Guild Wars 2

The new Staff Mastery will be merged with Soul Marks as a Soul Reaping adept trait.
Generally a decent change, but why is Greater Marks still going to be in Death Magic?

They obviously tried to streamline some things, but this split is horrible.

If you really want to make “one staff trait” then please make just one, this way you have 2 extremely valuable staff traits in 2 different trait lines. And it’s not like you’ll be able to spend points half way into a trait line anymore to get them both. No, you’ll have to actually pick both the complete Death Magic AND Soul Reaping trait line just to make your staff be as powerful as you can currently have it with 4 trait points.

Basically, if you want unblockable marks with reduced cooldowns you’ll be extremely limited since you’re giving up 2/3 trait line options just for that.
This will not only break my build, but imo it’s generally unacceptible and too big of an imposition on every staff user.

Proposed solution:

1. Merge all staff traits into the Greater Marks slot in Death Magic.
Add Master of Corruption (i think they dropped it completely?) to adept Soul Reaping instead.

or:

2. Merge them all in Soul Reaping as a master tier trait instead of Master of Terror.
MoT would become adept.

The way i’d like to have seen it done is mark aoe larger by default and then 2 seperate traits made from the existing traits that affect staff placed in the same line and one of those 2 new merged traits would also have an effect that is not only relevant to staff so that there are not 2 traits in the same line exclusive to 1 weapon

Absolutly yes, I have to take Death Magic because of Greater Marks :/

Agree with flow’s idea, though Master of Corruption is going to be squished together with Toxic Landing, which is ok. At leats they didn’t get rid of it.

Oh right, I forgot about Toxic Landing. Well, I’m sure coming up with a replacement trait is the smallest problem here.

I’d really like for it to merge into Soul Reaping, and give Death Magic a real defensive trait at the Master tier. While Reaper’s Protection is fine, if you don’t run staff you’re faced with either a stat conversion or RP.

If it merges into Death Magic Master, that would be fine and would be a natural choice. It would also be a good choice if it went into Grandmaster tier in Death Magic too, and Unholy Sanctuary moved down to Master or something.
If it merges into Soul Reaping… it likely won’t be as an Adept tier (although that would be awesome). If it’s Master tier, the choice between that and Spectral Attunement would be horrible imo. If spectral Attunement moved down to Adept, then that would be fine.

What would you choose as a staff Necro if you don’t go with Death and Soul Reaping though?

Bhawb.7408:

I’d really like for it to merge into Soul Reaping, and give Death Magic a real defensive trait at the Master tier. While Reaper’s Protection is fine, if you don’t run staff you’re faced with either a stat conversion or RP.

Good point.

MethaneGas.8357:

If it merges into Death Magic Master, that would be fine and would be a natural choice. It would also be a good choice if it went into Grandmaster tier in Death Magic too, and Unholy Sanctuary moved down to Master or something.

Like Bhawb pointed out, since you have to take the entire line this would be more of a question of what other traits you pair them with. Because a non-MM with a staff will have to take Unholy Sanctuary over the minion traits anyway, so US and GM switching places would really mean that you can chose between Reaper’s Protection and Unholy Sanctuary.

MethaneGas.8357:

If it merges into Soul Reaping… it likely won’t be as an Adept tier (although that would be awesome). If it’s Master tier, the choice between that and Spectral Attunement would be horrible imo. If spectral Attunement moved down to Adept, then that would be fine.

I take it you mean a positive “horrible”, as in, both traits are good and you can’t decide easily? That’d be good imo.
I think having both of those traits would overshadow all other options too much, perhaps they do so already even without the addition of Greater Marks?
That’s why I suggested a merged staff trait would switch places with Master of Terror.

MethaneGas.8357:

What would you choose as a staff Necro if you don’t go with Death and Soul Reaping though?

In my current build I use staff – axe/warhorn with all respective weapon traits. Soul Marks was never that appealing to me because my life force regen is very solid.
So unless we get a merged staff trait, after the patch those 4 traits will be in 4 different lines, which means I can’t have them all.
Curses is too good to give up, so it’s really any combination of Spite – DM – SR that I’d have to worry about.
Personally, the new Spite line looks most appealing, but then I’d cripple the staff.
Soul Reaping is easily a better trait line than Death Magic, but Greater Marks is more valuable than the mark cd reductions.
In short: the struggle is real! I have no idea what I’d do -_-

Get rid of Soul Marks, add cooldown reduction to Greater Marks. Make 3% life force on mark trigger default staff behaviour.

