Guild Wars 2

1) All the Reaper threads need consolidated, lol
2) I have not read any other feedback at all concerning the Reaper: These are my own personal observations
3) This is strictly from a WvW zerg on zerg (Jade Quarry) perspective.

Cons first:
- Greatsword is not that great. The damage is about on par with the rest of the weapons, but the slowness is what kills it. It is literally like applying a permanent chill to yourself. In a WvW sense, the damage is easily avoided, the range needed for it to work means you are directly in the middle of the tank group, meaning you have a very high risk of dying with a very low chance of reward (bags are almost non-existant with a GS). Plus, every other GS profession gets a leap or gap closer whereas the necro gets a pull…. which, btw, I was never able to land due to the short range.
- Shouts are in the same league as GS. The range is too close and the utility doesn’t do enough to justify it. PLUS, it’s not focused on a single spot like Wells are, which means your shouts are aggroing ambient wildlife. The long cast time and long cool down do not justify taking them.

In the end, I ended up back with Staff+Dagger/WH and full wells.

Pros:
- I like the new heal. The 20 second cooldown means you can use it quite a bit, and it seems to always be there when you need it. However, the LF gain is unnecessary because you are gaining it from so many different places, and it doesn’t clear condis. (I ended up back with Consume Conditions)
- I LOVE the new elite. Finally, we can counter those stupid rangers!!!! The stun + chill + stabo is absolutely incredible. I put it on a permanant mouse button, i like it so much.
- Finally, the REAPER! Oh. My. God. The Reaper is epic. Epic epic epic! The only change I would make is to switch skill 5 and 2 with each other on the toolbar (synergizes with WH5, which I am used to clicking for speed already). Other than that, it rocks. It has chill/blind/gap closer/spin to win/sustain that necros have been needing. And bags galore! Holy hell, the bags!

Anyway, great job! I ended up on the Reaper for the entire weekend it was so fun. (Reverent for about 15 minutes, then right back to Reaper). Cant wait for more!

My main has been a necro since launch

I play tested the Revenant, Elementalist and Necro over the weekend.
And I found the necro overall to be a disappointment.

The Revenant Hammer was made for WvW and he has some great gap closers that are insta cast.

By comparison the Necro great sword was just a sad teeth grinding experience.
After waiting so long and finally getting to try it out, it is slow as hell.
When one does connect and crit its for far less than it should be after waiting that long. The damange output on the greatsword in just pve should be double.
Useless in WvW as they are dodged interrupted and countered.

The Reaper skills are great though. Skill 1 , 2, 4 are my favs.
I ended up playing all weekend as a staff and dagger warhorn.

I had a lot of fight in zerg frontline with the reaper. I though the shouts were good, in particular the healing. The condi cleanse came from trooper runes. Thanks to the low base CD + the trait, the healing is strong. Basically you can go in shroud, spin to win (just love RS 3 and 4), go out of shroud and your heal is available, which recharges your health and the shroud.

On the other hand, as soon as the commander decided to retreat, I had a bad time doing so… TS 2 is a great start but we do lack mobility.

I wasn’t part of beta as I won’t be pre-ordering this product until a week before release. I’m curious, for those who actually tried large scale WvW and organized group combat beyond what PvP provides, what you thought about survivability?

I play Tier1 and do GvG often and the saving grace for Necro currently is the fact that it’s ranged and your shroud will be 100% whenever you need to use it.

Reaper won’t have these luxuries and I’m very concerned it won’t function as a front line skirmisher and instead will need to invest heavily in death/blood to survive at which point you’re about as effective as a melee ranger in WvW zergs (useless).

Atherakhia.4086:

I wasn’t part of beta as I won’t be pre-ordering this product until a week before release. I’m curious, for those who actually tried large scale WvW and organized group combat beyond what PvP provides, what you thought about survivability?

I play Tier1 and do GvG often and the saving grace for Necro currently is the fact that it’s ranged and your shroud will be 100% whenever you need to use it.

Reaper won’t have these luxuries and I’m very concerned it won’t function as a front line skirmisher and instead will need to invest heavily in death/blood to survive at which point you’re about as effective as a melee ranger in WvW zergs (useless).

nice you play tier 1

have you played reaper?

i play Wvw 98% of the time, 1% in pve for crafting and karma conversion and the other 1% for pvp(too boringggggggg)

Because of this beta, this is my first time playing a necro in my gw2 life time. I made the reaper, gs sucked, reaper shroud was nice!.

I took reaper too wvw and solo camps without hiccups.

Now onto zerging and being in the front lines. I am full zerker with 40% condi duration food(not -40%). No stab( no party, trying it out solo). Drop my wells into enemy stack of 50, drop all my marks from staff and i go RS 3 for stab, rs 5 for chill field and rs 4 for spin 2 win doing 10k each to enemies(ALSO APPLYING POISON and applying chill from the chill field + chill combo field from whirls)

I rarely had my RS health down, why? we have a trait that gives us life force or health while getting boons from allies or applying our own boons to ourself. So we have lots of sustain.

