Is shroud really that good?

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Is shroud really as good as arena net suggests it is? Is it the be all and end all that puts necromancer above the rest in terms of defense? So much so that just having it makes them the most sustainable unkillable force in the game? Does shroud make up for the lack of damage, utility and support?

Well lets answer those question.

Does necromancer have the best defenses?

Well lets look at all the types of defenses in the game, including barrier, and make a comparison to those defenses. Figure out their role and how well they function at keeping people alive.

Passive defenses: Passive defenses are defenses that don’t require skill use or timing to achieve their goal in keeping you alive. These would be things like Toughness and Vitality. Passive defenses are the lowest skill means of defending oneself and often the last resort for a player to use. Because of this, when they are built into a build they are put in there knowing full well that their active defenses might not be enough to keep them alive. If a play can avoid investing too much into passive defenses in order to maintain their utility, control or damage they will prefer to do that. But sometimes its unavoidable. Passive defenses can be good to fill holes in the player’s defenses but in GW2 especially shouldn’t be your primary means of defense. Passive defenses can only go so far in protecting you and these defenses are meaningless if this is the only way you choose to defend yourself.

Active defense: Active defense is an extremely broad catagory of different defenses that require more from the player. some active defenses are extremely complex in their usage while others are far more straight forward. Some of them people might not even consider as a defense but it is imperative that we recognize these as defenses as well for the purposes of its comparison. Lets go through them.

  • Dodging: Dodging is likely the first active defense a player in GW2 will come in contact with. It is one of the most powerful defenses in the game as well as a good skill tester for players. Timing is everything for this defense and players who use this properly can avoid attacks that could fell a player wearing full soldiers gear. Although Dodging has been modified for some professions to improve its use, the vanilla dodge is still a powerful tool that also rewards high skill play. Example being the jump dodge.
  • Blocking: This is more straight forward than dodging, but its defensive capabilities are lower than dodging at the same time. Blocks such as Aegis or counter attacks only block a single attack while projectile blocks and channel blocks can shrug off large chunks of damage for their duration, much like dodge. Though, blocks have more counters to them, such as unblockable attacks or traits that trigger if a skill is blocked.
  • Invulnerability: The absolute strongest means of defense, there is almost nothing in the game that can interact with an invulnerable target this defense is usually linked to a long cooldown skill or has some negative to it such as mist form or elixir S. Their duration also tends to be much shorter than blocks as well.
  • Stunbreaks: Inaction will lead to death regardless of how tanky you are. And because of this, defending against hard crowd control effects are extremely important for a player. In PvE these are less important because of the predictability of NPCs, but against players they become far better. If you are stuck flat on your face you can’t activate most other defenses so these are important to have to prevent you from being burst down quickly.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

  • Stability: Its own section since it is extremely important. Stuns can ruin your day. but stability can stop a stun in its tracks so you can keep fighting. Stability is great, however it doesn’t compare to active defenses. It can be better than Stunbreaks but not all the time, especially against foes who rip or convert boons.
  • Stealth: Stealth can be more powerful than an invulnerability or much weaker, depending on the situation. Stealth avoids damage in a different way, by letting you get out of an unfavorable situation. It can be helpful to mislead your opponent which gives it some offensive capabilities as well. Although i’d say that stealth’s primary function is defensive since a foe often can’t hit what they can’t see.
  • Shadowstep/Movement skils: Avoiding attacks that come at you is great. Skills that move you out of an AOE or onto another platform entirely as a means to escape is a good means of defense. Much like stealth this can be phenomenal. However it combos extremely well with stealth to give greater effect.
  • Damage reduction buffs: This catagory is talking about defenses that improve your defense in combat that require activation most the time. This could include things like Protection, resistance, frost aura, barrier. These defenses are all extremely helpful when you know dodging isn’t an option, but don’t have the defensive capabilities of some of the stronger defenses I mention above. They’ll reduce your incoming damage and can even negate large chunks. Their issue is that they have most of the same issues as passive defenses and are best in combination with other defenses as a complimentary addition rather than a stand along means of defense. Resistance being the closest one of these buffs that could stand along, but even that has some of the same issues as passive defenses and its duration is often fairly low and still suffers the same issues as stability.
  • Debuffs: Debuffing your foes is a means of defense. However it is the least reliable means of defense because it relies on your foe being often times unable to properly defend against your debuffs. Often times we don’t include this in defenses because of how unreliable they can be. Sure you can negate an attack with blind, or reduce incoming damage with weakness. But these are often better served to control your opponent’s actions rather than as a means of keeping yourself alive.

