Guild Wars 2

Hello, as an avid player of PVP Necromancer and conditions specializations in general, I feel like the CC conditions are far too powerful in the current state.

The overload of conditions on targets prevents them from clearing the important ones – and the everlasting onslaught of conditions can promote some very unhealthy game play.

The reason this is being posted here, rather than in general: I have more experience with the rise and fall of Necromancers in PvP than any other class, although Mesmer is a close second.

Reapers can use Enfeeble, as well as have Chill on Swap / Bleed on Swap. This mean that every (used loosely) time I use Reaper Shroud, I apply Weakness, Chill, and up to 5 Bleeds instantly on everyone around me. In addition, using a skill like Corrosive Poison can increase the stacks of your Poison on the target, or even, with Ethereal fields, allow you to stack up to 12 confusion on the target if you catch them with your poison spin.

Before melee combat begins, as a Rabid Reaper, I can stack conditions on the target (including the newly provided Torment ability on scepter) before they are in range for burst. After Reaper shroud begins, I can start my stability, throw a frost field, spin, and then fear the target. Many times, this combo alone is strong enough to take down a focused target. That’s not the problem, however.

The problem happens when I’m not just doing this to my focused target. I’m doing this to up to 5 targets in range. That, in combination with Chilled to the Bone for a stun/stability, i can continue to condition-nuke all the people I had previously hit. With high applications of poison, and chill, I can render the entire enemy team useless myself.

In addition, in Legacy of the Foefire, I can pull all 4 adds, the Lord, and have an enemy defender attacking me, and i will still succeed in not only killing the lord, but many times, killing the defender as well.

A Condi-Reaper has:

Curses:
Bleeds on crits (can proc from weapon swap and enfeeble hits)
1st Tier: Plague Signet Passive
2nd Tier: Corruption Cooldowns (20s cooldown on heal, flash shroud to hit cooldown)
3rd Tier: Enfeeble on Shroud

Soul Reaping:
Shroud Armor passive life force + protection
1st Tier: Life Force on Staff
2nd Tier: 50% less shroud generation, 15% cooldown reduction (awesome for #4 RS)
3rd Tier: Dhuumfire (More condition cover, up to 5 burn is incredible damage)

Reaper:
Shouts: “Rise” is the best one by far. I could maintain my minions to reduce damage I take by 50%. With enough players around me, I could make another 6 before the first ones were dead. Alone, they would be too concerned with me to finish the minion and my shroud weakness/chill/bleed protected me enough 1v1. Chilled to the Bone is great for finishing downed players or starting a fight with stability, chill is like 5 bleeds on every target and also slows them.

1st Tier: Shout Cooldowns
2nd Tier: Might on Chill Hit
3rd Tier: Chill deals damage. Also slows. also slows cooldowns. also reduces damage you do to the necro.

He has all the tools a DPS spec needs to bring down a target 1v1 by using terrain. “ganking” the target around corners and swapping shroud on enemy targets will instantly burst them with conditions that they NEED to remove. the next burst you put out won’t be as hard to maintain, and you can cycle through your different weapons to continually stack the conditions until the target runs out of cooldowns to defend themselves with.

2v1 is the hardest. I can win 1v1 easy, 2v1 is a little harder especially if one of them continually stuns me. 2v1 I can sometimes down one or both if i draw one away from the other. If i catch them both in a corner and land a stun on both, i can kill both with a chain of conditions + fear so they cant heal.

With the combination/usage of these, as well as having access to: Chill on shout, shambling horrors, and might on shout. 20s condition removal heal, which, in the condi meta, is very helpful. and a charge on shroud #2 that can take us away from the combat so we can start our burst again.

Reapers are in a very strong position at the moment in Spvp. Expect some nerfs coming soon, because even a reaper who is getting focused is still dealing incredible amounts of damage for his team. Either you win the game, or you narrowly lose because your teammates aren’t capping the empty points while you go 1v2 or 1v3.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWnc0AtbiN3AebC0biFjBLOHGEPiUNhoQtK6nFAGAA-TJhHwACOFAB3fAwTAAZZAA

OH! HERE IS A SCREENSHOT OF THE GAME I DOWNED THE ATTACKER AND KILLED THE LORD AND HIS GUARDS

Do you have and could you post a build for the spec you mention? I see your points and yea, a nerf would surely be coming but I am anxiously awaiting the xpact and want to run a build just as you describe.
I love a condi build and all it brings although I am a PVE player and tend to solo a lot. But having just came back to the game after 3yrs (had enough WOW and demons!) I am really enjoying the Necro but from what I can find most people say a Condi Reaper is a huge waste. Yet by what you just posted and from what I saw in the POI video Condi will be just fine.
But yea, the builds and all are still a learning curve for me so anything you could provide would be a great starter!
Thanks!!

