Guild Wars 2

Before I begin I wanted to state that this thread is about the beta Reaper in It’s current state for high/organized pve. We’ve had a great deal of pvp feedback so I thought I’d make this to hear some of the pve feedback. I’d also like to mention everything I post here is focused on pve without taking pvp into consideration.

Anyway, I’m going to try and keep this short. So, we all know Anet is bringing some form hardcore pve content, along with that It means they have to start ACTUALLY dealing with some pve balance issues, at least they should… That remains to be seen.

Opening:
So! Where does the Reaper stand? Not too good. It took me only a day of fooling around to get attuned to the rotation and abilities. I took my team into some dungeons/fractals to test the damage. We ran a full optimized group comp, I was sad to see the numbers just weren’t adding up, I honestly had planned to hit up the training golems to run some tests but I quickly realized I didn’t even need to do that.

Greatsword:
By far the most disappointing, I pictured this weapon to be a form of effective AoE and Life Force gain in AoE fights, instead It was pretty much just dead weight. The auto is far too slow for how little damage it does. Gravedigger COULD be great but needs more damage and the cooldown needs to be 100% under 50% health. Death Spiral is alright, but I can easily say flat damage increases would be a good idea. Nightfall and Reaper’s Grasp seem decent enough, extra blinds is always nice but for Reaper’s Grasp I’d get rid of that frontal fire effect and make it a targettable skill.

Shouts:
I’m honestly just going to say this, for pve use… These are all quite awful compared to the current utility skill meta. Wells are just too strong compared, and shouts don’t offer anything of use. Hell, I would never replace Lich for “Chilled to the Bone!”

Reaper Traitline:
All three of the minor traits could use a little work for a pve standpoint, chill honestly isn’t that effective but could be changed into something less useless for the minors. However, besides the first three adept traits the others seem quite nice. Decimate defenses is very nice and will solve a lot of crit problems and with the proper buffing to RS Reaper’s Onslaught could be fantastic.

Reaper’s Shroud:
It’s pretty much agreed by all this was the best part of the Reaper, It was also my favorite part. I loved everything about it, however… It still doesn’t beat out dagger but It can! Increase the RS auto attacks damage and we could finally have an effective alternative to dagger builds. I’d also refine Death’s Charge for one, make it more like Whirlwind (Warrior GS ability). I’d also make Soul Spiral MUCH more powerful, It’s honestly very lackluster. And finally I’d make Executioner’s Scythe have a quicker cast time and a shorter cooldown, no offense to the frost field it creates… Just not that great in pve and shouldn’t be the reason It gets a huge cooldown. I love Infusing Terror but I would allow the Stab to stay even If you exit the shroud. I also want to mention I like the proc sigils go off when you enter shroud, keep that.

Closing:
My final notes, I’m sure I missed some stuff… I kinda threw this together. What I would like to see is RS become a new meta setup. I love Shroud builds, and RS is very fun. Some people might disagree about increasing damage too much for a lot of this stuff, but keep in mind… We do less damage then most classes because of our horribly lackluster traitlines. We have tiny modifiers.

Anyway, all ye highend folks! Post away, give us some opinions. Thanks!

Brazil was arguing that the elite shout could be good as a AOE deep freeze (of course quite a bit shorter).

GS DPS needs to be increased, that is quite clear. I feel like the devs put what they thought was a very high damage coefficient (especially gravedigger) but forgot that the final DPS is low because of cast and aftercast… Gravedigger is conditional and takes very long time, it should be clearly stronger than dagger AA…

Silverkey.2078:

Brazil was arguing that the elite shout could be good as a AOE deep freeze (of course quite a bit shorter).

GS DPS needs to be increased, that is quite clear. I feel like the devs put what they thought was a very high damage coefficient (especially gravedigger) but forgot that the final DPS is low because of cast and aftercast… Gravedigger is conditional and takes very long time, it should be clearly stronger than dagger AA…

Eh, might not be bad for a niche use however the only reasonable use is against the average mob which can be negated by blinds anyway and giving up Lich is just a big no-no.

Yeah, I want Gravedigger to be like an execute for our single target rotations (Along with great AoE damage). With some damage tuning and 100% CD with the target under 50% HP, It could be very powerful. But yeah, GS needs some serious number tweaking, I’m fine with slow attacks so long as their worth using.

