Guild Wars 2

After the launch of HoT and the introduction of the Reaper, which has a very synergistic RS, it is painfully obvious how non-synergistic regular DS is.

• RS1 works great with Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire
• RS2 functions as a short range leap and projectile destroyer. Can combo with fields, and Chilling Darkness (which in turn can combo with Deathly Chill)
• RS3 medium duration and strength stability to counter a couple CC, can sacrifice for a low duration AoE fear (can combo with Shivers of Dread, which can combo with Deathly Chill)
• RS4 Good for both Power builds and for Condition builds, can combo with fields
• RS5 Good for Powerbuilds as an “execution” attack, good for Condition builds when used with Deathly Chill

Almost all RS skills are useful in some way, and most can be used by either Power or Condition builds, and have great synergy with both the player himself and teammates.

Meanwhile for regular DS:

• DS1 Slow, short range Power damage. Very vulnerable to Blind, Interrupt, having to dodge. Terrible with Dhuumfire due to low attack rate and low amount and duration burn application. No interesting combo potential and no projectile finisher.
• DS2 Slow-moving Unblockable teleport-on-hit, applies some Bleeding and Chill. Not terrible and usually worth casting at least on Condition builds. Can be traited for Boon Corruption. No projectile finisher
• DS3 Instant-cast, long range and low duration Fear. Only really useful for interrupting enemies that does not have Stability or Resistance. Can be used with Terror (but Terror is so bad that it is not really a point, not to mention Terror competes with other more useful traits)
• DS4 Low hitting AoE channel that roughly halts DS natural degeneration during the channel. Often not worth casting on Power builds, never worth casting on Condition builds. Can be traited for some utility with Blood Magic, otherwise no combo potential and no combo field finisher.
• DS5 Low amount of Torment application with a little delayed Power damage, on a long Recharge. Sometimes useful but never really worth playing around. Not worthy of being the long Recharge # 5 skill, like the Executioner’s Scythe of RS (which is done right).

Now I would like your suggestions on how to improve regular DS

Some ideas I have are e.g.

DS1: Give 100% projectile finisher. Increase either amount or duration of Burn from Dhuumfire when used with DS1 to appropriate potency (Dhuumfire with RS1 is not as bad).

DS2: Increase the speed of the projectile. (I have also seen people suggest a targeted teleport, I am indifferent on that suggestion as of yet)

DS3: Since this is single target, the duration should be increased to perhaps the double. This would also give DS some Breakbar breaking utility, like RS already have. (Terror also really needs a look at, it is such cool potential/idea but really bad trait/potency)

DS4: Make it useful for both Power and Condition builds. Have it apply 4s of Bleed for every hit on the enemy, like RS4 applies poison. DS4 hits less times than RS4 (9 instead of 12), so that should balance the DS4 600 radius from RS4 300 radius. Also make it a whirl finisher like RS4. (This change make “necromancer sense” in that you suck the life from the enemies, which should leave them bleeding, and you are sucking just like a tornado which enables it to have the whirl finisher). If the Power damage/scaling is too low it could perhaps be increased some.

DS5: Make this skill worthy of being the # 5 skill, just like RS5 is. The idea of the skill is fine, but the potency is really lacking. I could see everything on this skill doubled and I’m still not sure it would be potent enough. It needs more potency.

What are your thoughts on this matter? I would also love to hear your ideas of how to improve the regular Death Shroud

But they already made DS1 pierce innately! What more do you need??!!~~XX

I suggest this idea in previous thread.
Replace Death shroud by lich form. I keep Death shroud’s mechanics(10 s CD) but I replace/ melt abilities, obviously I decrease damages and conditions (Otherwise overpowered, I guess). I maintain lich form “appearance” but a smaller version with death shroud’s dark flame.
I’m doing this for one reason: Lich form should have been Death Shroud at the outset.
Just a moment, imagine possibilities!

1/ Deathly Claws ( Chain ?)
Send out grasping claws to damage your foes. Pierces

2/ Grim Specter (20 sec) (Isn’t a mark anymore)
Send out a claw that explodes in the target area and teleport you too.
Convert boons to conditions for your foes, and convert conditions to boons for you and your allies.

3/ Chilling Wind (15sec)
Release a freezing wind that chills and pushes back foes.
You deal more damage when you are closer to the target.

4/ Necrotic Shackles (30 sec)
At each pulse, you damage nearby foes, conditioning them repeatedly and stealth their life force. The bind may be break if ennemies move out of range of this ability.
Pulse: 9
Add 1 torments per pulse. (9 torments max)

5/ Mark of Horror (45 sec)
Inscribe a mark that summons five jagged horrors when a foe triggers it. (5 horrors maximum, you can’t combine with “Rise!”)
Fear foes if tormented (1,5 second), increased duration to close range (2,5 second)

PS: I already hear your cry of protest !

