Guild Wars 2

I find most of my characters except necromancer boring to play. I’ve leveled everything except a ranger to 80. I tried dungeons on warrior, guardian, and elementalist, but I don’t find stacking in a corner with the camera completely blocked an appealing form of gameplay. Since I started seeing groups actively saying “No necros” and “Zerker warrior only 3k AP or kick”, I gave up on dungeons entirely instead of adapting to the meta.

I also used axe most of the time with a 6/2/0/0/6 build in dungeons, because being in melee range with a dagger and no constant vigor usually just got me killed or pretty close to it, especially since I tend to jump to revive downed allies faster than I should.

I’ve always wondered why necromancers never had abilities that directly consume Life Force as a resource, or why necromancers don’t have abilities that sacrifice health or Life Force to buff themselves and others, especially since this is mentioned in their description on the character creation page. We have corruptions, but that’s it. I think both their positive and negative effects should be more intense.

Playing a necromancer seems like it should be a game about balancing offense with defense – choosing when to sacrifice your health/life force for another effect, then using the advantage gained with this effect to attack and kill an enemy to replenish one’s self afterward, assuming the enemy doesn’t counter successfully.

Death Shroud somewhat shows this at play, since it has a cooldown and a cost to punish bad usage of it, but it feels underdeveloped while at the same time seeming as if there are too many things loaded onto this one button. This leads to conflicting design and balancing nightmares, as well – we have traits with tiny durations that assume you’re flashing in and out of Death Shroud, others that assume you’re using it for offensive abilities, and yet others that assume you’re staying in it for defense. The shielding effect of Death Shroud should really be its own ability that consumes Life Force, while there should be other separate abilities that also consume Life Force. Mostly, I just think that Death Shroud having a cooldown causes problems, but currently the cooldown is needed because of traits that occur on entering/leaving Death Shroud.

The simplified consolidation of Death Shroud has made it far more complex for its users, since one must account for so many factors that can’t always be foreseen. It has also removed the potential for using Life Force on other effects. This type of gameplay should be spread across more than just Death Shroud – it should be the focus of the profession. Life Force and sacrifice should be as prominent for necromancers as initiative and stealth are for thieves.

I also really agree that there should be at least one weapon (if even just an offhand) that summons minions with its attacks.

Some more area buffs/debuffs that are not directly related to damage would be great. Necromancers can already put almost every condition on their target at the same time, but in PvP this becomes a pipe dream when enemies are cleansing and dodging. Terrormancer is a version of conditionmancer that hits really hard with conditions, but where is the team-fight necromancer that keeps enemies weakened via constant debuffs? Simply buffing or redesigning Withering Precision would go a long way here.

An idea I had earlier when joking to guildmates about being able to burn and chill enemies at the same time was that Dhuumfire should, instead of inflicting burning, cause your chill effects to damage the target, similar to how Terror works for fear. Another possible choice would be making Chilling Darkness work in reverse so that chills cause blind (and also reverse Plague’s second attack), or even have it work both ways. This might make chill worthwhile enough for necromancers more focused on chill to be seen.

Not that chill and weakness aren’t already effective, but they’re hardly something that’s focused on.

Oh, and letting necromancers be healed while in Death Shroud would not only fix issues with synergy, but also let them tank/bunker and open a whole new avenue of necromancer…ing.

I happened to notice recently that, when using the Near to Death trait, the tooltip for Death Shroud reports it as having a 6 second cooldown. I could swear that it was 7 seconds before, but I can’t find anything in April’s patch notes about it. This applies to both PvE and SPvP.

And on the subject of unnoticed changes, Unyielding Blast now appears to inflict two stacks of vulnerability on one’s SELF as well as the target when using Life Blast underwater, which effectively doubles the vulnerability stacks on the target to 4 per shot since Life Blast transfers a condition underwater. However, it also prevents any other conditions from being transferred correctly because vulnerability is always present.

Are these known changes, or would they be considered bugs? Or am I just going crazy and I don’t remember things properly?

If I get caught alone with a zerg-friendly build and utilities targeted at area damage, no life force, and no Dhuumfire or Terror so I can barely scratch my target before they heal up, I’m balanced and all the thieves are happy for their free balanced kill.

If I run a Terrormancer build with utilities oriented toward 1v1 fights, suddenly I’m OP.

No point in using a subpar build when you’re roaming.

In my experience, powermancer beats conditionmancer almost every time, but then again, when I play powermancer I use axe/focus + staff and take Well of Power, Spectral Grasp, and Spectral Armor. All of these abilities are extremely annoying to conditionmancers – Well of Power removes conditions and adds boons (including vigor from all those bleeds), Spectral Grasp is an interrupt/gap closer and “heals” the powermancer, and Spectral Armor “heals” the powermancer even more. Plus, that’s two stun breaks to deal with fear, and standing in Well of Power may as well be stability against fear.

One thing to remember is that a powermancer is strong and capable of doing damage in Death Shroud, while a conditionmancer is basically just sitting there tanking damage in Death Shroud. Plus, a powermancer has a lot more life force generation. This means that the sustain of a powermancer is much greater. If they can avoid big-hitters like Signet of Spite (or just remove/convert it), then they can outlast the conditionmancer, who has very little healing.

I can see a dagger powermancer struggling a lot harder, though, since it would be hard to actually stay on the conditionmancer. By the time a dagger user got to the conditionmancer, they would be struggling to stay alive. And there are condition transfers to deal with.

More gameplay/balance patches are needed in a much shorter time frame. No one wants to keep hearing “we’re looking into it” only for minor changes to take half a year. No one wants to use broken and buggy abilities. No one likes to play a game with “build diversity” only to have some highly skilled player yell at them to use one of two or three meta builds available because numerous buggy and underpowered traits and skills still exist. And no one will want to keep watching an e-sport where the meta is balanced around the most passive and boring builds with no sign of change.

