Guild Wars 2

I’m a little concerned really about how much emphasis the article put on the Specialization being slow.

Need more information though before we can judge that completely.

ChapDev.7650:

I’m a little concerned really about how much emphasis the article put on the Specialization being slow.

This worries me a lot too, hopefully we’ll get some clarifications on this tomorrow.

another thing they mentioned is talking alot of ideas from horror movies, that gives me the thought of monsters that also cant be moved despite being slow. hopefuly this is indication of the defiance bar.

Sidizen.9048:

OlliX.1705:

ChapDev.7650:

I’m a little concerned really about how much emphasis the article put on the Specialization being slow.

This worries me a lot too, hopefully we’ll get some clarifications on this tomorrow.

I do have to agree with this the one thing I wanted from the necro spec was mobility but it seems like that is definitely not going to happen. Also, we didn’t get the defiance bar Q_Q

We find out tomorrow if we get the defiance bar. The article did not really talk about our grandmaster traits.

If we were REALLY like monsters in movies we’d also have like endless stealth and teleports because that’s the only logical explanation of how monsters get around so fast in them.

No this is perfect, is we are slow so be it, as long as we can induce chill on our enemies constantly and have a pull we are absolutely fine. If our DPS is that of warrior or higher, this is so win. Its honestly exactly what we need

I love it! It’s cool, it’s necro, it’s scythe, it’s chills, it’s minion shout, mmmmm

- Great animations and theme
- Slow attacking speed is concerning
- Shouts!
- Your soul is mine! Hopefully that’s the elite shout
- No direct support? Unless traits address that.
- Looks like we’re getting a reaper’s hood for our unique skin

It looks like a cool reskin of the necromancer with more chill accessibility. Pity that being cool won’t earn you a place in PvP and PvE.

The specialization seems to have the same weaknesses of necromancers. I don’t care how powerful the GS skills are, if the long cast times make them easy to avoid/interrupt even by PvE mobs.

I’m concerned that the new skills will get long cooldowns since they are deemed powerful and they want to stick to the slow theme. If so, I hope they stick with the relentless theme too, by giving the Reaper access to stability, defiance, unblockable and CC to ensure the skills land without leaving the class helpless waiting for the cooldowns to reset. Or at least chill on autoattack chain, giving good chill up time even with cleanses.

ChapDev.7650:

I’m a little concerned really about how much emphasis the article put on the Specialization being slow.

Need more information though before we can judge that completely.

Yeah I dont like that for a melee class… that doesnt work in a semi-action game like this…
This is the problem with Warrior’s Mace Burst, and Sword#3 skills in SPvP….

Lets just say that if it wasn’t for condi sucking so much in today’s meta compared to power then I would have never gotten into the whole powermancer thing. And honestly I love power now, however, I was hoping that maybe they would do something to help out those who like to play conditionmancer also and I dont see much of it here.

Instead, the play style has changed completely. And honestly, taking a look at the other specializations their play styles have changed drastically also, especially the dragon hunter. So maybe this is what areanet wants? So, if I want to play condi I am just stuck with the broken skills of the necromancer?

I also did not see anything that helps with our CC break problems or mobility, and now that we have chill being the main focus in keeping enemies close, I dont know if we will see an increase to mobility. So I hope at least they give us something to break CC stuns… otherwise, our SLOW cast will be interrupted every time and the stun locking will continue.

So in the meantime, ill take this gratification that we got something good at least but ill see how everything else plays out.

Sidizen.9048:

Everything seems awesome except that we still don’t get a leap :’(. What are your thoughts?

It sucks. Everything I feared about us getting shouts is coming true. We don’t support allies with it, we harm foes. So arena net wants us to be hyper selfish. Well, looks like I’m sticking with Chronomancers or Revenant.

It should have been Dragon Reaper! Because everything with Dragon in front of it is more mature. Whoever thought of just Reaper put out some really low concept.

The Reaper is going to be slow, and that he will have fairly long wind up to his attacks.