I’ve posted coeff/s numbers that gives one a good idea of how terrible of a situation it is in, on the GW2 forums and and on this reddit thread along with suggestions on how to improve it. I must say that I was hoping for more coeff theorycrafting, as I am unsure if my views are shared by others.

Arche.7326:

I’ve posted coeff/s numbers that gives one a good idea of how terrible of a situation it is in, on the GW2 forums and and on this reddit thread along with suggestions on how to improve it. I must say that I was hoping for more coeff theorycrafting, as I am unsure if my views are shared by others.

I looked over the post, sums it up pretty much on the dot. Honestly, I’ve mentioned this before. I’m completely alright with slow animations, If that’s the theme they want that’s fine, however the abilities have to match up with HIGH damage payoff.

As for theorycrafting. As I said I was planning to run some tests but didn’t even make it that far, I had to work most of the weekend. The time I did get I decided to just field test them in fractals, It’s sad when you can literally notice the poor damage.

Truefrost.6815:

Reaper’s Shroud:
It’s pretty much agreed by all this was the best part of the Reaper, It was also my favorite part. I loved everything about it, however… It still doesn’t beat out dagger but It can! Increase the RS auto attacks damage and we could finally have an effective alternative to dagger builds. I’d also refine Death’s Charge for one, make it more like Whirlwind (Warrior GS ability). I’d also make Soul Spiral MUCH more powerful, It’s honestly very lackluster. And finally I’d make Executioner’s Scythe have a quicker cast time and a shorter cooldown, no offense to the frost field it creates… Just not that great in pve and shouldn’t be the reason It gets a huge cooldown. I love Infusing Terror but I would allow the Stab to stay even If you exit the shroud. I also want to mention I like the proc sigils go off when you enter shroud, keep that.

RS needs some work. auto attack dmg is weak, skill 5 needs decrease in cast time(2s is too much. people see you charging and evade without sweat), Death’s Charge needs 2 things: 1. add collision when hitting enemy. it’s the only charge skill that doesn’t hit enemy and simple pass through, 2. it needs speed and distance increase. now it moves like you’re chilled, and distance is too small. Ele’s charge cover twice distance and it’s more than twice fast

Dakunaito.9602:

Death’s Charge needs 2 things: 1. add collision when hitting enemy. it’s the only charge skill that doesn’t hit enemy and simple pass through,

This isn’t without precedent. It behaves almost exactly like Warrior’s GS….3. GS3 uses a “skillshot” interface and has a small wind-up before executing, but then you spin a short distance and it has zero target collision. The Reaper version moves slower, but doesn’t have the pre-animation wind-up that the Warrior version has.

Truefrost.6815:

I looked over the post, sums it up pretty much on the dot. Honestly, I’ve mentioned this before. I’m completely alright with slow animations, If that’s the theme they want that’s fine, however the abilities have to match up with HIGH damage payoff

you shouldn’t be fine with slow attack speed even if the dmg is high. which is not high. all GS classes do more dmg than Reaper GS and none has slow attack speed. hammer Warrior does autoattack chain in 1.7s, while Reaper in 3s, and hammer Warrior does more dmg. the slow attack speed has nothing to do with theme etc bs. they simple don’t want Reaper to be very good in offensive role, so they say “it’s the theme” as excuse. don’t bait. seriously. the slow attack speed on GS is unacceptable. GS cast times(not all) have to be decreased by 40-60% so that they’re equal to the other GS classes. this is an absolute needed change. it may sound overboard, but it’s the truth. after playing Reaper i’ll stick to staff as 2nd weapon. GS is very disappointing. if it gets tweaked and it’s good, i’ll use it. in the state it’s now, i won’t

Dakunaito.9602:

Truefrost.6815:

I looked over the post, sums it up pretty much on the dot. Honestly, I’ve mentioned this before. I’m completely alright with slow animations, If that’s the theme they want that’s fine, however the abilities have to match up with HIGH damage payoff

you shouldn’t be fine with slow attack speed even if the dmg is high. which is not high. all GS classes do more dmg than Reaper GS and none has slow attack speed. hammer Warrior does autoattack chain in 1.7s, while Reaper in 3s, and hammer Warrior does more dmg. the slow attack speed has nothing to do with theme etc bs. they simple don’t want Reaper to be very good in offensive role, so they say “it’s the theme” as excuse. don’t bait. seriously. the slow attack speed on GS is unacceptable. GS cast times(not all) have to be decreased by 40-60% so that they’re equal to the other GS classes. this is an absolute needed change. it may sound overboard, but it’s the truth. after playing Reaper i’ll stick to staff as 2nd weapon. GS is very disappointing. if it gets tweaked and it’s good, i’ll use it. in the state it’s now, i won’t

For pve slow cast speeds are fine. The damage just has to be tuned correctly so the pay off for said slow attacks can equal that of classes that have quicker ones. Honestly there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s all about keeping the numbers in line and comparing with the other classes. That has always been Anets problem, they have a terrible time scaling slow abilities damage correctly.

