[End game PvE/Raids] Do you think DPS output of Necros should be buffed for PvE?

Hello,Most raid players don't want Necros in their groups because of the lack of damage output. Benchmarks clearly show that both reaper and scourge are far behind some other classes in terms of DPS when equipped with full DPS gear/traits. Most raid groups only care about DPS benchmarks when they are planning their groups, so this makes Necros obsolete. Do you guys think Necro DPS output in PvE should be increased a bit to be on par with other classes? I think that would give some power to Necros against class-bullying.

all we need is a buff core necro, the community talks about it all the time and unfortunately does not receive any response to such an important matter :(

The necromancer do not need more damage in PvE, the necromancer only need a little extra that make him a good asset for a raid party. Anet force on the necromancer tools that aren't usefull in PvE that's why it's always discriminated in this gamemode and end up utterly hated in PvP/WvW due to the fact that they have to much of those useless tool for PvE but extremly effective tools in PvP/WvW.

Ultimately the necromancer badly need some balance in what he can do. Also, hopefully anet will stop it's forcing onto tools that damage the game more than anything and try to give something healthier to the necromancer.

Boon hate: At the begining we had 2 (3 traited) skills that were corrupting boons and 2 (3 traited) skills that removed them. Now it's boon corruption everywhere. This is a bad trend. Ultimately we would need more boon removal than boon corruption to have an healthy game and maybe a trait that make it so boon removal apply a condition.

Siphon: pitiable increase in damage and laughable heal. Sadly more than what we already got would harm the game as well. Those siphons will never ever have a real place in the game. Honestly they need to be reworked entirely.

Barrier: It's an interesting tools that take the shroud as model, however it's bound to be extremly limited against hard hitting things. Well, attacks that deal a flat %age of life barely make this thing "viable".

The shroud: The intent behind the shroud was good, it was a large chunk of health point meant to soak condition damage. However it ended up to be a transform skill that want to do to many things at the same time. The shroud is bound to be a disappointing tool because, let's face it, it fail at being a reliable offensive tool due to the fact that it's forced to be a defensive tool. It would probably work properly if only a trait existed to dissociate the defensive aspect from the shroud which anet won't do since they chose to avoid giving defensive tools to the necromancer outside of the shroud.

Suggestion:Reaper onslaugth: while in shroud you have 300 more ferocity. Shroud no longer protect your life instead you generate a small barrier each time you gain life force while in shroud.I believe that this would make the reaper shroud way more reliable as a dps tool for PvE, sacrificing defense for offense. I even think that it could be usable in PvP/WvW small scale fights.

Power Reaper? Yes, the current benchmark is around 27k while the average dps for meta class float around 33k. That is a bit too low but right now the main issue I believe with power reaper is not just numbers but actual play style. Namely that while the last buff greatly increased the damage in shroud, the rotation for under 50% hp is still pretty much just spam gravedigger which is incredibly boring. Shroud 4 and 5 are not worth using as dps boosts because Shroud 1 does more damage. Lastly I believe utilities wise could use bit of a buff too considering having to use shadow fiend and golem for dps because they are the best option available feels kind of bad. While I do not disagree with Dadnir's idea of giving Reaper some utilities in addition to damage. Power reaper must deal at least acceptable amount of dps before be considered actually viable. You are a dps after all, even "utility" dps like BS warriors deal 31k.

As for scourge I think the answer is actually no or at least not as large of a buff as you are thinking. Scourge currently parses around 30.4k which is about 10% below average. However we are talking about golem dps here. Scourge has 4 main things that enables them to actually perform better in a real raid situation.

1) Torment does more damage if the boss is movingFairly self-explanatory

2) Any fight with adds gives a damage boostLife force is basically your "mana pool". Benchmark is essentially you doing the fight with 0 outside life force gain. Any fight with any sort of adds increases your damage substantially and there are currently very few fights that actually has 0 adds.

3) EpidemicBest cleave in the game with the additional side affect of allowing you to epi bounce.

4)DPS uptimeScourge can basically maintain very high uptime in any boss fight because of the fact you are ranged and only plaguelands is a pulsing aoe that can be difficult to land because of boss movement. Melee classes or classes with many long cast time and pulsing aoe fields suffer in actual fights quite a bit because sometimes you just cannot land those hits. Scourge does not have this problem at all; in fact you do more damage when the boss is moving as per point 1.

