Guild Wars 2

So i was trying to make a bunker/healing support build for pve and stumble upon this trait wich lets you siphon health from a mob who is within the well boundaries. This skill does not scale with power or healing power and so it only heals you for 60hp per tick per enemy. So if you manage to get 5 enemies inside the well with well of suffering wich is the well with the most ticks(6) you can get a max of 60*5*6=1800 healing done, in the best case possible and only for you. I don’t get it the usefulness of this trait for being a grandmaster trait, i mean, even Transfusion wich is an adept trait is way more useful and it scales with healing power even only healing your party members by up to 5k.
Is there something im not seeing about this? Is there some synergy that is worth to do for it to be useful?

^
Yes, I think you have it right. As far as I am concerned, the is not one Grandmaster trait in Blood Magic that deserves to be called a grandmaster.

Nope it is actually that bad.

Roe.3679:

Nope it is actually that bad.

I did a thorough breakdown not that long ago regarding siphons and optimizing them. In the optimal situation, using every siphoning trait possible, you average out at only 30 health/second more than you would just camping staff and spamming Mark of Blood on cooldown. And if you went Cleric’s instead, you would actually be higher sustain by just using Mark of Blood.

The siphon traits all need massive buffs. Even Vampiric Master, which is by far the best, needs help (though not much, there).

Bloodthirst, however, does not need a buff. Any buff to other siphons is a buff to Bloodthirst, and it’s good as it is.

Anchoku.8142:

^
Yes, I think you have it right. As far as I am concerned, the is not one Grandmaster trait in Blood Magic that deserves to be called a grandmaster.

Fetid Consumption entirely deserves its GM slot, it provides some of the strongest theoretical condition removal of anything in the game; 6 conditions removed per 10 seconds, without involving jagged horrors. The other two are pretty garbage though, for sure.

Vampiric Rituals does actually scale with Healing Power and regular Power. The scaling’s pretty awful (0.005 with healing power for the heal component, 0.0025 with power for the damage component) but it is there.

I wonder if the functionality should be changed to:

If an enemy is within a well, they trigger siphon damage against themselves per pulse and also heal up to 5 allies within 600 range.

Not sure what the number could be for the siphon damage and the group heal, but making it rather high would make the trait GM worthy and a lot more useful in the group support area of things

So aparently im not the only one who thinks like that…
If what softspoken is actually true, then im baffled how could anet do even something like that scaling, what was even the point with that 0.005 healing power?
So for a pve bunker/support build then maybe ill keep it like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4dn0ISpN2ZD+0AHOooXQks2sJD2DqAUG9KA-TRSDABOcEAOS5XqKBxR9njfIAFY+DgLAgK7PkiuBA-e
It just saddens me that i cant even go full healing trait line for a healing support build with necro. I know this probably shoudnt be the priority in fixes with necro, but ive been playing necro since the beginning and now im trying to some weird stuff to keep it fresh in a time where there is nothing new to do. :S

otetas.9675:

So aparently im not the only one who thinks like that…
If what softspoken is actually true, then im baffled how could anet do even something like that scaling, what was even the point with that 0.005 healing power?
So for a pve bunker/support build then maybe ill keep it like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4dn0ISpN2ZD+0AHOooXQks2sJD2DqAUG9KA-TRSDABOcEAOS5XqKBxR9njfIAFY+DgLAgK7PkiuBA-e
It just saddens me that i cant even go full healing trait line for a healing support build with necro. I know this probably shoudnt be the priority in fixes with necro, but ive been playing necro since the beginning and now im trying to some weird stuff to keep it fresh in a time where there is nothing new to do. :S

“Death Shroud provides enough sustain it’s worth sacrificing the rest of the profession” -Anet-

The problem with that is vampiric builds is that they are generally selfish builds by design currently. That is not to say there is no place for healing or vampiric team support, but if you take a selfish build and then add a GM trait that is almost the polar opposite of the rest of the build it doesn’t synergize well.

Vampiric Rituals should exist as a way for a more teamfight focused bruiser Necromancer to sustain in multiple-opponent situations. Basically, with 6 point investment in Blood Magic, plus the wells, you should have Necromancers who are able to sustain themselves similar to a bunker guardian or D/D elementalist with heals.

There are of course other issues with vampiric builds, but the Vampiric Rituals trait itself should just exist as a source of burst AoE sustain via wells. This is not the appropriate place to try to add support to the Necromancer kit, and if we want to try to support a kind of supporty-vampiric kit design, wells probably aren’t the best fit either.

I’ve always thought that Vampiric Rituals should be merged with Ritual Master at the Master tier and we get a new Grandmaster trait. Both traits are a bit weak on their own for their tier, and Vampiric Rituals on its own is maybe worthy of adept status. Merge them and you have one trait of appropriate power (maybe a bit weak on the siphons) and have a spot to make something good.