If I could have it my way I would say screw the slow theme, however that’s not what Anet seems to be after. In which case I’d rather them increase the damage by a lot and continue with the theme. The real problem is Anet can’t seem to wrap their brain around the numbers, I do honestly think they don’t test stuff themselves.

Dakunaito.9602:

hammer Warrior does autoattack chain in 1.7s

Its 2.75s according to wiki. Just wanting to point that out.

Agreed with most of the OP, but I don’t think Soul Spiral needs to be stronger. I was reaching 10-16k’s in WvW on most targets, and as an AOE with all the poison damage it ticks for, that ends up being a hell of a lot of damage.

That said, I think Soul Spiral could use a cooldown reduction if not much changes with the RS auto. Something like 25s would feel a lot better for the natural flow of the class, even if the damage has to be cut by a small percentage (like 15%).

DeceiverX.8361:

Agreed with most of the OP, but I don’t think Soul Spiral needs to be stronger. I was reaching 10-16k’s in WvW on most targets, and as an AOE with all the poison damage it ticks for, that ends up being a hell of a lot of damage.

That said, I think Soul Spiral could use a cooldown reduction if not much changes with the RS auto. Something like 25s would feel a lot better for the natural flow of the class, even if the damage has to be cut by a small percentage (like 15%).

Soul spiral deals (not counting poison) less DPS than spamming the auto attack. It would be roughly 40% better (dps wise) if it was not bugged with the actual channel being 2.9, not 2 as tooltip stated, that along with the posion and the skill would be fine. So if you consider that a buff, yes, then it should be buffed, if not; I do not think it needs to be stronger.

Dakunaito.9602:

Truefrost.6815:

I looked over the post, sums it up pretty much on the dot. Honestly, I’ve mentioned this before. I’m completely alright with slow animations, If that’s the theme they want that’s fine, however the abilities have to match up with HIGH damage payoff

you shouldn’t be fine with slow attack speed even if the dmg is high. which is not high. all GS classes do more dmg than Reaper GS and none has slow attack speed. hammer Warrior does autoattack chain in 1.7s, while Reaper in 3s, and hammer Warrior does more dmg. the slow attack speed has nothing to do with theme etc bs. they simple don’t want Reaper to be very good in offensive role, so they say “it’s the theme” as excuse. don’t bait. seriously. the slow attack speed on GS is unacceptable. GS cast times(not all) have to be decreased by 40-60% so that they’re equal to the other GS classes. this is an absolute needed change. it may sound overboard, but it’s the truth. after playing Reaper i’ll stick to staff as 2nd weapon. GS is very disappointing. if it gets tweaked and it’s good, i’ll use it. in the state it’s now, i won’t

Yeah I’m ok with the slow attack speeds, yet I want my target to have an o kitten moment when I land the attack. I’d you don’t use active defense vs us your in trouble. Slow swing big damage.

Truefrost.6815:

For pve slow cast speeds are fine.

So wrong that I can’t believe you actually believe that. Slow cast times are less bad in pve than pvp, but still terrible. No matter what ANET does, pve is always going to be about blowing stuff up as fast as possible. They are always going to try to compensate for that with mobs/bosses that one shot players. Standing still trying to execute slow motion attacks are just asking to get one shot mid cast. Taking forever to execute attacks while the rest of your group is blowing stuff up at light speed is terrible. ANET needs to stop gimping function with flavor excuses. If they want to go with a theme, try going with themes their own game is based on….active defenses, mobility, and group utility.

ODB.6891:

Truefrost.6815:

For pve slow cast speeds are fine.

