Ive been playing Necromancer since beta, eventually maining it on the day of launch with my first character Feros Corpsereaver. Im thoroughly convinced that Feros is either one of the first, if not the first Necromancer of Desolation server, considering he was created so quickly after launch.
I played Necromancer to 80, eventually maxing out most of my gears before making any alts, and ive tried many different builds in that time, such as Minion Master, Condimancer, various DPS builds, etc. eventually formulating my own build, which I use currently, as a result of that ive also used every weapon.
Throughout the time ive played, ive acted as a kind of mentor to newer Necromancers in the guilds ive been in.
Ive enjoyed Necromancer very much, and its definitely kept me interested, keeping me from making alts until getting deep into “end-game” content.
I generally play PvE, occasionally going to WvW.
Bit of a bold claim to say you were one of the first when loads of people had 3 day early access before release and necro was actually pretty popular on release along with ranger.
Go hybrid if you really want to switch to conditions. With 15 points in curses you get fury when you enter DS. Increased crit chance. Plus you can use a sigil of accuracy for an extra 5% which doesnt show up on the hero panel. 50% crit chance is fine for a hybrid/condition build though. For a full zerker necro its better to have more than 50% but depends on what you lose out on if you do go for that much precision.
I still use zerker wells for fractals and so on. But i do have other sets of armour so i can use other builds if I really want to or need to.
We have the potential to be extremely strong, often matching other classes strongest builds, if we would just get out of this annoying repetitive mindset.
We’re not a jack of all trades, master of none. We’re a Master of all trades. Most of us simply have yet to realize it. We are by far the most balanced class in the entire game.
We need bug fixes, and could use improvements, but a huge amount of the problems people have with Necromancers are either l2p problems, or lack of build imagination.
Couldnt agree more. There are a few traits which need some serious buffing and various bugs that need fixing. But almost all our weaknesses can be fixed with builds or just skill.
I mentioned i never lost 1v1’s as point of individual skill. But ive held points against 1v2/3 with no problems plenty of times. And with good positioning even hard cc wont knock you off point. Very few classes/abilities can knock you back that far and they are very predictable. A necro is very good at staying on point. They do have issues of getting back to the point if they are knocked off though. Having said that a necro can actually force any class off of the point pretty well aswell. Well timed fears give you the opportunity to slowly shift the point in your favour.
In the all necro eu MM tourny in the very first game, which we lost, I went to cap their point. Ended up getting it neutral and then holding it 1v1 with a less than ideal bunker build. It turned into a 1v2 and I was able to force them out of the circle enough times to actually finish capping the point. Giving us a few extra points and delaying them from taking it back so quickly. Unfortunately after i took it I ran out of ways to take them on and my minions were all dead so i got overwhelmed. With a non mm build i could of kept that point indefinately until they brought a 3rd member in.
Well ive never had a problem beating a guardian lol. Almost any necro build counters guardians. I also had no problem outsustaining a bunker ele b4 the nerfs, he even had a cc warrior try and help him deal with me. Ended badly for both of them. The ele seemed fairly skilled, not the best ive seen but certainly not bad. Necros really are strong in pvp when you know how to deal with what other classes can do. I feel like the necro is actually strong in pvp but not in pve.
I come mainly from pve in gw but I have a competative gaming history so I know how to adapt to my opponents and have yet to come across any players than can beat me in a straight 1v1 except for one regen ranger when i was running a terror build. Rangers are probably the main counter to bunker necro’s so im quite surprised that i havent been beaten more often by them.
And as AItroll said earlier. You can make some really strong necro builds if you are pretty good at theorycrafting.
Necro’s need some serious work to be any good in end game pve but they are still somewhat useful when built in certain ways. I run mine as a beserker well bomber and focus on group condi removal skills to support my group like a guardian would in dungeons.
For example in coe most speedrun groups take 3 wars, 1 mes, 1 guard. The other day noone in my group had storymode complete on our alts so i switched from guardian to necro. Took well of power for when conditions were an issue and corrupt boon for the boon golem. Combined with mesmer boon strip we were able to keep boons off the golem for 90% of the fight and kill it pretty fast. A 3 war, 1 mes and 1 necro can actually be faster than with a guard because my build provides more dps than a guard would.
But these days i mostly use my necro for non dungeon content like guild missions and meta events.
