With the advent of the Corruptions necro, ArenaNet is working towards a much more viable Curses necro in Guild Wars 2. Or at least one that is more fully focused on condition manipulation than what was available in previous iterations of the profession.
Death, Curses, and Spite all have a distinct impact on the necro’s playstyle, and have their roots in weapon set and utility skill pairings. Soul Reaping is in a league of its own, and is currently at the center of a maelstrom of controversy because some players feel that an Endure Pain Death Shroud necro is simply overpowered for certain structured PvP situations.
That is another worthy topic that I’ll no doubt be addressing soon enough. For now I’ll just say that people need to remember that necro heals are horrible, and without Life Force to serve as a fancy Endure Pain, we’d fall apart in 2 hits in more intense combat situations.
What I wanted to discuss today, however, is the distinct lack of a viable Blood necro that’s based on life steals in a more traditional sense.
Somehow the mightiest of necromantic concepts has fallen from grace with the Tyrian gods, and doesn’t really contain enough to genuinely focus a build around in its current state. I spent a lot of time during the stress test earlier this month trying to piece together some form – any form – of viable Blood necro build, and couldn’t do it no matter how nutty I got with my build.
At best, you’re left with a build stacking 3k extra health (roughly 1 major direct damage hit in PvP) at 30 trait points spent in Blood, and a handful of mismatched traits that don’t really fit a central concept all that well. Ultimately my attempt at creating a viable Blood necro was like trying to stuff a bloody round peg through a coagulated square hole.
I’ve been an MMO gamer for almost 14 years, and more importantly a primary necromancer in any game awesome enough to have them as an option for just as long. Before I babble out my brain explosion about why a viable Blood build is the biggest thing lacking from necro gameplay currently, I’m going to babble down a parallel path first. Because, you know, I tend to enjoy rambling about the reason for or history of a given MMO mechanic’s existence like that.
Necromancers and the Cycle of Life and Death
When it comes to damage types associated with traditional MMO necros, the list typically includes poison, disease, and cold damage. However, right alongside the whole wacky part where they command corpses to do their bidding is the concept that a true necromancer plays around with the fabrics of not just death, but life as well.
Most of the time this comes in the form of “life taps”, or abilities that drain an enemy’s health and feeds it directly to the necro as a healing component. Conceptually, this is pretty powerful, and has distinguished the necro from other casters just as much as undead minions depending on the game.
Necros in GW1 had a lot of lifetap abilities available to them. Direct health bar manipulation through draining enemy health to heal yourself, or sacrifice your own heath to power other abilities is all part of gameplay as a necro depending on the role you’re attempting to fulfill. For example, a long while back I commonly ran a Blood is Power build which is notably one of the skill interactions most clearly associated with a class-defining necro mechanic in the grandfather of MMOs, EverQuest.
In that game, necros would also use lifetaps to steal heath over time or directly, but then could use that incoming health to fuel other spells. EQ necros were commonly referred to as “mana batteries” because that’s basically what they were during raids. The way it worked relied on the idea that a necro could drain their own life to fuel spells (trade life for mana), lifetap health to replenish what’s lost in the transference, and then use their near-limitless mana pool to feed mana to healers.
In a roundabout way, necros in GW1 could produce similar results by using Blood is Power to provide a boost to energy regen, but had to sacrifice health in the process to do so. To counter this, various direct or over-time life steals could be used.
By and large, this type of direct resource exchange not only helps define the necromancer, but represents one of the most symbiotic skill relationships found in just about any class in MMOs since the industry began.
But how does that fit into necro gameplay in GW2 since it doesn’t rely on a shared skill activation resource like energy or mana?
Where have all the life steals gone?
One of the very first things I picked up on about the necromancer in Guild Wars 2 is a distinct lack of life steals. It’s not that they don’t exist, because a couple of token weapon skills retain a direct life steal component. But the list is still exceedingly short; to the point where the scant few skills providing a life steal effect don’t justify creating any builds around them.
