Guild Wars 2

Using references from the reddit thread, I’ve come up with the final set of tooltip damage and DPS times for each of the attacks. Getting the numbers themselves was easy: it was my previous numbers X 916/1000. The tooltip values on the wiki were never updated to reflect change in power. Thankfully this is an easy fix.

Greatsword Auto Attack: 314, 351, 407 with 1.5 seconds of chill. All hit 3 targets. Total animation time is 3 seconds.
Gravedigger: 739, 5 second recharge, 80% recharge reduction with effect. 5 targets, x3 whirl finisher. Animation time: 1.7 seconds.
Death Spiral: 335. 12 second recharge, 12 × 10 stacks of vulnerability, 2% life force per hit, 3 targets. Life force scales. Animation time: 1.4 seconds.
Nightfall: 258 per pulse, 25 second recharge. Cripple and blind per pulse, 2 seconds between pulses, Dark Field, 5 targets. Total animation time: 1.5 seconds.
Grasping Darkness: 369. 30 second recharge, 3 × 4 poison, 4% life force per hit. 5 targets. Total animation time: 1.03

Reaper’s Shroud Auto: 225, 225, 451. 1% life force on the final hit. 3 targets. Total animation time: 2.4 seconds.
Death’s Charge: 376, 5 targets, 6 second cooldown, 3 second blind on land. Total animation time: 1.4 seconds
Infusing Terror: 1 second of fear, 20 second cooldown. Gives 8 × 3 stacks of stability over the course of 8 seconds. No animation time.
Soul Spiral: 1038, 11 × 4 poison, 40 second recharge. Countless whirl finishers. Total animation time: 3 seconds
Executioner’s Scythe: 563 above 50%, 752 between 25% and 50%, 940 below 25%. Creates an ice field which chills for 1 second per pulse and persists for 5 seconds. Stuns for 1.5 seconds. 30 second recharge. Total animation time: 1.9 seconds.

Now, for comparison, here is the tooltip DPS of each skill when compared to the dagger auto attack.

Dagger Auto DPS: 447

Greatsword Auto DPS: 357
Gravedigger DPS: 435
Gravedigger spam DPS: 390
Death Spiral DPS: 239
Nightfall DPS: 688 (note: per activation animation time. Actual field duration is 6 seconds)
Grasping Darkness DPS: 358

Reaper Shroud Auto DPS: 375
Death’s Charge DPS: 269
Infusing Terror: Does no damage
Soul Spiral DPS: 346
Executioner’s Scythe DPS: 296, 396, 495

Dagger Suggestions:
#1: Make the life force generation of the auto attack scale with how many targets get hit. Resist the stupid urge to reduce the amount of LF gained per hit.
#2: Increase the damage and healing of life siphon by 40%, decrease the channel time from 3.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
#3: Decrease the animation time of dark pact from 1 second to 0.75 seconds.

Continued in part 2

Greatsword Suggestions:
#1: Increase the damage of each hit of the greatsword by 25%. Increase the chill duration from 1.5 seconds base to 2 seconds base on the final hit.
#2: Increase the damage of Gravedigger by 25%. Increase the recharge reduction to 100%
#3: Increase the damage of Death Spiral by 25%
#4: Decrease the animation time of Nightfall from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. Change the radius to 300" for each hit instead of the final hit.
#5: Make grasping targets go in the direction that your character is facing, and not in the direction that the camera is facing.

Reaper Shroud Suggestions (NOTE: These changes are all assuming that Reaper’s Onslaught is fixed in the future. Reaper’s Onslaught increases the DPS by 15%).
#1: Death’s Charge should stop at your targets location, like every other leap in the game.
#2: Reduce the animation time of soul Spiral to 2 seconds.
#3: Increase the damage of Executioner’s Scythe by 15% at each tier.

