Guild Wars 2

One of the reasons I believe the Necromancer is not matching up to other professions right now, is that his power is spread too wide, largely on account of Death Shroud.

Because we have little other survivability or escape tools, Death Shroud is essential for every Necro to use and to be in quite often. The problem is that this entirely different form does not benefit from most of our traits and abilities we use to empower our other main form weapon sets.

Most other professions do not have to split their power in this way. If they focus on power for instance or buffing up a 2h weapon, those enhancements are going to be available to them the vast majority of the time they are in combat. Except when they switch weapons, but Necro’s must do this as well – and have Death Shroud on top.

Of course there is an entire line dedicated to making Death Shroud better, to make it last longer do more damage, etc. But if you spend a lot of traits down this line, then you get much weaker in your main form, which you are in most of the time, and the same problem exists.

I think the development team has to understand that because a Necro is going to be in Death Shroud say between 10 and 40% of the time, that their abilities must be perhaps scaled up higher in base ability or damage, to compensate for that fact that they are getting less mileage out of traits and other stat bonuses that other classes and builds can make use of in a far more focused consistent manner.

If you do not sacrifice any traits or item stats to making Death Shroud better then it becomes nothing but a weak sponge form, that while helping you live a bit longer, does very little to actually move the health bar on opponents either, so they just wait you out and you’ve gained very little, except wasting time, without changing the dynamics of a fight much at all. The opponents heal is in fact refreshing at the same time, while they’ve taken little damage.

Right now the problem is even heightened because a condition build is one of the few builds that is very viable for the class, but Death Shroud makes little use of condition damage outside one fairly long cooldown ability. So Death Shroud becomes a bad combination to try and continue to execute your role in a battle.

I really do not know that there is a great solution to this dilemma as the profession mechanic won’t likely get replaced at this point. But I think some across the board upgrades, on increased scaling on certain abilities and traits needs to be looked at in order to understand and compensate for how a Necromancer must split power and attention between his different forms, and how by nature, it spreads his power thin.

Personally I don’t think death shroud is suppose to be a dps boost mechanic. I rather think of it as a survivability with a bonus, because not only is it a pseudo-invulnerable, you can still do enough damage to kill most regular mobs from at least 75% health with just auto attack.

The fear is garbage, the weird “Charge” ability we have to teleport to an enemy is the last place a Necro would want to be. Death Shroud in its entirety ability is useless on a conditions or minion based build.
I’ve barely used it leveling and barely use it at 80 besides an extra lifebar to take a hit from a boss or something. The cast time on its 1 is too slow.
The only redeeming thing about it is the life drain we get from it, too bad it needs the siphoning trait to be useful, and doesn’t heal our actual hitpoints once we drop out of death shroud.

What made you think DS is not supposed to be a dps boost mechanic? Was it the 5 seconds of fury you get when you enter (provided you spec curses), or was it the big packet of damage on 1, or maybe the numerous DS-related traits, some of which grant survivability, others damage, with most providing both? It’s not about how you think of it, it’s about what is in the game: And there are far more damage than survivability – related traits for DS. Really, if DS were more of a survival mechanic, we would’ve gotten vitality from speccing there, and Blood would’ve become our prowess/boon tree, for some cool, fragile but leechy build.

Fadeway.3592:

What made you think DS is not supposed to be a dps boost mechanic? Was it the 5 seconds of fury you get when you enter (provided you spec curses), or was it the big packet of damage on 1, or maybe the numerous DS-related traits, some of which grant survivability, others damage, with most providing both? It’s not about how you think of it, it’s about what is in the game: And there are far more damage than survivability – related traits for DS. Really, if DS were more of a survival mechanic, we would’ve gotten vitality from speccing there, and Blood would’ve become our prowess/boon tree, for some cool, fragile but leechy build.

