Guild Wars 2

Hi all. Today I am going to talk about the base necro class and how it compares/benefits from being augmented by the new specialization, The Reaper. I know there are plenty of posts analyzing the Reaper itself, so I am going to try to focus my discussion on whether or not the base class is viable without utilizing the new elite specialization. I think the most useful way to to this is to analyze various potential builds and how they would best be constructed using the upcoming traits. For those who have not seen these traits, here is the link: http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/#Necromancer

And for those of you without information on the new specialization, here is a good summarization of the information (thanks to The Gates Assassin) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Follow-Up-Forum-Specialist-Feedback/first

A couple disclaimers before we get started, I am just starting to write this but I sense I will have a bit to say, so I will leave a summarization at the bottom (please read it though, Im putting a lot of thought into this!). Secondly, I have only played roughly 400 pvp matches, so I consider myself a slightly below average pvp player. I will therefore be analyzing this mostly from a pve perspective, although I hope my observations will be applicable to a pvp setting.

So there are a couple of builds I see as having potential going into these future changes:
- Power necro
- condition/terrormancer
- attrition lifesteal tank
- Minion Master

Power Necro
As trait lines no longer provide stats, trait specializations will be chosen based purely on the traits themselves. Power necro of course focusses on dealing the highest amount of direct damage possible. With that in mind I only see three specializations as contributing to direct damage output: Spite, Soul Reaping, and the new Reaper line. Curses has potential, but there is currently no GrandMaster trait that benefits a direct damage build. Therefore the current power necro build which focusses on Spite and Soul Reaping will also rely on those specializations and generally use the same traits residing in those lines, and pick up the added damage benefits of becoming a Reaper. There are many traits in the reaper line that, when combined with the current DS cannon build, could result in a ridiculous amount of self might and vulnerability on opponents (Reapers Onslaught+ Reapers Might and Chilling Force/ Decimate Defenses looks amazing to me). Strength Runes will be a MUST

Terrormancer/Condimancer
This too, I see benefiting from taking on the Reaper name, although there are some tradeoffs. Losing the torment and bleed stacks from deathshroud will hurt, but the reworks to Dhuumfire I believe make up for it. With the increased attack speed of the 1 skill in the new DS, you can maintain much higher burning stacks than you otherwise could manage with regular DS (1 per every 1.4 seconds, resulting roughly in a base 2 stacks of burning, not runed for condi duration). Dhuumfire with the attack speed aside, a condimancer OR terrormancer will benefit much more from chill also dealing condition damage and gaining might while attacking a chilled foe than they would going into the Spite, Blood Magic, or Death Magic traitlines, not to mention causing chill whenever you fear an opponent.

Vampire/Lifesteal
This is a new area for our community, as up until this point lifesteal has been laughably unviable. However with lifesteal now working through DS, combined with the additional greatsword lifesteal traits, this COULD become a viable thing. I also believe (you may be noticing a trend) that this build would benefit from becoming a Reaper as well. Not only can you trait for lifestealing with the greatsword, but the added whirl finishers that are accessable to the reaper creating leaching bolts increases the survivability that much more. As a baseline, I believe the Vampire build will rely on the Blood Magic and Reaper lines, and then whatever the third specialization is will be based on preference (more tanky builds could choose Death Magic, more offensive/hybrid ones Spite or Soul Reaping).

Minion Master
I saved this one for last because this is the build I am least sure about. Looking at the core specializations, Death Magic is now the ONLY specialization with traits pertaining to Minions, leaving the MM with a huge amount of options when it comes to making a build. This leaves you with a choice: do you think “Rise!” has a place on your skillbar? I think the answer is yes. The potential to keep the jagged horrors alive with support traits from Blood Magic so that you have two “Rise!”s worth of the little buggers running around could be quite powerful. Not to mention that each Jagged Horror is a ticking time-bomb when combined with Death Nova, and could be a pain in the kitten when combined with Necromantic Corruption. This is the only build I can say I dont really know if you NEED to become a Reaper, but is up to you to decide.

In summary: Power Necro, Terror/Condimancer, and Vampire builds are all improved by taking the new Elite Specialization as one of your three specializations, regardless if you use the shouts and greatsword or not (no one is making you!). Anet has successfully improved on and introduced the possibility of multiple builds. I personally am interested in combining Putrid Defense with Cold Shoulder and the Protection boon for a total 53% damage reduction (combine with weakness for a whopping 62.5% reduction in direct damage). However they are all (MM as a possible exception) contingent upon becoming the new specialization, The Reaper.

