Guild Wars 2

reaper looked insanely strong on stream just now, the only concern i had was the life force regen of gs, it was really bad.

Jekkt.6045:

reaper looked insanely strong on stream just now, the only concern i had was the life force regen of gs, it was really bad.

He practically ran away the whole time.

nontheless he never died a single time and killed plenty of enemies. jebro is not a necro main so i didnt expect him to do that well.

the only problem i really see right now is the greatsword, looks cool and all but the cooldowns are way too long and the life force regen is 3rd class at most.

dagger > gs for now

Looks like they’re pushing GS into the cleave weapon where Soul Eating (hitting multiple targets) will be important for cooldowns, kiiind of like shouts + augury?

Gravedigger was at 5 targets hit.

I think you’re all ignoring that Rise has been changed to a 1s cast from 1.5. Necro has been saved.

was rise ever considered viable? not as far is i know.

IT IS NOW, OK? >:|

Jekkt.6045:

nontheless he never died a single time and killed plenty of enemies. jebro is not a necro main so i didnt expect him to do that well.

the only problem i really see right now is the greatsword, looks cool and all but the cooldowns are way too long and the life force regen is 3rd class at most.

dagger > gs for now

Strong delusions. I’m watching the cast now and he died early in the match.

Jekkt.6045:

was rise ever considered viable? not as far is i know.

5 jagged horrors + death nova seems worth trying imo.

Didn’t see any particularly impressive reaper performances, though I must say what I saw is pretty much in line with what I would expect, taking the lack of experience of players into consideration.

The downed player cleave seems really impressive, and it might be a really useful role for the reaper to fulfill. From what we saw all the players were struggling versus mediguardian, but this is to be expected – the heavy blocks and blinds are a perfect counter for the reaper and its slow attacks. I would expect dagger to do better against them than GS.

I dont underestimate it, i think we actually know this will be a decent class for pve, but a crap class for pvp. slow attacks, large cooldowns, slow skills, slow movement, limited gap closer, no ranged attacks, no reflects, no defense outside of ds. nothing will change, and we will either get kited into oblivion, and even if they stand in our attack zone, the greatsword is so freakin slow that it wont ever hit anyone.

well, what can you say, garbage in, garbage out. you put garbage into the game, and you get garbage back as a response. good job anet, once again.

3 years of mediocracy in this class … done.

not really, you’re not forced to use greatsword, daggers are still just as good. shroud attacks are very fast and reaper has a crazy good mobility with shroud 2 beating ele in sustained mobility by far.

the healing and selfsustain also looks very good and the sustained damage seems to be crazy with some strong burst damage on top of it.

You could see where this was headed just from looking at the poi.

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. No melee survival tools == reaper shroud just melts.

2. I expected fighting kiter to be bad, but GS5 is worse mechanically than I could have imagined. RS2 is also bad as a chase down tool (it’s ok as an escape)

3. Poor life force generation confirmed.

4. There was not nearly enough chill on the reaper to justify the chill traits. Plus chill isn’t very strong against anybody but elementalist and even they just got elite skill to remove chill cool down.

5. Reaper damage too low. But, again, slow melee highly telegraphed glass cannon needs to be godly for damage.

6. Please fix axe and focus. Staff can’t do everything and it shouldn’t be trying to do everything. Axe: more damage on all skills, blast on 3. Focus: less cast time less cool down on 4, less cast time, no bonus damage, less cool down, and boon rips corrupt on 5.

7. Shouts just have numbers issues. Right now they are weak, but they could be ok.

8. The traits are still weak and boring

9. Right now, the reaper has to be carried by teammates in team fights, but doesn’t help the teammates back. Not a good situation.

Since they nerfed the chill that was supposed to help keep reaper in range…. they should increase the range of some of the gs and maybe even rs attacks.

“We recognize that this change really hurts Necromancers and are looking into ways to compensate them.”

Compensation: reduced Chill uptime from initial preview by a massive amount. Increased pull recharge from preview.

nekretaal.6485:

2. I expected fighting kiter to be bad, but GS5 is worse mechanically than I could have imagined. RS2 is also bad as a chase down tool (it’s ok as an escape)

RS2 sucks as escape. speed is like you’re chilled/crippled, and distance is small for charge skill

NeXeD.3042:

Since they nerfed the chill that was supposed to help keep reaper in range…. they should increase the range of some of the gs and maybe even rs attacks.

