Guild Wars 2

Every time a thread gets necroed in the necromancer forums I am immediately reminded of this for some reason.

You’re not going to find a high DPS build with this class. At best you can get mediocre damage when compared to other classes. Nemesis’ build or a full berserker set using the 30/20/0/0/20 build is the best we have.

I buy ghostly tonics to do jumping puzzles on my charr. They turn you into a human. They’re like 10-15 copper each on the trading post.

Zblorq.9712:

I could put those point into the blood tree, but what if i tried to increase my crit change (gearwise) would soul reaping then be better?

Absolutely. You could try using PTV armor with Knights trinkets and weapons. Swap out the exquisite emerald jewels for exquisite ruby ones on those trinkets since the 3% extra crit damage massively outweighs the paltry 15 stats you’d otherwise have. This way you will still retain the tanky stats but gain a lot more DPS. While you do that, don’t forget to get yourself some Quality Maintenance Oils from the trading post. They’re cheap and easy to get and with all that toughness you’ll easily get another 10% crit chance. If you are dead set on keeping 30 in soul reaping, do yourself a favor and grab the piercing life blasts trait if you haven’t already. It stacks 2 vulnerability per shot and will help with AoEing the grubs.

Without decent crit chance, the 30 you have in soul reaping is kind of a waste. If you’re running primarily PTV gear, I would suggest moving some, or all, of the points you have in soul reaping into the blood tree and pick up the life siphoning traits.

As far as just kiting the grubs, no. Thats not going to work. You need to kill them or they will quickly overwhelm you. It is a good idea to break the shield on the boss first, though. Not letting him heal should be your first priority. Axe 2 is perfect for this as the rapid attack breaks the shield faster.

As for the grubs themselves, dropping wells on the grubs, followed by axe 3 and DS 4 when they clump up is a good option. You’re going to need a lot of AOE to deal with the grubs. Lich form is also not a bad idea for dealing with grubs, but realistically you can only use it once. Fortunately you have an engineer and he should be able to cover that with his grenades. Unfortunately, necromancers have really long cool downs on all their AoE so you need to save them for the grub phase.

This boss is the hardest fractal boss IMO, and its not uncommon for PUGs to get suck and disband when they get this boss on level 20+. Honestly, the biggest roadblock to this encounter is not having enough DPS, and being geared tanky for this fight is actually a hindrance, which is why people prefer warriors for this.

What I personally run in fractals is a 30/20/0/0/20 build using knights armor with berserker’s weapons and trinkets. For this boss especially, I use well of corruption, well of suffering, and signet of undeath. Someone always goes down in this fight so having a quick res is invaluable here. Traits to pick up that really help in this fight is having targetable wells and piercing life blasts so you can use DS to hit multiple grubs. Dagger/WH and axe/focus are my weapon choices. I’m good at dodging the bosses attacks so I just go toe to toe with him using dagger. I wouldn’t suggest doing that if you are unfamiliar with his tells, however. One dive attack will down you at this level.

Got a link to your build?

Ratty.5176:

OK for 210 TA tokens you can get a level 55 set of rare Rabid armor. To use when leveling your Necro.

Is there any way to get decent Rabid gear to bridge the gap between level 55 and 80 (rare preferably so I don’t have to change my equipment so often). Somewhere around the 65-70 mark.

Also what can you do for jewelery weapons between 55-80, am I stuck with Rampagers or Carrion gear?

No reliable way, I’m afraid. I had to use carrion. In beta you used to be able to craft rabid, but they took it out at release for whatever reason. Right now the only way to get rabid is level 80 exotics from the TP, dungeon runs from certain dungeons, and karma vendors in Orr.

Tenderly.7019:

lettucemode.3789:

Powerr invented, protected, and used build #2 extensively with his team.

Sorry to be that guy, but Powerr didn’t invent this build, nor did he even play it correctly. Going into staff and spamming 2 3 4 5 isn’t a good way to play necro ever.

It was Jaja who came up with the build.

And the build hasn’t been viable for a long time.

That first power build looks promising. I just tried it in a few games and I actually feel like I was contributing. A little squishy for my tastes, though. What are the limitations of this build? What classes will typically give me the most trouble?

Bhawb.7408:

Master of Terror = 50%
Spite = up to 30%
Various rune combinations = up to 20% (assuming the runes work)

So in other words, a hybrid build. Meh.

Softspoken.2410:

safka.8514:

Seriously, I want to know where you’re getting this 5 seconds of fear from

I think it can be achieved with reapers protection + corrupt boon on stability + DS3 + Staff 5

The build Bhawb uses has double duration on Fear. He also said 4 second fear, which is Reaper’s Mark + Doom.

