Guild Wars 2

I’m not worried it’ll make us OP. I’m worried it’s terrible. It seems currently its:

Passive:
- 305 damage, 305 heal per hit taken (Against burst hits it’ll be Terrible, and against fast low hits it’ll be broken, so I guess OP).
On use:
- About 550 damage and healing for anyone who hits for 5 seconds.

Problem is, the on use can miss entirely. We have no sprout-back heal. Unless it works in Death shroud it’ll likely only be really effective in PvE.

Roe.3679:

I don’t understand how some are concerned that it’ll make us OP in certain situations. We can maybe survive being focused for once (maybe, depending on values) and that is bad? I think this has great potential if done right. If.

It sounds like passive will make us invunerable to hits under 300 damage, but for anything above 300 we will take slightly less damage, but never be able to gain health until we die. Which is terrible for our only heal slot.

Then the active seems almost OP for group support. But maybe that’s what we needed to get more Necro love from PvE groups. It alone is a good reason for bringing a necro along.

The active is 5s on a 20s (16 traited, which is really easy to access) CD, which is pretty good.

Also, for a passive effect, a flat 300 damage reduction on every single hit? That is huge, especially for high toughness builds. Plus perma-retaliation, without taking up a retaliation slot, meaning you can be dealing something like 500-600 damage to enemies per hit.

This is one of those skills that is sitting on a razor’s edge. It could be amazing, could be terrible, it all comes down to the very small mechanics and numbers.

Edit: What’s the chat link for this?

[&Bw1VAAA=] ( [&Bw9VAAA=] ) [&BzdVAAA=] [&BwJVAAA=] [&B/ZUAAA=] [&B6BUAAA=] [&B5tUAAA=] [&B5hUAAA=] [&BxJVAAA=]

copy paste this, its all of them. I forget which is ours.

Bhawb.7408:

The active is 5s on a 20s (16 traited, which is really easy to access) CD, which is pretty good.

Also, for a passive effect, a flat 300 damage reduction on every single hit? That is huge, especially for high toughness builds. Plus perma-retaliation, without taking up a retaliation slot, meaning you can be dealing something like 500-600 damage to enemies per hit.

This is one of those skills that is sitting on a razor’s edge. It could be amazing, could be terrible, it all comes down to the very small mechanics and numbers.

Edit: What’s the chat link for this?

I could see this meshing well with a near perma retaliation build, and I wonder if you could heal a lot using the active with say, axe or dagger 2? This could potentially open up a lot for a soldier/siphon necro build.

Like I said, I’m very interested in this.

Ironically, I think this skill will make Necromancers immune to the AA of other Necromancer’s with axe, lol.

Roe.3679:

I could see this meshing well with a near perma retaliation build, and I wonder if you could heal a lot using the active with say, axe or dagger 2? This could potentially open up a lot for a soldier/siphon necro build.

Like I said, I’m very interested in this.

Well, Axe 2 for example hits 8 times in 2.25 seconds, so at just 500 healing/damage, that’s healing of 4k, but more importantly damage of the same. Meaning a total health swing of 8k.

Bhawb.7408:

Ironically, I think this skill will make Necromancers immune to the AA of other Necromancer’s with axe, lol.

What about axe 2? It’s like what 6 hits in 2 seconds? inc like 1.8k retal damage from a heal signet :P

I’m getting pretty excited to see how this turns out.

ronpierce.2760:

What about axe 2? It’s like what 6 hits in 2 seconds? inc like 1.8k retal damage from a heal signet :P

Well, an Axe 2 vs a Necro with this signet and retal would be around 500-600 damage per hit, and Axe 2 is 8 hits in 2.25 seconds. So it’d be between 4k and 4.8k damage returned, with a 300 damage reduction of every single hit.

This skill has promise man, I NEED to get my hands on it.

Bhawb.7408:

ronpierce.2760:

What about axe 2? It’s like what 6 hits in 2 seconds? inc like 1.8k retal damage from a heal signet :P

Well, an Axe 2 vs a Necro with this signet and retal would be around 500-600 damage per hit, and Axe 2 is 8 hits in 2.25 seconds. So it’d be between 4k and 4.8k damage returned, with a 300 damage reduction of every single hit.

This skill has promise man, I NEED to get my hands on it.

This skill sounds like a mistake :P

This skill would be interesting with Plague form in ZvZ.

I like they finally added a real mark for us.

