Guild Wars 2

Robert Gee.9246:

Atherakhia.4086:

Any update you can give on the Necromancer changes? You mentioned you were reviewing Axe and Scepter?

I really wanted to slip some of these changes in with the BWE feedback changes but there just wasn’t enough time. Sorry.

There was a fairly large number of general bugfixes for both existing skills and BWE bugs for the next patch that took priority. Additionally the patch ended up being bugfixes more so than balance adjustments so they would have felt a little out of place. I’m hoping to bring up axe and scepter changes again next time we have a balance patch.

Considering how long it takes to make balance patches I think it’d be nice if we heard what the planned changes are beforehand so we can give feedback on it, to avoid a hit or miss scenario.

Death’s Charge deals around 100-250 dmg(cele-marauder) when whirling through somebody, which is negligible when compared with “old” fiery great sword.
What deals the ~1k damage is the “attack” at the end of the rush which also applies the blind.

So the part which profits from corner stacking is the part of the skill that already deals significantly reduced dmg (which can still add up if it would hit 1 gazillion times).

Changes are pretty cool. *hue hue

Robert Gee.9246:

• Gravedigger: This attack now has 100% recharge when it hits a foe below 50% health. Increased damage by 50%. Increased recharge from 5s to 8s.

This is amazing.

Kain Francois.4328:

-Part 1-

I’m strictly a PvE player, so my feedback will be towards that game mode.

>

The original intent here was to make GS feel like more of an AoE weapon while dagger felt like more of a single target weapon.

This sounds nice on paper, but Dagger doesn’t have much single-target weapon. Instead, I look at as a Defensive weapon focused on Death Shroud, which generates a massive amount of Life Force between dagger auto-attack, and our focus or warhorn off-hand. Furthermore, Life Siphon (Skill #2) on Dagger is a powerful RANGED ability that can restore a massive amount of health when combined with Blood Magic, further playing into the theme as a defensive weapon. Dark Pact (Skill #3) synergizes with Life Siphon perfectly for its 3 second channel, allowing you to safely restore health when fighting melee enemies. Dagger is a defensive weapon, and it is awesome at what it does.

It has high consistent damage, but it shouldn’t be balanced as the Necromancer’s highest single damage source, since other classes can deal higher higher consistent autoattack damage than us. (Thief Dagger auto, Guardian Sword auto, etc…)

However, I do emphasize that as a defensive weapon, our Daggers interact with our profession mechanic more than any other weapon, and the defensive nature of our weapon set plays majorly into the class identity. Daggers generate life force like no one’s kitten!
>

Greatsword Auto Attacks – Fixed incorrect range facts. These attacks have the same range as normal Greatsword Attacks. Added lifeforce gain to all hits 1/1/3. Increased damage of all attacks by approximately 20%.
Fading Twilight – Adjusted animation speed to smooth out attack sequence for non-human rigs.
Chilling Scythe – Increased chill duration from 1.5s to 2s.

Will have to test this out ingame before I could give any feedback. I don’t like how it gathers so much life force, because I feel that is walking on the domain of daggers and warhorn.

Yeah, being told that dagger AA is suppose to be the apex of Necro direct dps is a bit of a downer.

Still, I think it has a place in a world where a buffed Reaper GS exists. Dagger’s 6% LF every 2 seconds on it’s AA chain is better than 5% LF every 2.5 second, which is what GS will be able to do the next BWE, and that’s not even talking about warhorn, which IMO still has the single best LF generating skill in Locust Swarm.

Plus, if the enemies in Verdant Brink are a taste of what’s to come in HoT, PvP is not the only place the slowness of GS’s AA chain will be a concern.

Foefaller.1082:

Still, I think it has a place in a world where a buffed Reaper GS exists. Dagger’s 6% LF every 2 seconds on it’s AA chain is better than 5% LF every 2.5 second, which is what GS will be able to do the next BWE, and that’s not even talking about warhorn, which IMO still has the single best LF generating skill in Locust Swarm.

Plus, if the enemies in Verdant Brink are a taste of what’s to come in HoT, PvP is not the only place the slowness of GS’s AA chain will be a concern.

Dagger is 8% life force every 2.1 seconds (part 2 generates 2%, part 3 generates 6%) for 3.81% life force/second. Greatsword will generate 5% per target every 3 seconds for 1.67% life force/second. Greatsword potentially gets more (at 3 targets, 2 targets is 3.33% life force/second), but in single or double target situations, dagger is superior at generation. Even at higher numbers of targets, dagger can generate more due to being paired with warhorn.

