Guild Wars 2

However, you will never see a Guardian, Warrior, Necromancer, Ranger, Engineer, or Elementalist be able to do this except against the most amazingly bad of opponents. This is why it is a terrible benchmark for anything but a thief build, because thieves, and to a lesser degree mesmers, are the only professions capable of doing this.

This is amazingly wrong on every point.

I see them do it all the time. A guardian just retaliations them to death. A warrior blows through them with brute force, granted the warrior barely makes it out alive, but they can still do it if they time and land every ability. I ROUTINELY 1vX with my ranger, and its flat out absurd you think rangers are incapable of doing so. In fact the video I linked earlier in this thread is exactly what I do. Same build and all. Engineers are also capable of doing it, but engineers outside of sPvP are incredibly rare, plus they require a decent amount of skill just to do well even with 1 person what with all the skill shots and kit swapping they have. Elementalists are most certainly capable of 1vX. I have one in my guild who does it quite often in WvW.

Yes, the skill level of these opponents must be lower than average for this to be achievable.

Now, about necromancers doing this? I’ve only ever seen them achieve this with horrendously bad up levels. Two bad level 80s are still going to curb stomp a good necromancer. The other classes, if they’re running that magical roaming build, will beat those same two bad level 80s the necromancer can’t.

The point still stands. Necromancers do not have the magical attrition build that is capable of achieving the same level of play the other classes are capable of.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kravick.4906:

Really? So you’re saying that a necro would have been able to kill those 4 people also? I highly doubt it.

I’m saying a video of one profession killing 4 baddies doesn’t say anything about whether another profession can kill large numbers of baddies. And in any case, I don’t see why killing large numbers of baddies should be the benchmark for balance. Like, if the Warrior were super duper good at PvD, that wouldn’t mean every other profession that were worse at killing inanimate objects would be UP.

Yeah it kinda does make a good benchmark, because thats the entire point of this thread. What necros can’t do because they don’t quite cut it. As was said earlier in this thread. When playing the other classes, depending on build obviously, a good player can easily beat 2 bad/mediocre people at once. 2 bad players can easily stomp a good necro. Necromancers do not have the tools to last in attrition or 1vX fights. They are a class that requires support to be successful, when the other classes do not require it.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kravick.4906:

No one ever said necros can’t duel or 1v1. Its the 1vX when you’ve achieved a higher level of skill that necromancers are having issues with. The ranger video I linked had him 1v4ing people and winning.

Yeah, and the 4 were just terrible. Not to knock the ranger’s skills but I don’t find the video as a particularly compelling case of why the Ranger is OP or the Necro UP.

Really? So you’re saying that a necro would have been able to kill those 4 people also? I highly doubt it.

On a more serious note, with the introduction of stealth reveal traps, I am starting to see less thieves and more roaming rangers with bunker builds running around the place.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Here’s a video of a necro dueling competent opponents. Still looks pretty impressive.

No one ever said necros can’t duel or 1v1. Its the 1vX when you’ve achieved a higher level of skill that necromancers are having issues with. The ranger video I linked had him 1v4ing people and winning. The engineer was surviving against just as many by himself and still killing people. Two bad players can still gang up and kill a good necro, and its not for a lack of trying. We just do not have the tools to deal with outnumbered situations, and thats a major issue. Every other class has at least one build that allows them to 1vX in at least some limited capacity. Necros do not.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

Great movies man , now try to show us something similar but with necro

Sadly, such a video does not exist, or is it possible to exist with necros as they currently are. If the video did exist, it would have been linked repeatedly as proof that this class is capable of something other than being a floor ornament.

Coincidentally enough, I also have an engineer at level 80, and I managed to have most of the gear for this build too. While I only played this character for about a week, I was still able to easily achieve many 1v2 victories using this guys build. I’m sure with enough practice I could be on this persons level eventually. However, I just lost interest in my engineer as its play style just wasn’t to my liking. BTW, I would like to say that engineer condition application is leagues better than necromancer, and keeping them on is just as easy. Again, as a necro, these fights would have been down right impossible for me to win.

This build is a lot glassier than the above ranger build, but with smart use of Elixir S, Gear Shield, Supply Drop, and some luck with RNG stealth from Elixir S tool belt skill, its a hell of a lot easier to attrition people with engineer.

Prepare to be… more depressed.

I run this exact same gear/build on my ranger in WvW. I am very much able to match what this person does NP as a ranger. As a necro, these fights would be down right impossible.

