Guild Wars 2

Skyro.3108:

How disappointing. I don’t really see a reason why heals shouldn’t work in death shroud.

Because we would become incredibly difficult to kill. It would basically be you can’t hurt my health, I am recouping my health, and you are being hurt in the process. If you traited for the 5 percent CD on DS, you would essentially have invulnerability with regen while dealing damage every 5 seconds. Considering Life blast can hurt and you could use fear and Life Transfer to heal. You would be next to impossible to ever kill 1v1.

A great fix would be just give us LF based on the amount of damage taken but only while outside of Death Shroud. This would give us the ability to flip in and out of deathshroud in a more tankish spec and build it a bit quicker.

Apollo.7583:

Zogyark.4597:

I’d like dark path if it was instant, kitten thing always misses in pvp when I’m chasing someone.

I love it in theory but its awful in pvp where the projectile is evaded by side stepping practically.

If they would just make it an area teleport, like blink or shadowstep. I would be fine with it missing then too since I would at least get the teleport without the chill/bleed. Would make sense since its an AoE chill/bleed too. This would also add some mobility to the Necromancer.

Oddly enough through beta it was a teleport, and then they changed it to requiring a target. I really only use it to interrupt big heals, pull back a runner, or rush to help a teammate who needs help on a fight.

Skyro.3108:

So has anybody tested if heals work (regen, life transfer heal trait, etc.) work while in DS now?!?

They don’t. You can just see your health now while in DS. It’s so we can see our boons and conditions on us.

I would prefer to see my healing and utility cooldowns, but seeing boons and conditions will allow us to do even MORE DEATHSHROUD TESTING!!

I look forward to seeing exactly when the boons apply when you are in DS.

Disclaimer: As I am usually the most aggressive proponent of minions, I figured I would start an open discussion with my many detractors about minions. I am more than willing to answer questions, and discuss how to make them better. I will not get into a flame war, nor will I answer a reply that begins with “You are an idiot. Minions suck.” or any variation of that phrase.

I am neither a great player nor a player who will spend hours working to fine tune his craft, but I am observant and I take the time to think things through completely before working on something. I try to find out why something works, before claiming that it doesn’t or that it’s broken. Something may just not work the way I perceive it to work, other times it’s just broken.

I have spoken to some of the best tournament, WvWvW, and fractal plus 40 Necromancers in the game. I have had some of them on the podcasts as well. Every single one of them agrees that the necromancer is not a broken class. In fact a few of them feel we are borderline OP. They refuse to come to the forums simply because they don’t wish to waste anymore time trying to explain this and getting flamed (plus as one player mentioned to me it feels cool to be the unplayed class).

The reason a majority don’t play minions has nothing to do with whether they are strong or not. It’s simply they feel there are better or more useful utility choices. A majority rarely run a single (focused build). It’s not that they don’t think that you can’t outside of Agony (hopefully the patch changes that), simply that the abilities given up to run one will limit your ability to play different roles.

As for minions it’s the perception that is the issue here, Minion AI is exactly the same as every single pet AI in the game. It’s all crap, but it’s all the same. I spoke with two Rangers (1 plays on one of the top WvWvW teams, the other is a fractal 40 plus farmer), both agree that they don’t even rely on the auto attack mechanic to work because their pets are stupid. They always use the attack key to begin an attack.

I spoke Friday, and will again speak with them this Friday, with the top two Guide writers for Mesmers. They both stated Clone AI is wonky, and that they will call out a phantasm that will sit and fire at a wall instead of a target or they will try to shatter and one will run in place instead of shattering. The difference is that they can push out so many clones that they can overlook the two or three times it doesn’t work.

It’s not that Minion AI is broken. The entire pet system is really poorly done. I just find a way to work around it. Using Single Target attacks to create threat on a target is fine. Should it be tied into our own personal target, and attack that one? Absolutely! Will it happen? Not any time soon, but that’s because it would require them to recode every single pet ui in the game. I am not sure that they can do that without causing other bugs to come up.

So if you can’t change the inherent nature of something, how do you fix it? You make it slightly better than it was before. I think the major issue is the lack of any sort of semi decent tutorial as to how to make certain things work that aren’t user created.

