Guild Wars 2

So I’ve made a post about this before. And months down the road I feel even worse about it then I initially did. The problem still exists and it doesn’t look like the devs are going to even consider fixing this problem any time in the foreseeable future. And this problem is with death shroud.

Before I get into this, let me note that I still do really like the necromancer and the concept of death shroud is really cool and interesting to me. However I can’t sit back and be content with the clear problems that it has.

For starters, the necromancer is the only profession with a mechanic that actually locks you out of using your utility and healing skills. Well, why is this a problem? First of all, its a problem because this means that death shroud is a separate entity from your bar almost entirely. This means that any sort of stunbreak that you might need or heal, or utility that could be used is locked out while in death shroud. This means that if you get CCed in Death shroud or are in serious trouble you have to put it on cool down to save yourself. In which case you are often put between a rock and a hard place. Which no other profession has this problem built into their very mechanic.

And unlike other professions, the necromancer’s skills don’t seem to care at all about how much death shroud you have. A few of them help fill death shroud but not a single one really effects it in the slightest. there are a few traits that care, but beyond that its mostly a beast all its own rather then a true part of your build.

Death shroud is such a selfish ability that you can’t even res allies while in death shroud and lets not forget about being able to finish people while in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if later down on the road Anet actually removed your ability to contribute to capture points while in it, considering how parasitic the ability actually is.

If arena net would actually address these problems, giving the necromancer access to their utility and even allowing us to revive allies while in death shroud I can guarantee that you would see a decent rise in necromancer play and many of our problems would be negated without having try and dance around a happy medium. If the also allowed us to be able to heal or be healed in death shroud we wouldn’t be so removed from the fight, we could actually receive help from allies without having them feel like it was a waste of time.

Giving us these abilities and opening up our utility slots, even if we did lock out our elite while in it, this could open up new design choices with skills that could actually function very differently in death shroud then outside of it making it more of a part of who the necromancer is rather then this really bad defensive mechanic.

I’m fine with not having skills 6-10 in death shroud, but the lack of ressing, stomping, and the fact it completely shuts down our Blood Magic line as well as give a huge middle finger to those who try to heal us does make it quite frustrating.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m fine with not having skills 6-10 in death shroud, but the lack of ressing, stomping, and the fact it completely shuts down our Blood Magic line as well as give a huge middle finger to those who try to heal us does make it quite frustrating.

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Lily.1935:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m fine with not having skills 6-10 in death shroud, but the lack of ressing, stomping, and the fact it completely shuts down our Blood Magic line as well as give a huge middle finger to those who try to heal us does make it quite frustrating.

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Yay we would be a fancy elementalist… woo? As Drarnor said, basic stuff being locked off is way more important, first turn the swamp into soil before trying to make a crop field (or dont build a house on sand, turn it to concrete first).

To me, DS works fine. It’s a very powerful ability and making allowing full slot functionality is tantamount to just giving the class 30,000+ untraited HP. Sure, I’d like to res people but it’s not that big a deal. And, shroudstop is a bit tricky to get at first but with practice, that works very well, too. Furthermore, I don’t really think ANet has the intention of giving DS skills the ability to provide massive life force regen. That would make the mode self-sustaining which is clearly not their aim. DS is a time out, a place where necros can go for a bit of offense, a bit of defense and generally stall while their skills are on CD. It’s not supposed to behave like your normal state. And, it probably shouldn’t. Using DS is about strategic management. If ANet gave us full functionality of all skills in it, they’d probably have to remove a lot of the interesting things like Fury or Weakening Shroud to compensate.

That would be pretty boring, I think.

I wouldn’t even be concerned about the lack of shroud-stomp/shroud res if they would take away mist stomp, distortion stomp, and tiny stomp (and their res counterparts).

Lily.1935:

Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Like engi toolbelt skills?

In my opinion. I dont see why they cant open up the 6-9 slots. What they could do is have the skills differ just slightly so that its “biffed” at the expense of costing Life Force

For Example:

Minions – They could have a different skin and have slightly buffed stats or a new attack.

Blood Fiend – Rather than drain health from just the target, It now drains health from the target and those in say 100-150 range of the target. Healing for the same amount for the single with say an added 250 per additional target drained.

Bone Minions – Attacks now inflict random conditions

Bone Fiend – Attacks inflict Chill rather than cripple

Shadow Fiend – Dunno, all it does is attack. Maybe make the attacks stronger?

