Guild Wars 2

I’ve voiced a concern on these forums a few times. I get the feeling that Anet has a similar concern. They haven’t made this concern clear, however, so now it is time to make a topic about this.

The big concern, of course, is that the reaper will utterly eclipse every other necro build out there. This has further problems, particularly in regards to having to buy the reaper, but I won’t go into those.

The focus of this concern is damage. The reaper introduces two more forms of melee combat, with Shroud Knight and the Greatsword. Now, while Anet wants these to be powerful, Greatsword is going to be heavily restrained by the simple fact that the dagger cannot become obsolete. This is why in the most recent videos we’ve seen, the greatsword does relatively terrible damage when compared to other weapons of similar speed. Shroud Knight isn’t as much of a problem, because it is tied to life force. This lets Shroud Knight be as high damage and bursty as it can be. But the greatsword can be used indefinitely, and so it has to be balanced with the dagger over prolonged combat.

The worst part is, the dagger isn’t that good of a weapon. The only notable thing about it is the lifeforce generation. Otherwise it has middling DPS with low cleave, a low DPS slow life siphon with a moderate heal, and an immobilize skill. The dagger has been in need of a buff for a long time, and now the ineptitude of the dagger is forcing the greatsword down.

While I share the same concerns, I think Anet has made a mistake here:

#1: The Dagger is a defensive weapon. The burst and utilities of an offensive weapon shouldn’t be restrained by the auto attack of a defensive weapon.
#2: The high skill required to make use of the Greatsword means that it should be scaled to have higher damage, assuming that a large portion of that damage will miss.
#3: The Dagger has been in need of a buff for a long time. If the greatsword properly scaled to other slow weapons eclipses the dagger, then the dagger should get a buff, since it means that the necro dagger is currently eclipsed by other weapons of a similar speed. The Necro community is getting pretty kitten tired of this “one step forward, one step back” balancing that we’ve received over the years.
#4: The Necro is already an extremely slow class, with all of our skills taking forever to use in the first place. If the dagger skills take forever (3.5 tooltip time for life siphon and 1 tooltip time for dark pact, basically meaning it is 4 seconds and 1.4 seconds respectively), then to make the reaper actually unique the dagger should be made faster.
#5: The Greatsword is currently being made obsolete by the dagger. The Greatsword simply doesn’t have enough unique utility to justify its use.

Greatsword Auto: Does less damage, only benefit is chill.
Gravedigger: Does less damage, contributes nothing other than damage (and is bad at it)
Death Spiral: Just causes vulnerability for more damage (Focus offhand also accomplishes this)
Nightfall: Maybe in PVE this will be useful, but a long delayed blind is useless in PVP. Enemies already walk right out of our wells, and they’ll walk right out of this, too.
Reaper’s Grasp: Its a pull. Its basic function is exactly what dark pact does, and even does it on the same length and recharge.

The only advantage that Greatsword has is cleave. On 2 or fewer targets, you loose out on offense and defense.

While I would like to give a bunch of suggestions on how to improve base necro, Malchior already has a better thread on the matter.

I don’t feel like greatsword is meant to be a dps weapon. I think they are trying to give it a more execute type gameplay and everything on the kit is meant to give utility to bring others into our execute range.

@sebradle
Yes but the non-execute dagger executes better than GS since the damage of GS (even gravedigger) is lower than dagger (not by much).

I think the GS is meant as a more than 2 enemies weapon. It has scalable LF generation, many 5-enemies skills etc… And chill IS punishing.

I still feel that gravedigger should at least out-DPS dagger AA since it is only spammable for execute (and not even fully spammable any longer it seems)

I think GS can do nearly heavy enough damage as is for what it’s designed to be: A frontline brawler type with high durability and moderately strong hits in big cleave AoE to keep up pressure. The biggest flaw in my mind is that the cast times are just too long. Decrease cast times by a bit (especially on the AA) and I have the feeling GS would be just what we need (and be more in line with the devs’ desire for Reaper: Slow (it’s still a GS, after all) but fairly heavy hitting (Again, GS, after all) with a fair number of control effects built in

I can’t comment for sure until I test it, but I think GS could work as a bruiser type weapon on a soldiers or celestial setup, but dagger/warhorn could be better for those anyway, so I need to see which does better for that role.

