Guild Wars 2

Uhhhhhhhh, why can’t I see replies in this thread?

Its a well known forum bug. When the amount of replies exactly matches the page limit, it’ll send you to the second page where there are no replies automatically.

The irony is that, by asking the question, you fixed the forum.

spoj.9672:

Which means our early feedback that damage would be too low was ignored.

lol, well some things will never change i guess, Sometimes i think why bother giving feedback anyways.

Reapers Shroud is really good i think, i like Infusing Terror and Deaths Charge.

Shouts i don´t know, base cooldowns are too long and the reduction from Augury of Death is meh because of that.. If i hit 2 enemies the reduction is 5 sec.

You are all weaklings would be good if they increase the stability part, 1.1/4 sec just does nothing, i mean its so low sometimes i don´t even notice the boon on the screen.

Suffer is nice i think, condi transfer plus chill, if you go down the chill road i can see some nice synergies.

Nothing can save you is great i think (with the exception of the cooldown).

Rise, i don´t know what to say. I actually know but if i would say that, the forum police would ban me again. So i just say USELESS.

Chilled to the bone i am not sure, i play only WvW and Plague is simply too useful for me to give it up. But i do think that the skill has it´s use.

Your soul is mine is not a bad healing skill imo, it just can´t compete with consume conditions. Maybe there is some synergy with Unholy Sanctuary regarding to the LF generation.

Greatsword is lackluster at best. The damage output is far far too low taking into account the speed and range of this weapon. In WvW / PvP you will get interrupted 24/7. Also LF generation is bad on GS. Dagger imo is far superior still.

Reaper traitline is good i think with a few exceptions. Augury of Death is too weak, the cd reduction is simply not worth it. Soul Eater heals me for 53 in celestial, so it seems that this trait don´t scale with hp. Maybe it would be worth it if they change that.

Overall i think the Reaper is not quite there. Greatsword is laughable and Shouts are so so. But Reapers Shroud and Reaper TL are useful and offer interesting things to play with. I love that the Necro has more access to stability now and that they gave us a bit more mobility. At least here it seems that in some clear moments they take feedback into account, so not all hope is lost.

Enjoying playing the reaper. Start with the good. The new melee style f1 shroud is amazing. My reaper looks sick with his greatsword. The dark field on greatsword was a big help to get a stomp if reaper shroud stab wasnt up. The animations of everything new shouts gs skills etc are really nice.

Now for the things I thought needed some love. Reaper shroud 2 skill deaths charge is kinda weird in how it handles. Would much rather it worked like warrior sword 2.
The shouts were just straight up not that great compared to the already decent utilites necro did have. Ranger shout guard traited can give near perma regen and swiftenss. and we got 1 jagged horror if there is only one target close by on a 40 sec cd.
I thought the gm traits were very meh. Deaths charge already has a low cooldown 15% more attack speed meh. The numbers on the gm chill trait are less than the fear trait that makes it do dmg which isnt a gm trait. Blighters boon 1% lifeforce when u get a boon turns out in some builds and group play can be pretty good.

Now for some suggestions on things I think would help.
GS auto attack slightly faster total time or more dmg to compensate.
Gravedigger reverted to insta cd if hitting a target below 50% it already has a huge wind up.
Deathspiral increase range to 300
Nightfall increase range to 600
Grasping darkness increase range to 900 can remove the poison if needed
All the shouts i think just need to have shorter cooldowns so that when you take Augury of death trait the flavor of the traits becomes that they all have super low cooldowns. Your soul is mine is a decent example when traited its up pretty often.
The traits are ok just need numbers adjusted and reapers onslaught I explained above.

Perhaps we should make the feedback a little more constructive rather then the standard this sucks, reaper sucks, arena net sucks.

Damage number can always be fine tuned, what skills are good? What skills don’t work?

One thing I did notice that has been said a lot already is you seem to enter death shroud and get kicked out very quickly. If this is a bug no worries, if not its something thst might need to be looked at.

Good:
Animations are beautiful, I look like a graceful deathgod mowing down evil.
Reapers Shroud feels amazing and seems to do great dmg.
I feel the synergy of my skills, as a necromancer I’ not used to using my skills in conjunction for greater effect so this feels great.
Mobility is obviously still not really there but I now feel like I have tons of options to get to my target.

Bad:
I have barely even touched shouts, i mean, why would I even bother when wells are a thing.
GS AA damage is simply garbage. If I dont get 3 crits with my auto attack It’s literally the worst feeling in the world. I waste precious seconds doing absolutely nothing. There’s this huge build up on the last swing and I feel like something beautiful is about to happen but nope, it was all a lie…
GS2 is a terrible execute. It feels so awkward with the 80% reduce recharge. Just enough time to tickle my opponent with an AA swing that just reminds me of how garbage I am.
GS5 is honestly a waste of time, I’d rather just run up to my opponent than use that clunky little skill.

I really enjoyed it so far. The Shouts were generally solid, but I dropped the heal. It’s a really weak heal, but I guess that’s intended since it deals damage. The GS skills were fun, and did solid damage. The Shroud skills were also great, and with the right traiting I could stay in Shroud mode much of the time. It really felt very Darksiders.

