Guild Wars 2

Aktium.9506:

Transfers are less plentiful than corruptions. You can’t just blow a transfer every time you use a corruption. If we’re expected to do that then the self applied corruptions need to be increased substantially so you actually gain some mileage out of using a transfer to combat self-inflicted conditions. Most of the time those transfers are needed to save your own skin when you get bombed by conds in a teamfight or some such.

And Corruptions aren’t strong enough to warrant a transfer right now, which is why any Corruption trait changes are pretty much impossible to do well.

Tissitra.4153:

Chilling darkness does seem overnurfed. One could add to its effect:

‘blind a foe that you interrupt (10-15 sec ICD)’.

Necros now have quite a number of automatic proc traits – it would be nice to see something that rewards active gameplay for a change (you don’t interrupt that often on a necro anyway). Ppower/hybrid builds could also benefit from this using warhorn.

I’ve brought up giving us on interrupt traits a few times before, its a solid idea.

Bluewizard.2694:

But as I see most people agree on an upgrade of Unholy Fervor, maybe anther suggestion for Axe. What if instead of a plain damage increase as it is now, +10% when a target has vulnerability, we would have a trait that increases damage for all Axe skills by +1% for every stack of vulnerability on the target while allowing Ghastly Claws to generate +1% more LF for every 5 stacks? I know when you think about it, a possible +25% would be kinda high but remember that this would only be the case if a target has 25 stacks of vulnerability, which mostly won’t be the case in PvP or WvW. This would mean that it would be a buff that people first need to work for, which makes it a rewarding buff, and that it would mean that Axe could be more useful in terms of damage for raids, fractals and dungeons without making it OP for PvP and WvW.

That’s a really cool idea, essentially doubles up on vuln’s idea, but since its specific to Axe it is fairly limited. Not sure if its the way to go but definitely a unique idea.

meow one twenty.4376:

So, either be powerful or worthless is where we are at.

I guess I don’t see what’s wrong with a DoT ability requiring multiple stacks to be powerful (on a 100% uptime ability), but that clearly comes down to personal opinions.

You’re just trading one bad design for another. The change would make it useful in PvE group fights, but significantly worse in any situation with decent cleansing. You go from worthless one place and good another to good one place and worthless another, no real change.

spoj.9672:

Its either something like this. Or instead of chill doing damage itself you have a unique condition that applies for the same duration as your chills and ticks damage. This way it can never be overwritten. Could also allow it to stack intensity allowing for chilling bolts from whirls to be extra useful.

This. We could have a “workaround” like OP said, or like this.

The few buffs would never happen (Epidemic/CPC), they’d be way too strong. Corrupt Boon gets nerfed with this change, and Blood is Power is still bad. Consume Conditions is really the one good change from the base skills.

The change to Master of Corruption is interesting, and at the very least I like the idea behind it: Corruptions are supposed to be high risk/reward, so make the trait increase both sides.

Yeah, only Blood Magic (not even all of it) and things specifically saying they heal through shroud actually heal through shroud. Sigils, runes, combos, regen, and even a fair number of traits don’t heal properly through shroud.

Anyone taking bets on how long till this thread is closed?

Maxzero.4032:

The simple way to do it:

‘The damage your conditions do on Chilled targets is increased by X%.’

No stacking issues, works well in large groups.

That doesn’t fix it. One of the strongest points of Deathly Chill (and burning pre-stacking) is that they provide a very high “base” level of damage for condition builds that can’t be matched otherwise. Each tick of chill always hits hard, whereas other conditions need to be stacked up, at least a bit, to mirror this. So that change wouldn’t at all fix it, it would still have the same issues as normal condi builds; being worthless if you can’t keep decent stacks on the enemy.

It still would be weak, all this does is slightly open up how you proc it, but it remains too weak for a GM trait.

I tested it with a bone minion so that nothing else could get in the way. It doesn’t show up on the combat log, but if you use Necromantic Corruption to transfer a self-inflicted condition to a minion to damage it, you can then watch their HP refill (really slowly) while attacking something.

Just tested it, it is definitely working. Side note, Vampiric Aura is complete garbage for MM anyway.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

snip

This is a good way to show why Spiteful Spirit is so weak. Yes it has a lot of individual effects attached to it, but none of them are particularly strong.

MM isn’t a singular build, even in PvP there are at least 3 “viable” builds, none of which would translate to PvE. They’re all going to be lower though, MM isn’t a DPS spec, and things like ressummoning minions murders DPS (though Rise! does a really nice job of mitigating this with instant minion summoning).

Re minors (since a lot of people brought it up): looking back over its probably fine. The bleed duration is long enough that a crit build would still get decent damage out of it, so they’re good enough that it’d work fine if the majors were solid.

