Guild Wars 2

so with every necro ever saying vital persistence needs to become baseline here are my thoughts about the topic.

we have a trait that is overcentralizing. everybody picks it because its way too good and it has no alternative. its a straight upgrade without any consideration or active gameplay and works completely against build diversity.

when i hear that about a trait the last i thing i want is that it becomes baseline!
are you crazy guys? that trait is a prime candidate for getting nerfed. why would you make it baseline? that means that first of all everybody always has it increasing the overall power of every necro without doing a thing or making any decision and also you get another trait for free or even another whole trait line.

only because its good doesnt mean its healthy for the game. people even want dhuumfire to be baseline… do you even want a choice at all? the new trait system is severely limitting our choices already. do you even want to choose anything?

so if u wanna leave a comment go for it. maybe we should think why we want to be in death shroud for longer. are death shroud skill too good? are weapon skills too bad? do we need to have more active defense? comment on it, why im wrong, why i have no clue about this game or why necromancer needs to be invincible. have a nice day

ok don’t take it and see how well you do against competent people alone and in team fights.

the reason people want it baseline is because the necro cant survive without it, the natural degeneration of ds is way too much for a mechanic that is our only defense.

yes thats why we should ask to stop depending on it and get something else, not make vital persistence baseline to depend even more on it

Goldenrevolver.4371:

yes thats why we should ask to stop depending on it and get something else, not make vital persistence baseline to depend even more on it

You mean, like, active defense ? You dream WAY bigger than 2% base degen!

4% degen per sec for just sitting in shroud, not even taking damage, is so high that halving it is required not to be complete garbage. Does that make us strong ? Not even close.

The point is to free us from having to take SR in order to have more than one build worthy of being “meta” (as if being the 2nd least played profession in ESL with a single niche build could warrant that tag).

Just staying in our awful position but with added build diversity would be great. That’s how big I dream after 3 years.

It’s not over centralizing, it’s over-rated.

It gets picked a lot because the other two options are reworked master of terror and Spectral Mastery.

Spectral mastery is better than vital persistence if you take 2 spectals and Lich (and it changes spectral walk into a wonderful skill).

The terror trait is subpar because fear is super weak as a CC and terror builds are dead.

Necromancer has enough life force to sit in death shroud for a long time even without vital persistence. Reaper doesn’t have enough life force to sit in reaper shroud even with vital persistence.

That’s the basic issue.

And it can be worked around.

Well I also want it because it makes death shroud that much less clunky. As a reaper, an ability can take up between 4 and 8% LF as opposed to 2-4%. Reaper especially notices frequent ability interruption due to life force draining, especially when under fire, it causes it more often. So it’s a huge part of our defense, but it’s also a clunkiness factor. The faster degeneration feels terrible. You end up having to gather far more life force before going into shroud for the abilities is even worth while. With VP, you can manage to use several skills comfortably. Without it, using shroud at that point is often pointless. These are just some examples of how it makes shroud more frustrating to use in general. For design purposes it just needs to be standardized, not to mention our reliance on it for defense.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

so with every necro ever saying vital persistence needs to become baseline here are my thoughts about the topic.

we have a trait that is overcentralizing. everybody picks it because its way too good and it has no alternative. its a straight upgrade without any consideration or active gameplay and works completely against build diversity.

when i hear that about a trait the last i thing i want is that it becomes baseline!
are you crazy guys? that trait is a prime candidate for getting nerfed. why would you make it baseline? that means that first of all everybody always has it increasing the overall power of every necro without doing a thing or making any decision and also you get another trait for free or even another whole trait line.

only because its good doesnt mean its healthy for the game. people even want dhuumfire to be baseline… do you even want a choice at all? the new trait system is severely limitting our choices already. do you even want to choose anything?

so if u wanna leave a comment go for it. maybe we should think why we want to be in death shroud for longer. are death shroud skill too good? are weapon skills too bad? do we need to have more active defense? comment on it, why im wrong, why i have no clue about this game or why necromancer needs to be invincible. have a nice day

Do you even play necto? I call saboteur on you

Baselining Vital Persistence would be a lot like how they baselined the initiative regeneration trait in Thief’s Critical Strikes specialization. They did that because it was so necessary that you couldn’t operate without it, and that sounds fairly similar to Vital Persistence.

