what trait do you think should be baseline on necro?

and what sort of trait would you replace it with?

Soul comprehension should be baseline... or shouldn't even exist in fact.

I'd replace it with:Death field: standing in a combo field grant you 0.2 - 0.5% life force every second.

And I'd take the opportunity to change beyond the veil into:death shield: whenever you leave the shroud gain protection 3s. Protection additionnally reduce condition damage taken by 10%

@Dadnir.5038 said:Soul comprehension should be baseline... or shouldn't even exist in fact.

I'd replace it with:Death field: standing in a combo field grant you 0.2 - 0.5% life force every second.

And I'd take the opportunity to change beyond the veil into:death shield: whenever you leave the shroud gain protection 3s. Protection additionnally reduce condition damage taken by 10%

:+1:Make it a flat 1% LF though. I hate weird fractional percentages like that. :lol:

If you don't like %age, I could have said: 100(0.01 healing power) LF per second.I don't think anet is ready to give us 1% LF gen per second ;) even the signet have 3 second interval.

Thought, I'm pretty sure the thread was a bait to draw out feed from corruption. Which is why I chose to high jack it and launch a soul conprehension bomb ;)

I hate Death perception. A small baseline precision buff while in shroud would make much more sense IMO. Instead, give us a stacking power or ferocity buff on shroud attacks that slowly depletes when out of shroud.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Soul comprehension should be baseline... or shouldn't even exist in fact.

I'd replace it with:Death field: standing in a combo field grant you 0.2 - 0.5% life force every second.

And I'd take the opportunity to change beyond the veil into:death shield: whenever you leave the shroud gain protection 3s. Protection additionnally reduce condition damage taken by 10%

Or give us back the old Decaying Swarm (activate warhorn 5 when struck below 75% health).

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

Soul comprehension

should be baseline... or shouldn't even exist in fact.

I'd replace it with:

Death field

: standing in a combo field grant you 0.2 - 0.5% life force every second.

And I'd take the opportunity to change

beyond the veil

into:

death shield

: whenever you leave the shroud gain protection 3s. Protection additionnally reduce condition damage taken by 10%

Nice lahmia agreed, and totally forgot about that 1

• Soul Marks

Staff cooldown reduction already became baseline but it wasn't enough. With baseline Soul Marks I could think about some pretty good Staff+GS builds.

And after that the free Soul Reaping trait should be filled with a trait that reduces the shroud cooldown to 8 seconds.

Gluttony. It is too weak to make any significant difference if it becomes baseline or replaced alltogether, so make it baseline, what the heck.Replacement for a minor adept in Soul Reaping? Hmm...

Soul Leech: Gain life equal to x% of life-force gained from skills. (Not deaths)

Another thing I dislike are traits that enhance weapon skills, because you either take the trait, or why do you even use that weapon, you know? To that endLingering Curse. Just boost scepter durations baseline, I dont even want the +150 condition damage with it if we get something more fun for a major grandmaster instead. Like..

Contagion: When you suffer from a number of conditions over the threshold (5 conditions), you cast Plague Sending: reacharge: 20 seconds, Copy conditions on yourself to 3 or 5 foes within the area (600) around you. (Should be interesting with Master of Corruption in major master)

@"lakdav.3694" said:Another thing I dislike are traits that enhance weapon skills, because you either take the trait, or why do you even use that weapon, you know? To that endLingering Curse. Just boost scepter durations baseline, I dont even want the +150 condition damage with it if we get something more fun for a major grandmaster instead. Like..

These are very valuable roleplay reasons; but not a single balance argument was made.It's very common to use scepter without the trait, as there are many better ones for PvP and WvW. Meanwhile the trait is staple and always used with scepter in PvE. This shows the trait is fairly balanced and should most definitely not be baseline.

Nice that you "only" want 50% condi duration baseline; and you don't need the 150 extra condi damage :trollface:

@Etheri.5406 said:

@"lakdav.3694" said:Another thing I dislike are traits that enhance weapon skills, because you either take the trait, or why do you even use that weapon, you know? To that end

Lingering Curse

. Just boost scepter durations baseline, I dont even want the +150 condition damage with it if we get something more fun for a major grandmaster instead. Like..

I dont play PvP, so balance in PvP and WvW was not my primary concern, as I wasnt aware it is to be a significant factor in this thread (otherwise I would have guessed that baseline unblockable marks on the Soul Marks suggestion would have been debated). The bolded part is what I had in mind; Weapon enhancing traits are a staple when using the given weapon, making them an obvious choice while they dont do a whole lot in the sense of changing your playstyle, as I imagine Major Grandmasters are supposed to. Also I didn't specify the would-be baseline duration boost, that is my bad. Doesnt have to be +50%. Could be 33% or 20%, heck I only thought about not having to pick Lingering Curse which I consider a boring choice (but still the most obvious 'staple' trait on that line).

@lakdav.3694 said:

@Etheri.5406 said:

@lakdav.3694 said:Another thing I dislike are traits that enhance weapon skills, because you either take the trait, or why do you even use that weapon, you know? To that end

Lingering Curse

. Just boost scepter durations baseline, I dont even want the +150 condition damage with it if we get something more fun for a major grandmaster instead. Like..

And by casually ignoring two gamemodes, you've taken one of the more balanced traitlines with 3 (!) viable grandmaster choices and made one baseline. This instantly buffed the STRONGEST PvE weapon to complete absurd levels making scepter auto better than... virtually every other necro weapon for PvE.

Weapon enhancing traits are something you find important. Something you say you should take. This doesn't change a thing from balance PoV. If you're not DPS but tanking; there's no reason to take the lingering curse trait. You're better off with parasitic. Likewise, that option was more popular for WvW zergs. If you care for corrupts then the passive proc is taken, which is often the trait of choice in PvP and may become trait of choice in WvW.

