Necromancer able to do every Thing?

[Clockworks.3825]

Hello.Im almost level 80 on My necro.My question is, will i be able to do everything at a decent level?

Im not looking to raid at the highest level, but would be able to clear everything in game with a necro?

[kharmin.7683]

You should be fine with Necro in Open World. Competitive environments have their own meta builds. If you're going that route, check around the forum here and the internet for suggested builds.

[Nimon.7840]

Yes you can clear everything, but You should look for a static group.If you are planning to pug raids, you'll have it hard to find groups that take you with them, as necro's dps potential is 15% behind all other classes.

But even then, if you're looking for a static group and you find one that's not too bad, you might want to Switch Charakter pretty quickly, if you have arc dps meter installed.

Pugs aren't really necro friendly, because necro has been on the bottom of the dps table for most of the time since raids exist

[Clockworks.3825]

So I'm guessing if I want to do a little bit of everything on one character, Necromancer wouldn't be that class?

[Anchoku.8142]

@"Clockworks.3825" said:So I'm guessing if I want to do a little bit of everything on one character, Necromancer wouldn't be that class?

Necromancer, like all other professions, can "do" everything. There are some things that Necromancer is sub-optimal at and others that it is meta for. You have multiple character slots. I recommend you continue playing Necromancer because that is the profession you were attracted to but also leveling other professions. Unlike "triad" games, GW2 provides more freedom in build variety and build "role" but still provides some uniqueness in profession theme and game play.

[Taril.8619]

Necromancer can participate in all content of the game.

It is also very strong in many areas of the game. It is superb in open world PvE, it is strong in PvP, it is quite good in WvW.

It is just below average in Raids.

It's not so far behind to be unplayable, but you may find it slightly harder to find a raid group than more "Meta" professions. Once you're in the group, you should have no real issues with actually completing the content (And are ironically, more likely to outperform many of the "Meta professions" due to some of them having significantly higher skill floors making them considerably worse in the hands of the average player as well as only being stronger in the presence of optimized party set ups anyway where they can get all the necessary buffs)

[Nimon.7840]

Right now if you want a class that's meta in every gamemode: play guardian.Good at support (healing and boons)Good at damage (condition and power)

And if you can play it, it has a lot more survivability than necro as well. Speaking about dmg specs

[ASP.8093]

Necro can do anything, assuming you're willing to invest time into learning Reaper and Scourge in addition to core. (That's how it is for most professions: mastering all the elite specs opens up a lot more flexibility than just playing core.)

[Clockworks.3825]

I have a guardian, and I don't like it which is why I asked about necro :) but thanks for all the answers!

[Xxnecroxx.4039]

@Clockworks.3825 said:Hello.Im almost level 80 on My necro.My question is, will i be able to do everything at a decent level?

Im not looking to raid at the highest level, but would be able to clear everything in game with a necro?

YOU CAN play necro in ANY content, whether or not you SHOULD is the REAL question. because you name it, another class can do it bettercondi damage (which necro should be the best at but it isn't because anet hates necromancer)power damagehealingsupporttankingroaming1v1ingetc, name it. another class can do it better OTHER THAN BOON CORRUPT, ONLY BECAUSE it is the only class that can boon corrupt. (but there is stuff like boon strip etc)

[Xxnecroxx.4039]

@Nimon.7840 said:Yes you can clear everything, but You should look for a static group.If you are planning to pug raids, you'll have it hard to find groups that take you with them, as necro's dps potential is 15% behind all other classes.

But even then, if you're looking for a static group and you find one that's not too bad, you might want to Switch Charakter pretty quickly, if you have arc dps meter installed.

Pugs aren't really necro friendly, because necro has been on the bottom of the dps table for most of the time since raids exist

wrong, necro was strong up until after Xera i believe, then necro started getting hit harder and harder with condi damage nerfs. but for a while, a sweet sweet fun time. necro was raid viable. unlike now

[Black Storm.6974]

@Xxnecroxx.4039 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:Yes you can clear everything, but You should look for a static group.If you are planning to pug raids, you'll have it hard to find groups that take you with them, as necro's dps potential is 15% behind all other classes.

