Guild Wars 2

Before I start my list I need to make clear this is my personal opinion and the criteria used for this list is mostly how much they contribute to certain “Most used” builds.

At the end of my list I would like to point out some other issues that are generated by the nature of our proffesion’s structure.

Traits

Spite

1)Death’s Embrace(useless)

I dislike all the “On downed state” traits. The reason I am trying to build a strong character is that I don’t plan on getting downed and I try to avoid it by all costs.

Solution: Trait replacement

2)Death into Life(misplaced)

This trait belongs to the Blood line. The value of this trait would get a huge boost if it was in the blood line while it looks weak to Spite.

Solution: Boost to 10% + Swap with Blood to Power

3)Spiteful Retaliation(almost useless)

A 3 second retalliation when I enter death shroud is almost useless.

When into DS, the first thing you want to do is either Fear or Chill/Immobilize the opponent, which will make the Retal pretty useless.

Solution : give retal when you leave Death Shroud.

4)Siphoned Power(useless)
One of the worst traits in the game and it is grandmaster.
One might for 5 seconds when your health falls under 25% won’t help me kill my enemy any faster than I was before.
Most proffesions get a solid damage boost under a specific condition .
Solutions:
1)Swap with target the weak(see below)
2)% damage boost under a specific condition(when LF>10% would be an example)

Curses

1)Reaper’s precision(very weak)

A chance trait with a low yield.
This trait is weak by nature.
This trait needs either a chance or yield boost to gain any value.

Solution: Either boost chance to 100% on crit or keep it 33 with a 5% LF gain.

2)Target the weak(weak)

This trait looks both misplaced and weak. First day I saw Dhuumfire I was asking myself why it is where it is while it could replace Target the weak(in a weaker version).

Target the weak is a weak trait compared to any other grandmaster trait that boosts direct damage while the enemy has a condition on them.

Most of the time the enemy is going to have 2-4 conditions on them, which results in a 4-8 % damage boost and keep in mind that :

1)The result is <10% dmg boost most of the time.
2)This is not used by most direct damage builds but heavy condition ones.

Possible Solutions:
1)Boost it to 3% damage per condi, cap it to 12% and move it to Spite
2)Boost it to 5%, stays in curses and caps at 15% .

Death Magic(next post)

Death Magic

1)Reanimator(still weak)
The concept of having to kill something to get a Filler minion for a limited amount of time is weak.
Some possible solutions :
1)Remove the cooldown, remove self bleed, make the cap 5 horrors.
2)Give a chance to summon it on hit, keep a max cap and keep the bleeding.

2)Shrouded Removal(weak)
A passive trait with an active aspect.
The active aspect of this trait is too weak nobody will place their DS in cooldown for 1 condition. You will not use DS every 10 seconds in the first place so its worse than “remove 1 condition every 10 seconds” traits.

Possible solutions: Make it remove 1 condition every X seconds while in death shroud.
Making it 1 condition every 10 seconds has the potential to remove 2 conditions in 10 seconds, which is not too powerful but its fine for an adept trait.

Blood Magic

1)Blood to power(misplaced)
Just like Death into Life, this trait looks misplaced and weak for it’s place.

Possible Solution: Increase threshold to 80% and swap it with DiL

Soul Reaping

1)Gluttony(weak)
Very weak trait, with the maximum potential of boosting your LF gain by 1.5%(on spectral grasp). Most of the time you won’t even notice a diffrence.

Possible solutions:
1)Replace with a better trait
2)Boost to 20 or 30% . These percentages might look too big, but in reality they are just tiny mulipliers(1.2 or 1.3 of base LF generation)

2)Strength of the Undeath(doesn’t represent a Grand master trait, looks weak)

Most SR traits make you go into DS more often and spend your LF, which decreases the value of this trait.

Possible Solutions:
1)Boost damage increase to 10% with the same threshold + Swap with LG
2)Decrease Threshold + Swap with LG

I know some people will hate me for this I believe that Last Gasp should be swapped with (modified)Strength of the Undeath.

Last gasp is a very powerful trait and its justified to be a grandmaster, also moving SotU to master could potentialy help power builds not to get very deep in the SR line to be effective.

General observation .
The spite trait line has too many natures and it doesn’t look like it is representing the “Power line” for our proffesion.
Some examples is that through Spite line you can boost your: Power, Cond Dur. , Healing Power , Minion damage, Cond damage while at the same time boosting 3 diffrent weapons( Staff, Focus , Axe) and a utility group (Signets).

