Guild Wars 2

Based on Char’s description, it sounds like groups are specifically trying to build to not include a Necro. It makes me wonder what might happen if they allowed the Necro to have a place.

Also, how many boons did you need to strip every 10 seconds? With a Focus and Path of Corruption, I feel like you could do that without issue if it was just a couple. If it was more than 3, what class can strip 3+ boons every 10 seconds alone? What does that class sacrifice in order to gain that ability?

@Tatikios: Don’t get me wrong, reaper it’s not bad, but we bring too little to justify our existence and what we do can be done better by other classes or is meanigless when ti matter most (our debuffs like chill).

I hope to be proven wrong because I really really want Reaper to succeed in PvE. ;_;

Charblaze.6958:

@Tatikios: Don’t get me wrong, reaper it’s not bad, but we bring too little to justify our existence and what we do can be done better by other classes or is meanigless when ti matter most (our debuffs like chill).

I hope to be proven wrong because I really really want Reaper to succeed in PvE. ;_;

People beat the first easy boss w/o changing much. It doesn’t say anything about the final main boss.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Also, how many boons did you need to strip every 10 seconds? With a Focus and Path of Corruption, I feel like you could do that without issue if it was just a couple. If it was more than 3, what class can strip 3+ boons every 10 seconds alone? What does that class sacrifice in order to gain that ability?

Few enough that I never even noticed the boons existing in the first place. And all the boon removal was from a single Mallyx Revenant, who probably did it passively through traits.

@Cogbyrn: They aren’t specifically trying to build to not include a Necro. They are looking for AoE healing, protection, damage, boon stripping, etc. We just don’t have anything that makes us shine. What we have is either outclassed or ineffective when it matters most.

@Drarnor Kunoram: Maybe condi necro has a chance? I tried the zerk DPS GS/A+F with blood/spite/reaper. How far did you got? After we cleared the split phase the boss started stacking deadly boons and we wiped when he covered the arena with small AoE. Personally I found transfusion useless if you have 2 healers, they are required anyway to keep the zerk dps group alive. Yes you need a dedicated zerk group or you don’t have enough dps to kill the boss. The optimal setup setup seems 4-5 zerk, 2 healers and 3-4 condi.

PlatinumMember.5274:

People beat the first easy boss w/o changing much. It doesn’t say anything about the final main boss.

When you enter there are 3 “bosses”, they are glorified trash mobs to learn the mechanics. They can be cleared by any pug with any kind of setup.
:-/
I’m talking of the real boss in the arena after you kill the 3 “trash bosses”.

As I said, we were really unorganized and probably had too much sustain overall and not enough damage (2 Druids , a tempest, Glint/Jallis Herald, Glint/Mallyx Herald, and myself in Zealot’s gear). We got through the first split phase, but took too long and the boss was enraged immedietly after. When he one-shotted me through full life force and health, we were done. No way of recovering against that.

That said, as a Necro, I agree that nothing we have to offer is even remotely wanted in this first raid part other than Transfusion to group downed people for easy rezzing. I place this blame squarely on the break bar mechanic absorbing cripple, chill, weakness, and immobilize. We’re debuffers, and the break bar makes debuffing worthless.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

That said, as a Necro, I agree that nothing we have to offer is even remotely wanted in this first raid part other than Transfusion to group downed people for easy rezzing. I place this blame squarely on the break bar mechanic absorbing cripple, chill, weakness, and immobilize. We’re debuffers, and the break bar makes debuffing worthless.

Glad to see I’m not alone. Even worse the break bar is unavailable for 99% of the fight, and when it is the bar melts in seconds. They didn’t even bother with heals or regen to give poison a meaning.

At least poison still deals damage, so it’s not totally worthless.

Charblaze.6958:

Aomine.5012:

Why do you think that?

Self might, permanent 25 stacks of vulnerable by himself, high cleave damage shroud, boss killing GS2 (once boss hp <50%, your dps becomes 2nd, spamming the damage equivalent to 100B with no CD )

How can people not want this kind of dps class?

Because those are good traits only on unorganized pugs and those kind of pugs are doomed to wipe and fail.

I’ve just been in a more organized pug. I had perma 25 stacks of might and vulnerability without the need to lift a finger. I was explicitly told to not bother with might and vouln, they were right. Even at split it wasn’t an issue, you just need to survive long enough for them to clear one of the split bosses to then receive help.

Boon striping was needed but my reaper was laughable because you had to boon strip roughly every 10s so you burn trough your boon strips and fail your team <= reason why we wiped after we cleared the first split of the boss.

Necro’s siphons and heals were mostly useless, druid, ele, even warrior’s banner gave all the necessary heal to keep the zerkers alive. Same for protection on our wells, ONE herald pumped enough protection for 90% up-time.

Necro’s revive traits seem useless too, you either have enough heal spam to keep everyone alive and quickly ress who falls or you wipe anyway, blood magic traits or not.

The only useful party tools were well of blood and well +10% increased revive speed trait.

This was my experience thus far. It’s time to stop theory crafting and test things for real. I don’t want to hear "muh solo 25 stack might&vouln and revive port " anymore unless you have proven you can clear the kittening boss with your setup. (I’m not talking about you in particular Aomine)

And why do you think you couldn’t be the role of stacking 25 vulnerable, and let someone else run even higher dps, while you yourself already doing very top-noche dps? Also I run unorganized pugs all the time, and rarely do they “fail miserably”, even in fotm 49 or 50. In fact sometimes those PUGS do better than some of my guild’s unprofessional runs lol… Well, I do have to admit I haven’t tried raid yet, but the topic clearly stated: “Dungeon” too

Sorry, not everyone has a top team to stick around and work with, so I’m very happy for Reaper.

