Guild Wars 2

Hey!
Would be nice if I hear the opinion of veteran Necro players about a Reaper with GS/ Staff.
Would those two weapons work well together in a build?
PvP is really important for me, both WvW and sPvP.
Would be nice to hear some opinions about that!
I just like the Staff skills and don’t want to loose them.
Ty!

I plan on running GS/Staff on my Death Magic/Soul Reaping/Reaper MM build. This gives access to both greater marks and Soul Marks. With reaper that means there are 2 chills on Staff, one being fairly lengthy on only a 16 sec CD, and a very wide area. Plus it gives us some ranged LF Regen and soft CC to allow us to get into range that we would otherwise not have.

I plan on running a GS/Staff as well, no doubt about it. I am sure if built correctly, it will work =D.

I think it’s safe to say that as-soon-as a person touches the reaper line, the staff will become mandatory… and possibly soul reaping traits as well.

Without a staff you can do nothing against kiters, and a good deal of PVE mobs are best dealt with at range as well.

The old DS is looking like it will still be the goto build for pvp for just that reason.

@ezeriel.9574
so you mean the Necro like it is now will be better for pvp then the elite Spec?

Greatsword and Staff will be mandatory for zerging.

Adaletta.3426:

@ezeriel.9574
so you mean the Necro like it is now will be better for pvp then the elite Spec?

it’s looking like it.

The GS is god-awful slow, and the reaper is melee…. the only melee classes in this game that are successful have large amounts of gap closers.

A guard with his GS leap, meditation teleport, sword teleport….
A warrior with sword/warhorn and GS charge…

Even now, a melee necro relies on DS/lich for range.

Ezeriel.9574:

Adaletta.3426:

@ezeriel.9574
so you mean the Necro like it is now will be better for pvp then the elite Spec?

it’s looking like it.

The GS is god-awful slow, and the reaper is melee…. the only melee classes in this game that are successful have large amounts of gap closers.

A guard with his GS leap, meditation teleport, sword teleport….
A warrior with sword/warhorn and GS charge…

Even now, a melee necro relies on DS/lich for range.

A 5.1 second cool down 600 range leap finisher and poison doesn’t seem like decent enough mobility? Staff being fairly standard in pvp, and having 170+ range (bonus range) on their melee attacks I can see reaper squaring up just fine. GS’s use is questionable, but nothing about reaper requires it. DS was already best when used under 600, reaper has good mobility and stability and an Aoe fear as well as splash damage. I wouldn’t be quick to write it off.

That said, I want SO MUCH to love GS… But I think it will be too slow.. Dagger (or axe)+ focus/WH and staff may end up more useful unfortunately.

@ezeriel.9574

Oh I hope there will be possiblities to solve that. Would be sad if I loose all PvP potential with the Elite Spec ;(

yeah 600 yards is nothing when fighting a ranger, or the dragon knight, and there’s the possibility of a thief rifle build…

A pistol/pistol or a pistol/dagger thief would wreck a reaper without even trying.

For what its worth, I asked zombify what weapon combos he thought would be strong in pvp, and he said that you’d probably want GS/staff for power and scepter/staff for condition.

Its another reason that I probably won’t main necro. I have the legendary warhorn and every time I wouldn’t use it to fit into the meta, I’d just have a bitter taste in my mouth.

Point is, we’d have 3x the leap power of a guardian’s GS. It’s a 15 sec CD 600 range leap. Even salvage leap is 8 sec cd with 600 distance, and hambow works fine without the leap at all.

With a staff alone we’d have fine uptime on a ranged chill and ranged CC and condi transfer. Once in melee range we’d be better off in RS than DS IMO because we’d have anti-cc on a very low CD, as well as very fast application chill when comboing Rs5 with Rs4, which would really require a teleport to safely escape or some other high defense like Defy pain.

A dagger/warhorn necro taking 7% less damage from poisoned opponents, and making good use of the vampiric traits, looks to be in a far better position for pvp than anything involving the reaper.

A condi build that bunkers in DS with vampiric traits and dumbfire looks quite viable as well

You can LOS on most maps, ranged builds won’t be that big of a problem. No one runs p/p or p/d thief in pvp. Guards will still mostly be melee, as will thieves.

