Rykros.9130

This is a pointless conversation. Do you design and balance games? Probably not. In your opinion is it bad design? Yes.Do people differ from you on that? Yes.Do you bother to come up with something more convincing then 'its bad design because I don't like how its designed'? No.Just because it ties in with skills and traits to get most of its solo usefulness doesn't automatically make it a bad design - especially when people still find really good ways of using it.A lot of the havoc people I sometimes duel or run around with seem to think its actually OP in some ways and it usually is. Just because you dont like how it functions doesn't mean your opinion suddenly becomes a fact.

No, not every trait suffers from the deficiencies I outlined in my original post, all at once and even if there were some that did, I'm not talking about those ones. I'm talking about this one. Somehow you have associated 'extremely useful' with 'not design deficient' ... that in itself makes no sense. I could design a trait that makes you immune to everything on every auto attack as well ... that's also 'extremely useful' ... but it's about as bad a design as you would ever see. So no, just because you have identified some situations and combination of skills that would make this trait work well does NOT mean it's not designed poorly. From what I can tell your entire logic with this is 'this is automatically badly designed and all because in my opinion the traits and stuff that get tied into it shouldn't be needed to make it useful'. From what I can tell tons of traits from most of the classes I've used especially over time have always followed a tied in to make them useful approach. Your opinion on whether something works or not ingame is literally just opinion at this point given that I have used this trait a lot as of late and its been highly useful for my scourge builds. It actually helps a lot more then people would seem to realize. Being able to cake on extra layers of absorption without worrying about when exactly you proc heals actually helps a ton and I've been loving using blood bank. As for Brujeria - You can say something like that all you want but in my experience it has actually been a massive help even in group vs group. It has compared to death magic quite a lot and I tend to find myself picking it rather then dm. When your ripping enemy stab and mass corrupting you basically always succeed in popping it in group vs group fighting and suddenly going up 20k hp into a 9.5k barrier when the enemies had you down to half health - actually turns the tide of a lot of fights. Also, the extra emerging barrier when you proc any other healing skill when engaging enemies actually helps a ton.(usually best with signet of vampirism if not corrupt building)

Theres also the immense continuous pre-barrier of vampirism signet.The locust works in pve too. Especially fractals. So its not just one game mode.Theres weapon skills like dagger mainhand and warhorn that benefit from the immense heal pulsing they give allowing free barriers.It also augments both sources of blood well greatly allowing for some immense barrier stacking when the healing hits cap.Life from death causing an already immense barrier of like 12k from harbringer to add additional layers of barrier.It can also give barrier stacking on shroud for reapers.(not that its needed)It also puts to use every single bit of healing especially when you overheal which is nice since the best overall sustain a scourge for instance has ever had was literally from caking on barrier before you get hammered to soften the incoming attacks. Also to put it simply...every single trait in the game is like that. For instance I wouldn't use power skills with a condi build with all condi traits. Your traits will always limit your options in skill application unless you just want to be using useless skills with the wrong combos. The entire point is every single trait has a range of niches it belongs in and a range of skills you end up utilizing to make it matter. The more you build torwards something the better it gets. Therefore most of your points arent really valid.

Uhm the significant healing only really needs sand flare and locust signet to sustain you insanely.It's not 'socket your whole bar with skills'.You really seem to be arguing for arguments sake alone because as far as I can tell blood magic is now comparable to death magic in performance for defense while giving you the option to go more heal for allies with some of the other passives. I do not see how its a 'design failure' when its extremely useful depending on how you build your characters. Is that not how traits work? So lets take it from a different angle here - Convince me how its a useless 'design failure'. Go ahead.

The healing math of the previous comment is way off. My locust heals literally 3754 per target when boon ripping. It's a mass corruption build for condi'ing the enemy while stripping all the resistance,protection,stab,etc. It's actually extremely powerful. The only thing its not good at is mass condi'ing and ripping basic pve mobs.(because its not needed and they dont have boons) Just because you think that certain skills are less desired by you in your setup does not in any way mean there arent better setups then yours. Especially when it causes a lot of chaos in focused boon bursting crowds and makes you impervious to condi bombing counters because you ripped 5 stacks of res while bombing.

Wtf you all even talking about locust signet + BB and sand flare being enhanced by it are literally quite amazing. It makes blood magic do just as good as death magic in wvw zerg fights for instance. With a good setup - locust will take you from half hp in the middle of a fight to full hp and 9k barrier as well as ripping 10 boons. You all just don't know how to utilize it well.