Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

First of all: Sorry for the length. I do want to be thorough. It’s meant as a serious suggestion and in case Anet reads it, I don’t want to be like “Plz Anet fix plz”. I want to provide some actual implications of the change and scenarios where it could shine or fall apart.

Deathshroud has been recently nerfed. It is always a 10 second cooldown now. There was another nerf which was unintentional – your skills got interupted when your life force ran out while in DS. Luckily this was fixed, but it left behind an interesting thought. I have a suggestion. I threw around a certain idea in the Necro sub-forum, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s the way Deathshroud should be.

Suggestion: Channels started before entering Deathshroud should be continued into Deathshroud form. Channels started while IN Deathshroud should be continued when the user exits Deathshroud by pressing the button (F1) twice.

I realize this has a lot of implications. Let’s explore a few of those implications, and how they would increase the Necromancer skill cap, create more interesting skill/trait interactions/synergy and combos. Feel free to comment on the overall idea, on any of the combos below, add anything you can think of, or just general discussion (whether you like the idea, or think it could potentially be a bit overpowered and if so, in what aspects).

1)Spinal Shivers would be able to be cast before entering Deathshroud, allowing for some burst to boon heavy targets. For example, traited with Deathly Perception, the Necro would have 50% more crit chance on Spinal Shivers. If the Necro also had 3 points in Curses – Furious Demise, this could easily equate to 100% crit chance for a few seconds in Deathshroud. In other words, the skill would be able to strip 3 boons, crit, while doing 50% more dmg for each boon. If Weakening Shroud is also taken, the mini-Enfeebling Blood could hit melee attackers to remove a blind so Spinal Shivers could easily hit, creating very nice synergy. Lastly, if the Necro also had Chill of Death , it’s basically another Spinal Shivers with potentially 100% crit chance. Chill of Death is already available to the Necro so nothing would change in that regard, but it would add to the combo/build. I would love to leave out Air Sigil + Fire Sigil but I have to put them here as well so we can actually think about the most extreme cases.

To sum up: we’d have Spinal Shivers flowing into DS and getting buffed by Deathly Perception and Furious Demise. Furious Demise likely isn’t a huge factor here because you can still get Fury from allies. You’d get a potential blind cleanse from Weakening Shroud, and a possible combo with Chill of Death if Sigil of Fire and Air both proc.

Upsides, gear-wise: Would not need to invest highly into precision and could potentially focus on Valkyrie stats or Cavalier. Downside to this would be relying on Deathshroud to deal damage and out-of-Deathshroud damage would likely be low with low precision.
Downside of 1): Would need to be Entering Deathshroud to deal damage as opposed to saving Deathshroud for a defensive purpose. Not to mention it would drain while you are in it. This could potentially put Deathshroud on a 10-second cooldown.

2) Ghastly Claws and Life Siphon. These skills would now be able to flow into Deathshroud. Life Siphon would not heal your actual health now, and would be simply used for long range damage, a potential downside. Ghastly Claws would now fill our Life Force while we are in Deathshroud – very nice for sustain. Deathly Perception and Furious Demise traits come to mind again. Furious Demise is not necessary with other sources of Fury, though. This would mean 100% crit chance with both Ghastly Claws and Life Siphon skills. If we sprinkle in Air sigil and Fire sigil, you can imagine the damage can be quite significant, but again, Deathshroud would need to be used offensively, as opposed to defensively. The two skills are fairly easy to dodge as well, since they are channeled – sort of like ranger Rapid Fire, in a sense. Life Siphon could be combed with Dark Pact for the root, however. This means that the enemy would not be able to dodge the high incoming damage. This would be even stronger if the enemy is rooted in Well of Suffering.

Upsides: This where the line to Overpoweredness really begin to blur. Ghastly Claws can be really scary with this combo. With Sigil of Fire, Sigil of Air, and Chill of Death…. You could essentially kill an enemy with that one skill (both sigils would trigger, for sure. If the enemy falls below 50%, Spinal Shivers from Chill of Death would hurt a LOT if the enemy has boons). This could easily be over 12k damage. The same applies to Dark Pact —> Well of Suffering --> Life Siphon —> DS combo.
-Ghastly Claws would fill your Life Force as you cast it and go into DS. This would give you a bit more sustain and counter-pressure. If you are low on health and you cast Ghastly Claws as you enter DS, you’d get the 13% Life Force while bursting your target down. You would need to be facing the target, though, which isn’t ideal for running.