But even then, if you're looking for a static group and you find one that's not too bad, you might want to Switch Charakter pretty quickly, if you have arc dps meter installed.

Pugs aren't really necro friendly, because necro has been on the bottom of the dps table for most of the time since raids exist

wrong, necro was strong up until after Xera i believe, then necro started getting hit harder and harder with condi damage nerfs. but for a while, a sweet sweet fun time. necro was raid viable. unlike now

Necromancer is viable in raids, in fact many people complete Raids with it every day. Raids don’t really require “much” to complete them, every profession is viable “for this reason”.

Also, if someone play with “pugs”, by “practicing” (better with som help from somewhat enough reliable guides on the web, like those on the Snow Crows website) it is generally possible to reach with Necromancer better performance (dps included) than most of the players someone will ever met (the average level of player performance is “very low”, even in Raids). That doesn’t make Necromancer better than the other professions, but usually makes the person playing Necromancer (in a dps role) more useful than most of the other people playing other professions in the same role (because of the low average player performance).

Necromancer also has some nice and very strong traits to help dealing reliable high DPS (more than most player it will ever met, with “some practice”) while having very high survivability and some utility (really helpful when playing with pugs). Signet of Suffering, Signet of Vampirism, Signet of Undeath and Signet of Spite provide that.

[SunTzu.4513]

I main necro since i start playing gw2. I do everything on my norn necro lady. The only thing wich can be a little ''hard'' is getting into pug raids, but raiding with a guild static is overall more fun and chill imo. The problem is that necro has not the best standing in the pve community. For the meta guys we are not meta enough, but if you knowing what you do you are easily better than most of the meta pug guys i met in pugs dps wise. Another thing is necro is widely considert as easy or beginner class. So a lot of new player starts with it for the tankiness it brings to the table. They choose tanky traits, gear or mm builds and enter more difficult group content. So a lot of people encounters very, very bad playing necros in fraktals and other group content this leads to some sort of necro is always bad stigma. Even as necro main i have to admit that finding a competent or really good playing necro is quite rare.

WvW/PvP we are fine imo but those are not my main game modes.

[Tukaram.8256]

My necro can outfight and survive best of all my characters. My main is a necro (minion master). He does everything I need him to do, and has better survivability than any of my other avatars. I can't wait for the Crown Pavilion to reopen. The best festival and most fun monster bashing. My necro cleans up in there! I always get looting rights, never die, and while my critters fight, I help rez people. Necro kicks butt. B)

[Excursion.9752]

I prefer necro to just about anything else. I don't pvp much so I can speak to that but a Magi/Mercy Scourge can be great to have in Fractals / Raids / Open World Bosses because of their Barrier and Resurrecting abilities. As long as people do not die to one shot mechanics you can be the reason your group does not wipe. Open world is a cake walk with a Power Reaper or Minion Mancer. In WvW they are the meta for any Zerg. Especially after the update that is going to happen tomorrow because they are giving back what they took away after the last balance patch and also reducing the recharge times on the wells.

On the topic of Raids its nice to have a necro in your back pocket just in case you need to pull it out as an off healer type. But I recommend to have another class or two available so that you will be more generally accepted in groups. People who can multi class are very much welcomed in most groups and make you valuable in a static group. I really like playing a Heal Scourge (Magi/Mercy Scourge) in all the fights of Wing 7. Especially (QTP - Qadim the Peerless) pylon kitter.

[Josiah.2967]

Necro is the bottom of the barrel for end game\instanced PVE in all specs. It is so far down I would not consider it viable based on dps and healing benchmarks with the lack of raid buffs thrown in just because... It is viable for ever other mode. Sure you can do it, but your always going to be suboptimal.

If you want to the best at everything go guardian. There is a reason other mmo forums call this Guardian Wars.

