Guild Wars 2

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; what is needed is not necessarily more personal mobility, but rather better ability to mitigate the mobility of others if they get within and stay in range too long. DS 5 was a step in the right direction but it shares the same flaw most Necro abilities have is that they are too slow and have too little up-time versus builds optimized for resetting fights on demand.

We didn’t need Dhuumfire or more burst damage; we needed more Chill, Cripple, and Immobilize, as well as lower cool downs on our abilities in order to better control the tempo of the fight once engaged.

No need for mobility. All necro need is a 1 second immunity when they enter DS. This alone will fix everything in high level dungeons.

Boss one hit kill attack? No endurance? No speed? No dash? No problem I can survive by going into DS at the right time.

CHIPS.6018:

No need for mobility. All necro need is a 1 second immunity when they enter DS. This alone will fix everything in high level dungeons.

Boss one hit kill attack? No endurance? No speed? No dash? No problem I can survive by going into DS at the right time.

We did have the ability to soak up one-hit-kills with DS; albeit at the expense of all remaining life force (which was perfectly balanced and acceptable to the necro community) . Sadly, following the July 23rd “balance” patch, it was nerfed when they made damage overflow from DS to our normal health bar.

In response to complaints regarding this change, we were treated to the following from Mr. Sharp:

JonathanSharp.7094:

I say play it a while and then see how you feel. (emphasis mine)

We did a big set of improvements to Necro recently (this is in reference to the Dhuumfire addition and Tainted Shackles; again, emphasis mine), and we want to make sure we don’t over improve their defense capabilities.

We want to shift more focus to death shroud throug main hand skills, but, again, we don’t want to do this too fast, ESPECIALLY with a major Pax tournament right around the corner.

So death shroud gains may not be as high as you would like, but we’ll keep monitoring them and looking at further improvements to make.

Well, we’ve played it awhile, Mr. Sharp. I don’t speak for every necro out there, but all I can say is the removal of our sole means of one-hit-kill damage mitigation sucked then and it still sucks now. With still – almost 3 months later – nothing to compensate the loss of such a critical defensive mechanic.

So funny to see people like Bhawb claim ‘but necro is fine, we are pure (and good) at attrition’. What a complete and utter joke.

The mesmer ‘who is not the clone’ game is better at attrition then necro and has leaps (blink) + cloack. Better off then necro.
Warrior best example in the world. This is the best proof that can ever exist to why this imbalance is crazy and why OP is right and why Bhawb is wrong. Warrior has better passives than any other profession. (healing, stability, condition immunity). This concludes into massive better attrition then necro. And guess what? they have the best leaps in the game apart from thief, but thiefs looses their initiative pool to keep up with warrior wich means warrior is better allround. Warrior is both better at mobility AND attrition then necro. I guess people like bhawb play to much necro (and are to much in love with the profession) to admit it though. Necro is weak.

My solution has always been the same: necro needs ‘combat only’ mobility. There’s plenty examples of this. Guard sword 2, mesmer staff 2. These things only work in combat. Necro still dont be able cheat by running away, but their combat viability might finally be adequate.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

So funny to see people like Bhawb claim ‘but necro is fine, we are pure (and good) at attrition’. What a complete and utter joke.

My solution has always been the same: necro needs ‘combat only’ mobility. There’s plenty examples of this. Guard sword 2, mesmer staff 2. These things only work in combat. Necro still dont be able cheat by running away, but their combat viability might finally be adequate.

Despite how much i am against the gap between playerbase, playerbase involved with devs and devs themselves, but im pretty sure that Bhawb didnt say “necro are fine” but keep the idea of the necro pure, thus buff our attrition, only the the fancy commercial way. Also mesmer staff can be used without being in combat.

Yeah, Bhawb said the opposite of “necros are fine”. He said the idea behind necros is fine. The implementation, however, is lacking.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

So funny to see people like Bhawb claim ‘but necro is fine, we are pure (and good) at attrition’. What a complete and utter joke.

Bhawb.7408:

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t disagree that the actual implementation of their plan as of yet is subpar.

I not only didn’t say we are fine, I literally said the exact opposite.

I agree that our actual attrition right now is subpar, and most of the use Necromancers get is actually opposite of attrition; its based off our massive AoE condi spam/burst. But I don’t want ANet to see that and say “well our idea failed, time to slap boons and invulns all over necros” and end up having the class become an emo guardian.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Well, we’ve played it awhile, Mr. Sharp. I don’t speak for every necro out there, but all I can say is the removal of our sole means of one-hit-kill damage mitigation sucked then and it still sucks now. With still – almost 3 months later – nothing to compensate the loss of such a critical defensive mechanic.

^- Bump -^

Also 1sec immune on DS, prob not such a sexy idea with server skill lag on WvW Zerg/PvE events like invasions. (Even pressing a ‘Brake Stun’ then DS with 3sec stability, can leave me CC’ed the entire time when the server lag hits)

As for Retaliation, I think it’s been nurfed in this game, as if it’s auto/passive it’s unskilled counter.
If we were to get ‘spectral’ effect, where we gen lifeforce for dam taken, but while CC’ed, that’d give us defense we actively use.

Bhawb.7408:

emo guardian

Redundant much?

I’d like us to get a “siphon health when hit” skill or trait. If it were a trait, it could be “when stunned/dazed/knocked down etc.” and be truly impressive amounts of siphoning.

