Curse

Scar006 · Apr 24, 2005, 07:42 PM // 19:42

I was wandering through the forum and noticed that the necromancer sounded relavitly weak with his hexes compared to other classes.

Is the Necromancer and his abilities(primary) usefull in pvp?
As the release comes nearer I was thinking about making a primary necro but only if he can stand his ground in pvp.

Sorry if this was discussed before just give me a link if it is like that

Loviatar · Apr 24, 2005, 07:52 PM // 19:52

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...6335#post36335

Epinephrine · Apr 24, 2005, 07:55 PM // 19:55

The view of many people suggest that there is no room for necromancer primaries in PvP. I disagree, but that's pretty much the usual for me. I think Necro primary is actually very powerful in the right party setup. The necromancer is always useful in PvP, minimully for Blood is Power, but all necromancer spells are available to a secondary necromancer, so the question is whether Soul Reaping is worth using in PvP - this is a big debate, can be found in many places and to sum up the two sides:

For: They are very useful, it gives energy throughout the battle and more energy than Energy Storage for example.
Against: It gives energy when things die - if it's your team then you are already losing, if it's their team you don't need the extra so much.

Ensign · Apr 24, 2005, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scar006

I was wandering through the forum and noticed that the necromancer sounded relavitly weak with his hexes compared to other classes.

Well the Necromancer isn't a very deep PvP class. There are a few skills at the top that everyone wants to have around (Shadow of Fear, Rend Enchantments) but things drop off quickly from there. The class has more than its share of crap, but that really doesn't matter too much as you're only using eight of the best skills anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scar006

Is the Necromancer and his abilities(primary) usefull in pvp?

Well, there are two parts to this question. Is a Necromancer useful in PvP? Absolutely. Is he significantly more useful than another class carrying 2-3 Necromancer skills? Not really. After those first few skills there isn't anything that you really want to run, and none of those key skills scale up so well that you really want them at high attribute, making them an ideal splash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scar006

As the release comes nearer I was thinking about making a primary necro but only if he can stand his ground in pvp.

Well primary Necromancers usually end up getting run for very specific purposes - Level 16 Order of the Vampire spam springs to mind - or to play to the secondary - a Necromancer / Protection Monk, for instance. Most of the time it's just not worth giving up an attacker, a Monk, or a Mesmer to bring a Necromancer along, when you can just stash his key functionality on a secondary somewhere.

You'll do alright in the arenas where there are a ton of Rangers and Warriors for you to feast upon - and little coordination to fight off your hexes - but in organized PvP you'll consistently be the last one picked for teams, and even then oftentimes it'll be a desperation measure.

Peace,
-CxE

Scar006 · Apr 24, 2005, 08:23 PM // 20:23

So I have read the threat....

Will are the devs aware of this? Did anyone already suggest to improve the necro and have they said anything about that (especially the primary skill considering the pvp situation?)

I really hope they will balance it, don't want it to end like WoW

Rhazwyth · Apr 24, 2005, 08:41 PM // 20:41

I think people underestimate soul reaping.

Let's look at the Elem/Necro & Necro/Elem.

Energy storage is nice, but eventually your energy will reach 0. Then it won't matter if you have the same energy regen. So even if people don't die that fast so you can take a strong advantage from it, it still would benefit you more.

Of course this doesn't take into account any skill that is tied with a specific skill. But for energy purposes I would take soul reaping over Energy storage and Fast casting.

tastegw · Apr 24, 2005, 08:41 PM // 20:41

it all depends on your teams needs.

there are some team builds that totaly rely on the necromancers powers to debuff the target. that being said, there are definatly uses for a necromancer primairy.

just gotta know when and how to combo his skills up.

Perishiko ReLLiK · Apr 24, 2005, 11:02 PM // 23:02

I've seen alot of criticism on the necromancer, and wanted to clear up the fact that they work Wonderfully with mesmers... the necro's blood magic is wonderfull at keeping yourself alive, such as life siphon being the best, as you can cast it on multiple people, and gain quite a life regen.

The necro's curse magic can make for a wonderfully damaging warrior necro...

pve they are simply Amazing, but if you have a good guild they can be some of the most needed support characters, if anything make a warrior nec with blood magic and let your healers focus more on others...

All of this really depends on how good you are with necro skills, necro being one of the only classes that i would pair with anything, ive gotten good at complimenting their skills with other classes... it's all up to how good you know the casting times and mana management...

Tozen · Apr 25, 2005, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Necromancer moves are very jack-of-all-trades in comparison to other classes.

You can create tanks, blast with powerful magic (blood) nukes, wittle way at HP with DOTs, and hex an opponent into uselessness. Necromancers are especially good at making warriors and rangers fire their attacks at a severely reduced attack rate!

