Guild Wars 2

Based off the presumption that all raid bosses will have an agro mechanic similar to the Vale Guardian, what is stopping the Reaper from being a tank?

Lack of vigor, lack of protection, lack of invuln, lack of block, lack of resistance, lack of armor, lack of healing, lack of being able to receive heals.

Those are the main reasons, i’m sure there are other less obvious ones.

We can certainly tank short term until we need to go into shroud, then we can’t be healed and our shroud slowly runs out then we pop back out with no health and no way to stop damage, then we die.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

lack of being able to receive heals.

If there are enough boons there will be heal

“Rise!” and Blighter’s Boon are your friend.
With a berserker armor and those skills and traits I was able to tank the Vale guardian fearless (a druid will heal your minions)

Try to get a herald in your own group for the boon spam.

The defense potential is huge for the Reaper, especially with a lot of boons.

There’s not much to stop a reaper tank. A reaper would actually be quite good at it, since they don’t need to rely on team support.

The difficulty of coordinating heals with time outside of DS is a very large problem. Support heals for tanks will miss Necro’s probably 1/4 to 1/2 the time depending on the portion of time spent in DS because the UI and chat log system lacks capability to echo skill commands, timers and support macros. Only voice communication can call out heals so Necromancers can exit DS with enough time to catch the heal.

Otherwise, Necromancer can just not use DS and face-tank every hit. At which point, Zudet’s list of lacks mean Necromancer has no sustainability.

High toughness and minions has a good chance of holding aggro more often but boss AI is quirky and crude. Theoretically, aggro should be created by damage and the heals a player gives and also if a player’s health becomes low enough to finish off. Taking damage should reduce aggro. If these were the only factors in aggro tables, Necromancer could never tank well because it could not avoid taking damage and burning down aggro. Heals given to the Necro would increase aggro to the healer. The boss would then ignore the Necro until enough damage had been done, again, to elevate the Necro on the aggro priority and that is not what a tank does. Tanks need to hold aggro by not taking damage.

Anyway, this game’s aggro tables work differently and professions are not set up well for filling those types of roles.

Nothing.

In our runs I was swapping as tank Rev with guildie who was basically dire reaper tank. I’d say she was doing better at it than I did.

At least for the Vale Guardian, you don’t need blocks, invuls or anything to tank. Necro functions perfectly – you drag the boss around, absorbing hits with Shroud and general tankiness, then you can go for Blue Guardian and help with stripping his boons with PoC.

And you barely need any extra healing, which means your healer doesn’t have to worry that much about your hp.

If you’re tanking as a Necro, why would you go into shroud when you hit no health? Shouldn’t it be a pro-active mitigation mechanic instead of a reactive one? Or wouldn’t you wait until you used your heal, then hit up Shroud to help cover the time between your heal’s cooldown?

And if you are missing support heals while in shroud at high health, is it a big deal? With all of the boons going out, Blighter’s Boon will probably help top you off in that case.

We can reduce damage from Poisoned foes by 10%. We can reduce damage from Chilled foes by 10% as well. Rise! increases that reduction further if the horrors are kept alive (and they would receive heals while we are in Shroud). We can gain +180 toughness while in Shroud, and an additional +300 toughness from Corrupter’s Fervor.

Everyone keeps saying Herald has a 90% protection uptime, so why are you worried about self-applying protection? Lack of invuln/block might be issues, but this might actually work better than people think.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Lack of invuln/block might be issues

Aegis says hi ^^

Also, mesmers have AoE distortion, and with Chrono even more

Reaper can certainly tank the vale guardian, one low damage hitting mob with slow movement speed, even my thief could tank vale guardian.

However when you have 5 bosses hitting you at once, or one boss doing 10K+ hits I doubt reaper/necro will hold up as a tank.

What’s stopping the Reaper from tanking is bad access to block & dodges and no ability to be healed in Reaper Shroud.

Btw with Death magic you have already 30% protection uptime without any boondurations. .With Speed of shadows 42% protection uptime + Spectral Armor 65% protection uptime, Dropping under 50% HP gives you again a 9 sec protection (in a 40 sec fight that would be 87% protection uptime. 87% protection uptime without any boon durations. You say REV has 90% protection uptime, yea dont need that kitten. Get with necro some boon duration , example from a Rev 50% boon duration you are on a necro over 100% Protection uptime!!

Protection -33% reduction, Poison -10% , Chill -10%, Rise -50% (73,7% less dmg?), let say all Raid bosses have unblockable attacks. Than necro is maybe the super tank.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Reaper can certainly tank the vale guardian, one low damage hitting mob with slow movement speed, even my thief could tank vale guardian.

