Guild Wars 2

Instant cast and no ICD would be a start towards making this signet viable for actual play. The numbers would still need tweaking but at least it would be something. I really can’t believe they intend to ship it in its current state. It’s just awful all around.

All they need to do to “rework” this skill is revert it back to the old version, but with a few changes to make it a bit more reliable and less abusive.

Passive:
Siphon health when hit

Passive Damage: 200(ish)
Passive Healing: 200(ish)
No ICD at all

Active: 2 parts
1) Marks a target, allied player attacks against this target siphon health. Applies 10 stacks, plus 5 for every nearby ally player up to 25 stacks max. Instant cast, 30s CD

2) 1.25s cast time, castable for 5 seconds after marking the target (the duration of the mark, the 30s CD runs down while this is available). Removes up to 10 stacks from the target instantly, dealing no damage but healing for the same as if you had removed them yourself.

Both passive and active have no ICD. The passive numbers are obviously just thrown out there, but with damage and no ICD, they should be somewhat low. Also note that Bloodthirst would affect the values because it is life stealing again; if this is too strong they can re-word the skill so it deals damage and heals, but doesn’t count as siphoning.

The active has two parts. The first is the mark as we see it now, it is instant and scales up. This is because with a removed ICD, having a Necro able to “potentially” remove 25 stacks on his own in a 1v1 would be absolutely insane. So instead it scales up with allies, so the only way to get full use out of the skill is to have 3 friends nearby. This still allows the other person to have counterplay by evading afterwards. I removed the burst healing from this because no healing skill should have burst-healing without a cast time, and also this was a flat buff, so I needed a second effect.

The second effect is guaranteed healing. It heals you for the same as if you had consumed the stacks (up to 10), but doesn’t deal the damage and can be interrupted. Meaning the reward for the “best” case is all the added DPS. However, it cannot be dodged, so if you accidentally mark someone that then goes completely invuln for 5 seconds, you can still get some healing, but it will be very weak.

Let me know what you think, and also any numbers since I don’t know. I think there should be decent healing power/power scaling, with decent bases. Somewhere between Blood Fiend that barely scales with HP, and WoB which has insane scaling.

I would say damage done to targets be at about 250 and Healing should be about 500, of course not accounting for Power and Healing Power. They should be reasonable scaling nothing to over powered and nothing that makes it pointless like the scaling on the current Siphon skills.

It can’t be instant cast with burst healing. No healing skill in the game should be un-counterable like that. Go check my suggestion in another thread for how to fix that, and the skill itself.

They keep giving us stupid skills/traits.

Just open up DS6 with a heal and call it a day.

The skill got the Death Shroud treatment. During their testing of the skill (the skill we saw from the datamine) they found it to be too powerful and potent. However, the realization of this was probably towards the end of the testing period and so they immediately nerf-hammered it, tried it, stated “oh good, it’s not OP now”, and shipped it. After this, they didn’t test it for viability. They simply made sure it wouldn’t break the Necro and sent it off, which is what happened with Death Shroud during the beta tests.

All-in-all though, I would like to see this skill as a utility (minus the 4k healing, of course).

@Merlin Dyfren Avalon: I love that idea. You should make a thread about it so it receives more views and support. The worst case scenario is that we actually get it to work well and come up with strategies on how to use it. Otherwise we can commiserate about its awfulness and maybe garner support for it.

Given the huge backlash against the new healing signet from the Necromancer community, has there been any last minute discussion about changes that may come shortly after release?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I would say damage done to targets be at about 250 and Healing should be about 500, of course not accounting for Power and Healing Power. They should be reasonable scaling nothing to over powered and nothing that makes it pointless like the scaling on the current Siphon skills.

I was thinking a max scaling of like 100 additional healing or damage. So if you had a Soldier build with max power, you get 100 more damage, if you had a Cleric’s build, you only get like 50 more damage but 100 healing.

It is the worst skill in the game by design.

“Hey guys, here is a heal which only heals you when you get hit!”

Sure so that is what you want to do when needing to heal?? Be hit Really?

