Guild Wars 2

So to make a comparison, you can go over to SWTOR and find the Mercenary bounty hunter first on everyone’s target list as well.

When a class is constantly first on the hit list it means they are the easiest to kill and the weakest class.

The longer I play this class the more my opinions align with Bhawb’s.

This game in particular is a little like street fighter, if 1v1 the necro can do “ok” with only one class to counter, but as soon as the second class appears, the advantage shifts to classes that can:

Reset the fight easily through movement/stealth.
Reset the fight through healing/boon stacks.
Take on multiple CC attempts through access to stability.
Apply a lot of hard CC

The necro has none of these things, and its survivability is nowhere near the amount it needs to withstand CC’d focus fire, unlike warrior who has this passively, a ton of counter CC (in the base weapon yet and not really needing to fill traits to achieve paltry defense.)

In SWTOR, the devs seem to be paranoid of making a class that is too powerful at range in the Mercenary and they extremely overvalue armor when it is just a bit of mitigation. That class has a few of the same issues as necromancer, very little mobility and CC defense.

In this game the devs overvalue DS by a lot which is also just a bit of mitigation. It does nothing to put you in a position from which you can do offense like a stability or leap can. Creative use of TP and fear goes a little way but you still have to set up a 2 shot target just to move back into position while the timer is ticking away.

Additionally I feel pigeonholed into MM for SPVP just to survive some hits in the first place and keep the enemy from just being able to beeline me and maybe dodge one well. Sure it’s all yoloq but I can yoloq with any other class and do better with less effort I always feel.

Wells: Offensive wells are easily dodged by characters that know what they’re doing. Defensive wells don’t last long enough for serious defense vs. their cast times. I can dodge about half incoming damage with a 50 second well of darkness CD on necro or push 2 again on s/d thief or a leap on any other class and dodge 100 percent damage and reposition by comparison.

It’s not just DS being overvalued, it’s that the lack of mobility is undervalued and access to non-traited/utility movement and CC hurting necros a lot.

I quit this game in disgust over the state of necro quite some time ago and I come back to find Dhuumfire addressing a ‘burst window’ option in a line where no one will take it over under 50% health bonus damage (on all abilities) trait, maybe it was meant to help address condi damage in DS but it’s not in the condi line, a non game effecting heal in DS and none of the core problems with this class really addressed. The only decent thing is DS#5 but then again, my kiting skills on Necromancer were amazing but now with Torment in the game I no longer bother to kite and always fight ‘all in’.

The rest of the game changes are nice but kitten it I want necro to be decent in the meta and it is just not and I could play anything else and do any job a necro can do better.

Due to the burst and antiboon nature of the necro, in any build but a MM bunker it is more like a thief in that it needs a window to get in and out and shatter boons or apply power burst or condi burst and live since everyone will target it due to lack of defense. The thief has escapes and stealth to force the entire enemy team to drop target and the necro has none.

The idea of attrition on necro does not exist. Every time I see a necro video lately outnumbered it’s either bursting downlevels or just being extra damage under cover of ele d/d or some crap like that. I’m not impressed ever until I see 2v1 in SPVP. MM Bunker is barely going to handle 3. Show me the videos and don’t type words here unless they are video links if you disagree. I’m perfectly willing to admit the fault is with me and not the class but I want to see proof that this class is valuable in SPVP lately.

You can handle 2v1s on a Necro, if I can I’ll try to record a video of it. You can survive 3v1s for a bit in certain builds as well, but that depends on you being VERY good because all of your defense needs to preempt their offense. I don’t have current videos, and none of my old ones were really competitive anyway (they were all SOAC tournaments), but in a while I should hopefully get it. Its rare, but you can do it if you get a good matchup, but again except for MM in 2v1 (3 is too many for an MM) you’re working a lot harder to make a bad build work, when you could just be a guardian.

Anyway, to address specific things.
1) Lack of weapons. This is a huge issue and it affects literally every build we have.

