Guild Wars 2

I can’t chose between thees two traits and it is driving me crazy.

Vp gives you more time in death shroud meaning more life blasts and more damage to be soaked up by life force, since you lose less of it through just being in deaths shroud meaning you have more of it for taking hits.

On the other hand soul marks (especially with staff mastery) lets you quickly and rapidly build up life force, so you get to have more of it faster after some one beats all of it from you. So again faster lf generation – more life blasts and more damage absorption.

Vp seems better if in a duel or in a 1 vs 1 or if someone can keep people away from you, but on the other hand if against more than 1 person or if against a burst build quickly generating life force seems better so soul marks?

Sounds like this is PVP. What build? I use them both.

I usually opt for near to death over both of those.

Depends on your build and playstyle and what sort of battles you find yourself engaging in.

Personally I dislike PvP. I prefer to roam in WvW solo with my necro.

This is the build I run.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYWjc0UbbnNO2wfbCchSqeA6FIAaho/gJIfB-TlCFABNq+jc7PAwRA43TAgAHCg00GAlyv40BolSQlfAABAQAmZZWmzMwRP6RP6RPa7cnHdnH9olCAm5AA-w

As you can see, I run neither soul marks nor vital persistence lol. I’m not off topic though. My point is, choose what is best for your build based on your experiences.

My experience while roaming solo in WvW was that I struggle sometimes against good DP thieves. They blackpowder then heartseeker. standard combo. So I run with Shrouded removal.

And Voila! Magic! Suddenly I struggle less. If I’m fast enough, a blackpowder that blinds me can be removed by entering deathshroud and then fearing the thief while he is in the middle of his heartseeker! Then suddenly the thief is totally on the back foot, forced to use his stun break and all that early in the fight, leaving me with a chance to burst him 20 seconds later while his stun break is still on CD.

Also some classes that put out what could potentially be dangerous immobilizations has a chance to be cleared if it is the only condi on you at that moment =D

So my reason for not going soul marks or vital persistance? I run a burst build, 66200. Either I successfully burst and kill the enemy early, or I die. I don’t have any reliable LF generation ability, even my spec armor utility is dependent on the enemy’s actions. So well…my idea is minimal but effective defense, and the rest offense.

Generally speaking, the rest of your build determines this. If you are Power , you want Vital Persistance for extended period on life blast. You don’t need the extra life force generation from Soul Marks. If you are condition, your life force generation is otherwise rather poor, so you want Soul Marks.

Necromancer loses half of it’s strenght if you don’t get VP in PvP.

Most important trait imho.

Rym.1469:

Necromancer loses half of it’s strenght if you don’t get VP in PvP.

Most important trait imho.

Meh, I disagree I prefer dp, ntd, and piercing lifeblasts.

I use both, but if I had to choose one; I would go for Soul Marks,mainly because I use staff very often

soul marks suuuuuuucks so baaaaaad

soul marks doesn’t suck. the problem is we can’t have it all. vp, sm, ub ntd, dp and fitg. power necro need all of those imo for better survivability and same dps we have now with lower survivability i don’t think it would be OP because it still doesn’t solve our mobility problem. it would be just a little more survivability while also have access to death perception..

some players also asked for a start with some Life Force to not get totally kittened at start of the match lets say we get 25% LF to start with. with soul marks trait you can build up more LF at start if you wield staff. which would be a very nice improvement

I’ve never really felt a big imrpove on LF generation using Soul Marks. Granted I do mainly play power builds, but staff # 1 generates great LF from range, especially when firing it into the middle of a team fight. So since Staff Auto generates LF so great, I always just go with with Vital Persistence.

I really never got into Soul Marks honestly. It pretty much only exists to allow you to generate 10% LF at the start of a fight, which I often just sac wurm for the second I spawn if I need the LF badly.

Soul Marks is really inconsequential. It’s enough to absorb like one auto attack or less if you use all your marks then go into DS. Pretending you hold onto staff 4, 12% of 20k around 2400. That’s really not worth traiting, in my opinion. Vital persistance on the other hand rewards staying alive longer and can add up to more “gain” than the other if you play “smarter”.

If you’re having trouble getting focused or one of those people who like to stay in a fight from 100%-0% every time, then soul marks may benefit you more. If you have good positioning and can get off multiple deathshroud uses in a fight or can stay in deathshroud longer throwing out life blasts then VP is more of a “gain”.