That wasn’t what they fixed ;p. They never claimed to fix reapers touch being broken. They fixed the fact that the buff they gave to Spinal Shivers didn’t work when you took Spiteful Talisman.

@Andele – I occassionally troll. I had a wall of text refuting my extra awesome trolling habits, but I feel minions should be their own thread.

Terok.7315:

This is terribly presumptuous.

I certainly didn’t come into the class with any particular expectations of how it would work. I played with it until I got a feel for the class (and overall, I’m kitten happy with how it plays). If anything you’re working against the strengths of your class when using minions in their current state. I’ve actually recently started using minions out of impatience (can’t wait forever for a fix) lately. I’ve grinded up nearly all of my arah armor pieces using a minion build. Those two problems that you shrug off as a ‘learn to play’ issues are actually fairly serious and not as trivial as you’d like us to believe.

Stop thinking we’re all inexperienced players stamping our feet because we think the class should work our way. That isn’t the case and never was, it’s a red herring and simply untrue. Let’s make the necromancers forums a place for discussing the class honestly, with all the pimples and warts. I mean, you do agree that the minion AI doesn’t work correctly, right? I know you think the problem is trivial, but you do agree that it needs attention?

Anyway, I don’t want to derail this thread any further and I apologize to the OP. Do some testing with the different abilities and see what works for you. When you find a certain setup that you find enjoyable, let your fellow necromancers know and perhaps we can give you some advice.

Terok, alot of this is a discussion for another thread. I am not attempting to be presumptuous. I simply dislike hearing people spew angry comments that haven’t been true in months, and then when I disagree, I get treated like an idiot who never plays the game. When in reality they haven’t tried that specific thing since Beta or spent 2 minutes in a set ability.

I am all for discussing the necro class, and open discussions are great. I have never once said that everyone should shut up and leave Minions or any part of the class alone. I simply stated that people embellish the negative regularly and I think it needs to stop. If you want to have a rational discussion about improving the class, than by all means do it.

Occassionally Kravik will post something that’s right on point, but other times he delves into personal attacks, and spends his time calling out people who want to positively talk about the class. Then when we brush him off, we are attacked for attempting to build a positive community to talk about what the class can do.

I want to talk about making what we can do better, not discussing everything we can’t do. Because alot of what we can’t do won’t change.

Here is what we know.

All Pet AI in this game is bad. There is no fixing it completely because it’s the way they did it. So now we have to learn how to work within the system for the time being in order to see how to make it better. They won’t completely fix it because it’s so expansive that it would create other issues that we aren’t aware of. Perception and Reality

Signets are 75 percent of the time awful. No one disagrees with this. We all use one or two of them, but a build around them or using more than one of them in a build is just a bad idea.

We will never get a regular use of Vigor or Stability. I think Anet realizes how badly those two were implemented into the game, that they may actually bring some classes usage of it down (this is all supposition on my part). I don’t like it, no one likes it, but getting up every morning to hit the forums to complain about it won’t get results.

You cannot heal while in Death Shroud, and the slow cast time and slow speed of Life Blast is brutal. They tried healing while in Death Shroud in Beta 1 in backfired in a major way, then they tried allowing us to build Life Force in Death Shroud and again it turned us into unstoppable machines. They tried giving us major boon access to stability and retal, and we would literally park on a spot and let people kill themselves on us. I honestly believe they don’t know what to do with Death Shroud.

This is probably a completely different thread that should be made to discuss each of these points. I am only trying to limit the complete negativity about the class that is completely unfounded and based on a few misconceptions. I readily agree we need fixes, but not on the same level as Rangers do or Engineers did. We are not broken, there are a couple of classes that have crazy niche roles, that could use some reworking.

We have Dark Path which is essentially the same thing, and not many people like it :P.

Neither – the problem is not the necromancer. The problem is that other classes are pigeonholed into specific builds in order to be effective.

I was talking to ranger players the other day and they were commenting that they had 3 total builds that were effective in pve, Two that were effective in sPvP, and 3 that were effective in WvWvW, and they were all essentially slight variations of the same build. This is not what we want to be.

