Guild Wars 2

Daggers already fill the “fast melee attacks” role. Moreover fast attacks from a 6ft long two-handed greatsword does not make any sense.

There is now “slow melee attacks” role because slow means easy to dodge, block, avoid, hard counter etc in GW2

1. Chilling Scythe has an awkward animation. Holding that sword while it’s getting covered in ice is weird. Slow attack speed combined with high damage can make interruption of auto chain a DPS loss.

2. Gravedigger is basically a second auto. Why do we have 2 autos on one weapon? There are plenty of ways to raise DPS under 50% without making a second auto. This concept is a QoL problem (in PVE it’s better to set it to autocast, but that requires ctrl+rclick; using manually each time is annoying; also risks of interruption by accident). Can be a DPS loss if used at wrong time.

3. About 0.6 sec aftercast. Weird preparation (just like Chilling Scythe). Higher damage, lower time would be great. Or it can be changed to mobility skill with its current time and damage.

4. Probably the best GS skill indeed. But a lower interval between pulses would be appreciated.

5. In my opinion this can combine pull and mobility. A full combination of everything
Leap forward, gaining stability. Conjure claws of darkness to attack foes, chilling them and pulling them to you. Gain life force for each struck foe.
Hmm, life force gain can be removed if it’s all too much.

Crinn.7864:

Daggers already fill the “fast melee attacks” role. Moreover fast attacks from a 6ft long two-handed greatsword does not make any sense.

Then how do you explain Warrior and Guardian greatsword auto attacks? And before you say “well reaper greatsword has higher base damage”, both those professions have more damage modifiers, so they can do more damage whilst hitting quicker.

Lahmia.2193:

Crinn.7864:

Daggers already fill the “fast melee attacks” role. Moreover fast attacks from a 6ft long two-handed greatsword does not make any sense.

Then how do you explain Warrior and Guardian greatsword auto attacks? And before you say “well reaper greatsword has higher base damage”, both those professions have more damage modifiers, so they can do more damage whilst hitting quicker.

Yup, Ranger has a decent speed, sucky damage, GS, and Mes shoot magic stuff… but ya know, we need the “realism” rules applied to Necro at a cost to performance…

I just wanna mention our GS auto attacks are faster then warriors mace auto (2.88 compared to 3.1) and warrior mace is part of warriors meta builds.

So i dont think we can pin GSs problems on the auto only. The problem is more complex and essentially comes down to failed design. GS was supposed to be slow and methodically or in other words GS is suppossed to have enough control to make the slow attacks work but currently that not the case, when the only true controling skill is grasping darkness with a 30 sec cd.

Now there are multiple ways Anet could make GS more desireable in spvp/wvw

1. The most commonly requested change would be to make GS faster (e.g. mobility skills etc). But given Anet love for theme this is also the most unlikely one.

2. Make GS a more defensive weapon by giving it a blocking skill. But again i doubt Anet would want to go that route due the fact that blocks dont suit the theme Anet has in mind for necros/reapers.

3. Improve GS controlling ability. This could be done be giving GS a second ranged skill with a hard cc. This one would probably the most in line with the theme Anet wanted GS to have. Alternavely we could push for cooldown reductions on grasping darkness (to 15 sec) and nightfall (20 sec) like DeceiverX suggested.

Lahmia.2193:

Crinn.7864:

Daggers already fill the “fast melee attacks” role. Moreover fast attacks from a 6ft long two-handed greatsword does not make any sense.

Then how do you explain Warrior and Guardian greatsword auto attacks? And before you say “well reaper greatsword has higher base damage”, both those professions have more damage modifiers, so they can do more damage whilst hitting quicker.

Warrior and Guardian GS still have the longest AA of those class. GS is a slow but heavy weapon on every class it appears on.

In my opinion, GS should be buffed with:

Auto/1: Increase dmg per attack by 33% ; Increase chill duration from 2-seconds to 3-seconds.

2: Reduce cast-time from 1 1/4-seconds to 1-second.

3: Add short 600-range teleport before drill-attack (similar to Guardian sword 2).

4: Reduce pulse-interval from 2 seconds to 1 second ; Reduce cripple/blind durations from 2 seconds to 1 second (there would then be 8 pulses in total).

