Guild Wars 2

TL;DR – Pretty much the same traits that already exist.
Just arranged better and slightly altered.

There’s still a serious flaw in that you have to max your Spite tree to even buff your axes (whereas most weapon-based traits fall in the Master section) and you cannot stack the two major damage increasers from Spite – the Grandmaster majors.

This will have to be fixed for power necros to be viable.

The Death magic tree should have its minors separated from minions. Tying minor traits to a particular build type is bad, especially for a weak utility tree like minions.

You’re right about Spite. Fixed it.

Adept, Master and Grandmaster now all have ways to grant Might. Good for non axe builds.

pretty awesome, id like to see some of that

I was thinking more along the lines of

Adept – Quick to Die

Gain quickness for 2 seconds on entering Death Shroud.

Master – Death Into Life
10% of your Power is given as a bonus to Healing.

Grandmaster – Siphoned Power

Unchanged.

Adept Traits

Death’s Embrace – 50% more damage while downed.

Spiteful Talisman – Increased range and descreased cooldowns on focuses.

Parasitic Bond – Killing a foe removes a condition and restores some health.

Spiteful Spirit – Gain retaliation for 3 seconds on entering Death Shroud.

Signet Mastery – Your Power and Malice are increased by 25 for each Signet you have equipped. Signet recharges reduced by 20%.

Reaper’s Might – Life Blast and Plague Blast grant Might for 15 seconds.

Master Majors

Axe Training – You deal more damage with axes. Axe cooldowns are reduced by 20%.

Spiteful Marks – Marks deal 10% more damage.

Training of the Master – Minion damage increased by 30%.

Chill of Death – Cast Spinal Shivers on an enemy you hit below 25% health.

Grandmaster

Closer to Death – Deals 20% more damage to enemies below 50% health.

Burn in the Underworld – Death Shroud skills burn your target and surrounding enemies.

This should open up quite a lot of build paths.

Edit:

Apparently, I have no idea how to use spoiler tags.

Master – Death into Life – 5% of Power is given as a bonus to Vitality

Grandmaster – Close to Death – Increases damage by 1% for every 5% missing enemy health.

Adept – Greater Marks – Increases area of marks and marks become unblockable. Staff skills recharge 20% faster.

Adept – Ritual of Protection – Wells apply protection for 3 seconds when cast and recharge 20% faster.

Fixed but else yep~

Grandmaster – Axe Training – Axe damage is increased and axe skills recharge 20% faster. Axe attack range is increased to 900.

increased range, increased damage, reduced cooldown alltogether is too much imo.
pick 2 of those and move it down to master-major trait.

Adept – Full of Life – Gain 5 seconds of regeneration when you enter Death Shroud.

regeneration does absolutely nothing while youre in death shroud…

Adept – Parasitic Bond – Gain life whenever something dies near you. (240 radius same as plague elite)

its still kitten. i would rather want something that helps me DURING the fight, not when it is over (when im not playing with minions)

Just with limited experience with Necro, (only just unkittened my Internet, haven’t played much since), I would think the Minion Master build would be very well served by a simple small change.

Jagged Horrors need to be immune to damage. And preferably, possess insanely aggressive AI.

This actually gives them a purpose besides functionally spamming the “Oh noes, my pet died!” voice clip. It also prevents the more or less free revive that occurs when you down somebody. And it actually makes them semi functional viz a vi Death Nova. They still die when their timer runs out, obviously.

I thoroughly agree with a change to a 15 sec cooldown also. A poison cloud every 15 sec, only if you kill somebody, is hardly OP.

RashanDale.3609:

Grandmaster – Axe Training – Axe damage is increased and axe skills recharge 20% faster. Axe attack range is increased to 900.

increased range, increased damage, reduced cooldown alltogether is too much imo.
pick 2 of those and move it down to master-major trait.

Adept – Full of Life – Gain 5 seconds of regeneration when you enter Death Shroud.

regeneration does absolutely nothing while youre in death shroud…

Adept – Parasitic Bond – Gain life whenever something dies near you. (240 radius same as plague elite)

its still kitten. i would rather want something that helps me DURING the fight, not when it is over (when im not playing with minions)

1) Thats exactly why it would be a grandmaster trait
2) Pretty sure he ment after it so i didnt mention it, but yeah after going out not in DS
3) Minior trait, would save your kitten in PvP from Dots and in PvE easeir mob transitions perfect for 5 points

Ill agree axe range should be 900

its allready the weakest weapon in the game (still)

Bumping for Anet to see. My favourite change would be:

Grandmaster – Siphoned Power – Life Transfer draws conditions from nearby allies and turns them into boons. Affects Gather Plague as well. (Boons converted from conditions always only last 5s and Life Transfer is on a 40s cooldown)

Shafi.8952:

Pretty nicely balanced.

As a MM, I want the traits Flesh of Master (more health for minion) and Training of Master (more damage for minion) to completely disappear from GW2.

Instead minion’s health scale’s with master’s vitality; minion’s damage scale’s with master’s power.

Actually Anet for a while tried that, but found minions to be too strong by themselves.

