Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, a soon to be necro here. I’ve tried it out in pvp and key farming before that, and I absolutely fell in love with the class. That said, I have a very important question (for me at least) which will decide which profession I will make my necromancer as.

Is the human elite racial skill, Reaper of Grenth, in certain situations in pve, is very useful and even outshines the class elites? I’ve heard that it is so for example, in the Volcanic fractal against the Imbued Shaman. Since the constant chill is very useful during the bubble phase. Is Reaper of Grenth really that useful there and is it in other scenarios as well?

Furthermore, I’m also concerned for the elite specialization, the Reaper. Since this spec. is so heavily reliant on the chill condition, do you think that Reaper of Grenth would really shine then too or maybe you even already experienced it during the BWEs?

Am I worried about nothing or should I roll as a human? I would really like to make my necro as a Sylvari for cosmetics reasons but if it will make my necro less desirable or competitive in dungeons/fractals/raids, I would be greatly disappointed. Thank you very much for reading all of this and helping me out!

I personally have used it a lot on my necro as it has a lot of synergy with us. While it is totally outshined by the dps of Lich Form, it does offer an alternative if you aren’t a fan of Elite Forms or the Flesh golem. I feel it will be totally outdone when HoT is released and we get the “Chilled to the bone” elite, which causes aoe chill with 2 second stun on 90s cooldown (can be traited for less).

Lahmia.2193:

I personally have used it a lot on my necro as it has a lot of synergy with us. While it is totally outshined by the dps of Lich Form, it does offer an alternative if you aren’t a fan of Elite Forms or the Flesh golem. I feel it will be totally outdone when HoT is released and we get the “Chilled to the bone” elite, which causes aoe chill with 2 second stun on 90s cooldown (can be traited for less).

It’s not just a chill. It’s basically an AoE deep freeze.

While the 2 sec aoe freeze from “Chilled to the bone!” is nice, the chill duration is only 9.6 secs and the skill is blockable. Reaper of Grenth when using Reaper spec will provide a 21.6 secs of unblockable chill.

That seems very potent to me. Especially under the type of encounters I described in my OP (like the Imbued Shaman). Where chilling the boss will deny him from going into the same phase/skill again, which can be very useful. Maybe even “meta”. In this particular scenario “Chilled to the bone!” can’t even be used.

Furthermore, right now the cd is irrelevant. Be it 90 seconds or 180, you will only use the skill once during the boss encounter where it’s the most crucial.

I think I may have made up my mind. Viability is more important to me than cosmetic is. Too bad that racials have such a big impact on gameplay. Unless you guys think that Reaper of Grenth will be nerfed… Ahhh I’m so torn.

Ithamir.5928:

While the 2 sec aoe freeze from “Chilled to the bone!” is nice, the chill duration is only 9.6 secs and the skill is blockable. Reaper of Grenth when using Reaper spec will provide a 21.6 secs of unblockable chill.

That seems very potent to me. Especially under the type of encounters I described in my OP (like the Imbued Shaman). Where chilling the boss will deny him from going into the same phase/skill again, which can be very useful. Maybe even “meta”. In this particular scenario “Chilled to the bone!” can’t even be used.

Furthermore, right now the cd is irrelevant. Be it 90 seconds or 180, you will only use the skill once during the boss encounter where it’s the most crucial.

I think I may have made up my mind. Viability is more important to me than cosmetic is. Too bad that racials have such a big impact on gameplay. Unless you guys think that Reaper of Grenth will be nerfed… Ahhh I’m so torn.

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Racial skills have next to zero impact on gameplay. The Imbued shaman is the only boss encounter I can think of where applying chill actually makes the fight noticeably easier. And that’s likely to change when HoT releases and big changes come to both bosses and the fractals. The fact that chilled to the bone can be blocked and reaper of grenth cannot is also only applicable in that one specific fight.

In HoT:

Chill will apply only minor damage to break bars. The freeze from “Chilled to the bone” will apply much more damage to the bar over a shorter period of time. I was able to break most vets/elites and some champions instantly with that skill alone. The AoE freeze is also much more useful as an engagement tool, to pin enemies down long enough for you to well bomb them, as well as interrupt their initial attacks when you first aggro them.

What does chill do to the legendary imbued shaman?

Ithamir.5928:

I think I may have made up my mind. Viability is more important to me than cosmetic is. Too bad that racials have such a big impact on gameplay. Unless you guys think that Reaper of Grenth will be nerfed… Ahhh I’m so torn.

I find it interesting you see it that way, considering we are one of the classes that already has access to unblockable chills. This and the fact that it is a rather fringe-use of the mechanic (not used very much outside of grawl fractal if I´m not mistaken) in my eyes makes the skill almost obsolete for us Necromancers.