Downsides: Going full glass to get the extreme effect of the combos would leave you squishy. You would also need to use Deathshroud offensively which would lock you into using Deathshroud skills. Once you leave Deathshroud, you’d now have 10 seconds of very low defense. Both skills are channeled skills and can be easily interrupted and dodged.

3) Transfusion would now heal the user if damage brings Life Force to 0 while Life Transfer is being cast and the Necro goes into human form while still channeling the skill. It could also be used as an actual heal if Deathshroud (F1) is tapped twice to exit DS. The latter function may not be as useful because most of the time Necros try to go into Deathshroud to protect themselves, and tapping it puts it on a 10 second cooldown, which could leave you vulnerable. So you put your DS on a 10-sec cooldown for the minor heal from Transfusion. Not to mention the channel can be easily interrupted, unless one takes Foot in the Grave for the stability for safe casting. Additionally, it could be even more powerful in conjunction with Deathly Invigoration in a support build, especially if you are not being focused. The heals from both skills could add up quite a bit. In the most extreme case, a full Clerics Necro with Monk Runes and Sigil of Life (people would be highly unlikely to take both unless it’s meant to be a support or full tank Necro) would be about 6k to all allies with Life Transfer (and 5.6k to yourself) and 1.1k with Deathly Invigoration, and 1k health to yourself. I would imagine a build with 6 in Blood and 6 in Soul Reaping for Path of Midnight for quicker Life Transfer and Near to Death for quicker Deathly Invigoration. Lastly, It could also work in an interesting way if this is done while standing in Well of Blood, which also works in the above build – 6 points in Blood. The last trait could be well cooldowns. Well of blood would heal you for 6.9k flat, then 943 per second, for 5 seconds = 4.7k health to you. Allies would be healed for for 5170 health instead, if they stand in the well.

However. Runes of Water are also a choice. With 1.6k healing power, with full Life stacks and Clerics, your heal skill would additionally heal for 1.5k to those around you, including yourself. In other words, Well of Blood would heal you for 8.4k (6.9k from well + 1.5k from runes), and would heal those around you for up to 6.2k (4.7k from well with Runes of Water, NOT Runes of Monk +1.5k from Runes of Water).
Lastly, the 20% boon duration would increase the regen from Mark of Blood (which already heals for 2k over 6 seconds) and would increase the stability duration from Foot in the Grave to 3.5 – 4 seconds, depending on whether you have points in Death Magic, and it could increase the duration of protection from wells to 4 seconds if Ritual of Protection is taken —> Potentially good with Well of Power as well.

To sum up, with the easier flow of Life Transfer into and out of Deathshroud, we could potentially have a 6k AoE heal to allies (5.6k to yourself), with stability. We would also have a 1k heal every time we leave Deathshroud, which would nicely synergize with the quick pressing of Deathshroud for stability and the full received heal from Life Transfer. This would increase our sustain by giving us an easy 6.6k heal (5.6k from Life Transfer, 1k from Deathly Invigoration). If we sprinkle in Well of Blood on top of that, that’s another potential 8.4k heal to you, + 6.2k to everyone ( 4.7k to you. 4.7k + 1.5k from Rune of Water to everyone else) in it over 5 seconds. Now if we add 2k heals over 6 seconds from Mark of Blood…

Things to keep in mind: The above build would be very support/bunker oriented, and I imagine the damage would be low, but it’s similar to a cleric support shout guardian, in a sense. It might add an interesting option to Necromancers in sPvP/tPvP for holding points.

4) Putrid Mark. Deathly Perception, Furious Demise + Putrid Mark for 100% crit chance. Now sprinkle in Sigil of Fire or Air, or both. Now cast Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles, all while standing in Well of Suffering. That AoE could be monstrous.

5) Scepter as a ranged power Necro weapon?
Feast of Corruption. Deathly Perception+Furious Demise. 100% crit chance, and 8% more damage per condition on an enemy could make for a really powerful long, range, single target spike, on top of the life force gained. Although I think Spinal Shivers would fulfill this role much better.

