Guild Wars 2

Alright guys, so it looks like they’re definitely working on reworks. Here’s what they announced on the stream:

Reaper

Traits

Shouts

Greatsword

Reaper Shroud

Core Traits

Some Thoughts/Synergies I noticed

So, what do we think guys?

Celestial Shout Life Siphon Support Perma Chill Minion Master go!

Basically, it looks nice on paper… Will have to see (sadly)… The stab was good… real good

Looks like bloodmagic finally will become good, I really like that. Thanks Anet.

The necrocopter or whatever it’s called (skill 2 in reaper DS) looks perfect for blocking projectiles. Hope they consider that.

I still think the base necro weapons need more finishers, axe 2 needs a whirl, and blasts would be nice. I am not expecting them to go all out on blast finishers, but one or two of them really isn’t that much to ask.

I really love the Reaper spec good theme and good combo options, cleave (finally) and STABILITY. I can’t stress that enough, pulsing stability on the new death shroud is truly awesome. That and the reveal that they are working on fixing Blood Magic line to bring us more support options should make 90% of necromancers happy

On a more serious note, we should collect (in this very thread for example) some ideas and feedback about Blood Magic alone to help them make it work.

Good ideas but there is still unknown info about core specializations,skills/weapons and core issues like no LF at start but definitely a lot of possible improvements. I was thinking it would take 3 years to see this kind of possibilities but it might be coming sooner, I am still neutral until I test them myself AKA give it to me!!

We’re still missing core defense mechanics which are mandatory to the design vision of the class where we’re hulk-like tanky beings that strive off of attrition. Without projectile destruction/defense, vigor for evades, active evades tied to skills, and blocks we’re by and large far behind other classes when it comes to being “tanky”.

In regards to group utility, is chill, vulnerability and miniscule and oftentimes forgettable (esp. against single target) healing truly the extent of our group utility? I can’t help but feel Necro-green with envy when I play my Engineer who has two out of those three things done well on top of adding might, projectile defense, blasts, vigor, condi cleansing and regeneration.

When Robert Gee mentioned that Thieves and Mesmers were the classes that should get mobility, I couldn’t help but picture Warriors leaping and spinning from point to point, Guardians teleporting and leaping, Engineers with permanent swiftness and access to leaps, Elementalists blasting left and right at mach speeds, and rangers leaping dodging and weaving. New shroud’s second skill is a great first step but I can’t help but feel singled out compared to the other 7 (8 upcoming) classes.

Today was a huge let down and it only echoes my feelings I’ve had for the class as a whole for three years now. It’s a cute flavorful class but I just don’t see myself playing it over my alts who are starting to creep up on the time I spent on this class.

Things that I’m still concerned about:

• Curses – Will this trait line get a grandmaster that isn’t condition-only?
• Blood Magic – Please make sure to include options that aren’t HP-equivalents. Vigor/endurance manipulation and allied condition control come to mind.
• Allied Condition Transfers – Related to the above, please consider changing some transfers from high uptime but slow, gradual transfers like Unholy Martyr to one-shot powerful transfers like Signet of Renewal since they work better with self-to-enemy transfers and bulk cleanses. They also offer more player control than waiting for a passive proc.
• Healing in Death Shroud – You threw us a much appreciated bone with siphons, but are other sources such as regeneration and allied heals being considered?
• Is there a chance that Vampiric Aura will replace the current Blinds granted by certain interactions with Dark Combo Fields? Because that would boost their value tremendously.

Finally:

• Reaper looks amazing, and I’m so glad to hear that you’re looking at making Blood Magic the support option for Necromancers. I agree with your judgement that trying to satisfy that demand with Reaper wouldn’t have worked very well.

I didn’t expect this Points of Interest stream to answer my concerns, since my worries are more about the base class, and this stream was about the elite specialization. So the comments and asides about things like Blood Magic were a very pleasant surprise.

Maybe I misheard but I’m pretty sure one of the shouts was stun breaker.
Here is my problem with what was shown:

Why would I ever play base Necromancer?

One of the shouts is a stunbreak. Really hoping they do replace dark fields leap or blast with a vampiric aura.

xgalaxy.7402:

Maybe I misheard but I’m pretty sure one of the shouts was stun breaker.
Here is my problem with what was shown:

Why would I ever play base Necromancer?

Base necro may get buffs, but a condition based reaper seems extremely viable.

gates i kittening love u

The only issue I have is that minions shouldn’t be added to our profession whilst the AI has terrible responsiveness.

xgalaxy.7402:

Maybe I misheard but I’m pretty sure one of the shouts was stun breaker.
Here is my problem with what was shown:

Why would I ever play base Necromancer?

You would play base Necromancer if you wanted to stay in the back line. If you wanted to pump out LBs or get some AoE immob/torment rolling, have Doom as a more reliable interrupt, etc.

Reaper’s Shroud is exactly the sort of playstyle I want, so I probably won’t be excluding the elite spec from my builds much. I still think you could do work without it though.

EDIT – Oh right, my thoughts.

I’m excited. The leap finisher that we didn’t have before gives us interesting field options, from Blind to Chaos Armor to Frost Armor. The extra Whirl projectiles also add some supplemental AoE blind potential, since we have whirls for days now. They off-handedly mentioned that traited siphons work in DS, which hit me like a sledgehammer. I understand they were doing a show on the Elite spec, but that’s exactly the sort of information that would make the Necro community cheer, because it means suddenly there’s no mutual exclusion between the profession mechanic and a trait line.

The fact that stats aren’t part of specializations keeps reminding me that I can potentially drop Spite for more survivability without losing some sweet power/condi duration. I want to build a Power Reaper, and a Condi Reaper, and I want to use them everywhere.

