Guild Wars 2

Is Death shroud, in it’s current state, what you’d like it to be?

Little back story on my time as a necro, seeming i haven’t been active on these forums for 6 months or so. Been playing a necro for 663 days and 2701 hours total, been active primarily in WvW, secondary in PvE and ive done little to no SPvP. Usually play as a power hybrid necro.

I think that skills 2 through 5 are great, i wouldnt change these at all, i would however change skill 1. I personally think it should change depending on if you’re wielding a melee or a ranged weapon. The skill should remain as it is with staff,scepter and axe equipped but when a dagger is equipped it should become a 3 target frontal cone cleave. The slow single target attack, that is easily interrupted, isn’t optimal in my opinion.

With HoT on the horizon i don’t know how it may change, if at all. How it’ll change with the specialization or anything in that matter.

This thread’s purpose is to discuss weather or not you are happy with death shroud in it’s current state and if you would like to alter it in any way. (i also realize that this topic has come up time and time again but lets face it, might as well talk about something while we farm in preparation for the expansion)

Almost exactly what I want it to be. The one thing where I would like a change is the interaction with the Necro’s self-healing traits and the Regeneration boon. Those should work through Death Shroud.

From my time spent playing with Unholy sanctuary, I can say with confidence Necros would become broken if we got all healing in Death Shroud.

What he said.

If I have siphons or the regeneration boon (such as from my well heal or my blood trait). They should work.

If my teammate sees me low on health and tries to heal me, his heal should work. If I bought expensive dolyak runes, the heal should work.

If I consumed regeneration or siphon food, then those heals should work.

If this is too much healing, then nerf life force generation until it is not too much healing.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Almost exactly what I want it to be. The one thing where I would like a change is the interaction with the Necro’s self-healing traits and the Regeneration boon. Those should work through Death Shroud.

From my time spent playing with Unholy sanctuary, I can say with confidence Necros would become broken if we got all healing in Death Shroud.

I agree. I play an Unholy Sanctuary build on Necro more often than not these days when I do play. The main reason being that it feels right when alternating to and from Death Shroud when combined with healing regen and high/quick LF gain.

Death Shroud starts to do what it was intended to do: Absorb and outlast enemy pressure/spikes while in DS and be in a position to counter when exiting. For the longest time the latter was and still is missing. Pre-Unholy Sanctuary and in builds without it, your health gets so low that after popping DS once or twice you have no time recover when exiting. It doesn’t matter if you manage to stay in it for 5 seconds or 20 seconds the result is mostly going to be the same: Players will just wait and evade you while you’re in DS and spike/stun you when exiting.

Unholy Sactuary builds punish players who do that when they find the Necro has regained 20%-100% of their health while in DS, forcing them to try and burn through your health and your DS rather than waiting for LF degeneration to do it for them.

So how do we bring the mechanical love of Unholy Sanctuary builds to non-Unholy Sanctuary builds?

Siphons at the very least should work through Death Shroud. Regeneration should also work in Death Shroud, but due to Unholy Sanctuary’s existence it should definitely be at 50% effectiveness. Maybe the same healing penalty should apply to siphons too. As Unholy Sanctuary shows, healing in DS is pretty powerful because whatever you heal in DS is always a 100% net gain of health, rather than being mitigated by DPS. So that 150-300 health per second goes a long way when you have a magical secondary health bar that absorbs 20Kish damage and with the right traits, can be refilled within seconds whenever you get the chance to.

Another option entirely would be to change the mechanics of Lifeforce degeneration so that it’s either not timed based (maybe replaced with small degeneration on DS skill usage instead) or the degeneration is made slower over time. Vital Persistence always seems too… vital for my DS builds.

Edit:

nekretaal.6485:

What he said.

If I have siphons or the regeneration boon (such as from my well heal or my blood trait). They should work.

If my teammate sees me low on health and tries to heal me, his heal should work. If I bought expensive dolyak runes, the heal should work.

If I consumed regeneration or siphon food, then those heals should work.

If this is too much healing, then nerf life force generation until it is not too much healing.

I don’t think you would want that. Remember LF gain is truly what would keep you alive in those instances without blocks/stun breaks or invul. Nerfing LF regen for outside heals would just nerf the overall effectiveness of DS trading say 10-15K absorption for a 3-5K ally heal. The better way to balance healing through DS is to penalize the amount healed while inside it, but still having it effect us so things like ally group heals aren’t a huge waste due to impossible timing.

