Because death is our theme

[DeceiverX.8361]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@"Axl.8924" said:Isn't it sort of a mobility tool? i mean you can use it to run around and it makes you more mobile in a sense that you can run around avoiding stuff.Sure its not as good as say mesmers but its some mobility, and didn't tempest have like 2 runspeed increase abilities it could use? sure necro doesn't have super speed but it has locus signet and scourge one is built into the weapon itself if you take the right one, so you are able to have 2 up at all times:One from talent and one from weapon.

Its just that as you said we lack other options to keep us alive and dps on necro has always been lower than others in spvp.

Swiftness is not a mobility tool and doesn't really matter in any gamemode as in combat mobility, it's for moving the zerg slightly faster in WvW, being a damage buff in Raids and Fractals for classes with damage modifiers per boon/other related traits and being a cover boon in sPvP/WvW, increasing the chances a boon rip doesn't take off an important boon instead and increasing ability to rotate slightly.

No matter what burst spec jumps on you as Necro, swiftness is not going to make them lose track of you and switch targets or give you room to breathe and wait for CD's.You need proper movement skills for that, aka, skills that move you at a way fast rate.

Tbh, I'm ok with the low mobility on Necromancer. The problem as so often with Necro is, ArenaNet refuses to compensate the plentiful weaknesses of Necro in other ways.An immobile spec with little to medium range, with no scaling defense or stability is just waiting to get kicked in the face without extraordinary team support.If Necro is supposed to be the on point teamfight powerhouse, it at least needs to be able to hold it's own against most if not all melee fighters, considering how hard countered Necro is by any sort of ranged pressure.

Well consider a few things

Necros sustain is partly based form conditions you have applied on your foe. Once you start chilling, weakening, crippling, blinding your foe your survivability improves rather drastically depending on their ability to clear an fight around those conditions. How ever if you get jumped on first you have not applied any conditions and thus you are easier to kill. That said conditions are trivial they can be removed and cleared too easily in alot of the meta builds right now.

Even as a pure power necro "YOU NEEED" those conditions on your foes in any kind of pvp situation. If boon corrupt ever got changed to just boon strip necro would be in alot of trouble.

As far as condition removal goes, this is because conditions in their own right are too strong and too easy to stack at the moment across all classes.

It used to be you could get by with playing without a cleanse or maybe only one big purge. You'll now be immediately stomped if you're not running at least three cleanses because something like a condi mirage will hit you with 15 stacks of confusion and 15 stacks of torment every few seconds. Builds are too boon-reliant because boon-stacking literally doubles peoples' stats, let alone the added utility, making corrupts/boon hate even more deadly but also needing to be spammed more for other specs to even be killable.

[Dace.8173]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Virelion.4128 said:

@Dace.8173 said:I like when people insist that the developers don't like a profession and thus everything bad is because the developers are torturing their customers.

They rather don't know what to do with it. The last "rework" of reaper was just nerfs to sustain and making auto atracks of instantly decaying shroud better. While classes like mesmer, guardian getting meaningful reworks. Necro still laugh at their entire specs like death magic.

I am pretty sure they know what they are doing with it. Getting it to where they want it to go is a different matter but I've seen no evidence that they don't know what to do with it. However, one faction is bound to be the bottom of the dog pile. No matter how hard a gaming company works there is always going to be a bottom. This problem has plagued gaming in general for decades.

Having been playing this game from release... No they don't. They think they do, but everything they do with necro turns out broken and nerfed to the ground.It's always the same pattern, they release something, it works, its great, necro becomes strong, they get scared, and just nerf it to the ground. The clearest sign of this, is that at a time where for all other professions they're mostly tweakign the PoF elites, they're still tweaking reaper while keeping scourge just broken. That's because not only they don't really know what they want with necro, but they don't have the creative chops to pull it off.

I've been playing off and on since release as well. Necromancer was the second character I created after my Engineer. However, you haven't really countered what I said. I said they do have an idea of what they want to do with it. But it appears to be the case that they haven't really gotten it where they want to take it. Knowing what they want to do and being able to get there are two separate states. I think they know what they want to do but are unsure of how to get Necromancer to where it needs to be. And it's not like Necromancer is the only profession in that boat. Revenant is in the same boat, if not worse off. Additionally, balance really has nothing to do with creative chops.

[Asum.4960]

@Dace.8173 said:I've been playing off and on since release as well. Necromancer was the second character I created after my Engineer. However, you haven't really countered what I said. I said they do have an idea of what they want to do with it. But it appears to be the case that they haven't really gotten it where they want to take it. Knowing what they want to do and being able to get there are two separate states. I think they know what they want to do but are unsure of how to get Necromancer to where it needs to be. And it's not like Necromancer is the only profession in that boat. Revenant is in the same boat, if not worse off. Additionally, balance really has nothing to do with creative chops.

I have heard statements that Necro doesn't have it the worst so many times now over the years and I'm not quite sure where it's coming from.

Especially in Rev, which yes, has problems, but is also the top DPS spec in the entire game as condi Renegade. Power Herald outperforms Reaper by quite a bit. It's meta in WvW Zergs, while also being a viable and strong roamer. Even in sPvP, a well played power Rev is devastating.

So we got Rev Meta for Raids as condi, viable for Raids and Fractals as power spec, and Meta in all forms of WvW, and being meta in sPvP.Slow and steady improvement's just keep rolling in, getting Rev where it needs to be.

If you compare that to the state of Necro for 6 years now, I'm not sure it's a contest.Necro always was either the absolute bottom pick for months or years at a time, or incredibly OP for a few weeks, before being utterly crushed with nerfs, even after it was already dead again.

