Guild Wars 2

More or less every other elite spec buffed they’re already existant mechanics (mesmer), adds a new mechanic (druid) and frequently granted them a new way to play the class (guardian with a finally really strong ranged weapon).
The necromancer obtained only a needed rework on his Shroud. Not a chance to chose what Shroud use, we just got struck in a new shroud. the new shroud granted us some needed fixes to the old one (a Field, a Combo, a real Condition damage skill and, finally, Stability. And, yes, a leap…with an aftercast that make it useless to flee and sometimes make you miss the enemy), but also struck us in a Melee fight, that is the worst place to be for a necromancer. Now enemies no more some to burst us down, they kite us bursting from distant or waiting that the shroud degeneration make us even easier to kill while we’re unable to land a hit.
I hoped to obtain shouts aviable also in shroud, like for the druid glyphs and celestial avatar, with the same or empowered effect, but no, we don’t deserve to have any kind of utility skill while in shroud.

But we had a good damage! A damage comparable to the current dps classes/builds. But for ANet a necromancer don’t have to inflict any good damage then they nerfed chill damage to the ground. To be true, they don’t nerfed it, they changed it to make it viable in PvE. But that made it barely useless for sPvP and WvWvW.
If we have that damage back, we’ll be able to inflict good damage, comparable to other condition classes. But no, ANet will never make it happen.
Also because the Reaper is a Direct Damage Elite Specializzation, still if it’s best build is a Conditon damage build.

Now, taling about the sPvP life of a necromancer, the necromancer is a strong class if in a team that babysitter him all the kitten time and ress him every 20 seconds (sometimes literally every 20 sec…). Don’t support the team’s defence (only help to clean conditions stealing them from his allies with the plague signet), don’t inflict good damage (if compared to al the other classes dps), his best skills are all highly thelegraphed and easy to avoid. But can corrupt conditions and make the enemy a little easier to kill (highly depending on the enemy class build because now not every class rely on buffs, it’s mainly used to corrupt stability and might).

It’s strength is his team.

Now, have I to remember to everyone that from the next Season the Ranked Arena will no longer be a Team Based Tournament?
Yes, we’ll be able to join at best as 2.
Then, if you don’t keep with you your personal engineer to ress you all the kitten ed time you fall downed, how will you hope to play as a Necromancer?
We totally rely on our team and we’ll no longer be able to make one.
If we don’t get a little rework, a new misterious powerful build, a new elite specializzation to play with that grant us any kind of chance to survive to a 5 seconds focus, how can we hope to be viable in the next meta as a necromancer?

Rs5+4 combo is the easiest thing in the game to see and evade. Even just running away with swiftness.
Necromancer have SOFT CC, that make him underpowered compared to all the other classes that can spam stun, immobilize or simply don’t need any kind of CC to burst you down (also with conditions -> mesmer).
It’s true that the necromancer (even more with reaper) is designed to be a slow class that when hit can kill you, but basicly it don’t kill you because don’t hit you…
IF soul spiral hit you, with the common build plus 25 might, 25 stack of the condition sigil and the one that increase your condi damage by 6%, your poison inflict 9k damage in 4 seconds, plus more or less 8 bleed (not all the chill shot hit the enemy), that are 11k in 8 seconds. Assuming that the enemy is not a total idiot and just move away from you, you more or less hit with half of your kitten and inflict 3-4 bleed, halving your damage. If the enemy is not blind he can also active a teleport, a block, immunity, resistance, at last a stability/breakstun to not be forced to eat all your combo, frequently the damage is even reduced. Then, the enemy can use a condi clean skill an make all your damage useless (just knowing that this combo is the only decent condition damage source of a necromancer).

But, yes, if the enemy is a bad enemy we can inflict 20k in 8 seconds. And that with Full Might and Full Condi Sigil Stacks (a thing no one can use in a real sPvP, it’s just for make the example).
If you remove that things, SS inflict only 6k in 4 seconds and bleed deals only 7k in 8 seconds = 13k in 8 seconds.

Then, if you think that a revenant can inflict us 12k in 2 seconds with the sword 3+ staff 5 “combo” CCing us to the hell and hitting us for up to 3k with every AA hit…
Yeah, the necromancer is the King of DPS!!

You can tell me that the direct damage is a different thing from condition damage and that’s true, then:
A Mesmer can spam torment. With the scepter 2, after a single block, a mesmer can inflict you 5 torment that inflict 6,7k over 8 seconds, then AA you for a lot of torment, more or less 2/sec plus his clones (one clone every 2 sec that inflict you 2 torment every sec). In 4 seconds a mesmer can inflict you 10k damage of torment, plus another 12,5k in the next 4 seconds only spamming the AA, nothing more.
22,5k in 8 seconds.
If you add might and condi sigils at full, just for fun, you reach 30k of damage in 8 seconds.
Also, a condition damage much easier to inflict because at last you need to block a hit and then teleport away, the enemy can clean it up all at once but you can continue to spam it without any problem, is a Ranged skill, you have clones that spam torment still when you don’t attack, you don’t need any trait to make it work and don’t need any Field or CC to inflict your full damage.

Yes, the necromancer is the King of DPS!
Please nerf it.

Soul Reaping grant unblockable marks and reduce the decacy of LF while in shroud, that are good things, but the best things are: if you’re a condition damace user you can finally use the Dhuumfire traitline to inflict good burn damage while in shroud OR you can use the Chill trait in Spite to spam vulnerability and then the critical rate granted by the Reaper trait and the SR trait (while in shroud) grant you 105% critical rate totally for free.

If we get the torch and the sand, we can be forced in a low range shroud. 600 range, i belive. We have a ranged shroud, a melee shroud, we lack a mid range shroud. Also, we don’t have a mid-range weapon and a torch mainhand can be a melee or a low range weapon (if we really take the torch).
Sands don’t fit the ranged role, but an AoE mid range role can be done quite well.

We can only wait and see what ANet chose for us.

