Guild Wars 2

The following suggestion grew out of a discussion in this thread. It’s been made it’s own topic to prevent a derailment of the thread in which it first appeared.

Noble.3647:

Isn’t the biggest problem with making an “Attrition Class” in GW2 the fact that EVERY profession can heal, some healing incredibly well? I mean, how can you wear something down that is continually building itself up?

This is complicated further in that Necros are meant to rely upon conditions, but Every Profession has access to condition removal, most passively. And our own ability to transfer or convert conditions continually gets nerfed.

Overkillengine.6084:

The issue is almost anyone other than Guardians can just run away, reset the fight and their hp, and come back fresher than we are due to our cooldowns being long and because lifeforce does not refill between fights.
Which means we have to build to power or condi burst them down before they do.
Which means people complain, and we get nerfed over and over and over.

So our offense gets slowly gutted, and the initial problem never gets fixed; we can’t negate/restrict mobility and survive enough to pull off attrition fights like we should be able to.

Just throwing out a brainstorm idea here. What about a mechanic that allows us to leech the healing of others?

This would be distinct from life siphoning. Siphons would remain the active healing they are now; hit target to heal for X amount.

Life leeching , on the other hand, would be a passive skill or trait or a completely new mechanic built into the profession somehow. It could take different forms. One version may be we passively heal based on the number of boons an enemy has on them. Another option is we are healed for a percentage of the healing of an opponent.

Obviously, the numbers have to be tested and tweaked to make it balanced. For example, maybe we heal for 20% of what an opponent heals or we gain ~15 health/second for each boon on an opponent. What’s more is, this addresses the issue of scaling our attrition/sustain based on the number of opponents we’re surrounded by. One opponent, and we heal for 20% of their healing; two opponents, and we heal for 20% of the healing from each of them, etc.

Cap it at five opponents max from whom we can life leech, if necessary. Another limiter could be it only applies to opponents within X radius of the necro; further reinforcing the idea that the necro has a “kill zone” around them of which other professions must remain cognizant. Yet another limiter could be scaling the life leeching based on distance to an opponent. For example, going the “life-leech-enemy-healing” route, an opponent beyond 1200 range we don’t leech, 900 to 1200 range we leech 10% of their healing, 600 to 900 range we leech 15% of their healing, less than 600 range we leech 20% of their healing.

This addresses the issues identified above of every class being able to heal (making attrition difficult if you can’t out-damage over time the self-healing of other classes) and/or classes running away, resetting a fight, then re-engaging while we’re on cooldown and out of life force (when they return to the fight, they now inadvertently sustain us until we’re off cooldown).

This would also fit with the devs’ previous statements of necro being a class you don’t lock horns with unless you’re prepared to see the fight through to the end. We now gain sustain as a result of the battle being joined; by being in proximity to those who are directing aggression towards us.

What’s more, it’s not without counter-play. Opponents can use positioning to cut off or diminish our leeching or they can make cost:benefit choices of (a) heal now/buff up now, knowing that I’m also going to heal the necro a little bit, too or (b) keep pouring on the DPS and try to down the necro without healing myself and/or applying boons to myself.

This contrasts with the current situation in which other professions can reset a fight with a necro at will and without consequence. In the scenario I’m presenting, they can still reset the fight; that legitimate defensive counter is not removed from play. What it does, though, is impose a consequence on that course of action where currently there is none. If a player seeking to reset the fight doesn’t get fully out of range of the necro when they use a self-heal and/or returns to the fight with a bunch of boons or passive healing such as Soothing Mist, then their boons and/or passive healing benefits the necro, too.

This, in turn, puts an onus on the necro profession to increase build diversity a bit; slotting stun breakers, Well of Power, Flesh Wurm, Putrid Mark, saving Dark Path in reserve, etc. to help break stuns, cleanse CC conditions, and close gaps in an effort to stick close to an opponent so as to benefit from their self-heals, passive heals, and/or boon stacks.

Overkillengine.6084:

Hmm, could do something a tad simpler like replace/upgrade a current vampiric trait with a trait that has siphon scaling per boon with an internal cooldown to make it once per attack/ae pulse. (Just make sure with AE’s to have it look for the max possible boon stacks in the list of targets hit to scale off of.)

Kind of a pseudo boon hate mechanic that grants more sustain the more boons an enemy is running.

Bloodthirst would be a good candidate. Since they nerfed it (unnecessarily IMHO) from a 50% improvement to life siphons down to 20% improvement, add your suggestion above to Bloodthirst. So the skill would be a 20% improvement to all siphons with an added bonus to siphoning based on the number of boons affecting enemies within a certain radius.

I don’t think it should merely scale off a single opponent with the highest number of boons, though. Instead, to make our sustain truly viable, it scales off of ALL enemy boons within its effective radius or caps out after tallying up the boons of the five most boon-heavy opponents in the area. Scaling per boon would be somewhere between 2% to 5% more life siphoning. Perhaps give it a hard cap of 100% improvement to life siphoning; even if the number of boons in the area would push it beyond 100%.

Could even add this to Vampiric Master. But rather than gaining additional healing based on the number of boons on all opponents in the area, it only scales based on the number of boons on the enemy currently being hit. Because it’s single-target based and requires a critical hit to trigger this boon-hate-siphoning, the scaling for Vampiric Precision would be better than the Bloodthirst version. Perhaps a 10% to 15% increase to siphoning per critical hit for each boon on the target.

