Guild Wars 2

Anyone else feel this way. The GS 5 skill is very poor to close to gap so i find myself going into RS and using #2 skill just to be able to close the gap. We should really look at extending the range on GS-#5.

Thoughts?

My thought is that GS3 Death Spiral, should be a 600 leap. The lack of mobility and gap closer while using GS/Reaper can be frustrating at times. GS5 is totally unreliable. It’s the best thing ever when it works, but it makes you rage when it doesn’t work, or when it only pulls the target down rather than towards you.

Lack of gap closer makes GS really lackluster to use in PvP/WvW. I’ve been using GS in WvW all weekend so far, and I find myself not using GS because whoever I’m trying to hit is almost always out of range.

Well, something has to give. GS 5 is unreliable and too long of a cooldown. And GS4 isn’t good enough to keep anyone near you. I’d love for Gs3 to become a leap but I doubt they will do it.

ronpierce.2760:

Well, something has to give. GS 5 is unreliable and too long of a cooldown. And GS4 isn’t good enough to keep anyone near you. I’d love for Gs3 to become a leap but I doubt they will do it.

Since GS5 will never ever ever be reliable why not make it a teleport and an aoe child or cripple and then keep gs4 and gs3 the way they are?

PlatinumMember.5274:

ronpierce.2760:

Well, something has to give. GS 5 is unreliable and too long of a cooldown. And GS4 isn’t good enough to keep anyone near you. I’d love for Gs3 to become a leap but I doubt they will do it.

Since GS5 will never ever ever be reliable why not make it a teleport and an aoe child or cripple and then keep gs4 and gs3 the way they are?

I’d be fine with that, personally. Basically a Necromancers JI but chill instead of burn (that way they don’t up our OOC mobility since that seems to be something they’re very concerned with). I’d adore that, but again, it’s just not likely. They’re seemingly at a tuning stage and not so much a skill design stage, regardless of how much better it would be.

And 3/4 this way could stay the same, except I still think 3 needs more damage associated with it, and 4 would be killer if it followed the reaper like Torch 5 on warrior. It would allow us to combo with our field a lot better and maintain our soft CC on fleeing enemies that we are chasing.

Again, all of which still the problem is, major changes like this aren’t likely his late in the game.

We can’t be too good at keeping up to people, considering if we’re able to constantly stick to people we have a spammable AoE that makes backstab look like a toothpick. Just make our current options a bit more reliable, primarily GS5, and GS3 needs to be a bit longer range.

PlatinumMember.5274:

ronpierce.2760:

Well, something has to give. GS 5 is unreliable and too long of a cooldown. And GS4 isn’t good enough to keep anyone near you. I’d love for Gs3 to become a leap but I doubt they will do it.

Since GS5 will never ever ever be reliable why not make it a teleport and an aoe child or cripple and then keep gs4 and gs3 the way they are?

How about GS5 teleport the enemy to us. Yes we are not a mobile class but if enemies in a target area are teleported instead of pulled it would be a much more reliable skill. Just give it a1 second delay (for animation) from activation to teleport. Just no projectile. Make it like a mark.

Yeah they might not be changing the functionality right away but it would be better and we should keep speaking about it.

I think i like the idea of a teleport but what if we just made GS 5 like a grip that pulls the opponent to us eliminating all the silly path issues, that alone would fix it and resolve all the problems.

They could lower the cast time on flesh wurm, and make spectral walk a targeted port. Thus giving mobility options, while keeping the slow gs feel.

Bhawb.7408:

We can’t be too good at keeping up to people, considering if we’re able to constantly stick to people we have a spammable AoE that makes backstab look like a toothpick. Just make our current options a bit more reliable, primarily GS5, and GS3 needs to be a bit longer range.

Pretty much this. We are absolutely devastating up-close now, so if we want to keep that theme, we need a weakness. As it stands, being kited is that weakness. I would love to see a CD reduction on GS5 so that we have more opportunities to grab people over, but, to be honest, considering how monstrous we are in teamfights, it would not be the end of the world if Reaper was shipped in its current state.