So weapon traits do add balance, and add to your playstyle. And again; you only made balance worse. Nothing you did here improves balance or improves gameplay. Just roleplay ideas to "feel like you have more choices" when you're really just removing them.

Sorry but "It doesn't feel like a good choice because I feel i must always take the weapon trait" yeah that's just your feelings, bro. Stronger weapon or stronger strengths elsewhere is very much a choice. And none of this even considers overall balance or game health. How is this a good suggestion?

@"Etheri.5406" said:And by casually ignoring two gamemodes, you've taken one of the more balanced traitlines with 3 (!) viable grandmaster choices and made one baseline. This instantly buffed the STRONGEST PvE weapon to complete absurd levels making scepter auto better than... virtually every other necro weapon for PvE.

This might be the strongest but this is also necro's only condition weapon. Honnestly it compete against no weapon in it's area of expertise.

Weapon enhancing traits are something you find important. Something you say you should take. This doesn't change a thing from balance PoV. If you're not DPS but tanking; there's no reason to take the lingering curse trait. You're better off with parasitic. Likewise, that option was more popular for WvW zergs. If you care for corrupts then the passive proc is taken, which is often the trait of choice in PvP and may become trait of choice in WvW.

Necro tanking? In NA maybe?

So weapon traits do add balance, and add to your playstyle. And again; you only made balance worse. Nothing you did here improves balance or improves gameplay. Just roleplay ideas to "feel like you have more choices" when you're really just removing them.

Sorry but "It doesn't feel like a good choice because I feel i must always take the weapon trait" yeah that's just your feelings, bro. Stronger weapon or stronger strengths elsewhere is very much a choice. And none of this even considers overall balance or game health. How is this a good suggestion?

The real issue with lingering curse, and why I think lakdav isn't wrong in it's suggestion, is that this trait leave little to no room for another main-hand condition weapon. Simply put, either the next condi weapon won't be competitive against the traited scepter or this weapon will overperform with parasitic contagion. At one point this trait will have to be changed in order for the necromancer to "grow" and gain build diversity.

You are right, it is absolutely personal preference on my part, "just my feelings, bro", and I never claimed it was a good suggestion or that it should be implemented. The title of the thread asks "What do you think...". This was what I thought up in the spur of the moment, my apologies if it wasn't ready for implementation with statistical analysis of potential results. Do you have any suggestions while we are at it by the way? Because I haven't seen one from you yet, and I am curious as to how this should be properly done. ;)

While not specifically on topic, I would combine Fear of Death and Reaper's Protection into one trait.

The open slot could be used for anything from a percentage of vitality converting to toughness trait in Death Magic to a shroud CD reduction trait in SR.

@Deadvillager.1956 said:I hate Death perception. A small baseline precision buff while in shroud would make much more sense IMO. Instead, give us a stacking power or ferocity buff on shroud attacks that slowly depletes when out of shroud.

Death perception is very important trait. It allows necro to ditch full zerk gear in favor of tankier sets like valkyrie, cavalier, crusader etc. As we don't have godmode defenses like evasion spams, invulnies or 0 damage stances, free stats are crucial to pick up tankier gear sets and still do respectable damage.

So i respectuflly disagree since death perception is equal to 1050 points of precision when shrouded and that's no small thing.

"Feed from Corruption".Necro cant generate many boons by itself.

Oh yeah... Signet of suffering effect that allow signet passive to be kept while in shroud should be baseline. I almost forgot this one.

My votes go to

Soul Marks(The new Staff trait should add 1 extra charge to all marks and give a minor cd reduction something like 10% reduction instead of standard 20%)Soul Comprehension(Gain life force based on a % of damage taken with a 1 se icd or something)Beyond the veil(Should grant protection on leaving shroud and increase protection effectiveness from -33% damage to -40% damage)

With ReaperRelentless Pursuit should most definitely be a base thing built into Shroud KnightReplace it with "Relentless Reaper" Entering shroud grants 4 seconds of super speed.

ScourgeFeed from corruption ( or even just make this a core trait some where, this is a unrealistic pipe dream lol) But im pretty serious about all the others above.

Did anyone mention Death Nova, yet? It, or most of it, could be baseline.

there shouldn't be any baseline traits, ever.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:there shouldn't be any baseline traits, ever.

dozens of traits that have been considered mandatory for a certain set of utility skills or a weapon set like venomous aura or eagle eye have been baselined through the years tho

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:there shouldn't be any baseline traits, ever.

Would really like to take staff cool down and mark size traits again /s

Not saying it is balanced or not but my dream would be making lingering curses baseline (duration not the +150) and moving feed from corruption into its spot. Move Sand Savant down into its place and add a support grand master on scourge. No lingering curses opens the path to new condition expansion weapons, core and all elite specs get feed from corruption and scourge gets a support grandmaster. Curses still has three powerfull competetive grandmasters. It's a win/win/win situation.

@Aslakh.3072 said:Not saying it is balanced or not but my dream would be making lingering curses baseline (duration not the +150) and moving feed from corruption into its spot. Move Sand Savant down into its place and add a support grand master on scourge. No lingering curses opens the path to new condition expansion weapons, core and all elite specs get feed from corruption and scourge gets a support grandmaster. Curses still has three powerfull competetive grandmasters. It's a win/win/win situation.

As if necro gets something without giving something.

I bet if we would sacrifice the 150 condidmg to get longer duration, we would have to sacrifice a stack of bleed and a stack of torment on scepter 2+3.

Because that's how it works right? - no not really