It would be interesting to see how this skill would interact with transformation skills. Doesnt Lich form have that skill that creates those little horrors? Be interesting to see what sort (if any) cool down between attacks this skill has.

How good would it be if it could be spread with Epidemic lol

Despite how much I would love if it did, It honestly just can’t work like that.

Allies, 6+ minions, multiple wells, Warhorn 5 swarm, All the staff marks, and Axe 1… I can’t even work out how many hits those would all do in 5 seconds.

The damage alone would be ridiculous.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

Despite how much I would love if it did, It honestly just can’t work like that.

Allies, 6+ minions, multiple wells, Warhorn 5 swarm, All the staff marks, and Axe 1… I can’t even work out how many hits those would all do in 5 seconds.

The damage alone would be ridiculous.

Minions won’t proc it, in all likelyhood.

Maybe the passive proccs per skill used? That way it would only heal/leech once if you are attacked by a channel.
This sounds like a balancing/effect trigger nightmare…

Bellamy.9860:

Maybe the passive proccs per skill used? That way it would only heal/leech once if you are attacked by a channel.
This sounds like a balancing/effect trigger nightmare…

No thanks, I want my 8k healing dagger 2, pls.

I’m presuming, and I guess everyone else is, that Bloodthirst will affect this heal? This heal could bring several other signets into play:

Locust- could help mitigate the loss of burst healing, as as ~1250/enemy heal (with Bloodthirst) in a 480 radius could add up.

Plague- for the condition clear that you’d give up from dropping CC.

Bloodthirst affecting this heal would instantly put Bloodthirst as an amazing trait again. It would boost the damage and healing of the passive part by 60ish, and active by over 100.

Bhawb.7408:

Bellamy.9860:

Maybe the passive proccs per skill used? That way it would only heal/leech once if you are attacked by a channel.
This sounds like a balancing/effect trigger nightmare…

No thanks, I want my 8k healing dagger 2, pls.

Should’ve probably made that clearer, i meant the signets passive, leech life whenever you are hit, might only work per skill activation against the signet wearer. So it would be like a reverse ele signet heal, which only heals per cast and not per hit.
Or it will be somewhat of a hard counter to multihit abilities (your example about necro mirror).
Also, 8k dagger2 heal (Edit:+10k damage)? Yes pls.

If the active part of this skill works out how we are theorycrafting it to work, it will open up sooooo many new builds and playstyles.

This sounds extremely interesting. I will probably use this even if it doesn’t work out this way to fight fast hitting classes but will it work against rangers, mesmers, and minion masters?

Combining it’s active with life siphon at a point where your opponent can’t pressure you could also be cool.

Bellamy.9860:

Should’ve probably made that clearer, i meant the signets passive, leech life whenever you are hit, might only work per skill activation against the signet wearer. So it would be like a reverse ele signet heal, which only heals per cast and not per hit.
Or it will be somewhat of a hard counter to multihit abilities (your example about necro mirror).
Also, 8k dagger2(Edit:+10k damage)? Yes pls.

OH, that will be interesting to know, but it sounds like per hit, not cast. Obviously its all just assumptions at this point, and the wording isn’t exactly clear “from enemies that strike you”.

Monoman.2068:

This sounds extremely interesting. I will probably use this even if it doesn’t work out this way to fight fast hitting classes but will it work against rangers, mesmers, and minion masters?

It would work against these. Which actually brings up an interesting point: 3/6 minions will actually give the attacker a net heal per time they hit, in addition to taking damage for the effort. Same with clones, which hit so weakly they might actually heal you overall (though for a small amount).

I will probably use this then if the condition usage after this update doesn’t overwhelm me (I still got dagger 4 and staff 4). This might just be what my necro needs to have the sustainish play style I’ve been fighting with my gold for.

now just think ppl, we can stack all our lifesteals for an insane amount of healing/armor ignoring dmg.

u could use traited on hit, traited on crit, 20% increased siphon(it should affect the sig), sigil of blood/leeching, lifesteal food(wvw/pve), and dont forget vamp runes which when we pop our heal to mark our target would let us proc a nice 925 lifesteal on next hit(not sure what cd is on the steal after heal but if none then we would get every heal even when traited to 16sec cd)+its chance on getting hit proc.

i know there is the whole omg they could dodge the skill itself or ur hits, but keep in mind we have a long immo on dagger#3 which would allow us to mark=get lots of free hits in unless they cleanse it or pop a blocking/invuln skill. we also have our fears and shackles for short—>mid term cc to set up the mark.

