Less discuss the "Leaching tank builds" that some guilds are abusing in WvW.

As you know, there are some guilds that abuse this mechanic in their favor and go extreme bunker.This allows them to be extremely tanky and kill blobs without any skill or effort.

The builds consist of sharing buffs that allow party members to siphon life from enemies.The siphoning carries them over without effort or any skill what so ever and the life siphoned keeps them alive without even using their healing skills.

Anet needs to remove or rework how life siphoning works to stop those guild abusing game mechanics.They have realized that life siphon goes through damage mitigation skills and it has no restriction what so ever.For example:

• endure pain
• Signet of Stone

These damage mitigation skills are completely useless against the life siphoning abusers.The simplest solution will be to restrict life siphoning by not making it a share buff, and by only allowing the attacker to steal life.

Is this the one about revenant?

Wouldnt this be more tactical use of skills or strategizing? Not mechanic abuse.

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:Is this the one about revenant?It involves every skill that shares life siphon with party members.Here is the lit of all the skills, traits, sigils and food that steal lifeRevenant and necro are the main offenders.

@"Rysdude.3824" said:Wouldnt this be more tactical use of skills or strategizing? Not mechanic abuse.No, they are using the life siphon mechanic to take advantage of fights and they are abusing it.They are very tanky and most of the damage they do is via life siphoning because it damages the enemy even if the enemy has damage mitigation and it heals their group.

For example, take a look at Vampiric Presence, it share the buff vampiric auraJust a single skill that hits 5 players will siphon life from 5 people and that includes AUTO ATTACKS.

Life siphoning is out of control and there are groups out there that are abusing this mechanic.

This has been this way for years, either guilds are extremely slow to catch on, or this is less of a problem than it's made out to be. I mean, if enough people jump on you to kill you through life leech, you were obviously out of position and were gonna die anyways.

@Hitman.5829 said:As you know, there are some guilds that abuse this mechanic in their favor and go extreme bunker.This allows them to be extremely tanky and kill blobs without any skill or effort.

The builds consist of sharing buffs that allow party members to siphon life from enemies.The siphoning carries them over without effort or any skill what so ever and the life siphoned keeps them alive without even using their healing skills.

Anet needs to remove or rework how life siphoning works to stop those guild abusing game mechanics.They have realized that life siphon goes through damage mitigation skills and it has no restriction what so ever.For example:

• endure pain
• Signet of Stone

These damage mitigation skills are completely useless against the life siphoning abusers.The simplest solution will be to restrict life siphoning by not making it a share buff, and by only allowing the attacker to steal life.

Yo which guild was that? they sound like they are pretty good

@Hitman.5829 said:

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:Is this the one about revenant?It involves every skill that shares life siphon with party members.

Here is the lit of all the skills, traits, sigils and food that steal life

Revenant and necro are the main offenders.

@"Rysdude.3824" said:Wouldnt this be more tactical use of skills or strategizing? Not mechanic abuse.No, they are using the life siphon mechanic to take advantage of fights and they are abusing it.They are very tanky and most of the damage they do is via life siphoning because it damages the enemy even if the enemy has damage mitigation and it heals their group.

Also if mitigation means nothing, it just means they are countered by the same builds. And thats pretty much already meta zergs for you - thats why its meta.

Hey now what happened to "these skills are not actual invulnerabilities!"?

Last time i heard that was the justification for removing elixir proc but not other life saving traits, which let you attack back and stuff.

Funny thing, in gw1 life steals for the longest of times ignored damage reduction skills like protective spirit. Old touch ranger anyone?

@"miriforst.1290" said:Hey now what happened to "these skills are not actual invulnerabilities!"?

Last time i heard that was the justification for removing elixir proc but not other life saving traits, which let you attack back and stuff.

Funny thing, in gw1 life steals for the longest of times ignored damage reduction skills like protective spirit. Old touch ranger anyone?

R/N was fun -- actually a lot of combinations were fun in GW1. I miss that game.

Necros run bloodmagic now? No, they dont.

What? Are you kitten? Seriously, how can you think lifesteal is op in this game?

@SloRules.3560 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:

@Rampage.7145 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:As you know, there are some guilds that abuse this mechanic in their favor and go extreme bunker.This allows them to be extremely tanky and kill blobs without any skill or effort.

The builds consist of sharing buffs that allow party members to siphon life from enemies.The siphoning carries them over without effort or any skill what so ever and the life siphoned keeps them alive without even using their healing skills.

