Guild Wars 2

They CAN be tailored around a stat, or a Profession Mechanic.
In the first case you probably want some of that stat anyway. Why not?
In the second case you have something that you can never switch out, and thus always have anyway.

To me the Death Magic Minor Traits sound like they should be buffed and be made into Major Traits.

Reanimator has already had lots of complaints.
In some cases (such as in Arah) having Minions is a bad thing so the Jagged Horrors are just a nuisance.
However if Reanimator was buffed and made into a Major Trait it could be very nice!
That way it’d be easy to switch out when not wanted and used when you go MM.
It’s nice with Death Nova and if buffed it could be worth a slot in some builds.

Protection of the Horde doesn’t hurt you, but it gives you absolutely nothing unless you use Minions.
And if your build uses just one or two minions then it gives a lackluster bonus.
Buff it, make it into a Major Trait and tanky Minion Masters can use it if they want to!

Deadly Strength. Notice how this gives a bonus to everyone.
It could be better, but it’s not too shabby.
Everyone gets something, and it doesn’t hurt you unless you really hate dealing more damage.

Arenanet’s thinking was probably “The first Minor Trait gives Minions, so the second one works off it.”
In reality that doesn’t really happen, and some people just plain don’t want Minions.
They just want Toughness, Boon Duration and Major Traits, and instead get force fed Minions.

Personally I’ll probably use Minions more once their AI gets better.
However I still wouldn’t want a Minion that gets summoned without me choosing to do so!
I might make an exception from Minions spawning from the deaths of other Minions, because then you have some indirect control at least.

None the less I believe what I said likely applies to all Professions.
Warriors don’t have Minor Traits that just give bonuses to Banners.
Rangers don’t have Minor Traits that just summon Spirits.
Necromancer should not have Minor Traits affecting only Minions.

Very well said, and I feel it could be a pretty easy fix for the death magic tree. Toughness is great to have for a necro, and the death magic tree is heavy on staff boosting traits but all the minor traits are literally useless for anyone who doesn’t use minions.

If you look at the minor traits for pretty much every other profession they give benefits of some kind to ALL players, not just the ones using specific utilities. Those types of traits should always be major traits IMO

Amen, preach it wit yo soul! I agree with 100% absolutely everything you said. I find it almost preposterous that they actually made minor traits which benefit one specific build for necros. This doesn’t happen in any other profession, none, it’s just ridiculous that they would give you minor traits that only directly help you if you’re using a specific set of utility skills.

LastDay.3524:

I might make an exception from Minions spawning from the deaths of other Minions, because then you have some indirect control at least.

It would be pretty cool if reanimator did that. Remove the jagged horror degen, keep the cap of them at 5, and remove the cooldown. I’d take that over death nova if it was made into a grand master death magic trait.

Also, I don’t see why they don’t just scrap the jagged horror trait and give us an actual utility spell that summons ~5 of them with slower health degen and grant LF on death (IMO all minions should grant LF on death).

They do give LF on death though.

It actually really saddens me though, because you have no idea, NO idea how badly I would love to trait into death magic tree to get the bonus to toughness and the boosts to my staff – however I am simply not willing to give up on two useless minor traits I’d be forced to get along the way, one of which would do me more harm than good because what I do the most are Arah runs.

You know what? In the tree that gives you BOON DURATION, why not actually give you some sort of bonus directed towards giving you BOONS? The necro has a shameful arsenal of boons available for him, why not something like – whenever you kill a foe get retaliation/regen/something for 5 seconds (10 second cooldown). Something like that?

Just something because another thing that saddens me about Death Magic is that it adds to boon duration… WHAT BOONS?!

Delryn.7235:

You know what? In the tree that gives you BOON DURATION, why not actually give you some sort of bonus directed towards giving you BOONS? The necro has a shameful arsenal of boons available for him, why not something like – whenever you kill a foe get retaliation/regen/something for 5 seconds (10 second cooldown). Something like that?

Just something because another thing that saddens me about Death Magic is that it adds to boon duration… WHAT BOONS?!

regen (mark of blood, retaliation from axe 3, movement speed from warhorn, protection from wells) mostly the only boons you get as a necromancer are from wells and the staff, which would be the only reason to spec into the tree anyway.

If you spec into a tree not for the traits but for the stats it provides, you are doing something terribly wrong.

striker.3704:

Delryn.7235:

You know what? In the tree that gives you BOON DURATION, why not actually give you some sort of bonus directed towards giving you BOONS? The necro has a shameful arsenal of boons available for him, why not something like – whenever you kill a foe get retaliation/regen/something for 5 seconds (10 second cooldown). Something like that?

