Guild Wars 2

this topic is meant to get insight from the players and ask them how would they design the necromancer class . it’s not meant to bash or harass other peoples opinions . so with that being said lets get this started !!!

when most people think of a necromancer typically they think of a very few things .

1. they summon the undead
2. they life tap
3. they have curses that render opponents motionless or send them fleeing
4. they have spells that cause damage over time

and for the most part you could say that is what a necromancer does already in gw2

but here is where lies the problems
almost everything a necromancer does have access to also has a trade off .

in total the class reeks of failure to live up to what a real necromancer is all about .

the minions move so slow that it is not a problem for anyone to out run or dodge the attack of a minion

the life tap is so low that it’s simply not enough to help a necromancer build any attrition at all when a warrior or ele or thief can simply white wash a chunk of a necros health away

the ability to snare or fear or root in this game is so non existent that the time frame for using such abilities do not last a good proper while and on top of that almost everyone has access to cleansing or transforming them into buffs .

and our dots might work in theory but are lack luster when they get nullified and do not stick when condition removal is so present and active .

so necromancers can be good at one thing but weak in others
and yes a lot of it is mostly a core gaming issue that can apply to every class .

how would i fix this ?

it’s simple

give necro pets fury to chase who ever they are fighting within a 900 radius
increase the draw amount for life taps to make up for our own " healing "
put in a penalty towards players that remove the necros snare , root, fear, as damage
and dots such as poison , bleeds , and torment that get removed also gives a penalty of damage .

what say you ?

Your questions all have essentially one answer: change to a power/crit build.

Both axe and dagger scale off of power. If you try to use axe or dagger with low power they will suck.

The 25 stack limit is indeed a big problem with group single-targets (bosses, etc.).

By switching to a Power/crit build, your dagger and axe will hit hard, and since you primarily are using direct damage, the stack limits don’t affect you. In addition, your DS Life Blast will hit hard, and you also be able to destroy structures much, much more quickly than a condi build.

It is the sad reality of GW2’s PVE mechanics.

It’s tough being a necro, because our counters are so easy and obvious.

Interrupts and Kiting. The interrupting part is obvious and is our built in flaw, like how some classes have low hp, or they lack mobility, or they lack ranged options, ect. I’m ok with that, I understand we need a glaring weakness like most classes have (Except for Warriors of course).

What I think should be resolved is how easily kited we are.

While you can’t kite a necro’s staff, the staff by itself does poor damage. All of our real dmg dealing weps are 900 and less range. So by simply staying outside that 900 range, you can avoid 90% of a necro’s damage and cc. Ironically the other terrible class in pvp, the ranger, excels at killing necros if they are smart about it. Sadly I have found many many rangers are just not smart, but thats another story…

In short…we need a more reliable gap closer. We are the only close range class in the game that lacks a reliable gap closer. We have 2 gap closers but they are both terrible. Spectral grasp and Dark path miss far more then they hit, and are buggy on top of that.

Dark path should be a instant shadow step like attack, and Spectral Grasp should have the same projectile speed as Scorpion Wire.

The simple, real-play, realization I’ve come to is that necro’s have at the very least 50% less skills then other classes in combat.

Whilst fighting you are continuously knocked out of your abilities (thanks to 0 stability) which will reset them, Giving that +1 ability use to your opponent, and meanwhile their skill is already on cooldown and has most likely done damage to you, any other skills they are free to use on you you’re probably going to try to dodge and only twice (thanks to 0 vigor), if you do get a skill off the enemy will most likely have their available stability up and waiting for you.

Our so-called offensive playstyle is far more defensive (and a failure at defense) if anything. Enemies will have more ways to escape your hard cc than you do and will generally have more defensive measures all around. You will constantly be knocked out of skills you attempt to use.

The only solution is to run fear and hope for the best. Lol. Your enemy will be using far more of their skills than you will be able to. Most of them will be on cooldowns or be interrupted etc.

Many of these “bugs” are resolved if you just listen to the NPCs that are talking with you inside the instance. (or read the chat, their lines appear there).

The portal thing is not a bug, its a lottery between 3 gates, one will take you forward the other 2 will get you downed (until you use #4 to get up and try another one).

