Guild Wars 2

So now that we’ve all had some time to play with Reaper, I think its time to start going back and talking about the professions as a whole. I think our specialization lines are one of the biggest places we could see improvement at this point, and they are also extremely important when it comes to enabling build types. I say this especially because Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper are now nearly omnipresent in builds, while Curses sees almost no play, and Death Magic/Blood Magic are far more niche than they could be. I want to focus on what the trait lines as a whole should be doing, and then talk about the specific traits that I think aren’t quite up to par.

I’ll be posting these separately and not all at once, because it is a ton to digest, but also because once I wrote out Spite I realized it was an entire post all on its own, and I think this is more useful to everyone involved if we condense the topics.

Spite
Conveniently our best designed line (in my opinion) is also the first one, so I get to laud over it first. Spite’s entire point is making you deal more damage, and it accomplishes this goal in every single build. Furthermore, it does this through a fairly unique and thematic approach: build might to increase your own damage, and use vulnerability and boon removal to decrease your enemies defenses. It also has an interesting focus for these themes, concentrating these traits around shroud and low health targets, which makes it feel unique and allow for you to have periods of high strength without being too strong.

Minors
Not much to say here, they are the definition of how the line works: provide might/vulnerability while in shroud and against low targets.

Adepts
I actually think all the adepts are fine so I won’t spend much time here. While Spiteful Talisman sees little play overall, this is because of Focus being subpar, not this trait; a strong focus weapon and I can see this being used.

Edit:

And i agree with Tim on spiteful talisman. With HoT and new fracs we see a lot more boons in PvE now. And its very difficult to keep them off for long periods even with multiple mesmers and necros. So relaxing the 5% conditional damage might be a nice change. 1 or 2 boons would be nice. Or even give it a scaling effect. 10% no boons, 7.5% 1 boon, 5% 2 boons.

Masters
No surprise since I said this is a great line, but I like most of the traits here. Unholy Fervor is the only exception, because its just a fairly weak trait, especially comparatively. Let’s compare it with Forceful Greatsword :

Unholy Feast

• Conditional 10% damage increase on Axe skills, though the condition isn’t too hard to reach.
• 20% CDR on Axe skills
• Affects 3 skills, and one trait

Forceful Greatsword

• Unconditional 10% damage increase on Greatsword skills
• 20% CDR on Greatsword skills
• Gain 5s of might on critical hit, no ICD
• Affects 6 skills
• Technically also affects Spear, an underwater weapon, but I think this is irrelevant for comparisons

So, in a 1 for 1 comparison between two weapons that are pretty similar, and trait lines with the same goal, with traits of the same tier, Forceful Greatsword is just flat out better in every single way. It has more effects, and affects more skills. So Unholy Fervor obviously needs buffs. The first is to either completely remove the condition on the damage increase, or like Spiteful Talisman open it up to all damage dealt while that condition is fulfilled. If the second is done, I think this trait is probably fine as is, with maybe a small extra effect tagged on, and if the first option is taken then like the other weapon traits it needs an additional effect, preferably something that is in line with Spite’s increasing of damage dealt.

Grandmasters
Similar situation to above, two great traits and one that isn’t really worth taking. Spiteful Spirit is of course the odd man out, since it doesn’t particularly do much to warrant its use over the other two. Signets of Suffering is the obvious choice for builds utilizing signets, and Close to Death has great damage increase that any build can use. Spiteful Spirit just needs something unique, a common suggestion is adding a blast, but the first thing to do is remove the ICD like we learned with Weakening Shroud. Other suggestions would be granting an effect more similar to GW1’s Spiteful Spirit, instead of just granting retal grant something similar to Glyph of Unity for a few seconds after Shroud entry, to further its niche as something to use to punish enemies when they hit you, and differentiate it from the other choices.

Overall though I’d just like to point out that Spite is an amazing line overall, with only 2 of 12 traits really worth mentioning in a bad light. If all our lines were this well done we’d have to really reach to find things to reasonably complain about.