Damage aside Scourge also offers boon corruption(dhuum specific), barrier(actually pretty good with 5 sec duration), condi transfer(sloth, Xera, SH, Matt) and tankiness(not getting 1 shot is actually important sometimes). All those things makes the current Scourge a pretty viable class to take in pretty much any raid. Now of course if you are in SC or QT where your weavers do not actually die every other mechanic then sure; scourge is probably a bit down the totem pole. But really in any other none super elite group, scourge is a fine class to have.

As a side note I haven't really seen much scourge hate in pugs these days, so you are probably thinking bit of the past.

Some better modifiers in core Necro to improve group dps or group utility should be enough.

Spite: small, shareable dps boost when covered by certain boons like stabilityDM: small, shareable boon duration boostCurses: small, shareable condi duration boostBM: outgoing healing boost when covered by certain boons like regenerationSR: shareable stun-break CD reduction when covered by certain boons like fury

Little, things like these that are dependent on group play can be important in end-game play but largely irrelevant solo

Condi necro is just such a hard thing to balance, as long as epidemic exists how can you justify any more buffs to the tankiest class in the game?

Necros currently have the best condition based cleave and the best survivability in game. Unlike thief for example necro is not meant to be a single target dps class. Regardless, necromancers are already better than thieves at single target deeps, just go check the benchmarks.

Condi is fine and has its niche thanks to epidemic.

But it still blows my mind that Reaper isn't yet a power class with any competitive damage whatsoever.

Indeed. Scourge is perfectly viable and fine in of itself.

The problem is that Necromancer cannot do Power which means a lot of groups refuse to have you because there are bosses were Power (looking at you, Keep Construct) is for whatever reason preferable.

Were it not for my main being a Banner Boi (and those are always welcome despite the fact we do Condi damage) I would not have many KC kills under my belt since I only raid with my main and my pet Necro atm.

I've already repeatedly described how making a class desirable in instanced, end-game PvE environments involves a class-unique buff along with viable free-form weapon sets/rotations.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11990/proposal-bloodthirst-necromancers-alacrity/https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/12577/dagger-focus-power-necros-weapon-set/

scourge seems fine to me. Sure, it does less dps than other dps classes, but it's not by a lot. The benchmark is 30k vs like 34k for other classes. That's not a huge difference. And then it's also pretty easy to survive on with all the barriers and condi clear (much of which is AoE and applies to allies too) and all its damage is ranged, to boot. And it of course has epidemic for hilarious AoE damage. No, it's not going to make it into any world record speed clears, but as far as doing quick reliable clears, it's pretty great. And if you have more than one necro, coordinated epidemics can increase boss dps by a lot as well.

No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

@"Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046" said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Players have been nurtured over the year with the idea that the PvE end game have to be a dps race, raids whatever the game are more than often a dps race where you have to cope with additionnal mechanisms. With this idea in mind, GW2 whose PvE already heavily promote dps created their own raids following this idea despite all the possibilities that the game engine grant.

In GW2, dungeons are a dps race to the point that it is harder to complete a dungeon path with a tanky team than with a full glass canon team. The same goes for fractals and raid aren't exceptions. Ask raiders and they wouldn't even imagine raid without the thrill of the timer which is nothing more than an incensitive to deal more and always more damage.

There is nothing in PvE that let you even wonder if it would be better to try to be tankyer, it always want you to go full dps. So, how the heck do you ask if anyone really care about it? Each and every little damage added to the team give more breather to this very team to achieve their goal. Ask an elementalist to put some vitality on it's armor, he will always deny and then complain that their health pool is to small and thus it's harder for them to deal damage so it's ok if they deal 50% more damage than other professions. Mobs even have attacks that deal damage in %age of the player health pool making tanky gear useless.

Dealing 30k vs 34k don't seem like a huge difference? It's 10%. In a 10 man raid, the team with 10 player dealing 34k will have the chance to have a a fictive 11th man with them contributing to kill the boss. Let's assume that you take only the top dps at 38-40k and you've already 2 more fictive players in your team contributing to shave away the health of the boss. Now take a team with only reaper at 27k... It's like they only have the dps of 9 players in a 10 man raid while you got team with the dps of 12-13 man in a team of 10.