Every other good power build in the game either has the ability to run in face first and survive while dealing damage (ele), poke people down from afar and then jump in for a burst (thief), or a combination (warrior). Necromancers just run in and hope to put out so much damage that people get scared and forget how to play. If we had a ranged weapon, or one with some tankiness/CC we could either poke from afar before bursting, or jump in and deal damage and then CC/tank through damage when needed.

Condition has no melee cleave weapon. This is a bit weird, considering how well we would technically function with a melee condi cleave weapon, and would allow us to maybe turn on people diving us (melee = higher damage, always) and just try to at least go 1 for 1 with them, or with good positioning turn and punish them for over extending. Also it would be a good place to introduce sustain for condi builds, without making it too strong because it relies on melee.

Bunker? Can’t do that because our weapons are bad for it. No good CC weapons to debunker other bunkers, no good support to be a support bunker, not as good of AoE scaling sustain as we should get off weapons, we just lack here as well. This also applies to MMs who end up having very weak weapon/minion synergy. If we had a defensive support weapon MMs might actually have some more meaningful interaction with minions.

So weapons overall hurt us. We have no many things we need from weapons, that we don’t have, whereas our traits and utility skills actually support so many different build types.

2) Trait options hurt us. We simply need some more traits to support certain playstyles. Read above for an idea of what I mean. In this case though, we especially need access to reactive damage negation (something like an instant AoE blind on DS entry w/ ICD). Blood magic and its DS issues needs some help too. Again, we have a lot of options, but we just need a bit more to flesh them out.

3) Utility skills, really just need one or two additions here, especially with one being a source of stability. Far more accessible and meaningful than a trait source, innately makes us sacrifice something else. Win-win.

4) Non-transform or minion elite, preferably a spectral, well, and/or corruption (for training purposes).

Overall, Necromancers are so close to a good position. We have a ton of builds that are just close to working, but miss just this one thing here, or something else there. If we got those issues addressed, Necromancer becomes more diverse of a profession than all other 7 professions combined.

I have 2v1’d and survived 3v1 on MM yes but I’m really looking for proof of non-MM builds doing this. It’s that pigeonholing I really hate too.

1 build to be “subpar viable” in the meta. Really?

Otaking.4675:

I have 2v1’d and survived 3v1 on MM yes but I’m really looking for proof of non-MM builds doing this. It’s that pigeonholing I really hate too.

Spectral (SA, SG, SWall) or Wells can survive for a time, especially if they have Plague. It might not be the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, and it definitely requires you to be very proactive about how you defend, because both builds will be dropped very quickly if you don’t already have your WoD down, or haven’t been filling your LF bar well enough. Its far easier and better to play a different build though, unless you’re out to just have fun.

The issue isn’t so much surviving, I find. Its surviving and then doing something else. Ranger bunkers survived while giving out AoE buffs via spirits, guardian bunkers survive while spamming out boons, stability, healing, etc., warrior bunkers still have very high damage, eles have CC, boons, blah blah, every other bunker can survive and do something else. We really can’t, and its largely due to the lack of a weapon set to support it. If we had those weapons, they’d define our “something else”.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

Bhawb.7408:

Otaking.4675:

I have 2v1’d and survived 3v1 on MM yes but I’m really looking for proof of non-MM builds doing this. It’s that pigeonholing I really hate too.

Spectral (SA, SG, SWall) or Wells can survive for a time, especially if they have Plague. It might not be the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, and it definitely requires you to be very proactive about how you defend, because both builds will be dropped very quickly if you don’t already have your WoD down, or haven’t been filling your LF bar well enough. Its far easier and better to play a different build though, unless you’re out to just have fun.

The issue isn’t so much surviving, I find. Its surviving and then doing something else. Ranger bunkers survived while giving out AoE buffs via spirits, guardian bunkers survive while spamming out boons, stability, healing, etc., warrior bunkers still have very high damage, eles have CC, boons, blah blah, every other bunker can survive and do something else. We really can’t, and its largely due to the lack of a weapon set to support it. If we had those weapons, they’d define our “something else”.

