Guild Wars 2

Hi I’ve seen many threads that failed to deliver some sort of shroud revamp idea that would actually work in the real game.

To remind why is shroud currently a problem, these are some examples:

- it doesn’t scale with number of opponents
- there is no access for it at the beginning of fight
- it doesn’t work well as a defense (for example, a simple aegis will block an attack that hits for 9999999dmg, while your entire life force will not help mitigate that much).
- it doesn’t work well with your other skills (you’re locked out of signets and everything else)

My solution is:

Out of combat, life force resets to 50% if you have less than that. if you have more, you keep it (no degeneration).

F1 – core necro mechanic – Consume 50% of your life force, for 2 seconds all incoming damage heals you, 10 second cooldown.
F2 – core necro mechanic – Infuse hands with life force, gaining access to previous death shroud weapon skills. It works like engineer kit, but life force degenerates when using it.
F3 – elite spec mechanic – Reaper – Form your life force into a scythe and gain access to previous reaper’s shroud skills. Works same as f2.

F2 and F3 have no cooldown, like engi kits. (traits that affect shroud skill 2 and 4 should probably get icd to balance) life force degenerates but doesn’t get damage from mobs, health bar does!

This solution lets most of the traits remain unchanged (f1 would go for the “when entering death shroud” and f2 and f3 would go for the traits “shroud skill x causes …”)

With that being done, the rest of balancing for necro could finally happen. As we know, necro in it’s current state has no access to many mechanics other classes have, because of the problematic shroud mechanic. With shroud fixed, we could finally get some blasts, blocks, evades, superspeeds, lower cooldowns, more damage, party buffs.

I sincerely hope the devs read my idea and implement it in the game, I hope to at least inspire some good change.

The not scaling issue with shroud would be fixed if we had LF sources that actually scaled with incoming damage.

I don’t think more F# button is necessary, reinventing the entire class to fix a simple problem.

This is what I am talking about – my solution allows the shroud defensive aspect to scale with incoming damage.
I don’t see more F# buttons as a problem, and I don’t see that as reinvention of whole class. What I proposed is a relatively small change. It still keeps the visuals, you keep shroud skills, life force, everything nice about shroud is still there, only better.

Sublimatio.6981:

This is what I am talking about – my solution allows the shroud defensive aspect to scale with incoming damage.

And it does so by completely changing he fundamental nature and playstyle of the class.

We don’t need that. Something as simple as being able to covert incoming damage into LF. (at thus being able to rapidly fill shroud under fire) would fix our issues, without changing the fundamental principals of the class.

no need to reinvent the wheel for want of a simple solution.

I don’t see more F# buttons as a problem, and I don’t see that as reinvention of whole class. What I proposed is a relatively small change. It still keeps the visuals, you keep shroud skills, life force, everything nice about shroud is still there, only better.

Because your F#s are turning the class in a engi/rev cross breed instead of a necro.

I disagree with you, I think we need that. If anet made spectral armor turn all incoming damage into life force, you would still have to use 1 utility slot and have a long cooldown for that. The issue is the class mechanic, thats why it needs its own rework.
Your comparision to rev/engi is absurd, every class in the game has at least 2 F# skills already. Up to f5 with engi, ele, mesmer and ranger. Having more F# skills is not an issue – NOT having them is.

Also, the fundamental nature and playstyle isn’t dramatically changed – you still have life force and it depletes while using shroud skillsets, only now you wouldn’t be 1shotted in shroud while other classes invuln for 3 seconds and more, because you could do the same at it’s supposed to be. You speak of change as it’s a bad thing, while change is always aimed to do good

Sublimatio.6981:

I disagree with you, I think we need that. If anet made spectral armor turn all incoming damage into life force, you would still have to use 1 utility slot and have a long cooldown for that. The issue is the class mechanic, thats why it needs its own rework.

Paying a utility slot is fine. The non-scalar nature is only relevant to sPvP. And LF skills are already high picks in that mode anyways,

Also I would rather see diffused integration of scaling LF gain. Changes to a few traits here there. *cough*Soul Comprehension*cough*

Your comparision to rev/engi is absurd, every class in the game has at least 2 F# skills already. Up to f5 with engi, ele, mesmer and ranger. Having more F# skills is not an issue – NOT having them is.

My comparison is valid. Your suggestion changes LF into a resource mechanic like revs, even has the 50% normalization. Your suggested F1 is literally rev’s Infused Light has a profession mechanic. Your F2 and F3, are engi kits.

Also, the fundamental nature and playstyle isn’t dramatically changed – you still have life force and it depletes while using shroud skillsets, only now you wouldn’t be 1shotted in shroud while other classes invuln for 3 seconds and more, because you could do the same at it’s supposed to be. You speak of change as it’s a bad thing, while change is always aimed to do good

You changed the entire class from being designed around use of buffer sustain and transforms, to a class build around weapon swaps (your F2-3) and self healing.

In pvp change Life force to 25%. Start of match especially.
I think the F1 cool down should be longer… Essentially every 10 seconds a well timed F1 becomes a full heal, or it has the power to be. Or make it consume an additional 1% Life force for every 2% max health healed… So that of it DOES fully heal, it’s at the cost of one’s entire life force.

Though honestly I like Shroud the way it is, but I like to post my thoughts about things like suggest

Keep this post saved for when Robert Gee bothers to show his face in these forums the next expansion beta weekend when he’s got expansion boxes to sell and thus pretends to care about customer feedback.

The expansion beta weekend events are the only times in which developers bother to show their faces in the class forums.

Making detailed descriptions for major profession changes for the Dev’s to work on has never resulted in that “suggestion” being implemented.

It is often better to describe why the changes are necessary.

Your f1-4 descriptions are interesting thought exercises, though. Please keep sharing.

lol so true especially for necro, nobody there wants to switch up this broken class

Anchoku.8142:

Making detailed descriptions for major profession changes for the Dev’s to work on has never resulted in that “suggestion” being implemented.

It is often better to describe why the changes are necessary.

Your f1-4 descriptions are interesting thought exercises, though. Please keep sharing.

Not true. With ranger, several of the changes to ranger glyphs and CA were player suggestions.

The mesmer shield phantasm is a straight up copy of player suggestions. The previous shield phantasm used to work by throwing the shield and it applied either a crappy slow or alacrity 2 sec duration depending on whether it bounced to an enemy or ally.

The mesmer shield block used to not summon a phantasm unless it blocked something. Players complained about that and it got changed.

Revenant’s dodge animation having revenant effects was a straight up player suggestion a dev acknowledged in forum and picked up.

The changes to Mallyx and mace mainhand for revenant were also player suggestion based.

Player suggestions do get implemented. The problem is you only get 1 week (in the case of druids) or 2 (in the case of people who’s profession was revealed earlier) out of every 4 years to get a developer to maybe listen to suggestions.