Did you know Blood Fiend also scales with Bloodthirst? Did you know the aftercast on the Signet means you cannot claim more than 4 stacks unless you already have Locust Swarm/WoS/WoC running and hitting your target? Did you know the health/second and DPS from the minion are higher than the signet? Even after armor and protection mitigation, it still has better damage than the mere armor ignoring 26.66 DPS you get from the traited signet. Yes, it really is that low (200 damage/stack, 4 stacks claimed, 28 second cooldown, 1.25 second cast, .75 second aftercast delay for 30 seconds total between uses. 800/30=26.66). The Fiend deals triple that amount with no traits.
And you can never have too many condition removals.
As an aside, both Consume Conditions and Blood Fiend are better against CC-heavy opponents. Consume Conditions because you only have to avoid CC for its cast and not 5 seconds after, Blood Fiend because it doesn’t care what CC gets thrown on you.
You really can’t even build around the signet. The ICD’s kill any potential use it has outside of massive boss event or against flat-out terrible players. Even for its supposed “party support” role, it gets way outdone by Well of Blood,which heals for far more and can be traited to do more than just healing.
I know those facts, and I still find SoV a lot more useful, for the way i play my build. SoV Active damage portion hits for 341 for me, and heals for 568 per strike. it’ll only hit for 200ish if you’re running a build with tons of condition damage with little to no power. And I use most of the lifesteal stuff in my build: Lifesteal Food, Blood Sigil, Leeching stack on heal, SoV active. So I’m not completely reliant on the heal skill to keep me up
The way SoV works for me promotes more okittengressive play style. Comparing Blood Fiend to SoV, Blood Fiend is passive play, and the 900-1000 every 3 sec isn’t anything to to go wow about. If it dies you’re out of a heal for 20s. If you even run Blood Fiend outside of a MM build, you’re setting yourself up for failure by not taking CC.
Well of Blood makes you stationary and again promotes a passive defensive play, which isn’t good for the way my build is played. Plus it would require me to take Wells Reduced cd to not make the CD suck, and 10 in Death magic if I want to slap on a pitiful 3s of protection on well use and a useless minor trait for creating jagged horrors. Traits and Slots that could be used for other useful things.
CC- Good alternate heal if i just want to use it for anti conditions, but requires me to get loaded with conditions if i want to make full use of the heal.
BF-Useless and bad outside of MM Build,
WoB- Good when traited for reduced CD, but makes me stationary if i was to get the most use out of it, and requires allies to stand in the well to get benefit of the skill.
SoV- Good for my build, bad for all the other, promotes a aggressive play on my part,
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/
Just look at the base values pls.
Even if you heal that much with the active, due to the higher CD of the signet it’s still a hp/s loss.
CC is an overall good heal, even without conditions.
But you can’t be convinienced, roll with signet.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/
Just look at the base values pls.
Even if you heal that much with the active, due to the higher CD of the signet it’s still a hp/s loss.
CC is an overall good heal, even without conditions.
But you can’t be convinienced, roll with signet.
Again, in actual play/combat, it’s better then it appears, the heal is fine for me because it’s not my only source of gaining health back. I’ve been rolling signet for a while now and brought it into duels. The only problems I have are against Thieves and Mesmers zerkers, and some variations of Ele, everything else I can beat with ease with smart play. it has damage utility, light team support, and leech. Let it be clear the build I run is built for roaming/dueling in WvW.
A blood/vamp necro in general in this game is very limited , i was excited like you all with the signet in the beginning… however leeching on hit or from hit does not gain more leech with healing power only activating it does. I’m glad someone posted a complaint about this silly healing skill. I would very much like Blood Renewal from GW1 to be brought into GW2 instead of this vamp sig.
Blood Renewal(GW1)-
Enchantment Spell. For 7 seconds, you gain +3…5…6 Health regeneration. When Blood Renewal ends, you gain 40…160…190 Health.
of course scaled into gw2 maybe like…
Blood Renewal – Gain Blood Renewal Buff gains 1% HP regen. When Buff ends, gain ~4-5k- ish HP, 1/4 cast time , 30 sec CD. Going Death Shroud while buff is activated will cancel this effect.
Idea for leeching in general (dagger and vamp sig) – give necros with healing power integrated.. and can nerf how much the activation healing it gives by giving us weakness or something if used.
Vampire Sig complaint- the cast time is kittened. being a vamp build in this game , trying to activate the signet and you miss, “Miss” cool down on the signet and die because you do not have a self casted heal. The healing skill is crap. The leech does nothing much and the activation can be dodged. so someone could kill you easily just by dodging your vamp sig.
