With the newest line of Elite Specializations, it seems that ANet has really zero’d in on the trend of having each line of a specialization be focused around a specific theme, and for the most part they have created powerful abilities that are thematic and fun.
But reaper still has its place as a condition specialization where it isn’t supposed to be, and fixing that, in theory, should be fairly feasible. Currently, the reaper lines are centered around three ideas:
The top line (Augury of Death, Soul Eater, Blighter’s Boon) is based around shouts and self sustain, the middle line (Chilling Nova, Chilling Victory, Deathly Chill) is based around the Chill condition, and dealing damage with it, and the bottom line (Relentless Pursuit, Decimate Defenses, Reaper’s Onslaught) is about… something. I’m going to guess its chasing foes down and hitting them harder.
So, here’s my suggestion: Purify the trait lines, making them very distinct in their function, and remove all hints of condition damage from the reaper itself while still providing a unique playstyle for the necro.
Top Line: Probably the best line of the bunch. It does the “self sustain” thing well, but doesn’t apply enough boons for it to be worth it. The change? Roll the Chilling Victory trait into the grandmaster trait, Blighter’s Boon. Now it’s self-sufficient, still relies on the Greatsword and Shouts as part of its sustain, and most importantly, keeps the central theme of chill-matters while putting the support element of it in the support line.
Middle Line: This line works… but not in a way that is thematic with the specialization. Power isn’t rewarded enough, and might generation is nice, but mostly unnecessary, particularly in PvE. To aid in this regard, we change a few things: 1) Chilling Nova’s internal cooldown gets reduced. As-is the trait is nice, but doesn’t do much. By reducing the cooldown to 4 or 5 seconds, it procs more consistently, but not often enough to maintain permanent chill on its own. 2) Chilling Victory is changed. It now uses the effect of Decimate Defenses, which has natural synergy with Chilling Nova’s critical-based effect. 3) The biggest change here is the change to Deathly Chill. Conditions may be easier to balance around, but Reaper shouldn’t be a condition specialization. Instead, we change the effect of Deathly Chill to work in a way that is similar to pulmonary impact on the daredevil: Whenever you chill an opponent, that opponent gains a stack of Deathly Chill. After X period of time (say, 1 second or so), the Deathly Chill deals direct damage. Importantly, however, this damage CAN critically hit (and consequently, should likely be relatively low at its base). This trait could also grant increased Ferocity against chilled foes, and take that portion of Reaper’s Onslaught for itself. This IS the damage trait, after all.
Bottom Line: The bottom traitline synergizes around catching your target, removing movement impairment, increased movement abilities, and resisting CC. To that end, we do the following: 1) We have a new major master trait: Unrelenting Reaper. This trait has two effects. First, it pulses stability and swiftness to the necromancer while in Reaper’s shroud. Secondly, it causes the reaper’s Death’s Charge and Soul Spiral to Cripple and Chill foes it strikes. 2) Reaper’s Onslaught is a nice trait, but its damage dealing functionality makes little sense. We remove the ferocity, put with the actual crit-oriented DPS line, and add the following functionality: Striking a Crippled or Chilled foe reduces the cooldown of reaper abilities. It would likely be a small reduction, with a short internal cooldown to prevent abuse (say, 1-2 seconds), but would do what the line really wants to do, which is camp reaper’s shroud and be unstoppable via movement.
Sure, it isn’t perfect, but I think it is much more thematic, capitalizes on different uses in different game modes, and overall makes the elite spec more cohesive. I’m sure some things would need to be tweaked, but overall I think it could work.