Guild Wars 2

It is known that there are plans to buff this traitline for necromancers. Blood magic with dagger mainhand is just another 111 spamming build. After a buff it will could be the next spirit ranger probably with some minions.

What if some dagger skill along with some utility skills would cost HP to cast? Blood traitline gives you some lifesteal throught attacking – this would bring some cost/risk thing, with actually putting your own HP to the burst/setup. (inspired by GW1)

Thoughts?

Useful skills should always have a risk! So sure.

Too early to call blood necros OP.
They have already made a few attempts to make Blood Magic better, but it is still never used.

What makes you think that the next balance patch will change something?

‘cost’ = being the only melee with no escape, why bother adding HP costs

Ehmmm ANY dagger/x necro is a “111 spam” build. :P
Its because our best /only “burst” is called autoatacks. And it is the only designed AA-build because the class necro counter is to play CC-ping-pong or slowpoke-kite them. If u dont, u lose the atrition war due to LF regen.

Im fully for removing the skilles burn-procs on scepter (and on engies) , but siphoning will hardly ever be OP, because necro survival is like power ranger – split into parts (Healing power , Life force for DS , Siphons ).

wait, are you already asking for a nerf even before the spec is any good?

There is no way blood necro will be the next spirit ranger unless they get incredibly ridiculous, which I trust they won’t.

Siphon necros have no escape of any kind except for utility skills, and even only 2 at that, and both of them very counterable.

Want to deal with a siphon necro? CC warrior.

So you are telling me it’s hard to escape from a spirit ranger. It’s normally not. Still OP.

I don’t know how hard the rework of the blood traitline and mostly vampiric mechanics will affect the necromancer, but this would be interesting even as any kind of necromancer. To actually pay a price for a greater goal and don’t just spam spam spam.

If dagger mainhand attacks have an HP cost associated with them, they need built-in life drain to compensate for it, otherwise they’re FORCED into dealing damage to themselves for no reason unless specc’d into vampiric traits, which is extremely limiting. IF you were to give dagger attacks HP cost, I’d make it a trait that ALSO makes all mainhand dagger attacks AoE. This, to me, would offset the HP cost, even if you didn’t go vampiric.

That having been said, I still don’t like the idea of HP cost on dagger attacks. I just think that’s how it should be done IF they were to be done that way. Being really slow and having really limited escape mechanisms in melee is enough of a hindrance, imo.

Manijin.3428:

If dagger mainhand attacks have an HP cost associated with them, they need built-in life drain to compensate for it, otherwise they’re FORCED into dealing damage to themselves for no reason unless specc’d into vampiric traits, which is extremely limiting. IF you were to give dagger attacks HP cost, I’d make it a trait that ALSO makes all mainhand dagger attacks AoE. This, to me, would offset the HP cost, even if you didn’t go vampiric.

That having been said, I still don’t like the idea of HP cost on dagger attacks. I just think that’s how it should be done IF they were to be done that way. Being really slow and having really limited escape mechanisms in melee is enough of a hindrance, imo.

Not on autoattack.. but on the immobilize for example and the wells.

Why? I mean, I don’t mean to sound rude, so forgive me if I’m doing PRECISELY that, but why would you add a HP cost to it? If the immob misses, then your punishment is wasting a useful utility and time where you could have been doing some else. If you miss AND lose HP for it, then one of two things needs to happen: 1) The cooldown needs to be reduced, or 2) The immobilize duration needs to be longer. If you are penalized harder than other classes for a utility effect, it needs to be more powerful to compensate. If you’re looking for an example of this within the Necro class, why not look at Blood is Power? Powerful effect, long duration, but with a health cost in the form of bleed stacks; but the key here is the effect-to-cost ratio. Abilities, in their current state, wouldn’t have that power/effect ratio needed if a HP cost were added without increasing their effectiveness, which means their effectiveness would need to be buffed in order to compensate for increased risk to the Necro.

Even if they overbuff the Blood Magic traitline, it won’t change the actual necro situation for a simple reason.

The only for of damage mitigation on Necros is Death Shroud. Death Shroud prevents healing.

The blood magic traitline will be always underpowered unless they fix this huge disinergy.

azuzephyr.7280:

‘cost’ = being the only melee with no escape, why bother adding HP costs

The only melee with no escape? facepalm

jportell.2197:

The only melee with no escape? facepalm

What other melee has 1 way to get out of the fight (besides pressing W), with no ways besides our two dodges to avoid damage?

Thieves, Eles, Mesmers, Warriors, Rangers, and Engineers all have better and more reliable ways to escape. The one except is Guardian, who is our “sister” class in many respects.