GS needs massive buff

GS needs massive buff

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Greatsword was designed to be Necromancer’s power-cleave in PvE. Don’t expect it to be good in all game modes. It is best for spinning until you get dizzy and slowly working break bars with chill and claws.

There’s a difference between being good in all game modes and being usable in all game modes. And even in pve, it’s not that great. I mean Dagger auto attack damage is higher than Greatsword which is just embarrassing. Anyone that thinks Reaper Greatsword is in a good place at the moment is just kidding themselves.

Every single skill on greatsword is AoE, just like staff. It is not supposed to compete with dagger, which was, until recently, a single target power weapon and is still very much so despite the added 1-target cleave. Dagger dps 1v1 has to be higher than greatsword or it would need a buff very badly.

The biggest issue causing people to confuse dagger and greatsword is because Reaper Shroud is so much better than Death Shroud. If DS was not so inferior, I doubt very many players would take Reaper and greatsword in PvP or think of it as a big dagger.

Greatsword is not a dagger. It was designed to fill a huge hole in PvE because Necromancer had nothing MH with a decent cleave or AoE besides staff.

If you want to compare dagger to anything, compare it to axe, which is the ranged equivalent of a singe-target power weapon.

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Posted by: Insidion the Insane.9752

Insidion the Insane.9752

Every single skill on greatsword is AoE, just like staff. It is not supposed to compete with dagger, which was, until recently, a single target power weapon and is still very much so despite the added 1-target cleave. Dagger dps 1v1 has to be higher than greatsword or it would need a buff very badly.

Daredevil staff does more DPS than thief dagger while hitting more targets, but God forbid reaper GS auto does more DPS than necro dagger auto even tho the former is significantly harder to chain because of all the cast times and aftercasts. Got it.

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Posted by: Lahmia.2193

Lahmia.2193

Every single skill on greatsword is AoE, just like staff. It is not supposed to compete with dagger, which was, until recently, a single target power weapon and is still very much so despite the added 1-target cleave. Dagger dps 1v1 has to be higher than greatsword or it would need a buff very badly.

Daredevil staff does more DPS than thief dagger while hitting more targets, but God forbid reaper GS auto does more DPS than necro dagger auto even tho the former is significantly harder to chain because of all the cast times and aftercasts. Got it.

+1

Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

Honestly i dont think that dps is the problem of gs. The problem is that due the slow nature the gs damage skills (gravedigger/autoattack) need setup but the setup skills grasping darkess/death spiral dont really help to ensure that those skills hit.

Grasping darkness is even more clunky then most other pull skills, and the grasping darkness into gravedigger combo doesnt really work because the window between those two skills is to large. The chill on grasping darkness also doesnt really help with this.

And for death spiral it is mainly a pve setup skill and doesnt help at all in landing a grave digger. Which is fine i guess but i wish it would give gs some sort of mobility (e.g. swiftness or a short teleport/leap)

So my suggestion for gs would ether to make it faster (also auto and gravedigger) or improve the setup skills (death spiral and grasping darkness) in such a way that if you dont avoid those skills is becomes really hard to avoid the followup damage skills.

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Posted by: Lahmia.2193

Lahmia.2193

Honestly i dont think that dps is the problem of gs. The problem is that due the slow nature the gs damage skills (gravedigger/autoattack) need setup but the setup skills grasping darkess/death spiral dont really help to ensure that those skills hit.

Grasping darkness is even more clunky then most other pull skills, and the grasping darkness into gravedigger combo doesnt really work because the window between those two skills is to large. The chill on grasping darkness also doesnt really help with this.

And for death spiral it is mainly a pve setup skill and doesnt help at all in landing a grave digger. Which is fine i guess but i wish it would give gs some sort of mobility (e.g. swiftness or a short teleport/leap)

So my suggestion for gs would ether to make it faster (also auto and gravedigger) or improve the setup skills (death spiral and grasping darkness) in such a way that if you dont avoid those skills is becomes really hard to avoid the followup damage skills.

That seems to be the recurring theme within the “buff Greatsword” crowd. I hope Anet hears us and takes note.

Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

This whole discussion boils down to, “I want this weapon designed for PvE crowd control to be useful for PvP.”

Just take dagger, for Pete’s sake.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

This whole discussion boils down to, “I want this weapon designed for PvE crowd control to be useful for PvP.”

Just take dagger, for Pete’s sake.

PvE crowd control lol. You are one cute troll.

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

This whole discussion boils down to, “I want this weapon designed for PvE crowd control to be useful for PvP.”

Just take dagger, for Pete’s sake.

But dagger isn’t viable either?…

Nalhadia – Kaineng

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Posted by: Lahmia.2193

Lahmia.2193

Guardian and Warrior Greatsword are both made for pve but pvp viable. And they’re not even elite spec weapons.

Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

Just wanna necro this topic since it is still relevant in my opinion.

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

Gravedigger is a joke when you Realize daredevil’s Vault does around the same damage

Wot?