Just some perspective, there are 11 different threads in the Necro forums right now in response to this heal, with 19 pages of content.

Since the preview, a total of 2 people have expressed a positive opinion of the healing skill, and both of those 2 are PvE players, where the skill will arguably be passable in a few niche builds.

Lordrosicky.5813:

It is the worst skill in the game by design.

“Hey guys, here is a heal which only heals you when you get hit!”

Sure so that is what you want to do when needing to heal?? Be hit Really?

The purpose of the skill isn’t getting hit, the passive heal is supposed to be just a little passive bonus. You’re completely ignoring the active part, which is what I think arena net really wanted to bring up with this skill. And the active mechanic seems really good and fun, maybe the numbers are too low but the skill looks promising.

I don’t understand all this QQ necros are making, you guys got an incredibly strong heal and if this one ends up being too bad I’m sure Anet will buff it.

ahuba.6430:

Lordrosicky.5813:

It is the worst skill in the game by design.

“Hey guys, here is a heal which only heals you when you get hit!”

Sure so that is what you want to do when needing to heal?? Be hit Really?

The purpose of the skill isn’t getting hit, the passive heal is supposed to be just a little passive bonus. You’re completely ignoring the active part, which is what I think arena net really wanted to bring up with this skill. And the active mechanic seems really good and fun, maybe the numbers are too low but the skill looks promising.

I don’t understand all this QQ necros are making, you guys got an incredibly strong heal and if this one ends up being too bad I’m sure Anet will buff it.

Simple math will tell you a 35 second CD heal that heals for 4k and has a mark that (if not dodged) can offer no more than 1200 more healing. You think necros are okay with a 5.2k heal on a 35 second Cooldown? Do you understand how the class works? x.X

It’s the ICDs that are ruining it, imo

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I would say damage done to targets be at about 250 and Healing should be about 500, of course not accounting for Power and Healing Power. They should be reasonable scaling nothing to over powered and nothing that makes it pointless like the scaling on the current Siphon skills.

I was thinking a max scaling of like 100 additional healing or damage. So if you had a Soldier build with max power, you get 100 more damage, if you had a Cleric’s build, you only get like 50 more damage but 100 healing.

Seeing as its on Hit rather than on attack the healing should be higher. Think 500base would be decent, Mesmer will have about 1,000 every 3 seconds for just having 3 illusions out, combine that with the defensive options they have and its insanely strong.

necromancer on the other hand…what do they have? A poor Meatshield that can be melted down in seconds. As well as a few minor abilities with long cool downs. Once you get into a fight as a Necromancer either you win or you die. No chance of escape.

ahuba.6430:

I don’t understand all this QQ necros are making, you guys got an incredibly strong heal and if this one ends up being too bad I’m sure Anet will buff it.

The skill is directly weaker than every other heal we have.

WoB with high healing power in a support build will heal the group for 35k HP, this will do 6-7k at best, the same that WoB will heal one person for. And it is only 5s longer CD, with vastly better traiting available to it.

Self healing will be out-classed by every single other skill. Consume Conditions has a higher base heal and scaling on a lower CD, and it removes conditions for more “effective” healing. WoB can easily double this skills healing to yourself, with only 5s longer CD.

All of the above, btw, cannot be countered by the opponent dodging. Blood Fiend is the closest analogue, as it can be avoided. Except Blood Fiend is strictly better at base, and has a ton of traits that push it even higher up there.

Maybe if they split the skill between staff/scepter using the current terrible form as ranged options, and gave axe/dagger a higher siphon effect for being melee/pseudo melee, that would be cool.

Dagger + axe having the damage passive effect would also solve a big problem facing powers necros; they get trained hard and don’t take it well.

Dreams of vampire necro – still currently dashed

Healing in DS: b/c that’s not “power overwhelming” or anything. :P

SRSLY though, as one poster already mentioned: No heals of any kind work in DS, by design. On-crit life-siphon food and on-kill sigils used to heal us in DS, that was patched.

Sigil of Vampirism has some promise. It will need a lot of play-testing. In the end Consume Conditions will continue to be the only viable heal in WvW. Everything is going to be OK.