Agreed, increase range and cone of attack to make up for lower singe-target dps. Then increase attack speeds to make it more viable in PvP.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

“We recognize that this change really hurts Necromancers and are looking into ways to compensate them.”

Compensation: reduced Chill uptime from initial preview by a massive amount. Increased pull recharge from preview.

While hilarious, those changes happened on June 23rd, and we know the beta we played on was locked at least a month before it went out, which means there was only a week or two at most to adjust for the chill changes. That just isn’t enough time.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

“We recognize that this change really hurts Necromancers and are looking into ways to compensate them.”

Compensation: reduced Chill uptime from initial preview by a massive amount. Increased pull recharge from preview.

While hilarious, those changes happened on June 23rd, and we know the beta we played on was locked at least a month before it went out, which means there was only a week or two at most to adjust for the chill changes. That just isn’t enough time.

This.

One of the big disclaimer notes was that the beta build we played was a pretty old one. Because they have to make sure that the build we test is one that is stable.

I’m tired of the “injustice” that necro’s face in certain aspects of the game as well. But we need to stay civil and honest.

In the end I enjoyed reaper a lot, and I’ll play the heck out of it no doubt. IMO the new reaper shroud is one of the most fluent and fun aspects the necro will have post-HoT. And the RS and GS have some of the best animations in the game, which is really awesome.

I think too many people hoped that reaper would be “our salvation” and are disappointed it’s just another (slightly above) average necro aspect.
On one hand that disappoints me as well; on the other, I would be quite annoyed if we had like 1 extremely strong aspect and the rest of the kit remained weak. If they can bring the rest of the kit up to the level of our best necro tools; and then apply a 20-30% global buff (seeing as we’re like 50% behind a lot of other professions at the moment), it would be better than reaper/GS being just super amaze-balls.

Oh, I know that the build we played on was an old one, I just have to laugh about it. Hopefully, these “compensations” will be addressed for the next BWE.

Bare minimum, the longer cooldown on Grasp of Darkness could have easily been reverted in time for the first beta, since it is just one number and not a functionality change.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Oh, I know that the build we played on was an old one, I just have to laugh about it. Hopefully, these “compensations” will be addressed for the next BWE.

Bare minimum, the longer cooldown on Grasp of Darkness could have easily been reverted in time for the first beta, since it is just one number and not a functionality change.

One of my friends who seems to be really good at knowing what goes on behind the doors (no clue how, but he’s always right) says Gee has been listening to feedback and already made great adjustments to Mesmer. I’m confident that I and many others have made great feedback, and we’ve got at least two forum dudes (Rising Dusk and that other guy I forgot the name of) who have been submitting great feedback on our behalf, so I’d say we’re in a very good spot to get changes. Gee seems to be the most willing to implement new ideas in response to feedback, and we have given him a lot to work with.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Oh, I know that the build we played on was an old one, I just have to laugh about it. Hopefully, these “compensations” will be addressed for the next BWE.

Bare minimum, the longer cooldown on Grasp of Darkness could have easily been reverted in time for the first beta, since it is just one number and not a functionality change.

One of my friends who seems to be really good at knowing what goes on behind the doors (no clue how, but he’s always right) says Gee has been listening to feedback and already made great adjustments to Mesmer. I’m confident that I and many others have made great feedback, and we’ve got at least two forum dudes (Rising Dusk and that other guy I forgot the name of) who have been submitting great feedback on our behalf, so I’d say we’re in a very good spot to get changes. Gee seems to be the most willing to implement new ideas in response to feedback, and we have given him a lot to work with.

Sounds too good to be true, but you are not exactly known for lying so I’ll take your word for it. Even if not all the changes we wanted are getting implemented I’m sure we will have time to give feedback on that during other beta weekends.

I have no clue what is going on for Necromancer, only that someone I know is extremely happy with how Robert Gee is responding to Chronomancer feedback and the changes he’s seen.

