Guild Wars 2

I play a necromancer and approve of any changes done to the terror chains. I personally don’t think fear, or any CC for that matter should stack. Maybe daze can stack, because you have somehwat control of your character, but certainly not fear or stuns.

Necromancers need to realize that the largest casualty to the current playstyle is necromancers themselves. You have no sources of stability, and at best 1 stun break in any competitive environment.

I can say without a doubt that getting caught on a terror chain as a necromancer is a death sentence compared to any other class.

Necromancers should instead be improved in sustain and see this crazy cc+burst output altered. It’s just not fun for anyone, especially for the classes that get trained the most.

You can pretty much be pinballed to death in between a golem charge into a fear mark into a DS fear into a spectral wall, and even with death shroud be close close to death without any hope for recovery.

Tone down the condi burst, and change it into sustained conditions the necromancer instead of having received burning should have received more chill or blind and torment to boost their actual shortcomings — lack of condi covers and survival.

And nothing has been done about the fact that the necro can be CC’d to death with little he can do about it. Once the necro’s OP fear chains get touched, and the class is balanced offensively, the real flaws will start showing back up again.

As it is, it’s not about attrition at all. It’s who drops the condi burst bomb first before someone gets CC’d to oblivion. High spike+ high CC has always been bad for pvp in any game.

Very true…. +1.

Not sure what to think of this thread. I think I “get it”.

Out of curiosity, are those Fears supposed to go through Invulnerability, Stability, and even hit someone in mid-dodge?

That happened to me repeatedly in a small guild fight.

MLieBennett.9031:

Out of curiosity, are those Fears supposed to go through Invulnerability, Stability, and even hit someone in mid-dodge?

That happened to me repeatedly in a small guild fight.

No, and they don’t, and that didn’t happen to you.

+1’d

The chain fear condi-burst is why there are so many different opinions on necros. Other classes that eat this burst feel as helpless as the old-cheesy backstab-HS-hero thief. On top of it, necros are WAY less squishy in 3v3 or smaller than that same zerker-thief. In fact, the amount of fears are way more available (multiple sources) and much longer than basilisk venom ever was. Also, AOE.

So while necro is way more survivable in an even fight and so powerful anywhere, they lack any mobility/blocks and thus are very weak at dealing with being focused. While thieves could get away from an outnumbered situation, necros are stuck using their cc’s to simply survive until help arrives, or otherwise melt. This makes necros feel helpless.

This is kind of why you hear both: “Necros survive forever and do way too much damage” and “Necro has terrible survivability” and it both being true.

The question becomes, does necro have the tools to survive the situations they feel helpless and simply not using them right utilities like every other class has to (i.e. using all offensive utilities and whining when they can’t respond defensively)? If not, should they have those weaknesses inherent due to their strengths listed?

I personally feel that all burst (ele power burst, necro condi burst, mesmer phantasm/shatter burst, etc) should be toned down, and doing so will mitigate the necro helplessness such that only a small change will be needed for complete balance. This would also make fights longer, more tactical, and fun.

Ok… so you want to nerf necromancer to buff necromancer so we can have a chance 1v1 or in teamfight against other necromancers. And all this because necromancers can easily exploit there own weaknesses? Seriously… Is this some kind of a joke?… Seriously, at this point, arena Net should consider adding a blacklist for spvp.

Poplolita.2638:

Ok… so you want to nerf necromancer to buff necromancer so we can have a chance 1v1 or in teamfight against other necromancers. And all this because necromancers can easily exploit there own weaknesses? Seriously… Is this some kind of a joke?… Seriously, at this point, arena Net should consider adding a blacklist for spvp.

This really is very easy. Necro is very OP in some respects, and very weak in others. You first have to nerf the OP aspects of the class to something reasonable, so that you can buff it and make it balanced/fun overall. His suggestion is really what necros wanted all along: more defense not more offense. Because the offense was buffed so much, buffing the defense without nerfing the offense would make every other class irrelevant.

Poplolita.2638:

Ok… so you want to nerf necromancer to buff necromancer so we can have a chance 1v1 or in teamfight against other necromancers. And all this because necromancers can easily exploit there own weaknesses? Seriously… Is this some kind of a joke?… Seriously, at this point, arena Net should consider adding a blacklist for spvp.

