Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: My Reaper is a charr. Some races, Humanoid Female for example, don’t have such animation problems.

Overall impression: I like it. #5 is nice but unreliable.

The auto attack chain is painfully slow and feels weak in terms of damage, but my main complaint is that it’s the first two steps of warrior/guardian GS with Ranger GS 2 tacked on. The animation change is jarring. The last attack is so slow that it totally deserves a unique animation where the sword is brought from your left to the overhead position.

Second, #3 is nice but the animation feels weak due to suddenly shifting to one hand. Deserves a unique two-handed thrust, I feel.

Third, #2 is of course great, even if I’m not a super fan of the best attack chain at 50% and down is just 2222222. Plus, it’s clunky to have to press it again and again, especially if you’re not sure it’ll trigger (for example, too many enemies so you don’t know if the sub-halfs get hit). And the animation is clunky, with the start and stop. I’d much rather that, instead of having no cooldown, the attack would continue as long as you keep the key pressed and keep hitting sub-half targets. This’d even work with the animation, as you’d just keep floating and spinning, (due to the precast and balancing) striking on every second swing.

I can agree with Gravedigger continuing to queue up as long as you hold down 2 and get refreshes. 5 should also clearly be ground-targeted. 3 also feels unrewarding to me; I know it’s really for the lifeforce and vulnerability, but the animation seems piddly and the damage is worse than an autoattack.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I can agree with Gravedigger continuing to queue up as long as you hold down 2 and get refreshes. 5 should also clearly be ground-targeted. 3 also feels unrewarding to me; I know it’s really for the lifeforce and vulnerability, but the animation seems piddly and the damage is worse than an autoattack.

It’s a utility (in role, not on bar) skill. If every skill does more dmg than AA and has low cd then there’s no reason to use AA.

You use it when you need LF for survival, shroud w/e or to provide yourself with more crit due to trait (vuln=+2%) or to debuff boss so everyone else hits him harder.

Same is with Revenant. I don’t use Sword 3 vs more than 1 target because it’s a DPS loss then but it’s good vs single target, for might and for long evade it provides (defensively).

Not every skill has to do more dmg than AA.

Killyox.3950:

It’s a utility (in role, not on bar) skill. If every skill does more dmg than AA and has low cd then there’s no reason to use AA.

I know. I just wish the animation at least felt better. With any other particle effects flying around at all, it just looks like you wiggle your sword around a little bit. My issue with it is just the feel, not the actual effect.

I think 3 is fine as is, too many flashy animations is bad, and the skill, while fine, doesn’t warrant a flashy animation. It applies vuln/gains LF, not something big like a massive hit, big field, or pull.

yeah, i agree with Bhawb. it’s a skill you can spam on CD almost just for vuln upkeep and LF. No fanfair is necessary.

Bhawb.7408:

I think 3 is fine as is, too many flashy animations is bad, and the skill, while fine, doesn’t warrant a flashy animation. It applies vuln/gains LF, not something big like a massive hit, big field, or pull.

Tempest is the FABULOUS class, not necro. Tempest must waltz into battle and say "look at my skills, LOOK!!

Lilly Satou.1482:

Bhawb.7408:

I think 3 is fine as is, too many flashy animations is bad, and the skill, while fine, doesn’t warrant a flashy animation. It applies vuln/gains LF, not something big like a massive hit, big field, or pull.

Tempest is the FABULOUS class, not necro. Tempest must waltz into battle and say "look at my skills, LOOK!!

Because looking fancy is all the poor Tempest has going for them.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Because looking fancy is all the poor Tempest has going for them.

You mean except for one shotting people by pairing a multi-tick unblockable pull with Air Overload?

Bhawb.7408:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Because looking fancy is all the poor Tempest has going for them.

You mean except for one shotting people by pairing a multi-tick unblockable pull with Air Overload?

That’s only remotely possible if you run full damage on Ele, which is suicidal for a spec that involves much slower rotations and frequent 4-second channels. And even then, you’re only going to be able to take out other glass builds if they’re silly enough not to have a stunbreaker.

Base Ele is still really strong, but the Tempest has been a huge disappointment for me.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Base Ele is still really strong, but the Tempest has been a huge disappointment for me.

I don’t envy the designers in trying to add balanced specs to Ele, Guardian, or Warrior.