Now that you’ve braved this wall of text, what do you think? Agree or disagree? Please leave your feedback, especially for possible changes to the traits I mentioned, though I think as a community this is probably one of the least controversial specializations.

Very nice write-up. I pretty much agree with everything except for one thing: Spiteful Talisman. It sees a lot of play in general PvE since it is a free 5% damage modifier most of the times and because the two other Adept traits, the mini-CoCo and the vuln on Chill, are rather situational.

I like the idea of making Unholy Fervor’s damage mod unconditional and independent from Axe, but at the same time it feels like giving up on Axe, which would be a bit sad =/

Removing or at least significantly shorting the ICD on Spiteful Spirit and adding the long wanted blast finisher (also on Axe #3 ofc) is still my favorite solution for this trait/skill as well.

Skoigoth.9238:

Very nice write-up. I pretty much agree with everything except for one thing: Spiteful Talisman. It sees a lot of play in general PvE since it is a free 5% damage modifier most of the times and because the two other Adept traits, the mini-CoCo and the vuln on Chill, are rather situational.

Yeah I think its fair to say that Spiteful Talisman gets a decent amount of play in PvE just for the damage boost, and since focus isn’t too bad in PvE just for the 4 cast.

Skoigoth.9238:

I like the idea of making Unholy Fervor’s damage mod unconditional and independent from Axe, but at the same time it feels like giving up on Axe, which would be a bit sad =/

I actually don’t think Axe is in too bad of a spot right now. Certainly still in need of work (and after I go through all the specs weapons is probably my next goal), but workable, and more importantly I prefer the idea of it being good without the trait, and the trait being a boost.

I tend to aggree with everything but spitefull talisman: it’s not just focus being subpar. Boons in this game are very common and it is therefore very unlikely to get someone without a single boon for a significant amount of time. Even in PvE when boons are used they come pulsing. So I think a relaxation on the constraint to maybe 2 or lower boons,would be favorable.

Completely agree. I really want a proper throwback to gw1 spiteful spirit. And unholy fervor is just bad. If anything it should be baseline to the axe. And we should get a new trait.

And i agree with Tim on spiteful talisman. With HoT and new fracs we see a lot more boons in PvE now. And its very difficult to keep them off for long periods even with multiple mesmers and necros. So relaxing the 5% conditional damage might be a nice change. 1 or 2 boons would be nice. Or even give it a scaling effect. 10% no boons, 7.5% 1 boon, 5% 2 boons.

A good write up. I agree with Tim, though: Spiteful Talisman needs way more than what it’s got regardless of the status of the Focus.

Like… what if stripping a boon with Focus 5 debuffed the foe to automatically corrupt the next boon placed on them? That’d be pretty cool.

spoj.9672:

So relaxing the 5% conditional damage might be a nice change. 1 or 2 boons would be nice. Or even give it a scaling effect. 10% no boons, 7.5% 1 boon, 5% 2 boons.

This is a solid idea, because you’re right its getting pretty difficult to keep anything completely off.

If anything you should compare to Soul Eater (Reaper GS Major trait), which is even better than Forceful GS.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soul_Eater

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

Bhawb.7408:

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

I would say that Soul Eater isn’t good not because it’s bad trait (it would be awesome with Axe imho), but because GS isn’t.

Morwath.9817:

Bhawb.7408:

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

I would say that Soul Eater isn’t good not because it’s bad trait (it would be awesome with Axe imho), but because GS isn’t.

No, it’s because they slapped a small siphon on the slowest hitting skill the weapon has.

Nice write-up Bhawb, keep them coming!

I agree with everything you said and, like others have already proposed, changing Spiteful Talisman to scale based on boons on the target or to relaxe the trigger condition.

This is, hands down, the best trait line we have and I don’t expect a lot of debate here. I’m impatient to get on Curses and Reaper haha

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Morwath.9817:

Bhawb.7408:

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

I would say that Soul Eater isn’t good not because it’s bad trait (it would be awesome with Axe imho), but because GS isn’t.

No, it’s because they slapped a small siphon on the slowest hitting skill the weapon has.

