Guild Wars 2

I love them, I got all the minions with death and blood magic and enemies never even touch me. Maybe in pvp they suck cuz players are smart enough to ignore the minions but I think its really awesome playing with them

Because they offer nearly no team play compared to other classes. Has average DPS despite being a selfish class.

It’s not that they suck, it’s just that; they’re bad with other people. Which is counterproductive in this game and actually results in a less than average overall efficiency in groups.

Clairenix.2780:

Because they offer nearly no team play compared to other classes. Has average DPS despite being a selfish class.

It’s not that they suck, it’s just that; they’re bad with other people. Which is counterproductive in this game and actually results in a less than average overall efficiency in groups.

Please explain this better. Cause what you are saying here doesn’t match what I am experiencing in the game. How exactly is my necro a selfish class and not good with other people?

It was like that before. Not so much now.

People don’t think Necromancers are unfun, but when you try to play at the higher levels of play, the differences in professions become more distinct, and Necromancer tends to lose out.

eisberg.2379:

Clairenix.2780:

Because they offer nearly no team play compared to other classes. Has average DPS despite being a selfish class.

It’s not that they suck, it’s just that; they’re bad with other people. Which is counterproductive in this game and actually results in a less than average overall efficiency in groups.

Please explain this better. Cause what you are saying here doesn’t match what I am experiencing in the game. How exactly is my necro a selfish class and not good with other people?

Let me rephrase that, it’s not that they’re bad. Other classes are just better at them. (it doesn’t really make them bad, and could still feel overall a good class.)

For general buffing/tanking/DPS/healing/Etc..roles, other classes apparently are better at them than the Necro.

I would love to expound and give you a paragraph of sorts but.. that’s not my thing, This has been discussed over and over and to be frank, I’ve just embraced it.

The reaper does give new possibilities though; need some time before we can actually tell what its status is right now.

1. Condition cap.

2. Lack of group support.

3. Spreadsheets putting them last DPS wise (rightly or wrongly).

echoeagle.5439:

I love them, I got all the minions with death and blood magic and enemies never even touch me. Maybe in pvp they suck cuz players are smart enough to ignore the minions but I think its really awesome playing with them

I love necro also… but before we continue, what level are you? You tend not to see the obvious lacking and weaknesses until you’ve played the class for a while, and other clases as well.

Maxzero.4032:

1. Condition cap.

2. Lack of group support.

3. Spreadsheets putting them last DPS wise (rightly or wrongly).

Wrongly for sure! We are not the last and we know it … xD

echoeagle.5439:

Maybe in pvp they suck cuz players are smart enough to ignore the minions

Do you play pvp?

Because we get nerfed without rhyme or reason repeatedly. This has actually happened 3 times now since launch of HoT.

People tend to confuse ‘viable’ with ‘optimal’. Necros aren’t optimal in most (or all) gametypes but they sure are viable in all gametypes. But because they aren’t optimal, people think they also aren’t viable thus they start hating on necros, even when doing things that don’t require optimality. This problem is not just a necro-problem though. Rangers have long suffered from the same thing.

Bhawb.7408:

People don’t think Necromancers are unfun, but when you try to play at the higher levels of play, the differences in professions become more distinct, and Necromancer tends to lose out.

Honestly even at higher levels of play (I think you mean more pve here) I prefer a necro who knows what he’s doing over an ele. Also stop these threads people we aren’t bad at all!

Maxzero.4032:

1. Condition cap.

2. Lack of group support.

3. Spreadsheets putting them last DPS wise (rightly or wrongly).

1. ???? Condition Cap has been removed months ago.

2. Has been getting much better.

3. eh

Because a small group of individuals proved that necromancer, damage wise, is inferior to all the other classes… using fake math.

It was not their original intent, merely a side effect in their quest to advertise their builds at 20-25K DPS, damage which can never be achieved… you don’t get even half of that in reality.

Simply put… the fake math or “math-in-e-void” as they call it, gives out the most absurd conclusions like… revenant DPS is 25K, condition engineer is 20K DPS… where as warrior DPS is merely 13K, necromancer is 14K but provides no group support…

When in reality Condition engineer is 9-12K DPS, Warrior DPS is 9-10K DPS (even in world records kills), and i have personally hit 14K DPS with my upcoming glass cannon build… in a pug group.

In conclusion… all the math is 100% fake and irrelevant, who ever says otherwise can prove me wrong with actual footage.

Until that time arrives i am the only person in the entire Guild Wars 2 community who knows the REAL DPS values of the world record runs, of Icebow, and of their so called “meta builds”.

The only reason people even believed such ridiculous claims in the first place was because of the Icebow skill 4: Icestorm spell which has 80K DPS for 3.7 seconds on bosses with a large hitbox, or on any boss if you use the linecasting exploit… this is what actually did the damage of the “berserker meta”, the damage people saw was melting bosses in 4-5 seconds.

Who ever claims otherwise can show us how bosses melt just as fast without icebow, as they did with icebow.
Not to mention the linecasting exploit is now fixed, and icebow got nerfed in half so all previous world records are 100% irrelevant and are no longer obtainable not even by the people who got them the first time.