Based off the reason I posted above and even though the numbers would look/be lower, your actual net health gain would be as much if not more than other party members if you were healed in DS at 50% effectiveness by a group heal for example and were all still taking damage.

Shroud as is works fine imo. I would like to see some ability to just control pet abilities while inside shroud like charge and putrid explosion. I dont see why not except that they happen to appear on our trait bars which disappear while shrouded.

I think the qq that would result of necros healing up inside shroud would be immense. There already is enough complaining about our “2 lifebars”, allowing them to both regenerate while protected would not be accepted. The see saw action between them could very easily get out of control for survivability.

I love DS, its by far my favorite class mechanic. It causes some issues with the necro class design (lack of regen in DS, lack of any vigor/blocks/evades), but its very very fun.

DS is the reason I main necro and, and the reason that when I play other classes I always come back. It’s fun, it’s interesting, and using it properly seperate a a good player from a bad one.

It has its flaws, sure, but I think they are no where near as bad as they were at launch. I think if we can see our utilities, get our traited heals, and have signet passives work we’ll have everything we need.

Give me heals and the right-half of the skill-bar back, and I will be a very happy necro.

The regeneration/life siphon aside I really wished that DS#1 could be traited to have small but reasonable blast radius instead of being able to pierce. This would help in PvE encounters and might also open up some group support when coupled with Renewing Blast.

It has potential.

But it lacks any Life Force management. It’s just extra HP and couple on-cooldown offensive abilities. No way to play with it as a resource for anything.

I hope that this Specialization thingy will allow ANet to add some serious Life Force management with bonus DS abilities to the game in the future.

As it is now, it just feels incomplete, especially playing as Power or in PvE.

Tl;dr Not bad, but could really use some expansion, because it has great potential.

I too think Death Shroud is one of the best class mechanics in the game. I honestly like how reliant the class is on it and it’s the reason I prefer playing power spec over condi. Death Shroud doesn’t have a large enough role for condi builds. You kind of just go in it to absorb hits and let your condis work. It’s boring!

But that said, I do have some general complaints. For starters, I really wish life blast pierced by default. Or if this is too much, why not make it a beam attack? Things like blinds and blocks have an enormous impact on life blast because of the incredibly long cast time. Dealing with body blocks from other players, minions, and pets is excessive imo. Like staff, DS relies on soooooo many traits having a couple freebies would be nice.

Another major problem I have is with Dark Path. The projectile is so incredibly slow that using it on a fleeing target almost always results in a out of range alert. It’s also very easy to dodge unless the opponent is point blank and in your face. I really wish this skill was changed to a leap (that removed immobilize) and simply caused AE chill if you hit a target. I’d even settle for some silly Ride the Lightning restrictions!

The last major gripe I have is stability. Foot in the Grave is hardly an option. If a build can afford to go this deep into the tree, it’s not doing it for stability. Given the lack of mobility the class has, you’d kind of expect the Necromancer to at least be sturdy. I really do wish you got 1 or 2 seconds of stability just for entering Deathshroud by default.

But yea, those are my gripes and they may be rooted in my ‘newness’ with the class. I’d honestly be very disappointed if the new ‘Greatsword’ specialization removes deathshroud from the class.

The only big problem I have with Death Shroud is that it fights with your own mechanics. All healing that the Necromancer does should act through DS. If this means some stuff needs to be balanced then fine. I’d also like more life force generation that scales up when you hit multiple opponents, to let it scale AoE a bit.

Bhawb.7408:

The only big problem I have with Death Shroud is that it fights with your own mechanics. All healing that the Necromancer does should act through DS. If this means some stuff needs to be balanced then fine. I’d also like more life force generation that scales up when you hit multiple opponents, to let it scale AoE a bit.

Siphons going through would be great. What about finishers that heal? Would it be overpowered if those healed Necros too?

I always felt that all forms of heals should apply while in Death Shroud but at 10% to 20% effectiveness. Ideally we would start with Death Shroud applying a -90% reduction to incoming heals and see how that works, potentially ending up at 15% (-85%) to 20% (-80%) values.

This means that some of the better heals available to Necromancers (Transfusion) would be slightly more useful, and that Regen and ally heals are no longer exercises in frustration.

With the new mechanics that have been discussed and Marjory having her sword infused with the soul of her sister… I think it would be neat if Death Shroud turned in to an armor and weapon enchanting skill.

When you enter Death Shroud, you become heavily armored and imbue your weapon with Life Force. Instead of using your Life Force for skills like Life Blast, Tainted Shackles, etc. that directly come from the Death Shroud itself, you imbue your weapon. You still use your weapon but said weapon gets a new set of skills.

