Guild Wars 2

I read half the people saying its Spite (power) and the other half saying Spite is useless. Im confused which is it cause it cant be both. Im leveling using mostly staff and well of corruption and suffering and just pulling as much stuff onto me, dropping everything then going Death Shroud for Life Transfer.

Also looking at traits it actually does seem like Spits is 100% worthless if using Wells and Staff skills. I know I have to have at least 20 in curses for ground target Wells. Then 20 more points in Death Magic for 20% faster staff and Increased area and unblockable Marks and finally at least 20 in Blood Magic for 20% faster wells. Does that sound about right? So where do my last 10 points go?

Ok so each of those things (wells and marks) usually have a secondary function, usually a condition. Now depending on the condition, the values go off of condition damage (or condition duration) however, the initial straight raw damage is affected by power (spite). One last thing to consider though, the marks on the staff generate much more and much longer lasting conditions than raw damage, whereas wells are the opposite. So power doesn’t benefit marks as much but it can still help them crank out some good damage. You are right though, the spite line offers little for the staff and it’s related skills, but it’s not useless for it. It all depends on your build as a whole. If you were going for a heavy well build I would recommend using at least some spite simply to keep those damage ticks on the wells high. Doesn’t mean yo gotta grandmaster it ;-)

Depends on the well and the mark. Most of them do both raw power-based damage and something else as well (condition-based, usually).

Marks tend to scale horribly with power. The direct damage they deal is very low, because marks are used for their conditions and utility. For example, the damage in Mark of Blood comes from the bleed stacks it applies, and not from the laughable damage caused by triggering it. As such Marks scale better with Condition Damage (or nothing at all if you just want them for their utility).

Keep in mind that Staff’s 1 (i.e.: auto-attack) is a normal auto-attack that scales well with power.

Wells, on the other hand, come in 2 “shapes”: damage or utility. Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption deal damage per tick based on power, and scale well with it. Other wells don’t generally deal damage, and instead are used for their utility (blinding and condition removal), so don’t need to scale at all.

In very short terms: Marks > Condition damage. Wells > Power.

Especially since OP’s question is about traits specifically, I seriously doubt it’s as black and white as depicted above.

Taking Mark as Blood as an example might nicely illustrate your argument, but at the same time it’s conveniently the only mark where the condition/direct damage ratio is so high. One might take Necrotic Grasp or Putrid Mark as examples and come out with the complete opposite conclusion. How all these abilities interplay with one another in a real situation is, in my opinion, very hard to judge and I’d welcome any attempt to do so. As such, it is also very hard to judge which one of the two will come out on top. For now though, we could have a look at what governs all abilities separately, (from 1 to 5, thus from low to high cooldown) that is: Power, Condition Damage, Condition Damage, Power, Power. To some approximation, this, for me, suggests that staff was actually designed to scale roughly equally well with both power and condition damage.

That all aside though, and remembering that the question was mainly about traits, let’s take a look at Mark of Blood again. As it so happens, Spite does not only increase power but condition duration as well. So if we have to make a choice between 30 Spite or 30 Curses, Mark of Blood would respectively deal 30% (from increase in duration) or 35.3% (300*5%=15 and 15/42.5=35.3%, notice that this goes down A LOT if you have other sources of condition damage) more bleeding damage. I’m pretty sure your increased direct damage overcomes this 5.3% difference (and remember that this is the mark that deals the most condition damage…). In return all your conditions are more effective (including chilled, poison, etc.) and you get more damage out of the rest of your Staff, Wells, Death Shroud, Lich Form, etc. (And for those that would argue duration increase is bad because of 25 bleeding stacks limit: outside of open world PvE, I have very rarely seen 25 stacks of bleeding on a target, let alone it being a real problem.)

Now if you would’ve asked: do I take a Berskerker’s or a Rampager’s Staff, that’s another discussion entirely…

So in order to put points into Spite what do I have to give up?

Out of the following which is the most useless:
Ground Target Wells
Staff skills recharge 20% faster
Wells recharge 20% faster
Increases area of Marks and they become unblockable

Dabrixmgp.4758:

So in order to put points into Spite what do I have to give up?

