Many of us have heard the call to battle, to charge into the Mists and slaughter our fellow man, charr, or tiny bat like creature. Though I love nothing more than to stand on top of ancient building to lauch deadly dark claws at my enemies or on the fields of battle mowing people down with an axe, sometimes we have to we have to fight somewhere truly despicable — the water.
Many of us hate the Raid on the Capricorn for a number of reasons, mostly the water and sharks. I have spent many an hour splashing in puddles of death (doesn’t sound as menacing as I was hoping to) and I have a quick and dirty guide for how to reign supreme in the depths of underwater PvP.
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Contrary to what some might think, the graveyard zerg is not a tactic. The repeated runs from a waypoint after dying to continue chipping away at a boss is really about players cheesing the encounter.
Despite the repair costs associated with it, the graveyard zerg is such a no-brainer that players never get around to looking at real dungeon tactics like coordination and teamwork. Sure, it works – eventually – but taking down difficult challenges as part of a coordinated team is so much more satisfying, no?
So how can other players serve our nefarious necromantic purposes better? For starters, start thinking like a puppet master and take off your DPS blinkers! Why get our hands dirty when we can have others help get the job done with a little “support”? We’ve looked at our control abilities previously; this week, we’ll run through what we can do in support of our minions teammates in my little GW2 dungeon guide for necromancers, so that no one in your 5-man squad has to resort to cheese.
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You know what I love about being a Necromancer? Killing stuff… and then using the leftovers to build minions to kill more stuff. Its like the cycle of life only skipping a step!
You know what I don’t like? Dying.
Well, no one does. As far as a game goes, it’s basically a way of saying you suck. If I die because I do something dumb, say running head long into a flame jet that I can SEE is actively billowing fluffy streams of death, then yeah, I’m cool with that — minus that total crushing of my ego.
Then there are times where I feel like I shouldn’t have died, such as a bug, game mechanic flaw, or poor game design. I experienced a few of those this week, and I thought I’d share them with you.
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Many of you have probably experienced the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 by now. For those who are used to more structured dungeon play in traditional MMOs, GW2 instances may seem like unbridled chaos, like ‘a WoW dungeon when the tank dies‘. The chaos, thankfully, can be mitigated by using our control abilities judiciously; I’ll be highlighting our tools for control in this general dungeon guide for necromancers this week.
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We are a month in, my fellow Necros. By now, most of us have a good feel for the profession, how it plays, and which spells and weapons we prefer, and a few have even started working on the nitty-gritty theorycrafting for our profession. With all of this experience from many a long night of grinding, we can now stop and take a look at Necros with an objective and experienced eye. What are we good at right now, what do we lack, and how can we improve? Today we will discuss all of these as we look at the Necro one month in.
What is the Necro amazing at?
I recall being told that all professions in GW2 will be able to do multiple roles, but in practice, there are some who fill a job much better than others. I think all of us can safely say that Guardians are easily recognized as one of the best at taking damage and healing others. Water Elementalists can heal like crazy and Warriors are amazing at taking damage and dishing it out. Where do Necromancers fall?
I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately. It feels like we are a bit of a jack of all trades. I can put out some AoE healing in a pinch, but it isn’t amazing. I can throw out a lot of supporting skills like wells or condition removal, and I can even take quite a bit of heavy damage on a regular basis. The one area that we are unequivocally skilled at is dealing out damage–a lot of it. We can front-load our damage rapidly with some well-timed utilities skills, or we can do an amazing amount of damage over a longer period. In a dungeon group, it feels like we help out the most by unloading on mobs and controlling them. (more…)