While we cannot do any niche better than specific classes, we have more build variety. If you are looking for a niche class, than this isn’t the class for you. This will not change in terms of what we can do. Nothing Anet has done or said has made me rethink that they are going to change the central dynamic of the Necromancer which is to do a little bit of everything very well.

Thieves and Warriors are pigeonholed into specific builds which is why you see major improvement to Banners and other Thief skills to get them to try out something besides the Three Builds they can actually play to be effective.

TLDR: Giving us a super ability is not the answer. The answer is bringing the super specs down to the same level as the other specs.

Engineers saw a huge buff, Warriors saw a nice buff, Mesmers a minor one, and we got our DS UI fix. The epidemic change really bugs me, but I could see it was going to happen since I could essentially cast it while running away or hiding.

I think we had our big fix last patch and this one was just designed to fix a few issues. Such as Spinal Shivers not working correctly (nice to have it back, though I reserve the right to complain about it if it’s not working again).

Kravick.4906:

Bas.7406:

Navani.5281:

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

The main issue that a majority of people have are simply perception issues. The problem with a lot of forum posters is they feel disrespected or angry because they feel the Necromancer should play a specific way and when it doesn’t they lose it.

Examples:

People complain about DS that it’s really weak, but never put points into Soul Reaping, and either never use it defensively or never use it offensively. It’s an incredible skill when used correctly. Are there issues with it? Sure, but only UI issues and DS 2 getting random misses for no reason.

People complain about Minion AI and Lifetime. However, if you do any sort of moderate testing you will find out how simple Minion AI is, and they aren’t pets so expecting them to live forever is stupid. Only valid complaints currently about Minions is in regards to Agony and Flesh Golem’s random stand arounds the rest are simply unfounded accusations by players who expected them to be pets and not utilities.

This is just so… wrong. All of it.

Look, I’m not going to repeat myself. Its already been said by not only myself but many many many MANY other people. Minion AI is still breaks often enough for it to be a problem. Rangers don’t have this issue. Mesmers don’t have this issue. This is a problem specific to Necromancers only. The other points are just Bas trying to speak for people as usual. Bas and Bhawb both have a bad habit of doing this.

Have you ever talked to mesmers or rangers? I have spoken to some of the top mesmer’s in the game. Their AI is worse than ours, and Rangers have the same complaint about F buttons not working because the pet doesn’t always respond. So your complaint is again ridiculously ignorant.

Navani.5281:

Has there been any official comment on Necromancers and potential changes? All over the forums are complaints, and just from reading this thread it seems a lot of people agree on many issues with the main disagreements being on play style .. I’ve read that their abilities don’t really synergize well on multiple websites, not just the forums here and with what Monoman said, it seems to be a consensus

The official comment on Necromancers is that Anet wants to move the rest of the classes to where we are in terms of build variety, but that we could use a few more ways to lock down or work over a defender.

The main issue that a majority of people have are simply perception issues. The problem with a lot of forum posters is they feel disrespected or angry because they feel the Necromancer should play a specific way and when it doesn’t they lose it.

Examples:

People complain about DS that it’s really weak, but never put points into Soul Reaping, and either never use it defensively or never use it offensively. It’s an incredible skill when used correctly. Are there issues with it? Sure, but only UI issues and DS 2 getting random misses for no reason.

People complain about Minion AI and Lifetime. However, if you do any sort of moderate testing you will find out how simple Minion AI is, and they aren’t pets so expecting them to live forever is stupid. Only valid complaints currently about Minions is in regards to Agony and Flesh Golem’s random stand arounds the rest are simply unfounded accusations by players who expected them to be pets and not utilities.

Interesting idea. I always like different takes on a build. I do have one minor nitpick outside of the clicking haha! You aren’t a power build so much as a support build. With that much healing power and control you are more of a support. Powerbuilds are based on the idea that your major stat is power with limited healing power :P.

Cleric’s gear prohibits you from calling yourself a Powermancer. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Keep up the good work!

I don’t have anything to comment since I got trainwrecked by a glamour mesmer in a duel 4 out of 5 times. Of course he is perhaps the best mesmer on his server, but that cut my mesmer comments down alot.

