Guild Wars 2

Andele.1306:

Skyro.3108:

I think people are confused. Life siphon skills have 2 components, the damage component and the heal component. They are 2 separate figures. The healing component of some life siphoning skills is affected by healing power, but it does not affect the damage component. So there is no offensive power gained from stacking healing power.

Bottomline is right now all life siphoning traits do not scale with healing power, which does not make any sense. Fix these traits (along with bloodthirst not affecting all life siphoning skills either), and then we can talk about more drastic changes if necessary.

Not true, just like in the original game, the prime definition of life siphon (vampiric) deals 25 additional damage and then gives you 25 hp pre hit at level 80 being a single component of transfer, Signet of the Locus works the same since it heals for a base of 936 hp at level 80 pre target, despite the additional heal component being 778 because the first 158 is actual siphoning, same with wells and on crit siphons. Ironically the Dagger Life siphon isnt a actual siphon but a 2 component spell that heals upon tick check ignoring if it deals damage while the other skills if blocked dont heal for the siphon. Currently some scale of healing power, some from power and some dont scale at all past your current level (or the fractal/other level 81+ zone bloodlust bug).

The definition of siphoning life is simply dealing damage while being healed at the same time. There is no hard and fast rule saying these 2 figures must be equal. In fact all siphoning skills have both a damage and healing component that are separate, just like I stated. If they were tied together then you would get healed for doing more damage (e.g. crits), but you don’t.

It is the 3 siphon-related necro traits that do not scale off anything (neither power nor healing power). This is what does not make any sense as healing-related traits from other classes scale just fine with healing power. The viability of siphon is mostly revolved around these skills because there really aren’t many siphoning skills in general (really only the dagger 2 skill, the others are underwater/downed skills or combos finishers and other misc sources).

Once these 3 traits are fixed to scale then you have to look at the degree of scaling. If the GW2 wiki is correct, the dagger 2 skill scales at 1/25, or .04/tick for 9 ticks = .36. The most comparable healing skill is the Ele’s cone of cold, which scales at .32. While there are various differences between the 2 skills this gives you the impression that ANet’s thought process was the scale siphoning roughly along the same degree as healing skills. So if they scale the siphon traits along the same lines as similar healing-related traits then we might actually see Necro’s spec into the blood line and gear healing power every once in a while.

I still think you are missing that the very fact that DS exists for necro is going to hamper any buffs to siphon skills. Even a small increase to healing power on the base siphon skills (on hit and on crit) could have a domino effect with high life force generation.

Currently the bunker builds for eles, thieves, and guardians have way too much passive healing. I expect they will eventually get adjusted to be less effective rather than more. With the fact we have a completely independent life bar that we can refill through skills (some better than others), be clear in understanding adjustments to make our “out of DS” sustainability are going to be very minor or non-existent.

The harm done in the beta phases where necros would stand around in DS bombing people from range with infinite DS did so much damage to the playability of the class it is hard to quantify. The last thing Anet wants is to go back to that. I would expect any buff to siphon would come with a nerf to DS in some way.

Dietzen.6127:

Softspoken.2410:

digiowl.9620:

A heal signet thief chewing omnom will outperform a necromancer using traits…

You’re comparing a dedicated healing skill to a collection of two or three traits, one of which is a Master Minor trait. (Nourishment buffs aren’t really relevant from a class comparison perspective.)

A thief with signet still heals for just as much if not more than a necro with both lifesteal on hit and crit and 50% improvement. That’s 2 traits and a minor trait that a thief can cover with just his heal signet. Ayraswag has a lifesteal vid up on youtube that shows the power of lifesteal of thieves. Seems silly that a thief can lifesteal more efficiently than a necromancer can.

I still think that sacrificing your burst heal skill completely (Hide in shadows is practically consume conditions + stealth, and withdraw is a good ‘You can’t catch me’ skill) is a more significant trade-off than 20 points in Blood Magic and 10 in Curses. Basically, if a necromancer can’t siphon enough health via their hit volume, they still have a dedicated heal to fall back on. If a thief can’t make it from their siphon, they’re stuck: it’s rarely a good idea to use the active on Signet of Malice.

Softspoken.2410:

Dietzen.6127:

Softspoken.2410:

digiowl.9620:

A heal signet thief chewing omnom will outperform a necromancer using traits…

You’re comparing a dedicated healing skill to a collection of two or three traits, one of which is a Master Minor trait. (Nourishment buffs aren’t really relevant from a class comparison perspective.)

A thief with signet still heals for just as much if not more than a necro with both lifesteal on hit and crit and 50% improvement. That’s 2 traits and a minor trait that a thief can cover with just his heal signet. Ayraswag has a lifesteal vid up on youtube that shows the power of lifesteal of thieves. Seems silly that a thief can lifesteal more efficiently than a necromancer can.

I still think that sacrificing your burst heal skill completely (Hide in shadows is practically consume conditions + stealth, and withdraw is a good ‘You can’t catch me’ skill) is a more significant trade-off than 20 points in Blood Magic and 10 in Curses. Basically, if a necromancer can’t siphon enough health via their hit volume, they still have a dedicated heal to fall back on. If a thief can’t make it from their siphon, they’re stuck: it’s rarely a good idea to use the active on Signet of Malice.

Comparing a “6” healing skill to traits isn’t really fair, it would be wiser to compare them more to Elementalist Traits, which produce major healing when you roll or go into attunements.

I’ll admit I only read half this thread. Most of it was the OP arguing with someone who didn’t seem to understand what he was saying, but there were some good suggestions here. So forgive me if I say something that has been said.

I definitely think life steal need some form of buff. As it is, they aren’t even a slightly appealing option to me – I always go for Transfusion and recuded Wells cooldown when I go into Blood Magic. If we are supposed to be the attrition class, we need some form of sustainability, and DONT give me the “Well we have DS, our second healthbar, and blah… blahh… blahh…” because at that point I just stop listening.

Yes we have extra health, but it degenerates, and because the damage it takes is percentage based, it gets burned through WAY quicker than real vitality. As in, say I die in exactly 10 hits with just my health bar, no healing or DS. In DS, with a roughly equal health bar you would only be able to take around 4 of those hits before your LF went to 0. This is because it drains by itself over time, and of course damage is always rounded. And conditions do more damage in DS. But anyway, this is another subject, back on topic.

Elementalists currently have a CRAPTON of healing. They get regen every time they blink from traits, from what, three different sources or something? On top of their weapon healing abilities, even more so if they use a staff with blast finishers, resulting in an extra 5k or so heals from their own blasts alone. All this PLUS their main heal.