Got a link to the build? I know how to get 100% in pve/wvw, but it requires food. Maybe there is a rune set I am unaware of.

Are there any videos of these people playing necromancers in sPvP using these builds?

I’m going to be honest here. Last 3 days I’ve been in sPvP struggling to find a build that works for necromancers. On my thief I’m easily able to do my job as a roamer and take points solo from bunkers and reinforce my team on points. Same thing on my warrior, but I just prefer thief for roaming. We typically win a majority of the time unless we face a team with double 100 blades warriors, which admittedly I have trouble with. Especially if they coordinate their attacks like most do. From a thief’s persective, the only things I fear is warriors and this 100’nades build that engineers are running. Necromancers have thus far been easy to kill.

On my necromancer its a different story. I honestly feel this class has the least amount of options when compared to other classes. There is no build that “shines” as is discussed above. Just a lot of “so so” builds. Some less viable than others due to game mechanics (IE. conditions). D/D elementalists are one of the hardest classes for me to fight as a necromancer.

I’ve tried the condition build. Conditions get wiped to often and to easily for this to be anything but a liability to the team. I am effectively doing no damage half the time because of this. This includes the terror build, which to the best of my knowledge, you can’t achieve 100% fear duration with in sPvP for the extra terror tick. Seriously, I want to know where you’re getting this 5 seconds of fear from. The lack of life force generation is also a serious problem for this type of build.

I’ve tried the power build. Glass as hell and lacks any of the survival mechanics other classes have to compensate (plate armor, invulnerability skills, mobility skills). Typical fight involves me taking a dirt nap before I even realize it due to the lack of mobility skills. Once in a while I’ll catch someone unaware and destroy them with a dark pact well bomb, but its not very reliable since it relies entirely on me landing the dark pact. Ele buster build? I really don’t know what to say about that. Any half decent elementalist is not going to let you kill him.

I’ve tried the minion bunker build. I don’t care what Bhawb and Bas have to say on this matter. My experiences have been radically different. The minion AI does not function properly most of the time. This is especially apparent with the bone minions who almost never attack my targets when I do. I’m constantly having to micromanage my position just to blow them up on target. The flesh golem has the same problems, but not as bad. However, if I encounter any class that stealths (thieves, mesmers, engineers), the flesh golem AI breaks half the time and will end up standing still for most of the fight until I force him to reengage with charge. TBH, the only minions I don’t have trouble with is the flesh wurm and the bone fiend. They always attack when I do and I’ve never noticed them having problems engaging targets. I haven’t used the shadow thinger so I can’t comment on its ability to function. Downed state is another matter. There have been more than one occasion that when I go down, all my minions freeze and just flat out stop attacking anything. Most of the time they don’t do this, but this is not something that can be relied on, and thus cannot be considered viable. Unreliability in any form is not viable. Especially in a competitive environment such as PVP. Everything needs to function as its supposed to all of the time.

There are also a few skills that I have issues with as a necromancer. Plague Signet is still broken. There have been many times where I’ll use it and nothing happens. This isn’t a blocked/dodged/line of sight issue. I’ll typically fear my target first so I can land these important skills. You can’t evade when you’re CC’ed. Then of course is Corrupt Boon which everyone already knows about. Why does this even need to be an invisible projectile? Why can’t it function like epidemic? No other class in any game that I have played has ever had issues with skills just simple not working at critical moments.

Rennoko.5731:

And my word, how ridiculously powerful is that bleed spec for a warrior?

50% longer bleeds with one trait? 33% chance for a 3 second bleed? 16 seconds at max duration on the auto attack bleed?

I am going to have to level up a warrior to see how well that plays.

Not very. Not for the reasons you might think at least. The reason hybrid and condition builds don’t work on warrior isn’t because of the lack of damage or viability. I leveled my warrior to 80 purely on rampager stats going sword/sword and it did its job well. Everything died within a reasonable speed. The problem is that Greatsword and Axe both do such a better job in every single category (damage, mobility, AOE, killing speed, etc) that you’d be down right brain damaged to use anything else.

Plus, the sword does more damage over time using berserker’s stats than it does using pure condition or rampager stats. Thats even when you factor in the adrenaline skill Flurry. At least with warriors, condition damage is not on par with direct damage. This goes double for their longbow.

Short answer, yes.

All durations (boon/conditions/etc) have a cap of 100%, though. Condition duration gained from items are currently bugged and does not work. So if the item itself is giving a duration bonus, you aren’t actually getting that bonus. Duration gained by traits, sigils, runes, and food buffs still work, however.

