Guild Wars 2

Shiki.7148:

nearlight.3064:

I also find it ironic how you’re jealous that the ele’s are getting more support when the Ele forums are upset and feel like they already have enough support.

I don’t really have a point here, just pointing out how different communities have different attitudes that are perplexing.

…That is EXACTLY my point. They get more support, which they didn’t need, while we don’t get support which we would have needed. It’s completely backwards. Not to mention they get even more fields combofields on WH. Or that Ele currently is top tier in all modes and has been for a long time. Half of Elite Specs have had an awesome theme with questionable execution currently, giving “more of the same” instead of actually changing things up. Guardians get what they needed : a very good 1200 range weapon, straight upgrades to their class mechanic, and traps that might be pretty useful. Mesmer got a freaking strong new F5, and wells which gives them a chance to be wanted for more than portals in dungeons as they are damage, cc and support all in one. Necro…gets to be a close range, slow as kitten high damage thing, without getting any active defenses to actually survive that type of playstyle in a world where shatter mesmers dominate and chill ate 3 nerfs in a row before it is even out, and eles get more support and fields on top of their already good enough support and fields (meaning it is relatively useless), and a class mechanic change that has a major drawback and is easily interruptable (except Earth maybe).

It’s currently 50/50 on the Elite Specs (only if they exactly stac as they are of course…there have been some changes to the Reaper shouts apparently, but it still isn’t enough. The CDs and casttimes are (for the most part) still too long, and “get more the more enemies you hit” is still terrible – it should be “3 base + up to 2 more if you hit more than 3 enemies”.)

My rebuttal is that elementalist is so great at everything in the game that there truly wasn’t something that they were woefully deficient in (like how necros have no cleave) that an elite spec could alleviate.

Sure theres burst damage, but thats there on the scepter even if it does suck.

I feel like the warhorn is going to allow stafflike fields and AoE CC with the daggers sustained dps and PbAoE, while the overload mechanic provides an incentive to not always attunement dance.

Tempest Shout…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=008BPUdQ1XA …Necro

I think they’ll adjust Reaper Shouts to be more viable. Some had too much cast time and even too much CD for its effects. I’ll wait to see in the expansion if they’ll be at least viable.

Mikau.6920:

I think they’ll adjust Reaper Shouts to be more viable. Some had too much cast time and even too much CD for its effects. I’ll wait to see in the expansion if they’ll be at least viable.

It’s not that. Even with no cast time the effects of reaper shouts are virtually worthless in PvE.

And even worse, their effectiveness varies on the number of targets hit, which means they’re even weaker on what matters most in PvE, BOSSES who are often single target encounters.

I mean, the whole reaper theme is chill and blindness from those new skills. Guess which conditions are virtually worthless on a boss….

You guessed right! Chill and blindness are worthless in bosses.

When we automatically assume that what the necros get is expected to be inferior to that of other classes, then that’s precisely what will happen.

Khristophoros.7194:

@Blood Red Arachnid

“Rise!” is the one shout I’m looking forward to, for a Death Nova build. Each time one of your minions dies you get a pretty decent poison field that pulses for damage. Getting 5 jagged horrors with Death Nova as often as this skill will be up is going to be amazing for AoE.

I find the situations in which I could maximize the benefit to be a bit… situational. In a PVP situation if I’m hitting 4-5 targets, I’m either surrounded and about to die, or I’m fighting a mesmer. In a lot of bouts, Rise! will summon 1 or 2 jagged horrors on a 40 second cooldown. This means that Bone Minions are literally twice as good as Rise! in most situations.

In a PVE scenario I can reliably hit 5 targets, but that will come to less tooltip damage than Well of Suffering. Worst part is, Well of Suffering doesn’t scale down when fighting fewer enemies.

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

It will be simply due to AoE dhuumfire that you can actually stack. Also damaging chill sort of helps a little, but not as much as the burn. Normal condi necro has kitten poor condi stacking except when fear chaining, transfering, or corrupting, but it will be a lot better on reaper due to that trait synergy.

