Guild Wars 2

It really does suck in PvP.

There is so much condi cleanse around and no burning really hurts. Really hard to ever kill a warrior because they just outlast all your damage with healing signet and then have zerker stance back up again (hambow easiest to kill probably by even they can 1 shot you).

The only thing necro owns is engineer which is also not very good.

This game has given too many classes the ability to do EVERYTHING. The celestial buff backfired totally as now you have the best condi classes being ele/warrior – except they can also be bunkers/do direct damage at the same time. A bunker guradian shuts down a necro. So does a staff ele. The guardian shouts should be nerfed. Add an icd to Pure of Voice imo. That was some skill is required when bunkering too.

My idea: give necro torment on scepter 3 or make the second scepter auto attack apply torment and not bleed. Necro needs more conditions.

Warrior/ele are just the best at everything and it sucks. Guardian shout build been OP for about 3 years. Thieves are broken.

Rangers, engis, necro and mesmers get the screw for most of the last 2 years. Last patch the only HUGE nerf was to dhuumfire which was to a class which wasn’t even viable anyway.

First and most important change that necro requires is deleting signet of spite from game, then we can talk about other changes.

i dont know what your problem is. condition necro is attrition based now instead of burn condition burst.

just because you cant kill eles/warriors doesnt mean the class is weak by itself.

necros are superior to engis, strong against mesmers/thieves as they have few cleanses (given s/d is gamebreaking atm). and from my experience necros are better than spirit rangers too.

you have the best chance against a guardian as a condition class. guardians have 6 condition cleanses on a not so short cooldown. you can also deny them a lot of boons with boon corruption. use signet of spite and they are forced to use their shouts.

try to kill a guardian as a dps class and see how good you do. the only classs that is capable of effectively killing a bunker guard with a dps spec is: necro.

other than that necro brings some of the best condition cleanses, conditon transfers and elites.

necros might not be the heroes of teamfights but they are anything but weak.

there isn’t a single team searching for a necro… i think that says enough

Seiishizo.7162:

there isn’t a single team searching for a necro… i think that says enough

The game has been out for 2 years I think. In this peroid necro has been in the best comp for 1 month out of 24 months. The one time necro was really powerful anet actually did a hotfix to stop it being broken. Ele/warrior/thief/guard have been OP for most of 24 months.

Those are the facts.

Leeto.1570:

First and most important change that necro requires is deleting signet of spite from game, then we can talk about other changes.

I can’t even think of a necro build where signet of spite is worth the slot lol

The problem with Necros is most classes can offset their weaknesses now with certain signets/runes/utilities – especially something like celestial amulets.

With Necros, they have no virtually no way to get defensive attributes such as vigor, stability, aegis. They also have no evades, invulns and no stealth or mobility which means they basically have to tank damage.

Unfortunately, they start with ZERO life force and it takes forever (in PvP terms) to fill the LF bar. Most necros have to go into DS before it gets even near full at the start of a match.

On top of all that, you can’t heal or use tons of your other skills while in DS.

Oh…and when you do have to heal…it’s cast time is well over 1 second which is a lifetime in PvP.

The design is actually interesting and would be intriguing if other classes had similar huge weaknesses to exploit. However, that is not the case.

A warrior NEVER has to even click their healing skill. This is like playing tic-tac-toe and giving them an extra turn. They also have full immunity to physical and condi damage for long periods on short cooldowns, high armor, high mobility, stability, and equal damage potential.

They do have one resource to manage – adrenaline – but it fills up in a fraction of the time it takes Necros to do the same.

We could go through other class comparisons as well, but since warriors are 4 times more plentiful in PvP, it makes sense to highlight the obvious problems that haven’t been addresses for quite awhile now.

Good thing Necros are at least desired more than warriors in PvE…oh wait…

a t s e.9614:

Necro is the least telegraphed class in the game. Before doing anything they should consider adding proper animations to this class.

Most necro skills actually have long cast times. So they are easily interruptable. Engineers have many instant skills. All classes do. There is no difference animation wise for necro from any other class. In fact necro is probably the only class whose heal can be reliably interrupted.

