Guild Wars 2

Muchacho.2390:

Lucentfir.7430:

Lily.1935:

Deathly invigoration was a bad skill before. Why reverse it and make it a grandmaster? it still sucks.

I actually use this with a vampire build and I’ve got to say with reduced CD Death Shroud it’s pretty good healing source with Unholy Sanctuary and regen access. By making it grand master as well they can buff the Healing Power Ratio by a good chunk.

To bad it is now when entering Ds, thus the necro himself will not get healed at all…

It might be a mistyped. So until it’s confirmed who knows?

Here is my idea for the Curses problem:

1. Merge Terror with Master of Terror. Move to the Grandmaster Soulreaping slot.
2. Move Dhuumfire to Master tier for Soul Reaping.
3. Add a new, non-condition damage focused Grandmaster trait in Curses.

Lucentfir.7430:

Muchacho.2390:

Lucentfir.7430:

Lily.1935:

Deathly invigoration was a bad skill before. Why reverse it and make it a grandmaster? it still sucks.

I actually use this with a vampire build and I’ve got to say with reduced CD Death Shroud it’s pretty good healing source with Unholy Sanctuary and regen access. By making it grand master as well they can buff the Healing Power Ratio by a good chunk.

To bad it is now when entering Ds, thus the necro himself will not get healed at all…

It might be a mistyped. So until it’s confirmed who knows?

No, it is confirmed. They flat out stated this in the stream and said it was intentional.

Lucentfir.7430:

Muchacho.2390:

Lucentfir.7430:

Lily.1935:

Deathly invigoration was a bad skill before. Why reverse it and make it a grandmaster? it still sucks.

I actually use this with a vampire build and I’ve got to say with reduced CD Death Shroud it’s pretty good healing source with Unholy Sanctuary and regen access. By making it grand master as well they can buff the Healing Power Ratio by a good chunk.

To bad it is now when entering Ds, thus the necro himself will not get healed at all…

It might be a mistyped. So until it’s confirmed who knows?

They actually said it on stream but ofc it is all subject of change. So it may still change, which i hope since having a grandmaster that does nothing for yourself is kinda stupid (even if it heals minions and allies).

Actually looking back over it, I really hope they add a power-friendly GM to curses. The tree would be so nice for at least PvE power builds, but that one lack of option really hurts it. I’m not entirely sure what to move, but I do hope that changes as well, because otherwise it is a significant power hit to non-condi builds going into Curses.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here is my idea for the Curses problem:

1. Merge Terror with Master of Terror. Move to the Grandmaster Soulreaping slot.
2. Move Dhuumfire to Master tier for Soul Reaping.
3. Add a new, non-condition damage focused Grandmaster trait in Curses.

Finally someone who knows what the heck is up. Thanks Drarnor agree 1000%

As it stands now condi is dead with these changes. Mark my words

spoj.9672:

Gryph.8237:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here is my idea for the Curses problem:

1. Merge Terror with Master of Terror. Move to the Grandmaster Soulreaping slot.
2. Move Dhuumfire to Master tier for Soul Reaping.
3. Add a new, non-condition damage focused Grandmaster trait in Curses.

Finally someone who knows what the heck is up. Thanks Drarnor agree 1000%

As it stands now condi is dead with these changes. Mark my words

And how does that fix the lack of power grandmaster in a line with several power focused traits in lower tiers?

Step 3? Helps to read it all, spoj.

Yes im tired and misread it. Its almost 4am here. :P

Just so its on the actual forums, these are the notes I personally wanted to say. (Copy-pasted from what I sent to a few devs)

Death Magic:
- Two minion traits feels bad and limits the trait choice of the tree for non-minion masters (this has been said for a very long time). Especially now that a full tree is mandatory if the line is taken, there needs to be more GM options.
- This hurts the MM build that was already in need of help, the 25% damage was normally taken, but merged away from Death Nova, made mutually exclusive. I have an alternative that might fix a lot of issues.
→ Merge Death Novas death poison field into Necromantic Corruption. Remove the explosion damage and jagged horror spawned (As much as I love MM, I also feel the explosion on death if AOEd down was a bit too much unskillful burst).
→ Reduce damage buff on minions to 20%, but reduce the ICD on the transfer to 6 or 8 seconds (Minions have a VERY VERY bad issue with conditions right now that should be looked at).
→ Result: We’re not losing build power we had for no reason. It helps with the massively crippling condi issue seen with MM pets and skill factor (pet uptime so they can cleanse themselves). Passive damage is tuned down a bit but this allows necromancers to still self-blast poison fields for Weakness still with putrid blast, which is one of the only reliable ways to keep pets from being wiped out in seconds (Note: Putrid Explosion blast finisher needs fixed still, it has a long delay after skill use). And lastly, it opens up another GM for people who take the tree and don’t want to be absolutely forced into Sanctuary because the other two would have 0 use.

Blood:
- I wanted to refer to Full of Life, but I actually wanted to make a general statement about “When health drops below” thresholds as a whole. Reword them to “When taking damage below the threshold”. Less confusing. If this isn’t already the case for any skills, it should be imo to match offensive skills.

- Deathly Invigoration, revert it to after again. The skill itself isn’t all that powerful as it stands (500/10 seconds if flashed CONSTANTLY is really low anyways.) But you said it didn’t make sense to do it after, it actually makes a LOT of sense. For one, its the vampire tree, it needs to heal itself. It just has to. Secondly, DS leaves you very vulnerable, the idea and skill behind it is using DS to wait out a healing CD, use that small burst to ensure you get your heal off. It had perfect synergy with what it was needed for if used at all.
→ Alternatively, you know, add a GM that lets vampires heal in DS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 50%, something… Its soooo frustrating to have a core mechanic that fights the entirety of a specialization. How can you specialize in something you counteract? Huge flaw. Even other masters like Spectral mastery makes this GM look pretty rough.

Less MM and Vampire, more general thoughts:

Soul Reaping:
- Soul reaping currently looks great, well done on the Dhuum change. Finally a way to utilize Life blast when you’re a condition build. This was an idea I threw out a LOT, I’m glad it caught…. fire… O.O -ahem-

Spite
- Axe training doesn’t seem very fun, honestly. Axe 1 is already avoided a lot of the time, so if you were to experiment, i think a flat 20% on axe would be the best place to leave a flat one and try more experimental ones elsewhere, honestly.