That said, I’ve tested a lot of PvE and PvP builds without Vital Persistence and while it helps a lot I really don’t think it’s quite that crucial. I do think it makes more sense as a minor trait given its effect, as right now there’s basically no other master trait that can compete with it, but I don’t necessarily think it’s so ubiquitous that it must be baselined. I seriously don’t think the future Reaper build that will be used in raids will even use Soul Reaping, for instance.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Baselining Vital Persistence would be a lot like how they baselined the initiative regeneration trait in Thief’s Critical Strikes specialization. They did that because it was so necessary that you couldn’t operate without it, and that sounds fairly similar to Vital Persistence.

That said, I’ve tested a lot of PvE and PvP builds without Vital Persistence and while it helps a lot I really don’t think it’s quite that crucial. I do think it makes more sense as a minor trait given its effect, as right now there’s basically no other master trait that can compete with it, but I don’t necessarily think it’s so ubiquitous that it must be baselined. I seriously don’t think the future Reaper build that will be used in raids will even use Soul Reaping, for instance.

It’s much more of a diversity issue in terms of PVP than is PVE, I would say. I feel like (and maybe not in your case), much of the question of ‘is it really even necessary?’ comes from people trying to look at it from different views. In PVE its really not even a concern in the slightest, mostly because shroud is hardly used.

In PVP the swing between taking Soul Reaping in general versus not taking soul reaping is a HUGE (very very large) difference in survivability, because not only do you get half the generation which is huge, it has more LF, 10% more generation, a Spectral Armor proc, AND Soul marks. Put it all together and PvPing without SR usually ends up not being really worth it outside of casual encounters.

That said, making it a minor fixes basically nothing in those regards. Making it baseline while ensuring a prevention of SR power creep, however, would bring non-SR builds a little closer together. I currently can’t fathom playing a PVP-oriented Reaper without SR.

ronpierce.2760:

Well I also want it because it makes death shroud that much less clunky. As a reaper, an ability can take up between 4 and 8% LF as opposed to 2-4%. Reaper especially notices frequent ability interruption due to life force draining, especially when under fire, it causes it more often. .

Getting knocked out of shroud should not give enemies a free interrupt. This should be fixed for shroud/lich/other transforms.

That’s the fix we need.

ronpierce.2760:

It’s much more of a diversity issue in terms of PVP than is PVE, I would say. I feel like (and maybe not in your case), much of the question of ‘is it really even necessary?’ comes from people trying to look at it from different views. In PVE its really not even a concern in the slightest, mostly because shroud is hardly used.

In PVP the swing between taking Soul Reaping in general versus not taking soul reaping is a HUGE (very very large) difference in survivability, because not only do you get half the generation which is huge, it has more LF, 10% more generation, a Spectral Armor proc, AND Soul marks. Put it all together and PvPing without SR usually ends up not being really worth it outside of casual encounters.

That said, making it a minor fixes basically nothing in those regards. Making it baseline while ensuring a prevention of SR power creep, however, would bring non-SR builds a little closer together. I currently can’t fathom playing a PVP-oriented Reaper without SR.

It’s certainly a far more relevant a question in PvP than PvE, I agree. I definitely have always run SR in PvP, but not necessarily just for Vital Persistence. It’s the combination of VP along with those other things that makes the line so good; no other line offers so much for survivability while also buffing offense through Dhuumfire/Death Perception. Not even Death Magic comes close, and that is the toughness line! I think overall this is more a failing of the DM specialization compared to the sheer power that is the SR specialization. I imagine that if DM were more universally great at sustaining a Necromancer, perhaps by adding blocks or evades or vigor or something, then we’d see SR being less mandatory in every build.

