Guild Wars 2

I have started to play my Necromancer but there are a lot of issues with the Trait lines. You usually have to invest deep into traits you don’t need to properly play your character. For example: Condition build necromancers will run with the staff/scepter and you need to invest 40 pnts in two different trees (Death Magic – staff mastery & greater marks, Soul Reaping – soul marks). This leaves me only 30 points for curses.

Ideally in a condition build you would prefer to run Spite (condition duration) and Curses (condition damage) but because of the way the tree’s are laid out you are handicapped with trait selection.

The simple fix would be to clean up the tree’s and put the weapons in their proper trait lines. I propose something like this:

Spite: Power, critical damage, axe, dagger (this makes sense for power type builds)
Curses: Precision, condition damage, scepter (main weapon for condition builds)
Death Magic: Tough, condition duration, staff (staff is also for conditions, defensive)
Blood Magic: Vitality, healing, focus, war horn, (these are support type weapons)
Soul Reaping: Life force pool, boon duration (only thing left so put these here)

Please consider these changes as I think they make more sense then the way the current trait lines are laid out.

Thank you
Smeaghoul

Forgot to mention that the actual traits will need to be consolidated into their weapon trees. IE: Staff mastery, greater marks and soul marks would all be put into the death magic tree.

I want this to happen A LOT, but I lost faith in Anet doing it any time soon. The “Big Trait Patch” that came out recently only fixed, what, two traits total, and shifted around a few more? Some classes have incredible amounts of stupidity in their trees (ranger and necro are the biggest here, I think), both in the trait line bonuses and the traits themselves.

I agree. my main is a Mesmer and I think for the most part everything in the trait lines makes sense. Necromancer has very poor synergy with trait and weapon choices because they are all over the place.

This would be pretty awesome, but would need some massive balancing. I have no clue what my necro will do with 30% condition duration and 100 condition damage, but it’s there.

The current stats setup is actually good (even if boon duration would make more sense with soul reaping… whatever), its just traits need to be less locked ofkittenda like they were in beta, or in general just return all beta traits to necros.

Smeaghoul.1583:

Spite: Power, critical damage, axe, dagger (this makes sense for power type builds)
Curses: Precision, condition damage, scepter (main weapon for condition builds)
Death Magic: Tough, condition duration, staff (staff is also for conditions, defensive)
Blood Magic: Vitality, healing, focus, war horn, (these are support type weapons)
Soul Reaping: Life force pool, boon duration (only thing left so put these here)

Alright, so this has been done over countless times, but here we go again. Each Tree gets only one main weapon, and then generally a secondary weapon. That means each main hand weapon gets its own tree. Axe falls into Spite because it is direct damage, Scepter into Curses because it is the offensive condition weapon, staff goes into Death Magic because it is support/defensive, dagger ends up in Blood Magic because its attack speed synergizes best there (mo attacks mo stealing).

Off-hands are put in logical places with what is left. Obviously dagger off-hand is treated the same as mainhand. Staff is a two hander so takes both slots, leaving focus/warhorn. Focus is power, goes into the power tree, warhorn gets leftovers and is into curses. SR doesn’t get its own weapon.

Condition duration just doesn’t belong in death magic. Every build we have gets benefit from duration, but it makes no sense that we get an offensive stat from our defensive tree, and then throw boon duration onto soul reaping (death shroud has synergy with high crit chance).

The current trees are fine.

The current trees are setup the way they are for every class, not only for Necromancer. The reason for this stems from the philosophy that you can’t get everything you want and choices will have consequences. If it was any other way, cookie cutter builds would be more powerful than they already are and diverging from them would severely limit a player’s overall effectiveness greatly.

Tenderly.7019:

The current trees are setup the way they are for every class, not only for Necromancer.

Not true; roll an alt.
Also, some classes in certain cookie-cutter builds can get EVERYTHING THEY WANT in one or two trees, easy. Yes, this is taking into account both PvP and PvE viability.

Bhawb.7408:

Soul reaping (death shroud has synergy with high crit chance because they added a gm trait).

In general it didnt have much synergy with crits, boon duration on the other hand (protection from spectrals/trait triggers and more stability – so actual migration), in DM its kinda wasted like a lot of traits since minions hinder the trees full potential (staff regen is nice, so is well protection, retal on heal is kinda worthless in comparison to the trait that i refuse to name since it would be kittenting on its skill equivalent in GW1).

