Necromancer/Reaper traits/skills healing power scaling

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

Necromancer and Reaper traits/skills and their healing power scaling and base healing values, let's talk about this.

So recently I found myself trying to theorycraft a selfish Reaper sustainy build heavily invested in healing power and what I found is kinda ridicolous.

Even when we necromancer decide to sacrifice damage to gain sustain through healing power we're still punished for that, and here's why: healing power scaling is bad and the base healing values too low. The problem in my opinion should be resolved by increasing a bit the base healing value and increasing a lot the scaling with healing power so that if I want to heavily invest into healing power sacrificing other stats at least i get something in return because right now except some skills like well of blood that actually scale well the traits have bad scaling or low base healing values. I'd like to read your opinions and suggestions to increase the benefit of healing power on this skills/trait for necromancer.

 

[according to gw2 wiki] but some of the values might be wrong since if you follow the formula it doesn't give the same values as in game. So if someone has more realiable sources for healing power scaling and base values please report it I would gladly modify what follows.

**Reaper trailine**

_Augury of death(life siphon healing )_ :125+ 0.02*(healing power)

_Soul Eater_: 200 + 0.05*(healing power)

_Bligther's Boon_:165 +0.03*(healing power)

 

**Blood Magic**

_Vampiric_: Life Siphon Healing 31 +(0.006)*(healing power) and Minion Heal 50 +(0.02)*(healing power)

_Vampiric Presence_: Life Siphon Healing 32+ (0.0333)*(healing power) and Life Siphon Healing While In Shroud: 62 (0.0666)*(healing power)

_Vampiric Rituals_: Life siphon healing 212+ (0.03)*(healing power)

 

**Death Magic**

_Unholy Sanctuary_: healing 130 +(0.12)*(healing power)

 

Summons Blood Fiend healing transfer doesn't have any healing power scaling...WHY? The rest of our healing skills seems to scale well so i wouldn't touch them for now.

 

In my opinion there are a lot of options here to create more sustain for necromancer through healing power. The one I would work more on are: Augury of Death to kinda create something like monk's focus for guardian meditation some sort of healing in big chunks tied to shouts, blighter's boon to increase base value and scaling because it's a trait that's almost useless if you're not running spite also vampiric rituals might need a bit of tweak in values. And please please Anet increase Unholy Sanctuary healing because it's useless as grandmaster trait with that base base values and scaling.

I hope to have created a valuable discussion and I'm waiting for feedback and thoughts =)

 

 

 

 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Summon Blood Fiend actually has amazing healing power scaling on the siphon, but it's the minion's healing power, not yours.

 

Seriously, it's a 66% healing power scaling on its attack. It would be absurd if you could boost their Healing Power stat.

 

How I know this scaling is due to the Birthday Blaster. When the item first released, minions, pets, and other allies could pick up the cakes and gain the benefits.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

> @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> Summon Blood Fiend actually has amazing healing power scaling on the siphon, but it's the minion's healing power, not yours.

>

> Seriously, it's a 66% healing power scaling on its attack. It would be absurd if you could boost their Healing Power stat.

>

> How I know this scaling is due to the Birthday Blaster. When the item first released, minions, pets, and other allies could pick up the cakes and gain the benefits.

 

Well I didn't know that. Do you have any screenshot to prove that the scaling is so good? Don't you think it should scale with the player healing power stat? Obviously you wouldn't have 66% scaling but with a rework on the scaling coefficient, we could make the healing siphon scale.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

If I did have screenshots of the healing, they were lost some time ago. They fixed the bug within about a week, and that was nearly 4 years ago at this point. I just know the +40 healing power that the birthday blaster cake gives increased the healing I received by 26.

 

I do, however, have screenshots of my flesh golem with the cake if you're interested in that. Not terribly informative other than saying the bug existed, though.

 

As for if it should scale with healing power? Yes, I think so. I would be fine with it keeping its current scaling if we had a method of boosting the minion's stat via traits or skills (say, Last Rites also boosted your minion's Healing Power based on your current health level?), but not if it just inherited out Healing Power stat. If it did inherit our Healing Power, I would think 15-20% is a good new scaling for the siphon attack.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

> @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> If I did have screenshots of the healing, they were lost some time ago. They fixed the bug within about a week, and that was nearly 4 years ago at this point. I just know the +40 healing power that the birthday blaster cake gives increased the healing I received by 26.

