Guild Wars 2

We all know with the upcoming of reaper the base necro is looking a bit stale and crusty. It needs some love so here is one big thing that bothers me.

DS-1
Aka life blast

Its good, it hits hard, it tracks very well, and has nice range, and even has amazing projectile speed.

Here is my problem.
Why is the start up cast time so freaking long after all this time its never been adjusted to be better.

Why is it that underwaterDS-1 “Plague blast” nearly the same thing as life blast shoots x2 as fast. Its cast/startup time is literally 100% faster. The damage is still great along with all of the other features. IT EVEN XFERS A CONDITION PER SHOT OHHH MY GOD THATS SO GOOD!!! But how often are we in underwater combat…. not ever hardly not often enough anyways.

Why cant life blast be equaled up to plague blast in at least terms of cast time. For an auto attack in DS its incredibly too slow. If we cant have that can we at least get the transfer per shot. Sense its pretty clear that devs don’t want to give necro more condition variation and want them to be all about xfer and boon conversion I don’t see why this is not a base line thing. IT would make the base line necro something really great if we gained one of those 2 options on life blast alone and while this is not the only thing I really think needs to be looked at it would be an amazing start.

Take the DS-1 Life blast and make it faster or make it Xfer a condition per shot or both just as its under water variation does. :/

I would love to hear feedback on this from all of you guys even more so if a dev would go about answering as to why or why not this has not been a thing with all the skill changes we have seen out there.

I think they should add the transfer conditions with unholy martyr really. And reduce the casting time to maybe 3/4.

While I’m all for that, if the ACTUAL cast time (cast + aftercast) for Lifeblast was what the tooltip said, it would be incredibly better.

try lb with quickness thats how it should be

it would be good yes and at least give the DS something worthwhile over RS because currently, mechanically Reaper is miles ahead of what necro is.

Just giving out Plague Blast in it’s current form would completly dumb down all Condition play against ALL Necromancer’s builds. If that wasn’t a problem with things like passive Plague Signet proc already. You could essentialy just spam #1 and get yourself a beer, because nobody using conditions would touch you outside of chain CC or denying all Life Force regeneration.

Here was my proposal on how could Curses traitline work and how could we access Plague Blast to ensure it has counterplay.

I think updating LB to have the same cast time as PB would not only make DS more attractive, it would also increase it’s viability a lot for condition specs. Currently speccing into dhuumfire is all but pointless. If the cast time would increase than it gives conditionmancers better access to burning which would help their viability in various aspects of the game.

With Reapershroud coming, you get 2 shroud skills that both are very skewed towards powermancer builds. Tainted Shackles on DS is but a minor thing. So Dhuumfire could be used to make both shrouds a bit more attractive for condimancers by giving them some limited burn potential. RS does this quite okish with it’s fast attack speed and cleave, but DS could definitely improve. Faster attack speed = faster burn application.

I don’t even need the condition transfer, we have plenty of that already. Just the attack speed.

Brokensunday.4098:

try lb with quickness thats how it should be

Thats my point under water life blast aka plague blast acts as like life blast with quickness with a 100% rate of xfering one condition per blast to the target. It even retains the high hitting damage of life blast out of water. So this is why I’m kinda WTF mode over it xD lol.

Rym.1469:

Just giving out Plague Blast in it’s current form would completly dumb down all Condition play against ALL Necromancer’s builds. If that wasn’t a problem with things like passive Plague Signet proc already. You could essentialy just spam #1 and get yourself a beer, because nobody using conditions would touch you outside of chain CC or denying all Life Force regeneration.

Here was my proposal on how could Curses traitline work and how could we access Plague Blast to ensure it has counterplay.

I get that but currently there are builds that easily over power necro with condition spam (im looking at you engi’s and condition mesmers) No matter how many clears and xfers you take as a necro you will never be able to really = up to that. I think being able to remove one condition per-shot is perfectly fair considering a nice splatter of conditions from a true condition build can cause DS to deplete in from full to empty in about 3-4 seconds. yeah….