Trait Suggestions:
#1: Augury of Death should have a 20% recharge reduction with 3% additional recharge per foe hit.
#2: Chilling Nova: Reduce the cooldown to 10 seconds.
#3: Increase the recharge reduction of Soul Eater from 3% to 5% per foe hit.
#4: Massively increase the scaling of Chill of Death. Currently at level 80 the condition damage is 97 + 0.08 condition damage, which is multiplied by 1.5 above the threshold. Increase the base damage to 131.5, the scaling to 0.155 condition damage. Retain the same 1.5 multiplier below 50%.
#5: Swap the position of Soul Eater and Reaper’s Onslaught.

Shout Changes:
#1: Double the Damage of every shout except “Suffer!” and “Chilled to the bone!”
#2: Change “Your Soul is Mine!”, so that it gains 8% life force + 2% per foe struck
#3: Have “You are all Weakling!” grant 8 stacks of might + 2 for each target hit.
#4: Have “Nothing can save you!” grant 8 seconds of unblockable + 2 for each target hit.
#5: Increase the damage of “Suffer!” by 33%
#6: Increase the Damage of “Chilled to the Bone!” by 33%, and reduce the cast time to 1.3 second.
#7: Reduce the recharge of “Rise!” to 30 seconds.

Explanation for Greatsword Changes: While these numbers may be powerful, the fact is the weapon is still really slow. Completing a full auto attack chain is hard, even in PVE, and the long animations means you’ll often be self interrupting before you can complete an attack. These make the greatsword weaker than they appear to be numerically, and because of this I have given the greatsword higher DPS than the dagger’s auto attack. Pretty much every skill change can be summed up as “increase damage”.

Explanation for Dagger Changes: The dagger still needs an update. I don’t know why the auto doesn’t scale life force generation with targets, and that is something that needs to change. While the greatsword becomes an offensive but unreliable weapon, the dagger becomes a defensive but reliable weapon. And such, I increased the reliability and also increased the effectiveness of the long-underpowered Life Siphon.

Continued in Part 3

Explanation for Reaper Shroud Changes: Reaper’s Shroud is mostly fine. My main concern currently is that Soul Spiral will be OP correct timings + onslaught (596 tooltip DPS). It will become a massive DPS boost, higher than new Gravedigger spam, and with more whirl to boot. But, I’d rather reign it in later than have it be undepowered for eternity. likewise, with the long animation of Executioner’s Strike I felt it needed a buff, too.

Explanation for Trait line Changes: The traitlines are already pretty solid. Nova was overnerfed (450% nerf), but they had a point, so I only increased the frequency by 50%. The numbers for Chill of Death were appalling, even in a full condition build. Chill is a condition that can’t be reliably stacked for long durations, and also doesn’t stack in intensity, and the effect of the trait was even less than that of a burn. So, as a baseline, I made it equivalent to burn, and 50% stronger below 50% health. Heck, it might need to be even stronger than that, given how infrequently a condi build inflicts chill in the first place.

Soul Eater is the oddball, because even with my buffs it’ll never be used. Decimate Defenses and Chilling Force are too powerful and too universal in all game modes. The paltry lifesteal and recharge for the greatsword just cannot compete. Soul Eater, were it not to have such stiff competition, would be a fine trait on its own. I contemplated moving traits around, and currently I think the best option is to swap Soul Eater with Reaper’s Onslaught, since that doesn’t break too many combos. Shroud focused build lose Chilling Force, but gain Blighter’s Boon, so it is a fair trade. Shroud builds can also take death’s perception instead of decimate defenses, letting them get their precision back. Reaper’s Onslaught is another titan of a trait, and so it can compete with the other two masteries.

Explanation of Shout Changes: When necromancers asked for utilities that scaled vs. how many targets we fought, apparently Anet heard “sucks unless scaled vs. multiple targets”. The changes I’ve made to the shouts are basically the same change I made to Augury of Death: Strong base effect, minor scaling. Overall the secondary effects are slightly less powerful against 5 targets, but that is a fair trade given the newfound reliability of the shouts.

