Guild Wars 2

I just started dabbling in Fractals using a Blood/Spite/Reaper build from a Brazil video and I seem to do well at lower lvls, how are they at Higher lvls? All of my Armor is Exotic Valk, my GS is Zerker Ascended, my alt wep set is Exotic Zerker Axe/WH, the non armor pieces are all Ascended 2 Valk/Zerk Combo, and 4 Zerk. Sigils are Force and Air, Runes are Wurm.

Farming BSF to get two more Valk/Zerk Combo pieces.

Here’s Brazil’s video

Wow, this forum’s dead; if I had posted a question any where else and no one responded my question might be buried on page 2 by now; I guess the balance team better take a look at this class.

Nah the balance team thinks we are in a good place…

Muchacho.2390:

Nah the balance team thinks we are in a good place…

Confirmed: “in a good place”, aka “we don’t know and we don’t care”. Guardians had at least three years of that.

I play power reaper. Mostly because it’s what has all of my agony infusions :p

I love it and there arent any difficulties that arise from it. I use something different than that but a similar concept :p

I just got picked up by a guild that trains raiders and Raids supposedly every day of the week. They seemed wary when I mentioned I was a Support Power Reaper but then I pointed out there was a build on I Metabattle that calmed them down.

Svarty.8019:

Muchacho.2390:

Nah the balance team thinks we are in a good place…

Confirmed: “in a good place”, aka “we don’t know and we don’t care”. Guardians had at least three years of that.

Guardian was allowed in the dungeon meta though at least. You never saw “no guardian/necro/ranger” parties, just the two latter.

With Fractals though, bring what you play well on. Elitism is virtually dead (aside from necro condi parties).

Oldirtbeard.9834:

I just got picked up by a guild that trains raiders and Raids supposedly every day of the week. They seemed wary when I mentioned I was a Support Power Reaper but then I pointed out there was a build on I Metabattle that calmed them down.

Find a new guild then. Just because it’s on meta battle doesn’t mean its a good build for the comp they are running. Anyone who knows anything about necro knows about blood magic support. I don’t see why mentioning metabattle would have made a difference there if they knew anything about necromancer.

I have no issues doing T4 fractals and do them most nights except when the really tedious ones roll around (looking at you Cliffside and Mai Trin).

The thing with fractals and power necro/reaper is you’re very often changing your build depending on where you are in the fractal.

For example you’d go greatsword/minions with death magic for old tom to gravedigger spam and condi transfer against old tom. You’d also want base necro with an axe for fights like the chaos boss.

Many fights it doesn’t matter though, especially if you join necro-only parties. The reason people like necro-only parties is because they seldom wipe or go down. So long as you manage that, you’re fine.

Unlike condi where you can stay in your same build the whole time, a power build can involve some creativity if you’re into that sort of thing. Just get all your agony resist in trinkets and armor and not in your weapons.

I have been messing about with power-reaper slotting Epidemic. There are events where that is useful while still allowing Berserker damage.

Edit: I have also been running Sinister and Viper’s builds but have found the lack of burst condition damage drastically cuts down on item drops. Epidemic seems to have a very low, perhaps zero percent, chance at a drop when copied conditions are the only damage for the kill. This may be a bug but I have not tested it enough in controlled conditions.

Elite skill power creep forces me to run full ’zerker and even then drop rate falls dramatically when certain other professions “nuke-em ’till they glow.”

to the op:

1) your build is not the optimal power reaper build, it would require gear changes and a lot of concious decisions for every encounter and dmg rotation
2) power reaper is not meta by any means but that doesn’t stop you from running it and being decent (only when you optimize it)
3) i only run as power reaper in dungeons and fractals, i am minmaxed and pugs seem to accept me (of course i dont join lfg’s that ask for viper specifically because that would be me being a kitten)
4) dont use brazil builds
5) here (message to minmaxers: valkyrie only in theory is optimal, perfect circumstances are not something that will happen to a reaper because when you choose to play reaper you automatically choose to not have nice things)

Lahmia.2193:

Guardian was allowed in the dungeon meta though at least. You never saw “no guardian/necro/ranger” parties, just the two latter.

