Guild Wars 2

Why OH why do we seem to get the “cheer squad” just before a patch comes out……are we being prepared for the same old disappointment.

@ DK…..why am I not allowed to express my view and you are? I could be just as offensive and use the same schoolyard tactic of pick on the messenger and not the message too…but maybe I am a bit more grown up than that…..don’t worry you will eventually grow up too.

PS if you look at that post you will see the build quickly fell apart when you tried to actually build it.

Oldbugga.7029:

To those who just want to cheer lead “the necro is OK” then that is your prerogative but I do not want to remain shoehorned into really limited playstyles just to be competitive when this profession offers so much potential that is held back (maybe deliberately).

Crap you cracked the De Vinci code! I knew my bosses at Anet weren’t very good at covering their paper trail. All of us ‘cheer leaders’ (ascii and others) are just double agents working to try and hide the fact that Anet devs are in fact actively working to keep this class down. I bet your tinfoil hat kept our psychic positive energy waves out of your head too.

People kept thinking it was Cox who started this, but in fact she was just a fall girl to divert attention away from the TRUE mastermind of this scheme: Mike O’Brien himself who sits upon a gilt throne built on the bones of Necromancers. This entire game has been an attack on Necro classes across the gaming world because they’ve been too popular for all these years. Yes.

However did you figure it out?

Do you guys know how crazy you sound when you start suggesting that Anet is actively working to against this class. I’m sure those tinfoil caps are very fashionable though.

Ah some humor at last….Yeah I do realise that but I was just responding to the usual listing of our possible abilities being put forth AGAIN (even by innuendo) as a though we can do all these things in one battle. We can’t and I think they know we can’t too. Just why keep peddling the same old falsehoods.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

“perfect world” has nothing to do with it. In PvE, that is how much it will help. Against a number of players, that is how much it will help. Against glass cannons, it will not do much, but they should be killed off easily enough anyway.

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

@Oldbugga: I seem to remeber that in your whining about that, I posted a build that fulfilled the dev’s vision and was rather viable. You dismissed it for no reason other than to continue your whining.

lol I take it back you are not a learner at all…

1 is just an example

it was a small number for a small mind to understand

try it again then with 10 or 100 if you can’r wrap your head around it kid

and nobody complains about the necro in pve so don’t bother bringing that up again since no one has any problem with them there.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled

there you go read the tooltip again and get a clue

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I don’t have a clue

Let me quote the part you got right though

I gotta give credit where it is due…

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

a 66% INCREASE in cool down duration.

yer lookin at it the wrong way homey. it’s 1+ 2/3 not 1 – 2/3

Oldbugga.7029:

As I have said many times before, metadata lists of abilities are not viable builds and when you examine the ability numbers/duration/cooldowns and try and match them with weapon skills and traits you will see why there are only a very limited number of builds that are barely viable given the current state of bugs and trait synergies.

I have actually pleaded with the devs for an example of how to build a necro that matches their vision of the profession…I do not believe it possible with the current trait structures and abilities and no-one has showed one that can do what the devs say a necro is supposed to be. All we get trotted out relentlessly is a list of possible abilities which in themselves look good until you try and make a build with them…then the bugs/numbers/cooldowns/exclusions/trait structures quickly demolish that vision…still doesn’t stop them being repeated ad nauseum by the cheer squad..

To those who just want to cheer lead “the necro is OK” then that is your prerogative but I do not want to remain shoehorned into really limited playstyles just to be competitive when this profession offers so much potential that is held back (maybe deliberately).

I am not normally a whiner and if you perceive my comments as such then you need some lessons in comprehension. As a passionate player of the necro in my own limited way, I only want the best for the profession and the game at large. Comments like Hackks ones above do nothing to progress the multitude of issues with the necro and the devs just turn away from such juvenile bickering and chest thumping leaving valid issues unaddressed.

lol give me a kittening break. no one’s saying “necro is OK” – well no one with half a brain anyways. Regardless, you can’t honestly think irrational whine posts like this are “progressing the multitude” of fixes coming the Necro’s way.

hackks.3687:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

a 66% INCREASE in cool down duration.

yer lookin at it the wrong way homey. it’s 1+ 2/3 not 1 – 2/3

awe dood you let him escape

we are supposed to be an attrition class

Dredlord.8076:

hackks.3687:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

a 66% INCREASE in cool down duration.

yer lookin at it the wrong way homey. it’s 1+ 2/3 not 1 – 2/3

awe dood you let him escape

we are supposed to be an attrition class

I know I know, but I felt like if I didn’t point it out I was gonna be a hypocrite. normally I’m ok with that actually, but I picked up some good drugs yesterday and they’re doing funny things to me. <3<3<3<3<3 (see what I mean)

Those who say DS is OP are confused. DS offer nothing dmg mitigationwise so all it is an xtra HP bar that is burned down fast. As well, you lose all your bar skills. So other than buying you a few secs more till your death, it really doesn’t offer much…

Necros are just the redheaded stepchild of ANet. And let’s not even get started on the cap on bleeds…..

As long as I can destroy people in roaming WvW with my build, I am content. Necros are far from being underpowered.

Sauzo.6821:

Those who say DS is OP are confused. DS offer nothing dmg mitigationwise so all it is an xtra HP bar that is burned down fast. As well, you lose all your bar skills. So other than buying you a few secs more till your death, it really doesn’t offer much…

Necros are just the redheaded stepchild of ANet. And let’s not even get started on the cap on bleeds…..

