BWE 3 Reaper Specialization Feedback Thread

BWE 3 Reaper Specialization Feedback Thread

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Posted by: zapv.8051

zapv.8051

GS is slow and will never be great in high tier pvp, which is fine. Death’s spiral would be nice at 3/4 second cast.

Reaper’s Shroud is amazing in every way, and the only thing that needs fixing is the reliability of Death’s Charge. I don’t just mean amazing OP either, it is well designed with direct counters all over.

Shouts aren’t bad, Suffer could use one added condition removed baseline. NCSY needs to give allies unblock-ability. Chilled to the bone needs to not go on full cooldown when interrupted or canceled after the first half of the cast (one of it’s main uses could be to bait cds and dodges).

As for the traits, I like most of them. I would like the traitline more if there was a damage increase against chilled foes. Maybe 5 rolled into the master minor.

Any other problems with Reaper are an extension of the base class. Bad LF gen without soul reaping, and d/w needs to be addressed. Spectral armor needs to scale with the number of targets and the other spectral skills need thought. Blood magic needs a trait for allied condi cleanse and it would be great. Death magic adept and master minors need to be replaced with interesting traits that do something to your gameplay. The gm minor needs aoe protection still. Curses needs traits moved around. Corruptions need a ton of work. Maybe make necros a better aoe might stacker, comparable to how war is now, so we would have a spot in raids.

Finally, I’d like to suggest you change the GS 4 skill nightfall into the well of darkness and replace well of darkness with a well that chills foes and deals damage. Heck, you could make it an elite for all I care, I just want one more ice field and another way to get aoe chill.

Necros don’t have reflects, invulns, vigor, blocks,
extra dodges, real stability, mobility skills,
burst skills, sustain, or good support. GG ANET.

(edited by zapv.8051)

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Posted by: Dead.5829

Dead.5829

I’m still not happy with Soul Eater and Chilling Nova.

Life leach on GS still doesn’t convince me. At least before you could use death spiral to pile a lot of heal, restricting it to gravedigger made it worse. In my opinion Soul eater is a PvE trait, because the other 2 options are too good in PvP and WvW. As a PvE trait I’d like to see some form of party support from this trait. Same thing for Chilling Nova, it should be a damage boost against chilled foes plus AoE chill on crit.

I don’t even see it being a PvE trait. It doesn’t add to your damage noticeably, and barely adds to your survivability (5 targets, spammed, is a warriors healing signet). I agree that it was better when working on Death Spiral at smaller numbers. That also helped the weapon to feel less completely weighted behind GD damage. I feel Spiral and Grasp could use damage buffs anyway.

I’d love to see some sort of party support come from it that also just helps you do damage. An attack speed buff that stacks with successive GS skill landings, so the longer you’re in combat with the reaper, the harder it gets to dodge hits that have begun to land faster. Then half/third of this speed buff is given to allies. But this might be too strong alongside quickness (hi Shiro Rev). Or a stacking lifesteal buff caused by GS attacks, but works on all attacks (so you still get the benefit in Shroud). That or what was previewed when Reaper was first shown, X procs of something over Y seconds. This could be lifesteal, so long as it’s strong enough, which the current rendition is not. I think the similar lifesteal amount works better on Augury, because shouts are so much easier to reliably land than Gravedigger, especially on many enemies in a big fight, due to the range and significantly lower cast times.

BWE 3 Reaper Specialization Feedback Thread

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Posted by: Velimere.7685

Velimere.7685

Hi all,
As the third beta weekend has begun, let’s use this thread to compile feedback for the Reaper. All feedback is welcome, positive and negative… or anywhere in-between. Please continue to keep it constructive. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

-Karl

I really appreciate your consideration with shouts, Karl, but I think something has been completely overlooked here which could make them entirely meta-worthy. First, let’s start by taking a look at the traits for shouts that the Guardian and the Warrior have:

  • Pure of Voice (Guardian): Allies affected by shouts have conditions converted to boons. Shout abilities have their recharge reduced.
  • Vigorous Shouts (Warrior): Shouts heal allies and grant adrenaline. Shout recharge faster.

The Warrior has this theme of healing whereas the Guardian has this theme of condition conversion. What existing relative theme does the Necromancer have? Condition transference! Therefore, I propose the following:

  • Augury of Death (Reaper): Allies affected by shouts have conditions transferred to affected foes. Your shouts recharge faster for each foe they hit.

It goes without saying that each shout should only transfer 1 condition per ally and include the caster as well (5 targets total). This change would absolutely serve to strengthen the Reaper as an on-point team-fighter with good team-support and would make Shout Reaper an actual thing that people would want to play, an actual meta-worthy Reaper build that can coexist alongside Signet Reaper giving Reaper players double the diversity!

I understand that the programming involved may be a bit (or even very) tricky, but this can also provide counter-play at the same time in the event that the Reaper’s shouts have no target to transfer to (or are evaded or blocked), and further balance to the mechanic is provided via scaling: The more players affected, the more powerful it is. This agrees with how the Reaper is stronger in larger team fights and weaker in smaller engagements.

I would also propose a reduction of the recharge percentage from 7% (35% max) to 5% (25% max) per target to go along with this in order to reduce spammability.

Please seriously consider this suggestion!

Anyone who says Zerk is the average Joe build is an average Joe.

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Posted by: Charblaze.6958

Charblaze.6958

I don’t even see it being a PvE trait. It doesn’t add to your damage noticeably, and barely adds to your survivability (5 targets, spammed, is a warriors healing signet). […]

I’ll rephrase it better: since the other two traits are too good in PvP to pass up, remove the kittening life leach and put something of use in PvE like party support or damage. Preferably party support, because if they don’t change chill on defiance bar we need it for raids.

I’d love to see some sort of party support come from it that also just helps you do damage. An attack speed buff that stacks with successive GS skill landings, so the longer you’re in combat with the reaper, the harder it gets to dodge hits that have begun to land faster.

My previous BWE suggestion was 1-2s of quickness when you hit a opponent above 50% HP with gravedigger. Really helps the first half of a PvE fight.

Then half/third of this speed buff is given to allies. But this might be too strong alongside quickness (hi Shiro Rev). Or a stacking lifesteal buff caused by GS attacks, but works on all attacks (so you still get the benefit in Shroud). That or what was previewed when Reaper was first shown, X procs of something over Y seconds. This could be lifesteal, so long as it’s strong enough, which the current rendition is not. I think the similar lifesteal amount works better on Augury, because shouts are so much easier to reliably land than Gravedigger, especially on many enemies in a big fight, due to the range and significantly lower cast times.

Yes, it would be too strong. I still think the whole life steal on GS idea should be scrapped due to the slowness, unless it’s related to death spiral.

(edited by Charblaze.6958)

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Posted by: Loyo.8526

Loyo.8526

Finally got to play reaper in beta. It has some things that needs adjusting, but most of what is listed is possible changes to increase the presence of it in PvE and PvP encounters when dealing with less than mass amounts.

