Guild Wars 2

I heard Arena Net talking about Death magic needing some buffs in another topic. But the topic was a bit too flooded so I decided to create a new topic in order to discuss my thoughts on the matter.

But first let me explain what death magic is to me. Death magic for me was always the line of magic that made life feel like death. Filled with disease, necrotic flesh, boils on one’s enemies. Very much about afflictions of the flesh as well as raising the dead.

Looking back to the first game we see various skills that had to deal with conditions or how high your opponents health was in the death attribute. I would personally like to continue this theme. For the most part it seems to be fairly forgotten by the death user except for the inclusion of the Staff traits.

So here are some suggestions I would have for the trait line.

1. Master/Grandmaster Trait: Contagion: While in deathshroud, whenever you suffer a condition each foe around you suffers that condition as well. (This one might need to be worked out a bit more. However, this was a skill back in GW1 that I really liked and wanted to make work. I just couldn’t get it to work in a build. It was a real shame and I would like to see this effect given to the GW2 necromancer. It might even pull me away from using spite just for this as a more defensive condi build.)

2. Change protection from the horde to Protection from Death: Gain toughness for each minion you control and each condition you are suffering. (While Protection from the horde is a nice idea, in practice it doesn’t do anything for the person who wants to use death magic but has no interest in minions. This way the player will be getting something out of it without taking something away from the minion player.)

3. Master/Grandmaster trait: Discord: While in death Shroud critical hits have a 50%-100% chance to apply bleeding/torment for 5 seconds. (I figured this could be an interesting trade off. Normally, the Condi Necro doesn’t want to be in death shroud for an extended period of time. But sometimes they have no choice. This normally kills there damage. But with this it would give them the chance to actually deal some damage while in Death Shroud. And if they took the grandmaster trait in Deathly Perception and this was a master trait this could be a match made in heaven. Granted if terror was brought to grandmaster and Lingering curse went down to master, you still wouldn’t have access to either Burning or fear for damage. But I believe this could be worth while regardless.)

4. Adept/Master/Grandmaster Trait: Weight of Death: If you attack a foe below 50% health they suffer torment from your attacks. (Although hard to figure out just how this one should go. If it was torment for each landed attack against them it should defiantly be grand master. But that also depends on how long the torment lasts. If this was 1 stack of torment for 4 seconds with a 3 second cool down I could see this being more like an Adept. Any way this one could go it would be an interesting trait to play with.)

What do you guys think? Do you like these ideas do you have your own? Please leave a comment below.

I’d also like to point out that Death Magic should be our big defensive tree. We essentially have three trees each with a specific defensive purpose: Blood Magic (siphoning), Soul Reaping (LF generation/DS) and Death Magic (which doesn’t have a specific purpose yet). So I’d love to see more good defensive traits in Death Magic.

1) I love it. It might need specific work, but I’ve always wanted something like this (although I’ve always thought more in the context of a skill).
2) Great idea to make Protection of the Horde better without axing it totally
3) This should be in Curses, although I like the idea for Torment on crit
4) Either a Curses or Spite trait

I like your ideas, I’ll post some of my own later, but I feel like some of them are actually much better off in other trees (namely 3/4), whereas Death Magic should be a defensive tree, even if some things have dual purpose (1 isn’t strictly defensive but would definitely fit).

I tried to run a death magic/blood power build, it really doesn’t work (wvw, pve was fine even a little tanky) just not enough defense for the amount of damage you give up by not having +crit damage.

I have found that our active defense is just way better then anything we can get from high toughness. As it is even with the up coming changes your still better off going at least 15 in siphon (crit/ds line)

Bhawb.7408:

I’d also like to point out that Death Magic should be our big defensive tree. We essentially have three trees each with a specific defensive purpose: Blood Magic (siphoning), Soul Reaping (LF generation/DS) and Death Magic (which doesn’t have a specific purpose yet). So I’d love to see more good defensive traits in Death Magic.

