It is becoming very frustrating...

I spent 2 hours today trying to find a group for Fissure or HoH (Moving back and forth between districts, even international ones), and nada. And it's not because I'm some type of "n00b" or simply suck at the game (I don't), it's because of my class.

The way I see it, Guild Wars can advertise itself as having only 5 (4?) classes, because Necromancers (And sometimes mesmers, but mainly necros) are treated by the community like air, only if you take someone's air away they'll complain but not if you deprive them of a good necromancer.

My necromancer is my main character - I've built it from the ground up in PvE, and I have great tactics and skills with this character; I can restore the monks' energy, hex monks so they can't heal, and still do a lot of damage (163 with 2 spells, not to mention it's lifesteal). If it were me against an Elementalist, I'm pretty sure I'd win.

Why is it, then, that people would rather have an elementalist (I'm not talking about spike groups, those I can understand) and NEVER EVER pick a necromancer unless they MUUUUST have well of power around? I mean I've spent HOURS searching for groups with not a shred of luck - I hardly even get blind-invited!

I will not create a new PvP char for HoH because I can only choose from templates or be forced to unlock the skills first - So unless I want to make my build the exact same thing with PvP items and maybe switch my class around, it gets me nowhere (And the templates... come on, only 1, maybe 2 if you count paladin, are any good).

I've tried creating a new PvE character, but I find it sooooo extremely boring doing the same quests all over again, and I can't bring myself to do more than 2 a day.

So my rant is, and yes, I know it's a rant but it's REALLY seriously bothering me and taking out ALL the fun of playing this otherwise great game: Either improve necromancers to the point where people would want to have them along as much as an elementalist or a warrior, create some super all-necro build that would kick ranger groups' @$$es, or give the ability to change primary class or something (Though I seriously doubt that'd be a good idea).

The game is becoming a real frown-fest for me every time I try to find a group.

People who don't pick a Necro just because of its class are idiots. I can't remember the number of times a well-built, well-played necro made all the difference.

One of my favorite stories is always about how one necro soloed the last part of the Dunes mission after the entire team wiped out, and finished the mission for us all by himself.

Amnon you should try and find a guild or a group of people who like to run the UW/Fissure alot and stick with them. I can't help but notice that almost every man and his dog out there has a cape. Yet they still can't find people to play with. Obviously most of the guilds out there aren't that well organised.
Drop me a line some time in game if you belive people are being unjustly biased to your class. I'll send you a private tell. I'm always looking for new combinations in our builds for the tombs. I'd love to run the Uw/Fissure with some interesting combinations as well.

I thought making a Me/N would be fun. Spam some curses, disrupt the hex removal... basically frustrate the crap out of people. Sounded good... except the only person getting frustrated, is me. No one will invite me to a group, ever. The only way I can get into a group is to be annoying and invite myself anytime I see a group looking for more members. It's like I'm a leper or something. Please folks... broaden your horizons. A good mesmer or necro can make all the difference in a mission going smoothly.

Oh yes, that too. I've found necros to be very useful in the Underworld and Fissure areas as well.

AMnon stick with it. I have just started a Necro/Monk. Having completed game with a Warrior.Elementist i was bored and started over. By far my Necro is becoming more powerfull at lvl 16 than my Elite Warrior with 75K armour thats fully runed up. Two good Necros working together on a team can win any mission.

Fiss and Uw are new areas and not really that well explored especially on the Euro side of the game. I used to recruit Monks and Warriors for UW till I realised what Rangers with traps could do. Necros just need to get a few in there so the teams can see how well they can perform.

Stick with it because its the best build and most fun to play

Plus all our gold items and Superior runes we can buy for peanuts because nobodys buying them

"Come on my Army of minions ATTACK Muhhahahaha"

I forget where, but I remember reading somewhare about a lvl 14 necro who ascended, without being rushed by anyone.

He was a very good player. He basicaly led the teams himself and won over the higher leveled players he was grouped with.

Necros rock in PvE for sure, and sometimes in PvP, too. I strongly prefer there be at least one Necromancer in any group I'm playing with -- there's all those dead bodies, someone should use them.

I don't think Necros get nearly the shaft that Mesmers get in PvE. Rangers aren't high on the pick list, either. There's been times it feels like the game could just be Warriors, Elementalists, and Monks, and the other classes are just extras, hanging out.

