Guild Wars 2

Muchacho.2390:

Am i the only one who finds the new traits not that bad?
Though some of the new gm traits may need a number adjustment or some swapping but it is difficult to say without testing them.

I find them to probably be quite good. The new Death Magic trait may need a buff, but honestly, I think it will be a lot stronger than we’re giving credit for. After all, you can extend death shroud’s lifespan dramatically with spectral armor and Locust Swarm. Even in PvP, it can be a pretty sizable amount of time spent in death shroud, so you can regain a pretty good amount of health. The extra toughness we’ll be getting will help contribute to that as well. Depending on how the new Blood Magic trait works, you may have necros in WvW that just do not leave death shroud for zerg fights. Coupled with Transfusion and you have very durable zerg support that keeps pumping out damage.

Really, the trait that’s most confusing to me is the SR 13. That one depends entirely on the healing power scaling. The devs stated it would be about 800 health per shot, plus healing power scaling. If you can line up behind a couple allies, that’s some very strong, sustained healing that you are putting out.

I am really glad that with necros, they addressed the two biggest flaws with the class: low sustain and terrible group support. Whether they did a good job with it remains to be seen, but they made the right moves.

Do anyone wish they just would introduce a grandmaster trait increasing the cast speed of Life Blast by 50% or 100%? I feel like this is really needed..

+ they really should have revamped Siphoned Power. It’s just.. worthless.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I find them to probably be quite good. The new Death Magic trait may need a buff, but honestly, I think it will be a lot stronger than we’re giving credit for. After all, you can extend death shroud’s lifespan dramatically with spectral armor and Locust Swarm. Even in PvP, it can be a pretty sizable amount of time spent in death shroud, so you can regain a pretty good amount of health. The extra toughness we’ll be getting will help contribute to that as well.

Therein, IMHO, lies the problem. Yes, necros can gain semi-decent sustain IF they cobble together the correct traits, IF they equip the right utilities, IF they sacrifice a lamb to Grenth, IF the moon is in the 4th house of zodiac, IF it’s the 5th Thursday of the month, and IF they do all of the above while standing on their head. But with the proviso they’re still vulnerable to focus fire and CC spam, of course.

The point that I think I and others are trying to make is that a class touted as being the sustain and attrition class and the profession expected to facetank everything without access to all the cool defensive toys the other professions have access to should intrinsically have some form of sustain and attrition built into the class as base; not from jumping through hoops and making so many sacrifices to achieve that sustain and attrition in some niche build.

Death Shroud is not that mechanic; not in its current implementation anyway, and not even with the newly announced grandmaster traits. It’s just extra health in a game where extra health means nothing except delaying one’s inevitable defeat at the hands of focus fire and CC spam. Without active defenses that permit a player to escape (e.g blinks, leaps, etc.) or mitigate infinite damage (e.g. blocks, invulnerability, etc.), that player is dead once they’re focused. That’s where the necromancer is at right now.

PR spin it all they want, these new traits still fail to address those glaring shortcomings which some among the necro community have been pointing out since launch.

Heartlust.6140:

Do anyone wish they just would introduce a grandmaster trait increasing the cast speed of Life Blast by 50% or 100%? I feel like this is really needed..

+ they really should have revamped Siphoned Power. It’s just.. worthless.

Odds are, that would be incredibly imbalanced considering how much damage Life Blast does.

Would love to see DS #1 steal health from any aditional targets it hits.. or any aditional teammate it heals. without limits. Would go well with the new trait and makes the heal a bit more difficult to pull off.

Then again it could work wonders in wvw if you are able to catch the backline and cast trough the hammertrain rushing you.. man.. how awesome would that be.

Looking forward to trying 30/30/0/0/10 condi build, the trait for dark path made my day. also excited to try 0/0/30/30/10, looks like high sustain.
I almost want to say ‘Thank you’ to the devs.

Almost.

CastIron.7364:

Blood Magic: Unholy Martyr – Draw 1 condition from allies every 3 seconds while in death shroud. Each time you draw a condition, gain 5% life force.

i will be really disappointed if this is copy/paste from plague signet

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

PR spin it all they want, these new traits still fail to address those glaring shortcomings which some among the necro community have been pointing out since launch.