The exception to this is that the scepter 33% bleed duration for scepter skills actually goes beyond the 100% cap so you could have up to 133% bleed duration if you were able to get 100% bleed duration else where. Whether this is by design, a bug, or just a “feature” at this point is unknown.

Also keep in mind that there is a rounding system in place. Condition duration will round down to the nearest quarter. 1/4, 1/2/ 3/4, 1, etc. So the 8% you have over 100% is effectively doing nothing for your scepter auto attack. In order to get another second of bleed, and thus another tick of damage, you would need to achieve 125% bleed duration.

So basically scepter auto attack gains another second, and another tick of damage per bleed, at 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, and 125% (only achievable with 33% scepter trait and only for scepter bleeds) bleed duration. Anything in between those numbers is wasted.

Of course this is all entirely based on what the actual base line bleed duration is per skill. You’re essentially aiming for the 25%, 50%, 75%,100%, and 125% (trait only) mark because scepter auto attack is what we stack our bleeds with a majority of the time.

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

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

I already said why leaving fights was stupid in WvW objectives. You give the enemy team free supply, free siege, free keeps, etc. So to change it; congrats, you left the fight so now you have to siege your own tower, or congrats, you left a supply camp so the enemy team has a brand new golem that they didn’t have to do anything for. Its worse in WvW than sPvP because a flip takes a hell of a lot more time to reverse, whereas in sPvP it is just a few points.

Yeah you don’t play WvW very much. This isn’t how WvW works at all. At least not in the top 3 tiers.

Seriously, since when do people solo cap keeps and towers? Who solo caps camps? I get the impression you’ve lost what we’re talking about some where.

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.

CHIPS.6018:

Bhawb got a good point that if the necro forced the enemy to run away from an objective, the necro won

Only to come back 10 seconds later after they’ve reset their HP bar. Remember that other classes have their abilities on much shorter cool downs. I do this to necromancers all the time on my thief. They’re an extremely easy class to beat down.

Bhawb.7408:

Tiborb.1453:

At the moment attrition based opponents are like an encounter you can just skip in a dungeon! :P

This is absolutely true, only in WvW, and only when you are roaming. In PvE mobs don’t skip you. If you are trying to defend a supply camp and are getting wailed on by a necro, “skipping the encounter” means you lose the supply camp, which is a win for the necro. If you are defending a tower or a keep, you can’t just skip the encounter and let them take your keep. In PvP you can’t just decide you don’t need to hold that point anymore and run away because a necro can’t hold you down.

That is the one thing keeping mobility from completely destroying this game; objectives. If this were TDM, then yes, mobility would be far and above better than everything else because you couldn’t get locked down to die, and you could catch up with anyone trying to run away. But this isn’t TDM, almost all PvP in this game (besides running around killing things in WvW) is objective based. If you run away from the objective, you lose, period.

You don’t WvW much, do you?

Panhauramix.2784:

Nothing against Yishis(thief in that video), he seems like a very good player that knows a lot about others classes too.

But I can’t get the smile off my face when you hear him say in a calm tone: I got a lot of pressure (4v1) so I have to shadowstep, I managed to down one thief, 2 thief, warrior, my stealth regen heals more than 6 stacks of bleed (granted it’s not by a heavy condition player) and it goes on. It’s world apart vs our ability to even react to those threats.

Which is exactly the point. I’m not even close to being on Yishis level, but even I have won 1v4 encounters against all level 80s on my thief. This is something no necromancer is ever going to be able to win regardless of skill level. Thieves win these kinds of fights because they can attrition via stealth. ANet is the one that called necromancers an attrition class. They did so without thinking. A pistol/dagger thief is the king of attrition.

Right now, thieves are the ultimate attrition class.

ANet also came out and said that they want necromancers to basically face tank everything, so they gave us low mobility and more HP to compensate. Sadly, they did not give us the proper tools to do so. Guardians face tank way better than we do and have half the HP to do it with. Why? Because they got the tools to do so.

Guardians are the ultimate face tank class.

ANet stated that they think necromancers have a “kill zone” and that when people enter it they begin to feel the pressure. This is a sad, sad mistake of fact. I’m sorry, but in comparison to the other classes right now, necromancers hit like a wet noodle. The title of “kill zone” class goes to warrior. If you let a warrior into melee combat with you, thats when you feel pressure. Its countered by kiting the warrior and using ranged weapons against them. If you screw up and let them get close to you, its gonna hurt. What happens when a necromancer gets close to you? You take some damage and then turn around and plant your boot squarely up his kitten Dagger is mediocre damage. Axe damage is LOL worthy. Staff damage is hilariously bad. Most people know this. If you have multiple level 80s, like most people do at this point, its obvious necromancer damage is laughable and there is no “kill zone”.

