Guild Wars 2

as all necromancer players know, their character of choice is about as mobile as a guardian in a clowncar. one way to fix this is to make Necrotic Traversal a standalone skill. this would not be in any way overpowered or imbalanced, and flesh worm would be a different skill altogether. i love that necro can teleport but the summon time is just obnoxious and gets me killed more than saves me, at least when the worm isn’t summoned. the other problem is that the worm is required to teleport and the summon is a deadly 1 and a half seconds. this can mean the difference between life and death in a sanctum of rall zerg. please anet, necro does not suffer from the split of those two skills. make worm just another minion and make necrotic traversal a normal teleport.

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

well that’s …dumb.

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

well that’s …dumb.

It made sense in the right context, problem is the context got lost when the game was translated from beta to release.

Andele.1306:

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

well that’s …dumb.

It made sense in the right context, problem is the context got lost when the game was translated from beta to release.

it’s even more lost once you transition into wvw. you need as many escapes as possible.

Lightsbane.9012:

it’s even more lost once you transition into wvw. you need as many escapes as possible.

Not particularly, if you’re paying attention. I’ve always been able to get away just fine, just so long as I don’t let the zerg actually get close enough to get me into combat.

sorry, combat escapes* i feel we need some regardless of public opinion.

That’s fine if that’s your opinion. It’ll also never happen as per dev’s philosophy on our class.

Edit: not to be mean or anything, its just not how the devs envision the class so it won’t happen, likely no matter what.

I have 965 hours clocked on my Necromancer, so I like to think I know what I’m talking about when it comes to this particular profession. The Necromancer was never developed to be incredibly mobile or to escape combat efficiently. And tends to be a profession designed to roll with the punches, & either take down the enemy, or be taken down yourself. This is proven by the Necromancer having the largest health pool in the game (combination of Warrior equivalent HP + Death Shroud HP).

Going by your posts, your main issue is their lack of teleportation skills. Which is false. There are 3 ability’s that the Necromancer can use to teleport him/herself away from danger (more than most professions). The only difference is the mechanic in how they’re used isn’t how you would like it to be. 2 of these skills (Flesh Wurm & Spectral Walk) require a pre-emptive approach. You need to have them up & ready before you plow into a fight, this takes skill & good initiative. Then you have Dark Path (Used in Death Shroud), which is used to close the gap between yourself & the enemy or neutral mob, with a small delay for the projectile to hit).

If you’re looking for better escape mechanics, then I recommend changing to another profession.

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

Baamoink.4281:

I have 965 hours clocked on my Necromancer, so I like to think I know what I’m talking about when it comes to this particular profession. The Necromancer was never developed to be incredibly mobile or to escape combat efficiently. And tends to be a profession designed to roll with the punches, & either take down the enemy, or be taken down yourself. This is proven by the Necromancer having the largest health pool in the game (combination of Warrior equivalent HP + Death Shroud HP).

Going by your posts, your main issue is their lack of teleportation skills. Which is false. There are 3 ability’s that the Necromancer can use to teleport him/herself away from danger (more than most professions). The only difference is the mechanic in how they’re used isn’t how you would like it to be. 2 of these skills (Flesh Wurm & Spectral Walk) require a pre-emptive approach. You need to have them up & ready before you plow into a fight, this takes skill & good initiative. Then you have Dark Path (Used in Death Shroud), which is used to close the gap between yourself & the enemy or neutral mob, with a small delay for the projectile to hit).

If you’re looking for better escape mechanics, then I recommend changing to another profession.

3k hours clocked on mine,i am find it hard to see how we can keep with an enemy that

A:Warrior blows warhorn and savage leap and then spins with gs to get away.
B:Thief going stealth and arrowing his way out etc
C:Elementalist RTLing and cantrip teleport out (lets not go to the advanced escape chains with skills putting even more gap between)
D:Ranger with his 1100 gap closer used to escape as well
E:Mesmer going stealth and teleporting out.
F:Engi with rocket boots/super speed/oil

Dark path is too slow to hit,prone to be blocked by path or skill or even other target.
Necrotic traversal is borderline faster to run there than actually waste the utility slot.
And Spectral Walk isnt a way to initiate when the green glow telegraphs that you might want to attack and certainely doesnt keep up with gap closers.

