Guild Wars 2

Hi guys . out of these 2 shroud , how many of you guys still enjoy death shroud over reaper shroud and why ?

thx

I switched back to base Necro recently because I missed the crazy sustain of blood Dagger builds and I gotta say, I do still enjoy Death Shroud.

Life Blast still has a lot of gravitas.

Dark Path… still feels just terrible. I’d trade this one for Death’s Charge in a nanosecond.

While Infusing Terror is undeniably powerful, I do miss the reactive nature of Doom.

Life Transfer still feels just as apocalyptic as ever.

Tainted Shackles still feels like an event.

That said, I’d change three things about Death Shroud if I had a genie in a bottle and he said he’d only grant wishes about Death Shroud.

1. Life Blast really should be a Projectile Finisher. Probably 100% of the time, too, seeing how LF is a limited resource.

2. Dark Path really needs its projectile speed doubled or quadrupled. There needs to be a tighter association between using the skill and teleporting to your target. At the moment, you use the skill, take a nap, do your taxes, cook dinner, watch Colbert, and then sometime the next morning while you’re waiting for the bus find yourself teleporting to your target, assuming they didn’t sidestep in which case nothing happens and it’s unclear when to stop expecting it to.

3. This is kinda a pie-in-the-sky wish, but I’d like to see a Blast finisher on Life Transfer, preferably every other pulse. It’s already quite a good skill so I don’t know that it needs this, but it would feel amazing.

But to answer your question: I prefer the general functionality of Reaper’s Shroud and its agnostic usefulness to both lower and condi builds, though I still appreciate many aspects of Death Shroud.

To be fair, I can never understand why can’t we have both: F1 DS, F2 RS. Both will be sharing the same LF pool and CD timer, of course.

Blaine Tog.8304:

1. Life Blast really should be a Projectile Finisher. Probably 100% of the time, too, seeing how LF is a limited resource.

Although it’s a nice idea, I would rather see it’s cast time reduced to 3/4 seconds, with the appropriate adjustments to the damage, and let it have an auto pierce of 3 targets like most RS auto attacks. On the other hand, maybe your idea would be something nice to integrate in Unyielding Blast as this would else become quite a weak trait.

Blaine Tog.8304:

3. This is kinda a pie-in-the-sky wish, but I’d like to see a Blast finisher on Life Transfer, preferably every other pulse. It’s already quite a good skill so I don’t know that it needs this, but it would feel amazing.

That would be kinda OP. It would mean you would give a full party 25 might stacks by using 1 skill or would be able to completely heal your party when standing in a water field. I think this skill is good as it is, certainly when looking at the traits that affect this skill.

Bluewizard.2694:

Blaine Tog.8304:

1. Life Blast really should be a Projectile Finisher. Probably 100% of the time, too, seeing how LF is a limited resource.

Although it’s a nice idea, I would rather see it’s cast time reduced to 3/4 seconds, with the appropriate adjustments to the damage, and let it have an auto pierce of 3 targets like most RS auto attacks. On the other hand, maybe your idea would be something nice to integrate in Unyielding Blast as this would else become quite a weak trait.

It’s really the aftercast that shoots UB in the foot. If that were cleaned up so the cast time could start again more quickly, the ability would feel far better than if the cast time itself were reduced. Still, I’ve pretty much lost hope for this sort of change. ANet seems to generally prefer to keep things pushed to more of an extreme, so it’s unlikely that they’d move UB in this direction. It’s just silly that it doesn’t count as a projectile finisher, though.

Bluewizard.2694:

Blaine Tog.8304:

3. This is kinda a pie-in-the-sky wish, but I’d like to see a Blast finisher on Life Transfer, preferably every other pulse. It’s already quite a good skill so I don’t know that it needs this, but it would feel amazing.

That would be kinda OP. It would mean you would give a full party 25 might stacks by using 1 skill or would be able to completely heal your party when standing in a water field. I think this skill is good as it is, certainly when looking at the traits that affect this skill.

Let me revise my suggestion: a Blast finisher every 3rd pulse, giving us 3 total Blasts if we get the entire channel off, once per second of cast time. Still strong but more consistent and predictable. Also not necessarily OP since we otherwise lack a consistent source of Blash finishers and LF is on a 40 second cooldown.

Still, you’re not wrong that it’s already a really good skill. This is a change I want, not a change I need.

