Guild Wars 2

Imagine that the Devs said something like: We are thinking of a overhual for Death Shroud and its traits…What would you like to see?

What would you suggest?

Personally, i like the idea of Death Shroud. I just think it isnt done that well. I would like to see a bit more of the high risk, high reward set up. Such as some of the skills have that punish you but punish your target more.

Traits:

Gluttony: Skills no longer grant Life Force. Instead 25% of the damage you take is converted into Life Force. (You still take 100% of the damage but 25% of that damage is added to your Life Force)

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Soul Marks: Marks Deal more damage and conditions last longer the higher your Life Force is, Each Mark cast drains part of your Life Force

Reapers Might(Name Change?): You gain 2 stacks of Might for 10 seconds every time you cast Life Blast. You gain 1 stack of Vul for 5 seconds every time you cast Life Blast

Skill
(New) Heal : Signet of The Shroud
Not In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of Damage Taken is turned into Siphoned Health
Active: Turns current Life Force % into health (For example – if you have 100% Life Force, it is all drained and you are fully healed, If you have 50% Life Force it is all drained and you are healed for 50% of your total health)

In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of all damage in converted into Life Force
Active: Consume All but 1 health to Double Life Force and Fill it up.

What do you guys think? I am guessing Overpowered and i of course know it would need tweaking here and there. Main aim is to make it so that you can have “perma” Death Shroud BUT making it so that the longer you are in it the more risky it becomes – Such as getting inflicted with Vul every time you cast Life Blast but that gets countered by getting 2 stacks of Might.

So you can go full on and hope that you can nuke them down before your Vul stacks get to high or you can play it a bit more defensive and try to kill them using other skills as well rather than the Life Blast burst

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Your suggesting giving Necros a endless amount of swiftness? With these 2 traits as long as you don’t attack or get attacked you would have more stackable swiftness then any class… Just a thought on these 2 traits.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

(New) Heal : Signet of The Shroud
Not In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of Damage Taken is turned into Siphoned Health
Active: Turns current Life Force % into health (For example – if you have 100% Life Force, it is all drained and you are fully healed, If you have 50% Life Force it is all drained and you are healed for 50% of your total health)

In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of all damage in converted into Life Force
Active: Consume All but 1 health to Double Life Force and Fill it up.

You can’t use your heal in DS so the active on this would be pointless unless they change that.

Also the not in DS one seems very OP. In WvW I have no problems keeping my life force close to 100%. Unless the CD is very long it would be a bit much imo.

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Your suggesting giving Necros a endless amount of swiftness? With these 2 traits as long as you don’t attack or get attacked you would have more stackable swiftness then any class… Just a thought on these 2 traits.

Endless? As much as keeping Death Shroud up, once thats gone its corrupted into a 10 second Chill. Plus Swiftness is easy for most classes. My Engi requires ONE trait and ONE kit for endless swiftness.

Though as i said, some tweaking of numbers would be needed. Engineer is getting 10 seconds of Swiftness on a a kit swap, with a 10 second cool down and that doesnt even include the #5 skill that gives a nice amount of swiftness as well.

Could tune it down, say 5 seconds, every 5 seconds? Still “perma” but not as endlessly stacking.

Zikory.6871:

You can’t use your heal in DS so the active on this would be pointless unless they change that.

Also the not in DS one seems very OP. In WvW I have no problems keeping my life force close to 100%. Unless the CD is very long it would be a bit much imo.

Currently you cant. It doesnt mean that it would be impossible for Anet to introduce it. Though (state again) the numbers arent exactly what would be in the game of course tweaking would need to take place.

I think given the correct number of seconds that you cant gain Life Force (be it with skills or taking damage if taking the trait) It could work. Plus Plenty of already OP healing skills out there.

Cool down wise, i would say 45-60 seconds. the block on getting Life Force say 10-15 seconds.

I’d like Death Shroud to no longer be a full damage absorb. Its a complete disaster to try to balance with it as it currently stands.

Allow Necro to take damage while in DS.

When going into DS, you get additional benefits — high toughness, stability, protection, or whatever.

Allow full use of heals, siphons, utilities while in DS.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Your suggesting giving Necros a endless amount of swiftness? With these 2 traits as long as you don’t attack or get attacked you would have more stackable swiftness then any class… Just a thought on these 2 traits.