Well i’m sorry but saying ‘we are meant to be attriction without combat mobility’ while the intention of that sentence may be good, I read it as ‘Knowing that mobility will always be a dealbreaker in gamemodes like wvw, having to live without it, no matter how good our attrition becomes, is acceptable, and thus necro’s are fine’.

I apologize if that’s wrong. Currently there’s to few counters to raw damage, sustained damage combo’s against necro. And most professions i play with, sooner or later i abuse the combat mobility somehow, to make up for that. As necro has bad stability/stunbreaker/no invulnerabilty, it’s hard to make up for this loss in survivability.

About mesmer mobility, it can be used out of combat, but that’s trying a little to hard imo. First of all the clone you spam can hit the monster or player and therefore = you are put in combat. That’s not viable when moving out of combat from spot 1 to 2. Secondly, in the wrong position, this mobility won’t help you. And it needs a target to work, wich essentially is a almost combat situation anyway. that’s why i listed it. I also listed it cause skills like this, won’t conclusively make you able to escape people chasing you. However Rush, savage leap will. And in that viewpoint, the mesmer staff 2 is way more balance if you want to keep it an attrition skills rather then runaway skills.

I also think Anet puts too much emphasis on attrition, and not nearly enough on what it even means to be a necromancer. Unlike in GW1, we can no longer curse, summon minion army or sacrifice health for major benefits.

Might as well call us attritionmancer.

I still can’t get over Bhawb calling us an in your face fighter class with one melee weapon that lacks cleave >.< Ohhh boy!

CHIPS.6018:

Unlike in GW1, we can no longer curse, summon minion army or sacrifice health for major benefits.

Might as well call us attritionmancer.

All of those things though are attrition. Lots of smaller damage instances that win in the long run. The only thing we’re missing from GW1 is “health sacrifice for benefits” skills. BTW, in the concept/art book, it talks about how Anet initially tried to make those types of skills work. However, they found it to be too complicated on top of everything else, and merged it into the DS/life force generation we have now.

If some middle ground were created, I would like skills that spent life force for abilities. Like a skill that summoned jagged horrors for Life force, or a skill that sacrificed life force to heal allies around me.

striker.3704:

CHIPS.6018:

Unlike in GW1, we can no longer curse, summon minion army or sacrifice health for major benefits.

Might as well call us attritionmancer.

All of those things though are attrition. Lots of smaller damage instances that win in the long run. The only thing we’re missing from GW1 is “health sacrifice for benefits” skills. BTW, in the concept/art book, it talks about how Anet initially tried to make those types of skills work. However, they found it to be too complicated on top of everything else, and merged it into the DS/life force generation we have now.

If some middle ground were created, I would like skills that spent life force for abilities. Like a skill that summoned jagged horrors for Life force, or a skill that sacrificed life force to heal allies around me.

Having played blood necro almost exclusively for 7 years in GW1, I used health sacrifice skills on a near-daily basis. I find their excuse that adding the same mechanic to GW2 would be “too complicated”…lacking.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Well i’m sorry but saying ‘we are meant to be attriction without combat mobility’ while the intention of that sentence may be good, I read it as ‘Knowing that mobility will always be a dealbreaker in gamemodes like wvw, having to live without it, no matter how good our attrition becomes, is acceptable, and thus necro’s are fine’.

Don’t be sorry, in a way you’re absolutely right. There’s a big difference between in-combat mobility and the kind of universal mobility (blink, rush, etc) that comes with no strings attached. The former is perfectly fine to put on the necromancer – in fact, a.net did just that (ie dark path). And you’re right that that aspect of the class will need improvement in one way or another. All the sustain in the world does you no good if you can’t lock down an opponent for long enough to make use of it.

CHIPS.6018:

I also think Anet puts too much emphasis on attrition, and not nearly enough on what it even means to be a necromancer. Unlike in GW1, we can no longer curse, summon minion army or sacrifice health for major benefits.

I have high hopes that the new traits we’re supposedly getting will enable more unique builds – including ones based on, say, health sacrifice. Unlike utilities, traits don’t have as high of an opportunity cost because you can take more of them. If we’re ever going to see something along the lines of the deckbuilding aspect we had in GW1, traits are probably the best bet.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

CHIPS.6018:

No need for mobility. All necro need is a 1 second immunity when they enter DS. This alone will fix everything in high level dungeons.

Boss one hit kill attack? No endurance? No speed? No dash? No problem I can survive by going into DS at the right time.

We did have the ability to soak up one-hit-kills with DS; albeit at the expense of all remaining life force (which was perfectly balanced and acceptable to the necro community) . Sadly, following the July 23rd “balance” patch, it was nerfed when they made damage overflow from DS to our normal health bar.

In response to complaints regarding this change, we were treated to the following from Mr. Sharp:

JonathanSharp.7094:

I say play it a while and then see how you feel. (emphasis mine)

We did a big set of improvements to Necro recently (this is in reference to the Dhuumfire addition and Tainted Shackles; again, emphasis mine), and we want to make sure we don’t over improve their defense capabilities.

We want to shift more focus to death shroud throug main hand skills, but, again, we don’t want to do this too fast, ESPECIALLY with a major Pax tournament right around the corner.

