Guild Wars 2

There are many more issues that have been pointed out by other players and others I could talk about, but these are just some that I was able to type out in 45 minutes…

Finally a message to the devs: You cannot properly fix this class by listening to the average necromancer player who does hotjoins and plays against weaker competition. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to PVE players. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to WvW players. Finally, you CANNOT fix this class by loading up your own necromancers and hopping into a hotjoin (like I have seen you post about) and test stuff out. Why is this? The reason is because the weaknessess of necromancer are not PUNISHED and EXPOSED until you bring your necromancer into the TPVP scene and face the best players and teams. And that is why the necromancer needs to be fixed so that it has the adequate tools to be able to handle its role in that spectrum.

Thank you for reading.

Zzod

—

Disclaimer by Karla: All posts were written by Zzod.
I couldn’t add the quote tags on the 2nd post because of character limit, so I decided to omitt them in the other quoted posts too
The bold tags were added by me for more clarity.

P.S. Haha at the part about the axe not knowing what it’s trying to be. So sad, and so funny.

Allow me to add: I’ll never stress these points enough.

Life siphon need to in minimal be affected by Healing power (2%??) besides it’s current base level which I suppose are good, as it stand it’s sub-par to the damage it does.

Vampiric Rituals – Siphons from pulses NEED to affect allies standing on them, it still wouldn’t compare to the heal provided by the Well of Blood which on it’s count already has a 40sec CD.

P.S: I’m sick of getting asked about Deathly Invigoration, either clear up the tooltip or make it do as the tooltip says please!

ADDENDUM for KarlaGrey: I fully leveled a Necromancer, Mesmer & a Warrior in PvE. Out of them all I do PVP tournaments almost daily with the Necro, if you play PvE/WvW extensively you’d realise where the real dealbreaker problems lay with the Necro. Of course the Necro has a bunch of issues in PvP but most of them don’t come close in consequence they have elsewhere, in fact the Necromancer is the most PvP orienter profession of them all hands down.

He is wrong about the staff, of course. Having your marks on cooldown doesn’t mean you are reduced to auto attacking with necrotic grasp.

The axe: Dagger necros are so easy to kite because of their short range, so overall the axe might have a higher dps against non-npcs because you are more likely to hit them at all. But whatever…

Scepter: Grasping Dead, wrong tooltip, it actually inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding.
With enough extra condi duration (which every conditionmancer has) there is no need to prolong the poison on Putrid Curse. It also stacks in duration so without any cleanses you’re target will be perma poisoned anyway.

The “trait fragmentation”… old hat. This has been discussed so many times already.
The fact that staff related traits are spread over 3 lines is the worst example you could make. Greater Marks and Staff Mastery are in the same line. Spiteful Marks is probably even worse than Siphoned Power, the dps you gain from it is pathetic even in a glassy power build. So basically you can just forget it exists and wonder why Soul Marks is in a different line: It doesn’t profit the staff itself but your life force regen, that’s why it’s in Soul Reaping.
That’s all there is to it. It looks all over the place, but it’s really not. And that goes for most of the other traits as well.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Scepter: The auto attack on scepter is just OK. The poison on it should last longer and/or be applied earlier in the chain. I even think the attack speed could be raised 10-15%. I think number 2 grasping dead should have a 2 stack of bleed on it and not 1. Number 3 is only valuable in a hybrid/power based build. This needs to get reworked to benefit condition users.

While I agree with many points, IMO the scepter is just fine and would have been over the top if it hadn’t been for the overkill condition removal that some classes have access to. It is completely projectile-less, which should not be underrated. The auto, while it has low base durations, can be improved by a lot of traits and runes (I use to go with +45% bleed duration from 2x rune of the krait, centaur and afflicted, 20% from Hemophilia and 33% from Lingering Curse), although this may be removed quickly anyways by many professions.
Grasping Dead does also already apply 3 stacks of bleed, although the description only says 1.
Apart from that one should not forget about epidemic. You can even target a pet just to build up bleed and then use it as a target for epidemic since it doesn’t evade.
Also I do personally use skill 3 for life force rather than damage.

It’s worth noting that these issues apply pretty much across the board, not just in tPvP. As a WvW player, the above posts by Zzod pretty much explain why I abandoned the class long ago, even though in terms of flavor the Necromancer is my clear favorite. We simply do not have the skill mechanics to compete. Especially the lack of viable stunbreakers and access to stability and vigor are important for a supposed attrition class.

If ever there was a thread on the Necromancer that deserves attention, it’s this one. As I see it the class is a mess, with subpar utilities, clunky traits, inherently flawed weapon mechanics, and a lack of staying power. What worries me the most, though, is the disparity that seems to exist between the actual state of the Necromancer and A.Net’s perception of the class. Listening to their comments in the State of the Game casts, it sounds like they think the Necro is generally in a good place, with many viable builds. This thread explains, point by point, why that is not the case.