Currently, we have what, two sources of regen? And ONLY if you use the proper weapons. No, I don’t use Mark of Evasion, but I wouldn’t really count that as an extra source anyways. Since we have no way to regenerate health other than our main heal, and we ARE an attrition class supposedly, we need something. Currently life stealing is laughable, it heals for peanuts. Yes you can use omnoms but so can every other profession, we shouldn’t have to rely on it.

Although I don’t think it should scale off condition damage. That means that no build other than a condition build gets healing. No, if its going to scale it needs to scale off the stats in the tree it came in, so its viable for ALL builds who go into Blood Magic. Essentially, it needs to scale of Vitality, or Healing Power, and Healing Power is the more obvious (and easier to balance) choice. Now, after saying this there is still a bit of a issue – life stealing for condition builds. Yes the sceptre auto attack hits fairly often proccing life steals, but it has nothing comparable to the daggers #2 and the axe’s #2, a multi hit way to steal life in bursts. My idea is this – a trait in the Curses line that makes Life Stealing proc on Bleeds. This may seem a little OP because of the speed they hit, but maybe there’s a 1s or .5s cooldown on how often it can proc or something.

I don’t think that making lifesteal worth taking the traits is an achievable goal.

You can have significant LF absorb
Or you can have significant lifesteal food.
Or you can have significant lifesteal runes/sigils
Or you can have significant lifesteal traits.

But you cannot have all 4. Right now, it’s 4 that’s suffering, and it will continue to suffer until at least one of the above 3 is weakened significantly, and probably not even then.

In fact, I believe the only reason we’re allowed significant LF regen is because it’s a unique class mechanic – we can’t share it with others or use it except in a tightly controlled mode.

So for these traits to ever become powerful enough to be something you’d pick on purpose, they need to do something ELSE other than what you can put on your equipment. Maybe like regen your minions, or something.

Manticore Five.9867:

I don’t think that making lifesteal worth taking the traits is an achievable goal.

You can have significant LF absorb
Or you can have significant lifesteal food.
Or you can have significant lifesteal runes/sigils
Or you can have significant lifesteal traits.

But you cannot have all 4. Right now, it’s 4 that’s suffering, and it will continue to suffer until at least one of the above 3 is weakened significantly, and probably not even then.

In fact, I believe the only reason we’re allowed significant LF regen is because it’s a unique class mechanic – we can’t share it with others or use it except in a tightly controlled mode.

So for these traits to ever become powerful enough to be something you’d pick on purpose, they need to do something ELSE other than what you can put on your equipment. Maybe like regen your minions, or something.

If Every other class can get ‘3’, and we’re one of the weaker classes…
An Elementalist can get ‘3’, then get ALL the regeneration, crazy 4-5k heals from dodging/condition removal every 10 seconds via a utility slot… ect ect, and they werent stating they were nerfing that, just there aoe damage…

Elementalists Air Scepter’s 1 ability hits ‘6’ times in 1.25 seconds… and Engineers Flamethrower’s ‘1’ hits 12 times…. (engineers have REGENERATION/Protection as well, almost forever if they spec a certain way…)

Its not fair, by your logic. (For people wanting to be vampiric necromancers.)

Also, we won’t have 30 points in death-shroud, we probably won’t have any, because you can’t heal in death shroud, so why would death shroud necromancers WANT life-stealing traits? they don’t even work in death shroud…

I’m completely at a loss as to why Elementalist healing builds keep being brought up and compared. They are complete apples and oranges. Currently the Siphon Health healing component is most comparable to the Regen boon or Theif’s Signet of Spite. Both of these can be better sources of healing but they both do 0 damage.

Necro Siphon Health mechanics are completely unique in that they do equal parts damage and healing. Any time you are trying to math out their potential power you MUST account for both. If my necro hits a target 4 times in a second, critting twice, then the traits deal 240 damage and heal me for 240 health (~40 dmg/heal each). This means their total contribution to the fight is 480 health per second that I can maintain contact with the target.

That 480 health per second costs me only 20 points in Blood Magic but it doesn’t stop there because I also gain 2000 health, 200 healing power, and a source of the Regen boon for those same 20 points. That seems like a very efficient use of trait points to me.

I have been running a Vampiric build on my necro ever since I had enough points and have always like the effect. However, prior to joining this discussion, I always thought they needing a pretty strong buff before they would become anything more than a bit of character flavor that I enjoyed. After mathing out their potential at their current power as well as buffed power, I have come to the conclusion that the Blood Magic Siphon Health traits have very high potential power. I would like to see them buffed to the point where they could be a viable focus of a build but that would require that they have a MUCH higher opportunity cost than they currently have.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

I

Necro Siphon Health mechanics are completely unique in that they do equal parts damage and healing. Any time you are trying to math out their potential power you MUST account for both. If my necro hits a target 4 times in a second, critting twice, then the traits deal 240 damage and heal me for 240 health (~40 dmg/heal each). This means their total contribution to the fight is 480 health per second that I can maintain contact with the target.

So in the PVE world I agree with your math and the point you are making. In a world where I am able to hit all 4 parts of my dagger chain continuously, yes, these traits are very strong and effective.

Flash forward to the real world, where its going to be very difficult to hit even 1-2 dagger chains in a row in PVP, where people are constantly moving, going invis, blinking, leaping, stunning you, etc. For me this is where these traits lose their appeal.

Again the discussion of sustained healing/damage vs. burst. The sustained healing aspect of siphon is weak by comparison, and the damage is weak by comparison. I think most necros would have prefered it either did twice as much damage or healed twice as much, while leaving the other component out. Then you could build around depending on that aspect.

Jack of all master of none comes to mind. Since both components are relatively weak and at best function at half strength (since the skill accounts damage/heal), it becomes difficult to maximize the potential of either side. Since the entire meta game revolved around maxing out things like damage, toughness, healing; a trait line like many of our trait lines that pushes you into a hybrid build fails to fit in with what you really need in PVP.

Sustained damage doesn’t kill anyone that can out-heal your sustained damage, and sustained healing that fails to counteract enough of the incoming damage fails to save you when you are under attack.

Healing effects should work while are you in DS. I still think that is at least part of the solution if you want to leave the traits as is. Increases sustain, though not massively, and allows the damage part to look more appealing because the sustain is better.

I try to keep all my arguments as generic as possible with regards to the type of play. There are many ways to play this game and the “real world”, as you say it, is not pvp to many people. Each person should be able to take the information you offer and apply it to the way they play the game on their own. Otherwise the discussion will always degrade into a “in my experience in this specific situation insert trait/skill here is worthless/overpowered” type of argument.

