Otters! :D
Healing Power and Siphoning
Oh, but they did make it scale. They gave us a whole +6 extra life siphoning from our Vampiric trait. All of that for the low, low price of maxing Healing Power. There you have it; the necromancer’s attrition and sustain solution.
Darn it! I keep forgetting to toggle off /sarcasm mode. When are we going to get a hotkey for that?
So many souls, so little time. ~ Kraag Deadsoul
In theory, idea was good. In practical applications, no way, its still too low of healing compared to the damage we’d be receiving. If the trait worked through DS, then it’d be vastly better. Its kind of sad that the only siphon trait that really feels meaningful is minion siphoning; relying on the single most controversial of our skills.
I still think that they should take the wow approach to siphons, make different kinds mutually exclusive/cost resources of the other and make them % hp based with a hit cap.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
Siphon skills seem to get (+ 0.05 * Healing Power). Excluding our Siphon on Crit, or Minions.
Thief & Ele get Siphon with #6, no trait cost. It can be on CD, but then we get no heals in DS.
Life on Hit returns:
Thief > 100
Ele > 202
Necro – Vamp > 25
Vamp + Bthirst > 38
Going 20 Traits, 50% Siphon & Minions Siphon, using all of your skills for minions gives decent heals. (A little lower than thief as attack speed)
Until your somewhere where you need it, then your minions just die & all your buttons & lots of your traits are null & void.
The vision of swarm of minions, or life stealing attrition hanging onto life, beating you to death and getting stronger for it. Don’t work in this game. (Tho, minions can be nice in 1v1 Duels if they don’t polly you or AoE them down.)
The vision of a necro that works is a glass cannon affliction warloc. (Terror or Hybrid) Or power & death shroud. Or burst support wells I guess.
they will never make vampiric a viable form of sustain because it’s a minor trait.
i’m currently running this build for lifestealing and i enjoy it. it’s no meta power build but just about anything will work in pve.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQJAodjMaJ7daWa87JApCYP9g7xFH6Ru16MA-jwxAYrASOAJMAJwioxWOLiGruGT5SEVHEQ5A-e
oops fixed link
(edited by ellesee.8297)
To be fair, both Ele and Thief heals are per skill activation, not per hit. From Vampiric alone, a Well of Suffering can siphon up to 625 health, three times as much as what the Ele gets from, say, Meteor Shower.
Locust Swarm is the really ridiculous one with up to 65 hits from one skill (traited).
Still, we do need better siphons for them to be anywhere close to relevant. Minions siphoning is good as-is, though.
My preference is for each source of life siphoning to get a one-second ICD per target and then get dramatically buffed numbers. As it stands, the numbers have to be totally inconsequential for 95% of builds because that last 5% cheese it out to such a degree that it finally becomes way too good. If limits were placed so as to standardize the amount of healing one can expect from it, it could be made to be legitimately good for just about everyone. They you could decide whether a certain build needed a bit more sustain or not and be able to get it, not whether you were willing to switch your build to minions or wells + Warhorn just for a few extra 38-point heals.
To be fair, both Ele and Thief heals are per skill activation, not per hit.
The Thief’s healing signet is per hit.
I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.
^
Either a internal CD or a non linear scaling to siphon per target.
The possible imbalance in having good life siphon in 1v1 encounter lies in a linear scaling. If you got enough siphon to sustain 1v1 and it scales linear with the amount of combatants then you need focus fire from 5 persons in a 5v5 to exceed the siphon sustain. So instead of adding 100% per additinal siphoning source they should make that percentage lower. Smthg like 100% to original target and 80%,60% etc per additional leeching source as an example.
Also about Drarnors comparison to Ele/thief. Yes siphon gets better the more targets you have since to beeing on hit but this also means that not hitting stuff (dodge, blind, block, invul, evade, distortion) completely negates the effect. So siphoning isn’t plain better then the on cast effect that ele gets.
Thief & Ele get Siphon with #6, no trait cost.
First, we need to make a distinction. NO other class in the game gets true siphons, none. They have heals on hit, or heals on skill usage, but that is not the same. While I wish ANet would actually make this distinction, siphons generally are heals on hit that accompany damage. Minions are the exception (for balance I assume), and only heal on hit, but the rest of our siphons always accompany a damage component.
What does this mean? Lets say an ele heals for 500 on hit. That heal itself is changing the HP difference between them and the enemy by 500. If that ele had a siphon of 500, then they are changing it by 1000, which is a significantly stronger effect.
Not saying that our siphons are in the right place, but people highly underestimate them. They are very similar to our conditions; a whole lot of very small effects that stack up to have pretty impressive effects over time.
At the scaling part. Remember that 1v1 siphons are never the only thing going on. Siphons are just one part, the rest of it being conditions, offensive pressure to force heals, our own heals, fears, etc. Very few of those things scale at all with the size of the fight. Our 1v1 sustain right now is actually very close to being okay in 1v1 builds.
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
NO other class in the game gets true siphons, none.
Thief, leeching venoms. It is as much a true siphon as our own siphons are. Deals damage and heals and scales with power for the damaging part and healing power for the healing part.
And even so those siphons sit at 350-450, nobody plays it. But that has to do more with venoms, the perception of thieves and what do i know.
I stand corrected :P
just to keep siphons in perspective, a 100 transfer in health plays like a 200 hit.
Anyway, other class’s get same sort of thing, with no trait cost/bigger numbers.
The same sort of heals, (Small constant to counter splash damage) are also covered with AoE passive heals from Guard/Ele/Eng (Heal turret).
I’d love to see ours have a very cool necro feel. It could be ‘the’ thing were missing to be wanted in PvE groups.
What if it was changed to other end of heals scale. Oh kitten burst times with long CD.
How about, each cast stacks a buff. The heals is then released on our next heal.
Imagine a PvE support necro. Transfusion helping out on that AoE burst of trash. Then when the groups in trouble on a long sustained fight, necro drop’s a heals well that actually saves the group.
Ok, so our #6 might be too short a CD. But why not a 2min CD on a Elite skill.