Guild Wars 2

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

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.

And, hey, if you have both, then you’ll constantly be getting LF or health, and will have no issue keeping nearly, if not full, stacks of might

Thanks Robert for all the amazing amazing work and changes!

Even though this is a great step in the right direction, and I appreciate you wanting to balance things gradually, I do believe that it is not yet enough. I will most certainly try the changes in the next beta, and only the will I be able to provide an informed opinion, however I do believe that the chill uptime is not yet enough and that damage in RS should still be upped a little bit.

I’ll just leave some suggestions I agree with here, for discussion. Most of them are not mine.
If you consider them, probably don’t add all of them at once since it might be a bit op:
1- Add a pulsing effect to RS like rending shroud where it pulses chill (add it to one of our subpar minor traits in the Reaper specialization).
2- Add a damage multiplier to chilled foes (10% or sth) to one of these minors.
3- Increase the amount of chill duration increased by Cold Shoulder (double it at least).
4- Slightly increase the damage done by RS AA and RS4 (this one to match GD, increase de damage coefficient by 0,2-0,3)
5- Add a pulsing chill effect at the end of GS 1c, much like guardian’s Hammer 1c. My idea for this skill (building up on Bhawb’s suggestion) would be to make 1c animation exactly like the current Nightfall animation (where it will root you, a fair tradeoff for this proposal imo). By stabbing the ground with the icy GS, it would leave an ice field (like the guardian’s hammer symbol), that would chill enemies while doing moderate damage every second for, like, 3 seconds (this animation already exists ingame, sth like a smaller radius RS5). Besides that, since by slamming the GS into the ground you wouldn’t actually hit anyone, make it so, when the GS connects to the ground ice spikes surge to hit up to 3-5 targets within the radius for good damage (the same damage GS1c currently does). This animation also exists ingame, since it is basically Ele Dagger Earth 1 painted icy blue. I think the root is a good tradeoff for all of these, and if it still is too much, make it so the actual ice spike doesn’t chill, only the field. It would help both AA damage and Reaper chill uptime.

Anyway amazing changes, keep up the good work. On these tracks Reaper will be absolutely amazing! Afterwards only base necro will be in need of some love…..

Heneil Stormcaller.2935:

Thanks Robert for all the amazing amazing work and changes!

Even though this is a great step in the right direction, and I appreciate you wanting to balance things gradually, I do believe that it is not yet enough. I will most certainly try the changes in the next beta, and only the will I be able to provide an informed opinion, however I do believe that the chill uptime is not yet enough and that damage in RS should still be upped a little bit.

I’ll just leave some suggestions I agree with here, for discussion. Most of them are not mine.
If you consider them, probably don’t add all of them at once since it might be a bit op:
1- Add a pulsing effect to RS like rending shroud where it pulses chill (add it to one of our subpar minor traits in the Reaper specialization).
2- Add a damage multiplier to chilled foes (10% or sth) to one of these minors.
3- Increase the amount of chill duration increased by Cold Shoulder (double it at least).
4- Slightly increase the damage done by RS AA and RS4 (this one to match GD, increase de damage coefficient by 0,2-0,3)
5- Add a pulsing chill effect at the end of GS 1c, much like guardian’s Hammer 1c. My idea for this skill (building up on Bhawb’s suggestion) would be to make 1c animation exactly like the current Nightfall animation (where it will root you, a fair tradeoff for this proposal imo). By stabbing the ground with the icy GS, it would leave an ice field (like the guardian’s hammer symbol), that would chill enemies while doing moderate damage every second for, like, 3 seconds (this animation already exists ingame, sth like a smaller radius RS5). Besides that, since by slamming the GS into the ground you wouldn’t actually hit anyone, make it so, when the GS connects to the ground ice spikes surge to hit up to 3-5 targets within the radius for good damage (the same damage GS1c currently does). This animation also exists ingame, since it is basically Ele Dagger Earth 1 painted icy blue. I think the root is a good tradeoff for all of these, and if it still is too much, make it so the actual ice spike doesn’t chill, only the field. It would help both AA damage and Reaper chill uptime.

Anyway amazing changes, keep up the good work. On these tracks Reaper will be absolutely amazing! Afterwards only base necro will be in need of some love…..

I think the current changes need to be looked at first before anything else is changed. While these are some great ideas you have here I think some of them are just out of place to be included in reapers trait line or on reaper overall.

1-RS does not need a pulsing chill. That is way too strong and if they include this it means something else has to be taken away. Reaper already had tons of chill up keep in this first Beta weekend and they are adding more I think at this point chill is going to be right on point. Adding anymore is too much.

2-You will not see a damage multiplier for chilled foes because there is a trait to reduce damage from chilled foes (I would rather have this than more damage) Its vital that necros wearing light armor take reduced damage rather than try to focus on killing some one faster than they would kill them because 8 times out of 10 if you put full damage up against damage necro is going to lose. Running a full zerk necro is insane right now and a very ballsy move. :P

3-At this point we don’t need to do that it would be a waste. We don’t want people complaining about perma chill and then it being reduced back to being useless.

4- The cool down was reduced so no. No more damage here leave it alone.