I would say if its not base line then at least the firing cast rate needs to be base speed and the xfer per shot get moved to a trait like unyielding blast or some other soul reaping trait. but the problem with that is when some one takes reaper with said trait the auto attack chain would make keeping conditions on reaper 100% impossible. This needs to be a base necro thing. Necro is suppose to be a master of condition but is miles behind when it comes to it. They only make it so that we can xfer back or convert boons because look at the condition weapon we get its a scepter its slow it only applies bleed and poison. (with short durations I might add) the ramp up time is not worth the reward.

The counter to this is easy. Builds that don’t apply many and or hard hitting conditions. There are builds out there people use that don’t actually apply very many conditions. Warriors, some rangers, some engis, theif! So I wouldnt say there is no counter play and be sides DS skills are the necros f1 skills so they should be fairly dangerous. Don’t want to get shot then cc them, base necro has no stability and no breakstun while in DS. If there was no counter play they wouldn’t have made the underwater version like that to start with.

Nyth.3492:

I think updating LB to have the same cast time as PB would not only make DS more attractive, it would also increase it’s viability a lot for condition specs. Currently speccing into dhuumfire is all but pointless. If the cast time would increase than it gives conditionmancers better access to burning which would help their viability in various aspects of the game.

With Reapershroud coming, you get 2 shroud skills that both are very skewed towards powermancer builds. Tainted Shackles on DS is but a minor thing. So Dhuumfire could be used to make both shrouds a bit more attractive for condimancers by giving them some limited burn potential. RS does this quite okish with it’s fast attack speed and cleave, but DS could definitely improve. Faster attack speed = faster burn application.

I don’t even need the condition transfer, we have plenty of that already. Just the attack speed.

I agree with you. Even if we couldn’t have both then at least the increased shots per x amount of seconds would be a major difference not only for condition builds but for power builds too! It would really make one think as to if they want to spec into reaper or not because it would make both options very tempting.

As DS sits right now Everyone is going to spec into reaper. RS soul spiral can stack 11-12 stacks of poison easy which is big damage for a few seconds its a really nice burst. I managed to stack a max of 25 stacks on one person a few times during beta weekend. Dhurmmfire with reaper autos is even better with reaper.

Base necro just has too much thats not being used right now because of simple things like this.

Devs need to jump on this >:C

They’d have to adjust the damage. x2 DS dps on a Power Necro is a lot. I’d be fine with it being an overall 1.5x boost just to make us super scary, but x2 is where enemies literally start melting. The idea of doubling the speed is great because it makes Dhuumfire not stupid on it. The condi transfer is also pretty cool, but I’d have to try it to know that we don’t faceroll condi builds because of a no cd condi cleanse.

Cecilia.5179:

They’d have to adjust the damage. x2 DS dps on a Power Necro is a lot. I’d be fine with it being an overall 1.5x boost just to make us super scary, but x2 is where enemies literally start melting. The idea of doubling the speed is great because it makes Dhuumfire not stupid on it. The condi transfer is also pretty cool, but I’d have to try it to know that we don’t faceroll condi builds because of a no cd condi cleanse.

well damage is ok try using quickness and you will se is not that fast I personally think if they reduce the cast time they should not add revome a condi per hit this will get people angry and more nerf to the base nacro will come but with a decrease on the cast time should be fine

Best change will be if they add aoe on impact. That way Dhuumfire wil be more useful. It can also leave poison field for 1-2sec.

The reason Plague Blast is better than Life Blast is because Anet forgot to nerf the underwater skills when they were repeatedly over nerfing the necro when they changed DS in alpha and again during the round of nerfs that happened around the time when the Dhuumfire trait was added.

This is why the underwater skills for the necro still have good team condition removal, stack conditions faster, longer CC durations and ample amounts of combo finishers.

How nice it would be to at least have access to combo finishers on every weapon, greatsword and reaper shroud finally allow Necro to make use of the combo system, if someone only plays necro I would not blame them if they did not understand combo fields, we have barely any interaction with them.

Cecilia.5179:

They’d have to adjust the damage. x2 DS dps on a Power Necro is a lot. I’d be fine with it being an overall 1.5x boost just to make us super scary, but x2 is where enemies literally start melting. The idea of doubling the speed is great because it makes Dhuumfire not stupid on it. The condi transfer is also pretty cool, but I’d have to try it to know that we don’t faceroll condi builds because of a no cd condi cleanse.

