Guild Wars 2

I’m a returning player and I play necro. At this moment, necros are completely out of all PVE challenging content, in specific dungeons and fractals.
I want to have fun with my character but I feel forced to re roll if what to be accepted by other players and stop being looked like a burden. My question is, are necros/reapers actually on par with other classes in HOT? What changes will make this possible?

I’m still not sure to buy the expansion because I don’t want to feel useless again. This is the reason I left this game for two years and now I hope Anet do their balance job not just for PVP, but in PVE as well.

Well, I do pure PvE. Of all the specs, Reaper was my absolute favorite. I felt effective and sturdy in amongst the Mordrem and dinosaurs.

I did not test Reaper in a dungeon or fractal that I recall (I know I did take Daredevil to SE), nor did I group up with anyone. In fact I may have just chanced on a good stat setup. But I loved it so much. I have three necromancers, none of whom have been my first choice for any PvE once leveled (my mesmers get that honor), mostly because they feel most effective with staff and since I mouse move, that’s a lot okittenwardness in doing ground targeting. I expect that to change once I have a Reaper good to go, using GS mostly with staff my likely backup weapon.

I should note that I almost never full PuG a dungeon or fractal and my guildies are laid back runners who like to clear everything and don’t care what profession I bring. I don’t know what people thought of Reaper’s performance in PuGs. Still, for what it’s worth, I think you might enjoy the changes the Elite brings.

The answer here is to find better people to group with.

From a high end point of view, which is what I’m assuming you are asking. No, It still ranks at the bottom for pve. Although Reaper is a good improvement with some actual AoE, better damage and fantastic vuln uptime our damage is still too low and we don’t offer anything of value to groups. (Vampiric Presence was meant to be our unique buff but is lackluster)

However, we have raids coming and we still don’t know anything about them so. Anything is possible. I wouldn’t get your hopes up though, Anet doesn’t have the most fantastic track record of balancing things well. Let’s just hope having actual endgame pve content will push them to balance things out.

I’m going to go out there and say a strong: Yes.

My current planned Reaper is a power house of pain and that’s without being zerg.
The good thing with Reaper alone is our ability to dish out insane invul.. not as fast as the 1 second engi’s but very quickly none the less.. easily 25 stacks in under 10 seconds at a push (So even less then 10 seconds)
Although we have no access to party might we have still be given skills to use with combo fields now.. yes before/currently we have kitten all ways to use combo fields.
Not only that but Reaper has good ways to get might and maintain it as well from RS AA skill to our shout ult.
I’ve teamed with loads of people over my almost 3 years and pugged even more lol.. the ones i often team with look forward to my Reaper.

We looked at a possible good team build in HoT with the info we currently have and it’s something like:
Reaper, herald, Chrono, Scrapper (non gyro), + 1 spare
This covered fields, dps and boons.
Reaper for the immense dps (Not saying it’s now the best in game, just that’s it’s insane) Chrono for the skill rech/speed and scrapper for the continued vul up time fields and all out support/dps. with 1 spare to fit a support role/dps

Of course it will. Unless you allow others to tell you how and what to do which it seems you have been allowing to happen. Seriously, find like minded people to play with, relax, have a beer and have fun!

We have necros and bear bow rangers in our level 50 fractal guild groups all the time and rock it. As long as players can communicate, learn and know how to operate whatever build/class they are using then it’s all good. This is PvE man. Not rocket science! Now, raids might be a totally different story. We shall see.

Arguing a necro build for vuln doesn’t really make sense, at least in terms of raids. Vuln is a very prolific condition, particularly for many of the new elite specs, and I don’t forsee any group having trouble keeping up 25 stacks in a 10 person group.

Hopefully there will still be a good fit for Reapers in groups, but I’m not convinced they’ll be needed for a specific role. However, with a 10 person group, you probably won’t need everyone running a specific build for a specific role anyways. Once you have your might/dps buffs, portal, stealth, reflects, and blinds covered, you can probably fill up your other raid spots with any class that brings respectable damage.

https://youtu.be/d-slnYGH2l4

i don’t think i could’ve face tanked those spiders w/ a dragonhunter

there is a similar thread on the necro subforum, go read it you’ll probably find what you’re looking for.
And Gee said that raids will be quite differents from dungeon and soft CC (chill was our concern in the thread) will be valuable.

IMO, Reaper will improve the position of Necro in PvE. The damage will be increase that’s for sure. At which level? That we’ll have to test it out at the expansion. My guess is that it won’t be at the bottom like right now and will be more on par with the other profession.

That said, I doudt that would make Necro a meta build. Two thing can give you a place on the meta. Group Support (Mesmer, Thief, Guardian), or High DPS (Elementalist). Reaper won’t have a dps comparable to Engineer and Elementalist and for now don’t have enough support to compete with the other meta profession.

