Guild Wars 2

So since everyone else seems also kind of disappointed with Spite GM minor and having to choose between CtD and one of the new GM traits (which is sadly not a choice at all), what would happen if CtD became the spite GM minor?
If it would be just too much additional power, then would be lowering the bonus dmg to 15% or even 10% be enough to compensate for added utility through signet or axe3 trait?

And a suggestion. When they showed the changes for other classes, often times they improved on “ways to play the class”/augmented their strengths and what they are good at.
When necro came up i didn’t notice a trait addition like that.

What i mean in generell are traits that would alter or strengthen skills like condition transfer and boon removal. Also dark armor would’ve been a candidate to receive some cool thing as a trait that “alters” our channeled skills.

As some simple suggestions in this regard, there could’ve been traits like life steal on boon removal(with icd ofc) or convert 1 boon when transfering conditions. Dark armor could be about debuffing or hurting foes who interrupt a channel.

So just going to look at how this effects power necros in PvE.

First of all lets go with dagger.

We obviously want to go spite for spiteful talisman, death shiver and close to death.

• Im assuming death shiver will apply the vuln at the start of entering DS so we can get some nice vuln just by flashing. This is a cool idea.
• Spiteful talisman giving a damage boost and reducing focus skill cooldowns is too good not to take. However i am torn between this and bitter chill. If i could get both then Necro could start to look pretty good in PvE.
• Move Bitter Chill to curses grandmaster and buff it to give +5/10% damage to chilled foes.
• Close to death is the only grandmaster choice here.
• If Spiteful spirit had its ICD removed and provided a blast then it could become a good group synergy trait alternative to the raw damage of CtD.

Now we want curses for weakening shroud and furious demise.

• However we no longer get weakening shroud proc on every DS entry. This is a nerf and a big hit to how the build plays and feels fun.
• We also still want Banshees wail in master because its just good.
• Theres no way I would ever take reapers precision in any gametype.
• But what do we take in the grandmaster slot? Theres nothing of value. Im not using a scepter so lingering is not an option. Im not condi or applying many damaging condis so contagion is pointless. And im not condi damage focused or in PvP so terror is useless to me.
• The lack of power grandmaster means i dont want to go curses anymore for anything but condi builds. But then i dont get furious demise or banshees wail. This is really frustrating.
• Move lingering down to master to replace reapers precision. This fixes condi builds and frees up a spot for a power grandmaster. I suggest a buffed Bitter Chill. Or a reworked and buffed Withering Precision. Or a combination of both.

Final tree we want Soul Reaping.

• Obviously first slot would be to take speed of shadows for more frequent DS flashes to get more fury with furious demise. Would like it to synergise with Weakening shroud and Spiteful Spirit though! (Remove ICD’s).
• Second slot would clearly be Path of Midnight so we can use Tainted Shackles more often.
• Final slot is kind of useless to a dagger necro but its free. So Deathly perception doesnt hurt for AOE bursting in DS. And FitG can be used for survivability.

I dont want blood magic because even though i can take well cooldowns and siphons. Theres no real good sustain or anything worthwhile for PvE. And theres no damage traits.

Death magic is also not an option because theres two minion grandmasters. Unholy Sanctuary might be nice in some difficult fights but im forced into one trait for each line.

This means I have to use curses. But without a grandmaster in curses its really frustrating for power necros.

In essence. The feeling of flashing DS and getting benefits every time you do so is hurt majorly by the return of ICD on DS entry traits. In addition we have lost damage traits and a viable grandmaster curses trait. This makes dagger power necro undesirable.

On the reddit thread there are a lot of apologists “ok these traits are bad/boring, but the utility reworks can fix the class.”

But so long as bad utility traits pigeonhole the necromancer into taking stun breaks, the utilities don’t matter. We could have the signet of pwnage and it wouldn’t matter as long as we’re stuck taking stun breaks.

Turret engineer can get away with no stun breaks because of access to spammable CC or reflects.

Now to discuss DS power necro.

We want spite again.

• Obvious choice is Reapers Might.
• For master slot we want Death Shiver again for the vuln only this time we maintain it more than in a DS flash build.
• Close to death is the only choice once again.

Next we want Soul Reaping.

• Unyielding Blast is obvious.
• Same for Vital Persistance.
• Deathly perception obvious only choice.

Now for the third line we have the same issue as on the dagger power necro.

Curses has no power grandmaster. And Reapers precision is still terribly weak and not worth taking. Especially considing theres nothing else in that line that benefits DS necro.

Blood magic still bad and we get no benefits because of no healing in DS.

Death magic seems like the best third choice.

• The adept doesnt really do anything for us. But Shrouded Removal could be helpful.
• For the master we clearly want Deadly Strength for extra damage while camping DS.
• Then the grandmaster we are forced into Unholy Sanctuary. Which maybe can be ok. But its forced.
• We are forced into this line just for Deadly Strength.

DS necro is hurt less than dagger flash necro. But it still has issues. DS necro is forced into very specific lines and traits. And a whole third line is just for one master trait because theres nothing else worth taking and nothing else which actually works inside DS.

You can clearly see there is no good third tree for either type of power necro. Which is really problematic. Curses needs a big look at. And death magic grandmasters needs a look aswell. New traits like Bitter Chill and Spiteful Spirit are either in the wrong place or not good enough to be taken.

Hmm, well I don’t see hybrid builds using Dhuumfire anymore.
Deathly Perception is so nice. So is Foot in the Grave.

I guess Dhuumfire is now something you pick for pure Condi builds.
Then again maybe they’d rather use Foot in the Grave?

Speaking of Hybrids I can see them getting somewhat stronger.
One nice thing about Hybrids is that they can put almost any trait to use.
You can pick both Spite+Curses and find something useful for every single slot.

Previously Hybrids had some trouble spreading out their points thin.
Now you can easily get Ranged Wells, Target the Weak and Last Gasp.
(Ranged Wells as baseline, Target The Weak just for going Curses, Last Gasp just for going Soul Reaping)

Fear builds will probably be very different, too.
Also I’m hopeful for Minion Masters, especially if the minions AI gets improved along with the new PvE AI added in.

I also wonder will some sort of Poison tank builds become a thing.
Putrid Defense+Noxious Poison Cloud+tons of other defensive traits?

And whether or not the poison cloud will be good in Condi builds, given that poison will likely become an intensity stacking condition.

Also here’s just a funny gimmick:
Pick Spiteful Spirit from Spite, Weakening Shroud from Curses and Foot in the Grave from Soul Reaping.

Now upon entering Death Shroud you gain Fury (minor trait), Stability, break stun and automatically cast both Enfeebling Blood and Unholy Feast.

Anchoku.8142:

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.

Yeah the new info isn’t exactly clear, but the general gist is that if we choose 3 specializations, then min/maxing different trait lines over three is out of the question. Now we have to pick three lines and optimize each minor to grandmaster trait to our build. So like you that’s why I think Spite and Curses especially became so specialized towards power and conditions respectfully, with more powerful sustains options.

