Guild Wars 2

To be exact, entering in shroud remove movement impairing condition and grant swiftness with SoS. That is to say that the condition removal and swiftness application is once every 10 seconds granted that you flashed shroud. If a necromancer happen to corrupt your swiftness just after you enter shroud, you’ll just be plague by the cripple effect right away and that’s probably what Deceiver point out.

There is also a cap on movement speed which happen to be 25% allowing characters with passive 25% to run as fast as characters under swiftness if they are not in combat or under the effect of movement impairing conditions. This is why mesmers and guardian drool over having passive 25% speed since they have none on their core profession.

As for dagger, it’s an interesting tool. Melee is not nearly as kittenome think, providing reliably tons of LF and doing as much damage as greatsword on foes above 50% health. Dagger #2 certainly feel unsatisfying whatever change they try on it, owever, dagger #3 can be an insanely good tool when it come to pin done someone in one place (it’s only bad point is the cast time which tend to kill the purpose of the skill).

Personnally, my ain issue with speed of shadow is that the cleanse effect seem to step onto the toes of relentless pursuit. It just feel like one trait effect had been created because the other trait was to weak for use and they are to lazy to change this trait now that scourge is coming.

Dadnir.5038:

There is also a cap on movement speed which happen to be 25% allowing characters with passive 25% to run as fast as characters under swiftness if they are not in combat or under the effect of movement impairing conditions. This is why mesmers and guardian drool over having passive 25% speed since they have none on their core profession.

The cap is 33% (which is why out of combat causes superspeed to be as fast as swiftness). The reason guardians drool over the 25% is because you never need to activate it like swiftness. It’s just one signet (or trait) that allows perma +25% movement speed is a nice, but lazy, convenience.

To be truthfull, necro is kittened outside shroud for escape and stability.Once you are out of shroud you are as good as dead when a thief or warrior burst you down instantly.I can’t wait till scourge comes out.I am hoping that it will fix this problem because boy is it frustrating to be instantly killed and camped by others due to how vulnerable they are.

The new Speed of Shadows isn’t “bad” at all. The clean of any immob or cripple on entering shroud is actually amazing, the speed is there as an added bonus, yeah. The trait itself has a decent use, they also can add 2 seconds of superspeed or quickness if it is too weak, it still fits the thematic they want the trait to fill, only more potent.

The problem is, the reduced shroud cooldown is what made A) certain traits 30% better, B ) allowed for a quicker gameplay, before you could flash out of shroud to use a key skill, you had to make a decision: am i able to survive 7 seconds before i can enter again, do i have the cooldowns? Now you just don’t have that choice.

They just need to add this functionality, in a different spot.

• Maybe tie this effect to foot in the grave to make it more popular, you get a more reliable stunbreak with better trait synergies.

• Or merge master of terror with “Terror” in curses, and create a new master tier trait for soulreaping with that functionality and an added bonus.

• That way you have the decision at the master tier: Do i want better lifeforce generation, lower cooldowns in shroud, or lower shroud cooldown +X.

• An idea for such a master trait would be: Decreases shroud cooldowns by 30%, while being in shroud your non shroud skills recharge 33% faster, so that we basicly get perma alacrity on all that weapon and utility skills while we are in shroud.

Brujeria.7536:

The problem is, the reduced shroud cooldown is what made A) certain traits 30% better

I know what you mean but that’s not how you calculate the uptime of on-Shroud effects with 7 vs 10 seconds cooldown.
Also, it implies that you don’t use Shroud at all, which is even more unrealistic than consistently spending only 7 or 10 seconds out of Shroud.

Brujeria.7536:

you had to make a decision: am i able to survive 7 seconds before i can enter again, do i have the cooldowns? Now you just don’t have that choice.

Yes, you do, but it’s 10 sec now.

And again, if we’re talking about PvP or WvW it should’ve been 10 seconds all along. Because if not you were either not using a staff, or you were but you didn’t have Soul Marks. Either way, that’s a worse build than it could’ve been.

flow.6043:

And again, if we’re talking about PvP or WvW it should’ve been 10 seconds all along. Because if not you were either not using a staff, or you were but you didn’t have Soul Marks. Either way, that’s a worse build than it could’ve been.

This.