But they are all good. Necromancers ... yeah, I like them a lot. Good for soloing.

Strange. I ALWAYS see an opposing necro on the other team in Tombs.. racing each other to exploit the corpses. Don't go with blind invite pugs in Tombs.. usually big failure results and most pugs don't know what necros do anyways.

For general PvE, just go Necro/Monk, pump up your death magic, raise a ton of bone minions and keep them alive with verata's sacrifice/heal area.

Who needs people when you've got your own minions!?

For Fissure of Woe and especially UW, advertise the fact that you can bring Well of Profane to knock out enchantments on smiters. I've definitely seen people asking for necros in ToA, so maybe you were just on at a wrong time. My primary char is a Me/N and I get into groups by advertising the fact that I can bring Blood is Power / Well of Power / Well of profane / any necro skills / whatever shutdown mesmers use.

Holy Mother of all that is unholy.

I'm a primary healer monk (secondary is unused right now and its a ranger). My *best* friend is the necro that joins any team I'm on. He has so many skills that make me so much more effective.

Blood Ritual, Blood is Power can help me get back in the fight.
Well of Power makes every caster happy happy happy.
Well of Blood on the tanks first kill can make them a much less priority for my healing time. Heck combine it with my healing seed and those tanks are golden baby!


A competent necromancer can make every single person in his team far more effective. Teams passing up on you are just making their lives tougher.

I couldn't have said it better. The BEST teams I've been on have had a necro on them. In fact, if I join a PUG that isn't filled out yet, I BEG for 1) A necro and 2) a mesmer.

Thing is, MANY people have never partied with Claude. I swear by bringing Claude on any thing I run usually. Hell, before I teamed with Claude, i never even used blood ritual on my own necro. But after I saw the results, I was impressed and added it to my own build.

Many people see necros and go "We don't need minions". That's the problem. If you're a necro, you MUST raise minions, right?


A lot of people just don't know about the hidden potential a necro holds. My necro is N/Mo. I'm a healer's assistant. Curses, Blood, and healing. Curses for protecting the team (weakness, shadow of fear, things like that), blood for BiP and Blood Ritual. Healing for self heals and when the primary healer needs extra support or he/she himself needs to be healed (self healing for monks is less energy effective than healing others).

Just an addition to my previous post, but the one person I am alawys sure to keep alive and "over heal" is my necro. Throwing him a Breeze when he hits me with extra nrg regen is just being kind but also keeping my bestest buddy happy.

I was running FoW the other night and at the start I told the necro, "if I ctrl-click my nrg, please hit me with Blood Ritual". He said "np, casters same for you if you want" and off we went. It was amazing that after the first fight the two Es said something to the effect of "omg you are amazing". I was a little sad to see the necro not hanging out next to me for the rest of the mission as it seemed the Es just ate up energy. Course I also enjoyed the massive rapid body count that ensued (and none of those bodies were mine).

Even the other forums have made mention of this. One of the reason this community is bad.

Rangers and Necromancers normally get ignored more than mesmer, especially in pvp.

Thank you, I knew I wasn't the only one who felt this way.

Necromancers, Mesmers, and sometimes (but rarely) rangers are often looked upon as "optional" characters for a group. Rangers usually don't have a problem, especially with UW/Fissure because of their traps, but elsewhere they're sometimes overlooked. I'll focus on Memsers and Necromancers though.

The problem with necromancers and memsers is that they work in the background, they might have some pretty wicked magic but they work with it behind the scenes, while the tanks are up there taking hits and the elementalists are nuking, you obviously notice them a lot. Elementists magic is most often direct damage (usually with a cool affect that MAKES you notice as well) and warriors can't be ignored the way they run up first, monks obviously are necessary in a party (...usually) and they always get noticed by the warriors who're getting hurt. These three classes are noticed most. Rangers also sort of fit into this category because their traps and other skills are pretty noticable.

Where as these characters all work directly and do a certain job, mesmers and necromancers are much more about working on a different sense, they don't just go out and do damage they're typically your background support characters, and the damage they deal isn't often noticed because it's either enemy-action dependant or it's DoT. For necromancers the only skills that people actually SEE are wells and animated minions being summoned.

