Guild Wars 2

yeah, gain health with our opponents death. Is that a joke? I mean, how is that an attrition class. How can you outlast someone if you only gain health when they die. To top things off, 5 seconds after the opponent goes down, you start regenning health big time anyways, with the game mechanics. SO that 200 health i got when the enemy went down, IS A JOKE when i rapid heal to 25k hps a few seconds later.

The class needs a complete revamp in my opinion, which likely matters little.

Complete restructuring. They messed it up right out of the box when they developed our class mechanic out of an extended down state, which is why the UI is terrible, and we have no access at all to our utility skills. Same thing with transformations. Bad design, bad traits, bad weapons. I give the necro community props big time for surviving and doing well on it as they can and finding every possible loophole or build out there to salvage the class.

Broken traits will have their descriptions modified in order to convey their acurate underwhelming, useless effects, which essentially boils down to changing nothing.

Really think that they don’t care about necros, other than seeing that our AOE damage in spvp is too high, which will likely lead to a nerf in well damage and staff 4. I mean, heck, we already scale like crap to power, so they will further pigeon hole us into condition builds, which support their attrition role. I really think they gave the necromancer class development to the summer intern, or the janitor who was secretly playing a thief on the side, which is why dagger is likely the only weapon besides scepter that is decent (depending on the build). seriously, all the weapons out there, and dagger is our best power weapon.

Anyone think that our weapons scale pitifully with power? I mean I have gotten my attack to 3800 and my axe hits for 433 × 2 (2 hits), dagger hits for about 600 – 800 on the first two hits and 1500 on the third (none crit). Staff 2, 3, 4 dont hit really that hard unless you load crit up.

I can’t believe i hit so little with 3800 attack.

Played just fine a few days ago. Had no problems. I go to load it up today, and the game client hangs and eventually disconnects stating that the game client is not responding. I disabled my firewall, though I don’t know why that would all of a sudden start having issues with GW2. Next step, after checking all my settings, I tried to uninstall, and it would not let me uninstall it at all, as the client, for some reason, needs to connect to the server to uninstall, so I just deleted it. I try downloading the client again, get that started, but now the client will not update itself, and it does the same thing… hangs and gives me the client is not responding message.

GG.

Nothing changed on my setup, but GW2 just dumped. Nice

I know people do not want to hear it, but in my opinion, the lack of combat depth has a lot to do with the lack of synergy between classes. Sure you can throw down combo fields to step up damage, or change effects, but in all honesty, I don’t think it really improves damage output, or alters combat in a hugely meaningful way. With regard to the lack of synergy, I really feel that GW2 has so drastically gotten away from class roles that it has greatly diminished the need for grouping, which when I look back at all the MMOs I have good memories off, it was from being in a good group (or in a guild) and organizing groups in order to increase damage and survivability. Group play in GW2 does not bring anything above and beyond zerg play, other than CNRL-T. It really comes down to extremes; Either everyone is a DD with a self heal, or any class can be as tanky as any other class with a self heal, so why run with any specific class combos? Sure a guardian and ele can lay down some (MINOR) support, and maybe a guardian can be slightly more tanky than a light caster, but it still does not push me to seek out any specific class in a group. In addition, being in a group does not seem to increase survivability, or increase damage output, than just 5 randoms in the same area, especially in wvw. Maybe in pve, it could slightly change the outcome, but I have run most dungeons with any number of class combos and found no real difference. For pvp, it just does not matter.

Combat depth to me was based on inner-group mechanics, and I am sorry to say, the dispersing of roles has diminished the depth of gw2 combat, and makes it more individually based. I know that is why some players like about it, which I think makes it more appropriate for casual gamers. However, I see guilds falling apart left and right, or I see them leaving the game as a whole, and I think it comes down to the lack of any reason to run in a group, which effects the need/desire to run with a guild.

Guild wars it is not, individual zerg wars it is. I am not advocating for a return to the holy “trinity” (tank, dd, healer) but I will admit that I am nostalgic for it, because when a group was firing on the same channel, it was awesome. In contrast, a group in gw2, even on a 3-rd prty chat program, using cntr-T and coordinating, just does not bring about the same feelings, because everyone is just spamming DD spells/skills/keys and really not even looking at the other person’s health bar, etc. Groups also seem to scatter more in gw2, and are less likely to stick together. Maybe this is the new scope of MMOs but it wont keep me for long, and I imagine I am not the only one out here feeling that the lack of roles has a larger impact than expected when it comes to group play, guild play, etc.

A lack of dependency on other players is not a bad thing, if there were options in the game that were created for larger groups or for guilds. Perhaps guild instances, etc. Right now, if you want your guild to do something together, its wvw or bust. Guild chat can help you organize dungeons, sure, but your still 5 manning it, and you don’t need a guild.

absolute spot on article and i fully support it. They forgot to mention that guild wars 2 has NO SPOT FOR GUILDS AT ALL. Guilds give you a glorified chat program, which is maybe a step up from shouting LFG in all channels. Instead, you have an extra channel with people who may or may not like you. And it only works for certain dungeons, ie. it does not work for fracts, because if someone in the damn group is 1-2 levels above you in fracs, hell 10 levels above you, they wont run it with you. WHy should they, they already had to stand in lions arch or using gw2lfg.com to find a damn group to do the stupid fracts already… i dont get mad at them because im standing in the same damn location shouting the same thing.

wake up anet, are you listening?