2.25 vs 3.0… GD baseline hits more than Vault + an OP staff AA.

I think people put too much emphasis on gravedigger. It’s a crap skill for the majority of the fight only really good for executes or when the enemy’s burned out and you can reliably make them take the hit. A lot of people also fail to recognize that most professions run permanent swiftness or 25% speed bonuses, so it’s pretty important to run Signet of the Locust, and that alone makes reliability in landing it go through the roof, since you can cast GD while moving towards your target, keep up with them, and land the hit without just being out-run.

It’s definitely a PvE-designed weapon due to its sluggish speed and the reset on Gravedigger, but I think the kit has great use in PvP environments if played well. The real strength in reaper GS is its 4/5 skills. These are absolutely amazing, and I think making them more accessible would enable the GS to be used more competitively.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Gravedigger is a joke when you Realize daredevil’s Vault does around the same damage

Wot?

2.25 vs 3.0… GD baseline hits more than Vault + an OP staff AA.

I think people put too much emphasis on gravedigger. It’s a crap skill for the majority of the fight only really good for executes or when the enemy’s burned out and you can reliably make them take the hit. A lot of people also fail to recognize that most professions run permanent swiftness or 25% speed bonuses, so it’s pretty important to run Signet of the Locust, and that alone makes reliability in landing it go through the roof, since you can cast GD while moving towards your target, keep up with them, and land the hit without just being out-run.

It’s definitely a PvE-designed weapon due to its sluggish speed and the reset on Gravedigger, but I think the kit has great use in PvP environments if played well. The real strength in reaper GS is its 4/5 skills. These are absolutely amazing, and I think making them more accessible would enable the GS to be used more competitively.

You forgot about the damage modifiers thief has. Necro has…5% against mobs with no boon and 20% on mobs below 50% health.

Thief has 10% on mobs with condi on them (vulnerability 100% uptime), 10% bounding dodger, 7% havoc mastery, 10% staff master, and then 20% on targets below 50% health. Plus around 27% crit damage bonus from the increases to ferocity and crit damage on critical strikes.

So a thief has 27% more crit damage than a necro, and 37% damage bonus modifier (not counting execution for either thief or necro). The necro has a 5% damage bonus modifier, that’s it.

So, yeah, Vault does more damage than Gravedigger.

Gravedigger also happens to have a 0.5 sec longer cast time, massively longer aftercasts, and it has no evade frames and it doesn’t leap.

Let’s not even talk about all the greatsword skill that are low, and how the greatsword’s autoattack despite being far slower than thief staff autoattacks also does a fraction of the DPS of staff auto thief does.

You must also not play GS necro much because GS 5 is dreadful, it fails any time there’s a slight terrain variation and it won’t even hit moving targets. It’s the worst pull in the game by a mile.

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

I’m aware that the thief has damage modifiers. Though quite frankly nobody runs staff master in the PvP formats because EA is too good to pass up, seeing as it’s pretty much the best cleanse in the game.

You’re also assuming the thief is running DA/CS/DrD for the PvP formats which is a horrible build.

You’re also neglecting the 25 vuln and/or 25 might the reaper can very easily obtain (+750 power or almost 30% increased damage from might alone, vuln is extra). I understand in roughly three seconds my reaper reaches 25 might.

We’re not talking about balancing the kit for PvE DPS, though. A slow weapon probably shouldn’t have such crazy DPS because then the DPH would need to be tremendously crazy. And I still think the thief AA chain due to the buffs to make it usable in raids is conceptually stupid and unwarranted, despite maining thief.

Gravedigger hits like a truck and should be hitting just as hard as vault even on such a build. My reaper frequently GD’s above 20k in WvW – much higher than most thieves pull off on vault or even the harder-hitting backstab. Vault just goes crazy in PvE because it can get 25 might/vuln from other players and the scaling bonuses obviously go to town. The only difference is really the animation speed

I almost exclusively play GS on my reaper (now turning into my main with the mileage I’ve put on it lately). Skills 4 and 5 are some of the best weapon abilities on necro imho. There are some terrain issues in a few spots, but I’ve found them to be few and far between, and much better than thief’s pathing issues with its weapon abilities. Knowing what is good and bad terrain from past experience helps a lot, and knowing how and when to use GS5 makes it amazing or horrible. Do know you can use it without a target to have it go strictly in the direction of the camera. This lets you predict where people might be moving and set up big plays.

It’s a really strong weapon for skills 4/5, but the cooldowns are too long to warrant enough re-use. Gravedigger is imho the weakest ability in the kit overall.

(edited by DeceiverX.8361)

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Posted by: Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Drarnor Kunoram.5180

I think Soul eater should drop the life steal from it and cause something like 3 seconds of Stability per hit. Just one stack though.. I think 5 might be a bit too good as stability is now. So if you’re spamming it you have stable stab which would be good for a more defensive set up that arena net was pushing with the first line of traits. It’d also mean it combos with Blighter’s boon.