Please, take a look at the minors and adept trait tier for PvE. We just don’t have good options.

I also think reaper shroud requires tuning up, it’d be silly for it to be a DPS loss over using greatsword or dagger considering this is a resource you build up.

You SHOULD want to go into reaper/death shroud whenever you can to beef up your offense/defense.

Robert Gee.9246:

Reaper Shroud 2 has targeting/control issues
Sounds like a lot of you guys accidentally ran off of cliffs with Death’s Charge :P so we’re changing this to be more like the Warrior Sword skill Savage Leap. It will no longer go through targets you have selected, but will go its full distance if you have no target. Because it does very little damage while dashing I’ve allowed it to continue hitting even when you hit walls, we’ll be watching this next BWE to make sure it doesn’t turn into another Fiery Greatsword Rush though.

• Death’s Charge – Now dashes to a target, rather than in a direction. No longer passes through your target. No longer stops hitting if the player hits a wall.

For the Elementalist, Burning Speed is easily my favourite skill because it is aimed the way it is. No, need to mess with the target, you look where you to go and go. The Ranger sword is most fun when you don’t have a target, which means to use the weapon “correctly” you must avoid targetting your opponent. D/x thief has a similar issue with heartseeker, where you’re often better off leaping through your target by deselecting them.

The problem isn’t targetting, the problem is the dash going further and floatier than expected. This is because I expect this skill to behave like a Necro burning speed, which it isn’t. Making it like Monarch’s Leap removes some of the fun of reaper and creates usability issues, without any of the benefits of Monarch’s Leap (i.e. jumping puzzles).

Zenith.7301:

Please, take a look at the minors and adept trait tier for PvE. We just don’t have good options.

With the improvements to shouts, I’d say Augury of Death looks more attractive now. Chilling Nova, being available more often and being easier to trigger (due to higher Chill outside of it) can help you ramp up with Chilling Victory.

Honestly, Reaper’s Onslaught will still be quite handy against Mordrem (other non-HoT mobs, not so much).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Foefaller.1082:

Still, I think it has a place in a world where a buffed Reaper GS exists. Dagger’s 6% LF every 2 seconds on it’s AA chain is better than 5% LF every 2.5 second, which is what GS will be able to do the next BWE, and that’s not even talking about warhorn, which IMO still has the single best LF generating skill in Locust Swarm.

Plus, if the enemies in Verdant Brink are a taste of what’s to come in HoT, PvP is not the only place the slowness of GS’s AA chain will be a concern.

Dagger is 8% life force every 2.1 seconds (part 2 generates 2%, part 3 generates 6%) for 3.81% life force/second. Greatsword will generate 5% per target every 3 seconds for 1.67% life force/second. Greatsword potentially gets more (at 3 targets, 2 targets is 3.33% life force/second), but in single or double target situations, dagger is superior at generation. Even at higher numbers of targets, dagger can generate more due to being paired with warhorn.

Thanks for fixing my mistakes on the numbers. It looks like, at least for single targets dagger is even better at LF generation than I thought!

Definitely can’t complain about such a comprehensive buff to reaper but I do have a small issue with dagger still. I was under the impression that dagger was the defensive blood line type weapon. I mean, it has a root and a heal as 2/3 of its skills. Am I really just supposed to AA the boss for 50% of the time? Has anyone maybe done the numbers on reaper shroud dps with the Reaper’s Onslught fix? I would be so much more down with this if dagger was at least building to reaper shroud as a burst phase. As it stands, according to my understanding, dagger is even better than shroud single target. If dagger is supposed to be the end-all-be-all of reaper single target dps, cant we get some changes to dagger 2 or 3 making it feel like an actual dps weapon and not defense/utility?

Mr Robert, I am hugging my monitor right now…and I want to say thank you.

I like everything except the Chilling Nova Change. It should at least be changed to on hit so that it is less demanding than Sigil of Ice!

While it does require crit, we have so much free crit sources nowadays you can really easily make it work.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zenith.7301:

Please, take a look at the minors and adept trait tier for PvE. We just don’t have good options.

With the improvements to shouts, I’d say Augury of Death looks more attractive now. Chilling Nova, being available more often and being easier to trigger (due to higher Chill outside of it) can help you ramp up with Chilling Victory.

