Guild Wars 2

I think that Life Stealing is held back because it ignores armor.

If Arenanet removed it’s ability to ignore armor they could make the numbers bigger without horribly breaking things.

You already saw what happened when Necros could apply Vampiric Signet to doors in WvW. :P
The worst healing skill in the game was suddenly found overpowered.

They are also probably afraid of making Necro too hard to kill, as before launch there was a time where Necros were nearly invincible.

In the same way Anet mentioned that they were afraid of buffing Warriors (back when they sucked) because just a few tweaks make them go from UP to OP.

I don’t see Dark Path becoming a Leap/ground teleport, because anything added to Death Shroud is a tool for every Necro build with no trade-offs.

While it’d be fine in PvE and probably WvW, too, it would be overpowered for Condi Necros in sPvP.
It’d be almost like getting Mesmer’s blink without using up an Utility slot.

That’s why I think that making the Necro take up a less favored weapon or Utility skill would be more balanced.

Even just reducing Flesh Wurm’s cast time to 3/4s would give Necros a way to play a mobility build, if they wanted to.

Making Tainted Shackles an AoE pull is something I’ve thought about, too!
It would go great together with Wells and Dagger and fit Necromancer’s role as a Control Profession as well.

The underwater AoE pull is great fun and I’d love to have it on ground.

Guardians have a similar skill on Greatsword, and it’s great fun.

The main problem for life siphon is, like always, death shroud. It simply doesnt work in deathshroud. So why trait in blood magic if it is useless a good amount of time…

Before they change anything they should finally fix deathshoud. That mechanic has so many problems it is not nice anymore and i really like the idea behind deathshroud. We even cannot go though portals while in ds for gods sake…

I don’t know whether it’s been mentioned or not but the first two Death Magic minors need to be thrown into a furnace.

IT’s been said but Spectral Grasp should be like the scarecrow teleport from Lunatic Inquisition.

I dont kittening know. Halfway through posting I thought I was full of kitten but I put it up anyways. I’m going to drop it because I dont care anymore.

IMO if life siphon is gonna be a huge pita to make useful in all game modes, they should just scrap siphoning altogether and just give us replacement abilities suited to an attrition class.

Things such as the ability to heal (regen at least) while in DS, or % damage reduction based upon vitality don’t sound to outrageous to me considering we won’t be getting any new type of movement abilities for the class (save norns that is).

Tbh Necros are already scary when you’re a melee based character, or a condition spam engineer(Condition flips). Giving them mobility or a bag full of stability would be over the top. I’d agree with maybe one or two skills giving short term mobility (3-4 sec). ecro already has great boon contol, and has a crap ton of control effects, and condition transfers. necro might not be mobile, but can be dangerous if you face a well built/ well played one(unless you’re a well played warrior running zerkerstance, melandru runes, and lemongrass food).

Also Life leech is powerful(I run a build around leeching), it’s just not OP, where people can face roll heal and win. And Healing through Death shourd would be nice, I would prefer at least 10%-20% maximum to allow healing in Death Shroud. necros are great, just need to explore more into it more. Faceroll Condition builds are the norm when facing stance hammer warriors who are equally faceroll with hammer or mace.

Lucentfir.7430:

Tbh Necros are already scary when you’re a melee based character a condition spam engineer. Giving them mobility or a bag full of stability would be over the top. I’d agree with maybe one or two skills giving short term mobility (3-4 sec). ecro already has great boon contol, and has a crap ton of control effects, and condition transfers. necro might not be mobile, but it’s dangerous if you face a well built/ well played one(unless you’re a well played warrior running zerkerstance, melandru runes, and lemongrass food).

Also Life leech is powerful(I run a build around leeching), it’s just not OP, where people can face roll heal and win. And Healing through Death shourd would be nice, I would prefer at least 10%-20% maximum to allow healing in Death Shroud. necros are great, just need to explore more into it more. Faceroll Condition builds are the norm when facing stance hammer warriors who are equally faceroll with hammer or mace.

Only melee necros need probably a better mobility but saying life leech is powerful is a bad joke. Until they allow the life leech traits to work in ds (well technically they work but you dont get the heals) , they will continue to suck and even then, i am not sure if it will be enough.
I mean what kind of game design is it that allows one class mechanic to negate a other more ore less class mechanic…

And since when are condi engies melee based?

Lucentfir.7430:

Tbh Necros are already scary when you’re a melee based character a condition spam engineer. Giving them mobility or a bag full of stability would be over the top. I’d agree with maybe one or two skills giving short term mobility (3-4 sec). ecro already has great boon contol, and has a crap ton of control effects, and condition transfers. necro might not be mobile, but it’s dangerous if you face a well built/ well played one(unless you’re a well played warrior running zerkerstance, melandru runes, and lemongrass food).

Also Life leech is powerful(I run a build around leeching), it’s just not OP, where people can face roll heal and win. And Healing through Death shourd would be nice, I would prefer at least 10%-20% maximum to allow healing in Death Shroud. necros are great, just need to explore more into it more. Faceroll Condition builds are the norm when facing stance hammer warriors who are equally faceroll with hammer or mace.

I don’t think one movement skill is going to put necros anywhere close to warriors, or thieves.

