Guild Wars 2

flow.6043:

Wrong. For some reason you seem to be under the impression that the only purpose of Greater Marks is to use Reaper’s Mark on someone who’s using a block skill.
I won’t post every quote of you mentioning Greater Marks at this point, but you are so deluded about that trait’s contribution to every fight you have, it’s mind blowing to me.

It does have AoE regen but if you are already using it for allies, it means you are likely in a team fight. If you have someone like a guardian with high heal power, your regen could actually be a detriment. Your weak 0-healing power regen could get applied before the Guardian’s, reducing the healing to your allies. Second, larger area to cast marks isn’t too beneficial when you already know how to aim your marks. They are large enough already. Fights around points are also not as spread out. Larger poison is nice in theory but I doubt you will be like “Ok guys I’m dropping poison field now everyone use your combo finishers!”
-Don’t confuse “deluded” with experienced.
I am feeling like this argument is not even about Greater Marks vs. Reaper’s Protection anymore. You just want to be right. I have no problem admitting I’m wrong when I’m actually wrong. But when I know things as fact there’s simply nothing someone can say, really.

20% more than 10% = 12%.
Don’t tell me that up to now you actually believed this trait gives you 30% life force?

Yup. I actually thought you get a whole 30% life force from each death. I’m new to the game.

flow.6043:

Dial back the arrogance. I’m not sure if you really believe what you write or you’re deliberately trying to make me look like a fool to deminish my credibility.
Just read the thread again if you must.

Sometimes it’s good to follow your own advice
I am simply applying your own medicine to you.

You still don’t get it. I didn’t copy paste walls of text everytime because I assumed that people had actually read all the posts before that. But apparently you didn’t.

Yes. I am 12, I can’t read, and I accidentally stumbled in here and dumped random comments around.
I started with reasonable neutral comments which were indirectly pointed at you in hopes something good can come out of it. Didn’t know it would be like talking to a wall though.

Greater Marks of course.
Why? Because in my imaginary fight I’m actually up against someone who knows how to figth necros, has blocks, decent cleansing or condition immunities, stability…. take your pick.

An opponent who knows how to fight Necros won’t have a problem with a few large marks. If you can’t hit someone with small marks, you should work on aiming, although I do admit it’s easier with bigger marks.
Second… it’s rare that people have all of those at once. For example, warriors don’t have good condi clears aside from Cleansing Ire. They have Berserk Stance, some stability (corrupt boon) and possibly a block. The only place where Greater Marks comes to being useful here is when they block, which you could actually easily wait out, or cast Dark Path which is unblockable so you don’t really lose out on much. Anyway, I don’t want to get into each profession to describe how little you’d gain by picking up Greater Marks.

And I’m just quickly adressing your thief example, if I may: first of all, thieves are not hard to fight. Secondly, you’re assuming that they have one burst. Just one, and it starts at the beginning of a fight with a stun. This is of course false, and actually triggering RP at the beginning of an encounter with them is the worst that could happen.

Most have a 1-sec daze, not a stun (unless we look at Basi Venom – it’s still only 1.5 secs tho). They are not hard and they are not easy – it depends on the opponent and it depends how you encounter them. If you have 5k HP you can be dead meat. Greater Marks will do absolutely nothing to protect you from a gank – 0. Nada. None. Null. Whereas Reaper’s Protection will actually push the guy off, etc. etc. etc. the end result being: you know you are being ganked, can react and live. On the other hand, if you are fighting the Thief and you actually see them coming… you simply can’t say that the fear triggered does nothing. Having the thief run from you for 2-3 seconds in a PvP environment is…. I don’t think I even need to say it.

So let me make it clear, Greater Marks is better than RP against thieves. The extra surface area is almost 80% more, that is very valuable against stealthed opponents because you’re more likely to hit them when you’re trying to, and you get more area denial when you’re precasting marks. I know that doesn’t sound like much to you, but it’s incredibly valuable, not to mention that it works all the time and not just once every hour.

First of all, most stealth thieves have condi removal in stealth, as well as the regen from 30 points in Shadow Arts. It doesn’t matter what you hit them with while in stealth (staff#2,3, whatever)… they likely won’t lose any health – UNLESS they go into Shadow Refuge with low hp, but even then, they are predictable where they hide and small marks work just well. Either way, large marks are nice against thieves because you have more area to kite and they would have to waste more evades if they want to trigger your marks unharmed. Unlike you though, I actually used both traits for a very long time. The problem is, in sPvP thieves don’t stealth much so using Greater Marks against their stealth has little effect. In WvW they do use stealth but in WvW they aren’t nearly as problematic. Anyway. I am glad you think it’s more useful. You can keep your Greater Marks, and we will keep our Reaper’s Protection.

flow.6043:

3. Dhuumfire:
6 points in Spite had been meta for almost a year. Not just for the extra burning, you also get a ton of condition duration and Chill of Death. This is still extremely strong, both from an offensive and defensive point of view.
Apparently people are too lazy to use a Life Blast to trigger it these days, a longer duration burning than before mind you. And both actually makes the trait stronger because now you can time your burst according to your skill rotation instead of having it trigger at random.
And no, picking Dhuumfire doesn’t make you glassy, not even if you have 6 in Curses as well. You still get to wear a carrion or rabid amulet, you still have a huge duration extension on defensive conditions. There’s almost no downside here, except for the usual culprits like zerker stance.

I am pretty sure Spite has been meta for the burning. As soon as Dhuumfire became a thing, everyone flocked to it because it was OP.
You are more squishy if you go 6 into Spite and 6 into Curses, but it depends how you build yourself (stats/traits). You have a lot more damage but you have
a) Lower life force pool (if you go 2 points Death for staff cooldowns)
b) Lower toughness by 200 (and additional 170 if in DS). So a potential of 370 extra toughness (if you go 2 points in Soul Reaping)
c) Possibly shorter fears(no Master of Terror – less damage from fears and less damage mitigation from it) and longer DS skill cooldowns (if you go 2 points in Death)
d) No Last Gasp – lower life force generation / tanking / protection / possible stun break
e) And if you’re like me, 6 spite 6 curses means losing out on Vital Persistence and Soul Marks, which believe it or not, makes you quite tanky. In theory, you could still grab Vital Persistence though, but then you’d lose staff cooldowns and toughness up to 270 toughness.
f) The damage mitigation from RP and for those that take Nightmare Runs can be quite high. Not to mention they deal damage themselves from the fear.

But I agree that Spite is still viable though.

I hope this covers the basics of the most commonly used alternatives. But just fyi, all of this has been said before, most of it in this thread and a million times before on others.

Yup even I covered some of them.
Beats saying “that’s bad” and calling it a day though.

flow.6043:

All of these fail scenarios are more likely to happen if there are many players involved in your fight. More stuns, more aoe cleansing, more shared stability if there’s a guardian…

True, team fights with shout guardians can be a pain but as a condi Necro who’s basically all range, you shouldn’t allow yourself to be melee trained. It makes little difference whether you had Greater Marks or Reaper’s Protection, none of your fears would work and Greater Marks would hardly help you if you are being melee trained. Greater Marks’ ability to interrupt blocks and what not ALSO falls apart when enemies have stability. And if the enemy team does NOT have AoE stability, an AoE fear from RP could wreck them and save you. It also gives your allies a breather too. Not only that, but it also puts enemies off-point, allowing you to decap or cap. If you follow up with Reaper’s Mark it’s even better. And if they are forced to use a stun break, good for you – they wasted a utility and you used up your trait.

The trait is clearly more effective in 1v1s. But do you need it in 1v1s the most? Hell no! It’s one of the fights that actually makes necros a good asset for their team, they are kings of dueling. So you either win that 1v1 (hopefully) or you force a 2v1 and let your allies outnumber their opponents on the other points. Win/win, and all of it is possible without RP, regardless of who your opponent is.