Not that I think the skill is bad, I think it´s awesome. I just wouldn´t take it into consideration when I have access to unblockable chills by default (Dark Path) or can switch a trait or two (Greater Marks, maybe even Chilling Darkness + Well of Darkness if you want) to achieve the same thing.

Not to mention that Ice Bows (or Eles in general really) make chill pretty redundant as is anyways.

Edit:

nekretaal.6485:

What does chill do to the legendary imbued shaman?

If you time it right, it prevents him from going into bubble phase again after the first one (because of longer CD from chill), which makes the fight a lot easier.

nekretaal.6485:

What does chill do to the legendary imbued shaman?

His phase transition is a skill with a cooldown. Chill lengthens this cooldown, allowing players to kill him in just 2 phases.

@Skoigoth.9238:

I’m a noob necromancer, in fact I’m not even that. I only play my necro in pvp and even that’s only recently. Maybe that’s why the unblockable clause of Reaper of Grenth sounds so appealing to me. Besides that part, it’s also the longest chill in the game, correct me if I’m wrong.

Imbued Shaman, is where it can be cheesed out the most, yes. But you can do it on other bosses as well. It’s just that most other classes have other, more useful elites. I believe that Reaper of Grenth may be the most useful elite for necros in other instances as well, but it’s far less noticeable than in the Vulcanic fractal to attract attention.

What concerns me the most is Raids. We simply don’t know the mechanics used there. The Imbued Shaman boss seems to me like a “classic” raid boss. So perhaps phasing will have a bigger role than now, and the bosses may use blocks to protect themselves while going through the phases as well. That’s a lot of “ifs” and “maybes” but it seems very plausible to me.

I don’t think that racial skill should ever be the most useful option. ever. But Anet seems to have ignored it for years now, so what stops them from keep ignoring it in the future?

This is getting blown waaaay out of proportion. Racial skills are, and always will remain so, weak. Just because this one skill found a small niche gimmick does not break the class or game. Stop making mountains out of molehills. If you have them nerf this skill, they will knee jerk nerf (or possibly even remove) racial skills because that’s how they balance these kinds of things. It’s not available in PvP and any necro running it in wvw will suffer the same fate as popping a lich form, so again, stop creating problems where none exist…

I wouldn’t get my hopes up for running this elite for synergy with Reaper. Will probably get changed or nerfed once expansion hits.

Ithamir.5928:

Too bad that racials have such a big impact on gameplay. Unless you guys think that Reaper of Grenth will be nerfed… Ahhh I’m so torn.

What? Racial skills are almost always significantly inferior to all other options. Reaper of Grenth is useful against the Imbued Shaman, and outside of that there’s almost always a better Necro elite to use. Racial skills — at best — find niche use. They aren’t even available in PvP, so at best they’re only 66% as useful as profession skills.

That said, I’m having a hard time understanding your exact objection. Are you saying that this particular skill takes away the Necro’s niche? The Necro (even with Reaper specialization) is more than just Chills! Though even so, the Reaper will get even better use out of the Reaper of Grenth elite than any other profession, so even if it were OP, it’d be OP in our favor.

If you’re just trying to decide which race to make your Necro, I would suggest Norn. The Norn elite skill Become the Snow Leopard gives significant Stealth and dash potential, making this the perfect WvW escape skill (something we otherwise struggle with outside of clever Flesh Wurm/Spectral Walk jukes).

Rym.1469:

I wouldn’t get my hopes up for running this elite for synergy with Reaper. Will probably get changed or nerfed once expansion hits.

I’m pretty sure Anet forget that racial skills are a thing, so I’m not too worried about this getting nerfed. I mean, it’s good in that it’s one of the few usable racial skills, but the Necro’s other options are still almost always better.

I dont seem to really understand why you worry so much about 1 race elite skill for only 1 specific fight in the whole game. I never even created a character with race elite skill(s) in mind.
If looks matter so little to you, why are you even asking us? You’re already defending your point so much that I don’t even think you are really listening to these answers. You’re just waiting for someone else that has the same opinion as you to confirm it.

Reaper of Grenth has always been OP, I used it on WvW on my ele and it was amazing. You can even take the trait to stack vulnerability on chill with necro, and every pulse will apply it. Go human if you want it but I personally don’t consider it worthy the loss of aesthetics unless you plan to run it on WvW, PvE is whatever and you don’t really need to optimize that hard for something that is easy and gets done in sleep mode anyway.

The Sylvari turrets are not a bad elite for WvW either, 3 sec invul is nice for classes which have none, like Necro.