Sororita.3465:

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

Here’s another thing I know: Necros are currently one of the strongest classes in sPvP.
And you would like high mobility on top of that? Gimme a break…

Necros are not mobile classes. We don’t need mobility. We are the tankiest light armor class under the sun with a huge healthpool and DS on top of that. This combined with our high pressure potential makes us a very hard hitter.

You don’t want to add mobility to that. Every class needs a weak spot. Mobility is ours, get used to it or reroll.

tl;dr: Nercos need mobility like a warrior needs stealth.

Reroll… try thief or mesmer.

Necros are not designed to be runners, we are designed for attriction and survival. I roam a lot in WvW and yes many times I have mobility problens but this is our weak point and every class has one, if you cant get used to it just reroll.

If a class has mobility, high damage, high survival, it becomes OP and boring… thieves know about it (thieves dont get mad just kidding with you guys).

grave of hearts.7830:

3k hours clocked on mine,i am find it hard to see how we can keep with an enemy that

A:Warrior blows warhorn and savage leap and then spins with gs to get away.
B:Thief going stealth and arrowing his way out etc
C:Elementalist RTLing and cantrip teleport out (lets not go to the advanced escape chains with skills putting even more gap between)
D:Ranger with his 1100 gap closer used to escape as well
E:Mesmer going stealth and teleporting out.
F:Engi with rocket boots/super speed/oil

Dark path is too slow to hit,prone to be blocked by path or skill or even other target.
Necrotic traversal is borderline faster to run there than actually waste the utility slot.
And Spectral Walk isnt a way to initiate when the green glow telegraphs that you might want to attack and certainely doesnt keep up with gap closers.

I was referencing the teleport skills in terms of ability to escape. Of course relying on Flesh Wurm & Spectral Walk are entirely useless at trying to close the gap between you & the enemy. Dark Path is the only one with potential to close the gap out of the teleportation skills.

When it comes to a Necromancer closing the gap, they heavily rely on chill & cripple to close the gap on foes rather than teleportation (in my experience). Not a flawless technique, but between the staff, scepter, main-hand dagger, axe, focus & warhorn, they can dish out a lot of crowd control on a single enemy to keep them within range (or out of range).

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

it’s even more lost once you transition into wvw. you need as many escapes as possible.

Not particularly, if you’re paying attention. I’ve always been able to get away just fine, just so long as I don’t let the zerg actually get close enough to get me into combat.

So basically you spend a lot of time running away.

If you plan on running around in WvW without a zerg, you spend a lot of time running away on any class. But if you insist on doing it, then pay attention to the map and your surroundings and it isn’t all that difficult to get away a majority of the time. Just don’t let the big swords show up over your head and as long as you’re positioned on the map intelligently you won’t even see most zergs until they die off or you have flipped something.

From a ‘lore’ (for the lack of a better word) point of view the classes are spot on in my opinion. You got the sneaky thief, the unstoppable juggernaut, the crippling immobile necromancer that debilitates other classes down to his level etc.

That leaves pvp as a complete kittenhole though for some classes. For a necro it’s not actually kill or be killed, it’s more like be killed or let the opponent disengage (or fearlock them to death – i mean downed state…). Guess gw2 pvp is just not for me, and judging by participation, for anyone :>

I like Spectral Walk when I need to escape… I pop it and run, people run after me… wait 3 or 4 seconds and teleport behind then… usually it takes some precious seconds for them to understand what happened and you can go to the oposite side.

Of course it doesnt always work…

Actually, the Necro does fine in sPvP with that view, because disengaging from a fight on a node is a win for whoever is still on that node. We’ve always had really strong 1v1 potential in sPvP for that reason. However for the same reason we suffer in 1v1 in WvW because running away doesn’t lose you anything there.

albotelho.2931:

I like Spectral Walk when I need to escape… I pop it and run, people run after me… wait 3 or 4 seconds and teleport behind then… usually it takes some precious seconds for them to understand what happened and you can go to the oposite side.

Of course it doesnt always work…

And then they just leap or port to you and you are back where you started.