Curses:
- Reaper’s Precision is still really bad… 1% on a 33% chance isn’t that great, especially on the condi line where most condi weapons are hitting every .75-1 second at best. Scepter already has some issues with LF and Reaper’s Precision just doesn’t do anyone any justice. Unless its because of PVE, which if I’m not mistaken, aren’t Necros really struggling there? (Not a big PVEr, necro shied me away from it, coupled with AI issues on minions and their weakness to AOE and no call back hehe).

- Parasitic Contagion is really a trap it seems, its weak anyways because Terror is a big ticker for damage and it would instantly lose out on that if it was taken. The healing just doesn’t seem worth it, again except in PVE where you might get to unload on a ton of mobs at once which, even then, with how fast PVE content moves, not very likely.

Some Non-Trait stuff:
-More range on Dagger 2/3 like 900 would be great, dagger could use the catch up and dagger 2 suffers because it’s mostly useless.

- Flesh Golem got skipped on the stability update. a single stack for 15 seconds? Please for the love of everything, pulse 1 stability every 3 seconds on the poor guy after charge… He has been nerfed enough…

Blood Magic comments—

Minors
—Full of Life-- Shorter CD is good
—Vampiric-- Like to see this given the Sigil of Blood treatment with a Larger Siphon with a 5 sec CD for the non-minion siphons so it’s more effective for non-MM.
—Blood to Power-- Remove the Health Threshold. It’s boring and just free healing stat, but hurting the support heals because your health is too high is silly.

Adept

—Ritual of Life— Actually looks good since it is placed when you start rezzing instead of after they are rezzed. Have to play this one to find out.
—Bloodthirt-- Same
—Mark of Evasion-- Same

Master
—Quickening Thirst-- Speed buff for just having a dagger is good. A narrow Health Thershold of 75%+ makes the CD reduction much less useful. Remove health Thershold and give us 20% or give greater CD reduction for different health lvls. IE 15% for hp <50% and 33% for hp >50%.
—Vampiric Precision-- Needs to be Larger siphon with an ICD
—Transfusion-- Same

Grandmaster
—Vampiric Rituals-- Good for Wells build. Numbers will make or break the siphon portion.
—Unholy Martyr-- More LF generation will help, but to really make this a grandmaster trait, add something like LB transfers a condi.
—Deathly Invigoration-- Numbers on heal will make or break this on support but not enough to really be a grandmaster trait. Needs to grant the necro and/or allies something else like endurance or vigor boon.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There are a number of problems with your analysis:

1. You go on a lot about conditions and vuln application, yet conditions gain no benefit from vuln, so not sure what you are even getting at here.

Bitter chill applies vulnerability when you chill someone, which means that Dark Path and Chilblains will apply vulnerability. If you take sigil of ice, that’s another source of vulnerability (as well as chill). If you take Chilling Darkness, your dagger #4 will apply chill now AND cause vulnerability. This will benefit you / your team in a few ways:
-Allies will deal more damage (and you too, if you’re carrion, which has power, which will scale from % damage increase)
-Overall condi pressure will increase because of new sources of chills and a huge source of vulnerability
-Vulnerability will now be a “cover-condi”, which means that if someone uses a skill to remove a condi, your vulnerability might be removed instead of your 10 stacks of bleeds, which also applies to your allies’ condis too. So overall damage will go up.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

2. Chill is good, but not nearly good enough to take sigil of ice.

Chill is excellent, especially against things like thieves and elementalists. It’s also an extra condi that enemies will have to cleanse, and if they don’t, their skills recharge slower and they move slower —> they’re more vulnerable. If you take Bitter Chill, sigil of ice will now suddenly apply vulnerability. So that’s 2 more condis at your disposal.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

3. Most necros don’t use soul marks because it wasn’t worth using, this may change now with the rolling of 3 into one.

Soul marks was absolutely worth it. Most people just prefer raw damage over sustain. Now all those condi Necros will probably be taking this trait, which will give them some extra sustain which they didn’t have before.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

4. Dumbfire is terrible after this change. 3s of a burn that does less damage than a bleed on a long cast skill that drains hard to acquire lifeforce. No condition spec should EVER take this new version of dumbfire, it is a HUGE decrease in damage over scepter auto.

I actually happen to like it a lot. Sometimes you’re stuck in DS as a condi Necro and you’re low on real HP and you just have nothing to do because if you leave DS, you might die so you spam your life blasts which deal no damage as a condi Necro. Now you can cast your life blasts and actually cause some real pain with the burns. As they said the numbers won’t be where they’ll be at release… so it’s too early to say, but for a grandmaster, you can bet it’s gonna be worth it. Now DS will make you dangerous as a condi Necro.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

5. Build diversity will definitely not increase. There is a clear best choice in almost every tier, everyone is just going to choose the same traits in a given tier. Condition users especially have 0 diversity because ALL of their good traits are smashed into GM curses or in the minon line…

A condi Necro will choose Curses, of course. But now you can choose between Death or Spite and Soul Reaping. Blood magic is in a weird spot… but come on. A condi Necro with Spite will be heavy with boon removal but lower sustain than a Necro with Death Magic.
Then when you mix something like warhorn vs. dagger off-hand too. If you roll dagger off-hand, you’ll have several trait choices to choose from, which will separate different builds. With warhorn it’s the same thing. Path of Corruption vs. Banshee’s Wail – both are really good traits and will change a build.

PS:
With Engis moaing now, if Moa killing pets doesn’t get fixed for Necros, I don’t even know… I will be beyond livid…

ronpierce.2760:

PS:
With Engis moaing now, if Moa killing pets doesn’t get fixed for Necros, I don’t even know… I will be beyond livid…

Good point. Ideally the moas will only be a visual thing, like a daze that also makes you look like a moa (since it is such a short duration having skills means nothing), instead of actually transforming you, and kill all minions or putting you out of Lich/plague.