- Mana

I agree with the Staff point. All Marks should have a secondary utility like Mark of Blood does. Mark of Blood causes bleeding as well as gives Regen. Chillblains should give Swiftness, Reapers Mark should give stability. Marks should work more like wells in that you lay them and they give the effect instead of having to be triggered.

Edit: One trait that really bugs me is Spiteful Vigor. Gain Retaliation for 5 seconds when using a heal. Vigor IS IN THE NAME! GIVE US VIGOR!. Even if its a measly 5 seconds every 25-30 seconds, it is still at least one source of Vigor. Or make it grant 3 seconds of Vigor when leaving DS. Even though there are like 10 traits that have “when leaving DS”, its still a source of Vigor, and we desperately need Vigor.

KarlaGrey.5903:

You cannot properly fix this class by listening to WvW players.

ManaCraft.5630:

As a WvW player, the above posts by Zzod pretty much explain why I abandoned the class long ago

lol
Also, in WvW necros are a lot stronger than in sPvP.

ManaCraft.5630:

What worries me the most, though, is the disparity that seems to exist between the actual state of the Necromancer and A.Net’s perception of the class.

I don’t think it’s wise to assume what anet’s perception of anything is.
And let’s not forget that there is also a big disparity in what a skilled player can do with one of the few viable tPvP builds out there in a premade team and the broad mass of players that might use subpar builds and/or don’t have the same skill lvl as the top tournament population.

ManaCraft.5630:

This thread explains, point by point, why that is not the case.

I already argued against most of the points in my earlier post, expect maybe the mobility and boon access issues. This truly is a shortcoming that seems unfair sometimes when compared to other classes. But that has already been discussed in hundreds of other threads in this subforum.

Just to complete the list:

Interrupted channeling attacks… really? That’s a problem that only necromancers have?? You can’t be serious about this one.

The aoe pressure:
This depends on the build, really.
But let’s assume that necros actually had the ability to reset fights and had more access to stability, vigor, aegis and what not… then we could potentially outdamage every other class aoe-wise by far. The only thing standing in our way atm is that we can be interrupted and distracted from dishing out as much pain as we could undisturbed.

flow.6043:

But let’s assume that necros actually had the ability to reset fights and had more access to stability, vigor, aegis and what not… then we could potentially outdamage every other class aoe-wise by far. The only thing standing in our way atm is that we can be interrupted and distracted from dishing out as much pain as we could undisturbed.

How exactly could Necro out damage every other class by far? Lets assume you are in a 3v3 perpetually just to give your argument the potential to hold water. Epidemic would require actually hitting the target (which rarely happens due to the long cast). Wells do kitten damage on long CD and ar countered by … not standing in them… so it isn’t that. Marks are on too long a CD to do this kind of damage and staff 1 hits about 1 in 5 against anyone that has a mind to avoid it. Scepter 2 and Dagger 5 don’t ever hit either due to dreadfully slow animations. Perhaps against a collection of stationary targets Necro would have great AoE damage potential, but all of the weapon skills have miserable base damage (save dagger 1 which is not AoE), and the bleed stacks that can be applied on an AoE are easily dodged, plus if you do manage to stack 7+ bleeds on an opponent they will just cleanse, and possibly AoE cleanse if you did manage to hit more than 1 of the opponent. As a general rule when a single condition cleanse goes off it will get your bleeds 70+% of the time due to the frequency with which you apply them.

In short, the potential for great AoE damage from a highly sustainable necro is an illusion. In threory there is potential there, but in practice it is all easily mitigated.

I had to put in my 2 cents here about axe. As a Axe MH user i would have to agree with what zzod said the interrupts are rediculous and its not even the knockdowns or dazes that are giving me the most trouble but rather positioning is axe #2 worst enemy. You truly have to commit to positioning yourself correctly to get the full channel time on this ability or run the risk of having a player move behind you or far enough to your side causing you to turn and interrupt your own ability, not only that but wh daze, doom, spectral grasp and golem charge are practically needed to make axe work. 1 dodge cancels out the whole ability as well, Ive had players dodge towards me to cancel my attack only to have my axe spinning in their face dealing no damage.

I agree with most of this post

These are my thoughts

Change necros downed state fear to an aoe ability.

Healing gear applies to life siphon builds and traits that affect life stealing

Reduce minion summoning times by 20%
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Death shroud

Healing either applies to normal state or applies to life force in death shroud

Death shroud grants 3 seconds of stability

Remove both the 50% reduction death shroud trait and the stability trait.

Leaving death shroud grants 5 seconds of swiftness

Death shroud 1- increase the cast speed by 15-25%.

Death shroud 2- change this to a shadow step like teleport with aoe chill.

Ok so this would solve alot of our problems technically and would be available to all builds, there would be a dramatic increase in mobility
having 5 seconds of swiftness and a teleport would be a great option as well as having 3 seconds of stability as a norm would be great.