So, something like:

Soul Eater:
Reduce recharge of Greatsword skills. Gravedigger gives 3 seconds of Stability when it hits a foe (no ICD).

So yes, up to 5 stacks of Stability off a single Gravedigger if it landed on 5 foes (more likely, you get 1-3). This fits for two reasons: one, it helps the Necro actually melee. Two, it scales off of opponents hit, which is a sub-theme of Reaper.

Also, it plays in to the unstoppable monster theme. If you let a Reaper start spamming Gravedigger, you will have an extremely hard time stopping it.

Although honestly, I would make all Greatsword skills also steal life when traited for some more staying power. Not dagger/warhorn levels of sustain (especially for single-target situations), but a bit more than we get from just utilities/heal.

Dragonbrand |Drarnor Kunoram: Charr Necro
http://www.twitch.tv/reverse830
I’m a Geeleiver

(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)

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Posted by: roamzero.9486

roamzero.9486

Swap Blighter’s Boon and Soul Eater. Soul Eater is a new GM trait: You are invisible to enemies outside of 600 range when wielding a GS and out of combat. Entering combat recharges all GS skills.

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Posted by: Vydahr.4285

Vydahr.4285

Swap Blighter’s Boon and Soul Eater. Soul Eater is a new GM trait: You are invisible to enemies outside of 600 range when wielding a GS and out of combat. Entering combat recharges all GS skills.

While that would be awesome thematically, GW2 is not Dead By Daylight and invisible monster players would be sadly terrible balance-wise

Drahvienn
Sylvari Power Reaper

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

I always felt that the grasping darkness into gravedigger combo should be more smooth. Because of that i think it would be a good idea to make grasping darkness a skill shot (like warrior gs 3 or revenants Inspiring Reinforcement) and if you hit something you ether gain quickness for a few seconds or a buff that makes you next gravedigger faster.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

I’m aware that the thief has damage modifiers. Though quite frankly nobody runs staff master in the PvP formats because EA is too good to pass up, seeing as it’s pretty much the best cleanse in the game.

You’re also assuming the thief is running DA/CS/DrD for the PvP formats which is a horrible build.

You’re also neglecting the 25 vuln and/or 25 might the reaper can very easily obtain (+750 power or almost 30% increased damage from might alone, vuln is extra). I understand in roughly three seconds my reaper reaches 25 might.

We’re not talking about balancing the kit for PvE DPS, though. A slow weapon probably shouldn’t have such crazy DPS because then the DPH would need to be tremendously crazy. And I still think the thief AA chain due to the buffs to make it usable in raids is conceptually stupid and unwarranted, despite maining thief.

Gravedigger hits like a truck and should be hitting just as hard as vault even on such a build. My reaper frequently GD’s above 20k in WvW – much higher than most thieves pull off on vault or even the harder-hitting backstab. Vault just goes crazy in PvE because it can get 25 might/vuln from other players and the scaling bonuses obviously go to town. The only difference is really the animation speed

I almost exclusively play GS on my reaper (now turning into my main with the mileage I’ve put on it lately). Skills 4 and 5 are some of the best weapon abilities on necro imho. There are some terrain issues in a few spots, but I’ve found them to be few and far between, and much better than thief’s pathing issues with its weapon abilities. Knowing what is good and bad terrain from past experience helps a lot, and knowing how and when to use GS5 makes it amazing or horrible. Do know you can use it without a target to have it go strictly in the direction of the camera. This lets you predict where people might be moving and set up big plays.

It’s a really strong weapon for skills 4/5, but the cooldowns are too long to warrant enough re-use. Gravedigger is imho the weakest ability in the kit overall.

Guardian hammer begs to differ, slow weapon and the top PvE DPS weapon for guardian.

I’m obviously talking PvE, who would in their right mind use greatsword in PvP, the slow animations and your lack of ability to block attacks or CC outside reaper shroud 3 make that weapon useless in PvP.

Unfortunately Anet refuses to do pvp/pve skill splits, so the weapon remains garbage in both formats.

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Posted by: Yannir.4132

Yannir.4132

I always thought that Death Spiral should follow the target, not entirely unlike Revenant’s sword #3. But with no evade frames. Just move the levitating animation from Gravedigger to Death Spiral, and have the reaper glue to the target.

Yannir for males. (guard,thief,war,ele)
Sonya for females. (necro,rev,ranger,mes,engi)
All classes lvl 80.

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Posted by: Norjena.5172

Norjena.5172

Its a pve weapon. It had any use in pvp anet would nerf it to the state its in now

It´s bad even in pve, condinecro dps is way way way better.

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Posted by: Lahmia.2193

Lahmia.2193

The only time GS is viable is for parts of the game where it doesn’t really matter what you bring.

Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

I’m aware that the thief has damage modifiers. Though quite frankly nobody runs staff master in the PvP formats because EA is too good to pass up, seeing as it’s pretty much the best cleanse in the game.

