Guild Wars 2

AndyS.5630:

Ragion.2831:

Also reaper isnt power, reaper is reaper.

Excuse me, but as it comes to damage Reaper is clearly a power-oriented line. If that still keeps condi superior then we clearly have some problems elsewhere.

I agree completely. Reaper actually has fairly mediocre condi traits (at this point) and the only inherently damaging condition it has is poison on RS 4

Vydahr.4285:

AndyS.5630:

Ragion.2831:

Also reaper isnt power, reaper is reaper.

Excuse me, but as it comes to damage Reaper is clearly a power-oriented line. If that still keeps condi superior then we clearly have some problems elsewhere.

I agree completely. Reaper actually has fairly mediocre condi traits (at this point) and the only inherently damaging condition it has is poison on RS 4

only players who showed up after the chill nerf would say this. Reaper is designed to use chill. Before the rework a Reaper could focus on nothing but chill damage and do a lot of damage. Chill damage is condition damage which reaper form has plenty of access too.

What you both seem to forget is to have an effective power spec you need 3 stats power, precision and ferocity. To have an effective condi spec you need 1 stat, condi damage which means you can stack other stats like toughness and not lose damage. Because of this advantage condi has, the majority of the condi damage in shroud form comes from traits while some direct damage is native to shroud form

That does not mean reaper was designed for power. Reaper is designed to take advantage of both power and condi.

with condi if you use excutioner’s scyth with the spiral, you cause bleed stacks from the chilling bolts plus the poison damage from spiral which = a lot of damage. Although, the direct damage from the combo is small. If you are using power the reverse happens.

Reaper is not for power or condi, reaper is its own thing that does the damage you spec into.

If you still dont understand, then theres nothing else i can tell you and we can get back on topic now. Bai

Might as well throw my two cents in:

I propose both axe skills 1 and 2 along with the two “axe” traits are completely changed.

Axe Skills:

Traits:

Additional Notes:
-All numbers are guesstimates.
-Essentially, the axe skills become ranged/extended melee attacks (neither hit-scan or projectiles) at the expense of slightly reduced base range.
-I find the weapon skills to be rather boring to use and would like something with at least a little pizzazz.

Ragion.2831:

Vydahr.4285:

AndyS.5630:

Ragion.2831:

Also reaper isnt power, reaper is reaper.

Excuse me, but as it comes to damage Reaper is clearly a power-oriented line. If that still keeps condi superior then we clearly have some problems elsewhere.

I agree completely. Reaper actually has fairly mediocre condi traits (at this point) and the only inherently damaging condition it has is poison on RS 4

only players who showed up after the chill nerf would say this. Reaper is designed to use chill. Before the rework a Reaper could focus on nothing but chill damage and do a lot of damage. Chill damage is condition damage which reaper form has plenty of access too.

What you both seem to forget is to have an effective power spec you need 3 stats power, precision and ferocity. To have an effective condi spec you need 1 stat, condi damage which means you can stack other stats like toughness and not lose damage. Because of this advantage condi has, the majority of the condi damage in shroud form comes from traits while some direct damage is native to shroud form

That does not mean reaper was designed for power. Reaper is designed to take advantage of both power and condi.

with condi if you use excutioner’s scyth with the spiral, you cause bleed stacks from the chilling bolts plus the poison damage from spiral which = a lot of damage. Although, the direct damage from the combo is small. If you are using power the reverse happens.

Reaper is not for power or condi, reaper is its own thing that does the damage you spec into.

If you still dont understand, then theres nothing else i can tell you and we can get back on topic now. Bai

I was there for the beta. I know what the chill damage was like. But it was trait-dependent. As in, not inherent in the weapons or shroud. Clearly, you missed my point.

As for reaper not being power based… Still wrong. What is Decimate Defenses but a way for a power Reaper to replace some zerk with some soldier or something similar? It makes up for missing precision easily. Damaging conditions have never been the mainstay of Reaper in the traitline, nor in the greatsword, the Reaper’s designed weapon. Condi is condi and it’s a cheap playstyle because of what you mentioned.

Vydahr.4285:

I was there for the beta. I know what the chill damage was like. But it was trait-dependent. As in, not inherent in the weapons or shroud. Clearly, you missed my point.

As for reaper not being power based… Still wrong. What is Decimate Defenses but a way for a power Reaper to replace some zerk with some soldier or something similar? It makes up for missing precision easily. Damaging conditions have never been the mainstay of Reaper in the traitline, nor in the greatsword, the Reaper’s designed weapon. Condi is condi and it’s a cheap playstyle because of what you mentioned.

Not too sure if you are just trolling or naturally ignorant. You bring up a random trait that power builds benefit from. I can bring up deathly chill which is condi.

