Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen this in other profession subforums (though not as extensive), so I figured, hey, why not us? Since the Dev’s don’t seem particularly keen in involving themselves with our subforum (whatever the case may be), let’s have our own home-grown CDI (Collaborative Development Initiative). Let’s have a trait workshop thread.

The purpose of this thread will be two-fold: identify traits that the community feels are currently subpar, and recommend changes based on community involvement.
If you would like to get involved, simply post your feelings and ideas on the current topic, and be sure to complete any and all surveys. Those wishing to participate on a more administrative level are welcome to message me.

This post will be used to maintain historical information/responses/links.

Link List
Soul Reaping Survey
Soul Reaping Survey Results

Curses Survey
Curses Survey Results

Spite Survey
Spite Survey Results

Blood Magic Survey
Blood Magic Survey Results

Death Magic Survey
Death Magic Survey Results

However, tackling everything in one go will be way too difficult and messy, so let’s start off simple and work our way up. Blood, Death, Curses and Spite all have their issues and and all have been the subjects of some very controversial problems, so I think they’re best left for later on once we have everything worked out. For now, let’s start with Soul Reaping, which I believe to be our most solid trait-line.

I would request that you take this Short Survey in order to gather community data. In the meantime, I encourage all discussion.

My ideas:

Spite:
Spiteful Spirit could have its duration increased a bit.
Dhuumfire to be replaced with something else

Curses:
Reaper’s Precision – Increase the Life Force gained to at least 3-5%
Weakening Shroud – Remove the Bleeding and increase Weakness Duration

Death Magic:
Reanimator – Decrease cool down to 10seconds and dont combine it with Death Nova
Protection of The Horde – Increase Toughness gain to +50
Deadly Strength – Increase toughness converted to 15%
Dark Armor – Change it to +400Toughness while inside DeathShroud
Shrouded Removal – Increase conditions to 2/3
Necrotic Corruption – change it to your attacks, Say 50% chance on crit, 10second CD

Blood Magic:
Full of Life – Reduce cool down or Increase the number of stacks of Regen
Vampiric – Remove. Replace
Blood To Power – Change it so the LOWER your health is the MORE Power you get
Bloodthirst – Remove. Replace
Vampiric Master – Remove. Replace
Transfusion – Make part of the skill. Remove trait and replace.
Vampiric Presision – Remove. Replace
Deathly Invigoration – Make it part of DS. Remove trait and replace
Fetid Consumption – you have chance to send condition to target, 50% chance, 10s CD
Vampiric Rituals – Remove. Replace

Soul Reaping:
Gluttony – Increase to 25%.
Path of Midnight – Recharge decreased by 25%
Near to Death – reduce cool down by 50% as part of DS. Remove Trait and replace
Foot In Grave – Gain Stability while in DS removed on exit, can be removed by skills

Soul Reaping:

Adept
V – Speed of Shadows – Should either be removed (because they hate giving us mobility, but any flat +% movement weaker than swiftness is basically useless) or be a burst of speed to allow us to catch up to/create distance with an enemy. Something like +40-50% speed for 2-3 seconds while in Deathshroud (no flashing DS to get the effect).

Master
VII – Mark of Revival – Needs a secondary effect. For 20 points we’re getting something that is weaker than almost every other revival trait, so either drop it to 10 points, or give it a secondary effect: increases revival speed by 10% (or so), or gives something to the reviver/revivee.

X – Soul Marks – Not bad as is, but I’d prefer to see it slightly toned down, but given scaling per person hit. Rewards people for smart use of marks, instead of mindlessly spamming them. 2% LF per person hit, up to 6% max gained per mark (or something along those lines)

Grandmaster
XI – Foot in the Grave – Again, not really bad as is, but I’d prefer to see it made more like it’s grandmaster twin. Give us some kind of CC immunity while in DS: either full immunity to hard CC, aka Shade, or at least something much longer than 3s, but only while in DS.

Other than those traits, I think everything in SR is really well designed and balanced. Certain things are weaker or not due to what is currently in the meta for builds, but overall almost every trait is a competitive option for some build. Even all of the minor traits are really solid, and the stats the tree gives are, again, really nice.

I’m already acquiring some very interesting data regarding how people feel about these, and not all responses are what I had expected. I made a post about this on Reddit to see if I can’t get a larger sample size.
Please ask any other Necros you know to collaborate, as it helps normalize the data.

Needs other options:
-“This trait is too powerful/this trait feels broken.”
-“This trait should be merged with another.”

“Stellar” implies that a trait is good to have and well-designed. Some traits, on the other hand, feel like they break the balance of the game or lower build diversity.

I also have to ask – why are some of the traits (III and V) not present in the survey?

On a side note, I just noticed that Mark of Revival is a blast finisher, while the normal Reaper’s Mark is not.

May as well post my ideas:

Spite
Parasitic Bond – Boost life force gained from nearby deaths.
Death’s Embrace – Get rid of these “downed damage” traits from all professions.
Spiteful Removal – Change or remove. Possibly merge with Shrouded Removal.
Spiteful Spirit – Needs to be buffed somehow. Perhaps duration increase or inflicting confusion in an area. Could be merged with Spiteful Vigor. Obviously data mining by ANet will say that this is a popular trait but only because there aren’t any much better traits here for conditionmancer.
Death Into Life – Needs to be moved into Death Magic or Blood Magic. Should be usable by support builds.
Spiteful Marks – Not very useful due to low base damage of marks. Maybe could just be merged with another staff trait.
Siphoned Power – This trait is garbage. Change or replace it somehow.
Dhuumfire – Disintegrate it from existence with extreme prejudice.

