Yes, is the answer.

I played necromancer heavily during closed Beta and gravitated away from it several months before Guild Wars 2 launched. Part of the reason why I abandoned the profession was primarily because I felt it lacked “oomph”. I know that’s not exactly the best way to describe something, but at the time the profession was too simplistic and due to a variety of changes was falling significantly behind the likes of the engineer or mesmer. Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve returned to the necromancer.

I’d heard from various friends and from reading forum threads that the necromancer community isn’t entirely happy. Although I could sympathise to a certain degree having fought against many necromancers in structured PvP, your perception of a profession changes entirely once you’ve leveled it and experienced both PvE and PvP for yourself. I have to say that their current place in Guild Wars 2 is not only bizarre, but they’re desperately in need of intervention.

The primary reason why I decided to create a necromancer after all this time was because I grew tired of being one of many engineers. Like most, I love the flexibility of the engineer but prefer the styling and overall concept of the necromancer. With a focus on dark magic, the necromancer stands out from every other profession in Guild Wars 2 because of its use of lifesteal, fear, wells and Death Shroud. Sadly, the profession at level 80 feels as though its potential, from a design perspective, is much greater than the finished product and that it’s still a poor substitute for every other profession.

My necromancer. He's a looker.

Death Shroud And Life Force

The original design behind Death Shroud was to have the necromancer rewind back in time once activated. It was dropped early on due to ArenaNet stating players found it too confusing, but was later implemented with Spectral Walk. Your access to Death Shroud is directly linked to your Life Force and if you have none or below the 10% threshold, you’ll be unable to use it. When you can use it, your Life Force will slowly deplete and only regenerate when you kill something or utilise a skill that directly provides Life Force. On paper, I think the design of Death Shroud and Life Force is fine. My issue with it is that it fails to adequately cater to both Condition and Power builds, but that it’s also a shallow and briefly used mechanic that should be the cornerstone of the necromancers play style.

The entire purpose of Death Shroud is to preserve your life while still being able to attack. As you enter it and gain your additional health bar, you know that your other skills and their cooldowns are recharging and your ‘real’ health pool is safe. The problem is that Death Shroud is not only incredibly slow in terms of skill speed, but your Life Force bar can be eradicated in seconds, even when traited. In addition to this, by entering Death Shroud the necromancer further sacrifices a great deal of utility because their other skills become hidden.

Being limited to only 5 skills, which are a mix of power and conditions, means that some of them are always going to be sub-optimal. If you are a condition based necromancer, Life Blast and Life Transfer are woeful. If you’re a power based necromancer, Dark Path and Tainted Shackles are lacklustre. I would also add that none of these skills provide any real group value in a PvE environment and only limited value in structured PvP (the Doom > Dark Path > Tainted Shackles rotation is strong if you are condition based).

Death Shroud offers too few options and it significantly limits the necromancer in too many ways. By having no access to any other skills and with a list of restrictions as long as your arm, you’re rail roaded into predictable skill patterns and all too often, time in Death Shroud is brief because you want to quickly use the skills and exit it, to preserve your Life Force.

Where a mesmer or engineer can tactically use their F-Key utility skills, Death Shroud and its implementation has descended into little more than an “Oh Shit!” button when you’re under heavy pressure. Alternatively, it’s a means of quickly bursting an opponent with a brief rotation of skills that lasts for mere seconds. Even as a power based necromancer, time in Death Shroud is only marginally longer thanks to the eye watering damage of Life Blast.

What frustrates me when it comes to Death Shroud and Life Force is that both concepts have so much potential and I can’t for the life of me understand why both are not only so simplistic, but so heavily limited. Having two health pools is undoubtedly strong, but when you have no additional utility skills to protect yourself when under attack and in Death Shroud, you’re little more than a glorified sponge and one that quickly fails. Even when using the Vital Persistence trait, a full pool of Life Force can disappear in seconds when under pressure from one or more targets. What purpose, then, is Death Shroud serving besides preventing your inevitable death?

