Guild Wars 2

This trait reads as something that would help you survive, but it’s actually worse at that than the other grandmaster trait, Corrupter’s Fervor.

Corrupter’s Fervor reads as a trait meant for condition damage builds, but it works just fine for any build because any necro build can easily stack up this trait.

A good source of toughness and reduced condi damage is perfect to go with all the other healing sources available to necro. Yet another healing trait as a Death Magic grandmaster really has no purpose at all.

They do conflict a lot however US has the unique niche of allowing you to reset fights with DS, especially with healing power, whereas Corrupter’s Fervor aims to reduce damage taken all the time.

Bhawb.7408:

They do conflict a lot however US has the unique niche of allowing you to reset fights with DS, especially with healing power, whereas Corrupter’s Fervor aims to reduce damage taken all the time.

Well my point was you already have other ways to heal in order to reset fights. Necro is loaded with healing, and most of it has a lower opportunity cost than US.

Meanwhile, CF makes all those other healing sources more effective.

I think you may be misunderstanding the point of unholy sanctuary. The healing stacks with all of the lifesteal traits from blood magic. You can heal significant amounts by swapping into DS for a bit to soak up damage and using #4. With my celestial build, I heal about 5k or more in most cases.

Also, it negates a lethal hit with DS— something which is especially useful for both boss fights and PvP. It’s the only thing that will save you when you’re low on hp and your DS is on cooldown. The number of times this trait has saved me against a rogue/guardian that teleported in to try and finish me off is off the charts. It is a very powerful trait and not to be underestimated.

To reiterate: It will put you in DS on a lethal hit even if your DS is on cooldown. This is absolutely amazing for survival.

Kharr.5746:

I think you may be misunderstanding the point of unholy sanctuary. The healing stacks with all of the lifesteal traits from blood magic. You can heal significant amounts by swapping into DS for a bit to soak up damage and using #4. With my celestial build, I heal about 5k or more in most cases.

Also, it negates a lethal hit with DS— something which is especially useful for both boss fights and PvP. It’s the only thing that will save you when you’re low on hp and your DS is on cooldown. The number of times this trait has saved me against a rogue/guardian that teleported in to try and finish me off is off the charts. It is a very powerful trait and not to be underestimated.

To reiterate: It will put you in DS on a lethal hit even if your DS is on cooldown. This is absolutely amazing for survival.

Stacking with other healing doesn’t make it better.

Damage mitigation multiplies the effectiveness of healing, so once you have all that blood magic healing a trait that mitigates damage compliments those blood magic traits better than yet another healing trait.

Yeah Unholy Sanctuary is basically a slightly more creative version of the engineer trait backpack regenerator.

The reaper trait blighters boon looks like it could offer far more sustain, provided it doesn’t get an ICD.

Kharr hit the nail on the head. Unholy Sanctuary is a perma Regeneraiton boon combined a cheat death mechanic that makes shroud perform more as intended for attrition. Corruptor’s Fervor is really good, but isn’t going to save you when you have 20% LF, with shroud having 5 seconds more recharge to go, your healing skill having 8 seconds and your sitting at 1% health. Unholy Sanctuary easily can.

I have been in so many situations like Kharr where I have pretty much lost a 1v1 a 2v1 and even some 3-4v1s, but then I pop into DS on fatal hit, use Life Transfer and milk my shroud. After I exit I usually have enough health back to get off my healing skill with my others skills finishing up their CDs. So I go from being dead to being near or full health resetting the fight and sometimes winning right after leaving my opponent(s) wondering what just happened.

On July 3rd patch day I did this in a 3v1+NPCs killing a lord and managed to down all of them while not even using my heal (Which was SoV and used signet of locust, Wells and life transfer for active heals). One guy was freaking out about how I managed to get full health three times without ever using SoV and beat them. My allies arrived and finished them off and we killed the Lord. Unfortunately Well of Power and Darkness were nerfed indirectly by the latest siphon patch (no longer trigger Vampiric or Vampiric Presence) which killed a good portion of that build’s Well sustain.

I’m looking forward to Blighters Boon as well. It doesn’t have the cheat death mechanic that makes shroud work better, but it’s essentially the old Signet of Undeath passive tick or Regeneration boon tick (if it scales like Unholy) but triggered on boons. Definitely going to want Spite for Reaper’s Might spam.

Edit: Stacking and multi-trait/skill synergy actually does make all traits/skills involved better. If another 300ish regen in DS manages to cover close to or all damage over time due to synergy, then you have reached near immortality where you would eventually die without it.

It is also on a seperate CD then DS. Allowing you to leave DS to try and heal when ur low hp and probably die without ds on.

