Guild Wars 2

Atherakhia.4086:

Thustlewhumber.7416:

Here’s all I know: in a zerg v. zerg fight, it’s the necros massive burst that will make or break a fight. No class does a better job at taking down multiple targets quickly. <— This is the reason I continue to main a necro.

They achieve this through the application of 2 wells every 45 seconds. Well of Suffering only does 25% more damage than Lava Font which has 100% uptime. We’re also likely going to see this completely outclassed by the upcoming Chronomancer and Tempest specializations.

So while Necro is technically a meta class in WvW, it’s only because of the damage it does with 2 of its skills and nothing else.

Naw dude – the wells are only about 40% of the damage, the other 60% is from staff 2-5 and then jumping into DS 4/5…. then Lich or Plague on top of that. Multiplied by 5 other necros doing the same thing? Dude, there isn’t a front line in the game that can stand up to that. That bag delivery system puts Amazon to shame, lol.

I think reducing the shroud maximum in favor of additional gain would backfire horribly.

Just because a fight is going for a while doesn’t mean your opponent is incapable of bursting you. If the necro didn’t have a 15-20k shroud it would have no way to stop burst because it has no active defenses or endurance regen. Literally no source of vigor or anything. Shroud is the only defense against burst the necro has.

So if you think shroud isn’t good enough for attrition all that really needs to be done is increase LF gain, not nerf the maximum. We need it for both defending against burst and defending against attrition because it’s literally our only defensive mechanic.

pdavis.8031:

Linnael.1069:

I don’t get why all the devs seem to think necro is an attrition class.

Maybe because they designed it that way?

Linnael.1069:

Because necro is a burst class by design, the devs just don’t know it.

Yes, because they don’t know anything about the very class and traits and mechanics that they designed, tested, and use.

In short, there are multiple options to play a variety of play styles. If you want to play a more burst build, sure!
If you want to play more attrition based? Sure!
Want to do something else? Why not?

Should I be limited in how I play necro because some meta website tells me to? Or should I play what I find fun?

I think you completely missed the point of the OP. Is it fair to wager that the state of necro currently is some indication of ANet’s knowledge/position/grasp of the necromancer class? Because that isn’t attrition. That’s a sponge.

This is why I feel like necromancer is such a patchwork quilt of a class.

I didn’t read through the whole thread (Aint nobody got time for that!), but my thought is that you can achieve a some decent burst with Necro, but LifeForce is an attrition mechanic, not a burst mechanic.

Yes, the skills are powerful, but it’s a second health bar at its core (one that you can now heal behind). Essentially, it’s a way to improve a Necromancer’s staying power in a fight.

If you think that Life Force is a burst mechanic, you’re doing something wrong…

MattyP.6954:

I didn’t read through the whole thread (Aint nobody got time for that!), but my thought is that you can achieve a some decent burst with Necro, but LifeForce is an attrition mechanic, not a burst mechanic.

Yes, the skills are powerful, but it’s a second health bar at its core (one that you can now heal behind). Essentially, it’s a way to improve a Necromancer’s staying power in a fight.

If you think that Life Force is a burst mechanic, you’re doing something wrong…

If you really came here looking for discussion maybe you should actually read the discussion that’s happened so far.

If you just came here to tell people who know better than you that they’re doing stuff wrong, maybe you should consider

1: You can always dump lifeforce faster than you can generate it. Otherwise you would always be at 100%

2: LF is thus a resource you pay more and more to have less and less of over time. Why the kitten would you call this an attrition mechanic.

Like seriously getting really kittening tired of people saying that all defensive tools are attrition mechanics. They’re not even remotely related. Compare LF as a defensive tool to active healing on elementalist. They start of with super low HP but generate huge amounts over time the longer the fight goes. That’s a real attrition mechanic.

Thustlewhumber.7416:

Atherakhia.4086:

Thustlewhumber.7416:

Here’s all I know: in a zerg v. zerg fight, it’s the necros massive burst that will make or break a fight. No class does a better job at taking down multiple targets quickly. <— This is the reason I continue to main a necro.

They achieve this through the application of 2 wells every 45 seconds. Well of Suffering only does 25% more damage than Lava Font which has 100% uptime. We’re also likely going to see this completely outclassed by the upcoming Chronomancer and Tempest specializations.

So while Necro is technically a meta class in WvW, it’s only because of the damage it does with 2 of its skills and nothing else.

