Guild Wars 2

Wow I finally got all my skills on my Necro, ad this was e last skill like others suggested to me.

Wow this skill sucks big time. By far the worst skill in the game!!

Not sure how this ever made it out of testing.

What’s your thoughts? Am I just tripping or is this skill legit?

It’s as bad as you think it is. There’s really no reason to use it.

Yes…..it is absolutely horrible. Why? BECAUSE SECOND HEALTH BAR OP!!!!!

Nah, worst skill in the game goes to Artillery Barrage (Charr elite). No doubt about a lower damage Meteor Shower with melee cast range and eight times the cooldown.

Signet of Vampirism’s passive is terrible, but the active is decent. The only real downside to the skill is that there isn’t really a reason to use it. Want sustained healing? Blood Fiend. Damage from a healing skill? Also Blood Fiend. Party healing? Well of Blood. Self-healing? Consume Conditions.

The active of the skill isn’t bad (anymore), it just has issues beating out the competition.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Nah, worst skill in the game goes to Artillery Barrage (Charr elite). No doubt about a lower damage Meteor Shower with melee cast range and eight times the cooldown.

Signet of Vampirism’s passive is terrible, but the active is decent. The only real downside to the skill is that there isn’t really a reason to use it. Want sustained healing? Blood Fiend. Damage from a healing skill? Also Blood Fiend. Party healing? Well of Blood. Self-healing? Consume Conditions.

The active of the skill isn’t bad (anymore), it just has issues beating out the competition.

I think SoVs niche should be in a bloodmagic/siphon build. And it is you stated, changing the passive would probably enough for it (like making it a siphon on hitting not on getting hit). And if Anet would finally allow the siphon traits to work in DS a siphon build could be rather strong.

the active effect is terrible. It should only heal the necro, not every singel player hitting your target.

rivurivurivurivu.3041:

the active effect is terrible. It should only heal the necro, not every singel player hitting your target.

More players means more of the stacks get consumed, meaning more damage.

The active is fine now.

Its only use is its synergy with signet mastery.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The problem with this signet now is that there’s no play with the passive. You have to get hit repeatedly, and it doesn’t compensate enough for the numerous big hits. It’s also terrible for when you get hit repeatedly in succession and that ICD is active. Making it when YOU hit the foe without an ICD creates play because you can go after someone or hit multiple foes at once and try to cleave for major siphons. It also creates counterplay because it means if an enemy can keep distance from your fast melee hits or LOS your range attacks, you don’t get any heals. I think that sort of stuff would make it a great skill, not to mention it would increase PvE DPS and give Necros more oomph for dungeon clearing.

Passive: Siphon life when you strike a foe.
Active: Heal yourself and mark a foe. Allied players will siphon life from that enemy.
Initial Self Heal: 3,960 (0.5)
Passive Life Siphon Damage: 102 (0.05)
Active Life Siphon Damage: 392 (0.2)
Vampiric Mark (10s): Life is siphoned when struck by players
Range: 1200

Note the removal of the ICD, note how it siphons when you strike a foe, not when a foe strikes you. Lastly, it now lasts 10 seconds instead of 6 so that you can actually get more stacks off if you are alone.

I know it sounds stupid, but maybe the rework of this skill could bring a good support necro into PvE:
The active could stay as it is, but the passive could be more passive: when the necro get healed via siphoning, it heals that much to the party also.
With this change, the necro meta could be a dps/support hybrid necro. a 6/4/0/4/0 or 6/5/0/3/0 Sinister/Rampager could be a moderate direct/condi dps hybrid with a lot of support potential on team heal. Just think: blood magic vampiric, vampiric precision, vampiric rituals/master, maybe spite’s parasitic contagion could trigger the effect too. Cuz if necro don’t get any team potential imporvement, this could be the only way to make it a viable PvE potential.

What do you guys think of it?

