Guild Wars 2

It seems going through the different traits there are alot of them increaseing DS/Life Force. Quite frankly, I find DS to be complete boredom. The skills are terribly boring. The only one entertaining is number 4. Does a Necro really need to depend on DS as the traits suggest?

You are meant to dip in and out of DS on a situational basis. Deathshroud is an incredibly good form (for power builds).

yes you must. why? because it’s actually rather powerful once you understand it’s uses and incorporate it into your build.

as Oozo said though, you are meant to jump in and out, not just hang out in it.

I like to just chill in DS and smoke a cig, saves my lungs.

Depends on what your main play is. PVE and anything but #1 and #4 becomes “meh”. You may be able to use #3 to get a boss off your back, but you rarely need to use #2 as mobs simply do not run in any permanent sense.

Still, #1 with traits for might, vulnerability and a piercing projectile (tho it behaves differently from staff #1 in that it only pierces if your actual target is the most distant target, and the damage “canal” is not as wide as it is on staff #1) can be nasty as long as you keep you LF above 50%.

I suspect we have few stun breaks and interrupts because DS allows us to basically take the burst that are related to the use of such abilities. Remember that if a attack drives your LF to zero, it just drops you out of DS. The rest damage is not transferred to your health. Meaning that if you see a mob charging up the big one, pop DS. Maybe you can interrupt him with #3, but even if you miss that you will only see your LF zero out rather than loose a big slice of you health.

In a sense, going into DS is a bit like using a block ability on a shield carrying profession.

I only use it for #4. I find it to be a rather stupid and boring mechanic that doesnt fit the necro at all. I’m constantly at 100% LF because I very rarely use DS. And if my health is ever low enough that I need to use it, I’m dead any way.

I’m use to playing the engi and pressing my swap weapon button to drop my weapon bundles. so I try pressing that to exit DS and all that does is make me equip the wrong weapon when I do exit DS. making me hate it even more. Which really isnt its fault, more of Anets for not regulating this kitten. We have all these different buttons to drop weapon bundles or transformations. But still use the same button to talk to npcs, to pick up loot, to pick up turrets, to pick up banners, to pick up weapon bundles and to activate objects. We have a keyboard full of buttons spread this kitten out. I dont know how many times Iv wanted to grab all my loot in an event but instead of end up picking up some warriors banner or wanting to loot a corpse next to my turret and takeing the turret instead.

If there is one thing I would change in this game, it wouldnt be the bad AI, the broken traits, not even the reanimator. It would be the removal and replacment of DS to somthing that actualy fits the theme of a necro and would be fun to use.
We already have Lich. we dont need 2 “death” modes.

Besides they could just as easly renamed it to Berserk and give it to the warrior. At least there it would make sense.

I cant tell you how disappointed I am that the necro gets such a crappy class mechanic.

Sorry about the rant. I’m just really really disappointed in the game at this point.

Sorry Xel, I disagree, I think it’s a fantastic mechanic and it’s grown on me immensely that works great with Necro.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Sorry Xel, I disagree

And I respect that.

Yes you must DS to get top play out of a necro.

No you do not need to spec into the DS line to play a necro well.

My best power builds use DS only as an O-ship mechanic I put zero points going into the DS line and play it like Xel says.

My best condition builds use DS alot and i spec to 20 or 30 into it.

A glass cannon power build would use DS (I think its a terrible build because I have played real cannon classes)

You can’t compare D/S to litch form. Deathshroud pops up on a regular timer, while litch form has a really long cooldown. You can’t reliably use litch form to migitate damage the way you can in D/S.

You miss understand, Im not comparing DS to Lich, function wise. Im comparing them lore wise.
How do I explain this… my sylvari often says when entering DS “I’m Death Incarnate.”
Well, hes also “Death Incarnate” when in Lich form too (which in most fantasies is a one way permanent transformation, but w/e)
I just find it redundant to have 2 “Death Forms”
If the necro can tap into ther very essence of Death to gain Death Shroud, then what is Lich form?
Granted transforming into a giant lich never really made sense to me. Even less when your a sylvari, charr or asura. I dont think Anet knows what a lich is…

Lifelike.5862:

You can’t compare D/S to litch form. Deathshroud pops up on a regular timer, while litch form has a really long cooldown. You can’t reliably use litch form to migitate damage the way you can in D/S.

Why are you spelling lich with a T? Stop that.

You shouldn’t be using death shroud as an ‘oh kitten’ you should be using it as a second HP pool to prevent you from getting low in the first place, the longer you stay alive the better chance you have of your heal coming off cooldown.

Ah, DS.

Things to bear in mind:

1) You can switch weapons while in DS. Hydromancy sigils are excellent as a result. You may prefer Battle sigils or whatever.

2) You’ll do more damage if you have a staff equipped. About 200 per lifeblast.

3) IF you’re using daggers/axe/walk/swarm, you’ll be generating LF. A good necro will have been in DS burning off excess LF prior to generating it – LF being wasted is a terrible thing.

4) Lifeblast pierces first, second and third targets irrespective of which one is targetted – someone above claimed otherwise, and having tested it 3s ago with a few risen it’s not the case at all. It pierces normally.

