and largely boring playstyle predicated around doing little to no damage while being able to tank more than one person…. yawn.

Power is completely underwhelming and the trade off (a little extra health) is not really noticeable. We have some weird mechanics that stop us from having a really viable weapon spec not the least of which is we have to pop into a form every 8 seconds to really deal our damage which is slightly misleading since the cast time on DS #1 is heinous.

I think our traits are a kittenhow. I think our traittree is a kittenhow. And the bugs, oh god the bugs. Bugs so crippling they literally render certain skills unusable

IMO, necros are relatively balanced and just need some fixes. IMO, the reason power necros, in particular, seem to be underperforming is because certain builds from other classes are overperforming.

They should normalize the bunker and burst builds of other classes first and then determine where we stand after that.

I love the class and am having a ton of fun with it. Ya there are bugs, and there will always be balance issues. I think we are a tough class to play. When people figure out how to play the class in their style exceptionally well they are very hard to stop. DS fills in varying ways but the most rewarding ways put you at risk. We have support modes, dps modes, tank modes and aoe modes. I love the variety in one class. Most classes have similar ways of doing things with different weapons and utility slots. Range in every class seems to do less damage and melee does more. I believe we are no different. I love using staff in wvw especially along wall battles. Sceptre dagger to spread epidemic etc. DS to fear and pbaoe. IMO we do some AOE damage better than other classes. Well timed aoe’s with epidemic mixed in can literally clear an area. Offensive or defensive benefit. We corrupt boon is amazing to stop that guardian god who rushes headlong into 20 peeps seeming invulnerable. Bugs need fixing, yes, class is great.

if u go over every class section, u will see all of them have bugs and necro is not the most one.
u just live with it or quit . that’s it

Necro does have the MOST bugs of all classes, before a recent patch there were 140 bugs? Now it’s down to 97 bugs, I don’t think the next buggiest class even exceeds 80 bugs.

Anyways, necro is the most fun class I play, I got my mesmer to 80 before necro and now my mesmer sees more dust than playtime. But classes like guardian, ranger and thief are just way more effective in the game than necromancer is, despite that, I continue to play necro because of how fun it is.

@Wulfrim.4793 What is your build?

BTW is anyone using mark of evasion trait on Spvp/tpvp? I’ve started to love it.

I’m doing a 0/30/30/10/0 build right now in spvp and haven’t done any tpvp.

wulfrim , i know you may see things a little bit nice with how the necro is designed ,

what you FAIL to see is we are not complaining about the design of the necro , far from it, what we are complaining about are vital traits that are bugged . oh and earlier you made a list about the necro in other mmo, what made me think you have absolutely no freaking clue what you are talking about is your comment about the necro in eq . if you knew anything about necros from past mmos, you would know the necro was the 2nd best pvp class in the game 1st being shadowknight because of harm touch , but even if a shadowknight did not have harm touch up even they would get destroyed by necros , so that right there pretty much sumed up my understanding of your understanding about the necromancer .

kiting in gw2 is not a problem by any means and is the norm for casters ,
when you question the thief profession , you do what any typical person would do if they wanted to be dishonest by ignoring it ..

well here is my 2 cents to you , try 1 vs 1 a thief same lvl as you , and then come back here and tell us how wonderful the necro did in your fight with them , or how about you stop with your pretending . because to me and everyone else , we pretty much understand how the necro should be played , and we want it fixed , thats all .

I’m interested in knowing what necromancer build can really bunker better than a guardian. I’ve experimented around for some necro point defense builds but I haven’t found one that I’m satisfied with yet. (if anyone can forward me a link or something I’d be grateful).

As for necromancers in PvE, I believe the only weakness of the necromancer is in zerg farming groups. It’s hard to tag many kills at times with our limited and often long-recharging aoe burst attacks. For mobs with higher health, this isn’t a problem as a good use of epidemic can make you tag all the mobs but it is hard to tag low health mobs in a zerg of 20+ players farming in the same area.