Curses
Enfeeble – Boost weakness duration.
Spectral Attunement – Move this somewhere else, this is a weird place to have this trait.
Withering Precision – Needs an overhaul. Maybe just reduce cooldown to open up more possibilities for conditionmancer based on non-damaging conditions. “On crit” effects are pretty skill-less though.

Death Magic
Reanimator – Reduce health Jagged Horrors lose over time.
Dark Armor – Boost armor to 600 to match mesmer mantras, and/or make it apply while in Death Shroud.
Spiteful Vigor – Garbage. Needs to be overhauled.
Shrouded Removal – Unneeded.
Protection of the Horde – Way too weak, and useless for non-minion masters. Buff protection amount or replace entirely.
Death Shiver – Potentially great trait, ruined by position. Move to Spite or Soul Reaping.

Blood Magic
Full of Life – Decent, but could be better. Maybe make it apply to nearby allies.
Bloodthirst – Redesign this trait and raise baseline lifesteal to match current base + Bloodthirst. Possible idea: allow lifesteal to heal nearby allies and minions.
Mark of Evasion – Remove the cooldown, necromancers don’t have vigor anyway.
Vampiric Master – Nerf or replace.
Quickening Thirst – Remove or replace.
Blood to Power – Change in some way. Maybe change to be defensive.

Lifesteal in general: Buff baseline, nerf Vampiric Master. Allow lifesteal to heal while in Death Shroud.

Soul Reaping
Gluttony – Buff slightly.
Fear of Death – Garbage. Replace or remove.
Speed of Shadows – Almost useless. Replace or remove.
Soul Marks – Move to another trait line or merge with another staff trait (Spiteful Marks?).
Strength of Undeath – Increase damage buff to 10%. Alternatively, change to boost defense instead of offense.
Foot in the Grave – Increase stability duration or make stability stay on while in Death Shroud.

Spite

[5point] Parasitic bond – %HP restored from foes dying in the vicinity

[10point] Death’s Embrace – being revived is 20% faster in addition
[10point] Spiteful Talisman – no complaints
[10point] Spiteful Removal – conditions removed from foes dying in the vicinity
[10point] Signet Mastery – grants 5 might stacks
[10point] Spiteful Spirit – no complaints
[10point] Reaper’s Might – grants 2 might stacks

[15point] Death into Life – 10% converted considering high cost of getting healing

[20point] Spiteful Marks – 15% increase considering the high CDs
[20point] Axe Training – no complaints
[20point] Training of the Master – 30% increase is alot, 25% instead
[20point] Chill of Death – 15 second CD so it’s useful when needed most

[25point] Siphoned Power – 50% threshold grants 1 might stack for 10 seconds

[30point] Dhuumfire – no complaints
[30point] Close to Death – no complaints

Curses

[5point] Barbed Precision – no complaints

[10point] Toxic Landing – grants swiftness for 5 seconds in addition
[10point] Hemophilia – no complaints
[10point] Chilling Darkness – applies chill for 2 seconds so its useful outside Plague
[10point] Weakening Shroud – weakness 4 seconds instead, 2 is too short
[10point] Reaper’s Precision – no complaints
[10point] Focused Rituals – no complaints

[15point] Furious Demise – no complaints

[20point] Master of Corruption – no complaints
[20point] Banshee’s Wail – no complaints
[20point] Terror – no complaints
[20point] Spectral Attunement – no complaints

[25point] Target the Weak – no complaints

[30point] Lingering Curse – 15% global condition duration buff instead
[30point] Withering Precision – 10 second CD so it procs more than once vs target classes

Death Magic

[5point] Reanimator – works when foes die in the vicinity, 10 second CD

[10point] Dark Armor – %DMG reduction when channeling
[10point] Spiteful Vigor – grants retaliation for 7 seconds
[10point] Minion Master – no complaints
[10point] Ritual of Protection – grants protection for 5 seconds considering high CDs
[10point] Staff Mastery – no complaints
[10point] Shrouded Removal – removes 2 conditions

[15point] Protection of the Horde – grants %DMG reduction per minion controlled

[20point] Greater Marks – no complaints
[20point] Reaper’s Protection – applies fear for 1 second with 20 second CD
[20point] Death Shiver – no complaints
[20point] Flesh of the Master – no complaints

[25point] Deadly Strength – 15% converted

[30point] Death Nova – no complaints
[30point] Necromatic Corruption – no complaints

Blood Magic

[5point] Full of Life – 50% threshold, 10 seconds CD

[10point] Dagger Mastery – no complaints
[10point] Bloodthirst – no complaints
[10point] Mark of Evasion – 5 second CD considering no source of vigor
[10point] Ritual of Life – 30 second CD
[10point] Vampiric Precision – restore %HP per crit
[10point] Transfusion – no complaints

[15point] Vampiric – life siphon %DMG of the hit

[20point] Vampiric Master – minions transfer %DMG of the hit
[20point] Ritual Mastery – no complaints
[20point] Deathly Invigoration – no complaints
[20point] Quickening Thirst – increases in-combat movement speed in addition

[25point] Blood to Power – 150 power gained

[30point] Fetid Consumption – interval 5 seconds
[30point] Vampiric Rituals – life siphon %DMG of the hit

Soul Reaping

[5point] Gluttony – no complaints

[10point] Fear of Death – increases Life Leech healing in addition
[10point] Vital Persistence – no complaints
[10point] Path of Midnight – 20% CD reduction
[10point] Spectral Mastery – no complaints
[10point] Speed of Shadows – entering DS grants swiftness for 2 seconds instead
[10point] Unyielding Blast – no complaints

[15point] Last Gasp – 45 second CD

[20point] Mark of Revival – increases reviving speed by 10% in addition
[20point] Near to Death – no complaints
[20point] Master of Terror – no complaints
[20point] Soul Marks – no complaints

[25point] Strength of Undeath – 10% increase

[30point] Foot in the Grave – grants stability 4 seconds so stability stomping is possible
[30point] Deathly Perception – no complaints

amiavamp.9785:

Needs other options:
-“This trait is too powerful/this trait feels broken.”
-“This trait should be merged with another.”