Overview of the feel of Reaper
Reaper is, by far, a strange anomaly that is already having a hard time finding its place. Currently, with the new rendition of scrapper, I would state that Reaper skirts a situation where It CAN be very tanky compared to other classes and deal decent damage, but is not as sustainable as some of the elite specs. Combine this with the fact that the DPS it provides is not exactly stellar, its a step in the right direction, but hardly a class to be considered “supporting by providing DPS,” but has the traits to become very good in places with many enemies.


Greatsword

The weapon, after using it, feels akin to a secondary utility weapon more than a main damage/cleave weapon due to its speed. This issue is mostly that the animations still feel pretty slow, with only 4-5 being fast enough to compete, and Death spiral being almost there. Increase speed of Dusk strike would help this, along with increasing the damage on the 2nd auto. Being rather slower than other GSes is fine, but with the introduction of scrapper and daredevil, there is almost zero time that the auto attack is even able to hit with the first attack. I thought Death’s spiral would be difficult to hit because of speed, but due to its range and 6 hits, it can often hit even very mobile targets like daredevils atleast 4 times. Grasping darkness has an issue with not firing if the target is behind you , but functions correctly if they are anywhere near the frontal 180 degrees. Not sure if this has been noted or known bug, but I tried firing it also while standing still to make sure and still had issues. If a change to functionality needs to be made to fix this, I would rather just have a skill fact indicating this issue. More talk on Greatsword Issue in Soul Eater section.


Reaper Shroud
Reaper shroud’s only issue is the damage on the auto attack chain is lower than it really should be. This should be changed to be slightly higher. All the other skills feel right and outside small situations where Death’s charge is buggy in its damage application during charge, It feels like an overall good experience. However, it should be noted that it is possible to self interrupt terrify and lose it as an available skill to be used.


Shouts

After getting down through all the shouts, most of them feel very responsive with their cast times. “You are all weaklings” functionalty is awesome in some builds, but not so great in most builds that give might. I propose giving it a 1s Immob/slow to all enemies also along with weakness or possibly giving it another boon such as fury or retaliation. NCSY Would benefit from being the one non selfish shout by giving all allies in earshot the BASE unblockable amount of 2-4s. Rise I didnt get much work on, but the models look stellar. Suffer is perfect, do not change this. However, some issues about shouts will be listed in traits section. Chilled to the bone’s commit time for when it goes in CD is open enough that it can go on full CD via interruption. this needs to be fixed.


Traits

Alright, so Specifics are listed here.

Chilling Nova
Reduce CD to 7s, increase damage
As of right now, this trait is the closest that reaper will get to a PvE focused adapt trait that can function in PvP sometimes. Because of this, I feel that the CD should be reduced by 30-20% to make it more available.

Augury of Death
Transfer one damaging condition if a target hit is below 33-25% (only one , not per hit)
This is probably my favorite adapt trait out of all the ones listed. The Life steal amount felt pretty good for its usage, and goes well in the idea of constantly attacking someone’s defenses. Hard to say if it needs more, but wishful functionality change would be to have either the trait or a shout transfer one damaging condition if it hits a target below 33%.

Soul Eater

This trait feels very strange in general. Having life steal on gravedigger only is more lackluster than it looks on paper. Gravedigger is already a skill that is supposed to be harder to hit than others and benefits from CD reduction. Because of this, It excels in fights that are already won with many dead bodies, but is lackluster in other situations. an interesting functionality change or addition would be to give it a stacking buff that stacked up to 3 and gave a 1.5-2% attack speed increase each successful GS attack/gravedigger per stack, with the stacking having an ICD of 1s to prevent cleave hits from counting. It could have a conditional hp factor if needed. This could also help DPS related issues and speed issues on GS without making it available to everyone who chooses reaper along with providing some incentive to run it in PvP. This or revert the life steal to all parts of Greatsword. Its hard to say if this will be a good decision on any front, but as is soul eater is perfect for basically ‘consuming’ the life of already destroyed enemies for the next engagement, so If its purpose is mass enemy play, then it functions well.

Most of the others werent listed because they are functionally perfect in my eyes.

I dont mind if none of these changes are in, but some of them such as the Soul eater, Reaper shroud and GS Auto changes could help reaper in the long run once people are used to it and learn how to deal with it. However, simply changes to base Necro could help over changes to soul eater in favor of increased dps since dagger is not meant to be replaced with Greatsword. However, Its hard to not say that DPS on necro including reaper needs a buff, because as stated before, Its ‘support by doing damage’ aspect is not very easy to see anymore.

Khloe Deschanel – Human Necromancer/ Ami Ginju – Human Ranger [DOLO] -SBI
I stream sometimes: http://www.twitch.tv/kidtofu/
“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum”

(edited by Loyo.8526)

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Posted by: manveruppd.7601

manveruppd.7601

Any chance Death’s Charge could be targeted, like Fiery Whirl or Whirlwind Attack?

A bad necromancer always blames the corpse.

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Posted by: Grymlocke.1067

Grymlocke.1067

Quick Question,

From what I have been reading, other people state it worked for them but me and my mate were using it and When I/we was using the Trait Augury of Death it did NOT function at all on my shouts

???

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Posted by: Joxer.6024

Joxer.6024

Sadly missed out on BW3 but would like to “prepare” for my reaper builds gear. Are people saying that a Condi Reaper is going to be the go to (speaking PVE) or Power? Or is it simply still too soon to tell?

OH! And this:
"
Augury of Death (Reaper): Allies affected by shouts have conditions transferred to affected foes. Your shouts recharge faster for each foe they hit.

It goes without saying that each shout should only transfer 1 condition per ally and include the caster as well (5 targets total). This change would absolutely serve to strengthen the Reaper as an on-point team-fighter with good team-support and would make Shout Reaper an actual thing that people would want to play, an actual meta-worthy Reaper build that can coexist alongside Signet Reaper giving Reaper players double the diversity!"

I am sensing a theme here with this one as well:

“Suggestions:
– add a bit of Chill on all GS 1 hits
– share Shout buffs with teammates, as it stands the Reaper remains the class who only buffs himself
– Rise can give Protection to allies
– YAAW shares the Might with allies
– YSIM can share healing with allies”

That would completely rock and give Necros the MUCH needed support to a group they lack. Please oh mighty programmers, listen to your people on this one!

(edited by Joxer.6024)

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Posted by: Ragion.2831

Ragion.2831

I was using marauder and then went berserker its not hitting as hard as it did last beta weekend. When I went from 12k grave diggers to hardly hitting 7k yeah something is wrong

Don’t you think something is wrong if you are doing 12k with grave digger?

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Posted by: Ravezaar.4951

Ravezaar.4951

My highest Reaper Shroud AA-Rotation on a player (Warrior)
http://imgur.com/q9OqeK4
Highest Executione Scythe tho on a WvW NPC
http://imgur.com/F0QeMmJ
Highest Gravedigger on player (ofc not a up-lvl)
http://imgur.com/9VL3y9f
Highest Gravedigger this Weekend non-PvE also on WvW NPC (PvE mobs u hit higher)
http://imgur.com/XZUzwua

Executioner Scythe is abit lower then BWE1 but Gravedigger hasnt lost any DPS despite ppl’s concerns. I ran Valkyrie Armor (Hoelbrak Runes + Force Sigil) and Zerk trinkets with the little Vitality in them and Zerk Weapons.

