Guild Wars 2

Heyo Necros, got some footage of elite specialisations from the gw2 twitch livestream. Below I’ve added a link to one of the vods containing necro gameplay by Grouch and Roy and Karl. Gameplay is somewhat casual given the busyness of the convention.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/9763687?t=1h04m06s

Thoughts and feelings? Should be quite accurate to the beta build we try this weekend.

Already posted on the other Reaper thread about this.

There are some changes that I noticed:
GS skills 3-5 cd’s went up
“YAAW!” now also gives stab and is stunbreak
RS skills changed some. Death’s Charge is now blind not poison and Soul Spiral adds Poison also on top everything else.

Chilling nova nerfed into oblivion, chilling force icd per foe of 1 second → nerfed too but not too bad.

Blind on RS 2 sounds really nice, given how spammable that skill will be. I’ve always thought that necro needed more blind. Plus that way it can nominally function with chilling darkness.

Grouch hasn’t mastered reaper shroud it seems, he gets rekt all the time.

RS 4 now gives poison

Necro looks terrible all of the guys were destroyed . Funny how on last one bold guy with necro vs guard that was avoiding Gs attacks…….Reaper is crap GS easy avoidable low dmg extremly low Dagger auto attak is 3 time faster and better base dmg Wet dreams of slow but hard hitting necro will not come to life and remain simply wet dream in delusional head
Since Reaper release I spent time farming getting ascended Legendary … and now I don’t even want to play gw2 ….. SO much Frustration from this class
We can openly say Necromancer is worst and most hated class in gw2

Giving a class with some of the longest cool downs in the game more high cool downs on a new expansion weapon. Solid logic.

Tristan.5678:

Necro looks terrible all of the guys were destroyed . Funny how on last one bold guy with necro vs guard that was avoiding Gs attacks…….Reaper is crap GS easy avoidable low dmg extremly low Dagger auto attak is 3 time faster and better base dmg Wet dreams of slow but hard hitting necro will not come to life and remain simply wet dream in delusional head
Since Reaper release I spent time farming getting ascended Legendary … and now I don’t even want to play gw2 ….. SO much Frustration from this class
We can openly say Necromancer is worst and most hated class in gw2

None of those people seemed to know what they were doing…

Maybe wait for the beta weekend before falling into despair?

Or… if playing Necro gives you that much anxiety, play another proff?

i think it looks dope.. cant wait to try it out

The blindness on Nightfall also went down to 2s per, but the interval of pulses went to 2s from 1.

Grasping Darkness (was Reaper’s Grasp) GS5, now causes 3 stacks of poison for 4s, instead of 1 for 10s.

Terrify now has a 1/2s cast time, down from 3/4

Third part of the RS1 chain gives might from Reaper’s Might, not the first 2.

Gravedigger hits 5 targets.

Rise has a 1s cast time, down from 1.5

The damage coefs of sword and shroud seem like they haven’t changed… Sad

The blind on reaper shroud 2 is nice. Lower Well of Darkness cooldown to 25-30 sec, reduce cast time on shadow fiend to half a sec and we could finally start to have some sort of active defense fitting the necro theme.

And I almost forgot: make poison cloud block projectiles and spectral wall reflect them.

Tristan.5678:

Necro looks terrible all of the guys were destroyed . Funny how on last one bold guy with necro vs guard that was avoiding Gs attacks…….Reaper is crap GS easy avoidable low dmg extremly low Dagger auto attak is 3 time faster and better base dmg Wet dreams of slow but hard hitting necro will not come to life and remain simply wet dream in delusional head
Since Reaper release I spent time farming getting ascended Legendary … and now I don’t even want to play gw2 ….. SO much Frustration from this class
We can openly say Necromancer is worst and most hated class in gw2

Let all the amazing players get their hands on it first. Playing any class on the show floor is always a pain, especially one you haven’t played before.

Dirame.8521:

Let all the amazing players get their hands on it first. Playing any class on the show floor is always a pain, especially one you haven’t played before.

This. Blackmoa seemed atleast know what he should do but wasn’t able to play long.

I would prefer a chill/cripple instead of the blind on reaper shroud 2 because you want to reach your target and stop him from running away from you. So a chill would be perfect in my opinion.

Moreover i find it a bag joke that you give reaper again 1 sek stability on spells like “You are all weaklings” and “Well of Power” compared to other classes. The rest i really like on the reaper and good job there

IronPhoenix.2045:

I would prefer a chill/cripple instead of the blind on reaper shroud 2 because you want to reach your target and stop him from running away from you. So a chill would be perfect in my opinion.

Moreover i find it a bag joke that you give reaper again 1 sek stability on spells like “You are all weaklings” and “Well of Power” compared to other classes. The rest i really like on the reaper and good job there

I think the idea was to push chilling darkness with the aoe blind. I wish RS2 worked like warrior leap though so it was more reliable in combat…

Oh wait, reaper shroud 2 is still on a 1 sec cast time ? o_O
If so, I don’t know what they want us to blind at all besides ele’s overcharge or other necros…

Ara.4569:

Oh wait, reaper shroud 2 is still on a 1 sec cast time ? o_O
If so, I don’t know what they want us to blind at all besides ele’s overcharge or other necros…

They want us to blind ourselves. :P

the 1s on reaper is the duration for you moving 600 units, not 1s casting and then leaping. the blind happens after 1s so it works similar to ele’s evade frames on burning speed.