Wurm – again dunno

BUT then the active uses of the skills could also be buffed thinking something like:

Blood Fiend, Now it grants yourself and allies Regeneration + 1 random defensive boon along with the self heal.

Bone Minions – Inflicts all targets in range with Poison for 10 seconds

Shadow Fiend – Now its an AoE Blind and Grants 25% Life Force

Wurm – I dunno.

Bone Fiend – Now an AoE immobilize

Consume Conditions: Feast On Conditions healing yourself (either LF or HP) and gain 1 stack of Might for 10-15 seconds per condition consumed

Well of Blood: summon Well of Blood and heal, Gain random Boon (defensive) for 10-15 seconds while standing in the well. Enemies are inflicted with random condition for 10-15 seconds.

Some other “buffed” healing ideas.

They need to do something about deathshroud vanishing instantly under focus fire.

Even with 30 in SR the minute i have a few ppl on me it just drops so quickly, where as blocks, invulnerability and evades don’t have the same problem.

My sword/shield warrior’s number 5 skill just blocks everything – it’s kittening awesome.

As you may know ds used to be our down state and because of that it is probably coded like one (hence no heal, no res, no stomp and so on). May guess is that its too much of a hassle to change all that, as they probably think that ds is fine as it is. And if you look in spvp we have build that can hold their own (but sadly for the wrong reasons). So they think small tweaks are enough for necros (which i dont agree with be the way).

Or they simple dont care, as from the live stream, i had the impresssion they dont like necros much…

Lily.1935:

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

A balance nightmare. It could have been done during initial design but right now that’d force them to add 40 skills to the game to one class, and balance a class having access to 4 new CDs. It also intrudes a bit too much into the Engi toolbelt mechanic.

I have no problem not having access to the active portions of my 6-0 skills while in DS. In fact our balance would be even more problematic if we did. What I would like to see is all the passive effects carrying over, and certain limited healing effects being allowed to pass through DS. This should include all signets still giving their passive effects, regen and our siphoning (maybe Blood Fiend, maybe the new signet) going through as well. It wouldn’t be any big increases, but at least we could duck into DS for a bit and get some healing back up. But as it is now we effectively lose HP/s by going into DS.

Avigrus.2871:

They need to do something about deathshroud vanishing instantly under focus fire.

Even with 30 in SR the minute i have a few ppl on me it just drops so quickly, where as blocks, invulnerability and evades don’t have the same problem.

My sword/shield warrior’s number 5 skill just blocks everything – it’s kittening awesome.

I hear that its meant to have a damage reduction 25% i think, but guess what its bugged…

We asked for sustain and they gave us dhummfire…

They created this problem – no one asked for burning damage. Then came the hundreds of whingers in the PvP forum….

They refuse to address dhummfire because that would mean admitting that it was an error.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I wouldn’t even be concerned about the lack of shroud-stomp/shroud res if they would take away mist stomp, distortion stomp, and tiny stomp (and their res counterparts).

Pretty much this right here ^

You want balance…well then balance. Don’t play favorites. No healing in those modes either, just like us. Then the playing field will be a little more even and they won’t have to jump through hoops to balance.

I general DS works fine. For some builds better some not so much.

It just has some Basic problems:
- No healing
- Extremely vulnerable to CC and burst (= most of the damage anyway)

Then next comes really bad HP management for necromancer, unless you’re exremely tanky type you die almost instant you catch damaging conditions or take physical damage in any form, basically more glass than thief, at least they’ve base medium armor and stealth. Even though necro has good Basic heal it cannot remove permanent condispam some classes just can do, or protect itself from warrior or mesmer stun/dps burst.. So yeah.. I don’t really know how to best describe how much necro sucks when you count out condibursting points in spvp with like… 1 viable build or something.

I still do enjoy playing necro but it surely is frustrating when you run into warrior who says boo and you’re perma cc’ed despite having some stun breaks and die under 10 seconds. Yay.

Next problem

You are the slowest guy out of everybody. Everybody can escape you to reset the fight and then kill you on cooldown.

Next problem

Most of our traits improve our weapon skills, which then have to be balanced as if all of those traits are active.

Next Problem

Minions. They suck. But our weapons are balanced as if we have 7 traited minions helping contribute.

Next problem

Utility Skills. Most of them have no utility, they have damage. Thus we get punished twice, first because our weapon skills have to be balanced with lower damage, second when we have no support.

Next problem

Lifesteal. If it can’t be balanced, remove it from the game. The end.