Basically it was a 2 year long lie, based on fake math and exploits/abusing broken mechanics… supported by people who wanted to get popular in the Guild Wars 2 community.

PS: Necromancer’s biggest flaw was that he couldn’t summon the broken (now fixed) Icebow.
ArenaNet kept saying saying necromancer is fine, and the class never got majorly buffed because in fact, if played properly… it’s more or less the highest DPSer in the game… in reality that is, not in the imaginary world of fake math.

Everything i have just claimed i have backed up with video footage on YouTube, unlike what the others have claimed which they did not provide proof of, despite me personally asking for it… for over 2 years.

The reason is just that they lacked Team support (dps buff, easy stealth, spammable blast finisher etc..). It was not a DPS reason, unlike the gw2 messiah is trying to convince you

Hypairion.9210:

The reason is just that they lacked Team support (dps buff, easy stealth, spammable blast finisher etc..). It was not a DPS reason, unlike the gw2 messiah is trying to convince you

Well, it’s not exactly : “team support”. It’s more “synergy with other profession” that the necromancer lack. The necromancer is so selfish in design that it hurt it’s sociability in party.

The necromancer benefit from other’s coordinated effort but the necromancer do not take part in these “effort” due to poor and unreliable combo finisher. And I still don’t know why the heck the devs say that a reliable blast finisher does not fit the necromancer’s thematic.

Other than that, the necromancer is steadily catching up with the other profession.

spoj.9672:

It was like that before. Not so much now.

As i recall… maybe you’ve also seen the video footage of you telling the community that necromancer is inferior to the other classes in terms of DPS, and he also doesn’t bring team support.

Now you say it’s not no longer the case… does that mean reaper is higher DPS then the previous glass cannon ?… Or does it provide that insane team support you guys complained necromancer doesn’t have ?

Or… do you retract the claims you have made to the community in these two years ? Will you also go back on all the trash talking aimed at me in these two years ?…
What about that money you got for MY work ?

I am confused, please explain.

Yes i should have wrote sinergy indeed (i was thinking about that…).

And messiah, indeed average Joe players thought (and maybe still think) that necro is bad dps. But players a little more serious knew that synergy / support / Team play is the most important thing in a group play. Plus the average necro player is a minion master – fear spam…

Necro does play better with others nowadays than it used to, that’s true. The condicap changes helped also. The minion/pet changes that came with HoT have been a big deal too.

Prior to these things being improved many people seized on Necro’s weakness in these categories as being profession breaking – they were as right as they were wrong.

Frequently brought up is how “selfish” necro is. Compared to many professions, yes, even now this is probably quite true (but not as true as it used to be). They’re missing the point anyway. The necro has always been more concerned with debuffing than buffing. Plenty of professions can buff your team, only some can debuff well, and in my opinion the necro is right up there on that front.

The value from debuffing is perhaps harder to quantify and, since players look at their damage numbers and HP, difficult to intuit how effective it is. Particularly in HoT with its renewed focus on group events and dangerous mobs, coupled with progressive changes to broken core mechanics (condicap, pets/minions) there’s no reason not to give the necro/reaper a fair shot.

Diovid.9506:

People tend to confuse ‘viable’ with ‘optimal’. Necros aren’t optimal in most (or all) gametypes but they sure are viable in all gametypes. But because they aren’t optimal, people think they also aren’t viable thus they start hating on necros, even when doing things that don’t require optimality. This problem is not just a necro-problem though. Rangers have long suffered from the same thing.

This. It’s perfectly possible to complete at least 99% of the content in this game with a Necromancer or two or three in your party with little trouble if the players know what they’re doing. It’s just a little bit harder since Necro skills tend to be more selfish and we lack projectile reflection and blocks/evades.

The skill floor required to use the Necro competently in higher-level content also tends to be a bit higher than for most other professions but it’s still a fairly popular class, so people see unskilled Necros bite the dust and think it’s a problem with the profession rather than the player simply not having the skill to survive without being able to leave the fight every so often.

All that said, I do think that historically we’ve been underrated. The Reaper is such a good Elite Spec that the overall perception of the profession is starting to change. I’ve never had any interest in joining the kind of groups that might exclude someone just because they think they’re playing a suboptimal profession anyway so I can’t say for certain, but I’d suspect that you’d have an easier time these days convincing those meta groups to let you join than before.

Nemesis.8593:

spoj.9672:

It was like that before. Not so much now.

As i recall… maybe you’ve also seen the video footage of you telling the community that necromancer is inferior to the other classes in terms of DPS, and he also doesn’t bring team support.

Now you say it’s not no longer the case… does that mean reaper is higher DPS then the previous glass cannon ?… Or does it provide that insane team support you guys complained necromancer doesn’t have ?

Or… do you retract the claims you have made to the community in these two years ? Will you also go back on all the trash talking aimed at me in these two years ?…
What about that money you got for MY work ?

I am confused, please explain.

Ok so.

We got CPC projectile block, minions buffed, rise, better dps, deaths charge, an aoe pull (gs5), more vuln, vampiric presence and improved blood magic.

Damage is only a small part of why necromancers are better now.