All these statistics and boosts make the Spite line “Multi-Colored” which doesn’t really focus on anything and thus creating a feeling that we lack a “Power Line”.

I believe that some trait mergings have to take place(Minion traits, DS traits, Staff traits) so that the lines get somewhat clear opening up space for more builds.

One example would be that players won’t have to focus on 3 lines to boost their minions and be able to add secondary purposes to their build, such as more condition options , or better support through other trait lines.

TL;DR: No TL;DR , I tried to keep it simple and clear.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Edited to make posts shorter.

Death into Life could be simply changed to convert power into vitality. It could synergize better with Death Shroud then.

For Siphoned Power, I was thinking about making it 50% hp trigger and make it steal up to 2-3 boons from enemies around.
As for Strenght of the Undeath… I think it’s good in general.

I were thinking about some trait synergizing with our boon removals, maybe for adept Blood or Death tree. Like, whenever you remove/corrupt a boon, gain Life Force/copy the boon/siphon health. It could raise the usefulness of Chill of Death major trait for Spite and Spinal Shivers ability for Focus, shifting meta maybe a little bit, making Focus more viable even for non-DS specs

A few of us already started a discussion about necro traitlines, so we can provide a survey with a lot of data for the balance team.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Traitworks

About your opinions. I agree with them, just a few thing.
Death into life want to be synergize with siphons imo, but the already bad scaling doesnt help, this tiny bonus is just for fluff. So move it, change it, whatever. Maybe, just maybe it can be a minor 25 in Blood magic and swap the conversion, so if you heavily invest into healing power, you can get a little extra oomph from the bonus power.
I agree with Target the weak, but the fact that it need 5 different conditions to give the same 10% bonus as other classes get by just one condi is bothering me to death. And usually that classes providing that condi (bleed, burning or anything) by themselves, but thats more of a PvE issue.

Thanks for pointing me there, I made my search before posting but I searched for the guide line [Necro] ^^
I will try to join the discussion there.

Spiteful retal, shrouded removal, target the weak are all fine as they are. There are plenty of others that are pretty rubbish.

Spiteful retal looks like the case of Companion’s defense to me.
Companion’s defense got changed because the way it worked was countering the way it was supposed to work in the first place.

When you get into DS you have access to an instant fear, a chill or possible teleport and an AoE immobilize, most of the enemies will try to ignore you or avoid your nuke while you are in DS, waiting to strike right after because DS is a strong meatshield.

Getting retal at the start rather than the end means most of the time this retal goes to waste, making it a pretty useless trait the way it works.

Shrouded removal is weak. It is weaker than these “remove 1 condition every 10 seconds” which I never liked. Even with 25 stacks of Confu I won’t get into DS to clean that 1 condition, I would rather try to kite or dodge away and use my DS to hurt my enemy. It could easily see a boost or any change.

Target the weak has the potential to boost your damage by 24%(enemy having every condition on them) but most of the time its lower than 10% and the big minus is that this trait is at the condition line. If necromancer were getting crit dmg + precision (making it a physical damage line) then target the weak would fit perfect. The boost right now even if maxed(24%) is ridiciously low as it only affect self and is not used by burst build in vast majority of the time.

There, I felt like I should analyze my thoughts.

Thats why you should pop into ds the second after they begin their burst.
As a necro its a given that 3-5 condis will be on your target at all times. While not optimal its certainly not bad.
I dont use shrouded removal. 1 condi every 7sec doesnt sound bad for an active tho. Thats after our other transfers/ heal.

Stand The Wall.6987:

As a necro its a given that 3-5 condis will be on your target at all times.

Very very very subjective statement.

I like Target the Weak. Yes it could be better, but I would rather they change Siphoned Power to a situational 10% damage boost. Strength of the Undead could be changed to 10% as well in my opinion.

My main gripe with Necro traits is Siphoned Power. It is in a power traitline yet you gain 0 damage from it, that is just ridiculous. I am very worried that it will never be changed to a % damage increase because in the Necro thread pre-Dec patch a Dev specifically stated they liked Siphoned Power.

As far as Death traits go, I actually like Shrouded Removal. I use it a lot to get rid of cripples, weakness, or single long duration conditions that are just keeping me in combat. I have 7 sec cd DS so I don’t feel like I am waisting my shroud cd, I dont want to waste my heal or Staff #4 on a single condition either.