If they know what to do with Power Reaper let's say, they sure are taking their sweet time at this point getting there.Even if they get there one day, over 3 years after the spec was released to make it properly viable, it is still held back by terrible design like Gravedigger spam in PvE.I just don't see anyone deciding to main Necromancer ever being happy at this point, and every other profession seems to be a drastically better choice to invest your time in.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Dace.8173 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Virelion.4128 said:

@Dace.8173 said:I like when people insist that the developers don't like a profession and thus everything bad is because the developers are torturing their customers.

They rather don't know what to do with it. The last "rework" of reaper was just nerfs to sustain and making auto atracks of instantly decaying shroud better. While classes like mesmer, guardian getting meaningful reworks. Necro still laugh at their entire specs like death magic.

I am pretty sure they know what they are doing with it. Getting it to where they want it to go is a different matter but I've seen no evidence that they don't know what to do with it. However, one faction is bound to be the bottom of the dog pile. No matter how hard a gaming company works there is always going to be a bottom. This problem has plagued gaming in general for decades.

Having been playing this game from release... No they don't. They think they do, but everything they do with necro turns out broken and nerfed to the ground.It's always the same pattern, they release something, it works, its great, necro becomes strong, they get scared, and just nerf it to the ground. The clearest sign of this, is that at a time where for all other professions they're mostly tweakign the PoF elites, they're still tweaking reaper while keeping scourge just broken. That's because not only they don't really know what they want with necro, but they don't have the creative chops to pull it off.

I've been playing off and on since release as well. Necromancer was the second character I created after my Engineer. However, you haven't really countered what I said. I said they do have an idea of what they want to do with it. But it appears to be the case that they haven't really gotten it where they want to take it. Knowing what they want to do and being able to get there are two separate states. I think they know what they want to do but are unsure of how to get Necromancer to where it needs to be. And it's not like Necromancer is the only profession in that boat. Revenant is in the same boat, if not worse off.

That's true, to a point. I find it hard to believe that they have a goal, and take that long to make any progress to it. It's more likely they had a goal, but that failed, and now they're grasping. That's exactly how it feels like.It's true, Revenant was unfinished when it released and it's unfinished now.

Additionally, balance really has nothing to do with creative chops.That's where you're wrong. Being creative isn't just about making pretty things and telling interesting stories. Creativity solves problems.They lack the creativity to solve the balance problems. And Necro is the poster boy for that lack of creativity:Instead of reworking shades to have some counterplay. Which was, apart from some buggy skills, the only real problem Scourges had when PoF released, they went the easy, plain way of tweaking numbers that didn't have anything to do with it.Result: they nerfed all condition applications (except mesmer's for some reason), they reworked the boon corruption tables (although that wasn't too bad), didn't provide any give to what they took, leaving condi classes severely lacking in PvE. They nerfed PVE scourge to the ground, which was in a higher mid rank before the nerf, and they did nothing to fix the issue they wanted to fix, which was PvP scourges. It took them several more patches, breaking the class completely to get it to not be overpowered in pvP, simply because they lacked the creativity to realize the actual problem, and address the mechanical issue with a proper rework.

[Dace.8173]

@Asum.4960 said:

@Dace.8173 said:I've been playing off and on since release as well. Necromancer was the second character I created after my Engineer. However, you haven't really countered what I said. I said they do have an idea of what they want to do with it. But it appears to be the case that they haven't really gotten it where they want to take it. Knowing what they want to do and being able to get there are two separate states. I think they know what they want to do but are unsure of how to get Necromancer to where it needs to be. And it's not like Necromancer is the only profession in that boat. Revenant is in the same boat, if not worse off. Additionally, balance really has nothing to do with creative chops.

I have heard statements that Necro doesn't have it the worst so many times now over the years and I'm not quite sure where it's coming from.

Especially in Rev, which yes, has problems, but is also the top DPS spec in the entire game as condi Renegade. Power Herald outperforms Reaper by quite a bit. It's meta in WvW Zergs, while also being a viable and strong roamer. Even in sPvP, a well played power Rev is devastating.

So we got Rev Meta for Raids as condi, viable for Raids and Fractals as power spec, and Meta in all forms of WvW, and being meta in sPvP.Slow and steady improvement's just keep rolling in, getting Rev where it needs to be.

If you compare that to the state of Necro for 6 years now, I'm not sure it's a contest.Necro always was either the absolute bottom pick for months or years at a time, or incredibly OP for a few weeks, before being utterly crushed with nerfs, even after it was already dead again.

If they know what to do with Power Reaper let's say, they sure are taking their sweet time at this point getting there.Even if they get there one day, over 3 years after the spec was released to make it properly viable, it is still held back by terrible design like Gravedigger spam in PvE.I just don't see anyone deciding to main Necromancer ever being happy at this point, and every other profession seems to be a drastically better choice to invest your time in.

Revenant player themselves. Read the other forums. Almost all of them have a thread dedicated to how much they now suck. Even the Elemenatlist forum has threads about how they now suck. Granted some are just overblowing a nerf and not being as powerful as they were before but in the case of the Revenant I do think they have a legitimate claim there. As for taking their time, they really aren't. Game design is not easy. Balancing factions is not easy. It honestly can take years to get all nine factions at a level of balanced play. Sometimes a company will never get a faction to where it needs to be despite their best efforts. This isn't a unique problem that ANet is dealing with. This is a common problem in gaming as an industry. I've seen it first hand in other games in which I was able to watch the behind the scene efforts for a number of years. I've seen some games reduce the number of factions they had in an attempt to get there and still not be able to get there. This really is a very tricky thing to do.

Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Virelion.4128 said:

@Dace.8173 said:I like when people insist that the developers don't like a profession and thus everything bad is because the developers are torturing their customers.

They rather don't know what to do with it. The last "rework" of reaper was just nerfs to sustain and making auto atracks of instantly decaying shroud better. While classes like mesmer, guardian getting meaningful reworks. Necro still laugh at their entire specs like death magic.

