I hate to be that person but I have and always will dislike the idea of a power based necromancer. The class was supposed to be an attrition based class. If I wanted a power based class id use my thief or a warrior (nvr using a warrior). I understand the meta currently loves zerkers an I hate t for that reason as it makes every class want to have some power based build but I loved the classes for what they were tbh. The same way in which I’ll probably never make my thief a condition thief, I’ll never use a powermancer
For one, your suggestion makes no sense. Life Siphon is a channeled skill, just like Life Transfer. It’s just single target and heals you instead of PBAoE and restores life force.
Two, Life Siphon may need a small numbers boost, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not supposed to heal half of your health, it’s supposed to be a little kicker, so maybe you can afford that extra second or two before hitting your heal.
Plus, when you say “Please leave negative comments to yourself”, you are saying that you don’t actually want discussion, you want agreement.
Drarnor has the right of it. It’s fine. The key is that you do damage while getting life back. Even if you take all of the heal in damage during the channel, you basically negated that damage by channeling, while doing damage to the target.
Plus, it continues to channel when the target moves behind you, which means it channels more reliably against a stealthed target, and it means you can trigger it then turn and move forward at full movespeed instead of strafing and losing ground.
I’ve been working on incorporating it more into my repertoire as I think it’s strong already. I wouldn’t mind a bump in the numbers, though the long cast time synergizes well with Dark Armor for a boost in reduction while channeling.
Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Actually there are pretty good powerbuilds out there for necromancer.
Life siphon on dagger ain’t more then another utilitie skill.
I don’t see any issue about this one.
As for the name of “attrition”, for me it’s more about “hindering” your foe then killing it with condition damage. And yes i think we lack a bit of hindering skills and are a bit to much over time damage focused. It would be wonderfull if we were trully master in cripple/root/chill which would be our trad of for our low mobility. Sadely we are not because people want more damage over time (And for these people dhuumfire has been created and parasitic contagion is about to come)
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Actually there are pretty good powerbuilds out there for necromancer.
Life siphon on dagger ain’t more then another utilitie skill.
I don’t see any issue about this one.
As for the name of “attrition”, for me it’s more about “hindering” your foe then killing it with condition damage. And yes i think we lack a bit of hindering skills and are a bit to much over time damage focused. It would be wonderfull if we were trully master in cripple/root/chill which would be our trad of for our low mobility. Sadely we are not because people want more damage over time (And for these people dhuumfire has been created and parasitic contagion is about to come)
I agree although people associate attrition with conditions however I meant actually wearing your for down to death via conditions or perhaps even debuffs to prevent them from doing much
I’ve never liked Condi Necro and pretty much only play Power and Hybrid.
Life Siphon is pretty bad.
It’s a weaker version of Ghastly Claws that takes longer to channel.
It heals for almost nothing and the damage is average at best.
And in PvP people just interrupt you or dodge it.
The only thing it’s really good for is hitting a Thief just before they stealth to escape.
The channeling continues even if the target Stealths, and so it sometimes deals the killing blow.
In GW1’s Jade quarry Necro’s attrition style actually worked rather nicely, at least for a while.
I remember running a Blood Magic build that very slowly leeched my opponents to death while constantly healed me at a significant rate.
It was very powerful 1vs1 but very weak if there were Monks around.
The reason “attrition” just doesn’t work nearly as well in GW2 is that everyone has a healing skill and is capable of outrunning a Necromancer.
In Jade Quarry you could wear down people slowly because most of them they couldn’t heal themselves in combat and very few ran a ton of mobility.
Necromancer’s Blood Magic skills don’t really heal nearly enough to make such a playstyle possible.
I hate to be that person but I have and always will dislike the idea of a power based necromancer. The class was supposed to be an attrition based class. If I wanted a power based class id use my thief or a warrior (nvr using a warrior). I understand the meta currently loves zerkers an I hate t for that reason as it makes every class want to have some power based build but I loved the classes for what they were tbh. The same way in which I’ll probably never make my thief a condition thief, I’ll never use a powermancer
For one, your suggestion makes no sense. Life Siphon is a channeled skill, just like Life Transfer. It’s just single target and heals you instead of PBAoE and restores life force.
Two, Life Siphon may need a small numbers boost, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not supposed to heal half of your health, it’s supposed to be a little kicker, so maybe you can afford that extra second or two before hitting your heal.
Plus, when you say “Please leave negative comments to yourself”, you are saying that you don’t actually want discussion, you want agreement.
No, I am saying that I don’t want NEGATIVE COMMENTS.
There is a difference between being a troll and constructive criticism.
And I didn’t ask for a boost in the heal, read my thread again.
Seems like you skimmed through it and all you read was “necro op, no buffs needed”
Drarnor has the right of it. It’s fine. The key is that you do damage while getting life back. Even if you take all of the heal in damage during the channel, you basically negated that damage by channeling, while doing damage to the target.
Plus, it continues to channel when the target moves behind you, which means it channels more reliably against a stealthed target, and it means you can trigger it then turn and move forward at full movespeed instead of strafing and losing ground.
I’ve been working on incorporating it more into my repertoire as I think it’s strong already. I wouldn’t mind a bump in the numbers, though the long cast time synergizes well with Dark Armor for a boost in reduction while channeling.
I’m not asking for a bigger heal, I’m asking for it to be channeled the same way as Life Transfer just with no AoE.
For one, your suggestion makes no sense. Life Siphon is a channeled skill, just like Life Transfer. It’s just single target and heals you instead of PBAoE and restores life force.
