Guild Wars 2

As for many of you who already know (and for those that don’t https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blighter's_Boon) this trait is hands down the first trait that probably truly qualifies as a grand master trait. The sheer amount of life force gain from this is by far the best beyond anything else. It’s all great and all but this is just another reason why the Reaper is miles ahead of its measly predecessor the Necromancer. The poor necro needs amazing life force up time and gain like this benefits the reaper. To be perfectly honest this trait should be placed somewhere else so the class as a whole can benefit as it single handedly solves the age old case of good life force gain which we all have been craving.

I think one of the biggest problems with LF gain is that they treat it like it’s heals, or at least that’s the way it comes across. I honestly think all skills should have a bit of LF generation, with some skills providing an increased amount. Then make it so LF no longer passively degenerates while in DS, and give us unique 6-0 utilities that instead drain LF for benefits. Like 6 cause your DS to defen but in exchange you refill your health pool, and then an elite that gets rid of all your LF for one big attack. 7-8 provide something that benefits both power and Condi. Like with what reaper does.

TheLastNobody.8319:

I think one of the biggest problems with LF gain is that they treat it like it’s heals, or at least that’s the way it comes across. I honestly think all skills should have a bit of LF generation, with some skills providing an increased amount. Then make it so LF no longer passively degenerates while in DS, and give us unique 6-0 utilities that instead drain LF for benefits. Like 6 cause your DS to defen but in exchange you refill your health pool, and then an elite that gets rid of all your LF for one big attack. 7-8 provide something that benefits both power and Condi. Like with what reaper does.

Yeah I’ve always thought that this would be a much better and more complicated system that would work better in practice.

I don’t like the trait.

This trait seems to be anet’s alternative to just letting us heal in Death/Reaper shroud.

As such, it becomes necessary crutch to take in Pvp/WvW situations and thus kills build diversity. Reapers Onslaught could be godly, doesn’t matter.

Since we know anet best case balances, they will think doubly hard about every boon they decide to give us. This could mean future nerfs to needed boon generation. This could mean that the might generation that the class needs to become viable never arrives. This coud be why we’ve got no boon generation trait line.

Then there are odd boon interactions. RS3 proc blighter’s boon 8 times if you don’t use the fear every 28 seconds. If anet decides we don’t need a 1k heal from the skill, then the stability could get tweak nerfed.

Then there’s just the incongruity with how every other class works in the game, eg water field blasting after a melee push which still wouldn’t do anything for the necromancer.

Would rather just have healing in shroud.

And what about greatsword, which has terrible life force generation (it’s almost all on one hard to land slow skill). I don’t like how you are forced into traits just to get your weapon to not be a total liability.

I have a hard time with the limited selection of skills in Shroud. Camping out in Shroud for damage reduction is fine but low on utility.

Need skills 6-10

For solo play the lifeforce gain from this trait is actually not that good since we dont have much boons outside of Shroud. I think its real strength comes from also taking spite and be able to heal a decent amount in shroud.

I’ve been always an advocate of upping Life Force generation, reducing the overall Shroud HP and giving at least #6 skill which would convert Life Force to health.

Not to mention my countless suggestions about whole new set of 6-0 abilities for the Shroud, from basic ideas to Rituals combining a’la Magicka elements into abilities.

That’s why I’ve been not really impressed with Reaper and I’m looking foward more towards Revenant. Resource management has always been fun for me in MMOs and I believe the Life Force system is missed opportunity.

That’s said, something may eventually change with new Elite Specializations in the future, maybe.

Muchacho.2390:

For solo play the lifeforce gain from this trait is actually not that good since we dont have much boons outside of Shroud. I think its real strength comes from also taking spite and be able to heal a decent amount in shroud.

I actually tested Runes of Altruism with Blighters boon.

(Might and fury on heal, and the shout heal can go down to 13 seconds Traited). It’s not enough lifeforce to matter

Glad you like it (seriously). It’s my least favorite of the three. That different people like different things is a good sign. Even though I really want to take onslaught, I think the chill damage is going to be too good to pass on after the buff.

This trait is quite ridiculous when paired with someone running boonshare. With a tempest or boonshare mesmer it’s actually pretty close to being broken because you get so much LF. Regroups usually gave me most of my LF back too. My guild group mostly runs 5-10 people and for the most part, I was functionally immortal while running BB.
For other modes though, I wouldn’t pick it and would like to see it changed in some ways so it’s less composition dependent as it basically requires you to run with guardians or eles.

I love the trait, but it more or less makes the spite tree mandatory due to the might stacking. In WvW it will be a must have skill even without the spite tree, but personal buffing elsewhere will be tougher.

If they were to give us an alternative boon in all the trait lines, it would make me much happier. For example I for one would not lose any sleep over losing soul comprehension if it gave any boon in shroud upon using any skill. As a defensive line that trait is quite lacking at the moment.|

Tommyknocker.6089:

I love the trait, but it more or less makes the spite tree mandatory due to the might stacking. In WvW it will be a must have skill even without the spite tree, but personal buffing elsewhere will be tougher.

