Guild Wars 2

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

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.

Realistically, BB is the only thing keeping us remotely feasible as melee brawlers as Reapers, so even a 1 second ICD would ruin the trait (because in RS we can gain might so quickly)

That being said, I would imagine Robert is aware that BB is Reaper’s biggest sustain ability, even more so than Cold Shoulder (though, the fact that Cold Shoulder is a minor means that it just makes BB even better)

@Robert Gee, thank-you for taking in our feedback and implementing it so fast (i would like balance to be bi-weekly tbh, especially if you guys really want this game to be e-sports). please continue to clue us in to changes and things you are working on, etc like a short post once a week like on Friday’s would be highly appreciated.

the GS changes all look pretty good on paper, will have to try them in-game before commenting on them

shouts are still lackluster compared to wells and i think the way the Unblockable portion of NCSY should be the rule of thumb for creating scaling effects for Necro so there is a decent base effect plus greater benefit from hitting multiple foes.

for CTTB i feel it will only be viable if you reduce the cooldown of this in half or add more to it if you want it to remain at 120s cd, because for what you get you don’t really get a lot of mileage out of it compared to other Elite shouts ala Feel My Wrath.

for Rise i have a few questions, will the Shambling Horror function like the one from GW1 where after it dies it spawns a Jagged Horror? ‘coz that would be awesome! but it’s a nice defensive minion utility.

for YAAW, what is the point of a cast time on the shout if it’s also supposed to be a stun breaker too? seems very counter-intuitive imo

the Reaper’s Shroud changes all look pretty good on paper, will have to try them in-game before commenting on them.

with Reaper shaping up pretty nicely, as long as other professions power-creep is kept in check, the only but imo MOST important thing left is to bring Necro’s group effectiveness and efficiency up to par with other professions. to me this should have been a priority before Elite Specs as without changing the base first and making it solid you are basically developing the Reaper on shaky ground and it could them become really unbalanced when you fix the base profession.

i am still highly skeptical of whether or not Necro as a whole (Base and Elite) will be viable before the expansion, but i hope that you and the rest of the balance team are up to the task because it’s the difference between pre-purchasing HoT and waiting for the changes i want to appear for me.

I cannot wait to use the new “Rise!”, that change looks sweet!

The changes as I said before look great, still theres two others things I would lvoe to see them change.
1_ Grasping Darkness really needs to ahve a shorter cooldown, theres classes with way more and better gap closers.
2_ Either see a change in Decimate Defenses or Death Perception, using both give you 100% crit chance most of the time seeing how easy it is to apply vuln while in shroud. While this might sound great because it allows you to use other gear stats than zerker it makes buffs like banners, spotter or fury go to waste. I would love to see either one of them isntead of increasing crit chance give a dps increase.

Hello

Has anyone already talked about “Reaper of Grenth” (human elite skill). This skill didn’t change at all about the Poison stacks, since now it is a stackable condition ! Moreover (and it may only be my personal PoV ?!), I think the CD of this skill is a bit too high right now.

Ty in advance for your concern <3

jacim.5904:

The changes as I said before look great, still theres two others things I would lvoe to see them change.
1_ Grasping Darkness really needs to ahve a shorter cooldown, theres classes with way more and better gap closers.
2_ Either see a change in Decimate Defenses or Death Perception, using both give you 100% crit chance most of the time seeing how easy it is to apply vuln while in shroud. While this might sound great because it allows you to use other gear stats than zerker it makes buffs like banners, spotter or fury go to waste. I would love to see either one of them isntead of increasing crit chance give a dps increase.

For your second thought, my suggestion would be to use Decimate Defenses and Dhuumfire. If you take SR/R/S then you’ll have full might stacks in shroud very easily, along with full stacks of vuln. That should give a pretty decent DPS boost in and of itself

Mhhh i like all the changes. Now there is only one question left, when is the next bwe for testing?^^

Also want to add that alot of ppl complained about cast-times and the slow feel of GS, and those remain the same… keep that in mind for next BWE cause here it seems most of u now are fine with that. Basicly opposite of what I read all week…

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.