6) Necrotic Bite (dagger’s 3rd auto attack) would now be able to flow into DS and could have 100% crit chance (it now hits 2 people) and would fill up to 6.6% life force, while we are DS. This could easily be over 3k damage, followed by Life Blast bombing or other DS skills.

Side note: Some Necros don’t get how to use wurm and say the cast time is too long. The stability from Foot in the Grave could now be used to safely summon Wurm mid-battle by starting the cast before entering Deathshroud, then entering DS for stability.

The reason why I’m writing big paragraphs is because I don’t want to just narrowly look into the change and say “Oh Life Transfer would flow into DS.” Yes, it would. But it’s nice to look at all the implications of that, and how these things would relate to other aspects of Necros, Sigils or Runes.

Overall, this change would add fluidity to the whole Necromancer class, because no matter which build you play, flowing cast times into and Deathshroud are relevant. Enfeebling Blood, Locust Swarm, Grasping Dead, any of the Staff Marks (you are just low on health but want that one mark to slow or fear your opponents as you cover your health with DS. Or you want to quickly cast Putrid Mark before DS. In my opinion, this change would make more use for Foot in the Grave. You could ensure certain skills you REALLY want to go off actually do go off uninterupted). Additional skills that would benefit from the overall change: Dark Pact, Deathly Swarm, Unholy Feast, Reaper’s Touch, and Wail of Doom + utilities with cast times.
In terms of offensive capabilities, this change would most certainly buff power Necros, while not affecting condition Necros much, in terms of damage. All Necros would gain more combos and quality of life improvements, and a more enjoyable gameplay experience —> it would be very similar to how Elementalists can channel skills while swapping attunements.
If certain combos are too strong, the damage coefficients could easily be reduced
on those skills to compensate.

Deathshroud, I feel, is in a weird spot right now because it’s not REALLY a transform, but it’s sort of treated like it is. They may have felt it was just easiest to treat it as a transform, but doing that reduces a LOT of potential that the mechanic could have. If coding for it isn’t a HUGE problem, I think there’s no reason cast-times shouldn’t flow through the 2 different Necro states. Deathshroud should be treated like what it is – a different state that the Necro is in, just like an attunement from an Elementalist, except a Necro’s attunement is death.

TL;DR Skill casting flowing into and out of Deathshroud would allow for interesting skill/trait interactions, which would open a lot of doors for Necro combos, as well as new builds (for example – support). Shows some combos where things could get wacky, interesting, or good.

Anyway, any comments or thoughts on the idea?

Really in depth post, read all of it and wish others would be this detailed. I really like this idea simply because it makes the class more exciting and interesting too play, which is what the devs should be focused on. I think some of the combos would be a tad too strong, but that is ok. We could get nerfed later in exchange for awesome combos. Overall really awesome post, necros (all the classes really) deserve the type of combos eles, mesmers, thieves, and engineers have.

it was a nice post, but there are three things that bother me.
First deathly perception, I think you are overestimating it’s power. Deathly perception does not increase damage potential, it only increase the probability of reaching a higher damage potential . Another thing to note is that by adding this functionality is very similar to thiefs 100% crit for moves done in stealth. So I don’t see any problem.

The second thing is that the healing/cooldown and the healing/casttime of transfusion, is similar to the healing/cooldown and the healing/casttime of empower, and we don’t consider that skill as overpowered.

Last is the fact that you forgot siphons, you only talked about life siphon, but you missed vampiric and vampiric precision + life transfer.

nahhh gonna have to disagree with this one. like you said, ghastly claws and gang would hit reaally hard. there would be nerfs, then there would be the necessity to bring deathly perception. the cycle never ends. there really isnt a need for more damage (basically what youre asking for) on power necro. what we need is more sustain and less burst damage imo.

i do believe that life transfer should continue upon exiting DS and any traits (like LT healing) should subsequently be allowed to properly function.

@zapv, I agree that some things may be too strong… but it would be in exchange to the huge additional combos we’d be able to pull off…
I think, as you said, things can be nerfed after.

Tim.6450:

it was a nice post, but there are three things that bother me.
First deathly perception, I think you are overestimating it’s power. Deathly perception does not increase damage potential, it only increase the probability of reaching a higher damage potential . Another thing to note is that by adding this functionality is very similar to thiefs 100% crit for moves done in stealth. So I don’t see any problem.

