Guild Wars 2

Bye.

Seriously, I’m frustrated to, but necro is still the only class with the flavor I enjoy, so that’s that. Until they fix minion AI or our gazillion other bugs, I’ll just find something that works, because I still have fun playing it. If you’re not having fun then that’s your call, but if you’re quitting just out of principle because Anet seems to be borderline trolling us, I don’t think that’s the right way to go about things.

Wtf? If this is legit surely it’s a bug. Even if Anet has been trolling us this whole time, there’s no way they would let such a massive across-the-board damage buff slip through the patch notes.

I made a thread a while back asking for it to be disabled until they have a fix for it. It is simply unacceptable to have a trait that actually does more harm than good.

This seems like a well-constructed post that accurately reflects our concerns without resorting to the petulant hatemongering that seems to be slowly permeating these forums. Well done.

With bloodthirst they’re actually not that bad if you go for a bulky build (w/o investing into toughness the heal is going to get chopped off in one autoattack).

For me, the problem with it is that it feels like it needs this trait to really heal you for any substantive amount. Paired with a cooldown that is near the high end among number 2 skills (and on a weapon with a 25 second cd 3 skill), the effective healing you get from life siphon in a fight seems lackluster for a weapon that seems all about being a life-force-stealing-life-stealing vampire or whatever.

I guess the counter argument is that arenanet really wanted to control healing in this game, but to me, being able to life siphon at least semi-regularly and for a decent amount seems like a fair trade for putting yourself in melee range as a light armor class.

I just don’t understand. It’s like they’re levying a penalty for speccing into death magic. Like, “Oh you want toughness, boon duration, and good traits for staves and wells? Well, okay, but first you have to take this trait that’s going to annoy the living daylights out of you at best and get your group killed at worst.”

They are incredibly important.

Because they are walking reminders of how bugged our class is.

Clearly you haven’t mastered death shroud yet.

A bug in the necro class? No…you just haven’t learned to use death shroud properly.

It’s unfortunate that anyone who wants to spec into death magic has to take this pathetic joke of a trait. It’s not even that the minion itself dies naturally in about 5 seconds that bugs me. It’s that – like every necro minion – it’s a complete moron in pve that pulls mobs you don’t want to fight, and gives enemies free rallies in pvp.

I’d honestly much rather have a blank trait there, because in my experience the jagged horror does way more harm than good in its current state.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to flesh out a response because I have to get to class, but I can sum up my general sentiment:

Great in pve, when enemies roll around in them until the end of time.

Lame in pvp; too long of a recharge for something that is countered by a single dodge roll.

Imo, each well should do something to enemies and something to allies. Adjust the numbers as need be, but at least that way you can still get something out of a well if you’re opponent counters it by lazily walking away.

Well, I don’t really think there’s such a thing as “quitting,” since we aren’t bound by the fetters of a subscription model. That said, I have stopped playing with the regularity that I used to, and this is largely due to the problem that while I love the necromancer, it’s the only class in this game that I find truly compelling.

So when I see that we’re facing nearly a hundred bugs, issues, ambiguities, or errors, it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. This is especially true when I – along with many others – have played through all of the beta weekend events and have reported ad nauseum many of the bugs and issues that we still see today (see minion AI, blood magic traits not scaling with healing, many of the traits that just don’t do anything). I know arenanet is a very hard-working company, but it leaves me very bitter to see our constant reports of these issues go unaddressed, especially when they are compounded with bugs that are beyond ridiculous (e.g. well of blood healing enemies and plague signet giving you conditions without removing them from allies).

It’s not even that I’m concerned about balance so much. While I believe death shroud should be more than a health buffer with some filler skills, and fear should be more powerful on the alleged “fear class,” I do think that, for all their problems, necros do have a place in pvp, even if it is a pretty narrow niche.

No, the problem for me is that our class is a bizzare amalgam of malfunctioning code, the state of which arenanet should not be satisfied with. Yet, they seem more concerned about touching up negligible issues elsewhere than they do with making headway on the dozens of bugs that still plague the necromancer, and – perhaps most frustraingly – have plagued the necromancer since the first beta weekend.

So, what would I like to see? I want to see some initiative that shows me that arenanet isn’t just trolling us, and actually gives a kitten about the functionality of this class. Minion AI, plague signet, any one of the useless traits…pick something and show some attempt to fix it. At least that way I may have faith that we’re not going to be playing a bugged class held together by narrow niche roles until the end of time…because that’s the unfortunate perception I find myself in now, and it’s keeping me from diving into my necromancer as I wish I could.

This is just a whimsical observation here, but isn’t it just a little stupid how thieves can steal fear from “the fear class,” and have it last 3 times as long?

I also love wells. I use with a bulky necromancer spec along with the trait that lets them give you protection. I sacrifice a good bit of the damage that a condition necro puts out, but become incredibly hard to kill in any reasonable amount of time. With earth runes, dropping all wells gives me about 16 seconds of protection, in addition to making a large area undesirable for an opponent to fight on.

My one issue, however, is that for their cooldown, it seems a little dumb how they can be countered with a single dodge. I think each well should do something for allies and something to enemies. Adjust the numbers as need be, but at least that way you’ll still get something out of it if the person you’re fighting just hops out.

The kin needs to use death shroud properly.

+Healing really ought to scale with the self-healing traits. No idea why it doesn’t. Probably one of our 100 bugs.

I’m afraid you’re just going to have to bite the bullet on this one. Ever since dark path was remade our mobility has been junk. It’s probably one of the biggest obstacles to melee necros at the moment.

Cls.9346:

I don’t doubt YOU are getting owned, i said good necromancers win. Anyway from what i can tell from the pic you didnt dodge during unload, its pretty easy to see. If you show me a vid I could tell you what you were doing wrong.

