Guild Wars 2

I think that one of the best things that could be done for necromancers would be to swap the passive attribute bonuses for the traitlines Curses and Spite, bring condition durnation to curses and precision to Spite. That would make necromancers better as masters of conditions because you would only need to max out one traitline to get the most out of your conditions and precision goes well with power so it could also make power builds more viable and versetile.
I know that currently all the professions have power paired together but this could be a part of what makes necromancers more unique and like I said before, make both condition and power builds more viable.

Granted there are a lot of bugs that make the necros feel underpowered, but making this change only to necromancers would unbalance the class because, as you say, we’d max a single trait line to get what every other class has to max 2 trait lines to get.

I like the idea beacuse conditions are meant to be a necromancers main thing but I can also easaly see how it could be op and traits would need to be adjusted to it ofcourse. But if they did not bring condition durnation to curses atleast bring something useful for condition builds like toughness, vitality, boon durnation, healing power or life force pool, precision is compleatly usless.

For the love of everything unholy yes plz. I hate having to go into curses as my power build and spite with my conditions. The tress offer almost nothing other than the raw stat increase.

it doesnt fit with each traitline having one of the primary attributes (power, precision, vita, toughness, class attribute) and a secondary one (crit damage, cond. duration, cond. damage, healing, boon duration).

i’d rather like to see condition duration swapped with soul mastery’s critical damage, because unlike critical damage, every necro-spec benefits of longer condition duration

and as lcpdragonslayer stated, it would give condition mancers too much benefits in a single trait line.

Actually several other classes have condition damage and condition duration stacked together. The only downside to this would be that it would slightly disadvantage traits like Withering Precision

I disagree, I feel like the passive bonuses in each line are there for a reason and synergize well with each other. The problem is the traits themselves, especially the minor ones, are often really bad or outright broken. Just go down the list and you’ll see.

Minors:

Spite
Parasitic Bond — Broken
Death Into Life — Terrible
Siphoned Power — Broken, but in a good way (grants might when getting hit in DS). If fixed would be Terrible

Curses
Barbed Precision — 1 sec dot on crit that hits for 50 dmg, ie Terrible
Furious Demise — Okay, but only for power builds
Target the Weak — Broken (does not add dmg to conditions!)

Death Magic
Reanimator — Lol
Protection of the Horde — MM specific, ie Terrible
Deadly Strength — Okay

Blood Magic
Full of Life — Terrible
Vampirism — Terrible (heals for 28 at lvl 80?)
Blood to Power — Bad (you’ll almost never be > 90% health)

Soul Reaping
Gluttony — Broken
Last Gasp — Okay
Strength of Undeath — Broken (or the tool-tip is wrong, and this is another “feature”. It adds up to 100 power depending on how full your life force bar is)

Not to mention the 30% extra life force in Soul Reaping atm is apparently not working as intended as well!

And this is just the minor traits… if you look at the major traits, with a few exceptions like Close to Death, most of them are downright bad or broken. Making a necro build becomes less of “oooh! I want that” but rather “okay, which terrible trait is the least worst to fill out my trait bar”

That is the real problem

RashanDale.3609:

it doesnt fit with each traitline having one of the primary attributes (power, precision, vita, toughness, class attribute) and a secondary one (crit damage, cond. duration, cond. damage, healing, boon duration).

i’d rather like to see condition duration swapped with soul mastery’s critical damage, because unlike critical damage, every necro-spec benefits of longer condition duration

and as lcpdragonslayer stated, it would give condition mancers too much benefits in a single trait line.

Good point, a traitline can only have one secondary and primary atribute but the attributes must be reorderd somehow because precision does not belong at all with condition damage and neither does power with condition durnation (even though I like power a bit more than I like precision).

We need a “common suggestions that have no chance of happening” sticky at the top of the forums.

This is about the 6th time this exact thread has been posted. The TL;DR of those threads are basically “never, ever, ever going to happen”.

I’ve always assumed that the precision was there to not only help generate more conditions but also to supplement the lack of power. you may be focusing on condition dmg but your skills still do direct dmg as well. as long as they crit they’re still respectable dmg even if they don’t stand out like a power build’s does. neglecting that would be a mistake IMO.

Hufflepuffer.4201:

< snipped for the sake of the Necro community >

should be a rule against putting that much bad news in a single post. I mean we all knew it, but seeing it all in one place…. ugh…

hackks.3687:

Hufflepuffer.4201:

< snipped for the sake of the Necro community >

should be a rule against putting that much bad news in a single post. I mean we all knew it, but seeing it all in one place…. ugh…

I only do it to spread the news and hope the traits get fixed!

Nobody truly knows the potential of the necro because we’re so weighted down by coding errors. It’s like death by a thousand cuts, only with bugs

Hufflepuffer.4201:

I disagree, I feel like the passive bonuses in each line are there for a reason and synergize well with each other. The problem is the traits themselves, especially the minor ones, are often really bad or outright broken. Just go down the list and you’ll see.

