Guild Wars 2

Nemesis.8593:

Check some of my builds

Yes, I’ve seen them. Tried all of them even. Some work better than others for roaming, but ultimately they only work well in zergs, where you get the support of many many people. I’m talking about roaming builds where you have no support from other people. Builds that allow thieves, elementalists, mesmers, guardians, engineers, and even warriors and rangers to some small extent to look for smallish scale fights on their own. Zergs bore me honestly.

You get absolutely curbstomped as a necromancer as soon as the situation turns into 1v2 or higher against level 80s with half a brain. Meanwhile, 1v2 and 1v3 are no problem on my thief. I’ve even successfully 1v4ed non upleveled multiple times on my thief. Yes, even after the so called nerf to stealth, which really didn’t do anything. Hell, I’ve 1v2ed and 1v3ed quite a few times on my warrior, a class that supposedly has trouble doing that. All of these fights included all level 80s. I don’t count up leveled players.

What I don’t understand, is in a game whos primary defense mechanic is mobility (which necromancers have next to none of), how people can blindly defend not having it and still expect other people not to see you as weak. I mean why do you think people focus necromancers in tPvP? It sure as hell isn’t because people think we’re “strong” and need to be put down ASAP. I purposefully single out necromancers on my thief and warrior, not because I’m afraid of what they can do, but because to me they are nothing more than a free kill. They have the least amount of stun breaks, they have no mobility to speak of, and their class defining feature is to face tank all of my damage. Damage I have no problem pumping into them faster than they can deal with.

Hard to master (which I don’t think it is) doesn’t mean waek or underpowered.

Compared to other classes that can regularly 1v2 and 1v3 people, yes, it kinda does.

flow.6043:

Absolutely untrue.

Ok, show me a build that can roam in WvW or kill people with impunity in tPvP without the support of another class.

Nemesis.8593:

After all the work i’ve done, people still think necromancers were and still are the worst class…

Which will always be the case so long as necromancers don’t have an “I Win” spec like most of the other classes do.

How many people were in your survey agreed that… that is how necromancers feel ? I am curious because i want to see based on how many hundreds did you based this average.

I kinda have to agree with nolop on that one. I mean, how many times has it been said on these forums that this class is hard to master? That bike looks like it would be very hard to master, but fun once you figure it out.

That being said, this class is still far from competitive unless you get a big helping hand from other classes to support you. The other classes in this game don’t need others to hold them up, and are easily capable of standing on their own legs. This is what I believe people have issue with. Necromancer is a support class with no builds capable of supporting itself. The same cannot be said for the other classes, who don’t need the support of others to be competitive. They all have at least one build that allows them to function on their own in a PvP environment. PvE on the other hand, it doesn’t matter. You can literally go 0/0/0/0/0 and still blow kitten up on any class.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Further on down the road, it does mean that if we introduce new faces into character creation, they will include a broader range. Does that mean that this particular face will be in there? No, because she is a main character, but there could be a cute kitty cat style face.

This is… unfortunate. Lynxes are probably my all time favorite wild cat, and I was quite disappointed that I couldn’t make my charr in the image of a lynx. Seeing as Rox is the only face that, so far, has this style (eyes are still WAY to big on Rox though, but I like the face) and you go and say it won’t be available for character creation, makes me sad.

Talentless.5708:

Read the forums… and not the posts made by scrubs who complain rather than learn.

I believe Dred is referring to roaming builds, not zerg builds. We have great zerg builds, but necro roaming capability is lacking severely.

Show me a video of a necromancers taking people on 1v3 or 1v4 like mesmers, thieves, and elementalists currently can do.

Bas.7406:

Kravick.4906:

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t even begin to compare Warrior and Necromancer utility skills, they are completely different.

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Haha, I love full signet warriors – useless in tournaments, and easy deaths in dungeons. 1 signet is fine, good warriors carry banners or shouts in dungeons with Frenzy for GS. Bad warrior like signets.

Just because I mentioned signets you think I’m talking about warriors that run all signets? Jeez, Bas. Its like you want people to think you’re extra special. I was talking about ALL warrior utilities in general, but made special mention of their signets because our signets are so god awful.

As for the Signet conversations, we were talking about signet builds because someone mentioned that Warriors signets are amazing. Which made me laugh because they have one really good signet, but the really good ones in pvp never carry a signet unless they are going for might stacking, and even then there are better ways.

Wow, you don’t know warriors at all.

A signet that gives an entire adrenaline bar. Absolutely amazing for popping kill shot or eviscerate at will and then going back to full adrenaline for the damage/crit bonus traits.

A signet that gives stability. Why the hell do you think this is bad? Stability is amazing. Necromancers don’t even get stability, unless its tied to a trait no one uses, or a transformation in which we can’t do anything useful like stomping.