5- Please no. If I work to land that 3rd auto chain I want all the chill applied at once not a mark on the ground where people can step out of it avoiding most of the chill you could have applied. While this might be a good Idea for pve its horrid for pvp. I would rather not have a guardian copy anyways. Lets just let reaper be its own thing. GS3 is built too much around tools and traits necros couldn’t use before that they can now also (BLIND) who wants to give that up? . It should be left alone as a blind field. As to wether or not a person should be rooted or not is in question yes, but I think its fine as it is Its new and fresh lets not copy ele animations once again reaper should be left as is.

Now I do majorly stand behind you in saying that base necro needs love. There are skills and utilities out there that no one is going to use because they have become completely pointless and or not viable to most situations. (Base necro skills need some revamping guys!!!)

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

whining

It’s kind of hard to argue with someone so devoid of honesty that they resort to strawmans just because they don’t like your point of view.

For example, I “whine” about the Dhuumfire nerf, but take it because it’s the best option we have for a Soul Reaping grandmaster trait with Decimate Defenses available. Not exactly exciting to get burning procs as a power spec, but you either take foot in the grave (useless) or deathly perception (redundant). You grab that “whine” on the nerf of a trait, and then take it to mean that I’m hypocritical because I complain about that nerfed trait while taking the trait as if we had the option not to spec soul reaping and that wasn’t the only option to have if you specced for decimate defenses.

The other alternative of course being your suggestion to use deathly perception instead of Decimate Defenses, which again ignores the fact deathly perception doesn’t work outside shroud and you’ll spend a good amount of time outside shroud after these buffs to greatsword (and especially Gravedigger).

Then we have deathly perception and reaper’s onslaught. Decimate Defenses benefits Reaper’s Onslaught just as well as deathly perception, it is a more flexible trait by boosting your crit in all forms, and the reason why I quarreled with you on reaper’s onslaught is because it’s our only good grandmaster trait and then you’d think you’re making soul eater more attractive by moving our powerful major traits into grandmaster to compete with it instead of buffing the already existing ones so we don’t have to sacrifice traits in our major slot just to make the grandmaster seem more attractive.

Decimate Defenses isn’t even useless, I just made a suggestion to improve it. Taking your figure of 93% crit with full group buffs, that’s 7% extra crit from the trait at a loss of oof 5.5% crit overcapping. Your suggestion is to switch out some other sigil, be it our 5% damage or 10% sigil of the night for a sigil of accuracy to cap. Why do that when Decimate Defenses guarantees the cap at no damage loss, and is particularly effective in lapses of fury uptime?

So, yeah, I’m done trying to talk to you as if you ever intended to discuss in good faith.

When you’re in the mood to stop putting words into people’s mouths and getting kitteny because people won’t agree with your changes (and you call them myopic, because god forbid a person who only plays PvE cares only for PvE balance, much like spvp and WvW folk do), you can come back and have a discussion.

P.S. I never said the shout heal was not enough, I said it was the only shout we’d ever use. Do you even bother reading, or do you go concocting statements and attribute them to people just for giggles? In what part of my post did I even argue for more healing?

Zenith.7301:

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

Yes^

This would be perfect. An added bonus for maintaining chill on targets! Would also be huge towards making RS the bonus it should be…instead of a possible dps loss. Would fix this extremely lack luster trait as well.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

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.

But its still less than forceful greatsword and unnecessarily restricted and weak on single targets. This is a big hit to PvE because boss fights are a big part of the gamemode. Which makes chilling force pointless to take.

To put it into perspective. Before the ICD was added i had the idea of using Decimate defences in groups because i wouldnt need the might. And then using Chilling Force for bad groups/solo because the might would help and wouldnt be reliant on camping DS. However during the beta i discovered to major problems. The ICD completely destroyed this traits solo/bad group potential on bosses.

And on top of that chill application was almost non existent so we didnt even get much use of the trait anyway. Basically chilling force was only good for burst might stacking after burst chilling a large groups of mobs. Thats a pretty disappointing niche use. Especially as it had so much potential and created more diversity before the ICD was introduced.

ODB.6891:

Zenith.7301:

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

Yes^

This would be perfect. An added bonus for maintaining chill on targets! Would also be huge towards making RS the bonus it should be…instead of a possible dps loss. Would fix this extremely lack luster trait as well.

Completely support this. It would be nice to have more trait mods (conditional) rather than forcing it all into base numbers. It makes more sense balance wise with trait mods.

Robert, thank you for putting so much effort into Necromancer. The changes to the Reaper specialization look very good to me.

Robert Gee.9246:

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. We tuned the damage ratios accordingly so that greatsword would have higher dps vs 3 or more targets as we didn’t want to devalue dagger as a melee weapon.

This approach of stat ratio balancing is wrong and we have already seen it fail on other things. It does not promote build diversity it instead restricts it by making one option extremely more optimal in a given environment versus another one.

Examples:
Guardian Shouts vs Meditations.
Guardian Hammer vs Great sword.

This will end up with GS being viable in pve and NOWHERE else.

Stat ratios being dps healing or what ever have you have to be on par and the skills utility has to define gameplay and thus style choice.

