Curse

Forboding Angel · Jul 20, 2005, 09:33 PM // 21:33

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Originally Posted by sino-soviet

Why do people still believe that all of the classes can be just as good as any other if used correctly? A necromancer as a primary can be decent, and can fill a specific team role (BIP). But otherwise, its a shallow class which has less to offer than the others.

Guys like this irritate me

Simply because they are sure that they would "pwn" with their wo/mo

please...

Jul 20, 2005, 09:37 PM // 21:37

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Originally Posted by PieXags

Now tell me that wasn't vague as hell. "and most of your stuff either isn't worth bringing" What STUFF are you talking about? How can you get any more VAGUE than "stuff". THAT is vague bullshit plain and simple. Yeah, health degens CAN get overrun by monk healing abilities, but if they couldn't...wouldn't that make necros near invinsible? Think about that for a moment.

You do know that you're making no sense right. But, I'll list examples of things that you would bring because theres too many skills that arent going to be worth talking about:

Enfeebling Blood
Shadow of Fear
Rend Enchantments
Defile flesh
Lingering Curse
Blood is Power
Orders
Offering of Blood
Putrid Explosion
Tainted Flesh***

Those are the most seen skills by the better teams. TF is there definetly due to metagame reasoning.

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Also...long casting times on hexes? What the hell are you talking about? Have you ever played a necromancer? Most everything is no more than a 2 second cast.

Which, in competitive play is a LONG casting time hex.

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Most elementist skills cast LONGER than that. It's MUCH harder to interrupt a necro's hexes than it is to interrupt an elementists' skills most of the time.

I dont think you've been playing a necro as long as you claim you have. A 2 second casting time when most players are hitting 1 second Orisons isnt easily interrupted? Stop making shit up.

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Our damage isn't that great? Just using simple things like shadow strike, vampiric gaze, and feast of corruption I can take down most any warrior in about 10 seconds depending.

And I can take down any Monk with Arcane Conundrum, triple Power Spikes and a Conjure Phantasm. Who cares. We arent talking about Warriors with no healing ability here-if thats the case then any class would be a damage mahcine. We are talking about where it counts: damage vs healing. And when it comes to that, necros are 4th on the list if they are lucky enough that no smiting monks are around.

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But in an 8vs8 battle you're right, a monk focusing on that character CAN heal that damage. But...monks are SUPPOSED to heal damage.

and now that we know this, we know why things are the way they are. So of course it screams "no duh". Because you're wasting time doing something thats obviously going to be shrugged off.

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Blackace you're being almost more vague than anyone else here "life steals" name some skills, and honestly, it's EASY to SPREAD health degens on a necromancer, and it's difficult for most monks to keep up with that unless they put their full attention to healing all the degen.

Seriously. How much detail do I need to give you about what a life steal is? Look at Blood Magic skills. Look for where it says "you steal health". There. Instead of being "vague" it's called actually knowing that the class your a self-proclaimed expert at has-life steals written all over them. It's not easy to spread health degens as a Necro vs good teams-and thats who we ae talking about right? Why? Because it's expensive if those hexes dont stay long enough, and you're interrupt bait because most of your stuff takes 2 seconds. And if you think it wont be hit-play some better guilds.

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If played CORRECTLY health degens can be great. A single health degen can make someone have to heal, and having to heal at all means you're doing damage to them to the point that they're in danger.

Thats exactly where your mistake in thining comes from. A health degen doesn't have to force a heal. A player at 500 hp losing 6hp per sec isn't going to make a good monk go nuts. Health degens becomes effective as max HP is lowered. But by their nature they are capped, and thats where the double edged sword comes in.

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Now tell me...you say "their skills don't mix well". What "skills" are you talking about? All of them? Mind telling me why a simple anti-warrior curse build doesn't work? Want to tell me why a necro spamming moderate damage blood skills isn't just as effective as a ranger firing off attacks with his bow?
I'm going to ask you to follow your own advice and quit being so vague.

Anti Warrior Curse build means Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood for the most part. if you're dedicating a full character to do something that a secondary can do with 2 skills, it explains why this argument has been going on for so long.

There are too many necro skills to list that dont work well together(I cant not be vague here), but here is a general idea of it:

Your damage modifiers in Curses need 12+ to become worth it: Desecrate Enchantments, Fainthertedness, Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite and some others.

However, your duration hexes/spells are already good at mid spec. Shadow of Fear and Enfeeblind Blood are the prime examples. These skills dont need to be raised high, and are priority. So they dont mix well with the others because raising them even higher doesnt increase their effectiveness-it stretches the character thinner. Why? because SoF and EB are going to hurt immediately, and last long enough at mid spec that removing them becomes priority. Something like DE doesn't even matter because the damage it does is going to be nagted by the very enchantments its trying to punish.