Agreed, yes I have survived entire teams with plague. The problem is we can’t force them to change their play from ‘just beating on us’ Spectral wall or staff fear are the best options for that, maybe lich KD but we’re not living long after lich form. Because we don’t have CC or stability we have no platform from which to launch offense very often and our weapons with a lot of not-cleave built in don’t help.

Necro is like a class that relies on unforced errors from the enemy. If they don’t suck we don’t have a lot of option.

NeXeD.3042:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

I’ll take a look at it, condi is not my favorite but I’m due for another round of backline team “support” anyway. I’ve had some luck being a backline boonstrip cannon. (hotjoins not confident enough in the build for arena) corruption and woc both but good D/D eles for instance will intersperse their invulnerabilities between your boon strips even if you carry two I’ve found. I should run sc/fc cond due to that but I was married to sc/wh a while for kiting.

You won’t need the focus with that build it has the spinal shivers proc and the boom removal sigils.

Otaking.4675:

NeXeD.3042:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

I’ll take a look at it, condi is not my favorite but I’m due for another round of backline team “support” anyway. I’ve had some luck being a backline boonstrip cannon. (hotjoins not confident enough in the build for arena) corruption and woc both but good D/D eles for instance will intersperse their invulnerabilities between your boon strips even if you carry two I’ve found. I should run sc/fc cond due to that but I was married to sc/wh a while for kiting.

I hadn’t had a chance to play with Dhuumfire yet since I left before all those changes so I modified your build into a hybrid power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebjNm2wfbCchC63MAi2Y/gJgutA-TphGwAGOIAIeAAF3fYZZAAXAgCHBAA

I lose crit and bleeds (hopefully making up for it with power and might) but gain a ton of defense in the LF/DS department with dark shroud due to signet of undeath and have plenty of access to might and dhuumfire after setting up a bleed stack. Mainly I dropped well in favor of signet of spite because with this setup I can be completely ranged without the easy to evade well and both corruption and signet of spite have 1200 range and zero or quick tells. I’m not sold on the pet being in condi spec but I am trying it for extra distraction and uptime over the standard plague form. Thieves again make giving up plague form a pain.

The theory is I’m tough enough for most not to bother coming after me while still being able to do serious nuking with hybrid power and still heavy conditions damage at maximal ranges. The pet does fit in with backline support better.

I found I had enough boon stripping and/or damage to get through boons not stripped to down any target. I don’t really like going ‘all in’ on boon stripping due to targets that are a major threat to you that don’t stack that many boons. Mainly thieves.

The problem with this though is you still need someone to peel for you I feel, which meant I didn’t even consider running this with my guild today and just picked up Ye Olde Hambow instead who can shrug off many 2v1s and is good against all types of classes in a team or 1v1 environment due to plenty of hard CC in the base weapon and might stacking.

I notice you say you don’t have trouble with thieves in condi and I wonder where you encounter terrible thieves that can’t kill you with scepter out. I have little trouble with thieves in power spec personally but that is with standard melee weapons. Good ones are a pain for me with scepter or staff out even in hybrid mode for condi builds. I’m talking about thieves that can almost kill you in the time it takes you to swap to staff for some marks or half your life in the time it takes you to DS and fear them off.

