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3 more months at being at bottom of benchmark

Shadowmoon.7986

By Shadowmoon.7986
in Necromancer

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Dace.8173

Dace.8173

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@Axl.8924 said:

@"Aetatis.5418" said:"balance" ... a "perfectly balanced game"

lets throw in some discussion material.

His discussion of perfect imbalance is very similar to my comments about it not being possible to achieve a perfect balance thus you work towards a level of imbalance that people feel is acceptable.

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dace.8173 said:So what do the other professions do that is unique to just them?

Aside from that I'm not sure ANet is 100% at fault here. I do not think they will ever balance a profession based on benchmark tests. They are really an incomplete look at the overall balance picture. I think the mindset of the players needs to be accounted for. I think it's clear that the playerbase is making the choice to not include Necromancers and if the only way to get a seat at the table is to be unique in a way that only you are unique at then there really isn't much that ANet can do at this time to fix that problem. Perhaps in another expansion when they bring out a new Elite that possibles offers something new for Necro players to be good at but right now I think Necromancer is stuck with the tools that it has and increases to DPS likely won't solve that problem as it is highly unlikely that it would be increased to a level that makes them unique.

If being unique IS necessary, the only area I can see that happening is for the downed state and rezzing. Not much to work with there since no one plays to be downed, but it's not out of the question that Anet modify some current content to make that happen. I'm still not convinced a class needs a unique, strong skill to come to the table ... I would take a class that does it all at 90% before I would take a class that does one thing at 100%. I think the 'unique=meta' argument is a illogical hypothesis.

Well, my question is an honest question. While I may think that being unique is a requirement or shouldn't be a requirement since the people who feel that Necromancer sucks feel it is I want to understand what they see as unique from the other 8 professions that make those professions better than Necromancer. I personally don't think that there are really all that many things to be uniquely different at. So if the problem is that they suck because they don't have enough DPS and they aren't unique then what do the other 8 bring to the table that Necromancer can't and that no one else can replace either. Afterall, there is very little chance if ever that anyone is going to dethrone Elementalist as top DSP.

@Vayne.8563 said:I'm interested that people think that balancing has anything at all to do with benchmarks. The logic of this is mind boggling.

It has. At least for pve. If you can't bring anything to the group. No buffs, no dmg, not the ability to be a real good tank on your own, you are useless to the group.

Benchmarks are a community way of saying that in perfect conditions this particular profession can achieve this much damage. It says nothing about stuff like survivability.

The percentage of the game's population that use or know about those benchmarks is probably pretty small, as is the percentage of the game that raids. So if 15% of the game's population raid, and 12% of that population are necros, this affects a pretty small group of people by and large. The game isn't going to be balanced around that.

As you point out. Open world players wouldn't mind, if necro is viable in raids and does therefore more DPS. They wouldn't even notice it, if necro did more dmg. But the players that do actually care are not allowed to raid, because of the majority of the people that don't even care?

I know in other formats of the game, besides raiding, the necro seems to be fairly popular, so maybe the benchmark isn't the be all end all of balancing, and probably isn't much considered.

Devs are not standing in front of a practice dummy perfecting their rotations, and nor is probably 90% of the game's population. The balance isn't done for one specific demographic, no matter how loud that demographic is.

Sure wvw and PvP needs another balance than pve, that's why anet should skillsplit more than what they actually do.

Okay so let's flip this script, because you're not really getting what I'm saying.

Let's say that every profession did the same damage. Everyone has a benchmark that's identical. Then there is no trade off to taking the most survivable character and that character becomes the first choice of people who care about efficiency over say flavor. People take the necro now, often, because it's easy to play, survive, solo the open world and farm. The trade off is it doesn't kill as fast as other classes, but people are okay with that because they don't die. It's the trade off of the class.

Sure they wouldn't care if it's the most powerful but that doesn't mean the game as a whole wouldn't suffer. There are plenty of necros running around farming the open world now. Once you triple it, the game changes profoundly. People wouldn't want to play other professions. They'd complain I don't want to play a necro but it's better in every way. That's not the way the game works.

You're making the argument that PvE'ers wouldn't care if the necro did more damage and retained the same survivability. Raiders wouldn't care. Other -people would likely care. Anet would certainly care. Regardless of that I'd care. Every profession has to have basic strengths and weaknesses. The necro has a lot of strengths. It's weakness is killing stuff slower.

Do you really wanna argue about necro strength and weaknesses?

Pve-view:Cons:-Lacks DPS (for raids)-Only has sustain with minions (irrelevant for raids)-Can't get healed while in shroud (ds and rs)-No real mobility-No defense (other than a little bit of barrier and shroud which you also need to do dmg)-Weak to cc-scalings are bad(esp the ones that scale with healpower suck)-offers no boon support or unique buff (yes i don't count VP)-delay on class mechanic

Pros:-Can corrupt boons (well other classes do that way better)-can give small barriers to allies (well 2k is just a joke)-the fastest rezzer in the game (well in good groups irrelevant because they shouldn't go down)-healthy amount of cc-can remove conditions from allies

Let's go for PvP/wvw-view (mainly wvw)Pros:-good dmg dealer, not optimal but okay (high burst potential as reaper or as scourge)-barriers (even without healpower they stack good if you stack scourges
  • can remove conditions from allies
  • corrupts (main boon remove is still warrior)-healthpool-ae dmg

Cons:-no mobility-No blocks-no evades other than the two dodges
  • no invincibility
  • -low amount of armor due to cloth armor
  • highly dependant on support from other in order to survive
  • can't get healed in shroud (rs/ds)
  • Long casttimes on most of the skills
  • weak to long range attacks
  • weak to cc
  • delay on class mechanic

Do this list for other classes and you will see, that they have way less weaknesses than necro

In raids necro isn't much more tanky than all the other classes, due to a lot of mechanix that do %dmg or even oneshot.

You simply don't get it. Probably half the population of this game doesn't raid, or do dungeons or fractals or any group content at all, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less. They're not judging this based on your personal theory on what's important in a game. I'm in the open world all the time pretty much and I see necros pretty much everywhere. Are you telling that that necros aren't a thing in WvW, because I can assure you they are. They have a strong role in WvW, in fact. Are you saying you don't see necros in PvP, because I do.

Not playing that kitten gamemode called spvp, that only kids play. But aside that.I never said necro is bad in wvw. Right now it does get outclassed by other classes, but it's not bad.

But for pve i assume u don't get it not i.Even if it's only 5% of the people playing raids. Necro should be an option there.But guess what. It's not.So if you don't care and all the other people playing open world would also not care if necro would do like 3-5k more DPS on that golem.Most of those people wouldn't even notice that necro suddenly does more dmg with the optimum buffs.I'm speaking of a buff only for pve. You know, the thing they introduced called skill split.

The point is with all the supposed this class can't do anything, it's probably one of the most popular professions. It obviously has to have something, like you know, maybe a second health bar that you can run to to keep yourself alive? Or a bunch of minions to take some aggro off of you. All the things you list change nothing I've said. Not one single thing.

Skill split again. And are you really arguing with that .Second health at is kitten argument, same as minions. Second health at yes, but necro has no other ways of dmg mitigation.And i really think they should patch out minions.The big reason: remove afk farm from necroSecond reason: remove afk brain-dead Playstyle.I think it should make a video where i only summon minions to play through the story. I think that might work. And i can even go afk while playing.

Unless you think necros aren't over-represented in the population as a whole, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Not every profession is going to be great at everything and necros aren't great at raiding. But they are good for farming, solo, PvP and WvW. Dropping your marks on a bridge, or against a wall to get the guys behind the door and keep them away...it's a thing you know.

Just like some months ago there was a cake diagram. That showed which professions are played the most. If i remember correctly guard was number 1 and ranger number 2

Your logical reasoning is belied by the number of necros in every single area of the game, except perhaps raids. Making them also more powerful isn't going to make the rest of the game better.

I'm not speaking about numbers in gamemodes. Or maybe yes i do.Zero necros in raids is kitten.

But that's the whole point. Making them more powerful in pve only.

Necros can raid. They simply aren't going to balance the entire class around benchmarks, period full stop and it's ridiculous to expect them too. Not unless they balance raid stuff separately from everything else in the game, which is unlikely to happen.

I get it. You're a necro, you think you can't raid and the community backs you up on it, even though some necros do manage to raid. If you're looking for the most efficient run, and that's all you want, it's not acceptable to you. You guys don't exist in enough numbers, in my opinion, to make changed to balance based on your needs. It's just a business decision at the end of the day.

are you even trying to create a cogent argument and this is all you came up with? Or do you actually think this logic is logical? One could say exactly the same of any class and regardless of the mathematical reality if the community on whole will not take a certain class it sort of destroys your argument. this game is not just driven by stats and class it is largely driven by the attitudes of those playing.

This is not a skill issue either it is an issue of Anet learning to appropriately balance the game they have created around their own motto's for said game.

you are actually making an argument for ANET to do something about it here.

That's a complete valid argument ... especially considering he's making reasonable arguments against people making sensational statements. The fault in your statement is that you are assuming Anet is still 'learning to appropriately balance the game'. I guess it never occurred to you they aren't even trying to do that. It's beyond your consideration that the range in DPS benchmarks is reasonable to them and when it isn't, we know they do something about it. So ... in short, what we have isn't actually too far off from where Anet probably wants it.

Necros can and do raid, and any idea that there is a GAME limitation that prevents them from doing so is ridiculous. It's not a function of their DPS benchmark. It's a function of who people play with.

Try again your are completely misreading what I am saying. You are actually in agreement with me and read this backwards... we actually both feel the same about this :)

it is indeed a function of people, the issue on ANETS end is there inability to create a more stable balance in this game in general. Which so many years later should not be so problematic each time they issue a balance patch. Small moves.

Actually, game balance is an extremely problematic thing. The more factions you have the harder it becomes to balance. Even something as small as 9 is terribly difficult. I have not really played very many games where perfect balance was achieved. This includes video games, table top rpgs, and even CCG/LCG/Minis. Thus ANet not having better balance is not a unique problem that plagues them but a problem that seems to arise in any activity of this nature. So while you think it should not be problematic the greater bulk of gaming life across the board seems to indicate otherwise.

It's the leading reason why there is always a bottom that someone is always going to occupy. It is also a strong reason why a single group remains stuck at the bottom once they've hit it, it is easier to fall from grace than it is to rise from the ashes. Personally, I've found the games that simple just say they don't care about balance issues to be more fun as they are actually open and honest about it all.

The problem is the difference between top and bottom a minor difference in damage from top to bottom is one thing but if its a huge number then it becomes a big deal.its like the difference between falling from a small ledge and jumping off the empire state building.Also:What you can bring to the team is also a big deal.If you cannot offer much to the group at all that others can do better, then its bad.I don't think necros should necessarily dominate dps, but at the very least offer something in a good enough quantity to be desired, like buffs and stuff.In other MMOs like everquest, there are similar issues:Rogues for instance do less dps than other melees and offer little to no stuff to compensate.Rogues feel like they should do more dmg because they offer no support, but even then i think other classes would be taken over rogues unless rogues were overpowered, unlike monks who offer ability to tank and pull.

I think the same thing applies to necromancers in guild wars 2:The solution is to buff their shield thingies and buffs so that at the very least they got something of value of support.

Also i think i understand what obtenna is on about:asthetics and playstyle?

A lot do play for the lets call it:flavor but a lot of people play whatever is the strongest, even if that isn the wrong way in my opinion to approach a class.

Yes but being able to offer enough so that a group wants to bring a Necromancer along is really subjective. Based on how this conversation has developed mostly into a discussion about DPS it is kinda sorta clear that being good enough to take on a team is really based on the whims of the players, who are obsessed with DPS output. So to a certain extent while ANet may need to offer buffs the players also need to broaden what they consider acceptable. Since Necromancer is not 100% despised across the board in other modes of the game it is clear that the issue may not 100% be about ANet needing to buff up Necromancer some. Sure they could give it some more buffs but that assumes that the rest of the gaming enviroment remains static which it won't.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:On the Point of perfect imbalance: Looking at LoL and Dota as they do in the video, yes there is imbalance in those games, but 75%+ of characters are played at all levels. When you have that many charcters thats a pretty impressive. This is because the overall usefulness of the characters is balanced, sure a support can hit like a wet noodle but it does provide something desired.

My issue with Necro in its current state, it provides nothing that another class cant do better. You want survivability, Warrior has HP, Regen, Stab and counters/ blocks for days, you want damage, warrior wins there too, you want buffing your team and valueable group support. Oh wait again warrior has got necro beat. Mechanically Warrior is a far better class, it can do more, and do it more competantly. And thats a problem.In a purely objective lense Warrior is better than necro at near everything. Ranger and Mesmer can also be far better at each of these but is atleast a little more spec dependant.

I wouldn't say Warrior is better than Necromancer at everything since there are modes of play where Necromancer is clearly better than Warrior. Also, in regards to that 75% of characters at all levels in Dota and LoL, I'm pretty sure those folks who are in the 25% category would ignore the way in which those games are fairly balanced in the same fashion that Necromancer players do. I'm pretty sure GW2 reaches that 75% mark too. So if Dota and LoL is considered balanced I would likewise say that Guild Wars 2 falls into that category. Unless Necromancer players are going to back off the idea that they are the worst profession and the only ones at the bottom.

However, I agree with Obtena, the idea that something has to be the best in order for it to be considered useful is what really holds Necromancer back more so than mechanics do. I'm willing to bet that even professions not deemed as the best would still be viable in raids (since that seems to be the thing people are focusing on in order to maintain the idea that Necromancer is the worst profession in the game) would work very well in raids if people moved away from the idea that you have to take the best of the best or not at all.

People basing it on DPS is because that is all Necro brings, and it brings less than most other specs. We have little useful support, team buffing, or healing. So what else is there dps. So to say people are focused on DPS and that its a mentality issue is ridiculous. of course they are focusing on it, its the one thing the class is meant to do, and it doesnt do it well enough to keep up with classes that dod that and more.

1)To play a moba you need to play more than 1 character, at any level of play that is atleast slightly competitive. This means that maybe your favorite character in Dota is underperforming, but you have plenty of others you can choose.2) 75% was an approximation, its actually a lot closer to 90% or more. Sure you can play any class in GW2, but there are cevats to that. You will struggle to find groups. And we can go down the rabbit hole of make your own, or find nicer people. But if a player is locked out of, or has additional barriers to content because mechanically their classes ceiling is too low, thats a problem. Sure 75% of decent specs are viable, but comparitively some vastly outpeform others. Which is bad.3) We are not back in pre HoT days where Necro is banned from Pug content, so that is progress, but why would you not want to keep making it.4) "The idea that something has to be the best in order to be considered useful" Isnt the right statement at all. I do not want Necro to have the best DPS, or the best team support. I would like it to have competitive DPS and some team support.5) carrying on from 4, Mesmer can boast to be the best team buffer, 100% quickness and alacrity, while also pumping out other boons like mad, but while doing this it also provides great CC, projectile deflection, and is the best tank. Warrior can provide the most unqiue buffs, provide great damage matching to classes without said buffing power, and still have room to also be one of the best tanks. My point from this is how can you think it makes sense for 2 classes to be the best at multiple things and still keep up with classes that provide none of the additional support. The only solace is that atleast druid is dont fairly right, it is the best at healing, but is the worst for dps. Which is a fair trade off.6) As for people moving away from being optimal. that is an issue in itself. First because people want to be quick, best reward for the amount of time you spent grinding. or at the other end of the spectrum you have limited time you get to play you cant be waiting for your 7 heal spec druids to dps down a boss. Following from this, if you made all end game content accessible to any build then it would be trivialised for optimised ones. So players setting requirements for content makes sense. It is infact required. You want to do CM 99 fractal you need to kill your clone in time or everyone wipes, so to some extent the game puts a hard limit on.

Well, see that's the problem by saying it needs to be DPS you have automatically created a criteria that means the Necromancer is going to be bad because Necromancer will never be as good at DPS as Elementalist. Choosing to highlight DPS is a mentality issue because in other modes of play Necromancer clearly brings things to the table in other aspects such as support through boon corruption. I have also seen nothing from ANet that indicates that Necromancer was meant to do DPS. Based on how the profession was designed I really don't think ANet had being the best at DPS in mind. Thus we return to it being a player mentality issue. I have some serious doubts that when ANet balances Necromancer that they aren't doing so based on DPS output.
  1. Ok, but I really wasn't talking about that.
  2. Oh, yeah no I got that it was an approximation. It still doesn't change what I said though.
  3. Oh yeah progress is great. And continued progress is good. I'm speaking about the doom and gloom though. The constant insistence that Necromancer is the worst of the worst to the point of actually fighting for the right to be at the bottom.
  4. Maybe you don't, but a lot of other people in this thread clearly do. I'm still waiting for those folks to list what unique aspects the other professions bring to the game that makes them the best of the best and no one else can touch them in that area. There have been arguments that Necromancer is completely useless just because it underperforms in raids even though such a mindset ignores how well they do in WvW and PvP. Which is also what I feel supports my statement that part of the problem is player mindset. In PvP and WvW you can't kick Necro players and as such they can easily prove their worth. I suspect that if Necro players couldn't be kicked out of raid teams that we would see that Necromancer is stronger than people's prejudice against the profession displays.
  5. I thought this wasn't about being the best?
  6. Yeah, I really don't think taking it to the extreme of 7 druids helps the case that Necromancer is bad and in need of buffing. Really there is no reason to jump to an extreme on that point. However player created criteria and requirements do not equate to balance. Just because the community sets up their own expectations doesn't mean that what they create fairly judges the balance of a profession. Thus a failure to meet artificially created player standards does not mean that the profession is not properly balanced. It could very well be the case that Necromancer actually is balanced but it simply just doesn't get the job done as fast as other people want. It is unlikely that ANet is ever going to balance Necromancer based on artificially created standards. They will likely balance the profession based on what their data says the profession actually performs at.

Thing is:either you provide enough offensive/defensive support/healing or you go dps.

Other games have something similar but the balance is skewed because necros got nerfed in their support stripped and nerfed in their damage.

In other games as well the top and bottom dps even if you hate wow maybe the bottom and top was balanced to be not a huge number difference.Going from 41-42k to like 28k is massive, thats 14k difference dps.I don't care what class you are the dps diffence should never be so massive.

My point, though, is that you purposely pick the area that will make you the worst to focus on. It is unlikely that Necromancer will close the DPS gap but it is possible for them to close the gap in things like support or defensive. But the focus is purely on DPS, which is an arbitrary choice which clearly indicates that it's a player mindset issue. Necromancer provides great support in PvP and WvW and I don't think it would be that hard to extend it into Raiding. It's a lot easier than DPS.

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Raizel.8175

Raizel.8175

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@Dace.8173 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Aetatis.5418" said:"balance" ... a "perfectly balanced game"

lets throw in some discussion material.

His discussion of perfect imbalance is very similar to my comments about it not being possible to achieve a perfect balance thus you work towards a level of imbalance that people feel is acceptable.

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dace.8173 said:So what do the other professions do that is unique to just them?

Aside from that I'm not sure ANet is 100% at fault here. I do not think they will ever balance a profession based on benchmark tests. They are really an incomplete look at the overall balance picture. I think the mindset of the players needs to be accounted for. I think it's clear that the playerbase is making the choice to not include Necromancers and if the only way to get a seat at the table is to be unique in a way that only you are unique at then there really isn't much that ANet can do at this time to fix that problem. Perhaps in another expansion when they bring out a new Elite that possibles offers something new for Necro players to be good at but right now I think Necromancer is stuck with the tools that it has and increases to DPS likely won't solve that problem as it is highly unlikely that it would be increased to a level that makes them unique.

