Guild Wars 2

The bloodthirst thing is a whole other can of worms.

Because bloodthirst exists, all siphon skills have to balanced around that trait. Which means that siphons are completely terrible for anyone who doesn’t have it (and are terrible anyway).

You know there’s an issue when consumable food gives you a much better siphon than any Necro one.

And then there’s the issue of siphons not working in DS. Necros must be the only profession that has two completely incompatible skill trees.

I think removing the ICD would cause two problems. First would be that the skill would be spazzing out 24/7 with heals. The player would walk into a mob or zerg and see green numbers flying around. Second would be that the lower the ICD, the smaller the heals would be making it less effective for smaller groups or single enemies.

I do feel 1 second is too high though. Maybe .5 seconds…

Hammerguard.9834:

I think removing the ICD would cause two problems. First would be that the skill would be spazzing out 24/7 with heals. The player would walk into a mob or zerg and see green numbers flying around. Second would be that the lower the ICD, the smaller the heals would be making it less effective for smaller groups or single enemies.

I do feel 1 second is too high though. Maybe .5 seconds…

Isn’t the first problem also applicable to defiant stance and lithany of wrath.
The second problem is not neccessairy since it has the requirement that you need to be hit and unless you are hit for lower then 325 damage/ hit your health will stil be reduced.

^ yup that the major crux of the issue.

With the Vamp sig passive there’s no way to get healed without getting hit.

Which means all the other signets that heal constantly, heal on hit etc are SIGNIFICANTLY better as it’s actually possible to gain health and control when you gain health.

It’s absolutely mystifying that the warrior heal signet heals every second no matter what, and heals for more than vampiric signet.

@Ghostextechnica you really should not compare the Warrior to the Necro… In any way.

They really should change this skill’s passive to heal when you hit something. I regret even unlocking it, it’s terrible. Siphoning health in general is rather crappy, even though i’m stubbornly sticking with a life siphon build hoping it someday gets better.

I wonder i the 1sec ICD came about before the passive was turned from the siphon to a simple heal. Remember that a siphon do damage that bypass armor. As such, the passive would pretty much be a permanent retaliation that could bypass armor.

Really nasty for attacks like flamethrower #1 or 100B, where you have multiple hits in rapid succession.

I would really love to see the CVS log for the vamp sig code, as i wonder if there was a case of dev A not talking to dev B before making changes going on.

digiowl.9620:

I wonder i the 1sec ICD came about before the passive was turned from the siphon to a simple heal. Remember that a siphon do damage that bypass armor. As such, the passive would pretty much be a permanent retaliation that could bypass armor.

Really nasty for attacks like flamethrower #1 or 100B, where you have multiple hits in rapid succession.

I would really love to see the CVS log for the vamp sig code, as i wonder if there was a case of dev A not talking to dev B before making changes going on.

Probably not. Necro rebalancing has been like this since beta, they feel something is too strong, come up with multiple possible nerfs and then put ALL of them in.

I just cant think of anything why they (Anet) tought ICD is a good idea, to prevent some OP stuff with this kill. Only mesmer clones cause some problem, they just generate more hp with each attack to the necro (actually every attack that has really low damage), but this makes some counterplay against a mesmer and necro.
The ICD on the active with long cast time is just another “what the hell?” idea. The stack on the the enemy already makes a cap why another? Oh and the 5 second window while the mark is active …

Dalanor.5387:

I just cant think of anything why they (Anet) tought ICD is a good idea, to prevent some OP stuff with this kill. Only mesmer clones cause some problem, they just generate more hp with each attack to the necro (actually every attack that has really low damage), but this makes some counterplay against a mesmer and necro.
The ICD on the active with long cast time is just another “what the hell?” idea. The stack on the the enemy already makes a cap why another? Oh and the 5 second window while the mark is active …

I think the ICD is to make sure that you don’t take all 25 stacks for yourself.

Nikkinella.8254:

They really should change this skill’s passive to heal when you hit something. I regret even unlocking it, it’s terrible. Siphoning health in general is rather crappy, even though i’m stubbornly sticking with a life siphon build hoping it someday gets better.

