Guild Wars 2

Weapons: Soldiers GS + Dagger/Focus

GS sigils: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Force
Dagger/Focus Sigils: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Bloodlust/Cruelty

Armor/trinks: Cavalier’s
Rune: toying with the idea of Runes of Ice, but Runes of Strength and Traveller’s will both be good alternatives (depending on actual play).

Heal: Consume Conditions

Utilities: Signet of Spite, “No one can save you!” —third slot is your swing slot, so whatever you prefer, I’m going to be trying Spectral Grasp first, but I suspect there will be enough chill generation without it and I’ll end up swapping to Spectral Armor or a well for general use.

Elite: Reaper of Grenth. If you are not a human choose either Flesh Golem or “Chilled to the bone” — this build focuses on Reaper’s Shroud for damage so any transform skill will kitten you. I personally do not like the Golem and I have no real idea on how the new elite shout will work in game, and the goal of this build is small fights where Chilled to the Bone won’t be as effective.

Foods: Sweet & Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, Furious Sharpening Stone

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBqAa0BWg~

Atm, this set up will give you 2.3k power, 3k armor, 20k HP, 4% crit chance and 212% crit dmg.

General idea is to amass life force while holding back two of your vulnerability skills. Focus 4 and Greatsword 3 will both put 12 stacks of vulnerability on your target, though ideally you would use one and then “No one can save you” to strip 2 boons (and thus apply another 10 stacks of vulnerability) and then pop Signet of Spite to cover your stacks of vulnerability and go in to Reaper’s shroud and go ham. If the foe fails to either a) dodge your vulnerabilty inflicting attacks or b) does not cleanse them before you can cover with Signet of Spite you will have 100% crit-chance as you go to town on their face in Reaper’s Shroud.

With the traits in this build, you will be constantly re-applying vulnerability in RS from you auto (which also gives you might, life-force and healing) and passively via proximity due to the Death Shiver trait, so you will maintain a high level of crit chance.

The reason for not building crit chance is so you can gain more defenses while still maintaining high direct damage. Yes your foe can remove vulnerability, but this is difficult due to the conditions you will be passively covering it with (chill and poison from Reaper of Grenth) and the fact that you have 4 abilities that apply a decent number of stacks of Vulnerability — so eventually, even if they are on the ball, your 4 cooldowns will overcome their condi-removal unless they have based their build around condi removal or have access to mass cleanse via Null field or similar.

You are sustained by Blighter’s Boon as every attack in RS will heal you, while your health pool is protected by being in RS. If you do not detonate Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud #3) you will also gain further healing, in addition to having decent stability for your larger RS attacks.

I am going to look into replacing Chilling Nova (Reaper trait II) with Relentless Pursuit (Reaper trait III), but will try II first.

This build is meant to focus on being IN RS most of the time, but I may need to add a few zerker pieces (or perhaps swap to a maintenance oil) to give enough crit chance out of RS — When in a small group where your teammate can give you fury, it will be alright, but Decimate Defenses will not be enough on its own and certainly won’t be reliable.

They designed the utility skills to work in large groups, but the traits, weapon skills and F1 skills are insanely strong for small group play too.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

So a wvw dueling build? Racials ar not allowed in pvp.

Vizardlorde.8243:

So a wvw dueling build? Racials ar not allowed in pvp.

Yes, this build is geared for solo roaming / small group play in WvW. There is also food mentioned. I did give two options to replace the racial though, so I’m not sure why you couldn’t run this in sPvP using one of those options.

I’d be very hesitant to run anything in Wuv or PvP that uses two melee weapons, too easy to be kitted to death even when using swiftness and gap closers… and Necromancers seriously lack in both.

I like the idea of a tanky Necro that foregoes crit for defenses. It’s how I play it currently and seems to work out quite well. I can’t wait for the instant application of multiple conditions either. Going to be epic.

As far as being OP 1vs1, I thought Necros already were, or could be? I mean that’s the ideal matchup right now at least; getting focused and mass CC’ed is the problem.

@FoeFaller It may very well be possible, but there ARE tools to force the close ranged fight. Lots of chill application for snare (including a ranged option via Focus 5), a ranged immobo from Dagger 3, a pull on GS, a pull from your utilities (if you take Spectral Grasp), and a fairly short cd leap in RS. I’m not saying its not a serious weakness of the build, but I’ll need to play it in game to definitively say the above isn’t good enough for the average fight.