Theoretical math has its purpose. It is neither fake, nor irrelevant. Like all data, it can be used correctly, or used incorrectly. It’s just data. It has no pride, nor ego.

If a bunch of people just ran with some theoretical numbers and were exclusionary to others based on them, you can blame the lack of scientific thinking in people. I always wonder why we blame the shepherd instead of the sheep.

Also, not everyone thinks Necros are bad. People shoot for fixing Necro issues in the top .5% of game situations, but that doesn’t mean the other 99.5% are major issues. For example, all I hear is that GS #5 never lands, but in sPvP last night I had it land regularly, especially in teamfights, even pulling people down stairs. I really, really love that pull, but still there are claims that “it literally has never worked ever”.

echoeagle.5439:

I love them, I got all the minions with death and blood magic and enemies never even touch me. Maybe in pvp they suck cuz players are smart enough to ignore the minions but I think its really awesome playing with them

In PvP the usual tactic is actually to nuke down a minion Necro’s pets first thing so they lose their best toys, as a quick FYI.

In truth, Nexromancers are a pretty darn strong class with a lot going for them. People in the top-end “meta” community tend not to like them, however, because the meta community has a strong focus on group tactics and Nexromancers don’t have a great deal of focus on powerful group support.

Unlike a number of other builds, Necros can really shine and do a lot on their own. Most other classes CAN run independently, but many of them have a more difficult time of it than the beefy, solid Necro. This is an often-overlooked strength of the class, though it could be argued well that strong group tactics could easily make solo tactics irrelevant.

My current Reaper build has done a good number of guild hall raids, and I normally end up playing the role of the roaming hunter/killer who rushes to spots where teams are having trouble. As solid as team tactics can be, when things turned nasty they were pretty happy to see me land and start throwing out chill, vuln, and blindness before shifting into Reaper and slicing up the most dangerous and annoying enemy mobs.

Tl;dr People hate Necros because they like more supporty team mates than a Necro can be. There is still plenty it can do.

I’ve come to terms with it, and I learned to embrace the hate.

Spoj and the Nemesis both happily on the same thread, naaaw

Necros have never been dire, rather the “fan” base has always exaggerated the gap between necros and other classes.

Nemesis – it has never been the icebow meta rather it is the YOUTUBE meta

Aren.9478:

Spoj and the Nemesis both happily on the same thread, naaaw

Necros have never been dire, rather the “fan” base has always exaggerated the gap between necros and other classes.

Nemesis – it has never been the icebow meta rather it is the YOUTUBE meta

Ohhhh… i see what you did there.

However… after acknowledging the numbers of the HoT launch i’ve come to realize that Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have any commercial YouTube value anymore, therefor i do this on principle.

It was still the icebow meta… none of the records on the record website are achievable without the icebow, in fact none of them are achievable at all anymore because icebow got nerfed.

The worst part is the majority still doesn’t know that, so they will continue to think their poorly played inadequate for the encounter low DPS uptime squishy zerker meleer build… does 20K DPS… until raids hit… then they all get splattered and complain the game is far too hard.

The game must be nerfed until it’s doable with inadequate builds crafted around fake math. Which is weird… because the fake math is all over the place… warrior’s DPS is only 13K in math, where as revenant is 25K… does this mean warrior will now get kicked from groups since revenant also brings buffs ?

So… the game has to be nerfed until it’s doable with 5x squishy 25K DPS berserker melee revenants.
Predictions ?

What the lack of a damage meter can do to a community, it’s mind-blowing.

Nemesis, please start saying “damage uptime”, not “DPS uptime”. I’m having a more difficult time taking what you say seriously when you continually make that conceptual mistake. I know you know how DPS is calculated, and I can’t help but think of some mythical damage-per-second-squared metric whenever you say it.

Also, assuming that all Zerker builds are going to get splattered is the flip side of the coin to assuming that Zerker builds are going to continue to dominate the meta. You’re basically doing the same thing, just at the other extreme, and it sounds just as ridiculous.

Let’s not jump to conclusions until all of the facts are in.

And it isn’t fake math. It’s real math. It’s the responsibility of the players/community to analyze and understand it properly. Running a propaganda campaign against it is no better than running a propaganda campaign for it.

Pelopidas.2140:

Honestly even at higher levels of play (I think you mean more pve here) I prefer a necro who knows what he’s doing over an ele. Also stop these threads people we aren’t bad at all!

Well obviously, but that’s not a good argument. Any top player should be considered to know what they’re doing on their build. But generally speaking between two players of equal skill on their profession, other professions will out perform Necromancer. In PvE this has been true forever, but in PvP map play is so much more important than build that players like Nos can “get away” with playing a subpar build because his teamplay and map play more than make up for it. On the other side is roaming, where build play is of utmost importance, and the generally low competition means you can “get away” with having a subpar roaming setup so long as you are really good at playing it (plus Necro has a long history of pretty good 1v1ing).

But still, Necromancer is, by anything measurable, bad in the sense that it is worse than other professions, and has no meaningful unique niche. This has been getting significantly better over time, with Necromancer closing the gap, but its still true largely because of really mediocre trait lines, non-face tanking defenses, and a lot of weapon/utility skills that need work to be up to par.

