Guild Wars 2

what do u think will be the reaper meta in raids? This is just for speculation post ur opinions. I personally think zealots might be viable with blood trait line for more survival. What i have noticed in fractals that even when being terrible necro has some kind of support (ds 4 heals for like 3k a piece and i drop a wob when resing someone in synergy with dagger 2). So i think if raids arent a real dps fest the healing power will be a good asset to have for a raid. Share your thoughts

I personally run Soldier’s armor (PVT), and I doubt I will change that for HoT, since I will probably run my Reaper with The Train; the added survivability (and additional LF) will be greatly beneficial .

I’m running Valkyrie+knight so I have more options in traits and from the beta weekend at least in open world I can still maintain my shroud up time pretty long, mostly longer than enough.

ofc berserker who cares of survi when u are playing necro, lol.

Naustis.8510:

ofc berserker who cares of survi when u are playing necro, lol.

Seems like an uneducated post. With zerks, RS, and DD (along with fury, discipline banner, food etc) you would end up with a maxed out 100% crit chance and therefore wasted stats. With raids being the most difficult content we’re most likely going to need to incorporate toughness/vitality gear into the mix. That is why soldier/valkyrie (my personal favorite)/cavalier are much more appealing now.

I’m going to enter HoT with my current gear, being full zerker. I won’t get a new set of armor now because of speculations on how the encounters may be.

I will see how it’ll turn out and then I’ll adjust where needed ^^

I think it will depend on what kind of encounter there will be on these raid.

For example, there are mobs in HoT that are really resilient to direct damage, being condi or hybrid could be a good idea. (Well, hybrid cover the condi aspect as well as the power aspect of the dps, it could be the best thing to take)

I’ll be running Valkyrie for Reaper over Soldier. Toughness plays well, but it falls behind Valk in my eyes for a damage focused Reaper. Firstly, toughness increases the likelihood that you’ll be the one the mob aggros to. I can appreciate a tanky Necro, especially if that’s the build purpose, but damage is my primary concern. The ferocity is simply too important to give up.

Ascended Valk/zerker mix is the best choice for pve power reaper outside of a super co-ordinated group in low pressure content. You end up with 20% crit from the gear, combined with decimate defences and vulnerability application you maintain acceptable crit chance while obtaining some more ehp. In low pressure content where your vulnerability application is not required full berzerkers using soul eater (greatsword cdr trait) would be better but your trading all potential survivability and utility in exchange for a marginal dps boost. For condition reaper start off in full sinister and work in carrion until you have enough ehp.

That could all change depending on what in raids though. If there is need for more ehp or armour then cavalier or knights may well be required.

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

I’m actually going to run celestial spite/sr/reaper for a balanced defence/offence with close to death, decimate defences, dhumfire and a ton of vuln application / might stacking in PVE

Something like that: (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQJARWnMbCt0gN2A22A0bilfBLOJGFviUZhvwwCKpFA+AA-ThiAABecEA6THwU7PkomAIVCCwhAwU1fQT5XFPAAHuAABAOA+93893Anf+5nf+597v/+7v/WKgFFaB-e)

That build gets over 80% crit chance with 25 stacks of vuln which is easy to achieve plus with the decent dhumfire damage I think I can output decent dps for the survivability.

Then for pvp/wvw I just swap the traits for more sustain and switch to signets for utilities and dagger/warhorn over great sword and have a fairly decent roamer build that can swap to wells if joining a zerg.

(http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kGRoyGszGw2GgeTsgLYxZxuYYk6M0GiWQXtAwCA-ThiAABecEAma/hE1EApSQAOEAmq+DaK/s4BAsoegKOBABAOACf/Nw5nf+5nfe/+7v/+7vlCYRhWA-e)

Overall I think its a fair balance of sustain / damage and hope to go by in most game modes that way.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

zerker is weaker overall. With Valk you can take all the necessary crit boosters which while staying in RS significantly longer for even more dps.

silvermember.8941:

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

zerker is weaker overall. With Valk you can take all the necessary crit boosters which while staying in RS significantly longer for even more dps.