So death shroud gains may not be as high as you would like, but we’ll keep monitoring them and looking at further improvements to make.

Well, we’ve played it awhile, Mr. Sharp. I don’t speak for every necro out there, but all I can say is the removal of our sole means of one-hit-kill damage mitigation sucked then and it still sucks now. With still – almost 3 months later – nothing to compensate the loss of such a critical defensive mechanic.

That’s a content design issue that creates the inequality between survival mechanics. We need to be asking for less insta-gib mechanics and and more attrition based enemy mechanics to help equal those out.

Storm of the Ages.9076:

I still can’t get over Bhawb calling us an in your face fighter class with one melee weapon that lacks cleave >.< Ohhh boy!

Its more of the “idea” of it, honestly. Not necessarily that we are always at 100 range, but if you want to be doing anything important on a Necro you need to be within 900 range, and constantly attacking.

Compared to say, Mesmers or Thieves, who very often completely disengage for a fight, circle around a bit, wait for CDs, then come back in for a short bit, and repeat.

Although yeah, I’d love more melee weapons.

striker.3704:

CHIPS.6018:

Unlike in GW1, we can no longer curse, summon minion army or sacrifice health for major benefits.

Might as well call us attritionmancer.

All of those things though are attrition. Lots of smaller damage instances that win in the long run. The only thing we’re missing from GW1 is “health sacrifice for benefits” skills. BTW, in the concept/art book, it talks about how Anet initially tried to make those types of skills work. However, they found it to be too complicated on top of everything else, and merged it into the DS/life force generation we have now.

If some middle ground were created, I would like skills that spent life force for abilities. Like a skill that summoned jagged horrors for Life force, or a skill that sacrificed life force to heal allies around me.

Or just let us use lifeforce as fuel to bypass recharges on our weapons and utility skills if we direly need them.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Having played blood necro almost exclusively for 7 years in GW1, I used health sacrifice skills on a near-daily basis. I find their excuse that adding the same mechanic to GW2 would be “too complicated”…lacking.

+1. It wasn’t even reserved to blood Necros. MMs had massive HP costs associated with Blood of the Master, Blood is Power was a pretty hefty skill, and even a lot of curses and just random other skills had self-harm involved in some way. Most Necromancer skill-bars had at least one ability that hurt themselves in some way, either for really strong effects (BiP), or for super low CD/no mana abilities to use.

I find it a bit bland that the only thing we have is essentially tacked-on to Corruption skills. I’d love to see them bring back using HP as a secondary resource we can use.

Sororita.3465:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

And Necromancer is a class that can rip glue apart.

Fear is a way to move people away from you. Every necromancers have doom and it is on a 20 second cooldown. Reaper mark is an AoE fear.

There is cripple, chill, immobilize to create a distance.

There is high hp and deathshroud hp to keep you alive until you reach safety of your party members.

Locust Signet for 25% speed boost.

Locust swarm is the best fleeing and chasing skill ever.

Overkillengine.6084:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

CHIPS.6018:

No need for mobility. All necro need is a 1 second immunity when they enter DS. This alone will fix everything in high level dungeons.

Boss one hit kill attack? No endurance? No speed? No dash? No problem I can survive by going into DS at the right time.

We did have the ability to soak up one-hit-kills with DS; albeit at the expense of all remaining life force (which was perfectly balanced and acceptable to the necro community) . Sadly, following the July 23rd “balance” patch, it was nerfed when they made damage overflow from DS to our normal health bar.

In response to complaints regarding this change, we were treated to the following from Mr. Sharp:

JonathanSharp.7094:

I say play it a while and then see how you feel. (emphasis mine)

We did a big set of improvements to Necro recently (this is in reference to the Dhuumfire addition and Tainted Shackles; again, emphasis mine), and we want to make sure we don’t over improve their defense capabilities.

We want to shift more focus to death shroud throug main hand skills, but, again, we don’t want to do this too fast, ESPECIALLY with a major Pax tournament right around the corner.

So death shroud gains may not be as high as you would like, but we’ll keep monitoring them and looking at further improvements to make.

Well, we’ve played it awhile, Mr. Sharp. I don’t speak for every necro out there, but all I can say is the removal of our sole means of one-hit-kill damage mitigation sucked then and it still sucks now. With still – almost 3 months later – nothing to compensate the loss of such a critical defensive mechanic.

That’s a content design issue that creates the inequality between survival mechanics. We need to be asking for less insta-gib mechanics and and more attrition based enemy mechanics to help equal those out.

Though I may agree in principle, I don’t see it working this way in practice. In a busy design studio, which of the following is the path of least resistance or otherwise achieves the greatest return for the least cost:

A) Redesign every boss with an insta-gib mechanic to something that doesn’t rely on such a weak design element.

OR

B) Simply revert necros’ Death Shroud to a pre-existing state (read: no additional programming time required since the code is already saved in some archive) that allows them to deal with the insta-gib mechanic.

Of course, the path with the least resistance of all is to do what they’re doing now; which is to say, nothing. Leaving the necro as the only class unable to mitigate insta-gib boss mechanics. Beware, however, as the path of least resistance is not always the path with the least cost. The cost, in this case, being a disappointed and disgruntled segment of the player base.

