Guild Wars 2

A little bit about what I am looking to do. I’m on Fort Aspenwood with about 5-6 friends, and we’re going to primarily doing small group roaming in WvW with the numbers listed previously. I used my 80-boost on a Warrior, and frankly as corny as it sounds I just am not into the aesthetics of the Warrior. I know that it has strong mobility, amazing sustain, and decent damage (this is from what I have read / been told) but the profession just isn’t really grabbing me.

I want to be that devilish looking necromancer, and get to master those green abilities that look quite cool. So my question is this, and I would appreciate a straight and honest answer that addresses both the strengths and weaknesses of the class. How well do Necromancers fare in this kind of small group roaming WvW environment. How is our mobility/sustain/damage/ compared to other classes. I’ve read how the Thief and Mesmer seem to be the top tier of mobility/kiting/running away. However I’m not really interested in that, I’d like to be able to hold my ground, give chase when need be, and have some means of escape of my own. I realize that’s probably a tall order, but I’d like to see what you guys think who are seasoned Necro’s.

Strength:
-Good damage when left alone
-Good aoe/downstate cleave damage
-Good access to corrupt boons
-Able to manage/transfer condi’s

Weakness:
-Against competent opponents you’ll be target #1
-Bad mobility even with added reaper leap
-No active defense (no invulns, blocks, evades, stealth)
-Prone to get cc’ed to death due to lack of stab & resistance

In small group WvW roaming, necros can be fun with good support from your group mates. However you’ll find that against any decent players, they’ll focus target you first. This can be fun and challenging, but it can also get old fast. It’s something you either get used to or you’re best looking elsewhere and play another class.

One problem with WvW is that it’s not tuned the same way PvP is. There are runes, sigils, and amulets available in WvW that aren’t available in PvP due to balance issues. So you’ll pretty much be facing lots of cheese min/max builds that can burst you down before you can blink in small group situations. Because of this, while I prefer power builds and power gameplay, I recommend playing condi builds in small group situations.

It is what it is, condi builds allow you to tank up without sacrificing your condi damage. You’ll also be better at corrupt boons and managing condi transfers. This is important because you’ll face lots of min/max condi builds while roaming. Although since you won’t be solo and will have group support, power builds can be fun and can be viable. Just that you’ll find it frustrating when you’re cc’ed and focused, forcing you to play more defensively, and that’s not how power build plays.

Funny you mentioned a warrior. Warriors right now are top dogs, they recently got buffed and they’re now a thorn on our sides. But I understand looks & styles matter so give necros a try. Note that you’ll want to unlock Reaper right away. Without the added mobility, personal stab, and access to some shouts, you’ll be at a great disadvantage when you get focused on in small group gameplay.

Thanks for the write up, this was exactly the thing I was looking for and I appreciate the time you put into it.

Don’t even bother solo roaming in Reaper. Condi Reaper can’t break the cheese druids that run gs/staff and heal non stop. Since you are FA, you may face YB, which has one of those druids that roams with a bunch of thieves. Thieves will stun you to death. The druid will cheese you to death. Also, your party may outrun you when they are getting run over by the zerg, so you are the #1 sacrifice.

Necro, guardian, and revenant are TERRIBLE roaming choices for WvW. They got no good disengages, thus they’re easy to train down and zergs will pretty much farm you.

Necro also has terrible match ups against competent daredevils and warriors, by far the most popular WvW roaming classes.

Nothing new to add, posters above got good points.

No sugar coating it, necromancer roaming will be frustrating. Every competant group or player will surely target you first and every thief and mesmer will try to gank you from the side until you eventually become burstable. Ranged pressure could also wear you down quick if you tank too much of it.

Your roaming experience will really depend alot on your ability and skill to kite and avoid damage as a necromancer while dishing out the pain from mid to far range moving close as needed and more importantly on the comp and size of your roaming group and setup. Since you run a roaming group you should be on a condition build but having a cheap power set to swap to for larger scale fights would really help you.

Necromancers are a secondary pick in a small roaming group for supplement damage and mostly to debuff targets and to help your other melee dps mates stick to targets. You would only pick a necromancer if you got a support class to babyset it and 2-3 not so squishy melee team mates who could peel for you in case an enemy charges you. The smaller the group you run the more of a disadvantage you would suffer for using a Necromancer as they require both the healing support and supplement boons which the class really lacks making it hard to support a friendly necromancer especially since you wont receive healing while in death shroud and staying too close for too long in melee to get all the goodies flying about could net you a chain cc or immobs. The lack of mobility will force the group to abandon you if they cannot stealth you in case running away is the only option.

More information about your roaming group comp would help us more to give advice.
Keep your warrior geared though. Running 3 man or less for example wont work for a necromancer unless you enjoy the challenge.