>

> I do, however, have screenshots of my flesh golem with the cake if you're interested in that. Not terribly informative other than saying the bug existed, though.

>

> As for if it should scale with healing power? Yes, I think so. I would be fine with it keeping its current scaling if we had a method of boosting the minion's stat via traits or skills (say, Last Rites also boosted your minion's Healing Power based on your current health level?), but not if it just inherited out Healing Power stat. If it did inherit our Healing Power, I would think 15-20% is a good new scaling for the siphon attack.

 

Thank you for answering. Seems you're the only one interested in discussing with me here =) I personally would like to have the siphon heal from the minion scale with the player healing power.

What do you think about my suggestion of trying to increase the life siphon healing on shouts to kinda create some sort significant heal on utility like monk's focus for guardian meditation?

Do you think soul eater should receive a buff in base value and scaling from heal power? What about an Unholy Sancturay buff a base healing value?

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"NecroSummonsMors.7816" said:

> What do you think about my suggestion of trying to increase the life siphon healing on shouts to kinda create some sort significant heal on utility like monk's focus for guardian meditation?

 

Life siphon is a pandora box that is better left untouched. It would be safer to replace the life siphon on shout by an amount of barrier per foe hit. This would allow the sustain of the trait to work even when you are at full life when you engage the fight.

 

> Do you think soul eater should receive a buff in base value and scaling from heal power? What about an Unholy Sancturay buff a base healing value?

 

Technically soul eater grant roughly 300 hp per second with no investment in any stat (200 health point and 100 life force), it ok. As for unholy sanctuary, it basically give you a regen that bypass shroud while in shroud. The value feel pitiably low yes but objectively it's just a standard value.

[Obtena.7952]

I started experimenting with this very thing today. I took a more practical approach and just started buffing Healing Power. The passive healing wasn't underwhelming (550 per second on Signet of Vampirism and 225 per second from Soul Eater.) While the signet doesn't heal as much as the minion, the minion is a much higher risk, especially in the situations where you need the healing the most.

 

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR4dn0IClbid2AW2A0biFcBjqL0GeWxVxtYZE6qFAaBA-jBSBQBpS9HJcEAMjSQDu/APvAAA4hAgHdDXR5HpAQWZE-e

 

There is probably lots of room for improvement but if I do get in a situation where I need more healing, I swap from GS to Dagger/Focus, pop 4 and 2 and then enter Shroud. It should be more than enough to get you out of trouble.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Life siphon is a pandora box that is better left untouched. It would be safer to replace the life siphon on shout by an amount of barrier per foe hit. This would allow the sustain of the trait to work even when you are at full life when you engage the fight.

>

I disagree heavily on the life siphon as pandora box, it is demonstrated by revant shiro healing skill that life siphon can be used in a proper sustainy way, and since it is mainly a necromancer mechanic but we've the worst values on it, we should receive buffs to life siphon. As for the suggestion of barrier instead of life siphon yeah that is good if you play against ppl that don't know how to kite you, because the rest that know will just wait or kite until your barrier is down. Although is true that you can use it even when at full life so probably imho the best is to get life siphon if you don't have full life otherwise you get barrier.

 

> As for unholy sanctuary, it basically give you a regen that bypass shroud while in shroud. The value feel pitiably low yes but objectively it's just a standard value.

So even it feels so bad you don't think should receive a buff to base value and better scaling on healing? I'd like to know your opinion on this.

 

Thank you for answering =)

 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"NecroSummonsMors.7816" said:

> > As for unholy sanctuary, it basically give you a regen that bypass shroud while in shroud. The value feel pitiably low yes but objectively it's just a standard value.

> So even it feels so bad you don't think should receive a buff to base value and better scaling on healing? I'd like to know your opinion on this.

