Guild Wars 2

The negativity here and on the PvP forum blows my mind.
This patch was one of the best we’ve had in a very long time.

First of all, Vital Persistence:

I know this trait was popular and it has been for years, but for all the wrong reasons. By far its best feature was the 20% cooldown reduction for Shroud skills. The -2% decay was a weak crutch for People who don’t know how to manage their life force.
So now that 3% has been baselined and if you’d still want to take VP you’re basically trading 1% decay for a huge chunk of hp and lf.
This could not be a more obvious buff!

Spiteful Spirit:

One extra boon corruption. Massive buff, thank you.
Retaliation is back! Ooowmahgerd, I thought they removed it on purpose. Many people might not have taken notice of it before, but the damage you get from just a few seconds of retal in team fights is easily in the thousands. Again, massive buff.

Spiteful Renewal:

Has anyone checked if this works with Consume Conditions (I didn’t get to play yet), like does it consume the self applied vulnerability after the cast?
This change is imo really the only downside to this patch. If you’ve been using Bitter Chill all this time instead you were missing out. This was the true PvP trait, and even if it was unpredictable and the healing would get blocked by Shroud, it was still a 5 sec cd cleanse and heal.
Anyway, probably a nerf overall but a buff to control, so a positiv change.

Dagger skills unsplit for all modes. Buff.

Spectral Skills. Buff.

Soul Eater. Buff.

Signets. Depends on how you were using them, but imo positiv change overall.

Speed of Shadows. Awesome buff. Up to now it was basically the awkward trait you’d have to pick if you didn’t use a staff, but now it’s a viable alternative regardless.

Ritual of Life. BUUUFFFFF.
If you drop a regular WoB and then rez someone, you get 84% without actually rezzing yourself.

Life from Death. Buuuufffff.

Vamp Rituals. Like this trait wasn’t already incredible. Awesome buff, thank you.

So again… what is everyone whining about??

You didn’t play yesterday did you

I co main a condi thief and ive been told multiple times over that the build for it is max cancer

I already normally target necros just because

Yesterday there wasn’t 1 necros I faced that could handle me at all

What used to be a long drawn out but fun fight would end in less than 10 secs

So while you question what everyone was whining about, I question if you even pvp

Yeah flow I’m sure you also know as you’ve been here a while but not even exaggerating… 90% of necros don’t actually know how to play the class (including the devs unfortunately…)

I practically never used that trait and could give less of a kitten about it. I’ve never even really used soul reaping much after like 2014 as I find the whole line to be lacklustre. Any time I have ran soul reaping I never even noticed vital persistence. In WvW/PvP that trait was never needed in any scenario.

But hey… every build that I ever used just got a massive buff LOL

My gripe is the lack of meaningful changes to traitlines and greatsword/reaper lacking. Axe is actually a good power weapon nowadays, but you can’t go power necro because you need power/precision/ferocity and then you die instantly because you are a necro. And condi is better in every way.

flow.6043:

T
Spiteful Renewal:

Has anyone checked if this works with Consume Conditions (I didn’t get to play yet), like does it consume the self applied vulnerability after the cast?

Yes it eats the self vuln if untraited (slight delay after heal skill) and eats the blind if traited with master of corruptions.

Lahmia.2193:

flow.6043:

T
Spiteful Renewal:

Has anyone checked if this works with Consume Conditions (I didn’t get to play yet), like does it consume the self applied vulnerability after the cast?

Yes it eats the self vuln if untraited (slight delay after heal skill) and eats the blind if traited with master of corruptions.

That’s actually pretty neat – I like.

for me and many that relied on 7sec Speed of Shadows isnt a fkng buff

Ravezaar.4951:

for me and many that relied on 7sec Speed of Shadows isnt a fkng buff

They should make it baseline to be honest. Both SoS and VP changes were made because they didn’t work with Scourge, that’s the bottom line.

flow.6043:

Speed of Shadows. Awesome buff. Up to now it was basically the awkward trait you’d have to pick if you didn’t use a staff, but now it’s a viable alternative regardless.

Come on man, I know you know better than this. Soft CC removal + Swiftness in exchange for losing the reduced Shroud cooldown is a bad trade off in most scenarios.

flow.6043:

The -2% decay was a weak crutch for People who don’t know how to manage their life force.
So now that 3% has been baselined and if you’d still want to take VP you’re basically trading 1% decay for a huge chunk of hp and lf.
This could not be a more obvious buff!

As someone mentioned: You did not play yesterday, right?

