Why PVE necros can't have nice things

[Obtena.7952]

 

Just now, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

Pve you can literally play anything you want. You might have to care and try a bit harder in raids and strikes but for the most part any content in PVE outside of that play what ever you want to your hearts content. Reaper was OP in HOT. Farmed and Solo'd everything in it's path. Add in minions you can kite for days since the AI minions are so stupid.

True ... but that doesn't change the fact that LOTS of people including Anet care about PVE. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

On 3/23/2022 at 12:47 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

 

True ... but that doesn't change the fact that LOTS of people including Anet care about PVE. 

They do and it is the staple piece its just interesting people want balances in characters when their damage and builds are pretty irrelevant. I can run in my WVW build on PVE and do just fine and kill anything anyone else can

[Obtena.7952]

9 minutes ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

They do and it is the staple piece its just interesting people want balances in characters when their damage and builds are pretty irrelevant. I can run in my WVW build on PVE and do just fine and kill anything anyone else can

Well, that doesn't actually make sense because damage an builds in PVE are not 'pretty irrelevant'. They are actually 'pretty important' ... just like they are in any other game mode.

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Well, that doesn't actually make sense because damage an builds in PVE are not 'pretty irrelevant'. They are actually 'pretty important' ... just like they are in any other game mode.

I would argue only in strikes, dungeons fractals. You get into a boss meta it really has no effect when you and 100 other people are taking down their health. Literally you can heal and single auto and really are going to beat PVE.... Maybe the EOD meta shifted with the final boss but every other boss in the game really does not matter at all.... Maybe some niche specific classes cant but you take the mains: Necro, Guardian, Rev, Thief, Ranger their builds can alt between the 2. 

[Obtena.7952]

55 minutes ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

I would argue only in strikes, dungeons fractals. You get into a boss meta it really has no effect when you and 100 other people are taking down their health. Literally you can heal and single auto and really are going to beat PVE.... Maybe the EOD meta shifted with the final boss but every other boss in the game really does not matter at all.... Maybe some niche specific classes cant but you take the mains: Necro, Guardian, Rev, Thief, Ranger their builds can alt between the 2. 

OK ... so here is the thing ... you simply dismissed PVE as 'who cares' for balance. The fact is that there is LOTS of reason for Anet and people to care about it. Nothing you are going to say is going to convince PVE players that they shouldn't care about builds they want to play and how they perform. 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Nephalem.8921]

20 hours ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

They do and it is the staple piece its just interesting people want balances in characters when their damage and builds are pretty irrelevant. I can run in my WVW build on PVE and do just fine and kill anything anyone else can

You cant run your wvw build just fine in any endgame pve. technically you still could even ff14 ultimate raids were beaten by 8 tanks but should you do it? you would be as relevant as a raider doing spvp with raid builds.

You would be borderline useless in raids, strikes and fractals. you dont even need gear for wvw because all you have to do for max rewards is flipping a camp before the afk timer runs out.

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Nephalem.8921

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

On 3/24/2022 at 2:15 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... so here is the thing ... you simply dismissed PVE as 'who cares' for balance. The fact is that there is LOTS of reason for Anet and people to care about it. Nothing you are going to say is going to convince PVE players that they shouldn't care about builds they want to play and how they perform. 

 

Generally speaking PVE does not mean anything in terms of builds unless you are doing raids and strikes, fractals dungeons etc. Playing regular content you can do anything you want. Builds are not really that important. Nerfing literally means nothing when it comes to killing an NPC. 

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

4 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

You cant run your wvw build just fine in any endgame pve. technically you still could even ff14 ultimate raids were beaten by 8 tanks but should you do it? you would be as relevant as a raider doing spvp with raid builds.

You would be borderline useless in raids, strikes and fractals. you dont even need gear for wvw because all you have to do for max rewards is flipping a camp before the afk timer runs out.

 

To be fair I excluded raids dungeons strikes and fractals and said pve content outside of that realm. Just roaming around looting, killing and competing quests you can run anything you want. When it comes to strikes, and those types of metas they are specific but even PVE people I know do not run those. 