The biggest strength to the GS is downcleave. Gravedigger seems designed to punish people that attempt to rez. Still, reaper shroud can do this is as well (with the 5 skill being particularly useful for it), but GS would also help in that role. Soul Marks+Blighters Boon seems to be enough life force generation to make dagger/warhorn less necessary, but once again, we’ll have to test it to find out.

reaper should be frekin fantastic in PvE.

In PvP however I have my doubts.
The lack of a reliable short CD gap closer will likely hurt quite a bit, especially since you are forced to use melee abilities in reaper shroud.

If it were up to me they would make reaper shroud number 2 allot faster or just turn it into a ground targeted teleport. (it could also stand to chill enemies it hits).

nearlight.3064:

I can’t comment for sure until I test it, but I think GS could work as a bruiser type weapon on a soldiers or celestial setup, but dagger/warhorn could be better for those anyway, so I need to see which does better for that role.

The biggest strength to the GS is downcleave. Gravedigger seems designed to punish people that attempt to rez. Still, reaper shroud can do this is as well (with the 5 skill being particularly useful for it), but GS would also help in that role. Soul Marks+Blighters Boon seems to be enough life force generation to make dagger/warhorn less necessary, but once again, we’ll have to test it to find out.

This ^

The main strength to greatsword seems to be the fact that the number 2 CD resets if you hit any target under 50%.
So against high health bosses you could use whatever for your main weapon then at 50% swap to GS and spam number 2 for huge numbers.

I wanted to complain but held my tongue. In the grouch video, it was only 1 probably not teamspeak coordinted man rezzing 1v2 – and the huuge aftercast of gravediger is way over what youd need to get 2nd hit.

The gravedigger spam, which the whole weapon is designed around, is a dream for now

Silverkey.2078:

@sebradle
Yes but the non-execute dagger executes better than GS since the damage of GS (even gravedigger) is lower than dagger (not by much).

I think the GS is meant as a more than 2 enemies weapon. It has scalable LF generation, many 5-enemies skills etc… And chill IS punishing.

I still feel that gravedigger should at least out-DPS dagger AA since it is only spammable for execute (and not even fully spammable any longer it seems)

Can you show me the math that dagger out damages gravedigger spam?

what if they redesigned gravedigger? Make it so if you hit an enemy below 50%, it reduces the cool down of all GS and RS skills by….idk, 50 to 75 percent?

I actually didn’t do it myself because I didn’t try to estimate the cast time of gravedigger.

Dagger AA is 2.8 coef in 2.1 s, so 1.33 coef/s.
Currently gravedigger is 2.0 coef. The tooltip activation is 1.25 which would make 1.6 coef/s but it seems the after cast is nearly 0.5s which brings it down to 1.15 coef/s.

Since GS has about 10% higher weapon strength, this makes 1,26 “effective coef”/s. Still below dagger.

Also worth noting is that while using a dagger, you have often a warhorn which adds some DPS, while there is no higher DPS skill on the GS…

Silverkey.2078:

I actually didn’t do it myself because I didn’t try to estimate the cast time of gravedigger.

Dagger AA is 2.8 coef in 2.1 s, so 1.33 coef/s.
Currently gravedigger is 2.0 coef. The tooltip activation is 1.25 which would make 1.6 coef/s but it seems the after cast is nearly 0.5s which brings it down to 1.15 coef/s.

Since GS has about 10% higher weapon strength, this makes 1,26 “effective coef”/s. Still below dagger.

Also worth noting is that while using a dagger, you have often a warhorn which adds some DPS, while there is no higher DPS skill on the GS…

Thanks. Also I feel like swiftness/cripple from the warhorn gives d/w more stickiness than great sword as well. What i want is gravedigger to be similar to heart seeker just a heavy hitting execute would be awesome with reaper shroud 5 as well.