It’s not OP. Nobody ever said that. What they are saying is that it has a lot more use than you give it credit for.

Nobody can survive being focus-fired by a zerg. Nobody, regardless of build, will be able to hold out for more than a few seconds (roughly 6-7 seconds if built right, but that eats all of your invulnerabilities) Trying to pass of death shroud as useless because you can’t tank zergs is like saying a line of spears are useless because an M1 Abrams tank will just roll right over them.

And yes, that is exactly what you are doing when you say it “goes down way too fast only for them to kill you a few seconds later”. You can soak a lot of hits with it and it still provides several options for you. Think of it this way: would you rather your death shroud or your health bar go down in those few seconds?

I am not saying it’s perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than you seem to think.

@Oldbugga: I’m not denying you the right to express your opinion, just saying you ignore evidence to the contrary. Replace one weapon in that build and you go from simply “fulfilling the dev’s vision” to “a very viable build that still fulfills the dev’s vision” (hint: Warhorn→Focus/dagger).

Dredlord.8076:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

“perfect world” has nothing to do with it. In PvE, that is how much it will help. Against a number of players, that is how much it will help. Against glass cannons, it will not do much, but they should be killed off easily enough anyway.

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

@Oldbugga: I seem to remeber that in your whining about that, I posted a build that fulfilled the dev’s vision and was rather viable. You dismissed it for no reason other than to continue your whining.

lol I take it back you are not a learner at all…

1 is just an example

it was a small number for a small mind to understand

try it again then with 10 or 100 if you can’r wrap your head around it kid

and nobody complains about the necro in pve so don’t bother bringing that up again since no one has any problem with them there.

I can now safely dismiss you as a troll. <3
Bleed caps…minions… traits…weapons… yeah everything is fine in pve. You come jumping out of your trousers with insults at someones opinion and call them kids who need to l2p… and yet you spew that kind of garbage?…. Talk about not having a clue.

Perhaps I did get Chill’s exact effects wrong. It is still 5 seconds of recharge for every 3 normally, which in an of itself is a massive decrease in frequency. Weakness I will be testing in the Mists once I get home from work.

See, I can admit my mistakes.

Necro’s weakness has another interesting side-effect: it awlays comes with another condition (with exception of Trident 2, but few people care about underwater combat anyway. Hint: Necros are very strong in underwater situations, even though our traits really don’t support it) Enfeebling Blood is bleeding+weakness. CPC is poison+weakness. Chillblains+Blast is poison+chill+weakness. Plague is cripple+poison+weakness. Signet of Spite is a bunch of useless duration conditions (including weakness) on way too long of a cooldown.

The point remains that Necros are very strong supports, they just do it in a way that people don’t notice. We definitely have problems: minions not working, signets with too long of a cooldown(save Undeath, that’s got the right recharge for its effect), generally useless skills (Spectral Armor, Signet of Spite), too long of cooldown on wells, terrible traits and a very weak traitline (Blood Magic), etc. Necros are not up to par with other classes. However, what the OP states we lack is wrong.

Notice how CHIPS hasn’t posted in this thread since the arguments started going. Notice how his post history is mostly negative stuff. Notice how CHIPS’s tone changes from irrationally saying that necro is the worst class at everything, to more reasoned, polite arguments as soon as he drew someone in. You guys, this is a troll thread and we should not post in it.

Necro is far better than the first post claims. Necro still has problems. The end.

I’ve found after putting 500 hours+ into my necro and leveling 2 other characters to 80 on the side…that we have some bright spots…but also alot of low ones.

Some areas I feel are not as bad as Once imagined such as minions, and I say this not because I don’t feel their broken; They are. My view changed some once trying different classes and seeing that most every profession has a grouping of skills that are…well..useless and fit into next to no builds and can’t justify their use. I think most of the anger from summons not working is due in part to our class being called a necromancer…if we were called something else…we wouldn’t think as much about it I feel.

As for our skills in general, I think they are nice in theory but Given the state of the class….I sometimes feel We should be a different profession. To go back to what stated above…we SHOULD be called plaguebearer or something along those line…..and honestly…remove minions and their respective traits from our lines and add a set of 4 new utilities and tweak existing skills to better fullfill the new profession role. The utilities could aid in conditions somehow or act as buffs from say a warlock from other games….give us boons while using X weapon,etc.

I would feel a widespread change across the board like that would make so much more sense to better incapsalate the class as a whole into a actual theme and not just this put together profession that tries to be too many things and ends up falling short as a result. If we had a more defined role as a profession that went along with ( Insert new name here ), where we prioritize conditions, curses…voodoo or something..that just fit more of a role we can hang our hats on and give us a more defined role and direction as a whole.

As it stands now…we’re a hybrid class..have to come up with wonky builds to get the most out of us ( tried tons of builds…have had success with some….but just because success is had…doesn’t mean what you have to go thru to achieve it justifies it’s usefulness ), and more often than not we seem to have a clear lack of direction from a design perspective when it comes to what we are….are supposed to be or what we’re trying to achieve.

So I want to be clear….I don’t think the necro is complete rubbish….I’ve had my bright spots…we have some ok set-ups here and there…can be effective in areas…but Feel as a whole we need a remodel of our profession as a whole….advocate changing our name entirely from necromancer…and trying a reproach of what we are through utilities and skills.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Dredlord.8076:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

“perfect world” has nothing to do with it. In PvE, that is how much it will help. Against a number of players, that is how much it will help. Against glass cannons, it will not do much, but they should be killed off easily enough anyway.