Naw dude – the wells are only about 40% of the damage, the other 60% is from staff 2-5 and then jumping into DS 4/5…. then Lich or Plague on top of that. Multiplied by 5 other necros doing the same thing? Dude, there isn’t a front line in the game that can stand up to that. That bag delivery system puts Amazon to shame, lol.

No Necro is using 4 or 5 on staff for offense.

DS 4 is less DPS than DS 1, and DS1 does the same dps as a Ranger’s longbow, but the LB can do it from 2k away whereas Necro must be melee.

Liche is great… for 15seconds.

It really is the wells I’m afraid.

Considering Putrid Mark can crit for 4k+, it’s pretty standard to use it for offense in WvW. In that setting, its defensive applications are largely overshadowed by Plague or Flesh Wurm.

Lich is 22s with the Spectral trait and can outright delete players without reflection abilities. Unfortunately, the speed and tracking on its autoattack projectile is so bad you practically have to be in melee, even moreso than DS abilities.

Atherakhia.4086:

Thustlewhumber.7416:

Atherakhia.4086:

Thustlewhumber.7416:

Here’s all I know: in a zerg v. zerg fight, it’s the necros massive burst that will make or break a fight. No class does a better job at taking down multiple targets quickly. <— This is the reason I continue to main a necro.

They achieve this through the application of 2 wells every 45 seconds. Well of Suffering only does 25% more damage than Lava Font which has 100% uptime. We’re also likely going to see this completely outclassed by the upcoming Chronomancer and Tempest specializations.

So while Necro is technically a meta class in WvW, it’s only because of the damage it does with 2 of its skills and nothing else.

Naw dude – the wells are only about 40% of the damage, the other 60% is from staff 2-5 and then jumping into DS 4/5…. then Lich or Plague on top of that. Multiplied by 5 other necros doing the same thing? Dude, there isn’t a front line in the game that can stand up to that. That bag delivery system puts Amazon to shame, lol.

No Necro is using 4 or 5 on staff for offense.

DS 4 is less DPS than DS 1, and DS1 does the same dps as a Ranger’s longbow, but the LB can do it from 2k away whereas Necro must be melee.

Liche is great… for 15seconds.

It really is the wells I’m afraid.

I actually use #4 for offense. In PvE anyway, especially in what you people like to call a “low level dungeon” (aka CoF). That time event where you need to occupy those bubbles? A well + DS#4 and maybe 1 -2 dagger-autos get rid of the whole 5 man spawning group without you taking any damage. Same applies for stuff in silverwastes… The amount of hits+crits you get from well-pop ds- DS #4 is just funny everytime i do it X) (Using the Crittrait from soulreaping, of course. I cannot wait for the Reaper trait, especially since it seems every elite spec can kitten vuln out the wazoo – actually, now that i think about it, you could consider this another reason Reaper is looking more and more subpar…remember when we were all excited about “hey reaper can stack insane amounts of vuln, close to an engi!”. Well yeah, every other elite spec can do that too now…)

Linnael.1069:

MattyP.6954:

I didn’t read through the whole thread (Aint nobody got time for that!), but my thought is that you can achieve a some decent burst with Necro, but LifeForce is an attrition mechanic, not a burst mechanic.

Yes, the skills are powerful, but it’s a second health bar at its core (one that you can now heal behind). Essentially, it’s a way to improve a Necromancer’s staying power in a fight.

If you think that Life Force is a burst mechanic, you’re doing something wrong…

If you really came here looking for discussion maybe you should actually read the discussion that’s happened so far.

If you just came here to tell people who know better than you that they’re doing stuff wrong, maybe you should consider

1: You can always dump lifeforce faster than you can generate it. Otherwise you would always be at 100%

2: LF is thus a resource you pay more and more to have less and less of over time. Why the kitten would you call this an attrition mechanic.

Like seriously getting really kittening tired of people saying that all defensive tools are attrition mechanics. They’re not even remotely related. Compare LF as a defensive tool to active healing on elementalist. They start of with super low HP but generate huge amounts over time the longer the fight goes. That’s a real attrition mechanic.

You’re going with the assumption that you start every fight with full LF, which you can in WvW due to random critters. This isn’t guaranteed, it really depends.

Active defenses are guaranteed to be ready at the start of fights every time.

Worst case scenario for necro is you start at 0 LF and you need to spend time in the fight building it up. This can and does happen. In this case you need to win by attrition by surviving long enough to build up LF and then use it to win. I believe this was the intended gameplay to some extent. That’s what the mechanic looks like in theory.