They can dodge roll through pre planted marks and just facetime your condi from scepter until it’s time to fear you and burst you down which all can happen in seconds. Even with DS up. I need more practice vs. good ones but I have trouble believing condi necs have little trouble with thieves that know anything about what they’re doing. If anything is making the difference in your build for thieves I figure it’s got to be Retaliation vs. my Might stacking. I should probably give retaliation more game time but I usually tend to try to might stack especially in a hybrid setup.

simple. necros weakness is such a hard counter that it literally renders it useless seeing as there is no non traited build killing source of stability like most other professions have

they gave other classes too much condi cleanse

they let thief steal our fear and let it magically change from a 1s fear to a 4-5 second fear just enough time to kill us with dagger spam and its on a lowish cool down….

they gave other classes long lasting blocks/invulnerabilities that don’t lock them out of their heals or skills so they can do whatever to us while we cant even slow them down..

once you get into a team environment unless you have a personal pocket guardian giving you stability and peeling for you good luck…

not saying a necro cant kill anyone… in a 1v1 I can kill almost any build almost some are just so over the top at hard counter or evading its not funny at all but when its more then one person our defence really really suffers…

I really wish that fanboys wouldn’t post this garbage. Anyone that plays a nerco clearly knows that they are op. Chill, minion master, fear, cripple and life leach. CLEARLY OP!!!
They need a nerf plain and simple. Balance is really needed with this class. The key word, “Balance”.

Because nobody else has chill, cripple, better sustain than lame life leech and better synergized pet AIs? The key word is “Logic”.

Fatalseid.2984:

I really wish that fanboys wouldn’t post this garbage. Anyone that plays a nerco clearly knows that they are op. Chill, minion master, fear, cripple and life leach. CLEARLY OP!!!
They need a nerf, plain and simple. Balance is really needed with this class. The key word, “Balance”.

Said the thief predictably, arrogantly unaware of his major hypocrisy!

Otaking.4675:

Otaking.4675:

NeXeD.3042:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

I’ll take a look at it, condi is not my favorite but I’m due for another round of backline team “support” anyway. I’ve had some luck being a backline boonstrip cannon. (hotjoins not confident enough in the build for arena) corruption and woc both but good D/D eles for instance will intersperse their invulnerabilities between your boon strips even if you carry two I’ve found. I should run sc/fc cond due to that but I was married to sc/wh a while for kiting.

I hadn’t had a chance to play with Dhuumfire yet since I left before all those changes so I modified your build into a hybrid power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebjNm2wfbCchC63MAi2Y/gJgutA-TphGwAGOIAIeAAF3fYZZAAXAgCHBAA

I lose crit and bleeds (hopefully making up for it with power and might) but gain a ton of defense in the LF/DS department with dark shroud due to signet of undeath and have plenty of access to might and dhuumfire after setting up a bleed stack. Mainly I dropped well in favor of signet of spite because with this setup I can be completely ranged without the easy to evade well and both corruption and signet of spite have 1200 range and zero or quick tells. I’m not sold on the pet being in condi spec but I am trying it for extra distraction and uptime over the standard plague form. Thieves again make giving up plague form a pain.

The theory is I’m tough enough for most not to bother coming after me while still being able to do serious nuking with hybrid power and still heavy conditions damage at maximal ranges. The pet does fit in with backline support better.

I found I had enough boon stripping and/or damage to get through boons not stripped to down any target. I don’t really like going ‘all in’ on boon stripping due to targets that are a major threat to you that don’t stack that many boons. Mainly thieves.

The problem with this though is you still need someone to peel for you I feel, which meant I didn’t even consider running this with my guild today and just picked up Ye Olde Hambow instead who can shrug off many 2v1s and is good against all types of classes in a team or 1v1 environment due to plenty of hard CC in the base weapon and might stacking.

I notice you say you don’t have trouble with thieves in condi and I wonder where you encounter terrible thieves that can’t kill you with scepter out. I have little trouble with thieves in power spec personally but that is with standard melee weapons. Good ones are a pain for me with scepter or staff out even in hybrid mode for condi builds. I’m talking about thieves that can almost kill you in the time it takes you to swap to staff for some marks or half your life in the time it takes you to DS and fear them off.