Warriors are the ultimate “kill zone” class.

Everything that ANet has “envisioned” for us is superseded by another class, and this is the problem people have with necromancers.

PinCushion.7390:

So, what I’m reading here is that because PvE is generally very easy debuffs aren’t needed. But, since PvE is generally very easy, buffs to damage are desired because they make easy PvE content go by much faster (e.g. Might stacking, Vuln stacking, etc).

The current quadwarrior/timewarp fad for CoF1 is just a comical exaggeration of general PvE, where Necros aren’t very good at anything anyone really needs.

Does that about sum it up?

Yep, pretty much.

The point that needs to be reiterated is that while necros can blind/weakness/poison/vulnerability spam, there is another class that can do exactly the same thing but without giving up large amounts of damage while doing it. Any condition a necro wants to apply continuously requires the necromancer to drop all damage output in order to maintain it. Other classes don’t have that problem and will continue to stack up the damage, or provide some other utility along side of whatever condition they’re stacking.

Its all about efficiency in PVE. Thats what its always about.

Rok.5260:

Thank you for posting this, didn’t know he made a new one lol.

Oh yeah, this is by far his best one yet.

Faction.4013:

Yeah, but you’re kinda seeing the issue with the game mechanics & class balance within PvE right there…

Warriors & Guardians do EVERYTHING better…which is the problem:

Ranged? Warrior with a Rifle…

Utility? Banners or Guardian anything…

Heavy DPS? GS Warrior…

Healing? Altrustic Healing Guardian…

Heavy Defense? Mace & Shield Guardian…

Condition Removal? Purity + Shout Guardian…

The only thing those classes can’t do VERY well is condition damage…but at this time, conditions suck for most classes anyway (structure damage, etc).

From a PvE perspective, you don’t need any other classes besides those 2. Because whatever an Engineer, or a Ranger, or a Thief can do, a Warrior or a Guardian can do it just as good if not better.

The only possible exception would be a Mesmer, with Portal, Mass Invis, Time Warp, etc.

Valid points, all of them.

Funny thing is, warriors complain about guardians being better, and guardians complain about warriors being better. No one ever complains about necromancers being better.

Talentless.5708:

This is not an kitten contest. Play a necro right and you will be fine. Even talentless noobs can play this class and make walmart special videos from just an hour or two WvW this afternoon:

I’m really not sure what you’re trying to prove linking this. These are very poor examples of good PVP. This was nothing but a montage of you 2v1ing people and killing up levels.

Meanwhile…

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, I know how much people just hate permanent regen

Hate to point out the obvious, but the only way, and I mean only way a necro is giving a party permanent regen is if the party all stacked up in a 600 meter radius (extremely stupid and impractical for… everything) and you’re completely sacrificing all of your damage by using staff. Extremely inefficient way to play the game. As for everything else, you’d be serving your group better by not going out of your way to achieve these things. If you need to face tank anything your group composition sucks. Surprisingly, most people in this game still don’t understand how combo fields/finishers work. Even if they did, the cool downs for our dark fields are too long for any of it to make a difference. Especially considering that all auto attack projectiles only combo finish 20% of the time despite what the little heart thing popping up says. Dark fields don’t do anything special for melee types.

Besides, warriors do it better with banners. Bigger radius and it gives additional stats (soon to be buffed to ridiculous levels) on top of the regeneration. Or you could just bring a guardian instead since everything they do is way better utility wise.

I know you’re trying to see necromancers in a positive light, but no else is going to when everything this class does is out done by someone else, and everyone knows it.

DeathenShada.6397:

I love how this entire topic shifted from Necromancers attrition to P/D Thief… o(<_<)o

Because they’re one of the best at attrition style combat, where as necromancers are no where close to being good at attrition style combat.

Bhawb.7408:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBHbhG2IjWpermvG9eCQ6R0UDwkCuBHSRuSD;TwAA1CtosxYjwGrNObk2sCZEyeg5AA

So now my question is this. How exactly do you deal with your minions never regenerating their HP between fights? To me, it seems more of a liability that you can never have your minions at 100%. Especially after fighting elementalists who throw AOE around like nobodies business.

Bhawb.7408:

And that is a recurring theme I see in PvP; I don’t pay as much attention to fellow necros in PvE. The problem is that while we have DS from the very beginning of the game, you really aren’t forced to use it or learn it. Whereas someone like an elementalist figures out very obviously that they need to swap attunements, you can “get by” as a necro and still be ignorant of DS.

