Necro Underestimation

sigh...why everyone think of nerco they start to think of ONLY soul reaping? noobs said primary nerco sucks because ele energy storage are better than soul reaping...seriously ppl who say nerco are worse in energy than ele are obviously very very new to guildwar... not only they are new, but they also intend to act pro as if they play alot already....

nerco dun only use soul reaping to restore their energy... there are several skill to restore energy than only focusing on soul reaping... i had been using my N/E since beta and i dun have a problem with my energy. only if u know how to play ur cards right...

old phase...there are no worst class...only worst player... so stop comparing abt which primary is better in energy, which class anti which class, "i will owned u in 1on1 match" or watever crap... it is pretty stupid and inmature to compare chars since the game are not coded this way....

Oh yes, ANet has the wisdom of not include a 1vs1 arena! Please keep it that way.

Facts eh? Well I'm glad someone finally brought up something factual. I would agree with #2 to some extent. May not be the best way to win, but I can see your point. (sort of) #4 is nonsense and is a worthless generalization. #1 is possible, but maybe you should mention how much effort it takes to pull it off rather than presenting it as a general circumstance which happens all the time. And you agree with ensign eh? Funny how what he said is basically that necros are usually better left as a secondary becaue of a couple factors, and you claim just the opposite. You agree with Ensign, you basically agree with me. Nothing to argue about now.

Reread this thread. Not once did I ever say necros suck. Never. I merely said energy storage was a better primary attribute to have overall, and I prefer an elementalist primary. As far as runes, I think its been pointed out that attribute points for a necro matter less than lets say, an elementalist. In addition, I am arguing solely about energy storage being superior to soul reaping in most ocassions, and for necros usually better left as a secondary. I don't care about the "facts" which you post, because it doesn't matter how "pwnage" prim. necros are. They have uses, but the most common uses for a necro are usually rend, etc, and that can be done without being a prim. necro. Learn from what you said, and read my posts. Read them clearly. Done? Good. Now that you see I am arguing solely for a necromancer usually better as a secondary, maybe we can get somewhere with this. I don't think you have much of a right to accuse me of disregarding the "facts" of others.

The other knock against it is that you often get too much energy and waste deaths. The last two days is my first real experience playing a necro, and I just wanted to cry when 1/2 my team died and I got far more energy than I knew what to do with. That said, perhaps a Necro's primary purpose is to use all that "free" energy in Light of Dwayna to raise their fallen team mates so that they can die again?

As a primary mesmer /w energy drain, I always look around for necromancers right after someone dies....

Confirmed, in the random arenas you get eradicated by Wa/Mo's using Judge's Insight or smiting monks using Balthazar's. I had no clue holy damage was so damn popular... ouch.

Not to mention that wonderful spell... Convert Hexes (15 energy). Typically a necromancer doesn't spread his hexes around, he applies 3-5 (40 energy?) of them on a single target. With any good team and vent, it goes something like this:


"Yo, the hexes are stacking up, give it a few more seconds,
I think that necro has a bit more energy he wants to waste".


Nothing like buffing your opponent's primary target with 30-50 armour, not to mention the 2 for 1 energy swap. Convert hexes is a *must* in the random and even the team areans where you encounter lots of necromancres.

Have to try it, if you have a 10 in death would it be still be solid? To spam half your 8 person team it will take a while -- perhaps some fast casting would be a better primary for this elite?

I was doing this last night as well. You even got to cast Price of Failure? I got half way through the cast animation it before my attacking warrior keeled over dead ... I think he was using flurry. That said, I was running a Me/Ne not a Ne/Me for the faster cast time.

I also had another (very blind) warrior in random arenas follow me around to give me energy for the whole match (Signet of Midnight + Spirit of Failure). After a certain point, it kinda gets boring. I was about to tell him how not to attack... naah

I don't know how anyone can judge the competitive effectiveness of a skill if you have warriors who don't even look at their hex bar as they proceed to annihilate their entire team with stupidity.

I wouldn't say most of the time, but their utility becomes increasingly marginal as you move further from the PvE towards the GvG spectrum.

PvE? Necros are insane. Corpses everywhere to make minions from and always another pack to smash them into. Mob AI that walks right into whatever hex traps you've laid. Damage being spread all over the place that greatly increases the utility of your lifesteals. The class just works and a Necro has a place on any team.

Arena? There's very little removal so your hexes still rock people. You're a class that's good against Rangers and Warriors, the two most played classes in arena. You take a lot of fire because of that and that increases the utility of your lifesteals. It's just a good metagame call in arena, and I'm happy to get a Necro on my random team.

Tombs? Necros still have their place, albeit a small one. Nature's Renewal is everywhere and that destroys the Curse line, and that you're a lower priority target seriously hits the utility of your lifesteals. That this is often a multi-team environment, and has gametypes where people tend to clump up, gives the Necro some utility - Putrid Explosion is outstanding, and Tainted Flesh is similarly excellent when disease spreads easily. It's not a particularly deep class here - you're probably going to be leaning on your secondary heavily - but the need is there.

GvG? Now the Necro is really sketchy. Nature's Renewal is still everywhere, and teams are still good about attacking the right targets. It's also a much more mobile and spread out gametype so the few Death skills that got used in Tombs are just mediocre here. There are still a few skills that really draw you into Necro, like BiP, but is that really enough for them to force their way into your build, as opposed to simply being stashed on a secondary?

