Guild Wars 2

OtakuDFifty.2965:

20/25 stacks of SoV will do roughly 5000 armor-ignoring damage to one target. A Necro decked out in Clerics and Monk runes will NOT match that damage with a Blood Fiend and LB. Blood Fiend does, what, 200-300 damage every 3 seconds? That is NOT matching SoV.

Want extra damage, run Blood Fiend, want group heal, run WoB… Why not both?

GASP a whole 5k damage? That’s like, one whole LB!

So essentially, let’s narrow down when SoV will be useful:
Your team needs a little bit of healing, but not much
Your team needs more DPS
You are running Clerics
You need very little healing yourself

If all of those are not met, the skill falls short. If your team needs actual healing, this skill is blown out of the water compared to Well of Blood. Even Transfusion would double the healing.

Basically, this skill will only be useful in a low-damage Necro build while against bosses so easy that a real healing skill isn’t necessary, so you bring SoV to speed things up a bit. This is beyond niche, this is a skill that is entirely useless in 95% of the time in game, and provides a marginal increase in time to kill a boss. I’m sure your team will praise you for allowing them to kill the boss two seconds faster.

Bhawb.7408

GASP a whole 5k damage? That’s like, one whole LB!

Truth. And due to the 1.25 sec cast time it would actually be a DPS LOSS vs. LB or Dagger chain…

(Blood Fiend, however; assuming you summon pre-combat is a DPS gain.)

Bhawb.7408:

GASP a whole 5k damage? That’s like, one whole LB!

ITT: ONLY Power Necros exist. My LB’s do sub-1000 damage most of the time. And they aren’t exactly rapid.

So essentially, let’s narrow down when SoV will be useful:
Your team needs a little bit of healing, but not much

More like moderate healing. I don’t doubt that WoB will be able to heal more, but without a doubt it’s less effective in spread out battles. There are several fractal fights and guild bounties I can think of where SoV could have an edge over WoB (though that remains to be seen in practice).

Your team needs more DPS

Not necessarily. For a low-DPS Necro, SoV could be a significant DPS gap-closer.

You are running Clerics
You need very little healing yourself

Because it would be stupid to put yourself into excessive danger when your DPS isn’t that high.

If all of those are not met, the skill falls short. If your team needs actual healing, this skill is blown out of the water compared to Well of Blood. Even Transfusion would double the healing.

Using SoV doesn’t mean not traiting Transfusion. Transfusion provides SIGNIFICANT healing so it’s a must for such a support Necro. OF COURSE you would bring Transfusion. WoB alone does not constitute a support build. WoB is king in close quarters, SoV closes the gap in spread out battles. Switch between the two as necessary. YOU CAN SWITCH SKILLS OUT OF COMBAT.

Basically, this skill will only be useful in a low-damage Necro build while against bosses so easy that a real healing skill isn’t necessary, so you bring SoV to speed things up a bit. This is beyond niche, this is a skill that is entirely useless in 95% of the time in game, and provides a marginal increase in time to kill a boss. I’m sure your team will praise you for allowing them to kill the boss two seconds faster.

Is there anything wrong with that? I’m a niche player, so the more skills that help support builds that aren’t already popular (and thus already have support), the better. Experimentation is fun. Could SoV be stronger? Absolutely. Would I want it to be stronger? Absolutely. Could it have a better Passive? Absolutely, and throw in a Signet of Undeath buff as well. Is it made completely obsolete by other Necro healing skills? I don’t think so.

It may be ok for when you need very little healing with as little dps loss as possible seeing as it has the same cast time as CC. So it may be something I use for lupi solo but thats probably the only situation. And I wont know for sure until I see what its like.

Way to ruin the first interesting teamplay oriented skill you’ve designed since launch of the game, Anet….ICD + set uses… so much disappointement.

I was hoping so much for a Gw1 Barbs return.

I have a question.

If they implement this skill in its current form, it will be weaker than any of the necro heal skills. So logically, no necro will use it.

What is the point of adding a skill that no one will use? Isn’t that almost identical to not getting a new skill at all?

I propose that if they do implement the skill in this pathetic form, that we complain that we didn’t get a new skill at all. Because that’s what it amounts to.

Not sure why they removed the damage portion of the passive. Its not exactly op when it has in icd.

Simplest solution is don’t take it. I mean nobody takes it.

Then they patch it later.