You say condi is cheap (meaning condi is better than power) but reaper is for power meanwhile condi builds use reaper. Ehh…im done with you.

Vydahr.4285:

As for reaper not being power based… Still wrong. What is Decimate Defenses but a way for a power Reaper to replace some zerk with some soldier or something similar? It makes up for missing precision easily. Damaging conditions have never been the mainstay of Reaper in the traitline, nor in the greatsword, the Reaper’s designed weapon. Condi is condi and it’s a cheap playstyle because of what you mentioned.

Decimate Defenses is both a condi and power trait. More crit chance means Barbed Precision and Earth Sigil trigger more.

Edit: Like many Elite specs, Reaper was designed with many different uses in mind.

sigh No, not ignorant, nor trolling. Condi uses reaper, yes. Everyone knows this. I’m saying that Reaper as a traitline was designed more for power builds. It just seems to me that Reaper is more suited to power, but condi is absurdly strong with very little effort in terms of sacrificing durability or traits. So a condi build can take a wider variety of traitlines and individual traits.

Just pen me down as kittened off that Reaper is in the hole again, and power builds with it. So kitten good in the beta and shortly after, now apparently total kitten.

Lahmia, I see what you’re saying. Just seems like it’s more to cover the contrived weakness in power builds that want some durability

IMO, Reaper is an AoE power line that filled a gaping hole in Necro capability.

Chill is a soft CC condition, not a DoT condition. Confusion between soft CC and DoT builds is as old as the game with people calling them both “condition”.

Chill of Death was meant to give Reaper some hybrid use but it did not work out well because it tied damage over time to soft CC duration. Chill duration made counterplay in PvP difficult while having damaging chills pushed off by others in PvE was inconvenient.

Anchoku.8142:

IMO, Reaper is an AoE power line that filled a gaping hole in Necro capability.

Chill is a soft CC condition, not a DoT condition. Confusion between soft CC and DoT builds is as old as the game with people calling them both “condition”.

Chill of Death was meant to give Reaper some hybrid use but it did not work out well because it tied damage over time to soft CC duration. Chill duration made counterplay in PvP difficult while having damaging chills pushed off by others in PvE was inconvenient.

Thank you for this. This is basically what I meant, just couldn’t find the words for it, I guess

what problems are you guys having with axe?

I feel like if using a power build i should mostly use axe over staff however in pvp i find this is not the case

i think the main reason i use staff over axe are
1.) staff trait location
2.) traited staff
3.) unblockable
4.) traited staff has 4 main skill effect which overwieght the effect i get from axe/x

traited axe doesn’t help it compete because i don’t use it for damage and cooldowns arent an issue

Tadsoul.6951:

what problems are you guys having with axe?

I feel like if using a power build i should mostly use axe over staff however in pvp i find this is not the case

i think the main reason i use staff over axe are
1.) staff trait location
2.) traited staff
3.) unblockable
4.) traited staff has 4 main skill effect which overwieght the effect i get from axe/x

traited axe doesn’t help it compete because i don’t use it for damage and cooldowns arent an issue

Axe is good in solo or small group PvE where vulnerability stacking is meaningful because mobs do not really try to get away but it does not do enough in any other game mode. In PvP, people just laugh at the damage and ignore the vulnerability.

Vulnerability is not a hard CC, a soft CC, or a DoT condition. Unholy Feast is the only thing on axe for PvP. It needs a 4 sec ICD or be on AA instead of 12 or 10-ish. Even then, retal and a single condition…

Necromancer is a profession that other professions should be wary of engaging for Fear of being drawn into a long battle. Axe just sux at that. It does not have enough “capture” ability. Honestly, axe should have increasing CC as range increases.

Maybe Axe could be buffed by buffing focus or offhand dagger. (Warhorn doesn’t have much synergy with axe since it isn’t ranged).

nekretaal.6485:

Maybe Axe could be buffed by buffing focus or offhand dagger. (Warhorn doesn’t have much synergy with axe since it isn’t ranged).

ironically,
the melee cloud from warhorn keeps or at least kept thieves a bit away so you could get more free dmg of range.

We simply got 2 crappy offhands, 2 crapy mainhands and “thing” that should get u banned.

nekretaal.6485:

Maybe Axe could be buffed by buffing focus or offhand dagger. (Warhorn doesn’t have much synergy with axe since it isn’t ranged).

how precisely would you recommend buffing those weapons to make Axe better?

there are few synergies that are specific to Axe.

