Guild Wars 2

Elvahaduken.3609:

well last nights tourny had 1 necro, and im pretty sure TP was just trolling for 3rd place, also he got downed many times and fast, couldnt do anything about it, yes its great that he could dps from a distance, but as soon as anyone blinked at him he died.
(talking about symbolic)

I hope that since jon peters was watching that he can see that necromancers need changes, along with warriors though i dont know much about them. Also for the argument that no one is bringing a necro because they don’t want to build around them, think of what you lose for bringing a necro into the team, in a game of capping points a necro isnt that great.

Exactly here is problem , necro is support group role but people don`t want it because he is useless for them . Everyone prefers true dps, tank or ranger who can stand behind group and deal huge amount of damage+condi . Here small bonus (screenshot). Party
2 guards , elem but not 2 necros . Hell no everything but not necro .Second easy fract but guard refused party with 2 necros . I wanna just ask question to all necromancers . If you could reverse time , would you choose necro second time or something different but no necro .

Flowerpower.6795:

The Moment i got chaos armor by using a steal and heartseeker in the tutorial.. with only my first 2 abilitys ready and even twisting fangs not ready i thought something like: kitten . wasted over 700hours on my necro"

Spectral Wall + Putrid Mark. The access is a little trickier. But it’s aoe-chaos-armor and I use it all the time in WvW.

Kravick.4906:

2 bad players can easily stomp a good necro. Necromancers do not have the tools to last in attrition or 1vX fights.

Panhauramix.2784:

and still have trouble handling 2-3 good upleveled in WvW

Even for a necro 2-3 upleveled or 2 bad players are not a problem.

Kravick.4906:

However, you will never see a Guardian, Warrior, Necromancer, Ranger, Engineer, or Elementalist be able to do this except against the most amazingly bad of opponents. This is why it is a terrible benchmark for anything but a thief build, because thieves, and to a lesser degree mesmers, are the only professions capable of doing this.

This is amazingly wrong on every point.

This is indeed wrong. Necros are the worst at handling outnumbered situations. And there really are a lot of videos of rangers, engis… but first and foremost elementalists who fight 5+ people for 10 min without dying.

Bhawb.7408:

And frankly, every 1vX video is a showing just as much of how terrible their opponents are as to how good they are. You will never see this happen when both sides are at a high level of play.

Yes, with equal skill/gear/lvl there simply is no 1vsX for any class.
But still, this just isn’t the reality of WvW.

KarlaGrey.5903:

description of necros by Jon sharp:

“The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights…”

… in 1v1s.
Against many opponents you’ll be able to mitigate the initial blow but there’s no way of recovering from that if the fight lasts longer.

Considering that, I wonder if necros were better of with an escape mechanism or with a way of recovering and staying alive mid fight. The latter would of course be more in line with the “attrition-class” theme, but then necros would be way overpowered in duels…
And with an escape mechanism… would necros be able to reset the fight and continue a 1vX? I still don’t see this happening, because we just can’t recover hp and life force fast enough.

Sorry Zzod, I somehow missed your post at first…

What do you mean that “having your marks on cooldown doesn’t mean you are reduced to just auto-attacking?” We have 4 marks and an auto-attack. If the marks are on cooldown, it means we just have an auto-attack left. What else are you doing with your staff?

I use a staff build. And with the way I picked traits and utilities, I can do a rotation with marks, utility skills and death shroud so that I rarely ever have to auto attack. And that only works because of Staff Mastery.

Zzod.5791:

Your point that Spiteful marks sucks and can “just forget it exists” doesn’t exactly serve to support the argument that our trait trees are fine. It should be changed and/or consolidated to actually do something useful (something that possibly affects both power and condition builds would be ideal).

It serves the purpose of showing that you don’t need every staff related trait to make the staff work. And Spiteful Marks is just one of those traits that you don’t pick either way, like so many other traits.

Zzod.5791:

If the traits were properly designed and though out, I should be faced with painful decisions as to what I should be choosing as my trait choices. I should have to do careful pro/con analysis with each trait choice to figure out which gives me maximum utility. Currently, there are way too many dominant choices (best choice for most or all situations) and too many dominated choices. (worst choice in most or all situations) This is the biggest issue plaguing lack of build diversity and its a class-wide problem.

If I didn’t have the context for this paragraph, I’d bet that it was about any class but the necro. We really are in a good place diversity-wise compared to other classes.
Could traits use impovement for even more build diversity? Absolutely.

Zzod.5791:

I realize that the Soul Marks trait affects life force gain, but I would argue it really is augmenting our staff because it is now adding a secondary effect to our staff abilities. Either way, whether you classify it as affecting our staff or whether your classification of “life force gain”, its a matter of semantics. The actual issue is that I need to spend 20 points accessing that tree to augment my staff, while other staff skills (even if they are weak), are located in 2 other trees. The first 10 point trait options in soul-reaping are all medicore and unwanted, and once I get 20 points into that tree, I would opt for the fear duration trait. So, basically, in actual practice, I have to spend 30 points to even access that trait AND at the cost of a grandmaster trait. Unrealistic and poorly designed. There needs to be consolidation.

I guess it is about semantics. But: The reason you go into Soul Reaping should never be for the sole purpose of getting more lf through marks. Much rather it should complement your gear, playstyle etc… and if you can pick up Soul Marks along the way then it’s a win-win.
Also (a little off topic), Master of Terror over Spiteful Marks might not be the obvious pick even in a Terror build. The whole life force you’ll get from Marks might be worth a lot more than the occasional extra fear tick.

