Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen quite a lot of jaded and bitter attitudes in the necro forum, and understandably so. However, there must be a reason(s) why all of us are still here and why we still like (possibly love, if you’re a sucker like me) the profession. So my question for every bitter old necro and every new practitioner of the dark arts is: What are positives about the necro?

My thought is, there’s just so much negativity and salt about the profession being neglected that, frankly, I’m not sure anyone wants to search through and find suggestions too often, because it’s frustrating and a bit depressing. Maybe some positives, maybe highlighting the good things that drew us here and keeps us here through everything, including general lack of fondness from other professions, will catch someone’s interest.

Either way, I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on what they like about the profession, what build they play most, etc

Honestly the only thing necro is (arguably) better at than some classes is condition and boon management. Personally I play it just because I like how the class functions.

I like it’s dagger skills, and ds is good, if you don’t think at the damage, that is low than dagger auto attack.
The necro is very good in WvsWvsW and I’ve make it for www, but after that I’ve chose to play it in pve, to try. And I love the Vampiric Syphon ability. ANet need to do a little work on it, but it’s good to survive a little longer than the others.

About conditions, my ranger and warrior can deal better condition damage than my necromancer, but that’s another story XD

The only thing its good at is that it appeals to me and i like (most) of the spells and mechanics. That i like them doesn’t make them “competitive” or on par with the other classes stat- and usability-wise, though.

There’s several things I love about necromancer.

1. Unless I’m just slow on the draw, I never die. I have a condition well spec and I love the tankiness of it. It’s fun to be able to survive a boss fight that wipes nearly everyone else out. With careful timing of my dagger blood siphon, heal, wells and death shroud, I can tank something off indefinitely. My necro really shines in the breach boss fight at the red camp in the Silverwastes.

2. It’s underrated, but necros have a pretty solid well heal that has a shorter duration timer than rangers. The heal helps a lot in dungeons and world boss fights like in Silverwastes.

3. A bit of crowd control. I keep one minion up while playing, and time it to knock down mobs or players, and for interruptions. I use the slow to manage mobs and players where I can.

4. A necro is a great class to play when I’m just tired of dealing with terrible players, especially in PvE. Sometimes you get a map where all the players work solidly together, and help each other out. Then there’s times where a map is full of players that won’t help a downed person, who train mobs over onto others and don’t have a fun / team mentality. That’s where necro really shines for me. When I get one of those maps, I shut off general chat, pick a corner and stay there til the fights over, grab my loot and leave.

Good for event farming where there are a lot of trash mobs.

Takes some skill to learn to play. DS is generally not an automatic defense or a get out of jail free card.

Despite overall meh design of some Necro’s traits and lack of meta survive tools like reflects or blocks, we have possibly the most options to create “our own” build as a Necromancer. The sheer amount of various builds and alternatives I can create for a Necromancer surpasses even two other professions together. And while not maybe meta, they will have their use.

We don’t have many totally useless utilities, like Rangers do, for example. With Ranger in PvE I often just don’t know what to put on my bar, because really everything is “meh”. I don’t have that problem with Necromancer.

I like the concept of resource (Life Force) building and would like more development in here and Death Shroud. Oh and Charr Necromancer in Shroud is absolutely master race and looks glorious.

I always loved keeping people in check and to shatter their beautiful synergies in games. Boon flipping is exactly that. Plus Chill. I love Chill.

Overall theme. At least one described.

Some unique things. Like Spectral Walk (although Mesmers now get better version), Spectral Wall post-patch, Well of Corruption, Corrosive Poison Cloud.

Spectral Walk (and previously Shroud) “bungee jumping” – amazing uses for Jumping Puzzles, essentialy self-insurance and saves time on kittenes. Way better than Mesmer portal. Cuz you don’t die.

And the most important one – Epidemic. The skill I love, adore, it’s my baby. Wasn’t pleased that Revenant get a skill so similar, even better one in some situations.

And condition transfers.