Dagger/focus feels right to me because its good at stacking life force and has high utility while still leaning to a power spec. Warhorn might be an option to have decent upkeep of swiftness, but due to the dependancy on Decimate Defenses, I wanted to have as much vulnerability as possible. So to keep focus that limits ranged weapons to axe and scepter, of which only axe would be relevant for the gear choices, and I don’t personally like Necro Axe. I suppose you could drop GS for Staff, but GS is new and shiny. It’ll take some actual experience with the reaper to sort it all out, but I think this build is a decent starting point.

@WhiteCrow This specialization has been stated by devs to be good vs large numbers but weaker to individual combat due to the nature of the utilities. I made this build to highlight the fact that it is the player’s choice of utilities that dictates its efficacy vs certain enemies/groups rather than a flat answer of “reaper isn’t good in 1v1”.

If you don’t have Reaper of Grenth (which will be an extremely powerful elite now with the Reaper spec/ especially if using the taking less damage from poisoned foes Putrid Defense and from chilled foes Cold Shoulder which Reaper of Grenth applies both. Simply taking Death Shivers will help in applying vuln. Also you can cast Reaper of Grenth and it will persist even in DS so I assume it will also persist in Knight Shroud.

I think in a matter of 1V1, auto spinal shiver is wayyyyy stronger … its basically a death sentence spell. 3vulne stack that last ~10sec every 3sec is nice, but the amongh of vulne you can maintain is high enough already to mee (need to be tested out tho)

I also think that relentless pursuit would be a better choice, especially with this immo-meta and thief getting free panic strike.
AS above, need to be tested out

Thats, to me, the only 2 variation of the build, and yes its pretty strong.

You still can go for a bigger variation by taking Chilling force over decimate defense,, but you’ll need to adapt the stuff a bit (if you do this change, keep chilling nova. Hoelbrak rune might be mandatory since you have more acces to power and it would make up a bit for the lack of relentless pursuit)

PS:
Those who think they will be kitted make me laugh a lot …. you have almost more mobility than a DD ele now … and infinitely more gap closer (pulling is a gap closer) XD

Ehi, I’m a warrior with GS! You can’t inflict chill, vulnerability and fear, I can clean all the conditions you give me easy and I don’t need you to stay away from be and you can’t hit me if you’re near me and when you attack me in DS state I can strip it away from you very easy with a single 100Blade and 1 or 2 attacks while immune from your attacks or evading with GS skills and dodge!
And you’re slow to move and can’t full me easy with conditions why Berserker stance and Cleansing Ire, while I can hit you from distance easy, with movement skills, swap in LB, immobilize and run away with no problems because we have the same speed, but I have so much more viable movement skills and you can’t fear me why I have 10 sec and 5 stack of stability!

In 10 sec of the duration of the Stances I can take you down with almost no damage and conditions received.
Expecially in www, where your build is made to work, right?

Yeah, the Reaper will be very good in 1vs1!

(p.s. in 1vs1 the warrior is one of the worst class, at the moment)

Silv.9207:

Ehi, I’m a warrior with GS! You can’t inflict chill, vulnerability and fear, I can clean all the conditions you give me easy and I don’t need you to stay away from be and you can’t hit me if you’re near me and when you attack me in DS state I can strip it away from you very easy with a single 100Blade and 1 or 2 attacks while immune from your attacks or evading with GS skills and dodge!
And you’re slow to move and can’t full me easy with conditions why Berserker stance and Cleansing Ire, while I can hit you from distance easy, with movement skills, swap in LB, immobilize and run away with no problems because we have the same speed, but I have so much more viable movement skills and you can’t fear me why I have 10 sec and 5 stack of stability!

In 10 sec of the duration of the Stances I can take you down with almost no damage and conditions received.
Expecially in www, where your build is made to work, right?

Yeah, the Reaper will be very good in 1vs1!

(p.s. in 1vs1 the warrior is one of the worst class, at the moment)

Mhh dont think so. Reaper still can get staff as a secondary weapon and fleshwurm/spectralwalk to keep some distance while the stances are up and then procced to kill the warrior when the stances run out. Similar how must necros already beat warriors in 1v1s…

Oberon Vex.1389:

Weapons: Soldiers GS + Dagger/Focus

GS sigils: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Force
Dagger/Focus Sigils: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Bloodlust/Cruelty

Armor/trinks: Cavalier’s
Rune: toying with the idea of Runes of Ice, but Runes of Strength and Traveller’s will both be good alternatives (depending on actual play).