Then move Bloodthirst from Adept to Master, move Vampiric Rituals from Grandmaster down to Adept (as it has absolutely zero business being a Grandmaster trait and is really stretching it to even be at Master level), finally delete Quickening Thirst, and then create a new attrition/sustain-based Grandmaster trait in the Blood line.

One suggestion (per Bhawb) has been a Grandmaster that allows our siphons to heal our allies, as well. Also, per Bhawb, Vampiric Master would have to be toned down to prevent it from becoming ungodly, thus freeing our other siphons to scale better.

An applied debuff on the opponent that leeches healing is probably the best bet. Don’t base it off boons (boon hate is something I really hope they add more off, to make boons actually take some skill to maintain, but it shouldn’t necessarily be too blanket), and don’t base it off of enemies in the area (makes it hard to balance because people in the area =/= people attacking Necro).

A debuff not only makes it easier to balance via “limiters”, such as dodging the application of the debuff and the debuff having some time limit, but also introduces a lot of play/counterplay interaction.

Bloodthirst, would be an interesting way to add it, but I feel like blanket scaling buffs really don’t add much counterplay. However, Bloodthirst makes more sense for this than the “leeching” idea.

I think boon hate should also have some more direct additions, through Spite and Death Magic. Spite needs more boon hate than the single trait it has now, and Death Magic could make Necromancers much better bunkers by giving them the ability to steal boons from opponents. Give us the ability to punish boons, as it is now, only S/D thieves gave any kind of drawback to boon-spamming. There is almost no other drawbacks to it, you crap out tons of boons all over the place, with absolutely not way to prevent them being applied, and no punishment for that application. Necromancers are a logical place to have anti-boon mechanics; let us punish them (with counterplay) for mindlessly spamming boons.

Frankly, I am of the opinion that having the effectiveness of anything under your control be affected by your opponent leads to unsavory gameplay. Moreover, I see a lot of possible flaws – for example, all of our poison skills would begin to interfere with our gameplay (not a good thing) if it was “healing draining”. If we instead switched to “healing-by-boons”, you start to get into a lot of gray areas, such as the leech ticking when a boon would expire/be corrupted/stripped (presuming that corrupting/stripping has a net positive gain; a reverse Healing Signet if you will), or it ticking when a boon is applied. I think that having variable-scaling healing, especially one you don’t have full control over, is adding unnecessary layers of complexity to a game already full of hidden internal cooldowns and unknown scaling parameters, which are complicated enough by themselves.

If siphoning is to be buffed, at least as far as traits are concerned, I think it’ll simply revolve around playing with the base and scaling values. One of the main reasons I think we will never see siphoning to match Healing Signet or Signet of Restoration is because we trait for siphoning versus committing skill slots to it, which is far less risky.
That being said, I believe that an entire new class of skills, some of which featured siphoning, are not foregone possibilities. As SoV has shown, ANET are not against the idea of non-condition debuffs, so I believe we could see some form of hex derivatives come into play in the long run. However, this is all speculation on things that, should ANET be interested in, are multiple development cycles away.

I think that reducing things to a simplistic base level makes them more likely to appeal to the Devs, if they’re even listening – I would gladly have Vampiric Rituals demoted in order to gain Grandmaster team-share siphoning, or a boon-strip on hit and that healed you for each boon stripped.

The original suggestions were made in an effort to address the legitimate shortcomings of our attrition and sustain as quoted in the OP.

The spirit behind it is the necro – being a more unconventional class – should be given access to unconventional resources. We don’t have access to many of the boons that practically all other classes take for granted. With nothing to compensate other than just a large hitpoint pool, we’re not really living up to the vision of being masters of attrition and sustain.

So I went looking for other resources besides boons (which we’re not likely to be given access to, anyway) which could help improve our attrition and sustain. We no longer have hexes and we can’t sacrifice our own health to fuel our powers. Where to find the resources to improve our attrition and sustain, then? Why, in the healing and boons of our opponents!

I’m not disagreeing that the original suggestion I made is not without the need to tweak numbers, balance, and mechanics. However, so many of the unique resources we had access to in GW1 which allowed necros to truly fill that attrition and sustain role have been discarded in GW2. I’m just looking for something…anything…to help improve our situation. It’s definitely a grasping at straws; but being painted into a corner, there’s not a lot else that I can find to use as a resource other than the resources our opponents bring to the fight.

We can certainly talk about scaling our existing siphoning or adding some unique twist to our current skills and traits. However, as many of those suggestions have been made in numerous posts already, I didn’t want to beat a dead horse by suggesting – once again – that scaling be brought to our life siphoning skills. So I took it in a new direction with this post suggesting that our attrition and sustain be tied to our opponents boons and/or self-healing.

That’s what they bring to the table which – in its current incarnation – largely invalidates our attrition and sustain as noted by Noble and Overkillengine. By feeding off that resource, necros then gain the ability to see the fight through; even when an opponent resets the fight. It amounts to, “Enemy: Look at me, I’m buffed up to the hilt. HAHAHAHAHA!!!”, “Necro: Oh, yeah? Bring it, bro! I’ll just feed off all your boons. The stronger you make yourself, the stronger you make me!!!” (which also fits well with the lore of a necro feeding off the aggression of opponents).

If you want to know what makes attrition work: look at MM builds, not only the best case of Necromancer attrition, but one of the strongest attrition builds in the game.

Problem with that is I have no interest in running a MM build. It’s great that it works for those who wish to build to it. But that’s not what we were sold on when told the profession as a whole is the attrition/sustain class.

