Guild Wars 2

Obviously necro is failing at attrition:

• he has no good means of stability

(DS stability is borderline useless as it cannot be used to secure a stomp unless the enemy is stupid, mostly useless in 1v1 because any competent player chains CC and completely useless in 1vX because the duration is so short and we are locked out of skills we need at the time we need them the most. Also elite skills are not worth mentioning here, the fact that we even need to bring it into the conversation is a sign that something is broken);

• he has no good means of disengaging

(assuming cooldowns and a competent build, for every other class a battle engagement has good potential of being ‘win or not lose’. For the Necro however its ‘win or lose’ or in the case of 1vX, “ping-pong time” if you will, its just ‘lose’ most likely);

• he has no good means to mitigate burst nor sustained damage

(you might be tempted to say that DS is designed specifically for that and sure it is, but it doesn’t work as an effective mechanic because it does not scale against damage. Invulnerability has scaling, dodge has scaling, evasion has scaling, block has scaling, stealth has scaling, and often the other classes that have some of that can have multiple of that so they can chain it to achieve high levels of mitigation in 1v1 as well as 1vX. Necro on the other hand has no invulnerability, no dodge, no evasion, no block, no stealth. Instead he has an extra health bar that does not scale against DMG and actually nerfs his sustain because of no HP healing being allowed, problem is that it has to be balanced for 1v1 and that makes it very weak in 1vX, precisely where most help is needed. If it is good in 1vX then it will be overpowered in 1v1. In fact the DS is so bad at being an alternative to the aforementioned mitigation mechanics other classes have, especially in 1vX, that something radical needs to be added, such as having a 50% chance to block an attack while in DS, or something);

so basically it’s no wonder that Necro with his current numbers and mechanics is pigeonholed into building either sub-par burst caster who has to appendage the class features that were supposed to make him competitive and fold under actual burst builds of other classes that can deliver their DMG much faster and with a good amount of CC while at the same time having at least one way to mitigate DMG properly or sub-par bunker that can’t come even close to the mitigation scaling of other classes and doesn’t have enough DMG to beat a DPS warrior’s healing signet, who pretty much everyone can run away from and who doesn’t generate nearly enough threat to even be bothered with, essentially halving his usefulness in all contexts.

Dalanor.5387:

Mobility only matters in WvW. In most PvE content mobility is pointless and in sPvP you have point capture (and you shouldnt go to far point anyway).

This is untrue. Mobility is extremely important in sPvP.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

TheDevice.2751:

-Snip-

Then explain WHY it is that you CAN kill other classes then? surely if they out last us as you say we would be dead and they would be alive, yet i have plenty enough times killed people 1 Vs 1.

Is it not more dependent on your BUILD than anything else, if you go zerker then you lose all of that compared if you go tankier. You cant just say every class out lasts us, you have to say what build the Necromancer was using, what build the others are using.

Errrrr. Well of course I was imagining people creating builds and the builds themselves fought each other while the player picks their nose. wut?

Of course I’m talking about optimal survival builds. I am in the corner that believes all other classes can survive longer than us.

And no. It’s the player that usually will determine the result in a 1v1. Builds don’t fight builds.

Besides the obvious truth that necros lack attrition, I’m pointing out that we in fact have the worst attrition. Yes, a player can always be able to beat another player especially if your build counters theirs. That’s not what I’m talking about…

Actually, MM builds have some of the best attrition in the game. Problem is that everything that gives them amazing attrition doesn’t translate at all to our other builds.

Bhawb.7408:

Actually, MM builds have some of the best attrition in the game. Problem is that everything that gives them amazing attrition doesn’t translate at all to our other builds.

And the other builds cant be improved with it affecting MM, i do think that removing Vampiric Master and just buffing up the siphon traits.

I like almost never have a problem vs MM. After their minions are gone they’re dead. Idk maybe I’m missing something.

I mean.. Have you even played an engi lately? Do you have any idea how strong they are. Try it. Go find a decent build and start playing engi. It’s like butter. It’s so effortless I can’t even do it. XD

Just try the other classes really. You’ll begin to understand where the necros are right now as far as attrition.

Died 3 times to a Mesmer with temporal curtain (focus 4) in Solo Q yesterday.