That is sort of true but you have to think… it increases your crit chance by a whole 50%. If you had fury on DS, you only need 30% crit chance outside DS to have 100% crit in Deathshroud. 100% crit chance can be a huge deal when doing hard-hitting skills like Ghastly Claws, etc. The difference between Thief’s Hidden Killer is that Hidden Killer only allows only one attack to crit. This would be comparable to using Spinal Shivers, but when you start thinking about Ghastly Claws, which hit repeatedly… I am not sure how high the damage would reach, to be honest.

Tim.6450:

The second thing is that the healing/cooldown and the healing/casttime of transfusion, is similar to the healing/cooldown and the healing/casttime of empower, and we don’t consider that skill as overpowered.

Last is the fact that you forgot siphons, you only talked about life siphon, but you missed vampiric and vampiric precision + life transfer.

Oohhh.. You are right I never thought of it that way. I think Life Transfer heal, with full Clerics would be higher than Empower (with 1.6k heal power, Empower heals for 3.1k health whereas Life Transfer would heal for twice as much). But the only thing is, Life Transfer has a twice as long of a cooldown (40 seconds for Life Transfer, 20 for Empower). Also, we need to actually use up a trait to make Life Transfer heal, whereas Guardians don’t, and Empower also gives allies 12 Might, whereas Life Transfer doesn’t.
-If a Guardian also uses Altruistic Healing he would gain health for each boon he gives to an ally or himself. With 1.6k Heal Power and 4-5 allies around him he’d get 86 health each time. So the guardian would get about 1.3k extra health (I think it’s 1.3k health. I didn’t have time to test this yet, but it’s possible that it’s more).
-If we factor in Vampiric, that’s about 38 health per enemy hit. If that hits 5 people, with 9 pulses —> extra 1.7k health to you and an extra 342 with Bloodthirst.
-Vampiric Precision would increase this but I don’t know how much precision you’d have with the build. It could heal for another 1.5k or more tho and you can imagine it would be more with Bloodthirst.
-So I think you are absolutely right. If the suggestion came into effect, Life Transfer’s healing would be on par with a Guardian’s Empower.

Stand The Wall.6987:

nahhh gonna have to disagree with this one. like you said, ghastly claws and gang would hit reaally hard. there would be nerfs, then there would be the necessity to bring deathly perception. the cycle never ends. there really isnt a need for more damage (basically what youre asking for) on power necro. what we need is more sustain and less burst damage imo.

i do believe that life transfer should continue upon exiting DS and any traits (like LT healing) should subsequently be allowed to properly function.

That could be true, that nerfs would probably come. But I don’t know if you’d necessarily have to bring Deathly Perception if your crit chance is already high enough, or if you had Sigil of Intelligence - you could swap weapons and cast Spinal Shivers, but it wouldn’t work for Ghastly Claws because it hits more than 3 times… anyway. I’m not TOO familiar with power Necros, but I think it would just allow for more options to those who do bring Deathly Perception, as well as every other Necro, except other Necros wouldn’t benefit as much in terms of damage. I also used Deathly Perception as an example because it’s one of the only traits that makes your stats really different from when you are in and out of Deathshroud, so if we can channel non-DS skills into DS, effects would be significant, for sure.

I can’t disagree with Necros needing more sustain. ESPECIALLY after they made DS a flat 10 seconds cooldown. The 10-second cooldown is an entirely different issue tho. When thinking about the suggested change in this thread, the change would increase sustain by a tiny bit. You could finish cast things like Ghastly Claws, Feast of Corruption, or Necrotic Bite – skills that fill your life force – while you are in Deathshroud. This means that your DS could protect you quicker (don’t have to wait for your skill to go off before entering DS), while your Life Force charges up. It could also be nicely synergized with something like Armored Shroud - minor trait in Death Magic.
A good example could be a ranger using rapid fire on you, and you start casting Ghastly Claws, then enter DS. Your life force would go up from Ghastly Claws but down from Ranger Rapid Fire. So in other words you’d be able to somewhat tank the incoming damage instead of eating the damage with your real health. Good players would be able to utilize it like that (a nice example of increased skill cap I think).
——Finally… our overall sustain, no matter which build, would increase by a bit just by being to finish any skill we want in DS —> we wouldn’t lose as much actual health.