On initial inspections this might seem too powerful and perhaps it is maybe increasing the cool down on deathshourd to 12 seconds might be needed option
but it is highly unlikely that you will be able to go in and out of death shroud every 10 secs mainly due to the life force it requires and while other classes can push a utility at any time and bam stability you would either need to manage your death shroud more effectively so you can time the stability or miss out on it when you need it.

and the other point is while it may be accessed theoretically more often then other classes the stability they have often last 8-10 seconds which is plenty of time for ressing or stomping 3 seconds is not.

Swiftness is again a short duration other classes often have longer durations.

And then there is the teleport option, but could be used to close and gain distances great for mobility and would sync well with the swiftness once you leave ds.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

*Staff *

Staff 1 ability- increase the speed of casting by 20-30%

Remove the trait greater marks this becomes standard

Axe

Axe 1- increase the damage/ add random condition/cleave or bounce

War horn

remove the cool down trait and make this default

Utilities

spectral armour- reduce cool down to 45- grants x amount of seconds of vigour as well as protection

signet of spite- remove conditions associated with it, instead adds a de buff that increases damage from all sources by x %

corrosive poison cloud- rework this

This is the basic stuff they could do that would improve the class a lot.
This is where I start talking out loud.

Come to the realization axe is not a power weapon dagger has taken that mantle.

Switch daggers chain with axe’s chain ability

Move all trait abilities to do with daggers to spite and all axe abilities to blood magic.(axe training becomes tier 2)

All of a sudden spite is not full of useless talents.

And it kind of makes more sense builds that want to survive( minions and life siphon- will have a weapons that cripple and causes retaliation, steals life and if you take my advice from above applies a random condition.

I think the above opens up a lot of different build options, power necro’s have access to better movement and cool downs for dagger if they decide to take them, and minion life steal builds have better options as well.

I could go on but ill leave it there

One good thread with good points.
I agree on the most parts, but I also want to say that we need more access to Boons in general.
As someone said in this post, ALL marks need a 2nd ability on them, just like mark of blood that gives regeneration.
E.G.
Reapers mark, it has a HUGE cooldown(40s) for a 1 second fear,while a warrior can fear you for up to 3 seconds instantly with the double cooldown(which equals to 1,5 sec of fear per 40s)
A ranger’s Wolf can fear you for 2 seconds on a 45 seconds cooldown.
A thief can steal a 3 seconds fear from a necro(!) on 45 seconds cooldown.
You get the point, we are the most “Terrifying” proffesion in the game and nobody fears us.
To the point,instead of just the “fear” on the mark, should be giving an amount of time in either Vigor or Stability.
You fear your targets for 1 second,and you give 3 seconds of stability to your allies.On a 40s CD it’s not OP at all, but it would be worthy, while as it is right now, reaper’s mark is just there to interupt finishes.
The same way Chilblains should be giving vigor to you and your allies,maybe putrid mark should also be stealing some enemy buffs.

Our mobility it’s not bad, but it’s not good either.
We have some sources for swiftness,we have a 2nd health bar that can teleport you away(skill 2), a flesh wurm that can be killed for a 1200 teleport,and ontop of that we have quite a few chills/cripples/blinds that we can throw to our enemy and make our escape.

We have a lot of skills that need to be changed,one of them is Spectral Grasp.It is good to pull your foe on you and damage him with your dagger,also having him chilled and knocked down.Also it gives you a nice 10% of LF.
Too bad there are more useful utilities that you can grab, like a well that will offer you a good burst, or a spectral armor that will offer you protection and same or even more LF than grasp.

What Spectral Grasp needs is an amount of damage(e.g like Staff auto attack damage)
and the ability to teleport to the “Hand” if it doesn’t hit any targets.
Also the fact that is a projectile requires you to have mastered the “Hook” ability of Pudge the butcher in DotA .

Anyway in general, I believe we are a proffesion that needs a lot of tuning, but with caution,because we can easily turn OP.

I’d love to see changes to the class, im currently playing engi for the past 2 weeks since ive just had enough of the necro, I dont have alot of pvp experience, only wvw where i solo roam most of the time hoping for duels. I agree with every point about how the current necro is so useless i’m suprised it made it past beta.
A change i’d like to see to warhorn would be for #4 to be a push back rather than daze.
vigour given to use via talents instead of skills.
a form of stability on skills instead of talents.
a change to lifeforce, i hate how it takes so long to get a full bar but when attacked it empties in seconds.
a GOOD ds #5 skill instead of another kitten like most of what we have.
worm changed to a teleport instead of minion since who really runs it in an mm build (+ it dies in seconds >>)

uggh i can think of so many things but i really do think there’s no point in posting anymore, not like anet actually acts on anything we need other than kittenty mm buffs which fail.

The sceptor 2 misunderstanding always makes me raise and eye-brow at these kind of posts. A really informed condition user would know that skill provides 3 bleeds, and someone who looked at the tooltip would think otherwise. This leads me to believe he apparently hasn’t spent that much time playing sceptor. I actually never noticed the tooltip was wrong, I should pay more attention I guess.