The biggest problem with that idea is that signet passives really need to function on their own. Mesmers get a pass on those that interact with illusions because literally every weapon set has a clone and a phantasm on it, so they can’t have a build that doesn’t have illusions. But say a Necro is running a typical terrormancer build. Signet of Vampirism now has no passive in that case.

Elbritil.3817:

I know it sounds stupid, but maybe the rework of this skill could bring a good support necro into PvE:
The active could stay as it is, but the passive could be more passive: when the necro get healed via siphoning, it heals that much to the party also.
With this change, the necro meta could be a dps/support hybrid necro. a 6/4/0/4/0 or 6/5/0/3/0 Sinister/Rampager could be a moderate direct/condi dps hybrid with a lot of support potential on team heal. Just think: blood magic vampiric, vampiric precision, vampiric rituals/master, maybe spite’s parasitic contagion could trigger the effect too. Cuz if necro don’t get any team potential imporvement, this could be the only way to make it a viable PvE potential.

What do you guys think of it?

I have suggested something similar for a while now.

The idea basically consisted of taking the vampiric rituals trait & changing it so that it caused the necro to siphon health from the enemy & share that health with nearby allies whenever he/she strikes an enemy.

The scaling would be between 60-80 health per strike which would work rather well with rapid attack weapons like the dagger, warhorn & axe + it would give the necro a reason to go into blood magic.

I have also suggested that they change the trait renewing blast so that it causes life blast to explode on impact in a 200 unit radius healing allies & damaging enemies.

As for your idea. Signet of vampirism would be much better of it caused the necro to siphon health with every attack. Similar to the vampiric trait but stronger & without the internal cool down.
It would also be much better if the active was changed into a buff that was granted to allies lasting 10 seconds instead of a debuff on the enemy. This would allow for use against multiple enemies within the active time frame.

For me was enough to just read the description.

The big problem with SoV’s passive is that the opportunity for life stealing is small. Necros try not to get hit too often. And in PvE, the slow enemy attack speed will actually have a negative impact on your healing ability if you use this.

The simplest fix would be to buff the numbers: steal more health from attacker per proc. Or, it could steal from the attacker and other nearby enemies: one attacks, you steal from them all. Or, add a second condition: steal from nearby enemies every time you dodge. Or, remove the condition that the enemy be attacking you: steal health whenever a nearby foe uses a skill.

It should at least give us more total procs over time than Well of Blood, if it’s to be worth using.

SoV does damage with its siphons. If you do not need full heals and condition clears, SoV adds to dps and ally support heals.

Anchoku.8142:

SoV does damage with its siphons.

Only if you get hit. You would need to take a lot of (preferably small) hits for the passive to pay off.

Ironically, your best chance to use this optimally is against another vampiric necro, since they’re built to deliver the constant flurry of small hits you need to make SoV work.

Gulesave.5073:

Anchoku.8142:

SoV does damage with its siphons.

Only if you get hit. You would need to take a lot of (preferably small) hits for the passive to pay off.

Ironically, your best chance to use this optimally is against another vampiric necro, since they’re built to deliver the constant flurry of small hits you need to make SoV work.

The passive isn’t a siphon at all. That, plus the 1 second ICD means that to get the most benefit, you need to take infrequent, small hits. Which is virtually never.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

rivurivurivurivu.3041:

the active effect is terrible. It should only heal the necro, not every singel player hitting your target.

More players means more of the stacks get consumed, meaning more damage.

The active is fine now.

yeah i now but my point was that if a stack is consumed it should heal the necro not the player consuming it. right now in pve (only place to use it imo) its a 2k heal +3 might stack with a 28 sec cd if traited. you se the stacks fly disappear in a group of ppl that gets a tiny miserable heal.

