Guild Wars 2

So, I want to open a discussion on the trait trees. But of Corpse will be doing a podcast where we go over the traits soon, so I want your opinion.

Please keep it civil, and format your stuff like this:

What traits do you really like?
This can be any traits that you feel really do their job nicely, say why you like them, and why you feel they do their job well.

For example, I love Death Nova because it punishes people for killing off my minions. It spawns poison fields, creates a lot of internal synergy with minions themselves, and is such a useful trait I find it hard to leave it out of any minion build.

What traits do you like conceptually, but feel fall short of what they could be?
This is a trait where you like where it seems to be going, but you feel it isn’t as good as it could be. Say why you like the idea, what about it you think falls short, and how you’d like to see it changed to bring it up to par.

For example, I think Reanimator is a cool idea. It summons you minions when you kill things (like an automated minion summon), and would give you the feel of a true undead master, summoning servants from the things you kill. However, it summons one mediocre minion (individually), that often dies before it takes any effect (since it summons after something dies), and rarely has any kind of “snowballing” effect like old GW1 MMs had, due to its long ICD.

I think there are a number of ways it could be changed, but I think the core problem is two fold. It feels very weak when it does proc, and it’s use is often wasted because it procs after you’ve already won. In PvE its kind of a slap in the face to barely win a boss fight, then have a Jagged Horror spawn from his deathbed, only to sit around and die while you collect loot (same thing in PvP).

The trait should be increased in how it can proc, for example proc off minions and allies as well, although maybe with less chance, and a slightly reduced ICD, and if needed have them die faster (I’d rather have three minions up in a small snowball effect that die off before the next fight, than one that spawns after the fight and dies in the first AoE of the next one).

What traits do you just plain dislike?
This should only be for traits that you feel aren’t just bad in execution, but even the idea seems flawed at best.

For example, Toxic Landing, creates a poison cloud when you take falling damage. When is this trait ever useful? It isn’t just niche, it has maybe a 1% chance of taking any kind of effect (getting chased by something that follows you off the cliff and into the poison cloud), and even then its almost never meaningful (big deal, they are poisoned now, something we can do readily anyway).

So again: talk about what traits you like, what traits you almost like but think need improvement, and traits you don’t like. Make sure to expand upon what you say. If you need to compare to other professions, please do so constructively.

Please keep it civil, and open. This isn’t the place to lament how bad we are, this isn’t a place to flame ANet, or any such thing, but have a good discussion, and one that ANet can look at for ideas.

Thank you for your time and input.

Siphoned Power, Spite tree, 25 minor trait. I’ve never gotten this trait. Yay I’m about to die, and now I’ll have 35 extra power and condition dmg, super!

Generally I am fine with most of the necro traits.
Good Idea but weak
Curses
Toxic Landing (A) – Falling damage traits are on every class and are important. Unfortunately Necro’s with just a poison field on one of the longest cooldowns (45s) is laughable compared to everyone else’s. Other classes gain CC or self utility from their fall traits on much lower cooldowns. Personally I’d like to see this Toxic field also cast Weakness and be on a 25s cooldown.

Withering Precision (GM) – A trait that just sounds so awesome, but crippled to uselessness by a long cooldown. Eating up a trait for kitten weakness on a 20s cooldown is not worth any level let alone Grandmaster. I’d like this taken in one of two ways – simply lowering the cooldown to at least 10s, or something like 15% crit damage on Weakened targets.

Death Magic
Minion Master (A) – This skill is one I’ve always wished also reduced Minion skills instead of just the summoning. In fact, I’d be happier with it reducing the skill over the summoning timer….

Ritual of Protection (A) – So pretty – the ability to attempt to support your party a bit more… but a 3s Protection on long cooldown skills? Heck, Guardian hammer auto attack does that… it’s just something that casts less than 10% uptime is not even useable. What I would like to see is it to cast 2s Protection per pulse. That would put it on an actual party support level that also would actually have the concept of staying in your wells for the Ritual of Protection.

Death Shiver (M) – I personally find this skill redundant. In a build where you’d stay in DS for any serious stacking, you’d likely be traiting to apply vulns on your Life Blast… and even then, it’s small radius makes it difficult to use anyways. Now if this actually applied a chill…

Blood Magic
Ahhh, good ol’ blood magic. The line that ANet was to beef up and make it a more useable line, and instead made it basically the same with even less need to trait in the line. Onward!

Bloodthirst (A) – So here we are, faced with siphoning… damage and heals so small that most don’t consider it worth touching. We all hoped for buffs or more utility, but they flattened this trait to keep it unchanged. This should be returned to 50% to actually have an edge that might go somewhere.

Vampiric Rituals (GM) – This piggy backs off my issue with builds built around siphoning not being worth it, especially as they’re such a minor self-only sustain. What I wish this did was if it siphoned from up to 5 enemies and then applied that heal to up to 5 allies. That would tip the balance for me.

Traits I Plain Dislike
Spite
Siphoned Power (GM minor) – the concept of a single 5s might stack triggered at 25% as a Grand Master minor trait is an utter joke. Something like 33% chance of Might on Crit for that same short 5s Might actually would be a trait to consider without being OP.

Bhawb.7408:

So, I want to open a discussion on the trait trees. But of Corpse will be doing a podcast where we go over the traits soon, so I want your opinion.

Please keep it civil, and format your stuff like this:

What traits do you really like?
This can be any traits that you feel really do their job nicely, say why you like them, and why you feel they do their job well.

For example, I love Death Nova because it punishes people for killing off my minions. It spawns poison fields, creates a lot of internal synergy with minions themselves, and is such a useful trait I find it hard to leave it out of any minion build.

What traits do you like conceptually, but feel fall short of what they could be?
This is a trait where you like where it seems to be going, but you feel it isn’t as good as it could be. Say why you like the idea, what about it you think falls short, and how you’d like to see it changed to bring it up to par.

For example, I think Reanimator is a cool idea. It summons you minions when you kill things (like an automated minion summon), and would give you the feel of a true undead master, summoning servants from the things you kill. However, it summons one mediocre minion (individually), that often dies before it takes any effect (since it summons after something dies), and rarely has any kind of “snowballing” effect like old GW1 MMs had, due to its long ICD.

I think there are a number of ways it could be changed, but I think the core problem is two fold. It feels very weak when it does proc, and it’s use is often wasted because it procs after you’ve already won. In PvE its kind of a slap in the face to barely win a boss fight, then have a Jagged Horror spawn from his deathbed, only to sit around and die while you collect loot (same thing in PvP).

The trait should be increased in how it can proc, for example proc off minions and allies as well, although maybe with less chance, and a slightly reduced ICD, and if needed have them die faster (I’d rather have three minions up in a small snowball effect that die off before the next fight, than one that spawns after the fight and dies in the first AoE of the next one).

What traits do you just plain dislike?
This should only be for traits that you feel aren’t just bad in execution, but even the idea seems flawed at best.

For example, Toxic Landing, creates a poison cloud when you take falling damage. When is this trait ever useful? It isn’t just niche, it has maybe a 1% chance of taking any kind of effect (getting chased by something that follows you off the cliff and into the poison cloud), and even then its almost never meaningful (big deal, they are poisoned now, something we can do readily anyway).

So again: talk about what traits you like, what traits you almost like but think need improvement, and traits you don’t like. Make sure to expand upon what you say. If you need to compare to other professions, please do so constructively.

Please keep it civil, and open. This isn’t the place to lament how bad we are, this isn’t a place to flame ANet, or any such thing, but have a good discussion, and one that ANet can look at for ideas.

Thank you for your time and input.

Death nova in gw1 used to be a powerful explosion that had a cascade of wonderful dps when people decided to kill your minions off or you simply killed them off yourself. In gw2 it’s been turned into a poison field that is ok but not up to par with it’s gw1 counter part. Makes me even wonder why it’s a grandmaster trait.

Shrouded removal is pathetic for only removing 1 condition, spiteful spirit’s retaliation only lasts for 2-3 seconds depending on boon duration (too short a duration for any benefit).

Reaper’s Precision should have a 100% proc rate instead of a 33% but with a 2 second ICD. Obviously the LF gain should be increased to 2% instead or maybe more instead of being just 1% for this change.

