Guild Wars 2

Change Blood Magic’s grandmaster minor trait – Blood to Power – to Blood to Life. Have it improve life siphons by 5% of Healing Power.

Blood to Power is currently near useless; adding 5% more damage while health is above 90% is an uncommon situation. Even if the necro does manage to maintain equal to or greater than 90% health for the majority of a fight, a 5% increase in damage is insignificant for a necro that deeply invested into the Blood Magic line.

Let’s assume a necro has 1500 Healing Power, 25 points into the Blood Magic line, and this suggested change is implemented. The necro’s life siphon from Vampirism boosted by Bloodthirst equals 38 health per hit at level 80. With this new trait, this is further boosted to: (1500 × 0.05) + 38 = 113 health siphoned per hit.

In comparison to other professions’ sustain, regen, healing-per-second, etc., this is a reasonable amount. Let us not forget it comes at the expense of a significant investment into the Blood Magic line; armor, upgrades, and trinkets to boost Healing Power (with the attendant drop in DPS that implies from not speccing zerker); the fact the siphoning is not passive (unlike some of the other classes’ healing-per-second), but, rather, requires the necro to engage in combat and hit something to benefit from the siphon; and our lack of evades, blocks, and invulnerability.

In light of all these trade-offs and limitations, siphoning 113 health per hit is not unreasonable. If it’s still felt that 5% of Healing Power added to life siphons would be OP, then simply change the modifier; 4%, 3%, or even 2.5%.

Now that would be an actual reason to trait there. I actually thought about similar scaling without it being bound to a trait, but this should work just as well.

I am praying it stays at a flat rate I really don’t want to have to sacrifice all my dps to make siphons viable.

NeXeD.3042:

I am praying it stays at a flat rate I really don’t want to have to sacrifice all my dps to make siphons viable.

As opposed to now where you sacrifice all your DPS to get them somewhat-close-but-still-not quite viable? At the moment, only minion siphon builds are actually worth anything for actual sustain over “hey look, another 25 damage on my attack”.

1.i dont like the idea that i have to spend 25 points in addition to lots of healing power to make a 15pt-trait useful. thats like justifying the existance of Reanimator with a 30pt-trait “death nova” which can make it somewhat useful. the vampiric-traits should scale with healing power by default.

2.@nexed: if Life siphons would scale, that doesnt mean that they have to be completely unviable without healing power.
just like Burning, for example, which deals a fair amount of damage even without any +ConditionDamage.
All it needs is a good base value, so the vampiric trait by itself is useful and a scaling so that necromancers who want to specialise heavily into lifesteal can do that via healing power.

I like the idea a lot

But i think an inherent scaling with Healing Power will work better. It will allow for more freedon while building for Vampiric.

Perhaps it would be best to have both the scaling wiht healing power and a trait like what u suggest but wiht lower % added. This way if specing for maximun survivability u ll have to go 25 in BM and full on Healig Power, but if u want a more balanced but still viable build u can go only 15 pts and get less healing power.

NeXeD what u say really doenst make any sence to me. This suggestion implies that the base amount of life stolen will be as it is now. Therefore the life stealing specs u use now will be unaffected.

No what you all are saying makes no sense there is no armor that has healing power and precision if you scale it with healing power your going to try and use clerics and nerf your damage but your also nerfing you siphons because you’ll never crit. Double lose. Either scale it with straight damage not power or leave it flat and just increase the total amount siphoned.

Umm, Magi’s armor? That’s Healing Power/Precision/Vitality.

Could actually make a very interesting setup for necros like that, since vitality scales better with us than any other profession.

Main downside is that I only know how to get Rare quality (through Priory).

Even for PvP where Magi’s armor doesnt exist u can just choose Vampiric, Bloodthirst and a lot of healing power to become tanky but with low damage.

Using the OPs numbers u can get 113 life per hit at 1500 HP.