IMO it will be in a similar situation than ranger is now. Still some hate because of minions and fear, but overall a decent profession that will do the job with decent dps and some nice tools.

What could change that is if the new PvE content ask for different form of support. 2 mains things.

1) Mobs have precision and can dodge. Suddently weakness go from a decent condition to a powerful support condition that necro have a lot of.

2) Mobs have powerful boons that you can rip of corrupt. Think about it. If bosses get 10s of protection each 10s. Only the necro could remove it on a regular basis. So having a necro would boost your party dps by around 33%, putting necro very high on the support profession.

They talked about giving precision to mobs in the fractal post, but sadly other than that I’m pessimist that Anet will use those game mechanics in PvE.

Jaxom.7310:

https://youtu.be/d-slnYGH2l4

i don’t think i could’ve face tanked those spiders w/ a dragonhunter

If you were playing a ranged spec like Dragonhunter why would you want to?

Thaddeus.4891:

IMO, Reaper will improve the position of Necro in PvE. The damage will be increase that’s for sure. At which level? That we’ll have to test it out at the expansion. My guess is that it won’t be at the bottom like right now and will be more on par with the other profession.

That said, I doudt that would make Necro a meta build. Two thing can give you a place on the meta. Group Support (Mesmer, Thief, Guardian), or High DPS (Elementalist). Reaper won’t have a dps comparable to Engineer and Elementalist and for now don’t have enough support to compete with the other meta profession.

IMO it will be in a similar situation than ranger is now. Still some hate because of minions and fear, but overall a decent profession that will do the job with decent dps and some nice tools.

What could change that is if the new PvE content ask for different form of support. 2 mains things.

1) Mobs have precision and can dodge. Suddently weakness go from a decent condition to a powerful support condition that necro have a lot of.

2) Mobs have powerful boons that you can rip of corrupt. Think about it. If bosses get 10s of protection each 10s. Only the necro could remove it on a regular basis. So having a necro would boost your party dps by around 33%, putting necro very high on the support profession.

They talked about giving precision to mobs in the fractal post, but sadly other than that I’m pessimist that Anet will use those game mechanics in PvE.

1. Weakness is very sporadic in its defense. You will take significantly less damage overtime if you replace necro with a profession with high protection sharing uptime. Use a guardian or ele to improve group performance.

2. Necro’s corruptions have 40-50s CD’s, making them very poor for 10s boon strips. You will be significantly better off with a profession that can strip boons more reliably. Replace the necro with a thief or mesmer for significantly more consistent boon striping, plus stealth, boon sharing, and higher damage.

If those are the best Anet can do then necro will be even less wanted than now since mesmer, thief, guard, and ele will take even higher priority plus do more damage.

Maybe you were just using a crummy reaper build cause when I was playing it I never had problems, ridiculously high health pools. Almost always 25 might (Reaper’s Might,“You are all weaklings!”). Good healing and shroud generator (Blighter’s Boon, “Your soul is mine!”). Throwing out tons of vuln and burning(Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire). And also a good boon removers (Nothing can save you!, Chill of Death). I guess I’m just confused at how a reaper isn’t good in a group or solo? It has 2 huge health pools that heal like crazy, hits like a truck while applying vulnerability,burning and removing your boons. Do you really need more?

Of course it is.

I play all of the classes so I tried out Reaper and honestly The Reaper is my favorite Elite Specialization by far.

The lifepool of the reaper is insane, in areas I died with my Guardian and Warrior I saw no issues surviving with the reaper. I fricken love this class.

I might be maining it for quite a while in HoT… it’s just a blast to play.

Misguided.5139:

The answer here is to find better people to group with.

While that is an answer, it shouldn’t have to be the answer.

Kronos.2560:

Maybe you were just using a crummy reaper build cause when I was playing it I never had problems, ridiculously high health pools. Almost always 25 might (Reaper’s Might,“You are all weaklings!”). Good healing and shroud generator (Blighter’s Boon, “Your soul is mine!”). Throwing out tons of vuln and burning(Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire). And also a good boon removers (Nothing can save you!, Chill of Death). I guess I’m just confused at how a reaper isn’t good in a group or solo? It has 2 huge health pools that heal like crazy, hits like a truck while applying vulnerability,burning and removing your boons. Do you really need more?

In the current state of pve, all those things are completely useless in group play. Might is already group wide with a PS warrior, who can maintain 25 stacks for the whole group. As for DS, sadly DS is a poor mechanic that doesn’t scale with multiple enemies, thus is less effective vs classes with lots of active defenses. And of course, boon removal is just generally useless, as Anet has yet to add a need for it in current content (Mesmers can also achieve better boon removal then use through sword auto). Vuln is the only nice thing, but in an optimized group It’s also already taken care of. (Gonna be SUPER easy in 10-man raids.)

Necro in the CURRENT state of pve, has no use in groups, our damage EVEN with reaper is lackluster and brings no reason to not just take another ele over taking a necro. Now, as I mentioned who knows what raids will bring, It could easily change the meta.

