Guild Wars 2

OK so the Tempest shouts made the Reaper look pathetic and you know what?
It’s true in fact the Reaper was broken from the start.
Now for starters “shouts” are starting to look unoriginal, but they indeed fit the Tempest as it gets the warhorn. A greatsword however doesn’t seem much related to shouting. Of course I know a Necromancer can use one by default but that ruins the reason of how they learned to use them now.
Necromancers need something more related to them, but before I suggest what I will make it clear why they were broken from the start.

LIFE FORCE GAIN is broken for the Reaper. Almost every other weapon which a Necromancer uses can restore life force much faster than the GS.
Which is absurd as Death Shrouds is a ranged attack form while Reaper Shroud is melee oriented. Thus by logic gaining life force should be an even greater priority and yet the only GS skill that gives life force is the pull “Reaper’s Grasp”. Which gives 4% for each foe hit (max 5) so up to 20%, but it recharges 25 sec.
A daggers main attack chain which takes 2.1 sec gives 8% so in these 25 sec it can give up to 96%! 2.1 × 12 = 25.2 and 8% x 12 = 96%
An axe’s Ghastly Claws gives 12% and recharges 8 sec, so in 25 sec it will give 36%.
The staff’s Necrotic Grasp gives also 4% for foe hit so up to 20% but it only takes 1.4 sec to recast, thus in 25 sec it will give at least 72%.
1.4 × 18 = 25.2 and 4% x 18 = 72% but that is the minimum while at maximum Necrotic Grasp would restore 100% in just 7 sec! 20% x 5 = 100% and 1.4 × 5 = 7.
Of course we cannot expect Necrotic Grasp to hit 5 foes each time now can we? But neither can we expect that from Reaper’s Grasp – right?
So yes the GS is a self-nerf to Reapers Shroud. It won’t be a problem when fighting lots of foes at once as their deaths will give Life Force too but what about boss battles?

OK so I was wrong Death Spiral also restores Life Force but it’s even worse as it gives only 2% per foe hit up to 3 so max 6% and recharges 10 sec. Thus in 22 sec it will give at most 12% (22 due to 1 sec cast time). So in best case i. e. 5 foes to hit it will give us a total of 36% if both skills are used so only half of what the staff can give while hitting just 1 foe. So again what about boss fights? Both will only give a total of 8% (Death spiral used twice) while a staff will still give 72% and a dagger will give that lousy 8% every 2.1 sec.

OK I think you get what I mean. And don’t tell me we can change weapons to get LF yes I know but shouldn’t our “best” weapon which we get with RS as a set to be our best way to recharge it?

So now my suggestion – replace shouts with hexes. All those that played GW probably rember that “hexes” is one of the things Necromancer’s were best known for, the other was the fact they draw power from death.
So I propose a bit of both, what I mean by hexes is skills that will place a hex on the Reaper and any foe close enough to him/her will get hexed with up to 5 foes max.
Thus it would make the Reaper a cursed object – fitting his relentless pursuit character I would say. So these hexes would have an initial, duration and ON DEATH effect.
It could work like this the hexes would have a 10 – 20 sec duration on the Reaper and 5 – 10 sec duration on any foe that gets hexed.
As an example how they would work I’ll start with the healing skill.
The reaper would steal like 1000 health from each foe that gets hexed (so up to 5000), then every foe that is hexed gets a condition transfered on him from the Reaper or nearby ally each sec.
And if the effected target dies while hexed it will create an aoe heal which will effect up to 5 allies in range.
Another example would be a replacement to “Rise”. The hex would first deal damage then apply 2 stacks of vulnerability each sec and if the target dies while hexed it will create a minion – can be random or not or a new one.
Now I know you would want to hear other suggestions (especially for an elite) but I’m not going to waste too much time on this. As I’ll probably be ignored or even bashed for it anyway, so sorry but I’ll pass on making up other skills.
So yeah these hexes would only work on enemy’s that get too close to the Reaper – put a “do not touch” sign on him please!

Rikimaru.7890:

Thus by logic gaining life force should be an even greater priority and yet the only GS skill that gives life force is the pull “Reaper’s Grasp”.

Actually that is wrong. Death spiral (GS 3) also gives life force. It is 2% per hit meaining you can get up to 3*6*2=36% lifeforce out of this skill and it has a cooldown of 10 seconds. That said the skill is rather slow with 1 second casttime which makes it easy to avoid thus hard to land in pvp, which could cause some serious problems with the GS in pvp.