I didn’t know there exists a build with 4+ utility skills. Also what condi meta? We had/have at best a burn meta and even that is loosely said.

P.S. scepter has no blind.

First I’ll admit I’m far from very skilled in this game. Got my 1st toon, a Necro, to 80 a few weeks ago. That being said I dont think a build as the one described in the op is possible. It sounds like the op mashes together the strongest aspects of at least 2 different builds and I just dont see this invincible reaper actually working.

PS: If such a build actually exits please share it

pepsis.5384:

First I’ll admit I’m far from very skilled in this game. Got my 1st toon, a Necro, to 80 a few weeks ago. That being said I dont think a build as the one described in the op is possible. It sounds like the op mashes together the strongest aspects of at least 2 different builds and I just dont see this invincible reaper actually working.

PS: If such a build actually exits please share it

Yea, part of the reason I asked for a build. From what I have read I haven’t seen any such build and I too only just got my Necro to 80, and if this will be possible then that’s pretty cool. But something tells me its pipe dream unless in the Beta this weekend they (ANET) made some changes?
To somewhat hijack this thread and continue, what do you all think of a Condi Reaper build? Or should I start gathering Zerker gear to go with my GS?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWnc0AtbiN3AebC0biFjBLOHGEPiUNhoQtK6nFAGAA-TJhHwACOFAB3fAwTAAZZAA

build I used.

Corrosive poison can be swapped for plague signet

Tim.6450:

I didn’t know there exists a build with 4+ utility skills. Also what condi meta? We had/have at best a burn meta and even that is loosely said.

P.S. scepter has no blind.

Dagger offhand?

pepsis.5384:

First I’ll admit I’m far from very skilled in this game. Got my 1st toon, a Necro, to 80 a few weeks ago. That being said I dont think a build as the one described in the op is possible. It sounds like the op mashes together the strongest aspects of at least 2 different builds and I just dont see this invincible reaper actually working.

PS: If such a build actually exits please share it

I posted the build above. I used Soul Reaping, Curses, and Reaper. I soloed the Lord, all 4 guards, and an enemy player in TWO separate games. I could run around a corner at 50% health, get in close and gank someone at max health and have them downed from conditions in 4 seconds if they didn’t block my stun or fear. With Enfeeble, bleed on swap, chill on swap, PLUS they count as an extra “hit” that can bleed the target if it crits.

I have of a lot of pictures of my ending scores. I’ll add them to the meta.

Take it from me, you won’t get any love talking nerfs to Reaper in this forum.

That being said, I’m sooooo disappointed I didn’t take the time to try a rabid build. I was having too much fun with staff/greatsword ’rauder.

Post was a great read. 9/10 Might even read again. Knowledgeable, informative, and even incited lolz with tales of clowning plebs. Extra points for the screenshot.

Learn from this folks. This is how you post.

So Caine, in your opinion would say going with a Condi Reaper (PVE) would be a good choice? From what you have posted it appears so and I would hate to get a bunch of Zerker gear only to find that Condi is way more fun. Only problem I see is that I will really be leaning towards GS use but then that would work against a condi build, would it not?
Also, somewhat of a newbie here (no, I am, having been gone wasting time on WOW and ESO for 3 yrs) so its all kinda new but I really enjoy the Necro and the thought of making him somewhat tanky yet a DPS monster is kinda sweet! Thanks again for posting the build!

*Wholly crap look at that Condi damage going out! They didn’t stand a chance!!!

do the Hydromancy and Geomancy sigils stack? I thought sigils of a same type didn’t proc at once. If you really get the chill and bleeds all at once this is overpowered.

roachsrealm.9284:

do the Hydromancy and Geomancy sigils stack? I thought sigils of a same type didn’t proc at once. If you really get the chill and bleeds all at once this is overpowered.

They do work together. You can notice the big frost effect when you swap, and the spikes from the bleed.