Little do other people know, a good necromancer (or mesmer) can definately change the tide of any battle. I remember our group was having loads of trouble with Elona Reach until I brought my necromancer along where we did it our first time trying. See necros and mesmers just...go through the battles and pull their strings when they see the right moments, they work their magic on a behind-the-scenes level. Mesmers are the same way, except they've usually got a set job and people know what they do.

I would honestly have to say that out of all the classes in GW, Necromancers are hardest to play well. I've gone through the game with every profession now and my necromancer has been hardest to master.

I've changed my necros secondary profession 5 times just trying to find out the best build! My mesmer---not a problem to get good with, he was my first character I went through the game with and never did I have a problem figuring out a good build and using those skills to their best benefits. My ranger, not a problem either, a simple mass-condition OR mass-damage build was all it took, not a big deal. Warrior? Also simple, I could go many ways with that guy, could go with an aftershock warrior, a warrior with some helpful smiting, whatever I wanted, people always needed a good tank. Monk? Heal, protect, simple enough. Never had a problem unless some dumbass went off out of my range.

But the necromancer...just what could I do? A N/W was a possibility but the time it took to get off certain hexes on a warrior to take him down kinda sucked, and it was difficult to fend off more than one warrior at a time, not only was your armor not as good but the monks on your team wouldn't ever bother to heal you, the lowly necromancer. A simple DoT build? Meh...not all that great, DoTs are alright if you can always keep them going but a good healing breeze can nearly stop a max health degeneration if not stop it entirely. Curses? Well..., sure it's great to weaken, slow the attack of, and give -20 armor to a warrior...but then who will kill it? Warriors aren't often the first ones to be attacked, and since you can't likely do it yourself that's a no-go. Death magic summons? Good for PvE in a sense, but they don't work against anything that doesn't leave a fleshy corpse often leaving you short handed, and to keep a good army going it takes up almost your entire skill bar. And something that dependant on enemy corpses is too reliant on something other than your own skill. Blood magic? Pretty good...but finding the right skills from your secondary or other necro lines to mix it with is the problem, blood on its own is pretty easily countered.

Sure some of things I listed above work alright, but they aren't NECESSARY (at least as seen by most people) in a group unless you spam all your wells to help THEM do the work. They have to kill the monsters, they need the health/energy, all you do is...put up the wells, and their happy. And wells are the only sort of skill they'll even know you're using.

It's a shame, really. Necromancers are a tough class to master, and there are A LOT of necromancers out there who're pretty...dumb, and just don't play their professions very effectively. This spreading the generalization that necros are an "optional" class.

Someone who can pull off a great combination with a necromancer is a damn good player in himself (herself), and should always be looked upon as a valuable asset to any team.

People don't know of the necromancer's true abilities until they've really tried to master one themself, and that's the bad part, because when they do try they can't often pull it off well...so people think they're bad.

Go necromancers!

I must say that you've restored my hope in the GW playerbase. I have to admit, I was pretty sure most of the responses would have been more like the ones I heard when I last argued with a group about why they were "letting me go" (Necros are useless, etc etc), but the stories you've just shared will definately help me and hopefully the Necromancer community in Guild Wars.

Thanks again.

Sweet, another good necromancer mind saved from the tyranny of the doubtful majority!

Also, something I forgot to add...in PvP. Well, have I ever been screwed over by one good ranger? Maybe once. Have I ever been screwed over by one good monk? No, you need a team of those really. Have I ever been raped by just ONE elementist? Can't say I have, honestly, takes a team of them to murder me in half a second.

Half I ever been completely anhillated by a single necromancer, or a single mesmer? YES. And it's from these experiences that I've tried to make my necromancer from. I can't tell you the number of times I've thought I was invinsible...and then I look up in the corner of my screen to see 8 hexes all screwing everything I do. I'm weakened, I can't attack at all, I've got a high health degen...what??? Now my skills are interrupted? What the hell is going on?!

*searches around*

...a single N/Me...GREAT...

It can be devestating once you get the hang of it, and slowly but surely people are noticing just how useful support characters can be.

Amnon,

Read your post, started to feel bad for you and then I had a sudden thought:
Is your character's name really "Nine Eighteen?"

Please take the following constructively:
If you want to do all the "serious" things in the game and be taken as a "serious" player, your name is a direct reflection of your intent, maturity, and character. - or complete lack of.