However when you have 5 bosses hitting you at once, or one boss doing 10K+ hits I doubt reaper/necro will hold up as a tank.

Everyone seems to only use the Vale Guardian when evaluating whether Reaper will get a slot in the raid, but when we start to discuss a role Reaper might be able to fill based on Vale Guardian, the boss is discarded for other theoretical mechanics that the Reaper might not be able to survive.

There’s absolutely no reason, at this time, to discard the possibility that a Reaper could serve as a tank at best, or perhaps an off-tank at least. To do otherwise would be an unhealthy stifling of the class. People need to be trying things, not ruling things out with rough napkin theory.

Video I saw of the raid looked a lot like typical PvE boss mechanics. It reminded me a lot of Great Jungle Wurm.

I expect better than that of raids. Building a bit more tanky than usual and just auto attacking the wandering boss while killing adds that would heal it is horribly lame for a raid.

I hope I missed some wildly complicated boss mechanics in the videos.

A lot of people are forgetting just how much personal healing the reaper has. Blighter’s boon gives massive amounts of self healing and life force generation with team support. Chilling Force adds even more life force generation, vampiric traits add more health generation, unholy sanctuary adds regen while in DS, etc. and so on.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A lot of people are forgetting just how much personal healing the reaper has. Blighter’s boon gives massive amounts of self healing and life force generation with team support. Chilling Force adds even more life force generation, vampiric traits add more health generation, unholy sanctuary adds regen while in DS, etc. and so on.

This….I’m honestly surprised just how much people forget blighter’s boon is a thing. Now will we be healed normally no, but with all the Boons flying around like raindrops, we should have no problems.

You can technically use the druid as a tank.

Reapers role is minions. Summon a horde of them with “Rise!”.

Cogbyrn.7283:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Reaper can certainly tank the vale guardian, one low damage hitting mob with slow movement speed, even my thief could tank vale guardian.

However when you have 5 bosses hitting you at once, or one boss doing 10K+ hits I doubt reaper/necro will hold up as a tank.

Everyone seems to only use the Vale Guardian when evaluating whether Reaper will get a slot in the raid, but when we start to discuss a role Reaper might be able to fill based on Vale Guardian, the boss is discarded for other theoretical mechanics that the Reaper might not be able to survive.

There’s absolutely no reason, at this time, to discard the possibility that a Reaper could serve as a tank at best, or perhaps an off-tank at least. To do otherwise would be an unhealthy stifling of the class. People need to be trying things, not ruling things out with rough napkin theory.

Reaper shines as a bruiser (soldier, off-tank, etc) so maybe we should play to that strength. We’ll never be highest dps, judging from everything that Anet has done and said (they do fear the reaper, apparently, so don’t want to buff it much- which is generally alright) and we’ll never be the most durable, either (at least in terms of active defense. We are one of the better hp sponges though) so really, in raids, our job is to live and keep attacking regardless of what else is happening, giving others space to breathe (makes me sad seeing all my squishy friends get down to low health :‘( so having a reaper or two is helpful as a distraction at the very least, and we still hit decently hard (with some banner support, I’ve seen around 12k crits stacks from RS 4 on a soldier build consistently against the Vale Guardian)

Very real possibility that Reaper can do it in full berserker (toughness from minions to keep aggro). Or just one piece of gear with toughness. So could be interesting.

Question is what runeset to go for. Scholar is out the window in that situation.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Lack of vigor, lack of protection, lack of invuln, lack of block, lack of resistance, lack of armor, lack of healing, lack of being able to receive heals.

Those are the main reasons, i’m sure there are other less obvious ones.

We can certainly tank short term until we need to go into shroud, then we can’t be healed and our shroud slowly runs out then we pop back out with no health and no way to stop damage, then we die.

What!!!?!?!!?!?!, thats crazy talk…..

Right now. Reaper is the best DPS for raids. During butn phase, they get spammable GraveDigger….

nothing can match that.

Reaper is best dps. And likely a great off tank as well.

spoj.9672:

Very real possibility that Reaper can do it in full berserker (toughness from minions to keep aggro). Or just one piece of gear with toughness. So could be interesting.

Question is what runeset to go for. Scholar is out the window in that situation.

WTB Power> Toughness and Ferocity, as well as Power > Condi and Ferocity gear sets

Reaper would probably do fine in the role of tank for a raid, but other classes will likely perform the role better. PS Warrior with one piece of Knight’s gear gives up almost no DPS and will basically never die if the rest of the raid is playing well. I still side with [SC], though, in that Daredevil is probably the best tank factoring Invigorating Precision, Signet of Malice, 3 dodges, and damage mitigation traits.

