Guild Wars 2

Life blast no longer deals reduced damage at long range, yet our one mobility tool, dark path, is a gap-closer.

Wouldn’t it be logical to change it so that it could be a way to distance ourselves OR close up to our opponent?

My suggestion would be to change it to “chilling apparition”. Teleport to the selected location, applying a small duration of chill to enemies near the departing area, and bleeding to enemies near the selected arriving area. (This way, it can be used as an escape tool, or an offensive one). I suppose the range could be somewhere around 800, and the cooldown around 15 to 20 seconds (balance-wise, I am uncertain of what could be considered balanced).

Feel free to mention your own ideas down below!

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that would be such a good change. I think death shroud needs more work though. I haven’t played with it much recently so i’ll keep it short.

I think death shroud lacks the versatility and identity require to fit the necromancers.
Luckily with more elite specs coming out the need to fit all build becomes less important.
Some identity I think would be a good addition could be
long range dps weapon
mid range dueling weapon(high mobility, burst, evasion)

Once I had an idea for this skill.
A little bit faster projectile the same functionality but add flip skill. Evade backwards(300-450 range) immobilized the enemy and deal large damage and/or bleed. A little bit like the ranger sword 2 skill “Monarch’s Leap”. Instead of leap its an evade.
The other idea that wasn’t only mine is to be ground targeted, but then it need to be a teleport.

Ok if we talk as whole shroud, to make it more desirable (at least pvp) and semi unique compared to rs.

1 -each hit transform 1 boon to condi if target is medium range, 100% combo projectile.
3 -is ok, 15 sec cd.
2 -aoe blind and 2 boon corrupt in close range when port (beside trait), 10 sec cd.
4 -more direct dmg, if target is in closer range and applies cripple, 1 stack of stab, 30 sec cd.
5 -also applies poison, better direct dmg, 30 sec cd.

Beside this, the thing that needs to change is dhuumfire trait, while it works nicely on rs, its poo here. So, each hit more burn, or initial hit burst burn stack and trait has like 10s internal cd (second option is better). Similar with unyielding blast/reaper might.

Why so much focus on close range?
I mean, the main damaging ability, lifeblast, has a range of 1200!
And unlike the reaper and the Blighter’s boon trait, we cant sustain long draw out combat in close quarters as well as them (The auto-attack chain of the reaper’s shroud is much faster, and if traited with reaper’s might and blighter’s boon, allows more sustain and aggressivness).
Plus, the core shroud does not have a direct access to stability (except if traited, and even then, that particular stability that the trait gives you is very short and is mostly used as a stunbreak) and I believe we can agree that stability is much needed when you are in melee range of your opponent, considering the amount of crowd control that is now in the game!

Edit: Grammar is hard.

killfil.3472:

Why so much focus on close range?

I miss pre HoT times, also making ds not so brainded and more tactical, for more pressure you must risk more, risk/reward.
Not forget that reaper shroud uses whole traitline that buffs rs (good synergy) while ds does not have any specific line like that, that reaper cant have. So also based on this traited rs vs ds cant be of same strength, but rather compare it if you dont invest any points in reaper traitline.

I really hope this skill never changes, unless it’s a velocity increase. It’s my favorite skill the Necromancer has access to and used properly, can be an extremely effective pressure skill. Cannot begin to explain how many times this skill has turned fights for me against Thieves, Guards, Warriors, Druids, etc. Anything that’s trying to block or escape from me, if I’ve counted their dodges, I’ll be right back on top of them and they’re in real big trouble. Landing it on Thieves post-stealth is my probably the most satisfying feeling on top of that.

It’s clunky and weird to use but practice is all it takes. A little adjustment on Anet’s part is what it needs. I’m not going to say “this idea is terrible”, because it isn’t, it’s just not something I personally want to see. I like the idea but I don’t want it added.

Base necromancer has no many design issues, it has literally no builds that do anything good in any context, they’ve completely abandoned it and are instead putting bandages on it in the form of the elite spec system.

If they wanted to make base necromancer worthwhile they could do something like increase life blast damage by 800% and then have it be a power damage spec based around building and spending life force with these huge bursty single target damage chunks, but they can’t even fix power reaper, they’re not going to fix power necro.

I don’t love the dark path, but I use it all the time in wvw. People aren’t used to necros being able to teleport, so it can catch people off guard AND chill them. Both of which are nice. The cast time is low enough where it can be used and when it catches on a blade of grass and doesn’t work it’s not a big deal.

But if I had to pick 3 things to change about it, they might be:

• speed it up, it’s awfully slow
• maybe reduce the cast time from 3/4 seconds to 1/2
• make it more resilient to that piece of dirt blocking its path

Life blast is pretty great.