I suggest gs3 could target someone up to 300 range away and teleport behind them, that movie monster move isn’t really available yet.

Even in Reaper, beeing kited and escape options are our weakness, this seems to be Anets philosophy of the necro. So i don´t believe that we will get anything better, i would love to see an option at least where we could give up something else to gain mobility but i doubt that would happen.

At the very least they need to make GS5 pull work better. The pull was supposed to be key to keeping people close to the necros. If pull can’t be made better, then they need something else to compensate. Because the whole design idea to Reapers & necros have been about pulling and keeping people close. In exchange for that we lose mobility, escapes, and a lot of invuln/block/evade options that other classes get.

Toeofdoom.6152:

I suggest gs3 could target someone up to 300 range away and teleport behind them, that movie monster move isn’t really available yet.

Maybe with a trigger condition: “If the target is crippled, teleport to them”. That would give us the “if the poor teenage girl stumbles the monster is suddenly right there” feel!

I think RS#2 is an okay gap closer. You cover 600 more range compared to Dark Path. But yeah, greatsword needs a gap closer, that skill 5 is not enough and high cd.

RS2 is good and pretty spammable. We just need projectile destruction outside of RS2 and a slightly better GS5. Spectral wall needs projectile destruction and 7-8s duration. GS5 should have a shorter CD (20-25s?) and auto-facing the targeted enemy.

endscape.7538:

I think i like the idea of a teleport but what if we just made GS 5 like a grip that pulls the opponent to us eliminating all the silly path issues, that alone would fix it and resolve all the problems.

We are simply offering alternate suggestions to an issue that will never be fixed. I realistically do not expect your suggestion to work any better than the current suggestion.

I agree with increasing range of GS skills. One step up on everything, IMO.

Staff auto, BTW, should be increased in range to 1500 with its trait to keep on par with other professions.

draugris.9872:

Even in Reaper, beeing kited and escape options are our weakness, this seems to be Anets philosophy of the necro. So i don´t believe that we will get anything better, i would love to see an option at least where we could give up something else to gain mobility but i doubt that would happen.

On the other hand, Necro should be the dude you CANNOT get away from.

nah that is thief who also happens to be the class you cant catch either =\

That’s a design decision to not give reaper mobility skills. They mentioned it.

Every single chill, every single one of them is too short, on average two seconds too short.

Bhawb.7408:

We can’t be too good at keeping up to people, considering if we’re able to constantly stick to people we have a spammable AoE that makes backstab look like a toothpick. Just make our current options a bit more reliable, primarily GS5, and GS3 needs to be a bit longer range.

You hit the nail on the head. If they are going to keep the slower cast speed then they need to increase the range on these skills for us to counter the kiting.

Am I the only one who had no issues whatsoever with Grasping Darkness? I hate to say learn to play, but the Reaper is awesome at the moment (worked quite well in ranked PvP).

Freezaen.5124:

Am I the only one who had no issues whatsoever with Grasping Darkness? I hate to say learn to play, but the Reaper is awesome at the moment (worked quite well in ranked PvP).

You are not that special, you are never the only one.

It is not a learn to play issue when the skill doesn’t do its actual job. It is not a learn to play when a skill doesn’t pull in a mob even though it knocked it down. The point being the skill is not reliable. It is especially so in PvE when the environment has more bumps, but you can tell yourself it is a l2p issue if it makes you feel special.

Freezaen.5124:

Am I the only one who had no issues whatsoever with Grasping Darkness? I hate to say learn to play, but the Reaper is awesome at the moment (worked quite well in ranked PvP).

PvP is a different beast, people have to stay on point to score, therefore stay within your range for skills like Grasping Darkness to work. In WvW however, people don’t stick around within your grasp.