Although condi necro as a whole needs major fixes to viable, especially in regards to fixing curses and raising the overall non burst condi pressure.

And I don’t think a condi reaper would have room for death nova anyway if taking curses, SR, and reaper

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Khristophoros.7194:

@Blood Red Arachnid

“Rise!” is the one shout I’m looking forward to, for a Death Nova build. Each time one of your minions dies you get a pretty decent poison field that pulses for damage. Getting 5 jagged horrors with Death Nova as often as this skill will be up is going to be amazing for AoE.

I find the situations in which I could maximize the benefit to be a bit… situational. In a PVP situation if I’m hitting 4-5 targets, I’m either surrounded and about to die, or I’m fighting a mesmer. In a lot of bouts, Rise! will summon 1 or 2 jagged horrors on a 40 second cooldown. This means that Bone Minions are literally twice as good as Rise! in most situations.

In a PVE scenario I can reliably hit 5 targets, but that will come to less tooltip damage than Well of Suffering. Worst part is, Well of Suffering doesn’t scale down when fighting fewer enemies.

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

Well of course I was talking about PvE. I could see some use in a zerg situation in WvW but eh, dunno.

Death Nova deals direct damage unlike Corrosive Poison Cloud, so this is going to be a power build.

The Death Nova build I’m thinking of will have Well of Suffering, “Rise!” and Summon Bone Minions as the utility skills. Well of Suffering is too good not to use and there aren’t any other minion skills that synergize with Death Nova anyway.

Khristophoros.7194:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Khristophoros.7194:

@Blood Red Arachnid

“Rise!” is the one shout I’m looking forward to, for a Death Nova build. Each time one of your minions dies you get a pretty decent poison field that pulses for damage. Getting 5 jagged horrors with Death Nova as often as this skill will be up is going to be amazing for AoE.

I find the situations in which I could maximize the benefit to be a bit… situational. In a PVP situation if I’m hitting 4-5 targets, I’m either surrounded and about to die, or I’m fighting a mesmer. In a lot of bouts, Rise! will summon 1 or 2 jagged horrors on a 40 second cooldown. This means that Bone Minions are literally twice as good as Rise! in most situations.

In a PVE scenario I can reliably hit 5 targets, but that will come to less tooltip damage than Well of Suffering. Worst part is, Well of Suffering doesn’t scale down when fighting fewer enemies.

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

Well of course I was talking about PvE. I could see some use in a zerg situation in WvW but eh, dunno.

Death Nova deals direct damage unlike Corrosive Poison Cloud, so this is going to be a power build.

The Death Nova build I’m thinking of will have Well of Suffering, “Rise!” and Summon Bone Minions as the utility skills. Well of Suffering is too good not to use and there aren’t any other minion skills that synergize with Death Nova anyway.

So what are your traitline allocations? Your build also contains no group support whatsoever, it’s about as selfish as it gets.

Zenith.7301:

Khristophoros.7194:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Khristophoros.7194:

@Blood Red Arachnid

“Rise!” is the one shout I’m looking forward to, for a Death Nova build. Each time one of your minions dies you get a pretty decent poison field that pulses for damage. Getting 5 jagged horrors with Death Nova as often as this skill will be up is going to be amazing for AoE.

I find the situations in which I could maximize the benefit to be a bit… situational. In a PVP situation if I’m hitting 4-5 targets, I’m either surrounded and about to die, or I’m fighting a mesmer. In a lot of bouts, Rise! will summon 1 or 2 jagged horrors on a 40 second cooldown. This means that Bone Minions are literally twice as good as Rise! in most situations.

In a PVE scenario I can reliably hit 5 targets, but that will come to less tooltip damage than Well of Suffering. Worst part is, Well of Suffering doesn’t scale down when fighting fewer enemies.

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

Well of course I was talking about PvE. I could see some use in a zerg situation in WvW but eh, dunno.

Death Nova deals direct damage unlike Corrosive Poison Cloud, so this is going to be a power build.

