Im not playing GW2 till necro is fun to play in PVE again

[Obtena.7952]

Fun is subjective .. there is no way Anet can deliver directly to you what you ask because you have associated fun with balance when their isn't any correlation at all. Despite those nerfs, lots of people still have fun. It's a weak argument when people start linking balance to 'fun'. It's so meaningless and unmeasurable.

Doesn't change what I said. Sounds like you choose the wrong class to play; if your criteria links 'balanced' to what is 'fun', better find a different class.

[Jimbru.6014]

I have a lot of fun playing my support scourge in open world PVE and five-person content. It's great when I jump into a world boss fight or other big event dogpile and start doing my thing with barriers and heals and somebody goes "Holy crap there's real players here!" Helping other players -- it's not just for instances anymore!

[Anchoku.8142]

The crux of the issue, I think, is that Necro still has a lot of the old selfish combat mechanics and traits.

Necro support capability can be distilled to taking Blood Magic and/or Desert Empowerment. No other traits have any significant group utility. The few support-ish weapon skills and utilities weak. Other professions can provide valuable boons or combat mechanics on dps builds or go full support with greater effectiveness.

The Blood Magic rework years ago was great and barrier sharing is good but those two new features do not add enough ways to support team members.

• Staff 4 remains bereft of group utility from its nerf long ago.
• Barrier sharing looses value as group skill increases
• Regen (Staff 2 and focus 4) does not stack and the highest healing power has priority.
• Life Siphon, dagger 2, cannot be shared.
• Soft CC is rendered useless by Defiance - so much for Necro's main support mechanic.
• Wells are not split between game modes and buffed for PvE
• Corruptions, spectral, minions, shouts and punishment utilities feel bad vs Defiance but, yay, work on break bars.

[Xxnecroxx.4039]

@Obtena.7952 said:Fun is subjective .. there is no way Anet can deliver directly to you what you ask because you have associated fun with balance when their isn't any correlation at all. Despite those nerfs, lots of people still have fun. It's a weak argument when people start linking balance to 'fun'. It's so meaningless and unmeasurable.

Doesn't change what I said. Sounds like you choose the wrong class to play; if your criteria links 'balanced' to what is 'fun', better find a different class.

would you find your main class that you have put thousands of hours into and thousands of gold and grinding to make look amazing, would you have fun with it if one balance patch they gutted them to be terrible, their damage numbers are poo, your character is no longer accepted in high end end game content, you have nothing special about your class anymore, no special boons to share and the kind of job that you can do it can easily be out done by other classes in every way (this is PVE BTW)

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Xxnecroxx.4039 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Fun is subjective .. there is no way Anet can deliver directly to you what you ask because you have associated fun with balance when their isn't any correlation at all. Despite those nerfs, lots of people still have fun. It's a weak argument when people start linking balance to 'fun'. It's so meaningless and unmeasurable.

Doesn't change what I said. Sounds like you choose the wrong class to play; if your criteria links 'balanced' to what is 'fun', better find a different class.

would you find your main class that you have put thousands of hours into and thousands of gold and grinding to make look amazing, would you have fun with it if one balance patch they gutted them to be terrible, their damage numbers are poo, your character is no longer accepted in high end end game content, you have nothing special about your class anymore, no special boons to share and the kind of job that you can do it can easily be out done by other classes in every way (this is PVE BTW)

I don't think you understand that for PvP players, necro is literally the source of this problem for multiple professions where the entire game revolves around how well necro performs because it's actually that powerful of a class.

We understand fully. It's just your complaint isn't correct by asking for buffs to necro. The class is arguably the strongest or one of the strongest in the game in macro power based on how it counters things and how it needs to be played around. Its entire purpose is to maintain dominance through battlefield control and denial of power to enemies and converting that into their offense. Just none of these strengths apply in PvE because ANet has yet to make an encounter that's anything more than number-crunching some DPS and makes half their big bad boss encounters downright immune to most of the power necro brings.

