Soul Reaping...Too important!?

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

So, i was looking at my rather random build and looking at the traitlines. I came to Soul Reaping and it hit me, This trait line is SO important, to the point it actually HURTS the class. Its pretty much required. No matter if you're Condi or Power. If you're Base, Reaper or Scourge. This traitline is just too important in too many ways for it too be dropped and i think it needs to be fixed (in a good way! NO mad nerfs to ruin it) but to bring up others to be just as good.

 

Theres 2 main reasons why this line is too important. Vital Persistence and Strength of Undeath. Both are HUGELY needed because without them. Well you will struggle. Gluttony is also a very nice trait as well.

 

So, If you were to make other traitlines just as good/make us less reliant on Soul Reaping. What would you do?

 

Myself:

Move Vital Persistence to Blood Magic and Merge it with Life From Death. Maybe remove/Reduce the Vitality buff.

Merge Deaths Embrace and Siphoned Power. Move Strength of Undeath to Spite

 

What would i put in Soul Reaping as replacements? Not quite sure, it would obviously be Shroud/Spectral releated. Maybe something that gives you benefit on using Spectral skills in place of Strength of Undeath. Maybe depending on the Spectral skill used, you gain a different effect

[Dadnir.5038]

It's an important traitline because the necromancer is heavily reliant on life force. Reduce the reliance on life force and the traitline gradually lose it's importance. For example, had the scrouge's shroud skill had a cost in life force that cost a %age of life force, the scourge wouldn't have necessarily taken the soul reaping traitline. If the only defense CD of the necromancer/reaper wasn't tied to how much life force he got, the traitline wouldn't be this important... It's always the same issue, the necromancer depend way to much on it's life force.

 

Your propose change don't make any sens. shroud reduced cool down naturally belong to soul reaping not to blood magic. And a larger LF pol through strength of undeath also belong to soul reaping.

 

To help traits like spectral mastery, pushing the CD reduction onto a minor spot would be the way to go. Supposedly, to reduce the toxicity of VP, they should make:

- minor GM trait: _vital persistence_: LF pool 15% larger, shroud skill CD reduced by 20%

- master trait: _strength of undeath_: deal 10% more damage while LF above 50%

 

And to make other traitline matter, they just need to change the fact that the shroud is our only defensive CD, mitigating damage through LF and give scourge's shroud skill a cost in %age of LF instead of a fixed cost.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Dadnir.5038 said:

> It's an important traitline because the necromancer is heavily reliant on life force. Reduce the reliance on life force and the traitline gradually lose it's importance. For example, had the scrouge's shroud skill had a cost in life force that cost a %age of life force, the scourge wouldn't have necessarily taken the soul reaping traitline. If the only defense CD of the necromancer/reaper wasn't tied to how much life force he got, the traitline wouldn't be this important... It's always the same issue, the necromancer depend way to much on it's life force.

 

That is also very true, maybe giving EACH traitline a way to regain life force that sort of links into their own traitline ideas could help? Give Curses a condition based version of Nourishing Rot for example, Blood Magic could maybe be tied to Siphons. Spite Maybe critical hits?

[Dadnir.5038]

It wouldn't work. with to much access to life force disseminated everywhere, you'll probably end up with way to much LF gen for a balanced necromancer. There would naturally be players to exploit the flaw (which is natural)

 

This would supposedly give to much survivability to a profession that other profession see as already having to much survivability.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Dadnir.5038 said:

> It wouldn't work. with to much access to life force disseminated everywhere, you'll probably end up with way to much LF gen for a balanced necromancer. There would naturally be players to exploit the flaw (which is natural)

>

> This would supposedly give to much survivability to a profession that other profession see as already having to much survivability.

 

An easy fix - Maker these traits linked. So they all share a cool down. You could have say 2 of them, you proc it off conditions, then the Crit damage one goes on cool down and then when you proc it off Crit the Condi one goes on cool down. To balance this a little, the trait would just be "Gain X% Life Force on applying a condition" or "Gain X% Life Force when you crit hit" it would add a little something else that would work with that trait line or something?

[Dadnir.5038]

> @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > @Dadnir.5038 said:

> > It wouldn't work. with to much access to life force disseminated everywhere, you'll probably end up with way to much LF gen for a balanced necromancer. There would naturally be players to exploit the flaw (which is natural)

> >

> > This would supposedly give to much survivability to a profession that other profession see as already having to much survivability.