I dont want to put you off of playing a class you enjoy but this was my experience running a necromancer in a small havoc squad. Sometimes when the enemy left me unchecked i would just out right cause their demise to my melee teammates. Other times my friends suffered alot of cleave damage to try and push enemys off of me or to rezz.

Compared to warrior or rev, these classes are much easier to support for your tempest/druid/guardian due to their good mobility and disengages, decent self sustain, active and passive defenses and access to boons. If you enter a fight as a necromancer you will have to see it to the end most of the time.

Zenith.7301:

Necro, guardian, and revenant are TERRIBLE roaming choices for WvW. They got no good disengages, thus they’re easy to train down and zergs will pretty much farm you.

Necro also has terrible match ups against competent daredevils and warriors, by far the most popular WvW roaming classes.

Yepp that is the sad reality of roaming necros.

I love the necro roaming. I will not lie, it is pretty bad. Druids will kill you, warriors would run away easily, and competent kiters will make your life very very hard. For thiefs, you can take them down if you can time your skills and guess opponents skills right. But as one friend said, if you like the challenge (and insanely slow-mo skills) you can do it. I still do it to learn the class, and it works. And it gives me the patience of a zen monk.

In my opinion roaming is about mobility, or at least speed. Necro has so little of it.

I’ve been running a full trailblazer + dire accs condi chillmancer with traited signets and it’s probably one of the best setups for small scale roaming you’ll find on necro, granted you’ll have the biggest bullseye on you most of the time, but that can play in your favour since this build offers some interesting kiting potential and leave your groupies to clean up the chasers off you.

If you’re interested, this my variation of the popular chillmancer build you’ll find on metabattle by Donee, I adapted it a little bit to my personal situation in group settings.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7Yn0ICV2gd2AG3A0biFcBLOL2FHjQXtAwCgqL0GiWA-TFyCQBzY/h6pbIRKBrwDBYCHBgso8DAXAgCq+DhAWsGA-w

The idea of this build in small scale fights is to start with a BANG, just unload marks on top of enemies (check who they’re focusing and drop everything there, if you’re the target, then just kite back and drop marks) swap to S/D, drop 2# and 5# where the fight is at its thickest, if the enemy group didn’t target you by now, chances are the fight is already won, now you can drop your elite to everybody in range, go in Shroud, combo with 5#, 4# and 2# into the designated target and AA everybody to death.

That is the best scenario for necro, however its not gonna be a very common one.

When you’re the main target (will happen more often than not), just drop marks on top of you and start kiting, weapon swap and 2# and 5# on top of yourself, if you pull that before getting stunlocked, then it’s already going your way. In case the enemy pins you down before, pop Shadow Walk for stun break and then unload on top of yourself while you kite (you can shroud #2 away and unshroud to re-pop SW), once you covered enough distance, re-pop SW and go back to your initial location, this is huge and will be the best way to fend off aggressive enemies, from there on you can just do your normal rotation.

Signets can be used offensively aswell, they have boon corruption traited to them, use them on warriors relying on their condi resistance to keep them alive. Don’t be afraid to use signets actives as their active counterpart outweight the passive and both corrupt boons and grant you might which is awesome. Just keep plague signet at bay if you’re facing a condi enemy so you can give him back his own conditions.

I hope this helped you cement your idea on playing a Necro, they can be excellent in WvW small roaming scenarios, dont let the constant focus from the enemy discourage you from playing the Necro, it’s actually a challenge to thrive and emerge victorious while your groupies kill the distracted fools who want to steal your cookies. :P

Here’s my take on Reaper Solo Roaming.

• You will almost never have the initiative against most other competent roaming classes. You will almost always be reactive and not initiating. Most fights are won if you manage to wrestle initiative during the fight. Sadly in the current patch, it is very hard to wrestle initiative against competent players of other classes.

• You do not have the same ease of access to sustain that most other classes and builds have. This is fatal because you can outplay the enemy, but he will just heal a lot more than you are capable of.

• As mentioned by others, you do not have active defenses. A lot depends on good shroud rotation and management. And shroud is sadly, easily kited by many other classes, easily depleted and not that easily replenished. You will lose a drawn out sustain fight against other sustain builds.

I won’t mention other points that have already been said like comparative lack of mobility. But the real killer to me for the past couple of patches was the lack of sustain compared to the sustain that the other classes have.