You're asking to change what necromancer is intended to do, rather than suggesting ways to make what it does work better in PvE. That's the issue. Do you think it would make sense for someone to request in the thief subsection that the class needs more invulnerability effects and reduced incoming damage so that it can be an effective tank/damage sponge? No. If people wanted to suggest ways for thief to tank, it'd be through aggro maintenance tools and ways to involve dodging through the incoming damage rather than necessarily depending on a healer or zero-tell stun which some bosses inflict. That's basically what you're asking for on necro right now, and it makes little sense.

Nowhere in the class is maximum damage via conditions mentioned, and Epi spam was boring gameplay that a lot of necromancer players criticized because they wanted to actually play their class rather than simulate the terminal hacking part of Crucible of Eternity where people just type 3 2 1 and press F to advance.

[Obtena.7952]

@Xxnecroxx.4039 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Fun is subjective .. there is no way Anet can deliver directly to you what you ask because you have associated fun with balance when their isn't any correlation at all. Despite those nerfs, lots of people still have fun. It's a weak argument when people start linking balance to 'fun'. It's so meaningless and unmeasurable.

Doesn't change what I said. Sounds like you choose the wrong class to play; if your criteria links 'balanced' to what is 'fun', better find a different class.

would you find your main class that you have put thousands of hours into and thousands of gold and grinding to make look amazing, would you have fun with it if one balance patch they gutted them to be terrible, their damage numbers are poo, your character is no longer accepted in high end end game content, you have nothing special about your class anymore, no special boons to share and the kind of job that you can do it can easily be out done by other classes in every way (this is PVE BTW)

Yes I would because I don't make choices for what class to play based on performance relative to other classes; it's a bad idea to do so because you have to expect that when the game changes, you might have to change class with it. You need to realign your expectations; Anet isn't going to change how they do things and align to whatever criteria you invent for class choice because you made an I QUIT thread. As I've already said once before, your statement here doesn't change what I've said; if you can't adapt to game changes, you simply shouldn't be playing MMOs in the first place. They all do this, it's typical and expected.

[dusanyu.4057]

Lave your toys in the pram! How do you know necro is fun again if you stopped playing?

[Aplethoraof.2643]

Necromancer in PvE is fine. Have done raids, fracs, dungeons, and open world. Never struggled.

Just find a guild, instead of doing it with PUGS. That isn't difficult.

That said, I do wish they put more boons on enemies.

[Nimon.7840]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@annsi.4239 said:@Warscythes.9307 said:

What are you talking about? Condi scourge is fine in PvE.

It is fine, in open world. As for other PVE content like fractals and raids:

• is not it same good as other cdps classes? I don't think so..
• is not it same boons useful as some other classes? I don't think so..

Please correct me if I'm wrong with proofs^

I'm playing condi scourge and I'm happy with it, however I don't see point why I would be taken into group instead of many other classes.So yes, would be great to see some DPS parity with other condi classes.

AoENot needed on bosses.Boon StripBoon CorruptNot not needed on bossesBarrier from doing DPS

Doesn't reliable remove pressure as you are using barrier skills to do dmg, and not to prevent dmg

If you don't understand why those would be desired in T4 fractals, please go read the patch notes from earlier this week.

Necro is fine in fractals, but let's be honest, fractals are pretty easy. And we want necro to be good in raids.

Almost daily my LFG group has a Necro in it, about 50% power reaper and 50% condi scourge.

[Anchoku.8142]

The developers know Defiance is the source of Necro's balance problems. They have known for more than six years and tried to artificially assign value to soft and hard CC by introducing break bars.

If I has a customer complain that a design fix was not good enough and screwed up other systems, I would probably not be working, anymore.

[Dace.8173]

@Xxnecroxx.4039 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Fun is subjective .. there is no way Anet can deliver directly to you what you ask because you have associated fun with balance when their isn't any correlation at all. Despite those nerfs, lots of people still have fun. It's a weak argument when people start linking balance to 'fun'. It's so meaningless and unmeasurable.