The blood magic skills are too much of a bother to explain, but I'll get back to those later when I come from class. They are a little trickier to understand because they are seemingly balanced against each other and that sends a few of them to trahs pile(Vampiric Spells, Blood ritual, and the god awful Blood renewal).

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So if we're down to reasons why necro primaries are just as good as other primaries, instead of secondaries. Well, I personally use a few skills from both my necro primary half, and my mesmer secondary half. Right now I'm running an anti-warrior build using a mix of blood/curses and inspiration. For this build to work properly I have to have at least 12 in both blood and curses, and at least 10 in inspiration. Only with a necro primary can I pull this off and even push the blood and curses BEYOND 12.

Ok. Thats nice.

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Also, 6 out of my 8 skills are NECROMANCER skills, so why the HELL shouldn't I be a necro primary, throw on some runes and attribute adding facial scars to IMPROVE that majority of my skill set? Is that a good enough reason to be a necro primary?

Big mistake. The amount of skills on your skill bar have nothing to do with whether or not you have to be whatever primary correlates to that. I'll run an Ele/Mes with 4 .25 second interrupts and Energy Drain if I have to, just because Energy Storage may help my build much more than Fast Casting will. Falling into the idea that number of skills=primary is a sure fire way to not get better. If you want to get better, learn what maximizes efficiency and what does not, and soon many things will start to make sense.

Forboding Angel · Jul 20, 2005, 09:51 PM // 21:51

ya know, I used to think that sould reaping wasn't all that great... Until I went to tombs.

Blackace, I'm kind of failing to see your point here. My necro is pure damage, and 1 on 1 with any class could hold it's own.

BTW I'll give you guys a hint, when playing a necro, a lower life total is a good thing. Not gonna explain why tho :P

Sammiel · Jul 20, 2005, 09:52 PM // 21:52

I fail to see why you hold Energy Storage up as a paragon of an awesome attribute. Those extra 35 or so energy spread over the length of a battle are insignifigant in anything beyond a 4v4 battle. About the only use would be to chain together extremely high cost skills, but that is generally a losing proposition anyhow, since you would be spending a signifigant amount of time medding to earn back that energy for the next burst. Not to mention you just pooh pooh the effects of high blood while championing the even more negligable effects of Energy Storage.

PieXags · Jul 20, 2005, 10:11 PM // 22:11

I've played my necromancer for over 300 hours, unlocked every normal skill with every profession except for the monk, and tried countless builds on this one character since I've had him, I'd have to say I have a pretty good idea as to what makes a necro primary good.

Here's an example, in the bulids that I switch between I typically use skills like vampiric gaze, shadow strike, feast of corruption or spiteful spirit, desecrate enchantments, other miscellaneous curses I feel the need to swap out, and then a mesmer skill or two like power drain or something like that for the energy, every now and then I'll bring ether feast for the heal as well. Now tell me...if my build requires blood and curses high as I can make 'em, along with a third attribute in one of the mesmer lines, and most of my skills are of the necromancer class, why the HELL shouldn't I be a necro primary? Answer that question for me. I've no room for fast casting as I have to concentrate on the given 3 attributes, hell I've not even need for soul reaping. But since I could either be a mesmer primary or a necromancer primary...which would I be in this case? A necro primary, obviously, it would allow for a surprising rise in damage for the direct shadow damage or life stealing (not health degen) skills, adding 10 or more damage to each of them by having them above 12.

Tell me, in that situation...what makes more sense? To boost the power of most all of your skills, or to boost the power of one or two of them? And that's just something I tossed out there, I'm changing builds and experimenting all the time. Most of the builds I've done thus far require a necro primary, which makes sense...since that's what I am. I've also thought of many that would make good as necro secondaries, but that doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of reason to be a necro primary.

Also lets just ask a question, yeah necros are problably 4th on the list when it comes to damage, well maybe. But...since when are necros supposed to dish out that much damage? Most of their skills revolve around them being a support character, and they pull it off well.

Now, here's just a question. If the fight is that necros suck, any experienced player can tell you that isn't true. Necromancers do not suck if played well, just like any other class. On the other hand I can show you just as many shitty rangers as I can crappy necromancers, I can problably show you more cruddy warriors then I can cruddy necromancers. Every class can be good, every class can be bad, it's that simple.

Blackace all you've done to my posts is post counter-builds to each of the necromancer builds I've thrown out there, all you've said is that "any necromancer build can be countered".

