Unholy Sanctuary

[Lily.1935]

I'm going to be frank with everyone here. I despise this trait. It's not good for the game, it doesn't really provide meaningful play patterns and is just all around unfun to use in PvE and frustrating to fight in PvP it makes you engage less with your shroud mechanic.

Is it finally time to bury this trait and get something new and better? Something that doesn't just fill the same space as one of the other two grandmaster traits since Unholy Sanctuary and corrupter's fervor both fill that same selfish defensive space. Maybe we could have something that influences spectral skills or instead of keeping death all over the place in terms of design have something to do with poison? Maybe a means to sacrifice our carapace?

[Dadnir.5038]

I agree, I also dislike unholy sanctuary.How about changing it so that it allow you to grant carapace whenever you grant a boon? It would allow some new source of carapace for the necromancer itself as well as limited support to it's allies since the necromancer isn't known to be especially great at giving boons. It wouldn't be that great of a trait but I wouldn't say that it would be negligible either.

[Taril.8619]

What about...

Gaining Carapace also grants Might. The effect of Might is increased while in Shroud (40 Power and 40 Condi damage per stack)

Gives it an offensive flavour that isn't tied to minions like Death Nova. Shouldn't be too OP either since without Corrupter's Fervour stacking high amounts of Carapace is not as easy.

P.s. While were at it, adjusting Corrupter's Fervour threshold to 20 stacks would be nice.

[Lily.1935]

@Dadnir.5038 said:I agree, I also dislike unholy sanctuary.How about changing it so that it allow you to grant carapace whenever you grant a boon? It would allow some new source of carapace for the necromancer itself as well as limited support to it's allies since the necromancer isn't known to be especially great at giving boons. It wouldn't be that great of a trait but I wouldn't say that it would be negligible either.

Necromancer can gain a lot of self might though. But it would probably mostly just end up an inferior corrupter's fervor most the time. I don't disagree with the idea of giving carapace to allies though. I just don't see the method as particular useful is the issue. Looking at scourge, reaper and core necromancer you basically have a lot of superfluous application with it. You could run wells with blood on core and grant allies protection, carapace and might from well of power. There's the might generation from scourge. And the Might generation from blood is power. There isn't a lot of options like you said and I think the issue might be that you're not really providing enough to make Death viable as a support spec..

I think I can make a suggestion to spice it up a bit. We could have something were you still lose the defense benefits from Carapace while taking it, I do think there should be some sacrifice but allies would gain the defense and instead some bonus condition damage or something like that or boon duration, either way, continuing with my thought.. Perhaps once you hit specific thresholds allies who have Carapace pulse with poison, damaging foes for you.

I'm in favor of using the carapace as a means of support or offense. idk. Death magic is kinda all over the place unfortunately.

[Lily.1935]

@Taril.8619 said:What about...

Gaining Carapace also grants Might. The effect of Might is increased while in Shroud (40 Power and 40 Condi damage per stack)

Gives it an offensive flavour that isn't tied to minions like Death Nova. Shouldn't be too OP either since without Corrupter's Fervour stacking high amounts of Carapace is not as easy.

P.s. While were at it, adjusting Corrupter's Fervour threshold to 20 stacks would be nice.

I think we actually have enough might as it is. And increasing the effectiveness of the might might be a bit much. But then again I'm not really sure.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Lily.1935 said:Necromancer can gain a lot of self might though. But it would probably mostly just end up an inferior corrupter's fervor most the time. I don't disagree with the idea of giving carapace to allies though. I just don't see the method as particular useful is the issue. Looking at scourge, reaper and core necromancer you basically have a lot of superfluous application with it. You could run wells with blood on core and grant allies protection, carapace and might from well of power. There's the might generation from scourge. And the Might generation from blood is power. There isn't a lot of options like you said and I think the issue might be that you're not really providing enough to make Death viable as a support spec..

I think I can make a suggestion to spice it up a bit. We could have something were you still lose the defense benefits from Carapace while taking it, I do think there should be some sacrifice but allies would gain the defense and instead some bonus condition damage or something like that or boon duration, either way, continuing with my thought.. Perhaps once you hit specific thresholds allies who have Carapace pulse with poison, damaging foes for you.

