Curse

Celes Tial · Jul 21, 2005, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dred Skullord

The Necro primary is inferior to the El/Ne. That is why no one wants to pick up a Necro in Tombs or arenas. The exception is the team minion build. The soul reaping of dead minions seem to make up for the lesser energy storage.

Too bad we dont have any empiric evidence with a medium result of different matches on different maps using different builds to prove either side of the argumentation.

And I actually see many groups asking for necros.

Saerden · Jul 21, 2005, 03:23 PM // 15:23

I think with linkies post we finally established that primary necros own newbs / n00bs (mobs are n00bs, since they are around since alpha, and just dont want to learn

)

But i want to say that it is unfair to call people in the arena retards. Some (or even most) could be players who bough GW thinking GW is "pick up and play pvp". They dont know that you have to grind out lots of stuff in pve to be even close to "not retarded" and before you can even start to learn the game. So they may be so poor because they just started ... thinking that since skill > time (good old joke

) , everything aviable to them (premades) is as good as (or slightly less good) then the other stuff... of course they dont know tactics, thats why they are "playing the game" ...

Back on topic:

Necros RULE n00bs. So does my wa / mo... Yes he gets owned by the necro, but who cares, good ones are rare ... .
Same with PvE, a good minion master will outclass my wa / mo during regular play so bad it wont even be funny. However, my wa / mo will rule in the "real" farming pve again, so all things are equal

The question is: are necros viable in competitive play? Are necros "fun" in pve - esp if your not playing them?

Oh and another thing: maybe those necro-haters are <gasp> roleplaying? I dont want to adventure with 40 rotting corpses who block my path - do you?

(Disclaimer: necro = primary necro.)

Luggage · Jul 21, 2005, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

I don't agree at all really, I find that curses is a really good line with nature's renewal or not. I mean, curses usually have very little cast time and nature's renewal is RARELY used as an anti curse measure mid battle. Even if it is tossed down while fighting, curses have very short recharge times and don't cost much energy at all. They are pretty easy to toss back on a guy.

Prim. necro instead of mesmer because?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

The max regen for any caster is 4. With wither and malaise that is gone, making your regen a whopping 0. Even if you swap your focus you are gaining no energy whatsoever, at least until you hit rock bottom. Plus, this hits you even slightly into the battle and you are feeling a heavy energy hurt thanks to max energy dropping quite a bit, and your spells are disabled for a bit if you swap to make your energy 0 to end the spell. Don't dismiss this as something countered by simply swapping focus items. That is just not true.

Prim. necro instead of Ele because?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Not true at all. Lets look at individual skill effects that your team does not want. Removing the efffect of blocking enchantments, that is just useless when taking down a monk with guardian and aegis on them. Cutting their healing in 2 thirds or in half is really useless and isn't worth enough to consider them in a build. Increasing damage per warrior swing/ranger's arrow on a called target is just not worth thinking twice about. Slowing the rate in which they cast their spells isn't really effective enough to cry from the mountaintops about necros. Causing damage each time a spell is casted just isn't great, especially with when monks heal themselves, especially when their healing is cut. Wells suck and energy regen doesn't matter. Oh wait, toss those together and you have made a warrior happy and a monk into a corpse. As I have said before, natures renewal aint a big deal to the necro, I mean, a spell taking a whopping 2 seconds to cast is just too much, and putting it back on for 5 or 10 energy right after it is removed is just a mind wracker. Curses are a powerful build just so long as you have someone capitalizing on them.
I created an entire line up there, a damn good one that has won me a couple of games in my day in the ole 8vs8 tombs :P. I would have more wins by now but it sucks waiting for the smartest players to come on so I can find a group who will accept a necro.