Biggest problem with I have with the lack of roles, is that a tanky guardian is really not that much more defensively oriented than a tanky necromancer per say. Perhaps with abilities, the guardian can heal up a bit more, and add some defense, but i feel that I can get really tanky on my necro (3.1k armor) relatively easy, without sacrificing anything and still have more hps than my guardian. That bothers me somewhat, as heavy armor really does not offer any more real protection than light armor…. or at least it is marginal at best.

I am not an advocate to the return to the trinity, but I have a problem with the way gw2 is set up, because it really makes you dependent on no one other than yourself, or the zerg, which boils down to numbers. Well organized group can not benefit each other .. other than shared targeting.

It is probably my biggest problem with gw2 combat… no role, no cooperation, no need to group.

yeah, let me drain their life force to fill mine, or their health to fill mine. or let me steal their soul, and dance it around kicking people in the junk. That would make me really happy and feel like a necromancer.

anyone even use this skill?

It always seemed useless. I think the total damage it does to someone standing in it for the full duration is like 800 dmg? who knows, never seen anyone stand in it jerkin the jimmie. Rather it was a dodge roll and a laugh.

Yeah, pretty disappointing. I swear there are no necro devs, and the devs are too tired when they get to the necro to give a kitten. Seriously, wake up devs, your vision is faltering with this class, if a clear and concise vision ever existed.

This is a bloodmancer, conditionmancer, kitteneddemonspawning spankmancer, or diseasemancer, but it has nothing to do with necromancer.

That would be interesting, if you could do a heal based on damage being done on conditions. Heck, a LF heal would be appreciated as well.

Still would like to see a condition that damages objects, or at least was resistant to being removed… in one flash.

Greetings ANET, I like to read the dev tracker forums, but I dislike checking the forums only to see 20-40 posts from some moderator that is just closing forums. Can you remove moderators from the dev tracker forum. Thanks, I dont care what threats are closed, or combined.

Would love to hear community ideas on different condition types that could be implemented that would give us something unique damage wise, and not sap our utility.

I know there are no “roles” in GW2, which has led some people to run dungeons with any combo of classes. There are some classes that are helpful in a dungeon, and some that are more durable, but any combo of classes should be able to run a dungeon. I agree that and there is no need to bring back the holy trinity (Tank, dps, healer), but having certain classes around should be helpful to the 5 man team. Right now, the necro appears limited to some degree, especially with regard to condition damage, and brining something unique.

Recently.1043:

Holy crap, did you actually use a shout warrior build as an example in your argument?

As someone who’s tried to run a shout warrior build in sPvP, i can tell you strait up, it does not put enough pressure via damage to kill anything really. You shouldn’t make sPvP arguments if you have no experience; there’s more to this game than theory crafting stuff from http://wiki.guildwars2.com

I was not proposing that the build would be all shouts, but if the warrior adds a shout or two, he/she easily removes conditions. Check yourself before you put words in my mouth. I did not say build a shout warrior in spvp, nor was I speaking only to spvp. I was referring to the ease at which conditions can be removed by any class.

Knight’s pieces cost 1.5 – 3.5 gold pieces each on the black lion trading post. You can also find them in various dungeons (i.e. Arah I believe has a knights build.)

On possibilty idea is a condition that not only affects players, but could equally damage physical objects (doors, gates, etc.) over time. For example, Decay (for the sake a filler, i’ll call it decay), could deal physical damage over time, by aging the player, or object (gate). Things that age, break down. In addition, as a side bar, perhaps decay would also additively slow a players movement, or attack speed, the longer the condition was on him/her, or the object, the slower they would attack or move (With regard to objects, decay could actually slow the rate of fire of a siege engine for example.) Another idea, is to have Decay channel LF to the necro casting it by a certain percentage of of the damage being done. Thus making condition builds able to build life force via the condition output, and make DS more available to the condition build.

These are just simple ideas.

Most people play a class because they like the unique mechanics the class brings. I for one like that the necro is one of the least played class; on the other hand, I do not like that the necro is the least played class because it really is one of the most bugged, pigeon-holed classes in GW2 right now (of course this is my opinion and i speak for myself). I would rather it be the least played due to difficulty of playing, not due to the amount of problems. I am not quitting necromancer, nor will I continue on my rant path, that is getting this class nowhere with the Devs. I want to support this class, but I will admit that I am fatigued with the amount of issues with the class.

Do I think a necro specific condition solves all the issues? No. That said, I think it brings answers to some common issues, bleed caps, usefulness in dungeons, uniqueness of a class, and supports ANET’s idea of a attrition class.

Would really appreciate a thoughtful discussion from the community.