I’d love raids to support a set up with all 9 classes in the mix. I think the synergies and gameplay would be phenomenal.

However, that is to say, no comp should be mandatory. We all know how hard it is to get 10 good players together regardless of class types.

No.
Only after ele nerf. There are no reason to pick up necro instead of ele.
Reaper will be useful, but anyway people will kick you for playing necro anyway. Regardless of your skill/gear/AP/lfg description.
Well, i think, metazerkoloololgearcheck crap will be here even after HoT release, without ANY changes at all.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. Weakness is very sporadic in its defense. You will take significantly less damage overtime if you replace necro with a profession with high protection sharing uptime. Use a guardian or ele to improve group performance.

2. Necro’s corruptions have 40-50s CD’s, making them very poor for 10s boon strips. You will be significantly better off with a profession that can strip boons more reliably. Replace the necro with a thief or mesmer for significantly more consistent boon striping, plus stealth, boon sharing, and higher damage.

If those are the best Anet can do then necro will be even less wanted than now since mesmer, thief, guard, and ele will take even higher priority plus do more damage.

1) Did you read? ‘’ IF ’’ mobs have precision. I know that right now weakness is not a good support condition, that’s exactly what I said. But that’s because mobs can’t crits on you so you remove 50% of their damage 50% of the time, which is pretty bad. But if they have critical damage you could remove 70/80/90% of their damage 50% of the time. If you also add endurance with mobs that can dodge, then up weakness uptime will increase drastically the DPS of your group since the mobs won’t be able to dodge as much of your burst.

2) There is only 4 professions that can rip/corrupt boons.

-Engineer can do it with mines. They can remove one each 17sec and another one each 18sec. Not that effective if the boss have several boons and that utility isn’t that powerful anyway.

- Thief on a Sword/Dagger setup can do it almost constantly since it only cost 1 initiative. But it’s a poor weapon setup for PvE and If the boons return each 10 second, it mean that the thief will have to stay on the weapon setup for the whole fight. Not efficient, but plausible. It can also steal, but that’s 2 boons each 25second. It’s good, but not enough.

- Mesmer is pretty good at ripping boons. They can rip one boons per shatter, but usually PvE Mesmer are phantams, not shatter so not that useful. Arcane Thievery steal 3 boons on a 36 seconds CD (if traited). Null field can rip all boons on a 32sec CD. And of course the Sword auto-attack, which remove one boon each 2.5 second. There is also mind stab from GS and Phantasmal Disenchenter, but those decrease the Mesmer dps by a lot. Overall Mesmer is pretty good at boon ripping.

- Necromancer is also pretty good at that. Focus can remove 3 boons each 16 sec (traited). In lich form you can rip 9 boons (with the CD of the lich it’s pretty much a one time thing). Corrupt boons take 5 boons each 40sec and Well of Corruption take 6 boons each 32 sec (traited). Finally, a trait allow DS skill 2 to remove 2 boons (on a 6sec CD if on a Reaper). There is also 2 boons per signet when traited and skill #3 on Axe main hand, but both will probably won’t be part of any good PvE build.

In the end, with a decent PvE build Mesmer can rip around 0.5 and 0.75 Boons per second, while Necromancer between 0.5 and 0.85 Boons per second. This can change with the xpac so the different doesn’t really mean anything, they are both equally good at rip/corrupt boons.

Not saying that Necro will be the absolute best profession in PvE if anet do those two thing. But it will improve it by A LOT by giving him suppor capability that count in PvE.

Depends if the meta shifts enough that the new content has enough attrition/unavoidable damage that glass cannon needs to fall to one side and a bruiser meta becomes required.

I don’t know what game most of you have been playing since the most recent balance update, but even without the reaper spec, necro is already a viable class to pick over most classes. I take my necro in dungeons and 50 fractals over all of the other classes except ele and mesmer. Even compared to those two, I’ve been recently using necro more than them. It all comes down to your build and how well you can play it. I play a power DS spec with well utilities and signet of vampirism and lich. For people who say necro doesn’t do high enough damage, I challenge you to find another class that can crit anywhere from 5-7k on autoattack, yes i know it is a fairly slow attack animation but it also pierces, and with the mix of all the other DS focused traits, the damage more than makes up for the slow attack speed. Dagger auto chain is one of the fastest attack chains in the game with a high damage output since it cleaves. Axe 2 crits for about 10-12k every 8 seconds if you know how to set up vuln stacks properly. Wells tick for high aoe damage if used before going into DS… and last but not least, you have 23 seconds of critting for 10-12k on auto attacks from lich every 150 seconds if you trait it right… so please tell me again how necro can be seen as a low damage spec.