Heal: Consume Conditions

Utilities: Signet of Spite, “No one can save you!” —third slot is your swing slot, so whatever you prefer, I’m going to be trying Spectral Grasp first, but I suspect there will be enough chill generation without it and I’ll end up swapping to Spectral Armor or a well for general use.

Elite: Reaper of Grenth. If you are not a human choose either Flesh Golem or “Chilled to the bone” — this build focuses on Reaper’s Shroud for damage so any transform skill will kitten you. I personally do not like the Golem and I have no real idea on how the new elite shout will work in game, and the goal of this build is small fights where Chilled to the Bone won’t be as effective.

Foods: Sweet & Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, Furious Sharpening Stone

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBqAa0BWg~

Atm, this set up will give you 2.3k power, 3k armor, 20k HP, 4% crit chance and 212% crit dmg.

General idea is to amass life force while holding back two of your vulnerability skills. Focus 4 and Greatsword 3 will both put 12 stacks of vulnerability on your target, though ideally you would use one and then “No one can save you” to strip 2 boons (and thus apply another 10 stacks of vulnerability) and then pop Signet of Spite to cover your stacks of vulnerability and go in to Reaper’s shroud and go ham. If the foe fails to either a) dodge your vulnerabilty inflicting attacks or b) does not cleanse them before you can cover with Signet of Spite you will have 100% crit-chance as you go to town on their face in Reaper’s Shroud.

With the traits in this build, you will be constantly re-applying vulnerability in RS from you auto (which also gives you might, life-force and healing) and passively via proximity due to the Death Shiver trait, so you will maintain a high level of crit chance.

The reason for not building crit chance is so you can gain more defenses while still maintaining high direct damage. Yes your foe can remove vulnerability, but this is difficult due to the conditions you will be passively covering it with (chill and poison from Reaper of Grenth) and the fact that you have 4 abilities that apply a decent number of stacks of Vulnerability — so eventually, even if they are on the ball, your 4 cooldowns will overcome their condi-removal unless they have based their build around condi removal or have access to mass cleanse via Null field or similar.

You are sustained by Blighter’s Boon as every attack in RS will heal you, while your health pool is protected by being in RS. If you do not detonate Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud #3) you will also gain further healing, in addition to having decent stability for your larger RS attacks.

I am going to look into replacing Chilling Nova (Reaper trait II) with Relentless Pursuit (Reaper trait III), but will try II first.

This build is meant to focus on being IN RS most of the time, but I may need to add a few zerker pieces (or perhaps swap to a maintenance oil) to give enough crit chance out of RS — When in a small group where your teammate can give you fury, it will be alright, but Decimate Defenses will not be enough on its own and certainly won’t be reliable.

They designed the utility skills to work in large groups, but the traits, weapon skills and F1 skills are insanely strong for small group play too.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

Miniscule condi removal + almost complete lack of any long range skills/engage = any build with good mobility that applies decent condi pressure (available on basically ANY profession apart from necro) will probably be VERY hard to deal with. Also, your sustain depends entirely on you actually hitting your foe in melee. With builds like s/d thieves, mesmer with blind on every shatter and eles with blinding ashes (now on a 3 second internal cooldown) probably being prevalent after HOT, this will likely go south very quickly.

Muchacho.2390:

Silv.9207:

Similar how must necros already beat warriors in 1v1s…

Do they? Atm I can think of several specs that hit all the weakspots in a Necro. Anything with Shouts will have the condi cleanse needed especially with Cleansing Ire. Also, Brawler’s Recovery is becoming a Master trait and Mending is becoming a Physical skill so theoretically condis are just going to melt off.

Even currently a build like the one in my Sig puts out so much CC that even with Wurm and Walk and even FitG the CC can overwhelm Necros. Your standard Greatbow build has good enough removal if you play start. Shoutbow is…well…OP so yah. Anything with a Hammer can lock you down hard and often and is often paired with Leg Specialist so that it’s not that hard to land Earthshaker.

Unless the Necro starts with full LF (even then you can win) or the I misuse Zerker Stance and lets my Stability get Corrupted I rarely fear fighting a Necro. Power Necro can be tough but since most Warriors run with double Endure Pain or have Reflect Missiles even they are beatable. I think when a War loses to a Necro it’s because they are so rare that they aren’t used to the animations so they don’t know what to look out for and don’t avoid skills like Reaper’s Mark or Corrupt.