If they were to give us an alternative boon in all the trait lines, it would make me much happier. For example I for one would not lose any sleep over losing soul comprehension if it gave any boon in shroud upon using any skill. As a defensive line that trait is quite lacking at the moment.|

Really think they are loosing out by not letting most minions give us LF. It might be a bit op but that would be again, just a numbers tweak. And if we could get some jagged horror or minion generation outside of death nova….which I know would need some work because of the whole reanimate debacle.

Absolutely love this trait. For group/zerg combat in WvW, this trait is too good to pass up. It’s like that passive lf regen we’ve wanted for death shroud before, I too wish this trait was made available for death shroud.

I actually think there will be good build variety next BWE. Seems all 3 traits in the line will be utilized according to personal/playstyle preferences.

I used it in the last BWE (because Reapers Onslaught was bugged) and it was not that impressive, sure it was nice to have in the middle of the zerg, but compared to a 15% DPS increase coupled with a 5 second CDR on kill in shroud, it is too weak.

edit: Fixed a random kitten.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I love the trait, but it more or less makes the spite tree mandatory due to the might stacking. In WvW it will be a must have skill even without the spite tree, but personal buffing elsewhere will be tougher.

If they were to give us an alternative boon in all the trait lines, it would make me much happier. For example I for one would not lose any sleep over losing soul comprehension if it gave any boon in shroud upon using any skill. As a defensive line that trait is quite lacking at the moment.|

Really think they are loosing out by not letting most minions give us LF. It might be a bit op but that would be again, just a numbers tweak. And if we could get some jagged horror or minion generation outside of death nova….which I know would need some work because of the whole reanimate debacle.

Even as a non-minion user of the death magic line (I use deadly strength) that minor is garbage. If I was to give a loose suggestion it would be to offer retaliation (2s per skill – stacking duration) in place of the might (15s) offered by spite. It would still be a boon and thus would trigger BB. The plus side to this is that a defensive line would actually have a defensive minor to replace it.

I like it because I mainly play pvp. Blighter’s boon procs on every little boon ( so for example, each stack of might is life force or health, not every boon as a whole like most traits with a similar function). This means that at the start of match, say if my team boon stacks or even just does a half fast might stack before the gate, I can easily reach 12k life force or more right off the start. This is more than double the life force I could attain doing sacrifice swaps prior to the patch back in April 2014.
This reason of not having life force at the start of matches is one of the sole reasons why the trend of focusing the necro at the beginning of every match arose.

as I said before Iam not worried about the Life Force GAIN on Reaper, Iam worried about the Life Force DRAIN on the Reaper and specially compare to current state… its just not upto par or atleast not enough.

SaintSnow.6593:

I like it because I mainly play pvp. Blighter’s boon procs on every little boon ( so for example, each stack of might is life force or health, not every boon as a whole like most traits with a similar function). This means that at the start of match, say if my team boon stacks or even just does a half fast might stack before the gate, I can easily reach 12k life force or more right off the start. This is more than double the life force I could attain doing sacrifice swaps prior to the patch back in April 2014.
This reason of not having life force at the start of matches is one of the sole reasons why the trend of focusing the necro at the beginning of every match arose.

If you use YaaW and YSiM in a team fight, that’s 40% LF at max. If you use Suffer before those, you’ll get 50% at max (plus full might stacks.) Not a bad deal at all, really. And, honestly, I think Shouts have some really good combo set-ups that will cause some nice havoc. Now to just get them to a good place

Tommyknocker.6089:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I love the trait, but it more or less makes the spite tree mandatory due to the might stacking. In WvW it will be a must have skill even without the spite tree, but personal buffing elsewhere will be tougher.

If they were to give us an alternative boon in all the trait lines, it would make me much happier. For example I for one would not lose any sleep over losing soul comprehension if it gave any boon in shroud upon using any skill. As a defensive line that trait is quite lacking at the moment.|

Really think they are loosing out by not letting most minions give us LF. It might be a bit op but that would be again, just a numbers tweak. And if we could get some jagged horror or minion generation outside of death nova….which I know would need some work because of the whole reanimate debacle.

Even as a non-minion user of the death magic line (I use deadly strength) that minor is garbage. If I was to give a loose suggestion it would be to offer retaliation (2s per skill – stacking duration) in place of the might (15s) offered by spite. It would still be a boon and thus would trigger BB. The plus side to this is that a defensive line would actually have a defensive minor to replace it.

I do agree the minor is garbage, like gluttony. But anet has said they want to keep at least one on death trait for necromancer unfortunately.

So far, I think Blighter’s Boon is the best scalable defense mechanic I have seen since old Spectral Armor (3% no ICD). It allows us to stand in the thick of battle and, thank to RS3, be more than a sandbag. It still has lots of flaws though as already said above, not to mention that the scaling can be rough: it goes full throttle with ele/guardian but is too reliant on self buffs when fighting alongside most other professions.

I share the fear that necro will never be fixed at its core, and that Shroud/LF mechanic will stay clunky and holding us back forever, and I agree with Rym that a trade must me made at the cost of Shroud HP to better balance that “2nd health bar”. Be it a portion of “always available” LF that regenerate outside of combat or more LF generated.