TheLastNobody.8319:

what if they redesigned gravedigger? Make it so if you hit an enemy below 50%, it reduces the cool down of all GS and RS skills by….idk, 50 to 75 percent?

Reapers already have a trait similar to that. Its called Soul Eater. Each time Gravedigger hits an enemy, all other greatsword skills recharge by 3%. It also adds lifesteal to greatsword attacks.

As a trait, Soul Eater would be alright, were it not for the fact that it competes with Chilling Force (Might and Life Force per chilled enemy hit) and Decimate Defenses (2% crit chance per vulnerability stack), both of which are extremely powerful. In PVP you’ll want chilling force for the extra might stacks and life force + blighter’s boon synergy, and in PVE Decimate Defenses will give cap out a zerker reaper’s crit chance. Those two traits also work with every weapon. I guess maybe if there’s some pre-made group that manages to nearly max out precision, then Soul Eater would be preferable.

A simple fix would be to put Soul Eater at another tier. The hard part is that it seems like no matter where I stick it, another combo gets broken somehow. The best candidate is Reaper’s Onslaught, since in PVP you’ll be taking Blighter’s Boon anyway. I guess the theoretical Curses / Soul Reaping/ Reaper condi shroud knight build will take a hit by losing chilling force, but the Reaper line is so tightly packed that it is hard to make a change without breaking a combo.

Dagger really needs to focus more on being the fast, lifestealing weapon. Its attacks come incredibly rapidly, and proc Vampiric and Vampiric Presence incredibly well, especially the 2 ability. If dagger 2 were changed to be a bit faster, and dagger 3 were changed to also give swiftness when used, it could still find use as a highly mobile, high healing lifesteal weapon, while letting Greatsword be slower, with higher dps.

Dagger should not out melee DPS reaper IMO.

Here’s why: Dagger hits fast, procs more, and builds life force. Greatsword auto attack and Gravedigger need to be huge, slow burst with comparable DPS. It would really be stupid if Reaper didn’t at least do comparable melee DPS to current Necro.

Also, you kind of lost me at, “Dagger isn’t a good weapon.”

I would love if Gravedigger + Axe + Reapers Shroud rotations gave us a new best DPS rotation. I want a rotation. I’m tired of 11111111111111111111111111111111.

With some little buffs I could see a…
GS: 1 + 1 + 2
Weapon Swap
Axe: 2
Reapers Shroud 1 + 1 + 1 + 4
Exit Shroud
Axe: 2
GS: 1 + 1 + 2
etc. outdoing dagger finally.

Jackalrat.5493:

Also, you kind of lost me at, “Dagger isn’t a good weapon.”

I have a hard time thinking of a main-hand melee weapon that does less than the Necro Dagger. It has a decent sustained damage and good life force generation, but Life Siphon is generally a waste and Dark Pact takes too long to use. This is coming from a PVE standpoint, where Dark Pact and Life Siphon contribute almost nothing to any fight. But even when I used to PVP, Dagger play consisted almost entirely of chasing someone with the auto attack.

Compared to other main-hand melee weapons, I would probably rank it about equal to Guardian Sword, and technically better than the Ranger Sword due to the high technical skill needed to not get killed by it. But compare it to thief sword/dagger? Thief is better. Mesmer Sword? Lower damage, but does so many more things. Guardian Mace? Potent defensive weapon. Warrior Axe/Mace/Sword? Higher damage, or chain stuns. Elementalist has too many benefits to list.

In my opinion the niches of dagger mainhand and greatsword should be pretty clear.

Dagger is supposed to have high sustained damage and sustain, with dark pact being useful both offensively and defensively.

Greatsword, while less defined right now, would make a better CC and burst weapon. The chill on auto is good for baiting dodges, but I think greatsword will probably need some tweaks.

1. The auto needs a damage boost considering how slow and easy it is to blind, block evade and avoid.. It doesn’t need to be warrior axe, but in its current iteration it could use a little buff.

2. I think the 1 second cooldown on gravedigger needs to be reverted to 100% cd reduction. Really, it should do its job as a digger of graves.

