Guild Wars 2

There are 3 defining things that a necromancer should represent in this or any game.

1) Negative conditions (hex’s/curses) on enemies
2)Poisons / Bleeding (DOT)
3)Pets

If you agree with these 3, rate how you think they have done with executing these, why you think that, and what you would change.

I am still forming my opinions from my own gameplay as my necro is not a high level yet, but I would like to see others opinions.

I will say that arena nets goal of givng any class the capability of being a tank, damage dealer, and healer all in one, and being able to choose how much you want to be able to get into any of those 3 is great, and in theory for me atleast they have done a good job, just the execution of it could be a little better.

No, you don’t have have 3 options, not in GW2.
Not only necromancer is focused on conditions, mesmer is also a similar class,necro is more of an MM or vampire.
Conditionmancer is overall not that good, condtions are weak, they last only a few seconds(maybe lower) and they are just not enough, except the one signet.
Minion Master works good, your pets do fair damage altho they could use some scaling on the player stats,to make them a bit better meat shields.
Minion AI in general is not playable..

4)Support.
Myself latetly I play a Well-o-Mancer, which focuses on applying conditions on foes and protect/heal nearby allies, I use a flesh golem to assist me in single fights or a lich form for massive situations.
I find well mancer the best possible build for PvE and PvP at the moment, has the least bugs ,you are tanky and you can pull some fair damage.
Necromancers don’t need boosts, they need fixes.

I was saying more in terms of what a necromancer is in theory, not what GW 2 made it

Conditions is part of the lore of a necromancer, and support can be lumped into any of those 3, moving conditions from friends to foe’s, leaching health through your dot’s for you and your party, and minions offer a form of CC which is support related.

-condition necromancer is the only viable build atm (it’s pulled of pretty well)
-health stealing necro is sub par at best due to how flat siphoning is
-minion master necro suffers greatly from minion AI

As for the negative conditions thing, none of them are particularly game changing, in that you would never change your behavior because of them (except for confusion maybe). Some of them are powerful, but they don’t go beyond just being bad. I’d like to see more interesting effects that you could apply. Like a condition that does damage when it’s removed or something. Conditions with effects that reward quick thinking and punish thoughtlessness. I don’t think that really fits into Anet’s vision of the game though.

The bleed builds are fine, nothing wrong there. I don’t like the bleed cap and I hope that is changed somewhat. Personally I’d like the Necro to have a unique DoT condition that behaves somehow differently than bleed, poison, or burn.

The pets need a lot of work AI-wise. I’m not sure I like Anet’s approach of having fewer minions that can have a bigger effect rather than a horde of monsters. The way the game is designed though, I think it wouldn’t fit very well.

gimme pet UI for my pets and ill be minionmaster anyday..! and u know what?? a necromancer should have pet ui instead of ranger! what pet is more submisive to its master? a real savage animal or a demon/abomination??? ha?!

You are missing some DS-focused build. It is one of the iconic abilities of necro and there should definitely be some synergic skills to that ability as well as traits.
It would be great if there would be a build focused on fast gathering of DS life force and its strength, supported by lets say one weapon being especially great for DS life force gathering. Of course the weapon should not be DD oriented, more like a mediocre way of annoying the enemy, but all that to enable and maybe even enhance a DS which should shine due to high damage and maybe some more utility skills or boons.
Now I don’t say there aren’t some parts already in game, but they don’t fulfill that role and certainly they don’t synergise, all being signs of game design not being as thorough as it should be. And since game designers tells us to L2P, this probably won’t ever happen.

Necromancers can represent what they want, there’s no need to restrict them to three themes. Necromancer could use some help in some areas, bug fixes in most areas and I find the animations lacking at times but overall.

Yet overall it remains my favourite class by a long way. It is definitely a dark-themed caster, I do believe they pulled that off.

Necromancer is meant to be a dark magic user who outlasts his opponents and slowly drains them dry.
In GW2’s soft “Damage/Support/Control” trinity Necromancers are meant to be at their best in Control.
Necromancer’s Control focuses on Conditions.

This is why Necromancers have as much Health as Warriors do, but also have Death Shroud to make them even harder to kill.

Yes, you read that right!
Necromancers are meant to outlast Warriors.
Warriors do have Heavy armor which I’ve read is like 200 extra toughness.
However they have the same health, no Death Shroud, no life steals and most of the time need to be in melee range where they take a ton of hits.

The minions also go with Survivability because they are meant to make you hard to kill.
That one might be pretty obvious if you look at what stats Death Magic gives and what the second Minor trait does.

Also just look at the Weapons.
Scepter:
Condition damage (slow), Control (Cripple), Life Force Building.
Or in other words survivability and some condition damage.

Main hand Dagger:
Survivability (Life Stealing), Control(Immobilize)

Off-hand dagger:
Condition control, Control, some Condition damage.