Another way would be to remove the 10% LF condition, depleting health when there’s no LF. And to stop the shenanigans of heals that work or not in Shroud, I would allow all heals to go through, and tweak the percentage if 100% is too much. Or do something like healing Shroud HP.

Right now I am on the same boat as Rym with the revenant. And when I see the “Infuse Light” buff that converts damage received into healing (that the revenant put on a downed player to counter cleaves), the necro in me cries of frustration for not having access to it as a mean to counter focus: add retaliation on top and make it a heal or utility skill!

SaintSnow.6593:

As for many of you who already know (and for those that don’t https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blighter's_Boon) this trait is hands down the first trait that probably truly qualifies as a grand master trait. The sheer amount of life force gain from this is by far the best beyond anything else. It’s all great and all but this is just another reason why the Reaper is miles ahead of its measly predecessor the Necromancer. The poor necro needs amazing life force up time and gain like this benefits the reaper. To be perfectly honest this trait should be placed somewhere else so the class as a whole can benefit as it single handedly solves the age old case of good life force gain which we all have been craving.

I initially brought it for the sustain, then I kept it for the perma life force.

Arche.7326:

I used it in the last BWE (because Reapers Onslaught was bugged) and it was not that impressive, sure it was nice to have in the middle of the zerg, but compared to a 15% DPS increase coupled with kitten CDR on kill in shroud, it is too weak.

I would actually say its better than onslaught in zergs because it allows you to cycle you pools. As in you will always enter shroud with max shroud and while you are in shroud you will always leave with more hp than you went in with.

Sigmoid.7082:

Arche.7326:

I used it in the last BWE (because Reapers Onslaught was bugged) and it was not that impressive, sure it was nice to have in the middle of the zerg, but compared to a 15% DPS increase coupled with 5 second CDR on kill in shroud, it is too weak.

I would actually say its better than onslaught in zergs because it allows you to cycle you pools. As in you will always enter shroud with max shroud and while you are in shroud you will always leave with more hp than you went in with.

It is probably considered to be a bit better in zergs, but the numbers still should be increased by a bit. I felt that the amount of buffs should have a larger impact on my HP. I ran around in valkyrie armor and my LF went up really fast, but my HP did not. It felt better with full Zerker gear or Cavaliers, but with Vitality gear I wouldn’t say it was worth taking (granted we never got our hands on the 15% attack speed increase, so I can’t really say for sure). Outside of Zergs and organised groups, it felt very lackluster.

I think it is the worst trait even and I will not use it in my builds.

Jokes aside – I love it. The fact that you can spam your auto to heal up a bit while waiting in shroud is great – it is a wonderful tool that finally provides us with the opportunity to be an attrition class.

Arche.7326:

Sigmoid.7082:

Arche.7326:

I used it in the last BWE (because Reapers Onslaught was bugged) and it was not that impressive, sure it was nice to have in the middle of the zerg, but compared to a 15% DPS increase coupled with 5 second CDR on kill in shroud, it is too weak.

I would actually say its better than onslaught in zergs because it allows you to cycle you pools. As in you will always enter shroud with max shroud and while you are in shroud you will always leave with more hp than you went in with.

It is probably considered to be a bit better in zergs, but the numbers still should be increased by a bit. I felt that the amount of buffs should have a larger impact on my HP. I ran around in valkyrie armor and my LF went up really fast, but my HP did not. It felt better with full Zerker gear or Cavaliers, but with Vitality gear I wouldn’t say it was worth taking (granted we never got our hands on the 15% attack speed increase, so I can’t really say for sure). Outside of Zergs and organised groups, it felt very lackluster.

If the number was any higher it would be to strong in single combat and for low hp/high armour builds. Considering when used you can leave shroud with having healed 10~30% of you hp isnt bad.

Its a defensive trait that scales with the number of combatants that are there. The more allies and enemies there are the better it becomes hence why its ok. A 15% attack speed increase is nice but its dependent on low long you are in shroud for. There can be a lot of time where the trait is doing nothing for you.

I dont think its designed to be amazing when your own your own.

Sigmoid.7082:

-snip-

If the number was any higher it would be to strong in single combat and for low hp/high armour builds. Considering when used you can leave shroud with having healed 10~30% of you hp isnt bad.

Its a defensive trait that scales with the number of combatants that are there. The more allies and enemies there are the better it becomes hence why its ok. A 15% attack speed increase is nice but its dependent on low long you are in shroud for. There can be a lot of time where the trait is doing nothing for you.

I dont think its designed to be amazing when your own your own.

It isn’t designed to be amazing when on my own, but it should at least be passable for solo play. I don’t feel like it is. I tried some 1v1 and most of the time the most heal you got from it was 10% often less (depending on how much my opponent hit me for), and that was on Cavaliers. For high HP builds it is ok for generating lots of life force, but not worth taking over attack speed and CDR.

Not that we really know if the attack speed is actually worth taking over it since most of us haven’t been able to use it yet.