A signet that cures all conditions. Hey, remember when people said warriors had problems with conditions? I bet those people never had this one on their bar.

A signet that gives might. This is probably the only bad one, but only because it gets overshadowed by FGJ.

And finally the grand daddy signet to rule them all, a signet that grants might, fury, and swiftness for 30 seconds on only a 60 second cool down. This signet is a beast.

Compare these to any of the necromancer signets and I’ll just laugh at you. Even the worst warrior signet is better than our best one in terms of utility and cool down. Their best one actually functions like a 3 in one utility knife. So many uses.

Using two or more signets at once is bad, I agree. This is why the majority of warriors out there don’t. I don’t know of any warrior that doesn’t run with at least signet of rage, though.

I laughed about all-signet builds being bad, and that’s what got us here.

No, your reading comprehension failed you again, and the fact you’re constantly jumping to false conclusions is what got us here.

Shadowcaster.9281:

Looking at the build, I can appreciate the fact that you are taking death magic for the toughness… however it seems to be wasted points, due to the fact that i don’t have any minions under me?

Perhaps the abilities from 6-9 can be tweaked?

You’re not taking Death Magic because of minions or toughness. The toughness is just an added bonus. You’re taking Death Magic so you can get bigger unblockable marks and Reaper’s Protection. Its not just a minion tree. You want Reaper’s Protection for the simple fact that it automatically fears warriors and thieves away from you when they do their big opening move, which will negate their burst, or get anyone else thats close to you away from you when you get CCed. You’re also taking it because its a free 3-4k damage from the Terror trait. The fear from Reaper’s Protection will last 3 1/2 seconds with this build. In sPvP terror will hit approx. 1100 per tick as long as you have a second condition on them (easy to do and you should have on them anyway) when using the rabid trinket.

With unblockable marks you can hit warriors and engineers through shield block and it makes using marks much, much easier. The circle gets huge. It goes through Aegis as well. If you use Reaper’s Mark on them while blocking, it will end their shield block allowing you to continue to stack on the damage.

Are you solo queuing or running with a group? If you’re going in solo, you’re going to have a hard time in sPvP as a necromancer. We’re more of a support class that your team has to protect. Our lack of mobility skills and inability to avoid damage makes us a very easy target to take down. The minute we get focus fired by 2 or more people, we go down extremely fast, and there is really nothing you can do about it.

As for your build, its not the most optimal build I’ve seen. The necromancer life steal traits are pretty weak for sPvP since there is so much burst damage going around. The 10 points in spite as a condition spec isn’t going to help much either.

I would suggest this build. I’ve had the most success running this so far.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMaR7xbib87JAJFPDd0DiDOZKFqnOA;TsAAzCpoiyElIKbUuokRtqYUxcBA

Reaper’s Protection is by far one of the best traits to have in PVP. Its a base 2 second fear and has saved me so many times from warriors bulls rush and thieves basilisk venom. If you’re quick, you can time your Doom and Reaper’s Mark to stack the fear up for some pretty wicked damage. Like most other conditions, fear stacks in duration so don’t be afraid to use another fear if your target is already feared. Also remember that stability will corrupt into fear. Use that to your advantage for not only breaking bunker builds, but for added damage as well.

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t even begin to compare Warrior and Necromancer utility skills, they are completely different.

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

We just had a thread about this a few days ago. It pretty much outlines the pros and cons of this class.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/New-player-what-s-wrong-with-Necro/first

Things to consider before you dive head long into necromancer game play is that no one actively seeks out necromancers for anything. We are not part of the top meta, but we’re not at the bottom either. We’re a very middle of the road class. If you don’t care about being the best at any one thing or not being able to squeeze that last 2% out of this class, then you’ll enjoy playing a necromancer. If you have a problem with mechanical limitation and issues with glitchy abilities, then you should save yourself the frustration and look else where. With that said, only you can decide if the play style of this class is right for you. You can only do that by actually playing the class.

Bhawb.7408:

And yet there are people like Symbolic and Khalifa, and Nemesis. I’d say a win/lose record of 2000-400 speaks a lot for itself.

This means nothing when you analyze whats really happening. This game doesn’t have any ranking system for tournament play, so that record is them going up against aimless PUGs most of the time.

Boycotting a class isn’t going to change anything. ANet won’t care since they’ll be plenty of people playing other classes. If you wanna hit em where it counts, boycott gems. Make sure you let them know why you’re doing it though, otherwise they won’t have a clue whats going on.

Interesting build. I tried it, but didn’t like it. Way to squishy without the necessary mobility to make it work.

