Guild Wars 2

Vamp builds basically use a bunch of the vamp sigils/runes/food along with up to 30 in blood magic (you can get 3x siphoning +better siphoning) and high crit chance. Looking at your build, it seems like it does all that just fine, it’d really just be tweaking to fit your playstyle and maybe fixing anything you find in game.

You asked at the end if you are being too “kitteny” about this. I said yes.

Devs read everything that happens here, they just don’t post. There have been tons of bug fixes and changes overall since launch to the Necromancer (Epidemic was a fix, it never should have worked like it did at launch), I’d suggest you go through the backlog of changes if you want specifics as to what was changed.

In every aspect of the game, we are near the top. PvE we don’t have the utility of Mesmers or the raw damage of Warriors, WvW we aren’t mobile, but in zergs are absolutely amazing, and PvP is just so stale that its impossible to say what really is good or not until there is a significant community playing again. But just because one or two classes (or more specifically one or two builds, no other class can even touch our variety right now) are better in each aspect doesn’t make us bad or abandoned.

Do Necromancers need fixes still? Yes. Are we bottom of the barrel though? Far from it. So back to the original answer, yes, you are being too kitteny about it.

Negative Vision.5982:

Am I just being too kitten y about this?

Yes.

CHIPS.6018:

….

2) PVT ele damage is pathetic. Sure they have some decent burst damage, but once you compare it to actual bursts, a perfect ele burst is worse than single button presses on actual burst builds. Also, not everyone runs PVT gear, I’ve consistently run rare MF gear when my server flopped between tier 1 and tier 2, it served me just fine, it just requires you to not be an idiot (too hard of a requirement for most WvWers I realize).

3) Eles have attunement CD, they go 30 into arcana so it isn’t so bloody obvious when you can kill them

If you are sitting with a single weapon and never swapping, you are the same as that ele who sits in fire attunement all day.

Tier of WvW means absolutely, completely NOTHING. I’ve been in every single tier, I have played against nearly every server. Top tier servers are top tier for 2 reasons: decent commanders to organize groups, and tons of people. If they don’t have tons of people, I don’t care how good you are, you will never be “top tier”, because zerging > skill. And then you need decent shepherds to lead the sheep around to their next pasture. Lots of people online (needs to be around the clock too, need the night crew) + commanders = tier 1, that is all you need; skill be kitten

There is a reason I didn’t pick a guy, the girls had way better armor :P

I agree, there should definitely be more choices, and I am sure there will be in time. I think its an issue of at launch, they could only have so much, and it wasn’t subject to community appraisal (to my knowledge); they couldn’t really know what people would like, they just had the small team looking at it. Now that they see what people like and what they want, they will be able to actually release it in the future when they release new sets (which is going to happen in every expansion).

One day maybe we’ll have half as many armor sets as we do dyes, that would give choices.

Posting on the forums is for people who want to get an opinion across. The vast majority of those people are ones who have had bad experiences in game, and thus go to the forums to vent their frustration. Never take what happens on the forums as the overall feel of the actual community in game; there are a lot of Necros out there, and a lot of people that love the class.

Every single class in this game has a bunch of people that complain incessantly, its human nature.

Necromancers counter their own MM builds, not much of a surprise considering every non-MM necro build has some kind of AoE nuke. Assuming the MM lets you live long enough.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Bhawb.7408:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I just wish there were better diversity in armor styles in general. Virtually all Light armor pants are the same for both males and females: slacks underneath a skirt, usually open in the front.

There is a lot of diversity. They have quite a few “niche” looking pieces like the Tribal/Dry Bones sets, and then a lot of varying sets that are more standard light armor (because they are going to be more popular).

I respectfully disagree.

There are a few that break the mold, but even then not as much as I would like. When I look at that gallery, I see a strong pattern emerge.

So… I said that there was good light armor diversity, and you send a picture of medium armor?

Edit: looking at the links between the 2 you posted, I just think the links failed. I agree there are patterns (did you not expect female humans to wear dresses and skirts?), but that is always going to be the case. There are only so many different ways to have pants, and they needed progression (it doesn’t make sense to get super amazing kitten armor at level 1), and most of the really generic stuff is low level that everyone gets rid of eventually.

