What exactly are necromancers doing?

[Sinolai.3860]

Just a question about necromancers since I have noticed they are the most unpredictable profession you come across in pvp. They can burst you down in 2-3 second or tank you for half a minute. I am playing a mesmer myself.

 

Question 1: Tanky necros hp bar turns green and once it reach 0, the hp bar turns normal again and starts from exactly the point before you "killed" them. What is this green hp bar? how does it work? how long it lasts? what are its benefits and what are its penalties?

Side note: The green HP bar seems indentical on enemy and friendly necro which makes it sometimes hard to tell which is which.

 

Question 2: Bursty necro seems to fill your status bar with conditions just before you explode and if you dont die instantly they try to stand on you and spam spin to win. The conditions are troublesome since even if you manage to escape from necro's reach the dots usually takes you down if you cant purge them. What skill combos are necros using to apply so many debuffs and how do people usually cleanse/avoid them? is there some conditions that I could use to minimize the damage from them (eg. not attacking/not moving/moving before X happens)? So far the best trick I have used to survive has been using Arcane Thievery as soon as I see the debuffs applied and then blink away and swap to staff to kite the necro.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Sinolai.3860
Read the AT tooltip again. max 3 conditions are transferred.

[Avatar.3568]

The lifebar that you mean is probably the shroud. Necromancers and reapers have both a shroud which generates while fighting and can be entered when the necromancers want to. 

The problem with the conditions is, necros have many ways to apply them but you can avoid also as many, take care of aoe, necros have a few of them, go stand outside instead of waiting that they and, they do a lot of ouchi. 

Also necros can transfer condis that are on them self, take care, as mesmer you can by yourself condi bomb the necro and he can send it to you back, keep an eye on his buffbar, if there is a signet (idk the signets English name sorry for that) than keep in mind he could transfer it back. 

The last thing is the shroud, it's a second lifebar as told earlier, when they enter the shroud their character skin goes into some dusty black. They can fear you and also transfer condis to you back (if they have traited it). The fear is dodge able, there is coming a black cloudish thing above the necro, than he is using his fear, while being feared he can apply a lot of condis since you are cc'd.

When there are going out ilof the shroud it's time to burst them, they have a 10 second cooldown to re-enter the shroud and that where you need to strike back and delete them completely. Shroud is also shrinking 4% per second by it self, on reaper its 5%.

[Arheundel.6451]

Question 1: You're facing a core condi necro, they use rabid amulet most likely and have extreme shroud generation, when they use shroud they lose access to the utility bar and can only use the same 5 skills from shroud. Shroud is the defensive mechanic of necro as they generate life force to fuel it,  available every 10s regardless of how much life force they have accumulated. Necros can passively generate lifeforce with a GM in the soul line or actively by using specific skills like staff marks(traited) and other. Now pay attention to the icon which appears on top of the right bar, if you see a dark green icon with a bat symbol , that's a blood core necro, they thrive against condi builds as they can absorb condis everytime they enter the shroud thx to a GM , if you instead see a light green symbol with a skull looking symbol then that's a death necro and they very resilient to power dmg thx to carapace which works like a stacking toughness trait. It's a boring and long fight against core necro, you want first to have a favourable match up like condi vs power spec( they still have condi removal just not as extreme as blood necro) and then save your burst for when necro is outside the shroud and vulnerable...still if you can avoid it...just turn the other direction, boring and waste of time unless really necessary

 

Question 2: You're facing a reaper, it's a PBAoE CC spinning spectacle but you're in luck, as mesmer has an easy time keeping the distance from this thing and distance is what you need most of the times. The shroud mechanic here centred around point blank aoe at melee range, the spec has access to high dmg coefficient skill  plus they have zerker or demolisher amulet too boot, in addition they have a GM trait granting quickness and ferocity when they enter shroud . Some reapers are corrupt curse necros, some are blood and few others death, all of them can rip boons and apply chill which increase even more damage on you, curse reapers can rip boon passively if they hit you below 50% HP. Reaper is all about chill and cripple spam to lock you in place and...spin to win, if you play PB mesmers with torch/GS and blink, you should not have much problems, just play around stealth, keeping your distance and always the best strategy is to hit necros when outside shroud, reaper is less obnoxious than core necro but still not a fun fight (not like GW2 has anything like fun fights to start with)

[Khalisto.5780]

Make it short

 

They doing everything

[KrHome.1920]

7 hours ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

I have noticed they are the most unpredictable profession you come across in pvp.