You guys are describing scenarios where you are missing out on the defensive bonuses from CF. You wouldn’t as easily end up in that situation if you had 300 more toughness and 20% reduced incoming condition damage.

I think it will take too much effort to get into the details about the EHP math and such, but to keep it simple, armor is 100% EHP per point (sounds like a lot, but raw damage before armor is in the millions so it works out) so if you have 2000 armor, 300 more from CF is a 15% increase in your EHP modifier. If you have 3000 armor before CF, it’s a 10% increase. This applies to your sustain too.

Meanwhile the 20% condition damage reduction is 25% more EHP against conditions, and it applies to your sustain too.

The point is CF scales all of your other sustain up so that you don’t end up in those desperate scenarios in the first place.

I wasn’t aware that US triggers when shroud is on CD. That is a useful mechanic in its own right, but the overall sustain probably does not match CF because US is only healing you during shroud while CF gives you a significant increase to sustain at all times.

Again you have to understand that damage reduction is the same thing as a percent increase to all sustain and health. For example, if you have 20% reduced damage against everything including conditions, that is the same exact thing as “+25% maximum health and +25% to all healing” Seriously, it is the same thing mathematically. If you’re wondering why it’s 25% instead of 20%, it’s because 80*1.25 = 100. 25% more damage is the amount the opponent would need to overcome 20% damage reduction.

Khristophoros I think we understand the math but you’re missing a few points.
- all the DR=extra health as you put it doesn’t stop focus fire spikes. Necros have always had lots of health but no true defense (ie blocks, invun) meaning we still die.
- We’ve all had that time where we are trying to time it just right to press F1 to save our kitten but just missed and died. US is the closest thing to a true defense because after that death spike DS pops
- US is considered a heal as well as an escape death. I’ve made a PvE WvW build where I have regen food. combined with US and vampiric I heal a ton in DS. Not only with the auto shroud but just popping into shroud attack 4 healing a ton and back out.

Again this comes down to play style. I’ve seen a ton of theory crafters do the math. And while the math helps people understand how things work so they can make their builds, if a skill or trait doesn’t fit your play style you die or are ineffective anyway. I’d rather have an inefficient win than an efficient loss. Note I’m not telling you that your system doesn’t work, just that it may work for you better than me.

I prefer Corrupter’s Fervor too. I run a condi build so my LF regen isn’t great to begin with. What I don’t like about unholy sanctuary is that more times than not it screws me over.

Heres the scenario:

I’m in a fight, dodging, CCing, popping shroud for Doom/Life transfers/Tainted shackles etc. My health starts to drop, I go to use my heal (or CC/teleport) but BOOM! US kicks in so the skill doesn’t go off, they still damage spike through the little bit a life force I had and right into the really low HP because I didn’t get the heal either. Dead, with a heal not on cooldown but couldn’t use it.

So unless I just save my life force for “that one time, I might need it” it seems more trouble than its worth. I get more mileage from the reduction of damage.

I can see though, how a high life force regen build would find it useful.

IMO unholy sanctuary should be buffed by around 50-100%. It should heal for a base of around 200 and see how that works.

Lordrosicky.5813:

IMO unholy sanctuary should be buffed by around 50-100%. It should heal for a base of around 200 and see how that works.

It would need its healing power scaling reduced, right now if you are running Clerics US is actually really strong.

nearlight.3064:

Yeah Unholy Sanctuary is basically a slightly more creative version of the engineer trait backpack regenerator.

The reaper trait blighters boon looks like it could offer far more sustain, provided it doesn’t get an ICD.

Hopefully they don’t add an ICD to BB. In any case I can see US with regeneration plus BB and health siphoning with tank builds with clerics and yak runes being pretty powerful.

Kharr.5746:

To reiterate: It will put you in DS on a lethal hit even if your DS is on cooldown. This is absolutely amazing for survival.

Unless you were in panic and did tap f1 at the same time the trait activates so that you instantly exit Shroud by accident…
I dont want to know how often that happened to me, forgetting that i had the trait equipped..

kahnen.4815:

I prefer Corrupter’s Fervor too. I run a condi build so my LF regen isn’t great to begin with. What I don’t like about unholy sanctuary is that more times than not it screws me over.

Heres the scenario:

I’m in a fight, dodging, CCing, popping shroud for Doom/Life transfers/Tainted shackles etc. My health starts to drop, I go to use my heal (or CC/teleport) but BOOM! US kicks in so the skill doesn’t go off, they still damage spike through the little bit a life force I had and right into the really low HP because I didn’t get the heal either. Dead, with a heal not on cooldown but couldn’t use it.

So unless I just save my life force for “that one time, I might need it” it seems more trouble than its worth. I get more mileage from the reduction of damage.

