Guild Wars 2

=Soul Reaping=

- Strength of Undeath – Change to Major second tier trait. Change to you deal +10% damage while in shroud. Shroud skill recharge is decreased by 20%.

- Vital Persistence – Change to Minor third tier trait. Change to Max Life force is increased by 15%. Life Force drains 50% slower in shroud.

Reduced Life Force degeneration is a must for all Soul Reaping builds. Spectral Mastery and Fear of Death don’t stand a chance whilst in league with it. Therefore moving the reduced degen aspect of the trait to baseline is a must.

Strength of Undeath was also a bit of an oddball in that to gain maximum effect from the damage increase, it was better to sit outside of shroud. Now it rewards you for being inside shroud whilst under 50% life force. Also normalised the recharge reduction.

- Cold Shoulder – Move the Chilled duration increase to Shivers of Dread. Add a damage increase of 10% to chilled foes.

- Reaper’s Onslaught – Attack speed increase now affects Greatsword.

Reaper lacks damage increases which is pretty bad considering Necromancers have the second lowest amount of damage increasing traits of all professions (mesmer being #1 obviously). An obvious buff would be to give a damage increase vs chilled foes, and make it a baseline trait. I know moving the Chill duration increase wouldn’t change anything but it would make Shivers of Dread look slightly less terrible at first glance.

Reaper’s Onslaught is also the go to Pve dps power trait. However, currently Greatsword is lacking a good trait itself (Soul Eater needs to be totally reworked but that idea will come later) and is generally panned for its slow, clunky feel. Making the attack speed increase affect Greatsword would be an easy fix for this and wouldn’t take much effort on Anets part. Also making the reduced Greatsword recharge baseline would be something I suggest they add.

Also I realise a lot of these aren’t game changers, but Anet has shown they do not like to drastically revamp or change traits, as some people have suggested.

+1. All small shifts and tweaks that make things better without huge revamps.

Soul Reaping is almost indispensable as it is. If we can dream, I would add Terror to Deathly Chill or Reaper’s Onslaught.

Your suggestion for Cold Shoulder is a dps boost for power and condition builds. Dev’s may not like it but I do.

The current Reaper’s Onslaught is not competitive with Chilling Victory – Blighter’s Boon combination, which not only produces might and Lf but also heals when in shroud. That combination is tough to beat.

A straight-up dps increase for Reaper’s Onslaught seems warranted.

The Cold Shoulder buff was only meant to be a base damage boost. Condi is in a good place to be honest and doesn’t need much of a buff.

i agree with your suggestions, they wont make necro op but will improve its viability.