now once the mark is on we can hit our enemies a lot by setting up with locust swarm before hand, dropping wells, using axe#2—>swapping to dagger for 1 combo or even just using dagger #2 since if traited with 20% more siphoning we would likely see 300ish procs per tick from it and even tho its hit per second is slower than other means we have its healing comboing with the marks is nice. and the heal only having 11 seconds of downtime inbetween the mark wearing off(assuming u land it) and it coming back off cd is just nice.

this is all assuming no icd(which if there was one this would make the skill abysmal) and with group play id assume it goes without saying it would increase dps on a target by an insane amount(hello timewipe anyone?)

sorry for bad format but im in a rush

The trouble will be in getting the benefit from the active, once people get accustomed to the debuff they’ll do their best to stop us from hitting them while it’s up.
Even just 1 dodge will cut into a large amount of the possible healing time, and people already dodge axe 2 fairly often as is.
Any thief/mesmer will simply stealth/disengage for a few seconds till it goes away
Ele’s could mistform
Guardians blockheal
( will it still heal if you hit an endure pain stanced warrior?)
And it’ll make getting cc’d hurt even more, because any cc during that 5s window will mean a significant decrease in health gained, and unlike having CC interupted it means your heal is on a full CD instead of just partially.

I like the idea of it, and I’m definitely going to play around with it some and see if can get it working into something fun to roll around with. There are just some downsides.

in any kind of pvp i see it more of a risk vs reward kind of heal. if u pull it off by marking them and cc-ing them to hit them or making them burn their dodges and such before hand u could crank out lots of dmg and healing for yourself. of course if the skill is dodged/they dodge during it/they cc you/disengage you get little to nothing from it. anet likes to make strong skills counterable and i feel they did great with this one based on how i speculate it to work out. cant expect us to have a nice 5s of OPness every 20(16 traited) now can we?

After the patch hits Im gonna try something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQMQRAnY4djQaZ7hbOb8bKApCWPpg7thKsL1D4R/cA-jUCBofDimEJQUBhO7pIaslhht6KIlXRTZDT9iIqWEAzWA-w

Just tapping in and out of DS (never staying in it unless I need to) for 70% uptime on stability/retal. Add in the signet passive and it’ll be funny trying to troll people into killing themselves. Ill call it the “No Death Shroud, Death Shroud Build.” If it works that is.

It’s usually called shrouddancing

also, in aoe situations axe #3 is easy perma retal, especially when traited

For pvp this is the worst skill in the game by quite some distance.

Here is why:
1, This essentially “heals” by taking damage, which is stupid as healing for 300 when you take a 6k eviserate or backstab is hardly going to help you.

“O look I am low on health – I better tank some damage to heal!” – No – terrible.

2, The active will be easily dodged, blinded or evaded. And even when someone has it on them they can dodge, kite, line of sight and not get hit for the duration. Then you have no healing at all.

3, In addition – when you activate the skill (i.e. when you need a healing burst) you have to then put yourself in harms way to actually try to hit a target. The last thing a necro – with light armour and no blocks or evades – wants to do when low on health is to be in harms way trying to attack someone. You will die faster than you can believe.
For pvp, this “heal” is beyond unplayable. I wouldnt even call a skill which makes you tank damage to “heal” for 300 a heal. I would call it a way to get yourself killed.

Awful skill from a pvp perspective. Worst in the game. Unless some broken combos can come out of it which they wont because the life sihpon line sucks and life siphoning numbers are just way way too low to ever be viable – “Yay, i am life siphoning for 45!”

Edit – It is worth noting that the active fits in an aggresive burst build – as you can burst someone down with dagger auto attack and yet the passive fits in a tanky build as being hit when you have a ton of toughness means the net loss of health is less than being hit when you are a glass cannon.

There could be some gimmicky 1 shot build from this “heal” but even then I doubt it.

I’m surprised they don’t just add a heal to the “use” and maybe keep the damage/healing the same as the passive. That’d probably be better

If the skill gave the damage from the lifesteal and the heal from the lifesteal done by all parties to the Necromancer instead of to the parties, then you have a skill that is approaching take able in cerain PvE boss fights only.

Guild Wars 1 Hexes worked this way. IF I had a hex that did lifesteal when somebody did damage, then I would get the lifesteal, because the hex was mine, even if somebody else did the damage.