KeeZee.7312:

albotelho.2931:

I like Spectral Walk when I need to escape… I pop it and run, people run after me… wait 3 or 4 seconds and teleport behind then… usually it takes some precious seconds for them to understand what happened and you can go to the oposite side.

Of course it doesnt always work…

And then they just leap or port to you and you are back where you started.

As I said it doesnt always work… but you will be amazed that it works much more than expected… some people doesnt even look behind to check if you are there.

Can’t escape. You can say I never should have hung around at the start, but still…

krippler.9826:

Can’t escape. You can say I never should have hung around at the start, but still…

That’s exactly the point? If you have terrible mobility, you don’t allow yourself to be put in situations where you couldn’t run.

Also, the person in that video saved marks multiple times that it would have given them more space (fear, chill, remove and transfer immobilize), rarely if ever swapped to another weapon set (axe cripple, dagger immobilize, scepter cripple, OH dagger transfer+blind, OH focus chill, OH warhorn daze + cripple + swiftness) and a few times ran back into people chasing them. Not a great video to show off how we can’t escape when it would not have been difficult to escape that.

Lightsbane.9012:

as all necromancer players know, their character of choice is about as mobile as a guardian in a clowncar.

Maybe if they just gave us a clowncar skill…

albotelho.2931:

Reroll… try thief or mesmer.

Necros are not designed to be runners, we are designed for attriction and survival. I roam a lot in WvW and yes many times I have mobility problens but this is our weak point and every class has one, if you cant get used to it just reroll.

If a class has mobility, high damage, high survival, it becomes OP and boring… thieves know about it (thieves dont get mad just kidding with you guys).

i’ve played thief, it’s too easy. mesmer is great but i like necromancer. i’m usually good at judging how fights will turn out in wvw, but when my guild decides to zerg their way into a probably-losing fight an instant teleport to wherever would be nice.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Lightsbane.9012:

as all necromancer players know, their character of choice is about as mobile as a guardian in a clowncar.

Maybe if they just gave us a clowncar skill…

i lol’d. thank you.

Asche.5362:

Sororita.3465:

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

Here’s another thing I know: Necros are currently one of the strongest classes in sPvP.
And you would like high mobility on top of that? Gimme a break…

Necros are not mobile classes. We don’t need mobility. We are the tankiest light armor class under the sun with a huge healthpool and DS on top of that. This combined with our high pressure potential makes us a very hard hitter.

You don’t want to add mobility to that. Every class needs a weak spot. Mobility is ours, get used to it or reroll.

tl;dr: Nercos need mobility like a warrior needs stealth.

Here is the issue, spvp. If I’ve gathered correctly, Light and my darling Soro are speaking WvW. spvp and wvw are not one in the same and anet needs to balance the classes for each game piece. WvW, spvp and pve, like they did with gw1. It’s a darn shame they haven’t.

With 4k hours on my darling necro, 95% of the time being wvw, I can honestly say we do need some mobility fixes.

bokkieskitten.8023:

anet needs to balance the classes for each game piece. WvW, spvp and pve, like they did with gw1. It’s a darn shame they haven’t.

Don’t use GW1 as a good example of balance. It was a terrible balance system. All they did was release so many skills at least some of them had to not-suck. But every single month there was something completely broken that people found, there were a lot of combinations that were completely broken if you didn’t have this one specific counter (Touch Necros, for example, were BS, unless you had an interrupt Mesmer, then they were useless).

Balance in GW1 was terrible. It was terrible for the players, it was terrible for the balance team. It was, at best, an unmanageable cluster-kitten that every so often just happened to be healthy for short amounts of time.

Bhawb.7408:

bokkieskitten.8023:

anet needs to balance the classes for each game piece. WvW, spvp and pve, like they did with gw1. It’s a darn shame they haven’t.

Don’t use GW1 as a good example of balance. It was a terrible balance system. All they did was release so many skills at least some of them had to not-suck. But every single month there was something completely broken that people found, there were a lot of combinations that were completely broken if you didn’t have this one specific counter (Touch Necros, for example, were BS, unless you had an interrupt Mesmer, then they were useless).

Balance in GW1 was terrible. It was terrible for the players, it was terrible for the balance team. It was, at best, an unmanageable cluster-kitten that every so often just happened to be healthy for short amounts of time.