SPESHAL.9106:

The problem with Necros is most classes can offset their weaknesses now with certain signets/runes/utilities – especially something like celestial amulets.

With Necros, they have no virtually no way to get defensive attributes such as vigor, stability, aegis. They also have no evades, invulns and no stealth or mobility which means they basically have to tank damage.

Unfortunately, they start with ZERO life force and it takes forever (in PvP terms) to fill the LF bar. Most necros have to go into DS before it gets even near full at the start of a match.

On top of all that, you can’t heal or use tons of your other skills while in DS.

Oh…and when you do have to heal…it’s cast time is well over 1 second which is a lifetime in PvP.

The design is actually interesting and would be intriguing if other classes had similar huge weaknesses to exploit. However, that is not the case.

A warrior NEVER has to even click their healing skill. This is like playing tic-tac-toe and giving them an extra turn. They also have full immunity to physical and condi damage for long periods on short cooldowns, high armor, high mobility, stability, and equal damage potential.

They do have one resource to manage – adrenaline – but it fills up in a fraction of the time it takes Necros to do the same.

We could go through other class comparisons as well, but since warriors are 4 times more plentiful in PvP, it makes sense to highlight the obvious problems that haven’t been addresses for quite awhile now.

Good thing Necros are at least desired more than warriors in PvE…oh wait…

Well said. Necro needs a way to be really tanky AND have massive damage AND has decent mobility/disengage skills.

That way it can be on a level with what anet seems to love making ele/warrior/thief.

So give neco some sort of immunities. Some extra passive regen and burning. Then it might be ok. And vigor and blocks too

Necro is strong..

Step1. Watch Noscoc’s stream.
Step2. Copy Noscoc’s Build he brought back with him from the Future(EU).
Step3. Faceroll.

All you guys are wrong. According to thief/mesmer/guardior/ele and engie necro is OP in all area’s where those professions excel and needs more nerfs especially in areas they have no clue about, like condition application, DS (Those 7k crits that never happen) all those proc skills going off every weapon swap (lawl) and not to forget Dhuumfire, it’s still op according to everyone..

Also i would like to note the necro being the easiest profession to play!
cynically laughing so hard i got a hernia now.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

All you guys are wrong. According to thief/mesmer/guardior/ele and engie necro is OP in all area’s where those professions excel and needs more nerfs especially in areas they have no clue about, like condition application, DS (Those 7k crits that never happen) all those proc skills going off every weapon swap (lawl) and not to forget Dhuumfire, it’s still op according to everyone..

Also i would like to note the necro being the easiest profession to play!
cynically laughing so hard i got a hernia now.

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

Quick Ninja Edit; Merlin do you even play PVP ? :/

Darnis.4056:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

All you guys are wrong. According to thief/mesmer/guardior/ele and engie necro is OP in all area’s where those professions excel and needs more nerfs especially in areas they have no clue about, like condition application, DS (Those 7k crits that never happen) all those proc skills going off every weapon swap (lawl) and not to forget Dhuumfire, it’s still op according to everyone..

Also i would like to note the necro being the easiest profession to play!
cynically laughing so hard i got a hernia now.

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

Everything in this game is easy to play up to a point. TO play something well takes skill, but generally the skill floor is very low in this game.

Darnis.4056:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

All you guys are wrong. According to thief/mesmer/guardior/ele and engie necro is OP in all area’s where those professions excel and needs more nerfs especially in areas they have no clue about, like condition application, DS (Those 7k crits that never happen) all those proc skills going off every weapon swap (lawl) and not to forget Dhuumfire, it’s still op according to everyone..

Also i would like to note the necro being the easiest profession to play!
cynically laughing so hard i got a hernia now.

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

Quick Ninja Edit; Merlin do you even play PVP ? :/

Depends on the weather
But don’t take my post too serious, i tend to exaggerate certain things..

but seriously higher lvl pvp, necro cant carry, can’t stomp, can’t res can’t bunker, can’t decap vs meta. They can wipe a team if they lucky though.

