Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

My main is a Mesmer and have been playing it since launch however I recently leveled a Necro to 80, running full rabid 30/20/0/0/20 Dhumm/Fear/Terror build with Scepter/Dagger + Staff and having a blast.

Could anyone give me advice on using Deathshroud?

What I know so far is when I go into Deathshroud, I use #5 Tainted Shackles, then #3 Doom for the Fear. Sometimes I will use #2 Dark path before Tainted Shackles to get to melee range.

Now I understand that after I use #5 Tainted Shackles, I can leave DS and it will still work.

Some questions I have:

1. Should I almost always use Dark Path for the Bleeding and Chill?
2. When should #4 Life Transfer be used?
3. Is it best to stay in DS and use #1 Life Blast? Is the damage decent or should one get out of DS to conserve Life Force?

Any tips would be appreciated!

All depends on your build and the situation. Theres no clear answer. Just think about whether its a dps loss to cast an ability and if the advantage outweighs the loss of dps.

Im not sure the cast time on dark path is worth the 3 bleeds so I would only use that to gap close or to control with chill. I run a power build so every skill in DS is a dps loss compared to dagger but I will use #4 and #5 for large trash groups. And #2 for gap closing and doom for removing defiant or positioning mobs into walls.

When u go in DS,use #2 #3 then #5 and #4.

Now for the questions:
1)Yep,#2 is awesome spell,also as u have full rabid even close to target u are able to take some hits.Just use ur dodge and take some distance again.
2)#4 in condition builds can be used offensively and defensively.Offensively cause when u are in DS,ur crit chance is higher (minor trait #2 in curses) + rabid provides some really good crit chance.Now combining sigil of earth and minor trait #1 in curses you can apply bleed on crits so u end up with 3-4 bleeds.Also u can use this skill defensively as u get life force and in that build life force regen is kinda a problem.So if u dont have enough life force u can use this.
3)No,dont stay in DS for life blast.As i said,life force regen is kinda a problem in that build so save as much life force u can.If your health is really low then stay in DS and spam this till enemy is down or ur heal is up.

With your setup:

1. Pretty much.
2. Whenever you need to soak a bit of extra damage or just want to tag a bunch of enemies for loot. It does decent damage on its own and also procs Barbed Precision pretty frequently.
3. Conserve life force. Condition builds have terrible life force generation and with full Rabid, your life blast damage kinda sucks while still not applying conditions (which you are focused around). If you have the Reaper’s Might trait, it could be worth shooting off 2-5 blasts just for the Might.

And for a damage rotation in death shroud, you should use #5 before #3. In fact, let the immobilize from Tainted Shackles wear off, then hit them with Doom to force the double-ticks on all three stacks of Torment.