Guild Wars 2

What necro traits you want baseline?

• Axe Training’s +10% Damage
• Path of Corruption
• Greater Marks
• Ritual Mastery
• Unyielding Blast’s Piercing

dhuumfire
signet 20% faster CD
staff marks faster 20% CD
removal 1 condi on entering DS

Greater marks since staff iirc is the only weapon with 2 weapon traits. Besides that everything else being a decent choice is fine.

• Greater marks, at least for already deployed marks
• Unholy sanctuary – would be sick, since it would add another lf management layer without adding any skills

whats yall opinion on Soul Marks being made baseline?

hennrick.4623:

• Unholy sanctuary – would be sick, since it would add another lf management layer without adding any skills

Would be a bad baseline since it would end up always forcing you into DS and wasting lf.

Knighthonor.4061:

whats yall opinion on Soul Marks being made baseline?

That trait should be a choice since its making the marks do something else and improves staff as a weapon. greater marks is just size and making them unblockable, two things which could easily be base. Look at blasting staff.

Sigmoid.7082:

Greater marks since staff iirc is the only weapon with 2 weapon traits. Besides that everything else being a decent choice is fine.

this will make staff too OP without using a trait on it

EremiteAngel.9765:

Sigmoid.7082:

Greater marks since staff iirc is the only weapon with 2 weapon traits. Besides that everything else being a decent choice is fine.

this will make staff too OP without using a trait on it

Just move the unblockable part to soul marks. The size increase would then be the same as blasting staff being made baseline.

Sigmoid.7082:

Knighthonor.4061:

whats yall opinion on Soul Marks being made baseline?

That trait should be a choice since its making the marks do something else and improves staff as a weapon. greater marks is just size and making them unblockable…

What? How does increased radius and unblockable not fit the description “marks do something else and improve the weapon”?
Generating life force on marks makes much more sense as a baseline feature, except it would be nice if it’s not a static 3% when triggerd but something like 1% per hit.

Other than that I think we need more traits moved to minor than having them baseline entirely, like Terror getting merged with Target the Weak and Reaper’s Precision getting merged with Furious Demise. And some trait in Death Magic could replace Soul Comprehension.

Sigmoid.7082:

hennrick.4623:

• Unholy sanctuary – would be sick, since it would add another lf management layer without adding any skills

Would be a bad baseline since it would end up always forcing you into DS and wasting lf.

You are right on that, but currently not many builds have ways to use properly DS if they don’ t get a lot of use for skills. Basically what i am saying is that would allow to reduce pressure from the enemy in wvw and spvp when yopu manage to disengage but still have conditions on you, or when you want to stall enemies from range.

It’ s not perfect, i agree, but i aimed to not do any aggressive change.

Also Unyielding blast might be a good choice, without vulnerability but with perforation. If we have an auto so much slow at least let’ s award good timing.

Foot in the Grave.
Terror should be a minor in Curses.

I’m very happy with Necro wells being ground targeted as our baseline tbh.. they offer soo much in the heat of battle.. tho the heal would mean u have to act fast lol

flow.6043:

Sigmoid.7082:

Knighthonor.4061:

whats yall opinion on Soul Marks being made baseline?

That trait should be a choice since its making the marks do something else and improves staff as a weapon. greater marks is just size and making them unblockable…

What? How does increased radius and unblockable not fit the description “marks do something else and improve the weapon”?
Generating life force on marks makes much more sense as a baseline feature, except it would be nice if it’s not a static 3% when triggerd but something like 1% per hit.

Other than that I think we need more traits moved to minor than having them baseline entirely, like Terror getting merged with Target the Weak and Reaper’s Precision getting merged with Furious Demise. And some trait in Death Magic could replace Soul Comprehension.

I was comparing it to how blasting staff is now baseline. I agree with the curses thing though.

I think dhuumfire should become baseline. Right now fo the auto attack for deathshroud is pure power, by adding (the now weaker) burn to the auto-atack means that they can “fully” use death/reaper shroud without needing a grandmaster.

Furious Demise
Last Gasp
Greater Marks
Soul Comprahension
Life Blast piercing

I think we should passively gain life force when we are struck. Like 1% everytime we are struck.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Sigmoid.7082:

Greater marks since staff iirc is the only weapon with 2 weapon traits. Besides that everything else being a decent choice is fine.

this will make staff too OP without using a trait on it

No it won’t make staff OP. Staff sucks. Have you seen how OP dagger/pistol weapon set is for thief? This have an instant cast, ranged interrupt that has no cooldown and is spammable.

