Guild Wars 2

What I thought might be a little suggestion, came out like a pretty solid idea I believe, so I will make it’s own thread, because why not.

If you have read my opinions on Shroud mechanic in the past, you may know that I am a huge fan of the idea, but not so about it’s current shallowness and execution. I’ve always seen Life Force as a perfect opportunity for resource management. However, since the introduction of Revenant mechanic, which is oddly very close to ideas I’ve been suggesting for Necromancer multiple times across forums and is a mix of those and Thief’s initiative, I felt like I wanted to stay with the general suggestion idea of resource, but I had to come up with something more unique.

Recently, I’ve been playing Magicka games and after I saw the Specialization changes to the trait system, something like that was born.

Feel free to post your opinions and suggestions.

Rym.1469:

Somewhere on the Forums I came up with something like it, expanding Shroud:

DS #6 being LF to health conversion, total LF reduced, LF generation buffed to make it more dynamic.

Now, we can have up to 3 trait lines.
So for DS utilities 7-9, make them match chosen ones. Name them Rituals.
Rituals cost Life Force to activate and have no cooldown, 1 sec cast time each.
By themselves, Rituals don’t do much or even anything. They could have some small utility added via traits possibly.

Now, Rituals are similar to element mechanics from Magicka games.

Let’s say, you have 3 Rituals avalible from 3 trait lines you’ve chosen:

7. Reaper’s Ritual – Soul Reaping
8. Ritual of Blood – Blood Magic
9. Ritual of Death – Death Magic

When you use one of them, in any possible combination, The Elite icon starts to glow, displaying your combination of Rituals activated already (or on Rituals themselves, dunno).

Once you’ve activated 3 Rituals in certain combination within some basic time frame for that (like 15 seconds?), your Shroud Elite is fully shaped skill you can use.

Examples:

I enter Death Shroud with 100% Life Force. I activate Rituals in pattern:

-Blood, Reaper, Blood, each for 25% of total LF within 15 seconds and 1 sec cast time each.

I get awarded with, let’s say, Guild Wars 2 version of Order of the Vampire I can activate from Death Shroud Elite slot and after that, elite slot resets and becomes unavalible untill another Ritual composition.

But, if I used Rituals in pattern like this, for example:

1. Death
2. Blood
3. Blood

I will get awarded with something like Elite GW2 version of Order of Undeath.

With such change:

1. We could stop treating Shroud and LF as just defense health bar and couple cooldowns slapped on it. Less health in Shroud, more initiative to gain it, less passive sponge equals possibility of getting some vigor or things.

2. Stacked Shroud in PvE, for example, could finally stop being that ugly thing that we don’t really need, but start being used constantly, to support allies, utility, do more damage, add flavour to your combat and make it unique, combo it.

3. Because such system allows for many outcomes, we’re not strictly reduced to just like 3 skills in each slot which have to work for every build. We already have 5 of those. If you’re not that much into Minion stuff, you execute another pattern. That simple.

4. Allows for future expanding. Why limit it to only 3-ritual combo? Could be 2-ritual combos for less game changing, but cheaper, more utility options like evade, teleport, whatever.

5. Is interesting, fun. If anyone played Magicka, that could be kind of similar feel. You craft your own spells.

6. More choices and decision making. More planning. Should I use that Life Force for maybe soaking up a little bit of damage or strictly convert part of it to health and delay my ritual combos OR do I feel safe/good in LF generation enough to use my Rituals to their best?

7. Award good Necromancer plays. If you’re landing your skills, you get your Life Force, you can execute more Ritual combinations and further advance your game play, which rewards you with more often choices.

We don’t even need all combinations avalible on the spot, they could be introduced slowly.

I think such system could not only fix nearly all Necromancer and Shroud problems, but also make Necromancer fresh and much more dynamic, while keeping that skill cap of pro-active playing and put more focus on good decision making.

And don’t you dare to tell me that it’s any power creep or core changes are impossible, because Engineer.

I do like the idea of adding new ways to use LF, and because it costs something, it isn’t strictly speaking power creep, as power creep only affects when you add something for “free”. Plus, let’s face it, this entire trait change is a massive power creep for every single profession.