Naming yourself, "I like Pie", "Lick my taint" ad infinitum, not only bars you from getting into groups with people demonstrating brain activity, most often they will flee a group with a person of such a name in it.
To put it bluntly, If you are not a moron, don't use a moronic name.

Occams razor my friend - the most obvious, simple solution is generally the correct one. If you cannot find a good fantasy name, even "Bob the Rabbit" is better than "Nine Eighteen"

. . . Unless of course you're playing Star Trek online...

Talesin

...you sure as hell better not be insulting anything to do with pie is all I can say.

(On a more serious note, a serious name is ...KINDA...a relfect on your personality. If anyone for example thing "PieXags" is a horrible non-serious name, they can go bite themselves 'cause I'll have everyone know that PieXags is a name of great importance with a lot of history behind it. Nine Eighteen isn't that bad a name really though, so I don't see that much of a problem there. I often name characters "ThirtyThree" or something of the sort because I enjoy double numbers like that.)

People shouldn't judge someone by their name, hell sometimes I turn people away with names like "Alexin Aerion" because I sit there and think...wow...he's REALLY into this sort of thing, I'll take someone a bit more down to earth thanks.

Names shouldn't have anything to do with it really...well, unless you're like this one guy who's name I found was "Quik E", then you can say it's your name, otherwise not really.

Heh, I understand why people would get ditched cause of their names, but I never thought a name such as mine would cause any problems with anyone. Besides, it's my birthday :P

It's not a bad name, "Fire Nuker", "FireIsMyPower" and the like are dumb names. Good to know exactly what their skill bar is before you get close to our party.

I used necro as my secondary until I realized it was easier to solo and kills lot of stuff at once with a monk. Maybe if I switched back I could find a way change this but that will wait; I'm having too much fun.

Just looking at all the skills I had a available made me gitty. Just thinking of all the crazy combinations I could use made me wonder why the other necros I played with often never did much but raise minions. Parties I was with never expected me to start each fight with a Life Transfer and set up a Well of Blood on the corpse. Many a times has the well saved my hide. Plus, I'm up in the melee, why not use a skill that makes my enemies take more damage from physical, or attack 50% slower?

I agree with what was said about necros playing the background role. I always just see the fire raining down or blue numbers appearing above my head. But I had a feeling about what that necro was doing in the background when his life would suddenly plummit for no apparent reason. And shortly after the fight the energy call revealed that everyone was good to go right away.

Generally I find Well of Power/Blood useless in PvP. Everyone is expecting for the first corpse to turn into a well. And if you make a well as soon as possible it's just going to be where a monk's body once was. And watch everyone gather around for the AoE meteor to interrupt everyone's attacks while they bathe in the well.

If you ever want to UW or Fissure, give me a shout. I enjoy having compotent players in the party.

A necromancer is a must in any higher lvl missions in PvE. I geuss I just don't really consentrate on the enemies' health and things to notice a mesmer doing anything though, i geuss its because im a monk and mostly watch my own party. I don't know, to me mesmers take to long to do real damage in PvE. I started one just to see really what all they can really do and I was impressed, but it just takes to long for the real damage to sink in for me. I prefer a mesmer for a pvp battle. I'm probably gonna get some bad remarks for this one lol.

In my experience, most Necromancers are cowards. That is, if any little thing goes wrong during a mission, they'll abandon the party by leaving the instance. While that does happen with Warrior-players (who usually have an overinflated ego regarding their Guild Wars "skills") and Monks (who usually hate dealing with poorly organized (read: stupid) teams), as both an E/Mo and a Mo/W, I've encountered far more N/* that simply laugh and leave. For example, earlier when my new Mo/W was doing the Fort Ranik mission, a N/Me14 thinking he's all-powerful rushes into a Charr group way ahead of us trying to kill them all, realizes he can't, runs back to me with a horde of Charr following, and our team kills the Charr while the Necro dies on the move. I say, "I don't have Resurrect so someone else will need to resurrect you." He laughs. Someone resurrects him. Then he leaves just as we're about to finish the mission, which we never completed because a group of Charr stragglers arrive. As a Monk, I should have had at least Resurrection Signet, but I wouldn't have needed to resurrect that necromancer if he didn't do something heady and stupid. (I also think Resurrection Signet is useless when compared to Rebirth so I didn't waste any time in Pre-Searing Ascalon getting the signet with my second character.)