Does this mean other classes could also hope to have some of their basic weapons reworked a bit for HoT (hint hint scepter on eles)?

Looks great. Can’t wait to try it.

Ravezaar.4951:

Also want to add that alot of ppl complained about cast-times and the slow feel of GS, and those remain the same… keep that in mind for next BWE cause here it seems most of u now are fine with that. Basicly opposite of what I read all week…

It’s less that people thought the cast times were too slow and more that the skills didn’t have enough impact to justify spending so much time casting.

So, while I agree with the bug fix on Infusing Terror, the Stability uptime felt good to me. Perhaps the difference in uptime could be made up on base Necro?

It also occours to me that Suffer will be the first transfer we have that can transfer Fear intentionally. The other instant-cast transfers are stunbreaks, and as such remove Fear before the transfer.

Finally, Robert, if the art department is creating a new model for Shambling Horrors, could you also ask if they could make a better visual distinction between bone minions and jagged horrors? Although most people ignore both of them, it would be nice to know which one will blow up before I kill it.

Ravezaar.4951:

Also want to add that alot of ppl complained about cast-times and the slow feel of GS, and those remain the same… keep that in mind for next BWE cause here it seems most of u now are fine with that. Basicly opposite of what I read all week…

Well technically most of the complaints were that the casttimes were to slow for what the skills offer. The shouts got shorter casttimes and gs got more damage to compensate. So the complaints were addressed to a certain degree.

Thanks for these changes, Robert.
Its nice to have you looking for us, necromancers, and paying attention to the community feedback.
I know you may not have enough time to spend on forums reading and repplying, but be sure that when you do, its really appreciated. We love you being communicative and transparent with us.

Once again, nice job and keep it coming!

Now about the changes.
OMGish … scepter’s changes are coming at some point! \o/

And on the paper the shout rise looks fantastic for minion builds, thing will only get tankier!

Lynnie.7213:

Now about the changes.
OMGish … scepter’s changes are coming at some point! \o/

And on the paper the shout rise looks fantastic for minion builds, thing will only get tankier!

I’m so excited for scepter buffs! Nothing more fun than the satisfying sound of scepter auto.

I do wonder what will happen to dagger now, especially in pve. GS now weighs up.

Cecilia.5179:

Lynnie.7213:

Now about the changes.
OMGish … scepter’s changes are coming at some point! \o/

And on the paper the shout rise looks fantastic for minion builds, thing will only get tankier!

I’m so excited for scepter buffs! Nothing more fun than the satisfying sound of scepter auto.

Ikr?! That nasty sound!

Lynnie.7213:

Ikr?! That nasty sound!

Like playing badminton, only with more bleeding.

So are we going with #Geelieve, Young Geezy, or straight up R. Geesus now?

Linnael.1069:

So are we going with #Geelieve, Young Geezy, or straight up R. Geesus now?

I think #Geelieve fits real nice.
“I #Geelieve that reaper/necro can take a place in top professions in gw2!”

Silverkey.2078:

Lyger.5429:

Does anyone know if chill scales from condi or power?

Condi

Cool, thanks for info!

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.

noo please not an other selfkill leap skill because deselecting target via clicking in screen did not work intime so you leap in the middle of enemy zerg cause of jump to target :-(
please give us an option to toggle this so we can select if we want our leaps to jump to target or in direction in which our char is looking

Ravezaar.4951:

Also want to add that alot of ppl complained about cast-times and the slow feel of GS, and those remain the same… keep that in mind for next BWE cause here it seems most of u now are fine with that. Basicly opposite of what I read all week…

Well most posts I read said the damage wasn’t there for the long cast time, so with damage needed to be upped OR cast had to be adjusted. They adjusted damage, I’m ok with that.

Sigmoid.7082:

I do wonder what will happen to dagger now, especially in pve. GS now weighs up.

Dagger will still synergies with blood traits better, will still have less damage lose due to movement, still have better LF generation and still let’s you off hand warhorn. Dagger still has it’s place.