If you want my opinion, Siphon Health mechanics are very powerful and dependable in open world pve and dungeon running. In pvp, they have high POTENTIAL benefits especially in 1v1 situations but will tend to be quite weak in 10v10.

PvP (and any real world competition) has always and will always be about trying to apply your strengths properly and avoid situations that expose your weaknesses. If you can control how/when/where the game is played you can tilt the scale towards your own strengths.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

I try to keep all my arguments as generic as possible with regards to the type of play. There are many ways to play this game and the “real world”, as you say it, is not pvp to many people. Each person should be able to take the information you offer and apply it to the way they play the game on their own. Otherwise the discussion will always degrade into a “in my experience in this specific situation insert trait/skill here is worthless/overpowered” type of argument.

If you want my opinion, Siphon Health mechanics are very powerful and dependable in open world pve and dungeon running. In pvp, they have high POTENTIAL benefits especially in 1v1 situations but will tend to be quite weak in 10v10.

PvP (and any real world competition) has always and will always be about trying to apply your strengths properly and avoid situations that expose your weaknesses. If you can control how/when/where the game is played you can tilt the scale towards your own strengths.

Have fun meleeing anything hard, in Fractals Necromancers and most players are usually standing away from the mob in PvE as well. (Yes, in the average CoF run, Dagger/X is pretty powerful, but that content is so easy I can run pretty much anything and be about the same.)

Daggers may hit fast, but they are one of our weakest weapon sets for damage. (Plus, trying to balance an entire mechanic around one weapon set is a pretty dumb idea as well.)

Life Siphon does not critical, and it ignores armor. (as i’ve said many many times.)

" If my necro hits a target 4 times in a second, critting twice, then the traits deal 240 damage and heal me for 240 health (~40 dmg/heal each). This means their total contribution to the fight is 480 health per second that I can maintain contact with the target."

That is impossible, Life Siphons don’t critical and they ignore armor, like condition damage does, infact my bleeds tick for 124 every second per bleed, so basicly the lifestealing damage would be almost as much as a bleed stack if you did it like such.

But also, YES it is kind of funny if you actually use Dagger/X, but a Dagger/X necromancer is very weak compared to others, I absolutely trash them in both PvE/PvP.

Daecollo.9578:

Have fun meleeing anything hard, in Fractals Necromancers and most players are usually standing away from the mob in PvE as well. (Yes, in the average CoF run, Dagger/X is pretty powerful, but that content is so easy I can run pretty much anything and be about the same.)

Daggers may hit fast, but they are one of our weakest weapon sets for damage. (Plus, trying to balance an entire mechanic around one weapon set is a pretty dumb idea as well.)

Life Siphon does not critical, and it ignores armor. (as i’ve said many many times.)

" If my necro hits a target 4 times in a second, critting twice, then the traits deal 240 damage and heal me for 240 health (~40 dmg/heal each). This means their total contribution to the fight is 480 health per second that I can maintain contact with the target."

That is impossible, Life Siphons don’t critical and they ignore armor, like condition damage does, infact my bleeds tick for 124 every second per bleed, so basicly the lifestealing damage would be almost as much as a bleed stack if you did it like such.

But also, YES it is kind of funny if you actually use Dagger/X, but a Dagger/X necromancer is very weak compared to others, I absolutely trash them in both PvE/PvP.

Dagger and Axe are both very good weapons for producing high numbers of hits. I’ve said this before.

I have NEVER said that Siphon Health mechanics crit. I’ve even told you before that I’ve never said that. If you take the Vampiric Precision trait you gain a 51 damage/healing siphon when you crit on top of the 38 damage/heal siphon you get for connecting with the attack.

Dagger with high power/crit/crit damage gear is the highest “perfect world” damage a necro can attain. As far as I know, the same is true for every class in the game. The highest direct damage Weapon1 that a class has + Berzerker gear = highest dps. The reason for this is that it is a 3 stat synergy. Each stat (power/precision/crit damage) multiplies the value of the other 2. This damage also scales with vulnerability which easily outweighs the damage reduction of armor in most group circumstances.

Conditions only have two stats, condition damage and condition duration. They do not scale with vulnerability but are not mitigated by armor. You cannot spend every stat point you have making your conditions do more damage like you can with direct damage. The advantage of conditions is that you do not have to maintain contact with the target to continue to do damage at that they are more consistent.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

Daecollo.9578:

Have fun meleeing anything hard, in Fractals Necromancers and most players are usually standing away from the mob in PvE as well. (Yes, in the average CoF run, Dagger/X is pretty powerful, but that content is so easy I can run pretty much anything and be about the same.)

Daggers may hit fast, but they are one of our weakest weapon sets for damage. (Plus, trying to balance an entire mechanic around one weapon set is a pretty dumb idea as well.)

Life Siphon does not critical, and it ignores armor. (as i’ve said many many times.)

" If my necro hits a target 4 times in a second, critting twice, then the traits deal 240 damage and heal me for 240 health (~40 dmg/heal each). This means their total contribution to the fight is 480 health per second that I can maintain contact with the target."

That is impossible, Life Siphons don’t critical and they ignore armor, like condition damage does, infact my bleeds tick for 124 every second per bleed, so basicly the lifestealing damage would be almost as much as a bleed stack if you did it like such.

But also, YES it is kind of funny if you actually use Dagger/X, but a Dagger/X necromancer is very weak compared to others, I absolutely trash them in both PvE/PvP.

Dagger and Axe are both very good weapons for producing high numbers of hits. I’ve said this before.

I have NEVER said that Siphon Health mechanics crit. I’ve even told you before that I’ve never said that. If you take the Vampiric Precision trait you gain a 51 damage/healing siphon when you crit on top of the 38 damage/heal siphon you get for connecting with the attack.

Dagger with high power/crit/crit damage gear is the highest “perfect world” damage a necro can attain. As far as I know, the same is true for every class in the game. The highest direct damage Weapon1 that a class has + Berzerker gear = highest dps. The reason for this is that it is a 3 stat synergy. Each stat (power/precision/crit damage) multiplies the value of the other 2. This damage also scales with vulnerability which easily outweighs the damage reduction of armor in most group circumstances.

Conditions only have two stats, condition damage and condition duration. They do not scale with vulnerability but are not mitigated by armor. You cannot spend every stat point you have making your conditions do more damage like you can with direct damage. The advantage of conditions is that you do not have to maintain contact with the target to continue to do damage at that they are more consistent.

You can spend every stat you have increasing your damage, but in the end you can’t damage anything if your dead.

Melee Necromancers who wear berserker’s, with no mobility and no dodging, are usually the first things to die in pvp/pve. (Even with Knight’s Gear.)

Your damage/survivability as a Dagger/X Necromancer are still nothing compared to a Warriors.