I agree with the staff cooldowns trait. Once you have burned your long cooldown staff marks, 20% reduction does nothing for you. You HAVE to swap out at that point, and you won’t want to swap back till all 4 marks are back up. I can stand to wait an extra 10 seconds for that to happen to avoid 10 more points in the garbage tree.

I agree completely with the trait trees, but I am sure that has been beat to death. Basically the curses tree is the only one that I find to be very well minor traited, thought the blood tree would be okay as well, if healing had some effect on DS. I cannot agree enough with the 25 point trait in the power tree, compared to so many other 25 point traits….. it is by far the most useless and lackluster that we have. The minion tree and its force summoned minion which 90% of the clkittenes, yet remains the same…..

All in all it is a fine post…. I tend to agree with the lack of boons in any build, and the lack of stability is annoying, but something most of us have gotten used to. The lack of stability is more of an pv kitten ue in either case. Our stun breakers are pretty horrible, and do not have (good) dual purposes like so many other great stunbreakers that the other classes get (like blink).

flow.6043:

lol
Also, in WvW necros are a lot stronger than in sPvP.

Hm? Claiming that some of the problems also extend to the WvW format is not the same as asking that the game be balanced based on WvW. In fact, since I agree that the Necro is generally in a better place in WvW (depending on the type of engagement), I certainly hope they don’t.

flow.6043:

I don’t think it’s wise to assume what anet’s perception of anything is.

Well, I wrote that particular comment, as I explained, based on an old SotG cast I heard. I can’t be bothered to dig up the exact source though, so feel free to ignore it if you wish.

flow.6043:

But let’s assume that necros actually had the ability to reset fights and had more access to stability, vigor, aegis and what not…

I don’t think the Necro needs the ability to disengage. I do, however, believe we need some actual staying power so that we might become the attrition-based class A.Net wants us to be.

- Mana

Some of these points are good, some of them are just not well thought out, and then some are flat out false.

We have poor mobility by design. Complaining about our poor mobility is like a thief complaining that they are insanely squishy when caught out of stealth, or an ele complaining they can only equip one weapon. Also, plenty of people find space for Spectral Walk on their toolbar, including high level players.

Want area damage? One word: Epidemic. Epidemic has the highest damage potential of every ability in the entire game. A single good Epidemic (and they can be hard to land without coordination) will wreck an entire team. Engi grenades are more reliable, whereas Epi is much less reliable, but when we work, we work much better for that pressure (and if you really want fun, put an Engi with a Necro).

Also, someone went through and counted actual AoE abilities. Necromancers have an overwhelming number of them. The only problem right now is that a single build (HGH) has a very strong setup that is more reliable at doing AoE damage.

I’ve talked about traits before. While our traits are questionable as to their usefulness, they are in the right spot. Use staff for an example. Want more damage on your marks? Go into the direct damage line. Want more LF for DS? Go into the DS line. Want core improvements to staff? Then go to the staff line.

Wells are in the Blood Magic tree (as they synergize with daggers and life stealing, also in that tree), with ranged wells (useless to dagger users going into blood magic) in Curses, where a ranged player would be going.

Bhawb.7408:

Wells are in the Blood Magic tree (as they synergize with daggers and life stealing, also in that tree), with ranged wells (useless to dagger users going into blood magic) in Curses, where a ranged player would be going.

Ranged wells are useless to Dagger users? As one who would opt for a Dagger/Focus Staff, with a Siphon/Wells build, I find your remarks both outrageous and silly.

Strictly from the idea of someone main-handing dagger, it doesn’t fit with the idea. I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t take it as a power dagger build, but it fits much more with a ranged setup than it does with dagger.

a power dagger build , who’s dagger traits are not in the power tree meaning shouldnt it not be a power weapon based on your logic?

First of all, what Bhawb said.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Epidemic would require actually hitting the target (which rarely happens due to the long cast).
…
Scepter 2 and Dagger 5 don’t ever hit either due to dreadfully slow animations.

It’s not really fair to discount a theoretical scenario on the basis that a skill is going to miss. And in reality those skills are nowhere near as unlikely to hit as your dreadful depiction of them makes them out to be.
But since we’re at it, and the original comment was comparing to engis, the very same thing could be said about their granades.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

In short, the potential for great AoE damage from a highly sustainable necro is an illusion. In threory there is potential there, but in practice it is all easily mitigated.

The illusion is that in a group fight your opponents could cleanse conditions as often as your team reapplies them. 7+ stacks of bleeding is nothing in a 3v3.

Rennoko.5731:

I agree with the staff cooldowns trait. Once you have burned your long cooldown staff marks, 20% reduction does nothing for you. You HAVE to swap out at that point, and you won’t want to swap back till all 4 marks are back up. I can stand to wait an extra 10 seconds for that to happen to avoid 10 more points in the garbage tree.

This might be true for most players, but for a staff build Staff Mastery is invaluable. It literally wouldn’t work without this trait, so in that sense the 20% reduction does everthing for you.