Endless? As much as keeping Death Shroud up, once thats gone its corrupted into a 10 second Chill. Plus Swiftness is easy for most classes. My Engi requires ONE trait and ONE kit for endless swiftness.

Though as i said, some tweaking of numbers would be needed. Engineer is getting 10 seconds of Swiftness on a a kit swap, with a 10 second cool down and that doesnt even include the #5 skill that gives a nice amount of swiftness as well.

Could tune it down, say 5 seconds, every 5 seconds? Still “perma” but not as endlessly stacking.

I think the chill idea is interesting and it go’s with the theme of Necros skills more but with those 2 traits your gaining perma swiftness with out doing anything. All other classes have to at least press buttons to keep up perma swiftness.

Also think about this, roaming with these traits. You have perma swiftness so roaming WvW would be very nice and easy. As soon as you come up on a target, drop out of DS gain your chill and staff 4. Now you have a free chill on said target.

alanis.6094:

I’d like Death Shroud to no longer be a full damage absorb. Its a complete disaster to try to balance with it as it currently stands.

Allow Necro to take damage while in DS.

When going into DS, you get additional benefits — high toughness, stability, protection, or whatever.

Allow full use of heals, siphons, utilities while in DS.

yeah to me, it currently seems little more than a health “shield” Think with work it could become great. I have to agree with the other comments as well.

Thinking: Toughness, Precision and Power Increase would be nice, nothing Elite standard but a reasonable amount.

Could even add a trait that gives a Random Boon to you say every 5seconds, something kinda like how PU works for Mesmers.

Siphoning would be an interesting idea. Maybe a trait that changes how it would work – Say something like:

Name Needed – Your health siphon abilities no longer drain health while in Death Shroud, Instead you gain x% of Life Force

This would then mean people would have the OPTION of going for a Death Shroud or outside Death shroud buff.

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Your suggesting giving Necros a endless amount of swiftness? With these 2 traits as long as you don’t attack or get attacked you would have more stackable swiftness then any class… Just a thought on these 2 traits.

Endless? As much as keeping Death Shroud up, once thats gone its corrupted into a 10 second Chill. Plus Swiftness is easy for most classes. My Engi requires ONE trait and ONE kit for endless swiftness.

Though as i said, some tweaking of numbers would be needed. Engineer is getting 10 seconds of Swiftness on a a kit swap, with a 10 second cool down and that doesnt even include the #5 skill that gives a nice amount of swiftness as well.

Could tune it down, say 5 seconds, every 5 seconds? Still “perma” but not as endlessly stacking.

I think the chill idea is interesting and it go’s with the theme of Necros skills more but with those 2 traits your gaining perma swiftness with out doing anything. All other classes have to at least press buttons to keep up perma swiftness.

Also think about this, roaming with these traits. You have perma swiftness so roaming WvW would be very nice and easy. As soon as you come up on a target, drop out of DS gain your chill and staff 4. Now you have a free chill on said target.

Mmmmm, yeah but is pressing a button (kit swapping) really that hard? Maybe have it so that it is attached to entering Death Shroud? but how would the punishing aspect (the chill) work?

I guess it could be something like that if you still have the Swiftness when you exit Death Shroud then it becomes Chill, so you have to time leaving Death Shroud at the right time, But then you would have to wait for the cool down to finish on Death Shroud….

I actually like DS just as it is.

I’d like to see more things synergize with it, though. Like how signets don’t work with it, heals don’t work with it including our traits, etc. I think it would be better if polished.

One thing I think could be fun though could be like a life tap feature, to sacrifice life force for say 1 second of “spectral escape” which would be like an invuln or something, for a relatively high cost of life force. So someone would need to pick between saving that life force HP or dodging 1 big attack. No cooldowns needed. It could allow for more skill usage with death shroud and allow for some counter to a lack of stability for us.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Your suggesting giving Necros a endless amount of swiftness? With these 2 traits as long as you don’t attack or get attacked you would have more stackable swiftness then any class… Just a thought on these 2 traits.

Endless? As much as keeping Death Shroud up, once thats gone its corrupted into a 10 second Chill. Plus Swiftness is easy for most classes. My Engi requires ONE trait and ONE kit for endless swiftness.

