What if Death/Reaper Shroud were on a 1 second cool-down?

[IcelandicNoobTube.1730]

In the context of PvP and after the release of Scourge, an aspect that has bothered me when playing Core Necro or Reaper is the 10 second cool-down on the Shroud mechanic. I personally find Scourge more enjoyable (fun) to play than Core Necro/Reaper for two reasons:

1. I have access to my weapon skills and heal/utility/elite skills at all times when playing Scourge, whereas my weapon skills and heal/utility/elite skills are replaced by 5 Shroud skills after activating Death Shroud or Reaper's Shroud.
2. I have access to my Scourge professions specific skills at all times, whereas the Death Shroud and Reaper's Shroud skills may only be accessed by activating the Shroud mechanic.

Playing as Scourge is inherently more flexible. Consider the example of a 1v1 against a low health opponent that has activated their heal. I can activate Garnish Pillar to fear my opponent to cancel their heal and increase the cool-down of their healing skill. My opponent is then forced to either attack me or flee. If they attack me, I can use my remaining Scourge profession skills to cleanse conditions and create a barrier for defensive purposes, or induce conditions for offensive purposes. If my opponent flees, I can save my Scourge professions skills, as well as life force, for a later encounter, and try to finish them off with my weapon and utility skills.

Meanwhile, it is as if the Necromancer profession and it's Reaper elite specialization forces the player to activate all of the Shroud skills regardless of their applicability for a given situation since the player is: (a) punished for entering Shroud due to lacking access to the heal/utility/elite skills; (b) punished for staying in Shroud due to a gradual drain in Life Force; and © punished for leaving Shroud due to the 10 second cool-down. Sometimes I just want to fear my opponent with Doom but save Dark Path for the (later) possible scenario that my opponent creates distance between us. However, given the current design of the Shroud mechanic, the most viable option I have is to activate all Shroud skills, regardless of how applicable they are for the given situation, since the two alternatives are to: (a) wait in Shroud for a useful opportunity for Dark Path while losing life force; or (b) deactivate Shroud and risk not having access to Dark Path.

I am not saying that the Core Necro/Reaper is broken/underpowered and needs to be completely reworked. It is merely my opinion that the 10 second cool-down on the Shroud mechanic limits the enjoyment and variability of playing Core Necro/Reaper since it feels so repetitive. The Engineer, though lacking in weapon swapping, has a 1 second cool-down when equipping and stowing Engineering Kits, and has access to their utility/elite and tool belt skills when a kit is active. The Core Elementalist lacks weapon swapping and, similarly to the Core Necro/Reaper, has a 10 second cool-down when swapping an attunement but, unlike the Core Necro/Reaper, is not punished when remaining in a single attunement.

Consider the improvements in build variety and gameplay if the Shroud mechanic for the Core Necromancer or Reaper were on a 1 second cool-down after activation/deactivation. As Core Necro, you would no longer feel obligated to trait in Soul Reaping if you only intend to use Doom for fear and Dark Path for cap closer. As Reaper, you would no longer feel obligated to trait in Soul Reaping if you only intend to use Infusing Terror for AoE fear and Death's Charge for keeping distance away from opponents. This would also enable the player to choose traits that gain a benefit from activating Shroud and ignore those that gain a benefit from staying in Shroud.

Naturally, changing the cool-down to Shroud would require for an internal cool-down for traits that activate when Shroud is activated, which for all intents and purposes could be 10 seconds.

A significant imbalance aspect I suspect with this change is that it limits a player's option when facing a Core Necro/Reaper that has activated Shroud. Currently, the player facing the Core Necro/Reaper can choose to avoid combat as a means to gradually diminish the Shroud's Life Force bar (especially for Reaper). This forces the Core Necro/Reaper to either: (a) chase and lose life force over time; or (b) exit Shroud and put it on a 10 second cool-down, which creates an offensive opportunity for the player. This won't be the case with the suggested change, as the Core Necro/Reaper is now in complete control over how their Life Force is diminished. A simple balancing adjustment could be that it costs Life Force when exiting Shroud early; this penalty could scale with how early the player exits Shroud. This would also balance builds that rely solely on traits that activate when Shroud is activated.

[Dadnir.5038]

The CD is important for balance's purpose. There would be to many way to thoroughly abuse a 1 second CD on shroud.

[Anchoku.8142]

Having a rough equivalent of a block/immunity skill available almost instantly with a 1 sec CD is very over-powered. Your point about needing to decide whether to use all should skills or exit without them is part of an intentional trade-off, too. Players are meant to make a tough choice on whether to burn Necro's only block and skill transform, dodge, or eat the incoming skill knowing shroud would be on a 10 sec cool down when they exit. Shroud has to have an opportunity cost.

[KrHome.1920]

I didn't read the whole wall of text.

Anyway, a 1 second cooldown would break necro, as it would remove its vulnerability phase and the only fix would be to drastically reduce life force generation. Without a shroud cooldown life force would basically be health as you have access to it at any time and life force generation would basically be healing (even better than that as shroud reduces damage by 50%).

[DeceiverX.8361]

Only need to see title; it'd be busted as hell unless the necromancer itself was to get absolutely gutted in everything else. Not worth it.

The old Speed of Shadows trait putting shroud on a 7s cooldown at the cost of making staff a trash weapon (which it already largely is regardless) without SM was enough to fundamentally change how necro could be played and made Reaper/necro a MUCH stronger duelist than it is now, to the point where it had very few downright bad matchups.

That should say a lot - I don't think this needs to be fully explained just because the existing shroud cooldown trait was already amazing for flickering plays, with 7x the cooldown.

[Teratus.2859]

The trade off for scourge is that you don't get to substitute your health with life force.

Personally i'm quite the opposite, I really dislike Scourge compared to Core and Reaper because I like the shroud mechanic.

[Nabbut.7480]

There is a PvE/PvP split so putting it to 7 seconds in PvE only would trigger appreciation from PvE players while not triggering it's opposite from PvP'ers.