Even IF they were to do as you’ve suggested and redesign boss mechanics such that necros would have no need of a Death Shroud capable of absorbing these one-hit-kills, that is quite aways in the future. Until that day comes, would it really be so game breaking to revert Death Shroud to permit us to absorb those one-hit-kills?

It was never an issue before it was nerfed. The nerf was to prevent necros from using Death Shroud to survive a fall outside the map and see things they weren’t supposed to see. Even that has a simple solution; allow Death Shroud to absorb insta-gibs but not fall damage. For the 11 months prior to the July 23rd nerf, no one ever complained that necros ability to survive an insta-gib from a boss was OP or game breaking. It was a non-issue. So where’s the harm in restoring it until such time when (if ever) the boss mechanics are improved?

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Though I may agree in principle, I don’t see it working this way in practice. In a busy design studio, which of the following is the path of least resistance or otherwise achieves the greatest return for the least cost:

A) Redesign every boss with an insta-gib mechanic to something that doesn’t rely on such a weak design element.

OR

B) Simply revert necros’ Death Shroud to a pre-existing state (read: no additional programming time required since the code is already saved in some archive) that allows them to deal with the insta-gib mechanic.

I choose A. The opportunity cost is great with A. Dungeons getting a redesign to be better is necessary.

Actually redesigning dungeons makes a lot more sense for them. Dungeons are terribly implemented as is (in general), and I think they know that, as evidenced by a number of boss changes. They’d be suited to change the dungeon’s around, and in the process make dungeons a lot more interesting.

Reverting the change alone is bad. The old mechanic was bad. It worked, but it was bad. If anything, they should add a trait that accomplishes a similar function, such as CHIPS idea of one second of block on entry, or something of the sort.

Bhawb.7408:

Actually redesigning dungeons makes a lot more sense for them. Dungeons are terribly implemented as is (in general), and I think they know that, as evidenced by a number of boss changes. They’d be suited to change the dungeon’s around, and in the process make dungeons a lot more interesting.

Reverting the change alone is bad. The old mechanic was bad. It worked, but it was bad. If anything, they should add a trait that accomplishes a similar function, such as CHIPS idea of one second of block on entry, or something of the sort.

Know that I’m in agreement with the idea of dungeon and boss redesigns. That is a process that will take months, however. Meanwhile, necros are at the mercy of the insta-gib mechanics that still exist today, here and now, in the present due to the July 23rd nerf.

Though I don’t agree the old mechanic was bad (it required efficient life force management, paying attention to the boss’ tells, and good timing), I’ll concede there may be more creative alternatives.

Regardless or which path is taken (revert or come up with a new mechanic), I would like to see at least something done to address this issue that remains unresolved since the nerf of July 23rd.

Even more so, I’d like to see them quit jerking us around. Telling us on the one hand, “Learn to Death Shroud.”, then – when we learn to Death Shroud – nerf it while telling us, “… play it a while and then see how you feel.” They need to make up their minds what path they want to chart with this profession and then clearly communicate that to the player base.

So, I’ve derailed the thread enough; my apologies (even though Death Shroud certainly ties into the discussion). Back to the subject of mobility, I agree we shouldn’t be a highly mobile class. That being the case, we then need to become the epitome of the anti-mobility profession when on offense while being given tools to mitigate the CC we’re subjected to when on defense. We aren’t there yet.

I think a trait that turned incoming CC for x seconds when triggered into stability would be hilarious, especially if it stacked. This would likely have to wait until after they went through with their duration stacking limit/nerfs for boon and conditions that was being talked about at one point.

Or something. Right now solo, small group roaming, or ZvZ, it’s usually the best option to spike any Necro first; because they can’t get away from it as easily as everyone else and Necro tools are not up to par to making that an inefficient enough tactic. Add in the condi burst that Dhuumfire and the extra Fears caused, a Necro becomes pretty much the highest value target to eliminate.

Valvador.4291:

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

well that’s …dumb.

We have the ability to run into a zerg with 50,000HP, 5000 Toughness, and then pop into another 15,000 HP Shroud cover, while the death around you regenerates this pool. What would be dumb is if we could do this and then suddenly pop out of the fight when kitten hits the fan. That’s just my opinion because I play a Thief as well. And generally my thief is spongy even has a Condi/Toughness/Vit build. Where he does shine is the fact that I can leave the middle of a battlefield consistently, but that is only fair because I can be taken down incredibly quickly.

Now if only it worked how you described.

runeblade.7514:

And Necromancer is a class that can rip glue apart.

I think what you mean is, it can scratch of the glue while still being stuck with the thing that was glued to it. A simple medium cooldown blink is farm more efficient.

I do not main an Necro. That being said I am for mobility balancing cross class. I think the main fear with giving necro mobility has to do with the level of cc a condi necro has. Power builds do not really have that same CC and there is inherently more risk in running it vs condi (due to the way you can stack up on condition damage and defnsive stats).

IMHO making Dark Path and ground targeted teleport and upping its CD to 20 seconds would be sufficient. I think Reworking Dark Path to port or lunge and immobilize upon hitting a target would be fair as main hand dagger players more into power builds. I think the combination of the 2 would up necro mobility without majorly impacting balance.

as a side note, not meant too seriously, I’ve got enough mobility with norn: become the snow leopard

RE: WvW and Necros. Part of the issue there is the fact that there are a lot of open areas with little to no ways to break line of sight. The change to remove the middle lake helped a lot in that regard when it came to being able to traverse that region; you had ways to not be noticed/focus fired so easily.

