I honestly think death shroud is pretty weak in pve. The only skills I see worth using is DS 4 and DS 2 if you use wells. It’s face tanking abilities are mediocre at best since you have to actively restore it before the next wave of attacks. This is all considering you are a power necromancer.
That’s exactly what I thought the flame and frost dye would be. I absolutely hate the model for twilight/sunrise, but the effect is cool and dye worthy. I would love to be able to swap out my midnight ice portions of my sword/torch guardian’s armor with some sort of lava effect.
death shroud is necro specific… its also our class mechanic but no one else has anything close.
and IronPlushy you beat me to it!
The other classes have non class mechanics on low cool downs that rival (if not out performs) ds which is sad to say about a class mechanic.
I was skeptical about this new condition at first and now I don’t think it’s even worth it. Other classes will have to jumps through a few hoops to gain access to it sure, but they can throw it into their already unpredictable builds and use it as they see fit. If we are poked hard enough, we will either blow this skill at the most terrible moments or lose access to it completely.
AN should take a look at the necromancer first before they plop any new toys on us.
What he is saying, if you actually bothered to understand the context of his message is: It is not a class that is OP just because it has a fighting chance, or even more than a fighting chance against another class… it becomes OP when the other class is not built around dealing with they build of the attacker. For example: The United States has one of the most powerful armies in the world and one of the most technologically advanced. So, to a country like Vietnam, the United States Army seems OP… in reality, however, the United States Army got its kitten smacked by the Viet-Con… why? Because even though the Viet-Con were a less threatening army, they learned to counter the attacks of the United States Army and exploit weaknesses in the Army itself. This, in turn, made the fight more even and it was discovered that neither Army was better than the other… it all came down to tactics.
So, the post makes it clear that before crying about a class being OP… attempt to learn new tactics with your class to overcome the strengths of that so called OP class and learn to exploit the weaknesses of that so called OP class…. that is simple enough, right?
I could easily wreck a thief who underestimates me while I’m playing a siphoning necro in a room the size of my marks, but that will never be balance. You would have been better off saying this is a rock, paper, scissors game, so stop trying to fight paper with a rock.
I actually don’t have a lot of trouble fighting thieves nor do I think they are op, but can someone break down how to fight a d/p s/d thief anyway? It might help me get the kill instead of him refuging away and then coming to wreck me when I’m not paying attention (I doubt it).
Can a GOOD thief do this indefinitely? If so, then yes, IMHO it is OP. Also, please explain how to do it (as I have a thief and want to win everytime as well). LOL
Well necro is one of the worst classes for swinging wildly at thin air unless you are equipped with a dagger. Some thieves will melt to conditions while others will remove it/reset the fight as often as you apply it.
I’ve had little success with planting marks preemptively on good thieves and you can only really use them to determine where he is.
I only really play wvw so I also do my daily on wvw maps even if I’m not in the mood to fight people. Normally I will try to run away and if they don’t give up, I down them and leave them like that. I imagine this tells most people that they are annoying me and I rarely have any further issues if I run into that player again.
Thieves are the only class that seems to think that because I’m collecting, I’m gank fodder and that’s after I give them my annoyance treatment. They will try different angles (skills, hiding places etc) and if they still fail, some come at me with stealthed allies. Thief is the only class that can give me the sensation of blowing/fearing someone off a cliff with it’s general gameplay.
It’s probably because of this duel-ish like build, but I thought your last video was a lot more entertaining to watch for the 1v1’s. I’m not a big fan of XvX so I can’t comment there (although this is probably a large help to those who are).
Nevertheless, it’s good to see you spitting out more power necro videos, can’t wait to see more.
I still remember when me and my friend brought our alts into the mists for a little dueling. I’ve never seen his character before but shes a small 5 ft 6 or so human female or something. The armor probably didn’t help but my first thought was “why is your character so fat?” and low and behold she’s just packing heat. I still make fun of him for that.
I would have personally made my guardian flat if I could because shes a warrior for christ’s sake and watching metal plating bounce around gets awkward after a while.
This is how I thought a life siphoning build would play out, too bad it fell short at the part where my face tanking ability prevented me from healing. On paper our healing seems fairly decent, but it’s honestly a trade off with how immobile it makes us to use it.
