Guild Wars 2

Too slow for how hard it hits. Gravedigger is also very slow but the damage is pretty nice.

BUT…there is hope.

Reaper shroud is amazing. I’ve got a build where I can have a consistent 25 stacks of might and place around 18 stacks of vuln on an enemy/enemies if i’m cleaving.

Make it easy for yourselves and play dagger + focus and staff for the fast lifeforece generation and then switch to reaper shroud and do big damage.

Overall 7/10 greatsword needs some work

It has a lot of extra stuff besides damage.
Chill spam
Gravedigger is a whirl finisher, conditionally on a 1.6s cooldown.
12 instant vuln
dark field + blind pulse
pull (needs work though)

Overall it does need a bit of work and a little more damage, but it’s not that terrible.

Reaper Shroud sounds like it is good enough to release. I hope to test it before the beta weekend ends.

I expected GS to come out slow and weak because of the cleaves and hope shouts offer some real team utility.

Nightfall is 4 pulses of tooltip damage, so it’s actually good dps if you can get something to stay in it long enough.

Gravedigger aftercast is pretty long.

Auto attacks feel very weak for the cast time.

Anchoku.8142:

Reaper Shroud sounds like it is good enough to release. I hope to test it before the beta weekend ends.

I expected GS to come out slow and weak because of the cleaves and hope shouts offer some real team utility.

If I’m honest, Repaer shroud feels slow and clunky right now… Plus reaper traits are hardly worth giving up for losing any of Curses, Spite or Soul Reaping… It doesn’t pack the defense it needs for a front-line or even general melee spec and gets avoided like its nothing. Not a fan…

Have to say got more or less same impression new shroud is nice including the animations XD
But we lost dark path and got something that can hardly be called ‘leap’ the projectile destruction is nice but it doesn’t help with necro already slow kitten mobility.

Greatsword really blows not sure if claw thing is supposed to pull stuff to you or conditions but don’t think i saw either one happening. Gravedigger is too slow i’d say dagger auto is far more efficient even if it hits 2 less targets.
As i expected dagger + warhorn is the thing to go with reaper shroud

The pull is kinda annoying since it always goes into the direction you are facing not in the the direction your target is…

Also why the hell doesnt gs 4 have a aoe size indicator? It should have one like every other aoe…

I played with it a bit. It’s not bad bad, but it’s not very good to be frank.

1. skill is slow and really doesn’t do too much damage.
   The freezing is nice, but it’s really easy to dodge because the sword gets this IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS blue glow.

1. is a major let down to me so far. I had hoped this would be nice and bursty, but frankly it isn’t. And the precast/aftercast on it is a massive hindrance. I mean, I would probably be OK with it, if it wasn’t for the 1+ second cast time PLUS ANOTHER 1 second of aftercast. It’s massive for just a single big strike. It REALLY needs a reduction on cast times (both pre and after IMO).

1. Again with the MASSIVE cast time on a friggin melee ability. It just doesn’t flow well. The cone is quite long (which is good) but it’s really narrow. You can probably sidestep this once you know what to look for.
   Damage wise this ability feels solid though. Good damage, 12 stacks of vuln.

1. Pretty solid for what it does. Too bad again it takes forever to get this ability off. The cast time is only 1/4th of a second (great), but the effect itself takes time to spread out over the area.
   The animation is one of the best in the game though. Love it.

1. Not many issues with this ability. Bit of a long cooldown for our only gap closer on the weapon, but it’s ok. (Again great animation/visuals)

Frankly I think that #1 needs to just speed up slightly (only very little, you don’t want the GS to be doing more single target dps than the dagger, at best they should be equal.).

1. needs some work. I feel very locked in place when I’m casting it. Especially below 50% with the low cooldown.
   Also as far as the cooldown goes. I don’t really get the 80% reduction. The GS is so slow that the 1 second cooldown makes the rotation feel very clunky.

1. Cast time reduction would be nice. 3/4th or 1/2 of a second would be much better. The ability has a narrow cone so should be easy enough to get out of.

All that said. Reaper Shroud is great. It’s feels extremely good, because unlike GS it doesn’t have these massive cast times, making the flow feel great.

ronpierce.2760:

Anchoku.8142:

Reaper Shroud sounds like it is good enough to release. I hope to test it before the beta weekend ends.