Focus 4 naturally works better with Dagger than it does Axe due to bouncing in melee. Focus 5 has no strong preference one way or the other.
dagger has a stronger, and weaker, case. while it shares range with Axe it does not really share any other synergies. dagger is condition focused while axe is power focused, enough said

rebalancing based on the offhand has issues with balancing around dagger and scepter MH so i am skeptical of that being a viable strategy. any balance changes should ultimately be based in the axe and just the axe; it is the weak link in A/F, A/W and A/D. (assuming that there is an issue, of course)

I think part of the problem with axe is that skills 1 and 2 have no crossover in purpose with skill 3, which means the weapon as a whole has no clear identity.

It was originally designed as a close-in skirmishing weapon, and the design kinda made sense from that perspective.

Now, though: Skills 1 and 2 are mid-range (900), single-target, hitscan attacks. Looking at these, you’d think that the axe was a weapon for pressuring a target from range. However, you then have Unholy Feast, which is a point-blank area of effect which rewards hitting as many targets as you can and staying in close afterwards.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like having ranged attacks on otherwise melee weapons (with the proviso that projectiles have no place in melee autoattack chains) – sometimes, for various reasons, you either can’t or don’t want to be in melee right now – but it doesn’t really work the other way around. The only way I could see Unholy Feast and the other two being less suited to one another is if Unholy Feast was rebalanced as a condition damage skill. There are ways you can make the combination work, but they’re usually niche situations (throwing UF just before switching to a melee weapon or to shroud, for instance).

For two-handed weapons, you can afford to have a skill or two that falls outside a weapon’s general theme, because the others will carry the theme. For a mainhand weapon, though, you can’t afford to have skills that work so poorly together – offhands are generally designed to provide general utility that works regardless of the weapon they’re paired with, so a MH/OH set relies on the MH to give it its identity. Axe, though, just doesn’t offer that – if you use the first two skills in their optimal fashion you’re not getting the use of the third at all, while if you’re using UF you’re not taking full advantage of the properties of the first two.

I think there are a couple of ways that can be adjusted. One is to make axe a close-in weapon again: reduce the range back to 600, but make skills 1 and 2 have a small area of effect (think of it as a ranged cleave). The alternative is to rebalance UF into something more suited for the standoff work that the other two skills seem designed to employ.

Lahmia.2193:

Sometimes you just gotta realise, not every weapon has to be a meta choice for pvp. It’s a casual pve weapon and will probably stay that way forever.

And yet in PvE it’s pure kitten as well, not even casual just pure awfull.

Azzer.8137:

Lahmia.2193:

Sometimes you just gotta realise, not every weapon has to be a meta choice for pvp. It’s a casual pve weapon and will probably stay that way forever.

And yet in PvE it’s pure kitten as well, not even casual just pure awfull.

It’s a great afk weapon for Jade constructs.

Lahmia.2193:

Azzer.8137:

Lahmia.2193:

Sometimes you just gotta realise, not every weapon has to be a meta choice for pvp. It’s a casual pve weapon and will probably stay that way forever.

And yet in PvE it’s pure kitten as well, not even casual just pure awfull.

It’s a great afk weapon for Jade constructs.

This is actually the only way i use axe for afking open world events…

Make power necro hit hard enough. Revive spectral mastery cause persistance is boring hmm what else and oh yeah fix death charge its realy buggy and maybe have it apply a cripple on hit instead of some blind that will never land. Anet said they made blood magic better lmao they made it worse! oh yeah and do something about the other dumb traits that cannot be used.

Put revealed on axe 3 and give me another pull plox

Change Axe#1 Rending Claws from applying 2 vuln to apply 1 vuln and give 1 might to user.
Oh, and make Axe#3 a blast finisher.

Something I thought would be interesting (and somewhat appropriate) would be making axe 3 extend boons on the necro for maybe .5 seconds per boon corrupted, as the necro consumes them in some kind of unholy feast and gains power from it. (retal is granted on hit, not on corrupt)

Or maybe even does bonus damage per boon (5% maybe?) on the necro instead.

Or at the very least, life force per boon corrupted.

Blast finisher would be obvious.

Does anyone else think that Unholy Feast (Axe #3) makes no sense? If we get Retaliation then we want foes to hit us, right? Well, the Cripple effect on the same skill slows foes down, wasting a few seconds of Retaliation if they are at max range (600). This has been annoying me since forever… I can’t be the only one…

I don’t have issues with Unholy Feast. Often you will be overrun and axe has no other AoE options. 15-18 seconds (depending on runes) of retaliation that reflects ~300 damage is really not all that bad.

The boon corruption is a nice feature as well, especially in small sided wvw fights. Using an axe at all in spvp wouldn’t work because of how the current meta works.

I love axe for being a real ranged weapon that can actually be a threat for all those pistol thieves or bow rangers. Staff is not a ranged combat weapon. It’s a ranged harass weapon at best. Once the other side starts returning fire it’s clear you’re going down unless you got something way better dps and variation wise in store.