For example in Spite the choices per trait tier seems to be might/more damage, vulnerability debuffs or more sustain based on lower enemy/player health, with boon removal and might stacking traits in between.

Parasitic Contagion change from 5% to 15% will be a big deal. Even at 2K condi damage it will provide more health than life steals per second (300 health per tick).

neilug hyuga.5634:

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.

You have to remember that this is while in DS and LF is a lot easier to regain then normal health. So net 1300 health over 10 seconds, while having enemies do damage to your LF that you can almost completely regain in seconds, is a lot more effective healing than 1300 health. Think of it less as being a Regeneration boon and more of a healing over time version of self heals that block or make the user invulnerable.

An example would be you’re at 10% health and your heal has 10 seconds left on recharge, but you have full LF and your Unholy Sanctuary is buffed to 300 health per second. So you drop some damage mitigation utilities, enter DS for 10 seconds and absorb say 10K damage to gain 3000 health.

Now all of a sudden you have 4-5K health instead of 1-2K giving you time to use your now recharged heal, and endurance is recharged. Then you use LF gain skills to get your LF back to 70%~ while mitigating damage (dodges) then re-enter DS for another 7 seconds for 2100 health, absorbing another 7K or so damage with LF. Even if this doesn’t work out for you, you will probably regain 20-30% of your LF before you get downed and Unholy kicks in for the emergency DS, giving you time to kite away and recover. This alone can give you another 5-10 seconds of healing while in DS if players aren’t DPSing you well enough (and have vital Persistence). By this point many of your mitigating utilities and LF gain should be recharged, if not your self heal.

So with Unholy Sanctuary you were able to get your self heal off, heal 5100 health at least, fought for another 15-20+ seconds with the possibility of completely recovering based on performance.

I haven’t looked at other class changes all that much yet, so it could use a boost if the damage potential of each class has gone up significantly. Also, I might drop Death Magic on my condi sustain builds and instead go for Barbed Precision, Path of Corruption, Parasitic Contagion instead of Greater Marks and Unholy Sanctuary.

I find dagger with DS flashing fun to play in pve. Needless to say I want the ITC on spiteful spirit and weakening shroud removed. I really like the idea of having a blast finisher on unholy feast to finally help blast some fields.

It also struck me that there are valuable traits in curses, but no grandmaster trait to benefit a power build. I hope they’ll rework that a bit, so we’re not stuck with a wasted trait slot.

Since there is a dagger trait in the blood magic line, I wouldn’t mind a dagger master trait there to give +5% damage with daggers while hp is above 75%, and have them steal some health as well for additional damage. Vampiric Daggers or whatever.

I am all for the idea to merge vampiric with bloodthirst in one life syphon trait in adept and removing vampiric precision. Buffing the lifesteal from vampiric/bloodthirst trait a bit to make up for the removal of vampiric precision. Maybe switch vampiric minor trait with a damage modifier while above a certain percentage of health or steal life on dodge?

Deathly invigoration would be nice if it’d heal also yourself. And because it’s called “invigoration”, would it be OP if it gave the necro 2-3s of vigor?

I dunno, it might make it a viable line for dagger flash?

The only disappointing parts of these changes for me is that Greater Marks is still in Death Magic, but the other trait I went into this line for on my power WvW build has been moved to SR. My PvP condi build is okay with Death Magic other than I don’t really want to take Unholy Sanctuary(just learned to play without it a month ago), but the other 2 GMs are for MM.

It would be perfect for me if they swapped one of the SR Masters (maybe Master of Terror) and Greater Marks(the staff cooldown trait is in SR now so why isn’t greater marks), then gave us a second GM in Death Magic that is for non MM.

Okay, I managed to watch the entire livestream (Sans the warrior section, it’s the one profession I haven’t really played), and I feel like I’ve got a little more perspective now on where they’re aiming with the traitlines.

So with an eye on the changes to the Water Magic line for elementalists, and the Honor line for Guardians, it looks like Blood Magic is being divided into two major archetypes:
Self-oriented healing, via Siphons.
Outgoing healing, via DS heals.

Using DS to block parts of a heal so that they can have outgoing-only level scaling is almost elegant design, but it preserves the “Healing is wasted on a Necromancer in Death Shroud” issue. As well, the selfish healing option, siphons / vampiric, is still prevented from helping a Necromancer while they’re in Death Shroud.

My suggestion: if selfless Necro healing is going to be pushed, the alternative healing trait options need to get through Death Shroud. This helps to distinguish the two paths, rather than jumbling them into an over-loaded and useless mess. I’d like to see this done by allowing heals to help a Necromancer in Death Shroud by default, nerf Death Shroud generation / pool size if necessary(!), then making traits like Transfusion / Deathly Invigoration (The “selfless” heals) explicitly not affect the Necromancer.

As well, I feel that merging vampiric master into the minor trait, but still leaving vampiric precision (A crit trait. Almost by definition a crit trait) sitting around by itself is a questionable decision. If anything, vampiric master changed how you played a character, since now you knew your minions were healing you back up, while vampiric precision was just “I guess I want more siphons and my crit chance isn’t utter pants.”

Maybe it’s a weird solution, but consider rolling Vampiric Master into the new Necromantic Corruption (Rewards you keeping your minions alive and attacking for a long time) then move that grandmaster into the Blood Magic line. Then, compress Unholy Martyr and Deathly Invigoration (currently selfless, allied-based support) into one grandmaster trait. A heal now, and I’ll grab some conditions soon.

tl;dr – Split the Blood Magic trait options clearly between “Selfish, works in Death Shroud” and “Generous, doesn’t heal me at all”, combining traits that both fall into the same category at each tier. Probably with Siphons as the thematic core for the selfish option. Make minions be a clear and powerful choice in the Blood Magic line, rather than a side-benefit.

Oh, and something that gets a separate post.

New Axe Training seems bad. Current usage for the axe never needs the auto attack. Swap in; use number #2; then #3, off hand skills, utilities, Death Shroud to fill the time in between; #2 and swap to your better weapon set. And that’s okay.

I like that you’re experimenting with other ways of cooldown reduction, but this doesn’t feel like a useful way to get it on Axe. (Compare Mesmer, where the opportunity cost is letting a clone live for an extra auto attack or two instead of shattering them immediately)

Hiding the damage boost behind cripple is… Okay, I guess? Because Locust Swarm exists and it gives a little more value to the new Spiteful Spirit. But if you don’t have Locust Swarm, you’ll be hard pressed to keep meaningful cripple uptime.

Softspoken.2410:

Oh, and something that gets a separate post.

New Axe Training seems bad. Current usage for the axe never needs the auto attack. Swap in; use number #2; then #3, off hand skills, utilities, Death Shroud to fill the time in between; #2 and swap to your better weapon set. And that’s okay.