Just something because another thing that saddens me about Death Magic is that it adds to boon duration… WHAT BOONS?!

regen (mark of blood, retaliation from axe 3, movement speed from warhorn, protection from wells) mostly the only boons you get as a necromancer are from wells and the staff, which would be the only reason to spec into the tree anyway.

If you spec into a tree not for the traits but for the stats it provides, you are doing something terribly wrong.

The staff is ranged, the marks are tiny, the odds you’re gonna give yourself regen (also there is only ONE mark that gives A boon) is highly unlikely. Even if you got greater marks you still only have one mark that gives you a boon, and only if you’re close enough. Also scepters don’t give boons, both main and offhand daggers don’t give boons. Axe gives one boon, focus gives a boon which most likely won’t land on you anyway.

No healing skill gives a boon, wells do not give a boon unless you spend a major trait to specifically give you a boon using wells. The only other boons you have are spectral.

So far the only boons you actually have available to you is one attack with 3 different weapons and spectral skills, end – end.

It’s a shame, I wanna go into that tree for toughness and staff traits, I’d love to have a few boons here and there but I don’t play with spectral skills and I use a scepter and dagger. All I’d have as far as boons is one regen that most likely wouldn’t hit me with my staff, that’s it. I do use wells, so I’d have to spend a major trait JUST so I’d be able to give myself a boon – A boon.

So it’s ridiculous that with everything I have I’d only be able to unlikely give myself ONE boon, TWO if I spend a major trait.

Most other classes can give themselves a few boons without even thinking about it, ESPECIALLY if they trait into the “boon tree”.

I’m simply not okay with using spectral skills because they’re extremely situational and thus most often nearly useless.

Delryn.7235:

striker.3704:

Delryn.7235:

You know what? In the tree that gives you BOON DURATION, why not actually give you some sort of bonus directed towards giving you BOONS? The necro has a shameful arsenal of boons available for him, why not something like – whenever you kill a foe get retaliation/regen/something for 5 seconds (10 second cooldown). Something like that?

Just something because another thing that saddens me about Death Magic is that it adds to boon duration… WHAT BOONS?!

regen (mark of blood, retaliation from axe 3, movement speed from warhorn, protection from wells) mostly the only boons you get as a necromancer are from wells and the staff, which would be the only reason to spec into the tree anyway.

If you spec into a tree not for the traits but for the stats it provides, you are doing something terribly wrong.

It’s a shame, I wanna go into that tree for toughness and staff traits, I’d love to have a few boons here and there but I don’t play with spectral skills and I use a scepter and dagger. All I’d have as far as boons is one regen that most likely wouldn’t hit me with my staff, that’s it. I do use wells, so I’d have to spend a major trait JUST so I’d be able to give myself a boon – A boon.

So it’s ridiculous that with everything I have I’d only be able to unlikely give myself ONE boon, TWO if I spend a major trait.

Most other classes can give themselves a few boons without even thinking about it, ESPECIALLY if they trait into the “boon tree”.

If you’re using a scepter and dagger I’m assuming you’re going for a condition spec. In that case you should be going for the traits that boost your condition damage first and then get the mark boosts for your staff. In fact you don’t need to go all the way into the death magic tree to get both of those boosts. Assuming you go 30 into curses, that still leaves you with 20 points to spare into another tree like spite. That 15% boost to boon duration isn’t a big waste even if your only boon is mark of blood.

If you are not doing a condition spec then you’re spreading your recources way too thin. You should spec for utilities first, then the weapon that has synergy with your utilities, then the secondary weapon, then stats.

I am doing condition which is why getting greater marks is so useful for me, giving mass conditions to a large amount of enemies is wonderful. I don’t care much for the boons in this case (though I do care for the horrid minor traits we currently have).

The issue is I also sometimes play a power build with dagger/dagger and staff, even then I barely have boons available to me. Unless I actually use the very weak and under powered axe (which is only really useful if you’re running a full minion build) and/or warhorn, I get no boons to myself at all.

We don’t have horrible options of boons available for us, although I do believe we’re so bad with boons we only lose to the thief (who still has boon giving minor traits in the boon tree, something we do not), but the thing is I can’t actually make full use of the +boon duration unless I specifically use an axe as my main and use the nearly useless spectral. Nothing else gives decent boons.