Greetings fellow necromancers. I had an idea to lay out our traits the other night and then assign them grades according to their usefulness. Some of our traits are basically givens or necessary for most builds; some are specific to certain builds; and some, well, some are… well, worthless. What I would like, is an honest, straightforward, realistic discussion about our traits. Obviously, I will give you my opinion, and you can tear it apart, shark style. I grade these scales taking into consideration their level (i.e. adept vs. grandmaster), their usefulness, and to some degree in comparrison with other classes. Ok, so without further ado, here are our CurseTraits, what I believe to be our most solid trait line.
Curse Minor Traits:
Adept – Barbed Precision: Critical hits have a 66% chance to cause bleeding. This is a solid adept minor traits. Not much to say, and I feel very effective in a condition build, though, only a condition build. Effective grade is an A.
Master – Furious Demise: Gain fury for 5 seconds when entering Death Shroud. Some power builds go only into Curses to get this trait. It is very effective and one of the few ways we have of generating fury. Actually, is it the only? Thus, it is a solid trait and gains an effective grade of A.
Grandmaster – Target the Weak: 2% increased damage for each condition on a foe. I feel that this is a decent trait, though 2% just does not measure up as condition cleansing is so prevalent in the game that you just don’t notice it. I think it was a good effort, but really needs 4+ conditions to be noticeable. Thus I give it a B, given it is our grandmaster minor trait.
Curse Major Traits:
Adept – Toxic Landing: Creates a poison cloud when you take falling damage. Take 50% less falling damage. Sorry, cant think of a single time I chose this over another trait. It is useless. What? Am I dive bombing people off a cliff? Poor strategy engendered by a poor, worthless trait. Grade of F.
Adept – Hemophilia: 20% increased bleeding duration. Practically essential for condition builds, given that 90% of our condition damage is from bleeds. That said, at later levels, and in diff environments, I usually forgo this trait as I find I don’t need the 20%. I give it a B+, because it is useful, a good trait, but loses effectiveness later in the game.
Adept – Chilling Darkness: When you blind a target, you also apply chill for 1 second. Ahh, when I found out that this trait was effective in power builds (wells), as well as in condition builds (Dagger 4), I usually slapped this one on. This is a useful trait that comes in handy in so many ways. I give this an A, give that it is an adept level trait and useful in all aspects of the game. Can be life saving.
Adept – Weakening Shroud : Cast Enfeebling Blood when entering death shroud. I like this trait, it was give a buff a few months back, to be 3 bleed stacks instead of just 1. It is useful, and I know it winds up in some power/hybrid builds that depend on DS dancing to be effective. I give this a B+, because I usually only select it when I am in tpvp using Khalifa’s build or a variant therof.
Adept – Reaper’s Precision: You have a 33% chance to gain 1% life force on critical hits. Hmm, one of the more weaker adept level traits. i give it a C, because I just skip it for most other traits, especially if I start to go more than 20 points into curses.
Adept – Terror: Fear deals damage, and it deals an additional 50% damage if the target has another condition on them. Love this trait, it is a solid necro trait, because it give us a reason to slam that fear on someone as many times as we can. If you’re 10 points into condition and not running a power build (or heck, even with a power build) it is useful. Terrormancer build must. I give this an A, even though it is specific to the terror builds.