Your second point shows how little knowledge you have about the class. Life steel is blatantly terrible. Vampiric and Vampiric precision are literally 80 health per second for hitting a foe. That means you must be actively putting yourself in harms way to do 80 damage per second. Two complete tanks, with zero stats in power would do more damage than that to you.

zapv.8051:

Lucentfir.7430:

Tbh Necros are already scary when you’re a melee based character a condition spam engineer. Giving them mobility or a bag full of stability would be over the top. I’d agree with maybe one or two skills giving short term mobility (3-4 sec). ecro already has great boon contol, and has a crap ton of control effects, and condition transfers. necro might not be mobile, but it’s dangerous if you face a well built/ well played one(unless you’re a well played warrior running zerkerstance, melandru runes, and lemongrass food).

Also Life leech is powerful(I run a build around leeching), it’s just not OP, where people can face roll heal and win. And Healing through Death shourd would be nice, I would prefer at least 10%-20% maximum to allow healing in Death Shroud. necros are great, just need to explore more into it more. Faceroll Condition builds are the norm when facing stance hammer warriors who are equally faceroll with hammer or mace.

I don’t think one movement skill is going to put necros anywhere close to warriors, or thieves.

Your second point shows how little knowledge you have about the class. Life steel is blatantly terrible. Vampiric and Vampiric precision are literally 80 health per second for hitting a foe. That means you must be actively putting yourself in harms way to do 80 damage per second. Two complete tanks, with zero stats in power would do more damage than that to you.

First bolded why are you using theives as a basis mobility, when THeives are supposed to be slippery, and warriors are mobile melee tanks(Atm with GS). If you want mobility lose it’d be only fair to take away some of the soft CC necros possess to balance it out.

Life leech by Itself is blantly terrible true, but if there’s one thing I’ve known in this game, it’s that you have to combine and mix things. the all the little things add up to make a big impact. Life leech would be way too strong if they buffed it significantly, since it ignores armor and protection, and gives you the benefit of heal for the damage caused.

Second bolded, you’re kinda unclear here, not making a lot of sense. I’ve tested my build and it works splendidly, in a bunch of duels, and Necro’s main weakness is CC chain(Warrior is the culprit with hammer and/or mace/shield), and at least for me, Zerker phantasm mesmers to a certain extent. I’d say you’re ignorant though, i don’t know how much exploring you’ve done, but I know i’ve explored and tested a lot of runes, sigils, gear and trait setups, to get a good build of life leech for me. Also i recall seeing Chapman’s post playing a Leech necro, not sure what game mode, but he probabaly has found something that works nicely for him like I have :P

Muchacho.2390:

Lucentfir.7430:

Tbh Necros are already scary when you’re a melee based character a condition spam engineer. Giving them mobility or a bag full of stability would be over the top. I’d agree with maybe one or two skills giving short term mobility (3-4 sec). ecro already has great boon contol, and has a crap ton of control effects, and condition transfers. necro might not be mobile, but it’s dangerous if you face a well built/ well played one(unless you’re a well played warrior running zerkerstance, melandru runes, and lemongrass food).

Also Life leech is powerful(I run a build around leeching), it’s just not OP, where people can face roll heal and win. And Healing through Death shourd would be nice, I would prefer at least 10%-20% maximum to allow healing in Death Shroud. necros are great, just need to explore more into it more. Faceroll Condition builds are the norm when facing stance hammer warriors who are equally faceroll with hammer or mace.

Only melee necros need probably a better mobility but saying life leech is powerful is a bad joke. Until they allow the life leech traits to work in ds (well technically they work but you dont get the heals) , they will continue to suck and even then, i am not sure if it will be enough.
I mean what kind of game design is it that allows one class mechanic to negate a other more ore less class mechanic…

And since when are condi engies melee based?

That’s a typo, going to fix it up. Also it is powerful, if you mix it with other things, but by itself nope.

The problem with life stealing right now is that every siphon that’s any good is rune, food, or sigil based and the ones necros actually get are downright terrible. Thus, any “siphon” build you can do with a necro, you can do at 99.5% or higher efficiency with any class at all. And those classes don’t have to blow trait points. Thieves can actually do a better siphoning build than necros if they choose to.

Siphon necros should be very high sustain, but still weak to CC (as you can’t siphon if you’re not hitting). By its very nature, the build has an accessible counter.

I still think a major improvement to several builds would be to move the grandmaster SR trait granting stability for 3 secs to the master level trait. It would still be restricted to DS, but more accessable to more types of builds. Necromancer is just too vulnerable to CC and is essentially. Ping pong ball in pvp or Wvw (roaming).

I also think the new version of dhuumfire should be a master level trait as well

Lucentfir.7430:

First bolded why are you using theives as a basis mobility, when THeives are supposed to be slippery, and warriors are mobile melee tanks(Atm with GS). If you want mobility lose it’d be only fair to take away some of the soft CC necros possess to balance it out.

Life leech by Itself is blantly terrible true, but if there’s one thing I’ve known in this game, it’s that you have to combine and mix things. the all the little things add up to make a big impact. Life leech would be way too strong if they buffed it significantly, since it ignores armor and protection, and gives you the benefit of heal for the damage caused.

