I think the biggest problems with necro’s and attrition is the fact that passive defense and higher HP bars are the worst defensive mechanics in the game, period. They barely count for defense at all. I spent awhile talking about why investing in toughness and vitality amounts to only a paltry increase in survivability, so now I’ll talk about active defenses.
I’ve played 6 classes in sPVP, with only the ranger and warrior escaping my interest. And my final thoughts on the necromancer are so simply explained in one sentence:
“Boy do I get knocked down a lot…”
And it took me awhile to figure out why, but basically it is because necromancers have no active defenses. What are active defenses? Well, these are skills and abilities that you use in order to block or evade attacks, well as as control or disable your opponent. Because these require the player to actively use particular skills or traits that prevent damage, I call them active defenses.
Active defenses are important because they function without statistical fortitude and also have limitless potential when used correctly. If you think of the most damaging attack chain or skill that any class has, always know that a blocking skill or evade skill will stop it. So when a warrior goes to use 100 blades, tapping Roll for Initiative prevents 100% of the damage. Another side effect of the control effects are that they prevent your opponents defenses as well. When that warrior uses bull’s charge, this prevents the enemy not only from attacking, but also from defending as well. So all in all, blocking and evade make for a powerful defense while disabling control effects make both a good defense and offense.
Necros have none of that. Instead, their active defenses lie in using cripple and chill, which are horrible active defenses because the only thing they prevent is a melee enemy who refuses to use condition curing or teleports or leaps. They aren’t even that good at those, since most cripples are short range and half the chills just close the distance between the two. Necros have few blinds, with one being Deathly Swarm, which is slower than a hippo on Valium, and then probably the only good defense utility in Well of Darkness. They have fear, most of which are awkward skills on long recharges that apply the control for a single second on long cooldown. Of course, whenever a thief steals from you, they get a free 3 second fear that makes you perfect backstab and heartseeker fodder.
Necros are light on other controls. They have only two sources of immobilize: a short range one from a melee weapon that can’t be used for combos, and then another short range one from the loldamage bone fiend that doesn’t work half the time since minions spend half the time lollygagging across the map. They have one delayed daze in the warhorn, which doesn’t do anything else worthwhile otherwise (swiftness that does minor damage and draws aggro, slowing the player down again), and a knockback with the flesh golem’s charged attack.
Necros are also light on condition removal. There’s one in a heal, and then almost all other condition removal requires you to transfer conditions to a target. Which means you have to hit the target. Which means that if you can’t hit the target, you’re helpless against conditions. So either you use the staff and it’s strafeable auto attack, or you use plague signet which does damage to you as an intended function. Well of Power does get mention, although it works slowly and is on a long recharge. Necros have no form of vigor to grant additional dodges, no form of endurance regeneration, pitiful and expensive stability that is nigh unuseable, and horrible stun breakers to boot. Heck, I went back to running the buggy minion master build in sPVP because then I could have a stun breaker that was available more than once a minute.
The one thing that we do have is Death Shroud. Problem: it is only available once each fight, and otherwise DS doesn’t do anything but annoy your opponent. You can use it in the beginning of the fight to try and regain more lifeforce to use it again, but this ruins your panic button and doesn’t accomplish much while doing so. So instead you have DS as a panic button that most classes have the ability to plow right through with their offensive power, and your weapon choice determines how well you can regain life force. Unfortunately the best necro weapon, the scepter, regains life force so slowly that it is insulting. There are no adequate traits to regain life force, either.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