And fury from DS entry. Those two things alone allow you to make a build with almost no precision added in, yet still do very high damage because of crit chance steroids.

Bhawb.7408:

And fury from DS entry. Those two things alone allow you to make a build with almost no precision added in, yet still do very high damage because of crit chance steroids.

Not SR, doesnt count.

The Boz.2038:

Tenderly.7019:

The current trees are setup the way they are for every class, not only for Necromancer.

Not true; roll an alt.
Also, some classes in certain cookie-cutter builds can get EVERYTHING THEY WANT in one or two trees, easy. Yes, this is taking into account both PvP and PvE viability.

There are Necromancer builds that get “everything they want” too. That’s purely subjective. For instance, the OP has the opinion that they “need” Staff Mastery and Greater Marks.

Wow, that is your argument? “If you can’t get it, you obviously don’t need it”?

The Boz.2038:

Wow, that is your argument? “If you can’t get it, you obviously don’t need it”?

No, my argument was more like:

If you think you “need” something for a build to be good, it might turn out that you are the only one with that opinion and hence, you don’t get everything you want.

Also, there should be things you want but are unable to get unless you specialize or else there would be nothing but obvious cookie-cutter builds. This is the problem Anet has been trying to avoid by buffing traits that are not commonly used.

So it’s actually a good thing that the OP doesn’t get every trait he wants because he now needs to choose wisely and weight options. Thus creating build diversity.

I’m sorry, but the logic of that argument is far below my understanding. You are still refusing to see the simple fact: some builds get everything they possibly need. Others, with the same degree of “want”, do not.

Smeaghoul.1583:

Please consider these changes as I think they make more sense then the way the current trait lines are laid out.

I like that every profession has a different stat setup for their trait lines. It helps keep builds from all operating the same way.

From my powermancer experience, 30/10/0/0/30 is awesome. Also, the condition duration from Spite syncs nicely with the weakness, poison, chill, and fear I can dish out, which have pretty nice effects. Crit dam and shroud capacity sync really well with my glass build, providing huge crits and also considerable survivability.

Could be just me, though…

Watch Nemesis’ videos, he actually explains why the different trait stats are where they are.

Spite power and condition duration is because you need to kill with power, and for your conditions to have longer durations, for example chill and weakness (not bleeds).

Curses is condition dmg and precision, and that is to make sure you can proc bleeds from the minor trait 5.

This is just what I recall from his video. I might be wrong though.

Current stat allocations given by traits make sense from Arenanet’s perspective; ie, on paper, it works. Which is how they’ve been balancing Necro. So it’s logical from their approach.

Spite is the direct damage/hybrid line. Axe synergizes with this. Power for Ghastly Claw damage, Condition duration for Burning inflicted via GM trait, as well as defensive-based conditions, giving Spite some defense which, in Arenanet’s eyes, gives us some form of attrition.
Curses is obviously condition damage via Scepter, Precision to synergize with the on-crit effects within the tree.
Death Magic is Toughness for defense, and Boon Duration for defense via Regeneration and, if we actually had it, Protection.
Blood Magic is rather obvious.
Soul Reaping is once again for synergy within the tree and/or Crit Damage being the only stat that didn’t directly fit into one of the prior trees.

It’s fantastic on paper.

Edited in to actually address the OP; You want to change the stat allocations based on traits assuming players take certain builds. Understandable given cookie-cutter and viable specs, but in reality the setups you’ve suggested give far less synergy within the trees than those that are already present. Swapping Spite, Death and Soul Reaping stats around would give the optimal number of stats for a particular build. However, assuming a player invests 30 points into Spite, that Critical Damage is then worthless due to having no Precision. The Boon Duration is nearly worthless due to gaining only one particular boon. And the Condition duration is approximately as useful as the Boon duration is in the Death Magic line; that is, it doesn’t really matter one way or the other. Boon duration, however, compliments the passive defense that the Death Magic line portrays. Which means that it works aesthetically. The only time that stat allocation would be more beneficial is with the standard cookie cutter builds, which is not what Arenanet is advocating.

i dont like, the way it is is PERFECT, remember we are the class of conditions, and i dont mean the kittened bleed, i mean CONDITIONS; even as a power necro i like my condtiosns to LAST, as a power necro i like DS and as a DS user i like having there the crit damage, its not like building a thief, or building a warrior were everithing is straight forward, if you wanna be sussesful as necro you have to see deeper in the traits to really see how devs wanted us to see the things, y do you think they did a tree of crit chance + dondi damage? its cause as a condition mancer you will need presision for barbed presision. and again, i really like it the way it is

Dietzen.6127:

Spite power and condition duration is because you need to kill with power, and for your conditions to have longer durations, for example chill and weakness (not bleeds).

that doesnt make any sense. almost every necro-build has a couple of conditions in it and can benefit from condition duration. it fits into spite as it would fit into any other traitline.