I can see though, how a high life force regen build would find it useful.

This is what I meant by it “it depends on play style”. In a Condi build with low LF generation US won’t be great. Dagger/WH and even the dreaded Axe/focus can have you up to full LF in a couple seconds. I personally think this is why Power necros are much more the standard in PvP. The mechanic is kinda broken for Condi necs as we start with no LF and Staff and scepter are terrible at LF regen.

I play either power and power wells though I’m toying with and bunker build for PvP.
I can pop in and out of DS to quick heal and stun break but never let my LF go under 30% or so once I get any.

As for the scenario of DS popping and interrupting your heal that’s just your perception playing tricks on you. If you couldn’t get your heal off before DS popped you’d be down anyway. Don’t blame US. US pops when you take lethal damage so you’d either go into DS or die. What you needed to do is keep track of you LF and as soon as US DS pops hit DS4 to stay in DS a sec longer and prepare to hit your heal on the way out.

One more thing US isn’t as powerful without Vampiric. US pops you into DS and you hit DS4 with the 2 vampiric siphons plus US heals you should come out of shroud with a couple thousand health if you even had a little LF. If you turtled in DS for a bit it’s not strange to come out with 5k+ health. On my WvW build one use of axe2 or focus4 and I have enough LF to pop back into DS again if need be

Yeah Condi damage based sustain builds using US really need Soul Marks/Vital Persitence and/or Warhorn to get death shroud working properly for them. I have played condi based US builds for a year or more and got them to work even before the July 3rd. However, I could never come close to competing without Soul Marks/Vital Persistence in PvP as much as I tried (so I could take more support or damage from curses/blood magic). Without those traits natural AoE condi rotations generate about a measly 5-6% LF over 20 seconds. Your only choice is to spam Staff 1 for more that seriously lowers DPS.

On the US interruption heals I want to reinforce what Akrasia said. If death shroud from Unholy Sanctuary pops as you’re trying to get off a heal, that means you just lasted 1-2 seconds more than you should have, because without it you have been too late to use your heal and would have downed in the same situation. It doesn’t trigger at 1% health it triggers at 0% health/downed.

The basic rule of thumb is if you have high healing power, medium/high LF gain and Blood Magic (I wouldn’t see why you wouldn’t with high healing power), you’re going to want Unholy Sanctuary if you take Death Magic. The regen is extremely strong healing effectiveness in DS (100% effectiveness vs. incoming damage due to LF bar absorbing it all) and gets even stronger with Last Rites (about 40 extra health per tick at 50% health or lower). This combined with siphons like Life Transfer siphoning for 5K health is equivalent to a full heal skill if not better. 7-10K net healing because you were in death shroud for 7-10 seconds is better than lots of self heals.

If you don’t have high Healing Power and have bad LF gain, you can’t really take advantage of Unholy Sanctuary’s cheat life mechanic to restore yourself fully. Therefore there’s no point taking it over Corruptor’s Fervor. A DS pop on lethal hit with no potent US regen and no secondary healing abilities just means you will die 3 seconds later once shroud ends. This is when you take Corruptor’s Fervor, which will actually act as self sustain in non-healing power builds until that low health/LF point.

Balekai.6083:

Yeah Condi damage based sustain builds using US really need Soul Marks/Vital Persitence and/or Warhorn to get death shroud working properly for them. I have played condi based US builds for a year or more and got them to work even before the July 3rd. However, I could never come close to competing without Soul Marks/Vital Persistence in PvP as much as I tried (so I could take more support or damage from curses/blood magic). Without those traits natural AoE condi rotations generate about a measly 5-6% LF over 20 seconds. Your only choice is to spam Staff 1 for more that seriously lowers DPS.

On the US interruption heals I want to reinforce what Akrasia said. If death shroud from Unholy Sanctuary pops as you’re trying to get off a heal, that means you just lasted 1-2 seconds more than you should have, because without it you have been too late to use your heal and would have downed in the same situation. It doesn’t trigger at 1% health it triggers at 0% health/downed.

The basic rule of thumb is if you have high healing power, medium/high LF gain and Blood Magic (I wouldn’t see why you wouldn’t with high healing power), you’re going to want Unholy Sanctuary if you take Death Magic. The regen is extremely strong healing effectiveness in DS (100% effectiveness vs. incoming damage due to LF bar absorbing it all) and gets even stronger with Last Rites (about 40 extra health per tick at 50% health or lower). This combined with siphons like Life Transfer siphoning for 5K health is equivalent to a full heal skill if not better. 7-10K net healing because you were in death shroud for 7-10 seconds is better than lots of self heals.