Yeah I tend to think of zerker melee necros as a mixed up trait setup. It can work in PVE if you are very good at avoidance, but the payoff is going to be signficantly less than a zerker warrior/mesmer/thief.

Knights melee necro isn’t so bad, having run it before, but again it is sub-par damage to the other classes equivalent. I will contend that a condition necro deals more condition damage over time than anyone, even a ranger, in PVE. We can’t put as many bleeds on as quickly, but we can stack up more for longer. They do better with conditions in PVP because they stack faster, and have more avoidance/target breaks.

But no argument on conditions having only two offensive stats. They certainly will always be weaker because there is no critical hits on conditions, or penetration for harder hitting conditions.

What is the actual argument about anymore? That a necro needs better “vampiric” traits because he doesn’t do enough melee damage/have enough melee survivability?

What are the actual parameters? Is this only true for “vampiric” specced necros? All dagger specs? I feel like a PTV D/F MM might disagree. Or what about a chilling well spec?

It seems like a circular argument to “point counter point” different builds and instances where we might not excel. You’ll always find point of failure.

Melee necros are viable but maybe not universally so. Going through and highlighting all those places and using them to call the spec trash is ignoring the successful cases. How many builds are solid in all instances? Would you call those builds balanced?

I feel like you’d get much more traction with the devs using Cayl’s general approach:

We want a Vampire build, where life steals for an integral part of the spec, not a frosting as I feel they are now. There is enough synergy there between the available traits and skills that nearly every necro has made that connection. All we want is for it to be a more of a encompassing mechanic in the build. If that means more effective than so be it. The consistent volume of posts on this forum addressing this issue should be indication enough that its something desired by great deal of players and therefore worth the effort to look into.

Well for me personally it’s not really an argument than it is a desire to see scaling on vampiric traits to give the necro a bunker build/stat optimization option built around healing power, something they currently do not have. It’s pretty much universal opinion that the Blood trait line is the most underpowered and rarely spec’ed traits lines for the necro. Siphoning in general is also one of the necro’s thematic calling cards, and it would be nice to see a build revolved around it.

I also feel the weakness of the blood line is also tied to other issues with the necro, such as the much-maligned axe MH. I think the axe was designed/tailor-made for minionmancers and bunker builds, both builds that currently aren’t very viable in high level tPvP. If the blood line is adjusted to open up new build possibilities I’m pretty sure we’ll start to see more and more necros using axe.

Terrordoll.4652:

What is the actual argument about anymore? That a necro needs better “vampiric” traits because he doesn’t do enough melee damage/have enough melee survivability?

What are the actual parameters? Is this only true for “vampiric” specced necros? All dagger specs? I feel like a PTV D/F MM might disagree. Or what about a chilling well spec?

It seems like a circular argument to “point counter point” different builds and instances where we might not excel. You’ll always find point of failure.

Melee necros are viable but maybe not universally so. Going through and highlighting all those places and using them to call the spec trash is ignoring the successful cases. How many builds are solid in all instances? Would you call those builds balanced?

I feel like you’d get much more traction with the devs using Cayl’s general approach:

We want a Vampire build, where life steals for an integral part of the spec, not a frosting as I feel they are now. There is enough synergy there between the available traits and skills that nearly every necro has made that connection. All we want is for it to be a more of a encompassing mechanic in the build. If that means more effective than so be it. The consistent volume of posts on this forum addressing this issue should be indication enough that its something desired by great deal of players and therefore worth the effort to look into.

I think I might be in love with you.

I personally have always been and will always be in love with life steal style mechanics. I played shadowpriest for years in WoW and Disciple of Kaine (possibly my favorite class ever) in Warhammer Online. If there is a life stealing mechanic in your game you can be sure I will try to specialize in it. I’ve been doing it long enough to know that it runs along a razors edge of balance though. Especially if it scales off of one stat for both damage and healing.

To go back to the original point of the post: I would love to see an improvement in our options for Siphoning Health from our enemies, but I do think a direct numbers increase on our current options would be problematic at best largely because the 15-20 points required for them are too small an investment for that kind of power.

My off the cuff suggestion would be to bake the current Bloodlust trait into the base values for Siphons. This would allow people to continue to commit 15-20 points as a PART of their build without it being a focus. Then buff/change the GrandMaster Blood Magic vampiric trait to increase the size of the Siphons by 100% or make them heal allies as well or even some combination of the two (ie 30% stronger and heal up to 5 nearby allies). Another thought for the GrandMaster trait would be to make the Siphon effect stack up to 3-5 stacks (ie. 40 dmg/heal on the first hit, 80 on the second, 120 on the third, etc.) and drop off if the target is not hit for 2-5 seconds.

The 30 point traits can be much stronger and playstyle defining because they limit how deep you can get into other trees so much more.

I just wanted to ask something, since heals are so small.

Does life stealing atm even do damage?

Daecollo.9578:

I just wanted to ask something, since heals are so small.

Does life stealing atm even do damage?

The traited siphons do the same amount of damage that they heal you for.

There was a funny bug in the Cliffside fractal for a while where a necro with vampiric could just autoattack the seals to destroy them, cause they would still take the vampiric damage. You didn’t have to do anything with the hammer to get through.

Id rather siphoning be affected by Healing Power. My necro relies on toughness, Healing power, and some Power. I run Dagger/Horn for fast damage and immobilizing. Staff for long range kiting. Wells abundant. It isn’t suited for wvw, but I’m unbreakable in pve, and an excellent support in spvp. I focus on dropping wells to keep my teammates alive and the enemy rattled.. In pve, I use a rune of healing offhand and mainhand varies depending on the situation. I’m mostly concerned with not dying and losing money. I kill rather quickly with daggers and never worry about the damage i take at close range because every hit restores a tiny bit of hp. As for pve, I run bloodlust, because more dmg= more points.

I’m pleased with the life siphoning as it is. I would just prefer if healing power raised the ammount of hp gained per % of dmg dealt.

lettucemode.3789:

Daecollo.9578:

I just wanted to ask something, since heals are so small.

Does life stealing atm even do damage?

The traited siphons do the same amount of damage that they heal you for.

There was a funny bug in the Cliffside fractal for a while where a necro with vampiric could just autoattack the seals to destroy them, cause they would still take the vampiric damage. You didn’t have to do anything with the hammer to get through.

Actually wells can still do damage to objects that can only be damaged by special skills, just as staff auto attack can from 1500 range for Jade Maw. Vampiric damage seems (just as in the original) ignore all forms of protection.

One thing to keep in mind is Bloodthirst doesn’t affect the damage Life Siphoning does, only the healing portion is increased.