I suppose this is what I mean by “get it”. The OP is simultaneously claiming necromancers are overpowered and underpowered at the same time. This means either 1 of two things:

A): This is a satire of the feedback about necromancers constantly contradicting itself. I feel this may be the option, since a conditiomancer with full Life Force has anywhere from 36K to 50K health, rendering the 9k chain stun useless unless used as a dedicated finisher.

B): He is reflecting on the dual nature of how the necromancer’s design leads them to be both overpowered in certain situations, and yet underpowered in others.

Anyway, while I do think the increase in necromancer fear is the greatest asset to condition necros, I also do not think it is overpowered. There are several reasons for this.

#1: None of the skills in the chain are unavoidable. Spectral Wall, Reaper’s Mark, Doom, Spectral Grasp, they can all miss, be blinded, or be dodged, and many can be blocked. When they miss, this can mean the end of a terror chain before it begins.

#2: It is hard to sustain a fight without using any of those utilities in the first place. Fact is, there are times when you need to use Doom to stop an enemy burst, or you need Reaper’s Mark as a defense against a stealthed enemy, or Spectral Wall as an escape maneuver or area denial. These are 4 skills that are needed for the combo, not one. The mere course of combat can halt these things.

#3: Even when hit, the combo can be countered by stun breaks and stability. If the necro layers up every fear they have as fast as possible, then stun breaks can cut off the damage by the second tick, blowing all cooldowns and the combo. If they only use their fears right before the previous one was about to end, then this can be interrupted by a stun breaker or stability beforehand. The combo usually goes Doom → Spectral wall where they are running → Reaper’s Mark or Spectral grasp → Reaper’s Mark or Spectral grasp. If you use a stun break between doom and spectral wall, then the combo ends as soon as you break the stun and walk out of the way of the wall. It is harder to end after spectral wall, though, since both Reaper’s Mark and Spectral Grasp can still hit you. If an opponent puts down spectral wall before doom, then get out of line with the spectral wall because otherwise they are attempting to chain you to death.

This also depends on the stun break. If it is an evading stun break, the combo ends. If it is a stability granting stun break, the combo ends. If it is a teleporting stun break, the combo ends. As it happens, a lot of stun breaks already evade, teleport, or grant stability. Position is key with the terror chain, and if you break that position, the chain ends.

All in all, chain terror takes skill, multiple utilities, build dedication, good positioning, and is far from counter-proof. The only thing that stands out about the Terror chain is that, as burst, it is the only on that goes through toughness and protection. Otherwise, there are much better choices.

So…Necros are op because they kill other necros?
wtf XD

Necros could fear chain before this and getting hit by that was still a death sentence so really this is just another knock on their condi build that probably shouldn’t occur since they’ve had (or will have) everything else nerfed on them.

OP missed a few things. After Im done chain fearing or they have stability I wait using vulnerability for 16 seconds. Thats spectral armor for 8 and again at 50% hp both being only a minute cd and being stun breakers is crazy. Also Swalk last 12 seconds which normally is another invulnerability against fast attacks.

With 25k hp and +30 LFpool 8% per hit and even at 2% = 650 hp back and 8% is 2.2k back and again thats per hit! So thats 28 seconds of invulnerability on 1 min cd. Ive done it the past 2 days in Tpvp vs 3 guys by myself when my team is always dying. I also do 2-3k piercing life blasts + all my regular 1406 condi dmg terror fears and thats not on squishy targets.

My build
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Is-my-Necromancer-the-cause-of-unbalance/first#post2502219

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Poplolita.2638:

Ok… so you want to nerf necromancer to buff necromancer so we can have a chance 1v1 or in teamfight against other necromancers. And all this because necromancers can easily exploit there own weaknesses? Seriously… Is this some kind of a joke?… Seriously, at this point, arena Net should consider adding a blacklist for spvp.

I suppose this is what I mean by “get it”. The OP is simultaneously claiming necromancers are overpowered and underpowered at the same time. This means either 1 of two things:

A): This is a satire of the feedback about necromancers constantly contradicting itself. I feel this may be the option, since a conditiomancer with full Life Force has anywhere from 36K to 50K health, rendering the 9k chain stun useless unless used as a dedicated finisher.