So wrong that I can’t believe you actually believe that. Slow cast times are less bad in pve than pvp, but still terrible. No matter what ANET does, pve is always going to be about blowing stuff up as fast as possible. They are always going to try to compensate for that with mobs/bosses that one shot players. Standing still trying to execute slow motion attacks are just asking to get one shot mid cast. Taking forever to execute attacks while the rest of your group is blowing stuff up at light speed is terrible. ANET needs to stop gimping function with flavor excuses. If they want to go with a theme, try going with themes their own game is based on….active defenses, mobility, and group utility.

First off, slow attacks are FINE so long as the numbers add up. Considering most of the reaper abilities you could move with, getting one shot isn’t much of an issue. Hell, warriors HBs is actually quite worse in that regard considering you can’t even move from the spot, It’s just about timing which is easy.

Why speed wins out is merely because Anet doesn’t balance the damage output of slower stuff correctly to the point where It’s just too slow for too little damage. A lot of the problems coming from where pve stands is from what they have out currently, there ARE ways to fix the problems, hell… Me and my team spent a few nights debating this and came up with a full re-made pve system, If we can do it so can Anet. I’d go further into that but that’s not the topic of the thread.

I do admit openly that a lot of the problems Anet has with the necro is because of what GW2 is designed around, sadly Shroud is just not a mechanic that fits well into the game.

the trait reaper’s onslaught should probably be a minor, or at least in a lower tier. and should also affect the greatsword as well.

Truefrost.6815:

I loved everything about it, however… It still doesn’t beat out dagger but It can! Increase the RS auto attacks damage and we could finally have an effective alternative to dagger builds.

These are not mutually exclusive though ?

Best setup in this case would be Dagger/WH + RS.

You can buff RS all you want, but it won’t make dagger any less viable as your “out of shroud”-weapon.
Also I think that we should be careful that Reaper shroud doesn’t invalidate Death Shroud. Once it starts doing that to a certain degree, we’re going to be semi-forced into reaper traitline just because of that.
(Not saying RS doesn’t need an AA buff; because DS’s Life Blast should get the cast time of Plague blast really)

Nyth.3492:

Truefrost.6815:

I loved everything about it, however… It still doesn’t beat out dagger but It can! Increase the RS auto attacks damage and we could finally have an effective alternative to dagger builds.

These are not mutually exclusive though ?

Best setup in this case would be Dagger/WH + RS.

You can buff RS all you want, but it won’t make dagger any less viable as your “out of shroud”-weapon.
Also I think that we should be careful that Reaper shroud doesn’t invalidate Death Shroud. Once it starts doing that to a certain degree, we’re going to be semi-forced into reaper traitline just because of that.
(Not saying RS doesn’t need an AA buff; because DS’s Life Blast should get the cast time of Plague blast really)

Oh, of course dagger will remain in the set there is literally no faster way to get LF then dagger auto on single target. However, that should be what dagger is for in the first place. It’s safe to assume dagger wasn’t meant to be used in the way it is.

As for invalidating DS, we’re beyond that now. DS already is pretty much terrible compared to the Dagger meta. The only real use for it is in pvp. Even in the state RS is in now It’s still better then DS merely for the AoE it offers. So one way or the other Reaper will be taken for the meta.

I’ve said this before, Anet dropped the ball on DS. Hard. They need to go back and fix it up cause It’s awful, It’s sad to see the class mechanic used only for a quick AoE burst and flashing to gain minor buffs (and debuffs). Necro is in a terrible spot and I would be totally fine having Reaper be our fix until they can get around to actually re-working base necro.

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

Tristan.5678:

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

while i won’t share your wording, i will share the sentiment. just put cripple instead.

Tristan.5678:

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

Chill is an underrated condition. I like the idea of turning Chill into something more for the class, I think they had the right idea with that however it was done poorly. I think If they expanded on that and made the final chill damage trait into something greater It might not be so bad.

Tristan.5678:

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

My problem with chill is that they built the reaper around chill as a basis for our damage mitigation and group support, but then decided they really don’t want us to have chill before we even got to try it. They didn’t replace it with anything else to fulfill that function (damage mitigation via cold shoulder and enemy attack cool downs). I’m fine with them changing their mind about chill and its function for the reaper, but they need to replace it with something they don’t mind us having in its place….something that fills that same mitigation role…preferably party wide like chill did.

They really are making reapers/necros the red-headed step children of this game…especially with the way they are showering revenants/heralds with all the support and utility that they absolutely refuse to give reapers/necros.