And that is again your preference. What will allow you to kill someone 1v1 better, a 3 second fear (damage over time) where you are taking 0 damage, and you can somewhat freely cast your other spells, or simply having large marks? Fear, of course. From what I gathered in sPvP, thieves are notorious roamers and de-capers. If you run into one with Reaper’s Protection, there is just no arguing that RP is stronger in a 1v1 than Greater Marks. I have many thief friends who cringe when a Necro has RP. Sure, a large mark is nice but it doesn’t come close. Warriors also have a very hard time, especially if you dodge their CC and corrupt their stability. Then they’re at complete mercy of your fears. Berserk stance comes into play, yes, but it’s not a huge deal if you know how to kite and can use Wurm or Spectral Walk. Greater Marks would become useful if you fought people with blocks like shield warriors or certain engis, and guardians (whose heal you can interrupt, which is very nice), which is the benefit of Greater Marks. But you might not even have Reaper’s Mark ready to interrupt when they are blocking (are you gonna wait for their block just so you can interrupt it? You may have to use it to defend yourself). A 2-3 second fear from RP is much more deadly in 1v1s than Greater Marks.

flow.6043:

1. Greater Marks (imo the only reason for a non-MM to have 4 pts in Death Magic).
Higher range, more area control, easier to land on moving targets, more targets hit if they’re spread out, more regen to allies if they’re spread out, bigger poison field, bigger blast finish area, UNBLOCKABLE marks. I can’t stress enough how valuable the last one is.
And most importantly: all of that is available to you everytime you cast a mark! Not just once every minute (or most likely more).
And because of all that, claiming that Greater Marks does less damage than RP is just false.

I went over some of those things in our “imaginary conversation” earlier. Those are true, and that’s the pros of taking Greater Marks. The biggest one of those is the unblockable part. All the other ones seem better in theory than in practice.

2. Someone mentioned Foot in the Grave.
3 seconds of stability base duration, a bigger life force pool by going 6 into Soul Reaping and a minor trait for an extra 5% dmg over 50% lf which is clearly better than an extra 2% lf for nearby deaths. This trait means you get a safe stomp on a 10 sec cd. Oh and I almost forgot, unlike RP stability actually is a protection against CC!

Extra 5% damage is not a huge deal on a condi Necro but is a nice bonus. The death magic trait is actually 20% more life force with nearby deaths, which is quite nice.
The stability gained from Foot in the Grave is very nice to avoid being CC trained, works each time and allows you to stomp, yes. But it doesn’t stop the damage inflow. You will still eat the damage that will follow after the failed CC, which will take chunks off your life force. It can also be stripped by thieves, mesmers and what not, and it will NOT protect you against a thief’s burst. RP will push people off of you (dealing damage) while you are taking 0 damage. With Foot in the grave, you are also force to enter DS if you are going to be struck by CC.

flow.6043:

MethaneGas.8357:

I presented the case for Reaper’s Protection, which was met with “no it sucks”.
I touched on both traits to compare but still it was “no it sucks”.
So there’s not much you can say about that.

Yes there is: that’s an imaginary conversation you’re reciting here.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/oka.gif

You need but to scroll up and see the imaginary conversation. Not sure who you are trying to fool here. You are trying really hard to appear intelligent or correct but I hope you know it’s okay to be wrong.

flow.6043:

You know, all those things are actually active playing, and good stuff at that, but non of it needs Reaper’s Protection.
Also, I could make up some pretty cool situations in which Toxic Landing comes in handy. But hoping for best case scenarios doesn’t mean I’d take it over other traits.

So since you insist on me being a little more elaborate:

First, you just admitted you weren’t elaborate in our previous “imaginary conversation”.
Second, feel free to use Toxic Landing if you want… have fun with it and tell me how it goes – you seem to love that trait.

flow.6043:

RP does usually not allow you to follow up with anything, especially not a fear chain, because you’re stunned yourself.

The fear is 2-3 seconds. There aren’t many CC moves out there that people use that are a whole 3 seconds, for example. Even Earthshaker with full adrenaline is 2 seconds. Sleight of Hand is a 1 second daze whereas your fear is 2-3 seconds (Not to mention you can couple it with Runes of Nightmare). So in other words, in many cases your fear will be longer or just as long as another person’s CC. You can EASILY chain your fears with that, as I pointed out earlier. I don’t say random things for the sake of argument. Second, DS is instant, and you have Doom which is instant. So even if you are stunned for the duration of Reaper’s Protection (or longer), you can use Doom effortlessly while you took no damage from the attacker. Your fear chain is now longer than any other CC out there, which you can also couple with Reaper’s Mark if you wish, or Nightmare Runes if you so desire

Stability, condition immunities, being out of range, triggered on downed player, blindness… just to mention a few, and the whole thing goes on cooldown.

That’s true, there’s counters to that, which is fine. Otherwise it would be OP. Blinds work on any hard hitting skill – Kill Shot, Earth Shaker, etc. It’s only natural. RP is like another tool in your toolbox, basically a really powerful skill on a 60-sec cooldown. Stability is a counter too, but most condi Necros also take Corrupt Boon, which is another fear is it corrupts stability. Most classes in 1v1s don’t have a huge access to stability either way, and one corrupt boon works nicely, especially if combined with Path of Corruption. Range can be an issue as well. Putting your fear on a 60-sec cooldown because of ranged CC is annoying but that’s part of the game, really. Greater Marks would have no benefit here either. Lastly, one minute cooldown is not a huge deal in a prolonged fight fight.

I presented the case for Reaper’s Protection, which was met with “no it sucks”.
I touched on both traits to compare but still it was “no it sucks”.
So there’s not much you can say about that.

Just because it’s passive doesn’t mean you can’t make use of it. You can VERY easily turn the triggered-fear into an even longer fear chain. You can put yourself in a situation so you are CCed and as a result fear a group of enemies, you can force an enemy to use a stun break so your other fears aren’t broken, it can fear people off of you and you place Spectral Wall and block them off in the distance, etc.
In other words, if you are smart you will be aware which traits you have and will know how to make the most of them.

This comes down to your opinion, like I initially said in one of my first comments (but you disagreed).
I tried to break it down with facts but I knew you probably wouldn’t change your mind, which is fine, but I don’t agree with going around telling people something is “bad” with no explanation, without stating that it’s just your opinion, and without stating that there are people out there who really know how to make the most out of the trait.

I personally think that Reaper’s Protection is 100x better than Greater Marks and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind – and I know the benefits of taking both traits because I used both for a very long time. So yes, as I initially said, whether one is better than the other is just opinion and preference.

Flow…. you honestly don’t know how to argue and frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I am sorry. I don’t think you provided anything constructive.

A mild inconvenience? Sure, I am not the best PvPer in terms of tactics, hell, I just got into it, but it doesn’t matter whether I’m on point or off-point, if the trait saves a player (i.e. me, or a Necro from the first time stamp)…. that’s a player that’s ALIVE because of the trait. Is that so hard to compute? If the Necro dies, it suddenly becomes a 4v5 with a thief on the loose – a VERY bad outcome. If the Necro survives, it’s still a 5v5, and the thief can still stay on you but you had time to recover, which is fine.
-In the first clip, the Necro was ressing an ally. It was likely that they would both go down because of the thief cleave but instead, the thief gets feared all the way down the steps. Both people are alive because of one trait, gg.

In the other fights, negating a thief’s burst with 1 trait – let me emphasize … one trait – shouldn’t even be an argument. He won’t burst you down, he will instead take damage, and like in one of the clips… he used his utility skill (stun break) to break from my passive trait proc. So basically he wasted an utility skill for passive trait proc, a plus for me. Now if the team was more organized and we had TS and all that jazz, the thief would be in a very dangerous spot being feared for such a long time… and possibly without a stun break afterwards.