Though as i said, some tweaking of numbers would be needed. Engineer is getting 10 seconds of Swiftness on a a kit swap, with a 10 second cool down and that doesnt even include the #5 skill that gives a nice amount of swiftness as well.

Could tune it down, say 5 seconds, every 5 seconds? Still “perma” but not as endlessly stacking.

I think the chill idea is interesting and it go’s with the theme of Necros skills more but with those 2 traits your gaining perma swiftness with out doing anything. All other classes have to at least press buttons to keep up perma swiftness.

Also think about this, roaming with these traits. You have perma swiftness so roaming WvW would be very nice and easy. As soon as you come up on a target, drop out of DS gain your chill and staff 4. Now you have a free chill on said target.

Mmmmm, yeah but is pressing a button (kit swapping) really that hard? Maybe have it so that it is attached to entering Death Shroud? but how would the punishing aspect (the chill) work?

I guess it could be something like that if you still have the Swiftness when you exit Death Shroud then it becomes Chill, so you have to time leaving Death Shroud at the right time, But then you would have to wait for the cool down to finish on Death Shroud….

Nah its not hard, maintaining perma swiftness is easy for some classes but they still have to do something.

I mean the chill could still be problematic for some situations. You would still want to use DS mid fight so the chill would make things harder also you wouldn’t want that trait if you flash DS for your build. Assuming your using the traits together, the perma swiftness is a huge pro but the negatives are there. I mean I often use DS to pad incoming damage with no intention of staying in DS, also a lot of roaming builds (which this seems more suited for) don’t use staff so that would cancel out my last example.

Zikory.6871:

Assuming your using the traits together, the perma swiftness is a huge pro but the negatives are there.

Thats what i am aiming for. Kind of like hoe some skills Punish the player but also punish the target. Trying to aim for a higher Risk/Reward kind of deal.

I can see what you mean about the Swiftness and Chill. What about this:

You gain Swiftness while In Death Shroud BUT when you take a certain amount of damage in one hit, it becomes a Cripple or Chill?

With the other traits. Trying to make it so that we can be IN Death Shroud more.

What about removing a Weapon set BUT That would mean Death Shroud gets buffed? Such as some of the traits i listed. You take no damage for just being in Death Shroud, get stat bonuses and such?

Just let us use some or all the utilities while on DS…

I personally feel that Death Shroud should feel threatening. When ever a necro enters Death Shroud, it should be something to fear, and not something to obliterate in one second with focused fire. I think our damage output should be bigger in DS, and our defense should be better.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I personally feel that Death Shroud should feel threatening. When ever a necro enters Death Shroud, it should be something to fear, and not something to obliterate in one second with focused fire. I think our damage output should be bigger in DS, and our defense should be better.

Totally agree with you. Take a look at the skills.
1. Slow as hell, unlike the underwater Life blast. That feels like the machine gun of death. Gimme gimme!
2. A slow (how surprising, isnt it?) projectile gap closer. Meh.
3. An instant single target fear, which can be casted under CC. Great! For us, everybody else hates it, because it has no counterplay.
4. Nearly our only LF sustain, which is slow (cmoooon …) channeled ability, thus interruptable.
5. I dont even want to comment this. An aoe pull with added chill / immob would be lovely, but oh well …

DS is a damage sponge and doing the same as Lich form, turns us into a “SPIKE THAT THING DOWN!” sign … :/

ps: Oh yeah and its bugged.

cept the spike that thing down can get in and out at will and heal between phase :/ i just go out of death shroud to heal then i jump back in after throwing my focus scythe

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I personally feel that Death Shroud should feel threatening. When ever a necro enters Death Shroud, it should be something to fear, and not something to obliterate in one second with focused fire. I think our damage output should be bigger in DS, and our defense should be better.

I totally agree. To me Death Shroud is nothing more than a meat shield with some added and mostly useless skills.

I would prefer that it got a BIG boost in terms of the damage done and thus how much of a threat it is. The skills themselves need to be reworked as well because currently they are all plain, uninteresting and not that much of a threat.

I think another great idea could be to ALLOW us to use skills inside Deathshroud BUT they perform a little differently and are more of a threat.