>

> Thank you for answering =)

>

>

 

It's more that I don't feel a need for it to overpower the boon: _regeneration_. This regeneration effect was an answer to the fact that the necromancer was locked out of the regen effect while in shroud, to be honest anet could have been more hardworking and forced us to have regen on us to benefit from this effect while in shroud. But hey, they chose the lazy way and gave us the possibility to make the shroud work like the regen boon without the possibility of this boon to be corrupt or removed, I'm not even sure if it's affected by poison or not.

 

As for why siphon effects are a pandora box, it's because, to my knowledge, the healing part still isn't affected by poison, which make any increase of the healing part a big deal. Heals that aren't affected by poison really need to be kept in check and shouldn't be seen in the same light than the other more common healing effects that other professions swim into.

 

Also, re-reading your opening post, I have to say that the necromancer already have a trait similar to guardian's _monk focus_. This trait is _spectral mastery_ granting the necromancer 5% LF (or 960 effective HP) on a spectral skill use. Life force is also a form of selfish sustain and it is also an unmitigatable sustain form.

 

PS: _Unholy sanctuary_ is, before all, a life saving trait that negate a lethal hit and put you in shroud. The regeneration effect isn't the main part of this trait.

[Nerah.8235]

I toyed around with something like this a while ago. I have a full set of exotic cleric armor, exotic cleric weapons (D/D, and GS or staff), and ascended cleric trinkets, ran full superior Runes of Altruism. Sigils included one Superior Transferrence on each set, otherwise mixed. Ran Peppermint Oil and Omnomberry Cookies or Mango Ice Cream. Healing Power was like 1500+. I almost always ran Blood Magic (1,1,1 or 3)/Spite(2,2,1)/Reaper (3,1,1). Sometimes ran DM (2,1,3) for fun or x-tra condi cleanse. It is a fun build for groups. Run WoB, Sig of Locust, WoP, BiP, and Flesh Golem. Of course, your burst damage is pretty low.

 

The shouts are worthless with healing: they don't scale enough, so don't take them. I ALWAYS take Well of Blood. With this much Healing Power, the initial heal is about 8000 HP, and you get five 1000+ HP pulses (that also provide vampiric life leach [heals *you* 257 per pulse] AND protection boon) for 5 targets. In addition, you proc both fury (1 stack) and might (3 stacks) for allies in a 600 radius (includes yourself, which procs blighters boon).

 

The other big heals are from Life from Death (about 3000 HP to close allies and yourself) whenever you leave shroud (potentially every 11 seconds), and Sig of Locust (full leach from max enemies is like 7000+ HP). If you run dagger main, Life siphon is a pulse heal that heals 5400 HP (20% more if you are carrying a bleed) on 10 sec cooldown.

Transfusion can be HUGE, but doesn't affect you: 7300 HP for allies when you spiral.

 

The other heals are smaller and kinda underwhelming. Soul Eater is marginal (~300 HP per tick). Blighter's Boon is great if you have an ally that can give you a lot of boons; this build actually gives a fair number of boons, so it makes for OK sustain even w/o allies.

 

I should also point out that the above are not boons (like regen) which can be stripped or flipped (which is nice).

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

 

> @"Nerah.8235" said:

> I toyed around with something like this a while ago. I have a full set of exotic cleric armor, exotic cleric weapons (D/D, and GS or staff), and ascended cleric trinkets, ran full superior Runes of Altruism. Sigils included one Superior Transferrence on each set, otherwise mixed. Ran Peppermint Oil and Omnomberry Cookies or Mango Ice Cream. Healing Power was like 1500+. I almost always ran Blood Magic (1,1,1 or 3)/Spite(2,2,1)/Reaper (3,1,1). Sometimes ran DM (2,1,3) for fun or x-tra condi cleanse. It is a fun build for groups. Run WoB, Sig of Locust, kitten, BiP, and Flesh Golem. Of course, your burst damage is pretty low.

>

> The shouts are worthless with healing: they don't scale enough, so don't take them. I ALWAYS take Well of Blood. With this much Healing Power, the initial heal is about 8000 HP, and you get five 1000+ HP pulses (that also provide vampiric life leach [heals *you* 257 per pulse] AND protection boon) for 5 targets. In addition, you proc both fury (1 stack) and might (3 stacks) for allies in a 600 radius (includes yourself, which procs blighters boon).