Next Problem

Reanimator and Protection of the Horde.

Next Problm

Warrior whiners. They whine whenever anything beats them, even when that something has a counter or hard counter. The real problem is that they get listened to instead of laughed at.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

A balance nightmare. It could have been done during initial design but right now that’d force them to add 40 skills to the game to one class, and balance a class having access to 4 new CDs. It also intrudes a bit too much into the Engi toolbelt mechanic.

I have no problem not having access to the active portions of my 6-0 skills while in DS. In fact our balance would be even more problematic if we did. What I would like to see is all the passive effects carrying over, and certain limited healing effects being allowed to pass through DS. This should include all signets still giving their passive effects, regen and our siphoning (maybe Blood Fiend, maybe the new signet) going through as well. It wouldn’t be any big increases, but at least we could duck into DS for a bit and get some healing back up. But as it is now we effectively lose HP/s by going into DS.

Perhaps if done wrong it would be a nightmare. However we are so weak defensively in PvE, this change might not even make us on par with other professions. In pvp this would improve our sivivability, yes, and would have to be considered when balancing that end of it. But again I’m afraid you are looking at this from too narrow of a perspective and not seeing the larger picture. Death shroud is a parasitic ability. And contributes next to nothing to allies and pidgin holds you into bad habits because thats all we have.

If they did make this change and rolled back the life force gain for PvP, this could realistically be balanced for PvP without breaking the game. Dramatic changes don’t break games. Sometimes they are necessary. Look at the Dervish back in GW1. It was a extremely bad profession for years. Anet actually had to completely change how the entire profession functions, effectively rewriting a good 60% of their skills and changing their profession specific attribute in order to make them playable. And there where some slip ups, sure. Some skills need to be tweaked a bit, but it didn’t break the game.

I’ve been thinking and calculating this a lot in my head, and its not nearly as good or as powerful as it sounds. Its good, yes. Not busted like you seem to be thinking it would be.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I wouldn’t even be concerned about the lack of shroud-stomp/shroud res if they would take away mist stomp, distortion stomp, and tiny stomp (and their res counterparts).

Pretty much this right here ^

You want balance…well then balance. Don’t play favorites. No healing in those modes either, just like us. Then the playing field will be a little more even and they won’t have to jump through hoops to balance.

“Balance” and “the same” aren’t synonymous.

Besides, these are entirely different skills and not comparable. Unless, you’re also arguing that we shouldn’t be able to attack anyone in DS or only last for a few seconds? Or perhaps you’re arguing that you’d trade DS entirely for a slot skill like Mistform?

Let’s preface this entire conversation with this: this will not happen soon. I hope everyone who posts here realizes that. For this to go through, they’d need to add 40 new skills to the game, and that is a massive amount of resources, for comparatively little gain. They aren’t at the position now where they can afford that, unlike your example in GW1 (dervishes being fixed was years into the development cycle, after they had added most major content). Now, later on down the road? Maybe. This game, despite a lot of complaints, is still very new and there is plenty of room for major-fixes later on when it is more realistic.

It is just a balance issue, and an issue of encroaching on engis for me. I’m not saying they can’t do it, or that they shouldn’t. I don’t think it is necessary, however that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be done, and done well. My main worry is that introducing so many skills makes balance far harder on them (now every utility skill has two parts which need to both be balanced), and frankly we’re stepping all over Engi’s toes.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I wouldn’t even be concerned about the lack of shroud-stomp/shroud res if they would take away mist stomp, distortion stomp, and tiny stomp (and their res counterparts).

Pretty much this right here ^

You want balance…well then balance. Don’t play favorites. No healing in those modes either, just like us. Then the playing field will be a little more even and they won’t have to jump through hoops to balance.

“Balance” and “the same” aren’t synonymous.

Besides, these are entirely different skills and not comparable. Unless, you’re also arguing that we shouldn’t be able to attack anyone in DS or only last for a few seconds? Or perhaps you’re arguing that you’d trade DS entirely for a slot skill like Mistform?

“Death Shroud” and “Invulnerability” aren’t the same either. The point is, necros can only get a protected stomp/res by cheating the system. My issue isn’t that they can go invulnerable to protect themselves and we go into death shroud to protect themselves, my issue is that they can do a basic action that we (by default) cannot: protected stomp/res.

If we aren’t supposed to get a protected stomp/res, then honestly, nobody should get a perfectly safe one. I have fewer issues with Stability stomps or stealth stomps, because there are still things that can happen to prevent it. Tiny/Mist/Distortion stomps, nothing can be done

Dalanor.5387:

Lily.1935:

Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Like engi toolbelt skills?

kitten off.

