Would you consider Necromancer the most “turbulent” profession?

In terms of balancing, as a on-and-off player since launch (Warrior main, not Necro) I would have to say “Yes”. Definitely the one that Anet has the most issue with “nailing it” just right: it is a constant roller coaster from overpowered like nuts (PoF launch) to hover in between mediocrity-to-underpowered.

There just seems to be something inherent to the core design of the class that prevents a happy medium like most of the other classes, wouldn’t you say?

You nailed it, the issue of the necromancer is that in GW2 he stand out as "non conventionnal". Where other professions have tools that are more or less normalized with each other, the necromancer's tools are mainly different.

The issue lie here, the necromancer is to different and designed to counter what's "common" among other professions. Be it the defense (chunk of health point where other profession bet mainly on avoidance and block), the offense (Extra damage proc on ICD where other professions mainly bet on damage intensity) or the support (weakening the foes where other professions strengthen their allies).

Everything the necromancer do is at odd with other professions. This make it difficult to balance against other professions (because he is pushed as a hard counter for many of their mechanisms) and at the same time against the environment (because most of it's tools that are extremly effective against players are simply negligible against the environment).

Because anet gave a lot of boon gen to other professions, PvP and WvW became a boon spam feist that anet didn't expected. And since they want the necromancer to counter boons, since HoT they gave him more and more boon corruption to a point where it broke the game at the beginning of PoF.

Another bad thing is that anet chose to concentrate a lot of different effect on single skills and with traits that proc new effect on top of specific effects, it easily give a feeling of being overloaded. In PvE this doesn't matter since mobs and boss don't even feel half of the soft conditions that a necromancer apply without limit, however against a player necromancer's skills can easily be felt as if a colony of weakening effect decided to come on a him with a single wave of the necromancer's sleeve.

E-specs Are good core Is trash. Core weapons Are weaker then other proffesions, thats why they boost e-specs..You know something Is Wrong if only way how to win 1v1 Is hidding And using terrain. Because class alone Is weak And ultra simple

I can only remember three times when Necro was OP.

Beta, Dhuumfire, and PoF Scourge. Each was quickly nerfed into trash tier. Necro has spent so little time at the top of the list that I'd hardly call it a roller coaster.

sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.PvE: Necros have spent so long as trash tier that we've stopped believing that Anet actually listens to the Necro forum.

WvW: Necro has always been top tier. The reason is because in WvW a Necro gets the baby sitter it lacks in sPvP so they don't have to worry about being focused. The Necro also is used because of the all the AoE Necros can drop, skills that hit multiple players in WvW but don't do much against single target bosses in PvE.

@Swamurabi.7890 said:I can only remember three times when Necro was OP.

Beta, Dhuumfire, and PoF Scourge. Each was quickly nerfed into trash tier. Necro has spent so little time at the top of the list that I'd hardly call it a roller coaster.

It's more like:Beta, Dhuumfire, minionmaster (nightmare tower), Spectral master (no ICD on LF gen from spectral stances), HoT launch (blind chillmaster), HoT lich (infinite bleeding minions), PoF scourge, PoF epidemic (always was there but first time really used extensively).

sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.

The necromancer is focused because he can be the ban of a team that overlook him. If it was really a bother to necromancers, PvP team would make necromancers build bunkerish and just take their opponent's aggro. However, such builds don't really have much threat so they would probably just be ignored. Necromancers are focused because they can screw with your boons and that can be really critical in spvp.

PvE: Necros have spent so long as trash tier that we've stopped believing that Anet actually listens to the Necro forum.

I think that it's there that the rollercoaster is but only since HoT.

WvW: Necro has always been top tier. The reason is because in WvW a Necro gets the baby sitter it lacks in sPvP so they don't have to worry about being focused. The Necro also is used because of the all the AoE Necros can drop, skills that hit multiple players in WvW but don't do much against single target bosses in PvE.

The necromancer have always been meta there because he can quickly screw with the boon of it's foes and it's proceless to do that just before an impact I wan't count the number of zerg I've seen destroyed in the vanilla game due to a single well of corruption. With HoT and PoF, sure the way zergs fight each other changed but the value of the necromancer's boon corruption is still great which is why the necromancer is still meta there.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Swamurabi.7890 said:sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.

Necro has not enjoyed the same ease of balance that Warrior has for a few reasons:

1. Many of the skills stack in intensity (bleed, poison, etc.) or up-time (blind, chill, etc.) with more Necromancers while other professions lose some efficiency when stacked because their boons and other AoE skills are more easily capped.
2. Debuffing players is a lot more powerful than debuffing a boss mob. What seems under-powered on a boss (100% chill up-time) is over-powered against playing characters. Necro is heavy on debuff skills so that just makes the gap in effectiveness that much wider between PvE and PvP/WvW.
3. Necromancer tends to get fancy new mechanics that do not have as much practical testing as other professions; e.g., shroud, marks, wells, Dhuumfire, Deathly Chill, barriers, minions...
4. An uncertain "role" for the profession, though roles officially do not exist, has been to be a debuffer, a low mobility and difficult to kill in melee combat profession, a pet (MM) profession, and now a spike-defense (barrier) profession. Many of us in this sub-forum wonder what the plan is for Necromancer at Arenanet because sometimes it is hard to tell from the results.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

The necromancer have always been meta there because he can quickly screw with the boon of it's foes and it's proceless to do that just before an impact I wan't count the number of zerg I've seen destroyed in the vanilla game due to a single well of corruption. With HoT and PoF, sure the way zergs fight each other changed but the value of the necromancer's boon corruption is still great which is why the necromancer is still meta there.

