Trait Re-organization. Which traits are in the Wrong places for Necromancer.

[Meetshield.1756]

Okay this one is really hard. But no real changes to Necro can happen unless the traits are re-organized properly. Apparently its not very apparent to the Balance team, how out of place some of these traits are. Or maybe a Balance Dev could clarify why some of them are where they are.

 

## SOUL REAPING

This is our Profession Mechanic Line, so all traits should apply to the Profession Mechanic. Shroud / Life Force.

Do Not Belong :

* Fear of Death - Move it to curses and Swap it with Weakening Shroud.

* Spectral Mastery - Move to curses, Swap with Path of Corruption.

* Last Gasp - Moved to a Major Trait, needs to compete with Death Perception and Dhumfire. Buff it or Combine it with Spectral Mastery.

Suggested Re-Organization:

 

1st Minor - Gluttony is fine

1st Major: Speed of Shadows, Soul marks, Unyielding Blast

2nd Minor: Vital Persistance (Yes Built In)

2nd Major: Foot in Grave, Path of Corruption, Weakening Shroud

3rd Minor : Strength of Undeath

3rd Major : Last Gasp, Death Perception, Dhumfire.

 

[Meetshield.1756]

## Curses

This is our Condi line, and should have a set of Terror Traits and a Needs to lose the Crit Theme IMHO. I get that we apply bleed on crit, Maybe that should be swapped out with the Might Generation in Spite because Might is both Power and Condi, while Crit is really only Power.

 

We need atleast 3 of the Fear Traits moved to curses, the Dmg on Fear and Fear Duration are critical.

 

 

[Crinn.7864]

The only traits relevant to Terrormancer is the Fear duration trait, and Terror itself. The Fear on CC trait in DM isn't worth jack, Terror or not.

 

The crit traits in Curses are very needed as those traits allow Carrion/Dire/TB setups work with Barbed Precision and Plague Sending. Moreover swapping Curses crit traits out with Spite's might generation just throws Power Reaper under the bus because of Blighter's Boon's importance to power builds in pvp formats.

 

Your changes are just a blatant attempt to buff Terrormancer with no regards to how many other builds get thrown under the bus in the process. You also completely missed the mark, since currently you can pick up Terror and Fear Duration traits with just Curses and Soul Reaping which you will be taking on any condi build anyways. The reason Terrormancer is bad has nothing to do with trait locations and everything to do with us not having long enough duration fears outside of Core Shroud.

[Dadnir.5038]

> @Crinn.7864 said:

> The reason Terrormancer is bad has nothing to do with trait locations and everything to do with us not having long enough duration fears outside of Core Shroud.

 

So true...

 

[Lahmia.2193]

> @Crinn.7864 said:

> The reason Terrormancer is bad has nothing to do with trait locations and everything to do with us not having long enough duration fears outside of Core Shroud.

 

And the fact that fear is both a cc and condition meaning it can be prevented by stability and condi cleanse, both of which are in an abundance in the current game.

[Mea.5491]

Just revert Vital Persistence and Speed of Shadows August 8 nerfs - that's all I want for Necro traits and then I will main my Power Reaper again.

[TheLastNobody.8319]

> @Lahmia.2193 said:

> > @Crinn.7864 said:

> > The reason Terrormancer is bad has nothing to do with trait locations and everything to do with us not having long enough duration fears outside of Core Shroud.

>

> And the fact that fear is both a cc and condition meaning it can be prevented by stability and condi cleanse, both of which are in an abundance in the current game.

 

Don’t forget resistance!

 

[Crinn.7864]

> @Mea.5491 said:

> Just revert Vital Persistence and Speed of Shadows August 8 nerfs - that's all I want for Necro traits and then I will main my Power Reaper again.

 

tbh I'd rather have the 180 vitality than the 1% reduction in shroud degen. The biggest travesty of the August 8th patch was the destruction of Signets of Suffering, which single handily removed any incentive to run a signet build in pvp modes, and also failed to make signets worth anything in pve either.

[Swagg.9236]

I bet one could compact the entirety of necro's "good" core traits into a single line that would have real options. In fact, I'm fairly certain this is an easy mode chore for every profession. Game has so much bloat. Swapping stuffaround is justa bandaid to the general ineffective functions of 90% of this game's passives.

[Meetshield.1756]

Sorry I'm at work so I couldn't finish a Full fleshing out of all the changes to all the Traits. About Terrormancer the longest duration fear we have is the CC Disabled one in Death Magic right? Add 50% to that and then 100% condi duration and its a decent fear.

 

Here is another example of poor layout of traits. Signate mastery in Spite, not only competes with Close to Death which is a power trait, but also Spiteful Spirit which is Retaliation and a great AOE boon conversion. So thats only part of the problem. The traits that also benefit from its selection are found in several other lines.

 

Blood Magic - Blood Bond, Makes sense to use Blood Bond in a healer build, but to get full usage from it you need Spite to get Signate Mastery. Which means you need 3 Trait lines and can't have an Elite Spec. Those Two should probably be together in 1 trait line. So moving Signate master to Blood Magic also makes sense.

