Otters! :D
(edited by Otter.6348)
Most Useless Necro Traits + Suggestions
The summon jagged on mark trait can be made to affect all marks and simply have an internal cooldown :P
Disagree about the first one tho, we already have blood mark on dodge wich allows us to maintain perma regeneration kindda.
I find a lot of necro traits to be lackluster.
In Spite Minor:
Adept: Parasitic Bond. I have seriously never seen this thing matter in any way. If they’re dead, I’ve already won and healing is useless. If I’m losing, then they’re not dying and this doesn’t come into play. The heal is for so little that even in massive zerg battles and temple events it rarely matters. I thought this just gave Life Force for the longest time.
Major: Death Into Life. Healing power is the worst scaling stat in the game, so 5% of my power being converted = 100 or so healing power on most of my builds = basically nothing at all. Regeneration gives 12 more HP a second; no one cares.
Grandmaster: Siphoned Power. At 25%, an opponent is about to kill you. In PVE you’ll get 1 stack of might if you are lucky before going down. In PVP they’ll burst you to death at this point. The might doesn’t last long enough to heal up and use either, since the heal will eat up a third of the might’s duration.
Spite Major:
Adept: Spiteful Removal. In PVP you have to win to use this trait, making it nigh useless except in large zerg vs. zerg battles, where you’re probably winning and don’t need it again anyway. In PVE you’ll be much better off just transferring or curing conditions in some manner that doesn’t involve killing the veteran first.
Master: Signet of Power. This trait seems fine until you realize that necromancers only have one signet where it’ll be worth anything (signet of spite), with everything else being defensive or utility usage.
In Curses Major:
Reaper’s precision: a 1/3 chance to get 1% life force on a critical hit. If you have, say, a 50% crit chance, then you have a 16.6% chance to gain life force with each attack. The problem here is that this trait is only useful if you are running a pure Scepter/Dagger build, which as an extremely slow attack rate. There’s so many better ways to invest points to get lifeforce that this trait will always be on the bottom of the totem poll.
Death Magic minor:
Adept: Reanimator. The jagged horror summoned by this trait is nigh useless. It never distracts anyone, dies to AoE and itself really quickly, requires you to have already won the fight to summon, and does pitiful damage easily avoided by walking. The only time this trait is any good is when combined with a grandmaster trait that causes a death nova when it inevitably dies.
Master: Protection of the Horde. To anyone who isn’t a minion master this trait is completely useless. Toughness already scales horribly, and such paltry amounts of the stat mean very little in the grand scheme of things. Even with a minion master, the most you get 120 (presuming that jagged horror lives longer than 0 seconds), which isn’t turning any heads or really changing the outcome of the battle.
Blood Magic Major:
Master: Deathly Invigoration. The amount this heals for is so low that it isn’t noticeable. 260 points every 10 seconds makes it far inferior to… pretty much everything, really. I think this trait wins the award for worst healing trait ever, since parasitic bond has at least some use when fighting endless hordes of enemies: not wasting 2 seconds on a healing skill.
Soul Reaping Minor:
Adept: Gluttony. Life force generation works in such paltry amounts that a 10% increase doesn’t do anything for a player’s offense or survivability. Either they have a build that generates life force, or they do not. This trait will not tip the scale in any direction, and the effect even in long term is negligible. When, in any fight, has any necromancer ever thought “Gee, I wish I had 10% more life force, because then I could win” and not already been at maximum? Never.
I think the annoying thing is that all of the worst traits of the necromancer are the minor traits that you have to take in that line. If you want more power, you have to get the useless heal and the useless haling power increase and the useless might-when-already-dead traits. As for improvements, I’m not nearly creative enough for those. I can just plainly says what works.
But in general, if you make things do more of what they do, they become more useful. I.E. gluttony increasing by 25% instead of 10%.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Necros don’t get the same “Vigor on Crit” abilities a lot of classes do, nor do they get any of the fancy “effect on dodge” abilities some classes get
Huh? What about the III of Blood Magic:
we already have blood mark on dodge wich allows us to maintain perma regeneration kindda.
Necromancer – Xexa The Machine [RiOT] | Ruins of Surmia
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Parasitic Bond is one of the best minor traits we have, and it’s by far the best minor in the Spite line.
You are hugely undervaluing a 1k hp heal every 5 seconds. That’s almost the same amount as Consume Conditions (5k / 25s cd).
And if anything, it’s the least valuable in sPvP. But in WvW/PvE this will trigger all the time.
I can’t tell you how many times I stayed alive because of this trait.
Protection of the Horde. To anyone who isn’t a minion master this trait is completely useless. Toughness already scales horribly,…
Toughness scales horribly?
I’d argue that Protection of the Horde is an even worse trait than Reanimator. People just complain about the jagged horror more often because most of them just take 10 points in Death Magic for Greater Marks.
But tbh even as a Minion Master I’d rather have the occasional +10% life force from the little rat than 120 toughness.
Most other builds which utilize that trait line maybe have the golem and sometimes the jagged horror. So in that case it’s a Master trait that gives you 20 toughness at best. Wow… absolutely pathetic!