2 seconds of fear is still pretty kittenty when you have to invest so much to make it last those 2 seconds. Especially when everyone else gets it 3 seconds base, and they can still improve the duration further if they wanted to make a build around it. I would much rather have the 3 second fear with the longer cool down, as I feel it would be a hell of a lot more useful than what we have now.
You forgot that a thief can actually kill you in 3 seconds.
I used to run a supportive necro build till I learned what an elementalist was. After that I was at a loss for a build (I still sort of am) and now I currently just mess around with my spectral build in wvw alone.
I remember when I would make my friends huddle together in my well of blood, I still get made fun of for that.
I noticed Spectral Walk port goes up to like 12-14 seconds with attunement and some points in DM, you could pull off some really nifty jukes and escapes with that much space to work with. With only 8 seconds to port back, most enemies can keep you in line of sight and close enough to chase you down if there isn’t a cliff or obstacles around to hide behind. Still I don’t like the wall and armor nearly well enough to take the trait.
Yeah, I’ve outran sword thieves who were smart enough to leave their port starting point at mine, but still couldn’t handle the maximum range. Spectral walk is awesome as a stun breaker and for building life force, but as soon as I use it in a fight, I have no choice but to finish it (which is a pain as a necro). I honestly wish SA had some sort of secondary activation ability like walk to be a double stun breaker and to bring it up to speed (with a lower cd). Storing and returning damage while breaking stun on activation + removing any left over protection would be pretty fun.
But glamours have HUGE area of effect, and can be dropped right on top of people very easily. If the skill was called spectral FIELD, and it was an area similar to a buffed up mark, it would be a better skill. It would be able to zone out much better, and would punish enemy movement much more broadly.
I do agree it is much better than the well protection trait by far, but that is a trait vs. a skill. I would attest that the well protection major trait is worse than the protection trait mesmers get at minor 15.
I would ask the potential zoning of well of darkness vs. spectral wall. They are both designed to zone out, but one does it much better than the other. (advocating for Spectral Field!)
This would be a welcome change at least for me and it goes extremely well with the duelist play style of powermancers (especially the well bombing fellows). This change is less about how oblivious your opponent can be and more about how they will respond to the changing situation. The protection and vulnerability would need some hefty nerfing, but I would like to see this change.
If you drop it mid-fight vs a melee opponent and can outrange them, then they either engage at your location and risk vuln, or let you mince about picking up prot 3 times.
That’s what it comes down to though. Spectral wall only shines against melee classes when you are on the defense, otherwise they will just walk away. I’de glady swap it out for another spectral ability but one requires me to pray first while the other requires me to pray after.
It is more of a problem of access to those boons on demand. A wall that cannot move with you is completely useless in WvW if the fight moves 3 clicks to the east. Protection everytime you get regeneration, on a 15 second cooldown, is up pretty much any time you need it…. and that is a mesmer MINOR trait.
Pretty much this. I find that if I use it in a more mobile fight, it’s just to get the 6+ seconds of protection and then I leave it behind. Sometimes I find it to be detrimental to even bother putting it down if my opponents got the jump on me or realize I essentially just set up a base.
if u haven’t figured it out let me enlighten u mesmers have a counter for almoust all our skills
-instant clones
-massive heal
-huge range dmg about double ours or so
-elite cancel skills
what do we have tou counter all that ?
the folowing:
- …..
- …..
- …..
plz feel free to add more…
Conditions melt mesmers apparently. I don’t play coditionmancer so I can’t verify this.
I think having more access to blind (specifically the pulsing kind) makes more sense since it’s the poor mans version of aegis and is a condition. Our current access to blind is pretty limited if you also factor in our lack of utility boons. DS is a terrible substitute for boons like aegis and vigor, but I’d still like to see it being worked around in a way that makes sense to necromancy.
If the axe was boosted to 900 range I wouldn’t be so torn between it and the staff. The axe currently wins because I prefer keeping my opponent within 600 range over attempting to hit with that hand past 900, but I always feel like I should try using it again.
The axe is alright (the whole chill thing), but it’s just as you say OP. I started collecting materials for a legendary dagger, but before I knew it, I began to associate the legendary dagger with quick and mobile classes and the necromancer is anything but. Not to mention the effects go far better with thief dagger skill animations and elementalist attunement swapping etc. That leaves just the axe, but I’m currently torn between what weapons to use on my necromancer and I don’t want to do any heavy investing until I’m completely sure.
