Guild Wars 2

It’s pretty obvious that the new healing skill is not very popular. Because I’m confident the forum users can come up with a better skill, let’s hear your ideas for updates/tweaks/replacements for the new Necro signet.

make it have minion deal damage from it and remove the stupid health cap or double it

Here’s my idea:

Signet Passive: x% of Life Force Generation is also added as healing.

Signet Active: Sacrifice 10% of your current health. The targeted foe instantly loses 10% of his health. You are healed for 200% of the health lost by the foe over 5 seconds. Nearby allies are healed for 100% of the health lost by the foe over 5 seconds. The instant health loss would need to be adjusted for champions/bosses, of course.

I did a post over on the suggestion forum, but here is a condensed version.

Passive: put a stacking debuff on anyone hitting the necro.

Active: remove debuff, siphoning health based on stack size.

I would like something that involves DeathShroud. Maybe a passive health regen that increases in power depending on the amount of Life Force we have. With the Active being the opposite, in that we are healed for more the lower the Life Force we have….or something.

Make it work like Barbs in GW1, that way we’ll finally have a role in dungeon groups.

Work with minion damage, but of course make an exception so that players get priority (kind of like how regen works now), have it scale properly-as it always should have-off of siphon traits and better healing power scaling, have it be our heal we’ve been so sorely needing in DS (and make all signet passives work in DS as well)

I’d get rid of it. Add a base heal of 4k to signet of the locust and boom new heal skill.

With this group balancing things is impossible.

Here are the problems:

1. Conditional Requirements are assumed to happen even if that’s unrealistic

We got slapped with ICD, because there were conditions that could have been met that could have given us big numbers. Like, if we got hit with hundred blades in time warp, that’s a lot of healing, even though this is not desirable at all.

2. All potential traits for the skill are assumed to be taken

This is why the theif and ranger skills are so bad. The skills aren’t balanced around themselves, they are balanced around themselves with all traits. To make these even usable you’ve got to invest a ton of trait points. That you have weakened yourself considerably just to get your heal to work isn’t a factor.

This is why necromancer can’t have legit lifesteal numbers from a heal. A lifesteal necromancer with the heal, traits and food can’t be overpowering, but in the real world it just means that the food is ok but the heal and traits are garbage. And, again, if you take 30 point in blood just to get your heal to work, you are weak.

Signet of Vampirism

Passive: When you hit a target, you siphon 350 (0.15) life.
Active: Unblockable. Initial Self Heal: 3,960 (0.5). Mark a target. When any player hits this target, they siphon 250 (0.1) life from it. Lasts 5 seconds.
30 second cooldown.
Range 1200.

(And no ICD)

Seriously, the play and counterplay to the active of this would be amazing in SPvP, useful in PvE, and in general just a great skill. And heaven forbid this way it’d actually synergize with Bloodthirst and other life siphoning traits on the passive.

nekretaal.6485:

I’d get rid of it. Add a base heal of 4k to signet of the locust and boom new heal skill.

With this group balancing things is impossible.

Here are the problems:

1. Conditional Requirements are assumed to happen even if that’s unrealistic

We got slapped with ICD, because there were conditions that could have been met that could have given us big numbers. Like, if we got hit with hundred blades in time warp, that’s a lot of healing, even though this is not desirable at all.

Yet there seems to no worry about the warrior healing under similar conditions…

2. All potential traits for the skill are assumed to be taken

This is why the theif and ranger skills are so bad. The skills aren’t balanced around themselves, they are balanced around themselves with all traits. To make these even usable you’ve got to invest a ton of trait points. That you have weakened yourself considerably just to get your heal to work isn’t a factor.

This is why necromancer can’t have legit lifesteal numbers from a heal. A lifesteal necromancer with the heal, traits and food can’t be overpowering, but in the real world it just means that the food is ok but the heal and traits are garbage. And, again, if you take 30 point in blood just to get your heal to work, you are weak.

And in the end, this is why we don’t see build diversity.

Passive: Your attacks siphon 900 health(baseline), 3 second ICD. This makes it a viable choice for not only fast hitting weapons like dagger.

Active: Place a Mark(Non-avoidable) on your target with 25 charges that lasts for 5 seconds. Attacks by you and your player allies siphon 500 health. 30 second cooldown.

NO ICD on the active! Does this give it the potential to be OP? Yes… if the target just sits there. This is a high risk high reward heal.. if your target simply dodges or uses a stun breaker to get out of your CC, you just lost most of your heal skill for 30 seconds.

I would honestly consider the skill if they just removed the ICD’s on both passive and active. The cast time and recharge are still a bit excessive, but at least then I could see it getting some use.