Here is my suggestion for the heal.

Passive: Steal 100 health from up to 5 foes each second. 240 radius.

Active: Heal for 4k, you and allies steal health from your foes for the next 5 seconds. Stealing is 100 health per attack.

Or something similar. And don’t give me “But thats 1.5k every 3 seconds and thats a lot better of a heal then the mesmer is getting!” SO? Its healing depends on the necro being out numbered and the necromancer SHOULD be better at self healing then the mesmer or any other profession for that matter….

That Passive SUCKS. What about 1 Vs 1 situations? Sorry but the Mesmer Passive is MILES better.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That Passive SUCKS. What about 1 Vs 1 situations? Sorry but the Mesmer Passive is MILES better.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

we already have great heals for 1v1. And we can’t balance every single skill around 1v1…

Lily.1935:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That Passive SUCKS. What about 1 Vs 1 situations? Sorry but the Mesmer Passive is MILES better.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

we already have great heals for 1v1. And we can’t balance every single skill around 1v1…

I would say our current heals are fine for multiple targets as well. How about:

Passive: Each attack inflicted on the Necromancer heals the necromancer for x amount of health (say base 300-400) and Inflicts Poison on the attacker

Active: Heal for 4k, you steal health from your foes for the next 5 seconds. Stealing is 100 health per hit (so multi hitting attacks take more health)

OR. Rather than introducing a new heal – they make our current ones work inside Death Shroud with a added trait that would define what gets healed. For example They could all without a trait Heal for Life Force, take a trait and Boom it heals for Health instead

You could also then have it so its like going from Ground to water in that you can have different heals on the bar.

Using the heal from inside death Shroud would cost some Life Force but the heal itself would be changed just a bit and buffed.

Example:

Consume Conditions: Feast On Conditions healing yourself (either LF or HP) and gain 1 stack of Might for 10-15 seconds per condition consumed

Well of Blood: summon Well of Blood and heal, Gain random Boon (defensive) for 10-15 seconds while standing in the well. Enemies are inflicted with random condition for 10-15 seconds.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Lily.1935:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That Passive SUCKS. What about 1 Vs 1 situations? Sorry but the Mesmer Passive is MILES better.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

we already have great heals for 1v1. And we can’t balance every single skill around 1v1…

I would say our current heals are fine for multiple targets as well. How about:

Passive: Each attack inflicted on the Necromancer heals the necromancer for x amount of health (say base 300-400) and Inflicts Poison on the attacker

Active: Heal for 4k, you steal health from your foes for the next 5 seconds. Stealing is 100 health per hit (so multi hitting attacks take more health)

OR. Rather than introducing a new heal – they make our current ones work inside Death Shroud with a added trait that would define what gets healed. For example They could all without a trait Heal for Life Force, take a trait and Boom it heals for Health instead

You could also then have it so its like going from Ground to water in that you can have different heals on the bar.

Using the heal from inside death Shroud would cost some Life Force but the heal itself would be changed just a bit and buffed.

Example:

Consume Conditions: Feast On Conditions healing yourself (either LF or HP) and gain 1 stack of Might for 10-15 seconds per condition consumed

Well of Blood: summon Well of Blood and heal, Gain random Boon (defensive) for 10-15 seconds while standing in the well. Enemies are inflicted with random condition for 10-15 seconds.

I’m not going to agree on the skill. I like my changes, but I will say your second opinion is an idea. You should read my new post.

You know how about instead of raging at the new skill, lets hope that the next heal we get is a spectral without internal cooldown and a new elite to be grenths balance that instantly triggers on us falling to 1% hp (think avernus from Dota) that works in % not in actual numbers like LF did.

Andele.1306

You know how about instead of raging at the new skill, lets hope that the next heal we get is a spectral without internal cooldown and a new elite to be grenths balance that instantly triggers on us falling to 1% hp (think avernus from Dota) that works in % not in actual numbers like LF did.

So instead of trying to get the current skill fixed (or the current state of Necromancer looked at) we should just hold on till the next skill?

Don’t worry about balance, because the next next balance patch will be the Necromancer miracle patch… right?