For me I’m using it for interrupt more than a pull, because the pull aspect of it is unreliable. I’d say 8 times out of 10, when the skill connects, it pulls people down rather than to you as the skill advertises. I’m fine with using it as an interrupt because that’s like having a warhorn 4 within GS. But to suggest Grasping Darkness is a reliable way to gap close is just ill advised.

If it pulled people to you often, I can see that, there’s your small range closer. But most of the times it simply pulls people down and interrupts their cast. So while the interrupt is great, you’re still having to catch up to someone who’s out of your GS skills reach. At the moment you’d need to pop RS2 to close gaps, but even that, due to the landing delay, it’s also unreliable.

Terrain caused a lot of misses in PvE.

Reaper feels best in mixed friend and foe company.

gavyne.6847:

At the very least they need to make GS5 pull work better. The pull was supposed to be key to keeping people close to the necros. If pull can’t be made better, then they need something else to compensate. Because the whole design idea to Reapers & necros have been about pulling and keeping people close. In exchange for that we lose mobility, escapes, and a lot of invuln/block/evade options that other classes get.

Definitly this, the current situation on Gs5 is terrible and need to be fixed for launch day.

“Grasping Darkness: No longer poisons and instead inflicts chill for 4 seconds on hit. This skill now fires at your target instead of using your facing direction. This skill will no longer fire if your target is behind you.
Grasping Darkness is a very complex skill under the hood and integrates programming and art in a very specific way to work the way it does. As a result, changes that would be simple for another skill (like giving it increased range) are very difficult and require coordination from multiple disciplines.”-Gee-

Fact is, hard work or not it rly need to be touched and make the skill forcing our character to turn and cast the skill on selected target like Dagger 4 which works on target even if he’s behind when we are not moving.

Also change the range from 600 to 900 cuz its the main problem of this skill.

Cooldown from 30 to 20/25*

We all love you already Gee but we would love you more if you make those changes which we are all agree about =D

It’s fine to be lacking in gap closers. It’s usually better (safer) to break line of sight and stay on point. Anyway:
- If we pull a RS2+GS5, we can reach opponents from up to 1200 range. Pretty sweet.
- Relentless Pursuit + RS3 + any ranged chill (cough Focus 5 cough, Staff 3, frost aura from RS5+RS2) or just Spectral Grasp.

pierwola.9602:

On the other hand, Necro should be the dude you CANNOT get away from.

The problem is, what would you give up to be this dude. You can´t expect to do crazy damage in melee range, having a second life pool AND being unkiteable.

draugris.9872:

pierwola.9602:

On the other hand, Necro should be the dude you CANNOT get away from.

The problem is, what would you give up to be this dude. You can´t expect to do crazy damage in melee range, having a second life pool AND being unkiteable.

If give up all of Necromancers high mobility, blocks, evades, invulnerabilities and instant burst skills. Maybe even some of our reflects and excess stability.

ronpierce.2760:

If give up all of Necromancers high mobility, blocks, evades, invulnerabilities and instant burst skills. Maybe even some of our reflects and excess stability.

If the Necro would be capable of all of these things, it would be as unbalanced as other classes in GW2, not my vision of the road to go.

ronpierce.2760:

draugris.9872:

pierwola.9602:

On the other hand, Necro should be the dude you CANNOT get away from.

The problem is, what would you give up to be this dude. You can´t expect to do crazy damage in melee range, having a second life pool AND being unkiteable.

If give up all of Necromancers high mobility, blocks, evades, invulnerabilities and instant burst skills. Maybe even some of our reflects and excess stability.

Are you mad?! No class would function without those things. /s

The lack of any kind of gap closer is a problem nowadays. For casual PvE it’s fine not to have one because the mobs don’t avoid you anyway.
But if you try to play in any competitive scenario, let’s say PvP, WvW or any kind of tournament it’s a mayor issue.

If any class can disengage combat from you at any moment just walking away with swiftness, so they can reset the fight, the reaper will be useless.
Some players suggested shadows step or blink at the same level that guardian has. Guardian has the same base as the reaper: Focused in melee combat with no good alternative to ranged. So the guardian has the blinks and teleportation utility skills that are fundamental as a gap closer.
Reaper needs something similar in GS and a shout that can actually move you in range.