Second bolded, you’re kinda unclear here, not making a lot of sense. I’ve tested my build and it works splendidly, in a bunch of duels, and Necro’s main weakness is CC chain(Warrior is the culprit with hammer and/or mace/shield), and at least for me, Zerker phantasm mesmers to a certain extent. I’d say you’re ignorant though, i don’t know how much exploring you’ve done, but I know i’ve explored and tested a lot of runes, sigils, gear and trait setups, to get a good build of life leech for me. Also i recall seeing Chapman’s post playing a Leech necro, not sure what game mode, but he probabaly has found something that works nicely for him like I have :P

As far as being as mobile as thieves, I’m illustrating a point. Giving necros a short range teleport isn’t going to make them as mobile as other classes, but it will give them at least a real mobility skills which they sorely lack now.

You said it yourself, life leech is blatantly terrible. My second point was that necros have to put themselves in harms way to get 80hps while out of death shroud. They must be in range and attacking to get that dps and hps. That requires investment in 3 traits and 20 points into blood magic. Other classes get 100hps or more on much less stringent conditions. I think of backpack regenerator or adrenal health as examples where both of those are one simple trait. Some would argue that it’s also 80dps but 80dps is a really low addition when other classes get 20% damage boosts to their weapons sets. Simply put when comparing life siphoning to other similar skills it is bad. Other classes get better healing traits and better damage traits for less investment.

Also, I have gone through armor sets and builds with knights, soldiers, zerkers, rabid, carrion, clerics, dire and rampagers on my necro. I still own 6 armor sets, and have tried many times in wvw, and pve to make vampiric builds work. The problem is, without food it’s a waste. With food you don’t even need to be a necromancer to make it work. If life siphons are going to be a necromancer feature, they need to make it a feature instead of leaving it in the currently horrendous state it is in.

zapv.8051:

Other classes get 100hps or more on much less stringent conditions. I think of backpack regenerator or adrenal health as examples where both of those are one simple trait.

100hp(base) from life stealing(Vampiric) is way too much, 40 maybe 50 but for sure not 100hp from 1 hit.

If we talk about mobility , i think we dont need more than we have now . In my opinion we should have a better access to stability for be able to " stay in the fight " not a crazy amount , but add 4sec of stability to Spectral Amor and buff foot in the grave to 4sec should be good .

Edit : forgot to mention spectral armor

zapv.8051:

Lucentfir.7430:

First bolded why are you using theives as a basis mobility, when THeives are supposed to be slippery, and warriors are mobile melee tanks(Atm with GS). If you want mobility lose it’d be only fair to take away some of the soft CC necros possess to balance it out.

Life leech by Itself is blantly terrible true, but if there’s one thing I’ve known in this game, it’s that you have to combine and mix things. the all the little things add up to make a big impact. Life leech would be way too strong if they buffed it significantly, since it ignores armor and protection, and gives you the benefit of heal for the damage caused.

Second bolded, you’re kinda unclear here, not making a lot of sense. I’ve tested my build and it works splendidly, in a bunch of duels, and Necro’s main weakness is CC chain(Warrior is the culprit with hammer and/or mace/shield), and at least for me, Zerker phantasm mesmers to a certain extent. I’d say you’re ignorant though, i don’t know how much exploring you’ve done, but I know i’ve explored and tested a lot of runes, sigils, gear and trait setups, to get a good build of life leech for me. Also i recall seeing Chapman’s post playing a Leech necro, not sure what game mode, but he probabaly has found something that works nicely for him like I have :P

As far as being as mobile as thieves, I’m illustrating a point. Giving necros a short range teleport isn’t going to make them as mobile as other classes, but it will give them at least a real mobility skills which they sorely lack now.

You said it yourself, life leech is blatantly terrible. My second point was that necros have to put themselves in harms way to get 80hps while out of death shroud. They must be in range and attacking to get that dps and hps. That requires investment in 3 traits and 20 points into blood magic. Other classes get 100hps or more on much less stringent conditions. I think of backpack regenerator or adrenal health as examples where both of those are one simple trait. Some would argue that it’s also 80dps but 80dps is a really low addition when other classes get 20% damage boosts to their weapons sets. Simply put when comparing life siphoning to other similar skills it is bad. Other classes get better healing traits and better damage traits for less investment.

Also, I have gone through armor sets and builds with knights, soldiers, zerkers, rabid, carrion, clerics, dire and rampagers on my necro. I still own 6 armor sets, and have tried many times in wvw, and pve to make vampiric builds work. The problem is, without food it’s a waste. With food you don’t even need to be a necromancer to make it work. If life siphons are going to be a necromancer feature, they need to make it a feature instead of leaving it in the currently horrendous state it is in.

You misundersstand, I said life leech Is terrible by itself. The Damage portion of life leech is powerful supplement damage, that comes with the benefit of sustain. Also at least 15 in blood magic is needed for a decent life leech build(20% more Siphoning and on hit leech in small doses. Vampiric Precision isn’t needed unless you’re determined to just have every bit you can get your hands on. Also the per hit leech, is also effective for AoE and bounce abilities. Backpack Regenerator restricts you to using kits and it’s purely passive(It hinders flow because it requires you to be in a kit, so if you wanted to use rifle or pistol skills you would lose it)

Also someone saying a lifesteal build for thief is better than Necro life leech?The only realistic way life leech thief would be possible is if they built for venoms(Most of them on a kitten CD) which is mainly played for as a support build. Thieves won’t have any way to help mitigate damage to sustain with that leech(lowest Base HP, and no protection, DS, or blocks, or control Conditions/CC), and there’s Cooldown for your traited leeches(however long the CD is on Venoms) So i don’t think it would be better than a necro who was built to leech.