I do wish that the class had more mobility though, the only move I had that got me moving faster than a jog was Shroud #2. I know there’s some “concept” to this class that it’s slow but steady, but that’s a really lame concept in this game, where you really NEED to cover large amounts of terrain. Every class NEEDS to be able to move fast, at the very least while out of combat. I have an idea that might perhaps work, have an ability on the GS that procs Swiftness, but it ONLY does so if you use the move while out of combat. That way, it’s useful for getting where you’re going, but it’s not something that will help you catch people in combat.

I’m no expert on gearing, so I was a bit haphazard, but I was mainly focusing on crit rate like Assassin’s (since so many effects in the class are crit-proced) and then a few pieces with higher Toughness to balance out the offense.

With GS 5, pretty much we were told the design idea is to not give necros mobility & escapes because we are to pull people to us. So GS 5 has to work, and it has to work a lot better & more reliably than its current iteration. Otherwise the whole design idea is just moot and failed. Frontal cone never works well in laggy environments on moving targets (WvW). I know you guys like to test things on test dummies. But in fluid, PvP environment, a lot of these GS ideas just don’t work out well in realtime.

This can be fixed by increasing the pull range to 900, and make the pull be an aoe rather than frontal cone. Or even ground target will be ok. I must have tried to pull over 20 times without success tonight in WvW.

Grave Digger needs to work like Mesmer’s Blurred Frenzy. It gets interrupted too easily.

If u are saying Reaper Shroud needs a dps boost u NOT useing it correctly, GS however and Shouts need alot of work only Elite Shout and GS Nightfall is good

On the garbagesword topic:

+ numbers can change

- slow impossible to land animations and aftercasts
- clunky, weird, SIDESTEPPABLE game mechanics that cause your skills to random fail 90%

Those things seem far less likely to happen, as its a full redesign, meaning even if they increase the numbers the weapon will remain unusable trash

Overarching concern: what is the reaper specialisation actually fixing about the necro class?

The single greatest issue with necro in wvw/pvp is the ‘focus the necro’ meta. The reaper changes absolutely nothing about this. No active defence, stab access by going into a trait line that lowers our overall sustain, pretty rubbish shouts; necros were focused before and being ‘horror movie’ (wtf?) figures isn’t going to change that. GS is pathetic in comparison to dagger (inbdaggernerfs), slow, clunky and less than average dps. The reaper trait line offers no reason to take it over blood magic.

I really don’t understand how reaper will become used in competitive aspects of the game as spoilers it changes nothing about necro focus.

#3moreyears

RlyOsim.2497:

The single greatest issue with necro in wvw/pvp is the ‘focus the necro’ meta. The reaper changes absolutely nothing about this.

I would disagree here, we have a lot more access to stability with reaper and this helps a lot to react to people trying to focus you.

Did only try it in pvp so far..

Reaper shroud seems overall good, i wish nr2 would stop at the target and only pass through if there is noone targeted..e.g. leaps like ranger gs3.

Greatsword feels really bad, the 1 should be a little bit faster or do more dmg, nr 2 and 3 are completly useless atm, 4 is ok, 5 is rubbish, i have yet to see it pulling an enemy towards me…

I do like the elite shout, didn’t bother with the other shouts since the cast times are way to slow

As many have stated Damage is still lacking, RS is pretty awesome though but being as I Cant be in it all the time the damage needs to be addressed. Either the damage needs a increase or the attack speeds needs to be faster or hell buff them both.
I also agree with what another player had said that Grave digger is our Hundred blade but Minus the damage of it. The Telegraph is so easily dodge able that its stupid, sure unlike HB we are not rooted but ppl can see it from a mile away and its………..sooooooo sloooooooooww that they can walk out of it. as always we get kited from hell and I end up back with staff pew pewing away.

After playing a bit this morning.

-Greatsword 1, I would like chilling scythe cast time reduced to that of a normal swing( we do 2 massive arcing attacks, if people can’t dodge the third one then it’s a learn to play issue)

To start with drop it to 3/4. If you are feeling very adventurous drop the other two swings to 1/2.

-Grasping darkness, I feel the cooldown is way too long on this ability 30 secs is just too long basically as it is now you have one chance, if its misses is evaded or any number of other options then you can’t do anything.

Executioners Scythe and Soul Spiral- both excellent yet the cool downs are excessive traited 25 and 1/2 and 34 seconds.

So basically you use these 2 abilities and then you are stuck auto attacking.

tons of feedback.. can t read everything, but, fighting them is very difficult.. they don t wanna die

Ok, I just tried a couple dungeons to get a feel for Reaper in a group setting. Honestly, I feel much much better about it now. RS is still living up to what it should be which is great. Greatsword felt much better than when I was soloing mobs. The only thing is, I still feel like the AA numbers just arent there. I feel like I’m reeling back to do this giant kitten attack but then I just see these tiny little white numbers (is the vuln crit trait not working properly?). Also, Gravedigger still feels terrible. It needs to be spammable below 50% or its always gonna feel kitten as an execution skill. I only have time in that 1 second for a single wimpy little AA. It just feels lackluster. I really think we’re on the right track here if we can just get GS some TLC. Also, this is all in regards to PvE, I’m going to leave PvP criticisms to people who have a clue.

reaper’s shroud is fantastic and seems to work perfectly fine, greatsword seems to need a little work though (listing them as skills 1-5)
1: the auto chain does too little damage per attack. Even with power primary gear a LARGE number of builds out sustain the damage.
2: Gravedigger needs a damage increase, it should also cooldown 100% instead of 80%
3: Death spiral is a great skill, I don’t think it needs a change.
4. Nightfall does it’s job, no changes really needed.
5.Dark grasp could use a slightly longer range

As for the soul eater trait: the 3% per enemy hit with grave digger should be changed to 5% cooldown reduction per enemy hit.