Sigmoid.7082:

I do wonder what will happen to dagger now, especially in pve. GS now weighs up.

i really hope that Young Gee-zy will increase it’s damage coz having a defensive weapon be our highest dps and all we can do for damage is auto-attack, make the damage worth the monotony please Robert #Geelieve!

Samhayn.2385:

Ravezaar.4951:

Also want to add that alot of ppl complained about cast-times and the slow feel of GS, and those remain the same… keep that in mind for next BWE cause here it seems most of u now are fine with that. Basicly opposite of what I read all week…

Well most posts I read said the damage wasn’t there for the long cast time, so with damage needed to be upped OR cast had to be adjusted. They adjusted damage, I’m ok with that.

Iam also ok with it and I really like the changes, just wierd that Community isnt more vocal about the 1-thing they seemed least happy with during the week. In regard to it btw, despite the fact that I like we getting LF on GS-AA I seriously doubt we see much effect of it due to how hard it is to land, and the 3% LF-Gen is on the third hit… Idk if I hit one player with that during BWE, PvE mobs ofc np but actual players I cant recall.

Ravezaar.4951:

Samhayn.2385:

Ravezaar.4951:

Also want to add that alot of ppl complained about cast-times and the slow feel of GS, and those remain the same… keep that in mind for next BWE cause here it seems most of u now are fine with that. Basicly opposite of what I read all week…

Well most posts I read said the damage wasn’t there for the long cast time, so with damage needed to be upped OR cast had to be adjusted. They adjusted damage, I’m ok with that.

Iam also ok with it and I really like the changes, just wierd that Community isnt more vocal about the 1-thing they seemed least happy with during the week. In regard to it btw, despite the fact that I like we getting LF on GS-AA I seriously doubt we see much effect of it due to how hard it is to land, and the 3% LF-Gen is on the third hit… Idk if I hit one player with that during BWE, PvE mobs ofc np but actual players I cant recall.

that’s why i suggested a 1s chill as well to the first 2 skills in the chain, to help with stickiness, tbh, i think it is required to have chill on every attack otherwise we will be kited for days and having all the damage in the world will not help if we cannot land the hits. i am happy that Robert did take my suggestion to convert skill 5 into a chill as well, even gave an extra 2s of chill from what i suggested.

hopefully if we find that GS is still kite-bait then they will need to add in my suggestion for the GS skill AA chain.

A suggestion for “Suffer!” This skill is always going to be compared to Plague Signet and, given that Plague Signet is equally good in a 1v1 as a full teamfight, plus is a stunbreak, “Suffer!” is always going to look bad in comparison.

So, here is my suggestion:
1. Retain 3/4 second cast time
2. Remove Chill application
3. Retain the 1 condition transfer/hit.
4. Add a unique debuff to targets hit that does one (and only one) of the following with a duration of 3-4 seconds:

• Conditions cannot be cleansed. Fear can still be removed with a stun break, but not cleanses.
• Boons cannot be applied to the target.
• Boons currently on the target have no effect (like a boon-hate Resistance).

This differentiates the skill from Plague Signet sufficiently that one is not always going to be better than the other. It also really accentuates the name of the skill, as whoever gets hit will, at least for the next few seconds, suffer.

I am loving the changes and the fact that necros are finally getting love. If anything, it is the transparency that helps ease how things are going for this class as I feel necros have been left in the dark for some time. I personally thank you for sharing with us ideas and taking input from other players that also love this class.

With that being said, I am sure that even after the release of HoT, necro will be talked about positively and negatively and some changes may need to be done (nerfs or buffs), which necro is no stranger to. So is it possible that when changes go through for necro, (and honestly for any classes to be fair) is it possible that devs can give more insight on why nerfs or buffs were done in order to give more insight to the reasoning of said changes?

I just think that helps the player base become more aware of what should and cant be done within said class boundaries. Once again though, thank you as you have done enough to make me come back to enjoy this class and game.

What about turning Shivers of dread so we do 10% additional damage to targets under chill as well?