Also, which class are you comparing to? Ele, the top class again?
Donnu why Necro has to be so pessimistic.. Your dps is way higher than anything other than Ele and probably some type of thief though. (For thief not 100% sure)

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

Also, what is the metric for high-level PvE going to be with raiding, do we think? Progression? Time-to-Clear? Smallest Group to Clear?

Cogbyrn.7283:

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

The only one of those conditions Necros don’t apply as well or better than anyone else is Immobilize. Cripple, Chill, and Weakness, we’re top tier on applying and maintaining.

Necro’s self-sufficiency may come into play in some encounters, but for what we have right now, it’s just not a thing to be valued. The profession is versatile, sure, but so is every other profession.

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

I hope ANet doesn’t limit their encounter design to boss mobs. That would be a design failing, not really a Necromancer failing.

Aomine.5012:

And why do you think you couldn’t be the role of stacking 25 vulnerable, and let someone else run even higher dps, while you yourself already doing very top-noche dps? Also I run unorganized pugs all the time, and rarely do they “fail miserably”, even in fotm 49 or 50. In fact sometimes those PUGS do better than some of my guild’s unprofessional runs lol…

Sorry, not everyone has a top team to stick around and work with, so I’m very happy for Reaper.

Also, which class are you comparing to? Ele, the top class again?
Donnu why Necro has to be so pessimistic.. Your dps is way higher than anything other than Ele and probably some type of thief though. (For thief not 100% sure)

Because they get those vouln stack for free. Kitten, I’m placing vouln staks for free too with death spiral, or axe auto, or a Well of Suffering, anyone can with a stupid sigil. Really, it’s easy to accidentally cap vulnerability in a 5 man party, capping it in a 10 members squad as side effect of optimal rotation and trait choice is a 100% guarantee.

Reaper alone can do nothing. If in a 5 man groups you can carry hard because you account for 20% of the group, in a 10 man group your contribution is only 1/10, you are two times less relevant, and so are 25 self might.

Fotm are burst DPS the boss before he can kill you. You can’t burst DPS raid bosses you need to actually organize the group, manage the squad, assign roles check you have enough of x, y and z. It far esier to coordinate 5 peoples than 10 or find 9 good, or willing to listen, players instead of 4.

I’m not comparing Reaper to any class in particular. I’m just taking note that it’s not bringing much to raids.

Again if you are so sure hop in a raid, self 25 stack to victory, and prove me wrong . I must be spouting nonsense because I had 3 raids disband without even getting the boss to split once, and progressed further with the fight only when I map chat “lfg serious raid attempt” and we spent 15-20m organizing the team. :-/

Cogbyrn.7283:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

I hope ANet doesn’t limit their encounter design to boss mobs. That would be a design failing, not really a Necromancer failing.

If they don’t, then Necros still don’t have much to offer. Out AoE damage is good, yes, but not top tier and we don’t handle “moving safe spot” encounters too well.

Even though Reaper is good against trash, it’s still trash mobs. They’ll go down quick to a party of ten regardless.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

we don’t handle “moving safe spot” encounters too well.

Good lord, getting to the orange AoE was a pain with our poor mobility. I hope having the mushroom mastery and using the speed mushroom at the base of the pillars solves the issue.

This brings me back to a post I started a long while back, and it isn’t too encouraging. In the end everything a Necro can do there is a class that does it better in PvE and at the end of the day until they stop balancing the class for PvP we are doomed to stay at the bottom.
Give us something of value so there is a reason and soft CC isn’kitten why are they so unwilling to see this?

I did not get into a raid because there too much else to do outside of the game but the description supports my early worries.

Reaper works best when there are a lot of trash mobs for both the AoE and Lf generation. Single-boss encounters are a Necromancer’s worst situation because its AoE soft CC and debuffs are useless, LF generation is leaner without deaths, and the only useful team support is Transfusion.

Compare single-boss performance with Scarlet’s lane defense and group invasion. Group utility is vastly different between them.

I tried as well the raid for a few attempt on a pug party.

Honestly it’s as I feared. The necro/reaper put it’s dps on the table and that’s all. What bother me the most is that we had so much trouble downing the red guy that I felt like even though I was a condi DPS, I was doing nearly nothing. Simply I wasn’t able to achieve the condi DPS that you can see Engi achieve. (Well, ther is the possibility as well that I was the only one who was runing condi…).

Otherwise, the necromancer’s debuff don’t really impact the fight (chill/weakness/cripple have an abysmal impact on the fight)
Vulnerability : It was fun to see that at phase 2 when I was solo on the red boss I could maintain my 25 vuln stack… but that’s all.
Well grant self sustain and it’s great but the only well that really help our teammate is the blood well. It’s on a long cool down for a support that would need to be put every 20 seconds.
Projectile destruction… does not work on the blue sphere at phase 3…
And lastly, like someone said, we are a bit short on boon corruption to keep up with the boon generation.

The only real thing that the necromancer put on the table is it’s resilience. So you could expect the necromancer to be taken as a “tank”. (Thought a moe altruistic profession can do it as well)

In the Verdant Brink, I played the res-bot in champ fights.

Anchoku.8142:

Reaper works best when there are a lot of trash mobs for both the AoE and Lf generation. Single-boss encounters are a Necromancer’s worst situation because its AoE soft CC and debuffs are useless, LF generation is leaner without deaths, and the only useful team support is Transfusion.