It's not that the Necro is bad at what he does. It's that the particular strategies that he brings to the group simply are not all that relevant at the highest level. Corpse Exploitation? Can't make a character around that without conceding the 7 on 8. Lifesteals? Staight out inferior to an Elementalist most of the time, as the health gain loses utility when you're no longer taking hits. Hexes? Nature's Renewal. When you have entire themes of your skill subset rendered next to useless in PvP, is it any wonder that the class is a role player instead of an all star?


I think you're insane. There are a grand total of two relevant hexes with one second cast times - Faintheartedness, which is nice in arena but too limited in scope for 8v8, and Defile Flesh, which I agree is solid and still worth running under Nature's Renewal (particularly because you don't expect it to stick long anyway).

Everything else in the line is going to have at least a four second cast time. You might not think that this butchers the line, but I don't think there are any skills worth trying to force through with that sort of hinderance.

Even without Nature's Renewal, the Hex line gets hit hard by energy costs and cooldowns. Teams are getting better at hex removal, and nothing scary is sticking for very long. Internally we've discussed how we weren't really fond of Backfire even before the Nature's Renewal fix, because it just ate a couple seconds while someone Smited/Inspired it and that wasn't worth the investment. Now if a Fast Cast Backfire isn't worth running because it needs to stick to be effective, why would you seriously consider running Mark of Pain, Weaken Armor, Rigor Mortis, or half the Curse line for that matter? They're hexes that need to stick to matter, and they just don't stick. Toss in Nature's Renewal, and why bother?

And, to bring up the old argument again - of the stuff that you really want from this line, Shadow of Fear, Rend Enchantments, Defile Flesh, and the like, how much of it do you really want at high attribute levels? I'd rather stash those on a secondary. The only time I've ever really wanted a Necro primary for a Curses skill was for Spiteful Spirit, and that was a fun arena build.


Wither and Malaise takes about a second to rip off of myself if need be in the middle of battle. Is fifteen energy and four seconds of cast time worth stopping me from casting for a second while I pull them off at no cost? I don't think so, and laugh at Necros performing hard self-energy denial by stacking those two hexes on me. A boring Energy Burn would be more effective, and that skill is pretty bad itself.

I do think Malaise is somewhat interesting if used on Warriors or Rangers. Unlike casters, those two classes usually don't have a brainless 'swap to an empty weapon set' solution for getting rid of the Malaise so they just have to deal with it, and that makes the skill incredibly strong. Wither is simply a worse, elite version of Malaise so I wouldn't seriously consider running that.


Sure.


Even ignoring Nature's Renewal, Mesmers are just better at fighting single dumb enchantments. Removing an enchantment and gaining energy is just plain better than spending 10 energy to pull off a 5 energy or whole party enchantment. Single target removal has terrible recharges, though, so it isn't like any of these are effective counters. If you want to fight Guardian spam you want to use, you guessed it, Nature's Renewal.

Realistically, the enchantment removal that I want from the Necro is either Rend Enchantments, which was about as good as it was going to get at 4 Curses and has been rendered obsolete by Nature's Renewal, and Chilblains, which does its job at 0 Curses and, yet again, is obsolete with Nature's Renewal around. But even forgetting Renewal all you're looking at are Necro secondaries for some enchantment removal, something I've been advocating for months.


Defile Flesh I do think is interesting if you're running a spike build - it isn't a hex that gets hit particularly hard by Nature's Renewal because you don't expect it to stick anyway. I wouldn't take Necro *just* for Defile Flesh, but if you have one on the team anyway it's a good role player. Lingering Curse, Nature's Renewal, etc.


I liked Order and Dual Order builds back in May, before they fixed Nature's Renewal. Man, I'm sounding like a broken record here, aren't I?


Mesmers are an order of magnitude better at this.


Wells have uncontrollable, consistently bad positioning in GvG, and are uncastable in tombs because every corpse explodes before it hits the ground in Tombs.


You are not seriously advocating using Well of Power in competitive PvP. C'mon man, BiP is sitting right there staring at you.


Two is fine. Four is not. That leaves you with Defile Flesh and, um, Defile Flesh.


I can. Tainted Flesh, at least in tombs where things spread. In GvG, you have Poison Arrow, Melandru's Arrows, and Conjure Phantasm / Mantra of Persistence. All of those are spammable DoTs that can quickly infect the entire opposing team.


Life Transfer is complete and utter shit. Fourteen damage per second on a single target is negligible - a good Monk team is prepared to heal him for 200+ every second to keep up with a damage spike. Oh, and it has a 30 second recharge? What trash, Life Siphon is better. At least that can infect several people at once, spreading around the DoT and forcing a Monk into triage.

Life Transfer is a skill that I'd only seriously consider running in arena, for all the reasons mentioned before. Of course in arena I consider Spiteful Spirit to be a better elite for a Necro so Life Transfer has found itself a nice spot on the bench to occupy for the forseeable future.


OMG!


Indeed, I was having some fun with this last night in fact. Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Price of Failure on a Warrior, then just stand in front of him and watch him explode. It's hilarious.


Just stop this whole 'tanking in PvP' thing. Stop it right now. It's making my eyes bleed and embarassing you more than you know. If your PvP team build calls for a tank it's because the person making it has suffered life-threatening head wounds and we really should be congratulating him if he can form complete sentences. Don't run PvP builds that call for tanks. They only work against teams who's highest level of strategic achievement is C-Space.


