Guild Wars 2

I recently made the swap from Staff and Scepter/Dagger Condimancer to Greatsword and Axe/Warhorn Power Reaper for sPvP, and I’ve been really enjoying it, except that greatsword feels extremely underwhelming. I can understand that the entire premise of Reaper is to be constantly in Reaper shroud, but at the same time a new weapon should at the very least be a lateral move from other weapons, not a downgrade.

I also understand I’m about 2 years too late, and that if they haven’t changed anything in the past 2 years, it’s unlikely they will change anything now, but there’s always hope.

I removed my previous suggestions and explanations to shorten the post.

Let’s give this another shot based off some of the suggestions in the thread:

Greatsword

1. Chilling Scythe - Cleave foes in front of you and chill them.
Cast Time: 1s (no change)
Cooldown: 0s (no change)
Damage: 705 (1.8) (increased from 565 (1.4))
Chilled: 2s (no change)
Life Force: 3% (decreased from 5%)
Number of Targets: 3 (no change)
Range: 180 (up from 130)

Reasoning: Removed first two attacks in chain because they served no purpose (applied no debuffs, did minimal damage), increased base damage and Power ratio of Chilling Scythe to compensate for long cast time, increased range to compensate for long cast time and to fit Reaper ‘scythe’ theme.

2. Gravedigger - Perform a huge swing that deals heavy damage. Recharges if it hits a downed or low health foe.
Cast Time: 1.25s (no change)
Cooldown: 6s (reduced from 8s)
Damage: 1,320 (3.4) (increased from 1,210 (3.0))
Health Threshold: 50% (no change)
Recharge Reduced: 100% (no change)
Life Force: 5% (increased from 0%)
Number of Targets: 5 (no change)
Range: 220 (up from 170)

Reasoning: Reduced cooldown because damage per second above 50% is abysmal, increased base damage and Power ratio, increased range to compensate for long cast time and to fit Reaper ‘scythe’ theme.

3. Death Spiral - Conjure a drill of dark energy on your blade and dash forward, rending the armor of foes in front you.
Cast Time: 1s (no change)
Cooldown: 12s (no change)
Damage (6x): 880 (2.2) (increased from 798 (1.98))
Vulnerability (10s): 10 stacks (decreased from 12 stacks)
Life Force: 3% (increased from 2%)
Number of Targets: 3 (no change)
Range: 280 (increased from 220)

Reasoning: Added dash to provide a small gap closer and fit ‘drill’ theme, slightly increased damage and Power ratio, decreased Vulnerability stacks to compensate for dash, range slightly increased.

4. Nightfall - Surround yourself with shadows, damaging and applying conditions to nearby foes per pulse. Gain Life Force for each struck foe.
Cast Time: .5s (no change)
Cooldown: 16s (decreased from 25s)
Damage: 320 (0.8) (increased from 282 (0.7))
Blind: 2s (no change)
Crippled: 2s (no change)
Boons Converted to Conditions: 3 (decreased from 4)
Number of Targets: 5 (no change)
Life Force: 1%
Pulses: 4 (no change)
Interval: 2s (no change)
Radius: 300 (decreased from 360)
Combo Field: Dark

Reasoning: Changed from ground targeted ability to aura around player as the area of denial created was so small and easily avoidable, decreased cooldown as 25s on a melee ability is far too long, slightly increased damage and Power ratio, decreased amount of boons converted to compensate for change to auro, removed ‘growing’ effect and made radius a flat 300 which is slightly larger than furthest ranged melee ability.

5. Grasping Darkness - Toss out spectral scythes at a targeted foe, Chilling them and nearby foes and pulling them to you. Gain Life Force for each struck foe.
Cast Time: 1s (increased from .75s)
Cooldown: 18s (decreased from 25s)
Damage: 680 (1.4) (increased from 524 (1.3)
Chilled: 4s (no change)
Life Force: 4% (no change)
Number of Targets: 5 (no change)
Range: 800 (increased from 750)

Reasoning: Changed from a directional projectile ability to a targeted ability as the directional portion is bugged (GW2 Wiki), decreased cooldown as the kit has no significant gap closer, slightly increased damage and Power ratio, slightly increased range.

Alright, I’m pretty confident in this one, and think they’re solid changes based on feedback from this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Let me know what you think!