I am pretty sure they know what they are doing with it. Getting it to where they want it to go is a different matter but I've seen no evidence that they don't know what to do with it. However, one faction is bound to be the bottom of the dog pile. No matter how hard a gaming company works there is always going to be a bottom. This problem has plagued gaming in general for decades.

Having been playing this game from release... No they don't. They think they do, but everything they do with necro turns out broken and nerfed to the ground.It's always the same pattern, they release something, it works, its great, necro becomes strong, they get scared, and just nerf it to the ground. The clearest sign of this, is that at a time where for all other professions they're mostly tweakign the PoF elites, they're still tweaking reaper while keeping scourge just broken. That's because not only they don't really know what they want with necro, but they don't have the creative chops to pull it off.

I've been playing off and on since release as well. Necromancer was the second character I created after my Engineer. However, you haven't really countered what I said. I said they do have an idea of what they want to do with it. But it appears to be the case that they haven't really gotten it where they want to take it. Knowing what they want to do and being able to get there are two separate states. I think they know what they want to do but are unsure of how to get Necromancer to where it needs to be. And it's not like Necromancer is the only profession in that boat. Revenant is in the same boat, if not worse off.

That's true, to a point. I find it hard to believe that they have a goal, and take that long to make any progress to it. It's more likely they

had

a goal, but that failed, and now they're grasping. That's exactly how it feels like.It's true, Revenant was unfinished when it released and it's unfinished now.

Additionally, balance really has nothing to do with creative chops.That's where you're wrong. Being creative isn't just about making pretty things and telling interesting stories. Creativity solves problems.They lack the creativity to solve the balance problems. And Necro is the poster boy for that lack of creativity:Instead of reworking shades to have some counterplay. Which was, apart from some buggy skills, the only real problem Scourges had when PoF released, they went the easy, plain way of tweaking numbers that didn't have anything to do with it.Result: they nerfed all condition applications (except mesmer's for some reason), they reworked the boon corruption tables (although that wasn't too bad), didn't provide any give to what they took, leaving condi classes severely lacking in PvE. They nerfed PVE scourge to the ground, which was in a higher mid rank before the nerf, and they did nothing to fix the issue they wanted to fix, which was PvP scourges. It took them several more patches, breaking the class completely to get it to not be overpowered in pvP, simply because they lacked the creativity to realize the actual problem, and address the mechanical issue with a proper rework.

I don't find it hard to believe. I've seen it in action. Not from ANet mind you, but I have seen it. It is a very real possibility that they have an idea of what they want to do just no idea on how to get there. The sad truth about gaming and about faction gaming, in particular, is that sometimes you are never able to get one of your factions to where it needs to be, despite your best efforts. Odds are strong that they have a clear vision that they simply can not reach. Players like to believe that all factions in a game will be in balance with the rest of the game and be playable and as viable as the others. My experience in this regard is that no matter how much a company wants to get there they sometimes simply can't get there due to the mechanics and strengths and weaknesses of the other factions in the game. Bear in mind all 9 factions are interlinked. You can't change one faction without it having an effect on another faction. Thus you would ultimately be incorrect about this being a creativity problem. This isn't a creativity issue. You just don't get to see the bigger picture, the game in its entirety. It's a very common thing for the faction that happens to be at the bottom to feel that the company isn't trying hard enough, isn't creative enough, doesn't know what they are doing when the reality is that they really do know what they are doing. It's just not easy to get there and there are times when a company simply fails to get there within the life cycle of that particular game.

What you see as an easy fix that is more than obvious thing to be done may inadvertently be a horrible fix that will throw other aspects of the game completely out of whack. There are times when, despite the best efforts, that a faction is never gotten to the level at which it needs to be. It isn't a creativity issue. It isn't a lack of knowledge issue. It's just a quirk of games of this nature. This problem is not unique to ANet and you see it in other games.

[Nimon.7840]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:The problem is. Every other class has easier access to swiftness than necro does. So it's definetly not a mobility tool

Oh please... the core necromancer have:

• signet of the locust
  (increase passive movement by 25%)

Nice wasted slot

• quickening thrist (increase passive movement by 25%)

Another wasted slot

• speed of shadow (potentially perma swiftness)

Good trait but requires you to use the only good defensive cd.

• locust swarm (15 second swiftness every 30 seconds)

Not permanent

• spectral walk (30 seconds swiftness on a 50 seconds CD)

Combined with locust swarm almost permanent swiftness but you loose 2 stunbreak using this just for swiftness

• spectral walk for instant movement.

Not mentionable in this heavy mobile oriented power creep meta

• summon flesh wurm for teleport.

1 and 1/2 second casttime

• Dark path teleport.

Reaper have most of the above with dark path replaced by death charge.

Scourge have most of the core necromancer's movement ability with dark path replaced by sand swell.

Guardians and revenants would sell their souls for a 25% passive increase movement and necromancers have 2 way to have it. Necromancer can easily maintain swiftness. The movement abilities of the necromancer are either cluncky as hell or stupidly gated behind life force, but that's the only complain that a necromancer can have in regard of mobility.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Dace.8173" said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

[Nimon.7840]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

What gives you blood magic? Life leech? Passive movespeed while wielding a dagger? Condiclear?

Nothing that lets you survive high dmg bursts or gives you the ability to outsustain someone, as the lifeleach is pretty weak.

What gives you sotl?

25% Movespeed? 1700 heal on 30 second cd?Well everyone else has 33% movespeed,. So that's kinda useless.1700 heal that's 56 heal per second. Or if traited with bloodmagic it's 1900 = 63 heal per second. Pretty bad if you compare it to regeneration that all other classes have way easier access to than necromancer.

[Henry.5713]

They aren't bottom tier everywhere, though. The necromancers easily beat all other classes in terms of active forum complainers.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Henry.5713 said:They aren't bottom tier everywhere, though. The necromancers easily beat all other classes in terms of active forum complainers.

