Guild Wars 2

Too much focus on the utility skills.

Here’s how I see it. They didn’t add reflect, stab, vigor, aegis, invuln, etc… so whatever, the shouts don’t matter to me. They are just alternative ways to do the same things we already do. If the numbers are good on release I’ll try some shout builds. If not, whatever. The utilities we already have are fine at what they do.

We also have to look at the GS and the traits. To me those are far more important because like I said, we already have utilities that are good at what they do. Better traits and a stronger weapon go a lot farther than some redundant utilities.

And you know what? The traits look really strong. I’m afraid to talk about some of them because Anet might be like “You know what? He’s right, let’s nerf that before release.” I mean seriously just look at those traits.

The greatsword: Not sure what the damage output looks like but I’m hopeful from what I’ve seen. But most importantly, it has a frequent source of chill which is going to make some of the reaper traits amazing. I mean dagger is already a great melee weapon so we’re just looking at possibly new builds with that chill on GS, but if it turns out to suck, whatever we’ll just use dagger like always and enjoy the new traits.

Oh and reaper’s shroud. It looks way stronger than death shroud at the cost of losing the range, which can matter in a lot of situations. But for PvE where we need help, reaper’s shroud looks like a godsend.

So anyway forget about the shout utilities. They don’t matter. They do what we already do. The new traits are where it’s at.

I feel the same way. I’m pumped to try some reaper stuff and though some of the shouts could be good to try out, that’s not really what makes me so pumped for the reaper.

I wanted a greatsword on my necro for some time now; the idea of a necro wielding Twilight is beyond awesome to me. The damage definitely needs to be right, especially since Dagger AA is way faster and generates life force quickly, but hopefully it makes the cut.

RS is the thing I’m looking the most forward to with my build. Hopefully they don’t nerf any of the current RS stuff because I think that’s what might help make us “viable” again in PvE (even though I couldn’t care less about viability). I’m stoked to try it and see what happens.

Currently, I still have hope for reaper but its DPS does not seem high enough. Having such slow attacks on GS, the DPS has to be higher than dagger but this is barely the case right now. But this is just a number, so I still have hope. It looks awesome, which is already something

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

Silverkey.2078:

Currently, I still have hope for reaper but its DPS does not seem high enough. Having such slow attacks on GS, the DPS has to be higher than dagger but this is barely the case right now. But this is just a number, so I still have hope. It looks awesome, which is already something

I did acknowledge that GS isn’t necessarily going to be strong, but I also tried to explain how that isn’t terribly important. It’s not important because we have dagger already. GS isn’t really adding something we need, it’s just a fun alternative.

We’re getting traits that are clear upgrades and that’s why I’m trying to encourage you guys not to get hung up on the shouts or the GS.

Khristophoros.7194:

I did acknowledge that GS isn’t necessarily going to be strong, but I also tried to explain how that isn’t terribly important. It’s not important because we have dagger already. GS isn’t really adding something we need, it’s just a fun alternative.

We’re getting traits that are clear upgrades and that’s why I’m trying to encourage you guys not to get hung up on the shouts or the GS.

The traits are boring. (1) less immobilize (2) more life force (3) more life force.

Since you are on dagger, the minor traits won’t help you much either.

As you said, the shouts and greatsword might not be useable.

Instead of 1 spam on dagger, you’ll have 1 spam on reaper too, but you have to give up your best anti kiting tool to get this.

nekretaal.6485:

Khristophoros.7194:

I did acknowledge that GS isn’t necessarily going to be strong, but I also tried to explain how that isn’t terribly important. It’s not important because we have dagger already. GS isn’t really adding something we need, it’s just a fun alternative.

We’re getting traits that are clear upgrades and that’s why I’m trying to encourage you guys not to get hung up on the shouts or the GS.

The traits are boring. (1) less immobilize (2) more life force (3) more life force.

Since you are on dagger, the minor traits won’t help you much either.

As you said, the shouts and greatsword might not be useable.

Instead of 1 spam on dagger, you’ll have 1 spam on reaper too, but you have to give up your best anti kiting tool to get this.

On dagger you can use the other traits which look pretty good. That’s my only reservation about GS.

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

This^

They managed to fix a grand total of one of our issues…while leaving all the others intact…and even creating several new issues.

The one issue they did fix is our melee attack viability (cleave). The reaper definitely fixes that. They have not even attempted to fix our lack of scaling defenses…which are absolutely essential to surviving melee combat…which leads right back to the viability of the reaper and the ability to use the new melee cleave.

