Reaper Changes for BWE3

Reaper Changes for BWE3

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Posted by: ZudetGambeous.9573

ZudetGambeous.9573

Remember that damage from “special” conditions (terror and deathly chill) do not benefit from the condition changes, and do not recognize partial seconds. 1s of chill does the same amount of damage as 1.9s of chill. You can not get partial ticks of the special conditions, and thus it is almost never advantageous to spec into additional duration of those unless it boosts you to the next full second.

This is incorrect. Literally you can just hop into game and test this. I just did this and using reapers mark and the fear of death trait. A 1.5s fear will tick twice. Once for full damage and the second time for partial damage. Doom, a 2.25s fear, will tick three times. twice for full damage and once again for partial damage. So yes, traits that make conditions do damage have partial ticks.

Always take bleed duration over chill duration.

Again this is from a totally condition perspective. I was in no way relating chill duration to the chill damage trait when stating you can get 70% duration. The two things are totally separate in my post. The only reason i brought up bitter chill at all was to state that because chill is more common than fear that bitter chill wont do more damage than terror. That it. There would be no real point on taking bleed duration on a power build focused on chill would there?

Can you post kitten of this, or can someone else confirm? unless they changed this recently this is not how it works. You can get 2 ticks in 1.5s if you happen to sync up with the server in a nice manner, i.e you apply it 0.3s before the server ticks the damage and then again 1s later, or 2 ticks in 1.4 seconds. I know they changed all normal conditions to work in the way you describe about 1.5 years ago, but terror was not included in this change since it was actually the trait that does the damage and not a condition. Granted there are a lot of “stealth” changes, so it could have been changed and I missed it, but last time I tested this (about a year ago) it worked as I describe.

You posted about chill duration and deathly chill damage so I just pointed out that chill duration isn’t worth it from the condition damage perspective. Obviously if you want to do nothing other than max chill duration then taking chill duration is the way to go. The benefit of .8-2s of extra chill over 20% might duration, 2k air sigil crits, and 10% bonus damage is still questionable imo, but it certainly would have situation usefulness depending on the build.

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Posted by: Sigmoid.7082

Sigmoid.7082

Can you post kitten of this, or can someone else confirm? unless they changed this recently this is not how it works. You can get 2 ticks in 1.5s if you happen to sync up with the server in a nice manner, i.e you apply it 0.3s before the server ticks the damage and then again 1s later, or 2 ticks in 1.4 seconds. I know they changed all normal conditions to work in the way you describe about 1.5 years ago, but terror was not included in this change since it was actually the trait that does the damage and not a condition. Granted there are a lot of “stealth” changes, so it could have been changed and I missed it, but last time I tested this (about a year ago) it worked as I describe.

Last time i tested this, currently in game so about 1min ago, you will always get partial ticks from terror. So yes you are incorrect on this matter. Test it yourself and see.

With no extra coni-damage besides from curses minor #3, doom with 50% duration ( a 2.25s fear ) will tick 3 times. With one condition it will do 496,496,124. Reapers mark will tick once for 496 then again for 248.

(edited by Sigmoid.7082)

Reaper Changes for BWE3

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

What are your thoughts of making RS 3 a stun breaker?

It would definitely be too strong as a stun breaker. As it is now, it’s basically 11 seconds of CC immunity, like a souped-up defiance bar with no downside, on a 20 second cooldown, with an aoe fear. Reapers need to be not completely immune to CC, and since we already have 33/66% reduction to snares, and 11 seconds of immunity to CC, making it a stunbreak would push it over the top. The counterplay to a Reaper is to run away, and if caught, to quickly smack us with a stun before we’re ready and then run away. Making it a stunbreak that doesn’t use up a utility slot would be insanely powerful, which is something that only Guardians have, and only if traited, and on a very long cooldown.

Revenant stunbreaks on legend swap, which is low cooldown as well, in fact lower than Infusing Terror.

And that’s on top of their utility skills which all also legend swap.

And it just so happens revenant has generous access to stability as well.

We might also look at the berserker and daredevil stunbreaks, 10 sec cd with a knockdown upon block for the daredevil, and a 15 sec cd stunbreak for the berserker.

Bpth of these classes supremely more mobile than the reaper.

And in the case of a warrior they’re just as if not more durable than a necromancer in team fights.