>

> An easy fix - Maker these traits linked. So they all share a cool down. You could have say 2 of them, you proc it off conditions, then the Crit damage one goes on cool down and then when you proc it off Crit the Condi one goes on cool down. To balance this a little, the trait would just be "Gain X% Life Force on applying a condition" or "Gain X% Life Force when you crit hit" it would add a little something else that would work with that trait line or something?

 

This is no fix, this is bandaid. And I'm dead tired of bandaids on necro. It wouldn't fix the issue of why soul reaping is to important, It would just dodge the issue and create different issues at the same time.

 

For example, condi necro would ask why spite and BM get lf gain while they ask for some lf gain in curse since age and all of a sudden, DM would look like an even worse "defensive" traitline than it is because the sustain gained from other traitline outdo whatever defense there is in DM... You'll say: "Then let's put some everywhere" and you wouldn't be wrong but whatever happen it wouldn't fix the real issue that make soul reaping important.

 

Remember that blood magic used to have a trait that granted 7% LF each time you happened to draw a condition on you, this trait never helped BM to replace soul reaping yet it did what you suggested. The same goes for reaper, it got tons of LF gen, yet you'd still take soul reaping and still feel that you lack LF gen.

[Svarty.8019]

> @Dadnir.5038 said:

> It's an important traitline because the necromancer is heavily reliant on life force. Reduce the reliance on life force and the traitline gradually lose it's importance.

That makes some logical sense, yes ...

... but [Nerfing all the SR traits] isn't equal to [reducing the reliance on life force], is it?

* If they wanted to reduce reliance on LF, they would make the necro viable without SR and have SR as a bonus for players who needed them as a crutch,

* Instead they nerf the entire SR traitline and wonder why people are up-in-arms about survivability,

* One can only come to the conclusion that the base necro doesn't have ENOUGH survivability without SR, since it's so important,

* So in that case why nerf SR without FIRST boosting base necro? And then consider why you are nerfing SR at all anyway!

 

I can only think of insults from this point on.

 

[Lexan.5930]

i agree that the soul reaping line is too important. I tried a healing might gen spite blood scourge build and the lack of CD reduction on shroud 4 hurt my healing ability and actualy made fights harder despite the higher dps from spite line. I wish the CD of shroud skills would become baseline so they can do something else with vital persistence.

 

and i also agree that they need to bring the other trait lines up to be in line with soul reaping.

 

perhaps vital persistence could be changed to something where vitality effects shroud skills in some way on top of adding vitality to the necro. This could help to make choosing the other traits worth it especially since fear of death is honestly not very good at all.

[Lahmia.2193]

It's a lot like Trickery for Thief. You'd be insane not to take it in almost every non pve environment.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Dadnir.5038 said:

> Remember that blood magic used to have a trait that granted 7% LF each time you happened to draw a condition on you, this trait never helped BM to replace soul reaping yet it did what you suggested. The same goes for reaper, it got tons of LF gen, yet you'd still take soul reaping and still feel that you lack LF gen.

 

Well, it would be different in that it would be when YOU apply a condition. Even as a Necro i dont really think you WANT to have conditions on you. They could combine it with buffing the Siphon traits (and skill...) too make them not so crappy?

 

 

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Lexan.5930 said:

> i agree that the soul reaping line is too important. I tried a healing might gen spite blood scourge build and the lack of CD reduction on shroud 4 hurt my healing ability and actualy made fights harder despite the higher dps from spite line. I wish the CD of shroud skills would become baseline so they can do something else with vital persistence.

>

> and i also agree that they need to bring the other trait lines up to be in line with soul reaping.

>

> perhaps vital persistence could be changed to something where vitality effects shroud skills in some way on top of adding vitality to the necro. This could help to make choosing the other traits worth it especially since fear of death is honestly not very good at all.

 

yep. I was considering a Curses/Blood Magic/Scourge build but the cool down reduction and life force increase is just too important to lose. The 10% increase to Life Force gen is quite good as well.

 

You take out Soul Reaping and how viable in ANY game mode would Necro be!? That is the problem.

[Lexan.5930]

> @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > @Lexan.5930 said:

> > i agree that the soul reaping line is too important. I tried a healing might gen spite blood scourge build and the lack of CD reduction on shroud 4 hurt my healing ability and actualy made fights harder despite the higher dps from spite line. I wish the CD of shroud skills would become baseline so they can do something else with vital persistence.

> >

> > and i also agree that they need to bring the other trait lines up to be in line with soul reaping.

> >

> > perhaps vital persistence could be changed to something where vitality effects shroud skills in some way on top of adding vitality to the necro. This could help to make choosing the other traits worth it especially since fear of death is honestly not very good at all.