Bhawb.7408:

I have no clue what is going on for Necromancer, only that someone I know is extremely happy with how Robert Gee is responding to Chronomancer feedback and the changes he’s seen.

I was considering the fact that there is a posibility for our feedback to have parts of it be implemented to be “almost too good to be true”. In all seriousness though, the fact that they did something with Revenant made me hope that something could be done for Necro, but it could have been because that the profession was new. But when you said (indirectly) that the Mesmers has their feedback listened to I thought that the same thing probably was going to happen to us.

Arche.7326:

Bhawb.7408:

I have no clue what is going on for Necromancer, only that someone I know is extremely happy with how Robert Gee is responding to Chronomancer feedback and the changes he’s seen.

I was considering the fact that there is a posibility for our feedback to have parts of it be implemented to be “almost too good to be true”. In all seriousness though, the fact that they did something with Revenant made me hope that something could be done for Necro, but it could have been because that the profession was new. But when you said (indirectly) that the Mesmers has their feedback listened to I thought that the same thing probably was going to happen to us.

yes we will get our turn we finally have a dev who cares for the class

Hey, now, let’s not be totally negative. Beta weekend has given a lot of great feedback. There should be changes based on how players generally feel.

Arenanet likes to be cautious on adjustments and will probably creep up on a satisfying balance rather than turning the amp up to eleven and making Necromancer better than Elementalist.

How do you think Ele mains feel? It’s like they wanted our peanut butter and got more chocolate, instead.

Anchoku.8142:

Hey, now, let’s not be totally negative. Beta weekend has given a lot of great feedback. There should be changes based on how players generally feel.

Arenanet likes to be cautious on adjustments and will probably creep up on a satisfying balance rather than turning the amp up to eleven and making Necromancer better than Elementalist.

How do you think Ele mains feel? It’s like they wanted our peanut butter and got more chocolate, instead.

They have indeed been given alot of great feedback, especialy from the Necros, when I counted we had more feedback than the rest combined (Measured in text. I blame you Bhawb). I’m more worried about that the other classes will experience power creep during our creep to power than I am about their ability to make use of our feedback.

Also, who would want peanut butter instead of chocolate?

Anchoku.8142:

Arenanet likes to be cautious on adjustments and will probably creep up on a satisfying balance rather than turning the amp up to eleven and making Necromancer better than Elementalist.

They must be playing the slow game to the extremes then.
Because we’ve been down here for 3 years now and we’ve yet to pull along other classes; let alone outshine them for once.

Well we were pretty good back when they first introduced dumbfire, but IMO we never should have been given fire anyways. Chill was and still is what should be our staple ability as it chimes much better with the whole death theme.

Dumbfire gave us one good build at the time, and because it was good they nuked it from orbit and made many of our other abilities garbage; I’m looking at you reduced terror damage.

I for one will be quite pleased if Robert can put us on even ground with the other classes in all game modes. Not just in WvW zergs where we are actually wanted.

edit: fixed an error in my post.

Nyth.3492:

Anchoku.8142:

Arenanet likes to be cautious on adjustments and will probably creep up on a satisfying balance rather than turning the amp up to eleven and making Necromancer better than Elementalist.

They must be playing the slow game to the extremes then.
Because we’ve been down here for 3 years now and we’ve yet to pull along other classes; let alone outshine them for once.

Necromancer has a lot of strength on paper but there are two problems. One is perception: soft CC does not show up to other players as attributable to the Necro. The other is a real lack of team utility: Necro cannot buff group members very well. This lack of visible cooperative support kills interest in the profession.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Well we were pretty good back when they first introduced dumbfire, but IMO we never should have been given fire anyways. Chill was and still is what should be our staple ability as it chimes much better with the whole death theme.

Dumbfire gave us one good build at the time, and because it was good they nuked it from orbit and made many of our other abilities garbage; I’m looking at you reduced fear duration.

I for one will be quite pleased if Robert can put us on even ground with the other classes in all game modes. Not just in WvW zergs where we are actually wanted.

Wait.. Our fear duration used to be longer? O.o

Vydahr.4285:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Well we were pretty good back when they first introduced dumbfire, but IMO we never should have been given fire anyways. Chill was and still is what should be our staple ability as it chimes much better with the whole death theme.