I think the major reason it works for Khalifa is because he has a team there to support him. In any other situation you are going to be targeted and destroyed in a matter of seconds. Especially when you pop lich form. This is a team fighting build, so if you don’t have a team to play with, this build most likely won’t work.

I actually had the pleasure of fighting Khalifa several times over the last 3 weeks. Hes a good player, make no mistake, but when I face him on my thief he doesn’t stand a chance against me if I catch him far enough away from his teammates. Of course any time he has teammates around he has the advantage. His team is very good at calling targets, focus firing, and getting people off the ground compared to the PUGs I always play with. On the flip side of things, every time I encounter his group when I am playing my necromancer, he absolutely destroys me in every fight.

Without a coordinated team, this build isn’t very effective IMO.

I’ve had the most success in WvW with a terror build. 0/30/20/0/20. Reaper’s Protection is amazingly good as well, and its 2 seconds long base. You’ll get CCed a lot so it goes off constantly, and its saved me, and won me fights, more than I can count. You can usually fear someone to death if you time it with Reaper’s Mark and Doom. With runes of the necromancer and the second highest level food buff (one of the vegi pizzas, 36% condition duration and very cheap to buy off the TP), plus the 50% trait, it lasts a whole 4 seconds.

With that said, I actually use a power build with wells for zerging around. I find it gets me a lot more bags. For small scale fights and roaming though, the terror build is better.

jakalofnaar.1702:

I don’t like to rant, but I feel we deserve atleast some sort of recognition, or am I just being totally unreasonable and Necros are actually at a good place and I’m just no good at playing it?

No. We aren’t actually in a good place, unfortunately. We’re in an “OK” place currently. Necros aren’t the bottom of the barrel, but we’re not any where near the top either. It also doesn’t help that builds that might be top of the barrel are currently impossible to use because of bugs or unfriendly game mechanics to that build.

MMOs have a tendency to force people into metas and “max stat” philosophies at some point or another, and necromancers simply do not fit into any meta and our “max stat” is only so so. This also causes the exclusionary mentality. Especially in things that eat up a lot of time such as dungeons/instances. People want it done fast, not middling or slow. People want it done now, not soon or later. So to achieve this they will take the path of least resistance. Find the quickest to run dungeon with the highest return, the highest DPS possible, and best group support to go with it. Thats Warriors, Guardians, and Mesmers right now.

Months ago it was reported that necromancer skills do not get the shiny rainbow effect while using Bifrost. Does anyone know if this has been addressed yet?

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

I have not personally attacked anyone. The only thing I have done is called two people out on of the crap they’ve trying to force on others, and only because those two people keep talking like they have the final authority on what is and is not a problem. Especially the stuff about minion AI. The egos from these two are honestly unbearable at times.

As far as promoting the community thing, that great and all, but it can be done without pretending these issues don’t exist. Both of these two people keep attacking people who point out that something doesn’t work, and it honestly confuses me as to why. If something doesn’t work, I would figure it would be in everyones best interest to find out why, and then have it brought to the attention of the devs so it can be fixed. Pretending its not broken or that, “Minion AI is actually more complex than people think!” is crap. Its isn’t. Its just flat out decides to stop working sometimes. Especially when things like elevation, classes that repeatedly stealth, and going into the downed state comes into play.

Also, don’t be surprised when someone pushes back. No one likes being told they, “Don’t have a clue what their talking about.” when the broken traits and wrecked minion AI is staring everyone in the face.

I love these new sounds. Now it doesn’t sound like I’m flushing a toilet every time I’m dropping marks.

Andele.1306:

Kravick.4906:

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

You must add that he is also the person (well one of many devs) that said you should use DS before you die…

Oh yeah, thats right. One of the worst possible ways to use DS. Now I feel even worse. Its comments like this made by devs that seriously make me wonder how they got their jobs.

Navani.5281:

I can’t play that much while at school which is a major reason I’m getting feedback from the community. Since I can’t play much, it is nice to hear the different opinions of builds and play styles being discussed here because like I said before, it gives me educated options when I begin to flesh out my build!

I also like how I’m not the only person whose autocorrect turned a word into “kitten”.

Someone mentioned a guy on the forum who was “lyynched” and now we’re on our own.. Is he a mod? What exactly happened?

John Peters. Hes a GW2 developer. Came to these forums and basically told everyone to “L2P” regarding using death shroud. The backlash was… huge. We haven’t really seen a dev post since.

Silver.9084:

HGH Condition Burst build (grenade kit focused)

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspSXHxSfF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfewWpFEC;ToAAzCpoCyUkoIbOugk5MWYKC

Copied from OstrichEggs imo one of the best engineers.