>

> The other big heals are from Life from Death (about 3000 HP to close allies and yourself) whenever you leave shroud (potentially every 11 seconds), and Sig of Locust (full leach from max enemies is like 7000+ HP). If you run dagger main, Life siphon is a pulse heal that heals 5400 HP (20% more if you are carrying a bleed) on 10 sec cooldown.

> Transfusion can be HUGE, but doesn't affect you: 7300 HP for allies when you spiral.

>

> The other heals are smaller and kinda underwhelming. Soul Eater is marginal (~300 HP per tick). Blighter's Boon is great if you have an ally that can give you a lot of boons; this build actually gives a fair number of boons, so it makes for OK sustain even w/o allies.

>

> I should also point out that the above are not boons (like regen) which can be stripped or flipped (which is nice).

 

I prefer Zealot with a bit of cleric to keep the damage more consistent yes you've to sacrifice a bit of healing but with fury you reach more than the 50% percent crit chance which is real good considering it's a healer build. Or you can go full zealot if you don't have an ally that grants fury and reach the perfect 50% critc chance spot and still have really good healing after all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR4Ynk0AV2gV3A+0A0bileBDaMVACATPhtWQIeJGFviA-jhyGQBm5gAEJdDJSlAydFAWiyj0s/gEVCCgHAQlUiNJ1dCAcA8+75e3De/93f/93763f/93f/93f/93LFAyC2A-e

 

Aside from the build to be healer. What do you think can be improved on the healing power scaling or base value on the traits i've linked? I personally would like to see dagger 2 skill heal allies too, what do you think about it?

Thanks for the answer =)

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"NecroSummonsMors.7816" said:

> > > As for unholy sanctuary, it basically give you a regen that bypass shroud while in shroud. The value feel pitiably low yes but objectively it's just a standard value.

> > So even it feels so bad you don't think should receive a buff to base value and better scaling on healing? I'd like to know your opinion on this.

> >

> > Thank you for answering =)

> >

> >

>

> It's more that I don't feel a need for it to overpower the boon: _regeneration_. This regeneration effect was an answer to the fact that the necromancer was locked out of the regen effect while in shroud, to be honest anet could have been more hardworking and forced us to have regen on us to benefit from this effect while in shroud. But hey, they chose the lazy way and gave us the possibility to make the shroud work like the regen boon without the possibility of this boon to be corrupt or removed, I'm not even sure if it's affected by poison or not.

>

> As for why siphon effects are a pandora box, it's because, to my knowledge, the healing part still isn't affected by poison, which make any increase of the healing part a big deal. Heals that aren't affected by poison really need to be kept in check and shouldn't be seen in the same light than the other more common healing effects that other professions swim into.

>

> Also, re-reading your opening post, I have to say that the necromancer already have a trait similar to guardian's _monk focus_. This trait is _spectral mastery_ granting the necromancer 5% LF (or 960 effective HP) on a spectral skill use. Life force is also a form of selfish sustain and it is also an unmitigatable sustain form.

>

> PS: _Unholy sanctuary_ is, before all, a life saving trait that negate a lethal hit and put you in shroud. The regeneration effect isn't the main part of this trait.

 

If your HP goes up, and it's not from a Vitality increase, poison affects it. This includes siphons, Unholy Sanctuary, and Blighter's Boon. Poison affects all healing.

 

Also, your statement about Unholy Sanctuary is rather false. The "save from death" effect was added well after the trait was live for a while and nobody used it. It's the best part of the trait nowdays, sure, but the primary part of the trait is, indeed, the Regeneration.

[Saint Sated.2698]

I made a build using Plaguedoctors, Bringers, and Vigilant stats, in hopes of making a hyrbid support/control build. Thanks to dhuumfire the dps is around 11k, but what I really like about this set up is that I can spam Might at long durations for allies, revive extremely well, upkeep multiple conditions (some damaging, some controlling), and provide barriers. Because the healing power scaling is so poor on almost everything I kept the investment in this stat low; too low to be a primary healer, but as a support its a fun, beefy, niche build I made to mess about in WvW and Open World content. Check it out ~ I'm open to feedback.