Bhawb.7408:

ronpierce.2760:

PS:
With Engis moaing now, if Moa killing pets doesn’t get fixed for Necros, I don’t even know… I will be beyond livid…

Good point. Ideally the moas will only be a visual thing, like a daze that also makes you look like a moa (since it is such a short duration having skills means nothing), instead of actually transforming you, and kill all minions or putting you out of Lich/plague.

Would be nice, not likely to happen.

They really had to merge corruption recharge trait with falling damage trait? And Probably by far the worst falling damage trait. I’m at a loss of words.

Making deathly invigoration grandmaster was beyond stupid.

I honestly give up, I’m not suggesting anything. We found out how much they care/know about the necromancer when they stated “necro has 2 lifebars”.

I am completely DUMBFOUNDED.

Welp, if they’re going to totally overhaul the entire game and don’t know what to do with necromancers since they’re overbuffing others and deleting necro, here’s a start:

Death Magic
Minor
Shrouded Resistance – Gain resistance when entering death shroud. (3s)
Armored Shroud – Gain protection when entering death shroud. (3s)
Foot in the Grave – Gain stability and break stuns when entering death shroud. (3s)

Adept
Vital Persistence – Life force drains slower while in death shroud.
Fetid Consumption – Minions periodically absorb conditions from you.
Staff Mastery – Staff skills recharge 20% faster.

Major
Death Shiver – Inflict vulnerability on nearby foes while in death shroud.
Flesh of the Master – Minions absorb a % of damage that you receive.
Greater Marks – Marks become larger and are unblockable.

Grandmaster
Unholy Sanctuary – Regenerate while in death shroud. Enter death shroud when taking lethal blow.
Death Nova – Minions explode in a cloud of poison when killed.
Dark Armor – You become a dark field while in death shroud. (180 radius)

These are in line with the other ridiculous changes they’re making.

It’s ok I guess, they still haven’t addressed the crippling issue of the Death Shroud as well as the siphoning health trait. I really hope they aren’t trying to short change us again like they usually do with Necro traits.

Edit: Forget I said anything about siphoning health, it’s a useless trait no matter how many times you “tweak” it.

Why are there even still traits solely dedicated to falling damage or rezzing?

Zetsumei.4975:

Why are there even still traits solely dedicated to falling damage or rezzing?

WvW, some people legitimately do love them, though I find them completely silly.

My concern is, with other classes having elites and healing skills classified as something they can synergize with traits, will plague and lich be changed from transformation to something traits will actually affect? ex. Plague a Corruption and lich a spectral?

Zetsumei.4975:

Why are there even still traits solely dedicated to falling damage or rezzing?

Nothing is still fully devoted to falling that I can remember (though I could be wrong), and in PvP (to a lesser degree WvW) rezzing is an absolutely necessary and core part of the game mode, and traits that allow you to not only rez faster but safer are really potent. So rez traits will always have a place in builds.

I agree with everything Spoj has said about Curses and Spite specialisations.
I’m happy that chill will stack vuln, though I’d rather have this trait in curses, so I can pick 5% dmg for non-boon targets and still inflict vuln with chill

kitten , our GS aa will inflict chill = tons of vuln <3

It’s odd to me that they changed Deathly Invigoration to heal on entering death shroud “Because it felt kind of weird to reward you for leaving death shroud” when just a few minutes prior they showed us Beyond The Veil, which procs protection upon exiting Death Shroud. Consistency!

Also why is Reaper’s Precision still a thing. Can someone please explain to me how this is a strong trait because I just do not see it.

As one last thing, Toxic Landing now casting CPC on fall damage is… Iffy… Because 6s of weakness is the kind of drawback you actually need to manage. It’s not utterly ignorable like Epidemic’s vulnerability.

First, I will echo Sublimatio in that I agree completely with Spoj’s statements in regards to Curses and Spite. Gosh I hope ANet reads it and actually cares enough to do something.

Anywho, one thing really got me when reading over the Spite traits, and it was the new Axe Training. It is almost a flat-out worse version than what we already have. Here’s a quick comparison:

Axe Training

• Now:
  Damage Increase: 10%
  Cooldown Reduce: 20%

• Future:
  Damage Increase: 10% while foe is crippled
  Cooldown Reduce: 2% per hit of Rending Claw

With the new Axe Training Trait, it will take at least 4.6 seconds (empirically found) of hitting with Rending Claws have the cooldown reduction equivalent of what we already have. This is kind of silly when Ghastly Claws has a cooldown of 8 seconds, which means we’ll be auto-attacking for 60% of its downtime in order to break even with what we’ve already got. Also the 10% damage boost is now gated behind cripple. Dumb.

Possible Fix?: Let Rending Claws give 1.5% life force per hit as well. This provides more incentive to actually use Rending Claws rather than swapping to other skills.

Overall, I’m fairly disappointed. My builds hardly changed and hardly improved. I guess we’ll have to see what is published.

ronpierce.2760:

Zetsumei.4975:

Why are there even still traits solely dedicated to falling damage or rezzing?

WvW, some people legitimately do love them, though I find them completely silly.

Ritual of Life is also one of the better “medic!” res traits for WvW or PvE open world. A nice self heal with some area heal pulses to keep others up upon completion (not to mention protection if traited for it).

—

I just started checking the news of the last few days and from what I understand (I guess), is that we will be locked into 3 trait lines, will be able to invest into 9 traits instead of 7 and stats will be delinked from lines. So 6/6/6 builds with no stat consideration correct?

Based on that, I think a lot has already been said that I agree with, but here’s my two cents anyways:

Spite and Curses are very damage type specific. Power builds have little to no reason to invest in Curses and Condi builds have little to no reason to invest in Spite. If I got the limitations of trait line investment correct this may be a good thing. This means damage specializations are completely oriented to the damage type they represent and you’re not always wishing for that “other” trait in that “other” damage trait line that’s good, but not worth sacrificing access to DM, BM or SR for (which ends up gimping builds and necros overall).

There appears to be a lot of trait conflict and “pick and choose” already in the new Spite/Curses setup, without trying to make them serve both condi and power damage and thus restricting build variety. Instead, hybrid damage builds should only feel the need to invest in both leaving only one other trait line (likely SR) viably available.

Axe Training and Spiteful Spirit definitely need buffs.

