Please class designers, look at these traits.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spiteful_Talisman
- This trait is in the first three slots of Spite alongside Spiteful renewal and Bitter Chill.
Basically, you do 5% more damage to enemies without boons, which in PvP is almost never the case and when it is, the damage increase is so low that its just not worth picking it at all.
Spiteful Talisman is ok. Reduces cooldown on Chill of Death for power builds and does more for dps in PvE than the other two options, which are useless there since vuln is always maxed and conditions are rarely ever a problem. Renewal is by far the worst option. Both Bitter Chill and Talisman have their place.
I dislike Spiteful Talisman. The damage bonus it uses is either always or almost never active: there is no play around it. Boons come too fast in PvP and in PvE the foes that do have boons, pulse them.
As a guardian I feel your pain.
Nearly 50% of the guardians core traits & utility skills are absolute crap that nobody in their right mind would ever want to use.
When I looked at the title I though it would be about :
- Spitfull spirit : shame that one of the best elite in GW1 has be reduced to that
- Master of Corruption : which could be renamed Stupidly masochist
- Parasitic Contagion : which simply does not have any way to be used since it has been released.
- Unholy martyr : Realead at the same time as Parasitic contagion (That was a very sad record to release 2 useless GM trait at the same time out of 3 GM trait released).
- Soul eater : I will just say that the life siphon on gravedigger is a big let down when you see core profession GS’s traits like Zealous blade or the totally broken Forcefull greatsword.
As for the 2 traits of the OP, at least they are usefull in some area of the game and you don’t kill yourself or have to waste precious utlities with them.
Relentless Pursuit, Soul Eater, and Reaper’s Onslaught were all designed to support (PvE) HoT mob train events. Try them in a Dragon’s Stand zerg. They are useful, though not outstanding.
They could use some work to broaden their application.
Spiteful Talisman is nothing more than a CD reduction I feel I have to take. Most of Necromancer’s old weapons could use some functional rebalancing. Scepter and dagger have already had it.