I’ve seen a necromancer on maguuma who sort of makes the scepter work, but it still clashes quite a bit.
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.
This ^. The only 1v2 scenario’s I hate to be in but prefer above others while playing my guardian, is ones involving necromancers. Depending on how the other guy reacts to me focusing down the necromancer, I will decide if he is worth fighting after the necromancer is down or dead. Of course underestimating a necromancer can backfire if he’s actually a good necromancer (I try to abuse this tendency often on my own necro), but being a necromancer myself does wonders to prevent this.
The simplest way to put it OP, is that you will have to pick up the game again yourself and try out various things on the necromancer. I’ve decided to tone back my build experimentation until anet’s theories start holding more weight in the actual game.
I’ve been trying really hard to get my necromancer to the level of my crit meditation guardian and I’m frustrated to say the least. Nothing goes together and no matter what I do, the class just feels extremely clunky. Am I the only one who feels like this?
Chasing down opponents with aa’s, using utilities to make up for damage, relying on DS when we are burst or controlled all add up to awkward feeling one gets when playing this class and that’s without delving into the traits. The feeling like a lot of necromancers skills have little to do with necromancy when compared to the first game is just icing on the very large displeasure cake.
I’ve stopped experimenting with the class once I reached a spectral build, since it’s the closest thing I’ve gotten to having fun (and a lot at that). But the weapon skills and cd’s has me waiting to see what anet’s next move for the class is.
My level 3 necro I made just then because of this post… The staff abilities I already knew were a kitten because they just drop constant and annoying conditions but also the range of it… OMG someone once hit a 3k on me from a tower… I was on a treb that not even an ele with D/D would get to, and a necro killed me. I was impressed so I made the necro. ITS SO FUN!
What’d he hit you with? Staff 4 in full zerker while you were on the verge of death? LOL!
I started out as a necro on the early access and still play the class. Just going through the class list before I played the game told me that I will really only enjoy guardian and necromancer and my only two level 80 characters are those two. Although I’m on the fence atm and want to see how anet addresses some issues with the class, I’ll be a necro main till I move on from this game.
Well I got my crit guardian on stand by for whenever I get too frustrated with necromancer but still wish to have some stupid fun. Too bad the allure behind cliff diving and spectral abilities always has me coming back to get frustrated again. With a few skill/trait tweaks, decreased cool downs, and some tweaks to DS (for conditions etc), I can already start to see necromancer becoming a more attractive class.
Since march was the month of some wonky engy fixes, I’ll hold my breath for similar treatment on necromancer in april.
That skill would be Zombify. Raise 1 dead enemy player and have a simple AI cause it to run toward the nearest other enemy and spam #1 skill using the caster’s Life Force until that player becomes dead again
That sounds awesome, but as terok said, I don’t see it happening. Doing that to some crit monster warrior would be hilarious.
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.
So that’s the context behind the l2p death shroud statement I see floating around occasionally. I have to say that I wish I came to the forums earlier to figure out if power, toughness, and healing power worked on necromancer to see those fireworks.
Been playing my necro for about a week, I use a Hybrid, condition/power build and i love it.
Lots of good points here about it’s flaws, but freakin A, it’s fun. These people complaining about it must like it if there willing to sacrifice there time to trash on it.
I played an engi; very versatile but Necro is easy to pick up if you take some time to learn the character as opose to running to 80 and expect greatness.
Every prof could use a tweak here and there, but still enjoy my necro. Woot Woot
Necro is fun, but it has an unshakable clunky feeling hammered into it with a toy nail (not even the nail is sturdy). None of the necromancers weapons feel like they were actually made with each other in mind and feel more like a collection of conditions that the players have to piece together in between their auto attacks. This extends well past just the weapon skills, into the utilities, traits, and class mechanics, but my issue is with the weapon skills.
If the necromancer had some synergy between his weapons and killing potential outside of auto attacks and CD heavy skills (looking at you wells), you could almost ignore the problems with utilities, traits, and class mechanics (or atleast I could). I do have a lot of fun jumping in and out of death shroud and my spectral abilities to draw out the fight, but when it’s time for me to go on the offensive, I honestly begin to lose interest in the fight.