I would love to see the trait placement in Death Magic, Blood Magic and Soul Reaping stay relatively the same and just buff/nerf traits accordingly from here on out. I went through DM, BM and SR with all my existing MM, Support, Sustain, Condimancer and Powermancer builds and the new trait placements just feel right. Many of the needless trait splits, conflicts and forced useless trait issues have been resolved. This has completely opened up support and sustain builds which suffered attrition wise from all the conflicts (We can actually spec for full well support, full vampiric steal and full DS sustian now with DM, BM and SR if we choose to).

Condi based builds of all types (dmg or more sustain oriented) now synergy with Soul Reaping. Dhuumfire, Soul Marks and Master of Terror not conflicting is a big deal and needs to remain in place, so condi builds can adequately get something out of SR instead of just survivabiilty at the cost of most/all damage effectiveness and synergy.

So, still no invuln, like every other class? Or, a GTFO skill?

Here my toughts: i keep in mind this is only a preview, and i do not talk too much about proper balance but more for ideas and the direction they are heading, along with some more pratical concerns.

On a pvp note spite looks intresting: basically speccing here allows you to execute targets, too bad that some choices are really weird ( like vuln on<33% hp… if it is so low already why apply vuln? :P ) and that it enforces staying in DS with all the skills locked.
Some might say that for this reason is not good to always stay in DS and i give them right, but when you hit PvE it’ s boring and ridicolus to spam 1 for ages in DS and personally i really hoped they could change that; i can still choice other traits luckly but if you want to use DS that makes you dire of boredom.
However i like the damage increase on debuffed targets: that would be a really viable trait for PvE, probably the only of the whole exposition, that feels really like fun and powerful.

Curses separated terrormancers and condition damage mancers and i’ m not really sure how much i like that: if you want damage on fear then you will have either to go halfcondi or go power, but i can understand why because sharing all the condi increase from the specter with fears and such might not be a good idea…
besides, somebody can clarify if condition duration by traits is baseline like for other professions?
The dagger trait is weird: what’ s worth reducing cooldown, in pve and pvp? probably good for the offhand, but already the syphon was borderline ( maybe traited for aoe heals?) and the snare not always good to cast by its own.

Death magic is half trash. Only MM stuff ( but i like reduced damage from targets afflicted by poison… even if it is a bit random in execution and concept, really) and lots of stuff that is selfish… as always, i dunno what i exepcted.
Liking the tough to power doubled in DS, but again it feels nice but out of place…

Blood is trash. I hope that the vampiric lines get reworked in coefficients and whatnot, maybe having a proper effect in DS, but they basically kept all the clunky old traits with some exceptions; i hope martyr will be actually useful, but Invigoration might be the most successful trait… or the biggest failure.

I am happy about how they treated soul reaping: DS is accessed by everybody, so it is good to give Soul different choices based on your focus if you wanna get benefits from death shroud. Probably it will take some fixes, but i am good for the concepts.

In the end, it feels like this does not make us better in which we are dramatically behind: no buffs to pve, neither in raw power or team support, heal specs are still clunky and weird, MM traits are too much focused on single trait lines and i think they should be a bit more spread and Death should give access to more different traits besides MM, even if that is its focus.

I think you guys are missing something about the power build, at the moment the most popular build is 6/2/0/0/6, but with the changes, it will actually be “6/6/0/0/6”, in other words, an actual buff, gravy if you will, that also explains the nerf to axe training…

As for Condition builds, yeah there’s a no-brainer there, 100% condition duration!….just…wow! if this goes live, I won’t have to worry about carrying condition food, using condition duration runes, or weapons or sigils, it would open so many options up….at the cost of never picking up parasitic contagion and saying goodbye to terror damage…

I think Anet have to sort the traits a bit better. For example if i want to play power necro for pve farming i really like to play dagger warhorn but Banshee’s Wail is in a trait line with grandmaster traits that are totaly useless for a power necro. Fear dmg, Condi heal or extra condi dmg with scepter.

Anet you really have to sort the traits ! The system we got now allows us to maybe only go 2 points in a trait line and dont take the useless grandmaster trait and waste our points but now we have to go all in into a trait line and if we got no alternativ there we just waste the points.

Nemitri.8172:

I think you guys are missing something about the power build, at the moment the most popular build is 6/2/0/0/6, but with the changes, it will actually be “6/6/0/0/6”, in other words, an actual buff, gravy if you will, that also explains the nerf to axe training.

Why the kitten would you go 6/6/0/0/6? The only thing taking in that tree that is worthwhile for standard Power Nec now is Banshee’s Wail since targeted Wells are baseline. Arguably also Weakening Shroud now that its useful again. Might as well just go full Blood Magic for Vamp Rits now even tho the rest of the BM traits are worthless. But lets face it, none of the new traitlines looks especially alluring except for Soul Reaping which every build will be using regardless anyway. Power Necs for Unyielding Blasts/Vital Persistance/Death Perception and Condi Necs for Soul Marks/Master of Terror/FitG or Dhuum.

Besides, no one is disputing that we are getting buffed. The problem lies in the fact that the buffs we are getting are so insignificant compared to what other classes are getting that it is effectively a nerf.

So heres my 5 cent of Feedback even though i dont think it will matter much. I wont focus on the numbers too much rather on the functionality

Spite
Minors: they look a lot better, the master minor seems kinda off, i dont want more vulnerability if my target is at low health since vulnerability is so common, and if my target is that low its gonna die anyway.

Bitter Chill: We dont have that many ways to chill foes, and i dont think we have problems with vulnerability uptime either. Creates nice synergy with chilling darkness but i dont think that this will fit. Suggestion: A trait that has synergy with boon strip, gain might for every boon removed or siphon life for every boon removed.

Death Shiver:
It’s rather weak for a master trait, vulnerability again, unless they raise the cap of it its rather meh. Suggestion: Keep the pulse mechanic while in DS but change the condi to either chill or blind and add a small damage part.

Axe Mastery: Is kinda weird, you get CD reduction for using the Axe AA, but we really dont want to AA in the first place. (also the %increase seems a little to low compared to other damage modifiers that require a special condition – see thief or ele.

Signet Mastery: I like it. It cant compete with the other 2 grandmasters though, maybe skill changes to signet will affect this.

