Guild Wars 2

Cristobal.8640:

Brujeria.7536:

Im not good at editing pics, but do i qualify?

That’s a mesmer.

Looks good tho

EDIT: My bad, It’s not a mesmer as it’s wielding a dagger… How did you get the mesmer mask with your necro?

Create a Mesmer with the desired mask, buy a white lowlevel headgear of the TP and transmute it. It shouldn’t be soulbound.

Roe.3679:

Brujeria.7536:

Im not good at editing pics, but do i qualify?

We have a lot of the same gear

What color green is that?

Its Midnight Green. Midnight Teal and Midnight Yew look almost the same too.

My idea is a AOE/Cleave, Siphoning, Mobility based skillset with a strong combat presence like all other melee 2H weapons.

1

• Basic Chain, slow attackspeed, good damage

1. AOE Cleave in a cone
2. Second Cleavestrike in a cone, 1 Second of Weakness
3. Third cleavestrike, granting 3% Lifeforce. Damage and Lifeforcegain increased by 50% if only one target hit

2.

• Kind of a signature spell with a strong combat presence

1. Channel for 3 Seconds, cant move while channel
2. Necrotic energy hits up to 3 Enemys in front of you, Pulses each 0,5 Seconds
3. Each hit bounces 3 times to a random enemy in range of 300 of the last target, each enemy can be hit once per pulse only(up to 9 possible hits per pulse)
4. Siphons life on every hit and granting 1,5% Lifeforce for every unique target hit during channeling
5. initial range, possible bounce range is 300 from the point of impact

3.

• Teleport / Mobility Spell

1. 900 Range
2. Groundtarget skill, effect look like a bigger and faster animation of dagger#4
3. Teleport to the target location slash and deal initial damage and create a small Well for 3 seconds, poisoning and blinding foes each second
4. Whirl finisher
5. Can be activated again within 3 seconds for a second slash causing a short chill
   #Second whirl finisher

4.
* Life Steal

1. Range
2. Throw a Spectral Greataxe into your enemy, causing initial medium damage
3. Projectile finisher
4. Siphons health every second
5. duration ~ 6 Seconds
6. Can be activated again to immediatly stop the effect by tearing out the Axe of the victim, causing a bigger ammount of heal and damage, as well as a AOE heal for every ally around the target
7. activating the chain will also cause a 1 second stun/daze if the target is below 50% health

5.

• Defensive skill

1. Block all Incoming attacks for 3 seconds
2. Can move while blocking
3. After the block ends you strike violently with your Greataxe, damaging and launching targets infront of you
4. Range of Launch and Damage increases with the number of attacks blocked
5. Maybe leap finisher

Im not good at editing pics, but do i qualify?

This signet is just horrible. Very powerful active effect, terribad passive effect. It doenst feel like a signet at all, the rezz itself should be a regular spell.
The passive effect should be buffed a bit, maybe add a passive regeneration as mentioned before, and a completly different active effect.

Its not really useful for Minionmasters. you need to kill 26 mobs for it to spawn, it then stays for only 60 seconds, thats maybe 2 or 3 smaller fights against thrashmobs. Then it has an internal cooldown before it can be summoned again. You then have to kill 26 mobs again. The uptime seems to be really terrible.

Only worthwhile if they remove the internal cooldown OR make it permanent until killed

Edit: I just tested it, after the fleshreaver dies all charges are removed. I killed random mobs after the reaver died, no new charges where generated, i did this for exactly 11 minutes, removing the sigilweapon after 5 minutes and equip it again, with NO additional charges generated. So either the summonin is limited to one time before getting downed, it has a internal cooldown of more then 11 minutes, or it is simply bugged. Either way its really not worth it

Actually a pretty good idea , would benefit every build and the attrition theme.
However 2 things come to my mind:

- This condition will not be necro exclusive (as stated in the SOTG).
Other professions will get this condition too, and i think its a bit too much constructed around the Necro theme.
It would help with necro problems nice though, but other professions would get this attrition tool as well, which basicly can nullify its effects in PVP /WVW settings

- We can not be healed while in Deathshroud. So i would feel kinda forced to leave Deathshroud after using it to make sure I get a guaranteed benefit in case of fast removal.

Xsorus.2507:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIEt3jQn55U

What kind of gear do you use in those Vids? PVT?

Increased Minion HP is always nice, i would prefer a faster rate of attack for the worm though.
The dark themed condition will be cool, it wont be unique for necros , but i think it would only fit onto thief and maybe mesmer.

It needs a line of sight as it is a projectile, and also it will only home if you stay inside of 900 range from launch until hitting the target. If your too far away it will fire in a straight line, but can still port you if it hits something.

My condition idea would :
Corruption -

Stacks in Duration, enemy suffers DOT Damage, damage value similar to poison or a bit higher.

Additionally everyone hitting the corrupted target siphons life.

The Siphon heal value could be affected by healing power, the additional damage per hit could be increased by power, or can even be combined. Either based on the Necros stats, or on the attackers stats.

This siphon would also work for conditions, once per second for DOT based conditions. I Think it wouldnt be too strong because there are only 5 dot like conditions in the game (bleed,poison,fear,burn,and corruption) this would be max 5ticks per second through conditions, although its pretty impossible for only one class to inflict ALL of them. Fear is limited, Necros have no burn, Thief has no burn, Ele has no Poison… incase they want to add that condition to those classes.

Also, this skills healing part could be affected by our Blood Magic trait line, giving the necro further build variety and making a healing/bunker or healing/condition build stronger, as well as a vampiric kind of build.

As for the skill itself, #5 would create a medium sized (360 range) field, dealing damage every second and applying the new condition.