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

@Oldbugga: I seem to remeber that in your whining about that, I posted a build that fulfilled the dev’s vision and was rather viable. You dismissed it for no reason other than to continue your whining.

lol I take it back you are not a learner at all…

1 is just an example

it was a small number for a small mind to understand

try it again then with 10 or 100 if you can’r wrap your head around it kid

and nobody complains about the necro in pve so don’t bother bringing that up again since no one has any problem with them there.

I can now safely dismiss you as a troll. <3
Bleed caps…minions… traits…weapons… yeah everything is fine in pve. You come jumping out of your trousers with insults at someones opinion and call them kids who need to l2p… and yet you spew that kind of garbage?…. Talk about not having a clue.

Yes relative to pvp everything is fine in pve, I have leveled 2 necros to 80 and put them both in full exotics and I have never had an issue with any build I have tried in pve. Problems like “Bleed caps…minions… traits…weapons…” exist just the same in pvp but those problems are far worse in a competitive environment. Honestly have you ever had any problems doing any pve content with your necro?

I did not insult his opinion. I corrected him on FACTS about how necro abilities work (mostly the math behind it) and others corrected his failed attempts to comprehend our ability tooltips.
What I meant, and I am sorry it wasn’t clear, was we don’t need people spreading the wrong info about our class and then telling them to L2P based on that info.

Thanks for coming out though, you have proven completely useless in this thread <—nota troll.

My only wish is that DS didn’t remove my ability to cast normal skills… like activating F1 would temporarily open options in f2 f3 f4 f5 (with attack skill changing our usual auto attack skill). In order to not have conflicting animation, they can just not show any animation of other skills while in DS mode (but you still have to channel/cast time etc)

lettucemode.3789:

Notice how CHIPS hasn’t posted in this thread since the arguments started going. Notice how his post history is mostly negative stuff. Notice how CHIPS’s tone changes from irrationally saying that necro is the worst class at everything, to more reasoned, polite arguments as soon as he drew someone in. You guys, this is a troll thread and we should not post in it.

Necro is far better than the first post claims. Necro still has problems. The end.

Hasn’t posted in this thread? I post many many times in this thread. Maybe you didn’t read carefully?

And then you took the time to look though my history. Thanks for your effort my man! ^^ What does “mostly negative posts” prove exactly? That I had been saying necro is underpowered for a while now? Isn’t sticking to my case a good thing?

Yeah… bleed caps really only do apply in PvE. In PvP, you usually only have 2 or 3 folks on a team that apply a decent number of bleeds anyway and the times they are focusing on the same person are even slimmer. Bleed cap is almost never hit in PvP.

After testing in the Mists (Steady staff, 30 traits in spite, no other equipment or traits), I will admit I was indeed wrong on fumbles being variable.

However, this does not mean that my original point: Necros are great, if subtle, support was incorrect. You claim that folks have “proven me wrong”, but none have on this. Against low precision builds, it is significant damage mitigation.

1. Weakness is easy damage and defense mitigation that necros have good access to. Not letting someone dodge that third time in a quick fight can easily be the difference in a kill and being killed.

2. Blind is very available to necros and is better damage mitigation than Aegis. Plague can easily cut the entire damage output of up to five enemies (would be more but for the AoE cap) by half or more, depending on exactly what skills they are using, for 30 seconds. Well of Darkness can do the same for 5 seconds and can be traited to occur at 900 range on a 48 second cooldown (hint: support builds usually have these traits). Nothing a Guardian or Ele can do even comes close to that level of mitigation (closest they have is projectile protection)

3. Necros control enemy mitigation tactics with Well of Power, Putrid Mark, Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, and Plague Signet.

Now, can necros heal the ungodly amounts that Guardians and Eles can? No. Best they have is Well of Blood (which is admittedly good, but not on the same level) and Mark of Blood or traited Life Transfer. They can’t do group burst heal.

Can they do group protection? Actually better, since Spectral Wall has no cap on how many it can effect, but it requires allies to take some initiative.

Can they give allies Might and Fury? Not without Well of Power converting Weakness or Blind (or being a charr) or landing one of the few blast finishers in a fire field.

So necros can’t throw a ton of ally support out. We knew that. However, they throw out incredible amounts of offensive support: that is greatly weakening an opponent’s ability to harm allies or recover from attacks. Players don’t notice it because they almost never check the conditions on enemies. It’s not shiny and blue like the Guardian’s support and it doesn’t make your HP jump or make nice yellow pentagons on your status bar. That does not mean it isn’t there and is making a massive difference.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yeah… bleed caps really only do apply in PvE. In PvP, you usually only have 2 or 3 folks on a team that apply a decent number of bleeds anyway and the times they are focusing on the same person are even slimmer. Bleed cap is almost never hit in PvP.

After testing in the Mists (Steady staff, 30 traits in spite, no other equipment or traits), I will admit I was indeed wrong on fumbles being variable.

However, this does not mean that my original point: Necros are great, if subtle, support was incorrect. You claim that folks have “proven me wrong”, but none have on this. Against low precision builds, it is significant damage mitigation.

1. Weakness is easy damage and defense mitigation that necros have good access to. Not letting someone dodge that third time in a quick fight can easily be the difference in a kill and being killed.

2. Blind is very available to necros and is better damage mitigation than Aegis. Plague can easily cut the entire damage output of up to five enemies (would be more but for the AoE cap) by half or more, depending on exactly what skills they are using, for 30 seconds. Well of Darkness can do the same for 5 seconds and can be traited to occur at 900 range on a 48 second cooldown (hint: support builds usually have these traits). Nothing a Guardian or Ele can do even comes close to that level of mitigation (closest they have is projectile protection)

3. Necros control enemy mitigation tactics with Well of Power, Putrid Mark, Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, and Plague Signet.