Ezeriel.9574:

I think it’s safe to say that as-soon-as a person touches the reaper line, the staff will become mandatory… and possibly soul reaping traits as well.

I doubt it. Staff really only helps you catch up to someone with ranged chills, the weapon itself has absolutely garbage ranged pressure though, so its not like you can stand toe-to-toe with anyone by using staff itself, you only hope those two chills are enough to allow you to get in range. I’ll most likely be using dagger or axe instead, so I won’t end up with a worthless weapon once I’m relatively close.

ronpierce.2760:

That said, I want SO MUCH to love GS… But I think it will be too slow.. Dagger (or axe)+ focus/WH and staff may end up more useful unfortunately.

I dont know about that yet. Yes GS is really slow but so are the hammers of guardians and warriors and yet they are useable in spvp.

But i think GS will only be taken in a more bunkerish builds. Zerker will probably take dagger+offhand over GS. But then again, zerker could be better off with the base necro considering the range adventage of DS over RS.

This is why it would be nice if axe was 900 range. Then you could run scepter, axe or staff, and your range weapon could fill the role of either condition, power or soft cc/support.

Spectral Grasp, Spectral Walk-Jukes, Wurm,Death Charge there is several ways to gap-close without have to Force the need for old DS, speically in sPvP were distances never are that big and LoS is everywhere.

zapv.8051:

This is why it would be nice if axe was 900 range. Then you could run scepter, axe or staff, and your range weapon could fill the role of either condition, power or soft cc/support.

That would be nice.

I’m still perplexed by the proposed nerfs to Axe Training – wondering what their justification is for these changes – perhaps they are increasing the range and thought it warranted a nerf to Axe Training to compensate.

This weapon could use some work overall to make it more effective.

- skill 3 is good
- skill 2 is good as long as your opponent has no endurance left and can’t dodge the channel
- skill 1 is bad

600 range is bad.

Fire good. Napster bad.

Avigrus.2871:

I’m still perplexed by the proposed nerfs to Axe Training – wondering what their justification is for these changes – perhaps they are increasing the range and thought it warranted a nerf to Axe Training to compensate.

It wasn’t meant to be a nerf is the justification. Now, obviously it is a nerf, but the idea was probably that paired with the new Spiteful Spirit trait you’d be able to use your abilities/DS and then by using AAs you can more quickly have those CDs back up. It incentivizes the use of axe AA in order to more quickly get the skills that you actually want to cast. Obviously it does this quite badly, while also having a really bad conditional damage modifier, but in concept it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Staff yeah you will always be viable with staff condi or power.

GS for pvp NO. Its too slow, remove all bias and cool factor then tell me you see a GS necro beating a Dagger necro in melee. Still not convinced? Tell me you see a GS necro beating anyone with lots of blinds or interupts/evasion/dodges.

GS is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wayyy wayy wayyyy to slow to be viable in higher level pvp.

Its a great PvE weapon and will be fun at times in WvW or against new players in unranked.

gs/staff will be the way to go, not because it deals an insane amount of damage but because of the utility it offers. both weapons are control weapons, very good ones.

staff is an awesome weapon to kite and to play it safe with a 1200 range condi transfer and a chill. the auto could use some love, even now, but that’s a different story.

the same is for gs, even if it is slow and maybe deals less damage than dagger it is a very strong control weapon. chill auto attack, gravedigger being a spammable backstab below 50%, skill 3 a good way to get life force and stack vulnerability for crit chance, skill 4 an aoe denial and dark field, skill 5 a 600 range aoe pull with poison.

your main damage will come from shroud, not from gs or staff. so you wanna make sure that you have something with what you can control the enemy when you’re not in shroud.

my concern is that they will nerf us before we even get out of the starting gate for perceived fears that we will be op, or ruin their meta. Look at the matches today in the tournament. That was fast paced, mobility centric, defensive maneuvering. The necro, or the reaper spec, will simply not have the skills, or timing needed to compete. It will be slow moving, slow casting, slow attacking, and it simply will not freaking work. That is what irritates me about these devs. I think they actually don’t want to mess up their five class +1 meta (that would be Engie, Ele, Warior, Guardian, Thief + mesmer). They don’t want to ruin their chance at esports, with their 5 classes. Slow moving, slow casting, slow attacking reaper will never compete at high level, fast moving, fast casting, reaction time, twitch based, dodge centric combat that they have created. How about they put that in the freaking report?