1) I love it. It might need specific work, but I’ve always wanted something like this (although I’ve always thought more in the context of a skill).
2) Great idea to make Protection of the Horde better without axing it totally
3) This should be in Curses, although I like the idea for Torment on crit
4) Either a Curses or Spite trait

I like your ideas, I’ll post some of my own later, but I feel like some of them are actually much better off in other trees (namely 3/4), whereas Death Magic should be a defensive tree, even if some things have dual purpose (1 isn’t strictly defensive but would definitely fit).

While I don’t agree that any of these should touch the spite trait line, I will submit to the idea that the Death trait line should be defensive. How about Discord causing torment to attackers when you are struck with an attack?

It was just an idea, not that they should or shouldn’t hit spite (although spite could use more condition traits, imo).

I think that is an interesting idea. It would probably need to be more than just on hit (otherwise constant torment application would seem really strong), but I like the idea of offensive “defense” like that.

Bhawb.7408:

It was just an idea, not that they should or shouldn’t hit spite (although spite could use more condition traits, imo).

I think that is an interesting idea. It would probably need to be more than just on hit (otherwise constant torment application would seem really strong), but I like the idea of offensive “defense” like that.

Yeah, forgot to mention “while in Death shroud”. Which makes a huge difference.

1. If it’s one condition, I certainly wouldn’t want this to replace Weakening Shroud. If it’s all conditions you’re suffering from… well… if this was combined with Plague Signet and Signet of Spite, it’d make the necros condition-proof because all conditions would be returned X2 + Signet of Spite (+Epidemic??!?!??!). Even if you eliminated Plague Signet, it’s still too overpowered on a 10-13 second CD.
2. I dunno… It seems like you’re rewarding necros for not properly managing condition cleanse on themselves. And, along with #1 above, it helps augment an already overpowered trait.
3. Isn’t this (or at least the bleeding part) covered by Barbed Precision? Or doesn’t it proc in DS? In any event, this is fine at the master tier as long as there’s an internal CD of 5 seconds. If there’s no ICD, it’s overpowered as you could put and keep 5 stacks for as long as DS lasted (not to mention the 3 additional stacks from Tainted Shackles). That’s too much, I think. What’s more, it’d have to be a Grandmaster trait and you’d have to lose either Foot in the Grave or Deathly Perception because neither can be moved to a lower tier.
4. I think this is way too overpowered, 1-2 stacks of torment for just for spamming 1? On scepter, this would proc three different conditions (four if you trait dhuumfire). That’s unfair. This would also combine with trait #3 enabling 10 stacks of torment bursting. Another insta-kill.

General notes: You have some creative suggestions for new traits which is good. A lot of the existing ones are broken so new ideas should always be welcomed. That being said, many these traits would completely overpower the profession — more specifically, it would overpower condimancers as there is little here specifically for anyone running a power build.
I like the idea of incorporating more torment. It seems like a condition made for the necro attrition style or play: I’m not saying you can’t run from a necro, I’m just saying it will hurt like hell of you decide to. That being said, new traits should be more balanced in terms of countering and fostering build diversity as well.
Lastly, I know you feel that you aren’t getting everything out of DS but the truth is 2 of the 5 traits deal conditions, you can trait for fear damage and (I think) all crits can proc Barbed Precision, Dhuumfire, etc. That’s a ton of condition damage available in DS. Add to that the damage mitigation offered by Weakening Shroud and DS should be used in an aggressive manner as a part of a normal rotation rather than a last resort.

Nice job!

Lily.1935:

While I don’t agree that any of these should touch the spite trait line, I will submit to the idea that the Death trait line should be defensive. How about Discord causing torment to attackers when you are struck with an attack?

Perhaps something akin to “Whenever you are dealt damage greater than 10% of your total health, that damage’s source gains X stacks of torment for N seconds” or something like that (forgive the templating).

They should start by scrapping the minion master specific minor traits. The other one is pretty obvious. Toughness while in DS. Very generic, yet universally useful no matter the utilities. Surprised we don’t have more DS minor traits even tho this thing is suposed to be our class mechanic, whatever that is. For any other build than 30 in SR, it’s a glorified damage soak.

With the other minor they could get more creative. Regen health while in DS, like engineers kit regeneration. Would be right in line with the alleged design philosophy where necro is supposed to face tank everything and somehow sustain that way.