Prim. necro instead of mesmer because?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Gee, heavy source of degen. I can't find any good efficient degen sources. Oh wait, life transfer is pretty big on the degen scale, weighing in with a whopping 7 and healing you for that very much. A necro/mesmer can create an insane level of degen with life transfer as a base. I mean, two spells and you have 12 degen. Efficient if you ask me.
I don't know, I really don't think you are looking to get the right kind of mileage out of your warriors. They truely need support for them to be fully effective, and they are devestating when they are. Like, a warrior missing a key knockdown is truely a big deal, let alone missing half of them along with half of his hits. A necro and 2 warriors are going to throttle someone before 3 warriors do, unless you truely find that warriors aren't really a key part of your team you can't deny the use of a necro.

Health degen caps at 10.
LT gives 7 at 12 BM so prim. necro because?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Plus, it is all too true that a good one can really wail in arenas. Who doesn't love a weak warrior swinging himself to death as you enjoy some quick easy faction points.

Like stupid pve monsters casting through backfire?

Warrior hate sounds like curse build - prim. necro becasue?

PieXags · Jul 21, 2005, 03:38 PM // 15:38

Having read through all the posts I'd have to say Ensign summed up my thoughts pretty well as a whole. Necromancers in themselves are just as effective as is any other class when you get right down to it, this is why they exist in the game and why we still find a balanced system.

I'd have to say though, that while necromancers can be great as a whole in themselves, the problem arises that there aren't many TEAM builds that require necromancer participation, spike groups, spirit spammers, smiters, etc. Where is there a place for a necromancer? There isn't one that fits in with that build, really. I think the main problem is that necromancers, while very good on their own, they're so different from other classes that they don't OFTEN fit in with a large team build. They do with some, but not as many as others. Memsers are in kind of the same boat, it's rare that I see a team build that requires some mesmers. (Though mesmers are typically more sought in groups because their purpose is usually set.) That's why I run a N/Me, the mesmer secondary greatly compliments my necro half. But the character in itself doesn't often fit with what a team wants as a build, so that kinda sucks. But more builds are being thought of all the time and we'll see more involvement of all classes later on as the game gets older I'm sure. So I'm not too concerned about it.

Sagati · Jul 21, 2005, 03:49 PM // 15:49

I politely ask all Necromancer supporters to stop posting.

I enjoy my myriad of all-Necromancer spell builds, and I do not want them posted on this forum so that some amateur can pick up a spell build that I have worked out--and there are many builds to work out, as Necromancers are a subtle profession as is another class that I appreciate just as well.

The forums are a great tool for not only communication, but also for speculating the economy and getting a feel for some opinions on your enemy before encountering them on the battlefield.

Back into the shadows, Necromancers. May the light never shine on out ways so that we can work best: in the dark.

Tuon · Jul 21, 2005, 04:19 PM // 16:19

K i'll stop posting, but it's really funny to hear newbs say SR sucks ^^

Celes Tial · Jul 21, 2005, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieXags

Having read through all the posts I'd have to say Ensign summed up my thoughts pretty well as a whole. Necromancers in themselves are just as effective as is any other class when you get right down to it, this is why they exist in the game and why we still find a balanced system.

I'd have to say though, that while necromancers can be great as a whole in themselves, the problem arises that there aren't many TEAM builds that require necromancer participation, spike groups, spirit spammers, smiters, etc. Where is there a place for a necromancer?

Well, so far I agree with Ensign as well.

However, one could argue that the same goes for primary warriors. Or primary rangers. You dont absolutely need either of them in a whole lot of possible builds.

Food for thought: If the enemy group has corpse cleanup and you dont, you might, depending on their skill, give them a big advantage over you.

Lethal_Poison · Jul 21, 2005, 04:39 PM // 16:39

I run a primary necro, and built her before I really planned much, since Im really just trying to play around with different combos.

Id have to agree with the people saying that primary necro is worthless. Whoever designed the Necro and created Soul Reaping seriously should have planned a little better.

Heres my biggest beef with Soul Reaping. When you get to the higher levels, fighting stuff that takes several spells, you often are out of mana or near out of mana, before you even manage to kill 1 single monster, so even when you do drop that one creature, that + spike of energy really doesnt do anything. I find myself bringing along additional mana add skills from my mesmer subclass, or even offering of blood, simply to top off my mana during battle.