Carlos.7915:

In my opnion chilling darkness should get merged with another trait in Reaper`s line, like could shoulder(i mean, this trait was totaly created thinking on reaper right? Even the nerf came because it would be too strong with reaper…)

Certainly a possibility and one that’s been passed around a lot.

For lingering curses i would love see it as a party wide buff, like spotter, that gives expertise so it could be useful even if you`re not running a condi build youself, if you have a condi centered group

That’s an interesting idea, though it’d take a huge nerf for solo play if it was just a group buff; even giving expertise in general will be a nerf. I’m not sure a scepter trait is really the place for a group buff.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think that curses is fine as a condition only line. Most of the other lines are heavily focused on power damage and are of little use to condition builds. It only makes sense to have one condition focused line.

That isn’t true though. Spite gives a lot of condition damage increase, Soul Reaping/Reaper both give both types of damage pretty equally, and Death/Blood provide options that appeal to both. There isn’t a single trait line that doesn’t benefit condi builds, while power builds only have 5 lines. That said, others have pointed out this is more a failing of the major traits which can be fixed.

Anchoku.8142:

One of the problems I see with Curses is that the line is focused only on condition damage, not conditions in general. That limits its utility outside of a condition damage build. There is no bonus for condition duration in Curses like there used to be.

Yeah, I think conditions less specific to dealing damage would open up the line without hurting it for condi builds.

nekretaal.6485:

A group condition damage or duration buff, similar to spotter, is what curses needs.

Add that and necromancer gets a meta role, even if condition necromancer has all sorts of other issues.

I don’t see that giving us a meta role at all. Not that it shouldn’t be considered, but I don’t think it’d matter. A lot of people seem to like the idea of 10% condition duration though.

spoj.9672:

Mostly agree. I dont think the minors are an issue. They can work well on any build. The problem is the master traits. They are condition related yet all pretty sub par for condition builds.

Barbed Precision is the only real issue I have, because bleeding’s damage is basically nonexistent without condition damage. But its still some damage, and cover conditions, so its probably fine.

And then the whole line lacks more general purpose traits. Things that would work on any build. Chilling of darkness and weakening shroud can technically fill this role. But CD needs to be fixed first. And we need a decent master trait to compliment. Path of Corruption is good but rather useless outside of PvP and select PvE encounters. And the rest of the line isnt strong enough to justify taking curses over other lines simply for path of corruption.

That’s a fair point. I’m not sure what to do for it though, because there are too many traits that people like that can’t be tuned in the right direction. It would require us to free up a trait in the master tier, which itself would probably require Path of Corruption being dropped to the Adept tier, with Plague Sending and one general trait, and then PoC being replaced with a general trait. Doable, but fairly hard, especially since the fear trait makes a lot of sense being in that tier.

Ramoth.9064:

Terror simply giving extra damage is B-O-R-I-N-G. It’s exactly another icing on the cake trait that provides no counterplay or utility. Give it something fun like ‘damage ticks on enemy with fear tick 4x faster or something’. Or give fear more CC utility, like ‘applying fear will corrupt stability and resistance on foe’.

Counterplay? Avoid the fears. It has the same counterplay as any damaging condition, in fact more because you can stunbreak it. Its also unique as being designed as a burst condition.

spoj.9672:

You dont calculate utility on spreadsheets.

Challenge accepted :^)

Coming soon, elitsm™ for everyone!

runeblade.7514:

Wrong. Deathly Chill is a damage trait. It makes chill do damage.

And if anyone else overwrites your chill you lose the damage, so yes it is generally quite awful in large events.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

I think that a write up about curses without mentioning anything about hybrid builds is sorely missing the point.

I tend to try to keep my personal bias out of these, but frankly I don’t think hybrid necromancer has ever been meaningfully powerful with the exception of Cele Signet and maybe current Reaper builds. And Curses is fairly meaningless for said hybrid, Signets of Suffering, Deathly Chill, and might stacking are far bigger contributers.

zapv.8051:

The corruption trait should just be -33% duration with no extra conditions applied. Other options might be more interesting, but probably less effective, more cheesy, and more infuriating in the long run.

While I tend to agree, Corruptions are corruptions, and they are probably here to stay, so we might as well have the trait do something more corruption-y, and at least in this case with the new Parasitic Contagion you are both rewarded for the trait and rewarded for the following transfer, giving some sense of reward.

zapv.8051:

I’ve always thought terror should be GM because it is very build defining for base necromancer. Terrormancer plays significantly differently from condi-mancer or at least it should. Lingering curse is a master tier trait at best, so move it down to swap places with terror.

The problem I have with moving Terror is while yes it is fairly build-defining, it ends up in a really awkward spot because of the gamemodes it is useful in VS lingering curse. Moving LC to master puts PvE in an awkward spot.

