Curse

C2K · Mar 23, 2008, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakken Breathes Fire

How do either of those cause regeneration of your own health equal to the degeneration of the target foe(s)?

As far as Corrupt Enchantment goes, it's GOOD, Life Transfer is not.
Fast recharge, same degeneration, removes an enchantment. Can be kept up nearly indefinitely too. You can cast this 3 times before Life Siphon Recharged once.

Conjure nightmare is always static -8 degeneration. The only thing that changes with more points in illusion magic is the duration. Which isn't really necessary due to the fact it only has 5 seconds recharge. It can almost always be kept up indefinitely after illusion magic 3 or higher. (And cast on multiple targets.) Conjure nightmare, by comparison is GOOD, Life Transfer is not. You can cast this 5 times before Life Transfer Recharged once.

Life Transfers purpose is to create degeneration while granting it's blood sucking user regeneration. It ranges from -3 to -8 for 6 to 13 seconds. It recharges in 30 seconds. Life transfer is a BAD skill. It's duration sucks compared to it's non elite counterpart. It's recharge compared to it's non elite form and pretty much EVERY degeneration based skill, sucks. the only thing it has on it's non elite form is cast time and energy cost. (A difference of 1 second and 5 energy. Given the recharge though, I could effectively cast Life Siphon on 6-7 more targets before life Transfer recharged once.)

Let's also look at Reapers Mark. This skill causes -5 degeneration for 30 seconds. (WOW!) and if the foe dies while suffering from this hex, you gain 16 energy. Recharge of 15 cast time of 1, you can fire this off 1.8 times in the time it takes Life Transfer to recharge once, it's linked to Soul Reaping which EVERY Necromancer has at a high to middle high value, and the energy cost more than pays for itself. Compared to Life Transfer, this is a great skill. Life Transfer again, is a bad skill.

I never said Life Transfer was good, I was stating you would make a much stronger argument in showing how weak Life Transfer is compared to other high degen hexes in the environment.

What makes Life Transfer so bad though is the 30 second recharge...

Also, buffing Life Transfer would not buff IWAY or Blood Spike.

Skyy High · Mar 23, 2008, 08:23 PM // 20:23

You say that blood direct damage spells are weaker than other direct damage skills, because they "must always have a drawback". Maybe you should have just stopped there, and realized that, without the drawbacks (ie, high cost, low lifestealing, etc) blood can easily be overpowered. Yes, curses can do lifestealing and direct damage too, but only in forms like Mark of Pain, SS, and Insidious, which all require the opponent to do something in order to actually deal damage. They're all expensive hexes too, which means that they can easily be removed; they could never dominate the metagame.

Compare those to blood spells, which you can SPIKE with; you simply can't look at the best-case scenario numbers and come to the conclusion that blood sucks. In PvE, yes, blood damage is horrible (barring of course SV), because you KNOW that mobs are going to be idiots and attack through your curses. In PvP however, how much damage is Insidious really going to do? Certainly not 500 or whatever you calculated.

Shuuda · Mar 23, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

I agree that Blood Magic needs huge changes, all it has done is attracted the Scum of GW with BloodSpike and Touch Ranger. OoB on Boon Prots and BiP are the only decent skills in the line.

Drakken Breathes Fire · Mar 23, 2008, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

You say that blood direct damage spells are weaker than other direct damage skills, because they "must always have a drawback". Maybe you should have just stopped there, and realized that, without the drawbacks (ie, high cost, low lifestealing, etc) blood can easily be overpowered. Yes, curses can do lifestealing and direct damage too, but only in forms like Mark of Pain, SS, and Insidious, which all require the opponent to do something in order to actually deal damage. They're all expensive hexes too, which means that they can easily be removed; they could never dominate the metagame.

Maybe you should have stopped right there.
All of those examples you just listed back up my arguement entirely, whereas you can steal 30-50 hp with one blood magic life stealing attack, ALL of those curse hexes remain in play for 15-20 seconds where they continue to do said armor ignoring damage once every 1.33 seconds or so. (Two of which even being *AoE* armor ignoring damage.) While A blood Magic Spell does it's thing once, for a very small ammount of damage to a single target, and then recharges for however long. In PVE and PVP Curses is by far better for offense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Compare those to blood spells, which you can SPIKE with; you simply can't look at the best-case scenario numbers and come to the conclusion that blood sucks. In PvE, yes, blood damage is horrible (barring of course SV), because you KNOW that mobs are going to be idiots and attack through your curses. In PvP however, how much damage is Insidious really going to do? Certainly not 500 or whatever you calculated.

