Guild Wars 2

Blackmoa.3186:

Hi, some of you might know me but for those that don’t:
I am playing necromancer since the open Beta period nearly exclusively in all parts of the game with heavy focus on tpvp. I was known as one of the last “competitive” necromancers in EU before the dhuumfire patch, probably mostly known for being a annoying kitten sitting in the water on temple xD. After the dhuumfire patch I was recruited by the then falling apart MiM to fill up their roster again and played for them in the PAX qualifiers. I just recently came back to PvP after an ~6month break from the game ankitten ow the co-host of the SOAC necromancer podcast. I certainly am not among the top necromancers in pvp at the moment as my play got kinda sloppy after my break but I think I know enough about necro to say a thing or two about the current state we are in.

But first lets take a look at the “history of necromancers” in pvp. At release necromancers where able to dish out quite a bit of punishment as teams where lacking experience in fighting them, but builds like pistolwhip thieves made live quiet hard for aspiring necromancers. As an answer to that we learned to stay on the edges of fights, and the 30 30 10 carrion double well necro with rezz signet was born. And man we caused mayhem. Teams where not used to someone just standing on a high-ground and spamming AOEs with a build that was 100% optimized for never even getting attacked, and with the added rezz we basicly dominated team-fights. But like always teams adapted and learned to counter that playstyle, which led necros to drop the wells and go for other stuff instead, but the “focus the necro as soon as you see him” mentality that people learned during the double well period made it close to impossible for necros to sustain through teamfights and they faded from the meta. This basicaly stayed the same until the addition of dhuumfire which just over-tuned necros and together with other buffs enabled them to completely zone people form ~1200 range away and even 100-0ing mesmers from that range quite easily. They became an insanely strong 1v1 class that dominated teamfights and also had lots of CC. Of course well deserved nerfs happened afterwards, but the most important thing was that hambow warriors made it into the meta.
The combinations of warriors “hardcountering” necros(well necro could win 1v1 vs a warrior still but it took all his cooldowns and you would lose a node almost certainly) and that nerfs made necro a kinda hit or miss class for pvp. They stayed in the meta cause if you where able to protect your necromancer they where still really good in teamfights. But now with the featurepack the necromancer dps was reduced quite a bit with the nerf to dhuumfire, making it really hard to use in condi burst rotations, and also a not reliable way of applying burning in teamfights. Also the AOE pressure of necro was now lower than before the dhuumfire patch because other skills got nerfed since then. At the moment necro is in a state similar to before the Dhuumfire patch, if not even worse.
Basically necro is really strong against inexperienced players but gets rather weak against good teams up to a point where having a necromancer is a burden for your team

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-state-of-Necromancers-in-PvP/page/2#post3994926

Nemiros.3590:

Hello! ive also been playing necro since prerelease and have like 3k tourneys played as necro.

I think your sugestions are fine, and i really like the idea of vigor on boon removal.
Most importantly I like the aditions they made to necro (specially path of corruption) but we need some of the nerfs to acomodate the dhuumfire undone. More specifically Corrupt boon should corrupt all boons (or in the very least prioritize stability instead of it being the last thing it corrupts) and return the 1 bleeding on staff 2 mark of blood. 2 bleeds really make the staff just a utility weapon.

Just my 2c

Boon removal/corruption is supposed to be the necromancers strength. Most popular classes like guardian, ele and warrior have the ability to gain boons rather fast and many of them. Corrupt boon is our strongest anti-boon utility and is still rather good. Any necro should bring this to team arena if he/she wants to be useful. I do not think that they should revert it back to corrupt all boons but rather prioritise certain boons like stability and/or aegis.

With the change to dhuumfire i think that reverting grasp of the dead and mark of blood back to 3 bleeds each would be in its place. Its already hard to cover-condition bleeds and they would be nice to have back for a little extra condi-burst. If this happens – it might even be worth going back to mark of evasion in blood magic (also got nerfed with the mark of blood change).

Staff as a weapon is great – but the AA is unreliable and one of the worst AA’s in the game. I would like it to be more like mesmer staff AA without the bounce effect. Remove the piercing effect and reduce the cast time. We need more reliable ways of gaining life force especially with condition builds. Power builds do this just fine.

Well they might even think that necro is in a good state!