That's because it's one of the main 4 easiest class to play and be effective at, others being : ranger -guardian and warrior , this translate to a bigger number of players/complainers for the forum

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

What gives you blood magic? Life leech? Passive movespeed while wielding a dagger? Condiclear?

Nothing that lets you survive high dmg bursts or gives you the ability to outsustain someone, as the lifeleach is pretty weak.

What gives you sotl?

25% Movespeed? 1700 heal on 30 second cd?Well everyone else has 33% movespeed,. So that's kinda useless.1700 heal that's 56 heal per second. Or if traited with bloodmagic it's 1900 = 63 heal per second. Pretty bad if you compare it to regeneration that all other classes have way easier access to than necromancer.

SotL gives you unremovable movespeed in shroud when traited which is invaluable, and it's a 1700 heal for each nearby target. On 5 targets it's a 8500 heal on 30s - better than consume conditions with 3 conditions consumed.

25% is better than 0% if/when you immediately get swiftness stripped/stolen/corrupted, especially as a melee build into the existing hard matchups (thief with BT, mesmer's various boon hate, spellbreaker's various boon hate, etc.). Necro has enough mobility options (Shroud 2, Sand Swell) to make up for a little bit of lost ground over time if something moves out of range (and reaper has a very large melee hitbox radius which makes the 25% work fine).

On my reaper, I generally fight in group environments. So it becomes a free 8-9k heal (there's Healing power in my build) that deals AoE damage which ignores damage immunity effects like Endure Pain since it's a siphon effect.

I swear it's like ramming my head into a wall with this community sometimes. Nobody tries anything and everyone says everything is garbage unless it's busted OP. Half of the often-complained-about matchups are people just not having any readily-available answers invested in their builds. It's not even an overall kit problem or the things being weak when they're used.

Like yeah, I think signet passives should apply to shroud baseline rather than need a trait in Spite. But it still doesn't stop the combo from being potent.

[Yannir.4132]

Because death is our meme.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I swear it's like ramming my head into a wall with this community sometimes. Nobody tries anything and everyone says everything is garbage unless it's busted OP. Half of the often-complained-about matchups are people just not having any readily-available answers invested in their builds. It's not even an overall kit problem or the things being weak when they're used.

I can understand this sentiment. Half the PvP community still thinks Reaper is useless when it's actually pretty strong currently. I recently talked to a necromancer main that didn't even know Spectral Grasp affects 5 targets now.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Nimon.7840 said:

What gives you blood magic? Life leech? Passive movespeed while wielding a dagger? Condiclear?

• Pretty high rez ability: ritual of life, life from death, transfusion.
• Transfusion can heal you for quite a lot when playing scourge.
• Unholy martyr cleanse up to 3 conditions every 10 second and can potentially give you 21% life force on top of that.
• vampiric rituals actually can grant you an insane amount of sustain and the dps increase for the wells is far from being negligible.
• Quickening thirst also affect your dagger cool down and objectively the effect is quite good.
• Mark of evasion have a long CD for what it does but it can deal a decent amount of extra condi dps in bleed centric builds. The regen uptime can be pretty nice as well.
• Vampiric is a trait that give insane amount of sustain in minion centric builds.

Nothing that lets you survive high dmg bursts or gives you the ability to outsustain someone, as the lifeleach is pretty weak.

It give you the ability to outsustain someone and again, the life leech is weak only when you do not properly build to make it not weak.

What gives you sotl?

25% Movespeed? 1700 heal on 30 second cd?Well everyone else has 33% movespeed,. So that's kinda useless.1700 heal that's 56 heal per second. Or if traited with bloodmagic it's 1900 = 63 heal per second. Pretty bad if you compare it to regeneration that all other classes have way easier access to than necromancer.

So 25% movement speed and potentially a 7500+ heal that also damage your opponents is kinda useless? Oh... regen ;) not that mark of evasion, reaper's touch or mark of blood can't give it to you right? The necromancer can easily maintain perma regen on up to 5 players even if he is not at the point of the ranger.

Those abilities are objectively not bad, they are only out of your confort zone and thus you look at them with disdain.

[Nimon.7840]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

What gives you blood magic? Life leech? Passive movespeed while wielding a dagger? Condiclear?

Nothing that lets you survive high dmg bursts or gives you the ability to outsustain someone, as the lifeleach is pretty weak.

What gives you sotl?

25% Movespeed? 1700 heal on 30 second cd?Well everyone else has 33% movespeed,. So that's kinda useless.1700 heal that's 56 heal per second. Or if traited with bloodmagic it's 1900 = 63 heal per second. Pretty bad if you compare it to regeneration that all other classes have way easier access to than necromancer.

SotL gives you unremovable movespeed in shroud when traited which is invaluable, and it's a 1700 heal

for each nearby target

. On 5 targets it's a 8500 heal on 30s - better than consume conditions with 3 conditions consumed.

Nice. Can u use sotl in downstate? Cause that's where you should be if you meet 5 other players. Even in a group. Else the other group is just bad, not focussing the easiest kill.

25% is better than 0% if/when you immediately get swiftness stripped/stolen/corrupted, especially as a melee build into the existing hard matchups (thief with BT, mesmer's various boon hate, spellbreaker's various boon hate, etc.). Necro has enough mobility options (Shroud 2, Sand Swell) to make up for a little bit of lost ground over time if something moves out of range (and reaper has a very large melee hitbox radius which makes the 25% work fine).

You can't outrun or catch up to other professions even with 25% movespeed and rs2. I don't even care about spellbreakers removing swiftness. Tbh. I don't have problems killing most of the spellbreakers i meet.

On my reaper, I generally fight in group environments. So it becomes a free 8-9k heal (there's Healing power in my build) that deals AoE damage which ignores damage immunity effects like Endure Pain since it's a siphon effect.