No, they are clearly addressing it with this patch. The question is if it will be enough.

And the extra toughness in death shroud is automatic if you go for Unholy Sanctuary anyhow.

As an aside, anyone but me notice that both of our new minors were taken from the ideas compilation thread? I guess the devs were reading that after all.

I’m a tad confused at how the new Spite GM will work.

Every time you tick condition damage, you heal 5% of it?

That may be very nice tied with Vampiric Precision (heal on crit).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

PR spin it all they want, these new traits still fail to address those glaring shortcomings which some among the necro community have been pointing out since launch.

No, they are clearly addressing it with this patch. The question is if it will be enough.

And the extra toughness in death shroud is automatic if you go for Unholy Sanctuary anyhow.

As an aside, anyone but me notice that both of our new minors were taken from the ideas compilation thread? I guess the devs were reading that after all.

Yeah , the devs like to be like ninja , they look , they don’t post lol .But they take one of the weaker traits that we have had proposed lol . Next time we must propose only op stuff !!

More seriously it’s nice to see they care a lil about us

I dont see how these traits address anything weve been complaining about since launch. Except maybe pvp sustain.

At my calculations the Spite trait will heal for about 190 health/second in WvW (2.1k condi) assuming Terror and Burning (probably via Corruption) are active, with 3 torment stacks, 6 bleeds, and poison. That drops to 90 without the Terror and Burning. Doesn’t sound as appealing as I’d hoped. EDIT: and then I realized, that’s only single target, so that’s not bad at all.

The Curses trait is great, but it also doesn’t feel like Grandmaster material – i.e. I dunno about going 30 points into a line for a trait that augments a single, slow, easy-to-miss (but still good) ability. It being Master wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing either; it’d be in direct competition with Terror.

The Death Magic GM is meh. I see it mostly being used by Juggermancers (if they still exist) and MM’s, the latter of which will annoy sPvPers even more, as they’re already pretty tanky.

Blood seemed amazing for WvW, but according to this thread, it only transfers a single condition, which … is kinda garbage. A power necro might use it in sPvP, but a condi necro isn’t going to sit in DS for extended periods of time unless they’re losing or trying to support their allies. The latter doesn’t work to begin with, and this trait would have made it viable if it affected 5 allies, but it doesn’t.

If it did work on all 5, it would make the old GW1-style condi sponge a thing and make condi bombs without Dhuumfire solid in sPvP or small-scale WvW fights. You might have to increase the interval to prevent it from getting ridiculous, but I think it’d be fun as hell.

Unless the Soul Reaping trait has ridiculous scaling with Healing, I just don’t know. They more or less said ‘skillshot heal’ when describing it. How drunk on the esports koolaid can you get?

Yeah… not really looking forward to these GM traits.

Parasitic Contagion: This is the most interesting trait for me. I will be sticking with dhuumfire most likely, but in a WvW scenario I can see use for this. In WvW I will frequently use marks and epidemic at max range to harass at a distance/from walls, and to establish barriers. This can spread a lot of condis out amongst enemy groups, with the end result being enough passive heals, which is useful against all the ambient damage in WvW. In sPVP and PVE this is nigh useless, though.

Path of Corruption: Basically an inferior version of Chill of Death IMO. Though Dark Path can be used immediately and has 5 seconds lower cooldown, it doesn’t hit as hard, is harder to hit with, and doesn’t remove as many boons. From a PVE perspective… seems like it would be better to just use other skills to remove boons. From PVP, this is meh at best.

Unholy Sanctuary: Out of all of the boons in the game, regeneration is the one that I pay attention to the least. 130 HP a second isn’t stellar in any sense, with only the tankiest builds even bothering with it. Case in point, in PVP this is negligible at best, and in PVE you’re probably already at maximum health or dead anyway.

Unholy Martyr: Well, at least I can kill myself from other people’s incompetence. I’ve played with condition transferring for months, and I can never get it to work in a satisfactory manner. Ultimately, I’d rather just cleanse conditions, or cure conditions, instead of loading my own toon up with a bunch of conditions.

Renewing Blast: Compared to Deathly Perception or Foot in the Grave, Renewing Blast is another “Meh” skill. It is better than unholy martyr IMO, and I could see a use for this if you already have ridiculous amounts of precision or don’t need to worry about control effects, but with how hard this is to use, I’m not sure I’ll be able to slot this unless it heals for a lot.

