26 replies to this topic

[julystork]

Granted, I only played my D/focus to level 11, but the hp goes down way too fast when faced with 3 ranged mobs in storyline instance, even with spectral armor
Death shroud lasts only a few seconds longer, plus like 3 more secs with #4?
And spectral armor & #6 heal's long ass CDs doesn't help matters

Guess one should  stick to heavy armored professions like guardians...?

[Tchaikovsky_1812]

My experience, also to around level 11 so far, is that I can only survive with 3-5 minions with me.

[Arioch]

Level 80 Necromancer here,I only started running into trouble in level 60+ zones.

I've survived by putting conditions on enemies and dodging away, later on (in level 30+ zones) using my Death Shroud to Survive until my natural healing/ healing skill started kicking in. Then again I never bothered to do Daggers, didn't seem worth it to me.

[Swoopeh]

Not really, necros have the highest HP pool in game next to warriors. You just need to kite (scepter 2 + staff/axe 3 is almost a perma cripple) and avoid big attacks. Use DS wisely and spam blinds. For healing use Consume Conditions and rotate it with DS. They're still a cloth class in a game where noone can really tank so don't expect to be able to stand somewhere and take all the hits. I don't tend to take minions because they pull everything (especially handy in Orr) but I do under water where skills are limited and they seem to behave a little better. I've soloed a grub spewing champion mob in Cursed Shore (in a narrow labyrinth) while a veteran and 5 normal mobs kept respawning on my head. Was challenging but doable. I also find it much easier to navigate Orr with my Necro because you can just cripple anything that chases you.

Edited by Swoopeh, 07 November 2012 - 05:21 PM.

[Mister Stygian]

If you don't like using the staff, you should probably just go ahead and roll something else.  If you are using it, you won't have any problem with mobs throughout the game.

[Reverse Ghost]

Armor class doesn't end up making too much of a difference. And I would say most professions have low survivability around level 10 - 20 until you can really start taking advantage of traits.

Dagger is really tough at early levels because of its range. Try other weapons like Scepter/Dagger and Staff. You can attack from a distance and drop a good amount of conditions, some of which will tick away at the enemy while you focus on surviving.

You need to focus on avoiding damage as much as possible obviously, and you have a lot of get-out-of-jail-free cards. Melee mobs are of course easier, but you have options against ranged:

• Dodging is the most obvious way to avoid damage
  
• Apply blinds
  
• Use interrupts (including Death Shroud fear which can be used at almost any time)
  
• Death Shroud can absorb some hits if you're out of other options (and can Chill, increasing the time between enemy skill usage)

The Staff has an AOE fear and an AOE regen, Dagger2 siphons health, Dagger 4 and 5 can blind and weaken, Focus4 has regen, Warhorn4 has an interrupt. Anything that grants Life Force essentially adds to your effective HP pool.

Utility skills provide tons of boons and conditions; this is the case for all professions of course.

I "gave up" on my Necro for a month or so because I hit a wall. Granted, this was back when the game was first out and I wasn't used to the mechanics yet, but also because I didn't really understand how to play the class. Getting to level 11 is not representative of the profession. Traits make such a huge difference in playstyle because you can focus on one or a few aspects of the profession and really push them.

[shiko]

You could also run other stuff like staff, where the #2 ability grants regeneration if you are within the area. The actual radius of the mark on trigger is a lot bigger than the trigger radius, unless traited. Also the staff has 1200 range and is good for aoe.

If you wish to stick with your current weapon, you can run well of darkness which has a decent aoe range, and blinds every second for 5 seconds on top of additional damage, or spectral grasp which is on a 30 second cooldown only, that you can use to pull ranged targets to you, chill, and gain 10% life force.

Also I'm guessing when you say that the #6 heal is long, that you are using well of blood? I don't recommend using well of blood if you are running a dagger, simply because you won't be standing in it for the duration of it meaning you get only about as much as consume condition, which is 15 seconds shorter and gives you extra health per condition consumed.

[Spasm]

necros are pretty tanky imo, didnt have any real issues leveling to 80. I wouldnt run daggers low level though, as it needs traits to be really effective.

Reverse Ghost, on 08 November 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

Dagger2 siphons health

I think dags 2 is still bugged and still heals enemys.

shiko, on 08 November 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

Also I'm guessing when you say that the #6 heal is long, that you are using well of blood? I don't recommend using well of blood if you are running a dagger, simply because you won't be standing in it for the duration of it meaning you get only about as much as consume condition, which is 15 seconds shorter and gives you extra health per condition consumed.

