What race pairs well with the Necromancer profession?

[Thalanox.7281]

Right now I'm torn between going with a human female to remake my old GW1 character in GW2, or going with Asura specifically because the "Minion" page on the wiki has the line "This one's kinda cute" on the list of lines the character might say, and that seemed a bit funny to me.

 

Can someone with a better grasp on the lore of the setting and the use of the racial skills weigh in on what race might be best suited to synergize with Necromancer? 

 

For whatever it's worth, I'm aiming to mostly spend my time with PvE, and only occasionally dip a toe in PvP stuff. I also think that I want to experiment with minions, specifically, but of course I haven't played the class yet, so I don't know how well that would go.

[draxynnic.3719]

From a lore perspective, they both work.

On the human side of things, there is some anti-necromancer prejudice due to the number of times human realms have been assailed by undead (rogue necromancers, Khilbron, Joko, Risen) and because people are wigged out a bit by the idea of they or their loved ones being animated by undead. However, Grenth's patronage of necromancers means this can really only go so far. There's superstition and distrust among the uneducated, but formal prejudice at the government level would be directly opposing the will of one of the gods. 

Asura pragmatically view necromancy as just another form of magic. Oola claims that necromancy and golemancy are destined to collide (although in practice the actual golem spec went to engineer). I think mesmers and elementalists might be more common among asura because they're more able to contribute to a variety of magitech, but asura necromancers are still going to be fairly common.

When it comes to racial skills:

Largely, it really doesn't matter. Racial skills have been left behind enough that you'd really only ever use them for flavour nowadays - if one ever becomes relevant in endgame content, it'll get nerfed. Human racials are each themed around one of the gods, so there's only one that really fits: Reaper of Grenth is somewhat decent while it's up for a melee condi necro, and on a necro there are some trait interactions with the chill it applies, but its 15s/180s uptime means you're probably better off using Plaguelands or Lich Form. Asura have the potential to lean into the necromancy/golemancy connection by summoning golems... but a golem only sticks around for so long while a flesh golem is forever (unless it dies from damage, anyway, and even then it's a relatively short period before you can summon another). Racial utilities are based around magitech devices - once you're level 80 you'll probably find the necromancer utilities to be more useful, but while you're still unlocking your skills during levelling, dropping a Radiation Field or a Pain Inverter would be entirely in character.

 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Human race is the best fit.

Lore wise humans are in dire straights with heavy losses taken from war with Centaurs and the Charr, while their gods are gone who knows where and for how long. At the same time they don't have any clear racial advantages like others do, such as Charr having physical and technological advantage, Asuras having insane intelligence, Sylvari shared memory or Norns being basically one man army each.

With that state of things, fighting fair is outta the question. Humans need to fight smart in ways that minimize casualties and get the job done despite lacking in physical prowess, technology or flat out both depending on enemy.

To this end Thieves, Mesmers, Guardians and also Necromancers are professions best fit for humans. Each does it differently, but embodies the "fight smart" principle. Something human personal story attests to.

Thieves don't bother fighting fair, Guardians have great ability to protect self and others, so just slab more of these together and you get a very effective army (the Seraph), Mesmers are no rare occurance in upper echelons of Krytan Society.
And there are the less seen but powerful Necromancers. Outside of letting the dead to the fighting for them and frequent usage of curses, poisons and other means to debilitated enemies, as Humans they get the rare racial advantage of having the God of Death on their side, something other race's necromancers have to do without...

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Well the Necromancer splash art all uses Asura and Ankka was a harbinger in story. 

[draxynnic.3719]

I don't think it's fair to say humans have no clear advantages. It's not in-game AFAIK so it might have been forgotten, but it has been stated in the past that humans and asura have a different approach to magic, where humans have a more intuitive affinity that allows them to do things that the more scientifically-minded asura can't. This goes both ways, mind you, but humans seem to be having success at muscling in on asura strengths (with things like watchknights and jadetech). Their situation, both in absolute and relative terms, has been looking up - they have a truce with the charr, the White Mantle are gone and the centaurs on the back hoof, Elona has been liberated, the charr warmongers lost the Dominion war, and contact has been restored with Cantha.

 

Profession-wise, thieves, guardians, and mesmers do seem to be regularly common among humans, but not for the reasons you say. Thieves are common because human society is at least somewhat urbanised and has high inequality. Guardian was invented by humans relatively recently, so you'd expect them to be highly prevalent among humans, and there are two human-affiliated organisations that make heavy usage of mesmer magic as well as mesmers being popular among nobility and valued by the Seraph for portals.