He saw me coming each time and activated the pull right when I entered the sky hammer room. Boom instant death by falling.

What is the counter for this? Stability on shroud doesn’t really work when you can’t interact with the portal to enter the room in shroud.

nekretaal.6485:

Died 3 times to a Mesmer with temporal curtain (focus 4) in Solo Q yesterday.

He saw me coming each time and activated the pull right when I entered the sky hammer room. Boom instant death by falling.

What is the counter for this? Stability on shroud doesn’t really work when you can’t interact with the portal to enter the room in shroud.

Did you try using Spectral Walk, triggering it before you enter the door, then using it again after you get pulled off?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

And the other builds cant be improved with it affecting MM, i do think that removing Vampiric Master and just buffing up the siphon traits.

Killing part of MM attrition is not the way to make attrition better. Vampiric master has nothing to do with why they don’t buff the other traits, MMs get very small comparative healing from non-minion siphoning; any other build will get more.

Fix siphoning first, then take any HP/s buffs that Vampiric gives MM builds, and take it out of Vampiric Master; problem solved. No MM wants to take Vampiric Precision/Rituals, no MM is taking Bloodthirst, so the only change would be Vampiric itself. So if the new Vampiric gives MMs (who will generally proc Vampiric the least, due to spending more of their time managing minions than attacking themselves) an HP/s increase of 20, take 20 HP/s off your standard MM setup. This is very easily done, most MMs can be assumed to have 3-4 minions of an average attack speed of one attack per 3 seconds. So 60 HP/hit, or about 15-20 HP/hit removed from Vampiric Master.

Also, they could fix Vampiric Master, which has been bugged since they “fixed” the Blood Magic tree. So literally any nerf to the trait like this along with a fix won’t actually change anything.

Another advantage that MM has is that it is far less vulnerable to CC than other builds. It is just as susceptible, but CCing the necro doesn’t stop the minions from attacking and, other than Flesh Golem and Blood Fiend, doesn’t stop the actives from being used either.

Which is why I’d love to see more CC-immunity added in through traiting to other Necros. Seriously, if they just translate certain characteristics of MMs into other builds through traiting, we’d see massively better attrition gameplay.

Or they could just tone down the amount spammable cc available to everyone else; or just make it so stuns and other cc do not duration stack.

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

And the other builds cant be improved with it affecting MM, i do think that removing Vampiric Master and just buffing up the siphon traits.

Killing part of MM attrition is not the way to make attrition better. Vampiric master has nothing to do with why they don’t buff the other traits, MMs get very small comparative healing from non-minion siphoning; any other build will get more.

Fix siphoning first, then take any HP/s buffs that Vampiric gives MM builds, and take it out of Vampiric Master; problem solved. No MM wants to take Vampiric Precision/Rituals, no MM is taking Bloodthirst, so the only change would be Vampiric itself. So if the new Vampiric gives MMs (who will generally proc Vampiric the least, due to spending more of their time managing minions than attacking themselves) an HP/s increase of 20, take 20 HP/s off your standard MM setup. This is very easily done, most MMs can be assumed to have 3-4 minions of an average attack speed of one attack per 3 seconds. So 60 HP/hit, or about 15-20 HP/hit removed from Vampiric Master.

Also, they could fix Vampiric Master, which has been bugged since they “fixed” the Blood Magic tree. So literally any nerf to the trait like this along with a fix won’t actually change anything.

It WOULDNT be killing it. It would still be just as viable as it is now, Without that ONE trait the others could be buffed and it is that ONE build that is stopping the traits being any use to any other build….

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

It WOULDNT be killing it. It would still be just as viable as it is now, Without that ONE trait the others could be buffed and it is that ONE build that is stopping the traits being any use to any other build….

Allow me to call bullkitten. Vampiric Rituals and Vampiric Master do not affect each other at all, due to both skill types taking the same slots, so already your argument is weak. Vampiric Precision is a waste of time, since MM’s rarely have a half decent crit chance. Again, weakening your argument.

That leaves a grand total of two traits to account for when balancing siphons: Bloodthirst, which is usually dumped for Mark of Evasion or Transfusion, but regardless will affect all siphoning traits equally, and Vampiric. Everyone agrees Vampiric is not up to par, but it’s simple to remove any additional HPS granted to Vampiric from Vampiric Master to prevent Vampiric Master from simply healing too mcuh.