I expected GS to come out slow and weak because of the cleaves and hope shouts offer some real team utility.

If I’m honest, Repaer shroud feels slow and clunky right now… Plus reaper traits are hardly worth giving up for losing any of Curses, Spite or Soul Reaping… It doesn’t pack the defense it needs for a front-line or even general melee spec and gets avoided like its nothing. Not a fan…

I’m getting melted.

As soon as i pop reaper, Where did all of my life force go?

If you thought getting focused was a problem before, it’s a ton worse now.

Yep. Dagger/focus for me switching to staff for range and DS damage. With the new heal and spectral armor I can sustain fairly well (unless focused), but this slow hitting easily avoidable weapon is a lemon IMO.

Nyth.3492:

I played with it a bit. It’s not bad bad, but it’s not very good to be frank.

1. skill is slow and really doesn’t do too much damage.
   The freezing is nice, but it’s really easy to dodge because the sword gets this IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS blue glow.

1. is a major let down to me so far. I had hoped this would be nice and bursty, but frankly it isn’t. And the precast/aftercast on it is a massive hindrance. I mean, I would probably be OK with it, if it wasn’t for the 1+ second cast time PLUS ANOTHER 1 second of aftercast. It’s massive for just a single big strike. It REALLY needs a reduction on cast times (both pre and after IMO).

1. Again with the MASSIVE cast time on a friggin melee ability. It just doesn’t flow well. The cone is quite long (which is good) but it’s really narrow. You can probably sidestep this once you know what to look for.
   Damage wise this ability feels solid though. Good damage, 12 stacks of vuln.

1. Pretty solid for what it does. Too bad again it takes forever to get this ability off. The cast time is only 1/4th of a second (great), but the effect itself takes time to spread out over the area.
   The animation is one of the best in the game though. Love it.

1. Not many issues with this ability. Bit of a long cooldown for our only gap closer on the weapon, but it’s ok. (Again great animation/visuals)

---

Frankly I think that #1 needs to just speed up slightly (only very little, you don’t want the GS to be doing more single target dps than the dagger, at best they should be equal.).

1. needs some work. I feel very locked in place when I’m casting it. Especially below 50% with the low cooldown.
   Also as far as the cooldown goes. I don’t really get the 80% reduction. The GS is so slow that the 1 second cooldown makes the rotation feel very clunky.

1. Cast time reduction would be nice. 3/4th or 1/2 of a second would be much better. The ability has a narrow cone so should be easy enough to get out of.

---

All that said. Reaper Shroud is great. It’s feels extremely good, because unlike GS it doesn’t have these massive cast times, making the flow feel great.

Actually you do, the dagger defining attribute is that it builds your shroud and is defensive through 2. GS and Dagger should be on par with single target damage.

idk why ppl say the reaper is bad honestly I haven’t had any issues with it, there is such a thing as you can’t learn how to play a class right away in just a couple of minutes or an hour, the reaper is a learning curve some catch on right away and know exactly how to use it and kick butt and have 0 issues with it. I know I don’t see any issue with the current Reaper to me it feels smooth and fine if you know how to use it right.

Apolo.5942:

Actually you do, the dagger defining attribute is that it builds your shroud and is defensive through 2. GS and Dagger should be on par with single target damage.

I get what you’re saying. And I can understand that point. I might even agree.

I was maybe hoping that GS could be a bit more of a burst weapon. (Lower DPS, but higher burst in intervals) so it would have a different niche than dagger.
If the GS does more damage ST (and thus automatically against any bigger group size), dagger might be left in a TOO niche situation, where you only really want it for a shroud oriented build.

sniperman.1738:

idk why ppl say the reaper is bad honestly I haven’t had any issues with it, there is such a thing as you can’t learn how to play a class right away in just a couple of minutes or an hour, the reaper is a learning curve some catch on right away and know exactly how to use it and kick butt and have 0 issues with it. I know I don’t see any issue with the current Reaper to me it feels smooth and fine if you know how to use it right.