You’re also assuming the thief is running DA/CS/DrD for the PvP formats which is a horrible build.

You’re also neglecting the 25 vuln and/or 25 might the reaper can very easily obtain (+750 power or almost 30% increased damage from might alone, vuln is extra). I understand in roughly three seconds my reaper reaches 25 might.

We’re not talking about balancing the kit for PvE DPS, though. A slow weapon probably shouldn’t have such crazy DPS because then the DPH would need to be tremendously crazy. And I still think the thief AA chain due to the buffs to make it usable in raids is conceptually stupid and unwarranted, despite maining thief.

Gravedigger hits like a truck and should be hitting just as hard as vault even on such a build. My reaper frequently GD’s above 20k in WvW – much higher than most thieves pull off on vault or even the harder-hitting backstab. Vault just goes crazy in PvE because it can get 25 might/vuln from other players and the scaling bonuses obviously go to town. The only difference is really the animation speed

I almost exclusively play GS on my reaper (now turning into my main with the mileage I’ve put on it lately). Skills 4 and 5 are some of the best weapon abilities on necro imho. There are some terrain issues in a few spots, but I’ve found them to be few and far between, and much better than thief’s pathing issues with its weapon abilities. Knowing what is good and bad terrain from past experience helps a lot, and knowing how and when to use GS5 makes it amazing or horrible. Do know you can use it without a target to have it go strictly in the direction of the camera. This lets you predict where people might be moving and set up big plays.

It’s a really strong weapon for skills 4/5, but the cooldowns are too long to warrant enough re-use. Gravedigger is imho the weakest ability in the kit overall.

I’m obviously talking PvE, who would in their right mind use greatsword in PvP, the slow animations and your lack of ability to block attacks or CC outside reaper shroud 3 make that weapon useless in PvP.

The context of why GS needs a buff is entirely based on PvP. It’s the best weapon reaper/necro has for PvE, and works perfectly there.

I run GS in the PvP formats with no issues. Like I said, skills Nightfall and Grasping Darkness carry the weapon and make it very usable if you play it well. Spamming gravedigger trying to one-shot someone isn’t going to work, though; that’s the supposed PvE meat-grinder.

In respects to Soul Eater and how to fix it, I don’t think it’s really possible to. It’s competing with CV and DD, which are some of the best traits on the reaper in general. It’s way out of its league. Imho, the trait should just be removed, put the cooldown reduction on GS baseline to make 3/4/5 more usable in the PvP formats (let’s face it, nobody’s taking GS or the trait because of some crap healing or 20% CDR), and a new trait that’s got a bit more heal-focus to it, such as heal on kill (it’s a reaper, after all) while in shroud. Kill multiple birds with one stone.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

I run GS in the PvP formats with no issues. Like I said, skills Nightfall and Grasping Darkness carry the weapon and make it very usable if you play it well. Spamming gravedigger trying to one-shot someone isn’t going to work, though; that’s the supposed PvE meat-grinder.

Honestly if you have no issues in pvp with gs, then you must have been really lucky with your enemies or only play WvW ZvZ.

In spvp enemies will laugh at a gs reaper due the fact how easy it is to avoid most of its damage. Yeah your grasping darkness skill will hit sometimes and you may get some nightfall ticks in but unless you hit some good gravediggers or get some auto rotations off you are better of by just running dagger/wh. Greatsword’s damage skills are just too slow and it doesnt have quickness, mobility or hard cc to compensate this slowness (well i guess you could use sigil of rage for quickness but thats a trigger with a 30sec cd if you are unlucky it triggers when you dont want it and you would probably had to use it on your other weapon set and then swap because hiting with gs is hard to begin with).

Honestly if you could pull a reliable grasping darkness into gravedigger combo off it would already a good start. For that you would have to reduce the timegap between those two. Not to mention how buggy grasping darkness is (the normal pull bugs, the projectile inconsistency etc.).

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

I run sigil of rage for sPvP but don’t for WvW. Though I run it for shroud bursts more than for GS.

Again, you shouldn’t miss with Grasping. Use it without a target, and aim to where the enemy should be. You’ll stop missing.

D/W is definitely better. I’m just finding I’m not having any deliberate issues with GS. Yes, there are some things the weapon struggles with, but imho the potential gains can be worth it at times as far as how GS can do some things that D/W just simply can’t.

I don’t bother with gravedigger unless I have an opportune moment because it’s just not designed for PvP environments. It’s too slow, but the AA chain on the first two hits is quick enough to get partway through and deal very substantial damage. I also run a very shroud-based build, so I try to minimize standing idling outside of it using normal weapons.

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

if i were building for quickness greatsword i would never use sig of rage, i would probably use sig of agility, sig of rage simply has pathetic uptime. swiftness from sig of agility is also non-trivial imo and is also helpful when running blighter’s boon

Nalhadia – Kaineng

(edited by Sarrs.4831)

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

Well the problem is not missing grasping darkness perse it is the follow up. If you dont have a follow up your only choice is to ether weaponswap or shroud or you will simply kited to death.