Rise! actually has some pretty decent synergy for Death magic/blood magic/reaper combo as it procs blood bond very easily, the cooldown is pretty long though at base.

Greatsword:

Overall a really weak weapon.

1. The AA needs to have a flat damage increase, and the chill duration needs to be higher.
2. is just annoying. The animation takes way too long for way too few damage. Either make it like heart seeker (increased damage, depending on the health of the enemy with tiers <50% and <25%) or give it a flat damage increase.
3. is fine for what it does. A bigger angle would be nice, but at the moment it is ok.
4. is fine, too
5. is too buggy. If they fix it, it might be better.
   In general for a slow hitting weapon I want to see large numbers. It is just absurd that dagger is superior in damage to spamming GS#2. The chills are not long enough for ‘Chilling Force’ to be really useful.

Reaper Shroud

1. After seeing the calculation the AA needs also a damage buff.
2. is a weak and unhandy gap closer. I can’t imagine how people will use it in PvP
3. is fine
4. Animation is too long
5. Hits like a truck, but god kitten it again this slow animations…

Shouts:

“Your soul is mine!” – base heal is too weak
“Rise!” – too long CD, effect is too weak (who cares about chicken minions?), no reason to put this on a bar, even as a MM
“Suffer!” – Chill needs longer duration (even something like 4-5 seconds would not be OP), and 2 conditions transferred
“Nothing can save you!” – did not test this one
“You’re all weaklings! – longer stability

In general the shouts feel just too weak. They might be effective against five enemies, but they are WAY too weak against numbers equal/lower than three.
And we need a damage modifier in the traits.

I cannot understand what is the big problem to actually give necro some useful tools?

First impression: Playing Reaper is fun

However, it being fun doesn’t mean it’s also really good in comparison to other professions, and as many have mentioned already, indeed not all is well (no pun intended).

My first impressions (from a PvE point of view) after a few hours of running around and enjoying the female asura voice artists renditions of the shouts ^^ :

Reaper Shroud: Very cool (again, no pun…) and nicely implemented, except for skill 2. ATM it seems it doesn’t stop at a target. I think it should either do that, or be like warrior GS whirlwind attack and also be an evade (I’d actually prefer the latter)

Greatsword: Too slow and sluggish for what it does. IMO it needs to do more damage and be at least a little bit faster. The auto attack chain feels like slow motion and while Gravedigger looks and feels awesome it’s just to much of a wind up for the damage it does IMO.

Shouts: I like them more than I thought I would. “Your soul is mine” is a nice heal and life force gain (especially now that consume condition is pretty bad – HINT, HINT! – please undo the changes…). I like “You’re all weaklings” because it’s finally a stun breaker on a decent cooldown. I was disappointed to see “Rise” hadn’t changed and still just summons jagged horrors. “Suffer” and “Nothing can save you” seem ok.

Overall: Reaper Shroud is looking pretty good, skills 2 needs a loot at. Greatsword needs a rework and be faster and/or deal more damage. Shouts are decent but Rise needs a rework.

General thoughts of different aspects of the specialization:

Reaper Shroud – felt great to use. We sacrifice our long range tools, but gain great close-range pressure and stability. It feels really tanky with a good amulet, and allows for some great sustain while you are free to do your job of applying pressure through DS1 and DS4. The necrocopter takes a bit of getting used to, and is not too great to use on-point, but works really well as a quick dash of mobility when switching locations or chasing down an enemy who is just running.

Traits – A mixed bag. We have some great ones, such as “Relentless Pursuit” and “Blighter’s Boon”, but there are some I feel are a little lacklustre.

• Adept – “Chilling Nova” I believe could use a little bit of a buff in the form of lowering the CD a little bit. Perhaps lowering it by 5 seconds will make it a little bit more attractive, at least for PvE.

• Master – “Soul Eater “is not too amazing, though the reason for this might hide within the weapon required to trigger it.

• Grandmaster – “Deathly Chill” numbers are a little underwhelming. Perhaps they could be upped a little bit so that the heavy melee gameplay of the reaper is rewarded by some serious condi pressure. I am not big on condi necro, so I might be more than a little bit off on that one.

Shouts – The heal is not bad for PvE because it lets you spend even more time in RS, which maximizes your DPS output. The utility ones (except for Rise, which is horrible), have some cool uses, though I would not take more than one of them in my build. I did not get interrupted all that much while using them, though this is probably due to enemy thieves/mesmers not knowing Reaper animations well yet. The elite is fun to use, though I would take Lich over it in PvE, and Plague in PvP (the best PvP Reaper builds right now as far as I am concerned are tanky ones, so it complements them quite well).

Greatsword – slow, clunky, frustrating. I tried to use it in PvP, but switched to D/Wh a couple of matches in and never looked back. Not only does D/Wh provide me with amazing life force generation, its DPS output is better, and its CC more reliable. It is a shame since GS animations are amazing and I would lovee to give it some more use. I will not rant on about the weapon since plenty of community members have already expressed concerns similar to mine regarding it.