Death Shiver makes no logical sense to be utilized as we already have a weapon set that can easily stack vulnerability better than this trait. It’s ICD of 3 seconds also further hurts any usefulness it may currently have (if any).

Speed of Shadows will never be used for the simple reason of other options being far better than this trait. No incentive to incorporate the trait into any spec at all, unless you find yourself needing a +25% speed boost. Oh wait runes of speed has been fixed, no wait access to swiftness with other classes or if really needed the necro has war horn skill five. Before I forget we also have utilities that provide swiftness and +25% movement speed. I guess no real incentive to use that trait still stands.

Siphoned power in spite feels like a poorly designed trait. Not only is it a very weak trait but its rewarding you for face tanking and being low on hp. It might be ok for bunkerish pvp builds but thats a very niche role and those builds dont usually go 25 points into spite. It should be something offensive which benefits a wider range of builds seeing as its a 25 point minor. Even just plain might when hit or chance for might on crit would be much much better. Personally I would like it to be changed to vuln on crit though.

Withering precision is also in a terrible place at the moment. I dont think anyone uses it anymore. When they revamped weakness they nerfed it so hard that it just became totally useless in everything except pvp. But there are better choices for pvp. If they change the icd so its per target or just make it chance on crit again with no icd it could be a really good trait for pve again.

5/5: Chill of Death, Chilling Darkness, Weakening Shroud, Terror, Lingering Curses, Death Nova, Transfusion, Deathly Invigoration, Unyielding Blast, Deathly Perception – All change the playstyle in interesting ways either improving specific proc times (Trans, DI, CoD), Influencing your positioning (WS, Trans, UB) or are actual traits you can build around/a core change of the way you approach fights (Terror, LC, CD, DP)

4/5: Spiteful Spirit, Close to Death, Focused Ritual, Spectral Attunement, Rituals of Protection, Shrouded Removal, Greater Marks, Nec Corruption, Mark of Evasion, Vampiric Precision, Fetrid Consumption, Vampiric Rituals, Path of Midnight, Near to Death, Master of Terror, Soul Marks, Foot in the Grave
All good choices, but either lacking in numbers (Vamp P, PoM, SA), lacking in uptime/impact (SS, FitG), a Tier to high (Vamp Rits Nec C, NtD) for current setup that is good, or plain ok but other factors limiting it (MoE, SR)

3/5: Spiteful Removal, Reapers Might, Spiteful Marks, Training of the Master, Hemophilia, Reapers Precision, Withering Precision, Dark Armor, Spiteful Vigor, Flesh of the Master, Ritual of Life, Vampiric Master, Quickening Thirst, Mark of Revival
Good idea bad execution, very nieche (so like pvp only/build limited which dont work everywhere), a bandaid or outslotted by a country mile/feels like randomly put in for no reason

2/5: Banshees Veil – sub par in CDR for no reason, Vital Persistence – utterly worthless, Speed of Shadows – Would have made sense if it was a 33% boost/swiftness on DS, not a bandage because you are to inept to code in Signets to work in DS

1/5: Deaths Embrace, Dhuumfire – Devs just trolling us

20% CDR traits werent included since they are staple, just as on cc do x ones.

For Minor traits:
Good – Parasitic Bond, Target the Weak, Deathly Strength, Blood is Power, Last Gasp
Good but numbers need to be tweaked – Barbed Precision, Full of Life, Vampiric, Gluttony, Strength of Undeath (in current form of 10% LF turns into power, not a 5% boost over the random 50% LF).
Should be Major Trait – Death into Life, Furious Demise, Reanimator+PotH
Bad – Siphoned Power

Agree mostly but i regard furious demise as a good minor especially considering its uptime and the fact that its purely selfish. If it was a major I would expect it to be group fury or 10 second duration.

SPITE LINE

The good

Minor Adept: Parasitic Bond: Really good. Necros are so desperate to regenerate health in combat, that I sometimes drop out of Shroud if I see that someone I tagged is about to die (then again, healing in DS pls…).

II Spiteful Talisman, IV Signet Mastery, VIII Axe Training
Traits that reduce cds are always good, especially if they give extra perks like might, higher range or more damage.

V Spiteful Spirit: Retaliation is good, and this trait adds it in a way that gives Death Shroud another layer of defense. Very popular in most PvP builds.

VI Reaper’s Might, IX Training of the Master, XII Close to Death : more damage, nuf said.

X Chill of Death : extremely effective PvP trait.

The conceptually good, but falling short

Minor Master: Death into Life : just too weak. I’m not sure if the problem is the low amount you get from this trait or the fact that our healing in general is so bad that 50-150 healing power won’t change a lot.

Minor GM: Siphoned Power : Either the hp threshold or the might duration is too low… or the trait is just not worthy of a grandmaster spot.
As it is now the trait is probably only useful for someone who goes into Shroud when he falls below 25% hp and is then hit with a lot of very weak attacks within 2 seconds. Too situational.

The Bad

Death’s Embrace: Anyone who ever used this now dropped it because a: there are a lot of better alternatives, and b: because the downed hp was fixed.
This trait has no place in anyone’s build anymore.
I get that “+dmg while down” is a standard trait for every class, but it should probably get an additional feature to make it more attractive.

III Spiteful Removal: at best this is a PvE trait, but when does a necro have problems with cleansing in a PvE environment? This trait doesn’t even have a niche use.

VII Spiteful Marks: 10% damage on skills with a long cooldown and not much direct damage in the first place. It’s not only overshadowed by other traits but conceptually bad.
I’m a staff-build user, and the extra dps I’d get from this trait is lower than 1 stack of bleeding.
Even in a power build, it would need a 30-50% damage increase to make it worth considering over other Spite traits.

Good, conceptually good, and bad
XI Dhuumfire:
It’s good as in: huge damage.
It’s bad as in: the damage is so huge that it’s totally overpowered, it requires no skill because it auto-procs and has absolutely no drawbacks in terms of lower defense etc.
The infamous “condition meta” was introduced with this trait, necros who use this in WvW have a similar reputation to stun warriors or perplexity users.
It’s conceptually good as in: it should be 2 stacks of torment instead of burning. Or moved to gm Curses together with Terror so you can’t have both, essentially making it a PvE trait.

CURSES

The good

Almost all traits here are somewhere between good and outstanding. It doesn’t matter which build you use, you probably have at least 10 points in Curses. This is how a traitline should look like.

The bad

I Toxic Landing : Pretty much like Death’s Embrace, every class has a falling dmg reduction trait. At best situational for Jumping Puzzles etc, but anywhere else it’s completely overshadowed by other traits.
Maybe it would get more attention if it spawned a Well (of Darkness?) instead of a poison cloud.

XII Withering Precision : Not worthy of a gm spot, even if the icd was lower (30 sec as far as I can remember..? ridiculous).

DEATH MAGIC

The good

Minor GM: Deadly Strength Moar Powaaa!

III Minion Master, V Staff Mastery : Cd reductions are always good.

VII Greater Marks : still a good trait, even after the base size increase.

X Fleash of the Master, XI Death Nova : the two traits you want to have as a minion mancer.

The conceptually good, but falling short

I Dark Armor : It only works with 3 skills on land, 2 underwater, and 1 downed. (do they, actually? Or are half of them still bugged?)
Too situational, better alternatives.

IV Ritual of Protection : Aoe protection, good in theory but 3 seconds is just too little. And again, no one would (or should) pick this trait over the better alternatives.

VI Shrouded Removal : It uses to be a popular pick for power builds, but now they all go for Weakening Shroud and off-hand dagger.
It’s again one of the traits which fall short to better alternatives.

XII Necromantic Corruption : Boon removal with minions, ok-ish in theory because MMs don’t run Well of Corruption or Corrupt Boon, but a 10% chance for 1 boon… weak, and of course Death Nova is the better alternative.

The Bad

Adept Minor: Reanimator : For me this trait does not deserve a “conceptually good”. Maybe if it was a major trait, but then: how good would it need to be to replace Minion Master, Flesh of the Master or Death Nova? It would have to be a different trait all together, Reanimator as it is now is just bad.