B): He is reflecting on the dual nature of how the necromancer’s design leads them to be both overpowered in certain situations, and yet underpowered in others.

Anyway, while I do think the increase in necromancer fear is the greatest asset to condition necros, I also do not think it is overpowered. There are several reasons for this.

#1: None of the skills in the chain are unavoidable. Spectral Wall, Reaper’s Mark, Doom, Spectral Grasp, they can all miss, be blinded, or be dodged, and many can be blocked. When they miss, this can mean the end of a terror chain before it begins.

#2: It is hard to sustain a fight without using any of those utilities in the first place. Fact is, there are times when you need to use Doom to stop an enemy burst, or you need Reaper’s Mark as a defense against a stealthed enemy, or Spectral Wall as an escape maneuver or area denial. These are 4 skills that are needed for the combo, not one. The mere course of combat can halt these things.

#3: Even when hit, the combo can be countered by stun breaks and stability. If the necro layers up every fear they have as fast as possible, then stun breaks can cut off the damage by the second tick, blowing all cooldowns and the combo. If they only use their fears right before the previous one was about to end, then this can be interrupted by a stun breaker or stability beforehand. The combo usually goes Doom -> Spectral wall where they are running -> Reaper’s Mark or Spectral grasp -> Reaper’s Mark or Spectral grasp. If you use a stun break between doom and spectral wall, then the combo ends as soon as you break the stun and walk out of the way of the wall. It is harder to end after spectral wall, though, since both Reaper’s Mark and Spectral Grasp can still hit you. If an opponent puts down spectral wall before doom, then get out of line with the spectral wall because otherwise they are attempting to chain you to death.

This also depends on the stun break. If it is an evading stun break, the combo ends. If it is a stability granting stun break, the combo ends. If it is a teleporting stun break, the combo ends. As it happens, a lot of stun breaks already evade, teleport, or grant stability. Position is key with the terror chain, and if you break that position, the chain ends.

All in all, chain terror takes skill, multiple utilities, build dedication, good positioning, and is far from counter-proof. The only thing that stands out about the Terror chain is that, as burst, it is the only on that goes through toughness and protection. Otherwise, there are much better choices.

^this.

It’s again the story of necro’s traiting to make sure they survive all the focused spikes trown their way.. all the stuns, knockarounds etc. and i am sure any spvp lvl 10 necro
knows how to build his profession correctly/ and to be honest few necro’s trait for dumbfire anyway… just get rid of it alrady !

I guess our skyhammer intense close combat and necro’s traiting specificly for this map to hold skyhammer is too much for wiki build melee..

yeez just equipt that bubble already, grab your hammer, knock us off.. we don’t have stability. comon you can do it.. just…let..go ..of your build :P

Krayiss I know you are trying to prove your build is OP in the last few days, but any competent team would just change you into a Pingpong ball and be dealt with quickly. Again, not because you’re the highest threat, but because they can and there’s little you can do to stop it, even with 3 stunbreakers equipped. What is the team doing, letting you stacking vulnerability for 16 sec? Any good fight ends way faster, even more if a necro is the target.

I agree that we gained some survivability while using Spectral Armor for 6 sec, IF people are stupid enough to try to burst us while it’s active. Remember that the lifeforce generation now has a internal cooldown of 1 sec between each gain, for Spectral walk and Spectral Armor. And remember that we gain nothing except protection for 6 sec or swiftness if nobody touch us, on a 60 sec cooldown…. At least if not attacked at all we should gain 20% LF or something.

We’re far from invulnerable, last I know when peoples attack me I receive all their effects even when in DS. Immobilize, CC, conditions, you name it. When I attack a Blurring frenzy mesmer (9 1/2 sec cooldown on a weapon skill for 2 1/2 sec invulnerability with no ressource requirement) it receives nothing of the bad condi/effects/damage I tried to put on.

On topic: Chain fear is all nice and hated because of lack of control, but again so is Knockdown, Blowout, chain dazed, Immobilized. This game has no diminishing return, so any stacking of loss of control character is seeing as bad. A single stunbreak and/or stability would negate all those, even Fear.

The answer is the same for all CC in this game, and getting chain CC when everything is on cooldown should mean bad things are gonna happen.