If being unique IS necessary, the only area I can see that happening is for the downed state and rezzing. Not much to work with there since no one plays to be downed, but it's not out of the question that Anet modify some current content to make that happen. I'm still not convinced a class needs a unique, strong skill to come to the table ... I would take a class that does it all at 90% before I would take a class that does one thing at 100%. I think the 'unique=meta' argument is a illogical hypothesis.

Well, my question is an honest question. While I may think that being unique is a requirement or shouldn't be a requirement since the people who feel that Necromancer sucks feel it is I want to understand what they see as unique from the other 8 professions that make those professions better than Necromancer. I personally don't think that there are really all that many things to be uniquely different at. So if the problem is that they suck because they don't have enough DPS and they aren't unique then what do the other 8 bring to the table that Necromancer can't and that no one else can replace either. Afterall, there is very little chance if ever that anyone is going to dethrone Elementalist as top DSP.

@Vayne.8563 said:I'm interested that people think that balancing has anything at all to do with benchmarks. The logic of this is mind boggling.

It has. At least for pve. If you can't bring anything to the group. No buffs, no dmg, not the ability to be a real good tank on your own, you are useless to the group.

Benchmarks are a community way of saying that in perfect conditions this particular profession can achieve this much damage. It says nothing about stuff like survivability.

The percentage of the game's population that use or know about those benchmarks is probably pretty small, as is the percentage of the game that raids. So if 15% of the game's population raid, and 12% of that population are necros, this affects a pretty small group of people by and large. The game isn't going to be balanced around that.

As you point out. Open world players wouldn't mind, if necro is viable in raids and does therefore more DPS. They wouldn't even notice it, if necro did more dmg. But the players that do actually care are not allowed to raid, because of the majority of the people that don't even care?

I know in other formats of the game, besides raiding, the necro seems to be fairly popular, so maybe the benchmark isn't the be all end all of balancing, and probably isn't much considered.

Devs are not standing in front of a practice dummy perfecting their rotations, and nor is probably 90% of the game's population. The balance isn't done for one specific demographic, no matter how loud that demographic is.

Sure wvw and PvP needs another balance than pve, that's why anet should skillsplit more than what they actually do.

Okay so let's flip this script, because you're not really getting what I'm saying.

Let's say that every profession did the same damage. Everyone has a benchmark that's identical. Then there is no trade off to taking the most survivable character and that character becomes the first choice of people who care about efficiency over say flavor. People take the necro now, often, because it's easy to play, survive, solo the open world and farm. The trade off is it doesn't kill as fast as other classes, but people are okay with that because they don't die. It's the trade off of the class.

Sure they wouldn't care if it's the most powerful but that doesn't mean the game as a whole wouldn't suffer. There are plenty of necros running around farming the open world now. Once you triple it, the game changes profoundly. People wouldn't want to play other professions. They'd complain I don't want to play a necro but it's better in every way. That's not the way the game works.

You're making the argument that PvE'ers wouldn't care if the necro did more damage and retained the same survivability. Raiders wouldn't care. Other -people would likely care. Anet would certainly care. Regardless of that I'd care. Every profession has to have basic strengths and weaknesses. The necro has a lot of strengths. It's weakness is killing stuff slower.

Do you really wanna argue about necro strength and weaknesses?

Pve-view:Cons:-Lacks DPS (for raids)-Only has sustain with minions (irrelevant for raids)-Can't get healed while in shroud (ds and rs)-No real mobility-No defense (other than a little bit of barrier and shroud which you also need to do dmg)-Weak to cc-scalings are bad(esp the ones that scale with healpower suck)-offers no boon support or unique buff (yes i don't count VP)-delay on class mechanic

Pros:-Can corrupt boons (well other classes do that way better)-can give small barriers to allies (well 2k is just a joke)-the fastest rezzer in the game (well in good groups irrelevant because they shouldn't go down)-healthy amount of cc-can remove conditions from allies

Let's go for PvP/wvw-view (mainly wvw)Pros:-good dmg dealer, not optimal but okay (high burst potential as reaper or as scourge)-barriers (even without healpower they stack good if you stack scourges
  • can remove conditions from allies
  • corrupts (main boon remove is still warrior)-healthpool-ae dmg

Cons:-no mobility-No blocks-no evades other than the two dodges
  • no invincibility
  • -low amount of armor due to cloth armor
  • highly dependant on support from other in order to survive
  • can't get healed in shroud (rs/ds)
  • Long casttimes on most of the skills
  • weak to long range attacks
  • weak to cc
  • delay on class mechanic

Do this list for other classes and you will see, that they have way less weaknesses than necro

In raids necro isn't much more tanky than all the other classes, due to a lot of mechanix that do %dmg or even oneshot.

You simply don't get it. Probably half the population of this game doesn't raid, or do dungeons or fractals or any group content at all, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less. They're not judging this based on your personal theory on what's important in a game. I'm in the open world all the time pretty much and I see necros pretty much everywhere. Are you telling that that necros aren't a thing in WvW, because I can assure you they are. They have a strong role in WvW, in fact. Are you saying you don't see necros in PvP, because I do.

Not playing that kitten gamemode called spvp, that only kids play. But aside that.I never said necro is bad in wvw. Right now it does get outclassed by other classes, but it's not bad.

But for pve i assume u don't get it not i.Even if it's only 5% of the people playing raids. Necro should be an option there.But guess what. It's not.So if you don't care and all the other people playing open world would also not care if necro would do like 3-5k more DPS on that golem.Most of those people wouldn't even notice that necro suddenly does more dmg with the optimum buffs.I'm speaking of a buff only for pve. You know, the thing they introduced called skill split.

The point is with all the supposed this class can't do anything, it's probably one of the most popular professions. It obviously has to have something, like you know, maybe a second health bar that you can run to to keep yourself alive? Or a bunch of minions to take some aggro off of you. All the things you list change nothing I've said. Not one single thing.

Skill split again. And are you really arguing with that .Second health at is kitten argument, same as minions. Second health at yes, but necro has no other ways of dmg mitigation.And i really think they should patch out minions.The big reason: remove afk farm from necroSecond reason: remove afk brain-dead Playstyle.I think it should make a video where i only summon minions to play through the story. I think that might work. And i can even go afk while playing.

Unless you think necros aren't over-represented in the population as a whole, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Not every profession is going to be great at everything and necros aren't great at raiding. But they are good for farming, solo, PvP and WvW. Dropping your marks on a bridge, or against a wall to get the guys behind the door and keep them away...it's a thing you know.

Just like some months ago there was a cake diagram. That showed which professions are played the most. If i remember correctly guard was number 1 and ranger number 2

Your logical reasoning is belied by the number of necros in every single area of the game, except perhaps raids. Making them also more powerful isn't going to make the rest of the game better.

I'm not speaking about numbers in gamemodes. Or maybe yes i do.Zero necros in raids is kitten.

But that's the whole point. Making them more powerful in pve only.

Necros can raid. They simply aren't going to balance the entire class around benchmarks, period full stop and it's ridiculous to expect them too. Not unless they balance raid stuff separately from everything else in the game, which is unlikely to happen.

I get it. You're a necro, you think you can't raid and the community backs you up on it, even though some necros do manage to raid. If you're looking for the most efficient run, and that's all you want, it's not acceptable to you. You guys don't exist in enough numbers, in my opinion, to make changed to balance based on your needs. It's just a business decision at the end of the day.

are you even trying to create a cogent argument and this is all you came up with? Or do you actually think this logic is logical? One could say exactly the same of any class and regardless of the mathematical reality if the community on whole will not take a certain class it sort of destroys your argument. this game is not just driven by stats and class it is largely driven by the attitudes of those playing.

This is not a skill issue either it is an issue of Anet learning to appropriately balance the game they have created around their own motto's for said game.

you are actually making an argument for ANET to do something about it here.

That's a complete valid argument ... especially considering he's making reasonable arguments against people making sensational statements. The fault in your statement is that you are assuming Anet is still 'learning to appropriately balance the game'. I guess it never occurred to you they aren't even trying to do that. It's beyond your consideration that the range in DPS benchmarks is reasonable to them and when it isn't, we know they do something about it. So ... in short, what we have isn't actually too far off from where Anet probably wants it.

Necros can and do raid, and any idea that there is a GAME limitation that prevents them from doing so is ridiculous. It's not a function of their DPS benchmark. It's a function of who people play with.

Try again your are completely misreading what I am saying. You are actually in agreement with me and read this backwards... we actually both feel the same about this :)

it is indeed a function of people, the issue on ANETS end is there inability to create a more stable balance in this game in general. Which so many years later should not be so problematic each time they issue a balance patch. Small moves.

Actually, game balance is an extremely problematic thing. The more factions you have the harder it becomes to balance. Even something as small as 9 is terribly difficult. I have not really played very many games where perfect balance was achieved. This includes video games, table top rpgs, and even CCG/LCG/Minis. Thus ANet not having better balance is not a unique problem that plagues them but a problem that seems to arise in any activity of this nature. So while you think it should not be problematic the greater bulk of gaming life across the board seems to indicate otherwise.

It's the leading reason why there is always a bottom that someone is always going to occupy. It is also a strong reason why a single group remains stuck at the bottom once they've hit it, it is easier to fall from grace than it is to rise from the ashes. Personally, I've found the games that simple just say they don't care about balance issues to be more fun as they are actually open and honest about it all.

The problem is the difference between top and bottom a minor difference in damage from top to bottom is one thing but if its a huge number then it becomes a big deal.its like the difference between falling from a small ledge and jumping off the empire state building.Also:What you can bring to the team is also a big deal.If you cannot offer much to the group at all that others can do better, then its bad.I don't think necros should necessarily dominate dps, but at the very least offer something in a good enough quantity to be desired, like buffs and stuff.In other MMOs like everquest, there are similar issues:Rogues for instance do less dps than other melees and offer little to no stuff to compensate.Rogues feel like they should do more dmg because they offer no support, but even then i think other classes would be taken over rogues unless rogues were overpowered, unlike monks who offer ability to tank and pull.

I think the same thing applies to necromancers in guild wars 2:The solution is to buff their shield thingies and buffs so that at the very least they got something of value of support.

Also i think i understand what obtenna is on about:asthetics and playstyle?

A lot do play for the lets call it:flavor but a lot of people play whatever is the strongest, even if that isn the wrong way in my opinion to approach a class.

Yes but being able to offer enough so that a group wants to bring a Necromancer along is really subjective. Based on how this conversation has developed mostly into a discussion about DPS it is kinda sorta clear that being good enough to take on a team is really based on the whims of the players, who are obsessed with DPS output. So to a certain extent while ANet may need to offer buffs the players also need to broaden what they consider acceptable. Since Necromancer is not 100% despised across the board in other modes of the game it is clear that the issue may not 100% be about ANet needing to buff up Necromancer some. Sure they could give it some more buffs but that assumes that the rest of the gaming enviroment remains static which it won't.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:On the Point of perfect imbalance: Looking at LoL and Dota as they do in the video, yes there is imbalance in those games, but 75%+ of characters are played at all levels. When you have that many charcters thats a pretty impressive. This is because the overall usefulness of the characters is balanced, sure a support can hit like a wet noodle but it does provide something desired.

My issue with Necro in its current state, it provides nothing that another class cant do better. You want survivability, Warrior has HP, Regen, Stab and counters/ blocks for days, you want damage, warrior wins there too, you want buffing your team and valueable group support. Oh wait again warrior has got necro beat. Mechanically Warrior is a far better class, it can do more, and do it more competantly. And thats a problem.In a purely objective lense Warrior is better than necro at near everything. Ranger and Mesmer can also be far better at each of these but is atleast a little more spec dependant.

I wouldn't say Warrior is better than Necromancer at everything since there are modes of play where Necromancer is clearly better than Warrior. Also, in regards to that 75% of characters at all levels in Dota and LoL, I'm pretty sure those folks who are in the 25% category would ignore the way in which those games are fairly balanced in the same fashion that Necromancer players do. I'm pretty sure GW2 reaches that 75% mark too. So if Dota and LoL is considered balanced I would likewise say that Guild Wars 2 falls into that category. Unless Necromancer players are going to back off the idea that they are the worst profession and the only ones at the bottom.

However, I agree with Obtena, the idea that something has to be the best in order for it to be considered useful is what really holds Necromancer back more so than mechanics do. I'm willing to bet that even professions not deemed as the best would still be viable in raids (since that seems to be the thing people are focusing on in order to maintain the idea that Necromancer is the worst profession in the game) would work very well in raids if people moved away from the idea that you have to take the best of the best or not at all.

People basing it on DPS is because that is all Necro brings, and it brings less than most other specs. We have little useful support, team buffing, or healing. So what else is there dps. So to say people are focused on DPS and that its a mentality issue is ridiculous. of course they are focusing on it, its the one thing the class is meant to do, and it doesnt do it well enough to keep up with classes that dod that and more.

1)To play a moba you need to play more than 1 character, at any level of play that is atleast slightly competitive. This means that maybe your favorite character in Dota is underperforming, but you have plenty of others you can choose.2) 75% was an approximation, its actually a lot closer to 90% or more. Sure you can play any class in GW2, but there are cevats to that. You will struggle to find groups. And we can go down the rabbit hole of make your own, or find nicer people. But if a player is locked out of, or has additional barriers to content because mechanically their classes ceiling is too low, thats a problem. Sure 75% of decent specs are viable, but comparitively some vastly outpeform others. Which is bad.3) We are not back in pre HoT days where Necro is banned from Pug content, so that is progress, but why would you not want to keep making it.4) "The idea that something has to be the best in order to be considered useful" Isnt the right statement at all. I do not want Necro to have the best DPS, or the best team support. I would like it to have competitive DPS and some team support.5) carrying on from 4, Mesmer can boast to be the best team buffer, 100% quickness and alacrity, while also pumping out other boons like mad, but while doing this it also provides great CC, projectile deflection, and is the best tank. Warrior can provide the most unqiue buffs, provide great damage matching to classes without said buffing power, and still have room to also be one of the best tanks. My point from this is how can you think it makes sense for 2 classes to be the best at multiple things and still keep up with classes that provide none of the additional support. The only solace is that atleast druid is dont fairly right, it is the best at healing, but is the worst for dps. Which is a fair trade off.6) As for people moving away from being optimal. that is an issue in itself. First because people want to be quick, best reward for the amount of time you spent grinding. or at the other end of the spectrum you have limited time you get to play you cant be waiting for your 7 heal spec druids to dps down a boss. Following from this, if you made all end game content accessible to any build then it would be trivialised for optimised ones. So players setting requirements for content makes sense. It is infact required. You want to do CM 99 fractal you need to kill your clone in time or everyone wipes, so to some extent the game puts a hard limit on.

Well, see that's the problem by saying it needs to be DPS you have automatically created a criteria that means the Necromancer is going to be bad because Necromancer will never be as good at DPS as Elementalist. Choosing to highlight DPS is a mentality issue because in other modes of play Necromancer clearly brings things to the table in other aspects such as support through boon corruption. I have also seen nothing from ANet that indicates that Necromancer was meant to do DPS. Based on how the profession was designed I really don't think ANet had being the best at DPS in mind. Thus we return to it being a player mentality issue. I have some serious doubts that when ANet balances Necromancer that they aren't doing so based on DPS output.
  1. Ok, but I really wasn't talking about that.
  2. Oh, yeah no I got that it was an approximation. It still doesn't change what I said though.
  3. Oh yeah progress is great. And continued progress is good. I'm speaking about the doom and gloom though. The constant insistence that Necromancer is the worst of the worst to the point of actually fighting for the right to be at the bottom.
  4. Maybe you don't, but a lot of other people in this thread clearly do. I'm still waiting for those folks to list what unique aspects the other professions bring to the game that makes them the best of the best and no one else can touch them in that area. There have been arguments that Necromancer is completely useless just because it underperforms in raids even though such a mindset ignores how well they do in WvW and PvP. Which is also what I feel supports my statement that part of the problem is player mindset. In PvP and WvW you can't kick Necro players and as such they can easily prove their worth. I suspect that if Necro players couldn't be kicked out of raid teams that we would see that Necromancer is stronger than people's prejudice against the profession displays.
  5. I thought this wasn't about being the best?
  6. Yeah, I really don't think taking it to the extreme of 7 druids helps the case that Necromancer is bad and in need of buffing. Really there is no reason to jump to an extreme on that point. However player created criteria and requirements do not equate to balance. Just because the community sets up their own expectations doesn't mean that what they create fairly judges the balance of a profession. Thus a failure to meet artificially created player standards does not mean that the profession is not properly balanced. It could very well be the case that Necromancer actually is balanced but it simply just doesn't get the job done as fast as other people want. It is unlikely that ANet is ever going to balance Necromancer based on artificially created standards. They will likely balance the profession based on what their data says the profession actually performs at.

Thing is:either you provide enough offensive/defensive support/healing or you go dps.

Other games have something similar but the balance is skewed because necros got nerfed in their support stripped and nerfed in their damage.

In other games as well the top and bottom dps even if you hate wow maybe the bottom and top was balanced to be not a huge number difference.Going from 41-42k to like 28k is massive, thats 14k difference dps.I don't care what class you are the dps diffence should never be so massive.

My point, though, is that you purposely pick the area that will make you the worst to focus on. It is unlikely that Necromancer will close the DPS gap but it is possible for them to close the gap in things like support or defensive. But the focus is purely on DPS, which is an arbitrary choice which clearly indicates that it's a player mindset issue. Necromancer provides great support in PvP and WvW and I don't think it would be that hard to extend it into Raiding. It's a lot easier than DPS.

You already have sufficient support though. 2 Chronos, 2 Druids and 1 BS are more than sufficient. The rest is reduced to mere dps. It's not a player-mindset-issue, it's a design-issue by making the two (three if you take the BS into consideration) meta-support-specs blatantly OP.

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Axl.8924

Axl.8924

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You forgot to mention revenants raiziel.revs can give pulsating resist can't they? or something like that?

I think this conversation is proving to be utterly useless as dace and obtenna are in a mindset of either not caring or so blind they can't see it.

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Nimon.7840

Nimon.7840

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@Dace.8173 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Aetatis.5418" said:"balance" ... a "perfectly balanced game"

lets throw in some discussion material.

His discussion of perfect imbalance is very similar to my comments about it not being possible to achieve a perfect balance thus you work towards a level of imbalance that people feel is acceptable.

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dace.8173 said:So what do the other professions do that is unique to just them?

Aside from that I'm not sure ANet is 100% at fault here. I do not think they will ever balance a profession based on benchmark tests. They are really an incomplete look at the overall balance picture. I think the mindset of the players needs to be accounted for. I think it's clear that the playerbase is making the choice to not include Necromancers and if the only way to get a seat at the table is to be unique in a way that only you are unique at then there really isn't much that ANet can do at this time to fix that problem. Perhaps in another expansion when they bring out a new Elite that possibles offers something new for Necro players to be good at but right now I think Necromancer is stuck with the tools that it has and increases to DPS likely won't solve that problem as it is highly unlikely that it would be increased to a level that makes them unique.