Doesn't change what I said. Sounds like you choose the wrong class to play; if your criteria links 'balanced' to what is 'fun', better find a different class.

would you find your main class that you have put thousands of hours into and thousands of gold and grinding to make look amazing, would you have fun with it if one balance patch they gutted them to be terrible, their damage numbers are poo, your character is no longer accepted in high end end game content, you have nothing special about your class anymore, no special boons to share and the kind of job that you can do it can easily be out done by other classes in every way (this is PVE BTW)

Yes. I don't link my fun to balance, damage numbers, or whether or not PUGs accept me. Those aren't the things I see as special. I see unique flavor and playstyle as special. I don't see unique boons as special. If that were the case I would main Mesmer. If another profession can outdo me then I don't care. My fun isn't tied to trying to out due the folks around me. What I find fun is whether or not the profession feels unique. That's why I love playing Engineer, Revenant, and Elementalist. Guardian is probally the most consistently powerful profession I play. Even then, I played Dragonhunter all the time even when it wasn't all that good and was being outshined by Firebrand. Why? Because I love the flavor of Dragonhunter. Renegade is fun for me to play despite it being near useless at times. Holosmith is super strong and is carrying the rest of Engineer but I spend more time lately as Scrapper. Elementalist isn't doing so good right now. I still find Tempest and Weaver to be loads of fun. Fun is in the challenge of making them all work for me. I do end game content with my guildmates. That means I don't have to worry about elitist PUG attitudes about what I SHOULD be playing and instead get to focus on what I want to play.

Tieing fun to balance, dps numbers, special boons, and out doing other professions in the game only works if you don't main any profession in the game. Those are the folks who have fun via balance and DPS numbers as those people happily move onto whatever profession is the strongest at the moment. They don't tie themselves to one profession. If you tie yourself to one profession then you will never have fun by the metrics you have outlined in this thread. And I do mean never. The game is never going to work in such a way that your idea of fun will always be true for Necromancer. You don't even accept the necessary changes that would make Necromancer fun by your metrics, i.e. you don't want Necromancer in PvE to play like it does in PvP despite the fact that that solution would fix all the problems you have. However, they are likely to never balance Necromancer in the fashion you feel it should be balanced in, i.e. dps numbers and special boons etc etc. Even something as small as joining a guild that values things other than dps number crunching for end game content would solve your problems.

Well .... some of them.

@Anchoku.8142 said:The developers know Defiance is the source of Necro's balance problems. They have known for more than six years and tried to artificially assign value to soft and hard CC by introducing break bars.

If I has a customer complain that a design fix was not good enough and screwed up other systems, I would probably not be working, anymore.

Video games, and MMOs in particular are not the same kind of things as a normal job. There is only so much they can do to fix the situation without having to redo other segments of the game and that isn't exactly feasible. Part of what makes this not feasible is not everyone is unhappy here. There are Necromancer players who are happy with the state of Necromancer right now. So yes, they have customers complaining about issues that requires design fixes but they also have customers who are happy. This isn't a situation where 100% of their Necromancer players are unhappy. This is an issue where a segment of the Necromancer players are unhappy. Those unhappy players do not automatically override the desires of the happy ones. Thus changes to Necromancer has to be done in a fashion that doesn't upset the already happy customers. So while if you had a customer complain about a design fix that wasn't good enough would cost you your job your job isn't the same as their job and your circumstances are not the same as theirs.

It's also worth noting, this is not a unique issue. This is an all too common problem in MMOs. No one is losing their job over an issue that plagues the genre as a whole.

[Xxnecroxx.4039]

ok im just gonna put this here for the people of "just play the class if you do enjoy it and not to tie balance to having fun" I cant play the content that I want to play as necro, I have fun with necro (more in the past when it was strong in PVE) but I cant play the content of End game raids, T4 challenge motes/100's etc basically any truly challenging and high reward end game content necro is not accepted in very often if at all and I don't want to feel like im weighing down groups because I want to play necro because then I just feel like crap

[Obtena.7952]

We've heard that "I can't team with Necro" argument before. It's not worth rehashing. If your desires to play the game 'correctly' conflicts with your desire to play the game how it's intended (the way you want), that's something you have to resolve yourself. Anet can't fix that because the game evolves with playing how you want as a guiding principle. Either you align your expectations to that, play accordingly and enjoy yourself ... or stay angry.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@annsi.4239 said:@Warscythes.9307 said:

What are you talking about? Condi scourge is fine in PvE.