And notice in the Hardest hit vs a Player I didnt even have Guard Stacks

I love the dmg

Underjordens Furste 80 Necro Piken-server
Servant of Dhuum

(edited by Ravezaar.4951)

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Any chance Death’s Charge could be targeted, like Fiery Whirl or Whirlwind Attack?

This would only be good if it only happened without a target, while keeping the current targeted functionality.

But of Corpse – Watch us on YouTube
My PvP Minion Build

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Posted by: EvesDesire.2596

EvesDesire.2596

I absolutely LOVE the reaper in its current state aside from a few things. As a necro main, I obviously love having a strong class, but not so much to the point where it’s the only thing people play because it’s overpowered.

- I think that Deathly Chill does a bit too much damage considering the insane uptime. Somewhere between last bwe and bwe3 would be a good spot I think.
- Some form of minion limitation. Having the Mark of Horror in Lich form, utility minions, and “rise” is just… crazy. Having your own army is cool and all, but it is in my opinion too strong, especially when paired with Death Magic and Blood Magic for siphoning and Death Nova.

There are a couple things that need buffing too I think:

- Soul Eater: I don’t think anyone will be taking this trait in its current state. Gravedigger is a strong skill, but because of its high cast time, using it to steal health is unreliable. I thought this trait fit in better when it was across all of the GS skills.
- “Suffer”: An underwhelming skill. If it was a more reliable condi removal shout (transfers 2 condis per target?), a stunbreaker, or even was a higher damage-dealing skill I could see taking it.

Other than that nothing really comes to mind! I really look forward to playing again. Thanks for all of your hard work, anet!

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Posted by: Tommyknocker.6089

Tommyknocker.6089

…snip
- I think that Deathly Chill does a bit too much damage considering the insane uptime. Somewhere between last bwe and bwe3 would be a good spot I think.snip…

Honestly if they nerfed it at all, I, and I am sure many other condimancers, would just take reapers onslaught to apply burning faster. Even as it sits it is a toss up in my build if it is even worth using over onslaught.

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Posted by: Dead.5829

Dead.5829

I still think the whole life steal on GS idea should be scrapped due to the slowness, unless it’s related to death spiral.

I don’t even think it needs to be scrapped. I think it just needs to scale much, much better with than it does now with both stats AND the skill that’s being hit with. If Gravedigger/AA procced a BIG lifesteal hit that scaled well with power, healed well with healing power, but procced smaller (but still well scaling) lifesteal hits from Death Spiral, then it works well. So far, none of the siphons have scaled well at all short of all vamp effects on a Death Spiral that hits 3 targets in BWE2.

Hell, what if those big, scaling lifesteals splashed healing to allies?

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Posted by: Zelfic.1594

Zelfic.1594

First of all I will say that playing Reaper was extremely fun. Thanks Robert.

Now the feedback…

Reaper’s Shroud

I would like for RS#1 and RS#5 to receive a little damage boost… and that’s it. I think that Reaper’s Shroud is okay as it is. Hopefully you will make Vital Persistence baseline so that we can try other trait lines more freely.

Greatsword

GS#1: I understand the idea behind the low speed but let’s face it, it is not working. We have plenty of more reliable ways to apply chill, and in PvP/WvW an opponent needs to be immobilized, stunned, knocked down, distracted or utterly kittened to actually get hit by the third link of the chain. Even in PvE it is a loss in DPS. Please reduce the cast time or it will just stay there, in our skill bar, forever unclicked.
GS#2: I love it. It is a shame that even with it we still aren’t top tier DPS.
GS#3: It would be nice if it was a bit faster.
GS#5: I like it, but the terrain still makes it fail a lot.

Shouts

NCSY: This one should be instant cast like the other non-healing non-elite shouts.
Suffer!: Or, as everyone calls it, “the bad plague signet”. It may sound nice on paper, but most of the time it feels extremely weak. It needs to be a stun break. Also change it so that it can transfer 1 condition and corrupt 1 boon on the opponents, or give one of our conditions and receive one of their boons, or give us Resistance. I loved Brujeria’s idea of adding Revealed to it, THAT would fit perfectly with its name xD.
YAAW: Considering how Might works, this skill ends up working against us. Please increase the duration of the stacks, and add Fury.
CttB: Please reduce the CD a little more, without lowering the chill/stun/stab of course.

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Posted by: CCLegion.5936

CCLegion.5936

I guess now is the time to voice my own concerns.

Reaper Shroud still feels awesome. No change requested here.

Greatsword feels much smoother than in the first beta. Overall a nice weapon and kitten , I love hitting people with Gravedigger.

Shouts are, again, for the most part fine.
While I won’t go into detail for all the shouts, I want to praise the changes to “Rise!”. This went from the by far weakest shout to easily one of the strongest. The minions on it also look pretty nice.
“Suffer!” might need some work still. Rest is pretty good.

Traits are the only area where I see more than 1 issue.
Among the minors, Augury of Death feels underwhelming in the amount of life stolen because, unlike Gravedigger, you cannot spam them, even when hitting target cap.
I think this trait still needs some work.

Chilling Nova feels like it should be an on entering Reaper Shroud trait to get the chill chain starting. Given that our chills are mostly AoE, with exception of Spinal Shivers and Spectral Grasp, it also ends up being simply an extension to the existing chill.

For the Majors, Soul Eater looks a little bit weird with the lifesteal on the slowest hit but once you realise that it is still the group fight option, it becomes a respectable amount of healing from a single trait. Especially when you factor in Gravediggers recharge behaviour.

Overall, really nice elite spec. Can’t wait for HoT release.

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Here’s my feedback from beta weekend 3. I played strictly in WvW ZvZ and solo roaming over the weekend, so the feedback is based from my experiences in WvW. Here are the videos I uploaded, they reflect my feedback:

WvW solo roaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXiDPZBGURI
WvW ZvZ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne5R-dlWi0E
(Build details are in the video’s description if you’re interested)

General BWE3 feelings in WvW:

-Absolutely fantastic! Just about everything feels and functions better compared to BWE 2. Boosts to traits and shouts made the most impact this time around. Shouts were lackluster last BWE, this time I wish I have more utility slots to use them all! Instant stun breaker, what an improvement. Reduced cd on “Chilled to the bone” along with Augury of Death? Sign me up. I’ve finally unloaded plague after years of using it as bread & butter.

-Thanks for fixing and smoothing out Death’s Charge. This was a very important thing that affected Reaper gameplay last BWE. Death’s Charge now works a lot better, not 100% yet, but it’s getting darn near. I no longer charge in random directions without a target.

