Guild Wars 2

Hey, did anyone notice the weird part about the spite tree giving +power and +condition duration? In NO way are those two bonuses synergetic since we get all our condition damage from bleeds/poisons/crits which are all in the Curses tree…

Also, why is precision in the curses tree? The only traits that benefit from the crit increase is withering precision, reapers precision, and the first 66% bleed proc which is minimally effective. Reaper’s precision is a sad waste of a trait since Daggers or even Axe can generate LF lightspeeds faster than any crits can proc, so really the only benefit in that tree is Withering and Barbed precision.

Why do we have healing power in our blood magic trait line? Did any designers/developers realize that we have hardly(if at all) any skills that actually use that attribute for healing, not to mention how pathetic the numbers scale up at level 80 making it a completely nonviable attribute to the class, making it a completely dead mechanic?

The only efficient ways I have noticed this class ever being able to self-heal or heal in general is through Crit-proc blood sigils, Vampiric precision, and the first 4 trait slots in the blood tree. NO HEALING POWER HELPS US. Ever.

it would help to have Curses tree give +condition damage and +condition duration (doesn’t that sound like common sense?) and give Blood Magic the +Vitality and +Precision since no matter how we try to glue together our broken class with really good armor pieces, we’re either missing All of our power, all of our toughness, or all of our vitality.

Everything in our toolset that uses +Power doesn’t synergize with +condition duration at the same time. If you look at Spite traits, almost all of them give BOONS not conditions.

It would be more efficient if our trait bonuses were arranged as follows:

Spite: + power + critical damage

Curses: + condition damage + condition duration

Death Magic: + toughness + healing Power

Blood Magic: + Vitality + Precision

Soul Reaping: + Life pool % + Boon Duration %

idk, maybe i’m crazy and this may piss off people who have found a niche that lets their necromancer survive in, but I’m tired of trying to calculate numbers that allow us to survive in pve/wvw/pvp. We either go power based, condition based, then we need precision to proc any good amount of healing from blood either way we go… then we have to look for vitality, toughness, or + crit dmg%! Not to mention if by level 80 you pick curses for Condition based you lose 30% of your damage because all the condition duration crap is in the spite tree (no seriously, tried to re-trait, lost 4k damage out of Blood is Power alone.) And if you Go power based you lose most of your precision (7% crit chance) and Withering Precision which keeps necros alive when they are in close quarters combat.

When was the last time we found accessible Condition damage/Precision/Toughness
or Power/Precision/Vitality gear(other than Arah’s) and still have enough trait points to not lose either +30% condition duration, solid healing capability, or toughness?

screw it, just realized that the necromancer class is really stretched thin when it comes to staying alive + dealing damage and traits/gear points us towards being a bunkerhealer or glass cannon. (wish I could add control support but lets face it, speccing for freeze+fear is a joke, you lose conditions and healing)

looks like i’ll be rolling a mesmer, guardian, ranger, engineer, or thief pretty soon here.

I also thought about this, but I came to a different conculsion:
Necroamncers are a premier condition class. So even if you’re going for Crit or Power, you still can utilize Conditions pretty good.
Switching between a condition and a direct damage based weapon is easy and not limiting.
Necromancers are supposed to be hybrids, having a uique playstyle BECAUSE of their attribute distribution, depending on how you build them: Conditin/DirectDamage
Crit/Selfheal
Bunker/support

I realize that critical Damage is illplaced, but then again, it isnt really that important anyways, because other than critical Chance, it is only usefull when you have alot of direct damage anyways. Crit leads to bleeding and self heal. Although both could be more reliable or powerful.
Better invest in Spite instead of Soul Reaping, giving you longer Conditions. Conditions such as Chill, Vulnerability or Fear, all very usefull to kiting and a defensive Playstyle.
In Fact, except for Curses, every Traitline has at least one defensive Attribute, if you allow the stretch with Condition duration.
I actually like the current layout. Just make Deathmagic usefull to anyone else than MM and we have pretty balanced trees with alot of synergies.

