Guild Wars 2

For Blood Magic, this line seriously need a good Grandmaster trait, not everyone want to face-tank or use Well.
-Mark of Evasion: this trait could see ICD remove or at least keep the ICD the same as Mark of Blood.
-Transfusion: This Grandmaster trait isn’t very comfortable to use due to the long CD on Life Transfer and it does nothing for you if you are fighting alone. Maybe make the Transfusion reduces 20% CD of Shroud skill 4 similar to Thief’s Grandmaster trait Sleight of Hand.

As for DS vs RS, I understand and agree that RS should be stronger than DS. After all, it is a Elite specialization. But what I really want to talk about is the usage of DS vs RS. When I am on a Reaper and everytime I enter RS I seem to always have all 5 skills available to me in the middle of a fight. In contrast, whenever I enter DS, most of the time, I always get stuck behind my skills on CD and resort to spam the slow Life Blast instead of having something meaningful to do.
-Life Blast: please reduce the cast time to 0.5sec + aftercast with the result of one attack every one second. And reduce the damage to compensate it, so that it will be easier to use and work better with Dhuumfire.

-Dark Path: reduces cast time to 0.5sec and CD to 12sec, and reduces damage to compensate it. Every second we spend in Shroud costs us LF but why are Life Blast and Dark Path take so long to cast?

-Life Transfer: the 40sec CD compare to its counter part, Soul Spiral, 30sec CD doesn’t sound reasonable to me and specially when this is the only skill on your DS bar that grant LF back. I would say reduce the CD to 30sec and reduce only the damage by 20%.

-Tainted Shackles: this has no contest to Executioner’s Scythe, lets alone the CD comparison. You could reduce CD to 30sec, Torment to 8sec, Immobilize to 1.25ec.

As I said before, this isn’t about buffing DS to be on the same level as RS but rather to make it as useful as RS.

- Transfusion

Ehhh you use it for 2 things, to bring revived players out of AoE and for the okish heal(2.5kish I think if you full channel?). The important thing is to bring dead players outside the danger zone though. I actually think this is one of the better GM traits designed because it actually changes the way you would use the skill at times instead.

- RS vs DS

RS should not be stronger than DS because it is an elite spec because an elite spec is suppose to be sidegrade. Honestly one of the biggest reason you are getting so many skills off when you enter RS is probably you are traiting speed of shadows. Most of us use soul marks with staff paired but with RS you want the MS.

That being said I can agree on change Life blast more like plague blast, dark path is meh to me. Life transfer should be a bit longer CD than spiral I think since it is ranged, the damage on it is pretty mediocre already so I don’t know about the damage nerf. No clue on tainted shackles.

Warscythes.9307:

- Transfusion

Ehhh you use it for 2 things, to bring revived players out of AoE and for the okish heal(2.5kish I think if you full channel?). The important thing is to bring dead players outside the danger zone though. I actually think this is one of the better GM traits designed because it actually changes the way you would use the skill at times instead.

- RS vs DS

RS should not be stronger than DS because it is an elite spec because an elite spec is suppose to be sidegrade. Honestly one of the biggest reason you are getting so many skills off when you enter RS is probably you are traiting speed of shadows. Most of us use soul marks with staff paired but with RS you want the MS.

That being said I can agree on change Life blast more like plague blast, dark path is meh to me. Life transfer should be a bit longer CD than spiral I think since it is ranged, the damage on it is pretty mediocre already so I don’t know about the damage nerf. No clue on tainted shackles.

- Transfusion: It is not question about it being a better GM traits designed but it is being locked behind Life Transfer who is on a 40sec CD. That means you can not use LT for yourself because you don’t want use Transfusion only have Life Transfer on CD.

-Life Transfer: LT isn’t a dps skill but more like a utility skill in contrast to Soul Spiral which is a dps skill. The reason to have CD and Damage reduce is to bring it in line with Soul Spiral’s CD because both skill can benefit from Transfusion and also to improve the usage of LT.

Also RS is melee while DS is a range, I don’t think it is unreasonable to have RS doing better than DS because you need to get close to enemy while in RS to do any damage.

just did an event, killing legendary wyvern, thing knocked players off the platform, i switched to RS and used skill4, saved people’s lives by teleporting them to me
what’s wrong with blood?

