Guild Wars 2

Hello all!

I wasn’t sure if I should have clicked “Create New Topic” or not but… stirring the poop-pot is something I enjoy (…not…. literally ok? ok… you got me -_- ).
So… Necro has always been my favourite profession in GW2 (or other games) for….ever…. and I always adapted to how the profession played and the weaknesses it had, and still do. With that being said, I think there are some really apparent issues with the class, and I really don’t understand why certain things just seem to have been overlooked when the profession was designed. This forum here chewed up these issues many times in the past but devs seemed to ignore this. The issues have to do with shroud, and more specifically I think it has to do with how shroud is treated/coded.

A typiacal Necro can spend a large portion of a fight in shroud – 30 – 40% of the time, and there’s many things that for some really weird reason just don’t seem to work in shroud. For example – signets. Signets have a passive effect and an active effect. If you use signets, as you all know, the passive effect will stop working in shroud. If you spend 30-40% of your time in shroud, it essentially makes your passive effect of your signet 30-40% weaker because you are getting literally nothing out of them in shroud. No speed boost from Signet of Locust, no condi cleanse for allies with Plague Signet, no shroud generation from Signet of Undeath, no heals from Vampirism… and no power-boost from Spite. So if we think logically… why does this happen? What’s the purpose of your passive signet effects not working for a big portion of a battle just because you decided to use your class mechanic? There is none – it just makes you, as a Necro, weaker for no actual reason at all. There is nothing OP about maintaining passive effects of signets. The real issue, I think, is that to code for this – it would take too much effort. And when that’s the only reason… it isn’t cool.
This huge design flaw is still in the game, 4 years later. Why! Everyone accepted this – I did too – but if you think about it – your passive effects of signets have no reason to not be working in shroud. Your class mechanic (an integral part of your character, and something you spend 30-40% of your time in) shouldn’t kitten you like this.

Second, similar to the above – utilities. Why are your utilities not shown when you’re in shroud? Sure, they can be locked, they can be unusable, but why do they disappear? Once again, there doesn’t really seem to be a legitimate reason for your utilities to disappear other than a coding issue. I think shroud was always considered a transformation – sort of like Plague or Rampage or Tornado. When you use Plague/Rampage/Tornado, your utilities also disappear. Same coding, same issue, only much more detrimental for a character whose utilities are invisible 30-40% of the time. Not seeing if crucial utilities are off-cooldown when you exit shroud can be pretty detrimental – leave too soon = dead. Leave too late – waste lifeforce. If the game is more directed towards casual players (which it is), something as simple as showing your utilities SHOULD already have been fixed 4 years after the game’s release… especially since basically every Necro I’ve seen would agree to this and many Necros on this forum have asked for this in the past.

Third, and last – healing in shroud. I know this topic is like walking on eggs because people are really split on this, but why does healing not work in shroud? There is SO much healing in the game right now. Early on in the game, before HoT, it used to take massive effort to heal an ally, and you had to spec into healing. Now if you watch PvP matches, an ally’s health fluctuates like crazy because of all the heals being dumped left and right (MUCH more than before HoT)…. but 30-40% of the time, the Necro gets nothing – no heals because they’re in shroud. Instead, they down over….and over and get ressed. So while all the heals and support in the game got magnified, Necro can’t even utilize a large chunk of it because they are in shroud.. and they use shroud when they need to tank! …which is exactly when they need heals!
Should healing be allowed in shroud? I don’t know – it would drastically change the playing field and would without a doubt require a LOT of balance… but why didn’t healing work in shroud to begin with? Was it hard to balance or was the coding what prevented this? I have a feeling it was the coding, and it just….stuck. Sure – we have blood magic siphons now. Sure, we have a few traits (some of which don’t even work in shroud – Parasitic Contagion!!!) that heal us in shroud (Unholy Sanctuary, Blighter’s Boon work)… but that’s just putting a band-aid on the issue. Healing in shroud not working? Ok… but this is made worse when support/heals in the game power-creep like crazy and everyone benefits and thus, gets more sustain. Everyone… except… Necros 30-40% of the time. And that’s the issue.

Watching the World Championship today made me think about signets because every Necro oddly used them… and signets made me think about shroud and voila, here we are :P. These are some pretty glaring issues that stuck for 4 years…. and it’s not so much upsetting because “err mah gerdd I can’t see utilitiz in shrhroud so i die!”… but it’s more of an issue of why that design was chosen. Why is our core mechanic working against us? Why… do we lose our passive signet effects 30-40% of the time? Why can’t we see cooldowns on our utilities? Why do we have only limited access to the massively power-crept heals in Heart of Thorns but everyone else has all of it?

i defiantly agree that we should be able to see our skills while in Shroud, and it defiantly sounds like a coding issue, however anet has proved quite a few times they like to take the easy route with a lot of things they do, you’ve only got to look at balance as an example, they would rather remove amulets then address fundememtal issue’s with certain profession skills, leaving the rest of the game (looking at you wvw) broken and unbalanced.