More than that, i hope for a Rework on our mechanic. An extra, a different way to use the Life Force or anything else than another kitten shroud that will struck us in another F1 state where we obtain good skills but lose all our utility, heal and elite skills.
At last make it like the Glyphs of the Druid, that add something totally new changing between in or out of the shroud and can be used while in it.
A Shroud that work as an armor and power up out already existant weapon, utility, heal and elite skills while in use would be great, with some new kind of skill that obtain an incredible power up by this form.
But that’s ask too much from ANet, let’s wait for another Shroud without any defensive chance that make us killed easy as always.

The Reaper Shroud is our best condition shroud, but it was mainly created for direct damage builds, but also have the only combo that grant us a decent amount of damage as a condition class (Rs5+Rs4), out of that a necromancer don’t have any real strong condition damage skill, combo or other. Condition weapons have weak skills to inflict conditions if compared to any other condition weapon, utilities don’t grant us any good condition damage and out elites are just bad if you want to inflict condition damage.
The necromancer is a “bad” condition damage class, it’s best role is to Manage conditions, not inflict them.
By stealing conditions from allies by plague signet and Unholy martyr you can then use your transfer skills to obtain condition damage from your enemy conditions, but you’re just bad to generate condition damage by yourself (expecially in areas like sPvP, wile in pve against a big boss is easier stack conditions and make combo, just because bosses don’t dodge, block, immune or clean your conditions). Anyther good thing as condi management is Epidemic, that grant to the necromancer a good dps, but this time is based on your allies conditions, spreading the conditions inflicted by yourself and (expecially) your allies, making they’re strength yours.
Then, there’s the boon corruption, but don’t work in PvE and don’t grant you any (decent) damage in PvP.

Basicly, the necromancer is a selfish condition management class that totally depend to enemies and allies conditions and boons to inflict damage and incapacitate the enemy, making it weaker and easier to kill.

That playstyle is what make me love the necromancer, but also his big weakness when you talk about DPS. By yourself you’ll never do a good dps, your only way to inflict any decent damage is transfer conditions obtained from enemies or allies.
That worked really good in sPvP during the condibunker meta, when a lot of classes used condi builds and had way lesser condi removal skills/traits in they’re builds, making us able to send back tons of conditions and kill the enemy with his power. Now in sPvP there’s only few classes that use conditions and even in that classes frequently is better the direct damage build and, talking about boons, a large amount of classes spam boons but no more rely on them to survive (like the cele ele did, for example) or burst you down, making our strategy weaker as ever.

A finally good condition weapon would be great, with also a real condition Shroud. ANet can change a little the Reaper to be more direct damage focused, but it already is because the chill damage got nerfed months ago, making it good only for RS4 as a condi user, and because have Stability. basicly the reaper is not our best condition choice but is our Only condition choice (the Death shroud is just bad in any way you look at it, unless for the ranged damage).

A way to finally get focused on Inflict condition damage more than Manage it would be really good.

The thief counter mesmers and necros since ever. The work of a thief is come out of the shadows, stab you and then disappear again. And again. And again. And again.

Actually the thief had recived some improvements on his damage, it’s AA is insanely strong, just because some bad players don’t wanted to use skills because were unable to manage the mechanic of the class, then ANet made they’re AA so strong that sometimes they don’t even need to stab you twice, they just need to stab and AA.

As a mesmer, you can use some teleport skills, break stuns, stealth and total immunity/block skills that make you able to fight a thief or at last to flee from it.
A single burst of the dps build can kill a thief, hardly you need two if you hit with all the combo. Then is a skills fight, where who get the other first win.
Pay attention to when the thief come to you (if you can) and be ready with a breakstun/teleport skill and burst him when he come out of the darkness.
more or less the same thing he need to do when is you that chase him.

To who that just think that eles are weak, I just playes a match with 3 Eles against 3 DH.
And we won. We destroyed them in every fight.
Eles are still a strong class, expecially if stacked. High heal and good damage (expecially AoE) make them good still in this meta, still against 3 DH.

The warrior is a good class at the moment, strong in damage (really huge damage if you learn some tricks) and really good defence and survavibility, with a lot of defensive skills and traits that will grant you immunity to direct damage, to condition damage, a lot of stability and health regeneration.
If you want a bunker build you can try to use the banner regeneration, but it’s an old build and in the current meta you’ll have some hard times to make it work.

One of the common direct damage builds will fit your needs.

Supreme.3164:

Out of 10 posts from you…9 will be about nerfing everybody and buff/leave the class you play, making fun of anybody who think otherswise, give dozen “explanations” on why they’re wrong and you’re right always…

And in the end…you don’t even play those other professions, neither you try to watch the world under another light…after taking off your bias glasses…

Before was ele with diamond skin…now it’s blocks/evades..and tomorrow will be something else

Was there a time where you would not visit the forum complaining?…ha yes..there was dhuumfire era..and chillmancer era, a clear example of what happens when you buff a class with design concept like necro

Yes, I complain a lot from my point of wiew. Also,in the dhuumfire era I wasn’t playing necromancer, then i don’t know how good it was XD

About the necromancer, yes, if you look to the past, it was incredibly strong or incredibly countered (or just weak). before the condi era (outside of dhuum phase) the necro was the worst class to play, not even considered into the sPvP game for how bad it was. Few burst builds came up with wells but there was so weak that even a bunker was able to burst them down for how poor defence they had. The problem is that we had the same defence as this time…

During the Chillomancer era the necro was good, but then everyone discovered that a celestial ele, a thief, a mesmer or a engi with the moa potion was able to totally countered him, making his reign of terror end in few weeks, with no hope to return.

The problem of the necromancer is that, compared to every single other class, lack of defence, damage and mobility, both in direct or condi damage builds. Can’t be a dps because his damage got brutally nerfed with the chill nerf (and still with it the necro will not match the burst damage of a good condi warrior), can’t be a bunker because his defence totally rely on statistics and there’s only few and bad defensive amulets and still with them a necro have only few chances to be as bunker as a dps marauder DH can actually be. Don’t have any kind of movement skills outside of the RS2, that have an aftercast that make it barely useless if you want to flee. Then, if you don’t use the wurm (that frequently bug when you active it, have a limited range, you need to position him before the fight and can be killed easy…) you don’t have any kind of way to flee from a fight.
The necromancer is doomed to be a pure corruption class, without any chance to have a burst build, a bunker build, a defensive support build or even to survive to a fight if you don’t kill your enemy. And the necro is the worst 1v1 class atm.
You can have a better “burst” damage if you use a direct damage build, but you become really easy to kill and your damage is still not even comparable to all the other professions (unless ele).