In the current state and assuming u are in a build that has 50% crit chance and u have Vampiric, Vampiric Precision and Bloodthrist u can get on average:
38+0.5*51=63.5 life stolen per hit.

If the proposed change is implemented then in a build with 0 HP u ll get about half the life siphon that a build with lots of HP. In other words u sacrifice dmg for survivability which is fair.

Making Vampiric traits scale in any way with healing power will just open more posibilities.

It will limit you more than it will diversify you leaving it flat would allow all builds to continue to use it. When I first started this game I too thought it should scale but now I see why it doesn’t. Don’t just throw out the number it does per hit without including food and traits and runes and sigils. If you spec into vampirism it works trust me its also giving you a damage bonus. The only real build this scale with healing would help with is minions.

Also vitality scales like kitten with a vamp necro you want toughness.

NeXeD, have you even considered the possibility that the siphon scaling would be set up to have the amounts being equal at 150 healing power? You know, the Healing Power you are guaranteed to have when you get Vampiric?

Yes. I have. If its scaling that well with healing power its going to be ridiculously op for someone with 1400 healing power unless it has some sort of diminishing returns have any of you considered how selfish of a healer build it would he if it scaled with healing power?You really need to gear that much to healing when its only going to heal you?

It needs to be buffed no doubt but if its done with a flat number it benefits all builds without pigeonholing you into using clerics, magis, or I can’t remember the condition one lol.

Before you post again I want you to go out and get knights armor vamp runes berserker trinkets master artisan oils omnomberry ghosts drop 30 into bm take the 50% better siphon and the siphon on crit trait you will facetank the crap out of anything and do verygood damage depending on where you put the rest of your points.

And i want you to go out and get knights armor, vamp runes, berserker trinkets, master maintenance oils. omnomberry ghosts, sigil of blood and drop the 30 from BM. You ll do just a bit less leaching but u ll be able to spec for more dps.

I still dont see your point…

" have any of you considered how selfish of a healer build it would he if it scaled with healing power?"
Some of us are selfish… obviously. I like to build for Healing Power gear and facetank selfishly. Why is that bad?

I just think that u have a spec that u like and u are afraid that any change might mess it up which is based on a flawed logic.

You said:
“If its scaling that well with healing power its going to be ridiculously op for someone with 1400 healing power unless it has some sort of diminishing return”

For example if vampiric were to scale with healing power lets say that it gets 1 health for every 200 HP.
New base value 23 life stealing per hit
With 150 HP : 24.5 life stealing (rounded to 25 which is the current value)
At 1500 HP: 40 life stealing

Does this seem like OP scaling to you? And u can keep the build u use now since the effectiveness is still the same.

Edit: how about this… vampiric traits scale with Healing Power at default (no trait required). But the 25 pt trait (or any other trait perhaps) allows you to heal allies for a % of life stolen via siphoning.

How is it not better to give it a buff keep the siphon number flat so it helps all builds not just the people who want to do kitten damage. I could drop my 30 in bm would I do more damage? Meh maybe.. maybe not id lose my well cooldown and the extra damage from vamp and I would no longer be able to facetank any boss in game without healing power on armor.I just don’t see how what your saying helps the necro in end game or in pvp it will make you hit like a wet noodle in high level fractals which would mean your all going to die because your dps just isn’t fast enough. If you did add a way for vamp to.heal party members then I would be open to it scaling.

The reason to have scaling is so that you can actually have a siphon build, not just a build that happens to siphon (which is what you have with the flat amount, regardless of numbers). I don’t know about you, but I like having a return on my investments.

You do have return you just don’t have to sacrifice dps by having a kittenton o healing power.

NeXeD.3042:

You do have return you just don’t have to sacrifice dps by having a kittenton o healing power.

kitten it, how often do the people have to repeat that?

you dont HAVE TO sacrifice dps. you CAN however sacrifice dps for healing power and therefore more lifesteal. it is a CHOICE; youre NOT FORCED to amass healing power just because vampiric scales….