The minion crap just doesn’t cut it. It’s a dead tree for anything that doesn’t have the utility bar filled with minion skills. To make the line actually worthwhile it needs extensive remake, or alternatively give it the spite treatment aka give something ludicrous on the grand master tier so you are forced to wade trough all the crap to get to the goods.

Combine the minor traits with Minion master and Flesh of the master and then turn the new minors into:

vacant minor #1: gain toughness while in death shroud

vacant minor #2: gain health when you gain life force

they can figure out the values

If there is one thing our class needs, it’s defense. Not better defense, but defense at all. Because currently Deathshroud is indeed just a glorified damage soak, and the weakest defense in the entire game. Spike damage hits right through it, and eats right into our health. There are many enemies in the game that instantly knock you out of DS and leave enough damage to also kill you instantly. That is how poor our defense is, and it’s the only one we got.

Every other class has access to invulnerability, blocking, or evade. We have none such invulnerability options. This was a problem in GW1, and it staggers me that the same design flaw has been reintroduced in GW2. I can still remember the problem of perma-assassins that would solo entire parts of the Underworld. Or elementalists with Obsidian Flesh. If you give classes unequal access to invulnerability, you create a balance problem. You’ve got a combat system that revolves around dodging, and you are already giving classes unequal access to vigor. The necromancer has no vigor either. We just have 2 dodges against spike damage, and that’s it.

So, I would really like to see more defensive options in the Death Magic tree. Our class needs them badly.

#1Reanimator and #2POTH kill this line for me. 1# is useless and #2 is only good for MM. We do have a lot of channeled skills so wouldn’t it make more sense to replace reanimator with Dark armor? And POTH replaced with Reapers protection. Then buff / Change the 2 minor traits and move them to be selectable.

You don’t see blood magic with any well based minor traits, so why should my 2/4 traits in death magic be useless in any other build besides MM?

We have 6 channeling skills, all on differend weapon sets. These 400armor sound good, but in reality they reduce damage by less then 5%. Would love to get few seconds of protection instead.

Btw, I’d like to say that I love that the ideas are mostly involving Death Shroud, I think we need quite a bit of buffing in that direction, if its going to be our main defensive mechanic (as of now the only time it feels good enough is with Spectral Armor up).

Nagato no Kami.4980:

1. If it’s one condition, I certainly wouldn’t want this to replace Weakening Shroud. If it’s all conditions you’re suffering from… well… if this was combined with Plague Signet and Signet of Spite, it’d make the necros condition-proof because all conditions would be returned X2 + Signet of Spite (+Epidemic??!?!??!). Even if you eliminated Plague Signet, it’s still too overpowered on a 10-13 second CD.

Thank you for the comment. I must point out though that while you are in death shroud you don’t get the benefits from Plague signet. So this would be a non-issue. Also the descriptions states that when you would suffer a condition and not conditions already suffered. Radius also makes a difference. Although I would like a 360 radius I can’t see this getting larger then a 240 radius.

Vex.7486:

#1Reanimator and #2POTH kill this line for me. 1# is useless and #2 is only good for MM. We do have a lot of channeled skills so wouldn’t it make more sense to replace reanimator with Dark armor? And POTH replaced with Reapers protection. Then buff / Change the 2 minor traits and move them to be selectable.

You don’t see blood magic with any well based minor traits, so why should my 2/4 traits in death magic be useless in any other build besides MM?

That’s a brillant idea actually. One would never take Dark Armor for a trait only, but as a minor it’d be nice.

Lily.1935:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

1. If it’s one condition, I certainly wouldn’t want this to replace Weakening Shroud. If it’s all conditions you’re suffering from… well… if this was combined with Plague Signet and Signet of Spite, it’d make the necros condition-proof because all conditions would be returned X2 + Signet of Spite (+Epidemic??!?!??!). Even if you eliminated Plague Signet, it’s still too overpowered on a 10-13 second CD.

Thank you for the comment. I must point out though that while you are in death shroud you don’t get the benefits from Plague signet. So this would be a non-issue. Also the descriptions states that when you would suffer a condition and not conditions already suffered. Radius also makes a difference. Although I would like a 360 radius I can’t see this getting larger then a 240 radius.