Honestly the biggest problems reapers have atleast in my opinion are the long casttimes on their shouts and GS 3. But that is only my opinion…

I can pretty much agree with this. I was already planning on not using a GS as my primary weapon, upon seeing the revealed reaper details, for life force generation and attack speed reasons. Was pretty much just going to swap to it for a couple of its abilities as needed.

I love the hex idea. Much better for the reaper thematically as well as functionally. The whole concept of the shouts being trash unless you have a certain number of enemies in range is just bad. We have plenty of things that can deal with being swarmed by trash…we need stuff that works on bosses/low numbers of targets too. I think they should switch to hexes instead of this currently extremely lame shout set up.

Seeing what happened to Revenant, I doubt these feedback threads will be taken into consideration until you’re allowed to test elites specs during a beta.

Also it seems pretty unlikely they’d scrap an entire set of skills.

the grandmaster trait to attack faster in reaper shroud should probably also effect the greatsword. or really the only thing you have to do to dodge reaper’s GS attacks is to move backwards.

Kind of, in a PvP standpoint, but even if it had the life force generation it would be too held back by the fact that the skills take half a century to land. But in PvE where mobs will happily stand in your AoE and not bother dodging anything. GS reaper will arguably be better at gaining Life Force than dagger Reaper if just because of two traits, Chilling Force and Chilling Nova. The traits gives one percent of your life force any time you hit something that is chilled, and the other one causes critical hits on chilled opponents to chill and damage up to three mobs per hit in a 180 radius up to 3 times every 10 seconds. Since the auto attack can perma chill and does not currently appear to have an ICD on Chilling Force, it would be quite easy to gain life force after the third auto attack. For example, Death Spiral on three mobs that are chilled will net a 20% life force gain. Then if you manage to keep 5 mobs in a Nightfall for 5 seconds you can get another 25% life force from it. You can also combine it with well of suffering to add another 30% life force. These are all assuming that Chilling Nova doesn’t proc Chilling Force either. If it does, then assuming that the opponent is chilled and you hit three mobs with an auto attack, and crit it will give 12% life force, this can happen three times every ten seconds.

However, if you aren’t facing a horde of mobs. dagger will outshine GS in life force generation and likely damage. And the fact that GS will never see PvP use even if it knocks off practically half health per attack, dagger will be better there too.

But this is all theoretical and I just know once they are released and actually see reaper in action instead of trying to balance it against a single heavy golem in the PvP lobby it will be nerfed to the ground, maybe something like Chilling Force can only activate once per second or something. If that happens, then GS will be pretty underwhelming in the Life Force generation department, and likely overall.

Necros will complain about how every possible change will destroy them. It’s apparently part of the aggreement you sign when you roll the class.

Windsagio.1340:

Necros will complain about how every possible change will destroy them. It’s apparently part of the aggreement you sign when you roll the class.

Yep it is, right under the line “Anet doesn’t give two flying F’s about your class and not a single dev actively plays it, so you better clench your asscheeks and prepare to taste the salt.”

Windsagio.1340:

Necros will complain about how every possible change will destroy them. It’s apparently part of the aggreement you sign when you roll the class.

I am a necromancer at heart and I do not endorse this message.

As always when change is approaching, I brace myself, pull my finger outta my a** and try to find new ways to make sure others die before me.

I want to want to make a Reaper, but from what I’ve seen and heard about Necros, they really are the ugly duckling of the professions.

OK so I was wrong Death Spiral also restores Life Force but it’s even worse as it gives only 2% per foe hit up to 3 so max 6% and recharges 10 sec. Thus in 22 sec it will give at most 12% (22 due to 1 sec cast time)

Your math is wrong as well as skill facts. Death spiral does 6 hits each of which grant you 2% life force so it actually gains 12% lf when used on a single target. If it acts independently it will mean 36% vs 3 targets. Combined with the current chilling force its another 6% per target, combined with the current blighters boon its another 6% per target. Chilling nova will hit 3 targets 3 times over 10s and can all proc on this single skill because of the number of hits, thats another potential 18%. At its maximum potential death spiral will fill around 90% of your lf in one use.

