1. Like Balekai said, conditions. In every single way we are the best condition class in the game. We can spam nearly every condition in the game, spread them to everyone in a large area. We have by far the strongest and most varied condition removal, as well as almost all the removal including secondary beneficial effects like transferring or extra healing. All of this is usually done AoE as well. Even our power builds have been conditions than many other classes’ condition builds for control.
Basically, we are an AoE condition control class. Our strength is our ability to control our opponents and make them significantly weaker, through mass condition application and some boon removal.
2) Of course ANet doesn’t hate Necromancers. I realize it feels this way, but remember that this is their game. They want every class to be good. The problem is that Necromancers are very different, and they want to keep that difference. They refuse to “buff” us by giving us things that other classes have, because it goes against what we are. That is why we don’t get mass boons like other classes, or dodges and the like.
The problem is, that on the same line a lot of what draws the line between too “weak” and too “strong” is very small. And because our mechanics are so unique, they can’t just use things that are working for others. Every time they try to fix a Necro problem, they basically have to completely invent a new mechanic from scratch. We are really resource heavy to balance, and it has taken its toll. So right now, they prefer to keep us slightly too weak, because that is far more manageable and healthy for their game than if we were too strong.
3. They actually do support those statements. As I’ve said before, I talked to quite a few of the devs in person. I have had drinks with a portion of the PvP team. They do believe what they say in general, but it has to be “PC” (politically correct) when they talk in public.
Anyway, what they want is for us to be a hyper-aggressive sustain class that uses various debuffing mechanics to bring enemies down to our level, and then win through superior abilities to fight the “Necromancer” fight. We slow down people’s actions through control effects like cripple, chill, and fear, we slow their damage output by weakening them, we corrupt their defenses and poison them to slow their sustaining. And all this time that they are being pulled down harder and harder, we are aggressively keeping up a large offensive pressure, forcing CDs and keeping them on the back foot.
It is all about bringing every other class down to our level of strength through a bunch of conditions and mechanics to weaken them, and then winning because we are designed to fight at this level. Realize that we operate in the exact opposite way of almost every other class.
4. I don’t think you realize how hard it is to communicate in general. Not to say that they couldn’t be better, because we should have a little discussion from the devs, but it is really hard to for them. Everything they say needs to be really thought out, because it will be used against them for years. They also can’t respond to a lot because things need to be kept behind closed doors until its ready to go.
Just to show, here is how things work from their side. They work on tons of things behind the scenes. Sometimes things happen and ideas are scrapped, in fact it is very common that in the development process the vast majority of ideas are dropped. This is completely fine and normal. Unless they have made the idea public. Anything said in public is taken to be a promise.
If a dev says “hey, we’re looking into some of the issues of Death Shroud that we’d like to get into next patch”, the public translates it to “we hereby promise to fix every issue that you have with Death Shroud in the next patch. Not only will we fix it, but it will be exactly how you wanted it fixed, and perfectly balanced on day 1.”
Now, let’s say that a Dev really loves Necromancers. So they make a few posts across a few topics just to talk with the community and say some things. People from other classes see this, and start riots in their own forums because ANet is blatantly favoring Necromancers and obviously no dev plays their class and hates them all.