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

Generally speaking PVE does not mean anything in terms of builds unless you are doing raids and strikes, fractals dungeons etc. Playing regular content you can do anything you want. Builds are not really that important. Nerfing literally means nothing when it comes to killing an NPC. 

No, that's wrong.  Builds are important in ALL PVE and nothing you will say will diminish that fact. It's arrogant to think it's not important just because you don't think it is. It's also ignorant to think you can just 'do whatever' in PVE and it will work. It actually makes me question what, if any, open world experience you even have in this game and what your motivation is to so readily dismiss things that ARE important to players. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Nephalem.8921]

8 hours ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

To be fair I excluded raids dungeons strikes and fractals and said pve content outside of that realm. Just roaming around looting, killing and competing quests you can run anything you want. When it comes to strikes, and those types of metas they are specific but even PVE people I know do not run those. 

You could do the same in spvp. your rank would be bad but nobody can stop you from doing that. or wvw. a lot of wvw players are just as useless as your average pve monkey. in wvw it doesnt matter at all because pips are timegated and dont scale with contribution at all. your build is completely irrelevant unless you do gvg which not even 5% of the wvw players do. just have enough dmg to kill a friends alt every 10min next to spawn.

pve necro died multiple times because of pvp changes. the oh lifesteal change made all of them useless for power for example.

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

the oh lifesteal change made all of them useless for power for example.

It was a nasty hit to the almost non-existent burst of the necromancer but I wouldn't go as far as saying that it made the necromancer useless for power. The necromancer's core weapons have never been the brightest power tools. Strike damage wise, I believe they were mostly designed as utility weapons meant to stall the fight until you can go back into shroud.

[Kulvar.1239]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:10 PM, Zenith.7301 said:

 

 

Only for PoF, on a single elite spec. Reaper has been worthless since its inception as was core necro in PvE.

 

They  then nerf the mitigation of shroud but don't buff reaper's offensive abilities to compensate in PvE for the now reduced reaper shroud uptime.

 

And now specter has a more powerful shroud with reliable shadow force generation that generates regardless of missing a skill or hitting a target, generates more quickly, and provides a metric ton of survivability with better damage output than any necro shroud.

 

The selfish design of Reaper means he do not benefit as much as other DPS from being in a party.
IMO the only thing Reaper need is for this selfishness to boost the ability of party mates at boosting its own DPS selfishly.
Only boon Reaper can't give himself is Alacrity, which an organized would provide.

Extra effect on Reaper's Onslaught.
+ Alacrity grants you increased strike damage.
+ Strike damage increase: 10%

According to SC benchmarks, it would make Reaper DPS go from 34k to 37k.
From low to the middle. A fine result.

[The Boz.2038]

OR
OR
They could embrace their quickness provider role, wear full diviner gear that they compensate for with loads of free crit chance, and pulse quickness around themselves just like Harbinger does.
Or something.
I dunno.
Because all of the built-in strengths of a Reaper (being sturdy, tanky, self-sufficient) are entirely irrelevant in group content, and they bring ~nothing to the table.

[Kulvar.1239]

25 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

OR
OR
They could embrace their quickness provider role, wear full diviner gear that they compensate for with loads of free crit chance, and pulse quickness around themselves just like Harbinger does.
Or something.
I dunno.
Because all of the built-in strengths of a Reaper (being sturdy, tanky, self-sufficient) are entirely irrelevant in group content, and they bring ~nothing to the table.

ANet wouldn't like to have 2 elite spec on the same profession competing for the same role.

[The Boz.2038]

~Nobody plays quickness alacrity mesmer, but it exists. And nothing about the impossiblity is hard-coded into the game.
 

[Teratus.2859]

Sounds like you drank the meta coolaid lol

Necro has always been grossly underestimated by a lot of players and this same thing happened in Gw1 back in the day as well.
It has always been better than people give it credit for.

One good Scourge can still carry a whole raid or strike group and function as a group safety net.
Reapers and core necros can even fill that role in 5 man group content albeit not as good as a Scourge can.

Necro's can solo every story dungeon in the game fairly easily and many of the explorable paths, they don't need a group most of the time.
They can also solo a good chunk of fractals as well, even up to T3's possibly even T4's if you are very skilled at the game.
And they are the kings of open world PvE soloing.