So maybe we should in part be asking for more clutter in the WvW terrain. It also helps breaks up the supremacy of zerging by making asymmetrical warfare more viable.

Overkillengine.6084:

RE: WvW and Necros. Part of the issue there is the fact that there are a lot of open areas with little to no ways to break line of sight. The change to remove the middle lake helped a lot in that regard when it came to being able to traverse that region; you had ways to not be noticed/focus fired so easily.

So maybe we should in part be asking for more clutter in the WvW terrain. It also helps breaks up the supremacy of zerging by making asymmetrical warfare more viable.

Necros had it easier with the lake before, since for some reason, the mobility spectrum is reversed underwater (thieves are really easy to catch, necros can escape almost anything).

Andele.1306:

Valvador.4291:

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

well that’s …dumb.

We have the ability to run into a zerg with 50,000HP, 5000 Toughness, and then pop into another 15,000 HP Shroud cover, while the death around you regenerates this pool. What would be dumb is if we could do this and then suddenly pop out of the fight when kitten hits the fan. That’s just my opinion because I play a Thief as well. And generally my thief is spongy even has a Condi/Toughness/Vit build. Where he does shine is the fact that I can leave the middle of a battlefield consistently, but that is only fair because I can be taken down incredibly quickly.

Now if only it worked how you described.

runeblade.7514:

And Necromancer is a class that can rip glue apart.

I think what you mean is, it can scratch of the glue while still being stuck with the thing that was glued to it. A simple medium cooldown blink is farm more efficient.

Lightning Flash/Blink has a 40 second cooldown. If you get snare locked even once, you won’t last very long.

• Necromancer have tons of snares. Every weapon set has some sort of snare except off-hand dagger. Even if you do equip one, you still have a main weapon set to snare the player away.
• Necromancer has an healing all-clear condition removal skill to stop snare-locking.
• Deathshroud has distance makers too. If you got a player on your face, you can use doom to fear the player away from you. Tainted shackles immobilizes.
• If you have Warhorn, necros can use locust swarm to cripple pursuing enemies. The melee enemy dps goes down dramatically.
• If you still want a blink, use spectral walk or Flesh wurm.

Despite you complaining, I hardly ever got caught down as a necromancer. Necromancer has so much tools to slow enemies down.

+1 to the above. Only time I really have issues getting caught as a necro are when I’m being chased by more than 5 enemies (so I can’t snare them all) or when I think I can take someone in a fight (which I usually can until one or more of their friends shows up)

runeblade.7514:

• Necromancer have tons of snares. Every weapon set has some sort of snare except off-hand dagger. Even if you do equip one, you still have a main weapon set to snare the player away.
• Necromancer has an healing all-clear condition removal skill to stop snare-locking.
• Deathshroud has distance makers too. If you got a player on your face, you can use doom to fear the player away from you. Tainted shackles immobilizes.
• If you have Warhorn, necros can use locust swarm to cripple pursuing enemies. The melee enemy dps goes down dramatically.
• If you still want a blink, use spectral walk or Flesh wurm.

Despite you complaining, I hardly ever got caught down as a necromancer. Necromancer has so much tools to slow enemies down.

That isnt disengage, that is plain kiting, i know a lot of people might not get it, but difference is if i am getting stunlocked, if i use a blink or mobility move on another profession i get away, if i stunbreak on necro and try to kite, you get another 3 types of cc in your face since you need a dodge just to get away and another one just to evade earthshaker.

runeblade.7514:

Andele.1306:

Valvador.4291:

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

well that’s …dumb.

We have the ability to run into a zerg with 50,000HP, 5000 Toughness, and then pop into another 15,000 HP Shroud cover, while the death around you regenerates this pool. What would be dumb is if we could do this and then suddenly pop out of the fight when kitten hits the fan. That’s just my opinion because I play a Thief as well. And generally my thief is spongy even has a Condi/Toughness/Vit build. Where he does shine is the fact that I can leave the middle of a battlefield consistently, but that is only fair because I can be taken down incredibly quickly.

Now if only it worked how you described.

runeblade.7514:

And Necromancer is a class that can rip glue apart.

I think what you mean is, it can scratch of the glue while still being stuck with the thing that was glued to it. A simple medium cooldown blink is farm more efficient.

Lightning Flash/Blink has a 40 second cooldown. If you get snare locked even once, you won’t last very long.

• Necromancer have tons of snares. Every weapon set has some sort of snare except off-hand dagger. Even if you do equip one, you still have a main weapon set to snare the player away.
• Necromancer has an healing all-clear condition removal skill to stop snare-locking.
• Deathshroud has distance makers too. If you got a player on your face, you can use doom to fear the player away from you. Tainted shackles immobilizes.
• If you have Warhorn, necros can use locust swarm to cripple pursuing enemies. The melee enemy dps goes down dramatically.
• If you still want a blink, use spectral walk or Flesh wurm.

Despite you complaining, I hardly ever got caught down as a necromancer. Necromancer has so much tools to slow enemies down.

One on one, or a couple enemies; sure, a snare or CC helps to get away.