Its not small, it gives twice as much life siphon than Vampiric and Vampiric Prescence combined together…

Morwath.9817:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Morwath.9817:

Bhawb.7408:

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

I would say that Soul Eater isn’t good not because it’s bad trait (it would be awesome with Axe imho), but because GS isn’t.

No, it’s because they slapped a small siphon on the slowest hitting skill the weapon has.

Its not small, it gives twice as much life siphon than Vampiric and Vampiric Prescence combined together…

But it can only proc once per second +aftercast, and even then only if the target is below 50% health, whereas both Vampiric and Vampiric Presence can proc on every hit with any weapon, even while in Death Shroud.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Morwath.9817:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Morwath.9817:

Bhawb.7408:

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

I would say that Soul Eater isn’t good not because it’s bad trait (it would be awesome with Axe imho), but because GS isn’t.

No, it’s because they slapped a small siphon on the slowest hitting skill the weapon has.

Its not small, it gives twice as much life siphon than Vampiric and Vampiric Prescence combined together…

But it can only proc once per second +aftercast, and even then only if the target is below 50% health, whereas both Vampiric and Vampiric Presence can proc on every hit with any weapon, even while in Death Shroud.

You’re right.

Hm, the kind of thread I like.

Personally, I really dislike universal damage modifiers. They usually don’t contribute much to the overall game experience and are mostly relevant for speedruns. Therefore, I wouldn’t like to see something like this being done to Unholy Fervor. People wouldn’t pick it because they play axe but because they want to maximize their DPS. Wrong way to go. But yes, I’d like to see something added to this trait.

Is there any reason why we wouldn’t combine Unholy Fervor and Spiteful Spirit and add the condition ‘while whielding an axe’ to give this specific playstyle a bit more flavour?

I like the suggestion for Spiteful Talisman (spoj).

Anyone else feeling that Chill to Death has the wrong condition to trigger?
Shouldn’t it be ‘When hitting a foe with 2-3 boons.’? I’m aware that there are several arguments against it but the health threshold doesn’t make any sense for this type of skill.

It’s a good analysis but I think there is a flaw in it.

If we look objectively at Spitful spirit, it’s a strong trait. Spitful spirit corrupt 1 boon per foe affected, do damage, cripple and grant retaliation every 12 seconds. I’m sure you would be in a dev skin, you would say that : “It’s a hella lot of thing already don’t ask for more please!”
The real issue of Spiteful spirit is that it can’t compete against the 2 others traits that are more practical.

The only trait in spite that really need love is Unholy fervor. I’m not sure what it need concretly (apart of an axe rework) but there is a bunch of possibilities that could be looked at :

1- They could add a percentage of chance to gain 1% LF on crit with axe skills.
This would be the very obvious lazy way to try to please the necromancer’s community.

2- They could make it so the trait also affect the necromancer’s spear.
This wouldn’t please anyone but it would be welcome for underwater fight. Though the worst issue underwater is our lack of ability to build LF.

3- They could make the trait affect Unholy feast in a special way.
→ It could change this skill in a way that it would corrupt more boon on your foes.
→ It could change this skill in a way that it would remove condition on use.
→ It could change this skill in a way that it would additionnaly siphon life.
I think this would be the most interresting type of change since it could technically also affect Spiteful spirit and maybe give it the possibility to compete against it’s challengers.

NB.: they could obviously use some of these idea together. For example, if #1 and #2 were added together It would be a really great change to this trait.

Xaylin.1860:

Personally, I really dislike universal damage modifiers. They usually don’t contribute much to the overall game experience and are mostly relevant for speedruns. Therefore, I wouldn’t like to see something like this being done to Unholy Fervor. People wouldn’t pick it because they play axe but because they want to maximize their DPS. Wrong way to go. But yes, I’d like to see something added to this trait.

Is there any reason why we wouldn’t combine Unholy Fervor and Spiteful Spirit and add the condition ‘while whielding an axe’ to give this specific playstyle a bit more flavour?