GS is abit on the slow-side and we all feel that. But a big part of the GS trash I can clearly say is a l2p issue, some ppl here on Forums expect to master the GS instantly and that aint happening. Still after 5000+hours I think Focus is hard to land and Axe is un-useble so…

GS has dmg, cleave,defence(Nightfall) and CC imho it just needs higher LF-Gen and maybe abit shorter Cast time on Gravedigger and its fine. AND PRACTICE

Ok so reaper overall is really really good but i just dont like the GS i just dont feel smoothly at all its like you are playing with laggs.

1 really cool mechanic on GS would be if you are able to slow the enemys. Its then like your attacking slow your casting slow kitten it just let your enemys be as slow as you are. This would be a really funny mechanic maybe a bit too op but that was just a thought i had yesterday

So the main feedback is make GS as fast as the other GS on other classes because its just terribly slow and the casttimes just dont feel smooth at all. The thought behind with the horror movie thing was cool and the stats utilitys on GS are on paper really really nice and kinda balanced but the gameplay how you play with GS is just bad cause it fells laggy.

Just give higher attackspeed and scale dmg and maybe the casttimes down with the attackspeed.

so reaper test hurray finaly.

so from wvw veiw as i dont do pve nor pvp on necro at all for obvious reson

the good stuff:

RS is good i like it. made my day when i almost oneshoted a thive with rs5.
Relentless pursuit HURRAY!!!!!
reaper trait line is good.

bad stuff:

gs is to slow, gs skills need an 1/3 1/4 sec faster casttime
gs2 1 sec triger on 50% target needs to go as it takes forever to cast gravediger any way
gs3 need a longer range. 170 make it 600/900 as it is our lifeforce reg outside of gm trait bligtersboon which we are forced to use as lf gain in gs is crap.
gs4 is fine nothing to say about it
gs5 needs a longer range aswell or more lf gain on use
Rs3 stab needs to linger longer outside of Rs.

some shouts are still bad very bad, some are decent
elit shout either make it 60 sec cd remove the stun and 1 sec cast or keep it as it is and 100 sec cd and 1 sec cast.
You are all Weaklings stab needs a pullsing stab, atm is just a very bad Foot in grave, overall one of the better shouts.
Rise i rly dont see what use this have. remove it, do smth else with it, so bad
Noting can save you decent have its use
Suffer decent
your soul is mine , meh is all i can say,

as reaper shout are bit diffrent from the war/guardians with dmg and cast time make them 900 range as we trade the insta cast for it, lower the dmg part if that makes up for it. make all shout lf gain aswell or make the augry of death trait that all shout gain lf.

to be continued.

Overall, I really like playing the new reaper shroud. I think the skills are fun and work well. Excellent Job there. Here are few things I have complaints about:

GS – Slow (As intended), but still weak? Where’s the reward for hitting? Where did our chill go? I see no point in taking this over Dagger.
Shouts – They aren’t good compared to many other shouts in game, and I can’t find room for any of them on my bar.
Reaper’s Onslaught trait – Is this trait working? Attack speed doesn’t seem any faster.
Death’s Charge skill- Please change to work with targets. So hard to land this in PVP. Works great as a leap though.
Deathly Chill trait- Too weak for a grand master trait
Chilling Nova trait – 1 every 15 seconds? Com’on really?

we could really use some leap skill outside of rs.

Speed up the Attacks of the greatsword like seriously speed up the greatsword 1 attacks or don’t even bother calling it a reaper. Because by historical Lore a Reaper is an Harbinger of Death, one who is like an assassin with quick and precise attacks, that’s what a reaper is so speed up the 1 skill and some of the other skills remember, people are supposed to fear Death aka the Reaper to fix the attack speeds because right now there too slow for the meager joke of damage they put out especially for the one skill.

My Experience whit Reaper so far is aperantly much more positive than most others people. I have Played it in PvE only and will base my opinion on that. I will only comment on the GS for now, as this is where I would say I have a somewhat different opinion compared to others.
GS AA: At the time being this skill seam to have a nice Power scaling. At full blow power builds this skill hit like a truck, but sadly the attack chain is still a bit to slow to justify it. Would love to see a tiny reduction to cast time of each chain and this skill should be golden.

Gravedigger: Okay, so this skill people seam to hate. Well, I love it. Whit its high damage output, ridiculous power scaling, low CD and 5 target hits, this is just an amazing for clearing lot targets. Where most skill cleave (3 targets cap), this is a 5 target skill that I can easily get 10k-15k crits whit. If anything, the cast time could be reduced. If the damage is changed to much this skill would hit way to hard for being just ‘’1 hit’‘. I would turn into a situation of, ’’this skill might be easy to dodge. but if you do get hit you die. Instantly’’

Death Spiral: This skill might be difficult to pull off properly, but when you do pull it off it is amazing at what it does. You get a lot of rapid hits, that do a tiny amount of damage, but its the vulnerability stacking and life Force generation that make this skill amazing. If combined whit the #5 skill to group up a bunch of enemies, then hit them all whit Death Spiral you generate a big bunch of Life Force and Stack up lots of vulnerability at the same time. Great for a opener.

Nightfall: The skill is great, but I would love to see something done to the animation of the skill. It looks cool, but it feels a bit clunky. Hadn’t it been for the fact that you can interrupt the animation by moving, this skill would properly not see that much use. For the time being it is great for stacking up Blind and cripple on enemies, and when combined whit Grave digger or Soul Spiral this will send out Leeching Bolts that add some extra damage to it.