Already mentioned above

I swear it's like ramming my head into a wall with this community sometimes. Nobody tries anything and everyone says everything is garbage unless it's busted OP. Half of the often-complained-about matchups are people just not having any readily-available answers invested in their builds. It's not even an overall kit problem or the things being weak when they're used.

Do you know why every good necro isn't playing signets or esp. Sotl? Because one said its bad?Not really.Most likely because they tried it and proved it as bad.

If it was good or at least decent, much more players would run it, but seems like you have the shorter stick here.

Like yeah, I think signet passives should apply to shroud baseline rather than need a trait in Spite. But it still doesn't stop the combo from being potent.

With your description of your build I guess you are playing something really tanky, not caring about dmg and killing people. It's a sitting duck build.

1. U use unyielding blast. - you loose speed of Shadows condiremove, being pinned down with immobiliz Ur sweet sotl is worth no movespeed.
2. You might use relentless pursuit, that is just as worse version of speed of Shadows and you loose augury of death or chilling nova for it
3. You loose a lot of survivability by not going soulreaping. Loosing the extra health and cooldowns reduction as well as passive protection and free critchance.

And even if you fully spec into healpower it's not worth it. You cannot outsustain the other classes, if they play on a decent skilllevel. And even if you could, you wouldn't have the dmg to kill them in return

[Nimon.7840]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

What gives you blood magic? Life leech? Passive movespeed while wielding a dagger? Condiclear?

• Pretty high rez ability:
  ritual of life
  ,
  life from death
  ,
  transfusion
  .
• Transfusion
  can heal you for quite a lot when playing scourge.
• Unholy martyr
  cleanse up to 3 conditions every 10 second and can potentially give you 21% life force on top of that.
• vampiric rituals
  actually can grant you an insane amount of sustain and the dps increase for the wells is far from being negligible.
• Quickening thirst
  also affect your dagger cool down and objectively the effect is quite good.
• Mark of evasion
  have a long CD for what it does but it can deal a decent amount of extra condi dps in bleed centric builds. The regen uptime can be pretty nice as well.
• Vampiric
  is a trait that give insane amount of sustain in minion centric builds.

Nothing that lets you survive high dmg bursts or gives you the ability to outsustain someone, as the lifeleach is pretty weak.

It give you the ability to outsustain someone and again, the life leech is weak only when you do not properly build to make it not weak.

Hahahaha outsustain some other class. Maybe at full healpower while the other guy has 0.

What gives you sotl?

25% Movespeed? 1700 heal on 30 second cd?Well everyone else has 33% movespeed,. So that's kinda useless.1700 heal that's 56 heal per second. Or if traited with bloodmagic it's 1900 = 63 heal per second. Pretty bad if you compare it to regeneration that all other classes have way easier access to than necromancer.

So 25% movement speed and potentially a 7500+ heal that also damage your opponents is kinda useless? Oh... regen ;) not that mark of evasion, reaper's touch or mark of blood can't give it to you right? The necromancer can easily maintain perma regen on up to 5 players even if he is not at the point of the ranger.

Yeah it is. If you meet 5 player you should be dead, if not, enemies suck.You are mentioning a skill that 99% of necro community doesn't like, because it's too weak for the difficulty to hit it, which is reapers touch. And you have to be very close to your opponent to hit it and get the regeneration. But generally you don't want to be so close to your enemy outside of shroud.

Those abilities are objectively not bad, they are only out of your confort zone and thus you look at them with disdain.

Not really. I guess I was one of the first players that tried healscourge right after release.But using staff in close combat? Good luck.

[KrHome.1920]

The coolest thing about signet of the locust is that most encounters think you are a noob and do not pay attention.

The signet is pretty good now. It's at least a 1,5k heal/2k damage on activation (up to 5x this effect). Unfortunately the signet gm trait kills me as I run plague signet too and in general dropping spiteful spirit really hurts.

[Axl.8924]

In the past it was always same on my necro:If i fouund some form of ranger or someone with lots of immobilizations i would be immobilized and lose because i wouldn't have enough ways to get out of it, and i would be blown up instantly for 5-10k.

Necro clearly needs help, it needs a way to protect vs those dumb invulns and some form of protection something defensive to stay alive outside of reaper because reaper is a armor sort of thing for necromancers with dmg combined.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

What gives you blood magic? Life leech? Passive movespeed while wielding a dagger? Condiclear?

• Pretty high rez ability:
  ritual of life
  ,
  life from death
  ,
  transfusion
  .
• Transfusion
  can heal you for quite a lot when playing scourge.
• Unholy martyr
  cleanse up to 3 conditions every 10 second and can potentially give you 21% life force on top of that.
• vampiric rituals
  actually can grant you an insane amount of sustain and the dps increase for the wells is far from being negligible.
• Quickening thirst
  also affect your dagger cool down and objectively the effect is quite good.
• Mark of evasion
  have a long CD for what it does but it can deal a decent amount of extra condi dps in bleed centric builds. The regen uptime can be pretty nice as well.
• Vampiric
  is a trait that give insane amount of sustain in minion centric builds.

Nothing that lets you survive high dmg bursts or gives you the ability to outsustain someone, as the lifeleach is pretty weak.

It give you the ability to outsustain someone and again, the life leech is weak only when you do not properly build to make it not weak.

Hahahaha outsustain some other class. Maybe at full healpower while the other guy has 0.

You don't need healing power, just to play properly.

What gives you sotl?

25% Movespeed? 1700 heal on 30 second cd?Well everyone else has 33% movespeed,. So that's kinda useless.1700 heal that's 56 heal per second. Or if traited with bloodmagic it's 1900 = 63 heal per second. Pretty bad if you compare it to regeneration that all other classes have way easier access to than necromancer.