I want to say the under water version retains most of the damage as the above water version does. Even if the damage was reduced some more shots per x amount of second is always better. More shots means more opportunities. Its for sure worth taking a look at. ^^

Zwets.3785:

The reason Plague Blast is better than Life Blast is because Anet forgot to nerf the underwater skills when they were repeatedly over nerfing the necro when they changed DS in alpha and again during the round of nerfs that happened around the time when the Dhuumfire trait was added.

This is why the underwater skills for the necro still have good team condition removal, stack conditions faster, longer CC durations and ample amounts of combo finishers.

How nice it would be to at least have access to combo finishers on every weapon, greatsword and reaper shroud finally allow Necro to make use of the combo system, if someone only plays necro I would not blame them if they did not understand combo fields, we have barely any interaction with them.

Well now necro or at least reaper is being buffed back up to some standard and on par with other professions. But I think reaper is just way ahead of base necro right now and thats not what anet said they were going for. These specs are just here to offer more options not make the class stronger than what it already should be. So base necro needs to be put back in place. Even in Reaper shroud we now have access to combo fields which is nice but where is the love for the base necro. Everyone who is rolling a necro right now will more than likely swap over to another profession at HoT or roll Reaper.

mazut.4296:

Best change will be if they add aoe on impact. That way Dhuumfire wil be more useful. It can also leave poison field for 1-2sec.

Im not sure I like the idea of aoe on impact because they have a trait that lets life blast Pearce foes. I use to take this trait all the time until the new trait system came along and ruined it. You cant take Unyielding blast with Soul Marks anymore. I do agree necro needs better options to poison which reaper brings yet another reason to forget about base necro and swap over to reaper at HoT.

They won’t do it but I agree it would be awesome!

Well first we all have to understand that Anet gave up on balancing underwater combat a long time ago, and Plague Blast is OP as hell. If they did anything to Life Blast, I think reducing the cast time would be great, and as many people mentioned would make it work better with Dhuumfire and make it easier to land hits. However, I feel this would deal too much damage too fast, so a damage nerf may be warranted.

As Rym said, transferring conditions on auto would be incredibly broken. We already can faceroll every other condition class, so not really necessary. As for the cast time though, that would be great, and has been suggested many many times. They wouldn’t even need to increase the dps, and it would still be great. I’d also like unholy martyr to make tainted shackles transfer conditions from allies to you and from you to targets. It would then be way more interesting then the passive lf gen condition pull it is now.

ZDragon.3046:

mazut.4296:

Best change will be if they add aoe on impact. That way Dhuumfire wil be more useful. It can also leave poison field for 1-2sec.

Im not sure I like the idea of aoe on impact because they have a trait that lets life blast Pearce foes. I use to take this trait all the time until the new trait system came along and ruined it. You cant take Unyielding blast with Soul Marks anymore. I do agree necro needs better options to poison which reaper brings yet another reason to forget about base necro and swap over to reaper at HoT.

i have read and say in many post that unyielding blast should be base this skill is so slow that it need that pierce to be base and i agree now that we have soul marks there is no way any 1 is going to pick unyielding blast and that trait if 50% useless in reapers shroud

Shaogin.2679:

Well first we all have to understand that Anet gave up on balancing underwater combat a long time ago, and Plague Blast is OP as hell. If they did anything to Life Blast, I think reducing the cast time would be great, and as many people mentioned would make it work better with Dhuumfire and make it easier to land hits. However, I feel this would deal too much damage too fast, so a damage nerf may be warranted.

Too much damage too fast? points at the engi pressing 2 buttons and landing 8-10 burn stacks on you.

:I

Brokensunday.4098:

ZDragon.3046:

mazut.4296:

Best change will be if they add aoe on impact. That way Dhuumfire wil be more useful. It can also leave poison field for 1-2sec.