It is fine, in open world. As for other PVE content like fractals and raids:

• is not it same good as other cdps classes? I don't think so..
• is not it same boons useful as some other classes? I don't think so..

Please correct me if I'm wrong with proofs^

I'm playing condi scourge and I'm happy with it, however I don't see point why I would be taken into group instead of many other classes.So yes, would be great to see some DPS parity with other condi classes.

AoENot needed on bosses.Boon StripBoon CorruptNot not needed on bossesBarrier from doing DPS

Doesn't reliable remove pressure as you are using barrier skills to do dmg, and not to prevent dmg

If you don't understand why those would be desired in T4 fractals, please go read the patch notes from earlier this week.

Necro is fine in fractals, but let's be honest, fractals are pretty easy. And we want necro to be good in raids.

Almost daily my LFG group has a Necro in it, about 50% power reaper and 50% condi scourge.

If you had read my last statement and actually read about the new instabilities and had experienced the new fractal, you would understand why everything you just said was wrong. But hey, I don't care who plays necro and who doesn't.

[Dace.8173]

@"Xxnecroxx.4039" said:ok im just gonna put this here for the people of "just play the class if you do enjoy it and not to tie balance to having fun" I cant play the content that I want to play as necro, I have fun with necro (more in the past when it was strong in PVE) but I cant play the content of End game raids, T4 challenge motes/100's etc basically any truly challenging and high reward end game content necro is not accepted in very often if at all and I don't want to feel like im weighing down groups because I want to play necro because then I just feel like kitten

The "I can't play Necro in End Game content" has been debunked multiple times in multiple threads. It's as simple as joining a guild of like-minded individuals. Plenty of Necromancer players have fun with Necromancer right now in PvE content. And plenty of Necromancer players have reported doing end game content. Videos have been posted. Screenshots of groups have been posted. It is true that it is very hard to PUG as a Necromancer but it is not true that Necromancer is excluded in all ways from end game content.

You are 100% in control of your fun. If you leave it up to ANet to do it for you I imagine you will be waiting a long time.

[Dadnir.5038]

Quick fix for boon corruption in PvE:

• When in break bar mode and there is no boon to corrupt, boon corruption proc a fear just like if there was stability to corrupt on the mob.
• When the breakbar is broken and there is no boon to corrupt, boon corruption proc a bleed just like if there was vigor to corrupt on the mob.

[jakt.9381]

@Infusion.7149 said:The thread is titled for PvE, but in WvW scourge rivals herald as top DPS , to the point about 30-50% of squads are scourges. Just think about that for a minute.

But they arent running condi (only mention that bc thats what OP is talking about), and I wouldnt say that is because the class itself is good, but its bc the way the class relates to the current meta. Ranged AOE damage is king right now, and scourge is just the class that does it most effectively. If the meta was any different scourge would be terrible.

[Anchoku.8142]

Everyone, please take care not over-generalize. The point I was making is not that Necromancer is under-powered, unplayable, or broken. The point is that balance is very difficult for Arenanet on Necromancer because the profession is so heavily designed around soft CC, which Defiance directly auto-counters like having an unremovable or corruptable 100% resistance up-time and infinite stacks of stability.

This means making Necro good against PvE bosses also makes it wildly OP against everything else, especially WvW and PvP. The return of skill splits and skills/traits designed to bolster very specific content like raids are the only solutions.

Think about how much grief and rebalance effort Arenanet may have dealt with just because of Necro's performance difference between game modes. Personally, I am amazed Necro is as good as it is and the two specializations seem directly targeted at Necro's glaring balance issues.

Think about it: BM rework added AoE heals to a profession with almost no group support, Reaper added power-cleave to a profession that had none, and Scourge added barrier, which does not compete with healing from other professions, and more boon corruption to counter the higher boon spam rates. These changes were not random accidents.

However, much of Necromancer's core skills and traits are still deeply entwined with soft CC so raid performance versus PvP performance will continue to be a hot topic of discussion.

