Guild Wars 2

I rerolled a mesmer, because I was tired of roaming solo in wvw with my necro.
I can beat 1v1 or 1v2 just fine, however if I see a large group approaching and I’m fighting someone, I know I’m dead. They know I’m dead, and true enough I always end up dead.
It becomes irritating to die constantly, with no means of escape. No real way, mind you.
A mesmer on the other hand, phew, I can get out of the most sticky situations and I can deal a crapload of dmg.

The chaotic and unpredictable nature of wvw closes the door to any reliance on positioning for the solo roamer. Even the closest classes to us with mobility issues are far better off at survival/escaping than we are. I’d like to see (even if it was restricted to wvw) one skill that gives us a shot at escaping the zerg.

But I dream..

I have 5 skills that you need to have to be able to escape that I have found half way helpful.
Reapers Mark, Locus Swarm, Spectral Wall, Spectral Walk, Signet of the Locust.
Also spec in to Reaper’s Protection will also help when trying to get away if your getting locked down.

I’ve always roamed around solo for the majority of my 280 wvw ranks and I’d agree it’s quite annoying when you have no real means of escapes when a zerg or group wants you dead. I guess I’ve just grown use to it and when in team fights they’ll always focus me first which another pain in the kitten when you have no real way of surviving multiple people beating on you at all for long anyways. I’d say if people want our damage nerfed “condi/terrorbuilds” they really need to look at our other glaring weaknesses.

Andele.1306:

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).

It’s true that playing necro in WvW taught me how to read the battle and not just follow the icon and mash buttons. I survive battles, large and small, by making smarter decisions and micromanaging encounters, especially since that gs warrior will always break rank and run right at me. I’m winning that specific encounter more often, and learning how to rely on what I have and not wishing for what others can do.

Also, Bhawb took it on himself to act as community liason and bring together a lot of input to and from the devs, so he’s probably asked these questions and is repeating the same answers they’ve given him. You can’t expect him to yell at the devs because the forum community wants something “now” without burning bridges. Bhawb does a lot that he doesn’t have to. I don’t agree with what he has to say all the time, but don’t agree with attacking him for giving us the answer he’s been given.

That said, this is the same argument Ret Pallys had from vanilla WoW. The devs said that all classes couldn’t be dps classes. The players noted that paladins were the only ones that couldn’t. Also, nothing to do but autoattack.

It’s the same argument here: Whirlwind, savage leap; Retreat, leap of faith; swoop, hunter’s shot, lightning retreat; Thief. . .just, thief; Elixir S, jump shot, slick shoes; phase retreat, blink, decoy, veil, mass invis, icurtain; rtl, mist form, lightning flash. . .

I’d understand if we got a block or a mist form/endure pain-type power to keep with the tanky-clothy motif, but every other class has at least one way to disengage from a fight by leap, teleport, or stealth. What exactly is the devs’ intent?

all you have to realize is Necros are not made to solo roam. And are not made to move around alot or have any defense besides a large health pool. Meaning you not only are unable to run from anyone but when you are caught you are kept caught.

This means that the design of the necro is to walk (not run or anything) into a group of enemies and pop all your skills and hope for the best. No maneuverability you are now a pillar of meat pumping out aoe or whatever and hoping nobody notices you.

This was the design. Why? I have no clue. But there it is. Like, you plop down a bunch of wells and if you get knocked out of it… you’re pretty much screwed cuz you cant defend getting pushed out. Professions can easily leave your wells if you pull them in.. but if we get knocked out.. gg. XD

But the dead cant complain. XD

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”.

I didnt ask for anything like that, time to take off your blinders and start reading the posts before you whip yourself into some kind of nerd rage frenzy for your replies…

That is exactly what you asked for. Blanket mobility or the kind to run away from fights (which is what was asked for) is completely contrary to their design for the class.

Bhawb.7408:

That is exactly what you asked for. Blanket mobility or the kind to run away from fights (which is what was asked for) is completely contrary to their design for the class.

please show me where I asked for this.

datawais.7209:

That said, this is the same argument Ret Pallys had from vanilla WoW. The devs said that all classes couldn’t be dps classes. The players noted that paladins were the only ones that couldn’t. Also, nothing to do but autoattack.