The 3% “buff” today changes everything since now every non- Soul Reaping Build got buffed massively. The builds I played yesterday feel completely different today.

I will never again use Soul Reaping as SoS sucks now (no Shroud CD reduction anymore) and the rest of the SR traits is underpowered.

In contrast Spite/Curses/Reaper builds feel extremely strong now in PvP/WvW.

Thanks ANet for listening to the community.

flow.6043:

Has anyone checked if this works with Consume Conditions (I didn’t get to play yet), like does it consume the self applied vulnerability after the cast?

It does. The trait is basically a 1K heal buff to Consume Conditions – pretty nice!

There’s some changes that count as buff and nerf at the same time.

Signets with improved effects that last even in shroud? Buff!
Plague Signet that kill you while in shroud because you don’t have Active skills to remove conditions? Nerf!
Signets that no more corrupt boons and grant might? Huge Nerf!!!

Speed of Shadow that remove imparring conditions and grant swiftness? Buff (maybe only to fight druids, but still a buff)
SoS that no more grant Shroud cooldown reduction? Nerf (huge nerf for different builds and no more so good to make a SoS/SpitefulSpirit combo)

There’s also different buff to traits no one use and no one will ever use at all like:
Life from Death (expecially after SoS that don’t grant shroud cd reduction)
Terrifying Descent (I didn’t even know it was still there)
Spiteful Renewal (no one will take it with reaper because Bitter Chill is too good, let’s see with the scourge…), and that also can be considerated a little nerf because you go from 5 sec CD to 18-35 sec CD of a healing skill. increase the threshold from 25% to 33-50% (eventually increasing the ICD to 6 seconds) should be a better fix. But now look as the meditation trait on heal for guardians: add heal and clean a condition.
Soul Eather (good, but there’s both Decimate Defence and Chilling Victory, they’re way better than SE, the healing is low and the LF isn’t enough but still better than nothing, and help to fight the lack of LF generation of this weapon)

Grant PvE traits and skills to sPvP is good, granting a little better effects. But that’s not enough to make them really strong. Anyway, it’s still a sort of buff, that’s true.

The only big buff I see is Spectral skills with increased duration even without the trait (that with the nerfed trait become the same as before while traited using the “old” version).

There had been different buffs and nerfs. The Huge nerf to Vital Persistence had already been fixed reducing the LF degeneration by 25% and that’s good.
The other things can be good buffs and prepare us to the Scourge.

We’ll have to see how the Scourge will interact with this traits, because Plague Signet is a suicide while in Shroud using the Death or Reaper shroud, but will be really good while using the Scourge because that elite can use all the weapon and utility skills (because don’t have a “real” shroud), making that signets really strong for him.
The Scourge also have enough Might Generation and Boon Corruption to don’t need the old effects of Signets of Suffering and that will work perfectly.

Everything had been done to make Scourge work better with the current traits, not for make the core class or the reaper better.
We have still to see the changes to the Reaper when the expansion will be released (they can’t kill our only source of good condiiton damage until the expansion release).

Flow,
the 1% of lifeforce makes all the difference.

yesterday it felt signet builds + SR power + SR condi builds + RIP base power PVE builds were all gutted.

Basically every build felt like a glassy procmancer, which would then be only viable thing left…. burst lf gain and burst lf loss

Now they all fell same with normal ok lifeforce, like even on base condi you now have time to get more than 3x autos off

The rest is nice,

like we used GS before cz daggers were simply to meh to keep up so why not yolo. Now with actual trait backing the weapon up it feels amazingly normal

Yes, finally, people with cooler heads. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying yesterday OP. You shouldn’t be camping shroud in the first place, power reaper or no.

Lord Velar.1509:

You didn’t play yesterday did you

I co main a condi thief and ive been told multiple times over that the build for it is max cancer

I already normally target necros just because

Yesterday there wasn’t 1 necros I faced that could handle me at all

What used to be a long drawn out but fun fight would end in less than 10 secs

So while you question what everyone was whining about, I question if you even pvp

I point out that the patch for necro was mostly buffs and your counter argument to that is that I didn’t run into some condi thief build yesterday? And based on that you question if I PvP at all?
k

Zefrost.3425:

I practically never used that trait and could give less of a kitten about it. I’ve never even really used soul reaping much after like 2014 as I find the whole line to be lacklustre. Any time I have ran soul reaping I never even noticed vital persistence. In WvW/PvP that trait was never needed in any scenario.

I agree.

I get that 7 sec Shroud cooldown makes certain PvE dps rotations more optimal, but from a PvP perspective: you can’t use Shroud immediately after it’s off cd every time anyway, also, if you use a staff Soul Marks is a no-brainer.

