Guild Wars 2

I had a build set aside for a MM reaper (reaper for use of Rise), but was waiting till the patch to put it into play in case they nerfed minions in a major way, and they did indeed nerf Rise.

“Rise!”: Reduced the damage reduction from 50% to 33%. Decreased the health of shambling horrors by 25%. Minions now have 20% reduced toughness.

I’m assuming here that when it says ‘minions now have 20% reduced toughness’, they mean specifically the shambling horrors again, otherwise that would have been in general for the class notes, rather than under Rise.

The build I had in mind is visible here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6khGopGstGwbTgDHsMNYTtsLQFQaAUACAxfwTYLE-TRSDQBRS9nSqEUenAgbs/gDOCA3RfDGV+dsHAAAOEAAA-e

Obviously Rise is the only thing affected, but it was going to be the main source of keeping up the sheer volume of minions – and the only reason for having the reaper spec over a different one. Bearing in mind this is for PvE only, do you think this would still be viable, or at least pack a punch, despite the nerf to Rise? Thanks!

I don’t see the Rise and other minion nerfs as being a huge deal, but I don’t raid. I guess I will find out soon enough how badly this hurts me in fractals and world PvE. I do wish they would have slightly reduced the cooldown on Rise though with the damage reduction nerf. I wield an axe/dagger and GS with my power MM build, so hopefully the improvements to axe will offset the nerfs to minions.

I couldn’t live without the trait in BM for increased speed while wielding a dagger.

I prefer the ranged fiend instead of the shadow fiend, and the flesh golem for the bar break instead of lich (cooldown on lich too long for me in most situations). YMMV

I would use berserker gear with that build since it is a power build – will be interesting to see how squishy it is now. Previously I have felt plenty tanky using berserker.

I don’t really raid either, I’m mainly concerned with HoT maps and general open world.

I did have the bone fiend originally rather than shadow fiend, but I found/heard that it had a problem of dying more often, because it’s a bit squishier and because it keeps out of range of the marks of blood that are used to keep the minions alive – and generating a vast amount of minions was kind of the key idea of the build. Which was also the point of the lich form elite, since it has that jagged horror skill – but I take your point about the bar break for the golem, I may switch that in…

I guess I’m mainly wondering if reaper is worth it for this particular build anymore when it was only there for Rise, and Rise just got stomped.

As I just posted in another thread, I am not feeling any difference before and after the update. I am still very difficult to kill and can still kill my enemies in a reasonable amount of time. But I have only played for about an hour.

minions still take 90% reduced damage from pve enemies so it looks like the toughness change was primarily so that minions die faster in pvp. While i dont run minions in pvp, it would look like rise for survivability got double nerfed with the damage mitigation reduction and the survivability of the minions nerfed.

but hey, changes to dagger and axe, yay???

After playing several hours tonight in both open world PvE and fractals I honestly can’t tell much of a difference. Rise is still good when you have Blood Magic (Vampiric) and Death Magic (toughness per minion, condi transfer, poison explosion on death). However, I am curious about how the minion nerfs feel in a Viper Horror condi build (Curses/DM/Reaper), where you don’t have Blood Magic, since I have been gathering gear to switch to that build for higher fractals.

Red Rover.9810:

After playing several hours tonight in both open world PvE and fractals I honestly can’t tell much of a difference. Rise is still good when you have Blood Magic (Vampiric) and Death Magic (toughness per minion, condi transfer, poison explosion on death). However, I am curious about how the minion nerfs feel in a Viper Horror condi build (Curses/DM/Reaper), where you don’t have Blood Magic, since I have been gathering gear to switch to that build for higher fractals.

I am playing a Viper Horror condi build, and after doing my general flax/chest gathering in VB and TD, my daily TA solo, as well as playing through the first chapter of LWS3 and doing map completion in Bloodstone Fen, all of which took about, say, 5 hours of being hip-deep in mobs…

I can’t tell any difference at all, and I am someone who relies on pets/minions a lot to soak damage while the conditions to their thing. I’ve no idea if/how this nerf will affect raids, as I don’t raid, but my general impression so far is “there was a nerf?”.

Minion master was a viable build before HoT dropped, and the preferred OW build. Rise only added to this. No nerf on Rise is gonna change this fact.

It also should be mentioned that Reaper is still good even without using Rise, mainly for the shroud. Even if you don’t take Soul Reaping, reaper shroud is still up a reasonable amount of time (usually whenever it is really needed). With dagger mainhand like in your posted build you will have good lifeforce generation to fuel your shrouds. In my case, I prefer axe/dagger for ranged attacks, running around the map and ok-ish lifeforce generation, then switch to GS right before popping shroud and when shroud is over spam Gravedigger as the mob (e.g., a veteran or champion) is usually less than half health by that time. Works really well.

Hey guys, would you suggest zerker or sinister/viper gear for the build OP posted? I use the same thing, except I run Staff/Gs with it.

outside of pvp MM is still very much viable due to the 90% reduced damage on minions, this nerf was purely a pvp nerf and its kittened up the ability to have a reaper MM

The mm reaper is still viable in pvp I’ve been running this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmWD7khGotGspGwbTg9GsMNYSDgCQAYqldBqAxfwTYLE-TpRHABEcBAG4BAgUZgAOIAAcEAgf/BA and even after the patch it still gets the job done.

Astalakio.2534:

I had a build set aside for a MM reaper (reaper for use of Rise), but was waiting till the patch to put it into play in case they nerfed minions in a major way, and they did indeed nerf Rise.

“Rise!”: Reduced the damage reduction from 50% to 33%. Decreased the health of shambling horrors by 25%. Minions now have 20% reduced toughness.

I’m assuming here that when it says ‘minions now have 20% reduced toughness’, they mean specifically the shambling horrors again, otherwise that would have been in general for the class notes, rather than under Rise.

The build I had in mind is visible here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6khGopGstGwbTgDHsMNYTtsLQFQaAUACAxfwTYLE-TRSDQBRS9nSqEUenAgbs/gDOCA3RfDGV+dsHAAAOEAAA-e

Obviously Rise is the only thing affected, but it was going to be the main source of keeping up the sheer volume of minions – and the only reason for having the reaper spec over a different one. Bearing in mind this is for PvE only, do you think this would still be viable, or at least pack a punch, despite the nerf to Rise? Thanks!

Just use Spite or Curse(depending on build)/Blood/Death. This making my necro an evil MM with a lot of damage and survivability. I honestly never used Rise outside of PvP and I never had any problems.

allire.3984:

Hey guys, would you suggest zerker or sinister/viper gear for the build OP posted? I use the same thing, except I run Staff/Gs with it.

Condi build is better atm.