Given Equal Singe target dps. Dagger offers Life force generation, sustain and soft CC. GS offers some cleave, gap closer/interrupt. What you choose depends on how you like to play. Not on the fact that Dagger will be better (through multipliers and stat ratios) everywhere but while cleaving pve mobs in a corner.

spoj.9672:

Basically chilling force was only good for burst might stacking after burst chilling a large groups of mobs. Thats a pretty disappointing niche use. Especially as it had so much potential and created more diversity before the ICD was introduced.

I think the ICD pretty much had to be there because of the Life Force generation (which I don’t care about, but realize others might appreciate). But you’re right, this trait isn’t going to be very good against single targets, which comes back to increasing the might duration would be appreciated. Apologies for beating the topic to death.

Apolo.5942:

Robert Gee.9246:

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. We tuned the damage ratios accordingly so that greatsword would have higher dps vs 3 or more targets as we didn’t want to devalue dagger as a melee weapon.

This approach of stat ratio balancing is wrong and we have already seen it fail on other things. It does not promote build diversity it instead restricts it by making one option extremely more optimal in a given environment versus another one.

Examples:
Guardian Shouts vs Meditations.
Guardian Hammer vs Great sword.

This will end up with GS being viable in pve and NOWHERE else.

Stat ratios being dps healing or what ever have you have to be on par and the skills utility has to define gameplay and thus style choice.

Given Equal Singe target dps. Dagger offers Life force generation, sustain and soft CC. GS offers some cleave, gap closer/interrupt. What you choose depends on how you like to play. Not on the fact that Dagger will be better (through multipliers and stat ratios) everywhere but while cleaving pve mobs in a corner.

I guess it’s a good thing that the sentence right after your quote cut off went on to explain that the original implementation was inadequate and they’ve readjusted things accordingly, resulting in sizable buffs to greatsword damage output. Given the massive extent of the changes and the detail that Robert went into, I think we should be tentatively appreciative and wait until the next BWE to see how the Reaper is shaping up. It’s getting a lot of improvements in a lot of key areas.

I think hostility at this point is better reserved for Elementatlists/Tempests. Compare the notes that Reaper got with the notes that Tempest got (2 skills per element adjusted, no other changes nor explanation behind the lack of them) and our Elite is definitely in a better, more flexible/receptive-to-feedback position than theirs is right now.

Im am not being hostile i am pointing out how bad it is to implement an already proven failed philosofy on this new design.

Yes they uped the numbers, but the reasoning behind it stayed the same. If they could guarantee you would hit with every swing, like a ranged weapon, they would have not uped the numbers regardless of it remaining sub par.

In their mind, GS has to be worst than dagger in a 1v1 situation, they only uped it, because it was even worst than they actually intended.

What needs to change is the balancing philosofy behind it and the numbers will follow suit, otherwise it will either fall by the wayside or be an eternal catch up game.

Apolo.5942:

In their mind, GS has to be worst than dagger in a 1v1 situation, they only uped it, because it was even worst than they actually intended.

If GS were equal to dagger against a single target and was also better against multiple targets, why would anyone use dagger?

Misguided.5139:

Apolo.5942:

In their mind, GS has to be worst than dagger in a 1v1 situation, they only uped it, because it was even worst than they actually intended.

If GS were stronger than dagger against a single target and was also better against multiple targets, why would anyone use dagger?

You are looking at it the wrong way. Dagger auto attack should be better than greatsword. But greatsword should provide better burst and other tools. Then you can have a dagger + greatsword rotation.

spoj.9672:

You are looking at it the wrong way. Dagger auto attack should be better than greatsword. But greatsword should provide better burst and other tools. Then you can have a dagger + greatsword rotation.

makes sense.

spoj.9672:

Misguided.5139:

Apolo.5942:

In their mind, GS has to be worst than dagger in a 1v1 situation, they only uped it, because it was even worst than they actually intended.

If GS were stronger than dagger against a single target and was also better against multiple targets, why would anyone use dagger?

You are looking at it the wrong way. Dagger auto attack should be better than greatsword. But greatsword should provide better burst and other tools. Then you can have a dagger + greatsword rotation.

Not nesesarily, their chain should be on par, their utility should be different.

Assuming Untraited and Equal DPS.

Dagger AA chain: Gives 8% life.
GS AA Chain: Hits 1 additional target, applies 1.33s Chill, now it will generate 5%LF.

Dagger 2: Deals damage, ranged, heals 3700hp.
GS 2: Whirl finisher, burst damage. Interrupts Chill chain and LF generation, which given the slower attack speed is more significant.

Dagger 3: Ranged Gap Closer
GS 3: Apply weakness, life force generation, damage is inconsecuential.

Dagger 4 and 5 allows combinations with other weapons.

So essentially if you are looking for sustain and utility you go with dagger, if you are looking for added burst you go with GS, but it comes down to preference, not to the fact that dagger will 99% of the time in pvp deal more damage and have added utility than GS.

If the AA chain is comparable, then the ratios on the other skills can be adjusted so that is your preference what defines what you wield.