I’ve moved on to Dragonhunter for solo roaming now and am having a blast. The active defenses available on a DH coupled with frequently having the initiative in a fight is a refreshing change. Even though I just started learning DH for only a few days, I’m killing other roamers much more easily than when I was using a Reaper =/ That made me feel sad somewhat. 2 years of wrecking my brain to find the best build each patch and the best way to fight other classes with my Reaper, not being able to compare to 2 days of learning how to fight with Dragonhunter…

EremiteAngel.9765:

I’ve moved on to Dragonhunter for solo roaming now and am having a blast. The active defenses available on a DH coupled with frequently having the initiative in a fight is a refreshing change. Even though I just started learning DH for only a few days, I’m killing other roamers much more easily than when I was using a Reaper =/ That made me feel sad somewhat. 2 years of wrecking my brain to find the best build each patch and the best way to fight other classes with my Reaper, not being able to compare to 2 days of learning how to fight with Dragonhunter…

I ended up switching to power scrapper and face rolling just about anything I can catch roaming or small group. Makes me a bit sad as well though. I cc chain every reaper/necro I see…with a bit of sadness and a bit of spite.

Killing thieves so easily does ease the pain a bit though.

A class that cannot beat daredevils and druids, who seem to be the most popular roamers and also has no ability to disengage is not a good choice for roaming.

This kitten is sad and breaks my heart. Took like a 3 month break from the game to come back and find my main is now not viable for what I love to do. Anet, you kittening suck. I read that Donee quit his Necro and it made me realize just how bad it really is. I feel so lost. Nothing is working for me. I have 6/8 classes and I loved my Reaper the most. From a beta player to Anet….you dropped the ball with this patch.

Yep, as tonight I gave up on my power reaper for roaming. I was never that good but the cons are too much. I wish all of you, who roam as a power necro/reaper, good luck.

ps: are you guys using medication? necro forum is the most relaxed one among all professions. I suspect you are all using something

What are you guys talking about? Condi necro is great for roaming. Aside from rangers/druids that are running longbow, most people (least of all, thieves/daredevils) won’t touch you with a ten inch pole. The secret? Weakening Shroud.

1v1, condi reaper is eh. Thief can kite you and dodge cleanse if they trait for it, Warrior has a giant hp pool that gives it ample time to steamroll you, Cheese staff druid heals faster than you hit, and ele cleanses everything. Your best matchups are Revenants because they can’t cleanse and Condi Mesmers because they die to their own burst.
1v2+, Condi Reaper is dead. Low damage, lack of sustain, and vulnerability to CC all work against Reaper’s viability. In a roaming group, Reaper is the first to die, and he brings no support outside of condi dps.
For condi, there are several specs that are much better than Reaper.
Condi Mesmer: Best condi class by far
Condi Thief: High sustain, deadly burst
Condi Warrior: Not as good as the other two, but slightly stronger 1vX
Condi Reaper is an easy fight in WvW because it can’t run, and you win if you can kite Reaper Shroud.

(Note: This is all in reference to condi builds.)

Except people haven’t seemed to consider base condi necro, not reaper. The pathing on RS2 is borked anyway. Don’t kite. Aloha snackbar it and burst them down. If you’re going to die, take them down with you.

Condi berserker is much stronger than condi thieves imo. Perplex nerf borked condi thieves (and to a lesser extent, mesmers) and so they aren’t quite so annoying anymore.

Condi mesmers are only difficult if you allow the fight to drag out. Play aggressively, load them with condis from the get-go, DS2 into DS3.

I personally think necro is the best condi class. I see a lot of talk about damage coming mainly from transferring conditions. There’s no need to kitten yourself so. Just spam corrupts.

Necro is absolutely viable for roaming. Yes, you will be countered by certain builds and yes, you will encounter cheese. That’s something you have to accept. It’s not all doom and gloom.

Mesmer subforum is almost as bad with the wallowing in self-pity. If you’re looking to play support, unfortunately you’d be well advised to play another class. If, however, you like burst, play necro/reaper.

Well you can always play a norn necro for wvw roaming. The Leopard elite gives you what necros lacks for roaming. Mobility skills and stealth…

Honestly that skill is probably the best racial skill ever and better then most profession elites….

People say that rangers and even thieves can burst down a condi reaper or even a normal non-wells necro. While this maybe true in some situations where necro and reaper are played poorly, I find in my roaming, that its rare if the person plays it right and know how to counter the counters that counter your build. Takes time to learn and find that though, so unless you plan on maining one and playing theory crafting, then you’ll likely get owned by 1 or 2 players coming to defend objectives.

If you feel you need stealth alternative, then yes use Norn elite, though I find chill to the bone nice too for reaper when people realize that I can’t easily be killed and start running from me. my ownly major flaw, limited ability to run after someone I want to play with, since it takes a little bit to out last resistance and to get 15+ stacks of vulnerability on someone to increase my crit chance high enough to make resistance useless against my attacks.