Master Minor: Protection of the Horde: Ladies and gentlemen, the worst trait of the necromancer! The. Worst.
It’s not only pathetic for minion mancers, but an even worse imposition on non-minion builds.

II Spiteful Vigor: If there’s one boon that necros have good access to it’s retaliation. 5 sec when healing… weak, no thx. No one would (or should) pick this over a different trait.

IV Reaper’s Protection: I know that a lot of people use this trait, and they would all put it in the “good trait” section.
But imo this is a bad trait. One hour cooldown for an effect you have zero control over. Bad in general and a waste of trait points.

Death Shiver: Who in his right mind would invest 20 points in Death Magic and shoulder the burden of the two minor traits just to get this trait? It’s a trait for power/shroud-builds so who would take points out of Spite or Soul Reaping for this?
Even the tooltip is a mockery: “Constantly apply vulnerability…” = 3 stacks every 3 seconds.
The radius is too small, vulnerability is too little, targets are too few… nothing here is worth the investment.

BLOOD MAGIC

The good

I Dagger Mastery, VIII Ritual Mastery: cd reductions, good.

III Mark of Evasion: Traits that grant extra skills, always good.

VI Transfusion: not bad with the upgraded amount of healing (…if only it would heal the necro as well).

Vampiric Master: atm the only siphoning trait that is worth picking for any build.

The conceptually good, but falling short

All other siphoning traits
Vampiric, Vampiric Precision, Bloodthirst, Vampiric Rituals:
There was some serious hype about all of those traits getting buffed. I guess people were expecting those traits to work similarly effective as the thief’s Signet of Malice. (133 + 0,05x healing power)
What the last patch did instead was make Bloodthirst weaker and all other traits marginally less pathetic.
However, the concept is good of course (as you can see when you play a thief with the signet), but the amount is way too little and we can’t use it in Death Shroud.

Adept Minor: Full of Life: Gain hp when you fall below a threashold is good in theory. But in case of the necro it’s too little and not often enough. Recovering health to get over the 90% mark in combat is a rare occasion, in which case the 5 sec of regeneration would certainly not have made a difference.

Minor gm: Blood to Power: Same reason as Full of Life. As a necro it’s extremely hard to stay above 90% hp in combat. 90 Power is nice, but you will rarely ever get to use them.

IV Ritual of Life: I suppose it’s a good trait, but I’ve never seen it being used in any build. This might in part be due to the fact that necros just don’t do support builds.

IX Deathly Invigoration: Good concept, amount too little.

XI Fetid Consumption: Why is this a grandmaster trait in Blood Magic?
This would be a contender for a merger with Necromantic Corruption in Death Magic, so it would be a viable defensive alternative to the higher damage option that is Death Nova.

The bad

Quickening Thirst: Just no. There are other and more effective sources of increasing movement speed. This trait is nothing but a waste.

SOUL REAPING

The good

Similar to Curses, this is a trait line that does most things right.
We have defensive buffs on minor traits: more lf regen with Gluttony or a free Spectral Armor on the superb Last Gasp.
Cd reduction traits are always welcome (III, IV, VIII), traits for increased damage (VI, IX, XII), and let’s not forget: the necro’s only source of non-elite stability: XI Foot in the Grave (not counting WoP of course)

The conceptually good, but falling short

Minor gm: Strength of Undeath: The concept is great, more damage when you have more life force. It makes a lot more sense than Blood to Power because not only is the threshold lower but life force regeneration is a lot easier and manageable than healing regular hp. Also 5% dmg is more than you could get with 90 power, so it’s stronger as well.
Falling short: my understanding is that this trait is still bugged..? If not it deserves a spot in the “good” section.

Vital Persistence: 1% less degeneration per second… too weak, not worth taking over other traits.

Mark of Revival: Pretty much the same as Ritual of Life. It’s good to get an extra Well of Blood or Reaper’s Mark, but reviving is just too random and there are better alternatives for sure.

Soul Marks: More life force is good of course, but the one thing that I don’t like about this skill is that you get 3% no matter how many targets you hit.
I believe the necro needs more skills like Locust Warm or the underwater Feast, skills that generate more life force if you’re up against more opponents. Soul Marks would be the perfect opportunity to implement this, I’d give it 1-2% per target.

The bad

I Fear of Death: about as useful as Death’s Embrace, once you go down it’s usually over anyway. No one would pick this over a trait he can use when still on his feet.

V Speed of Shadows: Another movement speed increase, and a weak one at that. Like Qickening Thirst, any traited speed buff that isn’t higher than what you can get with swiftness is a waste.

I agree with a lot of what Flow has to say on this… however I think the root problem with our traits is that both Death Magic and Blood Magic fail to do the the things we would be intereseted in taking them for.

Death magic as our toughness and boon duration tree should give something that greatly increases our survival, and provide at least some boons to take advantage of the boon duration (which currently is only a 5 second retaliation on heal in that tree).

Blood magic as our vitality and healing power tree should greatly increase our sustain, and provide a way to drop 30 points into a significant sustain boost.

Neither tree does what it should be doing, which is why every practical build is without points in those trees. Except for a siphon minon mancer build, those trees just don’t synergize with anything.

My personal opinion is that you could make some very minor adjustments to improve the current situation, by moving around things like the 15 point in curses and putting it to 15 points in death magic (it is a boon after all). Siphons should scale off healing power at 5% – end of story.

I could go on, but really I don’t see Anet reworking the class heavily, which is what it would need to break up the monopoly of power that exists with 30 points in spite and 10-20 points in curses.

flow.6043:

BLOOD MAGIC

Adept Minor: Full of Life: Gain hp when you fall below a threashold is good in theory. But in case of the necro it’s too little and not often enough. Recovering health to get over the 90% mark in combat is a rare occasion, in which case the 5 sec of regeneration would certainly not have made a difference.

IIRC, this will actually proc any time you take damage at or below 90%. Making it almost free regeneration every 20-30 seconds. (btw, 5 seconds of free health is nothing to scoff at, especially if you’re running with a party who doesn’t supply a constant source of regen.)

Rennoko.5731:

Death magic as our toughness and boon duration tree should give something that greatly increases our survival, and provide at least some boons to take advantage of the boon duration (which currently is only a 5 second retaliation on heal in that tree).

Actually, there are a number of boons we apply to ourselves that benefit from the boon duration. Specifically, protection from wells and death shroud, regeneration from the staff, and might from the spite tree. Most of these also come from the death magic trait line or are enhanced by it.
Back to the topic:

Protection of the Horde: really gates out other specs, and is relatively weak outside of PvP. I think it should be combined into flesh of the master to make way for a trait that other specs can use. Or it can be swapped with the death magic grand master minor and then buffed (especially since the grand master majors are only minion related).

Reanimator: awesome in concept, and it has come a long way since launch. I think it should proc off of allies dieing though, so it spawns one when a minion dies. This should give it more use outside of overworld PvE. It should also give other specs more use for the tree as the bone minion would have good synergy with other builds.

Bloodthirst: I understand how Anet is scared of improving siphoning too much, as free healing+damage can get out of hand quickly. However a 20% boost adds up to be less than .2% damage when you take into account both the healing and damage. I think that the trait should be returned back to 50% (or more). As of now siphoning is only marginally better for builds that don’t focus on blood magic, and it needs improvement for builds who want to focus more on it.

striker.3704:

Actually, there are a number of boons we apply to ourselves that benefit from the boon duration. Specifically, protection from wells and death shroud, regeneration from the staff, and might from the spite tree. Most of these also come from the death magic trait line or are enhanced by it.

I did forget Rituation of Protection, but that and the retaliation on heal are the only boons specifically from that tree. Personally if they are going to say that necro must remain boon “light”, then the boon duration tree needs something specifically in it that makes us want the boon duration.

How many builds go 30 points into Death that are non-minion builds? There really should be a reason to leverage the toughness and boon duration at 30 points deep.

Great thread Bhawb +1’d.

Just the ones I have an opinion on one way or the other:

Biggest problem – only one focused condi trait in the entire expertise tree.