The shouts also needed a damage boost. To compare, Ele shouts were doing 2x to 3x the damage, but with no activation time and other additional effects. The only shouts I couldn’t really give the Augury treatment to were “Suffer!” and “Rise!”, because of how their effects work, so I just gave them blanket buffs. Chilled to the Bone’s effect is strong enough that it didn’t need buffs, but the long activation time meant that the skill could never be used effectively. I also gave it a damage bonus, because the damage it currently had wasn’t justified by the long recharge of the skill.

I generally agree with these suggestions. A few points:

— Gravedigger (Greatsword 2) also needs its aftercast animation reduced. 100% reduction is useless if you end up having to hang there for a second anyway.

— Death Spiral (Greatsword 3) is pretty decent in its current state. It’s more as a LF generator and a Vulnerability applier than a nuke. If it needs a buff, it should be to one of those aspects. Leave heavy damage to the autoattack and Gravedigger spam.

— Grasping Darkness (Greatsword 5) needs a faster animation and more range. In its current state, you can dodge it by walking away. If the Reaper is going to be difficult to get away from, our grab needs to much more effective at facilitating that.

— Chill of Death: I actually think the low condition damage scaling is kinda a good thing here. Greatsword is clearly a power weapon and the Reaper in general is more for power builds than for condition damage. As such, it makes sense not to bait Conditionmancers with damaging Chills. Just give it appropriate base numbers as an extra source of damage for power/tanky Reapers and leave the scaling low.

— "You are all Weakling!”: I actually don’t see the point in increasing the number of Might stacks. Reapers already pretty much swim in free Might a few extra stacks seem like overkill. If this shout needs a buff, maybe the Weakness could be longer or you could get an extra stack of Stability or two.

— Chilled to the Bone: This could also use a lower cooldown. 120 seconds is really obscene.

Other than that, a nice list of changes.

Tooltip damage varies depending on your power. So using damage numbers like the ones on the wiki doesnt make much sense. Its best to use the coefficients. As they are always constant.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aI9lEpPZLiNVf7ibEeVzV1h_-aWWt-JEGW0suFgaewM/edit#gid=0

These are current coefficients. Id suggest tweaking your feedback to reflect coefficients. Or at least list the power you have with these tooltips.

Chilled to the Bone should be a 90 second CD.

After playing all the eSpecs during this beta Chronomancer seems to far outpace the others. Reaper seemed kind of pathetic in comparison, and that comes from a necro main that rarely plays mesmer.

I would really like to see most of the shouts have no cast time at all, or very short, no more than .5 second – Warrior, Guardian and Ranger shouts have very little or no cast times: If nothing else, at least the stun break shout should have no cast time at all.

spoj.9672:

Tooltip damage varies depending on your power. So using damage numbers like the ones on the wiki doesnt make much sense. Its best to use the coefficients. As they are always constant.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aI9lEpPZLiNVf7ibEeVzV1h_-aWWt-JEGW0suFgaewM/edit#gid=0

These are current coefficients. Id suggest tweaking your feedback to reflect coefficients. Or at least list the power you have with these tooltips.

The feedback is exactly the same. I’m comparing, under identical conditions, the tooltip damage between dagger and all other skills. Thus, the ratios between coefficients and tooltip damage are the same.

Actually, scratch that. It’s better. Coefficients don’t take into consideration weapon attack strength.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I generally agree with these suggestions. A few points:

— Gravedigger (Greatsword 2) also needs its aftercast animation reduced. 100% reduction is useless if you end up having to hang there for a second anyway.

— Death Spiral (Greatsword 3) is pretty decent in its current state. It’s more as a LF generator and a Vulnerability applier than a nuke. If it needs a buff, it should be to one of those aspects. Leave heavy damage to the autoattack and Gravedigger spam.

— Grasping Darkness (Greatsword 5) needs a faster animation and more range. In its current state, you can dodge it by walking away. If the Reaper is going to be difficult to get away from, our grab needs to much more effective at facilitating that.

— Chill of Death: I actually think the low condition damage scaling is kinda a good thing here. Greatsword is clearly a power weapon and the Reaper in general is more for power builds than for condition damage. As such, it makes sense not to bait Conditionmancers with damaging Chills. Just give it appropriate base numbers as an extra source of damage for power/tanky Reapers and leave the scaling low.

