Guild Wars 2

Quote from Chaplan during Masters of the Mist tourney today about upcoming class changes coming up in future patch

Bas.7406:

Wow, this thread went all over the place haha. I saw Zzods forum post, and I have read most of these. I even brought up these points with Gibbly and Zombify who are probably two of the top Necro’s in tournament play right now.

I could not comment on high level play as I am not playing it.

In regards to Zzods weapon choices and skill choices, it’s obvious he doesn’t have a ton of experience with the necro based on the fact that he misstated how a lot of skills work that are evident to most players. Including the axe options, Axe 3 plus Axe 2 timing after a dodge is amazing in tpvp. No self-respecting Axe wielding Necro just throws out Axe 2. You always wait for the dodge axe 2 boom.

However he is absolutely correct in that the real issues with the Necromancer only come up when you get up to the top levels of tournament play. So I went to the guys who still play the class in tournaments, Symbolic of EU (went ranger for 80 percent of the maps), Zombify of SOAC, and Gibbly of JFK.

Here is a synopsis of their replies to me over the last week.

1). The Necromancer is incredibly powerful if played correctly. You have to be more aware of your positioning, and when played right and you stay within your position it’s one of the most beautiful classes in the game. It synergizes well in team play and you can literally win a team fight by proper application of CB and Epidemic.

2). They have a ridiculously tough time with certain comps that have classes that can attack your positioning with impunity aka Double Engi comps.

3). If you get out of position you are screwed. They used more choice words, but their essential them was the Necro is the only class that relies so much on positioning and that if you aren’t watching and get caught out of position you are royally screwed.

4). You have to have a peeler. If your team doesn’t have a peeler find a new team or switch classes. Guardians/Ele’s/mesmers are peelers and they need to be specced and aware of their role as peelers. If they aren’t or they miss a peel you are screwed.

5). You have no business roaming or moving away from the main fight where your peeler and guardian are. You are the slowest class in the game and even with Spectral walk you will only get caught by the Thief/Ele/Ranger roamer and then you are dead.

6) The lack of any sort of disengage, vigor, or easy stability access is what hurts the class. All we want is one of them. Give me one of the three and I am a happy man, make DS 2 a port, or make Spectral Armor give Stability or jsut give me a better vigor access so I can choose to use DS offensively.

7). Fear is the single greatest weapon we have. Our weapons are not designed to deal damage but to setup our tools to help other players kill.

8) The necro is so close to being perfect and so dangerously close to being op, that any adjustment that’s too far in the benefit direction would immediately create a disadvantage to anyone we face. All we know is that we need a few minor changes.

9) There are maps where because of the Necro’s lack of stability/disengage/mobility it’s better to either sub out your necro for a player that can actually be effective or swap professions (namely Khylo and Spirit Watch).

After watching players play in the torunaments I must say I agree with them, the Necro is beautiful to watch in the hands of an expert, but there are some severe deficiencies that prevent it from really being a strong tournament class.

Uh, excuse me? It’s obvious that I don’t have a ton of experience with necro? Huh?
I misstated the bleed stacks on one ability where the tooltip IS wrong (I didn’t trust it, but figured it couldn’t possibly be wrong this long into release..maybe got changed etc), but wrote it anyway because I was cranking this post out in 45 minutes and didn’t care to bother double checking it. Big deal. It is rather offensive you are basically calling me a “newbie” because of it. So, what are all these other numerous things I mistated or don’t understand?

I would put my necromancer skills up there with ANYONE in this game. EASILY. If you don’t recognize my name as a quality player, then you weren’t involved in Tpvp when it was in its peak time.

It’s funny how other people found my post as good analysis, but you are able to characterize it as " In regards to Zzods weapon choices and skill choices, it’s obvious he doesn’t have a ton of experience with the necro based on the fact that he misstated how a lot of skills work that are evident to most players. "

Thank god we have other good necromancers around so that we can fact-check stupid Zzod’s posts and point out his inexerpiences. rolls eyes

Skyro.3108:

Yes zzod like all classes Necros have their share of pros and cons, but if you suggesting that Necro’s are not viable at the highest levels of tPvP in a condi cleave comp on FoN and LoF then we are in disagreement on that one. There is a ton of variability in condi necro builds based on the comp you are facing and their strategy. I more often than not change things around with my build and gear match to match based on the comp we are facing, which is especially important if you run into the same team multiple times in one gaming session and happens quite often at the top of the leaderboards.

Yes. I agree with changing things around when facing same teams. I change to a different class. 8(

@ the players who talk about our effectiveness in a “condi cleave comp”:

Let me preface this by talking about my experience in tournaments. I used to be on Imperial/III and we used to be in the top 20-30 players(me, prince, seether, primordial, erichimself) in QP points before we stopped playing. I also fluctuate anywhere from top 50-200 players on leaderboard depending on how much I am solo queueing and destroying my rank. I don’t put as much volume in these days at the moment.

My experience on necro (speaking from the perspective of a condition necro and a power ranged glass cannon wells tokyomurai type build) is this:

I am in a constant “defensive” scramble moving and rotating around the perimeter of a fight as I am being pursued by a thief, ele, mesmer, or some combination of the above. Many times, I am forced to actually cast my marks defensively on or near me to stop this pressure and thus can’t contribute them towards a better, more offensive location on a contested node/downstate bodies, etc.