i dont know if u noticed but raids are supposed to be hard. i dont take my reaper because i want to do the most dps. necros dps will still be bad in comparison. i take necro for the survivability and 1% lifeforce x5 if u hit 5 targets (the icd is per target) every second is huge.

btw about staying in rs for longer to have more dps...even after the recent buffs dagger autoattack still does more than rs and gravedigger spam

Goldenrevolver.4371:

silvermember.8941:

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

zerker is weaker overall. With Valk you can take all the necessary crit boosters which while staying in RS significantly longer for even more dps.

i dont know if u noticed but raids are supposed to be hard. i dont take my reaper because i want to do the most dps. necros dps will still be bad in comparison. i take necro for the survivability and 1% lifeforce x5 if u hit 5 targets (the icd is per target) every second is huge.

btw about staying in rs for longer to have more dps…even after the recent buffs dagger autoattack still does more than rs and gravedigger spam

You can tear through a group of mobs better with GS/RS than you ever can hope to do with dagger’s auto attack. Dagger honestly kind of sucks in terms of the overall weapon. Yeah, AA DPS is great, but Dagger 3 is relatively useless (especially in PvE) and when does anyone ever use Dagger 2?

Reaper Shroud is actually quite good, because it provides pretty good defensive options (RS 3 and RS 5 → RS 2 combo to get frost armor and boost our damage resistance to chilled foes more) as well as being pretty aggressive, too. (RS 5 → RS 4 → RS 2 is a nasty combo) Not to mention the auto attack stacking up 25 might extremely quickly and consistently.

So, overall, yeah, Dagger AA is better dps. But Reaper weapons (GS & RS) are better because all the skills are useful and pretty potent.

I use #3 Dagger if possible in PvE, extra condition for Target The Weak ^^

Matt Stacey.7415:

Naustis.8510:

ofc berserker who cares of survi when u are playing necro, lol.

Seems like an uneducated post. With zerks, RS, and DD (along with fury, discipline banner, food etc) you would end up with a maxed out 100% crit chance and therefore wasted stats. With raids being the most difficult content we’re most likely going to need to incorporate toughness/vitality gear into the mix. That is why soldier/valkyrie (my personal favorite)/cavalier are much more appealing now.

Wrong. This stat would be lost only if u would be able to sit in the Shroud all the time. In practive, u won’t be able to be in the shroud for more than 50-60% time of the fight. So 40% or even 50% of time u gonna sit there without crit chance. Berserker is always the best option for dps

Goldenrevolver.4371:

silvermember.8941:

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

zerker is weaker overall. With Valk you can take all the necessary crit boosters which while staying in RS significantly longer for even more dps.

i dont know if u noticed but raids are supposed to be hard. i dont take my reaper because i want to do the most dps. necros dps will still be bad in comparison. i take necro for the survivability and 1% lifeforce x5 if u hit 5 targets (the icd is per target) every second is huge.

btw about staying in rs for longer to have more dps…even after the recent buffs dagger autoattack still does more than rs and gravedigger spam

Your theory only works if you can stay alive in zerker, Arena net in the past as in guild wars 1, has shown to be quite capable at creating tuff content. Considering The raids are designed to have more undodgeable (for now anyways) skills, good luck staying alive.

In any case, whatever that works for you. I would like to see how successful you are though. Seriously.

Zerk, sinister, and soldiers or valks. Most of the time you will still want a base 30-50% crit chance so you can max crit chance outside DS. Shouldn’t really be taking DEathly perception when you can max crit chance without it.

silvermember.8941:

Your theory only works if you can stay alive in zerker, Arena net in the past as in guild wars 1, has shown to be quite capable at creating tuff content. Considering The raids are designed to have more undodgeable (for now anyways) skills, good luck staying alive.