About the 1vX against mass of Upleveleds (aka Zombies Rush) or plain 1vX: I have 4 80, necro is roughly 80% of total time played (+-1000 hours). The others share 5%, so I’m not experienced that much with them.

I love solo roaming, taking camps before the tally and the challenge of grabbing/defending camps when enemy players are there. And my success rate is not that bad. You can watch my videos if you wanna see the build/playstyle of how I play necro and see for yourself my “skill level”.

Yesterday, my necro kills every NPC in the camp while there’s one guy from X guild defending it. I even manage to down the guy, but backup comes (2 from same guild), I try to run but get eaten alive by the “mass”.

Then I decided to make a test. Those guys didnt want to budge from the camp (same 3) and I wanted data. I’ve logged on my mesmer, engi and guardian and tried to take the camp/stay alive while dealing with those 3.

On my guardian, I ate them for breakfast, I even get to stomp 2 while being under pressure and live to tell the tale. And I could get out of there too because of some Leap skills that can be used with no target, good timed blocks and permaswiftness.

On my mesmer, even easier, and I get a free Pass card if things goes ruff. Staff is amazing as a in-combat/escape tool, coupled with a 24 sec teleport (instant cast!!!). With 2 Invulnerable abilities on short cooldowns that still allow you to deal damage like crazy, what’s not to like. I’ve got out of the same type of situation that my necro couldn’t while killing 2 of them again.

On my HGH engi, a bit harder, but perma-swiftness, lots of conditions removal, Elixir S, Toolkit number #4, AoE conditions that hit hard and applies fast are all good tools to have against groups. I could just stomp one and had to run away, but I’m clearly not experienced with all the rotations yet.

I then logged back to my necro, tried it again for the heck of it, and the same guys ate me alive again. Even if we slot 3 stunbreakers, we’re the Ping-Pong class, and we only got one teleport that is on a 40 sec cooldown and normally needs to be precast in a direction that may not no longer suits your escape plan . And I abuse him like hell, but I still dont come close to the result of my others professions, against the same scenario.

I’m also almost done leveling a thief, and I would say that in this same situation I would’ve done way better than my necro and troll them to death.

Were my opponents really good? No. Not at all in fact. But WvW burst is so crazy that having no real way to target drop, no easy access to Protection, Block mechanic, the “Noob Cannons” turns us into ashes before we can react (with our long cast time). I do the same thing, always targeting the necro first and bursting him down. For an attrition class, things should definitely feel different.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Necromancer_traits; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_UzwdXK5CU and for lich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfE_Xu9H1Bw at 11ish minutes – just from beta 1 to 2, on the old press demo/alpha lich dropped a orb/urn that had around 50k hp (but low armor) and made lich immortal till destroyed (2 was a 3 second 1 minion spawn, 3 the vuln, 4 aura of chill, 5 aura of fear), DS let you absorb life force while in in and upon exiting worked like spectral walks second activation (you ported to where you entered DS).
Also we had pretty much permanent stability, perma retaliation, DS was a stun break and in addition to corruptions there were sacrifices that gave condition like effect for user hp, also like every 4th ability siphoned hp (as seeon on warhorn and staff in TBs video).

Also sweet old 50% damage reduction for 11 seconds on a 60 second cooldown from Sarmor…

flow.6043:

Flowerpower.6795:

The Moment i got chaos armor by using a steal and heartseeker in the tutorial.. with only my first 2 abilitys ready and even twisting fangs not ready i thought something like: kitten . wasted over 700hours on my necro"

Spectral Wall + Putrid Mark. The access is a little trickier. But it’s aoe-chaos-armor and I use it all the time in WvW.

I know that. It was just like how easy a thief can combo without other players. I once thought combos are for interactions with other players.. but it seems like the necro is the only one needing a second player to do this often.
I mean.. we got 3 good combos: spectral wall/ well of blood/chillblans + putrid mark. Maybe some more if u want to blind but only with putrid mark as a finisher.
Check out what a thief or mesmer can.. Mesmer for example got a leap finisher with staff on a 10sec cooldown. And the field on the same weapon on 35sec cd.
This way a mesmer can get aoe chaos armor more often, without using a utility slot and without an enemy that triggers putrid mark. Thats a lot stronger than your combo in wvw. Especially because chaos storm provides other people often with aegis multiple times..
I for example don’t understand why chaos storm has shorter casttime and cooldown than Reapers Mark. Don’t say because reapers mark is an interrupt skill. Magic Bullet has a cd near half as long as Reapers mark.. and ofcourse shorter casttime.

I think they simply should buff the Necromancer with some finishers + something to avoid damage on ds 5.

I mean does anyone understand why mirror blade is a 100% physical projectile finisher and reaper’s touch isn’t even a 20% chance physical projectile finisher?
I just don’t get it.

Panhauramix.2784:

Were my opponents really good? No. Not at all in fact. But WvW burst is so crazy that having no real way to target drop, no easy access to Protection, Block mechanic, the “Noob Cannons” turns us into ashes before we can react (with our long cast time). I do the same thing, always targeting the necro first and bursting him down. For an attrition class, things should definitely feel different.

I generally feel sorry for opposing Necros who haven’t come close to mastering their class, they are such easy kills, offer no deception, no escape, they just get run over. The game is not balanced at the top nor at the bottom, and Necros of all walks can point out the same flaws and weaknesess we have. But even if it were balanced for the top 5%, that still would not be good enough. The other 95% of the player base will judge a game based on their own experiences, not someone else’s, and their dollars and attention will follow.