It’s kind of maddening that Death Shroud was originally intended to make you stronger based on how much life force you have (Life Blast did more damage with higher life force) but then there were never any abilities added that directly use life force as a resource. What’s even more maddening is that the “corruption” traits are kind of based around damaging yourself to give yourself more power. I think it makes perfect sense to have it so that Death Shroud-related abilities cost life force to cast instead of having them all tied together to Death Shroud itself. Having these life force-specific abilities set to be selectable like utility abilities would be interesting, but no other profession has a customizable profession mechanic bar yet. I still think it would be a great change, but we’re still waiting for even a small change, let alone a major mechanic change.

It probably hasn’t been changed since it was first put there. I bet it even has Shade.

MethaneGas.8357:

The transfer from allies was really quite strong, when you think about it. If you had a team of Necros that stuck together, they could basically be immune to condis if they coordinated it well.

This line of thinking is why things such as lifesteal are so bad.

“If a bunch of mesmer illusions hit a necromancer at the same time while they had Signet of Vampirism on, they could regain a tiny bit of their health!”
“If two necromancers worked together, one could cast fear and the other could use Epidemic on it!”
“If a necromancer managed to hit five people with five crits from a well while using multiple lifesteal traits, they could regain kind of a lot of health!”
“If a zerg of necromancers coordinated, they would be unstoppable because of all the conditions!”

“If two thieves backstabbed someone at the same time, that person would die!”
“If guardians were perfectly coordinated, they could stop a zerg from entering a tower forever!”

From a PvP perspective

From what I understand, the original intent for necromancers was to be a slow but sturdy profession designed to outlast their opponent if the opponent could not burst them down fast enough. They would become more powerful the longer a fight lasted via life force and lifesteal, while their opponent would become weaker due to sustained damage and debilitating effects like poison. Hence, the necromancer would have been a natural bunker with good sustained damage. In the beta, this was found to be extremely overpowered, and the profession was redesigned at the last minute.

The issues stem from what exactly the above poster stated. Necromancers rely upon a massive health pool to survive, unlike other professions who rely on blocks/evades/invulnerability for defense. Balancing this is a nightmare – the designs are incongruent. Make regeneration/lifesteal/life force slightly too powerful, and necromancers are overpowered. Make it too weak, and they’re underpowered. What makes this more complex is the fact that they must be balanced for both 1v1 and group fights. Giving necromancers enough self-healing to win in a 1v1 would make them much, much more powerful in a fight where they are siphoning from multiple opponents. So necromancers were gutted, having their self-healing reduced to far less than that of other professions and making them the opposite of their original design.

Death Shroud is a real oddity. It’s supposed to be the necromancer’s core mechanic, and it serves for both offense and defense. Activating it to use something like Doom will require that you use the shared 7-10 second cooldown on Death Shroud itself. Some traits are designed so that they trigger on entering/leaving Death Shroud, but their effects are very weak/short, so you would need to flash in and out to make full use of them, removing your ability to utilize Death Shroud for defense.

While in Death Shroud, you cannot heal, and life force drains over time, which is intended to prevent necromancers from simply sitting in Death Shroud so that opponents have some kind of opening to attack the necromancer. This assumes that Death Shroud is basically a “block” or “invulnerability state” on a 7-10 second cooldown, but that’s not how it works – the reality is that, as stated before, this can never be properly balanced against a real block ability that makes you invulnerable for X seconds. The complexity of having so many abilities, traits, and mechanics tied to a single cooldown is absurd, and I cannot fathom why it was designed this way.

PvP Builds

Sadly enough, the only current viable build in PvP that functions as originally intended (attrition) is minion master. But of course, minion AI is currently re-broken due to a recent patch. Minion master has a lot of defense, actual lifesteal, and constant, near-unavoidable damage and poison over time to pressure the opponent. They gain life force from their minions dying. In a slow fight, they can simply resummon their minions at full strength. They have an obvious weakness – area damage will kill all of their minions at one time and leave them open to attack. So, as much as I hate using minions, they get a thumbs-up from me for staying true to their original design.

Conditionmancer is, somehow, one of the worst builds in the game at attrition. This is despite the fact that conditions tick over time. The massive amount of condition removal and the nondiscriminatory nature of most condition removal means that attempting to stack bleeds to high intensity over a long period of time to punish slow attackers simply does not work as intended.

Powermancers aren’t too different from other professions’ power builds. They have some burst attacks, and they have good sustained damage. However, they are still built around Death Shroud, and one main type of power build even relies upon Death Shroud to do damage via Life Blast (which used to do more damage the more life force you had for a while after the game’s release…kind of sad they removed that mechanic entirely).

There is a lot more to say about necromancer, way more than could fit in one post. Basically, their core design simply does not fit with the game’s design, and they are barely hanging on to the meta.

The upcoming patch is supposed to change that.

But I wouldn’t get your hopes up, considering that it’s been this way since June.

Spectral Armor still explicitly states in its tooltip that it is “removed when you enter Death Shroud.” This does not appear to be the case, and I’m pretty sure this was changed quite a while ago (in June). Spectral Walk isn’t removed either.

Death Shroud also states that “entering this form removes other spectral effects,” which is, again, not true. It’s also quite strange that Death Shroud says “other spectral effects,” as if it’s in the same category as the utility skills.

Oh, and of course Putrid Mark still doesn’t say in-game that it now only transfers 3 conditions (although the wiki includes this information).

These are well known, but it bears repeating considering how long it has taken for these tooltips to be updated.