This isnt about learning. This is a numbers and feeling issue. It feels too slow to be fun. And it feels far too weak for how slow it is. And the numbers prove that that is completely true.

They specifically said that GS would be slow but hit harder to compensate. This is not true currently.

sniperman.1738:

idk why ppl say the reaper is bad honestly I haven’t had any issues with it, there is such a thing as you can’t learn how to play a class right away in just a couple of minutes or an hour, the reaper is a learning curve some catch on right away and know exactly how to use it and kick butt and have 0 issues with it. I know I don’t see any issue with the current Reaper to me it feels smooth and fine if you know how to use it right.

Reaper isn’t bad. The greatsword feels a bit clunky though. If you’ve played with other class’ greatsword the abilities generally either feel smooth, or they feel rewarding. For necro the GS seems to do neither.

1. leaving you static for like 2 seconds and doing ‘laughable’ damage (<- based on the fact this is suppose to be our big execution hit), was a letdown for me

I like the animations though, and not everything is bad about the GS. I do hope they polish it up.

i went to solo ac story. i couldnt execute any attack without being interrupted and of course i cant dodge it because then i would have to cast the skill again forever. only safe way of fighting was in rs after using 3 lol.

What would probably redeem GS for me would be to add a significant LF gain to Gravedigger. When you get the condition you’d start getting tons of LF. Then the weakish damage would be justified.

Reaper Greatsword is really bad right now. Most of the rest of reaper I can get behind, but GS doesn’t have the appropriate reward for how difficult it is to do anything with it. 2 needs significantly more damage and needs to fully reset, the fact that it resets to like 1s makes it really clunky for no reason, you don’t have enough time to actually do anything in between, yet it artificially nukes your DPS. 1 needs longer chill duration, if I can land a 3s chain I should be able to perma chill whatever moron I’m facing that let me do that. Also 4 needs to be castable while moving, and 5 needs to go to my target.

The design is great, its just clunky and not rewarding enough right now.

Khristophoros.7194:

What would probably redeem GS for me would be to add a significant LF gain to Gravedigger. When you get the condition you’d start getting tons of LF. Then the weakish damage would be justified.

no. but mor LF gain is welcomed/necessary for the weapon to even be used.
the concept is slow, but hard hits. thats what it should be. HARD hits

I have to agree. The greatsword is immensely subpar.

I’d like the weapon to stay slow. It’s unique. The problem is no attack with it ever lands because its range doesn’t compensate for how slow it is. People don’t need to dodge, they literally just walk away.

Yeah but the animations are amazing, which is really a shame since i probably wont be using gs due the subpar numbers.

Jackalrat.5493:

People don’t need to dodge, they literally just walk away.

That’s pretty much it, short and sweet…and sad. Attacks are too slow to connect properly. You factor in lag from WvW, GS is simply unusable.

Also could really use more LF generation. While the rest of the specialization has nice LF, the weapon itself has almost none, which makes it really strange as an otherwise tanky set.

Bhawb.7408:

Also could really use more LF generation. While the rest of the specialization has nice LF, the weapon itself has almost none, which makes it really strange as an otherwise tanky set.

Yeah but i think that is partly because the lf generating skills are really hard to land…

This is from a pvp perspective. I’m not a pvp god or anything, just your average player who also sometimes visits the forums.

I like the Reaper design and I love the animations. I really do feel the slow part of what Robert Gee was describing, but I’m not exactly feeling like an unstoppable monster… In fact, I’m dying even faster now. I don’t feel like I’m doing a lot of damage with GS.

Also, Reaper’s Shroud is really cool and interesting, however my biggest gripes are that Death’s Charge doesn’t stop at the enemy. It makes fighting on ledges really cumbersome. I know this won’t get changed- I’m just voicing my opinion.

Also, I really enjoyed Death Shroud because Life Transfer could siphon life force which allowed you to stay in DS longer. I don’t know about you but I’m losing my Reaper’s Shroud reeeaally fast. Maybe allowing Infusing Terror to siphon life force as well could work a bit better?

Absolute Ze Woah.1074:

This is from a pvp perspective. I’m not a pvp god or anything, just your average player who also sometimes visits the forums.