Necros have only been part of the boon hate since PoF, because before scourge the boon apply greatly outpaced the boon strip/convert. Sure there was the corrupt boon pinsniping, but it wasn't something that everyone did.

@Swamurabi.7890 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:

The necromancer have always been meta there because he can quickly screw with the boon of it's foes and it's proceless to do that just before an impact I wan't count the number of zerg I've seen destroyed in the vanilla game due to a single well of corruption. With HoT and PoF, sure the way zergs fight each other changed but the value of the necromancer's boon corruption is still great which is why the necromancer is still meta there.

Only necro corrupt boons, not "everyone". That's why necromancer was meta. The vanilla WvW meta have always been "GWEN" which stand for Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist and Necromancer. Necromancer would have never been part of this meta if it wasn't for it's ability to corrupt boons.

@Catchyfx.5768 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Swamurabi.7890 said:sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.

However, it's easy to make a spectral build and be hard to kill even without life force at the beginning of a fight. You just need to slot spectral mastery instead of vital persistence and take some spectral skills. The value of the build itself isn't great but you won't be killed by 2 stuns and a burst.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:You nailed it, the issue of the necromancer is that in GW2 he stand out as "non conventionnal". Where other professions have tools that are more or less normalized with each other, the necromancer's tools are mainly different.

The issue lie here, the necromancer is to different and designed to counter what's "common" among other professions. Be it the defense (chunk of health point where other profession bet mainly on avoidance and block), the offense (Extra damage proc on ICD where other professions mainly bet on damage intensity) or the support (weakening the foes where other professions strengthen their allies).

Everything the necromancer do is at odd with other professions. This make it difficult to balance against other professions (because he is pushed as a hard counter for many of their mechanisms) and at the same time against the environment (because most of it's tools that are extremly effective against players are simply negligible against the environment).

Because anet gave a lot of boon gen to other professions, PvP and WvW became a boon spam feist that anet didn't expected. And since they want the necromancer to counter boons, since HoT they gave him more and more boon corruption to a point where it broke the game at the beginning of PoF.

Another bad thing is that anet chose to concentrate a lot of different effect on single skills and with traits that proc new effect on top of specific effects, it easily give a feeling of being overloaded. In PvE this doesn't matter since mobs and boss don't even feel half of the soft conditions that a necromancer apply without limit, however against a player necromancer's skills can easily be felt as if a colony of weakening effect decided to come on a him with a single wave of the necromancer's sleeve.

Nailed it. And all subsequent posts.

Boon overloading is the core of the problem and has been for years. It's also why necro has been weak in PvE; mobs generally have no boons or don't face a big enough consequence for getting boons corrupted (rather than stripped), as most major encounters ignore things like weakness, chill, and don't heal or ignore the effects of poison.

Without necros, things quickly get out of hand with boons - it's literally a second set of armor's worth of stats and a bunch of extra free stuff on a number of professions. It's why they're focused down. The reasoning (in sPvP) behind why they're focused down early on and suppressed is because they start at their weakest point and are not very influential if not allowed to gain resources. If they get LF, they can turn games around. So why give them the chance? It's also why good teams will and have hisotrically do/done what they can to support a necro early on to get him or her over the hump.

Without the state of boons being as they are, necro could be made a lot more consistent along with the rest of the game. Until they change it, though, there's really not much they can fix about the necromancer without it being wildly overtuned if buffed.

Most of the PvE problems are encounter-based rather than overarching balance. It'd be like if there were bosses out there which only dealt unblockable attacks (RIP guardian and even ele), ignored damage immunity effects (RIP warrior), and/or ignored stealth and caused dodges to fail (RIP thief). If they made encounters resemble the PvP modes more, necro would be generally seen as way better in PvE than it currently is, which is a pretty vocal base of players who don't realize its power and influence in the PvP modes.

In PVE terms I used to play scourge. I created a berserk to see how it works and meh. Its pretty ridiculous that since first attemp Im doing like 5k more DPS with the warrior.

I see it pretty obvious because you look at the skills warrior has, 6xbleeding, 8xbleeding, etc. With necro its theorically possible but not realistic to apply that much bleeding (6) from a single skill (you depend on ppl not cleansing because you are self applying bleed to transfer to boss). With the berserk you just press a button and its done.

I think in the comparaison between warrior condi and necro condi PVE anet should look at number of condi stacks and rebalance.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Catchyfx.5768 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Swamurabi.7890" said:sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.