As for guardians, just keep using your boon removals and then use your burst as soon as you do. They drop pretty quickly.

Leuca.5732:

The problem is this build has absolutely no significant aoe damage, making it subpar to pretty much every other profession’s power-based builds, and inferior to the aoe condition capabilities that other necromancers have. Axe channel has garbage ability to follow targets if they walk to either side of you, and the auto attack is still worthless, even when it crits.

It’s a fun build in theory and nice when you get the crits you want on your target, but to be blunt, it’s mediocre at best; power necromancers are still in a sorry state.

Once again this is simply a pve build, and we have incredible aoe if you haven’t seen the videos take a look at the amount of damage you can output with wells (on a 35 second CD).

Drac, check out our podcasts for even more nuggets of great Necromancer information. PVE wise, you can run just about any build and be effective up to a certain level of Fractals.

I run Minions or the max Axe Damage build both are pretty hilariously awesome.

If you want to be successful with tournaments, your buddies need to pick a class and sit with it or your build will be tough to work with. Trap rangers and a D/D ele are ridiculously awesome in terms spirit watch. I would make sure you run with your mesmer(if you have one) and ranger, than keep greater marks while running the fear mancer build for control.

The three of you should be able to take down just about any other group. The key to good tournament play is to have one back bunker, 1 forward bunker, 1 roamer, and two guys to help push with the forward bunker. Your Necro will excel with you and the ranger as your push and orb clearing team. The D/D is your roamer, and the Guardian or Mesmer or Engineer as your bunkers.

I think they did it to bring more underwater battles, but I rarely ever lose in an underwater fight. We have ridiculously awesome skills underwater.

bhagwad.4281:

Roe.3679:

I kill a very high percent of thieves I encounter while roaming in wvw. Some people feel that Necros can’t roam, but I roam solo regularly with a condition build and I do just fine. But if you read these forums, apparently it’s not even possible. I don’t know where all these super thieves are, but I’m not encountering them on t1.

Unlike how I feel with any other toon, debatably OP profession or not, I never feel as useful in evey situation as I do with my necro. From 1v1s to Zerg fights to sieges, you can do it all. Get a good build ( Nemesis’ fear build is a good place to start) and you should be fine.

Don’t listen to the naysayers, this class has a huge amount of strengths that aren’t often talked about and it isn’t as weak as people will make it out to be.

Thanks, I’ll look into the fear build. I was going for pure conditions, but let’s give this a whirl! Won’t find out for a while till I reach 80 of course. But good to know that many necros things 1v1 with thieves is not a walkover.

You will get trainwrecked in WvWvW by a decent thief before you gear up. The big issue people complain about is the inability to see one until it smacks you on the head due to stealth and culling. Anet is well aware of it and fixing it.

Here is my theory with thieves. If I can force a fight reset than I win. If they run I win. If I kill them, than I win. The only way they can win is if I die. Since I have played against thieves for some time, there are some really really good ones that are impossible to kill especially in wvwvw. However, don’t be disheartened, I get trainwrecked by certain mesmer builds, and still don’t like playing as a mesmer.

The biggest thing that confuses people is that they want us to be a high mobility solo class, and we aren’t. We are best in groups of 5 or more where we can fully utilize our strengths and cover up our weaknesses.

kitteno great work on keeping your build updated and current. I get emails and pms all the time about my video on it, and how they can get those numbers.

I am thinking of doing some testing with the blind well to boost up my condition management a bit more. I am just wondering if the two conditions that can be applied to benefit my axe damage would be worth giving up BiP or the Condition Well damage.

Navani.5281:

Has the minion AI been addressed more specifically by the devs? I haven’t read anything up on that but I feel like it’s something that should be prioritized since it’s one of the necro’s most distinguishable features. I’ve always liked the idea of being a tanky clothy caster so that’s another reason I chose Necro as my first class.

