Guild Wars 2

Whole necromancer class is balanced around deathshroud beeing both its defense and offense overall its fine but it has too high RNG factor and is too unreliable for high end PVP.
If you have 0 life force then you are just running around like some junkie spamming your staff 1 trying to get some, but in reality there is only 1 reliable way to get life force in combat and that is spamming marks while having soul marks trait, cause all other attacks that give life force can be avoided.
If you have 100% then you are unkillable death machine, especially on power necro cause you can basicly 100-1 any class just by spamming nr1, which is just lame gameplay, power necro could have decent skill cap cause it can do nice burst combos and has overall good sustained dmg but atm most beneficial way to play power necro is spam staff skills till you have lots of life force and then jump in it and spam life blast till enemy dies.
It is only defense in whole game that doesnt restore over time, if you preassure necro once then thats it, even if he survives then next time he enters combat he has less defense (and actually less offense+less utility).

So my idea would be: Make life force regenerate out of combat and cut the base life force pool by 50%
Remove life force gains from deaths but other ways of gaining life force are fine to maintain it in combat.
This would basicly make necros have 50% life force at all times when going into combat and from there it would depend on necros ability to manage life force, it really feels that current 50% is where its balanced.
This would open up alot of build variety too cause atm every necro is forced to go 4 pts in soul reaping just to have some life force in PVP or take minions.
Out of combat life force probobly should regenerate over like 15-20 seconds so it cant be abused.

This is best idea i could think of, maybe there are some better but something has to change about death shroud, cause atm its just holding the whole profession back and destroying its gameplay.

Hmm… Well, I haven’t picked up a staff on my power necro for ages now, but… I have no real issues gaining life force.
And from what I remember, Soul Marks wasn’t that helpful either. Sure, it’s nice but I don’t really need another LF source.

You are right in saying that DS needs a redesign, but not only because of the things you mentioned but also because it makes bloodmagic and healing efffects from on crit sigils/buff food pointless when in DS.

Rym.1469:

Hmm… Well, I haven’t picked up a staff on my power necro for ages now, but… I have no real issues gaining life force.
And from what I remember, Soul Marks wasn’t that helpful either. Sure, it’s nice but I don’t really need another LF source.

Sorry but you just dont play the part of game where its required, just because condi necro is somewhat fine in PVP i wouldnt go and say to PVE topic that condi necros are fine in fractals because i wouldnt have any idea what im talking about.
Soul marks and staff is just a must have for any PVP necro, and for power necro even more than for condi necro.

Why not increase the life force gain per player death in pvp? I would say quintuple to 50% since it is the same with stacking sigils but that may be a bit overkill so perhaps 25% lifeforce?

Because its not about getting life force its about life force beeing huge part of necromancer while beeing quite RNG.
As i said full life force = OP, no life force = useless
And it depends on too many variables, it depends on your setup, it depends on enemy setup, it depends on your build, it depends on whats going on in game.
You are fine with life force, then you get preassured and have to drain life force, you cant just retreat and wait while this defense mechanic is back up, you have to go back into combat without any defense and play your class wrong, be it shooting unreliable projectiles from staff 1 or wasting your utility marks just to get life force, cause if you get caught with no life force then you are just dead.
Its just gimmick mechanic, if someone runs pirate runes then basicly necro has 2k more HP or for power necro 12k extra damage cause parrot dying gives 10% life force
Or if its a khylo match then necro can gain life force without engaging anything just by shooting staff 1 into clocktower wall…
In its current state DS is just joke mechanic, life force management takes skill but its much less important when LF gains are affected by factors that necro has no control over.
If necro would always engage combat with set value of life force and from there it would depend on necros LF managing with set of skills then necro would be in much better spot.

Builds using axe or dagger main-hand tend to generate a decent amount of life force. The problem is with scepter/staff builds. Feast of Corruption is nice but takes some time to build up. Staff auto is not reliable and really needs a change – the piercing part does not justify its slow speed and cast time ANET. I agree with Leeto on most of the things that he points out and i also think that life force generation should be changed to be more frequent. If this happens then i would be fine with having a smaller pool.

These changes would make necro have a higher skill cap due to life force management (offensive/defensive) – which most necros still struggle with.

it’s not DS design (that’s actually not bad at all) it’s the actual LF gaining on necros weapons (specially condi necros, yes anet we know you hate condition necro, just delete that and be over with it…) I’ll prove the point here

ct=cast time

main hand weap:
staff:
Necrotic Grasp
Life force: 4%
ct 3/4
cd 0
traits: marks can also generate life force
Life force: 3% per mark
Chilblains
ct 3/4
cd 20
Mark of Blood
ct 3/4
cd 6
Putrid Mark
ct 3/4
cd 25
Reaper’s Mark
ct 3/4
cd 40
also notice u actually have to click on the floor (most ppl do that on marks) and burn
untraited: not realiable lf generator
traited: lf generator but slow (I include the human factor of placing the marks)

scepter:
Feast of Corruption
Life force: 3%
ct 3/4
cd 10
no traits to decrease cd
basicly non existing lf generator as it’s.