Overkillengine.6084:

Or they could just tone down the amount spammable cc available to everyone else; or just make it so stuns and other cc do not duration stack.

True, I’m just making Necro-specific changes that will allow us to be okay.

@Ash. There is literally no reason to remove Vampiric Master. You just take the HPs that is added away from Vampiric Master, and its fine. There is no reason to nerf MM builds, especially not when they have only recently become “viable” to the general community.

That one build has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the traits not being viable. Those traits are under-tuned because they have near-infinite scaling, not because ANet is scared of a non-existent MM build that will magically have 40 trait points, and a build that somehow magically gains precision while still using full soldier gear.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Allow me to call bullkitten. Vampiric Rituals and Vampiric Master do not affect each other at all, due to both skill types taking the same slots, so already your argument is weak. Vampiric Precision is a waste of time, since MM’s rarely have a half decent crit chance. Again, weakening your argument.

That leaves a grand total of two traits to account for when balancing siphons: Bloodthirst, which is usually dumped for Mark of Evasion or Transfusion, but regardless will affect all siphoning traits equally, and Vampiric. Everyone agrees Vampiric is not up to par, but it’s simple to remove any additional HPS granted to Vampiric from Vampiric Master to prevent Vampiric Master from simply healing too mcuh.

You could take: Bloodthirst, Vampiric, Vampiric Master and Vampiric Precision. I did not even mention the wells one so not quite sure why you bring that into it. Yeah you have the option of Transfusion or Mark of Evasion, but this is Anet. It is VERY likely that they “balance” it on the assumption that all of the above are being taken.

Now in a MM build that is still very solid siphons. Take Vampiric Master out and then what it is…

Also you COULD take BOTH Vamperic Master (Master Trait) and Vamperic Rituals(Grand Master Trait) would have to drop Vampiric Precision though.

Personally, they should just remove them all and give us traits that are good for MORE than one build. Hell, Keep Rituals and Master, buff them up a bit, make Blood thirst part of the traits and then replace the others with something else.

When i ran MM i had plenty fine Precision, sure is it as much as say my current build, of course not but it was high enough to make it useful.

Mine was this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakQrUvVzWjePBIpIaqnewt3gHpYYiB-jEzAocIMWApIA0GQiAU2LiJwhsqXw0lBVvqI7xH0q7IxSBYuwI-w

Sure, might not be the most optimized build their is, but it worked for me. Though in the end i got bored of it and having my Elite die every time i went into water was very annoying.

No optimized PvP (or WvW) MM build utilizes high precision and any non Vampiric Master siphoning traits. It is entirely possible to do something like zerker MM, but it is far from OP in any shape or form.

I can say this absolutely, without the tiniest doubt: fixing siphoning, so long as they adjust Vampiric Master to make up for anything done to Vampiric, will leave MMs just as they are. It will have literally no effect at all.

To be clear, lich form has 30s of stability and death shroud has 20s. We don’t have access to our heals during that time, though, so it kind of sucks. The cool downs are also incredibly long compared stability skills on other classes, it takes 3 whole minutes.
Well of power has 1s of stability as well but that stability is useless, really.

Darkhayle.2473:

To be clear, lich form has 30s of stability and death shroud has 20s. We don’t have access to our heals during that time, though, so it kind of sucks. The cool downs are also incredibly long compared stability skills on other classes, it takes 3 whole minutes.
Well of power has 1s of stability as well but that stability is useless, really.

You mean Plague form has 20seconds of stability? The well has 1.25seconds or something of Stability and pulses every 1 second for 5 seconds.

Plague form stability doesn’t even work properly I get CCd in it all the time.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You mean Plague form has 20seconds of stability? The well has 1.25seconds or something of Stability and pulses every 1 second for 5 seconds.

The well does not give any stability except on cast and if fear is converted.

I find that even mentioning elites in the stability discussion shows a big problem.

Mookzen.4583:

Plague form stability doesn’t even work properly I get CCd in it all the time.

Or it get removed. Thats why the elites needs pulsating stability. 1s/s would be unfair (oh man but i would love it), so 3s stability every 3 seconds maybe?

TheDevice.2751:

Good NEWS everyone!!: I have very bad news!