You're absolutely right, insidious parasite isn't going to be your main killer in PVP. It does however serve as a nice cover hex, like parasitic bond, or any other, to keep your big killer//pressure intact.

As for the blood spike? Again, it's completely situational, has a 2 second cast time per spell, and even at best, only deals 220 damage to a single target. And once their health reaches under 50%, the damage is cut in half completely. Don't get me wrong, 110-220 damage health stolen is NOTHING to complain about.

My point is; these aren't even elite skills. There are a great deal of Elite skills in Blood Magic that are completely sub-par. They're sub-par to non-elite skills. (Sometimes even their own non-elite counterparts.) They can't even rate against other elites.

Even the attribute description of Blood Magic is off;

Blood Magic is a necromancer secondary attribute.

No inherent effect. Many Necromancer skills, especially spells that damage and steal health from your foes, become more effective with higher Blood Magic.

Where is this damage? Blood is currently a support role at best.

Carinae · Mar 29, 2008, 01:05 AM // 01:05

IMHO, Change lifesteals so that they deal Shadow Damage once you are at full health. This makes the Blood line Prot-able vs Blood Spike and that opens the door for lifesteals to get buffed hard.

80 point Vamp Gaze, 120 point conditionless Ravenous Gaze.

Sol Deathgard · Mar 29, 2008, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by snaek

Yeah, Order of Pain is stackable. The elite version, Order of Vampire, is not. It would make more sense for Order of Vampire to be stackable since it is elite. That's just my opinion. -___-'

Nerfed about 2 yrs ago cause people cried & cried about Iway which had an orders necro that would stack OotV & OoP. Since people back then (& today) can't seem to read what skills could possible counter something like that, they cried for a nerf, & got it.

jiggles · Mar 29, 2008, 04:33 AM // 04:33

i agree with eveything you said, and anet if your reading this hows about you do an update that completely ignores all the pvp idiots whining about something being over powered instead of getting over it?

Please?

Div · Mar 29, 2008, 06:30 AM // 06:30

Blood is to necro as smiting is to monks, for the most part.

Tyla · Mar 29, 2008, 06:33 AM // 06:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by jiggles

i agree with eveything you said, and anet if your reading this hows about you do an update that completely ignores all the pvp idiots whining about something being over powered instead of getting over it?

Please?

Please don't comment on people being "idiots" when they have more knowledge on that thing than you.
You might not see it as overpowered, but it's a degenerate spike build that deserves to be degenerated, and getting over it isn't the way, because things like that are boring as hell to play against.

Drakken Breathes Fire · Mar 29, 2008, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood

IMHO, Change lifesteals so that they deal Shadow Damage once you are at full health. This makes the Blood line Prot-able vs Blood Spike and that opens the door for lifesteals to get buffed hard.

80 point Vamp Gaze, 120 point conditionless Ravenous Gaze.

That is a good suggestion, it will still ignore armor, but doesn't negate protection prayers.
*scratches chin.*

Perhaps, 'if you are below 50-90% health you steal X amount of life from target foe. Otherwise, target for takes X amount of shadow damage'?

A theoretical fix for Ravenous Gaze;

If your health is below 50-90% steal 30 health + 30 health for every recharging blood magic skill. (max 90.) Otherwise, deal 30 shadow damage + 30 for every recharging blood magic skill. (max 90.) (50% failure chance at blood magic 4 or less.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by tyla salanari

Please don't comment on people being "idiots" when they have more knowledge on that thing than you.
You might not see it as overpowered, but it's a degenerate spike build that deserves to be degenerated, and getting over it isn't the way, because things like that are boring as hell to play against.

Because a two second cast time is really hard to interrupt.
'nuff said.

creelie · Mar 29, 2008, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Considering SV is a staple when going up against tough PvE foes, Orders are still popular in PvP post-nerf, and blood-spikers are a defense caster's worst nightmare in both PvE and PvP, I would say that Blood Magic is alive and well. Not every attribute can be HURF DURF IN-GAME TITAN, EVERY TWEAK SHAKES THE META TO ITS CORE!

Drakken Breathes Fire · Mar 29, 2008, 10:38 PM // 22:38

41 blood magic spells, you've listed 4 that are useful.