The idea i got from gw1 is that a necro has masochistic strategies especially with signets. self inflict to inflict on others.
(edited by Narei.1643)
I think the problem with siphoning in general is that ANet keeps holding on to the idea of siphon damage being “omni” damage, in that no defence or reduction works against it.
While interesting as a concept, the problem with WvW doors and some bosses keeps the damage very low.
It’d be much better to make siphon damage (not healing!) subject to damage reductions, and buff it in return.
siphon/leech is always iffy, as it makes the attacker stronger at the expense of the defender. This means that the defender has to not only go through the attackers original health, but also his own depending on how much he gets hit.
Usually this is balanced by the attacker having little else to go on for healing. But that is not the case for GW2.
Never mind that the necromancer also have Death Shroud to fall back on. I think there is a thread on the necro forum demonstrating that DS can be quite effective if played more like a block/dodge ability (pop DS to absorb a incoming hit, and instantly drop it again). but that was done while DS would still absorb the full damage of a hit that would take it below 0%.
A blood/vamp necro in general in this game is very limited , i was excited like you all with the signet in the beginning… however leeching on hit or from hit does not gain more leech with healing power only activating it does. I’m glad someone posted a complaint about this silly healing skill. I would very much like Blood Renewal from GW1 to be brought into GW2 instead of this vamp sig.
Blood Renewal(GW1)-
Enchantment Spell. For 7 seconds, you gain +3…5…6 Health regeneration. When Blood Renewal ends, you gain 40…160…190 Health.of course scaled into gw2 maybe like…
Blood Renewal – Gain Blood Renewal Buff gains 1% HP regen. When Buff ends, gain ~4-5k- ish HP, 1/4 cast time , 30 sec CD. Going Death Shroud while buff is activated will cancel this effect.
Idea for leeching in general (dagger and vamp sig) – give necros with healing power integrated.. and can nerf how much the activation healing it gives by giving us weakness or something if used.
Vampire Sig complaint- the cast time is kittened. being a vamp build in this game , trying to activate the signet and you miss, “Miss” cool down on the signet and die because you do not have a self casted heal. The healing skill is crap. The leech does nothing much and the activation can be dodged. so someone could kill you easily just by dodging your vamp sig.
The idea i got from gw1 is that a necro has masochistic strategies especially with signets. self inflict to inflict on others.
You still get the heal, but if they dodge it they won’t get the mark over their head. for you to siphon more health. if you’re solely relying on Signet of Vamprisim for your only source of healing, then yes it blows chunks, and you’re better off with CC.
siphon/leech is always iffy, as it makes the attacker stronger at the expense of the defender. This means that the defender has to not only go through the attackers original health, but also his own depending on how much he gets hit.
Usually this is balanced by the attacker having little else to go on for healing. But that is not the case for GW2.
Never mind that the necromancer also have Death Shroud to fall back on. I think there is a thread on the necro forum demonstrating that DS can be quite effective if played more like a block/dodge ability (pop DS to absorb a incoming hit, and instantly drop it again). but that was done while DS would still absorb the full damage of a hit that would take it below 0%.
That idea goes to custard when you have multiple people on you though – DS vanishes under focus fire – that’s why many consider it sub-standard to invulnerabilities and blocks… plus you also get locked out of your heal and all utility skills for 2 seconds after exiting deathshroud (only happens some of the time though, not sure what triggers it).
siphon/leech is always iffy, as it makes the attacker stronger at the expense of the defender. This means that the defender has to not only go through the attackers original health, but also his own depending on how much he gets hit.
Usually this is balanced by the attacker having little else to go on for healing. But that is not the case for GW2.
Never mind that the necromancer also have Death Shroud to fall back on. I think there is a thread on the necro forum demonstrating that DS can be quite effective if played more like a block/dodge ability (pop DS to absorb a incoming hit, and instantly drop it again). but that was done while DS would still absorb the full damage of a hit that would take it below 0%.
That idea goes to custard when you have multiple people on you though – DS vanishes under focus fire – that’s why many consider it sub-standard to invulnerabilities and blocks… plus you also get locked out of your heal and all utility skills for 2 seconds after exiting deathshroud (only happens some of the time though, not sure what triggers it).
Testing seems to indicate that the skill lock happens when DS is reduced below zero from damage, rather than the player existing early.
And my understanding is that DS got a late beta nerf because someone managed to bunker a point against a determined onslaught by the other team. This likely done via a build similar to the Mindx attrition build (the same one i mentioned in passing further up).
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Attrition-PvP-Spectral-Build-Video/
This all feeds into my suspicion that the balance team is preoccupied with nerfing corner cases rather than taking a big picture look at what is going on.
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