Im not sure I like the idea of aoe on impact because they have a trait that lets life blast Pearce foes. I use to take this trait all the time until the new trait system came along and ruined it. You cant take Unyielding blast with Soul Marks anymore. I do agree necro needs better options to poison which reaper brings yet another reason to forget about base necro and swap over to reaper at HoT.

i have read and say in many post that unyielding blast should be base this skill is so slow that it need that pierce to be base and i agree now that we have soul marks there is no way any 1 is going to pick unyielding blast and that trait if 50% useless in reapers shroud

I agree soul marks is too good and even if one didnt take soul marks with reaper speed of shadows is more of use than unyielding. Unyielding should have been combined with something else so that its at least thought of being used.

ZDragon.3046:

Shaogin.2679:

Well first we all have to understand that Anet gave up on balancing underwater combat a long time ago, and Plague Blast is OP as hell. If they did anything to Life Blast, I think reducing the cast time would be great, and as many people mentioned would make it work better with Dhuumfire and make it easier to land hits. However, I feel this would deal too much damage too fast, so a damage nerf may be warranted.

Too much damage too fast? points at the engi pressing 2 buttons and landing 8-10 burn stacks on you.

:I

On a long cooldown that is easily cleansed. Seriously, don’t understand people complaining about Engineer burning. Anyways, just concerned about the damage potential considering power builds can build life force pretty quick and Life Blast already hits pretty hard.

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

Do lower the damage a bit, but make it more reliable. That’s exactly what needs to happen. Leave the slow bursty hits to Lich. A faster Life Balst would bring Ds1 and Rs1 trait utilization closer together.

And while we’re here, can we discuss Life blast having a base pierce? That has been a pretty hot topic, fairly one sided too. Reaper’s shroud simply makes Shroud 1 traits reliable and worth taking, where as with the current Ds1 there aren’t all so useful, namely Dhuumfire.

Also, and I might get hate for this, but Reaper’s might should only give the boon if it hits. Spamming Shroud 1 pre-engagement for free boon stacking is almost as kittenignet-cancelling if you ask me… ducks

Arena net: Robert Gee,

I want to ask you a quick question with answer. Whenever i play necromancer: a enemy player reset my death shroud when i want to activate it.. Is there a way to prevent the resetting of deathshroud of activating?

What i mean by resetting? Full Lifeforce bar to 0 lifeforce bar.

I asked before and i even post in a thread: everyone ignore me.

That is all

DarkSyze.8627:

Arena net: Robert Gee,

I want to ask you a quick question with answer. Whenever i play necromancer: a enemy player reset my death shroud when i want to activate it.. Is there a way to prevent the resetting of deathshroud of activating?

I asked before and i even post in a thread: everyone ignore me.

That is all

ds is insta cast they have to be lucky to interupt it and what is happening is prob you are double cliking the key and that cancel ds

DarkSyze.8627:

Arena net: Robert Gee,

I want to ask you a quick question with answer. Whenever i play necromancer: a enemy player reset my death shroud when i want to activate it.. Is there a way to prevent the resetting of deathshroud of activating?

I asked before and i even post in a thread: everyone ignore me.

That is all

That’s because your question doesn’t make sense. I have no idea what you’re trying to ask. It doesn’t make sense either grammatically or in terms of game mechanics.

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

I think it would definitely be worth it to drop the damage per hit a bit while also lowering the cast time proportionally, for the sake of condition necros. Reaper’s Shroud works so beautifully with Dhuumfire, but Death Shroud is really lackluster with it, due to its extremely long cast times. It would make F1 more attractive offensively to conditionmancers than its current state, which is mostly just pressing 235 as fast as possible, and sometimes using it as a health sponge.

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

One suggestion was separating Life Blast into a two hit skill especially for Dhummfire,siphon proc and Unyielding Blast which are underwhelming for base shroud. If cast time reduction is of concern this is the safest suggestion given that won’t require changing traits like Reaper’s Might or reducing the damage. It’s not my suggestion I received from my thread dedicated to Dhummfire.

Agree with Robert Gee here, condition transfer on AA, even as a trait, would be crazy powerful.

However, if you turn Life Blast into a two-shot chain that casts the entire chain as quickly as now, with the same total damage (so half damage LBs once per 0.7s instead of full damage every 1.4s), and then have the traits that need to be adjusted only proc on the second hit, might work. This would lower the gap between Reaper Shroud and Death Shroud’s procing of traits like Dhuumfire, which are absolutely fine procing that often, but still allow you to adjust things like might stacking.

