Black Storm.6974

As I said before, you have to select PvE Missions in your preferences, in the Guild panel. Then since the next week you will only receive PvE Guild Missions, at least one of them is easily doable alone every week. There is no need to unlock “PvE opportunities” or any of the Mission slots (and I strongly suggest to don’t do it). When there is the Guild Race, you can start it when another Guild is doing it. The Race is a public mission, that means that you can compete it even alone if people from another Guild are doing it (it happens very often). The easy Bounty is often doable without any help.Anyway you can consider asking in Map chat to tell you if someone see the Bounty target, just to make it faster for you.In case you are not able to kill the boss, ask for help in Map chat (or anywhere), generally killing them only takes few seconds.Bounty targets mostly follows always the same path, you can see that path on the web if you want to make it easier for you to find them. If you install TacO (overlay add-on) you can even see directly in game the trail they follow. Unlocking the Guild bank only costs 1000 Favor and 50 Gold. You can get that alone for less than 1 hour of playtime spread in few weeks. Even less if you have two “friends” (or anyone) willing to help you a bit for few minutes. If you are on the EU server (not NA), feel free to add me to your contacts and whisper me. I could help you.

Unlocking the bank space for your guild is easy, quite fast and you can even do it alone. The cost of that, in terms of time you have to spend and gold required is negligible. Select the PvE Guild Missions in your preferences, since the next week you will already get at least one mission a week that you can do alone. With few friends you could do some more and reaching your objective would be faster. You do not even need to invite your friends to the Guild. Try looking for some information on what you can do alone and how. You will be able to save up to 3000 gold in your Guild Bank and a lot of valuable materials. I feel like it is totally worth it. I have my own Guild Bank too. If you want to be sure to not lose your Guild in case of loss of your main account (or in case you accidentally leave your Guild, not easy but possible), you could consider putting a free to play account into it.

I agree about Sadistic Searing and Sand Sage. I should have mentioned them in my post.Was the pulse damage you was referring to the one from F5? (Hmm, or maybe you was referring to F2-3-4-5). I think the changes you proposed (or something similar) would be important to solve the problem of Scourge being overly complicated to use effectively.

Yes, I was thinking about PvE. I have now added “PvE” to the title.

It sounds more like the issue you're having is that you have not found a Elte Spec to you desired gameplay style yet rather than Elite Spec themselves. As of now Necro only has two Elite specs that focus on two roles being Reaper is Power based and Scourge is Healer/HP Shield. There is no Elite Spec that Specializes in Condition damage yet. Another issue I notice you mentioning is that you're having a hard time managing your cooldowns which is a common mistake for people who are use to games with gameplay that have zero cooldowns and can instant cast everything. You have to consider greatly how you use your skills based on time and scenario rather than spam every single button at once. Managing these cooldowns is far harder on Scourge than on any other thing I tried, and something that most players will never be able to do effectively. It is a Scourge problem that can be fixed. I can manage cooldowns and decisions pretty well after playing Guild Wars 2 for over 12k hours (just not on Scourge condition), focusing a lot on fighting and improving my skills. The vast majority of players will never come even close to that, also because they are not really interested in putting the effort necessary to do that. Scourge “condition” (condition is obviously a generalisation and don’t say everything it can do) exists as a role and most people want Necromancer to play Scourge “for that role”.Scourge is also barely half support, if properly traited every single skill can do “relevant” condition damage. Punishment skills mostly provide very bad support alongside a generally more “relevant” offensive capability. Scourge condition is simply overly complicated, and I doubt it is cause of its intended design and playstyle. It is probably mostly a consequence of other things, for example: several short internal cooldowns put to reduce the effectiveness of traits in a competitive environment, every single F skil doing high damage cause there are traits in other Specs that add that to the Shroud related skills of every Spec.It could be simplified without any drastic change of its current playstyle. I’m just not convinced ArenaNet will be able to design and balance the next Elite Specs without causing similar problems. So, what I hope is that they don’t release any new Elite Spec, instead I hope they can look at the current Specs (Elite or not), also developing “missing skills” (like an elite Signet for Necromancer).

Thank you. I’m doing that already and I find it to be a generally good advise, but in the meantime (that could last forever) these fears affect my life. I think a bit more stability of the environment could help (not only myself) . It is something ArenaNet could easily provide here. I think many people stopped playing (it could not be a problem, surely not for everyone) cause of how ArenaNet took away things they enjoyed. Anyway, as someone else said answering to me, ArenaNet also added things many people are enjoying, by reworking Specializations, but I think they are also replacing things that could be fine with small adjustments (if any at all).