You say it's a "big mistake" for me to be a necro primary because my skill set relies much more on my necromancer half. But...you failed to show me how. If my build calls for a necromancer primary I sure as hell am going to be one. The example you gave gives you an example of where having another primary other than what your skill set is matters, but that has NOTHING to do with necromancers, it's just an example of a build and is entirely irrelivent to the necromancer primaries. If the build calls for more power on the necromancer half, you're going to be one. And that is why people play them, plain and simple. If you can find a way to tell me that people shouldn't be necromancer primaries when their build calls for it, be my guest, but no such fact exists. It's like any other class.

ANY BUILD can be countered. A necromancer can counter OTHER professions builds. No class in this entire game, is perfect. There is no "godly" class that can just counter "everything" with one build, and thus far that's the only thing you've criticized necromancers for, is not being godlike. Yes their health degens can be healed over, that's the counter to them. If the monks are unable to keep up with it all, then they obviously weren't able to counter it all. Yes there are some builds out there that can smite necromancers with armor that weakens them to it. But there are combinations of other classes that can counter that. Yes a necromancer can take down some monks, while some monks can take down some necromancers. Yeah necromancers can take down warriors, but a warrior with the proper build...can do the same to the necromancer.

It's like this with every profession, you find me a profession that can't be countered and we'll say it's better than the others, but one doesn't exist. An elementalist might have more energy, but it's attacks are all elemental and can be countered and the damage decreased dramatically with the right spells, necromancers have many many shadow damage or direct life-stealing skills that aren't affected by armor or anything like that at all. There's a perk necromancers have over elementalists.

Every class has it's pros and cons over every other class, if there was no point to the necromancer primary, there wouldn't be one. It's as simple as that.

sino-soviet · Jul 20, 2005, 11:46 PM // 23:46

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Originally Posted by Celes Tial

Congratulations on ignoring every point others have brought up against yours, without any reasoning / argumentation.

Every other point? So far, I've yet to see one good point made. Period. End of discussion. I see idiots, like yourself, who address the speculation of others with their own speculation and attack people for it. That’s quite a way to be a hypocrite. I've seen theories about how necros can tank, how soul reaping is superior to energy storage. Other than the primary attribute/runes, there is no reason to use a necro primary. If you can find a good use for the runes in a competitive pvp environment, then that’s great, a necro primary should suffice. But most useful necro skills, such as enfeebling blood and rend enchantments, just doesn’t require runes to be useful. Now lets go to soul reaping. Soul Reaping is inferior to energy storage for two reasons. Soul Reaping is situational. When you are getting thrashed by the other team, soul reaping kicks in to maximum effect at a much higher rate than you can use the energy. But the problem therein lies the fact that if TOO many things are dying, you're not gaining energy after you hit max... With soul reaping at 10, you need a couple things dying over a long period of time in order to get it's full usefulness. Which doesn't happen. Either everything dies too rapidly, or too slow. Meanwhile ES gives you energy to use fresh off the bat, 33 in most cases. With that 33 + 50 or so energy, you can cast away and deal some serious damage before having to regenerate. Realize that success does not depend on one person gaining energy; its when that energy comes into play and how efficiently it does come.

Celes Tial, why don't you take your own advice. Shut up, argue with facts, and stop trying to counter my speculation with your own. You have yet to make one post with any sort of argument or even attempted argument. So stop trying to let these other awesome "pro" necros shut me down for you.

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Originally Posted by Forboding Angel

Guys like this irritate me

Simply because they are sure that they would "pwn" with their wo/mo

please...

Ummm, yes, I play a wa/mo. He "pwns" at farming, that he does.

This folks, is a prime example of an idiot who believes that anyone who uses a warrior/monk is automatically a bad player. In addition, he assumed I was a wa/mo for pvp, yet I play a hydromancer. You try to destroy stereotypes about necros (without absolutely no argument at all) , yet you insult based solely on the ever so stereotypic “noob wa/mo”. Classic. Also, terrific job of attempting to sound like an informed player. I am sorry, but being so hypocritical and resorting to attacking someone’s so called “noob” class is making you just as stupid as the “noobs” who you are attempting to insult. Way to go to be a non-conformist. And this is all coming from someone who believes that necros with less life are better. Please, don’t try to dismiss stereotypes by creating them at the same time.

Jul 21, 2005, 12:05 AM // 00:05

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Originally Posted by PieXags

I've played my necromancer for over 300 hours, unlocked every normal skill with every profession except for the monk, and tried countless builds on this one character since I've had him, I'd have to say I have a pretty good idea as to what makes a necro primary good.

I've played the game for much more than 300 hours, and I've probably played the class for closer to 500 hours. So if we are going by the argument that time=skill(which it doesn't), you're wrong. Playing a class all the time doesn't make you better by default. And thats why there are people laughing at this shit.

