Guild Wars 2

Preface
Much of what I am about to say has been said before, but I spent a fair bit of time and thought putting this together. As someone who is (was?) really excited about The Reaper, its current form has been such a tremendous disappointment that I am desperate to see it buffed. To this end, I’m throwing my voice into the vast pond of forum whining the Reaper has… well… wrought. A few points I want to make before I continue:

• This only concerns SPvP. I have not bothered with other game modes, and they are not taken into consideration for this post.
• This post only concerns Reaper builds utilizing the Greatsword, as I feel the “Just use the dagger + warhorn/staff.” solution is pretty unacceptable (though currently the most optimal way to play this Elite Specialization due to Greatsword’s wet noodle status).

Overall
I will go into far more depth for every specific ability, but here’s a jist of things to come:

The Good

• The Reaper animations are excellent. Especially those used for Reaper Shroud.
• In general, the theory behind The Reaper mechanics is spot on, and will appeal to many players. I doubt I’m alone in wanting to be the Pyramid Head on the battlefield, slowly lumbering toward your target, compensating for your lack of utility and mobility with crushing damage and daunting fortitude.
• Overall, Reaper Shroud is relatively satisfying and while not as powerful as Death Shroud, far more effective than the greatsword skills Reaper currently gains.

The Bad

• The Reaper does not seem to have the sustain in battle required of a slow moving, light-armored, melee class which is relatively devoid of mobility (when compared to, say, a GS Warrior, Guardian, or Ranger). I felt I died much faster as The Reaper (even though I consistently ran tankier amulets) than I do as a traditional Powermancer (Marauder or Zerker ammy). To parrot many others, my shroud seemed to vanish almost instantly upon casting.
• The AoE cleave effect that was described as a major asset of the Reaper is largely absent, particularly from the greatsword, due to its terrible range. I understand it was functioning (due to a bug) at the same range as the dagger, but I suspect even a range of 170 will be insufficient. It will likely need to have the most range of any melee weapon in the game to compensate for its low speed.
• For whatever reason, my Reaper appears to be stuck in the “in combat” status for an absurdly long period of time in a way I have not experienced on other classes. I strongly suspect some bug, perhaps with a greatsword skill, is keeping players in combat far too long.

The Ugly

• Almost all of The Reaper’s abilities are unacceptably slow for SPvP, to the point where evades aren’t necessary to counter it, but simply identifying that an attack has been activated and choosing to walk away. Anyone who attempts to face a competent player, particularly with the Greatsword (shroud is far less guilty of this flaw) will immediately recognize this
• While Reaper Shroud does excellent damage, Greatsword numbers simply aren’t where they should be. The damage output, even on a stationary target, is clearly surpassed by the dagger’s AA, though not by an enormous margin. The adjustments here could be small, but not something I expected to be needed. Honestly, this is the one thing I expected to come out of the box in excellent shape.

Data (Not exactly scientific, but a clear trend emerges…)

After testing several trait, amulet, and utility loadouts, I found myself infuriated by my inability to perform well with this class against remotely competitive opponents. Any situation my Reaper seemed to succeed in felt very much like, “Well, anyone could have done this with nearly any loadout, even terribly non-viable and non-synergistic ones.” I consistently felt like the least useful member of my team, really only providing backup damage when someone else was doing the heavy-lifting. This is very opposed to my Well-oriented Powermancer, with whom I constantly feel like a tremendous asset. Once I started to notice this trend, I opted to start recording scoreboards for comparison:

5 Consecutive Matches as my Powermancer

5 Consecutive Matches as my Reaper

• These scores were not doctored or cherry picked. They all represent a sincere effort to contribute. I could have gone on to record many more, but 5 of each seemed sufficient.
• For every bad game shown as The Reaper there were probably 5-10 I played before I worked out a build, and many of them were far worse. They occurred before I decided to start documenting my miserable failure.
• I am aware that Powermancer has been around longer, thus I’ve had more time to master it, but that doesn’t seem a sufficient explanation for such an enormous discrepancy.
• I encountered several other Reapers, as you’d expect, and their results were quite similar. I saw many sit at 0-15 points, almost always at the bottom of the scoreboard. This trend was so consistent, I started to see comments like, "Reaper (and Revanent, but that’s for another nerd to go into) isn’t ready for unranked. " and “GS Necro on our team – GG we lose.”

