Guild Wars 2

I admit, I was really mad about the lack of condi build love, and missing group support…

…but now, I see reaper as being a rather decent tank. The (coming soon) vamp aura should be enough to get us into groups. I’ve worked out condi builds that I like. All-in-all I’m starting to see necro as being in a good place.

A lot of people are thinking it’s too good, but looking at what guards get with the massive burn stacking in multiple builds (my hammer guard is going to melt-faces), and the shatter mesmers that instantly respawn both a clone and a phantasm after using shatter (good god!)… I don’t see necro needing any nerfs.

So I’m feeling content, I think it’s looking good.

…the shouts are worthless, but the old utilities are looking more useful than ever, so I’m ok with that.

Now I’m just waiting for the release…. that and the druid reveal… I don’t care what druid does it’s gonna be awesome.

Generally speaking I am pretty excited for Reaper, I think they really hit it out of the park design wise in almost every way. I’m still waiting for the final balance notes, but I’m hopeful that with all the feedback they’ve gotten that our specializations and new stuff should be amazing. First time I’ve been fairly excited about Necromancer in a while, especially due to the minion trait changes.

At this point the only thing that slows the hype train is any time I look at our old weapon skills, and a few utilities. It is just really sad to compare them to other professions, and find them in a direct comparison to be weaker in every way.

I am still loving it, and I think the ability to make an RS condition build is definatly there. I wanna do power though because I already have a condition build for the core necro and don’t really play power that much except when i have to for PvE.

There are 2 things though, one for worry, one for disappointment. I’m worried they may try and nerf the reaper before launch because, in theory and perfect scenarios, we would be very very powerful. This is the problem plaguing necromancers now with DS, life siphons, and a lot of other traits that are only good if the optimal scenarios are achieved. I think they got the message, but you never know what’s going through another person’s head.

The second is looking at reaper, and seeing what we have to play with right now. I just look at base necro and then look at the reaper, and it’s kind of like, “This is what we SHOULD have been all this time, this is what we were SUPPOSED to be. Avatars of death, not necessarily mobile, but able to take hits and grow stronger off of the life energies of our opponents.” i mean, yeah deathshroud in theory is very strong, a second health bar? YES PLEASE! But because we could never recharge our primary health bar with other people’s heals, or even our own life siphons, it became nothing but an anchor to stop us from getting the support we needed. I’m fine with being selfish, I’m fine with being the number 1 target on the enemy team in a fight. But give me the resources and abilities necessary to survive that focus IF I PLAY RIGHT!

Reaper looks to at the very least, lessen these problems, but we won’t know until the actual thing is launched.

It all depends on what they actually listen to from feed back and implement from the feed back. The biggest issues with the reaper, for me at least, are the lack of active defenses and lack of group utility. These two things are key to evening out imbalances that stop necros from equal participation in different game modes. Being locked out of all my utilities while in DS/RS is a huge party foul in my opinion…and apparently in the opinion of a lot of other players. Is it so much to expect something as basic as a projectile reflect on a utility that is begging for it as much as spectral wall is? Party play is cooperative, you depend on group mates to help each other…why would you want someone who can’t contribute to that cooperation? I’d take someone who can help me survive a one-shot or increase group damage output any day versus someone who can’t do either of those things. I’d take someone who can use their entire roster of skills…including party supporting utilities…over someone who can only use half their skill bar at a time. Don’t get me wrong, I love the reaper changes, I’m looking forward to revamps for the core necromancer traits, but I think my final opinion on the necro/reaper will depend on them making this a fully functional profession…versus holding onto theme/flavor restrictions.

As the Op said yea the traits & reworks are great.

Just wish the shouts felt like they were worth using

Really they should reduce the cast times to .75 second. Then change the shout trait to a flat 30% CD reduction (Cd reduction per enemy sucks outside of PvE )& tack on “Consume a condition to heal yourself whenever you shout”

After that shouts, or at least some of them would be nice.

Although the Reaper doesn’t fix all our problems, I’m pretty excited for it. It’s finally going in a good direction vs where the class was before, fixing a great many problems we suffered. Though as I always say, I never get my hopes too high.