When I’m chain KD by one class (engi warrior main culprit here), see my health go down, go into DS (no access to Stunbreaker in DS remember) a good player will just chain CC me until I have to get out or my lifeforce runs out. When I do get out, I suffer from this 1-2 seconds lockdown bug on heal/utilities and have to try to cast my heal when I’m getting focused and again the good player knows that the heal has to come up else I’m dead, because DS is still on cooldown for 8 sec and/or there no more lifeforce to enter it, it’s my only survival tool so it’s easy to interrupt the heal.

Anyway, chain Whatever CC is bad, because CC that long in a game where you can be burst in seconds is never fun for anyone on the receiving end.

ok first Krayiss , ok u made a build but plz dont spam it in every topic , its not OP.

Ok about fear , u want to make fear to be unchainable , so basicly at the same time u need to increase the fear duration and lower fear dmg to keep the balance.

The thing with fear is thats its easy to counter but most ppl dont know how to play , if u are playing without stunbrakers u need to be preapread for fear/stun etc. I dont know why ppl over and over say fear is op omg. Its not the fear but the amount of condi presure.

Panhauramix.2784:

Krayiss I know you are trying to prove your build is OP in the last few days, but any competent team would just change you into a Pingpong ball and be dealt with quickly. Again, not because you’re the highest threat, but because they can and there’s little you can do to stop it, even with 3 stunbreakers equipped. What is the team doing, letting you stacking vulnerability for 16 sec? Any good fight ends way faster, even more if a necro is the target.

Panhauramix your in luck because there is a couple things you can do.
1. Ya stacking vulnerability x2 +might is nice + my Life blasts are hitting 2k on crit 90% even to the toughests targets. Thats 2k dps and if your lucky its hitting someone through them.
Spectral armor last 8 seconds when specced and can be 48 cd (I dont lower cd) and with high hp thats 2.2k hp per hit or the icd. If no1 attacks then its ok to use Life transfer while the whole time torment, chill + 3k bleed is going up, and don’t forget that 2k dps Life blasts.
I guess the invu is a bit exaggerated but at 2.2k LF a sec my lifeforce only goes up because any hard hits has to go through protecting :/.
And ya I’ve heard the pingpong thing a million times while in DS. Yet I never see a necro dodge the inc cc. I’m like really good at dodging which makes them waste 2 cc lol! Go ahead and throw more at me gotta learn to dodge in DS.

Also when DS runs out theres no recharge if you stay in it for a few seconds then use Sarm/walk or 50% Sarm and go back in. And the 1-2 sec bug wait for heal/util can be fixed by grasp dead+enfe blood or either fear or chill+put mark for weakness. Remember Weakness is really powerful when using spectrals and should always be used!!

Prevention
And yes people need to fear, fear more if that works. Fear isn’t op its just not viewed as a threat till it lands. Its easy to block a necro that just poped DS because doom is instantly coming. Fear is specifically intended to be counters with stability over all else and then block etc and your team can always cleans. I feel people are not helping eachother out(staying near the guard) or focusing on 1v1 in this team game.
So fear needs to be fear’d and people need to learn to prevent or help eachother out
or start running fear reduction runes lol

Forsaker.9213:

ok first Krayiss , ok u made a build but plz dont spam it in every topic , its not OP.

Ok about fear , u want to make fear to be unchainable , so basicly at the same time u need to increase the fear duration and lower fear dmg to keep the balance.

The thing with fear is thats its easy to counter but most ppl dont know how to play , if u are playing without stunbrakers u need to be preapread for fear/stun etc. I dont know why ppl over and over say fear is op omg. Its not the fear but the amount of condi presure.

Sorry I posted it which was relevant in a few ways in this and 1 other topic.
If fear somehow got nerfed which then Anet would have to buff surv which they already could, then some necros could become beyond unkillable.
Also after awhile or when you go up against higher teams in Tpvp you exspect stun breakers and I always grin when my 1.55 sec fear gets broken because here comes another.
I mean ya you could stun breaker before you go through a spectral wall but using a good cd on fear is meh you should focus on preventing it as well as many other tactics. But again I feel this chain fear comotion is due to the more casual play and not watching out for spectral walls and not much support etc.

Zenith.7301:

Necromancers need to realize that the largest casualty to the current playstyle is necromancers themselves. You have no sources of stability, and at best 1 stun break in any competitive environment.