I am the primary focus fire of the team because:
A) If let to freecast, I can actually do significant damage to a team.
B) I have no escapes; especially at the start of games with empty lifeforce bars .
C) I have a rez signet, so killing me first removes the implied threat of a player revival.

So, those are the three factors that primarily cause experienced teams to constantly put pressure on necromancers and take them down. We don’t have the ability to sneak away with stealth like a thief; we can’t “protect me” like a ranger or mistform like an elementalist; we can’t blink/decoy/staff escape like a Mesmer. Those classes can use their abilities to buy time during your pursuit of them to hopefully have somebody else from the other team drop or have someone to peel onto you to alleviate pressure before they go down.

On top of that, we don’t have the readily available stability to avoid the chain CCs that those classes can string together as a concentrated effort to take you down. We don’t have the vigor to get extra dodge rolls in to avoid big attacks and rotations like a Mesmer shatter. If you stay on that necromancer relentlessly, he is going down faster than those other classes. This is even more so true at the start of the games because of the fact we start with empty life force. When I am playing tPVP, I actually instruct my teammates to target necromancers first at the start of games because we are so weak at escaping.

Because of these above mentioned dynamics, there are many tough, games where I am just unable to go into an offensive mode because I am either dead or scrambling around the perimeter using wells/marks defensively rather than offensively. There are times when the “perfect storm” of a big corrupt boon + epidemic never materializes up to its potential and it can be a frustrating experience.

flow.6043:

He is wrong about the staff, of course. Having your marks on cooldown doesn’t mean you are reduced to auto attacking with necrotic grasp.

The axe: Dagger necros are so easy to kite because of their short range, so overall the axe might have a higher dps against non-npcs because you are more likely to hit them at all. But whatever…

Scepter: Grasping Dead, wrong tooltip, it actually inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding.
With enough extra condi duration (which every conditionmancer has) there is no need to prolong the poison on Putrid Curse. It also stacks in duration so without any cleanses you’re target will be perma poisoned anyway.

The “trait fragmentation”… old hat. This has been discussed so many times already.
The fact that staff related traits are spread over 3 lines is the worst example you could make. Greater Marks and Staff Mastery are in the same line. Spiteful Marks is probably even worse than Siphoned Power, the dps you gain from it is pathetic even in a glassy power build. So basically you can just forget it exists and wonder why Soul Marks is in a different line: It doesn’t profit the staff itself but your life force regen, that’s why it’s in Soul Reaping.
That’s all there is to it. It looks all over the place, but it’s really not. And that goes for most of the other traits as well.

What do you mean that “having your marks on cooldown doesn’t mean you are reduced to just auto-attacking?” We have 4 marks and an auto-attack. If the marks are on cooldown, it means we just have an auto-attack left. What else are you doing with your staff?

The issue is that the cooldowns on chillbain’s and reapers is too high. So, once you only have mark of blood as your available mark, you have capped damage/condition variety and equally important is that we don’t have the utility of chill on chillbain’s and the fear of reaper’s mark. We can use our marks defensively at times to create distance/soft CC via chill/fear, so when those are gone, we are just sitting ducks for any kind of focus fire. This is the reason also the cooldown trait doesn’t really improve our effective uptime of “fighting” in staff because our autoattack/mark of blood aren’t enough options/damage to actually bridge the gap of waiting for chillbain’s, putrid, reaper’s to come off cooldown, so when this happens, we switch to our other weapon and fight in it until the mark cooldowns come back. IF the autoattack was improved and/or chillbain’s and reaper’s marks were reduced in cooldown time slightly, then we could actually fight in staff as a sustained option (Like a Mesmer with their greatsword do), and the reduced cooldown trait would actually be useful.

As to your reply back about the trait/trait placement:

A) The fact remains that we have four separate traits in three separate lines affecting just one weaponset. Just that fact alone is screaming proof of significant need for trait consolidation. We just don’t have enough trait points to spend that many points to augment a single weaponset for these quality of traits.

B) Your point that Spiteful marks sucks and can “just forget it exists” doesn’t exactly serve to support the argument that our trait trees are fine. It should be changed and/or consolidated to actually do something useful (something that possibly affects both power and condition builds would be ideal). If the traits were properly designed and though out, I should be faced with painful decisions as to what I should be choosing as my trait choices. I should have to do careful pro/con analysis with each trait choice to figure out which gives me maximum utility. Currently, there are way too many dominant choices (best choice for most or all situations) and too many dominated choices. (worst choice in most or all situations) This is the biggest issue plaguing lack of build diversity and its a class-wide problem.

C) I realize that the Soul Marks trait affects life force gain, but I would argue it really is augmenting our staff because it is now adding a secondary effect to our staff abilities. Either way, whether you classify it as affecting our staff or whether your classification of “life force gain”, its a matter of semantics. The actual issue is that I need to spend 20 points accessing that tree to augment my staff, while other staff skills (even if they are weak), are located in 2 other trees. The first 10 point trait options in soul-reaping are all medicore and unwanted, and once I get 20 points into that tree, I would opt for the fear duration trait. So, basically, in actual practice, I have to spend 30 points to even access that trait AND at the cost of a grandmaster trait. Unrealistic and poorly designed. There needs to be consolidation.