Mainly being a hardcore power necro since release, I’m all over this theme. And as much as DS gives us problems, It’s one of the core reasons I picked this class so long ago. The shouts could use a little work though, cause… twenty bucks says they’ll be mostly useless.

I’m loving the Reaper. I feel it has a lot of potential for multiple builds. I do feel however that the Reaper spec is going to over-shadow the Necromancer core profession.

On a side note, I find Anet’s method very very funny. So many PvE players begging for the Necro to bring more support to a group, Anet responds by giving them the only shouts in the game that have 0 group support. I mean, I understand they didn’t design the Reaper to provide support in any way which is fine by me, just find it funny they did that.

1. The base class still needs fixing.

2. I have no faith that the promised blood magic revamp amounts to anything other than “change traits like life transfer into something that makes sense for reaper shroud.”

3. Any class with a ranged weapon will wreck the reaper, who needs to get into melee to generate life force. Life force generation vs a kiting opponent will be difficult, especially when using the slow greatsword.

4. We’re still stuck taking 2 stun breaks, so the new shouts don’t matter. Utility skills that you can’t use don’t count.

5. The greatsword doesn’t have the tools that a Pvp weapon needs to be competitive. For example, dagger, which at least has an immobilize, hasn’t seen any play in any competitive tournament and Greatsword doesn’t even have an immobilize (or stability, or leaps, or other badly needed utility).

6. Reapers look good in PvE, but still no reflects == have to get carried vs lupicus == can’t get a group for hard content. The other issue is that greatsword damage has to be much better than dagger damage to see use, seeing as how neither weapon has utility. One of the 2 weapons is redundant.

7. Thieves are almost completely immune to chill. Their 1-5 skills are immune, their heal clears chill. Revenants, which rely on an energy bar instead of cool downs for the most part, are also mostly immune to chill.

8. The whole design of the reaper is to be slow and hard hitting, but the hard hitting isn’t there. Who is going to be afraid of a reaper, if they have Eviscerate or Hundred Blades up? Gravedigger spam, easily avoided, is weaker than dagger auto.

Final numbers will be important. They need to be superior to Fire Elementalist if the class is supposed to have no utility.

9. I see excitement for the damage reduction vs poison trait. Where is the poison coming from? Scepter? Sigil of Doom.

10. Axe needs to get fixed before this expansion hits.

11. Anet needs to play test Reaper against some meta shout bows. Right now the reaper is hard countered by anybody with range and anybody with Condi clear, and, even though stability does exist on the reaper, stun chains will not be much better than the unaccaptable necromancer level.

Reaper won’t solve absolutely everything but it will be a big positive change.

I’m more concerned with what other classes get than ourselves, the changes won’t mean much if everyone else is stronger, too. But I’m excited and looking forward.forward to HoT.

Ezeriel.9574:

I admit, I was really mad about the lack of condi build love, and missing group support…

…but now, I see reaper as being a rather decent tank. The (coming soon) vamp aura should be enough to get us into groups. I’ve worked out condi builds that I like. All-in-all I’m starting to see necro as being in a good place.

A lot of people are thinking it’s too good, but looking at what guards get with the massive burn stacking in multiple builds (my hammer guard is going to melt-faces), and the shatter mesmers that instantly respawn both a clone and a phantasm after using shatter (good god!)… I don’t see necro needing any nerfs.

So I’m feeling content, I think it’s looking good.

…the shouts are worthless, but the old utilities are looking more useful than ever, so I’m ok with that.

Now I’m just waiting for the release…. that and the druid reveal… I don’t care what druid does it’s gonna be awesome.

Not all the shouts look aweful imo.
- Remove 2 boons of each player of the enemy team (Probably stab priority) and insta 10 stack of vuln on everyone within reach + you become UNBLOCKABLE
- A shout that gives Chill & removes conditions from yourself (with a huge cast time on it tho, but that one might become instacast because of reasons)
- 12sec Chill + 2 sec stun on every target within reach → Nice

The condition transfer shout looks really weak.