Telling Johnny hot join or Joe WvW that its ok his class can be owned by a couple of noobs or up levels, because he doesn’t have the tools to deal with the situation, while his ele or thief friend can easily kill them, but its all ok because if those opponents were great, his friend would be dead too, is going to be slim solace to them.

Panhauramix.2784:

stuff…

Then I decided to make a test. Those guys didnt want to budge from the camp (same 3) and I wanted data. I’ve logged on my mesmer, engi and guardian and tried to take the camp/stay alive while dealing with those 3.

…more stuff

I’ve done this before with my thief, ranger, and engineer. My experience has been exactly the same as yours.

Andele.1306:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Necromancer_traits; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_UzwdXK5CU and for lich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfE_Xu9H1Bw at 11ish minutes – just from beta 1 to 2, on the old press demo/alpha lich dropped a orb/urn that had around 50k hp (but low armor) and made lich immortal till destroyed (2 was a 3 second 1 minion spawn, 3 the vuln, 4 aura of chill, 5 aura of fear), DS let you absorb life force while in in and upon exiting worked like spectral walks second activation (you ported to where you entered DS).
Also we had pretty much permanent stability, perma retaliation, DS was a stun break and in addition to corruptions there were sacrifices that gave condition like effect for user hp, also like every 4th ability siphoned hp (as seeon on warhorn and staff in TBs video).

Also sweet old 50% damage reduction for 11 seconds on a 60 second cooldown from Sarmor…

I remember some of the old beta videos of Necro’s doing amazing things with DS, taking on 5 players and out attritioning them all. Maybe Jon Peters thinks the mechanics are still like they were? In any event, it seems the Necro got hit with a massive nerf bat across the board late in development, and the game shipped without them ever getting fully tested and walked back up to an acceptable competitive level.

This thread just went all over the place… I had a hard time just reading everything that was posted because it seemed to follow no logical path…. almost like the entire necro forum started posting what was on their mind in here. I think that speaks volumes about the general opinion on the forums, which is a cross-section of the community as a whole.

I tend to think back to the number of times I have seen a necro in WvW, and not killed them, and honestly I can think of maybe one occasion ( a really good Swalk juke back down a cliff).

I hardly think it is an ability or skill ceiling problem that keeps us from playing and winning the 1vX fights, and don’t tell me only noobs lose in a 1vX fight on the X side, because that is not the case. There are plenty of builds that are designed to fight and win that scenario, whereas there are no necro builds that are designed to do that.

1. No complete combat break.
2. No reliable high healing outside of our 6 heal.
3. No reasonable uptime on protection.
4. No reasonable uptime on stability.
5. No access to evade outside of the dodge skill.

Since those 5 are really key in one or all parts to winning a 1vX, or at least not dying, we will likely never brute force our way through a reasonable matchup in that department.

WvW is a strange environment that encourages people to either polarize for the full zerg build, or the full roam build. Those full roam builds (troll thieves, trap rangers, D/D eles), tend to stomp all over 2, 3, even 4 players, because likely some or all of those are running zerg builds. Problem I have, is that even zerg build players will still handle a necro because of the lack of the above.

My personal feelings have always been that the sweet spot for the necro is in 3-5 man teams, fighting 5-10 man teams. In that scenario as a zerker with wells, or a condition necro with epidemic, you do very well.

Solo you are going to get gibbed a lot, not always, but a lot. Auto-cast zerker rangers, grouped with bad tank guardians are going to be able to kill you, which is something a roamer build wouldn’t have to worry about. There are plenty of ways to fix this, such as adjustments to how DS2 works, vigor, some sort of spot invis or portal, some healing/ds generation while in DS. I will contend that most necro issues are quality of life, but 1vX may just be beyond the design capability of the class.

Andele.1306:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Necromancer_traits; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_UzwdXK5CU and for lich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfE_Xu9H1Bw at 11ish minutes – just from beta 1 to 2, on the old press demo/alpha lich dropped a orb/urn that had around 50k hp (but low armor) and made lich immortal till destroyed (2 was a 3 second 1 minion spawn, 3 the vuln, 4 aura of chill, 5 aura of fear), DS let you absorb life force while in in and upon exiting worked like spectral walks second activation (you ported to where you entered DS).
Also we had pretty much permanent stability, perma retaliation, DS was a stun break and in addition to corruptions there were sacrifices that gave condition like effect for user hp, also like every 4th ability siphoned hp (as seeon on warhorn and staff in TBs video).

Also sweet old 50% damage reduction for 11 seconds on a 60 second cooldown from Sarmor…

(As a total)Necro was OP indeed, but most of the weapon skills make more sense to me as they where on march period..

Feast of corruption on Axe ? Makes sense.
Deathly Swarm on Scepter? Makes Perfect sense.
Unholy Feast on dagger ? Anytime !
Reaper’s touch on staff? God thats sweet.

I don’t get it , why staff should be an “All marks” weapon?
Name one other weapon that works this way, have you seen an “All Illusions” mesmer weapon? Have you seen an “All Stealth” thief weapon? Nop, because they don’t make sense! The build diversity starts from weapon skills !

Also wells lasting 8 seconds, that’s sweet.
What of the above is considered “OP” ? Why these things where changed ? For balancing purposes? ’Cause if balance is what they wanted, that is the negative opposite.