Also just because you have players who play your so called meta builds, does not mean your chance for a successful completion is 100%. I can’t even count the number of times the “zerk meta only” stack focused groups have failed in dungeons or fractals because they don’t know how to do anything else with their class besides stand in a corner and spam buttons. I would take a skilled necro over those brain-dead elitists anyday. To answer your question OP, yes reaper will be up there in the meta builds, especially for things like raids where self sustain and party support will be more important than standing in a corner and spamming buttons.

Truefrost.6815:

Kronos.2560:

Maybe you were just using a crummy reaper build cause when I was playing it I never had problems, ridiculously high health pools. Almost always 25 might (Reaper’s Might,“You are all weaklings!”). Good healing and shroud generator (Blighter’s Boon, “Your soul is mine!”). Throwing out tons of vuln and burning(Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire). And also a good boon removers (Nothing can save you!, Chill of Death). I guess I’m just confused at how a reaper isn’t good in a group or solo? It has 2 huge health pools that heal like crazy, hits like a truck while applying vulnerability,burning and removing your boons. Do you really need more?

In the current state of pve, all those things are completely useless in group play. Might is already group wide with a PS warrior, who can maintain 25 stacks for the whole group. As for DS, sadly DS is a poor mechanic that doesn’t scale with multiple enemies, thus is less effective vs classes with lots of active defenses. And of course, boon removal is just generally useless, as Anet has yet to add a need for it in current content (Mesmers can also achieve better boon removal then use through sword auto). Vuln is the only nice thing, but in an optimized group It’s also already taken care of. (Gonna be SUPER easy in 10-man raids.)

Necro in the CURRENT state of pve, has no use in groups, our damage EVEN with reaper is lackluster and brings no reason to not just take another ele over taking a necro. Now, as I mentioned who knows what raids will bring, It could easily change the meta.

If every single group you run always has a phalanx war/(ele for pre fight) and has no need for burning or vuln and are requiring you to bring a “more dps class”. Maybe you shouldn’t be saying whats wrong with this class? but perhaps you should be asking whats wrong with this group?… If you want to follow the max damage zerker rush meta by all means pick a higher dps class and go for it. Necro is about playstyle not pure dps…. and so far it has both (not top dps but reaper hits hard).

Kronos.2560:

Truefrost.6815:

Kronos.2560:

Maybe you were just using a crummy reaper build cause when I was playing it I never had problems, ridiculously high health pools. Almost always 25 might (Reaper’s Might,“You are all weaklings!”). Good healing and shroud generator (Blighter’s Boon, “Your soul is mine!”). Throwing out tons of vuln and burning(Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire). And also a good boon removers (Nothing can save you!, Chill of Death). I guess I’m just confused at how a reaper isn’t good in a group or solo? It has 2 huge health pools that heal like crazy, hits like a truck while applying vulnerability,burning and removing your boons. Do you really need more?

In the current state of pve, all those things are completely useless in group play. Might is already group wide with a PS warrior, who can maintain 25 stacks for the whole group. As for DS, sadly DS is a poor mechanic that doesn’t scale with multiple enemies, thus is less effective vs classes with lots of active defenses. And of course, boon removal is just generally useless, as Anet has yet to add a need for it in current content (Mesmers can also achieve better boon removal then use through sword auto). Vuln is the only nice thing, but in an optimized group It’s also already taken care of. (Gonna be SUPER easy in 10-man raids.)

Necro in the CURRENT state of pve, has no use in groups, our damage EVEN with reaper is lackluster and brings no reason to not just take another ele over taking a necro. Now, as I mentioned who knows what raids will bring, It could easily change the meta.

If every single group you run always has a phalanx war/(ele for pre fight) and has no need for burning or vuln and are requiring you to bring a “more dps class”. Maybe you shouldn’t be saying whats wrong with this class? but perhaps you should be asking whats wrong with this group?… If you want to follow the max damage zerker rush meta by all means pick a higher dps class and go for it. Necro is about playstyle not pure dps…. and so far it has both (not top dps but reaper hits hard).

Lol, that doesn’t even make sense. Nothing is wrong with the group, It’s optimized fully, which is gonna be a common case in raids. People are going to put the groups together looking for the perfect comp. (Unless It’s more casual or pug) All classes should have a near equal footing, of course… Nothing is perfect and some will be better then others but It’s up to the dev team to make sure classes aren’t imbalanced, which is a huge problem for GW2.

No class should be about ‘Playstyle’, every class should have a reason to be there. That has been the problem with necros for the last three years, It’s whats created this elitism towards them. I love the necro, I will always play it… But I would also like to see it stand with the other classes.

maybe in raids, only if chill has a major advantage in the events that happen inside the raid instances….

so not likely. boons dominate debuffs….this will not change in the new content. defiance bar destroys reaper usefulness….everyone has soft cc, so why bring a reaper if chill only damages the defiance bar like a random cripple from another class that brings boons?