Basically ur damage comes mostly from the V trait in Explosives lines, since u crit with grenades and proc that trait.

Currently this build is one of THE best in the game.

I hate fightin that guy. OstrichEggs OP. Thanks for the build.

I’m trying to find one for engineer, but search isn’t giving me anything. Also, what amulet would an engineer use, carrion or rabid?

Bas.7406:

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

Yes. Skills not working is not the same as minions just uselessly standing around not doing what they’re supposed too. I’m aware of Lick Wounds/Search and Rescue not functioning sometimes. At least their pets actually move when ordered to do so. Mesmer illusions also don’t just uselessly stand around half the time either. We’re talking about AI, not abilities here. Please Bas, stay on topic.

As far as the ignorant comment, I could say the same about you trying to put words in my mouth about why “I” have problems with this class. I am, as well as others, are perfectly capable of expressing these issues on our own without you making grave misconceptions of your own about why I and other people are getting fed up with this classes mechanics. We really do not appreciate you and Bhawb coming in here and telling us how we’re all wrong and you guys are the god all mighty authority on necromancers.

Bas.7406:

Navani.5281:

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

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

Examples:

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

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

This is just so… wrong. All of it.

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

CHIPS.6018:

Dredlord.8076:

Kravick.4906:

Bhawb.7408:

Congrats, you gave the enemy team 10 extra seconds worth of points, plus the time you wasted in the first fight, and however long it takes you to actually finally kill them. If you count wasting a minute to take a single point that is going to be recapped pretty easily, a win, then I think we have different views of how to accomplish objectives.

No one is talking about sPvP. There is a reason very few people play sPvP any more.

yeah its sad the devs can’t see this and devote more time to areas where the players spend most of their time like WvW.

Apparently the devs egos are too big to admit spvp failed hard in this incarnation of GW and move on to improving WvW and class balance/bugs.

The “big” wvw update is coming in 2 days. Let’s see how that goes before concluding. ^^

To be honest, I’m not holding my breath. Thus far ANets patches have been a lot of small and tiny things that don’t really amount to very much. The biggest thing was fractals so far, and all that ended up being is 9 very short mini dungeons that you do 3 of at a time. The only reason people even do those is because its the only source of ascended rings and back items. Most PUGs I’ve joined have said they don’t really find the dungeons all that fun because of X Y or Z.

And the dredge fractal? God, why is it that every time the dredge are involved it always ends up being one of the most god awful things to run.

Navani.5281:

Thanks again for all the replies. I learned a lot from reading this thread about pros and cons, and the arguments all bring out good points. I also plan on coping my legs off and getting prosthetics.

Should I reroll a Mesmer? One thing I dislike is playing a class that’s overplayed, and I thought Mesmers are the third least played. I love casting and I’m having fun with my Necro, but I don’t want to have trouble both PvPing and running dungeons at 80.

EDIT: Fixed a typo.

Mesmers are actually played a lot in sPvP and WvW roaming because of how strong they are in small group fights. You’ll see less in dungeons and WvW zerg fights because clones are hard to shatter on people in the middle of a zerg with AoE flying every where. NPCs just one shot them in dungeons and, like in WvW, theres a lot of hard hitting AoE flying around.

Honestly, all of the light armor classes in this game have really stupid mechanics or broken things that make them less than adequate when compared to the heavy and certain medium classes.

Elementalists are pigeon holed into 30 arcane and at least 20 in water with their trait trees because the other 3 are so god awful. This is why you see nothing but dagger/dagger elementalists every where. Staff is ok in dungeons but you can’t PvP outside of a zerg with staff as an elementalist without getting curb stomped. Scepter is dependent on skills that are extremely hard to hit moving targets with and focus is a pure utility weapon.

Mesmers are to dependent on easily killed clones (players tend to focus clones a lot less in sPvP and thats why they work there) for their damage output. Mesmers make a great roaming class in WvW though and do very well in sPvP.

Necros are… well, this thread.

Otaking.4675:

Whenever you see positive threads or videos about necro it’s about PVE or WvW where they have the protection of a zerg and can fight underlevelled/geared/skilled opponents. Videos like this, while not reflecting upon the skill of the producer don’t mean much to me in the grand scheme.

Rarely do you see necros owning in S/T and even then are carried by a team (I believe it’s one of Nemesis’ videos that talks extensively about how he doesn’t need might/swiftness since he gets it from guardian on the team…sorry but running a dagger build without locust signet is loco without guaranteed team comp) and are there for boon strip and undead signet to res three people. I’ve been playing a lot of S and while I have the most fun on my tankish mediocre bursting well/dagger build, I felt the most useful in a condition single target sniping boon stripper to snipe bunkers down.