Grasping Darkness: Okay, this skill is great….but at the moment its just broken (i think…and hope.) Instead of turning around and sending the projectiles the direction you are aiming, your character seam to send the projectiles of this skill where he is facing. This makes it a bit weird to aim this skills to times. But when you do remember to face your character, and if it do go the direction you intend for this kill to go, it is a extremely satisfying and useful skill to have.

An example of how I would clear a group of maps is to initiate whit Grasping Darkness to group up the mobs to a nice ball so I can easier damage them. I would then follow that up whit Deaths Spiral for vulnerability stacking and Life Force. AFter that I would use Nightfall, but cancel the animation by taking 1 step forward before its over to quickly use the next skill. The aoe will still land, you will just skip half of the animation. Then I would jump into Reaper Form and use Soul Spiral for damage and ‘’Lecching Bolts’’ and the ‘’AA Chain’’ to build up might and stack vulnerability. If the mobs is still alive after this I would get fancy :P
Anyway, I have had a lot of fun whit Reaper and I think it needs some tiny buffs in attack speed/animation before it is where it should be. Reaper is great in Solo play whit its easy access to 25 stacks of might and its ability to stack 25 stacks of vulnerability in no time, but it still lacks in team play as its utility skill are still just as bad.

Blighter’s boon might be very hard to balance because it can be OP in wvw, while at the same time being useless in a 1v1.

So concerning rs: can anyone confirm that you take 50% less damage in reaper shroud, just as is the case with death shroud?

Ravezaar.4951:

GS is abit on the slow-side and we all feel that. But a big part of the GS trash I can clearly say is a l2p issue, some ppl here on Forums expect to master the GS instantly and that aint happening. Still after 5000+hours I think Focus is hard to land and Axe is un-useble so…

GS has dmg, cleave,defence(Nightfall) and CC imho it just needs higher LF-Gen and maybe abit shorter Cast time on Gravedigger and its fine. AND PRACTICE

It doesn’t take a lot of skill for players with a brain to simply walk away while your slow terrible skills barely hit.

I had fun playing the Reaper and I think the design of the elite specialization is well thought out. But it has some glaring issues that if left unaddressed will ruin an otherwise great elite specialization. The issues are the bad DPS of the greatsword and the unjustified long cast times plaguing most of the Reaper’s kit, with the pre-cast and after-cast animation times making it even worse.

#GREATSWORD#

I think the base design of the weapon is solid and I liked it. What’s ruining the weapon for everyone is the bad DPS for PVE, the very bad auto attack, cast times of #2 #3 and #5, weak life force generation, and many don’t realize running doesn’t cancel #2 and #3. Reaper’s greatsword is meant to be used while running, using our “superior mobility” (LOL, I can’t believe I said that), thanks to the chill, to our advantage.

• [The Auto Attack]: This is the main offender. The chain leading to the chill takes too long. This means that both in PvE and PvP you have to get your starter chill from somewhere else. In my experience opening the fight by getting chill on the enemy player/mob is crucial to your DPS and survivability. My personal pet peeve is the long precast. One way to avoid damage while hitting with GS Warrior in PvE, is to auto attack while running trough the enemy model (you need to disable malee assist in Options). Reaper’s GS auto precast is so bad that I’m often missing even against a stationary target. It’s a serious concern in PvP too since it’s a good way to avoid attacks from chilled malee foes. The damage, for the cast time, is very bad.

• [Gravedigger]: The low cooldown, faster recharge mechanic and number of targets (five) are all good, please keep them as they are. The cast time is too long and it further lowers the DPS of what is supposed to be our main source of damage. I know, it’s pretty spammable and you can move while using it, but it really need a huge buff to the damage. Keep in mind that Gravedigger hits only once for enemy and we still need to use our other GS skills for chill and weakness upkeep, life force generation and survivability thanks to blinds, so camping it is a bad idea. Seriously, it needs a huge buff to the damage.

• [Death Spirals]: Good vulnerability upkeep and 12 insta stacks are amazing as a step to setup a burst. Pity that it’s plagued by long cast and after cast times. Buffing the life force here would help solving the Reaper’s weak life force generation. Overall it’s a good skill that needs a minor tweak.

• [Nightfall]: I love this skill, it’s our best survivabilty tool and has a very low cast time. It’s really good with the trait Chilling Darkness (chill on blind) and used in combo with Grasping Darkness to open a fight or after a staff opening when you go melee. This way you pretty much get chill instantly, without waiting more than 2.5 sec for the auto or more than 1 sec for Suffer!, plus 3 cover conditions (blind, cripple and poison). The only thing I could ask more is a tiny increase of the radius.

• [Grasping Darkness]: Good skill meant to be used in combo with Nightfall, Wells and Marks. Again, it needs a cast time reduction so we have at least a chance to catch foes using a movement skill.

#Reaper Shroud#

It’s awesome and well thought out. There is nothing else to say here other than: PLEASE PLEASE DON’T LET THEM NERF REAPER SHROUD IT’S THE ONLY PRETTY THING WE HAVE.

#Shouts#

Given how we are easily focused, having shouts scaling with the number of enemies is a good idea. Then why the long cast times? Seriously, if I’m surrounded by enemies I can’t afford wait so long, unless I’m in PvE. Nor the shouts are powerful enough, both in damage and effects, to warrant such long cast times and cool downs. The enemies scaling design has the drawback of being poorly suited for current PvE unless they add some serious damage o a unique enemy debuff / group utility.