If being unique IS necessary, the only area I can see that happening is for the downed state and rezzing. Not much to work with there since no one plays to be downed, but it's not out of the question that Anet modify some current content to make that happen. I'm still not convinced a class needs a unique, strong skill to come to the table ... I would take a class that does it all at 90% before I would take a class that does one thing at 100%. I think the 'unique=meta' argument is a illogical hypothesis.

Well, my question is an honest question. While I may think that being unique is a requirement or shouldn't be a requirement since the people who feel that Necromancer sucks feel it is I want to understand what they see as unique from the other 8 professions that make those professions better than Necromancer. I personally don't think that there are really all that many things to be uniquely different at. So if the problem is that they suck because they don't have enough DPS and they aren't unique then what do the other 8 bring to the table that Necromancer can't and that no one else can replace either. Afterall, there is very little chance if ever that anyone is going to dethrone Elementalist as top DSP.

@Vayne.8563 said:I'm interested that people think that balancing has anything at all to do with benchmarks. The logic of this is mind boggling.

It has. At least for pve. If you can't bring anything to the group. No buffs, no dmg, not the ability to be a real good tank on your own, you are useless to the group.

Benchmarks are a community way of saying that in perfect conditions this particular profession can achieve this much damage. It says nothing about stuff like survivability.

The percentage of the game's population that use or know about those benchmarks is probably pretty small, as is the percentage of the game that raids. So if 15% of the game's population raid, and 12% of that population are necros, this affects a pretty small group of people by and large. The game isn't going to be balanced around that.

As you point out. Open world players wouldn't mind, if necro is viable in raids and does therefore more DPS. They wouldn't even notice it, if necro did more dmg. But the players that do actually care are not allowed to raid, because of the majority of the people that don't even care?

I know in other formats of the game, besides raiding, the necro seems to be fairly popular, so maybe the benchmark isn't the be all end all of balancing, and probably isn't much considered.

Devs are not standing in front of a practice dummy perfecting their rotations, and nor is probably 90% of the game's population. The balance isn't done for one specific demographic, no matter how loud that demographic is.

Sure wvw and PvP needs another balance than pve, that's why anet should skillsplit more than what they actually do.

Okay so let's flip this script, because you're not really getting what I'm saying.

Let's say that every profession did the same damage. Everyone has a benchmark that's identical. Then there is no trade off to taking the most survivable character and that character becomes the first choice of people who care about efficiency over say flavor. People take the necro now, often, because it's easy to play, survive, solo the open world and farm. The trade off is it doesn't kill as fast as other classes, but people are okay with that because they don't die. It's the trade off of the class.

Sure they wouldn't care if it's the most powerful but that doesn't mean the game as a whole wouldn't suffer. There are plenty of necros running around farming the open world now. Once you triple it, the game changes profoundly. People wouldn't want to play other professions. They'd complain I don't want to play a necro but it's better in every way. That's not the way the game works.

You're making the argument that PvE'ers wouldn't care if the necro did more damage and retained the same survivability. Raiders wouldn't care. Other -people would likely care. Anet would certainly care. Regardless of that I'd care. Every profession has to have basic strengths and weaknesses. The necro has a lot of strengths. It's weakness is killing stuff slower.

Do you really wanna argue about necro strength and weaknesses?

Pve-view:Cons:-Lacks DPS (for raids)-Only has sustain with minions (irrelevant for raids)-Can't get healed while in shroud (ds and rs)-No real mobility-No defense (other than a little bit of barrier and shroud which you also need to do dmg)-Weak to cc-scalings are bad(esp the ones that scale with healpower suck)-offers no boon support or unique buff (yes i don't count VP)-delay on class mechanic

Pros:-Can corrupt boons (well other classes do that way better)-can give small barriers to allies (well 2k is just a joke)-the fastest rezzer in the game (well in good groups irrelevant because they shouldn't go down)-healthy amount of cc-can remove conditions from allies

Let's go for PvP/wvw-view (mainly wvw)Pros:-good dmg dealer, not optimal but okay (high burst potential as reaper or as scourge)-barriers (even without healpower they stack good if you stack scourges
  • can remove conditions from allies
  • corrupts (main boon remove is still warrior)-healthpool-ae dmg

Cons:-no mobility-No blocks-no evades other than the two dodges
  • no invincibility
  • -low amount of armor due to cloth armor
  • highly dependant on support from other in order to survive
  • can't get healed in shroud (rs/ds)
  • Long casttimes on most of the skills
  • weak to long range attacks
  • weak to cc
  • delay on class mechanic

Do this list for other classes and you will see, that they have way less weaknesses than necro

In raids necro isn't much more tanky than all the other classes, due to a lot of mechanix that do %dmg or even oneshot.

You simply don't get it. Probably half the population of this game doesn't raid, or do dungeons or fractals or any group content at all, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less. They're not judging this based on your personal theory on what's important in a game. I'm in the open world all the time pretty much and I see necros pretty much everywhere. Are you telling that that necros aren't a thing in WvW, because I can assure you they are. They have a strong role in WvW, in fact. Are you saying you don't see necros in PvP, because I do.

Not playing that kitten gamemode called spvp, that only kids play. But aside that.I never said necro is bad in wvw. Right now it does get outclassed by other classes, but it's not bad.

But for pve i assume u don't get it not i.Even if it's only 5% of the people playing raids. Necro should be an option there.But guess what. It's not.So if you don't care and all the other people playing open world would also not care if necro would do like 3-5k more DPS on that golem.Most of those people wouldn't even notice that necro suddenly does more dmg with the optimum buffs.I'm speaking of a buff only for pve. You know, the thing they introduced called skill split.

The point is with all the supposed this class can't do anything, it's probably one of the most popular professions. It obviously has to have something, like you know, maybe a second health bar that you can run to to keep yourself alive? Or a bunch of minions to take some aggro off of you. All the things you list change nothing I've said. Not one single thing.

Skill split again. And are you really arguing with that .Second health at is kitten argument, same as minions. Second health at yes, but necro has no other ways of dmg mitigation.And i really think they should patch out minions.The big reason: remove afk farm from necroSecond reason: remove afk brain-dead Playstyle.I think it should make a video where i only summon minions to play through the story. I think that might work. And i can even go afk while playing.

Unless you think necros aren't over-represented in the population as a whole, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Not every profession is going to be great at everything and necros aren't great at raiding. But they are good for farming, solo, PvP and WvW. Dropping your marks on a bridge, or against a wall to get the guys behind the door and keep them away...it's a thing you know.

Just like some months ago there was a cake diagram. That showed which professions are played the most. If i remember correctly guard was number 1 and ranger number 2

Your logical reasoning is belied by the number of necros in every single area of the game, except perhaps raids. Making them also more powerful isn't going to make the rest of the game better.

I'm not speaking about numbers in gamemodes. Or maybe yes i do.Zero necros in raids is kitten.

But that's the whole point. Making them more powerful in pve only.

Necros can raid. They simply aren't going to balance the entire class around benchmarks, period full stop and it's ridiculous to expect them too. Not unless they balance raid stuff separately from everything else in the game, which is unlikely to happen.

I get it. You're a necro, you think you can't raid and the community backs you up on it, even though some necros do manage to raid. If you're looking for the most efficient run, and that's all you want, it's not acceptable to you. You guys don't exist in enough numbers, in my opinion, to make changed to balance based on your needs. It's just a business decision at the end of the day.

are you even trying to create a cogent argument and this is all you came up with? Or do you actually think this logic is logical? One could say exactly the same of any class and regardless of the mathematical reality if the community on whole will not take a certain class it sort of destroys your argument. this game is not just driven by stats and class it is largely driven by the attitudes of those playing.

This is not a skill issue either it is an issue of Anet learning to appropriately balance the game they have created around their own motto's for said game.

you are actually making an argument for ANET to do something about it here.

That's a complete valid argument ... especially considering he's making reasonable arguments against people making sensational statements. The fault in your statement is that you are assuming Anet is still 'learning to appropriately balance the game'. I guess it never occurred to you they aren't even trying to do that. It's beyond your consideration that the range in DPS benchmarks is reasonable to them and when it isn't, we know they do something about it. So ... in short, what we have isn't actually too far off from where Anet probably wants it.

Necros can and do raid, and any idea that there is a GAME limitation that prevents them from doing so is ridiculous. It's not a function of their DPS benchmark. It's a function of who people play with.

Try again your are completely misreading what I am saying. You are actually in agreement with me and read this backwards... we actually both feel the same about this :)

it is indeed a function of people, the issue on ANETS end is there inability to create a more stable balance in this game in general. Which so many years later should not be so problematic each time they issue a balance patch. Small moves.

Actually, game balance is an extremely problematic thing. The more factions you have the harder it becomes to balance. Even something as small as 9 is terribly difficult. I have not really played very many games where perfect balance was achieved. This includes video games, table top rpgs, and even CCG/LCG/Minis. Thus ANet not having better balance is not a unique problem that plagues them but a problem that seems to arise in any activity of this nature. So while you think it should not be problematic the greater bulk of gaming life across the board seems to indicate otherwise.

It's the leading reason why there is always a bottom that someone is always going to occupy. It is also a strong reason why a single group remains stuck at the bottom once they've hit it, it is easier to fall from grace than it is to rise from the ashes. Personally, I've found the games that simple just say they don't care about balance issues to be more fun as they are actually open and honest about it all.

The problem is the difference between top and bottom a minor difference in damage from top to bottom is one thing but if its a huge number then it becomes a big deal.its like the difference between falling from a small ledge and jumping off the empire state building.Also:What you can bring to the team is also a big deal.If you cannot offer much to the group at all that others can do better, then its bad.I don't think necros should necessarily dominate dps, but at the very least offer something in a good enough quantity to be desired, like buffs and stuff.In other MMOs like everquest, there are similar issues:Rogues for instance do less dps than other melees and offer little to no stuff to compensate.Rogues feel like they should do more dmg because they offer no support, but even then i think other classes would be taken over rogues unless rogues were overpowered, unlike monks who offer ability to tank and pull.

I think the same thing applies to necromancers in guild wars 2:The solution is to buff their shield thingies and buffs so that at the very least they got something of value of support.

Also i think i understand what obtenna is on about:asthetics and playstyle?

A lot do play for the lets call it:flavor but a lot of people play whatever is the strongest, even if that isn the wrong way in my opinion to approach a class.

Yes but being able to offer enough so that a group wants to bring a Necromancer along is really subjective. Based on how this conversation has developed mostly into a discussion about DPS it is kinda sorta clear that being good enough to take on a team is really based on the whims of the players, who are obsessed with DPS output. So to a certain extent while ANet may need to offer buffs the players also need to broaden what they consider acceptable. Since Necromancer is not 100% despised across the board in other modes of the game it is clear that the issue may not 100% be about ANet needing to buff up Necromancer some. Sure they could give it some more buffs but that assumes that the rest of the gaming enviroment remains static which it won't.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:On the Point of perfect imbalance: Looking at LoL and Dota as they do in the video, yes there is imbalance in those games, but 75%+ of characters are played at all levels. When you have that many charcters thats a pretty impressive. This is because the overall usefulness of the characters is balanced, sure a support can hit like a wet noodle but it does provide something desired.

My issue with Necro in its current state, it provides nothing that another class cant do better. You want survivability, Warrior has HP, Regen, Stab and counters/ blocks for days, you want damage, warrior wins there too, you want buffing your team and valueable group support. Oh wait again warrior has got necro beat. Mechanically Warrior is a far better class, it can do more, and do it more competantly. And thats a problem.In a purely objective lense Warrior is better than necro at near everything. Ranger and Mesmer can also be far better at each of these but is atleast a little more spec dependant.

I wouldn't say Warrior is better than Necromancer at everything since there are modes of play where Necromancer is clearly better than Warrior. Also, in regards to that 75% of characters at all levels in Dota and LoL, I'm pretty sure those folks who are in the 25% category would ignore the way in which those games are fairly balanced in the same fashion that Necromancer players do. I'm pretty sure GW2 reaches that 75% mark too. So if Dota and LoL is considered balanced I would likewise say that Guild Wars 2 falls into that category. Unless Necromancer players are going to back off the idea that they are the worst profession and the only ones at the bottom.

However, I agree with Obtena, the idea that something has to be the best in order for it to be considered useful is what really holds Necromancer back more so than mechanics do. I'm willing to bet that even professions not deemed as the best would still be viable in raids (since that seems to be the thing people are focusing on in order to maintain the idea that Necromancer is the worst profession in the game) would work very well in raids if people moved away from the idea that you have to take the best of the best or not at all.

People basing it on DPS is because that is all Necro brings, and it brings less than most other specs. We have little useful support, team buffing, or healing. So what else is there dps. So to say people are focused on DPS and that its a mentality issue is ridiculous. of course they are focusing on it, its the one thing the class is meant to do, and it doesnt do it well enough to keep up with classes that dod that and more.

1)To play a moba you need to play more than 1 character, at any level of play that is atleast slightly competitive. This means that maybe your favorite character in Dota is underperforming, but you have plenty of others you can choose.2) 75% was an approximation, its actually a lot closer to 90% or more. Sure you can play any class in GW2, but there are cevats to that. You will struggle to find groups. And we can go down the rabbit hole of make your own, or find nicer people. But if a player is locked out of, or has additional barriers to content because mechanically their classes ceiling is too low, thats a problem. Sure 75% of decent specs are viable, but comparitively some vastly outpeform others. Which is bad.3) We are not back in pre HoT days where Necro is banned from Pug content, so that is progress, but why would you not want to keep making it.4) "The idea that something has to be the best in order to be considered useful" Isnt the right statement at all. I do not want Necro to have the best DPS, or the best team support. I would like it to have competitive DPS and some team support.5) carrying on from 4, Mesmer can boast to be the best team buffer, 100% quickness and alacrity, while also pumping out other boons like mad, but while doing this it also provides great CC, projectile deflection, and is the best tank. Warrior can provide the most unqiue buffs, provide great damage matching to classes without said buffing power, and still have room to also be one of the best tanks. My point from this is how can you think it makes sense for 2 classes to be the best at multiple things and still keep up with classes that provide none of the additional support. The only solace is that atleast druid is dont fairly right, it is the best at healing, but is the worst for dps. Which is a fair trade off.6) As for people moving away from being optimal. that is an issue in itself. First because people want to be quick, best reward for the amount of time you spent grinding. or at the other end of the spectrum you have limited time you get to play you cant be waiting for your 7 heal spec druids to dps down a boss. Following from this, if you made all end game content accessible to any build then it would be trivialised for optimised ones. So players setting requirements for content makes sense. It is infact required. You want to do CM 99 fractal you need to kill your clone in time or everyone wipes, so to some extent the game puts a hard limit on.

Well, see that's the problem by saying it needs to be DPS you have automatically created a criteria that means the Necromancer is going to be bad because Necromancer will never be as good at DPS as Elementalist. Choosing to highlight DPS is a mentality issue because in other modes of play Necromancer clearly brings things to the table in other aspects such as support through boon corruption. I have also seen nothing from ANet that indicates that Necromancer was meant to do DPS. Based on how the profession was designed I really don't think ANet had being the best at DPS in mind. Thus we return to it being a player mentality issue. I have some serious doubts that when ANet balances Necromancer that they aren't doing so based on DPS output.
  1. Ok, but I really wasn't talking about that.
  2. Oh, yeah no I got that it was an approximation. It still doesn't change what I said though.
  3. Oh yeah progress is great. And continued progress is good. I'm speaking about the doom and gloom though. The constant insistence that Necromancer is the worst of the worst to the point of actually fighting for the right to be at the bottom.
  4. Maybe you don't, but a lot of other people in this thread clearly do. I'm still waiting for those folks to list what unique aspects the other professions bring to the game that makes them the best of the best and no one else can touch them in that area. There have been arguments that Necromancer is completely useless just because it underperforms in raids even though such a mindset ignores how well they do in WvW and PvP. Which is also what I feel supports my statement that part of the problem is player mindset. In PvP and WvW you can't kick Necro players and as such they can easily prove their worth. I suspect that if Necro players couldn't be kicked out of raid teams that we would see that Necromancer is stronger than people's prejudice against the profession displays.
  5. I thought this wasn't about being the best?
  6. Yeah, I really don't think taking it to the extreme of 7 druids helps the case that Necromancer is bad and in need of buffing. Really there is no reason to jump to an extreme on that point. However player created criteria and requirements do not equate to balance. Just because the community sets up their own expectations doesn't mean that what they create fairly judges the balance of a profession. Thus a failure to meet artificially created player standards does not mean that the profession is not properly balanced. It could very well be the case that Necromancer actually is balanced but it simply just doesn't get the job done as fast as other people want. It is unlikely that ANet is ever going to balance Necromancer based on artificially created standards. They will likely balance the profession based on what their data says the profession actually performs at.

Thing is:either you provide enough offensive/defensive support/healing or you go dps.

Other games have something similar but the balance is skewed because necros got nerfed in their support stripped and nerfed in their damage.

In other games as well the top and bottom dps even if you hate wow maybe the bottom and top was balanced to be not a huge number difference.Going from 41-42k to like 28k is massive, thats 14k difference dps.I don't care what class you are the dps diffence should never be so massive.

My point, though, is that you purposely pick the area that will make you the worst to focus on. It is unlikely that Necromancer will close the DPS gap but it is possible for them to close the gap in things like support or defensive. But the focus is purely on DPS, which is an arbitrary choice which clearly indicates that it's a player mindset issue. Necromancer provides great support in PvP and WvW and I don't think it would be that hard to extend it into Raiding. It's a lot easier than DPS.

Where does it provide support? In barriers?

A little bit of might gen?

That's laughable support.

Might: druid does it betterBarriers: not needed because druids can outheal better and it's way easier to outheal dmg, than to prevent dmg. That would need the knowledge of all players movements in the next few seconds

And druid also gives regeneration, spotter, fury, dun,frost,earth spirit. Necro doesn't.

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@Nimon.7840 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Aetatis.5418" said:"balance" ... a "perfectly balanced game"

lets throw in some discussion material.

His discussion of perfect imbalance is very similar to my comments about it not being possible to achieve a perfect balance thus you work towards a level of imbalance that people feel is acceptable.

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dace.8173 said:So what do the other professions do that is unique to just them?

Aside from that I'm not sure ANet is 100% at fault here. I do not think they will ever balance a profession based on benchmark tests. They are really an incomplete look at the overall balance picture. I think the mindset of the players needs to be accounted for. I think it's clear that the playerbase is making the choice to not include Necromancers and if the only way to get a seat at the table is to be unique in a way that only you are unique at then there really isn't much that ANet can do at this time to fix that problem. Perhaps in another expansion when they bring out a new Elite that possibles offers something new for Necro players to be good at but right now I think Necromancer is stuck with the tools that it has and increases to DPS likely won't solve that problem as it is highly unlikely that it would be increased to a level that makes them unique.

If being unique IS necessary, the only area I can see that happening is for the downed state and rezzing. Not much to work with there since no one plays to be downed, but it's not out of the question that Anet modify some current content to make that happen. I'm still not convinced a class needs a unique, strong skill to come to the table ... I would take a class that does it all at 90% before I would take a class that does one thing at 100%. I think the 'unique=meta' argument is a illogical hypothesis.

Well, my question is an honest question. While I may think that being unique is a requirement or shouldn't be a requirement since the people who feel that Necromancer sucks feel it is I want to understand what they see as unique from the other 8 professions that make those professions better than Necromancer. I personally don't think that there are really all that many things to be uniquely different at. So if the problem is that they suck because they don't have enough DPS and they aren't unique then what do the other 8 bring to the table that Necromancer can't and that no one else can replace either. Afterall, there is very little chance if ever that anyone is going to dethrone Elementalist as top DSP.