I like that you’re experimenting with other ways of cooldown reduction, but this doesn’t feel like a useful way to get it on Axe. (Compare Mesmer, where the opportunity cost is letting a clone live for an extra auto attack or two instead of shattering them immediately)

Hiding the damage boost behind cripple is… Okay, I guess? Because Locust Swarm exists and it gives a little more value to the new Spiteful Spirit. But if you don’t have Locust Swarm, you’ll be hard pressed to keep meaningful cripple uptime.

What about making the Axe CD recharge on AA 1% (or keep it at 2%) and making it affect all weapon and utility skills? :p

Balekai.6083:

Softspoken.2410:

Oh, and something that gets a separate post.

New Axe Training seems bad. Current usage for the axe never needs the auto attack. Swap in; use number #2; then #3, off hand skills, utilities, Death Shroud to fill the time in between; #2 and swap to your better weapon set. And that’s okay.

I like that you’re experimenting with other ways of cooldown reduction, but this doesn’t feel like a useful way to get it on Axe. (Compare Mesmer, where the opportunity cost is letting a clone live for an extra auto attack or two instead of shattering them immediately)

Hiding the damage boost behind cripple is… Okay, I guess? Because Locust Swarm exists and it gives a little more value to the new Spiteful Spirit. But if you don’t have Locust Swarm, you’ll be hard pressed to keep meaningful cripple uptime.

What about making the Axe CD recharge on AA 1% (or keep it at 2%) and making it affect all weapon and utility skills? :p

This appeals to me a lot, though I’m not sure of the numbers. Still, 4% per swing towards Ghastly Claws & Unholy Feast (Also Spiteful Spirit, for completeness) isn’t worth nearly as much to me as 2% per swing to every non DS, non elite skill I have equipped.

It might not be good, since it boils down to using axe so that I can use things that aren’t axe, but it is interesting and for me that’s a start.

Reaper’s precision is bad. It will never compete with path of corruption or banshee’s wail. At 45% crit chance you’ll have a 15% chance to gain 1% life force on hit. This trait needs to be reworked entirely.

Our falling damage trait applies a self weaken due to casting corrosive poison cloud. This means if I’m trying to escape an unfavorable fight and end up taking a little bit of falling damage, my ability to fight off my pursuer is kitten because of this self weaken unless I blow a cleanse. Why does it even have to cast CPC? What’s the insistence for this? This is the ONLY self defeating falling damage trait in the game. Make it cast chillblains.

Blood magic still conflicts with DS. I feel like bloodthirst and vampiric precision should be merged. Vampiric precision should be replaced by renewing blast. How many other GM traits in the game have zero uptime without allies around like unholy martyr and deathly invigoration do?

Maybe swapping functionalities on Axe 1 and 2 will make it better? Make Axe 2 burst vuln application while Axe 1 gives a little life force on every hit.

BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT

• No real core / QoL improvements like
• Healing in DS – traits working AGAISNT OWN mechaninic
• 0% DS at start
• ALL healing numbers are still low, should be 2,3-5x higher

Medium disapoint

• HUGE CLEANSE BUFF to most others – shoutbow/thief will extinct condis
• Devs bored “ugh, same, still bad, next please” – no vision or sense of direction
• No finisher

small disapoint

• Long ICDs
• No weapon improvement
• Nothing , still terrible in PVE – greatsword must now save both pve&pvp

dood.7526:

Reaper’s precision is bad. It will never compete with path of corruption or banshee’s wail. At 45% crit chance you’ll have a 15% chance to gain 1% life force on hit. This trait needs to be reworked entirely.

So as a question: say the trait gave 1% life force on every crit, triple its current strength. Would you ever take it? What about 2%? Or 5% on 33% of crits? I’m curious if this trait is bad due to fundamental design or just due to the exact numbers used.

dood.7526:

How many other GM traits in the game have zero uptime without allies around like unholy martyr and deathly invigoration do?

Since you asked: Pure of Heart from Guardians (GM in virtues, allies get your Virtue of Resolve passive) and (new) Aquatic Benevolence from Elementalists (GM minor in Water Magic) only do things for other people.

Softspoken.2410:

dood.7526:

Reaper’s precision is bad. It will never compete with path of corruption or banshee’s wail. At 45% crit chance you’ll have a 15% chance to gain 1% life force on hit. This trait needs to be reworked entirely.

So as a question: say the trait gave 1% life force on every crit, triple its current strength. Would you ever take it? What about 2%? Or 5% on 33% of crits? I’m curious if this trait is bad due to fundamental design or just due to the exact numbers used.

Id say its fundamental design is just bad. The only weapon that lacks lifeforce generation is the scepter. But that hits so slowly that this trait contributes nothing to it. Its totally unneeded for anything other than scepter builds. But scepter builds probably arent going to take it either. If it was a huge 5% then it could be good on scepter. However that would make it too strong on dagger and axe. Theres no way you can balance this safely unless you make it weapon specific. Which makes the trait bad in a different way.

It should be just scrapped. Its a boring trait as far as im concerned. Bring down one of the curses grandmasters to fill this slot and add a decent power grandmaster into curses. That way condi builds have a choice of two traits in each tier and power necros have atleast 1 in each tier.

Flumek.9043:

BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT

• No real core / QoL improvements like
• Healing in DS – traits working AGAISNT OWN mechaninic
• 0% DS at start
• ALL healing numbers are still low, should be 2,3-5x higher

Medium disapoint

• HUGE CLEANSE BUFF to most others – shoutbow/thief will extinct condis
• Devs bored “ugh, same, still bad, next please” – no vision or sense of direction
• No finisher

small disapoint

• Long ICDs
• No weapon improvement

The lack of a cohesive vision is what gets me. They had clear visions for what other classes should be, how the skills work together for a cohesive class. Necro feels like a bunch of pieces, nothing cohesive ties the class together. The parts don’t work together to make something greater than themselves.

Blood magic and DS would be the classic example, but there is a bigger problem where it doesn’t feel like the specializations have interplay between each other.

Actually there are definite synergies to be found in every tree, they just aren’t quite as good as they could be in some cases.

I seriously hope ArenaNet reads the feedback in this thread. After last night I have strong doubts about if they do, and if they even play this class, but they asked for feedback and here is my feedback.

I have now looked through each of the necromancer traits and given them all some thought. I’ve added comments to each of them and suggestions on how to change them, or where to move them or remove them in certain cases.

Spite:
Minors:

• Spiteful Renewal – Looks really good for sustain, I like it.
• Death’s Embrace – The 5 second cooldown really limits the potential of this. Change cooldown to 2 seconds.
• Siphoned Power – The change to this trait is welcome, but the cooldown makes it nearly useless. Change cooldown to 1 second.

Adepts:

• Spiteful Talisman – Rewards boon hate, nice damage increase. Good trait.
• Reaper’s Might – Not a bad trait, but I think this trait would be a lot more useful if Life Blast also granted Might to allies is passed through.
• Bitter Chill – I like this idea, and the potential synergy with Chilling Darkness in the Curses Line.