ZeroKaos.1682:

I don’t know what game most of you have been playing since the most recent balance update, but even without the reaper spec, necro is already a viable class to pick over most classes. I take my necro in dungeons and 50 fractals over all of the other classes except ele and mesmer. Even compared to those two, I’ve been recently using necro more than them. It all comes down to your build and how well you can play it. I play a power DS spec with well utilities and signet of vampirism and lich. For people who say necro doesn’t do high enough damage, I challenge you to find another class that can crit anywhere from 5-7k on autoattack, yes i know it is a fairly slow attack animation but it also pierces, and with the mix of all the other DS focused traits, the damage more than makes up for the slow attack speed. Dagger auto chain is one of the fastest attack chains in the game with a high damage output since it cleaves. Axe 2 crits for about 10-12k every 8 seconds if you know how to set up vuln stacks properly. Wells tick for high aoe damage if used before going into DS… and last but not least, you have 23 seconds of critting for 10-12k on auto attacks from lich every 150 seconds if you trait it right… so please tell me again how necro can be seen as a low damage spec.

Also just because you have players who play your so called meta builds, does not mean your chance for a successful completion is 100%. I can’t even count the number of times the “zerk meta only” stack focused groups have failed in dungeons or fractals because they don’t know how to do anything else with their class besides stand in a corner and spam buttons. I would take a skilled necro over those brain-dead elitists anyday. To answer your question OP, yes reaper will be up there in the meta builds, especially for things like raids where self sustain and party support will be more important than standing in a corner and spamming buttons.

Oh dear, lol. I think you are living in a past year of the game, Eles can auto fireball for more then that. In fact, DS necro is worse then dagger necro. In a group offering might alone DS is quite sad with deeps, It’s just too slow. (By the way, I can get NB upwards of 9k)

Player skill only takes you so far. Every class has It’s limits for dps, no matter how good you are that can’t be changed. It’s how numbers work, with the most optimized setup you will hit a stonewall which is the highest dps the class can achieve. And It just so happens that last recorded numbers the top was condition engi which was nearly DOUBLE the dps of a DS necro.

As for these ‘meta’ people, this is the common case of groupies. People who follow the meta like It’s the word of RNGesus but don’t understand it. Sadly, this is common among all MMOs and unavoidable. You’ll know the real pros when ya seem em.

Finally, raids… I’ll say it again, for the thousandth time. It all remains to be seen, It very well could change the meta, hell… I hope it does, I could use a change. It’s also interesting to note that the higher end groups don’t do much stacking anymore. But as I mentioned earlier, yet another example of people just following and not adapting.

Relshdan.6854:

maybe in raids, only if chill has a major advantage in the events that happen inside the raid instances….

so not likely. boons dominate debuffs….this will not change in the new content. defiance bar destroys reaper usefulness….everyone has soft cc, so why bring a reaper if chill only damages the defiance bar like a random cripple from another class that brings boons?

Yeah, the DoT on a bar that’s only there briefly and invites hard CC to spike it down is going to be sooooo helpful….

Defiance bars effectively render soft CC useless, unfortunately. There may be other mobs that we need soft CC for, but it will be worthless on bosses.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Relshdan.6854:

maybe in raids, only if chill has a major advantage in the events that happen inside the raid instances….

so not likely. boons dominate debuffs….this will not change in the new content. defiance bar destroys reaper usefulness….everyone has soft cc, so why bring a reaper if chill only damages the defiance bar like a random cripple from another class that brings boons?

Yeah, the DoT on a bar that’s only there briefly and invites hard CC to spike it down is going to be sooooo helpful….

Defiance bars effectively render soft CC useless, unfortunately. There may be other mobs that we need soft CC for, but it will be worthless on bosses.

Yeah, I’m curious to see how they handle that. If Icebow freeze takes a huge chunk out of the bar, I can only think of the horrors of like four eles with a total of eight bows. Shivers

Necros always had a place in pve , unless you want to go to those elitist groups . I dont really see who stops you from doing pve content with a necro unless its yourself

Truefrost.6815:

Kronos.2560:

Truefrost.6815:

Kronos.2560:

Maybe you were just using a crummy reaper build cause when I was playing it I never had problems, ridiculously high health pools. Almost always 25 might (Reaper’s Might,“You are all weaklings!”). Good healing and shroud generator (Blighter’s Boon, “Your soul is mine!”). Throwing out tons of vuln and burning(Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire). And also a good boon removers (Nothing can save you!, Chill of Death). I guess I’m just confused at how a reaper isn’t good in a group or solo? It has 2 huge health pools that heal like crazy, hits like a truck while applying vulnerability,burning and removing your boons. Do you really need more?

In the current state of pve, all those things are completely useless in group play. Might is already group wide with a PS warrior, who can maintain 25 stacks for the whole group. As for DS, sadly DS is a poor mechanic that doesn’t scale with multiple enemies, thus is less effective vs classes with lots of active defenses. And of course, boon removal is just generally useless, as Anet has yet to add a need for it in current content (Mesmers can also achieve better boon removal then use through sword auto). Vuln is the only nice thing, but in an optimized group It’s also already taken care of. (Gonna be SUPER easy in 10-man raids.)

