Guild Wars 2

I think Death Shroud is a bit lackluster in terms of the benefits and the customization for any other build then power.

First off:

-I can’t see DS as our way of migating/evading direct damage and bolster our surviveability much. Honestly – all other classes ways of doing so are superior . ele has a lot of mobility and controll – thief can get in and out stealth as he pleases – guardians get insane heals, buffs, and traits with much free heal and so on

-Also our high base HP are no big benefit at all – warriors and guardians get basicly 300 thougness more for free because of heavy armor
-with the immense healing potential of the guardian they get more effective hp – warrior has as much health as we do – also much mobility, many dashes to get in and out battle and to migate damage, can be invincible for a rather long time.
-Also both get free armor although there is no “trinity” in this game, warrior and guardian can be ranged as well as supportive and still get free armor.
-Good eles and and thiefs are nearly uncatchable, so can be the mesmer. They all have a good and fitting concept regarding handle damage and combats
- we only can endure it , which is a way too, but our ability to do so is very limited. Ranged AA are rather lackluster(Staff) and nearly unhitable, some classes can kite us until we are forced to run away

- I really like diversity in terms of armor and HP values, but our increased surviveability through DS and vitality are simply an Illusion, our classmechanic is sometimes even more of a bother that reduces our combat possibilities.

1. Problem: We cant be healed in Deathsroud – this is a big big drawback that looks little . Look at our healing skills- The Well and the Minion cause their biggest heal over time, if we choose to use our class mechanic we severly cripple our own heals. Our HP pool is nothing without some kind of heal, we have very little traits to do so too. I think it would help a lot to just let us be able to profit from heals while we are in deathshroud. Sure you could argue that you have to time your heals better – but you only heal if you are low on health – and our burstheal isnt that big to safe us most of the time, if we could DS after well of blood that would be much better.

2. Problem: The cooldown- i think its too long. If you just want to use the fear to prevent a key skill of the enemy you are punished with a 10 second cooldown (untraited) and that feels so wrong. Same if you want to only have a gapcloser (our only reliable way to do so) gets punished by a long cooldown. 2 of our crucial mechanics (controll, gapcloser) cant be accessed without a 10 sec drawback. Reducing the Cooldown to 8 Seconds would help a lot.

3. Problem: Lifeblast. Its only really usefull in power-based builds. I think a small added effect based on our mainhand weapon would provide so much diversity. I Thought of something like this:

Mainhand:

Scepter – Lifeblast causes 2 Stacks of Bleeding for 5 Seconds
Axe – Lifeblast always deals full damage unaffacted by Lifeforce
Dagger- You gain 10% of damage dealt as Health
Staff – Range increase to 1200 and homing projectile.

4. Problem UI, skillcooldowns. This is selfspeaking and more of a Quality of life thing so i dont go into detail.

What does the Community think of these suggestions?

Also sorry for my rather bad english.

My biggest beef with DS – and there are many – is that I think is at odds with condition builds, which are almost the way Necro’s are expected to play.

Attrition playstyle means you need to survive and live a long time, and death shroud is to help that, but in doing so you also have to keep pressure up on your conditions, and death shroud does not let you do that. You have access to a bleed and a chill on pretty long cooldowns and have to trait to get more conditions but those are trait slots needed for your normal form in a condition spec.

As mentioned you also can’t heal in DS. If you have siphoning skills you don’t get anything from them in DS, your normal health pool is locked in place.

One change they could make, is let you still use your utilities in Death Shroud. It would offer it some of the versatility that it desperately lacks with the 4 built in abilities. Considering they are planning to change it so you can see your UI in DS, this would probably be simple to do alongside it.

Pendragon.8735:

One change they could make, is let you still use your utilities in Death Shroud. It would offer it some of the versatility that it desperately lacks with the 4 built in abilities.

I’d never thought about it before but that could really spice up the class a little bit.

Maybe a 5th self choosen skill would be a good way too. Lets say you can choose one of five special deathshroud skills to be equipped.

Maybe a trait “Increases active conditions on enemy by 1,5 sec per lifeblast” that way conditionbuilds could “freeze” the conditions on enemys

I think deathsroud could really need more skills – we dont have much weaponsets in general, so at least our profession mechanic should compensate that.. just look at that engineer or ele diversity given by the mechanics.

I feel like a punching bag whenever I pop DS. It really only buys me some time for my heal cd to be up. If the fear and chill are aoe, I could find more use for it. But with Life Blast scaling with how much life force you have, the damage done when your life force bar is 50% is not enough pressure on a target. Letting us use the utilities would be nice though.

Brujeria.7536:

-with the immense healing potential of the guardian they get more effective hp – warrior has as much health as we do – also much mobility, many dashes to get in and out battle and to migate damage, can be invincible for a rather long time.

Necro has more then ten million more base ehp then the guardian, and more then twenty million more when they’re most at max ehp. Of course, this doesn’t help us at all for attrition, but lends us more to shorter fights, while the guardian’s lower ehp, but much higher toughness is better suited for long fights.