So it’s kinda funny that in WvW and PvE it’s very common to go into every fight starting at full LF. Not sure if Anet planned that or not, but like I said before, shroud is our only defensive mechanic so it needs to work for both burst and attrition, and in theory it does. The only thing that should be adjusted for attrition is the generation rate. Reducing the cap would destroy our ability to defend against burst. I can’t stress enough that shroud needs to function for both purposes, not just one or the other.

Linnael.1069:

MattyP.6954:

I didn’t read through the whole thread (Aint nobody got time for that!), but my thought is that you can achieve a some decent burst with Necro, but LifeForce is an attrition mechanic, not a burst mechanic.

Yes, the skills are powerful, but it’s a second health bar at its core (one that you can now heal behind). Essentially, it’s a way to improve a Necromancer’s staying power in a fight.

If you think that Life Force is a burst mechanic, you’re doing something wrong…

If you really came here looking for discussion maybe you should actually read the discussion that’s happened so far.

If you just came here to tell people who know better than you that they’re doing stuff wrong, maybe you should consider

1: You can always dump lifeforce faster than you can generate it. Otherwise you would always be at 100%

2: LF is thus a resource you pay more and more to have less and less of over time. Why the kitten would you call this an attrition mechanic.

Like seriously getting really kittening tired of people saying that all defensive tools are attrition mechanics. They’re not even remotely related. Compare LF as a defensive tool to active healing on elementalist. They start of with super low HP but generate huge amounts over time the longer the fight goes. That’s a real attrition mechanic.

But… you don’t “dump” life force. In fact, none of the skills in Death Shroud use life force (I checked). More importantly, name one burst skill in Death Shroud. The one I can think of that can accurately be described as a high-damage burst skill is the auto attack, which, for me in Exotic equipment with 25 bloodlust stacks and 25 might stacks crits for about 4.3k (though I don’t build for ferocity; coincidentally, it is also what DS4 winds up dealing per target). Other than that, DS has a low-damage control and gap closer (DS2), a fear (DS3), and damaging condition application (DS5).

Here is how I used Death Shroud to great effect (I run a dps/aoe support hybrid build) just yesterday.

• I tanked almost all of the damage from the Legendary Mordrem Annihilator (or whichever one is the husk
• Ran around in melee range, avoiding all of the damage I could while building up life force.
• When my health got to 1/3, if my Vampiric Signet was on CD I hopped into Death Shroud
• In Death Shroud I pumped out some AoE healing, picked one or two downed people up, dealt some damage, etc, etc.
• When my Death Shroud expired, I healed back up (Vampiric Signet + Dagger 2 heals about 2/3 of my health)
• Rinse, repeat.

I was able to keep the Legendary Husk’s attention for almost the entire fight without retreating with no ascended gear and minimal external support (I don’t even think I had the Elementalist passive heal on me for the whole duration).

It was an exercise in attrition. I outlasted a beefy opponent without having to withdraw while I (and about a half dozen other people) whittled down his health. Death Shroud made that possible. (That being said, my Engineer also has incredible staying power, but through entirely different mechanics)

MattyP.6954:

Linnael.1069:

MattyP.6954:

I didn’t read through the whole thread (Aint nobody got time for that!), but my thought is that you can achieve a some decent burst with Necro, but LifeForce is an attrition mechanic, not a burst mechanic.

Yes, the skills are powerful, but it’s a second health bar at its core (one that you can now heal behind). Essentially, it’s a way to improve a Necromancer’s staying power in a fight.

If you think that Life Force is a burst mechanic, you’re doing something wrong…

If you really came here looking for discussion maybe you should actually read the discussion that’s happened so far.

If you just came here to tell people who know better than you that they’re doing stuff wrong, maybe you should consider

1: You can always dump lifeforce faster than you can generate it. Otherwise you would always be at 100%

2: LF is thus a resource you pay more and more to have less and less of over time. Why the kitten would you call this an attrition mechanic.

Like seriously getting really kittening tired of people saying that all defensive tools are attrition mechanics. They’re not even remotely related. Compare LF as a defensive tool to active healing on elementalist. They start of with super low HP but generate huge amounts over time the longer the fight goes. That’s a real attrition mechanic.