I think that’s fair, but damage modifiers help out every build regardless of mode. The problem with ones that rely on you having the weapon out (but are otherwise universal) is they create weird situations like DS dealing higher damage but not RS. That isn’t to say that an unconditional modifier is a great idea, but one that only affects Axe skills would need to be very strong because it can only affect 4 things max.

Of course they could just not have a damage modifier, and instead give Axe something really special. Give it like X% increase in speed, along with some other effect, like vuln on hit. Just something to solidify what it already does.

Xaylin.1860:

Anyone else feeling that Chill to Death has the wrong condition to trigger?
Shouldn’t it be ‘When hitting a foe with 2-3 boons.’? I’m aware that there are several arguments against it but the health threshold doesn’t make any sense for this type of skill.

I think they are both fine triggers, really. They both fit Spite’s theme (destroy people under X% HP vs remove boons), and I’m generally in favor of keeping things that are already really good where they are.

Dadnir.5038:

If we look objectively at Spitful spirit, it’s a strong trait.

It really doesn’t do much that is strong though, and frankly looking at traits in a vacuum is a complete wash. It has to compete with the other traits, and it just doesn’t currently.

Dadnir.5038:

They could make the trait affect Unholy feast in a special way.
-> It could change this skill in a way that it would corrupt more boon on your foes.
-> It could change this skill in a way that it would remove condition on use.
-> It could change this skill in a way that it would additionnaly siphon life.
I think this would be the most interresting type of change since it could technically also affect Spiteful spirit and maybe give it the possibility to compete against it’s challengers.

This is the type of change that should happen. If we look at the other weapon traits in the game they all add effects in a fairly interesting way.

Nice overview and I also quite agree with your general conclusions. However, I would like to add some thoughts to these.

First of all, I completely agree with Tim and spoj. I also believe that the trait should be updated to meet with the current existing PvE and PvP environment in which targets with no boons become more and more rare. Spojs’s idea would fit this well.

I also completely agree with the fact that the Axe (oriented) traits need some rework, however I feel like that the purpose of the Unholy Fervor trait is a bit redundant in the Spike traitline due to the fact that the trait focuses on weapon damage based on vulnerability even though we already have quite some traits that are focused around vulnerability.

At the start of their new trait line system, the devs stated that they wanted to build traitlines horizontally. This meant that horizontal traits had to be focused around the same theme. For example: Spiteful talisman, Chill of Death and Signets of Suffering are all the traits that are focused around removing boons on foes and getting rewarded for it. On the other hand, we have Bitter Chill, Rendering Shroud and Close to Death which are more oriented in allowing us to deal more damage.

What if instead of trying to create a third horizontal traitline around Axe, and therefore more vulnerability and damage increase, we oriented this third horizontal line around consuming or transferring conditions to create a personal reward. If you take a look at the Spiteful Renewal trait, you see a nice trait that rewards us with health by consuming a condition when hitting a foe. The example I want to use to illustrate my idea would be a master trait that would be some kind of merge between Harmonious Conduit (from the Tempest) and Bolstered Anguish (from Revenants Corruption traitline) which would mean we get a temporal damage increase effect (like Harmonious Conduit) whose actual damage increase would be based on every condition we consume or transfer (for example 2% increase per condition). This would mean we get a damage increase but only when we consume or transfer conditions, and therefore not a plain damage increase trait that everyone would take just for the damage modifier.

Bluewizard.2694:

At the start of their new trait line system, the devs stated that they wanted to build traitlines horizontally. This meant that horizontal traits had to be focused around the same theme. For example: Spiteful talisman, Chill of Death and Signets of Suffering are all the traits that are focused around removing boons on foes and getting rewarded for it. On the other hand, we have Bitter Chill, Rendering Shroud and Close to Death which are more oriented in allowing us to deal more damage.

I’d actually like to bring up that this isn’t particularly true. They did this with Reaper, and then Reaper spawned that thinking in the other elite specializations, but that wasn’t necessarily a priority for the old system which had a lot of hold-over that would make this hard. It is a really good way to design things for sure, since it somewhat guarantees “built in” synergy, and I think its something to look into when appropriate, but just want to say it wasn’t necessarily the goal with the rework overall.

