Guild Wars 2

Here are all the current shouts in the game

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shout

The ONLY shout with a cast time is “Guard”, the Ranger shout which is only 1 second.

All these classes have a form of Stability or Mobility/Disengage to perform these skills effectively.

Now you give Necromancer shouts WITH cast times, and we have no form of Stability nor Disengage whatsoever.

Make shouts instant cast, it makes more sense and in line with the current behaviour of shouts. And simply balance it appropriately.

No one is gonna use shouts with the current state of the Necromancer. Also with HoT and the Shroud’s Knights 3 skill, that is our only consistent stability skill you are giving us, BUT we can’t use utility skills in Death shroud!

It’s kind of ironic you implemented shouts for the Reaper to encourage us to dive in group fights, but we’re completely vulnerable because we have to “cast” these abilities.

Again, cast time for shouts I don’t get and should be removed.

_I suggest everyone do this right now, go to GW2 Wiki and look at the cast-times of the current UTILITY skills of the necromancer, you notice majority of them have cast-times and very few are instant.

And then do the same with other professions, and you notice a lot of their Utility skills have instant cast AND they have stability/mobility to compensate_

Does any other shout cause damage?

ANet knows this and will change this before HOT drops. If it stays the same and there is a cast time, I will say their damage will be increased.

That’s because the only shout in the game that is remotely comparable to our level of offense is Fear me!, which isn’t really that comparable. While they are all shouts, ours have very strong direct effect on the enemy, making them instant cast would be blatantly OP.

Now I’d certainly agree that certain shouts need to have their cast times adjusted, but instant cast will never happen.

I am ok with shouts having cast times. It adds more play around it and makes them different and you can also make them stronger in effects to compensate for cast times.
That said current shouts are not quite there yet. “You are all weaklings” is good and the boon strip shout (“prepare to die” or whatever it is called) is decent but elite has either too long cast time or cd (imo) and heal and the other 2 utility shouts aren’t really good options.

Reaper seems to have 40% stab uptime if it works like it looks. DS 3 grants 3?! stacks of stability every 3 seconds for 8 seconds and i am pretty certain they said that you keep the effect when leaving. Also DS 2 makes mobility similar to shoutbow – which is not bad.
So all in all i think it is ok design wise and the kit (reaper shroud) can make shouts with cast time work, but some of the shouts could need a bit more oomph.

Cast times are okay, but anything more than 1 second is too much.

OlliX.1705:

Cast times are okay, but anything more than 1 second is too much.

I think 3/4-1s is fair for all of our shouts. That is more than enough time to notice and do something.

Bhawb.7408:

While they are all shouts, ours have very strong direct effect on the enemy, making them instant cast would be blatantly OP.

Now I’d certainly agree that certain shouts need to have their cast times adjusted, but instant cast will never happen.

Disagree. They are not strong -they are mediocre imo, some even plain bad.

Would take the Guardian shouts in a heartbeat over these.

Avigrus.2871:

Bhawb.7408:

While they are all shouts, ours have very strong direct effect on the enemy, making them instant cast would be blatantly OP.

Now I’d certainly agree that certain shouts need to have their cast times adjusted, but instant cast will never happen.

Disagree. They are not strong -they are mediocre imo, some even plain bad.

Would take the Guardian shouts in a heartbeat over these.

I have to agree with Bawb here. The only questionable shout is “Rise!” and I agree with everyone (including RG) that the Horrors are pretty weak for this shout with a 40 sec CD. BUT before you say they are mediocre, you have to realize the shouts have to balanced around their maximum effect while also being decent on their own terms. ‘Augury of Death’ maxes at 35% reduction to CDs on shouts (with 5 targets) O.O That can be incredibly powerful when you include the fact that 5 of the 6 shouts also have MUCH stronger effects with max targets.

Traited with 5 targets:
20% LF (!!!!) every 12 secs plus healing and damage.
Convert 2 boons PLUS 9 secs of Unlockable (!!!) every 24 secs.
3 sec Chill and transfer up to 5 condis (1 per enemy hit) every 28 secs.
100% Weakness uptime (super powerful but neglected defensive condi) O.O
12 sec Chill, 10 sec Resistance, and 2 sec Stun every 75 seconds.

Now add Rune of the Trooper (remove condi from allies on shout; or even without it) and you’re looking at some VERY strong possibilities. For all of these to be instacast (600 range could be made 900 instead?), they would definitely be overpowered.

Tman.6349:

I have to agree with Bawb here. The only questionable shout is “Rise!” and I agree with everyone (including RG) that the Horrors are pretty weak for this shout with a 40 sec CD. BUT before you say they are mediocre, you have to realize the shouts have to balanced around their maximum effect while also being decent on their own terms. ‘Augury of Death’ maxes at 35% reduction to CDs on shouts (with 5 targets) O.O That can be incredibly powerful when you include the fact that 5 of the 6 shouts also have MUCH stronger effects with max targets.

Traited with 5 targets:
20% LF (!!!!) every 12 secs plus healing and damage.
Convert 2 boons PLUS 9 secs of Unlockable (!!!) every 24 secs.
3 sec Chill and transfer up to 5 condis (1 per enemy hit) every 28 secs.
100% Weakness uptime (super powerful but neglected defensive condi) O.O
12 sec Chill, 10 sec Resistance, and 2 sec Stun every 75 seconds.