In any case, whatever that works for you. I would like to see how successful you are though. Seriously.

imo im running a more defensive setup then u and u challenge me to survive? valkyrie gear grants you only extra health that gets burned down quickly, no toughness. so against a big hit we will both take the same damage and i will be able to sustain because i have “chilling force” over “decimate defenses”. i dont know why people dont see the survivability in 5% life force each SECOND against the mere 4k health u get from valkyrie (+the bit u get for your shroud)

I´d be really surprised if Berserker wont be a feasible option for Necros in coordinated groups anymore. A mix of Berserker and Valkyrie/Cavalier maybe if you don´t feel 100% comfortable running full-on glasscannon, but Soldier?!

PVT gear and the like sounds a bit excessive.

“i dont know why people dont see the survivability in 5% life force each SECOND against the mere 4k health u get from valkyrie (+the bit u get for your shroud)”

How is it exactly you are managing to hit 5 perma-chilled targets every second for the entire battle?

“I´d be really surprised if Berserker wont be a feasible option for Necros in coordinated groups anymore. A mix of Berserker and Valkyrie/Cavalier maybe if you don´t feel 100% comfortable running full-on glasscannon, but Soldier?!
PVT gear and the like sounds a bit excessive.”

You’re thinking dungeons, where everything can be steamrolled by stacking in a corner

thinking of doing a sinister/Soldier mix up but only time will tell :P

Doubt raids will be so hard that 9/10 of your people can’t run fully glassy builds. Anet isn’t very good at this game, and I can’t imagine what is difficult for them will be hard for people soloing dungeon paths. Also, as I’ve state you will still want at least 30% base crit chance to max crit chance always. DP won’t be meta for sure.

I’ve been theorycrafting a build using Valk weapons/armor and Cavalier’s trinkets, and dropping Spite in favor of Death, for the 7/14% toughness to power conversion, and a ton more survivability. If we have decent support, we won’t need Spite for the might stacking, and the only think we’re losing out on is Close to Death. So essentially trading 20% damage to foes under 50% in exchange for boatloads more toughness, some protection, and either some condition removal or just more raw tankiness.

Captain Unusual.9163:

I’ve been theorycrafting a build using Valk weapons/armor and Cavalier’s trinkets, and dropping Spite in favor of Death, for the 7/14% toughness to power conversion, and a ton more survivability. If we have decent support, we won’t need Spite for the might stacking, and the only think we’re losing out on is Close to Death. So essentially trading 20% damage to foes under 50% in exchange for boatloads more toughness, some protection, and either some condition removal or just more raw tankiness.

Still holding out on dropping Spite, the tankiness will only be useful in certain scenarios so i’m not quick to miss out on the near perm might stacks and damage I could be dishing out for needless protection

Naustis.8510:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Naustis.8510:

ofc berserker who cares of survi when u are playing necro, lol.

Seems like an uneducated post. With zerks, RS, and DD (along with fury, discipline banner, food etc) you would end up with a maxed out 100% crit chance and therefore wasted stats. With raids being the most difficult content we’re most likely going to need to incorporate toughness/vitality gear into the mix. That is why soldier/valkyrie (my personal favorite)/cavalier are much more appealing now.

Wrong. This stat would be lost only if u would be able to sit in the Shroud all the time. In practive, u won’t be able to be in the shroud for more than 50-60% time of the fight. So 40% or even 50% of time u gonna sit there without crit chance. Berserker is always the best option for dps

Actually in shroud you will have 104% crit chance just because of DD and RP. Outside of shroud you can have 50% from DD, 4% base, 20% from fury, 8% from banner, 7% from spotter, up to 26% from target the weak, 4% from food, 4~7% from maintenance oil,~12% from sigil. There are more than enough ways to gain crit chance without perc on necro that as a reaper the stat isnt very useful at all.

Its entirely possible to reach over 100% crit chance outside of shroud on a reaper.

For WvW group play Cele wep/jewelry + zerk armor. With the right food that gets you like 24k health 2200 power 2400 armor 38% crit and 200% crit damage. Power is a little low but with might helping both the condi and power side of things it seems silly to ignore all the extraneous conditions we apply.

Matt Stacey.7415:

You’re thinking dungeons, where everything can be steamrolled by stacking in a corner

Actually, I don´t

I´m just pretty sure that raids wont be so hard that decent players will be forced to swap to stats as defensive as Soldier´s, especially not when playing Necro.