We used to be able to leap from high cliffs, switch to DS to absorb the hit. It would knock us down for a second or two, and remove all our DS, but we’d survive the fall.

sigh I miss being able to do this.

Flame & Frost was actually a pretty great series of updates. Then they decided to try and do it over, and over again, each time worse than the last.

Jeff.4680:

1. Write every enemy faction’s name on a slip of paper.
2. Put these slips in a hat.
3. Draw two slips of paper. These enemy factions will form an alliance.
4. Hint to that this alliance was forged by a greater force.
5. Reveal that this force is Scarlet.
6. Rinse & repeat

you made me feel sad reading this, I had hoped that they would at least stick to lore and keep the Krait the extreme xenophobic race that it is… but noooo.

Good job Anet in ruining what I thought was the only decent race left. As soon as you infected them with the Scarlet virus they lost all credibility.

So annoyed with these so called writers now.

In theory with thieves the intended way to fight them is to evade/absorb there initial burst, in our case with DS or evade because we have no block or invulnerability. Then immobilize and burn them down or aoe them down fast due to there low hp. Problem is in reality we have limited immobilize, there stealth drops our condi’s like crazy, they have near perma evade, and they can just endlessly reset the fight until you can’t avoid the initial burst because your out of LF and endurance.

Bloodfiend attacks about once every 3 seconds, that amounts to less healing than the warrior signet. And the only good thing about Consume Conditions is the cleanse, the healing it gives is actually pretty bad relative to the big hp pool of necros.

Stx.4857:

If you are talking about condition Necro’s, we counter Guardian’s and Mesmer’s pretty well.

They are trying to change that though.

We counter “BAD” guardians and mesmers…

Good bunker guardian can’t be killed by 1 player and mesmers can 1 shot necromancers with a combo that puts as in perma daze until 1 shoted (i know… since i invented it), or… the simple MOA + the combo.

PS: To answer your question, we don’t counter anything at the moment… some things we can’t kill alone, some things 1 shot us… but EVERYONE can escape us…

There is no such thing as a profession counter, there are build counters, but no plain profession counters.

sminkiottone.6972:

Warriors need the chuck norris spinning back kick that 100% crits for 30k without aoe cap, only then they will be balanced, and of course they should be able to damage walls.

And ranger need a 2h hammer with stun,vulnerable and aoe damage 29.99k plus healing nearby ally for 10.000.Your pets roar like nyan cat for give allys 1500 power %88 crit damage for 5 min+stealth duration 5 min…

Also Rangers need ; Shield,2 hand hammer,heavy armor?Sup

Peow peow.2189:

Seriously after reading all these nerf threads you people have it wrong.. I was fighting a thief in spvp with my heal signet on (600 reg) and we were ranging from far , now u c I have 30 in defence but this little grunt could still damage me , max defence shud mean 0 dmg.

I mean he barely got me down 2k go before I hammer stunned him into next year but I feel defence trait is not strong enuf.
Plz implement portal and stealth on warrior next patch

Wait.. so you beat the snot out of someone, and you want a buff?

Warriors need the chuck norris spinning back kick that 100% crits for 30k without aoe cap, only then they will be balanced, and of course they should be able to damage walls.

Is it that hard to make females look like armored knights? Oh my god Anet why would you do that?

When it comes to armor they either mess up the male version or the female version.

/sigh

So with the inevitable rise of gem prices, and the inevitable continuing of it, naturally there had to be more armour skins that are exclusive to the gem store!

In a game such that it is vanity-centric and almost everyone is using entirely the same armour(which looks universally good but totally mainstream), instead of adding more armour skins which could be attained by means of PvE (or generally anything else, hell look at the amount of activities this game has to offer, but then again NONE of them give decent incentive), they had to add them in the gem store! Hurray for gold farming!

Really is it just me or Anet isnt trying to think harder about how to fix the game and make it more enjoyable with its inevitable dedicated playerbase leaving the game due to its lack of incentive with almost every aspect of the game. Yes, i love this game to death, there are so many activities which are incredibly fun and unique to the repetitive MMORPG tropes out there, but there seems hardly any incentive with these activities which largely saps out all the fun out of the game considering most MMORPGs are basically loot driven grinding(my opinion).