Pretty off topic but I think that would be neat if that’s how Death Shroud worked with the coming changes.

To answer your question though, I’m not really picky, I prefer to work with what I’m given. I haven’t had any “problems” with Death Shroud other than that Life Blast is such a slow projectile. So, I’m happy with it as is, although I sometimes wish it had cooler visual effects.

Bhawb.7408:

The only big problem I have with Death Shroud is that it fights with your own mechanics. All healing that the Necromancer does should act through DS. If this means some stuff needs to be balanced then fine. I’d also like more life force generation that scales up when you hit multiple opponents, to let it scale AoE a bit.

Agreed. I’d be happy to take some nerfs if it meant some consistency of mechanics and less contradictory effects like Regen + DS.

I almost never use DS on my Necro leveling up or in WvW. So I never found a way to use it with my build unless I was running away and needed an extra hit or two to get away.

I think siphoning, regen and other heals should work through deathshroud, but at reduced effectiveness. Either that, or that it would “heal” your life force pool. It’s such a shame how the Blood Magic traits really don’t synergise with our class mechanic at all.

OlliX.1705:

I think siphoning, regen and other heals should work through deathshroud, but at reduced effectiveness. Either that, or that it would “heal” your life force pool. It’s such a shame how the Blood Magic traits really don’t synergise with our class mechanic at all.

Siphoning and regen should definitely not be reduced. Theyre bad enough as of right now.

When it comes to other source of healing, especially other people…well, that’s debatable. Easiest way to find out would be to try it and just pedal back if it’s too strong. BUt that would require anet to balance the game more frequently than three times a year.

Other than the healing-issue, my biggest gripe is probably Life Blast.
It’s a bit too slow imo and needs heavy traiting. By default, it’s just a mediocre attack to pass the time.
Life Blast should also apply one bleed at least, so it isnt THAT useless for condi builds.
ANd finally, make it a projectile finisher already. It behaves like a projectile in every other way so i dont understand why it isnt.

Dark Path: It would be cool if this gets split up like flanking strike. First part is the current projectile, which chills and marks the target. Second part is an instant teleport, that bleeds and chills the target again.

Tainted Shackles: I think it would be better if it immobilises if the target tries to leave the 600 range instead of how it works now (similar to pucks dream coil in DotA 2), so it is a better tool to keep enemies near you.

edit:
The different amounts of life force you start with should also have a little less variance, in my opinion. Doesnt have to be a set number; i’d like to see something like this:
-if LF is less than 20%, it slowly generates out of combat until it’s at 20%
-if it’s more than 80%, it slowly degenerates until it’s down to 80%

I am not happy with it
Like everyone says the entire blood magic trait line is not working with death shroud which is beyond stupid, and might i add necromancer’s sustain is suppose to be syphoning hp (which is boosted by b.magic) and none of it works.
Also why do i lose my signet’s passive effect’s when i enter ds? Also also why can’t i see my heal/utility/elite skill cooldwon while in ds?

Also also also me thinks that there should be less traits that force you to stay in death shroud, and more traits that have something to do with how much life force you have (like soul Strength of Undeath or the warrior’s Berserker’s Power/Heightened Focus)

RashanDale.3609:

OlliX.1705:

I think siphoning, regen and other heals should work through deathshroud, but at reduced effectiveness. Either that, or that it would “heal” your life force pool. It’s such a shame how the Blood Magic traits really don’t synergise with our class mechanic at all.

Siphoning and regen should definitely not be reduced. Theyre bad enough as of right now.

When it comes to other source of healing, especially other people…well, that’s debatable. Easiest way to find out would be to try it and just pedal back if it’s too strong. BUt that would require anet to balance the game more frequently than three times a year.

In mostly agree with this, but I think unreduced siphoning in a minion build potentially could be a bit much. Siphoning generally isn’t all that good, but if you’re using all minions and have the vampiric master trait you’re getting quite a bit of heal.
Then again, I really would not mind… I’d play the hell out of that until it got nerfed. :p

OlliX.1705:

In mostly agree with this, but I think unreduced siphoning in a minion build potentially could be a bit much. Siphoning generally isn’t all that good, but if you’re using all minions and have the vampiric master trait you’re getting quite a bit of heal.
Then again, I really would not mind… I’d play the hell out of that until it got nerfed. :p

Then balance it, DS is so core to every necro that it wouldn’t hurt them much to just balance siphoning to work in DS.