I"m not the best thief, but I agree it is going to suck for me and the build I’ve been using for a every long time. Now I will have to changed it up. I just wish that people would just play the game and stop kittening about thief’s not playing fair with there stealth. Basically if everyone starts kittening about classes the game will lose players and it won’t be as fun for some.
With how many people thieves scared away from wvw, I honestly wonder. Besides other than UP classes and abilities needing to be fixed the only classes I see people complaining about on a regular is thief and elementalist.
My only gripe was honestly culling since I had to rely on auto attacks and aoe’s to deal any major damage on a foe actively attacking me and all my powerful target skills just sat there unused for the most part.
But hey. At least dagger autoattack + wells works effectively enough that it makes up for everything else. Right?
I know you’re being sarcastic, but my god is well bombing one of the sloppiest, most linear, CD heavy play styles I have ever seen and this is all just to get similar burst results to other classes weapon sets.
I use well of darkness because I have my Curses trait to chill upon blind. Since I need 20Curses for my spectral attunement, the chill when blind trait is better than terror when you’re not using staff as main or backup.
The well of darkness is also key to killing burst thieves. Shatter Mesmers are my weakpoint when not playing with a staff handy. That said, removal of stealth/culling will make my most difficult opponent far easier.
I completely forgot about chill upon blind which is funny because at one point I was only able to kill thieves because of well of darkness. I’ll have to try it because I’ve been using weakening shroud which fails against most of the classes which force me into death shroud to begin with.
@ ODB: Necromancers have no teleports like mesmers and have crap for mobility, so a 25% sig isn’t making them into thieves.
Oh really? No teleports like Mesmer eh?
Summon Flesh Worm – Not only does it give you a pet that can attack, but it also gives you your own point to teleport back to. It can also be cast and then instantly teleported to to be treated as a teleport.
Spectral Walk – your own personal teleport … except rather than being able to also teleport others, it has 30 sec less cooldown and gives you swiftness with a base duration of 30 seconds.
Mesmer has what?
Blink – just a 900 range teleport & stunbreaker (your worm is 1,200 range, a pet w/ range attacks, and you poison anyone at the location you ported to)
Portal – place it at one location, run to another location, have to be standing on the portal to portal to the other one (spectral walk you start it and move as you please … port if you want during the duration … enjoy swiftness
I’d stay they aren’t exactly the same but you definitely have things like them.
As a necromancer main, I’de gladly trade the flesh worm for your blink even if it was nerfed to a 600 range teleport. If I could transfer the life force charging abilities of spectral walk to your blink, I might also do that trade too.
Mobility changes are nothing small and mesmer is one of the classes that can be broken by such a change. I’m not too sure why you guys would want to risk it since any nerfs that would follow, will most likely spill over into other mesmer abilities broken by the speed.
Very interesting build and pretty sure I’ve mixed up my build with of your advice. But as others have said I’de like to see how you fight against some good burst mesmers and thieves, it would help me greatly.
Could you also break down your use for well of darkness over spectral grasp (other than it sort of sucking). I have a few ideas of where it would excel, but I’de like to hear anyways.
OP, if you think like that, you lost the race long before it even began. I’m attempting to get rodgort for my guardian to go along with her fiery dragon sword, and her scaly looking armor. It’s also a pretty nice long term goal for this game.
I’m glad I took the chance to look at other legendary models otherwise I would have ended up settling on working towards either a legendary staff or the greatswords (both of which aren’t really to my liking).
I personally wouldn’t use the staff if you are a power necro. Between Axe/focus + Dagger/WH + Deathshroud the only thing the staff will do is removing your conditions and giving you some slight presence past 900 range. I feel as though a lot (and I mean a lot) of momentum is lost when you use the staff, but many enjoy it and you might as well.
The staff put far too much pressure on my other weapon set for my liking and dished out it’s damage far too slow. The staff’s most powerful attack just happened to be the most important utility on it so no mistakes can be made in its use.
Can’t wait! This made fighting mesmers slightly more difficult than it should be too. I’m hoping this fix = abrupt out of nowhere thieves rather than the current fading in they currently do.
