Guild Wars 2

I know that it is far too late in the game for death shroud and the necromancer to now receive a radical design change. However, an idea came to me, and I would like to share it.

I would like to begin by mentioning that this idea came to me after playing my berserker guardian in a dungeon. During a fight, the first thing I noticed was, Wow, I do a lot of lifestealing with Zealous Blade, and it’s in the power tree of all things. Plus, Litany of Wrath is an outright lifesteal heal. Then, I thought, Wow, I get stronger with every enemy killed because Virtue of Justice refreshes instantly. This boosts both my offense (burning, might, retaliation) and defense (area blind). This momentum is pretty cool.

I then considered why the necromancer doesn’t feel the same way despite having similar abilities. After all, the necromancer has lifeforce which replenishes per nearby death, as well as lifesteal and Parasitic Bond. Yet, the necromancer doesn’t feel as if it has the same momentum.

To that end, I wondered what would happen if Death Shroud was redesigned to function with more momentum – as in, the necromancer would become substantially more effective per nearby death, but be quite weak early on in a fight. I think that the very idea of necromancer should be balanced around this concept. This is present to a small degree, but death shroud’s very design seems to gut the idea. Currently, the necromancer is essentially dead in PvP if he/she does not begin a fight with lifeforce, but even then, lifeforce is mostly used to gain access to a few abilities and to block some hits. This feels like a wasted opportunity.

Furthermore, I thought from the beginning of the game that I would be able to replace Death Shroud with other abilities of similar types. After reading that Death Shroud would remove spectral forms, I assumed that there would be versions of Death Shroud that did different things – perhaps there would be a condition damage form, a healing form, and a melee form. This obviously turned out to be untrue.

So, here is my concept:

Death Shroud does not replace the skill bar. The only disabled abilities are heal (ability 6) and transformations. Your weapon autoattack would be used instead of Life Blast, and Life Blast would be redesigned in some fashion to make it a cooldown-based ability.

Abilities specific to Death Shroud are moved to the function keys, like other unique class abilities such as guardian virtues and elementalist attunements. Only F1-F4 would be used, leaving 3 Death Shroud ability slots. The Death Shroud abilities could be changed like utility skills, except they would only be usable in Death Shroud. This also opens the window for adding new Death Shroud abilities to the game, and perhaps even new variants of Death Shroud itself.

The necromancer receives a bonus to power and condition damage while in Death Shroud based on their accumulated lifeforce. The actual number would definitely need testing, but I think that a 30-50% boost at maximum lifeforce would be interesting. To compensate, the base necromancer damage would be slightly reduced. Traits that currently boost damage passively could also be retooled to function only in Death Shroud. This means that the necromancer would be somewhat weak without lifeforce and very strong with lifeforce, like the old Life Blast attempted to do.

Lifeforce would drain at a much faster rate than it currently does while in Death Shroud – perhaps about twice as fast, or maybe even more. Furthermore, lifeforce would slowly drain even while not using Death Shroud. This allows the necromancer to be balanced around starting fights without lifeforce, while providing momentum if the necromancer makes multiple kills in a row.

Lifesteal effects would function while in Death Shroud, but healing from other sources would be reduced by perhaps 50%. In essence, Death Shroud would (and perhaps should) function as a “frenzy mode” where offense is greatly enhanced and damage is not taken, but when it wears off the necromancer must recover quickly.

Perhaps some of these changes can be implemented in the form of traits or Death Shroud variants. For example:

-A “berserker” shroud that implements the boost to power/condition damage but lasts a short amount of time and reduces healing taken.
-A “blood” shroud that boosts lifesteal effects.
-A “life” or “undeath” shroud that supports nearby allies and/or minions.

The counter to these changes? The same as it is now – crowd control. These changes would allow more customization for the necromancer and increase the offensive and attrition capabilities of the necromancer. Essentially, I think that these changes would make the necromancer feel more dynamic.

This would also alter the usefulness of current abilities. For example, Vital Persistence would be an even more useful trait, as would abilities that regenerate lifeforce. Lifesteal would become much more useful, as the necromancer could use it to heal under the cover of Death Shroud. Playing as a melee necromancer would feel a lot more aggressive, and conditionmancers could actually use Death Shroud to boost damage. Furthermore, it would actually be worth staying in Death Shroud for more builds rather than just flashing in and out.

Of course, balance would be a major issue, but then again, the necromancer already has broken balance. Part of this brokenness comes from Death Shroud’s design, and I think that these changes could help fix that. I sadly know that there is not even the slightest chance of Death Shroud being redesigned, which is a travesty given how terrible its rushed redesign at the end of the beta was.

No thanks. More damage, less sustain, and making us even more snowball-y is not what we need.

Just change Death Shroud into fighting with spirits and demons, like it was supposed to.

CHIPS.6018:

Just change Death Shroud into fighting with spirits and demons, like it was supposed to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2xSqL80Zvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAR2mmwuDcs

Yes! So much Yes!