Vitali.5039:

My power related dream list changes:

To me the increased damage should come from underused traits that are in the same tier of our best survival and support traits, to increase PvP’s build variety.

To me we should be able to increase our damage at the cost of self survival, to make it balanced PvP wise.

Vitali.5039:

Vitali.5039:

My power related dream list changes:

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To me the increased damage should come from underused traits that are in the same tier of our best survival and support traits, to increase PvP’s build variety.

To me we should be able to increase our damage at the cost of self survival, to make it balanced PvP wise.

While gaining additional damage through traits would be great, we already have extremely limited survivability; we have no blocks, no evades, no invulnerability, and the best heal we have is on a 30s cooldown. We have Rise and a few forms of damage reduction, but Rise can be nullified by a few AoEs. That leaves Shroud, but even Shroud just acts as a second health bar (in terms of survivability), and offers no active defenses.

I’m not saying that Shroud should be changed (as I don’t think it should), but I don’t think lowering our survivability is a viable option either, especially when the reason I suggested separate damage scaling is because the damage greatsword puts out in PvP is already decent (albeit clunky), and that PvE is the area in need of a flat damage buff. Fully buffed Power Reaper puts out ~24-27k DPS on a target dummy, whereas Condimancer can pull upwards of ~30-33k DPS (and mind you that’s with BiS gear on a dummy, not in real scenarios).

But I digress, the point of this post is to address greatsword, and not the myriad of other issues with the class or Power Reaper as a whole (as there’s already quite a few other threads that address those issues).

Helbjorne.9368:

Vitali.5039:

Vitali.5039:

My power related dream list changes:

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hide spoiler

click on the quote to see it

To me the increased damage should come from underused traits that are in the same tier of our best survival and support traits, to increase PvP’s build variety.

To me we should be able to increase our damage at the cost of self survival, to make it balanced PvP wise.

While gaining additional damage through traits would be great, we already have extremely limited survivability; we have no blocks, no evades, no invulnerability, and the best heal we have is on a 30s cooldown. We have Rise and a few forms of damage reduction, but Rise can be nullified by a few AoEs. That leaves Shroud, but even Shroud just acts as a second health bar (in terms of survivability), and offers no active defenses.

I’m not saying that Shroud should be changed (as I don’t think it should), but I don’t think lowering our survivability is a viable option either, especially when the reason I suggested separate damage scaling is because the damage greatsword puts out in PvP is already decent (albeit clunky), and that PvE is the area in need of a flat damage buff. Fully buffed Power Reaper puts out ~24-27k DPS on a target dummy, whereas Condimancer can pull upwards of ~30-33k DPS (and mind you that’s with BiS gear on a dummy, not in real scenarios).

But I digress, the point of this post is to address greatsword, and not the myriad of other issues with the class or Power Reaper as a whole (as there’s already quite a few other threads that address those issues).

To me blocks, evades and invulnerability shouldn’t be locked in a e-spec but putted into core skills.

The most important thing is to not have too much damage for the durability and damage in the same build (see warrior’s balance history) to have one aspect nerfed to the ground.

Vitali.5039:

Helbjorne.9368:

Vitali.5039:

Vitali.5039:

My power related dream list changes:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

click on the quote to see it

To me the increased damage should come from underused traits that are in the same tier of our best survival and support traits, to increase PvP’s build variety.

To me we should be able to increase our damage at the cost of self survival, to make it balanced PvP wise.

While gaining additional damage through traits would be great, we already have extremely limited survivability; we have no blocks, no evades, no invulnerability, and the best heal we have is on a 30s cooldown. We have Rise and a few forms of damage reduction, but Rise can be nullified by a few AoEs. That leaves Shroud, but even Shroud just acts as a second health bar (in terms of survivability), and offers no active defenses.

I’m not saying that Shroud should be changed (as I don’t think it should), but I don’t think lowering our survivability is a viable option either, especially when the reason I suggested separate damage scaling is because the damage greatsword puts out in PvP is already decent (albeit clunky), and that PvE is the area in need of a flat damage buff. Fully buffed Power Reaper puts out ~24-27k DPS on a target dummy, whereas Condimancer can pull upwards of ~30-33k DPS (and mind you that’s with BiS gear on a dummy, not in real scenarios).