Lightsbane.9012:

the trait reaper’s onslaught should probably be a minor, or at least in a lower tier. and should also affect the greatsword as well.

You mean Adept. But yeah, I wasn’t at all impressed with that trait. It gave instant cool down to a skill with a really low cool down as is and the 15% attack speed wasn’t noticeable in the slightest. Maybe instead of it recharging death’s charge it made your attacks deal 10% more damage against chilled foes?

Edit: Just some I’m perfectly clear This should stay a grandmaster. The 10% damage boost I was suggesting was in that light.

Lily.1935:

Lightsbane.9012:

the trait reaper’s onslaught should probably be a minor, or at least in a lower tier. and should also affect the greatsword as well.

You mean Adept. But yeah, I wasn’t at all impressed with that trait. It gave instant cool down to a skill with a really low cool down as is and the 15% attack speed wasn’t noticeable in the slightest. Maybe instead of it recharging death’s charge it made your attacks deal 10% more damage against chilled foes?

Edit: Just some I’m perfectly clear This should stay a grandmaster. The 10% damage boost I was suggesting was in that light.

The trait was bugged in the beta if I remember correctly, so it didn’t work at all. 15% increased attack speed equals a 15% DPS increase, so the base for the trait is quite good.

Silverkey.2078:

Brazil was arguing that the elite shout could be good as a AOE deep freeze (of course quite a bit shorter).

GS DPS needs to be increased, that is quite clear. I feel like the devs put what they thought was a very high damage coefficient (especially gravedigger) but forgot that the final DPS is low because of cast and aftercast… Gravedigger is conditional and takes very long time, it should be clearly stronger than dagger AA…

This was the first thing I posted after Friday evening that’s how evident it was to me at the time. I was shocked by the fact that they couldn’t tell that from testing hell I predicted as much just watching the Reaper Poi. I am really concerned because nothing has been said since the beta and the fact that work is still happening on 4 of the specializations which will likely hit beta next we have no idea of what their plans are for balance changes.
This is something I think Anet really must improve on, I mean Colin came flat out in his blog post stating how critical our feedback was and yet other than revenant we don’t know how anything has been received and thus no opportunity to agree or challenge any proposed changes. I’m baffled by this one sidedness of the communication after the blog request, just saying.

Arche.7326:

Its 2.75s according to wiki. Just wanting to point that out.

still, it’s faster. how much is the cycle of GS Warrior?

Dakunaito.9602:

Arche.7326:

Its 2.75s according to wiki. Just wanting to point that out.

still, it’s faster. how much is the cycle of GS Warrior?

2.4…

But at the same time, Guardian Hammer is 3.7, which is also quite common in PvP.

Atherakhia.4086:

Dakunaito.9602:

Arche.7326:

Its 2.75s according to wiki. Just wanting to point that out.

still, it’s faster. how much is the cycle of GS Warrior?

2.4…

But at the same time, Guardian Hammer is 3.7, which is also quite common in PvP.

hammer Guardian autoattack gives protection, does high symbol dmg that hits 5 targets and has light field

Gravedigger has 1.25s cast time, and i bet in game it’s easily 1.5s. ridiculous. majority of animation is utterly useless and it solely exist to cover the long cast time. i don’t know where to look for full cycle cast times, but in tooltips there’s not a single 1-hit skill of GS that has longer than 0.75s cast time. 1-hit skills that are used in close range like Gravedigger have 0.5s cast time, and throw, leap etc skills 0.75s. Gravedigger isn’t throw skill to have long cast time/animation. 1.25-1.5s cast time is unacceptable. Gravedigger does a swing in the air that hits absolutely nothing(useless animation) and then the actual attack starts. imagine doing Hundred Blades and first 2 hits don’t do dmg and just slice the air. would Warriors like that? no. then why devs do it on Reaper? players bait from the super-duper-wow-amazing-drooling-kitten animation and don’t look anything else. imo Gravedigger shouldn’t have more than 0.5s(on tooltip) cast time

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

Look up the weapons (hammer, greatsword, etc) and click the first attack in the chain. People have added remarks to indicate the weapon’s ‘real’ attack time.

Reapers aren’t available on the wiki so others have built them for us. Gravedigger is actually 2 seconds, which is asinine I agree.

But everything you mentioned about Hammer has actually been suggested. Simply increase the DPS so it’s worth the time. Bhawb actually suggested removing the chill and making a cold field which would make GS#1 nearly identical to Hammer.