Silverkey.2078:

I like your first suggestion in particular, although I would move it to curses and not SR. We need to add synergy to curses, having the fear traits in 2 different lines is just not good.

Yeah, I think its the better suggestion, consolidate things a bit.

The damage buff would probably not be enough. Currently, with reaper, chill does almost more damage than fear while we have significantly better access to chill than fear. Another problem of terror is that a big portion of our fear comes from corrupting stability, but they put it in the same tier as a “path of corruption”.

Maybe, but increasing the damage along with moving in the other fear trait is a good place to start. The path of corruption is a good point though.

I think if this would work while in shroud, this would be a good trait. With reaper, we have fairly decent condi burst. The trait in this form is a good scaling difference (we don’t have much of those) since if you manage to deal AOE condi damage (which we definitely can, even without epidemic, thanks to staff and scepter but most especially in reaper shroud) you heal for each target you hit.

Still has the “win more” issue. If you’re applying enough damage to heal a meaningful amount (300 HP/s is pretty reasonable for a GM, yet that means constantly dealing 3k DPS) you probably are in such a good matchup it doesn’t matter. Obviously it needs to heal through shroud, but I just don’t see it working as is. Also, it doesn’t scale well, because condition removal scales far stronger than our condition output does. I’m proposing a similar option to Blood Magic, but that scales more appropriately without being so easily countered by a shout build rolling their face from 6-0 and erasing all your condi CDs.

Luke.4562:

We made tons of these threads the last 3 years. ANET never considered them.
So I think it hardly won’t do it again.

Anet has been listening recently, and honestly I am doing these because it helps me critically think through everything, not because I expect any of this to ever see the light of day.

Glacial.9516:

Parasitic Contagion
I really like the idea of synergizing Parasitic Contagion with Transfers. Especially if it stacks for each condition removed. This way it makes use of the additional self-inflicted condition from Master of Corruption. I’m a big fan of Corruptions and I really like that CPC w/ MoC is perfectly synced with Staff4.

I think it being useless without transfers is fine. You’re expected to figure out you need them :P and we have 2 from weapon skills, quite a few through traits and utilities, I think its fine to have it just on its own. Also that allows more power to be added to it. Definitely like some of the ideas though, and yeah the goal was to give Corruptions some more use.

This is the second of the 6 part installment of me writing a lot because I have too much free time. This time we’ll be talking about Curses, and I imagine this will spark a fair bit of debate.

Curses
In stark contrast to Spite, our best line and one of the best in the game, we have Curses, a line so mediocre that even most condition builds find themselves having difficulty justifying it. Curses focuses on condition damage and critical hits. Somewhat uniquely because of the presence of its minor traits that focus heavily on dealing more condition damage, it is a line that primarily appeals to condition damage builds, with a small potential draw to crit-heavy builds, and has very little overall appeal to non-condition damage builds. I’ll talk about the major traits, which have quite a few issues holding back the line overall.

Finally, I’d like to take an idea from Bluewizard, who suggested in the Spite thread to have traits that functioned based on consumption/transfer of conditions. I really like this idea, but I think its better suited towards Curses, so I’ll be talking about it here.

Minors
Overall I think the minors are relatively fine strength wise, however I want to point out that because they focus so much strength into condition damage, this trait line becomes particularly weak to non-condition damage builds. Think of going into this build as a crit-heavy power line, what do you get? You get an adept minor trait that gives you little worth mentioning, just a tiny DPS increase. You also get a GM minor trait where some of the power is in precision to condition damage conversion, again something that really does nothing for you.

This is a big contrast to all our other lines, which have minors that are useful to any build that goes into them (ignoring balance issues). I don’t necessarily think it will be changed, or that it even has to be changed, since it is hardly unique to Necromancers (and arguably Curses has far stronger minors than comparable lines in other professions), but I think its worth mentioning because in an ideal world this line would be equally appealing to all crit-based builds, not just those focused on conditions.

Edit: as others have pointed out, the minors are probably fine. Bleeding deals at least some damage in crit builds, and the rest still work fine in any crit build.

Adepts
Frankly speaking, Plague Sending is the only useful trait in this tier. It is not just very strong, able to transfer conditions (and stun break if you get lucky with a pre-cast effect), but also has built in synergy with Signets of Suffering, and a number of traits that work with conditions inflicted.