Also …. if swiftness gets corrupted/removed you are slowed, but also if you dont remove moving imparing effects (old trait) you are still slowed. So i would say new trait is much better to escape/survive focus fire and if you are not focused the removal of cripple/… (random enemy defensive proc on you) and swiftness that doesnt get corrupted (because you are not focused) is also better at trying to kill target. As for reduce shroud cooldown i would say it could mostly benefit some pve/open world build and in pvp once every 10000 necro fights one person survived 3 sec longer cuz he could proc shroud faster again. You do realize the shroud skills also have cd? And also even as power necro you shouldnt stay in shroud all the time and “get back in as soon as possible”.

Just my opinion.

It only applies if you get corrupted or applied a movement-impairing condition before entering shroud and would somehow already have swiftness, which doesn’t make sense unless you’re already taking boons from other people, which kind of defeats the entire point of the argument. If you enter shroud and get corrupted, you’re now at a bigger deficit because a movespeed bonus is not there and you’re crippled for 10s, or any other mixture of boon removal + cripple from any other class which is super easy to have happen. This is especially apparent in situations with more than one attacker.

It’s a buff is the reaper is not already in shroud or uses shroud primarily as a form of damage sponging with intermittent attacks from shroud. Otherwise it’s a massive nerf on both fronts of the mobility consistency and cooldown time.

Honestly if you’re not being focused as a necromancer your opponents aren’t playing very well or very smart. Power or not.

As for shroud skills having cooldowns, I run and have run Onslaught since HoT and usually accrue 2-4 downs per rotation in group combat scenarios. This was especially the case when I could run NCSY in block-heavy encounters while retaining in-shroud mobility. Even without, something like Charge -> Heal/Cleanse -> GS LF gain combo only takes around that seven second window, in which case Charge can be used again right as you enter for another reset or re-engage while also offering additional damage sponging if really on the defensive. A lot of the seamlessness rotating in and out of shroud is no longer there unless you camp AA out of shroud, and I’m not sure how people argue power necro is any good if not utilizing high shroud uptime and maximizing their burst LF gain when rotating out of shroud.

So you try to argue, if you got instead of speed, like 10s resistance, it would be huge nerf to trait since it will be corrupted to 10s chill and making necros completely unplayable?

DeceiverX.8361:

…, and I’m not sure how people argue power necro is any good if not utilizing high shroud uptime and maximizing their burst LF gain when rotating out of shroud.

Because if you are in shroud too much, you cant do what you are suppose to do, or at least not as efficiently.

Emapudapus.1307:

So you try to argue, if you got instead of speed, like 10s resistance, it would be huge nerf to trait since it will be corrupted to 10s chill and making necros completely unplayable?

DeceiverX.8361:

…, and I’m not sure how people argue power necro is any good if not utilizing high shroud uptime and maximizing their burst LF gain when rotating out of shroud.

Because if you are in shroud too much, you cant do what you are suppose to do, or at least not as efficiently.

Corrupt/Strip boon don’t take so much time, GS corrupt don’t require you to stay out of shroud once casted and you can burst better with Soul Spiral when Whirling in it without wasting a good damaging CC (Executioner’s Scythe) to stack a possible already capped vulnerability.

Unholy Feast, “Nothing Can Save You!” and Nightfall have CD, so I don’t see why DeceiverX.8361 should stay out of shroud once it debuff foes if he want to CC them or do his burst while in Reaper’s Shroud. It’s his build, he can run it as he want.

Speed of Shadows were better than this but of course it’ll be OP with Scourge.
Can they maybe add the Shroud’s CD reduction and movement speed to Relentless Pursuit to make it a bit more useful?

Honestly, I’m not even sure if it wouldn’t have been better to have the old speed of shadows with scourge. They could have tied the cool down reduction to the sand shades which would have been usefull and tied the movement speed to affect the scourge while under the effect of desert shroud which wouldn’t have been a bad thing either.

And again, if we’re talking about PvP or WvW it should’ve been 10 seconds all along. Because if not you were either not using a staff, or you were but you didn’t have Soul Marks. Either way, that’s a worse build than it could’ve been.

This is what I used to run in WvW, I can garantee you, I never ever wanted a staff to generate life force and I could hold my own on the front line without any issue. The fact that my cool down on the shroud increased from 7 to 10 second is a huge issue for my build and threaten my survivability on the frontline.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIhdG2JHNQxNYtNg5mA/NYZZwinh5wf40HIAUCouBLhUFA-TVhRwAYU+RV9HA7PgT/gJlgAA-w

Nobody need soul mark in wvw, usually a necromancer gain more than enough life force to drown into it in wvw.