The fact that Death Shroud was originally necromancer’s downed state and was shoehorned into being a class mechanic probably has something to do with it.

Raise bleed caps above 25 so my necromancer can do something other than autoattack things with a knife for max DPS in PvE.

2000 power * 2% = 40% boon duration

That’s more boon duration than 30 points in Death Magic if using berserker/valkyrie/knight/soldier/etc. gear. And my necromancer sits at 2335 power without ascended gear.

FLiP.7680:

The minions from Lich Form #4 don’t do anything too.

I noticed this in WvW today. A necromancer in Lich Form managed to position the ability so some of the minions spawned on a wall, and they just stood there and took hits to the face until they all died.

Dalanor.5387:

As a wise old man said once to me about instrument parts but it applies here too:
“You won’t know what is truly good, until you find something better you currently have.”

I have tried almost every necromancer build I can think of, spending hundreds of gold (plus other materials) on gear for PvE and WvW, and also testing various traits in SPvP. I have even attempted healing builds in both PvE and WvW.

The hybrid build by Nemesis is not perfect by any means, but I am seeking an alternative to an all-in power or condition build, which have their own limitations. I did attempt a melee hybrid build that utilized Near to Death and Enfeeble, but that was a waste of time, since it was obvious that berserker was just plain better there. What attracted me to Nemesis’ build was the fact that its stats are high across the board, the fact that it is capable of supporting multiple builds with a single trait setup, and the fact that it is a fast-paced, versatile playstyle that is more dependent on player skill than other necromancer builds.

If it makes you feel better, I still have my rabid and berserker gear piled up in my overcrowded inventory.

Or perhaps the RNG silliness can be thrown out the window and weakness can reduce all attacks by x% as the opposite of protection.

Brando.1374:

no one cares about spvp lol

WvW is where its at.

In that case, a 2.6k life blast is pathetic.

Leeto.1570:

I have no idea what you are trying to say here, it sounds like you try to explain how dhuumfire is better but you are replying to me so i have feeling you think i am wrong.

Dhuumfire procs 5 time, with my 100 condi dmg it hits 359 = 1759 dmg every 10 second.
My life blast hits ~2600 so 20% would be 520 dmg.

When does dhuumfire work? When opponent cant clear condition.
When does close to death work? When opponent is below 50%, has no dodge, cant line of sight you, cant CC you.

Both traits are basicly equal and meant for power necros.

Where are you getting these numbers from? And where are you getting the impression that someone below 50% health is completely dead instead of attempting to avoid further damage? In SPvP, Dhuumfire has a base duration of 2 seconds (or so the tooltip says; in the testing area it’s doing 5 seconds with the bonus from Spite when the tooltip says “2 1/2”). Furthermore, 1759 isn’t even divisible by 359; 5 burning tics at 100 condition damage would do 1765.

Dhuumfire should not be hitting 5 times per application in an SPvP power build unless ANet screwed a tooltip up again (not unlikely). Even then, Close to Death is still a larger total boost in damage.

Dalanor.5387:

amiavamp.9785:

I’ve used Nemesis’ rampager/celestial/berserker hybrid build a few times in fractals (just the 10-29 range) […]

Why? ( ._.)

Spamming autoattack for maximum damage gets old.

I’ve used Nemesis’ rampager/celestial/berserker hybrid build a few times in fractals (just the 10-29 range) and it’s alright. I can’t recommend it at this point because celestial might be nerfed with the coming changes to crit damage, but it has very high overall stats with plenty of flexibility to cover every fractal.

In this build, Axe/Focus gives you decent direct damage and vulnerability. Life Blast traits are used to maximize damage with these weapons, and it is nearly equal to that of a berserker necromancer using a similar Life Blast build. Berserker will still of course do more direct damage because berserker has more power and critical damage, although using a Sigil of Earth will even the difference a bit, especially if you use Life Transfer against a group.

Scepter/Dagger is kept as the other weapon set to swap to when area condition damage is needed. This does mediocre single-target damage (about equal to a rabid necromancer in fact), but it offers far more area damage than a berserker necromancer can sustain.

Basically, the build covers both powermancer and conditionmancer while being almost as good as each at the same time and having higher vitality/crit chance. It also has unparalleled amounts of life force generation, since you have Axe 2 + Focus 4 + Scepter 3 all available to use.

The only real issues would be

1. Still have to deal with bleed caps
2. It doesn’t hit quite as hard as zerker warrior #625261 might want you to for bosses that stand still like punching bags
3. The gear is expensive (divinity runes)
4. Standard conditionmancer is probably more durable, although this is somewhat alleviated by having much higher life force generation than a conditionmancer
5. You’re still a necromancer, so no reflect/invulnerability/support

Before the past few months of changes, it would have been an extremely long and drawn out battle that would only end when one player made a dumb mistake. Now, the d/d ele better have Diamond Skin on just to hard counter this one match-up or they will get bursted down (a simple 2-3-4-5 on the necromancer staff is almost enough for a conditionmancer to down an ele if all of the hits somehow connect).

On the subject of the Flesh Golem’s Charge, the battle may as well be a coin flip, because Charge is hard to dodge in time if it works, but the golem gets stuck on every pebble in the ground.

Leeto.1570:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Tell me, why would any power Necro ever take Dhuumfire over Close to Death?

Despite Spite being the Condition Duration line, no condition build had points in it pre-dhuumfire. Once Dhuumfire hit, most of them have 30 points. This is not a coincidence.
: you’re a prime example, Leeto.

Cause basicly dhuumfire IS close to death just meant for pvp environment… or you just keep preassure on shortbow thiefs with your direct damage…?
Its gonna be made on life blast but it stays ON CRIT… why they dont just remove on crit part? because WHO has 90% chance to crit with lifeblast? thats right power necros.