Not sure what his spec was, but if he was condition spec, thats about all DS is good for. Condition spec necromancers gain little to no benefit from DS. Yeah, there is Dark Path with its 3 bleed stack, but as a conditionmancer, getting teleported into melee is bad. Very bad. He obviously wasn’t traited for terror if he didn’t try to proactively use Doom.

What build and armor stats are you running?

BTW, I just killed that charr hammer warrior in your video on my thief just now.

LastDay.3524:

Softspoken.2410:

Warriors don’t start with full adrenaline, do they?

Actually they just need to use Healing Surge once to get full Adrenaline.

Anyway I think that we should start with like 20% Life Force even in PvE.
Not full though, that’d be kind of crazy.

Or signet of fury. Gives a full adren bar. Only a 30 second cool down that can be reduced by traits.

Bas.7406:

we have so many ways to build it

Only power builds have a lot of ways to build it. Condition builds only have Feast of Corruption (terrible skill that has little synergy with condition builds) and Staff auto attack (lol) to build it. Well, that and things dying around them. Kinda hard to get that though when you’re up against only players.

RashanDale.3609:

thats always the case when the projectile is reflected. then you get pulled and chilled instead of your target.

Happens with Dark Path as well. Its always funny when they teleport to you instead of you to them. But you still get the chill, not them. :/

Its not just spectral grasp. Thieves scorpion wire is just as bad, and all that one does is pull the target. No added chill. I’ve had both skills actually hit its target only to have the target just fall down in place and not get pulled. Then theres the random misses, obstructed, target gets pulled only half way, or just flat out failed skill usage when the projectile should have hit. I’m not talking about obvious things like when the target dodges or jukes the projectile. Those are legitimate. I’m talking about when the projectile hits, or should have hit, and just flat out doesn’t work for the reasons listed. Its not very reliable.

Kazuhiro.5809:

XZERO.3014:

LOL my guilds awesome, thanks for the chuckle trolls.

funny how after school hours i get the random immature comments on my thread.

Before you troll ask yourself, are you mad because your parents never put your picture on the fridge?

This fellow seems like a perfectly reasonable individual who we should definitely be giving advice to.

Nah, he sounds like the perfect candidate to be a thief. He will feel right at home here.

Disturbed.9305:

I personally was more interested in the viability of a p/p in pve only, not sure what the OP wanted to know.

Anything works in PVE. Even just standing there spamming shortbow auto attack on a group of NPCs. However, I’m sure you’re talking about being actually useful.

There is an actual build for P/P in PVE, and it does some decent damage, but your build will be dedicated purely for P/P and nothing else. You won’t do the single target damage of a backstab build, but since fractal and many dungeon bosses are so melee unfriendly, P/P builds are very safe to fractal/dungeon run with while still putting out a decent amount of damage. You also have the added benefit of being an interrupting power house with pistol #4.

Unfortunately, I don’t run P/P so someone else will have to provide a build. However, just by glancing at the traits, your build will be at least a x/30/x/x/x.

DelOnasi.6051:

They can be zealous sometimes, but they have to put up with a lot of whining among the few legitimate complaints.

And that right there is the problem. Despite evidence shown that the minion AI code is still borked, he still insists that everything is 100% perfect with it and that its everyone else who doesn’t know how to make it work, or some such kittenry. Did you listen to the podcast with Symbolic? I couldn’t help but shake my head through the entire thing at the things that where being said by both of them. They’re wearing rose colored glasses and giving a false impression of the class that everything is A-OK with it, when its not.

Mister Mustard.7203:

Kravick.4906:

I also don’t like the fact that your Snow Leopard racial is more useful than any of the class elites necromancers have. But that has to do with ANet not knowing how to balance elite skills properly.

Any of the class elites would be vastly more effective. He didn’t even use the ability in the video, so at bare minimum a dead Flesh Golem would be just as good. Nevermind actually using it to knock someone down to set up burst / close / create a gap.

Not to mention if Snow Leopard did get used, it’s a full minute longer cooldown than Lich or Plague. With no stability.

He used it in one of his videos. Hilariously, thats ALL he used. He started the fight, and ended the fight, with Snow Leopard form. I didn’t know it could actually do that much damage. o_O

Bhawb.7408:

@Zinwrath, I have spent lots of time testing minion AI, I have shared my results with other necros who have confirmed my findings; the fact is that minion AI is reliable.