The red orbs can be attacked, most of the time I was hitting the boss and 2 orbs. I even used Raise and with all the surplus healing there where more than a dozen of shambling horrors, but aside for personal tanking they didn’t help much.

Charblaze.6958:

Aomine.5012:

And why do you think you couldn’t be the role of stacking 25 vulnerable, and let someone else run even higher dps, while you yourself already doing very top-noche dps? Also I run unorganized pugs all the time, and rarely do they “fail miserably”, even in fotm 49 or 50. In fact sometimes those PUGS do better than some of my guild’s unprofessional runs lol…

Sorry, not everyone has a top team to stick around and work with, so I’m very happy for Reaper.

Also, which class are you comparing to? Ele, the top class again?
Donnu why Necro has to be so pessimistic.. Your dps is way higher than anything other than Ele and probably some type of thief though. (For thief not 100% sure)

Because they get those vouln stack for free. Kitten, I’m placing vouln staks for free too with death spiral, or axe auto, or a Well of Suffering, anyone can with a stupid sigil. Really, it’s easy to accidentally cap vulnerability in a 5 man party, capping it in a 10 members squad as side effect of optimal rotation and trait choice is a 100% guarantee.

Reaper alone can do nothing. If in a 5 man groups you can carry hard because you account for 20% of the group, in a 10 man group your contribution is only 1/10, you are two times less relevant, and so are 25 self might.

Fotm are burst DPS the boss before he can kill you. You can’t burst DPS raid bosses you need to actually organize the group, manage the squad, assign roles check you have enough of x, y and z. It far esier to coordinate 5 peoples than 10 or find 9 good, or willing to listen, players instead of 4.

I’m not comparing Reaper to any class in particular. I’m just taking note that it’s not bringing much to raids.

Again if you are so sure hop in a raid, self 25 stack to victory, and prove me wrong . I must be spouting nonsense because I had 3 raids disband without even getting the boss to split once, and progressed further with the fight only when I map chat “lfg serious raid attempt” and we spent 15-20m organizing the team. :-/

But the topic clearly stated “dungeons” too -3-

Read my post again, I already said I haven’t get to test on raid much yet, but this post is including dungeon too.

In other contents, Reaper will clearly be invaluable.

Aomine.5012:

But the topic clearly stated “dungeons” too -3-

Read my post again, I already said I haven’t get to test on raid much yet, but this post is including dungeon too.

In other contents, Reaper will clearly be invaluable.

And if you bothered reading the first post you’d know it is all in relation to the break bar and it’s interaction with soft CC and debuffs. Stop derailing the discussion please. ;_;

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

The only one of those conditions Necros don’t apply as well or better than anyone else is Immobilize. Cripple, Chill, and Weakness, we’re top tier on applying and maintaining.

Necro’s self-sufficiency may come into play in some encounters, but for what we have right now, it’s just not a thing to be valued. The profession is versatile, sure, but so is every other profession.

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

Is this even true though?

A ranger provides perpetual cripple via auto attack on their highest DPS weapon. Thieves provide 50% uptime on weakness from auto attacking. Even chill, unless you use greatsword (which I assume is a poor option given its DPS?) is done equally well by Rangers?

So even if debuffs weren’t impacted by breakbars the utility you mention isn’t that short in supply and is provided by classes capable of more damage with no sacrifice.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the world first did include a reaper. However, that does not mean it was needed, but at least it works

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the world first did include a reaper. However, that does not mean it was needed, but at least it works

Worth noting that the world first really had less to do with the best group to do it and far more to do with the first people to organize well enough.

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the world first did include a reaper. However, that does not mean it was needed, but at least it works

From what I hear the raids were disabled for all of a few hours to begin with and the encounter was defeated. If this is true, I’d be more concerned with the encounter just being SIGNIFICANTLY undertuned.

Atherakhia.4086:

Is this even true though?

A ranger provides perpetual cripple via auto attack on their highest DPS weapon. Thieves provide 50% uptime on weakness from auto attacking. Even chill, unless you use greatsword (which I assume is a poor option given its DPS?) is done equally well by Rangers?

So even if debuffs weren’t impacted by breakbars the utility you mention isn’t that short in supply and is provided by classes capable of more damage with no sacrifice.

It is true. We provide AoE perma-cripple via Locust swarm (traited), which out-strips a Ranger’s single target perma-cripple. We can provide perma-weakness both single and AoE. And we also can achieve perma-chill with ease. We don’t have to change spec to get Weakness and cripple/chill either.

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the world first did include a reaper. However, that does not mean it was needed, but at least it works

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3nipnp/world_first_vale_guardian_kill/

Group comp, 4 Condi Engi (1 tankier hybrid, which was me), 3 Revenants, 1 Druid, 1 Chronomancer, 1 Warrior. Everyone was in Berserker, except the Condi Engis of course. I don’t think the Berserker meta is quite over with yet.

I’m pretty sure mastery over transfusion will secure necros/reapers a spot in raids. The ability to pop groups of people out of dangerous situations on a <30 second cd.

I need practice, its really embarrassing ruining a fight when you tele people in fresh aoe.

I will say my soft cc being useless on most the fight is kinda disappointing, hopefully other bosses have other ways of using breakbars (i.e. he has a breakbar that is much more difficult to break that is up most the fight)

Bhawb.7408:

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the world first did include a reaper. However, that does not mean it was needed, but at least it works

Worth noting that the world first really had less to do with the best group to do it and far more to do with the first people to organize well enough.

Quite agree with this, which is why I added the second sentence.