And other problem is you need some speed buff be it swiftness, signet of locust or a rune. Meaning you have to ether give up one utlity slot or the rune slot both are things you dont want to do unless the weapon is worth it but gs in its current state is not good enough for such a sacrifice.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

if i were building for quickness greatsword i would never use sig of rage, i would probably use sig of agility, sig of rage simply has pathetic uptime. swiftness from sig of agility is also non-trivial imo and is also helpful when running blighter’s boon

Yeah i know what you mean but the 1sec quickness is really short when it was 2 sec it was better.

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

And other problem is you need some speed buff be it swiftness, signet of locust or a rune. Meaning you have to ether give up one utlity slot or the rune slot both are things you dont want to do unless the weapon is worth it but gs in its current state is not good enough for such a sacrifice.

I am not certain if I necessarily agree with your assessment, at least for sig of locust
If you are playing greatsword in its intended role, groupfight sustain, signet of locust is a natural fit. Successful hits on multiple targets grant a lot of health and the signet trait is still one of necros’ strongest traits. Blighter’s boon practically mandates you use Spite for the sake of Might generation

Nalhadia – Kaineng

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Posted by: dzeRnumbrd.6129

dzeRnumbrd.6129

Greatsword was designed to be Necromancer’s power-cleave in PvE. Don’t expect it to be good in all game modes. It is best for spinning until you get dizzy and slowly working break bars with chill and claws.

Greatsword in all other professions is a viable weapon choice in all game modes.

The necromancer shouldn’t be the only profession with a PvE-specific greatsword.

That’s just making excuses for bad design.

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

Greatsword in all other professions is a viable weapon choice in all game modes.

The necromancer shouldn’t be the only profession with a PvE-specific greatsword.

That’s just making excuses for bad design.

also worth noting that greatsword is the only elite spec weapon that’s considered trash
warhorn and torch are marginal but they do see some use and they are offhand weapons, not 2h weapons

Nalhadia – Kaineng

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

You may be thinking I am overly complimentary toward greatsword but I feel it is adequate in addressing the PvE gap of AoE power damage. I make no claims on WvW or PvP viability, other than agreement it was not designed for them.

Greatsword was meant for no-toughness builds where a tank holds aggro and the Reaper stands behind the mobs and spams Gravedigger with impunity like a blender. For that, GS is very good. Of course, Necro-Reaper could tank but susceptibility to CC and reliance on Shroud transforms that remove GS skills are deliberate handicaps.

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

I just don’t see how GS is viable in pvp at all. Condi reapers are barely viable when you have a great team that’ll sustain, support, and peel for you, or have a babysitter engi like we saw from pro tourney to revive you. To achieve power reaping you’d need to be in middle of the crap, where us necros simply don’t have what it takes to sustain getting focused. You’ll be too busy getting cc’ed, condi stacked, and powered on that you won’t be swinging much of that GS.

Unless of course you’re roflstmoping a much worse team, in which case, heck you could be playing any whack build using any weapon and still win. But against any competent opponents or worse, pre-mades, you really won’t be able to do much before you watch your shroud disappear and you’ll be chain cc’ed while bombed down.

Like I said, condi reapers are barely doable right now against good players, this is while we’re condi bombing from range. To play a power reaper build using GS, you’d be need to stand in middle of all the fields and bombs, chase players around, or you’re completely useless to a team. Ever since last patch, every power reaper I’ve seen in games have gotten stomped bad. Only ones that did “ok” were ones where the team already 3 cap and dominated.

I’m counting all the classes that counter us or out-power us right now, I’m sorry, I just don’t see how GS or even power reaper is even viable in the current meta.

(edited by gavyne.6847)

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

No argument from me. I have always maintained that greatsword is a PvE weapon.

It… is… sloooowwww….. for… a…. reason…….

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

if i were building for quickness greatsword i would never use sig of rage, i would probably use sig of agility, sig of rage simply has pathetic uptime. swiftness from sig of agility is also non-trivial imo and is also helpful when running blighter’s boon

I run it on staff for the quickness with shroud, and sometimes swap weapons. Much better sigils to put on the actual sword itself. The ICD on agility negates a lot of purpose in using it at all, even on reaper.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

I’m aware that the thief has damage modifiers. Though quite frankly nobody runs staff master in the PvP formats because EA is too good to pass up, seeing as it’s pretty much the best cleanse in the game.

You’re also assuming the thief is running DA/CS/DrD for the PvP formats which is a horrible build.

You’re also neglecting the 25 vuln and/or 25 might the reaper can very easily obtain (+750 power or almost 30% increased damage from might alone, vuln is extra). I understand in roughly three seconds my reaper reaches 25 might.

We’re not talking about balancing the kit for PvE DPS, though. A slow weapon probably shouldn’t have such crazy DPS because then the DPH would need to be tremendously crazy. And I still think the thief AA chain due to the buffs to make it usable in raids is conceptually stupid and unwarranted, despite maining thief.