Now, granted, I’m making suggestions that in themselves would probably be limited to niche builds in the Blood Magic line. But my larger goal is to see improved attrition and sustain brought to all builds.

With some kind of opponent-self-heal leeching mechanic or boon-hate healing, there would be ways to make that viable in multiple trait lines or through various utility skills that could disseminate this ability to nearly all types of builds.

Except that by looking at one example of a working attrition build, you can see why it works. Why is it that MM is the only real attrition build, when it is on the exact same class, with the access to the same weapons, same Deathshroud, a lot of the same things that every other Necro is?

I’m not saying roll MM if you want to be attrition, I’m saying look at why MMs are able to absolutely excel in attrition while everything else fails. Take those things that make MM succeed, and then adapt and apply them to everyone else.

MM sustain works by having enough personal mitigation to make the siphons and heals/regens matter without gutting your damage, since you can gear tanky and your minion damage does not suffer.

Plus minion are also always out and dealing damage (assuming no stupid AI stunts) once summoned unless you or someone else kills it; other damage utilities do not have that behavior (identified as an enemy abusing the fact that our cooldowns are long to reset a fight.)

The closest we could get to what MM’s pull off in vampiric builds is to go AE heavy as possible and/or have some way of having the rest of our team life steal for us. Right now the AE option blows goats and…..

I’m a bit against Necros becoming any more team dependent than they already are. We need something workable without having the perfect build or a team babysitting us, and I’m tired of the usual bypassing the sustain issue by zerker or condi bombing an enemy before they can react…the game is rife with this one dimensional crap as is.

So….how the hell are we supposed to apply something more than a bit unique to MM builds when it comes to lifesteal and sustain then? About the only way I could see it happening is to dramatically lower the cool downs on a lot of our abilities…..so that we can proc lifesteal more often.

Or we could be given better mitigation.

Its the full package. MMs have huge poison uptime, high base damages, lots of weakness, perma cripple from a single minion, immobilize, knockdown, and life stealing.

Also, something that people actually don’t realize: a full set of 6 minions is only 144 HP/s. When you consider comparative uptimes, and the fact that they are all single target, that actually isn’t much higher than Vampiric Precision with high crit chance. The siphoning is only a very small part of why they are good at attrition, especially when you consider that MMs have god-awful LF generation compared to what other builds can get.

The big difference is consistent and strong offensive pressure and control, while still having a strong defense. Unlike any other Necro, they have MASSIVE amounts of control. A full MM build can keep someone hard-CC’d for up to 15 seconds, with almost 10s of chill afterwards, and perma cripple while that isn’t up. In addition to that, MMs also either boast near invulnerability to conditions, or perma poison with high weakness from either of their GM traits. All of this control and condition output is done while having 100% regen uptime, retal hurting their target back, low but consistent minion/self DPS, and decent healing from siphoning traits.

MMs literally have everything we were promised Necromancers would have. Adapt those qualities to other Necromancer builds, which is something that doesn’t currently exist, mostly due to a high lack of non-minion based control and sustained condition output, and you see an entire line of Necromancers that are… actually Necromancers.

Honestly just tweaking ability cool downs would help tremendously with the whole fight reset issue. Better cool downs also technically means better life force generation as well.

It’s kind of stupid that a class touted as being about sustain has such glaring down times in their abilities. That’s about as anti-sustain as you can get.

I think they could give us some “sustain” by traits that modify other abilities to apply what we need, like the Thief 15 trait, where X condition applies Y condition. Or something that makes all staff marks cripple, etc. It shouldn’t be on auto attack, but because the rest of our abilities have decent CDs, have it apply on multiple ones.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

[Redacted]

I don’t disagree with what you’ve said, but you need to keep things in perspective. Simple ideas are good ideas, and are more likely to attract attention and/or be implemented. The basic concepts here are definitely worth exploring, but some of these suggestions are just too much/awkward. For example, compare the following:

Trait - Regenerate health over time based on the number of boons on nearby foes with diminishing returns due to distance. (Healing per boon per distance: 400-600 range: X; 200-400 range: X+Y; 0-200 range: X+Y+Z; Range: 600)
Trait - Gain health whenever you a trike a foe with boons. (Healing per boon: N)

I can’t honestly look at these and believe that the first has any chance of taking off compared to the second (and I tried to make the first have appealing syntax). The base concept is the same, but the execution is radically different, and that’s important. Complexity is the opposite of what we want – we should be suggesting simple, easily grokkble mechanics/skills/traits.

Thus why I suggested a siphon that scales with boons on target hit; something that should be much easier to calculate and balance while still hopefully being useful.

I know some worry that being dependent on the boons your enemy has might be an issue, but honestly in any sort of pvp format those that have them spam them as often as possible usually. It’s taken to the point that even the builds with dedicated boon stripping/corruption can’t keep up with the reapplication due to either skill cool-downs or the pulses do not happen fast enough.

So a soft counter that does not care about thwarting reapplication would be very nice.

For the life siphon issue I feel have another suggestion, one that might give Necros a better time in PvE content while still being a lot more useful than the current siphon in PvP.

Siphon suggestion copied from another thread:

Vampiric – Recover HP whenever you gain LifeForce. 50% of gained LifeForce is added to your current HP but HP recovered is capped at 50% of your current HealingPower (If you gained 2000 LF but had only 1000 healing power you’d be healed for only 500 HP).

Making vampiric trigger only from LF gain adds some strategic choices in a build that chooses to take it, especially since our ranged weapons have worse LF generation than our close range choices, this already rewards a more risky play-style with greater HP recovery.