“Stellar” implies that a trait is good to have and well-designed. Some traits, on the other hand, feel like they break the balance of the game or lower build diversity.

I also have to ask – why are some of the traits (III and V) not present in the survey?

On a side note, I just noticed that Mark of Revival is a blast finisher, while the normal Reaper’s Mark is not.

o_O
Those two were there before. I think Google may not have saved the form before I exited it…I put it them in just now – hopefully I can still get some results for them. As far as updating the questions, that’s a fair call. In the future, I’ll add some more options, but if I were to reconfigure everything now, I think it would just mess it up.
These mistakes are the reason I decided to start with Soul Reaping – it’s pretty kitten solid, so if I were to screw up/miss something, it’s not the end of the world.

As far as Mark of Revival, that is most likely an unintended bug, as traits that copy skills tend to imitate all parameters. Mark of Evasion was behaving in a similar fashion for a time, but it was bug-fixed, and so given this seems to be an unpopular choice, I think it just hasn’t been caught yet.

Minors

- Gluttony: Not a bad trait, but it could see some improvement. Change it to +1% LF on all LF generating skill maybe or something like that.
- Last Gasp: Perfect trait, love it. The stunbreak part work in it too, so awesome.
- Strength of Undeath: As a GM minor it needs a little more oomph, it would be better as a 10% bonus.

Majors

I – Fear of Death: Niche trait, but it has some uses. I had it when farmed Deadeye, funny with a burn terror build in small areas.
II – Vital Persistence: Still dont know where can i use this, but since it had buffed it can be usefull sometimes.
III – Path of Midnight: Standard CDR, but why it isnt 20%? Make it happen!
IV – Spectral mastery: Good and simple.
V – Speed of Shadows: Agree with Bhawb. Remove it or rework it completely. The burst speed increase could replace SWalk in a well bomber build to run out from danger, who knows?
VI – Unyielding Blast: While its not a bad trait, my personal taste would love to see some changes. First of all i hate piercing attacks, so what if make it splash damage? Cap it to 3 targets like Fireball from ele staff or engi pistol#1. And increase the attack rate of Life blast please or make it hit more harder.

VII – Mark of Revival: As a “support” trait, related to revive i dont know why it is in this tree and weak as hell, so remove it. Yay, free space!
VIII – Near to Death: To be honest, i hate this trait. Not so long ago it get mentioned somewhere, that it holds back a lot of stuff in our balance imo, so personaly i would like to see it completely removed.
IX – Master of Terror: This trait enjoys my horrible amount of love. 10/10.
X – Soul Marks: Another interesting trait. Currently you go only for this far if you use a burn/terror build or you need stability. If you take the crit grandmaster, you wouldnt take this. Reworking Gluttony would help for staff users to generate LF and scepter needs an overhaul in LF generation anyway, sooo … remove it.

XI: Nope, nope, all of my nope +1 nope. Shade guys. Rework Shade and put it ingame. As a Master trait. No, seriously. Necromancers need Shade somehow.
XII: Great trait, opened up some builds and has some funny moments. Drop wells, pop DS, enjoy 100% crit chance and stuff just melting.

I am kind of lazy today so will just comment on 2 traits:

1. Dark Armor: gain x toughness while in death shroud

Rationale: Death shroud is supposed to be one of our primary defense mechanics because we do not have evades, vigor, etc. This increases our attrition and is applicable to all builds, regardless of weapon choice.

2. Foot in the Grave: gain stability while in death shroud

Again, if death shroud is one of our primary defense mechanics, being thrown around like a ping pong ball while in it negates that. This change clearly buffs necros while they are in death shroud. Also, however, it prevents you from flashing DS and having stability while still having access to all your utilities/heal which is in some ways a nerf to particular play styles.

@ArmageddonAsh, Mookzen, amiavamp: Woah, now. Cool your horses – we’re going one at a time for a reason. Trying to tackle everything at once is just going to lead to an incredibly disjointed discussion.

So far I’ve managed 25 responses including my own. I’d like to get a couple more before moving on, so let’s see if anyone else feels like answering in the next day or two.

Since the devs think that we should maintain minimum access to boons, I really feel that removing Near to Death due to balance purposes and reworking Foot in the grave is the only viable way to give Necros a good measur of anti CC.

Without Near to Death, Foot in the Grave could become a simple – Entering DS is a stun break.

A 10 second cd stun break, if we never stay in DS to absorb damage. This second part is the one that seems to be constantly forgotten in balance discussions inhouse. If any when entering DS trait is used for it’s maximum uptime we are NEVER absorbing hits in DS and our HP goes down really fast then.

I’d argue that Spiteful Marks is an incredibly useless trait. How useless? Well let’s math!

First, let’s establish some baselines. With 2.2k Power, the tooltip claims the following damage for each skill:

• Mark of Blood: 271
• Chillblains: 452
• Putrid Mark: 1084
• Reaper’s Mark: 226

Now, let’s assume you have exactly one target available at every cast, and that there is no cast time for each mark. Thus, within a one minute time frame and using a skill immediately off cooldown, you theoretically could inflict the following amount of damage:

271* (60/6) + 452*(60/20) + 1084*(60/25) + 226*(60/45) = 6968.933 = 6969.