Prepare to be… depressed.

I’ll post the engineer one in a moment. I still need to find it.

Pendragon.8735:

We are talking different things I think. You are talking how hard the class is to master, which I agree is high ceiling to learn. But I’m talking what you can achieve once you actually reach that ceiling. Show me the videos of one Necro trolling 2, 3 or even 5 enemies, like an Ele, Thief, or Mesmer, you can’t. Because a mastered Necro’s max capability is much lower due to lacking the things I cited.

Both rangers and engineers can do this as well. It really boggles my mind how ANet calls necromancers the masters of attrition, yet engineers and rangers do attrition way, way, WAY, WAAAAAAAAY better. Necromancers are apparently fine the way they are though.

I can post the ranger and engineer videos if you want, but only if requested. I don’t want to clutter this thead with unnecessary stuff by other classes.

Avigrus.2871:

Siphons are horrible, especially since you need at least 20 points in the line to even consider using them…

Play a DD bunker Ele in water attunement and you will realise how bad they actually are.

They need to scale … even if just a little bit.

Or a bunker regeneration ranger… Life siphons don’t even compare.

Arianna.7642:

JonPeters.5630:

Ok we found a good repro case. It has to do with how death shroud and downed used to interact. I will get someone on it today and try and get a fix to you all asap.

How long ago was the iteration to change us from being dependent on Death Shroud when downed to it actually being our core mechanic? I’m rather certain that this was months prior to release. Which means that we probably haven’t had a real iteration pass in approximately that long.
That’s not good.

Every time that man speaks, it just further shows he hasn’t a clue whats actually going on with necromancers. I’m sure he has this vague idea in his head on what he thinks is accurate, but if the man just sat down and played a level 80 necromancer for a week in all aspects of the game, PvE, dungeons/fractals, tPvP (not hot joins), and WvW, I feel he would seriously reconsider his stance that he thinks there is nothing wrong with this class.

To answer your question about when they changed DS to a transformation, it was approximately 2-3 months before the game released. The very first BWE they came out and said they had just recently changed DS to a transformation skill and needed feedback on its new functionality from the players.

I don’t even notice the self inflicted conditions TBH. The vulnerability you get from using epidemic is something I completely forgot about until you made this thread. The bleeding from Blood is Power is always used with dagger offhand or staff 4 to turn it into additional bleeding on target. The poison from Corrupt Boon is never even noticed due to the fact that poison as a damage condition is so weak and insignificant, and the -33% healing is completely circumvented by Consume Conditions, which 90% of necromancers run anyway. No one uses Corrosive Poison Cloud because the skill is such kitten. I didn’t even know it gave you self inflicted weakness until I looked at it just now. Of all the self inflected conditions, I’d say weakness would be the most detrimental due to us not having access to vigor. Shame CPC is such a garbage skill.

I find the self inflicted conditions to be completely insignificant and I just ignore the fact that they exist except for the case of BiP, which I use offensively.

There are condition/vitality/toughness stats available, but only through ascended trinkets. There is currently no armor with those stats.

Its nice to know I’m not the only person who thinks necro staff is lackluster. I’ve always felt that staff was a bad weapon. Not because its abilities are bad, they’re good in fact. Its the auto attack that makes this weapon terrible. Once you use your marks, you’re stuck with a very bad auto attack that makes you feel like it was a mistake to have weapon swapped in the first place.

Axe suffers from the same problem and has already been discussed above. Doesn’t know what it wants to be, etc.

Traits are another big mess. They’re spread all over the place. When I look at another classes trait trees its very obvious the weapon traits belong where they’re placed. Necros have dagger in the vitality tree for crying out loud. A power weapon… in the healing tree. Ugh, so bad.

Wells have no clear singular focus. They each bring something completely different to the table, so I understand why they seem a little spread out, but its extremely hard to trait for wells when they’re in a tree everyone regards as poop.

Zatria.5783:

That’s cool. I’m just saying, talking out of both sides of the mouth isn’t going to convince anyone. You can’t blame it on lack of studying and advise people to do more of it…then tell them you are actually using someone else’s build.

that’s all I was saying.

I completely understand why he doesn’t want to make the build public. ANet doesn’t want necros to be bunkers, at all, ever, after what happened in beta. I’m pretty sure if this build became public knowledge it would get nerfed into the ground and take what little functional traits we have with it.

Zatria.5783:

You can’t blame them can you? You mention some of this is due to lack of theory crafting and advise people to experiment on their own, yet you use SOMEONE ELSE’S build.