Also all of those situations happened in two PvP matches. In other words, within 30 mins of the game and already you can start seeing the trait’s usefulness. If you had Greater Marks you would hardly benefit in those 2 matches. You’d likely be dead.

Thanks for being unreasonable,

-Methane

flow.6043:

MethaneGas.8357:

There’s countless times where…

Anecdotal evidence.

?
I have been using the trait for a very long time – since I swapped to Terror, which was… at least 8 months ago or so, if not more. And it does save me countless times. Just yesterday when I faced someone in sPvP. If you want, I can send you a link to a stream where I ended up being in where it proved itself useful against a thief?
http://www.twitch.tv/magictoker/b/590221389
at 1:40:30 there is a different Necro who was using it.
at 1:42:52 it helped against the thief. (ignore the bad plays on my part and focus on the trait )
At 1:58:39 it forced him to use a stun break.
And that was just in 2 matches where we didn’t even fight each other that much.
/shrug there’s times where the trait proved itself in some of my WvW vids too.

flow.6043:

MethaneGas.8357:

Nah… Toxic landing is just a bad trait which no one uses. That’s just taken out of context. Lots of people use Reaper’s Protection

You’re judging a trait by how many people use it. That is not an argument for or against any trait.
The real question is: should this many people use Reaper’s Protection? No, because it’s bad.

No, no no. I’m not judging it entirely by how many people use it. I use the trait, and have been probably been using it before most people so I know from experience. And yes, if a lot of people use something, especially in sPvP, it probably means that it’s strong. The reason so many people use it is because they follow the meta, which goes with any class and I hate it but whatever. And second, I think people thought Necro wasn’t too good in sPvP until a Necro came up in one of the top teams. Now I guess people are excited to try out their Necros (as if they couldn’t do it before -_- ) and they try out the build to see what it’s all about.

Nah… Toxic landing is just a bad trait which no one uses. That’s just taken out of context. Lots of people use Reaper’s Protection (almost every condi Necro I’ve run into), especially in sPvP because believe it or not, it’s actually really strong there. There’s countless times where I was dangerously low on health and a thief ganks me and gets feared off and as a result I live and can even turn the fight around. That doesn’t just go with thieves. In team fights it can also fear multiple opponents, and if you have Master of Terror, that’s 3 seconds of fear, and people will probably run off-point by then, possibly giving you a nice de-cap opportunity. Not to mention it does damage, and can be used to set up nice combos. It also forces enemies to waste a stun break to get out of the fear. So a whole utility skill wasted for one of your traits. When considering all of those – protecting you, CCing one or more people while dealing damage, allowing for point de-caps, forcing people to use a stun break…. I’d say that’s a pretty good deal for just one trait.

Or you could have Greater Marks to cover a large area with your marks and also not have to worry about guardian aegis, people’s blocks, etc. which is nice, but large marks are not going to save you nearly as well as Reaper’s Protection, and they won’t deal nearly as much damage unless you are saving your Reaper’s Mark to interrupt a guardian heal or something (which I’ll admit is a very good use, but you can easily need Reaper’s Mark for something else). You can also interrupt shield blocks, which is also really nice. Both traits have their uses.
So no, Reaper’s Trait is not “a bad trait”. Maybe in PvE… but in PvP – not by a long shot.

You can’t say “Reaper’s Protection is bad” because it isn’t. If you THINK it’s bad… an opinion is simply an opinion.
I, personally, have been using Reaper’s Protection for a very long time – before it crawled its way into the meta and I wouldn’t use it if I thought it was bad. In other words, it’s MY opinion that the trait is better than Greater Marks.
Greater Marks has its benefits, and it really depends on your playstyle and what you as a player personally like and value more. Both traits are very good, imo.

As for Terrormancer vs. Dhuumfire… I think a good Necro could be equally strong with both. Dhuumfire provides burning and condition duration, but then you will miss out on some of the other defensive traits if you also go 30 into Curses. If you DON’T go into curses, you miss out on some excellent traits, like Path of Corruption, which actually might not be a huge deal if you have corrupt boon. If you go 30 in Spite and 30 in Curses, you’ll basically be “glass condi” and will be squishy but will have high damage. If you go with a Fear oriented build and not Dhuumfire, you will have much more defense, and the damage will undoubtedly still be high. Personally, I’d go with a fear oriented build.

You should see Necro in sPvP!
I have started sPvP lately and it’s so… so…. *sigh * so fun

Ty sir
It’s Bloody Prince outfit from the tradepost all dyed in Celestial dye (which sometimes looks like it glows a bit depending on where you stand) and Deathwish staff.

@Tiborb.,

You can still interrupt most leaps. You can still slow them down with chill or cripple. I don’t find disengage too overpowered unless we look at WvW warriors or thieves.

A Necro’s Locust Swarm would be an AoE leap disabler xD It would be completely OP.

Some classes have teleports, others don’t. Some classes have leaps, other’s not so much. Some classes can face-tank better, while others cannot.

^ Those are some of the ways which separate how different survive / the tools which they have to survive. A warrior with sword or greatsword uses movement skills to get out of a fight. A Guardian uses Greatsword leap to get out of a fight. Elementalist (who is fairly squishy) uses Burning Speed, Burning Retreat or Ride the Lightning to get away. In other words, a lot of classes rely on mobility for survival. Some classes actually use movement to bunker. No movement skills = no ability to tank. If a simple cripple negated all of the above movement skills you’d really weaken the classes that use movement skills while making classes with teleports/facetanking abilities a lot more valuable. You’d have a very different game on your hands xD

WvW roaming with a team – very strong.
WvW zerging – strong.
PvP – strong.
PvE – ok, although if you are doing it with random people who want to finish 10 secs early, they might object.

^ Very nice very Necroy

One of my newest looks. Too used to being all dark so decided to change it up a bit to match my GW1 necro :P

Go Gaile Gray!
It’s always nice to see a red name and knowing they are present and read things despite the usual silence.

Props to you
and p.s. don’t worry about some of the cray cray posts.

Part of my suggestion was the ability to exit Deathshroud (willingly) and have your skills still go off. For example – Life Transfer. That might encourage more Necros to go with supporty or hybrid/support builds (like celestial, apothecary/settlers, clerics) because you would be able to start casting Life Transfer with Transfusion trait, then exit DS and get the heal yourself. That would be…. great! It makes the trait a LOT more appealing. Transfusion is sort of okay how it is now but it’s a bit too selfless. Most other support-type skills in the game also positively affect the caster in some way, as well as the ally. Tranfusion doesn’t really, and we don’t get much benefit out of it. My suggestion would help with that, and could open the doors to a more supporty side of Necros.

I think the idea of reducing the cooldown of DS, lowering the life force pool, but making it recharge quicker would could be very interesting but some drawbacks were already mentioned:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yes and no. A large chunk of the reasons Necros get no blocks, evades, or Vigor is because Death Shroud can be used for a long period of time. For example, when ressing or stomping, having a large pool is far better to having a smaller, more rapidly refilled one. Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr, and Death Shiver all get benefit from larger death shroud pools rather than quick refills (which some builds pull off anyway).

A necro with a large, full DS (how it is now) can tank quite a bit when taking focus fire. If the life force pool was smaller, you wouldn’t be able to tank sudden, strong focus fire as well. Instead, with quicker refilling/cooldown, you would be able to tank smaller bursts of damage better (you’d have life force at your disposal more often, just less of it, so to speak).
The traits that benefit from prolonged staying in DS would also be weakened because you wouldn’t be able to stay in DS for as long (although I don’t think many people stay in DS from 100% to 0% or use those traits too much).
BUT…. the effects of this could really be “alleviated” in builds that use Locust Swarm, Spectral Walk/Spectral Armor/Spectral Wall. Builds that use those would be able to tank focus fire well, would be able to stay in DS for a long time, which would allow them to get a benefit of the above mentioned traits, AND would benefit from quicker regeneration of DS and (possibly) its reduced cooldown.

