Guild Wars 2

I’m trying a new build which incorporates life siphoning traits in the Blood Magic line.

I’m using Axe and Focus because i’m not big on dagger. Staff will be the secondary weapon.

I had to go 30 in Spite for Axe training.. i miss out on Ground Target Wells which is really disappointing – i wish that was available in the 10 point section of Curses line.

Anyone tried a similar build before and if so, how much +healing did you put on with your gear? I’m trying to strike a balance between DPS & healing.

I’m enjoying it so far… had a brief run in WvW and seem to be quite tanky without properly setting up my gear.

Avigrus.2871:

Anyone tried a similar build before and if so, how much +healing did you put on with your gear? I’m trying to strike a balance between DPS & healing.

In all of my Life Siphon builds I used 0 +healing. It doesn’t affect Life Siphoning so I usually go for extra toughness (Except my current build where I’ve gone full zerker and am using the extra life siphon from minions and clever use of DS to keep me up)

I’ve been running the Life Siphon traits for a couple months now and they are by far my personal must have traits in a build. If you are going for power and use wells, its great. I wouldn’t take the Wells Siphon trait, rather the siphon on crit. Although it doesn’t siphon as much as wells, you siphon a lot more often for better healing over all.

The other great thing is that even if you are conditionmancer, you will want these traits as the use of epidemic is a insta heal. Each condition spread to enemies is considered a ‘hit’ couple with the AoE condition abilities on Staff/Scepter/Dagger off hand makes for a ton of hits.

Right now I’m running a power/toughness/vit Armour. Zerker weapons and 50% zerker jewelery. Some condition damage through a couple jewellery pieces. I tried to go for a balanced build slightly focused on Power/Crit.

Running Scepter/Dagger for ranged option and Dagger/Warhorn for melee. (Warhorn 5 for a AoE tagging Siphon spree) You can also swap to Axe/Warhorn for the 3rd skill to gain retaliation for extra ‘hits’ and siphons, I just like the Dagger’s immobilise for PvP/WvW.

Utilities I run, Well of Blood. Well of Corruption, Well of Suffering and Epidemic, Plague as my elite.

0/25/0/30/15

Major Traits;
Curses: Hemophilia and Focused Rituals
Blood Magic: Bloodthirst, Vamprirc Precision and Ritual Mastery
Soul Reaping: Vital Persistance

I made this for WvW but I enjoyed it so much I use it everywhere. I was using a full power/crit wells build but missed all those numbers that my old Condition build had with epidemic and in WvW with all the conditions going around it adds so much healing I consider it a second heal on a 15 second cooldown with these siphon traits.

I can post my full armour stats and build if anyone wishes.

Kuper.2641:

The other great thing is that even if you are conditionmancer, you will want these traits as the use of epidemic is a insta heal. Each condition spread to enemies is considered a ‘hit’ couple with the AoE condition abilities on Staff/Scepter/Dagger off hand makes for a ton of hits.

Please elaborate on how you achieve this. I was under the impression Vampiric only triggered on “white” damage, not conditions.

Broccoli Surprise.3584:

Kuper.2641:

The other great thing is that even if you are conditionmancer, you will want these traits as the use of epidemic is a insta heal. Each condition spread to enemies is considered a ‘hit’ couple with the AoE condition abilities on Staff/Scepter/Dagger off hand makes for a ton of hits.

Please elaborate on how you achieve this. I was under the impression Vampiric only triggered on “white” damage, not conditions.

The application of conditions counts as a hit.

So stuff like Staff Marks, Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood will proc a life siphon per target hit (So up to 5 siphons per cast)

I haven’t tested it myself but it sounds as if when using Epidemic, every condition spread counts as a hit meaning that it could do 6 conditions (Poison, Bleeding, Chill, Vulnerability, Weakness, Burning) on up to 5 targets (30 procs of life siphon) or at least 5 conditions x 5 targets if solo (25 procs = 625 health/950 health with Bloodthirst)

Taril.8619:

Broccoli Surprise.3584:

Kuper.2641:

The other great thing is that even if you are conditionmancer, you will want these traits as the use of epidemic is a insta heal. Each condition spread to enemies is considered a ‘hit’ couple with the AoE condition abilities on Staff/Scepter/Dagger off hand makes for a ton of hits.