But I digress, the point of this post is to address greatsword, and not the myriad of other issues with the class or Power Reaper as a whole (as there’s already quite a few other threads that address those issues).

To me blocks, evades and invulnerability shouldn’t be locked in a e-spec but putted into core skills.

The most important thing is to not have too much damage for the durability and damage in the same build (see warrior’s balance history) to have one aspect nerfed to the ground.

I don’t think they should be either, I was stating that because Necro already has such low active defenses, lowering passive defenses to buff damage (as you suggested) would only hurt the class further. But again, this is about greatsword, not the overall class.

Every time I see people suggesting buffs and fixes for reaper its always reducing cast times. I will disagree with that this will be a good way to solve the problems for two major reasons.

First off, it will cause homogenization of professions, which means that despite having different abilities the resulting playstyle will be similar and that there often will be abilities on jobs filling the exact same function albeit with different flavour. The end result is that things will seem and feel similar and end up bland.

Second: It goes against the design vision of the Reaper as a slow moving movie horror, while Anet arguably failed at actually making it perform like one. Mostly due to extremely underwhelming numbers in practice and a host of traits which underperform. I think it would be a shame to just abandon that vision in favour of homogenization when the simplest fix is a relatively simple potency adjustment on the skills.

Solving the more complex issues of the professions balance is very closely related to the extremely strong boon hate and solid condition management the necro has. Giving the Reaper the damage and survivability it numerically should have with how it is designed is actually not healthy for the PvP oriented game modes due to that. While it would certainly be interesting to have a job that kills people in an AA chain while simultaneously being able to shred boons is not a good thing. The unwillingness to split PvP and PvE balance is one reason for Necromancers always ending up on the weak side of the average line for PvE.

In order to properly create a balanced situation where the necromancer can be viable where it goes will require that the boon hate should be put in places of the trees which directly confilcts with the Power builds best damage dealing and survivability traits. Then the weapon effects and numbers needs to be adjusted to fit into that idea. I think Scourge providing the a condi damage centric elite spec will be very important to freeing up space for the reaper so it can fullfill the power dps/bruiser archetype as it would be possible to effectively control certain aspects, namely survivability and damage, when you can put them in two different mutualy exclusive specs.

Helbjorne.9368:

But again, this is about greatsword, not the overall class.

My GS suggestion change is listed under Soul Eater trait

From my PoV, most of the suggestions have merit but I would also like to see increased damage on Chilling Scythe and Grasping Darkness. They are both harder to land so a dps increase might be best from them.

Core multipliers for power builds could also use help. Death Magic, Blood Magic, and Spite should have more significant ways to increase damage and greater group utility. For example, Vampiric Presence could add a bleed with ICD for each group member in its AoE, one of the master traits in Spite could add group ferocity, and one of the master traits in Death Magic could add group concentration.

Arche.7326:

Every time I see people suggesting buffs and fixes for reaper its always reducing cast times. I will disagree with that this will be a good way to solve the problems for two major reasons.

First off, it will cause homogenization of professions, which means that despite having different abilities the resulting playstyle will be similar and that there often will be abilities on jobs filling the exact same function albeit with different flavour. The end result is that things will seem and feel similar and end up bland.

Second: It goes against the design vision of the Reaper as a slow moving movie horror, while Anet arguably failed at actually making it perform like one. Mostly due to extremely underwhelming numbers in practice and a host of traits which underperform. I think it would be a shame to just abandon that vision in favour of homogenization when the simplest fix is a relatively simple potency adjustment on the skills.

That makes sense, and in the case where a slow moving movie horror is the vision for the elite specialization and greatsword, the numbers would have be adjusted quite dramatically to make up for long cast times. The autoattack chain, Gravedigger, and Death Spiral are the only real sources of damage (Nightfall and Grasping Darkness’ damage is quite low, as they’re CC abilities) and would have to be increased, and if they were to retain those long cast times, I think the range would have increased as well. 130 and 170 is extremely short when you’re trying to chase down a mobile class, and if they’re just a hair out of range the attack misses. This of course is an issue that all melee players face, however other classes have mobility and hard CC to be able to keep their opponents in range.