Necro in the CURRENT state of pve, has no use in groups, our damage EVEN with reaper is lackluster and brings no reason to not just take another ele over taking a necro. Now, as I mentioned who knows what raids will bring, It could easily change the meta.

If every single group you run always has a phalanx war/(ele for pre fight) and has no need for burning or vuln and are requiring you to bring a “more dps class”. Maybe you shouldn’t be saying whats wrong with this class? but perhaps you should be asking whats wrong with this group?… If you want to follow the max damage zerker rush meta by all means pick a higher dps class and go for it. Necro is about playstyle not pure dps…. and so far it has both (not top dps but reaper hits hard).

Lol, that doesn’t even make sense. Nothing is wrong with the group, It’s optimized fully, which is gonna be a common case in raids. People are going to put the groups together looking for the perfect comp. (Unless It’s more casual or pug) All classes should have a near equal footing, of course… Nothing is perfect and some will be better then others but It’s up to the dev team to make sure classes aren’t imbalanced, which is a huge problem for GW2.

No class should be about ‘Playstyle’, every class should have a reason to be there. That has been the problem with necros for the last three years, It’s whats created this elitism towards them. I love the necro, I will always play it… But I would also like to see it stand with the other classes.

Reaper is good in its own ways (which have already been listed), but it is not top damage which it seems is the only thing you care about. If that is the case then go play an ele cause we will never out dps them. If elitist groups are all you play then switch to a pure dps class and stop complaining. The rest of us will enjoy what reaper has to offer.

ZeroKaos.1682:

I don’t know what game most of you have been playing since the most recent balance update, but even without the reaper spec, necro is already a viable class to pick over most classes.

Viable? Ya. Good? Debatable. It does a more than enough job in decent hand, but it’s not better than most profession. I’ll take a good necro anytime over a bad anything else. But I prefer a good player on another profession. It’s a fact that Necro have high burst, low DPS. It’s a fact that Necro support isn’t as good as most other profession. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have support, can’t help and do almost no damage. But it’s a little behind. We are not against Necro, we want Necro to be good. But we are not delusional about it. Of course, some people take those information and go other the top and kick any necro going near their party, but hey. We can’t control everybody.

ZeroKaos.1682:

For people who say necro doesn’t do high enough damage, I challenge you to find another class that can crit anywhere from 5-7k on autoattack, yes i know it is a fairly slow attack animation but it also pierces, and with the mix of all the other DS focused traits, the damage more than makes up for the slow attack speed.

If you talk about damage coefficient per attack. DS make 1 coefficient, or 1.4 when at 600 range of less. Lightning Hammer does 0.97 and 1.5 on the third attack. Guardian mace third auto-attack does 1.4 and hammer does 0.8 on the two first auto-attack of the chain and the third does 2.5.

If you talk about strait damage per attack. Ele staff can do 10.9k damage per auto-attack. But to be honest DS auto attack on a necro can reach up to 12.6k damage with all buffs. The third auto-attack for a GS Guardian can reach 16.5k. The third auto-attack on a Mace Guardian does 18k while the same attakc on a Hammer will reach 30K. So ya. Challenge accepted and won. What do I win?

ZeroKaos.1682:

Dagger auto chain is one of the fastest attack chains in the game with a high damage output since it cleaves.

Necro Dagger auto attack dps equal 12k in the best situation. Thief dagger auto-attack reach 15.5k dps. Lighting Whip for a D/F ELementalist reach 14k dps. Guardian Mace auto-attack reach 12.8k dps. Necro dagger have a good auto-attack. That doesn’t make it the best or strong enough to put the overal dps of the necro out of the bottom of the list.

ZeroKaos.1682:

Axe 2 crits for about 10-12k every 8 seconds if you know how to set up vuln stacks properly.

Axe 2 can do 25k full buffs on a 8sec CD. And? Lava Front can do 41k dmg each 4.8 sec and Backstab can do up to 34k each 3-4sec. Again all with full buffs.

ZeroKaos.1682:

Wells tick for high aoe damage if used before going into DS… and last but not least, you have 23 seconds of critting for 10-12k on auto attacks from lich every 150 seconds if you trait it right.

Lich can reach up to 19k damage on their auto-attack with full buffs. That’s 17k dps, making it the highest dps auto-attack in the game I think. Everybody know that Lich form is a beast. Nemesis in all his non sense during the last video I saw of his said at least one good thing. A necromancer using Icebow, wells and Lich form will have a better burst than most other profession (maybe exlcluding Elementalist, but i’m not sure). But 150second is super long and outside of Lich Form, the dps of a necro is still lacking behind.