I’m with Cogbyrn.7283, though; there’s nothing at this point to suggest that a Reaper would be bad at the role, it just might not be optimal.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Reaper would probably do fine in the role of tank for a raid, but other classes will likely perform the role better. PS Warrior with one piece of Knight’s gear gives up almost no DPS and will basically never die if the rest of the raid is playing well. I still side with [SC], though, in that Daredevil is probably the best tank factoring Invigorating Precision, Signet of Malice, 3 dodges, and damage mitigation traits.

I’m with Cogbyrn.7283, though; there’s nothing at this point to suggest that a Reaper would be bad at the role, it just might not be optimal.

I think NA had a good idea in Rabid condi engi, also incredibly small damage loss for a solid defensive gain. It’s something like 90% condi damage for an Engi. And if you need more blocks you have Shield and Toolkit available.

Knighthonor.4061:

Right now. Reaper is the best DPS for raids. During butn phase, they get spammable GraveDigger….

nothing can match that.

Reaper is best dps. And likely a great off tank as well.

Yeah, whilst for the first 50% they hit like a wet noodle and Grave digger spam requires the mob to be still and not require dodging from. In an optimal scenario, GD spam for last 50% of a fight is high, but these raid bosses, even with a ‘tank’ will not stand still.

If you combine the dps of the first 50% of the fight with the last 50%, reaper dps is good. Not great, not bad. It averages to around 14k from the numbers I’ve seen. That’s still way less than 19k regions of engie’s and rev’s.

Given their limited support capabilities they would be behind warriors, chrono’s, eles and rev’s for the non-condi spots.

Jerus.4350:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Reaper would probably do fine in the role of tank for a raid, but other classes will likely perform the role better. PS Warrior with one piece of Knight’s gear gives up almost no DPS and will basically never die if the rest of the raid is playing well. I still side with [SC], though, in that Daredevil is probably the best tank factoring Invigorating Precision, Signet of Malice, 3 dodges, and damage mitigation traits.

I’m with Cogbyrn.7283, though; there’s nothing at this point to suggest that a Reaper would be bad at the role, it just might not be optimal.

I think NA had a good idea in Rabid condi engi, also incredibly small damage loss for a solid defensive gain. It’s something like 90% condi damage for an Engi. And if you need more blocks you have Shield and Toolkit available.

Rev’s are also good choices because they have perm protection, 2 blocks, full heal, heavy armour, taunt and the most damage mitigators in the game and like reapers, can swap out some precision for toughness if they take the invocation trait that gives 20% extra crit from fury with minimal dps loss.

Unfortunately there’s no power/tough/ferocity gear (its tough/power/ferocity) so they will take a small dps loss by using cavaliers but it’s far easier to tank when your entire dps rotation is 1 1 1 with a legend swap every 10s, compare that to an engie’s complicated one.

Depends on whether or not our , and our allies, soft CC conditions will affect bosses. If conditions such as immobilize, blind and slow will have any affect will increase our chances of being a tank dramatically. It is true that we don’t have the active defenses like other classes but it doesn’t mean we arn’t fit for the role.

I plan on being the " main tank " for any raid me and the guild enter. Let’s not forget that its not like you will have to rely on just your own abilities to keep you alive. We’ll be receiving boons and healing from our allies as well.

Necromancers by design are built sturdy, though many it seems disagree with this assumption. Of course a berserker necromancer will fall flat on their face, the lack of passive defenses in the form of toughness and vitality play a huge role. In order to be a good tank, one must take forms of both. Yes it’s true that vitality is one of our best stats, as it not only increases our Health Pool but our Life Force as well, but toughness cannot be overlooked. There’s no point in having 30k health, for example, if a hit will still hit you for 10k. Is it not better to have 25k health and enough toughness to reduce the hit to a more manageable amount?

The best gear for a Necromancer Tank, in my opinion, would be a mix of solider and cavalier or soldier and Valkyrie, both have their merits, it’s a pick your poison kind of deal.

To answer the question at hand, yes. Yes, i believe that Necromancers can play the role of tank, though i make this assumption without having raided. Time will tell whether or not we can. It would involve a lot of shroud dancing and soft CC though!

Also, a reaper that takes decimate defenses and is in a good raid group that stacks perma fury and 25 vuln only needs 30% more crit chance. He can drop some berserker gear for some Cavalier, and the only loss in DPS would be that toughness is the main stat over power. It’s basicly made for it! If you can get perma prot and chill you already take 43% less damage, then take a blood/spite/reaper build with dagger/wh and GS and you’ll be quite survivable with Dagger 2 and WH5 healing for big amounts. And in the burn phases your GS2 will still be top DPS wise.