Pvp will be different but i am of the opinion GS isnt as slow as everyone makes out when you look at it, will have its uses as either a main or secondary weapon and for me personally it will replace staff. Pve wise this skill would be the fastest way to generate the most lf in a short time so you can make the most of your shroud.

Problems with Reaper:
1) GS: It’s too slow to work well in pvp without a set of instant utilities (aka medi hammer guard). The actual damage coefficients spoj calculated weren’t that high either. They need to make sure Reaper is dealing a ton of dps in pve, and bringing group utility.

2) Shouts have too big cast times (all shouts need to be less than 3/4 second), their cds are too long (seem to all be balanced around the cd trait), they don’t bring group utility (the only thing necros really needed from shouts), and their effects are too weak (4 seconds of might lol). Necros didn’t really need more aoe damage, or more aoes in general. The class has plenty right now, with quite a few needing a fix (looking at you well of darkness). The shouts need to be more defensive, more supportive, and have much much shorter cast times (anything over 1 second on a utility is bad).

3) Damage modifiers. Necros in general need more of these. Without % damage increases necros dungeon dps will continue to be bad. I’d like to see 2 % damage increases in reaper line, and a few more scattered about in soul reaping, and spite.

Basically, the problem is that gs is too slow, and that shouts aren’t really needed when necros already have wells, marks, and a bunch of other aoes. Necros really could have used stances, or something that would give more defensive solidarity. Along with that, the core issues in pve, mainly damage modifiers and group utility (projectile destruction, aoe boons, blinds), aren’t really addressed by the reaper (Although their is nice cleave).

Greatsword’s main niche will be a downcleave weapon. Things like gravedigger are the perfect tools for denying rezzes since you won’t want to eat that. Still without dagger/wh on your other set, you’ll have poor 1v1 potential because of the slowness.

I’ll take reaper on every build simply because the stability uptime is strong and RS skills are so much faster and more fluid than base DS skills. And thats a fact.

I don’t really know about shouts, cele signets will still be the way to go. Condi reaper may be viable as well, but it probably won’t be able to run signets without giving up curses, so it needs better utilities to function since corruptions are useless in their current state.

I’ve accepted the fact that ANet’s vision of Necromancers and my desires for the profession are never going to mesh. I’ll no doubt try it if I buy HoT, but I expect to dislike it based on what I’ve seen.

idk what you talking about

i’ve never been MORE excited for necro
reaper is going to be epic

Unhappy… again? You mean unhappy…. still.

The problem is the Necromancer going into the expansion is well below the other classes currently. This means either the Reaper needs to gain A LOT of ground to compensate for the shortcomings of the class, or the base class needs to be improved significantly before building the reaper on top of it.

Since we already have the talent changes, we know the hope of the Necromancer going into the expansion as an equal and relevant class isn’t going to happen. This means any hope for the class will rest of the Reaper’s shoulders and what we’ve seen for the specialization so far simply isn’t living up to that expectation.

We saw nothing to really indicate the Necro will magically be able to shift from a ranged class to a front line role as the class’s survivability isn’t changing that much with the Reaper. We know the Reaper won’t function as a back line melee because they refuse to give it any mobility or pealing options. So before you even try to factor in Greatsword or Reaper shroud, the very theme of the class is looking sketchy at best. IMO anyway.

OP, one thing tho, The auto attack in RS now generates the LF. So if we keep hitting we can , theoretically, stay longer in shroud form. Especially if we hit more then one foe.
My bigger fears is the slower cast times and the fact that GS and RS are both melee. Kiting will be even easier on us, again theoretically, and I’m ofc. only talking about PvP.
PS: I don’t count all the chill factors that will be playing a role in staying close to our target/s.

And something else I wanted to whine about. The almost insta cast fear in shroud now is gone. Now to use fear we need to enter shroud then to cast skill3 and then to cast it again… all that takes so long that it kind of make the fear pointless… Huge disappointment that one.
What if that skill is changed to: Cast Fear(1-2s) to target/5 targets. Press it again and you “Shroud yourself with dark armor that grants stability every second.”

The way its set up now, If you spend your master trait you can get life force on hit #4 of autoattack.

But this is horrible too. Getting 4 autoattacks to hit will take 5 seconds.

Also blighters boon exists, but where are the boons coming from? Rune proc every 30 seconds?