The typical rank-and-file Seraph is still most likely to be a Warrior, however. And I've seen no evidence of humans having a special affinity for necromancy in GW2 beyond the Grenth connection (apart from Joko's forces, anyway). Ascalon used to have a necromancer equivalent of the Mesmer Collective in GW1, but I've seen no evidence that's still around. I think the only playable group that really favours necromancers over other spellcasters is the Ash Legion, strange as that might seem.

Human is still a good choice as I discussed previously, mind you, as is asura (or a Raven-following norn - they're uncommon among Dream sylvari, but there's also no prejudice). But I haven't seen anything to indicate that they have a special presence in Kryta, and there's a discussion in Ghosts of Ascalon that indicates there is some distrust of necromancy in Kryta.

[Buran.3796]

I would say that from a lore perspective the races fit to the Necromancer profession in this order: Asura > Human >  Norn >  Silvari > Charr.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/2/2023 at 1:41 AM, Buran.3796 said:

I would say that from a lore perspective the races fit to the Necromancer profession in this order: Asura > Human >  Norn >  Silvari > Charr.

If you exclude the Ash Legion, that probably fits. Ash has a lot of necromancers - the Doylist explanation being that the charr necromancers in GW1 tended to have ash-related names, so it makes sense that they came from Ash rather that Flame. Pay close attention to generic Ash Legion NPCs, and you'll see a lot of them are using necromancer dagger skills (although thief is naturally more common).

[Buran.3796]

  ^ Shamans of the Flame Legion (and then from others) acepting magic from the Titans to fight humans and their deities ended in the Flame Legion becoming the ruling cast for a long and traumatic period which not only marginalizad female Charr from the battlefield but also culminated in the Foefire curse than since then plaged Ascalon lands with the phantoms of the humans.

   That instigate a rebellion which defeated the Flame Legion and since then Charr earned a ingrained distrut for magic. The most representative traits of the Charr culture are their orientation to war, in the form of Warriors, Engineers and their war machines their spies. Of course you can justify any choice, but lore wise a Charr spell caster in the modern Charr society should be as rare as a Guardian or Engineer Norn.

[Raught.3294]

Personally I feel like Sylvari has the most ties to necromancer at this point. Your a curious meat-eating plant person that has no concept of death or how meat, flesh, and blood works. And a lot of their storylines deal with existentialism.

 

There's other reasons too but they would be spoilers. 

 

 

Second races would be Human, Charr, and Asura in that order.

 

Humans worship Grenth

 

Charr fight ghosts on a daily basis so most bands of charr military know how to combat the dead and implement necromancy into their combat. 

 

Asura necromancer seem to be pretty rare. Outside of the splash art and Oola, they really don't have much dialogue regarding necromancy and seem to lean more toward Elementalists and Engineers.

 

 

Be that as it may though, Gw2 was designed in the mind that all races can be all classes, so pick the one you like the most. It won't affect anything but your own Head Cannon.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/4/2023 at 6:10 AM, Buran.3796 said:

  ^ Shamans of the Flame Legion (and then from others) acepting magic from the Titans to fight humans and their deities ended in the Flame Legion becoming the ruling cast for a long and traumatic period which not only marginalizad female Charr from the battlefield but also culminated in the Foefire curse than since then plaged Ascalon lands with the phantoms of the humans.

   That instigate a rebellion which defeated the Flame Legion and since then Charr earned a ingrained distrut for magic. The most representative traits of the Charr culture are their orientation to war, in the form of Warriors, Engineers and their war machines their spies. Of course you can justify any choice, but lore wise a Charr spell caster in the modern Charr society should be as rare as a Guardian or Engineer Norn.

And yet, if you look at what's in-game, one of the generic Ash Legion NPC builds is necromancer, suggesting that it's fairly common in that legion at least. Some of the subtleties of the game's lore are not what's written out but in what is observed in-game. You've given the general viewpoint across all three playable legions towards all forms of magic, without considering that the most secretive of the three, which was possibly the legion that used necromancy all along (even if it was probably at a less developed level before the Titans), and whose tactics are often less conducive to hauling heavy artillery around, might have a different attitude to one or two specific schools.

Seriously, find an event where you have Ash Legion allies and pay close attention to what they're doing. You'll probably catch the odd Spy siphoning blood from their enemy.

Sometimes, the specific overcomes the general.

Edited January 5, 2023 by draxynnic.3719