@OP
I don’t like how you setup the blood tree. It basically turned it into a 20 point wonder for any build.
also,
“Grandmaster – Reaper of Grenth – Death Shroud becomes the Reaper of Grenth. Chill and Poison nearby foes every 3 seconds. (240 radius)”
This makes no sense in the blood trait line. . .at all.

striker.3704:

Shafi.8952:

Pretty nicely balanced.

As a MM, I want the traits Flesh of Master (more health for minion) and Training of Master (more damage for minion) to completely disappear from GW2.

Instead minion’s health scale’s with master’s vitality; minion’s damage scale’s with master’s power.

Actually Anet for a while tried that, but found minions to be too strong by themselves.

@OP
I don’t like how you setup the blood tree. It basically turned it into a 20 point wonder for any build.
also,
“Grandmaster – Reaper of Grenth – Death Shroud becomes the Reaper of Grenth. Chill and Poison nearby foes every 3 seconds. (240 radius)”
This makes no sense in the blood trait line. . .at all.

a) how did it turn into a 20 point wonder?
b) Actually except for the Grenth part for non human races, it makes sense since Grenths teachings used blood to fuel fros and decay and the human elite Reaper of Grenth already looks like a kitteny version of DS, but it doesnt make sense for non human characters.

You’re right. I just threw it in there because it looks way cooler than Death Shroud and know nothing of lore.

I changed Blood Magic.

Andele.1306:

Adept – Greater Marks – Increases area of marks and marks become unblockable. Staff skills recharge 20% faster.

Reluctantly, this.
Although I truly believe staff mark areas should innately be their traited size. Elementalists begin with a 240 radius on all but two of their staff area skills, and their trait can further enlarge it. With the 20s+ (16s+ traited) cooldown on necro staff skills, I don’t think an innate 240 radius is asking too much.

Andele.1306:

striker.3704:

Shafi.8952:

Pretty nicely balanced.

As a MM, I want the traits Flesh of Master (more health for minion) and Training of Master (more damage for minion) to completely disappear from GW2.

Instead minion’s health scale’s with master’s vitality; minion’s damage scale’s with master’s power.

Actually Anet for a while tried that, but found minions to be too strong by themselves.

@OP
I don’t like how you setup the blood tree. It basically turned it into a 20 point wonder for any build.
also,
“Grandmaster – Reaper of Grenth – Death Shroud becomes the Reaper of Grenth. Chill and Poison nearby foes every 3 seconds. (240 radius)”
This makes no sense in the blood trait line. . .at all.

a) how did it turn into a 20 point wonder?

Because you could get vampirism, transfusion, the 50% boost, and vampiric minions (essentially all of the guaranteed health siphons) in the first 20 points. Outside of very specific builds (like wells) there isn’t any reason to go further down the tree.

Andele.1306:

RashanDale.3609:

Grandmaster – Axe Training – Axe damage is increased and axe skills recharge 20% faster. Axe attack range is increased to 900.

increased range, increased damage, reduced cooldown alltogether is too much imo.
pick 2 of those and move it down to master-major trait.

Adept – Full of Life – Gain 5 seconds of regeneration when you enter Death Shroud.

regeneration does absolutely nothing while youre in death shroud…

Adept – Parasitic Bond – Gain life whenever something dies near you. (240 radius same as plague elite)

its still kitten. i would rather want something that helps me DURING the fight, not when it is over (when im not playing with minions)

1) Thats exactly why it would be a grandmaster trait
2) Pretty sure he ment after it so i didnt mention it, but yeah after going out not in DS
3) Minior trait, would save your kitten in PvP from Dots and in PvE easeir mob transitions perfect for 5 points

1)all other weapon traits are adept or master and i think thats a good habit.
in my opinion it is a bad idea to force someone to put 30 points in one traitline to make the weapon viable. i would rather see axe’s base damage increased by 10/15% (without the trait)) and the trait changed to master with longer range and faster recharge.
this way, if someone doesnt need the longer range and can deal with longer skill recharge, the axe would still be useful

some other suggestions:
Soul reaping:
Gluttony: Raise it to 10%
Power of Undeath: 5% is weak for a grandmaster trait. I’d change it to 10% more damage when life force > 75%, 5% increased damage when life force is between 50% and 75%
Curses: Reapers precision needs a buff.

Besides that i really like the idea of minor traits that individualise the death shroud, like Furious demise or the suggested transfusion grandmaster trait and i think there should be more like this.
For example i would move ‘Furious Demise’ into the spite line and give Curses something like ‘each Life blast and each pulse of life transfer add 1 stack of bleed’.

As a power necro, getting a good crit chance is an issue and fury would be really helpful for that.
And conditionmancers would have a death shroud that does more than just soaking up damage.

Well thought out and well done OP

Very nice post OP, I hope some of ArenaNet’s guys read it and take some ideas to improve our trait lines.

