Guild Wars 2

So I am away of the number of Threads already on the forums. However I would like to stand up on my soap box for a bit and talk about the new traits in my own way. I feel I can be critical about this and add something constructive to these. I’m not all positive about them or all negative either.

Parasitic Contagion – A % of your condition damage heals you (5%, not affected by healing power)

I actually like this one. But I feel that I like it for all the wrong reasons. And let me explain. One of the areas that the necromancer is lacking in is Survivability against boss. This trait really doesn’t help in those situations. Especially without dhuumfire. Seeing as the healing is going to be slightly better then regen with no investment with only 1 target to attack. The healing will be marginal.

The Good part about this is also what I feel is a bad part. Against a large mob the healing you gain from this will far exceed regen and make you much harder to kill against trash mobs. But the bad part is we really don’t need extra survivability against trash mobs. We are capable of handling them just fine. And in the situations we can’t, the problem becomes our path of escape. Which we would want to enter death shroud to soak damage meaning we get no benefit from this.

The placement for this is also odd. And its wording is concerning. I feel by putting this in spite as a defensive trait feels off putting. If this was life stealing as opposed to just healing I could see build diversity coming up from taking this and spending some points into blood in order to optimize a condi life stealing build. Which could be interesting. The problem, as it is right now, is that it only synergies with one very specific trait line. And we already have a trait that does that in dhuumfire.

Overall, I do like the trait, I just feel that its misplaced and not doing what it should be doing.

Path of Corruption – Dark Path now additionally converts 2 boons into conditions.

I’m not a fan of traits that rely on a specific skill to proc as a grandmaster. These type of traits are the ones I would consider as a master trait before thinking of them as grandmaster. In the same line we have terror, which honestly could be a grandmaster trait and no one would bat an eye from the change provided lingering curse was lowered to master. This one I feel this one is good, but not as good as arena net is giving it credit for. I don’t have too much more to say on this one seeing as I don’t do much PvP. So I’ll leave that one up to the PvP players who regularly play it to determine how much value this has.

Unholy Sanctuary- Regenerate health while you are in death shroud (this is the only method currently to physically regen your HP while in death shroud – it is same as healing from regen, will scale with your healing power)

This one feels like a cheat. A hot topic on the Necromancer forums have been about how necromancers can’t heal while in death shroud. This has been plaguing us since launch and has hindered our uses for far too long to deny all healing while in it.

The problem I have with this is it doesn’t actually solve the problem. Seeing as death shroud can be burned down in a second. It can be very good in the right hands, but this trait feels more like an adapt trait rather then a grandmaster trait.

As powerful as being able to heal in death shroud might be, it doesn’t compensate for the fact that the necromancer doesn’t have access to their utility skills, healing skill or elite skill while in death shroud. Even if we could heal while in death shroud normally without a trait, the necromancer still wouldn’t have that much access to healing. Life stealing would be the method of choice while in DS if we could heal.

I Do think that this trait might actually be better then Parasitic Contagion when fighting bosses, as being in death shroud can spell death for the necromancer pretty quickly if they are being focus fired. But I still feel that the minor healing isn’t enough of a gain as we still can’t be healed by allies which still continues one of the biggest problems with death shroud as a parasitic profession mechanic.

Unholy Martyr – Draw 1 condition from allies every 3 seconds while in death shroud. Each time you draw a condition, gain 5% life force.

This one is a bit harder to evaluate. Although the necromancer has some good support skills, they don’t really have a decent build in the supporting role to really evaluate how good this might be as a grandmaster trait of choice.

I want to try and use this trait before I make a final judgement on it as I want to see what home it might take. So here is to hoping.

Renewing Blast – Life Blast heal allies that it passes through. (~800 heal per blast, scales up with healing power)

Again, we have a trait linked to a single skill while in death shroud. And this one has more problems then the other one. Like the updated dhuumfire, I don’t feel this has the practicality to be good as a grandmaster trait.

Despite my mostly negative view of these traits, I am extremely excited to be able to test them out myself and get a more complete opinion on the matter. What do you guys think?

I kinda agree with you, I do hope that after introduction the next step is to remodel traitlines a bit once the new meta has been established and the QQ has turned down.

I think with unholy martyr and renewing blast they are trying to give us more backline support. 0/10/0/30/30 could work as a healer for the front line zerg. That would be in full clerics gear. I feel unholy sanctuary kind of illustrates a disconnect between the devs and necromancers. They should have tied healing in death shroud to siphons. Giving us the regen boon simply doesn’t do enough.

Path of Corruption is interesting. If we had a melee condition weapon it would be extremely useful, but condition necros don’t generally want to go into harms way. Having said that 2 boon strip on a short cooldown is really strong. Parasitic Contagion is also extremely interesting. I always felt like siphon type traits where for condition builds more than power builds simply because power builds had more life force regeneration. Carrion and Dire builds with this trait, terror, and possibly points into death magic instead of soul reaping could be interesting. From a build diversity perspective these do sound useful and could open up a lot of builds, but they might be held back by the devs unwillingness to give anyone something too strong.

@Lily:
Totally agree with you. If they meant that we have to stay in Death Shroud for prolonged times, then almost our self healing through Siphoning, self Regeneration and Transfusion should pass through.
Unholy Sanctuary on paper is a joke.
Path of Corruption would be nice as a Master trait.
Parasitic Contagion is there to compete with Dhuumfire (even if it sucks atm) it doesn’t fit with the tree and again it has no Synergy with DS.
Imho Unholy Martyr is ridicle, it draws conditions slowly, repeatedly and thus you’ll be always under pressure, we have 3 condition removals on pretty long cooldown, thus won’t promote build viability because we will have to build traits around it.
Gathering Plague it’s 100 times better.
Renewing Blast again isn’t a GrandMaster trait, i hope it almost would heal minions as well. It promotes stacking.