Its time for Shroud CD reduction, anet

Since the latest Balance patch is out i think its time to ask again for the most nessecary patchnote we all are waiting for. Finally you can buff/ nerf whatever you want, anet, but necro stand and fall with shroud, and 10 sec shroud cd are simply to high for the only one defense mechanic existing on that class. in real fights shroud cd get also increased by chill very often so normal cd are 12-13 seconds. while classes like mesmer,ranger, .... can spike you every few seconds. often i die with full shroud because i filled it, but cd is too high to use it again...

reduce it to 8 seconds and make it uneffected by chill and alacrity (like a weapon swap) would help alot to bring this class back to meta in pvp/wvw.

Can't do it because REASONS.

While I concur fully, druids got a similar treatment with their celestial avatar, though it could be argued that they are not heavily dependent on CA to survive.

Also while we are on the topic of shroud being the main and barely passable defensive mechanism, I would also like to highlight that necro weapons are pretty much the only class that don't give any kind of decent defensive/mobility mechanism like invis, block, blink, leap, evade etc.Every other class has some form of decent defense/mobility on their weapons.

Necro weapons need help.And no, blind on dagger and GS, a conditional defense that requires landing on opponent is not decent.Regen on staff and focus is not decent and also requires landing on opponent.Weakness on dagger is not decent and also requires landing on opponent.

We need decent defensive skills on weapons that negate damage totally instead of making them less damaging.We need defensive skills on weapons that don't require us to land them on opponents.We need skills on weapons that give us some form of mobility.

8 seconds wont make that big of a difference but it might help some. Ideally you dont die with full lf nothing outside of spectral skills will get you from 50% lf to 100% in 10 seconds. So if you died with 100% because the cd was slightly too long its likely that you were going to die regardless shroud would have just denied it for a few more seconds. (you are likely at an extreme disadvantage here) Or you should have never dropped your shroud to keep stock of that life force in the first place which is a player mistake for the situation.

Perhaps the situation was out of your control (being kited and couldn't chase or keep up with your foe. So as a result they you left shroud to save some life force. The foe then jumps back on your face and you cant do a damn thing about it. Welp not even a lower cd will prevent that either way you still die the moment they jump back in on you and even with the lower cd whats to stop that person from just poofing off into the distance to kite you again.

Keep in mind a massive number of necro traits are on entering shroud do this or that. While in shroud do this or that. The moment you start cutting the cooldown on going in and out you start also messing with the effectiveness of these traits.

Ideally reaper should have a shorter time for sure due to the increased shroud drain and being a melee spec.Core could remain at 10 secondsReaper could probably go down to about 8 seconds

But these wont fix the real issues to be honest a shorter shroud time wont make up forMass evades, Blocks, Mobility, Stability, and boon sweat that necro lacks but every other profession has.

@ZDragon.3046 said:8 seconds wont make that big of a difference but it might help some. Ideally you dont die with full lf nothing outside of spectral skills will get you from 50% lf to 100% in 10 seconds. So if you died with 100% because the cd was slightly too long its likely that you were going to die regardless shroud would have just denied it for a few more seconds. (you are likely at an extreme disadvantage here) Or you should have never dropped your shroud to keep stock of that life force in the first place which is a player mistake for the situation.

Perhaps the situation was out of your control (being kited and couldn't chase or keep up with your foe. So as a result they you left shroud to save some life force. The foe then jumps back on your face and you cant do a kitten thing about it. Welp not even a lower cd will prevent that either way you still die the moment they jump back in on you and even with the lower cd whats to stop that person from just poofing off into the distance to kite you again.

Keep in mind a massive number of necro traits are on entering shroud do this or that. While in shroud do this or that. The moment you start cutting the cooldown on going in and out you start also messing with the effectiveness of these traits.

Ideally reaper should have a shorter time for sure due to the increased shroud drain and being a melee spec.Core could remain at 10 secondsReaper could probably go down to about 8 seconds

But these wont fix the real issues to be honest a shorter shroud time wont make up forMass evades, Blocks, Mobility, Stability, and boon sweat that necro lacks but every other profession has.

