Trying to decide between MM Necromancer and Ranger for solo PvE?

[sutasafaia.4872]

Now that I've had a chance to do some research after my old post (thank you for the ideas, btw) I think I have it narrowed down to these two.

Before the inevitable people say MMO's are for grouping, I already have a grouper, a Warrior that I love to pieces. I'm looking for something to do in my down time when I don't feel like grouping up.

I already have both a ranger and a necromancer in their mid-20's, the problem is that I enjoy both of them. I want to focus on one or the other and start to make some progress with them and playing both at the same time drastically reduces how quickly they move. It isn't that I'm in any particular rush to get them to cap (I'm going to be 100%ing the world map on this character) but I would like to be able to make progress with them at a somewhat reasonable rate.

I enjoy pet classes and they both provide me with such in their own way. I would really appreciate some insight on how the two compare for soloing PvE in regards to soloing higher end things that are maybe not meant for solo, or at least harder for many classes while being easier for ranger or necromancer, things like that. I know that every class can PvE but obviously some are better at it than others, and these are the two that get brought up the most.

I'm personally leaning a little towards the ranger, they seem more laid back and sturdier than the necromancer, especially since you don't have to keep an eye on all your pets. Just use 3 sigils, a bear/drake, and sip tea. Of course that's only in the mid 20's, I don't know how either of them play later on. Not to mention I've also had almost as easy a time with my necro. MM Necro has been kind of funny, just tag a mob and watch them get swarmed under. I feel like I'm at less risk playing the Necro over the Ranger.

I prefer ranged over melee by a long shot and so far they both seem good for range. Longbow vs Axe/Scepter basically (depending if I go power or condi for necro). That said, I know GS is good on both (at least at 80 for necro) and I'm fairly sure that MM Reaper uses the GS a lot for condi turning into bleeds from blinds from chills or somesuch chained nonsense :P

This will basically be my character for doing the various holiday events, and unlike my group character, I would be trying to max out crafting and the like for this one as well. Starting with tailor/weaponsmith for necro (at least I would assume, since GS becomes a MM's primary weapon? Or artificing for scepter maybe?) or leather/huntsman for Ranger, depending.

Long story short, looking for the better solo PvE class to play in my down time. I was just trying to flesh it out a bit more to see if it helped. Thank you in advance for the ideas.

If necro...how would you recommend leveling it? Ranger seems like I've got a build down already, but necro seems harder to find info on. Death/Blood/Curses and level as condi? I'm not concerned with speed, I'm concerned with never dying. Also, which pet is the least useful? I plan to keep one utility slot open for whatever I need at the time so knowing which pet is easiest to drop is nice. Especially later on for Rise!

[Oglaf.1074]

Necromancer is a wonderful solo class due to having some of the highest survivability in the game due to the "panic button" that is Death Shroud - and it gets even better once you unlock Reaper which has it's own improved version of the mechanic. It does indeed allow them to solo things not meant to be soloable like Champions (depends greatly on the capabilities of said Chmapion though).

Rangers likewise due to, via Druid, being the only true "Healer" class in the game. And their pet is better at actual tanking than the Necromancer. My experience with Rangers/Druids is a lot less than with Necromancer though.

Also, one thing to consider for the far future is raid viability. Rangers, again because of healing, are always going to be raid-viable. Necromancer... sadly I've personally witnessed them booted out of raid squads purely based on their class. However, with PoF just having launched maybe their new spec will change that - I don't know yet. But it is something to keep in mind also.

[Inc.4753]

When soloing high level maps, a somewhat controlable pet might be preferable over multiple uncontrolable pets, due to unwanted agroing. Especially exploding minions can cause a bit of trouble.

[Evolseed.9104]

Reaper. Who needs survivability when you can summon the power of undead minions? Power is always preferred over survivability. A good Defense is a good Offense!

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

Also, keep in mind that Halloween is not very far away. Last year I did probably 50 or 55 levels on my Necro in just a week or so running around Mad King's Labyrinth - you get boosted to level 80 when you go in the map if you're lower. So, basically I went from creating a new character to level 80 in a month, and only the last 10 or so were from tomes of knowledge. And I love my power reaper even if she's despised for raids. I leveled my ranger the old fashioned way before I ever created the necro. That took several months of playing to do. I enjoy playing him too. But for soloing, necro is the easier of the two. Reaper and Chrono are the only two that I've solo'd champions on (admittedly not all of them).

[Syreas.8403]

Do a Ranger. I have played a Ranger since launch, so I'm biased. Minion Master puts me to sleep, whereas Greatsword/Longbow Ranger is engaging and still tanky as all get-out (for open world) if you trait it right.

Like I said, I'm biased, but it's my two cents :)

[calb.3128]

For rolling through holiday events, Necro is probably the better option (I say, grudgingly). For flexibility in solo PvE, however, I can't recommend Ranger enough. I know there is a vocal bunch who hate pets, but the pet controls in PvE are really useful for solo play.