>

> yep. I was considering a Curses/Blood Magic/Scourge build but the cool down reduction and life force increase is just too important to lose. The 10% increase to Life Force gen is quite good as well.

>

> You take out Soul Reaping and how viable in ANY game mode would Necro be!? That is the problem.

 

I have had some luck with minion might builds using death magic for sustain but then it's very solo only stuff and is kinda alright to play. The DPS isn;t amazing and there isn't any party helping so it's almost a solo RP necro build. I wish that SR wasn;t so important cuz then i could run full harriers blood and spite to support and dps which would be really fun with awaken the pain and close to death

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Lexan.5930 said:

> I have had some luck with minion might builds using death magic for sustain but then it's very solo only stuff and is kinda alright to play. The DPS isn;t amazing and there isn't any party helping so it's almost a solo RP necro build. I wish that SR wasn;t so important cuz then i could run full harriers blood and spite to support and dps which would be really fun with awaken the pain and close to death

 

Wouldnt be viable at all for WvW roaming and kinda rubbish for zergs lol

 

 

[Lexan.5930]

> @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > @Lexan.5930 said:

> > I have had some luck with minion might builds using death magic for sustain but then it's very solo only stuff and is kinda alright to play. The DPS isn;t amazing and there isn't any party helping so it's almost a solo RP necro build. I wish that SR wasn;t so important cuz then i could run full harriers blood and spite to support and dps which would be really fun with awaken the pain and close to death

>

> Wouldnt be viable at all for WvW roaming and kinda rubbish for zergs lol

>

>

 

roaming maybe, if you were 1v1 and could cc people with the minions, but zerging it would be useless, the minions die too quickly to be of any use. But wvw is not a minion style mode of the game. I would love a minion elite spec in the future that made minions scale with our gear, that would be dreamy.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Lexan.5930 said:

> roaming maybe, if you were 1v1 and could cc people with the minions, but zerging it would be useless, the minions die too quickly to be of any use. But wvw is not a minion style mode of the game. I would love a minion elite spec in the future that made minions scale with our gear, that would be dreamy.

 

They would have to be VERY bad. Minion builds just really suck these days. They used to be quite strong in condi builds due to death traits and such but these days, meh.

 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

> @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > @Dadnir.5038 said:

> > Remember that blood magic used to have a trait that granted 7% LF each time you happened to draw a condition on you, this trait never helped BM to replace soul reaping yet it did what you suggested. The same goes for reaper, it got tons of LF gen, yet you'd still take soul reaping and still feel that you lack LF gen.

>

> Well, it would be different in that it would be when YOU apply a condition. Even as a Necro i dont really think you WANT to have conditions on you. They could combine it with buffing the Siphon traits (and skill...) too make them not so crappy?

>

>

 

You see, the issue is that anet see things differently, anet think that as a necromancer you want to have those conditions on you because with your ability to transfer conditions onto your foe, it would be a dps increase. I know that it's crazy, illogic or whatever but the necromancer is full of those assumptions that work well on the paper but are terrible in game.

 

One thing is sure, there is very little chance that they will buff siphons. The issue is that siphons are balanced around the potential sustain that they might achieve in optimal situations. From the point of view of players like you and me siphons are abysmal and full of hole in design but from the point of view of the dev, it might quickly become a sustain issue. The fact that siphons now apply through shroud make it even more unlikely that they will buff them. Look, theoretically, if you cleave (3 target), even vampiric aura can grant you 6 time it's healing value per second (which is already close to 200 hps with 0 healing power and this look already better than regen). The life siphon debate can easily go on, some are for an ICD, other don't care and just want a raise... etc. We can say it's balance or not, from anet point of view it's probably where it need to be.

 

When it come to life siphon, never ever forget that anet balance them around their potential and could careless that it's not passive healing.

[KrHome.1920]

The traitline was fixed when ANet reduced base LF Degen to 3%. Only condi Scourge needed it because condi weapons are poor at LF generation.

 

Now with the 5% degen it generally became important again but you can still work around it on Reaper power builds. But without SR a lot of classes are able too outsustain you pretty easily if you miss your opening burst. I think it's pretty much in line with Curses now (SR = more sustain, Curses = more pressure). Death and Blood have ever been trash in PvP (Blood is fine in PvE though as the sustained healing is okay there but won't save you in any PvP environment).

[Emapudapus.1307]

What part of game we talking about? In sPvP its not as important as you would think, i would argue its on same lvl as blood magic, depending what build you want to use.

[dceptaconroy.7928]

Gluttony. SR is the only way. If you think otherwise good for you.