Andele.1306:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Necromancer_traits; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_UzwdXK5CU and for lich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfE_Xu9H1Bw at 11ish minutes – just from beta 1 to 2, on the old press demo/alpha lich dropped a orb/urn that had around 50k hp (but low armor) and made lich immortal till destroyed (2 was a 3 second 1 minion spawn, 3 the vuln, 4 aura of chill, 5 aura of fear), DS let you absorb life force while in in and upon exiting worked like spectral walks second activation (you ported to where you entered DS).
Also we had pretty much permanent stability, perma retaliation, DS was a stun break and in addition to corruptions there were sacrifices that gave condition like effect for user hp, also like every 4th ability siphoned hp (as seeon on warhorn and staff in TBs video).

Also sweet old 50% damage reduction for 11 seconds on a 60 second cooldown from Sarmor…

Oh my god… what the hell happened? Those historical traits sound absolutely amazing! Skills that sacrifice health? A trait that allowed your staff to track its target? Why was this scrapped?

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

Dang.

Those were changed because not having a Necro on your team and going against a Necro meant you might as well just sit in base and let them win. We had the damage of a backstab thief that could use 100b while moving, with the defenses of a guardian and ele combined. It was stupidly OP.

On a side note though, bring back some of those skills. At least a few of them are incredibly more interesting than some of the stuff we have now (wtb Jagged Horrors on dodge)

A) Necro was 4th most op class back in the days, as in balanced in comparison *cough ranger shortbow spirit setup with more hp on attack than can be delt because of 66%+ protection uptime, it only turned broken when the first 3 got nerfed down and then perma DS became a thing and when people didnt focus Phylactery *since traits and armor stats didnt work with transforms back in the days... well up to a point in live actually but who cares*
B) I actually like having all marks on Staff, it was way too confusing trying to theorycraft if mark taits were worth it. Also D/P is all stealth setup, Shortbow is the thiefs overall utility weapon.
C) Thing was and still is, old effects/mechanics need to get back in with current numbers (they were too stronk for poor pleb professions with our utility) or old numbers *cough 4k non crit Life blast that degens to 2k with each 10% being 10% damage loss not kitten on 50% LF* with current mechanics.

Bhawb.7408:

Those were changed because not having a Necro on your team and going against a Necro meant you might as well just sit in base and let them win. We had the damage of a zerker warrior that could use 100b while moving, with the defenses of a guardian and ele combined. It was stupidly OP.

On a side note though, bring back some of those skills. At least a few of them are incredibly more interesting than some of the stuff we have now (wtb Jagged Horrors on dodge)

Fixed thief to warrior and old guardian, old ranger and old mesmer were way more tanky/took less while dealing nice amounts of damage (well the press demo ones), its just noone could regen their hp as necros could.

I would love to see some of the old mechanics back. There are a fair number of traits that we could get rid of currently (Spite Minor Grandmaster, Curses I, Death Magic Minor Adept + Master and IX, Blood Magic I and X, Soul Reaping II and V; all pretty much useless utilities), and then replace with far more interesting traits/mechanics (vigor + jagged horror on dodge pls).

We should have a poll and vote out our worst 3 traits, let Anet kick them off the island and make 3 better ones. Better limit to one vote though or I will cheat to get rid of reanimator.

Can we increase it to like 5? I can think of 3 traits that need to go just from the Minor parts of the trees.

Pendragon.8735:

We should have a poll and vote out our worst 3 traits, let Anet kick them off the island and make 3 better ones. Better limit to one vote though or I will cheat to get rid of reanimator.

Fusion List:
Signet Power+Signet Mastery – Spite
Spectral Attunement+Spectral Mastery – SR
Fetrid Consumption+Necromantic Corruption – DM

Removal List:
Siphoned Power
Hemophilia
Decaying Swarm

Good idea bad implementation:
Quickening Thirst
Death Shiver
Dark Armor

Traits that should be minior/major
Reanimator (on dodge as bawb said)+Horde -major
Furious Demise (combined with SS effect so that we can get SS as elite crosses fingers) – major
Greater Marks (unblockable implemented into Spiteful Marks) – minior
Terror – minior (damage increased by 20% removed +50% on second condi part)

o_o that Historical list of traits makes me sad. A good portion of those seem pretty cool (ranged Necrotic Bite is smex to me). Shade seems godly OP, however I would want it. Leyline Mastery seems pretty good also.

Honestly though, I am hoping the devs take a serious look at the class. Someone said that SOAC gaming is going to have a talk with them soon on a podcast. I hope this is not just a rumor and is true. peeps know their stuff :o

natsos.3692:

I don’t get it , why staff should be an “All marks” weapon?
Name one other weapon that works this way, have you seen an “All Illusions” mesmer weapon? Have you seen an “All Stealth” thief weapon? Nop, because they don’t make sense! The build diversity starts from weapon skills !

While I don’t really mind that the staff is all about the marks, I’d like to note that this change probably caused my major problem with the staff: there’s four distinct spread-out traits for it. In reality there’s only one trait that spells out ‘staff’ (Staff Mastery, for 20% reduction) and all the others reference marks. So my bet is that those traits were made & placed while marks were a general weapon skill that you tended to have one or two of on any given weapon set, then kept exactly as is and where they were even when marks were changed to all be on one weapon and nowhere else.

So on this note, I’d like to see those traits changed to explicitly reference staff and be merged together into 2, maybe 3 traits.

They should give us one trait with greater marks and 20% reduced cooldown and use the new traitslot to give us some defense or something that would fit in their opinion..
Same with Dagger cd and 15% movementspeed..

OP said that ranger traps are ways better than nec staff marks, mostly because they pulse over time. It is true, but note something: marks are weapons skills, traps are utility skills.

Our wells are our utility marks.