Bhawb.7408:

djooceboxblast.9876:

Maybe this thread should be linked in the Profession Balance subforum?

Not a bad idea, but frankly I don’t think ANet will notice it anyway.

It has a better chance of getting noticed there than here.

Maybe this thread should be linked in the Profession Balance subforum?

It feels like ANET is unsure about how they want to get the necromancer to where it is supposed to be, or if they even know where that is. It has been a roller coaster ride ever since dhuumfire was implemented. And now we are stuck with something worse than pre-dhuumfire.

We are back to the guard/ele cleansing! Necromancer does not by itself have enough condi damage to pressure the popular setups. It is a different matter if you are running with an engi in your setup, but then again, most teams would stand a better chance of winning by running something else.

Message me ingame Fixi! We should talk..

leman.7682:

djooceboxblast.9876:

5. Staff Auto needs a change. Its bad!

Working as intended!

When I’m back from a grocery shop, I’m gonna write a bigger post about the state of necro after the patch since I just got countered to elo hell in solo queue and am spot on the current problems.

It might work as intended – but its bad and unreliable!

5. Staff Auto needs a change. Its bad!

Good post Moa. I agree with all of it!

1.) Low mobility. PvP is mostly about good rotations and having a necromancer on your team slows you down and forces you into a team-fight play-style and therefore making you less flexible than other compositions

This is not as big of a problem as many of the other points. To make up for the lack of mobility speed and traveler runes are really really good. I use them all the time and for any build. You do lose some damage, but the “roaming” potential and survivability you get is worth it.

2.) Bad downed-state. A downed necro can’t do anything about getting stomped. This further encourages teams to focus a necro before other classes.

A downed necro is usually a stomped necro unless your team can do something to prevent it. On the other hand necro is one of the best professions for stopping stomps and resses. My solution for this is to make our downed state fear aoe.

3.) No sustain. Necro is supposed to be a sustain class according to anet, but their lack of boons(most importantly vigor) combined with point 2 of this list make necros a dangerous choice in longer fights.

Give us a reachable and reliable trait that gives us the ability to heal in death shroud. I cannot count how many times i have had a guardian trying to heal me while i was in death shroud because i would have been dead otherwise. Anets wants the necromancer to be an attrition fighter, but its nowhere near being an attrition fighter. Many other professions do the job better (warriors, rangers).

4.) Toxic gameplay. Playing against necromancers is 100% anti-fun. Winning against one doesn’t feel like an accomplishment most of the time while losing to a necro feels like being cheated.
This 5 points need to be addressed in order for necromancers to get a healthy spot in the meta.

Yes!

Proposed changes to achieve this:
1.) Increase range of Flesh Wurm and make it exchange place with the necromancer on reactivation instead of killing it. If used with poor positioning the Wurm will quickly be killed. If used to get out of a bad situation the effect will be nearly the same as now. For balance reasons maybe increase the summoning cooldown.

Flesh Wurm needs a faster cast time to start with. Right now it is mostly placed before a fight to get an escape route, but most of the time the wurm is killed by a thief or someone else who has noticed it. Good teams will look for it and get rid of it as fast as possible. And you what? It doesnt take that long to kill. When you compare Flesh Wurm to some of the other professions ports – its literally kitten! SO BAD!

2.) Give necromancers a way to prevent a stomp. Maybe make their #2 ability “Your downed health becomes lifeforce and you enter deathshroud for up to 3 seconds. Afterwards you are downed again with your remaining lifeforce as hp” You could still dps them down but stomps would be prevented and the necro could get into a better position to be rezzed

Already commented on this!

3.) Flavorful access to vigor. A prime candidate for this would be the Spite 5 point trait(former 25) siphoned power. Proposed new trait:”Gain vigor when you remove a boon”(with internal cooldown of course). Maybe a buff to lifeleech trait base values but addition of an internal cooldown.

Good idea!

4.) Remove fearstacking. Fear and Immobilize are the only forms of CC that stack in duration and seriously, they shouldn’t do that (I still think immobilize stacking was the worst thing anet ever introduced including the loading screen bug which at least wasn’t intentional). Also maybe don’t make fear duration increase with condition duration, it simply is no fun to be feared for ~4 seconds just because the necro you hit had nightmare runes equipped. CC chaining someone should be at least somewhat reliant on team coordination and not just spam everything. Maybe lower dmg of terror and add more utility like a 1sec chill at the end of the fear.