An alternative approach would be to remove the autoattack chain altogether, and make the third strike, Chilling Scythe, the only attack for 1, and slightly increase its damage. This would allow us to maintain the vision for the specialization, and would make staying with a target much easier (as although the class has numerous sources of Chill, they are on long CDs and once cleansed we’re stuck playing the chasing game).

I think the reduced CD on Gravedigger is still a solid suggestion, as although it can be traited to bring the CD down to 6 seconds, the other 2 traits are extremely valuable, and our damage output depends on them. The big issue with greatsword is opponents >50% HP; once under we can usually keep them under and secure the kill.

The suggested changes to Nightfall I think are necessary as well, although perhaps changing it to an aura instead of a ground targetted ability and keeping the current range would be better than just increasing the range, but I don’t know if that would border OP (at least in PvP, not really all that useful in PvE anyways).

Unfortunately, even with these suggested changes, DPS would still be quite lacking in PvE. As you mentioned, ANets desire to use the same numbers for PvP and PvE makes Necro extremely difficult to balance.

The best way to improve PvE damage while not breaking the PvP scene is to work around critical % (that we already have) and ferocity (our ferocity is a joke), like recently happens to Guardian’s Radiance trait line.

Vitali.5039:

The best way to improve PvE damage while not breaking the PvP scene is to work around critical % (that we already have) and ferocity (our ferocity is a joke), like recently happens to Guardian’s Radiance trait line.

Yeah, I saw that from your post and it’s a start, but it doesn’t address the other issues with greatsword (ie. everything listed in OP), and to take that trait in PvP we’d lose out on our very few sources of Might gain or critical chance.

I see the reaper as a spec’ that is meant to be slow and steady, the problem is that it is just slow. Too easily interrupted. And not terrifying at all.
If a reaper gets its hands on you, you should think “crap ! I’m done” and that could justify the slow part as a form of balance.

Increase damage on greatsword autoattack by 25% and reaper shroud autoattack by 40% in PvE only.

Increase damage of Gravedigger by 20%, reduce cast time by 0.5 secs. Reduce cooldown to 7 seconds.

Reduce cooldown of greatsword 5 significantly. Should be no more than 12 seconds.

Increase the power damage of Soul Spiral by 30%.

Reaper shouts are made party wide, and they provide the reaper with with life force when the effects of a shout activate (reaper shroud should be a DPS upgrade over camping greatsword).

Cold Shoulder minor trait changed to 10% additional damage on chilled/crippled/vulnerable targets.

Reaper’s Onslaught now also causes all Greatsword skills to generate additional life force.

That way, reaper shroud just like all class resources is a dps form you enter and spend resources on.

Right now reaper shroud is pathetically weak and a DPS loss compared to staying out of it.

A class should never be discouraged from using their class resource in PvE.

I said this in an earlier thread, but I think the simplest fix to nightfall is have it tick the moment its placed on the ground, that would make it very quick and potentialy be devastating as you no longer would be able to walk out of it. The GS5 should similarly start at max range and just pull in (i.e. no more shadow snakes that people walk away from). Those two changes would make a world of difference in making them harder to evade. It should be noted that its two very powerfull buffs to making the kit faster, 4 boons converted in an aoe with cripple and blind for .5 second cast time is very good, similarly would the pull be strong as it would occur twice as fast without compromising the slow idea of the job.

Both gravedigger and the AA chain needs significant damage buffs in terms of damage, in the range of 30-50% (for PvE viability), and the entirety of the shroud kit needs almost double damage to be worth using over GS spam. The traits should push it so that as long as shroud is above 50%, camping shroud should beat GS AA spam with gravedigger weaving and as soon as its pure gravedigger spam, jumping into shroud for shroud (3)2-5-4-2 and not AAing in shroud should still be an increase. This would require changes to “Strength of Undeath” to be strong enough and only work in shroud, but I think that Necro really needs to have its traits revisited, because they’re a real mess to behold.

This would create more interesting rotations for power and be really good for the job over all, i believe. Not contributing anything but a big HP pool and a kittenton of damage. This suggested balance is of course under the assumption that power reapers boon hate from other sources than the GS is recduced significantly.

On a more unserious note I also think that Shroud 5, regardless of balance, should act like Daredevils Finishing Blow, because its called Executioner’s Scythe and I love me some flavour.