GS 3 can fill a lot of LF, and ax2+focus 4 does it too. Problem is not that the opponent directly jumped to me when i leave shroud (only thiefes do that easy). Problem is that most burst skills like ranger LB 2 or mesmer shatter havee cooldowns around 10-12 seconds. if you get chilled as necro your shroud cd goes up to 12-13 + seconds. so you Counter first spike with shroud than cd of enemies burst skill go down while you ususally still inside shroud. if you leave shroud you have 10 seconds cd while burst of your foe has around 7-8 and his seconds spike cannot get countered with shroud LF. dodges already get used to dodge stunnes and stuff like that so its finally a question of a few seconds cd that is killing me...

You are meant to play scourge until the next expansion. Don't worry about those other specs.

I don't think the devs understand the difference between completely avoiding attacks and just being able to "soak that damage real good." And just how powerful the former is and how weak the latter is. In PvP we have very few opportunities to "outplay" our opponent because we just face-tank almost all the damage, stuns, knockbacks, etc. We can't block at just the right time (and don't get me started on blocks that last 3 seconds so you don't even have to outplay anything).

The lack of understanding of their own game is baffling.

Shroud is the reason necro will never be very good at either PvP or PvE (it's the reason we can't have more damage and its the reason we can't have real defense skills)... though we really shine in the Open World ;)

@Zero.3871 said:Since the latest Balance patch is out i think its time to ask again for the most nessecary patchnote we all are waiting for. Finally you can buff/ nerf whatever you want, anet, but necro stand and fall with shroud, and 10 sec shroud cd are simply to high for the only one defense mechanic existing on that class. in real fights shroud cd get also increased by chill very often so normal cd are 12-13 seconds. while classes like mesmer,ranger, .... can spike you every few seconds. often i die with full shroud because i filled it, but cd is too high to use it again...

reduce it to 8 seconds and make it uneffected by chill and alacrity (like a weapon swap) would help alot to bring this class back to meta in pvp/wvw.

It would still be too weak. Reaper is a joke now, they purposefully broke it at a fundamental level to sell expansion packs. It's a disgrace.

@ZDragon.3046 said:8 seconds wont make that big of a difference but it might help some. Ideally you dont die with full lf nothing outside of spectral skills will get you from 50% lf to 100% in 10 seconds. So if you died with 100% because the cd was slightly too long its likely that you were going to die regardless shroud would have just denied it for a few more seconds.All the reapers that played with old speed of shadows will disagree. The difference is huge.

That you think it is not possible to fill 50% of LF in 10 seconds let's me question whether you ever played power reaper.

Your few more seconds argument is like saying endure pain just denied the inevitable death of a warrior for 4 seconds. You don't say! Every defense denies the death of its user for a few more seconds. He gets time to fight back. That's what it is all about.

@KrHome.1920 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:8 seconds wont make that big of a difference but it might help some. Ideally you dont die with full lf nothing outside of spectral skills will get you from 50% lf to 100% in 10 seconds. So if you died with 100% because the cd was slightly too long its likely that you were going to die regardless shroud would have just denied it for a few more seconds.All the reapers that played with old speed of shadows will disagree. The difference is huge.

It would depend on the tools you were using but generally no its not a very easy task to accomplish. Now im not gonna sit here and go back and forth about different reaper builds using specific skills that could obviously make it happen within that time frame. Im going by the assumption that you are or could be being focused or are in a team fight and it certainly wont be the case that you build life force easily every single time. Its one of the biggest complaints about necromancer right now.Maybe if you use a gs and use gs3 on a group of people who may or may not also be chilled and you run chilling victory. maaaayyybe.. you could. but thats a very specific situation.

Your few more seconds argument is like saying endure pain just denied the inevitable death of a warrior for 4 seconds. You don't say! Every defense denies the death of its user for a few more seconds. He gets time to fight back. That's what it is all about.

No no no endure pain is not a core feature of warriors profession mechanic you cant compare that to shroud while both can perform the function of delaying death thats not shrouds only primary purpose anymore. Unlike the passive and active endure pain (which are totally different skill types by the way) which are purely defensive in nature.

IF you are going to compare a profession mechanic to something at least compare it to another professions mechanic. Thats like saying my weapon auto attack is not good enough because his elite skill does x & y. You compare them because the both attack in an offensive way but are saying they should be seen as equals

In any case regardless a cd on entering shroud would be nice but it wont fix the issues you will still die quite often with near 100% lf.