Curses:

Reaper’s Precision: Its still awfull and not even remotely close of deserving a master spot. Add another functionality or replace it altogether.

Death Magic:

Beyond the Veil: Sounds really nice

Shrouded Removal: needs to be at least 2 conditions to be up to the condi traits of other classes. Suggestion: Remove one condition upon entering DS, the First Lifeblast will transfer a condition to every target hit.

Unholy Sanctuary: Still sucks in this format. It needs a more reliable component added, for example : You also have permanent retaliation while in dS.

Additional: Why 3 Minion traits? You told us there would only be one trait for most specs, yet 2 of our Grandmasters need minions to work out. The same is also true for Staff / Mark traits.

Blood Magic:

Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration and Unholy Martyr: Great in general but they offer nothing for the necromancer, i dislike these because the sustain is already in a bad spot, using the biggest parts of our sustain line for allys only seems misplaced.

Siphons: Please get the numbers right.

Soul Reaping

Soul Marks: The same as before, can you add something exciting to Staff AA? It still feels so lackluster and boring.

General: I think these changes are going into a really good direction, but compared to the other professions they seem lackluster, either skill wise or because of the amount of play and possibilities they add, the traits alter builds a little bit, but not as much or as exciting as other professions do.

What i miss a bit:

Dark Armor, was actually a nice skill but people didnt use it because Death Magic was so bad and the two staff traits where the reason you spec into this line. Add another boon while channeling (Protection, retaliation or stability) and its a really solid trait.

Interactions and Synergy. I miss a connection between sustain/defense and aggression and condition speciality.
Things like siphon health when applying a condition, gain health every second for each foe that suffers from your movement impairing conditions, siphon life for every corrupted or removed boon, your chill causes damage over time, your chills cause medium damage every 3 seconds, your poisons reduce healing by 50%, your siphons are increased on bleeding foes.

I also miss the implementation of the new conditions a bit, no torment from traits, no slow.

Staff is still a boring one trick pony, can we get more exciting traits like marks heal you for each foe hit? Or something like persistent mark, marks reappear 2 seconds after triggered on the same position with 50% potency.

We would have a lot of Slots for these exciting kinda things in the grandmasters, quite a lot of them are very underwhelming compared to other professions.

Some of the trait changes give me a “what the hell” moment:
My judgement here is mostly PvP related, and I’m also not running comparisons between these traits and those of other classes.

1. Curses line: Reaper’s Precision can’t ever compete with Path of Corruption! Hell, it can’t even compete with Weakening Shroud and Chilling Darkness at its current magnitude.
2. So, I can now have dhuumfire, reaper’s protection, path of corruption and terror in one condition build? Really? I haven’t read enough on other profession traits but this looks very powerful.
3. Blood Magic still sounds lackluster. The traits are good on paper but (with the exception of Transfusion) they don’t seem to have a significant intensity and I don’t see that huge a change here. Although it would be a good choice for a power build (Vampiric Rituals + Transfusion/Quickening Thirst) because you now have a full third trait line but that’s only true if it can compete with the upcoming elite specialization.
4. Deathly Invigoration now a grandmaster?! Is this a joke or am I right to assume that they will significantly increase the health gain and/or make it heal you as well before entering death shroud?

Well guys… anet did it again. Moved some stuff around, didn’t really address major issues, but kept things interesting xD So far I like what I see trait wise, adds new build possibilities and buffed some things.

My thoughts on:
SOUL REAPING -
Well kitten , this trait line is s-ex-y now Will become a standard trait line I think… awesome skills for both power and condition builds. Great for spectral builds and condi necro’s will finally get some more LF! Overall quite like it.

BLOOD MAGIC –
Still sucks. The things they merged didn’t change much. The only thing worth mentioning are that all the well traits are combined now ^^

DEATH MAGIC –
A must for MM builds, as always, but now it is barely worth going into as any other build. Maybe for the staff trait… or shrouded removal…. but overall this line has been limited >.>

CURSES -
Not sure what to think of this. Will become a must on Condi necro, but for power only really worth going into for Banshee’s Wail >.> Can’t believe they moved terror… again. kitten you anet!

SPITE –
Meta for power now… but we’ll still take chill of Death, close to death and then reaper’s might/vuln in DS. Minor traits got awesome buffs though :O But we’re pretty much pigeonholed into builds >.>

Overall:
Me likey, gonna try new builds and trait but anet could have done WAY better. It just feels like they are trying to make necro feel fresh, without realizing we are dark deathly ping pong balls >.>
#anetPLZ

-Hollts

Spite

• Has perhaps one too many traits that apply vulnerability, what about replacing one with something that takes advantage of vulnerability stacking, replace Death Shiver. It would be nice to have an ally bonus e.g. whenever you apply more than 25 stacks, you give allies a boon, fury or might or quickness with an appropiate icd.

• Spiteful Spirit needs something else to be worthwhile, since it removes boons, a bonus to all boon removal would be nice, and have nice synergy with Chill of Death/Focus 5.

• I don’t like that the minor traits all have a different threshold, why not pick just 50%, so all the minor and major traits in Spite are consistent.

• Signet Mastery needs to give more might, another 2 stacks, and lower cooldowns on signets to be worthwhile.

• The cooldown reduction on axe training is a bit gimicky, while it is more interesting than a flat cooldown, would prefer the flat 20%, that goes for all the Mesmer traits as well.

Curses

• As others have said and bears repeating, needs more traits for power necros including a grandmaster.

• I liked the synergy between Signet of Spite and the damage boost from Target the Weak, maybe the old effect could be made a grandmaster and Terror moved in place of Reaper’s Prescision. Else Reaper’s Prescision could be swapped with Terror and greatly buffed, 4% life force 50% on crits.

• Don’t prefer CPC and Enfeebling Blood on traits, especially with Enfeebling Blood having a 25 sec CD, and CPC applying weakness to necro.

Death Magic

• Needs lots of work.

• Would prefer if Deadly Strength was the grandmaster minor and Beyond the Veil merged with Flesh of the Master in place of the extra toughness and remove that caveat from the game.

• Is there ever a chance that we get a horde of jagged horrors for a grandmaster, that can be replenished more easily like minion masters from GW1, remove the icd from Death Nova.

