Guild Wars 2

This topic might have been done to death; if so, sorry!

Why does taking reaper prevent us using our old death shroud? To the best of my knowledge we’re the only profession that actually LOSES a mechanic by taking their elite specialisation. What’smore, Reaper specialisation gives us our only really strong melee option, but simultaneously removes our strongest ranged ability (axe still just doesn’t measure up, sorry devs, and staff is only good for aoe). So basically we spec to be effective at melee at the expense of our ranged damage capability, or else leave ourselves with only very limited melee abilities to retain our ranged strength.

What i would like to see is the ability to switch between Death & Reaper shrouds, using either F1/F2 or the weapon switch keybind. While specced into Reaper, that shroud would replace Death shroud on F1, pushing it to F2, and while in shroud, hitting weapon swap or F2 would activate the alternate shroud, while F1 would drop shroud as now.

This might be too powerful for pvp (i don’t play the game mode, so i don’t know) but i feel like it’s sorely needed for pve.

“strong melee option” lmao. I’ll give you half of that by saying it’s a melee option(you can do more just camping GS). However I understand how you feel, as far as PVE goes it would be cool to have a mechanic like that.

Axe is actually pretty decent and not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. This idea probably never happen in all likelihood, but it’s not a terrible idea.

I’ve more or less switched mainss to Necro since HoT came out. I tried playing my warrior again, and… well.. it isn’t good.

leaving aside the fact she’s not PURELY power built, she’s still heavily invested in the stat (~2250 power) and she only does 2/3 – if that – the melee damage that reaper greatsword can do.

For what is supposed to be THE heavy melee profession, it’s a little sad to see her outclassed like that, but at the same time i love how strong GS feels on my necro. /shrug

Edit: reaper shroudmelee also attacks a LOT faster, not to mention in an aoe, and weaving in the number 2 skill does seem to make the damage close, if not superior, to ordinary GS damage.

I’ve had similar thoughts about that. We shouldn’t lose class mechanic to get another. Did warriors lose their original f1 skills? nope. funnily both elite specs were developed by the same developer

Only other profession to replace their base mechanic with an improved version was technically Guardian.

I’ve more or less switched mainss to Necro since HoT came out. I tried playing my warrior again, and… well.. it isn’t good.

leaving aside the fact she’s not PURELY power built, she’s still heavily invested in the stat (~2250 power) and she only does 2/3 – if that – the melee damage that reaper greatsword can do.

For what is supposed to be THE heavy melee profession, it’s a little sad to see her outclassed like that, but at the same time i love how strong GS feels on my necro. /shrug

Edit: reaper shroudmelee also attacks a LOT faster, not to mention in an aoe, and weaving in the number 2 skill does seem to make the damage close, if not superior, to ordinary GS damage.

The thing with that is, Warrior has a tonne more party support skills and buffs than Necro.

why would you want to use Death Shroud? It’s literally bad in every situation.

As Lahmia pointed out, the change to the class mechanic isn’t unique to us, guardian also saw a change in its virtues and how they work. I’m was not entirely happy with the changes either, but then they made axe into a good ranged option (see below).

Also I’ll point out that you are comparing a core profession to an elite spec. Not remotely fair to the core profession. Warrior’s elite spec is condi based, and your warrior is power-based, so you have no need for berserker in a sense. If you switched to condi, I think you would see a major uptick in your dps.

Also as Lahmia pointed out, Warrior has Phalanx Strength. This alone makes you invaluable to any group content, as it give you unparalleled might stacking capabilities that EVERYONE benefits from, regardless of build (unless they are a fulltime healing druid). Necro has some group stuff, but nothing really of note, unless you are dealing with some heavy condi pressure.

Reaper Shroud is pretty good at melee range, and does have some good utility as well. DS lacks any real utility, and the AA is slow. Dhuumfire actually saw an increase in its usefulness just because RS AA is so much faster, even more so with Reapers Onslaught.

Axe, with the recent changes, has amazing synergy with Decimate Defenses, and really carries its weight now as a great ranged option for Reapers.

and weaving in the number 2 skill does seem to make the damage close, if not superior, to ordinary GS damage.

only if you don’t have quickness since the skill is counted as a leap/movements kill and isn’t affected by it.