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The reason to have scaling is so that you can actually have a siphon build, not just a build that happens to siphon (which is what you have with the flat amount, regardless of numbers). I don’t know about you, but I like having a return on my investments.

This captures the essence of it.

What happens when you equip Berserker gear and increasingly trait into Spite? Your DPS increases.

What happens when you equip Carrion or Rabid gear and increasingly trait into Curses? Your condition damage increases.

What happens when you equip Clerics gear and increasingly trait into Blood Magic? Nothing (with regard to life siphoning).

The extra healing power improves our dedicated healing skill and scales the dagger mainhand skill Life Siphon as well as Signet of the Locust’s active; but that’s it. One of the defining characteristics of Blood Magic builds – life siphoning – does not benefit from the healing power attribute associated with the very trait line that grants access to it.

Arguing that gaining access to a flat amount of life siphoning is the benefit of Blood Magic is specious at best. By the devs’ own admission, the current life siphoning is abysmal. Simply increasing it by a flat amount is not the solution for several reasons:

1) If nearly every necro has access to the same amount of life siphoning as nearly every other necro, there are no trade-offs. A power necro could trait into Spite for increased DPS and gain access to the same amount of life siphoning as a dedicated blood necro. So why bother specing heavily into Blood Magic and investing into healing power at all if 15 – 20 points in that line will net you the same result whether you’re a power necro, conditionmancer, hybrid, or blood necro?

This makes Blood Magic an adjunct in support of the other trait lines rather than one that stands on its own with its own viable builds. This does not promote build diversity while trivializing the Blood Magic line.

2) By not scaling life siphoning with healing power, this is inconsistent with all of the other trait lines. That would be like a conditionmancer specing into Curses but not gaining any additional condition damage from that line. In essence, it’s setting a double standard in which non-Blood Magic necros are rewarded for specing deep into their associated trait line while denying blood necros the same benefit.

A flat amount breaks with this cost : benefit paradigm. Blood necros accept there are trade-offs; they won’t be DPS-ing like a power necro, for example. However, where the other flavors of necros are rewarded for making their associated trade-offs, blood necros are not.

3) Increasing life siphoning by a flat amount is problematic because it has no built-in self-regulation. By this I mean, “How much life siphoning is too much/OP (or not enough/UP)?”

For a power necro, increasing life siphoning to 50 health per hit might be the magic number (just hypothetically speaking). For a blood necro who has sacrificed DPS to spec into Blood Magic, that flat 50 health per hit may still fall short of being sufficient sustain to see them through a more protracted fight as compared to their power necro cousin. Balancing life siphoning on a single axis which does not include trade-offs is a nightmare.

Conversely, scaling life siphoning makes it self-correcting; as healing power goes up, DPS goes down and vice versa. The power necro who wants to add a little life siphoning to their mix will gain a lesser amount due to not specing into healing power. They compensate for this by doing more DPS, potentially finishing their fights earlier; they don’t need as much sustain.

The blood necro who specs for healing power gains more life siphoning by comparison; but at the expense of damage. Their fights will last longer because they aren’t DPS-ing down their opponents as quickly. This is acceptable in a scaling model, though, because that blood necro now gains access to greater life siphoning; they’ll have the sustain to see a longer fight through to the end.

By tying this scaling to a new minor grandmaster trait rather than one of the existing lesser traits ensures balance is maintained by forcing a necro to spec heavily into both the Blood Magic line as well as items that increase healing power. Now life siphoning is balanced/gated/scaled along two axes; healing power and specing deep into Blood Magic. This avoids the pitfall of the flat system in which a necro could maximize DPS while still gaining access to the same amount of life siphoning as a dedicated blood necro with little-to-no trade-offs.