Because it is a transformation spell, why does it seem so strange that when you transform into something else, you actually become something else…

You could theoretically go scepter still, just make sure that all your gear has condition damage, and your runes are condition duration (you do get 20% of that from Spite), you’ll only be losing out on at most 300 condition damage, 20% overall bleed duration, and 33% scepter condition duration (from the traits you don’t have in curses), and frankly that isn’t a huge deal since, like I said, if you are using scepter you aren’t aiming to min/max.

Flesh Wurm is the only minion that shouldn’t be out every single second that he can be (since you want him to be placed in the right area).

1) Whose pet is better is debatable, it just depends on what your intent is
2) The fears don’t even begin to compare. Thieves get a single fear, only against necromancers, on a 45 second CD; warriors get a single fear on an eighty second CD that only lasts longer than ours if you are close enough; every Necromancer gets a fear on a 20 second CD, staff gives us an AoE fear on a 40s CD, we can also get 2 fears from flipping boons, one from being stunned, and one from being downed, can be traited to do huge damage per tick, and can be traited to have double duration. It is incomparable what we can do with fears and what they can.
3) Epidemic. A single epidemic totally and completely outclasses everyone else’s condition application.

Scepter dagger is fine in PvE because PvE can easily be done using whatever you feel like. If you are looking to min/max your minions, then you are looking at axe, focus, and staff. Axe/Focus stacks vulnerability, with cripple and chill to keep them slowed, staff gives you AoE control, a combo field, and minion support to keep them alive. With Scepter, you get… cripple, and that’s it.

If the question is, what can I make work in PvE? Then go ahead and run scepter with minions, and I’ll run my condition build using main hand dagger and berzerker gear. But if you are looking at the strongest way to use minions in PvE, its axe/focus, staff, and power gear.

The Necromancer is a theme they brought over. There was no possible way they could have recreated everything a Necromancer was in GW1 while losing at least 50% of the skills, and having totally new mechanics. It wasn’t a direct transistion in the slightest, it was a theme (curses, blood, death, minions, etc) that they then applied to a totally different game.

The GW1 Necromancer is, and always will be, exclusive to GW1. If you don’t like the transition, you outlined why that is a totally valid feeling (I miss a lot of what you mentioned), but this isn’t the GW1 Necro, this is an entirely new game, with new mechanics, and as such a whole new Necromancer profession.

Support eles outheal/damage/whatever because of combo fields. If you don’t include that, then a support ele (just like all other ones) can do what you are mentioning but never at the same time. Yes a fire attuned ele will outdamage a support necro, but then they aren’t doing any healing. A water attuned ele will heal a lot, but their damage falls to nothing. Oh, and god forbid someone actually attack the staff ele, heck even a stray flake of grass would give them a concussion.

A support Necromancer does just fine, and realize that eles are going to eat a lot of nerf wands over time (they are going to be nerfing AoE, and that is the reason eles are so strong right now). It really comes down to which playstyle do you like more, both will fit into a team just fine.

Each profession has a bug compilation, and ANet has a support system where you can also report things.

I wouldn’t reduce it that much, minions have an average of around 10k HP if I remember, which isn’t exactly low, and attacking them is going to get you killed 11/10 times.

It’d be nice when it happens once. It wouldn’t be so nice when you finally face someone who isn’t dumb and realizes you hit like a wet noodle, lol.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I just wish there were better diversity in armor styles in general. Virtually all Light armor pants are the same for both males and females: slacks underneath a skirt, usually open in the front.

There is a lot of diversity. They have quite a few “niche” looking pieces like the Tribal/Dry Bones sets, and then a lot of varying sets that are more standard light armor (because they are going to be more popular).

If it reapplied stacks I’d be okay with it, otherwise the abilities would end up being nerfed in their instant use for the duration use. The problem being; is the area denial more useful and interesting as a gameplay mechanic than the way scepter 2 is now (damage and other things can always be fine tuned to balance, whereas mechanics are more about the gameplay). Not a bad idea at all, but it would involve a lot of thought on ANets part as to whether it warrants a change, and if this is the right change to make.