However in that build 1v1 is a tragedy due to glassiness so I felt like a fragile antitank weapon that needed to be protected by the team..just a very niche function and not well rounded to win duels or anything…if my opponent doesn’t boon stack I can’t do a lot. Some opponents are so good at boon stacking they can just reapply 6-8 boons after the corrupt boon.

2v1s are rarely possible with necro but everyone has seen videos of 4v1 thief 3v1 guard 3v1 mesmer by now.

So its not just me then.

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks in tPvP trying to get my Champion Phantom (horrible horrible experience so far. My champion shadow title on my thief was infinitely easier to get and took me only 1 week and 2 days solo quing) title and this is exactly how I feel. As I watch mesmers, thieves, and guardians wade into a group of people and plow them all down, I can’t help the feeling that there is just something wrong here. I have never seen a necromancer pull something like this. If 2 or more people look my general direction, even as a full tank minion build, I’ll go down rather quickly and there is nothing I can do to prolong the fight. The same thing happens to necromancers on enemy teams as well so its not just something only I’m experiencing. Meanwhile, engineers and guardians are perfectly capable of holding a point vs 3 other people. Engineers seem especially good at this. So much so that it takes no less than 4 people or a treb to beat down a pure bunker engineer. What in the hell is ANet thinking calling us an attrition class when you’ve got engineers pulling off kitten like this?

Bhawb.7408:

Dredlord.8076:

If at least one person says necros are fine then they must be and the rest of us need to L2P because that guy must have figured it all out…

eSports in general shows this to happen fairly often.

Not really. eSports tend to show other peoples ability to carry one person. I’ve seen it happen all the time.

Bhawb.7408:

And even without legs he runs faster than 99% of people alive today.

How do you run without legs? Jeez Bhawb, please think about what you’re saying before you click submit.

Dude uses a machine (yes, prosthetic legs are machines) to do what he couldn’t before. There is a reason why the Olympic officials barred him from ever competing again. Those machines give him a distinct advantage over those of us who still have legs. He actually runs faster now with these things than he did before because of the engineering behind them.

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Keep in mind though, the number of people who say its not up to par outweigh the people who say its fine. There is a reason why necromancer is the second least played class in the game.

Yes, everyone knows that if the majority of people say something, why, it must be true.

With todays access to technology and peoples ability to do research on their own, more often than not, yes. Our entire culture and society is based on this phenomenon.

I’ve heard this a lot from people, but I haven’t experienced it often. Does this just happen at high level fractals (which I don’t do yet) or dungeons like Arah that are harder? Because it is really rare that I encounter it in pug groups (not saying it doesn’t happen, I just don’t notice it, but maybe I don’t do hard enough dungeons to where people care). People seem to care a lot more about if you know the dungeon or not than class in my experience.

Up to level 30, it doesn’t honestly matter. Going any higher, it absolutely matters because at that point it becomes doing the absolute best possible damage combined with hard counters (projectile blocking, aegis, mobility skills to avoid damage completely) to incoming damage. This is why groups at that level contain no less than 2 guardians, at least 1 warrior, and one mesmer. Necromancers bring none of these tools to the table and are thus not even a consideration.

Bhawb.7408:

Navani.5281:

So what IS the role of a Necro endgame then? If it’s sort of in the middle, is there one that I should lean towards?

So remember that post I made in the beginning where I said: “We aren’t bad at all, but you are going to be flooded with posts here about how we are broken.”? That is what is happening here.

Necromancers are a class based on conditions. Conditions reduce the enemies effectiveness, or increase ours against them, the exact opposite of boons. With that in mind, just go watch Nemesis’ videos, he has a stickied thread at the top of the forums where you can find his stuff. He has great videos for beginners, and it will let you watch someone who knows what they are doing and backs it up without having to watch a bunch of people bicker about how necromancers are bad here.

And at the same time you have these people, that despite the greater outcry of the GW2 community that something just doesn’t add up, you’ll have your occasional people who say theres nothing wrong with it what so ever.

You’ll have to decide for yourself at this point though. You will be fighting up hill battles in PvP. You will not be the first pick for any dungeon run. Keep in mind though, the number of people who say its not up to par outweigh the people who say its fine. There is a reason why necromancer is the second least played class in the game.

Its happened in every single MMO to date. There is always one class thats at the bottom of the list. Eventually, if the MMO in question lasts long enough, the developers take a hard look at the class when they do their class balance phases, and come to the realization that the greater community was right after all, make the necessary changes, and the class in question actually becomes something reasonable.

Is necro a bad class? No. Is it a good class? No.