The Death Nova build I’m thinking of will have Well of Suffering, “Rise!” and Summon Bone Minions as the utility skills. Well of Suffering is too good not to use and there aren’t any other minion skills that synergize with Death Nova anyway.

So what are your traitline allocations? Your build also contains no group support whatsoever, it’s about as selfish as it gets.

If I cared about providing support I wouldn’t be playing necro in the first place.

But I’ll be going spite/blood/death so there will be some support from blood, incidentally. Also the poison clouds apply AoE weakness so that’s not too bad I guess.

Any situation where I can’t consistently get 5 jagged horrors with “Rise!” I’ll bring a different build.

edit: Sorry, I guess it has to be reaper/blood/death. If it turns out the damage isn’t good enough it’ll be reaper/spite/death.

Khristophoros.7194:

Zenith.7301:

Khristophoros.7194:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Khristophoros.7194:

@Blood Red Arachnid

“Rise!” is the one shout I’m looking forward to, for a Death Nova build. Each time one of your minions dies you get a pretty decent poison field that pulses for damage. Getting 5 jagged horrors with Death Nova as often as this skill will be up is going to be amazing for AoE.

I find the situations in which I could maximize the benefit to be a bit… situational. In a PVP situation if I’m hitting 4-5 targets, I’m either surrounded and about to die, or I’m fighting a mesmer. In a lot of bouts, Rise! will summon 1 or 2 jagged horrors on a 40 second cooldown. This means that Bone Minions are literally twice as good as Rise! in most situations.

In a PVE scenario I can reliably hit 5 targets, but that will come to less tooltip damage than Well of Suffering. Worst part is, Well of Suffering doesn’t scale down when fighting fewer enemies.

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

Well of course I was talking about PvE. I could see some use in a zerg situation in WvW but eh, dunno.

Death Nova deals direct damage unlike Corrosive Poison Cloud, so this is going to be a power build.

The Death Nova build I’m thinking of will have Well of Suffering, “Rise!” and Summon Bone Minions as the utility skills. Well of Suffering is too good not to use and there aren’t any other minion skills that synergize with Death Nova anyway.

So what are your traitline allocations? Your build also contains no group support whatsoever, it’s about as selfish as it gets.

If I cared about providing support I wouldn’t be playing necro in the first place.

But I’ll be going spite/blood/death so there will be some support from blood, incidentally. Also the poison clouds apply AoE weakness so that’s not too bad I guess.

Any situation where I can’t consistently get 5 jagged horrors with “Rise!” I’ll bring a different build.

edit: Sorry, I guess it has to be reaper/blood/death. If it turns out the damage isn’t good enough it’ll be reaper/spite/death.

Death Nova doesn’t provide Weakness. Only the blast finishers from Bone Minions do that (with Death Nova).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Khristophoros.7194:

Zenith.7301:

Khristophoros.7194:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Khristophoros.7194:

@Blood Red Arachnid

“Rise!” is the one shout I’m looking forward to, for a Death Nova build. Each time one of your minions dies you get a pretty decent poison field that pulses for damage. Getting 5 jagged horrors with Death Nova as often as this skill will be up is going to be amazing for AoE.

I find the situations in which I could maximize the benefit to be a bit… situational. In a PVP situation if I’m hitting 4-5 targets, I’m either surrounded and about to die, or I’m fighting a mesmer. In a lot of bouts, Rise! will summon 1 or 2 jagged horrors on a 40 second cooldown. This means that Bone Minions are literally twice as good as Rise! in most situations.

In a PVE scenario I can reliably hit 5 targets, but that will come to less tooltip damage than Well of Suffering. Worst part is, Well of Suffering doesn’t scale down when fighting fewer enemies.

I suppose condi reaper’s might use it. 25 ticks of AoE poisoning isn’t too bad, making it a stronger albeit uncontrollable Corrosive Poison Cloud. The hard part about this is I’m not sure Condi Reaper is better than regular ole Condi necro.

Well of course I was talking about PvE. I could see some use in a zerg situation in WvW but eh, dunno.

Death Nova deals direct damage unlike Corrosive Poison Cloud, so this is going to be a power build.