No, its not. Again, this is why no one listens to you or takes you seriously. I can confirm what Zinwrath is talking about with the pet AI. Happened to me last night in WvW actually. Thief Cloak and Daggered off my golem. The rest of the fight the golem just followed me around and refused to attack anything else. Wouldn’t even attack the mesmer or his clones when I switched targets and started to attack them.

Bhawb.7408:

That description gives exactly what necromancers are capable of doing…?
1) We have highest HP
2) We don’t have escapes or damage reduction
3) We have other ways (LF/DS, weakness, soft CC, healing, condition transfer, blinds, chills, etc) to win attrition
4) We have poison on 2 of 4 main weapons (multiple)
5) We can easily do condition and raw damage at once (why hybrid necros work so well)
6) Daze + fears to interrupt
7) Every single necro weapon has at least 1 way to disable mobility, with every set having 2.

I would say that description was perfectly reasonable?

Sure, if you says so. But all this means nothing when you realize that every other class does every single thing on this list better, which illustrate the point Incarmine was making. Necromancer is trying to do to much at once and thus becomes good at none of them.

1) Tied with warriors, who have the same burst capacity as thieves AND wears heavy armor AND has a metric kittenton of mobility on top of it.
2) Neither do guardians, but they DO have damage reduction. A LOT of damage reduction. Hell, their hammer gives them permanent protection for them and their entire group as long as they’re swinging their auto attack. Necromancers have access to protection for 5 seconds… on a 90 second cool down… for themselves only. Well, I suppose there is spectral wall too, but I have never seen anyone use that skill, ever. Probably due to its long kitten cool down which seems to be a problem that plagues (hur hur I made a funny) all necromancer skills.
3) Guardians are better at attrition. Thieves are the king of attrition. Why would you bring a necromancer to an attrition fight when guardians and thieves do it better?
4) Thieves are better at applying poison. Their burst weapon (dagger) applies poison on the third strike. Interestingly, the second strike in the chain also restores endurance as well which fits very well with the class theme ANet has for the thief. Dodgy and mobile. Why doesn’t necromancer scepter attacks give LF since the core of the necromancer class is supposed to revolve around the use of LF? Thief shortbow #4 drops a poison field that will stack 5 seconds of poison for each pulse for 4 seconds. This can be used every 4 seconds forever (initiative will have regenerated by the time the field ends), and in between each poison field the thief can do other stuff as well.
5) Really? Guess you haven’t seen what the warrior can do with their sword/sword using rampagers gear. Right now you’re saying, “Well why don’t I see more sword/sword warriors then, huh?” Simple. Because the warriors greatsword blows it so completely out of the water at everything its supposed to do. Raw damage, mobility, you name it. Greatsword does it better. So why would anyone purposefully handicap themselves by using sword/anything as a main weapon when you’ve got the greatsword? Necromancer does not have a greatsword equivalent. Everything is mediocre like the warriors sword, so thats all you get.
6) Thieves daze better. A lot better. Every 4 seconds, for 3 seconds, using sword, and whenever the thief wants as long as they have initiative using pistol #4. No cool downs. Fears? Man, I only wish. Warriors and thieves have better fears. Not only are theirs AoE, but they last 3 times longer too.
7) Have you even looked at other classes weapon sets? I don’t even…

This is why no one listens to you. Its hard to take you seriously when anyone who has played both the necromancer and any of the other classes to level 80 can plainly see the necromancer shortcomings for themselves. Once people take the time to learn those other classes, as they already have by now, it becomes very obvious as to why this class has such a low population. Well, that and the incredibly long bug list stickied at the top of this forum that the original compiler simply gave up on trying to keep updated. Most likely he either quit the game or rolled other classes like the rest of us.

DarkniteJ.8053:

While I admit that the class is not without its problems. We are far from useless in 1v1 even in world vs world. Search the other threads, watch videos of Shroudstomp and another guy who I forgot his name was absolutely wrecking people in Wvw and then there is this video. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Video-WvW-Tank-Necro/first#post1599761

Video is of a zerg fight showcasing what necromancers are actually good at. Fighting in the safety of a zerg disrupting the enemy. OP is talking about 1v1s here.

As far as absolutely wrecking people? I dunno, maybe you haven’t seen what some of the other classes can do yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCWywAXmVP4 Now thats wrecking people.

I’m going to be honest with you, so please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m in no way trying to say you’re bad or anything like that.

Overall, I can’t say that I’m impressed. You fought a lot of up leveled players in those videos. That is not something I would be showcasing as an example of good PVP. You did have a couple of good fights, but the overall quality of your opponents wasn’t great.

