I’ll give you my thoughts from a wvw perspective: power necros are weak, condi necros are strong and minion necros make me lol.
From a Minionmancer to a guardian – We don’t even think about you :P.
Then why bother making a podcast about guardians?
Haha, right over your head. I was just messing with you. I rarely meet a guardian that can beat me 1v1, but that doesn’t mean that your community doesn’t need a good podcast centered around making the class experience more enjoyable. Or that having one of them on regularly to talk about the pluses minuses and benefits of guardian play isn’t a good thing.
I want every community to be a bit stronger so that the game itself is stronger and more people play.
I saw this on the Engineer forums, and though we could do a much better job. Here are some of the ones I found quotes I could Necroize.
“I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a Necro, which is what I am, let’s face it.” – On The Waterfront
“We all go a little Necro sometimes” – Pscyho
Flesh Golem, Are you trying to seduce me? – The Graduate
“Dark, Minioned, and spectraled is no way to go through life, son.” – National Lampoon
“You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have Minions with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently, my Anet colleague informs me that that can’t be done. Can you remind me what I play Necro for? Honestly, throw me a bone here. What do we have?” – Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
“Can Touch This!” – Hammer Time
Allie and Jon,
I am glad to see you guys taking an active role in discussion here. The guys from SOAC and I had a long discussion about the Necromancer changes and I also got the opportunity to talk with Xeph about the class.
The problem with the Necromancer was never damage. Sure we were a little behind the engineer, but the engineer was brought not because of damage so much as because they didn’t need to be babysat to stay alive. Now that the necro does an obscene amount of damage players are noticing the little tricks we used before we could get destroyed by a single thief with no opportunity to escape to simply survive.
The problem we have now is the Necromancer is the definition of a snowball class. If I have limited to no death shroud I am ineffective and dead. If i am alone with 20 percent or less LF and carry a stun breaker that isn’t spectral armor I am dead or if spectral armor is on cd than I am dead. There is no way for me to avoid the incoming damage and no way for me to escape the fight.
However if I can survive long enough to get 40 perecent LF, and my guardian or Ele is alive and able to keep Prot on me. I can turn into an unkillable machine. DS is extremely effective now at any point past 20 percent or at which it can outlast the amount of damage inflicted by the opponent. So in the tpvp scene where condition spam and bunkers is the meta we are snowballing team fights. Our damage is still ridiculous (nerf to terror was an extremely odd nerf when the issue is the sheer volume of condition damage combined with terror and Life Blast).
So once we get deathshroud rolling and we get hit by a non-burst class we can just sit and farm players. However if our DS runs out or Prot isn’t provided or we simply start a fight with limited ds, we are easily trained down by any semi-skilled team or player.
This creates a snowball effect in which the sheer volume of damage, the necessary changes to weakness, team protection, and the recent fix to the 200 percent damage increase when in ds creates an incredible damage dealing power machine in team fights. This creates a massive disadvantage against any team that runs any form of condition cleave or bunker approach because the necro with a large access to weakness and a full ds bar along with some protection from guard or ele will be incredibly difficult to whittle down while pumping out an obscene amount of damage.
The DS change that angers everyone is the overlay as it was our soul source of damage soaking for pve and WvWvW where the damage comes in fast and hard in greater than 10 second intervals. I used 20 percent DS to soak up 20k boss hits because I was out of energy from dodging it twice and while everyone else had recouped dodge or were able to flip to a full block I used DS to soak it all in.
TLDR: The Necro is a snowball class currently. Pre 40 percent DS they are free kills in every environment. After 40 percent DS they can farm kill and destroy teams. I watched Zomb and Gibbly destroy 3 v 1’s. The biggest hurt to the overflow is in situations where we have to play defensive and use it to defend or help escape the damage. Now if I am at 20 percent health and 20 percent LF I have no evade, escape, or method to absorb the incoming damage. Therefore I am not an attrition class I am simply a snowballing class of death.
Easy Fix: Let DS work the way it has by absorbing the damage delivered or give us a method to get out of a fight or simply allow other players to heal us in ds at a 50 percent reduction. Reduce the proc rate of Dhuumfire. Increase the amount healed in siphon and allow siphoning to heal while in ds at it’s current state, but when out of DS allow it to heal 100 percent stronger.