Maybe this skill could also have a sequence , i think it would be fitting due to the necros lack of such skills. You could reactivate it to teleport into that area (maybe a blast finisher?) , consuming the field dealing higher damage and summon a jagged horror for each enemy hit (5max). This skill would also be interesting for minionmasters then. Also helps us with chasing or escaping.

- auras / mist. imagine a whirling element / crystalshards / black goo around your hand. like the eles attunement effects only much more detailed and bigger

- mojo/shrumpheads/voodoo dolls. like witchdoctor in Diablo 3. could contain highly specialized skills for one purpose

- clawfinger. might at you fingertips. imagine a mean asura necro drawing symbols with his finger causing havoc and fear

- blowdarts ! steal them from hylek

- skulls – like adam from gw1

- a “swordwhip” like that guy from castlevania series

I dont think it will do much to us. maybe a slight staff mark nerf, wells will most likely go untouched. same as epidemic. they are very situnational. The nerfs most likely will be targeted at the weapon aoe skills – ele will be hitted the most. but i could imagine they also nerf the meele weapons with a wider range of attack. warrior greatsword autoattack for example. cleave is a way of AOE as well.

-Corrosive Poison Cloud-

Useless. What did the devs say about racial skills? This is the exact same thing as the asura radiation field only with a horrible animation. Also if anybody can be kept inside for the entire duration i wouldnt use this skill ever.

-Corrupt Boon-

Too unreliable. Its borderline OP if u cancel elite skills with it, and its useless if your enemy doenst use boons. Complete waste also in PVE.

Epidemic

Very strong in condition builds – useless in any other build. A way to make condition builds more effective in PVE-

-Plague Signet-

Useless. Long cooldown, Active is lackluster, passive is also weird. I dont even use this skill in condition builds because it basicly doenst give me anything i have a real use for.

Signet of Spite

Horrible long cooldown. Weak effects, only crap conditions. Wheres the freeze? Wheres the fear? I dont take it for ~ 5 secs of one stacked conditions. Also in a power build the active is useless – in condition builds the passive is pretty useless.

Signet of the Locust

- very underrated active. Its one of the must have skills on any build for me. 25 passive speed and up to 4k – 6k heal? Yes please. Cooldown is a bit long and the damage is a bit low though.

Signet of Undeath

justified cooldown – however the passive effect is way to weak compared to the active strenght, and the passive isn’t active during that awfull long cooldown.

Spectral Armor

useable if you are in desperate need of a reliable stunbreaker. CAN give you a potential refill of your Lifeforce bar. However, long cooldown pretty much ruins it.

Spectral Walk

Can be useable. I would never pick a utility skill only for that speed bost though. Life force generation and juking is good. Preventing fall damage is nice, but i think more thats a bug and not intended at all.

Spectral Wall

a wall that gives… protection? thats all? dont even bother using it in pve or spvp. It CAN be usefull in wvw to give that entire zerg a 10 second of protection if they run in a long line – however its way to unreliable for a spot on my bar.

Well of Corruption

okay skill, has its good moments, is pretty popular pick but only because there are no better choices.

Well of Darkness
-basicly good. however the pulse rate is too fast to be really usefull, 1/s is too slow for multi hit skills – yet again its to fast to get the full 5 blinds out at slower attackers. horrible long cooldown. decent in PVE and against thieves in pvp and wvw.

Well of Power

really? no real use for this skill. is basicly a crippled version of the mesmers nullfield. if i really want to get rid of conditions have better ways

Well of Suffering

-probably the most picked utility skill. does good damage, good vulnerability. Also i think its just so popular because its really the only reliable damage utlity skill available.

Summon Bone Fiend

-nope – weak, fragile, sequence skill is very unreliable. okay for PVE Minionmasters only.

Summon Bone Minions

blast finisher. fire and forget pets. if they remove the pet part altogether it would be the same thing. can be usefull, feels weird to use a pet skill only to blow them up 0.1 second after summoning.

Summon Flesh Wurm

actually a really nice skill. the only minion skill that has a purpose outside of a MM build. this is like minions skills should be – the only minion skill i would pick without minion traits.

Summon Shadow Fiend

- nope again. what is this pet for? low damage, average health, gapcloser with blind? other then in minion master builds it has no use. and even as a minion master i would pick this because the other minions are just as bad.

The main necro issue isn’t what we are able to do, it is how we do it, and how good we are at that.

Bunker – we can somewhat bunker with our base health and DS – however it gets limited by its own decay rate. It helps against burst damage but bunker against bunker for example its flat out self limiting. It also prevents you from being healed, which severly cripples 2 of our 3 heals. The HOT effect of bloodfiend and well are what could make them good – if Deathshroud wouldnt prevent it. Also all siphon life effects through traits, runes, food, sigils, are useless. Our class mechanic takes a big part of that builds potential. Also the natural decay makes it really bad. Bunker means stay alive, prevent damage, recover from damage – our lifeforce decays naturally. And that decay is very big factor against other bunkers.

Burst Damage / Glass Cannon: Our damage can we somewhat okay. Not as bursty as Thief, Warrior, Mesmer but decent. However, what makes us weaker then the mentioned classes are our ways to prevent damage – we have no real damage prevention other then DS. Also the most reliable source of burst (DS #1) gets lower and lower if we try to migiate damage. We then are left with wells and dagger AA / axe #2 for damage, this damage is still okay, but takes a lot of effort in terms of utiliy skills. All other burst classes deal more damage trough weapon skills alone – means 3 utility skills to migiate damage or adapt the build.