ZeroKaos.1682:

… so please tell me again how necro can be seen as a low damage spec.

Necro is a low damage spec. Actually no. Necro is a low DPS spec. It have one of the best burst damage, but the longer the fight, the lower their dps will be and in fight wihtout Lich Form they will be behind everybody else. And with a CD of 150, you will do more fight without than with Lich Form.

ZeroKaos.1682:

Also just because you have players who play your so called meta builds, does not mean your chance for a successful completion is 100%. I can’t even count the number of times the “zerk meta only” stack focused groups have failed in dungeons or fractals because they don’t know how to do anything else with their class besides stand in a corner and spam buttons. I would take a skilled necro over those brain-dead elitists anyday. To answer your question OP, yes reaper will be up there in the meta builds, especially for things like raids where self sustain and party support will be more important than standing in a corner and spamming buttons.

I said it at the beginning of this post and I’ll say it again. Me too i’ll take a good necro over a bad anything else. A necro can do more than the job and more. 90% of the time with a good necro you will not even notice the difference in speed in the dungeon. To me there would be only 2 reasons to exclude a Necro from a run. I’m doing a record run (pratice for it) or the necro is just bad/run a bad build.

But that said. It doesn’t change the fact that Necro lack in both dps and support compare to other profession. And that players have the right to exclude them if they want. Even if I personally find that stupid in pug run.

The biggest problem with necro/reaper is that they bring nothing to the group.

Bring an ele- best dps, multiple condition cleanses, multiple heals, multiple blast finishers, perma group fury.

Bring a warrior- good dps, 25 might, 150 power, 120 power, 120 precision, 120 condition damage for the whole group

Bring a guardian- good dps, protection, aegis, reflects, reflects, reflects, reflects, quickness, condition cleansing.

Bring a mesmer- good dps, stealth, alacrity, slow, quickness.

Bring a thief- awesome dps, stealth, stealth, stealth, venom share, some group buffing, unlimited blast finishers

Bring a revanent- good dps, 50% boon duration, good might stacking, blast finishers, amazing support if needed

Bring an engineer- great dps, blast finishers, good healing, lots of utility, stealth, ranged rezzing, condition cleansing.

Bring a Ranger- good dps, spotter (ranger’s are pretty bad just like necros)

Bring a Necro- ok dps, your downed teammates don’t die as fast?

Necro/Reaper may be fun to play, but what role are they filling in raids? They share no boons, they can’t blast fields, they can’t reflect, stealth, or give any group buffs. The only thing they can do reasonably well is strip boons, which mesmer and thief can do as well. I’m sure they will be fine in open world noob zerg events, but that is not what the game should be balanced around. It should and will be balanced around the raid environments.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Bring a Ranger- ok dps, spotter (ranger’s are pretty bad just like necros)

According to your scale, you should put good dps next to ranger. Over 30s a full buffed Ranger do around 16K dps. I’m not up to date with all the dps, but I know it’s lower than Engineer and Elementalist, but higher than Guardian and Warrior. And you forgot about Spirit.

Ranger is around the 4th best dps and 2nd best party buffer. It’s way better than you seem to think.

Now you probably think about the Golem Solo test that bladex and other did. Yup in solo situation, Ranger is pretty bad in term of dps. But now we are talking about dungeon in group.

It all depends on encounter design how useful any of the classes will be in new content. Current PvE design is terrible. Anet knows it.

Jaxom.7310:

https://youtu.be/d-slnYGH2l4

i don’t think i could’ve face tanked those spiders w/ a dragonhunter

Dragonhunter? Yeah… it’s not that good, i agree. Normal guardian however would do just fine.

To OP: while the Reaper will improve the absolute usefullness of Necro in PvE, unfortunately it won’t do anything about the usefullness relative to other classes. Increased dps, weakness and chill application are simply not enough for that. And if by any chance druid ends up with some nice support options (which would fit the theme), the gap between the necro and ranger might even increase.

It will be better in open world, but in high-end content like dungeons and fractals (and most likely raids) nothing really will change.

What Necros can do is corrupts boons,they have inherent tankyness, apply de-buffs like weakness, vulnerability, blind and now chill very well. Also they can pull downed party members from certain death with transfusion which has saved my party many times.

But most of the former is of very little value in the current state of PvE. They keep promising that will change with HoT but we’ll just have to wait and see i guess.
I’m not holding my breath but i’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

“Necros have no place in PvE, they are just dead weight!”
– The guy lying on the floor while necro beat the boss for him

Kronos.2560:

Truefrost.6815:

Kronos.2560:

Truefrost.6815:

Kronos.2560:

Maybe you were just using a crummy reaper build cause when I was playing it I never had problems, ridiculously high health pools. Almost always 25 might (Reaper’s Might,“You are all weaklings!”). Good healing and shroud generator (Blighter’s Boon, “Your soul is mine!”). Throwing out tons of vuln and burning(Unyielding Blast and Dhuumfire). And also a good boon removers (Nothing can save you!, Chill of Death). I guess I’m just confused at how a reaper isn’t good in a group or solo? It has 2 huge health pools that heal like crazy, hits like a truck while applying vulnerability,burning and removing your boons. Do you really need more?