The pulsing Stability looks really cool to me. The versatility in leaving it up while you copter through enemies and break out of RS to use your heal is exciting, as I think it means we can make plays against interrupt builds.

Chill is already my favorite condition in the game. You can potentially grab FitG without worrying too much about losing the crit if you work some Vuln into your build. If you go into the Death line, you can pulse vulnerability every 3 seconds (or whatever it is) as well, increasing your crit steadily while stacking vuln with your RS auto if you trait for it. The burst might stacking is also real with the should, potentially setting up a large execute.

It just feels like there are options on top of options on top of options. I want to try a Zerker amulet to see how hard I can slam someone with a combo. I want to roll Soldier’s to see if I can rock a heavy-hitting might-stack that still has wild amounts of crit in Shroud. I want to try a Celestial siphon build using Dagger+Whatever/GS. I want to try a Terror/Chill condi-mancer that goes Curses/Death/Reaper, to spec into the Fear in an AoE on CC, have Fear in an AoE from Shroud, drop another AoE Fear with Staff #5. It might not be the best, but it excites me on principle. All of those Fears also adding Chill, and the ability to ’copter away/stack Burning with the RS #1 chain, while gaining LF.

I’m just excited, man.

My real concern is Knight Shroud vs Death Shroud… I mean I only see KS far better than DS, because DS only stands up if you want ranged DPS and/or conditions (torment/inmobilize and bleeds) but KS is simply crazy.

Maybe if they buffed up dark path to be 100% reliable or something like that they can compete a bit more.

xgalaxy.7402:

Maybe I misheard but I’m pretty sure one of the shouts was stun breaker.
Here is my problem with what was shown:

Why would I ever play base Necromancer?

Depends on how strong you can make a Reaper-based Terrormancer I guess… Also, if most of the group support comes from Blood magic, but you also need to deal damage… You have to ask yourself if Reaper/Blood Magic/Spite is worth it, as for Reaper you miss out on soul reaping which could greatly improve your Reapers Shroud (That 3 AA more-than-usual-range cleaving Dhuumfire-spreading Life force generating vulnerability causing Reapers shroud AA-chain though…), or miss out on tricks from a different traitline for eg. a Wellomancer.

I was actually pretty pleased with the reveal. I think the Reaper will synergize well with both power and condition necros. A Reaper condition spec is what I will hopefully be running, with sinister gear.

A few concerns I still have:

1. No power GM traits in Curses. I’d still like to see terror moved and another GM take its place.
2. Still no projectile reflect
3. Still no blast finishers
4. Still low mobility
5. No way for Reapers to defeat thieves. One thief could literally kill 5 reapers without getting hit. No stab + no effect of chill on thieves + slow attacks = thief wet dream.
6. Loss of access to torment if we take reaper… torment… the condition invented JUST for necros in the first place…

Positives:
1. Blood Magic with vamp aura sounds promising. It needs to be enough to compete with fire+ blast though or it will just be ignored
2. Stab on DS 3 is very nice
3. Chill play is interesting, I think it will work well.

Extremely happy with the results. Chills, vul, poisons, blinds, bleeds and stun breaks. STUN BREAKS. And foot in the grave was uneffected. Nice. I felt pretty giddy when they said “Oh, by the way, we’re still working on Blood Magic.” I couldn’t be a happier necro player.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. No power GM traits in Curses. I’d still like to see terror moved and another GM take its place.
2. Still no projectile reflect
3. Still no blast finishers
4. Still low mobility
5. No way for Reapers to defeat thieves. One thief could literally kill 5 reapers without getting hit. No stab + no effect of chill on thieves + slow attacks = thief wet dream.
6. Loss of access to torment if we take reaper… torment… the condition invented JUST for necros in the first place…

Just to address a few of these:

1. Power Curses Traits – There’s no need for this. Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper is more than enough for a power build.
2. Projectile Reflect – Maybe on RS2? I don’t think this is definitely necessary. Other classes do just fine without this in particular.
3. Blast Finishers – It’s not happening. It’s super not-necro like. There are other ways to be viable.
4. Low Mobility – By design.
5. Vs Thieves – I think we’ll be fine. We have stability on DS, lots of high damage stuff, fears + chills (which still slow foes down and lower than utility recharges) and pulls. Nightfall is a pretty good counter.
6. Torment – We have Chill dealing damage. That’s huuuuuuuge. Sigil of Chill is gonna be a big thing! Chill + Terror? Omg. Who even needs torment?

First of all, the greatsword skills and Reaper’s Shroud look amazing, both their animations and their skills.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Traits

No complaints. First impression is very positive here, but I think we’ll only be able to tell which traits might be out of place or overshadowing others too much when we actually get to play them with full builds.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Shouts

I’m sure the unblockable duration on “Nothing can Save You!” will not stack for each opponent. The tooltip said 4 seconds, so if it scaled you could get up to 20 seconds.

Overall these shout skills look solid, the most important part here will be balancing numbers, especially their cooldowns. Two actually caught my eye in a negative way:

1. Your Soul is Mine!
The healing skill is way too weak.
The tooltip in the video said it heals for less than 4k hp and only the life force regen scales. Granted, its cd is 20 sec and it could be lowered with the shout trait, but even then 4k is just way too little if you can get a full cleanse and at least 5k with Consume Conditions.
On a side note, I think all of the necros main healing skills heal for too little considering how big their health pool is. But just the direct comparison of Consume Conditions with other healing skills means this: a full condition cleanse that scales with conditions and is also immune to poison is by far the best utility we can get in our #6 slot, so the only incentive to take a different skill would be if it that other skill actually healed for more.
So what would the shout need to make me personally consider it over Consume Conditions: at least 8k hp on 20 sec cd plus some extra healing for each opponent hit in the same way the skill generates life force for each opponent.