5: Make unblockable ; Increase life-force gain from 4% to 10%.

Reaper Master Trait “Soul Eater”: Increase base damage from 130 to 300 and power scaling from 0.02 to 0.4 ; Increase base healing from 271 to 600 and healing scaling from 0.04 to 0.8.

Fading Twilight/Dusk Strike/Chilling Scythe increased range from 130 to 180.
Fading Twilight now applies 1s of Chill.
Chilling Scythe strips a boon.
Gravedigger strips a boon.
Death Spiral applies 1s Cripple for each strike.
Nightfall is fine.
Grasping Darkness CD reduced to 25s.

Soul Eater changed; whenever you strip or corrupt a boon, gain health and life force. Reduced cooldown on Greatsword skills, and Nightfall will corrupt all boons on each target struck by its final phase.
Blighter’s Boon changed; whenever you strip or corrupt a boon, gain Fury, in addition to its current effects.
Chilling Darkness cooldown reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Sarrs.4831:

Fading Twilight/Dusk Strike/Chilling Scythe increased range from 130 to 180.
Fading Twilight now applies 1s of Chill.
Chilling Scythe strips a boon.
Gravedigger strips a boon.
Death Spiral applies 1s Cripple for each strike.
Nightfall is fine.
Grasping Darkness CD reduced to 25s.

Soul Eater changed; whenever you strip or corrupt a boon, gain health and life force. Reduced cooldown on Greatsword skills, and Nightfall will corrupt all boons on each target struck by its final phase.
Blighter’s Boon changed; whenever you strip or corrupt a boon, gain Fury, in addition to its current effects.
Chilling Darkness cooldown reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

Given Anets record on Necro buffs, boon corrupts is the best we can hope for. So I most definitely approve of the boon corrupt/strip suggestions.

meh give GS#3 a block or iframe and I think the weapon would be good.

We could have Necro GS auto similar to Guard Hammer, where the third attack doesnt give 2 sec chill to 5 targets but instead places an Ice Field on the ground that lasts for 2 seconds, and pulses 1 second of chill and damages for 3 times. Some of the auto’s damage is reduced to compensate for the damaging field, but it should be made that its an overall damage buff to GS.

Gravedigger could perform 3 whirl finishers instead of of one as it feels silly and redundant that an animation that powerful only has one. Due to the nature of whirl finishers, they are unreliable on range as they dont track really well, however, they can their target with great accuracy on melee. So with this change Gravedigger also allows you to stack a lot of condis if you use it on a combo field.

Finally, we can increase Death Spiral’s range, reduce its aftercast but increase its cast time and make it so that it shoots piercing projectiles (think Unload or Rapid Fire with 900 range). The new Death Spiral can also shoot 10 times instead of 6 with every projectile doing same damage as hits in old skill but every hit gives %1 life force and inflicts 1 stack of Vulnurability to each foe they hit. Basically, Death Spiral can now proc projectile combos (%20 chance per projectile), has a higher range, smaller aftercast, much higher damage and hits everything in the line at the cost of being denied by reflects etc, more cast time and a tiny life force loss.

With these two changes we can now chill our foes more reliably both from melee and range. This also opens up the opportunity for GS to become a hybrid weapon when Deathly Chill is used.

Pregnantman.8259:

We could have Necro GS auto similar to Guard Hammer, where the third attack doesnt give 2 sec chill to 5 targets but instead places an Ice Field on the ground that lasts for 2 seconds, and pulses 1 second of chill and damages for 3 times. Some of the auto’s damage is reduced to compensate for the damaging field, but it should be made that its an overall damage buff to GS.

This would be pretty interesting and would likely make hybrid Greatsword a very strong option for PvE. It might actually do some meat in PvP but not much.

Pregnantman.8259:

Gravedigger could perform 3 whirl finishers instead of of one as it feels silly and redundant that an animation that powerful only has one. Due to the nature of whirl finishers, they are unreliable on range as they dont track really well, however, they can their target with great accuracy on melee. So with this change Gravedigger also allows you to stack a lot of condis if you use it on a combo field.