Emapudapus.1307:

So you try to argue, if you got instead of speed, like 10s resistance, it would be huge nerf to trait since it will be corrupted to 10s chill and making necros completely unplayable?

DeceiverX.8361:

…, and I’m not sure how people argue power necro is any good if not utilizing high shroud uptime and maximizing their burst LF gain when rotating out of shroud.

Because if you are in shroud too much, you cant do what you are suppose to do, or at least not as efficiently.

Why are people presuming Shroud builds are Power? It’s simply not the case. Does nobody play WvW at all here?

Also, who are you to judge what is or isn’t “too much” or indeed “what you are suppose[sic] to do”?

The problem is not the replacement condition removal and swiftness, these are all very well and situationally good. The trouble is the 3s cooldown on Shroud which was completely removed. That is enormous. It’s a nerf of such gargantuan proportions, I can’t believe they prioritised discussing Vital Persistence over it.

The Reaper with Soul Reaping trait combination was great and gave the Reaper a reasonable chance against other classes in WvW. Sadly, this huge Speed of Shadows nerf really weakens the entire class from top to bottom without any way to work around it.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been watching that cooldown as I desperately try to escape enemies.

This sucks bigtime.

Svarty.8019:

Emapudapus.1307:

Because if you are in shroud too much, you cant do what you are suppose to do, or at least not as efficiently.

Why are people presuming Shroud builds are Power? It’s simply not the case. Does nobody play WvW at all here?

Also, who are you to judge what is or isn’t “too much” or indeed “what you are suppose[sic] to do”?

What he meant to say was: Shroud skills have cooldowns, and in between those cooldowns you shouldn’t camp Shroud but use your other weapon and utility skills as well, regardless of what type of build you’re using.

Svarty.8019:

The trouble is the 3s cooldown on Shroud which was completely removed. That is enormous. It’s a nerf of such gargantuan proportions, I can’t believe they prioritised discussing Vital Persistence over it.

The Reaper with Soul Reaping trait combination was great and gave the Reaper a reasonable chance against other classes in WvW. Sadly, this huge Speed of Shadows nerf really weakens the entire class from top to bottom without any way to work around it.

Ironic.

First you accuse others of presuming there are only power builds and that they don’t play WvW.
But then you state that the change to Speed of Shadows is such a big nerf that the entire class is now trash.

Has it ever occured to you that people have run builds in WvW or PvP that don’t use Speed of Shadows, or Soul Reaping at all for that matter?

Also, for the 10000th time, if you were using Speed of Shadows in any PvP environment before the change you were not using Soul Marks and/or a staff.
That’s your real problem, l2build.

Also, for the 10000th time, if you were using Speed of Shadows in any PvP environment before the change you were not using Soul Marks and/or a staff.
That’s your real problem, l2build.

WvW is a PvP environment and you shouldn’t even have the need for such a trait. You can shout your love for the staff as much as you want it doesn’t change the fact that wvw’s fight are overflowing with life force rendering this trait and the staff unneeded outside of backliner builds.

Frontliners need every second available of shroud and staff help neither for survivability nor for damage at this place. Beside, mark, blocked or not, are not even an hindrance for most of the zergs.

This is not a case of “learn2build” like you like to say, this is a real concern for players that are not addicted to staff and soul mark. I mean… what a great game it is if to know how to build the first things that you got to do is : take a staff and soul mark otherwise you need to learn2build.

It might shock you Flow but that exactly what you’re saying. You’re saying that all necro should use 1 specific weapon and 1 specific trait otherwise they are worthless. Not even giving any place for a spec of originality by assuming (falsely) that your opinion is the best opinion and every single player that say it’s not is wrong.

Let’s just take one of your others sentense and replace just a few words :

Has it ever occured to you that people have run builds in WvW or PvP that don’t use Speed of Shadows, or Soul Reaping at all for that matter?

“Has it ever occured to you that people have run builds in WvW or PvP that don’t use staff and soul mark, or soul reaping for all that matter?”

The 3 seconds cool down mattered for some builds and these builds have been utterly destroyed. You can wield all the staffs and soul maark you want, it doesn’t change the fact that a number of successfull build have gone to oblivion and diversity took a huge blow.

The necromancers grieves for those builds.

Dadnir.5038:

You’re saying that all necro should use 1 specific weapon and 1 specific trait otherwise they are worthless.

I didn’t say worthless, I said worse than it could be.