This would in turn give us a in Deathshroud heal that heals for life force (very much needed!) as well as being able to tweak the Utility and Elite skills so they are that bit better when they are used from inside Deathshroud – this could if needed have a Life Force cost due to having a better skill.

I also think that base stats should be bumped up while inside Deathshroud, Vitality is kind of pointless alone. I think that at the very least Toughness needs a bump as well as Power and Precision or Crit Damage

I think Deathshroud should be our “burst” so while we are in it, we are very much a threat and people have the choice to stay and try and burst us out of it (should be harder than it currently is!) and hope they have the health to burst our normal health down before we can kill them.

Hell i would even take having only being able to use 1 weaponset if it meant that Death Shroud becomes what it should have been from the start.

Get rid of the number, show life force. It go’s in 1 blocks, so the number wouldn’t even make much sense even if it actually showed our actual HP.

Allow us to res/stomp others in DS, without having to exploit pressing it at the same time as res/stomp.

Removed the new CD on Exit DS. Getting back into DS faster by letting it ‘tick out’ then quick life force grab is cheap. It would also allow for skilled game play where leaving DS just as the mob/player died, to gain it’s life force would be very viable.
It would also make Deathly Invigoration viable.

Normalize main+offhand damage to DS. It’s silly we have to use the staff of have a huge power/damage loss.

Allow weapon swapping again. It was nice/skillful to change sigils in DS.

Allow heals in DS. Even if max life% per second, sort of like how spectral skills now work.

Add cleanse utility, or allow our other utility skills in DS.

So many things could be done to make DeathShroud more than a meatshield, but i think thats all that Anet want it to be. I didnt even know that its damage is based on what weapon you had at the time of going into it, thats very stupid.

Yeh, I hear a lot of QQ that necro’s get a double health pool…. but it’s sooooo much less.
As we lose our util, and abilitys, we can’t even maintain bleeds, control minions, etc.
It has no synergy, except being the way we apply torment, another condition to overload the cleans stack.

That we can’t heal or cleanse in it, means it’s usually a very dangerous thing to use.

In beta time, we could use it to escape. We could do fairly perm DS. Tho, fun. Was way too OP.

But once upon a time, not too long ago. We could use DS as a ‘block’. Removing that and not giving us any endurance regen/block/invul/reflect/etc. Has put us soo far behind any other class.
Oh, and once 30 points got us perm stability in DS. They could at least make it brake stun + it’s short burst of attrition.

Soz, ranting on. But I once really loved GW2’s necro’s for being different but fun & viable. It’s sad to see them water down DS to a painful gimmick.

I thought of another cool idea concerning Deathshroud and conditions.

Kind of a mix between Plague Signet and Consume Conditions. In that Part of Death Shroud (no traits or anything) is that Every say 5 seconds Conditions get PULLED not just copied but PULLED from Allies and and every 10 seconds The conditions are then “Consumed” by Death Shroud this then either:

1) Gain Life Force per condition consumed
2) Gain Health per condition consumed

This would then free up the heal slot so that we are not then forced into taking Consume Conditions, Of course the “healing” wouldnt be as strong as Consume Conditions i would say 400 per a condition consumed health or 5% Life Force – this could be a trait so normal would be Health but a trait could be added that changes it to Life Force if you so wish.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Imagine that the Devs said something like: We are thinking of a overhual for Death Shroud and its traits…What would you like to see?

What would you suggest?

Personally, i like the idea of Death Shroud. I just think it isnt done that well. I would like to see a bit more of the high risk, high reward set up. Such as some of the skills have that punish you but punish your target more.

Traits:

Gluttony: Skills no longer grant Life Force. Instead 25% of the damage you take is converted into Life Force. (You still take 100% of the damage but 25% of that damage is added to your Life Force)

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Soul Marks: Marks Deal more damage and conditions last longer the higher your Life Force is, Each Mark cast drains part of your Life Force

Reapers Might(Name Change?): You gain 2 stacks of Might for 10 seconds every time you cast Life Blast. You gain 1 stack of Vul for 5 seconds every time you cast Life Blast

Skill
(New) Heal : Signet of The Shroud
Not In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of Damage Taken is turned into Siphoned Health
Active: Turns current Life Force % into health (For example – if you have 100% Life Force, it is all drained and you are fully healed, If you have 50% Life Force it is all drained and you are healed for 50% of your total health)

In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of all damage in converted into Life Force
Active: Consume All but 1 health to Double Life Force and Fill it up.