As for your specific idea, I don’t think a 3 use combination would happen, where each combination is separate, because it would be hard to convey. You’d end up with a pretty massive tooltip to get the point across. In addition, it gives far too many effective skills, 27 if I can math (3 slots, 3 options for each slot).

However, having LF conversion to HP I think is a great idea, and I’d say it is worth putting outside of DS, like having an F2 skill that channels, consuming LF as it goes and healing for how much consumed, possibly while giving a defensive effect. Also, I do like the idea of Rituals, although I personally prefer the idea of them being toggle-effects with degeneration (of either LF or HP) like we see on Revenant. But yeah, I’d love to see more uses for LF, and as you say it presents risk/reward and promotes better play, which is good.

Lately just for fun i’ve been thinking (day dreaming) of cool skills to add to DS. I’ve come up with a few that I think would be decent but I think some might be a bit OP ill let you all decide. The skills promote a more active play style even though as a power necro main I think the class is already very active with DS.

1. - Convert life force to health. (Depending on how much life force you have built up is how much the skill will heal you)
2. - Teleport to target location (Depending on how much LF you have saved up will determine the range of the teleport)
3. - Throw shroud causing AOE poison/weakness in target area. Duration depends on how much LF was built up before using skill.
4. - Throw shroud AOE pulse healing. Duration dependent on how much LF was built up prior to use of skill
5. - Summon bone minions max 5 dependent on how much LF was built up prior to use. These minions die after X amount of time.

All these skills use all remaining LF so they have to be properly used risk/reward. Some of these skills might be OP with the current builds so balance might be an issue but these were just for fun skills that I thought could make DS a bit more versatile. Again this was just for fun didn’t think about numbers etc just functionality.

Bhawb.7408:

I do like the idea of adding new ways to use LF, and because it costs something, it isn’t strictly speaking power creep, as power creep only affects when you add something for “free”. Plus, let’s face it, this entire trait change is a massive power creep for every single profession.

As for your specific idea, I don’t think a 3 use combination would happen, where each combination is separate, because it would be hard to convey. You’d end up with a pretty massive tooltip to get the point across. In addition, it gives far too many effective skills, 27 if I can math (3 slots, 3 options for each slot).

However, having LF conversion to HP I think is a great idea, and I’d say it is worth putting outside of DS, like having an F2 skill that channels, consuming LF as it goes and healing for how much consumed, possibly while giving a defensive effect. Also, I do like the idea of Rituals, although I personally prefer the idea of them being toggle-effects with degeneration (of either LF or HP) like we see on Revenant. But yeah, I’d love to see more uses for LF, and as you say it presents risk/reward and promotes better play, which is good.

You’re not wrong, 27 skills is indeed quite a bit and I’m aware of that. That’s plenty.

But as I say, there could be some restrictions. Maybe one that each Ritual can’t be used more than twice in same combination, that already reduces the number quite a bit.

That’s said, it is one of those ideas I’d like to see on core Necromancer. Such system allows for constant expanding, since the number of possible combinations is very high for this game.

One of aims of all my suggestions is that we don’t have to get rid of Shroud and Life Force mechanics, but modify and expand ideas they were built upon and show examples I like.

Thanks for feedback, Bhawb. Maybe we’ll all see some kind of good old sacraficing either life or LF in future for Necromancer and more play with such ideas.

Zoso.8279:

Lately just for fun i’ve been thinking (day dreaming) of cool skills to add to DS. I’ve come up with a few that I think would be decent but I think some might be a bit OP ill let you all decide. The skills promote a more active play style even though as a power necro main I think the class is already very active with DS.

1. - Convert life force to health. (Depending on how much life force you have built up is how much the skill will heal you)
2. - Teleport to target location (Depending on how much LF you have saved up will determine the range of the teleport)
3. - Throw shroud causing AOE poison/weakness in target area. Duration depends on how much LF was built up before using skill.
4. - Throw shroud AOE pulse healing. Duration dependent on how much LF was built up prior to use of skill
5. - Summon bone minions max 5 dependent on how much LF was built up prior to use. These minions die after X amount of time.

