Guild Wars 2

necromancers need to be able to recieve heals while in deathshroud

when playing a necro a you saw a party heal being cast by a teammate but wasn’t able to benefit from it because of deathshroud
or
when playing with a necro teammate and you tried to heal them but was ineffective because they went into deathshroud

both situation causes unnecessary grief for the necro or the helpful teammate
removes the fun of teamwork
causes frustration when attempting teamwork
and causes grief for both the reciever and giver of the heal
and there is no fun enjoyment in not being able to recieve healing while in deathshroud

notes
coming out of deathshroud is not an option because you might be take multiple hit that will kill you instantly
you might need to use the skills in deathshroud to be able to play

because necromancer have deathshroud they lose other valuable other defensive option that can negate far more damage than deathshroud
deathshroud isn’t a second healthbar because we go down when we run out of hp not deathshroud

That’s never going to happen, it’d make necro healing skills too good.

I think we need to be able to receive our self-traited healing mechanics while in DS, but not ally heals, simply so our defensive mechanic doesn’t counter our defensive mechanics.

But being able to receive heals form everyone is a massive buff to survivability. To my knowledge no one else is able to receive healing while temporarily invulnerable (which is effectively what DS is as far as HP goes, a very temporary invuln).

Allow self healing to pass in and change the party UI to make it obvious when I am in DS and not healable (make the HP bar green with my HP still displayed underneath).

Bhawb.7408:

I think we need to be able to receive our self-traited healing mechanics while in DS, but not ally heals, simply so our defensive mechanic doesn’t counter our defensive mechanics.

But being able to receive heals form everyone is a massive buff to survivability. To my knowledge no one else is able to receive healing while temporarily invulnerable (which is effectively what DS is as far as HP goes, a very temporary invuln).

Actually, everyone else is able to do so. The difference is that death shroud is up much more frequently than true invulnerability. Death Shroud is literally the only mechanic in the game that makes your HP unable to go up.

Olba.5376:

That’s never going to happen, it’d make necro healing skills too good.

this doesn’t improve the necro healing skills at all because you can’t use skills 6 to 0 while in ds

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bhawb.7408:

I think we need to be able to receive our self-traited healing mechanics while in DS, but not ally heals, simply so our defensive mechanic doesn’t counter our defensive mechanics.

But being able to receive heals form everyone is a massive buff to survivability. To my knowledge no one else is able to receive healing while temporarily invulnerable (which is effectively what DS is as far as HP goes, a very temporary invuln).

Actually, everyone else is able to do so. The difference is that death shroud is up much more frequently than true invulnerability. Death Shroud is literally the only mechanic in the game that makes your HP unable to go up.

Just for discussion purposes that’s not entirely true, since unholy sanctuary does that exactly. Obviously not for much at all, but it does.

I think that – barring buffs to life force generation – this issue is the key to fixing necromancer complaints about sustain. It’s dumb to me that my own traits don’t heal me when using my only defensive tool and that my allies can’t support me in an inportant way when I’m defending myself.

They should just make unholy sanctuary more accessible. Lower it in the trait line to the adept or master. DS is only super strong if traited for it, so non ds builds would still not get full benefit from the trait, but it also wouldn’t make ds damage builds op because players would need to sacrifice damage. Despite the sacrifice, I could definitely see a lot of players consider using it.

MercilessLemurs.7459:

They should just make unholy sanctuary more accessible. Lower it in the trait line to the adept or master. DS is only super strong if traited for it, so non ds builds would still not get full benefit from the trait, but it also wouldn’t make ds damage builds op because players would need to sacrifice damage. Despite the sacrifice, I could definitely see a lot of players consider using it.

Makes sense as a suggestion. Personally I can’t see using the trait without vital persistence because otherwise you lose more than you gain by staying in DS, so really it’s 8 points for simple regen. Makes a better argument for healing in DS, though.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Actually, everyone else is able to do so. The difference is that death shroud is up much more frequently than true invulnerability. Death Shroud is literally the only mechanic in the game that makes your HP unable to go up.

Oh, my bad then. I had never noticed this on other professions.

I’m still not sure that receiving all outside healing would be entirely balanced, tbh, although at the very least ANet needs to look into it.