However, assuming a player invests 30 points into Spite, that Critical Damage is then worthless due to having no Precision. The Boon Duration is nearly worthless due to gaining only one particular boon. And the Condition duration is approximately as useful as the Boon duration is in the Death Magic line; that is, it doesn’t really matter one way or the other. Boon duration, however, compliments the passive defense that the Death Magic line portrays.

Critical damage wouldnt be any more useless in Spite as it is in Soul reaping unless you get the GM-crit chance-trait.
For every class, the traitline that has crit-damage should either have precision aswell or minor traits that provide crit chance. Moving Crit damage to spite would make sense since it is the Burst/Power-traitline and it would also work, when you move Furious demise into Spite aswell (it could replace one of the three kittenty Spite-minors).

Boon duration doesnt really fit into any line since our boons are scattered across all traitlines.
Might and retal in spite,
Fury in Curses
Protection, retal in DM
Regen in Blood magic
Stability, (Protection?) in SR

By Bhawb:
Off-hands are put in logical places with what is left. Obviously dagger off-hand is treated the same as mainhand. Staff is a two hander so takes both slots, leaving focus/warhorn. Focus is power, goes into the power tree, warhorn gets leftovers and is into curses. SR doesn’t get its own weapon.

Having Warhorn in Curses cause ‘it gets leftovers’ isn’t logical at all. Since it can hit often, Blood magic would fit better. Or death magic, cause of the swiftness.

Soul Reaping has no weapon, and the rest already had far more logical placements. Focus has no other logical tree than Spite, Dagger is already in Blood Magic, Death Magic really doesn’t make any sense with Warhorn (which is an aggressive weapon). It got leftovers to keep up with the system they had going. It is certainly possible that there was a more logical reason, but that makes enough sense.

Basically, the entire system looks like it was the first draft they came up with after maybe an hour’s worth spent per class.

RashanDale.3609:

By Bhawb:
Off-hands are put in logical places with what is left. Obviously dagger off-hand is treated the same as mainhand. Staff is a two hander so takes both slots, leaving focus/warhorn. Focus is power, goes into the power tree, warhorn gets leftovers and is into curses. SR doesn’t get its own weapon.

Having Warhorn in Curses cause ‘it gets leftovers’ isn’t logical at all. Since it can hit often, Blood magic would fit better. Or death magic, cause of the swiftness.

Having Warhorn in Curses cause ‘it gets leftovers’ isn’t logical at all. Since it can hit often, Blood magic would fit better. Or death magic, cause of the swiftness.[/quote]

I never actually thought of the Warhorn as being out of place in the curses tree, but it might just come down to how it sounds (pun intended) to me.

Banshee’s Wail – The wail of a Banshee is curse-y
Wail of Doom – Doom being a curse of a sort in many a places
Locust Swarm – Locusts often being a sign of a bad omen, curse-y

I guess on some level I/people always try to justify why something belongs somewhere and that’s just how it’s played at the back of my mind.

Not saying it makes sense to anyone else, but you know what they say about opinions.

Note: Spite aka ‘Axe tree’ synergizes condition duration with vuln stacking.

Bhawb.7408:

Soul Reaping has no weapon, and the rest already had far more logical placements

cough DS is every power necros main weapon And yet in beta, i remember quite vividly, we had both staff cooldown reduction, mark life force and something with necrotic grasp crits that i cant remember and am to sleepy right now to check in what is now the soul reaping tree.

Was a little upset about the ‘tree fix up’ patch that didn’t do much.
The dev’s before that patch LoL’ed and said Blood Magic is terrible, that it’s useless.

Also from there ‘fix’ they did move +Minion Dam & +Axe Dam into the same slot, which altho making the axe more viable, stuffed up the MM as it was axe used with minions. (Now you have to give up Closer to Death, or Dhurmmfire to get both)

They did fix up staff to no require grater marks to be useful. :-)

I do dream of a day, they fix up Minons/Vamp, make traits funkyer.