 

Unholy Martyr - Losing conditions while in shroud is a Shroud Skill and Should be in Soul Reaping.

 

Vampiric Rituals - Is a Utility and if we are going with the theme of 1 Utility per trait line then its fine in Blood Magic, but wells are a power build, so we either move it to Spite with the power selections or we put it into a consolidated Utilities Line like Curses, where it would compete with Master of Corruption and Spectral mastery.

 

The layout of the traits works if you can select 3 of them. Its hurt if you can only select 2 because of a Specialization, and its hurt even worse by Soul Reaping being so completely required.

 

Its like Ele's who complain they have to take water for condi clears. Its the same thing with Soul Reaping. It should be all about customizing your profession mechanic and have none of the Fear Traits or Spectral Traits in it. Fear should be consolidated into 1 line, and Spectral into another or a single trait line for Utility selections.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, if you guys aren't having issues building something and thinking Man I really wish I could get lower signate cooldowns to go with Blood Bond or lower Well of Suffering cooldown on my spite build etc. Then far be it from me to step on your pet builds... I was hoping for more suggestions as to traits you feel are in the wrong place.

 

 

[kKagari.6804]

> @Lahmia.2193 said:

> > @Crinn.7864 said:

> > The reason Terrormancer is bad has nothing to do with trait locations and everything to do with us not having long enough duration fears outside of Core Shroud.

>

> And the fact that fear is both a cc and condition meaning it can be prevented by stability and condi cleanse, both of which are in an abundance in the current game.

 

And we need corruption to prioritize stability again.

[Dadnir.5038]

Excuse me Meetshield, but as I've seen that you already know a build editor site, I highly suggest you to seriously look at the name of the traits and their respective effect before posting those kind of insanities.

 

- Spectral skills to curse: Why? The shroud is a transformation that let the necromancer enter into the spectral plane, you become a "ghost". But more than anything, the soul reaping traitline is all about life force in theory and spectral skills are meant to build life force.

- Then you say curse is the condi line... Why did you put spectral skills into it then? Because of _spectral wall_ maybe? This single skill that originally didn't feared foes but applyed vulnerability instead?

- You said: _We need atleast 3 of the Fear Traits moved to curses_. It's been years already that there is only 2 fear traits. If you count reaper's trait in those traits then that mean that you have no clues about what e-specs are.

- signate mastery -> signet of suffering. It's interesting that you don't know that at the moment _signet of suffering_ have absolutely no effect on _Blood bond_.

 

All in all, shroud trait need not to be all in soul reaping, if it was the case you couldn't scrap a build that make use of it at all. Not to mention that there is a lot more than 12 trait that affect shroud.

[Lily.1935]

Although I think that the two of the master traits in Soul reaping need to be moved or replaced since they can't compete with Vital Persistence and never will be able to my thoughts are that Spectral mastery should be moved to death magic and Fear of death should just be merged with terror or have its 50% duration merged with terrifying decent. I feel that the two competing traits with VP should modify shroud in some way.

 

Why spectral mastery to death magic? Death magic is supposed to be a defensive trait line and it would work very well there as an option if death was also improved in other ways. Spectral skills are primarily defensive skills in nature, so this works.

[KrHome.1920]

> @Meetshield.1756 said:

> Okay this one is really hard. But no real changes to Necro can happen unless the traits are re-organized properly. Apparently its not very apparent to the Balance team, how out of place some of these traits are. Or maybe a Balance Dev could clarify why some of them are where they are.

>

> ## SOUL REAPING

> This is our Profession Mechanic Line, so all traits should apply to the Profession Mechanic. Shroud / Life Force.

> Do Not Belong :

> * Fear of Death - Move it to curses and Swap it with Weakening Shroud.

> * Spectral Mastery - Move to curses, Swap with Path of Corruption.

> * Last Gasp - Moved to a Major Trait, needs to compete with Death Perception and Dhumfire. Buff it or Combine it with Spectral Mastery.

Sounds like a huge mess without any benefits. After these changes Power Reaper is even weaker than it is now.

 

>2nd Major: Foot in Grave, Path of Corruption, Weakening Shroud

These are three of the strongest traits for a Necromancer and you want us to choose one out of three while currently we can pick all three of them (two of them at once in one traitline). No thanks!

 

Soul Reaping is a very well structured traitline: It buffs Shroud. I don't understand why you need a dev to clarify anything.

 

Death- and Blood Magic are a mess. Lots of underpowered and way too situational stuff.

 

I don't say that Soul Reaping is good. It's worse than Spite and Curses, but still miles ahead of Blood and Death. It just needs a few buffs but not rearranged traits.