I actually thought of the suggested change when they nerfed our DS by making skills interrupt themselves. I thought “Hey… shouldn’t it actually be the other way around? Shouldn’t skills have been able to go between the two states to begin with?” The nerf – whether it was intentional or just a side effect – doesn’t make sense to me at all. I mean… why give us the ability to res or stomp when it can be a liability. Sure, there’s ways around it by popping Spectral Armor and then ressing or stomping, but come on xD
When I thought of this suggestion I thought of certain examples and focused on power Necros cuz I think they would be the ones getting a huge buff, and that could be a problem, especially since their damage would increase by quite a bit, and there’s no doubt about that. But I don’t play power Necro (yet) so I thought some people who actually play it could provide some interesting feedback on this.

Sorry I have to dissagree with this one.
While it would increase skill cap, DS realy is a tranformation, it’s like a 3rd weapon swap, RPG-wise it doean’t make sense to use the special powers of DS outside of it.
Furthermore, it would reduce counter play. Nuking necro’s LF to 0 is the main counter to its skills, so in some way you’re also reducing the skill cap.

We can already use abilities outside of DS and “drag” them in, like dropping Well of Suffering, or using dagger OH skills right before going DS. You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

I think power necro, or how I call it, zerkomancer, is in a good place regaeding skill cap atm.
Imo we need improvrd sustainability, some QoL changes to certain cast times, + aninations on powerful skills like corrupt boon.

Oh and I almost forgot, probably all necro’s know this:

You can use Dark Path and immidiatly leave DS after the cast, it does not affect the projectile. You can chain the port with dagger AA for example.

Same thing goes for Tainted Shackles, after the initial short channel, it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re in DS or not. The skill will keep pulsing.

DanSH.6143:

You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

Tsk tsk tsk, I expected better from a PvPboy like you

Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud – for both Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk

I think the trait Spectral Attunement is not negated by DS though, but I’d need to test that…

GoogleBrandon.5073:

DanSH.6143:

You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

Tsk tsk tsk, I expected better from a PvPboy like you

Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud – for both Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk

I think the trait Spectral Attunement is not negated by DS though, but I’d need to test that…

It’s not removed anymore, read the notes in that wiki page..

DanSH.6143:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

DanSH.6143:

You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

Tsk tsk tsk, I expected better from a PvPboy like you

Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud – for both Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk

I think the trait Spectral Attunement is not negated by DS though, but I’d need to test that…

It’s not removed anymore, read the notes in that wiki page..

Well watta ye know, shows how much coffee one needs on the early morning – still, the edit could’ve been more subtle within the wiki then

Granted, shows how much I used Spectrals up until now >.>

Edit:

another -10 for me trying to be a kitten

GoogleBrandon.5073:

DanSH.6143:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

DanSH.6143:

You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

Tsk tsk tsk, I expected better from a PvPboy like you

Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud – for both Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk

I think the trait Spectral Attunement is not negated by DS though, but I’d need to test that…

It’s not removed anymore, read the notes in that wiki page..

Well watta ye know, shows how much coffee one needs on the early morning – still, the edit could’ve been more subtle within the wiki then

Granted, shows how much I used Spectrals up until now >.>

Edit:

another -10 for me trying to be a kitten

As I always say, morning is op.

Fixed the wiki for Spectral Armor. Should prevent that mistake in the future.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Fixed the wiki for Spectral Armor. Should prevent that mistake in the future.

Lol.. now we must assume you are right

(i don’t doubt you!)

On topic ..
I’m a driver not a mechanic.
So i gotta take my time to understand all this before giving my salty comments.
and it’s a lot to comprehend ^^

All I changed was deletion of the line saying it was removed in death shroud in the skill description.

Since this seems like it would require a lot of cooldown balancing and proper timing to actually execute, I’m for it. Skill based play should be promoted. Although this does seem mostly like a buff to power necros more than all necros, since most condition skills have short cast times. But, it would definitely buff foot in the grave to help get off important casts, and this whole thing could help necromancers more effectively stomp.

DanSH.6143:

Sorry I have to dissagree with this one.
While it would increase skill cap, DS realy is a tranformation, it’s like a 3rd weapon swap, RPG-wise it doean’t make sense to use the special powers of DS outside of it.
Furthermore, it would reduce counter play. Nuking necro’s LF to 0 is the main counter to its skills, so in some way you’re also reducing the skill cap.