Not counting any traits, the current list includes:
Life Siphon – main hand dagger – a short, channeled ability that doesn’t really drain enough to keep up with incoming damage.
Mark of Blood – staff – while not described as a life steal, this mark bleeds enemies and adds a very small regen to allies. So it creates the same effect, even if it is not technically a life steal.
Deadly Feast – spear – the heal component on this skill is so laughably low that it might as well not really exist. But it does, so it lives on this list for the time being.
Summon Blood Fiend – heal – Even though the minion functions as the conduit for the life steal, it still basically exists here, albeit in a very weak form. Bringing the Blood Fiend in to PvP is also a form of virtual suicide since they die very easily, and smart players will kill them ASAP to put the necro’s heal immediately on cooldown.
Signet of the Locust – utility – The life steal happens when you use the active ability for this signet. The amount gained is negligible and currently not worth sacrificing improved mobility for a full minute while the signet recharges.
That’s pretty much it, and as you’ll notice most life steals are pretty weak and force you to rely wholly on life force / death shroud to save your necrotic ass since the necro’s direct heals are also universally weak compared to other professions. There should at least be some viable alternative, and one that makes effective use of Blood isn’t too much of a stretch. I mean, the necro’s Spectral line is already a pretty big stretch, so why couldn’t Blood and life steals be worked back into the core of the profession?
Here are a few ways it could be done…
Corruptions + Blood = TLA?
Blood necros could be refined to fit into the existing profession mechanics in a couple of interesting ways. The first of these is to create better synergies between Corruptions skills and the Blood line. As per the ways of necromancy, corruptions inflict conditions on both the necro and their target. However, we currently lack a balancing factor to replenish sacrificed health. This is where Blood would come in.
At present, the cost/benefit ratio for playing a corruptions necro is simply off. The risk is too high for the reward since you have to remember we have 100 ways to build life force, but less than half-dozen to gain health. And again, smart players won’t kill the life force bar. Instead, they’ll aim to kill your health bar which is where the necro is weakest and can send you to defeated.
Besides, if you’re built for corruptions, you’re doing so at the cost of life force gain to begin with. Conceptually, corruptions necros have the potential to be one of the strongest available builds for the profession, but could really use some increased synergy with Blood traits, or even a viable Blood-friendly weapon set rework. Speaking of…
Hello Daggers
With the last pass to necro skills just prior to the first BWE, corruptions became a reality, and a few of the necro’s weapon sets started making a lot more sense. Staff, axe, scepter, warhorn, and focus are all in pretty good shape at this point, but what about daggers?
Currently, daggers are kind of a mishmash of randomness that doesn’t synergize particularly well with any viable build concepts. At best it’s a very situational set, and lost its viability as a primary set somewhere along the line. For example, in the PvP matches played at the ArenaNet party during PAX Prime last year, dagger/dagger was a core part of why I was an unstoppable killing machine for most of the night. Now though? Not so much.
Daggers should really become the basis for a viable Blood necro. I wouldn’t even rework the current skills too much, but make them synergize better with utilities and traits to focus on life steals more, and random CC components a bit less.
The Trouble with Death Shroud…
The trouble with Death Shroud isn’t that it’s too powerful, or somehow provides necros too much survivability. The fact of the matter is, it provides the undead lion’s share of our survivability, and necros suffer as a result of not using it, traiting for it, and working in utility and weapon skills to build Life Force to fuel it.
In other words, Death Shroud has helped paint necromancers into a corner by stacking too many skills and traits that build Life Force, and not enough skills that have a life steal component as a viable alternative. You could take 1/3 of all “adds +X% life force” skills and turn them into “steals life and heals the necro for X” and magically have a viable Blood necro again and still have more than enough life force builders to work with. To make that work, players could have the choice to make that change (health vs. life force gain) happen via traits.