— "You are all Weakling!”: I actually don’t see the point in increasing the number of Might stacks. Reapers already pretty much swim in free Might a few extra stacks seem like overkill. If this shout needs a buff, maybe the Weakness could be longer or you could get an extra stack of Stability or two.

— Chilled to the Bone: This could also use a lower cooldown. 120 seconds is really obscene.

Other than that, a nice list of changes.

I always thought you’re all weaklings should apply slow but given that slow is useless in PvE due to not working against mobs with a breakbar, i’d be ok with quickness instead.

Increase weakness duration and grant the necromancer 6 seconds of quickness+ 1 second per target hit.

I still think cast times on shouts are just dumb and need to go away or the shouts need to do enough damage to override the damage loss of not autoattacking in the meantime.

Just swap Deathly Chill with Relentless pursuit and retool Relentless pursuit for a GM. PVE necromancers have no viable adept trait with the nerf to chilling nova.

Make deathly Chill scale with power. Reaper uses power centric weapons and is a power centric spec, condition damage scaling traits have no place in the line.

Change Cold shoulder so it also gives 10% bonus damage against targets afflicted with a condition. we need damage modifier traits.

Scrap Shivers of Dread, it’s a terrible minor and completely useless in PvE. If you really want to keep it, make it so fear stuns the target in place and chills them after it wears off. That way fear can be used in PvE.

An alternative is that you can bake in relentless pursuit into a minor and move soul eater there in its place. Quite frankly you can make it so shroud knight grants relentless pursuit, which in addition gives the necromancer 25% movement speed built in. Or merge it with shivers of dread or cold shoulder and put the 10% damage modifier against foes afflicted with a condition on the minor trait that isn’t merged with relentless pursuit.

Relentless Pursuit, Shivers of Dread, Chilling Nova, Soul Eater, and Deathly Chill are just really underbudget in PvE.

Can’t you replace Relentless Pursuit with a group utility aura granting 10% attack speed? Necromancers need group utility badly.

spoj.9672:

Tooltip damage varies depending on your power. So using damage numbers like the ones on the wiki doesnt make much sense. Its best to use the coefficients. As they are always constant.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aI9lEpPZLiNVf7ibEeVzV1h_-aWWt-JEGW0suFgaewM/edit#gid=0

These are current coefficients. Id suggest tweaking your feedback to reflect coefficients. Or at least list the power you have with these tooltips.

I still disagree with your coefficients, and actually the link of OP agrees with my values. It is a very small difference, but I don’t see the point of carrying weird numbers instead of the actual round ones.

I agree with all suggestions. RS 2 is possibly an exception. I have enjoyed it very much as a kiting tool in WvW. I don’t want it to aim at my enemy in this case. Of course, I could just “unaim” and then use the leap properly so I would not complain massively if they changed it.

Blaine Tog.8304:

— Chill of Death: I actually think the low condition damage scaling is kinda a good thing here. Greatsword is clearly a power weapon and the Reaper in general is more for power builds than for condition damage. As such, it makes sense not to bait Conditionmancers with damaging Chills. Just give it appropriate base numbers as an extra source of damage for power/tanky Reapers and leave the scaling low.

This is something I hear a lot. I cannot disagree more on this matter.

The reaper is a really solidly built line, and it actually has several things that are good for condi builds. Chilling nova with bitter chill adds vulnerability, chilling force gives much needed life force and might to condi builds, blighter’s boon also generates life force, and a correct working reaper’s onslaught combos with dhuumfire for 15% more burns. For a condi build, the combo of Terrify -> Executioner’s Scythe ->Soul Spiral with bitter chill is a deadly combination, inflicting 44 ticks of poison while capping out vulnerability.

