Guild Wars 2

This is just a question from a “not-so-good” player.

I was simply looking at LF as a resource we build up and spend on defensive and offensive abilities. It seemed to me, without being able to underpin it all with sound game maths, that it is more than a little stretched for what it seems ANet expects of it both offensively and defensively especially with the latest change to DS damage overflow.

Has anyone closely looked at this in terms of real time gameplay? Is LF overcommitted?

Edit: for example, if our damage is balanced around the use of DS as a part of our damage abilities, it means if we use DS defensively (like ANet want us to), we will never be able to reach our damage balance potential because the effective LF resource has been double committed….offensive LF abilities for damage but redirected for defensive abilities for survival (a necessity). It means if we use LF/DS as Anet intend us to we cannot achieve our damage balance….and vice versa….if we max our damage balance we are left vulnerable without LF for survival.

I wonder how ANet reconcile this apparent contradiction. To me it appears a double counting of a resource.

I’ve wondered about this, but I honestly feel it is something that only the developers can answer…

Very good point and precisely a reason they should not put Dhuumfire on Shroud.

Because then you are forced even more to use DS offensively if you want to maintain even close to the damage being put out with Dhuumfire as an auto proc part of your rotation. But if you do jump in DS early for DPS, then you have no access to your defensive mechanic for 10 seconds if you get bursted after that.

Or if you wait and save DS for defensive purposes, then you lose a ton of DPS not having access to Doom or Dhuumfire.

I would allow that some kind of tough choice is part of skillful play and fine to be involved in the mechanic. But they can’t be putting the whole kitchen sink in DS and make it so importantly dependent for both offense and defense. Not when you can’t access it freely, and not when its skills are so limited, with no access to condition removal, stun break, etc.

Death shroud has a tone of problems in its design. As a resource it isn’t used nearly as much as it should be. This is coming from someone who dedicates much of her build to being able to use death shroud effectively.

On a power build, the skills are less useful as you only really care about 2 skills. Life transfer and life blast while the others are mostly forgotten. They do get used, but not nearly as much. Then it locks you our of skills that you have on your utility bar that you want to be able to cast while in death shroud but have to cast them out of death shroud, effectively making you have to set up before hand. if you are quick at it, this isn’t too much of a problem, but if you are not it makes a power build less viable then it would be otherwise. The other side of the power builds that use death shroud less often, don’t care about any of the skills and will be using it more as a way to mitigate damage. This second build is rather sad because it basically says, I don’t want to play a necromancer for their special mechanic which under minds arena net’s efforts.

For a Condition build, the only skill you really don’t care about is Life blast. In fact its usually so bad for condition builds that you will actively try to end death shroud before it even casts. This means that the necromancer will most likely drop death shroud within a few seconds of entering it just for the extra condition stacks. Then the problem becomes it locks you out of defense for a period of time.

For a defensive build its subpar there too. You aren’t worried about your damage so much with this, but the fact that it carries over means that you can’t pop it in response to a large hit while other professions can just use an evade, invulnerability or just block skill to get out of there while you might not be lucky enough to have your endurance bar filled.

Then there is the major problem with death shroud. You can’t break stun while in it. So if you need to enter death shroud as a defensive means, you sacrifice your defensive abilities to do so. Which further perpetuates the problem. This makes laughable at best, as once you enter a smart foe can use this time to begin to cc you to death. Doom really becoming your only means of defense in DS, but even that doesn’t last long enough and your foe isn’t locked out of a stun break like you are.

Now I’m not saying a necromancer can’t win. They can! They can destroy people very well. The problem becomes that other profession are far easier to use and play with more reward and less investment into their mechanic in order to be both offensively and defensively sound.

Actually I love the implementation as a Zerker Necro.

It’s like a decent ranged weapon for those speccing into Power not Conditions.

Sometimes you like to blast away from a good distance given our lack of disengage options – this does the trick quite nicely – My Lifeblast can hit for up to 6K a pop in WvW.

Dark Path could use some improvements and the fear is the most handy thing we have.

Pendragon.8735:

Very good point and precisely a reason they should not put Dhuumfire on Shroud.

It’s exactly why it should be this way. The access of Dhuumfire needs to be restricted, and it’s not like you don’t do damage without it.

Lily.1935:

For a Condition build, the only skill you really don’t care about is Life blast.

Dhuumfire on Life Blast would solve that.

Lily.1935:

On a power build, the skills are less useful as you only really care about 2 skills.