I'm in favor of using the carapace as a means of support or offense. idk. Death magic is kinda all over the place unfortunately.

The line is thin between to much and not enough... Personally, I'd rather have deadly strength be a trait that remove the toughness from carapace and replace it by power (or condition since it fit better than power if we consider the traitline as a whole).

Having allies pulsing poison, even if it's excruiatingly difficult to achieve would be OP. That's a thing that shouldn't happen.

Apart from that the Unholy sanctuary could also grant dark aura (4 seconds + 1-2 second for every 10 carapace stacks on the necromancer) upon entering shroud.

[Anchoku.8142]

I despise pretty close to everything about Death Magic.

1. So many minion traits
2. So much toughness
3. So many auto-proc's
4. So little group support
5. So few reasons to take the specialization outside of casual play.

Yes, I also do not like US.

[Lahmia.2193]

@Anchoku.8142 said:I despise pretty close to everything about Death Magic.

1. So many minion traits
2. So much toughness
3. So many auto-proc's
4. So little group support
5. So few reasons to take the specialization outside of casual play.

Yes, I also do not like US.

And yet its the best its ever been in the history of gw2.

[Taril.8619]

@"Anchoku.8142" said:I despise pretty close to everything about Death Magic.

5. So few reasons to take the specialization outside of casual play.

To be honest, I'd argue that this is less to do with the state of Death Magic and more to do with how strong other specializations are.

Basically, with Spite, Curses and Soul Reaping being as insane as they are, it's hard to justify picking anything but 2 of those for anything remotely competitive.

Spite offering a lot of raw damage for power builds (Especially with how Reaper Shroud interacts with Reaper's Might due to the perma-quickness)

Curses being necessary because Lingering Curse is required to make Scepter not complete and total garbage.

While Soul Reaping feels pretty much mandatory for every build due to increased Life Force gain (When damage is so heavily focused towards being in Shroud/using F skills) not to mention having some nice damage boosts for both Condi and Power builds.

It kind of just means that Death and Blood lines are left in the dust. Since neither offer such significant performance increases as these 3 specs. With the only real consideration being going Blood purely for Vampiric Rituals if trying to support using Wells (But that's kind of falling by the wayside these days... Why support with Necro wells that basically just give Protection with the GM trait when you can play Chrono and give perma-Alacrity + Quickness with wells?)

[Lily.1935]

@Taril.8619 said:

@"Anchoku.8142" said:I despise pretty close to everything about Death Magic.

5. So few reasons to take the specialization outside of casual play.

To be honest, I'd argue that this is less to do with the state of Death Magic and more to do with how strong other specializations are.

Basically, with Spite, Curses and Soul Reaping being as insane as they are, it's hard to justify picking anything but 2 of those for anything remotely competitive.

Spite offering a lot of raw damage for power builds (Especially with how Reaper Shroud interacts with Reaper's Might due to the perma-quickness)

Curses being necessary because Lingering Curse is required to make Scepter not complete and total garbage.

While Soul Reaping feels pretty much mandatory for every build due to increased Life Force gain (When damage is so heavily focused towards being in Shroud/using F skills) not to mention having some nice damage boosts for both Condi and Power builds.

It kind of just means that Death and Blood lines are left in the dust. Since neither offer such significant performance increases as these 3 specs. With the only real consideration being going Blood purely for Vampiric Rituals if trying to support using Wells (But that's kind of falling by the wayside these days... Why support with Necro wells that basically just give Protection with the GM trait when you can play Chrono and give perma-Alacrity + Quickness with wells?)

I'd argue that Spite and curses are not that far ahead of blood. Soul reaping is obviously far ahead of everything but that is because of the reduced cooldowns on shroud skills plus the additional life force. On top of that it has the two of the best traits for power and condi. Death and blood don't need much to be on par with curses and spite. None of them stand up to soul reaping though.

