Guild Wars 2

-Definiton of a bloodmage
-Introduction
-Question

(skip to question, the introduction/definition is just a bit context, not necessary to answer my question)

Greetings fellow necromancers,

First a short (might be a bit longer) introduction to my problem:

I like the concept of being a bloodmage or a so-called hemomancer and when I began playing GW2 I chosed the necromancer with this concept in mind.
I thought, a necro is able to use bloodmagic because it is partly mentioned in novels and movies and it fits overall the whole necromancer-being-the-ruler-over-the-dead-theme.

So, I created a necro and began to play. The first bloodmagic-like ability I ´ve noticed was Dagger2. A really nice looking ability which made me thinking, I could really be a bloodmage in this game. Then I got to level10 where I saw the bloodmagic-traitline and I was even more thrilled to play my necro as a bloodmage. Unfortunately, when I finished the bloodmagic-trait, I was a bit disapointed because the whole traitline was more supportive than I thought and a bloodmage is many but not a supporter.
Furthermore there were not that much traits to heal me or to suck out the life out of enemies like the dagger2 does.

However, I kept playing my necro and was looking for more possible ways to make my necro a bloodmage. Healing Power sounded like something that would support my idea so I decided to stack this stat to increase my heal through significant abilities like heal on dagger2 or healing through attacking the enemy whith dagger1. I got disappointed again because even with high Healing Hower I didn´t noticed increased healing like I thought it would. I did a little research and figured out, that Healing Power is crap, healing to Healing power to be precise.

Now I was looking for bloodmagic-builds but all I found was condition, condition and more condition-builds.
Sadly, I don´t like conditions.

However I decided to delete my necro although he was level80 already. Sounds stupid but I stuck with this idea to play a bloodmage and my necro was created just to support this idea. I deleted him then and stopped playing GW2. Unfortunately, the other classes were boring to me, just the necro brought me something like fun.

Probably nearly a year later GW2-HoT was on sale. I´ve got the notification and chosed to play it again, to give it a new chance but now not for creating a bloodmage.
I installed the game, created a necro again, received the level80-boost and used the boost straight up on my necro. Just a few weeks later I finished the reaper-traitline and invested a lot time to make my necro a power-reaper.

End of story-time (partly)

This was all a year ago, now my power-necro is near his first birthday and I really enjoy playing him, although that conditions are better.
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Probably, some of you did notice the release of Diablo3´s necromancer, of course you did.
I´ve followed the release and saw that this necromancer can be played as a full bloodmage, together with life-sucking abilities and a well designed blood-theme.

My previous idea to play my necro as a bloodmage came back in mind, together with the fact, that GW2´s necromancer can´t be played as one.

(Very)Long story short, I would like to ask you, what is needed to make that possible ?
What do we need to make our necromancer into a bloodmage ?
Which buffs(ability-wise) and which gamechanges or reworks do we need to play a necromancer as a bloodmage ?
I would really appreciate your ideas, suggestions and of course opinions, even if you don´t want a bloodmage in GW2.

This is the first text of its size I have written completely in english. Please excuse any grammar issues or grammatical flaws (probably both).
In return I apologize for any sickness, that might be caused by reading my text.

A complete overhaul of the necromancer as it stands currently

kitten . This was what I was expecting actually when I wanted to play a necro besides minions (unfortunately, minions aren’t that good outside of open-world PvE)… a massive lifesteal with some decent CC class.

The scaling on healing and power isnt there. Needs to be buffed across all skills that drain life. Overall pretty bad concept.

The idea of a “bloodmage” is interesting but sadly it would be difficult to introduce in a game like GW2. That’s because professions in gw2 are not fixed on only one aspect but balance around the fact that you have to build yourself with 3 different traitlines.

However, we could say that there is “hope” for a “bloodmage” via a elite specialization. What would be needed in this elite specialization would be :

- A fast attacking weapon and shroud auto attack to be able to capitalize on life leeching abilities.
- A set of utility skills that bleed yourself on use.
- Traits that make you stronger/heal you/support your allies/damage your enemies, when you bleed.
- extra An additionnal mechanism (maybe F2) that make you take twice the damage from bleed effects but greatly boost your direct damage for a short duration.

This shouldn’t be difficult to introduce however it seem to be past the bottom line of tha arena net’s staff. Because they keep thinking that any condition affecting the necromancer is one huge weapon for him while it’s also easy for a necromancer to die from conditions.

Dadnir.5038:

The idea of a “bloodmage” is interesting but sadly it would be difficult to introduce in a game like GW2. That’s because professions in gw2 are not fixed on only one aspect but balance around the fact that you have to build yourself with 3 different traitlines.