I literally got kicked as a Guard from T4 because I didn’t have a Necro. Granted, they specified they wanted 4 Necro cancer team in LFG, but I saw different classes in team so I figured I might join too because it was the only full daily LFG available. And this is only one example, just look at LFG and it is filled with groups like this that exclude any non-Necros. How the tables have turned.

Svarty.8019:

Muchacho.2390:

Nah the balance team thinks we are in a good place…

Confirmed: “in a good place”, aka “we don’t know and we don’t care”. Guardians had at least three years of that.

Except Guardians were actually in a good place or dominant in every format except running speed clear dungeons.

Pregnantman.8259:

Lahmia.2193:

Guardian was allowed in the dungeon meta though at least. You never saw “no guardian/necro/ranger” parties, just the two latter.

I literally got kicked as a Guard from T4 because I didn’t have a Necro. Granted, they specified they wanted 4 Necro cancer team in LFG, but I saw different classes in team so I figured I might join too because it was the only full daily LFG available. And this is only one example, just look at LFG and it is filled with groups like this that exclude any non-Necros. How the tables have turned.

Hence why I used the word virtually. It’s not half as bad as the old lvl 50 fractal/dungeon meta, where almost every party demanded specific builds and professions.

Not that I am complaining much. Necros needed their break. Its just that playing necro in fractals is pretty much easy mode, so Necros you get from pugs think they can do no wrong.

There are a lot of new Necromancers out there. I used to be one of two or three in a PvE zerg but that number has tripled, mostly due to Reaper. The power AoE Necromancer lacked made that much of a difference.

Now, Necroreaper is as popular in PvE zerg as Druid and Dragon Hunter, the other top professions for this.

I’ve seen a good amount of people in t4’s that switched to GS Dagger/X (Spite, Blood, Reaper) after the Jagged Horror nerf…

While the new toughness scaling in high tiers make it a realistic choice damage-wise, IMO the last thing your group needs is some squish pants necro up in melee range adding to the Social Awkwardness ticks and needing to be rezzed all the time since he has no blocks.

If you can somehow stay alive up there and not agony bomb your group’s warrior/rev/thief with Social Awkwardness, I guess go for it… But Condi is still a more reliable source of constant damage and much easier to stay alive—at least for me.

Sublimatio.6981:

to the op:

1) your build is not the optimal power reaper build, it would require gear changes and a lot of concious decisions for every encounter and dmg rotation
2) power reaper is not meta by any means but that doesn’t stop you from running it and being decent (only when you optimize it)
3) i only run as power reaper in dungeons and fractals, i am minmaxed and pugs seem to accept me (of course i dont join lfg’s that ask for viper specifically because that would be me being a kitten)
4) dont use brazil builds
5) here (message to minmaxers: valkyrie only in theory is optimal, perfect circumstances are not something that will happen to a reaper because when you choose to play reaper you automatically choose to not have nice things)

>Telling people not to use Brazil builds
>Telling people valk isnt optimal when we can cap 100% without blinking.

Necro’s dont need perfect circumstances. Thats why it’s a selfish class. Instead of bringing party buffs, it brings it’s own. Thats why brazil has 2 versions of the build. one for raiding, and one for pug/solo play. I was using a similar build way before his videos on it were made. And a lot of other power necro’s use similar setups because we cap on crit so easily.

necro doesn’t bring own buffs lol thats why you need party support – 25 perma vuln and a lot of buffs to achieve that 100%. these circumstances require premade team and the damage difference between berserker set is marginal (literally the only difference is on zerk you have 100something more power and on valkyrie 100something more ferocity ONLY if you use the furious oil). now take into consideration phase breaks, adds and anything else that may lack 25 vulnerability at a time and you’re already at a disadvantage. + op wants to pug fractals so good luck to valkyrie

i think for power build self maintaining vuln wont be too bad. because power builds tend to go with Spite trait line. With Reaper trait line synergy can apply vuln on freeze very rapidly. Then u also got vuln spreading in shroud trait in Spite that works pretty well on adds. Reaper 5 + whirl finish stacks freeze and vuln pretty quickly. then u got reaper 3 fear that applies freeze taht applies vuln due to trait synergy.

My boyfriend runs Power Necro and he’s never had a problem. I run Druid, and we pug T4 always.

It is super rare to get someone that asks him to go Condition. It’s been months actually. He has ran Condition Necro before, but didn’t like it. Currently they are both close in DPS after the nerfs to Horrors.