-Reaper continue to feel and play strong in WvW roaming. No longer sitting ducks, I’ve had people avoid me as I ran across the zone, funny thing to see really. I didn’t win all the fights, but at least I had a chance most of the time. To be competitive is all I’m looking for, and Reaper in its current iteration feels competitive without being over or under powered. Toughest fights came from a couple Heralds, a really good Scrapper, and a couple godly Druids. Yes Druids, don’t let them fool you into thinking all they can do is heals. Berserkers can also provide heart pounding fights due to Gun Flame. That thing is like Gravedigger/Executioner’s Scythe on steroids combined…but with 1500 range. In my solo roaming vid I showed a fight against a Berserker where one missed dodge would’ve meant a for sure death. But that’s the point, a lot of the fights I’ve won and lost were very close, they could’ve gone either way. That’s the type of competitiveness I want out of Reaper.

-Reaper in ZvZ is all about timing and I think things will get better as people get used to timing when to leap in to cleave, and when to leap out. Reaper is not frontline material from what I’ve experienced. This won’t change unless you give Reaper a block or invuln option.

-I was skeptical of Deathly Chill but finally tried it along with Dhuumfire, all I can is wow. I checked my combat logs and saw the amount of chill ticks. So this whole chill thing with Reapers really do work.

-People have caught on to Reaper attack moves. I’ve had a lot more people dodge/block Executioner’s Scythe & Gravedigger as compared to last BWE. It’ll be interesting to see how things work out once even more people are familiar with these slower, big attacks.

Things I would like to see improved/fixed:

-Death’s Charge. One bug that needs to be fixed is when I do have a target, but charge short for no reason. The target is well within range, but my character appears to spin in place and I had no movement effects on me. I would say it happened rarely, but missing a charge could be detrimental in player vs player combat. Also as reported by others, sometimes you would spin in someone’s face, but you aren’t doing all the damage you should be. You’re missing hits for no reason. This should get fixed as well.

This I have no proof but it feels Death’s Charge isn’t blocking all projectiles. Like I was still getting hit by bow shots while executing Death’s Charge (I think). Please test this to make sure.

-Greatsword auto. It swings too slow, and damage is too low. There’s no need to have a slower 3rd swing because you’ll be lucky to connect even 1 auto attack in player vs player combat. This is a problem because we don’t have many damaging options with Greatsword that does not have a high cooldown on it. So if you swing Gravedigger, which has a 90% chance of missing, you’re left with auto attacks that don’t connect as well. Or if they do connect, they hit like wet noodles and don’t go further than 2nd chain. Slow, melee range auto attacks don’t work in PvP. People just don’t stand that close to you. Please consider extending auto attack range, speed up 3rd or all auto attacks, and increase damages so the payoff is there when they do hit. GS auto’s inability to connect hits directly affects lifeforce regen for Greatsword users. Lifeforce is still a big problem for GS users in its current iteration.

-Gravedigger, could we put this cool animation to good usage? You float in the air towards your target, looks very cool with a nice bang finish. But this skill just doesn’t connect in PvP. Could we maybe get a speed increase when floating in the air? So say I execute Gravedigger towards my target, I start floating, and for 1 second I fly faster in the air. This will help those of us that do PvP connect this skill. As-is right now it misses over 90% of the time. Someone mentioned earlier that it feels we’re being punished for using this skill when target’s above 50%, but there are limited damaging options with GS so we have to use this skill. Might as well make sure we get to connect with this skill at the very least.

-Death Spiral can use either a range increase (easy option without balance issues), or damage increase. Missing Death Spiral is demoralizing knowing it doesn’t hit for much in the first place, and you sometimes use it just to gain some lifeforce.

-Grasping Darkness still needs to be more reliable. I can be facing the target and it still shoots the grasp out the wrong way, missing the target. I’m assuming this has to do with the moving targets, which is all we see in player vs player combat. Also this skill still does not pull players to you, often it just pulls players down. I’ve settled for this defect and started using Grasping Darkness as an interrupt much like Wail of Doom. In case people aren’t aware, this skill has the same range as warhorn 4, it not only interrupts, but it applies chill, deals a small amount of damage, and gives you lifeforce. It’s a great skill, it just needs to be perfected so it’ll work well for GS users.

If you want to keep true to design philosophies of Reaper Greatsword being such short ranged with zero mobility, then Grasping Darkness really should pull players within Greatsword auto range. Anything less, then you would have to increase the range of GS attacks to compensate.

-Animation for Executioner’s Scythe sometimes does not perform, this can confuse you. You have limited time to execute other skills based on whether this skill hits or not. Please fix the animation so it always plays when you’ve successfully executed this skill.

-Chilling Nova’s short duration chill do not make it a good choice over Augury of Death or Relentless Pursuit. Augury of Death is now an awesome choice in any group or ZvZ fights, and Relentless Pursuit is great for 1v1’s and roaming. Chilling Nova needs to be improved to be a viable and competitive choice. Increasing chill duration of Chilling Nova will help.

-Soul Eater is a PvE only trait. It’s not viable for anybody in PvP/WvW because Gravedigger is not a reliable skill to use in PvP. I would use this trait if you make it a Greatsword trait much like Quickening Thirst. Greatsword users are extremely immobile, making us having to use either traveler’s runes or equip signet of locust, both of which hurt our dps. I would take this trait if you tag a 25% movement speed on it, just a suggestion. It makes sense really, as Greatsword is a melee range weapon, much like the dagger.

-Reaper’s Onslaught needs something. It’s not as good of an option over Blighter’s Boon (for any group/team fights) or Deathly Chill for chill/condi builds. I just can’t seem to feel the 15% attack speed increase.

-This isn’t Reaper specific, but either classes got some new ducking animations for some skills, or people are clipping through the ground. I saw it happen a lot over the weekend but can’t seem to figure out what it was.

All in all, I have to thank Robert Gee and Anet devs. You guys have created something that’s engaging and fun to play. The one word I can describe Reaper has been “fun”. I’m glad after 3 beta weekends the fun remains true. When adjusting values and making tweaks, please keep fun in mind.

Cheeres.

(edited by gavyne.6847)

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Posted by: Xae Isareth.1364

Xae Isareth.1364

First of all I will say that playing Reaper was extremely fun. Thanks Robert.

Now the feedback…

Reaper’s Shroud

I would like for RS#1 and RS#5 to receive a little damage boost… and that’s it. I think that Reaper’s Shroud is okay as it is. Hopefully you will make Vital Persistence baseline so that we can try other trait lines more freely.

Greatsword

GS#1: I understand the idea behind the low speed but let’s face it, it is not working. We have plenty of more reliable ways to apply chill, and in PvP/WvW an opponent needs to be immobilized, stunned, knocked down, distracted or utterly kittened to actually get hit by the third link of the chain. Even in PvE it is a loss in DPS. Please reduce the cast time or it will just stay there, in our skill bar, forever unclicked.
GS#2: I love it. It is a shame that even with it we still aren’t top tier DPS.
GS#3: It would be nice if it was a bit faster.
GS#5: I like it, but the terrain still makes it fail a lot.