That is the core to the current Necro aswell. Slow, lacking mobility and with a lot of really long wind ups on certain abilities often coupled with fairly slow projectiles to actually deliver the impact of a skill.
And so far that has been the problem with the profession, hitting key abilities is difficult as your target has a lot of warning that they are comming. And you are unable to catch up to just about anything.

That these seem to be “features” anet is focussing on, rather than mending, worries me somewhat.

Without having seen the rest of the traits or the skills that Reaper brings, my current problem is that they are giving us a class that is supposed to be in the thick of things, with slow cast times, and still no viable sustain. Essentially they’re trying to push Necros out of the backline without any real means of supporting ourselves.

Unless this Elite spec actually brings some active damage mitigation besides Deathshroud, our position in all game formats likely won’t change. If anything, the problems we suffer from will be all the more exasperated by these changes as we’re given ‘cool stuff’ but no real means of using it without getting stunlocked and focused down into an early grave.

However, we have seen less than a handful of traits and one shout. So I’m hoping that the PoI addresses some of these concerns… however I somehow doubt that it will.

Terrahero.9358:

The Reaper is going to be slow, and that he will have fairly long wind up to his attacks.

That is the core to the current Necro aswell. Slow, lacking mobility and with a lot of really long wind ups on certain abilities often coupled with fairly slow projectiles to actually deliver the impact of a skill.
And so far that has been the problem with the profession, hitting key abilities is difficult as your target has a lot of warning that they are comming. And you are unable to catch up to just about anything.

That these seem to be “features” anet is focussing on, rather than mending, worries me somewhat.

Honestly, he doesnt look as slow as I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=39&v=2D76uEgrxDM

has a sluggish look to it, but that may be simply the player doing this.

He has a pull on his gs witch will help him keep in range tho idk how effective it will be but still hoping it helps.
ps. prepare for the tentacle jokes cuming

Death’s Charge—Spin your scythe and dash forward a moderate distance, damaging foes in your path. When the dash ends, release an explosive poison cloud.

If this can be used without a target I’m kitten happy

Knighthonor.4061:

Terrahero.9358:

The Reaper is going to be slow, and that he will have fairly long wind up to his attacks.

That is the core to the current Necro aswell. Slow, lacking mobility and with a lot of really long wind ups on certain abilities often coupled with fairly slow projectiles to actually deliver the impact of a skill.
And so far that has been the problem with the profession, hitting key abilities is difficult as your target has a lot of warning that they are comming. And you are unable to catch up to just about anything.

That these seem to be “features” anet is focussing on, rather than mending, worries me somewhat.

Honestly, he doesnt look as slow as I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=39&v=2D76uEgrxDM

has a sluggish look to it, but that may be simply the player doing this.

How can you comment about Reapers mobility based on a video in which he litteraly does not move from his spot. :P

Maybe i read it wrong but from the announcement we get Dark Path changed to a dash ability with a poison explosion at the end.

So not only more poison access (which was lacking in power builds) but also a movement skill that probably doesn’t require targeting for our DS2 ability (dash is most likely something similar to warrior GS mobility skills/ele D/x burning speed – we’ll see tomorrow what the range is).

“Death’s Charge—Spin your scythe and dash forward a moderate distance, damaging foes in your path. When the dash ends, release an explosive poison cloud.

Death’s Charge replaces Death Shroud’s Dark Path, which is a movement skill that allows a necromancer to close distances to opponents. Death’s Charge also closes distances, but uses slightly different properties. Both of these skills also benefit from the trait Path of Corruption, which causes Dark Path to convert boons on struck foes to conditions. If you’re wondering where the chill effect on the original Dark Path went, don’t be alarmed—it just moved to a different skill. In fact, the reaper is quite adept at utilizing this particular condition." Kinda gose well with the 10% damage reduction on poisoned targets on death magic

Knighthonor.4061:

Honestly, he doesnt look as slow as I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=39&v=2D76uEgrxDM

has a sluggish look to it, but that may be simply the player doing this.