Hey guys,
WOW! Haha! I am very flattered that KarlaGrey took the time to respost these. If I knew that they would end up in their own thread, I would have taken the time to make it longer/more in-depth/more organized.

Yes, I made a mistake about the grasping dead tooltip. I DID think it was more stacks, but was writing the post in a limited amount of time and I just resorted to believing the tooltip over my own intuition, figuring that it something so simple couldn’t possibly be erroneous this many months in. Silly me.

Stof.9584:

I don’t believe we need more testing to find a viable build, simple theorycrafting wipes most of the table immediately based on factors such as cooldowns, low damage, low survivability and low mobility.

Recently I tried running a Hybrid Power/Condi build. The idea is not to rely on close range, but still deal direct damage close to that of a pure Power build, while sustaining through Condition cleanse.

Much like HGH Engineer, it relies on might stacking to reach acceptable DPS, but it lacks the spammability of Grenades and with S/D thieves spam it is basically suicidal. Blood Is Power + Might duration runes + Life Blast allow you to have constant 10+ Might stacks, though, if you do it right.

Denshee has a similar build on his Twitch page, though I think it’s a bit outdated.

I think it has potential and it’s rather fun to play! Perhaps someone can make suggestions for my Hybrid Power/Condi build?

Yeah, I have messed around with this too. I would run it with 30 30 10 with scepter/focus and staff with 2 x lyssa, 2 x strength, 2 x fire runes with a rabid amulet. Its decent, but HGH engi outshines it completely in every category.

There are many more issues that have been pointed out by other players and others I could talk about, but these are just some that I was able to type out in 45 minutes…

Finally a message to the devs: You cannot properly fix this class by listening to the average necromancer player who does hotjoins and plays against weaker competition. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to PVE players. You cannot properly fix this class by listening to WvW players. Finally, you CANNOT fix this class by loading up your own necromancers and hopping into a hotjoin (like I have seen you post about) and test stuff out. Why is this? The reason is because the weaknessess of necromancer are not PUNISHED and EXPOSED until you bring your necromancer into the TPVP scene and face the best players and teams. And that is why the necromancer needs to be fixed so that it has the adequate tools to be able to handle its role in that spectrum.

Thank you for reading.

Zzod

4. Stability, Vigor, Stunbreakers: Where are they?
I have to spend 30 points in a trait line to get acess to 3 seconds of stabilty in death shroud. 30 points is a build-defining amount. I have to spend 3/7 of my points to basically get 3 seconds of stability in a tree where the first choice of 10 point traits are super, super lackluster. I want stability in utilities or somewhere else that is more accessible and practical. We have..no vigor anywhere. Why? Our stunbreakers are bad and can’t be used because our other utilities are too needed by our team, so we have no place to put them. SIMPLE solution that would help necromancers everywhere: Make our deathshroud activation be a stunbreaker with a 30-45 second internal cooldown. Clean, simple solution that would help EVERY single necromancer build.

5. Area damage pressure:
Another class I can’t help but look at when I think of marks and even wells look at the rate at which engineer’s with their grenade kit can impose condition AND direct damage presence in a fight? Their cooldowns are much lower (granted nades are harder to land), but they can sustain a barrage of AE conditions on a point much better than we can on staff. Or a trap ranger..Their traps are on much lower cooldowns and they PULSE their effects. These classes completely outshine our AE damage presence on a point. If someone dodge rolls through my mark it is gone. If you dodge roll through a ranger trap and stay there for a second, you will be hit by the conditions. We need reduced cooldown on at least chillbain’s, and possibly reaper’s by 10-20%. I think putrid mark is fine. I don’t think wells are effective enough either. It is extremely hard to keep someone trapped in your well for its full duration. The “payoff” for doing so is not big enough. Classes have too many escapes or damage avoidance abilities to make them effective. Let’s say you CC someone and get them “trapped” in your wells. You are using anywhere from 2-3 of your utility wells now that all have cooldowns in the 40ish sec+ range. Other classes just have too many escapes to get out of them…Ele (mistform,lightning flash), Mesmer(staff, blink), ranger (protect me), guardian (renewed focus) or (insert class here with condition cleanse/stunbreak/dodge roll out).You use 2-3 big cooldown utilities to attempt that and they used 1 utility that could be on a same or shorter cooldown as yours to completely negate your well rotation. Our cost to attempt this versus their cost to escape is disproportional and unbalanced. The cooldowns should be shorter(with wells possibly having less damage) or the “payoff” should be much bigger with escalating damage with each second spent in a well to the point of significant health loss.

6. Bad traits and fragmentation of trait lines
We have bad, fragmented traits all over the place..In our power tree, our 25 point minor trait is gain might when hit and your health reaches 25%…Why on earth would I want might when MY health reaches 25% health? Let alone one measly stack of it. This should be something like you gain 3-5 stacks of might when your opponent’s health reaches 25% health. That would make a lot more sense. We have a 25 minor trait in the curse(condition) tree that gives us 2% more direct damage for each conditon applied. This only helps out power builds/hybrid builds. This along with scepter 3 needs to get looked at/reworked to be effective in helping/augmenting various builds including condition ones especially since scepter/curse tree are condition genre.