(continued in next post)

(continued)

All of that said, I am very aware – as a blood necro, myself – of the risks inherent in life siphoning mechanics. It’s a triple threat! It ignores armor and toughness, it damages an opponent, and it heals the necro all-in-one. It’s very easy for it to slip into the OP domain and must be very carefully balanced. Just because it requires a bit more effort and focus to do so, though, isn’t reason enough not to consider scaling it with healing power (in some form).

I agree Blood Magic is a niche build with comparatively fewer adherents. However, they are a very dedicated group and should not have their chosen area of specialization neglected or marginalized nor be denied the rewards for the trade-offs they make to achieve their preferred build.

Well, ArenaNet implemented half of what I was hoping for; life siphoning now scales with a trait (Vampiric). Not the trait I was hoping to see changed, but that’s a plus in comparison to my original suggestion as we now get to keep the extra 5% damage while our health remains greater than or equal to 90%.

Sadly, the half they implemented was the essential half (introducing life siphon scaling) but not the effective half. Six extra points of life siphoning IF you reach the max Healing Power level (which hasn’t been revealed to us, by the way). So now we get to take a crapshoot in the Mists trying to figure out the magic cut-off points which will net us the greatest return for the least investment. Because I’ll be kitten ed if I’m going to start buying Ascended gear with Healing Power in the absence of knowing exactly what those cut-off points are.

Wow! Six whole extra points of life siphoning. I can already feel the power coursing through my veins as I absorb the health of my enemies and lay waste to everything in my path. MWUAHAHAHAHA !!!

/sarcasm

Of course – returning to reason and given how easily life siphoning can become OP – it’s possible this is simply round number one. They’re taking baby steps to see what impact the scaling will have on the game. Then – if we’re good little necro boys and girls – Santa Grenth may reward us with some improvement to the scaling come Wintersday.

Maybe we don’t need to wait that long, though. Let’s get this baby on the fast track by bypassing the crawl stage and go straight into full-blown sprinting. We need look no further than our friendly neighborhood elementalist. You know…the profession that has THIS for a heal-per-second:

Signet of Restoration

Passive: Grants health every time you cast a spell.
Active: Heal yourself.

Healing (active): 3,275 + (0.5 x Healing Power)
Healing per cast (passive): 202 + (0.1 x Healing Power)

Given that an ele can auto-attack once per second, this means they can theoretically heal for 202+ health per second. They don’t even have to hit their target; they just have to cast a spell. As far as I’m aware, hit or miss, they still heal (eles feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). This from a single healing skill. All the time. Consistently.

This means a precedent has been established in the game that healing for this amount per second is not considered OP or unbalanced.

Now let’s look at a necro with Vampiric and Bloodthirst. Since the patch, I’m currently life siphoning 40 points per hit in a level 80 zone. Let me emphasize that; that’s 40 points per hit. I have to actually connect with a target and do damage to activate life siphoning; not simply slashing at thin air. Daze me, stun me, immobilize me and stay out of reach, knock me down, knock me back, push me, pull me, launch me, dodge, evade, block, blink, teleport, go invulnerable, out run me; I won’t be life siphoning anything. Granted, in many of those cases, an ele wouldn’t be healing from Signet of Restoration, either; but not all.

Already we’re at a disadvantage as a result of the restriction requiring us to hit a target to life siphon coupled with our poor mobility. I’m not asking to change that; I’m fine with having to connect with a target to steal their health. However, I’m calling for it to be brought up to par with the healing-per-second that an ele (or even other professions) can achieve.

I recall reading once that our dagger auto-attack chain takes 1.4 seconds to complete a full cycle. That’s four attacks in 1.4 seconds. Using my previous life siphoning value of 40 per hit, that’s 160 healing in 1.4 seconds or 114 healing per second. That’s WITH some scaling already taken into account at 300 Healing Power. That’s WITH investing 20 points into and equiping two traits from the Blood Magic line. That’s WITH the assumption I connect with a target rather than simply slashing at thin air with my dagger.