I do think self-traited healing should be looked at though, things like siphoning. The only issue I have is that some builds of ours are already very tanky despite our mechanics right now (and aren’t viable almost entirely due to bad weapons), and this would really throw things out of balance.

If I could receive healing in deathshroud it would make me horrendously OP. A little more sustain on life for generation and easier access to stability would be better.

Fought a Necro today that went to DS, I took down DS and got him to half health. By that time (10 seconds? after DS was gone) DS was up again and at full…

Not sure what kind of extra healing you’d need to not be able to survive with such tools when specced for surviving of course…

I just noticed that no one included the healing by unholy sanctuary, it’s about 130 HP per second. Take that for what you will, the way I see it, I think my death shroud lasts about 20 sec while taking heat in the average wvw fight, so it’s only about a 2.5k heal.

While the new trait is a interesting move, it is pretty much regeneration without the boon.

In any case, ANet is all about balancing the edge cases. Sadly this leaves anything not out on the extreme edge wanting.

What they are looking at is not individual skills on their own, but what happens when the skill is combined with the trait, is combined with the gear, is combined with the food to make a massive one trick pony or glass cannon.

And then they locate the biggest piece of that pile, and “shave” it…

MercilessLemurs.7459:

I just noticed that no one included the healing by unholy sanctuary, it’s about 130 HP per second. Take that for what you will, the way I see it, I think my death shroud lasts about 20 sec while taking heat in the average wvw fight, so it’s only about a 2.5k heal.

Given necromancers massive health pool 2.5k isn’t too impressive. However if siphon traits triggered while in death shroud it would become much more interesting.
I think the biggest thing would be for signets like signet of vampirism’s passive to proc it’s effect while in death shroud.

MercilessLemurs.7459:

I just noticed that no one included the healing by unholy sanctuary, it’s about 130 HP per second. Take that for what you will, the way I see it, I think my death shroud lasts about 20 sec while taking heat in the average wvw fight, so it’s only about a 2.5k heal.

WvW isn’t a good source of balance decisions. Necro sustain is absolutely ridiculous there due to the number of deaths you get.

Swim.6830:

Fought a Necro today that went to DS, I took down DS and got him to half health. By that time (10 seconds? after DS was gone) DS was up again and at full…

Not sure what kind of extra healing you’d need to not be able to survive with such tools when specced for surviving of course…

Anecdotes with little extra information don’t help much. Was he full spectral build? Did he still keep up any offensive pressure? Were there other deaths happening?

The reality is that a necro build unless extremely specced for LF generation have very little else to bring except that. And even just LF generation isn’t enough to be very effective as a build. Its why you don’t see triple spectral bunkers anywhere.

We have no other way to actually prevent damage except to try to bunker in DeathShroud. DeathShroud is about a 2K temporary HP pool that does nothing if my HP is low. It is only currently useful for mitigating attacks when my HP is high so that it never gets low. This idea is very counterintuative. When I thought of DeathShroud, when I first played necro, I thought it was neat get out of a fight card. This is only true in PvE since AI tend to not chase you down. When I first got into WvWvW and tried to use DS to escape; well having an aditional 2K health doesn’t really get you much.

Now this would all be fine. I am okay with a class not being able to escape if it can do other defensive things. Necros have one of the worst sustain when specing sustain. So asking for all healing effects to work in DS is not OP. DS is not invun (where you can still be healed). Popping DS is kind of like getting a 2K sheild that deteriorates quickly where you cannot use you 6-0 skills (Though you do get some nice new 1-5 skills).

Also not having your own regen and your own traits work while in a certain state that is CORE to your class is bad design and is very unintuative.

Allow Transfusion (Blood …) to heal the Necromancer under DS and it will be enough or elseway allow 50% healing reduction under DS.

For allowing healing in death shroud, I feel it would be best to start slower. Make the Regeneration boon and the necro’s traits (Parasitic Contagion, Parasitic Bond, siphons) continue to function in death shroud and see where it goes from there. Transfusion in particular probably doesn’t need to change, as its purpose is more of group support rather than supporting the necro.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

For allowing healing in death shroud, I feel it would be best to start slower. Make the Regeneration boon and the necro’s traits (Parasitic Contagion, Parasitic Bond, siphons) continue to function in death shroud and see where it goes from there. Transfusion in particular probably doesn’t need to change, as its purpose is more of group support rather than supporting the necro.