We have our traits spread across all over the place. For example, we have 4 traits that effect staff: Marks deal more damage, Marks are unblockable and bigger, reduced CDs on staff, and marks generate lifeforce on trigger..These 4 traits are spread across THREE different trees, and the marks deal more damage and lifeforce trigger require 20 point investments just to access those! Why is that? Was there deliberate, thoughtful planning and vision when this was done or was this slapped together in about 5 minutes becasue the necromancer class designer has a deadline to make? Compare this to say the Alchemy tree of Engineers. They have ALL things pertaining to their elixirs all neatly packed in one tree, tic tac toe. AND passive boon duration too, so that when they make their HGH builds they get their might stacks/other boons to last longer. to make it such a great tree/set of traits that synergizes with so many options in various builds they have.. How convenient for them! Again, a huge glaring disparity in build potential we have there versus other classes.

Or how about our wells? We have wells are ground targetted as a 20 point trait in the curse tree and reduced cooldowns 20 points into the blood magic tree. Look at ranger traps. They have both traits that affect their traps neatly packed together in the same trait line. Why is that? Who bumbled their way through our terrible class design?

Just off the top of my head:
1. Poor mobility: We have no teleport/leap type moves to gain ground with. In terms of weapons, we only have swiftness on warhorn, which is a weapon you can really only run with a mainhand dagger or axe. Impractical and very limiting. Oh, we also have swiftness on spectral walk, which is a utility that we don’t really have room for on our bar because other more important utilities take it up such as rez signet, movement speed signet, corrupt boon, epidemic, wells, etc.

2. Bad weapon sets: Axe is laughably bad. It doesn’t know what it’s trying to be. The 600 range on it is a very awkard range as its basically pushing you to be in melee range and its really only useable at all as you are gap closing to get into melee dagger range because auto attack on dagger will outdamage the axe. I will talk about its number 2 attack in the channelled attacks section.

Staff: Yes, staff. You can’t really “fight” in staff after you go through your intial rotation of marks. Basically, the cooldowns are too long on the marks, EVEN, with the reduced cooldown trait. At some point, early in the rotation, you will have chillbain’s, Putrid Mark, and Fear Mark on cooldown. The moment that happens you are left with a completely useless autoattack and a mark of blood. You can no longer effectively fight in staff once this happens and you are forced to switch. In fact, I don’t even think the reduced cooldown trait is very valuable because you will still hit the bottleneck scenario of 3,4,5 being on cooldown and then you switch to your other weapon set. You then fight in that other weaponset for enough time that when you switch back to staff, chillbain’s and putrid will be off of cooldown and reaper’s will be coming back within 5-6 seconds. You aren’t really increasing your “effective” uptime of marks because you can’t/don’t spend prolonged periods of time in staff actually fighting with an autoattack and mark of blood. Futhermore, compare this MISERABLE auto attack to a Mesmer Greatsword autoattack that hits like a mack truck and the farther away you are..the harder you hit. It is just cranking out significant damage at 1200 range and it plenty strong enough to stay in this weapon set until the other weapon skill cooldowns are back. It is not even close to the case with necromancer. It makes no sense. At max range, you are reducing your exposure to damage because you aren’t susceptible to other player’s attacks that don’t have the same weapon range as you and yet that is the range in which their weapon hits hardest..Shouldn’t reward (damage) come with risk? (closer distance) and not the other way around? Did the same person/team really design a mesmer GS autoattack and necro staff autoattack? I feel like it is two different games when I look at the huge disparity in effectiveness.

Scepter: The auto attack on scepter is just OK. The poison on it should last longer and/or be applied earlier in the chain. I even think the attack speed could be raised 10-15%. I think number 2 grasping dead should have a 2 stack of bleed on it and not 1. Number 3 is only valuable in a hybrid/power based build. This needs to get reworked to benefit condition users.

Main hand Dagger: Basically, with this build you are trying to be a “melee burst class” that uses various CC options to keep people rooted and trapped while you spam auto attack with our dagger. Cool. Except, a thief does the role of a “melee burst class” with more damage and more mobility and with access to stealth. So, why would you take a spot on a team to do this when a thief can just do it better? You have to evaluate all these builds that people call “viable” in terms of the opportunity cost of what you are giving up to bring this build into a match.

3. Chanelled attacks:
Another issue with two of our attacks is the axe 2 chanelled ability and number 4 death shroud. It is VERY hard to get the full duration out on them because you have to be closer to your targets and we are the class that is the most susceptible to CC because we have no stability. You start the attack and there is a huge chance in the thick of a fight SOMETHING happens that causes you to get interuppted. Touch a elementalist shocking aura, Boom..cancelled. Or get hit by their updraft or earthquake..cancelled. Touch a guardian ring of warding…Boom cancelled…or get knocked down by their hammer, pulled by their greatsword, knocked down by shield bubble or bump a sanctuary as you are strafing..cancelled..Get stunned/dazed by a ranger/thief/mesmer, etc..cancelled. Oh, but zzod you can get stability in death shroud!..for a whole 3 seconds! Yes, I can…Yes, I can…which brings me to my next point.