It seems like this had a more effective form earlier in testing and its the victim of last minute nerfs. I kinda wonder what miraculous build we’re not seeing that scared them so badly…?

They were probably afraid of active + fiery rush for nuking bosses and passive while tanking 50 mesmer clones for imortality. Hardly worth overnerfing it for…

Spoj The Second.7680:

They were probably afraid of active + fiery rush for nuking bosses and passive while tanking 50 mesmer clones for imortality. Hardly worth overnerfing it for…

The 25 stack should handle the problem of FGS / charge and i cant feel sorry for mesmers. Spam da clonz on me fo da healz!

Nike.2631:

I kinda wonder what miraculous build we’re not seeing that scared them so badly…?

I guess they feared something along the lines of what this guy is saying:

The signets active can be used very effectively in order to spike targets in WvW or Pvp. It needs coordination though. It is true that dodge rolling or blocks can negate this but a common theme in all the healing skills is that they can be very effective but have counter play as well. I expect to see videos of teams instant spiking with this signets active within a few days

Dalanor.5387:

Spoj The Second.7680:

They were probably afraid of active + fiery rush for nuking bosses and passive while tanking 50 mesmer clones for imortality. Hardly worth overnerfing it for…

The 25 stack should handle the problem of FGS / charge and i cant feel sorry for mesmers. Spam da clonz on me fo da healz!

True but there was no icd or stack limit on the datamined version.

From what I can tell, the new healing skill is not actually a healing skill at all, but rather a spike damage setup skill with the cost of making the Necro very susceptible to being spiked himself.

It seems very PvP oriented.

mtpelion.4562:

From what I can tell, the new healing skill is not actually a healing skill at all, but rather a spike damage setup skill with the cost of making the Necro very susceptible to being spiked himself.

It seems very PvP oriented.

Believe me, it’s not PvP oriented neither. Spike damage is bad in pvp as well, on top of how dodgable a 1.25 cast heal is, they could dodge the mark then if that DOES land, just dodgeroll around and kite until the 5 second debuff falls off, easily wasting at LEAST half of it without even trying. And after that 1.25 sec cast you’d have only gotten 4k heal. Believe me, it’s not pvp oriented neither :S

Nike.2631:

Simplest solution is don’t take it. I mean nobody takes it.

Then they patch it later.

It seems like this had a more effective form earlier in testing and its the victim of last minute nerfs. I kinda wonder what miraculous build we’re not seeing that scared them so badly…?

That’s not how anet works.

If nobody uses the skill, nobody whines about the skill and it stays unused and never gets buffed. For example corrosive poison cloud or signet of undeath, and those get much more use than this thing ever will.

nekretaal.6485:

If nobody uses the skill, nobody whines about the skill and it stays unused and never gets buffed. For example corrosive poison cloud or signet of undeath, and those get much more use than this thing ever will.

Actually, this skill in the last few days alone has gotten more pure discussion and complaints than CPC and SoU combined in their entire lifetimes as skills. There has been easily 25 pages or so over multiple threads about this skill.

The difference is that while CPC is a bit weak and needs a little buffing, it still has niche use. Part of what is making the skill so weak is that it is a very sPvP oriented skill, but desires a Necromancer build-type that isn’t common at all in sPvP right now. But when you have space to use it, it can do really strong things. Drop CPC and WoS on a downed body in sPvP, and that person isn’t getting back up. If their team tries anyway, they’ll end up with 30s of poison and weakness, while taking a few thousand damage for the effort of still not getting them up. Niche, yes, weak yes, but still usable.

Signet of Undeath is even more niche, but again still has some slight uses for more difficult dungeons and fractals where stopping to res someone is not a good idea.

But SoV has nothing. I also urge people to not even buy the skill if it hasn’t changed. They do have statistics on this, and if they see Necromancers refuse to buy it, or buy it, equip it once to try it, and never equip it again, they will notice. And the forum complaints won’t stop very soon.

Bhawb.7408:

nekretaal.6485:

If nobody uses the skill, nobody whines about the skill and it stays unused and never gets buffed. For example corrosive poison cloud or signet of undeath, and those get much more use than this thing ever will.

Actually, this skill in the last few days alone has gotten more pure discussion and complaints than CPC and SoU combined in their entire lifetimes as skills. There has been easily 25 pages or so over multiple threads about this skill.