So, against a single target, you can inflict a theoretical 7k damage over the course of a minute. So 10% of 7k is 700 extra damage a minute, or about 11.67 additional DPS. That’s right, that’s less than 12 additional DPS. But this is against a single target with no crits. Let’s up the ante! Let’s say we have 100% crit rate with an additional 50% critical damage (so 200% damage on crit) AND 5 willing targets. We arrive at a “staggering” 116.7 additional DPS. So, to recap:

2.2k Power, No Cast Time, Damage=Tooltip:
1 Target/No Crits: 11.67 DPS bonus
1 Target/100% Crits: 23.3 DPS bonus
5 Targets/ No Crits: 58.33 DPS bonus
5 Targets/100% Crits: 116.67 DPS bonus

Slight Perspective: A single stack of Might, provides about 17 additional DPS for dagger chain 1.

Recommended Changes:
a) Remove
b) Merge with 20% CDR
c) Increase bonus damage to 20-30%
d) Add effect of applying vulnerability for each mark
e) Other

I’m not a fan of Spiteful Marks. Take care all!

Red Marked = Thrash traits.
Yellow = Needs some change.
Green = Best traits.
Unmarked = indifferent, decent or however a good filler.

Overall most traits regarding the Staff, Minions and Wells need to get merged, because alone they aren’t worth that much.
Traits regarding the Siphoning are a fail, excluding Vampiric Master.
Downed damage traits -in every class imo- (Death’s Embrace) need to go.
“On death-proc” traits are just worthless in general, they’re situational and don’t garant you the effect. They’re difficult to balance too (the situation changes from small scale fights to large scale fights, which makes the effect totally useless or overpowered) so i’d suggest avoiding them.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQBAA

Luke.4562:

Red Marked = Thrash traits.
Yellow = Needs some change.
Green = Best traits.
Unmarked = indifferent, decent or however a good filler.

Overall most traits regarding the Staff, Minions and Wells need to get merged, because alone they aren’t worth that much.
Traits regarding the Siphoning are a fail, excluding Vampiric Master.
Downed damage traits -in every class imo- (Death’s Embrace) need to go.
“On death-proc” traits are just worthless in general, they’re situational and don’t garant you the effect. They’re difficult to balance too (the situation changes from small scale fights to large scale fights, which makes the effect totally useless or overpowered) so i’d suggest avoiding them.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQBAA

You put the wrong color on Parasitic Bond.

That’s a very pretty diagram. Mighty I ask how/where you got it?

@alanis: I’ve specified On Death-proc traits for me are just to avoid, they’re hard to balance, too much situational. So if they follow the rule risk-reward: 1) If the reward is too much big -which is not atm because those traits suck- (in line with the effort for making a kill) it’s going to be OP in large scale fights; 2) if the reward is balanced for large scale fights then it’s gonna suck in small scale fights; 3) If you can’t afford to make a kill (1v1 situation) that trait is totally worthless, i’d rather having whatever trait which is going to give me some passive buff than doing nothing at all.
That’s because they should merge Reanimator trait with Death Nova.

@Balefire: that’s an image of mine, I sent you a PM.

Another reference to think about the Trait disposition and the actual situation for a precise rework.
Everyone can agree Death Shroud Traits are many, but they aren’t that good in every tree, so people are used to take the best for different builds or use them as a filler.
It seems to me they’re the better developed traits.
Minion’s Traits are yet few and forced to space just between 2-3 trees, offering less build diversity. It seems that Minions aren’t that good without traits, compared to Corruption, Wells, Spectral or Sigil skills which are often “good” by standard, they perform well without the need of addictional traits (remember Flesh Golem is an Elite).
By the moment Marks should have been a tool characteristic of Necromancers, we have few traits emproving them, just a silly Spiteful Marks, a nice Greater Marks and eventually Staff Mastery which are the most forced in the Death tree.
Mark of Revival and Mark of Evasion are just “meh”. Too much situational. 2 wasted trait slots imho.
Leeching which should be another peculiar characteristic of Necromancer (it isn’t reported in this scheme) is just forced in the Blood tree and it’s really bad developed.
There are just 2 traits relative to boon hate and stripping.
Fear traits are just nice as they are atm, even being few and not implementable in every pvp build (excluding Fear of Death obviously, another wasted trait).

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQBAA

PS:
Blood Magic:
Vampiric Rituals: Wells siphon root every time they pulse.

The idea that minions “aren’t good” without traits is just false, frankly. It stems from the idea that people have that since minions have all these traits, the only time to take them is when you have those traits. People have this “thing” where they either need to take all the minion traits and all minions, or they take none of them.

The poll has not had any new responses for a few days now, so I’m going to start working on synthesizing the data, as Google forms has kind of butchered the response tables due a maximum character limit on charts.

Bhawb.7408:

The idea that minions “aren’t good” without traits is just false, frankly. It stems from the idea that people have that since minions have all these traits, the only time to take them is when you have those traits. People have this “thing” where they either need to take all the minion traits and all minions, or they take none of them.

Sorry, but it’s an opinion of yours. And simply isn’t that correct.
Minions aren’t singularly strong like others spells, exception made for Flesh Golem. I can imagine in the most extreme situation bringing around Flesh Wurm for mobility or eventually (but spending traits on them OFC) the Bone Minions (Minion Bombing for Aoe/poisonField/weakness) or the Ghostly kitten (Life Force generation), but still there are better ways to do the same thing in an easier and less expensive way, like bringing Well of Suffering or simply using the staff with no need to take other Traits.
This both happens in Pvp and Pve.
They’re not like Ranger’s Spirits, they don’t give an aoe buff.