Also, you misunderstood. I’m just advertising the staff, I don’t care about Soul Marks or Soul Reaping. But when people complain about Speed of Shadows it means they weren’t using Soul Marks and that would be an indication that they don’t use a staff.

Dadnir.5038:

Not even giving any place for a spec of originality by assuming (falsely) that your opinion is the best opinion and every single player that say it’s not is wrong.

Spec of originality? k.

I have argued my position just like everyone else here. And now you think I’m arrogant or stubborn when you couldn’t convince me?

Again, it’s a pity you’re all on NA…

As a vanilla Necro, this is my favorite change that has been made in a long while. Saves me constantly and I’m incredibly happy with it. In WvW, nothing kills me more than random Chills, Cripples or Immobilizes when I’m critically out of position, which subsequently leads to being focused and killed. Happens a whole lot less now and Ancient Seeds Druids are less of a threat as well.

EDIT: Also, anyone who was taking Speed Of Shadows pre-change and was using a staff was an idiot. I’m completely with Flow on this. It’s still very much worth taking. I miss it sometimes when I need to Fear someone, transfer conditions or Poison + Chill just before a heal but I feel it’s worth the trade off with the changes to Speed Of Shadows. Prior to the changes, 3 seconds off Shroud entry was in no way worth it. Now they just need to do something with Unyielding Blast.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Now they just need to do something with Unyielding Blast.

Why they haven’t merged it with Dhuumfire already, I do not know.

flow.6043:

I have argued my position just like everyone else here.

Not really, you just repeatedly stated “everyone not using a staff is bad because I said so”
You never actually tried to justify that ridiculous opinion.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Now they just need to do something with Unyielding Blast.

They did, it’s called Scourge. If you thought scourge already had meme worthy damage with it’ burn stacking, wait till you see those burn ticks with 25 stacks of vuln.

Crinn.7864:

flow.6043:

I have argued my position just like everyone else here.

Not really, you just repeatedly stated “everyone not using a staff is bad because I said so”

I like how you put this in quotes as if that’s something I actually said.
And btw if you had actually read my posts you’d know I’ve already denied that specific accusation several times.

Crinn.7864:

You never actually tried to justify that ridiculous opinion.

Umm… yes, I did. First page.
You really didn’t read my posts, did you?

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

As a vanilla Necro, this is my favorite change that has been made in a long while. Saves me constantly and I’m incredibly happy with it. In WvW, nothing kills me more than random Chills, Cripples or Immobilizes when I’m critically out of position, which subsequently leads to being focused and killed. Happens a whole lot less now and Ancient Seeds Druids are less of a threat as well.

EDIT: Also, anyone who was taking Speed Of Shadows pre-change and was using a staff was an idiot. I’m completely with Flow on this. It’s still very much worth taking. I miss it sometimes when I need to Fear someone, transfer conditions or Poison + Chill just before a heal but I feel it’s worth the trade off with the changes to Speed Of Shadows. Prior to the changes, 3 seconds off Shroud entry was in no way worth it. Now they just need to do something with Unyielding Blast.

Sure, but I don’t think anyone who’s voiced their issues with this trait change has been talking about core necro. I’m rather indifferent because both traits can be decent enough on core depending on build choice and environment/purpose, but power reaper was affected massively by this change in what can only be described as in a very negative way.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, but I don’t think anyone who’s voiced their issues with this trait change has been talking about core necro. I’m rather indifferent because both traits can be decent enough on core depending on build choice and environment/purpose, but power reaper was affected massively by this change in what can only be described as in a very negative way.

Help me understand this, please.

Your original complaint about the change was less defense with a higher Shroud cooldown and that +25% movement speed in Shroud is better than getting swiftness and removing immob/chilled/cripple.
Are you saying that core necros don’t rely on Shroud for defense as much as Reapers? Or that movement speed in Death Shroud is somehow less important? And please don’t say it’s because DS skills have a higher range.

The old shroud trait was used because of cooldown, not the speed(and in wvw build where you are supposed to get resistance and swiftness from other party members. At current form the trait just wont give you anything. Cd reduction was way more valuable than traited mark just because you swim in lf anyways and staff itself just does op dmg with chill trait. Atm for wvw soulreaping is dead line, none of gm’s is that great, and none of other masters has good options to take.

santso.9201:

The old shroud trait was used because of cooldown, not the speed(and in wvw build where you are supposed to get resistance and swiftness from other party members. At current form the trait just wont give you anything. Cd reduction was way more valuable than traited mark just because you swim in lf anyways

Santso nailed it right here. The problem is the cooldown on Shroud itself – there is now no trait to reduce it to 7s – this reduction made the Reaper;

• more fun,
• mobile and
• powerful.

