Guild Wars 2

A very small buff eh? Ahahahaha…

Oh necro doesnt have a way to defend itself? How about AoE blinds, chills and fears, how about Death Shroud, how about AoE condition transfers?

You are bad.

Look at all the QQ over a minor nerf… this massive buff to necros really screwed over the community it seems..

Walker.3056:

infantrydiv.1620:

For melee mobs, sword/pistol works great.

All you have to do is use #5 which creates an aoe blind field for 4 seconds and then attack with sword autoattack (which hits much harder than dagger auto).

Although using Shortbow clusterbomb at your feet is also good as well

Not true. If u run tests u will see that dagger AA out dps sword AA (not by much, but still dagger win) and thats what we would expect since dagger is a single target weapon and sword can cleave.

That’s surprising, but I guess I’d still recommend dagger in pve since it has cleave, making dps much better on a mob

It kind of depends on whether you are looking for area damage/ single target, and whether you want a pve or pvp build.

For pvp, full berserkers with 25/30/0/0/15, power/precision signets and d/p would get you a lot of single target dps

For pve, sword is faster for killing mobs

Thieves will -not- be getting greatsword…

For melee mobs, sword/pistol works great.

All you have to do is use #5 which creates an aoe blind field for 4 seconds and then attack with sword autoattack (which hits much harder than dagger auto).

Although using Shortbow clusterbomb at your feet is also good as well

If the Guardian was level 80 and you are level 47 he will out DPS you generally.

Guardian is probably both the best and easiest class to play as in open world and dungeon pve. You have lots of support and healing you can share with your allies as well as decent mob clearing abilities (such as greatsword 2).

However, I wouldn’t really recommend leveling with dual daggers since the only multitarget attacks they have are on #3 and #4 and it’s relatively weak except for condition builds.

Thief sword hits multiple targets very hard and is good for open world levelling. It definitely hits harder than guardian greatsword.

Thief shortbow also has powerful AoE on clusterbomb, which you can just spam at your feet as the mobs come to you, killing them faster than a guardian could.

I’d say a thief will almost always have more heavy damage skills available than a guardian.

Ultimately it comes down to which class you enjoy more, but in general:

Thief success relies upon:

-an active playstyle
-dodging/evades, stealth
-landing big hits like Backstab, pistol whip, clusterbomb, heartseeker

Guardian success relies upon:

-Staying coated in boons; and
-Hacking at stuff until it dies

A stun breaker + condition transfer in one skill = amazing

I’ve heard from a necromancer in a top WvW guild that he uses Lyssa for the complete condi wipe+ all boons when he hits plague going into the enemy zerg

Melandru runes are always solid, but necromancer has plenty of ways to get rid of conditions, as well as a huge health pool to help absorb some of that damage.

The thing about Dhuumfire is that before, when people fought a condi necro, they thought: Oh, look some bleed stacks ahahaha (the same response people have when they see a condi thief)

Now they are getting hit double by what can be a very long lasting burn as well as recurring bleed stacks, as well as a bunch of other random conditions.

That is a big deal for professions with bad condition removal.

I’d love to see thief (and maybe ranger) be given a crossbow as a small AoE and condition weapon. Could look something like this:

1. Probably a trio chain of attacks with some vulnerability or weakness stacking, as well as 1200 range

2 Incendiary Bolt – 3 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 800, cause explosion (base damage 100) & 2 seconds of burning damage to target and anyone in radius of 260, blast finisher

3 Poison Dart – 3 initiative – 1200 range
Base damage 400, poison enemy for 5 seconds, also a poison combo field

4 Scattershot – 4 initiative – 900 range
Base damage 200 per pellet, fire a bolt which erupts mid flight causing 1 second of bleeding damage to targets (8 pellets)… this attack could also be made to do more damage the closer the range of the enemies (for example if you unloaded at point blank range it would do 1600 base damage and 8 ticks of bleeding for a second

5 Basilisk Dart- 7 intiative – range 900
Base damage 300 – Fire a bolt coated in basilisk’s venom ( basically the same as the elite skill but on a ranged attack)

I didnt really think this idea through very well xd so sorry if something is insanely imbalanced.

Another thing which might be cool would be a grappling hook attack which pulls the enemy to you.

I’m also hoping for a mainhand pistol buff for thief!

Here, let me do a little comparison between necro and thief:

Necro
-A ton of powerful AoE abilities that are easy to hit a thief through stealth with
-Highest health pool in game
-DS: A form in which you have access to massive ranged and AoE burst abilities as well as being temporarily invulnerable to damage to your normal health pool
-Condition cleansing: A heal that removes all condis, Staff #4, Plague signet, a well that flips condis to boons
-Conditions: Access to every condition in the game other than confusion on low cool down skills that already do decent direct damage.