How did this become a minor master trait when you have something like Last Gasp, Furious Demise or even Vampiric in the other lines?
(edited by flow.6043)
Adept: Parasitic Bond. I have seriously never seen this thing matter in any way. If they’re dead, I’ve already won and healing is useless. If I’m losing, then they’re not dying and this doesn’t come into play. The heal is for so little that even in massive zerg battles and temple events it rarely matters. I thought this just gave Life Force for the longest time.
Master: Deathly Invigoration. The amount this heals for is so low that it isn’t noticeable. 260 points every 10 seconds makes it far inferior to… pretty much everything, really. I think this trait wins the award for worst healing trait ever, since parasitic bond has at least some use when fighting endless hordes of enemies: not wasting 2 seconds on a healing skill.
Adept: Gluttony. Life force generation works in such paltry amounts that a 10% increase doesn’t do anything for a player’s offense or survivability. Either they have a build that generates life force, or they do not. This trait will not tip the scale in any direction, and the effect even in long term is negligible. When, in any fight, has any necromancer ever thought “Gee, I wish I had 10% more life force, because then I could win” and not already been at maximum? Never.
These guys save my kitten from time to time; invigoration is 600 aoe (so up to 1300 aoe heal pre 10 seconds) and balanced around the 50% shorter DS cd (like most on DS traits), Bond might be useless/needs different effect in pvp, but its nice on zerg fests in pve and really helpful in AC, TA, CM and CoF, as for Gluttony, it adds up, i just wikitten plain increased each LF gain by 1% since its useless on some minior LF generation from skills (but kinda strong with spiteful marks and life transfer since it gives the bonus pre hit rounding them up).
Toughness scales horribly?
I’d argue that Protection of the Horde is an even worse trait than Reanimator. People just complain about the jagged horror more often because most of them just take 10 points in Death Magic for Greater Marks.
But tbh even as a Minion Master I’d rather have the occasional +10% life force from the little rat than 120 toughness.
Most other builds which utilize that trait line maybe have the golem and sometimes the jagged horror. So in that case it’s a Master trait that gives you 20 toughness at best. Wow… absolutely pathetic!
How did this become a minor master trait when you have something like Last Gasp, Furious Demise or even Vampiric in the other lines?
Toughness actually does scale horribly, plague form gives the same reduction as protection does and you get diminishing returns (technically its same benefit/linear scailing, but the overall gain is lower) the more you stack in comparison to how crit and crit damage influence damage.
For protection of the horde, that kinda goes hand in hand with reanimator since it would never be left there if reanimator would go away.
Btw since with reanimator you used to have around 5 or more rats with you PotH was kinda ok.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
I find a lot of necro traits to be lackluster.
Spite Minor:Grandmaster: Siphoned Power. At 25%, an opponent is about to kill you. In PVE you’ll get 1 stack of might if you are lucky before going down. In PVP they’ll burst you to death at this point. The might doesn’t last long enough to heal up and use either, since the heal will eat up a third of the might’s duration.
In Curses Major:
Reaper’s precision: a 1/3 chance to get 1% life force on a critical hit. If you have, say, a 50% crit chance, then you have a 16.6% chance to gain life force with each attack. The problem here is that this trait is only useful if you are running a pure Scepter/Dagger build, which as an extremely slow attack rate. There’s so many better ways to invest points to get lifeforce that this trait will always be on the bottom of the totem poll.
Blood Magic Major:
Master: Deathly Invigoration. The amount this heals for is so low that it isn’t noticeable. 260 points every 10 seconds makes it far inferior to… pretty much everything, really. I think this trait wins the award for worst healing trait ever, since parasitic bond has at least some use when fighting endless hordes of enemies: not wasting 2 seconds on a healing skill.
Soul Reaping Minor:
Adept: Gluttony. Life force generation works in such paltry amounts that a 10% increase doesn’t do anything for a player’s offense or survivability. Either they have a build that generates life force, or they do not. This trait will not tip the scale in any direction, and the effect even in long term is negligible. When, in any fight, has any necromancer ever thought “Gee, I wish I had 10% more life force, because then I could win” and not already been at maximum? Never.
Siphoned power isn’t great, but it’s close. I’m of the opinion changing this trait to give longer duration might stacks would massively boost its effectiveness, especially in PvE since you could dip below 25%, tank some multi-hits with death shroud, drop out of death shroud, heal and continue on with a bonus of 5 might stacks. If there was a more reliable way to sit in death shroud for a while you wouldn’t even need to heal to make use of them, but that’s a different issue.
Maybe Reaper’s Precision just isn’t for Scepter / Dagger? Something with high crit volume (D/W maybe?) would make use of it to boost its LF generation even more. I’ll admit I think this trait is under-tuned (1% just doesn’t seem like enough for the stacked %s to crit and proc, even in the best-case scenario)
Deathly Invigoration is the attempt to give the Necro another group-heal trait alongside Transfusion. Unfortunately Near to Death defines it a bit too much. I kind of wish they would buff these traits and add internal cooldowns, so you didn’t have to take Near to Death to maximize their use.