With the exception of the hexes and death animation, all necro abilities are surpassed by another class and usually come with an immediate negative effect on you. Some will drain your HP away and others will leave you with negative conditions such as poison. BUT, I've always found the sheer range of necromancer abilities to be incredibly useful in PvP!

Don't knock soul reaping either. It is easy to see that it isn't nearly as reliable as some of the other energy recovery moves in the game. Rather than recovering energy whenever you need it, you'll recieve it in large bursts upon deaths. It has one INCREDIBLY huge advantage though, and that is that it is only method of energy recovery recovery in the game that WON'T take up a skill slot or two. Anyone that has played a mesmer with heavy mana-draining moves will know that sacrificing two or three slots for inspiration magic just SUCKS. (Thankfully, at least you're taking energy from your opponent!)

Soul Reaping isn't as useful in 4v4 competition, but you'll recognize it immediately in the 8v8v8v8v8 wars within zones such as the tombs.

I wouldn't recommend pairing the necromancer with any moves that require 25 energy and/or exhaustion from other classes. However, that weakness aside, they are very versitile fighters whose actions are VERY hard to predict. When you see a necromancer on the field, you never quite know what you're in for!

-Tozen

EDIT: While I will agree with the above statement that necromancers will get picked last for a team, it isn't because they are useless. Right now, the problem is that (1) Necromancers haven't developed enough skill to use their moves effectively yet and (2) Players haven't realized yet that the necromancer can actually perform very well in PvP. While ANet calls the Mesmer the hardest class to play, I would say that the Necromancer actually tops it!

Also as an above poster mentioned, the secondary profession is key. Having death magic or curses maxed out but not enough damage to actually take down an opponent makes you useless unless you're on a good team. (Focus fire on a good team actually makes disablers invaluable as you can effectively "disable" by death or through hexes more enemy players at once.

I tried playing a pure necro in the last BWE and was useless to my team because I couldn't kill anything. Later, I teamed up with some Mesmer moves and became an invaluable part of the team. It all really comes down to how well you manage your eight slots, just as every other class must!

One Last Note: I used to play WoW before GW, and I listened with subtle curiousity as people complained day-in and day-out about the uselessness of the warrior class. I analyzed the warrior and decided that I wanted a challenge... to be the first to use the warrior and dominate. After some thought, I realized that everyone had become so obsessed with using the "uber-build" for the time that they had forgotten some very powerful combos that were often overlooked in the warrior skill tree, especially when paired with the engineering profession. By the time I quit the game, I was defeating players up to seven levels above me of all classes... all of them thinking I was easy prey before attacking.

To be fair, he never quite made it to 60 before I got bored, so perhaps my build wouldn't have carried me through the whole game. However, it taught me a valuable lesson... just because something is considered sucky by 90% of the gaming population doesn't mean it is... it only means that it is that much harder to play correctly! (And by the way, I wouldn't diss any other warrior build; they all have their own strengths and weaknesses)

Greentongue · Apr 25, 2005, 12:21 AM // 00:21

Something that may have been overlooked is Nature Rituals. They trigger Soul Reaping when they die and can be cast anytime. With no points in the related Attribute they die in 30 seconds, sooner if attacked.
This gives a more controlled source of energy but requires Ranger as the secondary profession.

Silmor · Apr 25, 2005, 12:56 AM // 00:56

And casting a nature ritual costs energy and lots of time, and takes up slots on your skillbar you might not want to miss. Perhaps if you have multiple necromancer primaries all spec'ing soul reaping combined with multiple rangers casting 0 attribute spirits to optimize this tactic it might become somewhat feasible, but it'd still mean having to stay close to the nature rituals while they're in effect, and basically building your entire team around it. I doubt it's ever worth the tactical sacrifices.

Alexiel · Apr 25, 2005, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tozen

Soul Reaping isn't as useful in 4v4 competition, but you'll recognize it immediately in the 8v8v8v8v8 wars within zones such as the tombs.

Great post, Tozen. I'm still getting used to the Necromancer (playing it with a Mesmer) and will be giving a primary N a go come preview and will be taking a look at Soul Reaping.

Question: What range does the benefit of Soul Reaping have? I've been assuming that it was melee range or only slightly larger. Is that the case? How far away can the deaths be and still gain energy from them?

I really liked my Me/N. I was finally getting the hang of it in the Arena by the end of last BWE. Skill choice is fairly limited so early on (and I have no idea about later) but finding a way to use those skills in a useful way was great.

I do worry about not being useful to a team, though. Perhaps poor skill selection on my part but I never seem to do much PvE wise, PvP I'm only slightly better.