What do you guys think? I am guessing Overpowered and i of course know it would need tweaking here and there. Main aim is to make it so that you can have “perma” Death Shroud BUT making it so that the longer you are in it the more risky it becomes – Such as getting inflicted with Vul every time you cast Life Blast but that gets countered by getting 2 stacks of Might.

So you can go full on and hope that you can nuke them down before your Vul stacks get to high or you can play it a bit more defensive and try to kill them using other skills as well rather than the Life Blast burst

You guessed right: overpowered. Amazingly overpowered. Gamebreakingly overpowered.

You’re new heal is basically suggesting ANet give necros access to endless life as long as we keep switching modes and time the use of the signet.

The new Reaper’s Might is OP. The vuln does not make up for it because the condition can easily be cleansed away. With a bit of boon duration, it’s an easy 25 stacks anytime you want it.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

You guessed right: overpowered. Amazingly overpowered. Gamebreakingly overpowered.

You’re new heal is basically suggesting ANet give necros access to endless life as long as we keep switching modes and time the use of the signet.

The new Reaper’s Might is OP. The vuln does not make up for it because the condition can easily be cleansed away. With a bit of boon duration, it’s an easy 25 stacks anytime you want it.

Everything can be adjusted. I would go as far to say that The Vul from Reapers Might could NOT be removed by any condition removal. The ONLY way to remove it is by being out of Death Shroud and even then it cant be removed via condition removal. The ONLY way for it to go is by being outside of Death Shroud and letting it go after its duration has ended.

The in Death Shroud part of the heal could be adjusted to make it more balanced, just like anything could be adjusted to make it more balanced. Main aim was to make it so that a “Perma” Death shroud build would be possible by making it so that the longer you are inside it the stronger you become but at the same time the more vulnerable you become

me fix death shroud

Regeneration, heals, and lifedrains will function properly in Death Shroud.

me done

I mean really let’s just make it work properly before we go about making crazy changes. If we want to make crazy changes, then let’s play around in the Death tree to make it kinda sorta worthwhile for anything other than MMs.

We’d be better off if they’d just rework DS to not be a friggen transformation with all the associated issues. It’s a class mechanic that actively interferes with a lot of our other mechanics due to that.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Imagine that the Devs said something like: We are thinking of a overhual for Death Shroud and its traits…What would you like to see?

What would you suggest?

Personally, i like the idea of Death Shroud. I just think it isnt done that well. I would like to see a bit more of the high risk, high reward set up. Such as some of the skills have that punish you but punish your target more.

Traits:

Gluttony: Skills no longer grant Life Force. Instead 25% of the damage you take is converted into Life Force. (You still take 100% of the damage but 25% of that damage is added to your Life Force)

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Soul Marks: Marks Deal more damage and conditions last longer the higher your Life Force is, Each Mark cast drains part of your Life Force

Reapers Might(Name Change?): You gain 2 stacks of Might for 10 seconds every time you cast Life Blast. You gain 1 stack of Vul for 5 seconds every time you cast Life Blast

Skill
(New) Heal : Signet of The Shroud
Not In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of Damage Taken is turned into Siphoned Health
Active: Turns current Life Force % into health (For example – if you have 100% Life Force, it is all drained and you are fully healed, If you have 50% Life Force it is all drained and you are healed for 50% of your total health)

In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of all damage in converted into Life Force
Active: Consume All but 1 health to Double Life Force and Fill it up.

What do you guys think? I am guessing Overpowered and i of course know it would need tweaking here and there. Main aim is to make it so that you can have “perma” Death Shroud BUT making it so that the longer you are in it the more risky it becomes – Such as getting inflicted with Vul every time you cast Life Blast but that gets countered by getting 2 stacks of Might.

So you can go full on and hope that you can nuke them down before your Vul stacks get to high or you can play it a bit more defensive and try to kill them using other skills as well rather than the Life Blast burst

Chill yourself? lol these trait changes are huge nerfs to the point where the traits arugably make you worse.

alanis.6094:

I’d like Death Shroud to no longer be a full damage absorb. Its a complete disaster to try to balance with it as it currently stands.