Conditions:
Again we are only average. We apply conditions rather slow – compare our scepter AA with other condition based auto attacks – its reliable because it hits instant without a projectile but apart from that its pretty lackluster. We have some skills that are good – scepter #2 , dagger#5, staff #2 on our weapon sets and also some nice ways to play around with conditions which makes that part most likely the strongest overall choice in spvp and wvw. Still our class mechanic adds nothing to this kind of builds. We have a gapcloser chill/bleed as only bleeding in DS. The buff to Fear with Terror damage helps a bit though. We handle and inflict conditions in a different way then other similar minded builds, which is great in terms of class diversity and with some more tweaks that kinda builds will be in a good spot.

The Metagolem build with p/v/t gear is somewhat decent – and most likely the way the necro is meant to be played as it gives the best “attrition” feeling, however if we can get an enemy down enough to finish him chances are good that they stealth/port/dash/leap away. We cant keep up with that – not even the slightest. We have 4 “teleport” skills, but how usable are they? The only halfway reliable gapcloser is DS#2. Where all other movement skills can be used offensiv and defensive alike we get stuck in one direction.

I wont comment much on our utility skills – some are good, some are too situation dependet, and most are just terrible. The thing i want to point out is – our class mechanic is the only in the entire game that interacts negative to some utility skills. DS cancels other sprectal skills – Thats just pointless and stupid – skills should get a good synergy, not the opposite.

Our elite skills also behave strange. Plague Form and Lich Form destroy minions and spectral effects – 2 of our profession based utility skilltypes – our third elite skill the Golem is really only viable if you specc for the minion improvements. This part doenst matter that much untill now as every class has weak elite skills (except mesmers)

We have “many” combo fields and finishers – most are tied to our utility skills. On land we have 2 finishers and one field – all tied to our staff. If we want to combo more then once each bluemoon, we are forced to pick the staff.

If i play the necro in WvW and get a nice 1 vs 1 duel i rarely loose. But that doenst make me feel good or strong at all. The factor isnt my skill – its the enemy skill. Most people are either upleveled, use a metafaceroll build and get panic if the one button mashing method doenst work or doenst know how to play against necros because they are encountered so rarely.

We would have so many potential to be an really awesome, interesting, and complex class. Yet we are said to be the “hardest to learn” class. Of course, we get a mix of terribad standalone skills and are forced to get something decent wotking withthem – and THAT is hard. The rest are simple skills or simple gtaoe – no sequences, no multiple uses, no timing needed, hell our own profession mechanic is just so generic and limiting its horrible.

Deathsroud looks good on paper, it also can be used decently but in most situations its so borderline useless its not even funny.

I love the necro, and even though they have so many wasted potential i enjoy playing it – i like that playstyle much more then the more simple classes – i just hope they realize and fix the coreproblems before the release of Guildwars 3

Swap boon duration and healing power.

That way you have more healing power as minion master, also Healing power does have a much better synergy with thougness compared to vitality.

I dont think dislike the idea of a minion as a minor trait in general. However the problems are:

- they look ugly, really bad design
- they have no actual use for the trait line. you skill this traits for more thougness. those minions should do something like reducing the damage you take while they are active. or transfer damage you would take on the minion instead. or you get healed when they die. or improved thougness while they are alive. ANYTHING like that for the defensive aspect

Also Protection of the Horde is in general a nice idea, but its just not fitting due to minions in general. The thougness you get per minion is pitifull low. It just makes somewhat sense if you fill your entire bar with minion skills.

Minion in general are a problem, even if their AI gets fixed the next few patches, they are so squishy. They only get good if you really use all of your utilities for them, because of the bare amount. Minions should be useful even if you decide to only pick one for your utilitys. Look at the Engineers turrets for example – they are far from being perfect, but i feel it makes much more sense to pick the net-turret as compared to bonefiend – simply because the individual purpose of each minion is just weak and rubbish. Same goes for the damage – Worm and Golem are okay damage wise. both have also a good purpose. but shadow fiend is just a weak activation effect – bone fiend is as well + VERY unreliable + it has also an cast time so unless you can chain the immobilize it will miss 80% of the time. bone minions are.. well, not really minions, they are just abused for the explosions. I feel the balance is centered too much about the second activation.

Agree, Flesh Golem looked much better in GW1. The Golem in GW2 reminds me of an absurd unicorn thing.

Bone Minions look horrible and are horrible damage wise, unless you blow them up.

I would like a ranged kind of Bone Minions – lets say u summon 3 of those with ranged attacks and you can use the ability again and one of them launchs themself at the location dealing damage – like the normal bone minion. This would help with the minion AI and the minions deal their damage reliable – bone minions die halfway unless you summon it right next to your target.

I think it would work. If a Mesmer can use a Greatsword as a longrange weapon we can use a staff as meele weapon. The Scythe is just a animation and not an actual weapon type.

Im actually very amazed that Staff as mainweapon works out so well. Very good job

Lol yeah, it feels like the decay of the LF while in DS was just “forgotten” to remove, as it was supposed to be as tronger downstate before the revamp. Downstate has that HP decay as well.

Dakiaris.2798:

Ok when something is suggested the numbers are never good 100 was a kitten example idk why it is that you guys are taking it literal…. The point is it should have a direct damage on hit boost… Vampiric and the life steal on crit both proc that’s 25 per hit… goes up to 37 with traits so 50-75 wouldn’t be unresonable…. The fact it can’t be influenced no matter what should be taken into account to you act like vulnerability would affect it… Our direct damage aoe sucks outside of wells so idk why you’re pointing out other things…….

Damage is supposed add up power for us scales HORRIBLY 90 power is only like 5-10 damage on most weps and like 50 damage to wells…. So why would this change be bad exactly ?