Thief:

-Almost no AoE
-Lowest health pool in the game
-Stealing: Gap closer with decent special attack
-Condition cleansing: Stealth, 1 every 3 seconds.
-Conditions: Other than venoms, thief conditions are mostly either blinds or bleeding, blind fields are small and easy to avoid, bleeds are easy to wipe.

If you are losing to a thief in 1v1 situations on a necro, you need to reexamine your build.

I’ve spent twice as much time on my necro as my thief, but when I hear people actually complaining about thief I find it ridiculous. SO WHAT if the class can ‘run away’, if a thief runs away that means you were beating him, obviously. It’s the freaking assassin/rogue class of GW2, that means it should be more mobile than the other classes.

Necromancer’s burst is out of control right now. Unlike thief, it requires absolutely no positioning or special conditions (like heartseeker needing 50% health to be effective). A necromancer with life force can wait for a thief to strike, hit DS 3 and then hit DS 1 for a -7K- hit and the thief is already at half health (or below if burning/terror damage is part of the build). Even if a thief manages to stealth his way up to a necromancer and hit him for a 10k backstab (highly improbably), that’s a smaller percentage of the necro’s health than what I just described the necro being able to do.

I main a necro in Pvp.

Nerf them please.

No to mobility and escape, but if you are any good currently you can slaughter anyone who decides to stick around

chefdiablo.6791:

Necros are not OP.
Call me out when the top teams start wanting Necros instead of Guardians, Mesmers, and Eles, then we can talk.

They already are, dude. Symbolic and Xeph (ranked #2 and #4 on EU) have both stated that Necros are OP.

In its current state I’d guess a well played full necro team could absolutely steam roll just about any other team comp lol

As Altroll says, the real OP side of necro at the moment is it’s terror capabilities.

I’m not sure how I’d go about balancing this, maybe Doom on a 30 second CD and spectral wall fear time reduced to 1/2 a second.

As for Death Shroud damage increases, I’m undecided…it certainly is hard to get DS #1 off successfully multiple times in tPvp, so the damage now which is about 3-4k in zerker build seems high, but maybe not undeservedly high.

Currently though, terrormancers appear to be the strongest class/build in the game.

I like the idea that necros could really use a fear chain to down an opponent, but it’s being spammed in tpvp at the moment for quite a devastating effect.

After playing a few tourneys against some relatively high ranked people (1000-) on leaderboards, I think that spectral wall + fear mechanics need to be nerfed slightly, I was getting feared all over the place, partially due to my own errors, but I think it was a bit much.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Spectral Armor is still bad. Spectral Walk is also bad. Well of Darkness provides far more team support and personal survivability. It also chills opponents allowing for stronger condition chains and control.

For instance, I can chill an opponent, place a Spectral Wall behind them, then fear them into it, Deathshroud 5, then Deathshroud 2 to teleport to them, then turn them around and guide them back into the Wall again for another second of fear. Not possible without Chill, and Well of Darkness just makes it that much easier. Plus blind is awesome, and highly useful for saving one’s skin, or stomping.

Nice builds and I agree that well of darkness is very good. I feel like spectral armor is a lot more viable now that the effect continues into death shroud, do you not think it’s worth taking?

Well, necros are still low mobility and lack stun breakers to effectively escape from chain CC’s meaning that they are still not good bunkers for high level tPvp play and can be focused down relatively easily 2v1 by skilled players with proper CCs.

However, I like how in the patch Anet tried to make up for that by giving us access to new conditions and much higher DPS. I think it’s a fair trade, and while still not OP in tPvp Necro is now more viable and you feel like a beast in deathshroud.

So, in my opinion rather than saying “Oh look, a necro, let’s toy with him and CC him into a ground and laugh”, people will now be saying “Oh kitten, a necro, we have to focus him and get some CC on that”

It’s amazing how misunderstood the necromancer is.

First of all, necromancer is probably the second most useful class in wvw. Marks and wells are amazing and in addition plague form is a massive AoE blind that can totally save your zerg from the enemies melee train.

In terms of PvE, the necromancer is at a bit of a disadvantage compared to the raw DPS of a warrior or the reflects and boonsharing of a guardian, but it can still be useful and powerful if played right. If you are actually dying to mobs of 2 in this game’s PvE on a class that has probably the most effective AoE of any out there, there is no hope for you as a necro, so I’d hope you are exaggerating.