2. “You are all Weaklings!”

4 stacks of short duration might.
I don’t quite recall the cd on the skill, but the duration of the might stacks seemed too low especially if you want to couple it with some of the slow casts of the greatsword or Reaper. So unless you’ve precast some wells, marks or whatever this skill might synnergize with maybe 2-3 hits before the stacks expire again.
And considering how well some of the other traits now let you stack might, I could see more value in fewer stacks but a higher duration.
Again, it’s hard to tell without actually seeing it used in a proper build.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Greatsword

Reaper Shroud

No complaints, sexy as hell and the dark/ice field + whirl finisher combos made me drool. And ooow eaaam geeee…. pulsing stability?! wat!! (can you stomp/rez or use other skills while that skill is active?)
The only question I have now is: why would anyone still use Death Shroud? Reaper’s looks SO much better in every way.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Core Traits

Life Stealing heals you through death shroud.

So… not that I’m complaining, but why just siphons? And what siphons? Just vampiric traits? Or does this include Signet of the Locust, Sigil of Leeching/Blood, siphon procs from scavenging or vamp runes? How about food with a life steal procs?

Seriously though, it’s great that siphons will work through Shroud(s).
But the current conflict still remains with other healing traits like Parasitic Contagion, Spiteful Renewal or traits that give regeneration, also every healing skill except Consume Condition (and the new shout) can be partially blocked by DS, not to mention that it’s simply unfair that necros can’t receive ally healing sometimes.
If any of these things seem too strong if they worked through DS (which they wouldn’t) then just balance those numbers instead of sticking to something that clearly is a design flaw.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Decimate Defenses is +50% crit chance if you get 25 stacks of vuln. Mixed with the Soul Reaping trait, that’s +100% crit chance without any precision! Cele necro is real?

More like Carrion or Soldier.
Without more healing that scales well with healing power there’s not point in taking celestial, and with up to 100% crit chance you don’t even need the precision on it.

flow.6043:

ure the unblockable duration on “Nothing can Save You!” will not stack for each opponent. The tooltip said 4 seconds, so if it scaled you could get up to 20 seconds.

It scales up to 9 seconds, also 4 seconds base and +1 second per enemy.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. No power GM traits in Curses. I’d still like to see terror moved and another GM take its place.
2. Still no projectile reflect
3. Still no blast finishers
4. Still low mobility
5. No way for Reapers to defeat thieves. One thief could literally kill 5 reapers without getting hit. No stab + no effect of chill on thieves + slow attacks = thief wet dream.
6. Loss of access to torment if we take reaper… torment… the condition invented JUST for necros in the first place…

Just to address a few of these:

1. Power Curses Traits – There’s no need for this. Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper is more than enough for a power build.
2. Projectile Reflect – Maybe on RS2? I don’t think this is definitely necessary. Other classes do just fine without this in particular.
3. Blast Finishers – It’s not happening. It’s super not-necro like. There are other ways to be viable.

1. This pigeon holes power builds. And with decimate defences deathly perception is not worth the pick.
2. Projectile reflect might not be necessary in PvP. But it is a huge part of PvE. Not having any extra active defence is also a problem. Projectile defence is a relatively weak compromise to this issue.
3. Blasts are a combo finisher. They are not class themed. We do not have useful fields like fire fields and thats fair enough. But 1 or 2 extra blasts wouldnt hurt. And would go a long way to improving the class in all gametypes with group interaction.

Also finishers are a hugely core part of the combo system. Just like active defence. I think weve all stressed this enough already. Hopefully it gets looked at and resolved even partially in the core specs.

I find the shouts disapointing, the cast times are too long (half of them are at least as long as consume conditions) for the effects given . Another thing I noticed is that there is some attempts at defense against multiple foes, which I think might work. Also chilling force doesn’t need a limit, it is those limits that ruined some great traits , I mean it’s focused having chill on the foes and hitting the foe, something they both can prevent from happening.

My biggest grievance with the update: this does nothing for condition builds. Condition necros (the original core intention of the class) are effectively dead. And while the reaper traitline is beyond doubt better designed and offers more synergy than any of the currently existing necro traitlines, it must still be said that most of the concerns of the necro community have unfortunately not been addressed. The exact same criticism that people expressed for the usual power necro is still applicable in the case of the reaper (and more, because you are completely locked out of long range DPS). Whether the various synergies with vulnerability and especially chill will make up for this remains to be seen. The fact that chillmancers have not been viable so far due to the prevalent condi cleanses (of which more will be added in HOT) does not make one particularly optimistic.

Tissitra.4153:

My biggest grievance with the update: this does nothing for condition builds. Condition necros (the original core intention of the class) are effectively dead.

I disagree, it will be a new focus more around defense then offense, we lose some bleeds and torment but we’re giving damaging chill, 15% damage reduction from chilled foes, might , stability or aoe fear, life force, better synergy with dhummfire. Remember staff has great synergy with reaper: chill on staff, fear on staff.

We’re missing sound of metal in connection with ground and Pyramid Hood. We already have Great Knife in form of Felblade.

Tissitra.4153:

My biggest grievance with the update: this does nothing for condition builds. Condition necros (the original core intention of the class) are effectively dead. And while the reaper traitline is beyond doubt better designed and offers more synergy than any of the currently existing necro traitlines, it must still be said that most of the concerns of the necro community have unfortunately not been addressed. The exact same criticism that people expressed for the usual power necro is still applicable in the case of the reaper (and more, because you are completely locked out of long range DPS). Whether the various synergies with vulnerability and especially chill will make up for this remains to be seen. The fact that chillmancers have not been viable so far due to the prevalent condi cleanses (of which more will be added in HOT) does not make one particularly optimistic.