I can not play Scourge in its condition version, it is really overly complicated, more than anything else in the game for me. There is a combination of factors that contribute to generate the problem, making Scourge condition extremely difficult to manage: short internal cooldowns on traits that offensively affect skills, and traits strong enough to make those skills stronger than the auto attack chain; short cooldowns (on skills) and several instant cast skills (powered by the traits I was referring to); strength of the Scepter auto attack chain focused on the third hit, making important to not interrupt it.It is interesting to notice that I have this problem only with the condition version of Scourge. The main reason is that internal cooldowns of traits makes it overly complicated to play. It is interesting to notice that we have these internal cooldowns to not make these traits “too strong” in competitive game modes. I suggest to remove them, finding a different solution to not make the combination of skills and traits “overpowered”. I would really appreciate that. Another thing I really dislike and contribute to generate “the problem” is that to play condition Scourge effectively in PvE, I have to constantly keep my eyes on the cooldowns on the skill bar (that is bad for the game: it makes too difficult to pay attention to all the other things we have to pay attention to while fighting, and it goes strongly against the idea of not having to “play the UI”), these cooldowns are also very short. Also, I have to constantly try to judge what skill I should use next. Another thing that adds to the problem is that every skill is needed as offensive skill (cause some traits add powerful offensive effects to support skills). It would be helpful if some of the skills would be stronger as offensive skill and “other skills” (the support ones) weaker than the auto attack when combined with traits. All this mess is made worse by the necessity to not interrupt the auto attack chain of the Scepter. As I said this is simply impossibile for me (and probably most other people) that I’m even far above average for my commitment to improve my skills. It really totally ruin the fun for me. I don’t doubt that most of the player base is not concerned at all by the problems I mentioned, but this is mostly because the vast majority of them just spam skills on cooldown and don’t care if they can not perform well (if they are aware at all of their performance, which is also unlikely in most cases). I’m not against specs that require to think and are more complicated than others, but this is really too much (also too messy) and this is even on a profession that many people chose to play for its simplicity. I hope ArenaNet will be able, in the future, to consider and prioritise solutions different from “adding short internal cooldowns on traits that affect skills” when designing or balancing traits/skills. Thank you.

The main thing I’m hoping is that ArenaNet won’t add any new Elite Specialization. Since they added Scourge, a Spec that it is impossible to play for me in its condition version, I look only with fear at the possibility of new Elite Specs. Necromancer is the only profession I enjoy playing in Guild Wars 2 (I have all of them), so it would a problem for me if they add a new Elite Spec I can not play. It is interesting to notice that I have this problem only with the condition version of Scourge. The main reason is that internal cooldowns of traits makes it overly complicated to play. It is interesting to notice that we have these internal cooldowns to not make these traits “too strong” in competitive game modes. I suggest to remove them, finding a different solution to not make the combination of skills and traits “overpowered”. I would really appreciate that.Another thing I really dislike is that to play condition Scourge effectively in PvE, I have to constantly keep my eyes on the cooldowns on the skill bar (that is bad for the game: it makes too difficult to pay attention to all the other things we have to pay attention to while fighting, and it goes strongly against the idea of not having to “play the UI”), these cooldowns are also very short. Also, I have to constantly try to judge what skill I should use next. As I said this is simply impossibile for me (and probably many other people), and totally ruin the fun for me.

Please, remove that comment

Recharging Core Tyria Renown Heart Completer: Use this item to automatically complete a Renown Heart, for a price. Five minutes cooldown, 1 Gold price. Can only be used by level 80 characters.

It would be very useful, especially for Fractal CMs. I think about that every single time I’m in Fractal. Anyway, I want a system where there is still to vote to kick people. Probably ArenaNet would have to redesign the party system to include some of the functions that are exclusive to squads.

About the Signet trait. Personally I find really fun how the cooldown reduction works. If ArenaNet will remove it, I doubt the active effects of Signets will ever be as effective, even if they would buff them a bit. Anyway, even after years, I’m finding very hard to adapt to how the control is so centred on the developer side, in MMORPGs (GW2 is the only one I play).Sometimes I need to come back to Skyrim, where I can have almost total control over skills, perks and balance, and none can take away what I find fun to play. Here, at any time the developers could take away things I enjoy, giving things I can’t play in return. I’m glad they are generally light on balancing PvE, otherwise I don’t think I could play it (and than GW2), just like I’m staying away from PvP and WvW now.