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7fnk0AV9i90Ae3As3gllBjaIcEWV6h10abdaGEAKBA-jhiAQBdZ5hPq8TlKB3raPW8gAQIdDA4JAoudA63FAYuqCEA4A493z9uH8+4jP+4jXxHf8xHf8xHf8xLFwn70A-e

[Carighan.6758]

To be fair, there are **very few** cases where GW2 doesn't follow this damage-promoting paradigm.

 

In virtually all cases, it is **far** better for your survival to drop your healing power for damage stats, kill the enemy faster, so you no longer take any damage at all. Healing is so bad in scaling, it doesn't make up for the amount of damage you lose - you end up taking more damage overall!

[Rym.1469]

Siphons can be great and balanced, if they are conditional and/or cooldown restricted.

 

Passive siphons triggering on all attacks are a nightmare to balance, which is why they are so miniscule.

 

 

[Brujeria.7536]

> @"Carighan.6758" said:

> To be fair, there are **very few** cases where GW2 doesn't follow this damage-promoting paradigm.

>

> In virtually all cases, it is **far** better for your survival to drop your healing power for damage stats, kill the enemy faster, so you no longer take any damage at all. Healing is so bad in scaling, it doesn't make up for the amount of damage you lose - you end up taking more damage overall!

 

Thats just the case for necromancers, really. Eles for example scale really really well with healing power, they can fullheal several times with the correct stats and can basicly repeat this process without downtime - unless you can burst them really hard.

 

The problem here is: necro sustain sucks baseline and also the scaling with healing power is bad. They could buff all siphon traits by 200% and they would still suck, as they are bound to hitting things or forcing them to stay in an AOE. Both things can be heavily countered by CC.

 

And while i agree with your standard point, good damage is the best defense, this is only true because so many classes have reliable, active, non scaling defense. Preventing damage is superior to recovering damage, its really no matter how its avoided. Be it either trough things like endure pain, resistance, dodges, blinks, ports, etc. all of these things dont require investment do be defensive, while not limiting the offensive aspects. Its quite the opposite - skills like revenant sword 3 or Staff 5, Thiefs pistol whip, mesmers sword 2, etc, all those skills that are able to provide strong defensive aspects glued together with braindead damage and / or stun simply outclass any sustain the necromancer class as a whole has.

 

Necromancer balance is for the most cases "balance by the rules" , CCs dont deal much damage, strong skills are gated behind cooldown, multi-target skills are weaker and/or have longer cooldowns, weaponskills are on high cooldowns with very one dimensional purposes - the rest of the game is not balanced around the rules, the rest of the professions simply dont care about proper balancing. Thief skills have no cooldown and dealing massive damage, warrior getting everything without any stat investment, cc, defensive boons, damage, ele dealing way too much damage for the skills being multi target for the most part. The list could go on and on here, at some point they decided to keep the necromancer more traditional in terms of balancing, but they didnt apply this mindset to the rest of the professions.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

Despite the fact that Brujeria made a comment I agree on, I'd like from you guys to address the problem of the topic how to improve healing scaling on traits and skills, should we improve scaling or base value of healing? How and where you would intervene? This topic is not about balance of classes. I'd like to read suggestions...

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

> @"Rym.1469" said:

> Siphons can be great and balanced, if they are conditional and/or cooldown restricted.

>

> Passive siphons triggering on all attacks are a nightmare to balance, which is why they are so miniscule.

>

>

 

Not true. Siphons applying on all strikes are still pretty easy to balance. They can never be huge, but they don't have to be insignificant. You have to decide two things and determine another:

 

1. Decide what amount of sustain you want baseline from siphons.

2. Decide what amount of sustain you want with heavy investment from siphons.

3. Determine average hit-rate.

 

On average, I think 2 hits/second is what Necromancers work out to. They can put more out when they want to, but it's counteracted by cooldown times, leaving gaps where they drop below the average. This is fine, as it leaves room for investing into more hits as another way to get more siphon sustain. So, what amount of sustain is from siphons should probably be calculated based off of 2 hits/second.