As a highly immobile profession, Death Shroud and Life Force need to play a much bigger role in the necromancers play style. They need to gain greater and lengthier access to it but to also gain access to their utility skills when in Death Shroud. As a profession that aligns itself with the dark arts, I find it bizzare that players are unable to use any of their utility skills when in Death Shroud. Would being able to use wells or spectral wall while really make them too strong? I doubt it. It would however provide tactical options and much greater utility for the profession.

Life Force on the other hand is a trickier beast and I can understand some of the restrictions that are in place. That said, Life Transfer really should provide a better means of prolonging your stay in Death Shroud and spectral skills absolutely should work. For skills that have cooldowns nearing one minute, it seems bizzare to suggest that Spectral Armor or Walk will somehow turn the necromancer into an everlasting Death Shroud monster when your Life Force pool is still so fragile.

I often look at the engineer as a comparison to the necromancer and I regularly question as to how both professions, largely filling similar roles, can be so far apart in terms of utility and survivability. When an engineer can happily outlast multiple foes thanks to its numerous blocks, heal blasts and immunities, it’s bizarre to think that the necromancer solely relies on Death Shroud. If they are to survive long periods, it comes from bunkering their attributes rather than the very mechanic that’s designed to support their attrition playstyle.

Life Siphon. It's rubbish.

Lack Of Build Diversity

Even with the recent changes to the necromancer traits in Heart Of Thorns, I’m still amazed that there are only two viable builds for the profession. The standard power necromancer and condition necromancer while fun to use in both a PvE and PvP environment, are plagued by the professions lack of survivability and utility. Where the power necromancer is concerned, you might be more than capable of dealing enormous damage thanks to Lich and Life Blast but outside of that, you can die in seconds and have no ability to truly defend yourself because of terrible mobility. Where a berzerker mesmer or thief can stealth or a meditation guardian can use aegis or one of many means of blocking and/or healing, a power necromancer once again relies solely on Death Shroud. Considering the attribute investment they have to make in power in order to deal such high damage, Death Shroud becomes paperthin and they’re then left with spectral armor or walk depending on personal preference.

As for a condition necromancer, the same rules apply with the exception that they’re useless in PvE and in PvP but they do have a healthy means of removing conditions from themselves unlike their power counterpart. Regardless of whether you pursue a terror build, you are mincemeat for a variety of the meta builds due to their sheer burst potential. Irrespective of how good your use of spectral walk or the wurm is, you will be trained and your death is inevitable because there’s no reliable means of escape. The slow speed of skill delivery from Death Shroud and the predictability of most fears and marks makes killing a condition necromancer relatively easy. It also doesn’t help that there’s so much condition removal in PvP that your damage output is, at times, almost entirely negated.

But what about minions? Well, they’re terrible. Poor pathing, poor survivability, terrible damage and an awful elite just about sums them up. Necromancers only use minions when they’re new to the game and anyone who uses them outside of that is trolling or doing it ‘for the laugh’. Having uncontrollable pets that fall foul of so many issues is a liability in both PvE and PvP. More often than not, using minions has left me frustrated more than anything else.

Having said all that, the main thing I wanted to talk about when it comes to lack of build diversity is the Blood Magic trait line. If you’ve ever played Guild Wars 1, the possibility of becoming a life-leeching vampire in Guild Wars 2 is an impossibility. The whole trait line is terrible and I’ve never once encountered anyone who uses it. It undoubtedly appeals and I remember fondly spending my first points in Blood Magic all those years ago, only to find it’s as bad now as it was then. When your health gain from a variety of sources, despite significant trait investment, is worse than anything a meditation guardian can obtain (thanks to Monk’s Focus) something has gone seriously wrong. Siphoning health for 50 when you critically hit, or healing for 900 when leaving Death Shroud is pitiful. Why is it so neutered and why are other professions able to surpass a trait line purposefully designed to sustain your own life? Like most things when it comes to the necromancer, the potential is there but for some reason, it isn’t being utilised.