In recent study.. It has been shown that every other class in the game has better attrition than than the necromancer.

Lemme explain…

If you constantly harass your enemy so much to the point they cannot carry on any further and eventually lose.. You have done what is called attrition.

What necros actually do: they constantly harass their enemy until their enemies win.

Every single profession in the game will outlast you.

Your DS is not helpful attrition when you can be stunned for 2 seconds and lose all the DS you have had to work for.. When all other classes may use invulnerability, stealth, blocks, teleports, etc.. that they do not have to work for.

All those things including things like internal healing (which cannot be removed by stripping btw) will outlast you and your sorry DS. XD

This is the truth as it is right now.

I encourage all necros to wipe whatever thoughts of attrition had pertaining to necros from their minds completely. This is not an attrition class.

Other prfessions (if they really really wanted to) can cleanse conditions faster than the rate that you can make them have any useful effect on them. This includes thieves and warriors and so on.

Your conditions are not attrition lol. They are burst and should be treated as such. You cant “outlast” any profession in this game. It’s not possible. The top 3 at doing that are engineers, guardians, and warriors. YES.. warriors.

So the good news is that there IS in fact attrition in this game. WE dont have it. All other professions have attrition because they can outlast you and wear YOU down. You will eventually not be able to continue the fight. WHATS WORSE?!?! you cant leave the fight :LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLZLLALSLZL

This is your necro.

This hurts me.

#allisvain

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You mean Plague form has 20seconds of stability? The well has 1.25seconds or something of Stability and pulses every 1 second for 5 seconds.

The well does not give any stability except on cast and if fear is converted.

Ah, never used it the way its worded it sounds like its every pulse :/
So even THAT is awful :/

Well of Power gives 1 second of Stability on cast. Personally, I’d like to see this changed to 1 second of Stability with each pulse or a single application of 3 or 5 seconds of stability or back to the 1 second of Stability on cast, but benefiting up to 5 allied targets within the well.

Making one of these changes does not make it OP; it makes it about average when compared to the other professions’ Stability skills. I can understand and even accept their admonition that necros shouldn’t have access to a lot of boons. Stability, however, should be the exception. We’re supposed to be the facetank class; it’s wholly appropriate that we have a buff that allows us to stand our ground and remain in the fight.

With regards to Plague and Lich Form, a pulsing 5 seconds of Stability every 5 seconds would be about right (still gets removed when exiting the transformation, though).

Dalanor.5387:

Mookzen.4583:

Plague form stability doesn’t even work properly I get CCd in it all the time.

Or it get removed. Thats why the elites needs pulsating stability. 1s/s would be unfair (oh man but i would love it), so 3s stability every 3 seconds maybe?

That must be it, and considering we have like no boons as a class elites might as well not have stability given how boon removal gets spammed in teamfights without even trying.

I made my spectral siphoning necro and this is easily the closest I’ve gotten to an attrition play style while still being able to kill things. It’s just slightly off, but I can’t do anything more for it than to wait for the buffs to roll in. Any day now…

I’ll never understand people saying “you don’t need to nerf Vampiric Master…” and then in the same paragraph… “just lower Vampiric Master to compensate for Vampiric increase..”

Just what do you think lowering the values on the trait would be? Its a nerf lol, which is what we were saying in the first place.

Monoman.2068:

I made my spectral siphoning necro and this is easily the closest I’ve gotten to an attrition play style while still being able to kill things. It’s just slightly off, but I can’t do anything more for it than to wait for the buffs to roll in. Any day now…

Although I am currently trying a different build… I played Spectral Siphons for most of the last year, and it is pretty good at attrition, it just lacks a few tools compared to most viable builds, but definitely competes in WvW.

Stx.4857:

I’ll never understand people saying “you don’t need to nerf Vampiric Master…” and then in the same paragraph… “just lower Vampiric Master to compensate for Vampiric increase..”

Just what do you think lowering the values on the trait would be? Its a nerf lol, which is what we were saying in the first place.

No, what is being said is that Vampiric Master shouldn’t be removed as ArmegeddonAsh is suggesting. Nerfing it if Vampiric is brought up to par is perfectly fine. Getting rid of it entirely is not.