@Vayne.8563 said:I'm interested that people think that balancing has anything at all to do with benchmarks. The logic of this is mind boggling.

It has. At least for pve. If you can't bring anything to the group. No buffs, no dmg, not the ability to be a real good tank on your own, you are useless to the group.

Benchmarks are a community way of saying that in perfect conditions this particular profession can achieve this much damage. It says nothing about stuff like survivability.

The percentage of the game's population that use or know about those benchmarks is probably pretty small, as is the percentage of the game that raids. So if 15% of the game's population raid, and 12% of that population are necros, this affects a pretty small group of people by and large. The game isn't going to be balanced around that.

As you point out. Open world players wouldn't mind, if necro is viable in raids and does therefore more DPS. They wouldn't even notice it, if necro did more dmg. But the players that do actually care are not allowed to raid, because of the majority of the people that don't even care?

I know in other formats of the game, besides raiding, the necro seems to be fairly popular, so maybe the benchmark isn't the be all end all of balancing, and probably isn't much considered.

Devs are not standing in front of a practice dummy perfecting their rotations, and nor is probably 90% of the game's population. The balance isn't done for one specific demographic, no matter how loud that demographic is.

Sure wvw and PvP needs another balance than pve, that's why anet should skillsplit more than what they actually do.

Okay so let's flip this script, because you're not really getting what I'm saying.

Let's say that every profession did the same damage. Everyone has a benchmark that's identical. Then there is no trade off to taking the most survivable character and that character becomes the first choice of people who care about efficiency over say flavor. People take the necro now, often, because it's easy to play, survive, solo the open world and farm. The trade off is it doesn't kill as fast as other classes, but people are okay with that because they don't die. It's the trade off of the class.

Sure they wouldn't care if it's the most powerful but that doesn't mean the game as a whole wouldn't suffer. There are plenty of necros running around farming the open world now. Once you triple it, the game changes profoundly. People wouldn't want to play other professions. They'd complain I don't want to play a necro but it's better in every way. That's not the way the game works.

You're making the argument that PvE'ers wouldn't care if the necro did more damage and retained the same survivability. Raiders wouldn't care. Other -people would likely care. Anet would certainly care. Regardless of that I'd care. Every profession has to have basic strengths and weaknesses. The necro has a lot of strengths. It's weakness is killing stuff slower.

Do you really wanna argue about necro strength and weaknesses?

Pve-view:Cons:-Lacks DPS (for raids)-Only has sustain with minions (irrelevant for raids)-Can't get healed while in shroud (ds and rs)-No real mobility-No defense (other than a little bit of barrier and shroud which you also need to do dmg)-Weak to cc-scalings are bad(esp the ones that scale with healpower suck)-offers no boon support or unique buff (yes i don't count VP)-delay on class mechanic

Pros:-Can corrupt boons (well other classes do that way better)-can give small barriers to allies (well 2k is just a joke)-the fastest rezzer in the game (well in good groups irrelevant because they shouldn't go down)-healthy amount of cc-can remove conditions from allies

Let's go for PvP/wvw-view (mainly wvw)Pros:-good dmg dealer, not optimal but okay (high burst potential as reaper or as scourge)-barriers (even without healpower they stack good if you stack scourges
  • can remove conditions from allies
  • corrupts (main boon remove is still warrior)-healthpool-ae dmg

Cons:-no mobility-No blocks-no evades other than the two dodges
  • no invincibility
  • -low amount of armor due to cloth armor
  • highly dependant on support from other in order to survive
  • can't get healed in shroud (rs/ds)
  • Long casttimes on most of the skills
  • weak to long range attacks
  • weak to cc
  • delay on class mechanic

Do this list for other classes and you will see, that they have way less weaknesses than necro

In raids necro isn't much more tanky than all the other classes, due to a lot of mechanix that do %dmg or even oneshot.

You simply don't get it. Probably half the population of this game doesn't raid, or do dungeons or fractals or any group content at all, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less. They're not judging this based on your personal theory on what's important in a game. I'm in the open world all the time pretty much and I see necros pretty much everywhere. Are you telling that that necros aren't a thing in WvW, because I can assure you they are. They have a strong role in WvW, in fact. Are you saying you don't see necros in PvP, because I do.

Not playing that kitten gamemode called spvp, that only kids play. But aside that.I never said necro is bad in wvw. Right now it does get outclassed by other classes, but it's not bad.

But for pve i assume u don't get it not i.Even if it's only 5% of the people playing raids. Necro should be an option there.But guess what. It's not.So if you don't care and all the other people playing open world would also not care if necro would do like 3-5k more DPS on that golem.Most of those people wouldn't even notice that necro suddenly does more dmg with the optimum buffs.I'm speaking of a buff only for pve. You know, the thing they introduced called skill split.

The point is with all the supposed this class can't do anything, it's probably one of the most popular professions. It obviously has to have something, like you know, maybe a second health bar that you can run to to keep yourself alive? Or a bunch of minions to take some aggro off of you. All the things you list change nothing I've said. Not one single thing.

Skill split again. And are you really arguing with that .Second health at is kitten argument, same as minions. Second health at yes, but necro has no other ways of dmg mitigation.And i really think they should patch out minions.The big reason: remove afk farm from necroSecond reason: remove afk brain-dead Playstyle.I think it should make a video where i only summon minions to play through the story. I think that might work. And i can even go afk while playing.

Unless you think necros aren't over-represented in the population as a whole, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Not every profession is going to be great at everything and necros aren't great at raiding. But they are good for farming, solo, PvP and WvW. Dropping your marks on a bridge, or against a wall to get the guys behind the door and keep them away...it's a thing you know.

Just like some months ago there was a cake diagram. That showed which professions are played the most. If i remember correctly guard was number 1 and ranger number 2

Your logical reasoning is belied by the number of necros in every single area of the game, except perhaps raids. Making them also more powerful isn't going to make the rest of the game better.

I'm not speaking about numbers in gamemodes. Or maybe yes i do.Zero necros in raids is kitten.

But that's the whole point. Making them more powerful in pve only.

Necros can raid. They simply aren't going to balance the entire class around benchmarks, period full stop and it's ridiculous to expect them too. Not unless they balance raid stuff separately from everything else in the game, which is unlikely to happen.

I get it. You're a necro, you think you can't raid and the community backs you up on it, even though some necros do manage to raid. If you're looking for the most efficient run, and that's all you want, it's not acceptable to you. You guys don't exist in enough numbers, in my opinion, to make changed to balance based on your needs. It's just a business decision at the end of the day.

are you even trying to create a cogent argument and this is all you came up with? Or do you actually think this logic is logical? One could say exactly the same of any class and regardless of the mathematical reality if the community on whole will not take a certain class it sort of destroys your argument. this game is not just driven by stats and class it is largely driven by the attitudes of those playing.

This is not a skill issue either it is an issue of Anet learning to appropriately balance the game they have created around their own motto's for said game.

you are actually making an argument for ANET to do something about it here.

That's a complete valid argument ... especially considering he's making reasonable arguments against people making sensational statements. The fault in your statement is that you are assuming Anet is still 'learning to appropriately balance the game'. I guess it never occurred to you they aren't even trying to do that. It's beyond your consideration that the range in DPS benchmarks is reasonable to them and when it isn't, we know they do something about it. So ... in short, what we have isn't actually too far off from where Anet probably wants it.

Necros can and do raid, and any idea that there is a GAME limitation that prevents them from doing so is ridiculous. It's not a function of their DPS benchmark. It's a function of who people play with.

Try again your are completely misreading what I am saying. You are actually in agreement with me and read this backwards... we actually both feel the same about this :)

it is indeed a function of people, the issue on ANETS end is there inability to create a more stable balance in this game in general. Which so many years later should not be so problematic each time they issue a balance patch. Small moves.

Actually, game balance is an extremely problematic thing. The more factions you have the harder it becomes to balance. Even something as small as 9 is terribly difficult. I have not really played very many games where perfect balance was achieved. This includes video games, table top rpgs, and even CCG/LCG/Minis. Thus ANet not having better balance is not a unique problem that plagues them but a problem that seems to arise in any activity of this nature. So while you think it should not be problematic the greater bulk of gaming life across the board seems to indicate otherwise.

It's the leading reason why there is always a bottom that someone is always going to occupy. It is also a strong reason why a single group remains stuck at the bottom once they've hit it, it is easier to fall from grace than it is to rise from the ashes. Personally, I've found the games that simple just say they don't care about balance issues to be more fun as they are actually open and honest about it all.

The problem is the difference between top and bottom a minor difference in damage from top to bottom is one thing but if its a huge number then it becomes a big deal.its like the difference between falling from a small ledge and jumping off the empire state building.Also:What you can bring to the team is also a big deal.If you cannot offer much to the group at all that others can do better, then its bad.I don't think necros should necessarily dominate dps, but at the very least offer something in a good enough quantity to be desired, like buffs and stuff.In other MMOs like everquest, there are similar issues:Rogues for instance do less dps than other melees and offer little to no stuff to compensate.Rogues feel like they should do more dmg because they offer no support, but even then i think other classes would be taken over rogues unless rogues were overpowered, unlike monks who offer ability to tank and pull.

I think the same thing applies to necromancers in guild wars 2:The solution is to buff their shield thingies and buffs so that at the very least they got something of value of support.

Also i think i understand what obtenna is on about:asthetics and playstyle?

A lot do play for the lets call it:flavor but a lot of people play whatever is the strongest, even if that isn the wrong way in my opinion to approach a class.

Yes but being able to offer enough so that a group wants to bring a Necromancer along is really subjective. Based on how this conversation has developed mostly into a discussion about DPS it is kinda sorta clear that being good enough to take on a team is really based on the whims of the players, who are obsessed with DPS output. So to a certain extent while ANet may need to offer buffs the players also need to broaden what they consider acceptable. Since Necromancer is not 100% despised across the board in other modes of the game it is clear that the issue may not 100% be about ANet needing to buff up Necromancer some. Sure they could give it some more buffs but that assumes that the rest of the gaming enviroment remains static which it won't.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:On the Point of perfect imbalance: Looking at LoL and Dota as they do in the video, yes there is imbalance in those games, but 75%+ of characters are played at all levels. When you have that many charcters thats a pretty impressive. This is because the overall usefulness of the characters is balanced, sure a support can hit like a wet noodle but it does provide something desired.

My issue with Necro in its current state, it provides nothing that another class cant do better. You want survivability, Warrior has HP, Regen, Stab and counters/ blocks for days, you want damage, warrior wins there too, you want buffing your team and valueable group support. Oh wait again warrior has got necro beat. Mechanically Warrior is a far better class, it can do more, and do it more competantly. And thats a problem.In a purely objective lense Warrior is better than necro at near everything. Ranger and Mesmer can also be far better at each of these but is atleast a little more spec dependant.

I wouldn't say Warrior is better than Necromancer at everything since there are modes of play where Necromancer is clearly better than Warrior. Also, in regards to that 75% of characters at all levels in Dota and LoL, I'm pretty sure those folks who are in the 25% category would ignore the way in which those games are fairly balanced in the same fashion that Necromancer players do. I'm pretty sure GW2 reaches that 75% mark too. So if Dota and LoL is considered balanced I would likewise say that Guild Wars 2 falls into that category. Unless Necromancer players are going to back off the idea that they are the worst profession and the only ones at the bottom.

However, I agree with Obtena, the idea that something has to be the best in order for it to be considered useful is what really holds Necromancer back more so than mechanics do. I'm willing to bet that even professions not deemed as the best would still be viable in raids (since that seems to be the thing people are focusing on in order to maintain the idea that Necromancer is the worst profession in the game) would work very well in raids if people moved away from the idea that you have to take the best of the best or not at all.

People basing it on DPS is because that is all Necro brings, and it brings less than most other specs. We have little useful support, team buffing, or healing. So what else is there dps. So to say people are focused on DPS and that its a mentality issue is ridiculous. of course they are focusing on it, its the one thing the class is meant to do, and it doesnt do it well enough to keep up with classes that dod that and more.

1)To play a moba you need to play more than 1 character, at any level of play that is atleast slightly competitive. This means that maybe your favorite character in Dota is underperforming, but you have plenty of others you can choose.2) 75% was an approximation, its actually a lot closer to 90% or more. Sure you can play any class in GW2, but there are cevats to that. You will struggle to find groups. And we can go down the rabbit hole of make your own, or find nicer people. But if a player is locked out of, or has additional barriers to content because mechanically their classes ceiling is too low, thats a problem. Sure 75% of decent specs are viable, but comparitively some vastly outpeform others. Which is bad.3) We are not back in pre HoT days where Necro is banned from Pug content, so that is progress, but why would you not want to keep making it.4) "The idea that something has to be the best in order to be considered useful" Isnt the right statement at all. I do not want Necro to have the best DPS, or the best team support. I would like it to have competitive DPS and some team support.5) carrying on from 4, Mesmer can boast to be the best team buffer, 100% quickness and alacrity, while also pumping out other boons like mad, but while doing this it also provides great CC, projectile deflection, and is the best tank. Warrior can provide the most unqiue buffs, provide great damage matching to classes without said buffing power, and still have room to also be one of the best tanks. My point from this is how can you think it makes sense for 2 classes to be the best at multiple things and still keep up with classes that provide none of the additional support. The only solace is that atleast druid is dont fairly right, it is the best at healing, but is the worst for dps. Which is a fair trade off.6) As for people moving away from being optimal. that is an issue in itself. First because people want to be quick, best reward for the amount of time you spent grinding. or at the other end of the spectrum you have limited time you get to play you cant be waiting for your 7 heal spec druids to dps down a boss. Following from this, if you made all end game content accessible to any build then it would be trivialised for optimised ones. So players setting requirements for content makes sense. It is infact required. You want to do CM 99 fractal you need to kill your clone in time or everyone wipes, so to some extent the game puts a hard limit on.

Well, see that's the problem by saying it needs to be DPS you have automatically created a criteria that means the Necromancer is going to be bad because Necromancer will never be as good at DPS as Elementalist. Choosing to highlight DPS is a mentality issue because in other modes of play Necromancer clearly brings things to the table in other aspects such as support through boon corruption. I have also seen nothing from ANet that indicates that Necromancer was meant to do DPS. Based on how the profession was designed I really don't think ANet had being the best at DPS in mind. Thus we return to it being a player mentality issue. I have some serious doubts that when ANet balances Necromancer that they aren't doing so based on DPS output.
  1. Ok, but I really wasn't talking about that.
  2. Oh, yeah no I got that it was an approximation. It still doesn't change what I said though.
  3. Oh yeah progress is great. And continued progress is good. I'm speaking about the doom and gloom though. The constant insistence that Necromancer is the worst of the worst to the point of actually fighting for the right to be at the bottom.
  4. Maybe you don't, but a lot of other people in this thread clearly do. I'm still waiting for those folks to list what unique aspects the other professions bring to the game that makes them the best of the best and no one else can touch them in that area. There have been arguments that Necromancer is completely useless just because it underperforms in raids even though such a mindset ignores how well they do in WvW and PvP. Which is also what I feel supports my statement that part of the problem is player mindset. In PvP and WvW you can't kick Necro players and as such they can easily prove their worth. I suspect that if Necro players couldn't be kicked out of raid teams that we would see that Necromancer is stronger than people's prejudice against the profession displays.
  5. I thought this wasn't about being the best?
  6. Yeah, I really don't think taking it to the extreme of 7 druids helps the case that Necromancer is bad and in need of buffing. Really there is no reason to jump to an extreme on that point. However player created criteria and requirements do not equate to balance. Just because the community sets up their own expectations doesn't mean that what they create fairly judges the balance of a profession. Thus a failure to meet artificially created player standards does not mean that the profession is not properly balanced. It could very well be the case that Necromancer actually is balanced but it simply just doesn't get the job done as fast as other people want. It is unlikely that ANet is ever going to balance Necromancer based on artificially created standards. They will likely balance the profession based on what their data says the profession actually performs at.

Thing is:either you provide enough offensive/defensive support/healing or you go dps.

Other games have something similar but the balance is skewed because necros got nerfed in their support stripped and nerfed in their damage.

In other games as well the top and bottom dps even if you hate wow maybe the bottom and top was balanced to be not a huge number difference.Going from 41-42k to like 28k is massive, thats 14k difference dps.I don't care what class you are the dps diffence should never be so massive.

My point, though, is that you purposely pick the area that will make you the worst to focus on. It is unlikely that Necromancer will close the DPS gap but it is possible for them to close the gap in things like support or defensive. But the focus is purely on DPS, which is an arbitrary choice which clearly indicates that it's a player mindset issue. Necromancer provides great support in PvP and WvW and I don't think it would be that hard to extend it into Raiding. It's a lot easier than DPS.

Where does it provide support? In barriers?

A little bit of might gen?

That's laughable support.

Might: druid does it betterBarriers: not needed because druids can outheal better and it's way easier to outheal dmg, than to prevent dmg. That would need the knowledge of all players movements in the next few seconds

And druid also gives regeneration, spotter, fury, dun,frost,earth spirit. Necro doesn't.

But that's not problem of necro being weak, but druid being too strong. Other healers have pretty much same problems, it's not just necro.

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But that's not problem of necro being weak, but druid being too strong. Other healers have pretty much same problems, it's not just necro.

Thats not true though, its a problem really of both:Being too weak and others being too strong

I also think scourge is more suited to condi and should be viable as a condi.Nerfing scourge so hard never should have happened, they should have fixed the mechanics so it has a couunter.

This isn't a game of pure roles, so every class needs to have viability in at least 1 or more stuff, but it looks as if ANET is having trouble with that vision.In other games you have roles but in this game you have multiple classes fiting multiple roles, problem is:Some of them are just too effective, like Mesmers and eles and rangers, and necros got nerfed too much so now the power creep is way more noticeable in difference that necros competitiveness is more in question.

Personally I think also necros should stay as offensive support offering better condi corrupt as that makes them unique, i mean who else offers condi or boon corrupt? If it wasn't nerfed to death and barrier had been better, then it would be valued more. I mean i value condi corrupt a lot in fractals, and i imagine others do too because thats a lot of boons i'm giving them.Imagine for instance you got 10 stacks of bleeding and i corrupt it and turn it into regen or something, wouldn't you love necros? yeah its pretty sweet, and in fractals it is too.High level fractal play its very very useful, in lower plays? not so much.

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Autumn.8043

Autumn.8043

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@"steki.1478" said:But that's not problem of necro being weak, but druid being too strong. Other healers have pretty much same problems, it's not just necro.

Whilst I fully agree that yes the 'big three' being Druid, Chrono and Warrior are packed with way too much support, I don't think you can compare us to "other healers" . They have other builds they can fall back on other than their support builds, us Necro's do not! We have 0 Meta DPS builds and 0 Meta Support builds, we are stuck in limbo.