axe:
Ghastly Claws
Life force: 12%
ct 2.25 for the whole 12%
cd 8
can reduce cd with “axe training” trait by 20%
not inflicting offensive condi

dagger:(main)
Necrotic Stab(#1 on dagger 2nd hit)
Life force: 2%
ct 1/4(previous #1 hit)
cd 0
Necrotic Bite
Necrotic Stab(#1 on dagger 3rd hit)
Life force: 6%
ct 1/4(previous #1 hit instantcast)
cd 0
for c/t of 3/4 = u get 8%*3=24% lf.
not condi related (except #3 is immoblize)

off hand:
dagger:
no lf generator

focus:
Reaper’s Touch
Life force: 3%
ct 3/4
cd 18

warhorn:
Locust Swarm
Life force: 2%
ct 1
cd 30

as you can see the fastest lf generator is the dagger. a really close combat weapon. axe is not bad lf generator too
staff is ok when traited but not as those two above
the rest (the condi necro main hand weap and offhand) are laughable
staff untraited is laughable as well!

so ds itself even if you’re not traited to do massive dmg with it can be useful it can be a perfect armor, a perfect offensive weapon but to recharge it u need to have a powermancer weapons, and that is not so smart design.

to get the mark trait u need to invest 4 in soul reaping and to be honest if u go there taking VIII for example is better, taking X for terror is better. going for the mark trait isn’t the best option you have.
so again what’s the problem?
extremely bad design of the lf regeneration from weapon

a necro can get it by utilities like signet of undeath or any spectral utility (spectral walk is simply the most useless thing ever, it’s good only for swiftness and that’s it….)

condition necro has no reason to invest more than 4 points on sr because of the traits and it will cost them their death magic options (faster staff recharge, fear on stun) or other options.

what the developers really need to do is to rethink the necro
from scratch, how they want the necro to preform, as a damage dealer? add more power to it. to rely on lf? add more lf options to any necro build.
to rely of conditions? make it more viable on bosses, in wvw, faster casting of the scepter is required for ages….

ds itself doesn’t need a redesign even the annoying ds nerf back then was logical, the lf handling and some weird traits that are placed all over the place, bad casting times (consume condition casting time is awful)

Then would it be acceptable of instead of regenerating to 50% out of combat and making that a hard cap in all situations (even in combat), life force would go towards 50% out of combat and faster the more difference there is?

So if you start at 0% it would take 2 seconds to reach 10%, 5 seconds to reach 22%, 8 seconds to reach 31%, 13 seconds to reach 41% and 22 seconds to reach 50%.

If you start at 100% however, it would take 2 seconds to drop to 90%, 5 seconds to drop to 78%, 8 seconds to drop 69%, 13 seconds to drop to 59% and 22 seconds to drop to 50%.

Life force on death will be moved to DM 2nd minor.

No dagger = 0 life force when kited, axe = 0 life force when dodged, staff 1 = 0 life force because its projectile. There is only 3 reliable ways how to get life force – soul marks, spectral attunement and shadow fiend…
Everything else can be avoided and no other proffesion has such problem that when people avoid your offense you loose defense + utility.
Weapons generating extra life force is all nice and fancy but once you have rely on them in high rated teamques then it becomes BS.
Im pretty sure every necro who has played at higher rating have basicly played wrong just because of life force, be it switching to staff when you actually need scepter or running in with daggers when you obviously will take extra dmg, or sticking in teamfights longer than you should just spamming staff 1 just so you can move to another point without beeing caught with no life force.

And i didnt mean regenerating 50% out of combat i meant regenerating all out of combat but cut the base amount of LF by 50% cause i can assure you thats where the balance is. You can especially feel this on power necro, if you enter fight with more than 50% then you are unkillable life blast machine and if less then you just have to play recklessly by spamming skills just to get more life force.

Edit: oh and having to summon minions then destroy them at start of game just so you arent completely useless/defenseless in first minutes of game doesnt feel any good either.

Rym.1469:

Hmm… Well, I haven’t picked up a staff on my power necro for ages now, but… I have no real issues gaining life force.
And from what I remember, Soul Marks wasn’t that helpful either. Sure, it’s nice but I don’t really need another LF source.

This.

I dont use staff in pvp ever. (being mostly a pve player, and staff is useless, it’s hassle for me to play with the different traits than the ones I’m best with.)
I use DS alot, axe is pretty good for life force, than theres spectral skills<3.
Dont cut our deathshroud in half! .. 2 hits from a war and it’d be gone..never mind trying to using any DS skills.