I don’t think autoattacks can be considered DPS loss in PvE because they’re the fodder attacks. The only thing it can be a DPS loss against is the RS auto, which should be higher DPS (it currently is lower DPS unless you trait it) considering its a resource based mechanic.

I never expected reapers to be top tier DPS to be honest. We just got too much effective HP to justify being top tier.

So having said that I would quite like an increase in the #1 attack speed on GS but reduce the damage on it so you still maintain the same DPS on it in PvE whilst making it easier to hit people with in PvP.

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Posted by: Amethyst Lure.5624

Amethyst Lure.5624

I just wanna say that GS #2 is the sexiest animation in the game.

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Posted by: Bellamy.9860

Bellamy.9860

@Soul Eater beeing useful.

If they continue to go the “load everything on grave digger route”, how about a (stacking) attack speed buff for negated GD’s?
Would essentially be an altered version of two rev traits. Bonus attack speed with swords on attacking (shiro line) and bonus damage on negated attacks(invocation line), but with attack speed when GD is dodged/blocked/whatever.
This might help to reduce the dependency on GD and make the weapon overall more threatening.

@Executioner Scythe animation bug: happens when you change from running to standing still or from standing still to running while casting the skill(castbar not through). It will then speed up the animation resulting in the attack looking like it hit/finished while the skill is still beeing cast. Hope that helps reproducing the bug.

(edited by Bellamy.9860)

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Posted by: Jayce.5632

Jayce.5632

My Reaper Specialization View
Area View – PVP

General:

I found that maintaining life force while in Reaper’s Shroud was somewhat difficult against competent opponents of equal skill level. Roughly half of my attacks was simply negated by invulnerability, weapon evades, and blocks. Even if I managed to keep up with my enemies’ kiting tactics, time is never on my side due to the natural degeneration of life force alone, on top of the often substantial amount of damage taken in the process. I believe a nug is all that is needed in this case in Reapers Shroud skills 2-5. A 1% gain on skill use (Important), not hit. I don’t think this could see some abuse when you factor in the cool down of the skills. I also think it could soften the blow when chills just won’t stay on targets or when you want to trait a master other than Chilling Force.

Shouts:

“Nothing Can Save You!” – This buff often expires right when you need need it most. Executing a combo chain! Especially a combo while in Shroud. I think a 1 second increase to its base duration, bringing it from 4 seconds to 5 seconds would help.

“Chilled To The Bone!” – This skill should provide the user at least some stability on use, even if it is blocked or the user is blinded. It also should not be placed on full cool down if cancelled or interrupted.

Reapers Shroud:

Death’s Charge – This skill will sometimes fail to actually leap at a selected target, even when not immobilized.

Executioner’s Scythe – Release the Kraken of this skill. Make it AOE 3-5 targets.

No Changes Necessary:

“Your Soul Is Mine!”
“You Are All Weaklings!”
Augury Of Death
Decimate Defenses
(Important)
Blighter’s Boon
Reaper’s Onslaught

Did Not Test At All:

Greatsword
“Rise!”
Chilling Nova
Soul Eater

(Important) – Aimed at reducing the dependency effect that the Soul Reaping line currently has on Reaper’s Shroud.

i7-6700K – M.2 PCIe 512GB R/W:2500/1500MB/s
GTX 980M – SSD 512GB R/W:550/520MB/s
17.3" 1080p – 32GB 2400MHz DDR4

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Posted by: Kraav.8136

Kraav.8136

Robert:

Only a few changes needed:
1. Suffer – This shout needs something to make it feel like your targets are indeed suffering. May I suggest one of the following to be added to the skill: Inflict the Poisoned condition (2 stacks 8 seconds) or Torment (3 stacks 5 seconds) or increasing the damage slightly, or make it a stun break.

2. Infusing Terror – Make this first part a stun break.

3. Terrify – Reduce cast time to 1/4 second down from 1/2 second.

4. Nothing Can Save You – Instant cast time. Applies Revealed & Unblockable. 30 second CD. (The revealed part was a great idea from ronpierce.2760)

5. Chilling Scythe – 3/4 second cast time

Edit: Removed Soul Eater idea on further thought and added reveal buff for “Nothing can save you”

I really feel the reaper is loads of fun to play in all game modes!

(edited by Kraav.8136)

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Posted by: KingFarout.1092

KingFarout.1092

Three things:

Greatsword auto #3 is too slow.
“Chilled to the bone” needs a slight buff for all its disadvantages
Greatsword 5 could use a slight 100 range buff..

Otherwise reaper is really fun and feels really solid.

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Posted by: Dakunaito.9602

Dakunaito.9602

Berserker has exact trait with Chilling Nova but does burn instead, and it does x2 dmg and has 2sec icd. hahahahahahahahahaha. Chilling Nova had 15sec icd pre-buff, and the Berserker trait start straight at 2sec? nice balance… not. Berserker summons a rock, punches it, and all that in 0.5sec. when you see/do the skill it feels like someone put fast forward. they removed the cast speed on purpose so that the skill doesn’t have drawback, and put it on Gravedigger. Gravedigger has 2sec cast time with animation. yay. the discrimination is over 9000. conversation from livestream of Berserker: Ruby: Berserker can’t have everything. the other guy(can’t remember his name): Yes it can!. when they talk about Necro/Reaper: we want Necro to be balanced, so we put XXX drawback(long cast time etc) in XXX skill for balance

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Posted by: Ravezaar.4951

Ravezaar.4951

Will we get a final Notes on Reaper/Necro before launch ? and if so have any1 seen a date on that ? Cause it would be good if we can give Feedback on those said Notes aswell.

Underjordens Furste 80 Necro Piken-server
Servant of Dhuum

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Posted by: ShadeWyrm.4152

ShadeWyrm.4152

Greatsword feels nearly perfect except The auto chain is still pretty darn terrible and I don’t see it ever really landing outside of chaotic team battles in PvP.

Shouts feel great, but the heal shout could perhaps scale (A lot) better with healing power.

Traits are in a pretty good spot, but the two first middle traits are pretty awful. Chilling Nova is insanely hard to apply, and by nature will be pretty much random (as opposed to when you want it.) it really needs the ICD brought down much much lower or if spreading chill via it is too strong – simply remove that component and drop the ICD. I dunno, something – otherwise I see no reason to pick it over the other two great traits.

Chilling Might is just plain awful, when compared to any other method of generating might is just utterly awful. Please consider increasing the Might duration (dramatically) or considering increasing the stacks. As is on a chill focused build it can maintain maybe 4 stacks in optimal conditions.

The Greatsword Reduction trait needs the heal to scale better with healing power by a fair margin – I think base it’s fine – but it should reward other stat combos.

Otherwise, I’m happy and glad to have a new main come HoT as a Reaper.

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Posted by: hazenvirus.8154

hazenvirus.8154

Reaper brings little support, so the only reason to take them to Dungeons, Fractals, Raids, in PvE is dps. Dps needs to be one of the things that defines Reaper compared to other classes, in a party, or we will always be last pick for PvE content.

