Death Shroud on Reaper?
We’ve asked for it, like a F1 for Reaper Shroud F2 for Death Shroud, and have them share cooldowns. But eh, no dice because of Anet.
This would make reaper elite so much more fun to play, more engaging & actually reward brain function. I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do this. Shroud is shroud, they both function off lifeforce so we should by all means be able to choose. Like revs flipping through legends, eles flipping through attunement, etc..
I dont know, isnt reaper shroud the most important reason to take the reaper line in the first place? I mean why would you want to run the reaper line but not take the reaper shroud.
Honestly i would rather run reaper shoud without the reaper traitline then the reaperline without reaper shroud.
I dont know, isnt reaper shroud the most important reason to take the reaper line in the first place? I mean why would you want to run the reaper line but not take the reaper shroud.
Honestly i would rather run reaper shoud without the reaper traitline then the reaperline without reaper shroud.
Very true, though Life Blast is more attractive than before. I will admit to running around in Reaper without GS or shouts.
Honestly i would rather run reaper shoud without the reaper traitline then the reaperline without reaper shroud.
Who wouldn’t? The majority of reaper traits are trash.
EverythingOP
Thought it would be nice to make swapping between the two like swapping a utility. Or a revenant legend.
Vee/Volk
Maguuma – Predatory Instinct [HUNT]
Necromancer
Maguuma – Predatory Instinct [HUNT]
Necromancer
Honestly i would rather run reaper shoud without the reaper traitline then the reaperline without reaper shroud.
Who wouldn’t? The majority of reaper traits are trash.
For almost any build you’re taking one of the traits not because you want it, but because the game yells at you for leaving it blank.
You get what you get. It is called opportunity cost.
I still think Reaper was designed to fill a gap in PvE builds as AoE power and it does all right in that context.
What about choosing between Death or Reaper Shroud, within the Reaper spec?
It could be done simply by giving the option to switch “on” or “off” the Shroud Knight minor trait.
Probably some of you may argue “why?”. Well, if you think about it, all elite specs in the game adds something to the base mechanic of the related profession; actually, Reaper spec overwrites the old Death Shroud with the Reaper’s one. In my opinion this could open up some nice synergies and be interesting for build diversity – given that if you want to be competitive elite specs are actually mandatory – .
Obviously, the traits in the Reaper spec that work with Reaper Shroud, would work in Death Shorud too.What do you think about it? Do you think this would be OP or hard to balance in some way?
I think there is an issue with your assumptions behind why elite specs exist. Elite specs were repeatedly described as horizontal, not vertical class progression. You are supposed to give up something in order to gain something. So, not just adding options and functionality but taking some away. On a basic level, that just means giving up a core trait line to access the elite trait line. And yes, that is supposed to be a tradeoff. 3 core trait lines are intended to be as desirable as 2 core, 1 elite and there is a lot that can be discussed about how/why that is/is not effective, what happens when we have more elite specs, but that is the idea.
For Necros, losing death shroud for reaper shroud is totally in line with that design ethos. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to mix and match reaper trait line with death shroud as the traits weren’t designed with death shroud in mind. I think it would make more sense to tweak death shroud which could totally be done with a new elite spec. You might just be getting ahead of yourself.
I dont know, isnt reaper shroud the most important reason to take the reaper line in the first place? I mean why would you want to run the reaper line but not take the reaper shroud.
Honestly i would rather run reaper shoud without the reaper traitline then the reaperline without reaper shroud.
Well, you have traits and utility skills that you may like or not, but Reaper Shroud is not the only reason for picking Reaper spec.
As for the choice between the 2 Shrouds, it comes down to personal preferences.
For example, in DS we have Life Blast, that compared to Life Rend chain has the pro of beeing ranged, but the con of not giving 1.5% life force every third attack. Here we have a classical choice between steady ranged and melee chain; nothing new, just a matter of taste.
Then we have 2 skills that apply chills -the signature condition of the Reaper- : in DS we have Dark Path: comparing it to Executioner’s Scythe we have some pros: it is ranged, it is unblockable, it has half the cooldown. On the other hand, the cons are: it doesn’t stun, it doesn’t leave an ice field. Here the pros are very nice and, in my opinion, not negligibles.
Last, we have 2 skills that apply fear (that again, apply chill in Reaper spec), Doom for DS and Terrify for RS; pros of Doom are: again long range, lower cooldown, instant cast; the only con is single target vs multi target.
The other Shrouds skills i didn’t mention do not apply chill directly, so they are just matter of personal preferences and play style.
As you can see, especially for the lower cooldown, 2 skills out of 5 for DS are very nice in synergy with the benefits that Reaper get from chilling enemies -just like 2 out of 5 for RS-.
Anyway, just remember that if you don’t like Death Shroud on Reaper, you would not be forced to use it with the change i hypothesized; you can always keep Reaper Shroud, as it is now.
Well, you have traits and utility skills that you may like or not, but Reaper Shroud is not the only reason for picking Reaper spec.
As for the choice between the 2 Shrouds, it comes down to personal preferences.
For example, in DS we have Life Blast, that compared to Life Rend chain has the pro of beeing ranged, but the con of not giving 1.5% life force every third attack. Here we have a classical choice between steady ranged and melee chain; nothing new, just a matter of taste.
Then we have 2 skills that apply chills -the signature condition of the Reaper- : in DS we have Dark Path: comparing it to Executioner’s Scythe we have some pros: it is ranged, it is unblockable, it has half the cooldown. On the other hand, the cons are: it doesn’t stun, it doesn’t leave an ice field. Here the pros are very nice and, in my opinion, not negligibles.