Disclaimer: All statements are general opinion of high end tpvp teams on the current meta. (at least the ones i follow on twitch )

cheerio.

The reason the builds with rapid and frequent removals are meta is because it is needed to cope with the constant spam of random conditions. Adding more of this condition spam would put builds with less removals even further from the meta.

I think a better solution would be to make condition removal less frequent and available but also move conditions to skills which require timing and can be avoided through watching for animations. This way the skill floor on both sides would increase.

I feel like necro is really strong but the fact that a lot of teams run 2 warriors ,

Sometimes even 3 for the Cheese factor, (Straight out of Mexico)
Really puts a dampener on things..

If they made some change like giving Cleansing ire’s Cleansing ability an ICD of 10 seconds (So Warriors can’t instantly cleanse 6 condies every 7 seconds.)
(God kitten it’s strong)

This will however make the Warrior a free kill for Mesmers/Thieves/Engies, so maybe not do that ? :/

Just give back necro their dhuumfire proc on crit and undo the bleed stack nerfs everyone will be happy again… i think…. or the community will cry op and get nerfed again. Could also just play power necro and pew pew.

Darnis.4056:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

All you guys are wrong. According to thief/mesmer/guardior/ele and engie necro is OP in all area’s where those professions excel and needs more nerfs especially in areas they have no clue about, like condition application, DS (Those 7k crits that never happen) all those proc skills going off every weapon swap (lawl) and not to forget Dhuumfire, it’s still op according to everyone..

Also i would like to note the necro being the easiest profession to play!
cynically laughing so hard i got a hernia now.

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

Quick Ninja Edit; Merlin do you even play PVP ? :/

I think it’s unhealthy to have that much salt in your system.

Condi necro seems to be taking a more tanky role which is good. Condi burst shouldnt exist.
Necro is far from being a bad class. All the others are just broken.

Darnis.4056:

Necro is strong..

Step1. Watch Noscoc’s stream.
Step2. Copy Noscoc’s Build he brought back with him from the Future(EU).
Step3. Faceroll.

Or watch me too haha. Btw, EU does not run that build. They favor different rabid builds. I play on both EU and NA/every condi build you can think of.

And you can easily prove necro is strong by sending me to germany to fuhkkkkk kitten up

Necros are okay, not great, but okay. There are still a lot of small issues that will remain holding us back from being top-tier, and that’s been the case since launch except for that small period where Dumbfire was overtuned.

“My idea: give necro torment on scepter 3 "

Good idea, and if anet is still adamant with this it, why not make it that the target has to have both bleeding and poison in order for the skill to work.

I also think in order for necromancer to follow the path of: the longer the fight goes, the stronger necromancer becomes, anet needs to make some skill works the way impale does with warrior. For example, dark path applies a 5 sec debuff that puts 1-2 sec of chill every second.

Why do you guys think?

Dark Path is strong enough as is, the only changes I would make to it are ones to increase its reliability.

Torment would be really good though, although I wouldn’t necessarily put it on Scepter 3 unless they changed it and nerfed the direct damage. I’d just look at changing some of our bleeds over to torment, and also reverting some of the Dhuumfire-related bleed nerfs (which make little sense now).

kirito.4138:

Just give back necro their dhuumfire proc on crit and undo the bleed stack nerfs everyone will be happy again... i think.... or the community will cry op and get nerfed again. Could also just play power necro and pew pew.

Like hell we would no way! Necro is strong. Engi currently a very popular prof and necro counter them hard. They are also good against heavy boon profs such as Guard and ele. Don’t expect one class/spec to be good against everything.

vincecontix.1264:

ingame graph

Where is this? I’ve been wanting to look at PvP statistics for a while now.