How about you lose your weapon swap as compensation for having a third full set of skills at your disposal at all times.

Seems fair

Engi toolbelt skills are 70% crap btw. Unlike yours….

kittening faceroll necros

RaynStargaze.6510:

Dalanor.5387:

Lily.1935:

Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Like engi toolbelt skills?

kitten off.

How about you lose your weapon swap as compensation for having a third full set of skills at your disposal at all times.

Seems fair

Engi toolbelt skills are 70% crap btw. Unlike yours….

kittening faceroll necros

Haha this guy. Such animosity

RaynStargaze.6510:

kitten off.

How about you lose your weapon swap as compensation for having a third full set of skills at your disposal at all times.

Seems fair

Engi toolbelt skills are 70% crap btw. Unlike yours….

kittening faceroll necros

Thank you for this constructive post. Oh wait.

The reason engi’s can’t weapon swap is because you have access to utility skills that are literally weapon-swaps for you. You can have the equivalent of 5 sets of weapons (more than elementalist, mind you), or a total of 30 skills on your bar (max).

Necromancers at current get 20. Even with this proposed change we’d be at 25, and most likely all of the added ones would be very weak, highly situational, or with massive CDs.

Lily.1935:

“This means that any sort of stunbreak that you might need or heal, or utility that could be used is locked out while in death shroud.”

Foot in the Grave: Entering Death Shroud grants you stability.
As far as healing Death Shroud prevents physical damage, Shrouded Removal will remove a condition when entering death shroud and you can buy time for your heal to CD before dropping DS

Lily.1935:

And unlike other professions, the necromancer’s skills don’t seem to care at all about how much death shroud you have. A few of them help fill death shroud but not a single one really effects it in the slightest. "

You have several weapons that increase Life Force, an entire utility category that grants Life Force, a passive Spectral Armor proc that grants Life Force, and an entire tree dedicated to life force and reducing your CD’s for Death Shroud as well as traits like Soul Marks and Spectral Attunement that grant even MORE Life Force.

Lily.1935:

Death shroud is such a selfish ability that you can’t even res allies while in death shroud and lets not forget about being able to finish people while in it.

I too would like to be able to rez people… but traits like Transfusion and a well timed Doom make it a less selfish ability.

A build to remedy your “downsides” would look something like this – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNAW3djMaZ7RbebMcKApCWPVo7IFHrM1D4Z/cA-jAgUAjKMC-e

The entirety of Necro play doesn’t depend on DS – it’s just one type of Necro playstyle.

RaynStargaze.6510:

are you too kittening dumb to count 1 set +3 = 4

Heal + 3 utility slots, each of them giving you an entire weapon set, in addition to keeping the 1 ability via toolbelt, gives you a possible 30 skills.

Feel free to QQ about Consume Conditions all you want, its amusing. You can get access to it the same day that we get access to mobility, a bunch of boons, and vastly better defensive abilities.

I think the only changes DS really needs, is being able to rez/stomp/interact in ds and allowing heal in some from (maybe reduced or via trait or only the siphons).

Heithinn.6508:

Lily.1935:

“This means that any sort of stunbreak that you might need or heal, or utility that could be used is locked out while in death shroud.”

Foot in the Grave: Entering Death Shroud grants you stability.
As far as healing Death Shroud prevents physical damage, Shrouded Removal will remove a condition when entering death shroud and you can buy time for your heal to CD before dropping DS

Lily.1935:

And unlike other professions, the necromancer’s skills don’t seem to care at all about how much death shroud you have. A few of them help fill death shroud but not a single one really effects it in the slightest. "

You have several weapons that increase Life Force, an entire utility category that grants Life Force, a passive Spectral Armor proc that grants Life Force, and an entire tree dedicated to life force and reducing your CD’s for Death Shroud as well as traits like Soul Marks and Spectral Attunement that grant even MORE Life Force.

Lily.1935:

Death shroud is such a selfish ability that you can’t even res allies while in death shroud and lets not forget about being able to finish people while in it.

I too would like to be able to rez people… but traits like Transfusion and a well timed Doom make it a less selfish ability.

A build to remedy your “downsides” would look something like this – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNAW3djMaZ7RbebMcKApCWPVo7IFHrM1D4Z/cA-jAgUAjKMC-e

The entirety of Necro play doesn’t depend on DS – it’s just one type of Necro playstyle.