No they won’t, and it won’t change. We are fooling ourselves. Reaper will look good, feel good in pve, and do ok in wvw, but it will NEVER be at the top of this pvp meta. Never. It will be one hell of a cool solo pvp class, but it won’t be meta in pvp.

GS/staff will be my first set up for sure. The best of range and the best of melee, always strong when you want to be. But I’m betting that I return to Staff-axe/focus eventually, once I get tired of dying in melee range (wvw).

For PvP GS/Staff is unlikely to work. Both are slow and blinds/blocks/CC can make you completely useless. Ofc I had no chance to play it yet, that’s just the initial impression.

yea its not like there is something like being on point in sPvP, is there…

I don’t thnk some of you understand what Anet has done with the reaper. As it stands now, with any amulet and rune you can have up to 68% damage reduction (excluding weakness) and keep it that way for quite a long time, almost permanent.

Secondly Necro never had any ranged pressure, LB is too slow, staff shouldn’t even count as a weapon (i personally don’t understand how it made it to zerker meta builds). Anet has finally given us chase that doesnt need a target, and if we arent going to get a decent escape then chase is the next best thing especially since they’ve bumped up healing and chills.

Gs/staff should work because of the way Reaper shroud is, but staff should either be the first or middle of your rotation not the last or you will likely lose time waiting for weapon swap or RS cooldowns to do damage

Staff works for 3 reasons:
- fear which chills and allows you to hit ex scyth, which allows you to do some insane combos that also reduces damage taken
- blast finisher and transfer which again allows for some great combos
-Chillblains which allows you to inflict 3 conditions if you combo, all of which also stacks damage reduction.

Most of these werent possible before reaper.

Lastly, the shouts are pretty incredible, but i’ll just point out 2 that some seem to under estimate “Rise” and “Your soul is mine”. Without giving my build away i’ll just say that on their own yes they don’t seem to out do the current skills but when combo’d with certain gear and traits they should make Zerker builds a lot more dangerous than they are now.

As much as i give Anet $_it for their absurd implementations and fixes that should not have been needed in the first place. The level of thought that went into the Reaper is astounding, and I applaud them, including the animation team.

Ragion.2831:

I don’t thnk some of you understand what Anet has done with the reaper. As it stands now, with any amulet and rune you can have up to 68% damage reduction (excluding weakness) and keep it that way for quite a long time, almost permanent.

75% if you have all reductions and are in DS w/ protection, so yeah pretty heavy possible reduction.

Bhawb.7408:

Ragion.2831:

I don’t thnk some of you understand what Anet has done with the reaper. As it stands now, with any amulet and rune you can have up to 68% damage reduction (excluding weakness) and keep it that way for quite a long time, almost permanent.

75% if you have all reductions and are in DS w/ protection, so yeah pretty heavy possible reduction.

Thought it was closer to 78%.

Reaper may very well work fine with any weapon setup.
Dagger has a siphon that can be used for sustain, a bind to prevent targets from leaving, and a good AA. Off-hand dagger has a blind that can be traited for more chill and the condition transfer.
Axe has the longest range of any power weapon, stacks vulnerability for potential epidemic use, and generates a lot of LF.
Focus has vulnerability and chill, which match a lot of what Reaper comes with.
Scepter stacks bleeds and poisons, again for potential epidemic use, and will be good in the Curses line fro those wanting to go full condi-Reaper for whatever reason.
Warhorn has swiftness and cripple. Reaper can use every mobility advantage it can get.
Staff dumps AoE all over the place.

Necro will be better against multiple opponents than it is right now but those situations where a team truly needs such a thing are currently pretty sparse.

Ezeriel.9574:

Adaletta.3426:

@ezeriel.9574
so you mean the Necro like it is now will be better for pvp then the elite Spec?

it’s looking like it.

The GS is god-awful slow, and the reaper is melee…. the only melee classes in this game that are successful have large amounts of gap closers.

A guard with his GS leap, meditation teleport, sword teleport….
A warrior with sword/warhorn and GS charge…

Even now, a melee necro relies on DS/lich for range.