My suggestion is that rather than adding these new armour and weapon skins to RNG boxes or the only way to get them is buy getting gems, put them maybe as an incentive to various activities within the game. Putting these skins in the gem store largely influences more grinding in which everyone hates, and which Anet believes to building gw2 to a non grinding experience which i believe they could. But rather the game in its current state is convincing people to go farm gold via farming champs or any other meta whatnot. Sure you need gems so the game has more support, but largely this would only work short term and not long term, and dont forget that most players are trying to avoid cashing in on the game by buying gems with real money.

So please Anet. Stop putting all these armour skins and weapon skins exclusive to the gem store or black lion chests. This makes the ‘living world’ concept of the game (or rather its bi-weekly update) rather hallow and very temporary compared to updates in other MMORPGs. I really love gw2 for trying really hard to be different with other MMORPGs and it does great as a start, but these updates are really really getting to some of our nerves.

It’s totally okay for a warrior, the profession with the highest base armor and health, to have a passive healing tick for around four hundred health and yet necromancer siphons, which require actively dealing damage to a target, are nowhere near that level of efficiency?

I can’t help but find it kind of upsetting that the powers that be so frivolously grant other classes ridiculous amount of sustain while we’ve been stuck with a broken tree since the very start. Isn’t it time proper buffs were given to blood so that it actually becomes a viable choice for a necromancer interested in more sustain?

My issue with the living world is that it’s all over the place. Instead of multiple updates that chain to each other we have very disconnected updates.

It doesn’t matter how wonderful internal roadmap you have when for players they all feel separate instances that seem to have no connection whatsoever. There’s no continuity. It doesn’t feel like the living story is building towards… well… anything really.

- Holiday Events -

Please do not even try to marry these to real living story and I’ve to say this year’s Halloween is a big disappointment. They should be distractions that buy time for you to further develop living story.

As far as I can tell Halloween, Wintersday, Dragon Bash and Queen’s Jubilee all fall to this category.

- Lost Shores -

Lost shores was actually the first major living story content. It earned you guys a lot flack and for a good reason:

a) it was buggy and laggy
b) poorly informed (never knew what would happen on a specific date and time)
c) the content didn’t come in sufficient quantities
d) the new zone had no purpose after the event and even now very little

I don’t believe at all that majority of people complained because some content was staggered. People complained because it happened only on specific time and you missed rewards. Great potential. Badly executed. Instead of building on the zone you forgot it until the secret of southsun.

- Flame and Frost -

Flame and Frost introduced a fun new dungeon. The problem is that the dungeon was temporary. Of all the F&F content it would have made most sense to leave that dungeon behind.

Flame and Frost also initially lacked stuff to do which was a major complaint as well but it had the continuity thing going – until it flopped in the end and was forgotten.

- Secret of Southsun & Last Stand of Southsun -

You actually dedicated two updates for the content so I got my hopes up. I liked the story in fact. Maybe this was getting somewhere? Maybe this would be a path to the dragon that drove away Karka? Ok. So it wasn’t.

This should have been direct continuation of the Lost Shores. Not something that happens almost a year later. It should have also carried the story to some significant end. Instead of a great dungeon like in flame & frost we had a very small instance and even that is gone now. Again the end flopped.

At least it left the Karka Queen event behind but you missed an opportunity to create a new dungeon location and to actually anchor the story to some existing zone.

- Sky Pirates of Tyria, Bazaar of the Four Winds & Cutthroat Politics -

Ok. You switched gears again. Instead of carrying on with the lost shores you suddenly introduced a new enemy group, a new villain, pulled out a political campaign which has not produced anything concrete, and introduced a new temporary zone.

I could have gotten behind introducing merely Bazaar. The zone was beautiful and jumping there was fun. Still even if you had left it behind it would have been abandoned the moment vendors had disappeared.

You should have left behind the zone & vendors. There’s still a huge excess of materials so having a permanent location where you can exchange it for stuff would be great.

Converting stacks of mats to rare crafting materials would have been great addition. Even better if you could trade excess materials to any skin from older living world updates. Add a world event there and people would visit the zone daily. This is what Bazaar should have been about and would have resulted into something permanent.

- Other updates and lost focus -

After this I think you lost focus. You introduced yet another villain, massive zerg farms, and now I’m completely lost about what you are trying to tell me?