They’ll add armor with time, there is no way they were going to make everyone happy in the first 20 or so sets they released.

I would agree, if they would only apply once to each person, and not reapply or if they reapplied their own stacks. Taking Mark of Blood as an example, if you stood in its effect area for the full duration (lets say 5 seconds), you wouldn’t end up with 15 stacks of bleeds, but the 3 stacks of 8 seconds would be “refreshed” with each pulse. Otherwise these AoE effects become far too powerful for area denial.

You have to remember that they are currently balanced around the idea of a single application, if they could stack with themselves, then you start hitting issues. MoB again as an example, in PvE you could stack 25 bleeds on an area permanently. You could easily keep full poison, chill, and bleed uptime just using staff with some decent condition duration. AoE immobilize + Reaper’s Mark = 5 seconds of fear and 5k+ damage with terror.

So while I would agree if there were strict limitations put in, this very easily could become incredibly strong.

Either make sure you aren’t the one pulling, or turn off your auto attack and just attack the mob you want once, minions have a built in delay, which will let the mob come closer before they go in; its more than enough time.

And yeah, I’m sure there are a few dungeon bosses where minions are a liability (some CoE bosses come to mind), but overall you are fine running minions. WvW I wouldn’t suggest using them if you anticipate to run into more than 5 people (they’ll get confused and die to AoE), and I wouldn’t use them in tournaments unless you are going to be doing a lot of small fights on points.

And thanks for the suggestions, we always appreciate them. It is unfortunate that they get comfortable at the end and then its gone :P, hopefully it will transition better once we get rolling we see return guests; maybe they will be more comfortable on air the second time around.

Our mechanic is also far stronger (innately) than theirs. I do agree we should start with 10%, or have a way to start at 10% just to allow us some small access to DS in fights, I just don’t agree we should start with much more, or be able to.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Honestly, I feel it would be better if we just started PvP matches with 10% life force. Nobody else has to start without their class mechanic.

For any other game mode, generating life force is stupidly easy before you go into a fight.

Mesmers start without illusions and warriors start without adrenaline, it is just arguable that they have an easier time building those up, or that they have less of an impact to the very start of a fight; whereas not having DS is a big deal to glassier necro builds.

Andele.1306:

c) People real im here since beta and you still dont get my humor? HELL I MADE A NECROMANCER VERSION OF RING OF FIRE!

Your humor just doesn’t translate well

spoolin.7569:

From what I’ve noticed, they don’t follow a set list of talking points as strictly as you guys do. If you let the topics stray off it leads to a more natural conversation and a better flow of information.

If you don’t have a technical limitation, don’t be afraid to go over an hour in length. Rogan’s podcast sometimes goes up to 3 hours long because it’s just interesting conversations where he doesn’t cut off the little side tangents. They make your guest more comfortable and makes everything more interesting.

This is just my opinion but I think you guys have started a really good thing and would like to see it improve. I think a more lax, loose, and longer podcast would turn this pretty decent podcast into something great. Also I would like to hear more input from bahb, a 3 way convo is more entertaining.

Hope you guys take this into consideration

Obviously we aren’t quite as good as Howard Stern, yet

But the reason we don’t have such long interviews is frankly, this isn’t a job for us; no one here is making a penny off this. That means Bas comes home from work and takes time out of his day to do this, I come home from school and need to work my homework schedule around this, and I’m sure our guests have real life that they are working around our podcast as well. Frankly, and I can’t speak for anyone else here, I just couldn’t do the podcast at all if they were much longer than an hour.

As for the other points, we really don’t follow a “script”. What happens is we have a basic idea of what the other person knows about the game (so we talk about things they can, you know, actually talk about :P), and then Bas and I prepare questions, and we just kind of go from there. I can talk to Bas about maybe going more off script, I think our goal in the beginning though was to keep things somewhat on topic so we got some coverage on important points (like we want to have our tPvP guys talk about tournaments, so there is some coverage out there for that), maybe over time as we have more specific information we can ramble on more easily; at least its something to look into.