Actually if you take Curses line + Dhummfire + Reaper you will be even better than now.

Dhummfire + reaper gives you AOE burn at 2x the speed it currently is, meaning huge burning damage. You also get damaging chill (or even more burn with the 15% speed increase, have to wait for the numbers to decide which is better), and chill on fear, all with the 100% duration increase of lingering curses, or terror damage. You do lose out on torment, but you gain more chill and a weakness shout.

In PvE at least a weakness/chill support condition build may become a thing if the encounters are harder.

Amazing on everything, Shouts arent really my flavor tho and i would suggest:

Infusing Terror – Duration: 8>10, Fear Duration: 2>1 1/4 (guaranteed stomp every 20s is strong, thus stab def up)

Gravedigger – Recharge: 8>7, Recharge reduced on low health: 100%>75% (while i was wrong on the other post about it being locked in place, its would be a gameplay/decision making change)

Death Spiral – Hit count: 6>5, Number of targets: 3>5 (just for sense of unity with the rest of GS)

Also possible thing: swap of Chilling Force and Augury of Death to reduce break of synergy (also force a choice of personal single target benefit vs aoe benefit) and keep in line with CDR trait power positions.

P.S. Not Life Siphon, Life Transfer, LS is dagger 2.

Tim.6450:

Tissitra.4153:

My biggest grievance with the update: this does nothing for condition builds. Condition necros (the original core intention of the class) are effectively dead.

I disagree, it will be a new focus more around defense then offense, we lose some bleeds and torment but we’re giving damaging chill, 15% damage reduction from chilled foes, might , stability or aoe fear, life force, better synergy with dhummfire. Remember staff has great synergy with reaper: chill on staff, fear on staff.

I doubt it. While it does not say anything in the tooltip, I would assume that the chill damage is either a fixed amount, or counts as an attack. In both cases it will not scale with condition damege, so basically equivalent to 2 stacks of bleed on a foe over 50% health.

The problem is that condition necros are far behind other professions when it comes to applying actual condition damage. This will is likely be even worse on reaper. The ONLY conditions that RS skills apply (without traits) are fear, poison and chill. No bleed or torment. Now you might be able to apply nice burning from dhuumfire with the RS AA and death’s charge should be very good with path of corruption. HOWEVER this forces you into melee range and you actually have to hit in melee.

We will see, but in terms of actual condition pressure, RS seems very lackluster.

I don’t see how this will be viable in PvP at all…

A longbow ranger at 1500 range, right now, you’d pop deathshroud and get a fear off, and try to close the gap enough to use a scepter or staff.

Reapers Shroud doesn’t have a ranged fear…. and said ranger is just going to knock you back, and take you down, again and again.

I cannot see playing a Reaper, when a Dragon Knight does just as much melee damage, and has all the range a person could want.

….and mountains of boons.

Muchacho.2390:

flow.6043:

ure the unblockable duration on “Nothing can Save You!” will not stack for each opponent. The tooltip said 4 seconds, so if it scaled you could get up to 20 seconds.

It scales up to 9 seconds, also 4 seconds base and +1 second per enemy.

Oh ok, that seems reasonable.

spoj.9672:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Just to address a few of these:

1. Power Curses Traits – There’s no need for this. Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper is more than enough for a power build.
2. Projectile Reflect – Maybe on RS2? I don’t think this is definitely necessary. Other classes do just fine without this in particular.
3. Blast Finishers – It’s not happening. It’s super not-necro like. There are other ways to be viable.

1. This pigeon holes power builds. And with decimate defences deathly perception is not worth the pick.
2. Projectile reflect might not be necessary in PvP. But it is a huge part of PvE. Not having any extra active defence is also a problem. Projectile defence is a relatively weak compromise to this issue.
3. Blasts are a combo finisher. They are not class themed. We do not have useful fields like fire fields and thats fair enough. But 1 or 2 extra blasts wouldnt hurt. And would go a long way to improving the class in all gametypes with group interaction.

Also finishers are a hugely core part of the combo system. Just like active defence. I think weve all stressed this enough already. Hopefully it gets looked at and resolved even partially in the core specs.

I agree.

Also, there are some more unresovled issues, especially in Curses:

1. Lingering Curse with +100% condition duration.
This one is just way too much. It’s bad for balancing, it’s bad when it stands in conflict with other duration increases (even within the same specialization, Hemophilia) and it’s bad that the base modifications to scepter skills will be removed.

2. Reaper’s Precision.
Dead Weight. Not a single build will take this trait. Is this one going to be looked at?

3. Is there going to be a merged staff trait?

4. Cds on Weakening Shroud and Spiteful Spirit.
The cooldowns of these traits need to be removed. They are already gated by the cd of Death Shroud and having enough life force to go into DS in the first place.
It makes no sense to give them cooldowns of their own.

5. Mark of Evasion.
As opposed to Weakening Shroud and Spiteful Spirit, here’s a trait that could actually use the real weapon skill that synnergizes with Staff Mastery, but it gets some weird weaker version of Mark of Blood with almost twice its cooldown?
Is this one going to be changed?

6. Axe Mastery.
This just got a straight up nerf with the last preview of it. It’s not like the axe is a particularly strong weapon. So… what’s up with this one? Is the axe getting a buff or did anet just make a mediocre trait for a weak weapon even weaker?

Tissitra.4153:

I doubt it. While it does not say anything in the tooltip, I would assume that the chill damage is either a fixed amount, or counts as an attack. In both cases it will not scale with condition damege, so basically equivalent to 2 stacks of bleed on a foe over 50% health.