Here you have an example why this (traits) is the weakest thing we have:

Guardian Virtues vs. Necromancer Soul Reaping
Inspired Virtue (Adept): Virtues apply some boons when used Wiki link
Gluttony (Adept): 5% more LF when using skills Wiki link

Virtue of Retribution (Master): Activating a virtue gives you retaliation Wiki link
Last Gasp (Master): Spectral Armor at 50% hp Wiki link

Power of the Virtuous (Grandmaster): Give 1% additional damage for each boon on you Wiki link
Strenght of Undeath: Do 5% more damage while you have 50% LF Wiki link

Plus
Virtues trait line gives you 1% faster virtue recharge and 1% duration on boons for each point invested (30% faster virtues and 30% duration on boons if you have full line).
Soul Reaping trait line gives you 1% additional LF pool and 1% critical damage (30% more LF and 30% critical damage if full line).

So with 15 points in virtues only, a Guardian using Virtue of Courage (F3) give AoE Aegis, Protection and Retaliation with extended time because of the passive bonus of the trait line. That’s only with the minor traits, with major traits you can add to it 3 seconds stability or AoE break stun (or both).

That is what I call sinergy and we really need something on that line… not the traits we have right now

Necromancer Death Magic
Now, in this trait line we have increased boon duration per point invested and we have only 2 traits in the whole line that gives us boons: Ritual of Protection and Spiteful Vigor

Where is the sinergy there? And I can talk about useless traits like Reanimator or trait which you must go with certain build to be effective: Protection of the Horde

Additional note: I didn’t count the bugs both professions may have on my example, it’s just theorycrafting.

TL;DR: we need a serious change to our trait lines, proof exposed before.

Edit1: This is a short analysis from my point of view, you can agree or not, but this is what I’ve found (I have necromancer and guardian level 80 and played more than 300 tournaments with them). When I have my engineer to 80 I will compare them again.

Edit2: Sorry for the wall of text, but I think we need analysis like this to help the devs to find our weakest points and improve them.

great work OP!
i really hope this gets some attention…

p.s. i think axe should cleave with attack 1 and 2

Parasitic Bond and Spiteful Removal – Why would you nerf these? With your versions, if you tag someone from a distance and they die – such as in a zerg vs. zerg fight – you no longer gain life or cleanse conditions. So now all necros need to be up close to take advantage of these skills, when not all necros are built for that. Maybe I am taking this personally since I like diving into a zerg, dropping someone, then retreating and letting the rest of the zerg finish that guy off, and gaining the life anyway. Additionally it’s not hard to stab enemies with a dagger a few times to tag them if they are downed and you haven’t tagged them yet. Those traits should be left as is.

Reanimator – same as above, forcing all necros to be up close to gain the benefits of the trait when they are not necessarily built for that.

Confusing Retaliation – too strong, way too strong. We can apply confusion to nearby enemies every 5s when combined with Near to Death and Spiteful Spirit. That’s not balanced at all.

Ritual Mastery and Ritual of Protection – Wells are strong enough without also applying Weakness. I view your changes as an overall nerf since wells would only get 10% cooldown decrease when traited.

Having said all that, I like some of your suggestions, and there is some good potential here. Conditional Might is cool. Siphoned Power is cool. I think Dark Armor is kind of bad for a Grandmaster minor trait, though, maybe swap that and Protection of the Horde?

If going heavy condition, they should excell on applying condition faster than any other proffesion. Sadly this is not true.

That why the scepter needs a Trait in the form of something like – Every scepter hit now applies 2 bleeds instead of just 1.

Also, Necromancer should have 1 unique condition that no other proffesion has. Like

CURSE – A DoT that stacks and gives a negative effect too, more than just damage. Beacuse right now we only have to rely on bleed, wich sucks because 1 ability from any other proffesions and poof, all the damage is GONE and ALL our abilities are on cooldowns.

And for godsake we need quickeing or stability like all other classes in the game.

And a side note, Staff #1 attack is the worst in the game. 4s to reach maximum range, you kidding me? Does not do great damage anyway. Pointless imo. And the #1 attack sound, it’ll drive any sane man mental sooner or later. Rewind, do right.

Grandmaster – Siphoned Power – Life Transfer draws conditions from nearby allies and turns them into boons when you leave death shroud. Affects Gather Plague as well. (Boons converted from conditions always only last 5s and Life Transfer is on a 40s cooldown)

Grandmaster – Dark Armor – Gain 400 toughness while channelling.

Adept – Death Shiver Apply vulnerability for 10 seconds every 3 seconds to nearby foes while in Death Shroud.

Adept – Spiteful Vigor – Gain retaliation for 3 seconds when you heal.

Grandmaster – Necromatic Corruption - Minions have a 10% chance to remove a boon when they attack.

Grandmaster – Transfusion – Life Transfer heals nearby allies.

Master – Deathly Invigoration – Heal in an area when you leave death shroud.

Aren’t good, they should all be deleted and replaced.

Master – Shroudful Protection – Gain protection for 3s everytime you enter Death Shroud.

Isn’t that good it would be nice if it give Stability for more than 3 seconds.

About Soul Reaping, just remove the Crit Damage from it. It’s a survival/supportive tree, it’s useless for a power build putting points there (without speccing a full DS build).

Minion Traits (and Staff too) should be merged, they’re too much weak and obstructive if split like this.