Guild Wars 2

Need some pointers, I still feel under powered. Need to L2DS properly.

Jon Peters using DS as it was intended (5:30) and kicking kittens with it.

It’s bugged. When the Jon Peters masters it, he will correct the tooltip and remove it from the bug list.

What I use it for in PvP:
- absorb burst (and/or waste opponent’s CDs)
- absorb condtions/aoe till your heal comes of CD
- CC while stunned (DS and Doom can both activate while stunned)
- Doom is great for interrupting stomps/big casts/etc
- Chain Fear mark with Doom and walk someone right out of the treb tower (LS hits treb reasonably hard) or off a point so you can neutralize

it’s basically a one trick pony but it can be applied in a lot of different ways to a variety of effects. really just depends on the situation, your objective, and the opponent as to what’s the best way/time to use it. I’d say it’s a Necro’s primary source of staying power in fights.

Even in a primarily condition focused build, my LB does pretty solid single target damage. I use it for a few seconds to utilize the fury when I’m 75%+ in life force. This is obviously in addition to the occasions the above poster pointed out.

Just wish it didn’t interrupt auto-attack, as popping into it quickly for any reason requires me to hit 1 again to keep stacking bleeds once i exit.

This because the point blank Enfeebling Blood it can be traited for has a 10 second shorter cooldown than the off hand dagger one, meaning it can be used almost as often as Grasping Dead.

Blinking in and out of DS every 10 secs with the Deathly Invigoration trait and Life Transfer with Transfusion gives moderate healing to your allies.
For chasing people, I like to Dark Path, dodge forward to get ahead of my enemy and Doom them back into my party. While Doom’s 1 sec fear does not always push them all the way back, the 5 sec chill from Dark Path is usually enough to slow the enemy down to where the rest of my party can jump them.

I wonder who that top commenter with all of those (lol, 6) thumbs are!? The things I would do to them…

It just seems to me that we are being pulled down because of a mechanic that only helps us survive for a brief moment of time. The excuse of us being able to use DS as some sort of buffer against these professions that are able to pull off 4-7k hits easy is crazy. Not only do they have those burst skills, but also, they have skills to avoid damage completely. We aren’t ignoring damage. We are just mitigating what we can to another source.

For example, when an ele goes into mist, they can eat that 20k damage that was going to fly at them. With us, if we try to take that damage, that could not only blast straight through DS, but it could also go straight to our health.

Archmagel.1350:

For example, when an ele goes into mist, they can eat that 20k damage that was going to fly at them. With us, if we try to take that damage, that could not only blast straight through DS, but it could also go straight to our health.

DS is on a significantly different cooldown than Mist, as well as not requiring a utility slot. Ele’s would trade Mist for DS in a second.

alanis.6094:

Archmagel.1350:

For example, when an ele goes into mist, they can eat that 20k damage that was going to fly at them. With us, if we try to take that damage, that could not only blast straight through DS, but it could also go straight to our health.

DS is on a significantly different cooldown than Mist, as well as not requiring a utility slot. Ele’s would trade Mist for DS in a second.

Not whenever they have the guarantee that that damage is not going to have a chance to go straight to their health, that they can’t be knocked down (unless traited), and that they can’t still be crippled, immobilized, dazed, and ect.

Archmagel.1350:

alanis.6094:

Archmagel.1350:

For example, when an ele goes into mist, they can eat that 20k damage that was going to fly at them. With us, if we try to take that damage, that could not only blast straight through DS, but it could also go straight to our health.

DS is on a significantly different cooldown than Mist, as well as not requiring a utility slot. Ele’s would trade Mist for DS in a second.

Not whenever they have the guarantee that that damage is not going to have a chance to go straight to their health, that they can’t be knocked down (unless traited), and that they can’t still be crippled, immobilized, dazed, and ect.

For 3s, every 90s. DS is significantly better than Mist form.

alanis.6094:

Archmagel.1350:

alanis.6094:

Archmagel.1350:

For example, when an ele goes into mist, they can eat that 20k damage that was going to fly at them. With us, if we try to take that damage, that could not only blast straight through DS, but it could also go straight to our health.