Minors:

Spite
Parasitic Bond — Broken
Death Into Life — Terrible
Siphoned Power — Broken, but in a good way (grants might when getting hit in DS). If fixed would be Terrible

Curses
Barbed Precision — 1 sec dot on crit that hits for 50 dmg, ie Terrible
Furious Demise — Okay, but only for power builds
Target the Weak — Broken (does not add dmg to conditions!)

Death Magic
Reanimator — Lol
Protection of the Horde — MM specific, ie Terrible
Deadly Strength — Okay

Blood Magic
Full of Life — Terrible
Vampirism — Terrible (heals for 28 at lvl 80?)
Blood to Power — Bad (you’ll almost never be > 90% health)

Soul Reaping
Gluttony — Broken
Last Gasp — Okay
Strength of Undeath — Broken (or the tool-tip is wrong, and this is another “feature”. It adds up to 100 power depending on how full your life force bar is)

Not to mention the 30% extra life force in Soul Reaping atm is apparently not working as intended as well!

And this is just the minor traits… if you look at the major traits, with a few exceptions like Close to Death, most of them are downright bad or broken. Making a necro build becomes less of “oooh! I want that” but rather “okay, which terrible trait is the least worst to fill out my trait bar”

That is the real problem

Except for Death into life (i really like extra 100 healing (would be more awesome if it would scale properly with all the heal-traits tho)) and Full of life (its a good trait imo. too bad that regeneration is completely wasted when youre in DS) i totally agree.
Theres so much useless or underpowered crap in our traits, it’s hilarious.

@Lucifer: Precision at least gives you a chance of extra bleeds. im not sure if it would be good to give curses another primary attribute like toughness or vitality
For the power:
the funny thing is that for some reason every single class has got power paired up with condition duration.
maybe they just copy/pasted that pattern for the necromancer.

I think precession and crit damage is for mesmers on there trait line.

manveruppd.7601:

Actually several other classes have condition damage and condition duration stacked together. The only downside to this would be that it would slightly disadvantage traits like Withering Precision

sorry but every class has power paired with condition duration
source – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait

Actually yeah, you’re right there, everyone has Power and Condition Duration together. I can actually see why they chose to do that, it means that you can invest in the same trait line whether you want to go for conditions or direct damage, but it’s still not a great line for condition necros because of the traits and the frequent removal in pvp.

The problem as I see it is that they tried to make Precision relevant for condition necros by giving us some a few traits that add conditions on critical hits. But of those traits Barbed precision and Reaper’s Precision are pretty meh, Vampiric Precision is meh and in the wrong traitline (and too high up). Withering Precision is excellent but nobody would choose it over Lingering Curse which adds a massive amount of duration to your conditions! So most condition builds have no useful traits that trigger on criticals, and with direct damage from scepter and staff being so low the high Precision is effectively wasted.

Doesn’t matter all that much though, I mean it would be nice if they swapped some things round but fixing the buggy traits comes first. Attribute lines account for a much smaller proportion of your stats than equipment anyway.

Hufflepuffer.4201 – Strength of Undeath is using the right trait but wrong tooltip, look at the BWE vids of lets say totalbiscuit or one of the old talent calculators and youll see the tooltip correct there (gain power depending on life force).

If you swapped curses and spite it would kitten minion masters over. In fact it would wreck power necromancers in general due to how spite works.

Also condition duration is most effective on non-damage conditions. Damage based conditions tend to be removed first so having increased duration on them will give very little benefit.

The final solution to every Necro problems.

Curses: + power + Condition Damage
Spite: + precision + critical damage
Death Magic: + toughness + condition duration
Blood Magic: + vitality + healing power
Soul Reaping: + LF pool + boon duration

Let all traits work and we’ll finally see a viable Necro.

Won’t happen.

Everyclass works like that.

As soon as our bugs are resolved, we should be good to go!

sorrow.2364 – No…

I have to agree with Hackks. I can see the developer’s intention behind putting Precision and Condition Damage on the same trait line.

1. More chance to proc additional bleeds from Barbed Precision (how weak it is now is a separate issue) and Sigil of Earth.
2. Higher critical chance means our direct damage attacks are 50%. So we have strong conditions and OK direct damage, I’m not complaining.
3. If you spec for some DS too, you get to stick around longer to see your target actually bleed, plus doing more OK damage from Life Blast and Life Transfer.

A recommendation too – not everyone thinks that precision should go with critical damage (although that’s the first thing to come to mind), so don’t post a suggestion for change that you think will benefit ‘ALL’ Necromancers. Not targeting anyone in particular, just being fair to everyone.

One last thing, I’m sure that the class will be a lot more enjoyable once the Jagged Horror issue and the bugs are fixed.

sorrow.2364:

The final solution to every Necro problems.