Issue is they are nowhere near enough when the entire enemy group decides to train you the moment they know what you are. You won’t have enough reapplication of snare and CC thanks to cool downs and short up-times to keep most of them off you once they purge; which is needed to buy time in order for your team to take advantage of the enemy monofocus. So you can’t snare kite them nearly as effectively as other classes with avoidance+mobility mechanics can. Note that I mean kiting in combat, not disengaging.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Necros had it easier with the lake before, since for some reason, the mobility spectrum is reversed underwater (thieves are really easy to catch, necros can escape almost anything).

I found it was almost always a function of initial distance combined with availability of an obstacle or ally to put between the enemy and myself; if I did not have enough of either they could catch me before I could drop combat and port out or reach shelter.

The krait in the lake worked well enough as “allies” in that case. Necros could handle their large numbers with surprising ease, but others had a much harder time moving through them.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

JonathanSharp.7094:

I say play it a while and then see how you feel. (emphasis mine)

We did a big set of improvements to Necro recently (this is in reference to the Dhuumfire addition and Tainted Shackles; again, emphasis mine), and we want to make sure we don’t over improve their defense capabilities.

We want to shift more focus to death shroud throug main hand skills, but, again, we don’t want to do this too fast, ESPECIALLY with a major Pax tournament right around the corner.

So death shroud gains may not be as high as you would like, but we’ll keep monitoring them and looking at further improvements to make.

Well, we’ve played it awhile, Mr. Sharp. I don’t speak for every necro out there, but all I can say is the removal of our sole means of one-hit-kill damage mitigation sucked then and it still sucks now. With still – almost 3 months later – nothing to compensate the loss of such a critical defensive mechanic.

Bump, Amen, 10chars

Unless attrition means getting trained into the ground and having NO means to ‘outplay’ incoming damage, necro is the exact opposite of attrition right now.
You will NEVER EVER have a balanced attrition class if you center it around skillless damage soaking abilities (like… DS maybe?!). And don’t even try siphoning, it sucked (balance-wise) in every game I’ve played so far and it would suck in gw2 as well.

Hello guys

Necromancer mobility is not hindered by a lack of escapes or the current methods of movement being lackluster as most of you would like to believe. It is easy to blame ArenaNet and their design methods and the “overpowered” nature of other classes in relevance to the Necro.

Keep in mind that your outcome of a fight depends on which 10 meager skills have made it into your hotbar. We’ve been given a lot of strong tools in our toolbox and asking for changes to them or even asking for additional ones will not help us, but leave us with the same problem and only waste human resources that would have been used to satisfy a small percentage of the general population seeking some sort of solution.

Take for example the situation that they change our skills and give us similar chainable abilities that allow us to “hop hop hop” out of a fight. What stops your opponent from executing the same moves and keeping up with you? Nothing. Most of what we experience in gameplay is mobility that is inherent in other classes main abilities tied to their weapons. These have shorter cooldowns and are more frequently used than any sidebar ability put on cooldown.

While its easy to see this as a class weakness for the Necromancer, I would challenge these thread participants to think of how else to combat mobility of the opponent.

We have access to a lot of hindering conditions such as chill, cripple, bleed, and even weakness. If you can’t manage to keep a steady roll of those conditions on them (particularly chill and cripple in this case) then there is another problem.

The problem isn’t that we lack mobility. The problem resides in another place, the condition application and removal system of the game. opponent classes have unfair skills that either Stealth+remove conditions, Fullheal+Remove conditions, Clone+Remove conditions, and so on so forth. Think about that.

This game lacks a vital mechanic that lived in every MMO before GW2. Spell resistance. There is no level of condition damage mitigation or management.

Just like Defense+Armor mitigates physical damage as it is incoming.. What is there to properly stop magical damage from incoming? In this game, the logic is that apparently as a Necro you can stack over 50,000 points of bleeding damage on your target within 12 seconds, and instantly afterwards, your target can get rid of it as if nothing happened.

So getting it straight.. you can cover someone in lacerations and puncture all of their internal organs magically, yet they can undo all of that damage by shouting, going invisible, or pounding the ground and healing themselves.

There is no proper way of handling conditions in GW2, which is why I ultimately stopped playing and only peek in to see what got updated. Damage and crowd control is all dealt by conditions for the run-of-the-mill Necro, and since it can all be dismissed, trying to perform conventionally as a power-based character is less satisfying or efficient when looking at our abilities.

There have been two sides of this argument. One side saying we’re fine, we don’t need mobility because we’re an attrition class. True, if we performed as designed at first impressions. And two, that we lack mobility and we can’t keep up with everyone else. This is also incorrect since if our skills actually had sticking power, and if our tools given to us actually performed as they were supposed to, we wouldn’t need to mobilize… our opponents would need to. We’d be crippling and chilling them left and right with ease just as they have the ease of charging, leaping, and teleporting around— thus bringing balance. But our attrition and condition application is rendered null by the inherent system introduced in this game.

Power sticks. Conditions do not. Fix this, and you’ll see that we actually don’t need mobility. But right now it seems like we do because we can’t control our opponent as our class is supposed to be able to.

When dhuumfire and tainted shackles came out, I saw it as a weak attempt to fix the problem I brought up in my last post.

dhuumfire is a nice way to increase the static damage output by tying additional proc’ing condition based damage to your power based damage. This helps us apply conditions without actively trying to, pressuring our opponent and theoretically makes them want to cleanse their conditions too early.

