Guild Wars 2

the version that had a chat link ingame was honestly what i was hoping for. in certain situations it could easily be OP, but that could have been fixed by just removing the ability for allies to also proc and heal from the mark while also limiting the hits such as the charges they now have on it but lower the number to say…10-15?. the older version, while it didnt have a direct heal for the on use, had very good numbers for the active siphon which allowed it to be a good high risk vs reward skill. if you pulled it off well and got a ton of hits in it would be pretty devastating, if u got a decent amount of hit in it still would be worth taking, and then theres the chance of u being locked down/ them evading the crap out of it but honestly i didnt have a problem with that. oh well, to each his own i suppose.

Bhawb.7408:

Rennoko.5731:

It made since for it to be lower than the warrior signet because it had the damage portion now it is just sadly weaker in every possible way.

This. Also, note that it is at best a bit weaker than the warrior heal. It still relies on getting hit. Its pathetic.

Oh, and apparently John thinks the skill is fine because it can “add 6k damage in a team fight to one target”. Yeah, next they’ll tell us Reanimator is one of the best traits in the game.

Boy this has you fired up Bhawb. Should we really be surprised though?

Never mind the fact the signet synergies terribly with DS like all signets. Even if the signet persisted through into DS, the healing wouldn’t.

At least I can hope the scaling is something they adjust to make taking healing power a way to make up for the horrible state of the signet. Maybe since the passive is heal only now they put a nice scale on it, like 0.3 of healing power(i know i know yeah right).

Honestly, the best thing to do would just be to take the older version that the current tooltips show and add the debuff stack limit. That would be a skill I could be happy with. Granted, a small self-heal garuntee would be nice, but even without, I’d prefer that over what we’re getting.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Honestly, the best thing to do would just be to take the older version that the current tooltips show and add the debuff stack limit. That would be a skill I could be happy with. Granted, a small self-heal garuntee would be nice, but even without, I’d prefer that over what we’re getting.

Add the self-heal, increase the cooldown to 30s, lower the cast time to 3/4s.

Not that it really matters anyway—the dev’s found that they wanted to add a new heal for Necro’s that completely counteracts our entire class mechanic.

alanis.6094:

Not that it really matters anyway—the dev’s found that they wanted to add a new heal for Necro’s that completely counteracts our entire class mechanic.

Technically, all heals go against our class mechanic, so…

Yeah, this has really annoyed me. They took a skill that could have been really fun, have taken a lot of skill/counterplay to use properly, and made it… this.

Guys guys, now dont fall out of your chairs, but, remember that there is a balance revamp in the patch too, and if its on a 1/400 chance we might actually get good blood and death magic siphoning and non minion builds respectively in it. Then again knowing a-net its probably a 1/1200 chace thus in a year and a bit.

Bhawb.7408:

Rennoko.5731:

It made since for it to be lower than the warrior signet because it had the damage portion now it is just sadly weaker in every possible way.

This. Also, note that it is at best a bit weaker than the warrior heal. It still relies on getting hit. Its pathetic.

Oh, and apparently John thinks the skill is fine because it can “add 6k damage in a team fight to one target”. Yeah, next they’ll tell us Reanimator is one of the best traits in the game.

Whats funny is during that cast time a necro could deal more than 6k on his own. So its not worth it even with that kitten reason.

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, this has really annoyed me. They took a skill that could have been really fun, have taken a lot of skill/counterplay to use properly, and made it… this.

ughghgh

I mean I couldn’t even watch the dev’s talk about it. It felt so awkward. They were completely uninterested XD. They were just like “yep.. nice big red signet over their head. It’s great. We done?”

I have gripes towards engis right now and watching that made it worse lol. They were so excited about the 14k heal. Like and what was with their reasoning idk man sometimes I just get annoyed like “yeah its a high risk high reward. Mainly used for those squishy builds” Yeah… because we all know those engi’s love running squishy builds.

And where’s the risk again? Oh right this: “Yeah, your opponent will really have to time it right. They have to know when to stop attacking you.”………………….. So either you gain a 14k heal.. or you stop getting attacked… What? Wheres the risk again? And still heals for a decent amount.