It completely screws me over when all I hear is a clink clink from behind and have to rely on auto attacks out of fear of wasting my skills since they were probably out of cloak for a good 1-2 seconds already.
My wishlist for necro is a weapon that cleaves, 1 utility that has stability or invulnerability, and some sort of way of gaining vigor, maybe turn the flesh wurm into an initial blink, the way it is now it’s too unreliable.
Blinking to a location and creating the flesh worm would be pretty awesome, possibly OP though.
I mainly use sword/torch with GS as a finisher and for dealing damage against larger groups. I won’t say that it’s the most effective offensive choice on the guardian, but for a good balance of damage and fun I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It would be pretty cool if the auto on the Staff for necro turned into a cleaving melee weapon while in close range while rocking the scythe effect.
Something similar to guardian greatsword 1.
That would be better than implementing a whole new scythe weapon. ;p
Basically I want a viable power necro.
Unless you completely turn the staff upside down, I don’t see these changes making a large enough splash with power necromancers. Anything short of giving necromancer a greatsword will most likely just fall short.
I want a proper power necromancer as much as the next guy because dropping 2 of my utilities or DS4 for any semblance of a reliable aoe really gets to me.
As a melee necro, it’s all about making them waste their stun breaks as fast as possible. Keeping them chilled or crippled, keeping them in range with dark path and spectral grasp and punishing them with the dagger usually forces them to expend their stun breaks. Once they’re out of those you can usually just root them and take them down, although you’re best to kill the clones with a life transfer before bursting them down to stop him from using them for extended daze or invulnerability.
One thing I have real trouble with is mesmers with a staff, in particular, the skill called phase retreat. This is 1200 range teleport that produces a clone, has no cast time, can be used while stunned, and has a 10 second untraited CD. Also it’s a leap finisher for god knows what reason. This ability, in my humble opinion is OP as hell, and it makes it somewhat difficult to stay on a mesmer.
This all seems like some pretty nice advice. I will swap out corrupt boon and give it a shot (melting guardians and elementalists is too addicting), thanks. Any more advice on more specific playstyles would also be appreciated.
I have ran into staff mesmers before and I don’t have much to say since it gave me the opportunity I needed to high tail it in the opposite direction. I can see how it could be a major kitten off if you are both fighting eachother.
Before I even had a chance to play this game, two classes stood out to me, 1. being the necromancer and 2. being the mesmer. While necro stood out as the class I wanted to main most, mesmer stood out as the class that I would definitely hate running into. I absolutely dislike fighting mesmers and in most cases I’ll just run if I can avoid the fight. Everything I do against a mesmer even when I’m fighting back appears more like an attempt at escape before I know it.
Of course I’ve heard that conditions completely demolishes mesmers, but i’m not a big fan of how conditionmancer handles. I’ve also completely locked down and well bombed a few mesmers, but that isn’t always optimal. So I guess the real questions are:
1. How do you move?
2. What do you look out for?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
If it will help my traits are: 10 20 10 0 30, I’m using superior runes of the pack, and I’m using a combination of knights gear with knights accessories and zerker jewels.
I hear you OP. On my guardian, my first attempt at slapping together gear for her (emphasis on slapping) more than exceeded my expectations and I decided to use my laurels and fractal relics that was meant for my necro to further strengthen her build. Everything Just went together and it isn’t exactly the best build since it’s utilizing the sw/torch/gs and not so tanky gear. I’m actually having difficulty picking utilities because the only utility my build really requires is judges intervention and guardian has a wide range of choices.
Comparing the necromancer directly with a guardian isn’t exactly fair but my necromancer is in a very weird state. My life siphoning build completely fell apart because of necromancer’s limited healing options and healing power’s overall ineffectiveness on the blood magic tree. My current well bombing build carries quite a few dead weight traits, it puts an insane amount of skills on cd, and to top it all off, the builds intentions are as transparent as glass. It feels like conditionmancer is the build most necro’s are finding a home in, but I can’t even imagine playing one.
Hell, I’m having a lot of trouble settling on a weapon set too. The Axe/focus + dagger/warhorn and dagger/focus or warhorn + staff builds feel like an insane amount of momentum is lost on the switch. This is definitely a more subjective point, but it adds to my extreme difficulty with this class.