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Aetatis.5418

Aetatis.5418

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@"Nimon.7840" said:

And druid also gives regeneration, spotter, fury, dun,frost,earth spirit. Necro doesn't.

this is exactly the point, when i dont understand the implementation of those unique buffs to only one profession.ofc those will be taken over anything else . more so if they do something else good.

the same effect on atleast one more profession would have made a lot more sense to me. (and by "the same" i literally mean the same, so that its not stackable).but what do we know. we argue about things only anet could possibly answer.6 years, no comments in that regard.

i am just sad, that some players get punished in certain modes (...without knowing, when they picked a profession) for playing a certain profession "only" (due to time available. looks. anything). and i dont care if its anets fault or the communitys fault

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Ceit.7619

Ceit.7619

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@Obtena.7952 said:People tend to ignore it but no one Rezzs like a Necro ... and that might not impress people, but it IS what Necro does better than anyone else. Is that not useful? It really depends on who you play with.

I still think it's a fallacy that a class needs to do something 'THE BEST' to be desirable in meta teams ... that makes no sense to me ... that certainly isn't going to solve Necro not being meta.

I think my water ele can rezz better, fight me. :P

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Nimon.7840

Nimon.7840

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@Ceit.7619 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:People tend to ignore it but no one Rezzs like a Necro ... and that might not impress people, but it IS what Necro does better than anyone else. Is that not useful? It really depends on who you play with.

I still think it's a fallacy that a class needs to do something 'THE BEST' to be desirable in meta teams ... that makes no sense to me ... that certainly isn't going to solve Necro not being meta.

I think my water ele can rezz better, fight me. :P

Guess they have the same speed.necro might be faster.

But the problem, that people going down with ele is much more unlikely than people going down with scourge as healer.

So why would i pick necro over ele? Ele has projectile hate, huge passive healing, great burst healing, dmg mitigation, can even prevent people from going down, so they can continue to DPS.Other boons than might.

Why would you take a necro?

No burst healingBarriers as dmg mitigationOnly might as boonOnly like one free utility slotOnly thing it can do good is rezzing

So I'd always prefer ele over necro as healer at the current state

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Autumn.8043

Autumn.8043

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@Ceit.7619 said:Drop a water 3 on a dead person and manually revive them for a second water 3, I kinda doubt necro is that fast as it's nearly an instant-pickup.

I'll defend Necromancer for this much. We have the exact same trait interaction but with our heal skill well of blood. Put it on a downed person, revive them and another well drops which also revives. We also have transfusion which ports the downed to our location and revives them a percentage.

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Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

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@Aetatis.5418 said:

@"Nimon.7840" said:

And druid also gives regeneration, spotter, fury, dun,frost,earth spirit. Necro doesn't.

this is exactly the point, when i dont understand the implementation of those unique buffs to only one profession.ofc those will be taken over anything else . more so if they do something else good.

the same effect on atleast one more profession would have made a lot more sense to me. (and by "the same" i literally mean
the same
, so that its not stackable).but what do we know. we argue about things only anet could possibly answer.6 years, no comments in that regard.

i am just sad, that some players get punished in certain modes (...without knowing, when they picked a profession) for playing a certain profession "only" (due to time available. looks. anything). and i dont care if its anets fault or the communitys fault

Maybe some of you don't remember, but I do... Pre HoT, rangers already had all those extra buff and were complaining that they lacked support. The game evolved with HoT and a lot of things that weren't "needed" suddenly begun to shine while other things slowly faded away (Ironically stealth is part of those things that faded away).

Pre HoT, the ranger was hated as much as the necromancer in PvE. All the support he had was heavily despised, branded as "useless". After HoT, PvE end game encounters changed format, conditions damage started to matter, the boss/champions gain breakbar... etc. Players found themself in front of a new kind of challenge that dusted out quite a few utilities and favored heavily buffs.

The difference between the necromancer and the ranger at this point is that both professions walk opposite path. The ranger walk the "buff allies path", while the necromancer walk the "debuff foes path". And while new PvE mechanisms favored ranger's path, they also heavily restrained necro's path.

It's not that the necromancer's tools are useless, in fact they are necessary in 2 out of 3 gamemodes. The issue is that PvE is not adapted to necromancer's tools. Just give perma vigor and regen to bosses (boons reapplied as soon as they are removed) and you'll see necromancers becoming meta condi dps. It might seem ridiculous but fixing necromancer is as simple as giving bosses perma boons that are useless to them.

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Aetatis.5418

Aetatis.5418

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Nimon.7840" said:

And druid also gives regeneration, spotter, fury, dun,frost,earth spirit. Necro doesn't.

this is exactly the point, when i dont understand the implementation of those unique buffs to only one profession.ofc those will be taken over anything else . more so if they do something else good.

the same effect on atleast one more profession would have made a lot more sense to me. (and by "the same" i literally mean
the same
, so that its not stackable).but what do we know. we argue about things only anet could possibly answer.6 years, no comments in that regard.

i am just sad, that some players get punished in certain modes (...without knowing, when they picked a profession) for playing a certain profession "only" (due to time available. looks. anything). and i dont care if its anets fault or the communitys fault

Maybe some of you don't remember, but I do... Pre HoT, rangers already had all those extra buff and were complaining that they lacked support. The game evolved with HoT and a lot of things that weren't "needed" suddenly begun to shine while other things slowly faded away (Ironically stealth is part of those things that faded away).

Pre HoT, the ranger was hated as much as the necromancer in PvE. All the support he had was heavily despised, branded as "useless". After HoT, PvE end game encounters changed format, conditions damage started to matter, the boss/champions gain breakbar... etc. Players found themself in front of a new kind of challenge that dusted out quite a few utilities and favored heavily buffs.

The difference between the necromancer and the ranger at this point is that both professions walk opposite path. The ranger walk the "buff allies path", while the necromancer walk the "debuff foes path". And while new PvE mechanisms favored ranger's path, they also heavily restrained necro's path.

It's not that the necromancer's tools are useless, in fact they are necessary in 2 out of 3 gamemodes. The issue is that PvE is not adapted to necromancer's tools. Just give perma vigor and regen to bosses (boons reapplied as soon as they are removed) and you'll see necromancers becoming meta condi dps. It might seem ridiculous but fixing necromancer is as simple as giving bosses perma boons that are useless to them.

also very true.but mainly due to breakbars and fixed conjured weapon skills. with the conjured weapons all you needed was 25might stacks and fury. done. 2 skill cast in a wall, boss down.

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Ceit.7619

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@Autumn.8043 said:

I'll defend Necromancer for this much. We have the exact same trait interaction but with our heal skill well of blood. Put it on a downed person, revive them and another well drops which also revives. We also have transfusion which ports the downed to our location and revives them a percentage.

I'll give over the teleport function as being the only part that makes them more useful in that situation. In terms of pure revival though, I still say Water Ele is just as good, and better in a lot of ways. I.E. Geyser is a lower Cooldown for similar results, has more base healing attached to it as well, and doesn't remove your major self-heal for the effect. That said, as a water ele I can either stack the use or split it and as such, cast Geyser on a small group and go personally revive/geyser the second group. Can't do that with wells of blood easily because it's a PBAoE. Water Ele also spreads out damage reduction auras (and more heals for the aura) upon reviving people. But hey, necro's can still teleport people!

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Dace.8173

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@Axl.8924 said:

But that's not problem of necro being weak, but druid being too strong. Other healers have pretty much same problems, it's not just necro.

Thats not true though, its a problem really of both:Being too weak and others being too strong

I also think scourge is more suited to condi and should be viable as a condi.Nerfing scourge so hard never should have happened, they should have fixed the mechanics so it has a couunter.

This isn't a game of pure roles, so every class needs to have viability in at least 1 or more stuff, but it looks as if ANET is having trouble with that vision.In other games you have roles but in this game you have multiple classes fiting multiple roles, problem is:Some of them are just too effective, like Mesmers and eles and rangers, and necros got nerfed too much so now the power creep is way more noticeable in difference that necros competitiveness is more in question.

Personally I think also necros should stay as offensive support offering better condi corrupt as that makes them unique, i mean who else offers condi or boon corrupt? If it wasn't nerfed to death and barrier had been better, then it would be valued more. I mean i value condi corrupt a lot in fractals, and i imagine others do too because thats a lot of boons i'm giving them.Imagine for instance you got 10 stacks of bleeding and i corrupt it and turn it into regen or something, wouldn't you love necros? yeah its pretty sweet, and in fractals it is too.High level fractal play its very very useful, in lower plays? not so much.

I agree I think Scourge is more suited to condi and that its nerfing was a bit too much. I think that condition and boon manipulation is an ideal spot for Necromancer to grow into and Scourge already does that to some extent in PvP and WvW play. I also agree with you in that Necromancer should be looking towards offensive support. I don't think DPS is a realistic goal and something that will always cause Necromancer to fail. Necromancer is still strong in WvW and PvP and what they basically do is become roving AOE fields of death. If this was tweaked a bit for Raids and Fractals then Necromancer would have a more fully developed niche. Hell, I PvP'd most of the weekend and just about every team I faced had a Necromancer and every team I was on had a Necromancer. Necromancer was far more consistent than anything else. Some teams had two Necromancers and a lot of matches seemed to be determined by which team had the better Necromancer (or Thief, I also saw a lot of Thieves this weekend). Anecdotal to be sure but I don't think it was a fluke. Overall though I think you've hit on where Necromancer should be going and on one of the things I've been discussing this thread about not focusing on DPS as the path to take.

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Axl.8924

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@Dace.8173 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

But that's not problem of necro being weak, but druid being too strong. Other healers have pretty much same problems, it's not just necro.

Thats not true though, its a problem really of both:Being too weak and others being too strong

I also think scourge is more suited to condi and should be viable as a condi.Nerfing scourge so hard never should have happened, they should have fixed the mechanics so it has a couunter.

This isn't a game of pure roles, so every class needs to have viability in at least 1 or more stuff, but it looks as if ANET is having trouble with that vision.In other games you have roles but in this game you have multiple classes fiting multiple roles, problem is:Some of them are just too effective, like Mesmers and eles and rangers, and necros got nerfed too much so now the power creep is way more noticeable in difference that necros competitiveness is more in question.

Personally I think also necros should stay as offensive support offering better condi corrupt as that makes them unique, i mean who else offers condi or boon corrupt? If it wasn't nerfed to death and barrier had been better, then it would be valued more. I mean i value condi corrupt a lot in fractals, and i imagine others do too because thats a lot of boons i'm giving them.Imagine for instance you got 10 stacks of bleeding and i corrupt it and turn it into regen or something, wouldn't you love necros? yeah its pretty sweet, and in fractals it is too.High level fractal play its very very useful, in lower plays? not so much.

I agree I think Scourge is more suited to condi and that its nerfing was a bit too much. I think that condition and boon manipulation is an ideal spot for Necromancer to grow into and Scourge already does that to some extent in PvP and WvW play. I also agree with you in that Necromancer should be looking towards offensive support. I don't think DPS is a realistic goal and something that will always cause Necromancer to fail. Necromancer is still strong in WvW and PvP and what they basically do is become roving AOE fields of death. If this was tweaked a bit for Raids and Fractals then Necromancer would have a more fully developed niche. Hell, I PvP'd most of the weekend and just about every team I faced had a Necromancer and every team I was on had a Necromancer. Necromancer was far more consistent than anything else. Some teams had two Necromancers and a lot of matches seemed to be determined by which team had the better Necromancer (or Thief, I also saw a lot of Thieves this weekend). Anecdotal to be sure but I don't think it was a fluke. Overall though I think you've hit on where Necromancer should be going and on one of the things I've been discussing this thread about not focusing on DPS as the path to take.

Not only is boon corrupt great for pvp though i will admit boon corrupt was so good it was op because of the large scale denial, its just that in raids the problem is that in raid and in open world, boon corrupt has no real place, and boon corrupt only really begins to shine at real high levels of fractals.Before that, there aren't many boons.

I think a lot of necros including me, would be happy if we had a happy medium, because the thing they nerfed so hard, you know:debuffing and turning dots into boons is our unique skillset, along with vampiric drain.Maybe something along the lines of:we can give a vampiric drain effect to everyone for a small % of heal over time on hits? that sounds like it would be pretty useful.

Problem is:ANET is stuck now between a rock and a hard place.They chose to nerf necros in the wrong way and continuously gut them relentlessly.Now unless they get a remake, they are a dead weight to pve and easy to target in spvp.They will probably still be strong in wvw in large blobs, but thats nothing new since they are always stronger in zergs where they are protected.

Dace: When you look for reasons to be bad then you will find them. That's a negative mindset. I personally opt to have a more positive mindset.

I will explain in detail why necromancer is bad for spvp:

Its bad because it had a overpowered mechanic:Mass aoe boon corrupt that was very unhealthy for the game.Game designers took a bad approach to solving the problem, and instead of fixing the mechanic counter, they instead nerfed it relentlessly into the ground, also harming the so called support part, leaving it gutted and less useful for spvp but probably still viable for wvw.Its damage was also gutted for pve, and that part was not needed because it was already under performing with the lack of utility to actually be desired for raids.Its not that necros have no utility, its that the stuff they have aren't particularly useful for raids, such as boon corrupts.Boon and condi corrupts are great, but even those got nerfed, and have a cd included with delay in pve.

Why does the class which suffers in pve get pve nerfs when it overperforms in pvp? answer me this, as it makes no sense.Can't ANET nerf pvp without harming pve? I mean they got the means to do so by split.I thought there was pve and pvp splits.

problem is dace, you are either in denial, or you dislike necros.I'm going to think you are in denial as i don't want to think something so vicious as to say everyone hates necros, as thasts rather pessimistic.To say necromancers have no issues because of WvW is dumb, because they do have issues.Thats exlusivism of the type i've seen someone say on this form that necros are fine in spvp.Necros have suffered for a while in spvp its nothing new they are bad at roaming and now real bad after all the nerfs.Just because necros are good in WVW blobs doesn't mean that the state they are in in pve should be acceptable, its not, its terrible.Class balance needs to be kept in order and need looking at besides just pvp.A class which offers little to no useful offensive or defensive support, should have the dps, and a class with support even then should still have decent dps, look at for instance shamans in everquest:Yeah they aren't top dps or even close, but they can put good numbers with their dots, and besides:There should always be multiple choices, nobody and i mean nobody liks being sandwhiched into a roll they do not like.Suppose i play condi scourge because i like the idea of bombing and doing dmg, maybe i like the idea of how condi scourge works, well there should be a option, same as there are options for thieves to have multiple playstyles in pvp.Less choice means less fun.

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Dace.8173

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@Axl.8924 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

But that's not problem of necro being weak, but druid being too strong. Other healers have pretty much same problems, it's not just necro.

Thats not true though, its a problem really of both:Being too weak and others being too strong

I also think scourge is more suited to condi and should be viable as a condi.Nerfing scourge so hard never should have happened, they should have fixed the mechanics so it has a couunter.

This isn't a game of pure roles, so every class needs to have viability in at least 1 or more stuff, but it looks as if ANET is having trouble with that vision.In other games you have roles but in this game you have multiple classes fiting multiple roles, problem is:Some of them are just too effective, like Mesmers and eles and rangers, and necros got nerfed too much so now the power creep is way more noticeable in difference that necros competitiveness is more in question.

Personally I think also necros should stay as offensive support offering better condi corrupt as that makes them unique, i mean who else offers condi or boon corrupt? If it wasn't nerfed to death and barrier had been better, then it would be valued more. I mean i value condi corrupt a lot in fractals, and i imagine others do too because thats a lot of boons i'm giving them.Imagine for instance you got 10 stacks of bleeding and i corrupt it and turn it into regen or something, wouldn't you love necros? yeah its pretty sweet, and in fractals it is too.High level fractal play its very very useful, in lower plays? not so much.

I agree I think Scourge is more suited to condi and that its nerfing was a bit too much. I think that condition and boon manipulation is an ideal spot for Necromancer to grow into and Scourge already does that to some extent in PvP and WvW play. I also agree with you in that Necromancer should be looking towards offensive support. I don't think DPS is a realistic goal and something that will always cause Necromancer to fail. Necromancer is still strong in WvW and PvP and what they basically do is become roving AOE fields of death. If this was tweaked a bit for Raids and Fractals then Necromancer would have a more fully developed niche. Hell, I PvP'd most of the weekend and just about every team I faced had a Necromancer and every team I was on had a Necromancer. Necromancer was far more consistent than anything else. Some teams had two Necromancers and a lot of matches seemed to be determined by which team had the better Necromancer (or Thief, I also saw a lot of Thieves this weekend). Anecdotal to be sure but I don't think it was a fluke. Overall though I think you've hit on where Necromancer should be going and on one of the things I've been discussing this thread about not focusing on DPS as the path to take.

Not only is boon corrupt great for pvp though i will admit boon corrupt was so good it was op because of the large scale denial, its just that in raids the problem is that in raid and in open world, boon corrupt has no real place, and boon corrupt only really begins to shine at real high levels of fractals.Before that, there aren't many boons.

I think a lot of necros including me, would be happy if we had a happy medium, because the thing they nerfed so hard, you know:debuffing and turning dots into boons is our unique skillset, along with vampiric drain.Maybe something along the lines of:we can give a vampiric drain effect to everyone for a small % of heal over time on hits? that sounds like it would be pretty useful.

Problem is:ANET is stuck now between a rock and a hard place.They chose to nerf necros in the wrong way and continuously gut them relentlessly.Now unless they get a remake, they are a dead weight to pve and easy to target in spvp.They will probably still be strong in wvw in large blobs, but thats nothing new since they are always stronger in zergs where they are protected.

Well, I think it should be beyond just boon corruption but boon and condition manipulation. Things like extending or shortening boons and condi durations, making cleansing harder etc etc. But I don't think ANet is as stuck as you indicate. What they nerfed they can unnerf if they see that it wasn't a problem to begin with or that it made the profession too weak. But it may be the case that nothing can really change until they get to the next expansion and thus new Elite. Though, I don't think Necromancer is that bad in PvP. They might make for easy marks but they don't always make for easy kills. They can still use their mobile AOE condi fields to corner melee combatants and if paired with an additional Necromancer or Theif they are still a challenge to overcome.

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Ceit.7619

Ceit.7619

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I'll try and give a list of everyone's unique niche's, as suggested. I don't play all classes evenly, though I do have one of everything.

Warrior: Banners (+Equal DPS to necro while supporting, greater dps if not), Empower Allies.Guardian: Reflects, Meta-level DPS, Acceptable Healer and proficient at buffs, particularly Aegis, Protection and Retal.Revenant: Best class for Resistance, Meta-level DPS, Acceptable Healer. Amazing Buff potential and ability to increase the buff potential of allies. Can also generate quickness.

Ranger: Single greatest combination support/healer in the game. Meta-level dps, Spirits, Spotter.Engineer: Meta Level DPS, Pinpoint Distribution, extremely variable access to options due to toolbelt skills and toolkits. Acceptable Healer.Thief: Stealth, Meta-level DPS, unique stolen skills for raids.

Mesmer: Single greatest dedicated support buffer in the game. Literally defines the raid meta by their existence. Is a raid tank, party support, and can still spec as a pure dps to acceptable levels. Can skip mechanics, have insane personal defense. The only thing missing is a dedicated healing spec, otherwise this class has everything you could ever want and be either meta-defining, or passable.Elementalist: Greatest cleave dps, highest burst, auramancer, highest raw healer (lacks in offensive support, which is the only reason druid beats it out as a healer). Also has a large variety of situational options they can turn to if needed, at the cost of dps.

Necromancer: Boon Corruption, Teleport-Revive, Epidemic, Meta DPS, Lackluster support, poor pure healer, Barrier.

In PVP gamemodes, Boon Corruption is a huge deal. In PVE, it's nothing. That's really the crux of the issue surrounding Necromancer.