For me, I think it would be a pretty huge change, in terms of how Necros are. It would be almost like a “from the ground up” change – a lot of things would have to be re-balanced. It would work really well for my build, no doubt about that, but those that don’t use spectrals or Warhorn, I don’t know what the outcome would be.

I think they could just increase our overall life force regeneration through skills.
For example, going back to Eles. With 0 points in Arcana (Arcana reduces attunement cooldowns), I think Eles had around 16 seconds of cooldown on attunement swap (something along those lines). Then this was changed to 13 seconds to discourage builds that focus on Arcana. So basically their class mechanic got a slight buff for those that don’t focus on Arcana (I’ll admit – not many people).
But…why not make a similar thing to Necros – reduce the reliance on traiting into DS for sustain and instead just give all Necros better Life Force regen?

How would people feel with a passive Soul Marks on staff? So no traiting, no nothing, just a passive 2-3% life force per mark?
I’m tempted to write more about the implications of this but I’ll wait

p.s. I do realize staff auto attack fly speed was buffed, but not everyone is gonna stand there spamming 1 to get life force.

Might I add?

Necromancer
•Death Shroud: Reverted a change that caused this effect to incorrectly cancel abilities (such as stomping) when the necromancer’s death shroud runs out.

A nice rollback. Good, going in the right direction.

Excellent
Faith beginning to restore.

DanSH.6143:

Sorry I have to dissagree with this one.
While it would increase skill cap, DS realy is a tranformation, it’s like a 3rd weapon swap, RPG-wise it doean’t make sense to use the special powers of DS outside of it.
Furthermore, it would reduce counter play. Nuking necro’s LF to 0 is the main counter to its skills, so in some way you’re also reducing the skill cap.

Hmm. It used to be considered a transform because it was basically like Plague, Lich, Tornado or whatever – you were unable to interact with things, your on-swap sigils triggered when entering the transform (if I remember correctly), your Signets don’t affect you anymore, etc. But that sort of changed… now your on-swap sigils don’t trigger, and you can interact with things (ressing + stomping). So it’s sort of… not REALLY a transform, but it kind of is.
Wouldn’t it be better to not consider it a transform, and instead consider it sort of like the Necro’s attunement of death? Elementalists are attuned to the elements, a Necro is attuned to death. Elementalists can channel skills, res, stomp, anything while swapping between their attunement. For example, they can cast Meteor Shower, while swapping to Earth to get all the Earth bonuses + all the Earth skills (like the reflection aura)… as well as Fury on attunement swap. This allows for really nice fluidity and combos. If a Necro’s DS was similar, we’d be able to cast skills in a similar way, between the two states. A Necro can start casting a skill, then attune to Death (DS) and get some of the bonuses.
I think a good counter to DS (if it worked as was suggested) is also being able to dodge the initial skill, like Spinal Shivers or Ghastly Claws. You can also interrupt the Necro with CC, or the Necro could be forced to enter DS defensively if they are focused.

DanSH.6143:

We can already use abilities outside of DS and “drag” them in, like dropping Well of Suffering, or using dagger OH skills right before going DS. You can also use spectral armor/walk to get LF while in DS.

That’s true, and those things synergize really well. Well of Suffering and Deathly Perception, for example. Or Locust Swarm and Deathly Perception.

DanSH.6143:

I think power necro, or how I call it, zerkomancer, is in a good place regaeding skill cap atm.
Imo we need improvrd sustainability, some QoL changes to certain cast times, + aninations on powerful skills like corrupt boon.

I agree, especially about the sustainability part now that they nerfed the “Deathshroud dancing” playstyle. The suggestion wasn’t really meant to buff power Necros – or at least that’s not what I had in mind initially. If the change did take place, power Necros would be buffed by it the most, which is why I focused on them.

DanSH.6143:

You can use Dark Path and immidiatly leave DS after the cast, it does not affect the projectile. You can chain the port with dagger AA for example.

Same thing goes for Tainted Shackles, after the initial short channel, it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re in DS or not. The skill will keep pulsing.

Yeah that’s true. And it’s that kind of fluidity/synergy of playstyle that prompted my suggestion ( casting Dark Path, then exiting DS while it travels to the person, and using another attack). Or using wells then entering DS.

Also to the additional comments about spectrals – yes. Spectral skills work through DS. S.Wall, S.Armor and S.Walk all charge your life force while you are in DS.

Stand The Wall.6987:

nahhh gonna have to disagree with this one. like you said, ghastly claws and gang would hit reaally hard. there would be nerfs, then there would be the necessity to bring deathly perception. the cycle never ends. there really isnt a need for more damage (basically what youre asking for) on power necro. what we need is more sustain and less burst damage imo.

i do believe that life transfer should continue upon exiting DS and any traits (like LT healing) should subsequently be allowed to properly function.

That could be true, that nerfs would probably come. But I don’t know if you’d necessarily have to bring Deathly Perception if your crit chance is already high enough, or if you had Sigil of Intelligence - you could swap weapons and cast Spinal Shivers, but it wouldn’t work for Ghastly Claws because it hits more than 3 times… anyway. I’m not TOO familiar with power Necros, but I think it would just allow for more options to those who do bring Deathly Perception, as well as every other Necro, except other Necros wouldn’t benefit as much in terms of damage. I also used Deathly Perception as an example because it’s one of the only traits that makes your stats really different from when you are in and out of Deathshroud, so if we can channel non-DS skills into DS, effects would be significant, for sure.

I can’t disagree with Necros needing more sustain. ESPECIALLY after they made DS a flat 10 seconds cooldown. The 10-second cooldown is an entirely different issue tho. When thinking about the suggested change in this thread, the change would increase sustain by a tiny bit. You could finish cast things like Ghastly Claws, Feast of Corruption, or Necrotic Bite – skills that fill your life force – while you are in Deathshroud. This means that your DS could protect you quicker (don’t have to wait for your skill to go off before entering DS), while your Life Force charges up. It could also be nicely synergized with something like Armored Shroud - minor trait in Death Magic.
A good example could be a ranger using rapid fire on you, and you start casting Ghastly Claws, then enter DS. Your life force would go up from Ghastly Claws but down from Ranger Rapid Fire. So in other words you’d be able to somewhat tank the incoming damage instead of eating the damage with your real health. Good players would be able to utilize it like that (a nice example of increased skill cap I think).
——Finally… our overall sustain, no matter which build, would increase by a bit just by being to finish any skill we want in DS —> we wouldn’t lose as much actual health.

I actually thought of the suggested change when they nerfed our DS by making skills interrupt themselves. I thought “Hey… shouldn’t it actually be the other way around? Shouldn’t skills have been able to go between the two states to begin with?” The nerf – whether it was intentional or just a side effect – doesn’t make sense to me at all. I mean… why give us the ability to res or stomp when it can be a liability. Sure, there’s ways around it by popping Spectral Armor and then ressing or stomping, but come on xD
When I thought of this suggestion I thought of certain examples and focused on power Necros cuz I think they would be the ones getting a huge buff, and that could be a problem, especially since their damage would increase by quite a bit, and there’s no doubt about that. But I don’t play power Necro (yet) so I thought some people who actually play it could provide some interesting feedback on this.

@zapv, I agree that some things may be too strong… but it would be in exchange to the huge additional combos we’d be able to pull off…
I think, as you said, things can be nerfed after.