Better than a guardian? None.
You can last 26 seconds + however long they take to finally kill your 40k HP with 2.9k Defense, but that is the best case scenario in an ideal world. You have very limited or no access to most tanking boons, evasion skills, or invulnerability, and contrary to popular belief, your healing is not significantly above average.

Yeah, my post was aimed at the OP cause he believes that there’s a necro bunker build that if isn’t above the guardian, would be on par with it. I haven’t been able to find a good enough point defense necro build but if anybody can claim there’s a way for the necro to take that role effectively, I’m interested in finding out.

The Boz.2038:

Better than a guardian? None.
You can last 26 seconds + however long they take to finally kill your 40k HP with 2.9k Defense, but that is the best case scenario in an ideal world. You have very limited or no access to most tanking boons, evasion skills, or invulnerability, and contrary to popular belief, your healing is not significantly above average.

he must be thinking the 3 second protection towards wells trait , which i think maybe bugged last time i tested it out , dont know if it is still bugged , but you take a look at your protection you get and place a well after your 3 seconds are up . run around , rinse and repeat . but that tactic wont work since there is so much cc that can knock you out of your wells . wulfrim is pretending .

I finally got on the boards and was surprised to see that necros are being called underpowered and thieves overpowered. My personal experience is exactly the opposite. Maybe people are mostly going on about PvP but my necro is my best character. I always pull off a lot more stuff than my friends. I get downed the least in dungeons, and even my girlfriend playing her guardian is jealous of me (not that I’m saying she’s running the most effective guardian build). I ran several story missions up as much as +4 to my level. And I doubt I’m playing a very effective build myself, I’m just doing what sounds good to me. Not sure what I’m doing differently than everyone else; none of the other classes I’ve tried other than warrior have felt as safe.

Dispari.3980:

I finally got on the boards and was surprised to see that necros are being called underpowered and thieves overpowered. My personal experience is exactly the opposite Maybe people are mostly going on about PvP but my necro is my best character. I always pull off a lot more stuff than my friends. I get downed the least in dungeons, and even my girlfriend playing her guardian is jealous of me. I ran several story missions up as much as +4 to my level. And I doubt I’m playing a very effective build, I’m just doing what sounds good to me. Not sure what I’m doing differently than everyone else; none of the other classes I’ve tried other than warrior have felt as safe.

go to wvw , get in a 1 vs 1 fight with a thief , and make sure you both are of = lvl to make it fair . then come back and tell us what you learned today .

Necro is the 2nd worst 1 vs 1 wvw class in the game , engineers are worse then us , not because of bugs but because of damage output is low for them .

lorndarken.3702:

go to wvw , get in a 1 vs 1 fight with a thief , and make sure you both are of = lvl to make it fair . then come back and tell us what you learned today .

Necro is the 2nd worst 1 vs 1 wvw class in the game , engineers are worse then us , not because of bugs but because of damage output is low for them .

I don’t care about PvP, and even if I did I wouldn’t test my character by pitting them against a class designed for fighting people 1 on 1. I’m talking about in PvE.

Dispari.3980:

lorndarken.3702:

go to wvw , get in a 1 vs 1 fight with a thief , and make sure you both are of = lvl to make it fair . then come back and tell us what you learned today .

Necro is the 2nd worst 1 vs 1 wvw class in the game , engineers are worse then us , not because of bugs but because of damage output is low for them .

I don’t care about PvP, and even if I did I wouldn’t test my character by pitting them against a class designed for fighting people 1 on 1. I’m talking about in PvE.

pve is simple , pvp is where you see the differences of the game , and NO 1 on 1 should not be the case according to arena net in terms of a class as you put it " Designed for fighting 1 on 1 " , funny you can figure that out before arena net has . or have they ? , nvm my point is . even for someone like you who does not care about pvp , should at least acknowledge the fact the disparity of " Balance " and not just focus on the pve element of the game but also see the pvp side of it as well .