I’d understand if we got a block or a mist form/endure pain-type power to keep with the tanky-clothy motif, but every other class has at least one way to disengage from a fight by leap, teleport, or stealth. What exactly is the devs’ intent?

I dont think that you should mention the rec bombs and cons field spammers as a good example of “lack of damage” since if i remember correctly for 3 hours they could reflect enough damage at Nefarian that he went from 100 to 5 in half a second (aka in GW2 they would be mesmers). The best 2 comparisons you can make for necros is either DK (being blood/op or frost/meh or made by someone on drugs) or Shammy (and with that i mean vanilla to TBC BT patch).

As for not having a disengage, again i honestly find it refreshing that they returned to the not everyone has to have everything in the same form, if necros had the numbers to outsustain people if they disengaged and re-entered the fight or if for example we could have a effect like ice armor while in DS, punishing people for spamming their attacks (even if we technically already have the damage reduction part in because kitten it its not like the devs should be honest about issues they have with coding DS).

Dredlord.8076:

please show me where I asked for this.

Its called inference, your comments present the position that you want mobility added to the class.

Bhawb.7408:

Dredlord.8076:

please show me where I asked for this.

Its called inference, your comments present the position that you want mobility added to the class.

you should stop assuming things, you’re not good at it.

you should also stop posting like you know what the devs are thinking (past present and future) you add nothing but negativity to the threads you post in (and the occasional factoid). I have seen you apologize once today already for being a kitten to someone.

Dredlord.8076:

you add nothing but negativity to the threads you post in (and the occasional factoid). I have seen you apologize once today already for being a kitten to someone.

Pot, meet kettle. I’m sure you’ll get along fine.

No mobility, no escape. Once you start a fight, it’s win or die.
This was in from the start and was fine.

The idea was, attrition. The longer you make the fight, the better off you are.

Fist problem was our defense is ‘aggressive’ so we need to attack to gen any defense. So CC shuts us down worse than any other class.

Thing is, ANet has constantly removed any attrition we can do. Massively. Patch before when they said they were fixing attrition, they made us the only class without endurance regen, or block/invul/anything like that. Last patch was a fix to Siphons. Which nurfed healing from them even more, while adding more damage to our heals.

We are ‘OP’ tho… In that, were ‘unbalanced’ to the game. We can throw more condi’s than clean’s can clean. Giving us a cheap way to have not counter.
Hell even our heals now, increase the damage of our minions attacks, with added siphon damage that ignores armor or any of the games systems…

Don’t get me wrong, I understand when we had a teleport we were pretty good, but we have a complete and utter lack of viable mobility/defensive skills. The deathshroud is supposed to take up this reign, but it doesn’t even come close to what other classes can do.

I mostly see this disadvantage come out in WvW. I constantly see classes escape 5+ people by using stealths, blocks, leaps, teleports, etc. These are class are, imo, much higher threat than necros. Thieves can jump in and do 7k+ in a single hit. Warriors have some nasty shout heals and cleave damage, mesmers have some amazing physical dps, etc.

I’ve been thinking about how to give us mobility without making us overpowered. Necros should be about sacrifcing something to gain something better. Risk vs reward. What about reworking the movement signent to make it so that it has an on and off switch with a 10 second CD between turning them on and off. When its on you go 50% faster but recieve a HP degeneration of X amount. When its off every X amount of time you syphon Y amount of HP from near by enemies.

Or something to do with vampiric and in the style of vampires with dagger. Some kind of jump, leap, or myst thing since so few builds use dagger effectively (aside from the immobilize for well builds).

I just get annoyed in WvW when I vs a team that is even a little bit good they just pull me into their group, get past my HP and DS within 5 seconds, then kill me.

There’s already a thread about this particular subject.
Necro Mobility

lol I thought OP was replying himself.

Necromancers don’t have mobility because we aren’t supposed to have mobility. Its like asking why a tank can’t fly, because its a tank. If you want to fly, hop in an airplane.

The class is supposed to be an in-fighter. Sharp has constantly used fighting terms to describe the necromancer, so I’ll go to those. We are supposed to be an in-fighter. A successful in-fighter has a number of ways to come out on top, one of them is simply out-manlying his opponent. What I mean is he gets in their face, and he starts swinging. He swings hard, fast, and doesn’t relent. This type of fighting style ends up getting you bruised and battered often, but it is a highly aggressive style, and generally relies on just overwhelming your opponents.