Look at the psot literally one above yours. We have Foot in the grave, which gives us a stunbreak + 1 stack stab on DS/RS entry, which is the same CD as Revenant’s stunbreak, so having ANOTHER stunbreak on In fusing Terror is not needed. At all. This would lead to “NERF NECRO” all over again, and we still are suffering from the overnerfs from beta compared to release, aswell as from overnerfing because of Dhuumfire.

Oh, ok, so you’re comparing a base feature like stunbreak on legend swap to a traited feature which involves oh, I don’t know, not using another traitline in order to use SR. Cool, you do really great comparisons.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

Oh, ok, so you’re comparing a base feature like stunbreak on legend swap to a traited feature which involves oh, I don’t know, not using another traitline in order to use SR. Cool, you do really great comparisons.

Ehh? I am sure that empty vessel is not a base feature. Its a minor trait in invocation.

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Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Oh, ok, so you’re comparing a base feature like stunbreak on legend swap to a traited feature which involves oh, I don’t know, not using another traitline in order to use SR. Cool, you do really great comparisons.

Ehh? I am sure that empty vessel is not a base feature. Its a minor trait in invocation.

Mm, while Empty Vessel is not a base-feature, that’s true, Legend swaps are always 10 seconds between, where Shroud cooldown begins after you exit. This is a common issue/consideration when it comes to how Death Shroud is balanced. It’s often balanced around “flashing” cooldown, which probably isn’t the best way to balance it.

Not saying I have a better answer, but it does lend to some debate on technical usage, and traits are almost ALWAYS quoted at their “flash”-value.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Oh, ok, so you’re comparing a base feature like stunbreak on legend swap to a traited feature which involves oh, I don’t know, not using another traitline in order to use SR. Cool, you do really great comparisons.

Ehh? I am sure that empty vessel is not a base feature. Its a minor trait in invocation.

Which does not compete against another grandmaster, and is on a traitline that is a generalist traitline, as Ventari/Mallyx/Jalis are far more specialized. So Invocation will always be part of every Revenant build, whereas Soul Reaping may not (it’s mainly attractive in PvP, for Vital Persistence and Deathly Perception/Dhuumfire).

For example, Soul Reaping won’t b e a part of the reaper raid builds.

More importantly, Foot in The Grace costs you either Deathly Perception or Dhuumfire, incredibly powerful grandmasters that are far more used than Foot in the Grave.

More importantly, it’s a stunbreak tied to the cooldown of death shroud which you may have used to absorb damage or used a fear to interrupt a skill.

Meanwhile revenant has a built in stunbreak not only from swapping legends, but on every legend utility bar there’s one skill which stunbreaks and is on a far lesser cooldown than necromancer stunbreak utilities. Anf, oh, the stunbreaks have also much better effects than the necromancer stunbreaks as well.

You people keep talking as if the reaper is OP with a stunbreak, but I’m pretty sure that on tournaments the reaper will still be the go to train target on team fights.

And as a bruiser with low mobility and chasing potential and little access to defensive boons like vigor and protection, it should be a pretty stalwart profession able to endure trains and constant CC.

I mean, an extra stunbreak on a 20 sec cd isn’t going to change the fact that anyone who wants to can disengage at will from you and there’s little you can do to keep from getting kited. At the very least you should be a sturdy and lasting presence in melee.

(edited by Zenith.7301)

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Posted by: punahou.3986

punahou.3986

The Reaper feedback from the last BWE was much more positive this time around so this set of changes will be less about large sweeping changes and more about smaller adjustments to numbers and timing to improve the overall feel of the specialization. Some of the more unpopular traits are also getting their functionality updated to be more competitive.

Reaper’s Shroud
The speed of Death’s Charge was increased to be more in-line with other gap closers like Savage Leap. I’ve also done some small animation changes that should reduce incidents of the skill going in the wrong direction. The small recharge on enter was also removed to make the functionality consistent with normal Death Shroud.

  • Reaper’s Shroud: Removed the small recharge that was applied to the Exit Reaper’s Shroud when this skill was activated.
  • Life Reap (Reaper Shroud 1c): Reduced aftercast by 0.2 seconds.
  • Death’s Charge – Increased movement velocity by approximately 30%. Improved animation consistency.
  • Infusing Terror: Removed incorrect fear skill fact from this skill
  • Terrify (Reaper Shroud 3 toggle): Reduced casting time by 0.15 seconds. Adjusted animation speed.

