Guild Wars 2

Ah, I see you’ve decided to choose the path of least personal responsibility by dismissing me entirely. Very well, have a nice day!

Rfreak.6591:

@hackks.3687

Dude, this isn’t a matter of “can” or “can’t”, the necro can do all of the above, better and faster, if you want a condition-based engineer you may as well switch to necro because it does the same thing but better.

You can’t compare a class that has to go through all the skillbar, throwing everything around and doing miracles while you get outdamaged by a single auto#1.

Are you seriously comparing engi pistol’s #1 to necro’s #1? the simple fact that pistol’s base bleed is 2s makes it sub-par and impossible to stack, what do you want to cover a 3s confusion?

If you want to play engi in a serious pvp perspective you either run condi-grenades and elixirs or power-rifle with heavy CC (with bombs).

I think you might need to play a bit more Necro before continuing on with your tirade. You’re grossly misrepresenting the characteristics and play of both classes. There is far more capability within the Engi arsenal than there is in Necro’s whose only viable role has revolved around team fight damage dealing.

I’m not saying there aren’t some broken mechanics in question when it comes to this new Necromancer, but it has nothing to do with anything you, or anyone else for that matter, has pointed out.

hackks.3687:

Rfreak.6591:

@hackks.3687

Dude, this isn’t a matter of “can” or “can’t”, the necro can do all of the above, better and faster, if you want a condition-based engineer you may as well switch to necro because it does the same thing but better.

You can’t compare a class that has to go through all the skillbar, throwing everything around and doing miracles while you get outdamaged by a single auto#1.

Are you seriously comparing engi pistol’s #1 to necro’s #1? the simple fact that pistol’s base bleed is 2s makes it sub-par and impossible to stack, what do you want to cover a 3s confusion?

If you want to play engi in a serious pvp perspective you either run condi-grenades and elixirs or power-rifle with heavy CC (with bombs).

I think you might need to play a bit more Necro before continuing on with your tirade. You’re grossly misrepresenting the characteristics and play of both classes. There is far more capability within the Engi arsenal than there is in Necro’s whose only viable role has revolved around team fight damage dealing.

I’m not saying there aren’t some broken mechanics in question when it comes to this new Necromancer, but it has nothing to do with anything you, or anyone else for that matter, has pointed out.

There is? I have totally benched my HGH engineer in favor of the Necromancer. Bursting people down with conditions shouldn’t be possible but with a Necromancer stacking burning/torment/terror you can absolutely obliterate someone in just a few seconds.

galandor.1059:

hackks.3687:

Rfreak.6591:

@hackks.3687

Dude, this isn’t a matter of “can” or “can’t”, the necro can do all of the above, better and faster, if you want a condition-based engineer you may as well switch to necro because it does the same thing but better.

You can’t compare a class that has to go through all the skillbar, throwing everything around and doing miracles while you get outdamaged by a single auto#1.

Are you seriously comparing engi pistol’s #1 to necro’s #1? the simple fact that pistol’s base bleed is 2s makes it sub-par and impossible to stack, what do you want to cover a 3s confusion?

If you want to play engi in a serious pvp perspective you either run condi-grenades and elixirs or power-rifle with heavy CC (with bombs).

I think you might need to play a bit more Necro before continuing on with your tirade. You’re grossly misrepresenting the characteristics and play of both classes. There is far more capability within the Engi arsenal than there is in Necro’s whose only viable role has revolved around team fight damage dealing.

I’m not saying there aren’t some broken mechanics in question when it comes to this new Necromancer, but it has nothing to do with anything you, or anyone else for that matter, has pointed out.

There is? I have totally benched my HGH engineer in favor of the Necromancer. Bursting people down with conditions shouldn’t be possible but with a Necromancer stacking burning/torment/terror you can absolutely obliterate someone in just a few seconds.

I tabled my HGH engi build ages ago when I got tired of eating 10k eviscerates and getting kitten slapped by thieves with my own 25 stacks of might. It’s true that particular build did in fact fill the same role that Necro has now taken – it’s not the first time the two have competed for the aoe/cleave team fighter role.

To be clear though, that is the only role that a Necro is viable for. Just like an HGH engi needs a team to look after them, so too does the Necro – in fact, I’d say even more so. The luxury that Engis still retain though is the ability diversify their builds to multiple ends. You don’t see roaming Necros solo assaulting far point in high end tourneys, nor do you see them bunkering home point or any point for that matter. Just like you don’t see them throwing out tons of regen, waterfields, or other team sustaining effects – they have a couple condi clears they can offer but only one of those remains viable (Putrid Mark) in current meta.