Chilling Darkness is a bit of a sad story. Once a trait that was quite powerful in combination with specific setups, it is now completely awful. Part of the problem is the huge ICD, 5s means that Plague and Nightfall are the only abilities that can apply it multiple times per use. However, we’re actually one of the worst professions in the game at directly applying blind, with most of the sources of it coming indirectly from the accidental corruption of fury now and then. There are a number of options with how to deal with this trait:

1. Revert it to how it used to be, 1s chill with no ICD – potentially too strong if Well of Darkness ever becomes useful, with Plague, WoD, and Nightfall on Reaper becoming huge sources of chill. Also hard to balance between the different chill sources.
2. Keep it as is with the ICD, but just buff the chill duration to say 3s. This allows builds that have just a few sources of blind to still see meaningful chill, but also makes the different sources of chill more even. This is probably the easiest option.
3. Completely change its functionality. I’d be interested to hear options, but we could just completely change how this works and look to solve some other problems within the profession. Things like blind application, some crit amplifiers, we could get creative.

The last trait in this tier is Terrifying Descent the unfortunate hold over from ANet’s insistence that we must have falling traits forced on us for some inconceivable reason. As most people know, the problem is that these just don’t do much of anything in 99% of the game, because taking fall damage is something that isn’t really happening regularly in combat; it is pretty specifically something that only sees niche use in WvW. However, since these traits seem mandatory, I think we are forced to do something similar to Cloaked in Shadow where the fall trait is rolled in to a related normal trait. Options include:

1. Keep the trait functionality as is, roll it into Fear of Death and replace with something new. This allows for Curses to get a new trait, and we roll more fear traits together. Of course the reverse could also happen, keeping this trait here and bringing Fear of Death into this tree for Terror synergy, which would allow Terror builds significantly more freedom of build options.
2. Combine with the buffed Chilling Darkness, change it to cast Well of Darkness on fall damage. This also opens up a trait in Curses, but doesn’t worry about the balance effect of changing Terror setups.

Either way, it needs to be rolled into an already functional trait, and then cause a skill that is related to whatever that trait does. But as long as it exists on its own it does nothing but take up a slot, and remind us that traits still really need work.

Masters
This tier has another issue of just having one realistic option in Path of Corruption, and outside of that this tier just doesn’t really have appealing traits. Unfortunately it has two awkward traits, one of which is a mediocre trait that relies on a poorly designed utility set, the other is a trait that was nerfed multiple times directly and indirectly because of its synergy with things completely unrelated.

Master of Corruption is just a huge mess right now. Firstly, it has the issue of having an incredibly weak effect, it basically just a CDR trait that gives higher CDR than normal, with a very significant downside, while other Master tier utility traits give 20% CDR plus other effects with no downsides. Secondly, it is designed with the same problem that Corruptions overall have, a positive effect that is too weak paired with a negative effect that is too significant to leave alone, but on a skill not strong enough to warrant taking other mechanics to offset.

Fixing this trait isn’t easy, because it probably needs to be paired with a set of changes to Corruptions, which is beyond the scope of what I’m trying to look at here. An easy option to retain its current use but make it more appealing is add functionality that all self-applied conditions are also applied to the target, including the additional ones. Still very “Corruption-y” but actually has meaningful power to make up for the downside.

Terror is a classic Necromancer trait. Once a huge facet of most condition builds, it is now so poor that even Deathly Chill builds, which should get amazing use out of it, don’t pick it up most of the time. This is largely due to a wealth of direct and indirect nerfs, starting with the introduction of Dhuumfire. First 17% damage reduced, then Nightmare rune nerfs, general duration nerfs when Spite was made to no longer give up to 30% condition duration, and finally the change that made conditions do partial ticks. Some of these changes are irreversible, however two good changes would be the incorporation of Fear of Death into the Curses Adept tier, and reversion of the 17% damage nerf. These shouldn’t be too strong, since most of the abuse cases of the old Terror builds are gone, and requires a large investment that precludes other strong choices.

Grandmasters
Hey look, another tier with only one real option (as I see it, not sure what PvErs would say)! Of course that option is Weakening Shroud which is a really strong trait, not to mention one that laughs at Spiteful Spirit from our Spite discussion. Our other two options are interesting, because they’re not bad ideas, but fail because of comparative power, or how they function in game.

Parasitic Contagion is a classic example of a “win more” trait, which is to say a trait that is extremely weak or even useless in bad or average matchups, and then only becomes good or great when you are already winning. This same problem is why all but one of our pure on-death traits were removed, because the only time deaths happen frequently enough to be strong is when you are already winning the encounter, and the trait’s influence is meaningless; you were winning before it proc’d. This is where I’d like to adapt Bluewizard’s suggestion to reward condition transfers, and suggest a few ideas for how to make this meaningful in far larger variety of situations, without it being just a win-more trait.

For effects, something similar to Bluewizard’s suggestion. Specifically I’d suggest something like gaining some kind of offensive buff. Think an offensive version of Corrupter’s Fervor, that would be non-specific to damage types, to allow this to work for all damage types. A precision buff would probably work well, since it helps any crit build, and also we’ve seen how interesting traits that reduce reliance on crit can work out. Might of course could also work, or a buff that specifically boosts direct and condition damage, so that it doesn’t favor one type of build.