I have to disagree with the healing point tho, I feel like being able to heal in shroud would be a little to strong, you said it yourself, we are in shroud 30-40% of the time, being able to heal our HP while tanking in shroud 40% of the time would be incredibly strong and require some massive fine tuning. I’d still welcome the change tho

O also! Hey Marin!-X seven

Signets in shroud is a must but honestly I’m not looking forward to it because I don’t want to pull even more condies with plague signet. We also need to look at our movement speed traits then .

Looking at the utilities while in shroud yeah no issues with that.

Healing all the way and balance afterwards. It is a bad practice which is a problem for the necro and the healer. The last one is unacceptable in my opinion.

Noble.2670:

i defiantly agree that we should be able to see our skills while in Shroud, and it defiantly sounds like a coding issue, however anet has proved quite a few times they like to take the easy route with a lot of things they do, you’ve only got to look at balance as an example, they would rather remove amulets then address fundememtal issue’s with certain profession skills, leaving the rest of the game (looking at you wvw) broken and unbalanced.

Amulet removals are actually the pvp team making some corrections because the balance team does not address the issue. Meaning it’s not taking the easy path rather make do with what you have.

I have to disagree with the healing point tho, I feel like being able to heal in shroud would be a little to strong, you said it yourself, we are in shroud 30-40% of the time, being able to heal our HP while tanking in shroud 40% of the time would be incredibly strong and require some massive fine tuning. I’d still welcome the change tho

O also! Hey Marin!-X seven

Considering classes are either blocking,evading or (half)-immune for the majority of the fight and they receive healing while doing that, I don’t see a problem with receiving heals in shroud especially when we are one of the poorest defensive classes in group combat. Also I rather have healing in shroud and nerfs afterwards since it is not only a nuissance to us but to the healer as well.

I agree with all your points, too, MethaneGas.

Shroud should not be Moa.
Cool down timers should be visible.
Incoming heals should at least restore fractions of health or LF when in shroud.

I actually forgot it was the pvp team that removed the amulets and not the balance team, guess you just made all my points mute Tim :P!

@ Nodle, ohai “X Seven” haha :P

Indeed…. and I don’t know how the balance team and pvp team work together (in any case, they should work together)…. I still think that removing the amulets was just a bandaid to fix issues. The pvp team saw that something was OP but the balance team didn’t want to nerf it so the pvp team was forced to remove the amulets instead of fixing the actual issue… probably because nerfing skills that are OP in PvP = huge nerf for PvE… which is kinda sucky.

@ Tim,
Yeah pulling condis while in shroud could be pretty nasty but it’d just be a part of the deal (as bad as that is haha). But I think it could open up for more build options. For example, Signet of Undeath (2% lifeforce every 3 secs) could give some sustain even when in shroud. And if Signet of Vampirism worked, we’d get nice heals while in shroud too, also really nice. And as you said, some of the speed-boost traits could then get some kind of buff too.

I also agree that while essentially every other classes got more defenses and can be immune to damage, they also benefit from everyone else’s heals in group fights, which makes them that much stronger. A Necro got some sustain through traits (Chilling Victory and Blighter’s Boon), a leap and a little bit of stab. Sure, it’s nice… but we still can’t benefit from everyone’s heals as much while everyone else can. Seems like a pretty big oversight >_>

@ Anchoki, *props *

And just a thought occured to me – Druids can use their celestial form (which can also be considered a ‘transformation’) while also seeing AND using their utilities, and heal skill… annnnnnnd elite skills… while maintaining passive signet effects and while being fully receptive to heals.

*Slowly spins around in spinny chair to face Anet * *squints *

MethaneGas.8357:

And just a thought occured to me – Druids can use their celestial form (which can also be considered a ‘transformation’) while also seeing AND using their utilities, and heal skill… annnnnnnd elite skills… while maintaining passive signet effects and while being fully receptive to heals.

*Slowly spins around in spinny chair to face Anet * *squints *

Not that i dont agree with you but of all transformations shroud is a bit special. It is the only transformation that uses an extra health pool.

The orginal reason why we didnt get healing in shroud was because otherwise we could simply rotate between them (though i think the really reason was that shroud simply used to be our down-state and they never properly changed it). Personally i dont think healing though shroud would be that strong anymore hence why i think the first improvements of shroud should be in the healing aspect.

Regarding the useablity of our 6-0 skills in shroud i am actually not sure if i am for it or against it. I would probably already be happy if we could see our cds in shroud and maybe we get at some point a new e spec with glyphs that actually change to special skills while in shroud. Or maybe just give shroud its own set of 6-0 skills?

Another interesting solution could be to reduce the cooldown on shroud so that it could be better utilized as a damage shield/pseudoblock—although they’d definitely have to address a lot of the trait lines so people couldn’t just flash it for boons and aoe condis.

Muchacho.2390:

Not that i dont agree with you but of all transformations shroud is a bit special. It is the only transformation that uses an extra health pool.