I feel like Gluttony is just “ok”. It isn’t strong enough to be really good, but the idea fits perfectly with its placement, and 5 point minor traits don’t really need to be powerful, in my opinion. So while they could probably buff it without making it OP, I don’t think there’s much of reason to buff it besides “because we can.”
For my own personal least-favourite trait:
Death Shiver. 10s of vulnerability every 3s to all nearby enemies. Compare this to Unyielding Blast, which is an adept trait rather than a master. Unyielding does 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds with every (piercing) attack of life blast, which is:
More vulnerability per application, applied more rapidly, without requiring you to sit beside your enemy.
Death Shiver can out-do Unyielding, but it requires you to go into the middle of a crowd, while in Death Shroud, and stay there without them forcing you out of Death Shroud, which seems pretty niche for a relatively minor effect.
Mixing insults with your post is like pooping in a salad.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
(edited by Softspoken.2410)
For protection of the horde, that kinda goes hand in hand with reanimator since it would never be left there if reanimator would go away.
That’s like saying: We only have Furious Demise because of Barbed Precision.
“Just because of Reanimator” is a weak excuse. Sometimes you get +20 toughness… this can’t be the sole reason for the existence of a master trait.
Btw since with reanimator you used to have around 5 or more rats with you PotH was kinda ok.
Especially then Reanimator would have been a million times better than PotH: 5 rats for 50% lf (+5 death novas, if traited) vs 100 toughness (Pathetic!)
If one minion gave 100 toughness then it would be “kinda ok” (maybe this could be an improved PotH as an optional major trait…)
The summon jagged on mark trait can be made to affect all marks and simply have an internal cooldown :P
Disagree about the first one tho, we already have blood mark on dodge wich allows us to maintain perma regeneration kindda.
I personally think the Horror on Mark thing would be wonderful. As far as the dodge goes, you have to normally take a Major trait to get the mark-on-dodge. Maybe some sort of Vigor-on-crit or something would be useful, seeing as Necros don’t get one.
Otters! :D
I’m ok with us necros getting no vigor and teleports, fits the attrition theme… What we need is stability.
For protection of the horde, that kinda goes hand in hand with reanimator since it would never be left there if reanimator would go away.
That’s like saying: We only have Furious Demise because of Barbed Precision.
"Just because of Reanimator" is a weak excuse. Sometimes you get +20 toughness... this can’t be the sole reason for the existence of a master trait.Btw since with reanimator you used to have around 5 or more rats with you PotH was kinda ok.
Especially then Reanimator would have been a million times better than PotH: 5 rats for 50% lf (+5 death novas, if traited) vs 100 toughness (Pathetic!)
If one minion gave 100 toughness then it would be "kinda ok" (maybe this could be an improved PotH as an optional major trait...)
Actually yes, furious is there because of Barbed... Just as Death into Life works into Parasitic and Full of Life with Blood to Power; that is exactly the point that is kinda wrong with trait lines, a-net tried to tie them to builds instead of giving them generally good minior traits *cough like soul reaping has* Also 100 is a nice stats boost and still better than 1 or 5 ugly little rodents.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
Most useless? All of them as the class itself is unwanted and useless. /thread
Actually yes, furious is there because of Barbed..
I know that there is synergy, but let me rephrase in your own words:
Furious Demise would never be left there if Barbed Precision would go away.
That is not true, because fury benefits much more than just bleed stacking.
I bet for most builds it’s just a positive side affect.
Just as Death into Life works into Parasitic
Yes, they all benefit each other. But I can’t believe that Death into Life is only there so your heal on kill is… what, 1k instead of 950hp? One tick of regeneration is far bigger than what Death into Life could add to Parasitic Bond. (and that’s just every 5 seconds)
On a sidenote: I have no idea why Death into Life would only have 5% of power into healing, seeing how it is such a weak attribute for the necro in general. And how much could this possibly add when you go full soldier’s or berserker’s? 150?
Again a really weak minor trait. If it has to stay there, at least give it something like 20%.
Full of Life with Blood to Power.
Now that synergie really is far-fetched.
Also 100 is a nice stats boost and still better than 1 or 5 ugly little rodents.
Really? You’d rather have 100 toughness instead of 50% life force?
Also, you said it yourself: Thoughness does scale horribly.
Personally, I do think that Protection of the Horde is there because of Reanimator.
In general, across all classes, minor traits are useful to every build. Those that aren’t universally applicable tend to be useable on at least half of the weapon combinations available to that profession. Protection of the Horde bucks this trend, because if the necromancer does not have a single minion skill available from weapons or their profession mechanic, and is forced to choose from a specific category of heal / utility / elite skills to receive any boost from this minor trait.
Except for Reanimator.