If you don’t have high Healing Power and have bad LF gain, you can’t really take advantage of Unholy Sanctuary’s cheat life mechanic to restore yourself fully. Therefore there’s no point taking it over Corruptor’s Fervor. A DS pop on lethal hit with no potent US regen and no secondary healing abilities just means you will die 3 seconds later once shroud ends. This is when you take Corruptor’s Fervor, which will actually act as self sustain in non-healing power builds until that low health/LF point.

Is this the odd settler bunker build I’ve heard about skightly? It seems interesting with transfusion rezzes and general tankiness, but I feel like the condi pressure would be so bad compared to even a settler ranger.

nearlight.3064:

Balekai.6083:

Yeah Condi damage based sustain builds using US really need Soul Marks/Vital Persitence and/or Warhorn to get death shroud working properly for them. I have played condi based US builds for a year or more and got them to work even before the July 3rd. However, I could never come close to competing without Soul Marks/Vital Persistence in PvP as much as I tried (so I could take more support or damage from curses/blood magic). Without those traits natural AoE condi rotations generate about a measly 5-6% LF over 20 seconds. Your only choice is to spam Staff 1 for more that seriously lowers DPS.

On the US interruption heals I want to reinforce what Akrasia said. If death shroud from Unholy Sanctuary pops as you’re trying to get off a heal, that means you just lasted 1-2 seconds more than you should have, because without it you have been too late to use your heal and would have downed in the same situation. It doesn’t trigger at 1% health it triggers at 0% health/downed.

The basic rule of thumb is if you have high healing power, medium/high LF gain and Blood Magic (I wouldn’t see why you wouldn’t with high healing power), you’re going to want Unholy Sanctuary if you take Death Magic. The regen is extremely strong healing effectiveness in DS (100% effectiveness vs. incoming damage due to LF bar absorbing it all) and gets even stronger with Last Rites (about 40 extra health per tick at 50% health or lower). This combined with siphons like Life Transfer siphoning for 5K health is equivalent to a full heal skill if not better. 7-10K net healing because you were in death shroud for 7-10 seconds is better than lots of self heals.

If you don’t have high Healing Power and have bad LF gain, you can’t really take advantage of Unholy Sanctuary’s cheat life mechanic to restore yourself fully. Therefore there’s no point taking it over Corruptor’s Fervor. A DS pop on lethal hit with no potent US regen and no secondary healing abilities just means you will die 3 seconds later once shroud ends. This is when you take Corruptor’s Fervor, which will actually act as self sustain in non-healing power builds until that low health/LF point.

Is this the odd settler bunker build I’ve heard about skightly? It seems interesting with transfusion rezzes and general tankiness, but I feel like the condi pressure would be so bad compared to even a settler ranger.

Pressure is surprisingly ok when you successfully attrition, because of the constant AoE and lack of dependence on any one skill for said pressure. Instead you’re depending on a constant weapon and DS rotation within close range. MoE and the Geomancy Sigils gives you 5 extra AoE bleed stacks every 8-10 secs which puts it over the top for being able to actually kill people.

I will say it’s a good amount more DPS than the Cleric alternative save for the spike department. It does best in 2-5v2-5s. Well support, Presence support and/or AoE healing support syngerizes really well with the constant AoE bleed pressure of the build.

The downside is that its condition damage. Lots of removal is sort of countered by constant application rather than spike, but your condi damage drops big time compared to higher condi damage

Such builds also require a Necro to be in close range to viably DPS (Dhuumfire helps with this somewhat especially when you want to hang in DS for safety). DPS goes way down when you’re stuck holding a point 2v1 and both enemies are kiting waiting for you to come off point so one can decap for example. If you can’t sustain or whittle them down with lackluster condi, it’s a waiting game until you die, don’t die and just hold the point, more enemies come and they kill you or allies come and kill them. Lastly, the damage just falls flat against comparable sustain builds on classes with good condi removal and mobility.

As always though sustain anything Necro, regardless of Corruptor’s Fervor or Unholy Sanctuary, still doesn’t save you from spam cc. We lack viable escapes, stunbreaks and active defense. Flesh Wurm/Spectral Walk are still our best bet in those situations where sustain isn’t going to save us. For that reason I worked Flesh Wurm into my non-Wells using sustain/support variation when it comes to PvP and WvW.

Doesn’t hurt that Flesh Wurm (when placed close to combat) and Flesh Golem are quicker on the recharge with more damage and more tricks because of minion trait changes. I find it very easy to take Flesh of the Master and Necromantic Corruption. Both attacking adds a good 700ish damage from Golem and 1K damage form Wurm per hit. They also benefit greatly from Transfusion.