It sure does. Whenever I face a spirit spamming team with my Necro I have enough energy to cast the spells from my secondary pretty much non-stop. Works decently with your own spirits as well. Well enough to start running Necro primaries on a team just for your own spirit deaths? I don't think so, mostly because you lose a secondary on all of your characters in the process, but the idea is still in the back of my mind.


I love BiP as a counter to heavy energy denial. I don't think running it neccessitates either lifesteal effects or a Necro primary, though.


Please don't mention those again. They are *self* energy denial.


Not true. Necros are very good at countering specific sets of strategies. They are downright awful at countering other types of strategies, for example, Air Gank. They should be run when called for and ignored when not called for. Nice and simple.


Not for Putrid. That skill has singlehandedly saved the Necro Primary in Tombs. Run it or be ready to lose to it.


I don't think it's that they're different. It's that, if you look at their skills:

1) Large swaths of their skillset has minimal utility in most PvP builds - lifesteals, minions, etc. Point has been beaten to death. It's no different from laughing at a 'tank' looking for a tombs group.

2) Many of their best skills have zero synergy with Soul Reaping. In fact they have better synergy with the primary attributes of other classes, namely Energy Storage and Fast Casting.

3) Many of their best skills start to peak in effectiveness in the 8-10 attribute range, if not sooner. This greatly cuts into the benefit of scars and runes, since there's little you want to crank through the roof.

4) Nature's Renewal

The question, as always, is why should I devote a character slot to a primary Necromancer instead of just stashing, say, Rend Enchantments and Defile Flesh on a Ranger or Elementalist?


Right, they're both utility classes, both role players on most teams instead of the centerpieces. The difference, as you mentioned, is that a PvP Mesmer is a very specialized tool - they straight up destroy casters and do it very effectively. What do Necros do? Well they're well equipped to rip apart Warriors and Rangers. Trouble is that ripping apart Warriors and Rangers isn't particularly valuable as long as the other team has Monks standing. So what you want is to shut down or otherwise neutralize Warriors and Rangers, but that has two problems. One, that most of your Warrior shutdown eats it to Nature's Renewal. Second, Necros aren't unique in Warrior hate, Elementalists have their share of it as well.

Of course there are a lot of Ranger teams running around these days and I'd love to have a Necro (though probably a secondary) somewhere on the team to just up and shut down that offense. Problem is that every single one of those Ranger teams drops several copies of Nature's Renewal so we can't exactly Shadow of Fear them into oblivion like we used to be able to.

...that really is the trouble isn't it? You ask a Necromancer what he does, and I really don't know what the answer is going to be.

Case in point. I still think that running a Necromancer primary in Tombs is absolutely vital, because if you concede the Putrid war you're going to lose to it, and Putrid + Soul Reaping is a combo too good to ignore. So we're running a primary Necromancer with Putrid Explosion and high death. Tainted Flesh is solid in tombs and we're already in the attribute heavily so we run that too.

So our Tombs Necromancer build looks something like this:

Putrid Explosion
Tainted Flesh

Attributes:
Death: 12, +1 Hat, +3 Rune
Soul Reaping: 9, +1 Rune

And...you tell me. This character is in every tombs build I make and I have no idea how to build him. There isn't a whole lot from the primary that jumps out and demands that I run it, you have a sparse secondary with a 9 attribute to play with and a lot of skill space. Most other characters have 10, 12 skills that I want to run and it's a question of what to cut, what I can pack into the guy. This guy has two skills and I'm already looking for filler, not trying to pare down all of the great options available.

That, I think, is the fundamental problem with the class.


I should make a t-shirt and start a fanclub. I sure could use the money...


Peace,
-CxE

How...epic?

Celes, two thinks really irk me about your post, and in the posts of others throughout this thread.
There isn't a single person in iQ who has said putrid explosion is a bad spell. It's thoroughly frustrating to have stated this on page two of the thread, only to have people claim it is part of their secret strategy later on, as if they are master strategiests with necros.
iQ began running Putrid Explosion the first match after someone finally brought Well of the Profane to use in the HoH. Necrotic Traversal was bugged at the time and Putrid was the fastest casting corpse exploitation spell. At first it was there purely to remove corpses, but we found it was a great way to get rapid AOE damage spikes against teams trying to rush the Dais we were defending. Shortly after, we saw a lot of teams using Putrid against us, and it became an even higher priority to clear out the corpses before they could be used against us.
Your insinuation that we're dismissive of necromancers "(but why would they run putrid...necros suck, right?)" is insulting to anyone who's bothered to read this thread and put thought into expressing their reasoning for why necromancers shouldn't be played outside of a specific set of circumstances.
For once and for all, Soul Reaping + Putrid Explosion shines in Dais maps. If you're not prepared to take advantage of it, be prepared to have it used against you.

Secondly:
This should have no impact whatsoever on the discussion at hand, yet people keep insisting on strategies that beat lesser players. When we're discussing (or trying to discuss) high level competetive play, arguments like "we don't fight a lot of good teams, but it works against them" will get you laughed out of the room.

Okay how about this? You(general 'you' not anyone in particular) play the profession you want to play & others will play the profession they want to play. If you(again general) think Necros suck, good for you. Others don't. Others like the Necro.