Honestly, Reaper’s Onslaught will still be quite handy against Mordrem (other non-HoT mobs, not so much).

Shouts are still useless in pve, nobody will run any except the heal. they just don’t do enough damage or provide group utility.

Wells will be default with maybe signet of spite if they ever get around to fixing the signet power passive not working on death shroud.

As far of the other minors, it doesn’t solve anything. Cold shoulders is still bad because you don’t want to tank hits in pve and chill uptime is bad on dps centric pve builds, and shivers of dread is even worse since you don’t want to fear mobs away from the melee clump and most importantly reaper only has one long cooldown fear unless you take staff which is a big no on pve as staff is terrible there (not a power weapon, a weak condition weapon with little pve relevant support).

I’m also disappointed they think the dagger is fine. dagger necro in pve has been out of meta for 3+ years and somehow is being used as our benchmark for single target DPS when it is already one of the lowest ingame relative to ele/thief/engi/warrior/guardian.

I hope the greatsword buffs exceed dagger’s performance because we will need massive damage increase if we are to become relevant in pve given that we have minimal group utility (no, blood line utility is pretty bad for pve, you don’t want your allies going down and lifesteal is pitifully weak in an environments where mbs hit you for 5-6k autoattacks while your lifesteals are in the 200-300 range at best).

Just wanted to drop in and say thank you for listening to the community You are a necromancers hero!

Thank you so much for listening and improving Reaper, I’m so excited and can’t wait.

What about RS damage reduction?

Foefaller.1082:

Yeah, being told that dagger AA is suppose to be the apex of Necro direct dps is a bit of a downer.

I know

Dagger is SUCH a good defensive weapon, but it’s skills are hardly offensive.

I do hope ANET clarifies their position on this.

Kain Francois.4328:

post 2
The problem is Decimate Defenses is too useful.

Please don’t get that ingrained into anyone’s head. This trait is the ONLY thing that keeps my soldier reaper useful.

Knighthonor.4061:

What about RS damage reduction?

What about it? RS’s damage reduction is the same as DS (I tested it personally).

Little question about the shambling horrors, what are the stats of the thing (or a reference point like more sturdy then a shadow fiend, damage like a jagged horror,… if the numbers aren’t decided yet) and what is the intended behavior when you are receiving multiple sources of dark bond?

Otherwhise great work and thank you for your time.

Any chance of seeing an F1/F2 option to enter either DS or RS? Currently Reaper feels incredibly restrictive in terms of ranged effectiveness and many of us used DS as our ranged DPS option over staff/sceptre due to lacklustre damage/skills on the weapons

Overall, I’m just really happy to get some transparency, and I hope this will continue beyond the release of HoT, thank you Robert!

+100% Chill Duration without Food again!! Reaper you have me back <3

Now that´s a very good post, very insightful and explaining.

So that’s pretty much great sword working fine, though i do worry about grave digger. Its now the most powerful attack skill in the game. Below 50% you will do relative 133% lvl3 eviscerates all over the place.

Shouts are ok now since they have been improved. Rise is now looking like an amazing shout because of how damage reduction works. Minion masters will love this.

Shroud is going to be ridiculous with reapers onslaught. In places like wvw your shroud skills wont have much of a cooldown but this will be a godsend.

Very very excited for this. Reapers will be very strong next BWE

Tnx Robert

Really great to see you listen to the feedback, and there was alot here, and on reddit and even TentonHammer story about the Reaper. I like the changes aswell, adress most issues alot of us had with Reaper.Cant wait to try it out for next BWE.

LF drain in RS is a concern and the Increase to 1.5% on AA is good but will it be enough since RS compared to DS is a Melee focused mechanic I still see this as an issue.

And I get your vision of the slow & hard hitting Reaper with the GS tho Iam still worried about actually landing the GS-Skills mainly the AA and would have wanted abit of the cast-times but yea I take the LF and Increase in dmg and hope it does the trick.

Tnx again

Wow great changes. Good to see that the feedback was taken into consideration.

I agree that the a lot of the talents should be seen first with the balance changes to GS / RS and Shouts. We don’t want to tip the scales so far to the point where we need nerfing again.

Thanks so much Robert. I hope we can get to see some changes to the Scepter and Axe soon

The Devs listened!

SPLOOSH

Bhawb.7408:

I love the changes, and I’m really glad to see that some of my feedback was listened to. I can’t imagine anyone isn’t a Geeliever after all this work you put in so quickly.