You Are All Weaklings, on the other hand, looks good and it will be our shortest cooldown stunbreak skill. Yeah, short Might duration, but good AoE weakness and on a short cooldown.

People are really underestimating how much can be done with 4 seconds when you have multiple abilities that deal backstab level of damage in an AoE.

Bhawb.7408:

People are really underestimating how much can be done with 4 seconds when you have multiple abilities that deal backstab level of damage in an AoE.

I think that shout looks really good except for the cast time. I would probably take it over well of corruption.

Math wise grave digger is on single targets grave digger is stronger once one target in its reach is below 50%. For every 2 dagger auto chains, 5.6 damage coeff applied, you would cast 3 grave diggers, 6.0 damage coeff applied, and be mid cast for the 4th. At max potential for max targets thats 11.2 applied coeff vs 30 applied coeff. Its Several times stronger in fact.

Everything on the Reaper looked good except shouts, which need a few changes imo. Gs brings a lot to the table besides damage, chill, aoe blind+cripple, 12 vuln stacks, and a pull are all great things. There seems to be ample variety in its usage as well. Also, Reaper shroud gives stab, so you should be able to run with only 1 stunbreak, which is huge for necros.

People keep saying GS will be really bad in pvp because it can be outranged, but reaper will be on point most of the time. If someone is off point I’ll just LOS like I do now. Only really becomes a problem on foefire with rangers. They also say it’s too slow and will be susceptible to blind spam, but the weapon has a multihit skill, and an aoe pulsing blind cripple field. That pretty much directly counters blind spam.

I’m not too worried about the reaper in general, I am far more curious to see what they do with the other traitlines. If they really work on blood magic (upwards of 5-6 trait rethinks), and fix up curses, spite, and death magic just a little bit, as in 2-3 trait changes, necros will be in a good spot traitwise. I’m also curious to see if they will change weapon and utility skills at all because that could be huge.

I would say the only real bad shouts are suffer and rise. The others have actual decent use.

All of the shouts except Rise! are really strong and useful if they balance them better. But the core effects are okay, just need some changes.

The Reaper gives me some nostalgia of the Dervish from GW1. Even infusing armor has a flash enchantment like effect. As long as it turns out to be a viable melee for necro, I’m happy.

If health stolen by Vampiric Aura is good enough, it could be a nice DPS boost for a party of 5. I also want Rise! to be worth taking, even in non MM builds.

Based on the livestream(which i know isn’t final) the damage numbers are waaay too low. Greatsword is slower than dagger and still seems to deal less damage? If they want us to be slow and hit hard then we really need to hit hard…. So when the final numbers come out then i’ll know forsure how i feel about it. Same feeling for the blood magic changes. I’m skeptical atm based on how necro has fared this far. Aside form wvw necro was only ever wanted once in pvp mode and that changed very quickly with more nerfs even after it was changed.
I still dislike the shouts as from my point of view we have other better utilities than them. I cant think of a good time to swap for any of these shouts unless you know you will consistantly be hitting 5 targets(wvw maybe?), or you want the lowest cooldown stunbreak.
Consume, wurm, walk, corrupt boon, lich, wells for pve>>>shouts atm.

I get the feeling GS is going to be a miss. Slow, easy to avoid, and yet we will still depend on hits to generate lifeforce, which will be even more critical at melee range as its our only class defense? hmmm. not adding up for me.

According to the stream the numbers are a bit “high and we’re probably going to tone them down a bit”. So yea, more nerfs incoming.

OMNIBUS.2913:

Based on the livestream(which i know isn’t final) the damage numbers are waaay too low. Greatsword is slower than dagger and still seems to deal less damage? If they want us to be slow and hit hard then we really need to hit hard…. So when the final numbers come out then i’ll know forsure how i feel about it.

You are comparing the wrong thing to the wrong thing. Reaper shroud auto should be compared to dagger and even then with dhuumfire it should be about even/higher.
Pvp wise GS is better cause of the pull and the execution finisher of grave digger as well as the pseudo well on nightfall. The damage is only low in the video since he is using a settler amulet.

Reaper should be a good tank if there is some small healing through DS and there is enough Protect up-time but I have concerns that there is little need for that role.