3. I think this skill is fine Fast hitting, stacks vuln, good setup skill. We will see how well its lifeforce generation is soon enough.

4. Greatsword 4 needs to pulse blind every second, because a 2 second intervals is the difference between living and dying to heartseekers. I don’t think it needs cripple. We have enough chill.

5. I have yet to form an opinion on this pull skill.

The real problem:

Dagger: melee power damage
Greatsword: melee power damage
Reaper Shroud: melee power damage

Something’s got to give. None of the weapons has much other than power damage to offer. Ranged or anti kiting will have to be done by staff, and if staff isn’t good enough, perhaps both dagger and greatsword have to go.

I don’t see why any of those has to give. If anything, I’d say axe and staff need improvements for ranged viability.

sebradle.7034:

Silverkey.2078:

@sebradle
Yes but the non-execute dagger executes better than GS since the damage of GS (even gravedigger) is lower than dagger (not by much).

I think the GS is meant as a more than 2 enemies weapon. It has scalable LF generation, many 5-enemies skills etc… And chill IS punishing.

I still feel that gravedigger should at least out-DPS dagger AA since it is only spammable for execute (and not even fully spammable any longer it seems)

Can you show me the math that dagger out damages gravedigger spam?

~5k damage assuming everything crits( on my build, i don’t run a -ton- of crit damage) in under 4 seconds.
on a full glass setup, that damage can go up to ~12k. test it yourself.

nekretaal.6485:

The real problem:

Dagger: melee power damage
Greatsword: melee power damage
Reaper Shroud: melee power damage

Something’s got to give. None of the weapons has much other than power damage to offer. Ranged or anti kiting will have to be done by staff, and if staff isn’t good enough, perhaps both dagger and greatsword have to go.

dagger cooldowns are also way too huge for what they do. (MH)

Dead.5829:

I don’t see why any of those has to give. If anything, I’d say axe and staff need improvements for ranged viability.

Add scepter to the list but I don’t feel comfortable having to get melee shroud to use shroud GS I doubt the effectiveness of staying close to your foe I still believe GS will be more of a PvE thing.

Dagger auto does high damage. Its necro itself which does low damage. In other words necro has much less damage modifiers than other classes. But the dagger auto attack has some of the highest coefficient per seconds of any auto-attack in game currently.

I dont think we have much to worry about. I suspect GS is going to be weak when foes are above 50%. And if not it will be better to do a dagger + greatsword rotation until 50% where you can start spamming gravedigger. The bigger question is will RS auto-attack out damage dagger. Because thats what we should be worrying about. Then again it might be better for us if it did. Even if it makes the playstyle boring and renders dagger useless.

a great way to put some of these fears to rest(lolnecropuns) is to modify the trait that speeds up reaper shroud auto attack to also speed up greatsword auto attack.

spoj.9672:

I suspect GS is going to be weak when foes are above 50%. And if not it will be better to do a dagger + greatsword rotation until 50% where you can start spamming gravedigger.

So instead of spamming 1, you spam 2. Zhaitan!

Most classes are like that. If we have a rotation for the first 50% thats a pretty nice change.

spoj.9672:

I dont think we have much to worry about. I suspect GS is going to be weak when foes are above 50%. And if not it will be better to do a dagger + greatsword rotation until 50% where you can start spamming gravedigger. The bigger question is will RS auto-attack out damage dagger. Because thats what we should be worrying about. Then again it might be better for us if it did. Even if it makes the playstyle boring and renders dagger useless.

Well, the issue currently is that even with gravedigger spam, it still does less damage than the dagger AA.

Shroud Knight being best DPS actually makes dagger more important. Necro DPS then becomes about managing lifeforce, and the dagger is the best weapon for accumulating it.

I swear to the flying spaghetti monster sometimes when i read the posts some people make about skills and balance I feel like I must be playing an entirely different class, in and entirely different game, in an entirely different world, in an entirely different galaxy, in an entirely different universe.

