Guild Wars 2

Why not have the active boons gained when one enters DS togglable? So with this change you can choose (replace a minor trait somewhere maybe) to tap DS twice to gain all associated boons, and three times to end DS.

With this feature it would be possible to save the DS boons for the right time. Say you’re running powermancer. If you use the fury right away you would be wasting precision with Deathly Precision. Maybe you want your weapon swap to come off of cooldown so you can dagger burst someone down and you would rather have stability when you begin your burst.
Maybe you’re running condimancer and you are getting pressured by two people, a ranger and a warrior. You know that saving dodges is paramount, that the warrior will begin his knock lock soon, so you start pressuring the ranger and kiting the warrior. You use your staff skills #2,5 on ranger, #3,4 on warrior and dodge RF. You’re in DS tanking hits but the warrior hasnt caught up to you yet, so why have stability? When he does, and the ranger switches to his GS, wouldnt it be nice to have your stability when they catch up to you? In this situation, if you are also using retal, would you want it to be connected with FitG (should this only effect FitG, or other boons as well)? Why or why not?

So what do you think? Is it worth it to have more control over your boons, namely stability, with an extra button to press? Would it be worth it to have that option in certain split situations like described with the warrior and ranger encounter?

The best change for those traits is to change the duration and healing but give them either an internal cooldown or activation on a ds skill usage. Currently all of those traits are terrible because you only get decent boon uptime if you completely sacrifice ds which is bad balance.

@Stand the wall I have to disaggree. It’s the same as element atunement, engineers’s hidden flask,… . You can even “exploit” those things (as an example: I try to save corrupt boon for hidden flask when fighting engineers, the confusion easily kills them). That’s just the downside of using such traits.

@zapv I don’t think that is a good idea since you still have the same problem: “The traits don’t consider DS’s variating cooldown”. Instead I suggest making the traits pulse in DS.

1. Im not sure if i understand how you would toggle them.
2. In my opinion most of those traits shouldn’t exist because their core strength doesn’t work with our class mechanic. If they want to add mechanic it best for the effect to be situational like shrouded removal can be insanely good if used at the right time if not, hardly any effect.

zapv
That sounds a lot like a passive defense.

Tim
“its just the downside of using suck traits”. You dont think anything should be done about it? Why or why not?

Tadsoul
Edited my OP, it was a little vague.
“insanely good if used at the right time” Thats what I am trying to address. There are plenty of times when the boons come at the wrong time. I added a few situations in the edit that explain why this could be a good change.

Yes, I don’t think anything should be done, since that is the nature of traits. They are always on and you as a player have to determine when it benefits, when it does not and to enforce the beneficial situations. If he took it he chose for both the good and the bad moments of the trait and will use his skill to be more in a good moment then a bad.

Tim.6450:

@zapv I don’t think that is a good idea since you still have the same problem: “The traits don’t consider DS’s variating cooldown”. Instead I suggest making the traits pulse in DS.

It does though. If you have an ICD of 30 seconds on entering or exiting DS your worst case scenario is leaving at 29 seconds in which case your missing out for 9 seconds. That’s better than pulsing every 10 seconds which if you left DS when the cooldown was at 9 seconds you’d be out of those boons for at least 11 seconds. Also, if the effects where on skill activation they would be much longer in duration.

Stand The Wall.6987:

zapv
That sounds a lot like a passive defense.

Every other class has a ton of passive defense through boons and healing. It is actually weird that necromancers don’t.

Anyway, I wrote up a proposal of my changes in the necro forums (page 3 right now), but as far as these traits go I’ll just copy and paste so you get the idea.

Spite:
Siphoned Power: Grants 3 stack of aoe might for 15 seconds on entering or exiting Death Shroud. (15 second icd)

Spiteful Spirit:
Changed to grant 5 seconds of aoe Retaliation on usage of the skill doom.

Furious Demise:
Now grants 5 seconds of aoe fury on activation of Dark Path.

Shrouded Removal:
now converts one condition into a boon when entering or exiting Death Shroud. ICD of 15 seconds.

Deathly Invigoration:
heal for 2500 health (1.0 healing) when entering or exiting DS (ICD: 30 seconds) radius 240

Unholy Martyr:
Life Transfer now draws conditions from allies on pulse (4 conditions) transfer one condition to any target hit with Life Blast (ICD of 5 seconds doesn’t work with Unyielding blast to remove all conditions)

Foot in the Grave:
Tainted Shackles now also bonds with allies, granting 6 seconds of stability over it’s duration to allies and the necromancer, and granting 10 seconds of swiftness at the end of the duration.

Near to Death:
reduces recharge on Death Shroud to 50%

Basically, anything that gives something you always want (healing, condition removal, and might) activate whenever you enter/exit. Anything that could be situational activates on skill usage. That way you force the player to think about the proper time to use skills. These changes would also give us better team support, which we lack now.

concerning the placement of traits in general:
I like how all traits are scattered across the board making it impossible to sync any of them together in a build..

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

I like how all traits are scattered across the board making it impossible to sync any of them together in a build.. because..

#Clueless

Isn’t that exactly how they are designed currently? All those traits fit well into the trait line they are in. Whether it be damage, healing or support they all fit well where they are. I’m all for feedback, but there is no need to be rude and insulting. As someone who is used to the peer review process, I can take criticism, but insults don’t get anyone anywhere.

Thank you for the explaination
i agree this would be a good change not sure how you would put it in though

zapv.8051:

It does though. If you have an ICD of 30 seconds on entering or exiting DS your worst case scenario is leaving at 29 seconds in which case your missing out for 9 seconds. That’s better than pulsing every 10 seconds which if you left DS when the cooldown was at 9 seconds you’d be out of those boons for at least 11 seconds. Also, if the effects where on skill activation they would be much longer in duration.

Well, first your worse case scenario is not your worst case. Your worst case scenario is when you don’t leave DS at all. While you can do this in theory, you don’t much good in that kind of build, so let’s assume that you have to leave DS at some point. Even then your worse case scenario is not your worse case in this setting. It is when you enter DS at the 29 second of you’re DS and try to stay a long duration in DS. If we take 21 seconds for example then you got a 60 seconds interval for 1 time your boons even when they were balanced for 30 seconds. The longer your DS the worse this problem becomes.

Secondly my, idea of pulsing would be like Shadow’s embrace. So when you enter DS you get your first pulse. Also 10 seconds pulsing is very long, I was aiming more towards 5 seconds. So my worst case scenario would be entering and leaving at 4 seconds. To compensate such scenario’s you could make the intial pulse a little bit stronger.

zapv
Those look like good changes. I was imagining something along the lines of Reapers Protection.

Tim.6450:

Yes, I don’t think anything should be done, since that is the nature of traits. They are always on and you as a player have to determine when it benefits, when it does not and to enforce the beneficial situations. If he took it he chose for both the good and the bad moments of the trait and will use his skill to be more in a good moment then a bad.

Exactly. With this change a necro would have more control over when to activate certain traits. Right now there are many traits conflicting with one another, being useless in certain situations, or built around a mechanic that begs to be improved.

zapv
The worst idea ever. With this change ( ICD on traits) we will have even less control on ds than right now.