Guild Wars 2

Hello Guild Wars 2 Universe,

First off, I played GW1, all of them, and loved it and I am loving GW2 so far except for the Tier 8 situation in WVW… I’m in the Ferguson’s Crossing server. (Explains for itself) The point of this forum is to discuss Life Siphoning in the Necromancer Class.

First, Does Life Siphoning count as healing? If not is there a way to increase Life Siphon other than the trait Bloodthirst and if not what would the point of having healing on a Minion Master with Life Siponing Minions?

Second, I’m running D/D with secondary as staff. I’m thinking of running d/d with secondary if s/d. Which do you think is better?

Third, any other advice for a Minion Master in GW2? I had a MM in GW1 and I miss the amount if minions I had in GW1, but I am glad to be able to have a minion master in GW2.

1) Yes and no. For certain things it is considered healing (poison I believe) for others it won’t count (it won’t count for on-heal effects). There are some siphons that have healing power coefficients, they are just small. The only point of having healing on a necro at all is if you are playing a support build with staff and Well of Blood. I would never suggest using healing with minions; you can get away with it in PvE because it doesn’t require min/maxing, but in PvP it isn’t optimal.

2) For an MM, you want Axe/something (usually focus) and then either dagger/something-else (usually warhorn) or staff. Scepter with minions isn’t very good, it doesn’t bring good synergy with them, and investing in condition damage on an MM isn’t good.

3) Use power build/defensive stats (no healing power), go 20 in Spite, 20 or more in Death Magic, 20 or more in Blood Magic, and you should be pretty set. Don’t use Blood Fiend outside of PvE, bring Bone Minions, Bone Fiend, Flesh Wurm, and Flesh Golem.

plus 1 to what bhwab said

Minions aren’t based on gear so you can wear zerker (what I do) or bunker (what bhwab does) or you can run a hybrid type.

For secondary set, I prefer staff, while many players prefer dagger/warhorn to deal with pesky melee players.

I just need a bit more for clarification on Healing Power and the effect of it on allies (ie minions).
Does HP work with:
1. Mark of Blood?
2. Transfusion?
3. Deathly Invigoration?

Again, thats with these traits and their effects on allies only, not the necro.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I just need a bit more for clarification on Healing Power and the effect of it on allies (ie minions).
Does HP work with:
1. Mark of Blood?
2. Transfusion?
3. Deathly Invigoration?

Again, thats with these traits and their effects on allies only, not the necro.

The wiki is great for these sorts of questions: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necromancer . It will tell you not only if they scale, but by what factor they scale.

As a short answer though:
1. Yes (though it can get complicated in parties because other people are applying regeneration as well)
2. No
3. Yes

no , life siphon / life drain / life tap does not count towards vitality or healing , although it does heal you it is not the same as healing since you are doing damage with it , and by that measure alone you might want to look at a powermancer build to try and maximize the damage you are doing through life stealing , keep in mind that this is currently a bug and the devs are working on this , so as soon as they get it fixed , our healing factor will proc with life stealing and necros will be a real beast to deal with . as for right now you can still manage by but don’t expect to sustain yourself in a fight till the march or april or may or june patch when anet decides to fix this bug .

DelOnasi.6051:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I just need a bit more for clarification on Healing Power and the effect of it on allies (ie minions).
Does HP work with:
1. Mark of Blood?
2. Transfusion?
3. Deathly Invigoration?

Again, thats with these traits and their effects on allies only, not the necro.

The wiki is great for these sorts of questions: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necromancer . It will tell you not only if they scale, but by what factor they scale.

As a short answer though:
1. Yes (though it can get complicated in parties because other people are applying regeneration as well)
2. No
3. Yes

/facepalm @ myself. You know what’s really bad? I’m on the GW2 wiki nearly every day too.