It all depends on the buffs. If we are talking fully buffed classes then the archers are the strongest pvp class, fallowed by mages. If your talking about pure hitting power the stronges mage is the SH. Don't get me wrong the Necros are planty strong and for solo pvp there top with gloom, anchor, and silence there able to end your day fast but they are also one of the slowest running classes out there. So always watch your back cause you never know when a fast Tyrant or Glad can run up behind you and before you know it you'll be taking a dirt nap.
The game is about experience and getting in-synch with your toon, the same goes for pvp. So the best class is the class you feel the best with.
Personally i feel that melee toons are the best, any damage dealer can take down a mage fast. Low def, low eva and low HP/CP... A good critical from an archer or a gladie and it's game over... But that's just me, I"ve seen great mages do awful things to archers and daggers.
76+.... Archers reign supreme. You cannot outdamage an overbuffed archer with Drac bow. They hit the hardest.... and I'm not just talking about crits. All BS aside... go to raids and make your respective parties. The archer party will always get the drops.... because their dps cannot be matched. Get a 78 Soul Taker and a 78 Sagittarius with top buffs and prophecies... and the archer will win 100% of the time as long as anchor doesn't land.
For PvP I would strongly suggest an HE. And the massive-r the PvP, the more HEs shine, 'cause that means you'll have perfect buffs and that's the current fotm PvP class.
For gank runs, I strongly suggest a necro. Beating someone with the element of surprise isn't hard, but beating them up before they BSoE is insanely hard. That's where gloom and anchor come in. You spot your target, you gloom / anchor and if it works, you're assured +1 pvp point and +1 clan reputation point. If it fails, with a summon out and se + pp buffs, you should be able to kill almost anyone.
Necros unfortunately NEED a summon out to shine in PvP, so they are terrible at surviving gank runs when they're on the receiving end.
It all depends on the buffs. If we are talking fully buffed classes then the archers are the strongest pvp class, fallowed by mages. If your talking about pure hitting power the stronges mage is the SH. Don't get me wrong the Necros are planty strong and for solo pvp there top with gloom, anchor, and silence there able to end your day fast but they are also one of the slowest running classes out there. So always watch your back cause you never know when a fast Tyrant or Glad can run up behind you and before you know it you'll be taking a dirt nap.
All mages can be neutralized by buffs. Doesn't matter if the SH is hitting 50-150 more damage, it won't be that high damage. A buffed S Grade (Arcana Mace) SH was hitting me for 577 in Arena with Buffs :( I have B Grade jewels on...
Gladiators have Dash but aside from that, I think I can make them work to catch me in DC. Last Gladiator I fought had to charge and range nuke me, I kited him with Vampiric Claw easily. They are not that hard to beat, especially buffed - even if ur hitting them for 500. Gloom+[Mass] Slow. You Get it, Use it. If you got CP Pots, you can even Body to Mind while you kite them and start CDL'ing them. Mages should never be touched by melee. If a Gladiator is getting in you face you either 1) got ganked, o well 2) don't know what you're doing. Slow > Anchor when melee running towards you. If Anchor fails ur in deep crap, but if they are slowed you can always kite and retry in 10 seconds. Same thing goes for Fear - some melee run too fast, you need to slow them before u fear them or you'll never get > 1 nuke in (i.e. Daggers).
Gloom, Anchor, Fear, Silence, and Death Spike aren't the only skills a Necro gets... Some people act like they are, though.
Gloom/Slow/Fear the Tyrant. It's not hard... If fear lands you win, if not try Anchor/etc. At high levels you can just Gloom/Curse of Doom the melee with ranged nukes and call it a day. A gladiator without its physical skills is a very gimp toon indeed. It's like silencing an SPS.
76+.... Archers reign supreme. You cannot outdamage an overbuffed archer with Drac bow. They hit the hardest.... and I'm not just talking about crits. All BS aside... go to raids and make your respective parties. The archer party will always get the drops.... because their dps cannot be matched. Get a 78 Soul Taker and a 78 Sagittarius with top buffs and prophecies... and the archer will win 100% of the time as long as anchor doesn't land.
I think MM is the only mage that can go toe to toe with a end game archer and win with any level of consistency, due to their insane cast speed. But that's assuming they're as buffed up as the archer.
But I've been 1 shot through TP4 by dagger enough times to know that we don't rain supreme above all else 40 - 75 (:p). Go go beeline run to u so u can't target them. That's how the good daggers get the kill. Good thing I type fast, or every bout would be a K.O. vs them.