Secondly, this removes issue of power affecting HP recovery since this healing scales only with Vitality and max LF ( since most LF gains are % based), while also being capped by current Healing power.

For a build to attain what could be considered ludicrous HP recovery ( 100s per second) it would have to expose itself in aggressive attacks while being mostly focused on defensive stats, so you are nigh-unkillable but deal very little damage ( the intended tradeoff for such a gain).

Finally, this implementation is actually pretty simple to be added in the game, it’s a subroutine triggered on LF gain that adds the calculated amount to our HP.

Also, since life siphoning wouldn’t be triggered by hits anymore, traits like vampiric wells could be tweaked to have higher scaling, without fear of mass instant gains because of too many compounding effects.

Balefire.7592:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

[Redacted]

I don’t disagree with what you’ve said, but you need to keep things in perspective. Simple ideas are good ideas, and are more likely to attract attention and/or be implemented. The basic concepts here are definitely worth exploring, but some of these suggestions are just too much/awkward. For example, compare the following:

Trait - Regenerate health over time based on the number of boons on nearby foes with diminishing returns due to distance. (Healing per boon per distance: 400-600 range: X; 200-400 range: X+Y; 0-200 range: X+Y+Z; Range: 600)
Trait - Gain health whenever you a trike a foe with boons. (Healing per boon: N)

I can’t honestly look at these and believe that the first has any chance of taking off compared to the second (and I tried to make the first have appealing syntax). The base concept is the same, but the execution is radically different, and that’s important. Complexity is the opposite of what we want – we should be suggesting simple, easily grokkble mechanics/skills/traits.

I agree with your premise that making the suggestion simpler makes it more appealing to the devs. In my original post, I made the point that the scaling-with-distance you refer to was put there as a possible balancer.

In almost every post I make I try to play Devil’s Advocate to my own suggestion and look for ways someone else may attempt to claim it is OP or unbalanced. So, in that vein, I added the leeching-scaling-with-distance to pre-emptively address any criticism that the mechanic would be OP.

Personally, I’d rather not have the scale-with-distance limiter at all; it was only put there to quell balance concerns and possibly add some counter-play on the part of opponents (using distance to deny the necro their sustain).

As to your comment that the base concept is the same, I have to disagree with that. My original suggestion was, in part, that the necro would gain regen based on the number of boons on ALL opponents in the area (or, at the very least, the five opponents with the most boons). Your rewording limits the mechanic to triggering only on striking a single opponent who has boons. This, functionally, is no different than our current on-hit life siphoning.

In my suggestion, the life leeching is happening passively based on the boons of all (or 5) opponents within the mechanic’s radius. This was to address the issue that our current sustain is quickly overwhelmed as the number of opponents scales up; especially as we tend to be the focus target of choice. I then went looking for limiters to prevent us regening 600 health per second (ideal scenario; assuming 5 opponents in the area, each with 8 boons, and using the original post’s suggestion of 15 health leeched per boon).

Now, in the original post, I didn’t speak specifically to limiters on boon leeching; my limiters were addressing leeching the self-healing of others (the other form of leeching I suggested in the same post). Though I didn’t explicitly apply these limiters to boon leeching, the spirit/concept would be the same. It was late, I had reached the 5,000 word limit for the original post, and I didn’t have the opportunity to make a second post which spoke specifically to limiters on boon leeching; so I tried to imply it via the limiters which would apply to self-heal leeching.

Other possible limiters could be:

• Hard cap on the amount of regen gained from boon leeching per second, regardless of number of opponents and number of boons.

• Only able to leech from up to X boons per opponent, even if they have more than that.

• Only able to leech from up to X boons max, regardless of how many boons are present within the radius.

Regardless of what limiters are put into place, the core concept of this new mechanic is that it leeches from all (or cap of 5) opponents in the area as opposed to being another 1v1 or single-target-on-hit mechanic. This was specifically done to address our shortcomings in being focused by multiple opponents while having very limited to no means of escaping and resetting a fight like the other professions do.

If we’re going to be forced by design to stay in the fight, then we need to have mechanics that scale as the number of opponents scale or as the number of resources (boons) a single opponent brings to the fight scales. This was one suggestion for accomplishing that.

Hmm an another way to do a “simple” limiter is 1 siphon stack per unique boon type on enemies hit; since there are 9 boon types it when would cap out at 9 siphons per second if it had a 1 sec ICD, regardless of how many are hit by the base attack.

More people is basically a greater probability of the conditions for a maximum 9x proc to equal “yes”.

Another boon hate/sustain trait option: Remove 1 boon per hit, 1 sec ICD. Heal x hitpoints for each boon removed this way.

Overkillengine.6084:

Hmm an another way to do a “simple” limiter is 1 siphon stack per unique boon type on enemies hit; since there are 9 boon types it when would cap out at 9 siphons per second if it had a 1 sec ICD, regardless of how many are hit by the base attack.

More people is basically a greater probability of the conditions for a maximum 9x proc to equal “yes”.

Another boon hate/sustain trait option: Remove 1 boon per hit, 1 sec ICD. Heal x hitpoints for each boon removed this way.

I like this suggestion. However, I’d do away with the requirement that the boons be unique. If surrounded by 5 opponents who all have Might, then it’s not really going to do much to improve our sustain as we’d only gain 1 leech stack in such a scenario. I’d rather it be 1 leech stack per boon up to a max of 9 stacks.

Help me clarify it a bit, though.