To bad that he said that it actually will scale with condition damage…

Interestingly, Necro has more blast finishers than Thief, Mesmer, and Ranger. They just waste utility slots and/or are less reliable. If you ignore Elites/Underwater skills, Necros have the same number of blasts as a Guardian. They just aren’t the kind you spam for might stacks as easily.

Ezeriel.9574:

I don’t see how this will be viable in PvP at all…

A longbow ranger at 1500 range, right now, you’d pop deathshroud and get a fear off, and try to close the gap enough to use a scepter or staff.

Reapers Shroud doesn’t have a ranged fear…. and said ranger is just going to knock you back, and take you down, again and again.

I cannot see playing a Reaper, when a Dragon Knight does just about much melee damage, and has all the range a person could want.

Is said Ranger going to knock you back when you pulse Stability? If not, you can pop Stability, then run into Staff range if you like after using your 600 range mobility skill after popping Stab.

The elite spec looks like a good fun time in pvp, and does nothing for pve necros. At this point, it’s probably easier just to accept necro will never be a viable pve class due to multiple official statements from Anet during the live stream and just above in this thread. The “you can be viable in other ways” mentality is false given the meta that this game provides. Unless new content is drastically different, breaking the zerker meta, necros will always be kind of lack luster. And remember, if they break the zerker meta, all the ascended gear and weapons everyone made becomes worthless. So that meta wont be going away anytime soon without a lot of QQ.

So necros now get vulnerability stacking, possibly at the expense of their current dps (the gs and reaper lookfun, but dont look like dungeon DPS builds). Thats fine, we have some minor utility. Unncessary in most parties but we do SOMETHING.

And necros look WAY fun in spvp again instead of just lich and kill things and then wait for 2 minutes. Thats super awesome.

Ahh they evaded the ability to use utilities in DS…

About support it will come through Blood Magic and maybe a bit through Death Magic.

flow.6043:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Core Traits

Life Stealing heals you through death shroud.

So… not that I’m complaining, but why just siphons? And what siphons? Just vampiric traits? Or does this include Signet of the Locust, Sigil of Leeching/Blood, siphon procs from scavenging or vamp runes? How about food with a life steal procs?

Just to add one more, what about a dark field and the whirl finisher of Reaper’s Shroud, are the leeching bolts going to heal you?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Is said Ranger going to knock you back when you pulse Stability? If not, you can pop Stability, then run into Staff range if you like after using your 600 range mobility skill after popping Stab.

Most of the time they open with knockback and just burn you down before you can even begin to close the gap… or go invis and knock you back again…

…it’s a hard fight now. Going into it with even less options; I can’t see winning that fight.

so after first look the shouts are all lack luster not gona take credit from this guy hard work https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Dear-Robert-Shout-Concerns

heal shout 3.9k heal on a 20 sec cd is rly to long of cd look at the thife evade heal 4.1k? something on a 15 sec cd that breaks imomb if iam not mistaken correct me if iam wrong i whould never ever take this over consume condi

and “You are all Weaklings!" to long cast time, by time u cast that and attack with ur ultra slow,or use whatever interupt u have on u the enemy have alredy used there heal and skipt of to the sun set.

YEH we got a stab!!!! BUT why not give one in the shout aswell to make up for the lackluster shout are atm.

no blastfinnisher? rly why the kitten not if u force necro in to melee to fix the many problem a range necro have,

and still no fix to pve isusse that other classes can bring ten times over.
still no mobilty at all, reaper is still gona be canonfodder in pvp but gona look cool beeing it, dont get me wrong necro is gona be ten times strong in pvp but if someone whit a halv a brain can kite the necro forever and still kill it. and use “mobility” to get away.

i like that thay try to do smth with the chill i rly do, But as i mainly play wvw with the millions and millions of condi clense and where the -40 condi food and meladru runes are the usuall norm on most melee chill never gona stick for a very long time and if that is a very very importent part of the reaper well…

all and all animation looks good but that is the only upside so fare.

//edit

oh and the gs skill the 4 skill looked like have stand still to use it are there any more of the gs skill u have to stand still to triger ? thay avoid it more or less on the stream.
that kinda remove the hunt down and kill the chilled duud if we have to use our ultra slow skills and have to stand still and the enemy runs of.

Also, the heal gives 20% LF I believe if it hits 5 targets. If you have vit, that could be 5k or so LF, which translates to a lot more potential damage taken. It really only synergizes with a heavy siphon build, but the fact that a heavy siphon build might be real is awesome.

If it hits 5 people that means up to 5 (or more) people hitting you.
Consume conditions is still objectively the better heal. And after the trait changes, if weakening shroud stays nerfed, builds in the curse line will go for master of corruption to reduce consume conditions’s CD (in the extremely high chance that it becomes a corruption)

Saying curses doesn’t need to be usable by non coni builds ‘because we already have 3 trait lines’ is pretty bad. We’re not asking for some powerful direct damage buff, just something to make it usable in a power build.

The big weakness of the reaper is that it can’t do anthing against ranged foes. Rangers will be able to mince you before you get anywhere near them. Projectile reflect on RS 2 would help here a lot.

Also chilling foes to keep them from running is useless when plenty of classes can blink/tele/shadowstep 900+ units away, out of range of all of your skills, except spec grasp which is very dodgable.

Edit: The start of the stream recording was missing for me, with gravedigger, does the recharge bonus mean it recharges 100% faster, or recharges 100%?

I loved what I saw overall, but the shouts were quite underwhelming. On the right track, but definitely not there.

- The heal was way too weak overall. Either the heal needs to be bumped up or the life force needs a big bump. Or the cast time reduced or even eliminated. We need something that competes with consume conditions and right now this doesn’t cut it.