Masters:

• Chill of Death – No changes, looks good. Synergises with both Bitter Chill and Spiteful Talisman if one should choose one of those.
• Death Shiver – Fits well in the Spite traitline, looks useful in this spot.
• Axe Training – This trait looks awful. Axe is already weak enough as is. It’s a big nerf to our current Axe trait, making the damage boost dependant on cripple, and the cooldown reduction dependant on a very weak auto attack. Leave it how it already is: +10% damage, -20% recharge and not dependant on cripple and auto attacking.

Grandmasters:

• Signet Mastery – I like what this does, but it does look weak for a grandmaster trait. I suggest to add an additional effect that activates Signet of Spite when a foe reaches 50% health.
• Close to Death – This trait is good as it is.
• Spiteful Spirit – I like the idea of this trait, but it still seems a little bit weak for a grandmaster. Remove the cooldown and make it a blast finisher. The finisher will make it a great party utility, and binding the cooldown to death shrould instead of axe makes it easier to manage.

Curses:
Minors:

• Barbed Precision – Great improvement to an already good minor.
• Furious Demise – This trait is a good personal damage boost through Fury, but make this apply to allies too. Party buffs is something the necromancer severely lacks, so that would be a great change.
• Target the Weak – I personally prefer to leave it how it already is: +2% damage for each condition. The new effect is useful too, but I think the old is better.

Adepts:

• Toxic Landing – I don’t mind merging the fall damage and corruption trait, but granting yourself weakness whenever you take fall damage sucks. I think this trait also should grant 2 seconds of Resistance when you cast a corruption skill.
• Weakening Shroud – I don’t like the changes made to this trait. The new version casts a more potent version than the one we currently have, but at a much longer cooldown. Leave it as a weaker version of Enfeebling Blood bound only to the cooldown of Death Shroud. Also add blast finisher for some much needed party utility.
• Chilling Darkness – Good synergy with Bitter Chill in the Spite traitline. I would also suggest adding +5% damage to chilled foes.

Masters:

• Reaper’s Precision – This trait is very weak. Remove it and let Terror take its place.
• Path of Corruption – Looks good.
• Banshee’s Wail – Great trait, does not need any changes.

Grandmasters:

• Lingering Curse – This trait looks great.
• Parasitic Contagion – Great buff to this trait, and it fits better in this trait line too. Might be hard to maintain in PvP and WvW, but has good potential for sustain. I can see it being an especially powerful sustain option in PvE.
• Terror – Terror is good, but I don’t think it should be a grandmaster. Let it take Reaper’s Precision’s spot as a master trait instead. Replace this with a strong trait that caters to power builds. Curses has no good grandmaster options for power builds.

To be continued…

Feedback on trait changes, part 2.

Death Magic:
Minors:

• Armored Shroud – Looks fine.
• Soul Comprehension – This also looks fine.
• Beyond the Veil – The duration on this is pretty short, but I guess the fact that it applies to your minions makes up for that. I would like to see it apply to allies as well.

Adepts:

• Flesh of the Master – Looks good.
• Shrouded Removal – Removing 1 condition is pretty weak. This should also remove 1 condition from allies. Gives us a way to help out in a party.
• Putrid Defense – I like the idea, but is 10% looks pretty weak. Increase it to 15%.

Masters:

• Greater Marks – This trait is useful, but we have another staff trait in a different line. I think we should merge Soul Marks into this trait and add -20% recharge on staff skills, 3% life force should be baseline.
• Reaper’s Protection – Good defensive trait. Works well with Terror.
• Deadly Strength – Decent power buff I guess. I like that the bonus improves in Death Shroud.

Grandmasters:

• Death Nova – Good trait, can be quite devastating. Synergises with Putrid Defense.
• Necromantic Corruption – I think this is a really great trait. The only problem is that we now have two minion grandmasters in Death Magic. Move this trait to Blood Magic, and give room for a grandmaster that fits into other builds. We have a defensive trait and we have a minion trait, so I’m thinking maybe we should have a trait that grants strong utility and fits well into any type of build.
• Unholy Sanctuary – The idea is good, but it feels very weak when you use it. I think the base heal should be increased, and I also think it should allow Regeneration to work at 50% effectiveness in Death Shroud.

Blood Magic:
Related baseline changes: Siphons work through death shroud. This change must happen or this trait line will still clash horribly with our class mechanic.
Minors:

• Full of Life – This looks fine.
• Vampiric – Merged with Vampiric Master, I like the change.
• Blood to Power – Looks fine too.
  Adepts:
• Ritual of Life – Not something I see myself using, but maybe someone will find use for it. Maybe increase revive speed a little to make it more potent.
• Bloodthirst – I think we have too many siphon traits. I suggest removing this trait from adept and combining it with Vampiric Precision as a master trait.
• Mark of Evasion – I like what it does, but remove cooldown. The cooldown limits it a lot.

Masters:

• Quickening Thirst – This is good. Not needing two daggers for the movement speed is great.
• Vampiric Precision – I feel that this trait by itself is pretty weak, I suggest a merge with Bloodlust and siphoning for nearby allies as well as yourself when you critical hit.
• Transfusion – Transfusion is a pretty decent heal for allies. I think it’s good as is.

Grandmasters:

• Vampiric Rituals – All well traits added into one big trait. I think this is a good change, as the siphon part in itself always seemed pretty weak to me. I would also suggest adding 2 seconds extra duration to wells.
• Unholy Martyr – I really like the idea here, but it’s way too weak. It needs to transfer conditions to you at a faster rate. It also needs a way to get rid of these conditions. I suggest this change: Conditions transfer to you every second instead of every 3 seconds, and Life Blast transfers a condition to foes it hits, just like Plague Blast.
• Deathly Invigoration – This trait was made horrible by putting the heal upon entering Death Shroud. Unless this heal now works through Death Shrould it will remain horrible. I suggest removing this trait and putting Necromantic Corruption from the Death Magic trait line here instead.

To be continued…

Feedback on trait changes, part 3.

Soul Reaping:
Related baseline changes: Marks grant 3% life force on activation. This helps staff users build life force, and we can stick with one staff trait instead of two.
Minors:

• Gluttony – Looks fine.
• Last Grasp – Looks good.
• Strength of Undeath – This is also fine.

Adepts:

• Unyielding Blast – This is a great trait. Does not need change.
• Soul Marks – I think having two staff traits in two different lines is a bit much. I suggest removing this trait and making the life force gain from marks baseline. Cooldown reduction can be merged into the Greater Marks trait in Death Magic. To replace this, maybe we could get a buffed version of Reaper’s Precision with an internal cooldown, maybe with some additional effect.
• Speed of Shadows – This looks fine.

Masters:

• Spectral Mastery – All spectral traits in one. This needed to happen.
• Vital Persistence – Great buff to an already good trait.
• Master of Terror – It’s good, but consider reducing the cooldown on downedstate fear to 60 seconds. Necros die a lot.