So in fact there is one current thing that Necros do better than Engis and that’s condi cleave and condition burst i.e. deal condition damage. For a class that is the so called “master of conditions” (since it really offers nothing else to be master of) it makes sense to me that it not be outshined by the guy with all the gadgets and explosives and millions of tools that actually benefit a team in addition to itself. Mark my words, the Necro damage will get toned down, even if just slightly, and when it does it will be back on the bench and viewed as a liability to a team and the Engi will happily jump back into that spot.

]

Close to 5 mins there’s a 1v4 this necro does for a while in front of a camp (but his buddy later arrives, after he’s downed 3 of them). Good enough?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-PVnU36RPc

Look more like 1vs 2 vs 2. It is a three way combat.

Rfreak.6591:

@hackks.3687

Dude, this isn’t a matter of “can” or “can’t”, the necro can do all of the above, better and faster, if you want a condition-based engineer you may as well switch to necro because it does the same thing but better.

You can’t compare a class that has to go through all the skillbar, throwing everything around and doing miracles while you get outdamaged by a single auto#1.

Are you seriously comparing engi pistol’s #1 to necro’s #1? the simple fact that pistol’s base bleed is 2s makes it sub-par and impossible to stack, what do you want to cover a 3s confusion?

If you want to play engi in a serious pvp perspective you either run condi-grenades and elixirs or power-rifle with heavy CC (with bombs).

@Blaine Tog.8304

You can cast all the CC you want but the sole AoE CC you have is BoB (bombs require traiting).

Fight a 2v1 or a 3v1 in tpvp, win and THEN come back here, honestly you can complain all you want but you can’t fight 3 people with bombs while kiting and keep track of everything, a necro can fight everything and keep track of 4-5 players at once without having to kite at all.

You’re trolling.

Not all of the classes have the same difficulty. On my powermancer I have to use focus 4, Well of Suffering, then axe 2, then F1 and DS5, while autoattacking, then DS4. All that just to get close to a warrior using GS2 -_-. As for mesmers, you need to be a pianist to pull out a shatter combo.

What is kitten ing me off out of all of this is the fact that once Necromancers got good at something, people started complaining. Now, all of a sudden Scepter 1 is OP? Where the heck did you come up with this? Engineers and Elementalists have an arsenal of skills to use compared to Necromancers, with increased mobility.You say necromancers have fear? Well, Engineers and Elementalists have knockdowns. The only thing Necromancers are good at, is holding their ground for a while, but even that gets exponentially tough as the number of opponents increase (unless they are mindless drones). I haven’t even seen a good 1v3 so far. Not even that linked video before.

So I seriously hope arenanet doesn’t change a thing, just to let people actually learn how to fight Necromancers. Here is a hint…. ping pong ball.

Rahar.9872:

I read through a bit of the first page, and considering the replies, I thought I’d add my viewpoint as a long time Thief player and almost 700 hour Mesmer player.

The reason Necromancers are being viewed as OP is because the addition of burning along with the other buffs. No, it’s not because more people are playing Necro, not because they’re being noticed, or anything like that. It’s because the combination of Burning and Terror (fear damage) is deadly.

Let’s start from the top. Necro pre patch (I had been trying it off and on for a month or two) was, in my opinion, in no need of more condition damage. They were very well off in that respect. They didn’t need much more CC, but more helps. They had very serious condition damage that couldn’t be blown off. What I’m trying to say is that they had competitive condition damage. But they did need sustain.

Now? They got a bit of their sustain, and the most damaging condition in the game. Not to mention yet another damaging condition as well (which is fine!). The problem here is not Terror. It is not Fear. It is not CC. It is Dhuumfire.

The addition of this single trait made you guys monsters. There was a reason this same trait was nerfed on Engis. You can keep burn up almost permanently. Now add this to your already competitive condition damage, and it’s way too much. Sure, you can argue that to take this trait and terror, you give up your tankiness. But with this trait and terror, you don’t need armor. Your enemies are CC’d too long and damaged too much to scratch you before they go down.

I might be a bit biased on these viewpoints, as I only have 100 or so hours in Necromancer, but there’s only one right answer to this dilemma: Remove burning. Replace Dhuumfire with a torment trait of the same flavor, then we can work from there.