- Chilled to the Bone seemed cool but I would trade some of the chill duration for a lower cooldown (I know, there is a trait to reduce CDs, but it’s still way too long). And resistance doesn’t make any sense to me, the stability sounded so much better. 2 minutes for this cast time is just crazy.

- You Are All Weaklings – I don’t see why it doesn’t give AOE might for 4 seconds?

- Nothing Can Save You – why not AOE unblockable skills for some time?

But overall I thought shouts would be great for us because of lower cooldowns and instant or short casts. I am pretty disappointed that not only are they not short cooldowns, not short/instant casts, but they don’t seem strong to compensate. The damage they deal seemed negligible, so if that’s what is causing this, I don’t see why it should stay as is. As it stands now, I struggle seeing a real use for these. Runes of the Trooper don’t seem good since the cooldowns are so long. Either buff the damage, buff the support, reduce the cooldowns, improve durations… something.

I am just worried what can condi necro get out of new reaper ds form. And we loose 1 minor trait because of this.

And one question about dmg on chill …. does it work like terror – each second tick like condi, or is it one time power dmg? I hope its condi version, so condi necro can use it.

There were two things I was worried about most when they showed reaper was gonna be melee focused sustain (so blood magic obviously) and stability. They have addressed both those issues so I am very, very, very, very, VERY, happy. It’s not a leap, but it’s a big step forward for necromancer, and hopefully maybe the next specialization we get for necros will deal more with conditions.

Overall, I’m so happy that I’m now going to work on crafting twilight. Unless I get a teq hoard…then I might not

The Gates Assassin.9827:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. No power GM traits in Curses. I’d still like to see terror moved and another GM take its place.
2. Still no projectile reflect
3. Still no blast finishers
4. Still low mobility
5. No way for Reapers to defeat thieves. One thief could literally kill 5 reapers without getting hit. No stab + no effect of chill on thieves + slow attacks = thief wet dream.
6. Loss of access to torment if we take reaper… torment… the condition invented JUST for necros in the first place…

Just to address a few of these:

1. Power Curses Traits – There’s no need for this. Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper is more than enough for a power build.
2. Projectile Reflect – Maybe on RS2? I don’t think this is definitely necessary. Other classes do just fine without this in particular.
3. Blast Finishers – It’s not happening. It’s super not-necro like. There are other ways to be viable.
4. Low Mobility – By design.
5. Vs Thieves – I think we’ll be fine. We have stability on DS, lots of high damage stuff, fears + chills (which still slow foes down and lower than utility recharges) and pulls. Nightfall is a pretty good counter.
6. Torment – We have Chill dealing damage. That’s huuuuuuuge. Sigil of Chill is gonna be a big thing! Chill + Terror? Omg. Who even needs torment?

1.) It’s absolutely necessary. What 3rd trait line is someone going to use if they don’t get the expansion?

2.) Other classes at least have an option to engage the ranged class. A Necro can’t even close the gap let alone maintain range if they get it.

Big thank you to the forum specialist as i think they even mentioned the feedback they recieved from you and it is certainly showing in the blood siphons (otherwise it wouldve just been revealed at the 4h stream)

Short now, longer one time later:

New DS – AMAZING

Siphons – surprisingly 2nd best thing

New traits – great, on high level with others, synergie

Greatsword – slow, no defense against anything ranged, but maybe new DS and stronger melee pressure will be worth it

Shouts – all terrible beside maybe elite.
The casts are regular 3/4s necro level, which is a total troll.
Small damage, compared to 2k heal shouts
Long CDs
The effects are nothing special and weak. Surprisingly the jagged horror one shows most potential

Just wanted to get shouts out of the way, more feedback on the awesome stuff tomorrow

My overall impressions, although I will be doing BoC when I can to really go in depth.

First off, we need to see the new Blood Magic and any other core specialization work before we make too big of predictions. Those count a lot for fixing us. Also Lich/Plague/Consume Conditions getting a skill category with potentially a change to Lich/Plague, and Signets getting balance work should be big. The mere fact that Robert acknowledged that the base issues need to be fixed by the base profession was a huge thing to me, and I really like that.

Now, on to other stuff:
New Death Shroud? Great. Love it, literally can’t complain a single bit. I’m not sure of anything I’d consider changing, the skills are great, the combos are great, its just flat out great.

New Shouts? Love them all in concept. Rise! should either be 30s CD with Jagged Horrors, or it should spawn a different type of minion. Shambling Horrors (maybe that have some extra effect on AA?) or Bone Fiends would be amazing though. I would honestly prefer Bone Fiends because they are the best at taking aggro in PvE (high armor), have projectile finishers, something decent on AA but not too strong.

I’d also like to see the stun break return to Suffer! I don’t see a reason that we couldn’t have two stun breaks, we tend to need them more than others.

Greatsword skills: My only worry is if you can move and cast. I get the restriction on #4, but otherwise I really think we should be able to move and cast, especially #2 which is 1.25s. If we can move and cast though, perfect, again can’t complain in the slightest.

Traits: Minors are great, no complains. Adept Majors are great. Master Majors are also great. Grandmaster again great. Really no complaints overall.

Overall, the only thing I’d mention is please keep addressing the base profession. The specialization is amazing in so many ways, if the base profession is made on par with this design wise it will be perfect.

@The gates assasin

Just thought of a tip you could pass on to them on how to do good scaling defense/offense:

Instead of weak 1x, 2x – 5x
Do it base 3x + 1x + 1x ….