I like the Reaper design and I love the animations. I really do feel the slow part of what Robert Gee was describing, but I’m not exactly feeling like an unstoppable monster… In fact, I’m dying even faster now. I don’t feel like I’m doing a lot of damage with GS.

Also, Reaper’s Shroud is really cool and interesting, however my biggest gripes are that Death’s Charge doesn’t stop at the enemy. It makes fighting on ledges really cumbersome. I know this won’t get changed- I’m just voicing my opinion.

Also, I really enjoyed Death Shroud because Life Transfer could siphon life force which allowed you to stay in DS longer. I don’t know about you but I’m losing my Reaper’s Shroud reeeaally fast. Maybe allowing Infusing Terror to siphon life force as well could work a bit better?

The auto 3 gives LF and with enough targets you can actually stay in RS forever just by auto attacking (assuming you dont get hit by enemies of course).

Is nobody going to comment the total lack of support for DPS PvE traits? The greatsword as well as dagger gain very little from the adept and grandmaster traitlines.

The minors are all terrible for PvE. You don’t want to tank hits in PvE so could shoulder is bad….

Shivers of Dread is terrible. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE FOR PVE. You don’t want to fear in PvE ever, as it spreads the mob stack and lessens your group’s cleave/aoe damage.

And quite honestly, a chill centric kit is of little use to PvE, where chill is useless because bosses pose the most dangers with their autoattacks, whose recharges is little, ad there are very few skills to be affected by chill.

We need to specify in what modes we think it is bad i.e. PvP, WvW or PvE. In PvE it is an excellent alternative to axe, though I think the GS needs some tweaks. I have found it to be very fun, in addition to the reaper skills. Reaper skill 2 is a great movement skill to avoid damage spikes or reposition.

Again, we just need to specify what mode we are talking about.

Zenith.7301:

Is nobody going to comment the total lack of support for DPS PvE traits? The greatsword as well as dagger gain very little from the adept and grandmaster traitlines.

The minors are all terrible for PvE. You don’t want to tank hits in PvE so could shoulder is bad….

Shivers of Dread is terrible. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE FOR PVE. You don’t want to fear in PvE ever, as it spreads the mob stack and lessens your group’s cleave/aoe damage.

And quite honestly, a chill centric kit is of little use to PvE, where chill is useless because bosses pose the most dangers with their autoattacks, whose recharges is little, ad there are very few skills to be affected by chill.

Well vulnerability for chilling a foe (spite trait) sounds nice makes reaper 5 then 4 a nice vulnerability combo.

yeah GS and some of the Shouts are pretty much useless.

GS is too slow and damage not good to make up for it.

Also provides little defense to counter this flaw.

all around bad weapon. Maybe good for PvE AoE damage I guess…
but otherwise bad weapon.

Reapers shroud is really nice, I like the skills and it feels really fluid, cause u can cast all skills while moving. This is great.

GS…I need some work with it. It’s slow…ya…but…for me it’s ok as it is…maybe Auto attack chain could have a litte bit more dmg….

I love the changes done for Death’s Charge and Soul Spiral…pls..never ever take away the blind or the poison…ist awesome for my Condi-Reaper Build =)

Zenith.7301:

Is nobody going to comment the total lack of support for DPS PvE traits? The greatsword as well as dagger gain very little from the adept and grandmaster traitlines.

The minors are all terrible for PvE. You don’t want to tank hits in PvE so could shoulder is bad….

Shivers of Dread is terrible. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE FOR PVE. You don’t want to fear in PvE ever, as it spreads the mob stack and lessens your group’s cleave/aoe damage.

And quite honestly, a chill centric kit is of little use to PvE, where chill is useless because bosses pose the most dangers with their autoattacks, whose recharges is little, ad there are very few skills to be affected by chill.

It’s very easy to use fear in PvE. After the mobs have been stacked, you go outside of the stack and fear them into the corner/wall with staff 5. It doesn’t ruin anything and CCs them. With Shivers of Dread + Bitter Chill that results in some extra vulnerability.

Against bosses you can now get chill more easily. Useful against bosses such as mossman, archdiviner, and imbued shaman.

As for damage traits, Decimate Defenses and Reaper’s Onslaught would be amazing for PvE if they weren’t bugged.