Clairenix.2780:

[spoiler=SNIP]

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Clairenix, i don’t mean to pick on you i just wanted to point out the biggest issue with necros right now and your post illustrates it perfectly.

The problem with necros, IS NOT with necros.

It is with the culture of misinformation, that is aggressively spread by a very vocal and very ignorant minority in this game.
It all revolves around this so called “Zerk Meta”.

I wont go into too many details here because its a dead horse that i just don’t have the energy to beat on right now.
But basically, the whole idea is that there is this small contingent of players who are VERY BAD at the game and have no idea how it actually works.
These players have essentially been spreading poor, misguided and ignorant “information” for the past 3 years regarding the necro and other classes in the game.
They say things like, “necro has no party support” “bear bow rangers pew pew” “X class has the best DPS” etc etc.
These players, by and large, have no idea how the classes actually work and more importantly they make claims which have no factual proof or evidence behind them.
Case in point, ANY person who tries to tell you about DPS numbers is flat out full of crap.
We have NO DPS tools in this game, disregard this propaganda.
These players run whichever classes/builds have been handed down by other ignorant players and the whole situation just perpetuates itself.

Unfortunately this particular contingent is very loud, and volume is how ignorance often tends to spread itself…

But the greatest tragedy comes when other players simply take these statements for granted and repeat them on forums like we are seeing here…
People literally repeating things they have heard with absolutely no understanding whatsoever…
This, is just plain lazy…

PLEASE, do NOT help to spread this propaganda.
Be aware of the fact that when you repeat these things, you are promoting a culture of ignorance, laziness, exclusivity, elitism and poor performance.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH,
KNOW YOUR CLASS,
MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS,
FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS.

I think necro’s reputation is not earned. It is way better than the majority of the community thinks. I have been following these discussions closely past few weeks or so and I can say I have not found any real evidence of many claims made against necros, other than it not being exactly the best buff/support class in game.

The main issue with necro, in my humble opinion, is not lack of buff/support play, but the fact that it is way way better against multiple opponents than against single opponent (Reaper amplifies this even more, especially with shouts). Since majority of PvE content is fighting some boss, the necro is not as effective in those fights as it can be when fighting bunch of opponents. It doesn’t mean necro is bad, just that it loses effectiveness while fighting single opponent. I think this is the reason why in WvW necro is really useful and popular, because in that environment aoe damage becomes a lot more important, as well as de-buffing, aoe blinds and chills and similar mechanics, which don’t do much in PvE environment.

I think necro is good class, capable of doing any aspect that exists in this game in more than satisfying manner. However, since developers have said that their idea is that necro supports with damage, I think that damage in such case is not high enough to justify lack of other things. If necro got higher damage (which I have been saying since first HoT beta it needs), than such damage increase would basically overwrite lack of might stacking for example. Basically that means that you can get ele, which would allow you to get those 25 might stacks much easier, but if you can’t find ele, then you wouldn’t mind taking necro, which would do superb damage, so even if you can stack up less than 25 might stacks, you wouldn’t feel you were losing damage overall. This is only rough example, don’t split hairs over it, it was just meant to show that if you take away something, then give it something else to properly compensate while still encouraging different play styles.

The anti meta propaganda is really getting tiring at this point. You do realise its now switched to a sinister meta for fractals?

But things have far from settled. So all this continued bull about the meta is no longer relevant. Please just let it go.

spoj.9672:

The anti meta propaganda is really getting tiring at this point. You do realise its now switched to a sinister meta for fractals?

But things have far from settled. So all this continued bull about the meta is no longer relevant. Please just let it go.

I think issue is more about how it came to some situation, not the situation itself. It is not important whether it was zerker meta, or sinister meta or whatever. The important thing is what created such atmosphere, because even though meta shifted, such mindset can repeat itself over and over again.

spoj.9672:

The anti meta propaganda is really getting tiring at this point. You do realise its now switched to a sinister meta for fractals?

But things have far from settled. So all this continued bull about the meta is no longer relevant. Please just let it go.

I agree Spoj.
It’s not relevant, never has been.
But unfortunately, it’s still a very real thing.
Just read the posts.
People recycling the same old false jargon…

AngryBear.8741:

spoj.9672:

The anti meta propaganda is really getting tiring at this point. You do realise its now switched to a sinister meta for fractals?

But things have far from settled. So all this continued bull about the meta is no longer relevant. Please just let it go.

I think issue is more about how it came to some situation, not the situation itself. It is not important whether it was zerker meta, or sinister meta or whatever. The important thing is what created such atmosphere, because even though meta shifted, such mindset can repeat itself over and over again.

^^THIS

Bhawb.7408:

Pelopidas.2140:

Honestly even at higher levels of play (I think you mean more pve here) I prefer a necro who knows what he’s doing over an ele. Also stop these threads people we aren’t bad at all!

Well obviously, but that’s not a good argument. Any top player should be considered to know what they’re doing on their build. But generally speaking between two players of equal skill on their profession, other professions will out perform Necromancer. In PvE this has been true forever, but in PvP map play is so much more important than build that players like Nos can “get away” with playing a subpar build because his teamplay and map play more than make up for it. On the other side is roaming, where build play is of utmost importance, and the generally low competition means you can “get away” with having a subpar roaming setup so long as you are really good at playing it (plus Necro has a long history of pretty good 1v1ing).