HOly crap, those old traits really make me support the Dev’s description of our class as an attrition class – those traits totally supported that definition; however, what we have now is utter crap when looking at traits. Most of the builds I run in tpvp, spvp hot joins, or wvw, might have at most 1 grandmaster trait, and usually its the one that pertains to a condition build (and we all know which grandmaster trait that is, because the other grandmaster trait in the curses line is garbage. yay weakness – bullet to the necro skull). Most of our grandmaster traits are kitten and useless. 30 in SR for stability by itself is not useless, it just gimps about 70% of our builds. DM, and BM grandmaster traits are so pigeonholing that I rarely, if ever use them. Axe master and close to death are good for power builds, but are not hugely noticeable if dropped from a power build, to become more versitile. In fact, most of our traits in the spite line are dookie. DM line pushes you towards minions, despite being our main staff line, so if you go minions, you might as well drop staff, and just run axe like everyone else in the entire world (and adds a stupid idiot minion that runs around slower than a fat kid at recess trying to hit a target and then dies, cluttering up my screen with red self-bleeds). the BLood line traits are very very lackluster, and most people just run 20 to grab the well cooldown spec. Yeah, you can go the siphoning route, but that pushes you to dagger and further pigeon holes your build.

This is not even commenting on the fact that in the realm of PVE the stupid bleed damage that a necro relies on, can actually keep him from doing jack hammered squate while attacking bosses etc. I cannot for the life of me handle the logic behind the dev’s idea to give us one condition that EVERYYONE shares, make that our MAIN SOURCE OF DAMAGE ON A CONDITION BUILD, and then cap it. No other class relies on bleeds like a condition necro; yet again another example of the dev’s not thinking about the necro at all. Guarantee you if a mesmer relied on it, they would find some way to compensate the mesmer to get him back to the top.

Whoever chose our trait lines, which skills are buffed by our trait lines, and thought they did a good job, could use a tackhammer to the forehead. They are ridiculously scattered, and don’t allow for solid builds in my opinion. I don’t like attributes associated with specific trait lines, because they seem to be off, and further force you into specific builds that are not effective. I seem to remember the devs making a comment that the necro has a lot of solid builds. LOL in their faces – That proved that they dont play the necros, and what was really in play was the necro community scrambling to find something to work in the current meta with the increased power of engies etc. The necro is the red headed step child; the forgotten link; the dead class (pun intended); the torutured soul; and the class that also has a lot of talented players, who try everythign to keep motivated.

The devs took the necro, saw that it could be powerful, kept that image in their heads and nerfed us to oblivion, while slowly increaing the efficiency of their other classes (i.e. engie, ele) while keeping their favorites the protected (mesmer, guardian, thief). Rangers deserved the attention, got it, and now i think are close to par with other classes, definitely in the tpvp realm.

What I actually think happened is that the devs push the nerfs so far for necros, that it just got too complicated to address the inherent problems, bugs and screwups that they just focused on fixing tool tips and skill descriptions. I mean WTF, 9 months in and minions still get despawned when you’re moa’d or when you change form?

Death shroud still acts like a down state, our hps cant be healed, and our true down state is so terrible that its ridiculous. The only good thing we bring to a team in tpvp is the res signet and corrupt boon.

Wake up devs, you have made the necromancer sub par and up. I have an 80 ele, 80 Guardian, 80 Thief, and 80 warrior along side my necro. All, and I mean almos tall of my builds on any one of those other classes usually has 2 grandmaster traits (Def my thief, ele). I mean i have run alot of diff builds on the other classes, but if you go dagger on an ele, your doing the 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/0/10/30/30 staff. Thief, depends on the build, but im usually running 30 in shadow arts regardless of the build because it is so kitten good. Guardian changes depending but i love the 0/5/30/30/5. Grandmaster traits in all the above classes, but the necro are so kitten good that entire build rotate around them. Necro traits are so bad, and scattered that our builds are spread out.

Why can’t the dev’s see that?

@Glyph buddy, language warning there, keep it lower we don’t want this thread closed ’cause it has strong points.

Altho what you say is right. I too believe(after 9 months) that Dev can’t find a way to balance their huge nerf on necros without making the proffesion overpowered again.

Ontop of that we , necros, are desperate because we have not seen almost any signs that developers care for our proffesion..
They could start with minor fixes here and there, but most of the time they will change a skill that nobody talks about or post a thread telling us that we are good, while we see necros getting fewer and fewer, no top ranked necros, and the majority of non-necro community agrees that we lack stuff like mobility/efficiency/damage/healing and more.

We need trait tuning, weapon and utility skill tuning, and bug fixing, and we need it now because we are sick of it.

Give us a chance to enjoy our chosen proffesion properly.

ok, let me tone down the language. you’re right.

Kravick.4906:

Coincidentally enough, I also have an engineer at level 80, and I managed to have most of the gear for this build too. While I only played this character for about a week, I was still able to easily achieve many 1v2 victories using this guys build. I’m sure with enough practice I could be on this persons level eventually. However, I just lost interest in my engineer as its play style just wasn’t to my liking. BTW, I would like to say that engineer condition application is leagues better than necromancer, and keeping them on is just as easy. Again, as a necro, these fights would have been down right impossible for me to win.

This build is a lot glassier than the above ranger build, but with smart use of Elixir S, Gear Shield, Supply Drop, and some luck with RNG stealth from Elixir S tool belt skill, its a hell of a lot easier to attrition people with engineer.