Simply compare them with the other spells: most builds take them without the need to get traits to make em better. Check Corrupt Boon, check Epidemic, check Spectral Wall, Spectral Walk, Spectral Armor, several signets, Wells..

Flesh Wurm is a staple in many PvP builds (including the meta build) because the ability to immediately get away from a bad situation is way better than a few seconds of mediocre mitigation and face tanking.

Bone Fiend is completely underrated. He has a nearly guaranteed (if you time it well) 4s immobilize that is easily chained into others; unlike other immobilizes no one dodges it.

Bone Minions are the only source of strong non-WoS burst damage we have. 3.2k damage every 20 seconds untraited, with double blast finishers. Without crit chance, they will equal the damage of WoS, on nearly half the CD, and a fraction of the time.

Shadow Fiend is one of few sources of blind, without putting a well on a massive CD or putting your condition removal on CD, along with tying the largest source of un-traited one-hit LF generation.

And Flesh Golem is… well Flesh Golem.

People don’t use minions because they don’t understand them. They see minions, and they think of minions like in other games where you either go full summons or no summons, and minions have not been made that way.

Siphoned power needs a complete overhaul.

Withering precision needs a huge change to icd system or a complete rework.

Furious demise should be group fury.

Strength of Undeath should be 10% damage boost to be comparable to other class 25 point minors.

Charts of the responses may be found in the attachment.
Given these results, have your opinions changed? What changes can be made to traits people feel are subpar? Should we completely remove them or improve them? For traits worth relocating, where should they be moved? Should we merge them with another?

EDIT – My spoiler tags are freaking out for some reason, so I couldn’t make the comments a bulleted list…

Before I say anything thanks to Balefire for this brilliant thread and that awesome diagram ^^. Since soul reaping tends to be the focus I’ll give my opinions on all the traits.

Glutony: Fits well where it’s at, it’s in a good place
Last Gasp: Awesome trait perfect where it’s at.
Strength of Undeath: As others have said I think it needs to scale inversely with life force.
Fear of Death: it’s ok good for an adept.
Vital Persistence: Decent trait, maybe an even bigger reduction in the drain speed.
Path of Midnight: I’d like to see it bumped up to 20 or %25.
Spectral Mastery: it’s good where it is
Speed of Shadows: other peoples suggestions are awesome. Give us 3 seconds of double run speed for chasedowns.
Unyielding Blast: Good trait
Mark of Revival: not a great trait in my eyes. Need something better at the master level
Near to Death: I think this is fine contrary to others above.
Master of Terror: Good where it stands
Soul Marks: 5 please, marks are on long cooldowns.
Foot in the Grave: This trait should be put at Master level. This would open up so much build diversity with our class and you couldn’t get near to death and foot in the grave at the same time unless going to gm. I don’t know what they would replace it with, but 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds isn’t realistic when considering most people don’t instantly leave ds after entering it unless in a ds flash build. Moving it to master helps accomplish the stay in the pocket mentality anet is trying to bring to the class.
Deathly Perception: A build defining trait, which is how gm traits should be. Wish all of our gms had this feeling.

Overall Soul Reaping is almost their. it’s a decent tree right now and with a few changes would be good.

Just a note from the feedback graphs:
It seems like, overall, flat statistical buffs are much less liked than things that fundamentally change how something works; with the exception of when that statistical buff is significant.

Not something strange at all, because the things that really change how things function are the most fun. Deathly Perception, for example, while only being a stat buff is an absolutely major one, and is really the main reason DS LB builds work. It is a build-enabler, instead of a build-helper, and so it is very highly rated. Speed of Shadows, though, is a very small stat buff, and one that doesn’t really change anything meaningful, and so is very lowly rated.

Quite shocked to see near to death and foot in grave rated so poorly. Also as much as people dislike speed of shadows its a good niche adept trait. It certainly has its use in solo situations. Wouldnt be needed if signet passives worked in DS though.

Other than a few – Unyelding Blast and Deathly Perception. Everything else seems to either be just “okay” or needing work with the only only that most people agreeing on being just useless is Speed of Shadows

Gluttony – I agree. Most seem to think its okay and some that it needs work. I would have to agree, while it is okay i do think a little buff would be nice.

Fear of Death – I have to agree with those that say its a waste, cool down is to long, duration is to short and i just dont find it “right” traiting for things for when you are downed. Think it needs to be replaced

Vital Persistence – With the buff it got, it is now great imo. A move in the right direction. Curious about those that said it was okay and why it was just “okay”

Path To Midnight – Again seems most say that its Okay or that it needs work, i would go with those saying it needs work. 15% just isnt worth the trait slot imo

Spectral Mastery – Again, i would have to agree with the majority. It is okay but nothing again for this sort of tree that makes it worthy of a place on the bar.

Speed of Shadows – Useless, just useless.

Unyelding Blast – Great. If you have the right build this is a must imo

Reaper’s Mark – Again, most thinking it is okay or needing work and i would have to agree. compared to some like Mesmer getting Feedback bubble for example this one is rather lacking.

Near To Death – I dunno. 3 second cool down reduction just doesnt seem enough, i spend most of my time staying in it until i am out so this wouldn’t really benefit me much in its current state.

Master of Terror – It is good, for the right builds. Personally i think it is in the wrong tree so i would have to agree with those that said it is okay.

Soul Marks – Needs work. It is rather weak for such a cost in my opinion.

Foot In The Grave – Agree with the majority, it needs work. 30point cost for 3 seconds? That is simply awful. Change it to stability while in Deathshroud (can be removed with skills) and then we can talk.

Deathly Perception – based on build this trait is fantastic otherwise its just okay. For me it is fantastic as i run a DeathShroud build so love this trait.