Instead if succesfully hitting 1 target vs hitting 3+ is going to be the balancing factor, then there is not going to be a ratio at which GS is comparable 1v1 to a dagger. There are virtually no situations in pvp where you can consistently hit 3+ being melee.

@Apolo your forgetting the base duration changes to all the chill reapers have. Most of them got increased beyond what you are quoting in your posts. Just letting you know.

Sigmoid.7082:

@Apolo your forgetting the base duration changes to all the chill reapers have. Most of them got increased beyond what you are quoting in your posts. Just letting you know.

The numbers are there for show, the idea is that given comparable single target damage, it is the added utility what should define what you want to use. Of course the numbers should be rebalanced, but the idea is that you should compare:

Comparable single target DPS.
Dagger:
-Extra life force
-Healing
-Ranged CC.
-3 combinations of 4 and 5 skills.
+++++++++++++vs
GS:
-Chill.
-Some Cleave
-Weakness applicatio and burst LF.
-Blind
-Interrupt.

Instead of:

Dagger:
-Extra life force
-Healing
-Ranged CC.
-3 combinations of 4 and 5 skills.
-Best single target dps
-Little to none aoe DPS
++++++++++++++++vs
GS:
-Chill.
-Some Cleave
-Weakness applicatio and burst LF.
-Blind
-Interrupt.
-Bad Single Target DPS
-Good AOE pve damage.

The first balance idea lets your play style preference dictate what you want.
The second lets the environment dictate what you should use.

It would be imbalanced for a weapon with good burst skills to have an auto attack that matches dagger. Auto-attack comparisons arent really relevant in PvP. But in PvE they are important. No class has a melee two hander that has a better auto attack than one of its one handed melee weapons. And no one hander has better burst than the two handers.

Utility being different is a given. But you cant ignore the damage balance. Damage is a form of utility after all. So if you give one weapon the same auto damage but more burst then its going to be far superior. Thankfully Robert and the balance team seems to understand that. Hence the majority of the damage buff went into gravedigger and it was only a small quality of life damage improvement for the greatsword auto-attack.

Also i dont know why you are still bringing up the scaling against 3+ topic. We are already past that. As Robert admitted that it wasnt the best idea to balance the damage around it in his original post.

spoj.9672:

Also i dont know why you are still bringing up the scaling against 3+ topic. We are already past that. As Robert admitted that it wasnt the best idea to balance the damage around it in his original post.

No he didnt, that extra damage is to account for the times you will miss in pvp, they still mean it to be sub par if you keep hitting with it.

You brought up how they understand this. Clearly we dissagree here, in particular because this game has a track record of your environment defining the weapons and skills. When they are meant to cleave, they suck for single target and they are never used in pvp. Aka Guardian Hammer, Aka Altruistic healing vs meditations, aka reaper shouts in pvp vs pve, so on and so forth.

This is headed in exactly the same situation, GS will be viable in an environment where you can consistently cleave multiple targets aka pve and be a liability everywhere else.

@Apolo also forgetting that GS auto will now generate LF on all its strikes. We dont know how much but its a change and with its increase in damage its auto attack damage isnt far behind what dagger does on a single target. Its just more punishing if you hit or miss.

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%.

Also for pure dps grave digger spam > dagger auto when target <50% hp.

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Because it compaired to Dagger:
-Less damage
-Less LF
-No sustain vs very high sustain.
-Less flexible. All the off hands offer good things, comparable or better than GSs 4 and 5.

But yeah, in those situations where you can consistentl and reliably hit multiple targets, GS will be better. It just does not happen often in pvp.

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Because it compaired to Dagger:
-Less damage
-Less LF
-No sustain vs very high sustain.
-Less flexible. All the off hands offer good things, comparable or better than GSs 4 and 5.

But yeah, in those situations where you can consistentl and reliably hit multiple targets, GS will be better. It just does not happen often in pvp.

Only point #3 and #4 are strickly true though #4 would be more true if the other off hands besides warhorn didnt suck so much. Also where do you pvp? There are loads of times where you hit multiple targets.

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Because it compaired to Dagger:
-Less damage
-Less LF
-No sustain vs very high sustain.
-Less flexible. All the off hands offer good things, comparable or better than GSs 4 and 5.

But yeah, in those situations where you can consistentl and reliably hit multiple targets, GS will be better. It just does not happen often in pvp.

Only point #3 and #4 are true though #4 would be more true if the other off hands besides warhorn didnt suck so much. Also where do you pvp? There are loads of times where you hit multiple targets.

Cleaving some one going for the ress to equate damage output, sucks if you dont have the damage to put them in that situation to begin with.

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Because it compaired to Dagger:
-Less damage
-Less LF
-No sustain vs very high sustain.
-Less flexible. All the off hands offer good things, comparable or better than GSs 4 and 5.

But yeah, in those situations where you can consistentl and reliably hit multiple targets, GS will be better. It just does not happen often in pvp.

Only point #3 and #4 are true though #4 would be more true if the other off hands besides warhorn didnt suck so much. Also where do you pvp? There are loads of times where you hit multiple targets.

Cleaving some one going for the ress to equate damage output, sucks if you dont have the damage to put them in that situation to begin with.