Now add Rune of the Trooper (remove condi from allies on shout; or even without it) and you’re looking at some VERY strong possibilities. For all of these to be instacast (600 range could be made 900 instead?), they would definitely be overpowered.

See, the catch is, this is in optimal situations. Personally I’d like to see diminishing returns on the shouts. I understand that they’re designed for multiple targets, but diminishing returns allows for 2-3 targets being good while preventing 5 targets from being OP. I also think the current cast times are a bit high for some of the shouts.

The Wizland.8435:

Tman.6349:

I have to agree with Bawb here. The only questionable shout is “Rise!” and I agree with everyone (including RG) that the Horrors are pretty weak for this shout with a 40 sec CD. BUT before you say they are mediocre, you have to realize the shouts have to balanced around their maximum effect while also being decent on their own terms. ‘Augury of Death’ maxes at 35% reduction to CDs on shouts (with 5 targets) O.O That can be incredibly powerful when you include the fact that 5 of the 6 shouts also have MUCH stronger effects with max targets.

Traited with 5 targets:
20% LF (!!!!) every 12 secs plus healing and damage.
Convert 2 boons PLUS 9 secs of Unlockable (!!!) every 24 secs.
3 sec Chill and transfer up to 5 condis (1 per enemy hit) every 28 secs.
100% Weakness uptime (super powerful but neglected defensive condi) O.O
12 sec Chill, 10 sec Resistance, and 2 sec Stun every 75 seconds.

Now add Rune of the Trooper (remove condi from allies on shout; or even without it) and you’re looking at some VERY strong possibilities. For all of these to be instacast (600 range could be made 900 instead?), they would definitely be overpowered.

See, the catch is, this is in optimal situations. Personally I’d like to see diminishing returns on the shouts. I understand that they’re designed for multiple targets, but diminishing returns allows for 2-3 targets being good while preventing 5 targets from being OP. I also think the current cast times are a bit high for some of the shouts.

I understand and agree with that but my post/response was concerning Bawb saying ‘all the shouts being instacast would be OP’ vs ‘all the shouts are mediocre at best’, which I attempted to demonstrate is entirely wrong. Also, the numbers are not concrete AND we were teased with the idea that some changes to base Necro could be looking at a revamp as well. The main change, if any, that I’d like to see is the shouts having their range increased to 900, at least. It is no secret that Necro is incredibly weak vs ranged DPs in teamfights (this is the SOLE reason I run offhand dagger). But pretending the shouts are useless, in any situation, just seems completely wrong from what I understand about some of the revamps to Necros’ synergy among trait lines (this has always been a crippling mess).

Well I’m not the one setting myself up to be disappointed so I got nothing to lose :S. The only shout worthy of praise atm is you are all weaklings, not because the shout is strong but because its the shortest cooldown stunbreaker, the 4s might still feels like an insult while the weakness is decent.

Funfact did you know that the only might <5 secs in duration comes from autoattacks? Did you know that might below 8secs comes from traits/skills that either have no cooldown or 1 sec internal cooldown?

So Anet are still tweaking the numbers on these Shouts….

Cast times are a given so how about some Useful feedback on the numbers that the Devs might actually read?

my suggestions below

Shouts

As for adding something to “Rise!”, what about adding ‘heal all existing minions for [X health]" or “all minions steal some health on there next 3(?) attacks” or something like this that synergizes with the protection trait for some (skillfull/timed) minion sustain (say…vs cleave aoe which wrecks them). With the CD and Horrors being so weak, I don’t think this seems too op but adds a good bit of skillful play to the shout. Do I pop it to sustain my current minions and save my ‘Novas’ to set up a good burst or do I go ahead and let the current minions pop and then use it for longer uptime on poison fields and to stagger damage and/or to maintain a bit of leech/boon remove/condi transfer/etkittenil my other minions come off CD. I know this may not be perfect, but you get the idea with adding a bit of flavor and decision to using the skill.

Yeah. Looks like were on the same page mostly. What about, for “You are all Weaklings!”, instead of adding a bunch of short stacks of Might for each for struck, it instead caps the Might stacks at maybe 5-8(?) With a base of 10 secs (?) And adds 1-2extra second(s) per foe struck. As a stun break and with the weakness, this would make it useful in 1v1s AND team fights and would let the skill be a sort of way to turn the tables on your enemy (in the spirit of their inspiration for Reaper.) This change would also give it MUCH better use in power AND condi builds alike. Right now, it seems like it’s designed to break a stun and then spam as many heavy damage CDs as fast as possible (and how great is four ‘big’ ticks of bleed damage if you’re in a position to maximize the might stacks anyway? :/) This one is on the right track I think but just needs a bit more thought put into it tbh.

Definitely Like your idea for a minion heal…or even a minion Endure pain?

the other idea I heard that was kinda cool was the minions auto detonate as per the Bone minion active skill after a short duration or when they die….might be over kill,,,but it sounds great

Why do people still keep saying we don’t have stability? Reaper is the only class so far that gets stability from the profession mechanic, with no reliance to traits or utility skills.