Greatsword
With the last set of changes to greatsword the weapon is starting to feel like it’s in a good place. Some range adjustments to a few of the more difficult to hit with skills should help bring the rest of it together. Greatsword 5 was not changed in this iteration but we are aware of the problems it has and are working to improve them without changing the unique functionality of the skill.

  • Dusk Strike/Fading Twilight: Fixed an issue where these skills would occasionally not award their listed lifeforce values.
  • Death Spiral: Increased width on this attack by 33% to put it in line with other melee attack skills.
  • Nightfall: Increased radius of this skill by 60 for all pulses. Maximum radius is now 360. Added effects to show damage/combo field radius. Fixed an issue which caused the combo field to persist longer than the effect of this skill.

Shouts
Shouts are getting to a good place but there’s still a little more to be done here. “Chilled to the Bone” and “Your Soul Is Mine” are getting buffs to make them more worthy of the slot and “Rise” is getting an update to make it more reliable as a defensive skill.

  • “Chilled to the Bone!”: Lowered recharge from 120 seconds to 90 seconds. Reduced chill duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.
  • “Nothing Can Save You!”: Reduced recharge from 35 seconds to 25 seconds.
  • “Rise!”: Updated minion models. Increased vitality and toughness of minions by 33%, but decreased minion power by 40%. This skill now summons one minion by default plus one additional per target hit. Shambling Horrors now apply Dark Bond to their master as soon as they are summoned but must still attack to maintain the bond.
  • “Suffer!”: Removed unlisted lifeforce gain from this skill.
  • “You are all Weaklings!”: This skill now has instant activation. Increased weakness duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds. Removed stability.
  • “Your Soul Is Mine!”: Decreased base heal value by 25% but increased base multiplier by 16% and healing attribute multiplier by 40%. TLDR; This skill now has the same healing values as the Guardian skill Shelter.

Traits
While many Reaper traits had very positive feedback, there were a few that we felt could use some improvement. Augury of Death now adds a lifesteal component to help it fit in with the other “fighter” style traits in that row. Soul Eater similarly has had a small rework to make the CDR bonus easier to use. The lifesteal from Soul Eater was moved onto Gravedigger only since it allows us to better tune its power and provides a clearer use case for it. The change to Chilling Force fixes an issue where multiple Reapers attacking the same target could block each other from gaining the bonus if they were attacking the same target.

  • Augury of Death: In addition to it’s previous effect this trait now additionally causes shouts to lifesteal. (Approximately 100-150 health.)
  • Chilling Nova: Increased damage by 50%. Increased number of targets from 3 to 5.
  • Chilling Force: Now has a 1s ICD but is not limited per target. Single strikes that hit multiple targets can activate this trait more than once before its recharge is activated. Increased might duration from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Deathly Chill: Now has an icon attached to the chill damage.
  • Soul Eater: Changed recharge reduction to a flat 20% without conditionals. Lifestealing from this trait increased significantly but the lifestealing now only applies to Gravedigger. (Approximately 140-180 health.)

I hope that everyone has fun playing Reaper in the next BWE with these changes!

Robert

why cant CHILL be the cold equivalent to BURN? I rather forgo the not so great snare from chill and let CHILLS stack and be given the same damage coefficient that BURNS are given.

Other weapon powers that snare are much better than chill— its too easy for classes to drop chill due to duration and limited stackability.

This would also give necros a much wanted, viable COND build- as the current bleed/poison builds are very mediocre to say the least.

(edited by punahou.3986)

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Posted by: Sigmoid.7082

Sigmoid.7082

Robert

why cant CHILL be the cold equivalent to BURN? I rather forgo the not so great snare from chill and let CHILLS stack and be given the same damage coefficient that BURNS are given.

Other weapon powers that snare are much better than chill— its too easy for classes to drop chill due to duration and limited stackability.

This would also give necros a much wanted, viable COND build- as the current bleed/poison builds are very mediocre to say the least.

Because:

  • It would be redundant, no use having another high damage condi that only 2~3 class can make real use of.
  • It would cause all sorts of balance issues. Especially used along side burn which the classes with the most chill can burn well to a degree.
  • Chill already does a lot. People only seem to remember it slows people but totally seem to forget that it reduces cooldown speed by 66%, effectively tripling cooldowns while its active.
  • There are better ways to improve necro condi builds through improvements to weapons and traits. This is easier done because you have to balance them against less things.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Necro condi builds will be improved when they restore bleeding to its rightful place as the most damaging condition when ramped up.