The most interesting trait of the bunch is definitely Parasitic Contagion. I’m betting it won’t be as impressive as people think though. It essentially falls into the same trap that the vampiric traits find themselves in, namely that its efficiency scales directly with the number of potential targets, and balancing has to take this into account. The result is a trait that by necessity is balanced around an “ideal” scenario rather than the average outcome. As such I’m expecting it to be relevant against zergs, but in smaller skirmishes its benefits will naturally be limited. I don’t know if a.net’s designers are unable or just unwilling to design sustain mechanics for the necromancer that don’t make this elemental mistake. Either way, it looks like another situational sustain skill.

The only other hope on the attrition front is Unholy Sanctuary. Regeneration is not a very impressive boon in itself, especially if you have to give up a GM trait to get it (and even then only while in DS), but the interesting thing here is whether the scaling with healing power also matches that of regeneration. That’s really what will determine the usefulness, or lack thereof, of this trait.

I have to say, I’m quite dissapointed, especially after reading Unholy Sanctuary first…I was ‘Oh wow, healing in DS! (just a sort of…but it’s still healing in DS) What they will do next?’ And than…these.
Ok, so lets try to be politically correct:

Parasitic Contagion: If you put 30 point in spite, with an hybrid or condition build, then this trait will battle with Dhuumfire.
(Please, spare me the ‘OMG dhummfire wortless, bla bla bla’. It will still be strong. condition build would still want dhummfire, I don’t want to agrue this again). Where i think this trait could shine is in combo with necro’s other lifestealing effect. A build 30/20/0/20/0 could make a nice healing (but this is just theorycraft)

Path of Corruption: There are some occasions where maybe this trait could be usefull. Maybe when you don’t have room for ‘Chill of Death’ , or you can’t use focus, or you don’t have room for corruption boon or WoC in the utility bar. Other than that I don’t see this trait great, I just see this as an other ‘boon stripping’ option for necro, nothing new.
(maybe in some heavy boon ripping builds for 1vs1 duels, compared with all the other…)

Unholy Sanctuary: Other than MM, necros never put 30 in death magic. So now, putting 30 feels so …strange…and not that much great (overall is quite fine). sPvP bunker necro would be viable?

Unholy Martyr First time I red this, I saw “Remove” condition, seems fine! Then I red a second time……Really?…

Renewing Blast: the only thing I can say about this is ‘interesting’. It’s a different trait that really could open a new build. I don’t know if would be good or trash….but it’s interesting.

Overall, this trait seems to open up a more support/defensive role for necro, and none of them add dps to our kitten nal.
With that said, all these changes are MINOR , they’re nice, but not enought.
If they wish for this GM to work, they need to change the game mechanics itself, especially:
-Conditions mechaninc on both enemies and allies
-Allowing support/healing builds to be competitive , and not just casual friendly.
(hoping that one of these could be in the next previews…)

If I look to some new GM traits of the other classes, I see good trait, strong strait, nice trait (Not all of them I mean). When I read necro’s new GM, i see potential in all them.
But ‘potential’ doesn’t mean good (and neither bad).

Last thing: Sigil & Runes.
Don’t forget this one guys, pay really attention how each rune set will get changed. My guess is that some hidden gems would be in there somewhere.

Spoj The Second.7680:

I dont see how these traits address anything weve been complaining about since launch. Except maybe pvp sustain.

Which is a huge complaint Necros have seemingly had for an extremely long time.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Which is a huge complaint Necros have seemingly had for an extremely long time.

We’ve always been superb duelists and one of the main issues when balancing the necromancer is how potentially overpowered shroud is in one versus one situations. Our big PvP issue is focus fire and absolutely nothing in this patch addresses that.

I think they suck tbh.. Old ones are better..

Fungalfoot.7213:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Which is a huge complaint Necros have seemingly had for an extremely long time.

We’ve always been superb duelists and one of the main issues when balancing the necromancer is how potentially overpowered shroud is in one versus one situations. Our big PvP issue is focus fire and absolutely nothing in this patch addresses that.