Atherakhia.4086:

From what I hear the raids were disabled for all of a few hours to begin with and the encounter was defeated. If this is true, I’d be more concerned with the encounter just being SIGNIFICANTLY undertuned.

Raids were reactivated yesterday and available up to the end of the BWE (in 30min). While they did require coordination, there didn’t seem to be anything “difficult” as such. Most of the groups were full offensive (berserker/sinister stats) with usually very few supporty gears and builds. The problem is that because of the timer, most of the comp needs to deal very high damage. On the other hand, with some coordination, there is little damage you cannot avoid.

The main difference is that “control” was very important (to control the dangerous orbs flying around and break the break bars) and that the amount of HP was very high so “sustained” damage definitely is more relevant than burst. There was also some important but limited boons tripping need, so most classes can deal with it (which makes sense since they clearly said all professions should be able to do it). Also, so far most teams had 1 tank to take aggro. Considering that necro can wear tankier gears while still having 100% crit chance, maybe necro works well in this role.

Enough to grant a spot for reaper? maybe, but not sure.

Charblaze.6958:

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the world first did include a reaper. However, that does not mean it was needed, but at least it works

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3nipnp/world_first_vale_guardian_kill/

Group comp, 4 Condi Engi (1 tankier hybrid, which was me), 3 Revenants, 1 Druid, 1 Chronomancer, 1 Warrior. Everyone was in Berserker, except the Condi Engis of course. I don’t think the Berserker meta is quite over with yet.

OOOh, I must have confused with this one
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/LOD-Vale-Guardian-Down/first

so glad I dont PvE then

Ravezaar.4951:

so glad I dont PvE then

The type of people that will have issues or exclude Reapers are generally not skilled enough. so pretty much 90% of pvers. it might suck being a reaper in “high” end PvE.

Quick address to the “self-stacking 25 might is useless in group content” folks….. Blighter’s boon has no ICD and heals you even if you repeat stacks. As for how tough raids are or whatever else… I’m not sure if Reaper will for sure have a place, but it’s certainly an option. It does do good dps and has a few nice control options as well. And Reaper is also very sturdy (Plus, if you mess up and miss a circle or enrage the boss, you’ll still be up.. Not super relevant, but it was sad to see all those bodies…..)

So, yeah. We have our flaws. But I think we have potential in raids

PlatinumMember.5274:

it might suck being a reaper in “high” end PvE.

I’m still curious what measurement is going to be used to differentiate “high” end PvE from “casual” PvE. If it is some sort of progression ranking, and there are Reapers in the top 10 guilds to complete content fastest in the world, does that mean Reaper is fine? Or are people going to say that it was the group’s coordination that won the day, not the class? At that point, does it really matter, since coordination is more important than a Reaper’s shortcomings? Where do you draw that line?

Part of the issue that ANet is going to run into is that they have two roles, “support” and “control”, that are so insanely general that I don’t know how you even begin to balance classes for those roles. “Damage” is damage, and I know there is AoE vs. Single Target, but at least it’s pretty cut and dry.

What defines support? Different fields at the right time? Boon stripping a target? Providing boons to allies? Healing allies through banners/unique buffs? Helping rez downed allies? Blocking/destroying projectiles in an AoE? How do we rank the value of each of these and balance accordingly to make sure each class that is supposed to be able to “support” can “support” an appropriate amount?

Same issues with “control”. There is already a differentiation between hard-CC and soft-CC, and with the implementation of the break bar, how do you evaluate a class’s ability to control a fight? Is it based on ability to drop a break bar quickly? Is it about controlling a single add? Maybe controlling groups of adds?

At this point, players are defining what is important given what they have seen so far, which is understandable. Determining the value of all of the different components of support and control could very well be an encounter-by-encounter process though, which makes me wonder how exactly they are looking to balance PvE, if at all.

When every class can sort of spec to do basically anything, they fuzz the lines too much to really have a clear vision of balance for PvE.

As a result, if Reaper doesn’t cut it for “high” end PvE (whatever that is going to be), I won’t really be surprised. Something is going to not cut it. If everything can be completed with all of the classes, though, without one completely hampering the raid, I imagine ANet is going to consider that a success.

Atherakhia.4086:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

The only one of those conditions Necros don’t apply as well or better than anyone else is Immobilize. Cripple, Chill, and Weakness, we’re top tier on applying and maintaining.

Necro’s self-sufficiency may come into play in some encounters, but for what we have right now, it’s just not a thing to be valued. The profession is versatile, sure, but so is every other profession.

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

Is this even true though?

A ranger provides perpetual cripple via auto attack on their highest DPS weapon. Thieves provide 50% uptime on weakness from auto attacking. Even chill, unless you use greatsword (which I assume is a poor option given its DPS?) is done equally well by Rangers?

So even if debuffs weren’t impacted by breakbars the utility you mention isn’t that short in supply and is provided by classes capable of more damage with no sacrifice.

One-hand sword of ranger locks you in one place, which is horrible.

I really dislike using it, but sad thing is main-hand axe is so weak to use.
It’s really not worth comparing, because in generally it’s an awful weapon in contents you actually need to dodge.. Also one-hand sword 2~3 does next to no damage.

Also ranger’s axe’s chill has super low duration, and frost trap is such a terrible utility that no-one bother to use it. Donnu why you can compare ranger’s chill with Reaper’s.

Really, I rather get a new range one-hand weapon for ranger than that staff…

One more thing, Reaper does way more damage than ranger without smokescale (that pet is OP currently, and will get a nerf anyway). Go test the damage of ranger yourself and see. Druid makes the dps even worse.

