Guild Wars 2

I myself am leaning towards giving up Spite for Reaper to run a Reaper/Soul Reaping/Blood Magic build given that the Reaper line (in the iteration we saw last) has plenty of modifiers for damage on it’s own, and given how strong Vital Persistence will likely be when coupled with the LF generation of Reaper Shroud 1 (Permashroud, anyone?).

I’m aiming for general effectiveness in HoT PvE and WvW, rather than dungeon speed clears.

Thoughts? Opinions? What will you be giving up and why?

Rapth! Like a [BOSS]!

blood magic, definitively, at least for pve.

Necros are already very tanky, and we lack damage. Sacrificing damage for a miserable life siphon and a bit more sustain is a big no for me.

rapthorne.7345:

I myself am leaning towards giving up Spite for Reaper to run a Reaper/Soul Reaping/Blood Magic build given that the Reaper line (in the iteration we saw last) has plenty of modifiers for damage on it’s own, and given how strong Vital Persistence will likely be when coupled with the LF generation of Reaper Shroud 1 (Permashroud, anyone?).

I’m aiming for general effectiveness in HoT PvE and WvW, rather than dungeon speed clears.

Thoughts? Opinions? What will you be giving up and why?

My intent was to drop Blood Magic as Spite still gives some nice boosts (Chill of Death / Close to Death, and those new minors) and some nice synergy with Blighter’s Boon… but I’m strongly considering reversing that decision with how the numbers are, it’s all about how valuable that 20% damage boost and might stacks are really.

In a full reaper shroud auto-chain against max targets the vampiric traits should provide 792 health in 1.5s (11 hits, 39+33 per hit going from my ingame traits). Running spite instead for the boon procs, will provide 133 health from Reaper’s Might (presumably it’s per cast)… and an extra 266 if one of the targets is below 50%. Against only a single target, it becomes 216 vs 133/399. So it becomes weighing up that damage boost and the extra life force generation from Spite+Blighter’s synergy, against the blood magic vampiric traits.

I’d take both of those for more sustain but Soul Reaping feels like a must, slower degen, lower CD on charge/stability, 50% crit. Still not sure what adept Reaper trait to take either >.<

I’m assuming the Greatsword trait won’t apply in reaper shroud, so we won’t get heals from hitting things with that.

I only play pvp and I don’t plan to buy the expansion. I still get Stronghold and the new WvW borderland should I ever go there, and after seeing the other traitlines, Reaper doesn’t interest me a whole lot.

Neandramathal.9536:

I’m assuming the Greatsword trait won’t apply in reaper shroud, so we won’t get heals from hitting things with that.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t. One of the (very few) plus points to axe before the trait rework (not sure about after, I don’t use axe, myself) was that the damage bonus from the axe trait applied even while in DS, so people would swap to axe mainhand to pop DS

Was thinking about a perma shrouded reaper with: spite, death and reaper:

death for the added toughness and power while in shroud and the condi removal every 3 sec (I bet they will nerf this to resemble the guardian trait with 10 sec interval). Possibly sanctuary for a heal or corrupters fervor for more defenses.

Spite for might on autoattack seems like a winner too.

Probably death magic
chills, weakness, heals, and DS seem better with Reaper but I have not spent much time thinking about it .

I’ll be dropping blood magic.

Reaper/Soul Reaping/Curses

Chill/Terror condition mancer, should be able to hit 100% chill uptime with high bleed sustain damage and burst fear damage.

Unyielding blast + rending shroud would be massive uptime on extremely high stacks of vulnerability in an aoe because of reaper shroud auto. Also works well if you take decimate defences as a reaper trait. Reaper and spite work very well together.

Really depends on what I want to achieve. For power I’ll propably drop spite…while bitter chill is awesome, i think there is enough Vuln-spam avaiable without it, and having Deaths Charge on a 4-6 second cooldown will be awesome. Although losing Signet mastery really hurts… But Blood Magic is going to own with RS so I really want to keep that, and the reduced recharge and the other goodies for Shroud make me hesitant to drop Soulreaping. As for condition reaper, I’ll propably drop the Blood Magic, so Curses/Reaper/Soul Reaping.

For WvW none, I am quite happy with my well bomber there, and the nerf to chill/mobility is a real downer for roaming. In PvE I’ll give up blood, because afterall who needs healing when stomping target dummies?

Hard to ever drop SR or Spite for me. I wouldn’t feel bad about dropping the other 3 lines though.

I’ll probably go death/soul reaping/reaper. But a lot depends on the final numbers for Reaper a nd the final DPS rankings.

