I just have an idea.
levels 1-30 necromancers have a BASIC Death Shroud f1 skill. This death shroud makes the LF bar serve as the second hp we all know currently, but no replacing or 1-4 skillset. All it should give is retaliation while in that mode. That way pre-30 players can spend more time focusing on how to play the class weapon wise and get an idea of what they want trait-wise instead of dealing with an untraited and foreign mechanic that doesn’t mesh with their build.
at level 30, when the player has at least 20 Trait points, if one trait line has at least 20 points in it, it unlocks a new (and additional) form of Death shroud. It can even have a new animation and name and bar icon.
This new additional DS form would then change you out into a 1-4 skill bar with skills RELATED TO YOUR TRAIT LINE
i.e Spite tree DS has power-effected skills like might blast and such, with a couple types of nukes and #4 AoE mega-well (sort of like a slightly weaker but larger area Well of Suffering) etc.
Curses tree DS has condition-friendly skills that has some corruptions and CC skill,
Death Tree DS has skills that use LF to buff minions/ improve character toughness/ summon an additional minion
Blood tree DS has skills related to siphoning, attacking very quickly, and dazing/immobilizing
Soul Reaping tree DS has skills related to creating close-combat Spectral aberrations (kind of like mesmer clones) that behave differently (ideas: creating 3 aberrations that run at the target and soul-tear on impact and dissipate, can be one-hit individually to interrupt it. another idea is a group of aberrations can appear in a three-point channeling circle that fears every 3 seconds for 1s each and lasts for 12s or until aberrations are struck, dissipated. Another idea is a group of aberrations that appear and absorb 1 type of condition each. Another idea is a group of aberrations that randomly appear standing still in a 1200 range radius area so that when you re-activate the skill, you blink between those aberrations. that gives 1-4 aberration skills that can go on medium-length cooldown (22-28 seconds) with each of them behaving as a channel skill so that if you use a full LF on it, you can get to use about 2 of 4 skills by the time you’re done channeling them.
That way, when you’re at level 80, you have Basic DS, and 2-3 other DS forms in your bar.
It would actually look kind of nice in the UI and would satisfy players looking for DS synergy with their builds and gives Anet a good excuse to nerf current DS when people QQ at it.
Make all the DS forms pull from one LF bar, with a soft-cooldown of 4 seconds (to avoid exploits of hyper-swapping and using every good DS skill) and a hard-cooldown on a just used DS form by a slightly longer cooldown than what the current DS is. That way we can’t just bubble up in a specific form, and are forced to diversify our attack plans and chains.
It also gives fun change of pace when fighting w/ a necro instead of the standard smack around, see the green bar, tank and spank, then finish off mindset.