Forging Steel is the first instance of a new game content called “Visions of the Past”.ArenaNet put on it rewards that was supposed to be for Strike Missions, for reasons I don’t know (maybe just to not work on an unique reward system). Considering Forging Steel is different from and way longer than any Strike Mission, and considering it already belongs to a different game content, I’d not add it to the Strike Missions we can access to from the portal in EOTN.It would be kind of like adding Dungeons to the Fractal portal, in case ArenaNet, for reasons, would decide to let them count for the repeatable Dungeon Frequenter achievement. Forging Steel even has its own category in the LFG. I’d support the idea of solving that confusion by removing Strike Missions reward from Forging Steel, replacing it with something different (just like Fractal has its own rewards, not mixed with the Dungeon ones). Anyway, I wonder if they are still willing to develop Visions of the Past.

You could look at the lfg a bit more often, if possible. I have been lucky enough to soon find trainings with no kill proof requirements. The guy that taught them to me, later asked to join him again. Now I’m also doing Fractal CMs with guild mates.You could also try to ask people if they know a Guild or a person who teach CMs. You could ask in game, maybe in map chat, if someone is willing to take you into CMs. There are many people willing and happy to help. LFG requirements are also not “set into stone”, you could study the encounter as well as you can, then try to join a training group with few killl proofs requirement and gently ask if you can stay. Lastly, when you know mechanics and you know you can make a good job, you could consider to fake kill proofs. There are a few ways to do that.

ArenaNet, by removing skills and traits, make me feel in fear of losing what I love about my profession. Years ago they removed the elite skill “Plague”, I loved it and its uses. Now I can no longer use it and instead I have Plaguelands, a skill that I hate almost to the point I can’t use it. Recently Vampiric Rituals (trait) was removed too, and I’m really in fear for my current favourite trait: Signets of Suffering. Please ArenaNet, stop removing traits and skills, eventually change them a bit instead (let them be similar in what they provide, at least), and if you want to develop new things, add them instead of replacing the old ones.There are missing skills for several types of skills, traits can be added with Elite Specializations. I’d really appreciate that. Thank you.

I miss the length of the previous south meta and I don’t really enjoy the north one. The south meta reward system seem to be designed for the length of the previous south meta, and for repeatability. The passage from south to north seems just strange to me, reward wise. Maybe they could lower from each 10 to each 5 minutes the reward for the participation to the south meta.

You pick Awaken the Pain:Awaken the Pain does grant you +250 power all the time (if you can keep up 25 might!)Signet of Spite grants you +180 power out of shroud and +0 power in shroud. You pick Signets of Suffering:Signet of Spite grants you +180 power out of Shroud and +270 power in shroudSignet of Vampirism deals ~200 dps in shroud (2x if two targets) Result:Awaken the Pain: 250 more power out of shroudSignets of Suffering: 20 more power + 200 more dps in shroud You deal a significant amount of your overal damage in shroud as you have +600 ferocity there and 100% crit chance. This relativizes the +250 power of AtP out of shroud. At the end of the day the damage difference is less than 1K. Considering the fact that Signets of Suffering is more consistent and improves survivability, this trait is often the better choice. Only in short fights where you have a considerably higher shroud uptime than out of shroud time. As you pointed out 20 more power and 200 dps. Extra 600 ferocity is 40% critdamage. 250 more power out of shroud is important if fights are dragged out.Sure if you can shroud burst > out of shroud rotation > shroud burst and the boss is dead then, yes signets trait is definetly better.I'm a hundred percent with you. But for longer fights, awaken the pain is better as I already showed.It takes almost 2 minutes to kill the 4m health golem.And it's already a shroud uptime maximized build. Leaving you out of lifeforce as soon as the golem dies.In normal raid encounters I believe, that you cannot get to this amount of shroud uptime.In a normal pug group (raids), most bosses also take longer than 2 minutes to kill + there's incoming damage which will lower your shroud uptime (and not all bosses do have adds to refill lifeforce).So: in raids it's definetly awaken the pain that's better. I'm not sure if this is true for fractals as well, I wasn't in there with good groups for a long time, so I don't have a feeling about the average time you need to kill bosses in fractals.Most Fractal bosses have few transition phases where you can’t damage the boss (the others are generally very fast to defeat), often there are also few adds to kill in the meantime. So you often want to leave Shroud after the burst and repeat your Shroud burst as soon as the boss becomes vulnerable again.There is not a single long fight without those phases. Most things in Fractal (champions, groups of mobs) are also defeatable in 2-15 seconds. So, if playing properly the vast majority of the damage (and sometimes even “all” the damage, excluding the first second) is performed while in Shroud. That alone already makes Signets of Suffering generally superior compared to Awaken the Pain (in Fractal). Anyway with Signets of Suffering is generally even more important to avoid taking damage while in Shroud (especially in long fights), when you know you won’t be able to do that Signet of Undeath can solve the problem.