The only point trying to be made is that slow DPS weapons and attacks actually can work. The problem is that the Reaper isn’t rewarded for them.

ODB.6891:

Tristan.5678:

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

My problem with chill is that they built the reaper around chill as a basis for our damage mitigation and group support, but then decided they really don’t want us to have chill before we even got to try it. They didn’t replace it with anything else to fulfill that function (damage mitigation via cold shoulder and enemy attack cool downs). I’m fine with them changing their mind about chill and its function for the reaper, but they need to replace it with something they don’t mind us having in its place….something that fills that same mitigation role…preferably party wide like chill did.

They really are making reapers/necros the red-headed step children of this game…especially with the way they are showering revenants/heralds with all the support and utility that they absolutely refuse to give reapers/necros.

Well, in all fairness It’s looking like Rev isn’t doing so hot either, they suffer a lot of damage modifiers just like us. From what I saw of them during the beta (One of my buddies took one in) It was pretty awful, however I’m curious to see how they do with the Herald and that boon % increase to the party.

Arche.7326:

Lily.1935:

Lightsbane.9012:

the trait reaper’s onslaught should probably be a minor, or at least in a lower tier. and should also affect the greatsword as well.

You mean Adept. But yeah, I wasn’t at all impressed with that trait. It gave instant cool down to a skill with a really low cool down as is and the 15% attack speed wasn’t noticeable in the slightest. Maybe instead of it recharging death’s charge it made your attacks deal 10% more damage against chilled foes?

Edit: Just some I’m perfectly clear This should stay a grandmaster. The 10% damage boost I was suggesting was in that light.

The trait was bugged in the beta if I remember correctly, so it didn’t work at all. 15% increased attack speed equals a 15% DPS increase, so the base for the trait is quite good.

Aye, the trait was bugged. Honestly It’s the best choice for our Grandmaster currently, 15% attack speed is quite nice compared to our other options. I would however change the cooldown reduction to Death’s Charge to something a little more useful. Don’t get me wrong, I do love DC and having some mobility finally is just refreshing… Even If it’s just a little. I do love that they put a projectile block on it though! Fantastic and much needed for the necro.

Dakunaito.9602:

Atherakhia.4086:

Dakunaito.9602:

Arche.7326:

Its 2.75s according to wiki. Just wanting to point that out.

still, it’s faster. how much is the cycle of GS Warrior?

2.4…

But at the same time, Guardian Hammer is 3.7, which is also quite common in PvP.

hammer Guardian autoattack gives protection, does high symbol dmg that hits 5 targets and has light field

Gravedigger has 1.25s cast time, and i bet in game it’s easily 1.5s. ridiculous. majority of animation is utterly useless and it solely exist to cover the long cast time. i don’t know where to look for full cycle cast times, but in tooltips there’s not a single 1-hit skill of GS that has longer than 0.75s cast time. 1-hit skills that are used in close range like Gravedigger have 0.5s cast time, and throw, leap etc skills 0.75s. Gravedigger isn’t throw skill to have long cast time/animation. 1.25-1.5s cast time is unacceptable. Gravedigger does a swing in the air that hits absolutely nothing(useless animation) and then the actual attack starts. imagine doing Hundred Blades and first 2 hits don’t do dmg and just slice the air. would Warriors like that? no. then why devs do it on Reaper? players bait from the super-duper-wow-amazing-drooling-kitten animation and don’t look anything else. imo Gravedigger shouldn’t have more than 0.5s(on tooltip) cast time

Gravedigger actually did really well. It does some excellent damage and is close to being worth spamming on targets under 50% health. If they don’t want to make it faster merely increasing the damage and changing it back to 100% cooldown reduction under 50% health, that will make it worth it even with the slow animation speed.

I’ve said this before earlier on this very post, slow speeds are not terrible for pve. They just have to offer the damage to MAKE up for the huge cast time. Which sadly Anet has a great deal of trouble balancing correctly.

Truefrost.6815:

Gravedigger actually did really well. It does some excellent damage and is close to being worth spamming on targets under 50% health. If they don’t want to make it faster merely increasing the damage and changing it back to 100% cooldown reduction under 50% health, that will make it worth it even with the slow animation speed.