Arche.7326:

I said this in an earlier thread, but I think the simplest fix to nightfall is have it tick the moment its placed on the ground, that would make it very quick and potentialy be devastating as you no longer would be able to walk out of it.

It does tick as soon as you place it, then every 2 seconds afterwards (so 4 pulses over 6 seconds). Or do you mean for it to pulse every 1 second instead?

Lahmia.2193:

Arche.7326:

I said this in an earlier thread, but I think the simplest fix to nightfall is have it tick the moment its placed on the ground, that would make it very quick and potentialy be devastating as you no longer would be able to walk out of it.

It does tick as soon as you place it, then every 2 seconds afterwards (so 4 pulses over 6 seconds). Or do you mean for it to pulse every 1 second instead?

Yes, you are entirely right. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote it. Ticking every second would be a big improvement which would lead to area being denied faster and more effectively. I do think letting it last for more than 6 seconds at that rate would be too much, so slightly reduced total duration but more effect.

Arche.7326:

Lahmia.2193:

Arche.7326:

I said this in an earlier thread, but I think the simplest fix to nightfall is have it tick the moment its placed on the ground, that would make it very quick and potentialy be devastating as you no longer would be able to walk out of it.

It does tick as soon as you place it, then every 2 seconds afterwards (so 4 pulses over 6 seconds). Or do you mean for it to pulse every 1 second instead?

Yes, you are entirely right. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote it. Ticking every second would be a big improvement which would lead to area being denied faster and more effectively. I do think letting it last for more than 6 seconds at that rate would be too much, so slightly reduced total duration but more effect.

Personally I’d change it so it has a fixed 240 radius, it follows you around as a mobile combo field and pulses each second but with a reduced duration, so it does the same amount of pulses as it does now.

Gs is too slow, needs to be faster, needs to have a teleport or a fast speed skill.

Lahmia.2193:

Arche.7326:

Lahmia.2193:

Arche.7326:

I said this in an earlier thread, but I think the simplest fix to nightfall is have it tick the moment its placed on the ground, that would make it very quick and potentialy be devastating as you no longer would be able to walk out of it.

It does tick as soon as you place it, then every 2 seconds afterwards (so 4 pulses over 6 seconds). Or do you mean for it to pulse every 1 second instead?

Yes, you are entirely right. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote it. Ticking every second would be a big improvement which would lead to area being denied faster and more effectively. I do think letting it last for more than 6 seconds at that rate would be too much, so slightly reduced total duration but more effect.

Personally I’d change it so it has a fixed 240 radius, it follows you around as a mobile combo field and pulses each second but with a reduced duration, so it does the same amount of pulses as it does now.

If i remember correctly, that was suggested in the HoT beta as well and now that you say it I remember thinking it was a good idea, definitly better than increasing the pulse intervals like I was getting at.

Theres a bit of a conflict here between what people want and anets whatever philosophy they have about reaper.
Imho if they dont want to give speed to reaper thats fine,as long the dmg is increased considerably to compensate.
You cant be having warrior that is hiding behind stances and resistance beeing able to end most of the targets he gets close to and reaper who doesnt even have 1/10th of the defences not do at least as much dmg when he gets in range.
The greatsword needs at least an 100% dmg increase all around to fit the tradeoffs.

reduce auto attack chain last hit and skill 3 and 5 get increased in range and 25% damage increase in all skills ( also buff gs related traits, Nightfall need to be mobile)

grave of hearts.7830:

Theres a bit of a conflict here between what people want and anets whatever philosophy they have about reaper.

Prince Vingador.8067:

Gs is too slow, needs to be faster, needs to have a teleport or a fast speed skill.

Yeah, that’s the issue; most people that PvP want the greatsword to be faster and don’t care about the ‘vision’ of the class, but as you stated Grave of Hearts, if they want to keep the slow, lumbering, horror theme, it definitely needs to be buffed to compensate.

Alright, it’s a long read, but I completely redid the skills based on suggestions here and elsewhere in the Necromancer forums. I think they’re all really solid suggestions, and as someone mentioned in another thread, I think the older traits need to be adjusted to synergize with greatsword more, seeing as there isn’t a lot of trait synergy with greatsword or power builds in general, but that’s a task for another day.

Any thoughts on updated suggested changes?