Nothing, it doesn’t matter

I get what your driving at but you do realize they only lost 50 power/condi yes? That's a roughly 1% loss. Not that I am complaining mind you; I recently got into power soulbeast and am really enjoying it both in raids and in fractals so naturally I was terrified that it would be nerfed to the ground (but so far it doesn't seem so). This happened to me with staff weaver as well: the moment I got comfy with the rotation, it was obliterated. I think the relevant thing for me about that is when people continuously imply that Anet 'isn't aware' of the benchmarks and the DPS levels as the reason why they keep making DPS QQ threads ... but clearly Anet is aware and even showing us here they WILL act on it. Your experience is indicative of what I believe to be the truth about balance in this game ... it's not about performance equivalence in DPS. It's a dead end. So now you're saying Anet consider performance and benchmarks in their balancing? What do you mean NOW? I've always said that Anet has some process that they monitor and evaluate Classes for changes ... I'm NOT saying it's related to the DPS measurements that players worship to push meta. Good try though. I really wish I had the time sift through your posts because you are contradicting things you've said and defended so adamantly in the past. This person is full with contradictions. Anyway, it might actually be a good thing: it could mean he/she is slightly changing opinions. Human after all? :) Although he/she will never admit that! About admitting you're wrong every now and then: it might look like I made a mistake in one of my previous posts. Early testing with Snowcrows point towards a 2k to 3k DPS increase on the Power Reaper, which could bring us up to 33k or 34k DPS. At best that's near 10% DPS increase. Still not enough imo, but definitely not insignificant either! One more patch like this, and we're up with the big boys :). BIG DISCLAIMER though, it's early testing and from hearsay ... nothing set in stone yet!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-HZXBYDUU&start=4s 33.4-5k is as high as they could reach. They were trying hard to push for 34k but sadly that couldn't be reached. They managed to reach 34k! But ye it's very RNG dependent so would say average is 32k, which is 2.4k more than the previously expected average of 29.6k Do you know how they managed to reach 34k? I should be sleeping but I think I’ll go back to test power Reaper :) As you said before, it is dependent on rng for out of Shroud attacks critting. They are hoping to pull higher numbers now if they managed to get good rng. Oh and on the 34k one they started off with horrible rng. This is not the same guy, they just used this person's rotation with some minor tweaks (trying to avoid using GS3 >50%). Mind you, even in this video I linked, they got to 33.7k in the end. Here we go, they posted it on Youtube. Do note that they ended up with very little LF as they were going for max damage. In a real raid scenario you would want to add in more LF generations in you rotation >50% as ticking damage would otherwise knock you out of shroud. Yea, and now it's definitely impossible to take any damage in shroud anymore, if you want to max out your DPS! But still: almost 10% increase ... like I said before, not yet enough, but definitely not insignificant either! We are definitely in a better spot in Fractal, thanks to higher bursts with shorter cooldowns, and better Chill uptime. Also, we don’t have critical chance problems in Fractal. In most Fractal encounters we can take Signets of Suffering (which in combination with Signets of Vampirism will also provide the best sustain, both passive and active if needed) instead of Awaken the Pain, with no DPS loss (probably even a small DPS increase in most encounters). Wait. You get 25% critchance in fractals?That's how much you need to critcap right now (assuming banners and fury, if you get spotter as well you still missing 20%). As far as I understood and tested.Also signets offer a lot less power than awaken the pain does.So signets will only be better, if your support is bad and can't give 9 might from the start of fights.Signets only gives an additional 90 power while in shroud.Awaken the pain gives up to 250 extra power in and outside of shroud Signets of Suffering provides 270 power (20 more than the maximum provided by Awaken the Pain) while in Shroud if you use Signet of Spite, not 90. Signets don’t work while in Shroud if you don’t have Signets of Suffering.I have already told you why Signets of Suffering won’t be a DPS loss in Fractal, even taking into account the power loss outside of Shroud. You have to fight in Shroud much more than out of Shroud there, and the vast majority of the damage is performed while in Shroud. Most things die in seconds, most bosses have “invulnerability phases” that let your Shroud recharge while you can’t damage them. Fighting in Fractal is mostly “bursting while in Shroud”. Signet of Vampirism is also, compared to any alternative, a far better heal in Fractal when combined with Signets of Suffering. It can constantly heal you (while doing a small amount of damage), also while in Shroud, and that is useful. About the critical chance, you are right, it is not capped outside of Shroud, so it would be more correct to say that we have far less problems of critical chance there, mainly for two reasons:1- We get extra critical chance based on how much Agony Resistance we have, when using the offensive Fractal potion.2- As I said before the vast majority of the damage comes from bursting while in Shroud (usually with 100% critical chance), in fact Discretize (an international high end EU Fractal guild) don’t recommend to use the Accuracy sigil on the Greatsword. Impact is significantly more effective there.