Previously, condi necros didn’t have as much by way of life force generation or vulnerability stacking. While Dhuumfire + Reaper’s Onslaught will be a competing option (increasing burn stacks by 15%), should a condi build not want to take dhuumfire, it needs a trait that can compete. Blighter’s Boon makes for a good defensive option, but an offensive option is necessary. Enter Deathly Chill.

My scaling choice is mostly arbitrary. If I wanted to be technical, I could compare the relative uptime of chill on a condi build vs. the attack rate and burn stacking of the Dhuumfire + Onslaught combo. But, that requires a set of lengthy real-world testing that I just don’t have the resources to get. So I just set it as equivalent to a burn at base.

Problem being your condi reaper, who pays in a minor for the privilege to equip a greatsword, doesn’t even make use of it. So you’re essentially trading shrouds. It’s a weird choice because the condi necromancer is more of a midliner or sits at elevations instead of wanting to swoop into melee range on reaper shroud to take advantage of the synergies you proposed.

Zenith.7301:

Problem being your condi reaper, who pays in a minor for the privilege to equip a greatsword, doesn’t even make use of it. So you’re essentially trading shrouds. It’s a weird choice because the condi necromancer is more of a midliner or sits at elevations instead of wanting to swoop into melee range on reaper shroud to take advantage of the synergies you proposed.

The RS is enough reason to use condi. With dhuumfire, terror, poison and chill, each RS skill has a condi associated to it. Then, you probably have hybrid builds possible using sinister/rampager/carrion which could benefit from the GS.

But in any case, it’s not because you are allowed to use GS that you have to. Ideally, there should be something for everyone in every trait line. So I don’t see any reason to prevent condition reaper build to exist.

Finally, currently a condi build does not stack condi strong enough so you have to play defensively and thus stay at range. But if chill becomes a stronger condi, with fire, terror being fairly bursty, there is nothing to prevent you staying in melee range.

I think nightfall should be ground targeted and gs 5 should be a leap/charge it would be so much better.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is something I hear a lot. I cannot disagree more on this matter.

The reaper is a really solidly built line, and it actually has several things that are good for condi builds. Chilling nova with bitter chill adds vulnerability, chilling force gives much needed life force and might to condi builds, blighter’s boon also generates life force, and a correct working reaper’s onslaught combos with dhuumfire for 15% more burns. For a condi build, the combo of Terrify -> Executioner’s Scythe ->Soul Spiral with bitter chill is a deadly combination, inflicting 44 ticks of poison while capping out vulnerability.

Previously, condi necros didn’t have as much by way of life force generation or vulnerability stacking. While Dhuumfire + Reaper’s Onslaught will be a competing option (increasing burn stacks by 15%), should a condi build not want to take dhuumfire, it needs a trait that can compete. Blighter’s Boon makes for a good defensive option, but an offensive option is necessary. Enter Deathly Chill.

My scaling choice is mostly arbitrary. If I wanted to be technical, I could compare the relative uptime of chill on a condi build vs. the attack rate and burn stacking of the Dhuumfire + Onslaught combo. But, that requires a set of lengthy real-world testing that I just don’t have the resources to get. So I just set it as equivalent to a burn at base.

I dunno, man. Seems like an awful lot of swimming upstream when you could just go power and probably do better. Or stick with the standard condi application methods… or just play a condi Engineer and apply way more condition pressure for way less work. I just don’t see the point in putting in so much effort to make this condi build function.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is something I hear a lot. I cannot disagree more on this matter.

The reaper is a really solidly built line, and it actually has several things that are good for condi builds. Chilling nova with bitter chill adds vulnerability, chilling force gives much needed life force and might to condi builds, blighter’s boon also generates life force, and a correct working reaper’s onslaught combos with dhuumfire for 15% more burns. For a condi build, the combo of Terrify -> Executioner’s Scythe ->Soul Spiral with bitter chill is a deadly combination, inflicting 44 ticks of poison while capping out vulnerability.

Previously, condi necros didn’t have as much by way of life force generation or vulnerability stacking. While Dhuumfire + Reaper’s Onslaught will be a competing option (increasing burn stacks by 15%), should a condi build not want to take dhuumfire, it needs a trait that can compete. Blighter’s Boon makes for a good defensive option, but an offensive option is necessary. Enter Deathly Chill.