@Cogbyrn: you are missing the point, the fact is a good chunk of PvE content is immune to half of the effects of our skills and traits when it matters most.

They tell you can’t have weakness working because it’s horribly broken even thought it’s less effective than protection and has an RNG component. Then you have a whole squad of zerk/sinister with only one tanky guy “just for keeping boss aggro” clearing the raid because of squad wide 90% protection up-time by one profession. Yeah, debuffs are broken while boons are perfectly fine. So much for all the commotion about killing the metazerk. And they even claimed to make HoT PvE take advantage of GW2’s wonderful combat mechanics like PvP. (-_-")

I really have my doubts how good of an addition a necromancer (reaper or otherwise) will be.

DAMAGE:
We already know we lack this. Reaper makes up for this a little bit with big gravedigger crits sub-50%, which does us a little bit of favor.
Another thing we might have going, is that unlike some other classes; on harder fights we might be able to keep rocking high damage gear when others have to switch to more tanky gear. And due to traits we can swap out some precision anyway.

That said, damage wise; it’s still not anywhere near what a lot of other classes pump out. If anything that’s what team compositions in the short raid phase told me. There were very little groups that took reapers. And a lot of groups that stacked Heralds/Engineers/Elementalists.

CONTROL:
We mostly have soft-CC. And I strongly have my doubts how effective that’s going to be.
The only thing we would be really good at would be chill. But chill is easily accessable for other classes as well (condi engineers / elementalists / ranger pets), plus you just stack some humans with reaper of grenth elite and you’d have perma chill right there. No necro needed.

Boon corruption if that becomes a thing might be worth bringing a reaper for. But who knows how few fights will involve that.

SUPPORT:
What support do we bring that is either unique (think timewarp; think druid healing) or simply warranted.
Nothing really. Necro has from the get go been an extremely selfish class when it comes to support.
We can keep up 25 vuln easily; but we’ve already seen that a lot of guilds are going to stack condi engineers, because they do that + great DPS + great control.

The way I see it there are two ways of looking at it:

Top end PvE
Does necro/reaper bring something that warrants a valuable raid slot?
That question kind of splits up into two parts, you either have to:
a) Bring something unique (Mesmer brings unique abilities for example; druid brings a very unique playstyle/support)
b) Excel at something. Are you really good at one of the things. Do you have a lot of CC to help with adds / breakbars? Do you have condition spec that does top of the line dps? Do you provide a constant stream of boons to the raid? Do you provide a specific cooldown that at some part in the fight ends up being a huge help?

I think for necromancer, both boxes tick off as “no”.

More casual

With more casual the restrictions are a lot more relaxed.
The only perk generally is: Do you slow us down?

Think about necromancer in current PvE content. You provide maybe 2/3rd or 1/2 the dps that other classes potentially bring. You provide little hard CC or support.
A necromancer in current PvE is a liability unless it’s played better than another class.

Reaper changes that a bit as we gain access to pretty solid damage sub-50% HP. But it’s still not fixing the support and the control part of things very much.
And the damage, as seen over the entirety of the fight is not extraordinary enough; which means again that you have to play at 110% when other classes can play at <100%.

Aomine.5012:

Atherakhia.4086:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

The only one of those conditions Necros don’t apply as well or better than anyone else is Immobilize. Cripple, Chill, and Weakness, we’re top tier on applying and maintaining.

Necro’s self-sufficiency may come into play in some encounters, but for what we have right now, it’s just not a thing to be valued. The profession is versatile, sure, but so is every other profession.

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

Is this even true though?

A ranger provides perpetual cripple via auto attack on their highest DPS weapon. Thieves provide 50% uptime on weakness from auto attacking. Even chill, unless you use greatsword (which I assume is a poor option given its DPS?) is done equally well by Rangers?

So even if debuffs weren’t impacted by breakbars the utility you mention isn’t that short in supply and is provided by classes capable of more damage with no sacrifice.

One-hand sword of ranger locks you in one place, which is horrible.

I really dislike using it, but sad thing is main-hand axe is so weak to use.
It’s really not worth comparing, because in generally it’s an awful weapon in contents you actually need to dodge.. Also one-hand sword 2~3 does next to no damage.

Also ranger’s axe’s chill has super low duration, and frost trap is such a terrible utility that no-one bother to use it. Donnu why you can compare ranger’s chill with Reaper’s.

Really, I rather get a new range one-hand weapon for ranger than that staff…

One more thing, Reaper does way more damage than ranger without smokescale (that pet is OP currently, and will get a nerf anyway). Go test the damage of ranger yourself and see. Druid makes the dps even worse.

Already tested Ranger damage. It’s higher than Necro and it brings more utility. Sword provides the cripple and owl provides 50% chill up time with their actual PvE build. Thief can provide weakness with their actual PvE build.

The only point I was trying to make was the debuff utility the Necro supposedly specializes in isn’t rare or meaningful enough to warrant a Necro getting a slot. Other classes provide enough without sacrificing utility or build and those classes would likely be taken in multiples in a raid simply because they provide a DPS premium whereas Necro is still low tier in DPS and missing tier in utility.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Part of the issue that ANet is going to run into is that they have two roles, “support” and “control”, that are so insanely general that I don’t know how you even begin to balance classes for those roles. “Damage” is damage, and I know there is AoE vs. Single Target, but at least it’s pretty cut and dry.

General, but I don’t know if they’re unable to balance around the ideas.

Control is how you affect enemies, outside of damage.
Support is how you affect allies. (*Possibly outside of direct healing, depending on source and game).