Bluewizard.2694:

What if instead of trying to create a third horizontal traitline around Axe, and therefore more vulnerability and damage increase, we oriented this third horizontal line around consuming or transferring conditions to create a personal reward.

I don’t think it fits Spite particularly well, though its a cool idea overall. Spiteful Removal really only sits in spite because its always been there, instead of fitting the theme well. Instead I’ll use this idea for Curses, which I think does fit this line of thinking well, and could create interesting synergy between Plague Sending/Master of Corruption/reworked Parasitic Contagion.

I’m still waiting for the day Axe 3 becomes a blast finisher. Apparently the gee is wary of giving Necros too many blast finishers because we have so many fields. I look over at engineer though and I’m frankly jealous.

I can understand not giving us too many, but there is a pretty big difference between absolutely no usable blast finishers and too many.

Dreaming serpent.5197:

I’m still waiting for the day Axe 3 becomes a blast finisher. Apparently the gee is wary of giving Necros too many blast finishers because we have so many fields. I look over at engineer though and I’m frankly jealous.

Axe 3 is already pretty complicated. I don’t think it needs more effects, even if a Blast finisher would fit visually.

Axe 2 could use some love, though. It’s barely, and I mean barely, a DPS boost over the autoattack and it doesn’t even generate all that much more Life Force than other comparable skills.

Bhawb.7408:

I can understand not giving us too many, but there is a pretty big difference between absolutely no usable blast finishers and too many.

I actually love the reaper for that. We finally have some finishers to combo with ourselves, like RS 4 in poison field (e.g. staff 3) for massive poison, RS 2 in ice field (e.g. RS 5) for frost aura, GS 2 in dark field of GS 4 for some leeching….

It’s not excessive, it’s just nice and interesting.

my main trouble with Spite is that i feel i can’t afford it sometimes and still have sufficient survivability, especially in pvp. It also has limited team synergy in that you dont really need to stack 25 might yourself…

it’s critical for my build though because I am running a Cavalier Reaper and I need as much Vulnerability as I can pump out to keep my crit chance up. Proccing vuln on chill is arguably the primary reason I take it, though the Might (and Might-> Blighter’s Boon) is very nice.

I do think people are underrating Soul Eater though. Doesn’t it proc on everything you hit? When you can spam 2 to mulch through hordes, that adds up to quite a bit of health per second.

Silverkey.2078:

I actually love the reaper for that. We finally have some finishers to combo with ourselves, like RS 4 in poison field (e.g. staff 3) for massive poison, RS 2 in ice field (e.g. RS 5) for frost aura, GS 2 in dark field of GS 4 for some leeching….

That’s a huge point as to why I want some finishers on the base profession. We’ve got field access already, though I’d like to see some diversity, but our few finishers are insanely unreliable. And we’ve seen how much of a usability improvement this has made on Reaper, without overpowering the builds.

Shoe.5821:

my main trouble with Spite is that i feel i can’t afford it sometimes and still have sufficient survivability, especially in pvp. It also has limited team synergy in that you dont really need to stack 25 might yourself…

That’s more a failing of Death Magic and our defensive options than Spite, though I find we can get pretty good defense with SR/Reaper. Also Spite only stacks 25 might in really limited situations. It is extremely unlikely that you’ll maintain 25 on your own except while cleaving downed targets, so what it really does best is providing high moments (like the cleaving downed) without just constantly keeping up 25 might. Most of the time allied might support, which isn’t seen to a huge degree in PvP, will still fully benefit you.

Shoe.5821:

I do think people are underrating Soul Eater though. Doesn’t it proc on everything you hit? When you can spam 2 to mulch through hordes, that adds up to quite a bit of health per second.