So the result is the same: we can’t reactively blind an ability when we see it being cast: we blindly blind.

still a free blind on 6s cd i guess.

You know what they should do, honest? They should merge Chilling Darkness into “Shivers of Dread” and make it:

Blinds and Fears cause Chill. 2 seconds. 4 sec ICD per target.

With the changes to reaper shroud, this would be more beneficial than what it does now, frankly. Maybe 5 sec ICD, but either way. Belongs together.

Wow 15s ICD on Chilling Nova, for 2s of Chill is very rough, I think kitten or 7s ICD would have sufficed.

I think having blind instead of poison on RS2 is nice, and I like some of the other changes as well. Though it’s a shame some skills got longer CD, and Gravedigger (GS2) got nerfed to recharge 80% instead of 100%.

The shouts still have a cast time ._. and the CD on some of them are too long (especially you CttB).

The damage coefficients of the GS auto attack seems pretty low, considering the super slow and easily avoidable attack chain I think each hit should pack a bit more of a punch.

Great sword looks cool as in concept, but I will be using dagger with either focus or war horn for the lf gen switching to a staff as a secondary (higher damage in RS) and range. The 5 target cleave means nothing to me on a SLOW AS KITTEN weapon so I will just build LF quickly, switch and spend my time cleaving in RS. But at least I save the time making an ascended GS.

I probably won’t play around with GS too much simply because marauder power necro is far too squishy for the current meta. If you don’t play cele or soldiers, you’re going to have a rough time, especially being in melee.

Still I think Reaper Shroud Skills will be awesome with cele stats. Has anyone done math to see whether dhuumfire or death perception would do more damage with cele stats in reaper shroud?

Quite pleased with the way RS2 looks, it actually provides some decent amount of mobility – it will not turn you into a roamer , but it will allow you to at least keep up with people tying to kite you on-point.

The Reaper Shroud as a whole looks really interesting and useful, providing the necromancer with ways to apply even more cleave on-point that usual, making reviving hard for the enemy team. The poison got moved from RS2 to RS 4, so we can still provide heavy AoE debuffing, and we can flip RS3 to get a fear off without losing the stability we have gathered so far.

Onto the bad news – great sword looks extremely clunky to the point where it is nearly useless in PvP. This was expected, but it is worse than I originally thought. The LF generation is horrendous, the long wind-ups never reach the point where we see the pay-off, and the utility skills such as GS5 are rather impotent. I will likely go for an SR build with soul marks, with staff and D/X as my weapons, so that I can maximize the time I can spend in RS. The Reaper seems to be at its strongest there, allowing for some serious AoE cleave DPS while having an auto with a reasonable attack speed.

Comparing the tempest footage to the reaper footage. It is very very obvious that grouch has no experience with not just reaper, but with necromancer as a whole. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on this video.

Oh so they completely ignored the suggestion to avoid putting ICD’s on everything? Glad to see they are consistent with limiting the necro completely. /s

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

Building LF with GS isnt a huge issue we have several good Utility Skills for that and Il bet with practice one can get hits in with GS#3. My biggest concern was if they were gonna touch Gravedigger (sadly they did) and Reaper SHorud #3 (wich seems to still have its 8s Stab on pulsate). Those two skills imho will be crucial in a good Reaper Build.

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

the stream crashed when he was playing so we didn’t get to see much but he seemed to be doing alright

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

But the point is to show off how good GS is, not prove that dagger+warhorn is still better.

Nynuwe.5893:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

But the point is to show off how good GS is, not prove that dagger+warhorn is still better.

I think Andlat’s point is that dagger/warhorn is a frequently played weapon set on necro, so the ins and outs, counters and tricks are all well known, whereas for GS, it’s all theorycraft, essentially. Even the best player ever is gonna have a little difficulty mastering a completely new weapon with all its nuances in a handful of minutes

wow is GS kittenty.
not surprisingly…..anet nails the “slow moving/ hitting” part, and ignores the “hard hitting” part.

chilling nova ICD is hilarious…anet balancing at its finest.

oh well…plan to spend as much time in RS as possible anyway. d/w +staff it will be.

I know they have to test everything in hope of balance but it was pretty obvious what would be weak links I still haven’t found anything to drop for Reaper even in lines hell I haven’t decided to buy HoT yet.

Sagat.3285:

1)They don’t see the class like we do
2)The “necro theme” is preferred by them over balance
3)They are always to keep necro “in line” before action/live (hello rest of the game)
4)They overestimate DS that starts at zero LF before every match
5)Like someone mentioned necro is very different from the rest of the classes
6)They use perfect scenarios for balance

Tommyknocker.6089:

Great sword looks cool as in concept, but I will be using dagger with either focus or war horn for the lf gen switching to a staff as a secondary (higher damage in RS) and range. The 5 target cleave means nothing to me on a SLOW AS KITTEN weapon so I will just build LF quickly, switch and spend my time cleaving in RS. But at least I save the time making an ascended GS.