But still, Necromancer is, by anything measurable, bad in the sense that it is worse than other professions, and has no meaningful unique niche. This has been getting significantly better over time, with Necromancer closing the gap, but its still true largely because of really mediocre trait lines, non-face tanking defenses, and a lot of weapon/utility skills that need work to be up to par.

I disagree Bhawb….very general talk and i thought your mindset was different. Necro is by anything measurable worse than other professions? Give me specifics….WvW we are good. In PVE utility could be buffed, we already got projectile defense we were lacking, we got sustain we were lacking+vampiric aura and the ressing-role from transfusion/general survivability is a good enough niche for me, i have carried alot parties in fractals. Gimme specifics about weapon/traits that are mediocre, i think everything works atm, except very little stuff(terror-fear duration trait merge, dhuumfire improvement). And we can’t facetank? In PVE we got huge DS and Plague, AoE protection with wells and incredible sustain (be it DS with spectrals, or health with wells/Blood Fiend). In PVP i learned long ago i should gtfo and not facetank anything.
So you say build play is what matters but we are skilled enough to escape the fact that we have subpar builds due to low/bad competition… ? That doesnt make sense to me.

AngryBear.8741:

spoj.9672:

The anti meta propaganda is really getting tiring at this point. You do realise its now switched to a sinister meta for fractals?

But things have far from settled. So all this continued bull about the meta is no longer relevant. Please just let it go.

I think issue is more about how it came to some situation, not the situation itself. It is not important whether it was zerker meta, or sinister meta or whatever. The important thing is what created such atmosphere, because even though meta shifted, such mindset can repeat itself over and over again.

Every MMO I’ve played, which has been a pretty large number of AAA titles, has developed some sort of exclusionary meta environment for basically all game modes. If you don’t do what the meta says, you’re dumb/bad/whatever.

Is the right answer to “meta propaganda” to run a propaganda campaign against them? Honestly, Booger’s post above reads, very literally, like a real propaganda campaign, appealing to emotions, yelling via capital letters, etc. Is that really necessary? Or does it make the “other” side just look crazy, too?

A meta is going to exist. In every game you ever play. I don’t care if it’s a single player game, if there’s an online community, it will develop some sort of “this is the best way to do it”mentality.

In actuality, what this game needs in particular for PvE is a robust meter. Let the data speak for itself. If you’re in a group with a meta build, and you destroy them in damage, the data doesn’t lie. You can prove your own usefulness demonstrably with data, instead of theoretical math.

TL;DR: People created the meta atmosphere, and they’ll continue to create it forever. If you don’t want to play with people who have a severely exclusionary mentality when it comes to a meta, find people who just want to enjoy the game. They exist.

Cogbyrn.7283:

AngryBear.8741:

spoj.9672:

The anti meta propaganda is really getting tiring at this point. You do realise its now switched to a sinister meta for fractals?

But things have far from settled. So all this continued bull about the meta is no longer relevant. Please just let it go.

I think issue is more about how it came to some situation, not the situation itself. It is not important whether it was zerker meta, or sinister meta or whatever. The important thing is what created such atmosphere, because even though meta shifted, such mindset can repeat itself over and over again.

Every MMO I’ve played, which has been a pretty large number of AAA titles, has developed some sort of exclusionary meta environment for basically all game modes. If you don’t do what the meta says, you’re dumb/bad/whatever.

Is the right answer to “meta propaganda” to run a propaganda campaign against them? Honestly, Booger’s post above reads, very literally, like a real propaganda campaign, appealing to emotions, yelling via capital letters, etc. Is that really necessary? Or does it make the “other” side just look crazy, too?

A meta is going to exist. In every game you ever play. I don’t care if it’s a single player game, if there’s an online community, it will develop some sort of “this is the best way to do it”mentality.

In actuality, what this game needs in particular for PvE is a robust meter. Let the data speak for itself. If you’re in a group with a meta build, and you destroy them in damage, the data doesn’t lie. You can prove your own usefulness demonstrably with data, instead of theoretical math.

TL;DR: People created the meta atmosphere, and they’ll continue to create it forever. If you don’t want to play with people who have a severely exclusionary mentality when it comes to a meta, find people who just want to enjoy the game. They exist.

I have actually suggested just that in one of the previous topics, which got closed because it “deviated from the topic” or something, but neither side was too interested to participate in that experiment. Either they care more about who has bigger…you know…than actually proving stuff in reasonable manner other than spreadsheets which no one with right mind would actually investigate to the detail to see if they got it right or wrong, or they were both scared they might prove themselves wrong, so they decided to stick to what they were doing so far.

I actually maxed fractal mastery and I will craft ascended set for necro just for fractals to see for myself if necro is really not optimal class, or the game is just like real world – if you have money and means (for example big news companies) you can portray the world to be just as you want it to be.

Pelopidas.2140:

WvW we are good.