If they just removed the ICD I would consider it. As it is now though it is utterly worthless.

mtpelion.4562:

Here’s my idea:

Signet Passive: x% of Life Force Generation is also added as healing.

Signet Active: Sacrifice 10% of your current health. The targeted foe instantly loses 10% of his health. You are healed for 200% of the health lost by the foe over 5 seconds. Nearby allies are healed for 100% of the health lost by the foe over 5 seconds. The instant health loss would need to be adjusted for champions/bosses, of course.

This would be hilarious… even at 1% you could get 10 necros to kill Teq… 200000k AOE heals FTW!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This would be hilarious… even at 1% you could get 10 necros to kill Teq… 200000k AOE heals FTW!

That would teach them for using HP as a “difficulty enhancer” :P

Rising Dusk.2408:

Signet of Vampirism

Passive: When you hit a target, you siphon 350 (0.15) life.
Active: Unblockable. Initial Self Heal: 3,960 (0.5). Mark a target. When any player hits this target, they siphon 250 (0.1) life from it. Lasts 5 seconds.
30 second cooldown.
Range 1200.

(And no ICD)

Seriously, the play and counterplay to the active of this would be amazing in SPvP, useful in PvE, and in general just a great skill. And heaven forbid this way it’d actually synergize with Bloodthirst and other life siphoning traits on the passive.

This please! But it probably does need an icd – dagger and Axe2 would heal insane amounts without it.

I would even be happy with it just healing on the passive if the damage is an issue – although 300 every 3 seconds doesn’t seem OP.

Im playing necro 14+ months,necro was allways fine for me,but i must say one thing : Signet of vampyrism is really crap.Im playing few types of gears and lot of builds with my necro ,but i really can´t find build for this new healing skill.Other necro´s heals are much better for every situation and for every build:well for party support,blood fiend for minion master and consume conditions is one from best heals in game,usefull in every situation.Signet of vampyrism is worst healing skill from all new healing skills.

If the theme is supposed to be a more offensive heal, what about allowing the passive to do damage in addition to healing? 1s cooldown per target (if this is possible?)

Its very easy to fix.

Take the ICD off both parts.lower the healing on hit to 100 and 200 for the active.Make it so it scales well with healing power.

Banjal.7328:

Its very easy to fix.

Take the ICD off both parts.lower the healing on hit to 100 and 200 for the active.Make it so it scales well with healing power.

The healing power scaling isn’t too bad, at least if you discount the initial self-heal. It’s 10% on the passive and 20% per siphon on the active. The ICD’s do kill the skill’s usefulness, though.

Passive: You siphon 17% of damage delt to you, doesnt get turned off if active on cooldown
Active: All siphonin healing that would apply to you heals nearby allies for 133% of the value instead, 40s cd, 3/4 cast time, has a 2.4k heal on it.

Personally, I’d do something like this:
(Base Stats, no Healing Power)
Passive:
Steal life when you attack an enemy.
Damage: 50
Healing: 200
Internal Cooldown: 1/2 second. This way, it doesn’t leech too much from AoEs or VERY fast channels (Which would otherwise heal like 2k? This way will only heal about 400 hp/s). This would be on par with healing signet, with a little added damage at the cost of having to actively hit the target, meaning it’s realistic HPS would still be lower. Of course this would be affected by Blood Thirst, now too.

Active:
Cooldown 25 seconds. 1/2 cast time.
Heal yourself for 3400
Gain 10 stacks of Mark of Vampirism for 5 seconds. (Self buff)
Each hit while under effects of Mark of Vampirism deal 200 damage and heal for 400, and there is no global cooldown.

This would lead to a small heal with a potential of dealing 2000 damage and healing 4000 more, but obviously at the risk of losing a lot of stacks via evades/ccs/time running out on the buff. High risk, high reward heal. And this way it keeps it more in-line with the “Aggressive leeching tank” niche that leeching is supposed to be about, not support… (That’s what wells are for…)

So what we have is:
A good passive that has play to it, it requires being aggressive to get the benefit, but doesn’t completely outshine things like healing signet or Mesmer Signet, and doesn’t heal when the enemy is playing well (keeping you from hitting them) like it should be.

The active is worth actually using, versus say Warrior healing signet, because you could chain it with an Axe 2 adding a little bit of burst to your hits and giving yourself a spike heal at the risk of being aggressive even when needing a heal. That’s what it’s all about! Who’s with me on this?! :P

I’ve yet to purchase it because I’ve only recently reached 80 on my Necromancer. So the validity of my opinion could easily be disputed, still, if I’m understanding how it works, wouldn’t it work like additional toughness?
If it heals every time we take damage, and heals for more the more damage is dealt to us, wouldn’t that just mean that we could forget about toughness in our gear and let the signet do the work?