Comparing might sources between the Spite and Reaper lines, the might provided by chilling force is really short (5s). Any chance we could get a bit of a bump to at least 10 seconds?

Robert Gee.9246:

stuff

Outstanding writeup. You didn’t sugar-coat any of the negative player-feedback – you addressed it head on, and you provided the rationale behind all the changes as well as the things that are being left as-is.

Not a trace of the often condascending and unwaveringly overly optimistic scraps of feedback we usually get. Major kudos.

@Anet, promote R.G. and take note: this is how to engage with players in 2015.

Shiny. Some of these changes are so good that I’m afraid we’ll be reeled back too far, like what happened to the original dhuumfire.

About Soul Eater: The problem with Soul Eater isn’t Soul Eater. Siphon is fine, CD recharge is fine. The problem with Soul Eater is that it is next to two titanic traits. Chilling force is excellent and reliable damage boosts and lifeforce generation. Decimate Defenses is an extremely powerful offensive boost that left unchecked will obliterate an enemy.

Both Chilling Force and Decimate Defenses synergize really well with the reaper specialization, as well as every other trait line. Both are universal bonuses that apply to multiple weapons, as well as Shroud itself. Both have powerful, build defining effects. When compared to that, Soul Eater just doesn’t cut it.

My solution to this problem is to move things around. There is another titan of a trait that can compete with those two, and there aren’t any builds that are terribly hamstringed by being exclusive with Chilling Force and Decimate Defenses: Reaper’s Onslaught. So, my suggestion is to move Decimate Defenses and Chilling Force to the grandmaster tier, and move down chill of death and blighter’s boon. Soul Eater can compete with those two.

There’s only one minor build that gets penalized by this: Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper Dhuumfire builds. Now, instead of having the 15% attack rate with Onslaught + 50% crit rate with Decimate, that variant will have to choose to go with either. In exchange, it gets either Blighter’s Boon for more defense, or Chill of Death for more offense, so it isn’t a total loss.

Misguided.5139:

Comparing might sources between the Spite and Reaper lines, the might provided by chilling force is really short (5s). Any chance we could get a bit of a bump to at least 10 seconds?

Actually, Chilling Force could be really frightening if it were higher. Siphoned Power gives more might, but chilling force gives life force. Chilling Force can last the entire fight, whereas Siphoned Power only works for half the fight. Siphoned power also has an internal cooldown, whereas chilling force has an external cooldown.

Chilling force is also more reliable in an AoE, thanks to all of the goodies that we’ve just been given. With the ability to very reliably hit 3-5 targets per second (wells, warhorn, GS AA, shouts), Chilling Force is going to sustain 15-25 stacks of might by itself. Siphoned Power caps out at 20.

At the moment, chilling force is balanced around the idea that optimum conditions aren’t always going to be met.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Shiny. Some of these changes are so good that I’m afraid we’ll be reeled back too far, like what happened to the original dhuumfire.

About Soul Eater: The problem with Soul Eater isn’t Soul Eater. Siphon is fine, CD recharge is fine. The problem with Soul Eater is that it is next to two titanic traits. Chilling force is excellent and reliable damage boosts and lifeforce generation. Decimate Defenses is an extremely powerful offensive boost that left unchecked will obliterate an enemy.

Both Chilling Force and Decimate Defenses synergize really well with the reaper specialization, as well as every other trait line. Both are universal bonuses that apply to multiple weapons, as well as Shroud itself. Both have powerful, build defining effects. When compared to that, Soul Eater just doesn’t cut it.

My solution to this problem is to move things around. There is another titan of a trait that can compete with those two, and there aren’t any builds that are terribly hamstringed by being exclusive with Chilling Force and Decimate Defenses: Reaper’s Onslaught. So, my suggestion is to move Decimate Defenses and Chilling Force to the grandmaster tier, and move down chill of death and blighter’s boon. Soul Eater can compete with those two.

There’s only one minor build that gets penalized by this: Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper Dhuumfire builds. Now, instead of having the 15% attack rate with Onslaught + 50% crit rate with Decimate, that variant will have to choose to go with either. In exchange, it gets either Blighter’s Boon for more defense, or Chill of Death for more offense, so it isn’t a total loss.