Yes, a little improvement on the necromancer would be good.
it’s a viable class, but only in premades or in lucky teams with good people that know that have to keep you alive ressing you all the time if he want to make you do something useful for them.

Anyway, the point was: there’s too much active and (expecially) passive defences that grants to some classes a chance to be dps and “tanky” at the same time.
DH can be the top example of how a class can survive to everything as a dps and the necro can be the perfect example to how a class can’t because totally lack of defensive traits and skills, or need to totally focus on them to survive 10 seconds more doing no damage.

A little balance on that way can be good.

I don’t ask now to overbuff the necromancer, but if there’s so much posts about how bad it is there’s a reason…

I would prefer a little balance over the classes to reduce the passive defences and traits and improve active ones as skills and traits related to skills activation.

Revenant, Ranger, Warrior (make some practice with the combo and you’re ok), Mesmer (but you need to be good) or Thief (also if you’re good to use it). The DH is good, but I see a lot of them die like fools because they think to be immortal still while not good to use it, then make some practice before go with it into the middle of the fight.
Engineer is good, but you need more practice to be good with it.

Basicly, don’t go necro or ele, all the other classes can be played well in Soloq

Little changes in the map to make it a little more “open”, granting to more classes to be viable in that area.
A bonus to “capture” in the middle of the map would also be appreciate, something to force players to show they’re face in the central area.

Did someone seriously got killed by a necromancer marks? O_O
The staff is mandatory for every (expecially condi) necromancer build not for how strong it is because it’s the weaker weapon of the necromancer in damage and is only good for two reasons: Utility skills (4 that transfer conditions and 5 for fear) and LF generation. Nothing more. We’re struck with it because it’s the best LF generation weapon(if traited) and the necromancer totally depend from LF. About the damage… only the skill 3 inflict a decent damage but it’s still too low to be good by any sense. The Mark2 don’t inflict any damage and can be only used to obtain LF and Regeneration.
Everyone spam about “staff is strong and unblockable!” but the unblockable fear and transfer are the only things good in that weapon. I will be glad to ANet to grant us a nother weapon for the condition build, or at last able to grant LF as the staff do.

Condition damage is good, sometimes barely at the same level of the direct damage (in burst builds like warrior LB/Mace), but the direct damage is still the best way to kill someone. You don’t need to spam and hope that the enemy don’t clean all your work receiving only the 20% of your damage, and all the damage you do is an immediate damage.
It’s the old story of the Burn Guardian, when a lot of people posted images where they get killed by 90k of Burn damage… If they Survived to 90k of damage before they get killed, then the Burn itself was not good enough to inflict you that “20k” you need to get killed, making you survive for another 70k before make you die. (we can remove another 20k for the downed state? It’s always 50k more than your healt pool).

Condition is not a real big problem and basicly no one used it as main damage in any high level tournament, exeption for few builds (or for the necro, that can’t do anything else than condition damage to be barely good).

Anyway, the main thing was: there’s too many classes that can play in full dps in equipment, utility and traits with still a insane survavibility.
That’s the thing that make the game unbalanced.
Force for real the players to chose between damage and survavibility would be a good choice, expecially now that there’s no more a large amount of bunker amulets for bunkers and hybrids, forcing players to play dps OR bunker.

A rework on traits would be a good thing to start a real balance and a real build diversity system, expecially for the PvP area.

It will for shure not impact it negatively, it canb e good, but we already have a LOT of things that we need to get fixed or changed and have a big priority over a barely useless feature.
I’m not against that, I only say that it’s a useless feature.
Also, if you have a selected weapon and then you drop it in the bank, change the specific weapon with another one of the same kind or anyway don’t have it(or a similar) with you when the match start? You will play without your weapon/s because you forgot to change your sPvP setup without look to what you’re holding in your hands?

“supreme”…

The first video is old and that player is just bad. The only thing he did right is took with him a friend that don’t know how to play as a ranger and fool everybody making the necro appear as a godlike class. A really bad video.

The second one is barely true, but also old of a year. At this time there was Another meta and the necro was a little better. Also he fought not exellent players for shure.

Basicly everything you wrote and linked is bad and barely a lie.
Yes, Kappa exagerated a little, but also have some reasons.

Actually the necromancer is the easiest class to kill, with no defensive skills, no high damage, no burst skills (only the gravedigger on the GS, that is one of the worst skill ever, sometimes useless also in pve), no mobility.
There’s some builds that make the necromancer viable and almost all the onehanded weapons have a skill to corrupt boons, making it able to do so also with builds that don’t focus on it., but be useful as a corrupt bot that need an engi to be ressed every 10 seconds is not be in “meta”.

In the actual meta, a sort of defensive skill will only grant to the necro to at last don’t be the eternal “first target and first kill” as in every decent fights.

But hey, we have the Shroud! We have two healt bar! We don’t need any kind of defensive skill, we already have 40k hp!!
I’m really sad about that…

Entenkommando.5208:

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Depending on people to remember EVERY TIME is clearly not a reliable method. This happens to people all the time. Maybe you have never done it, Silv, but I have been both the one who has and in matches with plenty of others who have done it. Whichever side has someone doing it typically loses, so it IS an unbalancing factor. There is no technical reason that you should have to do this manually; if they can change everything else they can change this too.

Also it happened to me quite often that I join the match as a necro but just have to relog because the enemy classes would 100% hardcounter me. In this case you don’t have any time left to switch around your entire weaponsets. (which also have to be in the right spot in order to have sigils on the right weapon…)
@Silv you are also forgetting that you can que outside of hotm where you don’t have an option to change around your pvp gear.