I think that faster cast Id get from switching to mes/nec, or the huge boost of energy Id get from Energy Storage by switching to an e/nec would be much better then Soul Reaping.

That is the one class specific tree that has absolutely zero bearing on any skills, and thats also the biggest reason why necros are the most useless primary. As was stated before, there is nothing a necro primary has that cant be done better by a necro secondary.

PieXags · Jul 21, 2005, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Hehe, sorry mate but I have to say it.

I just don't think you kill things fast enough. Hell, even with henchmen things are dropping before I need more energy, even in the southern shiverpeaks and the ring of fire. For example when I went and got the feast of corruption elite, every monster out there is 20+ and I don't think I ever found myself begging for energy. ...And I don't even use soul reaping (well, I have 1 point in it because that's how many attribute points I had left

)

But uh...yeah, PvE is the one place where soul reaping helps loads. If your not killing mobs quick enough, nothing I can do there but tell you to kill 'em faster.

Saerden · Jul 21, 2005, 05:51 PM // 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celes Tial

Well, so far I agree with Ensign as well.

However, one could argue that the same goes for primary warriors. Or primary rangers. You dont absolutely need either of them in a whole lot of possible builds.
...

In my opinion, Expertise is the "best" attribute in the game, no contenders. If you want to do ranger stuff, you NEED to have expertise of 13-16. One can argue that bow rangers are useless, but one cant argue that expertise is useless for most ranger builds...

I would rather be a nX then a Xr - unless the ranger part is just adding a support skill or 2. And dont forget the second best armor (protectionwise) in the game. [casual advice warning - may be useless if you play against good players: If your not playing pros, rangers can get winter + greater conflag, and have the best armor in the game

]

Warriors are a different case, but at least most warrior attributes are best at 16. Strength also has synergies with lots of different warrior stuff (attack people with skills

). People target wars last for a couple reasons, and one is the armor. You also cant get stonefist gauntlets on an e/wa ... still, never heard about wars owning everyone (after the wa/mo nerf cries died down, of course)

Oh and yes, now that Ensign posted, everyone agrees with him no matter what he actually said

Edit: i just reread the original post ... maybe a couple other people should do it too...

devil259 · Jul 21, 2005, 06:38 PM // 18:38

sigh...why everyone think of nerco they start to think of ONLY soul reaping? noobs said primary nerco sucks because ele energy storage are better than soul reaping...seriously ppl who say nerco are worse in energy than ele are obviously very very new to guildwar... not only they are new, but they also intend to act pro as if they play alot already....

nerco dun only use soul reaping to restore their energy... there are several skill to restore energy than only focusing on soul reaping... i had been using my N/E since beta and i dun have a problem with my energy. only if u know how to play ur cards right...

old phase...there are no worst class...only worst player... so stop comparing abt which primary is better in energy, which class anti which class, "i will owned u in 1on1 match" or watever crap... it is pretty stupid and inmature to compare chars since the game are not coded this way....

Lorelei · Jul 21, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Oh yes, ANet has the wisdom of not include a 1vs1 arena! Please keep it that way.

sino-soviet · Jul 21, 2005, 07:05 PM // 19:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celes Tial

Well sweetie, of course you dont see good points made because you dont read them, and dont think about them. When others present FACTS that prove you wrong, you assume they are speculating to protect your fragile viewpoint.

FACT: A primary necro can take out half of the enemy team in 5 seconds at 0 energy cost and nearly 0 casting time total. I have done it, others have done it. It is exactly people like you who cuss on local chat afterwards and 'threaten' to report others for hacking because they refuse to believe they just got owned by a necro.

FACT: Playing a necro to the maximum of their capacity takes skill. This skill includes using the energy as quickly as they regain it from soul reaping. Doing this requires setting up the skill bar accordingly (a concept novel to you, I'm sure). A skilled necro with the right build (and the right team build) could burn through 100 energy in 20 seconds and turn all this energy into a desaster for the enemy team.

FACT: A primary necro can prevent 3 enemy casters from regaining any energy for 35-40 seconds and never remove those hexes unless they brought a certain skill. This skill is extremely under-used because brilliant experts like you think that 'necros suck'.