PvE bosses can be kited more easily than tanked and Necromancer’s tanking skill set is still not complete.
PvP groups are too small to need a dedicated tank.
WvW battles are too focused on mobility and cleanses for tanks to be truly effective.

I have a feeling the common counters to Necromancer / Reaper will be kiting/mobility and CC/spike damage the same as it is today.

Anchoku.8142:

Reaper should be a good tank if there is some small healing through DS and there is enough Protect up-time but I have concerns that there is little need for that role.

PvE bosses can be kited more easily than tanked and Necromancer’s tanking skill set is still not complete.
PvP groups are too small to need a dedicated tank.
WvW battles are too focused on mobility and cleanses for tanks to be truly effective.

No idea why you are pigeon holing reaper to be a tank…

Sigmoid.7082:

No idea why you are pigeon holing reaper to be a tank…

Describe for me, please, what tactical functions / roles Reaper and Necromancer is good at compared to other professions and what tactical functions it is below average at.

I’ll stay on my position.

I have no complaint about the Reaper specialization traitline and the knight shroud.
The greatsword and shouts design do not satisfy my taste which mean I will probably barely ever use them (but that’s my own taste).
I still wait to see what they will do to core traitline since it is here that remain the main issue of the necromancer. Until they do something meaningfull that bring the core necromancer to be on par with other core profession, i’ll continue to complain

Core Necromancer need to be solid, everybody should keep in mind that Reaper is just an extra traitline that won’t become a core traitline. Every other Elite specializations (in the futur) will have to work with the state of the core profession without the Reaper.

Sigmoid.7082:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Based on the livestream(which i know isn’t final) the damage numbers are waaay too low. Greatsword is slower than dagger and still seems to deal less damage? If they want us to be slow and hit hard then we really need to hit hard…. So when the final numbers come out then i’ll know forsure how i feel about it.

You are comparing the wrong thing to the wrong thing. Reaper shroud auto should be compared to dagger and even then with dhuumfire it should be about even/higher.
Pvp wise GS is better cause of the pull and the execution finisher of grave digger as well as the pseudo well on nightfall. The damage is only low in the video since he is using a settler amulet.

Reapers shroud looks like it might have potential but greatsword didn’t impress. Also I’m gunna compare reaper shroud to death shroud and greatsword to the other weapons as well. We haven’t really seen greatsword in pvp yet. So I can’t say it’s better than dagger, have you?… I think our offhands are pretty kitten useful, war horn and dagger moreso. I just see greatsword being blinded, blocked , interrupted, shadow step and stability being used to counter it. But if it’s gunna truly hit hard maybe that’s enough to make it threatening anyway.

The reaper dimply does its damage via Reaper Shroud. Most of the builds right now are focused on using GS/Staff or GS/Dagger+Focus or GS/Axe + Focus to generate life force and be able to deal with ranged targets better from the ranged potential, life force regen, and control effects.

I think the build that only will really have relative ease against the reaper is S/x thief due to the immobilization, IR’s teleport + cleansing/evades/boon steal pulling the stability from the Reaper. Otherwise I see the reaper being able to confront most classes and do well given the life force.

I’m glad the shouts aren’t just blatantly superior to the rest of the utilities; it gives some reason to mix up old ones/unused ones with new mechanics for interesting play, rather than just building full synergy into whatever the specialization focuses on introducing. That would just make everyone the same and builds boring.

OMNIBUS.2913:

Sigmoid.7082:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Based on the livestream(which i know isn’t final) the damage numbers are waaay too low. Greatsword is slower than dagger and still seems to deal less damage? If they want us to be slow and hit hard then we really need to hit hard…. So when the final numbers come out then i’ll know forsure how i feel about it.

You are comparing the wrong thing to the wrong thing. Reaper shroud auto should be compared to dagger and even then with dhuumfire it should be about even/higher.
Pvp wise GS is better cause of the pull and the execution finisher of grave digger as well as the pseudo well on nightfall. The damage is only low in the video since he is using a settler amulet.