Spite

Dhuumfire – not good. Between the icd and the fact that condis dont get much benefit
from crit elsewhere, this ends up being fairly awkward. I understand the desire to force us into a wider stat allocation however I don’t think this is the best way to do it.

Chill of Death – good design but probably too strong. Chill is a very strong effect, especially on targets that are under pressure, and chill of death hits pretty hard. For power builds, this is not all that far from ‘your team deals ~30% more damage’ in pvp.

Training of the Master – good, but this and flesh of the master are possibly too strong. Minions being balanced around them causes them to be fairly weak untraited, meaning you’re either a minion master or you’re not, no mixing minions with other utilities. I do occasionally take this when running nothing but golem though. I don’t know if you could buff minions base and reduce these traits without making them worthless anyway.

Spiteful marks – weak, not particularly well designed. Yes, putrid can hit hard, but we’re not generally using marks for DD.

Spiteful Spirit – decent trait. The only flaw is that you kind of need to build around it to get maximum benefit from it (high power, boon duration and lf generation, low ds cooldown). The problem with that is ‘build arounds’ based on boons have a pretty obvious and easy to exploit weakness.

Signet Mastery – good trait, maybe a bit conceptually flawed. The might stacks are meh (and were particularly meh when they were a whole trait) due to long signet cooldowns, but the reduced cooldown is great.

Spiteful Removal – never used it, probably never will. If i just got a kill I’m much less likely to be in a situation where i have to worry about condis, and I already have a lot of answers anyway.

Spiteful Talisman – good trait. The extra range on focus 5 is especially awesome.

Siphoned Power – terrible since the fix. Everything hits way too hard to make a might stack per hit below 25% relevant.

Curses

Terror – strong trait, not sure if I’d call it good, only because adding that much damage via traits limits build variety. Not by forcing you to spec a certain way, but by pushing you to, and by forcing you to choose specific traits at specific points if you do spec into the tree they’re in. Same applies to dhuumfire.

Spectral Attunement/Master of Corruption – good traits. I would often like to take these, but usually cant over terror. Especially master of corruption, since builds running multiple corruptions are usually going to be condition based.

Focused Rituals – should be baseline.

Reapers Precision – should be 100% on crit.

Weakening Shroud – probably too strong with the new weakness. Nice design though, probably does more to preserve your life force than vital persistence ever could.

Chilling Darkness – problematic trait. if youre not taking plague and well of darkness, you’re probably not taking this, because 1s just doesn’t do enough with our other blinds. on the other hand if you buff this while keeping the functionality, plague and well of darkness become too strong.

Toxic Landing – not a bad falling trait, poison fields are very strong. I hate falling traits in general though. Fine for the reduced fall damage in wvw I guess.

Target the Weak – not a bad trait. Quite balanced for power builds, and situationally strong. Not good for condi builds. Strong for hybrids.

Continued from above.

Death

Necromantic Corruption – minions dont attack very fast, and 10% is not very high.

Death Shiver – good trait, stacks a lot of vuln and covers well.

Reapers Protection – ridiculous on skyhammer, cooldown too long otherwise.

Greater Marks – good trait. Making reapers unblockable is awesome. Making the rest unblockable is ok. The extra size is no longer mandatory, but still relevant. If it increased them to 270, it might see some play here and there.

Staff Mastery – good trait. Reducing the cooldown on mark of blood is a big dps boost, and reducing the cooldowns on the rest is a big utility boost.

Ritual of Protection – good trait. With 3 wells, ritual mastery and a little boon duration you get huge protection uptime out of this.

Minion Master – if you have fetid consumption, you probably want this, otherwise you probably don’t. It’s ok i guess.

Dark Armor – has the potential to be good in one specific build, conflict with shrouded removal negates that potential.

Protection of the Horde – no thanks. On average its a bigger toughness boost for a minion master than other classes get, but no one is taking those traits for the toughness boost, they’re taking them for the reduced cooldown. The pure toughness guardian equivalent buffs for more, buffs allies too, and doesn’t depend on using specific utilities (and how many of them are alive). Of course, it’s a major.

Reanimator – not bad (ooo necro forum heresy). The little buggers last much longer and behave much more intelligently than they ever used to. The damage was always low, but still not a bad boost. Even if they just get hit once and die they’ve done a good job. Pretty bad in pvp though.

Blood

Vampiric – underrated, like all the siphon traits. If my dagger hits for 800, and siphon hits for 40 and heals for 40, its an extra 10% life swing on that attack. Also great on channels.

Fetid Consumption – the only reason I ever run minions in pvp. Too strong. Also has the same issue with minions being an all or nothing kind of thing.

Deathly Invigoration – great design in theory, super awkward in practice. This and mark of evasion need their activation triggers swapped. ‘Deathly Mark’ and ‘Evasive Invigoration’ would give necros a good chance at being viable bunkers.

Transfusion – I think we all know the problem with this one.

Ritual of Life – no one wants to stand in a well after reviving. You just got cleaved to hell, you’re not sticking around for more.

Mark of Evasion – good trait, probably too strong, even with the reduced bleeds.

Bloodthirst – traits positioned to conflict with the traits they buff are not the best design call imo. 20% of a 10% boost is also less than amazing.

Soul

Mark of Revival – good trait, nearly worthless in the current meta.

Vital Persistence – useless for pvp, maybe good in pve if your group is already maintaining 25 vuln without Unyielding Blast. Probably not though.

Bhawb.7408:

What traits do you like conceptually, but feel fall short of what they could be?
This is a trait where you like where it seems to be going, but you feel it isn’t as good as it could be. Say why you like the idea, what about it you think falls short, and how you’d like to see it changed to bring it up to par.

Siphoned Power (25 Spite) is this for me. The idea is that when someone is dangerously low on life, they get a surge of power that might help them finish off the other person first. A boost of power when they need it most.
To make it match that idea, I’d say that it should be normalized in terms of hit intensity: add a 1 sec recharge, and increase it to 3 stacks of might (5s) so that it doesn’t spike from multi-hit attacks, but still ramps up quickly.

Toxic Landing: This is the obligatory fall trait. However, the poison isn’t good for escaping, or even that good for initiating. I’d suggest switching its passive effect for summoning a Locust Swarm. (Rename to Flight of the Locust?) The idea being: locust swarm cripples those near you and gives swiftness, so if you initiate with it people can’t get away, and you can use it for an extra swiftness application to try and escape. Still a little cruddy, but that’s a fall trait for you.

Dark Armor: A safeguard for casting your long, drawn-out spells. I feel like this should just straight up give protection or retaliation, since 400 toughness is kind of arbitrary (and only 25% damage reduction on a glass cannon).
Or they could bump it up a tier or two and have it give stability for the duration of the channel. That way you could have some insurance for attacks like Transfusion, Ghastly Claws and Life Siphon.

Death Shiver: Needs a strict buff. It could also make use of the close=stronger effect theme that Death Shroud is gaining recently. Make it apply vulnerability every second, with 1 stack to people 600-900 away, 2 stacks to people 300-600 away, and 3 stacks to people <300. Could also use a name change so people stop thinking this should apply chill.

Necromantic Corruption: Should corrupt boons (boon -> condition) instead of just removing them. It’s directly competing with Death Nova, so it’s got to be potent.

Vital Persistence: If you’re using this, you’re going to camp in DS, which means you’re using life blast a lot. But you probably just gave up Unyielding Blast. For that kind of cost, this ought to slow the degen to a crawl: Either 1% or 2% lost per second.

Dietzen.6127:

Siphoned Power, Spite tree, 25 minor trait. I’ve never gotten this trait. Yay I’m about to die, and now I’ll have 35 extra power and condition dmg, super!

You’re forgetting that you’re a Necro
25% Health—>Blood Is Power—>Death Shroud—> More Might via Reaper’s Might trait
Thats a lot of might ….

bhawb,

Go back and dig up the unaddressed bits and pieces from prior to the 6/25 patch. Most of the terrible traits are still the same.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-state-of-Necromancer/page/6

I wanted a more clean thread that I could read over. I realize it is essentially the same (the only changes would be Blood Magic, mainly), and this will hopefully be nicely structured for easy look overs, which it is continuing to be for now.