For PVE, more damage.

gs1 = 20k
gs2 spam = 30k
shroud 1 = 20k

Those are rough numbers afaik. Id like A LOT more dps on shroud to make use of the traits as well as having a mega hurr durr mode that is equal to thief just autoatacking is also lame. I know its not coeficents but lack of modifiers, just do it Anet.

For PVP , remove clunk

gs1 – can be faster but ok

gs2 – 1s superspeed so you cant casualy out walk the horror monster. also bigger range like warrior greatsword spin 1-shot had 600 RANGE its now 300

gs3 – make it teleport 600 range to target , liek guard sword , maybe root for cast so its like 400 range effective

gs4 – ok

gs5 – copy paste replace it with guard gs5 pull. its shame of wasted work to design new tech, proudly present it. and it being a useless unreliable scam, not even a diceroll
basically make the skill work as it should

GS is decent but mostly cz other stuff makes you a freekill

I know the OP speaks from PvE, but am I the only person in the world who thinks Grasping Darkness is completely fine in terms of function and that the weakest part of the GS is AA3 and Gravedigger?

Like if you want the pull just de-target. The ability to snag a whole group is so huge. If you test the ability you can figure out what causes the terrain bug to prevent it from happening – or go play thief and learn how pathing works. I haven’t missed/failed a GD in a very, very long time and find the skill the primary reason to use GS.

OP, if nightfall moves with the caster, the radius needs to come down. Even a 300 radius mobile blinding corrupt is absolutely insane for its cooldown.

GS AA1/2 are imho the better abilities of the AA chain. They’re quick as far as GS autos go. Get AA1 to apply 1s chill and I think the chain ends up great.

Grasping Darkness inherently cannot be perfectly fine if it has a known bug, and although there are ways to play around it, we shouldn’t have to. My suggested change to Grasping Darkness would allow it to retain its function and just change it from a frontal projectile to a targeted ability.

I’ll lower the radius on Nightfall, and as for the boon corrupt goes, you’re right. I think maybe lowering it to 2 boons would be better? 3 is still incredibly strong now that I step back and think about it.

As for AA 1/2, they’re not quick as far as greatsword autos go. Both Warrior and Guardian greatsword have a flat .5s cast time for their entire AA chain, Ranger has 2 .5s and a .75s cast time, and Mesmer has a 1s and 1.5s cast time, but it’s ranged. We have the slowest melee greatsword AA chain, and that’s why I think we’re better off with just the one ability (as seen in our staff) where we can instantly apply chill to foes without having to run through our first two abilities which offer no utility and hardly any damage.

That being said, if they also applied chill that could work, but the damage output would still have to be increased and it would take away from the utility of the third strike, which I suppose could be changed to Vulnerability? Or a guaranteed critical? I don’t know.

What would you want changed to gravedigger?

To me, the use of greatsword and Reaper spec brings a lot of problems, I really wish they would look into what should be the main use of the weapon and the spec.

First of all, if you want to use a power build the biggest problem you’ll face is that the main source of dmg comes from spamming Gravedigger and barely using Reaper Shroud at all, which makes the combination of these 2 things really awkard yet necessary, it’s a synergy problem.
They should either make it so you can choose traits that are actually helpful for mainly using greatsword, or make it so that using Reaper Shroud is better than spamming Gravedigger.

Second, there’s a lot of confusion about whether Reaper spec is power or condi. To me, it’s definitely condi because greatsword is (generally) better than staff when using a condi build and the best traits of Reaper spec are for condition too.
But I understand the confusion because greatsword should be a melee weapon, and the Reaper Shroud skills seem more melee oriented yet nothing but Gravedigger is good about it.. it’s just not right.

I know this thread is about GS but you can’t look at GS and Reaper spec apart from eachother, but to me I sometimes wish they were apart because it seems there’s just so little synergy between the 2.
There’s a reason why there’s only 1 real meta build around for necro.

Sun Lian.4075:

To me, the use of greatsword and Reaper spec brings a lot of problems, I really wish they would look into what should be the main use of the weapon and the spec.

First of all, if you want to use a power build the biggest problem you’ll face is that the main source of dmg comes from spamming Gravedigger and barely using Reaper Shroud at all, which makes the combination of these 2 things really awkard yet necessary, it’s a synergy problem.
They should either make it so you can choose traits that are actually helpful for mainly using greatsword, or make it so that using Reaper Shroud is better than spamming Gravedigger.