Im not going to go into too much, but I have to make this remark as it confuses me: Why are some of our skill CDs so high and no vigor? After playing both Mesmer and Warrior, It is kind of crazy to think that our Elite skills and well CDs are so long. I haven’t been playing the mesmer at 80 too long, but its crazy that their Null field is 45s untraited AND you can ground target it. I do know that our Well of power does damage, but its still silly.

edit: sorry, wrong well. I meant Well of corruption does damage. Well of power Is the one that gives boons, not rips off them and converts. granted, it does do have a good place, but they have a skill that cleanses and rips boons instantly after hitting the wall.

gosh, I should drink my coffee, I sound dumb in the morning.

The biggest problem with this thread and the necromancer on a whole is that ANet doesn’t give a rat’s azs

@Loyo, different balance for different classes. Null field is also notably different than WoP, which converts conditions to boons. As for why no vigor, I think thats a question all Necros everywhere would love to know.

Bhawb.7408:

@Loyo, different balance for different classes. Null field is also notably different than WoP, which converts conditions to boons. As for why no vigor, I think thats a question all Necros everywhere would love to know.

This is true. I guess I should have woke up more a bit before I got to raging for a moment there. Sorry you had to see that train wreck. Honestly, though I think the class will be better off if we get vigor from somewhere. It doesn’t have to be from a skill, per ce. Maybe replace that minor trait reanimator with it. Thats how they did mesmers, giving them vigor on criticals on the first minor trait of dueling.

That and maybe add more combo finishers. I noticed after playing mesmer this also; they have leap finishers, blast and such on almost every weapon outside their scepter and focus. Life blast should atleast count as 20% , Axe 3 should be a blast also. we have alot of fields that would be awesome to use, but the most reliable finishers are either aquatic or staff. the other 2 are minions, which we have to sacrifice in able to use them.

I would go on about other things, but I feel that most of them have been mentioned already (reworking of traits, stability on lower trait tier, Death shroud wind up times, etc)

We definitely need some kind of vigor access, and it would make so much sense to just put it in the stead of reanimator.

I think we could use more combo finishers on underused weapons. MMs bring a ton of finishers, and many other utilities already have fields or don’t make sense to have finishers. So put it on Axe, for example. Make axe 3 a blast finisher. Make Dark Pact have a 2nd active that leaps the necro to the target. Just examples, but I think we need a little bit more on our weapons.

As a pve player:

Vigor, block, invul, aegis, stability, reflect
I really don’t know why they give us so few protecting options. We only have 3s protection via utility skill with trait with a superlong CD. And a pretty good regen. People say that’s becasue we have a second health bar. I wonder how many times DS can save you from lupi. Maybe twice. While other class just reflect, GS3, sword 2.

Damage. tbh, the higher fractal I get to, the more I feel like I’m leeching/being carried. I calculated the sustained damage people say about our condition build is about 2.xk dps but that number is just most warrior that can do with auto axe1 not mentioning zerker that does double of that.

Also someone mentioned gap closer elsewhere. Although probably not as important as in pvp and I never played melee (I planned to), that’s something definitely lacking.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

In short, the potential for great AoE damage from a highly sustainable necro is an illusion. In threory there is potential there, but in practice it is all easily mitigated.

This is really what says it all imo. I think if more people factored in the in-game element they can see how most necros are upset. A hotjoin (as stated prev) won’t give the accurate depiction. It’s only in tPvP where opponents not only are aware of necro’s complete lack of things like mobility or stability but will take full advantage of it.

Axe 2 animation? They will interrupt it if they have the means available (will is a strong word btw. Necros have no counter to CC besides the 30 pt for 3 seconds which if even traited will 99.9% not help in this scenario)

Downing enemies? not an easy task.. (not nearly as easy as other profs)

Anyways.. i could probably go on but its not like it will make much of a difference. I still like the necro and hope it does get more attention. :P

Not trying to be argumentative, but it appears we have a disagreement in princple about a few things, and I would like to clarify my points in order to further the discussion.

flow.6043:

First of all, what Bhawb said.

If you are referring to Bhawb’s statement about Epidemic, then we have no argument. Yes, this skill has AMAZING potential to wreck in team fights, however it requires team work to be effective, specifically in the form of team mates with better condition diversity and as such is more of a DPS support utility that is reliant on synergy. It is a crutch that makes possibly considering the use of a Necromancer not entirely crazy rather than addressing the deficiencies of the profession.

If you are referring to the statement about volume of AoE attacks (which Necro does have a large number of) then I disagree with the logic. Necro has a large number of AoE attacks, yes, but any that apply a condition that is not bleeding or cripple have long cd’s (or short duration or both) and long cast times by comparison to other classes. This makes the bleeds especially subject to easy cleansing since they are reapplied most frequently via both Scepter 1 and Staff 2 and they are the most common on other AoE’s as well. This ease of cleansing makes it statisticlly certain that cleanses will mitigate the output of your AoE’s (thus rendering the number of them irrelevant). The way to reduce this impact is to have teammates that have better condition diversity, but now you are being carried by something else in your comp that is inherently superior in condition application. It isn’t that Necro is bad at condition damage, but rather that other classes (not even just engi) are better.

flow.6043:

It’s not really fair to discount a theoretical scenario on the basis that a skill is going to miss. And in reality those skills are nowhere near as unlikely to hit as your dreadful depiction of them makes them out to be.
But since we’re at it, and the original comment was comparing to engis, the very same thing could be said about their granades.