Dumbfire gave us one good build at the time, and because it was good they nuked it from orbit and made many of our other abilities garbage; I’m looking at you reduced fear duration.

I for one will be quite pleased if Robert can put us on even ground with the other classes in all game modes. Not just in WvW zergs where we are actually wanted.

Wait.. Our fear duration used to be longer? O.o

No, it wasn’t. It actually got increased in the Dhuumfire patch (Doom used to be 1 second no matter the range). Fear duration on Necro has never been reduced since launch.

Terror, however, did receive a 17% damage nerf.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Vydahr.4285:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Well we were pretty good back when they first introduced dumbfire, but IMO we never should have been given fire anyways. Chill was and still is what should be our staple ability as it chimes much better with the whole death theme.

Dumbfire gave us one good build at the time, and because it was good they nuked it from orbit and made many of our other abilities garbage; I’m looking at you reduced fear duration.

I for one will be quite pleased if Robert can put us on even ground with the other classes in all game modes. Not just in WvW zergs where we are actually wanted.

Wait.. Our fear duration used to be longer? O.o

No, it wasn’t. It actually got increased in the Dhuumfire patch (Doom used to be 1 second no matter the range). Fear duration on Necro has never been reduced since launch.

Terror, however, did receive a 17% damage nerf.

Thanks, I was looking for the actual patch notes, and you are correct. Terror was what was nuked, sorry for the error.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Well we were pretty good back when they first introduced dumbfire, but IMO we never should have been given fire anyways. Chill was and still is what should be our staple ability as it chimes much better with the whole death theme.

Dumbfire gave us one good build at the time, and because it was good they nuked it from orbit and made many of our other abilities garbage; I’m looking at you reduced terror damage.

I for one will be quite pleased if Robert can put us on even ground with the other classes in all game modes. Not just in WvW zergs where we are actually wanted.

edit: fixed an error in my post.

you should have realized by now that they don’t want Necro to be strong. they removed bleed stack from pvp, and then they said they don’t like splitting skills from pvp and pve and so they removed bleed stack from pve too. instead of giving back the bleed stack on pvp they removed from pve. hahahahaha

Dakunaito.9602:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Well we were pretty good back when they first introduced dumbfire, but IMO we never should have been given fire anyways. Chill was and still is what should be our staple ability as it chimes much better with the whole death theme.

Dumbfire gave us one good build at the time, and because it was good they nuked it from orbit and made many of our other abilities garbage; I’m looking at you reduced terror damage.

I for one will be quite pleased if Robert can put us on even ground with the other classes in all game modes. Not just in WvW zergs where we are actually wanted.

edit: fixed an error in my post.

you should have realized by now that they don’t want Necro to be strong. they removed bleed stack from pvp, and then they said they don’t like splitting skills from pvp and pve and so they removed bleed stack from pve too. instead of giving back the bleed stack on pvp they removed from pve. hahahahaha

kitten did I just read

Necro was only ever strong in closed beta before release, just as Ranger was.

They both got nerfed to hell and never recovered.

You guys have to realize a lot of the necromancer’s role is to just slow down and damage as much enemies as possible. Hold a point because you’re ripping someone boons, using death shroud to avoid large amounts of damage while still whittling the target down further, and a most of the time in a 1v1 a good necromancer and will win.

It requires a 2v1, and a lot of strong moves (entangle, hammer stuns from warrior) to keep a non-reaper focused.

To keep a reaper focused, you just need to treat it as an Elite utility, and just focus the necro as fast as possible, and knock him down right when he turns into reaper so he cant put on stability… Boom, no more survival, interrupt his heal, he’s dead.

The reaper needs a little more base survivability before it’ll be completely viable in competitive pvp, skill 1 needs to be faster, skill 2 needs to be a “charge” or “flee” ability with better targeting and longer range. #3 is ok, maybe add on a stunbreak? it’s already pretty strong. #4 is perfect and the poison stacks + bleed on crit make for good condi burst #5 maybe a little bit faster and stronger damage, especially with only a small stun and chill