Curse

PieXags · Jul 19, 2005, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Necromancers are by no means bad characters, they're just harder to master and play than most other classes. I've had to change the secondary on my necro now 5 times trying to find right combinations, searching for the right line, trying to find something that really works, and it's difficult to play using many of the skills necros are given. There are a lot of them that are good, but require a lot of timing and concentration by the necromancer. I've gone and played every class to lvl 20 and beyond and my necromancer is definately the hardest to get used to and use effectively, but once you DO manage to perfect the necromancer profession (or at least master it enough to the point of being extremely effective) you can become one of the most dangerous players on the battlefield. Those who recognize this often come out on top, because when necros are allowed to work their magic in the background like they want they cause problems. Some of the hardest groups I've ever fought were composed of mainly necromancers (and they weren't minion masters) or they go for necromancers, before monks in the take-down line.

Necros are hard characters to play well is all.

Tuon · Jul 19, 2005, 03:59 PM // 15:59

Hi. Soul reaping doesn't suck. Thank you for your time.

Indigo · Jul 19, 2005, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

There is a huge difference between N/X and X/N ... and the only good reason so far to go N/X is to be considered weak and useless, and therefor not be a priority target...

When people say that necros are worthless, they mean that PRIMARY necros are worthless... E/N > N/X in most cases that dont involve special builds... there are few uses for necro runes, and soul reaping is much worse then energy storage in pvp usually... dont mention powerfull necro skills and claim that necros rock... sure X/N rock, but people are talking about N/X, so give reasons why you need THEM...

Primary Necros are certainly not worthless. I have a primary Necro and I can say that I can heal (WoB). Keep myself alive (Life Siphon). As well as give any caster in my group +5 energy regen for a period of time (BiP). Not to mention, making it impossible for others to dodge, draining their life, weakening them (so that they do less damage to my team mates) and slowing their attack rate down. I can disease a group of people if they're stupid enough to be standing close together. Among other similar things from the Necromancer line.

I only have 40 energy (saving for scars, after buying 15k armor

), at present, and I rarely run out of energy thanks in no small part to the 5 energy that I get everytime something dies. My side or theirs.

Vilaptca · Jul 19, 2005, 04:47 PM // 16:47

Necros shine in PvE and PvP, but many people fail to notice it. I've gone head to head against a Fire/Air Ele in PvP with my Curses/Blood Necro. Soul-Reaping helped. As my team and the other team are dying, I'm gaining energy back, in quick bursts which are enough to let me pop of spells again. That Ele ran out of Energy because he wasn't gaining it back as fast as me. As soon as those bursts of Energy started popping up, the battle I was sure to lose, and was very close to losing turned my way. 2 people died. All of a sudden I have 20 more Energy. I can quick cast off two life-stealing spells and that Ele that thought I was dead has just lost most of his life and its gone back to me.

N/E is not horrible in PvP. Again, Soul-Reapings bursts of Energy can help a lot more than the Eles huge stash of Energy. I find myself launching off more nukes than the Ele sometimes. The only reason a N/E might be slightly worse than a E/N is that the Exhaustion from many spells won't hurt an Ele's Energy pool as bad as it hurts mine as a Necro.

Soul Reaping does not suck. It is only worse right now because we have no skills for it. I would be willing to take everything out of my Ele skills for Soul Reaping if it actually had some skills.

ManaCraft · Jul 19, 2005, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by sino-soviet

1) Soul reaping to far too situational to be as useful as another more reliable primary attribute.
2) If you arent going to use soul reaping, there is absolutely no reason to run a necro primary.

I see. So my curse/death necro should in fact be a primary monk, even though I have absolutely no use for divine favor at all.

Heh, I think not.

ManaCraft

Lorelei · Jul 19, 2005, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManaCraft

I see. So my curse/death necro should in fact be a primary monk, even though I have absolutely no use for divine favor at all.

Heh, I think not.

ManaCraft

Uhhh... I thought you two agreed... Don't see the difference of opinion here.