Necromancers aren’t easy to play. If you want that play Thief or Warrior, no difficulties with building and playing there.
Necros, like Mesmers and Engies, are hard to play. You have to think of Synergies and Combat tactics, fight several enemies at a time, manage your minions (once they’re fixed), and so on.
If we just had more support capabilities, Necros would be a hard but incredibly versatile class.
And for gearing: Try Carrion: Condition Damage, Power and Vitality.
And if you want a good portionof Crit as well, mix some Rampager (Prec, Cond and Power) or Emerald (Prec, Power and Tough) into it.
Itemization isn’t supposed to be simple and easy. Just look at all the Warriors and Thiefs that go nothing but berzerkers: You keep them away from you and switch to DS at the right time and they are as squishy as ripe plum. But they are a good source of income for anyone who has alot of Blood-Vials and Rubies

After all, I agree that Healing Power is lost to us, but it belongs into BloodMagic.
If he Scaling would be upped a bit, it would be incredibly usefull and Guardians are a perfect example how overloading a class with heal is damaging to all else, since guardians are widely seen as an absolute must if people want to go dungeons.

TL;DR: Look for synergies, wair for bugfixes and look into Carrion. Most Trait-Issues are because of UP mechanics and bugs, not because of Attribute distribution.

Yawn, this thread again.

You will never, ever, EVER see two primary stats (Vitality and Precision) in the same trait line, as well as never, ever, EVER seeing two secondary stats (Condition Damage and Duration) in the same trait line.

warrior, guardian and engineer have the same pairings for power +cond duration, cond damage + precission.

infact all professions have power +cond duration

I actually just made a thread in the suggestion forums about this somewhat.

theres nothing wrong with the atributes. actually it benefits necros a bit more then the other professions condition duration is pretty valuable even on a power necro vuln/freeze dark pact/poison i think fear too are all based on condition duration

i have to admit tho the curses trait kinda blows but even on a full power specced necro you can get 600 condition damage+ with blood is power running and 30 into curses and some might stacking this can go up to 700+ so its not all bad just grab a staff and throw some bleeds from 1200 range bfore going into battle.

id love the changes you came up with tho.. but they will never get along with that.. that would make necros actually pretty powerful.

I think the best we can hope for is a replication of the Mesmer or Elementalist trait lines — having Precision and Critical Damage in Curses, and moving Condition Damage to either Death (like Elementalist, with Boons to SR) or Soul Reaping (like Mesmer).

Spite: + power + critical damage
Curses: + condition damage + condition duration
Death Magic: + toughness + healing Power
Blood Magic: + Vitality + Precision
Soul Reaping: + Life pool % + Boon Duration %

Those suggestions don’t make much sense. Blood has all the healing abilities, so it stands to benefit from the Healing Power.
Boon Duration would be better off being with Spite, and no class has two baseline attributes paired, so that is also entirely in the realm of the Mad King.

GW2 wiki – Traits

Looking at how other classes compare, the stat pairings are quite similar across the classes.

Everyone
Power & Condition Duration

Rangers, Thiefs, Mesmers, Elementalists
Precision & Critical Damage

Guardian, Warrior, Engineer, Necromancer
Precision & Condition Damage

Guardian
Toughness + Critical Damage

Warrior, Engineer, Thief
Toughness + Healing Power

Ranger, Elementalist
Toughness + Condition Damage

Mesmer, Necromancer
Toughness + Boon Duration

Guardian, Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer
Vitality + Healing Power

Warrior, Engineer, Ranger, Thief
Vitality + Boon Duration

Guardian, Elementalist
Class Mechanic + Boon Duration

Warrior, Engineer, Necromancer
Class Mechanic + Critical Damage

Thief, Mesmer
Class Mechanic + Condition Damage

Now changing stat benefits has a considerable effect on the general performance on the class, because the trait pairings lend themselves towards either Power, Conditions, Support, Control or Utility.

Moving Condition Damage away from Precision doesn’t make a lick of sense because there’s far more Condition Damage based Traits in the Precision line than elsewhere. On the other hand, sans the Proc on Crit, the line doesn’t stand to benefit from Precision. It’s largely the most cumbersome of the Necromancer trait lines and doesn’t have a “simple” fix.

While all classes have Power and Condition Duration paired, at least as far as the Necromancer is concerned, it is an iffy pairing at best. While Power does have a marginal effect on a Condition Build, there is far more benefit in Traits alone from picking other lines. Swapping Condition Duration and Boon Duration around would help the Necromancer a lot in that regard. It would benefit both Power based (Longer Might/Fury Duration) as well as Condition Based setups which could opt out of Spite and go down the Death line instead.