Thing is, I don’t want to see the Necromancer’s damage buffed – I am quite able to kill people by outplaying them in 1v1’s or 2v2’s… The damage is absolutely not the issue anymore – even with the high-uptime of cleanses…

The problem are the numbers, have a 3v3 to 5v5 and a Necromancer falls short mostly because of their inability to sustain themselves properly… They have to completely stay away from the fight, though not impossible, not quite a position you want to be in, or else they will get focussed hard with almost no option to escape – unles you got a good Flesh Worm position…

Imho, their defensive abilities are lacking, not their offensive… Their defensive abilities should be able to scale with the numbers, since all the weapons which give LF are single targetted, and spectrals are simply not worth taking since you sacrifice too much damage when done so, and to be frank, quite a lackluster…

Lordrosicky.5813:

Guardian shout build been OP for about 3 years.

I bet you are one of those necros who dies 1v1 to bunker guards. Those make my day.

Lopez.7369:

Darnis.4056:

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

I don’t think he can, honestly. His positioning and cooldown management are both pretty bad.

#shotsfired

Bhawb.7408:

Dark Path is strong enough as is, the only changes I would make to it are ones to increase its reliability.

Torment would be really good though, although I wouldn’t necessarily put it on Scepter 3 unless they changed it and nerfed the direct damage. I’d just look at changing some of our bleeds over to torment, and also reverting some of the Dhuumfire-related bleed nerfs (which make little sense now).

They could make barbed precision apply torment instead of bleeding. This would be pretty cool

hehk.8705:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Guardian shout build been OP for about 3 years.

I bet you are one of those necros who dies 1v1 to bunker guards. Those make my day.

Is my skill level relavent?

Obviously all the NA players have to come in here and say either “I’m amazing and can make necro work!” or “You just suck”.

Seriously its so pathetic.

Necro is still extremely strong in 1on1, several classes having almost 0% chance to beat a good necro.

In a team fight it can be difficult to play a necro but there are a few ways to sustain yourself, and make yourself a difficult target. The plague form + Flesh Wurm teleport to a ledge + death shroud can definitely grant you enough time to kill the enemy before being killed yourself.

If your team is not good enough to prevent the enemy team from training you down, then there’s nothing that can be done.

Something that bothers me in soloq is at the beginning of a game I’ll be running to mid on necro and I’ll notice my teammates slow down or something to let me go ahead….. then start yelling at me when instead of going right on point I range and build a little more lf (I do the minion trick too). These engis, guards, and warriors genuinely want me to go in first all the while knowing I’m just going to get focused and immob spammed if I’m not using wurm it’s not going to matter how many stunbreaks I have I’m going to die from a decently coordinated team

Anet should never ever bring back the condinuking, aoe spamming nonsense. Necro is viable in spvp, just because you can’t spray condis everywhere and hope for the best doesn’t mean necro is dead at all. These kinds of threads are what got necro buffed to insanity in the first place, it was a horrible time in spvp.

Lopez.7369:

Darnis.4056:

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

I don’t think he can, honestly. His positioning and cooldown management are both pretty bad.

Wow i’m really offended right now. Your opinion means so much to me seeing that you can’t kill anything nor stay alive even with decent positioning. I main mesmer yet shrekt you on ur main class.
sry too bm.

data.4093:

Anet should never ever bring back the condinuking, aoe spamming nonsense. Necro is viable in spvp, just because you can’t spray condis everywhere and hope for the best doesn’t mean necro is dead at all. These kinds of threads are what got necro buffed to insanity in the first place, it was a horrible time in spvp.

Your rudeness is uncalled for…

There is a problem with the necromancer, but it is not the damage – I have stated that in some posts before…

It is the Necromancers sustain scaling badly in a teamfight – their one defensive ability (DS) is horrible to peform well in a fight over 3 people…

Their damage is fine, their placement is not… There is a difference…

GoogleBrandon.5073:

data.4093:

Anet should never ever bring back the condinuking, aoe spamming nonsense. Necro is viable in spvp, just because you can’t spray condis everywhere and hope for the best doesn’t mean necro is dead at all. These kinds of threads are what got necro buffed to insanity in the first place, it was a horrible time in spvp.