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’ve yet to purchase it because I’ve only recently reached 80 on my Necromancer. So the validity of my opinion could easily be disputed, still, if I’m understanding how it works, wouldn’t it work like additional toughness?
If it heals every time we take damage, and heals for more the more damage is dealt to us, wouldn’t that just mean that we could forget about toughness in our gear and let the signet do the work?

It has a 1 second internal cooldown, so you’re only getting healed for 325 damage when you get hit no more than 1 time per second which is nothing compared to the damage you’ll be taking everywhere in the game. Also, its 325 healing when you take damage on a 1 second icd, meaning it could be seconds before you get your heal, or over time because attacks don’t land exactly on the second, over time you lose ticks, then compare it to Healing Signet which passively heals 392 base every second on the second, while you’re attacking, being attacked, chasing or running away, you’re getting healed for MORE everysecond on the second.

The mechanic is fine to me. Just halve the active ICD, increase initial heal scaling with healing power, and put the siphoning back in the passive.

Since the Devs supposedly wanted healing skills with more group support…

Signet of Vampirism
Passive: Gain life whenever you strike a foe. (133 healing, no ICD.)
Active: Heal yourself. You and nearby allies gain a Vampiric Aura. (5s) (3960 healing, 35s cooldown)
Vampiric Aura: Whenever you are hit, siphon health from the source of that damage. (392 healing, 265 damage, no ICD.)

Passive and active are essentially reversed.
Passive is essentially Signet of Malice. Still useless in Deathshroud.
Active retains same healing, only it has no idiotic, wasteful internal cooldown since you don’t lose time in after-cast and don’t control the effect. Promotes active play, discourages multi-hit bursts like Hundred Blades. Easy to work around since you just need to not attack the Necro for a grand total of 5 seconds; still not as good as Shelter, since you still eat damage/conditions/CC whenever your opponent feels like it.

Simple, effective, and easy to use.

just make the passive steal life on hit(not when necro is hit) and tweak the numbers to usefulness and i will love it

Rising Dusk.2408:

Signet of Vampirism

Passive: When you hit a target, you siphon 350 (0.15) life.
Active: Unblockable. Initial Self Heal: 3,960 (0.5). Mark a target. When any player hits this target, they siphon 250 (0.1) life from it. Lasts 5 seconds.
30 second cooldown.
Range 1200.

(And no ICD)

Seriously, the play and counterplay to the active of this would be amazing in SPvP, useful in PvE, and in general just a great skill. And heaven forbid this way it’d actually synergize with Bloodthirst and other life siphoning traits on the passive.

This.

Step one … take the code that spawned the Vamp signet and DELETE it.

Step two… randomly face roll my keyboard then re-compile.

Step three … end up with an improvement to the garbage that is the current Vamp signet and Profit.

aDemoNnDisguisE.8576:

Step one … take the code that spawned the Vamp signet and DELETE it.

Step two… randomly face roll my keyboard then re-compile.

Step three … end up with an improvement to the garbage that is the current Vamp signet and Profit.

I retract my previous statement. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This.

pierwola.9602:

Signet of Vampirism
Siphon health (165hp) whenever you hit a foe.
replace ICD with siphon cap per sec, etc. you can’t get more than 400hp/1sec (scale with healing power)
or
Heal (325hp) when struck by a foe.
replace ICD with siphon cap per sec, etc. you can’t get more than 600hp/1sec (scale with healing power)

If i was the leader of the balance team i would atleast keep the passive healing from the signet and reduce the ICD from 1 second to 0.75 seconds. Maybe even 0.5 but potentially 600+ hp/sec might be OP, although we need impressive healing because of no mobility/anti acc skills. (Still flabbergasted all our heals right now are so low, in their perspective our heals should at the very least do double the healing they do now)

In light of the balance right now.. i would increase the active healing to at least 7k. (would have been 13k+ in MY game… Oh well)

aDemoNnDisguisE.8576:

Step one … take the code that spawned the Vamp signet and DELETE it.

Step two… randomly face roll my keyboard then re-compile.

Step three … end up with an improvement to the garbage that is the current Vamp signet and Profit.

I find your solution elegant and practical. This should not be difficult to implement.

