Guild Wars 2

A new challenge has arisen: we are no longer able to soak up all the damage from 1 attack with Death Shroud.

Obviously this leaves us a bit crippled, at least in PvE and WvW.
So what would you like to have on your Necromancer to soak up the damage from 1 or more attack? A trait, a utility skill, a weapon skill?
Note: there are plenty of topics voicing their concerns about the DS change itself.
This thread is to come up with suggestions.

Here’s my suggestion:
Consume Blows (Death Shroud #4)
You gain Retaliation and block attacks.
For each attack you block, lose 5% life force and gain Might.

• Duration: 3 seconds
• Retaliation Duration: 3 seconds
• Might Duration: 10 seconds

Life transfer can be merged with Tainted Shackles.

best suggestion would be to undo the last patch lol

I respect the spirit in which this post is made; seeking solutions to the problem introduced by the DS nerf.

However, instead of trying to come up some convoluted, cobbled-together work-around, how about we implement the simplest solution; revert it back. Eliminate the overflow damage from DS; problem solved.

BadJas.5178:

A new challenge has arisen: we are no longer able to soak up all the damage from 1 attack with Death Shroud.

Obviously this leaves us a bit crippled, at least in PvE and WvW.
So what would you like to have on your Necromancer to soak up the damage from 1 or more attack? A trait, a utility skill, a weapon skill?
Note: there are plenty of topics voicing their concerns about the DS change itself.
This thread is to come up with suggestions.

Here’s my suggestion:
Consume Blows (Death Shroud #4)
You gain Retaliation and block attacks.
For each attack you block, lose 5% life force and gain Might.

• Duration: 3 seconds
• Retaliation Duration: 3 seconds
• Might Duration: 10 seconds

Life transfer can be merged with Tainted Shackles.

Please read this before suggesting defensive skills/traits. So that you can better understand the reason why Necromancers lack defensive capabilities. But don’t think that lacking superior defense makes us underpowered, we are far from it, and any addition to our defense, would have to severely subtract from our offense.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Please read this before suggesting defensive skills/traits. So that you can better understand the reason why Necromancers lack defensive capabilities. But don’t think that lacking superior defense makes us underpowered, we are far from it, and any addition to our defense, would have to severely subtract from our offense.

That thread approaches the defensive capabilities of classes from a PvP perspective. In PvE “offensive mitigation”, as you call it, is incredibly ineffective. Damage doesn’t come in through the same channels, and in way larger bursts. Blocking and evading is necessary in some boss fights where blind is only 10% effective, or in the case of environmental threats unusable. Weakness, while it can be incredibly effective, is unreliable in mitigating damage from large single damage bursts.
And it’s not like we would be instantly overpowered in PvP if we got a skill that mitigated all damage from a single or some attacks. Do you realize that we are the only profession that doesn’t have a skill that grants us the ability to negate incoming damage? I’m talking Burning Retreat, Obsidian Flesh, Arcane Shield, Mist Form, Distortion, Illusionary Counter, Illusionary Riposte, Blurred Frenzy, Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Disabling Shot, Flanking Strike, Pistol Whip, Death Blossom, Static Shield, Gear Shield, Elixir S, Counterblow, Riposte, Shield Stance, Endure Pain, Virtue of Courage, Protector’s Strike, Shield of Wrath, Shelter, ‘Retreat!’, ‘Save Yourselves!’, and Renewed Focus.
That’s right. At least 3 per other profession. I think we can do with just one.

You have some good ideas in your thread, but I’m not going to treat it as canon and I wouldn’t urge anyone else to either. It’s a reasonable explanation of defensive game mechanics, but it’s hardly comprehensive.

You do realize that I explained all of that in the thread. That none of it was entirely PvP orientated, correct?

Then I guess I don’t understand your criticism.
Why exactly would a defensive ability, like any of the listed, require a ‘severe subtraction’ from our offensive capabilities? All other professions have them, and their DPS potential isn’t necessarily much lower than ours.

At least some type of ‘active’ dodge/evade, that doesn’t require us to be in/out death shroud at the time. (Or swap + lag/wait+ press)

Crits give Vigor. Like other class’s. Would be my guess.

BadJas.5178:

Then I guess I don’t understand your criticism.
Why exactly would a defensive ability, like any of the listed, require a ‘severe subtraction’ from our offensive capabilities? All other professions have them, and their DPS potential isn’t necessarily much lower than ours.

That’s the problem, it is lower than ours. We’re the most effective condition class in the game, far superior to HGH Engineers.

So long as this thread regards defense, then I pose the following:

Just let regen pass through DS using our healing stat as a modifier. No other healing though as that would be quite overpowered, but with regen it will be nice to have a few more hitpoints left in my normal pool when i again have to build it up.

Damage overflow and delay after DS deactivation both are real killers atm. There is just no way to survive when you get swamped in DS. I constantly get like one shotted when DS hits 0 and no way to heal or remove conditions/stun. Sometimes you just hit the floor because of conditions applied to you before you entered DS.

Not to mention that with spectral skills internal cd nerfzored it’s difficult to get that lifeforce when you need it most, like you used to. They were brilliant antiswamping tools. Sure new buffs to life force regen on some skills help now more, however there is still problems how to apply them effectively and also it takes whole lot of time to cycle through all of them.

Necros need some kind of method to survive this DS deactivation mess without particularly traiting for it since it hurts every build possible regardless of what traits or utility skills you have. And it should not need to you to go condition build. My favorite would be reverting it back to how it was.