Anyway, I was thinking about Life Siphoning and came up with the following ideas:

Damage to scale off either Power or Condition Damage (Which ever gives the highest boost will be used)

0.5 * Level + (0.03 * Power)

0.5 * Level + (0.035 * Condition Damage)

While the heal scales off Healing Power:

0.5 * Level + (0.04 * Healing Power)

This would mean that with full Power set up (Full Soldiers + Soldiers Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Sharpening Stone + 25 Bloodlust stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 30/0/25/15/0) it would deal up to 158 damage per proc.

With a full Condition damage set up (Full Carrion/Rabid + Rabid Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Tuning Crystal + 25 Corruption stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 0/30/0/15/0) it would deal up to 141 damage per proc.

With full Clerics gear (Clerics Crests on weapons + Food) it would heal up to 101 health per proc.

I’d also change the traits slightly to reflect the higher damage/healing it can do:

Vampiric being changed to a Master Major Trait requiring a Major slot and at least 20 points into the Blood Magic Trait Line.

Something like Mark of Evasion replacing Vampiric as the Master Minor Trait (Most other classes get a small effect on dodge as a Minor trait, I think a slightly lesser Mark of Blood with a 10 second cooldown would qualify)

Bloodthirst becoming “Increases the healing provided by Siphon Health by 50% when you’re under 25% health”

Vampiric Precision becoming Vampiric Embrace “10% Chance to Siphon Life when hit. 2 second cooldown”

This should mean that Life Siphoning would be a viable way to go in a build without becoming too powerful (Can only gear for either the Damage or the healing, not able to max both) as it would at best do about 350 DPS (Full PVT exotics on Dagger #1) sustained but wouldn’t heal very much, 150 HPS in the same gear (Regen in the same gear does 170 HPS) this is provided you can stay in melee long enough to keep getting the full effect of Dagger autos off, anything less dramatically reduces the DPS and HPS it provides.

Taril.8619:

One thing to keep in mind is Bloodthirst doesn’t affect the damage Life Siphoning does, only the healing portion is increased.

Anyway, I was thinking about Life Siphoning and came up with the following ideas:

Damage to scale off either Power or Condition Damage (Which ever gives the highest boost will be used)

0.5 * Level + (0.03 * Power)

0.5 * Level + (0.035 * Condition Damage)

While the heal scales off Healing Power:

0.5 * Level + (0.04 * Healing Power)

This would mean that with full Power set up (Full Soldiers + Soldiers Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Sharpening Stone + 25 Bloodlust stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 30/0/25/15/0) it would deal up to 158 damage per proc.

With a full Condition damage set up (Full Carrion/Rabid + Rabid Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Tuning Crystal + 25 Corruption stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 0/30/0/15/0) it would deal up to 141 damage per proc.

With full Clerics gear (Clerics Crests on weapons + Food) it would heal up to 101 health per proc.

I’d also change the traits slightly to reflect the higher damage/healing it can do:

Vampiric being changed to a Master Major Trait requiring a Major slot and at least 20 points into the Blood Magic Trait Line.

Something like Mark of Evasion replacing Vampiric as the Master Minor Trait (Most other classes get a small effect on dodge as a Minor trait, I think a slightly lesser Mark of Blood with a 10 second cooldown would qualify)

Bloodthirst becoming “Increases the healing provided by Siphon Health by 50% when you’re under 25% health”

Vampiric Precision becoming Vampiric Embrace “10% Chance to Siphon Life when hit. 2 second cooldown”

This should mean that Life Siphoning would be a viable way to go in a build without becoming too powerful (Can only gear for either the Damage or the healing, not able to max both) as it would at best do about 350 DPS (Full PVT exotics on Dagger #1) sustained but wouldn’t heal very much, 150 HPS in the same gear (Regen in the same gear does 170 HPS) this is provided you can stay in melee long enough to keep getting the full effect of Dagger autos off, anything less dramatically reduces the DPS and HPS it provides.

Is that a troll? Those trait suggestions are worthless.

50% under 25% Health? …
2 second internal cooldown, 10% chance “on hit?” – Maybe if it healed for 5k.

Mark of Evasion (The trait.) already out heals and out damaged having all three traits combined….

Daecollo.9578:

Is that a troll? Those trait suggestions are worthless.

50% under 25% Health? …
2 second internal cooldown, 10% chance “on hit?” – Maybe if it healed for 5k.

Mark of Evasion (The trait.) already out heals and out damaged having all three traits combined….

So… Basically you want to be able to do 800 DPS and 900 HPS just from Life Siphon effects (Which would be obtainable with my suggested values for the damage and healing done with the current traits)

Which makes me the troll?

10% chance when hit (Will basically proc constantly when getting hit from multiple sources and will proc often when fighting players) with 2 second cooldown causing up to 75 DPS or 50 HPS (75 when buffed with Bloodthirst)

50% when under 25% health – It’s common for Necro’s to have 25k health with points into Blood Magic you’ll have at least 20k meaning that for the last 5-6k health you’ll have 50% extra HPS from Life Siphon effects which with the suggested values would increase HPS buy up to 150 HPS (This trait alone would provide essentially Regeneration when under 25% health, that stacks with the Regeneration Boon)

Mark of Evasion provides 76 DPS with no Condition Damage/Duration. With a full condition damage and duration build it would do 137 DPS.
With no Boon Duration/Healing power it does 67 HPS, with full Boon Duration and Healing Power it provides 322 HPS.

Mark of Evasion will not do more damage than my suggested Life Siphon, it can provide more HPS (Provided you’ve invested enough into Boon Duration, without the 100% it’s HPS is dramatically reduced) but at the same time it won’t do the same damage and it’s healing doesn’t stack with Regeneration since it is Regeneration.

Taril.8619:

One thing to keep in mind is Bloodthirst doesn’t affect the damage Life Siphoning does, only the healing portion is increased.

Anyway, I was thinking about Life Siphoning and came up with the following ideas:

Damage to scale off either Power or Condition Damage (Which ever gives the highest boost will be used)

0.5 * Level + (0.03 * Power)

0.5 * Level + (0.035 * Condition Damage)

While the heal scales off Healing Power:

0.5 * Level + (0.04 * Healing Power)

This would mean that with full Power set up (Full Soldiers + Soldiers Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Sharpening Stone + 25 Bloodlust stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 30/0/25/15/0) it would deal up to 158 damage per proc.

With a full Condition damage set up (Full Carrion/Rabid + Rabid Crests on weapons + Ascended + Food + Tuning Crystal + 25 Corruption stacks + 25 stacks of Might + 0/30/0/15/0) it would deal up to 141 damage per proc.