Sadistis.4257:

For sake of argument my guild ran a tPvP group last night of 5 necros with all separate builds and facerolled. The problem really resides in people not understanding how to play necro or trait it well… I tPvP on a necro and I assure you it’s not as underpowered as everyone thinks. The thing is most people who try to play necro need to stick with it it’s a high learning curve

I really, really hate posts like these. They create dissenting white noise that serves to deflate rallying support behind necromancer changes. The devs read these posts and other necromancer “living in the buble” players and they believe that necromancer is just okily dokily fine. They aren’t. Play more classes and play against better people and you will see glaring weaknesses slapping you in the face.

Who did you play and who did you beat? I guarantee you that if you faced premade super “PUG” groups consisting of players in the top 50-100 ranks you will get crushed into submission with that comp.

While on this subject..I have a full set of Orrian armor, but, I have ONLY been able to successfully craft the orrian 1 handed sword. Has anyone been able to craft an orrian scepter, mace, staff, 2 handed hammer? I have not been able to make one of those despite lots of attempts getting things such as water scepter, kodan weps, arcing weps, molten, etc..I have also salvaged kodan stuff into free tournament tokens, so there is definitely bugs.

Illiander.8049:

Zzod.5791:

Eh, no.
3rd attack in chain for Attack number 1 is too delayed and awkard while fighting strafing/dodging/moving targets. Needs to be made faster.

Fix number 5. People should not be able to just dodge roll out of it. That is BS.

Umm, you are aware that one of the current Meta Builds is built around that attack, aren’t you?

I don’t know what you are talking about. I only play paid tournaments, so I am not familiar with how a slow, awkward attack enhances any build.

Eh, no.
3rd attack in chain for Attack number 1 is too delayed and awkard while fighting strafing/dodging/moving targets. Needs to be made faster.

Fix number 5. People should not be able to just dodge roll out of it. That is BS.

You plugged your numbers into excel..which turned out to be wrong anyway based, on what other people in this thread posted ( I didn’t even bother looking through this because it doesn’t interest me). Then you introduced your own anecdotal experiences of the bunkers you play with, your duels against your guardian friend, soldier runes, and your misguided “perceptions” of what a guardian can do. Then you got further off topic by talking about out how a necromancer would fare as a full-time point holder (compared to the actually relevant topic of temporary relief via plague form) compared to an engineer or a guardian, which is completely irrelevent to this specific discussion.

You then further supported your claims with your experiences from free tournament play, which is laughable.

Jason Segel.2908:

Zzod.5791:

Jason Segel.2908:

Zzod.5791:

Jason Segel.2908:

Zzod.5791:

It is quite strong in holding a node neutral as as zerg chain of bunker characters stream back in as PZ likes to do, while they tirelessly research new exploits.

It can be yes. But why are just you holding the node? I play with a few good bunkers who usually only die when its a 4 on 1 or a really long 3 vs 1. So I am a little worried you don’t know what it’s like to have a good bunker on your team and you don’t have to worry about being the tank or holding the point.

Actually, I play bunker for my team, so I know what I am talking about. Are you really a little worried?

What do you even mean “just holding the node”? You make that sound as if its a failure when you are faced with a 2 on 1 situation? As opposed to what? Prolonging your team’s control of a node or maintaining a neutral are a success in itself.

Plague form, with its stability and ability to significantly inhibit close proximity damage, is VERY effective in buying time until teammates can arrive by delaying loss of a node or keeping it neutral. It is very strong at clocktower, waterfall, keep, etc. A necro has the unique ability on a team to have the emergency “bunker” relief via plague form that other damage classes simply do not have access to.

The bunkers you are referring to are an extinct race of bunkers who were able to withstand damage by using mace block bugs, exploiting svanir runes, and having maximized protection uptime. These are no longer a reality. So, let’s be realistic?

???
Soldier runes, and the bunker guardian in my guild can actually live against my full condition necromancer build in a 1 vs 1 for about 5 minutes. I am as high condi damage and power as you can get. Dueled him last night. Not sure what you are talking about.

Not sure what I am talking about? Not sure you know who you are talking to. What team do you play for? I looked at the NA and Euro qualifier points list and your name is nowhere. So, your opinion on the “good bunkers” you play with and the other cool stuff you and your buddies are doing are worth dick to me.

You started this argument by talking about a bunker lasting in a 3 vs 1 and a 4 vs 1 and now its been downgraded to surviving against YOU in a 1 on 1 fight.

Can you stay on topic about plague form? Oh, you can’t. Because you then introduce soldier runes into this topic. Are soldier runes good? Yes. Do they work well with shout based builds? Yes. Do they have anything at all to do with your thread, which was about proving that plague form was weak? Eh..no.

I guarantee you the scenarious you are talking about are not occuring in the paid tournament scene. You are undervaluing maintaining node neutrality and capture. You are introducing side tangents into your argument, which aren’t relevant (comparing a necro bunkering temporarily via plague form vs an actual full-time defined bunker role in a guardian). And you aren’t good either because you can’t kill a guardian in 5 minutes as a condition necro. 8( Sorry bud.

Good guardians can survive against anything for a long time. You aren’t a good guardian if you can’t.