[Xxnecroxx.4039]

@Dadnir.5038 said:Quick fix for boon corruption in PvE:

• When in break bar mode and there is no boon to corrupt, boon corruption proc a fear just like if there was stability to corrupt on the mob.
• When the breakbar is broken and there is no boon to corrupt, boon corruption proc a bleed just like if there was vigor to corrupt on the mob.

now this alone I don't think would fix necro BUT it would definitely go a LONG WAY for it and I really like this idea

[Dace.8173]

@Anchoku.8142 said:Everyone, please take care not over-generalize. The point I was making is not that Necromancer is under-powered, unplayable, or broken. The point is that balance is very difficult for Arenanet on Necromancer because the profession is so heavily designed around soft CC, which Defiance directly auto-counters like having an unremovable or corruptable 100% resistance up-time and infinite stacks of stability.

This means making Necro good against PvE bosses also makes it wildly OP against everything else, especially WvW and PvP. The return of skill splits and skills/traits designed to bolster very specific content like raids are the only solutions.

Think about how much grief and rebalance effort Arenanet may have dealt with just because of Necro's performance difference between game modes. Personally, I am amazed Necro is as good as it is and the two specializations seem directly targeted at Necro's glaring balance issues.

Think about it: BM rework added AoE heals to a profession with almost no group support, Reaper added power-cleave to a profession that had none, and Scourge added barrier, which does not compete with healing from other professions, and more boon corruption to counter the higher boon spam rates. These changes were not random accidents.

However, much of Necromancer's core skills and traits are still deeply entwined with soft CC so raid performance versus PvP performance will continue to be a hot topic of discussion.

Skill splits aren't a solution. I'm not sure why you would say the return of them anyway since they never left and they still use them. As I have suggested and as @Dadnir.5038 suggested the fix needs to be about how bosses and mobs are constructed. The Necromancer toolkit already works. The problem is that end game content doesn't replicate PvP/WvW content. Thus all the tools that make Necromancer work in competitive modes are rendered moot in an environment in which bosses themselves don't replicate player play. If bosses applied more boons or if boon corrupts still applied an effect even when the boon has been removed (as @Dadnir.5038 suggested) Necromancer would see a boost in viability. Skill splits have a tendency to still have bleed over into other modes of play.

Necromancer doesn't need buffs or skill splits. It needs the end game content to change so that the tools they gave Necromancer actually work as they are intended.

[Obtena.7952]

^^ I have to disagree that end game content NEEDS to change to accommodate tools Necros have to make them feel more welcome in the specific scenario of PUG tryhard grouping. If they changed content so encounters were more impacted by the necro toolset, it would still not guarantee a solution to the problem that these players are encountering. For example, if a boss WAS more susceptible to soft breaking CC/boon corruption, that doesn't immediately lead a (ignorant) PUG team looking for optimal performance to take a Necro; we can't predict the meta and Necros aren't the only class with these tools.

In otherwords, I'm against idea that Anet would 'hard-code' the need for specific tools into a raid or a boss to try to get more diversity in team comps. If anything, it just makes the need for the optimal composition even tighter than it was before because you have these layers of 'need this' and 'need that too' and 'oh don't forget we need ....'

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Obtena.7952" said:^^ I have to disagree that end game content NEEDS to change to accommodate tools Necros have to make them feel more welcome in the specific scenario of PUG tryhard grouping. If they changed content so encounters were more impacted by the necro toolset, it would still not guarantee a solution to the problem that these players are encountering. For example, if a boss WAS more susceptible to soft breaking CC/boon corruption, that doesn't immediately lead a (ignorant) PUG team looking for optimal performance to take a Necro; we can't predict the meta and Necros aren't the only class with these tools.

In otherwords, I'm against idea that Anet would 'hard-code' the need for specific tools into a raid or a boss to try to get more diversity in team comps. If anything, it just makes the need for the optimal composition even tighter than it was before because you have these layers of 'need this' and 'need that too' and 'oh don't forget we need ....'

It wouldn't be the first time that ANet modified PvE to accomodate the necromancer's tools, though. Reducing the reliance on fire fields to stack might was a way to give room to the necromancer that tend to have unwelcome fields and lack practicable blast finisher. Reducing the ability to skip trash was also a move that helped the necromancer in PvE. Fractal instabilities are almost tailormades to make people think: "Ah yes! A necro would be handy there"...