Hmm signet of spite does average direct damage + gives power… and has every single condition that power necro might need in situation of panic that condi necro has easy acess to.
I know its hard to understand but devs actually try to make power spec viable in pvp instead of making condi spec faceroll and overpowered… shocking right?

Devs make very logical decisions but they forget that people dont care about playing balanced specs they just wanna maximize one thing (like you try to maximize power necros direct damage and screw everything else) and then come and whine on forums when they get assckicked.
Im not talking here about whats better to kill bads in hotjoins im talking here about how devs designed the game.

Dhuumfire in SPvP without condition damage does 656 damage on a 10+ second cooldown (or 984 if that +30% condition duration is enough to make it proc 3 times). This is assuming that the burning is not removed. This is also in comparison to Close to Death, which boosts all direct damage by 20% when an enemy is at their weakest and attempting to heal or flee, and it is well known that necromancers have difficulty catching fleeing enemies if the enemy cannot be killed fast enough or miraculously hit with multiple chills/immobilize/pull.

I think condensing all of the staff traits into the two in Death Magic would be a fine enough idea. Spiteful Marks on its own is godawfully weak, and Soul Marks, while alright, pales in comparison to other traits in its same slot (Near to Death, Master of Terror).

Of course, merging traits requires making new traits. A lot of lackluster traits are already just filler; how would you replace them? More useless filler traits?

Definitely not.

PvE-wise, conditions (every condition build, not just necro) are fundamentally broken because of the bleed cap and Defiant, along with rampant usage of stacking making melee attacks that cleave do just as well for area damage as Epidemic. Area condition damage is really only preferable against enemies that are hard to focus fire or take reduced damage (like in the Dredge Fractal with all that protection spam).

WvW-wise, necromancers have pretty bad mobility and still have trouble keeping enemies from running away. Area condition cleanses are all over the place in WvW zergs. Plague and wells keep necros viable in zergs because they apply fast enough to overpower condition cleansing, but just barely, considering the cooldowns of these abilities. The overuse of warriors and guardians in WvW basically negates conditionmancers, and Plague is easily countered by boon removal.

PvP-wise, the meta condition build is basically a cheese build. The addition of Dhuumfire is slowly destroying any semblance of balance necromancers once had in SPvP, since the steady nerfing of various abilities and traits is only making the most powerful and cheesiest build (terrormancer) more viable compared to other condition builds. Terrormancer is extremely powerful – broken, even – against unprepared and unskilled opponents, just like a backstab thief. However, against a player with lots of condition removal, stun breaks, and/or stability (as is standard if at all possible on a given profession), or against players who know to focus fire necromancers first, terrormancer is screwed. It would be great if conditionmancers were durable with not-so-much burst damage, as was originally intended, but currently they really are just a broken build that steamrolls bad players without warning (resulting in QQ) and gets wrecked when it is attacked by more than one player at a time (when anyone else could bunker up or run away).

Afya.5842:

Everyone wants the run shorter and smoother. No one wants a 3 hours dungeon run.

Yeah, like those times in my dungeons runs that berserker warriors tried to skip content or got obliterated by a boss and I had to waste valuable time saving them when almost the entire party wiped.

Wait…

Flumek.9043:

Jabberwock.9014:

Are you joking? DS is probably the most powerful class mechanic of all of them, and by a good margin. Necros already have the highest hp in game, and DS scales with it giving you absolutely massive effective hp, and great sustain too when using a power build with dagger and spectral utilities. It’s almost trivial to keep up life force with such a setup… enemies will burst your ds down, then you pop spectral armor (and heal to recover your main bar) and you’re almost immediately half full of lf again.

On top of that, the damage from +50% crit chance life blast (plus might and vuln stacks) is probably the best ranged sustained damage in game. And 4 and 5 do great aoe damage… and you have an instant cast fear… and teleport with chill (one of the best conditions in game). I’ll take that on any class, any day.

Exactly, its an old problem, especialy lately as DS is getting fixes.

1v1 a full 100% at start is A LOT. too much to be called fair, especialy in builds who can generate almost another LF bar during the fight. It can force a warrior on short retreat.

But 1v1 a zero 0% LF is a huge hindrance. You cant absorb 1-shots, so its just unfair ur a sitting duck.

The cumunity would trade a DS reduced to 80% but now auto-regenrates to 10-20% anytime, it would make necros more stable and easier to balance. But we you know how much they listen and how much they act.

Or how about we just don’t have a game balanced around avoiding and blocking attacks and then add a profession who is balanced around not avoiding and blocking attacks.

FLiP.7680:

Yeah, i saw that you can get Fury, Stability, Retaliation, Clear condi, and apply Bleed, Weakness, Vulnerability and heal when pop out DS.

My “twitchy finger” control is better and i’m not leaving DS so often. :P

The incredible 30/30/30/30/30 build that still uses life force as health outside of Death Shroud.

It certainly doesn’t help that guardians only add to Stack Wars 2 in dungeons. I remember when I first did the final boss of AC path 3, it was hard, and I struggled to use Plague Signet to deal with confusion on the party. Then I went on my guardian with a guildmate who was also a guardian. We stacked in one spot. Our health bars did not move.

Guardian: Someone gets some nasty conditions? I shout and heal their conditions. I wave my glowing sword and heal their conditions. I fart in their general direction and heal their conditions.
Need some healing? I’ll just roll and hit some things and yell a lot and you’ll be healed.
Need some DPS? I’ll just stand in one spot and cleave everything with my blinding particle effects of JUSTICE. Speaking of blind, did you know that every time I kill something I can press F1 to do blind, vulnerable, burning and might? Way cooler than life force.
Need boons? There’s more where that came from. Taste area stability and might on crit!
Need a rez? I’ll just toss on one of my many blocks and wave my hands over your body until you are good as new.
Need to solo something tough? Sure, no problem. By the time I somehow get a booboo with permanent vigor, one of my heals/blocks/invulnerabilities should be ready to help me out.

