Guild Wars 2

I’m one of those Necros that loves all things siphoning, so naturally Signet of Vampirism is something I want to make work. But as far as self-healing is concerned, this ability is beyond horrible, as I’m sure many of you know. It has a long cooldown, doesn’t remove conditions (I feel this has to be mentioned when it’s competing with Consume Conditions for a slot), doesn’t heal for much, and the part of it that would be awesome – the siphoning – is limited by an icd to the point of near uselessness. Let’s not even get into the passive… it’s really bad.

So it’s getting buffed, yay! One extra second to the active ability. Uhm… still a horrible passive, still a long cd, still doesn’t remove conditions, still limited by an icd, and you get maybe 1 extra siphon out of the active. What is the point?

The only conclusion I can come up with is that maybe SoV is actually balanced as more of a support ability than anything, to be used only in one extreme situation: You have lots of healing power and a group of about 5 people (less = unused stacks, more = insignificant healing on each person) who are either unable to stack for Well of Blood or you don’t want WoB’s light field interfering with other fields, and everyone’s focusing a single target, and you don’t need much healing or condition removal yourself. That’s… incredibly niche, but the 1 extra second would mean maybe ~5 more total siphons.

Someone help me out here… the ability got attention from Arena Net, and got only a seemingly insignificant buff. It must be good for something more, else why this small change? ><

They should make it an utility in it’s current state.
There is no reason this signet should be classified as a healing skill at all, because it simply isn’t.

They way I see it, is that it needs to have the shortest CD of all our healing skills to warrant its lesser self heal potential. If the CD was around 15-18 seconds I might be interested. I can live with a smaller heal if I instead get to use my heal more frequently.

edit: make that 20 seconds for starters so we have the same as healing signet.

CratZ.6270:

They way I see it, is that it needs to have the shortest CD of all our healing skills to warrant its lesser self heal potential. If the CD was around 15-18 seconds I might be interested. I can live with a smaller heal if I instead get to use my heal more frequently.

edit: make that 20 seconds for starters so we have the same as healing signet.

That might work. Currently you can get it down to 28s with the Spite trait, but that’s still longer than Consume Conditions.

I think it would be excellent if unused stacks turned into something… say, each unused stack reduces the cd by idk 0.5s – before the cdr trait. And reduce the base cd to 30s. It applies 25 stacks, you use 5, the cd’s reduced by 10s. Untraited would make it 20s, traited would be 16s. It would improve its usefulness when solo without making it too strong in groups. Bump up the numbers a bit, rework the passive and it’d be a good ability.

But nothing like this happened, it got a buff but is hardly different, so what’s the deal? ><

I’d maybe remove the support part, make the stacks only useable by the necromancer and remove active icd, adjust stack numbers if too strong to 20 or 15.
Or just rework completely to have something like
passive – steal life on hit
active – heal and steal life from attackers for the next (25) hits taken

Even with 1s additional duration it’s still a no pick. Consume conditions and well of blood are way more useful

Has anyone found it favorable in PvP?

The concept is simple; trade healing for additional dps through siphons. That is why I think the heal is so weak.

Consume Conditions clears conditions for an even stronger heal and WoB heals an AoE and is often used in a traited wells build along with WoP for synergy. A similar synergy is possible for Blood Fiend.

Signets have what for synergy? Who runs all signets? SoV requires Plague signet to clear conditions. That is two slots with poor heal and long condi removal CD just to transfer conditions to an opponent and siphon a little health.

I understand how it is supposed to work: A Spite – Blood Magic vampiric build seems like it should work but I have not had much luck with it. I even tried to mix signets and minions.

People might hate me for this, but In CoH (I know some of you hate it) but Dark Melee had Siphon life that worked exactly like some people are wishing SoV worked. Low CD for minimal heals. If SoV had a shorter cool down and probably the same healing potential for a self heal, then this could be a bit of a game changer.

Anchoku.8142:

Signets have what for synergy? Who runs all signets? SoV requires Plague signet to clear conditions. That is two slots with poor heal and long condi removal CD just to transfer conditions to an opponent and siphon a little health.