I am not a Necromancer player, but i played one when i was experimenting with the classes. Now correct me if i am wrong, but the Necromancer has 2 sources of Stability. The first one is from the “Elite-Plaque” and the second one from “Foot in the Grave” Trait, while entering Death shroud.

The Elite skill “Plaque” will destroy all your spectral effects and minions. But in return you get :

• At level 80, 916 power, 2748 toughness, and 1832 vitality.
• 20sec of Stability
• Poison
• And the 3 skills that comes with it.

The Foot in the Grave trait which grants you :

• 3sec Stability when entering Death Shroud
• And there is no Internal CD for that trait, if i am not mistaken.

As you can see, you have 2 sources for stability. Whether or not a necromancer chooses to use them, depends from his/her play style.

Regards

Seed

@seed both necro elites plague and lich form grants stab but the description of the skills do not say it, its believed to be a bug by some. DS is a nice 10 sec cd stab but not every1 wants to go 30 points for a 3 sec buff. The 2nd point is all of those replace your skill sets, where most classes have access to stab while still being able to use your normal skills.
I do see your point maybe our classes isnt meant to have stab and rely on your team and I guess you could use runes of lyssa and golem because you’ll get stability every 50 seconds
:p

When a necro use Plague against me, I just evade from his blind field, remove Stability and hit him from range with axe and stack him with conditions with staff. Now he can be a translucide pincushion pingpong ball instead. Necro in Plague/lich form lose all other utilities/weapons skills. Transformation skills are normally not that great because it removes options instead of bringing more to the table. It’s not rare to see a necro having to get out of lich/plague earlier to just heal/use utilities. Then you’re stuck with a 3 min cooldown elite that brings you no good.

@Krayiss: I understand what you’re saying, and I think you nailed it when you said the commotion must be due to more casuals/new player not knowing how to counter necros chain fear (and necro in general). I’ve just finished my Champion Phantom in solo queue with a Power build (30/10/0/0/30) with Berserker amulet, 2 Well+ Lich combo and Rune of Air x6. I would down 3+ players with the wells + lich combo…. Try to do that to a real Tpvp Team, and you will be the only one to go down instead. People were still whispering me saying how OP necro was, while I was using nothing that could be called OP. Ignorance in that case would be what killed them. For fun, if you’re on NA server, I’ll gladly test my build against yours to see if it’s really unkillable

When logging on my guardian/mesmer, I have better tools to counter those CC chains, and I do not need to go out of my ways to use them. Lower cooldown stunbreak ,easier access to invulnerability/stability/block/vigor. Now that my Phantom is done, I’m gonna work on my guardian, and I think the run will be way easier than it was for my power necro.

Krayiss.4926:

@seed both necro elites plague and lich form grants stab but the description of the skills do not say it, its believed to be a bug by some. DS is a nice 10 sec cd stab but not every1 wants to go 30 points for a 3 sec buff. The 2nd point is all of those replace your skill sets, where most classes have access to stab while still being able to use your normal skills.

See, that is what i meant, when i said that depends on his/her play style. I just test it again. With 30 Points you get Stability for 3sec and once you exit Death Shroud goes to 6sec CD instead of 10sec. So, 3sec Stability on 6sec CD upon entering and exit DS. See pics below. Also note that the mentioned trait has no ICD. While you not having access to stability in a sense that other classes have, still it´s better than nothing i suppose.

I do see your point maybe our classes isnt meant to have stab and rely on your team and I guess you could use runes of lyssa and golem because you’ll get stability every 50 seconds
:p

The point that i was trying to make is that the necromancer has sources to stability. Whether or not someone decides to use them its up to the individual itself. But i get what you are saying.

Regards

Seed

The CD is not 6s but 7, and you get it from Near to Death.
As a sole trait looked at in isolation, it is rather good: ~40% stability uptime for as long as you can generate life force… But it is very deep in an unpopular tree that offers very little focused benefits.

Change Terror to deal a relative amount of upfront damage (500ish?) and be power based. Fear for 2 seconds base. Trait it up to 3 seconds. Make it so its duration can’t stack and must be reapplied just like stuns do. This isn’t that complicated and the net result doesn’t change much. It just removes the scripted feeling of combat for the Necromancer and requires a slight amount of effort to pull off effectively. Is this what you want done to fear?