Necro's are awesome, always have been.. it's the players attitudes towards them that are largely at fault which is certainly not a new thing for the Guidlwars franchise, specially in Gw2 where too many people only care about how much DPS something does.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Teratus.2859

[Tren.5120]

On 4/4/2022 at 5:48 AM, Teratus.2859 said:

Sounds like you drank the meta coolaid lol

Necro has always been grossly underestimated by a lot of players and this same thing happened in Gw1 back in the day as well.
It has always been better than people give it credit for.

One good Scourge can still carry a whole raid or strike group and function as a group safety net.
Reapers and core necros can even fill that role in 5 man group content albeit not as good as a Scourge can.

Necro's can solo every story dungeon in the game fairly easily and many of the explorable paths, they don't need a group most of the time.
They can also solo a good chunk of fractals as well, even up to T3's possibly even T4's if you are very skilled at the game.
And they are the kings of open world PvE soloing.

Necro's are awesome, always have been.. it's the players attitudes towards them that are largely at fault which is certainly not a new thing for the Guidlwars franchise, specially in Gw2 where too many people only care about how much DPS something does.

Necro was fairly mediocre in Launch GW2, and Reaper wasn't exactly great HoT, though it could carry due to some utility (like Rezzes and such).  Scourge came in Path of Fire, and it's practically a hybrid DPS/Support build.  The support side + Epidemic is why Scourge is so valued.  Remove that, and it drops right down to mediocrity.  Imagine if Epidemic never existed, as well...

This is why Harbinger is always going to have a hard time displacing Scourge in PvE content, barring some targeted nerfs (or buffs to Reaper and/or Harbinger) to "level things off."

Core Necro isn't good - outside of PvP.

As far as being "Kings of Open World Solo," I think Revenant stole that off Necro the second it was put into the game.  They solo the same content, except with higher damage and superior buffage.  They're also better in small groups than Necro, as they bring a lot more value to the table, unless you rely on the Necro Rezes.  I never play my Necro when duoing/trioing with IRL friends.  It brings nothing to the table compared to my Revenant, and I am not here for micromanaging sand shades.

The thing about Necro (particularly Core/Reaper) is that it seems a lot better the less experience the player has.  The HP Pool and some of its utility can carry less experienced players in areas of the game where they would fail on professions that require them to have more proficiency at playing the game.  Not jumping over a wave hurts a Necro a lot less than it hurts an Elementalist, for example.  This is why a lot of players gravitate towards it.

I think as they gain more experience, this starts to drop off and you see them spending more time on other professions.

I played Necro EXCLUSIVELY from Launch GW2 up to End of Dragons launch.  For Open World stuff, my Revenant is superior in almost every way, and I am certainly enjoying it more.  Aside from getting the eSpec filled out and finishing the EoD story, I have barely touched my Necro since the expansion launched.

I wish Reaper used dual Swords or something.  The slow GS attack speed feels like a Depressant.  I have a hard time enjoying playing it.  Everything about it feels too sluggish unless I'm in Reaper's Shroud.

I got tired of micromanaging sand shades on Scourge, which really was never what I would have wanted from ranged caster eSpec, anyways.

To me, the Revenant actually feels more like a Necro than my Necro does.  I am loving it.

I have better things to do than solo obsolete story dungeons.  I'd rather log into ESO where this kind of content is actually worth playing, and people actually want to play it with you.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Tren.5120
Formatting...

[AlCapwnd.7834]

On 3/15/2022 at 10:30 AM, Wintermute.5408 said:

This thread brought to you by pure 🧂🧂🧂

Necro has been historically garbage in endgame PVE, for almost entirety of the game's life time.

In vanilla, it was absolutely worthless. No buffs, no boons, no combo fields, no damage. If you mained necro in vanilla, you were automatically excluded from endgame content of the time, and got kicked from dungeon runs literally on sight. I swear, out of 3 dungeon runs total I managed to pull off back in the day, all 3 were because people assumed I was a girl. Yay human female meta.

In HoT, it was garbage. The fact that Reaper was seen as massive improvement by necro community, while still remaining absolutely worthless by any PVE metric, should tell you enough. Since HoT release, over the course of literal years, Reaper managed to heroically claw its way from "absolute trash" to "one of the worst power specs in the game". What a crowning achievement of class balance. Now it got nerfed, because of course it did.

