Guild Wars 2

So beside the most terrible dps in the world and nearly no party utility beside our aoe heal necros have 1 combo finisher on staff 25sec cd Putrid Mark and 20% on Necrotic Grasp….. and thats it?!!! OH BUT WAIT, We have 4 finishers for underwater weapons…….. PUN INTENDED
O.o I dont understand it. We can lay down kitten ton of fields but only 1 weapon build is the one that allow us to do combos? I dont know, I get the feeling of playing my necro less and less each day even though its a class I love to play with the wells, marks, aoe conditions, DS, I mean its a cool class to play, but everything it has on the cool factor JUST PLAINLY DIES WITH THE LACK OF UTILITY….and damage…. and viable/solid builds. I just feel like ‘meh’ every time I walk in a dungeon. The lack of combos makes the class also feel very spammy, you lay this, you lay that, you push 1-2-3 and rinse/repeat. I dont know I am loosing the taste for necros even though the class is dripping coolness factor….
It be great if at least dagger or axes had a finisher of some sort, and specter #2 should def be a blast finisher….

These ‘OMGWTF Anet’ posts usually leave a bad taste in my mouth and make me want to disagree immediately but in truth he has a point.

Why don’t we get blast finishers?

ManiumX.4735:

Why don’t we get blast finishers?

Same reason mesmers don’t. Mesmers, quite literally, have ONE blast finisher. And it’s on the torch, one of the least liked weapons they have.

Really, using the thought of profession Y has X, so we should too! is a terrible way to balance things.

Necromancers are fine. They’re the best they’ve been since the game launched. It’s just that blast finishers aren’t their forte (and isn’t the staff blast finisher actually two—one when it’s cast and another when it’s triggered?).

I’m pretty sure Necro support comes from things called Wells. The Siphon health trait line always helps, able to apply party healing. It is a bit weak now, yes, but guess which tree is getting buffed by Anet next? :P

So… I disagree with the “no damage” part and also the “no group utility” we have great damage as a D/D burst build and also as a condition build (yes even for dungeons)

I so however agree that we need more blast finishers. I think the original idea was to make blast finishers require more that one class (I remember reading that in beta) but it’s been a year and every other class has them.

Oh and on the condition build I finally found the trick to it, if everyone already knows I’m sorry… Anyhow your conditions don’t just have a first come first serve priority on a target, meaning you can guarantee that all 25 stacks of bleed on the targer are yours (or at least most >20) the priority is baced on total damage, so condition duration and malice combined. If you have the highest overall damage for your bleed you will replace anyone who has less. I run full conditions In dungeons and atm I find I do way more damage that my zerker build. ( just added that in cuz you said we have lousy damage)

We have quite a few finishers actually, you’re just not going to like my answer.

• Staff #1- projectile
• Staff #4- blast
• Bone fiend- projectile (x2 per attack)
• Flesh Wurm – projectile and blast finisher (on skill/sacrifice use)
• Bone Minions- blast finisher (x2 assuming you can pop both before they die)- they can also self-combo if using death nova
• Necrotic grasp – projectile
• and of course the underwater weapons which I won’t cover, because apparently only I enjoy underwater combat.

So as you see we actually have quite a few, yes we are heavier on combo fields than finishers, but that’s how our class plays. Take warrior for instance, they have virtually no combo fields other than a fire one with longbow. Every other combo skill they have is finishers. We’re just 2 opposite sides of a coin, if you wanna look at it that way. But unless you’re willing to actually use the finishers we do have available, don’t assume we’re without them. The only ones we lack on land they we could prob get some good use out of is a whirl finisher, but maybe in time we’ll get access to some.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

We have quite a few finishers actually, you’re just not going to like my answer.

• Staff #1- projectile
• Staff #4- blast
• Bone fiend- projectile (x2 per attack)
• Flesh Wurm – projectile and blast finisher (on skill/sacrifice use)
• Bone Minions- blast finisher (x2 assuming you can pop both before they die)- they can also self-combo if using death nova
• Necrotic grasp – projectile
• and of course the underwater weapons which I won’t cover, because apparently only I enjoy underwater combat.

So as you see we actually have quite a few, yes we are heavier on combo fields than finishers, but that’s how our class plays. Take warrior for instance, they have virtually no combo fields other than a fire one with longbow. Every other combo skill they have is finishers. We’re just 2 opposite sides of a coin, if you wanna look at it that way. But unless you’re willing to actually use the finishers we do have available, don’t assume we’re without them. The only ones we lack on land they we could prob get some good use out of is a whirl finisher, but maybe in time we’ll get access to some.