One of the most immediate things you’ll notice when you take charge of the reaper in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ is that the greatsword attacks are slow. In fact, most of the reaper’s attacks have a fairly sizeable cast time. Drawing on the themes of horror monsters, we wanted to express a sense of dread and weight behind each blow. This means that while the reaper doesn’t swing a greatsword as fast as other professions do, the damage modifiers and effects for each blow are much more pronounced.

They said we will be slow and relentless, suffering the same weaknesses of the base profession. Unless we have insane chill up time, even with cleanses, we need other tools to ensure our attacks land.

Terrahero.9358:

Knighthonor.4061:

Terrahero.9358:

The Reaper is going to be slow, and that he will have fairly long wind up to his attacks.

That is the core to the current Necro aswell. Slow, lacking mobility and with a lot of really long wind ups on certain abilities often coupled with fairly slow projectiles to actually deliver the impact of a skill.
And so far that has been the problem with the profession, hitting key abilities is difficult as your target has a lot of warning that they are comming. And you are unable to catch up to just about anything.

That these seem to be “features” anet is focussing on, rather than mending, worries me somewhat.

Honestly, he doesnt look as slow as I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=39&v=2D76uEgrxDM

has a sluggish look to it, but that may be simply the player doing this.

How can you comment about Reapers mobility based on a video in which he litteraly does not move from his spot. :P

Slow… I am talking about it in the context of the Developers which are the windup times for attacks.. not movement…

From the video it looks like we get access to two AoE spin attacks. One is done while he is in DS and is the first one shown. The second is done out of DS.

Knighthonor.4061:

Terrahero.9358:

Knighthonor.4061:

Terrahero.9358:

The Reaper is going to be slow, and that he will have fairly long wind up to his attacks.

That is the core to the current Necro aswell. Slow, lacking mobility and with a lot of really long wind ups on certain abilities often coupled with fairly slow projectiles to actually deliver the impact of a skill.
And so far that has been the problem with the profession, hitting key abilities is difficult as your target has a lot of warning that they are comming. And you are unable to catch up to just about anything.

That these seem to be “features” anet is focussing on, rather than mending, worries me somewhat.

Honestly, he doesnt look as slow as I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=39&v=2D76uEgrxDM

has a sluggish look to it, but that may be simply the player doing this.

How can you comment about Reapers mobility based on a video in which he litteraly does not move from his spot. :P

Slow… I am talking about it in the context of the Developers which are the windup times for attacks.. not movement…

Well the skills don’t seem that much slower than Warrior-GS-Skills, at least from the one or two we saw in the video. And you can take Marjory’s GS-AA animation , also isn’t that horribly slow. And i think the highest windup will be like Life Blast-slow, not more.

I honestly can’t see it being used in in WvW and PVE, and even in sPvP unless we’re part of some teamfight attack group (but I’d rather take a shoutbow War or medi Guardian).

Regarding WvW, we’re fine for the most part and the ability to wade into melee isn’t really a big factor for us or enticing enough to pull us from a ranged Death Shroud and our staff/wells build. There will probably be some solo situations where it won’t be too bad but I feel like “But you do aoe melee damage!” doesn’t do much compared to the stock Necro chasis to warrant a striking need to change to Reaper.

In PVE, we still provide no useful fields (water, fire, and smoke), no projectile defense/reflects, no combo finishers worth a kitten , no groupwide might stacking, no group fury, blinds outclassed by thieves and guardians to an extent, and vulnerability outclassed by elementalists and especially engineers. Besides damage, we literally offer nothing to the table that at least two other classes can do better. Seeing chill as the premiere flavor feature of the specialization, I’m not hopeful for any of these issues being addressed. Sure, conditions might become suddenly viable without the bleed cap, but then again a stock Necro already has access to Epidemic.