Reapers shroud all the way. The access to stability is something necro’s always needed, and there you have it. And with a good duration too. + the stun on reapers shroud #5 and the insane poison on #4 makes it way more powerful than Deathshroud. Although arguably DS #1 might be stronger than RS #1.

I think anyone who still plays core necro (including myself) doesn’t do so for Death Shroud, but because they want to play a build that happens to use a combination of 3 core specializations.
However, if you only compare our two Shrouds it’s pretty much a no-brainer: RS>DS.
And the biggest contributor to the superiority of RS is without a doubt the pulsing stability on Infusing Terror.
I’m not saying DS should get the same, but something like 3x stab for 3 sec on Tainted Shackles would be a nice addition to even things out a little.

The only thing keeping RS “better” than DS is the stability. Given better stability in DS, both would be about equal (DS a bit better for most purposes imho), just with two very distinct and different play styles.

I recently fought a Daredevil and I literally could not touch him with Reaper Shroud. Switched to DS and all of a sudden, he was eating pavement every bloody second.

And like Flow said, I mainly use normal Necro because I want 3 trait lines that I think are incredibly strong together.

The amount of CC that RS gives is good for downed cleave and team fights, whilst the instant fear and immob from DS is great for 1v1s or for CC chains on a single target.

Dirame.8521:

I recently fought a Daredevil and I literally could not touch him with Reaper Shroud. Switched to DS and all of a sudden, he was eating pavement every bloody second.

And like Flow said, I mainly use normal Necro because I want 3 trait lines that I think are incredibly strong together.

The amount of CC that RS gives is good for downed cleave and team fights, whilst the instant fear and immob from DS is great for 1v1s or for CC chains on a single target.

Exactly. RS brings cleaving and straight DPS which the necro never had before, but when it comes to fighting something where focused fire is needed, the base necro is absolutely stronger than the reaper.

Really, the only thing holding the base necro back is stability access. Unfortunately I think giving base necro enough stability to not be eating dirt fairly frequently would potentially throw it into being OP due to durability and how it can chunk people so well.

That said, necro/reaper against thief can be a really good fight depending on build, and this matchup is pretty even. Good thieves can do pretty fairly against both, but it’s pretty much entirely their skill level that will decide whether or not they will win or lose.

what’s a deathshroud? [/sarcasm]

Seriously old ds isn’t a profession mechanic, it’s a torture device.

#1. Slow as molasses and useless unless heavily traited
#2. even slower dark path
#3. only redeeming feature of old ds and not by much since it’s only 1/2 s longer fear then reaper version without stab.
#4. yeah, you channel it, and pray you don’t get cc’d (unless foot in the grave is traited). But other then that it lacks any synergy. No boons, no positioning opportunities, no condies, no nothing. Just lf gain and some damage on a long cooldown.

and lastly #5.. three stacks of torment was it? well that’s a game changer….[/sarcasm again]

Reaper shroud is how it’s done. Normal shroud is why you hated necro. Power necro was boring to the point of suicide (life blast), condi necro was obsolete due to condi cap.

Recent game changes (condi cap lifted) + basic necro skill reworks brought some life back into the profession (around 25% of it). Remaning 75% is pure and simple reaper.

Reaper shroud just seems to stomp all over deathshroud in PvE and Pvp, wvw Zerg I’d still go ds but roaming, RS. I love core necro, but with baseline cleave, a dash into blind that when traited gives you more chill, an 8 second stability that can then be used to AoE fear, spin to win 4 and that unbreakable stun chill, which combos into chilling bolts and frost armor from the dash, plus it just synergizes so well with everything we have from blood magic, to curses, dhuumfire which was just trash tier on DS, spite.

The big thing with DS is just simply its ranged pressure but without any mobility apart from the lackluster Dark Path, it wasn’t hard to get away if people wanted to. And PvE it’s usually more beneficial to just melee the enemies instead of hitting them from range. PvP, it’s hard to stay on point because it lacks stability. It just feels….tacked on now.

I just hope ANET buffs the core necro instead of nerfing reaper into oblivion to bring it in line with core necro.

In PvP, it definitely feels a lot more competitive with RS in the range it offers. In PvE, it feels pretty much outclassed.