- The aesthetic
- Epidemic
- Plague Form
- DS concept

These are the only things that stand out as good on their own to me (even if they dont have much of a place in current content). I said DS concept because its implementation and how it has resulted in our shoddy defence options is a major problem. But the idea behind the mechanic if it didnt restrict us so much is really nice.

Epidemic will likely get capped in PvE when condition caps go up.

1-shotting noobs with Lich form?

The Wizland.8435:

Honestly the only thing necro is (arguably) better at than some classes is condition and boon management. Personally I play it just because I like how the class functions.

Condition management is terrible. It is quickly overwhelmed by sheer condition output of other classes.

That our condition control is so terrible locks us into staff.

Boon management is pretty bad too. A Traited thief destroys boons every 15s and their rip prioritizes stability. Theif/Mesmer rip boons on autoattack too, so boon management being any kind of strength in pvE is out.

The necromancer’s real strength is a burst caster. By blowing all of your long cool downs, you can do a big chunk of power damage in PvE over 10 seconds before your DPS falls off the cliff. Likewise in Pvp, you can burn a bunch of long cool downs and overwhelm a foe with tons of nearly all of the conditions all at once.

nekretaal.6485:

The Wizland.8435:

Honestly the only thing necro is (arguably) better at than some classes is condition and boon management. Personally I play it just because I like how the class functions.

Condition management is terrible. It is quickly overwhelmed by sheer condition output of other classes.

That our condition control is so terrible locks us into staff.

Boon management is pretty bad too. A Traited thief destroys boons every 15s and their rip prioritizes stability. Theif/Mesmer rip boons on autoattack too, so boon management being any kind of strength in pvE is out.

The necromancer’s real strength is a burst caster. By blowing all of your long cool downs, you can do a big chunk of power damage in PvE over 10 seconds before your DPS falls off the cliff. Likewise in Pvp, you can burn a bunch of long cool downs and overwhelm a foe with tons of nearly all of the conditions all at once.

Which, when you think about how A-Net wants us to be Attrition-Types, really is sad. I mean, that they don’t (want to) see how massively they failed just bring me to tears.

I know for myself, I love how much we can do if we choose to. Granted, we’re not as good at any one particular thing than other classes, but we can do what we want. I’ve seen healing builds, power builds and condi builds are common, I roll a minion master myself. And there are hybrid builds that are fun as well.

On top of that, I think being the underdog class isn’t inherently a bad thing, because people expect you to be terrible. But if you’ve worked on your skills and perfected them in the build you favor (as much as that can be done as a necro) you can be surprisingly potent.

I have yet to try the PvP or WvWvW, so I’m referring more to dungeon content and shocking people a bit with how well you do when nearly everyone else is down.

And I know one of my favorite things to do with my minions is go after champs. I don’t take them down quickly, obviously (decent power on my build, but no crit chance because I like being able to face roll) but to me, the “playing with your food” mentality is enjoyable. You know you’ll wear down your enemy. So you can enjoy it. In tough fights with multiple others helping, I’ve drawn all the aggro on a powerful enemy while someone else runs around and heals the two or three others that are downed. That sort of playstyle is fun for me, even if being the chew toy isn’t as great for others

(Note: I think people may be looking at the necro’s purpose a little wrong. Yeah, we can solo things decently, if slower. But we’re excellent at making enemies chase us even without taunt as an option yet. Our “party support” is “get up close and don’t die so the rest of us can burn the kitten” (Though, I could very well be wrong. That thought just makes me feel better))

The main thing I like about necromancers is the bunker builds, getting lots of toughness and regen and being a pain in the kitten to get rid of. Sure other classes have better access to stability or protection, or regen more. But with Necro most of the traits are terrible, so I feel much less locked into a any particular bunker build, and can vary it up for a more diversified range of builds to annoy people with.

Bunker Necro isn’t nearly as effective/fun in dungeons though.

Another part of what makes me love my Necromancer is I suspect my time in GW1 as a Necromancer. While I play the other classes in GW2 and accept them as they are, my Necromancer feels like there is more to him, that if I just improve 1 more thing about his build he’ll suddenly become amazing, I don’t know where that feeling comes from, I don’t really get it with other classes.