Your rudeness is uncalled for…

There is a problem with the necromancer, but it is not the damage – I have stated that in some posts before…

It is the Necromancers sustain scaling badly in a teamfight – their one defensive ability (DS) is horrible to peform well in a fight over 3 people…

Their damage is fine, their placement is not… There is a difference…

Text doesn’t have emotion or tone. You’re assuming I’m trying to be rude. And I never quoted anyone, my post was directed to those asking for the ability to spam more condis- not your post.

Back on topic;

Signet of Spite; Needs a real cast time. Not the animation loading after the cast is almost finished.

Corrupt Boon; Needs a cast time and an animation.

Lich/PowerNecro; Too efficacious for Skill put in.
Especially since people are starting to Lich for mid and switch characters right after. (Please make it so you can’t switch anymore)

Staff Skills need some animation changes; Supposedly we should be able to tell by the symbol on the mark what the skills is (LOL) How about some Blue fire on the necro’s hand for the Chill ? Some red for Staff 2? Some Black For Staff5 ? Some Green For Step4?

Look at how you fixed Longbow 5’s tell, it doesn’t have to be the longest or biggest animation, but something slight an succinct would add a lot of counter play.

Hopefully Warriors get a small shave and Sigils of air/fire get slightly shaved next patch too, and we’ll actually see something other then 2-3 warrior teams.

data.4093:

Text doesn’t have emotion or tone. You’re assuming I’m trying to be rude. And I never quoted anyone, my post was directed to those asking for the ability to spam more condis- not your post.

Then we agree…

I do not want a Necromancer to have more “power” in terms of conditions… I like the way they are designed, a class which can and will outlast you, but this is not how it works sadly…

Darnis.4056:

Back on topic;

Signet of Spite; Needs a real cast time. Not the animation loading after the cast is almost finished.

Corrupt Boon; Needs a cast time and an animation.

Lich/PowerNecro; Too efficacious for Skill put in.
Especially since people are starting to Lich for mid and switch characters right after. (Please make it so you can’t switch anymore)

Staff Skills need some animation changes; Supposedly we should be able to tell by the symbol on the mark what the skills is (LOL) How about some Blue fire on the necro’s hand for the Chill ? Some red for Staff 2? Some Black For Staff5 ? Some Green For Step4?

Look at how you fixed Longbow 5’s tell, it doesn’t have to be the longest or biggest animation, but something slight an succinct would add a lot of counter play.

Hopefully Warriors get a small shave and Sigils of air/fire get slightly shaved next patch too, and we’ll actually see something other then 2-3 warrior teams.

Agreed for signet of spite.

Corrupt boon already misses so often, anything else and it’s nerfed to oblivion from its original state.

I agree with switching after lich is abuse and that should be changed.

I’m totally for making staff skills more animated. Would also be nice if staff skills were more meaningful damage-wise to compensate, since its pretty weak right now. The difference between longbow 5 and staff is that longbow 5 is actually a strong skill.

oh this is good idea with switch for lich

i have 4 necros and some empty charslots – so perma lichform?^^

Roe.3679:

I’m totally for making staff skills more animated. Would also be nice if staff skills were more meaningful damage-wise to compensate, since its pretty weak right now. The difference between longbow 5 and staff is that longbow 5 is actually a strong skill.

Staff is probably the necromancer’s strongest weapon..
Staff 5 deals 2k damage AoE and is 1+1/4s AoE CC (Assuming Terror)
Can be Stab’d 32sCD Can Be Blinded Can’t (?)be blocked
Can be side teleported under from.

Longbow 5 is 8k Single target, Single CC 25s CD
Can be cleansed, Can be Reflected. Can be Blinded Can Be Blocked
Auto targets so blinking behind is not an option.

(Might not be blocked because Reaper’s protection is so ridic right now, 3 and 1/4 second AOE fear AoE 4-6kDMG? if no Stunbreaks and cc protection on 60s CD
Also it’s such a kittenty 0 counter play ability, you waste a CC AND you take huge damage, Why? Because kitten you that’s why. )

I agree pindown if it lands/isn’t cleansed is probably ridiculously op..
But reflecting 8k damage and an immob onto a warrior is like the best feeling ever.
(Most of the time they’ll just Zerk stance, but you gotta love wasting 2 of their big Cooldowns)

I really wish that the class with attrition, tanky and tough in it’s marketing blurbs and statements of intent from ANet could actually- you know- survive.