Added to:

Damage, single target.
Damage, AoE.
Survivability (active and passive, though this can again cause a split depending on fight mechanics).
(*Healing).

So the classes have to have enough of those different categories mixed together in order to be “viable”. Though, as you say, some specs will be better at one scenario than others. But keep in mind your other point…

Cogbyrn.7283:

When every class can sort of spec to do basically anything, they fuzz the lines too much to really have a clear vision of balance for PvE.

If every class can spec to adequately fill each above category, you have less fuzz and potentially total balance. Unfortunately, you also get closer to homogenization, where the differences in classes are aesthetic. ¯\(- _- )/¯

Though that brings up an interesting point. How many people would be perfectly happy playing a Warrior that has Reaper aesthetics (animations, scythes, spell effects, etc.)? Or an Elementalist, with the same Necro aesthetics?

Atherakhia.4086:

Aomine.5012:

Atherakhia.4086:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

The only one of those conditions Necros don’t apply as well or better than anyone else is Immobilize. Cripple, Chill, and Weakness, we’re top tier on applying and maintaining.

Necro’s self-sufficiency may come into play in some encounters, but for what we have right now, it’s just not a thing to be valued. The profession is versatile, sure, but so is every other profession.

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

Is this even true though?

A ranger provides perpetual cripple via auto attack on their highest DPS weapon. Thieves provide 50% uptime on weakness from auto attacking. Even chill, unless you use greatsword (which I assume is a poor option given its DPS?) is done equally well by Rangers?

So even if debuffs weren’t impacted by breakbars the utility you mention isn’t that short in supply and is provided by classes capable of more damage with no sacrifice.

One-hand sword of ranger locks you in one place, which is horrible.

I really dislike using it, but sad thing is main-hand axe is so weak to use.
It’s really not worth comparing, because in generally it’s an awful weapon in contents you actually need to dodge.. Also one-hand sword 2~3 does next to no damage.

Also ranger’s axe’s chill has super low duration, and frost trap is such a terrible utility that no-one bother to use it. Donnu why you can compare ranger’s chill with Reaper’s.

Really, I rather get a new range one-hand weapon for ranger than that staff…

One more thing, Reaper does way more damage than ranger without smokescale (that pet is OP currently, and will get a nerf anyway). Go test the damage of ranger yourself and see. Druid makes the dps even worse.

Already tested Ranger damage. It’s higher than Necro and it brings more utility. Sword provides the cripple and owl provides 50% chill up time with their actual PvE build. Thief can provide weakness with their actual PvE build.

The only point I was trying to make was the debuff utility the Necro supposedly specializes in isn’t rare or meaningful enough to warrant a Necro getting a slot. Other classes provide enough without sacrificing utility or build and those classes would likely be taken in multiples in a raid simply because they provide a DPS premium whereas Necro is still low tier in DPS and missing tier in utility.

Are you comparing to REAPER or regular Necro?

Unfortunately you can’t use REAPER right now, but I tested, the damage is way higher than melee ranger. (Range ranger has even lower dps). You have to combine with shroud and gravedigger and self might/ vulnerability.

Also shouts are actually good utilities. Go check glyphs on druid and see.

Atherakhia.4086:

The only point I was trying to make was the debuff utility the Necro supposedly specializes in isn’t rare or meaningful enough to warrant a Necro getting a slot. Other classes provide enough without sacrificing utility or build and those classes would likely be taken in multiples in a raid simply because they provide a DPS premium whereas Necro is still low tier in DPS and missing tier in utility.

Elementalist can provide partywide 25 might but PS warrior is a thing because he does the same job faster with less effort. If chill did matter on defiant bosses, Reaper would be the profession of choice because it provides more chill with less effort than Ranger. With 3 traited wells you have partywide 30% protection up-time, but it doesn’t matter because the Herald can output more protection with less effort.

Aomine.5012:

Atherakhia.4086:

Aomine.5012:

Atherakhia.4086:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If the break bar didn’t absorb cripple, chill, weakness, and immob, would the conversation just switch to “Necros don’t apply <insert key condition for a particular fight> as well as <insert some other class>”?

Is there any merit to Necromancer being able to potentially fill multiple holes in a potentially changing encounter/raid environment?

Is it possible that debuffing capabilities will be a special consideration on certain fights, just not the one that is currently on display?

The only one of those conditions Necros don’t apply as well or better than anyone else is Immobilize. Cripple, Chill, and Weakness, we’re top tier on applying and maintaining.

Necro’s self-sufficiency may come into play in some encounters, but for what we have right now, it’s just not a thing to be valued. The profession is versatile, sure, but so is every other profession.

And as long as break bars absorb those debuffs and appear on every boss? Not a chance of them being useful.

Is this even true though?

A ranger provides perpetual cripple via auto attack on their highest DPS weapon. Thieves provide 50% uptime on weakness from auto attacking. Even chill, unless you use greatsword (which I assume is a poor option given its DPS?) is done equally well by Rangers?

So even if debuffs weren’t impacted by breakbars the utility you mention isn’t that short in supply and is provided by classes capable of more damage with no sacrifice.

One-hand sword of ranger locks you in one place, which is horrible.

I really dislike using it, but sad thing is main-hand axe is so weak to use.
It’s really not worth comparing, because in generally it’s an awful weapon in contents you actually need to dodge.. Also one-hand sword 2~3 does next to no damage.

Also ranger’s axe’s chill has super low duration, and frost trap is such a terrible utility that no-one bother to use it. Donnu why you can compare ranger’s chill with Reaper’s.