Not to mention the buff to Weakness. We’re doing a ton more damage, and we picked up some nice survivability without changing anything through the Weakness buff. We also have Spectral Wall, which gives us Protection ( doesn’t cancel when going into DS anymore), more Fear, and keeps threatening melee enemies at a distance.

For me its hard to say if burning alone is what is making us OP, we did get a lot of nice changes. But it is definitely a very strong condi.

Necros are OP. They are even as OP as mesmers, rangers, engineers, thieves, guardians, warriors and elementalists!!
People immediately judge “OP” after facing something they can’t beat. Some people don’t even bother to stop and ask the question: “How do I beat that thing?”. But instead this is what you hear: “Oh that thing is so OP!”
Warrior stun locks them, they are OP.
Ranger perma regens and evades them like crazy, they are OP.
Memsers pop out too many phantasms for them to handle, they are OP.
They can’t kill a guardian, guardian is OP.
Thief spams invisibility and manages to steal kill a forest creature, oh oh oh! thieves are so OP!
Necromancers burst them with conditions… Necromancers are OP!
They fight a mirror of their own build and they lose… Oh that guy’s build is so OP! (this one is just a joke).

I personally have had moments of frustration during which I’ve called out something as OP but you know, one’s judgement can be clouded in such moments.

Many of the necromancer’s weak points are still intact. Necromancers are just now able to pull off what they were always supposed to pull off.

That said, I am not gonna claim that there isn’t anything out of balance with necromancers (nor any other class for that matter) nor outright judge anything as OP.

Burjis.3087:

Necros are OP. They are even as OP as mesmers, rangers, engineers, thieves, guardians, warriors and elementalists!!
People immediately judge “OP” after facing something they can’t beat. Some people don’t even bother to stop and ask the question: “How do I beat that thing?”. But instead this is what you hear: “Oh that thing is so OP!”
Warrior stun locks them, they are OP.
Ranger perma regens and evades them like crazy, they are OP.
Memsers pop out too many phantasms for them to handle, they are OP.
They can’t kill a guardian, guardian is OP.
Thief spams invisibility and manages to steal kill a forest creature, oh oh oh! thieves are so OP!
Necromancers burst them with conditions… Necromancers are OP!
They fight a mirror of their own build and they lose… Oh that guy’s build is so OP! (this one is just a joke).

I personally have had moments of frustration during which I’ve called out something as OP but you know, one’s judgement can be clouded in such moments.

Many of the necromancer’s weak points are still intact. Necromancers are just now able to pull off what they were always supposed to pull off.

That said, I am not gonna claim that there isn’t anything out of balance with necromancers (nor any other class for that matter) nor outright judge anything as OP.

Well Said!

I still think the base problem is the extra access we have to Fear/Terror now combined with the extra duration we received as well which caused a large increase in the base damage+disable power a Terror build could field.

It is effectively CC, damage, and a condition all in one package that stacks well with itself and anything else you can toss into it exponentially. Then add in the regular l2p issues the masses often have with running something other than max damage builds…feh.

I don’t envy the Devs on this one; they can’t make the base effect too low or it becomes near worthless on any build that does not focus on it, but too high and it rapidly becomes this overwhelming magnet for kittening from the masses on the receiving end of it.

They are likely going to only be able to fix it and keep it worth having by changing its fundamental nature somehow.

In sPvP it’s totally dominated by necros since they’re so OP right now. When do you think the nerf will come?

I love pies? Death to the cake lovers!

necros are ok compared to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MlXskSmfpI
=P

So, necros are finnally on an even playing field with the rest of the classes… which means we are over powered now?
Well, we aren’t overpowered just different. Adapt or die.

Our damage is OP, we are still squishier than jello, stop these threads please.

I don’t know about condi necros but I know I am at the top of my game in the power necro department. I still lose straight up 1v1s so I know our power builds aren’t OP. What really surprises me is the new Guardian meta…wands…really?? They freakin hurt too LOL. Mesmers are tough too. Got beat by a sword thief too, but it was like a 20 minute fight, he could disengage when he wanted too and took his time till he figured me out.

What I’m saying is there are a lot of OP metas floating around right now.

to tell you the truth, just one necro build have too much condi damage+ heavy CC

Lorelei.3918:

I don’t know about condi necros but I know I am at the top of my game in the power necro department. I still lose straight up 1v1s so I know our power builds aren’t OP. What really surprises me is the new Guardian meta…wands…really?? They freakin hurt too LOL. Mesmers are tough too. Got beat by a sword thief too, but it was like a 20 minute fight, he could disengage when he wanted too and took his time till he figured me out.