With full Clerics gear (Clerics Crests on weapons + Food) it would heal up to 101 health per proc.

I’d also change the traits slightly to reflect the higher damage/healing it can do:

Vampiric being changed to a Master Major Trait requiring a Major slot and at least 20 points into the Blood Magic Trait Line.

Something like Mark of Evasion replacing Vampiric as the Master Minor Trait (Most other classes get a small effect on dodge as a Minor trait, I think a slightly lesser Mark of Blood with a 10 second cooldown would qualify)

Bloodthirst becoming “Increases the healing provided by Siphon Health by 50% when you’re under 25% health”

Vampiric Precision becoming Vampiric Embrace “10% Chance to Siphon Life when hit. 2 second cooldown”

This should mean that Life Siphoning would be a viable way to go in a build without becoming too powerful (Can only gear for either the Damage or the healing, not able to max both) as it would at best do about 350 DPS (Full PVT exotics on Dagger #1) sustained but wouldn’t heal very much, 150 HPS in the same gear (Regen in the same gear does 170 HPS) this is provided you can stay in melee long enough to keep getting the full effect of Dagger autos off, anything less dramatically reduces the DPS and HPS it provides.

Bloodthirst does affect the damage.

Although, as you stated, you couldn’t max both healing and damage, you seem to have forgotten that Cleric’s has power and Shaman’s/Apothecary’s have healing power and condition damage. If you gave a scepter/staff conditionmancer that much extra healing and damage he would be a monster. It could be a viable bunker build with a good damage out put.

Overall I think these are decent suggestions (don’t like the “chance when hit” bit personally), but you have still left all of the vampiric traits with any real power in the first 20 points. This means it can be a secondary function of nearly any build. I still maintain that almost any buff to vampiric traits must require 30 points in Blood Magic.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

Bloodthirst does affect the damage.

So it does… I guess that’s what happens when you don’t sleep.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

Although, as you stated, you couldn’t max both healing and damage, you seem to have forgotten that Cleric’s has power and Shaman’s/Apothecary’s have healing power and condition damage. If you gave a scepter/staff conditionmancer that much extra healing and damage he would be a monster. It could be a viable bunker build with a good damage out put.

To be perfectly honest I’d not actually looked at Shaman’s/Apothecary’s gear but just checked the stats to see the highest healing you could get whilst still having condition damage (Essentially full Apothecary + Ascended and food):

1297 Condition Damage = 45 damage siphons, up to 85 damage with 25 Corruption stacks and 25 Might stacks.
1288 Healing Power = 51 healing from siphons

Bearing in mind that Condition based builds will not leverage Axe or Main Hand Dagger to achieve the 3 attacks per second and will tend to use Scepter (2 attacks per second) or Staff (1.25 attacks per second) making them do 90/56 DPS and 101/64 HPS rather than the really high stuff I mentioned earlier (Which is going complete max possible using those stats and still going at least 15 points into Blood Magic)

Cayl Bourne.8073:

Overall I think these are decent suggestions (don’t like the “chance when hit” bit personally), but you have still left all of the vampiric traits with any real power in the first 20 points. This means it can be a secondary function of nearly any build. I still maintain that almost any buff to vampiric traits must require 30 points in Blood Magic.

It’s possible that Traits could be shifted around (I only put in the “Chance when hit” because: It’s thematic for the profession to be harmful to things around them and it’s thematic for the trait line to focus around staying alive through being hit (I.E. Being tanky increases tankiness)

Maybe have the Vampiric trait becoming a Grand Master Major trait, making Vampiric Rituals a Master Major trait thus requiring a 30 point investment in order to access the strongest Life Siphoning. It shouldn’t affect Well Bombing builds too much since unless they go 30 points they’d have to decide between the 20% cooldown reduction or the Life Siphon from Wells (Though the healing they could get from 4 wells… Though only for 5 seconds/45-60)

Taril.8619:

Daecollo.9578:

Is that a troll? Those trait suggestions are worthless.

50% under 25% Health? …
2 second internal cooldown, 10% chance “on hit?” – Maybe if it healed for 5k.

Mark of Evasion (The trait.) already out heals and out damaged having all three traits combined….

So… Basically you want to be able to do 800 DPS and 900 HPS just from Life Siphon effects (Which would be obtainable with my suggested values for the damage and healing done with the current traits)

Which makes me the troll?

10% chance when hit (Will basically proc constantly when getting hit from multiple sources and will proc often when fighting players) with 2 second cooldown causing up to 75 DPS or 50 HPS (75 when buffed with Bloodthirst)

50% when under 25% health – It’s common for Necro’s to have 25k health with points into Blood Magic you’ll have at least 20k meaning that for the last 5-6k health you’ll have 50% extra HPS from Life Siphon effects which with the suggested values would increase HPS buy up to 150 HPS (This trait alone would provide essentially Regeneration when under 25% health, that stacks with the Regeneration Boon)

Mark of Evasion provides 76 DPS with no Condition Damage/Duration. With a full condition damage and duration build it would do 137 DPS.
With no Boon Duration/Healing power it does 67 HPS, with full Boon Duration and Healing Power it provides 322 HPS.

Mark of Evasion will not do more damage than my suggested Life Siphon, it can provide more HPS (Provided you’ve invested enough into Boon Duration, without the 100% it’s HPS is dramatically reduced) but at the same time it won’t do the same damage and it’s healing doesn’t stack with Regeneration since it is Regeneration.

Maybe you could get that with burst attacks, but DPS / HPS is going a little to far, don’t you think?

Daecollo.9578:

Maybe you could get that with burst attacks, but DPS / HPS is going a little to far, don’t you think?

Dagger #1 = 3 attacks per second = 3x 150 = 450 DPS

With Vampiric Precision a crit = 2x 150

Dagger #1 with a decent crit chance = up to 6x 150 = 900 DPS

Taril.8619:

Daecollo.9578:

Maybe you could get that with burst attacks, but DPS / HPS is going a little to far, don’t you think?

Dagger #1 = 3 attacks per second = 3x 150 = 450 DPS

With Vampiric Precision a crit = 2x 150

Dagger #1 with a decent crit chance = up to 6x 150 = 900 DPS

So, that would bring Dagger Autoattack, which only hits ‘1’ target, almost up to Warrior’s Axe autoattack, which would still do a lot more damage (by a ton.) and hit up to 3-5 targets?

Now, what about an autoattack that every necromancer uses, like staff?

The full chain of dagger 1 averages out to around 1.5 attacks per second, not three. I’m not aware of a quick way to reset the attack chain that won’t make you lose damage overall, so I think you have to take the full chain into account.

The axe attacks slightly more quickly (1.7 attacks per second?) on its auto-attack, but still nowhere near three attacks per second.