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Dace.8173

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@Axl.8924 said:the problem dace is that the nerfs hit pve too hard and therein lies the problem, and this is more towards raids than fractals, as likelyhood is scourge will still be a bit better.

But that can be changed. It's not a permanent state. If ANet sees or is made to see that the PvE nerfs are too harsh it may be possible to convince them to undo the nerfs.

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Agrippa.1693

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@Dace.8173 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Aetatis.5418" said:"balance" ... a "perfectly balanced game"

lets throw in some discussion material.

His discussion of perfect imbalance is very similar to my comments about it not being possible to achieve a perfect balance thus you work towards a level of imbalance that people feel is acceptable.

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dace.8173 said:So what do the other professions do that is unique to just them?

Aside from that I'm not sure ANet is 100% at fault here. I do not think they will ever balance a profession based on benchmark tests. They are really an incomplete look at the overall balance picture. I think the mindset of the players needs to be accounted for. I think it's clear that the playerbase is making the choice to not include Necromancers and if the only way to get a seat at the table is to be unique in a way that only you are unique at then there really isn't much that ANet can do at this time to fix that problem. Perhaps in another expansion when they bring out a new Elite that possibles offers something new for Necro players to be good at but right now I think Necromancer is stuck with the tools that it has and increases to DPS likely won't solve that problem as it is highly unlikely that it would be increased to a level that makes them unique.

If being unique IS necessary, the only area I can see that happening is for the downed state and rezzing. Not much to work with there since no one plays to be downed, but it's not out of the question that Anet modify some current content to make that happen. I'm still not convinced a class needs a unique, strong skill to come to the table ... I would take a class that does it all at 90% before I would take a class that does one thing at 100%. I think the 'unique=meta' argument is a illogical hypothesis.

Well, my question is an honest question. While I may think that being unique is a requirement or shouldn't be a requirement since the people who feel that Necromancer sucks feel it is I want to understand what they see as unique from the other 8 professions that make those professions better than Necromancer. I personally don't think that there are really all that many things to be uniquely different at. So if the problem is that they suck because they don't have enough DPS and they aren't unique then what do the other 8 bring to the table that Necromancer can't and that no one else can replace either. Afterall, there is very little chance if ever that anyone is going to dethrone Elementalist as top DSP.

@Vayne.8563 said:I'm interested that people think that balancing has anything at all to do with benchmarks. The logic of this is mind boggling.

It has. At least for pve. If you can't bring anything to the group. No buffs, no dmg, not the ability to be a real good tank on your own, you are useless to the group.

Benchmarks are a community way of saying that in perfect conditions this particular profession can achieve this much damage. It says nothing about stuff like survivability.

The percentage of the game's population that use or know about those benchmarks is probably pretty small, as is the percentage of the game that raids. So if 15% of the game's population raid, and 12% of that population are necros, this affects a pretty small group of people by and large. The game isn't going to be balanced around that.

As you point out. Open world players wouldn't mind, if necro is viable in raids and does therefore more DPS. They wouldn't even notice it, if necro did more dmg. But the players that do actually care are not allowed to raid, because of the majority of the people that don't even care?

I know in other formats of the game, besides raiding, the necro seems to be fairly popular, so maybe the benchmark isn't the be all end all of balancing, and probably isn't much considered.

Devs are not standing in front of a practice dummy perfecting their rotations, and nor is probably 90% of the game's population. The balance isn't done for one specific demographic, no matter how loud that demographic is.

Sure wvw and PvP needs another balance than pve, that's why anet should skillsplit more than what they actually do.

Okay so let's flip this script, because you're not really getting what I'm saying.

Let's say that every profession did the same damage. Everyone has a benchmark that's identical. Then there is no trade off to taking the most survivable character and that character becomes the first choice of people who care about efficiency over say flavor. People take the necro now, often, because it's easy to play, survive, solo the open world and farm. The trade off is it doesn't kill as fast as other classes, but people are okay with that because they don't die. It's the trade off of the class.

Sure they wouldn't care if it's the most powerful but that doesn't mean the game as a whole wouldn't suffer. There are plenty of necros running around farming the open world now. Once you triple it, the game changes profoundly. People wouldn't want to play other professions. They'd complain I don't want to play a necro but it's better in every way. That's not the way the game works.

You're making the argument that PvE'ers wouldn't care if the necro did more damage and retained the same survivability. Raiders wouldn't care. Other -people would likely care. Anet would certainly care. Regardless of that I'd care. Every profession has to have basic strengths and weaknesses. The necro has a lot of strengths. It's weakness is killing stuff slower.

Do you really wanna argue about necro strength and weaknesses?

Pve-view:Cons:-Lacks DPS (for raids)-Only has sustain with minions (irrelevant for raids)-Can't get healed while in shroud (ds and rs)-No real mobility-No defense (other than a little bit of barrier and shroud which you also need to do dmg)-Weak to cc-scalings are bad(esp the ones that scale with healpower suck)-offers no boon support or unique buff (yes i don't count VP)-delay on class mechanic

Pros:-Can corrupt boons (well other classes do that way better)-can give small barriers to allies (well 2k is just a joke)-the fastest rezzer in the game (well in good groups irrelevant because they shouldn't go down)-healthy amount of cc-can remove conditions from allies

Let's go for PvP/wvw-view (mainly wvw)Pros:-good dmg dealer, not optimal but okay (high burst potential as reaper or as scourge)-barriers (even without healpower they stack good if you stack scourges
  • can remove conditions from allies
  • corrupts (main boon remove is still warrior)-healthpool-ae dmg

Cons:-no mobility-No blocks-no evades other than the two dodges
  • no invincibility
  • -low amount of armor due to cloth armor
  • highly dependant on support from other in order to survive
  • can't get healed in shroud (rs/ds)
  • Long casttimes on most of the skills
  • weak to long range attacks
  • weak to cc
  • delay on class mechanic

Do this list for other classes and you will see, that they have way less weaknesses than necro

In raids necro isn't much more tanky than all the other classes, due to a lot of mechanix that do %dmg or even oneshot.

You simply don't get it. Probably half the population of this game doesn't raid, or do dungeons or fractals or any group content at all, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less. They're not judging this based on your personal theory on what's important in a game. I'm in the open world all the time pretty much and I see necros pretty much everywhere. Are you telling that that necros aren't a thing in WvW, because I can assure you they are. They have a strong role in WvW, in fact. Are you saying you don't see necros in PvP, because I do.

Not playing that kitten gamemode called spvp, that only kids play. But aside that.I never said necro is bad in wvw. Right now it does get outclassed by other classes, but it's not bad.

But for pve i assume u don't get it not i.Even if it's only 5% of the people playing raids. Necro should be an option there.But guess what. It's not.So if you don't care and all the other people playing open world would also not care if necro would do like 3-5k more DPS on that golem.Most of those people wouldn't even notice that necro suddenly does more dmg with the optimum buffs.I'm speaking of a buff only for pve. You know, the thing they introduced called skill split.

The point is with all the supposed this class can't do anything, it's probably one of the most popular professions. It obviously has to have something, like you know, maybe a second health bar that you can run to to keep yourself alive? Or a bunch of minions to take some aggro off of you. All the things you list change nothing I've said. Not one single thing.

Skill split again. And are you really arguing with that .Second health at is kitten argument, same as minions. Second health at yes, but necro has no other ways of dmg mitigation.And i really think they should patch out minions.The big reason: remove afk farm from necroSecond reason: remove afk brain-dead Playstyle.I think it should make a video where i only summon minions to play through the story. I think that might work. And i can even go afk while playing.

Unless you think necros aren't over-represented in the population as a whole, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Not every profession is going to be great at everything and necros aren't great at raiding. But they are good for farming, solo, PvP and WvW. Dropping your marks on a bridge, or against a wall to get the guys behind the door and keep them away...it's a thing you know.

Just like some months ago there was a cake diagram. That showed which professions are played the most. If i remember correctly guard was number 1 and ranger number 2

Your logical reasoning is belied by the number of necros in every single area of the game, except perhaps raids. Making them also more powerful isn't going to make the rest of the game better.

I'm not speaking about numbers in gamemodes. Or maybe yes i do.Zero necros in raids is kitten.

But that's the whole point. Making them more powerful in pve only.

Necros can raid. They simply aren't going to balance the entire class around benchmarks, period full stop and it's ridiculous to expect them too. Not unless they balance raid stuff separately from everything else in the game, which is unlikely to happen.

I get it. You're a necro, you think you can't raid and the community backs you up on it, even though some necros do manage to raid. If you're looking for the most efficient run, and that's all you want, it's not acceptable to you. You guys don't exist in enough numbers, in my opinion, to make changed to balance based on your needs. It's just a business decision at the end of the day.

are you even trying to create a cogent argument and this is all you came up with? Or do you actually think this logic is logical? One could say exactly the same of any class and regardless of the mathematical reality if the community on whole will not take a certain class it sort of destroys your argument. this game is not just driven by stats and class it is largely driven by the attitudes of those playing.

This is not a skill issue either it is an issue of Anet learning to appropriately balance the game they have created around their own motto's for said game.

you are actually making an argument for ANET to do something about it here.

That's a complete valid argument ... especially considering he's making reasonable arguments against people making sensational statements. The fault in your statement is that you are assuming Anet is still 'learning to appropriately balance the game'. I guess it never occurred to you they aren't even trying to do that. It's beyond your consideration that the range in DPS benchmarks is reasonable to them and when it isn't, we know they do something about it. So ... in short, what we have isn't actually too far off from where Anet probably wants it.

Necros can and do raid, and any idea that there is a GAME limitation that prevents them from doing so is ridiculous. It's not a function of their DPS benchmark. It's a function of who people play with.

Try again your are completely misreading what I am saying. You are actually in agreement with me and read this backwards... we actually both feel the same about this :)

it is indeed a function of people, the issue on ANETS end is there inability to create a more stable balance in this game in general. Which so many years later should not be so problematic each time they issue a balance patch. Small moves.

Actually, game balance is an extremely problematic thing. The more factions you have the harder it becomes to balance. Even something as small as 9 is terribly difficult. I have not really played very many games where perfect balance was achieved. This includes video games, table top rpgs, and even CCG/LCG/Minis. Thus ANet not having better balance is not a unique problem that plagues them but a problem that seems to arise in any activity of this nature. So while you think it should not be problematic the greater bulk of gaming life across the board seems to indicate otherwise.

It's the leading reason why there is always a bottom that someone is always going to occupy. It is also a strong reason why a single group remains stuck at the bottom once they've hit it, it is easier to fall from grace than it is to rise from the ashes. Personally, I've found the games that simple just say they don't care about balance issues to be more fun as they are actually open and honest about it all.

The problem is the difference between top and bottom a minor difference in damage from top to bottom is one thing but if its a huge number then it becomes a big deal.its like the difference between falling from a small ledge and jumping off the empire state building.Also:What you can bring to the team is also a big deal.If you cannot offer much to the group at all that others can do better, then its bad.I don't think necros should necessarily dominate dps, but at the very least offer something in a good enough quantity to be desired, like buffs and stuff.In other MMOs like everquest, there are similar issues:Rogues for instance do less dps than other melees and offer little to no stuff to compensate.Rogues feel like they should do more dmg because they offer no support, but even then i think other classes would be taken over rogues unless rogues were overpowered, unlike monks who offer ability to tank and pull.

I think the same thing applies to necromancers in guild wars 2:The solution is to buff their shield thingies and buffs so that at the very least they got something of value of support.

Also i think i understand what obtenna is on about:asthetics and playstyle?

A lot do play for the lets call it:flavor but a lot of people play whatever is the strongest, even if that isn the wrong way in my opinion to approach a class.

Yes but being able to offer enough so that a group wants to bring a Necromancer along is really subjective. Based on how this conversation has developed mostly into a discussion about DPS it is kinda sorta clear that being good enough to take on a team is really based on the whims of the players, who are obsessed with DPS output. So to a certain extent while ANet may need to offer buffs the players also need to broaden what they consider acceptable. Since Necromancer is not 100% despised across the board in other modes of the game it is clear that the issue may not 100% be about ANet needing to buff up Necromancer some. Sure they could give it some more buffs but that assumes that the rest of the gaming enviroment remains static which it won't.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:On the Point of perfect imbalance: Looking at LoL and Dota as they do in the video, yes there is imbalance in those games, but 75%+ of characters are played at all levels. When you have that many charcters thats a pretty impressive. This is because the overall usefulness of the characters is balanced, sure a support can hit like a wet noodle but it does provide something desired.

My issue with Necro in its current state, it provides nothing that another class cant do better. You want survivability, Warrior has HP, Regen, Stab and counters/ blocks for days, you want damage, warrior wins there too, you want buffing your team and valueable group support. Oh wait again warrior has got necro beat. Mechanically Warrior is a far better class, it can do more, and do it more competantly. And thats a problem.In a purely objective lense Warrior is better than necro at near everything. Ranger and Mesmer can also be far better at each of these but is atleast a little more spec dependant.

I wouldn't say Warrior is better than Necromancer at everything since there are modes of play where Necromancer is clearly better than Warrior. Also, in regards to that 75% of characters at all levels in Dota and LoL, I'm pretty sure those folks who are in the 25% category would ignore the way in which those games are fairly balanced in the same fashion that Necromancer players do. I'm pretty sure GW2 reaches that 75% mark too. So if Dota and LoL is considered balanced I would likewise say that Guild Wars 2 falls into that category. Unless Necromancer players are going to back off the idea that they are the worst profession and the only ones at the bottom.

However, I agree with Obtena, the idea that something has to be the best in order for it to be considered useful is what really holds Necromancer back more so than mechanics do. I'm willing to bet that even professions not deemed as the best would still be viable in raids (since that seems to be the thing people are focusing on in order to maintain the idea that Necromancer is the worst profession in the game) would work very well in raids if people moved away from the idea that you have to take the best of the best or not at all.

People basing it on DPS is because that is all Necro brings, and it brings less than most other specs. We have little useful support, team buffing, or healing. So what else is there dps. So to say people are focused on DPS and that its a mentality issue is ridiculous. of course they are focusing on it, its the one thing the class is meant to do, and it doesnt do it well enough to keep up with classes that dod that and more.

1)To play a moba you need to play more than 1 character, at any level of play that is atleast slightly competitive. This means that maybe your favorite character in Dota is underperforming, but you have plenty of others you can choose.2) 75% was an approximation, its actually a lot closer to 90% or more. Sure you can play any class in GW2, but there are cevats to that. You will struggle to find groups. And we can go down the rabbit hole of make your own, or find nicer people. But if a player is locked out of, or has additional barriers to content because mechanically their classes ceiling is too low, thats a problem. Sure 75% of decent specs are viable, but comparitively some vastly outpeform others. Which is bad.3) We are not back in pre HoT days where Necro is banned from Pug content, so that is progress, but why would you not want to keep making it.4) "The idea that something has to be the best in order to be considered useful" Isnt the right statement at all. I do not want Necro to have the best DPS, or the best team support. I would like it to have competitive DPS and some team support.5) carrying on from 4, Mesmer can boast to be the best team buffer, 100% quickness and alacrity, while also pumping out other boons like mad, but while doing this it also provides great CC, projectile deflection, and is the best tank. Warrior can provide the most unqiue buffs, provide great damage matching to classes without said buffing power, and still have room to also be one of the best tanks. My point from this is how can you think it makes sense for 2 classes to be the best at multiple things and still keep up with classes that provide none of the additional support. The only solace is that atleast druid is dont fairly right, it is the best at healing, but is the worst for dps. Which is a fair trade off.6) As for people moving away from being optimal. that is an issue in itself. First because people want to be quick, best reward for the amount of time you spent grinding. or at the other end of the spectrum you have limited time you get to play you cant be waiting for your 7 heal spec druids to dps down a boss. Following from this, if you made all end game content accessible to any build then it would be trivialised for optimised ones. So players setting requirements for content makes sense. It is infact required. You want to do CM 99 fractal you need to kill your clone in time or everyone wipes, so to some extent the game puts a hard limit on.

Well, see that's the problem by saying it needs to be DPS you have automatically created a criteria that means the Necromancer is going to be bad because Necromancer will never be as good at DPS as Elementalist. Choosing to highlight DPS is a mentality issue because in other modes of play Necromancer clearly brings things to the table in other aspects such as support through boon corruption. I have also seen nothing from ANet that indicates that Necromancer was meant to do DPS. Based on how the profession was designed I really don't think ANet had being the best at DPS in mind. Thus we return to it being a player mentality issue. I have some serious doubts that when ANet balances Necromancer that they aren't doing so based on DPS output.
  1. Ok, but I really wasn't talking about that.
  2. Oh, yeah no I got that it was an approximation. It still doesn't change what I said though.
  3. Oh yeah progress is great. And continued progress is good. I'm speaking about the doom and gloom though. The constant insistence that Necromancer is the worst of the worst to the point of actually fighting for the right to be at the bottom.
  4. Maybe you don't, but a lot of other people in this thread clearly do. I'm still waiting for those folks to list what unique aspects the other professions bring to the game that makes them the best of the best and no one else can touch them in that area. There have been arguments that Necromancer is completely useless just because it underperforms in raids even though such a mindset ignores how well they do in WvW and PvP. Which is also what I feel supports my statement that part of the problem is player mindset. In PvP and WvW you can't kick Necro players and as such they can easily prove their worth. I suspect that if Necro players couldn't be kicked out of raid teams that we would see that Necromancer is stronger than people's prejudice against the profession displays.
  5. I thought this wasn't about being the best?
  6. Yeah, I really don't think taking it to the extreme of 7 druids helps the case that Necromancer is bad and in need of buffing. Really there is no reason to jump to an extreme on that point. However player created criteria and requirements do not equate to balance. Just because the community sets up their own expectations doesn't mean that what they create fairly judges the balance of a profession. Thus a failure to meet artificially created player standards does not mean that the profession is not properly balanced. It could very well be the case that Necromancer actually is balanced but it simply just doesn't get the job done as fast as other people want. It is unlikely that ANet is ever going to balance Necromancer based on artificially created standards. They will likely balance the profession based on what their data says the profession actually performs at.

Thing is:either you provide enough offensive/defensive support/healing or you go dps.

Other games have something similar but the balance is skewed because necros got nerfed in their support stripped and nerfed in their damage.

In other games as well the top and bottom dps even if you hate wow maybe the bottom and top was balanced to be not a huge number difference.Going from 41-42k to like 28k is massive, thats 14k difference dps.I don't care what class you are the dps diffence should never be so massive.

My point, though, is that you purposely pick the area that will make you the worst to focus on. It is unlikely that Necromancer will close the DPS gap but it is possible for them to close the gap in things like support or defensive. But the focus is purely on DPS, which is an arbitrary choice which clearly indicates that it's a player mindset issue. Necromancer provides great support in PvP and WvW and I don't think it would be that hard to extend it into Raiding. It's a lot easier than DPS.