Because Reanimator exists as a minor trait earlier in the Death Magic line, there is guaranteed access to one minion, so technically every Necromancer does have a way to utilize protection of the horde. I’ve theorized for a while that this was the justification that let PotH keep its minor trait spot even after drastic changes to the role minions play in the necromancer profession. Or, in a reverse of what I expect, it forced the creation of Reanimator as a minor trait since minions were no longer a given or near-given thing.
As it is, I’d like to see both traits reworked into (existing) majors with others taking their place as minors.
Mixing insults with your post is like pooping in a salad.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
It’s pretty obvious, and nobody’s impressed.
Just as Death into Life works into Parasitic
Yes, they all benefit each other. But I can’t believe that Death into Life is only there so your heal on kill is… what, 1k instead of 950hp? One tick of regeneration is far bigger than what Death into Life could add to Parasitic Bond. (and that’s just every 5 seconds)
On a sidenote: I have no idea why Death into Life would only have 5% of power into healing, seeing how it is such a weak attribute for the necro in general. And how much could this possibly add when you go full soldier’s or berserker’s? 150?
Its 1:1 heal ratio so yeah you get around a 10% increase (my bond procs heal for 1.5k but i do have 20 into Blood).
Full of Life with Blood to Power.
Now that synergie really is far-fetched.
You get hit by some small aoe, you lose 5% bonus, 2-3 seconds later there is your boost back without you having to overheal.
Also 100 is a nice stats boost and still better than 1 or 5 ugly little rodents.
Really? You’d rather have 100 toughness instead of 50% life force?
Also, you said it yourself: Thoughness does scale horribly.
The rodents didnt give LF (as all minions except golem at the time) so its would i rather have 100 free stats (doesnt matter even if its condi damage, toughness or healing power) or 5 possible heals that maybe tank 1 skill or all die to aoe, thus yeah id rather have the stats.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
(edited by Andele.1306)
You get hit by some small aoe, you lose 5% bonus, 2-3 seconds later there is your boost back without you having to overheal.
Yeah, what are the chances of that happening? 1/1000?
2-3 secs, that means you’re just 200-400 hp below your 90% mark. So you go into battle with 25k hp and take an initial hit for exactly 3k. Then for some reason your opponent stops attacking you for the duration of the regen, just so you can get a 5% damage bonus back. This literally never ever happens.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to trigger regen. But the case of this bringing you back up over 90% hp is extremely rare and pure luck.
Besides, 5% damage… not a game changer, especially if that someone had to go 25 points into Blood Magic for it.
You get hit by some small aoe, you lose 5% bonus, 2-3 seconds later there is your boost back without you having to overheal.
Yeah, what are the chances of that happening? 1/1000?
2-3 secs, that means you’re just 200-400 hp below your 90% mark. So you go into battle with 25k hp and take an initial hit for exactly 3k. Then for some reason your opponent stops attacking you for the duration of the regen, just so you can get a 5% damage bonus back. This literally never ever happens.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to trigger regen. But the case of this bringing you back up over 90% hp is extremely rare and pure luck.
Besides, 5% damage… not a game changer, especially if that someone had to go 25 points into Blood Magic for it.
Not denying that, but there is still synergy between 2 traits that work on their own, unlike reanimator and horde.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
Parasitic Bond is one of the best minor traits we have, and it’s by far the best minor in the Spite line.
You are hugely undervaluing a 1k hp heal every 5 seconds. That’s almost the same amount as Consume Conditions (5k / 25s cd).
And if anything, it’s the least valuable in sPvP. But in WvW/PvE this will trigger all the time.
I can’t tell you how many times I stayed alive because of this trait.
The heal only seems nice on paper. But now matter how you play out any realistic condition it is almost never worth anything.
In sPVP, this only activates after you have won the fight. You auto regen quickly after that, so this trait boils down to “after a fight, auto regen to maximum a fraction quicker”. If you assume that you can get the heal off of every death before the last one, then it is an extremely delayed heal that happens only once or twice before becoming meaningless, and you have to already be winning the fight in order for it to work. It does nothing to help a player win a fight, and once the player has won the fight it again does nothing.
In WvW, the same problem arises as in sPVP: only good if you are already winning. The only time it can be meaningful in a fight is when the zergs are roughly evenly matched, and both sides are suffering frequent and heavy casualties, and the necromancer is in a place where they receive damage but do not die themselves. If one zerg is overpowering the other, then this trait will either trigger when it is not needed (winning) or never trigger when it is needed (losing).
In dungeons, enemies have tons of HP and do tons of damage with their attacks, again giving this ability an extremely slow heal that only rarely triggers when you are already winning in a fight. This heal is prolonged even more due to how long it takes to kill the enemis. After that group of enemies is down, the necromancer heals to full HP again so it is useless.
In overworld PVE, it is only useful against large swarms of weak enemies that die easily. If the enemies don’t die easily, or there isn’t a lot of them, then this trait again falls into the useless category.