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Now tell me...if my build requires blood and curses high as I can make 'em, along with a third attribute in one of the mesmer lines, and most of my skills are of the necromancer class, why the HELL shouldn't I be a necro primary? Answer that question for me. I've no room for fast casting as I have to concentrate on the given 3 attributes, hell I've not even need for soul reaping. But since I could either be a mesmer primary or a necromancer primary...which would I be in this case? A necro primary, obviously, it would allow for a surprising rise in damage for the direct shadow damage or life stealing (not health degen) skills, adding 10 or more damage to each of them by having them above 12.

If you're build requires it, then hey do what you have to. Then being a necro primary is the only option. But that in no way means that Soul Reaping becomes good. You're logic is very faulty and this is why your not getting it. I also wouldn't be making a damage necro that tries to do it's thing purely through Nec stuff, but thats on you.

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Tell me, in that situation...what makes more sense? To boost the power of most all of your skills, or to boost the power of one or two of them?

Once again, you just arent getting it. It doesnt matter how many skills their are, that has nothing to do with Primary Attribute selection. People will make a ne/mo for 6 pips of Offering of Blood with 7 Healing Skills as a support bot. Stop being a scrub and start thinking.

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And that's just something I tossed out there, I'm changing builds and experimenting all the time. Most of the builds I've done thus far require a necro primary, which makes sense...since that's what I am.

To someone trying to win, it makes absolutely no sense. You're playing under an imaginary set of rules that say since you're using mostly Necromancer skills you must be a primary necro. It's stupid and is a fast way to lose vs better players. However, if you want to keep thinking like that so be it, but I dont think I'll ever have trouble dealing with players in this mind set.

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I've also thought of many that would make good as necro secondaries, but that doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of reason to be a necro primary.

There isn't plenty of reason to be a Necro primary.

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Also lets just ask a question, yeah necros are problably 4th on the list when it comes to damage, well maybe. But...since when are necros supposed to dish out that much damage? Most of their skills revolve around them being a support character, and they pull it off well.

Read those first 2 sentences again. They are 4th on the damage list, they arent supposed to dish out high amounts of damage-and you complain when someone points this out. Necros are good support characters, they just dont require use of as many of their skills to be useful as some other classes. Until people stop trying to invent creative ways to do stuff without knowing whats actually going on topics like these will always be laughing stocks of misinformation and people not willing to embrace the truth.

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Now, here's just a question. If the fight is that necros suck, any experienced player can tell you that isn't true. Necromancers do not suck if played well, just like any other class. On the other hand I can show you just as many shitty rangers as I can crappy necromancers, I can problably show you more cruddy warriors then I can cruddy necromancers. Every class can be good, every class can be bad, it's that simple.

Actually, many experienced players will tell you that necros "suck". Because as a whole, they pretty much do. They have some excellent skills, but it's largely clouded by some other junk that just messes the class up in high level play. "bla bla bla doesn't suck if played well" is another lame argument. We know this, no need to state the obvious as if it somehow increases your skill in this game.

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Blackace all you've done to my posts is post counter-builds to each of the necromancer builds I've thrown out there, all you've said is that "any necromancer build can be countered".

Actually I'm not posting counters. Im posting logical information that seems to be escaping you because you just arent reading. We KNOW anything can be countered, but why do we care. That statement has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this discussion and is just another statement thrown in to make yourself sound like you know what you're talking about.

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You say it's a "big mistake" for me to be a necro primary because my skill set relies much more on my necromancer half.

Learn how to read. Seriously. I said it's a big mistake thinking because you have alot of necro skills it locks you into a necro prime.

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But...you failed to show me how. If my build calls for a necromancer primary I sure as hell am going to be one.

How does a curse/blood build call for Soul Reaping. Prove it. Because both of those attributes dont even synergize with it. Death Magic does.

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The example you gave gives you an example of where having another primary other than what your skill set is matters, but that has NOTHING to do with necromancers, it's just an example of a build and is entirely irrelivent to the necromancer primaries.

Basic understanding is called for here. If you dont know that Energy Storage actually does have something to do with Necromancer skills then I'm overestimating just how much understanding you have of this game. If Energy Storage has nothing to do with Necro Skills, what does Soul Reaping have to do with any Curse skill in the game?

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If the build calls for more power on the necromancer half, you're going to be one.

No.

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And that is why people play them, plain and simple.

Good players or scrubs play classes for entirely different reasons, as seen in this thread.

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If you can find a way to tell me that people shouldn't be necromancer primaries when their build calls for it, be my guest, but no such fact exists. It's like any other class.

You dont be a necro prime if you want the good support skills at mid attribute while preserving an Energy advantage. You go SR for dias maps, or prime necro for the runes in some cases. Majority of the time you dont even want to touch Soul Reaping. Ever.