As for making guests comfortable, I think its going to be a lot harder in this area. Besides just being a better show host than us, Stern (to my knowledge) tends to actually have people who are already in the public eye on his show; they are already somewhat used to speaking in public. We have pretty normal people, if not to the nerdier side of things, and our group doesn’t tend to be all that great at public speaking, so what you are seeing around the 50 minute mark is when the jitters of being recorded fade away, and its just a couple people talking.

As for why I don’t talk, it is something we are working into the show. It is something we’ll just learn with time, none of us are really used to this yet, and having 3 way conversations takes more skill to do in a way that is enjoyable to listen to than 2 way with a person who jumps in rarely. Don’t worry, I’ve been trying to work on talking more though, I know you all don’t get enough of me on the forums already.

If you have greater marks traited, staff 2 will keep them all having permanent regen, and staff 4 will periodically remove conditions.

Necromancers honestly don’t need underwater buffs, we’re up there with rangers for being insanely strong underwater.

Play it a lot, experiment a lot, and learn everything you can about the different traits, skills, and different things you can do. Necromancer is one class where you really need to know a lot of the specifics well before you can start doing a lot on your own.

Besides that, read and follow Nemesis guides, and copy what he does until you feel like you know enough to do things on your own.

You don’t need to win your first fight, just lead off with a LF generating move (or do one quickly enough).

Because Necromancers have to be decked out in black emo/goth looking crap with leather straps? Necromancers aren’t some creepy weirdos that play around in cemetaries at night and listen to Slayer (no offense to Slayer fans), they just control the “darker” side of magic (what most people would consider Black Magic).

Most of the light armor sets fit them just fine, barring the “frillier” stuff like the Winged set.

spoj.9672:

You mentioned its our stunbreaker. DS doesnt stun break, you can cast it while stunned but you still cant do anything. Would be nice if foot in the grave actually made it a stunbreak aswell as 3 seconds of stability, seeing as we have a lack of decent low cooldown stunbreaks.

A stun breaker on a 10 second CD that also makes you immune to CC for the next 3 seconds and acts as a second life bar; I can hear the QQing already.

I always bring Flesh Wurm with me to PvP, it lets you get about halfway from mid to back point for decent defense (as long as you are really paying attention), and lets you do objectives in the area while safely being able to make it back to point. It is also on a decent recharge, and gives LF as well as not just breaking stun but getting you all the way out of danger.

That is pretty much exactly what I’ve heard from them as well. I used to 1v1 some ele’s in my PvP guild, I would usually win, but it would take almost an entire game per fight, and we’d both end up having multiple moments of being within one burst attack of dying, then healing back up to full and basically starting all over again.

It was painful, so very painful.

It is perfectly possible to use shaman gear to use a support necromancer, but the builds end up being a decent bit different to focus on conditions not power.

In PvE, just go ahead and run a berzerker build with your minions if you want the highest damage. Minions and condition weapons are okay, but not the best unless you are running an atypical minion build.

I’ve 1v1 D/D eles and won plenty of times. Fights will also take 5-10 minutes, so more likely than not the elementalist hits minute 3-4 and just leaves, and frankly I think we’re both happy with that because the fights get exceptionally boring after the first few rotations.

Beating them depends on your build, but you can try killing their boons, timing your conditions to right after they use their water attunement cleansing, interrupting their rotation (eles are hugely dependent on rotations). It just depends, but generally speaking if you keep them on the defensive they just don’t have the time to sit in fire attunement hitting you like a wet noodle long enough to kill you, and instead hit you like a wet paper noodle because they spend most of their time in water attunement and earth playing defensive.

But really, 1v1ing D/D eles is just flat out annoying, not because of difficulty but because you are both going to be there for ages.

That is the design of the engineer; to be able to adapt via kits. The cost of that is those types of “I can do everything” builds are going to be worse in every situation than any kind of specialized build. The problem is that this game doesn’t really reward you for that, it might be nice for a new player who doesn’t know what to expect, but in all aspects of the game, you are much better of specializing into a single area and maximizing your efficiency in that role, than being average at a bunch of things.