DS is on a significantly different cooldown than Mist, as well as not requiring a utility slot. Ele’s would trade Mist for DS in a second.

Not whenever they have the guarantee that that damage is not going to have a chance to go straight to their health, that they can’t be knocked down (unless traited), and that they can’t still be crippled, immobilized, dazed, and ect.

For 3s, every 90s. DS is significantly better than Mist form.

That 3s is still a guarantee (also, it is 75sec, though I do remember them being 90sec.). They also don’t have to build up that skill either. We have to build that up, and it isn’t there at the beginning of a pvp match. I like guarantees, not “It might let you survive”. Thieves stealth, warriors endure, guardians block, mesmers stealth, engineers shrink, and rangers have their pet.

I can’t really argue the point that Necro’s are a little short on Boons at the moment.

Mist Form though, while being effective, doesn’t hold a candle to DS which can be traited for Fury, Cleanse, Stability,etc on a 10 sec CD as opposed to a 3 sec invul on a 75sec CD (their CD reduction trait is still bugged I believe)

I’d personally prefer Spectral Armor be buffed up to Armor of Earth effectiveness.

Archmagel.1350:

alanis.6094:

Archmagel.1350:

alanis.6094:

Archmagel.1350:

For example, when an ele goes into mist, they can eat that 20k damage that was going to fly at them. With us, if we try to take that damage, that could not only blast straight through DS, but it could also go straight to our health.

DS is on a significantly different cooldown than Mist, as well as not requiring a utility slot. Ele’s would trade Mist for DS in a second.

Not whenever they have the guarantee that that damage is not going to have a chance to go straight to their health, that they can’t be knocked down (unless traited), and that they can’t still be crippled, immobilized, dazed, and ect.

For 3s, every 90s. DS is significantly better than Mist form.

That 3s is still a guarantee (also, it is 75sec, though I do remember them being 90sec.). They also don’t have to build up that skill either. We have to build that up, and it isn’t there at the beginning of a pvp match. I like guarantees, not “It might let you survive”. Thieves stealth, warriors endure, guardians block, mesmers stealth, engineers shrink, and rangers have their pet.

Death Shroud is a Profession Mechanic, like Attunement Switching or Adrenaline, not an Utility skill.

A better comparison would be Mist Form vs Spectral Armor.
Both use an Utility slot, break stun, have long cooldowns and prove some sort of protection from damage.

@hackks I would like that as well.

@ Last day: Thank you for kind of saving me there. XD I really have no idea what I was going for, trying to compare the apple with the oranges. Just woke up, so the hamsters aren’t running in their wheels at full speed yet.

What I meant to put out there, was that our entire class specific mechanic is not that great. I feel that we are being brought down as a class in general for our mechanics ability to allow us to have a bit more of a life span. I would trade our mechanic for any of the other classes, especially if it was something like the engineer’s, where we could have it change our 1-4 skills to suit the individual. DS is not worth much more than a buffer for the condition and MM builds out there. When I play against those, they only rely on it as a buffer. I try to use it in both manners, but defense seems to be best suited for it.

(Btw, I am not screaming for a complete and total rework of Necro. I just want some tweaks that could help every build we can have when we see some changes. I am going to hold my peace on other things until those bugs are out of the way, then we can see if something else is truly wrong.)

Heh yeah the Life Force mechanic is messed up.
Use it in a Zerg of common mobs and it’s actually borderline overpowered.
Sometimes it fills from 0% to 100% faster than the 10 sec cooldown.

Use it somewhere with very few deaths and it takes ages to build up even just 20%.
Honestly I think that they should add a cooldown to how often we get can Life Force from a death, but also up all our Life Force generation from skills to make it even out in different areas of the game.

Agreed. With pve mobs, there are some ways to really pump out the damage to be at that borderline. (Staff 2, BiP, Staff 4, Epidemic, DS 4 with Sigil of Superior Earth on a 75% crit chance for ex. )

I think I’ve actually got the hang of it.