Because we all know that people take necromancers for their amazing group support….. :/ Giving the necromancer more sustain through allowing their traits and skills that heal them to function in death shroud may actually give them a legitimate tanking build outside of near useless minions.

@Drarnor Kunoram: Actually you don’t get healed from it just because you’re in DS, elseway.. I wrote it in haste, i can rearrange it:

• Allow Life Transfer to heal for a certain amount (check Transfusion[BloodVI]);

• Allow 50% from all healings under DS.

Luke.4562:

@Drarnor Kunoram: Actually you don’t get healed from it just because you’re in DS

While true, the fact remains that it is a support trait more than a self-heal.

second life is not enough, now it needs heals too…

gesho.9468:

second life is not enough, now it needs heals too…

Champion mobs only have health as a defense. How well do they do?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

gesho.9468:

second life is not enough, now it needs heals too…

Champion mobs only have health as a defense. How well do they do?

Give me a champion’s stats and attacks and I would kick kitten with it. The AI is just dumb.

Aberrant.6749:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

gesho.9468:

second life is not enough, now it needs heals too…

Champion mobs only have health as a defense. How well do they do?

Give me a champion’s stats and attacks and I would kick kitten with it. The AI is just dumb.

Sure, but you give up all active defense.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Aberrant.6749:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

gesho.9468:

second life is not enough, now it needs heals too…

Champion mobs only have health as a defense. How well do they do?

Give me a champion’s stats and attacks and I would kick kitten with it. The AI is just dumb.

Sure, but you give up all active defense.

Wouldn’t matter.

gesho.9468:

second life is not enough, now it needs heals too…

Mainly because it is a very subpar defense compared to the defenses other classes in the game get. For Instance:

1. Blinks. Mesmers, Eles, Thieves, Guardians (target required), Necromancers, (DS 2 buggy pathing often misses, Flesh Wurm the only short CD stun breaker for necros.)

2. In Weapon evades. Every class has these except necromancers and guardians.

3. Invulnerability, All classes except necromancers and thieves (warriors are included for their stances which yes are invulnerabilities)

4. Stability, All classes except necromancers and thieves and rangers (Rampage as one is still great but a long cd) have access to stability on relatively short-ish cooldowns (Ele earth 4)

5. VIGOR, Every class has an amazing way to rapidly refill their endurance bar EXCEPT necros.

6. Blocks: Available to every class except necros and thieves.

7. Projectile absorption/reflection, this is available to absolutely every class except necros.

You will note necros do have some of these things however almost all classes get access to all of these. Usually if one class has no access to one they have several ways to access others. Take guardians lake of in weapon evades they make up for this with their extremely large amount of blocks that they can access.

Luke.4562:

Allow Transfusion (Blood …) to heal the Necromancer under DS and it will be enough or elseway allow 50% healing reduction under DS.

The devs specifically said the only reason they buffed this trait (and thus made it strong enough for use) was because of the fact that it doesn’t heal the Necro. It would have to remain as such to stay as is.

Bhawb.7408:

Luke.4562:

Allow Transfusion (Blood …) to heal the Necromancer under DS and it will be enough or elseway allow 50% healing reduction under DS.

The devs specifically said the only reason they buffed this trait (and thus made it strong enough for use) was because of the fact that it doesn’t heal the Necro. It would have to remain as such to stay as is.

It would be completely and utterly op if it also healed the necromancer. If you run out of life force right after casting it – the cast will continue and heal you because you are no longer in death shroud – not that it matters but just a fun fact. I would love to see better support weapons for necro because we have so many good traits that would make support builds super viable and fun to play.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Actually, everyone else is able to do so. The difference is that death shroud is up much more frequently than true invulnerability. Death Shroud is literally the only mechanic in the game that makes your HP unable to go up.

Oh, my bad then. I had never noticed this on other professions.