Gravedigger is a 4xWhirl finisher

Not that I’m against having 3 new gap closers, but I would much prefer it if they were not all on greatsword.
It would make greatsword a very interesting weapon though.

Sarrs.4831:

Gravedigger is a 4xWhirl finisher

How did you come to it?

I only ever saw 1 whirl projectile from Gravedigger. I am not really sure though. If its 4 as you said than it should be great on an Ice Field.

What if the 3rd chain attack gives one second of cooldown reduction on all the greatsword’s moves and a 1s boon that let the next gravedigger/death spiral become an istant cast?

AndyS.5630:

1. Chilling Scythe has an awkward animation. Holding that sword while it’s getting covered in ice is weird. Slow attack speed combined with high damage can make interruption of auto chain a DPS loss.

2. Gravedigger is basically a second auto. Why do we have 2 autos on one weapon? There are plenty of ways to raise DPS under 50% without making a second auto. This concept is a QoL problem (in PVE it’s better to set it to autocast, but that requires ctrl+rclick; using manually each time is annoying; also risks of interruption by accident). Can be a DPS loss if used at wrong time.

3. About 0.6 sec aftercast. Weird preparation (just like Chilling Scythe). Higher damage, lower time would be great. Or it can be changed to mobility skill with its current time and damage.

4. Probably the best GS skill indeed. But a lower interval between pulses would be appreciated.

5. In my opinion this can combine pull and mobility. A full combination of everything
Leap forward, gaining stability. Conjure claws of darkness to attack foes, chilling them and pulling them to you. Gain life force for each struck foe.
Hmm, life force gain can be removed if it’s all too much.

I would make death spiral to a mobility skill.
The AA needs its aftercast reduced and the animation of the 3rd chain needs faster cast time.
4&5 are fine IMO
Gravedigger need some shorter aftercast.

GS is not a PvP weapon for Necro with this changes but better in PvE and not so slugish.

InsaneQR.7412:

GS is not a PvP weapon for Necro with this changes but better in PvE and not so slugish.

Anet never said that. And GS definitly has potantial to be a good pvp weapon. Infact making death spiral a mobility skill (like you proposed) would actually be really good for pvp.

Muchacho.2390:

InsaneQR.7412:

GS is not a PvP weapon for Necro with this changes but better in PvE and not so slugish.

Anet never said that. And GS definitly has potantial to be a good pvp weapon. Infact making death spiral a mobility skill (like you proposed) would actually be really good for pvp.

It’s funny. People always say "greatsword wasn’t designed for pvp " yet the whole design was based upon monster movies; the reaper being the monster, chasing down its victims. Why would this be key to the design if it wasn’t meant for pvp?

Pregnantman.8259:

I only ever saw 1 whirl projectile from Gravedigger. I am not really sure though. If its 4 as you said than it should be great on an Ice Field.

If you want to test this have someone create a firefield underneath a big mob. You should see 4 stacks of Burning appear instantly with the Gravedigger finisher.

Lahmia.2193:

It’s funny. People always say "greatsword wasn’t designed for pvp " yet the whole design was based upon monster movies; the reaper being the monster, chasing down its victims. Why would this be key to the design if it wasn’t meant for pvp?

Because the monsters always lose in the end in the movies?

Sarrs.4831:

If you want to test this have someone create a firefield underneath a big mob. You should see 4 stacks of Burning appear instantly with the Gravedigger finisher.

Hmmm, I’ve paid attention that there are several combo hearts (and texts) overlapping each other when using Gravedigger. Except that I see only 3 condition stacks (where applicable), 3 bolts, and 3 combo hearts. All Necro fields were tested.

AndyS.5630:

Lahmia.2193:

It’s funny. People always say "greatsword wasn’t designed for pvp " yet the whole design was based upon monster movies; the reaper being the monster, chasing down its victims. Why would this be key to the design if it wasn’t meant for pvp?

Because the monsters always lose in the end in the movies?

Something that so often put me off cinema, I always root for the bad guys. But in all seriousness, Necromancers get held back so often because of a theme Anet has for them. Then they create Reaper purely based on Monsters chasing down helpless victims, but yet it very much sucks at chasing down people. Not cool Anet. Not cool at all.