I understand how it is supposed to work: A Spite – Blood Magic vampiric build seems like it should work but I have not had much luck with it. I even tried to mix signets and minions.

I’ve been using a 20/0/25/25/0 PvE build that uses lots of Signets and siphons with Knight armor, and it’s… good for the most part. Tanky enough to not go squish along with the zerkers in the group, but unable to facetank all the things – can take a hit, kite and heal, and repeat, using SoV mostly to get other people healed (and do damage I suppose). I have Spite Signet just for the stat boost, Plague Signet for condition removal (and a little support since I can take more damage than others), and Locust Signet for out-of-combat speed and in-combat healings. I do swap some of them out for other things depending on fights of course, usually Wells.

The biggest downfall I’ve noticed is when you have no enemies around, you can’t heal well or remove conditions. Also getting spammed with knockdowns and such really hurts. But there are a couple ways around these things.

But anyhoo, I guess SoV really isn’t that bad, it’s just a little difficult to see all that it’s doing. I mean with my current gear, if I can get 4 siphons from the active it heals a tad more than Consume Conditions with 1 condition, and also can heal the whole group plus do some damage – 9150 with all 25 charges (scales with your power, so more with might), not too shabby. So it’s really more about the support where Well of Blood is inappropriate, imo.

Tulzscha.4231:

Anchoku.8142:

Signets have what for synergy? Who runs all signets? SoV requires Plague signet to clear conditions. That is two slots with poor heal and long condi removal CD just to transfer conditions to an opponent and siphon a little health.

I understand how it is supposed to work: A Spite – Blood Magic vampiric build seems like it should work but I have not had much luck with it. I even tried to mix signets and minions.

I’ve been using a 20/0/25/25/0 PvE build that uses lots of Signets and siphons with Knight armor, and it’s… good for the most part. Tanky enough to not go squish along with the zerkers in the group, but unable to facetank all the things – can take a hit, kite and heal, and repeat, using SoV mostly to get other people healed (and do damage I suppose). I have Spite Signet just for the stat boost, Plague Signet for condition removal (and a little support since I can take more damage than others), and Locust Signet for out-of-combat speed and in-combat healings. I do swap some of them out for other things depending on fights of course, usually Wells.

The biggest downfall I’ve noticed is when you have no enemies around, you can’t heal well or remove conditions. Also getting spammed with knockdowns and such really hurts. But there are a couple ways around these things.

But anyhoo, I guess SoV really isn’t that bad, it’s just a little difficult to see all that it’s doing. I mean with my current gear, if I can get 4 siphons from the active it heals a tad more than Consume Conditions with 1 condition, and also can heal the whole group plus do some damage – 9150 with all 25 charges (scales with your power, so more with might), not too shabby. So it’s really more about the support where Well of Blood is inappropriate, imo.

I see a major flaw in your reasoning. You said you use it to heal allies… Take well of blood. It heals for much more for both you and your allies.

I seriously would have just preferred the signet to just magnify your self heals passively by 1.5x and maybe 2x if your target is bleeding or something. The active could then be something else entirely.

This signet will never feel right as long as anet just tweaks numbers on the current version.

Why this small of a change? Because a buff is a buff, even if its minor. This addressed a very important concern, which was the fact that a single Necromancer couldn’t realistically proc more than 4 hits of it, and that a group of 5 couldn’t really proc all 25. This at least allows that to happen.

Is it enough? No, nor do they say this will be it. But it solved one problem with the skill and it gives it a small buff before the skill gets others later.

Lily.1935:

I see a major flaw in your reasoning. You said you use it to heal allies… Take well of blood. It heals for much more for both you and your allies.

Well of Blood is not always better. It requires your group to be stacked and stay stacked for 10s to get the full effect – people do this a lot, I know, but it doesn’t always happen especially in pugs – and the combo field could interfere with other, more useful ones.

Signet of Vampirism has a (slightly) shorter cooldown, deals damage in addition to healing, does that healing in half the time of Well of Blood and has higher base healing through siphons with lower scaling and is affected by Bloodthirst.