Forboding Angel · Jul 19, 2005, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Necros aren't underestimated in pvp. They are easily the crappiest primary profession in the game and only useful for special builds where SR or runes are useful, i,e OOV/BiP/OOP spam, Putrid in hoh, and condition spam setups. Necro secs are insanely useful for stuff like rend but primaries aren't worth it in most cases. Add in the fact that most necro primaries are newbs running around with life transfer/vampiric gaze and stuff and you can see why people detest them. General perception is wrong most of the time but they're dead on in this case with necros for pvp.

In pve they are amazing, but I don't think that was the point of the topic.

You could not be more wrong

Necros are the reason that korea had favor for almost 1 1/2 months straight

ComMan · Jul 19, 2005, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManaCraft

I see. So my curse/death necro should in fact be a primary monk, even though I have absolutely no use for divine favor at all.

Heh, I think not.

ManaCraft

No, he's saying that your Curse/Death necro should be a primary Ele, because Energy Storage is better than Soul Reaping (in his opinion and/or experience)

Jul 19, 2005, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Somehow I knew this topic would turn into a cesspool of favoritism and misinformation.

For PvE Necros are great. They have all the bodies in the world to make Soul Reaping worth it and all the time in the world to make minion armies.

For PvP Primary Necros are usually a waste. You want them for the runes or the odd case of Soul Reaping benfits on the dias. But it's incredibly hard to find an effective "majority necro skills" build because alot of their shit just wont work well together. They've got some really good skills, a bunch of stuff you dont need to ever look at, and then some possibly good skills that get arent balanced right because they have Sacrifice costs/high casting times/incredibly long recharge times.

Also, Korea "having favor for 1.5 months"? Um, that wasnt due to Necro Sac builds. Especially since American and Korean teams arent playing Tombs at the same time all the time. Please stop posting nonsense.

Mithie · Jul 19, 2005, 06:54 PM // 18:54

I've seen good teams with multiple necros in Tombs, and even fought vs. a similar team build in GvG once. Blackace is right, there's no "Majority necro build" which would be useful in all situations, but multiple necro prim's in a team can chain up synergies very very quickly and can brutally counter specific tactics when built a certain way due to necro-specific armor, soul reaping, and runes. However, in most situations, E/N is almost always preferable to N/E, when you simply don't know what sort of tactic you'll be up against.

ManaCraft · Jul 19, 2005, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComMan

No, he's saying that your Curse/Death necro should be a primary Ele, because Energy Storage is better than Soul Reaping (in his opinion and/or experience)

I know. Too bad that elemetalists don't have Martyr, isn't it?

The argument that any necro should have an elementalist primary is, to put it in plain English, a load of BS. The choice of class is not purely a matter of how much energy you have, it's also a question of which skills are available to you. There is plenty of reason to choose a necro primary outside of soul reaping, which was the point I was trying to make.

And as a sidenote, anyone who would claim that soul reaping is useless in PvP plays too much in the arenas and too little in tombs/GvG. For a necro, I'd take soul reaping over energy storage in a 8v8 pvp setting.

ManaCraft

Aracos79 · Jul 19, 2005, 07:40 PM // 19:40

I can think of one good reason to be a Necro primary, camoflage. Elementalists, Monks, and Mesmers definately attract attention from opposing teams. A Necro is more likely to go unnoticed for a few key seconds. Granted the best teams know what a Necro is capable of, but a lot of people will try and take out all the other casters before focusing on you. Those few seconds can make all the difference.

Ensign · Jul 19, 2005, 08:07 PM // 20:07

The only class I'm turned off from seeing on my team in arena is a Warrior, as they tend to be so juvenile and clueless that they might as well be an empty slot. I think maybe one Warrior in a hundred actually does anything for a team.

Necros are actually pretty solid in arena, with a nice selection of DoTs and Warrior hate. Perhaps more importantly, a Necromancer you run into in arena is very likely to have A Plan. The class has a bunch of really random and oftentimes bad stuff that doesn't obviously mesh well together, and someone playing a necro has probably thought about their character enough to find a build that makes sense on some level. Compare that with many Warriors, who don't understand things any more than 'run up and hit things with weapon until they die'.

My dream team as a Monk in arena is a Mesmer, a Necro, and a Ranger. For a reason.