The problem with death shroud is that it’s a tool for you to survive during 1v1s and something to make us an attrition class, but what happens when we fight 1v2? 1v3? 1v4? If DS was made so we can fight 1v2, 1v3, 1v4, 1v5 or anything else but 1v1, we’re overpowered in a 1v1 situation. I like the class a lot and keep making one, getting it to x level then deleting it again because these issues bug me a lot to the point where I don’t want to play the class anymore… We really need ANet to do something about this..

Bhawb.7408:

No optimized PvP (or WvW) MM build utilizes high precision and any non Vampiric Master siphoning traits. It is entirely possible to do something like zerker MM, but it is far from OP in any shape or form.

I can say this absolutely, without the tiniest doubt: fixing siphoning, so long as they adjust Vampiric Master to make up for anything done to Vampiric, will leave MMs just as they are. It will have literally no effect at all.

define “high precision” because I can find a minion master build with 43% crit chance or is that too low?

Monoman.2068:

I made my spectral siphoning necro and this is easily the closest I’ve gotten to an attrition play style while still being able to kill things. It’s just slightly off, but I can’t do anything more for it than to wait for the buffs to roll in. Any day now…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBHhhu1IjW1e4m2G9eCRSh18LQKevah6x64OfIA-jkCBoLJDfZQ0UEgEBDRL7JiJQDZtMsIas6FY6SER1ecFRrWKA2FGB-w

Thats my current build, High toughness, high Vit and still doing great damage inside DS as well solid damage outside i can still be focused down, but its the sort of situation that anyone would melt in when its like 6 Vs 1 or Zerg Vs 1

I last ALOT longer in group fights now even when i am at the front. Still quite not sure about the Sigils, Not sure what to have my other Warhorn as once the Perception hits 25stacks

I am wondering:
If blind is changed to make all attacks miss untill the condition is removed, wether that would make the game more interesting and necro’s instant artrition?

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

I am wondering:
If blind is changed to make all attacks miss untill the condition is removed, wether that would make the game more interesting and necro’s instant artrition?

That would make thieves broken.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

I am wondering:
If blind is changed to make all attacks miss untill the condition is removed, wether that would make the game more interesting and necro’s instant artrition?

That would make thieves broken.

And thats how balance works. Everything kittening up something else if you change it.

Maybe they need to remove the HPs from deathshroud and work on the skills.

Maybe then we could get some assistance in 1vX without PvP whiners complaining that we all have 50,000+ HPs.

What about my suggestion from before, % chance to block while in DS. Assuming some adjustments to the DS pool this would not break 1v1 and give us the must needed survivability 1vX and some much needed scaling damage mitigation.

No rng / passive stuff, kkthxbai.
I cant remember who had the idea, but a trait (or make it default) that prevents you from high damage in a form of if you take greater damage then your X% of HP it will reduce your life force instead of regular health. So it absorbs high hits and you have enough regen and siphon to eat the smaller ones.

Point is we need a damage mitigation mechanic that SCALES 1vX.

The closest I can get to a true attrition build on Necro is a Condi/Toughness/Healing Power Well Support build with all Well Traits, Staff+Scepter/Dagger, WoB, WoP, WoC and WoD.

It wins most 1v1 in WvW/SPvP, against all classes/most builds. Can win/sustain indefinitely against 2-3 hammer warriors/guardians geared towards power almost everytime (WoD during their Hammer combos, Heal/Weakness during the rest of their KDs/DPS… sort of funny actually). Hammer/Longbow Warrior builds too.

It dies against against extreme and constant condition damage and/or constant crowd control if its too much to handle or timed well. It also breaks down when the numbers get to about 4v1 as well. Still it reaches the requirements to me for an attrition build:

-It can recover up to 90-110% health during the average duration of fights (30-40 seconds).
-It debuffs enough with blinds, weakness and boon conversion to reduce incoming power damage by about 50%-90% in a similar time frame.
-Has enough condition transfers/conversion to sustain through average to high condition application. Can also gain access to things like Aegis, more Protection/Regeneration, Swiftness and Vigor quite easily with WoP condition conversion.
-Has just enough condition damage to kill opposing targets and fight/kill multiple targets at once. Even if it takes multiple “rounds” of conditions to whither down the enemy or enemies.

Again not perfect, but fighting 2-3 different players in WvW and winning 30-50% of the time over 1-5 minutes counts a an attrition build I think.