KarinaCO.6948:

Lopez.7369:

Darnis.4056:

Necro is so easy to play even Karina can do it.

I don’t think he can, honestly. His positioning and cooldown management are both pretty bad.

Wow i’m really offended right now. Your opinion means so much to me seeing that you can’t kill anything nor stay alive even with decent positioning. I main mesmer yet shrekt you on ur main class.
sry too bm.

#rekt

Darnis.4056:

Roe.3679:

I’m totally for making staff skills more animated. Would also be nice if staff skills were more meaningful damage-wise to compensate, since its pretty weak right now. The difference between longbow 5 and staff is that longbow 5 is actually a strong skill.

Staff is probably the necromancer’s strongest weapon..
Staff 5 deals 2k damage AoE and is 1+1/4s AoE CC (Assuming Terror)
Can be Stab’d 32sCD Can Be Blinded Can’t (?)be blocked
Can be side teleported under from.

Longbow 5 is 8k Single target, Single CC 25s CD
Can be cleansed, Can be Reflected. Can be Blinded Can Be Blocked
Auto targets so blinking behind is not an option.

(Might not be blocked because Reaper’s protection is so ridic right now, 3 and 1/4 second AOE fear AoE 4-6kDMG? if no Stunbreaks and cc protection on 60s CD
Also it’s such a kittenty 0 counter play ability, you waste a CC AND you take huge damage, Why? Because kitten you that’s why. )

I agree pindown if it lands/isn’t cleansed is probably ridiculously op..
But reflecting 8k damage and an immob onto a warrior is like the best feeling ever.
(Most of the time they’ll just Zerk stance, but you gotta love wasting 2 of their big Cooldowns)

Instead of arguing each of these points, let me ask this: when was the last time you were “staffed” to death by a necro?

Necro is in a pretty bad place right now. It’s still competitive, even at high level, if the player is good enough, but there’s no real incentive for a team to bring one. The only thing they do well that’s important in the current metagame is boon stripping. But shatter mesmers do it almost as well, and they bring other kinds of utility for a team that necro doesn’t (mobility with Portal, burst damage, stomp prevention with Mass Invis, diversion stomping). It doesn’t matter if you can still win fights or output decent damage: if you don’t bring any unique tools that your team needs you fall out of the metagame, and necros have lost their niche.

I’d like to see a buff to the amount of debuffs, snares, and other disabling effects a necro can output. There’s so much burst damage flying around these days, and the only thing mitigating it is extremely bunkery builds that output lots of pbaoe healing. There’s not much in the way of “denial” strategies designed to nerf incoming damage rather than just force-heal through it. If necros got better weakness uptime, more blinds and chills, some sort of snare that can affect teleports/shadowsteps (which currently do not have their range decreased by snares like other gap closers do – this combined with the Initiative system makes Thieves practically immune to chill!), more frequent access to torment to provide deeper condi stacks and protect those bleeds from cleansing, and ideally even confusion (I know I’m not the only one who remembers Spiteful Spirit!).

Finally, a reworking of Death Shroud to turn it into a proper sustain mechanic. It’s currently a balancing nightmare: a necromancer is as vulnerable as a naked baby at the start of a match when he’s caught without life force, but a wall of HP if he has a full bar. And it makes necros extremely resilient 1v1, but barely helps at all in team fights! There’s got to be a better way to balance it!

Darnis.4056:

Necro is strong..

Step1. Watch Noscoc’s stream.
Step2. Copy Noscoc’s Build he brought back with him from the Future(EU).
Step3. Faceroll.

I generally agree with you, Henrietta: necro should be the master in killing fast bunkers and he does it pretty well actually. The problem is that now the meta is far more bunker than dps so bunkers in opposite team sustain each others. At the end, since necro has no personal sustain at all, necro dies despite his huge dps (I think he has still a big dps, the problem is the massive sustain of lots of specific classes).