• [Your Soul is mine]: Good life force generation at a good cool down and a reasonable cast time. The drawback is that you have to be in the middle of multiple enemies and the heal is weak for the risks you are taking. It can use a scaling healing component, on top to the current base heal, based on the number of enemies hit. Damage is just cosmetic.

• [Suffer!]: Very long cast time for a condition transfer dependent on enemies numbers. Cosmetic damage and 3 sec chill don’t justifies the same cool down of plague signet.

• [You are all Weaklings]: Self buffing shout with a bit of survivability. If the boons had a longer duration it would be an excellent panic button if you are stun-chained under focus fire. Cosmetic damage.

• [Nothing can save you!]: Finally a shout with a good cast time. Sadly I didn’t had the time to try it. It seems a good utility to setup some underused skills like Epidemic or a burst rotation. Cosmetic damage.

• [Rise]: Why? Even a MM wouldn’t want this. I don’t even…

• [Chilled to the Bone]: It would be really good in PvP with a shorter cast time and higher damage. It can be used in PvE as a poor man Deep Freeze.

#Traits#

I’ll keep it short to only the traits that made me scratch my head.

• [Augury of Death]: I’d like it more if it was a flat 10% shout’s CDR +5% for every enemy hit. It could stay the same if shouts get a real buff.

• [Soul Eather]: Why life siphon on a slow weapon? At least double the value. Recharge reduction would be great if gravedigger was more worth spamming.

• [Deathly Chill]: The scaling with condition damage is as horrible as the base damage.

Currently if you want to make the greatsword barely usable, you have to do it at the expense of Reaper Shroud. You have to drop Soul Reaping so you can keep both Curses and Spite. Chilling darkness is pretty mandatory for Nightfall and you need Close to Death to compensate the bad DPS of the greatsword.

I hope a.net realizes from the feedback that adding slowness “for flavor” isn’t fun and doesn’t work well with the gameplay.

Trying to make this short. PvP standpoint.
I couldn’t make gs or shouts work, maybe i tried the wrong things or w/e.
Gs overall doesn’t feel like it could accomplish its job as a melee weapon. Chill/cripple are too gated (by autoattack chain last hit or pbaoe) and there is no gap closer, leaving you only with a huge cd pull.

Shouts overall were pretty weak in effect/damage. They just aren’t impactful enough as utility skills. Atleast that is my feeling. Elite shout is good though. I like the cast time /effect tradeoff, but cd feels too punishing. Also there is a bug where if you self cancel elite shout at around 75% cast it goes on full cd and does nothing.

Reaper shroud on the other hand…. is amazing. Oh my god is this thing good. The mobility boost I get by one single skill is amazing. Skillset is overall really good and feels so fluid. Only thing i dislike is RS2 beeing not affected by targeting or camera angling to influence distance.

GS auto and #2 needs a cast time reduction, damage increase or more likely both.

GS #3 and #5 needs some tweaks with targeting. Very unreliable in tracking.

RS auto needs better LF generation.

RS #2 animation is too long.

RS #3 the stability should be active even when you exit shroud.

RS #4 if the LF generation on the auto didn’t work out well this should have some.

RS #5 single target for some reason and the damage isn’t nearly high enough.

Shouts take too long to cast and cooldowns are too long to compensate.

Chill to the Bone is great but needs cast time reduction, CD reduction or both.

Chilling Nova has way too high ICD. 15 seconds is just too much.

Augury of Death (shout trait) still can’t compete with the two other adept traits. Relentless pursuit is a must against players and Chilling nova is still better to take since shouts overall doesn’t worth to equip.

Soul eater is still lackluster unless GS gets a buff.

Deathly chill scaling should be looked at. Damage seems low for a condi build.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Ravezaar.4951:

GS is abit on the slow-side and we all feel that. But a big part of the GS trash I can clearly say is a l2p issue, some ppl here on Forums expect to master the GS instantly and that aint happening. Still after 5000+hours I think Focus is hard to land and Axe is un-useble so…

GS has dmg, cleave,defence(Nightfall) and CC imho it just needs higher LF-Gen and maybe abit shorter Cast time on Gravedigger and its fine. AND PRACTICE

It doesn’t take a lot of skill for players with a brain to simply walk away while your slow terrible skills barely hit.

Thats why u have range option, either in Utlity Skill or other Weapon Set, no skill in the world can avoid getting hit forever…. and a SKILLED Necro will hit with GS

1. Chilled to the Bone.
This one is cool, but it needs to be 60 seconds recharge, not 120 seconds.

2. Gravedigger.
It’s not as strong as I imagined, I’d like to have it insant recharged if i hit some1 under 50% health, or have it deal more damage. (Perhaps shorter cast time?)

3. Death Spiral.
This one needs to have it’s range increased alittle. I always overestimate it’s range.

4. Grasping Darkness.
This one needs just alittle shorter Cooldown, perhaps alot shorter and the poison effect removed.

5. Your soul is mine.
Not rly a fan of this 1. I’ma PVE player but it doesn’t heal 4 very much.

6. Reaper Shroud Animation.
Awsome idea, it looks a bit “pixely” though.

I played around in the new map for about 2 hours and also tried a couple trait variations; no extensive testing though. Impressions/issues…

- GS 1 is TOO SLOW, as far as base damage is concerned another user has already pointed out GS base damage on AA is inline with Dagger AA damage yet has horrendously long wind ups. The chain as a whole needs to be sped up, damage should stay where it is.