Necromancer: Someone gets some nasty conditions? Well, hopefully Well of Power will be enough, because Plague Signet does whatever it wants to and Putrid Mark got demolished. Condition master, no more.
Need some healing? Sure, I’ll just throw on this healing build and do less healing than a berserker elementalist, then get kicked out of the group for being worthless.
Need some DPS? Well, I have that…I guess…still not as good as some other people who have things besides DPS too…
Need boons? You better ask someone else.
Need a rez? Hope Signet of Undeath is fast enough, because I can’t rez you in Death Shroud, my source of defense.
Need to solo something tough? Pfffft. My thief has better solo sustain than my necromancer, the attrition profession.

The difference between guardian and necromancer: guardian gets defense in the form of area buffs/healing/blocks/reflect. Necromancer gets defense in the form of some extra health with a 7-10 second cooldown.

Death Magic is clearly meant to be the defense and minion trait line. Another attribute of the trait line is that it provides “bunker buster” traits that weaken enemies’ defenses. It’s rather disappointing that the defensive traits here are quite lackluster. Unlike Blood Magic, I don’t think the trait line is fundamentally flawed. However, I do think that there are simply too many types of traits trying to fit in here (staff, minions, defense, anti-defense, support).

Minor

Reanimator – So much potential wasted here in one of the most unique traits. This is the only trait that attempts to fulfill the role of creating a snowballing minion army, but the minions are so weak that they’re nearly worthless. Buff it somehow, combine it with Death Nova, do whatever you have to, just make it good.
Protection of the Horde – This is meant to combo with Reanimator and other minions, but it’s too weak. Combine it with another trait or get rid of it.
Deadly Strength – This is quite powerful, since it’s a boost for defensively built minion masters (which would be most of them).

Adept

Dark Armor – A mediocre trait, although it applies to a decent few abilities (Life Transfer, Ghastly Claws, Life Siphon, Wicked Spiral, Frozen Abyss, and Life Leech). It would be great if it at least did as much as Protected Mantras (600).
Spiteful Vigor – A contender for “worst trait in the game.” I’m really not sure what can be done with it. Perhaps it can be merged with Spiteful Spirit so they can be married and terrible together? Or perhaps it could gasp provide vigor?
Minion Master – A bog standard trait. Makes minion masters more annoying since you have to kill all their pets 20% faster.
Ritual of Protection – This trait is decent in its current state. However, I feel that it could use a little extra. Perhaps it could have an additional boon, even if it’s just regeneration/retaliation? Putting that on an entire group might actually be useful. I also think a slight duration boost is in order.
Staff Mastery – A simple trait that sees some use. I do think having four staff traits is too much when it’s not used as a primary weapon outside of zergs. Perhaps this could be merged with Spiteful Marks or Soul Marks? I do wish the staff could effectively fill its role as a support weapon instead of spam/burst, but ANet’s opinion seems to differ (see: Putrid Mark).
Shrouded Removal – Technically this is a good trait, but I don’t think it gets used much, mostly because necromancers have other really good condition removal abilities already. There are also some traits that do the same thing. I actually think this or Spiteful Removal would make a good 15-point minor trait to encourage the use of other healing abilities besides Consume Conditions.

Master

Greater Marks – Before necromancer marks had their baseline radius increased, this was a must-have. Now, it’s still pretty good, although making a weapon “unblockable” seems rather niche. The increased radius is certainly helpful, especially if you wanted to be a support necro—oh wait, Putrid Mark. Whoops.
Reaper’s Protection – This is one of those traits that seems like it would tip the balance in my favor approximately once every 1000 fights. I think this should just be merged with Fear of Death.
Death Shiver – Wasted potential all over. This would be an amazing trait…if it was located elsewhere. Put this in Spite, Curses, or Soul Reaping and it would get used all the time.
Flesh of the Master – Another really basic trait. It’s traits like these that make the more interesting traits obsolete.

Grandmaster

Death Nova – From what I know, this is an excellent trait, perhaps even overpowered. It certainly makes minion masters a complete pain to fight. This goes perfectly with Reanimator. I think having the trait also apply when downed is a crazy number of features to have in a single necromancer trait (although it would be on par as a warrior trait cough cough).
Necromantic Corruption – This is another trait that would pair well with a theoretical good version of Reanimator. It’s also weakens enemies, like Death Nova. However, I feel that Death Nova is simply better. Since they fill similar roles and the same slot, I think that this should be moved or changed.

I think a lot of trait lines overall suffer from “passive” vs “situational” traits – the “passive” traits are usually just better. Compare Flesh of the Master and Reaper’s Protection – do you want a permanent boost, or a boost that might be useful once every few minutes? Other problems would include inaccessible traits (Death Shiver) and incredibly weak traits (Spiteful Vigor). Since traits occupy the same slots as others, those that are weaker or in effect for less time are not used. It’s astounding that so many “useless” traits still exist.

Any large zerg in a decent or better WvW tier will have a massive number of condition cleanses. Guardians and Elementalists will completely negate your build and leave you with no useful options. The only useful part of a “debility” build is Plague, because it casts conditions per second.

Kanenas.4906:

Phi Is Sly.1857:

They are running rampant, its getting old a tiresom fighting someone with 3k+ armor 25k+ hp while dealing insane brust spikes with conidtions. You’r trying to nerf berker? look at conidtion damge frist, remove dire set.

