Guild Wars 2

Sigmoid.7082:

@Darwec.
Did some rough timing and the full auto chain is about 2.5s. If he wasnt using the trait it would drop to around the same as the dagger auto chain but have 0.4 less damage coeff. It should balance if the burn stacks are over 700~1k damage

If he is already using the trait and its 2.5 anyways then the whole chain is 2.9s which is very slow overall.

Right. So it’s one of those “we dont know yet, we have to see the actual release versions” things :\. Anywho, i think those are the two best power options though, both with and without RS actually being good. Coming up with a list of all the good-ish options is a good plan for me.

Sigmoid.7082:

@ Spoj i lierally just did the same thing and came out with the same numbers pretty much except nightfall does 4 hits so its 2.8 pretty much. Seems dagger should still be the best 1v1 weapon for pve but RS and great sword would be good for trash and packs of stuff. Especially when one gets low since grave digger spam would be best dps then.

For pvp though grave digger will be huge if you can land it since you will be hitting people for between 4~6k or higher if they are below 20% and have vuln stacks. Especially you can stop people ressing since you can just repeat spam it on downed people. If you have Soul eater trait nightfall geave digger spam will make ressing almost impossible since GD makes it cool faster so you can keep placing it down.

Im hoping those numbers are wrong and wind up being better than dagger. Basically the two options are:

if dagger is better take http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBaAXkBnQ~ run zerker, play like you do now (drop in and out of DS)

if rs is better take http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBaAVsBnw~ take either zerker or valk, DS camp

so my question ends up being: if the numbers for the two are similar (Dagger and RS) will the 15% reduction in attack + dhuumfire be enough extra damage to make up the lost damage of the dagger. I THINK it might be. The reduced attack speed should bring the whole chain down to close the speed of dagger, with slightly less damage but more burning damage. Also, the RS build should keep higher vulnerability than the Dagger build, keeping our crit chance higher.

CodeHavoc.7926:

Darwec.3784:

I dont think necro is good now, or will be good after the patch, in 1v1 situations for the most part. I think in team fights, necros become deadly.

In a team fight, the aoe chill and group pulls will make sure targets cant back away for a breath of air. THATS where these builds will shine. Still going to be pretty bad solo.

On the contrary people have been complaining that necro was good in 1v1 situations but didn’t scale when in 5+ groups such as spvp. I think necros got a huge advantage with shouts. Sure the shouts aren’t the best 1v1 but have other useful skills and utilities to manage that.

I have a much harder time 1v1 than I do in say a 2v2 with an AH guardian by my side. Yes, if we get focused we’re dead, but thats true of a lot of classes (kind of. not exactly). A properly positioned and used necro in a team fight can swing the battle (with lich, not with death shroud). If our new reapers shroud gives us similar abilities, and we can force players to remain engaged i combat, we might be better off. It has its uses, and it will certainly take some time to learn. Its going to be a highly melee oriented class, and with the recent power ranger changes, thats going to be rough. Its very clear that in sPvP power ranger is going to dominate, and necros wont stand a chance against them. The question is if we can stand a chance against thieves and guards and the like now.

I worked out the damage coefficients of the skills by using the tooltips shown on the stream. You could work out his power by adjusting your ingame power to match the BiP tooltip damage shown on stream. Estimate of power he had was 1950. It was heart of the mists so i assumed exotic greatsword which means a weapon power of 1000. Heres the coefficients i got.

to be clear, would the equivilant dagger coefficents be 0.9, 0.7, 1.2?

KashimKudal.2961:

Darwec.3784:

Actually, im fairly certain necros will beable to maintain high vulnerability stacks while doing max DPS with the new proposed changes. Will take some testing once it actually comes out, but with a bit of luck, yeah.

So hopefully that will put our damage inline with the newly nerfed ele. Then its a matter of: do you want an ele and fury or a necro and 25 vuln.

Granted, the meta set up for dungeons will likely become guardx2, warr, theif, other. The other will likely still be ele, but we might get close enough with damage and high vuln stacks to be an acceptable replacement.

True that’s what the meta would probably do, but at this point with the dungeons and fractals. Any competent player in his or her class wearing semi dps gear can speed run. Soon Necro will be able to heal you, take away conditions to sustain his KS and continually apply x25 stacks of vuln most likely. I’d say that’s pretty good.