Time to wake up and realise that we need OP stuff because everyone else has totally OP stuff. Look at weapon skills like obsidian flesh. It is one of 8 weapon skills on ele focus which is on a lower cd and is strictly better than endure pain.

SO many more examples. Gear shield anyone? Impale? Warrior longbow in general.

Lordrosicky.5813:

EremiteAngel.9765:

Sigmoid.7082:

Greater marks since staff iirc is the only weapon with 2 weapon traits. Besides that everything else being a decent choice is fine.

this will make staff too OP without using a trait on it

No it won’t make staff OP. Staff sucks. Have you seen how OP dagger/pistol weapon set is for thief? This have an instant cast, ranged interrupt that has no cooldown and is spammable.

Time to wake up and realise that we need OP stuff because everyone else has totally OP stuff. Look at weapon skills like obsidian flesh. It is one of 8 weapon skills on ele focus which is on a lower cd and is strictly better than endure pain.

SO many more examples. Gear shield anyone? Impale? Warrior longbow in general.

But we have CoD
:^)

Terror , trololol.

Dark FQ.1038:

Terror , trololol.

Yep Terror, Unholy Sanctuary, Parasitic Contagion and Soul Marks should be baseline for sure I agree.

Balekai.6083:

Dark FQ.1038:

Terror , trololol.

Yep Terror, Unholy Sanctuary, Parasitic Contagion and Soul Marks should be baseline for sure I agree.

again huge problems for unholy sanctuary being baseline.

Greater marks, unyielding blast, path of midnight and vital persistance.

Sigmoid.7082:

Balekai.6083:

Dark FQ.1038:

Terror , trololol.

Yep Terror, Unholy Sanctuary, Parasitic Contagion and Soul Marks should be baseline for sure I agree.

again huge problems for unholy sanctuary being baseline.

Problem?

:p

On a serious note, a trait I would like to seriously see baseline is definitely Soul Marks, while having the remaining two staff traits combined under DM or under SR. I think it would open up staff as a viable LF generator to all Condi builds without forcing them to take Soul Reaping (Dhuumfire is already making SR a fairly must have trait line alone).

Also I agree with Spoj on Unyielding Blast being baseline too. Life Blast is feeling a bit underwhelming compared to its RS counterpart and the probable power creep of all professions. Unfortunately, doing so would leave Reapers without Vulnerability on RS AA most likely. Maybe make Unyielding’s piercing baseline only and move vulnerability to another trait in SR like Death Perception.

I’m having a hard time thinking about one or two realistic replacement traits for the missing staff trait and Unyielding Blast.

All I can say is thank god we’re not in charge of balance. I agree with flow here, we don’t have much that needs to be made baseline except a slightly changed Soul Marks, but some minors need fixing with certain traits added there.

Here’s all the traits I would like to see baseline as I feel it would benefit the core in ways necessary and allow for some more interesting alternatives in their place.
- Spiteful Talisman CD reduction (change the second part of the anti-boon trait to something else).
- Greater Mark’s radius -> move unblockable to the new Soul Marks.
- Flesh of the Master HP boost. Mandatory space hog considering minions in PVP are literally garbage without a bit more HP, and have a crutch boosted HP in pve.
- Blood Thirst, just bake it in, minor boring boost.
- Wouldn’t mind Foot in the grave CC break as baseline. To me it’s fitting as we have no mobility that we have some baseline anti-CC, but it’s just not likely to happen.
- Unyielding Blast Pierce.

Ima call now that blood thirst will be changed into the amp aura at master or greater tier.

spiteful marks
unyielding blast
path of corruption

the first two should for sure be baseline since spiteful marks will be gone and unyielding blast cant really compete with the other two traits in that tier not by a long shot, not with that functionality buff alone

PoC is a necro theme flavor thingy to corrupt so why cant we have it by default? maybe it sounds silly i know

While not a trait, I think that lifeforce should be given for all skills, conditions giving less but more steady life force, and direct damage giving greater chunks based on damage dealt. IDK, might be op but would fix a lot of our problems in the defensive department.

Bloodthirst.