Gravedigger hits like a truck and should be hitting just as hard as vault even on such a build. My reaper frequently GD’s above 20k in WvW – much higher than most thieves pull off on vault or even the harder-hitting backstab. Vault just goes crazy in PvE because it can get 25 might/vuln from other players and the scaling bonuses obviously go to town. The only difference is really the animation speed

I almost exclusively play GS on my reaper (now turning into my main with the mileage I’ve put on it lately). Skills 4 and 5 are some of the best weapon abilities on necro imho. There are some terrain issues in a few spots, but I’ve found them to be few and far between, and much better than thief’s pathing issues with its weapon abilities. Knowing what is good and bad terrain from past experience helps a lot, and knowing how and when to use GS5 makes it amazing or horrible. Do know you can use it without a target to have it go strictly in the direction of the camera. This lets you predict where people might be moving and set up big plays.

It’s a really strong weapon for skills 4/5, but the cooldowns are too long to warrant enough re-use. Gravedigger is imho the weakest ability in the kit overall.

I’m obviously talking PvE, who would in their right mind use greatsword in PvP, the slow animations and your lack of ability to block attacks or CC outside reaper shroud 3 make that weapon useless in PvP.

The context of why GS needs a buff is entirely based on PvP. It’s the best weapon reaper/necro has for PvE, and works perfectly there.

I run GS in the PvP formats with no issues. Like I said, skills Nightfall and Grasping Darkness carry the weapon and make it very usable if you play it well. Spamming gravedigger trying to one-shot someone isn’t going to work, though; that’s the supposed PvE meat-grinder.

In respects to Soul Eater and how to fix it, I don’t think it’s really possible to. It’s competing with CV and DD, which are some of the best traits on the reaper in general. It’s way out of its league. Imho, the trait should just be removed, put the cooldown reduction on GS baseline to make 3/4/5 more usable in the PvP formats (let’s face it, nobody’s taking GS or the trait because of some crap healing or 20% CDR), and a new trait that’s got a bit more heal-focus to it, such as heal on kill (it’s a reaper, after all) while in shroud. Kill multiple birds with one stone.

In what world do you live where greatsword is the best PvE weapon we have?

Power necro is trash in PvE, behind condi necro by about 6k+ DPS and even worse aoe.

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Posted by: Jerus.4350

Jerus.4350

No argument from me. I have always maintained that greatsword is a PvE weapon.

It… is… sloooowwww….. for… a…. reason…….

And, it underperforms there as well :/

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Posted by: Rym.1469

Rym.1469

Greatsword buffs wouldn’t matter – the concept of it is flawed for any competitive purposes. It’s a PvE cleave weapon at best, through and through, because people complained Necromancer can’t cleave in dungeons. That’s it.

The vision of slow-moving slow-casting melee DPS without gap closers and periodic damage immunity (evades, blocks – you name it) reliant on tanking hits in a world where autoattacks have been buffed so much that they hit for 3-4k with ease is absolutely not happening in GW2 PvP and would never happen.

You can no longer wait out dodges and then kill someone in one precise burst – there is almost always an answer. Be it removing Immobilize/Chill on dodge, block, passive immunity trigger under health treshold, spammable evade frames.
You can’t wait these out, because by the time everything is gone you’re probably gone from holding on with your combo or short cooldown defensives are up again. You have no sustain or reset ability to make mistakes or try again.

Nobody sane expected Greatsword to be anything in PvP – in a world where your damage has to be instant, because 1/2 second cast is too slow, what would you think about Gravedigger that barely hits for more than Thief’s autoattack.

[rude]Antagonistka – Revenant, EU.
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
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(edited by Rym.1469)

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Posted by: Daunte.3095

Daunte.3095

The only time GS is viable is for parts of the game where it doesn’t really matter what you bring.

This person gets it.

Also the idea of a slow hulking unstoppable weapon doesn’t even fit the current GS. It is slow/easy to avoid but it’s easily stoppable. If the weapon gave CC immunity on attacks then it would fit the description. As it stands it simply fails in all modes. Yes even PVE

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Posted by: Kadin.2356

Kadin.2356

The only time GS is viable is for parts of the game where it doesn’t really matter what you bring.

This person gets it.

Also the idea of a slow hulking unstoppable weapon doesn’t even fit the current GS. It is slow/easy to avoid but it’s easily stoppable. If the weapon gave CC immunity on attacks then it would fit the description. As it stands it simply fails in all modes. Yes even PVE

Yea I don’t really understand. They designed the weapon without a niche to fill. It excels at nothing. Dagger has more damage and utility and it’s only a 1h weapon. It’s seriously stupid. Speed up the #1 attack speed, increase damage, add utility like boonstrip, do SOMETHING.