Ability Breakdown
Reaper Shroud
In general, the Reaper Shroud skills are in a much better place than the Greatsword skills, so I’ll begin with them.

1. This skill is in a good place, but I don’t feel it should be the only source of in-shroud life force generation. LF should also come in larger doses from a more intentional source. In general, a melee shroud needs more health generation to function in SPvP, as it is more susceptible to damage due to complications of positioning.
2. This skill has merited some complaint on the forums due to its awkwardness, largely from the mandatory travel distance as opposed to a direct target functionality. Personally, I am okay with this skill. Not because it’s as good as it could/should be, but because so many other abilities of this Elite Spec are in a far worse place. If this were to be improved, giving it collision detection or a simple target functionality might be desirable. (Edit: Another player suggested making this skill an interruptible channel. I also like this idea a great deal, as it maintains much of the skill-oriented element)
3. This skill is also fine in its current form, and it should be mentioned that it’s excellent to see Necros get a decent source of stability. Perhaps allowing it to also break stun would be a wise choice, making it more reactionary and less “Always pop this upon entering shroud.” In general, I don’t feel that would be too strong, as controlling and kiting The Reaper is currently far too easy.
4. As mentioned previously, I feel like this might be a good place to put a sudden burst of life force generation to aid with how easily Reaper Shroud seems to be damaged away compared to Death Shroud.
5. This skill is probably the least functional of all of Reaper Shroud’s skills. I totally understand it is very powerful by design, and must thus be difficult to land, but it seems to be behaving very strangely in a way that reminds me of the old Warrior GS 5 skill (before its targeting was improved). If your opponent moves at all, even if you remain in melee range and facing them, this skill is likely to smash into the ground a couple feet behind them and do nothing but leave an ice field. A powerful execute with a stun should be slow, so the windup time can stay as is (or receive only very slight reductions), but the targeting of this ability clearly needs work.

Ability Breakdown Cont.
Greatsword
So, here we’ve come to the core of why The Reaper is in such a bad place. Basically all of these skills need to be considerably improved.

1. This skill needs love on all fronts. Either the speed or range need to come up considerably, as currently you are lucky to land 1-2 autos when fighting a remotely scrappy opponent (by which I mean anyone who understands “walk away from the damage”). Hits seem very few and far between on stationary targets, and are doubly so in SPvP. Additionally, the oomph just isn’t there when they finally do connect. Simply put, this attack should hit harder than the dagger if it’s to feel at all satisfying. Also, a small amount of life force generation here would be a good choice (and perhaps something that doesn’t belong on skill 3, as I’ll get into).
2. This skill is perhaps the biggest offender of all. Essentially, this should replace the auto attack as your filler once you have a target in range who is below 50%, but it really fails to do its job. Like the AA, it’s very slow and has terrible range. Additionally, one of the greatsword’s biggest drawbacks is that it lacks any form of reliable life force generation, and I feel this would be the skill to put it on. Perhaps something to the effect of “Generates 3-5% life force for each target hit below 50%.”
3. I like where this skill is headed. Excellent animation, and the vulnerability stacks are crucial to many Reaper builds in SPvP, which frequently want to utilize Decimate Defenses. The problem is this skill feels far too close range, and landing it is quite a challenge. Additionally, its life force generation feels very tacked on, and doesn’t seem to fit the mindset of the skill. I would say remove the life force generation (and roll it into 1 and 2) and perhaps give this skill a short-ranged, targeted dash mechanic. Nothing akin to warrior charges or even elementalist’s dash, just a little 200-300 range dash to help close the distance when this drill spike comes out. I could see this being a very good-looking animation, and the Reaper is currently in no danger of becoming “too mobile.”
4. I don’t dislike this skill, and find it to be relatively effective vs other melee. I think it would be a good place to grant The Reaper another defensive boon, as he is currently unable to be the frontline brawler we have been hoping for. Perhaps a brief protection tacked onto this skill would suffice, but some compensation for the low range and immobilization effect on the caster would be appreciated.
5. This skill’s issues are almost entirely a matter of targeting. Much like the Reaper Shroud 5, it rarely seems to ever connect on opponents who are moving, though it is somewhat more reliable. It was mentioned on the forums that this ability uses unusual targetting and I would prefer to see this attack either simply use a target function or have a somewhat broader cone to compensate for its tendency to brush right through your target but still result in a miss.