What I’m saying is there are a lot of OP metas floating around right now.

you mean guard’s auto attack scepter

cool, anet finally fix that broken auto attack. it suppose to be one of the strongest range auto attacks in the game, so of course it hurts…

I hate to start screaming OP as well but I have noticed in most of the randoms I play the team with the most necros seems to win. The main problem i’m having is by the time i get out of one fear i’m half dead then i get hit by another fear. On top of that there high health and shroud make them kitten difficult to kill.

The problem people are having is that in the past we’ve been under powered in many ways and therefore necros were scarce. The necros that were around ran the same thing as we only have 1 or 2 viable options to even be playable at that level. Now we are as strong as other classes and on top of that have more play styles. People haven’t learned to adapt yet to the new threat and therefore have called out that they are OPed. Give it time and it will equal itself back out with little intervention from Anet.

vicious.5683:

necros are ok compared to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MlXskSmfpI
=P

I saw a Mesmer, then the Ele jumped in… and all that was left was a stain.

Excalibur.9748:

In sPvP it’s totally dominated by necros since they’re so OP right now. When do you think the nerf will come?

It is not… stop spreading lies.

The community is already aware of this and has been calling for a fix for some time now (in fact pretty much since the patch). A.net basically went completely the opposite direction of what people were expecting and what you’re seeing is the result. Numerous suggestions on how to remedy the situation have been posted around the forum in various threads already, if you care to look. I really do not see the point of yet another thread dealing with this.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Rfreak.6591:

Now the necro… the necromancer can literally auto-spam plenty of stacks of bleeds in a matter of seconds, thanks to its very short cast-time it’s very fast but that’s not everything, have you guys ever noticed it’s… the ONLY ranged weapon in game that doesn’t have PROJECTILES? and is thus not counterable by positioning and reflections?

Elementalist Scepter in Fire and Air.

Mesmer Greatsword.

Necro Axe and Trident.

I think that’s it. Also, you can still counter with with blocks and breaking line of sight.

guardian staff as well

Lantz.7240:

I hate to start screaming OP as well but I have noticed in most of the randoms I play the team with the most necros seems to win. The main problem i’m having is by the time i get out of one fear i’m half dead then i get hit by another fear. On top of that there high health and shroud make them kitten difficult to kill.

If we judge what’s OP and what’s not by what we see in randoms, then balance is going to go down the tubes fast.

The real question is: are the top teams running multiple necros? If so, is there a counterbuild to that?

I think what we’re experiencing with Necros and condis in general is just a matter of the meta pendulum swinging full the other way. Previously it had swung towards power builds and Quickness, which was killing people so fast that condi/attrition builds weren’t really allowed the time to engage in actual attrition fights. Since the nerf to quickness the pendulum has started swinging back the other way, and now we find ourselves one-shotting people with condition burst.

My guess is we’ll see some broad as well as focused mechanic changes to conditions on the whole. I could see Fear being changed to behave more like Immobilizes in which it doesn’t stack in duration with each application – I’d like to see the same done for Daze. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see damage coefficients changed, particularly regarding Burning, as well as some duration adjustments to conditions like Blind and Weakness now that they’re finally making a difference in combat. The only Necro specific change I could see is a decrease in Terror’s damage boost from the current 50% to maybe 20-25%. It’s niche usage and very limited up time warrants a high damage coefficient but depending on their approach with other conditions it could be up for some adjustments.