I really liked that comment. I agree, mostly.

I agree.Unfortunately there is still “some exclusion”, especially in Raids, but it mostly comes from player ignorance: often people make you feel like they are doing you a favour to take you if you play Reaper, it is just that they have an unrealistic vision of Reaper performance compared to other professions.

Everything in that comment is an exaggeration.

I'll play with the words but necromancer's dps is "better" after patch, not worse. (hint: you want to write "worst" instead of "worse" and certainly not "worth") Thank you. You are correct. I meant worst, which is still accurate. English is not my native language, and I still find myself confused with certain words. Except it's not accurate. Reaper can dance circles around Revenant PvE damage while being ridiculously easy to play and super tanky. Enough with the exaggerating. Bechmarks and my own experience tell another story. I can easily out DPS my necromancer by a wide margin on my Guardian/Ranger. I find the Guardian way easier to raid with and perform perfectly with than the necromancer. The meters also show that inexperienced Necro players do less dps and the gap is wider than Guardians. It is time the misconceived preconception dies. Why are you bringing up guardian and ranger? You said necro is the worst end game PvE damage and I pointed out revenant does far less, why would you bring up two different classes who do better dps than both necro and revenant? Have you seen the reaper dps rotation? It's like 7 steps and one part is literally just AAing in shroud for a period of time. It's not only very easy, but does FAR more damage than revenant and is much more durable. Your statement about being the worst in WvW is also laughably false. Reaper might end up being the optimal choice now but necro is still one of the best zerg classes to bring for bombs and boon rips. The only thing that needs to die is necro players thinking their class isn't strong because they think Anet has some sort of dilemma against them when in reality they've got an extremely solid role in pvp modes and are perfectly viable in instanced PvE and turn any open world stuff into a joke. Are you serious or trolling? Looks at benchmarks. The benchmarks that show reaper being an absolutely solid dps pick in PvE while being naturally tanky even in the high end PvE? Take a Reaper to any fractal group as a dps and you'll do just fine, nobody will kick you except for the meta humpers that try to run the absolute optimal builds and wipe over and over because they don't know what they're doing. I often get top DPS in fractals by spamming Reaper Shroud auto attack and spinning until I puke, all while safe from being one shot like the rest of my team. In WvW, necros have been meta for years, even while scourge had single shades, you could just run reaper with Wells and rip more boons than anything except scourge while doing extremely solid damage. Trailblazer stats in WvW also mean condi core necro is an absolute nightmare to kill that can stall people endlessly or just win the war of attrition. PvP is the same story. Extremely durable and dangerous except when focused because no blocks, tons of AoE and boon rip pressure, and Lich form is basically a free win button for any teamfight. Necromancer isn't weak in any way right now, even in PvE. It trivializes even HoT content in glass stats and is by far one of the most beginner friendly classes with tons of ways to be useful, but necro players are still kitten about pre-HoT erra when they were legit bad. I agree that Reaper is not bad in PvE, it is quite good right now. I love its current strength. Anyway what you said about benchmarks is wrong, the last benchmark shows a Reaper with a DPS that is only replicable on the idle golem, cause it seriously lack of Life Force generation and the rotation will never be executable in a real fight, in real fights you will have to use more skills that generate Life Force at the cost of DPS.Also, you still have to be very good at avoiding taking damage, to be playing in good groups, and to be fighting enemies that don’t do much unavoidable damage, otherwise the DPS will drop a lot. That means that Reaper can not do “high DPS” and also tank damage with Shroud, not with what is considered “META”, not with the build used to make benchmarks. If you want to be able to tank some hits and still do high damage (less than benchmarks), you need to use a Signet build (at least Signets of Suffering, Signet of Undeath, Signet of Spite). In many encounters, in most groups, that’s optimal and very effective anyway. High level Fractals are full of people who can’t maintain a decent DPS, that’s true for Reapers like for every other profession. People saying that Reaper is imbalanced are wrong. Reaper is good if played well, adapting the build to the encounter and the group you play with. That is probably true for the other professions too.