FACT: Experienced necros are 'vague' about their most successful tactics on purpose... can you figure out why? Think really hard. Alright, I'll tell you. Because keeping people like you ignorant makes it easier to wipe the floor with you in Tombs.. and you'll never know why (because primary necros suck, it must have been aliens messing with you).

I could add more facts but frankly, I have other things to do at work.

Facts eh? Well I'm glad someone finally brought up something factual.

I would agree with #2 to some extent. May not be the best way to win, but I can see your point. (sort of) #4 is nonsense and is a worthless generalization. #1 is possible, but maybe you should mention how much effort it takes to pull it off rather than presenting it as a general circumstance which happens all the time. And you agree with ensign eh? Funny how what he said is basically that necros are usually better left as a secondary becaue of a couple factors, and you claim just the opposite. You agree with Ensign, you basically agree with me. Nothing to argue about now.

Reread this thread. Not once did I ever say necros suck. Never. I merely said energy storage was a better primary attribute to have overall, and I prefer an elementalist primary. As far as runes, I think its been pointed out that attribute points for a necro matter less than lets say, an elementalist. In addition, I am arguing solely about energy storage being superior to soul reaping in most ocassions, and for necros usually better left as a secondary. I don't care about the "facts" which you post, because it doesn't matter how "pwnage" prim. necros are. They have uses, but the most common uses for a necro are usually rend, etc, and that can be done without being a prim. necro. Learn from what you said, and read my posts. Read them clearly. Done? Good. Now that you see I am arguing solely for a necromancer usually better as a secondary, maybe we can get somewhere with this. I don't think you have much of a right to accuse me of disregarding the "facts" of others.

IxChel · Jul 21, 2005, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

My main knock on Soul Reaping for most builds is that it gives energy at the *least* opportune time - right after someone died.

The other knock against it is that you often get too much energy and waste deaths. The last two days is my first real experience playing a necro, and I just wanted to cry when 1/2 my team died and I got far more energy than I knew what to do with. That said, perhaps a Necro's primary purpose is to use all that "free" energy in Light of Dwayna to raise their fallen team mates so that they can die again?

As a primary mesmer /w energy drain, I always look around for necromancers right after someone dies....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Personally I regard the 70 AL, take double damage from holy armor as utter trash.

Confirmed, in the random arenas you get eradicated by Wa/Mo's using Judge's Insight or smiting monks using Balthazar's. I had no clue holy damage was so damn popular... ouch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'd tend to agree that Blood is the best Necro attribute for PvP, but not on its strengths - if you aren't playing Tombs then Putrid Explosion is marginal and the whole Death line with it, Curses is utter trash as long as Nature's Renewal exists, so Blood has to be the best by process of elimination.

Not to mention that wonderful spell... Convert Hexes (15 energy). Typically a necromancer doesn't spread his hexes around, he applies 3-5 (40 energy?) of them on a single target. With any good team and vent, it goes something like this:

"Yo, the hexes are stacking up, give it a few more seconds,
I think that necro has a bit more energy he wants to waste".

Nothing like buffing your opponent's primary target with 30-50 armour, not to mention the 2 for 1 energy swap. Convert hexes is a *must* in the random and even the team areans where you encounter lots of necromancres.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I didn't used to like Tainted Flesh at all but I've come around on it almost 100%, at least for tombs. Tombs tends to be played tightly packed enough for disease to spread readily, and if you can get disease to spread consistently it's a pretty good ability. It's going to swing either way, Dotting their entire team in many cases or keeping dot off your entire team. It's not OMG amazing like some elites, but it's definitely solid.

Have to try it, if you have a 10 in death would it be still be solid? To spam half your 8 person team it will take a while -- perhaps some fast casting would be a better primary for this elite?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Indeed, I was having some fun with this last night in fact. Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Price of Failure on a Warrior, then just stand in front of him and watch him explode. It's hilarious.