• This trait line is completely selfish, Unholy Santuary should aid allies while the necro is in DS. Add another master trait that is more supportive, and/or increases the defenses of the necro.

Blood Magic

• Also needs lots of work, more than Death Magic. None of the traits are appealing.

• Revive speed bonuses of 10% are too low, that goes for all professions, should 20%. Why are necros not the best at rezzing, it is a completely missed opportunity.

• Life siphoning is never going to be worthwhile until it heals the necro hp while in DS.

• Unholy Martyr is not a good GM, neither is Deathly Invigoration for that matter unless the numbers are spectacular. The life force gain of Unholy Matyr should be added baseline to Plague Signet. Then Unholy Martyr replaced with a trait that allows passive effects of signets to persist in DS.

Soul Reaping

• Seems to be fine.

I actually expected a bit more…

guys plz go there and leave your feedback + 3what do u think about rdy up preview , we have to make this topic noticble.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/U-rly-dont-like-necro-right/first#post5003397

I am so sad.

Necromancer’s Holy Sanctuary has still a based heal stat useless. 130. Over 10sec (if we imagin we stay that long in death shroud), 1300hp. Over ~20k. WOW.

Looking at other classes, it s like “wow interesting” or “not bad”…. but OMG. For the necro… Does anyone by Anet plays this class ? All others classes are so interesting (mirror on dodge for mesmer), f5 for engi, more guardian build ….

Also, I always thought before, Dhummfire was like " apply chill makes your foe burn". It would have been better, less op that the first version of the trait, or more interesting, in my opinion.

Well, Anet ’s never gonna see my post so whatever…

I do not understand why Greater Marks and the faster staff recharge will be located in different specialisations. The radius for Ele staff skills will be increased. The same should be possible for Necromancers. Features like faster staff recharge, unblockable marks and gain of life force should be bundled in one single trait. This would open up more ways to play a staff Necro.

The assignment of higher axe damage to cripple makes the axe less attractive. Maybe the damage gain of 10% should stay and crippled foes will cause a +12% gain.

Can’t remember where but i read somewhere that necro was going to get a major Trait change.

if this is it? is that a freking joke it is prity much same as before.

why is not darkpath a blink?
why aint Greater mark a core abilty?
not a hugh fan of minion build but why the kiteen hell dont u just give necro a ranger pet control bar so u can get that useless meatsack to attack a player insted of headstomping a wall or take a stroll in the wood to take a kitten and pull half the world b4 doing smth usefull.

just top of my head to maybe look at.

A suggestions just from looking at blood magic:

• Combine Bloodthirst and Vampiric Precision into a Grandmaster so Necromancer are able to take it with Quickening Thirst. I think it creates a more interesting choice to get into the battlefield yourself with daggers or to just let your wells tick for damage.
• Put Unholy Martyr into Master Tier and create another condition related support trait for the Adept Tier. Maybe an aoe cleanse that heals the necro for every condition removed.

Main problem is most of our useless traits remain. Unholy sanctuary being a prime example. Condition regen……like really. Regen is already bad on necro as taking healing power is bad and we have light armour and high health. Regen is good on coasses with high evade uptime or blocks. Not on meat shields.

The numbers for unholy sanctuary were unchaged. When it would not even be op if it was buffed by 200%. Also balance is relative. Everyone is going to be power creeped and better. But necro will be trash. We got minor improvements. Other classes got the ability to take build defining traits in a ton of spaces giving them everything.

Of the 15 trait groups we have about 5 or 6 which still have no good options. I struggled to even theory craft a spec better than ee currently have.

Curses are messed up, Blood Magic is still useless, because life stealing always was and looks like it’ll always be a waste of time. Nothing usefull when it comes to party play – no finishers that we lack, Blood Magic could get some trait that makes life steals heal allies too, just like Transfusion does. Then again it comes back to the poor performance of life steals. And our combo fields aren’t the best either. I swear this is the most selfish class ever and noone even bothers to change it, despite the community has been screaming about it for a dang long time.

Death Magic
Minors

• I think these are fine. They are defensive and they work for all builds.
• Maybe buff the protection duration slightly.

Adepts

• Flesh of the Master and Shrouded Removal are also fine.
• Putrid Defense is a nice new defensive trait. The only issue is we are kind of forced to take scepter for poison. Or use death nova with it. Maybe make it buff poison duration or apply it in some way through this trait.

Master

• Great Marks is still kind of bad. Unblockable is nice. But just traiting for that is kind of weak. I would combine this with something else. Or add something extra to it. Or i would make it baseline. At the very least the mark radius should be baseline.
• Reapers Protection is fine. Although i would personally combine this with one of the other fear traits in the other lines. Either Terror or Master of Terror.
• Deadly Strength is a nice buff and should be left as it is. The double bonus in DS is cool. Although personally i think this trait is way better than the other two choices so i would always pick it.

Grandmaster

• Death Nova is fine as always.
• Necromantic corruption change is nice. Although im not really sure about having two minion grandmaster traits in death magic. This means everyone who wants death magic but isnt running minions is forced to run unholy sanctuary.
• Unholy sanctuary is kind of unpopular. I think most people would still prefer it to allow healing in DS from other sources in addition to the regen. Other than the lackluster healing i think its a decent trait.

Overall the line is ok. The double minion grandmaster traits means non minion builds are forced into Unholy Sanctuary. I would reshuffle traits to avoid this. Its another line where most people are going to always pick the same traits for each tier. So you need to buff the less popular choices. And give more choice to non minion builds.

I keep hoping that I will have a reason to play my necro again in HoT, but this really isn’t making me hopeful. Blood is still a joke, Death Magic is almost there but not quite. The issues of “no build diversity due to bad traits” and “spam 1 to win” are still there.

Feedback (Suggestions in next post):
Spite- Axe Training- This trait will be useful when axe is useful. Unfortunately, axe is “ok” in some niche situations, and “terrible” in all others. The Rending Claws cooldown thing is cool, but ultimately wasted until the weapon is improved.
Signet Mastery- Seems good, but Signet of the Locust could maybe use a shorter cooldown. Additionally, Signet passives really need to work in DS.
Spiteful Spirit is neat, but 15S ICD is super awkward (just like old Weakening Shroud). If the ICD needs to be there, at least give us a way to track it.
I am concerned that both Spiteful Spirit and Signet Mastery can’t compare to Close to Death.