So where does Shroud land in all of this? Shroud is most similar to a damage reduction buff. It has that damage reduction along with the extra health like barrier. And its like a combination of the two. However it has the draw backs similar to invulnerability by locking you out of your bar and none of the benefits of the higher active defenses. It also locks you out of most healing which means that most recovery that other professions can afford to have its a no go while using shroud. Because of this shroud’s defenses are not comparable to the best defenses in the game but doesn’t have the support from lower end defenses either to supplement its many weaknesses, of which it shares with most defenses on this list.

Shroud has further problems with its build up being extremely slow. If it had other defenses like blocks or invulnerability to supplement it with while building shroud up it could be quite formidable. But because of its slow nature, it just can’t stand on its own.

So lets answer my own questions. The answer is no. Although I explained most of them above I’ll put a note at the bottom. The necromancers lack of damage and group utility is really what hurts its usability the most. Because it does almost nothing different compared to other professions and doesn’t even do what it does similar even remotely as well its roles are extremely narrow with them being completely undesired in many situations.

To assume that giving the necromancer more party support or more damage would make them too desirable compared to other professions is laughably wrong. Warriors with their banners, Mesmers with their alacrity, projectile reflects, quickness, ranger with a whole slue of unique buffs, guardians with similar support but more of it.

Even with the removal of shroud on the scourge, the fact that the core class is so lacking in party support could sink the possibilities of a support scourge working. People are still questioning weather or not it could be viable and asking what could it bring to the table that someone else couldn’t do much better? And I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know that its clear that the issues that scourge will face are not because of the elite spec itself, but because of the core class its attached to.

In conclusion. Shroud is not as good as arena net thinks it is.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Brokensunday.4098

Brokensunday.4098

I read all but just by playing you know it is not it’s in fact the worst defense in the game

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

The issue or advantage of the shroud is that it is not only a defensive mechanism.

I believe that in it’s inception, the shroud aimed to be the most powerfull tool of the necromancer. The issue is that it prove to be to powerfull in the eyes of the betatesters and was thus nerfed to the ground before release.

Today, the shroud, despite all traits that support it, fail at being a good mean of damage output due to the ratio damage output/shroud decay. Simply put, a player is sent out of shroud to fast for the shroud to be a good mean of sustain damage and the damage output in shroud is to weak for it to be considered a good burst.

As an additionnal health bar, the shroud is an interesting mechanism even if vastly inferior to direct avoidance. The main issue of this mechanism is probably it’s huge weakness against crowd control effects that other defensives mechanisms tends to brush of easily.

Ironically, the strength of a 2nd health bar is that “when hit” effect have really good synergy with it. Sadly, the necromancer have almost no personnal ability to gain retaliation, few traits that take advantage on “when hit” effect and above all their combo field have give no aura (aura that almost always grant “when hit” effect… Not that the necromancer is full of combo leap as well).

The 2nd health bar is a very strong defensive mechanism but the necromancer simply lack the tools necessary to exploit these mechanisms to a decent level. The same way, the will behind the shroud is commendable because we see that it’s a mechanism that aim to give the necromancer a strong impact even while he try to brush damage aside but, in the end, what seem meant to have a huge impact just fall off due to too many natural “nerf”.

The shroud is good but to limited by the profession design to eventually shine. This leave a lot of room for improvement and obviously a lot of room for differents elite specs. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the state of the current shrouds is not really satisfying. On the offensive side, there is a need for number adjustment so that it become either a short window of burst (by short, I mean that the current decay is already more than enough but the damage are not) or a steady mean of damage (which mean that there is both a need to have something that reduce the natural decay and little tweeks to damage number so that it reach at least 25k dps with optimal support). As for the defensive aspect, we need “when it” effects sufficiently punishing so that foes think twice when they want to harm us while in shroud.

