Guild Wars 2

I do not know if this is the right forum for this but I have a suggestion regarding necromancers specialization.

I noticed that while the death shroud allows for ranged combat the reaper shroud is suited for melee. I’m not complaining about the specialization but I do wonder if having the reaper shroud bound to F2 and leaving the death shroud to F1 would enable necromancers to activate a shroud depending if they are back-line or front-line. If the shared life force pool isn’t enough of a limitation then perhaps having a shared cool-down would.

I know that a fair number of people will respond to this post with complaints regarding making necromancers more powerful but while I admit that their argument would have value as more option does make them stronger, I would like to present the counter argument that this isn’t about making necromancers more powerful but more versatile and thus I do think that my initial argument has value and should be given some consideration.

Thank you very much

Elite specializations are meant to be a sidegrade that changes the way you play. This would make the reaper much more of an upgrade. If you want to stay out of melee range, then you just don’t choose reaper as one of your specializations.

I have been thinking about it and if reaper had both reaper’s and death shroud, I think it would been only half as appreciated. By changing DS to RS they forced necro’s to rethink their build and gave the devs new opportunities in terms of weaknesses and strengths.
I also think this why most other specialisation s are less appreciated by other classes, the devs have a hard time creating new strengths and weaknesses to the new specialisation since every aspect of the base class is still possible within the specialisation with the loss of some trait combinations.

Diovid.9506:

Elite specializations are meant to be a sidegrade that changes the way you play. This would make the reaper much more of an upgrade. If you want to stay out of melee range, then you just don’t choose reaper as one of your specializations.

Chronomancer, berserker, herald, and tempest disagree.

It simple really, want range don’t spec reaper. Want melee spec reaper.

The point is to give different choices for play style, not roll it all into one and give the best of both worlds.

Zalavaaris.5329:

Diovid.9506:

Elite specializations are meant to be a sidegrade that changes the way you play. This would make the reaper much more of an upgrade. If you want to stay out of melee range, then you just don’t choose reaper as one of your specializations.

Chronomancer, berserker, herald, and tempest disagree.

Sort of yes. However, Anet seems to have made a distinction between elite specializations which get an off-hand weapon and added mechanics on the one hand (chronomancer, berserker, herald and tempest) and elite specialziations which get a two-handed weapon and changed mechanics on the other hand (dragonhunter, daredevil, reaper).

Zalavaaris.5329:

Diovid.9506:

Elite specializations are meant to be a sidegrade that changes the way you play. This would make the reaper much more of an upgrade. If you want to stay out of melee range, then you just don’t choose reaper as one of your specializations.

Chronomancer, berserker, herald, and tempest disagree.

It’s not the same, because with two shrouds a reaper could rotate through the abilities of both of his shrouds before he spends all of his life force. There would have to be some pretty big restriction in place.

To use berserker and tempest as examples. The berserker can use his adrenaline on only one of his burst skills every time he builds it up. The tempest overloads take a major time investment to pull off, which means that you cannot use any abilities with a cast time during their channels and this is not taking into account the rest of their severe drawbacks.

Reaper is one of the best elite specs atm, they really don’t need to have both shrouds. Also, berserker and tempest are not upgrades at all, even though they add mechanics. Not sure about chronomancer and herald.

This is something i would like to see.

Necros are currently lacking a decent ranged power option.

If we take Reaper Shroud, where is our ranged pressure coming from?

We already have enough limitations attached to the class; mobility, CC, focus fire

We don’t need any more limitations imo.

Cheers
Avi

Avigrus.2871:

If we take Reaper Shroud, where is our ranged pressure coming from?

Haha, Axe I guess. Apparently it’s being considered for a rework though, so one can hope :P.

Either way, I’m with Diovid and others. This is actually one of the reasons Reaper is one of the best if not thee best designed elite specialization. They are supposed to be side-grades, and not an upgrade, and while I think most of us can agree that Reaper probably is a whole lot stronger than default Necromancer, the fact you can’t access a Shroud mode with ranged-combat options while taking the Reaper spec is actually good design and means that there is still some reason to use purely base specialization lines rather than always having Reaper in some circumstances. It’s prevents base Necromancer from becoming totally obsolete.

As a result, personally, I’m against Necromancer having access to both Death Shroud and Knight Shroud at the same time. Pick one or the other, and it should stay that way.

Don’t forget, mobility (and by extension, lack of ranged combat prowess), is clearly supposed to be one of the key weaknesses of Reaper. Afterall, that’s why it’s such a beast in up-close and personal melee combat.