So basically parasitic bond is only useful for temple events. Otherwise, there is no need for a trait that activates only after I’ve already won.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
One thing that annoys me about the jagged horror (I pretty much accept that a lot of traits for many classes are just filling space, by now) is when you’re fighting things like those risen abominations, which actually become more dangerous if you let them hit things. If you’re only putting points there for the two staff traits, getting a random minion can actively make your situation worse…
Spite
Parasitic bond: Not bad large wvw fights and pve, but pretty terrible in pvp. Like all heals it’s wasted if you’re in DS (shroudstomping comes to mind).
Death into life: Healing power is not a good stat in terms of scaling, especially for necro, making this also fairly poor.
Siphoned power: I understand what Anet envisioned this to be; that a necro would get low on health, jump into DS and face roll things. Problem is, DS was nerfed pre release, and it’s not the unstoppable killing machine it was. Now this trait is a bit of a joke for a GM minor trait.
Death’s embrace: Sure, you can do a lot of damage with the 3 skill and a power build, but it’s still a pretty useless trait, although we’re not the only one with it.
Spiteful talisman: Fix the bug and it would be fine. Only worth mentioning because it’s been bugged since before release.
Spiteful removal: Good in wvw and in larger fights in PvP, but in general I dislike these on kill traits, as it’s much more useful to have something like Chill of death, which helps achieving the kill.
Signet mastery: Necro’s signets aren’t strong enough to justify using this trait usually (the only time it seems of any value at all is with undeath, in pvp). It should be combined with signet power to make it a bit better (and freeing up a trait to be replaced with something better), or improve our signets.
Reaper’s might: Fine trait in theory, but Life blast’s RoF is a bit to low to really make this a great trait.
Signet power: Same boat as signet mastery.
Axe training: It’s a very good trait in it’s own right, but is completely outclassed by Close to death. If we had an offhand axe, or if our mh axe was better, this could be worth taking over CTD.
Curses
Reaper’s precision: Could do with a slightly higher chance?
Death magic
Reanimator: Nothing needs be said.
Protection of the horde: Nothing strictly wrong with it, but’s isn’t great being a minor trait when a lot of necro’s don’t use minions.
Staff mastery: This trait has two problems, the first being it is completely outclassed by greater marks. The second, is that most necro’s use the staff as a secondary weapon, as once you have cast all your circles there is no reason to sit around waiting for them to CD instead of being in another weapon.But mainly because greater marks is better.
Death shiver: It’s really not good, a couple of stacks of vulnerability for a master trait isn’t good. I seem to remember the wiki discussion page makes some reference to it chilling early on in development, that would be quite nice, a suit the necromancers supposed ability to hold people down.
Blood magic
Dagger mastery: Combine it with quickening thirst or something, there isn’t a huge demand for d/d since they’re fairly different weapons.
Deathly invigoration: Does laughably small amounts of healing compared to the likes of ele simply switching into water. Really just needs a straight up buff, as necro needs more support options.
Quickening thirst: See dagger mastery.
Soul reaping
Fear of death: Is it a usually ability? Sure. Is it possibly more useful then some of the other adept traits? No. Why use a trait to help you after you’re downed, when there are great traits there to help you not die in the first place?
Speed of shadows: The speed boost really just isn’t enough to make a difference, especially when there are genuinely good traits that could fill that slot.
Decaying swarm: This has the same issue as siphoned power, it gives the buff when your health is to low to make a serious difference, even with DS.
Near to death: This is a great trait (although kind of outshined by foot in the grave in any sort of pvp). The issue with this trait is that lot of things about DS is balanced, with the knowledge that a necro can cut their CD in half with this trait. So it’s not that this trait is bad, simply that I feel anet is afraid buffing certain things because they could be OP with a 5 second DS CD.
These guys save my kitten from time to time; invigoration is 600 aoe (so up to 1300 aoe heal pre 10 seconds) and balanced around the 50% shorter DS cd (like most on DS traits), Bond might be useless/needs different effect in pvp, but its nice on zerg fests in pve and really helpful in AC, TA, CM and CoF, as for Gluttony, it adds up, i just wikitten plain increased each LF gain by 1% since its useless on some minior LF generation from skills (but kinda strong with spiteful marks and life transfer since it gives the bonus pre hit rounding them up).
Deathly Invigoration’s AoE is far inferior to nearly every other support trait in that line: Ritual of Life, Transfusion, Mark of Evasion, and Ritual Mastery. The fact that 50 trait points are needed to make Invigoration useful should be an indicator that it isn’t very good. 60 trait points if you grab other things for support from that line. Transfusion, an adept trait can be improved with just 10 points in Soul Reaping instead of 30, doesn’t require healing power to be decent so it can work in many builds. Ritual of Life provides a large self heal and decent AoE Heal right when you need it, Mark of Evasion provides regeneration which always outpaces Deathly Invigoration, and Ritual Mastery makes all of the other wells up more frequently to be used. But I guess if someone invests 60 trait points, specs for healing, and uses a staff to grant permanent regeneration, then Deathly Invigoration just might match the healing given by default to elementalists and engineers.