You should really read the points I made. Stability doesn’t solve everything as it only lasts 3 seconds. This is enough time to quickly counter some CC, but doesn’t save you over all.

Another point is that I said necromancer Skills don’t care at all about death shroud. And You mentioned several things that fill death shroud of which I mentioned, even in the part of the post you sighted. They fill death shroud. This doesn’t mean a skill functions to benefit from death shroud.

And your build doesn’t make your skills benefit from death shroud it makes death shroud benefit from them. Which tells me you completely missed the point. Yes, transfusion lets you heal with one skill in death shroud, however it doesn’t solve the resing allies problem or stomping.

So, my statement stands at 100% accuracy. Death shroud is a selfish, parasitic ability. And your build only further proves its parasitism.

RaynStargaze.6510:

Bhawb.7408:

RaynStargaze.6510:

kitten off.

How about you lose your weapon swap as compensation for having a third full set of skills at your disposal at all times.

Seems fair

Engi toolbelt skills are 70% crap btw. Unlike yours….

kittening faceroll necros

Thank you for this constructive post. Oh wait.

The reason engi’s can’t weapon swap is because you have access to utility skills that are literally weapon-swaps for you. You can have the equivalent of 5 sets of weapons (more than elementalist, mind you), or a total of 30 skills on your bar (max).

Necromancers at current get 20. Even with this proposed change we’d be at 25, and most likely all of the added ones would be very weak, highly situational, or with massive CDs.

are you too kittening dumb to count 1 set +3 = 4

Half of the kits skills are complete garbage when compared to REAL weapons skills from REAL classes.(not to mention we have the WORST autoattack on THE ENTIRE kittenING GAME on BOTH our weapons – so unlike kittened faceroll necros we are actually REQUIRED because its literally IMPOSSIBLE to play without )

dont tell me kittening medkit is a set its kittening kittened (you can have it for consume condis kkthx bye kittening dfaceroll class kittening kittened players kittens)

Lets list that:

Elixir h – half of a warriors hold the line with a 1/3 option to be better on a lower cooldown

Regen mist+blowup – A total 3k heal with 1-2k damage in a small aoe, potential
bigger heal if allies use aka a 3 target signet of the locust with a pbaoe instead of depending on hitting enemies to heal

Throw W(h/r)ench – basic projectile, kinda auto attackish thing (1/3 meh so far)

Analyze – 2s off On my mark

Rocket Kick – Dragons breath thats more condi than direct damage with around 4 s off if you hit the enemy with the entire dbreath, on base 2s better

Launch Ram – Bladetrail thats better in cast time, damage and cripple

Super Speed – Stun break… do i need to say more

Throw nades – Half a well of stuffering but can be traited for more damage via bleeds and additional drops

Mine field – Same as above but not as good in traiting (can kinda be counted, but still all explosion type traits work on it, so 2/9)

Big ol Bomb – More reliable higher damage Comet.

Incind ammo – 1/6 of the guardians profession mechanic but better…

Healing mist – stun break

Elixir B – Aoe Fitg+boon for double the cooldown (well actually identical cooldown if you think about using DS properly)

Elixir U – Projectile safety for 9 seconds for 60 cd – 1s- and 20s+ wall of reflect/2s+ 30s+ Smoke screen respectively

Elixir S – Shadow refuge you dont have to sit in but with 6 less total possible seconds/less counterplay smaller reward

Elixir C – Well of Power on a shorter cooldown without self SB (since its on the main skill)

Elixir R – better spirit of nature active…

Suprise shot – Normal attack (ill count that as a bad one so 3/18)

Net shot – Worse net shot (4/19)

Throw napalm – Frontloaded Fire trap/Ring of fire, but worse cd

Rumble – Stunbreak blast finisher

Rocket – half a kill shot for no channel/half a deathly claw.

I didnt mention med kits self bandage which is just a generic heal since its kit portion takes the honors there, stilll not bad, thus 4/23 skills can be said to actually be bad, 2 of which are on turrets which are minions that traded their mobility for lower cd and such a skill for you.

