Guild Wars 2

Recent discussions here had gotten me curious about what DS actually does beyond the obvious replacement of skills and replacement of HP with Life Force. I’ve done some brief testing and, for the record, it appears that this is in fact most of what DS does. (Though there are some useful details you might find below.)

I’m sure others have a lot more experience than I do, so if there are other aspects please post them and I’ll edit this posting.

ENHANCEMENTS. Our other Forms (Plague and Lich) provide Stability and buff Vitality, Power, and other attributes, but untraited DS does none of these. DS can be traited to provide some enhancements upon entering that are not removed if you exit: three seconds of Stability (Foot in the Grave), and three seconds of Retaliation (Spiteful Spirit). Other things that can be traited to trigger on entering DS are: 10 sec AoE weakness/bleeding (Weakening Shroud), and remove a condition (Shrouded Removal). An AoE heal can be traited to trigger on exit from DS (Deathly Invigorate). You can trait to gain Might for 15 seconds on using the Life Blast DS Skill (Reapers Might), which is retained on exit, and there are several traits (mainly in the Soul Reaping line) to enhance DS skills.

ENTERING AND EXITING. You can enter DS at any time, given that you have Life Force and DS is not on cooldown. This includes while incapacitated, while falling, or while performing other tasks. You can voluntarily exit DS at any time. You are involuntarily removed from DS if you are Moa Morphed or if your Life Force is reduced to zero. DS cooldown begins upon exiting DS and is 10 seconds (5 with the Close to Death trait).

UI. While in DS, you see a UI that is similar to your downed state interface, with the addition of a Life Force gauge. Even though you cannot see Condition, Boon, CC, or skill indicators, all of these are still ticking as usual and are not “placed on hold” in any way.

CONDITIONS/BOONS/CC. Entering DS does not remove any Conditions (see ENHANCEMENTS) or CC effects, and will not remove Boons with the exception of Spectral Effects (not to be confused with various Boons that might be gained by using a Spectral Skill). While in DS, Boons, Conditions, and CC can be applied and will continue to tick and affect you as normal (see ENHANCEMENTS), with the exception of damage to or healing of your health (see HEALTH).

HEALTH. While in DS, damage that would otherwise affect your HP is subtracted from your Life Force. (Life Force also periodically ticks down even if you are not receiving damage, as if you had an invisible Condition ticking every second.) Healing that would otherwise affect your HP is ignored.

EXCESS DAMAGE. If you receive so much damage that your Life Force cannot absorb it all, Life Force absorbs as much as it can, you are removed from DS, and the excess damage is applied to your HP. The exception is Falling Damage, which will kill you if it reduces your Life Force to zero.

DODGE. You can dodge while in DS (and our other Forms), and if you have traited for Mark of Evasion, a Mark of Blood will trigger (subject to cooldown).

DS INTERACTION, STOMP, REVIVE. You cannot interact with anything while in DS. At various times, Necros have been able to revive or stomp in DS by pressing the two keys near-simultaneously. It has been reported that this was stealth-fixed, and it’s not clear that this behavior is intended by ANet.

Any other DS mechanics that you’re aware of?

Druitt.7629:

DOES ANYONE know if DS can be entered at any time, including while incapacitated, while casting/channeling, or while falling? (I believe the Elementalist attunement changes can occur at any time, for example.)

DS is a panic button. Panic buttons can be activated at any time.

Druitt.7629:

DOES ANYONE know how DS works if you take more damage in one hit than your Life Force bar has? Does it remove you from DS and ignore the excess damage, or does the excess damage take off from your HP once you’re out of DS?

If I remember, you lose your HP when out of Life Force.

Druitt.7629:

Also, how well does DS mitigate falling damage?

It doesn’t. If you fall down when in DS and lose all Life Force, you’ll die.

As long as the fall doesn’t do enough dmg to take you out of death shroud, you can use it to absorb some hefty amounts of fall dmg, I do that sometimes.

And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to spectral utilities. Death Shroud just removes the (gain lifeforce when hit) feature from Spectral Armor/Walk but that’s it.

Also the shroud stomp/rez is when you shroud and immediately hit rez/stomp right after so they happen at the same time. I doubt it will be fixed, if anything it should be fixed so we can activate DS while stomping or rezzing, like a mesmer can shatter during them.

Knote.2904:

And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to spectral utilities. Death Shroud just removes the (gain lifeforce when hit) feature from Spectral Armor/Walk but that’s it.

Thanks! I’m going to totally reorganize the post into sections to make it more logical.

What I meant about spectral utilities is that either in the tool tip or in the Wiki, it mentions that entering DS “removes spectral effects”. That might be interpreted to mean that effects placed on you by, say, Spectral Walk are removed when you enter DS. In fact, the swiftness part of Spectral Walk continues to be on you and to affect you. Only the “gain Life Force on damage” part of Spectral skills are removed. (I guess it’s a specific boon.)

you can shroudstomp with ds, just hit f1 and F at the same time.

Druitt.7629:

Knote.2904:

And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to spectral utilities. Death Shroud just removes the (gain lifeforce when hit) feature from Spectral Armor/Walk but that’s it.

Thanks! I’m going to totally reorganize the post into sections to make it more logical.

What I meant about spectral utilities is that either in the tool tip or in the Wiki, it mentions that entering DS “removes spectral effects”. That might be interpreted to mean that effects placed on you by, say, Spectral Walk are removed when you enter DS. In fact, the swiftness part of Spectral Walk continues to be on you and to affect you. Only the “gain Life Force on damage” part of Spectral skills are removed. (I guess it’s a specific boon.)

Because the swiftness isn’t a spectral effect.