All these skills use all remaining LF so they have to be properly used risk/reward. Some of these skills might be OP with the current builds so balance might be an issue but these were just for fun skills that I thought could make DS a bit more versatile. Again this was just for fun didn’t think about numbers etc just functionality.

I like your ideas, because they are similar to ones I made myself in the past.

But I have one specific concern with “hard” skills being put into such structures as Death Shroud.

They have to be universal. They cannot target specific mode and such. That will always make them lacking in certain situations.

Those are problems we face with our current Death Shroud, too. Which Devs are trying to solve with some traits, like Dhuumfire. Example of such skill is Life Blast. While really good for Power build, there’s no real gain for Condi build in casting it in vanilla. Many would like Plague Blast or something else instead. Then some would like to see even a healing skill. You can’t satisfy even most with one, “hard placed” skill.

That’s why I think that such mechanic like Rituals crafting spells has some cool strenght. You have multiple options that in their variety don’t take any bonus space as “hard placed” skills. If certain combination isn’t particulary interesting for your build, you don’t use it. That allows for more specialized utilities.

One could aid Minions if you run them, other your Vampiric Necro (yikes!), other give AoE heal for example. All avalible via good play and planning ahead. That’s why I like that kind of system.

And why I think it could make Necromancer have probably the most interesting and meaningful mechanic out of all 9 professions, surpassing even Revenant in possible skill ceiling.

We do have the space to add skills after all and I think LF can be played around with in different ways. Balancing/development time is the issue but still a very fun topic. @Rym Yeah definitely my suggestion is more basic compared to yours which has more variations but for sure we are going to need something because the Revenant looks like they will have fun tearing us a new one…… ANET………….. very very mean. Hope we can at least escape from the Revenant and not just be powerless even with our second health bar…….

Scrap that.

After first look at chronomancer I can say that no amount of skills is enough, even 27, is needed.

Power Creep, ladies and gentlemen, has officialy no brakes now.

OK, time to expand the D.

…. on a serious note, your proposal does not solve very much: it makes the DS more powerful and more meaningful to access to, but not really more skillful or entertaining: i will still have to sit in DS for ages spamming 1 and i will have an horrible pain to access it with condi build, plus i will still have the feeling that i will only be able to do less in DS compared to the norm.

Still os a good and well-tought proposal, in the right direction

in barely related news, the chronomancer news that “chronomancers have access to the necromancer-defining mechanic of wells” and that their F5 is basically the beta death shroud makes me cringe. a lot.

Pff like Anet would ever read the necro forum.

Hi fellow necromancers !
I’d like to add some of my own suggestions to how life force could be spend and if possible, even out the amount of utility the necromancer have compared to the other classes.
Currently Death Shroud only prolongs the inevitable (when under focus of more than one player) since the skills provided have no real defensive mechanics like; conditioncleasing, healing (the actual healthbar) or moveability to retrieve and start anew. I feel like a meatbag waiting to be sliced, while Death Shroud only adds a few extra layers.

If Life Force instead was a resource that could be spend offensive, defensive or as a movement mechanism, it would give the necromancer additional options in fights, since gaining an extra “health bar” isn’t profitable against the other classes’ stuns and conditions. A few examples could be:

1 – Spend your lifeforce to give you and your allies a life syphoning effect to your attacks (similar to Signet of Vapirism, but as a boon-ish effect instead)
2 – Gain a huge movement boost depending on the amount of life force spend
3 – Spend lifeforce to gain a infectious aura that copies incoming conditions to the source
4 – – | | – to gather incoming damage. Deal x% of the damage to nearby foes. (opposite of the warrior’s Defiant Stance)
5 – – | | – the gain Defiance/x stacks of stability depending on the amount of life force used.
6 – – | | – Curse a foe, so they take damage when they recieve a new boon (could synergy with our boon removals)
7 – – | | – gain x% of retaliation damage as health (someone on the forum came up with that one as a trait, and I like it !)
8 – - | | – Gain Resistance while recieving all damage nearby allies would have recieved. (Vortex of Pain/Agony)

Aaand the list could go on…

I know some of you came up with some interesting ideas, so keep ’em coming and hopefully anet will suck it in at some point !