Knighthonor.4061:

I almost never use DS on my Necro leveling up or in WvW. So I never found a way to use it with my build unless I was running away and needed an extra hit or two to get away.

(?°?°??? ???)

Yeh, That’s a table flip moment

Knighthonor.4061:

I almost never use DS on my Necro leveling up or in WvW. So I never found a way to use it with my build unless I was running away and needed an extra hit or two to get away.

I used to think this way. Then I actively tried using Death Shroud and my play instantly became like 10 times better.

Even in condition builds, Death Shroud is a vital tool.

I wont go into much detail but here are my opinions about the main things discussed:

Heal/Utility Skill bar in DS: no. This is against the whole concept of becoming something else that has a seperate health bar and uses bare hands to cast spells.

Access to stability: Again, you practice the art of undead and corruption, clearly you arent stable. Roam with a guardian if you really rage. I know i rage pretty often when get focused on with my necro.

Buffs to DS: Certainly LIfe Blast velocity needs to be increased like 25%. Same with dark path, it renders them to useless sometimes. More importantly entering or exiting DS should NOT interrupt stomps and resurrections. Also Dhuumfire needs some serious buff, its just way too weak compared to what it was.

My last 2 suggestions should bring some more build diversity as players may tend away from opting for close to death and death perception 90% of the time.

Well, my relationship with death shroud is complicated to say the least. I really like the concept of the mechanic. I actually liked it much more at launch then I did after that. I’m very critical of the mechanic because of how poorly it synergies with your other abilities, primarily life stealing as well as other players. Healing becomes a problem and scaling does as well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Why-we-can-t-have-nice-things/first#post4669521

That is a thread that goes into a bit more detail about my thoughts and feelings. Do note that you can still enjoy something and be very critical of it.

As for the individual skills? Life blast and Dark path is both pretty bad. You might not think so seeing as dark path is our best movement skill but when you compare it to other professions its extremely lack luster. Doom is good, Life Transfer is also good, and Tainted Shackles is pretty boss.

As for their underwater counterparts? Plague Blast is great, Dark Water is good, Wave of Fear is amazing, Draw conditions is good and Tainted Shackles is just as good under water as on land.

I’m happy with deathshroud, other than I wish I could at least see the timers for my 6-10 skills. The issue I’d have with deathshroud healing, is that I would fully expect condis to also hit through it as well, even if they were reduced in damage. As it sits, deathshroud is already a get-out-of-jail-free card in a bunch of different ways, AND it has a low cooldown. I don’t think the trade offs they would impose would be worth healing, in my opinion.

As many said before me, the biggest problem with DS is that our siphon/healing traits dont work well with DS.

Rym.1469:

It has potential.

But it lacks any Life Force management. It’s just extra HP and couple on-cooldown offensive abilities. No way to play with it as a resource for anything.

I hope that this Specialization thingy will allow ANet to add some serious Life Force management with bonus DS abilities to the game in the future.

As it is now, it just feels incomplete, especially playing as Power or in PvE.

Tl;dr Not bad, but could really use some expansion, because it has great potential.

Seconding this. In my opinion the most obvious potential skill dynamic was making certain skills consume or require life force. With a few more ways to control its usage, something more like the thief’s Initiative system (Which I find very engaging) could have been implemented.

As it is, Life Force usage barely counts as resource management, in my opinion. It’s just a weird sort of pseudo-healing.

How about if siphon effects heal your life force when in DS instead of your health? Life transfer is pretty much a Life siphon on steroids that does just that. This would lenghten the time you can spend in DS, and if the numbers dont change at all, siphons would be actually more usefull for DS than in normal (since health is always a higher number).

As for the skills itself i like Life Blast’s heavy traitability, and would like to see the other skills having such as well. Transfusion is nice and its on a good place i think. Path of Corruption feels a bit weak for a GM trait, and sadly its the only trait for the skill. Doom is mostly traited by Terror. Tainted shackles is nice as it is, i dont know how i would trait it to be better without being OP.

WTB better Torment access as Necro.

Seriously….

Tao.5096:

WTB better Torment access as Necro.

Seriously….

at least one more trait and one more skill should be there.

As for the skills itself i like Life Blast’s heavy traitability, and would like to see the other skills having such as well.

Sadly the basikittenraited version could be a bit better. and some of the life blast traits are kinda underwhelming. like reaper’s might or healing life blast

RashanDale.3609:

Tao.5096:

WTB better Torment access as Necro.