Hmm. It used to be considered a transform because it was basically like Plague, Lich, Tornado or whatever – you were unable to interact with things, your on-swap sigils triggered when entering the transform (if I remember correctly), your Signets don’t affect you anymore, etc. But that sort of changed… now your on-swap sigils don’t trigger, and you can interact with things (ressing + stomping). So it’s sort of… not REALLY a transform, but it kind of is.
Wouldn’t it be better to not consider it a transform, and instead consider it sort of like the Necro’s attunement of death? Elementalists are attuned to the elements, a Necro is attuned to death. Elementalists can channel skills, res, stomp, anything while swapping between their attunement. For example, they can cast Meteor Shower, while swapping to Earth to get all the Earth bonuses + all the Earth skills (like the reflection aura)… as well as Fury on attunement swap. This allows for really nice fluidity and combos. If a Necro’s DS was similar, we’d be able to cast skills in a similar way, between the two states. A Necro can start casting a skill, then attune to Death (DS) and get some of the bonuses.
I think a good counter to DS (if it worked as was suggested) is also being able to dodge the initial skill, like Spinal Shivers or Ghastly Claws. You can also interrupt the Necro with CC, or the Necro could be forced to enter DS defensively if they are focused.

DanSH.6143:

We can already use abilities outside of DS and “drag” them in, like dropping Well of Suffering, or using dagger OH skills right before going DS. You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

That’s true, and those things synergize really well. Well of Suffering and Deathly Perception, for example. Or Locust Swarm and Deathly Perception.

DanSH.6143:

I think power necro, or how I call it, zerkomancer, is in a good place regaeding skill cap atm.
Imo we need improvrd sustainability, some QoL changes to certain cast times, + aninations on powerful skills like corrupt boon.

I agree, especially about the sustainability part now that they nerfed the “Deathshroud dancing” playstyle. The suggestion wasn’t really meant to buff power Necros – or at least that’s not what I had in mind initially. If the change did take place, power Necros would be buffed by it the most, which is why I focused on them.

DanSH.6143:

You can use Dark Path and immidiatly leave DS after the cast, it does not affect the projectile. You can chain the port with dagger AA for example.

Same thing goes for Tainted Shackles, after the initial short channel, it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re in DS or not. The skill will keep pulsing.

Yeah that’s true. And it’s that kind of fluidity/synergy of playstyle that prompted my suggestion ( casting Dark Path, then exiting DS while it travels to the person, and using another attack). Or using wells then entering DS.

Also to the additional comments about spectrals – yes. Spectral skills work through DS. S.Wall, S.Armor and S.Walk all charge your life force while you are in DS.

Might I add?

Necromancer
•Death Shroud: Reverted a change that caused this effect to incorrectly cancel abilities (such as stomping) when the necromancer’s death shroud runs out.

A nice rollback. Good, going in the right direction.

I’m all for making DS more functional. Right now it’s hard to say the class is bad, but it’s almost never a threat to me unless they start the fight with access to DS. When they do have DS, they feel like an unstoppable killing machine. When they don’t, you just gotta be ready to dodge a few dangerous attacks and you’re good. If you have CC it’s almost a joke.

Having DS be more “easy come, easy go” could make the class feel more rounded. What I mean is that it takes less time to gain Life Force, but in exchange you get to spend less time in it. This could be paired with a slight reduction in CD. This could even help with the stability issue a bit because Foot in the Grave could be activated more frequently. It would be like a strange middle ground between adrenaline and Attunments.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’m all for making DS more functional. Right now it’s hard to say the class is bad, but it’s almost never a threat to me unless they start the fight with access to DS. When they do have DS, they feel like an unstoppable killing machine. When they don’t, you just gotta be ready to dodge a few dangerous attacks and you’re good. If you have CC it’s almost a joke.

Having DS be more “easy come, easy go” could make the class feel more rounded. What I mean is that it takes less time to gain Life Force, but in exchange you get to spend less time in it. This could be paired with a slight reduction in CD. This could even help with the stability issue a bit because Foot in the Grave could be activated more frequently. It would be like a strange middle ground between adrenaline and Attunments.