Are you suggesting:

• A) We passively gain 1 siphon/leech stack (I’m going to refer to it as leech to help differentiate it from our current siphoning) for each boon present within the mechanic’s radius – regardless of number of opponents, distance, boons-per-opponent, etc. – up to the cap of 9…

OR

• B) We actively gain 1 leech stack per boon in the area, but only when attacking. For example, 3 opponents in the area, 2 boons on each = 6 boons. We must first hit an opponent to trigger the mechanic, then we gain 6 leech stacks. The stacks then renewing/being recalculated each time we make a successful hit and based on the number of boons in the area at the time of the hit.

Then, once we’ve gained our leech stacks (by either method A or method B, above) how do you see this working.

• A) Each leech stack adds bonus life siphoning per active hit using our current life siphoning abilities…

OR

• B) Each leech stack passively grants us increasing regen up to the cap of 9 stacks…

OR

• C) Some other form of sustain, health gain, healing, etc. yet to be described.

Assuming method A from the first scenario and method A from the second scenario, I could see this being added to Bloodthirst.

Bloodthirst

Siphoning health is more effective. Siphon more health the more boons your opponents have. (Possibly restrict this only to hits made by the necro and not minions to prevent synergy with Vampiric Master making MMs OP.)

Effectiveness increased: 20% (maybe tone this down to 15% due to the new functionality additions)

Leech stacks: 1 per enemy boon within the radius

Leech cap: 9 stacks

Leeching: X extra health siphoned per stack or Y percent improved siphoning per stack (depends on which direction you want to take it; straight siphoning such as “siphon an extra 15 health per leech stack” or percentage increase such as “siphons improved 15% per leech stack”)

Radius: 900

Then delete Quickening Thirst, move Bloodthirst to Master level, move Vampiric Rituals down to Adept level (with some number tweaking to bring it in line with Adept level if necessary; though I don’t think it is necessary), then add a new Grandmaster trait à la Bhawb’s suggestion of something that would give us group support; such as our siphons benefiting allies.

We’d then gain – in the Blood line, anyway – a badly needed scaling sustain with the option to have our “selfish” siphoning directly benefit our allies (rather than the fiasco that is Signet of Vampirism). It’s not the be-all-end-all to our sustain issues; it’s just one piece of the puzzle. But at least it’d be a start.

Alternately, if they just can’t bring themselves to delete Quickening Thirst (though I don’t know why they wouldn’t), replace Quickening Thirst’s current effects with this new leeching mechanic. In it’s current form I can’t imagine Quickening Thirst being used for anything other than the most niche build of the most niche trait line. Personally, I find it totally useless. If somebody can argue in it’s favor, feel free to enlighten me.

What I mean is you launch an AE attack; 5 targets hit, siphon calc determines there were say 6 unique boon types amongst all targets hit, applies 1.6 as the multiplier to the siphon effect, once per second.

The reason I propose a targeting limiter is to keep AE and rapid single target builds from being the default best options always; and allows the base siphon amount to finally get scaled to an amount useful to all builds regardless of delivery method.

One of the issues facing vampiric builds is the fact that the total payload is spread across 5 traits; two of which are antagonistic because they require different utilities equipped to reach peak power.

We’d be better off if they were condensed and reformed into something a bit more cohesive; like maybe 3 traits:

Vampiric (blood siphon on hit; ICD, an actual decent base value)
Bloodthirst (1.X multiplier on blood siphons based on enemy boons; applies to weapon, downed, and utility skills; does not affect food/gear/item siphons)
Vampiric Master (heal nearby allies every time you blood siphon; shout {600} range, based on amount siphoned)

I think that is the best set up suggested thus far, though I would still keep Vampiric Precision as its own trait since, if buffed, it would force a trade-off between high risk/reward versus passive baseline healing (Vampiric vs Vampiric Precision).
Having it function on hit circumvents invulnerability/blocks, but still has counter-play in dodges/blinds/movement. We have more than enough AoE to let something like this function at close to passive-radius levels, and numbers can be adjusted to make it viable. I just don’t think passive healing (or passive anything really) is good for the game, and having it be based on a variable parameters you don’t control with set limiters still screams complexity creep.

In applying the “common boons” idea to scaling, I think Bloodthirst could be worded as follows: Siphoning is increased with the number of unique boons on foes you strike.

It sounds far more complex than it really is; it’s just putting a cap on the multipliers and frequency to create much more predictable performance min and max values.

Probably the best way to get something with a baseline that isn’t pure crap without all related traits possible taken.

I’m in agreement with Baelfire re: keeping Vampiric Precision for those who like high risk/high reward play.

I think Bhawb would take issue with eliminating minion siphoning from Vampiric Master (and I’d agree in the name of balance, even though I don’t run MM).

Though I like the overall direction these suggestions are going with regards to Bloodthirst, I will still argue for these two points:

• 1) Bloodthirst will still have a base increase to siphons by X%, even in the absence of enemy boons. Whether that’s 10%, 15%, 20%, or whatever would be determined by balance testing. It would then scale up as suggested by Overkillengine. It appears from his (her?) post above this would be a 10% increase in siphoning per boon.

• 2) The boon-hate scaling will not be based on unique boons but rather total boons present within the radius. I offer the following scenarios for why:

Scenario 1 – Boon-hate by Number of Unique Boons

• Necro is surrounded by three opponents.

• Enemy 1 has Might and Retaliation.

• Enemy 2 has Might and Fury.

• Enemy 3 has Might and Stability.