I agree with you on all the others.

Siphoned power: gain 5 stacks of might (X second) after every 20% hp the enemy lost.

In PvE it would help to keep up with damage after the initial burst.
But in PvP if you manage to do a heavy burst against your opponent, it would be like put your whole arm into a meatgrinder. A bit OP. But something similar would go well with the concept of “the necro gain power as the fight goes longer”.

Nice thread. Necromancers have one of the worst trait lists, and making builds for Necros is often more about avoiding what sucks instead of taking what is good.

That said, I have my own $32.02 cents to add:

I actually find spiteful retaliation quite useful in PVP and WvW. I have it combined with weakening shroud, so if I am ever ambushed, I pop DS to absorb the burst. The combination of retaliation + weakness against a bunch of rapid attacks from a thief or a warrior is godsend, since even in my condi build retal hits for 340 damage a whack. So, when I get ambushed, I let them wail on me a bit while counterattacking with tainted shackles and life blast, and then follow up with a terror chain afterward.

That said, I’m not against a buff to the trait.

Siphoned Power gives you one stack of might every time you’re hit while you’re below 25% health; this trait doesn’t count your current life force as health, so you can get below 25% health and then go into death shroud and get hit a few times to get 25 stacks of might in seconds.

Shrouded Removal is fine; it can be used to break fears or immobilizes (especially useful when fighting thieves who use steal and then give you a 3+ second fear from their stolen ability).

The thing that really needs to be changed in the necromancer traits is the fact that the Power line has Condition Duration, and the Condition Damage line has Precision… The Precision should be in the Power line and the Condition Duration should be in the Condition Damage line.

Indeed siphoned power gives you one stack of might each time you are hit under 25% HP, but how many times you can get hit before dying?
Remember your health is < 25% which means time is running out.

You can’t really get anything close to 25 stacks of might from this trait, unless a naked thief unloads his pistols on you and you have maxed your life pool.
This trait has multiple issues, threshold is too low, duration is also too low , might is insufficient and lacking compared to any raw damage increase that almost all the other proffesions have.

My opinion on SR remains, it has very limited uses and the general concept of the skill is weak, remember in my original post I talk about how traits contribute to the biggest number of “decent” builds.

I completely agree with your last paragraph.

Caveth.3268:

The thing that really needs to be changed in the necromancer traits is the fact that the Power line has Condition Duration, and the Condition Damage line has Precision… The Precision should be in the Power line and the Condition Duration should be in the Condition Damage line.

Won’t happen. Every trait line is one major stat (Power, Precision, Vitality, Toughness, plus the class mechanic one) and one secondary stat (condition duration, condition damage, boon duration, healing power, crit damage). I feel the stat distribution on necro trait lines is just fine anyway.

As for weak traits, I am sad to not see Speed of Shadows or Quickening Thirst on your list.

I find it pretty unfair that half the proffesions can benefit from both precision + crit damage in one trait line while the other 4 can’t. I know nobody’s is same as the others but maybe it should.

The reason I did not incluse speed of shadows is because it is used in heavy DS builds quite a lot and QT pretty much the same, heavy burst dagger builds can benefit from it a lot, maybe it should be an adept.

natsos.3692:

I find it pretty unfair that half the proffesions can benefit from both precision + crit damage in one trait line while the other 4 can’t. I know nobody’s is same as the others but maybe it should.

The reason I did not incluse speed of shadows is because it is used in heavy DS builds quite a lot and QT pretty much the same, heavy burst dagger builds can benefit from it a lot, maybe it should be an adept.

Really? Speed of Shadows is highly outclassed by both Grandmasters, Near to Death, Unyielding Blast, and Vital Persistance for death shroud builds. It really is terrible.

Quickening Thirst is sometimes useful, but it’s still weak. Perhaps if they merged it with Dagger Mastery it would be a good minor (since most builds just use one dagger).

^ yup, I’m full DS and would never consider taking Speed of Shadows. Every other option is just better.

It’s bad enough that signet of the locust (passive +25% speed) doesn’t work in DS. It means you need to take a talent AND a signet to get +25% in both.

If we really have to have a speed-related talent there a much better option would be for speed of shadows to give swiftness. That way it would be useful for DS flashers too (i.e. dagger users could go in and out of DS quickly to get swiftness.)