Tim.6450:

it was a nice post, but there are three things that bother me.
First deathly perception, I think you are overestimating it’s power. Deathly perception does not increase damage potential, it only increase the probability of reaching a higher damage potential . Another thing to note is that by adding this functionality is very similar to thiefs 100% crit for moves done in stealth. So I don’t see any problem.

That is sort of true but you have to think… it increases your crit chance by a whole 50%. If you had fury on DS, you only need 30% crit chance outside DS to have 100% crit in Deathshroud. 100% crit chance can be a huge deal when doing hard-hitting skills like Ghastly Claws, etc. The difference between Thief’s Hidden Killer is that Hidden Killer only allows only one attack to crit. This would be comparable to using Spinal Shivers, but when you start thinking about Ghastly Claws, which hit repeatedly… I am not sure how high the damage would reach, to be honest.

Tim.6450:

The second thing is that the healing/cooldown and the healing/casttime of transfusion, is similar to the healing/cooldown and the healing/casttime of empower, and we don’t consider that skill as overpowered.

Last is the fact that you forgot siphons, you only talked about life siphon, but you missed vampiric and vampiric precision + life transfer.

Oohhh.. You are right I never thought of it that way. I think Life Transfer heal, with full Clerics would be higher than Empower (with 1.6k heal power, Empower heals for 3.1k health whereas Life Transfer would heal for twice as much). But the only thing is, Life Transfer has a twice as long of a cooldown (40 seconds for Life Transfer, 20 for Empower). Also, we need to actually use up a trait to make Life Transfer heal, whereas Guardians don’t, and Empower also gives allies 12 Might, whereas Life Transfer doesn’t.
-If a Guardian also uses Altruistic Healing he would gain health for each boon he gives to an ally or himself. With 1.6k Heal Power and 4-5 allies around him he’d get 86 health each time. So the guardian would get about 1.3k extra health (I think it’s 1.3k health. I didn’t have time to test this yet, but it’s possible that it’s more).
-If we factor in Vampiric, that’s about 38 health per enemy hit. If that hits 5 people, with 9 pulses —> extra 1.7k health to you and an extra 342 with Bloodthirst.
-Vampiric Precision would increase this but I don’t know how much precision you’d have with the build. It could heal for another 1.5k or more tho and you can imagine it would be more with Bloodthirst.
-So I think you are absolutely right. If the suggestion came into effect, Life Transfer’s healing would be on par with a Guardian’s Empower.

Side note: Some Necros don’t get how to use wurm and say the cast time is too long. The stability from Foot in the Grave could now be used to safely summon Wurm mid-battle by starting the cast before entering Deathshroud, then entering DS for stability.

The reason why I’m writing big paragraphs is because I don’t want to just narrowly look into the change and say “Oh Life Transfer would flow into DS.” Yes, it would. But it’s nice to look at all the implications of that, and how these things would relate to other aspects of Necros, Sigils or Runes.

Overall, this change would add fluidity to the whole Necromancer class, because no matter which build you play, flowing cast times into and Deathshroud are relevant. Enfeebling Blood, Locust Swarm, Grasping Dead, any of the Staff Marks (you are just low on health but want that one mark to slow or fear your opponents as you cover your health with DS. Or you want to quickly cast Putrid Mark before DS. In my opinion, this change would make more use for Foot in the Grave. You could ensure certain skills you REALLY want to go off actually do go off uninterupted). Additional skills that would benefit from the overall change: Dark Pact, Deathly Swarm, Unholy Feast, Reaper’s Touch, and Wail of Doom + utilities with cast times.
In terms of offensive capabilities, this change would most certainly buff power Necros, while not affecting condition Necros much, in terms of damage. All Necros would gain more combos and quality of life improvements, and a more enjoyable gameplay experience —> it would be very similar to how Elementalists can channel skills while swapping attunements.
If certain combos are too strong, the damage coefficients could easily be reduced
on those skills to compensate.

Deathshroud, I feel, is in a weird spot right now because it’s not REALLY a transform, but it’s sort of treated like it is. They may have felt it was just easiest to treat it as a transform, but doing that reduces a LOT of potential that the mechanic could have. If coding for it isn’t a HUGE problem, I think there’s no reason cast-times shouldn’t flow through the 2 different Necro states. Deathshroud should be treated like what it is – a different state that the Necro is in, just like an attunement from an Elementalist, except a Necro’s attunement is death.

TL;DR Skill casting flowing into and out of Deathshroud would allow for interesting skill/trait interactions, which would open a lot of doors for Necro combos, as well as new builds (for example – support). Shows some combos where things could get wacky, interesting, or good.

Anyway, any comments or thoughts on the idea?

However. Runes of Water are also a choice. With 1.6k healing power, with full Life stacks and Clerics, your heal skill would additionally heal for 1.5k to those around you, including yourself. In other words, Well of Blood would heal you for 8.4k (6.9k from well + 1.5k from runes), and would heal those around you for up to 6.2k (4.7k from well with Runes of Water, NOT Runes of Monk +1.5k from Runes of Water).
Lastly, the 20% boon duration would increase the regen from Mark of Blood (which already heals for 2k over 6 seconds) and would increase the stability duration from Foot in the Grave to 3.5 – 4 seconds, depending on whether you have points in Death Magic, and it could increase the duration of protection from wells to 4 seconds if Ritual of Protection is taken —> Potentially good with Well of Power as well.

To sum up, with the easier flow of Life Transfer into and out of Deathshroud, we could potentially have a 6k AoE heal to allies (5.6k to yourself), with stability. We would also have a 1k heal every time we leave Deathshroud, which would nicely synergize with the quick pressing of Deathshroud for stability and the full received heal from Life Transfer. This would increase our sustain by giving us an easy 6.6k heal (5.6k from Life Transfer, 1k from Deathly Invigoration). If we sprinkle in Well of Blood on top of that, that’s another potential 8.4k heal to you, + 6.2k to everyone ( 4.7k to you. 4.7k + 1.5k from Rune of Water to everyone else) in it over 5 seconds. Now if we add 2k heals over 6 seconds from Mark of Blood…

Things to keep in mind: The above build would be very support/bunker oriented, and I imagine the damage would be low, but it’s similar to a cleric support shout guardian, in a sense. It might add an interesting option to Necromancers in sPvP/tPvP for holding points.

4) Putrid Mark. Deathly Perception, Furious Demise + Putrid Mark for 100% crit chance. Now sprinkle in Sigil of Fire or Air, or both. Now cast Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles, all while standing in Well of Suffering. That AoE could be monstrous.

5) Scepter as a ranged power Necro weapon?
Feast of Corruption. Deathly Perception+Furious Demise. 100% crit chance, and 8% more damage per condition on an enemy could make for a really powerful long, range, single target spike, on top of the life force gained. Although I think Spinal Shivers would fulfill this role much better.

6) Necrotic Bite (dagger’s 3rd auto attack) would now be able to flow into DS and could have 100% crit chance (it now hits 2 people) and would fill up to 6.6% life force, while we are DS. This could easily be over 3k damage, followed by Life Blast bombing or other DS skills.

Upsides: This where the line to Overpoweredness really begin to blur. Ghastly Claws can be really scary with this combo. With Sigil of Fire, Sigil of Air, and Chill of Death…. You could essentially kill an enemy with that one skill (both sigils would trigger, for sure. If the enemy falls below 50%, Spinal Shivers from Chill of Death would hurt a LOT if the enemy has boons). This could easily be over 12k damage. The same applies to Dark Pact —> Well of Suffering --> Life Siphon —> DS combo.
-Ghastly Claws would fill your Life Force as you cast it and go into DS. This would give you a bit more sustain and counter-pressure. If you are low on health and you cast Ghastly Claws as you enter DS, you’d get the 13% Life Force while bursting your target down. You would need to be facing the target, though, which isn’t ideal for running.