CONCLUSION/TLDR
The Reaper is struggling to perform well in SPvP, largely due to how miserable the greatsword is. Its overall performance is undeniably poor. This recognition is all but unanimous among the community. This Elite Spec has had many people excited for HoT, and is definitely among the major selling points. Do yourself a favor, ANet, and give this lump of dirt a spit shine.

in re to shroud— and that’s reaper or death…

id like to see a 1 sec timer fromt he point of transformation BACK to necro form.

Too many times when I trait the insta cast xform I clck f1 and I’m back to necro form when the trait auto xformed me — so irritating.

reaper skill 2

needs to have collision detection just like all the other gap closers.

add mutli hit to it as well. In this way we don’t close, add GO THRU the kitten ed target

GS

ive said a lot about this before and during this beta.

Ok slow….. but what else?
it doesnt do the huge damage my #1 enemy states ( the person responsible for this class)

chill— I’m beating a dead horse dead. #1 enemy stated this is THE DEFINING POWER OF THE kitten ED CLASS.

chills don’t seem to chill, as people either get ou of it too fast (thanks to the chill NERF)
or they use their escape leaps/charges and get the hell out of dodge too easily.

the chill traited damage is so low— why even have the trait that allows chill to damage?

in a straight power build the max damage I see 147, and using cond is 350! whoot.

Chill needs to be hadled uniquely for the reaper. Meaning this chill imitiatons shouldn’t apply to the reaper class as his inherent reaper power should be seen to make chill a super chill.

at least double the chill damage.
GS damage needs to be much larger— at least 50% larger.

And lastly— I really cant stand the people who love the class SOLEY FOR THE Gkitten reaper shroud.

You can do DS and get pretty much the same results and NOT HAVE TO BE IN MELEE RANGE.

Shroud Knight trait should also allow perma spectral powers too as I’m finding it hard to fathom why a frontline melee fighter is given access to only light armor.

In fact— to even get into reaper shroud its crazy that GS offers very poor lf generation.

I’m not sure why this class is treated so poorly IMO.

I’m not much of a pvp guy but wanted to commend you for spelling out what you feel the issues are so clearly and in such great detail. Nicely done.

Misguided.5139:

I’m not much of a pvp guy but wanted to commend you for spelling out what you feel the issues are so clearly and in such great detail. Nicely done.

Thanks for saying so! It’s nice to have the effort noticed.

I agree with all of you! Maybe make The chilled trait damage to add both cond and power dmg to increase total damage and make it more worth taking for both zerk or condi and even hybrid builds.
While using greatsword I think all the abilities need improved with som defence like evades in some abilities (maybe skill 2) and maybe prot buff (maybe skill 4) and I would like to have a small dash on skill 3. Its to easy to get tons of dmg on you when you want to damage them and also hard to evade their attacks when none of your attacks make you evade or block or move and what ever else You can do. I also thinks skill 1-3 are very slow to trigger.

If I wasn’t clear enough in the orginal post, I should reiterate that my concerns principally lie with the greatsword skills.

However, in general, I feel a light armored melee class without strong mobility, stealth, or heaps of control really needs to have more active sustain than Reaper brings to the table.

My testing hasn’t been nearly as extensive as the OP, but one glaring issue that I’ve seen relates to the Reaper’s survivability (both in and out of shroud) and I think the core of this particular problem is the original design intent not matching up well with the implementation in the game.

During the livestream, it was mentioned that the Reaper gets Cold Shoulder partially to help it survive as a cloth-wearer in melee. The salient point from the passive is that “Chilled foes deal 10% less damage to you.”

The problem is, in practicality, this is an extremely unreliable form of mitigation, because Chill is hard to maintain on a target. According to the GW2 wiki, the third hit of the AA sequence chills for 4.5 seconds. However, in-game, this chill duration is less than half of that, with the value sitting at 1.75s and that’s including the extra 10% from Cold Shoulder.