The thieves were especially bad. Only one of them even tried to CnD you. The other two… I don’t know. One was a terrible heartseeker spammer and died because of it. The other one that tried, and failed, to burst you those 3 times I have no flippin clue what that dude was doing. Again, neither of these two even tried to CnD. Further more, no Shadowstep or Roll For Initiative from any of those thieves? Well, hey, easy kill for you, right?

Your fights with the elementalists were decent. They’re hard to kill. However, only one of them actually tried to escape. Your typical elementalist would have used Ride the Lightning to escape and reset the fight, only to come back and eventually wear you down. They kinda let themselves get killed by you.

I also don’t like the fact that your Snow Leopard racial is more useful than any of the class elites necromancers have. But that has to do with ANet not knowing how to balance elite skills properly.

Again, not saying you’re bad or anything, but the quality of your opponents wasn’t that good.

The OP is talking about WvW, not sPvP. I’m not going to name names here, but some of you in this thread talking about the viability of necromancers are doing so from an sPvP perspective. sPvP and WvW are not even close to being comparable. They are vastly different environments and the builds, equipment, and tactics necessary to succeed in either of them are also different. What works in sPvP usually doesn’t work in WvW. Necromancers seem more tanky and survivable in sPvP due to the way stats are handled there, but this is not the case in WvW. I’ve already explained why above.

Minion builds are incredible in 1v1

…what?

Bhawb.7408:

Considering I do nothing in tPvP but bunker near point (ie: fighting almost exclusively in fights with no more than 3 people on each side, usually 1v1), I can easily say that the idea that necros are bad in 1v1 is false. We have an issue in WvW because our lesser mobility makes it very difficult to finish fights, or get away from a losing fight.

You’re also forgetting that in tPvP you cannot achieve the same level of stats that you can in WvW. Thieves and other classes cannot burst you down in sPvP/tPvP like they can in WvW, but in WvW people can easily achieve 115+% critical damage, and they can do so without going glass cannon. This amount of critical damage can easily 3-4 shot even a bunker spec, which is why mobility is so kitten important. Avoid the burst or you die. Its that simple. No, dodging isn’t enough because its usually several skills chained together and you can only dodge twice.

While you can stand on a single point in tPvP, you won’t be standing for very long in WvW if someone decides they want you dead as a necromancer. No mobility means you cannot prevent from being focus fired.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I kind of disagree with you Kravick, I see what you’re saying and I have some points that follow along with it, but necros are not as useless as you say. Now as to my points, you can win 1v1 fights if you are clever about it, but the thing is in wvw, there’s hardly ever 1v1 or small skirmish fights. It may start out that way, but it only takes a matter of seconds before that 1v1 or skirmish turns into you vs overwhelming odds. And that’s where we fail in wvw, because just like you said, we lack the ability to escape. We may have a few tricks to get out of a sticky spot or two, but running from a mess like that is usually not going to happen. Now park a strong necro on a wall or other similar strategically defensive position and we become a pillar of destruction. At least until they figure out where we are and call an all siege target strike on us lol.

You’ve just illustrated one of the big problems. Put a necro on a wall and they are actually capable of doing something. This means that necros are only good if no one targets them or is capable of getting to them. This is a very bad way to balance a class.

I also never said they were useless. Just not very good for anything but zerg fights.

I had the same exact problem you do right now. I guarantee you that if you roll a mesmer, warrior, guardian, thief, or elementalist you’d suddenly find yourself winning fights.

Ignore the idiots telling you to learn to play. This class is really handicapped in 1v1 and skirmish style play in WvW. The lack of mobility combined with no utilities to help you escape if you get in trouble severely hurts this class for that type of game play.

The people saying they do fine in sPvP always forget that sPvP is a very tiny box and people don’t have any place to run, so landing your AoE abilities is much easier there. Your opponents are also always forced to stay and fight the necromancer on his terms since there is no place to run. In WvW there are no such boundaries. As a result, AoE is easy to dodge out of or avoid entirely. The idea that if your opponent has run away means that they’ve lost the fight is also a fallacy as there is nothing stopping them from returning after they’ve reset their HP pool. Because necromancers have such insanely long cool downs on their utilities, one of the biggest tactics to use against them is to dive in, get them to blow their CDs and life force, and then reset the fight. Then you can easily wipe the floor with them since they’ll have nothing to fight you with at that point.

The idea that necromancers is an attrition class and people have a hard time running away from them is also wrong. That maybe what ANet has stated as their design philosophy, but reality is far different. Necromancers are one of the easiest classes to out last and run away from. Thieves, guardians, and engineers do attrition much, much better.