Ah, I see. Only incoming and not preexisting DS. My mistake though it’s kinda hard to discern this from the description — probably because I didn’t really play the original GW.

Anyhoo, would the condition(s) (I’m still not sure if it’s a single condition or all of them) sent to enemies or those inflicted on the necro in DS get cleansed at the end of DS? I ask because if the conditions survive DS, they can still be “given” twice — once from DS’s proposed “condition copy” trait and again upon exit via Plague Signet, dagger 4 or, if it works, Putrid Mark. This would still be fairly overpowered. I suppose they can be made non-transferrable but it seems a bit punitive since there are fewer options to cleanse and might lead to the necro’s death.

If the conditions on enemies simply expire when DS ends, this is much simpler. All you need to do is stick a timer on it and have it work like retaliation — say, three to five seconds with an ICD of 20 seconds or so to prevent too much spamming.

Essentially the trait simply Copies (like Epidemic) any conditions applied while in DS to enemies within the radius.

Could you could it up? Yes, but you can do that right now with any AoE condition application + Epidemic, and that doesn’t require anything but the skill and any of our condition weapons, and it is far from OP.

Bhawb.7408:

Essentially the trait simply Copies (like Epidemic) any conditions applied while in DS to enemies within the radius.

Could you could it up? Yes, but you can do that right now with any AoE condition application + Epidemic, and that doesn’t require anything but the skill and any of our condition weapons, and it is far from OP.

Yes, but that involves using multiple skills which is a big thing. This would proc as a passive in DS then double conditions on a cleanse which you needed anyway. There’s no downside or balance. Someone could empty their skill bar burst stacking on you and get back double the conditions on one active skill. That’s OP in my book. And if you don’t think so, imagine giving the 2X ability to multiple classes. Conditions would ping-pong back and forth until someone caught it and died instantly.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Lily.1935:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

1. If it’s one condition, I certainly wouldn’t want this to replace Weakening Shroud. If it’s all conditions you’re suffering from… well… if this was combined with Plague Signet and Signet of Spite, it’d make the necros condition-proof because all conditions would be returned X2 + Signet of Spite (+Epidemic??!?!??!). Even if you eliminated Plague Signet, it’s still too overpowered on a 10-13 second CD.

Thank you for the comment. I must point out though that while you are in death shroud you don’t get the benefits from Plague signet. So this would be a non-issue. Also the descriptions states that when you would suffer a condition and not conditions already suffered. Radius also makes a difference. Although I would like a 360 radius I can’t see this getting larger then a 240 radius.

Ah, I see. Only incoming and not preexisting DS. My mistake though it’s kinda hard to discern this from the description — probably because I didn’t really play the original GW.

Anyhoo, would the condition(s) (I’m still not sure if it’s a single condition or all of them) sent to enemies or those inflicted on the necro in DS get cleansed at the end of DS? I ask because if the conditions survive DS, they can still be “given” twice — once from DS’s proposed “condition copy” trait and again upon exit via Plague Signet, dagger 4 or, if it works, Putrid Mark. This would still be fairly overpowered. I suppose they can be made non-transferrable but it seems a bit punitive since there are fewer options to cleanse and might lead to the necro’s death.

If the conditions on enemies simply expire when DS ends, this is much simpler. All you need to do is stick a timer on it and have it work like retaliation — say, three to five seconds with an ICD of 20 seconds or so to prevent too much spamming.

I would have to disagree with you. Spreading conditions in death shroud would be powerful, yes. But the point of this placement was to prevent you from being able to use dhuumfire along with this trait. Which would limit its over all power. The conditions wouldn’t fall off from your foe when leaving death shroud. That would make the trait worse then useless, it would make it detrimental to you and your entire party. And even if a change is made that would allow the use of Dhuumfire with this, its range could be a huge factor in how well this works. Because if lets say a ranger has you at 1,200 range and hitting you with conditions it doesn’t matter how powerful this is if you are not close enough to the target. Also remember that the underwater life blast for the necromancer automatically transfers a condition form yourself to your foe and that doesn’t break the game and those conditions can easily be transferred after leaving death shroud. And that removes them while this only copies them.