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Posted by: Lemondish.3268

Lemondish.3268

Reaper brings little support, so the only reason to take them to Dungeons, Fractals, Raids, in PvE is dps. Dps needs to be one of the things that defines Reaper compared to other classes, in a party, or we will always be last pick for PvE content.

I don’t think this is a legitimate concern at this stage.

Raids may be coming to GW2, but this constant fear mongering that a whole class will be left out because of a culture of min/max doesn’t need to come with it. For one, that level of ridiculous exclusion is not something that will benefit anybody but the world first guilds. It’s not the kit that will determine your group’s success, it’s how you use it.

We know of very few fights in the raids. Those that we do know about include mechanics that we’ve never seen before in GW2’s PvE content. The value of any profession in this content cannot be accurately predicted at this time.

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Reaper brings little support, so the only reason to take them to Dungeons, Fractals, Raids, in PvE is dps. Dps needs to be one of the things that defines Reaper compared to other classes, in a party, or we will always be last pick for PvE content.

I don’t think this is a legitimate concern at this stage.

Raids may be coming to GW2, but this constant fear mongering that a whole class will be left out because of a culture of min/max doesn’t need to come with it. For one, that level of ridiculous exclusion is not something that will benefit anybody but the world first guilds. It’s not the kit that will determine your group’s success, it’s how you use it.

We know of very few fights in the raids. Those that we do know about include mechanics that we’ve never seen before in GW2’s PvE content. The value of any profession in this content cannot be accurately predicted at this time.

I’d be less concerned if this same exact stuff wasn’t happening now…

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Posted by: Charblaze.6958

Charblaze.6958

I don’t think this is a legitimate concern at this stage.

Yes, it is. They promised to bring the complexity of PvP combat instead we got dumb defiance bars completely erasing what little of control we had left in high end PvE.

Raids may be coming to GW2, but this constant fear mongering that a whole class will be left out because of a culture of min/max doesn’t need to come with it. For one, that level of ridiculous exclusion is not something that will benefit anybody but the world first guilds. It’s not the kit that will determine your group’s success, it’s how you use it.

Raids are supposed to be the hardest content only doable by organized groups. If anything it’s an indication that the min/max culture will be stronger than ever. If you have bad equip or builds in dungeon and fractals you just take longer, in a raid you outright fail. Kitten, the first boss had even an enrage timer (i.e. a DPS check) and if you fail it (not enough zerk/sinister) you wipe.

We know of very few fights in the raids. Those that we do know about include mechanics that we’ve never seen before in GW2’s PvE content. The value of any profession in this content cannot be accurately predicted at this time.

But we do know our debuffs and control do nothing thanks to defiance bar invalidating half of our profession.

(edited by Charblaze.6958)

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

We know of very few fights in the raids. Those that we do know about include mechanics that we’ve never seen before in GW2’s PvE content. The value of any profession in this content cannot be accurately predicted at this time.

But we do know our debuffs and control do nothing thanks to defiance bar invalidating half of our profession.

*On certain types of fights. His point is that we know nothing about the design of other raid encounters, so there’s no reason to dismay. Raising the point is fine, but raising pitchforks seems premature.

And if they promised the complexity of PvP in PvE, that’s their fault. They should design PvE with PvE in mind, not PvP, otherwise their fights are most likely going to be more susceptible to the silly AI-exploiting cheese strats that plagued my dungeon experience. There’s no reason to try to get the feel of PvP into PvE, and to try demonstrates a lack of understanding of the two (in my opinion).

Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”

(edited by Cogbyrn.7283)

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Posted by: TheLastNobody.8319

TheLastNobody.8319

We know of very few fights in the raids. Those that we do know about include mechanics that we’ve never seen before in GW2’s PvE content. The value of any profession in this content cannot be accurately predicted at this time.

But we do know our debuffs and control do nothing thanks to defiance bar invalidating half of our profession.

*On certain types of fights. His point is that we know nothing about the design of other raid encounters, so there’s no reason to dismay. Raising the point is fine, but raising pitchforks seems premature.

And if they promised the complexity of PvP in PvE, that’s their fault. They should design PvE with PvE in mind, not PvP, otherwise their fights are most likely going to be more susceptible to the silly AI-exploiting cheese strats that plagued my dungeon experience. There’s no reason to try to get the feel of PvP into PvE, and to try demonstrates a lack of understanding of the two (in my opinion).

The problem is though this is the first raid, and depending on how it goes, could be used as a template for other raids in the future. The whole soft trinity they want of damage, support, control is instead just all about damage and support because control is completely thrown out the window with the new defiance bar system. I love the idea behind it, but since they lumped every condition we have that would be useful behind that bar, we can’t do squat.

A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.

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Posted by: Vydahr.4285

Vydahr.4285

We know of very few fights in the raids. Those that we do know about include mechanics that we’ve never seen before in GW2’s PvE content. The value of any profession in this content cannot be accurately predicted at this time.

But we do know our debuffs and control do nothing thanks to defiance bar invalidating half of our profession.

*On certain types of fights. His point is that we know nothing about the design of other raid encounters, so there’s no reason to dismay. Raising the point is fine, but raising pitchforks seems premature.

And if they promised the complexity of PvP in PvE, that’s their fault. They should design PvE with PvE in mind, not PvP, otherwise their fights are most likely going to be more susceptible to the silly AI-exploiting cheese strats that plagued my dungeon experience. There’s no reason to try to get the feel of PvP into PvE, and to try demonstrates a lack of understanding of the two (in my opinion).

The problem is though this is the first raid, and depending on how it goes, could be used as a template for other raids in the future. The whole soft trinity they want of damage, support, control is instead just all about damage and support because control is completely thrown out the window with the new defiance bar system. I love the idea behind it, but since they lumped every condition we have that would be useful behind that bar, we can’t do squat.

Yeah, CC (especially soft CC) really needs to work beyond the defiance bar. How useful would perma chill on the Vale Guardian be? Maybe make it so that only soft CC can affect raid bosses, that way you can’t just make them stay in one place indefinitely with immobilize

Drahvienn
Sylvari Power Reaper

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Posted by: Charblaze.6958

Charblaze.6958

@Cogbyrn: For Kitten Sake! Even some of the common mobs are receiving defiance bars, everything above veteran is guaranteed to get one. Is it hard to understand that whenever there is a defiance bar a good chunk of our profession is made irrelevant?

“Complexity of PvP” means that currently PvP and WvW makes full use of the combat system and stats available, while PvE uses a reduced set. Right now it’s shaping up to use an even smaller subset than we currently use.

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

And if that chunk of our profession that is made irrelevant by the Defiance Bar fully worked, they’d just have to re-balance all of the encounters with it in mind. Suddenly, you have to keep Chill up 100% of the time, because boss abilities are balanced around the cooldown increase. You have to keep Weakness up 100% of the time, because Weakness + Protection is an incredible amount of mitigation that 10 players can easily maintain, so the boss would be tuned accordingly. Bosses would have to have some mechanism to avoid being kited the entire fight with the movement slow/immobilize.

