Guild Wars 2

Hi again :P

I don’t know really how to dig in this forum (especially for the dev’s answers like “Master the Death Shroud” or “You will receive all the weapons as each class!” – where I can find it btw?), but despite of this I want to know what the devs said about our proffession mechanic and what can be done in understanding of the community to get thru the necro.

There are many topics about the necro, but this one is a topic about the only Death Shroud.

I believe that using our class mechanic as a main tree in our builds makes us good in each class. It is somehow the way we MUST go. Guardian? Boon Duration and Virtue recharge rate is just a must have! Ele? Many of them going in arcane tree. Warriors? Love the eviscerate for each 7 second cleansing from 1 to 3 condis. At Engi I also go in proffession mechanic tree for full. Why we shouldn’t go as a necro?

Another thing – why most of us stays with condis, when LB can be so much powerful? There are so many answers in game that we should play with power (Tzark at p3 in AC shooting LB, necro at AC using well with active effect of signet of spite [Use signet and go epidemic – same thing], and at cliffside fractal guys who look necromantish use focus 4 and deliver hard shots).

What is more – the dev’s said that we got 60% in DS of our Life Force Pool, and our max is 78%, where as the additional 9% of the Life Force is going in maximum in SR.

Tip:
-I know that we can use DS passively by entering it and leaving with fast hands, and lots of traits encourage us to do it (Furious Demise, Deathly Invigoration, Weakening shroud, shrouded removal, foot in the grave, Spiteful Spirit) and it’s the answer for all those who use it in defensive way. But it’s too less for me to master the necro and the Death Shroud! But Death Shiver and Deathly Perception encourage us to stay in it.
-CD of the F1 starts of the last use. When a foe leaves you with an empty life force bar, you can reenter DS very fast. (Even faster in 3W, just collect the LF from dead corpses even from your dead friends!) Used it before the patch to soak damage, used ghastly claws for the minimum 10~~11% of LF and reentered again. -> It means that we have to sit in DS as long as we can, at least 10s (or traited 7).
-Our DS says “Use nearby deaths to fill the life force bar”, if so we have to be in the middle of the fight, we can’t stay back and shoot with our scepter or Staff. It’s not the attrition we are meant to be for me. The other attrition we have is retaliation (Axe3, attack 5 people, the longest oneskill retaliation you can achieve) and works just awfully good with DS in running with the middle of the zerg, trust me. Oh, and I use Staff like a hammer and it hits like a truck for 2k mostly :P.

To be honest – would love to see here dev that is looking after the necro and read “Well, here is the answer how to master your class mechanic!” – I hope for this. All I know that we should go for condi duration and power and that is – the necro for me.

@Edit
Oh, and that little Asura in the pics of necros also holds LB for me. I suppose that weapons presented on ANet pics with classes are the answer for playing type of the class. Guardian holds mace and shield, typical for healing and it’s the best class to heal.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/
Here you got the pics of the classes in GW2

I’m not sure what the question is. The post is kind of… rambly. But anyway, I’ll address the many things I have seen.

#1: Death Shroud’s use varies depending on the build. Power builds, Minion Masters, Condi Builds, support builds all use the abilities to do different things. I’ll try to go over the different things that DS is used for in each one.

Power Builds: DS is used mostly for offense. Life blast provides a high damaging, piercing, might stacking ranged attack that can decimate groups of foes in PVE, and in PVP it can lay down some serious hurt on unsuspecting players. Dark path is used as a gap closer, chilling and putting foes in range of the dagger’s rather powerful auto attack. Doom is used to force enemy movement to lay on combos, as well as a counter-stun for defense. Life Transfer is used to do decent AoE damage while tanking hits, and Tainted Shackles is used mostly for an escape, and also as a lockdown/support move with it’s AoE immobilize. DS is both popped in an out of for AoE bombing and buffs, as well as sustained to stack might/vulnerability while dealing heavy damage with Life Blast. The biggest advantage here is that Power Build’s tendency to generate a lot of LF means that they’ll have a lot of statistical bulk to use DS, and I think the best time to use DS is when the enemy is nearly dead. This gives the opponent no chance to counter attack. DS is also used to absorb burst on occasion.

Condition Builds: DS is used defensively, except when going for the kill. Life Blast is rarely used, and if it is then Life blast is being used either out of desperation, stalling, or to stack might. Condi builds resort to DS “bombing” wherein they’ll quickly pop into DS to use Weakening Shroud, followed by Tainted Shackles, and maybe a doom to top it off before exiting Death Shroud. Although it causes bleeding, Dark Path is also rarely used. Condition builds will frequently layer up a lot of conditions, then use Life Transfer to sustain themselves while the conditions tick away on the opponent. The real killer here is Terror. On terror builds, Doom does a surprisingly large amount of damage, and it is used in conjunction with other fear abilities to cause a long duration stun + high DoT. Chain fearing is usually reserved for the kill on opponents, however it is very effective at sealing the deal.