In PoF, it was broken. Scourge on release proudly claimed the title of "the most bugged piece of kitten ever". Over the course of a few weeks post release it established itself as best condi spec in the game, best power spec in the game (yes, power Scourge was a thing), then got nerfed into the ground, and THEN got bugfixed into absolute non-viability. The only thing it had of value by the end of that ride was Epidemic, which, naturally, got nerfed in the process. It took several years for torment change to arrive, and give condi Scourge competitive damage numbers by what I can only assume to be an oversight on anets side. Scourge became viable, for less than a year. Obviously, it had to get nerfed. Together with epidemic, again, because kitten you for playing necro.

There was also a "support" Scourge. It was deemed not worthy of having ANY useful boon support capacity, for reasons really obvious to anybody maining that cursed class. It was allowed though to have a little bit of uniqueness, in having absolute trash healing capacity, yet providing barriers alongside. Which was a novel concept in the day, and had its place in endgame PVE for damage prevention. Obviously it had to be nerfed on EOD release, new barrier numbers with healing gear barely able to reach old barrier numbers without. However, what is really great about class balance in EOD, is appearance of Mechanist, who is able to properly heal, provide HIGHER barrier numbers than heal scourge, while giving an array of boons and alac. With an absolutely braindead mech doing most of the job. Hurray.

And now we get Harbinger, trading away all of the necro survivability (which got nerfed anyway for the other necros). Being literally the worst quickness option you can take in the slot, with neither utility nor damage other quickness classes provide. However, by what I can only assume to be a bug, DPS Harbinger is able to deal high DPS (not the highest though). I humbly ask anet to investigate that unfortunate bug, and bring Harbinger damage numbers in line with something like 20k DPS, to keep the necro theme of being a class for masochists going.

TLDR: I really don't know why I even bother for so long -_-

I main Scourge in ALL end game content (raids,Strikes,Fractals) and do not have a problem getting in groups. Now certain classes do more DPS (condi FB for example) but I can hang with them in most encounters. Then you have Heal Scourge. The ULTIMATE SAVIOR for groups that feed. You dont just have to play scourge either. Reaper is preferred in some scenarios and does good enough Power DPS again not the best. But good enough. Im tinkering with Harbebe but have not found it as easy to play as scourge and the damage increase is barely noticeable.  

[Wintermute.5408]

I think I made it pretty clear that this was a salt post. Salt I had stored up over years since vanilla of maining necro, clawing through all forms of PVE endgame on it, and spending at least 5 years searching for good pants skin for her because by grenth, most light armor pants look silly on a self-respecting professional necromancer.

Yes, scourge is acceptable nowadays. Quite decent, in fact. It even retains a shred of survivability, being full ranged. But, now that epi is finally put into the ground, it's just another DPS. Nothing uniqe to them. A dime a dozen. If you can confidently play any of the 40k+ DPS specs, you should and you'll be better off. That's not a theoretical number either. I actually feel the increase of speed in fractals whenever a competent willbender joins.

Heal scrouge was always iffy. Yes, I play it too. No, it can't carry raids as hard as people pretend. Some bosses - absolutely. On others it's useless, on several few downright harmful to try and rez people with it, and it's nothing your resident ranger/guard/even DPS scourge can't do with signets and stuff. The only universally useful thing hsc had is being a barrier healer. It's terribly, and I mean TERRIBLY outclassed at that role by mechanist. There's simply no competition, and with amount of raw heals and utility mecha can bring, chances are people won't die to begin with.

Reaper is probably the worst power spec you can run in endgame PVE now. Mind you, not at golem - in actual fights. It used to be simply one of the worst, after a process of literally non-stop buffing from its release. The nerf to shroud absorption now is crippling, and the pathetic joke of vitality from bot core doesn't even begin making up for it. While it has CC, it often can't apply it fast enough, and relies on braindead and occasionally harmful minion for big chunk of it. Just as with scourge, if you're able to play any other power DPS class, you should and you'll be better off for it. Except this time it's literally any other class.