• Number of unique boons = 4

• Bloodthirst multiplier would scale to 1.4 (or 1.5 if we assume it has a base 10% improvement to siphons; even in the absence of boons).

• Assuming we’re still using the current base siphoning values from Vampiric (I’m getting 32 per hit at the moment; not including Bloodthirst), this necro would only siphon approximately 32 × 1.4 = 45 health per hit or 32 × 1.5 = 48 health per hit.

• Against three opponents, scaling life siphoning from 32 to 45 or 48 is not going to significantly improve our sustain; which is the point of the discussion.

Scenario 2 – Boon-hate by Total Number of Boons

• Necro is surrounded by three opponents.

• Enemy 1 has Might and Retaliation.

• Enemy 2 has Might and Fury.

• Enemy 3 has Might and Stability.

• Total number of boons = 6

• Bloodthirst multiplier would scale to 1.6 (or 1.7 if we assume it has a base 10% improvement to siphons; even in the absence of boons).

• Assuming we’re still using the current base siphoning values from Vampiric (I’m getting 32 per hit at the moment; not including Bloodthirst), this necro would only siphon approximately 32 × 1.6 = 51 health per hit or 38 × 1.7 = 54 health per hit.

• Against three opponents, scaling life siphoning from 32 to 51 or 54 is probably still not going to save us. But at least it beats 45 or 48 and gets us closer to between 72 to 80 health per hit that I’ve argued in a previous post is the magic number of where our siphoning should be to make it truly viable sustain (when compared to the passive regen and healing other classes enjoy with less opportunity cost).

And yes, yes, yes, I understand they achieve that state usually through a healing signet, whereas – so the argument goes – we get life siphoning while still having access to a healing skill slot. That’s only half the story, though. When you add in our lack of mobility, lack of blocks/evades/invulns, and lack of access to boons those other classes enjoy, it balances out:

Them = higher mobility, disengage, blocks/evades/invulns, boons + passive regen/healing

Us = life siphoning + dedicated healing utility

(continued)

(continued)

So my point is we need to scale up our siphoning more rapidly than what the scaling-by-unique-boon option offers. Furthermore, scaling by total boons present within the radius is a more accurate reflection of the total number of opponents we’re facing.

Taking one of my previous examples, what happens when facing 5 opponents under the effect of Might alone? With the scaling-by-unique-boon option, a necro facing that situation only gains a 1.1 or 1.2 multiplier to their siphoning (depending on whether or not Bloodthirst would retain a base increase to siphons). Hardly any scaling at all and not an accurate reflection of the challenge that necro is facing.

Whereas if we use a scaling-by-total-boons option, that necro now gains a 1.5 or 1.6 multiplier to their siphoning. A marked improvement and a more accurate reflection of the challenge that necro is facing.

The goal isn’t to scale by boons alone; the goal is to find ways to scale our siphoning based on the total number of opponents we’re facing. However, the reason for choosing boons as the trigger rather than just raw numbers of opponets was :

1) My original post was addressing Overkillengine’s observations regarding opponents disengaging from a fight, healing, buffing up, then re-engaging while we’re on cooldown and out of life force. Using their boons as a sustain resource – which are typically present in greater quantity than the number of opponents – allows us to survive through that re-engagement until we’re off cooldown.

2) Scaling by raw numbers of opponents would likely lead to too low/too slow a scaling. We can safely assume any scaling would be limited to the typical 5 opponents that ArenaNet imposes on everything.

If we’re limited to scaling by just 5 opponents, then the percent increase to our siphoning has to be pretty high to make it viable; say a 20% increase per opponent. That’s a large jump and not one that I see ArenaNet being willing to make, given their history of small incremental changes. Thus, scaling by numbers of opponents would be kept low and, consequently, inadequate.

By contrast, using boons as the scalar allows for smaller increments while still achieving a respectable multiplier once it ramps up; a situation likely more palatable to ArenaNet.

3) It introduces some new twists to combat. If you know that facing a necro while buffed up is going to benefit that necro, what do you do? Go in without boons in an effort to cripple the necro’s sustain at the expense of weakening yourself? Buff to the max and hope you can overwhelm the necro’s sustain?

As the necro, what do you do? Let them keep their boons in an effort to improve your sustain? Corrupt their boons to deliver a killing blow at the possible expense of your own survivability?

It also introduces a cost:benefit to disengaging from the necro in an effort to buff up and re-engage. Currently, this can be done without consequence. With this new mechanic, disengaging, buffing up, and then re-engaging the necro may be the exact opposite of what you want to do.

4) Boons are an indirect measure of both the numbers of opponents you’re facing but also the relative threat you’re facing. For example, which is the greater threat: a group of three players with 5 boons each or that same group of three players with no boons at all?

So now we get to the real heart of the matter:

We need sustain that scales not just with the numbers we’re facing, but with the overall threat we’re facing.

I would argue that scaling based on the total number of boons rather than raw numbers of enemies and/or unique boons achieves that goal. There most certainly would be number tweaking involved, but I still stand by the premise that our scaling needs to be based on the overall threat we’re facing; not just numbers and not just unique boons.

Well, depending on how the math works out, the removal and transfer of minion based siphon potential to the summoner would actually help minion masters stay alive even when all their minions get nuked and are at their most vulnerable.

So they get a more stable performance curve in that regard; instead of a binary suck/awesome state they have now.
————-

If we were to remove the unique boon type requirement; we’d have to go with a lower scaling on the proposed Bloodthirst trait.