I thought Especs were only good for mesmer builds
Meant for meta comps but not for me
CCs were out to get me, that’s the way it seems
Disappointing shouts because of eles

THEN I SAW THIS THREAD!
NOW I’M A GEELIEVER!

Overall nice changes.

• Still not sure that I’d ever consider Suffer. Too weak for the cooldown.
• Still don’t think that YAAW is the right place for the stunbreak.
• What about Shivers of Dread having close to no effect (limited access to fears)?

Knaifhogg.5964:

… Dhuumfire being totally better in RS compared to DS …

There is a pretty easy solution for this.

• Remove the pierce on DS1
• Make it have a small area effect on impact (e.g. Ele Staff Fire AA)

WE GEELIEVE, WE’RE THE GEELIVERS

This is an absolutely amazing list of changes you have there. I was going through Reaper withdrawal symptoms already after being away from it for 4-5 days, now this post only made my itch to get my hands on it once more even worse.

I must say, Robert Gee made a great job at filtering through the suggestions floating around the forum and making adjustments accordingly. GS sounds much better for PvE use with the new and improved Gravedigger. I hope that once people get to testing, Reaper DPS will be competitive enough for us to stop getting kicked out of PvE groups.

The infusing terror fix was necessary, though it will hit our sustain in PvP significantly (ticks of stability procced Blighter’s Boon healing ticks, allowing us to be quite sustainable in 1 v 1 situations). I will reserve judgement until we get to do more testing, but I will definitely keep an eye out for that. My hopes are that the new functionality of RS2, the reduced CD of RS4, and the hitbox fix of RS5 will make up for it.

The new “Rise” sounds quite fun, though I would like to see it in action and see how survivable the Shambling Horrors are. I doubt that MM reaper will be all that great, though I am temped to try it out just for the fun-factor alone. The changes to all the other shouts are really good, too. Having solid base effects is key to making them viable alternatives to our current utilities.

I am excited to check out our new possibilities with chill uptime. I did not focus on the condition much last beta, to the point where hydromancy sigil was my main source of chill application, since it simply did not seem like it was worth it. Now, whoever, the idea sounds much more attractive.

Zenith.7301:

Please, take a look at the minors and adept trait tier for PvE. We just don’t have good options.

I also think reaper shroud requires tuning up, it’d be silly for it to be a DPS loss over using greatsword or dagger considering this is a resource you build up.

You SHOULD want to go into reaper/death shroud whenever you can to beef up your offense/defense.

This^

I think Shivers of Dread does warrant a change. Considering how little access reapers actually have to fear and the fact that we only really get two minors on an elite specialization, there should be some additional benefit to Shivers of Dread.

I think the adept tier would actually be good if chilling nova was allowed to be good. Our damage mitigation is based on enemies being chilled. This also goes back to the issue with minors in the reaper line since cold shoulder…even at 20% chill duration increase…is not even a 1 second increase on our chill duration skills. It all comes down to whether they want us to perma chill or not…it really seems like they don’t, which is perfectly understandable. That being the case, our damage mitigation needs to be moved to something they don’t mind us doing. If we have to be immobile/slow with no active defenses or even vigor…then our mitigation needs to be significant and moved to something we can keep up constantly. As far as pve goes, we have tools that are not going to do anything for us against bosses (fear and blind). We’re going to need something to allow us to eat all that spike damage if we aren’t going to be allowed to avoid it. Blood magic is good for a trickle of incoming heals, but that isn’t going to do anything for spike damage. The majority of testers seem to have a consensus that RS is squishy for a melee build, so something seems lacking. I didn’t really see that point addressed in the coming changes.

I 100% agree with Shroud needing to be a bonus that you want to use every time it is available. It definitely should not be a dps loss to use our class mechanic, which like you said, is a resource we have to build up and maintain to use. If we build for shroud via soul reaping and reaper…it should out perform our actual weapon skills. It should also be able to maintain the chill on enemies…or whatever they decide to do to allow us to actually survive in melee.

Please also reconsider keeping us stuck playing with half a profession when using our class mechanic. Utilities in shroud please.

I just logged into say thank you very much.

While not all the things I was worried about it the testing I did were addressed and some were tweaked but way less than I would have liked, all these changes are welcome and a great step in the right direction.

Im glad that the community feedback was addressed so fast, continue the great work.