Downsides: Going full glass to get the extreme effect of the combos would leave you squishy. You would also need to use Deathshroud offensively which would lock you into using Deathshroud skills. Once you leave Deathshroud, you’d now have 10 seconds of very low defense. Both skills are channeled skills and can be easily interrupted and dodged.

3) Transfusion would now heal the user if damage brings Life Force to 0 while Life Transfer is being cast and the Necro goes into human form while still channeling the skill. It could also be used as an actual heal if Deathshroud (F1) is tapped twice to exit DS. The latter function may not be as useful because most of the time Necros try to go into Deathshroud to protect themselves, and tapping it puts it on a 10 second cooldown, which could leave you vulnerable. So you put your DS on a 10-sec cooldown for the minor heal from Transfusion. Not to mention the channel can be easily interrupted, unless one takes Foot in the Grave for the stability for safe casting. Additionally, it could be even more powerful in conjunction with Deathly Invigoration in a support build, especially if you are not being focused. The heals from both skills could add up quite a bit. In the most extreme case, a full Clerics Necro with Monk Runes and Sigil of Life (people would be highly unlikely to take both unless it’s meant to be a support or full tank Necro) would be about 6k to all allies with Life Transfer (and 5.6k to yourself) and 1.1k with Deathly Invigoration, and 1k health to yourself. I would imagine a build with 6 in Blood and 6 in Soul Reaping for Path of Midnight for quicker Life Transfer and Near to Death for quicker Deathly Invigoration. Lastly, It could also work in an interesting way if this is done while standing in Well of Blood, which also works in the above build – 6 points in Blood. The last trait could be well cooldowns. Well of blood would heal you for 6.9k flat, then 943 per second, for 5 seconds = 4.7k health to you. Allies would be healed for for 5170 health instead, if they stand in the well.

Hello all,

First of all: Sorry for the length. I do want to be thorough. It’s meant as a serious suggestion and in case Anet reads it, I don’t want to be like “Plz Anet fix plz”. I want to provide some actual implications of the change and scenarios where it could shine or fall apart.

Deathshroud has been recently nerfed. It is always a 10 second cooldown now. There was another nerf which was unintentional – your skills got interupted when your life force ran out while in DS. Luckily this was fixed, but it left behind an interesting thought. I have a suggestion. I threw around a certain idea in the Necro sub-forum, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s the way Deathshroud should be.

Suggestion: Channels started before entering Deathshroud should be continued into Deathshroud form. Channels started while IN Deathshroud should be continued when the user exits Deathshroud by pressing the button (F1) twice.

I realize this has a lot of implications. Let’s explore a few of those implications, and how they would increase the Necromancer skill cap, create more interesting skill/trait interactions/synergy and combos. Feel free to comment on the overall idea, on any of the combos below, add anything you can think of, or just general discussion (whether you like the idea, or think it could potentially be a bit overpowered and if so, in what aspects).

1)Spinal Shivers would be able to be cast before entering Deathshroud, allowing for some burst to boon heavy targets. For example, traited with Deathly Perception, the Necro would have 50% more crit chance on Spinal Shivers. If the Necro also had 3 points in Curses – Furious Demise, this could easily equate to 100% crit chance for a few seconds in Deathshroud. In other words, the skill would be able to strip 3 boons, crit, while doing 50% more dmg for each boon. If Weakening Shroud is also taken, the mini-Enfeebling Blood could hit melee attackers to remove a blind so Spinal Shivers could easily hit, creating very nice synergy. Lastly, if the Necro also had Chill of Death , it’s basically another Spinal Shivers with potentially 100% crit chance. Chill of Death is already available to the Necro so nothing would change in that regard, but it would add to the combo/build. I would love to leave out Air Sigil + Fire Sigil but I have to put them here as well so we can actually think about the most extreme cases.

To sum up: we’d have Spinal Shivers flowing into DS and getting buffed by Deathly Perception and Furious Demise. Furious Demise likely isn’t a huge factor here because you can still get Fury from allies. You’d get a potential blind cleanse from Weakening Shroud, and a possible combo with Chill of Death if Sigil of Fire and Air both proc.

Upsides, gear-wise: Would not need to invest highly into precision and could potentially focus on Valkyrie stats or Cavalier. Downside to this would be relying on Deathshroud to deal damage and out-of-Deathshroud damage would likely be low with low precision.
Downside of 1): Would need to be Entering Deathshroud to deal damage as opposed to saving Deathshroud for a defensive purpose. Not to mention it would drain while you are in it. This could potentially put Deathshroud on a 10-second cooldown.

2) Ghastly Claws and Life Siphon. These skills would now be able to flow into Deathshroud. Life Siphon would not heal your actual health now, and would be simply used for long range damage, a potential downside. Ghastly Claws would now fill our Life Force while we are in Deathshroud – very nice for sustain. Deathly Perception and Furious Demise traits come to mind again. Furious Demise is not necessary with other sources of Fury, though. This would mean 100% crit chance with both Ghastly Claws and Life Siphon skills. If we sprinkle in Air sigil and Fire sigil, you can imagine the damage can be quite significant, but again, Deathshroud would need to be used offensively, as opposed to defensively. The two skills are fairly easy to dodge as well, since they are channeled – sort of like ranger Rapid Fire, in a sense. Life Siphon could be combed with Dark Pact for the root, however. This means that the enemy would not be able to dodge the high incoming damage. This would be even stronger if the enemy is rooted in Well of Suffering.

@Silvercyclone,

Maybe you can kill a mob in PvE, but even then, in higher-up PvE, some mobs, like bosses, don’t die quickly. So what then? Not being able to res in DS means we’d be pretty useless… while other classes can utilize the skills I listed earlier, we’d have nothing except maybe Plague – an elite skill – to somewhat safely res an ally and potentially risk another downed person on the team (yourself). Also, PvE is only 1/3 of GW2. GW2 also consists of sPvP and WvW (the other 2/3 of the game), where killing “mobs” (i.e. real people) is much, much harder than killing a stationary NPC (excluding boss NPCs). On top of that, you have to STOMP the person who you just downed, which you are suggesting shouldn’t be possible while in DS. So what are we left with? Trying to kill someone while your ally is bleeding out and taking damage, then being unable to properly stomp the person who you just downed?
Why would you ever want Necros to be so unequal to other classes when it comes to stomping and ressing allies, when Necros already have a hard time doing it? I know you have an opinion, but I’m sure you would agree with me if you had more time to explore the topic.

As for “too much stuff for DS”. What “stuff”? Of COURSE there is a trait for Deathshroud in every line. How could there NOT be. If you trait for DS, you specialize in it. It’s not anything wildly OP. Every class is the same – they have traits that enhance their profession mechanic. It’s not… anything out of the ordinary or Necro-specific, really. It’s just your choice whether you wanna specialize in DS or not, and to what extent. Regardless, you still have to utilize DS in one way or another. If you don’t, you are only gimping yourself, and there really isn’t any reason not to use it. It shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion xD

@GoogleBrandon,

I don’t think shroudless Necro should be viable. DS is an integral part of being a Necro, like attunements are for Eles, tool-belt for Engi, pets for Ranger, Virtues for Guard, etc. Can you picture other professions not utilizing their profession mechanic at all? Ele not swapping attunements? (there’s a build going around on the ele forum about that but I don’t think it works in higher end PvE/PvP or WvW for that matter). Guardian without F2 when they are almost dead, Thieves without steal, Rangers without their AoE wolf fear, Mesmers without distortion… Warriors not using burst skills?
Even if you don’t trait for it, there’s no reason not to use it, even if it’s just to tank someone’s bust, fear someone off of you, close a gap with Dark Path, or root your attackers with Tainted Shackles. All of those are infinitely useful. No DS = Not a GW2 Necro anymore. If Necro was supposed to have a Shroudless build, we would have seen it back in beta.