To translate it to us. Necromancers are pure-aggression. Almost everything we do has the main focus of being used aggressively, and then some of them have a side-use of non-aggressive play. We win by out-trading our opponent, in our case we debilitate them through conditions, and enhance ourselves through a few limited buffs and things like siphons. As we continue trading with our opponent, this comparatively makes them weaker, each hit from us not only hurts them, but makes us stronger. Every hit from them is made less useful by weakness, every chance to escape is limited by cripples and chills, their attempts to heal are poisoned. And in this way we stay in their face, continuously applying a stream of pressure until they crumble.

Obviously the above can be debated as to how it actually works but that is the goal. We get in your face, we make you weaker in comparison to ourselves, and we slowly beat the hell out of you.

Now back to fighting terms. In-fighters, for their actual fighting style, don’t need or want mobility to run from a fight. They want mobility to get in close, and that is it, but they never truly “disengage” at all. You get in, you stick to their face, and you never relent. All this talk about mobility is literally the opposite of an in-fighter; an out-fighter.

This is someone who dances at the very outside of your range. They weave in for a split second, quickly let out a combo or two, and then weave right back out, disallowing you any chance to reply. They use mobility as their key weapon to accomplish their goal.

TL;DR, ANet isn’t afraid of giving us mobility to make us OP. They won’t give us mobility because it is 100% opposite and contrary to the kind of gameplay style they want us to have. Does this suck sometimes? Hell yes, but that is besides the point.

Considering how most of this is just aesthetic-concept crap that rarely applies to real-world scenarios outside of organized spvp. I don’t see why something like Dark Path couldn’t be retooled to where if it doesn’t hit a target for it to teleport at the end of the projectile providing it doesn’t hit some form of obstruction like a wall etc… you can use it as mobility/escape mechanism still in wvw if you have say a critter nearby you can hit with it to gtfo of whatever situation you’re in. Its not much of a stretch to make a minor change to it at least in pve/wvw if the powers that be are primarily worried about it in spvp.

+1 Bhawb.

Low mobility is one of the things that defines necro as necro in gw2. If that style of play doesn’t suit you, you should be checking to see if one of the other professions might fit your playstyle better. What are you willing to trade for more mobility?

Disastro.4086:

Considering how most of this is just aesthetic-concept crap

“Cosmetic crap” is pretty binding for the game. Imagine if they called us Necromancers, but all of our effects were straight from My Little Pony, people would be pretty kittened off.

Marks now lay down a field of flowers. Locust Swarm summons hummingbirds, Lich is a giant Care Bear. All our minions are cute cartoon animals. Everything is pink, frilly, full of rainbows and flowers.

People would be put off of the class. Why? Because theme matters. And the idea of slapping mobility onto our class is a slap in the face of the entire theme we have.

I don’t know how accurate the ‘cosmetic crap’ thing is anyway. It’s mechanical, not aesthetic.

The new prince costume has an ability where when an enemy triggers a mark, you teleport to the mark and fear the other player for about a second….why dont we have this?

Bhawb hit it on the head.

If you want the mobile condition class you play Engineer

I save this quote from Chap it applies to every argument of Class X has Y so Class Z should also have Y.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9#post2474136

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

-Chap from China

Thanks for the quote, I didn’t know of a good one in the forums (they are usually on streams).

I like that quote. It’s actually what drove me away from wow; at one point they put all the classes into a giant blender and characters lost their ‘identity’.
Good to hear it’s by design intent. So here’s to hoping those conceptual ideas are here to stay. A little balancing would help, but he admitted that.

“Same reason Red doesn’t get Interrupts in Magic”

I just find this funny, because Red is one of the top two colors for Instants. If Chap meant Counterspells, then it’s still funny because Red is the #2 color for those (Lavamancer’s Influence, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Double Negative, Counterflux all come to mind immedietly, three of which are mono-red).

Even so, that quote not only explains what is happening, but why it is happening, which I really wish more game developers did, including with this one. Chapman is the most vocal on reasons behind stuff, but sometimes, we would like a bit more explanation.