The idea is to make the effect proc on transfers. This would have synergy with Plague Sending, and also general synergy with Corruptions which want to transfer often, and there are a lot of other smaller interactions with other transfers. This could also be tuned between a non-stacking buff that only has its duration refreshed, encouraging a certain cadence of usage, or a stacking one similar to Corrupter’s Fervor.

Regardless, the idea would be to open it up as more of a general condition option, and also smooth out how it works. I’m also going to propose a condition-related heal for Blood Magic, which we can discuss later. The reason I’m not retaining the heal is because Curses is related to offensive conditions and crits, not healing, and Weakening Shroud provides a defensive option already.

Finally, for those brave souls who’ve made it this far, we’ve got Lingering Curse. Lingering Curse is primarily based on increasing durations, which is a fine way to continue for this trait. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure on how to fix this trait; maybe I’m even wrong and this trait is fine. The problem I see is that for a duration trait, it doesn’t actually do that much. As an example, Chemical Rounds provides the same condition bonus, without the damage, as an adept. My suggestion would be to remove the condition damage bonus, since it conflicts with the idea of going heavy on damage, and open up the weapons it works on. This could be all weapons, giving any weapon skill 50% increased base duration conditions, or keeping it on specific weapons. I’m honestly not sure though, I think the idea of duration is fine, though fairly specific to PvE, but I don’t think this really delivers on a power level, and as someone who has no real desire to use this trait I’ll defer to you all on ideas to fix it.

Anyway, that’s it for Curses. This was probably the longest, and also the one I was least sure of, so I’ll be interested to know what you guys think.

Apollo.7583:

We have access to one daze is all I mean (if Im missing others, its been awhile and just restarted playing after 2 years). I understand a wail and daze makes sense, I would just prefer more fears so that maybe terror would be worth a slot in a condition build. Luckily they added chill damage so Im relatively happy with condition builds after returning.

Terror is bad for a whole variety of reasons, but fear access isn’t a big one.

Dadnir put it really well. The only thing wrong with Spectral Mastery right now is that it doesn’t properly work with all spectrals, specifically issues with Spectral Wall, and then some general weaknesses with spectrals, specifically Wall/Grasp.

Silverkey.2078:

I actually love the reaper for that. We finally have some finishers to combo with ourselves, like RS 4 in poison field (e.g. staff 3) for massive poison, RS 2 in ice field (e.g. RS 5) for frost aura, GS 2 in dark field of GS 4 for some leeching….

That’s a huge point as to why I want some finishers on the base profession. We’ve got field access already, though I’d like to see some diversity, but our few finishers are insanely unreliable. And we’ve seen how much of a usability improvement this has made on Reaper, without overpowering the builds.

Shoe.5821:

my main trouble with Spite is that i feel i can’t afford it sometimes and still have sufficient survivability, especially in pvp. It also has limited team synergy in that you dont really need to stack 25 might yourself…

That’s more a failing of Death Magic and our defensive options than Spite, though I find we can get pretty good defense with SR/Reaper. Also Spite only stacks 25 might in really limited situations. It is extremely unlikely that you’ll maintain 25 on your own except while cleaving downed targets, so what it really does best is providing high moments (like the cleaving downed) without just constantly keeping up 25 might. Most of the time allied might support, which isn’t seen to a huge degree in PvP, will still fully benefit you.

Shoe.5821:

I do think people are underrating Soul Eater though. Doesn’t it proc on everything you hit? When you can spam 2 to mulch through hordes, that adds up to quite a bit of health per second.

The problem is its only useful in “win-more” situations. If you are able to spam Gravedigger, congrats you are already more than setup to win whatever you are doing regardless of whether it is healing you or not. And the big problem is when you do need healing (fight isn’t going too well or is even) then landing Gravediggers is the least reliable thing. It just overloads the hell out of Gravedigger, if you can’t land GD you just lose, which also means for enemies if they just dodge or interrupt the one GD you’re not only dealing no damage, but also not being healed.

Interesting build, looks fun. I’d also probably go for Grasp as well, since it provides a way to single out an enemy, gives a huge chunk of chill/LF, and I’m just not a huge fan of walk.

Yeah, its a solid skill for PvP. Unblockable with potentially huge durations and pretty good uptime isn’t something to laugh at for damage focused Necromancers. This means unblockable Gravedigger or Executioner’s Scythe, and a lot of professions rely pretty heavily on blocking to mitigate. This takes a guardian from a nice block/heal to being instakilled by GD or ES.

Apollo.7583:

Ive never understood why warhorn 4 wasnt a fear. I know everyone loves the daze but I just find it unthematic for Necromancer and have never used warhorn.