If the reaper keeps the Necromancer’s spot as dead last in DPS with almost no team support, I’m just going to stay on necromancer. The reaper looks helpless vs anybody with range and CC.

nekretaal.6485:

I’ll probably go death/soul reaping/reaper. But a lot depends on the final numbers for Reaper a nd the final DPS rankings.

If the reaper keeps the Necromancer’s spot as dead last in DPS with almost no team support, I’m just going to stay on necromancer. The reaper looks helpless vs anybody with range and CC.

The problem is I don’t think ANET will give us top tier DPS on purpose. Seems like classes that do top tier are just sorta happy accidents in PvE, like ele icebox and FGS. Anet seems to only do any actual balancing for necromancers when it comes to skills.

As for lines, I’d say I’ll drop death magic to keep spure for PvP, but take death magic for if I do WvW roaming with my reaper. The near condition immunity is just too good to pass up while in reapers shroud. For both I’ll probably take soul reaping. I’m interested in seeing how these shouts play out however.

The GS dps basically needs to be one of the best weapons damage wise with how slow it is though. And gravedigger spam under 50% could help necros a lot in PvE if the numbers are there.

For open world stuff I’m likely going Reaper/Spite/Blood Magic, or possibly Reaper/Death magic/Blood magic for super tanky fun… :P

For damages I think Reaper/Spite/Soul reaping but not 100% sure, it’s hard to say exactly how the swing speed, cleave etc will impact different trait lines, and how good it will be to be in shroud etc.

For pvp… it’s too hard to say tbh. I have a feeling I’d go blood magic just for the awesome auras though, so mostly the third one I’m unsure about.

I’ll try to use with both my condi and zerk builds. As zerker, I’ll try first Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper and as Condition Spite/Curses/Reaper.

I wonder if Well of Darkness will become finally viable, because even with Bitter Chill (vuln when chill) and Chilling Darkness (chill when blind) traits is not viable yet. They should reduce the CD of this skill.

in pve i plan to Reaper+Spite+Soulreaping
in pvp i plan to Reaper+Bloodmagic+Soulreaping
imo siphon is currently a damage boost for party and just about anything u do, unless reaper can dish out ungodly amount of damage then i’m not sure if it can compete with base necro
i might take out Soulreaping but i have never played a necro without vital persistance so i reallllly rather not do that

Probably dropping spite. Soul Reaping is a must for me and I’ve gotten really attached to Blood Magic. The new traits should hopefully make up for the sacrifice of spite.

For my chill-o-mancer I need Reaper+Curses for the chill-on-blind.

After that things are more uncertain, either Spite for a signet build or Blood for a well build.

I’ll definitely be Reaper/Death Magic/Blood Magic for MM. The cool thing about Reaper is that its bruiser-styled trait line (mixed damage and defense), so full-damage builds can go Spite/Soul Reaping or Blood Magic/Reaper or Curses/Soul Reaping/Reaper without having any trait line devoted to defense, yet fully defensive builds have Death Magic, Blood Magic, Soul Reaping, and Reaper to choose from, without being forced to take much/any offense.

I’m probably not going to use reaper, sadly. Minion Tank is really sturdy with Soul Reaping/Death Magic/Blood Magic. I wish I could get that greatsword though

Soul Reaper+Reaper and then I will take either Spite/Death Magic

I’m going to have a Spite/Blood/Reaper build focused on life steal, wells, and spin2win. This should pair nicely with my other Necro, Curses/Death/SR for a condi MM.

I will probably drop curses, or blood magic so I’ll have blood magic, spite and reaper or spite, curses, reaper. Soul reaping is overrated, if I need more crit chance I’ll run decimate defenses. Other than that soul reaping only provides 5% damage, and vital persistance. I don’t think we will need vital persistance for a nice rotation, so really only the 5% damage.
Meanwhile Blood magic gives 2 party dps increases, warhorn cd, well cooldowns, and/or protection. Curses gives aoe weakness, fury, and extra condition damage (I don’t think the condition damage is negligable with 25 might). In pve, spite should be undroppable, it provides far and away more dps than any other traitline we have. Might, vuln, and a 15% damage buff are the best.

I’m not convinced Reaper & GS are worth giving up another trait line for.

Necros already have a problem with being shut down easily; all melee shroud with no mobility will make it worse.

I’m waiting till I can play-test it to decide.