From the Wiki:

WoB: 152 healing per second for 10s, total 11 ticks (I think) = 1672 with 40% scaling.

SoV: 392 healing per hit for soon to be 6s. kittens (variable, I think 5 will be max with the 6s duration and it works with 5 party members + the 25 stacks) = 1960 with 20% scaling. With the Bloodthirst trait it’ll be 2352 healing… not sure if that affects allies though.

In addition to these things, with SoV being a Signet and WoB a Well, picking one to use will depend on your build. The traits to improve them are in Spite (4) and Blood (8) respectively. Signet Mastery, being Adept as opposed to Master, is easier to obtain and also grants might. Plus I personally don’t like many of the Adept Spite traits, but that’s me. :P

SoV is a more aggressive option than WoB. It’s not useless, although its passive kind of is. ^^

Bhawb.7408:

Why this small of a change? Because a buff is a buff, even if its minor. This addressed a very important concern, which was the fact that a single Necromancer couldn’t realistically proc more than 4 hits of it, and that a group of 5 couldn’t really proc all 25. This at least allows that to happen.

It all makes perfect sense now, thank you.

Bhawb.7408:

Why this small of a change? Because a buff is a buff, even if its minor. This addressed a very important concern, which was the fact that a single Necromancer couldn’t realistically proc more than 4 hits of it, and that a group of 5 couldn’t really proc all 25. This at least allows that to happen.

Is it enough? No, nor do they say this will be it. But it solved one problem with the skill and it gives it a small buff before the skill gets others later.

I wouldn’t mind small tweaks if they are frequent enough. As it stands, we only get 2-3 “major” updates like this a year.

Tulzscha.4231:

Lily.1935:

I see a major flaw in your reasoning. You said you use it to heal allies… Take well of blood. It heals for much more for both you and your allies.

Well of Blood is not always better. It requires your group to be stacked and stay stacked for 10s to get the full effect – people do this a lot, I know, but it doesn’t always happen especially in pugs – and the combo field could interfere with other, more useful ones.

Signet of Vampirism has a (slightly) shorter cooldown, deals damage in addition to healing, does that healing in half the time of Well of Blood and has higher base healing through siphons with lower scaling and is affected by Bloodthirst.

From the Wiki:

WoB: 152 healing per second for 10s, total 11 ticks (I think) = 1672 with 40% scaling.

SoV: 392 healing per hit for soon to be 6s. kittens (variable, I think 5 will be max with the 6s duration and it works with 5 party members + the 25 stacks) = 1960 with 20% scaling. With the Bloodthirst trait it’ll be 2352 healing… not sure if that affects allies though.

In addition to these things, with SoV being a Signet and WoB a Well, picking one to use will depend on your build. The traits to improve them are in Spite (4) and Blood (8) respectively. Signet Mastery, being Adept as opposed to Master, is easier to obtain and also grants might. Plus I personally don’t like many of the Adept Spite traits, but that’s me. :P

SoV is a more aggressive option than WoB. It’s not useless, although its passive kind of is. ^^

I’d rather just take blood is power and not have to fool around with signets.

PS: I personally think Well of blood’s combo field should be changed to Dark or water. Primarily water. So we can do blast finishers in it with bone minions or staff putrid mark to be splashing in blood. Elizabeth Báthory would do it.

Lily.1935:

I’d rather just take blood is power and not have to fool around with signets.

PS: I personally think Well of blood’s combo field should be changed to Dark or water. Primarily water. So we can do blast finishers in it with bone minions or staff putrid mark to be splashing in blood. Elizabeth Báthory would do it.

Fair enough. Blood is Power is awesome.

Since we already have quite a few Dark fields a Water one would be nice. Thematically Light makes no sense, and Water… is a liquid… as is blood? That you splash on people to magically cure wounds? Sure, I can see that, as long as it’s tested for HIV. Alternatively, make it Poison.