I don't like Necromancers in general. I try not to party with any Necromancer whose name isn't roleplaying-ish, and even then I try not to party with necromancers. "Nine Eighteen" is fine to me because I'm into sci-fi (e.g., "Seven of Nine"), but I avoid characters whose names are like "Leet Peep", "Iam Death", and "Pheer Sometiger". One of my guildmates has a character whose name is "Bubbugunush Zipdibo". Now that's a name!

I prefer Rangers over Warriors, Warriors over Necromancers, Monks over Elementalists, and since I've played through the game with an Elementalist, I'm neutral regarding whether I want an Elementalist in my party. They're useful, powerful, and usually keep to themselves. Notice I didn't say anything about Mesmers? I've actually never seen a player Mesmer primary character in the game.

Lol my necro is usually right up in the thick. i have several touch attacks that are fun. My favorite is when a warrior runs around trying to make me bleed and i either throw it on him of start giving it to his teams players. keeps it off me and hurts them.

And i usually tell most monks don't heal me unless you see me below half health becuase nearly everything i do is stealing life. I mean when i am pushing my Blood magic up to 17 i get some fairly nice effects. plus i love soul reaping so many people think it sucks but when i am usually waiting on mana to recharge so i can kill something... the energy burst from the person dying espeically in pvp just lets the tide of death roll much faster. I have only met two builds that my necro couldn't stand toe to toe with and beat them down by trading blows. one was a necro/mesmer that got so much health degen on me i was standing in a +7 well with a large healing breeze cast on eme and was still losing health.


a well played necro can mean devistation. I ran a group with 3 necros in it. The one was dropping wells of power and another was throwing out +/-9 life transfers the group had no main monk in it and between the necros and a ranger secon monk we kept everyone alive with ease.

I personally think monks are overrated too many poeple play sloppily when they think someone gonna keep healing them

For public games anyway. The environment is more professional in an organized guild/clan group strategically running Underworld or Fissure of Woe using *gasp* tactics!

I've played through all the classes so far to get a feel for them, and my first charactre is still my favorite - Necro/Warrior. It seemed easy enough at the start, until things like armor started to click with me, but I kept with it. After hours on end of playing him, not only is he my favorite character, but I have yet to play another character that can have as great an affect on battle as my necro. Big mob? Mark of Pain makes sure your warrior is dealing damage to all of them, not just the one he's hitting. A quick Barbs makes sure when you join your warriors in the frontline you can keep up - and they'll do more damage too! Creating wells is a great way to assist your monk, and life stealing attacks are great ways to drop heavy damage on a character while keeping yourself healthy. I chose necros from the start because of their life stealing properties, and never realized just how strategic you have to get with them. =) Some people may not like necros for one reason or another, but heck, if we all went by the philosophy of hating a class for 1 characters stupidity, I would hate every class in the game. We've all had to deal with bad players. But necromancers rule, plain and simple. Don't expect to be praised for running your team to the end of a mission, loved for giving that saving heal, or applauded for the killing blow (Even if you did cause it, your attacks are less flashy and noticeable). If you can come to terms with playing a character that is a little less flashy, I think you'll realize that the necromancer is easily one of the best classes in the game, hands down.

hey amnon

add me to your fiends(pun intended) list and catch me sometime. I will be happy to include you in our guild groups. Usually we are short 1 person anyhow, and for hoh I've been looking for another good necro.

I feel sorry for you amnon. I personally love necros and mesmers (hate them while my warrior has to go up against them). I think those two classes can be devastating if played correctly and should be included parties for all later missions. Too bad not many people play them and even less know how to play them. If you want to do missions or anything w/ me let me know.
IGN: Teny the Stampede

Well, as I've posted in other threads, I always want a necromancer there, either for high blood or high death. Either one is great for teams and I mean seriously, they are a great class to have.. On the other hand, I guess I'm one to look down on Rangers and Mesmers .

necros are a great char and deserve much respect.And Tworld2224 you should learn to respect the ranger because they can turn the tide of any battle

My favorite character has turned out to be a blood/curses necro/mezzer

I have found I can roll right through missions with a lot more ease than ever before.

The ability to turn a pack of mobs into slow and weak critters, then blast them away with damage that ignores armour, while using their health to keep you alive - lovely.