Burning is just way strong, while bleeding/torment/confusion are pathetic, and poison is decent.

Burning was meant to be the high base damage condition with short uptime while bleeding would do more damage but would need ramp up. That is not even the case anymore, where burning just outranks every other condition at any number of stacks. And guardian/engineers/rangers can pretty much have near permanent burning uptime on high stacks.

And, well, torment and confusion are plain terrible in PvE. For what it’s worth, torment and confusion should do the same damage as bleeding and remain with their active bonuses as a perk for being less accessible conditions.

Once they fix condition balancing, and buffing necro condi application (especially bleeding/poison/torment), necromancers might stop being totally eclipsed by engineers, guardians, warriors and even rangers.

Necromancer and mesmer are currently the weakest condi specs by far in terms of DPS. They have high ramp up time, in the case of mesmer poor cleaving of conditions, and for both despite their ramp up time they maintain mediocre condition coverage compared to an engineer who can not only spike but maintain a wider variety of conditions that comes with useful blast fields and with the perk that it’s all cleave.

(edited by Zenith.7301)

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Posted by: Vortok.6975

Vortok.6975

I had an idea maybe good, maybe bad, during the first BWE i posted about making Nightfall a mobile field that can act like locust swarm. Still today i think it can help the reaper a lot in pvp/wvw.

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Posted by: Ithir Darkleaf.7923

Ithir Darkleaf.7923

I had an idea maybe good, maybe bad, during the first BWE i posted about making Nightfall a mobile field that can act like locust swarm. Still today i think it can help the reaper a lot in pvp/wvw.

In fact, many folks in this same forum suggested that it should be that way, just like Warrior’s torch 5, which woud be totally awesome for chasing people trying to escape.

~ The light of a new day

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Well with introduction of Druids, everything changes. It’s like we’re getting holy trinity, and the amount of heals druids bring may require further buffs to Reaper damage. Everything changes now, at least when it comes to WvW/PvP.

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Posted by: nekretaal.6485

nekretaal.6485

Will axes and scepters and daggers still nerf your damage in death shroud?

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Posted by: Cecilia.5179

Cecilia.5179

Will axes and scepters and daggers still nerf your damage in death shroud?

So far, there’s nothing they’ve said to indicate otherwise.

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Posted by: Kain Francois.4328

Kain Francois.4328

Guys, stop suggesting power creep to Nightfall. It’s already an overpowered, huge-damaging blind field, and I don’t want it being nerfed more.

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Posted by: Ackzar.9156

Ackzar.9156

I probably should check up on this before I post, but last time I checked reaper shroud aa numbers were based on exotic double handed weapon, no? Anet recently said they would base raids after ascended stats, making it kind of a bummer for reaper. So that would be some nice changes to see (unless they have already been made)

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Posted by: Sigmoid.7082

Sigmoid.7082

I probably should check up on this before I post, but last time I checked reaper shroud aa numbers were based on exotic double handed weapon, no? Anet recently said they would base raids after ascended stats, making it kind of a bummer for reaper. So that would be some nice changes to see (unless they have already been made)

Its based of the rarity of your mainhand weapon last time i checked, similar to engi kits, it and it uses a hammer.

engi kit wiki:

Kits scale damage based on the rarity of the player’s equipped weapon.

Reaper Changes for BWE3

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Posted by: Ackzar.9156

Ackzar.9156

I probably should check up on this before I post, but last time I checked reaper shroud aa numbers were based on exotic double handed weapon, no? Anet recently said they would base raids after ascended stats, making it kind of a bummer for reaper. So that would be some nice changes to see (unless they have already been made)

Its based of the rarity of your mainhand weapon last time i checked, similar to engi kits, it and it uses a hammer.

engi kit wiki:

Kits scale damage based on the rarity of the player’s equipped weapon.

Ah, thank you for checking that up for me. I wasn’t entirely sure if they had changed it, I just remembered that it was a topic after the BWE2.

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Posted by: Wintersun.9483

Wintersun.9483

Do death shroud traits (unholy sanctuary for example) work in reaper’s shroud too?

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Do death shroud traits (unholy sanctuary for example) work in reaper’s shroud too?

yep

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

woot bank is updated this time, thank you Anet! Finally able to try some of the stuff I bought last time.

It’s reaper time!