Bhawb.7408:

Agree with Robert Gee here, condition transfer on AA, even as a trait, would be crazy powerful.

However, if you turn Life Blast into a two-shot chain that casts the entire chain as quickly as now, with the same total damage (so half damage LBs once per 0.7s instead of full damage every 1.4s), and then have the traits that need to be adjusted only proc on the second hit, might work. This would lower the gap between Reaper Shroud and Death Shroud’s procing of traits like Dhuumfire, which are absolutely fine procing that often, but still allow you to adjust things like might stacking.

Too bad I can’t give more than one +1 to this.

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

A dagger autoattack build outDPS’es a life blast build. How is that right? You need to build up life force and it’s a finite amount of time you can spam life blasts on death shroud, which also require closer range.

If a mere mainhand dagger autoattack can OUTDPS Life Blast, which comes from a resource that needs to be built, removes access to utilities and doesn’t work with signet, what is the point of death shroud if it’s only a form used to turtle in?

Bhawb.7408:

Agree with Robert Gee here, condition transfer on AA, even as a trait, would be crazy powerful.

However, if you turn Life Blast into a two-shot chain that casts the entire chain as quickly as now, with the same total damage (so half damage LBs once per 0.7s instead of full damage every 1.4s), and then have the traits that need to be adjusted only proc on the second hit, might work. This would lower the gap between Reaper Shroud and Death Shroud’s procing of traits like Dhuumfire, which are absolutely fine procing that often, but still allow you to adjust things like might stacking.

problem is dhuum fire if it only procs on the second hit it kill condi life blast but agree on rest

Captain Unusual.9163:

DarkSyze.8627:

Arena net: Robert Gee,

I want to ask you a quick question with answer. Whenever i play necromancer: a enemy player reset my death shroud when i want to activate it.. Is there a way to prevent the resetting of deathshroud of activating?

I asked before and i even post in a thread: everyone ignore me.

That is all

That’s because your question doesn’t make sense. I have no idea what you’re trying to ask. It doesn’t make sense either grammatically or in terms of game mechanics.

Sorry english my second language. I will try better.

What i mean by resetting? A enemy player would reset Life Force upon entering death shroud. Here is a example of a bug doing it. Perhaps it is the same bug?

“This is a short video illustrating a bug with the Necromancer’s Death Shroud. Upon Life Force depletion, the utility skills are locked out for 1 second”.

“From these short tests, it apprears that when Life Force drains to zero (by either natural decay or combat). there is a 1 second delay on Utilities”.

Necro DS Utility Delay [Bug]

Bhawb.7408:

Agree with Robert Gee here, condition transfer on AA, even as a trait, would be crazy powerful.

However, if you turn Life Blast into a two-shot chain that casts the entire chain as quickly as now, with the same total damage (so half damage LBs once per 0.7s instead of full damage every 1.4s), and then have the traits that need to be adjusted only proc on the second hit, might work. This would lower the gap between Reaper Shroud and Death Shroud’s procing of traits like Dhuumfire, which are absolutely fine procing that often, but still allow you to adjust things like might stacking.

Hi I was the one to suggest that it be a double hit skill
The balancing is simple and straight forward
Might gain is based on skill use so it’s absolutely no problem- u do not gain more might because u only use the skill once
Vuln stacking via unielding blast is easy because it apples 2 vuln when u hit currently- merely make the vuln only 1 Stacy per hit because it’s split to double hits so u end up with same vuln count applied to target – easy

The number of benefits that could come with this proposed change is:
Better Dhuumfire for base shroud
-condi necro does not hate shoud as much
Better synergy with blood magic with base shroud via double life steal on a slow auto
-minor sustain increase not a large issue as its still an fairly slow skill and blood necro don’t feel the loose a lot of life steal while in shroud
Close gap between effectiveness of traits between reaper and base necro

What about just giving lifeblast another damage tier? Like so

Life Blast
Blast a foe with life force, dealing more damage the closer you are to your target.
Damage: 246 (1.0)
Damage within 600 units: 345 (1.4)
Damage within 300 units: 494 (2.1)
Range: 1,200

Conncept.7638:

What about just giving lifeblast another damage tier? Like so

Life Blast
Blast a foe with life force, dealing more damage the closer you are to your target.
Damage: 246 (1.0)
Damage within 600 units: 345 (1.4)
Damage within 300 units: 494 (2.1)
Range: 1,200

That would suck. We already gonna have rs for melee and ds is supposed to be ranged so its fine as it is with its range. Just the attackspeed is annoying.