So overall, bar a few great traits everything is just “okay” and thats a problem, nothing really screams “get me, get me” they are all just average you can take them or leave them most of the time it wont matter. Compare that to the likes of Vital Persistence, Unyelding Blast and Deathly Perception they are all must haves depending on the build and if you are investing this much into Soul Reaping the DeathShroud tree you can kind of understand why the deathshroud traits are the most valued.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vital Persistence – With the buff it got, it is now great imo. A move in the right direction. Curious about those that said it was okay and why it was just “okay”

Master of Terror – It is good, for the right builds. Personally i think it is in the wrong tree so i would have to agree with those that said it is okay.

Soul Marks – Needs work. It is rather weak for such a cost in my opinion.

I cut out portions of some of the longer comments people submitted via text, but in regards to these traits:

• More than one person stated that Vital Persistence, while nice now, should be the default LF-degeneration rate, and that the slot could be used for something else.
• More than one person commented that Master of Terror does not belong in this tree, as it is not the condition duration tree.
• There were comments that Soul Marks is great, but underwhelming in comparison to other options, and that it (A) belongs in Death Magic, or (B) should be merged with Spiteful Marks.

There also multiple comments regarding the fact that beyond Master of Terror, there is very little in the way of Conditions (appication and cleansing) in this tree in comparison to the others.

Indeed Soul Reaping tree is all focused around Life Force generation and Death Shroud tools and cooldowns. The problem is most of those traits aren’t worth taking because of the cost or because the effect is not enough good.
Anyway it’s not so simply a matter of “wrong tree” as in some builds fits really well, I can’t foresee a better tree to put it in.

For Speed of Shadows… it sucks because it’s another effect that should be yet passive on DS. I’d rather having another trait or nothing at all.

Btw I agree, congrats for the big work.

It should be expected that the majority of traits will be rated lower than they really are (with some exceptions). Let’s face it, when it comes to the class you play, you almost always tend to feel too weak, and that your class needs buffs.

Yeah totally true. Soul reapings traits are fine imo. Only thing which really bothers me is that strength of undeath is 5% where other classes get 10% as 25 point minor. I think people are saying traits are a waste because they dont use them. The only traits that I like in soul reaping are path of shadows, near to death and foot in the grave. But I can see that most of the other traits are fine for what they do. Even speed of shadows is fine. Its obviously not going to be popular because of how useless it is most of the time. But that doesnt mean it should be changed or replaced.

I wish people were more objective when rating things but thats never going to happen.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Gluttony – I agree. Most seem to think its okay and some that it needs work. I would have to agree, while it is okay i do think a little buff would be nice.

i srsly cant understand why people consider gluttony weak. it’s 10%. as an adept minor. thats totally fine. i dont want this to become a second Illusionists celerity (when it was a 5pt-trait and pretty much a must have).

Spectral Mastery – Again, i would have to agree with the majority. It is okay but nothing again for this sort of tree that makes it worthy of a place on the bar.

what? cant say i fully understand the second sentence…
spectral mastery is fine. the usual 20% cooldown trait for utilities. it’s an adept. and the traitine fits aswell since spectral skills revolve around life force. if anything, the attunement is in the wrong place.

Reaper’s Mark – Again, most thinking it is okay or needing work and i would have to agree. compared to some like Mesmer getting Feedback bubble for example this one is rather lacking.

not a problem of this trait specifically. most people simply prefer a trait that helps them to stay alive and succeed instead of one that helps you when people are already down. i dont know any mesmers taking the feedback-bubble thing either.

Master of Terror – It is good, for the right builds. Personally i think it is in the wrong tree so i would have to agree with those that said it is okay.

why so?

Foot In The Grave – Agree with the majority, it needs work. 30point cost for 3 seconds? That is simply awful. Change it to stability while in Deathshroud (can be removed with skills) and then we can talk.

dont forget the fairly low cooldown. 3 seconds stab as a grandmaster is really good on a class with no stability. would be different if we had other sources of non-elite stability tho

Yeah totally true. Soul reapings traits are fine imo. Only thing which really bothers me is that strength of undeath is 5% where other classes get 10% as 25 point minor.

Isnt the 5% even correct? I remember people saying that it’s only 90 power instead of 5%…

Its just 90 power, which is half of what it should be, anyway.

Bhawb.7408:

Its just 90 power, which is half of what it should be, anyway.

I never realized that. What the kitten is the deal with the lack of attention to our class?

There really isn’t a lack of attention, there is a lack of resources. We really do see a comparable amount of attention (the quality of it will be questioned, so will every other class), the problem is that they just plain don’t have the resources to fix things as quickly as we’d like.

Bhawb.7408:

There really isn’t a lack of attention, there is a lack of resources. We really do see a comparable amount of attention (the quality of it will be questioned, so will every other class), the problem is that they just plain don’t have the resources to fix things as quickly as we’d like.

I can see that, but it is just sad. I am no theorycrafter but 5% vs 90 power seems like a pretty decent difference in a berserker build :/

It is a pretty big difference. Power becomes less and less useful the more buffed up you are. But a 5% damage boost is always a 5% damage boost. How have you guys tested this btw? Ive never been able to accurately tell if its bugged or not.

At this point, after a year this Trait System exhist… Let’s hope in some on-work develop, or I forsee smart changes and focused attentions to address “our” problems will be sent to the future. Bad management.

Well, ideally, this is a resource that Devs can refer to in case do ever decide to change anything. Having a hodge podge of unfocused talk spread out among several threads is less likely to get their attention then a clear, concise discussion in one place.

Having acquired good survey data, we can now try to hone in on specific problems, and figure out what changes we would like to see. Specifically, there appear to be 6 traits where the majority of people are unsatisfied based on the charts. I would ask that until we reach some concesus, we focus all discussion on these traits.