Nicademus Stormcrow – Necromancer (Aurora Glade Server)

Apologies community, I know I have proposed something like this before, but I am a huge advocate of the Necromancer being given a class specific condition that is more resistant to being removed. Below I try to add some reasoning why I think it would help our class and increase our utility somewhat.

Necros have access to several conditions, weakness (does this even do anything noticeable?), vunlerability, cripple, chill, poison, bleed, and fear; two of which (bleed and poison) we depend on to deal damage in a condition build. Actually, let’s be honest, Bleed is the one condition we depend on to deal damage; Poison does not do a lot of damage but does limit healing, and fear only deals noticeable damage when traited. Thus, Bleed represents the majority of our damage from conditions. In fact, I would gather that most condition builds in any class (warrior, rangers, and to some degree thieves, depend on bleed for their main condition damage. Although Fear is described by some as our unique condition, it is attainable by warriors and thieves, and thus not unique, and does little damage.

So why give something unique to the necros? What would that solve?

Necros are the condition/attrition class: ANET has designed (and described) the class as the attrition class. An attrition class depends on wearing down an opponent, via condition damage (DoT), and uses disables to decrease or reduce chances to escape. However, the necro has access to no unique conditions or disables, and I think it has brought about several problems, which overall limit our utility.

Problem One – The Bleed Cap/Lessened utility 1: As stated above, the large part of necro damage (if traited/built for a condition build) depends on bleeds, with poison playing a minor role). If we could downplay our dependency on bleed damage (which is used already by other classes with condition builds) and create a necro specific condition, then ANET could continue to maintain a 25 limit cap on bleed damage, and even add a new 25 stack limit to the new necro condition. Thus the mechanic they have implemented for bleed damage is maintained, and a new cap could be used to limit damage from several necros on one target (yeah right, like there are that many necros around that the damage would even need capping). Thus, we can damage the boss mob differently than the other class condition builds, which brings a unique dmg role to the field by the necro, which leads to problem 2.

Problem 2 – Defiance = no fear/daze (Lessened Necro Utility 2): Now that fear has no place in large scale boss fights, which largely represented our unique contribution to large scale fights, a necro specific condition would allow us to bring something useful to the table, with unique properties. Let’s face it, with the bleed cap, weak minions, and lack of ability to control boss movements via fear, the necro has a lot less utility on the battle field, especially in boss fights. A unique condition, which perhaps could bring a unique set of disables and damage, would up our utility.

Problem three – Condition removal: Condition removal is relatively too easy for any class. For example, the warrior class, which per the description has trouble with condition damage can easily remove conditions with shouts. Specifically, a shout warrior build can remove conditions almost as well as a guardian, if he uses soldier runes, which removes a condition with each shout. Thieves remove them when going into stealth, and their heal; guardians remove with ease; and necros, elementalists and mesmers are very good at removing conditions. So what is left? If large scale fights, conditions don’t last, in fact, im surprised if they are on for more than 5 seconds, thus our damage output is slammed. Maybe in smaller scale fights (5 v 5) they last, but most people are building to counter conditions, especially because condition builds are considered by some the most common competitive necro builds. On the other hand, the shear amount and ease of access to condition removal has forced some necros to play power builds that ignore condition damage altogether, which usually forces us into melee range, and we loose a lot of uniqueness just trying to be a robed dagger man, with roots and wells as our main process to damage. Condition removal not only removes the condition, but all stacks of that condition, which can essentially drastically diminish our total damage output in one button press.

Thus, a possible answer to the removal problem, is to make the necro specific condition more resistant to removal, perhaps via traits, or a new signet. Thus, if anet added a new condition that is specific to necros, they would not have to change parameters on existing conditions with regards to removal, but could focus specifically on the necro condition.

TheSaint.8072:

Superior Rune of Undead, do not use Necromancer if you go in Fractal, agony mecchanics punish high health pool, and we have already high health pool.

Undead runes give you toughness and condition damage, they do not increase your vitality or raise your health pool. You are thinking of Runes of the Lich which are similar to undead, but give a boost in vitality.

Increasing your toughness via undead runes will not increase the damage you take from agony, etc. In fact, toughness does not block or diminish condition damage. Which is why condition damage is a nice thing, unless they insta remove it.

I am kitten, hear me meow!

You are asking the Dev’s not only to educate us, but to care about the Necromancer class, and to care what the necro community thinks. However, let’s be honest, they don’t. The necro class is an afterthought class, and the classes the devs do play, have steadily been addressed and fine tuned. You can tell mesmers, thieves and warriors are their babies. They nerfed the necro damage and utility so much, and changed some core mechanics so that the class traits don’t synergize; the DS mechanic is slow and generally used as a get out of jail card, etc. etc. I will stop myself from repeating the valid complaints the community has voiced since the 2nd beta stage, including the stupid reanimator. To top things off, they are now going to nerf our AoE damage. Thanks Anet for solidifying my decision to shelf the class; you have successfully alienated your necro community, except for those diehards who likely play memsers or thieves as mains.