Dustfinger.9510:

my MM isn’t too high level but the research I’ve done about them is to stay away from power as most of the damage comes from minions that don’t scale. This is a benefit because it let’s you maintain consistant damage while still using your gear to concentrate on defense and survivability.

But, you don’t use all your minions so I’m interested to see what the more experienced players have to say

In PvP, I totally agree with you; Soldier MM is amazing because you can have full defensive stats without really losing a lot of damage (like a lot of PVT builds do). However this is PvE, and defensive stats aren’t really going to be needed for anything, so maxing out his personal damage works just fine.

I’ve had some success against them when using minions, it depends on how good the ranger is at swapping pets (especially keeping them from getting downed, that 60 second recharge will kill you). Just like a lot of things, it is a skill matchup, and in most cases I just find that someone’s teammate shows up before the fight is over unless one of us screws up hard.

So I just tested the runes, and I got a very weird result. Merely equipping the 6th rune of the Ranger set gave a 5% bonus increase regardless of whether I had a minion out or not.

Spectrals are very underrated, I agree OP. You’re even leaving out another really cool part of attunement, 5% LF, or an eHP “heal” of 3%-3.9% (depending on SR investment), which is a really nice side benefit for an already nice trait.

Idk, I’m just happy I can sit safe inside my keep and spam marks and wells on the inside of the door to hit all the silly people attacking the door.

Acaro.4067:

I don´t know if that´s a good idea, because as a bunker you´re soaking up damage with ds all the time and you don´t know if you´ll have it ready when you need it. You could think about a mm running it if you don´t want your burst necro to take it, he´ll still be able to pick the most important mm traits (+50% minion health and +30% damage)

We are currently using the MM as a back point defender who ventures out of the hole when it seems safe to do so and still get back in time (depends on map for what you will do). So the MM wouldn’t really be involved with many fights where that is important, and in smaller fights as long as there aren’t two thieves you are fine to let one guy sit on the ground, as standing still to res with minions around is going to get you shut down fast. That 30 also severely reduces MM effectiveness, that healing you get from 20 in blood magic is huge.

Bas.7406:

Technically I like the Podcasts best but that’s just me :P. Nemesis has taken over your role as Elder Tutorial Statesman. I am the Rainbow up the butt salesman, and Bhawb is our resident everything Expert :P.

Fixed that for you

Just fix up the few glitches in their AI and we’re set. They aren’t supposed to be fully controllable (seriously, if you played GW1 you’d realize how nice being able to focus a target is), just make their current controls work 100% of the time.

Caris.1594:

I see.

What about weapon sigils? I was thinking of the Sigil of Force for the flat dmg bonus, but saw someone somewhere talk about sigil of perception, so maybe that would be a better choice?

I’d suggest 1 stacking sigil (its PvE and super easy to do) for an easy +250 power or precision (whichever you choose) on your set with 2 weapons, and then either flat damage bonus or something that activates on switch. Alternatively you could go the one that procs an AoE flame blast.

And I’ve never specifically tested the runes, I’ll actually head in game to go try that out (should be an easy test).

I personally don’t like the power rune sets for this kind of build. Ranger will give you high crit chance, high crit damage, and close to a permanent 5% damage boost. Really its the 6th part I like best, a 5% damage boost I would think would put in more work than a bit of extra power (which you should have tons of going 30 into spite and using berzerker gear, I’d think).

I’m assuming you are talking about PvE (just based on context) so I’d suggest Berzerker gear. You shouldn’t be in any danger of dying (its easy to use gear with no defensive stats in PvE), and if you already have axe training berzerker gear will work out nicely.

With that, just use some runes that boost your personal damage. Ranger runes would probably work well (I’m pretty sure minions count as companions), but that is really up to what you think you need.

I’d argue that the fact that Necromancers have such a huge variety of viable builds shows that we are more balanced than Mesmers, who have 2-3 builds per game mode. For the other part, they are both wrong. There are niche uses for both classes that no one else can do.