YES TO EVERYTHING! Fear should not stack in duration, never.

@Chuck Nizzle.6283

The builds you are suggesting are not viable in organized tpvp. They might work in hotjoins and solo q but not in tournaments. You might have played necromancer for a long time but your it does not sound like you have much experience in tournament pvp.

After dhuumfire was introduced its duration was ‘hot-fixed’ as one of the only traits/abilities in GW2 history. After the duration decrease our ability to stack bleeds got hit = grasp of the dead, mark of blood and weakening shroud. All these nerfs happened because of dhuumfire. The feature patch changed dhuumfire again making it mediocre at best. Dhuumfire did not only affect the Necromancer profession but also almost every other profession got their cleansing buffed. Right now the Necromancer is probably in the worst spot in GW2 history in terms of viability and build diversity.

nyqwist.2360:

Bumping.

If someone want the best necromancer in the game (not even kittening kidding), hit DJ Ooce up.

And the sexiest!

Bump.

/15char

If you ever need a necro…

/Djooce

Increase initiative cost on Infiltrator’s Arrow. This would be a start to fixing the mobility problem that thieves currently bring to conquest.

Path of Ventari? This build was one of or the most popular in early GW2. The only change made is Path of Corruption. Krait runes were also used back in the day. The extra bleed duration you get from the runes are overkill and will most likely never affect your damage since your bleeds will get cleansed before the extra seconds start to tick. You have a total of 65% bleed duration. The base bleed duration on your weapon skills/abilities is already high and this is why you never want to go above 20/30%. Bleeds that last longer than 10 seconds will most likely always be a waste in PVP, which is what you play. Also, Weakening Shroud with this rune setup, would be a way better choice.

Not a bad build, but it is by no means min/maxed.

Destiny.6738:

After almost 4 months, you guys start complaining about the OPness of thieves? Pistolwhip has to be reworked, sure (though, NOBODY has been complaining about it for a very long time) – and now, let’s nerf several utilities.

About time!

Also: BUFF NECRO!

KarsaiB.9475:

I said it many times, I’ll say it again. The problem of the spec isn’t the pw skill itself, but the gap closing/pull back abilities. Melee specs by definition can’t stay in all the time and thus need to have higher damage to compensate for pressure downtime. With sword/pistol you have no risk by being melee at all, while having the complete reward. Instant ports in and out at will (you can port from 2000+ range if you want to, withdraw to instantly disengage melee range without any punishement possible and a 21 sec insant stability removal/daze.
Don’t nerf the damage of pistolwhip, nor the evades. You need to deliver your damage at some point. But make it riskier by nerfing steal, infil signet, infil strike, withdraw and lyssa runes.

Add an overlapping cast time on steal so that it has an animation but you can still do all the current combos. Steal needs a tell, as it’s a very important skill that you should be able to see coming consistenlty. Put a cast time to infil signet but keep it as stun breaker coz it’s ridiculously overpowered : positionning yourself as any glasscanon doesn’t matter coz the thief will instantly port to you from 10 miles away to train you down. Make infil strike work with line of sight requirement to land the immob and damage, like steal. Make every single thief skill used at least twice in a row cost 1 more initiative everytime. Remove withdraw from the game. Most broken, worst idea ever. Shouldn’t ever have seen daylight. Remove aegis and stability from lyssa proc. Please. Do it.

Why do you have to be mad? JK! I totally agree with everything Le C (Karsaib) wrote here. Thief as a profession needs to be more in line with other professions when it comes to terrain obstacles and LOS. Adding cast times to certain weapon skills (Shadow Return) and utilities (Withdraw, Shadowstep, Infiltrator’s Signet) would not be a bad idea either. Also why does thief get so many 2 in 1 abilities? I am JELLY! I want an easier time killing thieves!

Speed runes (+Traveler runes if they get implemented) and spectral armor are your best choices!

We are no longer looking for a guardian!

Have you thought about trying out EU? If so, I am forming a team with top players.
Let me know ingame – djooceboxblast.9876

Hey! My name is Djooce, and I am forming a team with:

- Nyqwist (Thief)
- Slinger (Multi prof – mainly ele and warrior)
- Vuh (Multi prof – engi, mesmer, warrior)
- Me (necro)

We are looking for a guardian to fill our last spot. We do not expect you to have been ranked at the top of the leaderboards or anything else like that. We will judge you on your communcation and mechanical skills. We require that you have a competetive mindset, good game sense and the will to become better. You can be sure to join a group of decent and competetive players that are fun to be around.