Also GS skills are still too slow to be useful in any other environment that is not casual PvE. Even for serious PvE where another players are using classes that are faster and do more damage than the reaper when you arrive the target is already dead.

So the Reaper concept is very cool but is unrealistic on how this game is played right now.

If Robert want to keep the slow theme within the class i suggest to:

• Add a gap closer in the GS and in the RS skills. RS skill Death charge would be perfect if it could at least have a max range of 900 units. I would love to see it up to 1200.
• The GS attacks in general are too slow in execution. Although we could work with some of the secondary skills being slow, if the pay off is good enough (in damage or utility) the AA is just awful .Too slow to execute, the reaper will hit nobody unless no one is looking at him.
  My advise is to first attack of the chain has faster cast, like 1/4. The minors in Reaper trait line could apply chill and slow from the first hit so the target can’t flee just walking away out of range just to come back during the after cast animation to burst the reaper off. With chill and slow would be possible to land gravedigger that actually have almost 2 second cast, which is absurd in any melee skills. Otherwise the slowness of the weapon will make it useless even in most of PvE content.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Bhawb.7408:

We can’t be too good at keeping up to people, considering if we’re able to constantly stick to people we have a spammable AoE that makes backstab look like a toothpick. Just make our current options a bit more reliable, primarily GS5, and GS3 needs to be a bit longer range.

You hit the nail on the head. If they are going to keep the slower cast speed then they need to increase the range on these skills for us to counter the kiting.

Kiting is meant to be a counter against you, not the other way. That’s why they gave you chill and no gap closers and they are trying, i think, to make you a melee monster with lots of dmg and survival, so you punish people for not kiting you.

There is always Spectral Grasp.

Killyox.3950:

Kiting is meant to be a counter against you, not the other way. That’s why they gave you chill and no gap closers and they are trying, i think, to make you a melee monster with lots of dmg and survival, so you punish people for not kiting you.

There is always Spectral Grasp.

The problem is that reaper has many more vulnerabilities than just kitting.
It has no blocks, invulns and no source of any stability, so is really vulnerable to CC and any burst.
Has no mobility with no real access to swiftness.
So i think the kitting is just another counter the reaper actually doesn’t need.

draugris.9872:

pierwola.9602:

On the other hand, Necro should be the dude you CANNOT get away from.

The problem is, what would you give up to be this dude. You can´t expect to do crazy damage in melee range, having a second life pool AND being unkiteable.

It’s 2 years old, but still…

JonathanSharp.7094:

So, quickly, on the design philosophy at play here (you can feel free to disagree, but this is what I feel):

We want the Thief to be the class that most “slips through your fingers”. Other classes like the Ele and Mes have some of it too (and rightly so), but if anyone is escaping a fight, that should be a slippery Thief.

The Necro, on the other hand, should be the dude you CANNOT get away from. It’s an attrition based class, so the idea is that if you lock horns w/ a necro, know what you’re getting into: you’re fighting a class that’s built for attrition. It can dot you, dps you, rip your boons, and severely hinder your movement. AND it also has the ability to soak up a lot of damage. So the longer the fight goes, the stronger the Necro should get. That’s the idea behind Death Shroud, but little escape ability.

So we don’t want that attrition class to also have great ways to escape. This used to be the case, and we felt the Necro was just too strong if it was great at attrition as well as movement/escape. We wanted the Necro to be more about attrition, and for other classes (Thief, Ele, Mes) to be more about escaping and mobility.

Hope that makes sense.

anduriell.6280:

Killyox.3950:

Kiting is meant to be a counter against you, not the other way. That’s why they gave you chill and no gap closers and they are trying, i think, to make you a melee monster with lots of dmg and survival, so you punish people for not kiting you.

There is always Spectral Grasp.