As for Reaper’s 1v1 prowess, if they did their job right they aren’t designed for that. I know as a Warrior I would probably let myself eat a Chill so that my Whirlwind Attack hits multiple times. We’re generally fine with fighting up close and personal especially with LB cause normally the problem is keep people in the Combustive Shot. The Spec does look like it has a bit more Stability access but with buffed Physical Utility skills it’s still probably not a huge deal.

It seems like Reapers are basically the Necro’s version of a Warrior but with a focus on bringing and keeping your foes close while Warriors move to where their enemy is.

The reapers have already issued a battle cry to the mesmers.
Reapers Vs Chronomancers.

Wait till your warrior spec is out before you come challenge us ya?

Silv.9207:

Ehi, I’m a warrior with GS! You can’t inflict chill, vulnerability and fear, I can clean all the conditions you give me easy and I don’t need you to stay away from be and you can’t hit me if you’re near me and when you attack me in DS state I can strip it away from you very easy with a single 100Blade and 1 or 2 attacks while immune from your attacks or evading with GS skills and dodge!
And you’re slow to move and can’t full me easy with conditions why Berserker stance and Cleansing Ire, while I can hit you from distance easy, with movement skills, swap in LB, immobilize and run away with no problems because we have the same speed, but I have so much more viable movement skills and you can’t fear me why I have 10 sec and 5 stack of stability!

In 10 sec of the duration of the Stances I can take you down with almost no damage and conditions received.
Expecially in www, where your build is made to work, right?

Yeah, the Reaper will be very good in 1vs1!

(p.s. in 1vs1 the warrior is one of the worst class, at the moment)

Few things wrong with your post.

Regardless of how much condi cleanse you have you will get stacks of vulnerability.

1. Deatl shiver, death spiral, nothing can save you, chilling dark with bitter chill, deaths embrace list goes on.
2. Bitter chill will make any application of chill apply vulnerability. So GS auto, RS #5, sigil of ice, chilling nova, frost armour, fear through shivers of dread, chill of death, staff #3, focus #5 , Spectral grasp, well of darkness,nightfall and dagger #4 with chilling dark

Also point 2 covers that one way or another you will have chill on you for a while regardless of what you do.

Stripping the shrouded state again wont be easy.

• Has a natural -50% damage reduction for non overflow damage.
• cold shoulder -15% damage from chilled people
• putrid defence if taken another -10%
• frost armour -10%
• protection -33%

Potential to take only 22.7% of incoming physical damage more likely around 40% though. You would need to high extremely hard to cut through the shroud. Not only that 2 things can be happening at the same time:

1. Health being siphoned from you which ignores endure pain
2. Life force being generated in RS further negating your damage.

You say they are slow and cant load up conditions. Doesnt matter since all the useful ones are on auto attack and we have chill as extra damage on condi builds. Unless you used zerk stance and rush to escape you wont rush far cause of chill or cripple. Also stability will be a detriment vs a condi reaper with path of corruption since our leap is on a 6/4.5s cooldown and it will corrupt 2 boons every time. You essentially fear yourself..and because you feared yourself you will chill yourself too..

No reaper regardless of build will die in a 1v1 in under 10s. Its impossible to do so.

TL;DR
Reapers toolset makes them a nightmare in 1v1 and XvX situations. Changes to blood magic and siphons healing through deathshroud makes all necro and in-particular extremely tanky. Vuln and chill wont be avoided either as we have to many ways to apply it.

WvW? With food,the ability to have 100% LF before every fights,racial skills,more runes/sigil/set choices,mix and match armor

Sure anything can be OP there under right conditions and vs right opponents.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Muchacho.2390:

Silv.9207:

Similar how must necros already beat warriors in 1v1s…

Do they? Atm I can think of several specs that hit all the weakspots in a Necro. Anything with Shouts will have the condi cleanse needed especially with Cleansing Ire. Also, Brawler’s Recovery is becoming a Master trait and Mending is becoming a Physical skill so theoretically condis are just going to melt off.

Even currently a build like the one in my Sig puts out so much CC that even with Wurm and Walk and even FitG the CC can overwhelm Necros. Your standard Greatbow build has good enough removal if you play start. Shoutbow is…well…OP so yah. Anything with a Hammer can lock you down hard and often and is often paired with Leg Specialist so that it’s not that hard to land Earthshaker.