Now, can necros heal the ungodly amounts that Guardians and Eles can? No. Best they have is Well of Blood (which is admittedly good, but not on the same level) and Mark of Blood or traited Life Transfer. They can’t do group burst heal.

Can they do group protection? Actually better, since Spectral Wall has no cap on how many it can effect, but it requires allies to take some initiative.

Can they give allies Might and Fury? Not without Well of Power converting Weakness or Blind (or being a charr) or landing one of the few blast finishers in a fire field.

So necros can’t throw a ton of ally support out. We knew that. However, they throw out incredible amounts of offensive support: that is greatly weakening an opponent’s ability to harm allies or recover from attacks. Players don’t notice it because they almost never check the conditions on enemies. It’s not shiny and blue like the Guardian’s support and it doesn’t make your HP jump or make nice yellow pentagons on your status bar. That does not mean it isn’t there and is making a massive difference.

Dude I respect your opinion. But I cannot agree to this.

Well of Darkness, Well of Power, Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, and Plague Signet.

While these sounds good on paper, you cannot equip all of these skills into 3 utility slots. So you got to pick and choose your personal best.

And most of these skills have a recharge of over 40 seconds even after spec. So you have to be very careful when using these skills. For example Corrupt Boon. In wvw there aren’t that many people with tons of buffs. So you would have to look though many players in a zerg to find one that does.

Putrid Mark only works if the enemy is right next to an ally that happens to have conditions. Sure it isn’t that rare, but it is still conditional.

Lastly for the purpose of shut down, I would trade all 5 of these skills for the GW1’s Spiteful Spirit any time. Alternatively I would trade our GW2 elite Lich Form for this GW1 regular skill call Enfeeble. Look at the former glories of the necromancers of GW1, and look at what we have become in GW2. Now we should be happy when we blind the enemy for one attack? In GW1 we used to shut down 66% of someone’s damage for 30 seconds!

PvP in GW2 is on a much larger scale than GW1. In GW1 it was only 8v8 gvg. Now its often 30vs30. While every other class (warrior, assassins, etc) has gotten stronger to compensate, we necromancers have lost so much power it aren’t funny.

To be fair, Spiteful Spirit is in this game in the form of Confusion. Spiteful Spirit did nothing to mitigate or shut down enemies, but it did make them re-evaluate risk vs reward (at least in PvP).

As for all of the skills I listed, of course you can’t equip them all. This isn’t WoW. The point is that we have multiple tools to accomplish each job. I also stated that long cooldowns was a definite issue for necros (in an earlier post, but I still stated as such).

Yes, we were better in GW1. However, our party support capabilities there were Well of Blood and Enfeebling Blood (Weaken Armor in HM). Honestly, I’d say we’re better off in the support department now.

Overall, though I do miss the days of the minion army and the nigh unkillable vampire. However, GW1 was designed and balanced around a completely different paradigm than GW2. When you have 8 players together and that’s it, things have to be looked at differently than when you have a persistent world or the far more mobile PvP environment that GW2 has. Something as hard of a shutdown as GW1 Spiteful Spirit would be flat-out broken in WvW zergs. One thief that isn’t watching his status bar would half kill the zerg for you.

lettucemode.3789:

Necro is far better than the first post claims. Necro still has problems. The end.

This bears repeating.

Necros do need fixes and perhaps some slight trait tuning (although the trait issues are nowhere as bad as people like to make them out to be…). It’d be great if all the AI issues for minions could be worked out, or minion power drastically raised to account for their unreliability.

But the class is hardly in the worst place, as the OP states. The Engineer class is in absolute shambles. The Ranger class is struggling to find a place, with only one really viable type of build emerging. Of course, every forum is convinced their class is in the worst shape. There is a thread up top in the Mesmer forum about giving up that class because it’s not viable anymore. Which is crazy, and we all know it, but people feel that way…

Threads like this are ultimately ignored by the devs. Stop wasting your time and actually make a list of corrections that is not, “I demand to play GW1 minion necros.” Because that playstyle is never coming back no matter how many bite marks you make in your keyboard.

Some rebuttals to the OP:

1. Anyone who says, “Necros have poor survivability” needs to roll a thief and take it into sPvP. Play at least 25 games. I promise you both condi and power Necros will be both on your list of top 3 most hated opponents by the end of it, and they’re out there waiting to destroy you. Necros have great survival tools against burst, and easy access to a lot of passive healing to help with longevity.
2. Necros have acceptably good PvE support. Run a group healing & condition build and watch how happy your teammates are. As for WvW, they’re some of the best wall defenders out there and Nemesis has gone into great detail on this.
3. If you think that “everyone else can run away from a zerg” then you have a very distorted opinion of the world. Personally, I blame youtube for this. D/D elementalists, long-stealth thieves, and mesmers who luckily have a portal up can get away from a zerg reliably. Most other classes get steamrolled. Moral: don’t get caught by a zerg.

KirinDave.6451:

…

Please stop making sense ! This could set a dangerous precedent

About point 3 : necros do have the jumping from cliff with DS escape plan right ? Alright it’s situational (unlike ele’s freaking RTL), but still counts in my book.

NeryK.5301:

KirinDave.6451:

…

Please stop making sense ! This could set a dangerous precedent

About point 3 : necros do have the jumping from cliff with DS escape plan right ? Alright it’s situational (unlike ele’s freaking RTL), but still counts in my book.