And in those situations, you may just have to bring a Necromancer, because the Necro can manage those conditions fairly easily. Is that what we’re aiming for, being absolutely necessary in raids? That doesn’t feel like balance, either, I don’t care how many other builds for other classes are deemed necessary. Do you really think that they can provide enough mechanics in a boss where a raid has to bring one of every class, at least? That’s a really tall order.

In short, I really think designing raid encounters without making bosses/specific mobs susceptible to soft CC like chill, weakness, and cripple is the correct approach. They’re just going to have to find another way for Necros to be useful.

If they want, they can create a situation where waves of enemies spawn that you can greatly help mitigate with AoE Weakness, or kite with AoE Chill/Cripple, or otherwise manage. The Necro can help manage chaotic situations by debuffing specific mobs that are meant to be debuffed.

This is also ANet’s first foray into 10-man encounter design. They are going to need time to hit their stride. There’s absolutely no way Vale Guardian is going to be the template by which all raid encounters are built in the future.

Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”

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Posted by: Sazaraki.1970

Sazaraki.1970

I at least somewhat agree with Cogbyrn. You can’t expect chill’s slow effect to work on bosses because it is too easy to keep it up 100% of the time. They do need to have situations where chill’s CC will be helpful though. Along with other CC like immobilize and cripple.

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

I at least somewhat agree with Cogbyrn. You can’t expect chill’s slow effect to work on bosses because it is too easy to keep it up 100% of the time. They do need to have situations where chill’s CC will be helpful though. Along with other CC like immobilize and cripple.

If that were a concern why not just increase boss attack speed across the board by 33%? I know he was being facetious but this is a reasonable option.

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Posted by: TheLastNobody.8319

TheLastNobody.8319

And if that chunk of our profession that is made irrelevant by the Defiance Bar fully worked, they’d just have to re-balance all of the encounters with it in mind. Suddenly, you have to keep Chill up 100% of the time, because boss abilities are balanced around the cooldown increase. You have to keep Weakness up 100% of the time, because Weakness + Protection is an incredible amount of mitigation that 10 players can easily maintain, so the boss would be tuned accordingly. Bosses would have to have some mechanism to avoid being kited the entire fight with the movement slow/immobilize.

And in those situations, you may just have to bring a Necromancer, because the Necro can manage those conditions fairly easily. Is that what we’re aiming for, being absolutely necessary in raids? That doesn’t feel like balance, either, I don’t care how many other builds for other classes are deemed necessary. Do you really think that they can provide enough mechanics in a boss where a raid has to bring one of every class, at least? That’s a really tall order.

In short, I really think designing raid encounters without making bosses/specific mobs susceptible to soft CC like chill, weakness, and cripple is the correct approach. They’re just going to have to find another way for Necros to be useful.

If they want, they can create a situation where waves of enemies spawn that you can greatly help mitigate with AoE Weakness, or kite with AoE Chill/Cripple, or otherwise manage. The Necro can help manage chaotic situations by debuffing specific mobs that are meant to be debuffed.

This is also ANet’s first foray into 10-man encounter design. They are going to need time to hit their stride. There’s absolutely no way Vale Guardian is going to be the template by which all raid encounters are built in the future.

They could also give bosses Condi transfers, cleansing, heck COndi to boon conversion would be GREAT for us! They could give them resistance. There are other and better ways for them to do this, rather than just pile it all into the defiance bar….the whole chill arguement you made with increasing boss cool downs, would that really be such a bad thing? It would give us some way to help keep the boss in check, maybe even have it slightly affect the enrage timer to give more time to groups? And weakness is a terrible Condi for damage mitigation in comparison to protection, weakness is a 50:50 flip, protection is a straight 33% all the time.

Could even have a phase where mobs spawn and start to draw conditions off the boss and when you kill them, it applies the pulled conditions to you.

And for the claim of, we want necros to be necessary, no, we want to be wanted. A revenant isn’t necessary for a raid, but he still brings AoE protection, fury, and wonderful projectile destruction, a guardian isn’t necessary, but he provides good blocks, a Druid isn’t necessary, but he provides heals. What we want is something that will make people go “wow, glad we brought the necro, his ability to ? came in really handy.”

A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.

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Posted by: Clique.3809

Clique.3809

Hello! PvP POV here.

The only issue I seems to had with Reaper is the slow base attack speed in GS#1. As of now, the life force regeneration from GS is almost non-existent in high level PvP due to the simplicity in evading such a slow sluggish animation.

So please either increase the base auto attack speed or the range of GS#1 so that GS can be at least somewhat viable in higher level competitive PvP.

(edited by Clique.3809)

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Posted by: TheLastNobody.8319

TheLastNobody.8319

Hello! PvP POV here.

The only issue I seems to had with Reaper is the slow base attack speed in GS#1. As of now, the life force regeneration from GS is almost non-existent in high level PvP due to the simplicity in dodging such a slow sluggish animation.

So please either increase the base auto attack speed or the range of GS#1 so that GS can be at least somewhat viable in higher level competitive PvP.

Think 1/2, 3/4 criplling, 1 chilling would be too quick?

A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.

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Posted by: Sazaraki.1970

Sazaraki.1970

I at least somewhat agree with Cogbyrn. You can’t expect chill’s slow effect to work on bosses because it is too easy to keep it up 100% of the time. They do need to have situations where chill’s CC will be helpful though. Along with other CC like immobilize and cripple.

If that were a concern why not just increase boss attack speed across the board by 33%? I know he was being facetious but this is a reasonable option.

I don’t think that would be good for all bosses. However, one/multiple bosses that pretty much require slow/cripple /immobilize /chill could be interesting and would allow for more varied play.

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Posted by: Charblaze.6958

Charblaze.6958

@Cogbyrn: They are game developers and designers! It’s their job to design and balance with that in mind. And honestly they should start balancing around boons too, because they clearly aren’t. Or at least give us support options valuable enough to make up for the lost control.

Weakness has 25% less damage reduction than protection and has an RNG component that can Kitten you over. The only advantage over protection is that once you apply it, it’s up for everyone. But then comes herald’s support, bam! 90% party-wide protection up-time. All proclaims of killing the zerk meta are suddenly a joke and the only successful raids are full DPS with one tank guy only to lock the boss in place by keeping the aggro.

But yeah debuffs are the problem, and asking to have them working as intended albeit in a weakened manner is the utter madness. Necromancers have complete monopoly over debuffs, it’s not like other professions have access to them if they spec for it. Meanwhile a single boon utterly defeating one of the raid’s design goals is perfectly fine. Yes, it all makes perfect sense, Mad King Thorn approves.

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Posted by: Cogbyrn.7283

Cogbyrn.7283

If anything, all they need to do is provide timings/phases where a boss is susceptible to certain conditions. Perhaps a phase where he uses a heavy-hitting ability on a cooldown, and Chill helps spread that ability’s usage enough for survival. Or a phase where the boss starts hitting everyone with a bunch of small attacks, and Weakness helps mitigate enough for survival.