The difference is that while CPC is a bit weak and needs a little buffing, it still has niche use. Part of what is making the skill so weak is that it is a very sPvP oriented skill, but desires a Necromancer build-type that isn’t common at all in sPvP right now. But when you have space to use it, it can do really strong things. Drop CPC and WoS on a downed body in sPvP, and that person isn’t getting back up. If their team tries anyway, they’ll end up with 30s of poison and weakness, while taking a few thousand damage for the effort of still not getting them up. Niche, yes, weak yes, but still usable.

Signet of Undeath is even more niche, but again still has some slight uses for more difficult dungeons and fractals where stopping to res someone is not a good idea.

But SoV has nothing. I also urge people to not even buy the skill if it hasn’t changed. They do have statistics on this, and if they see Necromancers refuse to buy it, or buy it, equip it once to try it, and never equip it again, they will notice. And the forum complaints won’t stop very soon.

I am buying it… YOU CAN’T STOP ME!

Hmmm there is an initial self heal of roughly 4k..Seems legit overall?!

Tell me if wrong asumption.

D I V A.6018:

Hmmm there is an initial self heal of roughly 4k..Seems legit overall?!

Tell me if wrong asumption.

The base heal for Consume Conditions and for Well of Blood is still higher than the max heal for the signet, though. And for Well of Blood, that’s the initial heal, not counting any of the 11 pulses.

Nope, now I get it what you guys were saying over this week.
This skills is just HORRIBLE the healing output is weak, CD too long and the ICD make it extremely clumsy to use…

I want a refund for my skill points.
DIVA

D I V A.6018:

Hmmm there is an initial self heal of roughly 4k..Seems legit overall?!

Tell me if wrong asumption.

The total healing of the skill is the same as the base heal for Consume Conditions, and Well of Blood, on activation. Both of those skills then have secondary effects that heal for additional amounts, far and above what SoV can reach.

Blood Fiend has a similar active value, and is universally regarded as our least useful heal.

It is so disappointing that 12 pages of necro complaints since the introductionary video are not enough to at least attract a single dev reply to our concerns before they finally implement the heal.

Awesome community interaction, thanks for that, Anet!

Anet dont care. It is that simple.

Moon.6371:

It is so disappointing that 12 pages of necro complaints since the introductionary video are not enough to at least attract a single dev reply to our concerns before they finally implement the heal.

Awesome community interaction, thanks for that, Anet!

I would not be surprised if Devs in general are not allowed to talk very much in class forums.

^ This may be true, and I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if it was to avoid any visible amounts of class favoritism.

Bhawb.7408:

nekretaal.6485:

If nobody uses the skill, nobody whines about the skill and it stays unused and never gets buffed. For example corrosive poison cloud or signet of undeath, and those get much more use than this thing ever will.

Actually, this skill in the last few days alone has gotten more pure discussion and complaints than CPC and SoU combined in their entire lifetimes as skills. There has been easily 25 pages or so over multiple threads about this skill.

The difference is that while CPC is a bit weak and needs a little buffing, it still has niche use. Part of what is making the skill so weak is that it is a very sPvP oriented skill, but desires a Necromancer build-type that isn’t common at all in sPvP right now. But when you have space to use it, it can do really strong things. Drop CPC and WoS on a downed body in sPvP, and that person isn’t getting back up. If their team tries anyway, they’ll end up with 30s of poison and weakness, while taking a few thousand damage for the effort of still not getting them up. Niche, yes, weak yes, but still usable.

Signet of Undeath is even more niche, but again still has some slight uses for more difficult dungeons and fractals where stopping to res someone is not a good idea.

But SoV has nothing. I also urge people to not even buy the skill if it hasn’t changed. They do have statistics on this, and if they see Necromancers refuse to buy it, or buy it, equip it once to try it, and never equip it again, they will notice. And the forum complaints won’t stop very soon.

Sorry i already bought it and regretted it…

Does anyone think Signet of Vampirism might be worthwhile traited with Signet Mastery? Reduces recharge time to 28 seconds (3 more than Consume Conditions) and adds 3 stacks of Might.

labesamis.9261:

Does anyone think Signet of Vampirism might be worthwhile traited with Signet Mastery? Reduces recharge time to 28 seconds (3 more than Consume Conditions) and adds 3 stacks of Might.

Nope.