I was doing this last night as well. You even got to cast Price of Failure? I got half way through the cast animation it before my attacking warrior keeled over dead ... I think he was using flurry. That said, I was running a Me/Ne not a Ne/Me for the faster cast time.

I also had another (very blind) warrior in random arenas follow me around to give me energy for the whole match (Signet of Midnight + Spirit of Failure). After a certain point, it kinda gets boring. I was about to tell him how not to attack... naah

I don't know how anyone can judge the competitive effectiveness of a skill if you have warriors who don't even look at their hex bar as they proceed to annihilate their entire team with stupidity.

Ensign · Jul 21, 2005, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

If you play to win, primary necros are worthless most of the time.

I wouldn't say most of the time, but their utility becomes increasingly marginal as you move further from the PvE towards the GvG spectrum.

PvE? Necros are insane. Corpses everywhere to make minions from and always another pack to smash them into. Mob AI that walks right into whatever hex traps you've laid. Damage being spread all over the place that greatly increases the utility of your lifesteals. The class just works and a Necro has a place on any team.

Arena? There's very little removal so your hexes still rock people. You're a class that's good against Rangers and Warriors, the two most played classes in arena. You take a lot of fire because of that and that increases the utility of your lifesteals. It's just a good metagame call in arena, and I'm happy to get a Necro on my random team.

Tombs? Necros still have their place, albeit a small one. Nature's Renewal is everywhere and that destroys the Curse line, and that you're a lower priority target seriously hits the utility of your lifesteals. That this is often a multi-team environment, and has gametypes where people tend to clump up, gives the Necro some utility - Putrid Explosion is outstanding, and Tainted Flesh is similarly excellent when disease spreads easily. It's not a particularly deep class here - you're probably going to be leaning on your secondary heavily - but the need is there.

GvG? Now the Necro is really sketchy. Nature's Renewal is still everywhere, and teams are still good about attacking the right targets. It's also a much more mobile and spread out gametype so the few Death skills that got used in Tombs are just mediocre here. There are still a few skills that really draw you into Necro, like BiP, but is that really enough for them to force their way into your build, as opposed to simply being stashed on a secondary?

It's not that the Necro is bad at what he does. It's that the particular strategies that he brings to the group simply are not all that relevant at the highest level. Corpse Exploitation? Can't make a character around that without conceding the 7 on 8. Lifesteals? Staight out inferior to an Elementalist most of the time, as the health gain loses utility when you're no longer taking hits. Hexes? Nature's Renewal. When you have entire themes of your skill subset rendered next to useless in PvP, is it any wonder that the class is a role player instead of an all star?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

I don't agree at all really, I find that curses is a really good line with nature's renewal or not. I mean, curses usually have very little cast time and nature's renewal is RARELY used as an anti curse measure mid battle.

I think you're insane. There are a grand total of two relevant hexes with one second cast times - Faintheartedness, which is nice in arena but too limited in scope for 8v8, and Defile Flesh, which I agree is solid and still worth running under Nature's Renewal (particularly because you don't expect it to stick long anyway).

Everything else in the line is going to have at least a four second cast time. You might not think that this butchers the line, but I don't think there are any skills worth trying to force through with that sort of hinderance.

Even without Nature's Renewal, the Hex line gets hit hard by energy costs and cooldowns. Teams are getting better at hex removal, and nothing scary is sticking for very long. Internally we've discussed how we weren't really fond of Backfire even before the Nature's Renewal fix, because it just ate a couple seconds while someone Smited/Inspired it and that wasn't worth the investment. Now if a Fast Cast Backfire isn't worth running because it needs to stick to be effective, why would you seriously consider running Mark of Pain, Weaken Armor, Rigor Mortis, or half the Curse line for that matter? They're hexes that need to stick to matter, and they just don't stick. Toss in Nature's Renewal, and why bother?