Thats the problem though, DS is clearly supposed to boost DPS but if you dont stack power/crit then its function is totally lost. Trying MM or Condition build makes DS do literally nothing for you other than take some hits while the enemy heal CD ticks. Also, the fear in DS is great because its instant but it lasts 1 second? Why not make it an interrupt or something? Necro fear is a complete joke.

you can also trait death shroud so you loose a condition when you enter it, it can cause vulnerability every 3 seconds to all nearby enemies, life blast can have piercing and cause 2 stacks of vulnerabillity… ect.. ect.. i personally run a death shroud necro. all of my traits improve death shroud and i do massive damage while in it. i can take down a veteren mob easy, and still have 50% of my life force bar. also skill 4 is a great way to ensure you get gold on any event.

if you have a problem with the fear put on the trait that makes it last longer.

Death shroud was nerfed pretty hard for BW3, or so I’ve read.

I think anet is aware of necro’s issues. I found this quote from Jon Peters floating around the web (although not the source):

“We haven’t [forgotten the necro]. It is our current opinion that Necro is one of the two professions that need to most love right now. Everyone will get some help, but as I told many players in game, Necro needs more than most. That does not mean there are no strong Necro builds, but necro just needs more viable builds and more good traits.”

Viscereality.8463:

The fear is garbage, the weird “Charge” ability we have to teleport to an enemy is the last place a Necro would want to be. Death Shroud in its entirety ability is useless on a conditions or minion based build.
I’ve barely used it leveling and barely use it at 80 besides an extra lifebar to take a hit from a boss or something. The cast time on its 1 is too slow.
The only redeeming thing about it is the life drain we get from it, too bad it needs the siphoning trait to be useful, and doesn’t heal our actual hitpoints once we drop out of death shroud.

Actually as a MM necro I’ve found that the blood magic DS traits are some of the most useful traits for actualy playing a MM, the ability to heal your minions with Life Transfer and when you drop out of DS does wonders for minion survivability. That and the fear is actually quite useful for knocking enemies off of your squishier/less expendable minions.

I can see how it would be not terribly useful for a condition based necro however. And I do agree the cast for Life Blast is a bit much, but given the various boost traits you can get for it and I think it’d be a bit OP if it cast too much faster than it currently does.

Binnes.3860:

I rather think of it as a survivability with a bonus, because not only is it a pseudo-invulnerable, you can still do enough damage to kill most regular mobs from at least 75% health with just auto attack.

you call that a bonus?
really?

honestly, a warrior can walk into a group of mobs, press ONE low cd skill, and not even 3 seconds later they all are dead in front of him.

the necro needs like 10 more seconds and 5-7 more skills/button presses to do that. and in that time he has taken quite more damage and then has to wait for loooong cds to repeat that.

the best part is that you dont take damage from what is already dead, so the warriors’ survivality is flat out higher by definition, and with far, far less annoyances in the form of more key presses, slowly building conditions, combos etcetc

Konrad Curze.5130:

honestly, a warrior can walk into a group of mobs, press ONE low cd skill, and not even 3 seconds later they all are dead in front of him.
the necro needs like 10 more seconds and 5-7 more skills/button presses to do that. and in that time he has taken quite more damage
(…)
so the warriors’ survivality is flat out higher by definition, and with far, far less annoyances in the form of more key presses, slowly building conditions, combos

I agree the necro needs some love, so many traits are just puzzling (=I cant figure out what good they might do in real game use)

But when I read this I think the warrior bit sounds just boring. If the game was walk into groups of mobs, press one key, walk to next group of mobs, press one key – it wouldn’t be much of a game.

Maybe that’s why I’m bumbling around with a necromancer

We choose to play the necro in this game not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

Bag.6279:

We choose to play the necro in this game not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

Speak for yourself, this class is a mess of problems and not a threat in any situation.

Bag.6279:

We choose to play the necro in this game not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

Nice JFK quote (though I don’t think many people got it)

1 thing that could help DS is 5 more abilities and a fear that actually does what fear is supposed to do. Why do other professions get better fear than us? Makes no sense. Having a full set of abilities in DS will also make playing it more fun. Taking us to a target is useless or VERY situation, a 1 sec fear is a joke. We’re supposed to turn into death right?

I only use deathshroud as a second HP bar to buy time for my heal/utilities to come off CD. Or to absorb a big hit if I see it coming (100b Warriors, HSS thieves)

Rarely actually use the abilities, not that they’re all that great for condition necro.

