Guild Wars 2

I tried SoV in a dungeon last weekend and was as unimpressed as the last time I used it.

Please help me understand in what game mode or situations the Vampiric traits and Signet are competitive with more common builds.

There has to be something I am missing because these health leaching skills and attributes have been around a while, yet I still do not understand how and when to use them. Lots of other things on Necromancer have been buffed by the balance team. This implies the Vamp stuff was, and is, plenty powerful.

I must not be using a Vampiric build the way it is intended.

Help me, please!

The right way to use it is to not use it. Sorry, it’s true; they’re bad right now in all formats. The only life stealing skill really worth being used is Dagger 2 for the added sustain on power builds.

Anchoku.8142:

Lots of other things on Necromancer have been buffed by the balance team. This implies the Vamp stuff was, and is, plenty powerful.

Oh dear, you should know better than that.

As of right now, vampiric traits and SoV are borderline useless. The base healing isn’t great and the scaling with healing power is even worse. Plus SoV got killed when they decided to give it an ICD and it not actually leeching life of your opponent.

The only way to use SoV somewhat effectively is in open world PvE on bosses to give some extra dmg ticks.

Some Vamp stuff was buffed ages ago. Its still not good enough though in almost all cases.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The right way to use it is to not use it. Sorry, it’s true; they’re bad right now in all formats. The only life stealing skill really worth being used is Dagger 2 for the added sustain on power builds.

This.

I think the biggiest problem with the siphon traits is that they simply dont work well with DS. I think they should simply allow the traits to work in DS and from there look how it works out.

And for SoV, i feel the problem is soly the passive. It should ether be an lifesteal on hitting the opponent or if Anets likes the getting hit effect so much have an ICD per attacker and it also should be a lifesteal not a simple heal. I mean it has “Vampirism” in the name and it is a signet so ofc the passive should be a lifesteal of some sort…

Well, the values are useless too. Maximum investment into siphons (including optimizing rotations) yields only 30 health/second over simply spamming Mark of Blood on cooldown. I just did a full breakdown on this not that long ago.

SoV, the passive is definitely holding it back.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Well, the values are useless too. Maximum investment into siphons (including optimizing rotations) yields only 30 health/second over simply spamming Mark of Blood on cooldown. I just did a full breakdown on this not that long ago.

I never said the numbers were fine. It is just that the healing from the siphon traits (and most of the healing traits) should not become useless while in DS. And i think this is not a problem from a balancing standpoint but a standpoint how mechanics should work.

Seeing some of the profession experts I respect most weigh in here makes me very happy. Thank you all for taking the time to commit your assessment to this thread.

I still hope to get a tag to leave some form of comment, whether to suggest a build or two I may have overlooked, or hint at some of the problems with the traits when reviewed by the balance team.

From my perspective, I see little reason why Bloodthirst and Vampiric Precision cannot be combined with the Master and Grandmaster minor traits, Vampiric and Blood to Power. Doing this might make that trait line less unattractive.

SoV might be more useful if it had some boon or condition management on passive or active. Perhaps consuming or corrupting boons on active and donating conditions on passive will make up for its limitations outside of casual PvE event zerging.

Experimenting with different builds is fun but this one continues to puzzle and frustrate me. I would like to make it work, even for outlier situations but am clearly missing something. Food and sigils, even mobs in Orr, all seem better at it than I can manage by stuffing points into Blood Magic.

Nowhere near worth building around. It’s basically just a teensy bit more sustain for MM.

It’d be good if it applied an aoe buff like soothing mist to all allies, and worked in DS.

Bloodthirst itself is fine, especially as the siphoning skills themselves are in a pretty good spot (other than SoV’s passive, the siphoning part is fine).

What is the rage about SoV? I love it. At least for dungeon runs it is the most optimal healing skill to use.
In a dungeon heavy condi damage on you is very rare. Therefore consume conditions is already not that good. The minor trait choices in spite arent that good in my opinion (life blast has burst but no higher overall dps than dagger so might on LB is a no for me). Therefore I take the signet one. Lower CD on SoV +3 bonus might.

In a full party it is easy to drain all 25 stacks of vampirism off your enemy, meaning that this skill actually damages your enemy for 6k+ while you have healed. Perfect right?

Edit: SoV only disadventage is that it heals upon being hit, meaning on bosses where you dodge much or take in huge damage, the healing can almost be ignored.

Signet of the Vampire is terrible and pointless.

The minion will do more damage/DPS than the signet. The well + projectiles = confusion which will do more damage/DPS than the signet. Necromancer has bad condition removal, so we all use consume conditions which is enough condition removal for PvE, freeing up our traits and utilities for DPS.