I’m all for buffing necro leeching, just only buffing it mildly, but not outrageously over the top.(100 hp per hit on blood magic 15 point minor would be stupid powerful) You want more mobility go ahead, just tone down their control condition output a bit to balance it out. Healing in DS would be nice but only by a small percentage of the heal of the whole amount you heal for, with how easy it is to regain life force.

Lucentfir.7430:

You misundersstand, I said life leech Is terrible by itself. The Damage portion of life leech is powerful supplement damage, that comes with the benefit of sustain. Also at least 15 in blood magic is needed for a decent life leech build(20% more Siphoning and on hit leech in small doses. Vampiric Precision isn’t needed unless you’re determined to just have every bit you can get your hands on. Also the per hit leech, is also effective for AoE and bounce abilities. Backpack Regenerator restricts you to using kits and it’s purely passive(It hinders flow because it requires you to be in a kit, so if you wanted to use rifle or pistol skills you would lose it)

Also someone saying a lifesteal build for thief is better than Necro life leech?The only realistic way life leech thief would be possible is if they built for venoms(Most of them on a kitten CD) which is mainly played for as a support build. Thieves won’t have any way to help mitigate damage to sustain with that leech(lowest Base HP, and no protection, DS, or blocks, or control Conditions/CC), and there’s Cooldown for your traited leeches(however long the CD is on Venoms) So i don’t think it would be better than a necro who was built to leech.

I’m all for buffing necro leeching, just only buffing it mildly, but not outrageously over the top.(100 hp per hit on blood magic 15 point minor would be stupid powerful) You want more mobility go ahead, just tone down their control condition output a bit to balance it out. Healing in DS would be nice but only by a small percentage of the heal of the whole amount you heal for, with how easy it is to regain life force.

I think apart from better scaling with healing power (and the ds issue) the 15 point minor is fine. I would only change Vampiric Precision in such a way that it becomes a 20 point trait and life siphons much more (swap it with Quickening Thirst).

But the most important change should be to allow the siphon traits to work in death shroud. Reason for this is simple, it cannot be that our class mechanic completly negates the sustain gained from a other class mechanic (class mechanics should complement each other not interfere with each other…).

If i think about it, instead of making Vampiric prescision a 20 point trait it may be better to make Bloodthirst a master or even a grandmaster trait and increace the effectiveness alot.

Gryph.8237:

I still think a major improvement to several builds would be to move the grandmaster SR trait granting stability for 3 secs to the master level trait. It would still be restricted to DS, but more accessable to more types of builds. Necromancer is just too vulnerable to CC and is essentially. Ping pong ball in pvp or Wvw (roaming).

I also think the new version of dhuumfire should be a master level trait as well

I like this. In a previous post someone was saying that Near to Death should be a minor trait somewhere, and that is what your post reminded me of.

Lucentfir.7430:

Also someone saying a lifesteal build for thief is better than Necro life leech?The only realistic way life leech thief would be possible is if they built for venoms(Most of them on a kitten CD) which is mainly played for as a support build. Thieves won’t have any way to help mitigate damage to sustain with that leech(lowest Base HP, and no protection, DS, or blocks, or control Conditions/CC), and there’s Cooldown for your traited leeches(however long the CD is on Venoms) So i don’t think it would be better than a necro who was built to leech.

Consider the following: Leeching Venoms gives a base heal of 325+20% of Healing Power. At the minimum 200 healing power to get the trait, that is 345 healing (and at least 350 damage) per venom hit. That means to equal the healing from a single venom stack, a necro with Vampiric must successfully hit 11 times.

The lowest number of charges a non-elite venom has is 2, so by activating one skill and hitting twice, you get 22 times the effect of necro life stealing from traits.

Spider Venom alone lets the thief siphon the same amount of health kitten hits from Vampiric. If a necro can even land 55 hits in that 45 second time period, he’s doing well, but a thief can boost those numbers drastically by investing in healing power or equipping more venoms, or just traiting venoms further.

Thieves do, however, have excellent access to control conditions (much like necros) and tons of evades plus stealth access. Having less base health is a weakness, but they have superior methods of not getting hit in the first place (which is better than reducing the damage taken) as well as being capable of restoring their health far faster.

So yes, Thieves can create better siphon builds than necros can. One trait and Spider Venom is all that’s necessary to out-do a necro, and they have significantly further that they can boost it. Each additional trait for venoms increases the ability much further than each additional siphoning trait.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lucentfir.7430:

Also someone saying a lifesteal build for thief is better than Necro life leech?The only realistic way life leech thief would be possible is if they built for venoms(Most of them on a kitten CD) which is mainly played for as a support build. Thieves won’t have any way to help mitigate damage to sustain with that leech(lowest Base HP, and no protection, DS, or blocks, or control Conditions/CC), and there’s Cooldown for your traited leeches(however long the CD is on Venoms) So i don’t think it would be better than a necro who was built to leech.