Did anybody try Reaper GS vs. lockdown Chronomancer with all that Slow abuse?

Korusef.3714:

Did anybody try Reaper GS vs. lockdown Chronomancer with all that Slow abuse?

GS isn’t worth using period, no need to make it look worse against Chronomancer.

Bhawb.7408:

Korusef.3714:

Did anybody try Reaper GS vs. lockdown Chronomancer with all that Slow abuse?

GS isn’t worth using period, no need to make it look worse against Chronomancer.

Yep. may as well go get a coffee from the kitchen now between auto attacks.

The only difference with slow is that you can actually go out for one.

I am trying my best to find a way to make GS good. just all around bad weapon for this game.

the concept could work in a MMO like WoW where attacks dont miss. but not in a fast paced game like GW2.

Khristophoros.7194:

It has a lot of extra stuff besides damage.
Chill spam
Gravedigger is a whirl finisher, conditionally on a 1.6s cooldown.
12 instant vuln
dark field + blind pulse
pull (needs work though)

Overall it does need a bit of work and a little more damage, but it’s not that terrible.

Yes the GS got some nice things on the paper no question but in game it just feels really really slow like you are hitting in slow motion every spell. I really hope they nerf dmg but buff the attack speed so that overall you deal same dmg but it just dont feel that much laggy like right now otherwise i wont play with the greatsword because i hate to attack with that speed imagine when you get slow on you then you dont make anything for ages :/

gavyne.6847:

Jackalrat.5493:

People don’t need to dodge, they literally just walk away.

That’s pretty much it, short and sweet…and sad. Attacks are too slow to connect properly. You factor in lag from WvW, GS is simply unusable.

That’s true only for the auto attack. You can use GS2 and GS3 while running without interrupting the skill. GS is made to be used while chasing your enemy.

Thought to make the GS connect you have to properly chain GS4 and GS5 otherwise you are kitten.

Pretty much simmilar experiences from me. I even made the Volkanus greatsword in preparation for this and i really wanted to like it. After many hours i was forced to admit that its slow clunky and unrewarding in about any gamemode. Do yourself a favour and switch back to daggers.

lol love the reaper shroud

hate the GS, i rarely used GS in duels and If i did switch to GS during a duel…..its gona get me killed rofl(no pressure)

Love the reaper shroud, feel like hulk with a staff lool

RS feels good but seems to drain after the death shroud.

GS 1 is just to slow, I found the other attacks to be alow but manageable. Fighting someone with a fast attack weapon just makes you feel really really slow.

Just chiming in – ran the same build as I have on live on my Beta Reaper – but with a Greatsword instead of Dagger/Warhorn.

My survivability in PVE stayed about the same – but my time to kill drastically increased.

The Greatsword hits for about the same as the Dagger – but with a MASSIVE period of time between each swing. I don’t know how this ever was considered acceptable in the first place. It’s 100% risk, no reward.

The chill is pathetic – it can never land in PVP enemies can just walk out of it – and in PvE it does bunk all.

If the chill is the reason this weapon has to have bad DPS/bad damage – remove the chill and triple the damage – then we’ll have something scary.

Knighthonor.4061:

I am trying my best to find a way to make GS good. just all around bad weapon for this game.

the concept could work in a MMO like WoW where attacks dont miss. but not in a fast paced game like GW2.

The thing is slow is fine. Executioner’s Strike for example is amazing, because if you land it you WILL destroy them most of the time. The problem with GS is too many things are slow, when only AA/2 should be, and neither of them are strong enough to be that slow.

Increase the damage on 2, make it fully reset instead of to 1s
Increase the AA chill to fully cover its next chain and slightly reduce how long it takes to do
Make 3 a bit bigger or something similar to increase its usability
Reduce the ridiculous time it takes for 4 to go through
Make 5 actually aim to target

It doesn’t need a lot, just QoL changes and damage increases.

ShadeWyrm.4152:

Just chiming in – ran the same build as I have on live on my Beta Reaper – but with a Greatsword instead of Dagger/Warhorn.

My survivability in PVE stayed about the same – but my time to kill drastically increased.