My standing issues at first glance would be:

- “Suffer” is STILL an inferior “Flash Freeze”. It damage was already less (and the damage got lowered now), the CD is significantly higher than Flash Freeze, the freeze is the same (so even thats not a feature) and thats even considering you dont give AoE Frost Aura to all allies (which can mean Might, Fury and Swiftness for all allies as well as AoE weakness to all enemies when traited.) It becoming instant cast is great but it has to get a significantly lower CD to be any good.

- Chilled to the Bone is still bad and its all because of the CD. Getting a lower cast time is great but compare it to Plague Form and Lich Form, both of those elites are well worth the CD providing more survivability (both), damage (lich), control (plague) and stability (both) than chilled to the bone will ever and they’re not even remotely as easy to interrupt. IMO as it is it needs as low as a 70s CD to even compare.

- Rise is will still be bad. This is regretfully a minion issue as ALL minions suck across all game modes, simply put they wont survive enough to last more than a single hit (if any) in any content that matters. Unless the minions are made useful by dying (aka have a death nova effect) the skill will be bad always.

-Shivers of Dread is still underwhelming, fear sources from necromancer are all in long CD and are very limited quantity, the chill would have to be significantly larger than 3s for this to matter.

These are some excellent changes! I am really happy to see how much our feedback was important to Robert and how he really listened to us and what we want.

However I still think there are few issues to consider. Speaking as mostly WvW player, with Reaper becoming melee profession, my biggest concern is dropping too much damage for survivability. I think we can all agree that Reaper can hardly go into melee train with zerker equipment and necro’s damage is the only thing that was making it viable for WvW. I think we need more defense through Reaper Shroud/Traits so we don’t have to sacrifice too much to be just able to survive.

I don’t think I am asking much because necro has really low group contribution, so unless its damage is over the roof, why take it over warrior for example? Losing damage makes the only thing necro was good at not exist anymore.

P.S. Just to be clear, I am not saying Reapers should keep same damage as backline necros with zerker spec and have improved defense at the same time. I am just saying don’t let us sacrifice too much damage.

I was doubtful and reserved at first. Thanks for proving my doubts wrong, these are legit changes! (Especially GS, death’s charge and baseline effects on shouts)

Pleased to see feedback being acted on to make these much needed changes.

I’m looking forward to the next BW to try out these changes.

However, as others have said already, I would urge you not to balance PvE damage against dagger as it is not a competetive weapon.

As far as I know, reaper was supposed to offer group support through damage as the class in general is not a reliable source of group wide might/fury/protection/vigor/regeneration or block and it’s debuffs can be easily covered by other classes without issues.

So raw damage is all that is left. As it stands the necro has no way of competing with elementalists, thiefs or any other class really and I don’t believe that these changes can close the immense gap that has been present in the game for years now.

Please compare the necro/reaper with what other classes can do and balance accordingly instead of using the best of the worst as a baseline.

I’m happy so see so many suggestions of mine and others ending up in this post, it feels like we finaly changed something for the better. That said, Reaper is probably going to be a monster next BWE. Gravedigger spam will be top tier DPS and with Reapers Onslaught working shroud will be quite powerfull. The only thing that remains now is to wait for the next BWE so that we can get our hands on the new stuff.

Popping in to say Thanks Robert!

This thread has gone a long way towards helping the relationship of necros/devs, imho. Taking the feedback and explaining the reasons for/against a change and why is pretty much awesome. Not to mention the changes are actually REALLY GOOD.

Look forward to the next BWE!

Something I feel is missing: “Frost Aura” like the elementalist. Halve the CD and Reaper is golden. Maybe you could add it in a (support) shout ?

Nothing on the Reaper Shroud depleting faster. Were we wrong about it ?

No damage increase on Reaper Shroud.

I can barely believe what I’m reading, they actually listens to our criticism and suggestions, and implement reasonable changes to the problems discussed, I’m so happy!
Thanks for being awesome Robert Gee!

Many, many thanks for coming here to address the community. I like a lot of these changes and i believe it’s a healthy start. I would really like to see a quick fix or adjustment on the overly fast depletion of Reaper Shroud prior to the BWE, it is really necessary.

Please keep the lines of communication open, I’m sure every single person here is ecstatic with you doing so, i certainly am!

Hello.
I will try to stay unbiased and objective on this list of amazing changes that are to come.

All the issues were adressed. I repeat. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE of the concerns that have been posted in our feedback threads have been changed or dealt with in some way.