The problem is its only useful in “win-more” situations. If you are able to spam Gravedigger, congrats you are already more than setup to win whatever you are doing regardless of whether it is healing you or not. And the big problem is when you do need healing (fight isn’t going too well or is even) then landing Gravediggers is the least reliable thing. It just overloads the hell out of Gravedigger, if you can’t land GD you just lose, which also means for enemies if they just dodge or interrupt the one GD you’re not only dealing no damage, but also not being healed.

i’ve had tons of fights where i put down some gravedigger and would still have been grateful for some healing.

ref: the entirety of Dragons Stand.

it’s never going to be very great for pvp or big bosses though. The Siphon anyway.

The only thing I dislike about Spite is how devoted the trait line is to vulnerability spam. It does mesh well with Reaper, though, and axe is a bit better than it was at 600 range. If Spite supported vulnerability application a little less and another condition or boon a little more…

Bhawb.7408:

I think that’s fair, but damage modifiers help out every build regardless of mode. The problem with ones that rely on you having the weapon out (but are otherwise universal) is they create weird situations like DS dealing higher damage but not RS. That isn’t to say that an unconditional modifier is a great idea, but one that only affects Axe skills would need to be very strong because it can only affect 4 things max.

Of course, they help out every build. But we should keep in mind that Unholy Fervor is a weapon trait. Period. It’s not its purpose to be universally appealing. It’s also not that much of an argument that it only affects 3 skills. This is true for many weapon traits – some even only affect 2 skills.

So the main question should be: What is the purpose of axe, what are its characteristics and how to make it better?

I personally think that combining it with Spiteful Spirit would be nice but probably doesn’t catch the spirit of the axe. Since axe is pretty much about Vulnerability, why not introduce a unique buff like Fencers Finesse on Mesmer. It could be something like ‘Gain a stack of x which grants y power per stack when hitting a vulnerable foe while whielding an axe.’ (or speed bonus as you suggested). Not very unique but it does have appeal to it. It also carries over into DS for several seconds.

I do rather like Spite, but the more I look at it, the more it seems like it isn’t particularly core, which is fine. It functions spectacularly in small group or solo situations but I think it’s value gets diminished (in comparison to other trees) the more people you add to the equation. The 20% under 50% bonus drops to a <10% increase in direct damage overall on average, and the 5% bonus from Talismans as you noted is becoming harder to guarantee. ~10-15% DD increase on average is very strong, of course, but if the vuln or might is redundant in a group setting, as it should be, then there’s not much else the tree offers than that flat damage buff. I think this allows you to look at other trees depending on the role you’re trying to fufill, which is a good thing.

I think it’s a good design with a strong theme, and lots of applications. It’s in a good spot.

As far as recommendations, I think spiteful spirit should get a shorter cooldown, perhaps one that mimics the axe cooldown, which would synergize nicely with the Axe trait, as well. I’d like to see popping into shroud quickly to proc those traits be a thing, but ICDs can kind of limit them, and mess with your timing, especially since they don’t align well with things like Weakening Shroud or Speed of Shadows.

What would I think make spiteful spirit viable is to add:

‘Copy a boon that you remove (5-10 sec ICD)’

This could benefit both power and condition builds, would synergize with blighter’s boon in sustain builds and fit the spite theme perfectly.

Like you, I feel that this is quite clearly our best designed line, not just from a power level standpoint, but also from a flavor perspective. I feel like Spiteful Spirit has it’s own unique place on Condition based builds, however it could also stand to be more in line with its competition. In line with the concept of doing damage and having it retain its place as being for condition builds moreso than, say, full Berserker builds, you could potentially make it so that for each condition on the affected player, it converts some proportional number of boons on them into conditions, maybe on something like a 2-1 conversion ratio, where 2 or fewer conditions converts 1 boon, 4 or fewer converts 2, and so on. Obviously this has some strange interactions with the fact that Spiteful Spirit is modeled around the Axe Unholy Feast, however I feel an ability like this is more unique and flavorful in a line already flush with options for direct damage.

Yeah I like the concept a lot and it could be really nice for PvP but I just think the trait in its current form is undertuned, compare it to curses Weakening Shroud and it’s basically worse in every regard.

