Guild Wars 2

What do you think about necro signets? For me, as conditionmancer they looks fun in pvp (take conditions from allies and send to enemy, stack bunch of conditions and then spread with epidemic) on wvw they quite nice, but cooldown even with signet mastery is bit long.

And one problem – without 25% speed necromancer is really slow, but i don’t have place for signet and in condition build i can’t run with daggers+traits =_= (Happy warriors have this bonus with ANY melee weapon, unfair)

P.S. Sorry for bad english.

I also find it painful to run around without Signet of the Locust. Once I get to an area for farming/events I’ll switch it out.

- Spite is just so-so.
- Plague would be nice but if allies run condition cleansing, then why bother?
- Undeath is powerful but very long cooldown and the passive is meh.

A few improvements are still needed, but the signets have come a long way from their state on release, to the better in most cases.

Passives:

Spite – should be condition damage, would make a lot more sense considering it’s active effect is much more desirable in condition builds.

Locust – I’m not a big fan of MS boost, we can get permanent swiftness for mobility pretty easily in open world areas.

Undeath – Needs a higher % on the passive now that the active has casting time longer than a stomp, also should work out of combat.

Plague – Very well designed, but I think it should pull 1 condi from 5 allies nearby every 3 seconds instead of only 1 ally.

Actives :

Spite – Our best active by far, needs no changing.

Locust – Doesn’t scale that well with the number of enemies, values are currently too low. Should have a shorter cooldown or a higher drain, I’m more partial towards the shorter cooldown.

Undeath – The casting time is way too long now, active effect should really be scrapped for another one, otherwise it seems to be impossible to balance. Should have an active that warrants a much shorter cooldown as well.

Plague – Perfectly happy with the synergy between active and passive effect.

Kiriakulos.1690:

A few improvements are still needed, but the signets have come a long way from their state on release, to the better in most cases.

Passives:

Spite – should be condition damage, would make a lot more sense considering it’s active effect is much more desirable in condition builds.

Locust – I’m not a big fan of MS boost, we can get permanent swiftness for mobility pretty easily in open world areas.

Undeath – Needs a higher % on the passive now that the active has casting time longer than a stomp, also should work out of combat.

Plague – Very well designed, but I think it should pull 1 condi from 5 allies nearby every 3 seconds instead of only 1 ally.

Actives :

Spite – Our best active by far, needs no changing.

Locust – Doesn’t scale that well with the number of enemies, values are currently too low. Should have a shorter cooldown or a higher drain, I’m more partial towards the shorter cooldown.

Undeath – The casting time is way too long now, active effect should really be scrapped for another one, otherwise it seems to be impossible to balance. Should have an active that warrants a much shorter cooldown as well.

Plague – Perfectly happy with the synergy between active and passive effect.

I think spites cd should be lower the passive lets it fit in a power build the active fits in a condition build. Not every class gets every passive like power, precision, condition damage, etc.

Locust passive is fine the active is heh? It should turn on some kind of good passive regen or life siphon with a good base and say lasts 10 -20 seconds the active now is heh? It sounds strong at 790 and hits more than 1 person but it isn’t that helpful.

Wait, Locust doesn’t scale well? Locust has (or used to) have one of the most OP scalings ever, because it ended up ignoring the 5 man limit.

Bhawb.7408:

Wait, Locust doesn’t scale well? Locust has (or used to) have one of the most OP scalings ever, because it ended up ignoring the 5 man limit.

Oh right i forgot to mention, they fixed that with the 2nd zeph sanctum patch (when terror got nerfed for 17%, you can still get insane numbers with it if you stack up healing power and got bloodthirst, but since it got changed the active went form situationaly useful to plain worthless in comparison to giving the necro more movementspeed unless you are full cleric.

If locust was a stunbreak id be happy.

Locust scales okay, but I’m pretty sure it’s been capped at 5 for ages now. It about 2/3rds of a dedicated heal skill in 5 enemy scenarios though, which is pretty good in my opinion.

As for signets in general:
I like Spite a lot more now that it’s been buffed, since it’s like sacrificing some passive power in exchange for crippling an enemy completely. Give up some overall damage, get huge condition pressure. It’s a trade of two unlike things, but is close enough in efficacy to be worth considering, occasionally. (Before it just flat-out wasn’t.)
I love the idea of Plague, I just wish it was a little easier to use. The danger of killing yourself with conditions or not being able to pull conditions rapidly enough / pull the right conditions hurts it though.
Undeath is almost entirely its active – the passive is there as a space filler, but that’s okay, in my opinion. I never want someone to hesitate on using SoU because they might need that LF. It’s very much a ‘just in case’ skill, so having the passive be generally appropriate in all situations (if very low power) is a good match.

Well, that makes me sad that they would do another ninja change. I honestly don’t care, it was obviously broken, but seriously guys stop with the BS and tell us about the changes.