Unless they take future content away from being DPS meta and make non-dps support classes relevant, max vuln + max dps is the way to go for a necro, unfortunately.

By this i mean: all content thus far in the game is stack and burn and dodge incoming damage. None of it requires regen or heals of that sort. Necros support comes in the form of small semi-frequent heals, not in the form of immunes and blocks, so it doesnt fit this meta. The only time a play style like this becomes useful is when you’re in a group thats not experienced enough to dodge small damage properly.

So unless they can make necros support style relevant, it wont matter. And if you look at their track record, if you look at the type of game anet is trying to make, this seems unlikely. They intentionally made a game that doesnt require tanks or healers.

I dont think necro is good now, or will be good after the patch, in 1v1 situations for the most part. I think in team fights, necros become deadly.

In a team fight, the aoe chill and group pulls will make sure targets cant back away for a breath of air. THATS where these builds will shine. Still going to be pretty bad solo.

Actually, im fairly certain necros will beable to maintain high vulnerability stacks while doing max DPS with the new proposed changes. Will take some testing once it actually comes out, but with a bit of luck, yeah.

So hopefully that will put our damage inline with the newly nerfed ele. Then its a matter of: do you want an ele and fury or a necro and 25 vuln.

Granted, the meta set up for dungeons will likely become guardx2, warr, theif, other. The other will likely still be ele, but we might get close enough with damage and high vuln stacks to be an acceptable replacement.

Gryph.8237:

I actually liked everything I saw with regard to the spec …. for PVE. For pve, it is going to be fun. For pvp, i think it will be very, very hard to do anything vs mesmers, thieves, rangers, etc. Basically, anyone gets range on us, we will be owned. Yes, we have a slight gap closer, and we have chill, but we will be so slow, that anyone with a few dodges and a clear is away in a heartbeat and at range, will hit us hard.

I honestly think they could give us some kind of reflect to deal with being outranged while we try to close. I see a power ranger just sitting there dodging backwards and eating us alive.

I think pvp will basically be the same as it is now, except you take gs as a pull, and reaper as a gap closer, and give up a ranged option. It would be nice in pvp if u could take gs without taking reaper, but oh well.

I think reaper can have various play styles, and so it comes down to do you want a power build? Do you want a condi build?

If you want a power build, you could probably hit 80% crit chance without any stats at all, so you could run Valkyrie. Zerker would almost garuntee you 100% crit chance at all times. (Neither of these takes that 50% extra crit chance in DS skill either…just burst max vuln and go to town).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Interesting differences of opinion here. Do you feel Reaper will be better suited to WvW or PvP? It seems unanimously agreed that it will be great in PvE

I personally think it might be OK in pve, maybe pushing in to close to ele ranks after the ice bow nerf. I dont think we will push into a meta pve status, which i am very much ok with. We will finally be good-ish in pve. I think eles are falling in status, and we are rising. So we might become even with the new eles. Just never with thief or warr or guard.

I think it will be all kinds of fun in SPVP. I already play a strictly melee power necro in spvp (i dont follow standard power necro meta, i just blind/chill and dagger ppl in the face) so this will fit so well with my build.

Spite: spiteful talisman, death shiver, close to death
Soul Reaping: unyielding blast, vital persistence, dhuum fire
Reaper: Chilling nova?, decimate defenses, reapers onslaught

Yes, i passed over death perception.

easily being able to burst and maintain 25 stacks of vulnerability + fury and warrior banners puts you at close to 80%. With zerker gear, you would hit 100%. No need for the 50% in death shroud trait.

So now you have 100% crit chance either in or out of DS.

death shiver helps you with your vuln stacking in DS to keep high crit.
Close to death and spiteful talisman for damage, obviously.
unyielding blast helps you keep high vuln and crit in DS.
vital persistence to keep your DS up.
Dhuumfire for extra damage on auto attacks in DS.
chilling nova? idk
decimate defense to keep high crit.
reapers onslaught to make your DS auto attack chain good.

This i all on the assumption that the 15% attack speed will make the DS auto attack chain better than dagger. (Also assume the live stream numbers were of not zerker).