Only in zergs do we have a true unique role, and specifically because we very uniquely had ranged AoE direct damage, a role that very quickly could be taken away from us. Roaming we have a much smaller margin of error, but it isn’t a big deal since anyone can 1v3 underlevels or bad players. The only special thing we have is good 1v1ing, but a lot of professions have just as good 1v1 while being much safer.

Pelopidas.2140:

In PVE utility could be buffed, we already got projectile defense we were lacking, we got sustain we were lacking+vampiric aura and the ressing-role from transfusion/general survivability is a good enough niche for me, i have carried alot parties in fractals.

Show me any optimized groups setting records that are using Necros and I’ll concede my point. The gap was closed, but res-duty isn’t a unique niche, and we get out healed by plenty at this point. Vampiric Aura also doesn’t compare to what others give. The issue isn’t as bad as before, but we still get out DPSed by DPS builds (at least to my knowledge there hasn’t been proof that Reaper is better), and out supported by support builds.

Pelopidas.2140:

Gimme specifics about weapon/traits that are mediocre, i think everything works atm, except very little stuff(terror-fear duration trait merge, dhuumfire improvement).

Works != not mediocre. Axe works, but it is still a mediocre weapon. So is focus, I’d personally argue staff, and offhand dagger as well. In fact, the only weapon without obvious weaknesses is warhorn. Traits is too many to list, literally every single trait line has traits that need work. Spite/Soul Reaping are the only that are largely solid, and those still have glaring issues.

Pelopidas.2140:

And we can’t facetank?

Non-face tank defenses is what I said. 100% of our defense is based on taking every single hit thrown at us (outside base dodges), and doing some combination of making those hits hurt less (weakness, % reduction, protection), using Shroud/LF to absorb the damage without hitting our HP bar directly, or dealing with the effects afterwards like healing or condition removal. But this doesn’t always work.

Pelopidas.2140:

So you say build play is what matters but we are skilled enough to escape the fact that we have subpar builds due to low/bad competition… ? That doesnt make sense to me.

In roaming yes. You can’t argue that roaming in WvW gives you a high level of competition when you can’t even guarantee the people you fight are even level 80. So by and large you can “get by” because those players are, the overwhelming majority of the time, worse than you. In PvP build is secondary, important but the difference in power between builds of similar types across different professions isn’t nearly big enough to make up for how important team play is. Basically, a great PvPer who understands team and map play will beat a player with superior mechanics but no game sense.

Bhawb.7408:

In roaming yes. You can’t argue that roaming in WvW gives you a high level of competition when you can’t even guarantee the people you fight are even level 80. So by and large you can “get by” because those players are, the overwhelming majority of the time, worse than you. In PvP build is secondary, important but the difference in power between builds of similar types across different professions isn’t nearly big enough to make up for how important team play is. Basically, a great PvPer who understands team and map play will beat a player with superior mechanics but no game sense.

It’s true that roaming isn’t really about competition in a traditional “I want a good, clean fight” sense, as it’s more about the thrill of not knowing what might happen for me. However, it was actually very, very infrequent that I ran into someone who demonstrably didn’t really know what they were doing. Often, roamers were the ones built to win small-scale/1v1 fights, and I would argue the overwhelming majority of the time I ran into people who knew what they were doing.

Then again, if an encounter was a complete one-sided win on my end, it was pretty forgettable, so I may just be misremembering. Brains are terrible like that. In either case, with all the power creep and non-sPvP runes available, it wasn’t exactly a competitive environment. That much is true.

And even so, roaming as a Necro was, I found, really enjoyable. It took some of the most hardcore meta builds to give me trouble, and you can’t expect to beat everyone anyway (because that isn’t balance either).

Bhawb.7408:

Pelopidas.2140:

WvW we are good.

Only in zergs do we have a true unique role, and specifically because we very uniquely had ranged AoE direct damage, a role that very quickly could be taken away from us. Roaming we have a much smaller margin of error, but it isn’t a big deal since anyone can 1v3 underlevels or bad players. The only special thing we have is good 1v1ing, but a lot of professions have just as good 1v1 while being much safer.

Pelopidas.2140:

In PVE utility could be buffed, we already got projectile defense we were lacking, we got sustain we were lacking+vampiric aura and the ressing-role from transfusion/general survivability is a good enough niche for me, i have carried alot parties in fractals.

Show me any optimized groups setting records that are using Necros and I’ll concede my point. The gap was closed, but res-duty isn’t a unique niche, and we get out healed by plenty at this point. Vampiric Aura also doesn’t compare to what others give. The issue isn’t as bad as before, but we still get out DPSed by DPS builds (at least to my knowledge there hasn’t been proof that Reaper is better), and out supported by support builds.

Pelopidas.2140:

Gimme specifics about weapon/traits that are mediocre, i think everything works atm, except very little stuff(terror-fear duration trait merge, dhuumfire improvement).

Works != not mediocre. Axe works, but it is still a mediocre weapon. So is focus, I’d personally argue staff, and offhand dagger as well. In fact, the only weapon without obvious weaknesses is warhorn. Traits is too many to list, literally every single trait line has traits that need work. Spite/Soul Reaping are the only that are largely solid, and those still have glaring issues.

Pelopidas.2140:

And we can’t facetank?