I know my rotations, I don’t play paids yet did a ton of free with an average of 70% win ratio, got a bunch of tourney tickets in the bank. Like I said, soldier runes buddy, guardians use them + shouts = so much condi removal it takes forever to kill with a straight condi build.

You….only…play…free….tournaments…You are not qualified to make any qualitative judgement on what is good or effective. An average win of 70% in free tournaments is FAR from good. Let me know when you queue for paid, so I can skull kitten you and your team into submission…Oh, and our necro is going to use plague form.

Jason Segel.2908:

Infectious.4836:

20 seconds of almost guaranteed node control is bad.
Also ignoring the fact you use skills (heal/fear mark) pop plague, pop DS, fear, life transfer, drop marks.
It should really be at least a 30-40 second node control depending on skills of the player.

??

You should never need to hold a node for 30-40 seconds if you are a necromancer, that isn’t our thing(even though you can be a bunker necro). That’s why bunker ele/engi/guardians are for because of the multiple knockbacks to kick people off the point. Necro has 2 fears of 1 second. 1 knockback that also knocks down is 4 seconds. See why you as a necro should not be holding a point?

Just because he is in plague form using it for this purpose doesn’t mean he is a full time node holder. It is a secondary purpose he is fulfiling with the presence that plague form creates on a node. See why you are now all over the place with your argument?

Jason Segel.2908:

Zzod.5791:

Jason Segel.2908:

Zzod.5791:

It is quite strong in holding a node neutral as as zerg chain of bunker characters stream back in as PZ likes to do, while they tirelessly research new exploits.

It can be yes. But why are just you holding the node? I play with a few good bunkers who usually only die when its a 4 on 1 or a really long 3 vs 1. So I am a little worried you don’t know what it’s like to have a good bunker on your team and you don’t have to worry about being the tank or holding the point.

Actually, I play bunker for my team, so I know what I am talking about. Are you really a little worried?

What do you even mean “just holding the node”? You make that sound as if its a failure when you are faced with a 2 on 1 situation? As opposed to what? Prolonging your team’s control of a node or maintaining a neutral are a success in itself.

Plague form, with its stability and ability to significantly inhibit close proximity damage, is VERY effective in buying time until teammates can arrive by delaying loss of a node or keeping it neutral. It is very strong at clocktower, waterfall, keep, etc. A necro has the unique ability on a team to have the emergency “bunker” relief via plague form that other damage classes simply do not have access to.

The bunkers you are referring to are an extinct race of bunkers who were able to withstand damage by using mace block bugs, exploiting svanir runes, and having maximized protection uptime. These are no longer a reality. So, let’s be realistic?

???
Soldier runes, and the bunker guardian in my guild can actually live against my full condition necromancer build in a 1 vs 1 for about 5 minutes. I am as high condi damage and power as you can get. Dueled him last night. Not sure what you are talking about.

Not sure what I am talking about? Not sure you know who you are talking to. What team do you play for? I looked at the NA and Euro qualifier points list and your name is nowhere. So, your opinion on the “good bunkers” you play with and the other cool stuff you and your buddies are doing are worth dick to me.

You started this argument by talking about a bunker lasting in a 3 vs 1 and a 4 vs 1 and now its been downgraded to surviving against YOU in a 1 on 1 fight.

Can you stay on topic about plague form? Oh, you can’t. Because you then introduce soldier runes into this topic. Are soldier runes good? Yes. Do they work well with shout based builds? Yes. Do they have anything at all to do with your thread, which was about proving that plague form was weak? Eh..no.

I guarantee you the scenarious you are talking about are not occuring in the paid tournament scene. You are undervaluing maintaining node neutrality and capture. You are introducing side tangents into your argument, which aren’t relevant (comparing a necro bunkering temporarily via plague form vs an actual full-time defined bunker role in a guardian). And you aren’t good either because you can’t kill a guardian in 5 minutes as a condition necro. 8( Sorry bud.

Jason Segel.2908:

Zzod.5791:

It is quite strong in holding a node neutral as as zerg chain of bunker characters stream back in as PZ likes to do, while they tirelessly research new exploits.

It can be yes. But why are just you holding the node? I play with a few good bunkers who usually only die when its a 4 on 1 or a really long 3 vs 1. So I am a little worried you don’t know what it’s like to have a good bunker on your team and you don’t have to worry about being the tank or holding the point.

Actually, I play bunker for my team, so I know what I am talking about. Are you really a little worried?

What do you even mean “just holding the node”? You make that sound as if its a failure when you are faced with a 2 on 1 situation? As opposed to what? Prolonging your team’s control of a node or maintaining a neutral are a success in itself.

Plague form, with its stability and ability to significantly inhibit close proximity damage, is VERY effective in buying time until teammates can arrive by delaying loss of a node or keeping it neutral. It is very strong at clocktower, waterfall, keep, etc. A necro has the unique ability on a team to have the emergency “bunker” relief via plague form that other damage classes simply do not have access to.

The bunkers you are referring to are an extinct race of bunkers who were able to withstand damage by using mace block bugs, exploiting svanir runes, and having maximized protection uptime. These are no longer a reality. So, let’s be realistic?