You have to compare that to the other signets in the game. They all get attribute damage increases. Why should the necro get something different? And our skills scale bad, i agree on that, but instead of adding a signet that increases every hit by X damage we need to get the individual skills right. Such a signet would be a must have for the current meta and i think nobody wants the necro to be a signet kitten like a warrior.

You could also add:

- Elite Transformations eliminate some of our utility skills. Why do they remove all spectral effects and kill all minions?

- No reliable long range damage. Our reliable damage source (scepter) stop at 900. Staff projectile is way to slow. If we get bad mobility and gapclosers we should at least get reliable max range damage to compensate.

Quillixx.7034:

Sheobix.8796:

There is a reason why it is slow btw. Use it to kite while you run in an arc. The straight trajectory hits a lot of foes and can fill your LF bar in a couple hits. If they made it a super fast projectile, you would have a lot of necromancers in pve upset.

On the contrary, ranger arrows pierce when traited, warrior rifle shots automatically pierce, same goes for engineer rifle and traited pistol. All of which are ~5x faster than necro staff 1, and all kite pretty much the same.

PvE kiting is based on mob speed, and player speed and positioning. These are the big 3 that establish ranged kiting. Projectile speed being faster, makes for a more accurate hit/miss ratio than a slower projectile. This will be more noticeable when factoring in range. The closer the mobs are, the less of a factor projectile speed has because time it takes for even a slow projectile to reach its target is lessened.

If the mobs aren’t clumped up enough, then it’s not the projectile speed, but the player’s speed and positioning that will need to change to hit more targets with a piercing projectile.

And also: if i recall correctly our staff is the only AOE skill that is limited to 3 Targets. Every other AOE skill can hit up to 5.

Dakiaris.2798:

I don’t see how it would be to strong for any weapon… Yea the aoe skills would be stronger but honestly necromancer aoe is lackluster vs other classes when it comes to direct damage aoe. Life siphon is a single target dagger skill with 300 range so I don’t see it as a issue since the damage is meh as it is.. Life transfer is a death shroud ability so signets don’t apply to it same goes for plague.

I don’t see it being a issue with locust swarm either due to it only hitting melee range…. If you look at numbers of every single class you would know we are behind by a decent bit especially on direct damage… This signet change wouldn’t be game breaking in the least unless it procced on conditions as well. Necromancer melee damage is much MUCH lower then other classes melee damage if you actually look at the numbers so all this could do is help.

Axe #2 hits 8 times. Dagger #2 Hits 9 Times. Dagger Autoattack is a quick chain for 4 Hits. That adds up pretty fast. Wells Hit 5 Times, up to 5 Targets. A signet should not increase the damage of some skills by more then 25% percent. This would even double the DPS by Locust swarm. A signet on no class has such a potent passive effect. In the best case its OP, in the worst cases its UP, based on the weapon.

That just cant be balanced right. And also basicly its the same thing as +90 Power, only with a fixed amount for every hit.

It would be too strong. Imagine everyhit of lifesiphon or locust swarm deals 100 true damage. Balance the numbers and it would be nice. and for the active part just increase bleeding and invul. stacks to 5, add a 1 second fear, and reduce CD.

Copenhagen.7015:

Brujeria.7536:

LanceKing.3017:

Brujeria.7536:

LanceKing.3017:

Kravick.4906:

Axe auto attack is bad. Very bad. If you want to do damage as a power necro, use dagger main hand. The only reason anyone would use axe is for the #2 ability as a finisher or the #3 ability at the start of a fight when you have multiple opponents (the retaliation stacks its duration per target hit). Never stay in axe long enough to use its auto attack. Its extremely bad.

Further more evidences. I hope ArenaNet will read this . Pics 1 and 2 are from my necromancer. Pics 3 and 4 are from my guardian friend

LOL, also note how many invulnerability stacks the necro screenshot has. Its so sad that several autoattacks are stronger then our actual “burst” skill.

Wasted 100g on that build . ANet i want a refund

I know that feel, i have around 4 or 5 necro builds in PVE, complete with armor, weapons, trinkets, trying to find something the necro excels at – but there is nothing.

- Burst: underwhelming
- Conditions: underwhelming
- Tanky/support/heal: underwhelming
- Tanky/damage: underwhelming
- Minions: underwhelming
- Vampiric: underwhelming

Perhaps your expectations are too high.

Conditions: not underwhelming. Perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
Tanky/damage: no problem here either, 2nd or 3rd tankiest class in the game.
Vampiric: Could be better but definitely not underwhelming.

We simply don’t burst, and minion builds are so-so when the AI cooperates. Never tried support heals. Perhaps Necromancer is not for you.

We are the “atrittion” based class. Yet the most “atrittion” thing we have are bleeds. And Eles for example have better bleeds and can cause constant burning. That really is underwhelming dont you think?

And Vampiric is not much more then a healing spec most of the time, a guardian for example can do that 3 times better – yet alone his Dodgeroll can heal for more then our entire Vampiric setup.

Even if we dont burst, what do we have left? Conditions and normal, sustained damage, both at we are being weaker then other classes.

Scepter is weak on getting LF, but thats okay, i mean in a full condition damage spec i have nearly no reasons why i should go into DS much – i cant extend my conditions – i dont deal much damage if specced for condition damage, our only “bleed” in DS is also our gapcloser, and as scepter you DONT want to be close to the enemy. Unless they give DS a purpose in condition builds i dont have a problem without having much LF while at a scepter weaponset.