I wish vampirism was truly viable.

natsos.3692:

Death Magic

1)Reanimator(still weak)
The concept of having to kill something to get a Filler minion for a limited amount of time is weak.
Some possible solutions :
1)Remove the cooldown, remove self bleed, make the cap 5 horrors.
2)Give a chance to summon it on hit, keep a max cap and keep the bleeding.

2)Shrouded Removal(weak)
A passive trait with an active aspect.
The active aspect of this trait is too weak nobody will place their DS in cooldown for 1 condition. You will not use DS every 10 seconds in the first place so its worse than “remove 1 condition every 10 seconds” traits.

Possible solutions: Make it remove 1 condition every X seconds while in death shroud.
Making it 1 condition every 10 seconds has the potential to remove 2 conditions in 10 seconds, which is not too powerful but its fine for an adept trait.

Blood Magic

1)Blood to power(misplaced)
Just like Death into Life, this trait looks misplaced and weak for it’s place.

Possible Solution: Increase threshold to 80% and swap it with DiL

Soul Reaping

1)Gluttony(weak)
Very weak trait, with the maximum potential of boosting your LF gain by 1.5%(on spectral grasp). Most of the time you won’t even notice a diffrence.

Possible solutions:
1)Replace with a better trait
2)Boost to 20 or 30% . These percentages might look too big, but in reality they are just tiny mulipliers(1.2 or 1.3 of base LF generation)

2)Strength of the Undeath(doesn’t represent a Grand master trait, looks weak)

Most SR traits make you go into DS more often and spend your LF, which decreases the value of this trait.

Possible Solutions:
1)Boost damage increase to 10% with the same threshold + Swap with LG
2)Decrease Threshold + Swap with LG

I know some people will hate me for this I believe that Last Gasp should be swapped with (modified)Strength of the Undeath.

Last gasp is a very powerful trait and its justified to be a grandmaster, also moving SotU to master could potentialy help power builds not to get very deep in the SR line to be effective.

General observation .
The spite trait line has too many natures and it doesn’t look like it is representing the “Power line” for our proffesion.
Some examples is that through Spite line you can boost your: Power, Cond Dur. , Healing Power , Minion damage, Cond damage while at the same time boosting 3 diffrent weapons( Staff, Focus , Axe) and a utility group (Signets).

All these statistics and boosts make the Spite line “Multi-Colored” which doesn’t really focus on anything and thus creating a feeling that we lack a “Power Line”.

I believe that some trait mergings have to take place(Minion traits, DS traits, Staff traits) so that the lines get somewhat clear opening up space for more builds.

One example would be that players won’t have to focus on 3 lines to boost their minions and be able to add secondary purposes to their build, such as more condition options , or better support through other trait lines.

TL;DR: No TL;DR , I tried to keep it simple and clear.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Edited to make posts shorter.

This should be obvious he is not speaking for "necromancer ", but “powermancer” .
He didn’t really go deep into the needs of other builds such as “minion builds” and “condition builds” nor the “well builds”, all he did is asking to buff his favourite power build. Thus Anet you might have to consider much more than him if you have the intetions to fix the class.

keloorie.6085:

This should be obvious he is not speaking for "necromancer ", but “powermancer” .
He didn’t really go deep into the needs of other builds such as “minion builds” and “condition builds” nor the “well builds”, all he did is asking to buff his favourite power build. Thus Anet you might have to consider much more than him if you have the intetions to fix the class.

I am indeed playing a powermancer(deep SR wells) and I am enjoying it a lot, it is very viable for WvW/PvE and I will keep playing it since I dislike condition builds.
In terms of PvP I usually bunker or MM .

The reason I did not go into more details is, first of all because I am not talking about builds. This thread is about traits.
This is a list of weak and/or useless traits that fits on my personal opinion and nothing more.

The balance has been focused around condition retaled traits for many months now and some attention should be given to every other trait type to start creating viable builds outside of the Condition necro bubble(mostly SPvP related).

I did speak about minions , vampiric ,LF , spectral and condition traits.

Now of course builds like Vampiric or MM lack compared to heavy condi focused or common wells builds but the related traits seem balanced to me.

The obvious problem with minions is how they behave and probably they need a stat tunning.

Vampiric builds are crippled by the ICD and mostly the ICD that is not related to traits , like sigils , runes , food or utilities (see Vamp Signet) .

DS focused builds are also taking a hit from the ICD on utilities like SA & SW.

If you want to take it deeper into the builds, please make a topic about builds , this is a topic about traits and if you feel what I wrote is faulse please explain further like others did.