Guild Wars 2

So there are tons of posts about death shroud and it’s strengths and weaknesses with certain builds and certain situations. With some builds (like conditionmancer) it is nothing more than a situational fear/minor health buffer that lasts all of maybe 2-3 seconds against a burst class.

My suggestion, make it more like the utility bar and give each slot a couple of choices of skills to choose from. I’m not going to list any suggestions for skills, I am a necro player and it is my favorite class by far to play so my suggestion though as hard as I would try not to, would probably have some sort of bias towards them. But having 2-3 interchangeable skills on the slots wouldn’t be to hard, and with proper skills placed on them shouldn’t be to hard to balance. I mean most everyone that plays tPvP is already at an agreement that for the most part except for some minor issues the classes are balanced when you know what counters what and what situations to look out for and be aware of as well as choosing your engagements wisely and utilizing the team play combat that is already implemented.

However, some specs of necro gain little to nothing from it’s use. Conditionmancer gains one benefit, which puts them at a horrible position for the spec they are in since the rest of their conditions can be applied from range. Even with the trait that makes fear last longer using 2 to 3 on a death shroud combo for a condi necro gives maybe a doge roll away distance gap at best.

With no reliable access to stability from any skills, what I notice is that if I use 4 anytime unless the death shroud gets closed out by damage, is it just gets interrupted immediately because there is really nothing we can to do stop it from happening. Some kind of prevention, maybe for at half the channel of it should be able to go through without using a 45 sec cd then just gets knocked out of immediately and easily by every other class.

Note this is just a suggestion and not some hate on DS with my tanky build and amount of toughness and vit I have it makes a great damage buffer as is against bursty builds, and the situational fear is great, if a bit short in duration considering a fear from a dark magic user should be more terrifying than a rampaging warrior screaming or a theif using a easily obtained steal item.

God no.. NO! Death Shroud is one of the most amazing features including all Professions.. IT’s perfect.

He just needs to learn how to use it properly

@ two posters posting before this, nice to know people still read more than just a title before putting worthless remarks on what could otherwise be a nice constructive thread.

Aside from that fact I do have a couple of suggestions that could be alternate skill choices for death shroud.

for the #2 have the option to apply the affects but either pull the foe to you, or pull yourself to the foe.

for the #3 Having a longer duration single target fear or shorter duration AoE fear.

for the #4 have either the channeled with more damage and life force gain or a lesser damage and life force gain 1 time hit.

More suggestions are welcome, I would rather this be a constructive thread than people insulting one thing a developer said like he was making a meme.

I absolutely agree that it would be nice to be able to customize DS just a bit to make it more useful in condition builds. For me it would be enough to have a version of the auto attack that does bleeding instead of direct damage and which skill to be used could be selected in the Hero-Skills menu. Another solution is to just add the other attack to DS so we have both versions at the same time or make the #1 apply bleeding.

I am very curious about how people that say “Learn to use DS properly” think that DS should be used in a condition build. Since condition builds have low power, skills #1 and #4 does very little damage so I just pop into DS to use skill #2 and #3 and then pop right back again. By only being in DS for a short time I can use the fury I gain from furious demise effectively to get more sigil of superior earth and barbed precision procs. Of course I also use DS to absorb damage.

I have found this to be the most efficient way of using DS in condition builds. I think it is a bit sad that the only reason a condition specced necro has for staying more than an instant in DS is to absorb damage. I think that this can be solved by letting us customize which skills we have in DS or by simply giving DS another “auto attack” that does bleeding.

Random food for though here, a lot of necro abilities, with most weapon sets, have some sort of ground targeting AoE effect. It seems kinda of crappy that there is only one AoE move in DS, and that is channeled and easily interuptable, yet the damage from all of the abilities, even if traited, seem like they have damage that seems equivalent of an AoE spell even though they are single lock target abilities.

Alternate suggestion, sorry for the steal: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/I-never-asked-for-this/first#content

The Boz.2038:

Alternate suggestion, sorry for the steal: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/I-never-asked-for-this/first#content

It’s not really a steal, I went through your thread already, yours seems to be like a lot of others though in just trying to figure out reworks for the skills in general. This one is more of suggestions to utilize the DS bar as more of a utility bar with preset skills to choose from that benefit the different specs. There is just no way with all the variety of play a necro can have that a single skillset capability on them is going to be able to balance out for the different ways necro can play. I play my necro utiling lots of AoE debilitators on mobs, DS currently offers 2 debilitators both single target and one of them so short even traited it’s more of a laughable joke. I play to be able to defend and survive against multiple enemies, with how easy it is to damage out the life force on a necro, 4 isn’t really a savior at all considering when in the tPvP things get balanced for, it is so easily noticed it gets immediately interrupted. Also when playing a defensive stay on point necro, the last thing you want to do is use 2 just so your enemy can run off the point and get hit by your projectile effectively making you take yourself out of your defensive position.

Sjach Darasv.3729:

There is just no way with all the variety of play a necro can have that a single skillset capability on them is going to be able to balance out for the different ways necro can play.

We went for the same thing in two different ways. You tried to give the necro the chance to pick what skills he takes into the Death Shroud, I went with traits that drastically change the functionality of those skills.

The Boz.2038:

We went for the same thing in two different ways. You tried to give the necro the chance to pick what skills he takes into the Death Shroud, I went with traits that drastically change the functionality of those skills.

Exactly and that in itself is a complete fundamental difference, therefore with reasoning, you didn’t steal from me, as I have see nobody offer the suggestion I have on the forums, but many others just trying to rework the four abilities of DS already. The fact that you give up a net of 6 abilities to use DS alone hampers us as is, trying to balance different specs on 4 unchangeable skills is just bad design, there is no way to balance that out for any amount of choices. It’s either spec for 1 ability of DS or use it as a health buffer and interrupt with fear.