I'm not even going to respond to the rest of ad hoc bs that you've posted. Because frankly this topic is full of people that are just posting to be heard, and I doubt have ever been apart of competitive play at a high level. This is my last response in this topic, because it's just an expo for "my build rocks, and any build can be countered" tard logic that doesn't need to be here.

PieXags · Jul 21, 2005, 12:42 AM // 00:42

You haven't backed up a damn thing that you've said, just one word answers like "No" and then you leave it at that, without reason or logic behind your answers.

"There isn't plenty of reason to be a necro primary"

Nice. I like how you showed any sign of forethought with this statement. There's just as much reason to be a necro primary as there is any other class in the game, all builds may require the primary or secondary of a profession, it's that simple. I've given examples of builds that would require both, you on the other hand seem to think that your opinion is fact and that that's final. Tell me why there isn't plenty of reason to be a necro primary. If your build calls for a necro primary and won't work properly otherwise, you're going to be a necromancer. There isn't any reason as to why you wouldn't be. Some builds might call for energy storage, some might call for soul reaping. Some people enjoy trying different builds within their class, and might want to use soul reaping later on. Just because YOU don't like the primary attribute does not mean it's worthless. Hell in the tombs or in a GvG battle I've found soul reaping to be loads of help, more helpful than any amount of inspiration magic spells I'd pour into my skill set. I personally don't mind getting 10 energy, or even 5 when there's a death, it's a damn good way to keep up your energy and the ONLY place where it's not useful is in the 4vs4 arenas, and even then it can be helpful if you've it up high enough. Now tell me why it isn't useful, the range on it is huge, and whenever someone dies, you get enough energy for another spell without having to do anything, and in the tombs people die FREQUENTLY, people are always dieing and being brought back, there's a lot of death and soul reaping helps a lot. If there weren't many bodies in the tombs, putrid explosion would be useless in the tombs, and it's not. As you've said earlier, putrid explosion is a skill commonly used by better groups. As we all know, this requires corpses. And for there to be corpses people have to die, so tell me why the HELL soul reaping is useless in such a situation.

Quit telling me "I'm not getting it", yes skills DO often matter. You keep giving specific examples that have NOTHING to do with the argument, they are in every way invalid. Yes that ONE build you just put up there with one BiP and then 7 other monk spells, that ONE build doesn't change the fact that many OTHER builds do benefit greatly from having higher attributes in most of their spells. It just depends on what the person needs or wants when it comes to their style of play. I don't just want to hear a "No" because that's ignorant and ridiculous to say, any player, even new players, can obviously tell you that if you as a whole are stronger and more efficient because of a decision like being necro primary, then you're going to do it. Any time when being a necro primary would make you more efficient than creating your character otherwise, the smart thing to do would be do do it.

Statements like "You're playing under an imaginary set of rules that say since you're using mostly Necromancer skills you must be a primary necro. It's stupid and is a fast way to lose vs better players."

That is the statement that makes no sense, it's the opposite way. I don't play a necro primary because I've found good uses for many necromancer skills, I've found many uses for necromancers skills because I'm a necromancer primary. It's because I started out as a primary necro that caused me to see the good in many necromancer skills I had available to me. I'm well aware that there are also ways to use other skills as well, still being a necro primary. But unlike some, I play to enjoy myself, not to always "win". I try builds all the time not because I think they'll make me an "uber 1337 h4x0r" but because I think they'd be enjoyable to play.

Hell I'll tell you something, if someone chooses a necro primary because they just like the LOOK of one, that's reason enough to be a necro primary. Maybe not for you, but they're problably not too concerned about your opinions on necromancers are they?

Lets put it this way, while making this game, obviously the good folks at Anet and NCSoft looked into their classes, made sure they were balanced, tried them out, for many months. If there was no point to being a necro primary, they wouldn't have given the class the same recognition as all the others. If necro primaries were ALWAYS outdone by other primaries, we'd have many, MANY more complaints about necros being crap.

Instead we see threads about how people often have the misconception that they're crap, and then we see a gigantic flock of people post about just how useful necromancers can be. That in itself tells me "Hey, the class must be able to pull off the same kind of impact as any other profession" And damned if they can't.

So instead of "all their skills but a few suck" or "No". Tell us just WHY necromancers are worse than any others. Instead of telling us counters to a bunch of necromancer builds, why not go search the profession and explore more possibilities for better builds? Every build has a counter, every class has it's weaknesses. If this wasn't the case, the game wouldn't be as balanced as it is. I personally find elementalists and warriors easier to take down than necromancers, on many of my characters, problably because those who I fight playing necromancers are playing the class because they don't undermine it, and they've figured out just how to play them well...unlike, some others I've found.