I saw TS as a cheap patch to the issue of this OP, which is to combat mobility by punishing the opponent with condition damage based on how much they move. Too bad we only have a single skill that gives us access to this type of condition, which does not do anywhere near enough damage to take down the target, nor is it always available due to the cooldown. You just can’t fix the problem of there being no system of condition damage mitigation by making one single condition attack being un-mitigatable.

So there, just two cents to get the gears in everyone’s heads turning. ArenaNet introduced those two things in my opinion to try to help combat the current issue, but only to avoid re-working the condition application and removal system (as they probably should, despite how complicated that work will be and how much time it would take).

I don’t want to simply call ArenaNet lazy, but their avoidance of reworking the conditions system is understandable. dhuumfire and conditions like TS are just simple quick-fixes. Or smaller band-aids to a bigger wound.

Lightsbane.9012:

as all necromancer players know, their character of choice is about as mobile as a guardian in a clowncar. one way to fix this is to make Necrotic Traversal a standalone skill. this would not be in any way overpowered or imbalanced, and flesh worm would be a different skill altogether. i love that necro can teleport but the summon time is just obnoxious and gets me killed more than saves me, at least when the worm isn’t summoned. the other problem is that the worm is required to teleport and the summon is a deadly 1 and a half seconds. this can mean the difference between life and death in a sanctum of rall zerg. please anet, necro does not suffer from the split of those two skills. make worm just another minion and make necrotic traversal a normal teleport.

I was out gathering in Orr yesterday when one of the undead did a Green Cloud Mist Teleport thing to my Necro, I let him do it a few times thinking how cool it would be to have that. Beside the visuals it acted similar to the Guardians meditation Judge’s Intervention. This type of teleportation is a tool to get you right into the fight not away. I will try to grab a screenshot.

Andele.1306:

runeblade.7514:

• Necromancer have tons of snares. Every weapon set has some sort of snare except off-hand dagger. Even if you do equip one, you still have a main weapon set to snare the player away.
• Necromancer has an healing all-clear condition removal skill to stop snare-locking.
• Deathshroud has distance makers too. If you got a player on your face, you can use doom to fear the player away from you. Tainted shackles immobilizes.
• If you have Warhorn, necros can use locust swarm to cripple pursuing enemies. The melee enemy dps goes down dramatically.
• If you still want a blink, use spectral walk or Flesh wurm.

Despite you complaining, I hardly ever got caught down as a necromancer. Necromancer has so much tools to slow enemies down.

That isnt disengage, that is plain kiting, i know a lot of people might not get it, but difference is if i am getting stunlocked, if i use a blink or mobility move on another profession i get away, if i stunbreak on necro and try to kite, you get another 3 types of cc in your face since you need a dodge just to get away and another one just to evade earthshaker.

Flesh wurm.

Also, in that case, warriors have no disengage. Since if they get hit with 3 types of CC and get snared they can’t escape. Even though they have the greatest mobility.

runeblade.7514:

Andele.1306:

runeblade.7514:

• Necromancer have tons of snares. Every weapon set has some sort of snare except off-hand dagger. Even if you do equip one, you still have a main weapon set to snare the player away.
• Necromancer has an healing all-clear condition removal skill to stop snare-locking.
• Deathshroud has distance makers too. If you got a player on your face, you can use doom to fear the player away from you. Tainted shackles immobilizes.
• If you have Warhorn, necros can use locust swarm to cripple pursuing enemies. The melee enemy dps goes down dramatically.
• If you still want a blink, use spectral walk or Flesh wurm.

Despite you complaining, I hardly ever got caught down as a necromancer. Necromancer has so much tools to slow enemies down.

That isnt disengage, that is plain kiting, i know a lot of people might not get it, but difference is if i am getting stunlocked, if i use a blink or mobility move on another profession i get away, if i stunbreak on necro and try to kite, you get another 3 types of cc in your face since you need a dodge just to get away and another one just to evade earthshaker.

Flesh wurm.

Also, in that case, warriors have no disengage. Since if they get hit with 3 types of CC and get snared they can’t escape. Even though they have the greatest mobility.

Wurm isnt a disengage, its the equivalent of saying mesmer portal is disengage, it can work like it but you are not only wasting a strong part of the skill but also need to do the clumsy cast/execution of it. Swalk could have kinda maybe counted as one before the nerf but now no.
That doesnt mean that it wont work as a quick port back after a suicidal well bombing in wvwvw, but it in no way works in pvp outside of hotjoins, to easy to stop or plain waste of a utility if you can pick Sarmor which is better like a third more times since if people are going apekitten on you the team just caps all other points.

Andele.1306:

runeblade.7514:

Andele.1306:

runeblade.7514:

• Necromancer have tons of snares. Every weapon set has some sort of snare except off-hand dagger. Even if you do equip one, you still have a main weapon set to snare the player away.
• Necromancer has an healing all-clear condition removal skill to stop snare-locking.
• Deathshroud has distance makers too. If you got a player on your face, you can use doom to fear the player away from you. Tainted shackles immobilizes.
• If you have Warhorn, necros can use locust swarm to cripple pursuing enemies. The melee enemy dps goes down dramatically.
• If you still want a blink, use spectral walk or Flesh wurm.