They can dodge roll through pre planted marks and just facetime your condi from scepter until it’s time to fear you and burst you down which all can happen in seconds. Even with DS up. I need more practice vs. good ones but I have trouble believing condi necs have little trouble with thieves that know anything about what they’re doing. If anything is making the difference in your build for thieves I figure it’s got to be Retaliation vs. my Might stacking. I should probably give retaliation more game time but I usually tend to try to might stack especially in a hybrid setup.

So….. what happens when someone stuns you. We get focused as necros and when a hambow sees us they go right for us, especially when he figures out you don’t have any sort of stun break. I made the build to deal with boon spam that’s currently going On in the tpvp with the new strength runes everyone is better at stacking might than us so rather than trying to fight fire with fire I decided to extinguish theres.

NeXeD.3042:

Otaking.4675:

Otaking.4675:

NeXeD.3042:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebNNe2webCchCyDIAi+Dmg8lytYMA-TJRFwAAuIAPeCAK3fIaZAA

Have you tried any condi builds?

This is a terror build focusing on removing boons, it may be a little overkill on the boon removal but with the current boon spam kitten I’ve found it to be pretty good.

I’ll take a look at it, condi is not my favorite but I’m due for another round of backline team “support” anyway. I’ve had some luck being a backline boonstrip cannon. (hotjoins not confident enough in the build for arena) corruption and woc both but good D/D eles for instance will intersperse their invulnerabilities between your boon strips even if you carry two I’ve found. I should run sc/fc cond due to that but I was married to sc/wh a while for kiting.

I hadn’t had a chance to play with Dhuumfire yet since I left before all those changes so I modified your build into a hybrid power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebjNm2wfbCchC63MAi2Y/gJgutA-TphGwAGOIAIeAAF3fYZZAAXAgCHBAA

I lose crit and bleeds (hopefully making up for it with power and might) but gain a ton of defense in the LF/DS department with dark shroud due to signet of undeath and have plenty of access to might and dhuumfire after setting up a bleed stack. Mainly I dropped well in favor of signet of spite because with this setup I can be completely ranged without the easy to evade well and both corruption and signet of spite have 1200 range and zero or quick tells. I’m not sold on the pet being in condi spec but I am trying it for extra distraction and uptime over the standard plague form. Thieves again make giving up plague form a pain.

The theory is I’m tough enough for most not to bother coming after me while still being able to do serious nuking with hybrid power and still heavy conditions damage at maximal ranges. The pet does fit in with backline support better.

I found I had enough boon stripping and/or damage to get through boons not stripped to down any target. I don’t really like going ‘all in’ on boon stripping due to targets that are a major threat to you that don’t stack that many boons. Mainly thieves.

The problem with this though is you still need someone to peel for you I feel, which meant I didn’t even consider running this with my guild today and just picked up Ye Olde Hambow instead who can shrug off many 2v1s and is good against all types of classes in a team or 1v1 environment due to plenty of hard CC in the base weapon and might stacking.

I notice you say you don’t have trouble with thieves in condi and I wonder where you encounter terrible thieves that can’t kill you with scepter out. I have little trouble with thieves in power spec personally but that is with standard melee weapons. Good ones are a pain for me with scepter or staff out even in hybrid mode for condi builds. I’m talking about thieves that can almost kill you in the time it takes you to swap to staff for some marks or half your life in the time it takes you to DS and fear them off.

They can dodge roll through pre planted marks and just facetime your condi from scepter until it’s time to fear you and burst you down which all can happen in seconds. Even with DS up. I need more practice vs. good ones but I have trouble believing condi necs have little trouble with thieves that know anything about what they’re doing. If anything is making the difference in your build for thieves I figure it’s got to be Retaliation vs. my Might stacking. I should probably give retaliation more game time but I usually tend to try to might stack especially in a hybrid setup.

So….. what happens when someone stuns you. We get focused as necros and when a hambow sees us they go right for us, especially when he figures out you don’t have any sort of stun break. I made the build to deal with boon spam that’s currently going On in the tpvp with the new strength runes everyone is better at stacking might than us so rather than trying to fight fire with fire I decided to extinguish theres.