Ontopic: The Axe itself:

give #1 a chain with an AOE part in it. Also Increase its damage and range – Currently it doenst make much sense – we get severly kited by 900 and 1200 Range weapons, and we get severly outdamaged by anything with meelerange

axe #2 needs an huge damage increase and something to make it interesting. I would say take the Warriors 100 Blades basedamage and scaling and add 20% damage for being only a single target spell – that would be balanced. We get much LF, but thats not enough for a secondary effect. Warriors for example get adrenaline for EVERY hit, giving our axe only LF generation is so boring and generic. Also Increase range to 900

axe #3 is basicly fine.

KirinDave.6451:

Actually they really cannot do all of these things at once “in a matter of seconds.” If they’re rocking huge hits, they generally don’t have more than one condition clearing skill (Hide in Shadows cures burns, poisons and bleeds but it is on a 30s cooldown) if they’ve gone deep into their power trees for the huge hits. And if they did go into Shadow Arts, it’s actually not the easiest sell to use a trait slot for that condition clear given how many good traits are in that tree. There are no 30/30/10/0/10 builds.

By the way, I’m not trying to say, “Don’t feel frustrated.” I feel frustrated too when one of my characters gets picked out for a gankgam style beatdown. But generally I just get stood back up by my group and the thief has run away and I shrug, because we still killed the dolyaks and took the camp. I am saying, “Try to keep perspective.”

The real shame is that these tiger thieves aren’t even the scariest thieves out there. Everyone just sees them and gets confirmation bias because you can’t see what they’re doing very well. Skilled attrition p/d thieves are way more obnoxious to deal with, and more likely to be able to win 4v1s.

Thats the point: Thieves dont have to spec to deep into power. They have insane base damages, and the ability to spend all initiative into that one burst – then get away and decide what to do next. If a thief skills for power crit its okay for him to deal huge damage – but he always has insane damage and perfect escapes no matter if with traits or without. And thats just the “basic” thief form, without much thinking or skill involved. Those attrition based thieves are even more skilled and more OP.

The problem is that thieves get burst damage, sustained damage, atrittion, escape an damage prevention mechanics all for free, most of this things ONLY trhough the weapon sets. Traits and utilities enhance that even further. They have no natural downsides, but yet the abilities to choose which playstyle they want to excel at.

And that is what will get nerfed hard in the future for thieves – If a lets say “Tiger thief” without many thoughts about tactics, skill, and builds can outshine another player that “mastered” his class far more then this thief does, a nerf is really ensured. ESPECIALLY in a game that has no trinity, EVERY class has to be able to get a fair chance in 1vs 1 against EVERY other class. Right now a good thief is unkillable unless he jumps into a full zerg.

People are now capable of all things a necromancer can do – due to the pure need of trying to be on par with other classes. Thieves are yet to be fully mastered because you can get all of the OPnes of thieves even without much skill or thinking. If simple button mashing is superior to a combination of builds, skill and tactics a nerf will come. A hard nerf.

On PVE / fractals take a look at this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-ultimate-necromancer-dmg-hybrid-tutorial

A perfect guide, also with axe used as a weapon, only really viable for PVE.

As for WvW:

Classes we have a fair chance against: Ranger, Engineer
Classes we have chances against based on skill/gear: Guardian, Warrior
Classes we have almost no chance against if played well: Mesmer, Thief, Elementalist

If your alright with getting beaten up a lot during 1v1s WvW can be fun.

We are best at siegebattles with Marks and ranged wells, and good at lower scale battles 5vs 5 because of plague form

Arenanet is working on it – but slowly, little steps to balance, so yeah, not forever, but i expect us to be on par with other professions in about 6 – 7 months.

If you like dagger/warhorn you can get happy, its our strongest weaponset so far.

LanceKing.3017:

Brujeria.7536:

LanceKing.3017:

Kravick.4906:

Axe auto attack is bad. Very bad. If you want to do damage as a power necro, use dagger main hand. The only reason anyone would use axe is for the #2 ability as a finisher or the #3 ability at the start of a fight when you have multiple opponents (the retaliation stacks its duration per target hit). Never stay in axe long enough to use its auto attack. Its extremely bad.

Further more evidences. I hope ArenaNet will read this . Pics 1 and 2 are from my necromancer. Pics 3 and 4 are from my guardian friend

LOL, also note how many invulnerability stacks the necro screenshot has. Its so sad that several autoattacks are stronger then our actual “burst” skill.

Wasted 100g on that build . ANet i want a refund

I know that feel, i have around 4 or 5 necro builds in PVE, complete with armor, weapons, trinkets, trying to find something the necro excels at – but there is nothing.

- Burst: underwhelming
- Conditions: underwhelming
- Tanky/support/heal: underwhelming
- Tanky/damage: underwhelming
- Minions: underwhelming
- Vampiric: underwhelming

Derms.4758:

On the latest patchnotes, there was this on balancing:

Thief

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Necro

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

I mostly play WvW, with power/toughness/vitality gear and 20/25/25 curses/blood magic/death magic (vampiric). I have 31k hp and ~2800 armor (48k hp in plague form).

So with that said, I agree that the Thief should be boasting the highest single target damage. Fair enough. But if they eat through the highest hp pools in game in 2, 3 seconds… how is that balanced?

It would be ok if they didn’t vanish every other second, re-appearing clean of all dots, healed an all… there would actually be a fight. Now it’s just running around trying to slow, fear, weaken… but to no effect. They press the magic button number 2 and vanish, rinse and repeat.