[Pooh.6897]

@Josiah.2967 said:Necro is the bottom of the barrel for end game\instanced PVP in all specs. It is so far down I would not consider it viable based on dps and healing benchmarks with the lack of raid buffs thrown in just because... It is viable for ever other mode. Sure you can do it, but your always going to be suboptimal.

If you want to the best at everything go guardian. There is a reason other mmo forums call this Guardian Wars.

I’ve read this a few times now on the forums. Necro is at the bottom of the barrel, guardian is great at everything, etc. But is there actually any proof for this? On snowcrows the highest dps build for necro is power reaper and it’s not completely at the bottom of the list. I’m not saying that necro doesn’t have any problems, I’m just curious as to why people keep emphasizing the fact that necro = bad.

Edit: perhaps knowing why necro is bad for endgame/instanced pvp could help players to come up with valuable suggestions for neat changes that will overall add depth to the class as a whole.

[Taril.8619]

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@"Josiah.2967" said:Necro is the bottom of the barrel for end game\instanced PVP in all specs. It is so far down I would not consider it viable based on dps and healing benchmarks with the lack of raid buffs thrown in just because... It is viable for ever other mode. Sure you can do it, but your always going to be suboptimal.

If you want to the best at everything go guardian. There is a reason other mmo forums call this Guardian Wars.

I’ve read this a few times now on the forums. Necro is at the bottom of the barrel, guardian is great at everything, etc. But is there actually any proof for this? On snowcrows the highest dps build for necro is power reaper and it’s not completely at the bottom of the list. I’m not saying that necro doesn’t have any problems, I’m just curious as to why people keep emphasizing the fact that necro = bad.

Edit: perhaps knowing why necro is bad for endgame/instanced pvp could help players to come up with valuable suggestions for neat changes that will overall add depth to the class as a whole.

Necro's DPS benchmarks are below every other class. It's not the lowest DPS build (Except for Condi Scourge), but the ones that are below it in DPS also offer other things, notably it's mostly Bannner Warriors that do lower DPS, but they offer significant party DPS increases due to Banners (Which are actually used during Benchmarks tests which will of course be unfavourable to Banner Warriors numbers...) - The reason for this discrepancy seems to be based around the fact that their DPS hinges around utilizing Shroud, which is a natural defensive tool and so for balance reasons they are not given equal DPS to other classes that don't also get defensive boosts while DPSing. Also the Shroud dependence hurts when facing Bosses and so Life Force generation is limited due to nothing dying.

Necro offers nothing to PvE in Raids. Since all of their support is based around applying conditions to enemies, which have no effect against targets with Defiance (I.e. Bosses) or their plethora of Boonrip/Booncorruption which has no effect in PvE (Due to the complete lack of Boons applied by PvE enemies - Also, the complete lack of effect that most Boons have on PvE enemies - Vigor, Swiftness, Aegis all do little to nothing. With also corrupted boons being useless due to the aforementioned lack of effect many conditions have against PvE enemies, such as Blind, Chill, Cripple, Fear, Immobilize, Slow, Taunt and Weakness doing nothing vs enemies with Defiance other than some breakbar damage)

Meanwhile, what makes it weak in PvE, is what makes it strong in PvP. Shroud is very useful defensively, with deaths of enemies providing additional LF to fuel it. Boonrip and Booncorruption is super strong in PvP where people will often have a number of boons and can be heavily impacted by all the debuffing conditions (Whilst also having them "Cover" offensive conditions like Burning/Bleeding/Torment by having Cleanses prioritize the debuff conditions rather than the damage ones allowing condition damage to be more effective and harder to negate)

It is also what makes Necro strong in Open World PvE, where there's a lot more random trash mobs to give Life Force and which are affected by conditions (Trash, Vets and Elites are all vulnerable to conditions and CC) and the extra defence from Shroud can be impactful when not being backed up by healers and supports providing boons.

The answers to Necro's problems are simple, and have been noted a plethora of times over the games life. 1) Untie the defence and DPS boosts of Shroud to justify buffing their damage potential to that of other classes. 2) Allow Necro's to have boon support for allies. With a potential option 3) Make Defiance not a complete trash mechanic that takes a huge dump on Necro.