Second, there’s a lot of confusion about whether Reaper spec is power or condi. To me, it’s definitely condi because greatsword is (generally) better than staff when using a condi build and the best traits of Reaper spec are for condition too.
But I understand the confusion because greatsword should be a melee weapon, and the Reaper Shroud skills seem more melee oriented yet nothing but Gravedigger is good about it.. it’s just not right.

I know this thread is about GS but you can’t look at GS and Reaper spec apart from eachother, but to me I sometimes wish they were apart because it seems there’s just so little synergy between the 2.
There’s a reason why there’s only 1 real meta build around for necro.

What do you think about my suggested changes?
More damage thanks to ferocity/damage modifier to give a sense to our whirl finishers and fields out of condition builds on top of a great aura buff for make us wanted.. and no more Decimate Defenses for PvE power builds! Yay!

Vampiric Rituals

Wells gain reduced recharge time. They now grant protection to allies when cast, and siphon health with every pulse.
Deal more damage to enemies standing in your Fields

Life siphon damage: 212 (0.02)?
Life siphon healing: 212 (0.03)?
Protection (5s): -33% Incoming Damage
Damage Increase: 10%
Recharge Reduced: 20%

Soul Eater

Greatsword skills gain reduced recharge. Periodically heal and gain life force while wielding a greatsword. Gain stacking ferocity boon while performing a Whirl Finisher

Healing: 200 (0.05)?
Life Force: 0.5%
Reaper’s Ferocity (20s): 100 Ferocity
Maximum Stacks: 5
Recharge Reduced: 20%
Interval: 1s
Combat Only

Reaper’s Onslaught

Attack faster and increase power and ferocity of nearby allies by 225 points while in a reaper’s shroud. Killing a foe while in a shroud reduces recharge on all shroud skills.
Reaper’s Onslaught (9s): Increases power and ferocity of nearby allies by 225 points.
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Combat Only
Attack Speed Increase: 15%
Recharge Reduced: 5s

Vitali.5039:

Sun Lian.4075:

To me, the use of greatsword and Reaper spec brings a lot of problems, I really wish they would look into what should be the main use of the weapon and the spec.

First of all, if you want to use a power build the biggest problem you’ll face is that the main source of dmg comes from spamming Gravedigger and barely using Reaper Shroud at all, which makes the combination of these 2 things really awkard yet necessary, it’s a synergy problem.
They should either make it so you can choose traits that are actually helpful for mainly using greatsword, or make it so that using Reaper Shroud is better than spamming Gravedigger.

Second, there’s a lot of confusion about whether Reaper spec is power or condi. To me, it’s definitely condi because greatsword is (generally) better than staff when using a condi build and the best traits of Reaper spec are for condition too.
But I understand the confusion because greatsword should be a melee weapon, and the Reaper Shroud skills seem more melee oriented yet nothing but Gravedigger is good about it.. it’s just not right.

I know this thread is about GS but you can’t look at GS and Reaper spec apart from eachother, but to me I sometimes wish they were apart because it seems there’s just so little synergy between the 2.
There’s a reason why there’s only 1 real meta build around for necro.

What do you think about my suggested changes?
More damage thanks to ferocity/damage modifier to give a sense to our whirl finishers and fields out of condition builds on top of a great aura buff for make us wanted.. and no more Decimate Defenses for PvE power builds! Yay!

Vampiric Rituals

Wells gain reduced recharge time. They now grant protection to allies when cast, and siphon health with every pulse.
Deal more damage to enemies standing in your Fields

Life siphon damage: 212 (0.02)?
Life siphon healing: 212 (0.03)?
Protection (5s): -33% Incoming Damage
Damage Increase: 10%
Recharge Reduced: 20%

Soul Eater

Greatsword skills gain reduced recharge. Periodically heal and gain life force while wielding a greatsword. Gain stacking ferocity boon while performing a Whirl Finisher

Healing: 200 (0.05)?
Life Force: 0.5%
Reaper’s Ferocity (20s): 100 Ferocity
Maximum Stacks: 5
Recharge Reduced: 20%
Interval: 1s
Combat Only

Reaper’s Onslaught

Attack faster and increase power and ferocity of nearby allies by 225 points while in a reaper’s shroud. Killing a foe while in a shroud reduces recharge on all shroud skills.
Reaper’s Onslaught (9s): Increases power and ferocity of nearby allies by 225 points.
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Combat Only
Attack Speed Increase: 15%
Recharge Reduced: 5s

I like the idea for vampiric rituals, but i’m not sure if blood magic is the spec to look at when u wanna make power reaper stronger. Its nice if u also want to give some support.