My major annoyance with this issue is that if you roll a Norn you get, with a racial, something other races’ roaming necros only dream about. The racial elites were said to be inferior to the “true” elites in that they were suppose to provide flavor to the different classes, but, in the Norn case one of the elites far outweighs the others for the roaming necro. Even with it’s 240 cooldown having it as a menas of escape when needed (dash and stealth) for a necro overrules every other elite.

I would love to suggest that ANet add a simular ability to the other races, but have little hope of it happening in my lifetime. I decided instead on having my sylvari for zerging and my norn for roaming.

Agreed 100% with Bhawb. The continuation of that argument, however, is that given our lack of mobility the staying power, damage, utility, etc. isn’t quite up to snuff. For example, I find I can generally last a decent while, but after I blow my tricks I simply can’t recover and keep the momentum up. Especially as a melee necro… the risk/reward isn’t quite where it should be. I feel like most other professions can either recover better or get out of dodge if they can’t. The easy solution is increasing our heals, but I suspect that would overbuff bunkers…

I think that it’s just insanely annoying in PvE and WvW.

The low mobility just makes it harder to:
1. Keep up with people farming in Frostgorge.
2. Keep up with people during guild mission.
3. To catch up with the zerg in WvW.
4. To roam in WvW.

But in sPvP it’s definitely an important balancing factor.

Personally I hope that in the future when Anet adds “new” weapons for the Necromancer we get something with a leap.
That way we make a trade-off in something for the extra mobility, much how Guardians actually have quite a few leaps if they are willing to take a weapon with one.

Weapons with mobility should of course lack something the other weapons have.

I don’t think that Dark Path will get buffed much because buffing it would give every Necro more mobility with no trade-offs.

The problem with this, Necros have ONE build that is a threat and only if you lack condition removal and even then if played right you can still beat them. They are seen as a “easy” kill in that they simply cant escape.

They are (at least all i have seen) to squishy, Deathshroud is a rather crappy counter of having low defenses as in my opinion Toughness > Vit.

You can burst through all of Deathshoud in seconds from full to nothing and then what do they have?

Bhawb.7408:

People would be put off of the class. Why? Because theme matters. And the idea of slapping mobility onto our class is a slap in the face of the entire theme we have.

I would agree with this completely if this held true in all aspects of the game at all times with all classes. It doesn’t. We do not even excel as well at our concept comparatively to some other classes/builds.

The fact is dark path = mobility in WvW like i said you can target a critter use it to escape. Have it teleport you to the end of its projectile when it reaches max distance is well with in reason as it does this all ready provided it has any kind of non-friendly target from critters to siege. In sPvP I’m not to sure about the mobility issue I think things are pretty good there.

Eh, on racial elites, I’d just be happy if they increased the range of the Charr elite Artillery Barrage to something longer than “your toes”.

While the racial skills are supposed to be inferior to actual profession skills (Radiation Field notwithstanding), that does not mean that they aren’t useful. Hidden Pistol is very handy on a necro, who otherwise has no access to dodge skills. Likewise, Take Root is the only access they can get to invulnerability.

Reduce the cast time of fleshworm to 1/2 second. Or/And make the 2# from ds like the blink from Mesmer. That would give us the mobility we need.

Necros don’t get access to over all mobility because that isn’t what they were designed to have. Consistent theme is important. Our only gap closing/creating abilities are either offensive (deathly grasp, spectral grasp) or defensive (spectral walk, flesh wurm). None of them are for disengaging or fleeing though (spectral walk lets you teleport back, and flesh wurm has to be put down ahead of time and can’t be used to “get out” of a fight.)

This was the vision. Im all for that!

Sadly the attrition part of that isn’t there.
Every hit, were the one worse off. The longer the fight go’s, the more they can dodge/block/invul. Every CC affects us worse than others, as it also costs us any defense we were going to apply. Then quite a few auto-clean chills/cripples on there escape move.

As Chap said, how it’s actually played out is:
“we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage”

No defense, no escape. Just apply more condi, than cleanse can cope with, and hope they die before they get there hands on you.

And while, it’s fine we have ‘a build’ that has ‘a role’ in PvP. It’s PvE where were so far behind. Condi stacks/objects can’t take dam, means we do nothing for world events. All the 1shot or avoid over time fights, means we simply have no choice but to get 1shot, or to eat end regen food + have a guard give us aegis at the right time.