- GS 2 again is TOO SLOW. The windup for this skill is ridiculous, in pve it may be fine but you are likely to NEVER hit a target in pvp with this skill. The tell is obvious (as it probably should be) but cast time likely makes it the easiest skill to avoid through dodging or cc in the ENTIRE GAME. The damage is underwhelming for it’s cast time; reduce the cast time and possibly tweak the dmg numbers to be slightly lower than their current form if reducing the cast time.

- GS 3. Utility is good, the animation is very satisfying, the damage is alright, the cast time feels good, and I personally feel this skill sits fairly nicely as is; could use a small range increase.

- GS 4. I have no issues with this skill aside from the fact it’s very easy to interrupt by accident.

- GS 5. Great in theory, terrible in practice. This skill seems to share some of the downfalls of similar skills with terrain pathing issues. It is also very hard to aim, and even when facing in the proper direction it seems to miss quite often. I strongly feel like the CD should be reduced (especially looking at this skill in pvp) and the range should be increased otherwise you will be kited indefinitely in pvp. With a CD reduction and range increase this skill will definitely need poison duration tweaked.

I don’t have much to say about shouts, they’re generally unrewarding outside of PvE even when traited. I still find myself using mostly wells and other utility skills.

Reaper shroud feels very satisfying overall and skills seem to have good synergy between one another. I do find the Reaper 5 skill to again have too long a wind up and its cast time could use a slight reduction (especially from a pvp point of view). I also find it much harder to sustain Reaper shroud as opposed to normal Death shroud in terms of life force; GS also seems to be a poor choice or way to gain life force currently.

I would really like GS and Reaper to function well in PvP, but in it’s current state GS skills are far to clunky and slow to be use-able in PvP.

Ravezaar.4951:

PlatinumMember.5274:

It doesn’t take a lot of skill for players with a brain to simply walk away while your slow terrible skills barely hit.

Thats why u have range option, either in Utlity Skill or other Weapon Set, no skill in the world can avoid getting hit forever…. and a SKILLED Necro will hit with GS

I agree. For ranged enemies you use Chilblains and/or Reaper Mark, get in range for Grasping Darkness and once you pull them to you use Nightfall. For melee enemies they’ll come to you so you setup your marks, once they are close use Nightfall then Grasping Darkness to keep them close while they try to flee from Nightfall.

Yes the cast + animation times are really bad, as the DPS of the weapon, but with the right setup you can hit reliably. Keep in mind that you should spam Death Spirals and Gravedigger while running and the auto attack is just a filler even if it has higher DPS than the two skills above.

As my signature says…

GS is just slow and not hitting hard enough on any skills to justify it. Either buff the damage or speed up the attacks. And if you get chilled, it’s literally an eternity before you swing that GS again..

I tried using the shouts for a couple of hours… and then went back to wells. I kinda like chilled to the bone but that CD is just too long for what it does. Compared to some other stuns available it’s just super lackluster.

Ravezaar.4951:

GS is abit on the slow-side and we all feel that. But a big part of the GS trash I can clearly say is a l2p issue, some ppl here on Forums expect to master the GS instantly and that aint happening. Still after 5000+hours I think Focus is hard to land and Axe is un-useble so…

GS has dmg, cleave,defence(Nightfall) and CC imho it just needs higher LF-Gen and maybe abit shorter Cast time on Gravedigger and its fine. AND PRACTICE

So, you’ve used the focus, exclusively for 5000+ hours? Because… That’s just… Bad if you haven’t gotten the 100% hang of it after that many hours of use. I mean, if you’re going to be an astronaut for NASA, it’s what? Only 1000 hours of actual piloting time minimum? So… If you still find it that hard to land and/or use they aren’t the weapons for you.

Tissitra.4153:

Blighter’s boon might be very hard to balance because it can be OP in wvw, while at the same time being useless in a 1v1.

Irrelevant. They balance 99.99% of the time for 5v5 encounters thanks to wanna-be esports dreams.

I’m not sure if someone has suggested it but if they haven’t I will. If GS auto attack is going to be as long to cast as it is and with the damage it does also give the 2nd and 3rd hit in the chain the ability to generate life force. Having all of it on gs #3 is really bad with the cooldown it has. If someone dodges…. and they will…. you lose all your life force generation from your iconic weapon.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

As my signature says…

GS is just slow and not hitting hard enough on any skills to justify it. Either buff the damage or speed up the attacks. And if you get chilled, it’s literally an eternity before you swing that GS again..

I tried using the shouts for a couple of hours… and then went back to wells. I kinda like chilled to the bone but that CD is just too long for what it does. Compared to some other stuns available it’s just super lackluster.

Ravezaar.4951:

GS is abit on the slow-side and we all feel that. But a big part of the GS trash I can clearly say is a l2p issue, some ppl here on Forums expect to master the GS instantly and that aint happening. Still after 5000+hours I think Focus is hard to land and Axe is un-useble so…

GS has dmg, cleave,defence(Nightfall) and CC imho it just needs higher LF-Gen and maybe abit shorter Cast time on Gravedigger and its fine. AND PRACTICE

So, you’ve used the focus, exclusively for 5000+ hours? Because… That’s just… Bad if you haven’t gotten the 100% hang of it after that many hours of use. I mean, if you’re going to be an astronaut for NASA, it’s what? Only 1000 hours of actual piloting time minimum? So… If you still find it that hard to land and/or use they aren’t the weapons for you.