Nesfarro.1265:

Conncept.7638:

What about just giving lifeblast another damage tier? Like so

Life Blast
Blast a foe with life force, dealing more damage the closer you are to your target.
Damage: 246 (1.0)
Damage within 600 units: 345 (1.4)
Damage within 300 units: 494 (2.1)
Range: 1,200

That would suck. We already gonna have rs for melee and ds is supposed to be ranged so its fine as it is with its range. Just the attackspeed is annoying.

Both the theme and the mechanics are already there, you get bonus damage for being within 600 units when the max range is 1200, its a mechanic meant to reward risk and unnecessary closeness to death and danger, which fits perfectly. This just pushes both the mechanic and the theme further.

You could also get rid of the range bonus and replace it with something else, but frankly, deathshroud lifeblast builds are already really fun to use, a lot more than they were back when deathshrouds bonus damage was based on being topped off. They’re just a little underpowered in PvE, and wonky in PvP because of how difficult it is to gain life force without mob deaths, so obviously the last thing they need is major gameplay changes that don’t even affect life force gain.

Plus, have you even actually tried it or are you just being dismissive? Because my shrouded shotgun build is up near the top of the most fun builds I have ever played in GW2, or most games at all.

DarkSyze.8627:

What i mean by resetting? A enemy player would reset Life Force upon entering death shroud. Here is a example of a bug doing it. Perhaps it is the same bug?

“This is a short video illustrating a bug with the Necromancer’s Death Shroud. Upon Life Force depletion, the utility skills are locked out for 1 second”.

“From these short tests, it apprears that when Life Force drains to zero (by either natural decay or combat). there is a 1 second delay on Utilities”.

Necro DS Utility Delay [Bug]

This bug was fixed April 15, 2014.
Not sure how someone else can reset your shroud or life force, or how this is supposed to be related to this old bug..?

The skill would be way better with a lower cast time, and the same dps. The only trait that is potentially overpowered is reaper’s might.

Conncept.7638:

Nesfarro.1265:

Conncept.7638:

What about just giving lifeblast another damage tier? Like so

Life Blast
Blast a foe with life force, dealing more damage the closer you are to your target.
Damage: 246 (1.0)
Damage within 600 units: 345 (1.4)
Damage within 300 units: 494 (2.1)
Range: 1,200

That would suck. We already gonna have rs for melee and ds is supposed to be ranged so its fine as it is with its range. Just the attackspeed is annoying.

Both the theme and the mechanics are already there, you get bonus damage for being within 600 units when the max range is 1200, its a mechanic meant to reward risk and unnecessary closeness to death and danger, which fits perfectly. This just pushes both the mechanic and the theme further.

You could also get rid of the range bonus and replace it with something else, but frankly, deathshroud lifeblast builds are already really fun to use, a lot more than they were back when deathshrouds bonus damage was based on being topped off. They’re just a little underpowered in PvE, and wonky in PvP because of how difficult it is to gain life force without mob deaths, so obviously the last thing they need is major gameplay changes that don’t even affect life force gain.

Plus, have you even actually tried it or are you just being dismissive? Because my shrouded shotgun build is up near the top of the most fun builds I have ever played in GW2, or most games at all.

Never said that the dmg bonus withing 600 range isnt good but i wouldnt upgrade it further with being closer again. The long cast time for skill 1 makes it harder to dodge without losing dps. It just should stay as it is now and we are getting a melee oriented shroud with rs anyway so ds should stay a bit more ranged.

Think most people would prefer a faster cast time. I really don’t see why it needs that much of a damage nerf though, air/fire have been nerfed, and we have bruisers everywhere in tournies practically unkillable while being able to might stack high for similar damage. Some traits might have to be looked at though.