So 25% movement speed and potentially a 7500+ heal that also damage your opponents is kinda useless? Oh... regen ;) not that mark of evasion, reaper's touch or mark of blood can't give it to you right? The necromancer can easily maintain perma regen on up to 5 players even if he is not at the point of the ranger.

Yeah it is. If you meet 5 player you should be dead, if not, enemies suck.You are mentioning a skill that 99% of necro community doesn't like, because it's too weak for the difficulty to hit it, which is reapers touch. And you have to be very close to your opponent to hit it and get the regeneration. But generally you don't want to be so close to your enemy outside of shroud.

I'm not saying that reaper touch is a good and satisfying skill and I'd be the first to ask for it to be changed. However, I'm honest enough to admit that I can make this skill work and in 1v1 it can be pretty deadly for my opponent. If I really needed it and wanted to add some regen to a power build that use focus, I'd most likely be able to sort things out.

Not liking something doesn't prevent me from acknowledging the possibilities of this thing.

Those abilities are objectively not bad, they are only out of your confort zone and thus you look at them with disdain.

Not really. I guess I was one of the first players that tried healscourge right after release.But using staff in close combat? Good luck.

I can use elementalist's staff at melee range and necromancer's staff isn't that difficult either. There is nothing difficult in laying a few marks at close range. Just a matter of being able to adapt your gameplay or not. No need for any luck for that.

[Dace.8173]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

My real gripe is the way things are defined in such a way as to the only conclusion that can be drawn is things suck. I think that there is a broader range of options. I do think that not everything in that range is OP. But I do think that there is wider room to work with than people want to deal with. I think if players accepted a broader range of playability then ANet's job would be easier to do and that we would see a lot more positive growth in the right direction.

@Axl.8924 said:In the past it was always same on my necro:If i fouund some form of ranger or someone with lots of immobilizations i would be immobilized and lose because i wouldn't have enough ways to get out of it, and i would be blown up instantly for 5-10k.

Necro clearly needs help, it needs a way to protect vs those dumb invulns and some form of protection something defensive to stay alive outside of reaper because reaper is a armor sort of thing for necromancers with dmg combined.

I agree Necromancer needs help. But so long as nothing short of being OP isn't enough it won't get it. So long as there is a narrowly defined criterion for what is good then it won't get it. So long as Necromancer players walk around and say they suck and refuse to acknowledge the ways in which the professions good it won't get that help (bear in mind I'm not addressing you personally, just using your comment a launching pad). I've seen where this attitude lands people in other games and it is never anywhere that the faction's fanbase wants it to be. Change is slow. Balancing is even slower than change. It's a long process of trial and error with the sad reality that they may never get there in Guild Wars 2. Which, yeah sucks but that's the sad reality of games of this nature. I've seen it happen. I've seen how bad it sucks.

What helps the most though is being somewhat positive. It helps when folks acknowledge what actually does work so that there is a clearer and better picture for ANet to work with. So long as everything sucks there is no real hope for improvement. When people acknowledge what works though, things have the potential for change. ANet gets better and more precise feedback that assists in the process. The doom and gloom that pervades these discussions really just promises that Necromancer continues to suck as it brings a halt to all forms of constructive feedback and critique.

Necromancer needs some buffing in PvE. But the current forum attitude on the matter hinders Necromancer's ability to actually get that help. Let's acknowledge that Necromancer doesn't 100% suck. Let's acknowledge that Necromancer is good in WvW and PvP so that the lessons from those areas of play can be used to help give better feedback. Let's push back against the elitist in the community who want narrowly define what can work in Raids and Dungeons which in turns allows them to control what other people play.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

Dadnir, I get that you're a Necro player by heart and try to put it all into a more positive perspective here. It's admirable, but I'm afraid it also doesn't help "our" case that much. If (really big IF here) the devs read the Necro forums at all (severely doubt it tho), it only reinforces their idea of leaving the Necro in this state. And if we talk about PvE right now, I can tell you, the Necro is NOT in a good state right now!!! The worst compared to all other classes, actually.I also get that the Necro does have some neat tool at their fingertips that are not META right now (technically everything is, cause the Necro as a whole is not META right now, but hey), but I'm really wondering if you've invested some significant time in any other class before? Cause I have (not only because I like to play something different now and then, but also out of pure necessity, getting really tired of being unwanted by your party/squad before we even begin an encounter), and can tell you that all classes have VERY neat tools that are not META (or are META, but are still very cool!). Take your pick, and you'll be surprised how many hidden gems are in every single specialization to still be (widely) discovered. So the Necro is not unique in that case, at all, really. If you really want to try a class that really has everything, you should indeed try the Elementalist, and they even have the capabilities to be one of the best at it if it comes to sheer numbers (be it DPS (not anymore, but always used to), healing, or even CC)! And of course the Mesmer, but that is not really a surprise, although the community sometimes forget that they're actually not even that bad in healing as well.

But imo the whole conclusion to that is that ANet should FIRST balance their game on actual statistics that is measurable/benchmarked, before they put their efforts in balancing around "possibilities" of "hidden gems" and/or anecdotal arguments like: "this one time I saw this really good Necro with reaper's Touch ...". And the real numbers/statistics are definitely not in favour of the Necro right now! I can tell you that. (Big disclaimer: I'm talking about PvE here, as you can imagine)

[Crinn.7864]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Nimon.7840" said:The problem is. Every other class has easier access to swiftness than necro does. So it's definetly not a mobility tool

Oh please... the core necromancer have:

• signet of the locust
  (increase passive movement by 25%)
• quickening thrist
  (increase passive movement by 25%)
• speed of shadow
  (potentially perma swiftness)
• locust swarm
  (15 second swiftness every 30 seconds)
• spectral walk
  (30 seconds swiftness on a 50 seconds CD)
• spectral walk
  for instant movement.
• summon flesh wurm
  for teleport.
• Dark path
  teleport.

