Manifest Sand Shade

Shade. Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force[sic]. Using a shade ability strikes enemies near you and your shades. — In-game description

Manifest Sand Shade

Profession

Necromancer (skill list)

Specialization

Scourge

Slot

Profession mechanic

Type

Shade

Game link

API

44946, 42297

“

0.5½  3  

Manifest Sand Shade

Shade. Manifest a sand shade using some of your life force[sic]. Using a shade ability strikes enemies near you and your shades.

 Damage: 177 (0.666)^?

 Damage: 27 (0.1)^?

 Torment (2s): 44 Damage, 64 Damage if Foe Is Stationary

 Torment (1s): 22 Damage, 32 Damage if Foe Is Stationary

 Number of Targets: 3

 Number of Targets: 2

 Duration: 8 seconds

 Duration: 15 seconds

 Maximum Count: 3

 Count Recharge: 8 seconds

 Count Recharge: 15 seconds

 Radius: 180

 Range: 900

— In-game description

Mechanics

• Despite what the skill description claims, this skill does not cost life force.
• Shade skills happen around the scourge and any already existing sand shades.
• Using any Shade skill, including Manifest Sand Shade, will strike enemies near the scourge or any sand shade.
  • Manifest Sand Shade inherits traits that modify "Shroud skill 1". For example, with Reaper's Might the scourge will gain might when using any shade skill or with Dhuumfire the strike from Manifest Sand Shade will apply burning on hit as well.
    • Traits that modify other shroud skills will only work on their respective skill. For example, Transfusion only happens when using Garish Pillar.
• If any sand shade is out of range or the scourge does not have line of sight to that shade, using any Shade skill will display the appropriate 'out of range' or 'no line of sight' message indicating that that particular sand shade was unable to carry out the command.
• Targets can only be affected by Shade skills once, regardless of how many sand shades and/or the scourge are in range. Each sand shade and the scourge have a limit on how many targets they can affect.
  • This behavior, and the radius of sand shade, may be modified with the trait Sand Savant. See the following table:

Game mode	Trait	Maximum number of sand shades	Targets per shade and scourge	Total maximum number of targets	Radius	Charge recharge
PvE	Default	3 sand shades	3	12	180	8 seconds
	With Sand Savant	1 greater shade	5	10	300	10 seconds
PvP	Default	3 sand shades	3	12	180	15 seconds
	With Sand Savant	1 greater shade	5	10	300	30 seconds
WvW	Default	3 sand shades	2	8	180	15 seconds
	With Sand Savant	1 greater shade	2	4	300	30 seconds

Related traits

Spite

• Reaper's Might — Shroud skill 1 grants might.

Curses

• Parasitic Contagion — A percentage of your condition damage heals you. Healing will not occur while life force replaces health.
• Target the Weak — Increases critical-hit chance for each condition on the foe. Gain condition damage based on your precision.

Death Magic

• Corrupter's Fervor — Inflicting a condition on a foe grants carapace. Gain pulsing protection while at or above the carapace threshold.

Soul Reaping

• Unyielding Blast — Shroud skill 1 inflicts vulnerability.
• Sinister Shroud — Shroud skills gain reduced recharge.
• Dhuumfire — Shroud skill 1 inflicts burning on your target.

Scourge

• Sand Sage — Gain concentration and expertise when you have an active shade.
• Blood as Sand — Reduce all incoming damage taken when you have a shade active.
• Sand Savant — Summon only one shade at a time. This greater shade has a modified recharge. Influence a larger area with shade skills. A greater shade counts as three shades for related traits.
• Demonic Lore — Torment you inflict deals increased damage and causes your foes to burn. This trait can only inflict burning on a particular target once every three seconds.
• Desert Empowerment — Manifest Sand Shade grants a barrier to allies near it. When you apply barrier, grant boons to the affected target. This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
June 27, 2023	Reduced shade duration from 20 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.
July 28, 2020	Increased ammo recharge time from 8 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW.
July 08, 2020	Reduced the target cap of shades from 3 to 2 in WvW only. Reduced the target cap of greater shades from 5 to 2 in WvW only.
July 07, 2020	Shade skills have been changed back to triggering at both the necromancer's location and their shade locations with each use. (Undocumented) Target cap reduced to 3.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 0.666 to 0.1. Reduced torment duration from 2 seconds to 1 second. This skill now uses the PvE ammo recharge of 8 seconds in all game modes.
December 03, 2019	This skill no longer inflicts cripple in all game modes. Reduced ammunition recharge for the untraited version of this skill from 15 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.
October 15, 2019	Fixed a bug that prevented the effect of this skill from lasting more than 10 seconds in PvP and WvW when not traited with Sand Savant. The effect will now last for the increased duration of 15 seconds in PvP and WvW.
October 01, 2019	Shade skills no longer affect the area around the scourge while they have a shade present in the world. Increased the number of targets affected by shade skills from 3 to 5. The duration of sand shades in WvW and PvP has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.
March 27, 2018	Scourge (Profession): Fixed an issue that caused an obstruction error when there wasn't a line of sight to a target, but there was a line of sight to the shade. Enemies in range of the shade will now be struck if the shade is visible to the necromancer. Fixed an issue in which this skill could still hit downed enemies multiple times.
February 06, 2018	Added a 0.5-second warning to enemy players on each shade and on the player when activating a shade skill.
November 07, 2017	Fixed a bug that could cause this skill's targets to be lost due to proximity between shades or the casting scourge. Made back-end changes to increase the priority of shade visibility.
October 17, 2017	Fixed a bug that allowed strikes from this skill to hit from multiple sand shades on the same target. (WvW and PvP only): The spawn duration of sand shades has been reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
September 22, 2017	Path of Fire release: Manifest Sand Shade has been added to the game.

Trivia

• The Scourge may occasionally shout one of these lines when using Manifest Sand Shade:

By my will!

Rise and serve.

The compact is sworn.

You will obey.