Sheobix.8796:

you can shroudstomp with ds, just hit f1 and F at the same time.

They stealthfixed that, it no longer works with stomping (even if you try to exit DS right before stomp goes off, the animation will finish but the target won’t die) or reviving.

Oh and also, never try to revive in DS, it gets you glitched and unable to move now (until you die or get knocked back/teleported/etc…)

Aleth.9630:

Sheobix.8796:

you can shroudstomp with ds, just hit f1 and F at the same time.

They stealthfixed that, it no longer works with stomping (even if you try to exit DS right before stomp goes off, the animation will finish but the target won’t die) or reviving.

Oh and also, never try to revive in DS, it gets you glitched and unable to move now (until you die or get knocked back/teleported/etc…)

True story.

The one thing you can do is to swap in and out of DS very fast to get stability then go for the stomp, but chances are that the duration of stability won’t be enough.

Aleth.9630:

Sheobix.8796:

you can shroudstomp with ds, just hit f1 and F at the same time.

They stealthfixed that, it no longer works with stomping (even if you try to exit DS right before stomp goes off, the animation will finish but the target won’t die) or reviving.

Oh and also, never try to revive in DS, it gets you glitched and unable to move now (until you die or get knocked back/teleported/etc…)

…POR QUE!? Gonna have to see this myself when i get home.

Vilar.2680:

Aleth.9630:

Sheobix.8796:

you can shroudstomp with ds, just hit f1 and F at the same time.

They stealthfixed that, it no longer works with stomping (even if you try to exit DS right before stomp goes off, the animation will finish but the target won’t die) or reviving.

Oh and also, never try to revive in DS, it gets you glitched and unable to move now (until you die or get knocked back/teleported/etc…)

True story.

The one thing you can do is to swap in and out of DS very fast to get stability then go for the stomp, but chances are that the duration of stability won’t be enough.

It is enough with 20% boon duration, I’ve tested this a lot. With no boon duration there’s like a quarter of a second at the end of the stomp where you’re not covered, but you’re probably still okay since the window is small. With 10% it’s even smaller.

I’m surprised to hear the shroudstomp has been fixed, my macro for it worked fine very recently, like yesterday or the day before. I’ll be testing it when I get home, too.

Shroud stomp still works for me. At least it was last night and the night before, and the night before that.

Shroud revive has been buggy for a while though. If you get stuck just do a /sit and you’ll fix the glitch

[quote=884340;Mathog.3157:Because the swiftness isn’t a spectral effect.[/quote]

Understood, I’m just wanting to avoid confusions based on tooltip/wiki phraseology and reader misunderstandings. Spectral SKILLS may grant various effects, which may or may not include Spectral EFFECTS, and it is only Spectral Effects that are canceled, not all effects of Spectral Skills.

Druitt.7629:

Vilar.2680:

The one thing you can do is to swap in and out of DS very fast to get stability then go for the stomp, but chances are that the duration of stability won’t be enough.

SO I can clarify in the OP, DS does grant stability? If so, I assume you used to be able to cancel but retain stability, but that was eliminated in the November patch that eliminated that tactic for Elementalist Tornado, etc.

No dude, DS DON’T grant stabily, but we do have a trait that give as 3 second’s of satibility if we trigger DS, its a completely different animal, if you go in and out DS obviously you keep stabilty, you just triggered a trait, it is not part of the transformation.

hackks.3687:

Shroud stomp still works for me. At least it was last night and the night before, and the night before that.

Shroud revive has been buggy for a while though. If you get stuck just do a /sit and you’ll fix the glitch

well, whenever I tried to Shroud stomp after the patch of november i would do the whole stomping animation but wouldn’t get the stomp, maybe i am doing something wrong but i used to do it with no trouble before the patch.

Vilar, I ran into that when I was setting up my Shroudstomp keyboard macro. At first my macro was “Press interact key, press DS key” with no time delay in between, and the same thing happened to me. I would do the animation but no stomp. After experimenting for a while I found that it worked reversed. So the macro is now “Press DS key, press interact key” with no time delay inbetween.

So if you’re doing it manually you have to press both keys basically at the same time, but the DS key slightly before the interact key.

lettucemode.3789:

Vilar, I ran into that when I was setting up my Shroudstomp keyboard macro. At first my macro was “Press interact key, press DS key” with no time delay in between, and the same thing happened to me. I would do the animation but no stomp. After experimenting for a while I found that it worked reversed. So the macro is now “Press DS key, press interact key” with no time delay inbetween.

So if you’re doing it manually you have to press both keys basically at the same time, but the DS key slightly before the interact key.

Well, as I said, i used to do it manually with no problem before the patch… but i will try it with a macro and see if it works. thanks!

No problem. 15char

Vilar.2680:

hackks.3687:

Shroud stomp still works for me. At least it was last night and the night before, and the night before that.

Shroud revive has been buggy for a while though. If you get stuck just do a /sit and you’ll fix the glitch

well, whenever I tried to Shroud stomp after the patch of november i would do the whole stomping animation but wouldn’t get the stomp, maybe i am doing something wrong but i used to do it with no trouble before the patch.

well you have to remember that it’s not an intended design so reliability is never going to be a strong aspect of it. More often than not it works for me but there are times when it obviously fails. Worst case scenario, you eat their interrupt while still under the effects of stability and simply start your stomp again.

It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing…

My two biggest issues with the class atm are the lack of a stability/invulernability (I just want one!), and the heavy restrictions on functionality when using DS.

edit: also, I don’t have mine on a macro. I simply mapped the interact key right next to the DS key and hit them both at the same time. Works like… well, almost like, a charm.