Just played the Reaper, bottom line, sword sucks.

nekretaal.6485:

The real problem:

Dagger: melee power damage
Greatsword: melee power damage
Reaper Shroud: melee power damage

Something’s got to give. None of the weapons has much other than power damage to offer. Ranged or anti kiting will have to be done by staff, and if staff isn’t good enough, perhaps both dagger and greatsword have to go.

I agree. This has been discussed in other threads but GS seems to be an attempt at giving an alternative to dagger, axe, or staff for greater AoE at short range. Unfortunately, with greater AoE, 1v1 dps should be lower.

The trouble many on the forum have with the GS skills is that short range power AoE was not a priority for improving the profession’s gaps in game play. ‘Why these skills?’ is the first thing I thought of at the preview.

In my honest opinion, I think that the great-sword damage should be buffed and dagger nerfed to be under it. Here’s why:

Currently dagger has too much going for it. Its our main source of LF, Damage, AND skirmish sustain. I think it would fit the playstyle of the dagger much better to be our life steal weapon. The high aa rate and lf generation would make it an excellent choice for that “attrition” style gameplay, especially if the 2nd skill’s cast time was reduced. And to echo those who have posted above me, a slow greatsword should have very heavy hitting attacks.

Are you seriously QQing about reaper being an upgrade? Lol, at least it’s not a downgrade like Dragonhunter.

-At the moment GS feels underpowered. Its slow and its suppose to deal high damage per hit(This should change, its beta!). but it doesn’t.
-Shrouds MUST be interchangeable. Its only logical if I use Melee weapon to want range Shroud. I want to be able to choose which Shroud to slot!!!
-Can’t comment on shouts, they need a lot more testing to be validated.
-The elite skill is very underwhelming. The aoe chill is ok, but the 2s stun…really. Many other professions have that as normal weapon skills. Still need testing to confirm if its way to useless or if its kind of ok…

tboneking.2531:

In my honest opinion, I think that the great-sword damage should be buffed and dagger nerfed to be under it. Here’s why:

Currently dagger has too much going for it. Its our main source of LF, Damage, AND skirmish sustain. I think it would fit the playstyle of the dagger much better to be our life steal weapon. The high aa rate and lf generation would make it an excellent choice for that “attrition” style gameplay, especially if the 2nd skill’s cast time was reduced. And to echo those who have posted above me, a slow greatsword should have very heavy hitting attacks.

GS is designed as an AoE weapon so my take on it is to remove the 2-target cleave from dagger and buff it’s skills for 1-target use; maybe add a bleed to the AA. That way there is less functional overlap between GS and dagger.

GS is best for tagging, and mowing down, hapless trash mobs.

Dagger is the only decent weapon we have next to WH staff is a third wheel no nerfs please make GS the heavy hitter it’s supposed to be.

I may start using offhand dagger over warhorn with reaper, since most of my builds have to drop curses for reaper, so the dagger is helpful for my condi removal and weakness.

Nothing to worry about. GS is far too weak. Same can be said for RS.

spoj.9672:

Nothing to worry about. GS is far too weak. Same can be said for RS.

yes compared to ds rs is weak same on gs to dagger

Jackalrat.5493:

Dagger should not out melee DPS reaper IMO.

Here’s why: Dagger hits fast, procs more, and builds life force. Greatsword auto attack and Gravedigger need to be huge, slow burst with comparable DPS. It would really be stupid if Reaper didn’t at least do comparable melee DPS to current Necro.

Also, you kind of lost me at, “Dagger isn’t a good weapon.”

That’s because you’re a pvp player, as are most of the ignorant commenters in this thread.

PvP people never bother with DPS calculators or meters so they go off anecdote and believe their crappy autoattacks on a 12k hp target is any good.

Dagger DPS necro in PvE is only above mesmer and behind every other class. It’s that simple.

But that’s what we get for not having official DPS meters, dumb comments from ignorant PvP people who don’t understand burst=/= DPS and that life blast nor dagger auto are good DPS in PvE relative to what other classes can put out.

Balance in this game is dictated by the ignorance of WvW/PvP people running their celestials/pvt setups.

GS has the highest dps atm tho (in power builds ofc) …