Nercos _Profession Enquiry_

Personally I wanted to start this game with a Necromancer . Since the developers have something to do with Diablo 2 ( I think ) . I was wondering if Necros can last all the way till the end of the game ( As in fight equally with other class against high lvl mobs , NOT PvP )

One question I would like to know is if Necro 'Summons' can last till high level , or the best 'Summon' is only say lvl 50 or so ( which means fighting lvl 60++ onwards ) with 'Summons' is impossible hence useless . <---- I'm asking about this . I ask this because from what I see from the "Profession Skill Guide" The 'Summons' don't exactly have fabulous damage , though I'm not too sure which is 'the' most powerful one ( offense wise ) .

Hope those who play the game with Necros know more or less what I'm saying . Thanks for reviewing .

Ben-

Here's some advice.

First, you need to do a little more study on how this game works. There is no lvl 50 or 60. Max level cap is 20. The game is being designed around lvls not being that important and more on your skill and strategies.

Necros are incredibly powerful in groups. Their summons are lower levels (and they don't live long ever as their life slowly drops from the point they're summoned) but they can really help to overwhelm powerful enemies. There's been more than one mission I've been on where every group I ran in got owned, then we added a necro and his minions really helped us just overwhelm the mobs.

Also, from as much as I can tell, the professions are incredibly balanced. No one profession is any better than others. The games still in development and that pendulum has swung a few times, but the devs are doing a great job of balancing everyone.

Is that an indication that Necros can't solo ? And that their 'Summons' can really kill but more or less control/tank the other mobs? Do the 'Summons' actually do significant damage , or they have infinite life ( with timed countdowns ) that like what you said 'control' ?

It's an indication that no one can solo. Guild Wars is a team game. All missions and exploration areas are balanced for teams ranging in size from 2 to 8 members. A Necromancer or any other profession entering a mission designed for characters around their level alone has very little chance of success. That's why the game has NPC henchmen available that you can join with to form a group or to pad out an understaffed group.

Here's how minions work. First, to summon a minon you need to have a corpse. Then, you can summon one of three types of minions depending on what minion skill you have slotted. There's a ranged minion, a strong melee minion, and a weak melee minion (that spawns either more minions or at a cheaper cost than other minion spells). Then, there are many other skills which can buff, heal, or otherwise affect your minions. The level of your minon is tied to your Necromancer's attribute Death Magic. It depends on the skill you're using and the minion you're summoning but your attribute will range from 0 to 16 (with a hat and a superior rune, item mods can push you higher, too, but I can't ever recall seeing a +1 to Summon whatever) and you can take that as a rough approximation of most minion's levels. This means they'll fall well short of the max level of 20 and since a character's level also influences just how much damage they'll deal - basically higher level characters will hit lower level characters harder while lower level characters will hit higher level characters softer - minions are not amazingly effective sources of damage. They're also uncontrollable. They attack whatever it s that you decide to attack or the nearest target. There's no way to tell them to disengage or to target different characters or any other sort of advanced tactics, they're a horde of brainless killers and they'll swarm all over a target until it dies.

What minions have going for them is numbers. By having minions you have more characters on your side than the other side (especially if the corpses you're exploiting belong to the other side) and as minions clog the battlefield they can trap opposing players or screen your more valuable teammates. They're not going to take out a player 1v1 but neither are they entirely ignorable. They're more than a slight nuissance because they do *some* damage and they can be dangerous in large packs but they're not much more than just simply annoying to a team of lv20 characters.

However, that doesn't really matter. A Necromancer is not just a character who'll pump out minions as quickly as possible. It's a much more diverse and complex profession which can be paired up with five other equally diverse and complex professions. You can play a Necromancer/Ranger that uses curses and hexes to debuff an opponent before finishing them off with a bow. Or a Necromancer/Elementalist that slings around DD spells. Or a Necromancer/Monk that uses a Necromancers ability to shift energy around with the Monks ability to shift health around to support the rest of their team. Necromancer/Mesmers can counter both melee and spell-casters. Necromancer/Warriors can use minions as nothing more than walking energy batteries with Soul Reaping. And each of those combinations can be reversed - you can play a Ranger/Necromancer as easily as a Necromancer/Ranger - as well as play completely differently from the narrow and limited ideas I've just suggested.

Look at Blackie's Necromancer guide if you're interested in finding out more (It's not comprehensive, but it's a start). Then you can browse around our Build Directory to get a feel for how some people play their necs.

thank you very much . now I can roughly understand how this game works altogether . I have a second question though . if the max lvl is only 20 .. what do people in guildwars do after that ? besides a hell lot of PvP or GvG ? Or are hunting monsters still a very good option besides killing other players ?

well there's the missions that finish the story line, there's great PvP, there's the explorable areas, there's the new expansions that will come out every so often.

I doubt people will be bored. Heck, I wish we just all started at 20 as the pvp has recently become my favorite portion of the game. This game is not about a levelling treadmill, it's about playing the game and having fun. There will always be skills to collect, people to kill, and stuff to do. Then comes the new expansions with even more stuff to do.

Hmmz I'm not very into PvPing all the way .. Since I believe there is no gain in anything significant except a 'victory' or 'lose' record . Hopefully what you said about acquiring new skills , exploration & consistant inputs into the game is the 'fun' part of the game haha

if you're one of the many pve collector type folks, you have all 150 skills to capture, explore every place on the map - you can go a fair way with no missions completed - all the good stuff - missions, etc. - happens when you're level 20. lesser levels may put you at a disadvantage.

I was much like you until I got into Alpha and played with an actual guild in some guild battles. There's a lot of fun with the pvp in creating your strategies getting the build you want, etc...

hoho it's great to know there's a way to master all the skills after lvl 20 . i thought you couldn't hear anymore skills after 20 Guess it's some sort of a good news haha .

I wanted a fun class VS monsters , if I loved PvP i would have chosen a Mesmer instead =) PvP is so boring because it doesn't give you anything but records which die down for me :/

you get other things as well, they're just not all implemented yet. You get xp for winning in PvP, fame points which will eventually be useable for something. PvP will open up some other areas that you won't be able to reach, etc...

Not to mention that in the last beta you had to reach the Hall of Heroes in order to create a guild.
Personally I love this change: you can only reach the Hall of Heroes through teamwork.

The problem with that is that it totally screws over the PvE guilds that don't do PvP at all.

It's a good thing they have a sigil vendor for those people.

How is that fair? Wait, its not. Different forms of the game require different forms of team work. Because some one isnt good at pvp doesnt mean that group of people doesnt deserve a guild

Eh , that's quite true . I suppose the main purpose of reaching halls of heros was to reduce the number of guilds .

What's the point of getting exp points throught PvPing when the max level is only 20 ?