Having missed the live showing and just seeing the actual video it was painful to watch the Necro heal being displayed.

Every other class they managed to muster up the positive side of the heal and show scenarios that made other class heals look better than they actually are. For Necro it got quickly glossed over as even they knew when showing it off that the new heal skill is awful. I knew it was going to be hard to topple CC from the Necro’s best heal spot but this heal isnt even in the same ballpark.

Firstly the passive heal is really bad and it was shown how bad it is when the golem was attacking and basically the heal done nothing and he was nearly down within seconds. Next up was the on active part that looked to have a bugged activation as at times the active heal never showed up. Then whilst using a dagger which is the necro’s most damaging weapon you get around a meagre 1,200 on top of a 4k heal providing you can get off all those attacks before the lowly timed icon disappears off the enemies head.

I had to do a double take on my calender just to make sure that I hadn’t infact slept all the way to April the 1st. God forgive that they actually gave us a healing skill that might infact be useful to fill in the gaping holes we have like having a form of soaking up large attacks that was taken away from us when they altered DS. Even the engineer heal would probably have suited ourselves better to combat the large spike attacks the change to DS prevented us from stopping.

At least now I know the cost of death, its apparently 25 skill points as the only reason I can see myself taking this signet is if I really want to die alot. I know I am being harsh but I am getting sick and tired of our class being made a mockery with each patch that comes out. When I first heard of the skill I thought it might work if you combine it with our mediocre siphons the heal from the new signet with the hit from our siphons might even things out. But having seen the preview of it, that is never going to happen.

All in all its another useless skill to add to the list of others, and seeing some of the other heal skills I don’t think any outshine what is already there for the other classes. It seem to be time wasted on mediocre skills that could have been better spent elsewhere, its not as if there isn’t enough outstanding issue’s to resolve.

My personal favorite moment was when the guardian burst healed for 14k…. and they were like “wow that was cool”. They had to work like hell just to get the necro heal to do anything at all, other than the cool icon over the golems head. They just kept chain resetting the skill and recasting it…. over and over…. and look at that amazing healing!

Rennoko.5731:

My personal favorite moment was when the guardian burst healed for 14k…. and they were like “wow that was cool”. They had to work like hell just to get the necro heal to do anything at all, other than the cool icon over the golems head. They just kept chain resetting the skill and recasting it…. over and over…. and look at that amazing healing!

I loved the part where the golem absolutely destroyed him in 2 seconds, and they just ignored it.

I also like the part where they activated it, and we’re like “look, it has a red thingy… and uh… Ranger time now?”

Im hoping they realise it needs some last minute adjustments before the patch on tuesday. Lol.

Yeah… It was pretty kittening clear to everyone involved how underwhelming it was. There was no bullkittenting it. >_>:

Someone link the video?

Spoj The Second.7680:

Im hoping they realise it needs some last minute adjustments before the patch on tuesday. Lol.

I mean I’m not even that bothered. If they do that’s great. Idk I know they work hard and these guys do try but still. I don’t understand why take the time to create something that’s not good? XD I could see it in their faces that the signet was underwhelming. They just wanted to move on lol.

Care for these guys, they try but I just wish there was a bit more fascination for the necro’s. I’m sure im wrong, but I really just feel that the necros are their most difficult class to add to because it’s their least favorite. That might sound childish or just obnoxiously ignorant, but I personally know that it’s more of a struggle to create something interesting and worthwhile when it’s something I’m not into.

The concept was even decent like bhawb said. There was team interaction, counterplay, etc. I think they intended it for WvW/pve. But the numbers just are not worth.

Actually I saw then talk more on how to avoid the signet than actually it performing well. The signet can actually be worse! All that’s really left is for it to have a 5 second cast time. :P

I mean okay. Go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbxrtCvJLk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA

Set it to: 50:00 (exactly) and see the energy/happiness/joy from the Guardian heal.
Then set it to: 57:00 to watch it all or 58:30 specifically and watch to the end of the necro. It’s disheartening. It’s like Grouch was just waiting for it to be over… He healed for 5.6k with that 35 second CD heal…

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

alanis.6094:

Not that it really matters anyway—the dev’s found that they wanted to add a new heal for Necro’s that completely counteracts our entire class mechanic.