Who says by taking the Reaper line you HAVE to be melee with greatsword? I’ve theorycrafted a build that basically acts like current condi-mancer, uses Staff and Scepter/Dagger- specced into Soul Reaping, Curses and Reaper.

My blinds will inflict chill, my fears will inflict chill, and my chill and fear will inflict damage. Current DS isn’t exactly fantastic on condi-mancer.. but I actually feel Shroud Knight will perform admirably. You can use the ranged chills + fear (which doubles as chill) to close the gap, or your ranged blind from dagger 4- and once in melee range hop into Shroud Knight and auto attacks will inflict burning, your #3 skill can be detonated to aoe fear for terror + chill ticks, the #2 “Necrocopter” ability will convert boons to conditions….
Alternatively, if you aren’t the aggressive “close on them type”, just hang at range and drop conditions on them- and when they close on YOU drop into Shroud Knight and give them a nasty surprise with even more conditions. You can use Necrocopter as an escape if you like.

Edit: You also seem to be forgetting not all gap closers are leaps or teleports- even a power reaper in theory shouldn’t have TOO large an issue closing, due to ranged access to chill, spectral grasp (which can have a seriously decent cooldown), etc.

Yep I’m thinking shroud knight will be all the melee I need and has all the coolest toys anyway. Will try greatsword for a bit just for kicks If gravedigger works out really well I may keep at it but I’m seeing it as starving me for lifeforce if I cant get in range… which is why I will no doubt go back to axe/focus and use shroud more for opportunity or as a oh ****! button.

Sigmoid.7082:

Thought it was closer to 78%.

You know I remember it being 78% now that you mention it, because I think it came up on the podcast; it would just be another 10% damage reduction from some source to bring it to 78.
75% comes from:
Cold Shoulder
Protection
Innate DS Reduction
Putrid Defense

Bhawb.7408:

Sigmoid.7082:

Thought it was closer to 78%.

You know I remember it being 78% now that you mention it, because I think it came up on the podcast; it would just be another 10% damage reduction from some source to bring it to 78.
75% comes from:
Cold Shoulder
Protection
Innate DS Reduction
Putrid Defense

Frost armour

Yeah, that’s what it was thanks.

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, that’s what it was thanks.

I just find it funny that with that and weakness you can be backstabbed for 300 damage with no investment to toughness.

Guys Reaper is made for TEAMFIGHTS dont forget that. Who cares about full melee like dagger warhorn + Gs if you play in a teamfight. Dagger Warhorn is perfect for Dmg and Lifeforce reg. The GS is perfect for control the enemy + sustain with 4 for blind and ofc the chill is kind of sustain too. You not playing alone in a teamfight so you can go full melee. Y staff is a good choice too but i love my warhorn too much because i can even use the 5 while im in RS so i can still gain like a lot of lf and with the perma cripple + swiftness i stay on my target and kill it with my RS AA + Spells

Sigmoid.7082:

Bhawb.7408:

Yeah, that’s what it was thanks.

I just find it funny that with that and weakness you can be backstabbed for 300 damage with no investment to toughness.

It is pretty funny, but thats the way it should have been in the first place. Better late than never i suppose.

IronPhoenix.2045:

Guys Reaper is made for TEAMFIGHTS dont forget that.

Not quite true, Reaper was made so necro can handle getting ganked better. Vanilla necro is always being tossed around, perma crippled and being forced into speed competitions with our long cast times and no burst skills. This is something that should not have happened in the first place, but again happy someone up there finally played pvp extensively enough to put in detailed fixes.

That 10 second stab on a 16 sec cd and ftg stun break, only 2 and half years late but we did it guys.

zapv.8051:

You can LOS on most maps, ranged builds won’t be that big of a problem. No one runs p/p or p/d thief in pvp. Guards will still mostly be melee, as will thieves.

You say that, but I see an alarming amount of thieves running p/p…
Free kill!

GS+Staff Will be awesome
→ Staff only thing that has 1200 range as a weapon on the reaper set
→ Staff gives chill (+poison aka downstate messing)
→ Staff has a condition removal : 4 Putrid mark
→ Staff has a fear → Which will now also inflict chill

Dagger+Warhorn might give you faster LF gain. If its quicker than GS.

But, I never like to be without a ranged weapon set. So, Reaper-GS-Staff will be my weapon set of choice.