Maybe in PvE, against other players every single skill is super important to have. Fear, chilled, immobilized… and Tainted Shackles actually does pretty decent damage considering its cast time of only 0.25 sec.

Oldbugga.7029:

I wonder how ANet reconcile this apparent contradiction. To me it appears a double counting of a resource.

I think you have the wrong impression of Death Shroud.
You never have to make a choice between offense and defense when you are using it.

Lily.1935:

Then there is the major problem with death shroud. You can’t break stun while in it.
…a smart foe can use this time to begin to cc you to death.

That really is a problem, more so when you’re getting focused by many opponents at once. (Fingers crossed for more DS skills in the future)
However, in 1v1s a smart foe will save his CC for when you leave Shroud because that’s when you are the most vulnerable.

flow.6043:

Pendragon.8735:

Very good point and precisely a reason they should not put Dhuumfire on Shroud.

It’s exactly why it should be this way. The access of Dhuumfire needs to be restricted, and it’s not like you don’t do damage without it.

There are other better means to restrict it.

If they create true sustain then I really don’t care what happens to Dhuumfire, they can remove it entirely. Unfortunately they have no even beginning hint of how bring about proper Necro sustain.

Dumping more and more stuff into DS because they want the class to ‘rely’ on it is not the answer. Right now they are just shuffling chairs around with little clear vision for the profession.

I think the upcoming change to Vital Persistence, which will reduce LF drain in DS by 50% instead of the current 25%, is a tacit acknowledgement by the devs that the DS pool is somewhat overcommitted.

I play a DS Critomancer. 90% of my build is spent in a spectral form. With piercing might and vulnerability i do roughly 9k dmg per life blast. My life transfer tops at 10k dmg with a 3k aoe heal. My offense is fine for pve, i pull off of zerkers. Defensively i have 2.7k armor. If DS isnt back up and im in danger i hit plague elite, doubles my current hp and grants stability. Long enough for my feast conditions heal and DS cd to come back up.

Also i dont wvw or pvp, because i cant stand zergs and im not as young as i once was. Purely a pve perspective.

Pendragon.8735:

If they create true sustain then I really don’t care what happens to Dhuumfire, they can remove it entirely. Unfortunately they have no even beginning hint of how bring about proper Necro sustain.

I can see why people feel that a “do or die” style of gameplay warrents the ability to do high damage, but I’m rather surprised to see this kind of argument again and again on the forum: our sustain is bad therefore we need burning! That is just wrong.
I agree that the necro has the worst attrition of all classes, we can’t recover from a certain amount of damage dealt to us, so either finish the fight early or get worn down eventually. Imo this needs to change, but it’s in no way related to Dhuumfire.

TheAgedGnome.7520:

I think the upcoming change to Vital Persistence, which will reduce LF drain in DS by 50% instead of the current 25%, is a tacit acknowledgement by the devs that the DS pool is somewhat overcommitted.

If that was true they’d have to reduce the base amount of lf degeneration in DS. Vital Persistence is just a bad trait, that’s all. Even if they buff it to 50% it won’t be used much unless they create more synergy with other traits, like making Dhuumfire proc on LB only, or buffing/merging traits like Death Shiver.

JDChaos.2679:

I play a DS Critomancer. 90% of my build is spent in a spectral form. With piercing might and vulnerability i do roughly 9k dmg per life blast. My life transfer tops at 10k dmg with a 3k aoe heal. My offense is fine for pve, i pull off of zerkers. Defensively i have 2.7k armor. If DS isnt back up and im in danger i hit plague elite, doubles my current hp and grants stability. Long enough for my feast conditions heal and DS cd to come back up.

If you don’t mind, I think many power necros would appreciate you sharing your build. I would love to be able to see those numbers.

As it stands, I am playing a full berserker build with full berserker everything other than a cavalier backpiece. Traits are 30,10,0,0,30. I also run superior runes of the scholar. At 100% hp running signet of spite and blood is power (without a target so no bleed), I have never hit anything for a 10k life transfer.

Maybe I am not taking something into account, like if my enemy were < 50% health and had 25 stacks of vulnerability on them. Or, if you meant 10k total damage (2k per target x5 targets) that would make more sense

@ flow:

Hey mate, I`m sure you know I always appreciate your input and love discussing necro issues with you. But I heavily disagree about Vital Persistence being a bad trait. I never ever leave the house without that trait.