Despite you complaining, I hardly ever got caught down as a necromancer. Necromancer has so much tools to slow enemies down.

That isnt disengage, that is plain kiting, i know a lot of people might not get it, but difference is if i am getting stunlocked, if i use a blink or mobility move on another profession i get away, if i stunbreak on necro and try to kite, you get another 3 types of cc in your face since you need a dodge just to get away and another one just to evade earthshaker.

Flesh wurm.

Also, in that case, warriors have no disengage. Since if they get hit with 3 types of CC and get snared they can’t escape. Even though they have the greatest mobility.

Wurm isnt a disengage, its the equivalent of saying mesmer portal is disengage, it can work like it but you are not only wasting a strong part of the skill but also need to do the clumsy cast/execution of it. Swalk could have kinda maybe counted as one before the nerf but now no.
That doesnt mean that it wont work as a quick port back after a suicidal well bombing in wvwvw, but it in no way works in pvp outside of hotjoins, to easy to stop or plain waste of a utility if you can pick Sarmor which is better like a third more times since if people are going apekitten on you the team just caps all other points.

Except, flesh wurm is an disengage.

No one uses it to port players in. No one uses it to jump into the battle. It is used as a escape tool, aka disengage.

runeblade.7514:

Except, flesh wurm is an disengage.

No one uses it to port players in. No one uses it to jump into the battle. It is used as a escape tool, aka disengage.

It might be true if it was instant and plain dying after being immune to 1 persons damage for 6/9 or 12/18 if you traited wasnt plain better. Also FW is way stronger as a ranged minion that a drop for escape unlike the for that exact purpose designed Shadow trap.
Thus not disengage, or would you say that for example a Engie overcharged shot, Mesmer portal, Guardian merciful intervention, etc. are also disengages since you have the potential to get away from someone with them if you prepare yourself and the enemy does nothing to stop it despite well being able to.

So, what you’re saying, Andele, is that no class has a disengage? Shadow Trap has a 1.5 second activation time.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So, what you’re saying, Andele, is that no class has a disengage? Shadow Trap has a 1.5 second activation time.

Shadow trap is half a second cast time with no special requirement on port (being a actual TP and 20k range) and is designed as a escape and not a combat utility, Wurm being a minion and short range and killable, isnt, portal being for team support isnt, meditations from guardians again being mid combat and ally/target required again aint, stuff like Mes Blink, S2, Decoy, Prestiege, Thief Shadowstep, Infl Arrow, SStrike, BP, Roll, Lightning Reflexes from ranger, Swoop, Both S2 skills, etc being evades, instants, designed with pre use for escape ARE disengages.
Swalk being on a timer kina worked as a crippled version of those, but with its new nerfed version is barely worth taking outside of avoiding death jumps removing the only combat disengage a necro could kinda have.
So no, im just specifying what is what isnt used to get out of/reset fights in a efficient way.

From the last patch notes:

Destroy Shadow Trap: This skill now has a 1.5-second cast time. It plays an effect on the thief and on the trap location when it is being cast. Added 5 seconds of regeneration.

Pretty kittenty diesngage mechanic with that long of an activation.

Flesh wurm is a disengage mechanic in every sense of the word. Just because it isn’t like shadowstep where you can get caught and then just cast and teleport away doesn’t mean it isn’t. Flesh Wurm requires pre-thought and pre-casting, but the reality is when you are actually in the fight, you activate flesh wurm, and you get ported up to 1200 units away, effectively disengaging you from the fight.

You just can’t use it as freely for mobility like other skills, it is only a disengage, as opposed to flat mobility.

Shush, enough with the semantics. Bringing it back to the topic.

From what I’ve personally experienced and seen in my time (I know, I’m pretty much a legacy player at this point since i just barely keep up with the times) Necromancers have performed the most consistently and well by not focusing on dealing damage so much as controlling their opponent. If any of you have the time to take some quick peeks at gameplay by Ascii and Tokyomurai (to name just a couple of many others) you’ll find their build ideas and playstyle does not revolve around their damage output being at the forefront of their mind.

When they focus on keeping chill, weakness, cripple, and bleed applied… Their damage adds up quickly as the small numbers rack up. They kill their opponents not by being so in-your-face and arrogant in their movement, but more as a killer focused on keeping the target in their control. CC’d.

Our CC skills all do damage. poison, chill, bleeding all around. Weakness, cripple, and fumble make it exponentially harder for other classes to execute their “escapes” and mobility movements in tandem when they’re loaded down like that. People who play the necromancer as a headhunter more often leave themselves open to attack and escape… which means they’re either ending up dead or simply not killing the target.

Wurm is a great tool. It does fair damage, provides a meager distraction to get players in a certain place for attack (like thieves trying to auto attack your wurm, leaving them un-stealthed and open for a lockdown) and can be placed in some areas that are normally hard to jump to, which can give you either an escape, or a closer. Sure, mes portal can provide large transport for other players… but give the wurm to the right hands, and it can do so much more.

I’ll never advocate for the necro as being perfect. It is far from it. In many ways, it performs less than sub-par in comparison to other classes. But the necro class itself is a very good and effective tool if given to a really good player. I think it takes a higher curve to master, and when it is mastered it can do a lot more than what most mediocre players can accomplish on their own QQ OP classes.