In fact, SoV is just another example of how much the staff overvalue life siphon.
The damage part of all necro siphon is a joke even in full power build.
The healing part require a full investment in your build (granted that you don’t use a minion build) to show a bit of potential. (this mean full healing gear, vampirism runes, dagger/WH, full vampirism trait and well build… I won’t talk about the looooooong cd on well that hurt this build)
SoV is the exact same thing. It could have been interresting if passive hadn’t any gcd by granting, de facto, a passive direct damage reduction but the gcd just hurt to much. Active part grant a minor party dps boost and a minor heal that don’t really have any use.
So like spoj said, it’s only interesting if you want to spec in signet which have all a long CD.

NB: Thieves are also crippled by this fear of life siphon by the way they designed venom.
NB²: I will never understand why they fear healing gear to the point that they separate the damage part and healing part.

The signet goes against the playstyle of the necromancer, where you use CC such as fear and stun to control the fight, giving you windows of opportunity to attack/defend. SoV supposedly heals more than healing signet on warrior (392 compared to 362 health per second) and damage to boot. It compensates by a longer cooldown and slightly larger heal compared to the healing signet. However, while warriors make use of blocks, we are stuck eating whatever damage we are hit by instead.

No, Signet of Vampirism’s passive does not cause any damage. Why do people keep talking about it like it does?

I use signet of vampirism in pvp and I love it. Try it with a cele build.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

I use signet of vampirism in pvp and I love it. Try it with a cele build.

You poor soul.

Knighthonor.4061:

and this was the last skill others suggested to me.

wait…
some evil people actually told you to get it?!

it is utterly USELESS
the passive heals for less than healing signet (which heals constantly, forever), but SoV only heals if you’re getting hit.

i won’t even begin to talk about the active, utterly trash skill.

they should remove the cooldown from the passive and make the active boost the effects of all life syphons by a large amount.

SoV’s passive doesn’t work while in DS, and has an ICD while still being weaker in ideal situations than other passive heals. That should sum up the general problems with the entire profession atm.

It can be made to work, but not alone and I never take it except when playing my not-so-much-condi/DS/regen-crack-build-since-it-seems-to-work-and-does-better than-my-former-pre-nerfed-condi/wells-build, build. :p

It needs high healing power, Unholy Sanctuary and a lot of regeneration to do so. Basically instead of building around SoV, you’re building around Unholy Sanctuary and chain DSing instead. All I know (actually I crunch the numbers like every build before I invest in it) is that I take a lot more concentrated punishment on par or sometimes much higher than my Warrior/Guardian counterparts.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t something very wrong with SoV or that DS and Non-DS interaction doesn’t have lingering flaws. The passive should at least have a true siphon like originally (before making it to live servers) by damaging the person who procs it, since it only hits one target per second since. I’m not sure about it procing on Necro hitting an enemy, because it would no longer regen Necromancers when they’re stun-locked.

It was sad seeing the skill at its most optimal before it was even released, only to see nerfs applied to it on patch day and the reason for nerfs entirely removed at the same time lol.

The active needs to be redesigned imo. What it does now works in theory, but not in practice. It should probably buff you and nearby allies within 600 range with five stacks of Vampiric Mark. Kind of like I don’t know… Order of the Vampire/Pain from GW1? Make it about a 6-10 second duration only procing the charges when players have health missing.

Consume Conditions is one of the best healing skills in game, dont have any other even unlocked ankitten ot bothered with other necro healing skills.

L U X A.9452:

Consume Conditions is one of the best healing skills in game, dont have any other even unlocked ankitten ot bothered with other necro healing skills.

It’s actually ironic. After all the Necromancer “fixes” and “reworks,” there’s actually less reasons to use anything but Consume Conditions than before them.

The most viable alternative was Well of Blood. It was fixed to be “more instant” (probably because of all the complaints about people walking out of them, it not being an instant group heal etc.). The result was most of it’s self, group and siphon healing potential being lost in implementation and no longer viable compared to other options (even compared to SoV imo) for sustain. This coming from someone with the actual healing gear to tests this out. It’s much more trait/build friendly to just spec DS instead of Wells, while using transfusion/deathly invigoration for your main support heals if you even go that way.