Technically, all heals go against our class mechanic, so…

No because your utility slots are “locked off”, all signets go against our class mechanic.

Actually the only heal we have that works well with Death shroud is Consume conditions because all of its heal is at once, using Death shroud to avoid damage while you wait for the cooldown to come off, it technically works directly with CC. Every other heal, especially this signet and Blood fiend are entirely hindered due to DS.

ronpierce.2760:

I mean okay. Go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbxrtCvJLk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA

Set it to: 50:00 (exactly) and see the energy/happiness/joy from the Guardian heal.
Then set it to: 57:00 to watch it all or 58:30 specifically and watch to the end of the necro. It’s disheartening. It’s like Grouch was just waiting for it to be over… He healed for 5.6k with that 35 second CD heal…

Just watched it…

awkward.

Perhaps it’s time to revive this thread or just go spam the SPvP and/or GW2 Discussion subforums then.
We clearly aren’t being heard, and we continue to be shafted at every opportunity.

I didn’t watch it all the way through the first time (I couldn’t handle it). But wow. Not only could they not muster up the slightest bit of interest, but they spent half the time not even talking about it.

Seriously, ANet, just grab some people who play Necro and are involved in the community, and get in contact with them. It is glaringly obvious that no one on the design or balance team has touched one, so at least get decent input.

Andele.1306:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

alanis.6094:

Not that it really matters anyway—the dev’s found that they wanted to add a new heal for Necro’s that completely counteracts our entire class mechanic.

Technically, all heals go against our class mechanic, so…

No because your utility slots are “locked off”, all signets go against our class mechanic.

Did.. you just say that, specifically, signets, are against our class mechanic because they arent available in deathshroud?

Please do us a favor, boot up Gw2, hit deathshroud, and tell me what non-signets, elites, or heals are available while in deathshroud…

Yep.

Just because some of you wont be able to utilize this skill because of your specific spec, doesnt mean that there are others that won’t use it. Big picture guys, big picture.

However, there still is no situation where we don’t already have a better skill.

Sustain/damage: Blood Fiend
Group support: Well of Blood
everything else: Consume Conditions

Note that 2/3 are also on shorter cooldowns, and the only one that isn’t heals at least twice what Signet of Vampirism does (possibly more with healing power).

Kahrgan.7401:

Andele.1306:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

alanis.6094:

Not that it really matters anyway—the dev’s found that they wanted to add a new heal for Necro’s that completely counteracts our entire class mechanic.

Technically, all heals go against our class mechanic, so…

No because your utility slots are “locked off”, all signets go against our class mechanic.

Did.. you just say that, specifically, signets, are against our class mechanic because they arent available in deathshroud?

Please do us a favor, boot up Gw2, hit deathshroud, and tell me what non-signets, elites, or heals are available while in deathshroud…

Yep.

Just because some of you wont be able to utilize this skill because of your specific spec, doesnt mean that there are others that won’t use it. Big picture guys, big picture.

Look you dont get utilities in DS as with all transforms, if thats a design decision (which it probably isnt but ok whatever can be called one), fine. But a passive effect you got equipped being lost as a result of using what you are based on isnt fine.

Like if you go from a big slow ship onto a small mobile boat, you cannot expect the boat to carry 30 cannons, now if the boat was broken by the salesman is a totally different issue.

Arenanet doesnt want necros to have anything. Only conditions. Pretty obvious at this point.. we’re supposed to be the sustained class that is hard to get away from, but all the other classes have blinks and/or stealths, stability and invuls. We get none of this, yay necro! Don’t expect them to give us good siphon either.

They actually put ICD on it? Hilarious. Meanwhile warriors get a heal which absorbs every attack for almost up to four seconds. Maybe it’s time to start scouting fresh talent.

Fungalfoot.7213:

They actually put ICD on it? Hilarious. Meanwhile warriors get a heal which absorbs every attack for almost up to four seconds. Maybe it’s time to start scouting fresh talent.

Check this out, I haven’t seen anyone else come out and say it, but the heal when hit is 340. With a 1 second ICD. Cool.