Signet of Undeath is rubbish. If it happens at all that a couple of allies are downed, they are rarely close together. And the cast time of the signet is so slow, that you might as well just revive normally. In fact, 2 players reviving a team mate together, is faster than 1 player casting this signet. What they should do is make the effect radius bigger, and make it a fast casting skill. What always confused me the first times I used it, is that it didn’t revive dead players, only downed players. I always wondered…. then what’s the point?! And I realize that ressing dead players during combat is probably not how Anet wants their combat to work. But it fits the necromancer, and it was what I initially expected this signet to do.

Signet of the Locust, I like the speed boost, but the life steal is pathetic. When activating this signet, I’d rather see it apply a temporary effect that makes all our attacks steal a little bit of life while it is active. That would make it perfect for life stealing builds: You lose the speed boost when ever you go in for the kill. But you gain a boost to your life stealing abilities.

Plague – Very well designed, but I think it should pull 1 condi from 5 allies nearby every 3 seconds instead of only 1 ally.

Agreed. And I think the effect radius should be larger. If I equip this for a boss fight, I want it pulling conditions from all allies around me.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Signet of Undeath is rubbish. If it happens at all that a couple of allies are downed, they are rarely close together. And the cast time of the signet is so slow, that you might as well just revive normally. In fact, 2 players reviving a team mate together, is faster than 1 player casting this signet. What they should do is make the effect radius bigger, and make it a fast casting skill. What always confused me the first times I used it, is that it didn’t revive dead players, only downed players. I always wondered…. then what’s the point?! And I realize that ressing dead players during combat is probably not how Anet wants their combat to work. But it fits the necromancer, and it was what I initially expected this signet to do.

Plague – Very well designed, but I think it should pull 1 condi from 5 allies nearby every 3 seconds instead of only 1 ally.

Agreed. And I think the effect radius should be larger. If I equip this for a boss fight, I want it pulling conditions from all allies around me.

“Oh crap, my team mate got knocked down. Better go pick him up.” (Boss monster / enemy player turns around again and kills the reviver) and bam, two targets directly on top of each other that are downed. Also: “2 players reviving a team mate together, is faster than 1 player casting this signet”- I don’t see how this is a problem. SoU makes it so only 1 player is sacrificing time for the revive, and it allows them to do so from a safe 900 range. Having two people revive is tying up half of your remaining team to try and pick someone up off the ground.

iirc, the effect radius on Plague is 1200. It really doesn’t get much bigger than that.

My point being, the signet just casts way too slow. It would be perfect if this signet could quickly help a couple of team mates up. But otherwise you might as well just revive them normally. The difference in speed is hardly any different. And two people lying that close together? That makes the signet way too conditional. It should have a broader use.

Even before they nerfed the cast time it was too slow to save someone in most instances. Its slower than warrior banner by a whole second and banner has a larger radius and buffs aswell. I believe they nerfed signet of undeath because of pvp, but now its just a complete useless pve signet and no longer worth it in pvp aswell.

spoj.9672:

Even before they nerfed the cast time it was too slow to save someone in most instances. Its slower than warrior banner by a whole second and banner has a larger radius and buffs aswell. I believe they nerfed signet of undeath because of pvp, but now its just a complete useless pve signet and no longer worth it in pvp aswell.

That’s precisely what happened and why I’m advocating changing the active altogether.
A new active could allow for better synergy with the passive, buffing the passive and giving us something a lot less (Letter)Boring. <Guess why this got censored.

Wish atleast the passive worked with Death shroud , Lichform , plaque etc to give the class some much needed synergy.

Spite – Was meh before, cdr made it perfect for necro, no changes needed (additional power for hybrid setups, condi burst for condi)

Plague – Kinda terrible in inplementation, not only is it a buggy stun break, but it uses the same projectile nonsense as CB for the transfer.
Passive should just make it that all condis that would be applied in the aoe apply to you instead, active be a self epidemic cast that doesnt copy but transfer your condis (or just a cleanse).

Undeath was ok, pvp balance made it kitten , but still quite useful when bad zerkers stack up but dont know the mechanics or why and when to stack, so a 3/4 people rez in most situations when i have it slotted in.
Honestly it would be cooler if it was a self rez or if it turned dead (defeated) people into minions (hint hint would be cool traits), but for balance all thats needed to make it a good use of a slot is reversing the ratio on the passive, so 3% LF pre second in combat OR just make it work all the time.

Locust was baddas because it was buggy, but they fixed it, 25% is now worth more in every situation where the active could have been useful.
My suggestion was making its active a strong single target siphon (like Dagger 2 x2 in terms of damage and health gain and instant) and maybe a stun break.

Also yeah signets need to work in DS.

My issue with Signet of Undeath, is that you’d have to bring it just in case your team does something profoundly stupid. So the only time when you’ll be swapping this thing in, is before a boss fight, and then wait for that moment to happen. And if it doesn’t, you’ve pretty much wasted a skill slot for the entire battle. If you do get to use it, yay…. but now it is on cool down for the rest of the battle. Was that worth it? You could also have brought something that protects your team, such as well of darkness, for that slot.