That’s why I still haven’t unlocked the skill yet. But I wouldn’t wait for life siphon to get better. Life Siphoning has always been pretty terrible in GW1, and it NEVER got improved. If that’s any indication for GW2, you might have to wait for a very… very long time for it to get better.

The 5 second while the mark is active solves that problem, so the ICD makes no sense again.

Tim.6450:

Dalanor.5387:

I just cant think of anything why they (Anet) tought ICD is a good idea, to prevent some OP stuff with this kill. Only mesmer clones cause some problem, they just generate more hp with each attack to the necro (actually every attack that has really low damage), but this makes some counterplay against a mesmer and necro.
The ICD on the active with long cast time is just another “what the hell?” idea. The stack on the the enemy already makes a cap why another? Oh and the 5 second window while the mark is active …

I think the ICD is to make sure that you don’t take all 25 stacks for yourself.

Best the necro can do is 23 stacks claimed, unless they get Quickness from somewhere. That said, getting that value requires blowing at least three 30 second+ cooldowns, flashing Death Shroud (so no defense for the next 6-10 seconds) and at least 10 in Curses, plus managing to keep them in two wells for that whole period. Any blinds, blocks, evades, interrupts, or invulnerabilities from the opponent drastically limits this as well.

If you want to leave the ICD on the active, the mark should last 10 seconds. The passive needs a shorter ICD around 0.5 seconds. The active needs a bigger heal.

Pick two of the three and you have a viable heal. The heal is not that far off at this point from being situationally viable, but the limitations of the ICD and the drastic reduction in base heal compared to consume conditions make it very lack-luster.

EDIT: And if the signet ever does get any better you might want to add some counter-play. Currently it is unavoidable as the target, no matter when you dodge/block/immune. It should be avoidable like any other signet.

Should just make the passive like signet of malice passive except it does less healing per hit and a slight amount of dmg. Active will either be kitten or overpowered no matter what you do so may aswell fix the passive and forget about the active.

Why was Signet of Vampirism not even mentioned in the livestream? Are there any plans to make this skill useful? I think a lot of necromancers are getting angry that their class is being so neglected.

rogerwilko.6895:

@Ghostextechnica you really should not compare the Warrior to the Necro… In any way.

My intention wasn’t to compare professions, just heal value allocation across healing skills.

Even with the new 8% reduction to healing signet, it still heals a lot more, even if the perfect vamp sig healing conditions come up (getting hit for a tiny amount, every time the ICD is up).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Why was Signet of Vampirism not even mentioned in the livestream? Are there any plans to make this skill useful? I think a lot of necromancers are getting angry that their class is being so neglected.

Angry/Sad. A lot of Necros have been waiting for the Dhuumfire change, but in the hope that once this is fixed, then we can get some small beneficial tweaks in exchange. Like fixing Vamp Sig so it’s actually useful!

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Tim.6450:

Dalanor.5387:

I just cant think of anything why they (Anet) tought ICD is a good idea, to prevent some OP stuff with this kill. Only mesmer clones cause some problem, they just generate more hp with each attack to the necro (actually every attack that has really low damage), but this makes some counterplay against a mesmer and necro.
The ICD on the active with long cast time is just another “what the hell?” idea. The stack on the the enemy already makes a cap why another? Oh and the 5 second window while the mark is active …

I think the ICD is to make sure that you don’t take all 25 stacks for yourself.

Best the necro can do is 23 stacks claimed, unless they get Quickness from somewhere. That said, getting that value requires blowing at least three 30 second+ cooldowns, flashing Death Shroud (so no defense for the next 6-10 seconds) and at least 10 in Curses, plus managing to keep them in two wells for that whole period. Any blinds, blocks, evades, interrupts, or invulnerabilities from the opponent drastically limits this as well.

Sounds like one of those corner cases that ANet seems to love balancing around…

You should be coordinating with your group who goes for most of the procs anyway. The icd is just to make it “fair” on braindead players. Same issue as not having selectable combo field priorities. We cant have nice things because the playerbase is too dumb.

Thinking about this more, you know what I really think?

Signet of Vampirism should just be a utility skill.

The passive is so ineffective (it almost can’t gain you health by design) it’s worthy of being a utility that very slightly helps with attrition, and if the initial heal was removed from the active, it might be a semi-useful support skill for groups (even though it’s a dps loss, it would give necro more group support).