Lack Of Group Utility In PvE

Considering I’ve already mentioned how condition necromancers are terrible in PvE thanks to the bleed cap and lack of burning (no condition necromancer takes Dhuumfire due to wasted points a predominantly power trait line) there’s only the power build remaining. Its single target damage potential is incredibly high thanks to being able to achieve an incredibly high critical hit chance, but that alone isn’t enough to be part of the current PvE Meta. Stacking, utilising combo fields and support others is key to an effective group whether you’re in Fractals or Dungeons. I’m not suggesting a necromancer can’t do these things, but once again they’re sub-optimal.

Their AOE damage is strictly limited to wells and these not only deal poor damage but their blast functionality is terrible in comparison to might stacking. That then leaves you with Lich form which can provide a health burst of damage output and Death Shroud, that once again provides a healthy burst of damage output. Lack of access to skills that provide group wide benefits such as protection, quickness, blasts or stability leaves players wondering why a necromancer should fill the place of a mesmer, warrior or guardian.

Simply put, ArenaNet have failed to provide the necromancer with the necessary tools to vye for a place on PvE teams when compared directly against other professions. If they aren’t being given those tools, it’s reasonable to expect them to succeed in other areas but that isn’t the case either. They offer raw damage and some useful conditions (chill, blind) and that’s about it.

The Revenant: replacing necromancers near you soon!(tm)

The Revenant

From the time I’ve spent playing the revenant, the main impression I was left with was that it fulfilled a niche that I felt the necromancer should have been in. When utilising Mallyx, there’s a distinct impression that the revenant steps on the toes of the necromancer due to its boon removals, condition stripping and use of conditions to bolster itself. Corruption skills for the necromancer are pretty terrible and yet the revenant and the team behind its design have seemingly taken this idea and improved upon it immeasurably. Embrace Of Darkness, for all intents and purposes, should have been a necromancer elite skill.

The problem I have with the revenant, despite it being a great class, is that it’s unquestionably going to push the necromancer further and further to the sidelines. When you can play the revenant as a heavy armored condition based profession that already has access to tools the necromancer never has, you have to question why anyone would pursue a necromancer. Even with the two Legends we know about, you’ve already got access to blasts, AOE stability, condition removal, powerful elites, huge spike damage, shadow steps, pulls and reflects.

Where does that leave the necromancer?

Final Thoughts

When I thought about writing a piece on the necromancer, I didn’t realise it would turn out this long. In all honesty, I could continue writing about the issues that the profession has. What saddens me the most and as someone who has all professions at level 80, is that the necromancer is undoubtedly the one I have the most fun on but it’s also the worst when it comes to all areas of the game. Having fun is important, but so is the feeling of being wanted and being needed. I get the distinct impression that the necromancer isn’t particularly loved by any designer at ArenaNet and as such, its been left to its own devices. I only look at how long its taken to fix huge numbers of its traits as confirmation of that.

With so few changes being made in Heart Of Thorns, I’m questioning as to whether the profession is doomed and even more so when I think about the revenant and how it’s already infinitely better than the necromancer. What frustrates me in all of this, more than anything, is that the necromancer doesn’t need redesigning, it just needs someone at ArenaNet to take the time to analyse the profession against the others around it.

Why can’t they use utility skills in Death Shroud?

Why is the Death Shroud cooldown so long?

Why do they offer no group utility?

Why are two out of three of its elites awful?

Why does it have so little access to control effects?

Why does it have so little access to powerful combo fields?

Why is the Blood Magic trait line so poor?

Why is Life Force so fragile when the profession has no reliable means of escape or defence?

Why are minions, their role and AI still terrible?

That’s only some of the questions surrounding the profession and with very little exciting on the horizon in terms of traits changes in Guild Wars 2: Heart Of Thorns, the specialization is very unlikely to fix all of the above. It seems such a shame that a profession with so much potential and one that was exceptional in Guild Wars 1 has fallen so far.

[Edit] A couple of people have mentioned to me how necromancers are strong in World versus World and while somewhat true thanks to wells and their potential against large groups of players (they're considered the current Meta), this doesn't make any difference to any of the above issues they face. They might have a better place in World versus World than any other area of the game, but it's still a very small niche in comparison to the potency of other professions.