Having played all the characters, necro is definitely not the weakest. I won't say which one I think is the weakest but other ppl have dropped hints all around.

Well necro really does the work in the background, we need more special graphics I guess. Anyway join a guild or a ring of friends.

Here's my strategy for being Necro and getting spammed with group invites:

Make a Monk/Necro .

Then put everything in Necro attribs.
When the first team member drops dead and scream "wtf didn't you heal me!! you noob monk1!!" then you raise a minion out of his corpse and say "that's why".

At least a minion won't ask for a rez.

I'm a w/mo myself (i just recently made a r/e, n/me, and am workin on my mo/w). I must say that out of all of the one's i've tried, my n/me was the one doing the most dmg. I pretty much got the idea for n/me cause my second in command's main is a n/me (and seems to be the only necro in our guild besides the one i made). I know my role as a w/mo and must say i didnt know much about what necro's could do till i tried it myself.

Stick with it dude cause from what i have seen using mine, n/me is a force to be reckoned with.

btw my IGN's are:
Jehuti Al Khalasi (w/mo ascended)
Tirandaz Al Khalasi (r/e)
Khatera Al Khalasi (n/me)
Xiao Wukong (mo/w)

P.S. I dont think your name is so bad that ppl wouldnt invite u to a party. in fact i dont think its bad at all.

sucks to be you. make a guild and get some friends. Heck my main one is a ranger and I have done nearly 90% of the game on my own with henchies... However I have plenty of friends in my guild that we go to underworld, fissure, tomb and do Guild battles with all the time. So like I said all along... get some friends to play with instead of trying for random groups. cause why should anyone trust that some stranger will not screw them in the underworld or fissure? cause they normally do.

Totally agree with you. The problem is not that groups doesn't want necro, it's just that they all need 2 warriors and 2 monks. So half the team is filled with 2 classes. And the next one are nukers. On a groups of 8, that makes only 3 slots left for the necro, mesmer and rangers. All the groups I've played were pretty much mixed and, IMO, it's a key of success. But lets face it, those "free slots availables are filled quickly because there's little of them for many contenders.

And it is a huge problem.

a) You do -not- need 2 warriors. On my last couple of groups I noticed you can do with one or no warriors at all and get very far.

b) My guild consists of a bunch of my friends who... how do I say it gently, umm... don't play very well. I have to be in the guild because they're my friends, and hopefully I'll, someday, get them to kick ass.

c) I agree, someone always leaves in a PUG... but I can't do anything about it but pray.

Other than that, I agree with most points made here. But seeing as how I still have to rely on PUGs, it can still get hard to find them... though I've noticed an increase in "Group looknig for necro" ads, so that's good!

Talesin... I've seen two posts by you and in both you make some VERY poor assumptions...

I do not pick a group by the names of the players, I go by thier skill sets and the mission ahead. There are alot of people that do this, because you see them running all over asking for certain professions.

To the OP, naturally Warriors and Monks are core group players in PvE (I'm only addressing PvE here because PvP goes a totally different way on skills sets.) You need someone in from soaking up damage most of the time and you need some sort of healing. Those professions do those jobs better (on average, if well played) than the others. Would you ask a Necro to tank for you? Probably not.

BUT... I do agree that Necros and Mesmers get the short end quite often. I know being a Me/N is especially hard, and find myself creating groups instead of getting invited to them. I quickly should them that I'm a skilled player and can usually keep a group together for several missions afterwards.

Anyone who believes Necros and Mesmers are useless or less needed is wrong. We have two Necros in our guild, and I consider it a blessing when they are around... one with Blood Magic and the other with Death... with me as a Ranger, a Monk, Warrior and Elementalist along with us, we usually breeze through anything.

So let the doubters doubt and start forming your own groups... once the players see your skill they will be more open to those builds the next time around.

Acutally the people that say that necros are weak are the people that
a) haven't played them.
b) are too arrogant to even consider the possibility that just maybe the reason why that thing was soo easy to kill is because it had dots and/or curses out the yingyang
c) haven't been a caster getting some necro loven' before
d) haven't been on the recieving end of a gang of minions and/or fiends coming to rape yer butt
e) just plain stupid

I say keep trying, keep at it, and pretty soon you too will have people asking to marry you. course that could be the fishnets.