Allow Necro to take damage while in DS.

When going into DS, you get additional benefits — high toughness, stability, protection, or whatever.

Allow full use of heals, siphons, utilities while in DS.

This is honestly the best idea.
What if they shifted it from a transform into a bundle?
When you “enter” DS, you simply pick up a “DS bundle”. While holding that “DS bundle”, your skill bar gets replaced, but your health and utilities and such remain. Instead, you either spend Life Force to use the skills, or skills are based on LF% and LF decays slowly while you hold the bundle.
You get to keep your health and utility skills, so siphons, signets and minion actives still work, and ANET hardly has to touch traits or DS skills. Plus, we now get group healing and can make good usage of Regeneration. I can’t imagine this would be hard to code given Engineer Kits and how Life Blast used to work, since it would effectively just turn DS is a Necro bundle with a metered timer/resource. It would get rid of all preconceptions that a “second life bar” = “invulnerability.”
It would also let them update traits to more interesting things, since now being in “Death Shroud” is just as dangerous as being out of it, so maybe we could get Shade back, or toughness boosts while active or whatever.

Well something definitely has to change. In wvw if a necro gets focused by multiple people, or just one thief with a high DPS, your Death Shroud is instantly gone. This even happens with common enemies in PVE, where a bunch of them will gang up on the necro, CC her to death, and DS lasts for about a second. We really need a better defence against high spike damage, and chain CC, and I think a reworked Death Shroud should be the answer to that.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Chill yourself? lol these trait changes are huge nerfs to the point where the traits arugably make you worse.

As i have already stated. I see the Necromancer as being the class that gets benefits or damages targets but at a cost. Having constant Swiftness while inside Death shroud being the benefit, and the Chill when leaving Death Shroud would be the punishment

Punish yourself for no reason, while you need to stay in any fight because you know we have 0 mobility skills. Big no no.

Devs should check the beta necro again and adjust it to the current gamefield. As already mentioned in many threads, we need Shade in some way (yeah, i know, thats an op trait, but CC is too dangerous for us, when everybody else just jumps around without drawbacks) and better synergy between our HP and LF to sustain ourselves in fights.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well something definitely has to change. In wvw if a necro gets focused by multiple people, or just one thief with a high DPS, your Death Shroud is instantly gone. This even happens with common enemies in PVE, where a bunch of them will gang up on the necro, CC her to death, and DS lasts for about a second. We really need a better defence against high spike damage, and chain CC, and I think a reworked Death Shroud should be the answer to that.

Yeah even for a Meatshield thanks to no sort of Toughness boost while being inside Death Shroud you can still very easily be nuked out of it and then you have NO defense bar maybe a few very high cool down cost skills.

Life Force needs to have at least 50% less drain when getting hit, They need to remove the stupid idea that your Life Force should drain just for being inside it, turn the trait into one that reduces Life Force drain from attacks

I really think that rather thena being nothing more than a second health bar that instantly melts it should be something to FEAR and that Death Shroud should be the basis of most of our damage, it would need to be reworked so that things such as:

1) Minions work
2) Siphon skills work, With trait to change from Health regen to Life Force regen
3) Signets work
4) Buff Toughness, Power and Crit Damage while in Deathshroud
5) Allow Healing skill, Utilities and Elites to work – Even have them change and be “buffed” inside Death Shroud but at the cost of Life Force

Think that i said already, they need to treat ds as a full transform vehicle, not a kit or just hp bonus (since the first plain aint true since the rework and second isnt true since you cant do over 3/4 of the stuff you normally can in DS).
A) Allow us to trait in the underwater life blast
B) FITG (spvp stays as FITG, but 4 second duration) →shade
C) Reantimator and Shrouded removal swapping place
D) Remove the idiotic 50% damage reduction thing you put on some types of damage for DS make it 100% HP>100%LF, soul reaping giving additional true life force, not just in numerical value, thus giving more time in DS
E) Removing of all bandaid traits for cool stuff like you share your siphons to the team, summoning multiple of the same minion at the cost of the active portions of their skills, weird condi transfer stuff (UW DS 4 with a transfer at the end of the channel or so)/ TLDR FOCUS THE NECROS MAIN SELLING POINTS (siphons, minions, chill/fear control, conditions and stygian hellblasty machine gun attacks of dhuum)

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Yeah even for a Meatshield thanks to no sort of Toughness boost while being inside Death Shroud you can still very easily be nuked out of it and then you have NO defense bar maybe a few very high cool down cost skills.