But… you don’t “dump” life force. In fact, none of the skills in Death Shroud use life force (I checked). More importantly, name one burst skill in Death Shroud. The one I can think of that can accurately be described as a high-damage burst skill is the auto attack, which, for me in Exotic equipment with 25 bloodlust stacks and 25 might stacks crits for about 4.3k (though I don’t build for ferocity; coincidentally, it is also what DS4 winds up dealing per target). Other than that, DS has a low-damage control and gap closer (DS2), a fear (DS3), and damaging condition application (DS5).

Here is how I used Death Shroud to great effect (I run a dps/aoe support hybrid build) just yesterday.

• I tanked almost all of the damage from the Legendary Mordrem Annihilator (or whichever one is the husk
• Ran around in melee range, avoiding all of the damage I could while building up life force.
• When my health got to 1/3, if my Vampiric Signet was on CD I hopped into Death Shroud
• In Death Shroud I pumped out some AoE healing, picked one or two downed people up, dealt some damage, etc, etc.
• When my Death Shroud expired, I healed back up (Vampiric Signet + Dagger 2 heals about 2/3 of my health)
• Rinse, repeat.

I was able to keep the Legendary Husk’s attention for almost the entire fight without retreating with no ascended gear and minimal external support (I don’t even think I had the Elementalist passive heal on me for the whole duration).

It was an exercise in attrition. I outlasted a beefy opponent without having to withdraw while I (and about a half dozen other people) whittled down his health. Death Shroud made that possible. (That being said, my Engineer also has incredible staying power, but through entirely different mechanics)

I get the impression most of the people asserting that it’s a burst mechanic are PvP/WvW players. In PvP fights it’s harder to consistently build LF because players will be dodging attacks and stuff. So I think this leads to the frustration where people want shroud to work better for attrition.

I use DS the same way in PvE as you do. I use it to absorb damage as part of my sustain cycle. It adds a ton of sustain especially in PvE where each enemy death gives you some LF.

It really depends on the situation. Shroud helps you survive in short fights and also long fights. Though I mainly play PvE I strongly suspect that in PvP the LF generation is probably not quite good/reliable enough, otherwise discussions like this wouldn’t happen.

Or you could actually look at the way the mechanic is designed instead of confusing defense with attrition. Just because you can use it less efficiently over time doesn’t make it an attrition mechanic. With my knights set on I can sit there and facetank supervisors for 5 minutes straight while I wait for RI to wear off, but that literally means nothing at all in terms of system design. LF is a large pool you generate slowly. That’s burst design.

The PvE attrition case where you can keep generating LF off of trash shouldn’t even be considered a factor in skill balance. Who the hell cares if you’re going to generate more or less life force after you’ve killed everything. LF on death is of zero use against most bosses in dungeons and fotm, and who the kitten wants things to be balanced for open world trash? Seriously people coming into system design discussions saying things like “but I can soak annihilator” make me wonder if honestly ANet is just playing to their demographic.

“LF is a large pool you generate slowly. That’s burst design.”

No. Burst design is something available early so you can end the fight early.

The theory behind shroud is if you’re able to extend the fight out (attrition) you get a duration of strength after you fill it up.

Because you gain an advantage after filling it up, your opponent would be better off ending the fight early rather than using an attrition strategy themselves.

That’s the theory behind a slowly generating resource that gives you an advantage after you build it up.

Khristophoros.7194:

Burst design is something available early so you can end the fight early.

You mean like literally exactly like deathshroud? I seriously can’t believe we’re kittening doing this again. In 99% of encounters you’ve got a huge pool of LF immediately available at the start of the fight and need to invest resources to generate more over time. How are you not seeing this. Essentially in any given fight you get free life force for the first 20ish seconds and are heavily discouraged from letting the fight go longer because then you are forced to spend resources on LF generation.

I don’t even get what kind of encounters you’re talking about anymore. You say you’re a pve main player but then you talk about entering encounters with 0 LF and DS being a “period of strength.” Newsflash if you’re using DS in PvE for more than a second at a time you’re losing DPS. If you’re sitting in it to facetank damage you’re part of the reason necros can’t get fast groups without getting instakicked.

Large pools that generate slowly are burst design. Keep reading that statement till your reading comprehension catches up.

zapv.8051:

Alright, let’s stop arguing about if DS is or is not an attrition mechanic and instead suggest changes to make it into a good one. Just a few of the already listed suggestions:

Cut the total DS pool by 2/3 or maybe like half (6-10k)
Increase LF gen on weapon and traits by 300%.
DS cd starts when you enter.
Allow all healing in shroud.
Allow using utilities in shroud.
Give necros some stab, some vigor, fix walk and wurm, maybe rework DS 2 and 4 into a damaging skill and a port (port on 4 skill). Fix well of darkness being poo.
Get rid of all the massive cast time skills.