Pvp, still worst skill in the game, one dodge kills the almost all I the effectiveness of the skill.

This is the new best pve heal in the game btw. Only time you wouldnt take it is if you need condi cleanse or the self heal isnt quite enough.

Lordrosicky.5813:

For pvp this is the worst skill in the game by quite some distance.

Here is why:
1, This essentially “heals” by taking damage, which is stupid as healing for 300 when you take a 6k eviserate or backstab is hardly going to help you.

“O look I am low on health – I better tank some damage to heal!” – No – terrible.

2, The active will be easily dodged, blinded or evaded. And even when someone has it on them they can dodge, kite, line of sight and not get hit for the duration. Then you have no healing at all.

3, In addition – when you activate the skill (i.e. when you need a healing burst) you have to then put yourself in harms way to actually try to hit a target. The last thing a necro – with light armour and no blocks or evades – wants to do when low on health is to be in harms way trying to attack someone. You will die faster than you can believe.
For pvp, this “heal” is beyond unplayable. I wouldnt even call a skill which makes you tank damage to “heal” for 300 a heal. I would call it a way to get yourself killed.

Awful skill from a pvp perspective. Worst in the game. Unless some broken combos can come out of it which they wont because the life sihpon line sucks and life siphoning numbers are just way way too low to ever be viable – “Yay, i am life siphoning for 45!”

Edit – It is worth noting that the active fits in an aggresive burst build – as you can burst someone down with dagger auto attack and yet the passive fits in a tanky build as being hit when you have a ton of toughness means the net loss of health is less than being hit when you are a glass cannon.

There could be some gimmicky 1 shot build from this “heal” but even then I doubt it.

1: The signet is strong in siphon and minion master builds where I take healing from 6 minions at one time as well as my main attacks. This not only mitigates some damage but retaliates on the target.

Here’s a good combo for you. Dagger #3 to root, Warhorn #5 for locust swarm Dagger 2 for awesome siphon skill WHILE the signet is active. Hell if you’re running Axe+focus in back up for boon strip you can double up the retaliation effect with axe #3

2: If it’s like most Signets it’s instant and a good PVP’er watches and waits for their opponents to burn their dodge rolls before hitting with an ability. On top of that, in PVP why am I going to dump my heal if my opponent is running towards a wall or LOS object, if i’m that bad I my as well get out of PVP

3: We are an offensive class, our strength is in our insane pressure. We have the highest HP pool in the game, double that with toughness and you’re a god mode tank. We have some lovely gap closer, more roots, cripples and chills then you can shake a stick at. We’re arn’t thieves, we don’t need to hide, that’s why we have a second HP bar we are mean’t to be a spiked wall.

This heal isn’t mean’t to REPLACE all other heals, it’s mean’t to spread build viability. See thieves Venom heal and Warriors stance heal. It’s mean’t to break up cookie cutters and add more diversity and some group utility.

Consider it hasn’t even AGAIN synergy with DeathShroud, if you land it successfully then you have to rush DS, all those healings gonna get wasted.
Over the fact that Consume Conditions could work as an emergency heal by taking time and swapping between DS > plague > DS waiting for his cooldown, having an istant healing, this new spell seems to be used preventively.

What ANET doesn’t understand is that giving SO EASILY the chance to the opponent to decide what to do to nullify a spell is what makes useless most of our spells.
Check DeathShroud#5, check Minions’ survivability, check condition stacking, check the easiness our opponents run out of Poison Clouds and Wells.. they haven’t a good BACKFIRE to make the opponent think about it twice.

What do you get for killing our minions? A light damage and some poison (while wasting GrandMaster trait)? Same for DS#5, light damage and a short immobilization condition or another ridicle low damaging DotCondition? What about removing our conditions? They just do it and they get no backfire for it.
Given the actual Anticondition Meta, these backfires are RIDICLE.
Spending a dodgeroll? No problem, Aegis, Stability, Vigor, Stealth, Invuln, Extreme Disengage, etc. to save your kitten next time.

For whom remembers these great spells, they work as a good example.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Backfire
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Empathy

considering the past “buff” (read nerfs) my expectations are set really…really low on these skills and the chaos that will follow.
If anet considers necro to be on par with other classes why do they turn us into an even more tanky profession..
I am still wondering if any balance person seriously played necro for over a week in all aspects of the game..