Prepare to be… more depressed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rehB0OqtrPM

funny running into a movie of mine here :p

I have been trying really hard to get better at playing my necro but no matter how hard I try I can’t do the insane things I do with my engie. I find myself losing 1v2s and 1v3s on my necro, changing to my engie and winning them with such ease that I am left wondering why was I playing with the necro in the first place :p

I’m no expert on necros but I have tried and tested alot of builds and I finally made one that Im somewhat satisfied, but still worse than any condition build I played on my engie.

My engie gets progressively stronger in a fight, gets back to full hp from very low quite fast, has access to block, invulnerability, stealth, free stomps; I feel my necro gets weaker as fights prolong: long cooldowns, LF depletion, longer cooldown heal, hard to get stomps or revives going on, that low downed hp bug, etc.

My engie is also pretty independent in a group fight. I don’t call for help unless a thief happens to jump me when Im at low hp. My necro, by comparison, needs my party members full attention if I get focused.

I find, however, that both are decent at escaping zergs despite not having stealth/burst speed skills.

Necro still has alot of stuff I love tho, I can’t believe something like corrupt boon is so easy to use and has such a short cooldown and I really like the ability to chain (damaging!) fears, consume conditions, transfer conditions, tons of chill, plague signet, epidemic and others.

Anyway, I might make a necro vid soon, I need more footage and it’s kitten hard to get it. also, everytime I get owned I jump on my engie :p

I wish they would take the necro dodge and make it a spectral feature that could be traited for vigor, retal, or spawn a jagged horror type. The necro dodge is very bland for the most part and I almost always trait to leave a mark on dodge because every little bit of damage and slow is helpful for me in WvW.

DS is a solid tool set but there should be a speed burst skill included that matches a leap, Shadow step, or Ride the Lightning type that other classes have so we can get away or at the very least put some distance between us and the bad guys.

The WH #5 is good for speed except the trail also puts you in combat thus reducing your speed more often than not. Spectral walk is a good utility but I feel I have to choose between it and signet of the Locust. Do I want speed for getting around (in WvW this is far more useful than bursts) or do I want it for a slight get away as long as I am not CCed to death?

I build my necro for being in groups but given that Commanders blitz away on a whim and other classes have far more speed burst options I am often stuck in a death pool unless I am just playing the staff casting game at the back of the group.

I have 4 character that I use for WvW pvp and my necro is by far the most difficult and often the most fun to play when thing go well. When they go bad though, I always feel very frustrated as if my team used me as a distraction while they get away. Once I commit to using certain skills in a battle I am fully invested in winning or dying, there is rarely any middle ground unless the enemy is very disorganized and scatters.

Last but not least; consume conditions as a heal is great if I am loaded up on them but overall the heals for 5 to 6k from any of our options is a drop in the bucket when the average necro is rolling with 25k+. My build is almost always 27k to 31k depending on the type of enemies I am facing.

Under focus fire from the enemies, a string of cc and interrupts renders that measly 5 or 6k heal to nothing most often. For this reason I prefer small group skirmish over zerg warfare for the most part unless I am in the back formation. You won’t see me sporting melee weapons in WvW very often unless we are on a quiet map facing groups of 10 or less because that is just pure necro punishment.

Before the retaliation adjustment was made to the rest of the game outside of sPvp I could use a retal build to make Guardians, Warriors, and Thieves employ caution when they try to burst me down but that is mostly useless now.

All in all, some adjustments would be nice, but I really would like some useful getaway options that do not take my precious utilities away unless they also work as a utility which in my opinion spectral walk does not deliver unless the speed was on par with Ride the Lightning.

The wurm? Just No. A player cannot have that much forethought in larger scale pvp to know where and when to place such a thing and it is way too easy to kill for anyone normally let alone the arrow carts that are finding their way into most battles these days.

I just want a little Necro love, nothing over the top or game breaking.

So we had a reply about necros on SPvP section , Jonathan Sharp wrote 2 hours ago :

Hey all! Just wanted to say thanks for keeping this thread so positive and constructive. The balance guys and I are watching this thread, and we’ve really enjoyed some of the ideas you guys are putting out.

So you know (history lesson incoming): There was a time in balance when Necromancers were the apex class for mulitple specs in the game. They were the best tanks (death shroud building + wells giving protection, while also wiping condies), had some of the best mobility (their old Death Shround #2 was a ground targeted teleport!) and they had insane damage/boon ripping with Axe-based bunker killing hybrid builds.

So while we do want to help the Necro to see more play in competitive builds (both in variety of roles and variety of builds), we are being very careful not to give them too much. We will be adjusting them just like all the other classes, and I just wanted to let you guys know we ARE watching threads like this.

The same can be said for Warriors in TPvP, non shortbow-based Thieves, different specs for Engi that are weak, etc. etc. We want all classes to have multiple options, so that’s what we’ll be looking for in upcoming balance changes. This will happen through number adjustments (the multipliers on specific skills), through skill “toolbox” adjustments (like we did with S/D Thief removing boons) and through trait adjustments (Warrior changes to counter condies + boons).

And as always, we don’t want to do crazy increases followed by large decreases. We are employing metered changes as opposed to a ‘whack-a-mole’ approach.

Sorry for no response until now, been out of the office a few weeks to see family.

-Chap

Link
After reading this I was like "OH MY GOD !! ".
But then I did read lower in the thread

I will admit, I also have multiple 80s now. 3 exactly. Necro, Warrior, and Mesmer in that order.

Im pretty sure its because I played necro first, but lately after the mesmer, things feel ‘lacking’ on her. I enjoy playing still and I try to theorycraft, and so far Ive made decent builds that I would stick in WvW (Condi/Terror rabid build or Dagger Power with 3-5k life blast shots), but I do wish for a little update from the devs. dueling, 1v2s and 1v3s are alot easier on my mesmer and I barely even played it that long. can just sit back and completely avoid damage with blinks, dodges, invulns from blurred frenzy (8s CD which is insane) and just dish out damage via phantasms. Even if i do get hit, have like 2.6k toughness and about 19k hp.