OlliX.1705:

Get rid of Soul Marks, add cooldown reduction to Greater Marks. Make 3% life force on mark trigger default staff behaviour.

Interesting idea, and a good one.

OlliX.1705:

Get rid of Soul Marks, add cooldown reduction to Greater Marks. Make 3% life force on mark trigger default staff behaviour.

GET THIS MAN A TSHIRT.

This is best idea.

Malchior.1928:

OlliX.1705:

Get rid of Soul Marks, add cooldown reduction to Greater Marks. Make 3% life force on mark trigger default staff behaviour.

GET THIS MAN A TSHIRT.

This is best idea.

That could be handy, I was thinking about standard mark increase and Soul Marks will get the unblockable part.

Except combining than all into DM would suck b/c SR is useful for both condi and power builds. MM is all in one tree and are more than welcome to take SR as well in a MM build. SR is a good place to combine than as a Mater for sure. Power and condi specs don’t really need DRvmuch at all.

flow.6043:

I take it you mean a positive “horrible”, as in, both traits are good and you can’t decide easily? That’d be good imo.
I think having both of those traits would overshadow all other options too much, perhaps they do so already even without the addition of Greater Marks?
That’s why I suggested a merged staff trait would switch places with Master of Terror.

Yeah I mean a positive horrible haha. The choice would be too difficult and would affect WvW Necros quite a bit imo.

flow.6043:

In my current build I use staff – axe/warhorn with all respective weapon traits. Soul Marks was never that appealing to me because my life force regen is very solid.
So unless we get a merged staff trait, after the patch those 4 traits will be in 4 different lines, which means I can’t have them all.
Curses is too good to give up, so it’s really any combination of Spite – DM – SR that I’d have to worry about.
Personally, the new Spite line looks most appealing, but then I’d cripple the staff.
Soul Reaping is easily a better trait line than Death Magic, but Greater Marks is more valuable than the mark cd reductions.
In short: the struggle is real! I have no idea what I’d do -_-

Yeah >__>
Still though, if you went Spite/Curses/SR you’d be in a pretty good spot I think… but you’d lose Greater Marks, which is a hit…

I whole-heartedly agree with making Soul Marks baseline. I suggested this same thing before as well. It would solve so many issues with Necros. Condi Necros already have it hard in sPvP with having to choose between Master of Terror and Soul Marks. True that you’d be able to have both after the patch, but if Soul Marks were baseline, and the cooldown reduction went to Greater Marks…. holy mackamolly…

You’d be able to go Curses/Death/Soul Reaping and have Path of Corruption, Terror, Shrouded Removal, Greater Marks, Unholy Sanctuary, Speed of Shadows (which sucks except the DS cooldown… the DS cooldown is AWESOME), Master of Terror or Spectral Attunement, and any of the SR grandmasters. I think the sustain would go through the roof. The synergy between all of those traits would be really, really good… all because one trait became baseline.

I haven’t been able to keep up with the [Report] PvP Forum Specialist Report or Necro Spec Notes & Feedback threads but if the staff trait changes haven’t been suggested already… they definitely should!

MethaneGas.8357:

I haven’t been able to keep up with the [Report] PvP Forum Specialist Report or Necro Spec Notes & Feedback threads but if the staff trait changes haven’t been suggested already… they definitely should!

By now pretty much everything has been covered.
I think every idea that anyone has ever had somehow made its way into one of these threads. But it’s still a good read if you find the time ;P

Fyi, I even suggested the good old “1% lf per hit instead of 3% flat” for a mark baseline feature.

MethaneGas.8357:

True that you’d be able to have both after the patch, but if Soul Marks were baseline, and the cooldown reduction went to Greater Marks…. holy mackamolly…

You’d be able to go Curses/Death/Soul Reaping

To be honest, I will go wherever they put the merged staff trait (*fingers crossed) and I couldn’t care less if it’s SR or DM. Overall Soul Reaping seems to be more of a total package, but if staff mastery moves to Death Magic I’ll gladly take the extra defense that line provides.