Azzer.8137:

I would love a healing skill that gives up protection for 5 seconds on a 25 second cooldown, nothing really new but i would love it still.

However your idea of LF into health sounds quite intriguing (sp?) But how should it work?, I see 2 ideas, 1: Losing LF constantly and get healing from it like regeneration or heal yourself depending on how much life force you have.

Healing in Deathshroud would be something awesome as well though.

Well of Blood does give you protection on a 20 second cooldown – when traited for it. Also, when using a good set of runes (like run of the grove) and the right traits, you can get over 45 seconds of protection via 4 wells.

Well of Blood is a minimum of 32 second cooldown.

We’ll have to wait and see if there’s an ICD on it. If not, then I see it being used in some dangerous burst builds for PvP.

I have thought about it a lot, and I will find a way to make it work… but I think all the positive press on this guy is a little too much overly hopeful speculation.

Remember the cost of taking this skill. A very big heal, and a full condition cleanse, on a 25 second cooldown. Since we lost our other easy access full cleanse (Sorry staff), immobilize will be much more dangerous in WvW for example without CC.

Not to mention the simple fact that in pretty much every team fight situation you are going to be better off never popping the signet, so it just becomes a full passive deal (which we really don’t need more of in the game).

Having this signet down for 16-20 seconds leaves you completely defenseless, a lot like what happens currently if someone snipes your blood fiend in a non-minion siphoning build. So using the active is going to almost always be a bad idea, especially since it can be dodged/blocked/evaded, they can run out of range, you can get stunned.

My opinion is this will end up being a passive signet that certain builds leave on on all the time in pvp, and people just use locust signet as our main heal to accompany the passive healing. But this is only going to work if you keep at least 2-3 condition clears, or you will get bleed to death.

As others have mentioned the big BIG BIG problem with this is simply that it will provide no effect while in DS. Since we are in DS a lot, and our class revolves around that mechanic, having your passive healing useless while in DS is a big problem, since currently DS works as a cushion for us to allow our heal to recharge in times when we get focused. This heal however has no active and no matter how long we can stall in DS, there is no heal coming off cooldown.

I could think about a ds healing skill.

rohnis.2715:

I could think about a ds healing skill.

Fun fact that this exact idea came up(mark a target, siphon health from it), when devs let the playerbase think about our DS#5 skill.

I think we need a dual purpose healing skill, in order for it to take CC off my bar it would have to serve a very specific purpose.

If we had a brief immunity kind of like the guardian heal i would see that being a nice addition to avoidance and burst control, i would prefer a block mechanic but if devs don’t want to give us block i would be ok with a blind field.

I don’t think anyone denied that the heal is situational, Rennoko. It may see use in PvP in certain builds, but the best time to use this is in PvE Stack & Smack events/dungeons. It may also see use in WvW roaming and when taking towers/keeps. Consume Conditions will still be the general-use heal.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I don’t think anyone denied that the heal is situational, Rennoko. It may see use in PvP in certain builds, but the best time to use this is in PvE Stack & Smack events/dungeons. It may also see use in WvW roaming and when taking towers/keeps. Consume Conditions will still be the general-use heal.

Understood, but my personal opinion is they need to normalize heals to bring into the light all of our lesser used heals, not create a situational heal which promotes passive play. WOB and BF are good heals situationally, and they should have been made better outside of their niche builds, (just like all the other lesser used class heals) before adding in new heals.

I do, however, want to see this skill get used against mesmers spewing out an endless amount of clones. That will be hilarious.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I do, however, want to see this skill get used against mesmers spewing out an endless amount of clones. That will be hilarious.

And this is why I don’t know how they are going to control this. Sword clones hit us for like 5, and heal us for 300+…. I guess we will want to leave up their clones, and kill their phants, so we get extra healing.

The clones will kill themselves pretty fast due to their low hp pools. It shouldnt be too much of an issue. Mesmer should adapt to it anyway.

Spoj The Second.7680:

The clones will kill themselves pretty fast due to their low hp pools. It shouldnt be too much of an issue. Mesmer should adapt to it anyway.

I have an idea….

I am going to pay 20 mesmers on our opposing WvW server to keep un-bleed traited, extra HP GS clones up on me at all times, so I can heal for 180 × 300 = 54,000 per clone attack volley.

Then I will bait a zerg into attack me so I can stand there and dance while not dying….

Haha id love to see that.