A GS actually would have a better chance of downing someone than a dagger because of these changes. Also are you assuming the few situations where you cleave more than one person is restricted to someone ressig an ally?

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Because it compaired to Dagger:
-Less damage
-Less LF
-No sustain vs very high sustain.
-Less flexible. All the off hands offer good things, comparable or better than GSs 4 and 5.

But yeah, in those situations where you can consistentl and reliably hit multiple targets, GS will be better. It just does not happen often in pvp.

Only point #3 and #4 are true though #4 would be more true if the other off hands besides warhorn didnt suck so much. Also where do you pvp? There are loads of times where you hit multiple targets.

Cleaving some one going for the ress to equate damage output, sucks if you dont have the damage to put them in that situation to begin with.

A GS actually would have a better chance of downing someone than a dagger because of these changes. Also are you assuming the few situations where you cleave more than one person is restricted to someone ressig an ally?

If you are not fighting a Golem on the pvp lobby, yes i most certainly am.

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

Sigmoid.7082:

Apolo.5942:

We can wait and see, but i said it first, GS 1v1 viabillity goes against their current design philosofy, thus a liablility in 99% of the pvp encounters.

I dont see how it would be a liability in 99% of pvp encounters.

Because it compaired to Dagger:
-Less damage
-Less LF
-No sustain vs very high sustain.
-Less flexible. All the off hands offer good things, comparable or better than GSs 4 and 5.

But yeah, in those situations where you can consistentl and reliably hit multiple targets, GS will be better. It just does not happen often in pvp.

Only point #3 and #4 are true though #4 would be more true if the other off hands besides warhorn didnt suck so much. Also where do you pvp? There are loads of times where you hit multiple targets.

Cleaving some one going for the ress to equate damage output, sucks if you dont have the damage to put them in that situation to begin with.

A GS actually would have a better chance of downing someone than a dagger because of these changes. Also are you assuming the few situations where you cleave more than one person is restricted to someone ressig an ally?

If you are not fighting a Golem on the pvp lobby, yes i most certainly am.

Thats wrong though, no other way to say it but hey each to their own.

Misguided.5139:

spoj.9672:

You are looking at it the wrong way. Dagger auto attack should be better than greatsword. But greatsword should provide better burst and other tools. Then you can have a dagger + greatsword rotation.

makes sense.

Greatsword is kind of a staff alternative. It provides AoE for use with dagger.

GS should kind of work with axe, too, but more for a MM build because minions do not do multiple targets well without exploding. I am less convinced of an axe/focus/GS chill and vulnerability build where staff might better support GS or dagger might do better with axe.

Well, except for ranger, whose 1h sword is better at both autoattack and burst with offhand axe than his greatsword.

I don’t even see why GS being better than dagger is a bad thing. The dagger is bad, it should be retooled to be good, and then people will use it. Life Siphon and Dark Pact need buffing.

What’s more, if GS is able to substitute for dagger, I consider that a good thing since in content where you might need a revamped axe/staff/whatever and can’t always melee, you can equip a ranged weapon back up in this new HoT content without gimping your DPS.

Take it like the warrior with greatsword, it’s such a complete weapon that the mainhand axe becomes a niche feature.

It’s a mistake they chose to do when implementing weapons that would end up overshadowing each other. Quite frankly a way to make all weapons wanted would be to balance their DPS to be fairly close/equal across all of the weapons in the #1-3 slots and then have choice on usage depend on the utility of the #4-5 skills (and offhand weapon skills for the 1h weapons).

If you make the deciding factor DPS, then one weapon will be used and the others will be discarded in PvE completely. WoW learned this lesson with talents and revamped them to be utility talents instead of damage boosting ones.

Robert Gee.9246:

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.

This worries me greatly.

The addition of the skill doing more damage when performed against a wall seems like blatant encouragement of the “stacking” meta tactic for clearing dungeon content.

This common tactic of clearing all dungeon content by stacking, pulling mobs to you, and cleaving them down is widely acknowledged as being the most cancerous thing to ever happen to PvE in this game. It is the antithesis of challenging and interesting content, as it makes all dungeons boring and easy. Stacking needs to be REMOVED and DISCOURAGED, not encouraged.

Lastly, while these greatsword buffs sound amazing, are you going to do anything to preserve the dagger’s niche as more of a single target weapon? If the greatsword is going to be our best dps weapon and also our best cleaving weapon, what niche does that leave for dagger?

Zenith.7301:

Well, except for ranger, whose 1h sword is better at both autoattack and burst with offhand axe than his greatsword.

Exactly. The sword isnt doing the burst. Maul is a small amount of burst. Rangers arent very well designed though. But the concept still holds true. Greatsword auto is bad and its other skills are ok. Unfortunately ranger greatsword is overall undertuned. So its almost never worth taking just for the small burst maul provides over the consistant auto and burst from other offhands..

Tobias.8632:

Robert Gee.9246:

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.

This worries me greatly.

The addition of the skill doing more damage when performed against a wall seems like blatant encouragement of the “stacking” meta tactic for clearing dungeon content.