Regardless, our class is supposed to be “the” attrition class. There should be multiple ways of building a good attrition builds using different strengths of the Necro.

Tim.6450:

define “high precision” because I can find a minion master build with 43% crit chance or is that too low?

Are you in PvP/WvW? If you’re in PvE, then its fine, because you shouldn’t need Blood Magic anyway (and I’d argue using it is a complete waste). If you are, you should never have that high of crit chance, unless you are Rabid.

Which is sad because the lifesteal BM gives to non MM builds are barely “decent” in pve…..but you are still better off going full offense.

Overkillengine.6084:

Which is sad because the lifesteal BM gives to non MM builds are barely “decent” in pve…..but you are still better off going full offense.

I would argue against them being barely decent unless you’re constantly hitting with AoE attacks against multiple targets. The Lifesteal just isn’t there if you’re not using staff, wells with vampiric rituals and scepter/dagger. Because then when you’re hitting 5 targets, marks should be healing at least 150ish damage per cast and Wells about 400 per pulse. That’s part of the problem since siphons are balanced with AoE and multiple hit attacks in mind.

The best way to balance and make siphons effective would be to get away from a universal siphon number on traits. Instead Anet should figure out how much life and damage they want Necromancers to steal over time with varying weapons, skills and traits. Then balance each skill and attack individually with higher and lower siphon numbers per hit, taking into account their unique mechanics, attack speeds etc. That would be the most intelligent way to tackle this.

Mookzen.4583:

Point is we need a damage mitigation mechanic that SCALES 1vX.

Exactly this.

The suggestions for doing so are legion in this forum. However, what we need even more than a damage mitigation mechanic that scales is a games developer that actually listens to their community and takes appropriate action to balance their classes better. If we can’t get the latter, we’ll never get the former.

Bhawb.7408:

Tim.6450:

define “high precision” because I can find a minion master build with 43% crit chance or is that too low?

Are you in PvP/WvW? If you’re in PvE, then its fine, because you shouldn’t need Blood Magic anyway (and I’d argue using it is a complete waste). If you are, you should never have that high of crit chance, unless you are Rabid.

it’s pvp while going Rabid.

I made a post way back, asking if anyone knew about which build the necro pvp npc is using. Sometimes I think we’re balanced around what he’s capable of doing.

He got lots of health/defense, use Axe #3 while wearing daggers, dagger #2 hits for like 5k. Even in his downed state, he seems to use an AoE fear instead of the normal single targeted one.

If I could be this man, I would be a bit happier, knowing that I can deal good burst while still been able to survive it.

They seem to have nerfed so much coefficients on our skills. Testing all classes in pvp/pve lately, and I can’t go back to playing a power spec on my necro, seeing what I can accomplish just by autoattacking with other classes.

Balekai.6083:

Overkillengine.6084:

Which is sad because the lifesteal BM gives to non MM builds are barely “decent” in pve…..but you are still better off going full offense.

I would argue against them being barely decent unless you’re constantly hitting with AoE attacks against multiple targets. The Lifesteal just isn’t there if you’re not using staff, wells with vampiric rituals and scepter/dagger. Because then when you’re hitting 5 targets, marks should be healing at least 150ish damage per cast and Wells about 400 per pulse. That’s part of the problem since siphons are balanced with AoE and multiple hit attacks in mind.

The best way to balance and make siphons effective would be to get away from a universal siphon number on traits. Instead Anet should figure out how much life and damage they want Necromancers to steal over time with varying weapons, skills and traits. Then balance each skill and attack individually with higher and lower siphon numbers per hit, taking into account their unique mechanics, attack speeds etc. That would be the most intelligent way to tackle this.

That’s exactly the situation I was alluding to; Staff+Wells vamp spec.

They need to take one of two paths; either a set amount per second regardless of how many hit, or the lifeleech needs to scale based upon the attack it rides on (if the attack is properly balanced, then the siphon is basically equivalent to a +% damage trait in effect).

Any other combo is probably too kitten easy to abuse to surpass the immortality threshold so we get stuck with the craptacular base we have now.

Or just drop the whole idea of siphons doing damage independent of skill damage, and just have it heal us as a percentage of damage (pretty much like the new guardian skill, but permanent).