In other words, even if you rune for it (since runes are percentage based and not flat duration increases) it’s basically impossible for you to maintain Chill on a target full-time, unless you do nothing but spam GS1 and then use 1-2 other attacks in a longer-duration window opened by Chilled to the Bone or Suffer or any other source of the condition, all of which are tied to long-cooldown abilities. And in-shroud, the one source of Chill is easily countered/avoided.

Now, whether or not a Reaper should be able to “easily” perma-Chill a target (to make it harder to simply kite or walk away from the Reaper’s slow attacks) is up for a separate debate, but the Reaper’s “extra” survivability for being in melee should not be tied to a difficult-to-maintain condition.

TL;DR: Simply, the 10% damage reduction needs to be unshackled from the Chill requirement. “Enemies within range 320 do X% less damage” would have the same net effect (the Reaper is supposed to be hardest to deal with when toe-to-toe, and a clothie with almost zero mobility needs more durability) but disconnect it from the reliance on Chill. Perhaps have the percentage or range (or both) increase when the reaper is in Shroud, making it harder to rip him/her out of Shroud and further fueling that “Unstoppable Monster” fantasy.

The greatest thing I can stress for the reaper is that any skill with a cast time carries an inherent risk of using it. Any interruption or miss makes you waste greater time than a quicker counterpart. There must be a balance for the risk, not just an increase in damage such that you have the same DPS in a perfect world of 100% hits. I agree with all of OPs points. For the sake of variety, I’ll try to add a few alternative fixes if OP’s weren’t to be followed.

1. Lifeforce gen needs to be here, just like the dagger. DS is both the offensive and defensive mechanic for Necro. It should not be gambled in GS3. I would really like the GS sped up, with the exception of the third stroke since that’s the one that lands the snare. Beautiful animation though.
2. When you fulfill gravedigger’s text, its CD goes down to like a 3/4 sec. While this was likely put in place to prevent spamming, all it has achieved is being awkward, while simultaneously being redundant since there’s simply no reason to want to use Gravedigger. I would really, really like to see resistance applied for the duration of the cast time for this skill. This skill would then lose its EXTREME susceptibility to blind and immob, grant a bit of utility, and reward smart use so that you can utilize it again sooner.
3. Agree with OP. LF gain doesn’t need to be here; replace with a short lunge. 1 pull on the set does not exactly make Reaper “relentless”
4. Because of the short root on this skill, I don’t think the wind up on its size is necessary. A melee enemy can still reach the reaper while outside the initial drop of Nightfall. If that risk is to remain in play, a fun twist may be to have the Reaper stealth for just a moment to set up a better pull into the cloud or a Gravedigger. Right now, it’s pretty easy to say “oh, don’t go in there. Also, he’s about to try to pull. 1..2..dodge”
5. I really like this skill. If it were to be bugfixed a bit, the only thing I’d like to see is a skill shot UI so that it can be more consistently fired where you want it to go. No reason to be even more weak to immobilize (on that thought, why is the snare class so weak to snares?). I would sacrifice the poison for increased range.

I won’t touch RS since that area’s going in the right direction. Executioner’s strike is a great example of a high-risk high-payoff skill (with a little bug fixing. I encountered the floor slam plenty of times. )

@ Endlos
You raise a really good point about the chill damage reduction not being a reliable source of survivability. Unless they make the chill uptime far more reliable, simply making it a constant DR to all targets in range would be a good fix.

@EzJester
I agree with what you’ve suggested, and the alternatives you’ve described would be quite acceptable.

Glad so many agree the greatsword skill set can’t stay where it is if there’s any hope for it to have a place in PvP.

