Guild Wars 2

I can see a Spite/Blood/Reaper frontline build. YAAW and NCSY could both be nice on a frontline, but the real benefit is the combo potentials we suddenly now have.

Imagine just dropping a Well of Blood. Healing for allies, which you spin-to-win through for a massive 55 whirl finisher procs (each pulse appears to finish for each target it could hit, 11 pulses, so…) Basically, everyone around you is immune to conditions for 2 seconds. Oh, and you also gave 4 friends Protection.

Or dropping your Ice field on RS5. Ice Fields are really good to blast, as that AoE 10% damage reduction that stacks with everything is quite useful.

To more zerg-related roles, a Reaper can actually maintain some Vuln and Chill on members of the enemy zerg even through the mass cleanse. Not a huge amount, perhaps, but that is more than what eles, warriors, and guardians can manage. They also have a nice AoE pull on GS5.

RS4 would not only provide the Whirl finisher and strong damage, but also a base 3212 heal with 220% of your Healing Power to nearby allies. And don’t forget Transfusion is probably going to get buffed to help you bring up downed allies too.

I think Reaper will be able to do well in frontline WvW. If nothing else, NCSY will wreck those Guardians that rely on blocks to survive.

It is too early for me to guess with any confidence but WvW may have a great deal more ranged fighting than just Ele and Ranger. Necromancer might be better ranged, too.

Atherakhia.4086:

Right I can think of valuable things too. The question is can you survive to provide them? I don’t think the Reaper was given the tools a melee class needs to actually function in a WvW environment unless it’s as a backline melee. But as a backline melee you need mobility and engagement tools that simply aren’t there (spectral grasp is unreliable at range and the GS pull is too short).

But that’s the point I was trying to make above… Reaper doesn’t work as a backline because it wasn’t given the tools to succeed at that role. I am questioning if it will work as a front line. What other role is there? Camp flipper and yak slapper?

The sustained damage mitigation with the healing and the right sigils and runes would be huge with what they have shown. Its a 78% reduction over all.

Also on the front line path of corruption. Would allow charge to turn two boons ever 4s is as quick as people die so boon removal alone with the well and the shout, removes 2 boons and turns them to vuln., would be huge since you can kill boons and turn stab into fear and chill.

Siphons in Rs as well as the of generation it has is massive. Keeping in shroud easy enough. Can be trained to just pulse vuln on anyone near you and every seeing as well. Also blood magic would make skills that reduce damage to 0 less useful since leech damage still does in.

I can see then having a huge place on the front line but only a limited number of them unlike other classes.

at first yes, but I think as people play and begin to understand reaper better, we’ll probably find reaper’s turning into a sort of spearhead for the frontline, charge in with death’s charge to rip stability, throwing down spectral wall to stab-check enemies while providing protection, don’t forget good old fashioned wells, the shout that turns boons to vulnerability will also be good, and don’t forget that they are making it so blood magic traits will heal through deathshroud, and that our one grandmaster in reaper makes it so we given life force on might application, or healed while we are in DS. Plus we finally have a good source of pulsing stability of our own.

For roaming, I suspect we’ll have problems with thieves and mesmer’s still, but even now with a terrormancer roamer, I find I’m regularly able to kill guardians, Warriors, eles, and engineers pretty easily. With reaper’s burst, I think he’ll have an even easier time against thieves. Mesmer’s maybe, not so sure, though we can use their own clones and illusions against them for shouts and such.

PVP I think reaper bunker will be ineresting to see, but I’ll stop there as I dor play much PvP.

I think PvP wise, with the current maps of holding points, Necro will be very strong.
But with the new PvP map, not sure how the reaper will be like.

Actually, on stronghold the Reaper could be really strong, if not for the fact that all points of counterplay that are supposed to keep the Reaper from being too strong will most likely be ignored by the NPCs. The Lord for example probably won’t be smart enough to move out of your Gravedigger spam once he hits 50% HP.