I cannot believe that some people are still missing that more starting energy > gaining back energy via SR

SR energy is circumstantial, you are unable to tap it until someone dies, ES energy can be used immediately to do useful things, which will probably create SR energy for you, however, by then it'll be a tipped scale battle anyway

Also, for the guy who keeps claiming necro can do anythign witht he right support, no one goes into pvp with 7 builds that are centered around a necro

I like Teufel's idea. Teufel's got a great idea.

Teufel's my new friend for that.

Point of this discussion is to determine whether necros are good or not. We're discussing right now. True you can play what you want but unfortunately that's not the point. In any case, if you want to run an entire primary dedicated to a useless attribute go ahead.

All I read here is people defending the most retarded points and it seems the only reason they defend it is because they've played it for so long and now realise it is bad. That's called fear of change and it's a very negative thing.

Necros suck, get over it

The problem here is that ES > SR isn't true in all situations. SR scales upward in mana generation based on the number of combat participants involved. In smaller fights, ES is definitely better than SR. However, in big 8v8+ fights, lots of toons will die, whether on your team, the opposing team, minions, pets, etc., but stuff will die in PvP. The unknown variables are death rate and quantity.

SR energy is event(death) driven, so no, it isn't circumstantial. In case you haven't realized this yet, I'm looking at this from a process-flow perspective. Death isn't occasional in PvP... it WILL happen in every fight.

I do agree that a necro can't depend on SR as easily as ER since casualty-timing is not easily predicted mid-combat.

You're probably correct here, especially when team members don't know each other too well.

If you can tell me the exact time when someone will die then SR is the best line ever. Until then it's trash.

Opinions are like aholes. Get over yourself.

Sorry I can bring a counter-point. Thanks for the flame though

I disagree. You don't need an exact time-of-death to optimize SR -- a necro casting spells during combat will obviously have less than full mana whenever SR triggers. The problem is that deaths will not be as plentiful to fuel SR in smaller group fights. This won't be the case in larger scale combat scenarios.

What flame? All I'm saying is that everybody has a opinion and that you seem to think yours matters more than others when it does not.

I don't have a particularly favorable impression of necros either, but don't put it so bluntly.

umm one of the best reasons fo SR is when u r a death Necro. Bone fiends cost 25 energy a piece and bone horors cost 15. if u have 12-15 soul reaping and someone dies u will most likely be able to pull out a bone fiend out ur ass, or at least a bone horror. And since when does a have full energy. SR is not 100% efficient but saying that u need to know when someone dies in order for it to be useful is moronic. And if u wanna know when someone dies just look at ur energy bar.if it jumps by 12 well its cause of cause someone died. and btw soul reaping does not have to be used at all i dont. The Special attribute is not the main choice for a primary char. Like the Warriors Strength is nice but i hate the energy so i dont pick it. And if u dont like it well u just dont like being support. like many people dont like being mesmers or monks. Don't say the class sucks if u just #1 dont #2 want #3 or are good at playing it.

Soul Reaping can be as useful as Energy Storage, if not moreso in GvG or Tombs- I've had 5-minute long battles for the flagstand in GvG versus top 50 guilds, where there were 4-5 deaths on either side before a team got enough advantage to push the other team back- in a situation like this, I'll take Soul Reaping over Energy storage 9 times out of 10- that level 10 soul reaping just gained you 80-100 energy, whereas a level 10 energy storage gave 30... In even battles with skilled teams, having someone die on either side is nowhere near winning/losing the battle, at least not until resurrection capabilities are stopped. If someone dies, you get them back up, and go on, and having the extra energy can be extremely helpful.

However, 4vs4 arena, there aren't enough deaths, resurrects, etc for Soul Reaping to usually make much of a difference. Resurrects are rarer, and skill level between teams(or luck in team composition in random arena) generally decides the game far more than having a bit extra or less energy on one character. For arena, the only real reason to choose a Necromancer primary is for the bonuses in an attribute line. Duration on hexes can be nice there, since few people even bother with hex removal in arena, and the direct-damage skills get a great benefit from an additional 4 attribute levels. Having 16 curses for a necro using some hexes(faintheartedness, suffering) and Feast of Corruption, Desecrate Enchantments, etc is worthwhile. However, something like a minion build is a waste of everyones time generally, since there are few corpses, and if you're killing enemies enough to raise a significant number of minions, you could have already won the match with a non-minion build, and if your allies are dying that much, you've already lost.

Necromancers definately have their place in the game- it's just that making a good necromancer build is generally much more challenging than making a good build for a different class. Necros are much like Mesmers with a different focus- just like I'd prefer to go mesmer prime for 16 domination on many of my mesmer builds even without using fast-casting than to go E/Me and get an extra 30 energy, but with only 12 domination. What skills you bring and how you use those skills matters far more than a little energy here or there. I'll take a good necro on my team long before I'll take a crappy elementalist, but I'll take a new player playing an elementalist before a new player playing a Necromancer. If it's a choice between a skilled necro and a skilled elementalist, it depends on what I need more on the team.

Please exaggerate, it is just so helpful to this topic really. There are enough good cover hexes that are cheap and have the big instant cast.



Maybe I just should reply with nothing but situations that make my argument look good, because those are obviously the only situations that exist. Perhaps I could, I don't know, open up with those two spells? There just so happens to be a few people that carry focus items that incur a bit of an energy regen penalty for a boost of max energy. Working to get an ele close to rock bottom is a pretty good way to make them useless, especially when they have to weapon switch to get their big 4 energy regen back and incur a max energy penalty while waiting for enough mana to fuel their big hitting skills. Plus, this period during the switch will take someone out for what could be a crucial period of time.