Vital persistence is a really strong trait but i dont think it is mandatory for necros at all.

It is more like that SR is mandatory since it is a better defensive spec then DM and gives offensive as well.

Though when i think about it, we actually have “decent” builds that dont need SR but sadly all of those a MM builds…

Muchacho.2390:

Vital persistence is a really strong trait but i dont think it is mandatory for necros at all.

It is more like that SR is mandatory since it is a better defensive spec then DM and gives offensive as well.

Though when i think about it, we actually have “decent” builds that dont need SR but sadly all of those a MM builds…

well, none of the other traits are really necessary for a necromancer. The Vital persistence is only needed if you plan on staying in Shroud for longer than a second… Aka, 80% of all builds out there. Its kinda like the same problem that Mesmer’s had with what was it called? Shattered disillusion or something like that? You know, the grandmaster that put the shatter effect on you. Its these sorts of traits that force you to take it 80-90% of the time to be effective that need to be either removed if they’re too strong or in the mesmer’s case and by extension the necromancer’s case, be made to be baseline. Now the Degen is really the important part here. The skill reduction doesn’t need to be baseline though it’d be nice.

There are allot of other issues with traits too. But these seem to be with how Soul reaping and Curses function currently to where curses is a pretty bad trait line while soul reaping is way too important.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

so with every necro ever saying vital persistence needs to become baseline here are my thoughts about the topic.

we have a trait that is overcentralizing. everybody picks it because its way too good and it has no alternative. its a straight upgrade without any consideration or active gameplay and works completely against build diversity.

when i hear that about a trait the last i thing i want is that it becomes baseline!
are you crazy guys? that trait is a prime candidate for getting nerfed. why would you make it baseline? that means that first of all everybody always has it increasing the overall power of every necro without doing a thing or making any decision and also you get another trait for free or even another whole trait line.

only because its good doesnt mean its healthy for the game. people even want dhuumfire to be baseline… do you even want a choice at all? the new trait system is severely limitting our choices already. do you even want to choose anything?

so if u wanna leave a comment go for it. maybe we should think why we want to be in death shroud for longer. are death shroud skill too good? are weapon skills too bad? do we need to have more active defense? comment on it, why im wrong, why i have no clue about this game or why necromancer needs to be invincible. have a nice day

so a nerf eh then make ds 0% degen over time or give necro evades blocks invulnerability stealth more stability and mobility group buffs blast finishers
this trait need to be baseline and even more for reaper also will open more build diversity

^^. Necromancer won’t be a top tier complete character until it gets access to those things (not good access, just access), & tweaking vital persistence doesn’t change that.

Nerfing vital persistence isn’t the way to go. Necromancer isn’t OP with vital persistence.

Nerfing Necro would make us sad. It wouldn’t help us become viable.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

why would you make it baseline?

Because our profession is balanced around a strong Death Shroud, but it isn’t possible to have a strong Death Shroud without Soul Reaping, in part because of Vital Persistence. If Death Shroud naturally had 2% per second degeneration, we’d be a good part of the way towards increasing build diversity. Though Anet would still have to figure out a way for all Necros, regardless of build, to generate Life Force at more reasonable rates.

That’s really the problem: you have to take Soul Reaping because if you don’t, your Death Shroud is tissue paper that disappears far too quickly even if you’re not under fire and once it’s gone you’ll have a heck of a time getting it back.

Also, to be frank, the Necro could stand to get a few small buffs. We’re a lot better than most people think we are, but we’re still a bit underpowered in most game modes.

You don’t nerf a trait for being too mandatory unless it is mandatory by merit of being OP. VP isn’t OP, it simply fills a really important thing for Necromancers, by making Death Shroud much less time-gated, giving you a much better chance to use sustain to keep yourself in Shroud unless enemies actually focus on bursting you out of it. This is one of those things that is such a core improvement that it shouldn’t exist in traits, and arguably should be made baseline.