That’s a cute jab at his skill level. But it does nothing to forward the discussion, and you have no good evidence to make a claim about his skill level; your speculative opinion on what he could have/should have done is not sufficient when we don’t have a video to analyze.

But I don’t think that’s even his point. I think his point was that the necro gets nowhere close to the numbers of the thief, and that this dichotomy is a fundamental issue that may merit analysis. It’s very easy to say “oh well you should have dodged _______ ,” but I would suggest that there is a significant issue when any class possesses a “dodge this or you lose” skill.

Hmm…instantly jacked by a thief, you say?

It seems to me that you simply haven’t mastered death shroud yet.

Hmm…sounds to me like you weren’t using death shroud properly.

You just haven’t mastered death shroud yet.

…in all seriousness, I agree it doesn’t make an ounce of sense.

I love death shroud. Mostly. But I’ll tell you what I don’t like.

For one thing, I think it offers too little for condition necros. Putting a bleed on DP was a nice try, but if you’re using the scepter or staff, you don’t want to be deposited right next to the enemy in all likelihood. In my opinion, the bleed should be part of life blast, or something along those lines.

Another thing I don’t like is how life blast loses damage as we tank hits with death shroud. It very quickly becomes less damaging than an auto attack if you’re under fire. Perhaps its numbers would need adjusted slightly, but I would like the flexibility of being able to go into death shroud even at 30% life force and not taking a huge hit to my damage output (of course I’m a power necro; if you’re a cond. necro LB hits for tickles anyway).

I love fear as an interrupt, but it is a huge letdown to see it lasting for 1 second when we were originally touted as the premiere fear class, and when other classes have access to fears that last substantially longer.

So, while it is evident that death shroud offers a good deal of utility, it seems like a very rough version of what it has the potential to be. There are certainly some good tactics to get a feel for with it (i.e. quickly DSing to interrupt someone), but I’m not really sure what Jon Peters sees when he says we have to “master it.” Master what? Autoattacking with a projectile and tanking damage?

I suspect it will remain a necro community gag even if we are buffed substantially. It’s very catchy.

You clearly haven’t mastered death shroud. Only once you master death shroud will you actually become the alleged “best fear class.”

Hey man, don’t worry. Once you learn to master death shroud, your lackluster fears will become stronger than those of the other classes.

Behold. The power of calm, reasoned discussion.

I’ve think we’ve made more than enough “this class needs serious attention” posts for the time being. Let’s take a break with the misspelling game.

How to play? Subtly alter the spelling of a necromancer skill or trait to get a new skill or trait, and tell us what it does.

For instance:

Fife Blast: Blast the foe with a nasty note on your fife. Deals more damage if the environment is less noisy.

Wife Transfer: Swap wives with one of your enemies and make a reality TV series out of it.

Mark of Flood: Inscribe a mark that floods the surrounding area if someone steps on it.

Deathly Smarm: Bounce your uncanny charisma between your foes, dazing each.

Last Gas: Expel a cloud of unholy flatulence when your health reaches 50%.

I plan to try to figure something out in the way of a viable build that isn’t based on condition spam, but I have serious doubts. It would be nice if I could do so knowing that several dozen of our traits and skills didn’t have some bug associated with them.

Even if you had any substance besides a couple random videos to backup your assertion of necros being OP, you ought to notice that much of the ire held by necros at the moment comes not from inherent balancing issues, but from the fact that a ridiculous number of our traits either have improper tooltips, don’t interact properly with other traits/skills, are absolutely useless (e.g. 5 second jagged horrors that give free rallies in pvp), or just do nothing.

Also, a lot of critiques of the class come more from conceptual anomalies than “____ does it better than we do.” For instance: the inconsistency between death shroud’s life blast and condition necros, wells on a 45-60 sec. cd. being countered with a single dodge, and minions being absolute morons. Even if your claim regarding necro balance was even remotely true, these inherent issues warrant some consideration, in our opinion.

I wouldn’t be nearly as frustrated with the nonfunctional state of much of this class if it weren’t for the fact that many of the issues we’re seeing (most notably minion AI and the busted traits) were reported ad nauseum through the BWEs; evidently to no avail.

I can see death shroud as having a very key role for a axe or dagger based power/precision build. Life blast at a full bar hits very hard and death shroud has a lot of traits that support this type of build. What bugs me is that death shroud has almost no synergy with condition necros. Life blast won’t hit nearly as hard because they can’t invest as many points into power, and the only bleed death shroud gives comes from dark pact, which deposits you right next to the enemy (i.e., not where you want to be if you’re using the scepter or the staff).

I think the dagger’s damage is justified – compared to the axe at least – because having to get in melee range is a pretty big deal. Unless they gave the dagger a lot more utility, there would be very little reason to use a dagger over an axe if an axe did more damage and did so from range.

Conceptually I also love the MH dagger but the thing that bothers me about it is you’re rarely doing anything other than autoattacking. Life siphon does less damage over its duration that just autoattacking would (and without bloodthirst it’s healing barely covers two autos’ worth of damage), and dark pact is a generic immobilize. Both of these skills have cooldown times that seem awfully long compared to other mainhand weapons, and they’re situational to begin with. It just creates a stale experience.

Personally, I think life siphon needs reverted back to its 9 second cooldown (or something similar) and dark pact should have its cooldown and immobilize duration both lowered, and perhaps given some other utility.

I was very disappointed to see minions hit release in this state. They have had serious AI problems since the first BWE. I know I’m not the only one who submitted a ticket during just about every beta phase, and any improvements are marginal at best. Minions either stand there and watch you get beat on, or they run off and attack something that looks at them funny.