Guild Wars 2

i love my necro. first class i got to lv 80 and is my main. i just recently chose to dive real deep into em looking at builds, strategies, tips, advice and whatnot and all i have discovered varies greatly and is, quite frankly, frustrating. to the point where it drove me to register and make this post this being my very frist post ive ever put on a forum anywhere on the web.
mostly people want them to do damage via power or condi, yet a fair bit of build explanations say that its good but not great, or viable but not top tier, or is outclassed by these other professions and comments along those lines. like were a jack of all trades. yea we can spec heavily into one area and be decent at what we want it to do but because we spec so heavily into it that leaves little else to be good at comparatively to what other classes are able to do more naturally
so what are we as necros naturally able to do?
Now im newish to the game and have a noticeably different play style than most so forgive me if this seems narrow minded or far fetched but with what little knowledge i have heres what i think they have goin for em.
they have condis and they have life. that alone is an incredible seemingly overlooked duo. what we do well is being a real pain to our opponent. we strip/convert their boons, condi bomb em and force them to pay attention to us. but in this game most peoples mindsets are to go for the kill as fast as possible but if you do that with a necro it kinda falls short to others. goin for the kill seems to prevent a necro from unleashing all of its potential. to me they are more or less an unconventional support class in the way of making other classes shine brighter. we take our allies condis we deny our enemies buffs we slap em with chill vuln weakness blind among others so easily, softening em up for our glass cannon to take em out with ease. we can take on fights just fine it jus takes longer for us to finish them, which turns off alot of people when playing necro. we do well in extended fights so if they focus our teammate our condis gnaw away at our opponent turning the tides in our favor and if they focus us good luck trying to kill us before our teammate kills them. and we are loaded with ways to make this style our own. necros are the juggernauts of gw2. we counter healers. we thirve in the fray.
this thought process changes the entire outlook on the necro. the axe suddenly becomes a viable weapon. with cripple and chill along with spectral grasp DS2 n whatnot you dont really need mobility to keep up with an opponent. we dont need damage to succeed. pve is simple and designed to be fun n play how you wanna play. tryn to get world completion warnhorn dagger quickening thirst locust signet and your cruisein. solo champs being a MM. in dungeons fracs n wvw trade out traits n weapons n skills to suit whats required ahead for you and the party. you shouldnt need multiple sets of armor unless you got a fun niche build you like doing. i look for vit tough condi duration and condi damage in my gear so trailblazers has been my core go to. even aptly named i dare say givin this play style. im not saying that this is the best way to play a necro i just want it to have a proper place in todays meta and by fully focusing what it already does so well it can shine in its own light instead of struggleing to be second best in something else. problem is most dont play this way and even the game in some aspects isnt geared to for this sort of aggressively supportive play style. but ive had fun with it ive surprised people with it shown what it can do and ive been denied from groups cause i dont do much damage and damage is what takes priority majority of the time. damage is how you contribute to the goal. i jus believe that taking aggro, and slowing them, weakening them, cutting down their power, reducing their healing, making em miss attacks, taking allies condis, and so on makes achieving the objective just as fast if not a little smoother going then if there was another dps there. so whatcha think people of the forum. am i making a fool of myself and the necro profession or could this at least be viable? whats your take on what the necro truly thrives at?

Yes, in sPvP we make our allies kill better our enemies. That’s all the thing a necromancer can do.
About the survavibility, there’s classes that can do way better, but you can spec full bunker and try to survive enough to make your teammates kill the enemy. If the entire team focus you can be a problem, and the enemy team Always focus you, but if a single enemy chose to kill you and you’re full of LF, with a full bunker build and an ally ready to help you and kill fast your enemy while you make him weaker, yes, you can be good. You just play as a bait.

The necromancer isn’t bad if not focused, can fight in a teamfight and do great things. The problem is that more or less every other class that is not a bunker can kill you in 1v1 without mercy, and there’s no bunker builds in this meta unless for the ele, the only class we can kill in 1v1 (unless you’re a Pro or your enemy is bad).

You’re playing right, you found the core of the necromancer: don’t deal damage, corrupt boons and run to survive while the enemy charge you.
Then, if you feel frustrated, I can only say to you that that is the only way to play a necromancer in this meta.

About PvE, we’re gods in map PvE and “useless” in dungeons. Unless for a funny Fractal build that everyone think is the best but is outclassed by a lot of other classes; or raids, where you can corrupt the enemy boss boons and make your allies kill him or spread other classes burst conditions using Epidemic 8actually the only reason to have a necromancer in team).

That is one, powerful, long wall of rant.

I play Necromancer like a dark knight; a warrior-debuff class that seems tanky until pressured, then goes down.

Necromancer has ability to absorb a lot of damage but that ability does not scale up versus strong opponents because it has no, true immunity skills. Shroud must be recharged after use, in addition to its cool down, and incoming damage stacks per opponent where other professions’ damage mitigation produces the same result regardless of the number of opponents.

Necromancer’s shroud mechanic relies upon two things: damaging an opponent and opponents dying. If your opponent can avoid taking damage and there are no nearby deaths, you can easily be starved out of your main defensive mechanism.