Consider the following: Leeching Venoms gives a base heal of 325+20% of Healing Power. At the minimum 200 healing power to get the trait, that is 345 healing (and at least 350 damage) per venom hit. That means to equal the healing from a single venom stack, a necro with Vampiric must successfully hit 11 times.

The lowest number of charges a non-elite venom has is 2, so by activating one skill and hitting twice, you get 22 times the effect of necro life stealing from traits.

Spider Venom alone lets the thief siphon the same amount of health kitten hits from Vampiric. If a necro can even land 55 hits in that 45 second time period, he’s doing well, but a thief can boost those numbers drastically by investing in healing power or equipping more venoms, or just traiting venoms further.

Thieves do, however, have excellent access to control conditions (much like necros) and tons of evades plus stealth access. Having less base health is a weakness, but they have superior methods of not getting hit in the first place (which is better than reducing the damage taken) as well as being capable of restoring their health far faster.

So yes, Thieves can create better siphon builds than necros can. One trait and Spider Venom is all that’s necessary to out-do a necro, and they have significantly further that they can boost it. Each additional trait for venoms increases the ability much further than each additional siphoning trait.

Again Vampiric by itself is terriable, you have to combine it with other things to make it potent(Runes/Food/Sigils/Weapons), Theives don’t have tons of evades unless you’re running D/D, S/D or SB. Venoms are easily expended/negated by blocks blinds and dodge(So it’s possible to not get a tick of leech at all while consuming the charges). Control conditions, i mean initiate wise such on weapon sets, and profession mechanics (DS, for necro).

Necro will be able to sustain better then Thief since it has they have DS, which can absorb blows. On paper it appears that way, but in practice it plays out a whole lot differently.

Also thief venoms are used up against a single target, while necro can aoe siphon.

Lucentfir.7430:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lucentfir.7430:

Also someone saying a lifesteal build for thief is better than Necro life leech?The only realistic way life leech thief would be possible is if they built for venoms(Most of them on a kitten CD) which is mainly played for as a support build. Thieves won’t have any way to help mitigate damage to sustain with that leech(lowest Base HP, and no protection, DS, or blocks, or control Conditions/CC), and there’s Cooldown for your traited leeches(however long the CD is on Venoms) So i don’t think it would be better than a necro who was built to leech.

Consider the following: Leeching Venoms gives a base heal of 325+20% of Healing Power. At the minimum 200 healing power to get the trait, that is 345 healing (and at least 350 damage) per venom hit. That means to equal the healing from a single venom stack, a necro with Vampiric must successfully hit 11 times.

The lowest number of charges a non-elite venom has is 2, so by activating one skill and hitting twice, you get 22 times the effect of necro life stealing from traits.

Spider Venom alone lets the thief siphon the same amount of health kitten hits from Vampiric. If a necro can even land 55 hits in that 45 second time period, he’s doing well, but a thief can boost those numbers drastically by investing in healing power or equipping more venoms, or just traiting venoms further.

Thieves do, however, have excellent access to control conditions (much like necros) and tons of evades plus stealth access. Having less base health is a weakness, but they have superior methods of not getting hit in the first place (which is better than reducing the damage taken) as well as being capable of restoring their health far faster.

So yes, Thieves can create better siphon builds than necros can. One trait and Spider Venom is all that’s necessary to out-do a necro, and they have significantly further that they can boost it. Each additional trait for venoms increases the ability much further than each additional siphoning trait.

Again Vampiric by itself is terriable, you have to combine it with other things to make it potent(Runes/Food/Sigils/Weapons), Theives don’t have tons of evades unless you’re running D/D, S/D or SB. Venoms are easily expended/negated by blocks blinds and dodge(So it’s possible to not get a tick of leech at all while consuming the charges). Control conditions, i mean initiate wise such on weapon sets, and profession mechanics (DS, for necro).

Necro will be able to sustain better then Thief since it has they have DS, which can absorb blows. On paper it appears that way, but in practice it plays out a whole lot differently.

To my knowledge the Blood Magic tree doesn’t actually affect the life steals from food.
I don’t think that the food ones scale by Healing Power, either.
(The Sigil ones do, though.)

Doesn’t this make Ignoring the life steal traits more effective than bothering with them at all?

Why combine good life steal (Food) with bad ones (Traits), when you could just combine the good life steals with Toughness, extra damage or something else?

To me it just sounds like a quirky theme-thing to do, with no actual practical reason to use it.
Kind of like running a team of 6 different Eevees evolutions in Pokemon or making a deck with nothing but Battlecry minions in Hearthstone.
Bunch of good mons/cards being combined with bad ones for the sake of having a theme.

I don’t see an actual practical reason to do that.
From my experience the only Life Steal from traits that’s actually good is Vampiric Master.
That one I see being worth running, but it restricts you into very few builds.