Weapons: dagger/warhorn & greatsowrd
Utilites: Signet of SPite, Well of Suffering, WEll of corruption
Heal: your soul is mine

So the rotation would be: precast warhorn 5 as you run in, drop wells on target, open with GS 3 (for 12 vulnerability), enter DS (which automatically applies 6 stacks). (so now you’re at 25 stacks). Go to town in DS. Depending on the power of GS, once the target is below 50% it may arguable be better to use gs 2 & 3 and reenter DS only for Ds 4 and 5.

So while in DS you are maintaining vulnerability (and therefore your 100% crit) and you apply constant burning and (hopefully) be slightly more DPS than dagger.

No. I think Reapers really only serve a pvp function. I still think core necro might be better off in Pve unless the numbers on GS were based on something other than zerker. Even if it was based on cele, the numbers probably wouldnt get big enough to really matter in dungeons. Dagger still seems like the way to go for that. What GS does provide is vulnerability, which is nice but other classes can do vulnerability too, it doesnt suddenly make us unique or useful. Nothing in this new elite line is pve oriented, so if you do pve (like 75% of the player base does) base necro is still better than reaper.

The story changes for spvp and possibly wvw. In those situations, reaper looks amazing.

The elite spec looks like a good fun time in pvp, and does nothing for pve necros. At this point, it’s probably easier just to accept necro will never be a viable pve class due to multiple official statements from Anet during the live stream and just above in this thread. The “you can be viable in other ways” mentality is false given the meta that this game provides. Unless new content is drastically different, breaking the zerker meta, necros will always be kind of lack luster. And remember, if they break the zerker meta, all the ascended gear and weapons everyone made becomes worthless. So that meta wont be going away anytime soon without a lot of QQ.

So necros now get vulnerability stacking, possibly at the expense of their current dps (the gs and reaper lookfun, but dont look like dungeon DPS builds). Thats fine, we have some minor utility. Unncessary in most parties but we do SOMETHING.

And necros look WAY fun in spvp again instead of just lich and kill things and then wait for 2 minutes. Thats super awesome.

I think Minion master is pretty decent forleveling. Axe/warhorn & staff or dagger/warhorn & staff is pretty ok for leveling. Staff and axe get you some range if you are getting touched in bad ways by mobs. Dagger is always nice for just killing. Your minons should protect you for the most part when leveling. Take ur minions, signet of the locust, and run around.

runeblade.7514:

Tim.6450:

Dagger could go for a defensive weapon through life froce and life siphon.

Life siphon sucks though.

Decent heal if you decide to take signet of vamp. Auto attack until u take an accidental hit, then use life siphon. Then when signet of vamp is up again you get another half heal. Otherwise, yeah life siphon is bad. Dagger is purely a single target DPS weapon. Hopefully, gs is a melee cleave weapon for multiple targets, and maybe some burst skills. So you would: locust swarm, swap to gs to do a burst, then swap back to dagger for Auto attack. Hopefully. Atleast for dungeons. In pvp, gs might have a role as a mobility weapon or an anti-mobility weapon (it appears to have a pull). So you can p ull targets back if they try to escape with gs, or pop into DS and have some mobility TO a target.

Pug groups dont care usually what class you bring unless you’re awful at dungeons. When you start running in organized groups though…

My guild doesnt refuse me when im on my necro, but they clearly prefer if i bring my phalanx / ele / guard. If someone in the group is pressed for time that day, they will ask me to switch. And that becomes annoying / insulting over time. People may keep quiet, but they dont want a necro in group. When I pug and a necro joins up, i automatically start judging them, even though im a necro myself. Its hard to be a good necro in PVE. its easy to be a terrible necro in PVE.

Im assuming dagger will have higher DPS on auto attack on single targetes, and gs will have lower single target dps but do more damage to groups of targets. So both are melee weapons, one for single targets (boss fights) one for groups (pvp, trash mobs)

Vizardlorde.8243:

Darwec.3784:

Lily.1935:

Nothing. I don’t have to sacrifice anything. I’ll be taking Curse, Soul reaping and reaper. And on my Power build I’ll be taking Spite, soul reaping and reaper. That isn’t a sacrifice.

Depends on if the GS has the potential to do more damage than dagger or not. If the gs’s numbers turn out terrible and dagger ends up being a better melee weapon, then blood magic and lifesiphon on hits is > reaper.

