Guild Wars 2

My review will be much shorter this time!

Obviously, the reaper was hugely improved. I found it to be tremendously fun, but the popular opinion that it is not totally viable in competitive play remains true. I understand this may just be how things stay, as not every specialization has a place in remotely competitive PvP.

However, I would still like to see some minor quality of life changes to help the GREATSWORD specifically (not reaper shroud, not traits, and not shouts – they all seem fine) because it is still very hard to use in PvP. Probably the most substantial change I would suggest is upping the range on GS #1 and #2 just a bit more.

Currently, ever landing a gravedigger in PvP is so rare (unless your opponent is totally clueless, and the BWE did bring quite a few of those players out) that this weapon can’t even come close to comparing to the dagger. In truth, even if its range jumped to about 300, the dagger would still be a superior weapon, but I would be satisfied. The simple fact is this skill is stopped by block, blind, and interrupts so frequently and easily that I think I could do without it being thwarted by a casual stroll away from the necro.

TLDR:
Increase GS1 and GS2 range a bit and this spec still won’t be especially competitive due to its slowness and obvious telegraphs, but it will be sufficiently awesome and fun to play.

Thanks for reading! And thanks for making this spec better.

I think the problem isn’t the range as much as the damage.

The weapon is a total glass cannon (GS4+ 5 offer next to nothing defense, life force, and kiting), but the damage isn’t really above what anybody else can do either (and it’s typical damage is far below the classes that easily might stack).

At a minimum, #3 should feel more rewarding and the autoattack chill duration shoud be longer.

If by damage you mean damage taken, then I can totally agree. The damage numbers dealt are fine as they are.

They just often don’t matter because landing attacks with the Greatsword is still very hard in PvP. If they want to keep the swings slow and powerful, the range needs to come up a bit.

And they might as well just make the 5 skill a cone GTAOE already. That would work so much better.

That being said, I wouldn’t hate seeing protection thrown onto skill 4 because, yes, you die very quickly when trying to use the greatsword.

It’s an interesting concept to give reapers zero mobility, but easy access to chill so the reaper can stick on targets. On paper it sounds wonderful; in practice it is horribad design. Now that movement abilities are unimpaired by cripple and chill, classes can dash/leap/teleport with maximum distance, and chill is just not enough to justify reapers having zero mobility.

Now more than ever, reapers need real mobility. The necromancer has teleports and fantastic ranged damage, but also fantastic melee damage, too. Why isn’t the reaper allowed teleports? Every melee greatsword in the game has a movement ability except for reaper’s.

I’m sure reapers are great in PvE, though – just horribad vs anything that moves.

nekretaal.6485:

I think the problem isn’t the range as much as the damage.

The weapon is a total glass cannon (GS4+ 5 offer next to nothing defense, life force, and kiting), but the damage isn’t really above what anybody else can do either (and it’s typical damage is far below the classes that easily might stack).

At a minimum, #3 should feel more rewarding and the autoattack chill duration shoud be longer.

Necro is actually one of the best classes in the game in terms of might stacking… Which is why it is so hard to use anything but spite-soul reaping-reaper…

I think a range extension on RS 3 would be great because the current cone is really small; an improved reliability for RS 5 which still fails more often than not (which is I believe the main reason why a dash is so much more useful). Finally, the reduction of a few after casts which makes skill chaining clunky.

When in a team fight, the GS is really not bad, I don’t think much need to be changed to make it spot-on.