1: Feels good to have impactful ranged hits, but I think piercing should be baseline.
2: Projectile should move a bit faster, and I think the bleeds should be more intense (either more stacks or more duration), this should be the tool condi players use shroud for but it feels really lackluster. If it’s bleed was AOE (in addition to the chill) it would feel pretty impactful. Maybe 360 radius too but maybe I’m asking for too much.
3: This is the biggest thing. RS3 is soooo good. Having reliable stability changes how you play. Having a ranged fear is handy I guess, But it’s pretty rarely useful (the extra range, that is). Not sure how to change it to make it competitive with RS3 that’s not just adding more damage onto it. I think a unique effect here could make a nice difference though I don’t know what spec it should be geared toward.
4: Life transfer is still awesome.
5: Shackles is cool still. Always reminded me of Morgana’s ult in LoL.

The theme of death shroud I think is an aggressive spectre that’s really difficult to get away from. Any changes to it’s abilities should probably reflect this strength.

Maybe the 3 could have some sort of secondary or conditional effect, like a short burst of Quickness or Resistance if you successfully interrupt them.

For me: PvE/PvP – Reaper- and it’s not even close

WvW- Deathshroud. Kinda bullshlt how we cant have DS while going reaper traits, as I want that 15% shroud attack speed. would be perfect for DS

I still really enjoy both shrouds and I’m glad there is still a region to use DS. It could use a buff though, or at least access to RS traits

Pve reaper is god mode. It could be overall the best, or atleast able to fill the most roles well out of any profession.

With that said I do miss death shroud. I wish we could use it as an f2 because we need a ranged power attack. Axe is over 3 years old and still not viable.

Pvp wise I’m not sure. Necro is basically the only class I pvp with and I haven’t done much pvp since hot. Waiting for a few patches

I’m never going back to regular Death’s Shroud after having Reaper’s Shroud. In both power and condi builds Reaper’s Shroud is just so freaking good. Good mobility, way better #1 attack, and the mass aoe + stability are fantastic.

I would only ask for more stability on DS4 for example, and cast time on DS1 to be 1/2s .
With this i think i would skip reaper for sure.

The only way Il go back to DS is if they removed every aspect of RS… I like all the skills more in RS on both Condi and Power (yes even nr#3)

Blaine Tog.8304:

It’s really the aftercast that shoots UB in the foot. If that were cleaned up so the cast time could start again more quickly, the ability would feel far better than if the cast time itself were reduced.

This beyond anything else. If my main attack in death shroud actually felt anywhere near as good as any of the skills in reaper shroud, I wouldn’t detest it so much. Path of Corruption is also just flat out gross compared to death’s charge.

You also hit the head when bringing up the combo system. Death’s Shroud brings in so, so many options to actually play off the system that base necro just doesn’t. And that’s with only a long whirl and a charge… :|

Giving up being able to actually stomp/revive with reliability through Infusing Terror makes my enjoyment of spvp take a huge, huge step back.

Playing with base necro makes me just want to play another profession entirely; it’s so full of holes.

Yeah, if UB was just a 1s full cycle with aftercast it’d be a huge improvement. And the lack of combos plus lack of downed play mechanics is the biggest problem. If the two Shrouds were just ranged vs melee cleave with some differences due to that (but otherwise similar when it comes to having combos) it’d be more interesting to choose between them.

They need to make DS 1 pierce by default.

Cam Ron.4170:

They need to make DS 1 pierce by default.

That, or even turn it into something like a shotgun blast, turn tainted shackles into an AoE pull/immobilize and make 2 a ground targeted teleport.

All from a WvW Game Perspective (95% of my time in WvW)

RS > DS for all builds in WvW IMO. I’ve played Berserker for a while now and am enjoying that, however….

Currently spinning a condition reaper…. Wow!

Stack bleeds, poison, torment, chill, terror…. go into RS3 and Dhummfire your way to victory.

Pretty sure i was getting Ice Bolts when using RS5 → RS2.

Having massive amounts of fun with this, however given it’s all in melee range i’m noticing that survivability has taken a back-step. When crap hits the fan, I’m going down hard. This may be because of a combination of this and the loss to Blood Magic heals and sustain…

As mentioned, there are drawbacks. The lack of range hurts on power builds, No DS4 to hit the top of keep walls.

Some more thoughts to come.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Cam Ron.4170:

They need to make DS 1 pierce by default.

That, or even turn it into something like a shotgun blast, turn tainted shackles into an AoE pull/immobilize and make 2 a ground targeted teleport.

Stop, please, you’re making me drool all over my laptop.