[Taril.8619]

@"Lily.1935" said:I'd argue that Spite and curses are not that far ahead of blood. Soul reaping is obviously far ahead of everything but that is because of the reduced cooldowns on shroud skills plus the additional life force. On top of that it has the two of the best traits for power and condi. Death and blood don't need much to be on par with curses and spite. None of them stand up to soul reaping though.

Curses isn't too far ahead. Since it's really not particularly great overall, it's mostly just carried by the "Make Scepter not garbage" trait.

Spite though, is a significant boost to Power builds due to how much Might it gives, plus all the damage modifiers (10% damage from Spiteful Talisman, +10 Power per Might stack from Awaken the Pain and 20% damage on targets under 50% life from Close to Death)

[Lily.1935]

@Taril.8619 said:

@"Lily.1935" said:I'd argue that Spite and curses are not that far ahead of blood. Soul reaping is obviously far ahead of everything but that is because of the reduced cooldowns on shroud skills plus the additional life force. On top of that it has the two of the best traits for power and condi. Death and blood don't need much to be on par with curses and spite. None of them stand up to soul reaping though.

Curses isn't too far ahead. Since it's really not particularly great overall, it's mostly just carried by the "Make Scepter not garbage" trait.

Spite though, is a significant boost to Power builds due to how much Might it gives, plus all the damage modifiers (10% damage from Spiteful Talisman, +10 Power per Might stack from Awaken the Pain and 20% damage on targets under 50% life from Close to Death)

Depends on the game mode. But Curses has really good traits depending on what you're doing. Plague sending is required for condi scourge in PvE as is Master of corruption. Lingering curse is obviously the grandmaster of choice even in other game modes because of its condition duration increase in PvE and its aoe boon corrupt in WvW. But this isn't to say the other grandmasters are bad, not great is a better way to put it. But what really pushes curses in my opinion is the minor traits. Barbed precision, furious demise and target the weak are actually some of the best traits there are for condi. Even without the Grandmaster this trait line is just extremely effective for condi builds. I will admit that it doesn't do much outside of condi, its about as hyper focused as death and spite both are, but what it does is extremely powerful.

Now, I've said this for a long time that lingering curse probably should have its condition duration be put into the scepter baseline, but that would probably end up shifting the trait to take in raids from lingering curse to Weakening Shroud or parasitic contagion. Of course, I don't like Parasitic contagion as a trait either since I don't feel its really that good for the game but that's another discussion.

As for Terror this trait is actually really good. Here's the major problem with it though. Terror doesn't have enough reliable fear sources to get any use. If say the warhorn's wail of doom was a fear for example then terror could probably see more use, but it isn't which prevents it from being useful. You have spectral ring, reaper's mark, the shroud fear and Ripple of horror in lich form. On paper that's enough, but in practice just doesn't work to the necromancer's advantage.

I'll argue for curses. I do think spite is generally better because power is generally better, but I don't think the disparity between them is as vast as you think.

[Anchoku.8142]

@Taril.8619

I have a few counterpoints, too.

• I hope you are not suggesting nerfing other specializations to make Death Magic look enticing because that was kind of the logical progression from your first paragraph.
• Blood Magic supports the Necro, allies, and does not interfere with aggro mechanics. Death Magic supports Minions and the Necro but not allies. It does interfere with aggro mechanics while providing no tools for the job.
• Spite supports power builds very well. It is not perfect but supports all game modes.
• Soul Reaping supports literally all builds to one extent or the other because Necromancer is forced to rely on the shroud mechanic. It does not have major dps modifiers but it does have good utility. Process of elimination gets it a slot in all good builds.
• Curses I saved for last because it has problems but is still mandatory for all condi-dps builds. Take Lingering Curse, AA with scepter and you get max condi dps for whatever your build is. That maximum is not very competitive and still relies on Epidemic, too. That's all there really is to Curses: Gear up for condion damage and be sure to take that one trait. The rest of Curses offers a a mash-up of utility, defense, or minor offense. Curses does the job but is also kind of boring and limiting because there are no substitutes for maximizing bleed count and duration.

[Taril.8619]

@Anchoku.8142 said:

• I hope you are not suggesting nerfing other specializations to make Death Magic look enticing because that was kind of the logical progression from your first paragraph.