As for the Necro DS backpiece missing, yeah it’s been a thing where pack pieces go invisible after using certain skills. Happens on my Engie all the time as well, hope it’s fixed so that they are permanently visible even while in DS. (edit:) Solution for if your backpiece goes missing after you use a skill, just hide then reveal it in the Hero UI.
Hide unhide doesnt work with DS since its technically a transformation (like lich and plague), thus uses base model + armor, turns it invis and puts layers of black a kid made in photoshop using a tentacle monster and smudge tool (seriously its really low rez compared to most animations if you look at it close up), just like plague form being a glorified warhorn 5 animation on same invis body.
He means to unbug it if it stays invisible after using DS. I believe.
And then a guardian bubbles you off the point and they get the neut on mid, and you’ve failed a major requirement to be a bunker.
That is literally the main thing keeping Necromancers off of being able to bunker. We have the ability to eat the damage like a bunker should, we have decent CC, though not quite as strong its workable considering higher damage. What we don’t have is the ability to physically stand on mid point for days while eating hard CC. It is the biggest thing that is holding Necros back from being a viable choice as mid bunker.
Generally speaking most good necro bunkers take foot in the grave so cc isnt an issue. Also blinds and dodges completely negate cc and with necro’s ability to perma blind, you can bully guardians off points so easily especially with a bit of boon removal.
Im not amazingly clued in on pvp terms. Wtf does “get the neut on mid” mean? I see alot of people use the term “peel” on other threads aswell, I assume peeling is the term for disengaging but I might be wrong?
Who needs stability when you can perma blind and absorb so much damage that you can hold points when outnumbered easily. Yes necro’s can bunker remarkably well. Im not very experienced playing my guardian in pvp but I found i was getting shut down after cooldowns were forced and i was outnumbered. Never had that problem with the necro. Even when not building full bunker. A bunker necro when you know how to play and build right is a lot easier to hold points with and potentially alot stronger. Not to mention they can still kill glass cannon builds pretty fast.
We should just gain Lifeforce for being immobile, collecting the Lifeforce around us, with our hands in the air, while we mumble something like “Citizens of Kryta! Lend me your power!”.
They didn’t really implement it properly and now Death Shroud is really kind of lame as a mechanic, it dies out way too quickly.
They implemented it fine. It was just a bad and broken idea. DS is fine the way it is now. Provides a very strong and unique class mechanic. The problem is the necro loses out on a lot of other things which makes us overall weak.
I have a lvl 35 thief which I could take into pvp at some point. You would have to tell me how to build her though. Dont have a clue at the moment haha.
wasd movement all the time. Have slot skills binded to xcv, heal to q and elite to e, weapon skills on 1-5. Means i can just move one finger to activate the desired skill. Use mouse purely for camera and targeting when tab is being stupid. If your not controlling your camera 100% of the time then you are putting yourself in a massive disadvantage.
I dominated my opponents repeatedly until on the last game i played, they all left except for two of them. When there was just two it was a lot easier to get the achievement.
So basically my tip to get the achieve is just smash your opponents so hard that most of them rage quit. Makes it a lot easier when you only have to rely on a few people failing. Also with less people theres less likely to be someone standing way off to the side.
If life siphoning scaled with healing power it could end up being a nerf. Poison effects healing. Im not 100% sure but doesnt life stealing ignore the heal debuff on poison? The best solution would be to make it scale with power or just give the base numbers a bit of a buff.
Last time i tried you couldnt corrupt stability on necro’s plague form. Never once worked when i tried it in tpvp so in the end i gave up trying to cc plagueform necro’s.
You can corrupt it in tPvP. I have done it. That is all.
Why has it failed everytime for me then?
Edit: Just realised i probably got blinded when using corrupt boon. But it doesnt explain why well of corruption has failed.
Sounds good, I’ll definitely give it a try.
Just a question of something I’m not sure of. Say I have sigil of air on my focus and force on the axe. Will I still do light strike when I crit with my axe or just my focus moves?
The lightning strike should proc with any of the weapon skills aslong as you are currently using the weapon set with that sigil. So both axe and focus skills have a chance to proc the sigil.
Last time i tried you couldnt corrupt stability on necro’s plague form. Never once worked when i tried it in tpvp so in the end i gave up trying to cc plagueform necro’s.
Nemesis should be at least their coach.
I would like to play in the team but my schedules are pretty tight for the next year (marticulation examination).