Warrior signet heals for baseline 392 per second WITHOUT losing time having to be hit or not working when not under fire. Nah its 52 more HPS no matter kittening what. >_>: That’s all. The on use is terrible, 35 sec CD heal for 5.6k heal as a necro? No condition removal? The group utility of this is terrible, the skill can entirely miss has a super long cast time and even marked enemies can evade all they want.

If they just took the feedback from players at the top end of each gametype more seriously they could avoid things like this. Sadly they cant seem to tell the difference and end up ignoring it all.

Pretty much my reaction to the dev’s explanation of the new healing skill… back to Consume Conditions I guess.

Ive given countless feedback on how to fix necro’s weaknesses and issues in pve with minimal effort and solutions which hardly effect balance in other gametypes. And ive yet to see any of it even acknowledged. I continue to post because I hope they do eventually act on it and when new utility skills get introduced I hope to see some of the community suggestions implemented. If not then I will have lost all hope for the class.

5.2k. You don’t actually get 5 procs out of it unless you have a perfect timing with your Locust Swarm pulse.

Spoj The Second.7680:

If they just took the feedback from players at the top end of each gametype more seriously they could avoid things like this. Sadly they cant seem to tell the difference and end up ignoring it all.

They do have lines of communication open to high level PvPers, or at least ones they have identified and chosen. The problem is that most of those same players have been doing what we do in the forums, except directly to the devs… to the same results as we see. They got even more exasperated than us, and most of them that I know of just gave up.

I wish they’d open up more formal lines of communication. They have forums, they can see people who get really highly rated posts, and who post alot. They have known of people like Nemesis for ages, but to my knowledge they never really go out of their way for feedback, which I think is lost potential. Its not like they need to massively increase people’s workload, which I realize is difficult, but if they had at least a few people from each profession who really understood what was up feed stuff to the devs, it’d help a lot.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

5.2k. You don’t actually get 5 procs out of it unless you have a perfect timing with your Locust Swarm pulse.

This. In the preview the best he got was around 5k healed. Even he sounded as excited as I was “it healed 5k…”, wooo… I know that I definitely want a skill that has worse passive healing than Blood Fiend, and worse active healing than Dagger 2.

I can tell you that they have no top end pve players in their testing servers or giving them direct feedback. And that goes for all classes and pve in general.

Spoj The Second.7680:

I can tell you that they have no top end pve players in their testing servers or giving them direct feedback. And that goes for all classes and pve in general.

Not PvE, or WvW. Its all sPvP.

Next patch: Dagger 2 healing reduced to less than Vampiric Signet to increase build diversity.

Edit: But it won’t be in the notes for about 5 months then added as a tooltip correction.

I believe they have a few semi decent wvw players in their testing servers though dont they? And many spvp players do some wvw aswell afaik?

The real hole is pve where the only players they have are players like dulfy who just do stuff for the community and are very casual players. Obviously they should get some more dedicated WvW players aswell but balance is focused around pvp and usually doesnt hinder wvw as much as it hinders pve.

I am so sick of their obsession with that game mode leading them to take a steaming dump on the rest of the game which appeals to far more people. The sad part is the demographic they are trying to grab with that mode are playing other games that do it better instead.

Overkillengine.6084:

I am so sick of their obsession with that game mode leading them to take a steaming dump on the rest of the game which appeals to far more people. The sad part is the demographic they are trying to grab with that mode are playing other games that do it better instead.

Really it is silly to say balance isnt most important in pvp. Balance can kill pvp. Balance doesnt matter for pve because content can be tailored to the balance they have if necessary. I.e. removing bleed caps. Besides, balance in pve is less important because no matter what you do all the content is set up for you to be able to easily complete. WvW is the same because the inherent in-balance of numbers, siege, levels will mean balance is always a minor factor.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Obviously they should get some more dedicated WvW players aswell but balance is focused around pvp and usually doesnt hinder wvw as much as it hinders pve.

I’m in one of SoR’s bigger WvW guilds, and most of it’s members would disagree.

Spoj The Second.7680:

I believe they have a few semi decent wvw players in their testing servers though dont they? And many spvp players do some wvw aswell afaik?