What kida numbers are you seeing from life siphon cause i cant get a trait to do more than double digits.
I dont think that GS will replace dagger, well just become more like guardians where they use GS for skills 2-5 and sword /focus for autoattack (in the necro’s case dagger focus)

Ok, so currently im running a power build, zerk gear, 6/5/0/3/0. Spite and curses are pretty obvs, i want the power, i want the precision and Target the weak.

Blood magic though: i took 3 points because i want siphon health whenever you hit a foe, and siphon health whenever you crit hit.
Those two, with pretty high crit chance, locust swarm, well of suffering, well of corruption, and neither of those traits have an ICD, so they dont do heavy damage, but they hit frequently. I dont camp DS, my build is focused on hitting frequently in PVE.

If i could take a full three lines (with the proposed upcoming changes), its a toss up for me between spite and some combination of curses/soulreaping/blood magic

blood magic because of what i already listed, and then also wells do siphon
curses because fury, and chill/vulnerability/blindess stacking with well of darkness, and banshees wail.
soul reaping for stability, and reduced DS cool down (Which, if you pop in and out of DS could give up to 70% fury uptime).
so, for example, spite/curses/blood magic would hit a lot, frequently, for a bunch of small numbers. spite/curses/soul reaping would do a lot of fury uptime. spite/blood magic/soul reaping would be a middle ground between the two, but you give up fury.

Also i guess my statement totally discounted the fact that the traits in Reaper could be good. For reaper to replace any of these one of the following has to happen:

gs has to have amazing weapon numbers (not likely, with them saying it’s a “slow” weapon, it would have to hit REALLY hard).
reaper has to be so good that you have incentive to stay in DS instead of abusing buffs (really hoping this is the case).
the traits for the line are actually just good on their own (probs not, no reason to make an elite line not focused on the new elite changes).

so, for example, spite/curses/reaper would apply blindness, chill, vuln with well of darkness, have extended chill duration, and you take less damage, but thats not amazing in pve.

spite/blood/reaper is silly, blood magic is only useful if you have high attack rates, which you only get with dagger/warhorn.

spite/soul/reaper makes sense for a DS focused build, but again, this has to make you want to actually use DS. Either DS has to be better than dagger or gs has to be better than dagger. Right now, neither one is.

similary, wells deal damage for us right now. probably one of the highest sources of damage for a power build. so unless shouts provide some utility or deal more damage then wells (neither seem likely)….

Lily.1935:

Nothing. I don’t have to sacrifice anything. I’ll be taking Curse, Soul reaping and reaper. And on my Power build I’ll be taking Spite, soul reaping and reaper. That isn’t a sacrifice.

Depends on if the GS has the potential to do more damage than dagger or not. If the gs’s numbers turn out terrible and dagger ends up being a better melee weapon, then blood magic and lifesiphon on hits is > reaper.

The problem with a vuln stacking necro is that every class already applies a little vuln, so a normal group holds 10-ish stacks by themselves. If i remember correctly, necros are getting more vuln traits, and traits that to increased damage to targets with vulnerability. So yes, we can single handedly maintain 25 our selves, but other classes together could maintain 10-20, and deal more damage than we could (not counting the spec that was released today, that i am just now reading!)

I think the idea was to take firey wrath, zealous blade, symbolic avenger; inner fire, radiant fire, amplafied wrath; unscathed contender, virtuous mallet, permeatign wrath. YOu get increased damage to burning foes, increased damage to targets in your symbols. YOu can then gs/hammer and do more damage than zerk guardians do now. That coupled with their current party support/reflects/agis/etc gives them decent damage, support, and defense all at once :\.

ANd this is exactly contrary to necro, where we do none of the above.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Two things:

1. Since the change happened two years ago, I assumed people knew.

2. I can’t believe the tooltip for that is still wrong, because triggering SA before going into DS provides a surprising amount of sustain while SA is up. I can’t blame people for not knowing when the game doesn’t tell them the correct information.

Yeah a couple of my guildies have been doing sPvP on their necros lately for titles and i was trying to teach them things and they’re like “But the tool tip..” Kinda frustrating.

Bhawb.7408:

Guardians already are one of the strongest PvE professions, this just makes them better.