Necromancer is currently stuck in the realm of middle ground. It can do many things, but none of them it can do well. If you’re the jack of all trades, but master of none (emphasis on the none part), then this class will fit your play style. Be warned, however, its not uncommon for you to get kicked out of higher level fractal groups as a necromancer. Necromancers do not bring anything to the plate in terms of group synergy that matters. Sure, we have conditions and epidemic, but conditions in general do not make or break any situation in PVE when really raw DPS gets the job done faster, and thus a lot less painfully (prolonging a fight in GW2 is actually detrimental for the group).

I know someone is going to bring up Plague Signet and Well of Power, so I’ll just counter that point right now. Boons are a lot stronger than conditions in this game. When you’ve got a guardian thats doing the exact same thing (drawing conditions to himself with Save Yourselves and using Contemplation of Purity) and then converting those conditions into boons, or just converting the entire groups conditions straight to boons all at once, you’re team is being helped a lot more than what Plague Signet has to offer. Well of Power, two things wrong with it from the start. The cool down is extremely restrictive (a problem most necromancer utilities face currently) and it requires people to stand in one location for 5 seconds to get the full effect. Mesmer’s Null Field does the same thing actually, but doesn’t require a trait to make it targetable and has half the cool down. The guardian is doing the exact same thing, but his functions as a stunbreaker AND doesn’t require people to stand in a field for 5 seconds (his eats all conditions in a 600 meter range all at once instead of one at a time over 5 seconds). Suddenly you start to see why necromancers are lacking. Being stationary in any fight is bad. Especially in PvP/fractals where mobility and movement is what keeps you alive.

As others have already explained, this profession boasts the largest bug list in the game, so I won’t go over that part as I’d just be repeating whats already said. What hasn’t been said yet, however, is that necromancers are being held back because of the Death Shroud mechanic. John Peters (GW2 developer, he plays a 5 signet warrior of all things) came out and said that he fears how strong necromancers are because of the Death Shroud mechanic. Then he went on to say that once players figure out how to use Death Shroud properly that this class will become a force to be reckoned with.

Well, 6 months later and people still haven’t found this magic build that incorporates Death Shroud and makes us scary. Death Shroud is the root of the problems this class has. It synergies extremely poorly with every build except builds that have a heavy power and crit emphasis, and even then it still has a very mediocre damage output. You’d be better off not using Death Shroud as it actually lowers your DPS output compared to just using dagger auto attack.

We’re also limited by skills that have long cast times. In a game where every other classes abilities are instant cast, or near instant (1/2 second cast times at most, while ours are a full second and longer) it becomes very hard for us to react to changes in combat. As a result, this class is the least likely to be able to react to and counter another players ability in time. We also have extremely limited access to stability. We get knocked around A LOT in PvP, which makes it extremely difficult to get your casts off.

I will say that necromancers are one of the funnest classes I’ve played so far in this game. One major reason I keep sticking it out. With that said, though, no one will actively seek necromancers for anything. This class doesn’t have a lot going for it in terms of group synergy and doesn’t bring any utility to the table that would help a group survive longer (projectile blockers, group buffs, raw damage, combo finishers, efficient condition to boon conversion, etc).

The other problem is listening to the developers talk about necromancers. I get an extremely strong vibe while listening to them that none of the class balance team has even played this class longer than 10 minutes.

CHIPS.6018:

I wont’ comment on spvp as that’ aren’t my strong suit.

I was talking about necros on sPvP teams. In WvW necros are good to have in zerg fights if only because of plague form.

Bhawb.7408:

Do I agree the game needs work? Of course. Does that mean we all need sit on the forums QQing until momma ANet makes it so everything is all better? No.

Saying that “Everything is fine” is doing a disservice to everyone that knows better and to people who are coming to these forums. I don’t know how many times you’ve said that minion AI is fine and works great yet 3 posts later in the same thread you’ll finally admit that its not working 100%. Then you’ll make some cop-out excuse for why its our fault the AI isn’t working because, “We just don’t know how to wiggle the ka-jigger right.” and other equally non-sense crap. If all ANet sees is people saying the class is A-OK they’re never going to put any effort into fixing it.

It also doesn’t help matters by only inviting people who share your opinions to your podcast episodes. It gives a vibe that all I’m listening too is a bunch of yes men. It also gives a false impression of the class.

bhagwad.4281:

All things (including skill levels) being equal, can a necro stand up to a thief?

If both players being equal skill level, no. Obviously a skilled necro will beat a bad thief, but an average thief will still give a good necro a hard fight. I’ve killed a lot of the so called “pro” necromancers in spvp on my thief. Granted, they had really good reaction times and I wouldn’t call them bad, but its not really a challenge for me fighting a necromancer as a thief. They just go down way to easily and lack any kind of avoidance what so ever. Mesmers on the other hand, god they’re hard to fight on any class.