They have not fixed issues they EVEN ADMITTED existed in beta, so why do you think they are going to take more time out of their days educating us about a class they dont give crap-all about, when they can’t even use their time to fix the issues with the class. I don’t even know why I keep coming back here. I’ll admit that this is the only game I play right now (mmo wise) because I was just getting back into mmos and i did not want to WoW myself. So, I find a mmo that does the classes right, im audi5000.

Dear Anet,

Find a developer that plays a necro. Seriously, get off your warriors, mesmers, and thieves and PLAY A kitten NECROMANCER!

You are a joke.

Yeah, think im done with this game for awhile. It is getting harder and harder to log in. They have to have known that this community was not going to be happy. I don’t want buffs (perhaps a form of stability), I want fixes, and trait line adjustments, and the kittent UI fixed on DS. You have listened to nothing we have said.

Come on anet, admit it, you are stuck on the bugs we have. you can’t fix the ui on ds, you can’t fix the fact that we change forms, minions go away, you can’t fix our vampric traits, or don’t want to. Seriously, hire some more developers, preferably those who actually like to play this class and have a clue.

LOL at underwater combat buffs. HAHAHAHHA. I think I got to 80 in the 3 classes I have without even unlocking some underwater skills. I don’t even care. DO you guys play your game? Are you adding an entire underwater map or something? God, I am tired of wasting effort on even supporting you by playing.

Hey, been running this build now (pretty close to the stats, though I don’t have any ascended gear). I like it, I think it is a great build and I think it stretched the bounds of what we can do. In wvw, I only run this now, because the survivability is great.

I have two complaints, and they are not huge.

One, Power. I have managed (with 25 bloodlust stacks, and a beserker staff) to get my attack up to 3950 or so. However, I am not seeing huge huge gains in dmg, and see more when it comes from crit and crit dmg.

Do you ever think about adjusting to bring crit %/dmg up a bit? I know it is at the cost of some survivability. Too bad there are no percision, toughness, vitality sets, or I would balance and drop my power to up my crit chance a bit. Even some Crit %, vitality, toughness gear hahahah.

Second one, I miss conditions sometimes. It makes me sad that to be this survivable, I need to leave behind the one mechanic that is supposed to be ours. I have done the hybrid build, to get power up with condition dmg, but you can only get your power to 1800, with about 1200 conditions, and 1300 vit/toughness. just not as survivable, and 1/2 our damage is just insta cleared with heal, or removal.

These are just notes, not really complaints. Maybe just trying to get your guys’ thoughts.

Thanks

all of the changes have been super minor changes and minor bug fixes. sort of like painting a car that has been in a head on collision, or changing the tooltip on a broken skill, because you can’t fix the skill, so you just change the tooltip to display how the skill is borked. And by minor changes, there has been no changes that have changed how necro is played, nor has it made any more builds viable.

The maximum life force does not seem fixed to me. You go 30 points into the tree, and you might get to live for one hit longer in DS.

REALLY!? I would rather have something else than a one hit protection. That’s our game mechanic? Good job, at least you can take the only non-form induced stability.

JonPeters.5630:

I can say we are working on updating the UI for DS so that you can actually see your health bar, boons, conditions, etc. We think this is the first step for DS.

Thanks, at least we know it is being looked at, but I must express that DS still feels like a mobile down state. Really, when you decided to change it from a down state to our special ability, it seems like you just left everything for a down state in place. In a downed state you can’t see conditions being applied either.

What bothers me the most, is that it is only now getting looked at, and I don’t see you coming in with a fix anytime soon, because you might have to go back and start from scratch in my opinion. DS is neat idea, but as is right now, its clunky, slow on all counts (attack speed, movement, cc, etc.) and it just seems like a mechanic that was hastilly thrown together.

I have to agree with what has been posted, there are no devs that play necro, there are no devs that actually like the necro class, and therefore our class is so obviously not polished due to the lack of love. You can tell that thief, warrior, guardian and mesmer have gotten some love and were really set up. You can tell that the devs played them extensively and worked them to be rather unique. For Necro, it is like you threw some crap together, slapped on some traits (A lot that are useless) and said, here, a casting minion class. To top it off, you gave them more hps, because they need all their hps to even have an impact in a fight.

one more thing, yeah, axe autoattack dmg sucks. even with 18-19 vulnerability, the autoattack hits for 339 – 400 dmg (non-crit) at 3700 attack. That is kitten dmg. Seriously kitten damage and makes you rely on axe 2, which can be CC canceled and often is. You might get off 1k dmg before the channel gets interrupted, which plays back into my point about our lack of stability.

Probably the biggest problem I have on the necro is the lack of stability unless we are in a form (which I am not a huge proponent of because it locks out our utility skills and heal), or have traited into 30 points of the SR trait line, which I think is a waste and weakens your damage output significantly. We need access to another stability, because if anyone sees a necro, the easiest way to take care of one, is to CC it to death. Most people run with one stun break which are spectral skills, which is good, but the minute someone goes into DS, you get stunned, knocked down, etc, get back up, and get stunned again. One access via a trait (that requires you to DS) and two from forms (Lich, plague – although plague does not work vs ranger’s long bow) makes it difficult.