Can’t I? O.o
Oh S*it, that’s true! Outside of Heart of the Mists I can’t change my weapon set!
Sorry, i always forgot that when I queue when outside the pvp area I can not change my weapon set because it become magically unchangeable. I’m really sorry…

Seriously, if you talk about the amulet, sigil, rune and traits, that’s ok, outside of Heart of the Mists you can’t change it, but what is the problem? You need ONLY to change your weapons…
A unranked queue last for more or less a minute and even when you enter the pvp map you have more than a minute to look to your weapons and Change them if you got the wrong ones.

Seriously, guys, it’s only a L2P issue. No, it’s not, it’s only a “look to what you’re doing” issue.

ANet is not responsable if you start the game with the wrong weapon set, then don’t ask them to fix anything. You have all the time to change your weapons outside of the match and change your build (if you need) when you enter in. You also have all the time you need to reroll another class if you see a lot of enemies that counter you.

Just pay attention to what you’re doing.

Overload are really strong skills and at last they can have a little lower channeling duration, nothing more. They’re strong enough to spam might, inflict huge damage, grant you stability inflicting immobilize (and stay holded in this burst meta is a real danger) or heal by a lot and grant a big Water Field. They don’t need changes, if you’re good enough to chose when active them.

Diamond skin is still a seriously strong trait that can grant you the chance to remove a condition Ever Second! That’s insanely strong and for a lot of reasons better than before because it last till you drop down the 75%hp instead of 90%.
Anyway there’s a lot of classes that use CC conditions like cripple or immobilize (rangers can literally spam immobilize) or condi like vulnerability, that don’t inflict damage. Then, the amount of classes in the game that use conditions are always lesser every time I get into a match. A lot of warriors now chose the direct damage to have burst and ignore blocks using signet of might, making them able to kill DH, mesmer and Revenant easier. Mesmers also can chose to play direct damage instead of condition and be good anyway. The only class chained to condition damage I see in the game is the necromancer and isn’t a big problem for how easy is to burst down.

Remove the Cooldown from the attunement swap will make eles totally OP. not giving them a QoL improvement, simply make them insanely OP.
They still can change between they’re attunements pretty well and change they’re skills faster than any other class (is like they have 4 weapon set instead of 2) and that grant a lot of survavibility, damage and tecnical game to play with. Yes, you need to be a skilled player to play an ele at it’s best, expecially in sPvP, but you can do things no other class can do. That’s the reason that Celestial amulet made them top tier and OP for so long time (years and years): they can do everything and a amulet that grant them every stat grant them the chance to do literally everything.

Yes, a little rework on fire, air and arcana can make them better dps class, but they already have a really strong bunker/support build that can make them barely unkillable (a lot of Immunity skills, stability and high movement skills), but you need to play it really good.
Also Fire, Air and Arcana are really strong.
Fire by itself grant you 150 Power and 10% damage to burning targets as minor traits, then you can obtain another 10% of damage when attuned with fire and spam might every time you use a fire skill (also the AA). isn’t that already an insanely strong traitline? What do you want more?
Air make you obtain 25% spedd when attuned and spam weakness when crit, obtain precision, auras grant you fury and swiftness (with the Tempest that’s pure gold!), obtain shock aura for 4 sec every 25 sec when disabled (obtaining also a 20% damage against CCed enemies) and obtain 20% of damage against enemies under 50% hp.
Just by that two traitlines you can have up to +60% direct damage in a Passive Way, plus a insane amount of Might.
Arcane grants you attunement swap recharge and everything you do something of any kind you obtain boons. isn’t that enough?

If they’re weak traitlines i don’t know what do you mean for a strong one..

If you start a queue for a PvP match you have all the time to look at your weapons, before and after you enter in the map.
If you forgot to change your set is not an ANet problem, it’s only you.

That build can only be good into a premade and against a team that don’t focus you.
Your wideo show a 2v1 against one of the worst ranger I’ve ever seen, and a little of teamfight where no one focused you, making you free to hit the enemy.
A glasscannon build like that can work only if you’re not against someone that know you’re the easiest thing to kill in the entire game, easier than a target golem.
The elite can grant you few seconds against a melee enemy or a ranged enemy struck into an angle, but in a teamfight when you’re focused there’s few things you can do with a similar build.
You’ve Protection up for a good time, but it’s not enough to grant you a good survavibility.
Thief runes and parasitic contagion are bad choices for a build that can’t be a pure dps without die in few seconds against any kind of decent player and don’t inflict enough condition damage to make that trait viable. It’s not even used in PvE, in sPvP is barely useless, expecially because the necro can inflict decent condition damage only with the RS5+4 combo, but you’re not even using reaper and you can’t do that, making that trait heal you for…80-100hp/sec?
There’s better builds to play without the expansion.

Anyway, that build can still work into an organized team that know your role is only to spam wells and die, forcing one of your team (an engi?) to ress you all the time to don’t make you a free +5 for the enemy every team you go in a fight.

I like that! Really cool.

In some classes the build diversity is more tha in others, but there’s still a good build diversity. At last, better than what we had in the previous seasons and what we had Before HoT.
Everyone that talk to how the elites cut off the build diversity, but I play from years and I don’t see so much difference in builds than before.
Elites added a traitline way better than all the others, forcing you to take it, but there’s still a good build diversity. More or less every class have a direct damage and a condition dmage build, or at last a dps and a support/bunker build. Guardian have the full trap, the meditrapper and the symbol builds and they all work really good. Necro have the sigil, the corruption and the shout(direct damage, yes) builds that work good, with some good moments with the MM build. Engi have the common dps, the condition and the decapper build (a shame that barely no one use it, it’s a insanely strong build!). Thief have the common stealth, the full dodge and the pistol build and they all work really good. The ranger have the LB dps, the bunker and the condition build and they rule with them all. Mesmers have direct damage, condi damage and still the support/bunker build. Warriors can go in condi dps, direct dps or hammerstun(another build that only few use but is still really good in a team fight for the insane amount of CC you have, expecially with the Berserker F1 Hammer skill that recharge every 4 sec).
And more.

There’s a lot of build diversity if you want to find it, to try new builds, new ways to play your class and to fight meta builds in a different way.
They’re all good in all the situations? No.
Are they strong when used as they was made for? Yes!