IDK what you think about DS now, but this ^ would work 100 times better in competitive play, while also making necros less OP against noobs.

Those are good suggestions. The thing I’d like to see the most and could make DS EITHER more bursty or attrition is for there to be uses for LF beyond a second life bar. DS 5 is the only skill that uses your LF. If the skills were linked to the amount of LF you have and you spent LF to energize your attacks you can build up and be much more bursty. Or trait DS so that your attacks do 25% less damage in DS but all 5 attacks recover LF, making you more tanky.

These are just thoughts for the direction of DS LF and eventually RS. We should have traits to make the whole DS mechanic either bursty or attrition to suit our play style. As it is now its a 1 trick pony that most necros are not satisfied with. My main problem with Necro is that we don’t have enough diversity. Condi mostly sucks, MM AI is stupid and other than wells and sigs we don’t have much. Most experienced necros play the same 1 or 2 builds in every part of the game PvP, WvW, PvE with minor adjustments. Why bacause we don’t have lots of vesitility. Power, Condi, or MM.. Condi is under powered and MMs stupid… so pick. After HoT looks like it will be Power Condi MM or Reaper.

Trait diversity for DS is the most needed thing. And something better than Dumb-fire

Linnael.1069:

Khristophoros.7194:

Burst design is something available early so you can end the fight early.

You mean like literally exactly like deathshroud? I seriously can’t believe we’re kittening doing this again. In 99% of encounters you’ve got a huge pool of LF immediately available at the start of the fight and need to invest resources to generate more over time. How are you not seeing this. Essentially in any given fight you get free life force for the first 20ish seconds and are heavily discouraged from letting the fight go longer because then you are forced to spend resources on LF generation.

I don’t even get what kind of encounters you’re talking about anymore. You say you’re a pve main player but then you talk about entering encounters with 0 LF and DS being a “period of strength.” Newsflash if you’re using DS in PvE for more than a second at a time you’re losing DPS. If you’re sitting in it to facetank damage you’re part of the reason necros can’t get fast groups without getting instakicked.

I was talking about the theory behind it, which is a slow generating resource. The fact that you start every PvE fight with it full is not relevant at all because it also generates insanely fast in PvE.

Large pools that generate slowly are burst design. Keep reading that statement till your reading comprehension catches up.

Sorry but this is 100% incorrect and I already explained why. To last long enough to build it up, you play attrition. If you’re playing burst you go into the fight with everything ready and you try to win right away.

Anyway, this whole debate is stupid because shroud is our only defensive mechanic. That means it needs to work against both burst and sustain. So stop suggesting reducing the maximum, that would wreck the necro in all formats of play.

If the necro needs to be better at attrition, then buff the attrition stuff like LF generation or whatever. Don’t nerf anything in return, that is totally unnecessary.

You’re basically saying “The necro was advertised as an attrition class so it shouldn’t have any defense against burst damage, and its defense should only be relevant in attrition fights” Simply absurd, please stop.

Linnael.1069:

In 99% of encounters you’ve got a huge pool of LF immediately available at the start of the fight and need to invest resources to generate more over time.

Really? Most of my matches in spvp i start without any LF…

That is only true for pve and wvw…

Death shroud being a burst mechanic is quite true or at least promotes a shorter fight/usage. After if you take a look at how life force is generated by default: killing things. So the faster you kill something the better your life force regen is → promotes shorter fight.
Now take a look of where life force generation is on the weapon skills: dagger #1 is the most damaging attack of the dagger, axe 2 is the most damaging skill of the axe, scepter #3 gives more damage and life force if you have more conditions , focus #4 is the most damaging attack of the focus and staff on the auto attack. So outside staff (which is an utility weapon) and scepter necromancer get more life force if they do their more damaging skills, scepter does also promote condition “burst” to an extent. So necromancer weapons → promotes shorter fight.
Death shroud skills have long cooldowns so the longer the fight goes the weaker your position in death shroud is. So death shroud cooldowns → promotes shorter fight.
Death shroud also promotes a shorter usage due the facts it degenerates since the longer you stay in death shroud the more is degenerated. In terms of defense it is best to time your death shroud when the high damage comes. So death shroud degen→ promotes shorter usage.