The Death Nova build I’m thinking of will have Well of Suffering, “Rise!” and Summon Bone Minions as the utility skills. Well of Suffering is too good not to use and there aren’t any other minion skills that synergize with Death Nova anyway.

So what are your traitline allocations? Your build also contains no group support whatsoever, it’s about as selfish as it gets.

If I cared about providing support I wouldn’t be playing necro in the first place.

But I’ll be going spite/blood/death so there will be some support from blood, incidentally. Also the poison clouds apply AoE weakness so that’s not too bad I guess.

Any situation where I can’t consistently get 5 jagged horrors with “Rise!” I’ll bring a different build.

edit: Sorry, I guess it has to be reaper/blood/death. If it turns out the damage isn’t good enough it’ll be reaper/spite/death.

Death Nova doesn’t provide Weakness. Only the blast finishers from Bone Minions do that (with Death Nova).

Oh well not a big deal. The build is for AoE damage.

Bhawb.7408:

Stances would be cool, something I’d like to see in the future for sure.

Rise! is honestly pretty bad as is from a design standpoint. Forces MM builds to do things MM builds otherwise hate to do (fight multiple targets), and in everything except some cheese condi builds using DN it is just a worse version of Bone Minions.

I do think shouts should be useful outside of big fights though. Which is why Nothing Can Save You is probably the best designed shout, as it is strong 1v1 and then in teamfights scales well without being reliant on multiple enemies.

I agree, shouts should be useful outside of big fights. As for “Rise!”, you’re likely correct, even though I really like the principle of the skill. It should likely be more like the following:

“Rise!”: Strike nearby foes then summon 1 bone minion at your location and 1 more bone minion at the location of each struck foe. All of your minions are healed for some decent amount. 40 second cooldown, instant cast.

Well ele’s got another blind field on a wepon skill that blows ours out of the water, so much for our last bit of “utility”

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well ele’s got another blind field on a wepon skill that blows ours out of the water, so much for our last bit of “utility”

Not to mention pulsing boon strip on fire warhorn 5. That’s also on a more desirable field type.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well ele’s got another blind field on a wepon skill that blows ours out of the water, so much for our last bit of “utility”

Not to mention pulsing boon strip on fire warhorn 5. That’s also on a more desirable field type.

And shouts that have effects (and damage) immediatly and just get better if they get channeled a little…and no kittening gimmicky “is only good if you at least hit x targets” bullkitten.

LMFAO, i hope ALL of you Necros out there who thought we would be fine and that Ele shouts would not be better than ours since ours are more offensive finally take their heads out of their kitten and wake up. Anet does not give a kitten about Necros and will always buff others before us, so the time to be nice and cordial is long over; Eles cried for their traits to be changed and for IB not to be nerfed and they won. we need to get together and do the same. Anet now only operates in crisis mode; unless there is a crisis Anet does not give a kitten. look at the Commander tag issue, the gem store gold conversion issue, unless people kitten and kitten loudly Anet won’t do kitten!!!!!

None of this is released; things can change.

Use these Tempest shouts as comparisons and ammo to effect changes in Reaper shouts.

Or keep bursting blood vessels.

Whichever you prefer.

Odeezee.7362:

LMFAO, i hope ALL of you Necros out there who thought we would be fine and that Ele shouts would not be better than ours since ours are more offensive finally take their heads out of their kitten and wake up. Anet does not give a kitten about Necros and will always buff others before us, so the time to be nice and cordial is long over; Eles cried for their traits to be changed and for IB not to be nerfed and they won. we need to get together and do the same. Anet now only operates in crisis mode; unless there is a crisis Anet does not give a kitten. look at the Commander tag issue, the gem store gold conversion issue, unless people kitten and kitten loudly Anet won’t do kitten!!!!!

Or we can do what they apparently want us to do and just play another class; or find another game. The changes to blood magic moved us (closer?) toward an attrition class, but with everything else getting the power creep treatment it might have been enough at one time, but not anymore. I’m gonna do what I have been doing for almost the last 3 years and ONLY use my necro for zerging in WvW and another class for everything else. At this point IMO even a formal protest won’t make them want to work on us without a few dozen devs actually playing the class.