Now that the Reaper is Waiting for Godot, they’re;

• dying a lot more,
• doing less damage and
• having less fun.

The take away is that we all know a nerf like this would never happen to the Thief.

flow.6043:

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, but I don’t think anyone who’s voiced their issues with this trait change has been talking about core necro. I’m rather indifferent because both traits can be decent enough on core depending on build choice and environment/purpose, but power reaper was affected massively by this change in what can only be described as in a very negative way.

Help me understand this, please.

Your original complaint about the change was less defense with a higher Shroud cooldown and that +25% movement speed in Shroud is better than getting swiftness and removing immob/chilled/cripple.
Are you saying that core necros don’t rely on Shroud for defense as much as Reapers? Or that movement speed in Death Shroud is somehow less important? And please don’t say it’s because DS skills have a higher range.

In my very first post in this thread, I started out with

“My aggressive power reaper…”

and continued to talk exclusively about the reaper without much ambiguity.

I never talked about core necro. Core necro had equal use for both traits depending on environment/build/purpose and nowhere did I dispute this nor did anyone bring this up.

It’s also not really relevant because as you said, this trait wasn’t the common pick as it was, and for obvious reasons, largely still isn’t.

Svarty.8019:

The take away is that we all know a nerf like this would never happen to the Thief.

As an ex-thief, were you around between 2013 and 2015? The profession was at one point absolute garbage and against most of the HoT elites, still is.

Necro has flaws that ultimately can be fixed with some QoL. ANet is just bad at designing and balancing their professions.

Hell, they downright deleted my build I’ve been playing since release this last patch, which is why I no longer play/main it.

DeceiverX.8361:

and continued to talk exclusively about the reaper without much ambiguity.

I never talked about core necro. Core necro had equal use for both traits depending on environment/build/purpose and nowhere did I dispute this nor did anyone bring this up.

I know you only brought it up now, that’s why I’m asking. I’m genuinely interested why you think the old version of Speed of Shadows was more useful for reapers than core builds.

Because that constant, non-removable movespeed allows for the melee shroud skills to land much more consistently against foes which may not have been soft-CC’ed at all. The mobility portion of the skill was pretty huge in keeping pressure and not just being kited. It also give big consistency against other necromancers, which as I mentioned, could not corrupt the movespeed, either, which meant Relentless Pursuit could quickly remove any of the short-term cripples/chills otherwise applied to easily catch up.

Power reaper is much more shroud-heavy than core necro. There’s a lot to gain from being in shroud a lot, especially in group environments with Onslaught, and the LF loss if using CV over Decimate Defenses is cut pretty drastically to keep enabling shroud. GS and axe both grant huge LF gains when out of shroud allowing a quick refill to a tankier, stability-driven, quick-attacking and highly-mobile pain-train build with tons of cleave given its large melee AoE radius after engagement. Only a couple of the skills on these kits are particularly potent in comparison as well, meaning you don’t want to be out of shroud for very long if necessary, because quite honestly, there’s little reason to be. This also means the CDR on shroud is a pretty substantive buff to sustain, because unlike core necro, a damage-oriented power reaper lacks one of the two major sustain lines (DM/BM) to keep itself healthy out of shroud.

Further, DCharge is on a six second cooldown, meaning a reaper could previously DCharge disengage -> Heal -> DCharge engage back into a fight while denying projectile damage both on the way out and on the way back. As it is now, such a build will need to wait for several seconds after disengaging to regain shroud.

There are a number of other engage patterns which were effectively removed as well, such as Charge -> Grasp into enemy stunbreak -> CttB/GS1/2 to their second major stunbreak cooldown -> Charge back into their disengage/reset attempt -> (Fear -> Scythe into CC lock or Exit shroud a second time -> swap -> nuke via Axe 2 to also proc CtD at 20% extra damage which would auto-down most thieves running ToTC/Trickery).

Needless to say, the staff is too slow and the range intent of it does not synergize well with a reaper built to play aggressively. SoS prior to its change allow for much more aggressive plays while also giving the reaper just a bit of a boost in its shroud uptime/reduced out-of-shroud time enough to keep going to re-enter when it needed to leave.