Actually it has a built in 50% damage reduction, but bugged as kitten so doesn’t really matter.

Maybe DS should simply give us massive damage reduction, or prevent damage from going over a certain percentage of your maximum health. This would prevent instant KO’s while in DS.

What about you cant lose more than 10% of your lifeforce in one hit. Add in an ICD (Anet loves icd) maybe and also get rid of the natural degen.

Dalanor.5387:

What about you cant lose more than 10% of your lifeforce in one hit. Add in an ICD (Anet loves icd) maybe and also get rid of the natural degen.

Well I think the natural degen is important, or else necros would hide in Death Shroud all the time. We’re supposed to pop into it every now and then, and not be in it by default. But the idea for a cap on the max life force you can lose in DS is a good idea.

But we also need a counter against burst damage. If we get focused down in wvw, our DS instantly vaporizes. Maybe DS should have some sort of a defense, that prevents too many consecutive hits from occuring.

Can you explain why is it important?
If you can sit in DS and range stuff without get any damage, good luck. DS traits also encourages to just flashing in and out, so i dont get it why it could be a problem.

I think the actual skills in Deathshourd should be reworked as well, because they are kind of lacking…

Life Blast: Deal damage. Transfer 1 Condition to the Target and gain Life Force and Might if Critical hit (replace Might trait with something else). 1/2 second cast time

Dark Path (name change) : Shoot a Scythe that bounces between foes Inflicting Poison, Chill Or bleeding and Protection on allies. Bounces 4 times 10 second cool down

Doom: Consume All conditions on the Target to fear and damage them. The more conditions they have, longer they are feared. 15 second cool down

Life Transfer: The same as before but buff up the Life Force generation. Also, include the ally heal aspect and replace the trait.

Tainted Shackles: Keep the AoE Torment but increase the stacks they get. maybe make it so that the further away they are or get the more stacks they get? After say 5 seconds of they havent gotten with x range of the Necro it deals damage, Inflicts Chill and inflicts another set of Torment on them.

Dalanor.5387:

Can you explain why is it important?
If you can sit in DS and range stuff without get any damage, good luck. DS traits also encourages to just flashing in and out, so i dont get it why it could be a problem.

The fact that we should just be “popping in and out” of our main mechanic is a joke. You dont see other classes just using theirs every now and then. The closest would be Mesmers and thats only for some builds.

It needs a BIG buff so that it becomes a THREAT to someone and they arent just thinking “oh another health bar that i can instantly melt”

Dalanor.5387:

Can you explain why is it important?
If you can sit in DS and range stuff without get any damage, good luck. DS traits also encourages to just flashing in and out, so i dont get it why it could be a problem.

It is important because DS is supposed to be a defensive/offensive skill. It is something you pop in at the right moment, to apply damage, or to protect yourself. If you’re in DS for like 100% of the time during dungeons, what would be the point? Why would anyone ever leave Death Shroud then?

Also, our 1-attack in DS does a ton of damage. No necro should be able to infinitely spam it. DS should run out eventually.

Dalanor.5387:

What about you cant lose more than 10% of your lifeforce in one hit. Add in an ICD (Anet loves icd) maybe and also get rid of the natural degen.

No ICD at all. You SHOULDNT be able to get melted down in it. they should Increase the Toughness you have, reduce the amount of Life Force you lose from attacks and remove that stupid as hell thing that says you lose Life Force for just being in it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It is important because DS is supposed to be a defensive/offensive skill. It is something you pop in at the right moment, to apply damage, or to protect yourself. If you’re in DS for like 100% of the time during dungeons, what would be the point? Why would anyone ever leave Death Shroud then?

Also, our 1-attack in DS does a ton of damage. No necro should be able to infinitely spam it. DS should run out eventually.