I’m still not sure that receiving all outside healing would be entirely balanced, tbh, although at the very least ANet needs to look into it.

I do think self-traited healing should be looked at though, things like siphoning. The only issue I have is that some builds of ours are already very tanky despite our mechanics right now (and aren’t viable almost entirely due to bad weapons), and this would really throw things out of balance.

other classes can build very tanky too. why does group support in healing too much for us but not the other classes?

Loco.4561:

If I could receive healing in deathshroud it would make me horrendously OP. A little more sustain on life for generation and easier access to stability would be better.

could you please explain.
Why do you become horrendously OP?

Loco.4561:

If I could receive healing in deathshroud it would make me horrendously OP. A little more sustain on life for generation and easier access to stability would be better.

Healing in DS gives more sustain, and is heavily dependent on group support. Why is that a worse option than life force generation and stability? How would it make you OP?

Tadsoul.6951:

other classes can build very tanky too. why does group support in healing too much for us but not the other classes?

Because we’ve been balanced for the past nearly 2 years based on us having to be self reliant on things like healing because of DS. My MM build already survives incredibly well despite DS countering some of my own healing, let alone other people’s.

Think of it this way, as it is now, you can have a spectral build that can basically pop into DS every time its up. Now you have the same build, and every time it goes into DS it can come back out with full HP.

The big key difference between a tanky Necro and a tanky anyone else, is that everyone else plays tanky, but with their own HP bar and active defense. A normal tank is tanky by using blocks, dodges, healing, boons, things that are generally counterable (and the mechanics that are pure invulns are very very short duration and uptimes). Necromancers, however, can’t really be “countered”, you can’t just use an unblockable skill to bypass our DS, you can’t remove DS or corrupt it, you can’t poison LF generation, you basically just need to deal more damage to them. As it is now, its okay because those builds need to rely completely on themselves for their defenses, so to be super tanky they need to really spec for it. So a Necro bunker would basically be uncounterable except through constant CC chaining while burning through a 3k armor 40k HP target that can very quickly refill that HP.

Also, Necros don’t have insignificant self healing. Once DS allows all types of healing to itself, it already has a large boost to self healing.

TL;DR, currently necro DS is balanced because of how selfish it is. The only big thing that needs fixing is how different parts of Necro completely invalidate each other. But to just blanket allow all healing to work through DS would be a massive boost to survivability that would really break DS-based builds.

Just fix the UI so my team can smartly heal me, and make it so DS doesn’t counter myself.

Is the trait for healing in DS the only thing which circumvents this?

Carighan.6758:

Is the trait for healing in DS the only thing which circumvents this?

Yes, that trait is the only way to receive healing while in DS.

Bhawb.7408:

Because we’ve been balanced for the past nearly 2 years based on us having to be self reliant on things like healing because of DS. My MM build already survives incredibly well despite DS countering some of my own healing, let alone other people’s.

Think of it this way, as it is now, you can have a spectral build that can basically pop into DS every time its up. Now you have the same build, and every time it goes into DS it can come back out with full HP.

The big key difference between a tanky Necro and a tanky anyone else, is that everyone else plays tanky, but with their own HP bar and active defense. A normal tank is tanky by using blocks, dodges, healing, boons, things that are generally counterable (and the mechanics that are pure invulns are very very short duration and uptimes). Necromancers, however, can’t really be “countered”, you can’t just use an unblockable skill to bypass our DS, you can’t remove DS or corrupt it, you can’t poison LF generation, you basically just need to deal more damage to them. As it is now, its okay because those builds need to rely completely on themselves for their defenses, so to be super tanky they need to really spec for it. So a Necro bunker would basically be uncounterable except through constant CC chaining while burning through a 3k armor 40k HP target that can very quickly refill that HP.

Also, Necros don’t have insignificant self healing. Once DS allows all types of healing to itself, it already has a large boost to self healing.

TL;DR, currently necro DS is balanced because of how selfish it is. The only big thing that needs fixing is how different parts of Necro completely invalidate each other. But to just blanket allow all healing to work through DS would be a massive boost to survivability that would really break DS-based builds.