All I do is WvW, and in the world of higher damage numbers, I am often surprised by how much damage I can absorb, and how quickly I can drop classes like Guardians when they try to go swimming in our zerg.

In fact, I personally appreciate that Necros have no blocks, invluns, or stability, and still take a lot of effort to bring down. Even when I have no toughness/vit via traits, and only use Cav armor with the rest Zerk.

I feel tanky in a way that people almost can’t deal with besides just wearing through all of my tankiness. I don’t rely on boons or high toughness or blocks/invulns that can be on long cooldowns, and there are all kinds of little efficiencies I can utilize that can make an enormous difference.

A block or invuln would feel cheesy to me at this point. Right now, it’s about my ability to balance LF gen, healing cooldowns, and my energy management with Sigils of Energy and appropriate dodging. I love the class, and the only reason I would want something that can mitigate some amount of infinite damage over a short period of time is because apparently that’s how ANet is going to design their high-end PvE content around, and Necros should be able to be a part of that without being severely stunted.

I share that sentiment, Cogbyrn. I’ve been caught out by enemy trains several times, only to death shroud and watch as they roll right past me. Or I’m in a big blob v. blob fight, start out on a poor foot, and spend the rest of the fight shielding anywhere from 80 to 5,000 remaining health through prolonged time in DS.

Honestly, when you run into those once-in-a-blue-moon fights where your enemy is actually, deeply disadvantaged vs. Necromancers as a whole – it feels like cheating. They’re burning to death and it’s like – look! They can’t even hit your real health bar!

They should just make every trait require Death Shroud at this point. Being defined by a single gimmick mechanic gets old.

Having spent time looking over the traits I feel the developers have missed a great opportunity not only for our class but also some of the traits for other classes are a bit lackluster.

I agree with Spoj in that the class overall I feel is in a not too bad place for PvP and WvW but in PVE we are lacking and I was hoping that the new traits would shore up this gap.

Parasitic Contagion – I actually find this one to be an interesting trait and I think it will have alot of viability in the 30/30 builds and it is one that I find could make way into condition builds probably more so than the dhuumfire change if im being honest.

Path of Corruption – For me I wouldnt find a need for this, its very situational and a bit lacklustre for a GM trait that not only relies on your DS being off cooldown but also relies on Dark Path being off cooldown. I dont know where the number 2 came from but 3 would be alot better for the cooldown, I suppose they balanced it under the assumption you could combine it with focus to strip 3 and then convert 2 boons. It is definitely a PvP orientated trait but I wont find a use for it but I imagine some will.

Unholy Sanctuary – Again ive stated before im on the fence about this one, I can see it being really useful in bunker builds and it does shore up the lack of health regen when in DS but it pretty much set in stone that allies will not be able to heal us when in DS. I would have liked this skill to be in the BM tree but I can see why its in the DM tree just feel it would be better in the BM tree . It’s definitely going to be a skill worth taking for those who wish to bunker and it is a skill I can see some builds make use of.

Unholy Martyr – Another skill I wont find a use for, 1 condition every 3 seconds pretty much makes the condition pull useless and all it will take is for a wrong condition pull (immobilise) and your pretty much upto your neck in it within PvP and WvW. A stationary necro is pretty much a dead necro, it might have its uses in PvE if you use vital persistence to extend your DS time. But it is one that I would need to test in order to form a better opinion of it, to see how viable it is.

Soul Reaping – Not really a fan of this one, not only do you need to line up your shot, you need to try and let your allies know to stand still and stop moving or else the slow projectile will miss. Add onto that if your front line Necro you really will not have a use for it as the enemy is going to be right in front of you and allies at the side or behind you. I just dont see a need for this one at all and I would have preferred a means to deal with conditions whilst in DS like lifeblast transfers one condition per attack. Having it transfer 1 condition per attack on lifeblast would have had nice synergy with Unholy Martyr and also allowing us to deal with our lack of condition management whilst in DS.

Overall I can see what the developers are trying to do by making DS alot more viable when your inside it and trying to give us tools to make use of it. Unfortunately for me I think it was a missed opportunity but again its hard to cast a full judgment unless you test the traits out and see what is viable and what is not.