Unless the Necro starts with full LF (even then you can win) or the I misuse Zerker Stance and lets my Stability get Corrupted I rarely fear fighting a Necro. Power Necro can be tough but since most Warriors run with double Endure Pain or have Reflect Missiles even they are beatable. I think when a War loses to a Necro it’s because they are so rare that they aren’t used to the animations so they don’t know what to look out for and don’t avoid skills like Reaper’s Mark or Corrupt.

As for Reaper’s 1v1 prowess, if they did their job right they aren’t designed for that. I know as a Warrior I would probably let myself eat a Chill so that my Whirlwind Attack hits multiple times. We’re generally fine with fighting up close and personal especially with LB cause normally the problem is keep people in the Combustive Shot. The Spec does look like it has a bit more Stability access but with buffed Physical Utility skills it’s still probably not a huge deal.

It seems like Reapers are basically the Necro’s version of a Warrior but with a focus on bringing and keeping your foes close while Warriors move to where their enemy is.

I dont know about that. Sitting in melee range against a reaper with pulsing aoe blinds on a 20 second cooldown plus the other tools reapers have… it can be quite bad for warriors. And if the sustain, reapers get, is as good as i think it will be, then the fight will not that bad for the reaper even if he stays in melee range against warriors.

The fight will probably come down to proper execution, where mistakes will punish the reaper harder but is favoured a little.

But since we dont know the elite spec of warriors and pretty much anything in HoT is subject to change, the matchup is impossible to predict.

What a cool idea, being Reaper of Grenth while in reaper from. Is it another indication that recitals are going be deleted from the game?

Stacking sigils, sigil of force, instead of procs and swaps? Double melee as a WvW roamer with almost no mobility? I stopped reading there.

Have you heard about Thief and his Shortbow?

You do realize that the revenant basically gets stronger the more conditions applied to it, right?

Anet is also implementing something called resistance

which basically negates all conditions.

For a specialization that seems to be centered around applying chill and fear, there is already an OP counter in place.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You do realize that the revenant basically gets stronger the more conditions applied to it, right?

Anet is also implementing something called resistance

which basically negates all conditions.

For a specialization that seems to be centered around applying chill and fear, there is already an OP counter in place.

Reaper still can get the boon hate necromancers have so what was resistance thingy again?

Muchacho.2390:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You do realize that the revenant basically gets stronger the more conditions applied to it, right?

Anet is also implementing something called resistance

which basically negates all conditions.

For a specialization that seems to be centered around applying chill and fear, there is already an OP counter in place.

Reaper still can get the boon hate necromancers have so what was resistance thingy again?

Not to mention Path of Corruption+Death’s Charge = AoE Boon Hate (2 boons to conditions) every 6 seconds. Not sure if it applies to the ending AoE or every hit from the charge + AoE at the end. Still though, that’s a pretty big deal for any condimancer that uses Reaper spec.

What will you do against players using -97% (40% food, 25/20 melandru/hoelbrak , -33% trait like doged march, geomancers training etc..) ? Or automated responses engi?

xDudisx.5914:

What will you do against players using -97% (40% food, 25/20 melandru/hoelbrak , -33% trait like doged march, geomancers training etc..) ? Or automated responses engi?

He could take condi duration + power food instead. That would get that 97% to 57% and 37% for chills, while still maintaining his condi application somewhat. Vulnerability stacks would be around 3.5-4.5 seconds against an anti-condi build compared to 8-10 seconds (?) usually.

Balekai.6083:

xDudisx.5914:

What will you do against players using -97% (40% food, 25/20 melandru/hoelbrak , -33% trait like doged march, geomancers training etc..) ? Or automated responses engi?

He could take condi duration + power food instead. That would get that 97% to 57% and 37% for chills, while still maintaining his condi application somewhat. Vulnerability stacks would be around 3.5-4.5 seconds against an anti-condi build compared to 8-10 seconds (?) usually.

Not to mention if its carrion gear there would still be s lot of power damage going out.

Think reapers natural enemies will be classes that are extremely ranged like GS mesmer and ranger.

Reapers could be very strong 1v1, but necromancer is already very strong 1v1, so this wouldn’t be too surprising.

In www the necromancer is good in 1vs1, but not the best. In spvp the necromancer isn’t the best 1vs1. It’s viable in 1vs1 only in low level spvp, but against someone that know how to play your necro fall quickly.