I think f1 regeneration should be increased a lot because right now you never fill the bar unless you are farming poor guys who have clearly not the same level as your team. If the fights are balanced with a good average of skill of both teams, the max I reach for instance is 5-6 k life force in average and it sounds pretty stupid to me to have only 5, 6 k when i am able to have 14 k life force.

I even tried to save a lot of f1 to have a full bar but, in doing so, my team looses a huge part of my dps and in any case it doesn’t worth it because fights become long and nobody dies. The more the fight lasts, more risks the necro has to die first and, if necro dies, team fights are lost in 99% of cases.

I think in soloq right now the most viable build for necro is actually the berserk one because there is no organization in killing the target most of the times but it’s impossible to play in a good teamq level.

More sustain and give back some condi nerf should be done definitely.

righteousness.6028:

Leeto.1570:

First and most important change that necro requires is deleting signet of spite from game, then we can talk about other changes.

I can’t even think of a necro build where signet of spite is worth the slot lol

I play necro as main and I use corrupt boon, signet of spite and the wurm in my slots. It’s the most used set up for necros in top 1-100 teamq and soloq and I think it’s relevant to underline the skill difference in pvp because it does matter. The same guys who still complain about the fear damage are probably the same who are farmed by only one necro in 1 vs 2. Signet of spite is far to be funny to play, but it’s definitely the most important skill of necro after corrupt boon. Is this skill ridiculous? Yes. Is this skill not funny to use? IMHO yes. But it’s useful and strong and this is why all the best necros right now are using it.

ShakeItOut.6781:

But it’s useful and strong and this is why all the best necros right now are using it.

This is a sweeping statement, and one that isn’t at all accurate.

manveruppd.7601:

Necro is in a pretty bad place right now. It’s still competitive, even at high level, if the player is good enough, but there’s no real incentive for a team to bring one. The only thing they do well that’s important in the current metagame is boon stripping. But shatter mesmers do it almost as well, and they bring other kinds of utility for a team that necro doesn’t (mobility with Portal, burst damage, stomp prevention with Mass Invis, diversion stomping). It doesn’t matter if you can still win fights or output decent damage: if you don’t bring any unique tools that your team needs you fall out of the metagame, and necros have lost their niche.

I’d like to see a buff to the amount of debuffs, snares, and other disabling effects a necro can output. There’s so much burst damage flying around these days, and the only thing mitigating it is extremely bunkery builds that output lots of pbaoe healing. There’s not much in the way of “denial” strategies designed to nerf incoming damage rather than just force-heal through it. If necros got better weakness uptime, more blinds and chills, some sort of snare that can affect teleports/shadowsteps (which currently do not have their range decreased by snares like other gap closers do – this combined with the Initiative system makes Thieves practically immune to chill!), more frequent access to torment to provide deeper condi stacks and protect those bleeds from cleansing, and ideally even confusion (I know I’m not the only one who remembers Spiteful Spirit!).

Finally, a reworking of Death Shroud to turn it into a proper sustain mechanic. It’s currently a balancing nightmare: a necromancer is as vulnerable as a naked baby at the start of a match when he’s caught without life force, but a wall of HP if he has a full bar. And it makes necros extremely resilient 1v1, but barely helps at all in team fights! There’s got to be a better way to balance it!

I think the first step to achieve this is by making our debuff harder to remove. Wouldn’t making some skills work like impale be the answer? I gave an example with dark path.

@Bhawb,
1. What do you suggest instead attrition wise? I thought a better access to debuff such a chill may be the best thing to do.

2. I think AA is already strong as it is. Puting 1 stack of torment every 2 sec just by spamming AA will make it over the top imo. If I recall, arenaNet already removed 1 stack of bleed on #2, so why not add 1-2 stack(s) of torment in #3 scepter to balance it out? The 10 sec cooldown will balance it out, and avoid some spam. Make it require bleed and poison on the target in order to put torment (See fire grab with elementalist), thus people can predict #3, and cleanse/dodge before it lands in order to counter it.