SWTOR I actually love, don’t get me wrong.. I really enjoy the plots and the voice acting and cut scenes but you’re right, it almost is offensive how in-your-face it all is. They should’ve followed the Guild Wars model in keeping the initial cost relatively high. Anyway, I’m on GW2 now and I’m pretty excited

Hola! I also came from SWTOR, and was one of the leading guide and pvp writers for the Bounty Hunter class. I helped popularize some of the most common non-Pyro builds if you read any of the older stuff I was known as theopf. I really loved SWTOR’s story and some of the open world stuff. After playing GW2 though it shocked me as to how linear SWTOR was and now whenever I look at another game they feel limiting.

Anyways, Necro’s are a unique class that require time to work through. As one player pointed out earlier, we are really good at doing the hidden things that make runs easier. We are not burst class we are condition management classes. We also offer some of the most unique utilities in tournaments out there.

For the players that say we are no good in tournaments are a joke. In high-end tournament play, there are very few thieves and warriors (which many players assume are the great classes) because they can only play one way and are typically crushed. In fact, in one of our most listened to podcasts Symbolic from Team Paradigm describes top tournaments to be Guardian/Mesmer/Elementalist/Ranger/Necro in about 90 percent of the cases. We are too good at condition management that we are brought in as the control class.

As for minions, in tournaments we can only make it to mid level as any high aoe class will wipe out your minions, and while you are still strong, you lose as significant portion of your survival. I run with Minions everywhere, and 75 percent of the people have no idea how to beat a MM player with some semblance of skills. The great players will find a way.

In pve and dungeons, we are perfectly fine except for high-end fractals where Agony wrecks the minions too fast. A-net is working on implementing shared agony resist, but I still don’t think that will be enough to help the minions at that level. However, Necro’s are absolutely fine in high end fractals. I have had several Necromancers on my podcasts who are well over fractal 40 in multiple different builds.

TLDR: Check out our podcasts for some great advice, and Necros are the ultimate team player.

Duration is greater than condition damage at a certain point, the problem lies in the fact that in both PVP and PVE Damage will win because of the 25 stack cap (in pve) and the sheer volume of condition cleansing in pvp.

This means in most cases Damage > than Duration unless you are the only condition player in the run. It’s why the Necromancer support and Hybrid are becoming more popular in the Necro Community. Other classes can build their stacks faster allowing which means we need to find someway to benefit grouping.

Because we need some more questions to answer!

Andele.1306:

This is the first time since Nemesis that a transcript would have been useful…

I will try to start doing it. It is a lot of work. I think at best I can start doing a brief run down of what was said. Transcription software is not cheap, and neither is getting the podcasts transcribed. If we end up with a sponsor at some point, I will look into transcriptions more.

In our 6th episode, Bas is on vacation so Rennoko stops by to guest host with Bhawb. They get the chance to sit down with renowned forum poster CHIPS. CHIPS brought a unique outlook to the show. We covered world vs world vs world zergs, necro support roles, underwater combat, and then some of your questions. Thank you CHIPS for taking the opportunity to continue educating Necromancers everywhere.

Next week: Build Discussions

http://sittingonacouch.com/the-gw2-necro-podcast-but-of-corpse-ep-6/

Thanks to Rennoko, Bhawb, and CHIPS for getting together.

imaMedievalman.1645:

Hey guys I’m enjoying your podcasts. I think you should post them on youtube though. You would probably get more attention and people would be able to leave comments/questions.

They are on YouTube in audio form. I am working on getting videos to go with the audio. There is a link on the website. If you go to YouTube and search for but of corpse it will come up.

Rennoko.5731:

kitteno.5698:

@rennoko

1. close to death = 10% dps increase

Yes, overall that would be correct, but if the intention of your video was to really show the “big critz” side of the axe, I was pointing out you would see bigger more impressive crits with that trait UNDER 50%, where you could focus your video on. Axe training is of course better in a general sense, but your topic was on maximum damage. Since you didn’t specify in a single round of ghastly claws, or over the course of a 5 min fight.

The max ghastly claw you saw could be 5% bigger, thats all

You would see a bigger number, but you wouldn’t see more damage over the length of the fight unless the 50 percent lasted much longer than above 50 percent. With an axe axe training is always better because more ghastly claws and more steady damage equals more overall damage. With any other weapon close to death will win, but in terms of total damage with an axe axe training wins unless you can guarantee that the under 50 lasts longer than the above 50 by the amount of extra ghastly claws given up.