We’ll definitely have to test life force generation in beta. The previewed numbers look very bad. And I would hope that all reapers aren’t pigeonholed ino two life force generation traits and one immobilize reduction traits. That’s, like, really boring.

Does everybody realize that the necromancer isn’t really viable in PvE or SPvp and the only thing keeping it viable in WvW is no internal cool down on life force from deaths (which is broken)?

nekretaal.6485:

Does everybody realize that the necromancer isn’t really viable in PvE or SPvp and the only thing keeping it viable in WvW is no internal cool down on life force from deaths (which is broken)?

This is utter nonsense. There are lots of people who play necromancer in pve and are doing just fine, including me.

Blighter’s Boon will be good because Necros generate might off #1 in shroud and also have a trait to generate might on hit on chilled foes.

It’s going to come down to how much it heals though and if they mess with the ICD.

redcomyn.4651:

nekretaal.6485:

Does everybody realize that the necromancer isn’t really viable in PvE or SPvp and the only thing keeping it viable in WvW is no internal cool down on life force from deaths (which is broken)?

This is utter nonsense. There are lots of people who play necromancer in pve and are doing just fine, including me.

You think you’re doing fine. Reality is much different unfortunately.

And just remind that numbers are not final.

redcomyn.4651:

nekretaal.6485:

Does everybody realize that the necromancer isn’t really viable in PvE or SPvp and the only thing keeping it viable in WvW is no internal cool down on life force from deaths (which is broken)?

This is utter nonsense. There are lots of people who play necromancer in pve and are doing just fine, including me.

True. Viable it is. However, at least in PvE, optimal or even close, it is not.

It would be my guess that the design intent behind Reaper was to make Necro the best source for providing Chill, perhaps allowing the profession more opportunity to contribute in a group setting. This ability may or may not be perceived as important in HoT content, especially the mentioned hard HoT content. I doubt that it will be perceived as needed in dungeons, where any group that actually uses Chill can get enough from a profession that bring more to the table than Necro.

Atherakhia.4086:

Blighter’s Boon will be good because Necros generate might off #1 in shroud and also have a trait to generate might on hit on chilled foes.

It’s going to come down to how much it heals though and if they mess with the ICD.

Theres going to be an ICD, im pretty sure of that one, the question is how long. I would like to say 1-3 but they will probably over do it and put it at 5.

Ragion.2831:

Theres going to be an ICD, im pretty sure of that one, the question is how long. I would like to say 1-3 but they will probably over do it and put it at 5.

Yup. we just cant have anything nice. Ever.

Vortok

And just remind that numbers are not final.

So you really believe Anet would take a second look at what theyre throwing out to us necros? they’d rather buff Elementalist some more before it comes to that.

nearlight.3064:

Greatsword’s main niche will be a downcleave weapon. Things like gravedigger are the perfect tools for denying rezzes since you won’t want to eat that. Still without dagger/wh on your other set, you’ll have poor 1v1 potential because of the slowness.

I’ll take reaper on every build simply because the stability uptime is strong and RS skills are so much faster and more fluid than base DS skills. And thats a fact.

I don’t really know about shouts, cele signets will still be the way to go. Condi reaper may be viable as well, but it probably won’t be able to run signets without giving up curses, so it needs better utilities to function since corruptions are useless in their current state.

your crazy if u think reaper will be viable in pvp :P… its going to be a PvE only specc, Most can see that it just isnt going to have the mobility for GW2 Pvp…. ur only as Viable as how much Mobility u have All people have to do is run circles around you and Evade the moment u manage to get hit them (if at any point you do) Proffessions like Mesmers are litterally going to run rings around you all day all Night and the moment u manage to somehow get close ur going to be shot back 30 yards.

Ragion.2831:

Atherakhia.4086:

Blighter’s Boon will be good because Necros generate might off #1 in shroud and also have a trait to generate might on hit on chilled foes.

It’s going to come down to how much it heals though and if they mess with the ICD.

Theres going to be an ICD, im pretty sure of that one, the question is how long. I would like to say 1-3 but they will probably over do it and put it at 5.

I thought that bit then realised the trait is very similar to altruistic healing. All they need do is lower the base healing amount.

It’s current form has so much potential. Certain trait combos can net you around 1k HP/s while shrouded and auto attacking. Would trivialise certain content. Unless the new AI and NPC scripting / skill usage is much better than now.