The problem is that reaper has many more vulnerabilities than just kitting.
It has no blocks, invulns and no source of any stability, so is really vulnerable to CC and any burst.
Has no mobility with no real access to swiftness.
So i think the kitting is just another counter the reaper actually doesn’t need.

“no stability”…except on the elite 2s unbreakable AE stun (even though the CD is WAY too high)…and 11 seconds of 1-3 stability stacks with Shroud #3, enough to cover casting #4, #5 and if that kills them still safestomp (and if not AE fear). Well, if you have enough LF to do all that, that is.

Shiki.7148:

anduriell.6280:

Killyox.3950:

Kiting is meant to be a counter against you, not the other way. That’s why they gave you chill and no gap closers and they are trying, i think, to make you a melee monster with lots of dmg and survival, so you punish people for not kiting you.

There is always Spectral Grasp.

The problem is that reaper has many more vulnerabilities than just kitting.
It has no blocks, invulns and no source of any stability, so is really vulnerable to CC and any burst.
Has no mobility with no real access to swiftness.
So i think the kitting is just another counter the reaper actually doesn’t need.

“no stability”…except on the elite 2s unbreakable AE stun (even though the CD is WAY too high)…and 11 seconds of 1-3 stability stacks with Shroud #3, enough to cover casting #4, #5 and if that kills them still safestomp (and if not AE fear). Well, if you have enough LF to do all that, that is.

CttB is 120s true but with 5 targets hit it goes to 78 with trait.

It’s still an amazing skill imo.

They want every class to have some weakness (well, you could argue mesmer and ele here but lets ignore it for the time being). Like with revenant it’s conditions.

I didn’t read every posts, but I know 1 possibilty to have a better gapclose has been mentionned and it is to make GS3 a small range dash.
Up it to 300-600 and a dash by the same occasion.
by doing it we’ll get enough gapclose. Because we have to be carefull with the “balance” even if just 1 month being OP would hurt the necro!

It’s designed to be this way. Either we keep our slow attacks and lack of gap closers and stay a niche class. Or we get gap closers and get a huge nerf on our skills.

It needs to stay balanced people, let us have our niche, don’t try to make us one of the many alround builds.

Honestly i am kinda fine with the lack of gap closers as long as they dont nerf our sustain/tankiness and damage.

But they seriously need to fix the bugs with gs5 and rs2.

I doubt that gs5 will ever be trully fixed just like spectral grasp still tends to bug out, over all pulls in gw2 probably the worse type of gap closers.

Can only hope for some change.
Also i dont belive it would really break balance if we had one decent teleport or something like warrior dash on our greatsword maybe not with that range…

There found a fix for GS3 and gives a monster theme.
Compare it to the other two melee GS skills sets.
Warrior, two gap closer, 1 snare
Guardian, 1 gap closer, 1 360 pull.

I’ve explained more in details in a different thread a few days ago but overall, the gap closers we have are deficient. RS2 is ok for short range gap closer. GS5 is too unreliable as well as Spectral Grasp.

It already sucks to be ’’forced’’ to give up a utility skill to take Spectra Grasp but having it unreliable on top of it is just really bad. A simple roll, a block or stability negates our ways to close a gap. Necro is the only class that gets screwed over this bad with gap closers. Thief, Guardian and Revenant all can teleport on top of their target. Warrior runs faster, had charges and whirlwinds as well as jumps to catch up (ele at the limit also has much better mobility if you were to consider the D/D spec to be melee).

The main problems are:

1-It’s unreliable because of the terrain. Often times, it just doesn’t work and throws the person onto the ground for one second and you can’t even close the gap.