[sutasafaia.4872]

Thanks for all the advice so far. I've been kind of playing both, both are around 35 now, still hard to pick which I enjoy more. Definitely slowing down a lot for leveling speed though so I really would like to just focus on one of them...

So far I'm playing both as power (since I was told leveling condi is painful). I've got a MM Necro with axe/focus and dagger/x, so far i like the axe a lot more. Bone fiend, shadow fiend, and locus signet with golem elite. Still need a second elite though since the dumb thing can't swim. I've been swapping between blood and death, will likely use both come 41.

Ranger is longbow/GS and using all signets so far. (stone, wild, and renewal). Of course have been focusing on beast mastery. I love how easy it is to get out of a downed state with a pet, although to be fair my necro almost never actually goes into a downed state. I tend to find that necro can hold their own easier but ranger really needs their pet to take hits for them. Maybe I'm just bad, who knows?

Really not sure which I like better. Both are easy to play, although I have the feeling necro will get a little harder later with the inclusion of reaper since it involves being in melee more. I tend to prefer ranged, but the necro definitely feels sturdier than ranger. Ranger pet almost never dies, and even on champs, as long as there's not a ton of mobs in the fight you can just infinite swap your pet and chances are the ranger will never even get hit once. When there's lots of enemies though necro seems to do better. Not because they have better aoe but because they can take hits a lot better. Ranger getting beat up is emergency mode, necro getting beat up is eat their face mode. Maybe?

No idea =/ really unsure which is better long run. I like both, I almost wish I didn't, I want to actually focus on one and maybe start making some progress that's not super slow due to splitting my time between two classes. I've heard it gets much harder to solo in HoT areas but I'm still determined to at least try >>

[Eros.6801]

You are quite right, Necro are more sturdier in group event or anykind of events where you fight ton of mobs, no class can beat necro in term of fighting multi enemies at once ( PvE only ), but you will find yourself in some case likes 1v1 for example a champ or very few enemies around once you spent all your lifeforce it will become very hard to get it backup to perform combos etc, worst case if your minions all dead that's mean you are in deep trouble and the ONE THING i hate most about necro is you cannot have anykind of control over your minions, very hard to get out of combat. But if you prefer ranged then Scourge is very good at it but required PoF, i enjoy my scourge more than reaper.

Ranger is like a reverse necro, when fighting multi enemies it take some skills to take them all down and only condi druid or condi soulbeast capable of doing this with ease due to traps, torch #5 and axe auto, but even so it is much weaker than necro in term of multi targets. However you have full control over your pets which mean ranger are far more versatile than necro in anykind of combat especially when you fight 1v1 with a champ, easily get out of combat. This just my personal imo but ranger has more dps on single target while necro has more over multi targets, if you choose ranger i'm afraid you will have to go with condi build, power still work great but alot weaker than condi ranger/druid/soulbeast.

[sutasafaia.4872]

Would be nice if there was an easy answer. Doesn't seem like I'll be that lucky for this one.

[Hex.2579]

there isn't an easy answer xD cuz both are fantastic at soloing in the open world. it'll all boil down to your personal preference and what you have more fun to play on.

necro has their shroud improved with reaper, and so with scourge. reapers are good for both condi/power. scourge however leans toward condi more.shroud is an added pool of health, so that's a lot of survivability there. you can spec to get toughness with more minions you control at hand.overall making them ready for anything, but can be boring if all you run is minions and let them do all the work.necros are hard to kill and remain so cuz their base health is quite high even for a light armor class, highest compare to their light armor friends, eles and mesmers.

ranger has their pets as your 2 companions, which are deadly if you spec beastmastery. plus, a lot of sustain with celestial avatar as a druid. even if you have no healing power, you could still pump out a lot of healing on your own. and get access to a lot of boons, which necros don't have any except might and minor protection.beastmode for the new elite is quite interesting as well, merging you with your chosen pet, gaining new skills and abilities.rangers are one of those interesting classes cuz you have to tame a pet in order to get them and use them. and you have quite a collection to choose from. that i like.

necro is one of my mains. i have two, engi and necro. lol. i can't help myself but it feels very natural on the necro =]i don't use minions cuz i don't find them useful at all. if i gotta use, i go with the elite flesh golem for cc. for leveling a necro, use axe as your main hand, and just chop chop everything down. armor can be berserker. until you max out, you can decide to go power or condi later. but condi is very much preferred in group play cuz the aids. lol.for ranger, you could go with a shout build, whereas you gain boons every time you swap pet, and whatever boons you have will be shared with your pets and each boon increases your damage too. and the cheesy pet rez. lol.

necro is great at AoE damage, where as ranger is like a hunter, focus on a single target. mobs in HoT are not that bad, but they're very tanky, so anything with condis in mind will melt them over time. and necro naturally has a higher health base maybe helpful. but i run them both and i like them. why choose when you can have both? xD

[rdfaye.4368]

Ranger here. It is a great class that requires you to think and pay attention. Once you get into higher levels, you have to choose the best pet for the job. Moas are good at breakbars, bears tank well, etc. For me, it's just fun.