Still comparing warriors to necros ia pretty inaccurate imho, warriors have kitten ton of finishers due to the fact that they are in the face of the npcs most of the time unless you are range warrior for which you still have the ability to lay down some combos, and ofc warrior damage is way way stronger than necros, you dont see any warriors Q.Q about lack of combo fields like I cry about lack of finisher for all the kitten ton of fields I lay down, which could be the whole fix to the low damage average players have with necros, sure if you are a super beast maxed out necro gear/build I am pretty sure you can lay down damage but thats like -1% of the necros I see out there. I love the condition builds but then your kitten out of luck on damaging structures that you cant affect with conditions for which you have specifically build for and then you do as much damage as I do when I beat my hand with a feather….. Its just it feels like necros are soo cool, have a ‘fun factor’ in there but like that UMPH feeling, specially when I feel wasting soooo many fields with literally no combos. Forget it, I do not like staff, never did, never will play it, dont like the builds that go with it, its just not my playstyle. Love d/d and s/d, my fav mix of conditions and raw direct damage + some minor utility with slow/blinds/rooting/weakness, much better than what staff offers for my taste of play. But guess what, I get no finishers at all with d/d or s/d, none, zero, zip, nada. It just feel like it lacks, specially when combos are soooo much fun to pull them off and the reward is rather nice when you lay down the right stuff at the right time, makes combat VERY engaging instead of spammy.

metatron.5790:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

We have quite a few finishers actually, you’re just not going to like my answer.

• Staff #1- projectile
• Staff #4- blast
• Bone fiend- projectile (x2 per attack)
• Flesh Wurm – projectile and blast finisher (on skill/sacrifice use)
• Bone Minions- blast finisher (x2 assuming you can pop both before they die)- they can also self-combo if using death nova
• Necrotic grasp – projectile
• and of course the underwater weapons which I won’t cover, because apparently only I enjoy underwater combat.

So as you see we actually have quite a few, yes we are heavier on combo fields than finishers, but that’s how our class plays. Take warrior for instance, they have virtually no combo fields other than a fire one with longbow. Every other combo skill they have is finishers. We’re just 2 opposite sides of a coin, if you wanna look at it that way. But unless you’re willing to actually use the finishers we do have available, don’t assume we’re without them. The only ones we lack on land they we could prob get some good use out of is a whirl finisher, but maybe in time we’ll get access to some.

Still comparing warriors to necros ia pretty inaccurate imho, warriors have kitten ton of finishers due to the fact that they are in the face of the npcs most of the time unless you are range warrior for which you still have the ability to lay down some combos, and ofc warrior damage is way way stronger than necros, you dont see any warriors Q.Q about lack of combo fields like I cry about lack of finisher for all the kitten ton of fields I lay down, which could be the whole fix to the low damage average players have with necros, sure if you are a super beast maxed out necro gear/build I am pretty sure you can lay down damage but thats like -1% of the necros I see out there. I love the condition builds but then your kitten out of luck on damaging structures that you cant affect with conditions for which you have specifically build for and then you do as much damage as I do when I beat my hand with a feather….. Its just it feels like necros are soo cool, have a ‘fun factor’ in there but like that UMPH feeling, specially when I feel wasting soooo many fields with literally no combos. Forget it, I do not like staff, never did, never will play it, dont like the builds that go with it, its just not my playstyle. Love d/d and s/d, my fav mix of conditions and raw direct damage + some minor utility with slow/blinds/rooting/weakness, much better than what staff offers for my taste of play. But guess what, I get no finishers at all with d/d or s/d, none, zero, zip, nada. It just feel like it lacks, specially when combos are soooo much fun to pull them off and the reward is rather nice when you lay down the right stuff at the right time, makes combat VERY engaging instead of spammy.

I don’t think you read anything I wrote except “warriors have finishers”. And never once did I compare warrior damage to necro damage, I was merely using it as an example of how their finisher-to-combo ratio was similar to our own. And yes plenty of warriors complain about no combo fields. I hear it all the time, you can prob even go through the warrior forums and find plenty of them.

As for your preferred setup, yeah you’re not going to get many finishers without taking at least 1 minion, in fact, read what I wrote above and you’ll see most of our finishers are on utility skills anyway- unlike most professions where they’re on the weapons (or mixed in with both) but you do tons of damage with those builds if you play them right (and you don’t even need some epic zomgmusthave gear either). Nothing about necro is spammy, if you spam on necro your overall efficiency will be horrible or either you’ll be dead all the time. Our long cooldowns just don’t allow for mindless spamming. And hey, I feel you with the staff. It’s not really my favorite weapon either, in fact I’ve made a few builds avoiding it completely and did just fine. We all feel the frustration of condition builds on structures too, but that’s a game mechanic flaw, and not at all unique to necros. Combos in general aren’t all that powerful with a few exceptions, like blasting in water fields, projectiles/whirls in light for mass condi removal, ect. The game can be played perfectly fine without them. But if you absolutely can’t live without it, try bringing at least 1 minion and see if it improves your experience some. They’re going to be even better soon once the big patch hits this next month.