I wish I could use my underwater DS skills on land. O.O

They seem to flow better with each other.

Bag.6279:

We choose to play the necro in this game not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

it’s one thing to unicycle, it’s another thing to ride a broken unicycle

If you guys are complaining this much about death shroud, you are clearly doing something wrong. I do massive damage in death shroud by simply playing smart. Stack up your conditions on them, swap to death shroud, fear them away from you (not sure how fear is pathetic…) and spam 1. I can kill something 90% of the time using this method without being touched.

That being said underwater DS is a whole mess of problems. Most useless thing I’ve ever used, I just try to pretend that underwater doesn’t exist cause we hit about as hard as a pillow.

I crit for 3k in DS. A warrior in my guild crits for 28k (disclaimer being that while this is spammable, not all of his hits can crit that much; though with such a difference, most of his attacks make DS laughable). Do you understand the problem now Thor?

By “playing smart” you are doing something very wrong. This isn’t about how many hits you take – every class in the game has the evade function, and that’s all you need for kiting. It’s about how fast you kill.

I agree that DS is great. I can tell you right now your problem is that you spend 10-40% of your time in DS. Spec into the vulnerability, pierce and might traits and you will hit pretty hard. Hit 2 for fleeing enemies. Necro has problems but I don’t feel DS is one of them.

I think Death Shroud is good, but not great. It does seem that in PvP, sometimes all it does is delay the inevitable. As a Curses Necromancer, a lot of your damage falls off when you’re forced to go into Death Shroud. It became better since they added the bleed to Dark Path but now all it is is another stance to kill time in after you dropped your marks so don’t have to deal with Staff auto-attack before switching back to Scepter. The best way to utilize shroud right now is still to absorb the burst, wait for cool downs or weave in and out of it regularly so that they don’t touch your life bar much increasing your life span, and that kind of creates pauses in your output all throughout the fight.

It most definitely increases your life span but at what cost to the class? Because of this mechanic, the trade off is that our mobility is essentially the worst in the game. We’re expected to sit things through and tank our way to victory and not disengage, hence the lack of any teleports (Flesh worm and Walk make it painfully obvious where we’ll go), shadowsteps, or even leaps for the matter. They didn’t give the Necromancer a lot of stun-break abilities because Death Shroud used to break them and added none since removing that. Yes you can still go in and fear them away while knocked down, but you still cannot move. All other classes have access to a stun-break under a minute cool down except us.

Our most useful stun break is Plague Signet (currently bugged and doesn’t always remove conditions from allies but STILL copies it over) and blowing this cool down just to break the stun isn’t the ideal way to utilize the skill. Spectral Walk is essentially trash and Spectral Armor while a very decent skill shares the same cool down as Endure Pain and is longer than Mist Form, both of which grant their users invulnerability. Spectral Armor gives us Life Force yes but it still requires you to take damage and all they give you for that is Protection.

Lasstly, just what kind of ideal range do you want Shroud to be? It’s a bit mixed now that Fear is a single target 1200 which is great. But Dark Path porting us into melee made more sense back when Fear was a PBAoE and Life Transfer rooted you. Now that both those things are untrue, if only Dark Path was replaced with a Spectral Grasp that bled, now that would be cool. Also, I’m actually ok with the 1s fears, we get to pop this more frequently than ANY OTHER CLASS, treat it as an interrupt and not a CC.

Ever since I swapped to a more defensively oriented build, I’ve taken a bit more likening to Death Shroud thanks to Transfusion. I think it’s a cool mechanic and has a cool aesthetic to go with it, just I feel we’re tacked on with a lot of downsides for our mechanic compared to the more polished professions.

Deathshroud is so useful. It’s not ideal for condition necros but put one way it’s invulnerability for your main health bar for a while, meaning more time for the DoTs you have on someone to keep ticking, and more time for your heal to return.

Life Transfer’s heal when traited heal my group for approximately 2.6k.

However the complaints about the fear annoy me. Did you know: it’s instant, as is activating death shroud, you can use it on your target even when it’s behind you and chasing you, you can use it (and activate DS) when knocked down and that the fear itself works as an interrupt too with long range? I don’t think I need to explain why any of these points are great.