I’ve read alot of that we now have a burn makes us op… it makes us OP in 1v1 if you look at the extra damadge. But burn how I remember burn work is that it gets replaced by the next person who burns the target. Guardians having a high damadge burn should be the ones burning. If I remove his damadge there we may lose a fight. I dont use that trait since I go for the extra damadge below 50% since I feel it’s more fitting. I’ve been doing WvW and yeah I tried wellomancer, minion master, conditioner and I found conditioner most fun and it had nice damadge. Now we have torment but it’s not that great really, sure it adds conditions but then you say you can’t remove the conditions fast enough. There is a sigil which you can use to have a 60% chance to remove a condition on critical hits 10sec cooldown but this added you can get rid of the extra protecting condition, also if you stand still you dont get the extra effect from torment which will give you more damadge than standing still and take the small beating since the necro cant do anything else while using torment. I think the extra skill now and the more people playing necros makes it op. If I run around WvW and 4 warriors comes running I try and kite them while I slowly take them down but yeah you wont be able to do that so you die. If now I’m running with 4 friends and meet one person who just BAM we are all dead either we failed miserably or got wrong builds. People always tend to go for a most powerful build they can. Why not make your own build that you like to use and think is fun and not the one everyone is running around with. I started my necro as a minion master since I thought it was fun but I noticed I didn’t really like it and I tried wellomancer and then both wells and minions making combinations I noticed high enough damadge allowed me to kill lots of oponents if they were in meele range. So yeah we arent that OP just more people playing and we get the spot light since if there comes 4 people spamming conditions and then spread them from one person to the rest. Note before the stack ends you use epidemic again you can keep 25stacks of vuln and bleed up on every foe around you if you just team up and keep in mind of what you do having special orders. Teamwork is what’s best in WvW and in PvE I like the extra little AoE torment gives but it ruins my macro of my skills so I need to rework it. If you encounter something that you cant beat when you first face it, rethink your strategy and try again find a solution on how to beat it.

I also don’t like Dhuumfire. What I really liked was something that boosts the power necros not something for condition necros. I don’t understand why people keep complaining about terror while the terrormancer builds are not that dominant in the current meta compared to the 30 30 10 0 0 build and terrormancers aren’t all that stronger from pre-patch.

That said, the current 30 30 10 build is extremely vulnerable. They are just the top of the burst necro builds. Necros never had any decent burst before and now that they do, they have really screwed the meta by completely tipping the balance between defense vs offense in tournaments. In fact, I don’t think the current meta favors damage because of necros alone as I’ve seen no-necro groups deal incredibly high bursts and CC locks quite often. People now die more often and that seem to make them frustrated.
I personally was above the 90% spectrum of the ladder as a necro player before the update. Now I’m barely hanging around 80%. It’s not because of the necros being OP it’s because the new meta is quite different.

If it’s so “not op” why is it getting nerfed? A dev (not naming) actually stated that the combination of terror and dhuumfire is overpowered at the moment. Trust me, necromancer’s were never seen in high tPvP level play. Now they’re seen almost every match.

Necromancers weren’t seen simply because people figured out a build that enabled engis to fill the condi role better. Not because necros were bad, but because engis were better. Necros were on every high level team for months, then engis took over, now necros again. It’s always been the same thing between engis and necros, and that’s an issue anet should actually devote some attention to.

Rather than being too stuck on their vision for each profession, they should be looking at how they’re being used, and how they can modify that. If both are being used in the condi role, instead of having them compete for which is best, have them offer different variations of that role that each fit better with different strategies and comps.

In the meantime, I’d highly recommend getting good at both.

@Linguistically Inept.6583

Dude you want to compare guardian’s staff #1 to necro’s scepter #1?

I meant EFFECTIVE ranged weapons.

Necro axe and guardian staff are mid-ranged weapons.

And by the way I didn’t just mean the fact that you can’t reflect projectiles, I also meant that the visual is not as noticeable as the others.

“Why are we being viewed as OP”

It was probably initially the terror / fire combo. Now, it is likely shifting to some degree to bandwagon. Last night I was told by a guild member that warhorn 4 is op and that we are basically immune to conditions because of dagger 4.

Really?

Luke.4562:

Lantz.7240:

I hate to start screaming OP as well but I have noticed in most of the randoms I play the team with the most necros seems to win. The main problem i’m having is by the time i get out of one fear i’m half dead then i get hit by another fear. On top of that there high health and shroud make them kitten difficult to kill.

A pity that Engineers do the same thing. And even being condition focused they bunker way much better than full condition Necros.

Engineers were UP but last patch made them pretty kitten cool and very synergistic with groups. I feel more powerful on my necro, but engies have so many options.

KOK.2650:

]

Close to 5 mins there’s a 1v4 this necro does for a while in front of a camp (but his buddy later arrives, after he’s downed 3 of them). Good enough?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-PVnU36RPc

Look more like 1vs 2 vs 2. It is a three way combat.

At 5 minutes, all of those guys were TC, there was no 3 way fight there. But to be fair, I had the camp helping, and assistance that stepped in during the fight from my roaming ally.

1vX on a necro for the most part is a myth. It can happen, but it depends entirely on the opponent skill (or lack there of). We have no stealth to break target, and no reliable healing outside of 6, so we have low sustain. If we do trait for higher sustain, our damage suffers.