- Blood Fiend is only useful on near to full MM builds.

- WoB is only useful if you know your not going to die, have lots of healing power and are worried about healing NPCs and other VIPs over time. Again not really good anymore at self-sustain or group healing since it’s pulses for so little time, that it doesn’t feel in the “gaps” of spike heals like it used to and siphons a lot less health with vampiric rituals.

- SoV I find is only useful on high healing power builds centered around DS as mentioned in my last post, or high healing power MM builds so you can get rid of Blood Fiend (so there’s no regen downtime on its death).

- Consume Conditions is rock solid on the other hand. Pretty much a must on any Power build for the condi clear, benefits from it and has a decent recharge time. What more could you want?

…other than viable alternatives…

Long cool down, terrible passive, low self healing for our health pool, active is situational at best. Yeah, that sums it up. And with the nerf to might the buff it gives from signet mastery is even worse now. Good job.

Elbritil.3817:

I know it sounds stupid, but maybe the rework of this skill could bring a good support necro into PvE:

Forget it. It had that potential before the skill was implemented into the game, and the developers deliberately decided against it, in favor of making the skill absolutely rubbish.

Why, is beyond me. But they did it. And I doubt they’ll double back on it.

Its decent within a niche theme build with at least 4 in blood magic. Combine with life leech food, blood sigils, and regen boon, and vamprism on hit/crit traits you can heal truck loads, not to mention flat damage increase from 50-100 per hit, take into mind that if you were doing a 1000, with every hit of your dagger that amounts to a 5%-10% damage boost, and it even procs off Locus swarm. Mix of Zealots gear and your choice of clerics or w.e. Here’s a hint too, try it with a power varriant build using Unholy Sanctuary. You can use Death Shroud as a damage sponge with CC utility.Dagger Life Siphon as will will heal quite a decent amount as well with everything combined. Active of SoV will heal nicely as well, for around 700 every proc after the initial burst heal.

With Consume condition, yes its nearly a must have heal skill but if you have consistent minor removal and condi transfers, you can do decently without it.

Even if the developers do not want Necromancer to heal well with it or heal allies well, they could at least do something like have each siphon also transfer one condition or convert one condition to a boon.

I think it’s hilarious that as a class that can manipulate and use the very essence of life itself, we have the worst heals (besides consume conditions which is easily interrupted) and support in the game, heck we don’t even have a good revive skill except on signet of undeath!

Signet of Vampirism is a fairly good healing skill but unlike Consume Conditions it does require a few specific traits to shine.

The Bloodthirst trait from the Blood Magic line increases the siphoning damage and heal of SoV and Signet Mastery from the Spite line decreases the cooldown. Typically, if you can hit once a second for 5 seconds with SoV’s active then it would be on par with a Consume Conditions that consumes two conditions.

In terms of group healing, and a party of 4 + you, an untraited SoV is on par with Well of Blood if each member of the party hits once every second for 5 seconds. A traited SoV under the same conditions heals for more than Well of Blood and on a much lower cooldown. Additionally, SoV provides damage for each Vampiric Mark consumed.

Simply, use Consume Conditions when you encounter many conditions or do not wish to trait into the Blood Magic line and Well of Blood for group healing. Though it would require 4 points into Blood Magic if you wish to reduce the recharge time of wells. To make the most of Signet of Vampirism you would need at least two points in Blood Magic and two points in Spite to maximize the potency of the skill.Though to make the most of SoV it needs to be placed on an enemy that will not die quickly though on the other hand there is no limit to the amount of people that can consume a Vampiric Mark charge. Otherwise, Well of Blood is easier to use for group-based healing.

Finally, all of the above is based upon a healing power of 450 which can be reached without any healing power equipment though it does require a large amount of power, Death into Life Master level minor trait and 5 points into Blood Magic. Personally, I use Spite – 4; Curses – 5; Blood Magic – 5 with Dagger/Warhorn and Axe/Dagger. With Warhorn 5 you can proc the Vampiric-based traits quite often and typically keeps you above 90% health to make the most of Scholar’s runes.