With my current hybrid build I don`t have high armor (around 2.3k) and Vital Persistence alone makes me so friggin durable, it`s insane. The difference between chosing this trait and not is not only noticable, but huge.

The combination of Vital Persistence, Weakening Shroud and Spectral Armor makes not only insanely tough but makes worrying about LF and LF regen a non-issue, too, freeing up high tier SR traits for bonus utility and damage.

This trait imho is one of the most powerful adept traits ingame, a 100% buff (25%-50%) will make it borderline overpowered, especially in combination with spectral skills and LF regen traits.

I`m really, really looking forward to that buff!

Best regards

@ Sepreh - I run the same build on my Necro! Nice to see a fellow Zerkmancer (patent pending).

I’ve recently changed my Runes to Traveller Runes to free up a utility slot.

I’m full Zerker. My LB hits for 5-6k, with the absolute max hitting on glass cannon thieves for 7k (only done this a couple of times) – TBH as a Zerker Necro thieves are the easiest kill for me. As soon as i’m attacked, pop DS, Doom, LB the hell out of them and finish off with Life Transfer.

It’s decent damage – nothing on Warrior, Thief, Ele or Mesmer, but i really like the play style involved with Deathshroud.

I use Axe as my main weapon and i really think it could use some improvements in WvW – the Axe 2 damage is great, but never fully hits in WvW because it’s so kitten easy to dodge. Axe 1 damage is pretty kitten poor – probably one of the worst auto-attacks in the game… some changes to Axe would be fantastic. Maybe they could speed up the Axe 2 channel?

I love my Necro, well my Zerker Necro anyway – my Condi Necro is fun too, however i get a bit sick of everyone assuming every Necro runs condition damage build

Avigrus.2871:

@ Sepreh - I run the same build on my Necro! Nice to see a fellow Zerkmancer (patent pending)…

Sorry to somewhat derail the thread everyone but I want to respond to Avirgus

That’s awesome to hear man. Like you, I have played with multiple builds (except minion master for some reason) and keep coming back to power/zerker necro. It is just fun to play.

The numbers you posted seem much more realistic. Life blast tends to top somewhere around 7K on average, unless you are rolling in might and your enemy rolling in vulnerability.

I have been working on making power necro videos (see link in my signature) and any input as a fellow zerker necro would be much appreciated.

I will say that it is sometimes frustrating to play a zerker necro in WvW for multiple reasons (read: getting rolled often [side note: I am fully able to recgonize I am not that good but not the worst player either]) but it really is a fun playstyle and my guess is if some other builds were brought down in potency or some skills were modified (e.g. a gap closer that the enemy cannot outrun), more people would be playing it

I know you probably do this already, but here is a protip:
When a thief stealths prior to engaging with you, you can use axe 3 as a “thief detect” skill. If you use unholy feast and your movement speed slows (or you see you have retaliation but it is quicker to just see your movement speed), the thief is in 600 range of you. If not, you are probably not in immediate threat of being backstabbed

Moon.6371:

With my current hybrid build I don`t have high armor (around 2.3k) and Vital Persistence alone makes me so friggin durable, it`s insane.

Interesting. Tbh I haven’t given it much thought except that it saves you 1% lf per second in DS.
Let’s assume you have 20k hp and 10 points in Soul Reaping, your lf pool would be 132% of your regular hp, so 26,4k. That means every second in DS is 264 hp not lost to degeneration, and it would be just half that if we didn’t take 50% less damage in Shroud.

Maybe I’m missing something, but on paper it doesn’t sound too overwhelming.

I would love to post it when im not at work on my phone. As i stated before i pve only. Im guildless. The only staple i find in the build is 0/0/0/10/30. For the life transfer ally heal. LB vulnerability and 50%crit. I move the other 30 points around, currently all in top row for dps. Using staff is ideal because DS power is based on the weapon dmg. Dagger focus is for random doors turrets etc. Cavalier ascended accessories, knights armor, which i may change in winter, and zerker ascended staff. My utilities are both spectral forms for running and LF gain. Plague Elite for OhSh’t and stability for 20seconds. Feast heal has shortest CD as well as condition removal. Entering DS or Plague can also help while your waiting for it. Scholar runes because you want to be in DS for most of the fight. If im below 90% health it means i got hit a lot. Spectral forms would put me back to full LF. Underwater is 100% DS with trident. I will link build after work when im not on my phone

flow.6043:

Moon.6371:

With my current hybrid build I don`t have high armor (around 2.3k) and Vital Persistence alone makes me so friggin durable, it`s insane.