Whisper or send me a mail ingame if you feel that you meet our requirements – djooceboxblast.9876

HF & GL

/Djooce

<3

/15char

The joys of the initiative system! Thief will never be balanced because of it and that is just how it is. Thief is designed in a horrible way that leads to spam. If it is not PW getting spammed it is Shortbow #3. Not to mention withdraw. 15s cd heal that also evades, has no cast time, cures crippled, chilled and immobilized.

KarsaiB.9475:

Oh and btw, all the bundles are broken as hell. Especially whirl.

Yes and Skull Fear is broken too! 3 second fear that is unblockable! GG

……………………………………

I guess it really depends on what build you are running. Close to death is really good in combination with wells, tainted shackles and life transfer. If you are more focused on single target dhuumfire might be better in some situations. So yeah, situational!

Leeto.1570:

People who dont know that dhuumfire ticks 5 times (which is no bug as 2 sec + 30% = 2,5 ) Try to “explain” me for what its meant.
Fine. Arenanet totally added hard hitting short duration condi that scales bad with condi dmg because they did`nt want condi necros to put 30 points in condi traits but instead put 30 points in power traits. Cause anet totally doesnt use logic when making changes in this game same as people dont use logic when theorycrafting this game.
Same i agree with the guy who dodges and line of sights condition damage.
And i agree with the guy who thinks that destroying gates and killing AI controlled minions is more important than fighting smth that hits back.
I agree with the guy who says that condi necro dhuumfire is only 2k and my 1200 condi damage necros 3045 dmg hitting dhuumfire is just visual bug.
Just because i played necro back when you were fishing in runescape doesnt mean anything cause playing necro and using common sense when making build for specific cause means nothing and whining on forums is much more benefical.
Sorry that i tried to force my false information on you, keep playing the way you play and maybe someday we will meet on battlefield.

Leeto, you have to remember that within the heart of the mists the dhuumfire duration reduction was never implemented. This means that any dhuumfire testing on golems will show a false representation of how many burning ticks you get. With 30 points in spite and 30% condition duration you get 3 ticks of burning. This means that you would get around 1k damage from dhuumfire and not 1759. Also dhuumfire is not really a reliable way to cover your other conditions because of its low duration. In any way, close to death is a better choice for power necros.

Back to the topic! The main condition build (30/20/0/0/20) is still viable for spvp/tpvp but not unbalanced. The main problem right now for necromancers that want to run a condition build is that dhuumfire is a necessary trait especially against the current meta (warriors, spirit rangers, thieves, guardians) that in itself has extreme sustain and cleansing output. Sadly ANET decided to nerf our bleed stacking which was one of the core strengths of the necromancer before dhuumfire and the changes to enfeeble, grasp of the dead and mark of blood.

Go get that PHD in stomponomics IRL (HOES) and validate your name!

Who cares! Who are you? JK!

Even though I am happy to see you leave, i am also a bit sad that GW2 lost a danish player. May the bacon be with you!

Necro – Because im the best!
Engineer – Because i am a fanboy of VUH!
Mesmer – Those beautiful purple/pinkish butterflies!

/bump

ANET, you have to pay attention to this! This is very bad customer service!

LOL! So good!

/15 lol

Getting dishonorable for dc’ing or getting kicked is great! +1

Same kitten happened to me just now! Enjoy!

oZii.2864:

djooceboxblast.9876:

So Phantaram needs to learn to play now? YESUS! Im not going to try to argue with you! Thieves and warriors are and have been the cancer of gw2 for a long time. It is going to be hard for ANET to balance thieves because the core design of the profession is horrible and does not fit or share the same ideology of the other professions.

Can you explain why thief doesn’t fit the ideology of the other professions? You think Anet said lets make a sort of ninja type character with reliable access to stealth cause it sounds good and not think about how that would effect every other class in the game? Lets just put it in cause we want to. Maybe thief snuck into the final product and was never meant to be in the game at all.

