Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing the Necromancer for a little while, so I guess I may as well put my own 2 cents in. I am enjoying the class, but I keep running into a problem with my build: the Toughness tree seems to be limited to people running MM builds.

I’m not going to comment on whether that’s a viable build right now. People more experienced than I have already put up forum posts on the subject. It just seems odd that they’re restricting a trait line to a specific build.

Traits I’m referring to:

• The Master-level Minor trait(The one that you can’t choose) grants toughness per minion. This is the big one, in my opinion. If it was just traits that we could choose to ignore, then it would still be an option to go down the tree. As it is, non-minion builds are burning a trait slot that could be used for other things. In my opinion, it could be moved to a Major slot, but with how loaded the major slots already are, I can see the difficulties.
• Both Grandmaster-level Major traits grant boons to minions, whether Death Nova or boon removal. Well, to be fair, it is the Minion line and we can choose around this one. It is annoying that non-minion builds don’t have a GM trait in here though.
• The Adept-level Minor trait summons a jagged horror when you kill an enemy. Would be hard to complain about this one if the target acquisition was quicker. The thing I see with this one, though, is that AN is going to have to balance this so that it’s not overpowered for people who run minion builds, which hurts people without Minion extra health and explosive minions and so on.

To sum it up, our Toughness tree contains 2 traits that can’t be ignored and are useless or almost so for any build that doesn’t want minions and both Grandmaster traits are minion-specific. It’s my belief that people should not be forced to choose or ignore certain trait lines because they have a specific build.

Note: I’m not trying to say that certain trait lines shouldn’t be focused towards specific things that multiple builds can make use of, such as critical hits or life steal. The difference here is that every build will occasionally crit, every build will hit their foes at some point, but only a specific kind of build will put down minions.

Well, that was longer than expected. TL;DR: I want people without minions to have access to the toughness trait line.

Completely agree with this. Minor Traits in no way should be linked to specific build types as this completely shoehorns the trait line into only being used in that build. I would love more toughness but I’m kitten sure not going to waste points on getting kittening jagged horrors or toughness per minion when I absolutely hate pets.

Yeah I agree with this. It’s ludicrous when you compare the Toughness tree minors to other professions: Inventions trait line for Engineers favours a shield, sure, but it’s not necessary – there’s other stuff in the major traits that back it up and none of the minors reflect a bias towards shields, turrets etc. Thief Shadow Arts is the same, Mesmer Chaos trait line… I could go on.

Reanimator just needs to go. I want Protection of the Horde buffed and shifted to a major, swapping places with something lacklustre (Here’s an idea – drop Dark Armor to +50-100 toughness and make the condition something more feasible, like bonus Toughness per condition on you. I dunno what exactly but heck it’s just an example, work with me here. Just make it a minor).

This is our Toughness/Boon Duration tree. We’re not exactly swimming in boons as a profession so there should be more focus on utilities generating bonus boons, crits/heals generating boons, and so on. Traits like Death Shiver don’t feel like they belong in Death Magic, while other trees have traits that feel like they would belong in Death Magic – Spiteful Removal, Spiteful Spirit, Decaying Swarm are ones I could see working in the tree.

If there’s anything I’d want changed it’d be just the removal/changing of Reanimator and Protection of the Horde. We shouldn’t be pidgeon-holed into using minions just to use our Toughness/Boon Duration tree.

There are exactly 3 good traits in Death Magic:

Ritual of Protection
Spiteful Vigor
Greater Marks

Of course this assumes you use a Wells build and have at least 20 points into blood magic

Don’t count out Staff Mastery and Shrouded Removal. They are decent.

Already made a post on it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Death-minor-traits-in-dire-need-of-rework/first#post90281

Problem is a lot of MM QQ about how it would make their build unviable. So I guess Anet would have to try to balance without shafting the MM.

and yah shrouded removal is kind of awesome. I also wanted to play around with Reaper’s Protection… since we don’t really have any good CC counters besides plague signet.

Well there is #4 on off-hand dagger, unless it is bugged beyond use…

I am playing a Condition/Toughness build and its SO annoying how useless most of the traits are in the tree if running this sort of build -

Reanimater and Protection of the Horde are both awful and are ZERO benefit to me. Dark Armor, Minion Master, Ritual of Protection, Shrouded Removal, Reaper’s Protection, Death Shiver, Flesh of the Master, Death Nova and Necromantic Corruption are all pretty or very useless for us

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 I don’t think you are supposed to go down a traitline for the points, you spec for in with armor and jewels. The traitslines are more for the traits :p

@Mango i know that but i find it stupid that most of the minor traits have ZERO benefit to me what so ever and that SHOULDNT happen we shouldnt have minor traits that are ONLY useful for certain build.