After Clockworks we got this Tower of Nightmares and the weird alliance that is likely to be gone again soon only to be replaced with another villain group.

Please focus. Don’t jump from one spot to another. I’m more puzzled than ever what the heck you are actually trying to do with the living story?

- What I’d like to see -

Stick to one story and one continuity. For example what happens in Southsun could have been a continuity.

Unwrap the content slowly over the two weeks update with cutscenes, instances and new world events. At no point should players lose access to achievements or any rewards. People should be able to replay the cut scenes and instances. Events should clminate to a “peak” event. The peak itself should leave behind something permanent.

I envision something like this:
1. Opening scene (like we have now) and investigation stuff
2. Some world events start popping up on the zone and persist for a few days
3. New world events get chained off of those further carrying the story
4. Second scene around first weekend, something significant in the story unwraps
5. “Peaks” to something permanent around mid of the second week

Weekends are the best spots for “hotspots” but any event associated with the “peak” absolutely should not happen only within a single day!

Try to pace so that people have both combat and investigative stuff in beginning and middle of the event. Not unlike the 10 minutes investigation and then zerg zerg zerg for two weeks.

Make a good use of the progress bar. You remember the little bar, right? The one that among other things showed in last Halloween how close the mad king’s approach is.

I don’t mind if within two week period we have to visit other zones as long as there is a key zone and enemy group that is the anchor for the story. Something we keep returning to in every update until some significant change happens.

Take temporary breaks with things like holiday events, SAB and even introduce things like the Bazaar but try to keep the primary focus on the anchor zone and villain group. I can’t stress how frustrating current design is.

- Southsun Story -

As mentioned you already have permanent zone to tell the story. An anchor. All updates should somehow involve this anchor. All traces should lead back to there.

Southsun story should have been:

1. Karka appear and assault (like it was but less buggy, no time gated reward content)

2. Elements from flame and frost as detour within two weeks period to explain how refugees ended there which culminates but primary focus would have been the refugee trouble of the secret of southsun. Mostly investigative stuff but also some zone events. This is where Karka Queen should have appeared as permanent content.

3. Further investigation and zone events lead to Canachs lair which should have been another piece of permanent content. What was learned from lair would point towards dragon threat and reason why Karka appeared.

4. Bazaar appears but at the same time there are reports of “underwater dragon” sighting on southsun. Content is split between bazaar and southsun. Elections start.

5. Krait and more Karka appear in southsun. Elections ongoing but primary focus is pulled back to southsun with candidate trials being open both in bazaar and southsun. Culminates to dragon liutenant making a visit to southsun with both Ellen and Evon being involved heavily in it.

6. Sanctum leaves but the zone itself becomes permanent with vendors you can try excess junk for rare mats and skins from previous events. Hunt for Dragon liutenant’s underwater lair starts in southsun and eventually culminates to fight against it. LT gets destroyed but the lair remains. Temporarily closed but back as part of future updates turning into yet another piece of permanent content.

7. This is carried on until something significant happens such as opening of new underwater zone. Expansion. New race unlocked etc. Then switch focus because now people are used to the cove and it has two permanent dungeons AND karka queen.

This is what it should have been anyway.

+1
And that would be logical.
Instead of that, they have to create Villainy “Master of convenience” Sue to tie all the loose ends together. And fail miserably on top of that.

I just wanted to shout my complete and utter admiration for your brilliance in matching servers.

Not only did you manage to pair up the lowest ranking servers with any others, but – my best congratulations – numbers like servers haveing zergs of 100+ to servers like Vabbi (mine) with zergs at best of 30+ (if at all, most times we have 10-20).

It is now like our esteemed skilled zergies are splitting up their zergs, because 50 are enough already.

Using superior siege as defence and oil and so on did not even slow those masses.

I really would like to see the actual population numbers of the servers.
As long as there is no cap on entering WvW based on server population, WvW is just pathetic.

Yes, we are fighting back.
Yes we are killing those others guerilla style.
Yes we switch borders to get keeps and towers and so on.
Yes, we try to use any advantage we can muster.

And no, this is not whining.

It is just no fun (most of the time), if you just get steamrollered and there is nothing you can do to change this fact.