NO.

This guts PvE necromancer. Chill of death and blighter’s are worthless in PvE power based reaper, making us choose reaper’s onslaught or decimate defenses is a straight up nerf to pve reaper.

What the hell? We already have a crap shoot in the adept tier with no PvE traits, and you wanna force more useless, weak traits on PvE necromancers?

How about we buff the weak stuff instead?

Hell, you can switch Soul Eater/Deathly Chill with Relentless Pursuit and PvE necromancers would actually have PvE relevant options.

The ideal scenario for a PvE Reaper would be Soul Eater/Chill of Death (yeah, Chill of Death is bad for PvE but it’s less bad than augury of death or relentless pursuit or chilling nova)Decimate Defenses (Chilling Force is worthless thanks to Phalanx Strength warriors easily capping might alone for the group)Reaper’s Onslaught (our only good PvE grandmaster).

Right now we’re stuck with bad adepts for PvE, two bad minors as well with no offensive/group utility boosts for PvE, and your suggestion would completely screw over PvE reaper.

Zenith.7301:

NO.

This guts PvE necromancer. Chill of death and blighter’s are worthless in PvE power based reaper, making us choose reaper’s onslaught or decimate defenses is a straight up nerf to pve reaper.

What the hell? We already have a crap shoot in the adept tier with no PvE traits, and you wanna force more useless, weak traits on PvE necromancers?

How about we buff the weak stuff instead?

Hell, you can switch Soul Eater/Deathly Chill with Relentless Pursuit and PvE necromancers would actually have PvE relevant options.

The ideal scenario for a PvE Reaper would be Soul Eater/Chill of Death (yeah, Chill of Death is bad for PvE but it’s less bad than augury of death or relentless pursuit or chilling nova)Decimate Defenses (Chilling Force is worthless thanks to Phalanx Strength warriors easily capping might alone for the group)Reaper’s Onslaught (our only good PvE grandmaster).

Right now we’re stuck with bad adepts for PvE, two bad minors as well with no offensive/group utility boosts for PvE, and your suggestion would completely screw over PvE reaper.

What are you talking about? Blighter’s Boon is great for a PVE reaper. It caps off health while in DS, ensuring maximum effectiveness for the Scholar Rune’s 6th bonus, and also recharges Reaper’s Shroud much more quickly. Should you not want to go defensive, you get Soul Eater with extra damage and faster recharge on all other GS skills. If you wan to full on Shroud Knight focused, then PVE reapers already cap out their crit chance with deathly perception, so Decimate Defenses + Reaper’s Onslaught is useless.

Our adept traits for PVE are just fine. Chilling Nova adds more damage and synergizes with chilling force + bitter chill. Augury of Death is pretty good in PVE, because there you can reliably hit 5 targets with shouts. Relentless pursuit is very useful in PVP, and forcing players to have to choose between pursuit and blighters boon/onslaught/chilling force/decimate defenses is going to quite literally hamstring PVP Reapers.

Throwing us into a premade party makes decimate defenses nigh useless. You’ll already have 50% crit chance, so given an additional 20% from team fury, 8% from banners, and another 10-12% from Target the weak, and 3% from Plate of Truffle Steak. That is 93% crit rate. Go with a sigil of accuracy and you’ll cap yourself out. So, with Decimate Defenses useless, and if you assume Chilling Force is useless, this leaves you with one obvious trait line: Chilling Nova, Soul Eater, Reaper’s Onslaught. Oh look, you’ve lost nothing.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zenith.7301:

NO.

This guts PvE necromancer. Chill of death and blighter’s are worthless in PvE power based reaper, making us choose reaper’s onslaught or decimate defenses is a straight up nerf to pve reaper.

What the hell? We already have a crap shoot in the adept tier with no PvE traits, and you wanna force more useless, weak traits on PvE necromancers?

How about we buff the weak stuff instead?