I agree that GS is pretty weak. Personally I would do this…

• GS range on all attacks increased to 220. A simple range increase will already make it harder to escape.
• Damage on all skills increased.
• GS #1 first two attacks reduced to 1/2 second cast time, finisher reduced to 3/4 second, and chill duration increased to 4 seconds (prior to traits).
• GS #2 continues spinning until it does not hit a foe below 50% health (up to 3 spins in one cast), recharge bonus applies if the attack brings the foe to below 50% health, recharge bonus increased to 100%, and movement speed increased by 15% while in use. This makes the skill very threatening while under 50%, while preventing enemies from just walking out of it.
• GS #3 cast reduced to 1/4 second, LF increased to 5% per hit, CD reduced to 9 seconds, and range increased to 400. A range increase will easily make the LF generation much better, and personally I disagree that the LF gen feels tacked on and having it like this makes it feel more unique from dagger. This skill is an easy setup to go on the offensive while having your defense up. There doesn’t need to be LF gen on the auto for it to be good, it just needs to be reliable.
• GS #4 pulses every second for a total of 8 pulses and aftercast reduced. It feels pretty solid right now, just unreliable due to the slow pulse rate.
• GS #5 immobilizes enemies for 3 seconds, cast time decreased to 1/2 second, projectile speed increased, targets where the enemy is instead of where you are facing, and strikes in a cone. This mostly just serves to make it less awkward, while preventing your foe from immediately leaping away.

The Wizland.8435:

• GS #3 cast reduced to 1/4 second, LF increased to 5% per hit, CD reduced to 9 seconds, and range increased to 400. A range increase will easily make the LF generation much better, and personally I disagree that the LF gen feels tacked on and having it like this makes it feel more unique from dagger. This skill is an easy setup to go on the offensive while having your defense up. There doesn’t need to be LF gen on the auto for it to be good, it just needs to be reliable.

I just simply cannot imagine GS #3 providing a sufficient amount of life force on its own to be competitively viable unless the amount generated is vastly increased, the cooldown on the skill comes further down, and the overall reliability of the skill grows to the point where the vulnerability stacking may become excessive.

I stand by just saying it would be simpler to roll the life force into skills 1 and 2. Either way, keep the feedback coming.

Honestly Id be ok with getting rid of the greatsword 4 skill and replacing it with a chill aura upkeep skill, drains a % of Life force every second but have it so we gain more life force if we hit a chilled target.

Robthedevil.3409:

Honestly Id be ok with getting rid of the greatsword 4 skill and replacing it with a chill aura upkeep skill, drains a % of Life force every second but have it so we gain more life force if we hit a chilled target.

I like the idea of a chill aura, but I definitely want to caution against more life force consumption. This spec struggles to generate LF as it is.

Nice summary Jackalrat.

My suggestions:

How about GS1 giving LF gen, but when we hit a chilled foe it doubles the value given?

Say 2%/2%/4% normal,
4%/4/%/8% if target is chilled

But I would still like to see the damage upped a bit (at least to dagger levels) to compensate for the kitten slow speed. The vulnerability could be moved to this weapon too, say:

3 stacks 10s/3stacks 10s/6 stacks 10 seconds (total is the same as GS3 was)

GS2 still needs to have it’s damage upped as was mentioned in another thread, you don’t get the benefit of deadly perception and crits could be rare for a finisher.

GS3 instead of giving more LF gen or vuln could offer the chill instead in a cone 240 range as it is FAR to short now. It is a faster attack and if it applied say a 5 second chill on a 10 second timer would be an awesome opener for the weapon giving a well needed leg up for LF generation.

GS4 is should not root you initially and instead be an aura around you.

GS5 needs attention and generally has a hard time hitting your opponents, be they one or many. The LF gen should stay on this skill.

This may sound a bit over the top, but if you are going to be the slow movie monster, you need to be dangerous to get near IMO!

Edit: and kitten hard to escape from!

Tommyknocker.6089:

Say 2%/2%/4% normal,
4%/4/%/8% if target is chilled

These values seem relatively appropriate. Considering the slow, telegraphed attack speed of the greatsword, I still doubt this would come close to competing with dagger levels of life force gen in PvP.

Jackalrat.5493:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Say 2%/2%/4% normal,
4%/4/%/8% if target is chilled

These values seem relatively appropriate. Considering the slow, telegraphed attack speed of the greatsword, I still doubt this would come close to competing with dagger levels of life force gen in PvP.

Hence the suggested change to GS3, if it gave a decently long chill to start with, your attack speed would be less of a problem. Also a chilled foe would give twice the LF gen.

This most likely won’t give the same results as a dagger, but after all the numbers could be tweaked even further.

Good points, all!