Either way, I'm enjoying my necromancer, I find myself to be a valuable asset to my teams whenever I PvP, and above all I'm having fun with him, having gone and played through every class now, necromancer is by far my favorite. Maybe it's because unlike some I don't read through the skill list go "these skills suck" and then play another class because this one appears to be weaker, no, I play a class, learn about it, and figure out ways I can make it work.

Afterall, this game IS about skill over time played, assuming this is true, a primary necro can be just as good as another class simply on...skill, right? If primary necros "sucked" as you insist, this game wouldn't be about skill, it'd be all about ones profession and skill set. If this isn't right, there's a flaw in the games balance I'd have to say.

But we know this isn't the case, so I'd have to say that for those reasons, necromancers are just as capable as any other profession.

Nasenbluten · Jul 21, 2005, 01:50 AM // 01:50

i had a n/w pvp toon had max death some sword and soul reaping and let me tell you i could kill ultra fast, rotting flesh+malise+plague touch =goodness, on top of that id make pets death nova them then blow em up with taste of death, i dont care how many HP's you have a death nova poison+rotting flesh=death with a few hits of my sword

although i dont pvp anymore was fun to use her

diseased hooker was her name and boy did she fit that M.O what a dirty hooker

lord_shar · Jul 21, 2005, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Wow, I can't believe I made through all 6 pages of this thread (so far). I'm relatively new to the game, so I won't pretend to be an expert. However, taking all the pro/con arguments, I see both sides having valid points.

About Soul-Reaping: In PVP, yes, toons WILL die, whether it be people on your side or the opposing team. Hence SR is "event-driven" instead of being situational or conditional. SR's mana yield will scale upward when more participants are involved (more +deaths = more +mana), but in smaller fights, a necro-primary won't net as much. This death_count x SR_mana_gain is a linear relationship. An efficient necro should not have a full mana tank as SR yields more mana... if he does, then he's not optimizing spell cast and recharge times given their present mana generation.

About Energy Storage: In smaller scale battles, it is probably better than SR, simply because that extra mana is immediately available to lay down some serious nukes and counter-measures. For quick kills, this beats SR. In prolonged fire-fights where life/death/res are recycled, SR will probably reap more benefits due to sustained +mana gains.

The above only mentions +mana generation. For DPS/mana efficiency, an Elementalist still owns the crown.

Do these conclusions sound reasonable?

Big Fat Duck · Jul 21, 2005, 02:25 AM // 02:25

I think the main problem here is when people choose their primary necro character as their favorite and decide to play it. They try and make things work for it, while retaining the "sweetness" of a necro, although i dont see anything sweet about them. N/W's are a prime example of this, they want to be a badass necro but wield a sword... reminds me of character customizations from different RPGs. Sure you can get your dream char to "work" somehow, but its not going to be ending up as useful as creating a character based on different skills that you can see working together -- a character that doesnt need to fit any previous template based on looks/class. Think of the first day you played guild wars, you wanted to be a certain type of character.. but that usually doesnt work the way you expected them to. The first time i played guild wars i wanted to be a Ranger that casted fire spells.. i soon realized that they mana regen and storage isnt good enough

Malchiel · Jul 21, 2005, 03:15 AM // 03:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Fat Duck

I think the main problem here is when people choose their primary necro character as their favorite and decide to play it. They try and make things work for it, while retaining the "sweetness" of a necro, although i dont see anything sweet about them. N/W's are a prime example of this, they want to be a badass necro but wield a sword... reminds me of character customizations from different RPGs. Sure you can get your dream char to "work" somehow, but its not going to be ending up as useful as creating a character based on different skills that you can see working together -- a character that doesnt need to fit any previous template based on looks/class. Think of the first day you played guild wars, you wanted to be a certain type of character.. but that usually doesnt work the way you expected them to. The first time i played guild wars i wanted to be a Ranger that casted fire spells.. i soon realized that they mana regen and storage isnt good enough

Sorry I don't play my toon as scrubs.

And in arena Necros just plain rules. I have tried W/Mo, W/N. Tell you what, no warrior primary can ever ever fight against 2 ppl or more and win. If I did, it was pure luck. But why, everytime I play my n/w. At LEAST once in a day I can win against 2 - 3 pp =D and I got all these weird ppl saying "nerf the necros" "OMG WTF" lolz

psshtt, I even got ss of the conversation.

As for tomb build. I can betcha, that unless there're like 3 monks packing hex remover, no 2 monks can remove my life transfer. None. There's a trick to this, I'm not about to share

But 3 monks simply to simply counter my build... hehe... I must say I gotta be doing a decent job.

ps. there's no build that can't be countered, what there's is only a build that's hard to counter. Sure Nature's renewal etc. But eles are also affected with that. Even more protection monk. So has protection monk become useless all of the sudden coz of nature's renewal? Hell, no!