- I trigger and untrigger every 10 seconds to get fury/retaliation and enfeebling blood.
- For large crowds, I use warhorn 5, run in like no tomorrow, drop my wells and use ds4. pretty much a ton of hurt.
- For strafing in team fights or boss battles, I use staff to charge up then ds1 (hits for 3-4k bursts each which is a ton of hurt).
- For stragglers in pvp I use dagger 3 to immo and strafe while ds1 and watch them suffer. (also works with dsfear)

ds is all about feeling and trusting your gut. feel when the spike is comming feel when you need to cc with fear and know when to use dark path to stop a fleeing enemy in its track same about life transfer its a gut instinct it will take practice but eventually it comes naturally.

whats also important in the art of ds is to learn the abilities of your oponent. Pistolwhip bullrush heartseeker learn all the burst abilities from the other classes before you can truly master ds.

Been doing a lot of Death Shroud testing the past few days and thought I’d chime in here. See the threads mentioning Death Shroud Health Pool and Soul Reaping not giving the 30% bonus to life force.

As for this thread…

If the actual tree that supported Death Shroud worked properly or was just more in tune and not bugged one could perform some very nice feats. Assuming you had a way to up your boon time outside of traits you could have a stat set up of lets say the Knights Amulet from the mists. That being power, vitality, and toughness. With these stats and grabbing all the 10 point markers for Death Shroud in your traitlines as well as a full 30 in Reaping (as per your own preference) you could be very combative.

Acting much like a elementalist who swaps attunement constantly you would just need to shroud dance constantly, this can be a lot considering you can drop it to a 5 second cool down. That is every 5 seconds getting retaliation, causing weakness, losing a condition, and assuming you are smart and staying near your team or group (dungeon or pvp)… you can also heal with life transfer(skill 4 in DS).

Many people would argue that its a waste considering how fast you will burn out your Life Force, but again, if it worked properly and gluttony (the very first trait) worked… you would get 8% per staff auto attack as well as 8% for every mark someone steps on (traitable to 3% in Soul Reaping up to 8% im assuming with Gluttony). 5 smacks is 40%… you will do considerably more hits in that 5 seconds out of DS… So every time you pop out it could fill quite a lot.

Now imagine you actually got an extra 30% life force (assuming your lifeforce pool matches your actual hp)… this would essentially be like when you jump into Plague or Lich… you get 100% and 50% extra hp respectively for those two forms, minus a certain % degrading per stacking of 1000hp. So now, not only would you have this near constant source of protection, but as well it would be near the health capability of one of your Elites…

With all this in mind, imagine how hard it could be to kill something like that. You are getting brief moments to hit the persons actual hp, and all the time effects you are popping on them are being ticked off 1 by one every 5 seconds…. as well as them popping out to heal every 25 seconds. So every fifth time they pop out if you haven’t managed to kill them not only do they heal up, but potentially any conditions you have on them, they use to fully heal up with the added bonus of hp per condition…

All this is assuming that the trait line works… I could go into further detail, like mentioning using weapon swap cool downs as a added bonus to your form ( you can swap weapons while in DS and you will recieve the bonus or perform the effect ). There are a few more things that can be done to further master the form. But this is all under the idea that Soul Reaping would actually function.

In reality because this is all theory crafting the above set up may not work great at all… but it would be nice to test it out if the trait line worked. Just food for thought as to what “possibly” could be done with it. In my opinion, I can see some concern here. Maybe an explanation as to why staff auto is so slow, or perhaps why life blast is slow and low damage as well. If they weren’t… and the traits worked… you’d never get them out of DS and they would hit substantially too hard for being able to perma shield like that….

Just food for thought.

My actual set up is geomancer with weakening shroud, scepter/dagger, staff… i use DS to stack a lot of bleeds. Also requires you to stand on your enemy, but thats the trade off I guess.

Rotation (assuming starting with scepter/dagger) is 2,5,1,1,1,F1,skill2,weapon swap,F1,2,3…. your enemy should have quite a few bleeds as well as be frozen and close to death… do a few staff smacks and be done with him. Should anyone be stupid enough to be standing too close, hit epidemic and proceed to repeat. In sPvP the combo is a lot harder to pull off, but if you do… people die, especially with ticks at high intervals( potentially 140ish…. with BiP and rabid amulet/Undead Runes).