Reaper have most of the above with

dark path

replaced by

death charge

.

Scourge have most of the core necromancer's movement ability with

dark path

replaced by

sand swell

.

Guardians and revenants would sell their souls for a 25% passive increase movement and necromancers have 2 way to have it. Necromancer can easily maintain swiftness. The movement abilities of the necromancer are either cluncky as hell or stupidly gated behind life force, but that's the only complain that a necromancer can have in regard of mobility.

Revenant doesn't care about a 25% speed mod because it has permenant swiftness on herald in addition to running phase traversal on every relevant build. Guardian likewise has multiple sources of teleport and leap engage skills and does not need more combat mobility. Literally the only place where guardian would give a crap about a 25% speed mod is for world completing. Except mounts are a thing so....

25% and 33% speed mods are completely inadequate in a game where most meta classes in PvP are stacking teleports and leaps. Necro has absolutely 0 means to stick to a target, and is a sitting duck. You can't kill what you can't catch and you can't survive what you can't escape.

Making a list of skills as saying "looks see mobility!!!!" without putting them into context of what your opponents have is idiotic.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Dace.8173 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Dace.8173 said:Also, there are reasons to main Necromancer and be happy. Necromancer is still a fun profession and it does very well in WvW and PvP. So the idea that people who main Necromancer can't be happy simply isn't true. If your entire focus is Raiding and Dungeons then yeah, you may never be happy. But Necromancers place as at the bottom is not universal across all states of the game. If you enjoy PvP and WvW you may be very happy with Necromancer. If PvE endgame content really isn't all that important to you and you care more about how fun it is to play then you can be very happy playing Necromancer. This is one of the reasons why people scoff when Necromancers complain about how bad they are at the game and how nobody could possibly enjoy playing the profession. There are people who do enjoy the profession and they enjoy it because they don't value the same thing that the Raiding/Dungeon crowd does. This whole blanket statement makes it really hard to take Necromancer players seriously.

I'll might be a bit harsh, but I think that the main reason players are unhappy with their professions nowaday is because they've grown accustomed to play something "meta" and lost "flexibility" in their approach of the game.

A perfect example of that is when someone just outright deny tools that answer their complaints by qualifying these tool as:

wasted slot

This clearly show that those players are unwilling to move on and adapt.

NB.: Don't get me wrong, I don't target any specific player. This mentality to stick to a few tools and qualifying the other tools as "wasted slot" is sadly widely spread accross all professions. And the best at denying their own abilities are not the necromancers but the elementalists.

My real gripe is the way things are defined in such a way as to the only conclusion that can be drawn is things suck. I think that there is a broader range of options. I do think that not everything in that range is OP. But I do think that there is wider room to work with than people want to deal with. I think if players accepted a broader range of playability then ANet's job would be easier to do and that we would see a lot more positive growth in the right direction.

@"Axl.8924" said:In the past it was always same on my necro:If i fouund some form of ranger or someone with lots of immobilizations i would be immobilized and lose because i wouldn't have enough ways to get out of it, and i would be blown up instantly for 5-10k.

Necro clearly needs help, it needs a way to protect vs those dumb invulns and some form of protection something defensive to stay alive outside of reaper because reaper is a armor sort of thing for necromancers with dmg combined.

I agree Necromancer needs help. But so long as nothing short of being OP isn't enough it won't get it. So long as there is a narrowly defined criterion for what is good then it won't get it. So long as Necromancer players walk around and say they suck and refuse to acknowledge the ways in which the professions good it won't get that help (bear in mind I'm not addressing you personally, just using your comment a launching pad). I've seen where this attitude lands people in other games and it is never anywhere that the faction's fanbase wants it to be. Change is slow. Balancing is even slower than change. It's a long process of trial and error with the sad reality that they may never get there in Guild Wars 2. Which, yeah sucks but that's the sad reality of games of this nature. I've seen it happen. I've seen how bad it sucks.

What helps the most though is being somewhat positive. It helps when folks acknowledge what actually does work so that there is a clearer and better picture for ANet to work with. So long as everything sucks there is no real hope for improvement. When people acknowledge what works though, things have the potential for change. ANet gets better and more precise feedback that assists in the process. The doom and gloom that pervades these discussions really just promises that Necromancer continues to suck as it brings a halt to all forms of constructive feedback and critique.

Necromancer needs some buffing in PvE. But the current forum attitude on the matter hinders Necromancer's ability to actually get that help. Let's acknowledge that Necromancer doesn't 100% suck. Let's acknowledge that Necromancer is good in WvW and PvP so that the lessons from those areas of play can be used to help give better feedback. Let's push back against the elitist in the community who want narrowly define what can work in Raids and Dungeons which in turns allows them to control what other people play.

It's funny, because I was typing my post, when you were posting yours ...Just like I stated in the above message, I think it's admirable to think in a positive way, and I genuinely like that in a lot of people here in this community. But I still wholeheartedly disagree with your reasoning though! I actually really think the Necro community is pretty much the one community (overall since pretty much the start of the game) that always tries to stay positive while having a terrible history of being the most unwanted class in PvE since pretty much 6 years now. And they're always more than happy to give something in return in order to get some much needed love back from ANet. From: "Oh, it must be our Shroud" to: "Epidemic is impeding our chances to really shine". Hell, it even goes to a level of where some of us even think the completely out of line nerfs from last patch were justified only because we finally got a Flesh Shark in return ....The whole point being, we pretty much never just DEMAND the much needed buffs we so much deserve! We're always so nice and always keep on believing in that positive future where we are META material not just for a few weeks but maybe like Warrior/Mesmer/Ele/Ranger for several years even .... Wow, how beautiful would that be ... Maybe the next expansion, I can already see it in front of me: "In stores now: GW2 Utopia, where the Necro actually becomes optimal for the whole duration of the expansions life" ...Well, we all know how they've treated us so far, why would that all of the sudden change now? So, maybe it's time for a different approach in the Necro community, maybe we just and only give them our demands, instead of bargaining all the time ... and whit what would that still even be, what's there left to bargain with??? Our minions? LOL ... What can we still give in return in order to get these much needed damage, support, healing, CC, mobility, sustainability, etc. buffs??? I just don't know anymore! So, please don't pretend the Necro has so much going for it. Because if you do, you should really play different professions, and you'll experience they will outshine the Necro in pretty much all areas. And if you don't find that that's the case, you're not playing these other professions right, or you not that experienced in that profession yet. The Necro litteraly has a limit cap above his/her head, that you can only improve by moving to another profession ... Be it at doing DPS, or doing healing, be it at doing CC or providing support for the team .... he's/she's literally capped! And not somewhere floating in the middle at that ... NO: always residing at or near the bottom. It's just wrong! And I really don't get why ANet is not acknowledging that. Is there maybe a research paper that we don't know about where it becomes clear that Necro mains are the worst spenders in the gem store???