You’re right we’re bad at might stacking, but it’s not impossible. I have strenght runes and sig of battle and strength on my staff, and also taking in account reapers might I’ll usually have 10-17 stacks of might on. Go into staff for 3 might (battle sigil), drop all your marks an get 2-3 might (strength sigil) and than do some lifeblasts for 1-2 might each

I think it is a bad place to argue that we SHOULD be able to handle a 2v1. The classes that do handle those fights are leveraging what I would consider are overpowered concepts (stealth and mobility) rather than being overpowered themselves. In a world where balance is achieved, those concepts are pulled into line, and then the class balance problems wash out.

I don’t mind lacking blocks, I don’t mind having situational mobility, but I do mind not having a target drop. Allowing people the option of mindlessly spamming 1 on me from range because I literally have no way to deflect that agro is just stupid. It is a bad design in a place like WvW, where 1 spamming is such a common way to handle a necro problem in the bigger fights.

I am in the minority on this I realize, but feign death is a thing, and it is something we should have. People should at least have to pay attention when training down a necro, like they do when trying to train down any other class with mobility and stealth.

I wouldn’t mind being able to drop target constantly.. give mesmers and thief a taste of their own bs

If your only boon is might its not very good so many classes have ways of getting rid of it why do that when you should focus on something we do well.

Im not saying its impossible but again why would we cripple ourselves without a stunbreak….. and not do the things we are actually good at. Instead of trying to make necro something its not play it for what it is. Im going to use my shoe thing again. I can pour water in a shoe and drink from it so i guess that “works” right?

Rennoko your not alone. I dont have that problem in WvW so much but sometimes in tpvp ill run into a ranger that just presses 1 at range for days…. ill get close knockback back to 1 spam…. drives me insane.

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a bad place to argue that we SHOULD be able to handle a 2v1. The classes that do handle those fights are leveraging what I would consider are overpowered concepts (stealth and mobility) rather than being overpowered themselves.

To clarify a few things, when people talk about winning 1v2s or 1v(whatever)s they were always fighting worse players than themselves. On equal skill 1v2 doesn’t exist.
It’s just the threshold for opposing skill levels that is higher on other classes because mechanics like stealth allow for a lot more mistakes or make it possible to secure stomps.
A super pro thief will kill a group of people if each one of them is just slightly less skilled than the thief, while a necro would most certainly die in the same situation.
Personally, I take a win or loss against a good player in regards to class balancing much more seriously than losing against 2 or more weak players, because winning 1vX is kind of meaningless if you keep in mind that one single strong player in the outnumbering party would make it impossible to win the engagement at all, regardless of what class is opposing them.

Im mostly annoyed with the actual game mechanics: no cleave or Point-blank AoEs and only 1-instant abilty.

With all the cast times, animation delays, travel times, target requirements against all instant or -0.5s max abilities on enemys, i feel like a fortune teller.

“I feel like a fortune teller.” This may be the single best comment I have ever heard about Necro. People like to pretend playing a thief or ele is really hard but dont realize how forgiving those classes are to mistakes. Play a Necro and find out what its like to REALLY be all-in every fight.

Suck? hahahahahaaaaaaa

Everyone who knows me.. and has teamed with me know I far from suck. (And not I’m not blowing my own warhorn (:p) – I just know the class_
Sounds like you really do not know what a necro is and what it is to be a necro.. from our strengths to our weakness.. to well the stuff we’re meant to do.
Learn the class first..then come back and complain about the class then.. and when you do.. your’ll fine necro only has a couple of things to complain about.. not everything under the blue moon like a lot of noobs here seem to think.

Are you talking spvp or pve…..? Tourneys or Hotjoins? They are a different animal. Id almost be ok with us being ping pong balls that don’t have blocks or invulnerabilities if they made our skills cast faster. It’s annoying playing some of the other classes and everything they have is pretty much insta cast. Once you start fighting people that are good to very good in pvp it becomes apparent our skills cast to kittening slow.