I long for the day running a Dagger wielding Blood Magic Necro with Power+Precision+Healing Power is actually good.
That would take many buffs, though.
Signet of Vampirism is the worst offender, the traits are meh, Signet of the Locust is rarely worth Activating and Life Siphon is only really good against Stealth.
(And Ghastly Claws does better against stealth anyway)

Lucentfir.7430:

Again Vampiric by itself is terriable, you have to combine it with other things to make it potent(Runes/Food/Sigils/Weapons),

Which Thieves have equal access to, so you’re kind of making my point for me.

Theives don’t have tons of evades unless you’re running D/D, S/D or SB.

Or Withdraw, Feline Grace, their traits for Vigor, or using Roll For Initiative. Off-hand pistol allows for excellent blinding ability as well. Only two venoms are needed to completely blow necro siphoning out of the water, so it’s feasible that their other 6-0 skills are something else if they wanted a siphon build.

Venoms are easily expended/negated by blocks blinds and dodge(So it’s possible to not get a tick of leech at all while consuming the charges).

True, and each failed attack does drastically reduce the difference in siphon values. Then again, a missed attack fails to siphon for anyone.

Control conditions, i mean initiate wise such on weapon sets, and profession mechanics (DS, for necro).

What thief has issues initiating? Ever? Heck, they have a “teleport to target” as their profession mechanic! Which then can give them another powerful control effect (such as from Guardians and Necromancers)

Necro will be able to sustain better then Thief since it has they have DS, which can absorb blows. On paper it appears that way, but in practice it plays out a whole lot differently.

Not exactly. If a Thief starts having serious problems, they are capable of leaving, healing up, and coming back. Necros don’t have that option. Necro sustain is nonexistent unless they can actually hit someone, so if anyone disengages and re-engages, the necro is at a serious disadvantage.

Of course, I could always bring in Signet of Malice, which on its own does more than every siphoning trait on the necro combined.

Considering siphoning is supposed to be a necro thing, shouldn’t they be the best at it?

@Drarnor Then play a thief life leech thief, you think it’s miles better then. Steal is entirely dependent on the class you’re playing against, (and are quite frankly hard to hit on moving opponents aside from the fear stolen from necro. Siphons that are missed on a thief are more crippling to their build, because kitten on venoms untraited? Where’s your damage going to come from? Forever dodge? +15 points in Acrobatics? 20 points in Shadow arts for leeching venoms?35 points right there. Carrying . Where’s your sustain going to be coming from, where’s your condition removal? You pick Sig of Malice and you won’t have evade on Withdraw. Take roll for initiative, One slot used, take spider venom, that’s a second slot used. third slot? Whatever you say it is.

So this is what you bar is going to look like?

Heal-Signet of Malice/Withdraw
Slot 1- Roll for Initiative(60s/Stunbreak)
Slot 2-Shadow Step?(60s/Stunbreak)
Slot 3 -Venom Skill(45s)
Elite-Basilisk Venom(45s)

I don’t see a weapon skill in Theif’s kitten nal that does life leech, compared to necro’s dagger, a signet designed to leech. Take venoms and you’ll lack stunbreakers(if you want RfI go ahead and take it for it’s 60s cd) you’re going to be doing much of nothing with the build you proposed,(no sustain, very very poor condition removal, lack of good stunbreaks, bad damage. situational CC, low HP, No direct damage mitigation.)

Enlighten me, and show me a good Vampire Thief build, and how it would work against real people that have at least mild knowledge of the game. and not AI opponents. Otherwise you’re just cherry picking for your arguments to say why Life leech on thief is vastly superior to life leech on necro.

The disengaging part, if a thief tries to leave they either blow all their initiative to get away, or they use Shadow Step. They have kitten poor movement speed without signet, or Consistent Swiftness Access(Dodge roll swiftness does not count), or Fleet of Shadows while in stealth.

Necro is better already better and leaching then a majority of the professions by far.

@LastDay I use Sigils, runes and food, and it all adds up decently. Food Life Steal food isn’t effected by healing power, but Vamp signet, and Sigil of Blood are. Life Siphon is great when you need more HP(More procs with Blood Sigil, Food, and Vamperisim even with the ICD)

Lucentfir.7430:

@Drarnor Then play a thief life leech thief, you think it’s miles better then. Steal is entirely dependent on the class you’re playing against, (and are quite frankly hard to hit on moving opponents aside from the fear stolen from necro. Siphons that are missed on a thief are more crippling to their build, because kitten on venoms untraited? Where’s your damage going to come from? Forever dodge? +15 points in Acrobatics? 20 points in Shadow arts for leeching venoms?35 points right there. Carrying . Where’s your sustain going to be coming from, where’s your condition removal? You pick Sig of Malice and you won’t have evade on Withdraw. Take roll for initiative, One slot used, take spider venom, that’s a second slot used. third slot? Whatever you say it is.

So this is what you bar is going to look like?

Heal-Signet of Malice/Withdraw
Slot 1- Roll for Initiative(60s/Stunbreak)
Slot 2-Shadow Step?(60s/Stunbreak)
Slot 3 -Venom Skill(45s)
Elite-Basilisk Venom(45s)

I don’t see a weapon skill in Theif’s kitten nal that does life leech, compared to necro’s dagger, a signet designed to leech. Take venoms and you’ll lack stunbreakers(if you want RfI go ahead and take it for it’s 60s cd) you’re going to be doing much of nothing with the build you proposed,(no sustain, very very poor condition removal, lack of good stunbreaks, bad damage. situational CC, low HP, No direct damage mitigation.)