• Strength of Undeath - Do we only want increased to match the standard?
• Fear of Death - Is this because it’s a death trigger? We aren’t the only profession with something akin to this, but what would we rather see here? Well of Blood?
• Speed of Shadows - Ideally, we should get at least Signet passives in DS, but if that were the case, what would we prefer here? If we are doomed to lose passive effects in DS, should we keep this? If so, should it be buffed?
• Mark of Revival - This is meant to prevent stomps, and it does an ok job of it, I think. What could be done to improve it? Well of Darkness?
• Soul Marks - This had the largest number of “relocation” responses… Where could it be moved? People also seem dissatisfied with it’s current iteration – would like to see it buffed or merged with another staff trait?
• Foot in the Grave - Presumably, everyone wants Shade back. However, assuming recent trends continue, and Devs withhold that from us, what would you like to see here? Periodic stability? (I.e. 3s of Stability every 3s or the like.)

Balefire.7592:

Well, ideally, this is a resource that Devs can refer to in case do ever decide to change anything. Having a hodge podge of unfocused talk spread out among several threads is less likely to get their attention then a clear, concise discussion in one place.

Having acquired good survey data, we can now try to hone in on specific problems, and figure out what changes we would like to see. Specifically, there appear to be 6 traits where the majority of people are unsatisfied based on the charts. I would ask that until we reach some concesus, we focus all discussion on these traits.

• Strength of Undeath - Do we only want increased to match the standard?
• Fear of Death - Is this because it’s a death trigger? We aren’t the only profession with something akin to this, but what would we rather see here? Well of Blood?
• Speed of Shadows - Ideally, we should get at least Signet passives in DS, but if that were the case, what would we prefer here? If we are doomed to lose passive effects in DS, should we keep this? If so, should it be buffed?
• Mark of Revival - This is meant to prevent stomps, and it does an ok job of it, I think. What could be done to improve it? Well of Darkness?
• Soul Marks - This had the largest number of “relocation” responses… Where could it be moved? People also seem dissatisfied with it’s current iteration – would like to see it buffed or merged with another staff trait?
• Foot in the Grave - Presumably, everyone wants Shade back. However, assuming recent trends continue, and Devs withhold that from us, what would you like to see here? Periodic stability? (I.e. 3s of Stability every 3s or the like.)

1:Hearing that a GM trait only gives 90 power is insane. That should get buffed to at least 180, but like others have said it makes since to scale it based on life force. It fits the necromancer theme. If one considers life force to correlate to death, that is more life force makes you closer to death, then we should get more power with more life force. For a GM minor upwards of 240 max power(as a random number that doesn’t seem to OP, although as bhawb said necros will always look at skills as being up).

2:In general anything that triggers on down won’t be a trait that is taken often simply because of psychology. People, including myself, have big egos. GW2 players don’t think they go down often, which means this trait won’t see much use. Having said that it isn’t a bad trait, and I think it is extremely useful in many scenarios in wvw and pvp.

3:If passive effects start to effect ds, then maybe this trait becomes something like “gain 7-10 seconds of swiftness when entering death shroud,” or “run at double speed for 3 seconds when entering death shroud.” If everything stays as is this trait could stay the same, but I think most people would prefer swiftness, or haste of some type.

4:Does this trait have an icd? if it doesn’t then it’s serves its support purpose well if it does just remove the icd. I still don’t think many people would take it, but it would be useful for support builds. I could also see well of darkness working, but there would have to be a fairly long internal cooldown. At a bare minimum 30 seconds or it would be op in wvw.

5:I could definitely see this merged with any of the other staff traits, whichever is considered the weakest, but if it was buffed to 5% it would be good where it is. I think it fits the tree fine. It grants life force in the life force tree.

6:I think people are underestimating how much stability they are asking for. Stability as long as your in death shroud would be kind of op, since life transfer couldn’t be interrupted. I still think this should be a master level trait because it would open up build diversity, but I don’t know what you replace it with.

Balefire.7592:

• Strength of Undeath - Do we only want increased to match the standard?
• Fear of Death - Is this because it’s a death trigger? We aren’t the only profession with something akin to this, but what would we rather see here? Well of Blood?
• Speed of Shadows - Ideally, we should get at least Signet passives in DS, but if that were the case, what would we prefer here? If we are doomed to lose passive effects in DS, should we keep this? If so, should it be buffed?
• Mark of Revival - This is meant to prevent stomps, and it does an ok job of it, I think. What could be done to improve it? Well of Darkness?
• Soul Marks - This had the largest number of “relocation” responses… Where could it be moved? People also seem dissatisfied with it’s current iteration – would like to see it buffed or merged with another staff trait?
• Foot in the Grave - Presumably, everyone wants Shade back. However, assuming recent trends continue, and Devs withhold that from us, what would you like to see here? Periodic stability? (I.e. 3s of Stability every 3s or the like.)

1) I’d like to see it increased to match what it actually says: 5% damage. However, at the very least if its going to give power, give a standard amount of power.

2) Its fine, IMO. This trait can actually give your team a fair amount of time to help you, and in a fear build its not bad either. Niche, but fine.

3) DS “fix” or not, this trait is bad. It should just be swiftness for X seconds on entering DS for the easiest fix.

4) It needs to be brought up to par with other revive traits. Either dropped a tier, or it needs to have increased revive stats (like other 20 point revive traits) or some other benefit. Right now its a 10 point trait that costs 20 points.

5) This trait is basically fine as is. It fits the tree (soul reaping = DS tree, soul marks = LF generation), and it would be fine. Its biggest issue is competing with Master of Terror.