And, to bring up the old argument again - of the stuff that you really want from this line, Shadow of Fear, Rend Enchantments, Defile Flesh, and the like, how much of it do you really want at high attribute levels? I'd rather stash those on a secondary. The only time I've ever really wanted a Necro primary for a Curses skill was for Spiteful Spirit, and that was a fun arena build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Plus, this hits you even slightly into the battle and you are feeling a heavy energy hurt thanks to max energy dropping quite a bit, and your spells are disabled for a bit if you swap to make your energy 0 to end the spell. Don't dismiss this as something countered by simply swapping focus items. That is just not true.

Wither and Malaise takes about a second to rip off of myself if need be in the middle of battle. Is fifteen energy and four seconds of cast time worth stopping me from casting for a second while I pull them off at no cost? I don't think so, and laugh at Necros performing hard self-energy denial by stacking those two hexes on me. A boring Energy Burn would be more effective, and that skill is pretty bad itself.

I do think Malaise is somewhat interesting if used on Warriors or Rangers. Unlike casters, those two classes usually don't have a brainless 'swap to an empty weapon set' solution for getting rid of the Malaise so they just have to deal with it, and that makes the skill incredibly strong. Wither is simply a worse, elite version of Malaise so I wouldn't seriously consider running that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Not true at all. Lets look at individual skill effects that your team does not want.

Sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Removing the efffect of blocking enchantments, that is just useless when taking down a monk with guardian and aegis on them.

Even ignoring Nature's Renewal, Mesmers are just better at fighting single dumb enchantments. Removing an enchantment and gaining energy is just plain better than spending 10 energy to pull off a 5 energy or whole party enchantment. Single target removal has terrible recharges, though, so it isn't like any of these are effective counters. If you want to fight Guardian spam you want to use, you guessed it, Nature's Renewal.

Realistically, the enchantment removal that I want from the Necro is either Rend Enchantments, which was about as good as it was going to get at 4 Curses and has been rendered obsolete by Nature's Renewal, and Chilblains, which does its job at 0 Curses and, yet again, is obsolete with Nature's Renewal around. But even forgetting Renewal all you're looking at are Necro secondaries for some enchantment removal, something I've been advocating for months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Cutting their healing in 2 thirds or in half is really useless and isn't worth enough to consider them in a build.

Defile Flesh I do think is interesting if you're running a spike build - it isn't a hex that gets hit particularly hard by Nature's Renewal because you don't expect it to stick anyway. I wouldn't take Necro *just* for Defile Flesh, but if you have one on the team anyway it's a good role player. Lingering Curse, Nature's Renewal, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Increasing damage per warrior swing/ranger's arrow on a called target is just not worth thinking twice about.

I liked Order and Dual Order builds back in May, before they fixed Nature's Renewal. Man, I'm sounding like a broken record here, aren't I?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Causing damage each time a spell is casted just isn't great, especially with when monks heal themselves, especially when their healing is cut.

Mesmers are an order of magnitude better at this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Wells suck

Wells have uncontrollable, consistently bad positioning in GvG, and are uncastable in tombs because every corpse explodes before it hits the ground in Tombs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

and energy regen doesn't matter.

You are not seriously advocating using Well of Power in competitive PvP. C'mon man, BiP is sitting right there staring at you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

I mean, a spell taking a whopping 2 seconds to cast is just too much

Two is fine. Four is not. That leaves you with Defile Flesh and, um, Defile Flesh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Gee, heavy source of degen. I can't find any good efficient degen sources.

I can. Tainted Flesh, at least in tombs where things spread. In GvG, you have Poison Arrow, Melandru's Arrows, and Conjure Phantasm / Mantra of Persistence. All of those are spammable DoTs that can quickly infect the entire opposing team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Oh wait, life transfer is pretty big on the degen scale, weighing in with a whopping 7 and healing you for that very much.

Life Transfer is complete and utter shit. Fourteen damage per second on a single target is negligible - a good Monk team is prepared to heal him for 200+ every second to keep up with a damage spike. Oh, and it has a 30 second recharge? What trash, Life Siphon is better. At least that can infect several people at once, spreading around the DoT and forcing a Monk into triage.

Life Transfer is a skill that I'd only seriously consider running in arena, for all the reasons mentioned before. Of course in arena I consider Spiteful Spirit to be a better elite for a Necro so Life Transfer has found itself a nice spot on the bench to occupy for the forseeable future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

two spells and you have 12 degen.