Corana.9837:

Signet of Vampirism is a fairly good healing skill but unlike Consume Conditions it does require a few specific traits to shine…

All of that is helpful for using the signet’s active ability, but I notice you never mentioned the passive. Without a useful passive ability, a signet is just a half-powered regular skill.

Corana.9837:

Signet of Vampirism is a fairly good healing skill but unlike Consume Conditions it does require a few specific traits to shine.

The Bloodthirst trait from the Blood Magic line increases the siphoning damage and heal of SoV and Signet Mastery from the Spite line decreases the cooldown. Typically, if you can hit once a second for 5 seconds with SoV’s active then it would be on par with a Consume Conditions that consumes two conditions.

In terms of group healing, and a party of 4 + you, an untraited SoV is on par with Well of Blood if each member of the party hits once every second for 5 seconds. A traited SoV under the same conditions heals for more than Well of Blood and on a much lower cooldown. Additionally, SoV provides damage for each Vampiric Mark consumed.

Simply, use Consume Conditions when you encounter many conditions or do not wish to trait into the Blood Magic line and Well of Blood for group healing. Though it would require 4 points into Blood Magic if you wish to reduce the recharge time of wells. To make the most of Signet of Vampirism you would need at least two points in Blood Magic and two points in Spite to maximize the potency of the skill.Though to make the most of SoV it needs to be placed on an enemy that will not die quickly though on the other hand there is no limit to the amount of people that can consume a Vampiric Mark charge. Otherwise, Well of Blood is easier to use for group-based healing.

Finally, all of the above is based upon a healing power of 450 which can be reached without any healing power equipment though it does require a large amount of power, Death into Life Master level minor trait and 5 points into Blood Magic. Personally, I use Spite – 4; Curses – 5; Blood Magic – 5 with Dagger/Warhorn and Axe/Dagger. With Warhorn 5 you can proc the Vampiric-based traits quite often and typically keeps you above 90% health to make the most of Scholar’s runes.

Nope nope and nope. CC is our best heal. If you are strictly a pve player go ahead and use vamp. But some of your information would hinder anyone trying to be effective in pve let alone the rest of the game.

Which information provided would make it difficult for someone to be effective?

As I mentioned if you encounter two conditions or more then Consume Conditions is the better healing option and since you normally do encounter more than two conditions in PvP then that would naturally mean you would use Consume Conditions.

However, the keyword with SoV is if you can “guarantee” the consumption of all 25 Vampiric Marks. If you are able to guarantee that then the group healing aspect, the active heal part, will be on par or outclasses the healing provided by Well of Blood. It is fairly simple to do that in PvE though in PvP you can never make that guarantee on a regular basis.

The reason I did not mention the passive is because the active is already on par with the other healing skills, if traited, and the passive always seemed to be a secondary effect. On its own the passive is lacking because while it does heal for 370 health, at 450 healing power, when you are hit it is weak against multiple attacks and spike damage which is common in both PvE and PvP.

The internal cooldown for the passive essentially makes it so that you have to use it and that you cannot depend on the passives effectiveness, unless you stack the various vampiric-based traits and skills. Personally, if they changed the passive into being affected by Bloodthirst, turn it into a lifesteal, remove the internal cooldown and reduce the healing to 150 to 200 then I would find the passive to be useful.

Corana.9837:

Which information provided would make it difficult for someone to be effective?

As I mentioned if you encounter two conditions or more then Consume Conditions is the better healing option and since you normally do encounter more than two conditions in PvP then that would naturally mean you would use Consume Conditions.

However, the keyword with SoV is if you can “guarantee” the consumption of all 25 Vampiric Marks. If you are able to guarantee that then the group healing aspect, the active heal part, will be on par or outclasses the healing provided by Well of Blood. It is fairly simple to do that in PvE though in PvP you can never make that guarantee on a regular basis.