Now as far as condition bursting, how do you resolve it? The overwhelming majority of players think Dhuum should apply 2 stacks of torment for 4 seconds. Is this enough to resolve your condi burst issues? Is this enough of a nerf to give the Necromancer access to an anti-training move like an AE knockback or the like?

The problem people have with Necromancer is their damage seems high, but even with this damage they don’t feel like they contribute much because they’re face down without much effort at all. How much damage does a Necromancer need to lose before its defensive issues are finally recognized?

If it’s to be power-based, it really should trade places with Dhuumfire.

@seed oh ya I agree that necros have 1 source of a 3 sec stability in a form you cant rez or finish someone where the other 2 can be called glitches and the other point is DS is a 10sec cd check the tooltip. And 30 points for something that only has half a functionality? +DS is buggy :/
It shouldn’t be a grandmaster like dhummfire when engineers get the same 4 sec burn on incendiary powder for an adept trait 10 points like omg LOL

It isn’t fear, its people don’t want to run stability or anti condi, they just want to pew pew harder and see big numbers.

Spectral wall is the only new fear and if you are running into that over and over again…

Panhauramix.2784:

When a necro use Plague against me, I just evade from his blind field, remove Stability and hit him from range with axe and stack him with conditions with staff. Now he can be a translucide pincushion pingpong ball instead. Necro in Plague/lich form lose all other utilities/weapons skills. Transformation skills are normally not that great because it removes options instead of bringing more to the table. It’s not rare to see a necro having to get out of lich/plague earlier to just heal/use utilities. Then you’re stuck with a 3 min cooldown elite that brings you no good.

This describes exactly how it is.
Therefore the only viable elite on a necro is the Golem.(And you can do some nice tricks with it if you gear up right)
The other elites and even DS are a deathsentence when focused down and handled right. matter of fact i only use DS for the traits upon going in or coming out of it.. so I won’t be in DS longer then 3 seconds..

Seed.5467:

Zenith.7301:

Necromancers need to realize that the largest casualty to the current playstyle is necromancers themselves. You have no sources of stability, and at best 1 stun break in any competitive environment.

I am not a Necromancer player, but i played one when i was experimenting with the classes. Now correct me if i am wrong, but the Necromancer has 2 sources of Stability. The first one is from the “Elite-Plaque” and the second one from “Foot in the Grave” Trait, while entering Death shroud.

The Elite skill “Plaque” will destroy all your spectral effects and minions. But in return you get :

• At level 80, 916 power, 2748 toughness, and 1832 vitality.
• 20sec of Stability
• Poison
• And the 3 skills that comes with it.

The Foot in the Grave trait which grants you :

• 3sec Stability when entering Death Shroud
• And there is no Internal CD for that trait, if i am not mistaken.

As you can see, you have 2 sources for stability. Whether or not a necromancer chooses to use them, depends from his/her play style.

Regards

Seed

Plague only applies for the duration of the elite. If you exit plague, you lose the stability.

In Plague Form, your pressure drops to ZERO. You are virtually doing nothing to the team.

And most importantly? In the current condi meta, unaffected by plague’s blinds, your plague will be burnt down quickly. Plague is also a 180 sec cd.

Foot in Grave is useless most of the time because you need stability prior to the stun chain beginning, not during.

Also, the problem with foot in grave is that it’s 30 points deep in a tree designed for power specs. The 25 point trait increases damage when over 50% life force only for power specs, so it’s wasted on a condi build, and you end up losing either 10% condi duration and burning, or 100 condition damage, 100 precision and weakness on crits for 10% extra crit damage you won’t be using at all on a condi spec.

Foot in grave also has a terrible design flaw, in that it’s tied to the same form you need to use for survival. So you will be forced to waste stability and put the form on a 7/10 second cooldown if you get spiked, they’ll wait 3 seconds, and CC you to death as there will be a time period of 7-10 seconds where you can’t enter death shroud for stability.

Foot in Grave should break CC effects as well for being a grandmaster trait on a very costly traitline.

shimmerless.4560:

no to be honest it’s mostly the condis lol

Please don’t confuse mesmer issues with the actual problem.

Mesmers need better condi removal or at least make their access to it not so costly, but for the rest of the classes it’s the fear.