Anet needs to remove or rework how life siphoning works to stop those guild abusing game mechanics.They have realized that life siphon goes through damage mitigation skills and it has no restriction what so ever.For example:

• endure pain
• Signet of Stone

These damage mitigation skills are completely useless against the life siphoning abusers.The simplest solution will be to restrict life siphoning by not making it a share buff, and by only allowing the attacker to steal life.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:Is this the one about revenant?It involves every skill that shares life siphon with party members.

Here is the lit of all the skills, traits, sigils and food that steal life

Revenant and necro are the main offenders.

@"Rysdude.3824" said:Wouldnt this be more tactical use of skills or strategizing? Not mechanic abuse.No, they are using the life siphon mechanic to take advantage of fights and they are abusing it.They are very tanky and most of the damage they do is via life siphoning because it damages the enemy even if the enemy has damage mitigation and it heals their group.

@SloRules.3560 said:What? Are you kitten? Seriously, how can you think lifesteal is op in this game?

Na, perhaps you are a member of such guilds that run these builds and that is why you are attempting to make it look like it does not mater.

Is this the first time this siphon mechanic (which has been here forever) is being whined about? This is a non-issue lol

The amount of extra healing from something like vampiric aura is negligible. The best group siphon is probably kalla elite but then they're running kalla renegades and that's a big investment since the rest of that legends kit is terrible. Life steal has always bypassed ep though this is nothing new.

@Israel.7056 said:The amount of extra healing from something like vampiric aura is negligible. The best group siphon is probably kalla elite but then they're running kalla renegades and that's a big investment since the rest of that legends kit is terrible. Life steal has always bypassed ep though this is nothing new.

Na you guys have no idea what you are talking about or maybe you are members of such guilds and are trying to cover it up and make it look like it is nothing to worry about.

Life siphoning works like a diffusion membrane, but in this case the process is controlled and exploited in favor of the exploiters.

hey look, something that counters the auto-proc endure pain and sig of stone!

@Hitman.5829 said:

@Israel.7056 said:The amount of extra healing from something like vampiric aura is negligible. The best group siphon is probably kalla elite but then they're running kalla renegades and that's a big investment since the rest of that legends kit is terrible. Life steal has always bypassed ep though this is nothing new.

Maybe get a video next time to explain a little better plz. it sucks that these no skill noobs are killing you in your auto proc endure pain.

While I agree this certainly reads as a warrior crying about his endure and defy pain getting sliced through by lifesteal, I am surprised this hasn't happened sooner. I myself have considered lifestealing builds to augment myself and other players with leeching venoms 100 years ago, vampire healing signet for target focus and more recently kalla elite. Never did take them anywhere though as you do more damage as a whole by playing a normal ranged glass cannon.

I've watched footage of one or two of these guilds running "leech tank" comps, and if your similarly-sized coordinated group is losing to them, you have bigger problems than leech.

wait, life stealing ain't meme anymore?

How can you abuse by using the game the way it was designed?

Perhaps ask for changes but accusing people of abuse is a little overboard I think.

Na, they are a bunch of noobs running healing builds and spamming skills.

Huh...uhhh...yeah.

So, using skills...please just hear me out before saying "I'm just one of them".

You know you have that option too, right? You can even bind them to your keyboard. Your mileage may vary, but I have a feeling if you use them you might have a chance versus these siphoning builds.

@Hitman.5829 said:

@Israel.7056 said:The amount of extra healing from something like vampiric aura is negligible. The best group siphon is probably kalla elite but then they're running kalla renegades and that's a big investment since the rest of that legends kit is terrible. Life steal has always bypassed ep though this is nothing new.

If it’s truly an exploit/buggy thing as you suggest then open a bug report instead of coming in here and facing all this opposition. Not to mention giving me ideas...

@Rampage.7145 said:

Yo which guild was that? they sound like they are pretty good

VRoooommmm right through an enemy raid they go.

Nearly all life steal traits, skills, consumables, and upgrades have an internal cool down. They didn't use to, and we certainly did abuse 100% crit chance builds back then to stack life stealing on crit sigils and foods with traits. These days it's just a meme, it's hard countered by a Warriors Healing Signet or an Ele's passive heal via Soothing Mist. H*ck, in large groups a Memestrel Tempest can press 1 in water and out sustain a life steal heavy comp also pressing 1. There's so much healing available thanks to Anet making them mandatory specs that the only way someone would win in this scenario was if you never used a healing skill to counter it.