Traits I absolutely love:
1. Unyielding Blast – This is one of those traits where it completely plays the way you play your Necromancer and there are not enough of those kind of traits in game. Piercing Life Blast that give Might, inflict Vulnerability, and have +50% chance to crit? Is it top tier? Probably not. Is it crazy fun to play in a WvW zerg? You bet your kitten it is.

Conceptually Sound but could use tweaking:
1. Chilling Darkness – Chill as a condition only feels powerful if it’s on someone for a decent amount of time so that the cooldown increase is more noticeable. My one and only issue with it is that for the amount of Blinds the Necromancer has access to (Well of Darkness, Signet of Spite, Plague, and Dagger 4), that 1 second of Chill never really feels powerful from a user’s standpoint. The only time I ever get that “eff yeah” feeling is when I cast Well of Darkness and Plague. If the base duration went up to like 3 or 4 seconds, it’d feel like a much more impactful trait. As it stands now, it simply doesn’t last long enough IMO.

2. Death Shiver – This is another trait that I love the idea behind, but not the application. The thought that just being in the presence of the Death Shroud has adverse effects is really cool; it makes the idea of being cloaked in the souls of the dead feel as unearthly as it sounds. Sort of gives that “hairs on the back of your neck” vibe that Necromancers should give off IMO. I would personally like this trait much more if it applied like Chill or Torment though; playing a condition Necro, I’m just not a huge fan of Vulnerability, as it feels like it has diminished impact on a condition build. Chill is ALWAYS good regardless of build, and Torment would allow us easier access to a mobility-punishing mechanic.

3. Lingering Curses – This trait is too specific, honestly. I’d like think that at some point, Necromancers will get another MH condition weapon to choose from. If that happens this trait can go one of two ways: 1) the trait makes Scepter a better condition weapon due to how convenient this trait is atm. Or 2) the new condition weapon is better/on-par with traited Scepter, in which case, why not just use a different trait?

Flat out don’t like:
1. Death’s Embrace – Instead of traiting into things that empower your Downed state, why not just trait for ways to not enter Downed state in the first place? This is needlessly counter-intuitive.

2. Cooldown Reduction traits – Generally speaking, if feel that there are too many CDR traits in this game where the skills themselves could simply use shorter cooldowns. There is nothing inherently wrong with CDR traits unless they do something other than just reduce cooldowns. You could even play around with having these traits empower skills do as opposed to simply giving you raw stat increases (I’m looking at you, Mesmer traits). Or better yet, diversify the way the cooldown reduction is given. Instead of a flat 20%, give us something like this that has synergizes with other traits/skills:

Ritual Mastery
Reduce the cooldown of Wells by 1 second when your Wells siphon health.

There, Vampiric Rituals just got way more interesting to play. Now you have to keep the target locked in your Wells to get the full effect, but there’s a big payoff for doing so. Conversely, if your opponent manages to stay out of them and kite around your range, you become less effective. That’s just a quick and dirty example mind you, but you get the general idea.

gripe gripe gripe, gripe gripe, gripe gripe gripe.

Death Magic
Probably my biggest issue is that the minor traits in the line in general give no passive variety or protection. It’s the “upgrade your staff and get a flesh rat” tree. Reanimator and Protection of the Horde give no benefit if you’re not running minions. While Deadly Strength does actually involve toughness and not minions, I can only gripe that it still doesn’t help survivability.

I liked Bhawb’s suggestion in another thread that the ICD on Reanimator could be removed, and the limit increased such that you can have two or three running around, but overall, it gives no added protection, and could be a major trait in the Curses tree due to the additional bleeds if that were the case. Plus, it can afford mm’s to spread out a little bit.

Staff Mastery and Greater Marks: is the reason why non-mm’s go into this line. Plus, little benefit to taking one or the other. I’d like this to get merged into one, but I doubt that will happen. Still, With the increase of base mark size, I’d like to see the marks just unblockable and the cooldown reduction without a radius increase.

Spiteful Vigor: Misnamed. You can guess what I want this to give instead of retaliation.

Death Nova and Necromantic Corruption: While I understand how Soul Reaping’s grandmaster traits both involve Death Shroud, both of these GM traits involve Minion damage, not survivability. Other classes’ boon strips are Master-level, so NC could move down a tier and make room for something that would add stability, protection, or more in line with Necros: aoe weakness or blind. Death Nova felt offputting. There isn’t a lot of condi damage involved with minions. There can be, but it’s another trait that could easily fit in Curses.

Bhawb.7408:

I wanted a more clean thread that I could read over. I realize it is essentially the same (the only changes would be Blood Magic, mainly), and this will hopefully be nicely structured for easy look overs, which it is continuing to be for now.

Well, if you want succinct input, just look at the posts from Me and Kravick (Iris) in there.

I did all of the trait lines one by one on page 6 (I know, I went totally ham on that thread). My biggest beef is still with Death and Blood though. Death is useless if you are a non-MM (which even then is wildly sub-optimal for tPvP) due to the poopy minor traits and blood is entirely useless because your primary profession mechanic basically disables it. The rest are ok, but none are as good as the Mesmer Precision/Crit line, Ele Arcana/Boon Duration, Thief Precision/Crit, etc. In fact, I would argue that every single profession still has a trait line that is better designed than any Necro line (even curses is not as good as the best for other professions).

flow.6043:

VI Transfusion: not bad with the upgraded amount of healing (…if only it would heal the necro as well).

Just wait till your about out of life force, then press it.
Not only will it heal you, but you won’t get a 10sec CD on entering DS again.

Same with DS Stom/Res, by pressing DS as you press F.

^- Dev’s need to fix this stuff up. ‘Bug left in due to balance’ Is a terrible, lazy, excuse.

Rest of Flow’s stuff is spot on.
As others have said, a bit of refinement on where things are could make sense.

E.g. MM get’s synergy from Power, as 20 points spite for 30% minion dam + power scales the ‘damage’ our minion siphon heals do. Condi has nothing.
Axe and Minions used to be ‘the’ choice. But now, it’s 30% minion dam OR Axe Training.

Few things could be thrown together.
E.g. 20% faster CD on minions + 50% more minion life.
faster CD on dagger + dagger gives movement speed.

Last thing. 5 points Death Magic… I reallllllllllllllllllllllly don’t need a vocal comment on that minions.

10: ARRRISEE MY BRAINLESS ARRRISEE.
20: I’ve really got to work on making them last longer.
GoTo 10

Rennoko.5731:

striker.3704:

Actually, there are a number of boons we apply to ourselves that benefit from the boon duration. Specifically, protection from wells and death shroud, regeneration from the staff, and might from the spite tree. Most of these also come from the death magic trait line or are enhanced by it.

I did forget Rituation of Protection, but that and the retaliation on heal are the only boons specifically from that tree. Personally if they are going to say that necro must remain boon “light”, then the boon duration tree needs something specifically in it that makes us want the boon duration.

How many builds go 30 points into Death that are non-minion builds? There really should be a reason to leverage the toughness and boon duration at 30 points deep.

You don’t go into a tree for the stats it gives, you go into a tree for the major traits that buff your abilities. The 2 grandmaster traits in death are minion master too, so nobody in their right mind should go 30 points into death without them.

I despise the master and grandmaster minor traits in spite, I think they are both terribly useless. If the master minor trait gave anything besides healing power I would prefer it, and if the grandmaster (one of the worst grandmasters I’ve seen in the game) gave might under 50% health, you could at least use that to your advantage, take some damage and heal, then fighting with more might. Then it could be useful, and seems like a necromantic thing to do; playing with life and death like that.

I also dislike the adept and master minor traits in death magic, like most other people do. They are hardly useful for even minion masters.

Hey all. For brevity sake I am just going to focus on the traits that really pop out at me as good or bad

What traits do you really like?
1. Close to death – a trait in the power line that is very useful for power based builds
2. Weakening Shroud – I like the fact that this gives DS more utility as both an offensive and defensive strategy
3. Last Gasp – amazing trait, especially for a minor

What traits do you like conceptually, but feel fall short of what they could be?
1. Siphoned Power – as a concept, this is kind of cool. Become more powerful the closer you are to dying. In practice, it doesnt work. Perhaps the solution is to give x stacks of might when your health falls below 25%. That way you have to make a decision. Do you heal to keep your HP pool up or do you let that one extra hit in to get the x stacks of might before using your heal?