Ravezaar.4951:

for me and many that relied on 7sec Speed of Shadows isnt a fkng buff

You relied on it? How?
Are you one of the very few necros who don’t use a staff in PvP?

Aktium.9506:

flow.6043:

Speed of Shadows. Awesome buff. Up to now it was basically the awkward trait you’d have to pick if you didn’t use a staff, but now it’s a viable alternative regardless.

Come on man, I know you know better than this. Soft CC removal + Swiftness in exchange for losing the reduced Shroud cooldown is a bad trade off in most scenarios.

Actually, whenever you face a necro and/or ele there’s a lot of chill being cast constantly. And, as you know, chilled doesn’t just slow you down but also all your cooldowns. So in those fights cleansing chilled on Shroud entry is rather likely to save you more total cooldown time than you’d get from the occasional 3 secs on Shroud.
Also, flashing Shroud for swiftness should come in handy every now and then, which btw is a little better than the old 25% in Shroud only.

flow.6043:

Lord Velar.1509:

You didn’t play yesterday did you

I co main a condi thief and ive been told multiple times over that the build for it is max cancer

I already normally target necros just because

Yesterday there wasn’t 1 necros I faced that could handle me at all

What used to be a long drawn out but fun fight would end in less than 10 secs

So while you question what everyone was whining about, I question if you even pvp

I point out that the patch for necro was mostly buffs and your counter argument to that is that I didn’t run into some condi thief build yesterday? And based on that you question if I PvP at all?
k

Zefrost.3425:

I practically never used that trait and could give less of a kitten about it. I’ve never even really used soul reaping much after like 2014 as I find the whole line to be lacklustre. Any time I have ran soul reaping I never even noticed vital persistence. In WvW/PvP that trait was never needed in any scenario.

I agree.

I get that 7 sec Shroud cooldown makes certain PvE dps rotations more optimal, but from a PvP perspective: you can’t use Shroud immediately after it’s off cd every time anyway, also, if you use a staff Soul Marks is a no-brainer.

Ravezaar.4951:

for me and many that relied on 7sec Speed of Shadows isnt a fkng buff

You relied on it? How?
Are you one of the very few necros who don’t use a staff in PvP?

Aktium.9506:

flow.6043:

Speed of Shadows. Awesome buff. Up to now it was basically the awkward trait you’d have to pick if you didn’t use a staff, but now it’s a viable alternative regardless.

Come on man, I know you know better than this. Soft CC removal + Swiftness in exchange for losing the reduced Shroud cooldown is a bad trade off in most scenarios.

Actually, whenever you face a necro and/or ele there’s a lot of chill being cast constantly. And, as you know, chilled doesn’t just slow you down but also all your cooldowns. So in those fights cleansing chilled on Shroud entry is rather likely to save you more total cooldown time than you’d get from the occasional 3 secs on Shroud.
Also, flashing Shroud for swiftness should come in handy every now and then, which btw is a little better than the old 25% in Shroud only.

This, so much this.

Zefrost.3425:

Yeah flow I’m sure you also know as you’ve been here a while but not even exaggerating… 90% of necros don’t actually know how to play the class (including the devs unfortunately…)

I practically never used that trait and could give less of a kitten about it. I’ve never even really used soul reaping much after like 2014 as I find the whole line to be lacklustre. Any time I have ran soul reaping I never even noticed vital persistence. In WvW/PvP that trait was never needed in any scenario.

But hey… every build that I ever used just got a massive buff LOL

My gripe is the lack of meaningful changes to traitlines and greatsword/reaper lacking. Axe is actually a good power weapon nowadays, but you can’t go power necro because you need power/precision/ferocity and then you die instantly because you are a necro. And condi is better in every way.

Yeh we are all so clueless except you Zefrost. The god of gw2

This is a game, get over it. People have different views on stuff.

Flow: yes some buffs but it is balance relative to other classes. In addition a ton of the traits dependent on VP and speed of shadows got nerfed indirectly. You ignored the synergy aspects of the changes. Those are the most critical but hardest to see. How can you run unholy santurary without VP? Or shrouded removal?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Zefrost.3425:

Yeah flow I’m sure you also know as you’ve been here a while but not even exaggerating… 90% of necros don’t actually know how to play the class (including the devs unfortunately…)

I practically never used that trait and could give less of a kitten about it. I’ve never even really used soul reaping much after like 2014 as I find the whole line to be lacklustre. Any time I have ran soul reaping I never even noticed vital persistence. In WvW/PvP that trait was never needed in any scenario.