As far as condition-mancer problems, there just needs to be more than one auto-attack and a way for the player to control which one is used. Like a Lifebleed or something.

Fadeway.3592:

I crit for 3k in DS. A warrior in my guild crits for 28k (disclaimer being that while this is spammable, not all of his hits can crit that much; though with such a difference, most of his attacks make DS laughable). Do you understand the problem now Thor?

That warrior is either full of kitten, or this game is broken as hell. I have 19k hp in my current lvl 80 necro build, I have never seen a warrior chunk an enemy for about 28 times my current highest damage with a condition build, usually hit around 1k with Feast of Corruption with decent conditions stacked up. There is no way A net would let a imbalance this large exist in the game. If he could do that, he would 1 shot any regular lvl 80 mob, any player in pvp, and 2 shot most lvl 80 veterans.

Watched some lvl 80 warrior gameplay vids, highest hit I saw was around 6k from hundred blades which is a channel skill. I now believe that warrior in your guild needs his eyes checked. Yes warrior out damage Necromancers, probably should be looked in to, but 28k crit is in no way possible.

I just asked the guy if he can crit 28k, he told me his highest yesterday was 21k (wouldn’t be the first time I mishear on ts), with hundred blades. We both stack might (can reach 20+ stacks with a good enough crit chance and smart use of Life Blast linear AoE/whatever AoE warrior has) through sigils of strength. Remember, I’m not talking PvP, I’m talking PvE, we fight almost exclusively silvers and champions with huge health bars.

Thor Rising.7850:

Fadeway.3592:

I crit for 3k in DS. A warrior in my guild crits for 28k (disclaimer being that while this is spammable, not all of his hits can crit that much; though with such a difference, most of his attacks make DS laughable). Do you understand the problem now Thor?

That warrior is either full of kitten, or this game is broken as hell. I have 19k hp in my current lvl 80 necro build, I have never seen a warrior chunk an enemy for about 28 times my current highest damage with a condition build, usually hit around 1k with Feast of Corruption with decent conditions stacked up. There is no way A net would let a imbalance this large exist in the game. If he could do that, he would 1 shot any regular lvl 80 mob, any player in pvp, and 2 shot most lvl 80 veterans.

Watched some lvl 80 warrior gameplay vids, highest hit I saw was around 6k from hundred blades which is a channel skill. I now believe that warrior in your guild needs his eyes checked. Yes warrior out damage Necromancers, probably should be looked in to, but 28k crit is in no way possible.

Except Warriors totally ARE monster trucks, I have a lvl 15 Warrior that can crit over 900 with Hundred Blades. That’s more than double of my 80 Necromancer’s Staff Auto attack. Granted I’m stacking Healing/Cond/Vit on my Necro and not power but still, a lv 15 vs 80.

http://youtu.be/n9FzJj0ZUGk

Video of some mediocore Warrior skip to 1:40

Keep in mind the monster crits only work against glass cannon builds while going as a glass cannon yourself, but it is more than possible to get some serious crits going and getting 1shot by Hundred Blades in sPvP is not unheard of.

The fear really needs to be changed to an aoe fear that triggers from the necro and has a certain radius. And the charge is useless. It would be much better if it was a plain teleport, or another crowd control ability.

I think the worst part about Death Shroud is it’s a boring mechanic. Going into DS can be so routine and uneventful.

Skill 1 is a slow, weak skill. More damage when you have more LF (nothing else).

Skill 2 has nice chill and bleeding, but the melee teleport!? Why not make it a ground targeted telport with conditions on radius of self? It would then be like a well then.

Skill 3, the fear is so weak. Compare it to the warrior ones. ONE target, for 1s. And there’s not even any damage on this one! Apparantly Warriors screaming at us is more frightening than being in a form of Death.

Skill 4, while it does the most damage and is huge AoE, it doesn’t restore any life force. The amount it returns is so trival. LF keeps draining as usual. Maybe it will slow it down for like 1-2 seconds, but it’s so hard to tell.