I agree consume conditions is awesome, but, well of blood is pretty usefull on dags. You can trigger the light combo field yourself with staff 4 dealing more dmg. If you bother with minions you can use well to heal them. Bone minions should be blown up in any combo field though whenever theres an opportunity but thats an other story.

tldr;

No, i run daggers in exp dungeons (up to cof anyway) just fine. Dodges, combo fields and snares / blinds can make all the difference in the world.

[Gremlin]

It may be that the necro just doesnt suit your play style is all.

The necro is a spellcaster so is equiped with light armour.
They do have a large health pool and several skills that damage and heal at the same time.
I find dagger dagger can keep me alive pretty well of course having a few minions to give me breathing space in fights is also good.

I only ran the necro to lvl 13 in the betas and have just started one as an alt character, I have seen quite a few around and they seem popular in dugeons.
I do know someone who has a necro as his main and reached lvl 80 completed the game and is a little short of 100% map exploration, he recons its pretty good overall.

[Call of Twilight]

I play necro as my main, Dagger/Dagger for my main weapon set and Scepter/Focus for my secondary weapon set.  At level 80 in Cursed Shore, I can stand still and punch mobs to death with nothing but my 1 and have no trouble surviving using a full magic find set (read: no defensive stats).  Now, that's one at a time, but I can take three to four mobs at once without difficulty if I use my skills.

Necromancer's have a huge HP pool, it's doubled  by your death shroud, and you'll find once you hit 30 and start picking up elite skills that you can essentially double it again.  Flesh Golem is a strong off tank that cripples and knocks down (I actually never unlocked flesh golem til long after I was 80), Plague Form doubles your max HP and can blind enemies in an AoE giving you essentially 15~20 seconds of invulnerabilitiy against non-dredge as long as they are grouped together, Lich Form also gives you a huge boost to your max HP and very very strong damage.

At the low levels for survivability, carrying atleast one minion skill can be invaluable.  LIke most people here have said, without traits you can have some difficulty, but even a single minion (I used blood fiend) can provide you with a ton of survivability because of the off-tank potential.  Otherwise, smart dodges and good use of your utilities and emergency death shrouding will help you a lot.

Those first few story steps can be quite a pain, but once you get through those I think you'll find that necromancers are actually quite tanky as far as casters go.

[cthulhuazathoth]

PVE ... no problem at all. Keep in mind mobs in story mode are some time different. Some story mode content is designed to be group base,

Staying away from D/D and minions at low level. D/D lacks range skill which can be hard in lower level. IMHO, minion build is not useful in PVE at all. Necro is one of the easiest to level up in PVE. Go for condition/well build,and look for DE - spam marks and well like crazy. Use S/E for solo quest. once u get the hang of it level up is a walk.

[mazut]

cthulhuazathoth, on 09 November 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

IMHO, minion build is not useful in PVE at all.

o.O
I kill 8-10 foes at once as MM in Orr... not useful.... pfffffft

[cthulhuazathoth]

mazut, on 11 November 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

o.O
I kill 8-10 foes at once as MM in Orr... not useful.... pfffffft

Killing 7-8 mobs at the same time in orr is not hard, actually any open world PVE is not hard.  But how do you do dugeon with your MM build? One AOE blast form a boss will clean them off. Even those wet noddle  boss at plinx or greth can kill our army in one hit.

[mazut]

cthulhuazathoth, on 12 November 2012 - 07:33 AM, said:

Killing 7-8 mobs at the same time in orr is not hard, actually any open world PVE is not hard.  But how do you do dugeon with your MM build? One AOE blast form a boss will clean them off. Even those wet noddle  boss at plinx or greth can kill our army in one hit.

Only Bone minnions die that easy, but you blow em. Bone Fiend is range, Flesh Golem is very tough and Shadow can take some damage too. Its ok most of the time, and they deal more damage then the wells or any other utility skill combination.

[GetheartMcLiar]

I'm 35, d/wh and love it. I feel like I melee better than my thief. wh#5 and life stealing/crit is wonderful. Blinding/Vuln wells drop groups fast. I DS when in a pinch, or at full life force.

[Beta Sprite]

I've been running S/F and staff with wells, and I haven't had any real survivability issues (up to level 36 now).  I use the vulnerability and darkness wells for AoE conditions and damage, and the 'larger marks' staff trait to really wreck mobs.  I don't really use the scepter and focus much, except for killing rabbits/raccoons/etc. for the weapon achievements.

Oh, and Flesh Golem is my favored elite for now.

[Pthisic]

I also had problems in the low levels with my Necro, but it got a TON easier around the 20s or so, once you get more utility spells. Having a staff makes kiting easy mode, and you can control mobs from afar as well. I also tried Spectral Armor and it sucked. Early on having a minion or two was best for me 'cause they take all the aggro. Couldn't do much against multiple ranged mobs early on (I still had the crappy default Axe, bleargh), just respawned a few times and got through it eventually. It gets much easier later don't worry.