Weakening Shroud gets the same power as an enfeeble (I believe)
Whereas the damage in Spiteful Spirit is nerfed slightly from its Unholy Feast.

Weakening Shroud is a 10 sec CD whereas Enfeeble is 25.
Spiteful Spirit is a 15 sec CD when Unholy Feast is 12.

Then on top of that, Weakening Shroud gets the excellent weakness on crit trait as well. I’m not really sure why the power levels are so different on similar GMs. The 15 sec CD makes it especially inconvenient to play as well because if you’re not paying super close attention, you may often enter shroud without proccing it, making it even longer than 15 seconds (unless you take speed of shadows)

Mega Skeleton.8259:

snip

This is a good way to show why Spiteful Spirit is so weak. Yes it has a lot of individual effects attached to it, but none of them are particularly strong.

Spiteful Spirit has a 12s cooldown (though this should be 9 to account for shroud cd). The damage is definitely a bit lower (~170 with the zerker amulet I’m wearing right now) than Unholy Feast, but it’s also instant instead of having a cast time.

Weakening Shroud also does less damage than Enfeebling Blood (it’s also named something different, but is again – instant.

I think the most glaring difference is that Weakening Shroud has a whole ’nother effect attached to it – weakness on crit. Imagine if Spiteful Spirit corrupted a boon on crit?

All that being said, the damage coming out of the retaliation from Spiteful Spirit is actually quite a bit.

Bhawb.7408:

Bluewizard.2694:

What if instead of trying to create a third horizontal traitline around Axe, and therefore more vulnerability and damage increase, we oriented this third horizontal line around consuming or transferring conditions to create a personal reward.

I don’t think it fits Spite particularly well, though its a cool idea overall. Spiteful Removal really only sits in spite because its always been there, instead of fitting the theme well. Instead I’ll use this idea for Curses, which I think does fit this line of thinking well, and could create interesting synergy between Plague Sending/Master of Corruption/reworked Parasitic Contagion.

I also thought about either proposing this for either Curses or Spite, however I’ve also seen in the past that quite some players are against the idea of adding “power necro stuff” in the Curses line. That’s why I thought it would fit this one more as it would fit with Spiteful Removal (or at least make this trait fit more in Spite) and would create a nice way of combining the Spite and Curses line (Master of Corruption for instance). However, it could also work in Curses indeed.

But as I see most people agree on an upgrade of Unholy Fervor, maybe anther suggestion for Axe. What if instead of a plain damage increase as it is now, +10% when a target has vulnerability, we would have a trait that increases damage for all Axe skills by +1% for every stack of vulnerability on the target while allowing Ghastly Claws to generate +1% more LF for every 5 stacks? I know when you think about it, a possible +25% would be kinda high but remember that this would only be the case if a target has 25 stacks of vulnerability, which mostly won’t be the case in PvP or WvW. This would mean that it would be a buff that people first need to work for, which makes it a rewarding buff, and that it would mean that Axe could be more useful in terms of damage for raids, fractals and dungeons without making it OP for PvP and WvW.

Just another idea of course. Let me all know what you think of it and what you like or dislike about it. I’ve seen quite some nice idea’s already which means the idea behind Bhawbs topics are a success.

Bluewizard.2694:

But as I see most people agree on an upgrade of Unholy Fervor, maybe anther suggestion for Axe. What if instead of a plain damage increase as it is now, +10% when a target has vulnerability, we would have a trait that increases damage for all Axe skills by +1% for every stack of vulnerability on the target while allowing Ghastly Claws to generate +1% more LF for every 5 stacks? I know when you think about it, a possible +25% would be kinda high but remember that this would only be the case if a target has 25 stacks of vulnerability, which mostly won’t be the case in PvP or WvW. This would mean that it would be a buff that people first need to work for, which makes it a rewarding buff, and that it would mean that Axe could be more useful in terms of damage for raids, fractals and dungeons without making it OP for PvP and WvW.

That’s a really cool idea, essentially doubles up on vuln’s idea, but since its specific to Axe it is fairly limited. Not sure if its the way to go but definitely a unique idea.