It’s terribad.

This is a perfect example for the need to balance skill effects per mode. This skill looks like it will be good for pve and wvw, and not for a 5v5 conquest mode.

I doubt it’ll even have much use in WvW, too little healing for the lack of mobility/defense necromancers have.

No, it wouldnt be good for wvw, reason being:
For roaming it well be inferior to cc and the minion (if you spec mm)
For Group settings:
The passiv dosnt scale with the number of opponents (icd)-> useless
The active part heal is inferior to wob (even if your group cannot stand in the well the whole time) and the damage if you focus someone then you dont need the extra damage (as if they dont avoid they are dead anyways).

Actually i think i would use that skill rather in spvp then in wvw…

For pve the skill may be fine but i think the numbers are simple not good enough, they
have to improve the numbers in order for me ever using it in any mode

TBH, we have a good heal so I am not that bothered.

I just want vampirism to be a real thing. It’s such a cool niche, but has like 0 backing. T_T

I wonder how much hp you can get off the passive from a full lifeforce bar.

At least it is slightly better than healing signet, for which it is literally ALWAYS incorrect to use the active mode

#hypepassiveplay

ens.9854:

I wonder how much hp you can get off the passive from a full lifeforce bar.

At least it is slightly better than healing signet, for which it is literally ALWAYS incorrect to use the active mode

#hypepassiveplay

Maybe as skill desgin, but not in numbers.

Edit: Why do you think that skill interacts with lf in some way?

Muchacho.2390:

ens.9854:

I wonder how much hp you can get off the passive from a full lifeforce bar.

At least it is slightly better than healing signet, for which it is literally ALWAYS incorrect to use the active mode

#hypepassiveplay

Maybe as skill desgin, but not in numbers.

it was sarcasm, pointing out how blatantly overpowered healing signet is

Actually i would be ok with the skill, if the number were better (shorter cd, more heal).
As i like the idea, however not the implemention (like many other necro things).

It just takes one professional necro to make a new build that works around this new healing skill. Then we might get a thread that says, “signet of vamp is too OP,nerf pls” haha!

give it time, good players will think off something to make it work, or at least try to make it work.

The new heal is definitely geared toward PvE and Dagger/Melee use. Like all skills, it’s meant to be used when the situation dictates – A melee fight with burst health loss. If you know you have this type of boss, you swap to this heal, pop it while the boss is doing to most damage to the entire party to keep you all up and take him down.

No profession will ever be without it’s flaws. A world of immortal gods would be without challenge.

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

It just takes one professional necro to make a new build that works around this new healing skill. Then we might get a thread that says, “signet of vamp is too OP,nerf pls” haha!

give it time, good players will think off something to make it work, or at least try to make it work.

Yeah, I can totally see it now. Zombify will bring in an OP build using the signet to the next tournament, and the instant someone is marked they just use one of the 15 defensive options available to every other class to avoid it, and then he will get instantly focused and killed because he has the worst healing skill available to our class.

Ironically, this thing will only be great against other Necros, because they have exactly two ways to avoid it. Dodge #1, and Dodge #2.

Except Well of Blood deals with that exact situation. The only difference is while the mark will only heal each ally for 2k HP, WoB will heal for 7k.

Heithinn.6508:

The new heal is definitely geared toward PvE and Dagger/Melee use. Like all skills, it’s meant to be used when the situation dictates – A melee fight with burst health loss. If you know you have this type of boss, you swap to this heal, pop it while the boss is doing to most damage to the entire party to keep you all up and take him down.

No profession will ever be without it’s flaws. A world of immortal gods would be without challenge.

except the skill is complete garbage in PvE too. I’ll take well of blood over this any day. Hell, I’ll take blood fiend over this.

Heithinn.6508:

The new heal is definitely geared toward PvE and Dagger/Melee use. Like all skills, it’s meant to be used when the situation dictates – A melee fight with burst health loss. If you know you have this type of boss, you swap to this heal, pop it while the boss is doing to most damage to the entire party to keep you all up and take him down.

