What is the necromancer?
I think necro is intended to be the master of conditions. To apply it, convert it, transfer it absorb it. But anet ddidn’t realize how bad conditions turn out.
saying deathshroud limits your DPS potential makes me wonder how long you’ve spent playing the class… because of DS I can do about 16k – 20k AoE dmg by popping DS after dropping a well or two and life transferring. the new deathly perception trait is something I advise you play around with if you think DS limits your DPS potential.
in condition builds I use DS offensively too, stacking bleeds chill and torment.
DS is amazing.
Grandad Fester / Unruly Pigeon – Necromancer by trade
Necromancers are generalists. They have lots of mediocre AoE, a huge array of weapon ranges that reward risk with more damage, are both tanky and vulnerable, and have lots of pets to kill over and over, again.
Necromancers are confusing. You have to learn from experience which build to run, where. Arguably all of the utilities are useful even if some are less popular due to the uniqueness of their utility.
Necromancers are under-powered. Sure, a glass cannon build is powerful but the profession is horrible at escaping focussed fire. When things go South, just know you won’t be getting out alive and spare yourself the disappointment of misplaced hope.
Necromancers are farmers. Go where death lurks and spawn a pet for bait. Be a tank and wade into a cluster of mobs to mine that node before dropping marks and wells all over yourself, then DS4. Tag everything in an undead invasion and collect the spoils after other professions finish off the mobs.
Necromancers are prime targets. They can easily turn a fight but are also easy to focus down. lots of kills are made of Necromancers, partly because other professions cannot tolerate leaving a necro free to torpedo their battle plan.
I think necro is intended to be the master of conditions. To apply it, convert it, transfer it absorb it. But anet ddidn’t realize how bad conditions turn out.
Conditions -can- be good, but the problem is the stacking limit on them means in a party with 2+ condition stackers, they start falling off REAL quick. what’s more, Poison, one of their main condition, is VERY bad for damage. But yeah, I agree that if they had a better condition-mastery/conditions they apply were more effective, it would make the class alot more focused and cohesive.
@Anchoku, that is really the impression I got of Necromancers, and I just don’t think it suits the class concept. Confusing seems to be a good term for the class. While Mesmer I admitted was just not my playstyle, and elementalist required too much coordination to make the most use of for me, Necromancer just confused me. The abilities were very niche, and they seemed to be focused on too many things. their AoE, while good, seems strictly inferior to, say, an elementalist. Ultimately, they seem like they should have been a heavy armor class, and been the tanky life-stealing battlefield controllers. think opposite of guardian.
@Bull Zooker, i will have to fiddle around with that a little more.
We are debuffers.
Debuffers. Unfortunately debuffing is pointless in pve.
In PvE open world and dungeons, personally I think necros are all about condition dmg and AoE condition spreading through Epidemic. If you have other condition toons in the party, its even better.
So why take a necro over a generic dps warrior? I have both a necro and warrior with all ascended gear and I think my necro actually has better dps uptime through conditions than my zerker warrior does through GS and axe/mace. It certainly faster for boss fights where the boss takes a regular break like mossman or svanir.
“… the opposite of guardian.”
That is what I have always thought, too. Guardian is great goup AoE support and very tanky. Necromancer is tanky, too, but its support is in crowd control conditions rather than party boons.
Necromancers give great party AoE support… when facing multiple mobs. When facing a single boss, the return is much less outside of a glass cannon. Warriors can stack bleeds very quickly and Necro’s have difficulty with single-target condi-damage as other professions can do better. The lack of evasion skills is tough on the Necro. Only minions take aggro and damage before the Necro. Otherwise, dodge and DS are the only real damage-mitigation skills and niether are automatically active so the player must keep an eye on the opponent and hope for enough stamina or completed CD/LF for DS.
From: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/999247
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. Necromancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.
From the main website:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/necromancer/
Practitioners of the dark arts, necromancers summon the dead, wield the power of lost souls, and literally suck the life force from the enemy. Necromancers feed on life force, which they can use to bring allies back from the brink or cheat death itself.
From my perspective, all of this is correct. It makes us perhaps the most flexible profession, but it also makes us the least specialized professions. We can have wildly different kinds of viable builds with wildly different kind of mechanics and abilities – power builds, condition builds, MM builds, DS builds, hybrid builds, etc.
But the tradeoff seems to be that our abilities in any one specific area can’t be too strong lest a synergistic confluence of abilities make us OP (e.g., the recent concern over whether Terror+Dhuumfire is possibly OP).
Transtemporal, Warrior has much better mob control skills. A War can push a boss into a corner and keep it there. Necromancer has only a puny 1 sec Fear on long-is CD for that.
Not saying that is a problem but War has control mechanisms that work better
Necromancers are jacks of all trades. They are tanky dps group healing debuffers. Of course, you can always specialise into some of those aspects depending on your build, but the base class can do pretty much anything except of supporting through buffs.
And DS is only a decrease of dps if you completely ignore it in your build. Otherwise, it’s: stack 3 wells on top of each other → DS → 3, 4, 5 → Take your hands off the keyboard and watch everything die. When you’re done, all your cooldowns are up again as well.
Transtemporal, Warrior has much better mob control skills. A War can push a boss into a corner and keep it there. Necromancer has only a puny 1 sec Fear on long-is CD for that.
Not saying that is a problem but War has control mechanisms that work better
War does have some great cc but on bosses, who cares? Unshakeable and Defiant make it irrelevant.
And in any case, you shouldn’t be pushing bosses into a corner where dps can’t sit on his back. That’s just… annoying.
Transtemporal, Warrior has much better mob control skills. A War can push a boss into a corner and keep it there. Necromancer has only a puny 1 sec Fear on long-is CD for that.