Mattamis.8143:

meanwhile danger, why not post a video of your gameplay against thieves and have the people here (who are obviously just trying to be helpful) critique what you are doing, couldn’t hurt

Danger is a monthly troll, if we wait him out a few days he goes away.

dangerdoom.3862:

Riiiight, your marks will make him run away. Guys noone has a video to show us how to fight those thieves? I’m serious, i can place all my marks down, go deathshroud fear him more, run away with spectral walk but he keeps on jumping me.

I go away on vacation and the negative nancy trolls came back. I guess you heard the news that our forums were becoming a positive helpful place and figured you needed to return.

To the op, the tips given by talentless, war mourner, and others about successful thief killing is correct. I do it in tournaments and wvwvw. Is it tough? Sure, but there are way worse classes for the necro. I consider anytime a thief runs from me a win. I have been hit for a total of 22k once by a thief the amazing thing was I was still alive and he wasn’t by the end.

Have I died to really good thieves? Sure, especially the cannons who surprise you and your fingers lock up and you have no ds. Does it happen all the time, like the trolls suggest? Not even close. Most really good thieves avoid necros, unless you are already in a fight with someone. I actually know one of the few top tournament thieves (it’s really rare to have a thief in a top tournament team) he prefers to avoid them unless they are focused elsewhere.

In our Friday episode (recording on Thursday), Rennoko and Bhawb will be talking with none other than CHiPs. One of our upcoming desires is to have a list of questions to ask our guest.

Remember this podcast is about the Necromancer community.

If there is anyone you want to us to try and talk to or cover please let us know. For now, Post any questions you would like us to ask CHiPs or PM bhawb or Rennoko.

I am on vacation for the week so Rennoko will be guest hosting.

One of the key conversations that several players and I have had about the Necromancer is concerning balance. There are so many variable that go into creating a balanced class that it reminded me of a great conversation I had once. Since I am on vacation and this week’s BoC episode will be hosted by Rennoko and Bhawb, I decided to publish a conversation piece that Bhawb and I had awhile back about the effect of balance in Gaming and how several things can get misunderstood.

http://sittingonacouch.com/balance-in-gaming/

Any feedback is appreciated.

Just for reference, tak and the podcast was about pve power builds. He is not a wvwvw or tournament player. What may work better in tournaments in wvwvw is not always best in dungeons. Using terror offensively is great in dungeons, but is probably better used defensively in tournaments.

I have used the fear build in wvwvw, chips, and it is pretty hilarious to watch 1800 ticks on players.

vicious.5683:

Bhawb.7408:

I’ve played minions in PvP almost exclusively since beta. The melee minions sometimes screw up, but it is incredibly rare.

no, is not that rare.

here is another one: In downed state, sometimes the flesh golem hits your target, sometimes not, this happen half the time (it’s so good when it actually attack).

No one target the flesh golem, cause it’s not a problem in terms of damage or condition. They just have to run a little to avoid golem’s attacks, until the minion lose target.

Really, you should pay more attention.

You should pay attention. He is correct. Their ai is tied to you attacks. Two single target attacks will change their target. Their ai is very simple to grasp once you pick up the method. Unfortunately, that is tough for many of us to do. My minions are reliable 95 percent of the time. Bone minions can get wonky, and flesh golem sometimes bugs, but usually when he does its my fault.

I think we probably should have covered that you stepped away from the game for a bit. Sorry about that.

Nothing that needs to be triggered works on downed players. This includes marks, ranger traps, and thief traps. The only downed person who can trigger these are mesmers, thieves, and elementalist because they move during downed state and can therefore trigger it.

Haha, those are some pretty good ones.

In this episode of But of Corpse, we sit down and talk with Takaruza of Guildwars2guru fame. Takaruza is one of the original necro guide writers over on the guru, and has been a huge proponent of the powermancer. We covered the effectiveness of the powermancer in dungeons, some common misperceptions, what the SotG means for the future of the necromancer, and how to effectively write a guide.