NO i mean like….I think taking a hammer build on guardian with increased damage to burning targets traits is set to make guardians THE hardest hitting class in dungeons, along with their already amazing utility, + a nerf to ice bow so eles are less important. So guardians are set to be the most indespensible class, way more so than now. And…people are complaining? and they got mobility and ranged condis for pvp? and they’re upset?

Can we get any of those things? Can we get scraps? Guardians got first world problems. Guardians are the 1% :|

Aren’t base guardians lined up to be one of the strongest PVE dungeon classes with their current proposed changes? Im confused by this post.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Gryph.8237:

How are stances any good? What, another mechanism that is blocked when we go intomdeathshroud? So you blow a stance and go into ds only to find your stance is cancelled or ineffective in ds.

Spectral abilities remain active when you go into DS. So would stances.

If you’re talking about not being able to use utilities while in DS, any utility would suffer from that.

So what point are you making, exactly? Are you assuming all stances would restore health?

I believe he means

Assume a spectral form and gain new skills, turning your life force into health. Entering this form removes other spectral effects.

which

Does not actually remove Spectral Effects, it was changed in the 25th June, 2013 update, however the ingame tooltip still says it removes them.

I think that dialog is more indication that rangers will get stances. Rox is the ranger. Rox is good at stances. Rangers get stances.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Darwec.3784:

Can someone link information on the known GS info? I feel like i missed some info here (there is chill on auto?)

People are using the Necro NPC’s auto-chain as basis for speculation. It could be different.

Ah ok. Thank you.

Can someone link information on the known GS info? I feel like i missed some info here (there is chill on auto?)

Zetsumei.4975:

Guys I might be completely mistaken but I just vaguely remember in the living story majory talking about rox helping her learn how to use the greatsword. Am I imagining this or does she say rox learnt a few stances as mandatory training from the old days? If so at the time I must’ve passed it off as simply learning to use the weapon but we may be getting the utilities stances.

People have also suggested ties between Braham (Guard) and his Mother (Ranger)

And between Kasmeer and Majory (Mesmer / necro) for well sharing.

So maybe Majory learns stances or shouts from rox. Maybe she learns mantras or glamour skills from Kasmeer. Maybe her sisters dead spirit imbues her gs with some magical fluff. Cus magic.

I think the problem is that, for the most part, it doesnt MATTER that necro is worse dps. (At least not with the current dungeons).

In most cases, the difference between any two groups for clearing a dungeon is TIME and nothing else. And for most people, the difference between a 30 minute fractal and a 50 minute fractal isnt that huge if they’re having fun. So yeah, necros are no where on par objectivley, its just that most ppl usually dont care in PVE. The problem comes in for people who DO care about how long runs take, or if the upcoming content becomes more difficult / time critical. Also there is an aspect of pvp balance that needs to be taken into account. In pve, the question is simply “can any 5 people clear content” and the answer is yes. In pvp the question becomes “can any 5 people make a fair and fun group such that winners and losers come down to skill, not class”

Vizardlorde.8243:

Bhawb.7408:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Well most of the major traits in curses lost their crit options

Every single minor trait has crit on it, and the only on-crit we lost was one that was basically never taken because it was garbage.

Now that you mention it you are completely right, the only reason I picked curses for my power build is the damage modifier (changing to crit boost) and the base precision. None of the majors support a power build (now or in HoT), we really need new traits in curses.

I mean, its also arguably useful for the fury on DS but you can make that up in other places. Especially if your party is giving fury like it should.

Ok wait. So we all agree that in pvp specifically, this skill is worthless. The question now is does it have any redeeming triats (meaning it should be balanced) or is it totally useless (so it should be scrapped and replaced). I, personally, think its quite good in PVE (dungeons specifically and event trains, not at tequatal and other world bosses of that sort). It does a fair bit of “free” damage and I rarely need heavy heals in pve. I can find other sources of adequate healing. So a lot of the suggestions here have been suggesting scrapping the skill, or parts of the skill that are useful in PVE if used properly.

I never take any of the other heals to dungeons, consume conditions is good, but if you have a good team, you usually dont need to bring your own condi clears. Condi clearing in dungeons is so situational you dont need to bring it. Which is why i really dont want to see this skill scrapped :\

I think this active component is perfectly fair, i think the active needs some fixing so that its a balanced skill.