Not saying that is a problem but War has control mechanisms that work better
War does have some great cc but on bosses, who cares? Unshakeable and Defiant make it irrelevant.
And in any case, you shouldn’t be pushing bosses into a corner where dps can’t sit on his back. That’s just… annoying.
Warrior dps far exceeds the dps a necro can do. A beserker necro does respectable damage but with no useful utility or team buffs its not worth it in dungeons. Other classes are much more useful. Condition dmg will never out damage raw in pve.
Unshakable and Defiant are kind of downers, Necromancer suffered immensely on their introductions, but holding a mob boss in a corner lets the medium and light classed unload on it with impunity. Maybe that means some jobs cannot back-stab for max dps but keeping the group healthy and doing damage is increadibly valuable. PUGs with a few new players need this a lot.
Another benefit to controlling boss movement is that support classes can focus heals on the tanks rather than saving them for themselves. It makes the Wars and Guards, along with medium class professions, invulnerable. For Necromancer, being in a “nice” group means the Necro can drop marks and wells on the boss and surrounding tanks and never worry about the tanks letting the boss roam free to do spike damage. Or it could mean never getting focussed on because the higher dps jobs never relinquish hate.
Warrior dps far exceeds the dps a necro can do. A beserker necro does respectable damage but with no useful utility or team buffs its not worth it in dungeons. Other classes are much more useful. Condition dmg will never out damage raw in pve.
As long as the target doesn’t move and lets you do your full axe/mace/gs rotation and you’re in a good group that stacks and uses dmg mitigation to prevent you dying in seconds, sure.
If you have to move or dodge, warrior dps goes down the toilet.
Whereas my cond necro can sustain 4k dps easy (bleeding, burning, poison) on everything in range of Epidemic and my dps is not predicated on standing still so I can kite without reducing my dps. And perma-weakness and perma-crippling of course.
Unshakable and Defiant are kind of downers, Necromancer suffered immensely on their introductions, but holding a mob boss in a corner lets the medium and light classed unload on it with impunity. Maybe that means some jobs cannot back-stab for max dps but keeping the group healthy and doing damage is increadibly valuable. PUGs with a few new players need this a lot.
Another benefit to controlling boss movement is that support classes can focus heals on the tanks rather than saving them for themselves. It makes the Wars and Guards, along with medium class professions, invulnerable. For Necromancer, being in a “nice” group means the Necro can drop marks and wells on the boss and surrounding tanks and never worry about the tanks letting the boss roam free to do spike damage. Or it could mean never getting focussed on because the higher dps jobs never relinquish hate.
I agree that it’s useful to control a bosses movement but they’re 90% immune to our cc anyway, so I’m not sure why you would bother trying to do this on a necro, or any character for that matter. It’s easier to have the current target stand still and tank it.
If you’re talking about the reduced effectiveness of weakness, blindness and vulnerability, that effects everybody else too.
Warrior dps far exceeds the dps a necro can do. A beserker necro does respectable damage but with no useful utility or team buffs its not worth it in dungeons. Other classes are much more useful. Condition dmg will never out damage raw in pve.
As long as the target doesn’t move and lets you do your full axe/mace/gs rotation and you’re in a good group that stacks and uses dmg mitigation to prevent you dying in seconds, sure.
If you have to move or dodge, warrior dps goes down the toilet.
Whereas my cond necro can sustain 4k dps easy (bleeding, burning, poison) on everything in range of Epidemic and my dps is not predicated on standing still so I can kite without reducing my dps. And perma-weakness and perma-crippling of course.
Warrior has about 10k dps. Dodging doesnt drop your dps that much. Whirlwind can be used as dmg and a dodge. Your doing something wrong if your warrior isnt out dpsing your necro by a mile. You can stay axe auto and thats about the same dps as 100b, just dont interrupt the final hit of the axe chain. Which means it doesnt matter if the boss is moving around because you can move with it while using the axe. 4k dps is pathetic btw even for a necro. Anyway the meta is to melee everything with maximum dps (except for a few fractal bosses) so they shouldnt be moving anyway.
The only advantage a necro has as a condition or hybrid build is sustained aoe. Beserker necro’s burst aoe is usually enough though.
4k dps is pathetic btw even for a necro. Anyway the meta is to melee everything with maximum dps (except for a few fractal bosses) so they shouldnt be moving anyway.
The 4k dps is just from conditions and its pretty conservative (2400 approx self-buffed cond dmg, 18ish stacks of bleeding, continuous poison and burning). It doesn’t include direct damage. I’m giving realistically sustainable numbers since I’m assuming we’re having a useful debate and not just posturing.
How are you calculating 10k dps btw? Is there a meter?
(edited by transtemporal.2158)
For me, the necros is the jack of all trades profession. They can be used as support, high dps burst, or as condi damage dealers, or as tanks. But what makes the necromancer class unique is how they handle conditions. Necro pretty much use conditions as their toys, mainly by transferring them to foes, absprbing them from allies, using them as a heal buffer, or transform them to boons.
Drensky – Neckromancer
4k dps is pathetic btw even for a necro. Anyway the meta is to melee everything with maximum dps (except for a few fractal bosses) so they shouldnt be moving anyway.
The 4k dps is just from conditions and its pretty conservative (2400 approx self-buffed cond dmg, 18ish stacks of bleeding, continuous poison and burning). It doesn’t include direct damage. I’m giving realistically sustainable numbers since I’m assuming we’re having a useful debate and not just posturing.
How are you calculating 10k dps btw? Is there a meter?
I dont bother with the calculations my self. But some guys on the dungeon section were discussing dps. The numbers they calculated for most classes were between 7k-11k dps with full repeatable rotations.