Bhawb.7408:

I’ll definitely be Reaper/Death Magic/Blood Magic for MM. The cool thing about Reaper is that its bruiser-styled trait line (mixed damage and defense), so full-damage builds can go Spite/Soul Reaping or Blood Magic/Reaper or Curses/Soul Reaping/Reaper without having any trait line devoted to defense, yet fully defensive builds have Death Magic, Blood Magic, Soul Reaping, and Reaper to choose from, without being forced to take much/any offense.

As Bhawb said , MM should take Death/blood , I think that I will sacrifice Soul Reaping with Reaper. If I saw that Rise! is worth taking over any minion summoning skill , I will take Augury of Death , otherwise , I will take Relentless Pursuit. As for the major trait , it will be soul eater, but I’m not sure about the grandmaster one. Using Staff/GS , we won’t get many boons that will make Blighter’s Boon worth taking. As a PVT MM , I don’t think that chill damage is worth it either which results in taking Reaper’s Onslaught.

Bhawb.7408:

I’ll definitely be Reaper/Death Magic/Blood Magic for MM. The cool thing about Reaper is that its bruiser-styled trait line (mixed damage and defense), so full-damage builds can go Spite/Soul Reaping or Blood Magic/Reaper or Curses/Soul Reaping/Reaper without having any trait line devoted to defense, yet fully defensive builds have Death Magic, Blood Magic, Soul Reaping, and Reaper to choose from, without being forced to take much/any offense.

I honestly thought you weren’t ever gonna do that since you were saying MM is 1 v 1 focused and taking reaper conflicts with that, but no complaints here.

Currently I’m running death magic/blood/spite as a minion master using this build:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQDWAS4AXw~

As of right now, the spite tree is there to increase my boon removal and give me some might when my enemy is at low health. However, I don’t really get to see the benefits of this tree all that much, so I’ll be glad to drop it for reaper.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQDWAR4Btw~

Here is what I’ll be running after reaper drops. I’ll be dropping dagger+warhorn for greatsword, so quickening thirst won’t be useful to me. Without dark path, I won’t get enough access to bleeding to make good use of blood bond, making ritual of life a default choice here.

I’m taking soul eater because in my build siphoning with the dagger+warhorn is my extra health recovery method. with the great sword having additional siphoning on top of vampiric and vampiric presence, even those slow hits will recover some health. Between cold shoulder and corruptor’s fervor, I should be incredibly tanky.

Sacrifice is such a strong word. I don’t feel like I have to sacrifice anything. None of my normal builds go away because of the reaper. I just get new builds.

striker.3704:

I honestly thought you weren’t ever gonna do that since you were saying MM is 1 v 1 focused and taking reaper conflicts with that, but no complaints here.

I won’t be using Rise! for that reason, but I think Reaper (without taking any of the utility skills) will be just fine. Greatsword will likely be a nice weapon, Reaper Shroud will probably be a major improvement over Death Shroud, and the traits should be really nice.

My guess is Reaper MM will be a straight improvement over Soul Reaping MMs, and whether or not they will be worth using over Spite MM will depend on how any trait changes happen, how much damage GS/RS do, and if Axe is made less garbage.

Bhawb.7408:

striker.3704:

I honestly thought you weren’t ever gonna do that since you were saying MM is 1 v 1 focused and taking reaper conflicts with that, but no complaints here.

I won’t be using Rise! for that reason, but I think Reaper (without taking any of the utility skills) will be just fine. Greatsword will likely be a nice weapon, Reaper Shroud will probably be a major improvement over Death Shroud, and the traits should be really nice.

My guess is Reaper MM will be a straight improvement over Soul Reaping MMs, and whether or not they will be worth using over Spite MM will depend on how any trait changes happen, how much damage GS/RS do, and if Axe is made less garbage.

The spite line, especially the parts focused around Axe, will need a lot more love to make it worth taking over the stability offered by the soul reaping and reaper trait lines. While the spite line offers more damage boosting than the other two lines through might and boon removal, and gives the best “mid range AOE soft CC” capabilities (spiteful spirit, reduced cooldown on unholy feast, keeping access to tainted shackles for the immobilize) the complete lack of stability for MMs can be a real hindrance.

The GS/RS will most definitely be the kings of close range damage. There is no doubt about this. The dagger auto isn’t even really that strong, it’s just fast and generates plenty of life force. The real draw for dagger is the life siphon 2 skill which can act as a low cooldown secondary heal skill, especially when used while at around 80% health, and it also lets you keep your warhorn which gives locust swarm.

If anything, I’d say it depends on how well the GS can lock down with chill. Dagger+warhorn gives cripple, immobilize, swiftness, and a passive 25% speed boost with quickening thirst. This makes it really good at keeping pace with your target. If the GS can’t lock down the enemy well enough with chill, then that high damage simply won’t matter.