Think about it; Soul Reaping could still enhance the life force / death shroud mechanic, while Blood could allow you to say “I’ll take raw life steals over life force gain for 500 Bob!” At which point Bob Barker would magically appear in a cloud of smoke and shout “Come on down!” no doubt mentally scarring you for life in the process. So maybe scratch that last part, but the rest still stands.
Bleeding Me Softly
Will the lifetapping aspect of necromancy ever make a triumphant return in Guild Wars 2, or will necros forever be tethered to their F1 keys? I’d like to think there’s still hope that Blood will become viable again, and think it can be done with some minor adjustments to the existing skills and traits.
In the meantime, I’m making it my personal goal once again for the next BWE to try and come up with a solid necro build focused on Blood. If it’s true that mastering a build you enjoy is more important than playing flavor of the month builds in GW2, I should be able to, right?
Comments
It may have been my imagination, but I'm fairly certain that the major trait Bloodthirsty also improved skills like Life Transfer (#4 skill while in death shroud) which build life force as opposed to life steal for regular health.
That aside, I'm in general agreement that I would like to see at least the possibility for greater emphasis placed on a "life tapping" style necro, and in particular I have to agree that the main hand dagger weapon is woefully underpowered. Greater risk should accompany greater reward. With the dagger's range being the shortest of all necro weapons, it should also provide the highest damage, which it most definitely does not.
The damage of the dagger should be increased (on all skills) and the #3 skill should be a stun/daze instead of just an immobilize, to reflect the greater risk taken by fighting at that range, and the difficulty of staying in range for a profession that is lacking "teleport" style mobility enhancements.
The other change I feel should be made is; life steal skills should provide a much more significant life force gain... because DUH...
OK. So, you may have guessed that I haven't played a Necro at all in GW2. Its been awhile, but my snarky comments about you grave robbing necrophiliacs could be an indication that I haven't given this profession a go yet.
And yes, that is coming from me, one of those pointy hatted hobbit fanciers :)
Looking at your comments, however, I decided to go take a look at the traits. All during the Ranger discussions, it turned out the answers to all my problems seemed to be potentially answerable with the traits. So too, I believe, there are answers to be found with the Necro as well.
It is interesting that you talk about issues with the dagger weapon set. If you take a look at the Major traits for Blood, two of them are buffs for Daggers. One is a reduced cool down, and the other is a speed increase.
It would seem that, potentially, the ground has been set to link the Blood trait and the Dagger weapon set to at least a minor degree.
Speaking of minor, a quick look at the three minor traits for Blood are also pretty interesting. A regen, Life Steal on Hit (thus turning, I would think, every hit of your weapon into a Life Steal) and then finally a power boost for when health is over 90%.
It sounds to me like that should provide a pretty stable base for life stealing, though of course I don't know how the life steals work. It sounds, perhaps, that you are saying they don't do much damage, and I can see that as being possible if they are still working on balancing the power of the Necro's blood trait.
I would think that balancing would be hard, considering the potential volatility of blood's Major Traits. Two benefits for daggers, two benefits for using wells, two benefits for using Minions...when you can turn a healing well and all your minions into life stealers as well....that sounds like it has potential for a lot of power
The part I always have the most problem with is deciding which direction I want to go.
Of course, since I haven't done anything in any profession regarding any traits....I could be completely off here :)
Still, I do think that at least there is hope that Anet is aware of this issue and working on it. If it were just a problem with Blood Trait, that would be one thing. If it were just an issue of Daggers, that would be one thing, but when both those different parts actually criss cross so specifically...I can see how they would not know that they need to work on it.
Galen
Galen
Great comments Galen.
Like I said, I think the building blocks are all there, but right now the necro currently favors life force gain over life steals by a large margin. And while there are some key tools in place for what could be a solid Blood necro, they also feel like they need a bit more definition.
Also, I purposefully didn't delve too deeply into traits here thanks to the lame troll who leaked info from the closed beta about the trait system being revamped. So heading into the next BWE I expect people will have to rethink builds a bit in general since you won't be able to unlock any major trait you want at only 10 points per line etc.