If someone has a condition build his goal is to survive longer than you, and kill you over time. If someone has a zerker build his goal is to kill you faster than you will kill him and as soon as possible. I do not see a problem here.

Burst spikes with conditions is only possible with many confusion stacks if you are silly enough to continue smashing 1111 at the same time. It is not like having 3k armor and being hit for 10k with eviscerate or backstab for example.

Clearly you haven’t seen a condition necromancer in a while, then. They are the king of condition burst, the exact opposite of what developers have stated as their profession philosophy (attrition).

The highest I’ve been backstabbed for in 3k armor was 6k damage from a thief with 25 might clearly in berserker with all trait points in damage-dealing traits.

Add Necromancer Axe, Necromancer Staff, and Elementalist Scepter (for fire, water, and air) to the list.

Then add Necromancer Dagger and Elementalist Lightning Hammer for examples of autoattacking being the highest DPS.

Then add Engineer Grenades for the largest cause of carpal tunnel syndrome in this game…

Healing necromancer (decent bunker, but heals and support are terrible even in full healing build)
Lifesteal necromancer (lifesteal is too weak to make a full build out of it; conflicts with Death Shroud; Signet of Vampirism is a joke)
Condition guardian (burning does not stack so why bother)
Mantra mesmer (awkward and slow to charge up in combat)
Confusion-stacking mesmer (takes a lot of effort to stack up; easily cleared off like bleeds)

Some mechanics are unwieldy or impossible to make a decent build with, but parts of them can be used in other builds. I, for one, use mantras on my mesmer in PvE whenever I don’t need my focus (so I can put on the mantra healing trait).

SupahSpankeh.8452:

LOL.

Don’t you guys learn?

SWITCH WEAPONS IN DS IT’S PART OF THE CLASS META (an actal dev said this)

SWITCH WEAPONS IS BROKEN WE’LL FIX IT (again…)

NAH SECOND THOUGHTS IT’S A FEATURE NAO (and finally…)

FLESH GOLEM HAS NO SWIM ANIMATION NO WORRIES GUYS IT’LL BE OK

ACTUALLY SWIM ANIMATIONS ARE HARD NO FLESH GOLEM IN WATER KK

WORKIN ON STOPPIN PETS FROM DESUMMON DURIN LICH/PLAGUE DON’T WORRY GUYS

ACTUALLY IT’S A FEATURE

DOWNED STATE IS FINE YOU NOOBS L2P LOL

OH WAIT RIGHT NO I SEE WAT U MENT I FIX NAO

NAO TAKES 3 MONTHS

OH GUISE YOU HAF 2 WAYS TO SURVIVE INFINITE FALLING AND WHAT IS FUNCTIONALLY ANOTHER BLOCK EVERY 10s IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR LIFE FORCE?

LOL JK NOW U HAF 1 WAY TO SURVIVE INFINITE FALLING AND BTW DUNT COUNT ON DS TO SAV U FROM OVERKILL LOL

WAT GUISE U FEEL BALANCED? NPS GUISE HAF DUMBFIRE

OH WAIT NOW U HAF DUMBFIRE UR OTHER TRAITS ARE OP SO WE NERF K LOL

WAT U MEAN VAMP TRAITS ARE IRRELEVANT EVEN WHEN TRAITED AND MAXED KK LOL WE FIX

SEE IT FIXED U DO 15 MOAR LEECH NAO YOU HAPPY WE HAPPY LOL JK

VAMP TO POWERFUL LOL DUN WURRY WE FIX LOL KK

Honestly, you’d have to be learning-impaired to regard the balance and development of this class as anything but hilarious. It’s like watching a toddler using a ball peen hammer to fix a spilt yoghurt.

Maybe they have two developers who play rock, paper, scissors every balance patch. The winner gets to decide the changes to necromancer. One developer was one of the original creators of the profession and the other developer is an intern who plays 8 hours of CoD every day and can’t be bothered to fix bugs.

SoV should have been an opportunity to make lifesteal builds into a real thing instead of a faint hope. Instead they have only solidified their lack of effort toward fixing broken mechanics.

I do have one simple idea: swap Blood to Power and Death Into Life. At least then they would provide direct benefit to the builds that actually have the traits.

Minors:
Full of Life – Apparently ANet’s idea of necromancer attrition was regeneration mixed with life steal. It would be great if either of those things provided any noticeable healing at all. It would be greater if regeneration wasn’t as common as white on rice and didn’t only stack duration. It would be even greater if it was possible to heal while in Death Shroud. It would be even greater than that if mesmers didn’t have an exact copy of this trait that is more powerful while also not having a class mechanic that negates their own abilities.

Vampiric – This is supposed to be the core trait of Blood Magic. Too bad lifesteal is completely broken.

Blood to Power – One of the more underwhelming minor traits in the game. I guess it’s too hard to come up with something that adds a new mechanic or even provides more than a miniscule sliver of benefit.

Adept:
Dagger Mastery – Your standard boring weapon trait. But what’s this? It only provides a solitary benefit when other weapon traits provide at least two effects?

Bloodthirst – This trait is abysmal, terrible, horrendous, boring, and atrocious. If you are traiting far enough into Blood Magic for lifesteal, the added effect of this should be baseline since you are already sacrificing points you could be putting into DPS-oriented traits. It is not needed. It is an unnecessary burden and a waste of a trait. Get rid of it.

Mark of Blood – The one profession with a dodge trait that has a cooldown can’t even dodge enough to make proper use of it if it didn’t have a cooldown. Wow.

Ritual of Life – Great for mindless WvW zergs. Good luck standing inside a big healing circle when AoE is pouring down on you.