What? The daze isn’t just far better for a ton of reasons, a daze fits the skill.

Yeah definitely pick up Reaper’s Onslaught. Also really not on board the cavalier hype train, you give up a ton of effective power.

I think its just fine in Curses even with the change, since it would have quite a bit of synergy with basically every single trait.

I can understand not giving us too many, but there is a pretty big difference between absolutely no usable blast finishers and too many.

In a 5v5 AoE removal is so common you are unlikely to be able to keep up large condition stacks for meaningful amounts of time. Realize that it doesn’t even heal you while in shroud, so it has to be really powerful to be able to make up for that alone. Its problem is that it is a “win more” trait, like on-death traits. They are traits that don’t contribute much because for them to be strong enough as a trait they require conditions where you are already winning regardless of the trait’s influence.

PC is probably best changed to not require damage dealt, but just be on applying conditions (like an opposite of Altruistic Healing), or on tick of conditions, regardless of damage dealt. This would also open it up for non-condition damage builds.

Bluewizard.2694:

At the start of their new trait line system, the devs stated that they wanted to build traitlines horizontally. This meant that horizontal traits had to be focused around the same theme. For example: Spiteful talisman, Chill of Death and Signets of Suffering are all the traits that are focused around removing boons on foes and getting rewarded for it. On the other hand, we have Bitter Chill, Rendering Shroud and Close to Death which are more oriented in allowing us to deal more damage.

I’d actually like to bring up that this isn’t particularly true. They did this with Reaper, and then Reaper spawned that thinking in the other elite specializations, but that wasn’t necessarily a priority for the old system which had a lot of hold-over that would make this hard. It is a really good way to design things for sure, since it somewhat guarantees “built in” synergy, and I think its something to look into when appropriate, but just want to say it wasn’t necessarily the goal with the rework overall.

Bluewizard.2694:

What if instead of trying to create a third horizontal traitline around Axe, and therefore more vulnerability and damage increase, we oriented this third horizontal line around consuming or transferring conditions to create a personal reward.

I don’t think it fits Spite particularly well, though its a cool idea overall. Spiteful Removal really only sits in spite because its always been there, instead of fitting the theme well. Instead I’ll use this idea for Curses, which I think does fit this line of thinking well, and could create interesting synergy between Plague Sending/Master of Corruption/reworked Parasitic Contagion.

Xaylin.1860:

Personally, I really dislike universal damage modifiers. They usually don’t contribute much to the overall game experience and are mostly relevant for speedruns. Therefore, I wouldn’t like to see something like this being done to Unholy Fervor. People wouldn’t pick it because they play axe but because they want to maximize their DPS. Wrong way to go. But yes, I’d like to see something added to this trait.

Is there any reason why we wouldn’t combine Unholy Fervor and Spiteful Spirit and add the condition ‘while whielding an axe’ to give this specific playstyle a bit more flavour?

I think that’s fair, but damage modifiers help out every build regardless of mode. The problem with ones that rely on you having the weapon out (but are otherwise universal) is they create weird situations like DS dealing higher damage but not RS. That isn’t to say that an unconditional modifier is a great idea, but one that only affects Axe skills would need to be very strong because it can only affect 4 things max.

Of course they could just not have a damage modifier, and instead give Axe something really special. Give it like X% increase in speed, along with some other effect, like vuln on hit. Just something to solidify what it already does.

Xaylin.1860:

Anyone else feeling that Chill to Death has the wrong condition to trigger?
Shouldn’t it be ‘When hitting a foe with 2-3 boons.’? I’m aware that there are several arguments against it but the health threshold doesn’t make any sense for this type of skill.

I think they are both fine triggers, really. They both fit Spite’s theme (destroy people under X% HP vs remove boons), and I’m generally in favor of keeping things that are already really good where they are.

Dadnir.5038:

If we look objectively at Spitful spirit, it’s a strong trait.

It really doesn’t do much that is strong though, and frankly looking at traits in a vacuum is a complete wash. It has to compete with the other traits, and it just doesn’t currently.

Dadnir.5038:

They could make the trait affect Unholy feast in a special way.
-> It could change this skill in a way that it would corrupt more boon on your foes.
-> It could change this skill in a way that it would remove condition on use.
-> It could change this skill in a way that it would additionnaly siphon life.
I think this would be the most interresting type of change since it could technically also affect Spiteful spirit and maybe give it the possibility to compete against it’s challengers.

This is the type of change that should happen. If we look at the other weapon traits in the game they all add effects in a fairly interesting way.

darianturner.8096:

So that means that noone will bring me on raids…. because necro it’s subpar :/…

I wish there was an advice when I create that class: “Play it only if you want to be subpar to the rest”.