OMG!

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

Plus, it is all too true that a good one can really wail in arenas. Who doesn't love a weak warrior swinging himself to death as you enjoy some quick easy faction points.

Indeed, I was having some fun with this last night in fact. Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Price of Failure on a Warrior, then just stand in front of him and watch him explode. It's hilarious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

Ha! Like I said, necros seldom need to fit the role of a tank, but can they? Yes, they can. Should they? Probably not, unless your team build calls for one.

Just stop this whole 'tanking in PvP' thing. Stop it right now. It's making my eyes bleed and embarassing you more than you know. If your PvP team build calls for a tank it's because the person making it has suffered life-threatening head wounds and we really should be congratulating him if he can form complete sentences. Don't run PvP builds that call for tanks. They only work against teams who's highest level of strategic achievement is C-Space.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

For example, when you're going up against a spirit team, soul reaping totally shines

It sure does. Whenever I face a spirit spamming team with my Necro I have enough energy to cast the spells from my secondary pretty much non-stop. Works decently with your own spirits as well. Well enough to start running Necro primaries on a team just for your own spirit deaths? I don't think so, mostly because you lose a secondary on all of your characters in the process, but the idea is still in the back of my mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

Or, when you're going up against a team who uses heavy energy denial tactics on your support, you can play a nec that siphon's life from the enemy and feeds it to your casters for an amazingly effective counter

I love BiP as a counter to heavy energy denial. I don't think running it neccessitates either lifesteal effects or a Necro primary, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

not to mention wither + malaise gives them a taste of their own tactic.

Please don't mention those again. They are *self* energy denial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

but when you know exactly what tactic your enemy will be using, then taking a necro is always a good idea.

Not true. Necros are very good at countering specific sets of strategies. They are downright awful at countering other types of strategies, for example, Air Gank. They should be run when called for and ignored when not called for. Nice and simple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dred Skullord

The Necro primary is inferior to the El/Ne.

Not for Putrid. That skill has singlehandedly saved the Necro Primary in Tombs. Run it or be ready to lose to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieXags

I think the main problem is that necromancers, while very good on their own, they're so different from other classes that they don't OFTEN fit in with a large team build.

I don't think it's that they're different. It's that, if you look at their skills:

1) Large swaths of their skillset has minimal utility in most PvP builds - lifesteals, minions, etc. Point has been beaten to death. It's no different from laughing at a 'tank' looking for a tombs group.

2) Many of their best skills have zero synergy with Soul Reaping. In fact they have better synergy with the primary attributes of other classes, namely Energy Storage and Fast Casting.

3) Many of their best skills start to peak in effectiveness in the 8-10 attribute range, if not sooner. This greatly cuts into the benefit of scars and runes, since there's little you want to crank through the roof.

4) Nature's Renewal

The question, as always, is why should I devote a character slot to a primary Necromancer instead of just stashing, say, Rend Enchantments and Defile Flesh on a Ranger or Elementalist?

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieXags

Memsers are in kind of the same boat, it's rare that I see a team build that requires some mesmers.

Right, they're both utility classes, both role players on most teams instead of the centerpieces. The difference, as you mentioned, is that a PvP Mesmer is a very specialized tool - they straight up destroy casters and do it very effectively. What do Necros do? Well they're well equipped to rip apart Warriors and Rangers. Trouble is that ripping apart Warriors and Rangers isn't particularly valuable as long as the other team has Monks standing. So what you want is to shut down or otherwise neutralize Warriors and Rangers, but that has two problems. One, that most of your Warrior shutdown eats it to Nature's Renewal. Second, Necros aren't unique in Warrior hate, Elementalists have their share of it as well.

Of course there are a lot of Ranger teams running around these days and I'd love to have a Necro (though probably a secondary) somewhere on the team to just up and shut down that offense. Problem is that every single one of those Ranger teams drops several copies of Nature's Renewal so we can't exactly Shadow of Fear them into oblivion like we used to be able to.