The condition removal from Light fits better mechanically, though you could certainly make an argument for Necros providing extra healing as well – Transfusion, Deathly Invigoration, Marks of Blood… hey, Blood magic has a lot about healing, Mark of Blood grants regen, Well of Blood should also. Dem logicks. ^^ Anyhoo, that’s a different topic.

Water would come with a large base nerf to the healing, because of how incredibly strong a 10s water field that also heals for the highest of any skill in the entire game would be.

Passive should be life steal or heal on hit. Then we could actually have sustain. No idea why thief gets a signet like that and we dont. Thief can also full heal with one pistol whip, which is also an evade. They could even give us a weakened form in the shape of heal on skill use. Similar to eles signet. Just give us any sort of passive sustain and i would be happy with that signet.

Bhawb.7408:

Water would come with a large base nerf to the healing, because of how incredibly strong a 10s water field that also heals for the highest of any skill in the entire game would be.

They aren’t going to do it anyway.

spoj.9672:

Passive should be life steal or heal on hit. Then we could actually have sustain. No idea why thief gets a signet like that and we dont. Thief can also full heal with one pistol whip, which is also an evade. They could even give us a weakened form in the shape of heal on skill use. Similar to eles signet. Just give us any sort of passive sustain and i would be happy with that signet.

I agree with that, a passive that is aggressive like a life siphon on hit would probably make the skill from nearly useless to a good alternative for siphon builds and fits the aggressive theme of necromancer better.

Cleric with precision runes.. I’m doing it.
I’m apparently useless to parties as a berserker or knight.
If I run heal with a bit of power and crit then I might be gud enuf right? =’D

Why?

Because it has an aftercast, so the 5 seconds were really 4 second for you. The added second will bump it back to five seconds, and in the real world you will hit 3 lifesteals more often now.

It wasnt a buff. It was a fix to their failure at maths.

It was impossible for a 5 man group to use all 25 stacks. Now its within possibility!

It was possible before. You could claim stacks during second 0. Now it’s much easier, though.

Even if you claimed a stack at 0 (0.1s). You would only get 4 total. I even tested it. Not that it was needed. Its obvious you cant get more than 4 if you have a 5 second window and an icd of 1 second.

Ranger water spirit. 35% chance to heal yourself (allies included) once every 10 seconds. The spirit needs to be master traited in order to get to receive better than 35% chance.

Imagine if your doctor told you, “You have a 1 in 10 chance at the opportunity to get 35% chance we might heal you.”..you pretty much cash in your insurance. May as well just make it a flat 3.5% chance. Necro SoV was introduced at the same time as this gem and engi AeD. In order to heal, someone has to down you first.

Yeah and now rangers frost spirit has a 35 – 70% chance to do 10% bonus damage. But the icd of 1 second was fixed. So thats less than a 1% damage boost. Vuln does more than an entire utility. Anet really need to stop with the internal cooldowns. They mess things up and fail at maths every single time. If you want to make something proc less just lower the percentage. Dont add an icd aswell….

spoj.9672:

Even if you claimed a stack at 0 (0.1s). You would only get 4 total. I even tested it. Not that it was needed. Its obvious you cant get more than 4 if you have a 5 second window and an icd of 1 second.

0-.9, 1-1.9, 2-2.9, 3-3.9, 4-5. Five 1 second periods to claim stacks. You just need Locust Swarm or a well going before you use SoV because of the god-awful aftercast.

EDIT: I just tested and while there are 5 periods to claim, the ICD is actually 1.1 seconds. If it were 1 second, Locust Swarm alone should be able to claim 5 stacks. Instead it claims 3. However, I was successfully able to claim 5 stacks solo.

Yeah sorry. Had a major brainfart lol. So embarrasing. >.>

But the after cast and everything makes it very unrealistic. For the record i did actually test with locust swarm precasted and was never able to get 5 stacks when solo. Maybe i was unlucky. For your entire party to use all 25 stacks its almost impossible.

Yeah, I was only able to claim 5 stacks once (then again, once I did, I didn’t need to test anymore to see if I could), but it is possible. The extra 1 second will help, but it’s still honestly not that useful of a heal.