It is quite strong in holding a node neutral as as zerg chain of bunker characters stream back in as PZ likes to do, while they tirelessly research new exploits.

Yeah, the tournament system at the moment is what is causing growing pains to newer and average teams. I also agree that they should just have competitive matches where premades “queue” up and you get paired up with another random team on one of the 3 maps randomly, and that’s where it ends. There is no need for Arenanet to stick to their current tournament format, where each team is progressively harder.

What they should so is jsut have a a generic pool queue system, where every team of 5 gets queued. After you complete your one match, then you stay “queued” or requeue, and you get paired with another team for another random match. This would greatly increase the pool of people who are playing, and also it would decrease the attrition.

When you face a team on khylo, you are facing a team that already beat 2 teams to get there, so naturally it they are going to be above average usually, so it is hard for newer teams to gain experience there or even make it there.

Under the current system of free tournaments and paid tournaments, it is a very polarizing experience from 95% faceroll matches in free tournaments to very tough, disheartening competiton in paid tournaments. We need to build a big “middle” class for teams to compete and thrive in. Free tournaments and paid tournaments formats are what caused this current PVP hierarchy that is so polarizing.

If you had the pool of teams queueing against each other for just one map at a time, it would “smooth” out the learning curve and the severity of skill disparities of teams because they could get foefire and khylo experiene against weaker teams(ones who hadn’t already beat 2 teams to be there). It would also of course greatly improve queue times and pops for everyone because you would get getting more matches in against a wider range of skill levels. This would make it so that more teams would be willing to queue up for them. This is an EASY first step towards a more sustainable system.

Hey Bishop, Zzod here from Rift,
I also play a group support bunker guardian using shouts with high retaliation, and I have no idea what you are doing, but I think my winrate against thieves 1 on 1 is easily 95%+ in tpvp. Probably 99% in spvp. They are insanely easy for this build. I have to practically be afk to lose against them. No idea what you are doing. Mesmer is my hardest class 1 on 1, and even against them, its a close match(assuming they are quite solid or better).

Doesn’t work. Have faced some 4 mesmer teams too, but don’t have screenshots. Same result.

What class are you?

Seriously, you have so many bad posts QQing about so many different topics related to PVP. You cried about thieves and now you cry about bunkers. A quick browsing of your most recent posts just shows complaints about a huge range of pvp topics that you aren’t qualified to speak on.

The 4/5 class comp teams never work. They get easily beat down by balanced good team. Given the video you posted where you “highlighted” pvp issues, I doubt you are part of one.

Right. I am guessing if they had a 5th guardian..they would win…right?

Quite doable. We faced this team the previous day too when they had a necro in place of a mesmer. Same result.

Yeah..and who cares? It doesn’t work where it matters.

Here is a screen of match.

http://oi48.tinypic.com/345yfd5.jpg

We faced a team of 4 guardians and a necro in kylo the other day. We easily won it with our normal/balanced comp.

If you think an optimal team comp involves a necro, your team isn’t good.

It works against bad players. Necro has no mobility, impractical access to stability, no burst damage in any spec. Anything they do, they are outshined by other classes in those areas. They are are hard to fit on any 5 man tPVP team. They need lovin.

HyDraLiNsK.2470:

Zzod.5791:

Except the players in Spvp and WvWvW are terrible. Come play high-end, competitive tPVP and get dismantled.

Zzod.5791:

I have played about 450 tourney matches since release with about 90% winrate all as a necro.

…. What? You know what that reminded me of?

“See I never just did things just to do them, I mean, come on. What am I gonna do just, go in and grind my feet on somebody’s couch cuz it’s somethin’ to do? Come on I got a little more sense than that..”

“Yeah I remember grindin’ my feet on Eddie’s couch.”

That’s you.

lol

Cocaine’s a hell of a drug!

Yeah..because us winning or losing is solely resting on my shoulders and my necro spec…Next.

Except the players in Spvp and WvWvW are terrible. Come play high-end, competitive tPVP and get dismantled. Necro has a ton of issues. They have a very hard-time finding a proper role on a 5 man team. Lack of mobility, very little access to stability, no burst in condition or power, etc. Anything they do, someone else can do better. I have played about 450 tourney matches since release with about 90% winrate all as a necro (ranging from condition to power), and while I do good, I definititely see so many mediocre to weak areas of the class.

No, Siok. You didn’t read what he wrote carefully. It is currently bugged to only do +10% dmg against targets instead of 20% dmg, but REGARDLESS of that, whether bugged or not, BY DESIGN, no ability or trait or anything that is +%dmg affects condition damage. So, those traits are not designed for a conditionmancer spec, only a power based build.

The axe needs to hit faster and stronger. Simple fix. It used to, and then they nerfed it too hard.

phearlo.8964:

Going to have to agree and say wells are fine honestly. The cool down is a little long for s/tPVP sometimes, but really I don’t find myself in to many situations where it hasn’t cooled down between fights. Is it slightly annoying I cant often use them multiple times in one fight? Yes, however I think they are a very strong utility and being able to use them more often could be slightly over powering.

I tend to keep darkness/corruption on my bar most of the time. Darkness is incredible against thieves/warriors and corruption ruins boon stackers. If you are having trouble keeping people in wells then try working on snares and roots, we have a plethora of them.