For quick comparison the other classes passives are:

Warrior, healing signet: grant self regeneration
Guardian, signet of resolve: cure condis passivly
Engi, healing turret: its a turret that heals you? grants a water field and regeneration
ranger, water sprit? it only lasts for 60 seconds, not really a passive.
thief, signet of malice: heal when you attack
ele, signet of restoration: heal when you cast spells
mesmer, signet of ether: heal based every few seconds based on # of clones out.

ours is the only one that heals on receiving damage. Which might not be TERRIBLE if it healed for more. For example, mesmers have increased healing for each clone out from 340-980. If, similarly, our signet healed for that range based LF.

Or if instead of healing, it just granted passive life force regen since ANET treated LF as our actual health and skills anyways -.- might as well go all out on that DS idea in that case. (Plz dont :< )

I hate the fact that there are pre/post cast times and not just a standard global cool down for all skills and classes.

There is no justifiable reason necros should not have a mobility skill. If they pick up all their tanking skills, they lose all damage, both power and condi. So its a total trade off between power and tanking. And even then, there are tanky classes like warriors and guards. Warriors do damage and tank at the same time and have some of the best mobility in the game. Guardians just got a leap skill in their elite spec. So explain again how taking damage means we cant have mobility? Because necros are trash at taking damage (no blocks, no evades, no distortion…just high hp and then you hope you can take the kits), have probably the worst zerk damage in the game with rangers, provide no support, and condis, on the whole, are just the absolute worst.

There is no justifiable why. There is no reason. Necros just ARE bad. The question isnt why, the question is how do you fix it in a way that doesn’t jsut make it overpowered. Anyone can make an overpowerd set of necro traits, but how do we make a balanced set of necro traits.

I mean. thats exactly the reason i bring my necro. No one can ask me to stack might or give them an icebow. #lazynecro. I only take other classes when the party is really failing

Bhawb.7408:

Realize that a full 25 stacks consumed can deal almost 10k damage, meaning hitting them all would kill literally anyone. Its not meant to be fully removed, it is a huge additional damage spike on a single target.

Yes, but its only ever usefull in highly coordinated teams. So if you’re running with a good team/party, use it, but if you are on ur own, or dont know when or how to use it, avoid it?

It’s REALLY hard to use properly in pvp.

DrArmature.4619:

For pve I think 6 6 0 0 2 is standard with dagger/ focus. just sit in DS as long as possible.

I was under the impression that sitting in DS for as long as possible was less DPS than using dagger?

Looking at my current build, the three hits from dagger do 864,627,1152 over 2.1 seconds (pulled the time from the gw2 wiki). So roughly 1258 dps. DS auto attack does 1251 damage over approximately 1.4 seconds (Again, form gw2 wiki).So roughly 893 dps?

My necro pve build (which i think is pretty common):

Dagger/warhorn axe/warhorn

Heal: Signet of vamp

Utilities: Signet of spite (or well of darkness), well of suffering, well of corruption, lich form

Traits: 6 in spite (signet mastery, chill of death, close to death). 5 in curses (weakening shroud, banshees wail). 3 in blood magic (vampiric precision).

If you take well of darkness for blinds, take one point out of blood magic, put ti in curses, and take blinds inflict chill.

Rotation: get up in that mobs face, use warhorn 5, wells, Death shroud 5, leave death sroud, go lich, spam one. cycle thorugh this. while lich is on CD, just spam 1 on dagger.

Use signet of vamp every time its up as well. Use dagger 2 (life siphon) as your heal.

Softspoken.2410:

You’ll never get full mileage out of the active siphon effect. The full 25 stacks are only ever consumed if you have 5 different targets attacking the same player, and that situation should basically never come up in sPvP. And even that assumes that the target doesn’t use evasion or invulnerability skills to keep people from hitting them during that window.

Right. which is why in SPVP, signet of vamp is a pretty awful skill. It cant function well in its intended role of being a hybrid heal/dps skill as its limited by the ICD and number or allies hitting the target. Even if you’re in a 3v3, call targets properly, and get your signet off, at best you get 6 stacks off each, so 18 stacks gone? assuming no blocks, no evades, and all focus? thats a lot of assumptions for not full damage being dealt out. In PVP the skill is just…not good.