Just move around with your class, try some new trait, rune, sigil, amulet, weapon, utility combinations and be happy with all the amount of builds you can made for general or specific fights.
You can do this. Just stop to say “GW2 lack of build diversity”, delet Metabattle from your head and finally use it to make a build by yourself!
If you can’t do that, you don’t deserve new builds at all.

Axe can be good, expecially if traited. Not the best weapon of all, but still good.
The problem is always the same: condi or power, we don’t have any build able to win a real 1vs1 against any other class (maybe against an ele or a bad engi).
Untill we get a way to survive to damage and inflict huge damage, justlike all the other classes, we can’t be good.
We’re a team related class, that work only when the enemy don’t focus us or the team support us (ressing every moment). Then, to be really useful we need to do the only thing we’re able to: corrupt boons.

Untill we get a real way to inflict damage, we’ll no more be able to kill anyone.
We was strong in the S1/S2 because we had Chill Damage, that granted us a real source of damage (our condition damage now is really bad compared to other classes like war, engi or mesmer) and the bunker meta granted us to survive in the fight.
Now everyone can burst us down fast and easy, and our damage is lower than every other classes (unless for the ele support build?).

I actually play a direct damage build and it’s funny. The damage is barely good and have a little more survavibility with the paladin amulet than the condi build. But we totally rely on stats to survive and don’t have any defensive skill, that make us the easier class to kill in a meta where your defensive stats means nothing and the only way to survive is stealth, CC and block/invulnerability skills.

I use full shouts and rune of soldier, just to clean some conditions. Then Staff and Axe/x. I frequently use the focus because I like it and the skill 5 inflict 6 sec of chill, granting more sinergy with Chilling Victory.
That’s my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndWnMbCtbilbCebC0bilaBj6NMHqWxbxx4ZEqrFAmBA-TJRGAB8XGAgTBAQ7PswTAAA
I use Mender amulet, but Paladin is good too.

I also change sometimes to have more fun. Take dagger/warhorn instead of staff and use the curse traitline instead of soul reaping, or swap it for Death magic (I inflict a lot of vulnerability, granting me toughness and condi damage resistance, that for a stat related class isn’t too bad.

A good thing is Blighter’s boon in shroud with spite traitline might bonus, sigil of strength and chilling victory. You can obtain 5 might/sec, healing you for 825/sec just with the AA. That work only few times, but it’s really strong when you’re able to hit the enemy in melee with the AA. Also help to build up LF when you don’t use the staff.

We break out of bunker meta few months ago, don’t let us fall in it again, please.
This meta is funny to play because there’s a lot of damage all around (sometimes too much, that’s true) and no one can be immortal, still making some classes/builds able to bunk and support really good.

I would like to go back to the bunker meta (I’m a main necro and in this meta my only work is corrupt and die…) but this one is more balanced and funny, still if a lot of people think different.

use all the stats, amulets and runes would be funny but will also make all the classes totally unbalanced, again, and make us all fall down again in the bunker meta.

It would be Op at the eyes of ANet.
Without a passive ICD, that skill would grant more than 900-1500k/sec in a team fight situation without healing power.
I would like an increased HP amount of the passive effect (like double it to compensate the “you need to be hit right in the face” comdition to active the heal), but remove it’s internal cooldown can make it OP.

The only Impressive things in this video are how bad that guardian is and… there’s still someone in sPvP that use “Receive the Light!” healing skill? Expecially in a non-shout build…

Anyway yes, that’s a super troll build. Basicly it’s the thief bunker build. You don’t inflict damage but you can stay all the day on the point in mid and make the enemy team unable to take it. Super troll build.

There’s a decent build diversity.
Warriors have two condi builds and a direct damage build, plus the team based hammer build (good only in team, then no one use it in soloq).
Necros have a lot of builds (2 meta, a corruption skill build, a minion master and some random direct damage builds) but more or less them all are just bad in this meta.
Mesmers have a strong condi build, a really good direct damage and a support build.
Engis have the more common hammer build but also the condi build, that is a burst build but also really strong.
Thief have D/D, D/P, P/P builds, that can sometimes share the same “equipment” and utilities, but works in totally different ways.
Rangers can go bunker, direct or condi damage, they all work.
Guardian trapper, meditrapper, symbol (Ialso seen a burn guard, time ago…)

Eles are struck into a support build and reves into a direct damage build, for all the others there’s a good build diversity.

Then, if you talk about the top tier ESL build diversity, they all use the best Team build they can make, that’s for shure!

There always be a Best Build. Ever. In every single game.
But there’s still a lot of build diversity compared to a year ago.
Even an amulet, an utility and a offhand can totally change the way a class play.

Try to look better and you’ll find that there’s a good build diversity in this game but every noob look to metabattle and plays only the “best build”, don’t knowhing that there’s also different builds to play with sometimes better results (example: Necromancer, Never use the sigil build in soloq!).

Other strong PvE condi builds better than necromancer:
Ranger shortbow, Engi pistol, Condi Warrior (sword F1 spam fire projectiles…I mean…), scepter Mesmer, burn Guardian, mallyx Revenant.
I don’t know about eles but they’re not really focused on condition damage.
Also a thief D/D can inflict more condition damage than a necro in some situations.

The necromancer is good only for Epidemic, that grant him to use the Other Classes conditions as his own to hit AoE. But by himself it’s a weak condi class, nothing more.
Totally rely on the Ice/poison field he can do and the RS4 combo to spam damage, out of that it’s condi damage is really weak if compared to almost all the other classes.
Other classes can use fields to increase they’re damage (expecially fire fields), but frequently they don’t need a field to inflict they’re best damage. A necromancer Need a Field to inflict good damage.

About range, ranger, mesmer, warrior (LB, expecially traited), engi, guardian, they all have 900 or more range to hit the enemy with conditions. The only forced to be melee are revenant and thief (and warrior to be at his best with the sword F1). More or less every good condition weapon is a ranged weapon (a thing that made the reve mace a new stuff for this game).