Quickness harb is trash. The thread was made a few hours before catalyst got axed off, so maybe it's worse. A moment of silence for our spiritual brothers at ele forums. Still, harb can't compete with proper quick supporters, at anything. It deals about as much damage as quickness firebrand - yet so much less.

I don't want to play a DPS all the time. I want to fill as heal, without hearing "oh, sorry, we don't need healscourge". I want to fill as boon support. I want to bring something unique maybe. Yet necro is systematically negated those things, over and over, being left to bottom feed as a noob class able to carry noobs at its possible best, while other classes get boons and utility in wild abundance. Used to be we were even negated damage because "hurr you're necro have your kittening shroud". Even harb can't have nice things, like at least access to utility skills in its kitten shroud. And I'm genuinely concerned that harb will end up nerfed too for some inane reason, as usual.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Wintermute.5408

[Tren.5120]

35 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

I think I made it pretty clear that this was a salt post. Salt I had stored up over years since vanilla of maining necro, clawing through all forms of PVE endgame on it, and spending at least 5 years searching for good pants skin for her because by grenth, most light armor pants look silly on a self-respecting professional necromancer.

Yes, scourge is acceptable nowadays. Quite decent, in fact. It even retains a shred of survivability, being full ranged. But, now that epi is finally put into the ground, it's just another DPS. Nothing uniqe to them. A dime a dozen. If you can confidently play any of the 40k+ DPS specs, you should and you'll be better off. That's not a theoretical number either. I actually feel the increase of speed in fractals whenever a competent willbender joins.

Heal scrouge was always iffy. Yes, I play it too. No, it can't carry raids as hard as people pretend. Some bosses - absolutely. On others it's useless, on several few downright harmful to try and rez people with it, and it's nothing your resident ranger/guard/even DPS scourge can't do with signets and stuff. The only universally useful thing hsc had is being a barrier healer. It's terribly, and I mean TERRIBLY outclassed at that role by mechanist. There's simply no competition, and with amount of raw heals and utility mecha can bring, chances are people won't die to begin with.

Reaper is probably the worst power spec you can run in endgame PVE now. Mind you, not at golem - in actual fights. It used to be simply one of the worst, after a process of literally non-stop buffing from its release. The nerf to shroud absorption now is crippling, and the pathetic joke of vitality from bot core doesn't even begin making up for it. While it has CC, it often can't apply it fast enough, and relies on braindead and occasionally harmful minion for big chunk of it. Just as with scourge, if you're able to play any other power DPS class, you should and you'll be better off for it. Except this time it's literally any other class.

Quickness harb is trash. The thread was made a few hours before catalyst got axed off, so maybe it's worse. A moment of silence for our spiritual brothers at ele forums. Still, harb can't compete with proper quick supporters, at anything. It deals about as much damage as quickness firebrand - yet so much less.

I don't want to play a DPS all the time. I want to fill as heal, without hearing "oh, sorry, we don't need healscourge". I want to fill as boon support. I want to bring something unique maybe. Yet necro is systematically negated those things, over and over, being left to bottom feed as a noob class able to carry noobs at its possible best, while other classes get boons and utility in wild abundance. Used to be we were even negated damage because "hurr you're necro have your kittening shroud". Even harb can't have nice things, like at least access to utility skills in its kitten shroud. And I'm genuinely concerned that harb will end up nerfed too for some inane reason, as usual.

Necro was doomed when it was given that HP pool, as it has been paying a tax for that everywhere else since the game was released.

And it's unlikely to be recalibrated, now that they've added Harbinger with Blight mechanics.  That doesn't work as well when you start decreasing the HP pool of the profession, so they've effectively signaled that their plan for the profession moving forwards will never change.

I'm pretty meh on it.  This game is ez mode when it comes to character progression, and pretty much everything anyways...  I only play it here and there and after expansion launches because it doesn't have a subscription.  After I finish my Turtle mount - which seems borderline impossible with how dead the EoD maps already seem to be (Jade Maw hardly ever having more than 2-4 people, which is a guaranteed fail), I'll be quitting until next expansion launch to play ESO and FPS games...