Bweaty.9187:

Was a little upset about the ‘tree fix up’ patch that didn’t do much.
The dev’s before that patch LoL’ed and said Blood Magic is terrible, that it’s useless.

Also from there ‘fix’ they did move +Minion Dam & +Axe Dam into the same slot, which altho making the axe more viable, stuffed up the MM as it was axe used with minions. (Now you have to give up Closer to Death, or Dhurmmfire to get both)

They did fix up staff to no require grater marks to be useful. :-)

I do dream of a day, they fix up Minons/Vamp, make traits funkyer.

You were never able to get minion damage, axe damage, and one of the two grandmasters listed, so the build hasn’t changed at all if you still want axe mastery.

The traits are a mess. I tried to “max” out my condition build by taking full Spite (30 % cond duration, dhuumfire), and curses (300 cond damage, 20 % bleed duration).

The problem is that the 300 power (does not effect condition damage) and the 300 crit (conditions cant critically hit) do next to nothing for conditions yet both of them are combined with these key trait tree’s.

I would just like Anet to have a look at the traits and try to make more sense out of them.

Smeaghoul.1583:

The traits are a mess. I tried to “max” out my condition build by taking full Spite (30 % cond duration, dhuumfire), and curses (300 cond damage, 20 % bleed duration).

The problem is that the 300 power (does not effect condition damage) and the 300 crit (conditions cant critically hit) do next to nothing for conditions yet both of them are combined with these key trait tree’s.

I would just like Anet to have a look at the traits and try to make more sense out of them.

Power is a universal damage boost (and the strongest base stat, closely followed by crit damage), crits allow for barbed precision and on crit effects to work that are ususally stronger on high cond damage builds than on swap/direct effects.

Power is virtually useless to condition build because it does not affect condition damage. The main weapons for condition are staff and scepter and neither hit very hard to begin with. I agree with Barbed precision but other then that there is very little synergy with crit.

Bhawb.7408:

Smeaghoul.1583:

Spite: Power, critical damage, axe, dagger (this makes sense for power type builds)
Curses: Precision, condition damage, scepter (main weapon for condition builds)
Death Magic: Tough, condition duration, staff (staff is also for conditions, defensive)
Blood Magic: Vitality, healing, focus, war horn, (these are support type weapons)
Soul Reaping: Life force pool, boon duration (only thing left so put these here)

Alright, so this has been done over countless times, but here we go again. Each Tree gets only one main weapon, and then generally a secondary weapon. That means each main hand weapon gets its own tree. Axe falls into Spite because it is direct damage, Scepter into Curses because it is the offensive condition weapon, staff goes into Death Magic because it is support/defensive, dagger ends up in Blood Magic because its attack speed synergizes best there (mo attacks mo stealing).

Off-hands are put in logical places with what is left. Obviously dagger off-hand is treated the same as mainhand. Staff is a two hander so takes both slots, leaving focus/warhorn. Focus is power, goes into the power tree, warhorn gets leftovers and is into curses. SR doesn’t get its own weapon.

Condition duration just doesn’t belong in death magic. Every build we have gets benefit from duration, but it makes no sense that we get an offensive stat from our defensive tree, and then throw boon duration onto soul reaping (death shroud has synergy with high crit chance).

The current trees are fine.

" Each Tree gets only one main weapon" – warrior have 2-3 in same trees :/

Smeaghoul.1583:

Power is virtually useless to condition build because it does not affect condition damage. The main weapons for condition are staff and scepter and neither hit very hard to begin with. I agree with Barbed precision but other then that there is very little synergy with crit.

More power equals more damage, period. It doesn’t help condition damage, but just about everything the Necromancer does to apply conditions also deals some amount of direct damage, which means Power doesn’t go to waste. You pretty much have to have decent crit chance anyway so there’s no sense in shunning power when you’re already buying one of its multiplicative stats.

Just because you’re focusing on conditions doesn’t mean you have to totally abandon DS1 and 4, Staff 1 and 4, and Scepter 3. Target the Weak even gives you some extra power scaling.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

" Each Tree gets only one main weapon" – warrior have 2-3 in same trees :/

I was speaking only about the Necromancer trees, which have fairly clear cut lines as to what goes where, although there are a few things that are a bit strange to me. Warriors have more weapons, so they need more weapons per tree, and its possible they don’t have the same scheme as us.