Last, we have 2 skills that apply fear (that again, apply chill in Reaper spec), Doom for DS and Terrify for RS; pros of Doom are: again long range, lower cooldown, instant cast; the only con is single target vs multi target.
The other Shrouds skills i didn’t mention do not apply chill directly, so they are just matter of personal preferences and play style.
As you can see, especially for the lower cooldown, 2 skills out of 5 for DS are very nice in synergy with the benefits that Reaper get from chilling enemies -just like 2 out of 5 for RS-.
Anyway, just remember that if you don’t like Death Shroud on Reaper, you would not be forced to use it with the change i hypothesized; you can always keep Reaper Shroud, as it is now.
The issue right now is that you can already switch between melee and ranged shroud, but you have to drop reaper traits, utilities, etc. It sounds like you think the ranged/melee toggle would be balanced already or require minimal balancing, but I can almost guarantee you they would have to rebalance certain traits to account for known/unknown trait/skill interactions, effectiveness, etc. which is always more time than anyone thinks it will take. They’ve already spent months watching the Reaper trait line, how people use it, where they felt it was too strong, and toning things down. Throw in death shroud, now they have opened another can of worms pretty late into the balance cycle.
In terms of time/effort, they are probably already closer, in terms of dev time, to getting a new elite spec ready than working out switching between ranged and melee shroud. At that point, you’d probably have more data points to consider about whether this option makes sense at all. Maybe death shroud will be so buff this next elite spec that you will wonder why you ever played Reaper. I just think it’s hard to get a sense of the timetable for whether or not to make this sort of call, but I’m almost certain they wouldn’t consider this for several reasons. But if you want a buffed ranged shroud necro, you just might get that in the next expansion which they said they are already working on.
I think there is an issue with your assumptions behind why elite specs exist. Elite specs were repeatedly described as horizontal, not vertical class progression. You are supposed to give up something in order to gain something. So, not just adding options and functionality but taking some away. On a basic level, that just means giving up a core trait line to access the elite trait line. And yes, that is supposed to be a tradeoff. 3 core trait lines are intended to be as desirable as 2 core, 1 elite and there is a lot that can be discussed about how/why that is/is not effective, what happens when we have more elite specs, but that is the idea.
For Necros, losing death shroud for reaper shroud is totally in line with that design ethos. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to mix and match reaper trait line with death shroud as the traits weren’t designed with death shroud in mind. I think it would make more sense to tweak death shroud which could totally be done with a new elite spec. You might just be getting ahead of yourself.
Of course elite specs were described as horizontal progression, of course 3 core trait lines are intended to be desirable as 2 core and 1 elite, but do you really feel this is true, actually?
That is the idea, you told well, but we have to deal with what it is in game, not on the paper.
The issue right now is that you can already switch between melee and ranged shroud, but you have to drop reaper traits, utilities, etc. It sounds like you think the ranged/melee toggle would be balanced already or require minimal balancing, but I can almost guarantee you they would have to rebalance certain traits to account for known/unknown trait/skill interactions, effectiveness, etc. which is always more time than anyone thinks it will take. They’ve already spent months watching the Reaper trait line, how people use it, where they felt it was too strong, and toning things down. Throw in death shroud, now they have opened another can of worms pretty late into the balance cycle.
In terms of time/effort, they are probably already closer, in terms of dev time, to getting a new elite spec ready than working out switching between ranged and melee shroud. At that point, you’d probably have more data points to consider about whether this option makes sense at all. Maybe death shroud will be so buff this next elite spec that you will wonder why you ever played Reaper. I just think it’s hard to get a sense of the timetable for whether or not to make this sort of call, but I’m almost certain they wouldn’t consider this for several reasons. But if you want a buffed ranged shroud necro, you just might get that in the next expansion which they said they are already working on.
I see your point here, probably balancing issues would be more than it may seems to a rapid look.
I think there is an issue with your assumptions behind why elite specs exist. Elite specs were repeatedly described as horizontal, not vertical class progression. You are supposed to give up something in order to gain something. So, not just adding options and functionality but taking some away. On a basic level, that just means giving up a core trait line to access the elite trait line. And yes, that is supposed to be a tradeoff. 3 core trait lines are intended to be as desirable as 2 core, 1 elite and there is a lot that can be discussed about how/why that is/is not effective, what happens when we have more elite specs, but that is the idea.
For Necros, losing death shroud for reaper shroud is totally in line with that design ethos. I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to mix and match reaper trait line with death shroud as the traits weren’t designed with death shroud in mind. I think it would make more sense to tweak death shroud which could totally be done with a new elite spec. You might just be getting ahead of yourself.
Of course elite specs were described as horizontal progression, of course 3 core trait lines are intended to be desirable as 2 core and 1 elite, but do you really feel this is true, actually?
That is the idea, you told well, but we have to deal with what it is in game, not on the paper.
I agree with you about the ideal not matching the reality. There’s room for improvement. My takeaway from the elite system thus far is that it benefited some classes more than others, Necro probably being the greatest benefactor since it had so many shortcomings to begin with, and Elementalist the least since they excelled in most areas already with the core spec setup. But I guess what I’m getting at is that we shouldn’t move away from the ideal of tradeoffs through horizontal progression because some other elite specs don’t fit what Anet was aiming for. That’s what it sounds like to me you are suggesting. Move the Necro into a more flexible position at the cost of what many players asked to avoid in the CDI on character progression. Because it won’t end with just Necros getting more flexibility if they intentionally move away from that concept. I’m concerned is all.
Think about what performance gaps remain in Necromancer that the next elite line will fill and what may be sacrificed.
As an example, if Necromancer gets stealth, maybe it will require SR for shroud, Curses because the new line does conditions damage, and boon duration forcing players to build a weak condimancer.