Yeah….. the nerf is BS when roaming.
So much for holding a group of enemies for a while.

Honestly ….

I dunno if you are worth the time but…

There is already too much stuff with necro DS so I think it is about time it got a nerf.

Uhh… yeah… there is already too much….. stuff with that thingy Necros use… yeah. Necros OP. Umm.. condi terror bust power. Yeah…. I can’t kill them, too much stuff with that shadow-form thing they use, yeah. Nerf it so I can kill them more easily. Cuz… you know… too much stuff.

Silvercyclone.1462:

Why would you even rez while u in DS anyways?

Drarnor Kunoram already said it but..
Why do Elementalists Mist Form res/stomp? Obsidian Flesh res/stomp? Armor of Earth, Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Elixir S, Distortion, STEALTH ressin and stomping.
I wonder why people would ever use those to res their ally. I just can’t wrap my mind around it. Why would they wanna stomp with those? Those are some very, VERY difficult questions to answer.
Deathshroud is no different.

On a second thought, allowing channeled skills to be un-interrupted while you enter Deathshroud could be a bit overpowered. Power Necros would be able to utilize Deathly Perception while casting Axe#2, Dagger #2 and Spinal Shivers. Combined with 3 points in Curses (Fury when entering DS)…. that could be a bit too much. 100% crit chance with either of those skills, combines with Air Sigil and Fire sigil could be something pretty insane. I dunno, I hope I’m wrong. I started writing a [Suggestion] post about this change and the possible combos I could think of that would make for interesting gameplay… but when I came across Axe#2 and Dagger #2, with 100% crit chance and the sigils… things started bordering OP.
… the idea had such promise xD …..

Sorry for the off-topic.

1) A leap can be interrupted as well
2) A leap can be rooted
3) A leap is affected by slows

A teleport is not.

Casting it before combat is not that big of a deal, really. It doesn’t even need to be in 1200 range. You can cast it wayyy back and it would still work. It sounds a lot harder or complex than it actually is. But to each his own.

^ which is exactly why I elaborated in my edit
You caught the “un-elaborated” post. I knew there would be plenty of misunderstandings.

Lightsbane.9012:

Booms.2594:

necros have spectral walk and flesh wurm which is already infinitely more disengage than guardian

interrupts flesh wurm disengage gone.
i’d take a leap over flesh worm any day.

Wurm is instant.
To elaborate, no Necro will ever go into a fight and try summoning the wurm mid-fight to quickly go to a spot. Best way it to place is at a spot before the fight even happens. So in other words, the teleport is instant.
And if you do need to summon it mid fight because the fight went for so long that wurm is recharged once again, there’s ways to cast it mid-fight. A fear, right before the cast, for example. And if you aren’t getting focused it’s eazy peazy.

I was going to edit my previous post but I’ll just a make new comment.

I think the falling damage nerf, and the negating of damage wasn’t a huge deal to be honest. It was pretty bad, but I personally didn’t find it too useful, and I rely on Deathshroud a LOT. That doesn’t mean they weren’t big nerfs for some people who utilized it often, but I just don’t think they as important for our sustain and fluidity of gameplay. The damage-soak would be very good in PvE, though, to absorb a strong boss attack. I don’t wanna debate that though.

As for this current (intended or unintended) nerf – self-interrupting when exiting Deathshroud. Think of it this way. It is like an Elementalist interrupting their own skills/actions/stomping/ressing when swapping attunements, Mesmers interrupting themselves when using a shatter skill, Engis interrupting their casting when using certain tool-belt skills, Guardians interrupting themselves when using Virtues, or Rangers interrupting themselves when using pet skills. It’s silly.

I think what would be appropriate is if they make all cast times able to finish even when you ENTER Deathshroud, and when you leave it as well. That would make the mechanic nicely fluid and would raise the skill cap, imo. (For example, casting Enfeebling Blood or Spinal Shivers, even Locust Swarm, and as you cast it, enter Deathshroud. If you have Deathly Perception, this would allow for some interesting skill combos.) Or if you have the trait Weakening Shroud. If you are blinded, you could cast Spinal Shivers, enter deathshroud so the mini-Enfeeble Blood removes your blind, and the Spinal Shivers goes off nicely. Wouldn’t that make more sense? And allow for some interesting combos?

Yeah the projectile will not disappear. I meant… sometimes you are taking damage, and as your deathshroud is basically nearing 0, you cast Dark Path (0.75 sec cast time) and you finish casting it out of Deathshroud. It’s not a sort of thing that happens in every encounter… but still, it can save you by teleporting you to a distant enemy or NPC. Now it can’t because it will apparently get interrupted – the cast time of Dark Path itself will stop, if I’m understanding this correctly.
Same thing can happen with Life Transfer.. you were able to FINISH casting it OUT of Deathshroud to get a bit of life force. Now… not so much.

We will have to see if this was an actual legit change or some weird side effect….
And if it was a legit change….
…. wrath.

Wow….
So basically any cast/channel/res/stomp while in Deathshroud is now interupted as soon as you hit your normal form?
So no more Life Transfer channel to gain a bit of life force when you take too many hits?
No more Dark pathing to a distant enemy when you’re low on DS, just as DS runs out? Getting punished for Deathshroud stomping and ressing?
LOL.

This better be a glitch… cuz honestly. Buff spectrals? Oh, let’s nerf Deathshroud cooldown in return. Buff Life Siphon and staff auto attack travel speed? Nerf Deathshroud again. Nice. A very good approach, if I do say so myself.
#sarcasm.

Nerfing the a class mechanic is nerfing the whole class.

I don’t get the whole “what’s mobility” debate… moving around the battle field is a nice, clean and simple definition of mobility. Because that’s what it is… moving around. Of course (for the nitpickers) I don’t mean simply holding W. But any kind of teleport or speed boost can, imo, be considered as mobility. Dark Path, Wurm, and Spectral Walk included – they just aren’t straight forward.

lorndarken.3702:

Anubis.7058:

Just to mention perception of mobility * like wurm and swalk * vs actual mobility * instant gap closer/escape like LoF, SL, Shadowstep or Lighting flash* are not the same, do not equate them.

that is what im trying to say here on this thread , now if lets say flesh worm was a instant cast on summon then maybe that would be could be a helpful gap closer but where it stands now by the time you summon the thing you are already passing it given that you are using 33 % speed buff and summoning it way ahead of you at the max range you could and still running forward .

Wurm doesn’t need an instant cast to catch up to someone. Why? Because there is no reason you would need to cast/sacrifice wurm to catch up to someone. That’s not how the skill is used – unless the enemy is running in the direction where your wurm is sitting. The minion is very good at removing you from a bad spot, and needs to be summoned before hand, which is not a problem at all. To catch UP to someone, you have plenty of slows to slow down your opponent, and then you have Dark Path – gap closer. A simple staff #3, then Dark Path and Doom and voila. Then you can dodge through your opponent and do staff #5 to fear them whence they came from. Or save Doom and do the same.

As for Necro being high risk? I agree. I play a lot of classes and Necro is the only class where I feel it’s very punishing if you make mistakes. One missed condi transfer and the roots eat you alive. Getting out of Deathshroud a little too soon and you’re at the mercy of the storm and your health is gone. The class doesn’t have as much freedom on the battlefield. That being said, Wurm and S.Walk do alleviate a lot of the problems, at least for me, but once those are blown you have to basically fight your way away :P Quite literally… slowing and fearing people off of you to make them gtfo. That’s why S.Wall is such a blessing… anyway. A lot of people like going with damage, and when they don’t bring a disengage, they have to worry about being focused down.. because once a Necro is focused down without Wurm or S.Walk, there’s not much you can do, really (by focused down, I mean by 3+ people). You can panic-press Plague, panic-spam #2 like me and I guess praying is always an option. Unless you grab something like Spectral Armor, in which case you’d have to hope to wait out the storm while in DS and fight your way away. That’s why it’s high risk… you have to put yourself at risk to deal nice damage, but then you risk being focused down, and mobility skills are not, at times, as plentiful as other classes. I am iffy talking about this because aside from my Mesmer, my Necro is my only other character built for damage, and he can still tank a kitten-ton, almost up there with my bunkers… so I dunno.