The issue with gluttony is simple: Necromancer builds fit into one of two categories: Either they have LF generation, or they do not. Some examples: the standard scepter/dagger condition build for necromancers only has a 2% life force generation every 10 seconds, making generating LF on these builds woefully inefficient. Increasing that to 2.2% contributes nothing. Period. By comparison, a dagger mainhand generates 6% life force every 1.2 seconds or so, with the focus giving 15% every 18 seconds (or 15 seconds with the trait), comes to a total of roughly 6% life force every second. This means that the LF bar can go from half to full in about 8.3 seconds or so, and reducing this time by 10% does not meaningfully contribute to how quickly life force is gained. There are some varying degrees to this, such as the axe generating roughly 1% per second without the recharge trait, the staff generating up to 15% with the auto attack in rare circumstances, the LF gain from spectral skills with the traits, but largely the divide remains. In PVE it isn’t such a problem due to getting large amounts of LF from enemy kills, but in PVP is where this division is the widest. The other traits in Soul Reaping like Soul Marks or Last Gasp or Vital Persistence make so much larger of an impact on maintaining LF that people don’t always see how little gluttony does. Either they have LF or they don’t, and gluttony doesn’t change this at all.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
I’m ok with us necros getting no vigor and teleports, fits the attrition theme… What we need is stability.
How are they not fitting in?
We already have so many things working AGAINT being an attrition class.
No substain, no damage mitigation other then facetanking ect…
We are already paying a taxe for having Death shroud -> Lower damage, low available boon, least amount of combo field/finisher, worse in combat mobility, no hard damage mitigation, no burning.
I think necromancer are lacking enought of thing already to fit our Slow tank theme.
Rotthen (Necro) / Zhyx (Engineer) /Inglorious Beasterd (Ranger)
Server : Anvil Rock (Since Release!) [SOLO]
Server : Anvil Rock (Since Release!) [SOLO]
(edited by Kardiamond.6952)
Parasitic Bond is one of the best minor traits we have, and it’s by far the best minor in the Spite line.
You are hugely undervaluing a 1k hp heal every 5 seconds. That’s almost the same amount as Consume Conditions (5k / 25s cd).
And if anything, it’s the least valuable in sPvP. But in WvW/PvE this will trigger all the time.
I can’t tell you how many times I stayed alive because of this trait.The heal only seems nice on paper. But now matter how you play out any realistic condition it is almost never worth anything.
…
So basically parasitic bond is only useful for temple events. Otherwise, there is no need for a trait that activates only after I’ve already won.
This is like saying: Gaining life force when something around you dies is useless because then you’ve won anyway.
You either have a very different play style than me or you just don’t notice it. Do you even use this trait?
Again, I can only tell you that this trait has saved my life countless times.
And I don’t know what kind of fights you are involved in, but not every PvE/WvW is as black and white as you describe it. In zerg fights all you need to do is tag people with your marks or wells or whatever… and as soon as this person dies you’ll get the heal. Irregardless of wether you’re on the losing or winning side.
The longer the fight, the more you get healed. And don’t tell me that zerg fights on your server don’t last longer than 10 seconds.
If you solo camps, you get healed several times. Don’t tell me that you can finish all mobs in a camp all at the same time.
If you fight in small groups: the first to die on the other team will heal you. This has been the deciding factor for me so many times.
I agree that the heal could be higher (maybe doubled) but it is still one of the only traits that make us resemble something of an attrition fighter, because it’s similar to the life force regen on death.
Deathly Invigoration’s AoE is far inferior to nearly every other support trait in that line: Ritual of Life, Transfusion, Mark of Evasion, and Ritual Mastery.
Except Deathly Invigoration has no aoe limit. So it certainly has it’s place in WvW.
Staff mastery: This trait has two problems, the first being it is completely outclassed by greater marks. The second, is that most necro’s use the staff as a secondary weapon, as once you have cast all your circles there is no reason to sit around waiting for them to CD instead of being in another weapon.But mainly because greater marks is better.
No one disses Staff Mastery on my watch :P
Those problems you describe don’t really seem that problematic to me.
I agree that Greater Marks is better than Staff Mastery for the casual support-weapon staff user, but why is this a problem when you can just choose Greater Marks instead?
Anyway, I can tell you that my build (and I’m sure many others as well) wouldn’t work without Staff Mastery. It is absolutely essential for me and I would take it even if it was a grand master trait.
I’m ok with us necros getting no vigor and teleports, fits the attrition theme… What we need is stability.
How are they not fitting in?
We already have so many things working AGAINT being an attrition class.
No substain, no damage mitigation other then facetanking ect…
We are already paying a taxe for having Death shroud -> Lower damage, low available boon, least amount of combo field/finisher, worse in combat mobility, no hard damage mitigation, no burning.
I think necromancer are lacking enought of thing already to respect our Slow tank theme.
Agreed.
If anything, it goes against the attrition theme to have less vigor and teleports. Stability counters CC but doesn’t negate damage completely like dodges and teles.
All the life leech traits in blood line are pretty crappy. ~50 heals on hit, on well hit, on crit if you spend 3 major traits on this. Even with all that it’s pathetic comapare to a mesmer can simply take Heal on shatter or heal on mantra and heal up 2000+ easily. Or any class with water field and a finisher. Or healing shouts and healing dodge. In general necros don’t have any really strong traits like mesmer has for instance.