Even though thieves have low base HP, they have a lot of tools to escape and negate a lot of what you can do to them. Especially conditions. ANet has said that necromancers are supposed to face tank everything by design and win by attrition. On paper, this might look like it works, but in practice, it fails horribly because necromancers do not have any tools to attrition fight.

Page 3 of this thread has excellent points on why made by a poster named Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/ATTRITION-A-discussion/page/3#post1687192

Bhawb.7408:

They dropped paid tournaments because there was no point making you pay to do a tournament. It was supposed to differentiate that those were where the “good” players go, and the people still learning did free tournaments. In reality, all it did was introduce an arbitrary token cost that basically anyone who PvPed for more than a few minutes had enough of that they would never run out (I had 30 or something tickets when they stopped it).

And yes, there is a system in place. If you go into tPvP with all level 1s, you aren’t going to go against a team with all level 80s. I usually face people averaging in their mid 20s, with the rare person that is really low leveled, and the rare person that is 50s (usually paired with a low level group). I have only faced a high level team once, which was Team Paradigm way back at launch, when the hardcore PvPers were still in the same level range as the lower people.

As for how you can have this level of play: WoW has had high level of play even through ridiculously broken mechanics, LoL has a huge eSports following, even though only a very small fraction of heroes are actually viable at the top level. You realize that a trait is bugged, and work around it; you have the information that it isn’t working, so use something else.

Then there is something majorly broken about this system because I see teams of people with > level 60 rank ALL the time and I’m only 16. Furthermore, the rank is only an indicator of how long you’ve been playing. Its an exp bar for sPvP. Nothing more. I would not call this a “system”. Further examples of how ridiculously broken this game is.

As far as working around broken abilities, now you’re just talking non-sense. Pro athlete teams would never put up with such shenanigans from their equipment or the stadiums they play in. Take those glasses off man. Its clouding your judgement.

Bhawb.7408:

And the obvious lack of knowledge you have about high level tournaments proves my point.

I have never said the class doesn’t have issues, every single class in the game, including elementalists, have issues.

What high level tournaments? There is no ranking system in this game. In fact, from what I understand, sPvP bombed so badly as an “eSport” that ANet dropped the whole paid tournaments thing all together. How can you even have this level of play when you’ve still got classes with traits that still don’t even work or skills that fail to execute half the time?

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Not patched yet.
On a side note, lifestealing+wells with the appropriate gear makes necro both tanky and quite DPS heavy. Sure it’s not a warrior, but I’ve been rolling that for quite a while and it feels really versatile and efficient

I’m interested. Got a build/gear setup?

Bhawb.7408:

Yes, necromancers are terrible, that is why one of the best PvP teams in the game (Paradigm) has a necro. Makes complete sense, please go on.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. I guarantee you the other players are holding him up there. Not that this game has teams that mean anything. I mean there isn’t even a ranking system in this game. Its just teams going up against random PUGs most of the time. Of course a group of people in voice chat is going to win a lot vs people who are unorganized and unable to communicate. The Team vs Team play in GW2 is entirely based on the RNG.

I also never said they were terrible. Just mediocre. Please, Bhawb, show less fanboyism. This kind of behavior only serves to prove my point. Anyone who isn’t looking at this class with rose colored glasses will see that this class has its fair share of problems. Especially in the face of mechanics like dodge, teleport, leaps, and other mobility skills.

Soulgant.7689:

It saddens me that (some of) the few players recognized and revered by the necromancer community refuse to acknowledge some (I’m not saying we have many, but the few we have are crippling for styles of play other than team play) of the inherent weaknesses of the necromancers have. Worse part is, they call me and others that point them out trolls.

Almost all of the necromancers that boasted being able to kill good thieves in this thread have been challenged and killed by thieves (the thieves weren’t in significant danger of dying in any of the fights). I know because I was present in all of them. Some of them attributed this to the thief being a better player than them, but I believe this was not the case. All I want from this is for developers to notice these weaknesses and hopefully bring us up to par with other classes as far as small scale fights are concerned (we are significantly better in larger scale fights like tpvp and wvw zerg fighting).

P.S. By small scale fights I mean fights involving ~5-6 players (e.g. 1vs1,3vs3). Also, I am aware that I am not providing any constructive criticism so I apologize for that. But it will not stop me from voicing my opinion to this very vocal community.

This is the case in every game that has a weak class. There is always a small, but vehemently outspoken crowd that says the class is fine and everyone else just needs to L2P. Despite all the math, the reason, and evidence that the class is weaker they still scream there is nothing wrong. Every class has a role to play in this game. A role that they shine at, but the necromancer isn’t potentially good at any of them. Mediocre at best, and the job eventually gets done, yes, but another class would have been better and gotten the job done faster.