Grandmasters:

• Foot in the Grave – Shortest stunbreak in the game, and has some CC mitigation. It’s good as it is.
• Death Perception – This trait is good as it currently is.
• Dhuumfire – Spammable fireballs with no cooldown. Looks great.

I think it’s really important they don’t miss this opportunity to create a proper siphon necro. they’ve skirted the issue for two years now.

spoj.9672:

In essence. The feeling of flashing DS and getting benefits every time you do so is hurt majorly by the return of ICD on DS entry traits. In addition we have lost damage traits and a viable grandmaster curses trait. This makes dagger power necro undesirable.

I’m dreaming of a GW2 where I can flash Death Shroud for fury, vuln and a 100% crit enfeeble+unholy feast… preferably with blast finishers on both.

All we need is to get those cooldowns off weakening shroud and spiteful spirit, get some blast finishers on them and hopefully a useful grandmaster in curses. Would be one beast of a build.

OlliX.1705:

spoj.9672:

In essence. The feeling of flashing DS and getting benefits every time you do so is hurt majorly by the return of ICD on DS entry traits. In addition we have lost damage traits and a viable grandmaster curses trait. This makes dagger power necro undesirable.

I’m dreaming of a GW2 where I can flash Death Shroud for fury, vuln and a 100% crit enfeeble+unholy feast… preferably with blast finishers on both.

All we need is to get those cooldowns off weakening shroud and spiteful spirit, get some blast finishers on them and hopefully a useful grandmaster in curses. Would be one beast of a build.

And it might actually make us good in PvE at last!

- Make terror Master instead of Grandmaster.
-Fuse Greater Marks with Soul marks. (As you won t have to go into Death Magic for 1 trait,besides it’s not a defensive trait and has nothing to do with minions)

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.

That would screw over everyone who took Dark Path and Foot in the Grave, for many it’d actually be a worse change than what they’ve announced so far. If you’re set on a course of action similar to what you proposed, do that and keep Terror as a GM and replace Master of Terror with Dhuumfire at master level or put a different master trait in there.

Action Sloth.2603:

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.

That would screw over everyone who took Dark Path and Foot in the Grave, for many it’d actually be a worse change than what they’ve announced so far. If you’re set on a course of action similar to what you proposed, do that and keep Terror as a GM and replace Master of Terror with Dhuumfire at master level or put a different master trait in there.

I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here. Path of Corruption and Terror don’t compete at all regardless. As for the proposal to make Terror and Foot in the Grave compete, I see that as a decent change. Then you have Death Perception for Power offense, master of Terror for Condition offense, and Foot in the Grave for generic defense as choices. There wouldn’t be a “right answer” trait for builds then, but rather a meaningful choice.

Noticed Renewing Blast seems to have been axed. Would have really loved this trait reworked so it would hit more people, kind of like water staff auto attack for ele did after it had been improved. From a death shroud support perspective, Renewing Blast could have been really powerful if it had been stronger, and it would have made a better grandmaster trait than Deathly Invigoration (which I think is better off merged with something else, changed all together, or made into a minor or adept trait in the Blood Magic line). In Blood Magic, for support, the only thing that seems good to me is Transfusion, which incidentally is my favorite skill in the game when used in a power death shroud build. Going into an entire trait line for Transfusion only, though, would really hurt, and cripple the damage you could do in death shroud by being forced to give up either the Spite or Soul Reaping lines (assuming the elite line is worth taking, which i am, because it has to be compared to what else is available).

Basically, I really wish there were better adept and grandmaster traits in the Blood Magic line to make this less of a bummer …because I really want Transfusion in my DS build. I really wish you guys had new ideas and new traits for us, here.

Renewing Blast doesn’t need to be any stronger, it needs to be more usable. Only Renewing Blast can hit sustained 1k Healing/second. That is nutso strong. The problem is how that healing actually gets applied.

Withering precision also got axed as far as I can tell and it was a good trait, o well.

I was really hoping that the blood trait line would have something that would spread the vampiric traits to other allies. At least the necro could provide more team support that way and the devs could make the blood magic line would look more appealing.

I was lamenting the 25s cooldown on Weakening Shroud initially, but now I think I prefer it this way. 6s of weakness is a lot more noticeable than 2s, and if it’s 25s from when you entered death shroud rather than from when you exited it, that could be rather nice for those who like to stay in death shroud longer than a flash.

Still, awkward to keep track of I admit, which would be the main issue for me with the new iteration of it.

That’s something I’d like to note, I’d really like to see our traits have visible CD timers somewhere. This is actually worth knowing for active purposes, it can really help active play.

Bhawb.7408:

That’s something I’d like to note, I’d really like to see our traits have visible CD timers somewhere. This is actually worth knowing for active purposes, it can really help active play.

Might be MUCH more practical now that all traits will have icons! This might be something to really explore…

I think I am going to try a non-terror build when this gets released.

Some of my (random) thoughts:
I still feel that dhuumfire will be completely underwhelming which is a shame. It has potential in the soul reaping tree, but not with the duration that it currently has when it is also tied to life blast. Even if lingering curse affects dhuumfire I still find it underwhelming because of it being tied to life blast.
The Weakening Shroud change kind of irritates me as it’s the change that the devs pushed for, but the community railed against. Its current iteration isn’t better which is also a shame because I really liked the original trait.
Quickening Thirst… I think I actually like. It no longer differentiates the bonus movement speed based on whether you have 1 dagger or 2. This could be very good for kiting with scepter/dagger. The second part of the trait is kittening weird though. 75% seems like an arbitrary number some dev put in as he wanted to go home early for the day. Note that if weakening shroud procs this trait I would always take them together.

I’ll probably be trying 0/6/0/6/6/x as I’m not expecting the greatsword line to have great condition damage synergy.

Something like this:
Curses-
Minor: Barbed Precision, Furious Demise, Target the Weak
Major: Weakening Shroud, Path of Corruption, Lingering Curse

Blood Magic-
Minor: Full of Life, Vampiric, Blood to Power
Major: Mark of Evasion, Quickening Thirst, Unholy Martyr

Soul Reaping-
Minor: Gluttony, Last Gasp, Strength of Undeath
Major: Soul Marks, Spectral Mastery, Foot in the Grave/Dhuumfire (depends on dhuumfire’s final numbers).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Action Sloth.2603:

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.

That would screw over everyone who took Dark Path and Foot in the Grave, for many it’d actually be a worse change than what they’ve announced so far. If you’re set on a course of action similar to what you proposed, do that and keep Terror as a GM and replace Master of Terror with Dhuumfire at master level or put a different master trait in there.

I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here. Path of Corruption and Terror don’t compete at all regardless. As for the proposal to make Terror and Foot in the Grave compete, I see that as a decent change. Then you have Death Perception for Power offense, master of Terror for Condition offense, and Foot in the Grave for generic defense as choices. There wouldn’t be a “right answer” trait for builds then, but rather a meaningful choice.