Afer playing with the new skills for 5 hours,I can 100% say this skill is junk.

labesamis.9261:

Does anyone think Signet of Vampirism might be worthwhile traited with Signet Mastery? Reduces recharge time to 28 seconds (3 more than Consume Conditions) and adds 3 stacks of Might.

No. No. No. Dont waste your points on it.

Finally managed to try it out myself. I was worried about how poorly it would scale with my healing power, but wow… It’s like it doesn’t scale AT ALL.

Still, after spending some time roaming around Orr, the passive isn’t too bad, at least as long as I’m not unreasonably outnumbered. It negates a reasonable number of attacks from trash Risen.

Active has some problems (not already covered by posters here), since on more than one occasion it failed to place a mark on my enemy, and not because of problems like line of sight, out of range, evasion, or block… it just plain didn’t mark. You have to be facing the enemy at all times in order for the mark to be successful, or it fails. I do like how often I can cast it though. It works best as something to keep you topped off rather than an emergency heal. I have yet to see how well it works in a dungeon or fractals situation.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Finally managed to try it out myself. I was worried about how poorly it would scale with my healing power, but wow… It’s like it doesn’t scale AT ALL.

Still, after spending some time roaming around Orr, the passive isn’t too bad, at least as long as I’m not unreasonably outnumbered. It negates a reasonable number of attacks from trash Risen.

Active has some problems (not already covered by posters here), since on more than one occasion it failed to place a mark on my enemy, and not because of problems like line of sight, out of range, evasion, or block… it just plain didn’t mark. You have to be facing the enemy at all times in order for the mark to be successful, or it fails. I do like how often I can cast it though. It works best as something to keep you topped off rather than an emergency heal. I have yet to see how well it works in a dungeon or fractals situation.

Try it in WvW,its like you never have it on.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Finally managed to try it out myself. I was worried about how poorly it would scale with my healing power, but wow… It’s like it doesn’t scale AT ALL.

This is what the Vampiric Signet: Facts thread is about. It is all of the numeric facts of the skill compiled into one post.

Now, what is said afterward has a lot of opinion, but the first post is nothing but facts.

This is the first time I actually find myself boycotting a skill. It sounds silly, but I don’t want to reward this lazy treatment of my favorite class. Look if they don’t want to put the time and effort in to give us a skill that is worth taking, then they might as well not give us a new skill at all. That’s what it feels like, like we didn’t get a skill, when every other class did. I am severely disappointed by this continuing disinterest by the development team in our class. I urge more necromancers to follow in my footsteps and be loud and clear about how we feel about this. Consider this a silent polite protest.

Dev in game told me that we should complain on the bug fix and the suggestions forums… but i think that any posts we did there got merged onto existing (and sometimes with no connection) topics on necro forums, anyone got some ideas?

Andele.1306:

Dev in game told me that we should complain on the bug fix and the suggestions forums… but i think that any posts we did there got merged onto existing (and sometimes with no connection) topics on necro forums, anyone got some ideas?

I have gotten good responses from the bug forums. Start a thread about how trash this skill is, link it, and I will gladly spam it with my incessant posting, just like I do the rest of this forum.

I got 2 devs to tell me they’d pass it on to the Balancing team.

I think that the signet should have been a regen with a single condi clear like every 10 secs or so with the active being a protection/retaliation combo on active. This way we get healing and condition removal similar to consume conditions but to a lesser extent and we get something to fend off being focused which is a huge problem of the necro imo. Let the testers hash out the specs to make it viable for balance so as not to God forbid get the the OMG it is OP so nerf it into the ground dhumfire reflex again.

Thing is I really don’t want the Necro to get boon-based sustain or survival. Siphons were supposed to be our alternative to things like Retal and Regen. This is what makes the Necro interesting and different. Instead of boons, we turn enemy attacks into detrimental problems for the enemy. I’d rather see adjustments along these lines…

Instead we see shoddy work and “balance” that can’t buff our unique elements because we also have access to boons. But neither our boons nor our unique skills are sufficient by themselves to accomplish what we need. And combining them requires such specialization that we can’t accomplish much.

ronpierce.2760:

I got 2 devs to tell me they’d pass it on to the Balancing team.

Thats their way of say,yeah whatever.

Banjal.7328:

Thats their way of say,yeah whatever.

I do know for sure that the devs have been reading the forums, and also that at least one has been talked to in game.