Things are extremely unbalanced in PVE though... For me PvE balance is fine, there is no need to continuously stress people with balance even there.

I get what your driving at but you do realize they only lost 50 power/condi yes? That's a roughly 1% loss. Not that I am complaining mind you; I recently got into power soulbeast and am really enjoying it both in raids and in fractals so naturally I was terrified that it would be nerfed to the ground (but so far it doesn't seem so). This happened to me with staff weaver as well: the moment I got comfy with the rotation, it was obliterated. I think the relevant thing for me about that is when people continuously imply that Anet 'isn't aware' of the benchmarks and the DPS levels as the reason why they keep making DPS QQ threads ... but clearly Anet is aware and even showing us here they WILL act on it. Your experience is indicative of what I believe to be the truth about balance in this game ... it's not about performance equivalence in DPS. It's a dead end. So now you're saying Anet consider performance and benchmarks in their balancing? What do you mean NOW? I've always said that Anet has some process that they monitor and evaluate Classes for changes ... I'm NOT saying it's related to the DPS measurements that players worship to push meta. Good try though. I really wish I had the time sift through your posts because you are contradicting things you've said and defended so adamantly in the past. This person is full with contradictions. Anyway, it might actually be a good thing: it could mean he/she is slightly changing opinions. Human after all? :) Although he/she will never admit that! About admitting you're wrong every now and then: it might look like I made a mistake in one of my previous posts. Early testing with Snowcrows point towards a 2k to 3k DPS increase on the Power Reaper, which could bring us up to 33k or 34k DPS. At best that's near 10% DPS increase. Still not enough imo, but definitely not insignificant either! One more patch like this, and we're up with the big boys :). BIG DISCLAIMER though, it's early testing and from hearsay ... nothing set in stone yet!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-HZXBYDUU&start=4s 33.4-5k is as high as they could reach. They were trying hard to push for 34k but sadly that couldn't be reached. They managed to reach 34k! But ye it's very RNG dependent so would say average is 32k, which is 2.4k more than the previously expected average of 29.6k Do you know how they managed to reach 34k? I should be sleeping but I think I’ll go back to test power Reaper :) As you said before, it is dependent on rng for out of Shroud attacks critting. They are hoping to pull higher numbers now if they managed to get good rng. Oh and on the 34k one they started off with horrible rng. This is not the same guy, they just used this person's rotation with some minor tweaks (trying to avoid using GS3 >50%). Mind you, even in this video I linked, they got to 33.7k in the end. Here we go, they posted it on Youtube. Do note that they ended up with very little LF as they were going for max damage. In a real raid scenario you would want to add in more LF generations in you rotation >50% as ticking damage would otherwise knock you out of shroud. Yea, and now it's definitely impossible to take any damage in shroud anymore, if you want to max out your DPS! But still: almost 10% increase ... like I said before, not yet enough, but definitely not insignificant either! We are definitely in a better spot in Fractal, thanks to higher bursts with shorter cooldowns, and better Chill uptime. Also, we don’t have critical chance problems in Fractal. In most Fractal encounters we can take Signets of Suffering (which in combination with Signets of Vampirism will also provide the best sustain, both passive and active if needed) instead of Awaken the Pain, with no DPS loss (probably even a small DPS increase in most encounters). No DPS loss because fights are mostly a lot shorter and Shroud bursts (often performed when the enemy has the Exposed debuff) are more important. Often Shroud bursts will also be available after “invulnerability phases” (almost every boss require to rapidly burst, “pause” and burst again). There is not much out of Shroud fight in Fractal. Gaining Life Force in Fractal is also much less of a problem.