Maybe its because Mesmers are flashy and thus people don’t know how to deal with them yet, but still there are alot of things that makes it so you can avoid damage on other classes. while DS does make necro tanky, the game right now revolves around negating damage entirely while dishing a good amount (not super high, but decent amount) at a reasonable pace.

I can’t say I have much to add to the conversation outside that right now, but just something I think some of you should think about. In a game with stuff like Distortion, Mist form, Elixir S, Stealth, Stability, Aegis, Endure pain, Blocking and active dodge skills… where do you feel Death shroud lies? a mechanic that, while makes you to mitigate damage;

1)takes a long time to fill up unless specced or running strictly power weapons (Spectral Attunement, Dagger mainhand auto attacks, Warhorn 5)

2)has its own ‘self condition’ of losing 4% every second.

3) does not allow you to be healed or build the life force up while within the form

4) still allows you to be hit by various CCs that a class like Mesmer can avoid every 8s?

Im not saying they should make it so you dont get hit by CCs… Im just pointing out a few things.

(sorry if i offend anyone, I am not trying to, although my horrible grammar may suggest otherwise)

edit: Tl;Dr : just need some help, kay. Mesmer is pretty easy to 1vx with btw. Also, I want some more finishers.

@natsos.3692
This “we are being very careful not to give them too much.” is what i 100% trust they can do.
Class is so badly designed they themself pretty much admit they dont dare touch it and know just how horrid this class design can get outta hand if they do indeed touch it.
Do anyone actually think they can make this class fun and balanced with the current high hp + death shroud hp? What if we had mobility , invulnerability , block , vigor , fury(proper) , stability (proper) we would be crazy.

So while a responce is great i still doubt anything they do is gonna help or barely do anything.

And how i hate people linking to old clips and traits when things looked fun, its always the same thought each time “WHAT HAPPEND ANET!!”

You can look my posts up ^
I said several times that as we were OP, we can easily become again and that ANet is afraid to boost us, even if we need some boosts right now.

No, not a boost actually, what I like to call “tuning”.
Better synergy on our weapons and traits, just a bit more mobility that would create bigger build diversity, as sharp said, we need build diversity. We need to be flexible on creating our builds and not just say “This is good I have to play this” .

On the topic of build diversity and traits it would be nice to have the greater marks trait as well as soul marks be made baseline for staff. People tend to only mention greater marks but soul marks is a must have lot’s of times too. So in the end we have pretty much staff as a must have weapon in most situations then we have greater marks as well as soul marks being quite essential.

Dredlord.8076:

it might be circular logic to you…it’s time to leave the roundabout though buddy.

I would be perfectly happy for your negative-nancies to stop using circular logic to try to prove your points.

Dredlord.8076:

secondly yes it makes everyone else underpowered with regard to turning useless mobs red. Thankfully this game revolves around COMBAT and that’s why we are debating the necros effectiveness at guess what? nope it’s not jumping from great heights…

it’s COMBAT…

Combat, sure, but not “1vX baddies.” That’s one component of the game if you’re looking for it but it’s far from everything the game’s about.

Dredlord.8076:

thirdly, congratulations, useless piece of information for this argument but congratulations anyways.

Actually, very pertinent.

He made an absolute statement about the Necro. All you need is one counter-example to disprove an absolute statement.

Gryph.8237:

HOly crap, those old traits really make me support the Dev’s description of our class as an attrition class – those traits totally supported that definition

People say those traits were OP and maybe there were, but it looks like they might have built something similar to what was already in the game, and let stand for the last 3 or 4 months – the D/D Ele.

So I’ve been wanting to roll a Necro because the class seems most fun to me, but having read through this topic I’m wondering if it would be the correct decision, have Anet got anything in the pipeline to fix any of our extensive list of problems?

Iceflame.5024:

On the topic of build diversity and traits it would be nice to have the greater marks trait as well as soul marks be made baseline for staff. People tend to only mention greater marks but soul marks is a must have lot’s of times too. So in the end we have pretty much staff as a must have weapon in most situations then we have greater marks as well as soul marks being quite essential.

Ayup, LF generation is too poor on condition builds without this, but if you take it you give up Master of Terror, or have to go full 30 points into SR, but then also give up stability. More LF alone, aka facetank, is not enough of a defense to live without longer fears or no stability.

Pendragon.8735:

Ayup, LF generation is too poor on condition builds without this, but if you take it you give up Master of Terror, or have to go full 30 points into SR, but then also give up stability. More LF alone, aka facetank, is not enough of a defense to live without longer fears or no stability.

Yeah, I’m not saying that it’s enough. I’m trying to say that if they make greater marks baseline for staff, it’s a good idea to make soul marks baseline as well while they are at it. The topics I ran through usually only mention greater marks so I’m just suggesting adding soul marks in there too.

As a replacement I could suggest having something like a trait that makes the 1st life blast instant when you enter DS.

Remedi.6219:

So I’ve been wanting to roll a Necro because the class seems most fun to me, but having read through this topic I’m wondering if it would be the correct decision, have Anet got anything in the pipeline to fix any of our extensive list of problems?

This is a game. The only decision you need to make is whether the Necro seems like it would be fun for you or not. In spite of our problems, I have a lot of fun with my Necro. Take from that what you will.