He runs full Zerk, because you’re not always in Shroud. His survivability is great. He uses the Metabattle build for GS Reaper.

Our experiences with Fractal T4 pugging have for the most part been great.

I hope you have fun with Power Reaper. It’s fun.

squallaus.8321:

i think for power build self maintaining vuln wont be too bad. because power builds tend to go with Spite trait line. With Reaper trait line synergy can apply vuln on freeze very rapidly. Then u also got vuln spreading in shroud trait in Spite that works pretty well on adds. Reaper 5 + whirl finish stacks freeze and vuln pretty quickly. then u got reaper 3 fear that applies freeze taht applies vuln due to trait synergy.

these are just burts of vulnerability. not consistent. apart from that you have to drop dps traits

Sublimatio.6981:

squallaus.8321:

i think for power build self maintaining vuln wont be too bad. because power builds tend to go with Spite trait line. With Reaper trait line synergy can apply vuln on freeze very rapidly. Then u also got vuln spreading in shroud trait in Spite that works pretty well on adds. Reaper 5 + whirl finish stacks freeze and vuln pretty quickly. then u got reaper 3 fear that applies freeze taht applies vuln due to trait synergy.

these are just burts of vulnerability. not consistent. apart from that you have to drop dps traits

It is pretty consistent vuln to be honest. As for dropping dps traits, its 1 trait that gives +5% damage vs a trait that, without, you risk having less than 25 stacks of vuln and therefore overall party dps is dropped significantly. I’d take Bitter Chill every day of the week.

Lahmia.2193:

It is pretty consistent vuln to be honest. As for dropping dps traits, its 1 trait that gives +5% damage vs a trait that, without, you risk having less than 25 stacks of vuln and therefore overall party dps is dropped significantly. I’d take Bitter Chill every day of the week.

you also drop chill of death.

Sublimatio.6981:

Lahmia.2193:

It is pretty consistent vuln to be honest. As for dropping dps traits, its 1 trait that gives +5% damage vs a trait that, without, you risk having less than 25 stacks of vuln and therefore overall party dps is dropped significantly. I’d take Bitter Chill every day of the week.

you also drop chill of death.

I roll Bitter Chill and Chill of Death. I only pop into shroud for the #5/#4 combo, then out again, so Rending Shroud isn’t a go to.

If u take soul reaping (as the 3rd trait line), rendering shroud is definitely better cos of the better shroud up time. Chill of death is more single target and only activates once every 20 seconds after an enemy get less than 50% hp. Although chill of death does give u a bit higher chill uptime and remove boss boons some times. But (in PVE) if u didn’t need that extra chill for the first 50% of the hp u probably don’t need it for the 2nd 50%. With rending shroud self-maintained vuln upkeep gets a lot easier.

I’ve gone back and forth on this a bit, and after playing some T3 with my druid (old fractal character) I don’t think I’d be comfortable playing a power reaper in fractals. I love the power spec in open world/HoT maps, but the new fractals make it really difficult (sometimes impossible) to play a full melee build. And a power reaper’s only real ranged option is mainhand axe, which is kind of sad.

Sublimatio.6981:

squallaus.8321:

i think for power build self maintaining vuln wont be too bad. because power builds tend to go with Spite trait line. With Reaper trait line synergy can apply vuln on freeze very rapidly. Then u also got vuln spreading in shroud trait in Spite that works pretty well on adds. Reaper 5 + whirl finish stacks freeze and vuln pretty quickly. then u got reaper 3 fear that applies freeze taht applies vuln due to trait synergy.

these are just burts of vulnerability. not consistent. apart from that you have to drop dps traits

What are you talking about dude? Rending shroud? Vuln on every shroud auto attack? How is that not the definition of consistent?

My Power Reaper as of the late

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR3dnMbCt0gF1AubCs3glaBbKtNF2CQJgAwMIeLOGXjA-TRSBwAYV+dTtCAXBAzKBRpZ4xDBAvOgcqqQc/ByAkvFA-e

I beat Nightmare Mote using my power necro. For the most part I run Blood/Soul Reaping/Reaper but on Siax I change Blood to Spite for Close to Death so soloing one of the spawns at 66/33 goes faster. Its doable without that but using it allows me to help others faster if needed.