Necromancer Primary usefull?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

Peace,
-CxE

So I have read the threat....

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

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

I think people underestimate soul reaping.

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

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

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

it all depends on your teams needs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Tozen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you all for your informations. I played WoW too and visited the forums frequently and there were a lot of whiners out there but most of em had a point.

I now will give the Necro primary defenitly a change combinet with a mesmer and just try it out a little.

But in general are the devs paying attention to the inbalance?
Because in WoW there were imbalances everywhere and the dev's just made the bad classes worse.

What is you expirience with the communications with the devs? are they paying attention to the Community?

(so there is a change that SR will be tuned up)

Scar, my goal has not been to convince you one way or another, only to offer an alternate viewpoint on "necromancer suckiness."

Unlike many choices in life, your selection of "primary profession" isn't going to make the slightest difference in the big scale of things, so pick something that you know you will enjoy above all! The secondary can always save you if push comes to shove.

I simply hope that I've helped to reassure people that wanted to play the necromancer already but were too afraid to!

Ensign put it best ill just quote it here

It's a valid point but somewhat flawed. If you look at it from sheer energy numbers, then the elementalist easily tops the necromancer, but that is not the end of the story.

First, that analysis assumes that a necromancer would be wielding 25+ mana energy moves like an elementalist does, and this simply is not the case most of the time. The necro's best moves often take between 10-15 mana and are not "spam cast," so mana conservation isn't as much of an issue to begin with. Necros bide their time and either do a combined nuke with a full team of eight or disable an immediate threat to the team. An elementalist can nuke better and a mesmer can disable better, but with a necromancer you get the flexibility to switch between roles easily.

Second, the elementalist is a great primary for the reasons you mentioned, but it DOES have very obvious weaknesses that are easily exploited. Namely, when I played my mesmer character (or any class with a mesmer secondary for that matter) I ALWAYS immediately targeted elementalists with my inspiration magic. Your huge tank of gas simply becomes a huge benefit to an opponent when they guzzle your whole supply down quickly. Then, what do you do? As you mentioned, Energy Storage is great for its sheer numbers, but at the end of the day, zero mana still equals zero mana. Without an adequate form of recovery, Energy Storage becomes useless if someone exploits you, and inspiration magic is the one line in this game I have yet to find a way to avoid. The spells are fast, efficient, frequently used, and deadly in capable hands.

In that event, a primary necro (especially in a crowded PvP match or PvE mission) will dominate in the mana numbers easily. They both are great abilities, but it comes down to whether you want to put your mana in the potential hands of a foe as an elementalist or recover it more quickly as a necromancer. Both require luck in a way.

You are also assuming a Elementalist will be wielding 25 mana moves which as an Air Ele(as most PvP are if not Earth) dont have many and are in the 10-15 range as well. A Necro can't nuke. IIRC 3 second for a slow chain casting Cold Damage spell? please.

You target my elementalist with your mesmer? Thanks a whole lot I don't care what damage I can't do now because my team is gonna be that much closer to win....moot point on your part.

So your conclusion is still countered by Ensign's analysis on why energy gained from SR is too late to take any effect on the outcome of the battle.

NO ONE is saying necros are bad.....they are just bad primaries I would still go E/N and do better than your N/x with the same necro skills

I find it amusing Black Ace that you have the words "self esteem killer" under your name

I'm sick of being the one guy here that is defending the necro primary lol, so I think I'm just going to give it up for the moment.

At the end of the day I guess the only words I can offer for people that are thinking about the necromancer are that I've never run into energy troubles with my particular builds and I've had a blast playing with the necro skills.

If the elementalist IS actually better (and I don't have difficulty believing this because no game is ever perfectly balanced for long) it still doesn't deter me from playing... actually, I'm a sick enough person to be encouraged by it!

My follow necromancers, underdogs for the win! Don't forget the critism you recieved from this forum when you're cleaning clocks ^^

Thanks for the good discussion all!

-Tozen

EDIT: BTW, I feel it is worth mentioning that my analysis may be slightly off simply because I'm in a hecka good guild and our team strategy dominates. Because the players are so good, I have slightly more freedom in my targets (oftentimes I disable one player on the team while the rest of the team focus fires another, such as a monk)

.. for what it's worth, Soul-reaping (1) doesn't take up any skill slots, (2) is always active, (3) has no recast time and (4) works very nicely when it's large-scale PvP, such as an 8v8v8....

Just wish it did something else besides only stealing energy, such as providing a small power boost to all necromancer spells.

Or maybe it'd also add a small life-leach whenever the necromancer hit someone, whether ranged or up-close.

I <3 Primary necros.

At the very least, you're sacrificing skill for STYLE.

And, with a necromancer, isn't sacrificing what it's all about? :d

As said, not sure in this thread because its been argued so many times, SR has a range of half your minimap roughly so in large battles it doesn't do that much more ebcause who honestly has gotten into anything more than 3 teams of 8 at one time?

I am not saying that anyone playing primary necro is stupid either its just you can't convince anyone you are that much more powerful than x/nec. If you go nec/x for style more power to you.

.. oh, yeah.

Pretty much.

The primary ability for a necromancer is pretty limited in its usefulness, even more considering what you're trading out for with other classes. However, there's nothing sexier to me than the Necromancer avatars though, so.. ;D

well I'm going necro primary, but I'm not using SR, so it doesn't really affect me.

Now I've actually tried it, I shall put forth my informed opinion. I really like my new character: He's great fun for me.

At first I was fairly unimpressed with Soul Reaping and in the Arena it was utterly useless. However in PvE it's fantastic. Were it not for Divine Favour being so good for healing, I would consider a N/Mo if I make a Monk character now that the game is released.

For the moment, though, I'm having SO much fun with my N/Me. *maniacal laugh*.

Thanks Tozen for intriguing me enough to try SR. Not useful all the time, but in those big battles like Gates of Kryta; very handy. Especially given Necromancy is fairly energy intensive let alone combining it with Mesmer. Though now Energy Tap is really only useful if things refuse to die.

Great post. I'm trying to learn as much as possible before the game gets here.

Hey
I got the Primary Necro class and loving it. I won a few times in Pvp ( with my team ) but i found out that Necro with High Blood Magic and Mesmer Inspiration can deal a lot of damage. And a few Curses help 2