Problem with DS is that a lot of its skills don’t synergize and each skill only scales with one stat unlike RS. And RS scaling is just straight up better.

• Lifeblast is a ranged autoattack yet Dark Path puts you into melee range.
• Death’s Charge gives higher mobility than Dark Path.
• Life Transfer is only power-based while Soul Spiral scales with both Condition and Power.
• Executioner’s Scythe will do more than Tainted Shackles ever will.

Doom is arguably the only skill that can compete with its counterpart Infusing Terror as Doom is 1200 range and can be traited to be the longest fear in the game.

For DS to compete with RS, I’d suggest the following:

• Lifeblast projectile speed needs to be increased, cast time needs to be decreased.
• Dark Path needs to be a ground-targeted teleport that chills and blinds in an AoE upon arrival.
• Doom should be AoE within a certain range in addition to the current affects (maybe 350 range?).
• Life Transfer/Tainted Shackles both need to be remade.

Unrelated but I too would love a buff to the Terror trait, sad to see Chill do more damage while being more common.

DS 1 Life Blast isn’t close ranged, it’s 1200 range. Projectile finisher , while not necessary, would be nice.

DS 2 Dark Path needs to be reworked a bit. Make the teleport to target optional and do full Life blast damage & apply 1s chill, faster projectile speed? Reduce the chill by 1s & recharge so it can be used more often
—-> optional part could work similar to terrify

DS 3 Doom ought to have fear near you within 360 range or so, similar to mesmer shatter

DS 4 Life Transfer – increase range to 900 and have the damage scale maybe 150% similar to Doom, the damage isn’t ridiculously high : Soul Spiral is about double damage (although 300 rangte) and comes with a large stack of poison

DS 5 Tainted Shackles – needs to double everything , add some short duration 1.5-2s poison, and it still would not be worth 40 cooldown

Another question is: is Reaper’s shroud slightly overtuned?

P.S. Poison and chill do not require condition builds. Poison has -33% heal effectiveness, chill has movement reduction/recharge slow down.

Its been said lots of times, the main points brought up are

• a faster but same dps auto, for more trait synergie and non clunky combat
• some stab, probably on channeled #5
• a more reliable gap closer, ideas varry from faster projectile to targetable wet dreams blink

DS is never going to be on the level of RS for a few reasons, one of which is elite specs were sold to us as these beastly class upgrades that change the way the class works and turns you into a god.

I mentioned this to someone else just before the recent DS “buff” and the patch that followed pretty much proved it. Its just not going to happen. What they might do is allow DS be used even if you have Reaper line active.

ds 1 cast reduction by 50%, ds 2 teleport to area and deals damage+ apply poison + torment to erea, ds 3 aoe fear around your target, ds 4 pulse stability + conditons torment and bleed, ds 5 increase damage add poison and 5 secs of chill and add a knock down if they go out of range

• Better synergy with Dhuumfire
• Mobility
• AoE fear
• Stability
• Condi Burst

Why don’t you just take a RS instead of DS ???

Ragion.2831:

DS is never going to be on the level of RS for a few reasons, one of which is elite specs were sold to us as these beastly class upgrades that change the way the class works and turns you into a god.

I mentioned this to someone else just before the recent DS “buff” and the patch that followed pretty much proved it. Its just not going to happen. What they might do is allow DS be used even if you have Reaper line active.

Elite specs were meant to be sidegrades and ways to play the profession differently than normal, not upgrades. Unfortunately ANET can balance about as well as a sinking ship so that’s what a lot of elite specs came out as.

Luckily the way reaper functions and works is less of an addition and more of a complete overhaul in comparison to Chronomancer and berserker and a couple of others which merely gave them an additional mechanic on top of the base class mechanic.

Onto topic, The fundamental difference between DS and RS is simply the fact one is ranged and one is melee. Melee gives you more reward for the risk due to the fact when in melee range you’re more vulnerable to things like AoE, cleave, and the like. At Range, you can dodge these or see them coming a bit better. Because of this DS will never have the rewards RS has such as stability and I’d even say we were lucky to get Death’s Charge on Reaper. What DS needs really are way to keep the enemy engaged and in our “Death Zone” as ANET likes to call it. This can be with fears, immobilizes, Teleports, etc. But DS will never unfortunately have RS stability or damage capabilities just simply because it is ranged DPS.

So let’s see. RS is your meelebruiser, adding a decent amount of damage an thread. DS is lacking a real purpose. I think DS could work better with a “ranged” concept, where RS wants you to be close to an enemy at all times, DS should be more centered around keeping your distance from your enemy.