I can't be bothered to complain [much] about class balance in a game that makes it so easy to reroll 😛 

[Obtena.7952]

Salt thread or not, if your mindset is that you have to play 'optimal' or 'meta' or whatever self-imposed restrictions you apply to your game choices to play with exclusive teams, then this game experience is not limited to necro and it's spec designs. It's a higher level consideration about how people choose to play. 

Here is the turn around: Anet is FINALLY acknowledging a pseudo-roles based teaming structure. THAT is the platform you have to wrap your head around if you want to play necro in those exclusive teams. 

The good part of that: we know what spec they intend to push in those roles for the different classes. Therefore, you can make LOGICAL arguments about why that spec in that role is deficient (FINALLY) compared to other specs in those roles. 

It remains to be seen how DPS on non-role builds factors into the balancing of those non-role team spots. My guess is that it won't because unless we see rage timers in CM content, there isn't a barrier to completing Strikes with some minimum of aggregate team DPS.

In otherwords, if your complaint is that DPS necro builds have 'low' DPS and you can't get into some teams with them, then the situation is no different than it was for the last 9 years. Choose your teams better. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Wintermute.5408]

Oh yes, Obtena and her unfailing wisdom. I'm not doing that -_-

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Oh yes, Obtena and her unfailing wisdom. I'm not doing that -_-

You just did ... 😆

I mean, you admit this is a salt thread.  We don't need those. What we need are threads where people are making suggestions for improvement inline with the direction of the game. The direction of class balance is CLEARLY based on the roles aspect right now. If it's also based on DPS non-role spots, that's yet to be seen.

Nothing stops you from playing how you want except your own choices. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 4/4/2022 at 5:48 AM, Teratus.2859 said:

Sounds like you drank the meta coolaid lol

Necro has always been grossly underestimated by a lot of players and this same thing happened in Gw1 back in the day as well.
It has always been better than people give it credit for.

One good Scourge can still carry a whole raid or strike group and function as a group safety net.
Reapers and core necros can even fill that role in 5 man group content albeit not as good as a Scourge can.

Necro's can solo every story dungeon in the game fairly easily and many of the explorable paths, they don't need a group most of the time.
They can also solo a good chunk of fractals as well, even up to T3's possibly even T4's if you are very skilled at the game.
And they are the kings of open world PvE soloing.

Necro's are awesome, always have been.. it's the players attitudes towards them that are largely at fault which is certainly not a new thing for the Guidlwars franchise, specially in Gw2 where too many people only care about how much DPS something does.

 

Finally some damned sense in this thread.

Even people complaining about raids are basically full of nonsense because 99.9% of this game isn't playing at a skill level where it matters.

When my guild did their first raids, they literally ran 6 to 10 necros and beat a good chunk of them first try.  They weren't even close to setting speed records, but the content was cleared without much hassle.

The class only has a slight drop in DPS because its offensive utility is insane.  It's why necro is almost always problematic in the PvP modes, ESPECIALLY scourge.

[Asum.4960]

I'd agree that Necro has been underestimated for much of the game's lifetime (primarily Scourge), but that didn't happen for no reason - but exactly because it's not always been good. 

Core Necro has pretty much always been downright trash in organized PvE (and it still is to this day), and iirc it used to be a joke even in PvP for years, with Reaper being considered pretty much an universal upgrade at it's time. 

That was a good 3 years of the games formative years in which Necromancer was sheer universal grounds for kicking and flaming in groups (maybe WvW aside), with it taking around half a decade before mentality very slowly started to shift as the Profession gained in viability - especially with Elite Specs, and even Core in competitive. 

 

People who joined GW2 or started playing Necro after that time might think that the Profession always had a place, but that certainly wasn't the case. 

 

1 hour ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

When my guild did their first raids, they literally ran 6 to 10 necros and beat a good chunk of them first try.  They weren't even close to setting speed records, but the content was cleared without much hassle.

In guilds/static Groups you can do just about anything. You can stack 10 Power Devastation Revs and pretty much just auto attack through almost all Raids, Strikes and Fractals without much hassle - that doesn't mean that's a good or, in a community sense in terms of pugging, viable way to tackle the content though. 

 

I don't think anyone can seriously claim Necro to be in a bad spot in the last year or two (and community sentiment holding it back aside, probably even the last 5), but I certainly get the lingering salt from the PoV of veteran players.