Odeezee.7362:

LMFAO, i hope ALL of you Necros out there who thought we would be fine and that Ele shouts would not be better than ours since ours are more offensive finally take their heads out of their kitten and wake up. Anet does not give a kitten about Necros and will always buff others before us, so the time to be nice and cordial is long over; Eles cried for their traits to be changed and for IB not to be nerfed and they won. we need to get together and do the same. Anet now only operates in crisis mode; unless there is a crisis Anet does not give a kitten. look at the Commander tag issue, the gem store gold conversion issue, unless people kitten and kitten loudly Anet won’t do kitten!!!!!

how i imagine your face now

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yGMLAhDpdG4/TWtmVexj5tI/AAAAAAAABOA/ND0pWagvjWI/s400/crying_baby.jpg

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well ele’s got another blind field on a wepon skill that blows ours out of the water, so much for our last bit of “utility”

Not to mention pulsing boon strip on fire warhorn 5. That’s also on a more desirable field type.

Is that skill for real?

It pulses 8 times with well of corruption level damage and multiple stacks of burning per pulse. Also the field is gigantic. It’s also a fire field.

Its like a well of suffering and a well of corruption at the same time while also being a fire field

Its broken as all hell.

Annnnnnnnnnd now I agree they dump on our shouts. They deal more damage with shorter cast times (when they even have one), lots of cool effects (though I think some of our shouts are cool in concept). And some of their utility is just absolutely insane, an AoE stunbreak on 10s ICD, what the actual kitten.

Bhawb.7408:

Annnnnnnnnnd now I agree they dump on our shouts. They deal more damage with shorter cast times (when they even have one), lots of cool effects (though I think some of our shouts are cool in concept). And some of their utility is just absolutely insane, an AoE stunbreak on 10s ICD, what the actual kitten.

I found it quite surprising that Karl also works on thief just like Robert also works on mesmer. Nothing is final yet and I’m pretty sure there will be a beta for specializations just for HoT they’ll try to not make it suck. Again they don’t see the game like we do.

Allow me to provide a soundtrack for our feelings about Necro still being so kitten neglected

New earth shout/Well of Darkness

Sagat.3285:

Bhawb.7408:

Annnnnnnnnnd now I agree they dump on our shouts. They deal more damage with shorter cast times (when they even have one), lots of cool effects (though I think some of our shouts are cool in concept). And some of their utility is just absolutely insane, an AoE stunbreak on 10s ICD, what the actual kitten.

I found it quite surprising that Karl also works on thief just like Robert also works on mesmer. Nothing is final yet and I’m pretty sure there will be a beta for specializations just for HoT they’ll try to not make it suck. Again they don’t see the game like we do.

Afaik they all work on all of them. Just some are representatives of certain classes because of various reasons.

spoj.9672:

Sagat.3285:

Bhawb.7408:

Annnnnnnnnnd now I agree they dump on our shouts. They deal more damage with shorter cast times (when they even have one), lots of cool effects (though I think some of our shouts are cool in concept). And some of their utility is just absolutely insane, an AoE stunbreak on 10s ICD, what the actual kitten.

I found it quite surprising that Karl also works on thief just like Robert also works on mesmer. Nothing is final yet and I’m pretty sure there will be a beta for specializations just for HoT they’ll try to not make it suck. Again they don’t see the game like we do.

Afaik they all work on all of them. Just some are representatives of certain classes because of various reasons.

So basically, if all you play are other classes, you don’t give a kitten about the necro, and in all honesty you would prefer they be free kills, got ya.

Edit: sorry I’m a bit salty today.

If base necro was decent. Reaper would be vastly superior as an elite spec compared to tempest. The only things wrong with reaper is the shouts and the base class. Whereas Tempest only has the shouts. The rest is bad. And the shouts wont be chosen over other current utilities.

