Guild Wars 2

I personally go for kiting and stacking bleeds. Scep/Dag, with Staff. Both sets have kiting skills (2 on scep, 2 and fear on staff) and in the mean time I stack bleeds and spread with epidemic. This of course works best with mobs who are running at you. If I aggro too big of a mob, I’ll use Plague with auto attack on 2 (the blind) until they all die. With the constant blind you won’t be hit.

This is purely PvE. It doesn’t work so well with PvP…

Just so you know, in general I think critical damage will be useless without precision. Correct me if I’m wrong, but CritD only increases damage of criticals while precision increases the chance for criticals.

I think to get the most bang for your buck will be to focus CD and Power and the only set armor that offers those two (with Vitality) is Carrion. Or go CD/Pow/Precision with Rampagers.

As Karther mentioned, its more of a utility skill. Great for both chasing and running away. If they catch you, they’ll be crippled and you’ll still have swiftness (hopefully.)

I lack any programming knowledge so I don’t know if this would help, but I feel like in general, all the minions run off the same AI code. The problems you listed aren’t just for the flesh golem but all of them. They may or may not have different codes (different skills/uses?) but yes, it is a problem.

The work around I found when it’s not attacking something I want it to is to use it’s charge ability. That way after it charges it’ll attack whatever you’re attacking. I personally try to have Charge on constant cooldown anyway. If the mob is on the ground not moving, then it’s not attacking me.

As Stormy O stated, if we play to our strengths I don’t feel that underpowered at all. What is our bread and butter? Epidemic. There have been countless number of times (in WvW) where after condition stacking one person, especially an npc surrounded by invaders and popping epidemic. The white numbers are everywhere.

Even in PvE, I feel the necros really shine and the conditions they can put out. I was following a hybrid burst/sustained damage build (scep/dag, axe/focus) that goes back and forth between stacking bleeds and stacking vulnerability. What do I do after all those conditions are stacked? Epidemic. Sure if there are other mobs near by I’ll aggro a few more, but by the time I’m ready to deal with them they’ll have a good chunk of health gone.

In sPvP I run scep/dag, staff build focusing on fear and condition duration. With it I can usually hold my own point (that is if I can land my marks :P). There have been on occasion where I’ve been able to 2v1 with the help of Epidemic and my flesh golem. (Easiest way to land marks? Knock down or root!)

All in all, sure Necros may feel underpowered the most, but I don’t think the fun is missing, especially if you know that the necro playstyle is about dots and spreading dem dots.

One of the great things I love about necros is that they’re more of a utility, sustained damage dealer. I mean, heck, as much as I love taking everyone’s conditions and throwing it at the enemy and making sure the enemy has little boons as possible, I love the fact that all I see are white numbers popping out of whoever I’ve condition stacked the most as if they were a tiny volcano spewing white digits.