Vampiric Precision – An extension of Vampiric and Bloodthirst. At least this one is a decent boost, unlike Bloodthirst.

Transfusion – One of the very few decent group support traits available to necromancers. I remember joking one day to guildmates, “I wonder if they’ll add healing power scaling to Transfusion.” The next day, it was so.

Master:
Vampiric Master – Apparently this trait is overpowered in SPvP. Notice that it does far more base healing and damage than the other lifesteal traits while having a source (your minion horde) that attacks many times quickly. Gee, it would be great if Vampiric Precision did that much so it would be worth making a crit-focused build that sacrificed damage for lifesteal…But build variety is for suckers.

Ritual Master – Alright, another dull trait. I guess it works. Whatever.

Deathly Invigoration – This is probably one of the least used necromancer traits just because healing necromancers are subpar in general. There’s nothing wrong with the trait itself aside from its abysmally low healing (yeah, I’m going to sacrifice all damage and lock out Death Shroud for an incredible 1000 healing per 7 seconds which is less than my berserker elementalist can do…), but everything else within a related build is not worth it. I guess it’s useful if you want to heal minions or something, but why would you take this trait in PvP? To get the most out of this trait (aka anything at all), you need to flash Death Shroud every 7 seconds, which is a death sentence in PvP.

Quickening Thirst – I have to wonder how traits like this were even implemented. Movement speed boosts are a dime a dozen. Abilities that teleport or otherwise move you are common. Abilities that reduce mobility are very common. Abilities that remove abilities that reduce mobility are even more common. Traiting for a small boost in movement speed pales in comparison to something like Dogged March.

Grandmaster:
Fetid Consumption – I’m not really sure why this qualifies as a grandmaster trait when condition removal is not something necromancers struggle with. I mean, we already have Spiteful Removal and Shrouded Removal in easier-to-access spots, and they’re still barely used. Plus, this trait is actually worse than those because it debuffs your minions.

Vampiric Rituals – And here we have the last of the sad lifesteal brigade. Maybe this is a decent trait. Maybe if you’re lucky, you can catch 5 people inside of a well, then have those hits crit, then have your lifesteal-on-crit sigil proc, and then you can feel happy that you just healed for slightly more than Healing Signet does per pulse. Assuming you weren’t in Death Shroud.

May I also point out that mesmers and elementalists both use the equivalent of Blood Magic (Inspiration and Water Magic respectively) as part of their DPS builds because there are traits that add both damage and healing/support in them. Both of these professions also steadily heal nearby allies (via Phantasmal Healing and Soothing Mist) while doing high damage. There is no sacrifice made for self-preservation or group healing; it’s just part of the package. Meanwhile, necromancers…have Death Shroud builds that stack life force…I guess?

Siphoned Power seems like a holdover from some period in development where necromancers were supposed to drain their own health for extra damage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

amiavamp.9785:

Toxic Landing – This particular instance of the “take less falling damage” trait is seen as mediocre. HOWEVER, its convenient location within the trait trees makes it superior, in my opinion. Most necromancers will have at least 10 in Curses in WvW, either for condition damage or targeted wells. Therefore, I think this trait is underrated.

Is there ANY situation in which you would use Toxic Landing? Any at all? This trait not underrated in the slightest. It is regarded exactly as poorly as it really is.

What they should do is change it, so that it becomes a helpful team-play trait. The mesmer has a handy party wide speed boost skill. If Toxic Landing had a similar useful effect upon taking falling damage, it might find a purpose in group play.

I don’t imagine you take shortcuts or drop off of walls too often in WvW. Reducing fall damage is the point of using the trait, everything else is secondary. And it is best to put on the trait only temporarily.

MikeThePsucho.5172:

I’ve been running pure conditionmancer for most dungeons and high level fracs. Not all of us have completely abandoned it, and there are times when conditions with Epidemic can even outshine Zerker Wars. (40+ Fracs in Ascalon Frac particulary comes to mind)

I am in the process of collecting gear to try out a Hybridmancer though because:
1. If anyone else is running bleed/poison on your team your own DPS is lowered and you are less useful
2. At max, in single target fights, especially bosses, bleeds max out at 3000-3500 dps and torment can be unwieldy. It’s depressing when you see just about any other class doing at least twice as much damage as you.

Dems my thoughts

I have tried out hybridmancer and it works really well for fractals, since, unlike in regular dungeons, trash mobs are actually a problem instead of punching bags. It also has very high life force generation.

For Lich Wells, you should add that Death Perception works the same way – entering Death Shroud will boost the crit chance of wells.

If you’re getting teamed up on, nothing can save you except your teammates, especially in a power build that doesn’t have wells. Necromancer’s main weakness is being ganged up on. While other classes using glass cannon builds can attempt to run away, necromancer is almost always screwed.

In 1v1, you should fair pretty well against most builds, although you will find bunkers very hard to kill due to low burst, and thieves will be annoying unless you time interrupts correctly. I personally have used a 30/0/10/0/30 berserker axe/focus-staff build (10 in Death Magic for Staff Mastery). It’s decently powerful, but perhaps not tournament quality. I make sure to take Corrupt Boon and Spectral Grasp to surprise enemies mid-fight, and my 3rd utility is generally Well of Power or Spectral Armor for the stun break.

Answer to all of your questions: Guardian

Don’t even bother with necromancer at this point if you don’t already have one, they’re having their day in PvP right now but they’re still subpar in PvE and will probably get nerfed back to how useless they were on release soon enough.

Guardian has the most group buffs and can do group buffs while in a damage build.

Necromancer has the least group buffs aside from thief and actively worsens group buffs by being immune to healing in Death Shroud and overwriting combo fields with subpar versions.

Guardian is indisputably #1 in survivability.