The point is, they need to be separate. Period.

Separating every skill makes all balance three times more work intensive. That isn’t going to work.

Bhawb.7408:

Separating every skill makes all balance three times more work intensive. That isn’t going to work.

I agree. Can you imagine the amount of bugs it will create? My … god. Anyway, you guys do realize you’re asking arenaNet to go against their philosophy? You might as well just REROLL. IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Unless you enjoy beating a dead horse. At this point, you either like or dislike necromancer playstyle. It happens that lack of mobility and being weak against cc is part of it.

Personally, I’m happy with the mobility status quo. I’d prefer they stick to their guns and improve our sustain a little more via buffing lifesteal and other defensive/control type traits. Really make us have a chance at the fight or die mantra. The one area I would contest (that contributes to this philosophy) which deviates from stated dev goals is more Stability. Vigor doesn’t fit. More mobility doesn’t fit. But to be able to stand up and fight right back absolutely screams ‘necro’ to me. Be it stability or something akin to a Melandru’s effect on stuns/knockdowns/fears/etc.

Even if we don’t get stability, necros need the ability to take the CC, and then say “Thank you, may I have another?” Then smack around that mace-wielder for their insolence.

Alternatively, we need to have sustain that is strong enough that CC chaining is basically the only way to get a necro down without being a huge hassle (dodge/block tanking would work too).

It all depends on if ANet wants necros to be the Cho’Gaths or Aatrox’s. I’d be happy with either, really.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It all depends on if ANet wants necros to be the Cho’Gaths or Aatrox’s. I’d be happy with either, really.

Aatrox, Vlad, and Swain put forward so many ideas for ways to add in meaningful (and not OP) siphoning into the game too.

Our survival mechanics don’t translate well to WvW. We are fine with getting focused by <5 players, not so good when getting focused by >10 players.

You have to rely on your groupmates to peel for you.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It all depends on if ANet wants necros to be the Cho’Gaths or Aatrox’s. I’d be happy with either, really.

Aatrox, Vlad, and Swain put forward so many ideas for ways to add in meaningful (and not OP) siphoning into the game too.

Vlad and (to a much lesser extent) Aatrox are one trick ponies of it, Cho/Swain are a much better concept, since they rely on cc (fear) and slows (chill) to deny enemy damage while being tanky monsters with exponentially increasing effective hp also they are true aoe in their main dps (staff wells, etc)

Vlad is unique because he has a certain cost associated with everything he does. You are required to consistently keep up E’s stacks to give yourself higher healing and damage, however it costs you more and more HP to do that. In return though, it buffs your Q, making you heal for more.

It could easily be translated to a weaponset (most likely), or even a utility skill. You need to consistently land a certain skill to keep up a buff on yourself. CC brings that down. That enforces good gameplay; its your job to keep stacks high, the enemy then wants to bring them low.

Aatrox is separate, he has a switching ability. He either gets really high damage at the cost of health, or he gets really high healing, but with basically no damage at all.

But both play with the idea of sacrificing HP, to gain certain benefits (more damage/healing), and then have to balance themselves on a razor’s edge of not killing themselves off with sacrifices, yet still being forced to play dangerously to be useful.

Swain is interesting in a different way in that he is either bursted down immediately, or he sits in your team and never dies. Separate, but similar. The key point of all three of these in-fight sustain based champions is that they have very low ranges, generally some high cost for their sustain, and are weak to burst, but incredibly dangerous if allowed to stay in the fight. Those are all good mechanics they need to add if they will actually give us the kind of sustain we want. People need to realize you can’t have safe, high damage, free sustain at 1200 range. If we get high sustain, it will be very high-risk high reward sustain.

Cho really doesn’t do anything related to sustain. He just becomes a massive HP tank that can walk around doing whatever he wants because he has 3k HP at 15 minutes.

Sororita.3465:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

this doesnt matter to bawb he would rather parrot what he heard a dev say than think for himself.

I’m definitely fine with necros becoming a high risk/high reward class. We already have the risk, since we have virtually no damage avoidance and can’t disengage. Once we start a fight, we’re committed to it. We do see it through to its end, whatever that end may be.