In conclusion. Shroud is not as good as arena net thinks it is.

It’s more that it’s as good as they think it is, it’s just that the necromancer’s skills/traits/design do not exploit the strengths of this mechanism and there is still some adjustment to do to give the shroud a clear identity.

No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.

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Posted by: Svarty.8019

Svarty.8019

Today, the shroud, despite all traits that support it, fail at being a good mean of damage output due to the ratio damage output/shroud decay.

It’s obvious that the developers think the opposite of necro players: Shroud “traits that support it” just got TWO huge nerfs in one “Balance” patch!

Nobody at Anet loves WvW like Grouch loved PvP. That’s what we need, a WvW Grouch, but taller.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Ravezaar.4951

Ravezaar.4951

Imho Idk if Shroud is a good mechanic or not, all I can say its far superior defensive tool then Barrier and come Sep 22nd we will found out that the hard way.

Shroud was our Invun,Reflect,Resist,Block all rolled up in one mechanic and barrier is gone in 1 deadeye’s AA…lmao

Underjordens Furste 80 Necro Piken-server
Servant of Dhuum

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Posted by: Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

Today, the shroud, despite all traits that support it, fail at being a good mean of damage output due to the ratio damage output/shroud decay.

It’s obvious that the developers think the opposite of necro players: Shroud “traits that support it” just got TWO huge nerfs in one “Balance” patch!

Well, they said clearly not so long ago that they felt that the necromancer was where they wanted it to be pvp wise. It’s obvious that they absolutely weren’t prepared to see how badly the necromancer’s community answered to those changes. They just tried to adjust traits so that they got more synergy with Scourge. Vital persistence reduced decay wouldn’t have affected the scourge which was bothersome to them and speed of shadows reduced cool down was overlapping with vital persistence’s one which was equally troublesome.

A way to present thing is that the latest patch was a great show of them moving forward without a real care for what was already here.

No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Brujeria.7536

Brujeria.7536

Good post. But i also think a big factor of defense mechanism is how much they are limiting your ability to keep the pressure up. In the case of shroud you basicly get a new set of skills that is pretty underwhelming. There is no real customization. You are basicly forced into a pair of skills during that time that (in case of base necro) are killing your pressure. The shroud skills arent reliable, they arent fit much for condition builds, and they are way too sluggish and weak damage wise for power builds. Basicly, whenever you enter base shroud, you lose a lot of your pressure, so you maybe can spend your time to get some cooldowns back, but so does your enemy, while still they can apply pressure, and condis, that will wreck you after you leave shroud.

Shroud skills dont feel “amazing” they feel weak. Base shroud skills feel like a punishment more than anything else. Shroud skills should be meaningfull and they should change depending on your main and offhand weapon to extend the intended playstyle inherited by these weapons.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I read all but just by playing you know it is not it’s in fact the worst defense in the game

Its most certainly not the worst defense in the game. But it can’t stand on its own as a defensive mechanic. Things like Corrosive poison cloud helped it and giving necromancer more access to stability and giving necromancers their utility while in shroud would absolutely be enough to make them fairly good defensively. But just giving them utility or just giving them stability wouldn’t be enough on their own.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Svarty.8019

Svarty.8019

Today, the shroud, despite all traits that support it, fail at being a good mean of damage output due to the ratio damage output/shroud decay.

It’s obvious that the developers think the opposite of necro players: Shroud “traits that support it” just got TWO huge nerfs in one “Balance” patch!

Well, they said clearly not so long ago that they felt that the necromancer was where they wanted it to be pvp wise.

I don’t know why I am surprised, I shouldn’t be. The track record is woeful.

A way to present thing is that the latest patch was a great show of them moving forward without a real care for what was already here.

My only thought is that it would never happen to the Thief.

Nobody at Anet loves WvW like Grouch loved PvP. That’s what we need, a WvW Grouch, but taller.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: DTATL.9641

DTATL.9641

There is nothing wrong with the concept of shroud as a defence. The problem lies in that it’s based on static numbers. This means it will always either be too strong or too weak.
In a specific scenario it will always be too strong or too weak while blocks/evades/invulns will always negate all damage that gets thrown at them which makes them, which makes them work well in all scenarios without being too strong or too weak(with a few exceptions that is scenario dependant).