Necromancer is more beginner friendly until 80. Then you will die over and over from being unable to dodge and block as much as a guardian, not to mention getting kicked out of fractal runs.

Necromancer has slightly higher damage. This does not matter when their group support is nil (no reflect, boons, or massive damage), when you must be in melee with light armor and use unreliable minions to do maximum damage, and when other professions who have more of everything else do more damage (lightning hammer elementalist area heals, area buffs, and autoattacks for maximum dps at the same time with 0 effort…warrior has unique banner buffs and other boons along with massive damage…mesmer has multiple support abilities along with potentially highest sustained dps…).

90% of charr I see are guardian or warrior.

After over 1000 hours on my necromancer, I just now today discovered the true wonder that is condition conversion.

Long story short, using Blood is Power on a target followed by Well of Power will give yourself 10 seconds of vigor. As a necromancer.

nekretaal.6485:

Probably quit. No reason to nerf the most unwanted lowest PvE damage class that has no utility to compensate, and no ability o survive the cheap one shot Liadri kills they keep introducing.

I really expect a buff for power Necromancers in the form of a new weapon option to come sometime this year. Most power Necromancer’s take staff, a condition weapon, for lack of alternatives. Something like a land version of trident or spear skills.

What’s really ironic is that I found Liadri to be much easier after using a terrormancer+dhuumfire build. It took literally over 50 tries on my defensively built thief, then about 5 tries on my necromancer.

I wrote a generalized post earlier, but I would like to add more detailed feedback on Curses after some consideration.

Barbed Precision – This trait is excellent and does what it’s supposed to. However, I dislike these traits for a different reason – they are applied to people who aren’t even built for condition damage because they are minor traits. Necromancers, warriors, and mesmers all have to deal with this and can steal bleed stacks from condition users by accident. This is more of an issue with the entire condition system than anything and is beyond the scope of this thread.

Toxic Landing – This particular instance of the “take less falling damage” trait is seen as mediocre. HOWEVER, its convenient location within the trait trees makes it superior, in my opinion. Most necromancers will have at least 10 in Curses in WvW, either for condition damage or targeted wells. Therefore, I think this trait is underrated.

Hemophilia – Bland and uninspired. It’s fine in terms of balance, at least.

Chilling Darkness – This trait could use a slight buff or rework. Currently, its only real use is with Plague. I think that, instead of just buffing the duration, the trait could additionally be adjusted to work both ways – blind applies chill, and chill applies blind (the added effects would not proc off of each other). In this buffed state, it would likely warrant being moved to Master tier, perhaps being swapped with a non-condition related trait such as Banshee’s Wail or Spectral Attunement.

Enfeeble – I am glad that the developers realized their initial misstep from when they were considering raising the cooldown of this trait. After all, that would INCREASE the bursty nature of conditionmancer instead of the opposite effect. Furthermore, it now synergizes effectively with Near to Death. However, the weakness duration from this trait is abysmal and near worthless.
On a side note, there appears to be a bug with this trait; having Hemophilia equipped when viewing this trait makes it show 2 bleed stacks lasting 14.5 seconds each, which is FAR more than the base 1 bleed stack for 7 seconds. This bug does not actually change the effect of the trait.

Reaper’s Precision – A useful trait for sustain. Unfortunately, it’s so weak in its current form that I feel like it’s a waste even when I’m in a Death Shroud-focused build. Remove the chance-based mechanic from this so that ALL crits restore life force – I hate combat RNG anyway, especially in a game that wants to be an e-sport.

Focused Rituals – It’s fine. I suppose it would be too much to ask for this to be baseline.

Furious Demise – No comment, it’s fine.

Banshee’s Wail – Certainly excellent for a warhorn user, but it’s in a weird location. I think it should be moved somewhere more accessible/appropriate.

Spectral Attunement – Like Banshee’s Wail, I believe this trait should be located elsewhere.

Target the Weak – It’s fine, although you’d think it would be more useful to conditionmancers instead of power builds.

Terror, Lingering Curse, Withering Precision, and…Dhuumfire

These traits deserve special consideration.

The position of Terror allows it to be combined with Dhuumfire and Master of Terror, a combination which promotes condition bombing and causes much whining among PvPers. It is this combination alone that is causing necromancers to be steadily nerfed.

Due to the lackluster power of Lingering Curse and Withering Precision in comparison, I believe that Terror should be swapped to the grandmaster position. Going further, I believe that Dhuumfire should also be put as a grandmaster trait here if it cannot be reworked or removed altogether.

It has been admitted by the developers that Withering Precision is not worthwhile. Since it is too much to ask for a rework, simply reducing the cooldown would make it useful. It could also be moved to a different location, going with the above suggestions to Terror and Dhuumfire.

Lingering Curse is a weapon trait in the grandmaster slot, and it has a single effect which only applies to two abilities. It should either be changed from a scepter-only trait or be buffed in some way. Going with the above suggestions to Terror and Dhuumfire, it could also be moved down to the master tier of Curses.

I really dislike builds that mostly rely on passive abilities and simple rotations with relatively little effort required. Unfortunately for me, the only class I have any PvP experience with is necromancer, both pre- and post-June 25 patch. I have since resorted to power builds or more unorthodox builds on my necromancer in the few occasions that I play PvP or WvW.

Abilities in the game should reward skill. Passive abilities and traits like Dhuumfire and Healing Signet are far too powerful with too little skill (i.e. none) involved. People kitten about AoE fear, but it at least needs to be aimed. People complain about backstab thieves, but it still takes setup and effort. Builds like minion or spirit builds, on the other hand, are extremely passive and should not be so low risk-high reward.

Giving guardians better lifesteal than necromancers was a pretty good joke.