Then you have all of the previous arguments made, such as how being forced into taking the signets trait locks you out from being able to swap into match-dependent utilities like NCSY without taking huge hits to mobility and damage from also losing Close to Death.

There were a TON of edge-cases and reasons to use this trait on such a reaper; so many to the point where I would argue it was the biggest contributor in turning unfavorable matchups into possible favorable ones (notably thief and mesmer), and why from the beginning I have been advocating for its use (with a lot of success from people who have tried it and stepped away from staff).

I understand that my thief knowledge contributes immensely in helping me beat them with relative ease on reaper, but the change to SoS has adversely affected the consistency and overall capacity to turn fights when built to play aggressively. Currently it struggles a lot more in these types of encounters as a direct consequence.

If it’s a problem for Scourge and not for base necro, they should just introduce both effects to Reaper. Otherwise they should have just increased Scourge’s cooldowns.

flow.6043:

And please don’t say it’s because DS skills have a higher range.

DeceiverX.8361:

movespeed allows for the melee shroud skills to land much more consistently

Bruh.

DeceiverX.8361:

It also give big consistency against other necromancers, which as I mentioned, could not corrupt the movespeed, either

Yeah… no. A few problems here:

• Necros are the slowest class there is. If there’s one matchup you don’t need movement speed at all, it’s against another necro.

• With all the movement imparing conditions another necro can inflict on you, one corrupted swiftness hardly makes a difference.

• I’ve said this many times already but you seem to ignore it: removing chilled is WAAAAY better in terms of both movement speed and cd management.

DeceiverX.8361:

which meant Relentless Pursuit could quickly remove any of the short-term cripples/chills otherwise applied to easily catch up.

You know what’s even better than this trait? An actual cleanse, like the new version of Speed of Shadows.

On the upside, gz on being the only person in game to actually use Relentless Persuit!

DeceiverX.8361:

This also means the CDR on shroud is a pretty substantive buff to sustain,

We’ve been over this.
Not just I but others have said so as well by now: Consistently reducing your real hp’s exposure to damage by 3 seconds in actual fights is wishful thinking. Also, cleansing chilled will easily make a bigger difference, not just for your Shroud cd but all of your cds.

DeceiverX.8361:

because unlike core necro, a damage-oriented power reaper lacks one of the two major sustain lines (DM/BM) to keep itself healthy out of shroud.

Oh, just one of them?
I thought your damage-oriented reaper was Spite/SR/Reaper? Or is the “aggressive” power reaper a dps upgrade to just “damage-oriented”?

Anyway, Death Magic is not a sustain line, it’s pure garbage.
So that leaves Blood Magic, which btw works through Shroud so not sure if “keep yourself healthy out of Shroud” is the right way to describe it.
And you know, there’s Blighter’s Boon and Augury of Death, but you rather take Persuit and Onslaught.
Please, ask yourself honestly, are the +3 secs Shroud cooldown really the one thing that ruined your sustain, or was it unnecessarily bad to begin with?

Also, core necros can go Spite/Curses/SR and reapers can pick DM or BM. So your entire argument here has nothing to do with core vs reaper.

DeceiverX.8361:

There are a number of other engage patterns which were effectively removed as well…

What you’ve described up there never worked against decent opponents anyway, so no big deal.

DeceiverX.8361:

Needless to say, the staff is too slow and the range intent of it does not synergize well with a reaper built to play aggressively.

Disagree. And also, we clearly have a different understanding of the word “aggressive”.
For you it seems to mean that you can use a PvE build on bad players. But I see it more like, you die because you can’t defend against anything, especially not against me when I use a staff.

DeceiverX.8361:

Then you have all of the previous arguments made, such as how being forced into taking the signets trait locks you out from being able to swap into match-dependent utilities like NCSY without taking huge hits to mobility and damage from also losing Close to Death.

I’ve already addressed this.

You are litterally the only person who would even think about this absurd constellation of traits and utilities just to substitute an old function of a trait that is now better for what you’re trying to achieve anyway.

I really don’t wan’t to feed your delusion about how great those 25% were, but you do realize there are alternatives to that insane signet combo, right? Like Lynx or Traveler runes, for example.

Anyway, your only answers to my question were “Power reaper is much more shroud-heavy…”, which, from a defensive standpoint, it isn’t – and “melee range”, which I asked you not to say. And I could elaborate why, but at this point I doubt it would help you.