Spectral Walk, actually. Necros are the only class that can jump into the canyon in Rata Sum and live (I have screenshots from down there to prove it). It’s actually fully detailed down there, which I found surprising.

Cliffs are a great escape route for necros with spectral walk, provided they know how to use it.

I’ve recently started playing again after 2-3 months break, my main is an 80 ele which I really enjoy. I’ve loved the Necro asthetics since beta and always expected changes to be done.

I’m not really sure, but is it just me or is more or less every kitten ability the same as launch, weapons like Staff feels like its trying to have a bit of everything. Dots for condition dmg, fear/slow for control, kinda ok 1/2 dmg if geared for power, even healing with nr 2.

Seems like alot of the features a necro have is like this, everything at once yet nothing they truly shine at doing. Even the elementalist have better pets than necro :S

Is there a list for all patch notes for the necro proff some where. Would love to get a feeling of if anything noticeable actually have changed?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Spectral Walk, actually. Necros are the only class that can jump into the canyon in Rata Sum and live (I have screenshots from down there to prove it). It’s actually fully detailed down there, which I found surprising.

Cliffs are a great escape route for necros with spectral walk, provided they know how to use it.

OK, you made me doubt but here is a video showcasing this point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8u3fC25VCM

I have both a necro and ele in their 40s and have a hard time deciding which one to level first. I must say the temptation to jump on the d/d ele bandwagon is great, in a WvW perspective.

Its always interesting to read the forums and see how others feel about a class. My first real necro wvw build was inspired by a post on this forum. It was a power build with Dagger/Warhorn (ah the days when necros had no speed buff) and axe/focus utilizing wells. Though many on the forums claimed this kind of build was weak i was doing pretty well with it, even winning 1 on 2 with guardian + warrior. Later I tried a condition specc with epidemic and it was a blast in group fights.

CHIPS. There are lots of people with tons of boons on them in wvw. On my server i see lots of d/d eles and tank guadians putting up huge amount of buffs. With decent timing and positioning: Corrupt boon + epidemic = watch them and bystanders melt.

Team support ? Theres more than one possibility to support your team.
Weakness is a dmg decrease for enemies. And it allows your allies to hit enemies more often because those cant dodge as often.
Chill decreases movement speed, a) hindering your enemies to damage fleeing allies b) allow allies to catch up with fleeing enemies (thieves hate it :-) )
c)reducing damage by increasing enemies skill cd.
Fear on staff is an amazing crowd control skill. You can use it to make a small group of enemies stopdoing whatever they have been and turn around and run. Yes only for one second but think about the confusion this usually creates.
Bleed is useful as most people in WvW only react to instant high dmg. Bleed hurts lot especially when you dont watch your buff/condition bar closely. Which lots of players dont.
Poison doesnt just moderate dmg over time. It also reduces the effectivity of healing skills. So when you see an enemy low on health you put poison on him and voila – you just reduced his heal by 1/3.
DS is a second health bar. Say you put lots of conditions on that glass cannon guy but now he is close to you dealing his high dmg. DS buys you the time you need by allowing you to stay alive and even deal some damage to him while your conditions tick away. And you can fear him away meaning your #3 is a stun you can use to interupt his attack dealing most dmg (say 100b on warr). And the conditions still tick away.

In fact most conditions are stealthy boons. Boons you put on allies to strengthen them. Conditions you put on enemies to weaken them. Necros DO have lots of team support. Its just a bit more subtle than a guardian popping lots of boons on himself and his allies.

Be careful not to confuse what is neat with what is useful.

Rmpz.7031:

I’ve recently started playing again after 2-3 months break, my main is an 80 ele which I really enjoy. I’ve loved the Necro asthetics since beta and always expected changes to be done.

I’m not really sure, but is it just me or is more or less every kitten ability the same as launch, weapons like Staff feels like its trying to have a bit of everything. Dots for condition dmg, fear/slow for control, kinda ok 1/2 dmg if geared for power, even healing with nr 2.

Seems like alot of the features a necro have is like this, everything at once yet nothing they truly shine at doing. Even the elementalist have better pets than necro :S

Is there a list for all patch notes for the necro proff some where. Would love to get a feeling of if anything noticeable actually have changed?

I think this points to the fact that necros make the best hybrids in the game. They truly excel when you spec for both power and condition. This gives them excellent sustained damage.

NeryK.5301:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Spectral Walk, actually. Necros are the only class that can jump into the canyon in Rata Sum and live (I have screenshots from down there to prove it). It’s actually fully detailed down there, which I found surprising.

Cliffs are a great escape route for necros with spectral walk, provided they know how to use it.

OK, you made me doubt but here is a video showcasing this point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8u3fC25VCM

I have both a necro and ele in their 40s and have a hard time deciding which one to level first. I must say the temptation to jump on the d/d ele bandwagon is great, in a WvW perspective.

Now, try jumping all the way down to the bottom of Rata Sum with full life force. You will be 100% dead.

Try jumping down with Spectral Walk. Timed properly, you will land at 100% life.

Which is better for cliff-diving? Keep in mind Spectral Walk also is one of the best skills in the game for actual utility (stun break, long duration swiftness, teleport-juking, and life force gain when hit)

I kind of stoped reading the Op after reading “Necro don’t have enough survivibility”

….

ehm… sry…. but are you stupied?