That was totally my mistake, I remembered the stream incorrectly and mistakenly thought Path of Corruption was a GM still, so you can just completely disregard that.

Just wanted to add my voice to some suggestions I’ve seen.

I second making Close to Death or a weaker version of it the Spite grandmaster minor trait. Very elegant solution.
I fully support the people asking for a non-condition-damage grandmaster trait in the curses line.
And those saying that Reaper’s Precision has no place being a master trait by itself, should be removed entirely or rolled into something else like furious demise or vampiric precision or something. Fairly sure someone mentioned moving Terror down to replace it too, which would also get my vote, to make room for the non-condi gm.
I completely agree with One Staff Trait To Rule Them All.
And Blood Magic’s Vampiric, Bloodthirst, and Vampiric Precision should be at most 2 traits, 3 is pushing it.
Can’t really judge Deathly Invigoration until we see it in action. I appreciate what they seem to want to do with it.
However, as a yard stick, it should probably be on par with Warrior shout-heals in some way at least, since they’re both grandmaster traits and necromancers don’t even benefit from the healing it provides. Maybe granting something other than just flat health back, like Vigour for 2-3s to allies or something? I don’t know. Kind of fits the name and the theme. You could always rename it to Vigour Mortis.

Since they added the whole cast signet on X thing, I would love to see something like, when casting transfusion, cast vampiric signet on X target or something similar. Vampiric signet is a great idea that is destroyed thanks to ICD’s and long cast time and cooldown. It could be grandmaster worthy if say it would cast when using well of blood or something similar. That and more lifeleech to allies

Was gonna start my own thread but might as well post here and have it neat and tidy.

A few comments on specific traits, mainly from a pvp standpoint:

SPITE

- Spiteful removal: good change, but threshold should probably be 33 or 50%. Stick a higher ICD on it if necessary.

- Other minors: feel a bit like space filler, they basically do exactly the same job as Close to Death (more damage to enemies with low HP), except in slightly different ways. I’d have liked something more creative, something that covers a gap in the trait line. It has traits helping you finish off people who are low, but nothing to help you GET them to that state. Or maybe something to help your allies? Sharing Might stacks you gain, that kind of thing?

- Spiteful Talisman: the basic idea is very nice! I wonder how useful it’ll be outside pve though. Passive boon proccing and sharing is practically universal, so even if you’ve just cast a Corrupt Boon at someone they’ll have another boon up in seconds. What if it was the opposite? Damage boost if your target HAS boons! That way it helps you get them down to 50% so Chill of Death can proc (after which Close to Death takes over and it doesn’t matter if you lose the Spiteful Talisman bonus).

- Death Shiver: I can’t imagine any situation where you would choose to take this over Chill of Death, except in PvE where few enemies use boons. It was a bad trait when it was in adept tier, promoting it to master is terrible, even with the buff.

- Spiteful Spirit: as others have said, would’ve been better to have something that buffs boon stripping (eg all your corruptions/removals do +1 boon), or which takes advantage of it. One option would be “Whenever you remove or corrupt a boon, deal X damage for each boon remaining on your target”. That damage would have very low power scaling so it would have similar effectiveness for both power and condi builds, and it would have an ICD of 5” so that it didn’t trigger repeatedly on Well of Corruption.

CURSES:

- As others said, no worthwhile GM for a power build, which is a shame as Banshee’s Wail and the minor traits would be useful. With so many professions running Celestial and being able to find use in both condition and direct damage traits, necro’s need to specialise in one or the other means the devs need to work harder to make every line useful to different builds.

- Barbed Precision: I love that they rolled Haemophilia into this – almost makes up for the nerfs to Grasping Dead and Mark of Blood! But I was hoping they’d turn it into something that’s as useful to Carrion as to Rabid necros. They could have changed it into something like “when you apply a condition to a foe, also apply 1 stack bleeding” (perhaps putting an ICD on it.) This would not only make it useful for Carrion, but also enable hybrid builds, using a power-based weapon like an axe with its vulnerability on autoattack, and still applying some bleeding.

- Adept: WHERE’S MY CHILLING DARKNESS?? I’m surprised this was removed, especially now that we have Bitter Chill to synergise with it in Spite! Not saying it was awesome, I usually preferred Enfeebling Shroud, but it had its uses, especially in WvW when running Plague. And it was very fluff-appropriate!

- Weakening Shroud: MASSIVE nerf. In theory this new version gives us higher total weakness uptime if you trait Lingering Curse (50% theoretically, 96% combined with offhand dagger!). In practice though, there’s so much aoe cleansing in pvp that long duration/long recharge conditions never “stick” – they will be cleansed promptly, and then you’ll have to wait for its full recharge to reapply. Low duration/low recharge conditions are more likely to stick when you need them (ie. when it actually matters, like when you jump into DS as soon as a thief opens on you), even if the theoretical uptime is lower. The current 20% uptime Weakening Shroud with no ICD would, in practice, be much stronger than this new 50% uptime 25” recharge version. Besides, there will be times when you will need to jump into Death Shroud for OTHER REASONS than to use Weakening Shroud (eg. to cast Path of Corruption, or fear someone), meaning the proc is wasted if no enemies are around you, and won’t proc again for 25+”. A very disappointing change if it goes through, and a huge blow to a build that relies on debuffing their enemies’ damage in order to stay alive.

- Reaper’s Precision: a joke of a trait when it was adept, an utter insult at Master. Even for powermancers with zerker gear this is marginal, and for conditionmancers, who normally take Carrion, it’s useless. Life force generation being one of sceptre’s biggest weaknesses, I would have hoped that this trait would have gotten a buff, if it were kept at all.

- Path of Corruption/Terror: I don’t get why they felt the need to switch the position of these two. It’s not like switching their places makes you choose between Terror and Dhuumfire. The only reason I can think of is they didn’t want us being able to take both Terror and the new and improved Lingering Curse, so that we wouldn’t be able to get 3” Fears that do 790 damage/s. But we already have Master of Terror, which gives us 50%, and can take it up to 70% with runes. Is 100% really so much worse? They could have kept Terror in Master tier since we can take our fears almost up to +100% even without Lingering Curse.

- Terror, part deux: is it just me or does the damage on the Terror tooltip seem SIGNIFICANTLY lower? Or did they not have condition gear equipped when they were showing it?

- Parasitic Contagion, which moved over from Spite, takes up the slot that used to belong to Withering Precision. The reasons why this trait is bad have been discussed before: the healing, if you can keep up 10 stacks of bleed and a poison, isn’t terrible, but as soon as you actually NEED it you stop receiving it! Examples: thief opens on you, you jump into Death Shroud, oops, no healing. You get focussed in a team fight, Wurm out with 20% HP left, you’re no longer applying bleeds, they expire within 3”, oops, no more healing! So yeah, let this trait heal in DS, or scrap it.