Please elaborate on how you achieve this. I was under the impression Vampiric only triggered on “white” damage, not conditions.

The application of conditions counts as a hit.

So stuff like Staff Marks, Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood will proc a life siphon per target hit (So up to 5 siphons per cast)

I haven’t tested it myself but it sounds as if when using Epidemic, every condition spread counts as a hit meaning that it could do 6 conditions (Poison, Bleeding, Chill, Vulnerability, Weakness, Burning) on up to 5 targets (30 procs of life siphon) or at least 5 conditions x 5 targets if solo (25 procs = 625 health/950 health with Bloodthirst)

Excuse me for being skeptical about this, but could someone test it on the grouped up golems in the mists?
Also try siphoning from hitting more then one target with a mark.

Just use BiP to damage yourself before trying.

I haven’t personally tested how epidemic works with siphoning, but levelling with Vampiric and Vampiric Precision only I noticed that even using abilities that didnt cause any damage would grant a siphon on contact with the enemy. Whorn 4 for sure grants a siphon for every mob it applies the stun debuff too, and I’m almost certain that even non-damaging wells get it per pulse even without taking the well siphoning trait.

I would wait for actual testing to confirm it, but it would appear that the siphoning traits do treat single applications of conditions as a hit.

I would like to try a build like this:

http://bit.ly/WBOtbY

With full Emerald and some Ruby gear and Earth Runes or any upgrade which increases boon/protection duration, but I haven’t that much money to test it out in PvE.

I think that this build is capable to deal quite high amount of damage while having great survivability. I just need someone to test it out in PvE, I mean, someone who has already ton of PvE gear xP

Question: I assume it does, but when you Life Transfer in DS, does it heal your regular HP if you have the siphon on crit trait?

Abbazabah.2765:

I haven’t personally tested how epidemic works with siphoning, but levelling with Vampiric and Vampiric Precision only I noticed that even using abilities that didnt cause any damage would grant a siphon on contact with the enemy. Whorn 4 for sure grants a siphon for every mob it applies the stun debuff too, and I’m almost certain that even non-damaging wells get it per pulse even without taking the well siphoning trait.

I would wait for actual testing to confirm it, but it would appear that the siphoning traits do treat single applications of conditions as a hit.

While I do not know about applying conditions as a life-siphon (such as via epidemic), I do know that even non-damaging abilities will siphon HP; such as wells, like you mentioned.

destijl.3769:

Question: I assume it does, but when you Life Transfer in DS, does it heal your regular HP if you have the siphon on crit trait?

No. What happens is that Life Transfer in DS attempts to heal your real HP bar, but because your “real” HP bar at the moment is your Life Force, that is where all that healing goes. The only way to heal yourself with Life Transfer is to start the channel right as your LF runs out, you pop out of DS in the middle of the channel, and then all the ticks heal you.

There’s definitely some value in siphon builds for pve purposes, during the last 2 days I was running it through wvw and basically I’d go ‘full Leroy’ with one other person into a supply camp full of veterans, mob guards, get all the aggro and with some careful kiting, probably be unlucky if they got me under 50%.
(on a 0, 30,20,20,0 condition build)

However, big lumps of angry, thinking opponents… nope! They will beat you like you owe them money and this wasn’t really a surprise, it just helped offset a bit of damage that our guardians and shouty-tanks where mostly covering anyway.
I dunno if I’d recommend it there in wvw, its not insufferably bad like it used to be, but its not exactly passable either in an environment where 2500hp’s of spiked-damage is not going to be offset by a piddly 100 or so hp heal.

Life Siphon couples well with Minions. I run PTV in spvp, mainly for hotjoins, and am loving it. Minion damage is whatever, except for those exploding bone minions, they hit for a decent amount. The kicker is that whenever the minion hits, you get healed,

Bone Fiends are ranged, and provide a steady heal. Flesh Golem is sturdy, has a great Minion ability, and hits on his own for a good amount, on top of healing. Pair this with the axe, which hits at that nice skirmishing range, and you have a great source of steady heals. Plus, Rock Dog.

Here is my hotjoin build, I have yet to test it in a tournament setting.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=;08cZ;1kHkD0s3JI-K0;9;4T-JJ-19B;119-16;25wl0;2Ewk2Ewk26gd