Iceflame.5024:

Yeah, I’m not saying that it’s enough. I’m trying to say that if they make greater marks baseline for staff, it’s a good idea to make soul marks baseline as well while they are at it. The topics I ran through usually only mention greater marks so I’m just suggesting adding soul marks in there too.

As a replacement I could suggest having something like a trait that makes the 1st life blast instant when you enter DS.

I cannot really agree with it since in both other aspects of play (pve and wvwvw) soul marks is borderline op (from 0 to full ds just from your enemies being piled up), like traited mesmer focus. Rather make Feast of corruption be like underwater feast, pbaoe and just giving 5% pre enemy hit (yes it would reduce max potential you could get in 1v1s, but overall massive improvement).

Blaine Tog.8304:

He made an absolute statement about the Necro. All you need is one counter-example to disprove an absolute statement.

Which you provided none of. Show me a video of a necromancer doing attrition like the ranger and engineer videos I provided. Oh, thats right. You can’t, because they don’t exist.

Kravick.4906:

Blaine Tog.8304:

He made an absolute statement about the Necro. All you need is one counter-example to disprove an absolute statement.

Which you provided none of. Show me a video of a necromancer doing attrition like the ranger and engineer videos I provided. Oh, thats right. You can’t, because they don’t exist.

Oh look, how easy that was!

EDIT: And another.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kravick.4906:

Blaine Tog.8304:

He made an absolute statement about the Necro. All you need is one counter-example to disprove an absolute statement.

Which you provided none of. Show me a video of a necromancer doing attrition like the ranger and engineer videos I provided. Oh, thats right. You can’t, because they don’t exist.

Oh look, how easy that was!

Your link goes to google. Sorry, but the burden of proof is now on your shoulders ATM. I’ve provided my proof. You must provide proof of your counter claim. Telling me to “search google” is just a pathetic cop out and shows that you have none.

Right, try it again, I fixed the link and added another.

Also, simmer down there, Tex. It’s just a game. No need to get nasty about it.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

I wanna just ask question to all necromancers . If you could reverse time , would you choose necro second time or something different but no necro .

Absolutely not. I love my Necro. She’s awesome and great fun.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Right, try it again, I fixed the link and added another.

Also, simmer down there, Tex. It’s just a game. No need to get nasty about it.

Ah yes, all those up levels that didn’t exist in the videos I posted, except the 6 up levels that jumped the ranger, and were completely ineffectual at doing anything to him. Leeto also wasn’t 1v4ing like the ranger and engineer were either and in several segments he had assistance from a random ally that showed up sometimes. The ranger had 0 assistance of any kind.

Any time a necro does 1vX, its always against up levels. Kinda hard to lose against that. Now try it against two level 80s and get back to me.

Blaine Tog.8304:

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

I wanna just ask question to all necromancers . If you could reverse time , would you choose necro second time or something different but no necro .

Absolutely not. I love my Necro. She’s awesome and great fun.

I would have definitely not wasted my time with necro. This class isn’t getting any kind of fixes any time soon. Devs have already stated that it won’t be for another two months until they actually consider looking at another balance pass.

Kravick.4906:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Right, try it again, I fixed the link and added another.

Also, simmer down there, Tex. It’s just a game. No need to get nasty about it.

Ah yes, all those up levels that didn’t exist in the videos I posted, except the 6 up levels that jumped the ranger, who promptly stomped them into dust. Leeto also wasn’t 1v4ing like the ranger and engineer were. Any time a necro does 1vX, its always against up levels. Kinda hard to lose against that. Now try it against two level 80s and get back to me.

You had less than 5 minutes from the time I fixed the link to the time you claim to have watched the two 10+ minute videos. Putting aside the obvious Moving the Goalposts fallacy in your objection and putting aside that my original point was about 1v1s, not 1vX (trace back the conversation chain into which you inserted yourself if you don’t believe me), it’s chronologically impossible for you to have watched all of both videos.

And hey, putting all that aside, another 1vX video, this time with no upleveleds as far as I can tell.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kravick.4906:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Right, try it again, I fixed the link and added another.

Also, simmer down there, Tex. It’s just a game. No need to get nasty about it.

Ah yes, all those up levels that didn’t exist in the videos I posted, except the 6 up levels that jumped the ranger, who promptly stomped them into dust. Leeto also wasn’t 1v4ing like the ranger and engineer were. Any time a necro does 1vX, its always against up levels. Kinda hard to lose against that. Now try it against two level 80s and get back to me.

You had less than 5 minutes from the time I fixed the link to the time you claim to have watched the two 10+ minute videos. Putting aside the obvious Moving the Goalposts fallacy in your objection and putting aside that my original point was about 1v1s, not 1vX (trace back the conversation chain into which you inserted yourself if you don’t believe me), it’s chronologically impossible for you to have watched all of both videos.

And hey, putting all that aside, another 1vX video, this time with no upleveleds as far as I can tell.

It was Leeto 3. I have already seen that video. No goalpost moving here. Leeto 2 also had up levels, but as well as assistance from random strangers. Have already seen that one too. Have I mentioned that I have already searched for these videos and have never found anything even remotely close to what thieves, elementalists, guardians, engineers, and rangers are capable of doing?

@Volt, I’ve been levelling up (slowly) a character of every profession. However, whenever that gets boring, and it happens fairly quickly, I always jump back on my Necro. Earlier today I was finishing up a daily in one of the higher levels of the Centaur areas, and did an entire event chain with this one warrior. The two of us took down multiple champion bosses, tons of enemies, and it was an absolute blast playing my Necro through the fights.