Deathly Invigoration’s AoE is far inferior to nearly every other support trait in that line: Ritual of Life, Transfusion, Mark of Evasion, and Ritual Mastery.
Except Deathly Invigoration has no aoe limit. So it certainly has it’s place in WvW.
They fixed DI unlimited when they “fixed” transfusion not healing you by itself, its on a 5 headcount limit that always includes you so 4 people.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
Some examples: the standard scepter/dagger condition build for necromancers only has a 2% life force generation every 10 seconds, making generating LF on these builds woefully inefficient. Increasing that to 2.2% contributes nothing. Period.
Although the tooltip doesn’t state it, Feast of Corruption is 2% life force +2% for each condition on the target. You can actually generate life force at a pretty good rate, given that just using scepter/dagger (no utilities, sigils, foods, or death shroud) you can get bleeding, poison, cripple and weakness on your target, so Feast of Corruption generates some pretty good life force (10% with just those, 11% with Gluttony).
@Drarnor
By the chance the target get 5 condition on him(using spite signet or fighting a warrior without condition removal), even then it subpart to other lifeforce generator.
Staff #1 is bad too, but most people use Soul Mark so it’ get better. Axe is not bad, and it’s actually an ability you want to use. Dagger is awesome for LF.
Feast of corruption is an ability that does direct damage, on a weapon used 95% of the time on condition spec. I will rarely ever use it, other then for the LF. For good damage, you have to use it in specific condition.
I tried to get the highest crit I could with it.
Full berserk build, with scholar rune, with all the damage traits. With a target under 50% hp, with 5 condition and 12 stack of vuln, the best I could do was around 4k.
Not that bad, but if you consider a condition build, you will mostly hit for 1k-2k max.
That not really good, better to auto attack and use Soul marks on staff.
Rotthen (Necro) / Zhyx (Engineer) /Inglorious Beasterd (Ranger)
Server : Anvil Rock (Since Release!) [SOLO]
Server : Anvil Rock (Since Release!) [SOLO]
I wasn’t commenting on it as a source of damage, just as a source of life force. All I was refuting is that a condition build will only get 2% life force every 10 seconds when in reality, they will be getting at least three times that amount.
@Drarnor
And I was only adding a reason why I think it is subpart.
If you land it with only 3 condition, it’s only 6% life force, on a 8 second cooldown with pitiful damage.
That’s why I think it’s the worse LF generator out there.
Rotthen (Necro) / Zhyx (Engineer) /Inglorious Beasterd (Ranger)
Server : Anvil Rock (Since Release!) [SOLO]
Server : Anvil Rock (Since Release!) [SOLO]
FoC is ther for “hybrids” (and rabid users since you get a easy 3.4k crit with a precision amulet) with at least 25 into curses, being 10% increase pre condition and easy 14% life force on first cast (12 if the enemy manages to use/hit a attack for blind to go away) if you go the ususal Scepter/Dagger setup.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
I find a lot of necro traits to be lackluster.
In Spite Minor:
Adept: Parasitic Bond. I have seriously never seen this thing matter in any way. If they’re dead, I’ve already won and healing is useless. If I’m losing, then they’re not dying and this doesn’t come into play. The heal is for so little that even in massive zerg battles and temple events it rarely matters. I thought this just gave Life Force for the longest time.
Major: Death Into Life. Healing power is the worst scaling stat in the game, so 5% of my power being converted = 100 or so healing power on most of my builds = basically nothing at all. Regeneration gives 12 more HP a second; no one cares.
Grandmaster: Siphoned Power. At 25%, an opponent is about to kill you. In PVE you’ll get 1 stack of might if you are lucky before going down. In PVP they’ll burst you to death at this point. The might doesn’t last long enough to heal up and use either, since the heal will eat up a third of the might’s duration.
Spite Major:
Adept: Spiteful Removal. In PVP you have to win to use this trait, making it nigh useless except in large zerg vs. zerg battles, where you’re probably winning and don’t need it again anyway. In PVE you’ll be much better off just transferring or curing conditions in some manner that doesn’t involve killing the veteran first.
Master: Signet of Power. This trait seems fine until you realize that necromancers only have one signet where it’ll be worth anything (signet of spite), with everything else being defensive or utility usage.
In Curses Major:
Reaper’s precision: a 1/3 chance to get 1% life force on a critical hit. If you have, say, a 50% crit chance, then you have a 16.6% chance to gain life force with each attack. The problem here is that this trait is only useful if you are running a pure Scepter/Dagger build, which as an extremely slow attack rate. There’s so many better ways to invest points to get lifeforce that this trait will always be on the bottom of the totem poll.
Death Magic minor:
Adept: Reanimator. The jagged horror summoned by this trait is nigh useless. It never distracts anyone, dies to AoE and itself really quickly, requires you to have already won the fight to summon, and does pitiful damage easily avoided by walking. The only time this trait is any good is when combined with a grandmaster trait that causes a death nova when it inevitably dies.