As for said kits:
Tool – W GS1 chain, Caltrops on lower CD, confusion ahoy (aka instant confusing images), shorter cd warrior shield stance, projectiless but double the cast time spectral grasp… yeah that is soooo bad

Flame – E Fa S1, but on a higher hit/proc rate, Rocket every 6 seconds, instant aoe cone cc with burning (no comparison), E Fa F4 but better, thieves blinding powder without stealth for half the cooldown – AGAIN SOOOO TERRRRRRRRIBLE~ *flutters in face with fan and faints

Elixir – N S1 but better, 75% swiftness and cripple uptime in a 1v1, better cleansing flames with poison and weakness and last BUT IN NO WAY least, a tad weaker in scaling traited version of well of blood without initial self heal effect (since its not a heal) on half the cooldown

I dont think that i need to go over the 2 most meta engie builds for nades and bombs explanations.

Bhawb.7408:

Let’s preface this entire conversation with this: this will not happen soon. I hope everyone who posts here realizes that. For this to go through, they’d need to add 40 new skills to the game, and that is a massive amount of resources, for comparatively little gain.

I want to clarify something, because I don’t think I did. And for that, I’m sorry. If I sounded like I said all skills should have a secondary mode in Death shroud, I’m sorry. My intent was to say some skills. That may have slipped my mind at the time, however I would like to state that I don’t think ALL skills should have a second “Mode”. With that said, I do think the spectral skills should have a different function in death shroud as they are used to generate death shroud, and having them active while it is being used can create a problematic build. Besides those skills I don’t think its 100% necessary to rework all the skills for death shroud.

Lily.1935:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m fine with not having skills 6-10 in death shroud, but the lack of ressing, stomping, and the fact it completely shuts down our Blood Magic line as well as give a huge middle finger to those who try to heal us does make it quite frustrating.

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Lily what do you think this is the future!? We don’t have things like moving cars or flying machines. We use wooden spears and chuck stones. Enough of your heathen witchcraft!

TheDevice.2751:

Lily what do you think this is the future!? We don’t have things like moving cars or flying machines. We use wooden spears and chuck stones. Enough of your heathen witchcraft!

Friendships is witchcraft… then again so is magic and suffering.

RaynStargaze.6510:

Dalanor.5387:

Lily.1935:

Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

Like engi toolbelt skills?

kitten off.

How about you lose your weapon swap as compensation for having a third full set of skills at your disposal at all times.

Seems fair

Engi toolbelt skills are 70% crap btw. Unlike yours….

kittening faceroll necros

Unless traited the DeathShroud skills are SO much worse than Engi, I love my Engi the toolbelt has some GREAT abilities. Compare that to Necro

Life Blast – Meh unless fully traited.
Dark Path – Bugged to hell and rarely works
Doom – Yeah thats solid
Life Transfer – Meh, Doesnt drain enough Life Force to be worth while
Tainted Shackles – Decent, could be improved a bit though

Now compare that to Engi, that have stealth, Burning, Healing, condition removal, Super Speed as well as plenty of other skills.

Bhawb.7408:

Let’s preface this entire conversation with this: this will not happen soon. I hope everyone who posts here realizes that. For this to go through, they’d need to add 40 new skills to the game, and that is a massive amount of resources, for comparatively little gain.

New skills? Not really. They have the basis for them already. All they would need are minor changes. Sure that would take work – impossible? Of course not.

Something like:

Spectral Armor: Gain Protection heal HEALTH every time you are hit. With the various Spectral traits. It could heal instantly when you go inside as well and last longer.

They could do this for all the Spectral skills that rather than giving Life Force they give health, maybe a trait that makes so that you can pick Life Force instead could be a decent option as well.

Being Inside DeathShroud the skill could be “buffed” a bit and give it to allies as well and they gain Protection and heal when taking hits. Lasts 50% less for Allies though.

These are the kind of things that could be done with it. Sure not sure how hard it would be to allow Spectral affects to work inside DeathShroud but they should know how to make it work, after all they build the game…

Lily.1935:

I want to clarify something, because I don’t think I did. And for that, I’m sorry. If I sounded like I said all skills should have a secondary mode in Death shroud, I’m sorry. My intent was to say some skills. That may have slipped my mind at the time, however I would like to state that I don’t think ALL skills should have a second “Mode”. With that said, I do think the spectral skills should have a different function in death shroud as they are used to generate death shroud, and having them active while it is being used can create a problematic build. Besides those skills I don’t think its 100% necessary to rework all the skills for death shroud.

OHHHH, well yeah that changes everything. If they had a few skills that had secondary effects or actives while in DS, especially the ones that most people feel are “subpar” currently, I could see that being totally fine.

For example, most people feel Spectral Walk right now isn’t really that great, giving it something extra via DS could help out quite a bit. But Spectral Armor is one of the best skills we have, so it wouldn’t make much sense to make it better with another skill.