I get the trading the defense for offense, but for the later you leave DS which leaves you vulnerable to high damage for 7-10 seconds.
The point is its another weapon, with different traits and mechanics like vuln / might stacking, piercing and so on.
It does, but my dagger auto does more and i dont need any resource for it. I spam it infinitely and it cant run out. Okay, the melee range means more risk, but it works.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Dalanor.5387:

Can you explain why is it important?
If you can sit in DS and range stuff without get any damage, good luck. DS traits also encourages to just flashing in and out, so i dont get it why it could be a problem.

The fact that we should just be “popping in and out” of our main mechanic is a joke. You dont see other classes just using theirs every now and then. The closest would be Mesmers and thats only for some builds.

It needs a BIG buff so that it becomes a THREAT to someone and they arent just thinking “oh another health bar that i can instantly melt”

As much as I can appreciate where this conversation has gone, I do think you need to consider other classes, here. Guardians have been the most relevant class since launch and they get some passive skills and some activated on relatively long codowns. Warriors get an extra skill, engineers get 4 but no weapon swaps. Mesmers at best have a cooldown equal to death shroud, rangers mechanics are heavily flawed and thief steal is on a long cooldown too. I think that covers everything except elementalists who have a very strong mechanic.

Death shroud has flaws in my opinion, but lets not act like it’s wildly bad as a class mechanic. Even if you use it as a meat shield, it’s a good mechanic.

Yeah but they all have traits and such that make them either lower cool down, most of them i would think among others. Death Shroud as it is, is nothing more than a VERY bad Meat shield.

Mesmer – Yeah that one is solid, some GREAT skills and they become even better with traits, CoF comes to mind, loads of confusion and retal? Yes please. Distortion as well.

Engineer – Theirs are pretty solid as well, dunno about cool downs but plenty of VERY useful skills when using the right utilities. The no weapon swap doesnt matter when they can jump in and out of various kits.

Thief – Cant they trait for it to be lower, steal health, give might and other things? and lets not forget the skill they get from it which can be very good as well

Ranger – Yeah theirs kinda sucks as well

No idea about Guardian or Warrior as i play neither of them.

Along with Rnager i think we have the worst “Mechanic” in the game, seeing as we get locked out of EVERYTHING we lose healing potential, no signets work and all siphoning and such traits dont work either.

- common feature for DS take no damage from 1 second when exiting DS
- trait which heals self when exiting DS
- trait which heals self for every life blast hit
- dagger aa buff to make it give more LF for 1st and 2nd hit in chain.
- staff aa nerf to give less LF per hit.
- buff trait which removed conditions when entering DS from 1 to 3 conditions or remove stun.
- buff ret trait on DS from 3 to 5 seconds
- change enfeebling blood on DS to AoE blind and weakness for 5 seconds Or just blind. Reduced ICD.
- dagger trait in places where they make sense. Dagger 25% swiftness if you have 1 dagger and make it 10p trait. Warriors have same for any melee weapon on 10p. (yeah i know not ds traits but sorta related in my brain)
- DS#2 instant cast and faster projectile, still too slow. Make it blind instead chill. (with trait you could still chill)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well I think the natural degen is important, or else necros would hide in Death Shroud all the time. We’re supposed to pop into it every now and then, and not be in it by default. But the idea for a cap on the max life force you can lose in DS is a good idea.

But we also need a counter against burst damage. If we get focused down in wvw, our DS instantly vaporizes. Maybe DS should have some sort of a defense, that prevents too many consecutive hits from occuring.

That kinda goes against the “necros should spend half their time in this powerful form not only dealing more damage but defending their real hp” thing that was said quite a few times unless i understood what was said wrong (so yes we need degen, but we shouldnt be dancing/tapping it). In terms of a cap on how much can be lost, since i have ventured into 30-40 fractals since fractured kinda almost every day… we maybe dont need it, a much bigger problem is the cd on ds and/or how easy it is to get cced (cliffside, charr, mf, mf boss, swamp, etc) as in i barely get to use ds since im tapping the kitten for fitg and how many problems a necro has in there without signet of the locust which is from now on permanently on my bar since the additional speed in positioning helps A LOT.

P.S. Dagger is about as strong as DS 1 spam…