I just don’t feel we are rewarded enough for it. We don’t really need anything more on the damage front, just on the actual attrition aspect. We take a lot to burst down, but we can’t recover from burst at all (unlike, say, a thief that pops Hide in Shadows and is back at full health before he comes out of stealth or a guardian that literally takes four people to bring down because of the mitigation and healing).

Dredlord.8076:

Sororita.3465:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

this doesnt matter to bawb he would rather parrot what he heard a dev say than think for himself.

Yeah, I think it’s better for the devs and bawb to talk with walls. At least, they will get it: they will not waste their time asking for something that will never happen. Sometime this community is so stuborn, it’s not even funny anymore. Again, if you feel mobility is king in pvp, I think it’s time to ask yourself if necromancer really suit your playstyle.

Poplolita.2638:

Dredlord.8076:

Sororita.3465:

Bhawb.7408:

We’re not supposed to have a lot of mobility. At most we get swiftness, otherwise all of our “mobility” skills are designed solely to chase, or create distance while in a fight, but not leave it completely.

A lack of mobility means death in a pvp environment, mobility is king. We are the easiest of any class to be trained on, people can stick to us like glue and you all know this.

this doesnt matter to bawb he would rather parrot what he heard a dev say than think for himself.

Yeah, I think it’s better for the devs and bawb to talk with walls. At least, they will get it: they will not waste their time asking for something that will never happen. Sometime this community is so stuborn, it’s not even funny anymore. Again, if you feel mobility is king in pvp, I think it’s time to ask yourself if necromancer really suit your playstyle.

Ok true that Bhawb (and Bas when he still played) kinda do come of as big trolls and/or “your” annoying stepfather who tells you to go to sleep at 6 when you are used to being up to 10, but the point still actually stands:
“What part of i like being a mighty glacier and dont want mobility do you not understand?” Mobility plain aint a thing of the necro and while the attrition subject is very very lacking and a lot of questionable defensive choices have been made, dont make another dhuumfire incident (necros didnt need more burst, necro got more burst, everything else got nerfed hard, same will happen just replace burst with mobility).

Dredlord.8076:

this doesnt matter to bawb he would rather parrot what he heard a dev say than think for himself.

You’re asking for them to change necromancers at the very core of what we are, contrary to everything they want us to be. It isn’t going to happen, no matter how much you “think for yourself”.

Bhawb.7408:

Dredlord.8076:

this doesnt matter to bawb he would rather parrot what he heard a dev say than think for himself.

You’re asking for them to change necromancers at the very core of what we are, contrary to everything they want us to be. It isn’t going to happen, no matter how much you “think for yourself”.

From the original necromancer design concept, one of many things axed before people could even begin to understand the game.

Dark Path : Flash to target area and blind nearby foes. — In-game description [?]

just saying

Just make dark path a flash as described above instead of a buggy projectile and I’ll be happy. As it stands the skill is kitten near useless. I agree that we shouldn’t be the kings of mobility but what little mobility we do have should at least be reliable.

Dark Path actually got a lot better in one of the patches around 2-3 months ago. I’ve only had one not land due to obvious terrain issues.

Jayce.5632:

From the original necromancer design concept, one of many things axed before people could even begin to understand the game.

Dark Path : Flash to target area and blind nearby foes. — In-game description [?]

just saying

Also one of our original design concepts was an unkillable tank that would make a mockery of any bunker currently in the game. That doesn’t mean it was good, just that it was in the game at one point. They nerfed it because it was too strong.

Just learn how 2 use spectral walk and you’re good in the hood (y)

Bhawb.7408:

Also one of our original design concepts was an unkillable tank that would make a mockery of any bunker currently in the game. That doesn’t mean it was good, just that it was in the game at one point. They nerfed it because it was too strong.

I’m not going to go there, no matter how much I disagree. This is about the necromancer’s mobility and how this kind of topic keeps coming up. The necro is the only class without one, just one unconditional or on demand leap/blink/port. It’s too easy for some people to say what fits at the core and what doesn’t when even the makers keep moving the goal posts.

They don’t “keep moving the goal posts”, that was removed pre-open beta.

albotelho.2931:

If a class has mobility, high damage, high survival, it becomes OP and boring… thieves know about it (thieves dont get mad just kidding with you guys).

Aka, warriors lol.