[Klaeljanus.7695]

1. A number of you have rather short memories. For almost all of pre-hot necro, Condi Necro didn't use shroud at all except to flash for boons. The dhuumfire functionality was partially introduced to give necros something to do in the very power oriented shroud. (Then because Dhuumfire was whined about by Eles and Warriors, who at the time had limited condi removal, Anet gutted all of necro, then gutted dhuumfire when we complained on why they didn't just undo dhuumfire.)

2. Power necro has never really had an issue with LF generation, even more so now that ax isn't completely useless.

[Methuselah.4376]

With power reaper, I do not use Soul Reaping, I use Spite, Blood Magic and Reaper. It was mostly with the introduction of Scourge (and a bit before) that I started using Soul Reaping for my condi builds for Dhuumfire. However, you are right in saying that this trait line is essential for condi scourge because so much of the damage comes from the burning inflicted by Dhuumfire.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Klaeljanus.7695 said:

> 1. A number of you have rather short memories. For almost all of pre-hot necro, Condi Necro didn't use shroud at all except to flash for boons. The dhuumfire functionality was partially introduced to give necros something to do in the very power oriented shroud. (Then because Dhuumfire was whined about by Eles and Warriors, who at the time had limited condi removal, Anet gutted all of necro, then gutted dhuumfire when we complained on why they didn't just undo dhuumfire.)

> 2. Power necro has never really had an issue with LF generation, even more so now that ax isn't completely useless.

 

The problem was more down to the fact that we at the time (and still do...) wanted SUSTAIN what happened what Dhuumfire and Anet ignored EVERYONE who said that it was a bad idea, when they finally saw that is was insanely broken. Did they fix their mistake by simply removing it? Nope. They just kept nerfing the class until it was "balanced"

 

THAT is how Anet deals with their mistakes.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Methuselah.4376 said:

> With power reaper, I do not use Soul Reaping, I use Spite, Blood Magic and Reaper. It was mostly with the introduction of Scourge (and a bit before) that I started using Soul Reaping for my condi builds for Dhuumfire. However, you are right in saying that this trait line is essential for condi scourge because so much of the damage comes from the burning inflicted by Dhuumfire.

 

I think It is used more for the skill cool downs, the Vitality (every little helps) the Life Force increase and the Life Force generated increase. If these things weren't in Soul Reaping. I am not sure Soul Reaping would be used anywhere near as much as it is, yes the Burning is decent (nothing compared to Soul Reaper though...) but its the cool down reduction and everything that is the most important reason to take Soul Reaping. Maybe not for Reaper as a LOT of the damage comes from Auto attacks anyway, especially if you have Dhuumfire but for Scourge, its very. Very, Important.

[Lexan.5930]

for reaper, dhuumfire is a bit of a dps increase along with the shroud skill CD reduction. Allows for more soul spirals in a fight for more dps as well. Blood is good support but not as much of a dps increase as SR.

 

> @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > @Klaeljanus.7695 said:

> > 1. A number of you have rather short memories. For almost all of pre-hot necro, Condi Necro didn't use shroud at all except to flash for boons. The dhuumfire functionality was partially introduced to give necros something to do in the very power oriented shroud. (Then because Dhuumfire was whined about by Eles and Warriors, who at the time had limited condi removal, Anet gutted all of necro, then gutted dhuumfire when we complained on why they didn't just undo dhuumfire.)

> > 2. Power necro has never really had an issue with LF generation, even more so now that ax isn't completely useless.

>

> The problem was more down to the fact that we at the time (and still do...) wanted SUSTAIN what happened what Dhuumfire and Anet ignored EVERYONE who said that it was a bad idea, when they finally saw that is was insanely broken. Did they fix their mistake by simply removing it? Nope. They just kept nerfing the class until it was "balanced"

>

> THAT is how Anet deals with their mistakes.

 

I remember this all too well. Necro gets slightly good, especially in pvp, and everyone rages for a nerf. It was the way when reaper had the chill build and chill did damage and we had he perma chill build and people cried foul as well.

 

Necro is a hard class to balance because since our trait lines try to do eeverything at the same time (condi, damage, buffs, defence) that a change to 1 thing cascades. With traits like awaken the pain they are moving towards having trait lines be for specific things. Would love to see some traits changed in blood for even more support.

[Anchoku.8142]

I think the better question is why Death Magic is so unimportant.

 

Soul Reaping, Curses, Spite, and Blood Magic are each important in their own way but not Death Magic. I can use individual minions without it or build a MM with it; cannot do much else, though.