6) This trait is fine. Its still massive stability uptime, I just dislike it a bit. Doesn’t decrease its strength though.

Balefire.7592:

• Strength of Undeath - Do we only want increased to match the standard?
• Fear of Death - Is this because it’s a death trigger? We aren’t the only profession with something akin to this, but what would we rather see here? Well of Blood?
• Speed of Shadows - Ideally, we should get at least Signet passives in DS, but if that were the case, what would we prefer here? If we are doomed to lose passive effects in DS, should we keep this? If so, should it be buffed?
• Mark of Revival - This is meant to prevent stomps, and it does an ok job of it, I think. What could be done to improve it? Well of Darkness?
• Soul Marks - This had the largest number of “relocation” responses… Where could it be moved? People also seem dissatisfied with it’s current iteration – would like to see it buffed or merged with another staff trait?
• Foot in the Grave - Presumably, everyone wants Shade back. However, assuming recent trends continue, and Devs withhold that from us, what would you like to see here? Periodic stability? (I.e. 3s of Stability every 3s or the like.)

2) Fear of Death: It’s a niche trait, who would take it in consideration for pve or pvp? A suicide Kamikaze terrorbuild with Death Nova? Maybe it’s funny, but probably won’t be ever considered as a valid option. If it would be emproved to be better it shouldn’t stay as an adept trait. So it’s a wasted trait. I’d rather something giving a slight buff to statistics than a placeholder.
- SOLUTION: Replace it.

3) Speed of Shadows: imho it’s a contraddiction. They clearly stated that Necromancer shouldn’t have a good mobility, this traits is too much accessible and isn’t worth anything. They put it there as a placeholder. They won’t buff it to an useful level because of their statements, so just replace it.
To chase we have Fear+Dark Path, to kite we have Fear+Shackles, we have no melee attacks in DS, so the least use it could have should be a pretty scarce escape attempt.
- SOLUTION: Replace it.

4) Mark of Revival is a nice a Blast Finisher (nice to use with on-death traits which cause a Combo Field like Ranger’s), but until we see no change to other traits that should buff Marks I think it isn’t worth that much. On that position it’s outshaded by Unyelding Blast, Master of Terror, near to Death.
- SOLUTION: I’d see it better on an Adept Tier, i would take it in pvp for sure over Vital Persistence and Path of Midnight.

5) Soul Marks:I find it nice there, but probably it’s better to merge it with other staff Traits, or raising up that 3% LF generated. 4 Marks = 12% LF (there’s no multiplicator for every target), on such a long cooldown it’s pretty ridicle. Maybe merge it with Staff mastery.
- SOLUTION: Merge with Staff Mastery.

6) Foot in the Grave:The real problem for this trait is the synergy with Near to Death which is really nice to use in DS build, giving an high Stability uptime if paired with Death Traits and boon duration.
To decide if Shade is needed here we first should understand a way of using it, it’s not just putting traits randomly (as Anet did) and hoping someone find a viable way of using them. Here it competes with Deathly Perception which often goes for Heavy Dps builds. If some Death Shroud bunker build would be allowed (healing in DS maybe?), then it can be of some use. But would it be functional?
If you think about the whole tree it emphasize in making Death Shroud an emproved tool, an emproved state for both survival and damage.

Imho the problem with stability is the interaction with boon duration, if they would put an effect like Shade, which isn’t a boon, it would solve the uptime problem.

- SOLUTION: Bring back Shade status instead of Stability.

My big issue with Foot in the Grave is that it’s a GM trait and we have horrible access to stability.

Looking at the Necro’s design philosophy, which has been edited since release, Necros are supposed to be an immovable object.
We are, based on our own abilities, no blinks and etc…
However for our enemies? Totally movable.

This is the worst possible scenario from a mechanics point of view and so Foot in the Grave should be Shade. It’s a 30 points GM, would only be active WHILE we are in DS and have kitten condition application, what sPvP kittenes about and stops us from getting fixed.

Besides which, these traits are supposed to be build definers and game changers. The only game changing from it, currently, is that we gain poor access to stability instead of practically none.

Shall we go on discussing other Trees?

Luke.4562:

Shall we go on discussing other Trees?

Does everyone feel like we’ve reached a consensus on things?
Many people have mentioned that they would like to see some traits scrapped/merged, and I’m interested in seeing what you’d want to see in their place.

Balefire.7592:

Luke.4562:

Shall we go on discussing other Trees?

Does everyone feel like we’ve reached a consensus on things?
Many people have mentioned that they would like to see some traits scrapped/merged, and I’m interested in seeing what you’d want to see in their place.

i feel like almost everything has already been discussed to death in this subforum. like every week another thread with suggestions for traits and skills pops up and the same old stuff gets repeated again. it’s pretty weird that some people just dont seem to get tired of it.

RashanDale.3609:

Balefire.7592:

Luke.4562:

Shall we go on discussing other Trees?

Does everyone feel like we’ve reached a consensus on things?
Many people have mentioned that they would like to see some traits scrapped/merged, and I’m interested in seeing what you’d want to see in their place.

i feel like almost everything has already been discussed to death in this subforum. like every week another thread with suggestions for traits and skills pops up and the same old stuff gets repeated again. it’s pretty weird that some people just dont seem to get tired of it.

Would you rather not talk about it then?
Any possible discussion we could have in this subforum is limited to three archetypes: class commentary, build commentary, and gameplay commentary. The second and third topics pop up from time to time, but currently, they’re fairly trivial since most builds are cookie-cutter and most people have learned what to do where. That really only leaves us with the first topic.

The problem is, we can talk as much about how to fix everything as much as we want, the sad thing is we all know that NOTHING will come of anything we say.