Hell, you can switch Soul Eater/Deathly Chill with Relentless Pursuit and PvE necromancers would actually have PvE relevant options.

The ideal scenario for a PvE Reaper would be Soul Eater/Chill of Death (yeah, Chill of Death is bad for PvE but it’s less bad than augury of death or relentless pursuit or chilling nova)Decimate Defenses (Chilling Force is worthless thanks to Phalanx Strength warriors easily capping might alone for the group)Reaper’s Onslaught (our only good PvE grandmaster).

Right now we’re stuck with bad adepts for PvE, two bad minors as well with no offensive/group utility boosts for PvE, and your suggestion would completely screw over PvE reaper.

What are you talking about? Blighter’s Boon is great for a PVE reaper. It caps off health while in DS, ensuring maximum effectiveness for the Scholar Rune’s 6th bonus, and also recharges Reaper’s Shroud much more quickly. Should you not want to go defensive, you get Soul Eater with extra damage and faster recharge on all other GS skills. If you wan to full on Shroud Knight focused, then PVE reapers already cap out their crit chance with deathly perception, so Decimate Defenses + Reaper’s Onslaught is useless.

Our adept traits for PVE are just fine. Chilling Nova adds more damage and synergizes with chilling force + bitter chill. Augury of Death is pretty good in PVE, because there you can reliably hit 5 targets with shouts. Relentless pursuit is very useful in PVP, and forcing players to have to choose between pursuit and blighters boon/onslaught/chilling force/decimate defenses is going to quite literally hamstring PVP Reapers.

Throwing us into a premade party makes decimate defenses nigh useless. You’ll already have 50% crit chance, so given an additional 20% from team fury, 8% from banners, and another 10-12% from Target the weak, and 3% from Plate of Truffle Steak. That is 93% crit rate. Go with a sigil of accuracy and you’ll cap yourself out. So, with Decimate Defenses useless, and if you assume Chilling Force is useless, this leaves you with one obvious trait line: Chilling Nova, Soul Eater, Reaper’s Onslaught. Oh look, you’ve lost nothing.

It’s bad. I don’t need it to keep scholar up, I can already do so without it.

I’m not gonna choose deathly perception. Why do that when I can have free Decimate Defenses, which works outside death shroud, and instead I can use Dhuumfire for free damage.

I’m also not taking target the weak. I’d much rather go Spite/Blood/Reaper. Curses gives you target the weak while the rest are useless traits. Blood gives me well cd reduction, group life steal on top of my own to mimic more dps than bleed on crit from curses.

Augury of Death is terrible. The only shout skill you will ever use is the heal, and it becomes useless where it matters —- BOSSES. I don’t care if I’m gonna hit 5 targets easy on trash, trash is dead to elementalists/warriors before I can even finish a Soul Spiral.

Trash is virtually pointless, I care about performance on bosses.

Chilling Nova is pretty bad. What extra damage? On a single boss you get a single extra proc every 10 seconds, which does minimal damage.

You’re telling me I should be happy about Soul Eater with your suggestion as if mine weren’t better. With my suggestion we get Soul Eater/Decimate Defenses/Reaper’s Onslaught.

Besides, Decimate Defenses can be improved by halving the effect and the other half being turned into critical damage, so you don’t overcap that badly.

And then we’re still stuck with bad Reaper minors like Shivers of Dread, still little group utility besides the wells I’ll be bringing. And I doubt even with these buffs we’ll be overtaking elementalist DPS by such a degree that it’ll override their group utility in the form of ice bowx2, water and fire fields, better hard CC, more blast finishers and the ability to do that very damage from range if need be unlike the reaper. I don’t think we’ll even be replacing a PSEA warrior either, so we’re competing strictly for 1 last spot as chronomancer is guaranteed meta and so is a thief for skips/blind spam. 1 PSEA warrior, 1 chronomancer, 1 ele, 1 thief, and then we’re competing for the last spot with other classes like sinister engineer who does pretty close to ele dps, fills the condi damage slot against physical resistant enemies, and brings plenty of blasts and even more water fields, fire, and smoke fields for the group.