Would you consider this a threat in the “high-level” sPvP scene, or just a pubstar build?

Pregnantman.8259:

I am thinking of running a similar setup – atleast in terms of traits. As I am unable to join beta tests all I have is just on paper – but it should be worth for trying. I was going to make a thread to ask testers’ opinion about it but now that there is a condi reaper thread I’ll post anyway:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGozGs3Gw2GgeTsUMYx/whYSk6JMFuVRBgvVBA-TJhAwAEeCAw2fgcZAAnCAA

Build comes with 3 condi cleanses (2 of them transfer), good boon corrupt, decent chill uptime, high burn uptime and weakness/protection combo. Highlights of the build are spectral skills which allow for control, defense and even a bit of offense., with that being said I still haven’t decided to get Spectral Mastery yet because VP is so good.

With spectral wall being an ethereal field – build can use it for Chaos armor to get atleast 10 seconds of prot (5 seconds from skill itself + 5 from a proc) along with blinds and heavy confusion application on demand. If noone goes through the wall and gets caught in RS 4, there is still the Chaos armor to make the skill worthwhile.

Alternative trait options in the build in Curses (bit messy because I havent had a chance to test condi reaper yet):

Plague Sending, Master of Corruptions, Terror, Lingering Curse

Soul Reaping:

Spectral Mastery

Reaper:

Chilling Nova

Utilities:

CPC if Master of Corruptions is taken (adding Plague Sending would help)

Sorry if I was hijacking the thread, but this seemed quite the opportunity. Thoughts?

This is a pretty run-of-the-mill build, but I question your offhand warhorn when using Rabid Rune. The locusts are okay, and give swiftness, but you’re losing an extra Enfeeble and the blind/condi transfer from dagger 4.

In addition, the Balth runes and burning sigil I’ve tried before, and personally if you manage to get kittens in a row on a target, it’s because they are heavily cc’d. the burn lasts a short while longer, if they don’t clear it off, and there is no guarantee you’ll actually land your burns. too much dodging/blinds and realistically the burning doesn’t add much.

The chill duration is unnecessary and pointless, mostly because people hate chill so much that they are always trying to clear it off, and there are more traits and skills that remove chill, immob, cripple than any other. The idea here is you don’t want to apply “longer” conditions, but “more” conditions, which is why I chose the weapon swap/enfeeble reaper, with chill and bleed on swap. Adds more chill. I always thought Dark Pact was nice, it was good condition cover and boon removal, but it just didn’t have much “kick” to it, and it was hard to notice its effects. I went with Master of Corruption for the 20s heal (which a skilled player can use his Reaper shroud + fear chains + stun to get a heal off the last second and prolong a fight).

Landing your combos in the spectral wall is difficult because it’s got such a small range. I tried using it to stack confusion on a target, but it ended up taking away precious time that I could be using casting other conditions. Spectral armor is great and I use it frequently – but higher mmr players will simply stop hitting you. There goes your life force gain

Plague signet will suck other people’s conditions to you. forget landing your skills ever again, because you will now be forever slowed and blind. I still use it frequently, but not without the signet trait.

Having shouts, I can have 50% damage reduction almost indefinitely against multiple targets. In addition, I can blast out another chill, and transfer conditions off me just as well as Plague Signet around 5 people. This counts as pets, too, so you have advantage against MM, Rangers, and Mesmers. Using the shout that also gives Might, I could stack everyone to 10+ of every condition in a matter of seconds, stun them with my elite, and stack my might

dead or running was the result.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Would you consider this a threat in the “high-level” sPvP scene, or just a pubstar build?

I could fight 1v1 against most classes. In addition, I can distract two people at a time, and I get stronger in team fights. Against mesmers, I can have an indefinite 50% damage reduction with my shout. I would clear all of the Rangers conditions to himself, and use my stability to approach longbow rangers. Burn guardians gave me trouble, but if i was expecting him i could clear his burns onto him. If i managed to get him stunned he was dead. Again, I also took Far point, killing the person there, and attacked the gate/killed people who came out of the gate until it was down. I made sure we had two points, ran inside by myself, pulled everything. Got a player add. Continued attacking the lord until I killed all the adds, the lord, and downed the player and won the game.

Definitely not too pubstar, and enough actual stability/condi removal to fight back. I had a game in Legacy of the Foefire where I did over a million damage in the game.