I’ve said this before earlier on this very post, slow speeds are not terrible for pve. They just have to offer the damage to MAKE up for the huge cast time. Which sadly Anet has a great deal of trouble balancing correctly.

as Atherakhia said the Gravedigger has 2s full cycle cast time. no matter what you do(increase dmg or the cd effect), the cast time is very bad for a 1-hit close range skill. as i said in my previous reply, the skill is not channel or throw or multi hit etc to justify the long cast time. Gravedigger is 1-hit skill and 2s full cast time is way too much. rest GS classes don’t have more than 0.75s cast time skill on tooltips. why should Reaper have? this is not fair or balanced

Gravedigger is very easy to balance: decrease the cast time, increase dmg a bit(we don’t have modifiers for dmg, and dmg is low as it is now) and done. autoattack is also easy to balance. full cycle should be around 2.5s instead of 3s, and increase the chill duration to 2s(sword Thief does 2s cripple and weak) or remove chill and add chill field as people suggested. since all GS classes have higher attack speed than Reaper, then it won’t matter at all if they decrease the cast times on GS and it’s faster. it will be as fast as the rest GS classes so it’s perfectly balanced

in pve slow attacks don’t matter cause mobs don’t bombard you with flurry of attacks(unless you draw 3-5+ mobs) and have low AI, but in pvp players use their brains. i don’t care that much how awesome the animation of Gravedigger is, but the skill has too much unnecessary animation and has to go away cause it nerfs the skill by dramatically increasing it’s cast time. even if they add a chill field on autoattack as people suggested, 3s cast time is still too much. hammer Guardian has long cast time on autoattack cause it does “4” extra things: symbol dmg, protection, light field and hits 5 targets. Reaper only does 1 extra thing: Chill. the cast time isn’t justifiable

Dakunaito.9602:

Truefrost.6815:

Gravedigger actually did really well. It does some excellent damage and is close to being worth spamming on targets under 50% health. If they don’t want to make it faster merely increasing the damage and changing it back to 100% cooldown reduction under 50% health, that will make it worth it even with the slow animation speed.

I’ve said this before earlier on this very post, slow speeds are not terrible for pve. They just have to offer the damage to MAKE up for the huge cast time. Which sadly Anet has a great deal of trouble balancing correctly.

as Atherakhia said the Gravedigger has 2s full cycle cast time. no matter what you do(increase dmg or the cd effect), the cast time is very bad for a 1-hit close range skill. as i said in my previous reply, the skill is not channel or throw or multi hit etc to justify the long cast time. Gravedigger is 1-hit skill and 2s full cast time is way too much. rest GS classes don’t have more than 0.75s cast time skill on tooltips. why should Reaper have? this is not fair or balanced

Gravedigger is very easy to balance: decrease the cast time, increase dmg a bit(we don’t have modifiers for dmg, and dmg is low as it is now) and done. autoattack is also easy to balance. full cycle should be around 2.5s instead of 3s, and increase the chill duration to 2s(sword Thief does 2s cripple and weak) or remove chill and add chill field as people suggested. since all GS classes have higher attack speed than Reaper, then it won’t matter at all if they decrease the cast times on GS and it’s faster. it will be as fast as the rest GS classes so it’s perfectly balanced

in pve slow attacks don’t matter cause mobs don’t bombard you with flurry of attacks(unless you draw 3-5+ mobs) and have low AI, but in pvp players use their brains. i don’t care that much how awesome the animation of Gravedigger is, but the skill has too much unnecessary animation and has to go away cause it nerfs the skill by dramatically increasing it’s cast time. even if they add a chill field on autoattack as people suggested, 3s cast time is still too much. hammer Guardian has long cast time on autoattack cause it does “4” extra things: symbol dmg, protection, light field and hits 5 targets. Reaper only does 1 extra thing: Chill. the cast time isn’t justifiable

Although I agree on the pvp part, however this is a pve forum thread talking about pve changes. If you read the top post I mention not taking any pvp changes into consideration.

I do hope most of you accept the fact It’s VERY possible Anet will not give up on the slow cast speeds for the Reaper, In which case I’m focusing my basis around what they have in mind for the elite specialization.

Honestly, If I could have it my way… I’d throw out this slow attack speed ideal they created. The moment I heard this would be the theme I knew this would end badly. However, I try not to complain too much about what Anet does so I’ll give the best feedback I can with what they give us. But who knows, Anet has surprised me several times in the last few months.