- Unyielding Blast is too weak

- Staff Marks LF gain should be baseline - Soul Marks should be reworked (unblockable + another effect)

- Fear of Death is too weak

- Spectral Mastery is too weak because spectral skills are genereally too weak (except Spectral Armor - but this skill does not even benefit much from the trait)

- Dhuumfire is too weak even on Reaper

 

[Lobo.1296]

I had a late night thought last night. What if Deathly Chill was switched with Terror, and Terror damage was based on Power. That would keep DC as a condi spec trait and be good competition with MoC. and Terror would be a good Spike trait for Reapers (providing it did enough damage).

 

That would, perhaps, incentive Anet to provide more fear skills and abilities and Reapers to trait utilities that inflict fear.

 

Like I said, I just thought of it, but I think it has some merit.

[Laiboch.4380]

honestly there are traits that are out of place, but simply swapping some around will not resolve the issue with those trait lines. What they really need to do is redesign some and merge a few and then go through each line and make sure that they all have synergy. Something that is lacking in many ways through out all of the trait lines.

[Lahmia.2193]

 

> @KrHome.1920 said:

> > @Meetshield.1756 said:

> > Okay this one is really hard. But no real changes to Necro can happen unless the traits are re-organized properly. Apparently its not very apparent to the Balance team, how out of place some of these traits are. Or maybe a Balance Dev could clarify why some of them are where they are.

> >

> > ## SOUL REAPING

> > This is our Profession Mechanic Line, so all traits should apply to the Profession Mechanic. Shroud / Life Force.

> > Do Not Belong :

> > * Fear of Death - Move it to curses and Swap it with Weakening Shroud.

> > * Spectral Mastery - Move to curses, Swap with Path of Corruption.

> > * Last Gasp - Moved to a Major Trait, needs to compete with Death Perception and Dhumfire. Buff it or Combine it with Spectral Mastery.

> Sounds like a huge mess without any benefits. After these changes Power Reaper is even weaker than it is now.

>

> >2nd Major: Foot in Grave, Path of Corruption, Weakening Shroud

> These are three of the strongest traits for a Necromancer and you want us to choose one out of three while currently we can pick all three of them (two of them at once in one traitline). No thanks!

>

> Soul Reaping is a very well structured traitline: It buffs Shroud. I don't understand why you need a dev to clarify anything.

>

> Death- and Blood Magic are a mess. Lots of underpowered and way too situational stuff.

>

> I don't say that Soul Reaping is good. It's worse than Spite and Curses, but still miles ahead of Blood and Death. It just needs a few buffs but not rearranged traits.

> - Unyielding Blast is too weak

> - Staff Marks LF gain should be baseline - Soul Marks should be reworked (unblockable + another effect)

> - Fear of Death is too weak

> - Spectral Mastery is too weak because spectral skills are genereally too weak (except Spectral Armor - but this skill does not even benefit much from the trait)

> - Dhuumfire is too weak even on Reaper

>

 

They should really roll Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire into one as a 3rd tier Soul Reaping trait. And remove the down aspect of Fear of Death and merge it with Terror as a 2nd tier Curses Trait.

[Crinn.7864]

> @Meetshield.1756 said:

> Sorry I'm at work so I couldn't finish a Full fleshing out of all the changes to all the Traits. About Terrormancer the longest duration fear we have is the CC Disabled one in Death Magic right? Add 50% to that and then 100% condi duration and its a decent fear.

The fear from Reaper's Protection has a 60second ICD, is only effective in 360 radius, and you have no control over it.

 

The trait is bad, regardless of whether you are running a terror build or not.

 

> Here is another example of poor layout of traits. Signate mastery in Spite, not only competes with Close to Death which is a power trait, but also Spiteful Spirit which is Retaliation and a great AOE boon conversion. So thats only part of the problem. The traits that also benefit from its selection are found in several other lines.

 

Signets of Suffering trait is perfectly fine where it is. Having a grandmaster trait that gives extremely strong effects to a given utility type is standard practice. Now if you want to talk about the post August 8th patch version of Signets of Suffering being bad, then we can have a discussion.

 

> Blood Magic - Blood Bond, Makes sense to use Blood Bond in a healer build, but to get full usage from it you need Spite to get Signate Mastery. Which means you need 3 Trait lines and can't have an Elite Spec. Those Two should probably be together in 1 trait line. So moving Signate master to Blood Magic also makes sense.

Signets of Suffering as of August 8th does not effect any of the passive signet traits.

 

> Unholy Martyr - Losing conditions while in shroud is a Shroud Skill and Should be in Soul Reaping.

Unholy Martyr does not remove conditions from you in shroud, you are thinking of Shrouded Removal.

 

You cannot put every shroud trait in Soul Reaping, there are too many traits. Moreover Soul Reaping is not the "shroud" traitline, rather Soul Reaping is the "life force generation" traitline. All necro traitlines affect shroud.

 

> Vampiric Rituals - Is a Utility and if we are going with the theme of 1 Utility per trait line then its fine in Blood Magic, but wells are a power build, so we either move it to Spite with the power selections or we put it into a consolidated Utilities Line like Curses, where it would compete with Master of Corruption and Spectral mastery.

Blood Magic is the support/healing traitline. Wells are out support utility type. The wells trait should be in blood magic.