Are you kidding me? Lets look at just one of the ones I mentioned. Lingering curse cuts the healing by half and sucks enchantments dry. Pretty good way to cut a monk down to size in clutch times there smart guy. Try and deny the usefulness of that and your just lieing to support a blind argument really.


Wow, I am so glad that this pile of fluff made it into an argument. Perhaps if I go around repeating what you say in a sarcastic fashion I won't have to worry about coming up with something of any value. Good for you, way to raise the bar.


I am simply showing that warriors are more effective with the support, so much more that it is worth sacrificing a damage dealer. Your not much of an abstract thinker are you?
When you have an entire line made to let warriors work their opponents, a 12 level is important. Your highest attribs should reflect the majority of your skills. Don't think so much in strict requirements either. I mean, you may only need one skill to support a warrior, but when you can choose between simple, unfocused support and devistation from your warriors what do you want?

This is really just stupid. Your trying to argue through means of stating opinions as facts. "Rend enchantments is really the only useful skill" is a prime example of this smoking pile of idiotic crap. I bet if I close my eyes to all the useful skills of other classes and say "This class only has this useful skill, that is it" I can convince myself necros haul everyone. How retarted are you man? 1 dimensional thinking is reeking up this post thanks to you.

Oh please, I am sorry you had to sacrifice saying anything constructive so you could have your little pitch here. I Created an entire line that works using only necro skills. That is why prim necro instead of a mesmer there smart man. If the majority of your skills are necro, go with necro primary, if they are mesmer than go mesmer. Don't be retarted.

Why oh why would you run random minions ? Only time you want those is when you run that 25+ Bone Horror build that's countered by Balth's Aura or Heal Seed. In any case when you run that build, someone is putting BiP on you. Regardless, that's a very specific build. So yea I'll run SR for a shitty strat ? Seriously minions suck more than necros and pets do.

Whatever that's supposed to mean

Right, I'm moronic cause I don't run minions ? And if something isn't 100% effective then it is trash. When you'll know shit about competitive PvP you'll know that you want EVERYTHING down to your staff head to be 100% effective.

You missed the point I clearly brought up. Read my post again then bother replying. BTW if I want to know when something dies I'll look for faction or experience to pop up.

What on earth does that mean? If you mean you don't have to use it then good job Einstein, there aren't any skills linked to SR. If you have SR but use it at 0 spec then gg: good choice for a primary.

Sure buddy, yuo also run rangers with 0 expertise ? Maybe you run the primary for runes but necro skills are efficient starting at 8. Why use runes for an 8 or 10 att ?

That's good to know. By saying that you've just pommeled yourself to the ground. It's called a zealous grip and adrenal skills and energy becomes great.

That's not why I'm bashing necros. I'm bashing them because their attributes make their skills good at relatively low levels (no need for runes) and SR is bad because it doesn't consistently bring energy.

Make more sense when you post please.

I also urge you to read the forum guidelines. There's a clear section that specifically says not to use dumb abreviated words like u instead of you

I believe the key phrase is "SR is bad because it doesn't consistently yield energy in all situations." In large scale PvP, it WILL net lots of mana consistently, but small skirmishes, don't bet on it.

Ok, this is sad. Enisgn explains in his usual, noncondescending fashion - almost every single argument for and against primary necros - and a couple posts below, "inexperienced players" repeat everything that is SO wrong. If you want to make PRO necro arguments, look at Ensigns post - he made lots of them - only that they make sense, and yours dont.

We really need an "iQ only + approved" forum...



Oh and btw ... Ensign quoted my post. twice.

Anyone wants to design a T-Shirt with that?

The longer cast time may be a bit debilitating but is hardly reason to think that any curse is not worth using. There are plenty of skills worth using through the big cast time, you just choose to try and believe they don't exis
Cover hexes are popular for me, and hex removals have cooldown too. You honestly make it sound like as soon as a hex is on every player on your team is working to get it off, because every single person has a hex removal right there and instant reaction time to a little pink arrow pointing down. Not to mention that any hexes that hold a cooldown are ones I save for when someone calls it. Someone says "This monk is blocking, rend him or rigor him" that is when I do it, when it is clutch.
Opinions are facts these days, who knew? You are right, because you THINK that there are only 3 useful curses that must mean there ARE only three useful curses, especially what with different builds these days.



Yeah, I never really use em in tandem, or much at all. I find room for something a bit better, but as I said that clutch period of no healing/casting can mean a thing or two. Plus, your energy is not always going to be right at the bottom of the barrel, so taking your focus and weapon off may not always do it. not as long as you are over 20.[/quote]
I can agree, I wouldn't use wither as my elite, that is for damn sure.
Rigor mortis isn't a single target removal. It is good to toss on if rend is on the cooldown and guardian and aegis keep coming up in a heated moment.
Removing enchantments is the only helpful thing necro curses can do. poisoning yourself, coughing up 25 energy, and not being able to do it on a defined target is much better than rending.



Lingering curse is pretty good too, depending on your build and if your feeling that as an elite. It also takes off all enchantments and has way less cooldown.



Barbs is a pretty good way to increase damage per swing isn't it? It sticks pretty long too...



Yeah, but it depends on what effects you want too. Your right, I woudl rather have backfire than a necro hex in that sit, it is just to go with an all necro skill build.



Exaggeration in tombs to say the least.