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Yea I don’t really understand. They designed the weapon without a niche to fill. It excels at nothing. Dagger has more damage and utility and it’s only a 1h weapon. It’s seriously stupid. Speed up the #1 attack speed, increase damage, add utility like boonstrip, do SOMETHING.

Watch greatsword damage in PvE while surrounded by mobs. Total damage gets very high. Only one mob needs to be below 50% health for a Grave Digger recharge and shouts give great sustain when used in a crowd.

A cleave weapon (power-based AoE) was a massive hole in Necro capability and forced Arenanet to add a single cleave to dagger.

Greatsword has a niche. That niche is PvE crowd control. Expect its usefulness to decrease the farther you go from that niche. Look hard at the traits, too. Every one of them scales up in a crowd.

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Posted by: Kadin.2356

Kadin.2356

Yea I don’t really understand. They designed the weapon without a niche to fill. It excels at nothing. Dagger has more damage and utility and it’s only a 1h weapon. It’s seriously stupid. Speed up the #1 attack speed, increase damage, add utility like boonstrip, do SOMETHING.

Watch greatsword damage in PvE while surrounded by mobs. Total damage gets very high. Only one mob needs to be below 50% health for a Grave Digger recharge and shouts give great sustain when used in a crowd.

A cleave weapon (power-based AoE) was a massive hole in Necro capability and forced Arenanet to add a single cleave to dagger.

Greatsword has a niche. That niche is PvE crowd control. Expect its usefulness to decrease the farther you go from that niche. Look hard at the traits, too. Every one of them scales up in a crowd.

Is it really though? Marks hit 5 targets instead of 3 and refresh before you have to drop out of shroud again. Traited a full round of marks fills up your shroud faster AND applies poison, vuln, chill, condi xfer and bleed. What was that niche again?

I get what you are saying. That’s what it was intended to excell at, but it just falls short. I don’t think power is even close to condi damage output for PvE anyway so that makes the whole thing moot anyway.

(edited by Kadin.2356)

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Posted by: Ravezaar.4951

Ravezaar.4951

ppl saying GS is a PvE weapon are missing the fcng point, this is both a PvE and a PvP game.

Underjordens Furste 80 Necro Piken-server
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Posted by: Vydahr.4285

Vydahr.4285

Yea I don’t really understand. They designed the weapon without a niche to fill. It excels at nothing. Dagger has more damage and utility and it’s only a 1h weapon. It’s seriously stupid. Speed up the #1 attack speed, increase damage, add utility like boonstrip, do SOMETHING.

Watch greatsword damage in PvE while surrounded by mobs. Total damage gets very high. Only one mob needs to be below 50% health for a Grave Digger recharge and shouts give great sustain when used in a crowd.

A cleave weapon (power-based AoE) was a massive hole in Necro capability and forced Arenanet to add a single cleave to dagger.

Greatsword has a niche. That niche is PvE crowd control. Expect its usefulness to decrease the farther you go from that niche. Look hard at the traits, too. Every one of them scales up in a crowd.

Is it really though? Marks hit 5 targets instead of 3 and refresh before you have to drop out of shroud again. Traited a full round of marks fills up your shroud faster AND applies poison, vuln, chill, condi xfer and bleed. What was that niche again?

I get what you are saying. That’s what it was intended to excell at, but it just falls short. I don’t think power is even close to condi damage output for PvE anyway so that makes the whole thing moot anyway.

Even GS auto does a hell of a lot more damage over that time period than marks. GS does excel at shredding large groups of mobs. Couple that with shouts (and signet of the locust for some speed) and you can take on more mobs at once than basically any other class

Drahvienn
Sylvari Power Reaper

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Posted by: Dignified Loser.7689

Dignified Loser.7689

So my two cents would be:

Greatsword Skills:
-Reduce all cooldowns by about 10% or so.
-Skill 1: reduce the cast time of each strike by 0.25s and slightly increase the range of Chilling Scythe.
-Gravedigger: Reduce the aftercast.
-Death Spiral: Add a 450 range leap/teleport.
-Nightfall: Nothing?
-Grasping Darkness: Fix its finicky nature.

Soul Eater: While wielding a greatsword your attacks leech health and deal increased damage. Gravedigger grants stability for each foe struck.
-Damage Increased: 10%
-Life Siphon Damage: 70 (0.02)?
-Life Siphon Heal: 55 (0.03)?
-1x Stability: 3s

or

Soul Eater: While wielding a greatsword your attacks leech health and deal increased damage. Cast a random (reaper) shout when you swap to greatsword (cooldown is dependent on the shout cast).
-Damage Increased: 10%
-Life Siphon Damage: 70 (0.02)?
-Life Siphon Heal: 55 (0.03)?
-Combat Only

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Posted by: Lahmia.2193

Lahmia.2193

Yea I don’t really understand. They designed the weapon without a niche to fill. It excels at nothing. Dagger has more damage and utility and it’s only a 1h weapon. It’s seriously stupid. Speed up the #1 attack speed, increase damage, add utility like boonstrip, do SOMETHING.