Aphalite · Jul 21, 2005, 03:16 AM // 03:16

I'm a newbie, who ran a W/Mo but decided to switch to W/N, I have to tell you I abhored the curse line until I actually tried it, but anyways, that's not the point

To understand why starting out with more energy is better than gaining energy through the battle and the "3 deaths" argument, you only need a small example:
Pretend there are two business men, they both start out with the same capital, we'll say $100, now say they were given their choice of bonus, either a cash bonus, or a bonus every time they completed a project. The businessmen ended up taking one choice each, the businessman who took the starting bonus invested in a few companies as did the businessman who took the project driven bonus. The businessman who had more money to start off with was able to gain a lot of returns from his investment, in fact over 2 times as much as the other businessman, but the other businessman kept working, and, eventually he was able to catch up to the first businessman and surpass him. However, by that time several decades have passed, because the first businessman was able to grow his businesses exponentially due to a substantial headstart in capital at the beginning, while the second businessman was stuck with a fixed rate of income from his bonuses.

PieXags, you and blackace are different kinds of players, he's a competetive winner, and his arguments are based on the assumptions that you want to win at this game, not wear a costume because it looks pretty. There is nothing wrong with your reasoning, after all, a game is for fun. However, Blackace derives fun from winning, whereas you may not have jumped into the highest competetive rings of this game or you might just not care, that's fine too, I'm the same way. Personally I can't see how you can pick up every single skill in this game, to myself that feels way too much of a grind and way too tiring... I just make do with what I have. It seems like you are ending all of your arguments with "I just enjoy myself", well that's fine, but it doesn't change the fact that at Blackace's level necromancer primaries are not as useful as others

Malchiel · Jul 21, 2005, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphalite

I'm a newbie, who ran a W/Mo but decided to switch to W/N, I have to tell you I abhored the curse line until I actually tried it, but anyways, that's not the point

To understand why starting out with more energy is better than gaining energy through the battle and the "3 deaths" argument, you only need a small example:
Pretend there are two business men, they both start out with the same capital, we'll say $100, now say they were given their choice of bonus, either a cash bonus, or a bonus every time they completed a project. The businessmen ended up taking one choice each, the businessman who took the starting bonus invested in a few companies as did the businessman who took the project driven bonus. The businessman who had more money to start off with was able to gain a lot of returns from his investment, in fact over 2 times as much as the other businessman, but the other businessman kept working, and, eventually he was able to catch up to the first businessman and surpass him. However, by that time several decades have passed, because the first businessman was able to grow his businesses exponentially due to a substantial headstart in capital at the beginning, while the second businessman was stuck with a fixed rate of income from his bonuses.

This is not true. Unlike what you said in that cute story of yours, the ele's investment in energy storage doesn't multiply. It stays fixed, with a diminishing return. A necro on the other hand will continue to gain energy. With a difference of only about 30 energy point more, about 3 deaths make up for that.

Now an ele though has a few really good elite tied to energy storage. You can pretty much cast continuously w/o ever worrying about energy. This is true. But it also has a drawback. While those elites can get you a lot of energy they

1) Takes up a space on your skill bar
2) Takes up your elite space

And a necro has a few elites, they'd be naked without it.

Also it all comes down to what you want to do with your necro. Death magic certainly has plenty of use. However perhaps the best reason for choosing a necro primary over an ele primary is so that you can choose your preferred 2ndary profession.

The ele class for example has a lot of weakness. A necro has fewer of these weakness. Choosing a necro primary means you can choose a 2ndary that will cover up that weakness.

Now if you compare side by side, sr vs. es, es wins hands down certainly. But if you understand that necro has so few weakness (yes next to the mesmer, necro has very few weakness) choosing the right secondary class easily makes up for that.

Aphalite · Jul 21, 2005, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Another thing that is getting pretty tiring is the tendency to always claim that "you obviously haven't played this class" or "I can whoop you 1v1"

All bark and no bite huh?? If you want to convince someone then do what Pie and Ace did, they listed their arguments and examples, and didn't resort to elementary flames and smiley faces, which by the way only shows immaturity and a total lack of intelligence. "Ignorant" is also annoying, it gives off the impression that you think you are the king and the possessor of all knowledge guild wars related, obviously that's not the true, just by looking at the way people argue.