Transfusion is absolutely amazing, and it isn’t what’s wrong with the line. Unholy Martyr arguably isn’t particularly great as a GM, not because it is weak but it doesn’t have a good general purpose “Blood Magic”-y GM trait to balance out a tier that is otherwise full of really niche traits.

Yamedo.2561:

just did an event, killing legendary wyvern, thing knocked players off the platform, i switched to RS and used skill4, saved people’s lives by teleporting them to me
what’s wrong with blood?

Bhawb.7408:

Transfusion is absolutely amazing, and it isn’t what’s wrong with the line. Unholy Martyr arguably isn’t particularly great as a GM, not because it is weak but it doesn’t have a good general purpose “Blood Magic”-y GM trait to balance out a tier that is otherwise full of really niche traits.

I don’t think you guys are fully understand me. I never said Blood Magic is bad. What I mean is it need some improvement. I run Blood Magic in PvP myself since the last major patch and fall in love since. Transfusion is my go to GM trait. I have saved countless people in PvP. I have been using Transfusion for so long that I know the fault in it. Transfusion is amazing but it stop you from using Life Transfer freely because if you use LT now you won’t have it later on when you really need Transfusion due to the long CD of LT 40sec. This lead to my DS bar consists of 4 basic skills instead of 5 because I need to save LT for Transfusion. With the reduction on CD it will improve the usage of both LT and Transfusion. That’s why I suggest to reduce the CD and Damage of Life Transfer.

I do think there’s a need to have at least one non-Well grandmaster trait in the Blood Magic line that’s selfish. Wells are very strong, but if you don’t want to use them and you’re not in a group, you’re kinda up a creek.

I also agree that it would be nice if Transfusion lowered Life Transfer’s cooldown. I’m not sure that’s possible without nerfing something else, though, since Transfusion is already an extremely powerful, playstyle-altering trait.

Actually, Blood Magic is a pretty good trait line
For grandmaster traits…
I agree that Unholy Martyr would benefit from an other more selfish effect to make it on par with people using wells.

Previous Marks explodes instead of disappearing when recast?

You can’t put marks on the GM to give it a more general options, because marks = staff, which isn’t going to be universal, it has the same issues that a utility-specific GM would have.

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t put marks on the GM to give it a more general options, because marks = staff, which isn’t going to be universal, it has the same issues that a utility-specific GM would have.

Particularly since the Staff doesn’t have very good synergy with Blood Magic in general.

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t put marks on the GM to give it a more general options, because marks = staff, which isn’t going to be universal, it has the same issues that a utility-specific GM would have.

TBH you do have one mark in Blood Magic line, tho dunno if a GM trait as an enhancement for a 8 sec recharge dodge-trait is a good idea or not…

Seems fine for DS, though I would welcome transfusion being usable more often.

I almost wish power/healing Reaper had a better way to proc Blood Bond than equipping a staff, though. :/

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t put marks on the GM to give it a more general options, because marks = staff, which isn’t going to be universal, it has the same issues that a utility-specific GM would have.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Particularly since the Staff doesn’t have very good synergy with Blood Magic in general.

That’s exactly why I suggested that Unholy Martyr added effect could be a change to marks. Exploding instead of fading when reapplied :)

It not feel overpowered, was asked many times before, and add something to bring some love to staff when using Blood Magic.

The trait line first minor trait grant a mark on dodge. Having an other trait related to marks isn’t alien.

An other marks provider is the elite skill Lich Form. Marked for Death can be cast twice per transformation.

Kulvar.1239:

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t put marks on the GM to give it a more general options, because marks = staff, which isn’t going to be universal, it has the same issues that a utility-specific GM would have.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Particularly since the Staff doesn’t have very good synergy with Blood Magic in general.

That’s exactly why I suggested that Unholy Martyr added effect could be a change to marks. Exploding instead of fading when reapplied

It not feel overpowered, was asked many times before, and add something to bring some love to staff when using Blood Magic.

The trait line first minor trait grant a mark on dodge. Having an other trait related to marks isn’t alien.

An other marks provider is the elite skill Lich Form. Marked for Death can be cast twice per transformation.