Now if it removed condis I’d take lesser damage.

zapv.8051:

The skill would be way better with a lower cast time, and the same dps. The only trait that is potentially overpowered is reaper’s might.

Reapers Might is not overpower and doesn’t need nerf or tweak. Ele has similar trait and it’s stronger cause it gives might from every fire skill you use and not from just autoattack like Reapers Might

Zenith.7301:

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

A dagger autoattack build outDPS’es a life blast build. How is that right? You need to build up life force and it’s a finite amount of time you can spam life blasts on death shroud, which also require closer range.

If a mere mainhand dagger autoattack can OUTDPS Life Blast, which comes from a resource that needs to be built, removes access to utilities and doesn’t work with signet, what is the point of death shroud if it’s only a form used to turtle in?

I’d like to hear the answer to this as well. RS/DS should be a bonus, not a loss. I’ll pass on shroud if it is only a defensive crutch. I’d much rather have utilities for that. With all the negative restrictions attached to shroud, it should be amazing.

Also, please don’t let the condi club convince you to nerf RS’s already weak auto.

Wow. R.Gee,
Its been repeated many times that you are our savior, but i have to thank you again as is a ancient topic/problem to a already strong thing (we all know the power 111 rotation) and here you are – listening and discussing on how to make fair improvements.
Thank you.

off to buisness

1) overall DPS shall stay same

2) condi transfer, even traited, even on current slow version – cmon poeple stay real.
(Try a death magic build with the 3s cleanse trait…now imagine all those condies not vanish into air but instead on enemy…brokenly overpowered and no real counterplay even with all the current blindspam)

3) might and vuln can be balanced or buffed via the 2x hit skill idea. Piercing maybe baseline

4) faster speed/animation is meant for
-buffing dhuumfire
-less random blind/block shutdown
-maybe also less hate and frustration for other classes – power necro vs thief was dodge, blind, interupt, dodge, blind, blind, 8k megaproc oneshot from thieves perspective.

Bassicaly i agree with bhawb and most other necros on this, its been discussed a lot of times.

Robert Gee.9246:

-snip-
On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

The dps is a full 0.3 coeff/s behind the dagger auto chain. That is a substantial difference. Currently, there is no point in using shroud for damage other than in small bursts and for bunkering. I find it natural that the best way of dealing damage would be to use your profession mechanic. Lower the cast time to 0.7, that gives it more balance when compared to Reaper Shroud #1, and have the range>600 coeff be 0.7 and the range<600 be 0.85. I fail to see how it is overpowered this way, it is 0.12 coeff/s behind dagger when below 600 range and 0.3 coeff/s when above 600. It is not worse than if someone were to start shanking you with the dagger. You could always nerf dagger to allow for competition, but that is the worst idea by far.

Thanks for answering Robert Gee

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

I think most necro’s actually agree with this. Condition transfer on AA without some kind of massive ICD or big downside is way too strong.
I also don’t think a lot of necromancers really want this; I’m not even sure why there is so much discussion about this, as it’s clearly unrealistic.

What many Necro’s do want however is faster cast time on Life Blast. That’s why Plague blast is often mentioned.

Robert Gee.9246:

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

I’m quite surprised to hear the stance of ANet on LB DPS is that it is as high as it can go currently.
Mostly because it doesn’t really compete with other classes their dps; you lose all your skills while using it; it’s on a limited resource; etc.
I can understand that you don’t want Deathshroud to become the only way for necro to dps though (though frankly that has more to do with the lackluster dps of our general weapon skills).

That said, lets get to the point. A faster cast speed would improve DS a lot; even if you lower the damage so the direct DPS doesn’t increase.
The current Lifeblast is really slow and predictable and is unattractive for condimancers.

Increasing the cast speed would allow Dhuumfire condimancers to see some more play. The only concern might be the increased ease at which we can stack might and vulnerability through traits; but I’m not sure if it’s unfair to just see that as a buff to the class.

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

Make unyielding blast baseline this skill is useless 50% on reaper shroud, Make life blast a 2 hit cannel that takes the same time as actual 1.4 secs One hit at .7and the other at 1.4 the other, each blast hits for half the damage of the of actual life blast so you will hit for the same damage if you connect both hits and each hit triggers the Skill 1 traits