My scaling choice is mostly arbitrary. If I wanted to be technical, I could compare the relative uptime of chill on a condi build vs. the attack rate and burn stacking of the Dhuumfire + Onslaught combo. But, that requires a set of lengthy real-world testing that I just don’t have the resources to get. So I just set it as equivalent to a burn at base.

I dunno, man. Seems like an awful lot of swimming upstream when you could just go power and probably do better. Or stick with the standard condi application methods… or just play a condi Engineer and apply way more condition pressure for way less work. I just don’t see the point in putting in so much effort to make this condi build function.

There’s a problem with that logic. If your options are “just play an engineer”, then condi necro will never be good. No, the correct thing to do is improve condi necro, because it’ll make more people happy.

Silverkey.2078:

spoj.9672:

Tooltip damage varies depending on your power. So using damage numbers like the ones on the wiki doesnt make much sense. Its best to use the coefficients. As they are always constant.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aI9lEpPZLiNVf7ibEeVzV1h_-aWWt-JEGW0suFgaewM/edit#gid=0

These are current coefficients. Id suggest tweaking your feedback to reflect coefficients. Or at least list the power you have with these tooltips.

I still disagree with your coefficients, and actually the link of OP agrees with my values. It is a very small difference, but I don’t see the point of carrying weird numbers instead of the actual round ones.

Because you can compare skills directly without worrying about stat differences between builds/classes. Its standard theory crafting practise to use the coefficients. You can also get a rough estimation of dps by using coefficients per second. And then simply multiply that by weapon strength, power, damage mods and crit mod and divide by armour for actual dps. Its basically the the base number. So noone needs to calculate the coefficient from tool tips just to calculate damage at a different power. It skips a step.

Maybe im just being anal. But i find it a lot easier to see the damage difference when its in coefficient or coefficient per second (cps) form. I believe it also makes more sense to the devs because thats the number they actually have in their system which they change to tweak damage. (Would love to be corrected if im wrong on this)

Blaine Tog.8304:

I just don’t see the point in putting in so much effort to make this condi build function.

I love my Condi necro, but it has always felt like it was missing something. I used shroud mostly for defense and utility. I get almost nothing out of shroud offensively. Reaper shroud is an entirely different animal in that regard.

I am going to love having Reaper in WvW. I was already tough to kill because of my high health pool, but I had to turn and run at the drop of a hat. Reaper Shroud will let me deal some serious damage if somebody wants to get in my face and has some mobility too. Same goes for PvE: there are many situations where you have to fight in something’s face, even if you would prefer to be at a distance.

Is it the best build/method/whatever? Probably not, but it is fun as hell and that is what matters most to me.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There’s a problem with that logic. If your options are “just play an engineer”, then condi necro will never be good. No, the correct thing to do is improve condi necro, because it’ll make more people happy.

I totally agree that condi necros need improvements, but I’m just not convinced that this is the path of least resistance for that. I mean, we could ask for a bunch of traits to turn the necro’s dagger into a condi weapon but we’d still be swimming upstream.

The Condi Engineer is a pretty good standard for us to judge Necro condi builds against. Both will (and should) have wildly different strengths and weaknesses, but they still need to be competitive with each other. I don’t see a way for a build centering around Chill and Fear damage (both single-stack conditions) as having much of a chance of competing, certainly not without causing balance problems for the core power-based gameplay for the Reaper.

Misguided.5139:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I just don’t see the point in putting in so much effort to make this condi build function.

I love my Condi necro, but it has always felt like it was missing something. I used shroud mostly for defense and utility. I get almost nothing out of shroud offensively. Reaper shroud is an entirely different animal in that regard.

I am going to love having Reaper in WvW. I was already tough to kill because of my high health pool, but I had to turn and run at the drop of a hat. Reaper Shroud will let me deal some serious damage if somebody wants to get in my face and has some mobility too. Same goes for PvE: there are many situations where you have to fight in something’s face, even if you would prefer to be at a distance.