And of course, there is your name. :P

Please make a video.

I’ve personally seen the build in action. It definitely is more tanky than the well known minion bunker build.

The only thing they fixed about minion AI is that they no longer run after random NPCs you don’t have aggroed any more. They still sometimes decide to stand around uselessly, however. Especially in WvW.

I just happened to mosey on in to this here thread and I’m pretty shocked at all the hatred that’s being thrown around

I agree. I think everyone needs to just take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to remain civil. There were things that happened that a lot of people didn’t like on all of the teams, not just necros, but there is no need to bring any of that drama and fill the forums with it. Keep in mind that even coaches can make mistakes and they have to learn like everyone else. No one starts out good at what they do. Takes practice like everything else.

IGN: Iris Ashensoul
Main Profession: Necromancer
Alternate Professions: Ranger
Account name: Kravick.4906
Practice Availablity: Varies, but usually any day after 4 PM EST
Current PvP rank (Not Leaderboard): 24
Level of Desire: Active Tournament Play
NA or EU: NA

emon.1863:

Necro aswell:
You can easily jump inside clocktower from both poits
You can easily kill ppl in clocktower(after treb has destroyd wall in there).
You can set marks on ppl in the window from below.
You can set mark to middle from the tunnel (below clocktower point)

It is very fun map ,even as necro

Getting into the clock tower was never an issue.
Also not an issue.
How are you capping/decapping point from the windows?
Again, how are you capping/decapping point from the tunnel?

Clock tower isn’t the only thing that gets trebbed either. If you’re not on point, you’re doing it wrong unless you’ve got a bunker you’re protecting/supporting in which case, yeah sure.

I really hate Khylo, but thats probably only because I play necro, who has no vigor, only two dodge rolls, and no mobility to speak of to get out of the way.

ReverendChan.8467:

I guess that is enough to help him get into the top 1K isn’t it? Wait no he isn’t there. :/

Neither of us do tPvP enough to get that high. We’re also not serious about it since neither of us have a team. When we do que for tPvP, its usually solo or with 1 or 2 other people. You need a team to get to the top 1k.

I find it stupid that you’re basing someones worth on a useless individual stat when you need an entire team of people to get you that far.

I don’t care how you try to justify it Bhawb. Minions aren’t anything but a gimmick at this point. People have tried, and they just don’t work. You sacrifice way to much for what little they give you, and if they die, you lose not only your utility slot, but your traits as well.

rizzo.1079:

Huh? I’ve heard complaints about the minions but as far as I can see I press 1 and they go attack the thing I have targeted. Yeah sometimes they get stuck places but I’ve never played a game with minions that don’t get stuck. You guys want they should just be able to steamroll everything without user intervention or something?

Use them outside of sPvP and you’ll see exactly what everyone is talking about. They’re especially spazstick in WvW for some reason.

Loyo.8526:

This makes me wish I rolled ranger… F it, Ima go roll one.

I did. Only been 80 for a week and I’ve already won countless 1vX fights in WvW using this build. I’ve also found rangers to be no where near as bad as the people on the ranger forums make them out to be. I’ve also found ranger pets to be leagues better than necro minions.

Xaragon.3520:

Team Paradigm are talking about it now on their channel.. They are saying necro is the weakest because he cant disengage and other classes can do the same if not better condi damage.

Also they mention lack of vigor.

This was the BIGGEST issue for me when I was doing the all class tournament. It was just so easy for mesmers to intercept me between points and force a fight. Even the announcers noticed this and talked a lot about it during the match. When someone initiates combat with a necro, the necro is pretty much forced to fight it out right then and there or die. Even if you win, you’re still disabled because of how long necro cool downs are. This is mainly why necros make bad roamers.

Well, at least this bug is now known and being looked at. It is rather disheartening that none of the ANet employees even picked up on this until now. This bug has been around for a LONG time (months) and has been noticed by practically everyone outside of sPvP.

Hopefully this will be an easy fix and we’ll see it finally taken care of sooner rather than later. This is a pretty devastating bug to deal with in WvW.

Its easy to see why necros are shunned. No mobility, everyone always brings condition clears out the wazoo, our sustain is a joke, our bunker builds are only average at best, our burst is mediocre, very little access to boons, our team support is a joke, we’re always targeted first because of how easy we are to kill, and we always start with 0 life force so we’re at a severe disadvantage right out of the gate. What professional team wants to deal with that?