After that I specced into Blood for Mark of Evasion (super amazing trait) and tried out Wells. Mobs aren't smart enough to dodge out and if there are multiple ranged mobs you can Spectral Grasp one toward another, WoS>WoC>Life Transfer and that's pretty much gg. Well of Darkness does wonders for survivability as well. Only downsides are waiting for the cooldowns and the lack of excitement.

I'm lvl 45 now and it's only gotten easier. After Blood I went into Spite for Reaper's Might followed by Soul Reaping for Unyielding Blast and have been playing around with weapons/utilities but i like Dagger/Anything the best. I tried out Curses at one point, didn't like it. Guess I'm still too used to my Warlock's DoTs in WoW, conditions feel weird to me. Utilities and Offhands I'm still constantly switching around, but I always keep a Staff for that AoE cc when I start feeling OP and get in over my head. xD Staves = mega OP for leveling

[DerekUrban]

I run a power/healing/lifesteal build and I can say without a doubt that I'm nowhere near squishy. I'm even in melee range most of the time, but the survivability is absolutely insane (Soloed a level 80 champ yesterday and ended the fight at 90% life). At lower levels Necro is a tad squishy, but traits and gear help a ton. There's rarely a moment where green numbers aren't on the screen.

Necros have huge healthpools and an extra health bar (Life force/DS), life siphons, and a well that AoE blinds everything but dredge for 5 seconds. Definitely not squishy.

[Piteous]

I have an 80 Necro and I don't think there that squishy, you just have to be mobile. I jump into a crowd in wvw and still survive...well part of the time.

[MCBiohazard]

Necromancers can be very tanky if you spec for it, they have a large base health pool to work with. As for me, I didn't have a lot of problems surviving with glass cannon condition damage spec, but it does take quite a bit of kiting and dodging to play. Necro scepter/dagger was my weapon set of choice and it had near perma cripple in 2 and condition transfer in 4 so I usually was able to stay away from taking big damage. When I hit 80, I opted for Carrion armor to give myself a bit of a buffer in case I got hit with something big but went Rampager trinkets for damage. With the new Apocathery prefix, you could splash some toughness in a condition damage build and run Undead runes to pump up your survivability further.

[SpelignErrir]

Every class breaks like a pinata at low levels.

[snethss]

necros are probably one of the least squishy classes.  I would consider necro the third tank behind the warrior and guardian.

I would make no assumtions until late game.

I make people pay for underestimating the necro's staying power.

[CunningMoogle]

Necro's are really tanky, you just need the right traits and utilities.

[phani_kaushik]

I've just started a necro a couple of days ago, and am having fun. Agreed it can be a pain at early stages, especially with dagger main hand. I've always read people advising not to use dagger main hand, but off-hand is good. I run scepter-dagger/staff with 10 trait points into curses and 5 into spite (currently at level 25). Try to use all those skills that would cause bleeding and stuff on yourself, and the one's that would absorb conditions from allies onto yourself, stack all of them, spread them onto your foes. It's way damn fun!

[kendro1200]

Necros are extremely durable unless you're playing a glass cannon build and trying to tank crap.  If you're doing that, stop it, and you'll be fine.  With a rampager, critconditionmancer build I can survive two Lupicus bubbles back to back without too much of an issue.  With a cleric, mark of blood spam build, I can survive 4 to 5 Lupicus bubbles back to back (unlucky nights of being the only person alive during Lupicus and trying to keep him from resetting).  Now those are instances of me just eating damage.  Toss in three variations of teleports, an extra health bar, a heal that eats debuffs and heals us, a handful of sources for protection, and a good chunk of sources for weakness, along with one elite that turns us nearly invul for 15 seconds and another that buffs our health to insane proportions for a short duration, and you have a very durable profession.
Try leveling up a thief or play an 80 elementalist and you'll learn a bit about being squishy.

[GrrBabble]

As a 80 Necro I don't really have any concerns with survivability. Get disappointed with DPS sometimes, as I never feel bursty in my spec. Wells can change that feeling, especially in aoe scenarios. But squishy? Nope.

I would not get too caught up on any squishy fears at low levels - this kind of goes for all classes that I have experienced. Keep your gear up, and kite/circle/dodge.

Use the weapons you like and learn to take every advantage of their conditions, cripple, daze etc. Necromancers are about using conditions to our advantage, like a warrior uses a Great sword to theirs.

[Smallwalk]

yeah as glasscannon and playing with necro we kinda complete eachother. He could take hit stackin condi and my zapper nade engi handled dps. I dont understand why necro is least played prof. (atleast my server wvw.) Guess its up to skills then?