Curses- Toxic Landing- I love CPC, but kitten that self weakness is harsh.
Weakening Shroud- Why are we going backwards here? The ICD kills this trait.
Reaper’s Precision- Still really, really bad. Now in the Master slot!
Terror- I actually like the hard decision at Grandmaster tier, but I think terror will lose out to Lingering Curse pretty much every time. Maybe roll Master of Terror into this?
There is no Grandmaster option for non-condition builds, which is concerning.

Death Magic- I would LOVE Beyond the Veil if it applied to nearby party members. As is, its ok I guess.
Putrid Defense is super cool, A+. Maybe 15%?
Greater Marks is still here? Staff isn’t interesting or impactful enough to justify having two traits. Go ahead and merge “Life force on marks” and “Marks are unblockable”, and make the cooldown and radius baseline or ditch them.
Deadly Strength- Interesting concept, but the numbers don’t seem quite there (like a lot of the stat conversion traits).
Necromantic Corruption- Good change, but it’s a little constricting to have two minion traits at Grandmaster, especially…
Unholy Sanctuary- … when the remaining GM is bad. The healing function of US may as well not exist due to low scaling (regen is not a “significant” boon, it’s more like a nice bonus if you get it for free). The DS entry is just silly, and in practice doesn’t help much with survivability. US should be a strong defensive option for any Necro who wants more survivability, not a bizarre niche trait.
Overall, still too many minion traits and not enough stuff that helps the Necro survive.

Blood- Vampiric is still awful. Is anyone at ANet running the numbers, here? If you invest the maximum possible points into siphoning, you can MAYBE get healing per second similar to regen. That is not a good trade, and is especially laughable in a defensive line.
Blood to Power- Would be cool, but we scale terribly with Healing Power and DS doesn’t play nice with healing anyway.
Bloodthirst- See Vampiric.
Quickening Thirst- Cool idea, actually changes your playstyle, not just a boring cooldown reduction trait. Very nice!
Vampiric Precision- See Vampiric.
Transfusion- “Support” in GW2 is about more than just healing, and this trait unfortunately misses the mark in that regard. It needs something more. Otherwise, this will just be the trait you take if you’re in Blood but don’t use a dagger (because Vamp Precision is terrible).
Vampiric Rituals- See Vampiric- the siphoning portion is more or less pointless as is.
Unholy Martyr- This trait is a mess. Is it party support? (1 condition/3S says “no”). Is it for staying in DS longer? Might be nice, except Blood doesn’t play nice with DS. This trait needs a cohesive purpose.
Deathly Invigoration- See Transfusion. Additionally, the justification for “heal on DS entry” was that it would make DI a “selfless heal”. Doesn’t Transfusion do that already?
The whole line is still a gigantic mess and not worth taking unless you really want that well cooldown.

Soul Reaping- Speed of Shadows- The speed boost wouldn’t be necessary if Signet passives worked in DS (will Quickening Thirst work in DS? My bet is “lol no, because reasons”).
Master of Terror- You might just roll this into Terror? Although I can see the appeal with Lingering Curse synergy for super long fears, so this might be fine.

Blood Magic
Minors

• Full of Life is ok. Maybe allow it to proc on hit whenever you are below the threshold.
• Vampiric needs to be combined with the other life siphon traits. I still dont understand why Bloodthirst and Vampiric Precision have been left in. Just give us one life siphon trait and buff its numbers up. And move it to the master major slot.
• Make Deathly Invigoration the replacement minor for Vampiric. And make it heal through DS or heal on exit again.
• Blood to Power is a good change. It makes more sense then the previous version. However I would just make it buff healing by a percentage instead of giving healing power.

Adepts

• Ritual of Life is a revive trait. I dont like these traits at all. They are boring. But i think its ok as it is.
• Bloodthirst should be replaced by a reworked Quickening Thirst. And all siphons should be combined together and added to Master major slot. It makes no sense to have so many weak siphon traits split across the traitline.
• Mark of Evasion. We dont have Vigor on the necro so please remove the ICD on this. Or atleast lower it.

Masters

• Quickening Thirst is still bad. The movement speed is pointless. And like you said dual wielding daggers dont really go together. Dagger offhand cooldown reduction is nice but i would only pick this because there is nothing better. Change it and move it to adept. You could add +5% damage with daggers in addition to the cooldown reduction.
• Vampiric Precision is still no good on its own. Like i said before lets just have one good life siphon trait in the Master slot.
• Transfusion is fine. I still think this should heal through DS though. Our class not benefitting from our own traits is silly. If we had really good personal sustain it wouldnt matter so much. But we dont so these traits should work through DS.

Grandmasters

• Vampiric Rituals. I dont want siphons on this. I dont want my Well of Blood or Well of Power to tag mobs/objects and put me in combat. The siphons should all be on Vampiric in the master slot and nothing else. The extra prot is nice. Maybe increase the cooldown reduction a bit more.
• Unholy Martyr is decent. The problem is it doesnt really synergise with anything. How about decreasing the Interval time and adding a Master trait which adds condition transfer to Lifeblast on land. You could put this in the Quickening Thirst slot that was freed up by moving it to Adept.
• Deathly Invigoration. This is just bad. You have nerfed it and put it into the grandmaster slot. This doesnt make sense. We cant heal from our own trait anymore. I would make this the master minor and restore it to heal on exit.
• This means we need a new grandmaster for Blood Magic. If we arent going to get healing in DS as baseline. Maybe this is the chance to do so through a trait. Give us a trait which allows all outside sources of healing to go through DS. Even if its with reduced effectiveness. Its better than nothing.

Overall blood magic is still a big mess. The siphons should be combined into one slot and be a choice rather than a passive. Deathly Invigoration should be a minor and restored to heal on exit. Most of the traits should be reshuffled. And we really need a decent sustain grandmaster. Which is why i suggest heal through DS. Add a master trait which synergises with Unholy Martyr.