And… what do you mean for “safe condition dps”…?
Still talking about range? Or about the Shroud “hp” bar? Anyway that don’t make any sense, a high range is already a safe place for condi dps.

The elementalist isn’t OP, but is really strong.
It have a solid support build and can survive longer than a large amount of other classes, but have a high level cap.
A team supported via might, heal and condi clear and auras by an ele can be insanely dangerous, much more than with the support of a necro or a revenant, also an ele can survive longer with different immunity or teleport skills, granting to him the time to heal or wait for his cd.

The actual “problem” is that the ele is struck into a support role and only few ele players like that. They was able to do Everything at the same moment with celestial or be a top dps with fresh air, and now they’re struck with a support build/elite spec.
There’s a lot of classes struck into specific builds but only few into specific roles. mainly necro and eles have the support role, in offensive or defensive ways, and they’re both at the bottom of the class tier for this meta. But they’re really useful if (and when) able to play they’re roles.

The ele is the best/only support class of the moment and that make it really strong.

Have we the worst condi, direct and hybrid dps of the game?
Have we the worst survavibility in sPvP and roaming WvW?
Yes, but we have a second health bar!1!!1!!!1!!!!

Giving up the jokes, we have the worst condition damage of the game, yes. We have the worst dps of the game and (expecially after the Lich Form nerf) we’re unable to increase it, not even with minions (where they can be used).

We’re not totally the “Condition Class”, we’re more the “Attrition Class” for ANet, that’s how they judge us from the start of the game and that’s the role between they balance us.
We’re the “Corruption Class”, the class that make you weak with your strength, converting what make you strong (boons) into your weakness (weakening conditions).
For ANet we’re not really made to inflict a huge damage, more to be that thing that make others unable to inflict huge damage.

We had a strong condition damage, barely strong as the actual one, but then ANet nerfed Chill damage and we’ve been struck with another bleed source, weak and barely useless (is used because it’s our only condition related grandmaster trait). That was a good thing for the PvE (wich is all balanced around) but a nightmare for who played PvP.

We have more health than all the other classes, then we have lesser survavibility and lesser damage than all the other classes, that’s how ANet balance our class.

Condition is balanced.
Right now only 3 classes can kill you with condis (engi, mesmer, warrior), the necromancer focus on a hybrid build to inflict average damage (evade7block/move-away from his Rs5+4 combo and you’ll avoid 75% of the global necromancer condition damage output.

Then, conditions was an attrition damage time ago and No One wanted to use them , simply because no one was able to win with a thing that don’t inflicted enough damage to kill anyone.

Now almost all the builds in game run direct damage and only few mesmers, some warriors and even lesser engis use conditions and they’re the only one you have to fear.
Necromancer us conditions and direct damage (with that 50% crit rate in shroud) to try to kill you, but if you learn some tricks you will kill every single necro on your way fast and easy with any dps class.
All the other classes and builds use direct damage.

Unluckly, the GS had meant to be super a slow weapon. Strong as slow.
Unfortunatly it’s not strong enough if compared to how much is slow…
I already focus my hopes in the next elite specializzation. The torch isn’t my favorite weapon, but it can be a really good melee condition weapon, granting us a Real condition Damage build with the first class that use a torch as a main hand weapon (I still hope).

Stefan.6194:

well,i picked necro as it seems also a safe profession…2 healthbars,loads of minions,all the condi tricks (especially consuming em to get better heal,plague signet thingy…)

In common map and event PvE, the necromancer is really strong. In maguuma jungle there’s really few things you have to fear because with a solid build you can kill mobs that no other class can kill alone.
The problem come when you play with other players.

In PvP necro don’t have immunity and is forced to literally eat everything the enemy send you (a little joke with consume condition heal) and is unable to move away or stop the enemy damage (have only a really small access to blind and a corrosive poison cloud that block projectiles, but actually only 3 classes use projectiles ranged weapons and can swap to melee or channeling weapons to burst you down anyway).

In WvW the only place where the necro is good is in the zerg to eat the enemy souls killeed by others and then spam Death Shroud AA and wells, and in that way it’s really strong, maybe the only place when a necromancer can shine. In roaming isn’t good enough to survive to almost all the other classes he face.

In Raid, Fractal and hard Dungeons the necromancer isn’t that good. Useful for Epidemic, inflicting conditions AoE (bhe there must be another class to inflict huge condition damage to be effective), it’s DPS is the smaller of all, making the necro useless once more. It’s been requested for corrupt boons of some raid bosses but a revenant mallyx can do the same with much better damage, expecially from the recent Lich Form minions (huge) nerf.

Actually there’s not a really good reason to play a necromancer in almost all the game modes, unless for it’s “cool” factor (because the reaper is really really cool!).

Shadowstep.6049:

Necros are not only class that heavily rely on team……

That’s true, but the only that totally can’t do anyhting without a team, not even hope to fight a 1vs1 and survive, sometimes not even longer enough to make the other players come to help.
Can’t do 1vs1, can’t decap (no movement skills) and can’t hold the point for enough time waiting for allies.
The only thing is good in is spam boon corruption, Rs combo to inflict some damage and spam poison and then get ressed by an engi/ranger. The best class ever…

Shadowstep.6049:

Oh please. Necro is nowhere as bad as thieves and wars were in s1. They actually have spot in pro league teams as well.

In pro leagues there’s not a chance to class stacking teams.
Also they was babisittered all the time by an engi and they was all the time downed and ressed by that engi.
Now that the downed state don’t even grant few seconds of damage immunity will be even harder for a engi to ress us.

We don’t need to watch pro leagues. In that leagues no one used a warrior and there was few guardians. Are they so bad?
No, that was a “special enviroment” with super organized teams that play like 99% of us will never be able to do, then don’t take that team composition (and builds) as an example of how good a class is in a normal (even high ranked) sPvP.
Expecially because in the next season there will not even be the possibility to make a premade… and that will hurt the few necromancers that really play in teams even harder than before.
We’re a class that totally realy on the team and will be unable to play with a team… That’s really sad.