And yes, one could switch server – if i wanted to.
But this would not solve the problem(s).

I would ask Arena net for some inforamtion and, i would really appreciate it, some attempts to solve it or even a solution.

Best wishes…

PS: you can keep any typos

Absolutely brilliant. Perfectly put. Simply genius. At the least, this deserves a bump so more people can see it.

Arena Net, you absolutely need to read what this guy has to say…if not hire him. In all seriousness though, if you work for Arena Net please get this circulating.

Us as the playerbase, we need to get this circulating throughout the community. If we get enough people to make a clear statement, Arena Net will have no choice. If we are to save this game’s lore and overall greatness, it’s our duty to make a change. I believe that could start with this.

I am slowly becoming bored with Guild Wars 2. I played Guild Wars 1 for 5 years and love all the content that made the world. Now I have found out that there may not be any paid addons, or expansions. I enjoyed GW1 and had no problem running out and buying Factions, Nightfall. and Eye of the North. I bought GW2 and have been impatiently waiting to return to Cantha and Elona.

So, does this mean that mean those regions are lost to us??? I sure hope not. But I also don’t want a slow role out of the entire map. I want to push through at my own speed. If I decide to push through, I don’t want to hit a road block, and wait.

As a player of the GW legacy for six years. I am hoping NC soft doesn’t ruin it for me. It is the one and only game I play. Sad isn’kitten I want my ritualist, assassins, dervish and paragons back. I want to travel to the lands we once knew. I don’t care if I have to pay. I didn’t mind then, and I won’t mind now.

On the PvP front, Necros are now on pretty much every competitive team due to their massive pressure damage that they provide which can easily overwhelm someone that screws up against a condition necro. Minion Masters are also viable in PvP.

In WvW, the major strength of a necro is in AoE presence. Then again, that’s the nature of WvW. AoE will always do better than single target. Minions are pretty much useless there outside of a MM zerg (which are devestating).

In PvE, we’re getting better with new boss mechaincs. Necros are still probably the least desired class in dungeons, but the newer content actually means a necro’s strengths in boon and condition manipulation are useful.

I Deschain I.4623:

It’s like ANet telling us: “For god’s sake just reroll a guard or warrior already”.

Well, they’re definitely telling us something. I’m not sure it’s that polite.

I Deschain I.4623:

It’s like ANet telling us: “For god’s sake just reroll a guard or warrior already”.

Somewhat agree.

It’s mostly nerfing conditions in PvP while our power specs in PvE still remain hugely less effective to other classes in dps and team utility. Why would anyone ever pick a necro over a warrior in tougher 5 man content? Jeez.

It’s like ANet telling us: “For god’s sake just reroll a guard or warrior already”.

(continued)

So what are we left with in GW2 to counter life-siphoning? Ummm…nothing really. Thus, life siphoning has to – by necessity – be made weak and one-dimensional because there are no counters to it other than just generic DPS. Furthermore, there’s no high risk/high reward associated with it. It’s been reduced to that binary system of “I swung a sword and siphoned some health. I swung a sword again and siphoned some more health. Isn’t that great!” Sad, really, given the complexity and richness of what was possible in GW1.

By the way, I’m aware not all of the above are examples of life siphoning skills. They were used to demonstrate how – in simplifying GW2 in comparison to its predecessor –
a great deal of depth, fun and engaging mechanics, and skill-based play have been removed from the game.

Lily.1935:

There is new territory that I would like Arena net to try that couldn’t be done in gw1. I would like Arena Net to involve death shroud into the necromancer’s abilities far more then they do. Not a Single skill outside of death shroud cares about death shroud and only a few traits have an effect on you outside of death shroud because of how full your bar is. Compare this to other professions like the elementalist or warrior who have skills that care a great deal about there special mechanic. I personally feel that DS should be a resource and not just that thing you enter to not die or pop a few skills.

I think Death Shroud – 14 months later – still suffers from being lost-in-translation in having been our downed state repurposed to our profession-specific mechanic. As you state above, it still needs a lot of work to be made to synergize with our class.

I applaud ArenaNet’s courage and willingness to innovate and take risks. However, it’s not always necessary to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it’s OK to use what has gone before; especially if it works.