They have not even attempted to fix the conflict with our class mechanic and the other half of our skills…the utility bar. Its like expecting a guardian to be anywhere near their current viability without their utilities. Imagine a guardian unable to use wall of reflection at a moment’s notice. Utilities definitely do matter. The shouts definitely do matter. Contribution to your team definitely does matter. They are expecting us to play half a profession at a time, while every other profession has access to all of their skills at all times. It would be different if RS had so much utility that we had no need for utilities…but we know that is not the case.

On top of that, they are consistently taking away any viable healing skill we have. Why on earth, would I choose a healing skill that makes me take more damage? Why would I want to take a healing skill that requires me to stay in a tiny circle to reap its full benefits? Why would I want to take a healing skill that requires me to take damage to reap its full benefits? They even just nerfed the siphon on SoV to non existence. Why would I want to take a heal skill that is based on a minion…that can be killed…to negate its entire effect? Its like they are trying to force us to take the shout heal. Are they going to nerf the shout heal too once we switch to that? Its like they are determined to make sure we don’t have a viable healing ability…we drop consume conditions when they made it suck and moved onto the semi viable SoV…they quickly nerf that too…

The ranged attack thing is a bit of a new issue too. They really need to give us the chronomancer treatment…they should have added RS as an f2 in addition to DS. I guess we can just ignore the majority of the reaper build and just drop out of shroud and use a staff when we need to range…

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

1. I always thought necro was pretty survival thanks to the massive health/DS life pool as well as some tools it had. I will not that I rarely do PvP and WvW on necro so I’m coming at it from a PvE aspect, but the high health and standard dodging do well in PvE.

2. They do have spectral pull, but I do agree that it would be hard to catch somebody already at range without that. You can chill them if you pull them in, but using a utility slot for that may not be worth it depending on the situation, so I would agree with you here.

3. This —> much truth.

4. Not necessarily. If your other weapon has chill you can generate it that way and RS 3 and 5 can chill with the right traits. With another trait, you spread chill on each crit. So yes, GS reaper doesn’t have tons of chill potential without aid other than that final AA strike but it’s still there for the reaper in some areas.

6. This —> more than much truth

8. I think the traits have good synergy with vulnerability/chill/crit chance and things like that with some of the other trait lines. Not sure yet whether that’ll be enough to make Reaper viable, but I have some hope.

Although I feel you’re looking at in from a WvW or PvP perspective and I’m thinking PvE. Those are two totally different worlds that require different builds. Like I said, without playing more WvW on my necro, I couldn’t begin to say what it does and doesn’t need for it to function in WvW.

Reaper has no damage modifiers, and his specialization line is pretty much entirely PvP centric traits.

It’s a class heavily centered around chill, which is useless in PvE. A lot of the side effects on weaponskills are poison, on a power based spec and weapon. And again, poison is kinda useless in PvE.

It simply will not compete with elementalist/thief damage as is, both of who have 20%+ damage modifiers, extra precision and power and ferocity sources, and all of which also bring better group utility.

In short, if the reaper doesn’t have crazy high base numbers that overcome the lack of damage modifiers and makes him do even more damage than a thief, there’s no use for one.

I think spectal skills would work nicely with reaper.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQJAndjc0QrNWbDG3AHOMwFK4AEAtAtLijnF-TJxFABfXGYl9HA4EAgwDAAA

Something similar to this where you use spectal grasp to pull them into your greatsword whirl.

Zenith.7301:

It’s a class heavily centered around chill, which is useless in PvE. A lot of the side effects on weaponskills are poison, on a power based spec and weapon. And again, poison is kinda useless in PvE.

I haven’t read everything here but noticed that ^
Putrid Defense?

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

+1, I was excited about Reapers until our WvW commanders on the server pretty much explained why Reapers won’t be good in WvW. Anet essentially have made a melee spec without giving Reapers the tools to be melee properly. Imagine a Guardian without JI, invuln, and stability. Imagine a Thief without stealth, mobility, and high damage spikes. Or a Warrior without mobility, leaps, cc, and rampage.

In large scale WvW, they won’t be able to hang with the frontline melee train because of lack of defenses. In small scale or 1v1’s, I fear how easily they’ll be kited. Reapers will be the first melee in GW2 that has no escapes. GG

Oh yeah and this isn’t beginning to touch the lifeforce issue, which I honestly thought we wouldn’t have to worry so much about. But Anet seems deadset on their vision for necros. Ironically, Revenant is getting the best of all worlds combined into one class, and Anet isn’t shy about giving them what melee classes need to perform well.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

Its not 4s. Its 2.8~3s actually. Its faster than guard hammer but around the speed of warrior hammer. In all its auto attack chain is 1/4s~1/2s slower than other GS chains.