The Greatsword hits for about the same as the Dagger – but with a MASSIVE period of time between each swing. I don’t know how this ever was considered acceptable in the first place. It’s 100% risk, no reward.

The chill is pathetic – it can never land in PVP enemies can just walk out of it – and in PvE it does bunk all.

If the chill is the reason this weapon has to have bad DPS/bad damage – remove the chill and triple the damage – then we’ll have something scary.

remember! the CHILL according the Mr Ghees livestream is the REAPERS CLAIN TO FAME!

Duo’d arah p2 with a friend playing revenant. On top of it being so slow it wasnt fun. I also found myself constantly interrupting attacks just to dodge. The damage was pathetic. I tried to stick with it. Then we got to lupi. It was a total disaster. The slow casts caused all sorts of problems with managing dodges and actually doing damage.

So i ended up going back to classic dagger focus + warhorn. I thought this would be better because RS2 actually blocks projectiles so i can use it for some lupi auto-attacks. Then i discovered how much of a troll skill it was. And felt as if the kill would have gone a lot faster if i had just been playing regular necro because i wouldnt have messed up shroud cooldowns. Losing Dark Path and Tainted shackles is actually quite a big deal. And the headache slow casts are just frustrating and unfun.

Also i started off in the dungeon using the heal shout. Then i discovered that without blood magic the heal potential and sustain was atrocious when i needed it (inquest adds at abom). I immediately dropped the one shout i thought might have some use in PvE. Turns out that was wishful thinking on my part. You are better off just not using a heal or going for something else rather than using that heal.

Also chill uptime on bosses where you actually need to dodge and use proper rotations is basically non existant. The chill nerfs were seriously unjustified.

Greatsword utility is nice. But the damage is terrible. Full Berserker I’ll crit for like 1 – 2k on the first two attacks in the chain and around 4 – 5 on the fifth attack. That’s alright… But it’s worse than Warrior greatsword AA and slower too. It deals slightly higher damage on the final attack in the AA chain but it’s just too slow.

Personally anyway, I think it’s a situational weapon. Has nice utility but otherwise it’s extremely meh.

Greatsword is rubbish and has no place in pvp or pve. Like shroud, but greatsword is trash. Whoever thought this was ok never played PVP and should try it. Using a greatsword in pvp or pve is a massive dps decrease and is too easily interrupted. It’s laughable.

I agree with GS being a bit too slow, in PvE it was enjoyable and gimmicy and I was seeing some rather large numbers. But when I tried out PvP I felt like a giant trying to play whackamole with a bunch of jackrabbits.
It was hard to land hits and when I did they came too far apart the other person usually was healed up from the damage I had done. I can see where it could taking getting used to, but at the same time I feel could just put my dagger/warhorn back on and have faster and better results.

After playing around with it for like 30 minutes through the first story mission, I’m really unimpressed.

Skill 1. Way too slow. Doesn’t hit hard enough to justify the speed, and the Chill doesn’t last long enough to really do anything with it. Mobs can get away from you pretty darn easily.

Skill 2. Also way too slow. The damage is ok, I guess, but the wind-up on the animation is just painful. In PvP, there’s a very good chance that your opponent is gonna heal before the hit lands and deny you the cooldown reset. Having played my Thief D/D through 100% World Completion, the Necro’s Greatsword 2 just feels like a really crappy Heartseeker.

Skill 3. This skill is awesome! It even gives you decent LF generation. It would be better if your 1’s Chill were a bit longer, so you could more easily combo this. Hit them with the chill, then pop 3 to trigger the trait that gives you LF upon hitting someone with Chill for a massive LF boost.

Skill 4. Actually a pretty good skill, at least for mobs. Don’t know how useful it’ll be in PvP, but at least it’s only a 1/4 cast time.

Skill 5. Terrible. Just the worst. The animation is so kitten slow that it’ll miss everyone and their mum if they’re running away. This is pretty much only useful against someone who’s standing still.

Reaper seems really strong but Greatsword, not so much. The Shouts aren’t very good, either, IMO. Just not as impactful as the other utilities we have.

Skill 4 is one of the better skills. But its not perfect. The pulses are really slow. So for blind groups of mobs its kind of weak.