As I played more and more with the skill tool for necro, I struggled a bit. One thing I noticed right off, is that A-Net is definitely trying to keep a "you can't have your cake and eat it too" type of balance with the class, which is good. However, I noticed the problems you have mentioned with blood, and quite frankly this is how I feel about all typical necro build types (without putting major traits into Deathshroud) other than a death/minion build.
I started off looking at dagger for main hand (thinking I'd build a life steal/conditions build), but after looking at weapon abilities and traits, it ended up going to the off-hand for a conditions spreader. The only way I can see things possibly working at this point is if you put every armor rune and weapon mod into boosting your build type. Since lifesteal ignores armor, I wonder if this is A-Net's way of keeping this damage type in line. Personally, I'd love to see the added components of weapon attacks (lifesteal, weakness etc.) separated and able to be custom placed on to any weapon type
.
Frankly, I will have to see how it all shakes out in the next BWE, because right now Necro has access to many different flavors of play, but few that actually are ready for launch IMO. No matter how I traited, I ended up slowly getting backed into using Deathshroud (due to major trait limitations) as a key component of my builds. I have not fooled around with a minion build as I really didn't want to go the minion route for GW2, but I may have to...
As of the first BWE (and the recent stress test) there are a few viable directions you can take as a necro, but each suit different playstyles and take different amounts of time to really master. So far, these include:
1. Minion Master / Death -- MM builds are mostly focused on crowd control currently, but can also be used to slightly augment AoE condition damage. The CC can be worth the price of entry if you're playing axe/warhorn and staff in particular.
2. Corruptions -- this has the potential to be the strongest necro build, but is mostly suited best for structured PvP than other parts of the game. It can also require the most concentration, mastery over skill usage, and synergies created by teaming up with other professions. It still needs some polish, but it's headed in the right direction.
3. Death Shroud / Soul Reaping -- As a core profession mechanic, this shouldn't even be a wholly distinct build type, but it currently is. Part of the uproar over necro survivability is when you plant them in the center of capture points using a DS-based build. I'm not saying DS builds shouldn't exist, but currently too many skills / traits focus on DS far more than anything else a necro can do.
Blood could easily be the fourth viable build type with a little work, but right now things are definitely a bit iffy and directionless. The tools are all there, they just need better cohesion and more clearly defined purpose.
I've been disappointed with the life steal builds for a while now.
Especially since, as Sardu pointed out nicely, this build has been a part of this archetype, pretty much from the moment it was created.
But this type of build where you drain the opponents health to give it to yourself, has also had a past of being rediculously hard to balance. After all, you're not just doing damage, but you're also reverting the damage done on you. So every single point of damage, theoretically counts as two. And if you start including scaling and the like, it's very easy that this either becomes underpowered or overpowered really quickly.
I think the solution is rather complicated. Because I feel that it has to be addressed from multiple points.
First of all the actual skills that involve draining are underwhelming in numbers. Necromancer is (and has been in games like GW1) one of the more versatile classes; which makes it extra hard to condense it into this smaller skill package. To make blood magic work though it needs to be looked at again. The dagger needs a review, where other weapons have a clear identity, the dagger does not (again pointed out by Sardu already, but it's a really important part). There is also a lack of utility skills incorporating life drains (with the signet probably being the worst way to go at it); which means we either need a broader selection; or maybe some skills need a revamp.
Second are the traits. I actually find the minor traits to be rather well made for the blood magic line. The major traits lack some imagination. Also most don't really acomplish all that much. The life steal on hit and crit are nice, as well as bloodthirst; but they accomplish very very little due to the low numbers. Which brings me to point 3.