Taril.8619:

1297 Condition Damage = 45 damage siphons, up to 85 damage with 25 Corruption stacks and 25 Might stacks.
1288 Healing Power = 51 healing from siphons

Bearing in mind that Condition based builds will not leverage Axe or Main Hand Dagger to achieve the 3 attacks per second and will tend to use Scepter (2 attacks per second) or Staff (1.25 attacks per second) making them do 90/56 DPS and 101/64 HPS rather than the really high stuff I mentioned earlier (Which is going complete max possible using those stats and still going at least 15 points into Blood Magic)

Currently Scepter with no stats other than 50% crit with achieve: 38*2 + 51 = 127 dps/hps. I guess I didn’t look thoroughly enough at your number because you have actually suggested a pretty big nerf. If you focused on the damage or healing component you could get a better result but if you tried to hybridize for max siphoning you would come out worse.

Such a tough thing to balance. Maybe a system that changed the value of the siphon based on the time it took to complete the attack could work. Then you could set a value, eg. 250dps/hps, and make it consistent for all weapons.

Like every other suggestion this forum have its all about the same old.

You cant because Death Shroud.

“If they buffed that it would OP………….because Death Shroud”

Always great suggestions on the forum but untill there is a huge change to our class mechanic most things that would make the class interesting and have many viable builds aint gonna happen.

Softspoken.2410:

The full chain of dagger 1 averages out to around 1.5 attacks per second, not three. I’m not aware of a quick way to reset the attack chain that won’t make you lose damage overall, so I think you have to take the full chain into account.

The axe attacks slightly more quickly (1.7 attacks per second?) on its auto-attack, but still nowhere near three attacks per second.

Each part takes 0.5 seconds to do.

0 seconds -
0.5 seconds Dagger #1 (2 attacks)
1 seconds Dagger #2 (1 attack)
1.5 seconds Dagger #3 (1 attack)
2 seconds Dagger #1 (2 attacks)
2.5 seconds Dagger #2 (1 attack)
3 seconds Dagger #3 (1 attack)

8 Attacks in 3 seconds which is a full chain in terms of attacks per second which ends up being 2.7 attacks per second (~3, other abilities will interrupt the chain increasing the number of Dagger #1 attacks and such)

Also could account for Warhorn #5 causing at least 1 attack per second.

Axe #1 hits twice in 0.75 seconds = 2.7 attacks per second.

Softspoken.2410:

The full chain of dagger 1 averages out to around 1.5 attacks per second, not three. I’m not aware of a quick way to reset the attack chain that won’t make you lose damage overall, so I think you have to take the full chain into account.

The axe attacks slightly more quickly (1.7 attacks per second?) on its auto-attack, but still nowhere near three attacks per second.

Thank you.

I swear some idiot posted you could get 3 attacks per second with dagger, and then everyone just assumed thats how it works. I appreciate someone posting the actual attack rate.

EDIT: I see I made it just after another post that is looking at tooltips at trying to assume that is how it works. Use a stop watch, it doesn’t go that quickly.

EDIT2: Just to help out here I hopped in to give it a quick test. Use blood is power and start your dagger attacks on a dummy. See how many chains you can get off before the cooldown comes up (30 seconds later). I got 15 chains off, being generous with the timing. That would be at best 2 attacks per second.

Taril.8619:

Softspoken.2410:

The full chain of dagger 1 averages out to around 1.5 attacks per second, not three. I’m not aware of a quick way to reset the attack chain that won’t make you lose damage overall, so I think you have to take the full chain into account.

The axe attacks slightly more quickly (1.7 attacks per second?) on its auto-attack, but still nowhere near three attacks per second.

Each part takes 0.5 seconds to do.

0 seconds -
0.5 seconds Dagger #1 (2 attacks)
1 seconds Dagger #2 (1 attack)
1.5 seconds Dagger #3 (1 attack)
2 seconds Dagger #1 (2 attacks)
2.5 seconds Dagger #2 (1 attack)
3 seconds Dagger #3 (1 attack)

8 Attacks in 3 seconds which is a full chain in terms of attacks per second which ends up being 2.7 attacks per second (~3, other abilities will interrupt the chain increasing the number of Dagger #1 attacks and such)

Also could account for Warhorn #5 causing at least 1 attack per second.

Axe #1 hits twice in 0.75 seconds = 2.7 attacks per second.

I challenge you to go and time the attacks yourself in game. The listed time on most attacks is the wind-up before the skill starts, but doesn’t include the time for the actual attack animation or aftercast delay (wind-down.) So when repeatedly using a skill, the attack speed is much less than implied by the casting time on the tooltip.

I won’t claim my numbers are exact, they could be off by easily a third of a second either way, (or more!) but you won’t get 3 attacks per second from dagger alone. Unless you’ve got quickness, in which case don’t forget to thank the mesmer.

Also, adding a warhorn is a clever way to rack up hits/second, but is somewhat unrelated to my post.

I am sorry, but dagger is probably the weakest weapon set in the necromancers arsenal, yes its fast, but its power and damage is single target and lousy, and I kind of like discussing how “OP” it could be when you discuss it with my idea.

However, in a real situation, a necromancer does not have nearly the tools to close gaps on people like other classes, so even if you theory-craft it all you want, it will still be the worst weapon set, even with these changes I suggested.

And also, no trait should be made weaker because of one weapon set, that is just blasphemy itself, especially from a balance prospective, you must make a trait that is good with all sets, and maybe a little better with one, yes it can be powerful with dagger, but who cares? So the dagger may be able to finally hurt someone now and put on some kind of pressure? Woot!

Daecollo.9578:

I am sorry, but dagger is probably the weakest weapon set in the necromancers arsenal, yes its fast, but its power and damage is single target and lousy, and I kind of like discussing how “OP” it could be when you discuss it with my idea.

Dagger #1:
953 * Power * 0.6 / Armour = Damage for both hits.
953 * Power * 0.4 / Armour
953 * Power * 0.8 / Armour

Axe #1:
953 * Power * 0.47 / Armour = Damage for both hits.