The biggest reason to take Reaper for a minion master is for the melee AoE. When you’re fighting up front with your minions (as happens in any vs. Player type match) that heavy hitting sword will be nice. On top of that, life siphon is a good reason, as there is a minor in Blood magic that allows minions to siphon health for you. Vampiric is the minor name, I believe. So, for a hard-as-hell-to-kill minion build, Death, Blood and Reaper would be excellent

Rise! will not be used on standard MM builds. It will be used on maybe condi MM, but otherwise it just doesn’t particularly supply what you need, and MM builds don’t want to be involved in fights large enough for Rise! to be effective. It will mostly be used on non-MM builds that are wanting to abuse Death Nova’s poison stacking for Putrid Defense upkeep.

However, MM has a lot of variety with the new spec. Blood Magic is absolutely not needed in any way, you can get enough sustain via Reaper to keep yourself alive. Blood Magic will be taken on builds that want to keep their minions alive better, while Soul Reaping or Spite can be used as sources of extra damage/sustain, especially Spite due to the really effective vuln stacking.

Keep in mind though that the viability of a MM build still relies heavily on improvements to the AI. Until that is fixed, MM builds are rubbish. Especially the jagged horrors are terrible. Lich Form also summons them, and when it does, the minions actually run AWAY from the enemy quite often.

By the way, I really wonder if you’ll get the chance to build a decent army of minions with “Rise!”. You’d have to hit multiple opponents with it, twice, without the minions all dying, or being nuked by your opponents. Maybe if you heal them with blood magic, but even then it is hard to keep them all up.

As far as life stealing is concerned, keep in mind that they still haven’t improved the numbers for the life stealing. So the amount of life you steal is still just as bad. The only difference is, now you’ll be able to heal a bit while in DS, and potentially share some of the healing through vampiric aura. I’m not convinced that this is enough for a life stealing necro to stay on his feet. The numbers are still just as low as they are in the game right now.

That is true, I forgot to mention that although the multiple procs of lifestealing will help, I believe that the base amount for the two Blood Magic Traits needs to be increased to at least 100, and the scaling with power and healing power needs to be increased substantially as well.

What’s sad is that however you put it, it seem that the current necromancer will disapear when the reaper will come.

I understand that everyone is ok with that but i also think it’s a bit harsh for all upcoming necromancers specialization in the futur. The Necromancer need to be enjoyable even without taking an elite specialization.

As for the lifesteal value, I think they are OK as they are (in a scenario where heals from lifesteal pass through DS). A D/Wh siphon spectral build should prove to be pretty durable.

Also, it’s bugging me since I read it but what does he mean by that :

JP: As with all Elite specs, the Reaper can use all of his new abilities with his old abilities and traits. The only exception is the new shroud skills which replace the old shroud skill. That being said, old traits that impact shroud skills will benefit Reaper’s Shroud in their own unique way.

source : http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9691/Guild-Wars-2-Jon-Peters-on-the-Reaper-Elite-Spec.html

That’s a bit cryptic indeed. One would expect that the old traits would affect the Reaper Shroud just as they affected the Death Shroud before. But this makes it sound as if that is not the case.

Well, I would understand if not. After all you can hit 2 time with KS autoattack in the same frametime that Life Blast hit only one time. Objectively, traited, KS totally outclass DS (Balanced wise).

In the case of auto attack traits the extra effect will probably only be applied to the final hit of the chain.

spoj.9672:

In the case of auto attack traits the extra effect will probably only be applied to the final hit of the chain.

Only that they mentioned in the PoI how you could stack Dhuumfire with each hit…

The tool tips seemed to suggest what Spoj said though. If I remember the correctly, it’s only the last attack on the chain that references traits effecting Life Blast. Source

Ratphink.4751:

The tool tips seemed to suggest what Spoj said though. If I remember the correctly, it’s only the last attack on the chain that references traits effecting Life Blast. Source

Maybe but if you look closely, when they showed the reaper in pve at the end, you could see that each swing did put burn on the enemies not only the final one.

That tooltip shows they all inherit it. Either way i was only speculating. We dont know for sure how they will change. Id like them to be on all hits of the chain. But i kind of expect them not to do that for some of the traits.