Lastly, Arena, HoH, GvG are different, take into mind that if one person makes a statement, it's probably not from the example you are thinking of, if you do not have much experience in one of the fields (I myself only fool around with arena and gvg), then please don't flame just because you are inexperienced and *gasp* "ignorant"

Aphalite · Jul 21, 2005, 03:32 AM // 03:32

I'm glad you are discussing this and actually taking points

"This is not true. Unlike what you said in that cute story of yours, the ele's investment in energy storage doesn't multiply. It stays fixed, with a diminishing return. A necro on the other hand will continue to gain energy. With a difference of only about 30 energy point more, about 3 deaths make up for that."

With extra 30 energy, circumstantially, you can kill one or two people, prevent them from escaping from death, that alone > SR because that's people not attacking - either dead or resing or healing

I have not played much necromancer straight up so I cannot comment on the necro not having any weaknesses, but I would say that if it was the case, then the necro primary class would be spamed throughout HoH and arena and GvG... like the spiker builds, and this game has already been out too long for people not to discover a gold gem

Malchiel · Jul 21, 2005, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphalite

Another thing that is getting pretty tiring is the tendency to always claim that "you obviously haven't played this class" or "I can whoop you 1v1"

All bark and no bite huh?? If you want to convince someone then do what Pie and Ace did, they listed their arguments and examples, and didn't resort to elementary flames and smiley faces, which by the way only shows immaturity and a total lack of intelligence. "Ignorant" is also annoying, it gives off the impression that you think you are the king and the possessor of all knowledge guild wars related, obviously that's not the true, just by looking at the way people argue.

Lastly, Arena, HoH, GvG are different, take into mind that if one person makes a statement, it's probably not from the example you are thinking of, if you do not have much experience in one of the fields (I myself only fool around with arena and gvg), then please don't flame just because you are inexperienced and *gasp* "ignorant"

Sorry I'm not that eager to win here just so that I start losing in game coz ppl can counter my build.

Btw I have a GvG build, I have a tomb build, and I can make them all to work. The difference is only one skill. And that's all I need to make sure my hex can never be removed by 1 monk. Na ah. And probably not even by 2. You'll need like 3 ppl furiously trying to remove it, to actually win.

Once again, I'm not gonna devulge my secrets

It's mine alone. Take it or leave it. Btw it's not just in this thread, there's another thread where I showed off my necro winning vs. 3 rangers. Even on those ss, I blotted out my skill bar

Heh sorry.

Aphalite · Jul 21, 2005, 03:39 AM // 03:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malchiel

Once again, I'm not gonna devulge my secrets

It's mine alone. Take it or leave it. Btw it's not just in this thread, there's another thread where I showed off my necro winning vs. 3 rangers. Even on those ss, I blotted out my skill bar

Heh sorry.

And once again we are back to my opinion vs. yours, which isn't a big deal, everyone should be allowed to their opinions, I congratulate you on finding a way to remove the nasty rangers so easily, I look forward to seeing more screens of your domination in the future

Malchiel · Jul 21, 2005, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphalite

And once again we are back to my opinion vs. yours, which isn't a big deal, everyone should be allowed to their opinions, I congratulate you on finding a way to remove the nasty rangers so easily, I look forward to seeing more screens of your domination in the future

Hehehe that was not a one time event. It happens everyday, everytime I play my n/w that I kill more than 2 ppl at once. So often that I don't even take ss anymore. I only got another ss.

And this happens even though I have been playing my warrior more often lately, coz the necro was just so good... it's lost the challenge.

Today 1 mesmer (illusionist) and a monk. And fought them all at once too.

The other day, w/e, and 2 rangers.

An air ele, 2 warriors. Ele died first, 2 warriors tanked and killed next to each other.

a w/e, and w/m I think, also tanked and killed together.

There're even more of these instances in the past when I used to play my necro. Lately though I've been trying to achieve the same result with a warrior, with no luck :|

But warrior looks kinda cool. The dragon armor dyed black is really nice. Actually it's my W/N that's the SCRUB, not my N/W =þ

sino-soviet · Jul 21, 2005, 04:10 AM // 04:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malchiel

Sorry I'm not that eager to win here just so that I start losing in game coz ppl can counter my build.

Btw I have a GvG build, I have a tomb build, and I can make them all to work. The difference is only one skill. And that's all I need to make sure my hex can never be removed by 1 monk. Na ah. And probably not even by 2. You'll need like 3 ppl furiously trying to remove it, to actually win.

Once again, I'm not gonna devulge my secrets

It's mine alone. Take it or leave it. Btw it's not just in this thread, there's another thread where I showed off my necro winning vs. 3 rangers. Even on those ss, I blotted out my skill bar

Heh sorry.

How convenient. Three rangers at once eh? Well, I'd be expecting your guild to dominate the GW world anytime now. Roflmao, take it or leave it. Take your word for it? Unless you give us some incentive to, I think not.