Reapers shroud looks like it might have potential but greatsword didn’t impress. Also I’m gunna compare reaper shroud to death shroud and greatsword to the other weapons as well. We haven’t really seen greatsword in pvp yet. So I can’t say it’s better than dagger, have you?… I think our offhands are pretty kitten useful, war horn and dagger moreso. I just see greatsword being blinded, blocked , interrupted, shadow step and stability being used to counter it. But if it’s gunna truly hit hard maybe that’s enough to make it threatening anyway.

The reason you do the cross comparison is since dagger matches Rs and DS matched GS functionality wise. Try to compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

It has better tools to actually deal with being in melee and if you know what you are doing with it all the things you mentioned mathematically are not an issue at all given the skills we have been shown.

The thing is gravedigger just flat out needs to do more damage. It might have the ratio of a backstab, but backstab is near impossible to reliably avoid whereas gravedigger is looking easier to dodge than eviscerate. Gravedigger honestly needs to just have a 3.0 ratio. It should feel totally unfair if they get hit by that ridiculous windup multiple times.

Sigmoid.7082:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Sigmoid.7082:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Based on the livestream(which i know isn’t final) the damage numbers are waaay too low. Greatsword is slower than dagger and still seems to deal less damage? If they want us to be slow and hit hard then we really need to hit hard…. So when the final numbers come out then i’ll know forsure how i feel about it.

You are comparing the wrong thing to the wrong thing. Reaper shroud auto should be compared to dagger and even then with dhuumfire it should be about even/higher.
Pvp wise GS is better cause of the pull and the execution finisher of grave digger as well as the pseudo well on nightfall. The damage is only low in the video since he is using a settler amulet.

Reapers shroud looks like it might have potential but greatsword didn’t impress. Also I’m gunna compare reaper shroud to death shroud and greatsword to the other weapons as well. We haven’t really seen greatsword in pvp yet. So I can’t say it’s better than dagger, have you?… I think our offhands are pretty kitten useful, war horn and dagger moreso. I just see greatsword being blinded, blocked , interrupted, shadow step and stability being used to counter it. But if it’s gunna truly hit hard maybe that’s enough to make it threatening anyway.

The reason you do the cross comparison is since dagger matches Rs and DS matched GS functionality wise. Try to compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

It has better tools to actually deal with being in melee and if you know what you are doing with it all the things you mentioned mathematically are not an issue at all given the skills we have been shown.

You could say the same thing about dagger comparison to reapers shroud tbh. dagger doesn’t have a leap but instead an immobalize and reaper’s shroud requires life force to use and even has a stab skill. With offhands and traits the funtionality differs even more. If you don’t think anything i mentioned could be a potential issue that is your opinion. What exact mathemetics are you speaking of?

Also being already in melee is not the problem i’m bringing up. It’s the potential kiting, interrupts and blinds. And the combo of reapers shroud + greatsword and losing regular ds that has a ranged option. All of this can change anyway and until we see it in action we cant really know 4sure. I’m still gunna express how i see it so far. Not stating any of this as fact until i see the end result, which you seem to be doing regardless.

If you want to play a powerful class the time to reroll was 2 years ago.

Basically the expectation for necros is a low bar. If it exceeds this bar it will be nerfed immediately. As in if it is picked in optimal pvp, wvw groups and pve groups then it will be nerfed.

It is ok for warrior (for example) to be in all these examples. They have the expectation they will always wreck face, and they have a huge lobby group (like thieves) because they want to hang on to thier easy mode.

This necro forum is an example of my point. We see a change and many of us are like “that sounds a little too strong”, or we make a suggestion which is inherently balanced. This isn’t good enough. You need something like healing signet to compete. Something with zero counter play that is totally unfair. Or like thief in pvp. You need constant ports, spammable ranged interrupts and perma stealth. You need uninterruptable heals with evades.

The fact is to compete in this game things have evolved to the point where you NEED broken stuff. Most necros are self hating I think. We are used to being trash and so is everyone else used to us being trash. so things wont change, as soon as we get good we will get nerfed instantly

Lets put it this way, the main use for great sword will be front line WvW due to all its aoe/cleave.

Anything else you are probably better off with dagger + your choice.