Now that being said I do have to admit that death shroud is not high damage exclusive even though it promotes a shorter fight/usage. This offset is done by making the life force gained scale by vitality and life force lost being scaled by the damage done. This two things make your life force gained more worth if you migitate more damage and if you stack more vitality promoting a prolonged fight.

Muchacho.2390:

Linnael.1069:

In 99% of encounters you’ve got a huge pool of LF immediately available at the start of the fight and need to invest resources to generate more over time.

Really? Most of my matches in spvp i start without any LF…

That is only true for pve and wvw…

Yeah and he was the same guy saying PvE is irrelevant to this discussion. XD

Lol ok. You want to ignore the fact that life force is the only player resource that stands still out of combat, how huge the size of a full bar is, and how much easier it is to generate on trash between real fights than it is to refill midfight. Sure. You can play that way and be limit yourself to using it based on its slow mid-fight generation.

That doesn’t say jack about the system. That just says you’re using it in a way that runs counter to the core principles of the system. Maybe you can get away with that in this game. Maybe thats even the playstyle that the devs were thinking of when they came up with LF. But that doesn’t fit the actual design of the system, which is what I want to change. I don’t get why you’re not in favor of it. Do you just enjoy using mechanics in their least optimal context?

Regarding the LF pool nerf, thats to normalize between 100% and 0% cases. If all you do is triple generation while still allowing burst specs to open up with the massive bar they currently have it would indeed be OP. If you’d read the original suggestion I called for DS entry to cool down while you were in it. This is a buff to burst defense given that zerk players all know to just stall out DS and hit you when you drop it. By allowing you to enter deathshroud way more often you catch more bursts and force people to actually respond to DS instead of just playing defensive when its up, because if they let you sit in it for too long you’ll have recharged the entry already by the time you leave.

Regarding PvP: If you’re not starting with 20% you’re doing it wrong, and if you’re trying to stomp as a necro instead of cleaving downs for bar you’re doing it wrong too. I’m going to be transparent and say i’m mostly a solo roamer, but I have a few hundred necro games in pvp anyways. You see, I wouldn’t actually be trying to talk about the mode if I didn’t even grasp the fundamentals of playing it.

It just doesn’t sound very effective to have a much smaller shroud when a lot of things can already burst through a full shroud as is, not things with particularly long cooldowns either.

A simpler solution to your problem is… just buff LF generation. Solves the problem of attrition without ruining everything else.

OK whatever. I feel like it might be OP but kitten it its our turn anyways.

The real problem is that DS skills never flowed well together (some are good for condi some power and basically you have half a skill bar for your build) and LF was a useless resource until you pop DS. The exception is Strength of Undeath which buffs you when you LF pool is high. More traits should be linked to LF and give us options so we can play either burst or attrition.
Examples off the top of my head (note ideas not refined so don’t hate) would be
- a trait that lets you dodge an extra time using LF instead of endurance with say a cooldown of 5 seconds.
- a trait that give you LF every time you use you heal skill
- a trait that makes you do more damage in DS at the cost quicker LF loss
- Having Dumbfire do a stack of fire for every 33% of LF you have so 3 stacks above 66% 2stacks above 33% and 1 stack below 33%
- a trait that provides a greater LF pool for each minion you control and minions give you LF.

Letting our LF pool affect more of our builds and getting traits that let us diversify is the ideal. Right now DS and LF make are a burst system trying to be attrition. But why be one or the other exclusively. Wasn’t this game designed around diversity?

Khristophoros.7194:

MattyP.6954:

It was an exercise in attrition. I outlasted a beefy opponent without having to withdraw while I (and about a half dozen other people) whittled down his health. Death Shroud made that possible. (That being said, my Engineer also has incredible staying power, but through entirely different mechanics)

I use DS the same way in PvE as you do. I use it to absorb damage as part of my sustain cycle. It adds a ton of sustain especially in PvE where each enemy death gives you some LF.

It really depends on the situation. Shroud helps you survive in short fights and also long fights. Though I mainly play PvE I strongly suspect that in PvP the LF generation is probably not quite good/reliable enough, otherwise discussions like this wouldn’t happen.

PVE in this game is, for the most part, mindless and imo terrible. As much as people enjoy PVE and don’t want balance to revolve around PVP (splitting skills here as was the case in GW1 would solve this), you only have to look at the attempts by ANet to encourage PVEers to move away from the zerk meta and the state of PVE now. It hasn’t changed at all. Zerk is still meta and everything else is suboptimal. Viable? Sure, the groups I’ve run with don’t really care what gear I’m using. But suboptimal nonetheless.