NeXeD.3042:

Are you talking spvp or pve…..? Tourneys or Hotjoins? They are a different animal. Id almost be ok with us being ping pong balls that don’t have blocks or invulnerabilities if they made our skills cast faster. It’s annoying playing some of the other classes and everything they have is pretty much insta cast. Once you start fighting people that are good to very good in pvp it becomes apparent our skills cast to kittening slow.

Faster casts will not happen. They said they want necros to feel slow in casting and movement. But i agrre with you here, no single target spell on weapons should have a cast time longer than 3/4.

Well if they want our casts to be slow I say kitten it #bringbackshade.

They want us to be slow, tanky, and dangerous if left alive long enough right? Then we need to actually be able to cast our kittening skills instead of being ping pong balls of varying sizes.

I apologize if I sound whiny today, yesterday was a dark day for me in the yoloq. Been working to get to top 100 for 2 weeks, friend plays 10 games yesterday on a warrior ends up with a 58% win rate and gets to 72…… wtf.

NeXeD.3042:

Well if they want our casts to be slow I say kitten it #bringbackshade.

They want us to be slow, tanky, and dangerous if left alive long enough right? Then we need to actually be able to cast our kittening skills instead of being ping pong balls of varying sizes.

Shade: Prevent knocked back, knocked down, launched, slowed or stunned while in Death Shroud.

I get that it’s while in deathshroud….. I’m not sure what your trying to say. I accepted the fact that our skills wont get faster cast times. So allowing us to not be a green ping pong ball is enough for me.

Shade is not the answer to your problem (long cast time skills).

My problem isn’t going to be solved as someone above me has said devs will not give us faster cast times. So allowing me not to be constantly cced would go a long way to making a necro more viable as an attrition class would it not?

I conceded they want us to cast slow so I gave another suggestion. Would I prefer the cast times be faster over shade? Yes.

NeXeD.3042:

They want us to be slow, tanky, and dangerous if left alive long enough right? Then we need to actually be able to cast our kittening skills instead of being ping pong balls of varying sizes.

Ok mr. Troll. We do have skills in DS gasp I know you probably just sit there and look pretty and green. I know good players will save their knockbacks when we are in DS which also means we are getting cced less. It would also help with aoe ccs. Which would what? Oh it would allow us to use our skills more gasp

Whatever ……

NeXeD.3042:

So….. what happens when someone stuns you. We get focused as necros and when a hambow sees us they go right for us, especially when he figures out you don’t have any sort of stun break. I made the build to deal with boon spam that’s currently going On in the tpvp with the new strength runes everyone is better at stacking might than us so rather than trying to fight fire with fire I decided to extinguish theres.

You’re right we’re bad at might stacking, but it’s not impossible. I have strenght runes and sig of battle and strength on my staff, and also taking in account reapers might I’ll usually have 10-17 stacks of might on. Go into staff for 3 might (battle sigil), drop all your marks an get 2-3 might (strength sigil) and than do some lifeblasts for 1-2 might each

[/quote]

It’s not boon classes that are the problem for us. We have a use in boon stripping but I can’t shore up our defenses enough against other classes to be able to launch it consistently. I’m trying to improve the necro’s weaknesses as much as I can rather than overboard on their strengths. Their weaknesses are too crippling and their strengths are not overpowering like you find say on a thief. Boon strip is only good to catch boon stackers unawares when it comes to actually killing them (unless you bring another class to do it for you in a teamfight) and classes have a ton of condi cleanse.

I ran my thief a while instead to think about it more and one of the best is actually reaper’s protection for ‘stun break’ although it’s not a break but a counter esp when you have extra fear duration traited. I could kill every necro but the ones with that traited consistently and easily.