Like the unblock shout – 4s base , then +1s for each hit
Such aproach limits min/max scenarios, so balancing is easier and a skill isnt useless 1v1

I’m not convinced that Consume is objectively better. If you get a 3k heal + 5k LF, the 5k LF would effectively be what, 10k direct damage absorbed? Conditions would supplement that so it wouldn’t be quite 13k total potential health, but I don’t think it is as bad as people are thinking. But again, it goes much better with a siphon build. If you aren’t siphoning, it’s much less useful.

Reaper looks great! Aside from shouts being -incredibly- mediocre, there are a lot of nice-looking traits and abilities that would give necro what it needs in melee – especially reliable stability. Shout effects need to be tweaked – heavily.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Blast finishers and fire fields aren’t happening. There are other ways to support allies that are necromancer in theme and still effective.

This is my biggest concern. What has Arenanet given, or plan to give Necromancers that is ‘effective’ in the PVE DPS might-stack meta today? They’re going to need a hell of a lot of Vulnerability and do a hell of a lot of personal DPS to make up for having no ways to stack might or fury.

As for the alleged Blood Magic rework: Good, but I’m anxious (and certain others are too) due to the current pitiful numbers and effectiveness of lifesteal. If the trait rework doesn’t see some serious numerical improvement, or alternate forms of support other than GW2’s traditionally mediocre raw HP recovery, necromancer’s PVP-oriented defensive support is still dead in the water compared to what other classes provide. Blood magic is also going to have to be extremely worthwhile to keep core Necromancer viable next to Reaper. If the group (or even personal!) sustain from blood is good enough to make up for few active defenses on a core necro, then good! If not, we’re back at square one.

There are still have lots of problems with our current Curses and Spite lines being nasty proxy nerfs to already mediocre-tier builds at best – these still need to be worked on heavily. We haven’t heard a lot of news about this, and I would personally like to. They’re minor tweaks and merges at worst so I can understand why they might not be the focus of a large presentation, but something in the future would be nice.

I’m optimistic – but I have to wait and see the actual live performance before I’m sure Anet isn’t selling core necro players snake oil on these trait reworks.

If the Devs are still taking feedback on Blood Magic I would just like to add these suggestions.

Minors
Full of Life – Same
Vampiric – Same
Blood to Power – 300 healing power when under 75% health and 150 power when above 75% health.

Adept
Master of Ceremonies – 20% well reduction and 4 seconds of protection after well activation to the necromancer and their allies.

Acolyte of Blood – Mark of Blood + Ritual of life

Vampiric Training – 20% dagger cooldown reduction and 20% increased siphoning.

Master

Vampiric symbols – Activating signets gives vampiric aura. Vampiric aura stacks in duration.

Vampiric Rituals – Wells siphon life. Wells can now be ground targeted.

Unholy Martyr – Combined unholy martyr effects with transfusion healing.

Grand Master

Blood from the stone – Gain a 25% chance to proc your life siphon again for every signet on cooldown. ( Up to a maximum of 100% for all 4)

Forbidden rituals – Wells now execute a whirl finisher every 2 seconds

Cheat death – Produce an aoe heal when exiting death shroud. For every condition or boon applied to the necromancer while in Death Shroud reduce the cooldown of your heal skill by 3 seconds ( 5 second ICD).

There are some things left the same in each tier, but also some new things I added. I like the minors overall. Minion synergy isn’t left out but it doesn’t bloat blood magic like it has the tendency to do in other trait lines. I wanted the necromancer to be rewarded for staying topped off and using the extra healing power to do so. That why I modified Blood to Power a tiny bit.

The adepts are mainly just consolidation of traits that makes more sense to me. The blood line weapon is dagger. Theme utilities are wells, signets, an minions to an extent. Adepts get the important starter functionality out of the way by giving a blood necro something useful early ( aoe protection, cooldown reduction) without overly specializing you. The mark of blood is a genric for those who don’t use wells or daggers. It can also be helpful for minions to a lesser extent.

The Masters are where the build defining goodies should be. You are way better at your utility now. You deserve to not only use a utility well but to set yourself apart from another necromancer. Vampiric aura was a great idea on the twitch stream and I believe signets are the best way to apply that easily. Necromancers need more ways to use their signets and vampric aura makes it useful while also being less selfish. Vampiric rituals was already good where it was so I just left it. It has the pieces master of ceremonies didn’t take out. This way you progress your utilities without having a really overloaded trait. Last is just unholy martyr and transfusion together. Again this is a solid generic utility for those not into daggers, signets, or wells. It also has much better synergy with minions without leaving everyone else out.

Lastly the grandmaster should do something crazy. Beyond defining your core the grandmaster trait should add more gameplay. I am a fan of the GM Written in stone that lets elementalists retain their signet passives after they have been used. I thought a necro twist on this could be making life siphoning even stronger when you blow your signets. This way you aren’t punished for using signets that you specialized so heavily into. Forbidden rituals makes an aoe well and support spec even better by adding in even more aoe and proccing a bunch of whirl effects like leeching bolts. Cheat death is the final generic that synergies with minions but again doesn’t leave anyone out. Cheat death rewards you for stayng in shroud to potentially access a second heal sooner, it synergizes with traits like unholy martyr, and it gives you a last ditch effort heal when you leave. This is something that can be flashed or sat on in the hopes that you can pull off a double heal.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

So, what do we think guys?

Talking from the perspective of a minion master
-traits
This trait line is better for minion masters by default than spite for a necromantic corruption build. For a few reasons:
-shroud knight: reaper death shroud is infinitely better than regular death shroud, and gives the minion master a way to deal psuedo-AOE damage that he is severely lacking.

-Cold Shoulder: chilling a foe with a focus is easy enough as is, and typically is the fight opener for a minion master due to the boon removal and chill holding an enemy in place. This makes it even better.