Peace,
-CxE

IxChel · Jul 19, 2005, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Let me add some fuel to the fire. Most opinions about the usefulness in PvP of soul-reaping were formed in the 2nd or 3rd beta, mostly due to a few insightful posts by Ensign (the God of Guild Wars Statistics). A collective opinion or bias against soul reaping immediately folllowed.

However, I'm not sure if this collective opinion has been updated with a serious change to soul reaping at retail. Before retail, rezzing in PvP was hard to do, it was mostly rare or took along time or never happened at all. With the change in res-signet behavior (brining you back to Full Health, and going off in 2 seconds rather than 4), they become far more valuable. Only idiots go into PvP without a res signet [1]. Further, and and I don't know if this is new, but signets recharg after you kill a Ghostly Hero. The end result -- a ton more deaths going on in PvP now than happened in the betas; I'd say by a factor of 2, perhaps more. There is one clear winner with this res-signet change: neco's soul reaping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feli

I'd say necro/mesmer are the better anticasters. Necros are allways like the last target as everyone thinks them weak... by then i've caused hell of a havoc by interrupting and eating up enchantments. Why should i go fastcast when interrupts have no cast time anyway?

This is a great observation. I'd note that most people also argue that the bulk of necro skills are "optimal" at 8-9 and thus make for good secondary classes. I have a Wa/Ne that uses 9 curses... and it's a brilliant combination. As someone who almost always plays a mesmer (and not a necromancer), you've got me intrigued; I need to see for myself.

[1] On the other hand, I think the res-signet change essentially reduced the number of slots from 8 to 7. So, from this perspective, I think, as a whole, it decreased the overall diversity and fun of the game.

Perception · Jul 19, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

I play a Necromancer and I absolutely love her. If you load her with curses and blood points, she does awesome support damage. She weakens the enemy enough to allow the warriors to do more damage on them and she also heals herself which allows the monks a chance to focus on others for a bit. Lol, I love playing support characters... my goal is - keep us alive, keep them dead.

thesecondrei · Jul 19, 2005, 09:39 PM // 21:39

A good blood necro is almost as good a spiker as an air ele...but people underestimate necros because they are "unseen wonders." Meaning, people don't see the obvious effects of a necro. A mesmer is also an unseen wonder considering people don't pay attention to the caster that was just interrupted or the other caster that did himself in via backfire. A necro's presence in pvp is just not blatant and obvious, kinda like a mesmer. (Although mesmers are desired in pvp)

Teh Azman · Jul 19, 2005, 10:42 PM // 22:42

I used to play mesmer and now play curse necro, and I am now the key ingredient in my guilds GvG battles. As for PvE, well, the underworld runs with curse necros speak for themselves.

sino-soviet · Jul 20, 2005, 12:06 AM // 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManaCraft

I see. So my curse/death necro should in fact be a primary monk, even though I have absolutely no use for divine favor at all.

Heh, I think not.

ManaCraft

Since you are NOT using soul reaping, you are 100% correct. Consider another option of a primary attribute instead. Your curse death necro has no more reason to be a necro than a monk or a mesmer or an elementalist. There is no reason, other than camoflauge, to run a primary necro if you are not going to use soul reaping; every necro skill is also available as a necro secondary. If you are going to neglect a primary attribute altogether, you might want to re-evaluate your build anyway. You never gave any reason as to why a necro without soul reaping is still worth using; quite the contrary, you mentioned that soul reaping does have a use in pvp. I'm not sure what you are trying to say and who you are disagreeing/agreeing with.

IxChel · Jul 20, 2005, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by sino-soviet

There is no reason, other than camoflauge, to run a primary necro if you are not going to use soul reaping; every necro skill is also available as a necro secondary.

People run warriors w/o strength and memsers w/o fast casting (interrupt ones, for example) all the time. Why? Beacuse they want the superior rune to give them a 16 in an attribute. Spiteful Sprit at 16 curses is pretty nice.

Ollj · Jul 20, 2005, 01:19 AM // 01:19

all arguments for primary necros being bad in pvp
are so weak, wrong and bad its not worth to nullify them.
too easy.

okay just one.
there are other GOOD threads discussing how primary necros become primary targets.