Yeah, you only have to go ahead and look at the minor traits of other professions’ toughness-centric trait lines to see that the majority don’t really pidgeon-hole you:

• Elementalists’ Earth Magic line has a 1 toughness per level when attuned to earth, and cripple + damage foes with you attune to earth, which I guess puts them in kinda the same boat.
• Warriors’ Defense line has nothing in their minor traits that pidgeon-hole them. The majors give options of maces, shields and great hammers.
• Guardians’ Valor line, once again, universally useful stuff there. Plus it helps that their toughness line is also where their critical damage passive boost lies.
• Engineers’ Inventions line benefits self-regeneration and healing. There are major traits for the shield and some for turrets, but nothing in the minors that’d force you into a certain playstyle.
• Ranger is an interesting one, since there’s two minor traits that support and encourage dodging. That’d probably key you into a more melee-centric, or certainly short-range attack build, but with just how much long-range AoE this game has in PvP and PvE, you’re going to dodge even at long range, so those minor traits are going to be useful.
• Thief toughness tree is Shadow Arts. Not much to say on that – there’s a lot of very cool stealth abilities they have at their disposal, so you’ll probably end up using at least one in a build. As a result you can enjoy a minor stealth duration increase and a stack of might.
• Mesmer. Oh look, some nice synergy – the first trait gives you regeneration at 75% health, the second trait gives you protection for 2 seconds when you gain regeneration, and the last one is the ever-nice, flat % of stat A converted into stat B.

Conclusion: The Necromancer, the Elementalist, and perhaps the Thief too, are the only professions in the game that do not have universally useful minors for their toughness trait lines. They focus on too narrow a subsection of possible specs to be really desirable unless you’re playing a specific spec. A minor trait should, in some way, be appealing to the overall stats offered by investing trait points without enforcing playstyle on the player.

If you do this, you limit choices for the player to make, and hurt the potential for spec creation. It’s the difference between swapping out an Engineer’s second minor trait in the Inventions line “Automated Medical Response” (Healing skill cooldowns are refreshed when you reach 25% health. 90 second cooldown) with the major trait “Reinforced Shield” (Gain 90 Toughness when using a shield, and all shield skills recharge 20% faster). A change like that would make a lot of Engineers believe that the Inventions line is only for if you want to use a pistol/shield combo, and not universally appealing for the bonus 300 toughness. It is flexible. Death Magic, in its’ current incarnation, is not.

TL;DR: Wah wah it’s not fair that to get +300 toughness from a trait line I have to either go for one specific build or else have two wasted minors.

Death Magic=summoning undead minions. Nuff said.

Nostromo.4126:

Death Magic=summoning undead minions. Nuff said.

Yes it does, at the same time though mango and the others are right. The death magic tree shouldn’t only benefit Minion masters. In guild wars 1 death magic was also used a lot for single target degeneration and special conditions(disease<3). Not to mention the traits themselves are terrible compared to what they were probably designed around in the first place (jagged horrors not degening, summoning 3-5 bone minions instead of 2, summoning 2 bone minions, ect.) Since we can’t maintain as large a minion army as we were originally going too, these traits seem petty.

Once again mango is also right in that they need to change it around in a way where it doesn’t shaft minion masters. Minion mastering is currently ONLY useful for solo PvE. Minions get wiped out easily in dungeons, and if you spec entirely for their benefit, it kinda sucks to lose them all in the blink of an eye. So if they/we get nerfed, it would be another kittentorm.

I think our entire tree needs reworked.

We have a good minion mastery trait in the power line.

Uninspiring traits in general.

Odd stat pairings.

Odd stats (boon duration and crit damage?).

Weak traits (Vital persistence, anything to do with a vampire build).

Traits that should come standard (targetable wells, terror).

Not to mention the other issues people ahve already mentioned in this thread.

QSpec.4298:

I think our entire tree needs reworked.

We have a good minion mastery trait in the power line.

Uninspiring traits in general.

Odd stat pairings.

Odd stats (boon duration and crit damage?).

Weak traits (Vital persistence, anything to do with a vampire build).

Traits that should come standard (targetable wells, terror).

Not to mention the other issues people ahve already mentioned in this thread.

Crit damage is good for for all initial attacks mark damage, lich, dagger builds, lolaxebuilds, power builds, and crit builds.

But i agree that some traits are odd together.

striker.3704:

Yes it does, at the same time though mango and the others are right. The death magic tree shouldn’t only benefit Minion masters. In guild wars 1 death magic was also used a lot for single target degeneration and special conditions(disease<3). Not to mention the traits themselves are terrible compared to what they were probably designed around in the first place (jagged horrors not degening, summoning 3-5 bone minions instead of 2, summoning 2 bone minions, ect.) Since we can’t maintain as large a minion army as we were originally going too, these traits seem petty.

Once again mango is also right in that they need to change it around in a way where it doesn’t shaft minion masters. Minion mastering is currently ONLY useful for solo PvE. Minions get wiped out easily in dungeons, and if you spec entirely for their benefit, it kinda sucks to lose them all in the blink of an eye. So if they/we get nerfed, it would be another kittentorm.

GW2<>GW1.

Death Magic=summoning undead minions. Nuff said (again).

I mean seriously – not enough to QQ about than a couple minor trait levels, which mind you, will spawn minions randomly & passively & therefore give you the stat bonus on the minor master anyway…?
There are 4 other trait trees – you can only max 2. You do the maths.