Srsly if you think the Necro does no dmg, support or surviviblity you play the clas very wrong. There are a lot of great tutorials out there you should read them. If you want a class so mash all keys to kill the enemy with no brain the warrior would be the way to go.

Aside from the busted utilities, bugs, completely useless pets, barely any self buffs, no group buffs and some really awful skill lines, the most ‘difficult’ aspect to the necro is the complete lack of top end synergy.
Deathshroud, Plague Form, Lich Form etc, are so alien from conventional skills they essentially have to be ‘learned’ as their own playstyle lines.

I really worry we’re going to get an indirect bollocking from AoE adjustments in the near future and the viability of the class in its present form will slip from barely playable to essentially worthless. As its pretty much all they’ve got going for them.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Now, try jumping all the way down to the bottom of Rata Sum with full life force. You will be 100% dead.

Try jumping down with Spectral Walk. Timed properly, you will land at 100% life.

Which is better for cliff-diving? Keep in mind Spectral Walk also is one of the best skills in the game for actual utility (stun break, long duration swiftness, teleport-juking, and life force gain when hit)

Oh. Then I would be curious to know what is the tipping point between landing with full health like the guy on the video and landing dead on arrival. Besides, I already use spectral walk regardless of the base jumping “feature”.

NeryK.5301:

I have both a necro and ele in their 40s and have a hard time deciding which one to level first. I must say the temptation to jump on the d/d ele bandwagon is great, in a WvW perspective.

Do both. But also do try Dagger/Focus on your Elementalist. It’s quietly gaining popularity as an exceptionally good skirmisher build. Its defensive abilities are stunning.

Thresher.3049:

some really awful skill lines,

Actually, the skill lines make a lot of sense. They just expect you to be making various types hybrids.

For example, there are some really neat pvp damage/condi hybrids that lean on DS and spectral skills for survival. Unsurprisingly, they want points in Curses and Soul Reaping. And hey, look at that, precision, critical damage, more DS damage mitigation, and condition damage in one package.

Look at all the most successful necro builds: they’re all hybridized in damage. Very few successful builds totally focus on one aspect of things.

It’s also worth noting how very powerful and generally good most (non-minion) Necro utils are. Unlike many classes where a 30-point trait is required for a spec, Necros are a lot more about utility choices and stat focusing. If the minion AI wasn’t so unreliable, they’d be very good utilities too.

But you’re right that Necro is a very weird class in the GW2 panoply that requires very specific disciplines and build strategies.

L2p

Power necros have the worst damage out of all the classes? It hurt me to read any more, but I did. A great played necro (condition or power), can rival or completely dominate any class in a 1v1. Not to mention necros excel in team fights.

Necros don’t have great escape mechanics as intended.

This said, people need to learn about positioning, and learn when to pick there battles. I swear people don’t even try to understand this class at all.

NeryK.5301:

Oh. Then I would be curious to know what is the tipping point between landing with full health like the guy on the video and landing dead on arrival. Besides, I already use spectral walk regardless of the base jumping “feature”.

You use spectral walk befor you hit the ground two times in a row( about 3sec befor if you never done it). That way you will get ported to the place you have been a second ago resseting you fall hight counter

Ascii.9726:

I’m sorry but your take on Necromancers and there effectiveness in all the roles is just wrong, granted we cant preform better then most classes at some aspects but your analysis is just wrong and this is really a L2P topic.

Survivability
Firstly Necromancers have one of the best survival setups in-game. it may not be as obvious as D/D Elementalists regen power or Bunker Guardians condition removal but Death Shroud is a huge boost in survivability.

(120% of Max Health + SRP%) – 3-4% Total/ sec can translate into some extremely bunky builds and I’ve survived and killed countless times on below 2k health and flicking in and out of Death Shroud to decoy on cooldowns.

Heres a quick sPvP screenie i took yesterday with my burst heal support build i didn’t die once in the match because of the insane survivability i speced into.

Damage
You cant compare our damage to theifs and complain they do more then us, period. Theif classes are designed to hit hard and die quick and in WvW i have no issues at all fighting theifs there my easiest kills.

Our damage is suppose be the weakest out of the light Armour users because of our insane health pool. Other classes typically need to stat in full vitality to hit 18k health, we don’t and that’s why many Necromancers choose to make up lost damage in Armour bonus.

That being said i have never had an issue (minus Bunker Guardians ofc) dishing out 20k+ damage in a rotation of direct damage skills, Necromancers weakness in the damage department is the long cooldowns on our utilities vs other classes which is unfair yes.

You cant say Necromancers conditions is weak zerg vs. zerg because of all the AoE condition removal, its universal. Every class suffers from all the passive condition removal.

TL;DR L2P please. We arnt the strongest, but we are not the weakest at everything. We suffer from long cooldown utilities and numerous high-end bugs which will.. eventually be fixed.

I also fully support this reply to the OP.

Please understand that every few days we get an angry/frustrated necromancer on these forums right after they get screwed in-game just to rant.

This is not the place to vent frustration; although in many cases it is warranted to complain, this is definitely a L2P issue.

Oh dear. The OP is obviously completely terrible. I honestly don’t know what to say. He is wrong in so many ways. I’ll just say that maybe necro doesnt look that great on paper to a theorycrafter, but in the hands of a SKILLED player they are an unbelievably versatile class.

I could go on but when it comes to nubs like the OP this saying comes to mind:

“never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down and beat you with experience”

Jknifer.6803:

Oh dear. The OP is obviously completely terrible. I honestly don’t know what to say. He is wrong in so many ways. I’ll just say that maybe necro doesnt look that great on paper to a theorycrafter, but in the hands of a SKILLED player they are an unbelievably versatile class.