 

When siphons apply to every hit, they also function as a form of scaling sustain against multiple foes. Balancing siphon values around a single opponent turns out to be just right against multiple foes as well if they apply without restriction. When you do add restrictions via conditionals or cooldowns, then they fail to scale in this manner.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Carighan.6758" said:

> To be fair, there are **very few** cases where GW2 doesn't follow this damage-promoting paradigm.

>

> In virtually all cases, it is **far** better for your survival to drop your healing power for damage stats, kill the enemy faster, so you no longer take any damage at all. Healing is so bad in scaling, it doesn't make up for the amount of damage you lose - you end up taking more damage overall!

 

That's a really old way of thinking because that assumes highly functioning players. What you say is ONLY true if you can do any content with only the intrinsic defenses that your class possesses (the heal, the dodges being the ones common among all classes). In otherwords, you're ignoring the player skill and just saying "GIT GUD". The biggest problem with that is the audience this game targets aren't the top 1% of MMO/FPS twitch players. "GITTIN GUD" is not in the main audiences' interest or capability

 

The reality is that there are almost no cases where you NEED the highest DPS meta builds to successfully complete content. HIGH DPS is only OPTIMAL, but it's unnecessary. It doesn't make sense to claim it's 'far better' to slam a mob with massive DPS and play at the highest levels for a very large percentage of the population that have no interest in playing that way. The fact is that there is a (I believe significant) fraction of population that would rather take a few extra minutes for a mob kill and rely on some extra active/passive defenses to help them out.

 

This is not debatable ... there are players (I am one) that are far more successful with that larger margin of error I get from considering a few more elements added to the defensive side of my build than I would be going all out DPS.

 

> @"NecroSummonsMors.7816" said:

> Despite the fact that Brujeria made a comment I agree on, I'd like from you guys to address the problem of the topic how to improve healing scaling on traits and skills, should we improve scaling or base value of healing? How and where you would intervene? This topic is not about balance of classes. I'd like to read suggestions...

 

Honestly, I don't think it's needed. While that's little consolation, I can only speculate that the lack of healing power scaling (not sure what comparison here is) on this class is due to the good down state effects as well as the access to life siphoning effects. Unfortunately, these things are tied directly to the class theme of the 'death' guy, so from where I sit, the ask isn't for better healing power scaling or more healing, it's for improved effects while downed or life siphoning love.

[Anchoku.8142]

^^

I am a hack and a slacker. When i feel the need to add support to the group beyond BM, alone, I use Shaman's. It has no toughness so it does not interfere with aggro mechanics. Shaman's also has about 50% more healing power than a heal minor in 4-stat equipment. Sure, the high vitality can feel like a waste if the PUG does better but I can swap Viper's in at any ratio without having to worry about aggro or power-to-condi shifts, and any changes will be transparent to the group's aggro control plan. As long as I can camp scepter with Epidemic without cratering my dps or stealing aggro, it's all good. Shaman's/Viper's swaps let me compensate with impunity.

[Carighan.6758]

@"Obtena.7952"

Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to sound like a PvP elitist or something (I don't even play sPvP in GW2 :sweat_smile: ). Rather, I meant it specifically in regards to the healing **scaling**. That is, the scaling in particular is so bad that just adding more damage results in overall higher health. That's not to say that Toughness for example isn't a decent stat, just that HP in particular isn't.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"Carighan.6758" said:

> > To be fair, there are **very few** cases where GW2 doesn't follow this damage-promoting paradigm.

> >

> > In virtually all cases, it is **far** better for your survival to drop your healing power for damage stats, kill the enemy faster, so you no longer take any damage at all. Healing is so bad in scaling, it doesn't make up for the amount of damage you lose - you end up taking more damage overall!