Because this game varies so greatly with incoming damage between wvw,pvp, pve and even between different areas of those gametypes you can’t make static numbers work when we also have defences that ignore numbers completely unless you specifically balance the game around static number defences which Anet clearly hasn’t.

Shroud works really well in areas like fractals because you can reduce the amount of damage you take very easily by proper positioning and by dodging the main attacks that hurts. Because if you know what you are doing in fractals you can easily make sure you have get more lifeforce than you use even on lifeforce starved condi builds just because the incoming damage in that case is low. And for most pve you also have the benefit that you can reliably get lifeforce back through killing things. In most of pve Shroud is very strong because the most dangerous attacks have huge tells and are either infrequent enough to use are dodges for or easily avoidable while the rest of the incoming damage is low relative to lifeforce generation.

Now in pvp we can’t rely on people dying to keep our lifeforce up in fights so that aspect is worth mentioning in most scenarios. In pvp it’s were most evidence of the problem of static numbers are shown. In season 1 and 2 were it was a bunker meta the overall incoming damage was very low. This made shroud really good because lower incoming numbers made shroud strong to maintain due the lifeforce generation/incoming damage ratio was in our favour. The difference in efficiency between lifeforce and blocks/evades/invulns were much more even at that point were lifeforce would be better in 1v1 scenarios and blocks/evades/invulns would be better against multiple foes.

In the current meta were it’s a lot of burst and high packages of damage the ratio of lifeforce generation/incoming damage is heavily skewed against us. I know that we should never be able to gain more lifeforce than the damage we take as that could potentially make us invincible but the ratio should not be allowed to be this skewed without giving us something to make up for it which we haven’t got. This just makes blocks/evades/invulns way stronger than lifeforce as a defence because the incoming damage is as high as it is.

Anet is not really wrong in calling is really tanky because in pve were most incoming damage is pretty low we are kinda invincible. But that is only in that specific scenario. In the current pvp meta shroud makes us almost freekills because it can’t deal with the frequent and high packages of incoming damage. If they want to make the current implementation of shroud to be equal to blocks/evades/invulns they have to rebalance the whole game around it. And in that case it would just be better if they changed how shroud works and make it properly scalable.

All of this is why I have very little faith in barrier as a defensive tool because it has the same problem of balance as shroud has. I might have missed or got something wrong but it’s late and I’m tired.

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Posted by: Zefiris.8297

Zefiris.8297

Unpopular factoid:
Despite shroud’s current state, we are still really good in PVP. This means that PVP buffs, ESPECIALLY in terms of stability, would likely make us close to OP, if not OP.

Necros do not have trouble in PVP. We’re a focus target, precisely because our defense is not one of the absolute damage prevention defenses, but there will ALWAYS a focus target, it being us is not an inherent problem.

Any post that argues that we need PVP buffs will likely be discarded by the devs, because Necros simply do not need such buffs. The only area in the game where necros really need help is PVE.

From that perspective, is shroud really that good?
In PVP, yes, but in PVE; no, because the extra survivability doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter in the open world. So what, then, is the issue with the shroud in PVE?

Well, damage. It limits all your utility options, while not granting useful damage (no, ice fields are not a good damage option, not in realistic situations).

It would likely go a long way to add a grand master trait to soul reaping that allows utility skill usage in shroud (add it to Death Perception, maybe), and add another elsewhere in soul reaping that removes the incoming damage reduction and converts it to an outgoing damage bonus.

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Posted by: Kaladel.1670

Kaladel.1670

The only area in the game where necros really need help is PVE.

True. Fear is especially useful/fun in PvP. Same for boon corruption. Both are pretty useless in PvE. And our lack of damage hit us harder in PvE too.

It would likely go a long way to add a grand master trait to soul reaping that allows utility skill usage in shroud (add it to Death Perception, maybe), and add another elsewhere in soul reaping that removes the incoming damage reduction and converts it to an outgoing damage bonus.

Do we need a GM to use our skills in shroud ? While I don’t think it must be baseline, it could be a minor in Soul Reaping.
I like the tradeoff of the second suggestions. We should have more things like that.