I swear, it’s my own fault for reading forums huge Shrek sigh.

Nostromo.4126:

striker.3704:

Yes it does, at the same time though mango and the others are right. The death magic tree shouldn’t only benefit Minion masters. In guild wars 1 death magic was also used a lot for single target degeneration and special conditions(disease<3). Not to mention the traits themselves are terrible compared to what they were probably designed around in the first place (jagged horrors not degening, summoning 3-5 bone minions instead of 2, summoning 2 bone minions, ect.) Since we can’t maintain as large a minion army as we were originally going too, these traits seem petty.

Once again mango is also right in that they need to change it around in a way where it doesn’t shaft minion masters. Minion mastering is currently ONLY useful for solo PvE. Minions get wiped out easily in dungeons, and if you spec entirely for their benefit, it kinda sucks to lose them all in the blink of an eye. So if they/we get nerfed, it would be another kittentorm.

GW2<>GW1.

Death Magic=summoning undead minions. Nuff said (again).

I mean seriously – not enough to QQ about than a couple minor trait levels, which mind you, will spawn minions randomly & passively & therefore give you the stat bonus on the minor master anyway…?
There are 4 other trait trees – you can only max 2. You do the maths.

I swear, it’s my own fault for reading forums huge Shrek sigh.

The problem being is that

- the Jagged Horror spawns AFTER the target is dead, so only useful when fighting in groups

- It takes like 400 damage every second or something until death so sometimes can be dead before you even encounter someone else

- dies fast to AoE

- Poor AI where it will just randomly run off to kill some stupid critter

It is a pretty poor Minor, just like the 25point one especially for Condition specs

mangocheesecake.1487:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 I don’t think you are supposed to go down a traitline for the points, you spec for in with armor and jewels. The traitslines are more for the traits :p

then you’ve still got the same problem, I run condition with staff and S/D, so I spend 20 in death magic for the 20% CD reduction and greater marks skills.
I still get forced to hear “MY MINION!” every few seconds after killing an enemy because of the kitten horror dying, I still have enemies in PvP ralling off it, but then again, the second minor makes up for it all, because having extra toughness for 5 seconds AFTER THE ENEMY DIES is so very helpful, right? (especially considering when I’m going to be in a fight with more than one enemy, I’m going to be trying to stay away from them, not facetanking the zerg)

Lets see, with full MM we end up with 5 minions out, resulting in a 100 toughness gain.

How much of an actual whop is that going to be regarding incoming damage? You get 4 times that while channeling by spending 5 points less…

digiowl.9620:

Lets see, with full MM we end up with 5 minions out, resulting in a 100 toughness gain.

How much of an actual whop is that going to be regarding incoming damage? You get 4 times that while channeling by spending 5 points less…

100 toughness is the equivalent of a piece of armor, that isn’t anything to sneeze at. Also, you won’t be channeling for close to the same amount of time as minions are up.

Heh, you got me there. Still, it does require that you keep all those minions up. One solid AOE and that piece of armor is gone. While you have at least two weapon skills (never mind your main down state attack) producing channels, as well as a set of other actions. It just seems like a whole lot of points, and utility slots, for 100 extra armor.

Nostromo.4126:

GW2<>GW1.

Death Magic=summoning undead minions. Nuff said (again).

I mean seriously – not enough to QQ about than a couple minor trait levels, which mind you, will spawn minions randomly & passively & therefore give you the stat bonus on the minor master anyway…?
There are 4 other trait trees – you can only max 2. You do the maths.

I swear, it’s my own fault for reading forums huge Shrek sigh.

That was fine in GW1, but now that the stat lines have other benefits than just making a set of skills more powerful, that doesn’t work so well. Sure, Death Magic has a lot of MM traits, but it also has Well protection and some handy traits for Staffs and Death Shroud and is the only tree that grants much in the way of toughness.

To use an analogy, it would be like if getting Vampiric Master(Minions siphon health) required you to get the trait that granted you protection from wells, or if Training of the Master(Minion damage) required you to get signet recharge. It requires staff and well necros to get sub-standard traits so that they can get the ones they really need to get their build to work.

Calcifire.1864:

mangocheesecake.1487:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 I don’t think you are supposed to go down a traitline for the points, you spec for in with armor and jewels. The traitslines are more for the traits :p

then you’ve still got the same problem, I run condition with staff and S/D, so I spend 20 in death magic for the 20% CD reduction and greater marks skills.
I still get forced to hear “MY MINION!” every few seconds after killing an enemy because of the kitten horror dying, I still have enemies in PvP ralling off it, but then again, the second minor makes up for it all, because having extra toughness for 5 seconds AFTER THE ENEMY DIES is so very helpful, right? (especially considering when I’m going to be in a fight with more than one enemy, I’m going to be trying to stay away from them, not facetanking the zerg)

You are preaching to the choir here, I’d love to see changes to the traitline because the majors are pretty attractive. And yes, hearing my character say something minion related every other minute is kind of annoying.