Elementalists, rangers, mesmers, thieves all have builds which can under certain circumstances allow them to win a 1v2 against decent players. No one will ever win a 1v2 against great players, because they won’t allow their ally to get stomped, and will put too much CC/pressure on you no matter what class you are.

To be successful in WvW with a necro you need something to break the tunnel vision that people get and the “1” mashing that follows. Since we have no way to do that on our own, you should run with someone that can, like a mesmer, or someone that gets in the way, and makes people tunnel vision on them.

That isn’t to say I never win a 1v2. It happens all the time; but only because one of those two has next to no condition removal, tries to revive his ally while I drop conditions on him, or makes some other terr-bad mistake that results in two down. But I am far more succcessful in a 2 man team where the conditions stack higher faster, and can leverage someone else taking hits, and their conditions with my epidemic.

Also just as a point of fact, that is not a terrormancer build, its just a condition build. A terror build would have 100% fear, and that build only has 80%. I was using the “broken” sigil at the time to get the 100% fear, which no longer works.

Why dod so many players so quickly scream nerf the necro. I play a necro and a engineer in WvW, and both are condition damage builds. I do play my engineer as a bomber at times. I see so many remarks about limited condition removal open to each class; has anyone mention certain races have condition removal, take a look at humans. To my dislike, the game allowed all races to be whatever class they wanted to play. If conditions are killing you, then run more condition removal, or use a make-up kit, that might alllow you to change race? Thieves killed me all the time when I first entered WvW, I added lots of thoughness and hp and I found myself living longer and sometime winning against them. every race and class has strengths/weakiness and those strenghts/weakiness are by design to promote group play. I’m a full condition necro, and I dont mind at all spreading the love on the battlefield. Master of Conditions? My engineer can reach about 2400 CD, and I think rangers can also, I wonder about the title “Master of Conditions”.

Trimula.7651:

Why dod so many players so quickly scream nerf the necro. I play a necro and a engineer in WvW, and both are condition damage builds. I do play my engineer as a bomber at times. I see so many remarks about limited condition removal open to each class; has anyone mention certain races have condition removal, take a look at humans. To my dislike, the game allowed all races to be whatever class they wanted to play. If conditions are killing you, then run more condition removal, or use a make-up kit, that might alllow you to change race? Thieves killed me all the time when I first entered WvW, I added lots of thoughness and hp and I found myself living longer and sometime winning against them. every race and class has strengths/weakiness and those strenghts/weakiness are by design to promote group play. I’m a full condition necro, and I dont mind at all spreading the love on the battlefield. Master of Conditions? My engineer can reach about 2400 CD, and I think rangers can also, I wonder about the title “Master of Conditions”.

they cant transfer and remove condis as well as necro, making necro the literal “master” of conditions; though they may not be the hardest hitting. regardless, I believe that condi engis and condi rangers are ridiculous as well. Condi engis however use projectiles and are thus at least able to blocked or reflected.. then rangers dont have ridiculous repplication and you can actually see their skills so its easier to dodge. so in the end necromancers are basically unblockable conditions and can easily kite as well.

I do not like bandwagon riders! Get off the wagon before I burned you in it! Have a nice day!

Personally, I think necro is pretty well balanced now. In 1v1 or 1v2, I’ve got a pretty good chance to beat them if they let me kite and don’t CC me. But if they’re organised at all and using CC, I have to rely on dodges and shroud and that runs out pretty quick.

I play my necromancer and I don’t think it is balanced. It is not the buff that is the problem. Minion damage does not scale off of power. This allows necros to play mm burst while stacking burning, poison, bleeding, and more conditions. It was also a bad idea to put the new Dhuumfire trait in the same trait line while minion damage is increased by 30%. In other-words, a leaching mm condition hybrid allows sustain, direct damage, and condition damage. I like my necro but it seems that they should do something about this combination.

There used to be a time when you needed to be really good to play a necro effectively in tournaments. Now everybody just grabs a necro, puts on a 30 30 10 0 0 build and kicks kitten . The effective difference between a long time necro player and a player who just grabbed a necro is now much less than before.

I will be more than happy if dhuumfire changes or even removed in favor of something more power-based. I will not be happy if they nerf terror cause that nerfs many conditionmancer builds that don’t rely on dhuumfire or aren’t even OP. Terror is no way OP on its own.