Bhawb.7408:

But Spectral Armor is one of the best skills we have

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

Spectral Armor into DS completely kills bursts.

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

Spectral Armor into DS completely kills bursts.

How so?
I thought that none of the spectral skills worked inside DeathShroud and combine that with the fact that the damage reduction that is meant to be on during Death Shroud doesnt actually work…

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

Spectral Armor into DS completely kills bursts.

How so?
I thought that none of the spectral skills worked inside DeathShroud and combine that with the fact that the damage reduction that is meant to be on during Death Shroud doesnt actually work…

…How long has it been since you played necro? That was one of the big changes in the Dhuumfire patch: Spectral Walk and Spectral Armor function perfectly in Death Shroud. Between this and not knowing wells are unblockable, my guess is a long time.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

Spectral Armor into DS completely kills bursts.

How so?
I thought that none of the spectral skills worked inside DeathShroud and combine that with the fact that the damage reduction that is meant to be on during Death Shroud doesnt actually work…

…How long has it been since you played necro? That was one of the big changes in the Dhuumfire patch: Spectral Walk and Spectral Armor function perfectly in Death Shroud. Between this and not knowing wells are unblockable, my guess is a long time.

About 6 months, Finally getting around to play it again. Though even when i did play it, never used Wells though i did notice that when i used Armor it did seem to stay on, though thought that was just a graphical delay or something.

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

Spectral Armor into DS completely kills bursts.

Because of the ICD, I wouldn’t say it completely kills burst, but I know what you mean.

Jayce.5632:

Bhawb.7408:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Mostly due to the fact most of our skills SUCK and its pretty much our only defensive option. Cant really count Death Shroud as its melts away SO fast.

Spectral Armor into DS completely kills bursts.

Because of the ICD, I wouldn’t say it completely kills burst, but I know what you mean.

It kills burst in 1v1s, worthless in 1vx, thats why im pressing the matter that at least Swalk needs to be moved a stage back.

Also love the idea/concept. But the implementation has no synergy too… well… anything.

I’d really like to see, Res in DS at least in PvE. I know ANet have said it’s a ‘balance bug’ for skilled players to exploit using DS & Res/Stomp in same upload que. But that’s pretty lame.

I don’t get why DS give a CD on Entry & Exit. Surely it was intended for entry only as it’d be ‘skilled’ play to exit DS just as your opponent died, getting the life force back. It would also make Deathly Invigoration, trait actually worthwhile.
It also feels cheap/exploit/unfun play to wait for LifeForce to tick out, to enter DS again faster.
If this is not the case, why don’t we get life force while in DS from kills?

Main Hand weap, for ‘power’ of DS is also totally cat. In DS/Power builds, why do we have to flip to staff, or have hugely less damage. It can’t be too hard to include offhand damage.

I also miss weapon swapping. Being able to use different Sigil in DS was actually deep and skillful play.

The utils/tools we miss. Stun Brake, Condi Removal, any sort of minion control, even maintain bleeds.

Healing… Not just from the ‘it sucks for the necro’ but, for others. As a support guard in a party, necro’s are a pain. As the party bar on the side, show’s there life as dieing, when they are simply losing LifeForce.
As for healing, siphons are soo weak & it’d add some synergy to allow them to work.
Other heals, why not have a max life% per sec ICD. Start with PvE & balance it. I’m sure that other class’s will be happy as well as the necro.

Life Force generation, is destroyed by CC. Making it double effective vs a necro, that has no escape.
Give us a trait that worked like spectral, giving us %max_life_force per sec, but while CC’ed.

Oh, and that stupid number. Get rid of it and go back to life force.
It doesn’t say our HP so it’s confusing & pointless.
It go’s down in 1 chunks, not the numbers on the bar, so it’s confusing & pointless.