I can’t say that about WvW but the fact that the new SoS its a better version of sigil of escape and not something unique anymore its a shame..

And the CD cut were a useful thing with spiteful spirit, not as how much corrupt but when corrupt, kiting, survivability and shroud’s dance melee burst with cc out of shroud > shroud’s burst > shroud’s CC > Axe or GS burst. Its feels like playing a warrior without fast hands.

Without saying that in the situations where you have low hp and high life force you could have more chances to escape from some situations while now you can “run” only while having swiftness.

They have changed SoS (to “nerf” Scourge) to justify the other SoS, but picking a trait for passive locust is ****, and don’t reduce our Shroud’s CD.

I’m sorry flow, but you can’t just claim the movespeed bonus’s importance while in melee range as arbitrary when a substantive portion of the argument hinges on that very purpose. Like that straight up doesn’t make sense. If you’re not fast enough, you’re not landing hits. Period.

Would love to know a breakdown on why any kind of rotation under any circumstance without context would “never have worked against anyone decent.” I gave a simple example to show some shortcomings. You asked for some. You can’t be serious right now by saying nothing would ever work without providing reasoning lol.

Hey guys, apparently the only weapon and only way to have a necromancer ever kill anyone ever regardless of skill level is to just “use staff,” whatever that means.

Aggressive = Going all-in and applying lots of hard-hitting pressure very quickly, and continuing to apply said pressure until the target dies. I don’t run a PvE build; Marauder amulet in sPvP is nothing unusual because out-of-shroud critting still matters and bumps consistency because it doesn’t depend on other factors like stacking 25 vuln to crit GClaws, and in WvW I’m tankier than anyone in Marauder with over 600 more power, and have just as much health as people in Valkyrie, but have 50% more baseline crit chance so I can utilize CV to apply my highest pressure quicker from stacking might while also being able to tank better in shroud for longer from the LF gain.

I’m not the only one running RP, either. Augury is whatever and CoD is crap for power. Again, movespeed. Again, you fail to understand you can be applied immob/cripple/chill while already in shroud, and the new SoS does literally nothing to help you.

And you’re just using irrelevant factoids about the build with miscellaneous and out-of-context quotes like the following:

“from a defensive standpoint, [Power reaper is(n’t) much more shroud-heavy]”

No duh. It uses shroud for both its offensive and defensive capabilities. The point is to be aggressive and not rely on using it to strictly mitigate damage but to get into a fight and create downs quickly, which it does. If you’re just popping shroud to stay alive, there’s no sense in playing reaper whatsoever since core necro will be tankier and capable of dealing more damage outside of shroud in every way.

I run “absurd collection of traits” because the gains are mandatory. Without movespeed necromancer has so many bad matchups. It’s probably why people think the necro/reaper is weak; they aren’t willing to try to invest in what is completely and totally essential mobility and actually experiment in how to make all those hard matchups pretty trivial.

You still have made no mentioning about the cooldown reduction component aside from yet again another dismissal with no basis of argument.

I don’t think you’re capable of elaborating. Honestly you’ve never elaborated on anything since the start of this thread, but have just dismissed peoples’ arguments because they’re bad players for having a different opinion on a build you don’t play that got affected by a trait you don’t use. Most of what you’ve said has been out of context and partial-truths to spin a favorable argument despite not actually getting into any real details.

Unless you want to bring a real discussion, I think I’m done arguing. Even if I transferred to EU to fight you, there’d be no sense in doing it since if trashed you, you’d argue that my point is moot having won so all must be fine, and if I lost, there would be no definitive way to prove my point because the old traits are no longer available for use to demonstrate why I’m right.

DeceiverX.8361:

There are a number of other engage patterns which were effectively removed as well, such as Charge -> Grasp into enemy stunbreak -> CttB/GS1/2 to their second major stunbreak cooldown -> Charge back into their disengage/reset attempt -> (Fear -> Scythe into CC lock or Exit shroud a second time -> swap -> nuke via Axe 2 to also proc CtD at 20% extra damage which would auto-down most thieves running ToTC/Trickery).

DeceiverX.8361:

Would love to know a breakdown on why any kind of rotation under any circumstance without context would “never have worked against anyone decent.”

Okay, I won’t need to make a breakdown, just a simple observation:
Your opponent in this case only reacts to you by burning 2 stunbreaks und then tries to run away which apparently he also fails to do because you charge and stun him again. And then you say thieves get auto-downed by this. Which I’m even more surprised to read since you play thief yourself, because a thief could simply use Shadowstep und circumvent this entire skill rotation from the start.
Not to mention that whoever you’re fighting are doing zero counter pressure.
So yeah, you might as well have described a dps rotation vs a training golem. Absolutely pointless.