People are now complaining about everything the necro has. Even the abilities that have been around for such a long time. I remember I was holding a point in tournament, a warrior runs in, blows up all his bursts on my minions and eventually dies at the hand of a thief who collapses on him. When he’s dead, this is what he says: “kitten OP necros!”. I mean seriously?!! Necro minion masters are OP now?

Anet wants to balance the necro, hell yes please do it, but I’m afraid they’ll drop the nerf hammer on things that aren’t even a problem on their own (such as terror).

Zelulose.8695:

I play my necromancer and I don’t think it is balanced. It is not the buff that is the problem. Minion damage does not scale off of power. This allows necros to play mm burst while stacking burning, poison, bleeding, and more conditions. It was also a bad idea to put the new Dhuumfire trait in the same trait line while minion damage is increased by 30%. In other-words, a leaching mm condition hybrid allows sustain, direct damage, and condition damage. I like my necro but it seems that they should do something about this combination.

What is that necro running? 30/30/30 ? -_- … Other than the fact that Minion AI sucks, to have effective minions, you need at least 30 in Death Magic, and to have burning, you need at least 30 in spite. Even with full condition damage gear, you will still not do as much as a full conditionmaster, and you wont even be close to a powermancer in direct damage.

The combination of dhuumfire and terror is simply broke.

Necromancers are going to need dhuumfire. A serious lack of easy application burning is what prevented necros from seeing the light of day prepatch. Terror on its own does not fill that gap as we have seen with a variety of soul-reaping terror builds. Burning on its own is not overpowered as we have seen on many classes many times over (see: engineers).

Also, necromancers are extremely easy to play in comparison to engis. Marks are not grenades.

I disagree. Not only dhuumfire isn’t a necessity for necromancers but nerfing Terror adversely affects many non-broken fearmancer builds, builds that have been around pre-patch and are not really OP now. Dhuumfire is the one trait causing all this stir and problem. Nerfing terror is the worst decision anet can make trying to balance the necro. Just remind yourself how terrible that trait was before it got a buff some months back.

The reason necro is viewed as OP is because – it is!! drums

Ostricheggs.3742:

Also, necromancers are extremely easy to play in comparison to engis. Marks are not grenades.

I’m not trying to get into an kitten contest, but you keep talking about how anyone can pick up a necro and steamroll. If that were actually the case I wouldn’t have 1v2d you and Kaypud a while back when you were on mes and he on necro. I remember it because I’ll happily admit you’re both better players than I under normal circumstances, so I was pretty surprised. There is actually a fair bit of depth to the class that isn’t immediately apparent.

I’ll grant you though, engi takes a lot more practice than necro to play at a reasonably competent level. But no one just picks up a necro and is instantly good. It’s really obvious to people who play necro regularly too, all these people you fight lately who are clearly just learning how to play it.

Every class has proficient condition clearing, if you spec into it. What matters to you more? clearing conditions/healing or fighting?

If all you do is fight, then you cannot complain about conditions, as you do not care enough to spec against them.

If you spec against conditions first before choosing how to fight then you can improve your fighting substantially.

Wow…so much kitten to read I can’t even bother to read it all… Some has made very valid points, others just whine.
Yes necros are better now, I wouldn’t call them OP but better. I’ve both played necro alot and played against them as other professions and imo it’s fine. Sure they could have skipped the fear on spectral wall, it’s enough on staff and DS imo but it’s not gamebreaking. The conditions are plenty and powerful but so is the engi or mesmers.
I have beaten plenty of necros in 2 ways…got plenty of condition removals or kill them before they kill you, with raw damage. I have ofc also been omgwtfpwned by alot of good necros but they/we are by no way unbeatable, far from it.

Ofc you’ll have a hard time facing conditions if you don’t trait at all for condition removal. Saying that mesmer tpvp build have to condition removal is just BS, there is not only 1 way to play the game, not even as mesmer… A D A P T ! Another profession gets more conditions in their build, change your own instead of complaining.

I’ve been recently doing high end TPvP with rank 50s… trust me, we are far from OP. I would go so far as to say we still don’t have a place in TPvP…

Here is where i’ll get the L2P shenanigans…

Let me break it down for you, evade block evade block stealth block block block evade evade 6 second CC focus fire 1 shot + evade block evade block block evade evade… wait… wait… there’s engineer condition immune immune immune immune.