Non-face tank defenses is what I said. 100% of our defense is based on taking every single hit thrown at us (outside base dodges), and doing some combination of making those hits hurt less (weakness, % reduction, protection), using Shroud/LF to absorb the damage without hitting our HP bar directly, or dealing with the effects afterwards like healing or condition removal. But this doesn’t always work.

Pelopidas.2140:

So you say build play is what matters but we are skilled enough to escape the fact that we have subpar builds due to low/bad competition… ? That doesnt make sense to me.

In roaming yes. You can’t argue that roaming in WvW gives you a high level of competition when you can’t even guarantee the people you fight are even level 80. So by and large you can “get by” because those players are, the overwhelming majority of the time, worse than you. In PvP build is secondary, important but the difference in power between builds of similar types across different professions isn’t nearly big enough to make up for how important team play is. Basically, a great PvPer who understands team and map play will beat a player with superior mechanics but no game sense.

We can be pretty good at roaming, zerging, we can do skirmishing…im not a hardcore wvw player but these are the primary 3 things. Things dont get taken away if another class can do them similarly…it’s good we get diversity in roles for everyone. Also i doubt many classes are much safer than necro in 1v1s with full lf…

Actually now that ice bow is gone maybe the two eles aren’t really necessary for ’’elite’’ runs. And since lich can outdps almost anything for short fights we could be parts of speedruns, our initial burst with wells isnt that bad either…and we will see how raids/reaper will go soon enough.
Its my belief we don’t get buffed too much and remain a selfish class because of our tankiness, if we can do superior damage/offer superior support while being that tanky everyone will run just necros….(inb4 PS war) Also for pugs/casual runs that niche we fill is quite useful…that can’t be doubted in my eyes…
To the weapons/traits lets just agree to disagree, i like every single weapon and i welcome all buffs.
And for the last point, so you say that wvw roaming is so unbalanced we shouldnt care, and in pvp its more about the traits, the skill and the teamplay. Yeah that’s true, but if i understood right your opinion is that our builds are subpar and we need skill to ‘’get away’’ like Nos does. I disagree..

Necro is viable but not optimal, as other people have said before. The damage output is on par with other classes (I do not believe the Developers would intentionally create classes capable of optimising damage to be something like 1.5x or 2x times that of another optimized class. The only exceptions to this historically are odd cases of reflect damage and unintentionally high conjure damage)

If every class’s damage is on par with all other classes damage, then the optimal party is one where each class brings something unique that the others cannot provide. Warriors have banners, Rangers have spirits and spotter, thiefs/engineers have stealth and blind fields, guardians have projectile reflecting, blocking, blinding, etc. Eles up until now had conjures which was the big damage dealer, they still have meteor shower and glyph of storms though.

Necros have epidemic and insane vulnerability stacking, and boon removal. A party of 5 without a necromancer should be able to get vulnerability without difficulty, and there currently aren’t many

Most players, myself included, do not run PVE so optimally that they would be remotely capable of noticing the difference in having a party with versus a party without necromancers.

If you want to do a record breaking speedrun, you won’t bring a necro along, but people who spend 5 minutes in LFG kicking necromancers to run a 10 minute dungeon are just plain daft. If people kept that kind of behavior out of LFGs and restricted it to premade groups and clan events [Where it rightly belongs] everyone would be happy. No DPS numbers, even if they were handed down by Arenanet themselves, (And they’re not) justify people being so abusive to each other.

At any rate, a pug scenario where players aren’t consciously trying to optimize on might and vulnerability, having a class which can max out both is an asset.

In pve, because people want to get things done quickly, and eles, thieves and wars all used to be better (Idk anymore). Stealth, blinds, weakness, might, and fury, guard or mes for reflect and portal. All that makes the runs faster if you use it right. Necros have not for the longest time brought any of these things for the group. Simple as that. The groups that do speed runs emphasize utility first, then dps. Necros don’t bring the utility of other classes, and therefore aren’t taken by the best speedrunners. Then all the plebs follow along noting the best pvers aren’t taking necros, so don’t themselves. The reasons for this get misconstrued, hatred insues.

Also, I tend to see a disproportionate amount of necros running mm and condition builds in dungeons, even when the group is advertised as zerker meta or whatever. That just brings more hate. Hopefully this will change with the new raids actually requiring defense, but in the old dungeons, I’d always want my ele over my necro (25 might and fury ooc, idk about icebow just that alone made them better than necros). Necros also have a really hard time soloing because of lack of invulns and dodges again putting more bias from really good players against the class.

In wvw, necros have always been decent for zerging. This spot might be challenged by other classes soon, but up till now the aoe damage and sustain is just too good. As for roaming, necros are one of the worst classes. Roaming is not about how well you can 1vs1, but whether or not you can survive a 10vs1. I could keep 10 people occupied on my thief or mes for a significant amount of time due to disengage. This is what roaming is about and necros are bad at it. If you just want to talk about 1vs1, necros have always been near the top in terms of 1vs1 potential in both pvp and wvw.