Just fix the UI so my team can smartly heal me, and make it so DS doesn’t counter myself.

that sounds just like what im going for. here why though
I believe anet want the necromancer to be the class that has to see the fight to the end because he has no escaping option
his survivability would depend on his teammates making train the necro tactics less reliable (simply target the necro last)
this unkillable necro would need defenses so he is not full zerk and cant run condi(not enoguh lf regen)
also I don’t think it would work that perfectly

Your allies can heal you when you leave deathshroud then. Its not like they are forced to blow heals into your DS, they just have a knee-jerk reaction to seeing you suddenly at 20% because there is no way to know your HP vs LF. If they can see you go into DS and it looks distinctly different on your party UI, along with still showing your HP at the same time, then your allies can still heal you every bit as well as before.

The issue is I don’t think its balanced to allow 100% of all healing to affect someone with a temporary effective invulnerability to damage every 10s, even though it is generally very limited. Other true invulns get healing, but they also can’t cast any abilities or cap points, and are massively restricted by CDs. So sure ele can heal through mistform, but that’s for 3s every 75s, compared to up to 25s (50 traited) with a 10s CD.

I feel this is the biggest issue with necro sustain because it doesn’t allow team support which is key at the high level pvp level that we reference. There were support staff eles and guardians in the winning teams of ToL, correct? That is tons of ally healing wasted on a necro if they are using DS at the time, which they very well could be especially if its a reactionary heal from said teammates.

no no no!
i play a power necro in pvp and it feels godly already,
giving us the ability to receive heals in deathshroud would be ridiculously OP.
we’d be unkillable.

My greatest problem with the Necro is that we are supposed to be an attrition class, yet our method to attrition is worse than what other classes have. Healing while in ds would give us some more of that. In WvW I like to run a condition build because zergs like to get caught in aoe conditions circle from the staff (Not optimal I know). I don’t PvP much but in WvW if I am trying to get somewhere alone as a necro I have to pray to not get seen by more than 2 people. One person is fine, I can probably 1v1 them. If there is 2 people I am dead. I have 0 escapes. I have tried to juke and other things but I am mostly delayng the inevitable if they want to take me down. On my elementalist and theif I have so much escape available that I can get away. Now I am not saying that I should be able to 1v2. I am saying that I should be able to facetank that damage until help either arrives or they lose interest. If neither happens then I would die like usual.

NosGenerated.2786:

My greatest problem with the Necro is that we are supposed to be an attrition class, yet our method to attrition is worse than what other classes have. Healing while in ds would give us some more of that. In WvW I like to run a condition build because zergs like to get caught in aoe conditions circle from the staff (Not optimal I know). I don’t PvP much but in WvW if I am trying to get somewhere alone as a necro I have to pray to not get seen by more than 2 people.

This is a problem for the necro as well as a decent number of other specs.

Personally I think they should lower the cool down on spectral walk or turn it into a invisibility.

Lowering the Cool down on spectral armor (while lowering how much life force it gives) would also help allot.

Creating a rune set that does + condition damage & run speed would also help somewhat.

As for getting heals while in death shroud, I agree it should happen, albeit at a reduced %. What that % should be IDK, but it could be fine tuned easily enough.

Liewec.2896:

no no no!
i play a power necro in pvp and it feels godly already,
giving us the ability to receive heals in deathshroud would be ridiculously OP.
we’d be unkillable.

Do you know why gods require blood?

Because gods…don’t…bleed….

You on the other do just that.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

As for getting heals while in death shroud, I agree it should happen, albeit at a reduced %. What that % should be IDK, but it could be fine tuned easily enough.

Personally, i would say 25% They would be unkillable otherwise in groups. If they take that Regen in DS trait as well that is still decent healing even if other sources were at 25% effectiveness.

Can’t have it too high as Necromancer has such a high base pool of health and can just use Axe/Dagger skills to get life force back, jump into when they are like 50% health and wait it out until they are full health again…

I would say it would be a tad bit OP to receive 100% of heals while in DS. Maybe a percentage (possibly make it a trait) of ally heals, sure, or let the Life Transfusion heal (trait) heal you as well. I do agree we need some form of healing – even moving that new heal trait down from GM tier would work, since it’s kind of a lot of points to use just for a very, very small regen.