However, we could say that there is “hope” for a “bloodmage” via a elite specialization. What would be needed in this elite specialization would be :

- A fast attacking weapon and shroud auto attack to be able to capitalize on life leeching abilities.
- A set of utility skills that bleed yourself on use.
- Traits that make you stronger/heal you/support your allies/damage your enemies, when you bleed.
- extra An additionnal mechanism (maybe F2) that make you take twice the damage from bleed effects but greatly boost your direct damage for a short duration.

This shouldn’t be difficult to introduce however it seem to be past the bottom line of tha arena net’s staff. Because they keep thinking that any condition affecting the necromancer is one huge weapon for him while it’s also easy for a necromancer to die from conditions.

They could at least buff the lifesteal of Blood Magic traitline as a start. I think I’ve said this on another thread: Thieves get 10% or 15% (I don’t remember) of outgoing critical damage from Invigorating Precision which in terms of math, assuming they hit for 4k crit that’s 400 heal. So much more than what our lifesteal gives us and we’re supposed to be necromancers with mastery of blood, life force and all that jazz… they could at least bump the scaling (and diminish healing while in Shroud because as one guy pointed out, increasing lifesteal which bypasses shroud might make us immortal).

Well, that’s because we do additionnal damage that can’t be mitigated. It does have pros and cons. Note that I don’t say that the values are anywhere near what I would like them to be.

I personnally suggested that they switched the life leeching values that vampirism give to us with those that are given to our minions. I think it would help to add some diversity in our “leech” build by not pigeonholing us in taking minions utilities. However, it doesn’t change the fact that in order to make siphon valuable we need a high attack speed or/and numerous damage sources.

I think another main issue that explain the low value is the fact that life force generation count as sustain in the mind of the developpers. Which mean that they expect us to think that each time we gain 1% life force we have to translate it as : “I gained 170 health point! Thanks my godly sustain!”. And since we often reap life force by chuncks of 10%…

As players that actively use the necromancer we know how flawed that kind of mindset is but… We can’t change/stop it.

Dadnir.5038:

The idea of a “bloodmage” is interesting but sadly it would be difficult to introduce in a game like GW2. That’s because professions in gw2 are not fixed on only one aspect but balance around the fact that you have to build yourself with 3 different traitlines.

However, we could say that there is “hope” for a “bloodmage” via a elite specialization. What would be needed in this elite specialization would be :

- A fast attacking weapon and shroud auto attack to be able to capitalize on life leeching abilities.
- A set of utility skills that bleed yourself on use.
- Traits that make you stronger/heal you/support your allies/damage your enemies, when you bleed.
- extra An additionnal mechanism (maybe F2) that make you take twice the damage from bleed effects but greatly boost your direct damage for a short duration.

This shouldn’t be difficult to introduce however it seem to be past the bottom line of tha arena net’s staff. Because they keep thinking that any condition affecting the necromancer is one huge weapon for him while it’s also easy for a necromancer to die from conditions.

Actually, we have a higher heal on dagger2 when bleeding which sounds like a way in the right direction.
I´m not a great fan of this concept "enhancement through bleeding "because bleeding is still a normal condition. It should be implemented, that we suffer from a specific bleed-effect like we already do from “blood is power”.
Anyway, it seems that we need either a “healing-power”-rework+bloodmagic-rework or a new elite specialization. Now the new expansion is ongoing in development and I hardly believe that we will get a bloodmage in the desert.^^

Now they should increase the life siphon and life steal damage/heal value based on many bleed stack we are “holding”

Arzurag.7506:

Actually, we have a higher heal on dagger2 when bleeding which sounds like a way in the right direction.
I´m not a great fan of this concept "enhancement through bleeding "because bleeding is still a normal condition. It should be implemented, that we suffer from a specific bleed-effect like we already do from “blood is power”.
Anyway, it seems that we need either a “healing-power”-rework+bloodmagic-rework or a new elite specialization. Now the new expansion is ongoing in development and I hardly believe that we will get a bloodmage in the desert.^^

Well, personnally I feel that those change that have been done to the dagger are an arrow to the knee for the necromancer. Simply put, it cripple the dagger for a variety of builds.

For me bonuses when under the effect of a condition need to be given through traits that we chose volontarily and not something that is forced on us. And honnestly the things they did on dagger wasn’t what this weapon needed. The 2 skills needed shorter cast time and longer range. Adding more and more and even more effect on skills just make them even more frustrating to miss. And since there primary issue is that those skills are to easily avoided we just end up with more frustration than ever.

As for the new e-spec, I agree that this might not be a bloodmage, however, the probability for some life leeching mechanisms are not low. Honnestly, If I associate necromancer and desert, the only things I can think of is poison and weakness.