Have a great time enjoy, and please send us questions.

http://sittingonacouch.com/the-gw2-necro-podcast-but-of-corpse-ep-5/

Red SuperGiant.8653:

off topic but can someone give me an invite to the guild pleaaaseeee

Whisper anyone in game. I am out of town for the week.

They changed their mind. In fact in the last sotg on guildwars2guru.com. They said they were keeping it the way it is.

One of our goals on the Necro Podcast is to bring great community feedback onto the podcast. We started a new portion of the show that we call Podcast Posting we will tag a post and then talk about it as well as give our comments on that podcast.

We also want to incorporate more questions and answers with our guests. So we are going to be starting a segment called “5 Questions”

If you have questions that you would like us to cover on a future episode this is the place to post them or if you have a guest you would like us to bring on in the future this is the place to post it.

Please limit your questions to the game itself as we cannot answer questions that are more for Arenanet designers. Each week we will take a few questions and highlight them in the podcast and then try to answer a few them.

Thanks again for everything the Necromancer Community brings to the game.

Visionary.5681:

I think the reason that Necro has so many builds that people are willing to run is. We dont have 1 built that completely outshines all the others, to a massive massive degree.

Most (if not all) other classes have 1 spec that is just miles better than all the others. This is why there are lots of diverse specs used by the Necromancer Community. It isnt due to awsome balance, its due to not excelling at anything.

My example would be ; If you compare an ele to a necro, there are lots of specs out there for elementalists, where they could achieve similar results to a necro of similar spec. The reason they dont is , they have 1 awsome spec.

But that’s not a necro issue, that’s an every other class is broken issue. I have said this before and will continue saying it. We are the only current class that regardless of which damage build we go with whether it be Condition, Hybrid, Power, or Minion we will be close in terms of damage and utility. Every other class doesn’t have this type of balance.

You are complaining that we don’t have an awesome build, but that’s not true we have an awesome class. The rest are stuck with doing only one build to be competitive. Each of those single buidls are beatable by a necro. The fact that all of our builds can hold their own against those build is why they said we want other classes to be as diverse as a Necro.

TLDR: Having multiple builds is better than having one great niche build

Axe and scepter are your ranged dps weapons. Staff is more of a support based weapon. There are some fantastic support builds out there and a few high damage Axe builds.

Scepter/Dagger is a great condition damage build

Dundir.2853:

Maybe something like The Guarded

Not bad. I was thinking of names like “I like Big Boons” or “Booned” or “Hammer & Boon” or “Blocks, Boons, and Bunkers” or even “Virtued”

fishergrip.4082:

Bas.7406:

fishergrip.4082:

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.

Hey, I just realized we are facing you guys in WvWvW this week. Curse you Kaineng and your 20 plus man zerg teams that caught me all by my lonesome outside a supply camp.

I found several things extremely humorous and cheared when I heard the Minionmaster mentioned. I actually do trainwreck GS guys, and use the Minions as shields to fight their GS. I rarely die to a GS Mesmer, I can even wreck a glamour mesmer, and immortal mesmer.

@Kardiamond – If a 100b warrior kills all my minions than I am an idiot for bringing only melee minions and standing next to flesh wurm. I have never ever lost to a GS warrior as a MM in a 1v1 even when he got the first shot. There are way too many ways to offset his damage, and when he kills my minions I resummon them.

I recently fought the top glamour mesmer in a few duels, and wrecked her once as a MM, and she wrecked me because I played like an idiot and stood on my minions and she just wrecked us with conditions. Even then I was able to get my minions back up with enough time to almost kill her.

My personal favorite moment was when the mentioned that we need more ways to remove boons and change them to conditions haha!

For anything larger than 10 man – Conditiomancers offer so much utility and damage that it’s almost always a better choice.

For havoc squads of 10 or less power mancer and Minions come into play a lot more and prove to be effective.

We have had two very strong wvwvw guests on the podcast, check it out when you get time, and they offer some great advice on two different styles of play.

haha, I don’t know if that’s fail. I should video tape some of my really bad fights in wvwvw. I fought the top glamour mesmer in the game, and he has a recording of me dying multiple times before I finally killed him haha.

We really need to get an EU guy who can focus on getting you guys together for grouping. I will see if I can talk to a few guys, and we can do something.