Ok, let me start out by saying I'm addressing the PvE endgame here and not PvP and WvW, and if we talk about balance, it's imo of paramount importance to make that distinction, because ANet has already proven they can and will balance them differently!!!:The problem in the PvE endgame which happens to be by design heavily reliable on the DPS you put through (it literally skips mechanics!) is that next to the absolute lowest DPS benchmark the Necro has, it also doesn't provide enough valuable support to the group! Let me go through all the classes in order of most valuable to less and see for yourself in what state the Necro is:

  • 1) Mesmer (Chrono): probably don't need to explain, right! It's a mandatory pick, even double in raids!!! If you have been living under a rock tho: ALL boonshare, including permanent Quickness AND Alacrity, which they as only ones hold the monopoly to! Next to that, they're perfect tanks (where they have several evade options denying all damage), and are even not that bad in healing if you spec them a bit differently (ppl tend to forget that tho), oh, but we're not done yet ... they are also the absolute CC and area control kings with Moa, Focus 4, etc. ... If we're talking about an absolute god tier class in the PvE endgame ... this is THE one!
  • 2) Ranger (Druid): Next to the fact they have some very good healing at their fingertips (not the best tho), they have Spirits and Spotter which makes them unique and invaluable. Yeah, maybe you can get better healers, but they won't come with such important party wide buffs as the Druid can provide! Oops, forgot the superior Might botting capabilities the Druid has, providing it easily to 10 (!!!) allies.
  • 3) Warrior (BS): A Banner Warrior (Slave/B*tch/Lackey/Whatever) provides such huge buffs through their banners, ANet can nerf Empower Allies all they like, but they will still remain the undisputed META in Raids and even Fractals ... About fractals ... with boon strip being quite important in some encounters, The Banner Spellbreaker provides a lot of CC next to boon strip (... guess which class is not needed then ... pfff, and if you even forgot to take a SPB with you: there's always the mesmer which have it in their AA chain, which the Necro doesnt even have anymore ...).
  • 4) Revenant (Ren): provides permanent Alacrity, better healing than Druid, very good CC, and has the class unique Assassin's Presence buff in its arsenal. Actually becoming more and more META where 2 healers are needed/preferred instead of a second Druid in raids.
  • 5) Guardian (FB): provides permanent Quickness with ease, and next to that comes with a flurry of protection and even healing based options for providing valuable support to the team. The FB can also easily provide partywide Aegis (sometimes really underestimated), which is an absolute lifesaver capable to block the largest damage packages of which no Health Pool is capable of withholding (not even that of a Necro including its Death Shroud) which literally if in the right hands can skip full mechanics in quite a few situations!
  • 6) Elementalist (Tempest): Although not META, it provides in actual numbers (by far) the best healing output in the game. There's no class that comes near if it comes to sheer numbers. Although this game is not that healing oriented (look above: it's by design DPS oriented), if you want to feel secure as a party/squad, take a (capable) healing tempest! If specced the right way, you can't imagine how much CC it can also take btw (don't hold this against me, I might be wrong here, but since my last analysis, they're number 2 in CC options (just behind mesmer))!
  • 7) Necromancer (Scourge): .... There he is: number 7 ... OUT OF 9!!! They provide barriers, which in endgame PvE is just considered a much weaker Aegis ... and because of the nature of such protection mechanics (barrier is a protection mechanic) having to know beforehand when to protect, protection skills should by design be compensated as such compared to healing capabilities: which is a reactive mechanic where you can restore what has already been damaged! NO ... not barriers ... they can't even go over half of someones Health Pool! Don't get me wrong, barriers are not not terrible, but due to its nature, healing will always be more valuable then barriers will ever be (at least by this design)!Then the Necro has its unique class buff: Vampiric Presence, which is an absolute beautiful mechanic ... damage AND healing (lifeleech) whenever anyone in the party deals damage to mobs ... oh no ... NOT!!!! Its ICD kills this buff completely and kicks this to the bottom tier unique class buffs right next to Strength in Numbers (which is absolutely useless in the PvE endgame)!Let's continue, and go through the whole spectrum: CC: moderate (not bad, but not great either); boonshare: not even moderate ... only mightbot ... but hey, even Thief is capable to do that and does it a lot better! Area control: not that bad with options like chill, weakness, blind, some pulls (pretty much all Reaper though, but hey, let's still go with it), etc. but no real PvE endgame valuable stuff, shadow and ice fields are easily overwritten (and rightfully so), and endgame bosses have innate defence against the mostly soft control options (blind, weakness, fear, chill (lol on cooldown increase)) the Necro provides.Then there's the famous boon rips/corrupts ... In raids not even that valuable (major design flaw imo, ANet, are you listening!), but in (some) T4 Fractals actually quite important .... like already stated above ... Spellbreakers and Mesmers can at least be considered as good at it (if not more valuable in case of a SPB: providing heavy CC with it as well), and even being FAR more valuable to the group in other support, than the Necro will ever be capable of!Brings us to the 2 best group support capabilities a Necro has to offer: Vulnerability (if you can even call it support), but hey, which class isn't ... And lastly, but not least: ressing ... The NECRO (Greek: indicating Death) is best in saving ppl from the death ..... how thematic! Hell, then at least give the Necro something that when they res someone, they make them their undead(-ish) servants creating a bond with the Necromancer boosting their stats or something ... Now it's just the exact opposite of what you expect from a Necro to be! Besides the fact that it's one of the most useless perks a class could have in endgame PvE, cause it literally means you were already failing as a team in the first place ...
  • 8) Engineer (Scrapper): I just assume they're bottom tier (in Support), because they always were. I'm afraid I just don't know anything about the Scrapper, pretty much the one specialisation I've almost never played before and have never really properly analysed either. But I wouldn't be surprised if they've already passed the Necro in its usefulness since the last buffs they've received. Need you guys to confirm though!
  • 9) Thief (Deadeye): Last, but that's just because they have the literal thematic disadvantage ... never really heard of a highly group supportive social thief before. But hey, let me give it a shot ... The support Deadeye can act as a Might and Fury bot to 10 players in a squad, I repeat: 10 players ... while also providing teamwide CC via (basilisk) venom share. Has the same if not better soft area control and CC options as the Necro with their Immobilize (not many other classes have that easy access), cripple, weakness and vulnerability and has partywide stealth to skip parts of Fractals! .... Come to think of it, it's actually probably even more useful than Necro in endgame support, I just don't want to come across as an absolute downer here though (sorry Necro community!).

And again, I'm NOT mentioning DPS whatsoever in the upper list!!! Which undeniable is the most important factor in encountering the PvE endgame ... but hey at least it's not anymore the only factor ... (I'll give you that)

But as a conclusion ... let me ... well, there's always ... I mean, that can't be right, right? In DPS right at the bottom, and in support not far from it ... scratch that, probably also bottom ...ArenaNet, please wake up and stop hating the Necro in PvE

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Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

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@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Aetatis.5418" said:"balance" ... a "perfectly balanced game"

lets throw in some discussion material.

His discussion of perfect imbalance is very similar to my comments about it not being possible to achieve a perfect balance thus you work towards a level of imbalance that people feel is acceptable.

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dace.8173 said:So what do the other professions do that is unique to just them?

Aside from that I'm not sure ANet is 100% at fault here. I do not think they will ever balance a profession based on benchmark tests. They are really an incomplete look at the overall balance picture. I think the mindset of the players needs to be accounted for. I think it's clear that the playerbase is making the choice to not include Necromancers and if the only way to get a seat at the table is to be unique in a way that only you are unique at then there really isn't much that ANet can do at this time to fix that problem. Perhaps in another expansion when they bring out a new Elite that possibles offers something new for Necro players to be good at but right now I think Necromancer is stuck with the tools that it has and increases to DPS likely won't solve that problem as it is highly unlikely that it would be increased to a level that makes them unique.

If being unique IS necessary, the only area I can see that happening is for the downed state and rezzing. Not much to work with there since no one plays to be downed, but it's not out of the question that Anet modify some current content to make that happen. I'm still not convinced a class needs a unique, strong skill to come to the table ... I would take a class that does it all at 90% before I would take a class that does one thing at 100%. I think the 'unique=meta' argument is a illogical hypothesis.

Well, my question is an honest question. While I may think that being unique is a requirement or shouldn't be a requirement since the people who feel that Necromancer sucks feel it is I want to understand what they see as unique from the other 8 professions that make those professions better than Necromancer. I personally don't think that there are really all that many things to be uniquely different at. So if the problem is that they suck because they don't have enough DPS and they aren't unique then what do the other 8 bring to the table that Necromancer can't and that no one else can replace either. Afterall, there is very little chance if ever that anyone is going to dethrone Elementalist as top DSP.

@Vayne.8563 said:I'm interested that people think that balancing has anything at all to do with benchmarks. The logic of this is mind boggling.

It has. At least for pve. If you can't bring anything to the group. No buffs, no dmg, not the ability to be a real good tank on your own, you are useless to the group.

Benchmarks are a community way of saying that in perfect conditions this particular profession can achieve this much damage. It says nothing about stuff like survivability.

The percentage of the game's population that use or know about those benchmarks is probably pretty small, as is the percentage of the game that raids. So if 15% of the game's population raid, and 12% of that population are necros, this affects a pretty small group of people by and large. The game isn't going to be balanced around that.

As you point out. Open world players wouldn't mind, if necro is viable in raids and does therefore more DPS. They wouldn't even notice it, if necro did more dmg. But the players that do actually care are not allowed to raid, because of the majority of the people that don't even care?

I know in other formats of the game, besides raiding, the necro seems to be fairly popular, so maybe the benchmark isn't the be all end all of balancing, and probably isn't much considered.

Devs are not standing in front of a practice dummy perfecting their rotations, and nor is probably 90% of the game's population. The balance isn't done for one specific demographic, no matter how loud that demographic is.

Sure wvw and PvP needs another balance than pve, that's why anet should skillsplit more than what they actually do.

Okay so let's flip this script, because you're not really getting what I'm saying.

Let's say that every profession did the same damage. Everyone has a benchmark that's identical. Then there is no trade off to taking the most survivable character and that character becomes the first choice of people who care about efficiency over say flavor. People take the necro now, often, because it's easy to play, survive, solo the open world and farm. The trade off is it doesn't kill as fast as other classes, but people are okay with that because they don't die. It's the trade off of the class.

Sure they wouldn't care if it's the most powerful but that doesn't mean the game as a whole wouldn't suffer. There are plenty of necros running around farming the open world now. Once you triple it, the game changes profoundly. People wouldn't want to play other professions. They'd complain I don't want to play a necro but it's better in every way. That's not the way the game works.

You're making the argument that PvE'ers wouldn't care if the necro did more damage and retained the same survivability. Raiders wouldn't care. Other -people would likely care. Anet would certainly care. Regardless of that I'd care. Every profession has to have basic strengths and weaknesses. The necro has a lot of strengths. It's weakness is killing stuff slower.

Do you really wanna argue about necro strength and weaknesses?

Pve-view:Cons:-Lacks DPS (for raids)-Only has sustain with minions (irrelevant for raids)-Can't get healed while in shroud (ds and rs)-No real mobility-No defense (other than a little bit of barrier and shroud which you also need to do dmg)-Weak to cc-scalings are bad(esp the ones that scale with healpower suck)-offers no boon support or unique buff (yes i don't count VP)-delay on class mechanic

Pros:-Can corrupt boons (well other classes do that way better)-can give small barriers to allies (well 2k is just a joke)-the fastest rezzer in the game (well in good groups irrelevant because they shouldn't go down)-healthy amount of cc-can remove conditions from allies

Let's go for PvP/wvw-view (mainly wvw)Pros:-good dmg dealer, not optimal but okay (high burst potential as reaper or as scourge)-barriers (even without healpower they stack good if you stack scourges
  • can remove conditions from allies
  • corrupts (main boon remove is still warrior)-healthpool-ae dmg

Cons:-no mobility-No blocks-no evades other than the two dodges
  • no invincibility
  • -low amount of armor due to cloth armor
  • highly dependant on support from other in order to survive
  • can't get healed in shroud (rs/ds)
  • Long casttimes on most of the skills
  • weak to long range attacks
  • weak to cc
  • delay on class mechanic

Do this list for other classes and you will see, that they have way less weaknesses than necro

In raids necro isn't much more tanky than all the other classes, due to a lot of mechanix that do %dmg or even oneshot.

You simply don't get it. Probably half the population of this game doesn't raid, or do dungeons or fractals or any group content at all, maybe a bit more maybe a bit less. They're not judging this based on your personal theory on what's important in a game. I'm in the open world all the time pretty much and I see necros pretty much everywhere. Are you telling that that necros aren't a thing in WvW, because I can assure you they are. They have a strong role in WvW, in fact. Are you saying you don't see necros in PvP, because I do.

Not playing that kitten gamemode called spvp, that only kids play. But aside that.I never said necro is bad in wvw. Right now it does get outclassed by other classes, but it's not bad.

But for pve i assume u don't get it not i.Even if it's only 5% of the people playing raids. Necro should be an option there.But guess what. It's not.So if you don't care and all the other people playing open world would also not care if necro would do like 3-5k more DPS on that golem.Most of those people wouldn't even notice that necro suddenly does more dmg with the optimum buffs.I'm speaking of a buff only for pve. You know, the thing they introduced called skill split.

The point is with all the supposed this class can't do anything, it's probably one of the most popular professions. It obviously has to have something, like you know, maybe a second health bar that you can run to to keep yourself alive? Or a bunch of minions to take some aggro off of you. All the things you list change nothing I've said. Not one single thing.

Skill split again. And are you really arguing with that .Second health at is kitten argument, same as minions. Second health at yes, but necro has no other ways of dmg mitigation.And i really think they should patch out minions.The big reason: remove afk farm from necroSecond reason: remove afk brain-dead Playstyle.I think it should make a video where i only summon minions to play through the story. I think that might work. And i can even go afk while playing.

Unless you think necros aren't over-represented in the population as a whole, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Not every profession is going to be great at everything and necros aren't great at raiding. But they are good for farming, solo, PvP and WvW. Dropping your marks on a bridge, or against a wall to get the guys behind the door and keep them away...it's a thing you know.

Just like some months ago there was a cake diagram. That showed which professions are played the most. If i remember correctly guard was number 1 and ranger number 2

Your logical reasoning is belied by the number of necros in every single area of the game, except perhaps raids. Making them also more powerful isn't going to make the rest of the game better.

I'm not speaking about numbers in gamemodes. Or maybe yes i do.Zero necros in raids is kitten.

But that's the whole point. Making them more powerful in pve only.

Necros can raid. They simply aren't going to balance the entire class around benchmarks, period full stop and it's ridiculous to expect them too. Not unless they balance raid stuff separately from everything else in the game, which is unlikely to happen.

I get it. You're a necro, you think you can't raid and the community backs you up on it, even though some necros do manage to raid. If you're looking for the most efficient run, and that's all you want, it's not acceptable to you. You guys don't exist in enough numbers, in my opinion, to make changed to balance based on your needs. It's just a business decision at the end of the day.

are you even trying to create a cogent argument and this is all you came up with? Or do you actually think this logic is logical? One could say exactly the same of any class and regardless of the mathematical reality if the community on whole will not take a certain class it sort of destroys your argument. this game is not just driven by stats and class it is largely driven by the attitudes of those playing.

This is not a skill issue either it is an issue of Anet learning to appropriately balance the game they have created around their own motto's for said game.

you are actually making an argument for ANET to do something about it here.

That's a complete valid argument ... especially considering he's making reasonable arguments against people making sensational statements. The fault in your statement is that you are assuming Anet is still 'learning to appropriately balance the game'. I guess it never occurred to you they aren't even trying to do that. It's beyond your consideration that the range in DPS benchmarks is reasonable to them and when it isn't, we know they do something about it. So ... in short, what we have isn't actually too far off from where Anet probably wants it.

Necros can and do raid, and any idea that there is a GAME limitation that prevents them from doing so is ridiculous. It's not a function of their DPS benchmark. It's a function of who people play with.

Try again your are completely misreading what I am saying. You are actually in agreement with me and read this backwards... we actually both feel the same about this :)

it is indeed a function of people, the issue on ANETS end is there inability to create a more stable balance in this game in general. Which so many years later should not be so problematic each time they issue a balance patch. Small moves.

Actually, game balance is an extremely problematic thing. The more factions you have the harder it becomes to balance. Even something as small as 9 is terribly difficult. I have not really played very many games where perfect balance was achieved. This includes video games, table top rpgs, and even CCG/LCG/Minis. Thus ANet not having better balance is not a unique problem that plagues them but a problem that seems to arise in any activity of this nature. So while you think it should not be problematic the greater bulk of gaming life across the board seems to indicate otherwise.

It's the leading reason why there is always a bottom that someone is always going to occupy. It is also a strong reason why a single group remains stuck at the bottom once they've hit it, it is easier to fall from grace than it is to rise from the ashes. Personally, I've found the games that simple just say they don't care about balance issues to be more fun as they are actually open and honest about it all.

The problem is the difference between top and bottom a minor difference in damage from top to bottom is one thing but if its a huge number then it becomes a big deal.its like the difference between falling from a small ledge and jumping off the empire state building.Also:What you can bring to the team is also a big deal.If you cannot offer much to the group at all that others can do better, then its bad.I don't think necros should necessarily dominate dps, but at the very least offer something in a good enough quantity to be desired, like buffs and stuff.In other MMOs like everquest, there are similar issues:Rogues for instance do less dps than other melees and offer little to no stuff to compensate.Rogues feel like they should do more dmg because they offer no support, but even then i think other classes would be taken over rogues unless rogues were overpowered, unlike monks who offer ability to tank and pull.

I think the same thing applies to necromancers in guild wars 2:The solution is to buff their shield thingies and buffs so that at the very least they got something of value of support.

Also i think i understand what obtenna is on about:asthetics and playstyle?

A lot do play for the lets call it:flavor but a lot of people play whatever is the strongest, even if that isn the wrong way in my opinion to approach a class.

Yes but being able to offer enough so that a group wants to bring a Necromancer along is really subjective. Based on how this conversation has developed mostly into a discussion about DPS it is kinda sorta clear that being good enough to take on a team is really based on the whims of the players, who are obsessed with DPS output. So to a certain extent while ANet may need to offer buffs the players also need to broaden what they consider acceptable. Since Necromancer is not 100% despised across the board in other modes of the game it is clear that the issue may not 100% be about ANet needing to buff up Necromancer some. Sure they could give it some more buffs but that assumes that the rest of the gaming enviroment remains static which it won't.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:On the Point of perfect imbalance: Looking at LoL and Dota as they do in the video, yes there is imbalance in those games, but 75%+ of characters are played at all levels. When you have that many charcters thats a pretty impressive. This is because the overall usefulness of the characters is balanced, sure a support can hit like a wet noodle but it does provide something desired.

My issue with Necro in its current state, it provides nothing that another class cant do better. You want survivability, Warrior has HP, Regen, Stab and counters/ blocks for days, you want damage, warrior wins there too, you want buffing your team and valueable group support. Oh wait again warrior has got necro beat. Mechanically Warrior is a far better class, it can do more, and do it more competantly. And thats a problem.In a purely objective lense Warrior is better than necro at near everything. Ranger and Mesmer can also be far better at each of these but is atleast a little more spec dependant.

I wouldn't say Warrior is better than Necromancer at everything since there are modes of play where Necromancer is clearly better than Warrior. Also, in regards to that 75% of characters at all levels in Dota and LoL, I'm pretty sure those folks who are in the 25% category would ignore the way in which those games are fairly balanced in the same fashion that Necromancer players do. I'm pretty sure GW2 reaches that 75% mark too. So if Dota and LoL is considered balanced I would likewise say that Guild Wars 2 falls into that category. Unless Necromancer players are going to back off the idea that they are the worst profession and the only ones at the bottom.