Anything beyond those changes require a rework of the placement of the traits, which while a larger undertaking, could be warranted instead of patchwork changing the class.

Aexrael.5918:

Anything beyond those changes require a rework of the placement of the traits, which while a larger undertaking, could be warranted instead of patchwork changing the class.

I think any assumption about moving the attributes around into different trait lines is assuming that certain specific traits would also be moved to the new/correct lines.

I.e., if you move Condition damage out of Curses, you’d also be moving Hemophelia.

Andele.1306:

That was posted pretty long ago and i still agree on :
Power & Condition Duration
Precision & Critical Damage
Toughness + Healing Power
Vitality + Boon Duration
Class Mechanic + Condition Damage

This would be a bit more acceptable for me, but I’d still prefer:

1. If DS is fixed to not be rather horrible for condition builds:

Power/Duration
Precision/Crit Dmg
Tough/Boon
Vit/Compassion
Class/Condition Dmg

2. But if DS remains disjointed for condition builds:

Power/Duration
Pre/Crit dmg
Toughness/Condition dmg
Vit/Compassion
Class/Boons

In both scenarios, I think Vitality and Compassion go much better together.

condition duration and power works out pretty well for me as the spite line boosts my non-damaging conditions duration. As a minion master who uses axe+focus and staff, the duration is great for all the weakness, cripple, and vulnerability I spread. If that tree became the way you want it OP, it would shoe-horn me into a critical based build which doesn’t doesn’t have any synergy with my minions at all.

It may be better to scrap it all and rework the lines entirely. Taking a que from the Elementalist class, they have a trait line for each of their four elements, plus a “generic” one, with some crossover between the different trees, but as a whole it feels a lot more focused than the Necromancer traits.

Note: Boon Duration and Condition Duration could be swapped around in this proposal, if it was deemed better.

Spite: Power, Condition Duration, Axe, Warhorn.
Curses: Vitality, Condition Damage, Scepter, Focus.
Death Magic: Precision, Critical Damage, Staff, Minions.
Blood Magic: Toughness, Healing Power, Dagger.
Soul Reaping: Life Force, Boon Duration.

Note: Following Trait reorganization isn’t listed in a specific order. They would still have to follow general convention of Adept, Master, Grandmaster tiers, however that headache is beyond this proposal.

Spite
Death’s Embrace, Spiteful Spirit, Reaper’s Might, Chill of Death, Axe Training, Close to Death, Banshee’s Wail, Spiteful Vigor, Mark of Evasion, Unyielding Blast, Decaying Swarm, Mark of Revival

Curses
Spiteful Talisman, Spiteful Removal, Toxic Landing, Hemophilia, Chilling Darkness, Weakening Shroud, Master of Corruption, Lingering Curse, Shrouded Removal, Death Nova, Focused Rituals, Ritual Mastery

Death Magic
Spiteful Marks, Training of the Master, Reaper’s Precision, Greater Marks, Minion Master, Staff Mastery, Death Shiver, Flesh of the Master, Necromantic Corruption, Vampiric Precision, Fetid Consumption, Withering Precision,

Blood Magic
Spectral Attunement, Dark Armor, Ritual of Protection, Reaper’s Protection, Dagger Mastery, Bloodthirst, Ritual of Life, Transfusion, Vampiric Master, Deathly Invigoration, Quickening Thirst, Vampiric Rituals.

Soul Reaping
Signet Mastery, Signet Power, Terror, Fear of Death, Vital Persistence, Path of Midnight, Spectral Mastery, Speed of Shadows, Master of Terror, Soul Marks, Foot in the Grave, Near to Death

I know that pairing main and secondary attributes into one trait line can really overpower a class, but i’m mainly upset over our inaccessibility to real solid healing other than crit blood magic traits or consume conditions.

Healing power really is useless to us, it doesn’t improve anything but regeneration boons which is weak at best.

Toughness, Vitality… They are mostly accessible in endgame dungeons but even those are hard to get into (as of now, kaineng arah is bugged. nobody can get in)

And as soon as you grab toughness/vitality, you either sacrifice precision or power… Either by allocating spite points to another tree and losing a lot of bleed damage or losing crit chance and losing effectivity of Curses5pt. and vamp procs