This common tactic of clearing all dungeon content by stacking, pulling mobs to you, and cleaving them down is widely acknowledged as being the most cancerous thing to ever happen to PvE in this game. It is the antithesis of challenging and interesting content, as it makes all dungeons boring and easy. Stacking needs to be REMOVED and DISCOURAGED, not encouraged.

Lastly, while these greatsword buffs sound amazing, are you going to do anything to preserve the dagger’s niche as more of a single target weapon? If the greatsword is going to be our best dps weapon and also our best cleaving weapon, what niche does that leave for dagger?

This is a result of ignorant pugs using old tactics from when fgs was still a thing. This kind of arguement should not be happening anymore. And content is changing.in HoT so theres even less reason for concern.

I can tell you now that deaths charge wont do anywhere near significant enough damage against a wall to be concerned about. Its like warriors whirlwind attack but weaker.

Tobias.8632:

If the greatsword is going to be our best dps weapon and also our best cleaving weapon, what niche does that leave for dagger?

Comparable single target damage, flexibility with of hand, incredible sustain. Those seem pretty significant pvp niches to me.

I guess I should say, “Thanks, Gee!” because our changes were far more in tune with what we wanted than the Tempest or Dragonhunter changes were (Their update threads are 90% complaints that the wrong changes were made).

Thanks, Gee!

How about making Soul Spiral reflect projectiles? Nightfall could chill instead of cripple.

Zenith.7301:

How about making Soul Spiral reflect projectiles? Nightfall could chill instead of cripple.

Robert please consider this suggestion, like maybe 1s chill per pulse, it would not be OP and it would actually synergize well with the whole Reaper theme and also since we only have one finicky gap closer this would also help Necro remain sticky on their targets!

I think ANet needs to redirect its developer funding to just cloning Robert to handle all of the classes. These changes look really reasonable/were asked for and all seem like proper incremental changes for the specs to undergo. Most importantly, the feedback was obviously taken into account, and you’re keeping us up to date with what you’re doing.

Seriously. PLEASE go distract Karl to something shiny and look at the thief’s completely broken dynamic.

Honestly, I want to see Dagger become the go-to weapon for Shroud builds, while Greatsword should be the burst and execution weapon.

Since Greatsword is slow, it SHOULD do more damage than Dagger. At the same time, a buffed Death Shroud should do more damage than Greatsword, and Daggers can establish a niche if they aid with the building of a buffed Death Shroud.

Main concern is that it’s further and further becoming the case that if you want necro be good in any way, you have to buy the expansion.

Reaper seems to be in a pretty good state overall right now, of course there’s still room for a lot of fine-tuning, but now more then ever there needs to be serious work and focus put into fixing the core class.

Zenith.7301:

stuff

Oh please. Your posts devolved into a slew of incoherent and generalized rants aimed at the sky. It was so shoddily put together I legitimately had no idea what you were even trying to convey anymore. Your standards are almost incomprehensible, your view narrow minded. Instead of putting out the particular instances and details you are talking about beforehand, you just belittle me for not knowing what you didn’t say.

So, now onto the points.

#1: Foot in the Grave isn’t bad.

#2: Your entire premade build structure idea is flawed. I’m not sure anyone should bother taking reaper into a premade, because the utilities it offers are redundant and already covered by other classes. Since “trash” is irrelevant, greater cleave isn’t needed. You wouldn’t need shroud knight to stack might because you’ll already be capped. Shroud knight won’t stack vulnerability because you’re not taking Soul Reaping. So what is left? Decimate defense is nigh redundant, chilling force is redundant, blighters boon is useless, augury of death is useless, relentless pursuit is useless, chilling nova is too weak, the minors are all “bad traits”… that leaves Soul Eater, Reaper’s Onslaught, and Chill of Death. Soul Eater is meh at best, and Chill of Death is exclusive with Reaper’s Onslaught.

So, funny bit of trivia: the dagger auto attack outdamages reaper shroud’s auto attack, even with onslaught. The greatsword AA is only 0.66% (that is less than 1%) weaker than shroud auto with onslaught. Throw in signet of spite, and the gap widens. There’s only one reason that someone would use Shroud’s AA over the other weapons, and that is the might and vulnerability stacking from Spite and Soul Reaping respectively. Without soul reaping and with pre-capped might, there is no advantage to using Shroud AA. The only skill in reaper’s shroud that is higher than its AA is Executioner’s Scythe, which you’ll just pop in to and use every 30 seconds or so, which means onslaught contributes almost nothing to the skill. Regular Death Shroud already has a burst skill: Tainted Shackles. Its fast cast time means it has relatively high DPS, higher than Executioner’s Scythe at 25%+ health, before factoring in torment. This is also sacrificing the damage bonus from Weakening Shroud.

But lets assume that we’re going to sacrifice all of the goodies in Curses for what is in Reaping. Yes, Decimate Defenses will cover for Target the Weak. You have to pick chilling force or reaper’s onslaught for damage. At maximum might, Deathly Chill will inflict 314 damage +50%, and 471 damage below it, for an average of 392 DPS. This can be tacked directly onto the greatsword auto, meaning 73% uptime until gravedigger spam. This isn’t including chilling nova, chill of death, or executioner’s scythe, which push the numbers up a bit, or any additional sources such as Icebow or whirl finishers. You can stop right here, since that extra 392 DPS is being tacked onto the sword, which given Signet of Spite is already more damaging than Onslaught Shroud.