On that last note this might cause a power surge in the necromancer underwater. But they really need more power while under water as their condition damage is pitiful there. We also have to consider that the necromancer has a hard time applying a good number of conditions while in death shroud and unless they are getting hit for 10+ stacks of bleed, torment, burning and Grenth knows what else, this wont be OP, just good. And even then, DS will be dropping fairly quickly.

Like I said, it’s not about condition TRANSFER which is losing a condition by giving it to someone else. It’s about the effect of doubling all incoming conditions via this condition COPY trait—>exit DS—>Plague Signet. A mere six stacks on you could be returned for 12 and then returned again for 24. If this trait is given to more than one class, condition stacks like those you see on PVE champions would snowball within fights until they landed and instakilled the one poor schmuck who couldn’t transfer them.

What’s more, think about the potential for disaster in large WvW fights. Snowballing of conditions would happen quickly and frequently. One condimancer with a well placed Epidemic or a necro simply in DS passively broadcasting conditions could infect a ton of people and wipe out chunks of a zerg instantly. That’s just unreasonable. You cannot allow conditions to double in this manner.

But, wait… It’s actually worse than this. Far, far worse, really.

Imagine two necros fighting. Both hit DS at close range and one of them pops DS 5 and DS2. Because of the way that conditions are copied onto those who are within range, this means that:

Necro1 gives 3 Torment (T) and 2 Bleeds (B) to Necro2
Necro2’s passive trait procs and copies 3T and 2B onto Necro1. Necro1 now has 3T and 2B.
Necro1’s trait procs copying those 3T and 2B to Necro2. Necro2 now has 6T and 4B.
Necro2’s passive procs again sending 6T and 4B to Necro1. Necro1 now has 9T and 6B.
Etc.

Get the picture?

The torment and bleeding would bounce instantly back and forth between them until there were 25 stacks of both torment and bleeding on both resulting, most likely, in a simultaneous down.

Messy, huh? Anyhoo…

Condimancers have so many ways to apply conditions as it is. And DS will still proc Dhuum, Barbed, bleeds from Dark Path and torment. I’m pretty sure sigils will proc too. That’s a lot of conditions, especially when they’re feared and you’re pounding them in the back with Life Blast at point blank range.

Yeah I also love your first idea. This is a perfect example of how necros can be made more durable without them giving us the amoutn of stability/invulnerabilities/blocks/vigor that other classes have access to, which they seem to not want to: instead of completely mitigating incoming damage, allows us to SEVERELY PUNISH enemies for hurting us!

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Like I said, it’s not about condition TRANSFER which is losing a condition by giving it to someone else. It’s about the effect of doubling all incoming conditions via this condition COPY trait—>exit DS—>Plague Signet. A mere six stacks on you could be returned for 12 and then returned again for 24. If this trait is given to more than one class, condition stacks like those you see on PVE champions would snowball within fights until they landed and instakilled the one poor schmuck who couldn’t transfer them.

What’s more, think about the potential for disaster in large WvW fights. Snowballing of conditions would happen quickly and frequently. One condimancer with a well placed Epidemic or a necro simply in DS passively broadcasting conditions could infect a ton of people and wipe out chunks of a zerg instantly. That’s just unreasonable. You cannot allow conditions to double in this manner.

But, wait… It’s actually worse than this. Far, far worse, really.

Imagine two necros fighting. Both hit DS at close range and one of them pops DS 5 and DS2. Because of the way that conditions are copied onto those who are within range, this means that:

Necro1 gives 3 Torment (T) and 2 Bleeds (B) to Necro2
Necro2’s passive trait procs and copies 3T and 2B onto Necro1. Necro1 now has 3T and 2B.
Necro1’s trait procs copying those 3T and 2B to Necro2. Necro2 now has 6T and 4B.
Necro2’s passive procs again sending 6T and 4B to Necro1. Necro1 now has 9T and 6B.
Etc.

Get the picture?