Rennoko.5731:

Lopez.7369:

Nope. I actually noticed it doesn’t have a facing requirement and seems to miss a lot less often now. I’m happy with it.

I am completely sure it had a facing requirement historically.

I will test again today to verify. If it doesn’t then it may take back a spot on my bar that was vacated by epidemic.

EDIT: Tested, it does not require facing… Not sure that I can speak for the hit or miss rate, but I will use it some and see what I find out.

Just tested this too, and you’re right. No longer does it require forward facing. When did this change happen? This makes corrupt boon so much more reliable now. I hope this change is intended and not a bug that will get fixed later.

Bhawb.7408:

The real problem at high level play is that there are so few people the meta is incredibly stale. There aren’t hundreds of Necros, there are like 10 at most, and almost all of them play Condi. That means people aren’t looking at MM builds, power builds, hybrid builds, etc. they are just seeing a bunch of condi necros. In EU condi necros are in trouble because all the necros there (to my knowledge) have essentially the same playstyle, and right now that playstyle is hard-countered by the condi removal meta.

It has nothing to do with how necros could actually perform, but how they are seen as performing, and the complete lack of people playing to change that opinion.

They’ve been tested. Its just been shown to be sub par. There are plenty of people left playing. If they actually fix the AI, then maybe it will be shown that minions aren’t bad, but no one is going to put their faith in a bunch of skills that even have the “chance” to bug out.

I don’t like Death Shroud in its current implementation. For the most part, the reasons why have already been covered above, so I’m not going to repeat whats already been said.

Death Shroud used to be something completely different, however. It used to be a down state mechanic. A few months before the game released they completely redesigned the mechanic to what we have now. Then, during the beta weekends, someone found a build that made Death Shroud insanely OP, so they took a jack hammer to the entire class with a fix it later mentality and severely over nerfed several skills and abilities, and even some skills that were completely unrelated to Death Shroud got nerfed. What we have now is the class being balanced around the Death Shroud mechanic, instead of the mechanic being balanced around the class as it should be. As a result, we now have a very bad case of over balancing around a rather lack luster mechanic.

Frankly, I would like to see the mechanic as it is scrapped so that they can give necromancer some real attrition capability. Death Shroud as it is doesn’t work in its current iteration and is nothing more than a glorified Engineer kit. Death Shroud is whats holding this class back, and we are certainly not the masters of attrition that ANet thinks we are.

This is what real attrition combat looks like. We don’t even come close to this.

I already posted in the thread in sPvP section. I’d like to see this happen, so I’m volunteering.

flow.6043:

Actually you can land Corrupt Boon facing away from your opponent as well.
Still, sometimes it can miss without any apparent reason.

The initial casting you have to be facing towards your target though, or it goes on that dumb 5 second cool down.

I could get behind something like this. I really want to see what well coordinated and practiced all class teams would be capable of.

Its still affected by the problematic random “obstructed” bug that projectiles get. Corrupt Boon actually fires a very fast moving invisible projectile, which requires a small 45 degree forward facing towards your opponent to fire off. Additionally, your target can actually juke this projectile mid sequence since it is not heat seeking. You won’t get any feed back from the skill (miss, dodged, obstructed) because the projectile does not report any data back to the client.

Bhawb.7408:

And no. We had multiple really high level Necromancers watching the tournament, and none of them knew how to counter the Mesmers. They counter everything we can do. If we leave a single point uncovered, they will portal there and take it (or at least get the neut), and be back to the main fight by the time we even get there. If we stay on points, we are undermanned everywhere else because with their portal use they can always have 5 men in the fight and still guard their points. The multiple shatters made it impossible to avoid them all, and because of Mesmers’ very strong escape mechanics, the only time we could burst a target down successfully is if they messed up.

Overall that match just highlighted pretty much every weakness Necros have in PvP.

God, this.

Dealing with mesmers 1v1 is enough of a chore as it is, but add 4 more of them and it was just down right impossible to keep track of a single mesmer with them constantly going invisible all of the time. This made it impossible to focus a single target due to target calling breaking on stealth/invis. Then add phantasms which can still do truck loads of damage while the mesmer is invisible. We basically lost every single team fight because of this. They would just rotate continuously in and out of invis while still applying tremendous AOE damage. Then you have the can of worms that is distortion when they are visible.

I’m not calling mesmers OP, but for necros who have no teleports, vigor, or evasion skills to avoid the shatters with, and only 2 dodge rolls, saying “Just dodge the shatters!” doesn’t work when you have 15 clones doing this at random intervals. You’re gonna take a majority of them to the face at some point and DS can only absorb so many shatters. It was just unavoidable.