Gs still needs shorter activation times on auto attack and gravedigger. Right now the weapon is not only utterly useless in pvp but also unfun in pve because you have to cancel your attack skills too frequently in order to dodge (while also offering only mediocre dps vs targets above 50%). I’d rather camp dagger and spam 1 than use gs 1 or 2. Or use reapers shroud 1 or don’t use reaper at all or just play another class.
Right now, the only use it has for me is number 3+4 before I swap to dagger. After yesterday’s Blighter’s Boon nerf I am not even sure if it is worth running reaper at all. Might as well stick to normal necromancer, as reaper dps doesn’t appear to be better and it offers absolutely nothing special besides gs4.
The only thing that is somewhat fun is sinister/viper condition reaper vs high armor targets. In pve that is, as condition reaper is trash in pvp. Perhaps working expertise stats in pvp can fix that idk but right now it is nothing but a downgrade.
Pretty disappointing that reaper is a big letdown after necromancer has not been viable in pvp for quite a while and has been bottom tier in pve for more than 3 years. I guess necromancer will just stay at the bottom forever, because ‘reasons’.

I know anet has this vision of the reaper as a slow but scary monster but unfortunately you cannot use slow and scary in the same phrase when everyone either removes more of your health than you remove of his/hers (pve) or has more than enough evades to avoid all of your slow attacks and enough mobility to kite your forever (pvp). You don’t look like a scary horror, you look like a helpless clown.

Cancelling attacks to dodge was one of my main concerns but after playing Reaper for quite a few hours, I don’t even I ever had this problem in either fractals, open world or dungeon. Sometimes you just have to take a hit.

Also the damage above 50% is not mediocre, I think we math’d out before that GS does roughly the same amount of damage as Dagger pre-50% as well. The issue GS has is mainly in PvP which I doubt it can be solved due to its nature, but is working fine in PvE.

Why would I take hits when I can camp dagger and deal comparable dps while not having to face tank. And dagger dps is mediocre compared to other classes. Warrior, thief, ele, engineer, and revenant probably too (?) have substantially more dps than necromancer while also offering more party support.

Because taking the greatsword allow you to pick up something that is not dagger as your melee option. I tried the vale guardian raid during the beta and god knows how many times I wished I had a ranged option instead of going D/WH+GS as I did.

GS is mandatory on Reaper because of gravedigger spam, dagger is not. Taking hits is not an issue either since Reaper shroud has the highest dps auto with dhuumfire and Reaper’s onslaught for necro.(I think was it was sigmond that math’d that part, so bug him about that.)

As for dagger dps being substantially outclasses, I believe right now only sin engies is the outlier. Staff ele shines when the mob is large due to staff 5, staff thief might do more damage more with the recent buffs but they are squishy. So really, is not an issue. Reaper still share the same issue with base necromancer which is debuff being weaker than boons and lack of group support.

Also I just saw your comment on condi reaper but I am pretty sure condi reaper is actually the more preferred build in PvP right now. I haven’t tried it personally but watching couple streamers playing it, it seems pretty decent.

Wait actually I just saw your comment on necro not being viable in PvP for quite a while. You do realize cele sig necro has been one of THE top build in pvp for quite a while now right. Hell necro as a class single handly hard counters almost every single condi build in existance. They are also part of the backline in the pirateship meta in wubwub. So no, I don’t think you are correct on that part.

I think not seeing play for more than 2 years is considered quite a while whereas seeing play for a couple of months is not. Apart from that cele nec is none of the top builds in pvp in EU. In fact the only class that sees (or saw as idk what the current meta looks like) less tournament play in eu is ranger.
Anyways I’ll start in believing that reaper is good once/if it sees play in speed runs (pve) or tournament play (pvp).

GS will get used in Speed runs Most likely.

GS will never be used in Tournament Play (pvp)..

we can all agree GS is pretty bad PvP wise just cause its too predictable due to how slow the weapon really is. the only way GS will get Viablity in the PvP World is if they Speed up the auto attacks so we can get the 3rd Strike off more reliably.

Its possible without destroying the theme, im unsure how much of a difference it’d make taking that little off each swing, i suspose it could be placed Between the GS and hammer Attack speed wise on the AA.. or they could put the Chill on its first swing, this could prove slightly OP though xD.

I guess we’ll have t osee if Anet intend to make it at all good for PvP or have the GS as a PvE weapon.

Just fyi, you can set your auto-chain to Gravedigger and as long as you hit a target below 50% + GD isn’t on CD, it keeps chaining itself.