This leaves us with sPvP where we’re led to believe that Reapers will be teamfight specialists – something that Necromancers already excel at between plague form, epidemic and aoe condi pressure or power-based spike damage. However, the chief hindrances from allowing Necros to truly shine in this role are still present: no reliable stability, life force generation early in a match, no blocks, no mobility beyond 2 swiftness skills and the flesh wurm, and limited vigor and endurance regeneration. Chill certainly helps us chase people who were previously free to disengage whenever they wanted but it doesn’t help solve our many issues.

“But Warcry, we don’t know everything about the specialization yet”
Of course not. However, if we were given any shred of hope to having any of these issues addressed I’d hope that Arenanet would have led with “by the way your _ blocks 1 attack now” or a “changes _ to give Fury to x amount of allies in y range” rather than “Oh, you do melee damage now, chill more often and have shouts that damage people”.

Again, I won’t pretend that we know even a quarter of the class yet and it could just be me venting my disapproval at how underwhelming the preview was but I’m just frustrated that Arenanet is intent on having Necromancers embrace their shortcomings as features and flavor rather than giving Necromancers the Guardian treatment by offering Necromancers a specialization option that covers a core weakness and a niche previously impossible with the stock Guardian chassis.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be proven wrong but we have three years of precedent here leaving me less than optimistic.

Slow cast times is a very BAD idea always in a melee class.
I understand long CD in exchange of devastation skills long cast time is simply bad.
PvE because the mob don’t dodge or avoid AoE would, like always, brain dead easy. However other players will escape as soon as they see the animation. VERY BAD IDEA

If tomorrow they say the long cast time does not inlcude the hit time that will be fine. The Devs want to make really cool animations for the reaper and i would love to see them.
But with a normal cast time the enemies get stunned/immobilized/whatever and the you keep the other cast time to finish the animation for me is ok. If they want to get off from my attack they might do at expenses of one stun breaker for me is fine.

anduriell.6280:

Slow cast times is a very BAD idea always in a melee class.
I understand long CD in exchange of devastation skills long cast time is simply bad.
PvE because the mob don’t dodge or avoid AoE would, like always, brain dead easy. However other players will escape as soon as they see the animation. VERY BAD IDEA

If tomorrow they say the long cast time does not inlcude the hit time that will be fine. The Devs want to make really cool animations for the reaper and i would love to see them.
But with a normal cast time the enemies get stunned/immobilized/whatever and the you keep the other cast time to finish the animation for me is ok. If they want to get off from my attack they might do at expenses of one stun breaker for me is fine.

I’m pretty sure the mean a slow precast. At least thats what it looks like in the teaser. A wind up that is a bit on the lenghty side, but then the actual attack was fairly quick. Kinda like Lifeblast.

Ok I’m sure everyone saw the video outlining the skills already and I have to say most everything people complain about in PvE and WvW is bull. I already play a Tanky Power Nec that plays on the front line with lots of support and great damage. The current trait line lets nec be very supporting if they want without much sacrifice to att or def. in fact every time i drop a well i give protection to my crew, well of power also provides stability and converts cons to boons for my team. If I get rid of spite, reduce my soul reaping and switch in blood traits I can also heal my crew along with all the protection, stability and condi removal.

Necs are meant to screw with the enemies. The only things we’re missing is better mobility and my only concern is getting rid of our teleport in death shrowd. Other than that the Reaper might just compliment my play style. I’m usually the one who can survive anything in dungeons and PvE. I even survive most falls in fractals due to unholy sanctuary whichs me effectivly 50K+ health due to auto shroud. Spikes that would kill any other class just kitten me off. As it seems there’s even more survivability for the Reaper its going to be fun to play. I used to play a special kind of necro in GW1. I called it my Cowardly Necro build. My team loved me. I’d usually be the last on standing when things went wrong meaning I also was alive to rez everyone. My play style has adopted this mentality. So in GW2 I’m usually the only one who can tank enough to rez people in really bad spots.

Lastly because this is long. If you really like necros because they are cool but hate their skills.. play something else and get creepy skins for your armor. I like the power over life and death thing. I don’t need to be super fast.. I do what I do.