I’ll check back later for any responses. I tend to ramble so my post may be a little off here and there.

While I was not present for the BWs, that may well be what was observed as making the necro hard to kill. And based on that what we are seeing as bugs because behavior and tooltips do not line up, could actually be the post-BW tweaks done and they simply forgot to update/modify the tooltips to match.

I actually have been thinking about that today. I did some reading about all the nerfs they did. And considering I spent the past few days testing vitality, toughness, and health gains from DS instead of playing, it really feels like DS is completely under par from what it should be….

I find myself wondering if the whole Guttony issue could be one of it being multiplicative rather than additive. a 5% increase on 3% results in what, 3.15%? That is basically going to disappear in noise. This seems to be much the same issue as with Hemophilia, as it may give an extra second while paired up with the scepter duration trait, on its own it just vanishes in the noise because they scepter bleed durations are short.

Honestly, some of the design choices around boons and conditions make it seem as if Anet didn’t do percentage math. Or when they last did, the numbers affected were a magnitude or two higher than they are now.

I don’t PVP, but using DS in PVE makes me think that the design would be okay if;
A) Life Blast’s Unyielding Blast caused it to bleed the targets it hits, rather than cause Vul, and Life blast should naturally bounce.
B) Life Transfer gave more than 3% life force per target hit. Ideally this should generate enough LF, even with only two targets, to allow the player to resist damage and the natural decay of LF. Right now you only get this if you’re draining from five or so mobs.
C) Doom should be an aoe or last longer
And finally D) Life Blast shouldn’t lose half your damage when dipping below 50% LF. It’m fairly certain that at this point it no longer does better damage than your normal weapons, so there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to it.

gluttony isn’t multiplicative, you can test it by performing multiple casts of life force generating abilities, and there is no difference, although if it was it would be such a small difference it would be a joke in practice. Having a pure 5% increase though seems OP, especially for an adept trait though, so I have no clue what it should/supposed to be.

In my opinion I dont think it’s over powered. This being considered as I would think this would soley be applied to our weapon skills. It would be nice to be added to all our skills. Currently, we get 3% from staff 1 which is slow. Many people complain that they see little to no life force gains from using scepter 3. We also get about 8% w/o interruption on axe 2, as well as another 9% from focus assuming it bounces each time. We also get about 6% from using the dagger 1 skill in succession which requires you to be in melee range, even more cause to have a faster build up of Life Force.

With all skills having cooldowns, aside from dagger 1 and staff 1, and the idea that you just don’t want to spam your skills at random just for Life Force, adding 5% in isnt really that big of a deal. It could be a little over board if every skill gained this additional 5%. I am in favor of this. However, many people may disagree with me. I myself find that in certain modes of play I struggle to gain Life force (PvP being a main one considering you start each match at 0). Other times I have more then enough to go around (mostly PvE as I rarely need to use my DS due to my main state of play being world roaming and not dungeon play).

I also know there are many necormancer players who also struggle to gain life force at times as well. The way I see it, whenever I played the warrior class I had to do little to no effort and my adrenaline bar would be full. I never found myself looking down and having to put any effort or worry that I had to fill my bar to use the F1 skill. Aside from the warrior class in general being extremely well balanced and a breeze to play in terms of damage and utility, the F1 skill does some amazing damage at times as well. If they can have that resource so easily and readily available, whats the difference if a necro can jump in and out of DS at a moments notice. When we can’t then we tend to be at a great disadvantage. Considering our damage outputs are laughable, aside from bleed damage, being able to generate life force quicker should balance the equation of having small damage but higher survivability through constant use of DeathShroud.
In my opinion, it just makes sense in that manner. I’m sure many will agree that the tradeoff is sound in that respect, not overpowered.

The only way the Gluttony trait seems slightly OP is when you add it on top of Soul Marks. But if it really is additive, then it is SERIOUSLY under powered. 5% of 5% is a measly .25%, giving us a total of 5.25% LF on marks, and as digiowl pointed out, 3.15% on staff auto attack.

This adds nothing to our LF bar. You would have to use all four marks just to generate an extra 1% Life Force! When they fix it, I really hope its multiplicative