I ran soldier’s amulet and trooper’s runes. I took blood magic to try provide some team support (death magic is a possible choice for increase personal survivability). Soul reaping is mandatory and I tried to use it offensively with “Death Perception” because I don’t think the extra stab makes such a huge difference in a big fight. Reaper was “Augury of Death”, “Soul Eater” and “Blighter’s Boon”. Blighter’s Boon is amazing because it allows to recharge your shroud during the regroup phase with all the boons given. Augury of Death makes your healing in particular very strong. Finally, death perception means that you effectively deal some very decent damage (I think very much on par with guardian and warrior).
The stability on RS on short CD is absolutely amazing, that makes the difference between life and death and allow you to safely land your RS 4 which is amazing. You still need a guardian or 2 in your party obviously, but that really helps.

I can’t judge survivability compared to a guardian or warrior since I’ve not played frontline warrior or guardian. But I felt ok. I rarely was among the first to die. I felt that I could last a bit longer in the field when defending a keep outnumbered. Our double health pool allows us to go out, dish damage and run to the door safe, using in particular RS 2.

Unfortunately my only exposure to the Reaper has been watching streams, and what you describe is exactly how Bhawbs describe it. That in a strong boon sharing group that Blighter’s Boon will probably heal for enough to keep you up.

But I also saw reapers shroud go from full to off from just 2 opponents in PvP streams AND I’m not crazy about only being viable at the front when your RS#3 is off cooldown for the engage.

Perhaps if ANet invites non-pre-orders I’ll get a shot and can check things out first hand.

What you probably saw was someone without toughness and/or without soul reaping. In soldiers, the shroud remains decently long. Sure, if you jump in a zerg fight without your zerg, you’ll die fast anyway. But I did some short 1 vs 5 in WvW (protecting a tower) and it is fairly tanky.

You can already run a frontline Necro in zerg groups. I’ve done it in T1 and T2 and its more than doable. I’ve even done it without being in a Guardian group so I didn’t have a lot of stab options and I still live just fine. Blood Magic and Wells on the enemy zerg is really good sustain.

Reaper will be more than fine for surving frontline fighting. Reaper/Blood Magic/Soul Reaper will work nicely. Reaper gives you a couple more stab options and some sustain, blood magic gives sustain, and Soul Reaper gives stun break when going into Shroud. Surviving frontline as a Reaper will not be the issue.

The bigger issue for frontline Necro is justifying it over playing backline. What exactly does a Necro gain from moving to frontline? Warriors and Guardians are good frontline because they buff the groups with Might and other buffs, Condi Clear, and CC the enemies. Soaking damage is only part of what frontliners do. What does frontline Necro bring to the table? Vamp prec and Last Rites have small radius’s so a frontline Necro can buff the frontline with those while a backline Necro couldn’t buff the frontline with them as easily. Frontline Necro could justify running Well of Power which is decent for the frontline as long as you place it so you don’t mess up water fields. Each well cast also gives Allies protection and protection is always decent for the frontline. Plague Form is probably the biggest thing a frontline Necro can have. Even my Zerk backline Necro can survive for a little bit in the enemy zerg with Plague. A frontline Necro using Plague will be great.

Totbot.4583:

You can already run a frontline Necro in zerg groups. I’ve done it in T1 and T2 and its more than doable. I’ve even done it without being in a Guardian group so I didn’t have a lot of stab options and I still live just fine. Blood Magic and Wells on the enemy zerg is really good sustain.

Reaper will be more than fine for surving frontline fighting. Reaper/Blood Magic/Soul Reaper will work nicely. Reaper gives you a couple more stab options and some sustain, blood magic gives sustain, and Soul Reaper gives stun break when going into Shroud. Surviving frontline as a Reaper will not be the issue.

The bigger issue for frontline Necro is justifying it over playing backline. What exactly does a Necro gain from moving to frontline? Warriors and Guardians are good frontline because they buff the groups with Might and other buffs, Condi Clear, and CC the enemies. Soaking damage is only part of what frontliners do. What does frontline Necro bring to the table? Vamp prec and Last Rites have small radius’s so a frontline Necro can buff the frontline with those while a backline Necro couldn’t buff the frontline with them as easily. Frontline Necro could justify running Well of Power which is decent for the frontline as long as you place it so you don’t mess up water fields. Each well cast also gives Allies protection and protection is always decent for the frontline. Plague Form is probably the biggest thing a frontline Necro can have. Even my Zerk backline Necro can survive for a little bit in the enemy zerg with Plague. A frontline Necro using Plague will be great.

I think wells should be kept backline and shouts frontline. Shouts clear condi, which is nice, and decent AOE debuffing (I think unblockable can be nice vs guardians, would love shorter but also affecting allies). The pulsing blind for GS is a nice addition, the poison on RS 4 is very good (even if it is cleansed fast, you apply a lot of it to many enemies so you reduce their regen during this time), the chill can be annoying for a short while etc… Also I think damage is good especially if they buff GS (which they really should).

Plague is awesome indeed.

I just don’t see the Shouts being better overall than Wells. The amount of sustain you get from Wells and Blood Magic is amazing in zergs. They can also be used at range so you can place them where you need them while Shouts require positioning to make the most out of.

Plus, for shouts to AoE condi clear you need to set yourself into Trooper runes. Wells can AoE condi Clear with Power, strip boons on the enemy, and sustain without specific runes so you’re free to run Melandru or anything else you’d like.