Out of the following which is the most useless:
Ground Target Wells
Staff skills recharge 20% faster
Wells recharge 20% faster
Increases area of Marks and they become unblockable

I wouldn’t give up any of those. All are too useful. Give up spite. I run 0-30-20-20-0 with all of those you just listed traited. No problems…no minions either…just wells n corruptions (swithc off on those depending on fight)

If you absolutely had to give one up, you can live without the -20% staff skills. I don’t always run it and there’s not a huge noticeable difference. However, with the long recharge on wells, its good to bring the -20% on well trait. That one you do notice. Imo if you’re going to run staff, the greater marks is a must, no questions about it. You could possibly get by without ground target wells, but it’s convenience is hard to pass up, plus in order to properly place them without it you have to be very good at running in, dropping, dodging out, and not getting hit which can be tricky not to mention usually gets you tons of agro in the process.

Arvid.3829:

Especially since OP’s question is about traits specifically, I seriously doubt it’s as black and white as depicted above.

Taking Mark as Blood as an example might nicely illustrate your argument, but at the same time it’s conveniently the only mark where the condition/direct damage ratio is so high. One might take Necrotic Grasp or Putrid Mark as examples and come out with the complete opposite conclusion.

Not really. Necrotic Grasp is the auto-attack (as mentioned above). Putrid Mark has an ok scaling, but nothing impressive. Its real use is the condition transfering. As a damage dealer it has way too high cooldown and not enough damage – miserable DPS and low burst. If you’re making a build around a staff exclusively there’s no reason to build power over condition damage. The damage you get on Necrotic Grasp and Putrid Mark if you happen to have Power in your build is just a bonus.

Arvid.3829:

How all these abilities interplay with one another in a real situation is, in my opinion, very hard to judge and I’d welcome any attempt to do so. As such, it is also very hard to judge which one of the two will come out on top. For now though, we could have a look at what governs all abilities separately, (from 1 to 5, thus from low to high cooldown) that is: Power, Condition Damage, Condition Damage, Power, Power. To some approximation, this, for me, suggests that staff was actually designed to scale roughly equally well with both power and condition damage.

And this shows a complete lack of understanding of what the staff is. The staff is a control/support weapon. Its main damage comes from Mark of Blood, but the staff is not a damage weapon. What really makes the staff shine is its utility: AoE Chill ( -66% movement speed and skill cooldown) + poison (heal reduction) on 3; AoE all condition clearing and transferring on 4, AoE Fear on 5. The spammable AoE bleed + poison (+extra condition you should be transferring from yourself with Putrid Mark) + potshots with the auto-attack gives you decent enough damage for AoE, but by and large the staff is not a damage dealer on its own. That said, if you want to scale its damage most of it comes from Mark of Blood anyways, so you scale condition damage.

Arvid.3829:

That all aside though, and remembering that the question was mainly about traits, let’s take a look at Mark of Blood again. As it so happens, Spite does not only increase power but condition duration as well. So if we have to make a choice between 30 Spite or 30 Curses, Mark of Blood would respectively deal 30% (from increase in duration) or 35.3% (300*5%=15 and 15/42.5=35.3%, notice that this goes down A LOT if you have other sources of condition damage) more bleeding damage. I’m pretty sure your increased direct damage overcomes this 5.3% difference (and remember that this is the mark that deals the most condition damage…). In return all your conditions are more effective (including chilled, poison, etc.) and you get more damage out of the rest of your Staff, Wells, Death Shroud, Lich Form, etc. (And for those that would argue duration increase is bad because of 25 bleeding stacks limit: outside of open world PvE, I have very rarely seen 25 stacks of bleeding on a target, let alone it being a real problem.)

Now if you would’ve asked: do I take a Berskerker’s or a Rampager’s Staff, that’s another discussion entirely…

Traits offer neglectful stats for the most part. In this game most of your stats comes from the gear. As such, you trait in whatever trees give you the traits you want to use.

Personally I run a mark+wells necro and I put 0 points in Spite. It’s not worth it. There are too many other traits you need and not enough reward for traiting into spite for my specific build: Greater Marks and Ground Targeted Wells are absolutely mandatory, and Vampiric Rituals (as well as other life syphoning mechanics there) recommended.