Interesting. Tbh I haven’t given it much thought except that it saves you 1% lf per second in DS.
Let’s assume you have 20k hp and 10 points in Soul Reaping, your lf pool would be 132% of your regular hp, so 26,4k. That means every second in DS is 264 hp not lost to degeneration, and it would be just half that if we didn’t take 50% less damage in Shroud.

Maybe I’m missing something, but on paper it doesn’t sound too overwhelming.

Its not exactly LF to Health but the LF decrease is 4% per tick. 25 seconds. With VP its 3% per tick. 33 seconds. With this new trait its 2% per tick. 50 seconds of DS, thats more than life transfers cd, you can use it twice for 2 aoe heals and an extra 5-10 seconds in DS. All assuming you dont get hit by big stuff.

flow.6043:

That really is a problem, more so when you’re getting focused by many opponents at once. (Fingers crossed for more DS skills in the future)
However, in 1v1s a smart foe will save his CC for when you leave Shroud because that’s when you are the most vulnerable.

I’ve noticed the opposite to be true. If you have to stay in death shroud you are most often in a bad situation. Which means that being hit with a strong CC will waste time. Or even just being chilled or Immobilized. The lack of access to utility puts you in a seriously bad spot especially on the defensive.

flow.6043:

Lily.1935:

For a Condition build, the only skill you really don’t care about is Life blast.

Dhuumfire on Life Blast would solve that.

Except I trigger Dhuumfire more often with Doom then I ever do with Life blast. or I just trigger it out of Death shroud.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAW4djMaZ7Fbib87JkpCdD0j3TXcGqHuz68hA-jQyAYfBZyPABBmiAlALiGbxtIasabMVMRUt9uIa1RBERA-e

Is my current PvE build. There is more downtime than my old build, but the damage is huge. With the extra 17 seconds gained from the new VP buff ill be a much happier camper. Take in consideration i also have 10 stacks of might on me at all times, 10 stacks of vulnerability on the mobs after a few seconds, and pierce up to 5 targets with each LB. It’s only fun until your dmg and armor pull the boss.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAW4djMaZ7Fbib87JkJFeT3EpAZUGqHuz68hA-jQyAYfBZyPABBmiAlALiGbxtIasabMVMRUt9uIa1RBERA-e

this is my old build, i switch to for certain dungeons when im going to be hit alot so the spectrals and crits regen my LF faster, downtime on that build is 3 seconds if you know how to do it.

no matter which build underwater trident has no downtime, i just wish the cooldowns were faster. DeathShroud is not a defensive ability. The Necromancer has ascended into a Spectral form. Lorewise it makes sense to run this style. Buildwise, test it out and let me know what you think.

flow.6043:

Pendragon.8735:

If they create true sustain then I really don’t care what happens to Dhuumfire, they can remove it entirely. Unfortunately they have no even beginning hint of how bring about proper Necro sustain.

I can see why people feel that a “do or die” style of gameplay warrents the ability to do high damage, but I’m rather surprised to see this kind of argument again and again on the forum: our sustain is bad therefore we need burning! That is just wrong.
I agree that the necro has the worst attrition of all classes, we can’t recover from a certain amount of damage dealt to us, so either finish the fight early or get worn down eventually. Imo this needs to change, but it’s in no way related to Dhuumfire.

It’s because the Necromancer lacks attrition that we got Dhuumfire as a bandaid solution in the first place. Now we have higher burst so we’re less reliant on our awful sustain to keep us afloat in fights.

Sustain lets the Necromancer outlast their opponent, but it doesn’t effectively do what it’s supposed to (let us survive/win extended engagements). So we get burning so we don’t have to try and outlast people, we just blow them up instead.

Hmmmm we seem to have come adrift from the original topic.

My basic concern is that our damage balance budget includes DS offensive abilities. If I use them I am left without enough LF to handle the defensive requirements that ANet have imposed on DS…after all it is all we have in many ways as a surrogate shield and even that has been knobbled with the DS damage overflow to health.

BY all means gate Dhuumfire but not through DS which itself is heavily gated already with both cooldown and resource restraints. Placing Dhuumfire (or any ability) on the end of that makes 4-5 gates before it can be effective. That is the problem with a lot of our skills…great on paper but either gated out of useability and/or corralled by counters, dodges, stuns, interupts, cleanses, terrain, etc etc….. great on papaer whenever they actually proc and hit but that is diminishing significantly.