Is it the best build/method/whatever? Probably not, but it is fun as hell and that is what matters most to me.

If you’re having fun with it, go right ahead. But in terms of prospective balance changes, ANet needs to ensure that the core intended gameplay for each spec is working correctly before they can work to bring alternate builds up to comparable snuff.

Frankly, it’s a little ridiculous that we’re 3 years into the game and there are still so few viable builds (not just for the Necro but for most professions), but it is what it is.

Misguided.5139:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I just don’t see the point in putting in so much effort to make this condi build function.

I love my Condi necro, but it has always felt like it was missing something. I used shroud mostly for defense and utility. I get almost nothing out of shroud offensively. Reaper shroud is an entirely different animal in that regard.

I am going to love having Reaper in WvW. I was already tough to kill because of my high health pool, but I had to turn and run at the drop of a hat. Reaper Shroud will let me deal some serious damage if somebody wants to get in my face and has some mobility too. Same goes for PvE: there are many situations where you have to fight in something’s face, even if you would prefer to be at a distance.

Is it the best build/method/whatever? Probably not, but it is fun as hell and that is what matters most to me.

Check out my changes to Shouts..
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Knighthonor-s-Reaper-Skill-Changes/first#post5366644

added lot more damage conditions to them to mix will with Conditionmancers.

Silverkey.2078:

Zenith.7301:

Problem being your condi reaper, who pays in a minor for the privilege to equip a greatsword, doesn’t even make use of it. So you’re essentially trading shrouds. It’s a weird choice because the condi necromancer is more of a midliner or sits at elevations instead of wanting to swoop into melee range on reaper shroud to take advantage of the synergies you proposed.

The RS is enough reason to use condi. With dhuumfire, terror, poison and chill, each RS skill has a condi associated to it. Then, you probably have hybrid builds possible using sinister/rampager/carrion which could benefit from the GS.

But in any case, it’s not because you are allowed to use GS that you have to. Ideally, there should be something for everyone in every trait line. So I don’t see any reason to prevent condition reaper build to exist.

Finally, currently a condi build does not stack condi strong enough so you have to play defensively and thus stay at range. But if chill becomes a stronger condi, with fire, terror being fairly bursty, there is nothing to prevent you staying in melee range.

Not to mention that Death’s Charge is a multi-hit skill, which makes it a better pairing with the Path of Corruption trait than Dark Path currently is if you’re going for a hybrid build. Plus IMO a couple of the shouts, YAAW and “Nothing Can Save You!” in particular, are just a few tweaks away from becoming compelling options for nearly any necro playstyle.

spoj.9672:

Because you can compare skills directly without worrying about stat differences between builds/classes. Its standard theory crafting practise to use the coefficients. You can also get a rough estimation of dps by using coefficients per second. And then simply multiply that by weapon strength, power, damage mods and crit mod and divide by armour for actual dps. Its basically the the base number. So noone needs to calculate the coefficient from tool tips just to calculate damage at a different power. It skips a step.

Maybe im just being anal. But i find it a lot easier to see the damage difference when its in coefficient or coefficient per second (cps) form. I believe it also makes more sense to the devs because thats the number they actually have in their system which they change to tweak damage. (Would love to be corrected if im wrong on this)

If this were a cross-class examination, you might be right. But it isn’t. This is all internally necro. You still have to worry about particular builds when dealing with coefficients. Particularly, I’d have to factor in weapon attack strength when balancing, so the coefficients wouldn’t be an accurate representation of the real proportion between dagger DPS and greatsword DPS.

The tooltip numbers are fine, so long as you have the sense to use identical builds when comparing them. Going off of coefficients is going to reduce everything to a form that isn’t readily understood by the population, and make everything more complicated when I have to factor in intrinsic properties of the weapons that I took out to get the coefficients in the first place.

Power scales linearly. If you want to find out the damage at a different power, then the formula is easy: listed tooltip damage x new power / old power.