I don’t know of any pure WvWers that are on there, but yes quite a few sPvPers wvw for fun. But its certainly possible that some are there.

I was really looking forward to the skill until i saw the vid demonstrating the skill. They should really just keep the internal cooldown off of it, and reduce the leech damage to something around the 100-200, or just keep the damage portion on a ICD. This thing looks close to useless and Vampiric builds are still left in the low zone. 300 every one sec conditional to being hit, the effect is non-existent. Even on the active portion to it if it’s only procing once every second. Heavy hits will shoot though it easily and burst abilities…you’ll only get it to proc maybe 2-3 times.

Lucentfir.7430:

I was really looking forward to the skill until i saw the vid demonstrating the skill. They should really just keep the internal cooldown off of it, and reduce the leech damage to something around the 100-200, or just keep the damage portion on a ICD. This thing looks close to useless and Vampiric builds are still left in the low zone. 300 every one sec conditional to being hit, the effect is non-existent. Even on the active portion to it if it’s only procing once every second. Heavy hits will shoot though it easily and burst abilities…you’ll only get it to proc maybe 2-3 times.

No ICD, just have the damage at like 1/4 – 1/2 the healing because ITS A HEAL, and then also make it not suck so much. It heals for less hp/s than warrior signet AND it requires being hit to get that healing. It’s garbage. So so freaking terrible.

Well the skill had “some” promise before the ICD change. Especially if Vampiric triggered off the passive like Vampiric Rituals. Now the passive is pretty much useless with the 1 second ICD. I will stick with WoB for self/group support/sustain thanks.

I have come to the conclusion that they got this skill backwards. The Passive should have been the Vampiric stacks mechanic, giving a couple stacks on hit with a 1-5 second ICD. The Active effect should have been about 5 seconds of large siphons when hit by enemies. So when being focused down with large damage spikes, you could pop the signet to greatly increase survivability while also doing “super” retal damage to your enemy attackers. Increase the cooldown of the signet to balance it out or a small 0.x second ICD to prevent overkill healing/damage.

i think an icd is ok if you scale the numbers right, but the numbers in the stream, it was 340 per hit and per second, are not good enough to justify that skill over bloodfiend (does more damage and more heal). If it was 500-600 or so (maybe even more?) it would be a better passiv. They should also decrease the cd back to 20 seconds. The long cast time, i can understand as it is a healing skill, which should be easier to interrupt.

Muchacho.2390:

i think an icd is ok if you scale the numbers right, but the numbers in the stream, it was 340 per hit and per second, are not good enough to justify that skill over bloodfiend (does more damage and more heal). If it was 500-600 or so (maybe even more?) it would be a better passiv. They should also decrease the cd back to 20 seconds. The long cast time, i can understand as it is a healing skill, which should be easier to interrupt.

I was just about to edit my post after coming up from getting a coffee and decided to refresh instead. My thoughts exactly. The ICD would be fine if it siphoned about 750-850 health. The higher the ICD, the higher the siphoning number should be, because there’s no risk of over siphoning. The skill just doesn’t have what it takes to beat out any of the other necromancer heals in most/all situations, except in giving allies a GW2 version of GW1 Necro’s Order of the Vampire.

Signet a Vampirism is just a utility skill right now taking up space on the heal slot.

Overkillengine.6084:

Next patch: Dagger 2 healing reduced to less than Vampiric Signet to increase build diversity.

Edit: But it won’t be in the notes for about 5 months then added as a tooltip correction.

Stop giving them ideas darn you!

The ICD on the active is okay. In fact, I am slightly happy that they put it in because it shows they realize that Vampiric abilities need ICDs. I don’t know if this was the best one to put it in simply because it is already gated by its own CD/buff timer, etc., but it shows that small thing that I like, for the future of Blood Magic.

I’m not happy about the Passive ICD, and loss of damage. That, and the CD is what kills the skill for me. If the CD was a bit lower (30s base), with the passive healing slightly lowered, and put back the damage in some form, I’d see the skill being decent again. The key “theme” of the skill was being able to drop guaranteed burst healing that a heal would normally give you, and in return have an incredibly aggressive, damaging heal. High risk/reward.