The problem of the necromancer is still the same, expecially in www: no movement skills. You can think that Death’s Charge is a movement skill but if you look at the casting time you see that it’s 1 sec. In 1 sec you can run for 500-600 easy. All the other classes movement skills have 1/2 sec of casting while they move for 600. You can’t catch a enemy with that skill, if it’s at range. You can use the GS skill 5 or the spectral grasp to catch the enemy (if without stability) and then use Death’s Charge.

In www a necro will be still more good with the actual DS than with the Reaper DS why of ranged AA and fear skills. Reaper DS fear skill can be more good against some enemy like thiefs why it’s AoE, but it’s range is only of 360 and it’s your only way to inflict Chill to your enemy while in Reaper DS state.

Chill is good to take the enemy close, but it’s easy to clean, expecially if you try to use it to catch a enemy why it’s more or less the only condition on the enemy (if you’re not in the fight from a lot).

There’s a lot of good and bad situations for that Specialization and it’s build. If the enemy can’t clean all your chill he will be in serious problems when you start to hit. But with a food the problem can be solved (for your enemy) and with one or two condition clean skills, hide or a good movement skill he will still be able to flee.

Silv.9207:

In www a necro will be still more good with the actual DS than with the Reaper DS why of ranged AA and fear skills. Reaper DS fear skill can be more good against some enemy like thiefs why it’s AoE, but it’s range is only of 360 and it’s your only way to inflict Chill to your enemy while in Reaper DS state.

But what about rs 5, which combos with several other rs skills to apply even more chill…

Sigmoid.7082:

Stripping the shrouded state again wont be easy.

• Has a natural -50% damage reduction for non overflow damage.
• cold shoulder -15% damage from chilled people
• putrid defence if taken another -10%
• frost armour -10%
• protection -33%

The -50%, are you talking about about vital persistance? You do know that reduces natural degeneration right? not incoming damage

Zetsumei.4975:

The -50%, are you talking about about vital persistance? You do know that reduces natural degeneration right? not incoming damage

Death Shroud naturally takes 50% reduced direct damage. It has been the case for an extremely long time.

Zetsumei.4975:

Sigmoid.7082:

Stripping the shrouded state again wont be easy.

• Has a natural -50% damage reduction for non overflow damage.
• cold shoulder -15% damage from chilled people
• putrid defence if taken another -10%
• frost armour -10%
• protection -33%

The -50%, are you talking about about vital persistance? You do know that reduces natural degeneration right? not incoming damage

Back in the day before you could see the number of how much life force you had people calculated it was around 120% of your hp pool. We were told it was 60% by anet.

When we were given the number and it was shown by anet to be 60% of your hp pool but your life force still lasted as long it was deemed that it had an innate 50% damage reduction. Test it yourself start at full life force and eat some big attacks. Or even on jade maw use it to shield its gaze and you will just5 lose all your LF and take no hp damage at all.

Sigmoid.7082:

Balekai.6083:

xDudisx.5914:

What will you do against players using -97% (40% food, 25/20 melandru/hoelbrak , -33% trait like doged march, geomancers training etc..) ? Or automated responses engi?

He could take condi duration + power food instead. That would get that 97% to 57% and 37% for chills, while still maintaining his condi application somewhat. Vulnerability stacks would be around 3.5-4.5 seconds against an anti-condi build compared to 8-10 seconds (?) usually.

Not to mention if its carrion gear there would still be s lot of power damage going out.

Think reapers natural enemies will be classes that are extremely ranged like GS mesmer and ranger.

Mmmm this build is a power spec. I do think there will be some very strong Condi reaper builds and hybrid will be viable as well, but this build uses chill for a snare and Vuln for the damage increase. It has a decent amount of other cover conditions as well, so I’m not overly concerned about reductions. Having Runes of Ice and being reaper spec means +50% chill duration, and you could further increase this with a Sigil of Chilling to increase to +70% chill duration if everyone and their mother takes the -movespeed condition duration traits (which may very well be the case now that traitlines don’t have stats). And as Baelkai mentioned, the condi-duration food is a viable pick too -- in which case even with your -97% gear and traits, you are still getting a net increase on incoming chills of +3% duration (as condi-duration caps at 100% and I dont’ think it factors in any % reductions before that cap. You MIGHT be lucky and see a 13% increase if so though).