Enlighten me, and show me a good Vampire Thief build, and how it would work against real people that have at least mild knowledge of the game. and not AI opponents. Otherwise you’re just cherry picking for your arguments to say why Life leech on thief is vastly superior to life leech on necro.

The disengaging part, if a thief tries to leave they either blow all their initiative to get away, or they use Shadow Step. They have kitten poor movement speed without signet, or Consistent Swiftness Access(Dodge roll swiftness does not count), or Fleet of Shadows while in stealth.

Necro is better already better and leaching then a majority of the professions by far.

@LastDay I use Sigils, runes and food, and it all adds up decently. Food Life Steal food isn’t effected by healing power, but Vamp signet, and Sigil of Blood are. Life Siphon is great when you need more HP(More procs with Blood Sigil, Food, and Vamperisim even with the ICD)

No Life siphon is not great if you need more hp it is terrible and dagger necros only use it if they cannot melee. And it is not really a life leach as it is affected by armor. Yes it heals you when you hit your opponent but still it works different.

And vampir signet is terrible as healing skill and again the passive is not really a life leach but heals you when hit…

I tend to agree that thief life leach builds are not good but so are necro life leach builds.

I think the whole vampirism thing needs a rework, i think instead of dealing extra damage siphons should work like: “2% of the damage you deal is transferred to you as life” or something like that to make it more similar to the new healing skill the guardian has.

Drarnor Kunoram thanks for making my points for me.

Lucentfir.7430:

@Drarnor Then play a thief life leech thief, you think it’s miles better then. Steal is entirely dependent on the class you’re playing against, (and are quite frankly hard to hit on moving opponents aside from the fear stolen from necro. Siphons that are missed on a thief are more crippling to their build, because kitten on venoms untraited? Where’s your damage going to come from? Forever dodge? +15 points in Acrobatics? 20 points in Shadow arts for leeching venoms?35 points right there. Carrying . Where’s your sustain going to be coming from, where’s your condition removal? You pick Sig of Malice and you won’t have evade on Withdraw. Take roll for initiative, One slot used, take spider venom, that’s a second slot used. third slot? Whatever you say it is.

So this is what you bar is going to look like?

Heal-Signet of Malice/Withdraw
Slot 1- Roll for Initiative(60s/Stunbreak)
Slot 2-Shadow Step?(60s/Stunbreak)
Slot 3 -Venom Skill(45s)
Elite-Basilisk Venom(45s)

I don’t see a weapon skill in Theif’s kitten nal that does life leech, compared to necro’s dagger, a signet designed to leech. Take venoms and you’ll lack stunbreakers(if you want RfI go ahead and take it for it’s 60s cd) you’re going to be doing much of nothing with the build you proposed,(no sustain, very very poor condition removal, lack of good stunbreaks, bad damage. situational CC, low HP, No direct damage mitigation.)

Enlighten me, and show me a good Vampire Thief build, and how it would work against real people that have at least mild knowledge of the game. and not AI opponents. Otherwise you’re just cherry picking for your arguments to say why Life leech on thief is vastly superior to life leech on necro.

The disengaging part, if a thief tries to leave they either blow all their initiative to get away, or they use Shadow Step. They have kitten poor movement speed without signet, or Consistent Swiftness Access(Dodge roll swiftness does not count), or Fleet of Shadows while in stealth.

Necro is better already better and leaching then a majority of the professions by far.

@LastDay I use Sigils, runes and food, and it all adds up decently. Food Life Steal food isn’t effected by healing power, but Vamp signet, and Sigil of Blood are. Life Siphon is great when you need more HP(More procs with Blood Sigil, Food, and Vamperisim even with the ICD)

The point of my argument against your so called “life stealing build” is that the food, sigils, and runes make up more of the health your getting than the traits you take by a long shot. That is absurd considering we have traits called Vampiric.

Also, do you have a thief because their steal is absurdly powerful against any class. They can get high poison up time, daze, boon stealing, high vigor uptime, swiftness, and fury. They don’t need a life siphoning weapon skill because they heal for more with their utilities than we do maxed out on vampiric traits with a dagger siphon. Your also talking about survivability of thieves as if they can’t stealth and run away at anytime.

To your point about a good vampire thief build, it doesn’t actually exist. Then again a good vampiric build doesn’t exist for any class. What is being pointed out is that a vampiric thief build should mop the floor with a vampiric necro build. That’s simply in terms of healing and damage.

I don’t mean to be insulting, but the build your running could be improved greatly by not investing in the bad traits that are siphons. That while keeping all the gear the same. I’m not going to tell you to change it because that is what works for you, but in an optimal scenario the words “blood magic”, and especially “Vamp Signet” aren’t involved (or Death Magic for that matter).

Lucentfir.7430:

@LastDay I use Sigils, runes and food, and it all adds up decently. Food Life Steal food isn’t effected by healing power, but Vamp signet, and Sigil of Blood are. Life Siphon is great when you need more HP(More procs with Blood Sigil, Food, and Vamperisim even with the ICD)

Consume Conditions is really good, maybe even one of the best healing skills in the game.
Vamp Signet, even with all the traits, is probably the worst healing skill in the game.
You should never use it no matter what build.
It’s absolutely horrible.

