Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve noticed a very… Useless trait… Chilling Darkness, one second chill when blinded (Lowest Cap.) Really Anet? Jumping for joy with that whole ONE second chill!! Honestly, here’s my idea.

Chilling Darkness: Foe is chilled for half the amount they are blinded… (Cap for chill is ten seconds.)
Doesn’t this make it look much better? You could actually take the trait then! And have actual effect.

This is not hate towards Anet, it’s just my idea makes much more sense in my opinion.

It isn’t at all a bad trait, we just need a few better sources of blind to make it worthwhile when you aren’t running Plague.

This trait is awesome. It makes well of darkness do chill every second. too back it does not change it to a frost field for combos. Also works well with dagger off hand and plague, you could used the sigil of mischief in place of sigil of hydromancy

I use it in my build combined with Well of Darkness. It has been working ok for up-close and personal fights (Thieves, Warriors), and when immediately followed with Deathly Swarm, it provides a fair amount of chill. But I see your point, a little more would definitely be better.

The problem with it, is it does not adhere to the duration of the blind. If it chilled for the actual blind duration then it would be more viable beyond Plague like was mentioned above. Then Haunt would actually see some play besides being just a minion spam skill. And since the AoE forms of blind we have are on short duration ticks, if they simply move out of the area of blind they won’t continue to stack up chill either, preventing the trait from becoming too op. necro should be master of chill next to ele because lore wise anyway, ice is their element. With stability spamhounds- aka Revenant- coming soon we’ll need more ways to CC besides fear.

I have used it in SE and CM on chill builds. Maybe I will run a chill build again this weekend.

Haunt is garbage regardless of this trait. It has an activation time on par with Meteor Storm, only like 10x weaker. Making the chill scale with blind duration doesn’t really change the trait to being good, especially since they would almost guaranteed make the chill portion not scale with condition duration (otherwise the trait would double-dip scale with condition duration), it would just change it to being worse with pulsing blinds but good with other blinds.

We just need better blind application, or more realistically it will just stay a niche trait to use with Plague and to a less degree WoD.

Bhawb is 100% right imo.

It’s a reasonably good trait, the class just doesn’t have enough options to apply blind. You kind of only take if you plan to run triple wells or Plague.

So where are some options they could give the class greater access to blind?

Unholy Feast comes up any time we suggest improving skills as it’s quite poor overall. It applying an AE blind would be a good addition.

Perhaps Weakening Shroud? Life Transfer?

Bhawb.7408:

Making the chill scale with blind duration doesn’t really change the trait to being good, especially since they would almost guaranteed make the chill portion not scale with condition duration (otherwise the trait would double-dip scale with condition duration), it would just change it to being worse with pulsing blinds but good with other blinds.

What conversion rate do you consider? Everything above 33,333.. % is better compared to now for every necromacer blind aplication but plague form and snow balls (without any condition duration). Well of darkness and well of corruption our other pulsing blind aplications would be buffed.

I don’t think a conversion rate is needed, I think this trait is reasonably powerful already, even if it is niche in requiring you to take pulsing blinds.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t think a conversion rate is needed, I think this trait is reasonably powerful already, even if it is niche in requiring you to take pulsing blinds.

And… Increased duration… A lot of it.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t think a conversion rate is needed, I think this trait is reasonably powerful already, even if it is niche in requiring you to take pulsing blinds.

The ‘problem’ that I have with this trait is that I don’t see the synergy between chill and blind, especially if it requires a niche in blind. If you’re blinded you’re most likely going to use auto attacks. So you’re chill won’t improve on the cooldown aspect and the movement impairement aspect doesn’t help since you can easily dodge out of it.

If you don’t like the mix of blind and chill then changing the chill doesn’t fix the issue regardless of what you do to it.

WTB changes to one of our worse traits – Dark Armor:
- Blind foes that blind you. (No cooldown)

Good change?

I do agree that chill duration should match blind duration from skills that you inflict. Eg. Deathly Swarm inflicts 6s blind (should get nerfed to 3s to balance this). With chilling darkness you would also inflict 6s chill (3s chill with nerf to blind duration)

Haunt skill from Shadow Fiend is horrible, I agree. IMO, Haunt should send the shadow fiend to the opponent like it does now but also sacrifice the minion and teleport you to its location. Now that’s a balance change that also makes sense with sacrificing minions for powerful effects, EG. Blood Fiend sacrifice = large heal, Flesh Wurm = teleport.

Bhawb.7408:

It isn’t at all a bad trait, we just need a few better sources of blind to make it worthwhile when you aren’t running Plague.

I really do think this is the core problem. With necromancers,there is exactly one weapon skill that applies a blind. Two if you count underwater death shroud, I guess. Otherwise, you’re only getting value from that trait if you’re running specific utilities or Plague.

Maybe that’s good enough? After all, it gets quite powerful with Plague, and Well Of Chilling isn’t an abjectly awful idea for a skill. But when you compare it to the other two “condition on blind” traits, it does seem a little lacking.

I guess it just bothers me that the trait basically reads “Plague and Well of Darkness now apply chill as well as blind”, since if you’re not using it with at least one of those two skills there’s not much reason to take it at all.

The trait may as well be reworded to say makes well of darkness and plague cause chill. Its a pretty poorly designed trait when you consider this and our blind access and lack of blasts to use in dark fields.

Idk perfectly, but i think some wvw zerg builds take for their 3rd well..and plague ofc but it shouldnt be an elite one trick pony.

For pvp,
-its ok, but we need more blinds, and reliable easy ones -like blind when enter DS.

-or
I personally wanted it the other way around – blinding when chilling an enemy, basically blinding ashes for necro.
Seems strong since every necro has ds2, chill mark is also decent CD and it would buff the focus5

Edit:
Or if blind well gets a lower CD of 30 sec, then ill take it on a condi build with 1x stunreak and new FitG.

I rather like it in a power/chill build using one sigil of mischief on each weapon set.

The problem with chill is that using it prevents you from doing damage some other way. Staff has a slow CD and focus is … focus. Chill is bunker-ish. Even snow balls were less fun than I had hoped.

Chill on blind is fine for an adept trait and you can always increase chill duration. I have used it in the past for a build but the runes got reworked so mixing pairs is pointless and I have not run it since. I totally forgot about it this weekend.

Chill would be reasonable on applying weakness.

On my necro’s condi build he runs 100% duration and going into plague for 20 seconds can apply up to 20 blinds and a maximum 40 seconds of chill using that trait. I think that’s ludicrously strong especially in WvW, and I take that trait in my grandmaster slot over anything else for medium/large scale combat.
Pve would be a different story of course.

/ahem Great sword….

Blinding rush (ala fiery greatword) please!