But hey… every build that I ever used just got a massive buff LOL

My gripe is the lack of meaningful changes to traitlines and greatsword/reaper lacking. Axe is actually a good power weapon nowadays, but you can’t go power necro because you need power/precision/ferocity and then you die instantly because you are a necro. And condi is better in every way.

Yeh we are all so clueless except you Zefrost. The god of gw2

This is a game, get over it. People have different views on stuff.

Flow: yes some buffs but it is balance relative to other classes. In addition a ton of the traits dependent on VP and speed of shadows got nerfed indirectly. You ignored the synergy aspects of the changes. Those are the most critical but hardest to see. How can you run unholy santurary without VP? Or shrouded removal?

I’m not sure why you keep bringing up shrouded removal being affected by VP. Sure if you got smacked with minute long conditions or something yes.

Be realistic, you might get some 10 second cripples or what not, but by the second time shrouded removal [SR] procs, if nothing new got applied on you, other conditions will elapse and your SR will remove the next condition in line. You don’t need 50 seconds of shroud to make SR work.

Whats more, speed of shadows buffed SR in a HUGE way.

Zefrost.3425:

I practically never used that trait and could give less of a kitten about it. I’ve never even really used soul reaping much after like 2014 as I find the whole line to be lacklustre. Any time I have ran soul reaping I never even noticed vital persistence. In WvW/PvP that trait was never needed in any scenario.

Axe is actually a good power weapon nowadays, but you can’t go power necro because you need power/precision/ferocity and then you die instantly because you are a necro.

LOL just loooooooool……..

think about what you just said here….

so you bassicaly never play Power only the meta condi… OFCOURSE you wont need soulreaping traitline then…..

then you cry that you dont play power because surv….. of course you have issues with power when you never take Soulreaping… it was the CORE trait line for most Power necro builds…… thats where most of Powers Surv came from…….

but now its nerfed and sucks so hard its pointless to take the entire traitline……..

both Blood and Death magic gives waaay more surv now….

You have confused “feedback” with “negativity”.

Nobody is here making unsubstantiated claims. All the people running Reaper Shroud builds were legitimately surprised by the heavy-handed nerfs the spec received.

All the buffs you mentioned doesn’t really apply to this one spec. Compensation isn’t compensation if it doesn’t counterweight the negative changes.

Tiresias.6473:

You have confused “feedback” with “negativity”.

Nobody is here making unsubstantiated claims. All the people running Reaper Shroud builds were legitimately surprised by the heavy-handed nerfs the spec received.

All the buffs you mentioned doesn’t really apply to this one spec. Compensation isn’t compensation if it doesn’t counterweight the negative changes.

I’ve already argued why those “negative changes” are really buffs.
Maybe you should link that build because I have no idea in what context those nerfs could be perceived as anywhere near heavy-handed.

Lordrosicky.5813:

How can you run unholy santurary without VP?

Exactly like before the patch. You don’t.

flow.6043:

Tiresias.6473:

You have confused “feedback” with “negativity”.

Nobody is here making unsubstantiated claims. All the people running Reaper Shroud builds were legitimately surprised by the heavy-handed nerfs the spec received.

All the buffs you mentioned doesn’t really apply to this one spec. Compensation isn’t compensation if it doesn’t counterweight the negative changes.

I’ve already argued why those “negative changes” are really buffs.
Maybe you should link that build because I have no idea in what context those nerfs could be perceived as anywhere near heavy-handed.

Lordrosicky.5813:

How can you run unholy santurary without VP?

Exactly like before the patch. You don’t.

Yeh but I want to run my troll build if I come back to this game….

The change now figures to be a buff by a lot to necros as making a trait baseline across the whole class is a huge difference maker. But it was a necessary change to make it baseline.

Zoltreez.6435:

so you bassicaly never play Power only the meta condi… OFCOURSE you wont need soulreaping traitline then…..

then you cry that you dont play power because surv….. of course you have issues with power when you never take Soulreaping… it was the CORE trait line for most Power necro builds…… thats where most of Powers Surv came from…….

but now its nerfed and sucks so hard its pointless to take the entire traitline……..

both Blood and Death magic gives waaay more surv now….

Last time i checked on mettabattle, the meta condi pvp uses soul reaping and VP too. I run power necro and also never needed VP. Ppl give it too much value and it promoted bad play, now ppl cry cuz they need to actually learn how to use shroud more actively. And soulreaping is still fine no need to be dramaqueen.