In the current state of pve, all those things are completely useless in group play. Might is already group wide with a PS warrior, who can maintain 25 stacks for the whole group. As for DS, sadly DS is a poor mechanic that doesn’t scale with multiple enemies, thus is less effective vs classes with lots of active defenses. And of course, boon removal is just generally useless, as Anet has yet to add a need for it in current content (Mesmers can also achieve better boon removal then use through sword auto). Vuln is the only nice thing, but in an optimized group It’s also already taken care of. (Gonna be SUPER easy in 10-man raids.)

Necro in the CURRENT state of pve, has no use in groups, our damage EVEN with reaper is lackluster and brings no reason to not just take another ele over taking a necro. Now, as I mentioned who knows what raids will bring, It could easily change the meta.

If every single group you run always has a phalanx war/(ele for pre fight) and has no need for burning or vuln and are requiring you to bring a “more dps class”. Maybe you shouldn’t be saying whats wrong with this class? but perhaps you should be asking whats wrong with this group?… If you want to follow the max damage zerker rush meta by all means pick a higher dps class and go for it. Necro is about playstyle not pure dps…. and so far it has both (not top dps but reaper hits hard).

Lol, that doesn’t even make sense. Nothing is wrong with the group, It’s optimized fully, which is gonna be a common case in raids. People are going to put the groups together looking for the perfect comp. (Unless It’s more casual or pug) All classes should have a near equal footing, of course… Nothing is perfect and some will be better then others but It’s up to the dev team to make sure classes aren’t imbalanced, which is a huge problem for GW2.

No class should be about ‘Playstyle’, every class should have a reason to be there. That has been the problem with necros for the last three years, It’s whats created this elitism towards them. I love the necro, I will always play it… But I would also like to see it stand with the other classes.

Reaper is good in its own ways (which have already been listed), but it is not top damage which it seems is the only thing you care about. If that is the case then go play an ele cause we will never out dps them. If elitist groups are all you play then switch to a pure dps class and stop complaining. The rest of us will enjoy what reaper has to offer.

First off, all the ‘listed points’ I’ve already covered. I’ll say this again in plain form. Unless pve is changed heavily in raids, necro will have nothing to offer, this is made even worse with 10-man raids as the buffs/debuffs are even EASIER to cover. And as mentioned before, everything they do other classes do better.

I think you are just missing the point here. I could care less about dps, It’s about a class that’s been neglected for three years. I care about the Necro and It’s future in new content. I love what the reaper offers and I will always play the necro, It’s my class and It has been for three years now.

As mentioned before, unless the state of pve changes heavily we will continue having no place in pve.

All the above points that have been presented are well and true, but.. You have to remember, that just because a Necro comes in on low DPS, doesn’t make it useless. Yes, it can do what other classes can do, but less effectively in regards to certain buffs. Necro also have a high chance of surviving a near wipe and reviving their teammates versus other classes at times. I have managed to save my team numerous times just because of how well my build could dish out DoTs on top of regular damage from abilities. I can get my bleed ticks well over 1k per second..over a set amount of time..that is a lot of damage, not just from burst damage or damage coming from the skills alone.

The issue is that the Necro class has underwhelming damage upfront, and a lot of people aren’t satisfied with that. They want immediate results with their damage, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but also there is nothing wrong with the way Necro deal damage either. To each their own.

Not taking a Necro is a party leader’s right or the group’s right to choose who they want to play with. Players have to remember that just because something is chosen as meta doesn’t mean it’s the only way to play the game. Back before Arah became a cake walk, I took my Necro. The rest of the group was a Mesmer, Warrior, Guardian and we swapped out for Thief, depending on the path we did. We cleared a single Arah path in less than 30 minutes, but this was also a long time ago. It’s all about how well you work as a team and how you play the class, that will determine success. Just because you take a full zerk team into a dungeon doesn’t always guarantee a fast and speedy run. There is always the chance that something bad happens and you waste X amount of time.

For the Reaper, I didn’t play the BWEs at all, but from what I’ve seen of the spec, it will be useful. Usefulness will be determined by whoever is in the group, but it shouldn’t be out for the count. I imagine that Anet has mechanics with HoT, in store to make all the classes be useful, even for those who play a strict zerker meta now. What works now, probably won’t work in HoT just due to the increased AI of mobs and whatnot. Zerker gear can’t take very many hits, and to survive with a glass cannon you need to be quick on your feet or die trying. We will all find out very soon what will have to change and what we will have to keep for those who like to play with an elitist view of the game, as well as others who aren’t into pure meta builds.