I think most of us got pretty frustrated during the mesmer fights. A lot of us were getting rather cranky during those matches because of how badly we were getting countered. Hell, third match I couldn’t do anything because they kept intercepting and out maneuvering me while I was trying to get to my destinations. You’re never supposed to fight in between points if you can help it, but what do you do when you play a class that cannot disengage when necessary? Necros are pretty much forced to commit to any fight 100% that lands on them whether they want to or not.

With all that said, I am still very impressed we made it as far as we did. Good job necros!

That would be why. They’re not properly named. “Rangers vs Thieves”. I didn’t realize we were thieves. :p

Bhawb.7408:

If you go to twitch.tv/soacgaming you will find our matches leading up to the finals, the finals are on twitch.tv/blu42; look under past broadcasts. I imagine that TowerdiveTV will be uploading the VODs soon as well, last time it took them right around 24 hours.

I think my highlight from the caster’s side was them (jokingly) giving Flesh Golem MVP of the Guardian matches :P

I’ve looked all over this website and can’t find any of todays matches. You’re going to have to give me a direct link. They don’t have these videos in any of the channels shown on the left or the right.

Where are the official tournament videos posted? I’ve been looking and can’t find them. I want to know what the announcers were saying during our games. :p

Wells are balanced entirely around sPvP. We are never going to see a change to their cool down as long as sPvP is the focus of this games balancing.

Spectral Armor in its current iteration is complete garbage. The other classes that have protection boon on their utilities are pretty much better in every way.

Kitedyou.1720:

Bhawb.7408:

WHAT? Necromancers are one of the strongest classes underwater, hands down.

Heh…hard to believe with a spear that can’t hit squat because you have no mobility and DS skills that blow. I hate underwater combat (that isn’t pve). The DS skills suck, Wave of Fear and Gathering Plague are no good for solo Necros.

The g’darn Flesh Golem wilsons on you whenever you enter water, leaving you with that garbage Plague form.

The trident is the only useful weapon IMO on the Necro for underwater combat.

You have your opinion and I have mine.

No mobility? Are we even playing the same game? Necromancers actually HAVE mobility under water. Its amazing and makes me wish I had my underwater abilities on land. I actually managed to 1v3 under water with my necromancer once. Something I’ve easily achieved on land with other classes, but never necromancer.

In PVE, necros are really no different than any other class. There is no one class that can’t do any of the PVE content. In dungeons warrior, guardian, and mesmer are considered “meta” classes due to how those three classes combined with each other literally face roll everything. You won’t need to worry about people passing you up for groups though. There are plenty of groups out there for all classes. I would suggest using gw2lfg.com for dungeons.

In PVP you might find yourself a little distraught, however. Necros need support from other classes to do well there. They’re pretty bad in WvW as a roaming class or solo queing in tPvP. However, necros do fine when following the zerg in WvW or with a coordinated team in tPvP. Just don’t fall behind though or you’ll quickly get eaten.

I would suggest looking up some of Nemesis builds sticked at the top. He has some pretty decent leveling/PVE builds.

I definitely remember being able to adjust horn size (thicker vs thinner) in addition to length during beta weekend..

I like the new one. Its more realistic. Bouncy charr look silly.

Necro staff (and all the other necro projectiles) can still be out run by people with swiftness when they are out of combat. At least you can hit people with the ranger projectiles as long as they don’t sidestep.

Warjin.8942:

Dude delete this fast, you are going to get this class nerfed lol

ANet doesn’t give a crap about WvW. They balance around sPvP.

My prediction is that nothing will honestly change with this class regarding stun breakers. ANet seems overly afraid of doing any major changes to this class for fear of a certain sPvP build that existed in beta.

I’ve got over 1000 hours spent on my necro. I’ve been necromancer since release. I’m willing to help you with this. I also have multiple level 80s that I have spent a little bit of time on so I’ve got some pretty decent knowledge of a few other classes as well for comparison.

GankSinatra.2653:

To be fair, it might be a bit too much to ask for a bugfix within a months time.
We did get Gluttony and Soul Reaping fixed, but that took a lot longer than 1 month after posting about them. Only the fact that it seems to work fine in pvp sounds to me like it cant be thát hard to fix, but ofcourse you never know. Def hotfix worthy though.

But when Hidden Killer got broke, they hotfixed it within a week.