Siphoning is weak even with it, and even now is causing traits like Vampiric Rituals to bug out and give reduced siphoning. Not only this, but a trait that affects the effectiveness of the theme mechanic of the traitline in comparison to two underwhelming traits (Ritual of Life and Mark of Evasion) creates an illusion of choice in the Adept line. So wouldn’t it just make sense to roll that 20% into every siphoning skill?

Bhawb.7408:

All I can say is thank god we’re not in charge of balance. I agree with flow here, we don’t have much that needs to be made baseline except a slightly changed Soul Marks, but some minors need fixing with certain traits added there.

To be honest, we have tons, tons and tons of stuff, probably second the most of all profession after Rangers, that could be easily baselined.

Those things should be either baselined or erased.
Take Soul Comprahension. Who likes that trait? I’d even take Reincarnator over this, any day. Devs on stream had major problem explaining why does it even exist.

On the other hand, we have a lot of traits that are pretty mandatory to take. Terror. Last Gasp. Vital Persistence.
Mesmer got Illusionary Persona and Elasticity baselined. Why shouldn’t we get similar treatment? It’s not like Mesmers are in worse place than Necromancers at all, even now.

Rym.1469:

Take Soul Comprahension. Who likes that trait? I’d even take Reincarnator over this, any day. Devs on stream had major problem explaining why does it even exist.

Major problems: “necros need at least one on-death trait” -_-

It’s quite funny actually, I can still remember the devs saying back then (before they changed Reanimator and Protection of the Horde) that they are really taking their time to work out proper minor traits for Death Magic. As in, we’re going to do it right this time! Soul Comprehension – lol fail.

Rym.1469:

On the other hand, we have a lot of traits that are pretty mandatory to take. Terror. Last Gasp. Vital Persistence.

The devs did say on stream that some traits (on other classes) are being made baseline because they were mandatory picks.

On a side note, I think there are some types of traits that shouldn’t be part of the discussion here. Like traits that trigger skills, it just wouldn’t make sense to have these baseline. Or cd reductions and damage modifiers. There are always going to be mastery traits so when people want a cd reduction baseline they don’t actually want the trait removed but a generally lower cd, so a buff to the skill really, instead of a specific trait for the sake of freeing up a mandatory pick for alternative options.

Bhawb.7408:

All I can say is thank god we’re not in charge of balance. I agree with flow here, we don’t have much that needs to be made baseline except a slightly changed Soul Marks, but some minors need fixing with certain traits added there.

Necro folks seem to be much greedier than Ranger folks :P
Go check the same thread in ranger’s forum, many agree none should be baseline.

BTW, before you say ranger is in better situation than necro, please check this thread first:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/NA-ToL-top-8-teams-How-many-rangers/first#post5112579

Lingering curse shouldn’t exist as a trait.

Baseline additional duration for scepter conditions an eliminate the trait.

Toxsa.2701:

Bhawb.7408:

All I can say is thank god we’re not in charge of balance. I agree with flow here, we don’t have much that needs to be made baseline except a slightly changed Soul Marks, but some minors need fixing with certain traits added there.

Necro folks seem to be much greedier than Ranger folks :P
Go check the same thread in ranger’s forum, many agree none should be baseline.

BTW, before you say ranger is in better situation than necro, please check this thread first:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/NA-ToL-top-8-teams-How-many-rangers/first#post5112579

Since rangers Rock Paper Scissors hard counter Necromancers so hard, some necromancer buffs would be good for rangers.

Terror should be baseline or a minor trait that scales with condition dmg so it’s negligeable with any build but condi, esp because it is mandatory for all condi builds.
Soul marks should also be made baseline, as I think Condi builds need access to more ways to gain Lifeforce as it is our only line of defense. Survivability on a condi build is lacking.

Rym.1469:

On the other hand, we have a lot of traits that are pretty mandatory to take. Terror. Last Gasp. Vital Persistence.

None of these should be baseline. Of them, only Terror is strictly speaking necessary, and that probably won’t be true after we have more ways to get condition damage, like Reaper, Dhuumfire’s change, and LC.

People seem to be confusing “mandatory” with “needed for X playstyle”. ANet was making traits like Blasting Staff, which are needed on a mechanical level to make staff worth using, baseling. This doesn’t include things like Terror, which are needed because of bad current balance.

I my opinion we are confusing a bti too much what could be made baseline and what could instead become a minor: FitG for example is far better as a minor rather than as baseline ( if we are consider it to become minor or baseline).

Point is, they also need to figure out better what to do about minors: sometime they just drop in stuff that is mandatory only for one build, while as i see it should be more “quality of life” enhancements or “generic power points” regarding a certain ambient.