The Op is pretty spot on – I’m sorry that you naysayers aren’t very good at the class to play it to it’s full potential. You can find plenty of video’s around the web of Necro’s doing well in WvWvW Spvp and competitive tPvP. Oh yeah and one last thing – I kitten all over thieves 1 vs 1 with a rare few that give me a real good fight – but I do have an 80 thief I’ve pvped a ton with so I guess knowledge is power. Have fun!

lorndarken.3702:

pve is simple , pvp is where you see the differences of the game , and NO 1 on 1 should not be the case according to arena net in terms of a class as you put it " Designed for fighting 1 on 1 " , funny you can figure that out before arena net has . or have they ? , nvm my point is . even for someone like you who does not care about pvp , should at least acknowledge the fact the disparity of " Balance " and not just focus on the pve element of the game but also see the pvp side of it as well .

Is that it then? In PvE it doesn’t matter and it’s just PvP where the class underperforms? Are all these threads just talking about PvP? Because I’m okay with that.

Dispari.3980:

lorndarken.3702:

pve is simple , pvp is where you see the differences of the game , and NO 1 on 1 should not be the case according to arena net in terms of a class as you put it " Designed for fighting 1 on 1 " , funny you can figure that out before arena net has . or have they ? , nvm my point is . even for someone like you who does not care about pvp , should at least acknowledge the fact the disparity of " Balance " and not just focus on the pve element of the game but also see the pvp side of it as well .

Is that it then? In PvE it doesn’t matter and it’s just PvP where the class underperforms? Are all these threads just talking about PvP? Because I’m okay with that.

You should not be ok with that. Anet game devs balance this game around spvp/tpvp. Not around pve. Also the long list of bugs sticky’d at the top of the forum should worry you. A lot of your skills and abilities are not working the way that they should be. This should bother you.
Does it mean necros are unplayable or so handicapped we cannot do anything? Nope.
It does however mean we are trying twice as hard as other classes to get the same results ( not pve).

While it is not something you HAVE to do, I for one encourage anyone who wishes to even begin talking about balance or posting on these forums to play all aspects of necro. PVE, WvWvW, Tpvp, and Spvp. Then you will have a broader scope of what problems might be with the class. If some of those things are not for you , that’s ok, but you shouldn’t just dismiss it all because it seemingly doesn’t affect your pve play ( which it does because of the bugs)

Anyhow Have a good weekend and enjoy your necro!
Madame Moorshade Teknomancer.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz post a game against decent players or ur like all these other optimistic full of fake fruit cakes.

And people are still measuring viability in wvw just to make up for lack of arguement kitten???

Bubby.6475:

Zzzzzzzzzzzz post a game against decent players or ur like all these other optimistic full of fake fruit cakes.

And people are still measuring viability in wvw just to make up for lack of arguement kitten???

Can you clarify what it is you are talking about? Who is it that should post a game? Everyone? Whom are the fake fruit cakes you are referring to?
Measuring viability in WvWvW , Spvp, Tpvp, or Pve is viable to the person measuring it. Just because you do not happen to think it is or are against it does not necessarily make their concerns with that aspect of the game null or void.

Happy Friday!
Madame Moorshade Teknomancer

You can 1v1 almost any class with the right build. But each build you bring to pvp has its own counters. I learned that by playing the class I believed to be unbeatable and that’s the best way you can learn their weaknesses which then you will use to your advantage when you’re facing them.

My question to the OP however was to the claim that the bunker meta is moving from guardian to necromancer. I don’t necessarily go against something I can’t verify nor do I consider myself that great a player to reject something based on theory alone. If there’s a build you think would be great for point defense I’d like to try it as I personally haven’t been successful in making a satisfying build for that role.

Regardless of that, I think the reason why necromancers are looked down upon is because it usually takes more effort for a necromancer to play to its full potential than most other classes (even a mesmer). Again, I found that out by trying other classes. Necromancer in pvp is not beginner friendly.