And what is your skillbar on average going to look like at a boss battle? Mine usually involves a stunbreaker, a condition removal, and a damage skill. I might bring Blood is Power for DPS, or Well of Corruption for the aoe. Usually Spectral Walk is there as a stunbreaker, and Well of Power for conditions. It I look at Signet of Undeath, all I see is a wasted slot.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

And if it doesn’t, you’ve pretty much wasted a skill slot for the entire battle. If you do get to use it, yay…. but now it is on cool down for the rest of the battle. Was that worth it? You could also have brought something that protects your team, such as well of darkness, for that slot.

This part can easily be fixed if they made some universal traits across all (well most) professions, the 20% cdr +3 might for 15 should be universal, but so should a Signet passives stick to you even if you activate it, easy 1 GM trait that fits almost all professions (not engie for obvious reasons) and makes different types of builds viable, but no only ele get them for god knows what reason. I could go on with different traits, but in general, if you can drop that special banner or SoU rez, it can be the difference between a wipe and a easy fight (in some rare cases, since it is true that people need to do something very stupid or not be on a good profession for the fight for it to be required).

Signet of Spite: Perfect as-is. Splitting the ability’s potency like this is a good thing. I know it feels weird because it’s not absolutely perfect for anything but hybrid builds but it still has a lot to offer for everyone else, giving it interesting use cases without overshadowing other options. You can take Plague Signet in condi builds for some extra burst if you want and it’ll work fine for those builds; Power is never a “bad” stat to get a bit more of, and it actually does the most work for you the less you have. You can also take it for power builds when you don’t know what else to bring, and then it’s still good as a defensive blast.

Signet of the Locust: It’s on my bar 90% of the time in open-world PvE and WvW, and thank Grenth for its existence. It’s a quality-of-life thing. Mesmers, Guardians, and Warriors wish they had something as awesome as this; they all have to give up something (runes, cooldowns, weapon choices, etc) just to not be painfully slow whereas we can just slot and unslot this as required. The active is kinda lame though. Remove the casting time and it would be an awesome emergency heal. As it stands, you’re rarely better off wasting the casting time to use it. It’d be an even better option if Necros had better reasons to stack Healing Power.

Plague Signet: I don’t use this much but it has really good potential in niche situations. It’s a good toy for us to play around with and probably shouldn’t be changed much, if at all. Actually now that I look more closely at it, I may start slotting this more often.

Signet of Undead: The passive is pretty decent, though it could stand to be improved, the active effect is amazing, and the cooldown is very reasonable for these kinds of skills. 2 seconds was a bit too short on the cast time but 3 seconds seems too long. Maybe 2.5 seconds would be just right?

spoj.9672:

Even before they nerfed the cast time it was too slow to save someone in most instances.

From what I understand, high-level sPvP Necros considered Signet of Undeath to be permanently stapled to their utility bars pre-nerf. Not sure about it now. Don’t underestimate the ability to res multiple allies at once at range while still being able to walk around. I credit the success of many of my Arah runs with pugs to this skill.

I’ve noticed that Plague Signet severely suffers from the fact that all our skills are disabled for a few seconds after exiting DS. It’s one of those skills that can be great to collect conditions from your allies, but it also has the potential to get you killed. So being able to quickly throw them back at enemies becomes essential. But it also collects conditions while in DS, and that is dangerous (since you can’t quickly switch back to using your signet). Yet another reason why we should be able to use our signets while in DS.

Signet of Undead was too good for pvp because it takes longer to finish off downed players in pvp. In pve people can get focused by mobs or hit my boss attacks and defeated much faster. It renders the signet almost useless in its current state. Heck even the warbanner is a gamble sometimes but atleast its a more reasonable one. Signet is just a complete waste of a slot in pve because 9/10 times they are going to die before you finish casting. They could split it in pve/pvp or just reduce the cast time and increase cooldown? If they increase cooldown I would like a larger radius or the ability to res 5 with it instead of 3.

spoj.9672:

If they increase cooldown I would like a larger radius or the ability to res 5 with it instead of 3.

Yeah, I would be all for a split, with a much shorter cast time in PVE. Or to have the radius increased to just every ally in earshot. Currently the signet never makes it onto my skillbar. What are really the battles where you’d bring this signet? Lupicus? The Flame Shaman? I’m not going to stand still at the Flame Shaman just to res someone with this skill, while being barbequed by the boss as I’m casting. And if you’re waiting for that moment when two players are downed together, you might end up finishing the fight without ever using the signet.

And even if by a stroke of luck two players are downed close together, one of them is probably dead before you finish casting that signet. So from a practical point of view, if you bring this signet, you might as well use it on a single player that goes down. Because then at least it will have served a purpose during the fight. But that kind of defeats the purpose of bringing the signet at all.

I doubt Ill ever take it, even if it does get improved. It is probably our worst signet. I still want locust to be a stunbreak though. I would however consider taking undeath if the passive was really good and worked inside DS. I want all the passives to work in DS but they dont.

spoj.9672:

I doubt Ill ever take it, even if it does get improved. It is probably our worst signet. I still want locust to be a stunbreak though. I would however consider taking undeath if the passive was really good and worked inside DS. I want all the passives to work in DS but they dont.

Locust active in general needs a rework now post ninja fix.