Parasitic Contagion could be very handy on my Hybrid build in PvE and WvW…
I don’t see it doing much in PvP, though. Except maybe vs Minion Masters and Spirit Rangers.
I’m not that excited about it, mostly because I tend to play PvE and a Power build!

Path of Corruption is rather interesting.
Landing Dark Path up close is usually easy, thanks to Doom.
It could help break through a Bunker Guardian or mess up an Elementalist.
Elementalists really don’t like Chill and Boon removal, so having both in one skill sounds useful.
It’s a second (or third!) Spinal Shivers, sort of.
Might also be nice for a Scepter+Dagger build.
Hitting someone trying to run from your Zerg in WvW is probably funny, too.
Bye Swiftness, hello Chill.

Unholy Sanctuary could either be really good or really bad!
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it.
The healing is pretty low, but going from zero to Regeneration boon levels is quite a difference.
My Zerker/Knights mix build in PvE spends at least half of it’s time in Death Shroud. Mobs don’t focus you down in a group.
I dunno if I’d have the trait points to go 30 Death Magic without losing too much damage.
The new Death Magic minor traits make going into Death Magic more appealing, though.
I kept telling Arenanet over and over that having minion-only Minor traits is like having Banner-only Minor traits. :P
Glad that they changed them!

Unholy Martyr… err.
I wanna say that it’s useless, but I dunno.
Maybe if you ran Plague Signet + 30 Death Magic + 30 Blood Magic + Sigil of Purity + Melandru Runes?
Oh and maybe 10 Soul Reaping for Vital Persistence.
If the trait works at 1200 range like the Signet does you could try to hang back and support in a team fight.
Drawing Bleed and Burn has an obvious benefit but Drawing Immob at the right time can be helpful as well.
Throw in Well of Power in your build as well (dem puns) and you could sponge a ton of conditions.
I can only see that working for a very organized bunch of people, though.
I would guess that it’s useless for the most of us.
You’ll just get instantly spiked unless people are protecting you from Power build users.

Renewing Blast could be very nice for Minion Masters, if you can manage 30 points in Soul Reaping.
Likely also useful in WvW Zergs, although there it’s effectiveness is probably difficult to gauge.
Since piercing allies has no limit you could (in theory) heal a LOT of health.
In reality I’d expect it to be very situational, mostly useful on Minions.
But I could see a few Necros with good aim working like Water Fields, healing a stacked up Zerg…

On Runes I’ll just point out that the updated Runes of Strength have +45% Might duration, up from +20%!
Reaper’s Might has 15s base duration, so if my calculations are correct it’d have a 21.75s duration with those Runes.
Also the Might from Blood to Power would last. 17.4s.

I know that there are far better Professions for Might stacking, but I’ve used Reaper’s Might quite a bit in PvE.
With the upcoming Critical Damage nerf I might (punny!) replace my Rubies with Runes of Strength.

• Parasitic Contagion: Not sure how this is going to work but maybe is time to switch to Rampager’s gear.
• Path of Corruption: Useless skill is useless.
• Unholy Sanctuary: Meh
• Unholy Martyr: Sigh…
• Renewing Blast: Really? So now we are the new monks or what?
• Reanimator: The most useless thing merged with the second most useless thing -_-
• Armored Shroud: Mmh… Not bad but still.
• Protection of the Horde: Irrelevant. A MM without Flesh of the Master is not a MM anyway.
• Soul Comprehension: Meh.
• Vampiric Master: This one was kittening nerfed the last time and now they do it again? Yes, yes healing power, blah blah blah. Like if anyone is going to waste time with such useless stat.
• Training of the Master: ARE YOU kittenING KIDDING ME? Minions don’t even attack and now they are going to do less damage if they decide to do it? JUST REMOVE THEM FROM THE kittenING GAME FOR kitten SAKE!
• Dhuumfire: inb4 hurr durr necro to OP
• Bug fixes! Now we are redirected to Mesmer creation when trying to create a necromancer.

As always, changes made for PvP because kitten PvE players, and kitten Minions. Roll a mesmer if you want worthy pets -_-

I waited a bit to weigh in on these after i had some time to think about it.

Spite GM: It is okay. Under the right circumstances it will be a reasonable sustain component. However as others have mentioned it is just like siphoning skills, in the since that optimally it will be good to impressive, and the other 95% of the time it will do an ignoreable amount of healing.