Sigmoid.7082:

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

Its not 4s. Its 2.8~3s actually. Its faster than guard hammer but around the speed of warrior hammer. In all its auto attack chain is 1/4s~1/2s slower than other GS chains.

Each strike of its chain is 1/4 to 1/2 second longer than other GS auto chains.

There is stab, and they should leave it the way it is. I don’t know what is going to happen to DS, No mobility on it except a half hazard teleport that struggles to hit and no stability. Once reaper drops (hopefully in our lifetime) I wont be looking back at it and probably a lot of people. They might as well combine the two and have DS as utility skills for RS.

After so long i still get annoyed at myself for investing in such an incomplete class and they left it this way for this long.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sigmoid.7082:

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

Its not 4s. Its 2.8~3s actually. Its faster than guard hammer but around the speed of warrior hammer. In all its auto attack chain is 1/4s~1/2s slower than other GS chains.

Each strike of its chain is 1/4 to 1/2 second longer than other GS auto chains.

I literally timed it from the video the part where they use the auto chain twice one after the other. Timed it 5 times, averaged it out and then divided by two for how long one chain will take.
Warrior Gs is 2.46s, Ranger 2.56, Guardian 2.5s. Warrior Hammer is 2.75 and guard hammer is 3.7. These are from the wiki
Overall Reaper Gs auto chain takes 3s. on average. Hence why i said its around warrior hammer speed but faster than guard hammer.

I am not overestimating the Reaper. It seems focused toward power, yet was designed to be easily countered by CC and kiting. Coincidentally, lots of weapons had their ranges boosted to 1200 or 1500.

Reaper looks like it is for multiple, close range enemies

Still, we have not heard anything since the introduction.

Assuming they properly balance the rest of the specialization, Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it, and base Necromancer is still a really awful setup.

insaneseagull.7063:

Zenith.7301:

It’s a class heavily centered around chill, which is useless in PvE. A lot of the side effects on weaponskills are poison, on a power based spec and weapon. And again, poison is kinda useless in PvE.

I haven’t read everything here but noticed that ^
Putrid Defense?

Also marginal in PvE. Reduced damage on a 10k hit still means you want to dodge or face a 2-shot.

This game’s damage is simply not meant to be facetanked.

Bhawb.7408:

Assuming they properly balance the rest of the specialization,
Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it
, and base Necromancer is still a really awful setup.

This is so wonderfully quotable. I might get it on a t shirt for Eurogamer this fall.

getzzzonked.7609:

Bhawb.7408:

Assuming they properly balance the rest of the specialization,
Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it
, and base Necromancer is still a really awful setup.

This is so wonderfully quotable. I might get it on a t shirt for Eurogamer this fall.

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

Khristophoros.7194:

getzzzonked.7609:

Bhawb.7408:

Assuming they properly balance the rest of the specialization,
Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it
, and base Necromancer is still a really awful setup.

This is so wonderfully quotable. I might get it on a t shirt for Eurogamer this fall.

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

Becuase the weapon skills and traits are designed from those on classes that are in a better place. Gs is essentially guard GS and the traits are a mix of warrior and guard traits with some minor necro themed tweeks.

Khristophoros.7194:

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

I mean honestly if Reaper was just our base profession we’d have nothing to complain about. It is literally the same thing as our core theme, but without a lot of the design failures that plague our profession.

Khristophoros.7194:

getzzzonked.7609:

Bhawb.7408:

Assuming they properly balance the rest of the specialization,
Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it
, and base Necromancer is still a really awful setup.

This is so wonderfully quotable. I might get it on a t shirt for Eurogamer this fall.

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

more like half of an upgrade

I’ve been theorycrafting a lot based on possible reaper builds. I think that blighter’s boon will be by far the best trait in the tier, as it synergizes really well with spite.

3 build ideas:

Standard Power: GS and either staff or axe/wh or axe/dagger or dagger/wh
Spite/SR/Reaper, wells or shouts

Celestial Reaper: Staff and either GS or D/WH
Spite/SR/Reaper, with signets dhuumfire is an option, and it probably needs an extra condi clear. Blighter’s boon for sustain with spite mightstacking

Condi Reaper: Staff, S/dag
Curses/SR/reaper. Damaging chill trait over blighter’s boon. Take dhuumfire.

Its troubling that soul reaping will be needed on every build with reaper, but the sustain and damage it offers is already too much to pass up now, and it will continue to do so given how great RS will be.