Two, Life Siphon may need a small numbers boost, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not supposed to heal half of your health, it’s supposed to be a little kicker, so maybe you can afford that extra second or two before hitting your heal.
Plus, when you say “Please leave negative comments to yourself”, you are saying that you don’t actually want discussion, you want agreement.
No, I am saying that I don’t want NEGATIVE COMMENTS.
There is a difference between being a troll and constructive criticism.
And I didn’t ask for a boost in the heal, read my thread again.
Seems like you skimmed through it and all you read was “necro op, no buffs needed”
Seems like you paid no attention to what I said either. Or my signature.
1. Your only suggestion (make it a channel) was implemented back in alpha. Congrats!
2. Boosting the healing would make it so you might actually gain some health out of it during its channel instead of basically freezing your health bar in PvE, and slowing down its depletion in WvW/PvP.
My problem with this skill is that the heal doesn’t do anything when just about any class will out damage the heal over the course of the skill. Also, main hand dagger as a whole needs to have something that complements the speedy auto and this doesn’t fit it. The auto-attack is fast and deals a lot of damage. This skill is slow deals way less damage than the auto in it’s 3.5 second cast time, and isn’t in melee range. It should be a 3/4 second cast melee attack that steals health from up to 3 allies in the area. That way it becomes quick, which it needs to be in melee combat.
I also have massive issues with Dark Pact because it is a much, much weaker version of pin down. Same cooldown, longer cast time, doesn’t pierce, shorter range, and doesn’t stack bleeds. How is a melee necro supposed to complete when main hand dagger’s synergy is non-existant. Necros have one skill that is less than 600 range in the game and that is the dagger auto attack. Make the whole weapon melee range, then make it cleave. Then maybe we will have a more viable front line WvW power build to go with our massive health pool, aoe blinds, and death shroud.
EDIT:(forgot about warhorn as far as below 600 range, but still no high damaging single target melee options)
Necros don’t have reflects, invulns, vigor, blocks,
extra dodges, real stability, mobility skills,
burst skills, sustain, or good support. GG ANET.
My problem with this skill is that the heal doesn’t do anything when just about any class will out damage the heal over the course of the skill. Also, main hand dagger as a whole needs to have something that complements the speedy auto and this doesn’t fit it. The auto-attack is fast and deals a lot of damage. This skill is slow deals way less damage than the auto in it’s 3.5 second cast time, and isn’t in melee range. It should be a 3/4 second cast melee attack that steals health from up to 3 allies in the area. That way it becomes quick, which it needs to be in melee combat.
I also have massive issues with Dark Pact because it is a much, much weaker version of pin down. Same cooldown, longer cast time, doesn’t pierce, shorter range, and doesn’t stack bleeds. How is a melee necro supposed to complete when main hand dagger’s synergy is non-existant. Necros have one skill that is less than 600 range in the game and that is the dagger auto attack. Make the whole weapon melee range, then make it cleave. Then maybe we will have a more viable front line WvW power build to go with our massive health pool, aoe blinds, and death shroud.
EDIT:(forgot about warhorn as far as below 600 range, but still no high damaging single target melee options)
you make good points, the dagger really does need some more attention
The dagger could use some loving for a pure power build, but it is the ideal weapon for a lifesteal build. Very fast attack rate for auto attack, immob for skill 3, and then the life siphon. It scales actually quite well with healing power and if you are traited to steal life on hit and on crit, then with the improved life stealing trait, you can get some impressive damage and healing. Add some clerics gear into the mix and you will notice a difference. On my life steal build, I normally heal 7-9k health from life siphon, and I have 700 healing power.
Obertus [ERP]
The saga of your life is a summation of the choices you make.
The skill being ‘easily avoidable’ is arguable. It’s got an obvious animation, so it’s easy to dodge… But if someone goes out of their way to dodge enough to avoid all of the life drain, that’s really, really good.
The skill’s long cast time doesn’t make much sense as a complaint. It’s a weapon skill, not a heal skill; it’s not intended to replace your 6-slot heal. Even then, it does put out pretty solid healing; with Vampirism and Bloodthirst, it can give you something like 4k worth of healing per cast.
It’s been brought up before; what is “the same way” as Life Transfer? The only difference is that one is single target and one is AOE; they are otherwise almost identical. If it were an AOE skill, that’d be some pretty insane healing, which would need it to be scaled down… And then the skill would be useless when draining from a single target, a bit like how Locust Signet’s active effect isn’t really very useful in a 1v1 fight atm.
Power necros have bigger problems than Life Siphon.
The dagger could use some loving for a pure power build, but it is the ideal weapon for a lifesteal build. Very fast attack rate for auto attack, immob for skill 3, and then the life siphon. It scales actually quite well with healing power and if you are traited to steal life on hit and on crit, then with the improved life stealing trait, you can get some impressive damage and healing. Add some clerics gear into the mix and you will notice a difference. On my life steal build, I normally heal 7-9k health from life siphon, and I have 700 healing power.
in what universe do you get a 9k heal from a weapon skill?
I usually use life siphon while I’m repositioning since it allows me to attack with a dagger from a bit of a distance. Since it hits multiple times it can also be useful with other life stealing traits, sigils, or consumables.
One thing I thought they could do with this to make a it a bit more interesting is to suck a bit of endurance out of the enemy with each pulse along with the health. Not a ton of endurance… maybe like 15-20% of the entire endurance bar. That allows you to further debilitate your enemy while also giving you a slightly stronger ability to dodge while you wade into melee for those dagger stabs.
I don’t think shortening the channel time to be more like ghastly claws is a bad idea either though, although they might have to reduce the number of pulses (just making each pulse stronger).