Shouldn’t the highest damage in the game be a function of the average hp / armor in game? Lets say on average the hp is 20k (I don’t know), the highest crit should never be higher or equal to something like 15-20% of that. I’m not taking into account toughness here, because that should be a choice for further dmg reduction, not a necessity. This would also imply that the above is based on crit/power builds.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Its not that bad, if a thief jumps me, either with that elite venom or not i pop DS and fear them away, that gives me time to dodgeroll and root or daze. If DS is empty or at Cooldown i can only pray that i survive. But its a thief, its okay for him to kill things fast.

The REAL problem is: thief jumps you, if burst works ur dead, if not thief stealthes and can leave battle or wait for his cooldowns / initiative to get back up and repeat.

You can do absolutly nothing against that. If a thief does not suceed to burst you down, you actually have a fair chance, which would make battles fair and fun, but he can open battles, leave battles, extend battles – all as he wishes. There seems to be no balance in that – if a thief does not want to fight he can get away. ALWAYS.

Its also funny that a thief has more reliable ranged attacks and kiting options then an actual caster class – But thats more a balance thing on the Necromancer side.

Thiefs are even capable to do more crazy things regarding getting in and out combat, but they are yet to be discovered / used because there is no need to. They dish out insane damage by simple buttonmashing, no need to master, shadowstep, burst, dead or get away.

LanceKing.3017:

Kravick.4906:

Axe auto attack is bad. Very bad. If you want to do damage as a power necro, use dagger main hand. The only reason anyone would use axe is for the #2 ability as a finisher or the #3 ability at the start of a fight when you have multiple opponents (the retaliation stacks its duration per target hit). Never stay in axe long enough to use its auto attack. Its extremely bad.

Further more evidences. I hope ArenaNet will read this . Pics 1 and 2 are from my necromancer. Pics 3 and 4 are from my guardian friend

LOL, also note how many invulnerability stacks the necro screenshot has. Its so sad that several autoattacks are stronger then our actual “burst” skill.

-Most of the Time for the #3 to get kinda CC-chain with dagger 3. works well on thieves. -Also sure for the traits

-Blasting #1 for some damage while saving my lifebar on tank builds

- sometimes if an enemy gets downed, and im really low on health too i pop it to finish him with ds#1 – against moss classes we loose a downed vs downed fight due to useless #2 or better enemy downed skills.

-high crit builds simply for the ranged damage

- on condition builds for the terror traits to get some kinda burst into my enemy.

Things you forgot:

-weak traits, scattered traits, boring traits
-only class mechanic in the entire game which has negative drawbacks

I, sadly, have to vastly agree on the rest. I feel the Necro is underwater so much better then on land.

I think the staff is a bit lackluster in terms of design and damage. I dont mind having 4 marks on it. I consider it our specialized AOE weapon. But they should make it more interesting. Give a Mark an effect on a second activation. Let a temporary fleshwurm rise after a mark is triggered. Stuff like that would make the staff more interesting.

Also the build diversity and the traits are horrible: we have FOUR traits that are scattered all around all trait lines that all improve Marks marginally.

-double sized marks: is basicly a must. I feel marks should have that range by default, replace that trait with something better

-marks deal 10% more damage: really 10% more damage? our only real damage comes from staff#4, and a 10% damage increase is really really low and not worth a trait on its own.

-marks generate lifeforce when triggered: it helps a bit, most marks have a long cooldown and compared to other classes traits thats boring. combine it with the 10% Damage trait and it would be fine and justified to use it.

-staff cooldowns recharge 20% faster : only really affects marks. Its nice and noticeable, makes Staff#2 much more fun to use. But compare it to similar traits of other classes: they give a 20% lower cooldown, a second effect, OR affecting a second underwater weapon. I think this trait also should reduce Trident cooldowns, as we have not a single trait that improves our underwater combat.

Last the Autoattack: thats the REAL horrible thing and the most weak and unrealiable autoattack in the entire game. Its our our only 1200 Range weapon, it should be reliable. Look at Warriors Rifle, look at Mesmer Greatsword, both have a secondary effect, deal much more damage, and the most important point: they are RELIABLE. A Mesmer can keep us at 1200 range and deal reliable and high sustained single target damage, while easily avoiding every single necro autoattack by strafing only. Thats a real issue in my eyes.

Possible solutions:
Quick and boring:

-Projectile moves faster and homes 100% reliable.

Or for the people who want something more unique with more imagination:

-Fires 3 small projectiles deal low damage and home onto multiple targets. If the target is isolated all 3 will home onto the target.

-Would be reliable, kinda new, would benefit Lifesiphon builds well and so on.

-Traits could improve the projectiles to 5 or increase the Range to 1500.

-Could also be a channel spell, think of it as some kind of anti air battery, shooting lots of small, low damage projectiles in quick sucession while the marks are on cooldown.

-Numbers are a balance thing, but i think you can get the design idea.

-Fits the necro well – unending stream of projectiles that terrorizes foes.

-Is much more fun to use compared to a slow rubbish unrealible projectile that makes annoying sounds.

Nerelith.7360:

I have been reading the forums, for some advice on How to level up… and while I do find some interesting information… 4/5ths of the responders are basically QQ ing about how weak the necromancer is compared to other professions. " Three times as hard to underwhelm." I see a lot.

The reason I ask is, I am enjoying the necromancer for PvE, but, … Is there anyone playing this profession that feels it is alright for WvWvW, and every other QQ’er just sucks? or does the profession actually suck?

I ask because if i get even One responce from someone that says that for WvWvW they have had a good experience with it, i can consign every QQ ’ er to the suck pile, and keep playing the profession.

Honestly, is the profession as horrid as some say? or are they just bad at necro?

I love the Necro. I feel myself unable to play any other class for a longer time, not because they are weaker or something, but because playing a necro to level 80 first it spoiled any other profession for me, in pve you cant have more fon then as a necro in my opinion.