The reason I did not mention the passive is because the active is already on par with the other healing skills, if traited, and the passive always seemed to be a secondary effect. On its own the passive is lacking because while it does heal for 370 health, at 450 healing power, when you are hit it is weak against multiple attacks and spike damage which is common in both PvE and PvP.

The internal cooldown for the passive essentially makes it so that you have to use it and that you cannot depend on the passives effectiveness, unless you stack the various vampiric-based traits and skills. Personally, if they changed the passive into being affected by Bloodthirst, turn it into a lifesteal, remove the internal cooldown and reduce the healing to 150 to 200 then I would find the passive to be useful.

So you are essentially saying it is decent under perfect conditions?

Mhhh but CC is always a good heal and WoB is always a decent support heal and WoB will overtake SoV if you trait for it and stack healing power, due the far better scaling.

So why should i use a healing skill that only good in pve under the right conditions, when i also could use an other heal, which is always a good choice?

Honestly the niche SoV has is not good enough to justify taking it, though if they would make the passive not bad then maybe it could change.

No, I said that the active for Signet of Vampirism is on par with the other healing skills.

Technically, the conditions for the group healing aspect of the signet is easier to achieve than Well of Blood. Since all you need to do is attack during the 6 seconds the ability is active, there is no restriction to the range your party members have to attack from and party members are not required to stand in a specific location to take full advantage of the healing. Additionally, the signet provides extra damage when a Vampiric Mark is consumed.

However, if you have a healing power stat of 850 then the party heal of Well of Blood equals that of SoV, if SoV is fully traited and you have 450 healing power, and if you have even more healing power then Well of Blood has better group healing and a better initial heal. Simply, Well of Blood is a defensive healing skill while SoV is an offensive healing skill.

Personally, I use CC if I will be regularly afflicted with more than two conditions, Well of Blood if I have a high healing power stat and Signet of Vampirism for most other situations. Mostly, because I have no difficulty consuming the necessary amounts of Vampiric Marks and I use a main-hand dagger. Using Life Siphon with SoV covers the lower initial heal part of SoV and I am able to remain mobile.

Corana.9837:

No, I said that the active for Signet of Vampirism is on par with the other healing skills.

Technically, the conditions for the group healing aspect of the signet is easier to achieve than Well of Blood. Since all you need to do is attack during the 6 seconds the ability is active, there is no restriction to the range your party members have to attack from and party members are not required to stand in a specific location to take full advantage of the healing. Additionally, the signet provides extra damage when a Vampiric Mark is consumed.

However, if you have a healing power stat of 850 then the party heal of Well of Blood equals that of SoV, if SoV is fully traited and you have 450 healing power, and if you have even more healing power then Well of Blood has better group healing and a better initial heal. Simply, Well of Blood is a defensive healing skill while SoV is an offensive healing skill.

Personally, I use CC if I will be regularly afflicted with more than two conditions, Well of Blood if I have a high healing power stat and Signet of Vampirism for most other situations. Mostly, because I have no difficulty consuming the necessary amounts of Vampiric Marks and I use a main-hand dagger. Using Life Siphon with SoV covers the lower initial heal part of SoV and I am able to remain mobile.

Pretty sure what we are all saying is healing power is dogpoo and any build that uses it on a necro is dogpoo so any build that could use SoV at even close to the same effectiveness as CC is dogpoo and without healing power it’s dogpoo. Therefore SoV is dogpoo unless your doing mindless stacking in a corner and pressing 1.

Having been running around roaming in WvW with Zealot’s gear on my Necro, I would like to challenge the assertion that healing power is a terrible stat on Necros. I find it quite good with mainhand dagger now, and soon it will be pretty good for Signet of the Locust.

Blood Magic and healing have always been tough investments because scaling for siphons and heals was too weak for a profession with such high vitality. Necromancers burn through LF and vitality very quickly. It is good to see continued small improvements to health regeneration skills and scaling with healing power.