All in all the possibilities seem really good just because reaper shroud seems really good. I’m not too worried about GS being slow anymore as it seems to be a mostly teamfight and downcleave weapon where avoiding the hits will be hard. You probably won’t want to use it in 1v1s though. The main things I’m worried about are losing condi clear options from signets/curses/staff in most builds that wouldn’t opp for it, just because I generally beleive that warhorn is a more useful offhand than dagger on power and cele builds. This is a complaint for most elite specs on all classes, for example the eles don’t know if they want to give up fire/earth for tempest on their cele builds. But I’m sure if we all adapt, we’ll be able to put this cool new tools to use. Now to go save up and buy the dreamthistle GS and staff for my sylvari necro

Axe may see play on pure power builds, however it will be limited in that you will use the 2 and 3 skills and OH skills then switch to GS or dagger or whatever. Focus still won’t be used simply because warhorn and dagger offer much better utilitie across the board for pvp.

Bhawb.7408:

Khristophoros.7194:

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

I mean honestly if Reaper was just our base profession we’d have nothing to complain about. It is literally the same thing as our core theme, but without a lot of the design failures that plague our profession.

This is one thing that irks me, too. Necromancer was supposed to be a light armor conjurer and debuffer but all of Arenanet’s effort has been in making it fill a heavy armor tanking role.

Great sword has cleave and a finisher we have been asking for but it is still another short range power weapon. It has cleave, AoE damage, chill, vuln, blind and poison as if it was designed to replace dagger and axe or do the same job with a weapon swap.

Necromancer does not have a a close range weapon able to maintain a bleed stack with and swap with scepter and it does not have a long range weapon capable of respectable singe-target dps to trade staff for.

Necromancer is most effective at close range, now. Great sword will bias that even further.

Well, in all honesty, underestimating a subclass that’s not even in the game is a bit…

But, well, let just be frank :

- Shouts are underwhelming in the showed state. The best strengh of the other profession’s shout is the fact they are instant, giving ours a cast time and long CD hurt a bit.

- The trait that will support the shout is dumb. Well that’s my point of view but I think the more foe you hit the higher the cost should be. I would be perfectly fine with a short base CD and an extra CD cost per foe hit (which would be removed by the trait). ATM the shout seem weak just to promote a trait that may make them almost ok.

- The greatsword is designed to be the slowest weapon in game. Not much slower but still slower then everything. You know how annoyingly slow is death shroud auto attack? GS auto attack is the melee version of life blast. This will be frustrating.
Gravedigger, the so called “bread and butter” skill of the Reaper when it’s foe is under 50% HP will be able to hit once every 2 second… Well, I kinda like the fact that they add a whirl finisher to it… Except that this is already the worst whirl finisher due to only 1 rotation and the cast time of the skill it self. Stiring out 1 bolt out of a whirl finisher will be depressing…

I kinda like the traits even if I think that most of them need to be tweeked for an healthier gameplay :
- chilling nova : 1 time CD 4s would be hundred time better
- chilling force : You do 5% more damage against chilled foes. Striking a chilled foe grant life force (the might on this trait is overkill because that’s not needed since the specialization change while a flat damage modifier will always be welcome)
- Decimate defense : this trait is ok, could be better if the buff was party wide (even if the value were halved)
- Soul eater : greatsword attack siphon life. Greatsword skill recharge 20% faster. (The gravedigger thing is an absurdity)
- Blighter boon : Overpowered, we should keep it like this. (Yeah, I’m greedy sometime)
- Deadly chill : Damage done by Chill become instant at the moment it’s applyed. (If this trait stay a damage over time trait, it will become useless as soon as the necro do group content.)
- Reaper onslaught : it’s a fine trait, nothing to say.

- Reaper shroud is good, so good that it overshadow the Death shroud due to better use of “shroud traits”.

See, I don’t underestimate Reaper. I’m just seeing all is glaring weakness and strenght. And, in a way, just for the sake of having a descent shroud (at last) I’d take reaper. Well, there are also fine trait that will make the Reaper really good in party (No, no… not at the point to be taken because there are still no support. But really good because other players will make him really strong. He have really good synergy as a supported character)

NB.: I wonder If some of you noticed it but the Ele warhorn skill Wildfire seem way better than well of corruption. I mean : 8 pulses that burn, do damage, remove boon and this on top of a very large fire field. I don’t know for you but it hurt a bit my necromancer’s pride…

The greatsword is designed to be the second slowest weapon in game.

Just FTFY

Anchoku.8142:

Bhawb.7408:

Khristophoros.7194:

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

I mean honestly if Reaper was just our base profession we’d have nothing to complain about. It is literally the same thing as our core theme, but without a lot of the design failures that plague our profession.