Our elite minion die’s & get’s a full 1min CD if wet… STILL. (Oops wrong meeting)

What they should do:

1) Kills In Death shroud give Life Force

2) Siphon Traits should work in Death Shroud
2.1) Add trait that siphons give LF in DeathShroud

3) FIX the damage reduction while in DeathShroud

4) increase other stats inside DeathShroud, not just Vitality

with the upcoming HUGE buff to death shroud (-50% instead of 25% LS degen), i think DS is in a great place atm.
we basically get another health bar, more good control abilities, and awesome damage when specced for power.
i dont understand the dislike for ds. any more buffs for it and we will see other parts of necro get a nerf, which would be way worse.
not being able to receive healing in ds is fine, it would be op if we could. some of you want LF generation while in DS? what the hell? what a bad idea. that sounds unbalanced and again nerf-worthy. in wvw we would be better tanks then the heavies because we would be able to sit in DS most of the time.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

What they should do:

1) Kills In Death shroud give Life Force

2) Siphon Traits should work in Death Shroud
2.1) Add trait that siphons give LF in DeathShroud

3) FIX the damage reduction while in DeathShroud

4) increase other stats inside DeathShroud, not just Vitality

1) Was op will be op, even i who wants perma stability in DS knows it.
3) Fix it, fix DS hp ratio to 100, make soul reaping do the mathematically impossible to make DS then go to 130% life force (increasing both the hp value AND duration you are in DS), return DS absorb and have a sodding standard for DS traits!!!

4) That would actually be kinda what traits are for, also vitality aint increased in DS, it just scales off it.

Stand The Wall.6987:

with the upcoming HUGE buff to death shroud (-50% instead of 25% LS degen), i think DS is in a great place atm.
we basically get another health bar, more good control abilities, and awesome damage when specced for power.
i dont understand the dislike for ds. any more buffs for it and we will see other parts of necro get a nerf, which would be way worse.
not being able to receive healing in ds is fine, it would be op if we could. some of you want LF generation while in DS? what the hell? what a bad idea. that sounds unbalanced and again nerf-worthy. in wvw we would be better tanks then the heavies because we would be able to sit in DS most of the time.

My main dislike for ds is that we cannot stomp/rez or interact (like portals) in ds, that is really annyoing. While i dont care about the healing part, the problem with that is that it makes siphon builds strange, as they dont work well with our class mechanic.
If it wasnt for that i think ds as mechanic would be fine

Andele.1306:

1) Was op will be op, even i who wants perma stability in DS knows it.
3) Fix it, fix DS hp ratio to 100, make soul reaping do the mathematically impossible to make DS then go to 130% life force (increasing both the hp value AND duration you are in DS), return DS absorb and have a sodding standard for DS traits!!!

4) That would actually be kinda what traits are for, also vitality aint increased in DS, it just scales off it.

With tweaks it could work. Reduce the amount earned from kills while inside DeathShroud. Boom fixed. except they are not. Aren’t we meant to have a damage reduction while in DeathShroud that is bugged?

It is indeed very odd that our prime defensive mechanic is one that also exacerbates the already big issues of our normal form, which is little ability to deal with CC.

Either we should get to use our utilities in DS, or, we should be able to freely enter and exit without a cooldown, which would then allow us to play the mechanic much more reactively.

Right now Death Shroud just reinforces everything wrong with Necromancer attrition, which is that its all based on being a giant sponge.

The other ill-fitting weakness of DS is no ability to deal with conditions, which is supposed to be our entire class strength! Outside of one trait that removes a single condition on entry, DS puts you at the mercy of conditions.

Now the underwater version is actually symbiotic, with the Life Blast there transferring a condition on hit, this is great, and should be the mechanic that the land form has. If even they put one on ICD for the land form, it would make it compatible with self corruption, and not make us jump out and forfeit our defensive posture for 10 seconds in order to get rid of an immobilize, stun, whatever.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Andele.1306:

1) Was op will be op, even i who wants perma stability in DS knows it.
3) Fix it, fix DS hp ratio to 100, make soul reaping do the mathematically impossible to make DS then go to 130% life force (increasing both the hp value AND duration you are in DS), return DS absorb and have a sodding standard for DS traits!!!

4) That would actually be kinda what traits are for, also vitality aint increased in DS, it just scales off it.

With tweaks it could work. Reduce the amount earned from kills while inside DeathShroud. Boom fixed. except they are not. Aren’t we meant to have a damage reduction while in DeathShroud that is bugged?

No… stuff is supposed to be normal while in DS, right now all physical damage that is higher than 1% of life force but doesnt deplete your life force is reduced by 50% if it doesnt hit more targets (but only for wave type skills, single hit aoes still get reduced).
Kinda the reason why DS is that much tankier right now; before the “fix” which wasnt really a fix but them kitten ing ds up even more (in a positive way for us for now since they nerfed it/remove absorb) since it used to be that DS used a specific armor/toughness value making soldier, cleric and rabid builds weaker in DS while making zerkers, carrion and rampager builds quite a bit tankier.