Signet of vamp is my heal skill of choice in PVE O.o. you can already avoid almost all damage in a decent group, so i just take the extra dps. That logic does nto work in PVP. In pvp, signet of vamp is pretty bad.

The concept of adept, master, and grandmaster traits seems overly arbitrary now with the changes. IT made sense before when you had the option to put adept traits in the grand master slot. Before there was some clear hierarchy. That hierarchy has been abolished since you are forced to take the full line, and there is no overlap between tiers. At this point it is simply tier 1 tier 2 and tier 3.

spoj.9672:

The point of signets is to have use on both the passive and active. The general theme is to have sustain on passive and some good niche use on the active. Making the passive heal on hit fixes that. The active isnt far off being a decent niche skill to pop. It just needs a slight buff to the base heal and the removal of the active ICD.

Also necros are more likely to pop the active on such a skill because they wont benefit from the passive in DS. Which means if they plan to sit in DS for a while then they can pop the active before entering DS then camp DS until it comes off cooldown. And then you have a well balanced heal skill which has benefits to both the active and the passive portion. :P

I would prefer a SoV that keeps its base heal, does more damage (by adding more stacks, extending the duration of the stacks, and removing the ICD) and passive heals on hits (with a cool down on that heal). That way, the signet serves its active function better (bonus damage) and still provides a passive heal (Which signets should do) without being too strong with its active base heal. The active heal is bad if you only use signet of vamp, but it works out nicely if you couple it with dagger.

So in the end, you get a signet where with dagger you are likely to use it frequently and life siphon health to heal with dagger 2.

With other weapons, you are less likely to activate it, but you get a decent passive heal on hits, and when you activate the heal you get bonus damage.

spoj.9672:

Hes right for vampiric signet though. The passive should provide sustain. It should be on hit. It doesnt even need in ICD in either format. But if the healing per hit is good enough then im ok with a 1 second ICD. The active needs the ICD removed from the stacks portion so players can use intelligent play to get the best out of it (save fast multi hits for burst and bigger heal).

Heal when hit doesnt make any sense. It would be passable if we could get signet passives in DS and we could heal in DS. That way we could sit DS and get hit to heal our base HP. But thats not possible. So the concept of the passive is completely useless to everyone.

I agree that the passive is trash, but I think it was built such that the passive would be useless. It seems like a skill that they wanted popped every time it was available. Swapping it so that you get healing when you hit gives less incentive for you to actively use it. Essentially: they made the passive bad to force you to use the active. The problem is that the active isnt fantastic either. Likely in a dungeon it wont deal its full damage.

So my point is: either make the passive good, or the active good, but as it stands they’re both lack luster.

I sometime like to take the first 2 points into blood magic to do extra Life steal damage ON TOP OF my zerk damage, but I’ve never tried to see how it stands on its own

Dreaming serpent.5197:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Vampirism Should heal when YOU strike a foe, not when the foe strikes you. Scale the passive the same as Warrior’s healing signet (.05). Up the heal amount to the same as Warrior’s healing signet. Change the ICD to 3/4 of a second (This is flexible, but is so that a dagger combo chain would still proc it twice. Also since it’s reliant on hits it will more often than not still heal less than the warriors).

Signet of vamp is more of an extra damage skill than a heal. I pop it on a boss every time its up and just use my dagger life siphon as a heal as needed. I honestly think its there so you can have extra damage at the expense of a heal skill. But if thats the case, it should do more damage since often times not all 25 stacks of life siphon get eaten, and if im giving up a heal to do damage, i want that skill to do DAMAGE.

Pulsicle.3192:

Some of my suggestions include using DS more as a mechanism for some of the problems presented here. If foes can manipulate the necro mechanism, then it ought to be that in doing so, can also cause problems for your foes.
That is where i started thinking and came up with these. It’s a pitty I’m probably far too late for this discussion to be considered

(These are just general thoughts)

• If you exit DS because you run out of Life Force (ie, not manually), you launch foes around you (or cast Chilling Wind)
• Enter DS and cast Deadly Catch (yes, that’s an aquatic skill I’m suggesting to use terrestrially)
  The first was to imagine if you are focused, a resonable tactic for them, but investing in a line with something like this could allow an escape (of sorts).
  The second could be used for ranged or fleeing foes. as well as other things. interrupt, make your wells more effective

• While on the subject of aquatic skills: Staff #1 skill used as a chain with 2x Necrotic Grasp and finish with Reaper’s Scythe
  I can imagine a dervish like animation on the last attack It’s a whirl finisher. So is Deadly Catch, btw.