It’s good game design to offer alternative playstyles, but it isn’t good game design to lead players down a primrose path to noob traps. The Staff is always useful for its utility, but if you want to focus on your staff play, you really don’t want to take Blood. Nothing else in the line synergies with it — not even Mark of Evasion, which is a melee trait (while the staff is all 1200) that doesn’t really aid your survival against melee attackers very much. If we stuck a strong Staff trait at the end of Blood, we’d be forcing players to waste the rest of the line on stuff that wouldn’t really help their playstyle much, which means smart players would avoid it and no problem would’ve been solved for them while newer players would have sub-optimal builds without understanding why.

I consider Staff as a secondary weapon for its utilitary skills, not as a main weapon.
Staff #2 can apply a steady flow of Regeneration on allies, a benevolent component.
Staff #5 can help a downed ally to recover.
And Blood Magic is the most benevolent trait line of Necromancer.

I would not say my idea is panacea, but I’m prone to promote Staff & Blood Magic for futur updates. Some traits could also boost Staff DPS or benevolence.

Is it possible to resurrect players in Reaper Shroud?

If no, that’s a big problem.

Both shrouds do not prevent resurrecting people.

Kulvar.1239:

I consider Staff as a secondary weapon for its utilitary skills, not as a main weapon.
Staff #2 can apply a steady flow of Regeneration on allies, a benevolent component.
Staff #5 can help a downed ally to recover.
And Blood Magic is the most benevolent trait line of Necromancer.

I would not say my idea is panacea, but I’m prone to promote Staff & Blood Magic for futur updates. Some traits could also boost Staff DPS or benevolence.

Transfusion and Unholy Martyr are already spectacular group benefit traits. If your goal is to help out your team, you’re going to want one of those.

Blood doesn’t need more group options. It needs a selfish Grandmaster trait that doesn’t require you to take Wells. Rather, one of its group traits needs to give the Necro better reason to take it when you’re by yourself.

nekretaal.6485:

Is it possible to resurrect players in Reaper Shroud?

If no, that’s a big problem.

Transfusion works the same way in Reaper Shroud. Same distance, number of pulses, etc. It’s just available more often.

If you mean walking up and interacting with a player in order to manually raise them, then yep, works the same that way too. Even better, since you can give yourself stab for it!

Kulvar.1239:

That’s exactly why I suggested that Unholy Martyr added effect could be a change to marks. Exploding instead of fading when reapplied.

The problem is Unholy Martyr isn’t a fitting general use GM for Blood Magic. It really doesn’t fit the trait line at all, Transfusion already fills the support role and VR is niche to well builds. So the last GM needs to be something that a non-support non-well build can use and fits Blood Magic. Even if this fit marks, marks are not something we see all over the profession, many builds in Blood Magic would literally have one meaningful source, that’s it.

Edit: Reaper’s Shroud ressing works exactly the same as Death Shroud, but the non-res healing only affects allies within Soul Spiral’s shorter range, the tradeoff being an extra few ticks of healing.

Bhawb.7408:

Edit: Reaper’s Shroud ressing works exactly the same as Death Shroud, but the non-res healing only affects allies within Soul Spiral’s shorter range, the tradeoff being an extra few ticks of healing.

The non-res healing has the same 600 range and number of pulses in either shroud form; in Reaper’s Shroud it heals farther away than Soul Spiral does damage. Transfusion itself doesn’t change.

Dead.5829:

The non-res healing has the same 600 range and number of pulses in either shroud form; in Reaper’s Shroud it heals farther away than Soul Spiral does damage. Transfusion itself doesn’t change.

Can’t confirm how it works right now, but it is meant to change, it was specifically stated by Robert Gee that Soul Spiral would get more procs but lower range.

I thought so too! And I could have sworn it worked differently in the BWEs, but it absolutely works exactly the same in either shroud form on the live builds. You’ll see the healing going out to ‘targets’ very far away, and can heal your flesh golem up as you run away from other mobs.

It’s pretty nice, especially with Reaper’s Onslaught allowing you to use it more often (though there seems to be something up with the recharge reduction on this, that I haven’t had enough time to test).

This is really not the most conclusive evidence, but is the best screenshot I could do at the moment :P

This doesn’t show off the 600 range very well, but does show the disparity in range between heal of Transfusion and damage of Soul Spiral. The flesh golem is being healed while the Chieftain is not hit.