Drayos.8759:

nearlight.3064:

Greatsword’s main niche will be a downcleave weapon. Things like gravedigger are the perfect tools for denying rezzes since you won’t want to eat that. Still without dagger/wh on your other set, you’ll have poor 1v1 potential because of the slowness.

I’ll take reaper on every build simply because the stability uptime is strong and RS skills are so much faster and more fluid than base DS skills. And thats a fact.

I don’t really know about shouts, cele signets will still be the way to go. Condi reaper may be viable as well, but it probably won’t be able to run signets without giving up curses, so it needs better utilities to function since corruptions are useless in their current state.

your crazy if u think reaper will be viable in pvp :P… its going to be a PvE only specc, Most can see that it just isnt going to have the mobility for GW2 Pvp…. ur only as Viable as how much Mobility u have All people have to do is run circles around you and Evade the moment u manage to get hit them (if at any point you do) Proffessions like Mesmers are litterally going to run rings around you all day all Night and the moment u manage to somehow get close ur going to be shot back 30 yards.

Two things
1) how is that different from now? If anything you have better on the ground mobility as a reaper? You lose dark path but lets face it its slow, can be obstructed by solid nothing and can be outrun.
2) Again how is that different from now? besides you have more stability as a reaper so stuns and getting cc’d is going to be less of an issue.

Sigmoid.7082:

Ragion.2831:

Atherakhia.4086:

Blighter’s Boon will be good because Necros generate might off #1 in shroud and also have a trait to generate might on hit on chilled foes.

It’s going to come down to how much it heals though and if they mess with the ICD.

Theres going to be an ICD, im pretty sure of that one, the question is how long. I would like to say 1-3 but they will probably over do it and put it at 5.

I thought that bit then realised the trait is very similar to altruistic healing. All they need do is lower the base healing amount.

It’s current form has so much potential. Certain trait combos can net you around 1k HP/s while shrouded and auto attacking. Would trivialise certain content. Unless the new AI and NPC scripting / skill usage is much better than now.

I thought they could just drop it, but how much is too much? Its a GM trait, GMs are supposed to be powerful on their own, if they drop it too much then you wont really benefit from it if you were running say Marauder or Valk unless you use blood magic. Glassy builds already dont really have much sustain from siphons so you are better off just running spite.

I think this is why the trait is so good, so you can run your dps stuff (since thats what the spec is about) and not die as easily as you would now running pure dps.

I would suggest instead of just an ICD or base healing nerfs which would be bad for dps builds, they make it give buffs where the healing side of the trait triggers at a certain health threshold (75% ?) for a certain duration (10 seconds?) and the Life force side of the trait trigger at 50% for the same duration. The trait can then have an ICD of 5 seconds.

This way you can take advantage of chill stacking bursts, not struggle with a second ICD like the one with siphoned power and makes tanky siphon builds to not be so un-killable.

Ragion.2831:

Sigmoid.7082:

Ragion.2831:

Atherakhia.4086:

Blighter’s Boon will be good because Necros generate might off #1 in shroud and also have a trait to generate might on hit on chilled foes.

It’s going to come down to how much it heals though and if they mess with the ICD.

Theres going to be an ICD, im pretty sure of that one, the question is how long. I would like to say 1-3 but they will probably over do it and put it at 5.

I thought that bit then realised the trait is very similar to altruistic healing. All they need do is lower the base healing amount.

It’s current form has so much potential. Certain trait combos can net you around 1k HP/s while shrouded and auto attacking. Would trivialise certain content. Unless the new AI and NPC scripting / skill usage is much better than now.

I thought they could just drop it, but how much is too much? Its a GM trait, GMs are supposed to be powerful on their own, if they drop it too much then you wont really benefit from it if you were running say Marauder or Valk unless you use blood magic. Glassy builds already dont really have much sustain from siphons so you are better off just running spite.

I think this is why the trait is so good, so you can run your dps stuff (since thats what the spec is about) and not die as easily as you would now running pure dps.

I would suggest instead of an ICD or base healing nerfs which would be bad for dps builds, they make the healing side of the trait trigger at a certain health threshold (75% ?) for a certain duration (10 seconds?) and the Life force side of the trait trigger at 40% for the same duration

Not sure how well it scales with healing power but i would reduce it by about 40%. With the way it currently designed and how it would interact with the other lines you will still be able to get 4~600+ hps out of it with no healing power, dont think thats bad at all.