If staff putrid mark triggered out of combat id be ok with the lack of finishers we have.

People excuse ANet for making the necro before they added Combo’s into the game. Then tacking them on to necro.

Other people say, well your minions are your finishers. Which could work if they weren’t useless, and more useless the harder things get going, when ya’d really like them combo’s going.
(Let’s hope the next patch fix’s this, and other OMFG MAD BRO issue’s with necro.)

spoj.9672:

If staff putrid mark triggered out of combat id be ok with the lack of finishers we have.

This.

Really, I’d be fine if they just gave us one or two added finishers OR gave us more varied and just plain more combo fields. I’d be fine if we were the counter-warriors in terms of fields/finishers, the problem is the way that they have put our fields/finishers set up, is that its almost all on utility skills.

Why is this a problem? You get 4 utility skills, and 10 weapon skills. So I think it warrants us getting a bit of an updated touch. Not a big one, we don’t need a finisher on every skill like some people suggest, nor do we even need any more finishers, but we do need more of one or the other.

tattoohead.3217:

spoj.9672:

If staff putrid mark triggered out of combat id be ok with the lack of finishers we have.

This.

It doesn’t need to trigger. The blast finisher for putrid mark goes off when the mark is laid, not when it is triggered.

They want to be able to pre-fight buff. Unless you bring bone minions (and are stuck with otherwise useless utilities in the situations you’d need pre-buffing for), you can’t help at all with pre-fight buffing.

It’s still helpful to know that putrid mark can help with swiftness on static field or something similar.

I wish we had more finishers too. It’s crazy playing another class with how many finishers almost every other class has.

We have quite a few finishers actually, you’re just not going to like my answer.
Staff #1- projectile = useless, ever tried blasting a mark well with it?
Staff #4- blast = only on mark radius, and what does it blast? = useless (Despite displaying a successful blast finishing effect message, initially casting the mark on a combo field does not actually cause any such effect)
Bone fiend- projectile (x2 per attack) = useless
Flesh Wurm – projectile and blast finisher (on skill/sacrifice use) =usekitten
ne Minions- blast finisher (x2 assuming you can pop both before they die)- they can also self-combo if using death nova = the most useful, and that says it all
Necrotic grasp – projectile = useless

Try this: stand in an open area.. lay down your field.. Blast it without minions..
yeah.. me too..

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

We have quite a few finishers actually, you’re just not going to like my answer.
Staff #1- projectile = useless, ever tried blasting a mark well with it?
Staff #4- blast = only on mark radius, and what does it blast? = useless (Despite displaying a successful blast finishing effect message, initially casting the mark on a combo field does not actually cause any such effect)
Bone fiend- projectile (x2 per attack) = useless
Flesh Wurm – projectile and blast finisher (on skill/sacrifice use) =usekitten ne Minions- blast finisher (x2 assuming you can pop both before they die)- they can also self-combo if using death nova = the most useful, and that says it all
Necrotic grasp – projectile = useless

Try this: stand in an open area.. lay down your field.. Blast it without minions..
yeah.. me too..

I never said it was good for pre-buffing. But so far I’ve never had problems getting off my combos in combat. I like how you just threw "useless’ on the end of everything like that magically makes it so. I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say with half of it…blasting a mark with a projectile….not sure you understand how marks and projectiles even work… and every projectile (well I think there are a few exceptions) is a 20% chance, so ours, other than being really slow, is no worse off than any other projectile for a finisher. Anyways…why in the world would you want to pre-buff with dark and poison fields? The only one you could pre buff with is well of blood and the retal won’t last long enough to be worth it anyway….. We used to be able to use spectral wall as a reliable field, but now with it’s incredibly short duration that’s off the table. It was nice having minions make confusion while it lasted though.

I’m surprised that none of the weapons more intended for dps don’t have finishers.

It seems like the staff is more intended for support and I would have thought Putrid Mark would have been a 2nd field honestly.

I personally tend to stay away from minions on my necro but thats mostly because I tend to carry field generators on my utility slots and focus on setting players up and if I get lucky with a projectile proc from my staff thats just gravy.

However if I was a more DPS focus’d player i would probably be asking for a finisher or 2 on axe and possibly daggers.

I haven’t had too much experience with minions (and I haven’t gotten high enough to spec them to be effect) to know if they are really viable as a finisher (whether if they are unreliable or tend to die often)

I also wouldn’t be opposed to them redoing staffs and changing Chilblian to a water field and putrid mark from a finisher to a poison field but thats probably me being greedy as a support player.