Taking more defensive traits and utilities? Sure, I´ll probably just swap some in tomorrow to test the water. PVT gear being necessary? Very, very unlikely.

Skoigoth.9238:

Matt Stacey.7415:

You’re thinking dungeons, where everything can be steamrolled by stacking in a corner

Actually, I don´t

I´m just pretty sure that raids wont be so hard that decent players will be forced to swap to stats as defensive as Soldier´s, especially not when playing Necro.

Taking more defensive traits and utilities? Sure, I´ll probably just swap some in tomorrow to test the water. PVT gear being necessary? Very, very unlikely.

It may be necessary in instances where most of your team is off doing something else while you take out some random mobs or tend to distracting something mean

Matt Stacey.7415:

You’re thinking dungeons, where everything can be steamrolled by stacking in a corner

How do you do this? I tried standing in a corner one time and I sat there for an hour and I still didn’t complete it. What am I doing wrong?

Jerus.4350:

Matt Stacey.7415:

You’re thinking dungeons, where everything can be steamrolled by stacking in a corner

How do you do this? I tried standing in a corner one time and I sat there for an hour and I still didn’t complete it. What am I doing wrong?

You can´t exploit on Necro, we are not meeta.

silvermember.8941:

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

zerker is weaker overall. With Valk you can take all the necessary crit boosters which while staying in RS significantly longer for even more dps.

U´re wrong, just don´t take that useless trait (pve) and pick up dhuumfire for even more dps.

Norjena.5172:

silvermember.8941:

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i will start with berserker because i wont take decimate defenses. chilling force seems like a really great survivability trait.

zerker is weaker overall. With Valk you can take all the necessary crit boosters which while staying in RS significantly longer for even more dps.

U´re wrong, just don´t take that useless trait (pve) and pick up dhuumfire for even more dps.

Full zerker isn’t really needed but partial zerker to get around 25-30% crit. Then 50% from decimate defenses and 20 from fury and the rest from banners/spotter.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhF6kZTolGsxGwmGgeTs8LYxHxo4VkKL8FCWQJtAwHA-TxRBABXt%2Fge6bsU9HsU+toSQCOlCA8kCIEgitA-e

have fun with nearly 50k HP AND being “zerker” :P

Xyonon.3987:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhF6kZTolGsxGwmGgeTs8LYxHxo4VkKL8FCWQJtAwHA-TxRBABXt%2Fge6bsU9HsU+toSQCOlCA8kCIEgitA-e

have fun with nearly 50k HP AND being “zerker” :P

21% base crit out of shroud ?

LOL… no just no.

Valkyrie gear looks interesting.

Does everything plan on using their Reaper Shroud attack? I’ll check my stuff more when I go home and test a bit more the Reaper, but from what I know, the only attack in Reaper Shroud that are worth using instead of Dagger auto-attack is Executioner’s Scythe when the target is between 0-25% HP. But at that point you are better using Gravedigger Spam.

The only reason to use Reaper Shroud in PvE as far as I know is to get in and out to proc some attack, but that’s it. Maybe there is some build that boost the Reaper Shroud enough to be worth it, but I doudt it. Reaper’s Onslaught isn’t enough so far so it would need to be trait from Soul Reaping i guess.

Thaddeus.4891:

Does everything plan on using their Reaper Shroud attack? I’ll check my stuff more when I go home and test a bit more the Reaper, but from what I know, the only attack in Reaper Shroud that are worth using instead of Dagger auto-attack is Executioner’s Scythe when the target is between 0-25% HP. But at that point you are better using Gravedigger Spam.

The only reason to use Reaper Shroud in PvE as far as I know is to get in and out to proc some attack, but that’s it. Maybe there is some build that boost the Reaper Shroud enough to be worth it, but I doudt it. Reaper’s Onslaught isn’t enough so far so it would need to be trait from Soul Reaping i guess.

I run a soldier build with reaper and being able to stay in shroud and keeping up (literally constant) 25 vuln and might is fantastic. Thus RS AA