I would like to see more forms of stability, or something. If I see another necro, I cc the crap out of them, because I know they have no stability. It is a serious class weakness. So, stability, and trait/bug fixes, and I would be satisfied.

Let’s call them random 5 abilities.. that goes for the healing, boon application. Oh and random 5 includes pets, and dorkus necro minions

YES, this is so good. Necro has some serious random 5 abilities, that make “one of the lowest played classes” even less played, because the necro depends on AoE, and is probably the most impacted by the AoE/Random 5 limitation.

Of course, that would mean you would have to communicate with us, to tell us where you think the necro is working and where it clearly is not. Probably the biggest catch of it all.

Ok, here is the rub. I love the necro, I started him, leveled him to 80, equipped him to give him 2 decent options (Full condition,toughness, percision build and the right equipment to do the juggomancer). I then leveled a thief to 80, equipped him with full exotic, and then a guardian to 80, and he is sitting in full exotic (and unfortunately the only precursor for legendary). So why is that important, I still keep coming back to this damn class. I want the necro to shine, I want people to see it coming and go, damn, they have a necro on their side, but it is not there yet. I also understand why the majority of the community is aligned on what the necro is missing and where it could need improvement.

There are several necros here on the boards and in game that know this class in and out. I propose that you allow us to get together to take an honest look at this class to improve and tweak it. Of course you will have final say, but there are some serious problems that need to be addressed and I am worried that necro is one of the last classes considered. I feel like I am the bxastard child sitting at the end of the kings table, where clearly the king is a Mesmer, married to a female thief, with a warrior and a guardian mistress. The kids are an elementalist, followed by twins, a ranger and engineer. The necro is the B kid sitting in the back, with a dunce hat.

Hire us for free. allow us to set up a necro council, and actually work on these problems that seem to plague our class.

Druitt, I don’t agree. I never used this stupid trait until I figured out that staff cooldown reduction/mark size was very useful, and even at level 80, by the time this stupid thing spawns, it has 7 seconds left… followed by a slower than heck run speed that does not allow it to hit anything unless you stand still and the mob stand still. It bleeds out long after it is dead, which keeps you in combat longer. Aside from that, I have seen it rise out of the ground, stand there, bleed, and not attack, just like the other kittening minions…. (interesting enough, if my flesh golem is not attacking, niether is my stupid JH).

Top top things off, I have killed a mob, watched it spawn, only to see it go running after the mobs cousin or family member 30-50 feet away. Maybe I did not want to kill that mob, maybe i felt bad that I just melted his bros face and I wanted to leave him standing, but my JH took it upon himself, to run all they way over there, throw up on the mob (or pee on its boots) and die, which kitten him off further and caused him to run over and attack me. So there goes his entire family and i now have to burn him down. All of this would be awesome if I was a true necromancer because i woudl rez all their corpse and make them dance and kill other mobs, but no, im just a JH spawner, which just keeps the kitten process going over and over again, and eventually i get tired of wiping entire families off the face of the map and I respect so I dont have the stupid provoker that is the JH

it is poor, flawed logic. Sometimes, I don’t get where they are coming from and they are so bloody biased. The game mechanics, logic employed by devs coupled with the lack of communication, and poor optimization is losing my interest fast. But hey, lets all just play theives, because they are single target masters. In fact, lets make wvw, just like pvp… where you have thieves, mesmers, warriors and guardians only. Guild wars? no. 4 class wars? yes

I am sorry, but Anet has totally screwed up siege warefare, and large scale combat due to their limits on player damage via limit to 5 enemies being targeted. So, 10 people behind the wall facing 30, cannot possibly hold because those 10 people are limited in their damage output, and cannot discourage. yet hey, you can portal those 30 in/out and there is no restriction. I don’t get their logic, at all. Oh boo hoo you dont want a player to damage all 30 idiots standing in one huge cirlce? have you seen the current strategies, people just stack on each other so aoe damage only hits 5, and if multiple AOEs hit, it hits 5 diff people, so in reality, its little damage.

Sorry ANET, don’t agree with you on this one at all. YOu have MADE zergs stronger and stronger, and skill is entirely removed. 10 skill players, are limited in damage, while 50 idiots can take anything. The only counter, is to have more players on your side. Skill… not needed, numbers…. needed.

good job

Ok, perhaps not everyone, but it is so easy to avoid damage, than limited to a person who dodges my abilities, then severely limits my utility as a player.

Necromancer marks and wells are so visible it’s ridiculous (which makes them easily avoidable). That said, if 20 people can port in off a portal, then I should be able to hit 20 people with my Aoe mark/well.

Can the community explain why my AoE skills as a necromancer are limited to 5 people. So if 10 people are in my AoE, why only 5 get hit? Isn’t that really too much of a limiter? I don’t agree that people can bunch up and only 5 get hit. If they are in my area of effect, why are only 5 people getting hit?

With all the dodge abilities and blocks people have, why are you allowed to limit the number to 5 people? It is most noticeable in WvW, and in my opinion drastically impacting AoE class play.