You would have to consider the burst from other elite specs, and they got some serious burst. Perhaps they might have to do the whole wait and see thing and just leave the trait as it is. Warrior passive heals was in this dilemma at launch, they waited and ended up nerfing the poor guys

OP I gotta say, your posting structure is very hard to follow. quote someone and post a response in the thread, don’t edit it into your OP without any context, it looks like you’re argueing with yourself.

Also we have no clue on how the reaper will actually preform in game, only speculation based on information we saw 2ish months ago that is extremely likely to have changed by now.

Reaper is amazing, easily one of the better specializations if not the best if they adjust numbers. All they need to do is rework Rise! and Suffer!, adjust some of the damages, especially on Greatsword, and not destroy our traits and we’ll be great. Basically as long as they do the smart thing Reaper will be great.

There was a lot of feedback on Reaper’s introduction. Let us wait to see what changes may have been made since then.

Elementalist has some great party support Necromancer mains have been asking for but that is not final, either.

Bhawb.7408:

Reaper is amazing, easily one of the better specializations if not the best if they adjust numbers. All they need to do is rework Rise! and Suffer!, adjust some of the damages, especially on Greatsword, and not destroy our traits and we’ll be great. Basically as long as they do the smart thing Reaper will be great.

Sir Bwawb, I hope you’re right. I really truthfully hope and pray you’re right. My primary concern is thier love of adding ICD’s to everything. Blighter’s boon and chilling force I think are at the top of the target list for this. And their last couple of tweaks to things has left me sort of doubting them on their balancing decisions….

ICDs will kill a lot yeah, that’s why there are a lot of conditional statements in what I said :P

If they just slap an ICD on that trait i will riot ~_~

Bhawb.7408:

Reaper is amazing, easily one of the better specializations if not the best if they adjust numbers. All they need to do is rework Rise! and Suffer!, adjust some of the damages, especially on Greatsword, and not destroy our traits and we’ll be great. Basically as long as they do the smart thing Reaper will be great.

I agree but i think casttime reductions on some of the shouts (especially CttB) and GS 3 for more reliable LF generation are also needed.

Yeah that’s part of what I mean by numbers adjustments.

I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.

Muchacho.2390:

Bhawb.7408:

Reaper is amazing, easily one of the better specializations if not the best if they adjust numbers. All they need to do is rework Rise! and Suffer!, adjust some of the damages, especially on Greatsword, and not destroy our traits and we’ll be great. Basically as long as they do the smart thing Reaper will be great.

I agree but i think casttime reductions on some of the shouts (especially CttB) and GS 3 for more reliable LF generation are also needed.

Shouts yes but GS #3 i dont mind because its a cast time we are used to and also you can look at it a few ways depending on what traits you take such as :

• 24% crit chance
• up to potentially 70~90%
• up to around 2k+. Higher with healing power
• fastest way to proc chilling nova. so its 9~ 27 hits
• up to 18+ stacks of might
• blind clear and still do stuff
• etc etc

so its more versatile than i first expected because of trait synergy. depends on if they kill it or not synergy wise with ICD :/

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.

dont see why it doesnt.

I honestly think the casting time of CTTB would be justified IF it was a freeze like on ice bow 5, to me that would make even more sense. Big windup, big pay off.

Bhawbs not wrong. Unfortunately no matter how good the elite spec is if the base class is still in a god awful state it doesnt really help the class overall.

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.

dont see why it doesnt.

Because it doesn’t right now.

Sigmoid.7082:

Muchacho.2390:

Bhawb.7408:

Reaper is amazing, easily one of the better specializations if not the best if they adjust numbers. All they need to do is rework Rise! and Suffer!, adjust some of the damages, especially on Greatsword, and not destroy our traits and we’ll be great. Basically as long as they do the smart thing Reaper will be great.

I agree but i think casttime reductions on some of the shouts (especially CttB) and GS 3 for more reliable LF generation are also needed.