This is one thing that irks me, too. Necromancer was supposed to be a light armor conjurer and debuffer but all of Arenanet’s effort has been in making it fill a heavy armor tanking role.

Great sword has cleave and a finisher we have been asking for but it is still another short range power weapon. It has cleave, AoE damage, chill, vuln, blind and poison as if it was designed to replace dagger and axe or do the same job with a weapon swap.

Necromancer does not have a a close range weapon able to maintain a bleed stack with and swap with scepter and it does not have a long range weapon capable of respectable singe-target dps to trade staff for.

Necromancer is most effective at close range, now. Great sword will bias that even further.

Not sure what you mean by “supposed to be” when it was released in basically the same state its in now. The weapon balance has always been extremely skewed in favor of dagger. You can’t really deal high damage without going into melee as a necro outside of lich form and DS.

The base health was always 19k and it always had shroud which scaled off health which makes it the only mechanic in the game that gives you sustain scaling off your max health.

Originally wells were PBAoE and I don’t think the ground target trait existed on release, but I could be wrong.

That is a battlemage design. It was designed to go into the fray. To me everything about reaper makes logical sense with how the necro already plays.

No scaling defense is what really kills a greatsword reaper for me. A non-greatsword reaper however.. thats what I’ll be playing.

Kilger.5490:

No scaling defense is what really kills a greatsword reaper for me. A non-greatsword reaper however.. thats what I’ll be playing.

The aoe pulsing blinds are scaling though atleast up to 5 enemies.The LF generating skills also scale up to 3 and 5 enemies. Not saying it will be enough but you do have some scaling defenses on gs.

People have to accept two things with the reaper:

1. You will NOT be a good 1 v 1er. You are horrible at sticking to a target which can kite you, and can not survive the punishment of a DPS warrior. Not to mention how mangled you will get by thieves and mesmers with their abundancy of blinds and interrupts.

2. You will NOT be good at roaming and/or chasing targets down. You are too slow for this and people who do not like you will just leave.

What your best case scenario role will be is likely finishing weak targets off. Spin around with gravedigger at a downed target over and over, proc some chill of deaths while you are at it, spread poison so reviving is difficult. You will want to quickly locate targets sub 50% health or near to it, and hit them with all you have to seal the deal in the middle of a big teamfight. You will still be a class that needs teammates to peel for it, and should forget about being self-sufficient – you are a necro, after all. If you want a self-sufficient, close-range brawler you should look at warrior, not reaper.

The speck is really niche and will likely not work all that great in high-tier games, though this is to be expected. The way I see it, it is just another fun way to play power necro. I do not think it will fix all of the class’ issues, and I do not believe it should. The core profession needs to be addressed rather than patchwork solutions being applied through elite specks.

Sigmoid.7082:

The greatsword is designed to be the second slowest weapon in game.

Just FTFY

reaper GS: 2 and 1/2 s
guardian hammer : 2 and 1/4 s
ranger GS : 1 and 3/4 s
warrior hammer : 1 and 1/2 s
guardian GS : 1 and 1/2 s
warrior GS : 1 and 1/2 s

On the paper it’s the slowest…

GS will prolly be good in pve tbh, i cant see much for it pvp wise though… Just too Slow and lacks in too many areas, Necromancers will be stuck with the standard Terrormancers and powermancer builds overall tbh, cant realistically seeing ..

Maybe Reaper will introduce new ways to play, the Reaper Shroud is good it’ll make u 100% melee but we’ll see on the numbers, but GS wont be useful to a pvper

So, my concern with reaper is that the utilities are weak, and that the damage is both slow and low. These coeffs were calculated by spoj, and compared to other greatsworkd skills (and to what all the drawbacks of the necro should give us), they aren’t really that impressive.

Even if we get into melee, we are still going to be hitting for less than a guard with GS on auto attack. “But you have chill on AA.” Not enough of a bonus. gibe highest damage on GS AA or gtfo. Buff everything with around 10% and it should be fine in theory, but I belive it might need more than that, as the class is slow moving, especialy the abilities with a 1 sec windup. But then again, just because a 1 sec windup in DotA or BLC means imminent guaranteed doom doesnt mean it should be so here. But I certainly think that it should hurt to stay in the way of such a thing. On another note, the windups on many abilities are way too long for what they give. Detonating Infusing Terror should be instant, Reapers Schythe should be 3/4, not 1+1/4, gravedigger down to 1, Deaths Charge down to 3/4. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt though, as we haven’t tested it yet.