However, Necros are really really really weak compared to any other profession. The difficult situations in PVE where i thought “wow my necro is a real beast!” is just so outshined by warriors or guardians, they just get more damage, more heal, more survivability more CC more buildoptions and also more unique and cool skills.

Same thing in WvWvW – Necros are incredible weak, you have to pull off all stunts and tricks and sneaky technics to do well in WvWvW – that also with a perfect gear and build and traits. And even if you do all that you only win 1 vs 1 against other professions if they dont master their profession. If you play against a decent warrior/mesmer/guardian/thief/ele you will loose. They either burst you down almost instantly (thief / warrior) outheal you (guardian) or keep their distance and kite you till your death because of our VERY unreliable ranged options (Mesmer – Ele). It is impossible for a necro to catch a good Ele or Thief.

In WvW we are good siegebreakers – spam marks and wells onto walls to deny acces – use plague in zergs to weaken and decourage the enemy lines. That are the real main purposes in WvW. You can do more things (condition – burst – bunker ) but if you encounter a good player you are outshined in every other aspect.

So play the Necro and you will love it – but you will start hating any other profession because they are so OP – or the Necro so UP, based on point of view.

Give us a Whip and a Scythe. Scythe = cleave attacks, whip = bounce attack
Necro with those weapons would look so nice.

No honestly, i feel the necros weapon choices are quite limited compared to other classes.

Racial skills shouldnt matter at any class. However, i feel as Necromancer you lack reliable CC. So i think silvary with those grasping vines would be better. as Necro you wont be using much racial elites. You have good healing skills for every situations. So its pretty much up which racial utility skills you like more + the look.

Maybe a 5th self choosen skill would be a good way too. Lets say you can choose one of five special deathshroud skills to be equipped.

Maybe a trait “Increases active conditions on enemy by 1,5 sec per lifeblast” that way conditionbuilds could “freeze” the conditions on enemys

I think deathsroud could really need more skills – we dont have much weaponsets in general, so at least our profession mechanic should compensate that.. just look at that engineer or ele diversity given by the mechanics.

I think Death Shroud is a bit lackluster in terms of the benefits and the customization for any other build then power.

First off:

-I can’t see DS as our way of migating/evading direct damage and bolster our surviveability much. Honestly – all other classes ways of doing so are superior . ele has a lot of mobility and controll – thief can get in and out stealth as he pleases – guardians get insane heals, buffs, and traits with much free heal and so on

-Also our high base HP are no big benefit at all – warriors and guardians get basicly 300 thougness more for free because of heavy armor
-with the immense healing potential of the guardian they get more effective hp – warrior has as much health as we do – also much mobility, many dashes to get in and out battle and to migate damage, can be invincible for a rather long time.
-Also both get free armor although there is no “trinity” in this game, warrior and guardian can be ranged as well as supportive and still get free armor.
-Good eles and and thiefs are nearly uncatchable, so can be the mesmer. They all have a good and fitting concept regarding handle damage and combats
- we only can endure it , which is a way too, but our ability to do so is very limited. Ranged AA are rather lackluster(Staff) and nearly unhitable, some classes can kite us until we are forced to run away

- I really like diversity in terms of armor and HP values, but our increased surviveability through DS and vitality are simply an Illusion, our classmechanic is sometimes even more of a bother that reduces our combat possibilities.

1. Problem: We cant be healed in Deathsroud – this is a big big drawback that looks little . Look at our healing skills- The Well and the Minion cause their biggest heal over time, if we choose to use our class mechanic we severly cripple our own heals. Our HP pool is nothing without some kind of heal, we have very little traits to do so too. I think it would help a lot to just let us be able to profit from heals while we are in deathshroud. Sure you could argue that you have to time your heals better – but you only heal if you are low on health – and our burstheal isnt that big to safe us most of the time, if we could DS after well of blood that would be much better.

2. Problem: The cooldown- i think its too long. If you just want to use the fear to prevent a key skill of the enemy you are punished with a 10 second cooldown (untraited) and that feels so wrong. Same if you want to only have a gapcloser (our only reliable way to do so) gets punished by a long cooldown. 2 of our crucial mechanics (controll, gapcloser) cant be accessed without a 10 sec drawback. Reducing the Cooldown to 8 Seconds would help a lot.

3. Problem: Lifeblast. Its only really usefull in power-based builds. I think a small added effect based on our mainhand weapon would provide so much diversity. I Thought of something like this:

Mainhand:

Scepter – Lifeblast causes 2 Stacks of Bleeding for 5 Seconds
Axe – Lifeblast always deals full damage unaffacted by Lifeforce
Dagger- You gain 10% of damage dealt as Health
Staff – Range increase to 1200 and homing projectile.

4. Problem UI, skillcooldowns. This is selfspeaking and more of a Quality of life thing so i dont go into detail.

What does the Community think of these suggestions?

Also sorry for my rather bad english.

So my opinions on this:

Minions need better AI, more damage and also ALL minion activation skills should go off instantly like that of shadow fiend. I also feel that Fleshwurm needs a much shorter cooldown – its stationary and so rather situational for minion masters.

Sprectal Wall is really bad, i think it should either be completly replaced or it should get a skill on second activation – like the mesmer wall – maybe let us teleport into the wall to give us a stunbreak and stability for ourself and all allies close to it. With that change they could make the fleswurm mobile and give it another activation skill.

Spectral Armor is also pretty useless – horrid long cooldown for very little effect. Needs an urgent buff or another effect in general – other classes get so much better skills with stunbreak.