No, blood ritual or BiP is what I was getting at.



Not really, don't act like the time is more devestating than it is. I have pushed through it quite well time and time again.


more like 133 with defile flesh :P. Yeah, I don't use life transfer or a whole lot of DOT unless it can spam and spread. I should argue what I use, not go into what I don't.


lol, we can agree on that.

Although I disagree with you on how many useful curses there are, I do agree that a necro's use in tombs is pretty specialized and uncommon what with the kind of builds happening. I just don't like them being dismissed as useless, that is just not true.

Wow have u ever seen bone fiends in Tombs? A few weeks ago A korean team I saw had around 40+ of them running everywhere and tell me they suck then when you are getting killed by them. Really 40 dmg multiplied by X amount even if ur a warrior is a decent amount. hell even if all of them are not attacking u its a decent amount of dmg. U just Said above that SR is the whole reason of becoming necro. Are u stupid how bout RUNES. Cant use them if its ur secondary. By consistent u mean effiecntly btw. Plus in many ways SR is better then ES. It can bring in energy not allow you to dish out tons of dmg yet end up with 5 energy waiting for regen. making ur special attribute the whole thing is the dumbest s*** i have EVER heard. EXPERTISE yea expertise is actually my favorite. Its REQUIRED if u are actually gonna USE any of ur ranger skills. what about Fast Cast Im sure not every mesmer has an especially high attribute? does it suck 2? if so then do mesmers suck as well? Plus like an energy saving skill such as elemental attunement SR lets u cast ur skills and when/if u kill the enemy u get energy back and move straight on toward ur next target. My last point I dont know if i can make this ANY clearer. this WILL be repetetive. #1 you Dont want to play the class cause u just dont like being support. #2 Wont it isnt ur style same concept at number one. #3 Can't you just suck at it. You are telling me SR sucks and yet a Zealous hilt is all that better? Its when u hit. what about protection spells/whirling defense/ tons of others plus energy will NEVER become that plentiful when u r a warrior. Sure adrenal doesnt require energy but it when u hit or take dmg. hitting key thing. Dont know about u but Warriors are a waste of space miss half the time against any decent team

I'm not a guy, dear.

You are correct. Like every other class, the necro brings a skill lineup that fits well into the build theme of the entire group as a whole (such as smiting / AoE). There are some team builds that really dont need a primary necro. But there are team builds that really dont need a primary warrior or ranger, either. Are mesmers, monks and elementalists the only useful classes? I dont think so.

Great job, you've finally gotten the point of this post

Now, you might not admit this, but indirectly you just said that the 3 most useful classes are mesmers, monks, and elementalists, I'd put ranger in there too, now look back at the thread topic, and you will see where I am going with this

necro is good, but it's overlooked because it's not as good/useful

It is as factual or as speculative as anything you say, or anything anyone else says, as we dont have empiric test result numbers with mediums over different builds and different matches.

Sorry, but I doubt anyone is going to post entire team builds where primary necros are an important factor. To explain the usefulness of the primary necro, every skill bar of every team member would have to be posted, as well as the timing and strategy, and that is not going to happen for obvious reasons. My tone was probably a bit off towards the end, bad mood kicked in. Sorry.

It can be MADE to work often, but once again, no, I am not going to post entire team builds and strategy. Not going to happen. Even if I was not worried about copycats, I have better things to do with my time.


Wrong. There are fine but substantial differences in how Ensign presents an opinion, and how others do it. I'm not going to go back, re-read all those threads and list up all the arguments I agree and disagree with. I agree that primary necros dont fit well into many builds (but the same goes for 2 other classes). I disagree that primary necros are useless, and that primary elementalists are a better choice.

I played primary elementalists for probably 150+ hours, and sorry, energy storage is sometimes better, but then in the next match it does not help much at all. Runes are another factor, sometimes the team build calls for a specific timing which means your hexes need to last soandso long. I'd take 35 second hexes over 20 second ones pretty much anytime, unless I am just using them to cover others with. A primary elementalist cannot spam putrid (as in, cast it 5 times in 8 seconds) and still have energy to benefit the team in other ways.

Sometimes, yes. But not in some of the builds I have seen working. Sorry, disagreed.

I did see that from start, dear. And I disagreed from start. So no, I doubt we are getting anywhere with this.

You dont have much of a right to decide whether or not someone else's arguments are fact or not. Experiences differ with changes in maps, overall strategy used, people involved, and detail changes in skill / attribute setups that make a large differences. You dont have much of a right to call someone else's experiences speculation if you have not tried and experienced the same thing.

im in love with Blood ritual/Blood is power necros makes my monk way better with unlimited energy

Finally? I only read your post once, how could I 'finally' have gotten the point of it?

Nope, I said no such thing. If you read my post again, you might note that my question at the end was sarcastic, ended by a 'No, I dont think so'. I'm not sure how anyone could interprete this as indirectly stating those 3 are the only useful classes, if I specifically said no at the end.

You are contradicting yourself... you say necros are good, but they are overlooked because they are not so good?

Do you understand what relative comparisons are?

Also, what was the point of your last sentence? You understood what I meant yet you still can't help but nitpick. I don't think you any wittier for making that comment

Anyway, this debate should be closed, all points have been covered and those who listened have already stopped visitng

I did not mean to irk you, or Eonwe. Maybe there were some misunderstandings, I am not a native english speaker, and I have an annoying habit of adressing the generality of posters with a certain attitude while writing a reply to someone ELSE. Lets give this a shot.