Functionally, GS could be good as a staff replacement, if you are in PvE and do not need 1200 range. It gathers trash mobs and debuffs them. Cleave on the weapon and in DS helps reduce numbers.

Once down to two targets, switch to dagger. Alternatively, you can switch to axe for a little range. GS will be a good choice only when you face 3 opponents close range as it stands, today.

I do not think it will be better than staff for farming world events or PvP due to its slow attack speed.

I do not think it will be better than any other weapon in 1v2 or 1v1, including PvE boss fights. It looks like a weapon for solo farming in PvE. It needs to have at least 180 range on all attacks to increase chances of tagging multiple targets. A 240 range in a wide cone on AA and everything else at 600 or 900 is my suggestion. Then, it does not overlap and lose to dagger for close range and does a better job as a replacement for staff in PvP and WvW.

Assuming that the tooltips were recorded in an sPvP lobby with 1951 power(which was what spoj assumed IIRC), those numbers are wrong. I think he forgot that average weapon damage in sPvP is a bit lower than in WvW/PvE. Around 1015 for greatswords if I recall correctly. Running my Guardian’s GS AA chain through the tooltip damage calculation confirms this.
This would put the GS auto attack chain at roughly 0.85, 0.85, 1.0. According to the wiki, a warrior GS chain takes around 2.5s. In the reaper stream, we were looking at around 3s for the reaper GS chain. Example, 11:32 is the start of the AA chain, which finishes at roughly 11:35. By 11:36, the first strike landed again.
Meanwhile, we are looking at 0.6, 0.6, 1.2 for the RS auto chain, assuming that it also uses your weapon strength. This is over what seems to be around 2.4s though I did not time it that accurately.
Now, the calculations are moot as the numbers are more than 2 months old and have very likely changed by now.

CCLegion.5936:

Now, the calculations are moot as the numbers are more than 2 months old and have very likely changed by now.

This is the concern I have. We need to be able to beta test the reaper far enough in advance of it going live so there is time to correct some things and avoid having another bottom feeder class. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been the case to date and frankly it concerns me that they aren’t doing a broader spectrum test. If they continue to use the same people that currently test the Necromancer we have no real hope of this being viable because they obviously think Necro is ok today. I wish they would do a much better job at communicating their progress on specializations because it is a core part of their expansion and were in lieu of new races people were very much expecting.

Even if Reaper numbers are same or slightly higher than a GS auto chain, it changes little. Warrior 100b does more damage and it’s similarly spammable to grave digger without the health threshold.

More importantly, a warrior gets a 10% damage bonus against bleeding targets, another 20% from berserker’s power all the time unlike necro who only gets 20% on targets below 50% health.

And most important of all, banners are unique buffs exclusive to the class with no caps, unlike might or fury which become redundant once a class can stack it enough. You NEED warrior banners, no other class can substitute that buff on such a large scale.

Warrior bring perma 25 might stacks with Phalanx Strength, 30% personal damage modifier total, 170 ferocity crit damage and 170 precision for the group (banner, equivalent to revenant’s group buff and ranger’s spotter combined, but 20 stat points more more), 170 power 170 condition damage (banner, 20 more stats than empower allies).

AND on top of all those buffs in a single build that is also their DPS build, they provide Empower Allies, for another 150 power to the group.

NOTHING short of an ele can buff a group’s DPS anywhere as much as a Phalanx Strength warrior.

Reaper’s damage would have to be astronomically higher than warrior or thief to match the group DPS increase a warrior provides to his group.

And since reaper utility and PvE traits suck (and in the case of traits, are nonexistent as all of them are pvp traits) big time, nobody will bring a Reaper in a meta PvE group.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

CCLegion.5936:

Now, the calculations are moot as the numbers are more than 2 months old and have very likely changed by now.

This is the concern I have. We need to be able to beta test the reaper far enough in advance of it going live so there is time to correct some things and avoid having another bottom feeder class. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been the case to date and frankly it concerns me that they aren’t doing a broader spectrum test. If they continue to use the same people that currently test the Necromancer we have no real hope of this being viable because they obviously think Necro is ok today. I wish they would do a much better job at communicating their progress on specializations because it is a core part of their expansion and were in lieu of new races people were very much expecting.

I fully expect BWEs to come soon. According to their twitter, they are currently recording voices, which is usually done towards the end of a game’s development cycle.
We will likely get more information about it at GamesCom next week. I’d be surprised if we didn’t.

Dadnir.5038:

Sigmoid.7082:

The greatsword is designed to be the second slowest weapon in game.