>

> That's a really old way of thinking because that assumes highly functioning players. What you say is ONLY true if you can do any content with only the intrinsic defenses that your class possesses (the heal, the dodges being the ones common among all classes). In otherwords, you're ignoring the player skill and just saying "GIT GUD". The biggest problem with that is the audience this game targets aren't the top 1% of MMO/FPS twitch players. "GITTIN GUD" is not in the main audiences' interest or capability

>

> The reality is that there are almost no cases where you NEED the highest DPS meta builds to successfully complete content. HIGH DPS is only OPTIMAL, but it's unnecessary. It doesn't make sense to claim it's 'far better' to slam a mob with massive DPS and play at the highest levels for a very large percentage of the population that have no interest in playing that way. The fact is that there is a (I believe significant) fraction of population that would rather take a few extra minutes for a mob kill and rely on some extra active/passive defenses to help them out.

>

> This is not debatable ... there are players (I am one) that are far more successful with that larger margin of error I get from considering a few more elements added to the defensive side of my build than I would be going all out DPS.

>

> > @"NecroSummonsMors.7816" said:

> > Despite the fact that Brujeria made a comment I agree on, I'd like from you guys to address the problem of the topic how to improve healing scaling on traits and skills, should we improve scaling or base value of healing? How and where you would intervene? This topic is not about balance of classes. I'd like to read suggestions...

>

> Honestly, I don't think it's needed. While that's little consolation, I can only speculate that the lack of healing power scaling (not sure what comparison here is) on this class is due to the good down state effects as well as the access to life siphoning effects. Unfortunately, these things are tied directly to the class theme of the 'death' guy, so from where I sit, the ask isn't for better healing power scaling or more healing, it's for improved effects while downed or life siphoning love.

 

Hes not wrong.... you just have to look at "per point" investments and common thresholds. Core Specs were systemically nerfed to disable pure Tanks. This was largely in response to shifting focus from PvP type balance to typical "HP ocean and potato AI" somewhere during testing, and continued onward after launch as people cheesed Dungeons in PvE, and Bunker builds were unbreakable in PvP. This was also a time when Base Healing was extremely strong, with AOE healing being purposefully weak to prevent supports from carrying too much. A lot of power was also budgeted into Field combos.

 

The overall result of this DPS race in PvE was players discovering it was a lot more efficient, and substantially safer to drop an enemy as quickly as possible, so you aren't stuck with your defenses down. It also didin't help Toughness was broken for months after launch, on top of the fact that your survivabilty wasn't measured in "Damage", but "number of hits". If dropping 300 points into VIt let you survive 3 hits instead of 2, but dropping 600 points into Vit still only afforded you 3 hits before you die, why invest that those points into something that will (mechanically) make very little difference in your life span.

 

Now compare that in the opposite direction where Damage compounds in a multiplicative fashion, and multiple stats can synergize to compound that even further. You're now competing with the fact that you can withstand X number of attacks, with around 3-5 seconds between attacks (per mob), and the ability to maybe block or blind 1 or 2 attacks, and 2 dodge rolls. Once past that point, you're at the mercy of your cool downs. For many, if a fight lasts for more then 10 seconds, they quickly fall into a disadvantage, and often have to kite until another burst attack is ready.

 

When you consider these 2 facts governing how encounters play out in this game, if you can burst down a mob (or small group of mobs) in the first 10 seconds, you're pretty much safe. So at worst, you'd only need to invest a small % of stats into durability to survive an extra hit, and dump the rest into damage to make the fights as short as possible. Considering a lot of players took a long time to grasp the concept of dodge rolls, and your healing skill was only reliable for about 30-40 of your total HP, fast TTKs were the objectively best approach to dealing with all the mobs. Getting into Vets, Elites and Champs, those force you to learn dodges, and thats eventually how most players begin using it.

 

So while you don't "need" optimal DPS or burst damage, everything about how PvE plays heavily skews toward high damage output with focus on damage "avoidance" over damage mitigation. If you were to invest heavily into durability stats, you have the problem of lasting twice as long, but taking 5 times longer to kill anything. Just ask a Magi Guardian to take on a WvW camp (filled with something stronger trash mobs), and see if they can out kill the NPC's respawn timers. And compare that to a Glass cannon Thief (which are not well equipped to handle multiple targets), which can burst down targets one by one, and disengage to reset health and initiative. Thats why the smart investment is to carefully allocate defensive stats to augment the much stronger defensive traits, and put the rest into Offensive stats. The one outlier to this rule involves traits which offers enough secondary stats to replace the need for primary stats. One example is Radiance offering an alternate source of Crit Chance. Necro has similar traits in both Soul Reaping and Reaper lines that can completely forego the need Precision. Some classes can also scale certain stats via mechanics or Traits. Necro Life Force total scales on Vitality, but fills based on %; so while up-time isn't directly affected, the "Second life bar" aspect grants an additional 50% effective HP for every point of Vit invested.