For example Reaper, that in my opinion has a really elegant trait choice, has as a minor chill on fear. While not every build is going to benefit extremely out of it they deemed it worthy for a minor because since reaper in reaper form is melee, and in reaper form has a fear, it’ s confortable to not have the enemy run over the hills and far away ( even tought i would have liked more cripple, just to enforce less chill power).

Baseline,

Our weapons should be decent. (This isn’t remotely true of axe, and untraited scepter is underwhelming too)

Our Death Shroud should be decent untraited. (Think of the anet requires you take XX traits to make DS decent as a way of handicapping you)

Our Downed state should be decent baseline (that you can take six traits for it and get a fluke kill every 10 or so games doesn’t make it good)

Get these up to par, and the rest of the traits can even be weaker than they are today, focusing on boons or whatever else.

There are parts of other major traits that should be baseline and then maybe boosted by the major trait. DS and RS should both have baseline regeneration and a stun break. Unholy Sanctuary and Foot in the Grave are Master traits so making them baseline is probably not going to happen but giving some regeneration and a much needed stun break is reasonable.

Also some more ways to get lifeforce. Reapers Precision is so weak it should be baseline as well as a stripped down version of Spectral Armors LF gain say 1% from hits baseline instead of 8%

Chill of Death, Dhuumfire, Terror, Lingering Curse, and Deathly Perception.

I think the above should all be made baseline.

Onto a more serious note…
I think Soul Marks are a good candidate. I think this could be pretty good:
Each mark you cast gives you 1% life force. For each EXTRA enemy you hit, you gain 0.5% more lifeforce.
So if you hit 1 enemy = 1 life force.
Two enemies = 1.5% life force.
Three enemies 2% life force.
Four enemies = 2.5% life force.
And five enemies = 3% life force.
This way it scales nicely with the amount of enemies there are and it isn’t wildly OP.

The Reaper made things a lil different with the sustain you could get from the traits there so in terms of what we should get as baseline… I think we’re pretty okay as we are now, more or less. I think some of the things people suggested (like Terror being baseline) are really OP. Terror + Lingering Curse + Deathly Chill = no thanks.

MethaneGas.8357:

I think some of the things people suggested (like Terror being baseline) are really OP. Terror + Lingering Curse + Deathly Chill = no thanks.

Only if Lingering Curse keeps its 100% duration, which I’m rather sure it will not.

Also, the problem with chill and fear durations being doubled wouldn’t be the extra damage from Terror and Deathly Chill but the longer CCs, and that you would get with Lingering Curse anyway. Just another perfect example why LC would screw over our entire balance.

A longer duration with LC isn’t an issue on its own. A longer CC duration that also piles damage on top of other condis and forces you to stun break or die is a problem. LC really only has issues in combination with Terror, but that only matters as they are now. Changes to either could assuage that.

Bhawb.7408:

A longer duration with LC isn’t an issue on its own. A longer CC duration that also piles damage on top of other condis and forces you to stun break or die is a problem. LC really only has issues in combination with Terror, but that only matters as they are now. Changes to either could assuage that.

100% on LC is an issue on its own.

Regardless, I’m not opposed to lowering Terror’s damage if that’s what it takes to make it a minor trait, but its damage really isn’t that much to begin with.
Like you said, it piles damage on top of other conditions. But you might as well run a power build with Lingering Curse and use Doom for 3 seconds and 2 Life Blasts or Infusing Terror followed by 2 Grave Diggers. With a power build these attacks would probably do somewhere between 6-8k damage in PvP. And that is still nowhere near the amount of damage other classes can do when following up on their stuns, like mesmers or thieves, perma immobilized by rangers, even hammer warriors with soldier amulets can do more damage with their stun rotation, and engineers can 100→zero people if they trap them with slick shoes.
So really, the long fear stuns and chills are a problem, but their damage isn’t by a long shot.

LC is an issue on its own

1. Baseline, without LC every scepter condition duration is underwhelming
2. Balance issues with every condition from a sigil or rune, and every condition in DS/RS

If LC stats the way it is, condition output on every non LC build will be terribad. Since the new reaper depends on a condition (chill) for its mechanics, that’s a bad thing.

Scepter should have longer conditions baseline. LC should stay a condition damage buff or be eliminated in favor of a trait that power builds can use.

Training of the Master