-_- Thinkin’ on rerrolling, don’t know what to do right now…

Only if you are planning to speed run the raids. Chances are Reaper will be good enough on raids to be taken even though it isn’t strictly better than others that can fill the role.

Is Necro subpar in PvE? Yes, though we’re getting a lot closer. Where does that matter? Pretty much only in specific group content. Random zerging in PvE or the big bosses Necromancer is just fine.

Quarktastic.1027:

Necromancers have more access to fear than any other profession, in overwhelming fashion. Granted, a lot of it is conditional and situational…but just look at the wiki page.

That’s like saying Thief has the most access to stealth, or Chronomancer has the most access to alacrity… of course they do, because it was designed for them, like Fear was designed for Necromancer.

Sevans.4619:

I honestly believe it would be far too strong for a condition/hybrid reaper. No idea how else it’d be buffed, though.

Condition doesn’t go Curses anyway right now.

Its just a quality of Death Shroud being partly a transform.

Soul Eater isn’t that good, in fact once I get to Reaper I’ll be comparing it to Forceful Greatsword again as for why that is the case.

spoj.9672:

So relaxing the 5% conditional damage might be a nice change. 1 or 2 boons would be nice. Or even give it a scaling effect. 10% no boons, 7.5% 1 boon, 5% 2 boons.

This is a solid idea, because you’re right its getting pretty difficult to keep anything completely off.

Frost Armor, Cold Shoulder, Putrid Defense, Rise!, innate Shroud reduction, protection, is just shy of 88% direct damage reduction, applied after armor.

That isn’t how mitigation works though, though it isn’t a huge change each one has diminishing returns, so two 10% damage reductions is only 19%.

Blood Magic is the healing line, specifically. It isn’t just team support, it is anything to do with healing, so Unholy Sanctuary’s healing would fit the line way better for sure. Death Magic on the other hand is more about mitigation, though I think US’s shroud-proc fits DM better. I wouldn’t want UM in DM though, it has the same problem US has already, which is that CF is an amazing mitigation tool and so having two sustain GMs in the same line makes little sense. The third GM needs to be a burst mitigation trait of some sort to differentiate itself from CF, and also to provide that currently missing niche.

Skoigoth.9238:

Very nice write-up. I pretty much agree with everything except for one thing: Spiteful Talisman. It sees a lot of play in general PvE since it is a free 5% damage modifier most of the times and because the two other Adept traits, the mini-CoCo and the vuln on Chill, are rather situational.

Yeah I think its fair to say that Spiteful Talisman gets a decent amount of play in PvE just for the damage boost, and since focus isn’t too bad in PvE just for the 4 cast.

Skoigoth.9238:

I like the idea of making Unholy Fervor’s damage mod unconditional and independent from Axe, but at the same time it feels like giving up on Axe, which would be a bit sad =/

I actually don’t think Axe is in too bad of a spot right now. Certainly still in need of work (and after I go through all the specs weapons is probably my next goal), but workable, and more importantly I prefer the idea of it being good without the trait, and the trait being a boost.

Not sure. Maybe the argument could be made that having them all proc chill would be too strong when paired with a few other setups within Reaper/Spite, since that would add a 600 range vuln, Chilling Victory proc, etc. but I think 600 range would be just fine since its just 1s.

So now that we’ve all had some time to play with Reaper, I think its time to start going back and talking about the professions as a whole. I think our specialization lines are one of the biggest places we could see improvement at this point, and they are also extremely important when it comes to enabling build types. I say this especially because Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper are now nearly omnipresent in builds, while Curses sees almost no play, and Death Magic/Blood Magic are far more niche than they could be. I want to focus on what the trait lines as a whole should be doing, and then talk about the specific traits that I think aren’t quite up to par.

I’ll be posting these separately and not all at once, because it is a ton to digest, but also because once I wrote out Spite I realized it was an entire post all on its own, and I think this is more useful to everyone involved if we condense the topics.

Spite
Conveniently our best designed line (in my opinion) is also the first one, so I get to laud over it first. Spite’s entire point is making you deal more damage, and it accomplishes this goal in every single build. Furthermore, it does this through a fairly unique and thematic approach: build might to increase your own damage, and use vulnerability and boon removal to decrease your enemies defenses. It also has an interesting focus for these themes, concentrating these traits around shroud and low health targets, which makes it feel unique and allow for you to have periods of high strength without being too strong.

Minors
Not much to say here, they are the definition of how the line works: provide might/vulnerability while in shroud and against low targets.

Adepts
I actually think all the adepts are fine so I won’t spend much time here. While Spiteful Talisman sees little play overall, this is because of Focus being subpar, not this trait; a strong focus weapon and I can see this being used.