Master: Protection of the Horde. To anyone who isn’t a minion master this trait is completely useless. Toughness already scales horribly, and such paltry amounts of the stat mean very little in the grand scheme of things. Even with a minion master, the most you get 120 (presuming that jagged horror lives longer than 0 seconds), which isn’t turning any heads or really changing the outcome of the battle.
Blood Magic Major:
Master: Deathly Invigoration. The amount this heals for is so low that it isn’t noticeable. 260 points every 10 seconds makes it far inferior to… pretty much everything, really. I think this trait wins the award for worst healing trait ever, since parasitic bond has at least some use when fighting endless hordes of enemies: not wasting 2 seconds on a healing skill.
Soul Reaping Minor:
Adept: Gluttony. Life force generation works in such paltry amounts that a 10% increase doesn’t do anything for a player’s offense or survivability. Either they have a build that generates life force, or they do not. This trait will not tip the scale in any direction, and the effect even in long term is negligible. When, in any fight, has any necromancer ever thought “Gee, I wish I had 10% more life force, because then I could win” and not already been at maximum? Never.
I think the annoying thing is that all of the worst traits of the necromancer are the minor traits that you have to take in that line. If you want more power, you have to get the useless heal and the useless haling power increase and the useless might-when-already-dead traits. As for improvements, I’m not nearly creative enough for those. I can just plainly says what works.
But in general, if you make things do more of what they do, they become more useful. I.E. gluttony increasing by 25% instead of 10%.
OUCH! That was nasty! But I do agree with it. GW2 in general is inherently less complex with traits and skills. It is another way the game emphasizes balance and skill over complexity. Compare any enchantment or hex from GW1 to GW2 – you’ll notice that GW1 is often like “this special mechanic does _” and is quite powerful and specific. Because GW2 cannot start creating new conditions and boons out of nowhere, they need to reference what is already on the board. But there are only so many combinations and eventually everything starts feeling the same.
My persoanl suggestion on Protection of the Hoard is to replace it with something like:
Deadened Flesh
Gain Protection for 4 seconds on exiting Death Shroud
Still keeps in line with a “reducing damage” trait and is actually useable by all necro builds.
I could see it getting abusive with Near to Death for nearly perma-protection. However, that requires a minimum of 45 trait points to pull off what Hammer Guardians can do by just auto-attacking. Just food for thought, but it might be handy.
I cannot even begin to describe how much I hate the first necro minor trait in DM.
Most the traits are lacking. Soul reaping has almost no return for traiting in it.
The heal amount of siphoning health in blood magic needs to scale with healing power.
The warhorn trait is pathetic. The axe mastery even more so because the axe auto attack was nerfed to hell and back
Reanimator is useless, though would be funny if it spawned every time something died, rather than once every 30seconds (yes you can have more than 1 if it manages to survive thanks to guardians)
The signet traits are.. um. useless? yeah useless. Spite is good for leveling up under 50 and locust is just for traveling. Plague would be neat if the CD was lower, and undeath well. Yeah it’s not a necros job to play nurse.
Not to mention all the CD times on them are utterly ridiculous for the effect. Really.. 90 seconds for spite? the conditions applied are piddly.
With the exception of undeath; all the necro signets should be between 20-30 second refresh. I’m not even joking.
Death magic is too specified for minions which are for the most part 2 hit meat shields even traited then they became 4 hit meat shields. The earth elemental elite glyph hits harder and tanks better than a traited flesh golem.
What am I supposed to actually trait into? I get little return from most the traits anyways. -sighs-
This is like saying: Gaining life force when something around you dies is useless because then you’ve won anyway.
Life force doesn’t auto-regen quickly to 100% when not in combat.
You either have a very different play style than me or you just don’t notice it. Do you even use this trait?
This trait, unfortunately, is on every one of my builds. This is an unfortunate side effect of being the adept minor trait in the power/condition duration line.
And I don’t know what kind of fights you are involved in, but not every PvE/WvW is as black and white as you describe it. In zerg fights all you need to do is tag people with your marks or wells or whatever… and as soon as this person dies you’ll get the heal. Irregardless of wether you’re on the losing or winning side.
But if your zerg is losing then that person you tagged doesn’t die. That’s the problem. The necromancer is the #1 class I use in WvW, and upon my days in the mists I have never seen parasitic bond make a difference. That is, it causing me to win a fight that I was going to lose previously. From the way pushes and retreats work (or at least in JQ/BG/SoR), players don’t break off into individual fights where some necromancer can benefit from the death of someone they tagged earlier. Either players get disabled + swarmed to death, or they do the swarming on the disabled players. It is a constant struggle of push vs. retreat. The pushing team has enough offense to heal their downed players because anyone who tries to finish those downed players will quickly get pummeled by the pusher’s superior offensive power.
Maybe on the lower ranking servers there are occasions where an elite team of few faces off against an incapable many, or something like that. But I have never personally witnessed it.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.