Put it this way. Imagine necro didnt have a lack of active defence or projectile blocks or combo finishers. Then look at reaper traits. They all make sense and they are decent (apart from the shout trait which should be baseline). Then look at the tempest. Im thinking i dont want any of them but thank kitten base ele is god tier. The tempest minors are literally all about overloading. Which makes no sense. Overloading is tempest only. Those minors should be baseline or optional. Reaper at least has 2 minors which work on more than just our new stuff lol.

I, for one, never expected Reaper to be competitive. I just hoped Necromancer would have enough utility to become a little less unwanted in PvE.

Tommyknocker.6089:

At this point IMO even a formal protest won’t make them want to work on us without a few dozen devs actually playing the class.

It is worth a try at least. I’m tired of reading a lot of valuable feedbacks and suggestions completely ignored or flushed down the toilet for years.

RIOT!

@Pelopidas: try to picture a kitten that’s a concentrated ball of hatred. Yeah it’s cute, but don’t let it reaches your face. =^.^=

Ara.4569:

Tommyknocker.6089:

At this point IMO even a formal protest won’t make them want to work on us without a few dozen devs actually playing the class.

It is worth a try at least. I’m tired of reading a lot of valuable feedbacks and suggestions completely ignored or flushed down the toilet for years.

RIOT! …snip

Nothing new there, I have a post in my history going back 2 years when they made greater marks a master trait that says they don’t listen to us. And although it is now baseline and a minor (unblockable) it took them 2 years, a large amount of power creep and a trait line change before they did anything with it.

At this rate they may start listening to those that play the class at about the same time as I drop dead.

Well kitten , and here I was actually being positive for once and looking forward to what I could do as reaper. Still do but, well they pretty much just crapped all over their own logic when it came to shouts that damage. And while I’ll say our shouts can be strong in the right situations (like a lot of necro things, these ele shouts seem possibly a bit crazy.

I actually find the Tempest warhorn skills to be really great, but the shouts to be kind of lacking. The traits are in between.

nearlight.3064:

I actually find the Tempest warhorn skills to be really great, but the shouts to be kind of lacking. The traits are in between.

I love how they decided to give a buffed version of Signet of Inspiration to Ele, of all classes.

I’m also noticing that the other classes are getting access to the new tech they’re developing while Necro didn’t get anything like that.

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m also noticing that the other classes are getting access to the new tech they’re developing while Necro didn’t get anything like that.

I think Nightfall might, but it’s tough to say.

Our shouts scale with targets. Thats new tech afaik. Pretty boring new tech if you ask me but it is still new tech.

spoj.9672:

Our shouts scale with targets. Thats new tech afaik. Pretty boring new tech if you ask me but it is still new tech.

Unholy Feast would like a word with you.

I doubt it, there are CD adjustments depending on whether someone is hit by an ability already, shouldn’t be hard to have it work per person hit. And positive effects have scaled for a while like UF as Drarnor said.

Also love that they get AoE mass boon strip, on top of stepping on Chronomancer’s toes with Rebound. Literally no reason to not run ele after this, they can do everything.

Hmm yeah ok. Swear they mentioned something about new tech in the reaper preview though.

spoj.9672:

Hmm yeah ok. Swear they mentioned something about new tech in the reaper preview though.

It’s probably a profession-switch button at login.

Also on guatdian’s (except elite), on warrior’s and on ranger’s.
Tempest is simply op, as is ele

Dead.5829:

spoj.9672:

Hmm yeah ok. Swear they mentioned something about new tech in the reaper preview though.

It’s probably a profession-switch button at login.

LMAO!

I feel like what Anet wants Necromancers to be is the master of zerging in WvW. Looking at some of the new skills and a lot of our old ones (think Epidemic and Wells) I see a lot of things that will be quite good in these situations. Only these situations, though… And if ANet wants Necromancers to be the zerg masters then we need more skills that effect more than just 5targets.