Edit:

And i agree with Tim on spiteful talisman. With HoT and new fracs we see a lot more boons in PvE now. And its very difficult to keep them off for long periods even with multiple mesmers and necros. So relaxing the 5% conditional damage might be a nice change. 1 or 2 boons would be nice. Or even give it a scaling effect. 10% no boons, 7.5% 1 boon, 5% 2 boons.

Masters
No surprise since I said this is a great line, but I like most of the traits here. Unholy Fervor is the only exception, because its just a fairly weak trait, especially comparatively. Let’s compare it with Forceful Greatsword :

Unholy Feast

• Conditional 10% damage increase on Axe skills, though the condition isn’t too hard to reach.
• 20% CDR on Axe skills
• Affects 3 skills, and one trait

Forceful Greatsword

• Unconditional 10% damage increase on Greatsword skills
• 20% CDR on Greatsword skills
• Gain 5s of might on critical hit, no ICD
• Affects 6 skills
• Technically also affects Spear, an underwater weapon, but I think this is irrelevant for comparisons

So, in a 1 for 1 comparison between two weapons that are pretty similar, and trait lines with the same goal, with traits of the same tier, Forceful Greatsword is just flat out better in every single way. It has more effects, and affects more skills. So Unholy Fervor obviously needs buffs. The first is to either completely remove the condition on the damage increase, or like Spiteful Talisman open it up to all damage dealt while that condition is fulfilled. If the second is done, I think this trait is probably fine as is, with maybe a small extra effect tagged on, and if the first option is taken then like the other weapon traits it needs an additional effect, preferably something that is in line with Spite’s increasing of damage dealt.

Grandmasters
Similar situation to above, two great traits and one that isn’t really worth taking. Spiteful Spirit is of course the odd man out, since it doesn’t particularly do much to warrant its use over the other two. Signets of Suffering is the obvious choice for builds utilizing signets, and Close to Death has great damage increase that any build can use. Spiteful Spirit just needs something unique, a common suggestion is adding a blast, but the first thing to do is remove the ICD like we learned with Weakening Shroud. Other suggestions would be granting an effect more similar to GW1’s Spiteful Spirit, instead of just granting retal grant something similar to Glyph of Unity for a few seconds after Shroud entry, to further its niche as something to use to punish enemies when they hit you, and differentiate it from the other choices.

Overall though I’d just like to point out that Spite is an amazing line overall, with only 2 of 12 traits really worth mentioning in a bad light. If all our lines were this well done we’d have to really reach to find things to reasonably complain about.

Now that you’ve braved this wall of text, what do you think? Agree or disagree? Please leave your feedback, especially for possible changes to the traits I mentioned, though I think as a community this is probably one of the least controversial specializations.

I think some kind of LF on being hit would be really nice for DM, and get rid of the current SC just so that PvE/WvW don’t get too ridiculous (since lots of things hitting you and lots of things dying happen in similar scenarios). Something like a permanent spectral effect where you gain LF on being hit, though I do think there might need to be an ICD per enemy hitting you just to prevent it from getting too ridiculous in specific matchups.

As for BtV I actually think its probably fine, maybe a 1s increase because its the GM level and can’t proc super often because flashing can’t be done. A comparable trait is Companion’s Defense, which is a tier lower, can be procced more, but is 2s not 3s.

For Unholy Sanctuary I think it would fit best as an anti-burst mechanic. Corrupter’s Fervor fills such a similar role as US currently does, but in a much better way because it constantly reduces the damage you take by a significant amount, instead of just healing your HP after you take damage. Instead, have US keep the instant bringing you to DS instead of dying, but provide something more significant for anti-burst instead of the healing over time.

Vydahr.4285:

Biggest problem in PvP for Necros/Reapers: 0% starting life force

Not really. Its an issue for sure, but we’ve been getting significantly better life force gain that doesn’t rely too much on gaining it via slower skills/AAs.

I main Reaper because I love Necromancer, and Reaper has taken one of my favorite mechanics of Necromancer (Shroud) and improved it massively.

I’m doing great in PvP with Reaper right now, though not on the original build I intended to play. Haven’t had the chance to play a ton, but I’ve also not lost a single game yet. Reaper definitely has a few issues, but a lot of them go back to the core profession like we’ve been saying would be an issue since pre-BWEs.

I did test it, and it works exactly how I said it did. The tooltips were wrong when factoring Barbed Precision because they acted as though condition duration max wasn’t a thing, but otherwise the math lined up with practical duration. Food doesn’t work in PvP so maybe that’s it?

No, duration bonuses are after. So yes a 12s would go to 36s w/ Lingering Curse + 100% bonus duration.

Scepter 1’s base bleed duration is 4.5. Lingering Curse increases that base duration by 50% to 6.75, which can then go up to 13.5 with bonus duration. Tooltips are just not being capped by the duration cap from what I can see, and its Barbed Precision that is causing the conflict.