In the meta of some seasons ago we was strong in damage and we was feared for that still if we had the same survavibility, but also there was a bunker meta and now we’ll be lesser feared than before.
Now no one fear to charge a necromancer head on just because is a free kill for almost all classes/builds and any skilled player can easy kill a necro.
It’s not a matter of who is better than who, the necromancer is simply weaker than all the other classes. Lesser damage and insanely lesser survavibility than all the other class of the game. Any good player know that and any good player charge head on the first necromancer he saw knowing that he will win at 95%.
Even in top tier ESL matches the necromancer was Always the first target and the first kill. No matter how better the player is, the only thing that save a necromancer is a t babysitting engineer that ress you all the times you go down.

Then, if we talk about low tiers, there still can be a way to kill unexperienced or lazy players that don’t take your treat seriously, but a necromancer can’t kill anyone that know what he’s doing. Not in this meta.

I still hope for a better future.

I found different good eles on my way in this days and they all make really good things.
Almost all of them had a bunker build but also they was seriously long to kill even in 2vs1 and granted a really big support to they’re team.

The bunker/support build can be not the favorite build for alomst every player, but that ele build is really strong and in the right hands can change the end of a team fight.

The Necromancer (expecially the Reaper specializzation) is one fo the best classes of the game, with the best possible build variations, good weapons to use, the best amount of different kind of Utility skills used of all classes, the best class as offensive supporter, an amazing elite specializzation with strong skills that works good with a large amount of core traits and a new weapon that grant to it a really huge direct damage dps.
All that on the paper…

When you put the necromancer/reaper in the game, every other class can outplay it in almost every situation in survavibility, damage and support (both offensive and defensive). In PvE don’t bring nothing that other classes can’t do (and frequently they do it better), it’s dps is lower than all the other classes, it’s survavibility is granted only from the shroud and don’t scale if there’s more and more enemies or the enemy is stronger than common ones, the gameplay is boring and the few things that is asked to do are really boring (spam epidemic in raid, spam Gragedigger when the boss is under 50%hp hopint to don’t miss a hit to don’t lose all the dps or spam boon corruptions in spvp and then just get ressed by an engi).

The necromancer had to be the worst class to find on your way in the darkness of the night, the one no one want to cross in while fighting in pvp, the one that in pve ignore all his allies and burst down the enemy with huge damage and no regrets.
The big B*st*rd that no one want to face because he can bow your soul to his will and make of you a sandwith and eat you with an hand bound to his back, but at the same time unable to play with his team because simply don’t want to make others steal his glory, for that reason use only brainless minions as allies and care about no others than himself.
That’s a necromancer. That’s what we want.

I get CCed by 2 thief, a mesmer and a warrior in a team fight.
I died in few seconds with not a chance to press any button because I had been hit by more than 8 cc skills

If you’re talking about a Good thief, you will never be able to kill him in 1v1.
If you’re talking about an average/bad thief (like the ones that run around during the daily thief) you can have a chance.

Perma evade, shadow step to you and back to a safe place if in danger, CC you with fear just why they can steal and F1 you, making you show your back to him granting a big hit for free. High burst, CC, stealth.
they don’t need to kill you in a single hit like all the bad thief try to do, just hit, kite, hit, kite, hit, kite and then you’ll die without be able to drop the enemy thief under 50% hp.
Easy.

That depend on your team. If you see that there’s a large difference of points between your team and the enemy team and your team can’t fight the enemy team, then you can be shure that you will lose. there can be a change in the score but if your team did bad in teh first half of the fight it will do bad also in the other half. Expecially if you play as a soloq.

If you play in a premade something can still happen and change the match result, but you need to be really skilled or have a big luck to win the match with a difference of 200 points.

Anyway, if you see that you’re losing try to fight anyway (unless you’re really totally losing 50/400) and use that match to learn something from your enemy team as rotation, enemy class skills and gameplay, and all the useful stuffs that can improve yourself as a player.
And never let the enemy win easy. They can be victorious but you can always make them win harder!

NeXeD.3042:

so much stupid false information here with a bunch of people assuming kitten because of their “opninion” kittening hilarious

Are you a necromancer that can kill plently enemies in 1vs1?

“Necromancers have a second health bar”
That’s the thing that totallykitten** us.

During the Bunker meta, we was really strong, even OP. Then everyone discovered that a single moa (even the engi moa) make us totally useless and unable to re enter the shroud for 10 seconds after the moa end, granting them 13-16 seconds to kill us really easy. Also we had the same survaviblity we actually have (only Rise! got nerfed, but it’s still viable in big fights, still if it’s not a good defensive skill, only our best…).
the thing that gave us the strength to kill others was our damage: Chill damage was strong enough to grant us a chance to win a lot of 1vs1 againsta different classes/builds.
The damage we was able to inflict at this time was similar to the actual dps meta.

But now we’ll not be able to use celestial or mercenary amulets, making our defences even worst than before and the global damage is so high that our old damage will be counter as the same level of a burst warrior or a mesmer (or even lower), but a focus will kill us anyway.

We’ll never obtain good defensive skills, just because we’re the Only class that don’t have a Block (for example) or any good defensive skill.
If someone think that a Block don’t fit our “theme”, i can say that don’t fit neither a thief or a mesmer theme but them both obtained a block skill with the Elite Specializzation (and the mesmers one is really strong).

Actually the only class that can lose a 1v1 against a necromancer is a elementalist, but a skilled one can kill a necromancer simply surviving longer and using his defensive skills (various total immunity/evade skills, based on the builds).

The necromancer is meta only in high tournaments and the strong thing is not the necromancer alone but the necro+engi combination: the necro corrupt boons and the engi ress the necro all the time. But a necro without an engy is the easier class in the game to kill, sometimes easier and faster than the Forest Monster mobs.

The actual builds in common ranked matches are “perma shroud” builds, but no one can stay so long in shroud to make an externa heal be OP. not in sPvP (expecially in team fights).
That can be a bigger “problem” in raid, fractal or dungeon, but not in pvp where an enemy can strip you out of shroud in few seconds.

Anyway a similar fix would grant us even bigger sorvavibility problems via various probable nerfs to “balance” the thing.