I guess the short of this is, I don’t trust your judgement on what is “good” or “bad” at all.

#3: You’re not hypocritical. You’re inconsistent. I’m not sure if you’re talking about either under my changes or your changes or the current setup, and you change this up from point to point. Now, to talk about Dhuumfire, this is largely a PVP oriented issue, where Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper will be frequently used. With this trait setup, a shroud focused build will be able to pick decimate defenses, reaper’s onslaught, and dhuumfire at the same time. This build isn’t overpowered, so the rantings about dhuumfire come from thin air. It is an unfortunate effect that my change will necessitate a swap, but this isn’t just a loss. You get to use Deathly Chill and blighters boon alongside of Onslaught instead of exclusive with it. You also can use Decimate Defenses with Soul Eater at the same time. The only issues that really prop up are when you are using a power focused Spite/SR/R shroud-focused build. If you aren’t using that particular playstyle, then there are already obvious choices to go for that either lose very little, or gain.

#4: Sigil of Night doesn’t always work. It is only good if you’re running specific dungeons, in which case general builds might as well go out the door. Besides, I suggested Sigil of Accuracy as a general example. There’s more than that. I balanced on the current stats of my necro, but it goes further than that. Calculating out a full zerker ascended with precise infusions, this sits at 56% crit chance. I also noticed that a sharpening stone is only a 2.7% damage increase at max might, so if I switch that out with a maintenance oil, that comes to a 61% crit rate, resting. So, add fury, 81%. Add banner, 89%. Add Target the Weak + 5 conditions, 99%.

#5

and you call them myopic, because god forbid a person who only plays PvE cares only for PvE balance, much like spvp and WvW folk do

That is the definition of myopic. Its actually worse than that. You’re talking about premade meta dungeon runs exclusively. What about overworld? What about casual runs? What about solo dungeon runs? But I digress: the reason why the devs and players are so focused around PVP balance is because it is actually a competition, with winners and losers. However, the devs and players are wrong in this. They should also be concerned about PVE as well. Them being wrong doesn’t give PVE players an excuse to be wrong themselves. That’s hypocrisy.

#6: Thus, my main complaint with your suggestion regarding moving around Soul Eater is that you aren’t trying to create a balanced trait line. You’re shoving personally inconvenient traits into obscure places to let them die, and not even thinking about what it might do to other game modes.

#7: I’ll admit I misread what you meant about the shout. When you said “it becomes terrible”, you were referring to Augury of Death in regards to the bonus it gives to the healing shout. I thought you meant the heal as a whole becomes terrible even with Augury of Death.

spoj.9672:

Misguided.5139:

Apolo.5942:

In their mind, GS has to be worst than dagger in a 1v1 situation, they only uped it, because it was even worst than they actually intended.

If GS were stronger than dagger against a single target and was also better against multiple targets, why would anyone use dagger?

You are looking at it the wrong way. Dagger auto attack should be better than greatsword. But greatsword should provide better burst and other tools. Then you can have a dagger + greatsword rotation.

Yes^

Like the guardian sword + greatsword rotation. Neither weapon invalidates the other. In fact, they synergize with each other and make a rewarding rotation to swap between the two to achieve an optimal balance.

that dmg decrease on Suffer is totally unnecessary when Revenant has utilty and does 3 stacks of burning for ~1200+550 dmg and it’s 5 targets aoe

the animation on Gravedigger has to be cut in half. the skill does a swing in the air that only slices the air, and then the actual attack starts. if 1st 2-hits of Warrior’s Hundred Blade skill didn’t do dmg and just slice the air like Gravedigger, Warriors would rage and Anet would fix it in no time

spoj.9672:

But its still less than forceful greatsword and unnecessarily restricted and weak on single targets. This is a big hit to PvE because boss fights are a big part of the gamemode. Which makes chilling force pointless to take.

The good news is, we’re getting more chill, and better ways to apply it. I wouldn’t think of it as restricted against single targets as much as more beneficial against multiple targets. Necros can already self stack quite a bit of might, so Chilling Force might be one of those “scaling up” things that we wanted. This also has the benefit of working without the need to crit, making it more reliable and usable on all builds.

The ICD is there to prevent this + blighters boon from going out of control. The reaper has several multi-hitting skills (death spiral, soul spiral, death’s charge to name a few), and against a chilled foe with no cooldown it means 2% life force per hit. Death Spiral suddenly does 24% life force per strike alongside of 6 might. Against an AI build this can go up x 3, making Death Spiral regen 72% life force per use. Soul Spiral would heal for 8k health and cap might. I don’t even know what death’s charge could do.

That said, Forceful Greatsword, particularly when combined with its buddy trait Phalanx Strength is arguably OP in PVE. There are a lot of traits on other classes that stack might, both personally and for the whole team, but against this cthulhul scale monstrosity it all gets rendered useless. I don’t play warrior, but I have noticed that any time I team up with one my might is capped 4 seconds into the fight.