Just FTFY

reaper GS: 2 and 1/2 s
guardian hammer : 2 and 1/4 s
ranger GS : 1 and 3/4 s
warrior hammer : 1 and 1/2 s
guardian GS : 1 and 1/2 s
warrior GS : 1 and 1/2 s

On the paper it’s the slowest…

It’s like you have never heard of after cast. Go into the wiki and k to any #1.1 skill and it tells you how long the entire chain takes for the full chain.

Warrior , guardian and tsnget GS all take around 2.5s for the full auto chain. Warrior hammer is 2.75s and guardian hammer is 3.7s.
You can’t just add up the cast times for the abilities. By your notion dagger auto should only take 1/4s butbwr all know the full chain is 2.1s long, staff auto should be 3/4s but it actually takes 1.4s to cast, same as life blast.

@Anchouku
I can guarantee if you could take GS and still have death shroud most people would do that. Reason staff is taken is mainly because axe, the mid range power option, sucks and we have no other long range alternative. It is mainly a utility weapon because after the last 3 marks it does no damage at all and the auto is bad, better of dropping I to shroud and using its higher weapon power for better damage ( another one o the reasons it’s taken). It doesn’t need better range its meant as a melee cleave weapon with better cleave and area denial than dagger, which it has. It’s GS and reaper shroud are better in any situation where you have more than 2 targets ( the dagger cap). We just need axe to not suck so we have a decent option for that non melee physical damage but that’s not happening anytime soon…

@Zenith
Besides there being mainly 4 of 5 traits for reaper that are good for pve everything you mentioned in your post isn’t reaper specific. It’s just necro in general that suffers from all of those issues. No matter how great reaper will be unless base necro specs get some love it will always be hindered, even if it is better than base in a lot of pve situations.

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

Thank you,for saving me all the trouble to write it up.
Basically,by the name Reaper,you expect somthing to be like juggernaut which ppl should focus down it first,but by the looks of it,mesmers and warriors are more to be feared in every scenario not to mention thieves got nerf bat up to thier raktum that from assassin archtype they are bandits

Sigmoid.7082:

@Zenith
Besides there being mainly 4 of 5 traits for reaper that are good for pve everything you mentioned in your post isn’t reaper specific. It’s just necro in general that suffers from all of those issues. No matter how great reaper will be unless base necro specs get some love it will always be hindered, even if it is better than base in a lot of pve situations.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper

Adept options:

Chilling Nova, a marginal trait as the tooltip damage of the explosion is 103, and our access to blind from weapons is pitifully small anyways. Very low uptime on the effect.

Augury of Death is useless by proportion that shouts are useless in PvE. Relentless Pursuit is bad in PvE, always.

MINORS:

Shivers of Dread: Useless. You never want to fear mobs in PvE as it spreads them instead of keeping them in a cluster for your group to cleave down in melee.

Cold Shoulder: Crap. 20% duration increase when most chills we apply are 4 seconds or less, and our access to chills is not only fairly limited but suffers longish cooldowns.

MASTER:

Decimate Defenses is our only option. Easy trait to overcap though as with full ascended Berserker/Assassins you’re looking at 57-60% crit chance base, without 20% from fury.

Converting Decimate Defenses to 1% increased critical chance and 1% increased critical damage would lessen the overcapping issue.

All other options are garbage. Chilling Force is useless with current might stacking from warriors or eles which are a group staple as they alone can passively cap might for the group.

Soul Eater, like most of our life leech options, are terrible with their pitifully low values. The recharge requires multiple foes to take advantage of, useless in a boss fight when only one mob is hit.

GRANDMASTER:

Deathly Chill is terrible. 294 tick tooltip, on foes at or below 50%, 197 otherwise. That’s just bad considering the frequency in which we apply chill and the cooldown of our chill application skills.

Blighter’s Boon is pretty bad. Nothing much to see here. In PvE you won’t be lacking for life force. The health gain per boon is marginal.

That leaves us with Reaper’s Onslaught, which banks on the question of whether Reaper Shroud is more DPS than GS auto+grave digger, factoring a 15% attack speed into RS.

This is even made worse by the negligence of the dev team when things like signet passives don’t work in death shroud, so you’re not getting the extra power from the signet while in Reaper Shroud.

So, there you go. 3 traits that are possibly useful for PvE, and one or two of them in mediocre fashion.

Robert Gee designs with pvp in mind, period.

Chilling nova works out as another necrotic bites worth of damage at its max potential. Also will allow you to tag more mobs in events.
The shout trait sucks but it makes the heal one of the fastest heals for us, shame the other shouts suck atm
Decimate defenses is good because you will reach 100% crit without death perc, also outside of shroud and lets you take something else like dhuumfire.
Onslaught makes the RS auto around as fast as dagger auto, it would be higher dps than GD spam.
Chilling Force may also see use but unlikely since decimate just overshadows but it will allow you to almost instantly hit max might in any given fight. Also makes you more self sufficient.