Putrid is certainly no 'secret strategy'. I first mentioned the fact that primary necros can cause an immense death spam for no net energy cost for all the posters in this thread who did not seem to have much of a clue (this definitely did not include you iQ people). I brought it up again after Eonwe's comment of how my strategy was 'wanding people to death'. That provoked me to reply to not give other readers of the thread a wrong impression.

The 'necros suck' part was not directed at your guild, but rather at the generality of 'OMFG NECROZ SUCK!!1!!1' people. I am sorry you felt this was directed at Idiot Savants. The second part was directed at Eonwe, because of his 'why was your death magic not 16, you silly goose' comment.

We are writing from different standpoints here. Your guild naturally gets matched against good teams more often than mine - though this is an assumption, as I am not sure how often you bothered doing GvG and I am too lazy to check the ladder. As for Tombs, you go with a full team of experienced players who know their role well, and I assume you cut through the bad teams on the first maps quickly, and then get matched against a near-equally skilled group on the last map or in the HoH if you are lucky.

Now, my guild has a good number of players who are all decent people, but many are fairly new to PvP and their role in it. For us, a successful Tombs run means winning 3 maps mostly flawless and then being slaughtered by a top ranked guild on one of the last maps. We do win against good groups regularly, and rarely against world top groups, but mostly the world top are no concern to us because we hardly meet them anyway.

Different people have different definitions of a successful run.

Necros are ownage its the dumb w/mo that are like WOW LOOK A NECRO NEWB I BET I CAN KILL HIM IN ONE HIT =/

What a ridiculous comment. Heard of curses? I have a n/me which is a great support. I use, illusion, inspiration and curses. I have mana steal which regens life and energy. I also have the ability to degen 8 using phantasm and phantom pain. I also have enfeebling blood and shadow of fear, Which slows and weakens the enemy team. I also have mantra of persistence to increase the length of my illusion magic spells as well as the elite spell fevered dreams.

My usual setup consists of putting mantra of persistnce on which last for over a minute, then hitting the enemy with shadow of fear, to slow and then enfeebling blod to weaken when they evntually attack. I then target the called player and put phantasm and phantom pain on. This give that player degen of 8. I then put my elite on. When phantom pain ends the player suffers with deep wound. However my elite transfers this to all surrounding players. This gives -20% to max health. So now we have a party which is slow, weak and has -20% health. I then drain mana and health and then repeat and add my mantra of persistence as neeeded to keep deep wound length increased. Since everyone ussually attacks monks first, increasing my mana and life, decreases their mana reducing healing capability. And since I'm a necro I'm ussually ignored. Which is great!

So think before you decide not to add a necro. I'm personally sick and tired of being asked "Do you have well of blood or putrid? No, OK then, bye!" Its ridiculous. They don't even bother to ask what I do have. Its seems players are only interested in direct damage and have no idea what hexes etc can do.

These comments are enough to stop me from posting in this thread.

I can resume this situation quite simply: there's people who know their shit and others that defend their dumb points with the most retarded arguments. If you've been beat with an argument just STFU, you lost get over it. There's so many things posted in this thread that would make any sane person not play a necro unless very specifically needed yet people defend them with a passion like it was a personnal attack. Guess what ? The past two months you could have played something more efficient, now get over it and fix the problem: make necro a secondary.

You play single class characters and call me retarded?

If you need a necro attribute over 12 - play necro prim.
If you think SR will benefit your build more than any other prim attribute - play necro prim.

But "I have lots of necro skills on my bar" is not really a good reason, and if you can't find a skill from any other proffesion to synergize better with your most important 4-6 necro skills... uhm, look harder. (barring very special cases)

This folks, is a prime example of an idiot who believes that anyone who uses a warrior/monk is automatically a bad player. 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.


To Celes Tial:

I agree with what Ensign said about Necros being usually as effective as a secondary, and how necros are hard to work into a team. There is no argument there. Since you agree with Ensign to some degreee, as do I, there is no issue. So at least something has been resolved.

Now lets talk about soul reaping vs. energy storage.

When you are getting thrashed by the other team, or are thrashing, 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. In most ocassions, I'd expect you'd want energy to use to gain some sort of advantage rather than wait until the momentum has been established. Since I believe in energy storage being an overall better primary attribute, I like ES more. 'Tis all.

Of course not. A hex simply has to justify its place even under Nature's Renewal, because that's simply the reality of the game these days. I'm not saying that these hexes have no use whatsoever if they're on your bar when Nature's Renewal goes up. I'm saying that, knowing that Nature's Renewal is going to go up, you have to seriously question whether you want to have those skills on your bar, as opposed to comparable skills that are not hosed by Nature's Renewal.

Again, I'm not looking at any of this through the lens of 'is my Necromancer useful', but 'is a Necromancer the right character for this team'.


I don't have to try and believe they don't exist because I've gone through the lists several times, looked at each hex individually, and concluded that they're not worth a four second cast time.

Or let me turn this one around - what Necromancer hex is worth a four second cast time?


Of course removal has a cooldown, but you have to take cooldown ratios into account when choosing what hexes to run. Something like Defile Flesh, Faintheartedness, or Shadow of Fear recycles more quickly than most hex removal, which lets you simply overpower the removal and make your hexes stick. On the other hand, hexes like Barbs or Mark of Pain have slow recharges and simply get walked all over by hex removal.