Warhorn:
Control, Survivability (Life Force).

Staff:
Life Force building, Regeneration, Bleeding, Poison/Chill, Condition Transfer, Fear.
Massive control options along with survivability and some condition damage.
The Regen is probably best used for supporting allies or minions, again affecting survivability.

Axe:
Offensive support (Vulnerability), Life Force, Control (AoE Cripple)

Focus:
Offensive Support (Vulnerability), Survivability (Regeneration), Control (Chill), Boon removal.

As you can see Necromancer’s role is pretty subtle unless you break it up.
Everything is geared toward you being hard to kill, making your friends harder to kill or making your opponents weaker.

People don’t understand that Necro is meant to have low damage and high survivability.
This is why people say things like “Dark Pact puts me in melee? I’m a caster! That’s crazy!”
Or “Thieves deal more condition damage! Necros are meant to deal more than them!”

They see a cloth wearing Profession with Conditions and just assume that Necros are meant to be squishy glass cannons with insane Condition damage.
This is wrong, though I understand why they might think so.

Unfortunately most weapon sets are just underpowered right now so you don’t really have many choices.
They’ll be fixed later but for now you’ll have to just bear with it or play an alt…

I’m not denying that I feel underpowered, but I also think that many players don’t even know what Necro is meant to be.

Necros are meant to have high survivabilty and low damage? Would love to get confirmation on this cause warriors and thieves eat my health pool in seconds. DS doesn’t help either Jon.

I don’t claim to be a good player (I kinda suck) but I’ve followed GW2 articles and fan forums ever since some of the first Profession reveals.
I have a good idea of how the things are -supposed- to work by Arenanet’s design.
That doesn’t mean that everything actually works right now…

All the professions have an intended theme, and since you mentioned Warrior and Thief I’ll talk about them, too.

Warrior:
High Health, high armor, high damage (See why they are so easy to play?) but they are most effective in melee and also often predictable.
The best Warriors are those who always stand in just the right spot.
Spacing.

If you talk to Warriors they’ll complain about dying on event bosses or in dungeons because going melee is dangerous even for them and if they go ranged then they aren’t as effective.
Extreme example: A silly Warrior trying to melee a Zerg in WvW.

Most Warriors also want to be in a fight for long enough to make use of Adrenaline and then score a brutal hit.

Necros like long fights due to Life Force but rather than have great offense they are meant to have great defense.
A good Necro can use Death Shroud to eat a Warrior’s Adrenaline burst just before it lands.

Since a hit is a hit (not dodge, block, interrupt) the Warrior loses all Adrenaline while the Necro pays the damage off as Life Force and can then continue the fight as usual.

Against a Warrior (on paper) it’s all about predicting their adrenaline bursts and kiting them when they switch to melee.

Thief:
Very high burst damage, very weak sustained damage, fast, squishy.
It’s all attack & escape, just varies a bit by build.
Thieves are crazy good at 1vs1, be it PvE or PvP. They just spike things/people down.

You’ve probably noticed how they use Heart Seeker spam (or Death Blossom) and then run away even if you didn’t die.

That’s because with their Initiative full they spam a spike for absolutely insane damage, then after the Initiative is gone their 2-5 skills don’t work at all until they get initiative for a new burst.

So, on paper you want to somehow survive their first burst through Dodges, Death Shroud, Blind, Daze, Fear or any other way.
No use fighting against something that strong by attacking back.

After that first burst the Thief is so weak that he needs to run.
If you catch the Thief at this point all he can do is Spam “1”, heal, use an Utility or Elite.

Surviving the first burst isn’t that hard actually. Even I have done it.
…but I have no clue how to actually catch a super fast invisible Thief before they return for a second burst. Ugh.

Anyway compared to the Necromancer they are opposites.
Thieves like 1vs1 and want things to die fast.
Necromancers are better at massive battles and want fights to last for long.
Marks, Wells, other AoEs, Epidemic, Life Force from deaths and Life Transfer are much better in crowds than 1vs1.

Very good post by Lastday,explains pretty well the necro in my opinion.
A tip, as a necro you don’t really have to “catch” the thief before he goes invisible,you are a necro, you can use aoe spells that will annoy him even if he manages to go invisible,while he goes for the burst you can blind him(making his burst useless)or even weaken him(when you weak someone you make his blows glancing, which means 50% chance for a 50% damage reduction)
You can also slow/dodge their burst which wont last more than 3-4 seconds or even “swallow” the burst into DS and make them USELESS.

I agree with what the Dev said, necro is the hardest proffesion to master, it has A LOT of bugs and broken skills/traits, but is still the BEST on 1vs1 situations.

Go toughness/vitality and use well build for PvP, you will have a life pool of 28k,armor of 2.5-3k and avoid the most damage you can get,imagine the survability..