Really, I rather get a new range one-hand weapon for ranger than that staff…

One more thing, Reaper does way more damage than ranger without smokescale (that pet is OP currently, and will get a nerf anyway). Go test the damage of ranger yourself and see. Druid makes the dps even worse.

Already tested Ranger damage. It’s higher than Necro and it brings more utility. Sword provides the cripple and owl provides 50% chill up time with their actual PvE build. Thief can provide weakness with their actual PvE build.

The only point I was trying to make was the debuff utility the Necro supposedly specializes in isn’t rare or meaningful enough to warrant a Necro getting a slot. Other classes provide enough without sacrificing utility or build and those classes would likely be taken in multiples in a raid simply because they provide a DPS premium whereas Necro is still low tier in DPS and missing tier in utility.

Are you comparing to REAPER or regular Necro?

Unfortunately you can’t use REAPER right now, but I tested, the damage is way higher than melee ranger. (Range ranger has even lower dps). You have to combine with shroud and gravedigger and self might/ vulnerability.

Also shouts are actually good utilities. Go check glyphs on druid and see.

I’ve only done very basic math on Necromancer because I had no interest in playing it for the better part of 2 years. It’s only about the past year I started playing. But Ranger I’ve done the math on.

Things to keep in mind though is dagger is still higher DPS than greatsword auto attack. Dagger + Locust does about the same damage as grave digger. So really Reaper isn’t going to be pulling away from base Necro all that well just from doing very quick math.

Perhaps others who are more vested could provide better numbers.

Wow, 33k Gravediggers, higher than I thought it’d be for max! not bad. (seen in LOD’s raid video).

Anyways, I played a bunch of Arah and a bunch of Fractals with Reaper this weekend, I think it’s good and decent flexibility. Spite/Soulreaping were my favorite pair with it, but I tried Spite and Blood magic as well to get that fun support stuff and I wasn’t complaining.

With CPC and RS2 I think we have some group support especially paired with Blood Magic in many situations.

I don’t know, I like it, it’s not the best, but it’s easily acceptable. Not going to see me complaining about this spec. Only thing I’d complain about is wanting GS outside of Reaper

Cogbyrn.7283:

Based on Char’s description, it sounds like groups are specifically trying to build to not include a Necro. It makes me wonder what might happen if they allowed the Necro to have a place.

Also, how many boons did you need to strip every 10 seconds? With a Focus and Path of Corruption, I feel like you could do that without issue if it was just a couple. If it was more than 3, what class can strip 3+ boons every 10 seconds alone? What does that class sacrifice in order to gain that ability?

Boon stripping is irrelevant, every raid is going to have a mesmer with a sword (#1 strips boons). Necro really doesn’t bring anything someone else doesn’t do better, which is par for the course for us. We are a lot better than we were though.

Dead.5829:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Part of the issue that ANet is going to run into is that they have two roles, “support” and “control”, that are so insanely general that I don’t know how you even begin to balance classes for those roles. “Damage” is damage, and I know there is AoE vs. Single Target, but at least it’s pretty cut and dry.

General, but I don’t know if they’re unable to balance around the ideas.

Control is how you affect enemies, outside of damage.
Support is how you affect allies. (*Possibly outside of direct healing, depending on source and game).

Added to:

Damage, single target.
Damage, AoE.
(*Healing).

So the classes have to have enough of those different categories mixed together in order to be “viable”. Though, as you say, some specs will be better at one scenario than others. But keep in mind your other point…

Cogbyrn.7283:

When every class can sort of spec to do basically anything, they fuzz the lines too much to really have a clear vision of balance for PvE.

If every class can spec to adequately fill each above category, you have less fuzz and potentially total balance. Unfortunately, you also get closer to homogenization, where the differences in classes are aesthetic. ¯\(?)/¯

Though that brings up an interesting point. How many people would be perfectly happy playing a Warrior that has Reaper aesthetics (animations, scythes, spell effects, etc.)? Or an Elementalist, with the same Necro aesthetics?

I really, really hope they can find a good balance, but quantification of Control/Support is where I start to question. How do you quantify a class’s ability to control, or support? Necro can do all sorts of control all by themselves, with AoE chills, AoE cripples, AoE fears, AoE weakness, but potentially none of that is useful on an encounter focusing on a single boss. Potentially all of it is useful if there’s some sort of wave-based swarm fight where management is key and those conditions land/take effect.

Heck, even quantifying damage in GW2 seems like a pseudoscience. Based on what I’ve seen, it has felt like most evaluations of damage are based on isolated fights with a known mob with as ideal of conditions as possible. Depending on the design of an actual encounter, that could mean close to nothing. Or it could mean everything. The rub of data is that good analysis is difficult.

Also, it seems people are approaching PvE balance on the forums from the “bring the class, not the player” perspective. My personal hope is that ANet is trying to balance based on “bring the player, not the class”. However, that road ends at homogenization, so you have to strike a careful balance. With a lot of the unique types of things various classes can bring to the table, they’re a pretty long ways out from homogenization, but it also means that compositionists (that’s a word now, because “composers” didn’t feel right) are studying what classes to bring. They’re hamstrung even in the Damage category, because meters do not provide them with the evidence that their Necromancer, who theoretically does less damage, is outperforming their Engineer, who theoretically does more. In this instance, the Necromancer player is potentially filling his/her role better, but all people know is that the Engineer can do more damage. The blessing and curse of meters.