P.S. And let’s not float fears about Dhuumfire nerfs when it was very clear in the long run that they made a mistake by nerfing it. It’s the very reason condi necro is where it is, the dhuumfire trait never needed nerfing, the terror chains did.

Condi engineer has been eclipsing necromancer ever since. Just like with closed beta nerfs that left the class in shambles for these past 3 years, they should learn that listening to spvp whine and doing knee-jerk nerfing only leads to bad outcomes.

I’m loving the changes! Thank you for balancing! I do have one concern, though. May you explain the thought process behind why Reaper Shroud 3 (Infusing Terror) isn’t a Stunbreaker? Granted, in its current form it does take more skill—you’ll have to predict if you’re going to be knocked out by some CC. The thing is, pretty much every other Stability granting skill is a Stunbreaker.

—Guardian’s “Stand Your Ground!”
—Warrior’s “Balanced Stance” and “Dolyak Signet”
—Elementalist’s “Armor of the Earth”
—Mesmer’s “Power Break”
—And the Necromancer’s very own “Well of Power”

I wouldn’t mind that much if RS3 isn’t a Stunbreaker, but it does getting used to in Ascalonion Catabombs or something. “D’oh! I forgot to activate Stability before the kitten ed Gravelings hit me!”

Really cool changes! Reaper definitely was needing some adjustments, looking forward to try reaper again now!

I know its not really reaper related but Robert could you please consider making Vital Persistence baseline? It`s a very important trait that pretty much every necro build has and having to go SR for that trait really hurts necromancer build diversity

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Chilling Force is going to sustain 15-25 stacks of might by itself.

And so will the minor adept trait from Spite while in Shroud, without the need for chill, and give you plenty of time to exit shroud and do other things. The stacks from Chilling Force will evaporate in an instant. A little breathing room would be nice.

Misguided.5139:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Chilling Force is going to sustain 15-25 stacks of might by itself.

And so will the minor adept trait from Spite while in Shroud, without the need for chill, and give you plenty of time to exit shroud and do other things. The stacks from Chilling Force will evaporate in an instant. A little breathing room would be nice.

And all three together means perma-stack of 25 might pretty early in a fight (plus YaaW can ramp up your might (and life force, if you have Blighter’s Boon) very quickly. Reaper has a ton of might sources and if you use Strength runes, you are going to be doing very well for yourself in terms of might stacking and maintenance

Samhayn.2385:

Sigmoid.7082:

I do wonder what will happen to dagger now, especially in pve. GS now weighs up.

Dagger will still synergies with blood traits better, will still have less damage lose due to movement, still have better LF generation and still let’s you off hand warhorn. Dagger still has it’s place.

The only one i can agree with is better synergy with blood traits. Damage loss due to movement is a thing because its quicker but per hit and dps wise comparatively speaking GS, with a 20% increase on its auto chain is around , is only a weapon relative 0.06s of a damage coeff off but it hits more targets, with GD spam a weapon relative 0.5s coeffs ahead dps wise but again hits far more targets. Also with lf generation being added to all auto hits it also depends on how much it generates. As well as GS having better spike LF generation through its #3, which has now had its range and cone bettered. As of now dagger auto LF generation doesnt flex dependent on how many targets you hit but GS #3 does.

Only real bonus is war-horn because that is the best weapon that we actually have and maybe the #2 skill as a second heal which i hope gets its channel sped up. But for pure damage and pve GS is looking like the way to go without contest.

Also as a side note GD and Shroud are now the best event tagging we have. Because if you take the new reapers onslaught, without an ICD you can essentially keep using the #4 RS skill to tag everything and by the time 5 things die you can go again.

Vydahr.4285:

Misguided.5139:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Chilling Force is going to sustain 15-25 stacks of might by itself.

And so will the minor adept trait from Spite while in Shroud, without the need for chill, and give you plenty of time to exit shroud and do other things. The stacks from Chilling Force will evaporate in an instant. A little breathing room would be nice.