I could go on but when it comes to nubs like the OP this saying comes to mind:

“never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down and beat you with experience”

Let’s make a deal. Today is Friday, a busy day for gaming. If today I see WvW swarming with “powerful” necros, I would make a post about how nub I am. I must see more necros than one of thiefs, warriors and mesmers, and they must be making a difference in the war, for this to apply. ^^

There is always two sides to these “necro is screwed/UP” threads.

We have people who are very loyal to the class, play to win to the best of what they’re given, try to ignore the heavy downfalls by structuring to cover weaknesses, and then try to blatantly discredit haters with information on how to get over their “whines”.

Then we have people who are frustrated and tired with the fact that you can play other alts and have a much easier time building a bombshell character that wins in a specific setting much easier than the necro can when similarly built. In turn, they get angry at those who are “pro” for necro and get insulted or annoyed by their apparent wish to keep necro nerfed.

Both sides aren’t seeing the reality of the class.

The necromancer is doing just as well as any other class, except for the few builds from one or two classes that are currently overpowered in specific setups. What this means is, we have players getting OWNED by a specific class tailored to execute a specific kill in a specific setting and once we have people experiencing frustration in that specific setting, they must assume the class is broken since there is no way to combat an unbalanced build with a balanced build meant to work well in all cases.

If we actually check the data SEPARATELY between wvw/pve/dungeons/spvp/tpvp we will find that the necromancer does well enough in all respects, with some slightly better performance and satisfaction among solo PvE players and hotjoin sPvPers.

The reason for this is because of the flexibilility of the class. It encompasses a lot of roles simultaneously pretty well no matter how you build it. The downside is we lack explosive specialty build potential like a berserker gcan thief d/d build or a bunker d/d ele or mace/shield regen bunk guardian.

I was reading some other posts in the other subforums and there are other players discussing the nature of bunkering and burst in the game.

from the material i’ve been reading, the discussions I’ve been taking a part of, and the opinions gathered from many different players, not just Necromancers, the largest issues in the game are as follows, and affects all classes equally except for shatter mesmers and 30/30 warriors in non-competitive PvP settings like sPvP and WvW:

• Bleed cap, non-synchronous play affectation.

• Burst builds not being harnessed correctly. (specialty build that ONLY kill well in a gank fight against most other builds that are not built to bunker)

• Bunker builds (m/s guardian, regen/clone mesmer, PTV necros, 30/30 PTV warriors w/ shout cleansing, permastealth culling exploitative bleed thieves, double pet rangers sitting on their downed states (rock drakes?), harass CC bomb engis, etc. that are so hard to kill, you expend all your tools and instagib yourself or cannot kill each other due to regenerative natures)

• Cleansing, greatly limiting the effectiveness of condition-focused players. The balance is bob-tailed when anyone stacks conditions.

• Cooldown unbalance— variety in builds going head to head make cooldown management awful for many players since key utilities, internal cd traits, and skills are either used too frequently, are not needed at all, or simply do not have any use against a certain build. This is due to poor mechanic implementation with respect to counter builds.

This is all gathered from my research and insight into MANY if not nearly all the subforums as of late, so please take into consideration that we’re not the only ones who feel gimp in some settings.

tl;dr we’re not broken, but we’re also far from balanced. the key right now is to play in a fun, samewhat balanced, strong build that accentuates your specific playstyle. Try to avoid gameplay or fights that you know you will not enjoy. in other words, play to win.

Sheobix.8796:

There is always two sides to these “necro is screwed/UP” threads.

We have people who are very loyal to the class, play to win to the best of what they’re given, try to ignore the heavy downfalls by structuring to cover weaknesses, and then try to blatantly discredit haters with information on how to get over their “whines”.

Then we have people who are frustrated and tired with the fact that you can play other alts and have a much easier time building a bombshell character that wins in a specific setting much easier than the necro can when similarly built. In turn, they get angry at those who are “pro” for necro and get insulted or annoyed by their apparent wish to keep necro nerfed.

Both sides aren’t seeing the reality of the class.

The necromancer is doing just as well as any other class, except for the few builds from one or two classes that are currently overpowered in specific setups. What this means is, we have players getting OWNED by a specific class tailored to execute a specific kill in a specific setting and once we have people experiencing frustration in that specific setting, they must assume the class is broken since there is no way to combat an unbalanced build with a balanced build meant to work well in all cases.

If we actually check the data SEPARATELY between wvw/pve/dungeons/spvp/tpvp we will find that the necromancer does well enough in all respects, with some slightly better performance and satisfaction among solo PvE players and hotjoin sPvPers.

The reason for this is because of the flexibilility of the class. It encompasses a lot of roles simultaneously pretty well no matter how you build it. The downside is we lack explosive specialty build potential like a berserker gcan thief d/d build or a bunker d/d ele or mace/shield regen bunk guardian.

I was reading some other posts in the other subforums and there are other players discussing the nature of bunkering and burst in the game.

from the material i’ve been reading, the discussions I’ve been taking a part of, and the opinions gathered from many different players, not just Necromancers, the largest issues in the game are as follows, and affects all classes equally except for shatter mesmers and 30/30 warriors in non-competitive PvP settings like sPvP and WvW:

• Bleed cap, non-synchronous play affectation.