This Even If I will buy HoT now I’m not so sure any more I will run with reaper spec but with dagger …. GS is not even close to dagger dmg output + dagger has 3500 heal on skill 2 why the hell would any necro use this terrible gs….. it makes no sens …. just like DPS Staff build in fractal of Axe with that Terrible low auto attak dps …
Its sad…
I’m actually leveling a guard now in case Arena continue to not give a dime for necro players

Vydahr.4285:

Nynuwe.5893:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

But the point is to show off how good GS is, not prove that dagger+warhorn is still better.

I think Andlat’s point is that dagger/warhorn is a frequently played weapon set on necro, so the ins and outs, counters and tricks are all well known, whereas for GS, it’s all theorycraft, essentially. Even the best player ever is gonna have a little difficulty mastering a completely new weapon with all its nuances in a handful of minutes

Not only that, the fast hiting locust swarm is an amazing way to get rid of guardian blocks, and warhorn 4 is a great tool if you want to interrupt shelter. I am not sure in which matchup having a GS would be more favourable than D/Wh, this remains to be seen through testing, but against a mediguard the latter certainly has a big edge.

Some more thoughts on Reaper after watching all the videos available:

Blighter’s boon seems to allow reaper to stay in the thick of things. It has great sustain damage for someone using a soldier’s amulet, and the constant 20+ might stacks allow for burning to deal quite a bit of damage.

Unfortunately, if they nerf Blighter’s Boon by adding an ICD to it, and/or add ICD to Reaper’s Might, the build will lose most of its steam. I suppose time will tell if this is going to happen, but knowing A-net’s history with necro, I would not be surprised.

As it currently is, Soldier reaper seems to be a rather tanky build which provides great AoE debuffing potential with its massive poison and chill applications, while still having decent sustained damage. In addition, its signets can serve as powerful single-target debuffers against targets such as elementalists and guardians.

In a way, it is quite similar to hambow warrior, except it focuses on debuffing rather than hard CC. The build and playstyle appear quite pleasant, and I am looking forward to trying them out first-hand this Friday.

More high quality “balance” from ANet. Greatsword is as slow as Guardian Hammer with a fraction of the damage, they loaded ICDs onto anything that might have been useful, Rise! is still garbage, good stuff all around, nothing new to see here just Necro as usual.

Bhawb.7408:

More high quality “balance” from ANet. Greatsword is as slow as Guardian Hammer with a fraction of the damage, they loaded ICDs onto anything that might have been useful, Rise! is still garbage, good stuff all around, nothing new to see here just Necro as usual.

This is actually a good comparison. Hammer has indeed higher damage coefficients (although it somewhat depends if the enemy remains in the symbol), not to mention hammer has both heavy CC and a some support.
And don’t go and claim that necro has a higher survivability than a guardian!!!

Silverkey.2078:

Bhawb.7408:

More high quality “balance” from ANet. Greatsword is as slow as Guardian Hammer with a fraction of the damage, they loaded ICDs onto anything that might have been useful, Rise! is still garbage, good stuff all around, nothing new to see here just Necro as usual.

This is actually a good comparison. Hammer has indeed higher damage coefficients (although it somewhat depends if the enemy remains in the symbol), not to mention hammer has both heavy CC and a some support.
And don’t go and claim that necro has a higher survivability than a guardian!!!

And blast on 5 sec CD that in armor zerk and Captain Accessory dose 2k dmg
If comparing necro to Guard you’ll be shocked how kittened necro are

Bhawb.7408:

More high quality “balance” from ANet. Greatsword is as slow as Guardian Hammer with a fraction of the damage, they loaded ICDs onto anything that might have been useful, Rise! is still garbage, good stuff all around, nothing new to see here just Necro as usual.

Nerfing the decent things they previewed. At least they are consistently bad, so we don’t have any expectations (and still get dissapointed somehow).

Sone times I wonder if anyone that deals with the balance in this game plays as a necro and not just against them.

What I saw was a spec that was hard to kill, and as we know from when the bunker meta was a thing Anet does not like that since it is boring to watch in spvp so it gets nerfed. This does not look good for reaper in general.

Better than Rea… Oh wait.
I think the devs have traited into Spiting us.

If they keep doing kitten, I hope we will all riot together. Too much apathy nowadays. I love the necro gameplay despite all the weaknesses, lack of designer support and poor balance.

I haven’t had time to watch the VoD.

Did Blighter’s Boon get some number nerf or ICD?

Anyone have links to other people playing reaper besides grouch? Watching him play I felt like putting my fave into a wall. He had no idea what he was doing.

Later in the stream Jebro is playing much better, but he’s still not a necro expert as far as I understand.

Sigmoid.7082:

Anyone have links to other people playing reaper besides grouch? Watching him play I felt like putting my fave into a wall. He had no idea what he was doing.

I don’t think any of the devs actually know how to Necro. I remember in the stream from the specialization patch they said Necro was in a great spot because it could beat condi engi with a full transfer build. That was never an accomplishment for Necros…