Rennoko,

you hit the nail right on the head. Necro, with its slow speed, lack of escape, and no invulerability (no, ds just delays the inevitable) we cannot run a full beserker setup and expect to live. This is why, I strive to have either high toughness, or at least some vitality to let me live long enough to be effective.

This is also why I think the class traits need to be redesigned to allow us to actually build tough, and be an attritiion class, while still doing decent damage. We just don’t cut it right now. We do NOT have the mechanisms that allow us to build damage like everyone else, unless we balance it with armor/hps.

Actually, I typically run Zintair’s critmancer (power/condition) hybrid build, but I drop the Soul Reaping trait line and add in Death Magic for added toughness and greater marks or I run blood magic to get well cooldowns and quicker dagger skill refresh. I find that conditions do a much better job than a power build in dungeons, but you need the added toughness or vitality. I really love being a necro in dungeons.

so I run a 20/30/20/0/0 or a 20/30/0/20/0. In arah I try to avoid death magic kitten stupid reanimator) and I enjoy the enhanced cooldown for wells. Keep condition dmg to about 1350, and power at about 1900, with a 40% crit, 30-40% crit dmg.

Power builds just can’t keep up the DPS that great, but condition damage is condition damage and since no mob removes your conditions, it really helps.

It does not matter, most people with a brain can quickly ascertain that the 14 represented the day (as there are only 12 months in a year, even on the korean calendar) and the 12 represented december, the month we are currently in.

Anyways, lets bring the discussion back to the changes we would like to see, etc. or the speculation.

I am sincerely hoping for some good changes though I have to admit that I have no clue why I keep hoping for these changes, because I doubt one patch is going to lead me to believe that “HERE We are boys, Necro is home and shining in all game modes.”

Btw, necro rocks in all pve, but maybe suffers slightly with the bleed cap.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

About 5 days – the majority of the world uses DD/MM/YYYY, it’s only you American types that get them the wrong way around. Oh, I know, there’s no “wrong” way if you’re keen on splitting hairs, but do you list distance as feet/miles/yards? No? Then why list dates as MM/DD/YYYY? It’s just odd.

Well, not to point out your obvious mistake, but given that I am an American, I can honestly tell you that practically everyone in the US uses a day/month/year format. In fact, if you change formats in any microsoft programming the month/day/year format is considered French format (or EU format). So, I am not sure where you are from supahspankeh, but get your facts right, and travel a bit before you spout off nonsense.

Now, back to the pointless speculation,
I am hoping they take a look at some traits within the various lines and shift them around a bit, or even combine a few to add some new ones. Even though we have a variety of skills, we rarely use a significant number of trait skills because franky they are lack luster.

In fact, with 0 traits, at level 80 with full exotics, adding traits does not seem to have a large impact, besides boosting stats. I think they really did not take their time with this class…. at all. I think they screwed up DS so badly in going from a down state to a class defining attribute, that they just said screw it, and threw in a bunch of random traits skills in random trait lines. I really hope they sit down and really take a look at it. There is a reason why it is one of the least played classes, and “skill required” is not a good enough reason.

Thus, I am hoping they alter/adjust some traits. I am also hoping they buff wells a bit, and reduce some cooldowns and casting times. I think it would make necro more forgiving, especially giving all these rendering errors and lag issues that some people are having. Rendering issues, with a bit of lag, coupled with our slow cast times, makes the necro more difficult to play without having a significant power tradeoff. In that if we land our skills perfectly, its still not incredibly effective. I don’t think necro is weak, but i think it is behind the powercurve when compared with the top 3 classes (Mesmer, thief, guardian). Mesmers might have gotten a damage nerf (slightly) but they are still powerful as heck in pvp/wvw and necros have a long way to go.

I also hope they buff the power ratios for weapons. I run a power/survival build and a condition/toughness/crit build at times. For the power builds, i feel axe damage is just not there, unless you go high crit % on dmg. It just cant compare which leads some people to believe that scepte rdmg in a hybrid build is better than axe. I rarely see people use axe, though I try at times, and rarely do they use it for the autoattack. On the other hand, when I run dagger, the dagger 2 skill is so lackluster, easily cancelled that I rarely even press 2. Usually I just slam 3, drop 2 wells, and autoattack until dead.

They just need to take a look at the class concept big time and really try to adjust it. I still hold to the fact that we are not playing a necro, but just a blood mage, or dark wizard, instead of a necro.

I refuse to talk about minioins because they are junk, unless you get lucky and they decide to attack, besides being so whimpy that a fart kills them.

no other opinions about some mechanic where we can increase the difficulty of the removal of conditions we place on enemies?

SHeobix,

Thanks for the guide. Today I took a second set of armor I have, and worked it up to get similar stats that you have posted. I worried about having lower crit chance, so I downed my health to 25.5k. I ended up with around 46% crit (only 19% crit dmg), 3200 attack, 3100 armor, running your 20/0/25/25/0 build.

I ran it in WvW, using a dagger/warhorn, staff. I have to say, that while I liked having so much armor, and so much health, i felt like I was less of a force in WvW. Before, I was running Zintair’s power/crit/condition-mancer. Ended up having about 2850-3k attack, 1300 condition dmg, 46% crit/40 crit damage, 1250 vitality, 2400 armor (If I am recalling correcting).