DS 1 : Damage is now always the “below 600 range” damage as base, this damage is reduced by 50%, casttime and aftercast reduced by 50%. Make this a 100% projectile finisher OR add a condi either 6 second torment or 6 second poison.

DS 2: Changed to: Spectral Locust – Turn into a spectral locustswarm removing all movement impairing effects and blinding nearby foes. Dash a fixed distance (600) while evading. Leave a cascade of locusts in your wake for 3 seconds that cripple and corrupt a boon. 10 second cd.

DS 3: Fear is now 2 seconds, you corrupt 2 boons on your foe before attempting to fear.

DS 4: Summon a Lifeleeching vortex onto the target area. Like it is now, dealing damage but groundtargeted like a well (900 range, 240 radius). Generates lifeforce and healing for yourself per enemy hit. Applies pulsing protection to yourself and your minions and bleeding to your enemies.

DS 5: Grants you Stability on cast (3stacks, 5 seconds), now applies weakness per pulse, doubled the stacks of torment. Deals 4x the base physical damage if the bond is broken.

The idea here is to turn it into a shroud that is like a ranged power weapon thats aimed to keep the distance – Elementalist staff, LB ranger, LB Guard, Rifle Warrior. The lifeforce generation is weaker compared to RS in general, but the damage should be higher then base DS is now. By turning skill 2 into a “insect” theme this makes for a good opportunity to introduce a trait that improves “insect” kinda skills, warhorn 5, dagger 4, plague etc.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Ragion.2831:

DS is never going to be on the level of RS for a few reasons, one of which is elite specs were sold to us as these beastly class upgrades that change the way the class works and turns you into a god.

I mentioned this to someone else just before the recent DS “buff” and the patch that followed pretty much proved it. Its just not going to happen. What they might do is allow DS be used even if you have Reaper line active.

Elite specs were meant to be sidegrades and ways to play the profession differently than normal, not upgrades. Unfortunately ANET can balance about as well as a sinking ship so that’s what a lot of elite specs came out as.

Dont know what a “sidegrade” means. Side upgrade? an upgrade on the side? but is not an upgrade?

If Anet didnt intend on the Elite specializations being better than the core specializations even after first of all calling them Elite specs and the base Core specs then why are all the elite specs better than the core specs? Unless you want to argue that for some reason they aren’t then i have to disagree that the intention wasnt for elites to be better than the cores

Edit: Had to look up “sidegrade”, a reason to switch? is that what you mean? even if thats the case it doesnt mean that they werent designed to be better than the cores.

Ragion.2831:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Ragion.2831:

DS is never going to be on the level of RS for a few reasons, one of which is elite specs were sold to us as these beastly class upgrades that change the way the class works and turns you into a god.

I mentioned this to someone else just before the recent DS “buff” and the patch that followed pretty much proved it. Its just not going to happen. What they might do is allow DS be used even if you have Reaper line active.

Elite specs were meant to be sidegrades and ways to play the profession differently than normal, not upgrades. Unfortunately ANET can balance about as well as a sinking ship so that’s what a lot of elite specs came out as.

Dont know what a “sidegrade” means. Side upgrade? an upgrade on the side? but is not an upgrade?

He kinda clarified what he meant after saying “sidegrade.” That it was an addition to the class, but not intended to be better that what was already there… just a new option. Another metaphor might be that the Elite is an annex to the Core’s main building.

Ragion.2831:

If Anet didnt intend on the Elite specializations being better than the core specializations even after first of all calling them Elite specs and the base Core specs then why are all the elite specs better than the core specs? Unless you want to argue that for some reason they aren’t then i have to disagree that the intention wasnt for elites to be better than the cores

I read a forum post a week or two ago where someone quoted one of the devs when discussing the term Elite as it’s used in this case. To paraphrase, he clarified that Elite was intended to signify a new option once you have unlocked and understood all the other options available to that class, not that it was supposed to be Better-Than-Core. That dev even went so far as to admit the word “elite” was a misnomer.

I really wish I could remember what forum post that was in…

I’ve also read/watched commentary of people criticizing the elites as being lackluster… so I feel that just like everything else in this game, it’s awesome if it fits your play style, and can be left out if it doesn’t. I see it more as Elite is still the new shiny, and that’s more of why people are playing it more than the Core when they open the option… That doesn’t make Elite intrinsically better than Core.

~EW

Ephemeral yea i read it but didnt understand it. When i break down the word it looks like side upgrade, an addition to the class that is better than what already exists. He is saying that it isnt an upgrade which confuses me.

If what you are saying is tru about the dev quote and from what you say, im sure it is. Then the studio is a lot more confused that i thought.