Either way, reaper looks hella fun to me.

With the nerf to chill I’m not really interested in Reaper now. It’s too easy to disengage in WvW. I think it needs a re-design with more weapon skills to keep your opponents in melee range (because we don’t have the mobility to keep them in range).

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

With the nerf to chill I’m not really interested in Reaper now. It’s too easy to disengage in WvW. I think it needs a re-design with more weapon skills to keep your opponents in melee range (because we don’t have the mobility to keep them in range).

I believe the devs said they are looking into that because they know it is gonna screw over reaper with the mobility changes. Who knows, maybe a couple of our skills will be reworked….

TheLastNobody.8319:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

With the nerf to chill I’m not really interested in Reaper now. It’s too easy to disengage in WvW. I think it needs a re-design with more weapon skills to keep your opponents in melee range (because we don’t have the mobility to keep them in range).

I believe the devs said they are looking into that because they know it is gonna screw over reaper with the mobility changes. Who knows, maybe a couple of our skills will be reworked….

In that case I might be interested again

Hopefully they rework necro in general and not just Reaper.

It could be as simple as adding X seconds of taunt to every necro skill that chills or cripples.

Taunt would be a reverse gap closer for necros.

As it stands. Reaper, Spite, Soul Reaping is the way to go.

Dagger synergies better with life steal due to the fast attack rates and blood spec traits. GS/Reaper synergies better with Spite and SR. Blood gets dropped for Reaper.

FYI, I’m using Blood in lieu of reaper and having a (life) blast. So many tiny numbers!

Nowadays I’m not so sure. I can’t think of it as dropping a line as much as which build to go with. This is all PVE:

I’m probably always going to take spite and reaper. The might and vulnerability stacking is too good to pass up. Likewise, I can’t wait to try out bitter chill + chilling nova + decimate defenses. In my zerker builds it’ll basically max out my crit chance with little help. The next line changes where I can specialize and different playstyles.

Soul Reaping: Shroud Knight is good, and boosting it up makes it better. At base I’ll take unyielding blast, spectral mastery, foot in the grave, for fairly obvious reasons. But, soul reaping offers an alternate playstyle, where you can prioritize Shroud Knight instead of just using it as utility. Combine Reapers might, unyielding blast, vital persistence, rending shroud, reaper’s onslaught, and then either combination of chilling force + deathly perception or foot in the grave + decimate defense, and then you’ll get this nigh indestructible monster that stacks vulnerability and might endlessly. Any enemy that gets past your knight form gets obliterated with every GS cooldown instantly.

Blood Magic: I’m loving this trait line in the new build, and with the reaper specialization it’ll do its job just as well. There isn’t any really big “synergy” parts to hit, insomuch as I just want to keep vampiric rituals, vampiric presence, and last rights. The new slew of whirl finishers from the reaper adds better group synergy. Most likely it’ll be done in the ice field left from executioner’s strike, but the dark fields of wells leaves an additional damage + healing option if needed.

Curses: This has some spots of support, but it’ll mostly be good for condi reapers. Chilling darkness combined with well of darkness adds faster vulnerability stacking and weakening shroud provides defenses. By yourself, furious demise is still useful. On the condi side, deathly chill + terror looks fun to play with, but I’m not sure that a condi reaper is the best thing to go with.

Death magic: minions are meh, and the reaper doesn’t change that. Death nova and Rise! looks like it’ll be fun once or twice, but otherwise this line is really meh. Death magic is the new blood magic.

Best Synergy for my Power Reaper comes from Soul Reaping by far: cant see me ever give up on: Vital Persistance + Life Force pool and I wanna use Speed of Shadows to get back in there aswell.

Maybe with Spite: Bitter Chill works great for Reaper aswell.

For donjons I’ll be running spite, blood magic and reaper.

I will most likely drop spite. Go curses, blood, reaper well for wvw roaming anyways. Pve will most likely be spite, curse, reaper. But this is all theory till I get to tale it for a test run.

I’m loving the new Blood line and with all the Reapers multi hits I think siphons will be really powerful. I’ll probably give up Soul Reaping (ironically) and maybe Death too (though I love Unholy Sanctuary) depending on how Spite jells with my build. I’m thinking of a buzzsaw type build which quickly chips away with little chunks of damage rapidly. with blood i already have 3 bits of damage with every hit and if i take chills traited damage I’m hoping I’ll see so many damage numbers on screen I can’t see my target