XelNigma.6315:

You miss understand, Im not comparing DS to Lich, function wise. Im comparing them lore wise.
How do I explain this… my sylvari often says when entering DS “I’m Death Incarnate.”
Well, hes also “Death Incarnate” when in Lich form too (which in most fantasies is a one way permanent transformation, but w/e)
I just find it redundant to have 2 “Death Forms”
If the necro can tap into ther very essence of Death to gain Death Shroud, then what is Lich form?
Granted transforming into a giant lich never really made sense to me. Even less when your a sylvari, charr or asura. I dont think Anet knows what a lich is…

I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s a unique take on necromancers and liches. The beauty of any kind of fantasy world is that the creators are free to take common or existing tropes and mould them into something completely different.

Once you master Death Shroud you will master the game…

On a related note if Death Shroud skill arnt your thing you should at least use it as a buffer between heals and to lay down some AoE damage with Life Transfer. Using it more interactively would be using it down to about 50% when damage becomes nurfed before jumping out and rebuilding LF.

You can make some very heavy Death Shroud builds like Stability Stomping ones and perma-fury & retaliation builds but it can be very viable for a source of damage/ survivability even without any specs into it, also with the new fix to Soul Reaping you can have up to 30% more Health in Death Shroud then before.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

4) Lifeblast pierces first, second and third targets irrespective of which one is targetted – someone above claimed otherwise, and having tested it 3s ago with a few risen it’s not the case at all. It pierces normally.

You sure you were not targeting furthest away mob?

I swear i have seen LB stop the moment it hit the mob in front of me if that was my focused target, but go thru anything between me and said target.

edit: ok, tested on mist golems and there it worked. Not sure what i observed, terrain effect or whatever, but i swear i have seen the LB projectile stop after it hits the focused target even when it was traited for penetration.

digiowl.9620:

SupahSpankeh.8452:

4) Lifeblast pierces first, second and third targets irrespective of which one is targetted – someone above claimed otherwise, and having tested it 3s ago with a few risen it’s not the case at all. It pierces normally.

You sure you were not targeting furthest away mob?

I swear i have seen LB stop the moment it hit the mob in front of me if that was my focused target, but go thru anything between me and said target.

edit: ok, tested on mist golems and there it worked. Not sure what i observed, terrain effect or whatever, but i swear i have seen the LB projectile stop after it hits the focused target even when it was traited for penetration.

Life Blast doesn’t naturally pierce but if you use Soul Reapings ‘Unyielding Blase’ it will pierce for the full range, i think he meant that.

Ascii.9726:

digiowl.9620:

SupahSpankeh.8452:

4) Lifeblast pierces first, second and third targets irrespective of which one is targetted – someone above claimed otherwise, and having tested it 3s ago with a few risen it’s not the case at all. It pierces normally.

You sure you were not targeting furthest away mob?

I swear i have seen LB stop the moment it hit the mob in front of me if that was my focused target, but go thru anything between me and said target.

edit: ok, tested on mist golems and there it worked. Not sure what i observed, terrain effect or whatever, but i swear i have seen the LB projectile stop after it hits the focused target even when it was traited for penetration.

Life Blast doesn’t naturally pierce but if you use Soul Reapings ‘Unyielding Blase’ it will pierce for the full range, i think he meant that.

I know that. What i am saying is that i had that trait set, but still the projectile stopped after the first enemy. But only if that enemy was my focused target. If said focused target was off in the distance, allowing a second or third enemy to stand between us, it would pierce just fine.

Best guess after testing on the golems is that i ran into a terrain issue, similar to what people have been reporting for Dark Path and Spectral Grasp. Thing is that i could have sworn the place was perfectly flat and the projectile stopped the moment it hit the focused target.

DS is a mechanic that depends of your build. If you play in a Condition spec, you wont get any advantage from DS #1, besides, you will use DS #2 and #3 much more, #4 to refill your LF Pool a little and the proper DS like a damage mitigation skill. In some power specs for example, people use DS like a massive damage source (seems a joke, but its note). So, basically you may use DS to have a complete and effective gameplay, but depending your spec the way you use DS will be different.

digiowl.9620:

Ascii.9726:

digiowl.9620:

SupahSpankeh.8452:

4) Lifeblast pierces first, second and third targets irrespective of which one is targetted – someone above claimed otherwise, and having tested it 3s ago with a few risen it’s not the case at all. It pierces normally.

You sure you were not targeting furthest away mob?

I swear i have seen LB stop the moment it hit the mob in front of me if that was my focused target, but go thru anything between me and said target.

edit: ok, tested on mist golems and there it worked. Not sure what i observed, terrain effect or whatever, but i swear i have seen the LB projectile stop after it hits the focused target even when it was traited for penetration.

Life Blast doesn’t naturally pierce but if you use Soul Reapings ‘Unyielding Blase’ it will pierce for the full range, i think he meant that.

I know that. What i am saying is that i had that trait set, but still the projectile stopped after the first enemy. But only if that enemy was my focused target. If said focused target was off in the distance, allowing a second or third enemy to stand between us, it would pierce just fine.

Best guess after testing on the golems is that i ran into a terrain issue, similar to what people have been reporting for Dark Path and Spectral Grasp. Thing is that i could have sworn the place was perfectly flat and the projectile stopped the moment it hit the focused target.

Yea slight terrain raises are Necros main weakness it seems lol.