At the very least, I’d lower DS regen to 3% per second and remove that part of the trait entirely, putting the shroud CD onto another trait, or adding some functionality onto it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

ronpierce.2760:

It’s much more of a diversity issue in terms of PVP than is PVE, I would say. I feel like (and maybe not in your case), much of the question of ‘is it really even necessary?’ comes from people trying to look at it from different views. In PVE its really not even a concern in the slightest, mostly because shroud is hardly used.

It’s certainly a far more relevant a question in PvP than PvE, I agree.

I actually think the effect of having VP and not having VP is far more prominent in PvE; because you’re not being hit as much.
So the uptime of shroud is much more a factor of the passive degen than in PvP, where the degen is a factor, but secondary compared to the damage drain.
Granted, the reliance on shroud is much higher in PvE at the moment, which makes uptime of shroud in general a much bigger factor.

I personally also think VP should be made baseline, because of many stated reasons.
Mainly though, because 2% degen just feels much better. But also because I think that it is taking the wind out of the other two traits’ sails. Spectral Mastery is a pretty good trait, but VP is just out of it’s league.

However, I also think that the importance of VP is partially overrated.
I personally think that the other traits (mostly the minor ones actually) in Soul Reaping are the pillars for better survivability in PvP. And that people actually “forget” about those and too easily point towards VP, being the primary sustain major trait in the tree really, for the reason they do worse without the SR-line.

Baselining the 2% degen part of VP is always a good idea.

The CDR part could get second effect:

• Old Renewing Blast, but weaker?

• Using 2-5 Shroud skills giving a boon?

• small part of Life Force lost transfered into health.

• You can receive Life Force while in Shroud (although it could work better in Death Magic)

• Block attacks for 1.5s after you enter Shroud (this would really fuel Shroud dancing builds, synergy within SR)

As for OP – Sorry for stealing your thread, but your suggestion make no sense whatsoever for anyone who’s ever played non-MM Necro in PvP, so I respond to discussion above.

Turn the World Upside Down.

• Remove Life Force degeneration while in combat (rework some of the DS traits).
• Add Life Force degeneration when out of combat (out and in).
• Do not touch my Spectral trait.

The thing is that with VP atm being where it is, is a good thing.. considering the other 2 trait points are soo terrible. While i’d support that becoming baseline, I would also say they need to redo that middle line cos there is nothing i wouldn’t take there that would be any use.
I don’t take SR line for the soul purpose of VR but for the 2 other traits as well, VR is good where it is because there’s nothing else worth taking.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

when i hear that about a trait the last i thing i want is that it becomes baseline!
are you crazy guys? that trait is a prime candidate for getting nerfed. why would you make it baseline? that means that first of all everybody always has it increasing the overall power of every necro without doing a thing or making any decision and also you get another trait for free or even another whole trait line.

only because its good doesnt mean its healthy for the game. people even want dhuumfire to be baseline… do you even want a choice at all? the new trait system is severely limitting our choices already. do you even want to choose anything?

y

VP Is not a prime candidate for being nerfed. It doesn’t do as much as it seems unless you’re out of combat and just want to look cool. In combat is makes shroud usable to builds that are not just shroud hoppers. Also making a trait baseline adds more diversity not less. If you automatically have VP then you have 3 more traits, if not a whole new trait line, to choose from. That opens a ton more builds. Not making a trait that 80%+ of the players pic baseline is what removes diversity.

So the nerf necro has started, but can you wait a little longer because we dont have our reaper yet.

nekretaal.6485:

Spectral mastery is better than vital persistence if you take 2 spectals and Lich (and it changes spectral walk into a wonderful skill).

The terror trait is subpar because fear is super weak as a CC and terror builds are dead.

This.
I’d even argue that a single spectral skill + Last Gasp makes Spectral Mastery a good pick.
Better lf regeneration > reduced lf degeneration.
Also, the cd reduction for shroud skills is a better reason to pick Vital Persistance than the lower lf degen.