We will have to agree to disagree on this. I consider this discussion to be about balance (at least to some extent), and when thinking about it this way I belive that it is absolutely necessary to consider the statistical probability that a skill will be blocked, evaded, etc. Also, while I agree that grenades are inhernetly easy to dodge they are also spammable and therefore cannot be consistently mitigated that way that Scepter 2 and Dagger 5 can be, because attempting to dodge nades will consume all available endurance quickly, while dodging the Necro combination doesn’t even require vigor to be up.

flow.6043:

The illusion is that in a group fight your opponents could cleanse conditions as often as your team reapplies them. 7+ stacks of bleeding is nothing in a 3v3.

This is turning the discussion to be about a team comp rather than about Necromancer specifically. I agree with you that if you build a comp to overpower condition cleansing then you will be able to stack up condi’s and that 7 bleeds is nothing. My argument is more to the point that if your intent is to build a comp to this end, then using a Necromancer is not as good as using other professions, and therefore the Necro should be brought up to par with the other professions.

Its nice to know I’m not the only person who thinks necro staff is lackluster. I’ve always felt that staff was a bad weapon. Not because its abilities are bad, they’re good in fact. Its the auto attack that makes this weapon terrible. Once you use your marks, you’re stuck with a very bad auto attack that makes you feel like it was a mistake to have weapon swapped in the first place.

Axe suffers from the same problem and has already been discussed above. Doesn’t know what it wants to be, etc.

Traits are another big mess. They’re spread all over the place. When I look at another classes trait trees its very obvious the weapon traits belong where they’re placed. Necros have dagger in the vitality tree for crying out loud. A power weapon… in the healing tree. Ugh, so bad.

Wells have no clear singular focus. They each bring something completely different to the table, so I understand why they seem a little spread out, but its extremely hard to trait for wells when they’re in a tree everyone regards as poop.

Staff 1: Spectral Beam.

Shoot a spectral beam at your foe and burn them, the beam from caster to target also hits up to 2 additional foes on its path.
Damage: (3x): 201
Burning: 1 s (328 damage)
Range: 1,200

Spectral Attunement – Spectral skills have longer durations and grant life force on use.
(This makes the burning last 0.5s longer, and each hit grants 1% lifeforce.)

The Necromancer staff deserves a decent condition autoattack, burning suits it well since it does not interfere with other things the necromancer can bring to the table.

Daecollo.9578:

Staff 1: Spectral Beam.

Shoot a spectral beam at your foe and burn them, the beam from caster to target also hits up to 2 additional foes on its path.
Damage: (3x): 201
Burning: 1 s (328 damage)
Range: 1,200

Spectral Attunement – Spectral skills have longer durations and grant life force on use.
(This makes the burning last 0.5s longer, and each hit grants 1% lifeforce.)

The Necromancer staff deserves a decent condition autoattack, burning suits it well since it does not interfere with other things the necromancer can bring to the table.

Beam, Yes, please. If you just gave staff 1 a beam function like Mesmer GS1 it would fix the flight time issue and make it not so terribad.

Putting a piercing perma-burn on an auto attack is a bit overboard though. The game would become “roll necro, give him staff + condi amulet, win”. Doesn’t sound like fun.

You can’t just copy the mesmers flavor. Necromancers are a condition class regardless of what anyone says. They “are” the condition class.

Burning is exactly what spectral attacks need. Granted not as much as other classes.

I mean, how would necromancer auto-win with a little burning?

Daecollo.9578:

You can’t just copy the mesmers flavor. Necromancers are a condition class regardless of what anyone says. They “are” the condition class.

Burning is exactly what spectral attacks need. Granted not as much as other classes.

I mean, how would necromancer auto-win with a little burning?

Beam mechanics aren’t exclusive to Mesmer, so it isn’t copying Mesmer flavor, jut applying an already existing mechanic in place of a different one that is unique to Necromancer and broken.

A little burning wouldn’t be game breaking. The ability to burn for 1.5 seconds every .75 seconds ad infinitum, at 1200 range, piercing multiple targets (what you suggested) would be. That said, I don’t think Necro even needs burn access (Terror is our high value DoT). If necro had solid access to confusion, then it would probably be back on par with what other classes can do for DoT’s.

Mind Funeral:
After “Fear” ends the target gains ‘5’ stacks of confusion for 5 seconds.

Rangers can stack ‘2’ bleeds a second with there autoattack, staff burning would NOT be OP, it would be on-par with short bow’s autoattack.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Finally a message to the devs: You cannot properly fix this class by listening to the average necromancer player who does hotjoins and plays against weaker competition. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to PVE players. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to WvW players. Finally, you CANNOT fix this class by loading up your own necromancers and hopping into a hotjoin (like I have seen you post about) and test stuff out. Why is this? The reason is because the weaknessess of necromancer are not PUNISHED and EXPOSED until you bring your necromancer into the TPVP scene and face the best players and teams. And that is why the necromancer needs to be fixed so that it has the adequate tools to be able to handle its role in that spectrum.