Curses: + power + Condition Damage
Spite: + precision + critical damage
Death Magic: + toughness + condition duration
Blood Magic: + vitality + healing power
Soul Reaping: + LF pool + boon duration

Let all traits work and we’ll finally see a viable Necro.

I like that attribute setup, would love to see it happen

sorrow.2364:

The final solution to every Necro problems.

Curses: + power + Condition Damage
Spite: + precision + critical damage
Death Magic: + toughness + condition duration
Blood Magic: + vitality + healing power
Soul Reaping: + LF pool + boon duration

Let all traits work and we’ll finally see a viable Necro.

From your solution, I only see ONE type of Necro coming about. If I had such a distribution, I would go 30/0/30/0/10, but it would just be a power-conditionomancer.

Reasoning:
1. There’s a recent post talking about toughness or vitality – I would go more toughness since we already have the highest base HP pool.
2. Going toughness also increases condition duration.
3. Power and condition damage together – who wouldnt want that?

Rather OP IMO. The last ten points.. Spite for the burst DPS people, Blood Magic for the tank-lovin’ people, Soul Reaping for the rest.

Where are the other builds (Minion Master)? Do enlighten me because I don’t see it.

Nickczh.6341:

sorrow.2364:

The final solution to every Necro problems.

Curses: + power + Condition Damage
Spite: + precision + critical damage
Death Magic: + toughness + condition duration
Blood Magic: + vitality + healing power
Soul Reaping: + LF pool + boon duration

Let all traits work and we’ll finally see a viable Necro.

From your solution, I only see ONE type of Necro coming about. If I had such a distribution, I would go 30/0/30/0/10, but it would just be a power-conditionomancer.

Reasoning:
1. There’s a recent post talking about toughness or vitality – I would go more toughness since we already have the highest base HP pool.
2. Going toughness also increases condition duration.
3. Power and condition damage together – who wouldnt want that?

Rather OP IMO. The last ten points.. Spite for the burst DPS people, Blood Magic for the tank-lovin’ people, Soul Reaping for the rest.

Where are the other builds (Minion Master)? Do enlighten me because I don’t see it.

Minion Master is in Death Magic. A Minion Master apply more conditions than boons, so, overall, Boon Duration on Death Magic make not that much sense as it makes on Soul Reaping (see Spectral Armor, for instance).

You are seeing a power-conditionmancer, I can see a Burst Necromancer (20-30-0-0-20), a tanky MM (0-0-30-20-20) and lots of other viable builds.
Right now you can’t build an effective raw damage Necro because of the strange trait distribution.
You are forced to put points on Spite, Curses and Soul Reaping to have decent damage, leaving you defenseless. Other professions like Elementalists, which have Precision and Critical Damage in the same traitline, can build up with decent bursts while having nice defenses, since Power isn’t really needed to burst builds like Precision + Critical Damage is.

To answer what you said:
1. Well, we are basically the same situation now. If you are going to spec into Conditions, it is quite hard you are going to put points into Blood Magic as defensive traitline.
2. A nice plus, don’t you think? Anyway I don’t see it unbalanced.
3. Me. Power isn’t that good in condition specs, it doesn’t pump up your damage that much like Precision + Critical Damage does. Just try to run Spite + Curses now and you’ll see that damage isn’t so good as it would when putting points in Curses + Soul Reaping. Keep in mind also that the Curse traitline retain most of its traits, which only few boost the damage output.

sorrow.2364:

Nickczh.6341:

sorrow.2364:

The final solution to every Necro problems.

Curses: + power + Condition Damage
Spite: + precision + critical damage
Death Magic: + toughness + condition duration
Blood Magic: + vitality + healing power
Soul Reaping: + LF pool + boon duration

Let all traits work and we’ll finally see a viable Necro.

From your solution, I only see ONE type of Necro coming about. If I had such a distribution, I would go 30/0/30/0/10, but it would just be a power-conditionomancer.

Reasoning:
1. There’s a recent post talking about toughness or vitality – I would go more toughness since we already have the highest base HP pool.
2. Going toughness also increases condition duration.
3. Power and condition damage together – who wouldnt want that?

Rather OP IMO. The last ten points.. Spite for the burst DPS people, Blood Magic for the tank-lovin’ people, Soul Reaping for the rest.

Where are the other builds (Minion Master)? Do enlighten me because I don’t see it.

Minion Master is in Death Magic. A Minion Master apply more conditions than boons, so, overall, Boon Duration on Death Magic make not that much sense as it makes on Soul Reaping (see Spectral Armor, for instance).

This is correct. Minion masters apply more weakness, cripple, and chill than anything else. The only boons are retaliation (assuming you use an axe) and regeneration. While death shroud builds tend to have a lot of “gain X boon when entering Death shroud” traits as well as the trait that grants might on life blast.