However, I agree with Obtena, the idea that something has to be the best in order for it to be considered useful is what really holds Necromancer back more so than mechanics do. I'm willing to bet that even professions not deemed as the best would still be viable in raids (since that seems to be the thing people are focusing on in order to maintain the idea that Necromancer is the worst profession in the game) would work very well in raids if people moved away from the idea that you have to take the best of the best or not at all.

People basing it on DPS is because that is all Necro brings, and it brings less than most other specs. We have little useful support, team buffing, or healing. So what else is there dps. So to say people are focused on DPS and that its a mentality issue is ridiculous. of course they are focusing on it, its the one thing the class is meant to do, and it doesnt do it well enough to keep up with classes that dod that and more.

1)To play a moba you need to play more than 1 character, at any level of play that is atleast slightly competitive. This means that maybe your favorite character in Dota is underperforming, but you have plenty of others you can choose.2) 75% was an approximation, its actually a lot closer to 90% or more. Sure you can play any class in GW2, but there are cevats to that. You will struggle to find groups. And we can go down the rabbit hole of make your own, or find nicer people. But if a player is locked out of, or has additional barriers to content because mechanically their classes ceiling is too low, thats a problem. Sure 75% of decent specs are viable, but comparitively some vastly outpeform others. Which is bad.3) We are not back in pre HoT days where Necro is banned from Pug content, so that is progress, but why would you not want to keep making it.4) "The idea that something has to be the best in order to be considered useful" Isnt the right statement at all. I do not want Necro to have the best DPS, or the best team support. I would like it to have competitive DPS and some team support.5) carrying on from 4, Mesmer can boast to be the best team buffer, 100% quickness and alacrity, while also pumping out other boons like mad, but while doing this it also provides great CC, projectile deflection, and is the best tank. Warrior can provide the most unqiue buffs, provide great damage matching to classes without said buffing power, and still have room to also be one of the best tanks. My point from this is how can you think it makes sense for 2 classes to be the best at multiple things and still keep up with classes that provide none of the additional support. The only solace is that atleast druid is dont fairly right, it is the best at healing, but is the worst for dps. Which is a fair trade off.6) As for people moving away from being optimal. that is an issue in itself. First because people want to be quick, best reward for the amount of time you spent grinding. or at the other end of the spectrum you have limited time you get to play you cant be waiting for your 7 heal spec druids to dps down a boss. Following from this, if you made all end game content accessible to any build then it would be trivialised for optimised ones. So players setting requirements for content makes sense. It is infact required. You want to do CM 99 fractal you need to kill your clone in time or everyone wipes, so to some extent the game puts a hard limit on.

Well, see that's the problem by saying it needs to be DPS you have automatically created a criteria that means the Necromancer is going to be bad because Necromancer will never be as good at DPS as Elementalist. Choosing to highlight DPS is a mentality issue because in other modes of play Necromancer clearly brings things to the table in other aspects such as support through boon corruption. I have also seen nothing from ANet that indicates that Necromancer was meant to do DPS. Based on how the profession was designed I really don't think ANet had being the best at DPS in mind. Thus we return to it being a player mentality issue. I have some serious doubts that when ANet balances Necromancer that they aren't doing so based on DPS output.
  1. Ok, but I really wasn't talking about that.
  2. Oh, yeah no I got that it was an approximation. It still doesn't change what I said though.
  3. Oh yeah progress is great. And continued progress is good. I'm speaking about the doom and gloom though. The constant insistence that Necromancer is the worst of the worst to the point of actually fighting for the right to be at the bottom.
  4. Maybe you don't, but a lot of other people in this thread clearly do. I'm still waiting for those folks to list what unique aspects the other professions bring to the game that makes them the best of the best and no one else can touch them in that area. There have been arguments that Necromancer is completely useless just because it underperforms in raids even though such a mindset ignores how well they do in WvW and PvP. Which is also what I feel supports my statement that part of the problem is player mindset. In PvP and WvW you can't kick Necro players and as such they can easily prove their worth. I suspect that if Necro players couldn't be kicked out of raid teams that we would see that Necromancer is stronger than people's prejudice against the profession displays.
  5. I thought this wasn't about being the best?
  6. Yeah, I really don't think taking it to the extreme of 7 druids helps the case that Necromancer is bad and in need of buffing. Really there is no reason to jump to an extreme on that point. However player created criteria and requirements do not equate to balance. Just because the community sets up their own expectations doesn't mean that what they create fairly judges the balance of a profession. Thus a failure to meet artificially created player standards does not mean that the profession is not properly balanced. It could very well be the case that Necromancer actually is balanced but it simply just doesn't get the job done as fast as other people want. It is unlikely that ANet is ever going to balance Necromancer based on artificially created standards. They will likely balance the profession based on what their data says the profession actually performs at.

Thing is:either you provide enough offensive/defensive support/healing or you go dps.

Other games have something similar but the balance is skewed because necros got nerfed in their support stripped and nerfed in their damage.

In other games as well the top and bottom dps even if you hate wow maybe the bottom and top was balanced to be not a huge number difference.Going from 41-42k to like 28k is massive, thats 14k difference dps.I don't care what class you are the dps diffence should never be so massive.

My point, though, is that you purposely pick the area that will make you the worst to focus on. It is unlikely that Necromancer will close the DPS gap but it is possible for them to close the gap in things like support or defensive. But the focus is purely on DPS, which is an arbitrary choice which clearly indicates that it's a player mindset issue. Necromancer provides great support in PvP and WvW and I don't think it would be that hard to extend it into Raiding. It's a lot easier than DPS.

Ok, let me start out by saying I'm addressing the PvE endgame here and not PvP and WvW, and if we talk about balance, it's imo of paramount importance to make that distinction, because ANet has already proven they can and will balance them differently!!!:The problem in the PvE endgame which happens to be by design heavily reliable on the DPS you put through (it literally skips mechanics!) is that next to the absolute lowest DPS benchmark the Necro has, it also doesn't provide enough
valuable
support to the group! Let me go through all the classes in order of most valuable to less and see for yourself in what state the Necro is:
  • 1) Mesmer (Chrono): probably don't need to explain, right! It's a mandatory pick, even double in raids!!! If you have been living under a rock tho: ALL boonshare, including
    permanent
    Quickness AND Alacrity, which they as only ones hold the monopoly to! Next to that, they're perfect tanks (where they have several evade options denying
    all
    damage), and are even not that bad in healing if you spec them a bit differently (ppl tend to forget that tho), oh, but we're not done yet ... they are also the absolute CC and area control kings with Moa, Focus 4, etc. ... If we're talking about an absolute god tier class in the PvE endgame ... this is THE one!
  • 2) Ranger (Druid): Next to the fact they have some very good healing at their fingertips (not
    the
    best tho), they have Spirits and Spotter which makes them unique and invaluable. Yeah, maybe you can get better healers, but they won't come with such important party wide buffs as the Druid can provide! Oops, forgot the superior Might botting capabilities the Druid has, providing it easily to 10 (!!!) allies.
  • 3) Warrior (BS): A Banner Warrior (Slave/B*tch/Lackey/Whatever) provides such huge buffs through their banners, ANet can nerf Empower Allies all they like, but they will still remain the undisputed META in Raids and even Fractals ... About fractals ... with boon strip being quite important in some encounters, The Banner Spellbreaker provides a lot of CC next to boon strip (... guess which class is not needed then ... pfff, and if you even forgot to take a SPB with you: there's always the mesmer which have it in their AA chain, which the Necro doesnt even have anymore ...).
  • 4) Revenant (Ren): provides permanent Alacrity, better healing than Druid, very good CC, and has the class unique Assassin's Presence buff in its arsenal. Actually becoming more and more META where 2 healers are needed/preferred instead of a second Druid in raids.
  • 5) Guardian (FB): provides permanent Quickness with ease, and next to that comes with a flurry of protection and even healing based options for providing valuable support to the team. The FB can also easily provide partywide Aegis (sometimes really underestimated), which is an absolute lifesaver capable to block the largest damage packages of which no Health Pool is capable of withholding (not even that of a Necro
    including
    its Death Shroud) which literally if in the right hands can skip full mechanics in quite a few situations!
  • 6) Elementalist (Tempest): Although not META, it provides in actual numbers (by far)
    the
    best healing output in the game. There's no class that comes near if it comes to sheer numbers. Although this game is not that healing oriented (look above: it's by design DPS oriented), if you want to feel secure as a party/squad, take a (capable) healing tempest! If specced the right way, you can't imagine how much CC it can also take btw (don't hold this against me, I might be wrong here, but since my last analysis, they're number 2 in CC options (just behind mesmer))!
  • 7) Necromancer (Scourge): .... There he is: number 7 ... OUT OF 9!!! They provide barriers, which in endgame PvE is just considered a much weaker Aegis ... and because of the nature of such protection mechanics (barrier is a protection mechanic) having to know beforehand
    when
    to protect, protection skills should by design be compensated as such compared to healing capabilities: which is a reactive mechanic where you can
    restore
    what has already been damaged! NO ... not barriers ... they can't even go over half of someones Health Pool! Don't get me wrong, barriers are not not terrible, but due to its nature, healing will always be more valuable then barriers will ever be (at least by this design)!Then the Necro has its unique class buff: Vampiric Presence, which is an absolute beautiful mechanic ... damage AND healing (lifeleech) whenever anyone in the party deals damage to mobs ... oh no ... NOT!!!! Its ICD kills this buff completely and kicks this to the bottom tier unique class buffs right next to Strength in Numbers (which is absolutely useless in the PvE endgame)!Let's continue, and go through the whole spectrum: CC: moderate (not bad, but not great either); boonshare: not even moderate ... only mightbot ... but hey, even Thief is capable to do that and does it a lot better! Area control: not that bad with options like chill, weakness, blind, some pulls (pretty much all Reaper though, but hey, let's still go with it), etc. but no real PvE endgame valuable stuff, shadow and ice fields are easily overwritten (and rightfully so), and endgame bosses have innate defence against the mostly soft control options (blind, weakness, fear, chill (lol on cooldown increase)) the Necro provides.Then there's the famous boon rips/corrupts ... In raids not even that valuable (major design flaw imo, ANet, are you listening!), but in (some) T4 Fractals actually quite important .... like already stated above ... Spellbreakers and Mesmers can at least be considered as good at it (if not more valuable in case of a SPB: providing heavy CC with it as well), and even being FAR more valuable to the group in other support, than the Necro will ever be capable of!Brings us to the 2 best group support capabilities a Necro has to offer: Vulnerability (if you can even call it support), but hey, which class isn't ... And lastly, but
    not
    least: ressing ... The NECRO (
    Greek: indicating Death
    ) is best in
    saving
    ppl from the death ..... how thematic! Hell, then at least give the Necro something that when they res someone, they make them their undead(-ish) servants creating a bond with the Necromancer boosting their stats or something ... Now it's just the exact opposite of what you expect from a Necro to be! Besides the fact that it's one of the most useless perks a class could have in endgame PvE, cause it literally means you were already failing as a team in the first place ...
  • 8) Engineer (Scrapper): I just assume they're bottom tier (in Support), because they always were. I'm afraid I just don't know anything about the Scrapper, pretty much the one specialisation I've almost never played before and have never really properly analysed either. But I wouldn't be surprised if they've already passed the Necro in its usefulness since the last buffs they've received. Need you guys to confirm though!
  • 9) Thief (Deadeye): Last, but that's just because they have the literal thematic disadvantage ... never really heard of a highly group supportive social thief before. But hey, let me give it a
    shot
    ... The support Deadeye can act as a Might and Fury bot to
    10
    players in a squad, I repeat: 10 players ... while also providing teamwide CC via (basilisk) venom share. Has the same if not better soft area control and CC options as the Necro with their Immobilize (not many other classes have that easy access), cripple, weakness and vulnerability and has partywide stealth to skip parts of Fractals! .... Come to think of it, it's actually probably even more useful than Necro in endgame support, I just don't want to come across as an absolute downer here though (sorry Necro community!).

And again, I'm NOT mentioning DPS whatsoever in the upper list!!! Which undeniable
is
the most important factor in encountering the PvE endgame ... but hey at least it's not anymore the
only
factor ... (I'll give you that)

But as a conclusion ... let me ... well, there's always ... I mean, that can't be right, right? In DPS right at the bottom, and in support not far from it ... scratch that, probably also bottom ...
ArenaNet, please wake up and stop hating the Necro in PvE

PvE end game for most people isn't T4 fractals and raids in my opinion. Most people don't do those activities. They have different PvE end game, like making legendary weapons, achievement point and skin hunting, collections, story achievements. So for the small percentage of people (my opinion here) who do that, you're possibly right. But Anet isn't balancing around that. If half the population did it, maybe they would.

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Ceit.7619

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@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

Ok, let me start out by saying I'm addressing the PvE endgame here and not PvP and WvW, and if we talk about balance, it's imo of paramount importance to make that distinction, because ANet has already proven they can and will balance them differently!!!:The problem in the PvE endgame which happens to be by design heavily reliable on the DPS you put through (it literally skips mechanics!) is that next to the absolute lowest DPS benchmark the Necro has, it also doesn't provide enough valuable support to the group! Let me go through all the classes in order of most valuable to less and see for yourself in what state the Necro is:

  • 1) Mesmer (Chrono): probably don't need to explain, right! It's a mandatory pick, even double in raids!!! If you have been living under a rock tho: ALL boonshare, including permanent Quickness AND Alacrity, which they as only ones hold the monopoly to! Next to that, they're perfect tanks (where they have several evade options denying all damage), and are even not that bad in healing if you spec them a bit differently (ppl tend to forget that tho), oh, but we're not done yet ... they are also the absolute CC and area control kings with Moa, Focus 4, etc. ... If we're talking about an absolute god tier class in the PvE endgame ... this is THE one!
  • 2) Ranger (Druid): Next to the fact they have some very good healing at their fingertips (not the best tho), they have Spirits and Spotter which makes them unique and invaluable. Yeah, maybe you can get better healers, but they won't come with such important party wide buffs as the Druid can provide! Oops, forgot the superior Might botting capabilities the Druid has, providing it easily to 10 (!!!) allies.
  • 3) Warrior (BS): A Banner Warrior (Slave/B*tch/Lackey/Whatever) provides such huge buffs through their banners, ANet can nerf Empower Allies all they like, but they will still remain the undisputed META in Raids and even Fractals ... About fractals ... with boon strip being quite important in some encounters, The Banner Spellbreaker provides a lot of CC next to boon strip (... guess which class is not needed then ... pfff, and if you even forgot to take a SPB with you: there's always the mesmer which have it in their AA chain, which the Necro doesnt even have anymore ...).
  • 4) Revenant (Ren): provides permanent Alacrity, better healing than Druid, very good CC, and has the class unique Assassin's Presence buff in its arsenal. Actually becoming more and more META where 2 healers are needed/preferred instead of a second Druid in raids.
  • 5) Guardian (FB): provides permanent Quickness with ease, and next to that comes with a flurry of protection and even healing based options for providing valuable support to the team. The FB can also easily provide partywide Aegis (sometimes really underestimated), which is an absolute lifesaver capable to block the largest damage packages of which no Health Pool is capable of withholding (not even that of a Necro including its Death Shroud) which literally if in the right hands can skip full mechanics in quite a few situations!
  • 6) Elementalist (Tempest): Although not META, it provides in actual numbers (by far) the best healing output in the game. There's no class that comes near if it comes to sheer numbers. Although this game is not that healing oriented (look above: it's by design DPS oriented), if you want to feel secure as a party/squad, take a (capable) healing tempest! If specced the right way, you can't imagine how much CC it can also take btw (don't hold this against me, I might be wrong here, but since my last analysis, they're number 2 in CC options (just behind mesmer))!
  • 7) Necromancer (Scourge): .... There he is: number 7 ... OUT OF 9!!! They provide barriers, which in endgame PvE is just considered a much weaker Aegis ... and because of the nature of such protection mechanics (barrier is a protection mechanic) having to know beforehand when to protect, protection skills should by design be compensated as such compared to healing capabilities: which is a reactive mechanic where you can restore what has already been damaged! NO ... not barriers ... they can't even go over half of someones Health Pool! Don't get me wrong, barriers are not not terrible, but due to its nature, healing will always be more valuable then barriers will ever be (at least by this design)!Then the Necro has its unique class buff: Vampiric Presence, which is an absolute beautiful mechanic ... damage AND healing (lifeleech) whenever anyone in the party deals damage to mobs ... oh no ... NOT!!!! Its ICD kills this buff completely and kicks this to the bottom tier unique class buffs right next to Strength in Numbers (which is absolutely useless in the PvE endgame)!Let's continue, and go through the whole spectrum: CC: moderate (not bad, but not great either); boonshare: not even moderate ... only mightbot ... but hey, even Thief is capable to do that and does it a lot better! Area control: not that bad with options like chill, weakness, blind, some pulls (pretty much all Reaper though, but hey, let's still go with it), etc. but no real PvE endgame valuable stuff, shadow and ice fields are easily overwritten (and rightfully so), and endgame bosses have innate defence against the mostly soft control options (blind, weakness, fear, chill (lol on cooldown increase)) the Necro provides.Then there's the famous boon rips/corrupts ... In raids not even that valuable (major design flaw imo, ANet, are you listening!), but in (some) T4 Fractals actually quite important .... like already stated above ... Spellbreakers and Mesmers can at least be considered as good at it (if not more valuable in case of a SPB: providing heavy CC with it as well), and even being FAR more valuable to the group in other support, than the Necro will ever be capable of!Brings us to the 2 best group support capabilities a Necro has to offer: Vulnerability (if you can even call it support), but hey, which class isn't ... And lastly, but not least: ressing ... The NECRO (Greek: indicating Death) is best in saving ppl from the death ..... how thematic! Hell, then at least give the Necro something that when they res someone, they make them their undead(-ish) servants creating a bond with the Necromancer boosting their stats or something ... Now it's just the exact opposite of what you expect from a Necro to be! Besides the fact that it's one of the most useless perks a class could have in endgame PvE, cause it literally means you were already failing as a team in the first place ...
  • 8) Engineer (Scrapper): I just assume they're bottom tier (in Support), because they always were. I'm afraid I just don't know anything about the Scrapper, pretty much the one specialisation I've almost never played before and have never really properly analysed either. But I wouldn't be surprised if they've already passed the Necro in its usefulness since the last buffs they've received. Need you guys to confirm though!
  • 9) Thief (Deadeye): Last, but that's just because they have the literal thematic disadvantage ... never really heard of a highly group supportive social thief before. But hey, let me give it a shot ... The support Deadeye can act as a Might and Fury bot to 10 players in a squad, I repeat: 10 players ... while also providing teamwide CC via (basilisk) venom share. Has the same if not better soft area control and CC options as the Necro with their Immobilize (not many other classes have that easy access), cripple, weakness and vulnerability and has partywide stealth to skip parts of Fractals! .... Come to think of it, it's actually probably even more useful than Necro in endgame support, I just don't want to come across as an absolute downer here though (sorry Necro community!).

And again, I'm NOT mentioning DPS whatsoever in the upper list!!! Which undeniable is the most important factor in encountering the PvE endgame ... but hey at least it's not anymore the only factor ... (I'll give you that)

But as a conclusion ... let me ... well, there's always ... I mean, that can't be right, right? In DPS right at the bottom, and in support not far from it ... scratch that, probably also bottom ...ArenaNet, please wake up and stop hating the Necro in PvE

I've had Engi healers for T4 fractals before to great effect. They are a pretty legit support class if specced for it.

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