(And the 2 things that didnt happen, also shared the view from the dev side.
Axe and scepter were mentioned in later post.)

12/10 transparency , Thank you R. Geezus

Really nice to see so many good improvements. Theres still a few more to address and i think you are still being too reserved with Chilled to the Bone and deathly chill. But i appreciate that you want to test things out with these changes first. So big thank you for being completely transparent with us and making it clear that you understood our concerns.

The Deaths Charge change is particularly exciting to me. Now we can actually use the blind effectively. :>

I just wanted to pop in and say thanks for all the changes! They look great, and seem to address a lot of the issues that myself and many others were seeing with the Reaper.

Also, the transparency is very, very refreshing. Even if the changes are subject to change, knowing what you guys are working on (or aren’t) and why is incredibly nice.

Keep up the great work!

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

The infusing terror fix was necessary, though it will hit our sustain in PvP significantly (ticks of stability procced Blighter’s Boon healing ticks, allowing us to be quite sustainable in 1 v 1 situations). I will reserve judgement until we get to do more testing, but I will definitely keep an eye out for that. My hopes are that the new functionality of RS2, the reduced CD of RS4, and the hitbox fix of RS5 will make up for it.

If you take spite with Blighter’s Boon, plus Chilling Force actually gives really good sustain from what I noticed in the beta, and I don’t think the change to Infusing Terror will really affect it much. (A few ticks of stability compared to up to, what, 15 ticks of might in an ideal PvE scenario? (looking at you, pocket raptors))

Other than that point, I do think we’re doing pretty well overall in terms of RS sustain with boon healing (better than Unholy Sanctuary, actually. By… A lot (we’re talking 2k healing with a RS 5 → RS 4 combo against five enemies which takes 4(?) or so seconds, versus 520 from US in the same time frame versus the same five enemies)

The only time US is better than BB is in a 1v1, and in that case, our Shroud won’t burn as fast anyway, so we can still heal decently while in shroud in that scenario, too

Thank you for listening, as a long time Necro player this is a breath of fresh air.

Robert Gee.9246:

• “Rise!”: This skill is now unblockable and instant cast. Damage increased. Now creates a shambling horror for each foe hit which lose health every second. These minions place Dark Bond on their master when they hit with attacks which causes 50% of the damage from attacks on the master to be redirected to the minion.

(sniff)…YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS

Vydahr.4285:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

The infusing terror fix was necessary, though it will hit our sustain in PvP significantly (ticks of stability procced Blighter’s Boon healing ticks, allowing us to be quite sustainable in 1 v 1 situations). I will reserve judgement until we get to do more testing, but I will definitely keep an eye out for that. My hopes are that the new functionality of RS2, the reduced CD of RS4, and the hitbox fix of RS5 will make up for it.

If you take spite with Blighter’s Boon, plus Chilling Force actually gives really good sustain from what I noticed in the beta, and I don’t think the change to Infusing Terror will really affect it much. (A few ticks of stability compared to up to, what, 15 ticks of might in an ideal PvE scenario? (looking at you, pocket raptors))

Other than that point, I do think we’re doing pretty well overall in terms of RS sustain with boon healing (better than Unholy Sanctuary, actually. By… A lot (we’re talking 2k healing with a RS 5 -> RS 4 combo against five enemies which takes 4(?) or so seconds, versus 520 from US in the same time frame versus the same five enemies)

The only time US is better than BB is in a 1v1, and in that case, our Shroud won’t burn as fast anyway, so we can still heal decently while in shroud in that scenario, too

Yes, I played a bunch of 1 v 1 as the Reaper. As a matter of fact, this is what I did for 30%+ of my beta time. And to a great success. Once I got rid of GS, which happened an hour in, I did not lose any fights, At worst, they ended as a draw versus equally tanky warriors. Cele eles and guardians did not seem to fare as well due to the heavy boon corruption.

I found the sustain to be quite phenomenal with spite, and the fact that I was running bunky amulets (celestial/soldiers) further amplified that. DS3 heals for a total of 1064 HP if you let it run for its full duration, so having it on a 9 second cooldown (when traited) was pretty good. Perhaps too good.

In regards to the sustain that US is capable of giving – going into the Death traitline is just not worth it right now, so I would definitely rank Reaper’s BB higher. It is my favourite trait from the whole kit by far and I really hope that we will never see it ruined by an ICD.