Vs a Eng, we need to be the more solid one, as we got no choice but to stand there and suck it up.

Simple things, like being CC’ed gen us life force on dam, sort of like spectral spells. (Or some way to get some defense while CC’ed)

Vigor equiv, endurance regen. Being able to res others in DS/Litch/Plauge (without the press it at the same time as you enter DS ‘balance bug’) would go a LONG way in PvE like dungeons/world boss’s.

(Also fix stupid condition stacks, game wide, making lots more of the sexy builds you created actually WORK in PvE. Oh and crit on boss’s, even if it dose no more dam, builds rely on crit’s to proc things.)

I think you all need to go on a flesh worm diet <3

Greek.4396:

I think you all need to go on a flesh worm diet <3

You mean still one of the most pathetic mobility moves in game but sadly currently the best one since Swalks defensive side was butchered, sorry nope id rather just use locust or traveler to try and run.

Bhawb.7408:

Disastro.4086:

Considering how most of this is just aesthetic-concept crap

“Cosmetic crap” is pretty binding for the game. Imagine if they called us Necromancers, but all of our effects were straight from My Little Pony, people would be pretty kittened off.

Marks now lay down a field of flowers. Locust Swarm summons hummingbirds, Lich is a giant Care Bear. All our minions are cute cartoon animals. Everything is pink, frilly, full of rainbows and flowers.

People would be put off of the class. Why? Because theme matters. And the idea of slapping mobility onto our class is a slap in the face of the entire theme we have.

I think i already posted this twice, but once again, as someone who watches it with his sis, thus adores the dark part of the fandom, id be pretty happy with cupcakes and smiles in our animations. Maybe a little voltaire in the mix~

There is no case to be made for additional mobility for the necromancer, for reasons already accounted for in this thread. However, I think a case could easily be made for better cc. You’re not supposed to be able to outrun your opponent. Rather, the idea is that you’re supposed to have a reasonable chance of stopping them from outrunning you. Everything is relative. If they’re moving slower due to cc, you are effectively beating them with better mobility. That’s how the necromancer is supposed to win a fight – by dragging them down to our level. Our snares/gap closers are half-decent as they sit, but the ability to consistently land them is an integral part of the class concept and a prerequisite for preventing an opponent from disengaging at will during lengthy fights. As an example, it’s downright depressing to watch Risen Nobles in Orr land their gap closer flawlessly every time considering how similar that spell is to DS2. In fact that’s precisely what DS2 should have been, yet we’re stuck with a needlessly difficult and unreliable projectile-based spell that doesn’t connect half the time. Other stuff like focus5 and scepter2 could stand for some cast time improvements as well. Simple quality of life stuff really. More may be required, but at least it’s a good place to start.

And yes, this is all assuming that we’ll have the necessary sustainability to make the cc count.

I think many of you are missing wvw zerg play. I know many may think it takes no skill there and no need for any balance. But many times I really hope I have a leap or two to fly out of the scene when the commander tell to meet back in town. Now I always flee like a coward when thing doesn’t look good.

Dietzen.6127:

There’s already a thread about this particular subject.
Necro Mobility

you linked my thread, thanks. it’s good to keep it alive even if you disagree that necro needs more defensive ’ports.

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.

that’s the problem. anet and a lot of players base the balance of classes and lack thereof on how they perform in spvp. i think that is fundamentally wrong.

@LastDay:

Have you tried equipping Signet of the Locust? It’s really helps a lot when covering open ground.

Disastro.4086:

I don’t see why something like Dark Path couldn’t be retooled to where if it doesn’t hit a target for it to teleport at the end of the projectile providing it doesn’t hit some form of obstruction like a wall etc…

I like this suggestion. If ArenaNet feels this would be OP, balance it out similar to elementalists’ Ride the Lightning. If it fails to hit a target, the necro still teleports to wherever the projectile expires but it’s put on a longer cooldown or some other appropriate consequence. The consequence should not be a self-inflicted condition since necros can turn that to their advantage.

Bhawb.7408:

We are supposed to be an in-fighter…[snip]

I agree with the assessment of what we’re supposed to be in theory and also agree mobility is not appropriate for necromancers. However, if we’re expected to be in-fighters, then ArenaNet has failed to give us the tools to be in-fighters, made promises to give us the tools and then failed to deliver (recent “buffs” to life siphoning fiasco), or outright nerfed what few tools we had (e.g. adding the damage-now-overflows-from-Death-Shroud mechanic).