I don’t use staff at all and I can get life force easier than endurance. I actually don’t mind DS as it is, but I wouldn’t mind speeding up the dark path projectile a little.

Leeto.1570:

So my idea would be: Make life force regenerate out of combat and cut the base life force pool by 50%
Remove life force gains from deaths but other ways of gaining life force are fine to maintain it in combat.
This would basicly make necros have 50% life force at all times when going into combat and from there it would depend on necros ability to manage life force, it really feels that current 50% is where its balanced.
This would open up alot of build variety too cause atm every necro is forced to go 4 pts in soul reaping just to have some life force in PVP or take minions.
Out of combat life force probobly should regenerate over like 15-20 seconds so it cant be abused.

That’s not the same. There is a big difference between 15%(spectral grasp) LF from 10000 LF and 15% from 5000 LF.

Leeto.1570:

And i didnt mean regenerating 50% out of combat i meant regenerating all out of combat but cut the base amount of LF by 50% cause i can assure you thats where the balance is. You can especially feel this on power necro, if you enter fight with more than 50% then you are unkillable life blast machine and if less then you just have to play recklessly by spamming skills just to get more life force.

So compared to our current life force we regenerate 50% but are capped at that even in combat? Right?

I’m not a fan of regenerating at max value since it removes some aspect of in combat life force management. You can’t prepare a reserve and store it for a better situation to use. The system also limits the players in his moves since you would lose life force. That’s why I suggest that instead halving max life force and regenerate to 100% out of combat , you keep the max life force and let the life force converge towards the balanced point (50% in this case) out of combat.

@leeto, marks can be dodged, all of them
actually u can test it easily to place marks correctly with the trait is still significantly slower than dagger or axe. not to mention numbers don’t lie even if u have reduced cd (2 on death)
and 4 on soul reaping ur lf generating slower than dagger. i’m not saying use dagger or axe, i’m stating that the problem comes from that
minions requires 0 skill therefore i don’t care about those.
1 thing we agree is that a broken class is still a broken class.
and necro is a broken class. it’s my main, my favorite and all
but ds is suppose to be our main tool yet we have very limited options on charging it.if any skill would do that
or a trait similar to cantrip on ele just for necro ds would come up it would be ok, at least better than most traits they gave us…

This is definitely not the way to fix deathshroud, at all. Deathshroud and LF is a good mechanic (that needs some fixing so it doesn’t block our other defenses) because it relies on you being in combat and landing skills. Removing that will never happen because of how counter it is to what we’re supposed to be.

Marcus Aurelius.1374:

@leeto, marks can be dodged, all of them
actually u can test it easily to place marks correctly with the trait is still significantly slower than dagger or axe. not to mention numbers don’t lie even if u have reduced cd (2 on death)
and 4 on soul reaping ur lf generating slower than dagger. i’m not saying use dagger or axe, i’m stating that the problem comes from that
minions requires 0 skill therefore i don’t care about those.
1 thing we agree is that a broken class is still a broken class.
and necro is a broken class. it’s my main, my favorite and all
but ds is suppose to be our main tool yet we have very limited options on charging it.if any skill would do that
or a trait similar to cantrip on ele just for necro ds would come up it would be ok, at least better than most traits they gave us…

Marks give life force when they get triggered doesnt matter if they are triggered by dodge or not, you still get life force.
And i play both power and condi necro in PVP and i guarantee you if you gonna go closer than 900 range into teamfight without having life force then either you are gonna die or will have to use flesh wurm.
TBH majority wont even understand what im on about here but i just hope anet will see this and think about it cause i guarantee if LF mechanic isnt changed or necro doesnt get something super cheesy then it will never have place in high end pvp.

Use the 33% on crit to gain 1% LF. Combine with focus, dagger and 55% crit Chance is LF regen everywhere. Check my vid in my signature to see my gameplay with this.

Leeto.1570:

Marks give life force when they get triggered doesnt matter if they are triggered by dodge or not, you still get life force.
And i play both power and condi necro in PVP and i guarantee you if you gonna go closer than 900 range into teamfight without having life force then either you are gonna die or will have to use flesh wurm.
TBH majority wont even understand what im on about here but i just hope anet will see this and think about it cause i guarantee if LF mechanic isnt changed or necro doesnt get something super cheesy then it will never have place in high end pvp.

+1

I was wondering when someone would get around to revisiting a topic of this nature. The part in bold seems oddly familiar from 10 months ago:

Jayce.5632:

DS is fine as it is now. It’s sole purpose is to replace all the other active defense skills COMBINED. The problem has always been access to it, limited by both CD and life force. I have never understood why but imho, everything a necromancer does should be returning at least a flat rate of life force. For example, 1% anytime they deal damage to a target and one elite skill contender for those times when you need a fast buildup. Since the idea is simple enough in theory, as in a faster buildup when dealing with more threats, Im sure they’ve tested it before but decided against it. Im just curious as to why.