No profession will ever be without it’s flaws. A world of immortal gods would be without challenge.

That would be all well and good if this was a utility skill, not a heal skill.

This needs to be buffed or changed to a utility.

Yes, the skill slot is an apple. We were handed an orange.

Oranges are nice and all, but we needed an apple.

Myrkr.5803:

Andele.1306

You know how about instead of raging at the new skill, lets hope that the next heal we get is a spectral without internal cooldown and a new elite to be grenths balance that instantly triggers on us falling to 1% hp (think avernus from Dota) that works in % not in actual numbers like LF did.

So instead of trying to get the current skill fixed (or the current state of Necromancer looked at) we should just hold on till the next skill?

Don’t worry about balance, because the next next balance patch will be the Necromancer miracle patch… right?

No because its not final, we dont know if its bonkers (which it probably is), point being we already got a good staple and a good support heal that really noone would change that signet in for.

Andele.1306

No because its not final, we dont know if its bonkers (which it probably is), point being we already got a good staple and a good support heal that really noone would change that signet in for.

I suppose for me it doesn’t matter what we have, its that every other class is getting a heal somewhere between situationally good and OP. While we get a signet that will literally mark you as a clueless free kill.

Worst of all its original form could have opened up some interesting builds ~ if somewhat dangerous to not have a spike heal. Instead we are still stuck with one viable spvp build that is being nerfed.

As for not being final, we will see tuesday. I pray your right, but am confident it will not change.

The problem was that they killed the true identity of the skill. We already have strong group support via WoB, and the only use of this would have been the fact that you don’t need to stand in a well to get the healing. Except WoB can outheal this thing in 3 pulses of 11.

And we have a stronger passive heal in Blood Fiend.

The thing this skill had going for it was damage. The ability for the most aggressive class in the game to give up a large portion of healing for increased damage and decent HP/s was great, and it involved having to be hyper-aggressive to get full use out of the skill. But they gutted the damage from the skill, and turned it into a crappy mix of WoB and Blood Fiend that does everything worse.

Bhawb.7408:

The problem was that they killed the true identity of the skill. We already have strong group support via WoB, and the only use of this would have been the fact that you don’t need to stand in a well to get the healing. Except WoB can outheal this thing in 3 pulses of 11.

And we have a stronger passive heal in Blood Fiend.

The thing this skill had going for it was damage. The ability for the most aggressive class in the game to give up a large portion of healing for increased damage and decent HP/s was great, and it involved having to be hyper-aggressive to get full use out of the skill. But they gutted the damage from the skill, and turned it into a crappy mix of WoB and Blood Fiend that does everything worse.

remember http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire ? God I miss that skill. Why doesn’t the necromancer have something actually like that?

They should bring back the damage of the passive (i think thats less of a problem with the icd) and reduce the cooldown back to 20 seconds.

Lily.1935:

remember http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire ? God I miss that skill. Why doesn’t the necromancer have something actually like that?

See, that is almost exactly what the passive would have been. They just included some parameters to fit the skill to this game, namely making it mark a target (as that introduces better gameplay for this game, imo), and then having a max-stack limit so that it couldn’t be too abused (I don’t recall GW1 having the same kind of attack timing differences like here).

That is half the reason why I was so in love with the original skill, was because its active was essentially Order of the Vampire, but fit to GW2.

Luckily those 2 dodges will only leave time for 1-2 hits to actually land while the mark is on us

How disinterested did the developers look when testing this skill in the video… it was like it was a chore.. it healed for bugger all.

When the Guardian section was playing they were hooting and cheering and it healed for a gagillion health points.

This speaks volumes to me.

Still no comment from anyone at A-net.

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, I can totally see it now. Zombify will bring in an OP build

Gee, thanks.

The original data mined Signet of Vampirism was actually great, for every hit you take you will heal and do damage, no ICD. I can already think of Blood Magic builds that would heavily center around this and would make the Signet useful and fun.

The new version with an ICD and no passive damage component is just a huge slap in the face to Necromancer. I’d rather remove it altogether and give a Necro-only skin I can wear, that’s about how useful it is.