I asked this in another thread, but will ask this here as well. Does anyone know why they removed Focused Rituals? It used to be in the Curses, minor trait VI. Gone now. Will wells now always have ground targeting? Anyone know if this question has been asked to Anet?

Edit: Nevermind. Saw the mention of Ground Targeting.

Soul Reaping
Minors

• No complaints with keeping this the same.
• I do think Strength of Undeath should be buffed up to +10% damage to bring it inline with other traits on other classes.

Adepts

• Unyielding Blast is fine. I believe this should give 100% projectile finishers on Lifeblast though. Let us please have more finishers so we can actually use the best part of the combat system (combos).
• Soul marks makes sense in the adept. The staff cooldown reduction is a nice QoL addition to this trait.
• Speed of Shadows change is good. The movement speed is mostly unneeded. Signet passives should work in DS in my opinion. But Near to Death being in adept slot is really good.
• I actually have a really good selection of different choices in this tier which is nice.

Masters

• Spectral Mastery is good.
• Combining Path of Midnight with Vital persistance is a nice change. Make DS skill cooldown reduction 20% to bring it inline with other cooldown reduction skills.
• Master of Terror is fine. I still believe the fear traits need to maybe be combined. But this one might be worth keeping as it is.

Grandmaster

• These are fine.
• New Dhuumfire is good and i prefer it in Soul reaping compared to Spite. Really like this change.

This traitline is pretty much fine. A few minor tweaks and its good. Most of the merges and changes are what I would have suggested anyway.

Suggestions:

Group Support- Necros have no place in dungeons due to their lack of group support. While Vuln stacking in Spite looks nice, it won’t be enough. Suggestions:
Reaper’s Might now applies to allies. (Signet Mastery is a good candidate for AOE Might too).
Furious Demise gives AOE Fury.
Blast finishers on Dagger 5, Axe 3, Warhorn 4.

Axe- In my ideal world, Axe would be a strong defensive weapon and look something like this:
Axe 1- No longer applies vulnerability, is a chain skill.
1A- Two hits, same as now.
1B- Stronger single hit, applies short duration Weakness (think Ele Staff Earth 1).
2- Narrow cone, applies Vuln. Final hit is stronger and Cripples (like Warrior GS 2). Life force gain works like dagger auto attack chain (no extra gain for hitting multiple targets).
3- Same, but is now a Blast.

Dagger- Dagger gives the highest sustained damage that the Necro has access to, but it’s just spamming 1 (boring!). Bump up the damage (not the healing) on Dagger 2 so it’s a little higher than the D1 chain, so that there’s at least a little variety in your rotation. Also creates synergy with the new Quickening Thirst. May need to nerf range a bit to compensate (450?).

Make Enfeebling Blood a Blast finisher! Group support! Synergy!

Signets- Signet passives are always supposed to be on, but we turn them off every time we dip into DS. It feels bad and counterintuitive, and really none of the passives are going to be gamebreaking if they are running while DS is up (MAYBE Undeath, but maybe someone would actually equip it then…)

Corrosive Poison Cloud- Self Weakness feels REALLY BAD, especially since it’s so long. Consider something else here, maybe even a 2-3S Cripple. Make CPC destroy projectiles (think Swirling Winds on Ele Focus)- this gives us a little more group utility.

Vampiric and related traits- As is, these traits just aren’t going to work. You need to balance cases where an AOE ability hits 5 targets 6 times with the same numbers used in a 1v1 situation- that’s a tall order, and I don’t think it’s going to happen. Here’s my suggestion:

Blood Minors:
Full of Life- No change.
Vampiric- When you use a healing skill, your next attack siphons life.
Deathly Invigoration- When you exit Death Shroud, siphon life from all nearby enemies.

This allows you to balance life siphoning much more easily- Vampiric is happening only once every 16S at most (Blood Fiend), probably once every 25S (Consume Conditions). This version of Deathly Invigoration provides a defensive mechanic which scales with the number of enemies nearby, which is a commonly requested feature for the Necro.

Change Bloodthirst to provide group support of some kind- an aura that provides Ferocity has been suggested in the past. Maybe “When you siphon life with Vampiric or Deathly Invigoration, grant Quickness (1.5S) to nearby allies”.

Scrap Vampiric Precision, it’s uninteresting at best. Replace with either a personal defensive option (Gain aegis when you siphon life with Vampiric?) or a group support option.

Vampiric Rituals- The vampirism on this trait might actually be ok with some numbers tweaks. The rest of the trait is pretty solid too, which helps.

Unholy Martyr- As mentioned, needs a real identity. If it’s group support- how about “Draw all conditions from nearby allies when you use Tainted Shackles. Tainted Shackles grants 15% Life Force”. This provides a strong condition management utility on a reasonable cooldown, with a nice bonus for eating all those conditions. Balanced by Plague Signet being unreliable and Consume Conditions having a glacial cast time.

Transfusion- Allies take 40% less damage while being healed by transfusion.

Deathly Invigoration- Replaced with… something interesting.

The way the traits were distributed it seems as if the developers wanted more focused builds and are trying to give sustain and utility options to each line.

This should discourage, if not make impossible, mixing traits and utilities in a more ad hoc fashion like we used to. For example, running WoS in a power build may not be so productive. In fact, running wells at all probably means traiting the grandmaster.

On the bright side, wells and healing will be completely separated so Blood Magic is no longer synonymous with bunker and carp damage. You can be fully berserker or fully zealot’s.

There is a lot going on here I do not yet understand so will hold off on critical comments.

With nothing new to add group play value, I must trust the changes to PvE AI and Defiant will bring Necro and Mesmer out of the dog house.

Edit: I have seen nothing so far concerning secondary stat’s such as condition and boon duration. Equipment stat’s, runes, and other modifiers will probably be changed at least a little beyond what we have been told. There may even be changes to weapon and utility skills because of their current dependence on those secondary stat’s. You can see that in the scepter grandmaster.

Edit 2: Forget what you know about current trait lines. Spite will not be the power / condi duration line. You can just as easily stuff it with healing or stuff Blood Magic with power.

Also, the power you would have gotten from Spite will be split between your base and your equipment so the range of bunkering or glassiness will be smaller because some of that will not be customizable when it is buried in base stat’s.