I really like the idea for soul eater, something like that is definitely necessary to make reaper skills useful.

The idea for reaper’s onslaught seems a bit drastic to me, although something drastic its probably necessary for necromancer.

I would probably rather see reaper’s autoattack get reworked into something better together with dhuumfire, synergizing with reaper’s onslaught.

Now, if you’re condi you choose chill bleeds and dhuumfire while reaper’s onslaught synergizes with dhuumfire but you won’t choose it.. while dhuumfire should be a really good trait, as it was in death shroud.
And if you’re power.. then dhuumfire is just a little extra dmg but there aren’t many other options.

Helbjorne.9368:

Grasping Darkness inherently cannot be perfectly fine if it has a known bug, and although there are ways to play around it, we shouldn’t have to. My suggested change to Grasping Darkness would allow it to retain its function and just change it from a frontal projectile to a targeted ability.

I’ll lower the radius on Nightfall, and as for the boon corrupt goes, you’re right. I think maybe lowering it to 2 boons would be better? 3 is still incredibly strong now that I step back and think about it.

As for AA 1/2, they’re not quick as far as greatsword autos go. Both Warrior and Guardian greatsword have a flat .5s cast time for their entire AA chain, Ranger has 2 .5s and a .75s cast time, and Mesmer has a 1s and 1.5s cast time, but it’s ranged. We have the slowest melee greatsword AA chain, and that’s why I think we’re better off with just the one ability (as seen in our staff) where we can instantly apply chill to foes without having to run through our first two abilities which offer no utility and hardly any damage.

That being said, if they also applied chill that could work, but the damage output would still have to be increased and it would take away from the utility of the third strike, which I suppose could be changed to Vulnerability? Or a guaranteed critical? I don’t know.

What would you want changed to gravedigger?

I like the fact GD can cleave into groups, and point-and-clink won’t fix the pathing issue with GD. This is a game-wide problem that affects any class that depends on ground-based pathing, and is deeply nested in the way the engine works. Several other professions need to deal with this, and they do; for the potency GD brings when used correctly, I’d rather have it as-is than reworked into something that isn’t a distance group pull. The only way to overcome this is heat-seeking like DH pull, but to do that you’d need to make it single-target, and I find that would be incredibly weak.

The boon corrupt is fine, just a moving 300 radius wasn’t. 200 to make it kitable/escapable with some basic movement /soft CC and it’s fine. Honestly, I like the static field location as it is better because I can drop it in someone else’s fight or to reset to pretty much win it and keep moving, and the size is quite nice for larger group battles or 5v5, but that’s just me.

The ranger and warrior both have longer aftercasts than the reaper does and have the same initial precast time on the animation for the first hit, which puts the animation a lot closer than you’d expect (around .17s difference at the longest between ranger and reaper) , and do between 50 to 70% of the damage reaper does per strike. Overall, reaper GS AA 1/2 are substantially better than any other since the DPH is much higher and the initial strike is just as easy to land as any others’. It’s literally nearly double the damage in the same amount of time, and when coming out of shroud on a power build, this is one of the best ways to start due to how big the burst is. GSAA3 is the weak link due to its slowness of the cast; people just walk out of it. 1s chill on the first hit will allow exactly what you want – a reliable chill proc – and will allow the second to land more reliably and give you more functional damage uptime while your opponents cooldowns are consistently slowed down and their mobility reduced which lets you keep landing hits. I’m not saying no to applying chill (as more chill on AA allows for a less-impactful Deathly Chill nerf as to keep the condi build usable but not overpowering in its burst like right now), but rather that GSAA1/2 are the better skills by a very substantial margin and should be preserved as such because otherwise nobody will get hit by the AA at all.

Q: What would you buff on GS?
A: Everything!

Replace 3 with a leap finisher, since there’s no real way to make up ground.