- Withering Precision: Was hoping this trait would be buffed and kept (instead of Parasitic), or merged with Lingering Curse. The necro desperately needs survivability: better uptime on debuffing conditions like weakness, chill, and blind would be an EXCELLENT way to provide this! I’m disappointed that ANet are putting more and more hard CC into the game and have seemingly forgotten about soft CC and debuffs. Also shocked that rangers, who have a million evades and don’t really need weakness, are getting a GM trait that gives 50% weakness uptime completely passively, whereas the necro’s weakness application is the weakest it’s ever been!

DEATH

- Beyond the Veil: they put so much effort into overhauling the Death line so that it has traits that are useful to everyone, not just minionmancers, and now they come and introduce an unavoidable minor that’s useless to everyone except minionmancers? Why not make it give Protection to “you and nearby allies” instead, so that your minions get it if you’re a minionmancer, and your teammates get it if you’re not? 3” is pretty short duration anyway, it’s not like it would make necro’s into the new bunker guardians.

- Putrid Defence: very interesting idea for a trait! It’s like the sceptre necro’s own personal mini-weakness! It’s a shame there’s nothing at the GM level worth taking for a conditionmancer. I actually think this would be a better trait for minionmancers who take Death Nova instead, rather than for conditionmancers!

- Deadly Strength: I find these attribute conversion traits really boring and marginal, but the “double while in Death Shroud” idea is interesting. Could make zerker shroudmancers hit even harder, but would they really take it over Greater Marks if they chose Death?

- Necromantic Corruption: Interesting rework! Needs some tweaking though. 10” cooldown is very long! Minions already die to aoe burning pretty easily, if they also drew it off you they’d be dead before they could transfer a single bleed stack, even if you take Flesh of the Master! Moreover, tying the transfer to their attacks is a mistake: they all have very slow attack speed, the melee ones can be easily kited because they can’t move and attack at the same time and have terrible pathing AI, and the ranged ones don’t seem to realise when their line of sight is obstructed and try to attack through walls! Unless they’re getting a massive AI overhaul for HoT, this trait means they will die about twice as fast as they do now. It could work if the condition transfer were not tied to minion attacks, but instead just pulsed a transfer to the nearest enemy, and at a lower cooldown than 10”. I believe the cooldown for them transferring conditions should be about half as long as the cooldown for them cleansing them off you. Otherwise, between your conditions and their own, they wouldn’t live long enough to transfer anything.

- New MM builds? I can see people taking Death Nova paired with putrid Defence, and Necromantic Corruption paired with Flesh of the Master. A bit of variation on MM builds is a good thing.

- Unholy Sanctuary: still very marginal, the healing is just too low! Professions that rely on tiny packets of healing-over-time use multiple such at the same time (eg. elementalists will have both regeneration and Soothing Mist active, engis will have regen and backpack regenerator, warriors will have Healing Signet and Adrenal Health, etc) to add up to meaningful healing. Even more crucially, those healing-over-time effects are also active during periods of blocking/invulnerability! The necromancer has no invulnerability windows for healing-over-time effects to make a difference in, and no other healing-over-time effects to combine Unholy Sanctuary with (well, actually we have both vampiric effects and regeneration, but NEITHER WORKS IN DS!). Therefore, a trait that grants a healing-over-time whose base heal is even lower than regeneration, and which by design CANNOT be combined with any other HoTs, will be sub-par, even for the few builds that have enough life force generation to stay in DS for ages. This slot could have gone to one of the deleted traits, like Withering Precision (reworked or buffed, of course), or to a new life force generation trait, which is the biggest weakness for most builds.

BLOOD

- Siphoning traits: as has been pointed out, siphoning is very marginal. First of all, doesn’t work in DS, end of. Secondly, it’s VERY low! You should increase the amount stolen to about 1k (same as the sigil and rune procs), and put an appropriate ICD on each traits, so it’s just as effective with a 0.25” dagger autoattack as with a 1.4” Life Blast.

- Bloodthirst: I’m disappointed that this stayed, when you did such a great job of getting rid of all the other “make this thing ever so slightly better” traits. Could have been replaced with a trait that allowed siphons to heal you while in DS. Yes, this is so vital that I would use up a trait slot to be able to do it! Or, if you want to be more imaginative, a trait that heals nearby allies by a small amount whenever you siphon health (like a mini-Transfusion).

- Quickening Thirst: THANK YOU for making the movement buff flat whether you have one dagger or two, long overdue! The recharge reduction mechanic is very interesting: much stronger than the typical 20% reduction from most traits, but I think making it contingent on being ABOVE a health threshold is counterproductive with most dagger skills: Life Siphon is a heal, after all, you don’t want to use it when you’re already at full health, and Deathly Swarm needs you to have 3 or more conditions on you to be most effective. So maybe the health condition should have been “below 75%” instead? OTOH Dark Pact and Enfeebling Blood might benefit from this, since they’re the longest recharges on dagger and you don’t need to wait until you’re hurt to use them. Is this basically ANet acknowledging that those 2 skills could use a cd reduction? :p

- *Vampiric Rituals: *this trait is MONSTROUS now! I personally think this trait alone will make Blood the 3rd specialisation of choice for powermancers (Spite and SR being compulsory). There’s not much else for them in the lower tiers (even Quickening Thirst isn’t a must-have, since you have high Swiftness uptime from warhorn), but this alone is worth going for!

- Unholy Martyr: Still pointless

- Deathly Invigoration: This is the single worst change announced in the livestream! Not only is this the only effect in the game that heals allies without healing the user (even Transfusion will heal the user if your life force runs out while Life Transfer is channelling), but putting it in the GM slot of what is supposedly the healing/survivability specialisation goes beyond “bad design” and edges into “bad manners” – it’s deliberately taunting us with Death Shroud’s design problems! The justification for this that was given during the livestream (“We felt it was wrong of us to design traits that force you to leave DS”) was logical, but doesn’t take account of real world scenarios: what happens WHEN IT RUNS OUT, DUDE? If you’re stunlocked and focussed down by multiple people, DS won’t last long! A heal on exit could be just the window you need to get your heal off!

- Blood to Power: Well, I suppose the logic of giving bonus healing power while ABOVE a health threshold is that you’re trying to create support necros. But, frankly, necros don’t have enough outgoing healing to do that, just Deathly Invigoration, Transfusion, and regeneration from staff 2. As I said above, you need the combination of multiple simultaneous healing effects, and you yourself need to stay alive long enough to put out that healing. This trait doesn’t help you do that. As for your self heals: apart from the regeneration from Full of Life, the only trait affected by the bonus healing power would be Vampiric, and it will benefit by a grand total of… 1.2HP per hit.

SOUL REAPING:

I feel this line’s revamp was the most successful, good job!

- Soul Marks: this is a good trait, but I feel a little hard done by that staff still has 2 traits associated with it, when all the weapon traits for all the other professions have been merged (and in fact some affect multiple weapons, eg “staff and trident”, or ranger’s “torch and dagger”). You could have merged this with Greater Marks, and it would have even deserved a GM slot.