The initiative system! I think having a ninja type character with reliable access to stealth is fine, but the initiative system makes it way too hard to balance the thief. Either the weapon skills become too good because they cost a high amount of initiative, or they become decent and spammy. The design of some of the weapon sets makes it favorable to only use 1-3 skills at a time, the other 2 are situational or even bad to use. Something is clearly wrong!

LoneWolfie.1852:

I just want to say Phantaram only posted a few times here, and is simply posting here in hopes of people agreeing with him to get thief nerfed (once again). L2P, stop whining about how OP thief is and watch how other players beat them. I’m sure other players have already posted SD thief losing.

If anything thieves need a buff, and if there are any other professions that can’t beat it, they too need a buff, not more nerfing because SD is a pile of **** and is gimmicky as heck now.

So Phantaram needs to learn to play now? YESUS! Im not going to try to argue with you! Thieves and warriors are and have been the cancer of gw2 for a long time. It is going to be hard for ANET to balance thieves because the core design of the profession is horrible and does not fit or share the same ideology/design of the other professions.

I believe that profession stacking should be banned in team arena.
Why? Because diversity and fewer cheese comps will make the game more balanced and enjoyable!

People who still think that warrior is “fine” should go play some other professions and fight warriors with those. Healing signet on its own is not really the problem – its the combination with adrenal health and boon regen. When do people get that having a heal that you dont even need to pay attention to is bullkitten? Sure you might be able to counter it a little with poison but every other heal is countered by the exact same condition plus interrupts which in most cases is a worse counter.

Warriors here, warriors there, warriors all over the kittening place!
If warriors are not nerfed in the upcoming patch I believe that we will see a severe drop in the spvp/tpvp population.

This is a great idea!

+1

hihey.1075:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYGjM6Fbyb07JEoH9CuAiRKOmghSR5kOA-TsAAzCpIKS9l7LTRyvsfN+Y9xcBA
You need to reach 2s of Fear so you need to mix runes.
Spectral skills are not “that” useful.

The third utility can be either:
WURM!

Really easy to play.

Fixed it for you!

@Ventari & Sensotix – I totally agree with the both of you, but you have to realize that posting on the forums is not getting you anywhere when you have to discuss with braindead kittens Wink!Wink! The only way that this game can become balanced is if the pvp developers start listening to the top players instead of low levels who have no clue on how or the ability to maximize a professions potential.

Erzian.5218:

I think the actual problem is not the built-in evade of s/d but the combination of feline grace and vigour on heal+low cd on withdraw and yeah well.. lyssa runes but those are a problem in general.
Ideas:
- withdraw: cd and healing increased by 33% (20sec cd) or even 66% (25sec cd)
- feline grace: change it to a combination of flat endurance regeneration (50%) and endurance regain (7 or, so combining it with vigour (and signet of agility) becomes less powerful but still useful.

THIS!

http://www.twitch.tv/djooce/c/3614219 – Wurm is always a great choice, pretty much saved me here!

Balefire.7592:

Signet of Spite gives power because beyond looking scary on your bar and covering bleeds, none of those conditions are terribly useful to a conditionmancer (two bleeds is paltry). On the other hand, chill, cripple and vulnerability are of great use to power Necros, especially those of the melee dagger variety.
The signet itself isn’t the issue, it’s compounding effect is. I agree with the above posters that if cleanses were better designed, it wouldn’t be an issue.

Chill, WEAKNESS and cripple are of great use to a condition necromancer.

Roe.3679:

but condi necros are already getting nerfed so I’m not sure it is relevant anymore.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that

That will be up for you to decide. I myself can safely say that necro has always been viable in tpvp, even in its worst and darkest times. It may require more in terms of skill and setup than other professions but that should be seen as a rewarding challenge.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

djooceboxblast.9876:

RaZaC.1963:

I can only grin at the foresight of necros being nerfed >:)

Does not change the fact that I will still be kitten engineers for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Oh and btw ANET, remove or change signet of spite! We do not want more win button necromancers even though i enjoy it myself from time to time in solo Q.

lol @ this..
I do agree i would rather have a 10k+ damage weapon attack.

Because that is comparable. You sound worried!

And how exactly does the signet have a high risk? Other professions might be better at applying a wide variation of conditions but can only do so using several weapon skills or utilities. Signet of spite is badly designed unless you want to be effective with literally no effort whatsoever, like it or not!