Anyone mind offering suggestions, such as specific skills, that they find useful. If I can find it in release I'm curious to give Malaise a try, I expect that could be useful though I haven't done much with curses...

Apr 25, 2005, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexiel

Question: What range does the benefit of Soul Reaping have? I've been assuming that it was melee range or only slightly larger. Is that the case? How far away can the deaths be and still gain energy from them?

It's slightly less than the full range of the radar.

Tozen · Apr 25, 2005, 05:42 AM // 05:42

Alexiel, don't worry if you don't have the hang of it yet. Because playing a necromancer is so dependant on having the right moves for the right situation, it is very easy to be useless in a fight if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

Make sure that you're not considering the random arena matches authentic PvP. While it is true that these are indeed player vs player, they lack the organization required to truly let you use your necromancer moves to their finest!

Necromancers have moves for disabling just about anything, and anything they lack can be made up for in secondary profession. A quick overview: (This is general, there are more things available in each set)

Blood Magic: Your nukes, and from what I can tell from experience, they seem to go through armor. Good against everything, but especially lethal against casters. You'll be doing heavy damage to them while recovering your own health at the same time!

Curses: Your hexes. Necro curses specialize against warriors and rangers, so if you go a heavy curse necro just realize who you should be fighting.

Death Magic: Corpse moves. I don't really use these in PvP much unless things are dropping like flies, but they're great in PvE and CAN be used right in PvP. I wouldn't suggest following some of the sacrifice strategies out there(such as killing pet for minions.) They WILL work, but the more complicated a strategy is, the more situational it becomes and the more often it will fail!

tektonik · Apr 25, 2005, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tozen

Soul Reaping isn't as useful in 4v4 competition, but you'll recognize it immediately in the 8v8v8v8v8 wars within zones such as the tombs.

Or you won't because the range is limited on SR. Try again tho it is cute for you to try to justify SR in Pvp.

Alexiel · Apr 25, 2005, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Thanks, Tozen, that was very helpful. I was enjoying the Arena but you're right, it was tricky to find a definite purpose. The "build" I had was only working in 1 of 3 matches.

Really? Curses are geared towards Warriors and Rangers. Excellent, I was feeling very vulnerable to those professions. Excuse me while I go look a some curses.

Thank you again.

Tozen · Apr 25, 2005, 05:49 AM // 05:49

I wasn't joking... I've played necromancer in serious tomb matches with my guild. Something seriously dies every five seconds or so (and is rez'd quickly too I might add)

EDIT: And don't tell me that you've never at least been in conflict with two teams at the same time! This happens to me quite frequently... you can imagine my mana pool then

Dumeka · Apr 25, 2005, 07:38 AM // 07:38

To be honest, I don't understand the people who say that as a Necro you will find a team difficult or that as a Necro you are uselles in PvP or similar.

I'm playing my Necro/Mesmer since the first World Preview and I'm very satisfied with her!

In PvP I tended to be either a Warrior Killer or a Spellcasters killer (healers espessialy).
It all depended on what skills I had at the time with me and how I wanted to play my character skillwise!

In PvE I always or mostly had a animation (Bone Horrors or Fiends) with me to increase either the melee power or the ranged power of the group after I saw who was in the team. If we had 2 or more melee with us I didn't even bothered to take animation skills with me, I rather took more debuffing skills with me to weaken/slow down/ degenerate and through this make enemies useless.

So I would say that the people who say that Necro sucks either didn't bothered to play the class in detail or they found it too difficult to play.

Though I always would rather play more difficult classes to get a twist on them instead or running around with a easy class everyone is using.

My motto is that "every Class can be easy or difficult", though it depends on you as a player if its easy or difficult to you or not more than in the class itself.

NiknudStunod · Apr 25, 2005, 08:04 AM // 08:04

A lot of the stuff we are all going on is beta info. Yes the necromancer primary was weak but I for one am hopeful that with this last bwe they will get a few tweaks.

Alexiel · Apr 25, 2005, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tozen

I wasn't joking... I've played necromancer in serious tomb matches with my guild. Something seriously dies every five seconds or so (and is rez'd quickly too I might add)

EDIT: And don't tell me that you've never at least been in conflict with two teams at the same time! This happens to me quite frequently... you can imagine my mana pool then

You have me excited at the possibilities. Definitely giving Soul Reaping some points come early access.

Tombs. Yes, I didn't really like the free-for-alls. Far too chaotic for my liking. Of course, in all Tombs matches I've been the monk because I don't mind it, but lots of people attacking makes healing more stressful. I like the monk as I feel useful but your thoughts have me thinking I can make a N/Me very useful too, just in a different way.