In pvp, necros have generally been considered bad because they have slow telegraphed attacks, long cd stunbreaks, low mobility, bad sustain and relatively few things that don’t have obvious counters. Against good players, these disadvantages get exposed and necros end up as ping pong balls. For solo queuers necros are decent though. The lack of mobility and large pool of HP mean you will spend more time on point where you should be, which is where you win games.

A lot of people think they are good in pvp cause they don’t die or get a lot of
kills, but standing on points wins you games more than either of those things. One can easily get a decent win ratio just by being decently tanky and standing on point till you die. This is irrelevant in high tier play where pretty much all of the assumptions about classes come from because team comps are built to have this and other classes either do this better than necros or bring more other things. Remember, you can push far and hold out 1vs2 all game, never killing anyone and getting 0 points, but win your team the game regardless.

It’s because this forum is particularly obsessed with melee grade DPS. For some reason necros have to be able to do it to. If you win a fight even though the math says you’ll lose. The math is no longer valid.

Garo.5304:

It’s because this forum is particularly obsessed with melee grade DPS. For some reason necros have to be able to do it to. If you win a fight even though the math says you’ll lose. The math is no longer valid.

I don’t think the math has ever said Necros will lose a fight. It just says that another class might win the fight faster.

Garo.5304:

It’s because this forum is particularly obsessed with melee grade DPS. For some reason necros have to be able to do it to. If you win a fight even though the math says you’ll lose. The math is no longer valid.

Uhm, care to elaborate on that? Because I’m not sure if I get your point.

Bhawb.7408:

Only in zergs do we have a true unique role, and specifically because we very uniquely had ranged AoE direct damage, a role that very quickly could be taken away from us.

Are there hit-squads of Revenants running around just throwing out synchronized Coalescences yet? While outputting ‘Tons of Buffs’TM to allies?

I imagine that would be the moment the role is taken and improved upon.

I just want to add on to what many others here have said. Necro has its uses in high-end pve. I recently switched to my reaper from my ranger/druid and in the berserker meta the reaper feels more useful to my private group. Namely this is because of the vulnerability stacks. A reaper can upkeep 25 stacks of vuln a good amount of the time, causing the entire party to deal more damage.

Also dark field for comboing blind on trash (leap & blast finishers) & 2 freezes (does a ton to those new break bars).

Our group is not exactly meta (1 ele, 1 thief, 1 guard, myself (ranger or reaper), and 1 ele or mesmer. That being said, we’ve been clearing 50+ fracs without too much trouble. I think the “Necro is bad at pve” and the "ranger is bad at pve’ meta is overhyped at this point. There have been a literal ton of changes to both classes and people do not seem to factor those in.

TLDR: They hate us because they kitten.

BoogerSammich.7189:

Clairenix.2780:

[spoiler=SNIP]

[/spoiler]

Clairenix, i don’t mean to pick on you i just wanted to point out the biggest issue with necros right now and your post illustrates it perfectly.

The problem with necros, IS NOT with necros.

It is with the culture of misinformation, that is aggressively spread by a very vocal and very ignorant minority in this game.
It all revolves around this so called “Zerk Meta”.

I wont go into too many details here because its a dead horse that i just don’t have the energy to beat on right now.
But basically, the whole idea is that there is this small contingent of players who are VERY BAD at the game and have no idea how it actually works.
These players have essentially been spreading poor, misguided and ignorant “information” for the past 3 years regarding the necro and other classes in the game.
They say things like, “necro has no party support” “bear bow rangers pew pew” “X class has the best DPS” etc etc.
These players, by and large, have no idea how the classes actually work and more importantly they make claims which have no factual proof or evidence behind them.
Case in point, ANY person who tries to tell you about DPS numbers is flat out full of crap.
We have NO DPS tools in this game, disregard this propaganda.
These players run whichever classes/builds have been handed down by other ignorant players and the whole situation just perpetuates itself.

Unfortunately this particular contingent is very loud, and volume is how ignorance often tends to spread itself…

But the greatest tragedy comes when other players simply take these statements for granted and repeat them on forums like we are seeing here…
People literally repeating things they have heard with absolutely no understanding whatsoever…
This, is just plain lazy…

PLEASE, do NOT help to spread this propaganda.
Be aware of the fact that when you repeat these things, you are promoting a culture of ignorance, laziness, exclusivity, elitism and poor performance.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH,
KNOW YOUR CLASS,
MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS,
FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS.

A couple of those ‘bad’ players are here, you may want to speak with them.

I stand firm with my post as this was my experience, I do not acknowledge yours however for pretty much just raging and thinking that I did not do my own work, and that I only read a couple of posts and have already formed my opinion based on that. That’s just condescending viewpoint on other people. You also called me ignorant in a huge paragraph form. Also, you just outright invalued ALL OTHER PLAYER’S research (unless they agree with your opinion). These things don’t just happen because of a ‘bandwagon effect’ but I can’t dismiss the fact that it has contributed in it but it has definitely rooted to players experiencing this.

BoogerSammich.7189:

Unfortunately this particular contingent is very loud, and volume is how ignorance often tends to spread itself…

Couldnt agree more with this comment.

The amount of times we get anti meta propaganda thrown at us, full of ignorance, misinterpretations and generally taking things out of context, is beyond tiring.