2. Dhuumfire – I put this here only because I do not think it should be in the power line. In the past, I think Nemesis has had the idea that dhuumfire should be in curses as a grandmaster and terror should be moved to grandmaster as well. That way, people have to chose between two of the more “bursty” conditions. Additionally, it sets things up so that people don’t “have” to go into spite for a condi build.

3. Furious Demise – I actually really like this trait but think that it would be great if it applied fury to allies as well in order to increase the necro’s group utility. I do not know if this would be too powerful, however

4. Target the weak – this is a great trait but I wonder why it is in the curses tree. Might make more sense to be in spite. I could be missing something here though

5. Ritual of protection – good concept, protection should probably be longer duration

6. Shrouded Removal – what if it removed a condition from you AND from allies in a limited radius. More group utility

7. Vampiric / Vampiric Precision / Bloodthirst – awesome concepts but I dont think anyone has found a way to make them really worth taking yet. I think a weapon with melee cleave would make them more desirable

8. Deathly Invigoration – havent used this since there were changes to it but last time I did use it (full clerics), the heal was somewhat lackluster

9. Speed of Shadows – like the concept but might have more utility if it provided swiftness for x seconds on entering death shroud

10. Foot in the grave – I know this is asking for too much and is probably overpowered but I wish there was some way to integrate a stun break into this

What traits do you just plain dislike?
1. Withering Precision – please see other post for details about why this trait just isnt good

2. Reanimator/Protection of the Horde – its sad to think that reanimator was actually worse at launch. We need new minors. These traits should be combined into one, made more powerful and put in the master level. For example, summon a jagged horror on critical hit. This effect can only trigger once every x seconds. If this were to happen, the decay of the jagged horrors would probably need to be increased.

3. Death Shiver – there are much better ways for necros to apply vulnerability

I mostly target the minor trait. The reason is, I actually find necro’s major traits VERY out of place. Condition duration traits in curse and dhuumfire in spite. Master of terror should be in the duration tree aka spite.I understand they try to spread out the traits so that you can’t take that in one tree, but this really mess up our trait lines.

See guardian, Zeal +cond. duration and it really have many condition major traits in there. Plus spirit weapon. Radiance +cond.dmg and prec, it have crit. traits, fury traits, and many condition traits.
Thief, one line full of endurance stuffs.

That’s how traits should be. Not randomly throw major traits in random line just so that you can’t take both traits.

What traits do you really like?
Close to death, Chill of Death
Both are very useful in power build

What traits do you like conceptually, but feel fall short of what they could be?
Target the Weak
Frankly I feel it’s kind of out of place. It’s a power trait yet rely on conditions. It’s very powerful, 8.5/10 in usage, but from a trait stand point, it isn’t the best.

Hemophilia, Lingering Curse
Amazing trait for condition necro. BUT Curse gives precision/condition dmg, and both of the traits are duration, which imo, should be in Spite.

Siphoned Power, Blood to Power
They should switch.

Protection of the Horde, Deadly Strength
They looks like they sync, but they are just too weak. 20 toughness for each minion. 6*20= 120, 120*5% = 6. So spending 25 points in the supposed minion trait and controlling 6 minions only reward 6 points of power, it just doesn’t make sense.

Reanimator
You know why. But conceptually giving us one more minion isn’t a bad thing. The execution just need to be more thought out.

What traits do you just plain dislike?
Dhuumfire
I can safely say 80% of the condition necro have this trait. Yet, 30 points in Spite JUST for this trait. I always can’t exactly decide what to take in 10,20 points. It is for condition dmg, it should be in Curse. And Spite should have more condition traits.

We’ll be going over this tomorrow in the Podcast, thanks for all the feedback, and last chance if anyone wants to add to the discussion.

Few things I wanted to bring up.

1) What do you think of setting all our “on-death” abilities to have two new activation triggers. The first being that they now activate any time an ally dies, and they activate when any of your minions die. The second is that they don’t activate on enemy death only, but (maybe PvP only?) make them activate when your opponent is downed as well.

This can and probably should be balanced by having reduced effect. So instead of minion death removing 3 conditions through Spiteful Removal, it only removes 1. Or things like Reanimator only has a 50% chance to proc on minion death (doesn’t proc on Jagged Horror death).

2. Normalize more of the death shroud traits to be on-entry/exit, and not while in death shroud. For example, Deathly Shivers gets buffed to 5 stacks of vulnerability, for a long duration, but only on entry. Movement speed in DS now gives you swiftness when you enter DS. Etc.

Can someone explain why siphoned power even is in the game? its utter garbage

Its a cruel joke, thats why.

Heartlust.6140:

Can someone explain why siphoned power even is in the game? its utter garbage

Back in GW1 there were a number of skills and playstyles that revolved around playing with your HP. You’d sacrifice HP and get big rewards for it. I think it was an attempt to keep that playstyle, giving you a big reward (“big”) for staying at low HP, getting high might stacks. This would make you really dangerous at low HP.

Problem is, they did it badly and its a pretty terrible trait by pretty much everyone’s opinion. But I think that was their hope.

One migth for a grandmaster minor trait when hitting 25%. fun times!

1. Those activation triggers would be nice additions. However, for Reanimator, for example, there would have to be the additional bit that if it doesn’t proc (the 50% didn’t favor you, for example), it does not start the ICD. This would prevent having a minion go down in a fight, then not getting a horror after you got your first kill.

2. This I do not entirely agree with. The only traits that would be affected, it would either be a nerf to (Deathly Perception) or the trait is bad for a different reason than being a drawn-out effect. Death Shiver, for example, is bad because what it does is so weak and it simply cannot compare to other trait choices in the same slot. Even if it gave a few stacks of long-lasting vulnerability on entry, it would continue to be bad because a small number of stacks just doesn’t matter and you could get more overall from Unyielding Blast (which can be picked up earlier than the obvious companion trait for DS cooldown). Movement Speed in Death Shroud is bad because so much can overwrite it (Swiftness, any other speed boost, almost). It just doesn’t do enough. Necros can get Swiftness easily enough if they really want/need it, so Swiftness on DS doesn’t add, well, anything.

^2. Interesting point. I wouldn’t put it to Deathly Perception (which is actually gated by forcing you to stay in DS and could be way too strong if you could activate a buff and leave it and say, Lich).

But interesting points otherwise. Do you think those traits in general should just be axed then? I feel like movement speed in DS kind of just… needs to go (or be buffed to over 33%), and others like Deathly Shiver need more serious changes then, if they remain as is. And if they do change, would you prefer them as is (staying in DS) or on entry?

Speed of Shadows would be more attractive if it was, say, 50% speed boost, though then that opens up a new issue of Dark Path being comparatively nerfed as then you really could out-run the projectile. Speed of Shadows would probably do best to just be merged with Path of Midnight. Since PoM is already low on a cooldown reduction trait, I feel this would be balanced. People likely wouldn’t take the trait for the movement, but it would be a nice perk that would make Path of Midnight more attractive compared to Unyielding Blast and get a little extra out of it. In addition, the general “feel” of the traits is preserved, a sort of speed boost for death shroud. That said, I wouldn’t shed any tears if they were to just remove the trait entirely.

Death Shiver really should probably just go or get a complete rework. Applying 1 second of chill every 2 or 3 seconds (instead of vulnerability) would make it a surprisingly good trait as it would be just enough to make others feel sluggish when fighting a necro with the trait and give necros an edge in the attrition war (due to their opponents having to wait longer for their cooldowns). In addition, because it is rapid (sorta) application of short duration conditions, it’s practically immune to cleansing and would make the best move for the opponents to just suffer with sluggish movement and recharges. The counterplay is there (get out of melee range, basically, be more aware of when you use your skills), and it is actually meaningful if your opponent tries to play on normally. It helps reinforce the idea that a necro is difficult to escape, and it fits the name of the trait better, as well.