Also the move to not allow it to scale simply makes all necros incentivized to stick with a purist condition build. They could have scaled the percentage stolen off power, and still based the leach off condition damage to promote hybrid builds.

In the end, a 30/20/0/20/0 build will be more viable, so I guess there is that.

Curses GM: I would wager I have cast dark path more than 99% of the people on this forum, as it is my favorite in game spell. I think this one is going to be the shining gem for me. As long as it follows the same flip rules as CB, it will be amazing. A 12 second cooldown 2 boon flip. Unfortunately this means the 30/30 build is still going to be overwhelmingly powerful (moreso now).

DM GM: It is weak. Not much else to say. Additionally it should allow 50% of all sources of healing through, end of story. Now it is good to situationally good, as opposed to mediocre in a bunker build.

BM GM: It is good…. really good….. but it has to compete with spite, a line that has chill of death and dumbfire, and the curses line which got better. I think in a lot of ways it will depend on when the pull + lifeforce increase happens. If it is on entry and then once every 3 seconds it could be useable in say a 0 20 0 30 20 build. In generaly I think it would be more conducive to a lazy PVE player as you can use it, vital persist, and reapers precision to sit back and never leave DS.

SR GM: To be good, the heal would have to be massive. A heal at the end of a tree that has nothing to do with healing, and the fact tha the heal would have no effect on yourself, and the fact that it would be exceedingly hard to hit your target AND your allie at the same time without careful aiming.

Maybe somewhere there will be a zerg that will supplement 10 of these in with Unyielding to have lines of healing bolks going all over the place… it certainly could have potential, but niche at best.

Overall interesting. I think the standard build isn’t going to see a shakeup unless they move some other traits and minors around though. As much as I like the new minor 5 in DM, the minor 15 in DM Is pretty weak still, and I don’t have any build that would care of that new GM. Maybe I can fit 10 points into a build though.

CastIron.7364:

Curses: Path of Corruption – Dark Path now additionally converts 2 boons into conditions.

AoE ?

Death Magic: Unholy Sanctuary - Regenerate health while you are in death shroud (this is the only method currently to physically regen your HP while in death shroud – it is same as healing from regen, will scale with your healing power)

Blood Magic: Unholy Martyr – Draw 1 condition from allies every 3 seconds while in death shroud. Each time you draw a condition, gain 5% life force.

merge it, signet passive (plague signet, signet of vampirism) works while you are under the effect of Death Shroud.

I’m just hoping Anet didn’t just " add new traits " but they will take care about the feedbacks on them for some modifications. The Death magic trait is a step in the right direction , but maybe he will deserves some buffs

Rennoko.5731:

DM GM: It is weak. Not much else to say. Additionally it should allow 50% of all sources of healing through, end of story.

Make that 100%, and there shouldn’t be a trait for it.
Healing should go through Shroud, period.

Rennoko.5731:

Spite GM: It is okay. Under the right circumstances it will be a reasonable sustain component. However as others have mentioned it is just like siphoning skills, in the since that optimally it will be good to impressive, and the other 95% of the time it will do an ignoreable amount of healing.

The major reason why this trait won’t be super hawt: see above.
But if you could actually heal in DS it wouldn’t be bad at all, actually it would be the first proper damage mitigation that scales with opponents.
Let’s assume 1 tick of bleeding does 150 damage. Mark of Blood on one target in WvW: 3 stacks would heal you for 22,5 hp per second. 5 targets: 112,5 hp. And that is from a single skill. You’ll actually do a lot more aoe condition damage than that. With a proper Epidemic maybe 5-10k aoe condi damage? That’s 250-500 hp/s right there.
But oh look! Major damage incoming, better go into Shroud to absorb it… and not heal at all -_-

flow.6043:

Rennoko.5731:

DM GM: It is weak. Not much else to say. Additionally it should allow 50% of all sources of healing through, end of story.

Make that 100%, and there shouldn’t be a trait for it.
Healing should go through Shroud, period.

Rennoko.5731:

Spite GM: It is okay. Under the right circumstances it will be a reasonable sustain component. However as others have mentioned it is just like siphoning skills, in the since that optimally it will be good to impressive, and the other 95% of the time it will do an ignoreable amount of healing.