If you really wanna talk about utilities….how about those spectral skills =x

You think they are a strong ulitity. What are you comparing it to? You realize when you are talking about the strength of a utility it has to be compared to the utilities/builds available to all other classes?

Carrion is absolutely correct. If you are “running wells”, then your utility spells AND your trait decisions are all going to be catering towards that type of build. Once you do so, you are now limited to playing within those scope of abilities. What the wells actually end up doing is NOT enough. Not enough damage, not enough CC, not enough utility, not enough uptime. Those are the variables to play with on them, and at least 2 of those have to change. It is HARD to keep someone there for the full duration of a well and there better be a payout/reward for doing so. Right now there isn’t one.

Wells are far from fine. If they are so strong, why is a very specific conditionmancer generally accepted as the only barely, passable build in tPVP?

Our hardest hitting well is Well of Suffering. If you have extremely high power, someone will take 3500ish damage IF they spend the entire 5 second duration inside of its radius. You should be rewarded with much more damage/conditions/debuffs if you successfully trap someone in that radius for that length of time. Wells need to do more damage, offer more utility, and be more accessible. If they remain in their current state, they should have MUCH smaller cooldowns, so they can be used more often. They aren’t strong enough to change the tide of fights significantly at a node capture point.

+1. Do it ArenaNet.

natsos.3692:

Koen.8703:

I think I’ve spent over 350 hours pvping/theorycrafting with this class, I think I’ve tested out all of the possible builds that there are currently available.
This being said, I do agree this class has the highest learning curve, so ofcourse I’m not able to play it to the fullest, but I think I’m getting really close though.

That build is rather close to the build that I’m currently using, but the thing I wonder is that you claim to be decent with a minion build. I tried it, but I found out the minions were increadibly buggy, died way to fast, and didnt to enough relyable damage.

natsos.3692:

I can take ALL the other proffesions , just because I have the best “crowd control” effects and the highest life for a caster.
My heals are not the best, but they are enough.

No. I simply cannot agree with what you just said here.
We have one AOE fear from staff, then a fear from DS, cripple and some frost effects.
Which other class doesnt have the same amounts of interupts/silences/blinds/cripples/knockbacks/.. that we do?

I don’t even know were you got this. No offence, but I think you faced all braindead people in spvp or you havent pvp’d at all. If you would have pvp’d alot you wouldnt definatly not stated that, at all.
Not going to be kitteny here, but I just wonder if you could tell me how much time you have PVP’d with a necro.
This certainly applies to tounament pvp, where the skills of players are still a bit better.
I just think you were increadibly lucky in the few matches you’ve pvp’d, but you haven’t played alot of tournaments

But if you have spended over 100’drs of hours in pvp, I beg you on my kneess, like most of this community of necro’s, if its true what you claim, to make a guide to help us all out.

The truth is, I have not spend more than 10 hours in tournaments, but I have spend over 300 hours in SPvP , WvW and PvE.
I saw people saying that conditionmaster is the best build atm but necros, but really, I mean REALLY I find it terrible.No survability, no meat shield, no damage no nothing.
Well-o-mancer is the second best build for me it can do almost anything.
Even if minions don’t even attack half of the time, they can do some pretty good stuff like immobilize,blind , cripple,charge ,poison and teleport in/out of combat.Half the time they do work, they provide you with NASTY damage, as flesh golem hits for 600-1000 , flesh wyrm for over 1k, bone minions can explode for 2k+ , devourer can hit for over 700.
When I specc with 20 points in death magic, I can reach 1900 toughness and over 2.5k armor, with a life pool of 20k and all the cripple,blind,chill I can provide while dodging my enemies attacks I can focus on keeping myself alive while applies several condition on the enemy and letting my pets do the most of damage.And I haven’t even used death shroud so far.

I really, really don’t understand how you guys can’t rule the world with a half broken necromancer, with one build you can do everything,and that is the build I spoke of on my previous post.

I might be playing with people not knowing their proffesions in SPvP, but I also tried 1vs1 with all proffesions(except engineer) and they where all the PvP guys of my guild.
The only time I had issues winning the 1v1 was once with a tanky guardian that kept healing himself until he died when I reached 50% of my HP, and one second time with a thief that kept nuking me down until I finally managed to get some range and put him in rest.

Try the exact build that I posted before,the weapons I used and the tactics I’m talking about, try avoiding all the damage you can.

I will keep talking about “I” because I just can’t see why you guys say it’s a useless class while they always spam me to go dungeon so I can use minions as flesh shields and condition the monsters to death.

I bet if they fix necromancer completly(as they should) they are going to do some nerfing eventualy.

Exactly. Not more than 10 hours in Tpvp, which means your opinion is limited and skewed. The players in Spvp are TERRIBLE. They are a bad representation of what the other classes you face can actually inflict upon you. Against organized, good teams you will be dismantled.

Mathemagician.7314:

Unsoul.8762:

YAY i can play my necro again without wanting to pull my hair out.

Not quite yet, but soon…

Even then, these are just fixing our underpowered and poorly designed traits to do what they are supposed to do in the tooltips..We still need tons of overhauling of weapons, utilities, etc.