For the sake of comparison, I have a guardian. Empowering might has an ICD of 1 second and a duration of 5 seconds. It isn’t weapon specific, but this basically caps out at 5 stacks of group might. When running a condi thief, the AoE venoms give 6 might at most. On my ranger, 4 stacks of might, up to 7 if I use a drake + fire field. Memser is complicated because it can dupe boons, but it doesn’t stack might on itself that well at all. The ele and engi are good at it, because they can spam blast finishers into fire fields, but this eats up their entire utility bar. The warrior run up to some mobs and cap might with a single 100 blades.

One of these isn’t like the other. I haven’t played warrior, so I’d hate to go and demand an outright nerf based on my experiences alone, but kitten .

Dakunaito.9602:

that dmg decrease on Suffer is totally unnecessary when Revenant has utilty and does 3 stacks of burning for ~1200+550 dmg and it’s 5 targets aoe

the animation on Gravedigger has to be cut in half. the skill does a swing in the air that only slices the air, and then the actual attack starts. if 1st 2-hits of Warrior’s Hundred Blade skill didn’t do dmg and just slice the air like Gravedigger, Warriors would rage and Anet would fix it in no time

GD though is an aoe that hits like a truck and has 100% reduced cooldown if even JUST ONE enemy has HP =<50% and does bonus dmg.

Why and When did this lovely thread turn into a Salty rant and trash-talk ?

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

spoj.9672:

But its still less than forceful greatsword and unnecessarily restricted and weak on single targets. This is a big hit to PvE because boss fights are a big part of the gamemode. Which makes chilling force pointless to take.

The good news is, we’re getting more chill, and better ways to apply it. I wouldn’t think of it as restricted against single targets as much as more beneficial against multiple targets. Necros can already self stack quite a bit of might, so Chilling Force might be one of those “scaling up” things that we wanted. This also has the benefit of working without the need to crit, making it more reliable and usable on all builds.

The ICD is there to prevent this + blighters boon from going out of control. The reaper has several multi-hitting skills (death spiral, soul spiral, death’s charge to name a few), and against a chilled foe with no cooldown it means 2% life force per hit. Death Spiral suddenly does 24% life force per strike alongside of 6 might. Against an AI build this can go up x 3, making Death Spiral regen 72% life force per use. Soul Spiral would heal for 8k health and cap might. I don’t even know what death’s charge could do.

---

That said, Forceful Greatsword, particularly when combined with its buddy trait Phalanx Strength is arguably OP in PVE. There are a lot of traits on other classes that stack might, both personally and for the whole team, but against this cthulhul scale monstrosity it all gets rendered useless. I don’t play warrior, but I have noticed that any time I team up with one my might is capped 4 seconds into the fight.

For the sake of comparison, I have a guardian. Empowering might has an ICD of 1 second and a duration of 5 seconds. It isn’t weapon specific, but this basically caps out at 5 stacks of group might. When running a condi thief, the AoE venoms give 6 might at most. On my ranger, 4 stacks of might, up to 7 if I use a drake + fire field. Memser is complicated because it can dupe boons, but it doesn’t stack might on itself that well at all. The ele and engi are good at it, because they can spam blast finishers into fire fields, but this eats up their entire utility bar. The warrior run up to some mobs and cap might with a single 100 blades.

One of these isn’t like the other. I haven’t played warrior, so I’d hate to go and demand an outright nerf based on my experiences alone, but kitten .

I have been saying this for a while with the ICD on Chilling Victory, we have to do more work than then warrior, having chill on he for already, and it just devalues the chilling nova skill in the tier before. Removing the ICD on this might also make it so reaper wouldn’t need to take spite to get the boon generation it needs to sustain itself with blighter’s boon. And if five enemies are bunched together to get hit by Gravedugger and death spiral/soul spiral, then we should get a huge payoff considering each one could’ve stunned, blind, or dodged to get out of the way.

And I have played warrior with forceful great sword and phalanx strength, it’s ridiculous the amount of night you can generate for a group with that and strength runes, combined with the high fury uptime it’s insane. GRANTED this is PvE.

Still grateful for what you’re changing or trying to push through for us Mr. Gee. Please don’t take this the wrong way. >_<.

Overall there’s alot of good changes in there, though the one I’m not keen on is the change to Shroud #2, I know people had issues with falling off cliffs but that’s their fault for doing it (I did it myself aswell it just happens sometimes), personally I liked it as a charging type attack as it was useful for running through a group of enemies and now seems like it’ll only be good for getting you upto the target you want to fight and not going through a group (correct me if I’m wrong).

TheWhiteWolves.3076:

Overall there’s alot of good changes in there, though the one I’m not keen on is the change to Shroud #2, I know people had issues with falling off cliffs but that’s their fault for doing it (I did it myself aswell it just happens sometimes), personally I liked it as a charging type attack as it was useful for running through a group of enemies and now seems like it’ll only be good for getting you upto the target you want to fight and not going through a group (correct me if I’m wrong).

As long you deselect the target you should be able to move freely. Like warrior GS #5 skill.