The major reason why this trait won’t be super hawt: see above.
But if you could actually heal in DS it wouldn’t be bad at all, actually it would be the first proper damage mitigation that scales with opponents.
Let’s assume 1 tick of bleeding does 150 damage. Mark of Blood on one target in WvW: 3 stacks would heal you for 22,5 hp per second. 5 targets: 112,5 hp. And that is from a single skill. You’ll actually do a lot more aoe condition damage than that. With a proper Epidemic maybe 5-10k aoe condi damage? That’s 250-500 hp/s right there.
But oh look! Major damage incoming, better go into Shroud to absorb it… and not heal at all -_-

You’re 100% right. Death shroud should allow healing (not sure of healing skill) , without it we can never truly balance traits like vampiric, parasitic bond, … .

daimasei.4091:

• Reanimator: The most useless thing merged with the second most useless thing -_-

Reanimator is merged with death nova…
Are you saying death nova is useless?
I dont play mm but i am sure that the 20/0/30/20/0 mm build uses this which is the superior mm build for pvp if i remember correctly…

Muchacho.2390:

Reanimator is merged with death nova…
Are you saying death nova is useless?
I dont play mm but i am sure that the 20/0/30/20/0 mm build uses this which is the superior mm build for pvp if i remember correctly…

Yep, totally useless. My 20/0/20/30/0 MM would have no problems against that in PvP (seriously? 30 points on Death to apply poison?).

daimasei.4091:

Muchacho.2390:

Reanimator is merged with death nova…
Are you saying death nova is useless?
I dont play mm but i am sure that the 20/0/30/20/0 mm build uses this which is the superior mm build for pvp if i remember correctly…

Yep, totally useless. My 20/0/20/30/0 MM would have no problems against that in PvP (seriously? 30 points on Death to apply poison?).

Bhawb, where u at?!

Anyway, Death Nova is a good trait. It deals a lot of damage (direct and poison) and it creates a poison combo field.
Also, 20 in Spite isn’t mandatory for minion mancers. You could run 30 in both Death and Blood Magic.

flow.6043:

daimasei.4091:

Muchacho.2390:

Reanimator is merged with death nova…
Are you saying death nova is useless?
I dont play mm but i am sure that the 20/0/30/20/0 mm build uses this which is the superior mm build for pvp if i remember correctly…

Yep, totally useless. My 20/0/20/30/0 MM would have no problems against that in PvP (seriously? 30 points on Death to apply poison?).

Bhawb, where u at?!

Anyway, Death Nova is a good trait. It deals a lot of damage (direct and poison) and it creates a poison combo field.
Also, 20 in Spite isn’t mandatory for minion mancers. You could run 30 in both Death and Blood Magic.

Well with everyone who commented on multiple necro issue threads that got deleted or merged off getting banned from the forums or leaving because of limits set, who knows.

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

EDIT: I forgot that Unholy Martyr only triggers while in death shroud. Signet passive bonuses don’t register in death shroud. Nothing to see here, folks!

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

D’oh! You’re correct. Silly thing is that I realized this soon after I asked the question, too. Pay me no mind!

Venus In Furs.9756:

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

D’oh! You’re correct. Silly thing is that I realized this soon after I asked the question, too. Pay me no mind!

Though after reading the text of the trait again i can somewhat understand why you would missunderstand it. I think the text should be more clear.

Im going to love the curses new GM trait. its a mini corrupt boon then I can use corrupt boon to get rid of the rest of the boons yay!

Venus In Furs.9756:

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

D’oh! You’re correct. Silly thing is that I realized this soon after I asked the question, too. Pay me no mind!

Well I’m glad you asked Powerr about it because it seems like an obvious synergy to me, hopefully it will be passed along to devs and reconsidered. It would make the trait more useful, triggering both while in DS and outside of it and give Plague Signet a bit of a buff. It is so odd having a trait that replicates the passive of Plague Signet, all because signet passives don’t work in DS. Now if one of the new grandmastes was ‘your signet passives work in DS’ that would be a nice trait.

Full clerics necro healers can now make legitimate claims of carrying dungeon groups, just like healshout wars, cleric staff camping guardians and bearbows!! Not only can they heal, they are now the last one standing as well.