-Relentless pursuit: being crippled, chilled, and immobilized would be the most potent effects for hampering a minion master with the new necromantic corruption. This trait reduces all of those things by a significant amount, yes please!

-Augury of death: this is something to consider, but it really depends on how long the cooldown is on release. It depends on what Rise! does on release, if it still summons jagged horrors, and if the cooldown is still 40 seconds (which is far too long by default).

-soul eater: this gives you more survivability when using the great sword, which is great considering how the dagger+warhorn used to be my go-to “survivability” switch for life siphoning.
-chilling force: life force and might when hitting a chilled foe? combine this with axe+focus and you’ve got some excellent GAINS.
-Decimate defenses: considering how easy it is to get vulnerability stacks with axe+focus, this can give a lot of damage amping even if you have no investment into crit chance.
-Reaper’s onslaught: This is the only grandmaster trait that seems useful to minion masters. The other two will need to wait until we see how the traits and what not fall into place after the patch.

shouts
Rise!: This will be core to death nova minion masters, and can have a solid place for necromantic corruption minion masters. The cooldown looks a bit long, even with the Augary of Death trait and hitting 5 targets. If the minions are changed to something else, or the cooldown at it’s base is made shorter, the skill could be good.

Great Sword
Skills look really cool, and have a lot of punch. Between the minion cripple and the great sword chill, there can be no escape.

new shroud
Stability+AOE fear? Life force on auto attack? AOE stun+chill+huge damage? There is a lot to love.

core
Life stealing while in death shroud is a massive advantage, especially if minion life stealing counts as well. This can increase survivability by a very noticeable degree.

over all
Compared to the spite tree, this offers a lot more. It’s benefits are more consistent, more immediate, and much cooler. It gives the minion master ways to cover weaknesses that previously would stop him in his tracks (CC spam, lack of AOE, hampered by conditions.). The only issue is the lack of a clearly beneficial and synergetic grand master trait, but the rest of the tree is more important. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

Tissitra.4153:

My biggest grievance with the update: this does nothing for condition builds. Condition necros (the original core intention of the class) are effectively dead.

The reaper doesn’t help condition builds, but the conditions build has always been one of the strongest if not the strongest necro build in the game in PvP. The only thing holding conditions back in PvE is the conditions cap, which is being removed. There are also a number of changes to traits in the core set that are looking to give condition builds more options or just straight buffing them (for example, current lingering curse vs new one).

Power necros have always been lack luster, so it’s nice to see them get a leg up.

• Shroud Knight – Gives access to Reaper Shroud.
  Not a surprise given that this has been a base function of traits since alpha. It’s also in line with stuff that I wrote up for my necro rework.

• Shivers of Dread – Fear gives 3s of Chill.
  Awful. More passive, instant, ranged CC instead of just people going faster.

• Augury of Death – Shouts recharge 7% faster for each foe they hit.
  More of this. People actually have to do something in order to gain this traits effects (even if the action taken is rather effortless).

• Chilling Nova – Critical hits vs chilled foes causes a chilling explosion. No more than 3 times per 10 seconds.

• Relentless Pursuit – 33% less cripple chill and immobilize. 66% while in reaper shroud.
  Literally Rampage effects. Instead of giving people a static reduction to soft CC because it’s a problem, why not just reduce the game’s amount of soft CC?

• Soul Eater – Greatsword strikes stealth health. Gravedigger reduces recharge of GS skills by 5% (per foe hit? not sure).’
  Unnecessary passive life stealing. Recharge reduction part is still neat. More APM.

• Chilling Force – Gain might and Life force when you hit a chilled foe.
  It’s alright, but not really a conditional thing given how easy it is to chill people.

• Decimate Defenses – +2% crit chance per stack of vulnerability on foe.
  Could have been an active ability with a short duration in a more interesting game.

• Blighter’s Boon – Gain life force when you gain a boon. Gain health instead while in reaper shroud.
  More passive healing. How innovative.

• Deathly Chill – Chill deals damage. Extra damage while foe is below 50% hp.
  More passive damage. How innovative.

• Reaper’s Onslaught – 15% faster attack speed in reaper shroud. Death’s Charge recharges on killing a foe (I think?)
  Now you too can be an auto-attack axe warrior.

• “Your Soul is Mine!”+ – Heals you and grants …Life force? per foe hit.
  Unnecessarily cheesy, but otherwise solid.

• “Rise!” – Summon a Jagger horror on foes hit.
  Life force battery. Not bad.

• “You are all Weaklings!” – Weakness to foes. 4 stacks of short duration might per foe hit.
  Pretty boring and straightforward.

• “Nothing can Save You!” – Converts 2 boons into 5 stacks of vuln each. Makes you unblockable (for each for hit? Not sure here either).
  As a side note: it’s nice at least that anet seems to be moving away from relying on this game’s garbage targeting system. This skill is hardly interesting, though.

• “Suffer!” – Chills nearby foes and transfers a condition to them.
  Straightforward.

• “Chilled to the Bone!” – Chills all nearby foes. Grants resistance (might be stability later) per foe hit. Also stuns on hit.
  It’s a PBAoE supply crate that inflicts chill for 12 seconds and grants the user “huehue I can’t take condition effects” for X seconds. How awful.

• Greatsword
  Pretty solid. The 5 skill doesn’t need poison.

• Reaper Shroud
  Not terrible, however, pulsing stability happened before on the Engineer Juggernaut trait and we know how that turned out. I’d be glad to see it go (inb4 everyone cries; stability and CC are both out of control, and the game would be better off if both were toned down dramatically instead of just continuing to powercreep everyone). A walking simulator trying to pass itself off as an MMORPG isn’t exactly engaging or dynamic for anyone (opponent or player).