And all three together means perma-stack of 25 might pretty early in a fight (plus YaaW can ramp up your might (and life force, if you have Blighter’s Boon) very quickly. Reaper has a ton of might sources and if you use Strength runes, you are going to be doing very well for yourself in terms of might stacking and maintenance

I’d be surprised if people using Spite weren’t using Decimate Defenses instead. Chilling Might seems like it was intended as a way to get some might without the Spite tree. At any rate, I don’t see why the fact that there are other sources of might available to the profession should justify why this particular one is so short relative to the others. Not asking for the moon here, it just seems a bit short.

Misguided.5139:

Vydahr.4285:

Misguided.5139:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Chilling Force is going to sustain 15-25 stacks of might by itself.

And so will the minor adept trait from Spite while in Shroud, without the need for chill, and give you plenty of time to exit shroud and do other things. The stacks from Chilling Force will evaporate in an instant. A little breathing room would be nice.

And all three together means perma-stack of 25 might pretty early in a fight (plus YaaW can ramp up your might (and life force, if you have Blighter’s Boon) very quickly. Reaper has a ton of might sources and if you use Strength runes, you are going to be doing very well for yourself in terms of might stacking and maintenance

I’d be surprised if people using Spite weren’t using Decimate Defenses instead. Chilling Might seems like it was intended as a way to get some might without the Spite tree. At any rate, I don’t see why the fact that there are other sources of might available to the profession should justify why this particular one is so short relative to the others. Not asking for the moon here, it just seems a bit short.

The trait also works well with Blighter’s Boon, on top of just being might, which is one reason to take it of Decimate Defenses. Plus, I mean.. More sources of might gain equals more lf/healing as well as less risk of running out.

As for it being short, I do agree with you. If I recall correctly, with Strength runes I only got about 7 seconds of might from the trait. Which could use a buff. If it were 7 seconds base it would be nice, though I think 10 is too much for it (I figure the devs are thinking that you should be able to generate it fairly quickly so you can keep decent stacks of it even with short duration)

Robert Gee you are amazing. These changes rock, and I like your sense of humor. :P
You understand customer-first, as well as making a well-designed product. I’m glad you’re on the necro dev team, and I can’t wait to test the next beta.
#Geesus2016

Vydahr.4285:

As for it being short, I do agree with you.

That’s the only point I was trying to make from the beginning, that it seems a bit short.

Holy hell, Robert, we wanted buffs and you just dropped a nuke in our laps.

No, but seriously, you basically addressed every issue. I am really excited to see how this plays out. Thanks for your response, since so many of us were stressing.

Also I commented on this once, but communication like this is great. Please don’t let it die down. Patch note previews help people begin to adjust builds based on nerfs and buffs and helps the transition period a lot.

Zenith.7301:

stuff

So you basically only care about your own particular style of PVE in particular circumstances, and are too myopic to see anyone who would have different concerns, PVP be kitten ed. You’ve utterly lost the point of this whole conversation in your rantings and ravings.

*You claim that the heals from blighters boon are useless, then whine about how you don’t think the shout heals are sufficient.
*You forget the whole reason why you’d take deathly perception is for 100% crit rate in shroud with reaper’s onslaught, I.E. the changes that sparked this whole conversation to begin with.
*You’re suggesting a change to decimate defenses specifically to deal with the fact that decimate defenses is nearly useless in a premade, and your whole starting point was that you need decimate defenses and onslaught together.
*You whine about dhuumfire, but then say you’re taking spite/blood magic/reaper..

Come back when you can make a coherent thought and are considerate of others.

Misguided.5139:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Chilling Force is going to sustain 15-25 stacks of might by itself.

And so will the minor adept trait from Spite while in Shroud, without the need for chill, and give you plenty of time to exit shroud and do other things. The stacks from Chilling Force will evaporate in an instant. A little breathing room would be nice.

The thing with chilling force is that it can stack might 3x to 5x faster than siphoned power. Even at half duration, this makes it more potent.

Look, the point is that chilling force is fine. Though it stacks might like siphoned power, it has its own set of benefits that make it worthwhile.