I said it in one of the other threads but personally I really like the idea of Foot in the Grave reducing Shroud CD by 30%. It's not a popular trait at the moment and I think it would make for an interesting contrast; the CD reduction is mostly a boon for defensive purposes (unless you're Scourge), and you can have your pick of Power-based Shroud trait, Condi-based Shroud trait or defensive Shroud trait.

@Sarrs.4831 said:I said it in one of the other threads but personally I really like the idea of Foot in the Grave reducing Shroud CD by 30%. It's not a popular trait at the moment and I think it would make for an interesting contrast; the CD reduction is mostly a boon for defensive purposes (unless you're Scourge), and you can have your pick of Power-based Shroud trait, Condi-based Shroud trait or defensive Shroud trait.

the Thing is, most reaper Play deathly perception because of the greater dmg Output you have with that trait. if you loose dmg because you Change to foot in the grave, and get some sustain, finally reaper didnt get stronger in that case. but reaper is weak atm and have to get stronger to be viable. for that there are 2 Options:-buff the current strongest skills/traits (or builds) reaper have, that make him safe stronger, ez way-buff weak traits/skills of necro massively (and i mean massively) to make necro safe stronger, that is the more difficult way for anet because you dont know exactly what is needed to make reaper finally stronger than he was before

so i would prefer the easier and saver way, because we see on vampiric presence what happened if anet try to buff a weak traitline...it ends as nerf. so i would Support a decrease on base cd.

One of the big weaknesses of Anet's balancing is their inability to revisit old nerfs they placed on specs. I will be honest, I never played reaper with the shroud cd trait because I found the soul reaping line in general not the strongest. But the nerf took place at a time when reaper was relatively strong in the meta and could be viewed as a tweak towards balancing it (or viewed as giving incentive to buying PoF if you're a cynic).

With the power creep on both the offensive and defensive side, nerfs like the shroud cd and the fact that anet also gave the additional degen (why anet why) and the cd on exiting shroud (ok give the degen to make people not camp shroud then force them to camp shroud) really hamstrings the spec imo. If anet wanted to they can move the trait up a tier and make it the reduced cd trait. If they're worried about how it'll interact with scourge just do what they've done to path of corruption and split it based on elite spec equipped.

Reduced CD on shroud isn't a fix for anything, since shroud itself (on core and Reaper) are actually nerfs to your planned, thought-out skills, traits and gear choices.

anet has to decide what should shroud do first , either defense or offense . otherwise no matter how much change they make , balance will still be problem .

@musu.9205 said:anet has to decide what should shroud do first , either defense or offense . otherwise no matter how much change they make , balance will still be problem .

That's the major issue of the necromancer's design. Whether it's core, reaper of scourge shroud skills, all of them mix defense, offense and support(?). And this create the feel that it's imbalanced.

Personally I'd prefer a trait that lets you enter shroud at ANY time but you spend life force to do so. Just make the cost based on how much CD is left.

Would that really change anything?And well we already got:Protection from leaving shroud 33%.Shroud extra HP with up to 79% health scaling.Think highst health? With vitality trait.Rise! With got nerfed, but still active 33%.Barrier (well scourge so no shroud) alot of them.Actually mobility :0 worm, reaper, scourge with swiftness and teleport (maybe still less than other classes, but my “charge” got 10sec down time in reaper, and realisticly I always got some lifeforce to spend).

I mean we also got good access to blind and chill, well and weakness :)I mean we got a blind field and a shade that teleport and blind.Chill on aoe chain and our pull with greatsword.Reaper shroud got a slow but decent stun.Our shout can freeze aswell.

In the end I do not think we need a shroud CD.What we maybe need i a bit more active defences to play around with.Maybe also buff the toughness gain from minions as passive, and the scaling of Vampiric Prensence and removing ICD.

The active ability could be a play around conditions or minions.Like when you play corruption you could gain prot or missile reflection, even evade when you reach the condition thresshold.Or get an ability to sacrifice a minion absorbing dmg for 1-2 secs with a cd.

But that is ofc just my opinion :) I feel a lower CD wouldn’t change much tbh.Sometimes it is more the denial of lifeforce if you do not run a boon/lifeforce build.