In PvP, the necromancer is very strong in 1v1 fights. The main problem with it is that in 2v1 situations chain interrupts/CCs are essentially impossible to get out of if the opponents work together. This is why necros are not in top PvP teams currently, because the other team knows to instantly 2v1 and focus them down.

If you are really having that much trouble playing necro, you obviously dont understand the class mechanics well enough or they are counter-intuitive to your playstyle meaning you should go ahead and switch professions. If you want powerful autoattacks and a class that is great in wvw/pvp/pve I’d definitely suggest guardian as it’s relatively simple to understand and your teams where ever you go will appreciate you.

If you want advice as a necro, I’d probably think that rather than gear choice it’s essential to realize that the necro’s utility and elite skills play a bigger role in offensive capability than a lot of other classes, so when you are roaming around open world or dungeons you need to pick utilities that are going to compliment the rest of your set up and be using them constantly.

I’m looking forward to this patch, I main a necro especially in PvP. The main problem I have with it is chain CC’s. I feel most vulnerable against engies and eles in general. I don’t understand why people here are complaining about fighting thieves…necro eats thieves… wells and marks hit them even in stealth and most of them are glass, well of darkness destroys heartseeker spammers. I already find the necro quit a decent 1v1 class, so this will be interesting

Explain how character leaderboards would be abused. If you are thinking people would just randomly disconnect when they are losing, it would be quite easy to put in place a system which simply bans frequent disconnectors from joining tournaments.

Hotjoin…as it currently stands is pretty much just people either duelling or zerging around the entire map. It isn’t very good for practicing point control or finding balanced fights. Most people there are just glass cannon build as well, or at least that has been my experience.

If you are correct about rank not having anything to do with matchups, that is good. But, since rank is account bound rather than character bound, it still prevents people from trying out new classes in tournament play without sending their ranking down.

The ideas I’m going to be presenting here come largely from my experiences with the Chess ratings system, which uses the Elo ratings system to create extremely accurate ratings for competitors.

You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

First off, I’d like to talk about where I think Arenanet has gone wrong with its leaderboard and tournament system:

Account bound leaderboard ranking:

This ranking discourages people from trying out new classes in tournament play. For example, I’m quite good at using my Necro main in Pvp (in the top 1k right now), but if I wanted to try playing my thief, my rating would easily crash to 50% in a day. This brings me to the second point

Match making based upon Pvp Rank:

If I decide to play on my thief, I’ll be matched against people who are rank 20, but I’ll have the experience on my thief of essentially a level 1. Not only is this unfair to my teammates, it’s unfair to me as well because it prevents me from being able to play against people with similar experience or time spent on their class.

In addition, Pvp Rank is NOT a good indicator of total skill, even if everyone only played one class to begin with. This idea that time spent = skill is just not true, everyone has different goals for pvping and different learning curves, as well as initial skill levels. For example, my dad plays chess almost every day for fun, his rating has not changed significantly in over a year, and that doesnt bother him, he just enjoys playing. BUT… with the current Gw2 rankings system he would be probably close to rank 40 or 50 and be getting consistently beaten by people who are much better than he is, and then he would probably quit the game, because getting destroyed is not fun.

In conclusion, I feel that the current system Anet has in place for tournament play is very limiting and forces people to pick a class and stick to it (unlike the main game). It relies on flawed logic for class making, resulting in frequent blowouts and general discontent.

Here is my fix:

First off, we need a character bound leaderboard. This will immediately encourage people to experiment with new classes and also be able to play tournaments whenever they want without worrying about their leaderboard ranking.

Next, we need an Elo ranking system. For example, in competitive chess, people are typically ranked anywhere from 1000-2800. People who are ranked around 1000 are generally beginners to the game, or casual players while those ranked around 2800 are part of the few elite grandmasters in the world and have a lot of respect.

The way an Elo tourney ranking system would work: A player decides to start playing tournaments. At the beginning he has a provisional rating of 1000, and he then has to play a total of 20 games to get a true rating. At the end of these first twenty games his provisional rating is finished calculating and he is placed in a skill pool of the correct level.

For matchups, the system would essentially work to create the closest skill matchup possible based off of rankings, resulting in two teams of equal combined skill level.

My fix does not deal with the inequality between PUGs and teams, but it would allow people of all skill levels to enjoy tournament play on a more balanced level, encourage class experimentation and I think overall create a more positive and respected pvp environment and rankings system.

Please, let me know if anything was unclear and if you support this idea.

How long does it stay open? Any other NA servers open right now?

^Not anymore

Any NA servers open now?

LastDay.3524:

This thread just shows why I like running Rampager (Crit Chance, Power, Condition Damage) trinkets and weapons on my Necro.