• Burst builds not being harnessed correctly. (specialty build that ONLY kill well in a gank fight against most other builds that are not built to bunker)

• Bunker builds (m/s guardian, regen/clone mesmer, PTV necros, 30/30 PTV warriors w/ shout cleansing, permastealth culling exploitative bleed thieves, double pet rangers sitting on their downed states (rock drakes?), harass CC bomb engis, etc. that are so hard to kill, you expend all your tools and instagib yourself or cannot kill each other due to regenerative natures)

• Cleansing, greatly limiting the effectiveness of condition-focused players. The balance is bob-tailed when anyone stacks conditions.

• Cooldown unbalance— variety in builds going head to head make cooldown management awful for many players since key utilities, internal cd traits, and skills are either used too frequently, are not needed at all, or simply do not have any use against a certain build. This is due to poor mechanic implementation with respect to counter builds.

This is all gathered from my research and insight into MANY if not nearly all the subforums as of late, so please take into consideration that we’re not the only ones who feel gimp in some settings.

tl;dr we’re not broken, but we’re also far from balanced. the key right now is to play in a fun, samewhat balanced, strong build that accentuates your specific playstyle. Try to avoid gameplay or fights that you know you will not enjoy. in other words, play to win.

Excellent post.

Necro is a decent class, but we do have some problems that need fixing.

I still get a kick out of my survivability – kitten the enemy off with death shroud and plague form.

Still, as an “attrition” class, I have nothing on the Guardian/Elementalist.

It would also be nice to have options… one thing i notice with my other Level 80 characters is the variety in trait lines and spec builds.

It’s so hard to chose what traits to take on my Thief… i’ve swapped, unswapped, reswapped… don’t have that problem on the Necro.

When i got my necro to 80 with about 280 hours on his clock, I read a lot of people getting frustrated with the classic berserker gcan thief going nuts with D/D on absolutely everyone.

So i rolled a thief, got him to 80, geared him in full bers gear, and found out what everyone was complaining about.

The gcan berserker thief is built to kill with absolute disregard to defense. It is made to satisfy players who desire quick reward or instant gratification type gameplay. They do not mind dying frequently, and only have a good time chainkilling about 10-15 times until they nearly instantly fall when faced with their extremist counter build, the bunker. in other cases, they also die when faced with more than one competent opponent.

People get angry about this seemingly OP status and argue that a specific skill and a specific class needs to be nerfed, without thinking about more balanced builders and players who do better in all areas of play in a much more consistent manner. In the end, they suffer from overzealous nerfing, which is why Anet is keen to avoid listening to a lot of rage posting on these forums, as the necromancer forums proves to be the most volatile.

on the flipside, others want to buff the seemingly victimized weaker classes, which in reality are not weak at all, but whose players are frustrated because they’ve experienced unbalanced specialty builds likes berserker 30/30 glass cannons or such.

I still have that thief in my bar. he has over 80g worth of gcan crap on him, and he can hit for 5-9k like the rest of them.

But I almost never play him.

It just isn’t fun. There is no dueling, there is no intuitive gameplay, there is no countering, there is no objective based playstyle, and all it is meant to do is find a roamer, abuse the roamer, and try to enjoy the fact that they had no chance because they’re not a bunker.

In the absolute review of all the things Guild Wars 2…

Anet needs to fix the extremes. bunkering and bursting. as a supposed “e-sport” game, they need to pay attention to how people actually fight each other, not on how OP someone can stack 3 stats and go to town on 80% of the populace that has ideals for a balanced/fun build of their own.

Because of the fact that anet has expressed their concern for not wanting to get overzealous with the nerf bat, they do not post replies in our subforum as often as other subforums.

We hound them, jump on their posts, and rip them apart. We throw more fuel on the fire and complain MORE when we see something that doesn’t please us.

the people who are posting on this thread saying L2P are only saying this because in the end, the OP isn’t helping our case. rage threads on this subforum are too common and don’t get anywhere. We get a lot of random players who come here to rant, looking for a solution. Those who prefer to read instead of post… they get turned away from the class and it begins an endless spiral of ignorance from the developers.

This is why we kindly ask (although it may not seem kind from others in the above posts)

please, stop complaining. As much as it seems like we’re trying to pick a fight, I personally mean it in a way that only seeks to find a greater cause in the following months for the class.

We KNOW this class is pretty botched. But it plays well enough anyways. Just like all the other classes EXCEPT for specially built builds that need to be addressed by Anet.

If the existence of people being upset at a problem causes the people who are in charge of fixing problems to avoid doing so, then the people who are upset are NOT NOT NOT the problem.

Paying my bills annoys me. That doesn’t mean I get to burn them instead of paying them. I don’t wanna go to work. But I have to.

Broken classes attract complaints. That doesn’t mean you get a free pass to ignore them…

Your theory amounts to “the game fixers need to grow up”. If I were at anet, that might be gratuitously insulting…

The thing is, if you ignore the most extreme qq threads, what Necromancers ask for is normally pretty reasonable.

They generally want ;

Reoganisation of traits , not massive sweeping buffs.

Skill that are unreliable fixing, not massive sweeping buffs

Skills that are broken fixing, not massive sweeping buffs.

Axe altering in a way to make it have a niche, reguardless of how situational it is, not making its damage insanely high or bursty.

Go to alot of other sub forums and its either screams for nerfs or screams for massive changes to the very basis of the class.

I feel we’re a pretty reasonable bunch here

Actually, I for one wouldn’t mind massive sweeping buffs ^^

Far as i’m aware I am the only person who has spelled thief correctly. Necros need a boost? yes. Do we need some fixing? yes. Are we 100% broken and doom and gloom? no.