2-It’s unreliable because of rolls/blocks/stability. This is a HUGE issue because if someone gets stability (for example, my warrior was in berserker mode most of the time with the new specialization and he had constant stability from it), you have no way to close the gap. You have to eat all the damage to the face while waiting on it to end or try to go back and hide behind a pillar and wait it out. Say the melee builds that teleport have their attack blocked or anything, they still end up teleporting onto the person or very close to their target. If someone dodges or blocks a warrior charge or whirlwind (or leap), the warrior still closed the gap or at good part of it at least. If someone messes up the Necro’s gap closer, the Necro doesn’t close the gap AT ALL. This is a major issue when we already don’t hit fast with the GS and have trouble landing the hits even when we get in melee range.

Finally, GS4 also is problematic (as well as GS1). GS1 takes too long to do the chain, I could almost never land the 3rd hit for the chill. GS4 needs to either move with you (it’s what I’d prefer) have a cast range like a well. As it stands, I have to cast it before using GS5, GS5 is unreliable and if it does work, since the range isn’t that great, most of the time I can’t even pull the enemy into GS4. GS4 also snares (cripple) but you need GS5 to pull enemies in it and GS5 snares with chill.

Overall, the pulls need to be reliable and unaffected by blocks at the very least (should also be unaffected by stability or rolls in my opinion). Then if GS4 could follow you around, you’d have the option to activate it if you do reach the enemy and be able to stick to them a little better for a few seconds. There are still many ways to clear conditions or get speed buffs (now there’s also super speed) while you can’t really negate a teleport, a charge or a leap (root at the limit but if I pull someone to myself while I’m rooted, I probably won’t be able to stick onto him either anyways). Necro would still be at a severe disadvantage on that level but it would already work better.

pierwola.9602:

It’s 2 years old, but still…

Dude, i don´t know what you trying to say. Necro is not and never has been an attrition class and Necro is not and never has been a class where you couldn´t get away from. That Arenanet violated their own design philosophies with a lot of the classes in game is not new and that balancing in this game is out of control is also nothing new. But to overtune the necro to make it as imbalanced as for example the mesmer is nowadays would neither be good for the class nor for the game as a whole. I am a great fan of mobility, i play 100% WvW so i suffer a lot from the situation like it is now but there has to be a more intelligent approach.

@draugris: I feel the Reaper is already really close to the intended necro design. If you played it or watched PvP footage you can see the Reaper wins by outlasting enemies in melee. You just need to add projectile destruction to Spectral Wall and make GS5 and Spectral Grasp more reliable, so you have a fair chance to get close. Spectral wall with projectile destruction would give you a small window to LOS ranged enemies anywhere.

draugris.9872:

Dude, i don´t know what you trying to say. Necro is not and never has been an attrition class and Necro is not and never has been a class where you couldn´t get away from. That Arenanet violated their own design philosophies with a lot of the classes in game is not new and that balancing in this game is out of control is also nothing new. But to overtune the necro to make it as imbalanced as for example the mesmer is nowadays would neither be good for the class nor for the game as a whole. I am a great fan of mobility, i play 100% WvW so i suffer a lot from the situation like it is now but there has to be a more intelligent approach.

Dude, a little bit more imagination. There’s lots of things they could do to boost it without even touching necro mobility.

• Immobile (Dark Pact,Tainted Shackles,Rigor Mortis): Prevent from using all gap closer skills, not only leps. Counter to “movement” should not be countered by movement skill.

• Spectral Wall : Fear foe’s away from the wall, not away from me.

• Tainted Shackles: Punish foe’s for breaking the bind, not for staying close to me.

• Dark Path: Replace it with something else, right now DP has more to do with our weakness than with our strength.

• Spectral Grasp: Replace it with offensive version of Spectral Walk. I think it would be awesome to have something like this, something to counter these thiefs, mesmers, elementalists.

By the way, Necro is awesome attrition class.

The other thing that should be considered is buffing Axe + Scpter + Focus to non garbage tier.

nekretaal.6485:

The other thing that should be considered is buffing Axe + Scpter + Focus to non garbage tier.

I’m scared if they do. I’m so settled on staff+Gs. What will I do if I have options?! T_T I feel comfortable…

Maybe GS + Axe+Dagger(or Warhorn) would be okay… :S