Anywho, for people who didnt already get this, I'm obviously talking about PvE only here ... and because ANet has proven that they can and will balance separately per game mode, we can demand changes in PvE and be the absolute opposite of changes that might be needed in in PvP/WvW, where I think the Necro is not in a bad state at all (although not the very best anymore either!)

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:

Dadnir, I get that you're a Necro player by heart and try to put it all into a more positive perspective here. It's admirable, but I'm afraid it also doesn't help "our" case that much. If (really big IF here) the devs read the Necro forums at all (severely doubt it tho), it only reinforces their idea of leaving the Necro in this state. And if we talk about PvE right now, I can tell you, the Necro is NOT in a good state right now!!! The worst compared to all other classes, actually.I also get that the Necro does have some neat tool at their fingertips that are not META right now (technically everything is, cause the Necro as a whole is not META right now, but hey), but I'm really wondering if you've invested some significant time in any other class before? Cause I have (not only because I like to play something different now and then, but also out of pure necessity, getting really tired of being unwanted by your party/squad before we even begin an encounter), and can tell you that all classes have VERY neat tools that are not META (or are META, but are still very cool!). Take your pick, and you'll be surprised how many hidden gems are in every single specialization to still be (widely) discovered. So the Necro is not unique in that case, at all, really. If you really want to try a class that really has everything, you should indeed try the Elementalist, and they even have the capabilities to be one of the best at it if it comes to sheer numbers (be it DPS (not anymore, but always used to), healing, or even CC)! And of course the Mesmer, but that is not really a surprise, although the community sometimes forget that they're actually not even that bad in healing as well.

But imo the whole conclusion to that is that ANet should FIRST balance their game on actual statistics that is measurable/benchmarked, before they put their efforts in balancing around "possibilities" of "hidden gems" and/or anecdotal arguments like: "this one time I saw this really good Necro with reaper's Touch ...". And the real numbers/statistics are definitely not in favour of the Necro right now! I can tell you that. (Big disclaimer: I'm talking about PvE here, as you can imagine)

I've played GW2 since 2 week after launch and I've been playing equally all professions since then. More than a necromancer by heart, I'm someone that want all professions to have room to shine and in my opinion the one profession that had it the worst is the necromancer.

I've expressed my opinions numerous time and I'm often at odd with others, which is normal since everyone see thing from their own point of view. Honnestly, the main issue of the necromancer is and have always been the existence of the infamous 2nd life bar as the main and only defense mechanism. And from this point every necromancer's tools end up "weak" in order to compensate for the theoretical OPness of the 2nd life bar.

I get that players want to break down the issue into smaller issues but, let's be honnest, necromancer's mobility in combat wouldn't matter if we had block, evade or even invuln instead of the 2nd life bar. The necromancer's issue is that he is 100 time weaker against CC due to it's way to mitigate damage, you can put more sustain, more "mobility" or even more damage but in the end you'll just end breaking up the necromancer's balance leading to further nerfs.

Making number tweaks on the necromancer and keeping what break him in game is an endless journey that will nowhere and can only create dissatisfaction.

Now, know that I'm a decent elementalist player (not good but at least I know how to make it work and I was pretty successfull with it in the vanilla game running dungeon as main buffer/dpser), my heart is on the mesmer (because it's my first character and it is the one that hooked me to the game with it's peculiar gameplay), I'm an endless advocate of some improvement on the ranger's pets ('cause seriously who the hell design them to be so crappy?), I'm pretty well aware on how strong thief can be in every game mode (and I laugh everytime people say that a thief is to frail)... etc. The only 2 professions with which I tend to struggle are the engineer (which just don't suit my taste in regard of gameplay) and the revenant (which was obviously clumsily designed by putting together the necromancer's idea to improve their own profession).

As for reaper touch, I know how to use it, that's all. The builds that use it successfully feel like sht to play but are still pretty strong in WvW. And since I play to have fun and not to feel like sht, I rarely bother to use focus or a build that use it.

As for PvE, I've already proposed some suggestions to improve this aspect.

[Axl.8924]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

As for PvE, I've already proposed some suggestions to improve this aspect.

But scourge has no shroud of massive second hp bar, only reaper does.Why should scourge suffer from that if only reaper has second life bar? and it disappears nearly instantly anyways for reaper since he spends so much life force.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Axl.8924 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

As for PvE, I've already proposed some suggestions to improve this aspect.

But scourge has no shroud of massive second hp bar, only reaper does.Why should scourge suffer from that if only reaper has second life bar? and it disappears nearly instantly anyways for reaper since he spends so much life force.

Barrier suffer from the same issues as shroud. It's a mitigation tool that is finite in the end and don't prevent hard CC. Fixing the 2nd health bar thingy automatically strengthen the defense of the necromancer as a whole and would even increase scourge survivability.