Bunmaster.9734:

Full clerics necro healers can now make legitimate claims of carrying dungeon groups, just like healshout wars, cleric staff camping guardians and bearbows!! Not only can they heal, they are now the last one standing as well.

Once Renewing Blast hits, necros will be able to make very potent group healers. We’re already fairly good at it, but people don’t like Well of Blood being a light field (never mind that its healing amount is so high that it usually out-heals Healing Spring, even with a couple blast finishers).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bunmaster.9734:

Full clerics necro healers can now make legitimate claims of carrying dungeon groups, just like healshout wars, cleric staff camping guardians and bearbows!! Not only can they heal, they are now the last one standing as well.

Once Renewing Blast hits, necros will be able to make very potent group healers. We’re already fairly good at it, but people don’t like Well of Blood being a light field (never mind that its healing amount is so high that it usually out-heals Healing Spring, even with a couple blast finishers).

I just checked dulfys notes and noticed it says that Renewing Blast will heal for about 800 without healing power. With LBs cast time thats about 530hp/s for a single target!

And with everyone claiming dps loss up to 25% this might even become an option for organized groups, as fights might get harder/longer and in more organized groups Deathly Perception loses its value and Foot in the Grave is generally not needed.
Plus Soul Reaping is more useful than Blood Magic and Renewing Blast even outheals Transfusion and Deathly Invigoriation.

I’m so psyched for Parasitic Contagion.

Organized groups dont take healers.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Organized groups dont take healers.

Not in PvP. Such a build would be best suited for zerging or world events.

However, consider that Renewing Blast is already accessible for power builds. For higher level fractals, or even just tougher dungeon content (Molten Duo, Arah, Aetherpath), it can be a great swap.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Spoj The Second.7680:

Organized groups dont take healers.

Not in PvP. Such a build would be best suited for zerging or world events.

However, consider that Renewing Blast is already accessible for power builds. For higher level fractals, or even just tougher dungeon content (Molten Duo, Arah, Aetherpath), it can be a great swap.

Odds are Spoj is talking about higher level fractals, actually. It runs on the assumption that no one needs your supplementary heals because everyone is mitigating damage well enough to self-heal and sustain. Then you can focus on all-damage to speedrun through content AFAP.

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

D’oh! You’re correct. Silly thing is that I realized this soon after I asked the question, too. Pay me no mind!

Though after reading the text of the trait again i can somewhat understand why you would missunderstand it. I think the text should be more clear.

Yeah, my thinking was that the “Each time you draw a condition…” clause was separate from the first part of the trait, and that the “draw a condition” mechanic used the same axis as Plague Signet despite the difference in wording (“transfers conditions…”).

Valderro.6389:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

D’oh! You’re correct. Silly thing is that I realized this soon after I asked the question, too. Pay me no mind!

Well I’m glad you asked Powerr about it because it seems like an obvious synergy to me, hopefully it will be passed along to devs and reconsidered. It would make the trait more useful, triggering both while in DS and outside of it and give Plague Signet a bit of a buff. It is so odd having a trait that replicates the passive of Plague Signet, all because signet passives don’t work in DS. Now if one of the new grandmastes was ‘your signet passives work in DS’ that would be a nice trait.

Based on Kraag Deadsoul’s calculations earlier in this thread, the sustain gained from hypothetical synergy between Unholy Martyr and Plague Signet might be a bit too strong (and perhaps a bit too passive as well if the life force gain ignored death shroud entirely). Maybe the synergy would make more sense if the numbers were tweaked? Either way, Powerr has moved on from ANet, but I can try getting in touch with Roy Cronacher about at least having the trait description language updated.

Honestly, balance of the traits aside, the new trait changes might make me play the game again.

that condi 5% healing trait seems soooo overpowered. 2k cond per second = 100 heal per second… actually…. nah its not that bad after all.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

that condi 5% healing trait seems soooo overpowered. 2k cond per second = 100 heal per second… actually…. nah its not that bad after all.

Yeah sounds more powerful than it probably is; I have a feeling the healing is not prorated to apply on initial application but rather applies per tic; which means an enemy with working braincells can just condi clear and deny that to you.

Still nice to see another sustain option though.