...that really is the trouble isn't it? You ask a Necromancer what he does, and I really don't know what the answer is going to be.

Case in point. I still think that running a Necromancer primary in Tombs is absolutely vital, because if you concede the Putrid war you're going to lose to it, and Putrid + Soul Reaping is a combo too good to ignore. So we're running a primary Necromancer with Putrid Explosion and high death. Tainted Flesh is solid in tombs and we're already in the attribute heavily so we run that too.

So our Tombs Necromancer build looks something like this:

Putrid Explosion
Tainted Flesh

Attributes:
Death: 12, +1 Hat, +3 Rune
Soul Reaping: 9, +1 Rune

And...you tell me. This character is in every tombs build I make and I have no idea how to build him. There isn't a whole lot from the primary that jumps out and demands that I run it, you have a sparse secondary with a 9 attribute to play with and a lot of skill space. Most other characters have 10, 12 skills that I want to run and it's a question of what to cut, what I can pack into the guy. This guy has two skills and I'm already looking for filler, not trying to pare down all of the great options available.

That, I think, is the fundamental problem with the class.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

Oh and yes, now that ensign posted, everyone agrees with him no matter what he actually said

I should make a t-shirt and start a fanclub. I sure could use the money...

Peace,
-CxE

BurningPants · Jul 21, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

How...epic?

Scaphism · Jul 21, 2005, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Celes, two thinks really irk me about your post, and in the posts of others throughout this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celes Tial

Even if they run putrid (but why should they run putrid... necros suck, right? And if their death magic is not 16, they are silly gooses.) You only need to have your necro faster than theirs.

There isn't a single person in iQ who has said putrid explosion is a bad spell. It's thoroughly frustrating to have stated this on page two of the thread, only to have people claim it is part of their secret strategy later on, as if they are master strategiests with necros.
iQ began running Putrid Explosion the first match after someone finally brought Well of the Profane to use in the HoH. Necrotic Traversal was bugged at the time and Putrid was the fastest casting corpse exploitation spell. At first it was there purely to remove corpses, but we found it was a great way to get rapid AOE damage spikes against teams trying to rush the Dais we were defending. Shortly after, we saw a lot of teams using Putrid against us, and it became an even higher priority to clear out the corpses before they could be used against us.
Your insinuation that we're dismissive of necromancers "(but why would they run putrid...necros suck, right?)" is insulting to anyone who's bothered to read this thread and put thought into expressing their reasoning for why necromancers shouldn't be played outside of a specific set of circumstances.
For once and for all, Soul Reaping + Putrid Explosion shines in Dais maps. If you're not prepared to take advantage of it, be prepared to have it used against you.

Secondly:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celes Tial

They can be lured into clustering (not the entire group, but 3-4 is enough) unless they are VERY good. It works on many different maps. And frankly, there are not a whole lot of VERY good guilds in Tombs that you will encounter on a single run. And by the time you do, it might very well be an altar map.

This should have no impact whatsoever on the discussion at hand, yet people keep insisting on strategies that beat lesser players. When we're discussing (or trying to discuss) high level competetive play, arguments like "we don't fight a lot of good teams, but it works against them" will get you laughed out of the room.

Teufel Eldritch · Jul 21, 2005, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Okay how about this? You(general 'you' not anyone in particular) play the profession you want to play & others will play the profession they want to play. If you(again general) think Necros suck, good for you. Others don't. Others like the Necro.

Aphalite · Jul 22, 2005, 01:40 AM // 01:40

I cannot believe that some people are still missing that more starting energy > gaining back energy via SR

SR energy is circumstantial, you are unable to tap it until someone dies, ES energy can be used immediately to do useful things, which will probably create SR energy for you, however, by then it'll be a tipped scale battle anyway

Also, for the guy who keeps claiming necro can do anythign witht he right support, no one goes into pvp with 7 builds that are centered around a necro

PieXags · Jul 22, 2005, 01:46 AM // 01:46

I like Teufel's idea. Teufel's got a great idea.

Teufel's my new friend for that.