In addition it is not easy to drain all 25 stacks in a 5 man party. Only one stack can be removed per second, and signet of the vampirism has an aftercast. All dagger, and axe skills as well as the third hit of dagger 1 have aftercast too. So the necromancer himself can only remove 4 stacks, which mean you already missed the 25 stacks.

In addition, dagger only have better DPS than life bast with high might stacks, which you usually will not have because you can’t provide them yourself and your party can’t keep on you with 100% uptime.

The V.8759:

stuff

Most of the hate for SoV comes from the people who thought it was gonna add some badly needed sustain to Necro in PvP. At this point they should just add a few of those white ambient bunnies to PvP maps instead so you can hit them for some globs of LF every now and then.

As for PvE, you could slot racial heals and still do all content without any problems on Necro. I would also add that quite a lot of enemies in dungeons throw around conds like Weakness so I’d take CC any time over SoV for PvE as well. An uncleansed Weakness will cost you a lot more dps than SoV will add. Oh and if you get might on signet use that means you’re using the signet trait which in turns means you ain’t using the focus trait.

nekretaal.6485:

Signet of the Vampire is terrible and pointless.

The minion will do more damage/DPS than the signet. The well + projectiles = confusion which will do more damage/DPS than the signet. Necromancer has bad condition removal, so we all use consume conditions which is enough condition removal for PvE, freeing up our traits and utilities for DPS.

In addition it is not easy to drain all 25 stacks in a 5 man party. Only one stack can be removed per second, and signet of the vampirism has an aftercast. All dagger, and axe skills as well as the third hit of dagger 1 have aftercast too. So the necromancer himself can only remove 4 stacks, which mean you already missed the 25 stacks.

In addition, dagger only have better DPS than life bast with high might stacks, which you usually will not have because you can’t provide them yourself and your party can’t keep on you with 100% uptime.

Wrong on all counts.

Blood Fiend’s DPS is downright horrid at a mere 79.67 (99.59 if traited). Signet of Vampirism, when traited in a typical meta dungeon build, is 282.46 DPS, plus the additional damage you get from the 3 stacks of Might. Plus, Blood Fiend doesn’t have a projectile attack, so even combo fields don’t help its case.

Since the mark now lasts for 6 seconds, it is very easy for the party to consume all 25 stacks. It’s possible for the Necro himself to consume 6 if he had a well or locust swarm running beforehand (if not, 5 stacks is still not difficult to claim).

And no, Dagger has better DPS than Life Blast even without Might stacks. Life Blast, within 600 range, is 1 power coefficient/second while dagger auto is 1.33 coefficients/second. They also both use the same weapon damage if you didn’t swap weapons before entering death shroud (but no weapon in the game has a 33% higher average damage than dagger). Only if you have Unyielding Blast and 3+ targets does Life Blast become the better DPS option.

I traited 6 into Blood Magic 2.5 years ago when I learned about Wells. I love the life stealing sustain it provides. In PvP rune of the Scholar with vanpiric traits i was called tanky, despite being Berserker. In PvE, due to my laziness about mechanics, it helps me be lazy in Frac 50s and such.

Consume conditions is really hard to beat in most game modes. The condition wipe is Necromancer’s most powerful condition management skill, imo.

After a fight in a dungeon, for example, there is usually nothing for me to transfer a condition to. Shrouded Removal (?) And anti-toxin spray are the only other ways to clear those pesky after-battle conditions so I can get out of combat and run.

SoV needs something like that. Necromancer’s heal and DS are the only ways to remove a condition without a target. Maybe SoV cannot be made stronger but it could sure be improved sideways.

I have a difficult time justifying it on anything but face roll PvE.

You forgot Well of Power there.

Right, I did forget it. I use WoP frequently enough in PvE PUG / event support that I should not have missed it. Thank you. Used it on Teq just a few days ago, in fact.

Edit: If Plague Signet had a fast enough CD or the passive removed a condition every few seconds per signet equipped, that could make taking SoV more attractive.

The best use I have found for vampiric builds is zergy events, or rather, any time you can target more than 3 mobs at a time, I have optimized this build to do as many ticks of damage as possible, to take advantage of all the procs that leech life etc.

Surprisingly it provides decent dungeon support since you run wells, that cleanse conditions and that give protection.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBHRhG2IJNt02TjlN83moZok+CCgod6RoFWBoKSA-TBCGwA9VCm4kAgS9nkK/SrRIj+gY7PA4JAQIgyTAA-e.

I use vampiric related traits if I am soloing something and need sustain (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ1wIgRQplc)