The only "Nerfing" I'd do, would be to alter some stuff to being baseline. Such as Lingering Curse's ability change for Scepter and actually making Scepter have condi's that last for any amount of time ever.

Otherwise, it'd be more along the lines of buffing Blood/Death up somewhat.

Maybe with an overall rework to specs as a whole, things might get shuffled a bit. (For example, one could argue that traits such as Death's Embrace, Siphoned Power and Close to Death thematically fit into Death Magic what with being centred around things being closer to death.) However, such a thing might simply shift the power to 2 different specs to be dominant...

@Anchoku.8142 said:

• Blood Magic supports the Necro, allies, and does not interfere with aggro mechanics. Death Magic supports Minions and the Necro but not allies. It does interfere with aggro mechanics while providing no tools for the job.

True, at best with the current Death Magic specialization, one might be able to create a "Tank" build, if there was an E-Spec to support it. But that's not really a particularly enticing option as opposed to a more general purpose spec.

@Anchoku.8142 said:

• Soul Reaping supports literally all builds to one extent or the other because Necromancer is forced to rely on the shroud mechanic. It does not have major dps modifiers but it does have good utility. Process of elimination gets it a slot in all good builds.

I'd argue that Sinister Shroud, Soul Barbs, Death Perception and Dhuumfire are all major DPS modifiers. One could also argue that Gluttony and Soul Battery are significant DPS increases due to how increased Shroud uptime impacts overall damage output.

@Anchoku.8142 said:

• Curses I saved for last because it has problems but is still mandatory for all condi-dps builds. Take Lingering Curse, AA with scepter and you get max condi dps for whatever your build is. That maximum is not very competitive and still relies on Epidemic, too. That's all there really is to Curses: Gear up for condion damage and be sure to take that one trait. The rest of Curses offers a a mash-up of utility, defense, or minor offense. Curses does the job but is also kind of boring and limiting because there are no substitutes for maximizing bleed count and duration.

Yeah, Curses is rather jank. Not helped by the fact that Scepter is really bad without Lingering Curse and it's literally the only MH Condi weapon that Necromancer has so it's not as if you can lean on another option in lieu of the trait...

[Anchoku.8142]

@"Taril.8619"

"Tank" is a term that people often misuse in GW2. Toughness designates a player in GW2 for added aggro but does not make a character good at tanking.

To properly function as a tank the player must control opponent positioning. For that to work I think at least 2 stacks of 1 second stability on a skill, or skills, with short cool down is necessary. Knock-backs and other control effects allow an enemy to change position, even if only following.

A full block, also on short cool down, is better than the shroud skills Necro has, too. I do not know how aggro calculations are made in this game other than toughness being a large factor but other games use damage given and received as factors. Shroud absorbs damage so an AI might count that as a reduction in aggro. Blocking skills prevent all non-piercing direct damage, though, for a fixed duration.

Necromancer does not have the tools to properly function as a tank but it can mess things up for a group or squad. Imagine taking a bunker-condi MM on a raid and the resulting chaos.

Compounding Necromancer's problems are its difficulty being healed in shroud and exceptionally bad synergy with boon builds. The profession is not merely bad at tanking, it is designed to oppose tanking with its health and LF mechanics, strong boon corruption, very poor boon-share and inherent weakness to control effects.

Death Magic could provide sustain without toughness, options for group utility and support, a legitimate reason to build for boon duration or even traits to aid playing as a tank but it does not. DM is a MM/turtle specialization.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Anchoku.8142 said:I do not know how aggro calculations are made in this game other than toughness being a large factor but other games use damage given and received as factors.

Each enemy has their own calculations. Most go for highest toughness, others go for highest damage dealt, others still go for closest or furthest away. I recall the first year of Bazaar of the Four Winds, I did enough damage to a boss in my opening Flesh Golem charge (it was in a corner and I started at point blank range) that it remained locked on me with aggro for the entire time it took to kill it, even when I was one of two dozen players fighting it and I was at least 1200 range away for the majority of the fight.