Essentially, when I compared the two, targets seemed to fall faster. I think the crit damage combined with the bleeds that ticked for 106, really increased the damage output (if the bleeds were not insta cleared). My hps were about 23.5k, so granted i did not have as high of armor, hps, but I had ground targetable wells, high condition damage for staff and scepter/dagger skills.

So, I guess, I just want your throughts on your build in wvw. I was not getting that much of a difference in well dmg, or staff damage with your build, and I felt dagger put me in a bad spot when in wvw.

Honest feedback (with my opinion), this class is a patchwork, poorly designed class. It is my opinion that the devs could not decide on the design and over-comprimised to add both their desires/designs and ended up weakening the class entirely. It should not be called necromancer, but maybe corruption mage, or bleed/blood mage. Has nothing to do with necromancy, and is boring. I am by far not the first person to post these concerns, and the following lists of blunders.

— DS mechanic does not appear to work that well in my opinion, and is WAY overvalued by Devs. Abilities are slow to fire, slow in general, and work only really if you trait into stability. Thus, if you want DS to be useful, your stuck with spite and the soul reaping trait lines (weeeeee) to make them even worth your while. Besides the fact that you can’t see conditions on you, y ou get buttslammed around with CC galore, and usually ends up being a hp dump.

— Traits lack synergy, don’t work, and don’t even seem to have a huge impact on the necro’s abilities, except a few.

— Skills, and the majority of abilities, minus a few that almost all necros use, are lackluster, lack power, are too situation dependent, and just are a disappointment at times.

— weapons need tuning, and appear to be watered down unless you build to the extreme. Axe, even with full power hits like a wet sack unless your talking about the #2 ability, which is easily interrupted to easily, or you get excited about stackign short lived vulnerability. Condition builds depend entirely on scepter and staff. Power builds depend entirely on daggers, and axe is the kitten child in between. I am unimpressed.

— forms/elites are unreliable, kill minions, and are practically our only stability ability, except going extreme into the DS trait line (which is the only way to get crit damage up… GOD) Yet they lock you out of utility skills. Plague is the only one that seems worth its weight in a team fight because you can chain blind. The flesh golem runs around like a powerhouse at times (usually when i attack mobs) or stands there in pvp, unless i use his rush ability.

— We have no stability, except for forms (which can be cancelled with moa) or a grandmaster trait that gives it to you for a whopping 3 secs.

— Conditions are one click removed, or removed with abilities with short cooldowns.

— class is slow, cumbersome, and can’t keep you pinned down at all. I can get away from a necro easier than almost any other class.

— fear, well, to get good fear, you need to trait for it, get a bunch of runes, and use staff and DS3. Warriors have longer fear, Thieves have longer fear, and the mothers of thieves and warriors have fear. Fear is lackluster, and perhaps the worst form of CC because they run away from you while your trying to damage them, I would rather they cower at my feet so I can at least get a few wacks in.

I am hard on this class, because it was my first level 80 and I was excited by the original videos. The class does not measure up to most other classes and I have 2 other 80s. All in all, I am just never scared when I meet a necro when im fighting. I know I can get away, or CC him, or remove his conditions (unless he goes power necro). I was motivated to play this class the most, and have been let down the most. It seems so cumbersome and poorly designed. And with all the friggen films about zombies, vampires, and other forms of undead, we get kitten looking skull faced rats, smoke mobs, and an ugly tail swining scorpion. How can I be scared of something this kitten looking. The flesh golem looks and moves like sloth from the goonies, and basically irritates me with his lack of attacking. seriously, sloth standing around texting your girlfriend, do something!

Fellow Necros, I would really like to hear input from the community about having a separate granmaster skill that affected the difficulty of other players to remove our conditions. Let me try to illustrate my problem.

I think as condition masters (although I don’t see how we are any more masterful at conditions, other than the condition dmg judo we can enact), one of the biggest dissapointments for me is the lack of a scaled difficulty of removal factor. In other words, while we level up, sure we can do slightly more damage with conditions, but the difficulty of removal does not change. Specifically, I stack 15 bleeds at level 1, its linearly the same as stacking 15 bleeds at level 80. The damage is linear, and while I can affect duration, I can do nothing to ward against the one click condition removal of almost all classes.

Would it be possible to have a skill that actually allows us to up the difficulty of removal? Instead of a grandmaster skill that prolongues duration but does not effect difficulty of removal, why not have a skill that decreases the likelihood of the removal being effective? Or perhaps a condtion removal only halves the damage of the existing conditions on them… or the conditions persist after the removal based on our level adn condition damage (if we are traited for it). ANother example: player activates condition removal with 15 bleeds, and it removes 1/3 – 2/3s of the bleeds.

It is frustrating stackign bleeds, and running through a rotation in a condition build only to see an enemy player click one button and mitigate your damage, considering that all our skills for condtiions are targeted, slow, and require skill and timing. YOu bust your butt, and bam, you’re at 0 dps for the moment, until you start you’re rotations again, which may not be off cooldown. NOt only is he healed, but your damage is mitigated.