Every build and option has counterplay, and in all honesty, the mobility condition duration traits/runes is a pretty minor fix for this build, though straight removal would be problematic as it would allow you to be kited and drop your dps if they remove vuln.

Resistance should be a minor inconvenience to this build (and necro’s in general) due to the large array of boon-strip that we have available. I can fully see Necro’s becoming a major condi threat with the introduction of another unique condi dmg (chill) and other classes getting resistance boons. The only other classes that get boonstrip are thieves and mesmers, so that means any other class that wants to run condi specs will need to invest in sigils of nullification or be at a extreme disadvantage against any class that is able to have moderate resistance uptime.

Sigmoid.7082:

Zetsumei.4975:

Sigmoid.7082:

Stripping the shrouded state again wont be easy.

• Has a natural -50% damage reduction for non overflow damage.
• cold shoulder -15% damage from chilled people
• putrid defence if taken another -10%
• frost armour -10%
• protection -33%

The -50%, are you talking about about vital persistance? You do know that reduces natural degeneration right? not incoming damage

Back in the day before you could see the number of how much life force you had people calculated it was around 120% of your hp pool. We were told it was 60% by anet.

When we were given the number and it was shown by anet to be 60% of your hp pool but your life force still lasted as long it was deemed that it had an innate 50% damage reduction. Test it yourself start at full life force and eat some big attacks. Or even on jade maw use it to shield its gaze and you will just5 lose all your LF and take no hp damage at all.

Oh really didn’t know that actually, never paid particular attention to the incoming dmg numbers themselves

Balekai.6083:

Muchacho.2390:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You do realize that the revenant basically gets stronger the more conditions applied to it, right?

Anet is also implementing something called resistance

which basically negates all conditions.

For a specialization that seems to be centered around applying chill and fear, there is already an OP counter in place.

Reaper still can get the boon hate necromancers have so what was resistance thingy again?

Not to mention Path of Corruption+Death’s Charge = AoE Boon Hate (2 boons to conditions) every 6 seconds. Not sure if it applies to the ending AoE or every hit from the charge + AoE at the end. Still though, that’s a pretty big deal for any condimancer that uses Reaper spec.

Yeah, everyone that tries to point out the resistance-spamming Mallyx Revenant that we saw last in PAX and the Stress test beta seem to forget that it would be almost painfully easy for Mesmers, Thieves, and, most importantly for this discussion, Necromaners to strip, steal or corrupt that resistance and have his plan to stack condis for more power blow up in his face.

Foefaller.1082:

Balekai.6083:

Muchacho.2390:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You do realize that the revenant basically gets stronger the more conditions applied to it, right?

Anet is also implementing something called resistance

which basically negates all conditions.

For a specialization that seems to be centered around applying chill and fear, there is already an OP counter in place.

Reaper still can get the boon hate necromancers have so what was resistance thingy again?

Not to mention Path of Corruption+Death’s Charge = AoE Boon Hate (2 boons to conditions) every 6 seconds. Not sure if it applies to the ending AoE or every hit from the charge + AoE at the end. Still though, that’s a pretty big deal for any condimancer that uses Reaper spec.

Yeah, everyone that tries to point out the resistance-spamming Mallyx Revenant that we saw last in PAX and the Stress test beta seem to forget that it would be almost painfully easy for Mesmers, Thieves, and, most importantly for this discussion, Necromaners to strip, steal or corrupt that resistance and have his plan to stack condis for more power blow up in his face.

Also if you corrupt stab it turns I to fear which will in turn chill your target, terror and the chill damage trait will kick in doing like 1.6k ticks. Or higher with the ease of access to might the class has.

They have stab on dodge too…so better for us

Oberon Vex.1389:

Sigmoid.7082:

Balekai.6083:

xDudisx.5914:

What will you do against players using -97% (40% food, 25/20 melandru/hoelbrak , -33% trait like doged march, geomancers training etc..) ? Or automated responses engi?

He could take condi duration + power food instead. That would get that 97% to 57% and 37% for chills, while still maintaining his condi application somewhat. Vulnerability stacks would be around 3.5-4.5 seconds against an anti-condi build compared to 8-10 seconds (?) usually.

Not to mention if its carrion gear there would still be s lot of power damage going out.

Think reapers natural enemies will be classes that are extremely ranged like GS mesmer and ranger.