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

For a long, long, time, Necromancer was considered by Arenanet to be an easier profession to play because of Death Shroud, the higher health pool, and the minion army. To provide “balance”, Necromancer was suitably handicapped but Necro did apply conditions, which were harder to remove in the early days.

Now that all professions have mechanics to handle conditions and can spam boons, Arenanet probably looked at Necromancer and figured its condition management skills needed an update to handle the new meta and adequately punish boon-heavy builds.

Death Shroud really could use some updates as its performance has been fixed as power, boon, and condi creep has pulled some of its teeth.

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Posted by: gigis.4918

gigis.4918

Thank you for the precise description + examination of the shroud issues. Necromancer is the only class which didnt’t get any close attention since release (in comparison to ranger e.g. which got full rework at some point) and releasing new specs will only make it more transparent, how non-responsive and non-synergetic are the core necromancer traits. So in order to enjoy and use the potetial of new necro content arenet really needs to look in base class functionality. In your post it becomes visible that a 2nd healthbar was a life saving tool during the first year of the game. With the growing utility options and burst of several classes, it became a demage-to death-sponge(bob) and certainly needs a rework for our beloved necromancer.
Thank you Lily, i see you as a constructive voice of the necromancer community.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Unpopular factoid:
Despite shroud’s current state, we are still really good in PVP. This means that PVP buffs, ESPECIALLY in terms of stability, would likely make us close to OP, if not OP.

Necros do not have trouble in PVP. We’re a focus target, precisely because our defense is not one of the absolute damage prevention defenses, but there will ALWAYS a focus target, it being us is not an inherent problem.

Any post that argues that we need PVP buffs will likely be discarded by the devs, because Necros simply do not need such buffs. The only area in the game where necros really need help is PVE.

Although necromancers do well in low end PvP this isn’t the case in high end. Because necromancers are, 9 times out of 10, the ones being focused down is actually not a good sign. And I’ll explain why.

The nature of the universe says that all objects and all living organisms will opt to choose the path of least resistance most of the time. How does this relate to the necromancer you might ask? Well this rule applies in game. In a 5v5 situation your best option is to try and tip the scales in your favor. Usually by changing the match from a 5v5 fight into a 5v4 fight. Now how can you do that? Well, the obvious answer is to strike the opponent who’s Defenses have poor scaling. Because all other classes have a wide breadth of scaling defenses and means to break focus on them them because less viable targets. In a situation where every single foes has the potential for good or decent scaling defenses picking the wrong target can mean a up hill battle. But using the information you gather from your opponent can increase your odds of picking the right target. And your odds of finding that target increases as the fights continue. However, this is where necromancer comes in. Because necromancers have extremely poor scaling defenses this takes away a strategic equation that you or the opposing team will have to fight against. Because of this you skip the information gathering part of the fight and can quickly dispatch the necromancer before it can become a threat. Thus the fight becomes a 5v4. The 4 remaining players are at a further disadvantage here too. Not only did they lose an ally, but they’ve also lost a pair of eyes which can help with information gathering. Meaning that the 5 can more quickly discern the other weaknesses of the opposing party, while the opposite is true for the 4 group. Thus the 5 group gets a clear numerical advantage over the opposing team.

So you want to counter play that and abuse that common strategy? Well, you are fighting an up hill battle. Now what do I mean by that? Well, if you plan on countering the opposing team by using a strategy that moves necromancer’s to the center of defense you sacrifice allied abilities so that the necromancer can do its job. Which means you are putting more effort into keeping the necromancer alive than you would say a warrior or mesmer. A group like this not only has to be aware of themselves they need to be very aware of their necromancer who’s fairly defenseless which divides their attention. The whole “babysitting” issue you see come up a lot. This is a path that requires far more work then its honestly worth since other professions can do what the necromancer does just as well. And with something like Spellbreaker which takes the most prominent area necromancer’s excel at, boon removal, out of their hands and into something that has a far better chance of surviving on its own.

From that perspective, is shroud really that good?
In PVP, yes, but in PVE; no, because the extra survivability doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter in the open world. So what, then, is the issue with the shroud in PVE?

Well, damage. It limits all your utility options, while not granting useful damage (no, ice fields are not a good damage option, not in realistic situations).