I really wish this wasn’t the direction they had in mind for us, though… Being such a selfish profession it seems goofy to me to make us strong in blobs but weak solo and in groups. It’s contradictory in so many ways. Not only that, a big part of the reason I fell in love with Necro (among many other reasons) was because it was self-sufficient. As someone who always plays the healer in other games, I like to have the power to control my own life and death instead of depending on others to handle it.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is the difference in time between what we saw of Reaper and this version of Tempest. Even the newest renditions from the WvW beta are old compared to what they could be playing with internally.

I know things look bleak right now (very bleak) [very, very, very bleak], but we’re seeing slices of an iterative process.

The really big waterfall moments will be the elite spec beta tests and the feedback-and-forth following.

I like the idea they were going for with reaper, slow attacks that hit hard, and could see it being incredibly fun to play personally. That said at least as of now (before balancing is finished admittedly) the attacks are slow and haven’t been shown hitting that hard. The shouts all deal around 200-300 damage and have very minimal additional effects in my opinion. “Rise” could be funny in trolly minion bomb builds but I’d rather they go through with the idea of changing it to spawn more powerful minions. Pretty much all the other shouts are lack luster in every respect for me (I’m a pve player mind you so it could have use elsewhere). The elite is a huge cast time for chill which reaper already seems to get quite a bit of through traits.

Hopefully, a the very least, they listen to the feedback given to them from the beta tests once they include the elite specs. As of now for pve the shouts don’t compete at all with wells for damage, and lose to spectral skills for what little utility they provide. And I hope they go through with what they said about landing an attack being punishing and give the GS attacks decent damage coefficients. And just completely change the elite skill. Though for that matter I’d like them to change the tempest elite shout too.

I don’t know guys, even if we do get some good shouts we are stuck with cantrips anyway. And Greatsword on necro is way cooler than Warhorn on ele.

The necro shout that denies block is pretty OP.

Wow… I know necro’s are in a pretty bad shape and that we need some love. But the attitude of some people and this “QQ hate crusade” is frankly rather embarrassing.

Personally I think reaper will be a lot of fun. It’ll bring a new playstyle to the necromancer that we haven’t had yet.
I however don’t think that it will improve our standing for general PvE and for structured PvP (where necro’s are pretty bottom barrel too).

That said, I don’t think that in any way the reaper or the new shouts, bad as they currently seem to be, CAN be the solution. (Reaper might be nice for certain pvp roles though). The only solution that would really help necro doesn’t seem to be in the necro class itself, but rather the rest of the game.
As long as PvE and PvP keep catering towards the current damage model and boon stacking, the necro will never have a place. We’re a class of attrition and selfishness by design.
Vamperic stuff will never have any meaning when every battle is decided in under a minute; Shroud never will have any solid advantage when nobody really has to invest into defense (although frankly shroud isn’t even a defensive mechanic, seeing as we still have to invest into defensive stats more than most other classes); etc etc.

Also to whomever was saying that we have to wait to see updated versions of the shouts and the reaper:
Believe me, I have long time experience with beta tests, expansions and with (MMO)RPGs in general.
If you don’t make a sound early, it will ALWAYS be too late to make a difference.

If we play the trusting, patient, optimistic party, then by the end of the line we’ll see we’ve been dealt the bad hand (AGAIN) and it’ll be too late to make a difference.
That is ALWAYS the case with these game situations (and in life in general to be frank); early bird gets the worm in a way.

This isn’t a pity party it’s all fact. Necros are the children of mediocrity in almost all of PvE, be it by design or lack there of. Either way the class is brutally lacking in key areas like resistance and finishers, frankly the only people who should be ashamed are the devs who let it stay this way for so long, and management who refuse to admit it.
Reapers, don’t get your hopes up, they’re being designed by a fan of Mesmers so as much as i applaud the effort, the fact is nobody at Anet actively is playing a Necro and thus cannot know the class the way the players do. If any class needed them to open a test server Necro is it!

Didn’t Anet explain that the Reaper shouts had long cast times because they caused damage? Why wouldn’t this be the case with tempest shouts…

Anything over a second is ridiculous in fast paced combat. I can understand if the elite shout is a second cast but all others should be 1/2 second max.