Watch greatsword damage in PvE while surrounded by mobs. Total damage gets very high. Only one mob needs to be below 50% health for a Grave Digger recharge and shouts give great sustain when used in a crowd.

A cleave weapon (power-based AoE) was a massive hole in Necro capability and forced Arenanet to add a single cleave to dagger.

Greatsword has a niche. That niche is PvE crowd control. Expect its usefulness to decrease the farther you go from that niche. Look hard at the traits, too. Every one of them scales up in a crowd.

Is it really though? Marks hit 5 targets instead of 3 and refresh before you have to drop out of shroud again. Traited a full round of marks fills up your shroud faster AND applies poison, vuln, chill, condi xfer and bleed. What was that niche again?

I get what you are saying. That’s what it was intended to excell at, but it just falls short. I don’t think power is even close to condi damage output for PvE anyway so that makes the whole thing moot anyway.

Even GS auto does a hell of a lot more damage over that time period than marks. GS does excel at shredding large groups of mobs. Couple that with shouts (and signet of the locust for some speed) and you can take on more mobs at once than basically any other class

As I’ve said before the only parts of pve that matter, build wise, are fractals and raids, both in which GS isn’t viable. As for being a pve weapon, all other professions have greatswords that are viable (or have been viable) in pvp despite being designed for pve.

Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

So my two cents would be:

Greatsword Skills:
-Reduce all cooldowns by about 10% or so.
-Skill 1: reduce the cast time of each strike by 0.25s and slightly increase the range of Chilling Scythe.
-Gravedigger: Reduce the aftercast.
-Death Spiral: Add a 450 range leap/teleport.
-Nightfall: Nothing?
-Grasping Darkness: Fix its finicky nature.

Soul Eater: While wielding a greatsword your attacks leech health and deal increased damage. Gravedigger grants stability for each foe struck.
-Damage Increased: 10%
-Life Siphon Damage: 70 (0.02)?
-Life Siphon Heal: 55 (0.03)?
-1x Stability: 3s

This would actally be really good. So i doubt it will ever happen.

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Posted by: Cecilia.5179

Cecilia.5179

Speed=viability in PvP
Greatsword is slow
Necromancer is slow
The weapon naturally sucks because it is slow. If it traded some of its power for speed in PvP and WvW, it would automatically be better.

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Posted by: Vydahr.4285

Vydahr.4285

Speed=viability in PvP
Greatsword is slow
Necromancer is slow
The weapon naturally sucks because it is slow. If it traded some of its power for speed in PvP and WvW, it would automatically be better.

Bah, you can make use of any weapon in pvp if you have enough practice with it. It won’t necessarily make it the best ever, but still potentially useful. In the case of greatsword, if you use it frequently, you’re used to how slow it hits. In a pvp match, no one expects greatsword on a reaper. Or power reaper period, to be honest. While the element of surprise lasts only about as long as the first team fight, the greatsword has enough oomph to it that your opponent has to choose when to dodge things. If they mess up, they lose.

That’s really always been the way necro has to play in pvp, though. Get good at our skills to the point where they come as easily as breathing, then wait for someone to mess up. That was the case a year and a half+ ago when I started playing, and it’s the case now. If your enemy doesn’t mess up, then gg. That’s necro life for ya

Drahvienn
Sylvari Power Reaper

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

And that’s exactly how you also need to play the thief, especially power D/D. Probably why I find moderate success with the GS. You learn when and how to use the skills by your opponent, and you can force them into really, really bad situations.

You do, however, pretty much need to play Speed of Shadows. Swapping in and out of DS/other weapons is critical to make it work in the PvP environments.

It’s far from an AA and win weapon. It’s also very far from trash. It could afford to be buffed a little bit, but I’m almost certain just a few tweaks via cooldowns and making Soul Eater actually a good trait would get it there.

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Posted by: Vydahr.4285

Vydahr.4285

And that’s exactly how you also need to play the thief, especially power D/D. Probably why I find moderate success with the GS. You learn when and how to use the skills by your opponent, and you can force them into really, really bad situations.

You do, however, pretty much need to play Speed of Shadows. Swapping in and out of DS/other weapons is critical to make it work in the PvP environments.

It’s far from an AA and win weapon. It’s also very far from trash. It could afford to be buffed a little bit, but I’m almost certain just a few tweaks via cooldowns and making Soul Eater actually a good trait would get it there.

Not to mention Signet of the Locust. And have vuln output that’s through the roof to pair with decimate defenses. I’d wager you could pretty well mess up a team in a group fight enough that, if you don’t take any down yourself, your allies could finish them off or make them run away. Don’t pick a fight with a good necro/reaper. Unfortunately, those are few and far between and I’d venture to guess that I’m not even in that category anymore, despite having 99% of my playtime (almost 1,000 hours) exclusively on necro or reaper. It’s a harsh world we live in

Drahvienn
Sylvari Power Reaper