Third and most noticable are the low numbers. The traited life steals heal for something in the range of 25-40 HP. Let's put that into context for a bit. Say that it's 30 HP per hit, and you have 20.000 HP in total, we're talking about 0.15% HP per hit here. You'd need 50 to 100 hits to even make the effect have some kind of impact. The same goes for the Life Siphon #2 ability on the dagger. It heals for so little that you're never noticing the effect it has; especially since the enemy can easily do double to tripple the damage of that in that time span.
EDIT: Not to mention, Life steals don't scale at all at the moment; that might have been the prime cause of all this.
I hope they do come up with something though. Even though blood magic isn't my favorite style of necromancy; it's still a major part of the archetype as a whole. And I'm actually looking forward to dabbling in it now and then.
Blood necromancers in GW1 were nothing more than energy bots as well -- otherwise the blood line suck.
Many necro minor traits, such as the spite first and third traits suck. I don't even see Spite working that well, because necromancer burst/direct damage sucks.
Right now death shroud based builds are dominant because they're the only builds that allow you to survive the current state of burst in-game. The necromancer's attrition style doesn't work in a game where classes can do burst sequences totaling about 15k damage, and 5 seconds later boost that to 20-22k damage done in 10 seconds.
Meanwhile, necromancer damage is low, conditions are easily removed, and the amount of ramp up means your target has plenty of time to burst you down, so a death shroud build is the only build where you can stall effectively enough.
If they gave necromancers better burst, I think we would be in a different place. Minions in general need serious cooldown reductions and some survivability increases by probably making them resistant to AoE.
The other solution is to tone down burst on the overperforming classes (thief, warrior, ranger, and to a lesser extent guardian) so time to kill is higher and the necro's attrition style can be more effective.
Ahhh...so they are doing major overhauls on the Trait system.
Of course, that may well be for the best and the answer to your whole question regarding the Blood Builds.
One thing I will note, however, is that each profession seems to have a "Health" trait, or that's what I call it. Its a trait that seems to focus on the life gaining element of the profession. For the Necro, it is the Blood Trait. For the Ranger its the Wilderness survival trait, and for the Elementalist its the Water Trait.
For the Ele, one of the first things you notice about the Water Attenment is its damage is laughable. It does some damage, but not enough to be all that useful. The true power of Water comes in through the Traits. That's were you get the health regen and all kinds of goodies.
The way the Ele profession is designed, you basically need to combine all the Elements to make a strong build, but what it seems carries through from all the professions is this defensive or "Health" trait doesn't seem to be worked as a stand alone trait.
Of course, this is all regarding the way the traits are working, or not working, now.
Essentially, while trying to talk about the viability of a Blood Necro without talking about the Traits is not easy, there are a few things above that seem to be agreed upon as problems that would go a long way to making it better:
1. A revamped and more blood (life steal) oriented skill set for daggers. The trait list is already pointing to the daggers and lets face it....daggers and blood? Just makes sense. Add in a few bleed conditions might be nice as well. A bleeding Blood build would just kind of make sense.
2. Life Steal Damage and gain that is more relevent. As for my own input on this, a thought that might help with the balancing is if the Life Steal (hence the damage) were higher than the life gained from the steal. For example, the life steal deals 100 points of damage, but only gives 50 points of life, thus still inccorperating the life giving bonus, but also doing far more damage to make it a more viable combat .
3. I would actually raise the question that Utilities could use one or two focused blood skills. For example, I find it interesting there are no Marks associated with the blood trait, even though there is a Mark of Blood (under the Staff). I think that at least one Mark or Well or Signet. As it is, there are no Utility skills that work with the Blood Traits theme element.
Galen
Galen
What if we could tie lifesteals to.....bleeds? Through traits maybe? LEt's say 25-50% of dmg done by bleeds returns to you as health?
one of the many options. We will see next BWE how things have changed.
I did some theoretical builds focused on Life steals for the first BWE but as soon as I tried them out I realised they were not viable. Not at all. How can an 80 life steal be justified when I could be hitting for a few thousand? I hope it's changed next weekend.
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