Honestly what team will you take? the underperforming one or the overperforming one? Of course you'll take the one that overperform and discriminate the one that underperform. GW2 PvE (raid) community is like that, they won't willingly take the bottom of the barrel and if they are short on killing the boss it will be said that it's because they took an underperforming profession, regardless of how the player performed.

So no, let's be franc: PvE is not "fine". PvE have never been "fine" for the necromancer. You could say that the necromancer slowly reach an "almost there" spot in PvE but it's still not there. The worst issue of the necromancer can be seen as a lack of dps because it's the easy way to look at it, but in reality, the real issue is that all other profession have tools that fit PvE and group play while the necromancer is just a slow selfish turtle that can't even contribute to the dps at the same level than other professions. It's not even worth taking it as a tank, it's not usefull enough for that. That's the necromancer issue since release. No teamplay, far behind in mobility, pitiable dps. Thanksfully, mobility lost almost all it's usefullness in the latest content, still the teamplay and dps stay an issue.

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Let me guess, you've never raided have you?

We've been saying this same shit for years. Devs are just incredible stubborn on this matter.

@vicious.5683 said:We've been saying this same kitten for years. Devs are just incredible stubborn on this matter.

It's because tuning Necro in 3 game modes is hard. Technical problems that are hard require a lot more time to solve and time is money.

Necromancer really needs another, focused rework like the Blood Magic update.

Core Necro and Reaper do need buffs. Easiest place to buff Core is in Death Magic right now (nobody uses this line aside from open world MM builds) and Death Shroud skills. Death Shroud in particular is a fantastic place to buff Core Necro because it won't do anything to the power level of Reaper or Scourge at all. Reaper, by virtue of being an Elite Specialization, doesn't affect the power level of Scourge or core Necro either.

Scourge, the only place it needs any buffs right now is Serpent Siphon. That skill needs an actual use outside of Magical Christmas Land.

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Raids are hardcore and most groups are elitist with their DPS. Current Necro builds can't compete with other classes in terms of DPS.They mostly don't want any Necros in their group. That's why I wanna see Necros wanted in Raid groups.

@Umut.5471 said:

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Most of us here gave pretty valid reason as to why Scourge is probably ok and Reaper is the only one needs to be get buffed. Don't just pick and choose the one stupid post and ignore the rest. Necro(Scourge) currently is actually decent in PvE, is really Power Reaper that needs to be buffed.

Also no, Raids are not that hardcore at all. If people are as elitest as you think then you would see nothing but mirages and weavers in raids but that is certainly not the case.

@Umut.5471 said:

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

The problem is deeper than that. Necromancer has one viable raid spec atm, which is Scourge. Scourge is heavily limited.

The boss requiring constant movement is probably the biggest one. Against stationary bosses, or bosses that move very little the Scourge is amazing. I hit 23k DPS on Sabetha while wearing Exotics when I was practicing the rotation. Same thing with Cairn. On the other hand, you lose tons of DPS on bosses that constantly move away from your Shades. Sloth and Matthias are awful in this regard. Ugh.

As I said previously, the DPS you can potentially put out as Scourge is fine. The problem comes with how limited the Scourge is. If we got a proper Power Reaper spec, Necromancers would see a lot more use in raids as a result because then you could hop onto that spec against bosses that work against the Scourge mechanics.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Umut.5471 said:

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Boss movement is actually great for Scourge because you have to remember you count as a shade as well. Boss is moving? Just stick to him in melee range. In fact that is one of Scourge's greatest strength in which you have very high dps uptime even with frequent movement.

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Umut.5471 said:

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Yeah. You count as one Shade. One.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Umut.5471 said:

@Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046 said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Shade damage doesn't stack. 1 shade does the same amount of damage compare to 3 shades stacked on top if you ignore that more shades give more expertise.

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Umut.5471 said:

@"Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046" said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Isn't that just for the "auto-attack" component of the Shade though?

Like if you use F5, wouldn't it add more Torment stacks?

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Umut.5471 said:

@"Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046" said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

No matter how many shades you have out and someone is standing in, including yourself, enemies will only be hit by the auto and the skill effect once per cast.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Umut.5471 said:

@"Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046" said:No.. PVE is fine.Never got why finishing a raid 2 minutes faster is such a big deal.DPS in PvE.. anyone really care about this?

Nope, torment stack is going to be the same no matter if is 1 shade or 3 shades. Damage would be absolutely insane otherwise.