They talk, talk, talk about attrition, sustain, the necro’s kill zone, etc. So far that’s all it’s been; talk. We are nowhere near being the attrition/sustain in-fighters they envision us to be. Outside of the flavor-of-the-month Dhuumfire/Terror build we had, we’re merely CC-ed, focus-trained, HP punching bags.

If this were still early development and we’re all sitting around an ArenaNet conference table pitching ideas on what direction to take the necro, then just “talk” would be appropriate. However, that’s not where we’re at. This is almost 14 months after release. Where’s the attrition and sustain that’s – at a minimum – on par with what the other professions can bring to the table? Especially for a class that – as an in-fighter – should be the “apex predator” (as Mr. Sharp likes to say) of attrition and sustain.

Bhawb.7408:

Necromancers don’t have mobility because we aren’t supposed to have mobility. Its like asking why a tank can’t fly, because its a tank. If you want to fly, hop in an airplane.

Your flying tank has arrived (just kidding )

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.

We have the ability to run into a zerg with 50,000HP, 5000 Toughness, and then pop into another 15,000 HP Shroud cover, while the death around you regenerates this pool. What would be dumb is if we could do this and then suddenly pop out of the fight when kitten hits the fan. That’s just my opinion because I play a Thief as well. And generally my thief is spongy even has a Condi/Toughness/Vit build. Where he does shine is the fact that I can leave the middle of a battlefield consistently, but that is only fair because I can be taken down incredibly quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t disagree that the actual implementation of their plan as of yet is subpar. In fact, minions are one of the only places where they got it right (tons of CC, tons of sustain).

But I would much prefer that they keep trying to buff us up to what we should be, instead of band-aiding us with things we aren’t meant to be.

Agreed. I don’t want band-aids, either; I want solutions.

In some ways, the in-fighter scenario almost works (at least when facing lesser numbers of opponents; larger numbers and it’s just “focus-train-cc-and-die”). Fight is joined, necro tanks through it, is chipping away at the opponent, things are going ok, aaaaaaaaaand…opponent disengages with no means for the necro to pursue.

Even this scenario is not broken. It’s wholly appropriate that other professions can use their escape abilities to disengage from the slower necro. That’s how it’s supposed to work and I accept it.

What is broken is this:

Opponent who just disengaged cleanses and/or heals up. They then return to re-engage the necro. Necro, having used their long cool down skills during the first round and unable to regenerate their life force quickly enough due to a lack of available targets, is now at a disadvantage. Necro, unable to disengage and still waiting on skills to recharge, can do little more than prolong their inevitable defeat.

In-fighters in other games generally have short cool downs on their skills. They don’t have the advantage of bursting with one huge nuke or kiting from a distance. Their compensation is the ability to continuously land jabs, punches, kicks, etc. in rapid succession.

That’s the missing piece. We can’t disengage, we have low mobility, we’re expected to stand there, facetank the hits, and win or die. Ok, fine; I accept all of that. What isn’t working though is – on top of all those disadvantages – our skills have long cool downs. If we’re going to be burdened with the limitations listed above, then the compensation is we need to have more frequent access to our skills so we can keep hitting once a fight is joined.

I’m not even suggesting shorter cast times for our skills. Our long-ish cast times feel appropriate for a ponderous, tanky, juggernaught. Instead, give us shorter cool downs that are base rather than trait-dependent. This way, when an opponent disengages from a fight, we may not be able to chase but we will be ready for when they return.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Agreed. I don’t want band-aids, either; I want solutions.

In some ways, the in-fighter scenario almost works (at least when facing lesser numbers of opponents; larger numbers and it’s just “focus-train-cc-and-die”). Fight is joined, necro tanks through it, is chipping away at the opponent, things are going ok, aaaaaaaaaand…opponent disengages with no means for the necro to pursue.

Even this scenario is not broken. It’s wholly appropriate that other professions can use their escape abilities to disengage from the slower necro. That’s how it’s supposed to work and I accept it.