They could reduce the maximim LF and increase the rate of generating it… Just a though.

^ That’s been mentioned before but I think it never hurts to mention it again. I think nerfing total DS and really ramping up regeneration is the only true way to address necro sustain.

Roe.3679:

^ That’s been mentioned before but I think it never hurts to mention it again. I think nerfing total DS and really ramping up regeneration is the only true way to address necro sustain.

Yes and no. A large chunk of the reasons Necros get no blocks, evades, or Vigor is because Death Shroud can be used for a long period of time. For example, when ressing or stomping, having a large pool is far better to having a smaller, more rapidly refilled one. Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr, and Death Shiver all get benefit from larger death shroud pools rather than quick refills (which some builds pull off anyway).

Reducing the size of death shroud means a lot more work to re-balance things than just increasing life force gain. Would the end result be better? Possibly, but not certain. I’m not against the idea, but I don’t think it would be as helpful as you think.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Roe.3679:

^ That’s been mentioned before but I think it never hurts to mention it again. I think nerfing total DS and really ramping up regeneration is the only true way to address necro sustain.

Yes and no. A large chunk of the reasons Necros get no blocks, evades, or Vigor is because Death Shroud can be used for a long period of time. For example, when ressing or stomping, having a large pool is far better to having a smaller, more rapidly refilled one. Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr, and Death Shiver all get benefit from larger death shroud pools rather than quick refills (which some builds pull off anyway).

Reducing the size of death shroud means a lot more work to re-balance things than just increasing life force gain. Would the end result be better? Possibly, but not certain. I’m not against the idea, but I don’t think it would be as helpful as you think.

Right, staying in DS benefits traits that are largely considered bad or subpar and are used in niche builds if at all. But I see this change as being more balanced and potentially more skill based than it is currently, much like OP’s suggestion. Both changes would really make necromancer a more interesting class.

Roe.3679:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Roe.3679:

^ That’s been mentioned before but I think it never hurts to mention it again. I think nerfing total DS and really ramping up regeneration is the only true way to address necro sustain.

Yes and no. A large chunk of the reasons Necros get no blocks, evades, or Vigor is because Death Shroud can be used for a long period of time. For example, when ressing or stomping, having a large pool is far better to having a smaller, more rapidly refilled one. Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr, and Death Shiver all get benefit from larger death shroud pools rather than quick refills (which some builds pull off anyway).

Reducing the size of death shroud means a lot more work to re-balance things than just increasing life force gain. Would the end result be better? Possibly, but not certain. I’m not against the idea, but I don’t think it would be as helpful as you think.

Right, staying in DS benefits traits that are largely considered bad or subpar and are used in niche builds if at all. But I see this change as being more balanced and potentially more skill based than it is currently, much like OP’s suggestion. Both changes would really make necromancer a more interesting class.

So what happens to those traits when you lessen their sustained use? What you are advocating is essentially “those traits are weak, so let’s nerf them.”

Not the way to balance a game. Reducing life force pool and increasing life force generation is a possibility to make a more sustained necromancer, but it also completely kills things that are currently too weak. There is a lot more work that needs to be done than just altering some numbers, and the answers are not straightforward.

I think the idea of reducing the cooldown of DS, lowering the life force pool, but making it recharge quicker would could be very interesting but some drawbacks were already mentioned:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yes and no. A large chunk of the reasons Necros get no blocks, evades, or Vigor is because Death Shroud can be used for a long period of time. For example, when ressing or stomping, having a large pool is far better to having a smaller, more rapidly refilled one. Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr, and Death Shiver all get benefit from larger death shroud pools rather than quick refills (which some builds pull off anyway).

A necro with a large, full DS (how it is now) can tank quite a bit when taking focus fire. If the life force pool was smaller, you wouldn’t be able to tank sudden, strong focus fire as well. Instead, with quicker refilling/cooldown, you would be able to tank smaller bursts of damage better (you’d have life force at your disposal more often, just less of it, so to speak).
The traits that benefit from prolonged staying in DS would also be weakened because you wouldn’t be able to stay in DS for as long (although I don’t think many people stay in DS from 100% to 0% or use those traits too much).
BUT…. the effects of this could really be “alleviated” in builds that use Locust Swarm, Spectral Walk/Spectral Armor/Spectral Wall. Builds that use those would be able to tank focus fire well, would be able to stay in DS for a long time, which would allow them to get a benefit of the above mentioned traits, AND would benefit from quicker regeneration of DS and (possibly) its reduced cooldown.