We need better defences, not get healed from others.
Anyway, we’re asking for that QoL improvement since years and all the things ANet gave us is Vampiric traits that finally heal through shroud and Blighter’s Boon.

To save the necromancer to be for another 4 years the first target of the fight simply why there’s nothing they can do to save themselves more than 2 dodges and build much LF as possible (the reason because we’re still struck with that kitten Staff and the Soul Reaping traitline), we don’t need to be healed by others while in shroud, we need to be able to defend ourselves with some defensive skills.

Blind can be a start but that’s not enough at all. Blind can be good but to inflict it you need to hit the enemy and there’s still Resistance that make it totally useless. Block is much more better, but we’ll never obtain a similar good way to protect ourselves. “The Necromancer have 2 Hp bar” is the reason after our total lack of any real defensive skill.

Lexander.4579:

maybe instead just give necromancers global taunt

That’s the best idea ever!
This way not only the enemy will see us easy but he will not even need to press T to aim us

If you want to dps, play everything but not a necromancer.
If left freecast it can be a problem but for shure not for his damage. it just corrupt boons and have a single combo to inflict damage, easy to see and avoid just by running away (Reaper Shroud 5-4), just run away with swiftness or clean the bleed+poison stacks at the end and all the necro damage is gone.

About necromancer AoE damage… I seriously don’t see it O_O
In the condi build the well of corruption inflict barely no damage and the staff skills inflicts the worst damage ever in the history of GW2 (but we’re Foprced to use it to build LF witht he trait and for have a decent Fear skill plus a condi transfer, nothing more. transfer that two skills into a offhand weapon with a decent way to build LF and no one will ever use the staff again).
Then, there’s the Scepter, that is the worst condition weapon of the game. (there can be the warrior sword, but when in berserker they can spam fireballs pressing F1…). The ojnly good thing it do is corrupt boons at the 3AA hit, but almost all the boon you will corrupt don’t grant you any condition damage.
Then, no, the necromancer is totally Not what you’re looking for.

About the ESL, if they was able to stack classes they will never chose a necromancer in they’re teams, just to don’t be forced to use an engineer that work all the match to ress up the downed necro, wait for his signet spam and start again to ress him.

If we look at ESL, I seen only a single Guardina and no Warriors at all. have we to buff them? They seems to be so weak that no one chose them! But ehy, there was Always a necro and an ele, that means that they’re way betters than guardians and warriors!!1!1!1!
Don’t make jokes, please. ESL is a non-class-stacking tournament with top tier players, specific teams with roles and the ability to play that roles. We’re talking about ranked matches, where there can be all the class stacking that you want, you can chose your best class combination and rule everyone as you wish spamming insane dps all over the map.

Do you want to dps?
revenant, warrior, guardian, thief, mesmer and eventually ranger (his pet inflict an insane amount of damage still if you play bunker).

If you’re killed 0-100 in seconds, you must be really bad.
Even a trait grant you the shield skill 5 to save your a*s when in troubles, or if you need more stability there’s the trait that grant you two stacks instead of one.
Yes, you can’t chose when to active your stability but 2 stability (traited) for 3 sec (or more, depending on your build) every 5 sec when you dodge is not a lack of stability.
You have a Lot of evades and blocks with sword/shield and staff, too many of them.
Your damage is one of the best of the game, you can burst down a large amount of class in 1v1 easy and fast.
Conditions can be a problem but if you use mallyx you can be all right. Also the staff clean conditions with skill 4. But yes, the main build don’t have so much condi clean. the point is that frequently the enemy is dead before he’s able to stack enough conditions to kill you.

The revenant is still the best class in both offence and defence. Just make more practice.

In that meta we had Rise! that adsorbed 50% of direct damage AND our CHILL Damage and Duration, and Celestial or Mercenary amulets to be strong in offence and still have a minimum of defensive stats (that is our only way to survive).

Now Rise! is barely viable and our chill damage is gone, then we’re even easier to get killed and our condition damage output had been reduced by up to 50% (during the entire fight, not only when you spam Rs5+Rs4, that is our Only viable condition damage source). And Chill last lesser than before, making it barely useful (expecially with the increased amount of damage Burst, Condi Clean and Resistance in the game).

In that time we was strong, as we had to be. Good damage to fear in 1vs1 (not for thief and revenant, of course) and still with an insanely Low Survavibility to get killed fast if Focused.

Now we have a necromancer that don’t inflict more than medium damage, don’t have survavibility and every other class can burst him in 5 seconds with insane amount of direct or condi damage and a large amount of CC.

If we obtain for a week our old strength, we’ll be a viable class to play, but totally not op, just why our dps was high in that meta because was a Bunker meta but now that damage will only be matched with other classes damage (and sometimes still lower than they’re damage).

I just played a ranked match and we was 3 necromancers, a war and a guardian. I told to the necromancers to change because we’ll only be dead in few seconds but they don’t changed. The others was 2 mesmer, a ranger, a war and a revenant.
Then… we lost 500-0 without a single chance to fight them. Not a single chance to kill at last one of them or catch a single point.
They just take down one by one the necros fast and easy, then we was 2v5 (in lesser than 20 seconds).

Necros are really good in this meta…

Just put a Target on them and end the match in 4v5 (if you’re lucky enough to have only one necro in team).

Totally yes, I don’t want to make the enemy waste time searching for me at the start of the match, that will improve they’re gameplay and make they’re fight easier.
A really good fix!

There’s easy builds and hard builds to play for both direct and condition damage, there’s not really a “direct require more skills than condi” things, they both require some skills and there’s builds for both that can be played blinded smashing the keyboard still doing good.

The great problem in sPvP is not the source of your damage but the way you can inflict it and survive at the same time.

If the enemy thief is good, you can’t kill him in 1vs1, not even from years. To kill a thief is better the Death Shroud than reaper Shroud for the istant fear and take him down with two high direct damage AA hit, but for all the other situation the Reaper is way better.

If he’s taking the fight too easy why you’re a necro you can surprise him with timing your fear skills on his dodge.
if he’s a full dodge thief, your chance of victory are even smaller, but if he’s not you can have a chance.

Timing, fast skills and surprise him in some manner.

Good luck.