Anet said that they like how Necros work quite well as hybrids.
If anything I predict that the other Professions will get changes to be encouraged to go hybrid as well.

Yes, this is true Rampager’s is a decent choice.

You might be right about that. I’ve felt like currently the Necro is kind of the most hybrid-ish of any class…other than the elementalist by design. It feels like although the Necro isn’t bad it is unable to make really synergetic type builds in the same way that other classes do.

yski.7642:

Wait, since when has crit chance not worked well with condition builds? It combines nicely with Barbed Precision and Sigil of Earth.

Because Scepter and Staff vanilla damage are quite weak, and if I want to stack bleeds on something I can do it far more effectively with a condition damage based scepter build than with Barbed Precision and sigil of earth. I find Barbed Precision to be Anet’s only real link between the precision and condition damage on the Curses trait line…

Bas.7406:

infantrydiv.1620:

I realize that my suggested trait line rearrangement isn’t perfect, but I’m just trying to point out that the Curses trait line seems to get in a way of a lot of builds.

I read your builds, and my first thought was your build is really poor for a DS build, than it threw me off because the weapons you took didn’t match the traits you took. Than I read your suggested traits, and it seemed that you wanted to screw up the rest of the builds in order to make yours work better.

Why would you screw up any power build that thrives on condition duration? You realize that power builds use conditions correct? Chill, Blind, Cripple, Vulnerability, and so on. Why would you force every single power build to use Soul Reaping? I don’t use soul reaping on a majority of my power builds as most of the traits in it outside of stability on DS aren’t very attractive.

That build isn’t a death shroud build… It flips in and out of death shroud as fast as possible. It’s based on the idea of close to 80% critical chance due to sustained fury, as well as sustained weakness chance from Enfeebling Blood and Curses #12. Although some of the traits I chose probably are not correct, you are right.

I guess maybe I just personally feel the Necro is too much of a hybrid without really concrete strategies. I know many people run very spread out builds on the Necro and do well so maybe this is just my pet peeve or something.

flow.6043:

infantrydiv.1620:

In my opinion, the Necro trait lines should be swapped something like this:

Spite: Precision and Critical Damage
Curses: Condition Damage and Duration
-
-
Soul Reaping: Power and Life Force Pool

What this would do:

-Enable a full burst Death Shroud Necro (With Spite and Soul Reaping)

-Allow for a true ‘Conditionmancer’

Let’s say your full death shrowd power burst necro goes 30/10/-/-/30 with your new trait lines. The only difference now is that you have 200 more precision. Is this really all that is bothering you? That’s just 10% crit chance, you can easily make up for that with gear. Replacing the 20% condition duration on the other hand is much harder.

You also have to keep in mind that trait lines as they are support the necros utilities and traits a lot better than your proposal. Powermancers also apply all kinds of cc conditions… so having power paired with condition duration does of course make more sense for the necro than it would for a thief.

Also, I wasn’t aware that with the current traits you can’t build a “true conditionmancer”…?

Right now if I wanted to go for a Death Shroud Crit build it would have to be

10/30/0/0/30 … or maybe a control type with 30/10/0/0/30

The first one essentially wastes 300 points of condition damage… the second one wastes 100 points of condition damage and loses 10% crit rate.

With my suggestion, a full 300 points of precision and 30% crit rate from Spite, 300 power from Soul Reaping, and then 10% condition duration from Curses with a wasted 100 points of condition damage.
———————————————————

To build a conditionmancer is the same deal: I want to go Spite and Curses. However, because Curses has precision that precision is a waste if I go all 300 points into the line.

With my suggestion, i could go into Curses (condi dam/duration) as well as choosing another trait like like Death or Blood magic for defensive purposes.
—————————————————

I realize that my suggested trait line rearrangement isn’t perfect, but I’m just trying to point out that the Curses trait line seems to get in a way of a lot of builds.

Edit: I see where you’re going with the proposed swaps, but I don’t think it will happen. By and large, trait lines force hybridization, rather than encouraging a player to funnel every stat possible into one spot. This is partly due to the pairings, but further reinforced by the way you max out a line at 30 points.

Not to mention that you’ve got two secondary stats paired together, as well as two primaries. (The profession specific stat boost is considered a primary for the purposes of trait line pairs. I’m not sure why this is a constant across the game, but I think the idea is that a primary is more or less useful on everyone, but a secondary is more niche in its very nature. That sounds kind of weak though; I’d love to hear a better explanation.)

Thinking more about it…one of the big problems for me is that Soul Reaping is a trait which by the nature of it’s attacks really does not work well with condition damage (except for #2)… But having critical damage paired with it means that if I wanted to use death shroud to deal damage I’d want to pair it with Curses.