I think the signet’s passive should cause the necromancer to steal health when hitting an enemy, not when being hit by an enemy; the passive is uncontrollable and badly made. It’s also just a bad heal in so many ways:
-Long cooldown, low healing
-Need to be hit for passive heal
-No condition removal
-Low active healing
-Annoying passive cooldown (unaffected by signet cooldown trait)

Of course, if they made it so the necromancer steals health when hitting an enemy, ranged weapons (especially the staff with its many aoe abilities) would be a bit too powerful, so the healing should be more potent while wielding a melee weapon and weaker when wielding a ranged weapon.

Signet of Vampirism

Passive: Steal health when hitting an enemy. Health stolen is tripled while wielding a melee weapon.

Active: Heal yourself. For the next few seconds, you and nearby allies steal extra health from enemies; healing is tripled when wielding a melee weapon.

Passive Life Steal (ranged): 75
Passive Life Steal (melee): 225
Active Initial Heal: 5240 (+1.0 Healing Power)
Active Life Steal (ranged): 125
Active Life Steal (melee): 375
Active Duration: 5s
Channel: 1s
Cooldown: 20s

Signet of Vamiprism
25 Second Cooldown
1/2 Second Cast Time
Passive: Siphon 250 (0.2 of Power)(0.1 of Healing Power) Health when you take damage.
Active: Mark a target for 8 seconds. When the targets heals, siphon 30% of the Health gained.

NOTE- I do not play PvP, so the numbers will probably need to be changed for balancing purposes.

I think here is what Signet of Vampirism should have been:

Passive: Your attacks siphons an extra 0.15*(healing power) of health per hit.

Active: Cooldown 30 seconds. Cast time 1/4 second. For the next 2 seconds, you steal 3*(healing power) of health from the enemy in his next attack against you. That foe also suffers from weakness and 3 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds.

So let’s say your healing power is 1000. In passive you would steal an extra 150 hp per hit (on top of your regular siphon). In active, if a foe was dumb enough to hit you during those 2 seconds, you steal 3000 hp and give him weakness and bleeding for 10 seconds. If no one hits you during those 2 seconds, you gain nothing and will probably die before that 30 second recharge is up. High risk high reward. This is what necromancer should be about.

Passive: Persists through DS, Gain health when struck
Active: Apply weakness to yourself for 20 seconds,All life siphons have 100% crit chance for 20 seconds
Initial Heal: 4k
Aoe Life siphon pulse every second for 10 seconds healing yourself and allies (similar to how wells siphon life only in an area around the necro)

I would also change signet of locust to

Passive: Apply cripple and siphon life when hit,
Active:
Causes Locust swarm to Siphon life, inflicts the target with a locust swarm siphoning health for 10 seconds jumps to the closest target up to 5 targets.

A nugget of poo in a paper bag would be better than the current heal.

I would change to siphon health when hitting the enemy rather than siphon on hit – in WvW you want to avoid damage, not get hit. There should be no ICD – maybe limit the AoE effectiveness of the siphons.

Active would provide some type of group AoE heal.

It only heals against physical damage. To make it more viable, it needs to heal against intensity conditions as well. Eg. Bleed, Torment, Confusion. Otherwise, it becomes almost completely useless when in battles against multiple enemies.
I enjoy the concept of the heal, and I’ve tinkered with it finding that it has a lot of potential. But without this alteration, it will only ever have that – potential.

Passive: Persists through DS, Gain health based on how mach damage you do to targets. Only counts direct damage (not conditions)

Active: For the next 10 seconds your Siphons heal you for an extra 50% health. Works in DS (thats why it needs to be 10 seconds rather than 5, to account for the skill usage and then getting into DS)
Initial Heal: 5k

Passive: Your skills generate x% more life force and you get x% life force every x sec.

Active: Chaneling spell, over 3 sec, you siphion x amount of health from a target (which means he will loose hp while you will gain hp). Maybe also that it works trough block/imunity to give necor little edge.

“X” is left for balancing purposes.

this new signet would replace the signet of vampirism:
passive: gain 1~2% life force for every foe within range (max 5) (range: 600) interval:1s
active: consume all your life force and heal for 50% of the consumed life force.

Consuming Lifeforce to gain health is an interesting idea. Sounds fun and would lead to new build ideas.

After spending more time with the signet, I think getting all the healing of the remaining stacks if the enemy dies while marked would be a great addition. Any kind of on-kill bonus, really.

Tim.6450:

this new signet would replace the signet of vampirism:
passive: gain 1~2% life force for every foe within range (max 5) (range: 600) interval:1s
active: consume all your life force and heal for 50% of the consumed life force.

Change it to 100% and then it would be reasonable. They would have to turn it into a Buff (that cant be removed) so that it could work inside DeathShroud for getting the Life force. Make it 2%