The rest are very pvp orientated unless pve,mob ai and the content changes/improves vastly. Its why i said 4 or 5. Not particularly locked to just 5man dungeon/fractal content for their usefulness.

ODB.6891:

They have not even attempted to fix the conflict with our class mechanic and the other half of our skills…the utility bar. Its like expecting a guardian to be anywhere near their current viability without their utilities. Imagine a guardian unable to use wall of reflection at a moment’s notice. Utilities definitely do matter. The shouts definitely do matter. Contribution to your team definitely does matter. They are expecting us to play half a profession at a time, while every other profession has access to all of their skills at all times. It would be different if RS had so much utility that we had no need for utilities…but we know that is not the case.

Arguably, having a second health bar you can pull out is better than any utility skill.

The Necro may have a lot of problems (though seriously, they aren’t as bad as everyone here makes them out to be), but I don’t think Utility access while in Death Shroud should be a priority. I would rather Death Shroud be sufficiently kitten on its own or improve access to Life Force than have it as basically just a third weapon swap.

Eneldiar.9670:

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

1. I always thought necro was pretty survival thanks to the massive health/DS life pool as well as some tools it had. I will not that I rarely do PvP and WvW on necro so I’m coming at it from a PvE aspect, but the high health and standard dodging do well in PvE.

2. They do have spectral pull, but I do agree that it would be hard to catch somebody already at range without that. You can chill them if you pull them in, but using a utility slot for that may not be worth it depending on the situation, so I would agree with you here.

3. This —> much truth.

4. Not necessarily. If your other weapon has chill you can generate it that way and RS 3 and 5 can chill with the right traits. With another trait, you spread chill on each crit. So yes, GS reaper doesn’t have tons of chill potential without aid other than that final AA strike but it’s still there for the reaper in some areas.

6. This —> more than much truth

8. I think the traits have good synergy with vulnerability/chill/crit chance and things like that with some of the other trait lines. Not sure yet whether that’ll be enough to make Reaper viable, but I have some hope.

Although I feel you’re looking at in from a WvW or PvP perspective and I’m thinking PvE. Those are two totally different worlds that require different builds. Like I said, without playing more WvW on my necro, I couldn’t begin to say what it does and doesn’t need for it to function in WvW.

I just want to make a quick response to your points from my perspective with a WvW/PvP focus, as I do not have much of any experience in PvE. So I respect your thoughts in that regard.

1) Necro CAN tank a bit, but it strongly depends on your build(naturally) and is your only option when getting focused regardless. Necros don’t make effective tanks, they are more like forced skill sponges.

2) Spectral pull is really too slow and at least in my experience, is incredibly inconsistent. The only use I’ve found for it, is pulling people out of a group if they don’t see you. Not as useful as other utilities at all.

3) When it is released I’ll make an opinion of it, still too early. Will probably be nerfed pre, then post release anyway.

Those are the only points I wanted to make note of. Necro is a lot of fun in WvW and PvP though, you should give it a run.

borrok.9267:

2) Spectral pull is really too slow and at least in my experience, is incredibly inconsistent. The only use I’ve found for it, is pulling people out of a group if they don’t see you. Not as useful as other utilities at all.

It’s pretty good in WvW for catching fleeing enemies or enemies perched on top of towers. It’s certainly one of the more situational Necro utilities, to be sure.

Blaine Tog.8304:

borrok.9267:

2) Spectral pull is really too slow and at least in my experience, is incredibly inconsistent. The only use I’ve found for it, is pulling people out of a group if they don’t see you. Not as useful as other utilities at all.

It’s pretty good in WvW for catching fleeing enemies or enemies perched on top of towers. It’s certainly one of the more situational Necro utilities, to be sure.

I’ve used it for that as well, but I disengaged to put it on my bar to pull, and would take it back off after the kill.

I think I estimate Reaper rather well. Bad utilities are inexcusably bad. GS relies on the part of horror movies where the characters forget to use their brains. Chill is being nerfed constantly, making Reaper’s core mechanic weak. Reaper cannot approach or escape, but Reaper is a melee oriented spec. Condition Reaper relies on Condition Necro being improved and Power Reaper relies on Axe/Focus being improved, both of which Anet has claimed don’t need improvements. The core design behind Reaper is making Necromancer PvE viable.
Final Verdict: Farming Machine