I love lb myself, but for HoT condi ranger works better (IMO). And base condi ranger is very high dps. SB and A/T is a good place to start. Lay down torch 5 and watch those pocket raptors burn! I sometimes run condi druid in open world as I do not have the quickest reaction time, and it helps me survive a bit better in the expansion maps.

Still learning Sbeast, but it opens up a lot of new abilities to try. Have fun playing!

[Alaric.3980]

I love my ranger. It's frustrating because I've somehow managed to make him extraordinarily squishy but I love my 59% crit rate when I'm merged with my pet and I love the variety of pets I can have.

[RoastedBloop.9817]

With ranger, it requires a little bit of micromanagement with the pets, however the pets can be a source of tanking for you. Necro minions can be your tank whilst you whittle away mobs hp.It depends on your playstyle, necro can be squishy or fairly decent. Whilst ranger will be fair to decent. Necro strength lies in group, rangers excel in solo.It's up to you though.

[Pagan Highlander.5948]

Its PVE, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters in PVE, its the easiest game mode

[thrdeye.1028]

Good news! Reaper is perfectly viable without the greatsword (although it is an excellent weapon). You mentioned going with Death and Blood soon, I run with both and love it. If you're running MM, take Death 1,1,2 and Blood 2,3,3. At max level, this will put you at or above 3k armor easily. Every hit from you or your minions will also siphon ~90 life from the enemy. Doesn't sound like much but it adds up quickly especially with fast hitting weapons like dagger or scepter. For the third trait line, I switch between Scourge 2,1,1/2 with Dire/Trailblazer gear, staff and dagger/torch or Reaper 2,2,2 with Assassin/Rabid gear, staff and dagger/focus. Utility skills are all minions, I usually skip the Flesh Wurm just to avoid having to place it all the time although the teleport/stun break is nice. I switch a minion slot out for Rise! as well because it's just that good. Don't forget on a MM build that your minions all have their own utility, some on rather short CDs and it's easy to just let them do their thing and let their abilities go unused.

Both builds have very high survivability and solid DPS. Reaper puts out more consistent damage and has a "panic button," Scourge has higher burst but Shade placement can be fiddly and although the survivability is at least as good as the Reaper build you don't have Death Shroud if you get in over your head. Which in any case occurs rarely. My mob killing technique has been to run around on the raptor, aggro as much as possible and then use its ability to pull them together and AoE bomb everything. This includes soloing group events with Veterans, and some Champions can be taken as well depending on their abilities. You can run back out to range if you want and use the staff. I like the dagger because of the synergy between fast attack speed and Vampiric traits as well as the Life Force generation on the autoattack, but you could switch it out for scepter if you want. In this case, you could switch out Blood or maybe the elite specialization for Curses.

If you have any questions about this, please ask. My Ranger is only slightly higher level than yours so I'm afraid I can't make that comparison for you but I'm beyond pleased with MM Necro at max level.

Edit: You specified PvE but it's worth mentioning that this MM craziness does not carry over to PvP and especially WvW. Your minions will be easily killed in PvP and in WvW your opponents will probably not even realize they are there before they die to random AoE. Necro is for area denial and boon corruption in these game modes, Minion Masters need not apply.

[Rhatha.2376]

They're both fantastic open world. As far as running around never dying, though, I think in the long term necro will likely be better at that, when you can transition into a condi build with curses, death magic, and one of scourge/reaper/blood magic depending on your preference. Parasitic contagion on top of the minions with shroud or barriers, and epidemic will make you nigh-invincible in open world, even in dps gear, and if you want to be extra silly and kill slower, gear like trailblazer instead of the usual viper is also an option. In old world Tyria while leveling, though, things tend to die fast enough that condi isn't as effective, especially if you outlevel an area before finishing it, so running dagger/warhorn and axe/X is probably a better bet (focus for vuln/regen, dagger for condi transfer to remove annoying cripples and the like). At max level, though, once you can get all of your gear appropriately statted and caught up to your level, condi is much more effective on necro in most cases.

I have had a lot of fun with power soulbeast in open world since PoF launched, and it's great for bursting down a single enemy, but it's a lot more limited in the aoe department, and if you're not running druid it has less options to handle condis on you. I know condi is better for that, but I don't have a set and medium armor is expensive now so I can't speak to that. The way you described what you're looking for in your original post, I suspect necro will end up being closer to the mark at max level.