Seriously….

it's a shame that we still only have one single skill for it.

at least one more trait and one more skill should be there.

Change the one trait to apply torment when you blind instead of chill. Introduce another trait to apply the chill when you vuln a target.

Axe is instantly relavant.
A well is useful to condi builds.
Better condis with dagger offhand.

Sororita.3465:

Is Death shroud, in it’s current state, what you’d like it to be?

Little back story on my time as a necro, seeming i haven’t been active on these forums for 6 months or so. Been playing a necro for 663 days and 2701 hours total, been active primarily in WvW, secondary in PvE and ive done little to no SPvP. Usually play as a power hybrid necro.

I think that skills 2 through 5 are great, i wouldnt change these at all, i would however change skill 1. I personally think it should change depending on if you’re wielding a melee or a ranged weapon. The skill should remain as it is with staff,scepter and axe equipped but when a dagger is equipped it should become a 3 target frontal cone cleave. The slow single target attack, that is easily interrupted, isn’t optimal in my opinion.

With HoT on the horizon i don’t know how it may change, if at all. How it’ll change with the specialization or anything in that matter.

This thread’s purpose is to discuss weather or not you are happy with death shroud in it’s current state and if you would like to alter it in any way. (i also realize that this topic has come up time and time again but lets face it, might as well talk about something while we farm in preparation for the expansion)

Yes I agree with skill 1 of deathshroud being a problem out of all the skills. I honestly think that the cast time should be reduced to .5sec (similar to being under water) reason being given the fast gameplay of this game a lot can happen in 1sec.

Atherakhia.4086:

RashanDale.3609:

Tao.5096:

WTB better Torment access as Necro.

Seriously….

it's a shame that we still only have one single skill for it.

at least one more trait and one more skill should be there.

Change the one trait to apply torment when you blind instead of chill. Introduce another trait to apply the chill when you vuln a target.

Axe is instantly relavant.
A well is useful to condi builds.
Better condis with dagger offhand.

I’m more for Well of Torments.

And could add Torment on Staff Auto attack.
Doubt it’ll be overpowered, due to projectile being big, slow and in straight line.

I kinda envy Condi Mesmers, to stack 11+ stacks of Torment in one second.

It is powerful, no doubt, but extremely boring. I would not find it so bad if you were not stuck with it no matter what your build was. Maybe the necro spec will change that though.

Tao.5096:

Atherakhia.4086:

RashanDale.3609:

Tao.5096:

WTB better Torment access as Necro.

Seriously….

it's a shame that we still only have one single skill for it.

at least one more trait and one more skill should be there.

Change the one trait to apply torment when you blind instead of chill. Introduce another trait to apply the chill when you vuln a target.

Axe is instantly relavant.
A well is useful to condi builds.
Better condis with dagger offhand.

I’m more for Well of Torments.

And could add Torment on Staff Auto attack.
Doubt it’ll be overpowered, due to projectile being big, slow and in straight line.

I kinda envy Condi Mesmers, to stack 11+ stacks of Torment in one second.

Woahhhhh you mean you want to punish people for kiting us indefinitely? =)

This is for pvp purpose.
Id switch our land auto with underwater auto, BUT adjust dps to stay same.

Basicaly trading slower big hits for smaller faster hits.
Pros:
less OP underwater condi transfer
Less blind/dodge/interupt/walk-through-to-cancel-cast in pvp
Easier might stacking with trait
More reliable but small dmg, not those oneshot wombo combos of DS1+fire+air+chill

Cons:
none for us, maybe a few more hits from retal lol

Flumek.9043:

This is for pvp purpose.
Id switch our land auto with underwater auto, BUT adjust dps to stay same.

Basicaly trading slower big hits for smaller faster hits.
Pros:
less OP underwater condi transfer
Less blind/dodge/interupt/walk-through-to-cancel-cast in pvp
Easier might stacking with trait
More reliable but small dmg, not those oneshot wombo combos of DS1+fire+air+chill

Cons:
none for us, maybe a few more hits from retal lol

From what I know, Plague Blast will do more damage over 5-10 seconds than Life Blast and would be much easier to land + transfer a condition. If you want to burst, you do it with Dagger anyway and simple change like this would just grab Powernecros and lift to the very top.

Standing in Black Powder? No prob, Plague always hits, transferring Blind back.

We need changes, but more advanced and in-depth than something like switching Life with Plague Blast. Simple change to AA like this would make Power Necros a one man army with just an autoattack.