In large groups necromancers are very good and are one of the few classes with the tools to put pressure on multiple opponents. However, in small scale play in WvW, necromancers are terrible. You’re better off WvWing on another class.

Oddly enough, I seem to be having the exact opposite problem as everyone else in this thread. Great sword burst warriors tend to wreck me before I get a chance to do anything to them, while D/D eles and guardians don’t give me much trouble. That isn’t to say that I’ve never lost to a D/D ele or bunker guardian, but most of the time I can win against them.

This might have to do with my play style though. I run S/D D/D most of the time. I spent a lot of time learning how to work around the wonky movement of Flanking Strike. I can pretty much land both hits as long as I don’t have anything targeted most of the time. Bunker guardians and D/D eles just get boon stripped, and without their boons they drop like a rock. Still, I wish Flanking Strike was easier to use.

GS Berserker warriors tend to break me in half though for some reason. That whirlwind thing really really hurts. I can usually anticipate the bulls charge and dodge it, and even if it does connect I usually run with RFI and Shadowstep to break it. Still, I usually find myself on the losing end of a GS warrior. Their wide area AoE attacks and stun moves are on a pretty short CD compared to my escape abilities.

9/10. I like it. I have no idea what chest/legs/gloves/shoulders/boots are though. Care to share? I like the scaled armor look. The hat is a nice touch. Sadly, hats look like crap on charr. :/

I gotten quite a few compliments on my armor from random strangers. Guess I’ll share it with you guys.

Boots and legs are Vigil, chest and gloves are Duelist, shoulder is Whispers, hood should be obvious to everyone who has ever played a thief. When I feel like being silly I’ll put on the headband. :p

Samhayn.2385:

Same goes with Thieves their prec/crit tree is for pistols, and considered a 2nd tier tree that rarely is used. Deadly Arts or the stealth trees are more common.

You have this backwards. Its the Deadly Arts tree thats 2nd tier and not commonly used, because its the venom tree. Venoms are meh. The Critical Strikes tree contains pistol traits, yes, but also contains Critical Haste, Side Strike, Hidden Killer (extremely popular in WvW), and Executioner. The highest people go into Deadly Arts is 25 and only a certain glass cannon build go that route.

Currently the most popular WvW build is either 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 made popular by Yashi when he showed people videos of him soloing entire groups of people. Something I’ve also been able to accomplish on my thief. Necromancers are not really capable of doing that.

Scootabuser.4915:

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

It’s going to wait for it… Warriors! GS HB -> Whirlwind -> Axe Eviscerate does [I think, please prove me wrong] the highest number in the quickest time. With frenzy, it will win by a mile.

However, that number at the end is what I would love to see.

PS – Necromancers; Axe focus. /laugh

Actually heart-seeker spam below 25% is the highest number in the quickest time :X with haste.

And yeah, I watched some dudes video about this CRAZY DAMAGE necro build that does MASSIVE hits, but the build did like, no dps, he just cut and pasted his nukes and as like WHOA 16K HIT GUIS.

I’m Thinking Dagger/Something with like a 30/10/0/0/30 build and going into death shroud until you hit 50% is the way direct damage goes?

Its pretty much how it works, except dagger isn’t actually used. Instead of using the axe auto attack, they’ll use DS life blast until 50% life force, go back to normal mode, and build up life force again with focus 4 followed by axe 2 plus whatever utilities are off cool down. Then they go back into DS again and repeat. And yeah, the build is 30/10/0/0/30 or 30/20/0/0/20 in full berserkers utilizing the axe damage trait at 30 points in spite.

Scootabuser.4915:

I think I can do that, but you won’t like what I find :X

Blind on stealth trait plus tactical strike is extreme cheese mode in PVE. Immune to everything the NPC does to you, provided it can be blinded. Because of this I’m always the last person to die in dungeons/fractals even in full berserkers equipment. Even if I won’t like it, I still wanna know. :p

Draco Aurum.7520:

You should check out Nemesis.8593 ‘s power build thread .
If you take the time to watch his videos you’ll see he really knows his stuff, maybe PM him, he might be able to help you out, he clearly has necro working right for him in PvE and PvP.
Hope this helps you out.

I’ve never seen Nemesis talk about PVP. Does he even PVP?

Necromancers. I seriously want to know how much damage they can do compared to other classes. Scepter/dagger is the most popular build, but some necros go axe/focus and alternate in and out of death shroud for their auto attack.

Do sword/dagger. I do dungeons a lot with this weapon combination. I’m curious to see how it stacks up against dagger/dagger. I’m also curious as to what the DPS of just sword auto attack is vs dagger auto attack.