On a side note and a noobish question- is there a bonus damage component to combos? I havent found any information on that and was under the impression that unless the effect caused damage (like lifestealing or burns) that the finisher just caused a condition (or cured one)

Combos dont increase dps directly, but the might stacking from fire+blast (ice armor from ice, Swiftness from Lightning, heal from water too to some extent) is/are quite strong.

thanks for the clarification Andele. Thats what I thought but wasnt sure.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Staff #4- blast = only on mark radius, and what does it blast? = useless (Despite displaying a successful blast finishing effect message, initially casting the mark on a combo field does not actually cause any such effect)
Bone fiend- projectile (x2 per attack) = useless
Flesh Wurm – projectile and blast finisher (on skill/sacrifice use) =usekitten ne Minions- blast finisher (x2 assuming you can pop both before they die)- they can also self-combo if using death nova = the most useful, and that says it all
Necrotic grasp – projectile = useless

Try this: stand in an open area.. lay down your field.. Blast it without minions..
yeah.. me too..

What does staff 4 blast…? The thing you put it on. Yes it needs a trigger, yes that sucks, but you can still very easily get finishers on it in combat.

Bone Fiend/Flesh Wurm = all my wut? Dark finishers give them +200 per projectile damage and healing, poison makes them spam poison, whatever field your allies put down makes them spam that. Those two have the fastest projectile finisher spamming in the game, at 3 every 4 seconds. Yes Wurm’s blast is useless, oh well.

Bone minions should never NOT be popped. If they are dying on their own, you should remove them from your bar, as well as every other minion from your bar, detrait every minion trait you have, and respec, because you aren’t cut out for using minions. They have a 2x 16 or 20s CD blast finisher that can SELF COMBO with Death Nova (each one combos with its own death nova), for massive poison and weakness uptime, AoE.

The problems with our combo setup is:

We should have more. Having low finishers is fine, but we can still have very low fields compared to Warriors, who have finishers with nearly every CD if they want. Or they should give us just one or two more finishers. Keep it balanced, but it really isn’t right now, although close.

Little target-less finishers.

For what appears to be a setup for us to have tons of fields, we have very little field variety. Its all poison and dark, with one ethereal/light. It’d be nice to see at least Ice see its way in there.

Yeah I wouldn’t mind an ice field addition-and not just an underwater weapon either lol, let’s get that out right now. I love underwater combat, but it’s still only a small percentage of gameplay. As far as finishers go, we really need a whirl. Leaps I honestly think we could live without. Leap finishers only affect you and not many of them are really worth worrying about. The leap into water heal is nothing compared to a blast in water heal (the base values are the same but you need to figure in that you’re healing up to 5 allies around you with a blast. That alone = greater healing potential- well, assuming we’re nearby someone else’s water field lol)

Since we have dark fields if we had whirls we could make leeching bolts which are really good when you’re being surrounded. I’ve done it on both my ranger and warrior before in a necro’s wells. even though the healing is lower than most of the water stuff, I’m pretty sure it scales better because I’ve better results off it. Need to figure in also, most whirls last longer than a simple blast or leap so it’s more sustained healing.

It’s because Whirl gives you 170(.05HP) life stealing per bolt on dark, compared to water which just gives regen.

Lack of damage?

Who the kitten touched my post, kittenin mods around here.

Bhawb.7408:

It’s because Whirl gives you 170(.05HP) life stealing per bolt on dark, compared to water which just gives regen.

Well I was referring to whirl in dark compared to leap in water

Ah, then it’d be because most whirls hit many times on many targets. For example the Guardian whirl can one-shot himself on Phantasm mesmers, but also with a dark field on top of himself he’d heal for stupid amounts. Especially since all whirls are AoE and multi-hit, it tends to scale really well.

Some points that I don’t think have been construed properly:
Putrid Marks does not need to be triggered to cause it to blast; however Chillblains does need to be triggered to activate its field.
Putrid marks is a double blast (it blasts twice for every single cast).
Spectral wall is an ethereal field.

I think that the access to blast finishers is perfectly balanced, if you consider the Necromancer as a whole. The easy access to dark fields (blindness) coupled with other blinding skills, would give almost permanent blinding to the Necro while still dropping considerable DPS.
I mean, I would love to have more blasts. Who doesn’t love blind & weakness, and in my opinion are some of the strongest conditions. But I feel increased access to them would only lead to “OMG NERF NECRO PLz, ARgh the BLINDz! OP OP OP”

Putrid doesnt blast unless its triggered. Its a display bug. It shows “aoe might” or w/e when placed but doesnt give the effect. It triggers combo fields twice but that only happens when its triggered because it remembers the effect it should of produced when first placed.

One blast finisher on one weapon that doesn’t require an enemy to trigger it would be sweet.

The staff blast finisher doesn’t need an enemy to trigger it. I have blasted out of combat, no mob close by.

That doesnt give you the effect though. Read up ^

spoj.9672:

That doesnt give you the effect though. Read up ^

I’m not sure about all of them. But it worked perfectly fine for area stealth.

Well ive tried it on multiple fields and it hasnt worked on any of them. Ill test smoke field when i log on.