@ Zwets I think that feeling is because we have so much potential whereas other classes are pretty much at their top ability (in general.)

Dat second health bar. Oh yeaaah

-Death shroud (when it works)
-Tanky (The only thing it’s better than any class aside from Warrior or a tanky Gaurdian)
-Minions (or rather meatshields)
-Power (when going for a meta build, it’s probably the best especially when you throw in [Reapers Might] arguably the most potent skill in the game.

They have some sicklooking starting headgear, Lich form is kitten and I think thats it cause everything else like dark themed weapons can be used by any other class.

Vizardlorde.8243:

They have some sicklooking starting headgear, Lich form is kitten and I think thats it cause everything else like dark themed weapons can be used by any other class.

Aside from the staff looking like a scythe when casting everyone has the same thing.

Boon Strip (PvP)
4/6/0/0/4
VI-X/V-X-XIII/II-X
Dagger/Focus & Staff
Sigil of Str/Generosity & Sigil of Energy/Str
Rune of Strength
Berserker Amulet
Consume Conditions/Corrupt Boon/Spectral Walk/Spectral Armor/Lich Form

Form of my current build. Necros are actually scary strong and I can understand why devs hesitate buffing them because it can become OP very easily. Boon hate on necro is better than any other class. Only Mesmer can possibly compete. Now with the new class coming out and Devs saying it will counter Necros I’m concerned because I feel Warriors can counter necros pretty well.

The only good thing about Necro is Spectral Walk. #NeverLeavesMyBar.

Figure out how to use it for everything.

Malchior.1928:

The only good thing about Necro is Spectral Walk. #NeverLeavesMyBar.

Figure out how to use it for everything.

Sadly 90% of the player base only use it for the speed buff to run away.

Zoso.8279:

Malchior.1928:

The only good thing about Necro is Spectral Walk. #NeverLeavesMyBar.

Figure out how to use it for everything.

Sadly 90% of the player base only use it for the speed buff to run away.

Fortunately for us, it should likely not get nerfed that way <3

I find power well Necros to be the heavy artillery in WvW zerg fights.. My guild tries to run a minimum of 5 per group of 20 and the results have been amazing.

In PvP they are OK, but not awesome. I’ve never Pve’d on necro so can not comment.

Honestly, lately, I think I still play my Necro mainly for the challenge in PvP. When you outperform other classes, both you and your enemy full well know it was due to personal skill. That feeling is addicting, especially when winning matchups you had no business winning.

Besides aesthetics, the necro has a nice concept. The final product has been a bit of a let-down for me but in the end Bone Minions, Jagged Horrors and lich form have always put a smile on my face. I also like transformation mechanics in general and always hoped they would expand on this aspect of necros.

Tragically I like playing the underdog class along with trying to create unique builds or play builds that are less popular and the necro had a lot of potential for that for some reason lol. This is why I spent so much time trying to make a decent blood trait line build and I must say I had fun with it.

I just recently started playing PvP and WvW with my necro and, although I’m obviously unversed in the intricacies of the two, I find that with my bunker/power mm hybrid, I don’t have to worry too much unless I push too far in PvP or encounter 3 or more in either. I just have the survivability to make people back off unless they can rush me down. Either I take them out, or weaken them enough that they leave. And I have the feeling I’ll just learn more tricks and get better. We’ll see. Still, Necro is my main, and main it shall remain. Especially with the trait changes that will very positively affect my build (Condition shedding anyone?)

I like playing the underdog. People get mad when they are wrecked by the most limited class in game.

The dark theme appeals to me, bats and reapers, Im a metalhead myself.

Low skil floor, when Im tired or sleepy I can play my necro easily to chill in SW where on my ele and thief I can get downed quite often.

Heavy feeling light class, mesmer ele ranger skills dont satisfy me. With necro i get the spell feeling as well as butchering my opponents with daggers

Ripping boons and eotm trolling are just the bonuses. When farminh in dungeons and pvp with my guild I usually dont pick my necro for the sake of usefulness.