Necro are FoTM, and yeah if the person 'knows' how to play they're toon, its pretty much an embarassment for the other person to be nuked upon while they sit there and watch they're character stand still..but as how the upper half of the population bots/p-lvls its not that hard to find a necro who doesnt know what the [censored] hes doing, and kill him before he gets your cp :) (other cases might differ..my CP is probably more then your cp/hp though :)). In mass pvp I don't think they'd be that useful..I mean use anchor, hope a SH doesnt silence you, nuke the guy before one of the people trying to kill you notices. Alot of time to screw up imo. If your thinking about making one for pvp..I wouldnt, as I said they're FoTM and like other people I highly believe they're going to get nerfed soon :)
Necro has infinitely more uses than SH/SPS/Sorc in mass PvP. They are actually more useful against parties that are properly buffed than the other nukers, ESPECIALLY pre-S Grade.
Nukers: Silence - Most Likely in DC
Melee: Slow/Weakness/Chaos/Anchor/Fear
Healers/Summoners: Silence/Curse Disease (-50% from their heals) - Most Likely in DC
Bishops, enjoy healing like an SE, Disease lands more than almost any other debuff in the game (Earth Magic). +3 Tat Jewels? NP.
Use Reanimated Man (mid-range HP) and he will not get targeted/Erased/Betrayed nearly as often as when you use a Corrupted Man, since people don't often look for them and the Corrupted/Cursed Men stand out way too much (too bid, odd colors, etc.).
necromancer has been nerf for the past 2-3 chronicle. Still a fun class to play and can hold thier own.
They use to have higher transfer pain then 50%
Thier summon did not need to be next to them for Transfer pain to work (summon in town player go solo ganking)
Thier Summon could not be banish by healer/buffer
Dark Resist buff was introduce for all characters( imo.. to be fair also need arrow resist buff like mobs as buff for all character as well)
VampClaw nuke use more mp and hit for less and does not magic crit.
only have Dark Vortex and can not Magic crit while all other vortex skills can.
I guess the final nerf will turn necromancer into a debuffer/summoner class.
in that case i vote debuffer, I want to take on a prophet/warcryer/overloard- give me more debuff to counter/null/cancel all the the single/clan/group/ally buff from prophet/warcryer/overloard. That that will be a fun debuffer class like a voodoo witch and sick my summon at them go boys go get your bone:) hehe opps wrong game:)
Skillless Necro = easiest mage to kill due to no Surrender Dark (you end up with more than base resist to it with Resist Unholy + Curse Gloom).
Skilled Necro = uber because he knows how to neutralize his/her target - not relying on imba skills Anchor/Silence/Fear (cause those get resist quite a bit with set bonuses/buffs/jewels/etc.).
If they give me Light Armor masteries, cubics, and a longer summon timer I wouldn't mind being nerfed into a Summoner/Debuffer class. I'll still win just as much AFAICT.
P.S. Don't forget the Servitor buffs, cause we all know Cursed Man > Kai/etc. unbuffed and with buffs he'd own quite a bit - double crit rate and all... I wouldn't mind an archer servitor either, btw...
A polearming servitor (with mass-stun skill) would be nice too :p
Apologies for quasi-hijacking this thread....
Methinks they have to tread a fine line here, as Necros are meant to be the middle ground between a summoner and a nuker. They don't really need to nerf Necros, they should just be more logical about their development.
IMO, a hybrid class should never become more powerful than the pure class from which they are derived. Sure, give them a complement of skills from each class, but by all means, don't make them nearly as potent or effective.
And if hybrids are going to be as potent as the pure class, then either their XP/SP requirements, or the level at which same skills are learned (or both), should be adjusted accordingly.
But it's not about the general fascination with hybrid/pure DD etc.
Necros are very similar in every game. They are a mage class with summons, debuffs, and life drain capabilities that use dark magic. You can insert whatever moniker you wish to use to describe them, but the simple fact is that they are a mage class in vision and implementation.
Where NCSoft went wrong is making Damage Over Time virtually useless for PvE/PvP purposes, since that is where most games allow Necromancer class to excel. But since the DoTs are useless, the nukes must make up the deficit.
There is nothing wrong with Necro. Hybrid or not. It's just that PvP is not balanced in a way that would allow a class to face another with imba skills and still survive more than 1% of the time (like if an SH silences an EE, it's a dead EE, same for any other mage - and other skills like Abyss/Doom/Anchor/Fear/Arrest/Mana Burning, Trancing EEs/etc.
Necro is a mage class, and in L2 that equate to nuker. The vision of the class coincides with the abilities they were given, IMO. :) :) :)
Necro is a mage class, and in L2 that equate to nuker. The vision of the class coincides with the abilities they were given, IMO.
I see your point.