I actually love the idea of the revenant’s Legendary Demon Stance, which has condition synergy, but I really feel like the skills would fit the necromancer better as a conditionmanipulator.

When i played necromancer in gw1 i enjoyed watching my foe hurt himself under the influence of my hexes, but now i feel like the core of the necromancer has been spread out in the form of boons (retaliation) and conditions, which every other class has access and can even produce at a much higher rate.
I loved sacrificing my own health the the sake of my teammembers (blood is power, order of pain, etc.), stealing my foe’s source of power (Malaise, Wither), spoiling the enemy team’s synergy (Soul Bind, Spoil Victor) and spreading infectios diseases ! Tormenting was all I wanted to do as a necromancer.
I wouldn’t mind if the necromancer got sacrificing abilities which could do more harm than good if used in the wrong situations, but with an enourmous positive effect if done in the right situations. The current Corruption skills are the closest we get to such a tradeoff and i’m not really feeling the masochism.

I want to feel evil again !

I am really hoping for some goodies from the new expansion in the theme of necromancy, but i’m not sure if i want to get my hopes too high, considered nothing new or inspirational in the traitline.

Forever a meatba.. ehh … Necromancer !

~ Phage Darkwell

I have always missed the complicated combo’s and limit breaks of older MMOs.

The idea of using skills in a specific order to create a specific bonus adds great end-game value and teaches new players that face rolling is penalized in opportunity cost.

Limit breaks where, as you suggest, bonus effects or skills proc when certain skills are used in a particular order I can customize attacks for opponent types on the fly.

Without retraiting, it would be great to have one rotation to poison an Ele and another rotation to blind a Warrior – all without retraiting or equipping different weapons.

Anchoku.8142:

I have always missed the complicated combo’s and limit breaks of older MMOs.

The idea of using skills in a specific order to create a specific bonus adds great end-game value and teaches new players that face rolling is penalized in opportunity cost.

Limit breaks where, as you suggest, bonus effects or skills proc when certain skills are used in a particular order I can customize attacks for opponent types on the fly.

Without retraiting, it would be great to have one rotation to poison an Ele and another rotation to blind a Warrior – all without retraiting or equipping different weapons.

Agree. It could not only allow for optimizing for your opponent, but also match your trait and utility choices, maybe even at the same time. Everything while keeping us to just one F1 and significantly less keybinds than Engineers, Elementalists and surpassing them both with pro-active, tactical skill by far.

hennrick.4623:

OK, time to expand the D.

…. on a serious note, your proposal does not solve very much: it makes the DS more powerful and more meaningful to access to, but not really more skillful or entertaining: i will still have to sit in DS for ages spamming 1 and i will have an horrible pain to access it with condi build, plus i will still have the feeling that i will only be able to do less in DS compared to the norm.

What if certain combination would change your Life Blast into something more Condi oriented, like less direct damage Plague Blast with bonus torment and cleave? Or increase duration/damage of conditions applied with every hit?

I also said that while total “sponge value” of DS would decrease, Life Force would be significantly increased.

As for final line, having access to possibly more than twenty various skills boosting your own and allies combat capabilities with unique effects is quite comparable to amount of things you can do outside of Shroud.

I feel like Devs designing Shroud were thinking about Necromancer having almost like two versions of himself – Shroud one and non-Shroud one. That’s one of aims.

I forgot to mention counterplay. Outside of obvious interrupting Rituals or other casts, Life Force as resource would be quite unique within the game, because counterplay would involve ability to deny Rituals/heal just by attacking, since it reduces resource pool. Only Mesmer mechanic comes close here, but 3 clones would still be far easier to recreate than, let’s say, 75% Life Force.

Grimlin.4567:

Pff like Anet would ever read the necro forum.

Oh, they do, apparently. Just look at all stuff Revenant got!

Thanks for feedback everyone!