All the necros I’ve seen in sPvP either do extremely badly in a pug setting, or do ok in a team setting. In the team setting, I am 100% certain that the necro is being carried. I have watched really good elementalists carry their team. I have seen guardians and engineers bunker up a point so well that it takes the entire opposing team to converge on him just to down him. I’ve seen thieves go on kill streaks that fragments other teams that causes them to get to spread out and unable to back each other up. Rangers are just down right ridiculous at harassment and point defense. Warriors… well, hey, at least they can run into a fight and drop someone who isn’t paying attention. They’re kind of in the same boat as necromancers, however. Some other class would serve the team better.

Bhawb.7408:

Necromancers underwater are incredibly strong.

Oh that I agree with. Makes me wonder if they don’t have two different people that does combat balance. One does land and the other water combat.

Softspoken.2410:

Kravick.4906:

I just noticed this. On land its 1 1/4 second cast time. Under water its 1/2 second cast time. Has ANet given a reason for this? Or is this another over sight with this class?

This is a running theme with underwater skills across most classes. They tend to activate faster, possibly to keep underwater combat…

[shades]

Fluid.

Well I do notice that all necromancer skills are instant cast under water save for Frozen Abyss, but I understand why that has a cast time. Highest damage skill I’ve ever seen on a weapon. Hits even harder than Backstab. Why can’t that be a land skill too :/

I just noticed this. On land its 1 1/4 second cast time. Under water its 1/2 second cast time. Has ANet given a reason for this? Or is this another over sight with this class?

I enjoyed this video. I have never seen a hybrid spec in action in WvW before. Mind posting your build? I saw the armor you were using, why the random Knight’s amulet?

I dont know how anyone manages to play without toughness, i cant live without it lol.

I second this statement. Its just so easy to get destroyed by thieves without it. My tier has roaming thief gank squads all over the kitten place so something like this would only work if I was grouped with other people.

I remember this log in screen. It needs to come back.

Blackmoa.3186:

No, nightmare actually gives 20% condition duration, not 10 and fear is a condition.

Is nightmare bugged then or is it just a tooltip error?

Blackmoa.3186:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-34;0kHFC0A4JJkJ0;9;5T99J;11591;02;038-C-F4C;1hoHAhoHA2VA
It’s not exactly a 1v1 build, but it can win every 1v1 except against bm rangers.

Hmm, this is one of the builds I’ve been running actually, only I’ve been using runes of the necromancer instead of nightmare. The 20% fear duration from necromancer gives a higher chance of a second tick, right?

Bhawb.7408:

PvP is all about what do you bring to your team. A necromancer just thrown into a pug game is going to do very poorly, unless you are playing a 1v1 build and just sitting on near point (we have 2-3 1v1 builds that are very strong in the boon-heavy meta). The problem is that any necro not totally geared towards 1v1 needs team fights, and needs team help; comparing it to a moba, you are the carry, you need support to be able to drop huge epidemics and blow people up with corrupt boon/fear chains.

You mind sharing those 1v1 builds? I don’t have an sPvP team and I’ve trying to work on the champion phantom title. Its been extremely frustrating to say the least.

Vicarious.3047:

I’m tempted to say that Necros have the best AoE ranged (with the proper traits ofc).

Hmm, I don’t think so. That would have to go to elementalists if they go pure glass cannon. They don’t do that though because of how insanely squishy they are, however.

Xynn.2748:

I disagree. I think necros are lacking in many areas. Rangers , warriors, thieves, and engineers all stack condi better. I have never wanted a necro in any of my dungeons since they fixed the Life Siphon bug in cliffside fractal; I hit 48 in fractals back in December and then dropped them because the loot sucks. Well of blindness is good in wvw and pvp. If I want damage I would bring almost any other class, support I’d prefer ele/banner warrior/refuge thief/etc., if I want condi dmg then see above. There is literally no pve scenario where I would prefer a necro over other classes.

PvP, the class is ok. WvW, talent epidemic and press it alot.

There are some good things, but the class is missing a lot and it needs work.

I feel this way as well. Even my thief feels like it brings more utility than necromancers with Smoke Screen, Caltrops (godly for kiting groups or slowing those charging mofos in the Ascalon fractal), blind on stealth trait (infinite blind every 3 seconds), Shadow Refuge, and the venom share build (ever see a boss frozen with basilisk venom for 6 seconds straight? Bypasses defiant stacks too)

Necros aren’t useless, but they feel extremely mediocre at everything they do. Damage, utility, survivability are all just… meh. Its just as bad in PvP as well. I constantly feel like I’m being carried.