• When Blind is applied to you, while in DS, apply Fury to allies around you (not youself)
• When Vulnerability is applied to you, while in DS, apply Protection to allies around you (not yourself)
• If controlled, nearby allies gain.. something (Stability?) [like Reaper’s Protecton, I guess]
  Again, thinking of focus fire, might not be good for you, but you can support allies. Who can also support you. Just don’t get isolated, it’s a team game, you know?

• Tainted Shackles instead targets allies and those allies recieve 33% less damage while you take that damage instead.
  Different way of thinking of support. Share that second health pool

I’ve been trying to think of something to do with dealing with downed allies and foes.

• I was thinking Signet of Undeath better suited to do something like ’Teleport in range downed/dead players to your location.
• Maybe sacrifice your life (ie lose all health and go into downed state) to revive the downed allies. Only, faster than the usual means.

• Also, maybe turn a downed foe into some walking corpse (like being turned into a moa, only as a Risen in this case). Seems minion master like to me.

Have fun

So the problem with signet of undeath is that a 3 second cast is basically the same as resing a target manually. Its radius is quite small. ANd the passive signet is kind of worthless. I run it sometimes if i wind up in a party with super squishy players and they keep going down, but obviously if there is a warrior in the party they can run warbanner so i dont have to run undeath. (Basically, i only take undeath if the party is seriously messing things up).

The idea of responding to effects while in DS is cool, its kind of like fear when CCed, just more powerful.

Anchoku.8142:

I like the idea of consuming LF to proc an extra effect but DS is our primary defense mechanism. Any trade of it for increased dps seems unnecessary and counter to the intent of DS.

Now, if there were a skill that would allow consumption as a heal or defense option, that would be interesting.

The thing is, by removing the HP, you can replace it with defense oriented traits. Right now almost all the DS traits are offensive in nature, either self buffs, enemy debuffs, or condi damage. The argument being that a second HP pool means you dont need defensive skills (not a valid argument, but still the arguement made). So instead, remove the second HP pool, replace it with some defensive tools:

Make DS last for a given duration (exactly 30 seconds or something) and then give blocks during that duration, make unholy sancturay a block skill while in DS isntead of a block that drops you into DS as a last resort. Traits to give constant protection during those 30 seconds, etc.

I made a sample set of trait lines:

Bhawb.7408:

Removing DS at this point is essentially asking for a new profession. It isn’t likely to happen.

Perhaps. I recognize its not a trivial change or balance issue, but the idea that DS should augment our class skills, not replace them, would help a few issues. Perhaps this isnt the right way to it though. :\

Also if you’re super worried about guards, you can take corrupt boon as one of ur utilites. If they pop save your selves and u use corrupt boon, funny things happen.

Out of curiousity, what if Death shourd changed such that instead of replacing your skills, they added effects to your auto attacks OR granted one off boons / debuffs.

So the boon / debuff traits stay the same (FITG simply gives u one stack of stability, etc)

but the skills like dhumm fire change such that: for the next (X) seconds, auto attack additionally inflict burning.

or reapers might: auto attacks grant might.

These arnt party buffs, so they dont break the class by making it too op. 7 seconds of burning or 7 stacks of might isnt too strong.

You then change DS to just be a buff or set of buffs that last up to 10 seconds. Using DS eats some y% of your death shroud (removing the second HP pool, removing the “dilema” that prevents us from needing blocks).

Unholy sanctuary could change such that: while in DS, if you were to have taken a leathel hit, your HP resets, 1 minute ICD.

Skills could change as such, so then we are not replacing our weapons, we still get to use our dagger build or scepter condi, with added bonus instead of replacing them entirely. Dagger, for example, is already higher DPS than dropping into DS in pve, giving little incentive to actually use DS. THe change would stack damage ONTOP OF dagger DPS instead of trying to REPLACE it.

Let them blink to you with judges intervention, well of darkness, root them, well of suffering & locust swarm, beat them down, use ur warhorn to interrupt their heal.