It would likely go a long way to add a grand master trait to soul reaping that allows utility skill usage in shroud (add it to Death Perception, maybe), and add another elsewhere in soul reaping that removes the incoming damage reduction and converts it to an outgoing damage bonus.

In pve it has problems here as well. Like you said, and what I said in my original post, it locks you out of utility. I didn’t elaborate much into this since I’ve made dozens of posts relating to this topic and felt it wasn’t necessary for me to harp on it in too much detail. Mainly because its sort of a “We get it Lily.. Okay.. we get it!”

Utility Skills need to be baseline for shroud. No traits. If we do that we end up with the same issue that Signets are having right now. You shouldn’t have to take a grandmaster to be on par with other existing professions.

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Thank you for the precise description + examination of the shroud issues. Necromancer is the only class which didnt’t get any close attention since release (in comparison to ranger e.g. which got full rework at some point) and releasing new specs will only make it more transparent, how non-responsive and non-synergetic are the core necromancer traits. So in order to enjoy and use the potetial of new necro content arenet really needs to look in base class functionality. In your post it becomes visible that a 2nd healthbar was a life saving tool during the first year of the game. With the growing utility options and burst of several classes, it became a demage-to death-sponge(bob) and certainly needs a rework for our beloved necromancer.
Thank you Lily, i see you as a constructive voice of the necromancer community.

Thank you. I try to be…

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Imho Idk if Shroud is a good mechanic or not, all I can say its far superior defensive tool then Barrier and come Sep 22nd we will found out that the hard way.

Shroud was our Invun,Reflect,Resist,Block all rolled up in one mechanic and barrier is gone in 1 deadeye’s AA…lmao

Not quite. Barrier has greater defense potential than Shroud does. One thing it doesn’t have is the weaknesses associated with shroud. Such as lack of healing or removing your utility skills in order for it to be active. However, what it doesn’t, as far as I know, is damage reduction with Shroud does have. But we can’t discount the advantage of still having access to about 15 skills while gaining barrier while shroud only gives us 5. The difference here is absolutely huge! And Scourge will be a major skill tester for players. While shroud will feel stronger to less skilled players, others who understand how barrier can be used as a supplementary shroud will find that its versatility will far out way its negatives.

With that said, if there is a problem with scourge’s survivability it wont be because of the lack of shroud but rather the lack of stability. Stability is the only reason I would ever say that reaper has a higher survive potential than Scourge. However, even taking that into consideration, the scourge does have a strong teleport in sand swell. Which we can’t under estimate the value of a teleport. Where as a reaper might find it difficult to survive a situation the scourge will have the option to escape.

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Posted by: Sun Lian.4075

Sun Lian.4075

Really well formed criticism, I hope the devs read this.

I’ve said it lots of times myself, there is just zero synergy left with Death Shroud no matter what build you use, Reaper is always better.

I’d like to see them rework Death Shroud and Reaper together, and make 2 actually distinguished shrouds that can both excel in different things.

Would mean so much for variety of builds that you should be able to use now, but can’t because no matter what you try slightly outside meta, it never works because of synergy.

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Posted by: Axl.8924

Axl.8924

Personally:What good is shroud if you get cced to death and bursted instantly? and once shroud is down we are sitting ducks.

Also:I’m not so convinced that we will not be focused 24/7 with scourge since the shield can be bursted down faster and it degrades too fast.

Either burst needs to be nerfed so its not so strong as to 1 shot everyone through barrier, or necromancers defenses need to be looked at to be more viable for pvp.

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Posted by: Ashivan.5216

Ashivan.5216

I never liked the mechanic as it plays in the game. In theory it could have been something really cool but you end up with something that you keep going in and out without being actually satisfying to use. Also is very clunky for new players – you don’t really have a long time in the shroud to just use those abilities. Having access to a complete new skill bar for 10 secs (if ever) at a time is not really fun.

I played a lot on my reaper and although it saved me in a lot of occasions I wished it could have been something more predictable in duration. Maybe it shouldn’t be a second health bar but an activated aura that gives some protection and stability for a certain time while having those different abilities. Maybe link that active time/ % protection with stats like toughness so it has sense and purpose in different builds – like a tanky one.