Shouts yes but GS #3 i dont mind because its a cast time we are used to and also you can look at it a few ways depending on what traits you take such as :

• 24% crit chance
• up to potentially 70~90%
• up to around 2k+. Higher with healing power
• fastest way to proc chilling nova. so its 9~ 27 hits
• up to 18+ stacks of might
• blind clear and still do stuff
• etc etc

so its more versatile than i first expected because of trait synergy. depends on if they kill it or not synergy wise with ICD :/

Yeah you ar right with that but a shorter casttime makes GS 3 more reliable (the current one seems rather easy to dodge) and due the melee nature of the reaper having more reliable LF is even more important. Well it is just something i would like to see…

Atherakhia.4086:

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.

dont see why it doesnt.

Because it doesn’t right now.

Explain why. Im of the opposite opinion.

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.

dont see why it doesnt.

Because it doesn’t right now.

Explain why. Im of the opposite opinion.

You have no means to escape a melee train. Once you’ve been locked on you rely on your team to provide stability.

Being able to remove movement impairing conditions is also quite limited. This means it’s difficult for you to keep up with your melee train.

These problems are resolved somewhat by putting you in a group with 3 guardians. The problem with this format is you really aren’t bringing anything to the group unless you’re running Pack runes.

The class also has too much riding on Shroud. It’s needed for offense and defense and it drains very quickly. Especially in a front-line capacity. Due to the low life force gain and lack of other options, you’re losing out on a ton of damage from shroud so it’s available to defend you.

Currently to compensate for a lot of these problems you play a mid or backline role as a ranged class. As a Reaper you’ll need to forego many DPS oriented traits for things like Relentless Pursuit and Blighter’s Boon among others. This wouldn’t be bad if you had a more utility oriented weapon like a Hammer for Warrior so you’re at least providing very valuable utility at a much reduced damage output. Unfortunately both GS and Shroud are more DPS oriented, but you sacrifice a lot of your DPS potential to trait for the ability to survive at the front.

Reaper’s will probably be pretty good at front lining. The shrouded armor that pulses stab is probably just as good as warriors in terms of stab. It brings aoe chill, aoe blind, a pull, aoe fear, that’s all good stuff. Add in wells that give prot, and I think it’ll be pretty good. The only thing it could really use is some fixes to wurm, and walk and maybe an invuln.

zapv.8051:

Reaper’s will probably be pretty good at front lining. The shrouded armor that pulses stab is probably just as good as warriors in terms of stab. It brings aoe chill, aoe blind, a pull, aoe fear, that’s all good stuff. Add in wells that give prot, and I think it’ll be pretty good. The only thing it could really use is some fixes to wurm, and walk and maybe an invuln.

When all is said and done it’s going to be difficult to tell one way or another until we get some beta time in.

Atherakhia.4086:

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.

dont see why it doesnt.

Because it doesn’t right now.

Explain why. Im of the opposite opinion.

snip

The reason i disagree is because there are solutions to all of those things built into a reaper as it is unless they change everything to has ICDs that would ruin the fun for everyone. IT has the tool to do so is my point though.

On the first point reapers have a lot more stability than base necro. It will stack on top of whatever else is given to you as well so you can support yourself.

Movement impairing conditions aren’t really a problem. Because of the change of no stats from traitlines nolonger is the free 30% condi duration being a bother making them last longer and you can take relentless pursuit to help deal with them easily. Plus you would not have access to a leap.

I agree with life force being a big thing for reapers and shroud being used for offence and defence but i wouldnt agree with its gain being slow to gain on a reaper because of gs #3 in more likely to hit its max amount of targets and net you huge lf as well as how many boons are flying around. as long as blighters boon doesnt gain and ICD you will always have more than enough lf outside of shroud or gain more than enough hp inside of shroud.

The forgoing of “dps traits” isnt a huge thing. With how it currently is chilling nova wont count as a dps trait as it hardly does any damage and the chill duration is low and likely to be cleansed. Relentless is the only real option. IN Gm tier you lose reaper onslaught for blighters but finishing you auto chain in 2.1s instead of 2.5 isnt a huge difference but i can see the dash spam being a thing since people are always dying you could potentially end up covering lots of ground with that. Also reaper as it stands can easily reach high crit chance with no investment in perc meaning you can take ferocity, power, toughness and vitality and still do large amounts of damage.

etc etc etc i could go on.

Two wvw builds im going to test are death/soul /reaper or spite/soul/reaper.

Its all still subject to change though just wish they would let us know what they have changed. but i still see huge potential in it. You may disagree but this is my own opinion. I just want to play it now………..