Guild Wars 2

A lot of people are saying death magic is going to be decent with the current changes. I completely disagree, as pretty much every classes boon duration traitlines are way stronger. For that reason I’ve written up my changes to this traitline.

Adept Minor:
Spiteful vigor: grant 5 second of vigor on being critically hit (ICD 10 seconds)

Adept Tier:
Flesh of the Master: Minions have 50% increased health. Gain 20 bonus toughness for each minion you control.

Unholy Sanctuary: Regen healing in DS.

Putrid Defense: Actually a cool trait, maybe could be changed to enemies you poison deal 10% less damage, so it’s less selfish.

Master Minor:
Shrouded Removal: Convert a Condition to a boon when entering DS or remove a condition from you and nearby allies when entering DS.

Master Tier:
Reaper’s Protection: doom is now in 240 aoe around your foe.

Necromantic Corruption: Minions Deal 25% more damage, draw conditions from you and transfer a condition on attack to your foes.

Shackles of Life: Tainted shackles converts conditions into boons on allies per pulse (3 conditions to boons.

Grandmaster Minor:
Beyond the Viel: grant protection to you and all nearby allies when leaving DS (360 radius). Minions do not count towards the aoe cap.

Grandmaster Tier:
Death Nova: Minions explode in a cloud of poison when they die. Summon a Jagged Horror when you kill an enemy (5s icd). The effect also triggers when you down.

Greater Marks: Marks are unblockable (area made baseline like eles). Staff attacks have additional effects:
Necrotic Grasp: 100% projectile finisher
Mark of Blood: Blast finisher on activation
Chillblains: applies Slow for 2 seconds
Putrid Mark: Grants Protection to allies for 3 seconds.
Reaper’s Mark: Grant 4 stacks of stability to allies for 4 seconds.

Deathly Strength:
You are immune to critical hits in DS

Love to hear your opinions, I don’t think Deathly Strength is fun or cool, so other ideas for GMs would be welcome.

I WANT THEM ALL!

On a more serious note,+1, this is what death magic should be like. All of them are good traits, with some usefulness.

#anetreadthisPLZ

Holl.3109:

I WANT THEM ALL!

Because some of them are blatantly OP. 50% vigor uptime by passively being hit with crits, Unholy Sanctuary at adept tier, Necromantic Corruption at Master. I’d also say Reaper’s protection is fine as it currently is, the only change I’d make to it is always fearing your enemy even if they are outside of range, or only allowing it to proc when they are in range.

Death Magic as presented to us in the preview was pretty okay. Not to say that changes couldn’t be made, but these aren’t the necessary changes either.

Thanks Holl.

Bhawb.7408:

Holl.3109:

I WANT THEM ALL!

snip

50% vigor uptime only when your getting hit seems pretty fair and more necroish than 50% vigor uptime for critting people. If it’s that big of a deal than just make it the same trait every other class has at the minor adept slot.

Unholy Sanctuary is an adept tier trait, don’t know why people don’t get this. It’s literally regen for like 30% of a fight if that. If the numbers were like 250-300 per second base then maybe it would be GM worthy, but I’m of the opinion camping DS to be tanky is bad gameplay and should be discouraged. Since the anet devs said they want GM traits to change how you play, that being a gm doesn’t sit well with me. Moving it to adept requires no changes, and gives the appropriate power level.

Necromantic Corruption at master tier seems really strong, but a lot of really strong traits are now master tier (i.e. panic strike). Maybe this would still be too strong, but preventing the 25% damage buff from builds taking death nova is bad. Also, keeping this at master tier would give a minion GM, toughness GM, and boon GM which fits the theme of the line perfectly.

The reason I suggested changing Reaper’s protection is because I’m against completely passive stuff. Making doom aoe seems comparable to RP, but promotes good timing of skill use.

Also, the changes presented are not ok. We still have very few traits that give boons in that line (every class should have some access to boons), and the line provides no support to teammates at all. It also still has two terrible minors because more DS from deaths should either be baseline or not exist, and toughness in DS is super boring. I try to present changes that give traits a big impact on the playstyle of the class, currently Death Magic does none of that.

Still think that moving terror to a master tier was not acceptable, and it was the change that irked me the most, aside from the little to no impropvement we saw in comparrison to the other classes. Terror is important yes, but it went from adept, to master, to grandmaster, all the while receiving nerfs, and I think Necros deserve a trait that is worth of a grandmaster (i.e. make terror combined with master of terror), or it should be moved out of the Grandmaster tier. I cannot agree that it is a GM trait.

These changes seem really strong… But I like them honestly. Unholy sanc loses the death shroud aspect, and it has a pretty cool well of power type feel. Very defensive line that seems to have incentives for entering and exiting DS as well as staying in it.

Even if some of this was tweaked, it has some a very solid feel to it.

The thing with design they’re aiming for is, all minors should be equal now.

There’s no more a choice of picking just that one or two minors from each line. Previously, it meant that minors had to, let’s say it, suck. If they didn’t, people were putting those X points into the traitlines just for those minors. Justice is Blind, all vigor traits, damage modifiers.

With current design they could just make Trait separation into bonuses inherited (Minors) and Traits (3 choices you can make) and significantly improve on UI that way

Now we won’t pick selected bonuses. We get our 3 lines full.

That means that Minors don’t have to suck anymore and be like “Oh, get regeneration” or “Here, 5% more damage”.

Minors can now be unique and since they’re always the same, all of them can have traitline Themed synergy with each other!

For Death Magic, there could be set of minors associated with something like:

1st bonus: Spawn a minion (some unique one).
2nd bonus: Minion does bonus effect.
3rd bonus: On death/destruction/unique role effect.

For example, something like that:

1st bonus: Horror – When you enter Death Shroud, spawn an immobile Horror(minion).

Horror minion lasts for 10 seconds and is invulnerable for first 3 seconds. Doesn’t attack. Destroyed upon leaving Death Shroud. Horror spawns with 5% of Necromancer’s total health, but has infinite health pool cap. All heals affecting Necromancer when he’s in Death Shroud will heal Horror instead.

2nd bonus: Taste of Death – Whenever you lose Life Force when Horror is alive, it stores 50% of Life Force lost as Health. When Horror dies, it heals the Master for full amount of health stored. Effects Necromancer in Death Shroud.

3rd bonus: Foul Feast – Horror now also heals allies for 25% of health stored. Minions give AoE Vigor upon destruction. Horror applies 1/2 second Fear upon dying.

Here. Minion&death themed, multiple uses, good on it’s own, Healing in Death Shroud (deniable).
Gives both Vigor and AoE party heal upon destruction, heal that benefit from party having timed AoE heals themselves, makes Regeneration not obsolete but wanted for Necromancer.
Damage denial both on entering Shroud (you don’t want to give Necromancer free health) and leaving (CC).
Makes Necromancer finally want to get hit in Death Shroud. Take that, Devs!

Okay. I came up with that idea also for that pun. I’m harsh for that Dev <3.

Minors still have a very valid reason for varying in power, and its because of tiered unlocking. Doesn’t really affect us since we’re 80s, but Necromancers who are leveling will unlock it one at a time, so it makes sense for the minors to still be “tiered” off in power.

Though I do agree minors that directly synergize with each other are really cool.