I may make a bunker(?)power build (ew power) with Necro that has -60% condi duration, in conjunction with Wurm and S.Walk and see how it performs (Hoelbrak Runes – with Sigils of Battle for more damagey build or Melandru for full tank, and of course Lemongrass food). In theory, the -condi should take care of roots/slows (things Necros have it hard against) and other annoying condis in outnumbered fights. The reason it would be power is because I don’t think you can really use a condi build and be 100% effective without +40% condi duration food. Since I’d be using -40% condi duration food… yeah. Unless trait points are placed in Spite, and Toxic Focusing Crystals are picked up, as well as Sigil of Malice, or Agony, which would up the condi duration to offset the loss of Koi Cakes… I dunno. Anyway… off topic.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

manveruppd.7601:

you can keep it up almost permanently.

Way to take it out of context. Full quote from manveruppd is “The only time DS is hilariously OP is in wvw zerg fights, where you can keep it up almost permanently.” Even if that were true… it’s pretty irrelevant because you are probably spamming staff #1. Yes… staff #1.
Cuz you know, full Necro zergs are the thing for WvW. Certainly not melee trains.

Lmfao… fun doesn’t matter? People play the game to have fun. Reducing build viability, lowering the skill cap, and removing playstyles, and SUSTAIN (something that we were supposed to have BUFFED) is the opposite of fun. It ain’t good for your game. Unintended or not, and going back on your word…. you better get your kitten together or you will lose your customers, quite simply and realistically. And…. if it was “unintentional”… couldn’t they MAKE it intentional? That would solve a lot more problems instead of making more.

And just as an fyi, Deathshroud stomping used to be considered as an “unintended functionality” or as an “exploit”. And look at it now.

An unintended function that was there for 2 years and actually allowed for some high skill cap gameplay and interesting builds/playstyles? They never said it was “unintended” and even if it was… come on… 2 years?
And to think they’d do it after saying they’d give sustain… and that’s what I find really silly, cuz (of course they didn’t mean it that way) but it’s like they rub it in by doing the opposite.

Yeah, they added it to the new Death Magic trait, sort of, but I still think that isn’t an excuse to remove how it was was originally.

Getting focused by 5 rangers and letting your DS run out, and being able to pop spectral walk or locust swarm and popping into DS after a few seconds allowed for some really fun gameplay and actual, yes-you-guessed-it … sustain. But no, let’s just scrap the “unintended functionality” because it works really well but you know… it’s unintended so… let’s just do it either way, right? Sounds good.

I don’t believe in calling a build or playstyle cancer cuz that’s just…. no. Other than that, I agree 100% with Skarware.

And @Pelopidas,
If they want us to go 30 points (or 6 points by the new system) into Death Magic just so our DS can be somewhat like it was before…. no thanks. Even if DS remained the same, and a Necro specced 100% into Spectrals and went 30 into Death, you would probably still be balanced. The DS change is still not justified. It’s quite simply…. bad. And it was an unwise step. I can’t wrap my head around it, really.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

ust in case a dev ever stops by.

2. Flesh wurm is summoned where you are: range is similar to mes portal and blast finisher is at your location when you cast recall

Noooo…. Only blast finisher at your location. You do not want to swap positions with it. And you don’t want it summoned at your spot XD
If you swap positions with it it will
a) Die and become useless, increasing the overall cooldown
b) Remain alive and will be in the fray somewhere. Next time you need it to gtfo, it will be in the middle of enemies. You won’t be able to use it as a stun break or as a get-a-way card. If you do. You’ll tele into them and die.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

3. Spectral Walk base duration increased to 14s. LF generation halved.

Eh…..
The increased duration could be good but borderline OP. The decreased lifeforce generation would be negligible… I think it’s good as it is….

1) Reverse our Deathshroud cooldown nerf
2) Apply Soul Marks permanently to staff
3) If not ^ , add condition to staff auto attack, like they did to mesmer scepter.

I actually really like the idea of Deathshroud. CCed? Enter DS. Got mass condis on you? DS. Getting ranged from afar by that annoying Air Sigil Ranger? DS. Which is why it’s irritating that they’d mess with it when it’s supposed to be one of our defense mechanics! I’ll keep bringing it up every chance I get
Anyway…

-I think Spectral Wall is brilliant. Placing it infront of a large group then popping Deathshroud to tank, blocking off a path of your enemies, generating life force, protection, Chaos Armor by blasting it (this needs to be more reliable for sure)… not to mention the fear. I think it’s a very good skill.
-I will agree 100% on Locust Swarm. It’s spot on in everything – multiple pulses (on-crit procs), massssiiivvee life force regen, cripple, and it just synergizes with everything, basically.
-Spectral Armor – Probably one of my favorite Necro skills. I think it works really, really well. The enemy doesn’t have much choice. Whatever they do, you will get Deathshroud, and if they don’t attack, you will still be able to attack them. Generally good synergy with Necro.
-Spectral Walk – Swiftness, life force regen, and jukes. Also good synergy.
-I have to mention Wurm. There isn’t that much synergy, and it could use some fiddling with (making the blast actually do something) but other than that, a nice gtfo card.
-Well of Blood. One of my other favorite Necro skills. I just really like the idea of it, except it doesn’t really work too well outside sPvP or PvE. If when you entered DS, it healed your DS instead of your HP, or healed your actual HP, it would make things very interesting indeed.
-Soul Marks are spot on. I actually think Soul Marks should be a passive thing for Necro staff. Maybe not the whole 3% Life force per Mark, but if they stapled that to Necro staff as a passive thing, it would open things up in interesting ways and could solve much of our sustain issues, in my opinion. Either way, the sustain it provides is very nice.
-Grasping Dead, Chilblains, Dark Path, Doom, Tained Shackles
-Plague- AoE Blind cover. Spectrals need to work while in these. I dunno why they’d remove spectral effects with this. Perhaps popping Spectral Armor and going into Plague with 0 life force, then coming out with nicely filled life force was too much? I dunno.

Those are just the things I find are well done. Sure some of the things, like Deatshroud, could use a some work, but still gets a general thumbs up from me.

Either l2p or strip its boons.

Maybe it’s time to let the Necros loose.

Although I do agree that the recent Deathshroud nerf put a nice dent in our survival and I can’t find the words why it was done, I don’t think messing with Wurm would compensate for that. I think a much easier way would have been just roll back certain Spectral Buffs a bit and all would have been fine. Anyway…

The only interesting change imo would be the implosion-type reaction when you teleport away.
But… as was said earlier… the only thing Wurm really needs is the blast to happen where YOU are, not the wurm itself. Other than that, the skill is actually really fine

p.s. trust me, you DON’T wanna swap places with it. That would hurt you more than benefit you.

Bleed into Vigor anyone? >:)
If anything, it would open up a build or two.

Dear Anet,

I honestly don’t know what you were thinking when you made this debuff. It is a debuff.
It is a debuff to the whole class. In PvE, in sPvP, in tPvP, in WvW. It is a debuff to the whole class. Why would you make such a change when you clearly said you would buff our sustain. Think for a second. You said you’d buff our sustain. You didn’t. You nerfed Deathshroud. I’m not some random player complaining. I’m a player that has played since beta…. and now you nerf our class mechanic.
All I can say is that I am deeply unhappy and I can’t understand why you did this. It was completely unwarranted. Mark my words, you will lose customers.