What would you guys think of a trait that made the summoning cast of flesh wurm instant? This would give us a reliable teleport that would be interesting.

Heartlust.6140:

What would you guys think of a trait that made the summoning cast of flesh wurm instant? This would give us a reliable teleport that would be interesting.

Not really a good trait if it just did that. Having a trait that only affects one skill is a bad idea. Transfusion gets away with it because it is a skill that every necro has, regardless of any decisions the necro makes.

Heartlust.6140:

What would you guys think of a trait that made the summoning cast of flesh wurm instant? This would give us a reliable teleport that would be interesting.

If they ever introduced a grandmaster level trait that was something like “increases the utility of minion skills” and then had similar changes (made bone minions 3 not 2, others I’d have to think of), and Flesh Wurm’s was that, I could see it being a thing.

However, they’d need to make it a fairly costly trait to get, to prevent the kind of mobility they don’t particularly want us having.

What traits do you really like?

Spiteful Removal, Close to Death, Hemophilia, Terror, Spiteful Vigor, Shrouded Removal, Mark of Evasion, Transfusion, Deathly Invigoration, Vampiric Rituals, Unyielding Blast, Deathly Perception.

These are the traits that I like the most, but not necessarily the ones I used the most. Traits that decrease the recharge time or increase damage are good, but it isn’t exciting. So I didn’t include those because I don’t have strong feelings for them even if I us them. I like what they do, but they don’t get me excited to use a build.

What traits do you like conceptually, but feel fall short of what they could be?

Signet Mastery: I feel like this one is a strange fit. The necro doesn’t have any short recharging Signets, which this helps with. But the might just feels out of place for when you want to use a signet. Protection would be better but retaliation feels far more at home for a necromancer. I like the idea, but it just doesn’t work that well in practice. without any real low recharging signets.

Chill of Death: I really like the idea of the necromancer getting damage buffs when a foe’s health is low. As closer to death helps with there theme. But on the other hand this skill really seems to be way too random on how it does that and just doesn’t seem to be that useful when compared to the other ways the necromancer can remove boons.

Target the Weak: This trait is just in the wrong place. I personally don’t care for hybrid builds so this doesn’t seem to effect my necromancer that much. It does have an impact on my over all damage, sure, but not enough that its noticeable.

Reaper’s Precision: This trait has such a cool idea going for it. It just fails to deliver on many angles. The life force gain combine with its low chance to happen with crits just makes this trait lacking.

Lingering Curse: Yeah yeah. Lingering Curse is amazing I know. But the problem I have with it is it just doesn’t do enough. On land, this skill is awesome and you would have to be a fool not to take it if you are using a scepter. But once you go underwater its a dead skill. Why doesn’t this skill give a 33% condition bonus to Trident as well as Scepter?

Reanimator: Minion masters used to be a very amazing thing back in GW1. And this skill is kinda reminiscent of that. But its just not impressive and the damage output from this little guy is far worse then that of the Bleed you get from Barbed Precision. A cool concept, just doesn’t live up to what it could do.

Death Shiver: Again, I think this is a really cool idea. But from testing it, it just doesn’t preform the way you want it to preform and is out classed by way better death traits that have a larger impact. Especially for a master trait.

Death Nova: its funny that you don’t actually want to take a condition damage with a Minion master build. This trait is decent, but counter intuitive to every other trait the minion master has access to. The MM doesn’t get anything to help minions in Cursing.

Most life siphoning triats: I just feel that they are too weak or just don’t feel much like life steal.

What traits do you just plain dislike?

Protection of the Horde: There is a term that the Magic: The gathering developers have called a Parasitic Mechanic. A Parasitic mechanic is a mechanic in the game that plays well with itself and nothing else. Some mechanics in the game like Splice onto Arcane was a spell type that could only interacted with other spells with the Arcane type. But they only printed arcane spells in one block of MTG so these spells would only be good if you played them with spells from that specific set. Protection from the Horde has the same problem as this. As a Minor trait it should allow for flexibility for building. Major traits can be more specific because you don’t have to take them all the time. This, however, You don’t have a choice. This basically becomes a trait slot that does absolutely nothing for you if you decide to try and do a more defensive style of build using the Death magic trait line. Which Death magic does have some really awesome death magic traits that have nothing to do with minions.

Dhuumfire: I actually use this trait a lot. it does get on my nerves though because this actually limits the style of play a condition build will want to take. I primarily dislike this because it doesn’t have an equal counter in another trait line to take. This trait is so good, and the necromancer actually needs the damage this gives so bad for a condi set this becomes an auto include. Which is frustrating because it forces a certain build design. If this skill had a natural counter, such as a Death Magic trait in the Master or even grand master tier that inflicted a condition that was equally as valuable or close to it then My problem with this would be far less. Taking this becomes less of a choice and more of a calculation, which harms the real fun of the game.

Afya.5842:

Dhuumfire
I can safely say 80% of the condition necro have this trait. Yet, 30 points in Spite JUST for this trait. I always can’t exactly decide what to take in 10,20 points. It is for condition dmg, it should be in Curse. And Spite should have more condition traits.

I agree. I personally feel Dhuumfire needs some more competition from other trait lines as well as more option in spite. I don’t agree that it should be in Curse. Dhuumfire has a certain flavor about it that makes it so if you want to take a condition spec with Dhuumfire, you can’t go into minions. Which makes sense if you know the lore about Dhuum.

I feel that giving the necromancer another option either a master or grandmaster trait in either Blood or Death magic that would provide a benefit to the necromancer that would be comparable in power level to Dhuumfire could increase the diversity of builds among the necromancer with out completely neutering the power of the necromancer. Imagine a Master/grandmaster trait in blood that effected bleeding in some way. Perhaps a % increase of damage from bleeds. This could be worth taking over Dhuumfire. Or perhaps actually add the suggested condition, Disease and make it so the disease condition could only be applied through traits from the Death magic trait line.

Afya.5842:

Hemophilia, Lingering Curse
Amazing trait for condition necro. BUT Curse gives precision/condition dmg, and both of the traits are duration, which imo, should be in Spite.

Let me stop you right that. This actually is completely counter intuitive to increase build diversity. Right now the necromancer can reliably get 25 stacks of bleeding onto the target with the use of cons, armor and these traits without having to invest into Spite. Moving these traits over to spite actually becomes counter intuitive to build diversity and rather then opening up more options for a Condition spec would actually completely shut the door on build options. Spite is required for a high damage condition spec, but there is also the Hybrid Condition damage and support set that this change would completely ruin. With this change, that build would go from having the ability to get 25 stacks with cons to closer to 15 stacks or less with those same cons and armor at best.

Hemophilia, Lingering Curse and Dhuumfire are all defiantly in the right place to promote build diversity in the future for a condition spec provided new traits will be added.

I agree with Lily, and would specificy that each tree needs big “oomph” traits in them. For example, if you want to be a condition build, you pretty much always go Curses for your condition traits. Then you have a choice: do I go full damage by going into another damage tree (Spite)? Or do I go into the support/sustain tree, giving up damage for sustain/support (which isn’t a true option right now)? Or do I go into Death Magic for some really strong defense to keep myself alive (again, not a real option)? Or do I go into Soul Reaping for an improved Death Shroud, giving me more utility and a bit of a hybrid offense/defense mix?

The problem is, only two of these options are remotely viable. You either go for more damage by picking up Dhuumfire, or you get Foot in the Grave for a lot of utility and some defense. But there is no meaningful support, sustain, or all-defense option open. In fact minions are the only build type that have all these options. Minions get a ton of meaningful trait choices, but this isn’t mirrored in any of our other builds. I think they should look at the minion traits and see why it is they work so well (spread out through multiple trees, each tree has some options, no way to have everything you want, meaningful pure-offense or pure-defense choices, etc.), and then apply that to our other builds.

Bhawb.7408:

I agree with Lily, and would specificy that each tree needs big “oomph” traits in them. For example, if you want to be a condition build, you pretty much always go Curses for your condition traits. Then you have a choice: do I go full damage by going into another damage tree (Spite)? Or do I go into the support/sustain tree, giving up damage for sustain/support (which isn’t a true option right now)? Or do I go into Death Magic for some really strong defense to keep myself alive (again, not a real option)? Or do I go into Soul Reaping for an improved Death Shroud, giving me more utility and a bit of a hybrid offense/defense mix?