Also Well of Blood has really good scaling with Healing Power.
Since it’s a Well if you insist on speccing in Blood Magic you could grab reduced Well cooldown from there.
Something to consider.

Sigil of Blood does scale with Healing Power (like I already said, if you read my post) but the Vampiric traits don’t affect it.
Blood Magic tree doesn’t actually give all that much healing power.
You’d probably be better off just going 30 Spite, 10 Curses, 30 Soul Reaping.
It wouldn’t really reduce your Life Leech much, since most of the leech from Blood Magic is bad anyway.
Your food and gear leech way more.
You’d almost certainly gain a lot more sustain from Soul Reaping than Blood Magic, even with how anti-synergy they are.

The only exceptions I can think of are if you play MM and grab Vampiric Master, and possibly if you are playing somewhere with massive amounts of enemies and using Life Stealing Wells on 5 enemies at a time from a distance.
In the first case you suffer from minion AI bugs, in the second you absolutely need to hit multiple foes to make it remotely worth it.

You are just combining bad traits with good food for the sake of having a theme.
There’s no practical reason to ever use Signet of Vampirism in any build.
Last Gasp is way better than Vampirism, even in a build with Healing Power.

If you look at it from a pure sustain perspective. Thief signet of malice is vastly superior to necros lifesteal. They dont have to trait for it, necros do. Also they have a cleave weapon so they can get triple the burst heal with pistol whip. I honestly dont understand why they havent buffed lifesteal (atleast the heal portion) when thief can full heal by using one pistol whip which has no cooldown and also gives them evade while doing it.

The problem with the Signet of Vampirism is that somehow they didn’t dare make it useful as a group healing tool. It should heal more than Well of Blood, simply because:

• It doesn’t stick around, charges get used up it’s gone.
• It’s limited per-player due to the low duration already.
• It’s not a combo field.

Lucentfir.7430:

@Drarnor Then play a thief life leech thief, you think it’s miles better then.

That’s my point. Life leech thief is terrible, but it is far better than life leech necro. Necros are supposed to use siphons extensively, yet a thief can out-do them entirely by just slotting Signet of Malice and calling it a day (as the on-hit heal base is higher than Vampiric+Vampiric Precision+Bloodthirst combined, and it also scales with healing power). Deciding to actually make a life stealing build is a bad idea on a thief, but they still out-do the necro quite extensively.

Gnat.9405:

IT’s been said but Spectral Grasp should be like the scarecrow teleport from Lunatic Inquisition.

Or they could make this a skill on one of our weapons…

Or a trait to replace one of our useless minor’s

I will say this, I don’t play a bunker play style I play a Damage hybrid spec, that is all i will say, and how I’m finding it good.

Lucentfir.7430:

I will say this, I don’t play a bunker play style I play a Damage hybrid spec, that is all i will say, and how I’m finding it good.

Necros don’t have issues with damage. We aren’t at the top of the various classes, but we get the job done. They do have issues in PvE (what necros are great at isn’t useful in PvE) and on the defensive front, though. They are probably the worst class for sustain, which is sad, considering they are supposed to be the attrition profession.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lucentfir.7430:

I will say this, I don’t play a bunker play style I play a Damage hybrid spec, that is all i will say, and how I’m finding it good.

Necros don’t have issues with damage. We aren’t at the top of the various classes, but we get the job done. They do have issues in PvE (what necros are great at isn’t useful in PvE) and on the defensive front, though. They are probably the worst class for sustain, which is sad, considering they are supposed to be the attrition profession.

Which is where life leech is pretty good in the build I run. More damage and the benefit of sustain with that damage, and DS+Piles of soft CC. Not to mention lingering damage from conditions.

You still have a speed sig and you don’t really need move skills since most necros live for days despite being a high damage caster.

Runewolf.8456:

You still have a speed sig and you don’t really need move skills since most necros live for days despite being a high damage caster.

What other classes don’t realize is that utilities define the necromancer more than other classes. When your running well of suffering and well of corruption your doing a lot more damage then if your running signet of locust, and spectral walk. Most necro fields, and finishers are on our skill bars.

Also, necros have a huge health pool and so they do live a long time, but in a fight which requires sustain they will be destroyed under focus. Necromancers are effectively a giant health pool, and while they have good damage it isn’t better than other classes. At the same time they lack a lot of group buffing.

In reference to this thread, necromancer sacrifice sustain, invulns, group buffs, blocks, and speed to get a large health pool, average dps, and debuffs. As someone who plays the class avidly. I think we give up to much. If they gave necromancers more group utility and sustain through healing, or protection they’d be much better off. Saying a necromancer is fast though is a joke.

Dont you just find it odd that the warrior and his new healing skill can actually turn dmg and condition ticks into healing yet we necros cant lifesteal from our condition ticks?
Wouldnt allowing the necro to life steal from condition make the class more survivable and more forgiving to use?

Defiant stance is beyond broken. Dunno why it hasnt been nerfed.

Necro and mesmer are the 2 slowest classes. If you can give both perma swiftness mesmer is faster than necro simply because of blink.