Spectral Grasp – meh its ok. Really really unreliable and only usefull in pvp / wvw. Also its impossible to hit someone while chasing due to the low speed.

Wells are really not that bad in general – well of power is is really really situational – in a fast battle allies wont stand for long in it and i generally would never pick this skill apart from certain dungeons simply because you can “waste” one of your utility slots if the battle is on the move or your enemys dont use conditions at all- Maybe add something to make it usefull even if the enemy is not using conditions – maybe a stronger lifesteal per tick – so it would really shine against condition heavy enemys, and be somewhat usefull if not.

Signets:

Locust: is alright, speedbuff passive is usefull, active is actually traited very usefull too, only the CD needs to be reduced.

Undeath: Active is alright, passive is really really really horrible. 1% Lifeforce each 3 seconds? Only in battle? Come on, a battle can’t be that long to make it usefull anyhow… a passive like that cant be balanced imo, better replace.

Spite: passive increase is normal number wise – but rather boring, necro as an attrition based class with power passive? Thats not fitting. I Suggest a passive that increases Healingpower, Power, Condition Damage and Thougness and Maybe Condition duration – based on how long you are in Battle. Maybe start with 20 Stats and increase it by 2 per Second untill it hits 60. Also the active is weak, fixing would be rather easy though – Increase the bleeding and invulnerable stacks and add fear or stun to it – gives us an RELIABLE utility cc spell.

Plague signet – its alright i guess.. im not a big fan of it at all, but it can be good based on your build.

Poison Cloud: really lackluster – the concept is neat, a strong debuff that gets reapplied, but in this form its really really worse for anything but PVE if you can manage to keep the enemy in it. Easy fix would be a second avtivation which lets the cloud slowly move to your choosen ground target location. It could also grow much bigger over time, making it more different from the asura racial skill.

Corrupt Boons: That is another highly situational skill – i like to compare it with the guardians “Save yourself” – both have a highly situational use – but the guardian gets a second purpose thats ALWAYS helpfull – why cant we get something like that on that skill? Apart from that it CAN be really strong.

Epidemic: Meh. it is certainly really strong, but pretty much limited to condition based builds – i have never seen anyone use it in a power build – only reason to use it in another build is probably because the other utilities are not good at all.

Mind posting your build + equip?

Isnt the condition duration capped somewhere at 100%?

Maybe they could change Blood is Power a bit. Reduce the Might stacks, Decrease the Bleeding duration to 8 seconds, increase the ammount of stacks to keep the powerlevel and add a new effect only for that skill " Corruption" =“Conditions cant be removed while suffering from this spell” kinda booster for your condition damage for a short duration. But i think that would be too complex.

It was useless ever before. 5 seconds untill the conditions get reapplied. 5 seconds. in such a fast paced game you will never get more then 1 additional hit unless your enemy is static in PVE. And even IF something stands in it for the full duration the effects are abysmal. The AOE is pretty small for its intention. They should rename it to Miasma, let it grow much larger over time (at least the to the AOE of 480) and deal it a small damage ammount each second, maybe half that damage of locust swarm, so it can be at least useful for the lifesteal on hit traits.

I Agree, a necro specific Condition would help a lot. Mesmers have Disortion and very reliable access to confusion, ele is the king of burning fast reliable permanent, both conditions which are meant to deal lots of damage.

I would however prefer a lifesteal condition:

- Damage somewhere between poison and burning
- Deals damage and heals you over time
- Rather slow duration, stacks in duration
- Caused by some Necro skills
(- Maybe let it scale off Condition Damage AND Healing power at a balanced rate)

Would fit into the attrition based concept, he gets weaker over time while u get stronger, perfectly for longer battles.

Additional ideas regarding conditions:

- Possible a trait that causes a strong lifedrain /damage effect if a condition gets removed / cleansed
-A trait that gives you health if a targets takes damage with stacks of your invulnerability (Maybe half of the extra damage dealt)
-A trait that adds a strong dot effect to your cripples if your target is moving (Like crippling anguish from GW1)
-A trait that steals a small amount of life for every stack of a condition applied to a target (Spell with 3 bleedings + cripple would trigger 4 x that effect, much like a guardian trait does with condition stacks)
-A trait that grants damage onto a target once it has 5 or more stacks of your bleeding

There are so many nice possibilities for the necro , yet we get pretty much useless or very situational traits and utility skills.

Things that where not in the Patchnotes:

Seal of the Locust: in Combination with the bloodthirst trait- does no longer reduce healing, instead improves it by 50%, so i get 1400 heal per enemy. Nice secondary heal now.

Parasitic Bond: Now actually works, gives me ~1025 Health back if i kill an enemy.

@ visionary

axe #3 is pretty good, in terms of the skill and general necro playstyle. harming enemy, buffing yourself. really necro .

axe #2 is horrible. compare its damage with any other chanelled weapon skill thats meant to deal damage its underwhelming. without any real bonus apart from the lifeforce gain. just look at guardian GS swirl. or warrior 100 blades. AOE, more damage. it needs a huge damage buff, somewhere between 25 – 50% imho.

axe #1 is weak too. but i wouldnt increase damage, or let it cleave, i would wish for a chain, or a bounce like other autoattacks do.

cleave isnt good for the axe imho, better give the staff somekind of a cleave effect. i thought about:
-increasing projectile speed by 33%,
-let it home onto the target and deal splash / cleave damage around its target. range 120 – 240
-increase the range to 1500
-lower the damage to a level fitting these areas.

i think of it as the eles fireball, trading raw damage for reliability and safety. also fits the necro playstyle imho, imagine a necro haunting its enemy from a long range, with weak yet reliable stream of damage.

thoughts?