I don't see what would be wrong in allowing boon corruption to act like a CC on a break bar since boon corruption is the best CC possible against characters that rely on stability. I don't see how it would be bad to allow boon corruption to have also an effect on overbuffed boss that don't need to rely on boons to be sturdy.

The necromancer's dps potential in PvE is "low" compared to other profession, nobody can deny it. Nobody even want to deny it. The current necromancer don't have boon corruption on AA so the impact of boon corruption on an overbuffed boss that don't need to rely on boon wouldn't even be that great and probably still wouldn't push the necromancer's dps potential to the level of other professions.

The reality is that the suggestion isn't about creating a "NEED", but creating some breathing for boon corruption. With or without boon corruption, the breakbar already need to be broken via CC. With or without boon corruption, when the breakbar is broken you need to deal damage to the boss. Nothing new is really added that could bother other profession, just a different interaction between boon corruption and the "defiance/breakbar" system so that an important necromancer tool in it's dps rotation isn't reindered totally useless by a PvE mechanism.

[Anchoku.8142]

Changing content in a raid, for example, to better suit a Necro is not that easy. Some instanced PvE have been designed with add's, AoE and soft CC in mind but Necro does not have exclusive rights over soft CC, boon removal or AoE so the raid may just as easily favor other professions.

That is why I suspect PvE-PvP splits are the most precise, least complicated ways to balance between game modes.

Arenanet tried splitting years ago. Then, unspilt for simplicity but are now back to splitting, again.

[Dace.8173]

@Obtena.7952 said:^^ I have to disagree that end game content NEEDS to change to accommodate tools Necros have to make them feel more welcome in the specific scenario of PUG tryhard grouping. If they changed content so encounters were more impacted by the necro toolset, it would still not guarantee a solution to the problem that these players are encountering. For example, if a boss WAS more susceptible to soft breaking CC/boon corruption, that doesn't immediately lead a (ignorant) PUG team looking for optimal performance to take a Necro; we can't predict the meta and Necros aren't the only class with these tools.

In otherwords, I'm against idea that Anet would 'hard-code' the need for specific tools into a raid or a boss to try to get more diversity in team comps. If anything, it just makes the need for the optimal composition even tighter than it was before because you have these layers of 'need this' and 'need that too' and 'oh don't forget we need ....'

No, I'm still going to say they need to do it. At the end of the day, everyone needs to be viable on some level. There is no denying that Necromancer does have some viability issues. That's what lead to the stigma. They aren't so bad that they CAN'T do the content. However, if they were made slightly more viable it could shift things in their favor some. And sure, it may be the case that PUGs may not take them. However, if the long term end game content made it clear that a Necromancer would be useful in these situations it could slowly shift the PUG attitude. These changes will not fix things over night. Necromancer would still have a rough few year(s) as the PUG clique is brought around to the idea that yes they need a Necromancer. However, just because the PUG community won't swiftly come around to using Necromancers doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

This fix is better than the call for buffs.

@Anchoku.8142 said:Changing content in a raid, for example, to better suit a Necro is not that easy. Some instanced PvE have been designed with add's, AoE and soft CC in mind but Necro does not have exclusive rights over soft CC, boon removal or AoE so the raid may just as easily favor other professions.

That is why I suspect PvE-PvP splits are the most precise, least complicated ways to balance between game modes.

Arenanet tried splitting years ago. Then, unspilt for simplicity but are now back to splitting, again.

They have been trying skill splits for some time now and they don't work. The suggestion that they need to do more skill splits ignores the fact that they are currently doing skill splits and it isn't producing the desired effect. Aside from straight up buffs, the only other option is to change the game environment itself. We already know under what conditions Necromancer actually performs well. We just need to replicate those conditions in PvE end game content.

Skill splits simply do not work. There is still too much bleed over between game modes when they do skill splits.

[Cerioth.7062]

Idk, I out-dps most pugs on my power reaper.. Im pretty happy.