I don't know what spvp rank you have. And I rarely play spvp myself. But I can tell you why necro gets focussed in wvw roaming groups:It's the easiest to kill target even if it's full bunker build with full lifeforce.

It has no evades, no mobility, no invulns.And is very weak to cc and ranged attacks.

So if you kill an easy target, you get number advantage, and then it's more likely to kill the whole enemy group.

If you wanna know why necro is so weak, watch crinn's newest video.

@Swamurabi.7890 said:

sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.This part is a bit untrue back in the day necros could get away with doing what ever they wanted heck i even ran power shrould necro back in the day which back then 2-3 shot people consistently and you never heard people cry about it.

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Swamurabi.7890 said:

sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.This part is a bit untrue back in the day necros could get away with doing what ever they wanted heck i even ran power shrould necro back in the day which back then 2-3 shot people consistently and you never heard people cry about it.

Necros in sPvP from day one have been asking for better in combat mobility and more stun breaks because of the focus the Necro meta. It was only because of Nos that Necros even were played at the highest levels.

@Swamurabi.7890 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Swamurabi.7890 said:

sPvP: Necros have always been in the focus the Necro meta. No other class gets this treatment. Even scourge that counters melee is countered by range.This part is a bit untrue back in the day necros could get away with doing what ever they wanted heck i even ran power shrould necro back in the day which back then 2-3 shot people consistently and you never heard people cry about it.

oh no i dont doubt that but im just saying there was a point in time where they were not always focused first and thats for a simple reason. Because back in the day boons were not as out of hand as they are now. Back then it was hard to hold 20+ might to day 25 might easy is a standard across almost every profession and if you cant get it on your own 1 other player can get you there with no real effort at all.

The problem with necro is how in PvE it has evolved to become a relatively "easy" high-performance class.In PvP necro can't be an "easy" high-performance class because it's always been high risk high reward. Yes, necros get trained first. Not just because they don't have a million escapes, but because it's the highest teamfight pressure class in the game.

And attempts to make necro easy in pvp just make it insanely OP.

Also pretty hard to balance the game if PvE ignores half the combat mechanics in said game. Range, boon corrupt, condi management, advantage to high base hp / barrier / ..., being reliant on self buffing, ... are all non-existent in most of the PvE meta. No suprise necro drops off considering condi management, boon corrupt, self buffing and mix between sturdy and high damage are some of its best tools.

@"Nimon.7840" said:

If you wanna know why necro is so weak, watch crinn's newest video.

I usually only agree with some things crinn says but in this case he is pretty spot on.

While the discussion has wandered from the original topic, I agree Necro makes a great +1 in a team fight but I do not have many good experiences with other players properly protecting me from CC, pew pew, bursts, and other counters to the profession. Necro provides great condi pressure when not dead so a good team will run interference when the Necro is focused or use the Necro as bait for a burst.

since every necro meta build has been nerfed hard, the answer is yes.

@"Nimon.7840" said:If you wanna know why necro is so weak, watch crinn's newest video.

While watching the video I found myself constantly thinking "no, just no...".

I have a hard time explaining why, because the video ignores so many mechanical characteristics of the game, it would take hours for me to sum this up into a (very long) posting.

Chaith and Trevor Boyer gave some good explanations in the related thread in the PvP subforum.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50785/classes-need-to-scale-evenly-with-skill

@Oglaf.1074 said:In terms of balancing, as a on-and-off player since launch (Warrior main, not Necro) I would have to say “Yes”. Definitely the one that Anet has the most issue with “nailing it” just right: it is a constant roller coaster from overpowered like nuts (PoF launch) to hover in between mediocrity-to-underpowered.

There just seems to be something inherent to the core design of the class that prevents a happy medium like most of the other classes, wouldn’t you say?

When exactly necro has been UP?

:2-4 necros per match in pvp: 20-30 necros out of 50 players in wvw meta: tanky as hell in pve: works in raid and more

The profession has never been UP since 2013 when they started with Dhuumfire patch and people were spamming 4-5 necro per match....look how many play necro in gw2...where the hell do you see UP?....yeah they constantly cry for OP buffs while being OP af already but that has been the case since launch

Step foot outside of PvP for once and you’ll see.

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"Nimon.7840" said:If you wanna know why necro is so weak, watch crinn's newest video.

While watching the video I found myself constantly thinking "no, just no...".

I read most of it. And I think they are wrong. They give examples like kiting and positioning is important. But that's the same for all other classes.Sure if played very well and babysitted by a support, scourge can carry. But if you have no support or a really bad one, you should loose fights against all classes when played by an equally high skilled player.

And that's the assumption you have to have when thinking about crinn's video.2 equally high skilled players fighting each other. That's when crinn's video kicks in and is exactly on point. Maybe not all of ity but most of it.Active defense is superior to innate defense.

But in pve all this doesn't matter. Enemy's aren't intelligent. Bosses follow the tank. Thats why innate defense is much stronger in pve. And that's why necro doesn't get more DPS output