My gripe with cover hexes for Necromancers is the same as for Mesmers - there just aren't many options that are worth running in their own right at all. The best option available is Faintheartedness, which makes sense if you have some hex that you want to make stick on one of their Rangers or Warriors. If, for whatever reason, you want to hex stack out a physical attacker.


Not working. Salivating at the opportunity to. Hexes aren't all that common these days, you know, and Monks are often waiting for a hex to hit so they can Inspire it and grab the quick energy boost. In the past we would have run copies of Convert Hexes to deal with hex stacking, but that's simply unneccessary with Nature's Renewal everywhere.


I thought that Rigor Mortis was a mildly interesting hex to use back in the days of buff stacking, mostly because it's not a hex that has to stick to be effective. Now, between a four second cast time, the relative power of removal, and the diminished role of protective enchantments I don't think it's worth the effort. This is one of the hexes that I've considered running on a Mesmer / Necro to power through, though.


Poison lasts for 3 seconds, and you do hit the defined target because it's a PBAoE with a fairly large radius. You hit all the targets nearby, as well.

I never said that Chilblains was better than Rend, merely that those two were your strong options. You used them differently, too - Rend was to punch through buff stacked targets by ripping off everything, while Chilblains rips up Life Bond chains through its AoE. I don't think either is particularly valuable now, since those circumstances rarely exist, and when they do I'd rather just throw a Nature's Renewal in their face.


It was ok - the energy cost on that skill is ridiculous. But the effect was pretty strong when combined with a spike. Now? Six second cast time = gg. Plus there's nothing to Lingering off of a target anymore.


30 second cooldown, mediocre damage increase, requires a specialized team build, plays very poorly with target switching and other tactics, has to stick to be effective, destroyed by Nature's Renewal.

Barbs is terrible, one of the half dozen or so skills in the Curse line that I consider completely unplayable in any serious capacity. Maybe in a PvE minionator build or something.


Exaggeration my ass. Every good team in tombs runs Putrid Explosion, because if you don't you are going to get destroyed by it on every dias map, including the Hall of Heroes. Good Necros are mashing on the Putrid button even before a target dies - if a corpse has not exploded before it hits the ground, you either have a Necro who's slacking off, or multiple targets dying at once so you can't Putrid them fast enough.

If you're running corpse exploitation skills outside of obscure combos (like bipping your own guys to death and making a big pile of minions) you're not only conceding the Putrid war, but you're putting dead skills on your bar as well. Because you're not going to beat a button mashing Putrid Necro with a 2-3 second cast time Well or Minion.

Putrid Explosion is right up there with Fertile Season on my list of complaints about tombs.


Do you want a medal for being stubborn? Why are you insisting on running headfirst into Nature's Renewal and trying to force decent but unspectacular two second cast time hexes when there are strategies that are just as effective that don't get hammered? Four second cast times on skills that either need to be spammed, or be clutch, is devastating. You're better off using Wards or Stances or Skills or Rituals or any of the options that were comparable before Nature's Renewal and are simply better now.


I think, more than that, that you disagree with how hard your character gets hit by Nature's Renewal. Before that skill got fixed I thought there were a lot of decent if unremarkable hexes in the Curses line. I even gave consideration to skills like Mark of Pain that were borderline junk but had uses in the right circumstances. But with Nature's Renewal? Curses is a line of playables, not stars. Star hexes I'll find a way to power through NR anyway, but in the absence of those I'm looking at the alternatives. That means I'm grabbing Defile Flesh and Rend Enchantments, and leaving everything else in the back of my mind for an age when I can use them without NR around.


Which I never did. I did say that Curses based Necros were destroyed by Nature's Renewal, which I stick by. Water Elementalists (and Elementalists in general), a huge chunk of the Mesmer line, and Protection Monks were devastated as well. It's unfortunate but it's just the reality we have to deal with.

People are dismissing Necros as useless? Whatever. Two months ago everyone was dismissing Rangers as useless, last month was Warriors are useless Month. Next Month we get to see Elementalists are useless threads because we're in the age of smiting for our AoE and spike needs. Don't let it get to you.

Peace,
-CxE

I hate to say this, but the last sentence "Either everything dies too rapidly, or too slow" is pure conjecture. There's no way to accurately predict combat death rate at any given moment, so it is unreasonable to claim that participant's won't die at semi-regular intervals during any given fight. Think of bell curve probabilities in statistics, and you'll get my point.

Death rate directly correlates to the total number of combat participants. Therefore, SR will scale upward in a similar manner. If I were to express ES vs. SR in equasions, it should look like this:

ES_Mana_Total = Base_Mana + (3 * Energy_Storage_Level) + (Mana_Recharge * Time)

SR_Mana_Total = Base_Mana + (Mana_Recharge * Time) + (Deaths * Soul_Reaping_Level)

The only variables in the above are Deaths and Time -- all others are constants. Also, Deaths will rise as Time goes up. Therefore, although the 2nd equasion has an initial lower start value, it will rise faster than the 1st as Time -> infinity. Assuming Mana recharge is 4, the 1st equasion's slope is constant at 4, while the 2nd one is 4 + |x|, where x > 0.


I agree that ES is considerably better than SR for initial burst damage, but not sustained, given the equasions above. Therefore, it ES > SR for small fights, but not long-drawn large scale combat.

Please feel free to offer corrections to the above as needed...