Also, they could have a boss pulse boon-removal via some mechanic, perhaps one that the raid has to manage/turn off in some way via interaction with the environment. Maybe the boss calls a machine operator every so often that you have to chill/cripple and DPS down to keep it from turning on a machine, otherwise all of your boons get stripped every second. Then maybe there’s a phase where the boss turns it on himself, so you have to deal without precious Protection in some way. Or, maybe the boss will have an aura that reduces Protection’s benefit to 0. Or, maybe the boss will start to do a series of small crits while becoming susceptible to Weakness, increasing Weakness’s mitigation even further.

The world is ANet’s burrito. That doesn’t mean they should have to worry about balancing around 100% Chill/Weakness uptime on all bosses all the time. Balancing around Weakness is an RNG-fest anyway, so they really should try to incorporate that condition specifically. At least Protection is consistent, so it can be reliably incorporated into design.

And are they not balancing around boons? Maybe a combination of Zerk gear with Protection up-time is a key to beating Vale Guardian, one type of encounter out of all kinds of potential variations. Maybe they are easing the community into raiding by giving them a fight that sort of fits the same PvE meta that has been seen, just with an enrage timer and some soak mechanics.

The point: We’ve seen what, one boss so far? Why all of the conclusion-jumping and torch-waving?

Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”

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Posted by: Sazaraki.1970

Sazaraki.1970

I would like to see bosses using condition cleanses, turning conditions into boons, boon removal/corruption /stealing. They need to make it harder to keep so many boons going.

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Posted by: Tim.6450

Tim.6450

And if that chunk of our profession that is made irrelevant by the Defiance Bar fully worked, they’d just have to re-balance all of the encounters with it in mind. Suddenly, you have to keep Chill up 100% of the time, because boss abilities are balanced around the cooldown increase. You have to keep Weakness up 100% of the time, because Weakness + Protection is an incredible amount of mitigation that 10 players can easily maintain, so the boss would be tuned accordingly. Bosses would have to have some mechanism to avoid being kited the entire fight with the movement slow/immobilize.

That’s a strange point view. The weakness + protection combination is overpowered/mandatory in a (small) subset of PvE better make everything with a breakbar immune to weakness only. Oh no the boss can be easily kited, let’s negate the effectiveness of only 1 aspect of kiting and not the rest again on everything with a break bar. Also it does not deny the fact that might is mandatory for raids, vulnerability is mandatory, … .

And in those situations, you may just have to bring a Necromancer, because the Necro can manage those conditions fairly easily. Is that what we’re aiming for, being absolutely necessary in raids? That doesn’t feel like balance, either, I don’t care how many other builds for other classes are deemed necessary.

Since when does necro have a monopoly on weakness, chill,… ? It will require some shifts in other classes but they are capable of providing those conditions as well.

Do you really think that they can provide enough mechanics in a boss where a raid has to bring one of every class, at least? That’s a really tall order.

Actually one would be sufficient: 10 man wide buffing.

In short, I really think designing raid encounters without making bosses/specific mobs susceptible to soft CC like chill, weakness, and cripple is the correct approach. They’re just going to have to find another way for Necros to be useful.

And how is that going to be possible? The class is bassicaly crippled : every weapon combination has at least 2 skills that do not work at 100% due this change, a lot of our utility skills do not work at 100% due this and a lot of our traits are cripple as well. So how are we going to offer something wanted in PvE without being mandatory while maitaining PvP balance?

If they want, they can create a situation where waves of enemies spawn that you can greatly help mitigate with AoE Weakness, or kite with AoE Chill/Cripple, or otherwise manage. The Necro can help manage chaotic situations by debuffing specific mobs that are meant to be debuffed.

Or since the mob has no breakbar you just use hard cc and be done with it as well.

This is also ANet’s first foray into 10-man encounter design. They are going to need time to hit their stride. There’s absolutely no way Vale Guardian is going to be the template by which all raid encounters are built in the future.

And how many of those encounter will NOT have breakbar?

EverythingOP

BWE 3 Reaper Specialization Feedback Thread

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Oh, and I completely forgot to mention this.

Shivers of Dread is completely worthless to far too many builds. If you don’t bring staff, rely on RNG corruptions, or a very select set of skills, you have an entire set of minor traits that give, in total: +20% chill duration, 10% reduced damage from Chilled enemies, 3s AoE fear every 28s. That’s awful, like, approaching Death Magic minors level of awful.

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BWE 3 Reaper Specialization Feedback Thread

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Posted by: Magusdood.8405

Magusdood.8405

I think Reaper’s damage is appealing, and it’s ability to generate vunrability and might make it feel really good to solo/pug with. However, as RS necro basically requires the Reaper and Soul Reaping lines, the remaining lines feel like choosing between spite and blood magic.

As it stands, I’m worried that this is not a difficult enough choice, mostly because spite contributes much better, especially in power RS builds. This leaves us without Vampiric Aura, one of the only ways necro currently feels like it helps out the whole team and without it feels like a very selfish class again. I wonder how one could make reaper feel like more of a team contributer. A thought would be using Decimate Defences if it effected the whole team (a thought that it might be applied by reapers to enemies on hit), but I would guess that it would have to have it’s effectivness cut in half (which would be fine by me at least)

Half baked suggestions aside, any thoughts on maybe making Reaper a bit more group-friendly so it has more of a niche in currently existing group content like dungeons and fractals (I am aware reaper is heavily involved in testing for raids, so less worried there).

Edit: I am an idiot. You could just make Decimate Defenses an aura. I stand by my comments on a nerf to compensate.

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Posted by: Quintuplebeta.3914

Quintuplebeta.3914

My only gripe (Other than the difficulty to land the gs1 aa chain and the gs 5 seeming like it is harder to hit with) is that Soul Eater is not meaningful. I feel like it should do %health healing or even %damage healing to make it stand up to the other two traits in the line.

That being said, I am still going to run it just because its different.

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Posted by: Azure.8670

Azure.8670

I would like to see bosses using condition cleanses, turning conditions into boons, boon removal/corruption /stealing. They need to make it harder to keep so many boons going.

ive been saying this for 3 years. this will make pve actually difficult

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Posted by: mazut.4296

mazut.4296

-Gravedigger, could we put this cool animation to good usage? You float in the air towards your target, looks very cool with a nice bang finish. But this skill just doesn’t connect in PvP. Could we maybe get a speed increase when floating in the air? *So say I execute Gravedigger towards my target, I start floating, and for 1 second I fly faster in the air. * This will help those of us that do PvP connect this skill. As-is right now it misses over 90% of the time. Someone mentioned earlier that it feels we’re being punished for using this skill when target’s above 50%, but there are limited damaging options with GS so we have to use this skill. Might as well make sure we get to connect with this skill at the very least.

Very good idea. Give it 1sec Superspeed or swiftness.