What is broken is this:

Opponent who just disengaged cleanses and/or heals up. They then return to re-engage the necro. Necro, having used their long cool down skills during the first round and unable to regenerate their life force quickly enough due to a lack of available targets, is now at a disadvantage. Necro, unable to disengage and still waiting on skills to recharge, can do little more than prolong their inevitable defeat.

In-fighters in other games generally have short cool downs on their skills. They don’t have the advantage of bursting with one huge nuke or kiting from a distance. Their compensation is the ability to continuously land jabs, punches, kicks, etc. in rapid succession.

That’s the missing piece. We can’t disengage, we have low mobility, we’re expected to stand there, facetank the hits, and win or die. Ok, fine; I accept all of that. What isn’t working though is – on top of all those disadvantages – our skills have long cool downs. If we’re going to be burdened with the limitations listed above, then the compensation is we need to have more frequent access to our skills so we can keep hitting once a fight is joined.

I’m not even suggesting shorter cast times for our skills. Our long-ish cast times feel appropriate for a ponderous, tanky, juggernaught. Instead, give us shorter cool downs that are base rather than trait-dependent. This way, when an opponent disengages from a fight, we may not be able to chase but we will be ready for when they return.

This is good what about easier ways to generate life force? I think that would go a long way to helping. Something almost like Spectral Armor working almost like beserkers stance from Warriors. It would give you life force without the need to take damage and it would also generate faster when taking damage.

Hmm actually I can see this happening a trait almost like cleansing ire where you gain life force as you take damage. Or possibly a buff to signet of undeath.

I think helping with life force generation where you wouldn’t have to run certain weapons for it would help alot. Buffs to get more life force generation. Like spectral attunement should be more than 5% on spectral use.

The fighting game terms are irrelevant and out of place because this isn’t just a 1v1 game. That might work for a fighting game, being an in-fighter, against one person, but vs a group it does not work when you get jumped and focused. All other classes have better means to escape this situation, Necro really doesn’t, other than very hard to set up stuff like Flesh Worm that requires you to see the future (esp in WvW, where fights are so free ranging).

For any organized groups that understand the game, its far to simple and obvious to just jump the necro first and focus him, and it just works far too easily. It’s simply bad design that this is obviously the first move, and best move, in a team fight. Jump the necro. It’s about as bad as train the healer in the old Holy Trinity games. There is no good counter play for it, and it makes the game worse that there isn’t.

Repeatedly arguing “that’s how they designed it to be” is beside the point to whether it is actually good design or not, and ignores the obvious reality that they can simply change how a profession works or is meant to be played at any time. And if a change can be made to improve the game, but isn’t, simply because you are tied to something sub optimal just because you started with that vision 5 years ago, is beyond narrow sighted. Adaptation and iteration are the hallmarks of quality design, not sticking to something that sounded good at one time in theory, but didn’t play out well in practice.

Buffing what we are already good at won’t solve this either. That is just trying harder and harder to hammer a square peg into a round hole. They could give Necro several hundred more toughness or 30% more LF generation, none of that would change the core limitation here, it would only imbalance us more in small fights.

The old multiple hit LF generation skills at least did makes some sense as a defense against focus, as the more hits you were taking, the faster your reserve life bar would fill. Then they nerfed that, which made little sense.

If they are steadfast on low stability and low vigor for Necro, one thing they could do help us in focus situations is give us a LOT more Retaliation.

The problem with Necro focus isn’t just you can’t get away, but also because most of our skills are so slow cast and because we have low stability, when we do get focused, it tends to totally shut down our dps and contribution to the fight. Other than as a sponge, which isnt good enough.

If we had long lasting retaliations up (not 3 seconds on DS) then we could keep doing some damage at least, even if our skills were continuously locked out. But it would have to be only part of a full solution.

Bhawb.7408:

Necromancers don’t have mobility because we aren’t supposed to have mobility. Its like asking why a tank can’t fly, because its a tank. If you want to fly, hop in an airplane.

Pretty much this. Before the Dhuumfire patch the dev team could have chosen to give necro some mobility, but with the damage capabilities that the class has now giving them reasonable mobility would be wildly imbalanced.

A Necro is an AoE condition blender that shreds pretty much everything nearby if it can get 10s of free casting. If you give them mobility, then they will just be able to kite 10s while raining death down on everything and laughing.