Mmmm this build is a power spec. I do think there will be some very strong Condi reaper builds and hybrid will be viable as well, but this build uses chill for a snare and Vuln for the damage increase. It has a decent amount of other cover conditions as well, so I’m not overly concerned about reductions. Having Runes of Ice and being reaper spec means +50% chill duration, and you could further increase this with a Sigil of Chilling to increase to +70% chill duration if everyone and their mother takes the -movespeed condition duration traits (which may very well be the case now that traitlines don’t have stats). And as Baelkai mentioned, the condi-duration food is a viable pick too -- in which case even with your -97% gear and traits, you are still getting a net increase on incoming chills of +3% duration (as condi-duration caps at 100% and I dont’ think it factors in any % reductions before that cap. You MIGHT be lucky and see a 13% increase if so though).

Every build and option has counterplay, and in all honesty, the mobility condition duration traits/runes is a pretty minor fix for this build, though straight removal would be problematic as it would allow you to be kited and drop your dps if they remove vuln.

Resistance should be a minor inconvenience to this build (and necro’s in general) due to the large array of boon-strip that we have available. I can fully see Necro’s becoming a major condi threat with the introduction of another unique condi dmg (chill) and other classes getting resistance boons. The only other classes that get boonstrip are thieves and mesmers, so that means any other class that wants to run condi specs will need to invest in sigils of nullification or be at a extreme disadvantage against any class that is able to have moderate resistance uptime.

Engineers also have a boonstrip (Toss Mine) They can also currently boonstrip with tossed elixirs with the Acidic Elixirs trait, but all the TBDs from the specialization AMA means no way to tell if they’ll still have that option. Guardians can also currently strip boons on applying burning with a trait, but that trait was not in the specialization AMA, nor as a Dragonhunter trait, so unless one of their skills are getting boonstripping, they’re going to lose the ability to do so when specializations go live.

So basically OP if everything is stacked in your favor and your opponents mouse has stopped working in a game mode not meant for 1v1 balance…? i’m not too worried lol.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

So basically OP if everything is stacked in your favor and your opponents mouse has stopped working in a game mode not meant for 1v1 balance…? i’m not too worried lol.

Not particularly…? the build can apply its 20+ stax of vuln within a second or two and proceed from there. There is as little set up for it as there is for other meta builds, and counter play is limited to clutch condi removal and kiting :/

To apply 25 stack of vulnerability you need 5-6 seconds (if you’re not interrupted) with also the new shout skills. In that 5 seconds you don’t deal damage (or low damage) and the enemy can attack you and clean conditions.

With the actual meta builds (and it will still remain like it is, if there’s not a very big change in all the game mechanics) use a build that focus all on 2 conditions is a bad idea. A condi build can work because work on 5-6 conditions. But if you play as a dps and focus on chill and vulnerability, every class can clean you conditions or prevent them (block, blind, immunity….).
And there’s much better class to strip boons, like mesmer and engi.

Silv.9207:

To apply 25 stack of vulnerability you need 5-6 seconds (if you’re not interrupted) with also the new shout skills. In that 5 seconds you don’t deal damage (or low damage) and the enemy can attack you and clean conditions.

With the actual meta builds (and it will still remain like it is, if there’s not a very big change in all the game mechanics) use a build that focus all on 2 conditions is a bad idea. A condi build can work because work on 5-6 conditions. But if you play as a dps and focus on chill and vulnerability, every class can clean you conditions or prevent them (block, blind, immunity….).
And there’s much better class to strip boons, like mesmer and engi.

1. Applying your vuln will take 2s (3/4 cast for Reapers Touch and 1s cast for “Nothing can save you”) maybe milk it to 3 with aftercast and any delay on your individual client-side.

2. This build relies on chill and vuln, but those are not the only conditions it applies. The build uses Signet of Spite and Reaper of Grenth to cover your important conditions. If 10s (due to the cover conditions from SoS being 10s durations) of 100% crit chance isn’t enough to kill your enemy while they are chilled, then you probably aren’t going to win anyway.

I’ll allow that total set up time will edge closer to 5s if you do the full combo (Reaper’s touch → “Nothing can save you” →Signet of Spite →Reaper of Grenth. But in all reality, you don’t necessarily NEED reaper of grenth on, and many won’t have it (due to not being human).

I don’t agree that engi’s are better boon strippers, and that’s not terribly on topic in any event — this is a necro build. The build has 2 boonstrips that will remove a combined 5 boons every 35s.