Then, just to rub a little more salt into the wound, the 202 healing of the ele is BASE; it just scales up from there by 10% of Healing Power with no ceiling. Contrast this with necros who’s scaling is set at specific points rather than an unlimited percent of Healing Power and which tops out at only 6 extra points of life siphoning max. That’s pathetic!

(continued in next post)

(continued)

Okay, I ranted enough. Now onto the suggested solution. If we’re going to use the ele’s base healing from Signet of Restoration as our standard of comparison, then necros using the Bloodthirst and Vampiric traits with 150 Healing Power (assuming 15 points into Blood Magic to get these traits and no other source of Healing Power) should be life siphoning 70 health per hit:

Ele healing from Signet of Restoration + auto-attack once per second = 202+ health per second

202+ health per second x 1.4 seconds = 282.8 healing

282.8 healing / 4 attacks (necros dagger auto-attack chain is 4 distinct attacks) = 70.7 life siphoning per hit (I round down to 70)

Too much you say? OP, you claim? Yet it’s perfectly acceptable to have an ele doing that much healing and more (by scaling with Healing Power)? Why is it that the profession that specializes in manipulating life and death is being outhealed by the profession who specializes in attuning to the elements? Note that this isn’t a rant against elementalists; rather, it’s a rant to demonstrate that necro healing-per-second is not up to par (especially blood necros who should, IMHO, have some of the best – if not THE best – healing-per-second in the game).

The other counter-argument where life siphoning is concerned is we can deal more than 1 hit per second when you factor in AoE such as Locust Swarm, marks, and wells. I agree this is true. However, it’s insufficient as a counter-argument because it fails to take into consideration that, with the exception of Mark of Blood, those skills all have relatively long cool downs.

A necro may spike with a lot of AoE and gain insane amounts of life siphoning during the few seconds of that spike. Once it’s over, though, they drop back to the much more modest amount of life siphoning that will come from their auto-attack. Furthermore, all of this supposed OP AoE healing still suffers from the same restriction noted earlier; it has to hit to siphon. If an opponent stays one step ahead of Locust Swarm, dodge rolls through a mark, or walks outside of a well, there’s no life siphoning.

Obviously, this wouldn’t apply to PvE; mobs don’t dodge nor do they tend to run away. Therefore, in the interest of balancing with PvE in mind along with the potential for insanely OP life siphoning AoE spikes, I suggest this:

Keep the current base life siphoning values unchanged. Change Vampiric from improving life siphons along a 6-point scale and instead make it scale at 3% of Healing Power for the healing and 1% of Power for the damage. ArenaNet has already demonstrated they can separate the damage from the healing; so just change it from scaling at set points to scaling as a percentage with no ceiling.

With this proposed change, at 1,500 Healing Power a blood necro would siphon:

38 (Vampiric + Bloodthirst) + (0.03 × 1,500) = 83 life siphoned per hit (this is not how much damage they would deal; that would likely be a lesser value given how much Power a necro would have to sacrifice to achieve 1,500 Healing Power).

This is more than my previous calculation where I was advocating 70 life siphoned per hit. Recall, though, that was comparing it to the ele’s base healing using Signet of Restoration and by how much life siphoning would need to be improved just to reach parity with that base. For comparison, an ele with that same 1,500 Healing Power would heal for 352 health per spell cast; with auto-attack, this can be done once per second! Life siphoning – even with the improvements I suggest here – doesn’t look so OP now, does it?

Since ArenaNet has lead the way in separating damage from healing with the recent change to Vampiric, the life siphoning mechanic can now be balanced to give us the sustain we need as an attrition class without becoming OP relative to the damage it deals. We’re on the right track; just adjust it a little bit more as per this suggestion or some other solution and I think our life siphoning will be just right. An extra 6 points of life siphoning if you max Healing Power is NOT “just right”, though. It’s far from being “just right”; it’s a slap in the face with a cold, slimy, dead fish.