[Dadnir.5038]

@jiggle puff.9347 said:I’ve read this a few times now on the forums. Necro is at the bottom of the barrel, guardian is great at everything, etc. But is there actually any proof for this? On snowcrows the highest dps build for necro is power reaper and it’s not completely at the bottom of the list. I’m not saying that necro doesn’t have any problems, I’m just curious as to why people keep emphasizing the fact that necro = bad.

Edit: perhaps knowing why necro is bad for endgame/instanced pvp could help players to come up with valuable suggestions for neat changes that will overall add depth to the class as a whole.

That's because the other 8 professions all have better damage potential than the necromancer while at the same time they benefit more to their team.

All in all the reason why it's the case is because PvE by it's design restrain the effectiveness of the necromancer's tools. Some conditions have reduced effectiveness on mobs and boss while mobs and boss don't have any use for boons that would help the necromancer in it's dps/usefulness. At the same time, you seldom encounter slow ramping condition in PvE encounter lessening a design around conditions manipulation usefulness. As for the large amount of health point that the necromancer do have, unfortunately it doesn't help in being a tank due to the fact that it's not paired with way to deal with incoming hard CC (blind being totally nullified by the defiance system).

The only spots that the necromancer and it's e-spec can confidently carry in instanced PvE are DPS and healer. Yet, as a dps they are below every other profession in potential and as a healer you'll usually favor healer that have a few extra tools to support. Thus it keep the necromancer at the edge of the meta, almost there but not quite yet. Not that it can't but the least effective option in the groups that already mastered the encounter (and at the rate at which encounters are released, most of them are long mastered).

[Pooh.6897]

Those are some very clear answers, thanks :)

[Axl.8924]

@Taril.8619 said:

@jiggle puff.9347 said:

@"Josiah.2967" said:Necro is the bottom of the barrel for end game\instanced PVP in all specs. It is so far down I would not consider it viable based on dps and healing benchmarks with the lack of raid buffs thrown in just because... It is viable for ever other mode. Sure you can do it, but your always going to be suboptimal.

If you want to the best at everything go guardian. There is a reason other mmo forums call this Guardian Wars.

I’ve read this a few times now on the forums. Necro is at the bottom of the barrel, guardian is great at everything, etc. But is there actually any proof for this? On snowcrows the highest dps build for necro is power reaper and it’s not completely at the bottom of the list. I’m not saying that necro doesn’t have any problems, I’m just curious as to why people keep emphasizing the fact that necro = bad.

Edit: perhaps knowing why necro is bad for endgame/instanced pvp could help players to come up with valuable suggestions for neat changes that will overall add depth to the class as a whole.

Necro's DPS benchmarks are below every other class. It's not the lowest DPS

build

(Except for Condi Scourge), but the ones that are below it in DPS also offer other things, notably it's mostly Bannner Warriors that do lower DPS, but they offer significant party DPS increases due to Banners (Which are actually used during Benchmarks tests which will of course be unfavourable to Banner Warriors numbers...) - The reason for this discrepancy seems to be based around the fact that their DPS hinges around utilizing Shroud, which is a natural defensive tool and so for balance reasons they are not given equal DPS to other classes that don't also get defensive boosts while DPSing. Also the Shroud dependence hurts when facing Bosses and so Life Force generation is limited due to nothing dying.