Maybe this borders on OP, but as a condition focused class, I want something that differentiates the class, other than the ability to draw conditions off others (which does not always work) and push them off me, only to see them, once again, one click removed.

Condition damage, duration and impact needs to be looked at for sure. You can’t have an attrition build, who damage is so easily removed. A 1-2 second chill, whoopidie-f-ing-dooo, esp when the removal of that condition happens faster than the refresh on the skill. Or bleed, you bust your BUTT to stack on 15 bleeds (sacrificing to some degree your damage output becuase you want to be a DoT oriented class, and watch as they one click your conditions off… remove 1 condition, removes ALL stacks of it. Totally mitigates your dmg output.

It is to dang easy for most classes in GW2 to just wash you major outsource of damage, or heck, have a another class do it for you.

My conditions are no more viable at level 80 vs level 80s than at level 1 vs level 1s, because condition damage scales up linearly without any added effects that would make us masters of condition damage. For example, we can’t increase difficulty of removal. In my opinion, I think necros specializing in conditions, should also have traits that make it more difficult to remove. Instead of +33% condtiion duration, which is a joke when the condition gets removed, I think there should be a grandmaster trait that makes it 33% harder to remove (or something). Make it dependent on your condition dmg, more condition dmg, the harder it is to remove. It would make condition necros really viable and dangerous. I would actually run it more in wvw. In addition, it woudl make having a necro around more useful, as we can remove conditions from others easier that most other classes.

I completely agree with all of the points, and I was most struck by the WvWvW section. I love to PvP, especially when there is a goal in mind. That said, sPvP does not do it for me, because it is mindnumbingly repetitive. For example, you see the same class combinations in the game (flooded with Mesmers, thieves, ele’s and guardians), the same strategies, and the same game play over and over and over again. Heck even LOL has the same dang map and it is still more random than the spvp fights in gw2 due to diff class combos etc. Here its the same classes, running the same kitten builds over and over. SO, after doing that a bit, I got bored, and tired of being beat not by skill, but by the lack of balance of some classes (I will spare you the details of my frustration with 1 hit button classes)

So then, WvW seemed like a good idea (thinking back on DAOC days), so ill give it a go. However, just as you pointed out, it does not mean anything. You take a camp, 1-2 mins later, the camp is taken back or taken by the third faction. You can choose to stay in there, but usually its a huge zerg just on a diff rotation around the map. Zerg movement is predictable, and mostly goes in a dang circle. Aside from camp taking, you have keeps and towers, that don’t give you ANYTHING when you take them, but the amount of exp,karma,silver you get for doing PVE events. You’re not achieving anything for the good of your lands, etc., and all you did for an entire day, is gone the next day due to the servers that maintain a night zerg. <—not that imp
In addition, its the same classes dominating in WvW, 10000 mesmers, guardians, and thieves, with a few eles running around. Warriors are less frequent, followed by engs and necros. The same imbalance in spvp is existent in wvw.

The last problem is, there is no reason to be in a group in wvw, at all. Just run with the zerg, blah blah blah, hit buttons, run around, tacits go out the window, and numbers win. Sure, smaller coordinated groups take out slightly larger uncoordinated groups, but mostly its about the zerg. The lack of a dependence on group play, just makes it mindnumbing. You don’t need to be in a group to help out, and for the most part, people don’t run groups that much. Some guilds do, sure, but its not really that beneficial, which in my opinion, takes the fun out of it.

On more minor point that I think does affect group play, is that I actually miss the holy mmo trinity. I miss tank, dd, healer, because forming a group was great, you wanted to stick together and help each other, etc. Here in gw2, why be in a group, you don’t gain anythign by it other than Cntrl-T, because any group dynamics goes out the window due to the randomness of beneficial aoe effects.

So moron running next to you will likely get the buffs before your own group, or hell, his pet gets it sometimes. Don’t like this aspect of gw2, i miss the trinity, because you had a roll to fill, and people took pride in beign able to fill the role. I don’t take pride in anythign because it just ends up being a massive slam dance where my aid is so spread out that it does no good to those I WANT to help.

I hate him because he is supposed to be a necromancer and runs around with a greatsword granting him guardian, ele, and other class abilities. His necromancer abilities are better than the class abilities (especially given his ability to summon 5 flesh golems) and it bothers me because it seems yet another indicator of ANET’s obliviousness to why necro is the least played class in the game. Necro was likely so bad during testing (esp used by AI instead of player) that they gave the necro plantboy a greatsword so he could at least damage the enemies during personal story fights. Plus, his staff animation is cooler than the necro’s stupid slow moving hand (necrotic grasp) and that irritates me as well.

I am sorry but the community is the one that is completely screwing themselves over. People have the dang prices jacked up so dang high to make gold to buy things because other people have the prices jacked up so kitten high. You want to address the situation, talk to the community. However no one cares. Players have been constantly jacking up the prices since day one. I have watched precursors start at 15 gold and go all the way up to 400 gold now. ridiculous, and completely inane. Players control the economy and are screwing themselves.