Because without that; 5 opponents running Lyssa/or Guardian boon spam = 5*9 bonus; resulting in a total 5.5 multiplier to the base vampiric siphon. ~176 HP/sec as long as you are attacking and hitting all 5.

It would be hilarious; but yeah probably not going to happen.

Better off asking for a higher base around 70-80 and just getting a lower multiplier per boon.

Overkillengine.6084:

If we were to remove the unique boon type requirement; we’d have to go with a lower scaling on the proposed Bloodthirst trait.

Because without that; 5 opponents running Lyssa/or Guardian boon spam = 5*9 bonus; resulting in a total 5.5 multiplier to the base vampiric siphon. ~176 HP/sec as long as you are attacking and hitting all 5.

It would be hilarious; but yeah probably not going to happen.

Better off asking for a higher base around 70-80 and just getting a lower multiplier per boon.

What I meant was use total number of boons but cap it using your suggestion of 9 (corresponding with the total number of boons in the game). So 5 opponents with 9 unique boons apiece still caps out at a 0.9 multiplier for the necro.

Depending on whether or not Bloodthirst would retain a base improvement to life siphoning (even in the absence of enemy boons), this would result in the following max multipliers:

Bloodthirst retains its current multiplier of 20%: max multiplier = 2.1

Bloodthirst has its multiplier reduced to 10%: max multiplier = 2.0

Bloodthirst has no base multiplier: max multiplier = 1.9

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Overkillengine.6084:

If we were to remove the unique boon type requirement; we’d have to go with a lower scaling on the proposed Bloodthirst trait.

Because without that; 5 opponents running Lyssa/or Guardian boon spam = 5*9 bonus; resulting in a total 5.5 multiplier to the base vampiric siphon. ~176 HP/sec as long as you are attacking and hitting all 5.

It would be hilarious; but yeah probably not going to happen.

Better off asking for a higher base around 70-80 and just getting a lower multiplier per boon.

What I meant was use total number of boons but cap it using your suggestion of 9 (corresponding with the total number of boons in the game). So 5 opponents with 9 unique boons apiece still caps out at a 0.9 multiplier for the necro.

Depending on whether or not Bloodthirst would retain a base improvement to life siphoning (even in the absence of enemy boons), this would result in the following max multipliers:

Bloodthirst retains its current multiplier of 20%: max multiplier = 2.1

Bloodthirst has its multiplier reduced to 10%: max multiplier = 2.0

Bloodthirst has no base multiplier: max multiplier = 1.9

Ah OK I see what you mean; have it still count up all boons on all hit targets but the highest additional multiplier cap is +90%. (1.9 or 2.1 if we still assume a flat 20% Bloodthirst siphon increase even without boons)

Could be workable.

Overkillengine.6084:

Because without that; 5 opponents running Lyssa/or Guardian boon spam = 5*9 bonus; resulting in a total 5.5 multiplier to the base vampiric siphon. ~176 HP/sec as long as you are attacking and hitting all 5.

Also, the other subtle difference I’m picking up from what you wrote above is the necro only gains the multiplier if the target they hit has boons on them.

My suggestion is the necro gains the multiplier based purely on the boons within the radius; regardless of whether or not the target they’re hitting has any boons on them at all.

An example to illustrate:

• Necro faces three opponents.

• Enemy 1 has two boons.

• Enemy 2 has one boon.

• Enemy 3 has no boons.

• Necro attacks Enemy 3 (no boons on that opponent) but still has a 0.3 multiplier applied to their life siphoning on account of the three enemy boons in their vicinity. It becomes irrelevant whether or not the target the necro is hitting personally has any boons.

Just the fact that there are boons within the radius of this trait will – by itself and with no other restrictions or conditions – buff the necro’s life siphoning by the appropriate amount.

This goes back to what I spoke of earlier in that the boons local to the necro’s area are being used as a gauge of the relative threat to that necro. Not just raw numbers of opponents and not just the threat presented by a single opponent within a group of enemies, but rather the encounter taken as a whole.

That’s what we’re up against. We can’t disengage, go invulnerable, etc. We have to stand there and fight. So we need a tool that scales our sustain relative to the overall threat we’re facing; not just on an opponent-per-opponent basis. Thus this suggestion.

Yes my intent was to use the attack the siphon is riding on to gauge the highest possible boon count; a single target on counts the target hit, while a 5 target AE would look for the highest possible boon count and apply the siphon there, ending up with the siphon always firing on the most buffed up target hit (per second).

Keep in mind one of the reasons I suggested capping the multiplier is that it also logically applies to all other non-gear or item based siphons a Necro has access to:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_the_Locust
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deadly_Feast
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_Siphon
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_Leech

Combo Field: Dark × Physical Projectile < lol Staff auto. Disregard.
Combo Field: Dark × Whirl < I don’t think Necros can pull this one off.

Would this count for every enemy or only against players?

How would it help against multiple non boon heavy enemies?

Every enemy is a threat/potential target, so yes. No reason not to count all.

Assuming an increase in the base siphon and better scaling off stats due to that; this would leave us better off against multiple non boon carrying enemies than we are now.

Just not as big a bonus as if they did have some boons.

But if you can manage to find multiple player enemies within the radius of an AE attack whom are running absolutely no boons at all; that’s like, a unicorn man. Take a picture of that kitten.

Dalanor.5387:

Would this count for every enemy or only against players?

My feeling is it should count for all enemies, regardless of whether they’re found in PvE, PvP, or WvWvW.

Dalanor.5387:

How would it help against multiple non boon heavy enemies?