It's just that as far as human mages go, I see Sorcerors(ess) as the nuker (since they get no servitors after the 2nd class change), Warlocks as the Summoners (since they get no nukes post 2nd class change), and Necros as the hybrid between the two "pure" classes (since they get one nuke, as a result of their Dark orientation, and several servitors). I'll allow that this is a simplistic view, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's go with it.
Secondly, I am also viewing the above classes as analogous to 3 students of like aptitude whom were given a fixed amount of time to learn their disciplines. Student A decided to learn Political Science only. Student B chose to commit himself to Economics only. Student C opted to learn a little bit of both and undertook Political Economy as a discipline.
Given that you have a fixed amount of time (i.e., the XP/SP threshold) to master these disciplines, it stands to reason that at the end of that elapsed period, Student A would know much more about Political Science than Student B or C; Student B would be further along in his study of Economics than either Student A or C; Student C would probably know half as much as student A knows, and half as much as Student B knows, and while he would be more rounded in his core development, he wouldn't necessarily blow you away with his depth of knowledge of either discipline.
That, in a nutshell, is how I envision the Necro should work, although I freely concede that in L2, the Necro is more dominant than my vision of the class.
Yes, your observatiosn work well in the real world, but Aden is anything but. I've played at least 5 MMOs with Necromancer class in it and the class is similar in all of them. That is the reason why I always play this class - there is almost no learning curve as far as skills/spells are concerned, so I am able to get up to speed quickly.
Where NCSoft went wrong is when they made Damage Over Time spells effectively useless in PvE and PvP. This took away the niche that the Necromancer class is usually given in other games - they had no choice but to make it a nuker.
Necros using Dark spells has nothing to do with anything (other than the fact that they are a dark class by nature). All human nukers get only 1 element with which they can play :) Sorceror Fire and Necro Dark.
Necros pay for their versatilities with built-in limitations to their skills:
* Short Servitor Timer
* No Servitor Buffs
* Need Cursed Bones for Death Spike
* Vamp Claw MP Cost/Can't Crit/Drain Can be Resisted
* Dark Vortex Nerfed (Can Crit, Sucks compared to other Vortexes in General)
* No Surrender Skill (I would rather Surrender Darkness in place of Gloom, personally).
* Debuff Skill Ranges and Requirements (Short Range in General, Requiring Servitor Present AND near targets, Mass Slow draining HP at cast and having 500(!) Range)
Fortunately, the complexity of the class creates only two kinda of players, skilled and unskilled. There is no "mediocre" category like for example with Support classes.
Most of this is thanks to the L2 community, which encourages cookie-cutter nuker playstyles that just don't work as optimally for a versatile class like this one, but is awesome for classes like Sorceror, which has close to no utility. They don't encourage players to think outside of the box, either. Can't think of how many times I've been called stupid/etc. just because I recommend something that isn't "nuker" enough for other Necromancers.
Necro is very powerful in late game pvp. With the way things are, a skilled player, or by chance a player could beat some one 10 lvls or higher with a necro.
The thing is, now people realize that in open pvp you need resist dark buff, and the resist dark song, with them necro dmg falls dramatically.
The next problem is that people don't knwo how to keep necro mp up and stayed up, I could keep my Necro's MP above 50% at all times, and always nuke. it's about speed, some people think you go out nuke, nuke, nuke, till mp is gone, then try to btm back, but thats not how it works.
The one thing I always hated about necro is how poor the debuffs work. The land rate, and how Little they drop the other persons stats. Then there is the matter of Forget not working on players, while trick and switch works.
IMO gloom is fine, but not having surrender to dark is like wth, why not. however that fact is negated by dark vortex which gives surrender to dark effect. coupled with gloom makes for a rather deadly effect for 10 second.
Is Necro top of the class PvP, maybe in 1 on 1's, or small groups, but necro isn't better then a well played dagger, or CoV archer goup.
Well in fields it's a no brainer to keep your MP up above 50%, the MP herbs are so thx. I keep my SE parked at a safe spot and the only thing she's useless for is buffs because of it. I haven't leveled her since she dinged 56 (but I want to get her higher for Wild Magic, and higher levels of Concentration and VR).
I think the debuff problem is that they work like buffs (Ignore Weapon Masteries). Even though Weakness says Debuff is -23% P.Atk, it actually takes away about 15% (rough number) because it ignores weapon mastery-gained P.Atk.
Curse:Disease (-50% Heal Power) almost always lands, but I think that's only because it's Earth Magic. I've had good success with Weakness/Chaos also but Slow/Mass Slow is deplorable.
I tend to think Debuff Land rates are fine because Gloom is 900 Range and almost always lands (almost instant cast too), which greatly helps the land rate of the other debuffs.