Wise words from a wise old chinese man:
To learn (read) and not think is a waste. To think and not study(understand) is dangerous.
If you are willing to admit you are wrong when you are wrong, you are all right.
You look at/hear me, but you dont see/listen to me!

And last but not least (one which isnt towards the devs but us): If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.

Bought it because of an OCD thing, used it once, never used it again. I just doesn’t do what they claim its supposed to do. the 5 second window isn’t enough time for a slow attacking profession to trigger the marked foe more then 4 times if you are lucky. Then the 1 second cool down life stealing does absolutely nothing for you. even the weakest of foes will out damage it and chances are, they wont even notice the damage compared to the thousands of damage they are used to taking.

So many clamps on this skill. ICD on passive. ICD on active. Total proc limit on active. Individual proc limit on passive. Huge cast time, requires a target.

I can’t help but think they’re purposely being extremely conservative/cautious with this because of how easy necro is to throw into wtf-mode. I feel like we’re going to see a lot of these restrictions eased up once it sees some use/feedback and they can confirm that it’s not going to turn necro into the incredible hulk.

Guys, remember, Locust got buffed, its now a better version of the Ele heal, but more risky and doesnt take up the heal slot, go my friends and heal for 1-6k on base to 1.5-8k on a power build with 10~20 points into blood while having free mobility in case you dont need it.

I bought the skill, and let my teams carry me the whole time in pvp yesterday made 5g by being semi afk on a point while pinging this kitten.. (i mean Skill) at some point people were like, oh kitten it’s you again.. and ofcourse i replied “don’t worry, i got this” and pinged the skill again..

Then i leveled my ele with tomes and shot my necro behind the ear and sold her to my local butcher.

Bhawb.7408:

Banjal.7328:

Thats their way of say,yeah whatever.

I do know for sure that the devs have been reading the forums, and also that at least one has been talked to in game.

After getting infracted 2 times , i got an pm telling me our grave concerns are noted and send to the dev’s..
I told the GM that if dev’s want to be taken seriously they better post on this necro forum..

They didn’t and all that tells me is they have no clue or interest at all .. none. nada, niente, njet, nulla.

So no more money for ncsoft.

Note: A guildy of mine fixes bugs.
Special note: He stopped playing gw2 months ago because of all the bugs, man you should hear him on TS ranting about how utter kitten this game is ^^

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

I bought the skill, and let my teams carry me the whole time in pvp yesterday made 5g by being semi afk on a point while pinging this kitten.. (i mean Skill) at some point people were like, oh kitten it’s you again.. and ofcourse i replied “don’t worry, i got this” and pinged the skill again..

Then i leveled my ele with tomes and shot my necro behind the ear and sold her to my local butcher.

Haha, +1 for that. I was actually considering making a build with the Signet, combined with Mistfire Wolf, and CPC. Just for fun. But I think I’ll refrain from buying that signet completely, just to send a message.

It really is sad, but the class just isn’t as much fun to play any more as it was on launch. And the balance team seems clueless on where to go with our class. Balancing skills should not be about randomly throwing a skill in, and then tweaking the numbers later. And it helps to listen to people who actually play a necromancer. If they continue to ignore warnings by the community, they introduce horrible balance issues. We see this with Diamond Skin.

I only bought it to accurately test it. If I’m gonna rage over something I need to be able to back it up. I put it through the wringer in a scarlet invasion and some in wvw and found it to be utterly useless. I took one for the team in hopes that you guys will save your skill points and refuse to buy the skill. That alone will speak much louder than anything we could post here. That’s burned into the metrics they collect, and can’t be buried in forums!

tl;dr don’t purchase this skill!

I understand why no dev has posted here because there is no justification they can give for the signet that will change how it is. Im pretty sure that a good few of them already realise how bad it is and realised this during the preview but by that time it was too late for anything to be done about it.

The ones that most concern me is the ones on the testing or balancing team who designed the actual numbers and tested the skill. I can only assume that they have infact hired Mr Magoo to do their testing because that is the only reason why such an awful skill could bypass any scrutiny done on it before it got to release stage.

It would be different if you went well if you do x, y or z it could work or if x scenario it would be useful. But I could use all the letters in the alphabet and still not find a suitable scenario where this skill would infact work or be viable. That is the biggest concern for me is if something this big can slip past any testing, number crunching, balancing etc then how can we actually trust anything they say if this is the result of those procedures. The skill should never have been released like this and it should have been caught well before it got to this stage.