Tissitra.4153:

Blighter’s boon might be very hard to balance because it can be OP in wvw, while at the same time being useless in a 1v1.

Irrelevant. They balance 99.99% of the time for 5v5 encounters thanks to wanna-be esports dreams.

Hmmm actually no. There is a very prominent example: glamour mesmers. The spec was killed solely because of what it could do in wvw.

tofantasticgman

“So, you’ve used the focus, exclusively for 5000+ hours? "

are u for real ? ofc I havent I said I played necro for 5000h + and still havent mastered howto trigger Focus on regular basis. U really couldnt get that or u just trying to be smart. Iam saying GS will have a high learning curve say compare to easy Staff… and judgeing it out after 1 day is abit much.

Ravezaar.4951:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Ravezaar.4951:

GS is abit on the slow-side and we all feel that. But a big part of the GS trash I can clearly say is a l2p issue, some ppl here on Forums expect to master the GS instantly and that aint happening. Still after 5000+hours I think Focus is hard to land and Axe is un-useble so…

GS has dmg, cleave,defence(Nightfall) and CC imho it just needs higher LF-Gen and maybe abit shorter Cast time on Gravedigger and its fine. AND PRACTICE

It doesn’t take a lot of skill for players with a brain to simply walk away while your slow terrible skills barely hit.

Thats why u have range option, either in Utlity Skill or other Weapon Set, no skill in the world can avoid getting hit forever…. and a SKILLED Necro will hit with GS

Dude its 5 buttons, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure the weapon out. May be you are the one with the slow learning curve.

I agree with alot that has been said already. I played around with reaper in SPvP running a build similar to the standard power necro. I took spite, soul reaping, and reaper, and used marauder’s amulet. I used greatsword instead of my usual dagger/warhorn. Staff still feels mandatory due to the its range and utility.

Overall, I like the reaper, but unfortunately, it seems lacking in several areas. I felt like the greatsword is lacking in speed, damage, and mobility, especially compared to dagger/warhorn. The greatsword skills all look nice, but the auto attack and #2 feel way too slow. #2 doesn’t seem to do enough damage to warrant the long wind-up and the very easy to spot animation. #3 would be more useful if it had its range increased a bit. #4 is very nice in theory, but I don’t think it should root us while casting. Necros are generally very immobile and lack in defense. Having to stand still while casting a point blank skill means that we’re unlikely to land it properly, all the while taking damage that we can’t mitigate. #5 is nice, I really like having a pull on a melee weapon, but it did feel somewhat unreliable to use mid-combat for some reason, perhaps becasue I’m using my mouse to look around alot?

Reaper’s shroud #2 could perhaps be made to stop at your target, or drag your target along with you, as others have suggested. As it is, I felt like I was moving too far when I wanted to use it offensively, and not moving far enough when I wanted to get away. Other than that, my first impression of the reaper’s shroud was very good, and it’s nice to finally have a leap and good access to stability! In fact, I wish greatsword was a bit more like reaper’s shroud…

Overall, the shouts don’t seem very compelling to me, especially considering their relatively long cast times. I hope you will consider making them instant cast. I might end up using one of the utility shouts and the elite, but then again, I might just go back to using spectral armor and plague for the increased survivability. I’m probably going to need it more as a reaper anyway.

after playing with the reaper some more the gs kit doesnt the tools it needs
while using the gs you spend your time chasing people more than you actually fight them
when they actually run from you gs5 cant catch them

suggestions
it needs a short cd (6-8s) either pull, leap, teleport, or speed boost to keep up with people
the pull needs to be a much longer range
I think it needs one of the short cd things + the longer range pull

gs5 vs mhd3 they do similar things cc at a 600 range
mhd3 much feels more effective

Tissitra.4153:

Blighter’s boon might be very hard to balance because it can be OP in wvw, while at the same time being useless in a 1v1.

What? It isnt useless in 1v1. It is most likely the best trait reapers have. But i think you need the spite traitline to get good use out of it if you are alone.

This is my feedback along with some suggestions on how to fix issues with the Greatsword and the Reapers Shroud. I will say that I am a fan of overtuning things and then later tuning them into line, especialy during betas, meaning that you can probably think of some of the numbers as a bit higher than what they need to be.

I measured cast times with a stop watch (they might not be entierly accurate) and I calculated the coefficients myself (I should have used Spojs from the start, would have saved me some time).

Greatsword

These are the greatsword abilites and what I belive to be their problems and solutions. I firmly belive that they should remain slow, that is all in the design, but if they are to remain slow they need to hit hard and have effects enough to warrant it. Which is the general theme of the suggestions here.

Reapers Shroud

These abilities suffer from similar problems as the greatsword and I’ll have similar suggestions for their solutions.

Utilities

These are the shouts, first of I want to say that the damage across the board here should be improved by a fair bit and cast times should be reduced. The sound files should also be played during the casts and be interrupted if the cast is interrupted for extra flavour.

Also sorry for triple post, can’t write more than 5000 signs in one post.