For me, I think it would be a pretty huge change, in terms of how Necros are. It would be almost like a “from the ground up” change – a lot of things would have to be re-balanced. It would work really well for my build, no doubt about that, but those that don’t use spectrals or Warhorn, I don’t know what the outcome would be.

I think they could just increase our overall life force regeneration through skills.
For example, going back to Eles. With 0 points in Arcana (Arcana reduces attunement cooldowns), I think Eles had around 16 seconds of cooldown on attunement swap (something along those lines). Then this was changed to 13 seconds to discourage builds that focus on Arcana. So basically their class mechanic got a slight buff for those that don’t focus on Arcana (I’ll admit – not many people).
But…why not make a similar thing to Necros – reduce the reliance on traiting into DS for sustain and instead just give all Necros better Life Force regen?

How would people feel with a passive Soul Marks on staff? So no traiting, no nothing, just a passive 2-3% life force per mark?
I’m tempted to write more about the implications of this but I’ll wait

p.s. I do realize staff auto attack fly speed was buffed, but not everyone is gonna stand there spamming 1 to get life force.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Roe.3679:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Roe.3679:

^ That’s been mentioned before but I think it never hurts to mention it again. I think nerfing total DS and really ramping up regeneration is the only true way to address necro sustain.

Yes and no. A large chunk of the reasons Necros get no blocks, evades, or Vigor is because Death Shroud can be used for a long period of time. For example, when ressing or stomping, having a large pool is far better to having a smaller, more rapidly refilled one. Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr, and Death Shiver all get benefit from larger death shroud pools rather than quick refills (which some builds pull off anyway).

Reducing the size of death shroud means a lot more work to re-balance things than just increasing life force gain. Would the end result be better? Possibly, but not certain. I’m not against the idea, but I don’t think it would be as helpful as you think.

Right, staying in DS benefits traits that are largely considered bad or subpar and are used in niche builds if at all. But I see this change as being more balanced and potentially more skill based than it is currently, much like OP’s suggestion. Both changes would really make necromancer a more interesting class.

So what happens to those traits when you lessen their sustained use? What you are advocating is essentially “those traits are weak, so let’s nerf them.”

Not the way to balance a game. Reducing life force pool and increasing life force generation is a possibility to make a more sustained necromancer, but it also completely kills things that are currently too weak. There is a lot more work that needs to be done than just altering some numbers, and the answers are not straightforward.

Ok I get your point, but after thinking about this, I’m not totally sure that these traits would be nerfed, because if it were actually done and done properly, overall DS uptime would be the same, and in the hands of a skilled player it should actually be stronger. Also, I never at any point said that it was just tweaking some numbers, I think we realistically need bigger death shroud reform that not only includes this idea, but the OP’s idea, and giving us back our weapon swap, and seeing our utilities’ cooldowns, and allowing our healing traits to work, and allowing signets to work, let alone more meaningful group support.

With that said, it seems like you’re suggesting that balance needs to include these traits, which are just bandaids to larger issues of sustain and group support. Why balance around those, when you can address the real issues that caused those traits to exist in the first place?

Death Shiver has been around since launch

They aren’t central to balance. but any changes to the fundamentals of Death Shroud do need to take them into account.

The traits may have been introduced as “band-aids”, but now they are a part of the class. If Death Shroud gets major changes, it will require a ton of thought. Even so, Death Shroud has never been about party support. That is a totally different (but related) animal that needs to get tackled.

Part of my suggestion was the ability to exit Deathshroud (willingly) and have your skills still go off. For example – Life Transfer. That might encourage more Necros to go with supporty or hybrid/support builds (like celestial, apothecary/settlers, clerics) because you would be able to start casting Life Transfer with Transfusion trait, then exit DS and get the heal yourself. That would be…. great! It makes the trait a LOT more appealing. Transfusion is sort of okay how it is now but it’s a bit too selfless. Most other support-type skills in the game also positively affect the caster in some way, as well as the ally. Tranfusion doesn’t really, and we don’t get much benefit out of it. My suggestion would help with that, and could open the doors to a more supporty side of Necros.