The problem is, only two of these options are remotely viable. You either go for more damage by picking up Dhuumfire, or you get Foot in the Grave for a lot of utility and some defense. But there is no meaningful support, sustain, or all-defense option open. In fact minions are the only build type that have all these options. Minions get a ton of meaningful trait choices, but this isn’t mirrored in any of our other builds. I think they should look at the minion traits and see why it is they work so well (spread out through multiple trees, each tree has some options, no way to have everything you want, meaningful pure-offense or pure-defense choices, etc.), and then apply that to our other builds.

Minions are actually fairly limited as for what they can do. You either have 20/0/30/20/0 or 20/0/20/30/0. Those are pretty much your only 2 options. Which is fine, Minions don’t define everything that death magic can do or other trait lines for that matter.

The problem I see is that Curse doesn’t really play that well with Death Magic or Blood Magic. Sure they have a minor connection in wells. But That lends itself more to blood then curse and only tells you to spend 10 points in curse if you want to be more supportive with it. If you are going 30 points into Curse then you want to do something with conditions which neither of those lines provide a significant benefit to that style of play. Even just going 20 into Curse suggest you want to be playing into spite and Soul reaping.

Hell, a Grandmaster trait in Death magic that makes it so all condition on a foe that dies are transferred from them to all their living allies would be amazing to take. Slap on a 10 second cool down and we have ourselves a extremely awesome trait that would really make people reconsider Dhuumfire.

Make a Master trait in Blood that makes all your attack steal life from foes that are bleeding could be another awesome idea. Perhaps even stealing more life based on the number of bleed stacks?

Some new traits in other lines which could pull people away from exclusively going 30 spite and 30 curse would be nice. These are just some basic ideas and might not be the best options, but do give us some ideas as to what could be done.

There kinda are some Uumph traits: Lingering curses, Death Nova, Deathly Perception – they all really wrap up builds and other trait setups.
Problem is unlike some professions (Engie, Guard, Mesmer) who have mostly build changers or plain stupid dps increases (Warrior), we are stuck with what would be usually 5-15 minor traits as grandmasters.

Bhawb.7408:

…..I think they should look at the minion traits and see why it is they work so well (spread out through multiple trees, each tree has some options, no way to have everything you want, meaningful pure-offense or pure-defense choices, etc.), and then apply that to our other builds.

I like the minion trait, although I don’t use much minion myself. There are a lot of stuffs in the death line, you have to choose what to take. Same for the blood line, although siphoning isn’t that great. SR line looks good also.

I agree there has to be something to take and sacrifice. Like, if I want to maximize fear, I either sacrifice dhuumfire or LC. But I just want our trait to be more clear cut, if you want condition damage, you have to fill spite because it’s filled with stuff that syou can’t miss, not because of a single GM trait. No doubt dhuumfire should be a GM trait, but the spite line just doesn’t consist of much thing that’s very useful for condition build other than that. That’s why before dhuumfire, most go 0/30/20/20/0 for the wells, marks, etc. And nothing in spite. And 0 in spite even it +cond dmg.

Guardian really has some nice traits.
RHS in radiance buffs a lot of damage, and in radiance line, it still has traits that gives fury, gives vulnerability.
The GM trait POH in Honor is a well of power in shout version, but the master trait empowering might is super useful also.
Same for AH in valor.
10 points in Zeal or Virtues is almost must take.
But you can’t take all of these. That’s why we still see different approaches even from those speed clear people. Everything is so nice you can’t clearly say which does better, it really depends on the situation.

For us in pve, we have 2 power builds (or only 1 if you separate as DS build), 1-2 condition builds. That’s all.

Lily.1935:

Minions are actually fairly limited as for what they can do. You either have 20/0/30/20/0 or 20/0/20/30/0. Those are pretty much your only 2 options. Which is fine, Minions don’t define everything that death magic can do or other trait lines for that matter.

Not at all. Those are just the only two ways to fully trait minions, but they aren’t the only ways to use them. Gibbly used a 0/0/20/20/30 build, giving himself a ton of stability to avoid CC and help his team with ressing and stomping, with the minions being decent sources of damage (30% less, which isn’t a huge deal), while he uses conditions, which don’t lose out on that much damage because of how they scale.

You can go 0/0/30/30/0 for a really bunkery build. You can go 30/0/20/20/0 for a lot of damage. You can trait almost nothing for the minions, instead traiting for yourself, and they still perform just fine (PvP). You can go 20/0/20/0/30 and have the minions face-tank for you while you deal damage.

And this is just a few of the build types. The difference is that minion builds don’t need to be fully traited, which is something people don’t understand. There is a lot of variety with how minions can be used, and how they can be traited. They are the only remotely successful build type we have that can be glass cannon, or home-point bunker 1v1, or team-fight bunker, or anti-bunker, or… the list continues. They have more variety than anything else, because they are a utility type, which literally means you can put them in any build.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

Minions are actually fairly limited as for what they can do. You either have 20/0/30/20/0 or 20/0/20/30/0. Those are pretty much your only 2 options. Which is fine, Minions don’t define everything that death magic can do or other trait lines for that matter.

Not at all. Those are just the only two ways to fully trait minions, but they aren’t the only ways to use them. Gibbly used a 0/0/20/20/30 build, giving himself a ton of stability to avoid CC and help his team with ressing and stomping, with the minions being decent sources of damage (30% less, which isn’t a huge deal), while he uses conditions, which don’t lose out on that much damage because of how they scale.

You can go 0/0/30/30/0 for a really bunkery build. You can go 30/0/20/20/0 for a lot of damage. You can trait almost nothing for the minions, instead traiting for yourself, and they still perform just fine (PvP). You can go 20/0/20/0/30 and have the minions face-tank for you while you deal damage.

And this is just a few of the build types. The difference is that minion builds don’t need to be fully traited, which is something people don’t understand. There is a lot of variety with how minions can be used, and how they can be traited. They are the only remotely successful build type we have that can be glass cannon, or home-point bunker 1v1, or team-fight bunker, or anti-bunker, or… the list continues. They have more variety than anything else, because they are a utility type, which literally means you can put them in any build.

PvP, sure. You must remember though, I’m a PvE player. And those options are don’t help much compared to what we get with other build. And yes, they are still very limited, even with with putting your points in other traits. Considering you sacrifice utility to use them. This might be fine in PvP if you only have to worry about 1-2 people at a time, but in PvE where bosses scale and can one shot the tankiest of players let alone minions and some bosses that actually chain knock downs, this becomes far less viable. And they still don’t work in any build in PvE because even if you just take bone minions as a couple of bombs they don’t run to your target to explode like clones do which means you will often have to wait for them to get to your target before you decide to sac them. Flesh Golem is really the only Useful one as it can Knock down a good chunk of a group and works wonders when destroying objects when you are spect for condition. Flesh Wurm is completely out classed by all the other stunbreaks the necromancer has and bone fiend’s immobilize really hasn’t ever come up in a situation where it wouldn’t be better to just enter death shroud and use Tainted Shackles or even just use Doom.

I won’t argue that it is good in PvP. I’m sure its wonderful. However, PvE is a different Beast all together.

I don’t know if trait still works or not but it seems the trait which fears enemies when you go downed actually still seems to trigger when you die not when you go downed.

Some defensive traits don’t feel useful at all or are only useful in marginal min/max cases. It would be really awesome if you could actually get protection for useful duration and so on..

Some life force traits are good like parasitic bond and staff trait. But other ones are useless at best.

Curses doesn’t have 30 point trait which would seem actually useful for 30/30/x/x/x build which focuses on dps.

Death shroud in general is useless unless you focus on gaining life force somehow. And some builds really could use some more. Parasitic bond is less useful in smaller scale pvp.

Dumb delay after death shroud even if it’s not trait it’s dumb.

Dagger traits don’t really suit builds which actually use dagger at all. They’re in totally wrong places. (It’s also kind of sad that axe was changed into ranged weapon so now necros have only one melee weapon)