Can chose between Reaper and Death Shroud can grant us different good things. In PvE it’s not so useful because the Reaper shroud was made basicly fixing different problems of the death shroud, but a Ranged option can be good in few situations.
In WvW a Power build should chose to use reaper in roaming and death in zerg, that have a really good AA when spammed (and with reaper traits should be even better)..
In sPvP there’s situations when the fast fear of the death shroud and the new Reveal should be useful, for example when facing a thief. Or a Ranged option will be good for some builds, without force the player to stay malee and be easy kited by everyone.

We asked to be able to chose to active death or reaper shroud at choice (put reaper on f2 and everything’s done) but that had never happen.
Different classes had they’re Fx reworked in a similar way: warriors can active the Berserker, mesmer the new F5, ranger the Avatar, elementalist can chose to Overcharge his attunement.
But seems that no one want to make this change and then we’re still here.

Crinn.7864:

why would you want to use Death Shroud? It’s literally bad in every situation.

umm… life blast is a pretty strong ranged skill, and both Life transfer & Tainted shackles are very powerful when used right. Of course, so are Soul spiral/Executioner’s scythe but both those abilities affect a much smaller area.

So really, anytime i want to deal high single target damage at range or burst/control a large area, death shroud is the way to go. Staff can also do both those things, but not to the same extent, and axe is a no-go since it lacks aoe capability almost entirely, not to mention how much less range it has compared to both life blast & Necrotic grasp.

Narrrz.7532:

Crinn.7864:

why would you want to use Death Shroud? It’s literally bad in every situation.

umm… life blast is a pretty strong ranged skill, and both Life transfer & Tainted shackles are very powerful when used right. Of course, so are Soul spiral/Executioner’s scythe but both those abilities affect a much smaller area.

So really, anytime i want to deal high single target damage at range or burst/control a large area, death shroud is the way to go. Staff can also do both those things, but not to the same extent, and axe is a no-go since it lacks aoe capability almost entirely, not to mention how much less range it has compared to both life blast & Necrotic grasp.

The hit radius on reapers auto seems terribly small too. If you could choose each shroud skill, I’d take Life Blast every time.

Lahmia.2193:

Narrrz.7532:

Crinn.7864:

why would you want to use Death Shroud? It’s literally bad in every situation.

umm… life blast is a pretty strong ranged skill, and both Life transfer & Tainted shackles are very powerful when used right. Of course, so are Soul spiral/Executioner’s scythe but both those abilities affect a much smaller area.

So really, anytime i want to deal high single target damage at range or burst/control a large area, death shroud is the way to go. Staff can also do both those things, but not to the same extent, and axe is a no-go since it lacks aoe capability almost entirely, not to mention how much less range it has compared to both life blast & Necrotic grasp.

The hit radius on reapers auto seems terribly small too. If you could choose each shroud skill, I’d take Life Blast every time.

It’s all situational. While life blast pierces, it’s not likely to hit multiple targets, where as RS AA does have a 3 person cleave. If you are up against single targets DS AA works better, but against anything with adds or mobs, RS AA is better. The thing I don’t understand about DS is why have a ranged AA followed by a skill that pulls you into melee range? Who thought that was a good idea?

bearshaman.3421:

Lahmia.2193:

Narrrz.7532:

Crinn.7864:

why would you want to use Death Shroud? It’s literally bad in every situation.

umm… life blast is a pretty strong ranged skill, and both Life transfer & Tainted shackles are very powerful when used right. Of course, so are Soul spiral/Executioner’s scythe but both those abilities affect a much smaller area.

So really, anytime i want to deal high single target damage at range or burst/control a large area, death shroud is the way to go. Staff can also do both those things, but not to the same extent, and axe is a no-go since it lacks aoe capability almost entirely, not to mention how much less range it has compared to both life blast & Necrotic grasp.

The hit radius on reapers auto seems terribly small too. If you could choose each shroud skill, I’d take Life Blast every time.

It’s all situational. While life blast pierces, it’s not likely to hit multiple targets, where as RS AA does have a 3 person cleave. If you are up against single targets DS AA works better, but against anything with adds or mobs, RS AA is better. The thing I don’t understand about DS is why have a ranged AA followed by a skill that pulls you into melee range? Who thought that was a good idea?

That’s just it. In pve I usually run power, so I camp greatsword for the most part (and when I do use shroud, I almost never auto). And in WvW, I’d much prefer to just have a 1200 range heavy hitting projectile since I can barely hit anything that isn’t an npc with reaper’s shroud auto.