Nonsense. This isn’t a tPvP-only game and it isn’t just played by the 100 best players in the world.

The Necromancer needs to be as balanced as possible for as many skill levels as possible in as many game modes as possible. So the devs need to listen to EVERYONE, consider their options, and choose what’s best for the largest number of people without screwing over niche groups (like top-tier tPvP players).

I dont think we need more stability, there is too much in the game as it is.

If anything they need to scale it down across the board to be more in line with ours.

^x2
agree. It’s just different in each aspect of balancing. Fixing something in tpvp may break something in wvw. They said they’re gonna separate the skills but iirc there was so few in last month’s patch.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Finally a message to the devs: You cannot properly fix this class by listening to the average necromancer player who does hotjoins and plays against weaker competition. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to PVE players. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to WvW players. Finally, you CANNOT fix this class by loading up your own necromancers and hopping into a hotjoin (like I have seen you post about) and test stuff out. Why is this? The reason is because the weaknessess of necromancer are not PUNISHED and EXPOSED until you bring your necromancer into the TPVP scene and face the best players and teams. And that is why the necromancer needs to be fixed so that it has the adequate tools to be able to handle its role in that spectrum.

You have valid points on many things.But the way to fix a class on a x-PVX game is not to focus on neither tPVP-sPVP-PVE-WvW and make adjustments based on one segment that affect all.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. We need to be more squeaky so the devs will at least give us a response to let us know they are working on giving Necromancer a helping hand. I will be satisfied just knowing they see the class has issues holding it back.

^
“It’s on our radar.”

and the next patch:
Grasping Dead skill: Updated the skill fact to the correct number of bleedings.

OP is mostly on the right. They should staple this post to the wall where the devs discuss balance.

Some of our cast times need to come down, not only to help us be more reactive and skill based, but it would just make the profession a lot more fun not to feel like you are operating through molasses vs many others.

Life steal needs to scale with healing and just get buffed up in general, as that is the only mechanic I see we already have to really help our sustain. Unless they are going to start giving us a lot more boon access, but don’t see a rework like that in the cards.

Some kind of better disengage/mobility improvement, even on long CD, would work wonders as well. So the class is more self sustaining and not reliant on, or a burden to, teammates so much when focused.

More ideally, they would start to rethink Death Shroud entirely. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for skillful play with the limited 4 abilities once you are in it, its just too simple. It’s history as a downed state is painfully obvious. The 5th skill can hope to help this, but solve entirely seems a stretch.

I think it is well recognised that we lack, among other things, mobility, stability and vigor but all the "what-ifs’ and “what-abouts” will get nowhere as the devs will just say “but you have DS” (whether relevant or not to the case in hand)….and we have NO answer to that even though we know it DOES NOT compensate for our shortcomings.

With such a fragmented sniping on individual issues we will always be subject to the “DS” comment/dismissal/out from the devs until we can PROVE that it does not make up for our shortcomings…how we do that I have no idea…that needs to be tackled by players much more skilled than me.

And I don’t know how we can overcome this as the devs themselves cetainly do not appear inclined to take a holistic view of the Necro….they just seem too focused on individual issues to see the forest so to speak.

Death Shroud is an attrition mechanic yet does not work well with our main attrition build (conditionmancer). That was very poor design. Nor do you easily generate LF in most condition builds. Our power builds are our burst builds, yet those are the ones that generate LF the best.

Necromancers are a condition class.

Daecollo.9578:

Necromancers are a condition class.

And that’s a problem. If that’s really the case, fix the cap, fix the damage. It is the condition class because other main hand weapons have their own problem. Our staff just can’t be a standalone weapon. Our dagger don’t cleave. Our axe don’t hurt/range. That leaves us our only decent weapon but the damage is just small in PVE end game.

As a condition-mancer (it’s all I’ve ever played) I agree with much of what KarlaGrey said.

After casting a rotation of marks, I really don’t have much to do until Mark of Blood is off cooldown.

I don’t have too much of a problem with this, since I tend to cast MoB at people and then run away, but it gets dull real fast, and it’s silly just how bad staff #1 is for condition-mancers.

Scepter #1 does attack too slowly, and it should at least be increased to be on par with a hunters shortbow. If not as fast, it should be made as viable, and the poison doesn’t last nearly long enough.

I also find the utility skills severely lacking. Blood is Power is ok. It’s a decent damage boost on a short cooldown, but what else is there?

The nerf to Epidemic was completely unjustified. Guards, wariors, eles, thieves… they all have an AoE build that is superior to ours. In order for a necromancer to compete, they desperately cling to Epidemic, but now that it’s blockable, dodgeable and requires line-of-sight, is it really worth it?