The orginal reason why we didnt get healing in shroud was because otherwise we could simply rotate between them (though i think the really reason was that shroud simply used to be our down-state and they never properly changed it). Personally i dont think healing though shroud would be that strong anymore hence why i think the first improvements of shroud should be in the healing aspect.

Regarding the useablity of our 6-0 skills in shroud i am actually not sure if i am for it or against it. I would probably already be happy if we could see our cds in shroud and maybe we get at some point a new e spec with glyphs that actually change to special skills while in shroud. Or maybe just give shroud its own set of 6-0 skills?

True, it’s the only transformation that uses a different kind of health bar, but I still don’t think that’s an excuse for the issues that shroud has. I think you’re right about the issues stemming from shroud being very different in beta… but they had 4 years to fix or re-shape it or its code. It takes half that time to make a whole video game from scratch…. and that’s what I find upsetting haha.. the negligence.

I think using utilities in shroud would be amazing… but amazing to the point of being wildly overpowered. Imagine being able to spam wells in shroud (with Deathly Perception) or using spectral skills while you’re in shroud… etc. Although I think being able to use spectral walk or wurm while in shroud would increase our survivalbility by a metric ton. I think it would be amazing but considering they balanced the whole profession with this not being allowed, it would be a huuuuuugeeee change… but being able to see utilities in shroud? Nothing OP at all about this – it just takes a tiny bit of effort on their part.
As for adding Deathshroud utilities…. that would be pretty amazing :P

narcx.3570:

Another interesting solution could be to reduce the cooldown on shroud so that it could be better utilized as a damage shield/pseudoblock—although they’d definitely have to address a lot of the trait lines so people couldn’t just flash it for boons and aoe condis.

Agreed with this option as well. You used to be able to enter shroud a lot more frequently (if you let it run out on its own, the cooldown used to be much lower… in some cases you could immediately enter shroud right after leaving it)…. so being able to enter and exit more frequently could allow you to coordinate heals from allies better, etc.

MethaneGas.8357:

Muchacho.2390:

Not that i dont agree with you but of all transformations shroud is a bit special. It is the only transformation that uses an extra health pool.

The orginal reason why we didnt get healing in shroud was because otherwise we could simply rotate between them (though i think the really reason was that shroud simply used to be our down-state and they never properly changed it). Personally i dont think healing though shroud would be that strong anymore hence why i think the first improvements of shroud should be in the healing aspect.

Regarding the useablity of our 6-0 skills in shroud i am actually not sure if i am for it or against it. I would probably already be happy if we could see our cds in shroud and maybe we get at some point a new e spec with glyphs that actually change to special skills while in shroud. Or maybe just give shroud its own set of 6-0 skills?

True, it’s the only transformation that uses a different kind of health bar, but I still don’t think that’s an excuse for the issues that shroud has. I think you’re right about the issues stemming from shroud being very different in beta… but they had 4 years to fix or re-shape it or its code. It takes half that time to make a whole video game from scratch…. and that’s what I find upsetting haha.. the negligence.

I dont mean it as an excuse. I also dont think that they would have problems with changing the code. I think that they avoid fixing the issuses shroud has because it can require alot more balancing. So my guess is if we see any big changes to shroud it will be around the time of the next expension.

Muchacho.2390:

The orginal reason why we didnt get healing in shroud was because…

Sorry for the rant coming.

Normally, I would pass this but it touched a nerve. The developers ‘developed’ a negative bias against Necromancer during beta that lasted well past the first year of release.

• Power was too much for a condi profession. It went years in a ’zerker meta without a power AoE build.
• Condition damage, in addition to soft CC, was too much. Soft CC (chill)+damage = OP. Why is CC + damage + immunity not?
• The profession was too bunkerish to consider more defense. Siphons svked, and still do. Downed State should be a meme.
• Each attempt at adding condition damage options failed spectacularly (Terror, Dhuumfire, Deathly Chill) and required heavy nerfing. [Nothing but zero-burst bleeds work the way they want.]
• Shroud is not a second health bar. It is a ‘downed delayer’. If it was a second health bar, Necromancer could heal in it.

Anchoku.8142:

• Shroud is not a second health bar. It is a ‘downed delayer’. If it was a second health bar, Necromancer could heal in it.

Something i think they totally should…

Muchacho.2390:

I dont mean it as an excuse. I also dont think that they would have problems with changing the code. I think that they avoid fixing the issuses shroud has because it can require alot more balancing. So my guess is if we see any big changes to shroud it will be around the time of the next expension.

I agree… I meant… they used it as an excuse. “Hey, it’s a second health bar, therefore no heals no utilities no signets” when in reality, the health bar could have worked like shields work in other games. A shield pops up on a character and takes a beating. You can still do everything else, but you have this extra healthbar on you. Necro shroud could have been the exact same thing – a shield which allowed you to have 5 (originally 4, lol) skills to use. No reason for utilities to become invisible, etc. But they just coded it wrong and disregarded all the other issues (utilitlies disappear, no passive effects of signets, no heals).