When people say something is lackluster, that usually means it is not as good as they expected not it is not as good as what already is. Also people make really dumb criticisms all the time. Some criticize without any alternative which is just as dumb but between what i see in game, on the forums and my experiences, using an elite with 2 cores is a lot better than using only cores. This means that the profession mechanic and the class as a whole is more effective when you use the elites than without them.

Are you saying this isn’t true? you personally, not what people say. Are you saying that base guardian virtues is better than DH virtues and thatt guardian with longbow and traps is as good as a guardian without them. Is DS as good as RS or the condition damage potential on base necro as good as it is on reaper?

Ragion.2831:

Ephemeral yea i read it but didnt understand it. When i break down the word it looks like side upgrade, an addition to the class that is better than what already exists. He is saying that it isnt an upgrade which confuses me.

If what you are saying is tru about the dev quote and from what you say, im sure it is. Then the studio is a lot more confused that i thought.

When people say something is lackluster, that usually means it is not as good as they expected not it is not as good as what already is. Also people make really dumb criticisms all the time. Some criticize without any alternative which is just as dumb but between what i see in game, on the forums and my experiences, using an elite with 2 cores is a lot better than using only cores. This means that the profession mechanic and the class as a whole is more effective when you use the elites than without them.

Are you saying this isn’t true? you personally, not what people say. Are you saying that base guardian virtues is better than DH virtues and thatt guardian with longbow and traps is as good as a guardian without them. Is DS as good as RS or the condition damage potential on base necro as good as it is on reaper?

I feel it’s essential I establish that I am not a good example of ‘the norm.’ Also, PvP is not my favorite mode to play in… So any assertion I make should really be taken with a grain of salt. The only authority I can confidently pull from for my commentary is my extensive build testing… it’s nearly all I do in this game amongst all the classes I play… and I’ve been doing it for 3 years. I have build-aholism.

But, yes, I’m saying from my personal perspective that it’s not true. I am claiming that neither is better than the other, except situationally.

The main topic of this thread: RS vs DS… For me, out of the box, it depends on if I am being in-your-face aggressive or hit-and-run. Also for these two I think it depends on what mode of play I’m in as to which is more favorable to use. I think RS is more generally beneficial to PvP, where as I think DS favors PvE more. And I think that’s just fine. I’m happy that there are skills/etc that are better in some modes than others.

You mention Core Guard Virtues vs DH Virtues… For me, out of the box, Core Justice is better than Spear. DH Resolve is better than Core, and both Courages are on par with each other, with Core Courage being a bit more universally useful because it doesn’t require facing.

You mention Guard DH Longbow and Traps. The Longbow is great, but not any more so than the Ranger longbow. The reason why it seems so awesome is that Guards really never had much in the way of effective ranged (especially in PvP), and now they do. This is coming from someone who currently loves using the scepter on his Guard. The traps aren’t OP because like many guard skills 3 of the 4 of them have too long of cd… that’s their biggest weakness. CD usually is for the more ‘powerful’ skills. And, it’s not like the Necro when facing those traps doesn’t have possible minions he can send in to trip them while remaining safe at a distance.

There’s no such thing as a universally good skill… in this game it’s all situational… and part of that situation is what mode (PvP, PvE, and WvW) you’re playing in.

I hope that clarifies my perspective

~EW

I see where you are coming from but cmon man, how can a one off block from aegis be as good as a a continuous block of up to 7 seconds even if its directional. Shield of courage also grants passive aegis.

The core justice passively grants burning and inflicts burning on one attack when activated. The DH justice passively grants burning and continously inflcts burning when active. Impossible to say core justice is better than spear.

DS vs RS equally is not comparable. Stability on RS, none on ds. Much better condition and direct damage on RS compared to DS. Better AoE on RS with the AA, terrify soul spiral and soul spiral in combination with executioner’s scyth , DS AoE is abysmal in comparison. RS wasnt even revealed to us as a PvP thing, it was shown as a more effective shroud in PvE because it handles more enemies better. Robert Gee actually described it as more of a hit and run shroud because of deaths charge. The only thing DS has on RS is that you can sit at a distance chucking life blasts and that is not an effective way to fight anyway. I’m putting PvP aside here

My point is i dont see DS ever being redone in a way that it becomes as effective as RS. A dev might have said that the intention was for RS to be just an alternative way of playing but it turns out it is a more effective way of playing which was clearly done on purpose.

Its almost like asking for us to use RS without the reaper line. That would be great but they will never let that or anything like that happen. Don’t forget that these are the same people that rendered chilling darkness useless when they added more chill on reaper traitline (even though they later corrected it)

I will always choose reaper shroud over Deathshroud as long as reapershroud 3 gives pulsing stab.