Over the weekend there were a few people that were asking how to deal with Necromancer's Death Shroud ability. So I decided to try to post in as much detail as I can how it works and ways you can deal with it.

First off, Death Shroud is the Necromancer's class mechanic. They can enter Death Shroud when they have accumulated enough Life Force. Life Force is gained several ways depending on how the Necro is specced. Certain skills will give Life Force, and certain traits as well.

After building up life force and entering Death Shroud, the Necromancer's health bar will turn green. This acts as a second health bar, so any damage dealt while the Necro is in death shroud will lower their Life Force bar thus popping them out of Death Shroud faster. It does not, however, lower their actual health bar while they are in death shroud.

Now the question is: How do I deal with them when they're in this form?

Personally I would say it's situational. If they enter DS and you see a huge green health bar then I would say the best thing to do is try to LOS them. Because if they have a full life force bar, it's going to take a while to get them out of DS all the while you're taking damage from them. If you can LOS them you're going to force them to end DS prematurely and start the 10sec CD. Or, make them chase you while in DS which moving while in DS makes Life Force drain faster.

If they go into DS and the health bar isn't too big, you can probably just burst damage them out of it to pop them out faster. This is also true if they enter DS shortly after exiting it because it takes a bit of time to build up a lot of life force.

I couldn't help but to necro a Necro thread.

As a necromancer I find that there are 2 great ways to deal with me in this state. Like you said the first is to run away and LoS. Since I lack a speed boost that is the best way, but remember that I can Dark Path you if you stay in LoS.

The other option with works out rather well is to chain stuns, dazes, or interrupting abilities like a knockback. Many Necro's will sit on the auto-attack of Life Blast but since it has a cast time you can interrupt it. However, it depends on their build since they could pick up stability making this option moot.

A small side note.

This is also true if they enter DS shortly after exiting it because it takes a bit of time to build up a lot of life force.

Be careful of this. Unless you SEE their Life Force when they exit you shouldn't assume it will be almost empty. Many will drop in and out of DS to keep maximum uptime of near max LF. Also, there are a couple of abilities in the right situation that can let a Necro recharge nearly half of their LF in a couple of seconds so be aware!

Yeah, I should have specified that better. That was under the assumption that they had depleted all of their life force. We also have a 10sec CD once we exit DS before we can enter again. There is a trait that reduces that CD by 33%, but I don't know of many Necros that would choose that over stability since they're both in the final trait slot and you have to choose one or the other.

Our biggest life force builder is the Blood is Power utility skill and is on a 30sec CD (24 if they trait for it), which gives us 20% LF if it lands. We also build up life force if you hit us while we have Spectral Armor up (when the necro becomes a green transparent color).

If they are shroud dancing like Sryii mentioned and trying to stay above a certain %, like 50%, then I'd say the best way to deal with them is to just hammer them to deplete their LF faster to get them to force themselves out. Or if you have objects that you can quickly LoS around then use that to get them to force themselves out. I good example of this is Forest of Niflhel. Each capture point has a pillar or rock you can LoS with. If you're forcing them to move, you're causing them to deplete their LF faster.