They are in fact the most predictable profession.

[razaelll.8324]

7 hours ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

Just a question about necromancers since I have noticed they are the most unpredictable profession you come across in pvp. They can burst you down in 2-3 second or tank you for half a minute. I am playing a mesmer myself.

 

Question 1: Tanky necros hp bar turns green and once it reach 0, the hp bar turns normal again and starts from exactly the point before you "killed" them. What is this green hp bar? how does it work? how long it lasts? what are its benefits and what are its penalties?

Side note: The green HP bar seems indentical on enemy and friendly necro which makes it sometimes hard to tell which is which.

 

Question 2: Bursty necro seems to fill your status bar with conditions just before you explode and if you dont die instantly they try to stand on you and spam spin to win. The conditions are troublesome since even if you manage to escape from necro's reach the dots usually takes you down if you cant purge them. What skill combos are necros using to apply so many debuffs and how do people usually cleanse/avoid them? is there some conditions that I could use to minimize the damage from them (eg. not attacking/not moving/moving before X happens)? So far the best trick I have used to survive has been using Arcane Thievery as soon as I see the debuffs applied and then blink away and swap to staff to kite the necro.

Hello mate,

 

Necro is very predictable and simple , but strong class.

 

The "second hp bar" is called shroud this is necro specific mechanic which works on core necro and reaper. When necro enter shroud their lifeforce is used istead of their real hp and thats the main necro defensive , since it dont have any invunurable , block abilities.

 

The necro has a trait which gets conditions from their allies when they enter shroud and they can also transfer conditions to enemies with the first hit after entering shroud. The "spin to win" ability is reaper shroud 4 which is very hard hiting ability and should be avoided. If you want to learn more about necro i will be happy to share with you my knowledge about it and show you how to fight against it in game, so if you are interested drop me a pm ingame.

 

Have a great day!

Edited June 1, 2021 by razaelll.8324

[Zaxares.5419]

When fighting Necros you usually want to do two things. Either a) you kill them fast before they have a chance to build up their Life Force, or b) you bait them into entering their Shroud/expending their Life Force and keeping out of reach, and then going in for the kill once it's exhausted. As a Mesmer, which approach works better depend on what build you're playing. Power Shatter Mesmers usually will do better with strategy 1 (although naturally you can use stealth and teleports to move out of range if they pop their shroud). Condi Mesmers usually have to use clone generation to mislead the Necro into wasting their attacks on clones before moving in for the kill (since Necros usually have plentiful options for dealing with conditions, including giving them back to you!). Furthermore, Necros as a whole tend to have very little Stability compared to other professions, so copious use of CC skills (which Mesmers usually have plenty of access to) can also tilt the battle in your favour dramatically.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Just wanna say I'm glad to see new faces in pvp that use the forums for asking mechanic questions. 

[Sinolai.3860]

55 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

They are in fact the most predictable profession.

Mm.... maybe wrong word. The two different types do always have similar playstyle but it's hard to tell which one this specific necro is before you see it fighting. Mirage you can always expect clones and runaway. If you see a thief you can always expect him to stickaround, poke, vanish and repeat.

You can pretty much tell which players are tanky and which ones glass cannons just by looking at them but necros can be surprisingly durable for a light armor user and some times they have more burst than a thief, which you would expect to be the bursty ganker.

 

But apparently this necro burst do have a condition - and a big one: They must join an ongoing fight to get their huge condition burst. So if you 1vs1 a necro there should be no fear of getting condibombed.

[felix.2386]

yes, interesting point,

like mesmer you see berserker you know its power, you see axe skill you know it's condi

 

but you see a necro you have no idea. all the aoes look the same.

you see axe/focus? it can be tank or power. and that's the only tell, all the aoes look the same and poison cloud literally has no animation. you literally have no idea what's it running, because all of them uses staff and have the same shroud skills. 

and no matter, power, condi, tank, they all load up conditions because they all basically use the same skill

 

Edited June 1, 2021 by felix.2386