Necro offers nothing to PvE in Raids. Since all of their support is based around applying conditions to enemies, which have no effect against targets with Defiance (I.e. Bosses) or their plethora of Boonrip/Booncorruption which has no effect in PvE (Due to the complete lack of Boons applied by PvE enemies - Also, the complete lack of effect that most Boons have on PvE enemies - Vigor, Swiftness, Aegis all do little to nothing. With also corrupted boons being useless due to the aforementioned lack of effect many conditions have against PvE enemies, such as Blind, Chill, Cripple, Fear, Immobilize, Slow, Taunt and Weakness doing nothing vs enemies with Defiance other than some breakbar damage)

Meanwhile, what makes it weak in PvE, is what makes it strong in PvP. Shroud is very useful defensively, with deaths of enemies providing additional LF to fuel it. Boonrip and Booncorruption is super strong in PvP where people will often have a number of boons and can be heavily impacted by all the debuffing conditions (Whilst also having them "Cover" offensive conditions like Burning/Bleeding/Torment by having Cleanses prioritize the debuff conditions rather than the damage ones allowing condition damage to be more effective and harder to negate)

It is also what makes Necro strong in Open World PvE, where there's a lot more random trash mobs to give Life Force and which are affected by conditions (Trash, Vets and Elites are all vulnerable to conditions and CC) and the extra defence from Shroud can be impactful when not being backed up by healers and supports providing boons.

The answers to Necro's problems are simple, and have been noted a plethora of times over the games life. 1) Untie the defence and DPS boosts of Shroud to justify buffing their damage potential to that of other classes. 2) Allow Necro's to have boon support for allies. With a potential option 3) Make Defiance not a complete trash mechanic that takes a huge dump on Necro.

Actually boon corrupt was heavily nerfed and its effectiveness went down quite a bit and boon spam hasn-t been nerfed enough.

[QuirkyDM.2351]

I agree with Jiggle Puff- Dadnir and Taril have given some of the best answers I've seen yet on the what and why of the necromancer issues I see so many complaining about. Thanks for the detailed answers; I have a stronger comprehension of what it means to be a necromancer now.

[jpsssss.7530]

It can, though unless you're looking at boon strip other classes can do what Necro does but better. Reaper or core Necro is probably your best bet for PvP/WvW as Scourge is meh in PvP and extremely weak in WvW (because they got nerfed too heavily to use).

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Epi was the only skill to maintain the convenience of scourge (and condi reaper) and they nerfed it. Now you better want FB, ren, berserker with aoe/range condi application. That's too bad, because it was really a niche spot, and even here it was not that optimal.Condi necro benchmarks also work with impracticable mechanicals once in group : BiP/Plaguelands with condi transfer or whirl on ice field for FB, etc. Your 2x20sec auto-bleeding and 2x20 auto-torment, ready to transf ... ah too late, random finisher in FB's symbols ...Same with some minions dying at differents phases or attacks.... Benchmark is already low, but in situation DPS is even worst than you can expect.The joke is : condi reaper benchmark and dps is higher than condi scourge.... :anguished:
With simple tweaks it could be higher without class breaking ; Barbed Precision with longer base bleeding duration, grant some condi buff if you apply fear, chill etc, make Plague Signet or Deathly Swarm an immunity to condi-cleanse so you could actually transfer condition you have ...

Power Reaper IMO is okay now. Great burst, simple rotation.Adding more DPS would just annoy classes with higher learning curve and rotation execution (it's already a reason almost no one play weaver power/condi anymore for example, too much effort, too much risk, no reward, you better want SB and press axe #5 ). Or may be tweak Reaper's Onslaught to give the ferocity bonus when you have quickness, and not when you are in shroud.The main reason no one wants Reaper in fractals/raids : it's often the "newbie" class.It could be a bit improved on the "support" facet, necro is too selfish ; wells should give boons/buff for example mights, resistance, or life-steal like renegade/soulbeast. Or signet of Spite !? You earn power, but you apply conditions ... ?? Why ??

About the support build. Healscourge. Same than Epi, it's very a niche build. Barriers are really useful (when you know when to grant them) and you're a real rez-machine for trainings or low experience players. But it's true it lacks tools to be really useful in "ubergroups" than just a mighbot.May be a trait like "barrier you apply extend the duration of boons (+1sec, 10sec icd), reduce "vampiric presence" to ¼ icd, life-steal on wells, etc.

[Nabbut.7480]

You cannot solo roam in WvW unless you are okay with getting killed doing so.You cannot solo many champions that Mesmers can, like Bandit Leaders.