I feel like a condition damage/condition duration pair on the necromancer would be a very cool unique trait line… (I didn’t really think about condition damage as being a secondary stat…probably because it’s my main source of damage on my normal necro build).

I guess rather than change the trait line groupings it would be easier to simply add more traits which are similar to Barbed Precision.

Wow my bad guys I’ll change it… This is embarassing haha

Let me start my saying that this thread is derived from my personal experience trying to create viable builds for tPvp as well as Pve. I understand that many people might disagree with me on this issue and that is fine, but this is where I feel the Necromancer goes wrong. This is not a thread about the way the necromancer’s actual traits are arranged but instead about how stat bonuses are organized between trait lines and synergy between Necro weapons and trait spreads.

As with all other classes, the Necro has 5 trait lines, but its trait attribute bonuses (power, toughness, etc) are distributed in a unique and confusing way.

Spite: Power and Condition Duration
Curses: Precision and Condition Damage (!)
Death Magic: Toughness and Boon Duration
Blood Magic: Healing and Vitality
Soul Reaping: Crit Damage and Life Force Pool

Without discussing any other variables such as individual traits and sigils, it is clear that Curses is a peculiarity. Precision and Condition Damage are about as far away from synergetic as one can get. For example, Spite combos well with weapons such as the Axe or mainhand Dagger (Vulnerability or Immobilize duration). Death Magic increases toughness and boons such as regeneration or retaliation which is clearly synergetic. Blood Magic is probably the Necro’s most coherent trait line (and why siphon builds work so well). Finally Soul Reaping pairs the powerful attack life blast with high crit damage.

Then there is the Curses line. Curses is different in a bad way. Apart from Barbed Precision (66% chance to cause bleeding on critical hits), Precision and Condition Damage are completely unconnected in the trait line. This essentially means that a person who wants to create a Crit or condition damage based Necro build must try and find a way to dish out damage both with critical hits and condition damage, or else waste 300 points in either stat.

For example, I have a build that I call the Ragereaper.

It looks something like this:

Dagger/Warhorn & Axe/Focus

Runes of Rage (Crit Damage/20% Fury Duration) and Berserker’s Amulet

10 5
30 4,8,12
0
0
30 3,7,12

What this build does is essentially flip between Death Shroud causing Retaliation for 3sec, Enfeebling blood cast, and Fury for 5 seconds. It then has a 25% chance to cause weakness on targets from Curses #12. This means that if everything is working correctly I have about a 70% crit chance and weakness on the target at most times (because enfeebling blood also causes weakness).

However! Although this build sounds good on paper…the fact is that the Curses trait line also has condition damage, meaning that I’m essentially wasting 300 points of condition damage. That is a big deal. And I know some people are going to say: Well, just toss on some sigils of bloodlust and cause bleeding, but ultimately that mechanic isn’t really strong enough to be viable.

Now let’s take a look at other classes. If I log onto my thief here is what I’m presented with:

Deadly Arts: Power and Condition Duration
Critical Strikes: Precision and Critical Damage
Shadow Arts: Toughness and Healing
Acrobatics: Vitality and Boon Duration
Trickery: Condition Damage and Steal Recharge Rate

Looking at this, the immediate thing that stands out to me is Critical Strikes, and the fact that Precision and Critical Damage and grouped together… Perfect Synergy.

Edit: Also mesmers, rangers, elementalists have precision + crit damage grouped together.

So… All other light armor classes have Precision and Crit Damage grouped together except for Necro.

This is one of the biggest reasons the Necro is so hard to build for.

Thieves, Rangers, Elementalists and Mesmers can easily fill out their second trait line for high Critical chance and damage.

In my opinion, the Necro trait lines should be swapped something like this:

Spite: Precision and Critical Damage
Curses: Condition Damage and Duration
-
-
Soul Reaping: Power and Life Force Pool

This would have to be balanced slightly (as well as traits rearranged between the two trait lines), but what it does:

What this would do (after balancing and trait rearrangement):

-Enable a full burst Death Shroud Necro (With Spite and Soul Reaping)

-Allow for a true ‘Conditionmancer’

-Well & Minion Builds would remain viable

I realize my suggestion might actually be overly optimized and require a ton of balancing… but it just bugs me to no end knowing EVERY OTHER class has Precision and Crit grouped together except Necro.

In order to get a desirable power/crit necro build, currently you’d be spread pretty thin across Spite, Curses, and Soul Reaping… With the condition damage of Curses as a wasted asset.

And uh….I guess that’s the end of my thread for now. I’ll revise later.