Minion Master: Here, DS is used largely for defense and control. DS itself is often used to gain retaliation, making attacking the Necromancer dangerous. Life Blast is used mostly to stall while other abilities are on cooldown. Dark path is used as a chill to let minions attack easier, and also as a gap closer. Doom is used mostly for defense against stuns, and sometimes as a control when the enemy is chilled. Life transfer is used for further tanking and stalling. Tainted Shackles is used mostly to immobilize a foe so minions can chase them down.

Support: Here, DS is used for healing. There are two traits that support builds pick up: Transfusion, and Deathly Invigoration. Transfusion makes Life Transfer an AoE heal, and while it doesn’t scale with healing power, it does heal for around 2,628 health in an AoE, so it is quite helpful. Deathly Invigoration causes DS to heal whenever it is left, so most support builds will spam F1 to pop in and out of DS quickly, healing in an AoE. The rest of the skills are used as needed depending on whether they are condi support or power support.

#2: Now, as for why it is that condi builds don’t use Life blast for offense. The reason is quite simple: it pales in comparison to our scepter. On my WvW conditionmancer, I peak at around 1,750 malice with my sigil of corruption, and have a 100% bleed duration. This makes each attack from the scepter do 1,300 damage spread throughout the bleed, alongside of the direct damage, so it hits for around 1600. now, even in a carrion build, for me Life Blast usually only hits for around 1k, but that isn’t the only disadvantage. The damage done through conditions can be spread via epidemic, making the scepter attacks into AoE attacks. Life Blast, when traited, merely pierces the enemy in a straight line.

My own build is quite fortunate, since it can use Life Blast as an offense. Other players use a rabid build for conditions, which makes it so life blast does barely any damage at all against other players.

Still it’s all I know.
I want to get thru the traits “Foot in the Grave” how to use it, how to make DS powerful. Devs say that it’s still too powerful, but people don’t know how to use it, so I would love to know how to use DS properly. Not what DS is meant for – we, all necro know it.
But – where is the step forward to master the DS.

Fast hands, big boon duration and reenter for stability? No ideas, it’s why I am asking for answers – who knows all other tricks that can be done with DS.
Saw once one guy that chased the others in sPvP with DS2 (reduced cd of skills in DS) and it was effective.

Yeah my question is – how to use DS that nobody knows. How to use it in PvE, WvW, sPvP so that will change the meta. Last time even more thinking about fast hands and ticking only 1 skill. Hard fight? Pop in DS, gain stbaility and use DS4. Chasing? Pop in, click DS2 and leave.
It’s because noone knows how to refill fast LF in sPvP, maybe it’s not the problem, but the problem is in misunderstanding of the third weapon we have
Thanks for the reply

Saschare.2049:

Still it’s all I know.
I want to get thru the traits “Foot in the Grave” how to use it, how to make DS powerful. Devs say that it’s still too powerful, but people don’t know how to use it, so I would love to know how to use DS properly. Not what DS is meant for – we, all necro know it.
But – where is the step forward to master the DS.

Problem plain is no dev is actually playing the necro hardcore, thus they dont know how reverse their opinion that everyone should shroud dance and be able to somehow not get killed because DS would be on cd 24/7, unlike what the truth thakittens our second form and third weapon set.

Saschare.2049:

Yeah my question is – how to use DS that nobody knows. How to use it in PvE, WvW, sPvP so that will change the meta

I don’t think you can it’s a big fake out. Not like people haven’t tried all DS builds before.

Yes there are a lot of traits that you can take for DS, but as was stated above, some encourage you to ‘flash’ DS while others make you want to stay in. It’s not really coherent design.

Even if you take all the DS traits and synergy, and can pop in every 7 seconds, you still don’t feel that powerful. Your DPS has probably taken a hit to get all that stuff and you still don’t have the sustain of some of the top sustaining bunker or healing builds.

I think the Devs were kind of peddling excuses with that ‘need to master DS’ line, or as a stalling mechanic to get us off their back while they slowly try to shore up the class. Maybe in beta there were ways to use DS to make it super powerful but they nerfed all those into the ground. Now its just a lot of smoke and mirrors.

I’l have to agree with the above comments, while it’s true most necromancers I’ve seen aren’t using DS properly, no matter how well you use it it will only take you so far.

That being said, a good rule of thumb is that if your Life Force bar is either full or empty all the time, you’re doing something wrong. Use it, but don’t waste it.