The torment and bleeding would bounce instantly back and forth between them until there were 25 stacks of both torment and bleeding on both resulting, most likely, in a simultaneous down.

Messy, huh? Anyhoo…

Condimancers have so many ways to apply conditions as it is. And DS will still proc Dhuum, Barbed, bleeds from Dark Path and torment. I’m pretty sure sigils will proc too. That’s a lot of conditions, especially when they’re feared and you’re pounding them in the back with Life Blast at point blank range.

Again, you are mistaken. Max of 5 targets. A zerg is, well, a zerg. And one necromancer wont be able to kill 5 people with this let alone an entire zerg. You also have to understand that this doesn’t make the necromancer immune to damage, they are still being dropped out of death shroud within a few seconds. Especially if this is a zerg. Also, addressing the issue of two necromancers. We had this same problem solved in guild wars one, I doubt Arena net would make the same mistake twice. Just put a cap on how fast this can transfer and we wont have this problem. being in 240 range of an entire zerg is death. and you wont even effect a good 10% of them.

Firstly, you are correct about the first part. This skill will only hit 5 which is not an entire zerg. It is, however, 1/10th of a monster, 50 man zerg. 10%. (And, yes, against a highly organized guild, it will be easy to get five enemies in a 240 range) And this is the best case scenario; that is, there’s only one necro per zerg — which is highly unlikely. Each necro can draw condition from another necro and pass it to five more people. It can get really bad, really quickly.

In any event, let’s try something different…

This trait you are proposing takes conditions received in DS and copies their effects onto five targets within 240. This is essentially the effects of Plague Signet (sans the cleanse) and Epidemic (-360 radius) combined. While each individual aspect is inferior to the original skill, the new trait procs passively and does not require two thirds of your slot skills to use.

So, it does the job of two slot skills (albeit not as well) without having to carry them. That’s quite an advantage. How is this not overpowered (if not a little redundant)?

Despite all this, I’m still not sure why this would even be necessary. Traited correctly, DS applies a nice pile of conditions (although I think it’s asinine that the warrior can apply 5 stacks of torment on sword 4 on a 20 sec CD while we only do 3 on a 40 sec CD on DS4) in addition to the kittenton of super-easy bleeds, poison and fire the scepter slathers on.

Do we really need that much more? Do we really need the potential of huge stacks of incoming conditions to be effective? Or put another way, when you play other classes and fight a condimancer, do you really think to yourself, “Wow, that was pretty weak. They’ve got a serious lack of condi application.”

Maybe you do. I certainly don’t. I think this is the main difference.

To each their own, I suppose.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

This trait you are proposing takes conditions received in DS and copies their effects onto five targets within 240. This is essentially the effects of Plague Signet (sans the cleanse) and Epidemic (-360 radius) combined. While each individual aspect is inferior to the original skill, the new trait procs passively and does not require two thirds of your slot skills to use.

I have to point out that Contagion doesn’t pull conditions from allies. And it doesn’t cleanse conditions from yourself and isn’t a stun break. In fact, it doesn’t do anything Plague signet does. If you could use Plague signet in combination with it, it would be extremely powerful. Game breakingly so. However, this isn’t the case as signets don’t work while you are in death shroud.

Added to this, if you put a limit on how many conditions can be spread per second, lets say 2 for PvE and 1 for PvP and WvW we can prevent this massive overlap of conditions spreading between 2 full zergs just from 2 enemy necromancers.

I also can’t stress enough how much people complain about how easy it is for conditions to be perma cleansed and how useless they feel running conditions in WvW. So if this helps change up the meta game a bit this will promote a healthy gaming environment and keep things fresh and interesting.

Remember as well that I also said this skill was both elite in Guild Wars 1 and it was consider a worthless elite skill with 100% upkeep and the ability to self apply burning, bleeding and poison. Considering this requires you to be in Death Shroud, this doesn’t give you access to the Corruption skills and you don’t have Plague signet you don’t have access to either of these to spread conditions.

I actually feel that my suggestion is too weak considering. I was actually considering having it spread the top condition when you enter Death shroud to give it more ability to combo with your other skills as well as some tech.