- Dhuumfire: This is not bad, not bad at all! Conditionmancers have always had the problem that staying in DS for an extended amount of time (which sometimes you have to if your HP is low and your heal is on cooldown) meant all their conditions expired and their DPS took a dive. This will help with that a lot. And you can also jump into DS short term, put a couple stacks, and get an additional little bit of burst when you really need to down someone. The only problem is it shares a slot with:

- Foot in the Grave: This is SUCH a good trait in its newly-buffed form! Having a stunbreak on a 10” cooldown makes a huge difference to conditionmancers, for whom susceptibility to crowd control is their greatest weakness, and the main reason why most condition necros playing at high level are forced into carrying 2 stun breaks! I know we’ve only had it in its current form for a few weeks, but it already feels like a must-have for me: it makes play much more fluid, much less frustrating, and it forces me to think about whether I want to use my DS now for a Path of Corruption or Tainted Shackles, or whether I should save it in case I get disabled. It’s an EXCELLENT trait, enabling you to do more without actually making you more powerful.

The necromancer’s sceptre builds bleeding stacks very slowly, unlike a shortbow ranger who can get you to 20 stacks within 3”. This means that a full cleanse means an opponent can reset the fight, even if their remaining HP is extremely low. This is what makes Terror so crucial for a conditionmancer build: it gives you the little bit of burst damage needed to finish off someone who’s low before they can reset, even if they no longer have 10 stacks of bleeding on them. If the tooltip numbers on Terror are accurate, it means its damage has gone down by about 45%. It can no longer provide the kind of burst damage that a necro needs to finish off someone. If the tooltip numbers stay the same, only Dhuumfire will be able to provide that kind of burst (at 3” duration you’ll be able to get 2 burning stacks, which at the numbers demonstated is about 80% of Terror damage, but constant and not dependent on having other conditions!), making it a must-have. I feel this locks both condition and power builds out of taking Foot in the Grave, and it’s very disappointing because I’ve enjoyed playing with it a lot these past few weeks.

Fortunately, someone’s already suggested a solution:

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.

Drarnor was actually concerned about the fact that there are no good options for Powermancers in Curses when he suggested that. But this reshuffle would also solve the conditionmancer problem: it will allow you to take Path of Corruption and Lingering Curse in Curses, and give you a plethora of meaningful choices in Soul Reaping. You could take Dhuumfire and Foot in the Grave, giving you the burst from burning and the option to escape stunlocks. Or you could choose Spectral Mastery or Vital Persistence in Master tier, to give you more life force to soak up damage with, and get your burst from Terror at GM level. Or you could even live dangerously and take both Terror and Dhuumfire, crossing your fingers and hoping you’ll down opponents faster than they can stunlock and destroy you!

I’m pretty happy with the changes since I play condition necro. But do think power builds are kinda left out to dry.

Minion Masters look like they will be a LOT more solid this time around, especially power focused minion master utilizing axes.
spite:
-siphoned power
-spiteful talisman
-axe training (this honestly seems weaker but could be good in the long run)
-spiteful spirit (this is huge since you can get 2 unholy feasts back-to-back using this, which is quite a bit of AOE damage and retaliation.)

Death:
-beyond the veil (protection for you and your minions on demand is AMAZING.)
-flesh of the master (same)
-deadly strength
-necromantic corruption (this is a HUGE buff, combining training of the master and fetid consumtion into one skill, and then having the minions transfer those conditions to the enemy. Talk about an all-in-one trait).

Blood:
-vampiric (awesome)
-blood thirst (not many other good options, really)

This is what I assume would be the go-to axe minion master build. Judging by putrid defense and death nova there is also a sorta more defensive poison based build with disposable minions.

Also to note:
-reduced recharge on minion skills
-base 15% life force increase
-Death nova jagged horror creation cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (more horrors, good for PvE)
All really help. The only real down side to these changes is that now you must choose between “training of the master” or death nova, meaning that overall damage coming from the minions will go down, but since trait point options are opened up, you gain protection for yourself and your minions, condition removal (and return), and increased access to retaliation and cripple.

None of this takes into account how the new specialization will influence anything, especially what it replaces. At minimum I expect two distinct minion builds (disposable weak exploding minions and strong bulky hit hard minions). Obviously, the explodey weak minion build will favor PvE and the strong minion build will favor PvP, however, the weak minion build looks like it will be the inferior of the two unless jagged horror creation is changed to proc on the death of non-jagged horror minions as well (akin to that one elite enchantment from GW1).

Maybe for something completely different.

Dear Necromancers; Pay Attention:
1) is your foe crippled – axe training
2) is he below 50% health treshold – CtD; Siphoned Power, Chill of Death
3) is he have boons of some sort – Spiteful Talisman
4) if you see high grounds, try to fall down – Toxic Landing
5) is your foe poisoned – putrid defense
6) is your health below 75% – blood to power, quickening thirst
7) maybe it is below 50% – last gasp
8) your life force count too, you don’t want it below 50% – strength of undead
9) i’m aware that i missed something, but my clock shows 30% above 2pm treshold (night shift)

Maybe we are not the best condition proffession but definitely the most conditional one. It is a buff.

With withering precision gone, access to weakness is severely kitten. That’s sad because weakness was a way to limit the advantage that classes with extra dodges have over the necromancer.

Avruk.2953:

Maybe for something completely different.

Dear Necromancers; Pay Attention:
1) is your foe crippled – axe training
2) is he below 50% health treshold – CtD; Siphoned Power, Chill of Death
3) is he have boons of some sort – Spiteful Talisman
4) if you see high grounds, try to fall down – Toxic Landing
5) is your foe poisoned – putrid defense
6) is your health below 75% – blood to power, quickening thirst
7) maybe it is below 50% – last gasp
8) your life force count too, you don’t want it below 50% – strength of undead
9) i’m aware that i missed something, but my clock shows 30% above 2pm treshold (night shift)

Maybe we are not the best condition proffession but definitely the most conditional one. It is a buff.

What? o.o

nekretaal.6485:

With withering precision gone, access to weakness is severely kitten. That’s sad because weakness was a way to limit the advantage that classes with extra dodges have over the necromancer.

Really, Withering Precision isn’t doing much for that right now.

ronpierce.2760:

Avruk.2953:

Maybe for something completely different.

Dear Necromancers; Pay Attention:
1) is your foe crippled – axe training
2) is he below 50% health treshold – CtD; Siphoned Power, Chill of Death
3) is he have boons of some sort – Spiteful Talisman
4) if you see high grounds, try to fall down – Toxic Landing
5) is your foe poisoned – putrid defense
6) is your health below 75% – blood to power, quickening thirst
7) maybe it is below 50% – last gasp
8) your life force count too, you don’t want it below 50% – strength of undead
9) i’m aware that i missed something, but my clock shows 30% above 2pm treshold (night shift)

Maybe we are not the best condition proffession but definitely the most conditional one. It is a buff.

What? o.o

Sarcasm mostly. Don’t play UI they said.