Teams that went pro managed to form team composition and prepare a sequence of attacks in which they are close to invulnerable for 5-10 second interval until they CC lock 1 individual down for 5-10 seconds while bursting him… then they break combat running away with no chance of following…

Then they repeat sequence…
Of course they mesmer portal on top of you, must never forget that.

edit: fast moving combat pew pew with max CC and max stability is what wins at the moment. Necromancer is not fast moving, doesn’t have max stability… and pew pew is laughable.

Nemesis.8593:

I’ve been recently doing high end TPvP with rank 50s… trust me, we are far from OP. I would go so far as to say we still don’t have a place in TPvP…

Here is where i’ll get the L2P shenanigans…

Let me break it down for you, evade block evade block stealth block block block evade evade 6 second CC focus fire 1 shot + evade block evade block block evade evade… wait… wait… there’s engineer condition immune immune immune immune.

Teams that went pro managed to form team composition and prepare a sequence of attacks in which they are close to invulnerable for 5-10 second interval until they CC lock 1 individual down for 5-10 seconds while bursting him… then they break combat running away with no chance of following…

Then they repeat sequence…
Of course they mesmer portal on top of you, must never forget that.

edit: fast moving combat pew pew with max CC and max stability is what wins at the moment. Necromancer is not fast moving, doesn’t have max stability… and pew pew is laughable.

This is the risk with a profession that’s OP in one specific build but still has its fundamental problems: the meta warps to compensate for that one OP build and then the profession is left without room to maneuver. If the Necro is the “carry” but still doesn’t have sufficient sustain mechanics, people will just build Necro-killer strats and blow through Necro-centric teams.

Disclaimer: written by a WvW player.

From a more fundamental perspective, the problem with having both burning and terror is that the class now has access to too much frontloaded damage. Condition damage is designed to operate as backloaded damage, which is to say it is applied over time, but the reason why burning and terror are so powerful is that they effectively operate as direct damage. The time required to build condition damage up over the duration of an engagement, as it happens with bleeding, does not apply here. Instead you get large packets of damage dealt over a very short frame of time. Burst damage, if you will.

That might seems obvious of course, but in fact I doubt a.net truly understands the concept. It is precisely the reason why the pre-nerf corrupt boon was, from a purely theoretical standpoint, bad in terms of skill design. It had the potential to produce a large stack of conditions instantaneously, circumventing the time requirement and overloading removal immediately. Of course, in practice, that kind of a result was rare and required a full stack of boons (plus additional conditions applied of course, though that was hardly a problem for a condi necro), but the potential was there nonetheless. A much better design for skills that attempt to support the backloaded playstyle is something along the lines of what spinal shivers does; it avoids falling into the same trap by providing a more modest effect, attached to a much faster cooldown to compensate. A single completed cast won’t break the camel’s back, but over time the effect will accumulate and eventually wear the opponent’s defenses down. This, after all, is precisely how you would expect an attrition-based class to function, yes?

Pre-nerf CB did exactly the opposite; a powerful effect delivered immediately in return for a long cooldown. Precisely the design that supports a bursty style of play. If a.net really grasped the implications, it makes you wonder why they were smart enough to tone back CB yet gave us a revamped signet of spite that does pretty much the same. This is not to say that signet of spite is overpowered in and of itself (I’m using it here only as an example to make a point), but combine it with a multitude of additional conditions that over time already tax removal beyond the breaking point and you have a combination that is at least potentially dangerous. Case in point, try unloading CB + SoS on anyone with a few boons on them and see what happens.

Now of course a few skills/traits can afford to break the mold a bit. In terms of practical game balance signet of spite isn’t all that bad, post-nerf CB definitely isn’t, and the now much maligned terror was, after all, completely fine before the latest balance patch (and still is, by and large). But from a theoretical standpoint the fundamental design of all of the above is something to look out for. What I’m getting at here is simply that there is a limit to how many frontloaded elements you can introduce into a design heavily based on backloaded damage. While they may not appear overpowered in and of themselves, in combination they have the potential to become exactly that, especially if they tax the same defensive resource that the backloaded elements are already designed to overwhelm (ie condition removal). And indeed, with dhuumfire, a.net went one step too far. As has been argued many times in other threads, the real solution to the necromancer’s predicament was not to remove the time requirement from the equasion by introducing frontloaded elements that act faster, but rather to equip the class with the proper tools required to endure long enough for the backloaded elements to properly do their job.

In short, the presence of too many frontloaded elements has the potential to break the balance – or as a minimum the design concept – of a backloaded class. And a.net is pushing the envelope.