 

If you're cleaver with the build craft, you can have both Damage AND Defense. But given how PvE is designed, you should always favor a high minimum offensive power, unless you have other players you can better scale off of. Perhaps this is best exemplified in Firebrand. A pure DPS build of Firebrand is squishier then Elementalist, yet Glass builds on either DH or Core Guard can have decent self sustain. Much of this comes from what defenses are offered in each trait line, and what skills are needed to cap out their damage potential. Firebrand has lots of good offensive and support skills- but they're designed to scale best over parallel targets, and do poorly against focused ones. But because Firebrand scales so well on its support side, investing points into it to force multiply other players can be a better investment then a fully selfish build. Druid makes a similar trade of by giving up 25%-50% of its personal damage, but getting 3 times that amount back though the other players.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

I'll ask it for the last time, stay on topic make suggestion, criticize, propose solutions/reworks otherwise this entire discussion makes no sense. I don't want to be salty, but I made the topic only to create a usefull discussion about healing scaling and base values on traits and skills of necromancer/reaper

[Obtena.7952]

OK back to the discussion then ... I honestly don't think there is much wrong with how healing power scales with the currect sustain options available. Even with some limited investment in Heal power in the build I posted, I'm getting very reasonable levels of passive healing ... and I've already seen ways I can make that build better for sustain with no impact on the damage. Toss the other damage mitigation and avoidance measures in and I don't see a real concern driving game changes. I'm not even sure such a thing is that high on the list of people that play Main Necro as an improvement.

 

I do think there is more opportunity to explore 'corruption' as a theme in an espec; trading HP or LF around for various bonuses and effects; healing power could play a part in something like that but with the current mix of traits and other sustaining abilities, I can't even convince myself they are in any poor condition to improve them.

 

The only link I can see really making an impact on how people think and play necros is if healing power could have some positive effect on LF regen (or LF depletion) rates. Other than that, it's simply tweaking numbers; very minimal effect overall.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> OK back to the discussion then ... I honestly don't think there is much wrong with how healing power scales with the currect sustain options available. Even with some limited investment in Heal power in the build I posted, I'm getting very reasonable levels of passive healing ... and I've already seen ways I can make that build better for sustain with no impact on the damage. Toss the other damage mitigation and avoidance measures in and I don't see a real concern driving game changes. I'm not even sure such a thing is that high on the list of people that play Main Necro as an improvement.

>

> I do think there is more opportunity to explore 'corruption' as a theme in an espec; trading HP or LF around for various bonuses and effects; healing power could play a part in something like that but with the current mix of traits and other sustaining abilities, I can't even convince myself they are in any poor condition to improve them.

>

> The only link I can see really making an impact on how people think and play necros is if healing power could have some positive effect on LF regen (or LF depletion) rates. Other than that, it's simply tweaking numbers; very minimal effect overall.

 

Well healing power scaling and base healing values are not obviously the most importants problem of necro, but they contribute to limit his capability to have any other build except a dps one or condi/support scourge. Infact when you try to get outside those two roles, where necro has already in some way low performance, you can't build anything significant to the point of running it instead a normal dps build. And this is just because the healing sources are not that much and have a long cooldown so need better base value and scaling, another part of the problem is that skills like dagger 2 and signet of locust that can heal a lot are not healing allies too ( and just with this change you could ramp up the healing a lot)

I like your idea to tie healing power to lf regen/ degen rates, I would even try to make necromancer gain lf % based on % of allies hp healed so that healing can become an active way to have life force regeneration. But ye in the end scaling and base healing are a tweak number when the problem should be adressed in more significant ways. Thx for the feedback ^^