I’m not entirely sure how you create a culture that values a player over a class. I don’t think it ever happens in an ideal sense, but I think you have to start with each class having an overlap of viability across a unique set of desired qualities. If a Necro/Reaper is something along the lines of Damage/AoE Damage/Boon Strip/Healing (ignoring soft CC condition application for the moment), is that something a compositionist could make use of and feel good about? I’m not talking about the weeds of “X does Damage better, Y does Boon Strip better, and Z does Healing better”, I’m talking about the big picture, where you don’t need X and Y and Z, because you have a Necro. I’ll admit that ANet has a struggle ahead though for PvE balance, because when you bring 10 people, compositionists are going to minimize the necessary support/control, and maximize on damage. Depending on how well certain classes fill those support/control niches, versatility may not matter, depending on encounter design.

And I’m still curious to hear what people think the metric defining “high” end PvE is going to be, because I think it’s important to know how you’re measuring success before evaluating whether or not Reapers will have a place helping groups achieve that success. I know for a fact it isn’t just completing content, because the current Necromancer can do that, and people have already touted the “No Necromancer/Ranger” community of today’s PvE.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Also, it seems people are approaching PvE balance on the forums from the “bring the class, not the player” perspective. My personal hope is that ANet is trying to balance based on “bring the player, not the class”. However, that road ends at homogenization, so you have to strike a careful balance. With a lot of the unique types of things various classes can bring to the table, they’re a pretty long ways out from homogenization, but it also means that compositionists (that’s a word now, because “composers” didn’t feel right) are studying what classes to bring. They’re hamstrung even in the Damage category, because meters do not provide them with the evidence that their Necromancer, who theoretically does less damage, is outperforming their Engineer, who theoretically does more. In this instance, the Necromancer player is potentially filling his/her role better, but all people know is that the Engineer can do more damage. The blessing and curse of meters.

I’m not entirely sure how you create a culture that values a player over a class. I don’t think it ever happens in an ideal sense, but I think you have to start with each class having an overlap of viability across a unique set of desired qualities. If a Necro/Reaper is something along the lines of Damage/AoE Damage/Boon Strip/Healing (ignoring soft CC condition application for the moment), is that something a compositionist could make use of and feel good about? I’m not talking about the weeds of “X does Damage better, Y does Boon Strip better, and Z does Healing better”, I’m talking about the big picture, where you don’t need X and Y and Z, because you have a Necro. I’ll admit that ANet has a struggle ahead though for PvE balance, because when you bring 10 people, compositionists are going to minimize the necessary support/control, and maximize on damage. Depending on how well certain classes fill those support/control niches, versatility may not matter, depending on encounter design.

And I’m still curious to hear what people think the metric defining “high” end PvE is going to be, because I think it’s important to know how you’re measuring success before evaluating whether or not Reapers will have a place helping groups achieve that success. I know for a fact it isn’t just completing content, because the current Necromancer can do that, and people have already touted the “No Necromancer/Ranger” community of today’s PvE.

If you look at PvP, while still having a “meta”, you see that the top teams are players, not classes. Many of them have their favorite class and just stick to it, regardless of the meta. Nos for example is playing necro, and while people almost accuse him of being a burden to the team, the fact is that he is still a core member of the best team in NA, because he is a good player. (On that subject, if you look at the twitchcon, I absolutely hate how Grouch and Hugh Norfolk kept insulting him during the stronghold match).

The sole reason why the PvE community got so toxic is that the content is doable by anyone who knows reasonably the dungeon. The goal is just to do the content as fast as possible to maximize the income. The dungeons are basically not fun-driven but reward-driven.

From what I can see, currently raids reward coordination more than the choice of class. So the problems may be less. Also, since you will most likely play with regular friends and not PUG, the chances of being bullied for being a necro are minimal… or change your friends.

Silverkey.2078:

If you look at PvP, while still having a “meta”, you see that the top teams are players, not classes. Many of them have their favorite class and just stick to it, regardless of the meta. Nos for example is playing necro, and while people almost accuse him of being a burden to the team, the fact is that he is still a core member of the best team in NA, because he is a good player. (On that subject, if you look at the twitchcon, I absolutely hate how Grouch and Hugh Norfolk kept insulting him during the stronghold match).

Nos being able to play Necro on the top NA team means very little. A lot of top players would say the same thing, Nos holds his team back by playing an underpowered profession, but his team cohesion is probably more important at this point, and GW2 PvP doesn’t have strong enough competition to matter. Look at League pre-LCS and see all the garbage pro players that were allowed to be pros because the competition was comparatively low.

I really do hope raids are more than dodging, positioning, and auto-attacking.

Necromancer’s PvE problem has always been that it does not bring anything useful to a team vs boss battle. Right now, only Transfusion and its ability to move downed players (across flat surfaces) is useful in a team fight against single, high-value, immune-to-CC bosses.

To avoid being fingered as a wasted slot in truly difficult PvE, Necromancer/Reaper requires a large number of adds to boss fights, situations where a point must be defended, minions might peel off aggro, and situations where boon corruption, not stripping, is needed.

The descriptions of the first raid sound a lot like a copy of current dungeons where single mobs or bosses dump dangerous AoE on players while flailing around, immune to all CC, hard or soft. Boss fights whose only requirements for success are, “Stack and AA. Dodge or use mobility skills to avoid being one-shotted. Group buff and heal on the stack. When the break bar empties, start the burn phase,” do not seem difficult and do not seem to have a use for Necromancer.

Tequatl at least has multiple adds trying to destroy the turrets, a wave-jumping mechanic that even a slow Necromancer can perform, plenty of AoE conditions to manage, and even uses for Fear and actual knock-back skills.