It’s still on everyone’s toolbar, so the dev’s think it’s still great, but it’s only there because there’s nothing better.

…but at the end of the day, I do WvW, and a condition-mancer is flipping worthless when it comes time to take down a ram, or an arrowcart.

….and when people continue to say necros are good for wall fights in WvW, when we can’t even damage an arrowcart, I can only assume that those people work for Anet, and get paid to post nice things on the forums.

…and one more thing. Why don’t we have any regen?

Ezeriel.9574:

As a condition-mancer (it’s all I’ve ever played) I agree with much of what KarlaGrey said.

After casting a rotation of marks, I really don’t have much to do until Mark of Blood is off cooldown.

Well, you could flash into DS for a quick Fear or some Life Blasts (which deal good damage even when speced for conditions), or you could switch to your other weapon set, or if your utilities are off cooldown you could bust of them. Staff 1 is pretty bad, though. I mostly use it for the Life Force.

Ezeriel.9574:

I also find the utility skills severely lacking. Blood is Power is ok. It’s a decent damage boost on a short cooldown, but what else is there?

Corrupt Conditions is flipping amazing. It combos really well with Epidemic as well.

Ezeriel.9574:

The nerf to Epidemic was completely unjustified. Guards, wariors, eles, thieves… they all have an AoE build that is superior to ours. In order for a necromancer to compete, they desperately cling to Epidemic, but now that it’s blockable, dodgeable and requires line-of-sight, is it really worth it?

Not blockable anymore (they reverted that nerf already). Regardless, it has a pretty low cooldown so missing one isn’t that big a deal in WvW.

Signet of the Locust is really great. You don’t know what you’re missing until you play a Mesmer or Gaurdian who lack easy access to permaswiftness,

Signet of Undeath isn’t amazing overall but it has a notable lower cast time than other res skills, it’s AoE, and the passive is neither so bad that it’s useless nor so amazing that you can’t use the skill. In some dungeons, it can be very helpful. The first time I fought Lupi, for example, I did it with a team of complete idiots and Signet of Undeath really helped me compensate for their sluggishness with dodging.

Spectral Grasp doesn’t sound that great but it’s basically an insta-kill in WvW if your zerg is around.

Minion skills are underrated. The AI absolutely needs to be fixed and the skills could really use a few other QoL buffs but minion masters are a lot better in many situations than people give them credit for.

The Well skills cane be very useful too. The blind spam from Well of Darkness can make killing mobs much easier.

The others probably have their niche though I don’t use them very much. Signet of the Locust is on my by 95% of the time and I generally use Epidemic+Corrupt Boon in WvW and BiP + Well of Darkness in PvE, which other changes made depending on the circumstances.

Ezeriel.9574:

….and when people continue to say necros are good for wall fights in WvW, when we can’t even damage an arrowcart, I can only assume that those people work for Anet, and get paid to post nice things on the forums.

Actually, with Life Transfer, DS 4 not only hits structures pretty hard but it also heals your allies, and DS 1 hits structures pretty hard too (you can then switch to Staff and autoattack for a little while to build up Life Force again).

However, when people say Necros are good at wall fights, what they mean is how we can drop Marks on the top of the wall to pressure defenders away. Plenty of professions excel at PvD but the Necro can bedevil a defending force better than most.

Ezeriel.9574:

…and one more thing. Why don’t we have any regen?

Other than the near-permaregen from Mark of Blood? I’d imagine it’s because we have so many ways of siphoning life (which needs to be given a Healing Power ratio, but conceptually that’s probably why).

Life Blast is not good damage as a Rabid Condition build. It is our best way to kill structures/siege, but it is not anywhere close to “good”. You would be better off slotting a dagger in full rabid gear and slashing at it. DS1 is incredibly bad for condition necro, though 2 and 3 and even 4 to a certain degree are quite good. But not 1.

I also disagree on epidemic being so hard to hit, and that justifed by a short cooldown. I have all but given up trying to transfer more than 5 conditions from an active player, because they get so flighty with dodges/leaps/invulns when they are up around 10 bleeds. If I epidemic early, I can at least get a few bleeds spread.

It more or less must be used on pets or downed players to avoid it being wasted. It has a short cooldown yes, but it is situational. You need someone with good conditions on them, in range, not invuln, nearby to other players, etc… Not to mention you may do everything right, and they just land their cleanse right before your epi, or they go down right before your epi and whiff.

Afya.5842:

Our staff just can’t be a standalone weapon.

Really? This again? For the 50th time: yes, it can.

Ezeriel.9574:

…but at the end of the day, I do WvW, and a condition-mancer is flipping worthless when it comes time to take down a ram, or an arrowcart.

….and when people continue to say necros are good for wall fights in WvW, when we can’t even damage an arrowcart, I can only assume that those people work for Anet, and get paid to post nice things on the forums.

Because clearly the best WvW players are those who can take down arrowcarts the quickest.
Also, what kind of wall fights are you fighting? How can there be an arrowcart that could be destroyed if you had more direct damage at your disposal?