It wouldn’t.

However, that scenario is more likely found in a PvE environment which, I would argue, is less challenging or at least less likely that the necro is going to be focused by all enemies as often happens in PvP/WvWvW. The necro’s life siphoning would be less in such encounters, but then the overall threat is less, too.

Which is why I advocate Bloodthirst (assuming this new functionality were added to it) retaining a base improvement to life siphoning; even in the absence of boons. Thus, when facing opponents with no boons, the percent improvement to life siphoning would remain more or less as it is now. As the number of boons in the area increases, then the necro’s life siphoning improves. The theory being that enemy boons are a decent indicator of the overall threat the necro faces.

This also allows for a bit of counter-play and making cost:benefit choices on the part of opponents. When facing a siphoner, it might actually be better to do so without boons; but then the opponent has to weigh the relative advantage of denying the necro their sustain against the disadvantage of entering a fight without boons.

This was by design. One problem we face with long cooldowns and reliance on life force generation is opponents can disengage, heal and buff up, then re-engage us in our weakened state without consequence. With life siphoning scaling with boons, we then gain additional sustain when that opponent re-engages us; potentially improving our survivability until our skills are off cooldown and/or we’ve generated more life force.

The first question was about phantasms (they get fury and have aoe regen sometimes, i dont know whats the mes meta right now) and other pets (ranger pets actually beefy, so it would be lovely to get bonus from them).

In PvE you wouldnt ever touch that line, except if you some kind of support necro, but thats a different story.
The problem stays the same, you still (can) get steamrolled against multiple enemies and cant escape. Making the leeching powerfull enough to scale up (scaling guys, scaling!) against 1v5 and not die in 2 second would be a good thing. OP until people get used to it, but could help us in the long run.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

This was by design. One problem we face with long cooldowns and reliance on life force generation is opponents can disengage, heal and buff up, then re-engage us in our weakened state without consequence. With life siphoning scaling with boons, we then gain additional sustain when that opponent re-engages us; potentially improving our survivability until our skills are off cooldown and/or we’ve generated more life force.

Here is where our design fails so hard. Devs said, as the fight gets longer, we got stronger, right? In reality this happens what you wrote. Actually we get weaker, because of long CD-s and the enemy simply re-engage and slap us to death.
How about, just a random idea, this whole siphoning idea get implemented in a similar way as Risen abominations get frenzy? We build up slowly stuff and as the fight goes longer the enemy must decide to gtfo or die. And it should linger around a while to avoid re-engage. Oh and Spite25 could be designed this way too. Mmmh, might stacks.

Ok, random thought: abandon the boon hate mechanic and just use the Necro’s decreasing HP as an inverse multiplier to the siphon amount.

The lower on health you are, the harder you siphon.

Dalanor.5387:

How about, just a random idea, this whole siphoning idea get implemented in a similar way as Risen abominations get frenzy? We build up slowly stuff and as the fight goes longer the enemy must decide to gtfo or die. And it should linger around a while to avoid re-engage. Oh and Spite25 could be designed this way too. Mmmh, might stacks.

Overkillengine.6084:

Ok, random thought: abandon the boon hate mechanic and just use the Necro’s decreasing HP as an inverse multiplier to the siphon amount.

The lower on health you are, the harder you siphon.

Those are interesting suggestions. I had made some similar ones here and here about 4 months ago. Interesting how we keep making the same suggestions over and over yet nobody is listening.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Those are interesting suggestions. I had made some similar ones here and here about 4 months ago. Interesting how we keep making the same suggestions over and over yet nobody is listening.

I just hope that when they unify the balance forums we’ll be able to effectively scream at people misinformed about Necro survival and abilities and get our kitten together.
ANet won’t be able to have plausible deniability about our unhappines if we post in the same place as Warriors and Mesmers.

Kiriakulos.1690:

I just hope that when they unify the balance forums we’ll be able to effectively scream at people misinformed about Necro survival and abilities and get our kitten together.
ANet won’t be able to have plausible deniability about our unhappines if we post in the same place as Warriors and Mesmers.

But we have an extra healthpool with 1 minute long chain fear and minions and dhuumfire and condispam and and and … you know the deal.
You are an OP noob condispammer necro, even if you use wells. Noobs will cry, necromancers adapt and noobs cry more.

It’s not HP it’s life force.

HP refills upon the end of combat.

Life force…does not, and thus should not be balanced as having the same effectiveness as HP.

Overkillengine.6084:

It’s not HP it’s life force.

HP refills upon the end of combat.

Life force…does not, and thus should not be balanced as having the same effectiveness as HP.

Say that to the whining non-necro players.)) Usually we get those excuses why we are op and we dont deserve any kind of fix or buff.

No point in telling them that, they’re the sort that think they should not have to carry stunbreaks or cleanses because then they can’t carry as many damage boosting skills….

And thats why we got nerfed in a week after Dhuumfire. Peoply whine instead of adapting, while we get a response from a dev (!) to learn to play.

So, as I understand it (minion master is the one build I’ve yet to play seriously) the reason they’re afraid to improve siphon is that vampiric master would be overpowered. I’m playing off of the other suggestions a little here, but what would you guys think if they changed bloodthirst to double siphoning effectiveness if the foe is bleeding? (obviously, they would have to change the prevalent passive condi immunity meta also) or maybe have life siphon grant life force also if the foe is bleeding. This would make more sense with the name of the trait, it would see more use in condi build as opposed to power and it would be hard to get all the other minion master functionality while keeping up bleeds.