I ran this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc00bbRNm2webighSyW4DiOBCgzlykIKA-TJRFwAAeCAPuIAK3fIaZAA

but my first real opponent was a mega condi cleanse bunker style ranger, I could keep him at 5% anyway but condis just fell off him while of course binding roots and their many immobilizations versus concrete shoes made it not much of a contest. Hambows were not a problem with dagger 4 and wod + chill. Blind is definitely the answer to hambow and chill doesn’t hurt.

If we can’t shore up defense to any real degree against enough classes it’s back to stunning offense and hope you make the enemy panic and forget how to play as Bhawb put it which is one reason I went back to the hybrid. One stun break is not going to do much for necro anyway. We can be the slowest thief in the universe with spectral walk and wurm I guess…no synergies, nothing for that style of play just a bar full of crap and 2 stun breaks on 40-60ish timers. This is a problem with necro lacking mobility and target drops as well as they are good to defend against any class and here I am trying to piece enough stuff together to defend against all these different setups.

I think I could trait that hybrid with reaper’s protection and spectral wall and take care of my ranger problem and add to offense value from power damage while keeping boon strip. All in on conditions has its own weaknesses.

I think even if necro had ds fear not single target but aoe it would make a huge difference. This would fundamentally put more CC into the game but …look at hambow already. Necro needs more power in their base weapons. DS bolt could be a cleave, I don’t know. They just can’t put enough together.

Our Elites suck, so much..
3 minute cooldowns for the useful ones, and a Minion on the last one that only attacks 50% of the time..
I can win a 1v1 if I use my Signet that gives the foe 6 conditions, but once that’s out, I pretty much spend my time hugging my teammates for support, waiting for it, or my Elite, to recharge.

totally agree that as soon as you climb a bit in spvp you will:
1) be the only necro around.
2) start to notice your skills are casting take way too long. WAY TOO LONG!

sluggish isn’t the right word.. Utterly useless fits better. even with all the skills with shortest cast time equipped. iow. if a profession can blink/immobilize and take 1/2 your hp before your condition transfer casts.. then something is wrong.

3)you better roll something else for DPS or holding a point, or decapping, or roaming, or .. or.. etc..

One thing that is extra obnoxious is due to the lack of mobility and healing even if you’re winning on a point you can be easily zerged down from enemy spawn as you’ll never be out of combat fast enough. You have to leave the point to rotate and get out of combat but sometimes it is impossible due to faster classes rushing their third 1up from spawn.

The fundamental incompatibilities of this class with SPVP just pile up.

WolfiKurisu.6894:

Our Elites suck, so much..
3 minute cooldowns for the useful ones, and a Minion on the last one that only attacks 50% of the time..
I can win a 1v1 if I use my Signet that gives the foe 6 conditions, but once that’s out, I pretty much spend my time hugging my teammates for support, waiting for it, or my Elite, to recharge.

Actually our elites are really good, compared to what other professions have. The problem with them however is that their are more used situationally and golem doesnt work underwater…

OP Asks: “Why does [PvE] Necromancer suck?”

Because every time someone suggests something which will fix Necromancers and give them a role in high End PvE and Fractals of the Mists, people shoot it down because apparently all our problems will be solved with more survivability and cleave????

Kain Francois.4328:

OP Asks: “Why does [PvE] Necromancer suck?”

Because every time someone suggests something which will fix Necromancers and give them a role in high End PvE and Fractals of the Mists, people shoot it down because apparently all our problems will be solved with more survivability and cleave????

Well cleave is importent in a pve setting where stacking is used often…

Besides i think the OP asked more in gerneral way (not pve only) and in pvp survivability is something necros need, so…

Kain Francois.4328:

OP Asks: “Why does [PvE] Necromancer suck?”

Because every time someone suggests something which will fix Necromancers and give them a role in high End PvE and Fractals of the Mists, people shoot it down because apparently all our problems will be solved with more survivability and cleave????

I don’t PVE at all so my post is about PVP. It’s a free space to discuss what you want, just clarifying.