DeceiverX.8361:

Hey guys, apparently the only weapon and only way to have a necromancer ever kill anyone ever regardless of skill level is to just “use staff,” whatever that means.

…
[you] have just dismissed peoples’ arguments because they’re bad players for having a different opinion on a build

Really, again…? -_-
This is the fifth and sixth time now.
Maybe you should do some exercises in reading comprehension.

DeceiverX.8361:

I don’t run a PvE build; Marauder amulet in sPvP… and in WvW I’m tankier than anyone in Marauder

Oh ok, so it’s a PvE build with tanky-ish stats, my bad.

DeceiverX.8361:

Again, you fail to understand you can be applied immob/cripple/chill while already in shroud, and the new SoS does literally nothing to help you.

No, I do understand that. But what you fail to understand is that cripple/chill + 25% is slower than cripple/chill + swiftness.
“But swiftness can be removed…” Yeah, sometimes that happens, but most of the time it doesn’t AND you get a cleanse. So the new version of the trait is better.

DeceiverX.8361:

And you’re just using irrelevant factoids about the build with miscellaneous and out-of-context quotes like the following:

“from a defensive standpoint, [Power reaper is(n’t) much more shroud-heavy]”

No duh. It uses shroud for both its offensive and defensive capabilities.

Let me put this back into context for you.

You said the old Speed of Shadows was better for offense (because movement speed for melee range) and defense (-3 sec cd).

I and others have debunked both of those claims several times already with detailed explenations, but for some reason you choose to not only ignore those but also say that I’m not “capable of elaborating” and that I only “dismiss with no basis of argument”.

Again, I’m not sure if you have genuine trouble with reading comprehension or if you’re being intellectually dishonest on purpose.

Anyway, the trait. You then say that the change to SoS didn’t hit core builds as hard as reapers. So I asked why you would make that distinction. And after you replied to that I said: in regards to defense (the -3 secs cd) it doesn’t matter if you play core or reaper.

DeceiverX.8361:

Even if I transferred to EU to fight you, there’d be no sense in doing it since if trashed you, you’d argue that my point is moot having won so all must be fine, and if I lost, there would be no definitive way to prove my point because the old traits are no longer available for use to demonstrate why I’m right.

Our initial incentive for a duel was to test staff vs non-staff, so it shouldn’t matter what the trait is like now.
And btw, I’d have no problem admitting defeat but it’s interesting that you just tried to build yourself a little loophole in case you lost.

Why would i want to cleanse those condis tho? I could just staff4/plague signet/ “suffer!” /dagger 4 those condis back to opponents(especially chill)? I do agree that new sos has it advantages, but overall old trait had more uses in certain builds and the fact that soulreaping is now useless traitline.

santso.9201:

Why would i want to cleanse those condis tho? I could just staff4/plague signet/ “suffer!” /dagger 4 those condis back to opponents(especially chill)? I do agree that new sos has it advantages, but overall old trait had more uses in certain builds and the fact that soulreaping is now useless traitline.

I guess Necros are given more condi cleansing options that are not dependent on the opponent’s actions. As it stands, condi transfer can be negated by the opponent and isn’t always useful.

Like you though, I love the 7 seconds shroud a lot more which allowed for more flexibility when facing different opponents.
I mentioned a lot more on what I felt we lost on the first page so I won’t repeat myself…
This is only for solo roaming in WvW though.

I use a staff for solo roaming, but staff marks trait wasn’t that important.

• The staff marks trait LF regen not really important because I usually start fights with high LF and it is usually more than sufficient because I seldom camp shroud.
• The unblockable marks does help though against block heavy opponents but it wasn’t something I would give up my 7 seconds shroud for which is more useful in general against the varied opponents I may come up against

• I never used old SOS in PvP because I use a staff and Staff Marks trait > anything else where LF starts at zero and LF building is essential.
• I never used old SOS in Zerg/blob fights in WvW because I use a staff and Staff Marks trait > anything else where blocks are everywhere and I just don’t want my marks to miss tagging some nice bags.
• I used old SOS in open world PvE because the Reaper shroud dash flashing was a nice little mobility thing…but it was more like a QOL to me than anything game breaking…