Staff #1:
1048 * Power * 0.45 / Armour

Scepter #1:
953 * Power * 0.22
953 * Power * 0.32

Death Shroud #1:
1000 * Power * 0.9 / Armour

So, with a decent amount of Power the DPS of these (Excluding Vulnerability/Might/Conditions caused) on an average target are:

Dagger #1:
953 * 2400 * 0.6 / 1800 = 762
953 * 2400 * 0.4 / 1800 = 508
953 * 2400 * 0.8 / 1800 = 1016
This chain takes 2 seconds to complete so it ends up being 2286 / 2 = 1143 DPS

Axe #1:
953 * 2400 * 0.47 / 1800 = 597
Axe attacks approximately 1.7 times per second so it ends up being 298.5 * 1.7 = 507 DPS

Staff #1:
1048 * 2400 * 0.45 / 1800 = 628
This attacks approximately 0.75 times per second so it ends up being 628 * 0.75 = 471 DPS

Scepter #1:
953 * 2400 * 0.22 / 1800 = 279
953 * 2400 * 0.32 / 1800 = 406
It takes 2.5 seconds to complete the chain for this so that would be 984 / 2.5 = 385 DPS

Death Shroud #1:
1000 * 2400 * 0.9 / 1800 = 1200
This attacks approximately 0.6 times per second so it ends up being 1200 * 0.6 = 720 DPS

These attack rates where not calculated, they were tested in game and timed.

These results don’t factor in Critical Hits but Daggers high attack rate would increase the chances of dealing a critical hit per chain thus increasing the potential damage gained from crit.

Rennoko.5731:

I swear some idiot posted you could get 3 attacks per second with dagger, and then everyone just assumed thats how it works. I appreciate someone posting the actual attack rate.

I’m not sure I deserved that.

I haven’t gotten out a stopwatch. But if you know anything about hand timing track and field races, you know that a stopwatch is probably a worse solution than the tooltips for such a short timespan. Or too put it in your words “some idiot with a stopwatch timed it at X and everyone assumed it was right.”

I guarantee that the first 3 attacks go off in the first second. Was it a bad asumption (*spelled incorrectly so that the filter wouldn’t snag it) that it stay at nearly that rate? Yes. But I’m not even close to ready to believe 1.5 attacks per second either.

Tonight after work I will go and try your 30 second test and see what I get. Using the combat log to see exactly how many attacks I land. And “being generous” with the timing would be a proper reaction unless you know exactly what the wind down animation time is after casting Blood is Power.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

Rennoko.5731:

I swear some idiot posted you could get 3 attacks per second with dagger, and then everyone just assumed thats how it works. I appreciate someone posting the actual attack rate.

I’m not sure I deserved that.

I haven’t gotten out a stopwatch. But if you know anything about hand timing track and field races, you know that a stopwatch is probably a worse solution than the tooltips for such a short timespan. Or too put it in your words “some idiot with a stopwatch timed it at X and everyone assumed it was right.”

I guarantee that the first 3 attacks go off in the first second. Was it a bad asumption (*spelled incorrectly so that the filter wouldn’t snag it) that it stay at nearly that rate? Yes. But I’m not even close to ready to believe 1.5 attacks per second either.

Tonight after work I will go and try your 30 second test and see what I get. Using the combat log to see exactly how many attacks I land. And “being generous” with the timing would be a proper reaction unless you know exactly what the wind down animation time is after casting Blood is Power.

To be fair, the comment wasn’t directed at you (the idiot comment that is), it was directed at people who make claims without testing them. Not a personal shot at you, I actually posted it while you were posting, hence the edit. Everyone does this on occasion, including myself, and just be ready to post a retraction (I am always ready to be proved wrong).

I am not always the most polite when I post, especially when incorrectly quoted numbers are painting a more attractive setting than is true. So for that I apologize.

The stopwatch comment was tounge-in-cheek. I don’t even own a stopwatch anymore, and doubt I will get one until my son decides he wants to start running track in 10 years. The in game timer is going to set the standard since an in game second would be in game damage per second.

I didn’t need to use BIP and then immediately attack, I could have used something with a longer than 30 second cooldown and counted from that point. Assuming the cooldown of the BIP after cast is roughly half a second, and my last (15th) dagger chain ended after BIP was already on cooldown, it is a pretty safe assumption. If I had been careful, I would have used cloud, waited for 30 seconds to be left and started then. It’s an inexact science, but the point was that if the chain is approx. 2 attacks per second, and the claim is 3 attacks per second, that makes the assumption our damage (or healing in this case) is 50% higher than it actually is. That is no small gap.

Any claims that overstate the power for the necro class incorrectly I oppose complete, as many have pointed out, because they give the false impression that certain abilities work better than they do, and are thereby “okay” in the balancing world.

Alright, finally got a chance to do a bit of testing (“I wish the real world would just stop hassling me” ~Matchbox Twenty).

Sadly, I was only able to complete about 60 attacks in 30 seconds (just as Rennoko did). I’m not sad that I was wrong, just sad that the tooltips are so startlingly off base.

Rennoko, whether or not your “idiot” comment was directed at me, it was out of line. It is not logically irrational to assume that the game designers have included accurate information into their own tooltips. Therefore, people are not idiots for not going out and devising a test for everything, not to mention that calling someone an idiot will ALWAYS be detrimental to the community.

So at 2 attacks per second from Dagger1 what are we left with. You can still achieve a pretty consistent 3 attacks per second rotating Locust Swarm and wells or bursts of up to 5 attacks per second for ~5 seconds by utilizing all of these at once. This is not nearly as impressive as my previous posts would have lead you to believe and I apologize for that.

I have run several different builds (power, condi, minion) over the past week that included Bloodthirst, Vampiric, and Vampiric Precision with many different weapon set ups in an effort to get a good feel for the usefulness of the traits. Some of the intent of my earlier posts was to show that certain weapon sets get alot more milage from the traits and that point is definitely still valid. When using my Axe/Focus + Dagger/Warhorn power build I find that the traits make a meaningful difference in my pve sustain and that they can even greatly aid in recovering from burst damage or missed dodges. Using any other weapon sets I did not feel that I could ever “recover” until my heal came back off cooldown. The point being: when considering ways to change Vampiric traits, make sure to take into account the very different rates of fire that our weapons have.

OP has a poor solution but he does have a valid point. Its not worth traiting into blood magic for sustain as it pretty much provides enough sustain to counter act 1 stack of bleed and thats it. And it not being affected by healing power is a massive flaw and incredibly unfair. Also i find the dagger number 2 far too weak for stealing health. Sustain necro’s have been seriously overlooked by arenanet.

Cayl Bourne.8073:

Rennoko, whether or not your “idiot” comment was directed at me, it was out of line. It is not logically irrational to assume that the game designers have included accurate information into their own tooltips. Therefore, people are not idiots for not going out and devising a test for everything, not to mention that calling someone an idiot will ALWAYS be detrimental to the community.

No argument. It was rude and uncalled for. That happens to me from time to time on the forums. However in reference to this specific game, it is almost always a bad idea to take tooltips at face value. They have been historically wrong in numerous cases since game release, so I would say it is borderline irrational to assume a tooltip is right in this game without testing.