Anyways, if you willing to put the time and money into it, you’ll find reaper especially to be easy to adapt to changing situation and to roam with. With that said, the other classes have a far easier time at it…

Necromancer can bring a lot to the table that other professions can’t but it requires a co-ordinated team. Necromancer needs to be babysat in small scale WvW. You’re very easily focused and even with Reaper, you can be at a huge disadvantage if enough people are smart enough to work on you before anyone else.

If your buddies can support you with buffs and heals and you’re all moving in a phalanx formation, you will be a massive asset to your group. Weakness, Vulnerability, boon stripping and corrupting, etc. are things Necro excels at.

If your group is more casual however, it would be very punishing to roam with. Since Necromancer cannot kite or reset at will and has no blocks or invulnerability, you’re going to basically explode when enough people turn their attention to you. You’ll be the sacrificial lamb any time your group gets outnumbered and needs to retreat or you’ll be the first one to die any time you’re against a group that’s experienced. PUG’s and “average” roamers shouldn’t be a huge issue but if enough decent players are in one area and your group isn’t disciplined, it might end badly.

Unfortunately, mobility is king in WvW roaming no matter how you slice it. Being able to glide across the battlefield will save your behind and win you far more fights than holding your ground will. No one cares about what’s “honorable”, only what keeps them alive. Necromancer does not have the necessary mobility to be a good roamer. It does have some strong juking skills like Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm but proper usage takes a lot of patience and skill.

I used to do a lot of solo roaming on Necromancer but have since given up the hobby due to the overwhelming amount of deaths. It’s extremely strong 1v1/1v2 if you’re competent with it but the problem is that in WvW roaming, people tend to continuously join the fight. You kill 1 and another joins, just as you kill that one, the first one shows up with a friend and it keeps inflating. If you’re a Necromancer, you can’t kite away to recover from that.

Tldr; Massive asset and very powerful if the group is disciplined and skilled. Extremely vulnerable and requires a lot of situational awareness if the group is casual. Does not have enough mobility to save it from being outnumbered and will 9 times out of 10 be killed as a result. So either your group better be co-ordinated and intelligent or you’re in for a rough ride.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

If your buddies can support you with buffs and heals and you’re all moving in a phalanx formation, you will be a massive asset to your group. Weakness, Vulnerability, boon stripping and corrupting, etc. are things Necro excels at.

Tldr; Massive asset and very powerful if the group is disciplined and skilled. Extremely vulnerable and requires a lot of situational awareness if the group is casual. Does not have enough mobility to save it from being outnumbered and will 9 times out of 10 be killed as a result. So either your group better be co-ordinated and intelligent or you’re in for a rough ride.

Words of wisdom right there.

So many people immediately jump the gun and emphasize how necro is underwhelming in solo scenarios but forget it can be one of the strongest professions in small skirmishes with the right group, with the right the peel and support, you will rarely lose an evenly matched fight if the enemies are unable to take you down before you downed one of them.

As an example, I’ve been running Condi build with two guildies, a Warrior and a Thief, both with power builds, and we’ve been very successful in winning 3vX fights thanks to how they manage to peel for me with stealth and pressure on my harassers while I’m able to kite and dish out my own condi burst.

You can bring so much to your group if you’re able to do your part in the fight, any boon reliant build will be stripped naked and choke on his own venomous converted boons essentially turning them into a nice and tender piece of meat for your power guildies to slice, you also relieve your groupies from conditions and redirect them to the enemy.

Right now, more than ever due to the current meta of boon fiesta, having a Necro in a group with the right circumstances can be one of the biggest assets in WvW group roaming.

Lahm.7056:

how necro is underwhelming in solo scenarios but forget it can be one of the strongest professions in small skirmishes with the right group, with the right the peel and support, you will rarely lose an evenly matched fight if the enemies are unable to take you down before you downed one of them.

Yes this is the case since release, Necro shines if supported, but to be viable in roaming means also that you have to be viable on your own and there necro lacks badly compared to the other classes. Developers just don´t give a rat´s kitten about that.

mordran.4750:

Lahm.7056:

how necro is underwhelming in solo scenarios but forget it can be one of the strongest professions in small skirmishes with the right group, with the right the peel and support, you will rarely lose an evenly matched fight if the enemies are unable to take you down before you downed one of them.

Yes this is the case since release, Necro shines if supported, but to be viable in roaming means also that you have to be viable on your own and there necro lacks badly compared to the other classes. Developers just don´t give a rat´s kitten about that.

agreed.
in a good team, necro is de vas tat ing.
when alone, necro is de vas tat ed.

“Power” Reaper was the one in question here. Condi works fine as I see it. Although I still do not think certain professions are meant for roaming, but that is my personal idea