Quite a while ago I raised the issue of DS becoming the devs catch cry….you know “but you have DS”…a catch-cry for why necros miss out on certain things and I feel it is really starting to show. I just feel the one-resource-fits-all mentality/approach is leaving us very thin on the ground.

I actually really enjoy Deathshroud as a class mechanic. I like being able to use it for defense and offence. I consider it a choice, part of what makes playing the class fun and skillful. I also like the flexibility it gives me. Maybe that is just because I usually play with 30 in Soul Reaping, but I can trait my Deathshroud to be ultra defensive(Retal on DS, Stability on DS), or offensive (Lifeblast grants might, +50% crit in DS, vulnerability on Lifeblast, Fury on DS).

I am not saying it is perfect, just that I enjoy playing with it how it is currently.

Some things I would like to see added for PvE usefulness… A trait that gives us a short evade on entering DS to match other classes active defense.

I would also like to see siphons and AE heals work while in shroud. So we can actually tank by going into DS to soak damage and build our HP back up a little while we are in it.

NightmareFiction.5478:

flow.6043:

I can see why people feel that a “do or die” style of gameplay warrents the ability to do high damage, but I’m rather surprised to see this kind of argument again and again on the forum: our sustain is bad therefore we need burning! That is just wrong.
I agree that the necro has the worst attrition of all classes, we can’t recover from a certain amount of damage dealt to us, so either finish the fight early or get worn down eventually. Imo this needs to change, but it’s in no way related to Dhuumfire.

It’s because the Necromancer lacks attrition that we got Dhuumfire as a bandaid solution in the first place. Now we have higher burst so we’re less reliant on our awful sustain to keep us afloat in fights.

Sustain lets the Necromancer outlast their opponent, but it doesn’t effectively do what it’s supposed to (let us survive/win extended engagements). So we get burning so we don’t have to try and outlast people, we just blow them up instead.

I don’t know what else to tell you other than the very same you quoted from me.
Any form of damage we do, especially Dhuumfire, is not compesation for our poor attrition.
As the recent conversation on the patch preview threads has shown (again), the devs just don’t know the class as well as the players do. They aren’t aware of just how difficult it is to survive as a necromancer, originally they branded the necro as “the attrition class”, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Do you really think that if they realized the extent of how poor our sustain is, they wouldn’t fix that instead of overloading us with damage?
They added Dhuumfire because they thought we didn’t do enough damage… that’s why they added more damage. Of course it was completely wrong to assume we were lacking damage in the first place, besides: we got a lot of damage buffs besides Dhuumfire that would have gone a long way by themselves, like Tainted Shackles or Deathly Perception for example. Anyone who believes that he’ll be subpar without burning just doesn’t realize the full damage potential of the necro (yes, I’m calling l2p at this point :P).

Oldbugga.7029:

My basic concern is that our damage balance budget includes DS offensive abilities. If I use them I am left without enough LF to handle the defensive requirements that ANet have imposed on DS…

Like I said in my earlier post, I believe you have the wrong impression.
Yes, damage is balanced by including Shroud skills. Does it make sense to do that despite DS being a defense mechanic in the first place: yes!
When you fight as a necro you create a rythm, a skill pattern that includes damage mitigation by sacrificing life force. You react to your opponent by using DS as a shield, but at the same time you attack while defending. You set up timing attacks like that, but they serve a defensive purpose at the same time. You never have to choose between just offense or just defense.

Ultimately the damage gated through Death Shroud depends on your build, but even if you choose every single trait that is DS related, it would not diminish its defensive capabilities.

Oldbugga.7029:

Quite a while ago I raised the issue of DS becoming the devs catch cry….you know “but you have DS”…a catch-cry for why necros miss out on certain things and I feel it is really starting to show. I just feel the one-resource-fits-all mentality/approach is leaving us very thin on the ground.

Indeed, they used that phrase a lot. But that is less of an issue with the class mechanic itself, but testament to the fact that devs don’t play necro intensively enough to understand certain aspects of it.

Stx.4857:

I would also like to see siphons and AE heals work while in shroud. So we can actually tank by going into DS to soak damage and build our HP back up a little while we are in it.

This is the one issue I have with Death Shroud. It just seems illogical that our main defense doesn’t allow healing.