Nemesis has a lot of experience on the pve and theorycrafting side of the necro. Not so much the spvp. Plus im assuming this is a NA team. Nemesis would be better suited to be part of the eu equivalent as a player. Hes not a coach, hes a good leader ingame.
Yea i’ve joined ‘experienced groups’ recently but they really werent that experienced at all. Im used to playing mesmer all the time and only recently finished lvling my warrior. But even with my lack of experience on the warrior i felt like i was the most competant warrior in the group.
Works fine in speed run organised groups. Lack of vigor causes a few problems when you have perma aggro in high lvl fractals. The lack of cleave isnt so much an issue because trash is easily burned down with wells + life transfer aoe. I run dagger warhorn and axe focus in all pve content including lvl 26 fractals and only have an issue in fractals due to the bugged downed hp (if i go down).
Necro spear and trident are incredibly powerful with power specs. Of all my characters my necro is the strongest underwater. Beating a warrior, guardian, mesmer. Warrior does some nice damage but the necro has insanely good damage aswell + an amazing aoe pull and a very powerful ranged weapon aswell. Its just a shame i cant use my wells underwater. So i run signet of locust, BiP and epidemic. Allows me to gain might and spread vulnerability really effectively.
Give us wells underwater and ill be very happy. They could add them like they made timewarp for mesmer underwater. Just provides a sphere area of effect instead of a circle.
How about an ability which forces you out of DS. It sacrifices a portion of your life force, takes you out of DS and fires a projectile at your target. If the projectile connects it deals a bit of damage, heals the necro slightly and applies 3 stacks of confusion and the new condition.
The new condition would be called clumsiness. It would basically tick for similar damage to burning but only when the player is moving (ie holding down or pressing movement/dodge/jump keys). It would stack in duration. So basically the target takes damage for trying to escape without removing the condition and takes damage when using abilities (thanks to confusion).
Might seem op but you can change the numbers to balance. Also you could scrap the heal and kicking out of DS idea. Just have it deal damage and apply confusion and clumsiness. Or scrap the damage and keep the heal.
Bare in mind if you use the skill it will always cause you to leave DS and lose some lifeforce but the actuall projectile can miss or be dodged, blocked or obstructed and you wont get any heal/damage.
Wells are very strong atm. One thing I would like to see is a slight cooldown reduction though. Not much just a little. So base 35 seconds on WoS and WoC and base 50 seconds on WoD and WoP.
Yes all your points are valid. But they are assuming the fights last long enough for you to worry about cooldowns. In my experience they dont. If I wanted absolutely max dps I think I would take 30/25/0/0/15. Ive tried glass cannon builds without spite and i lost a lot more damage than was acceptable. The signet is not good enough to use most of the time. You can boost your damage in other ways like taking an extra well or take a stunbreak to start dpsing straight after being stunned. I have been known to use the signet in cof path 1 though. As I didnt need a stunbreak and my group already gave enough might. I constantly change skills to what is needed in the next fight. So relying on a signet is just not viable imo.
I use blood is power in pve dungeons if my group doesnt provide max might stacks. The 10 stacks of might is nothing to laugh at. In a group of 3 warriors ive hit over 5k with the final strike of the dagger auto attack chain. This was with full might stacks and almost full vuln stacks.
The wells arent for condition application they are for aoe damage. I run a 30/10/0/0/30 build in PvE. Ive experimented with a lot of glass cannon builds and I find that this build provides the most dps while also giving you access to foot in the grave. Well cooldown isnt an issue for me as most mobs and groups of enemies are dead within seconds so the wells are perfect for adding dps for those fights. I run dungeons with very high dps groups. Also a reason i shy away from curses is the condition damage doesnt really benefit a power build and you dont need any more than 50% crit chance. Condition duration on spite is very useful. It helps amazingly with vuln stacking which boosts you and your groups dps massively. I do usually use unyielding blast in most builds. The reason i didnt put that in the build i posted was because I was trying to give a build which got the maximum use out of target the weak.
Also nemesis’s burst build is pretty much my glass cannon build. Except I use WoS and WoC at all times for boosted aoe and single target damage in dungeons. I can hit just as hard as his and also hit very hard on groups of trash with axe retal + well bombs and life transfer. Also taking the signet of spite is pointless unless your group already provides you with max stacks of might. Blood is power gives way more power than the signet but obviously its wasted if you already have those might stacks.
Friday is probably better for me. I may still be able to make it today. If im online and you need another today just msg me and I should be able to make it.
