Guild Wars 2

I enjoyed the chill damage, because while it did not stack it was consistent. i was doing 600+ damage regularly to all enemies i had chilled (i do think this was too high however). With the new changes to bleed, i can stack bleed damage much higher than with chill, but i find that its mostly burst.

The bleed stacks don’t have the same consistent damage that chill gave, even though the burst is obviously much better due to stacking intensity.

I’m wondering why the chill damage was changed to give bleed on chill. if the chill damage itself was the problem, why not reduce the base damage that chill deals, and/or reduce the scaling that it gets from the condition damage stat?

Necro’s already have sources of bleed damage, and the idea of being able to deal damage with a condition which normally does no damage, is what drove me to level my Necro to 80 after two years of having it as a bank character.

i think nerfing the damage from chill was deserved, due to having 600+ per stack and lots of sources of chill from skills and traits. however, i think the nerf was in the wrong place.

the damage has been nerfed but so has the appeal the Reaper spec. instead of a cool chill-oriented unique damage build, its just a normal bleed build. if i wanted to stack tons of bleed i could use my ranger and give him a shortbow.

dealing chill damage is a unique selling point of the Reaper and this nerf totally kills a great aspect of it. if somebody says what makes the elite spec so interesting, i would say things like dealing chill damage (Reaper) or adding new aspects to yout profession mechanic (Dragonhunter F skills).

tl;dr: removing direct damage from chill and replacing it with bleed removes what is unique about the reaper spec. would reducing the damage from chill itself not be a good enough nerf while keeping the chill-damage theme?

It’s a random change and makes very little sense. Activate a condition which is nerfed to activate another condition which doesn’t do a whole lot of damage.

Reapers were designed partly on the foundation that chill did damage. This was a big draw to the elite and I for one was very excited to push through and unlock it from the list.

And now, it’s lost one of its founding pillars and as you say, much of its uniqueness. This should not have happened and certainly not without communicating with the Necro community, who have built up their toons at time and expense of their own gameplay, only to find it is all undone.

The problem now is, how can players buy into future Elites if they know any of their chief mechanics can be removed at any time, making them no longer unique.

Reducing damage would make too much sense, but that’s not how Anet does things. Anet swings from one extreme to another. Erasing chill damage while at the same time also gutting chill application and reducing our stability uptime. G frigging G.

Randulf.7614:

The problem now is, how can players buy into future Elites if they know any of their chief mechanics can be removed at any time, making them no longer unique.

This is an intersting point, the change to reaper is toning down the chill and we were promised a chill based specialisation. Now with al these nerfs I think we are moving back to towards a normal necro which is against the specialisation principles.

Basically regardless of the *but you get two condis applied for the price of one complaint.

A. Bleed sucks, its a really low damage point and the damage over time in todays meta is a completely useless arguement. No classes will give you the time to damage them slowly thats ridiculous. Not to mention our cool downs still across the board are slower, our weapons are slower ect.

B. You wont apply as much bleed as you did chill damage because chill in general has been nerfed its just not going to happen as much now.

C. I am tired of the old death shroud but with our Stability getting slightly nerfed in reaper form I am trying to understand the point of taking reaper still? If chill is nerfed and turns out to be less effective then running a Vanilla necro

D. I just don’t think that any of this power build or condi build will hold up against other classes, go fight a mesmer, rev or thief and then we will talk.

Nightshade.2570:

C. I am tired of the old death shroud but with our Stability getting slightly nerfed in reaper form I am trying to understand the point of taking reaper still? If chill is nerfed and turns out to be less effective then running a Vanilla necro

Because Reaper, even if weak, feels like a finished (or mostly) product, while the current base Necromancer would normally be inexcusable even in a beta.

^
And Reaper’s Shroud has cleave, a leap finisher, a whirl finisher, and ice field, a stun, stability, and an AoE fear.

Also, Slick Shoes got nerfed a lot harder, if I am reading the notes right.

To the OP, chill damage is weak compared to other condition damage but the control effect is strong. Perma-chill is causing the main issue.

Bhawb.7408:

Nightshade.2570:

C. I am tired of the old death shroud but with our Stability getting slightly nerfed in reaper form I am trying to understand the point of taking reaper still? If chill is nerfed and turns out to be less effective then running a Vanilla necro

Because Reaper, even if weak, feels like a finished (or mostly) product, while the current base Necromancer would normally be inexcusable even in a beta.

so true if only base necro skill 1 got a 25-50% cast and speed reduction and we have stab on there also somewere base necro would be better than the trash mode reaper will be now

Lets be honest. For Reaper to be unique and stay unique it needed unique effects to be added to the game, but the devs dont want to complicate the system. They want simple debuff system with fewer effects. And all professions deal the same effects. You cant expect uniqueness.

Many of us have been asking for chill damage to be replaced to “applying a condi whenever applying chill”. Most of us suggested torment but well… This was actually the best way to balance it.

It has some downsides (one application of chill results in only 1 stack of bleed) and some upsides (multiple applications like RS 4 into ice field is a nice condi burst, 2 reapers can stack their bleeds, one more condi to cleanse, etc…). It is not anymore a one or nothing condi, it can stack now, and I believe that is a good thing.

Another thing to note is that in the grand scheme of things, I still hope that the insane HoT power creep continues to get reduced. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Even if this means reaper is temporarily a bit weaker than some others (condi mes, tempest and revenant for example), it just means that hopefully they are the ones who get nerfed next.

So despite being a reaper player, I do think very positively of this change.

Silverkey.2078:

Many of us have been asking for chill damage to be replaced to “applying a condi whenever applying chill”. Most of us suggested torment but well… This was actually the best way to balance it.

It has some downsides (one application of chill results in only 1 stack of bleed) and some upsides (multiple applications like RS 4 into ice field is a nice condi burst, 2 reapers can stack their bleeds, one more condi to cleanse, etc…). It is not anymore a one or nothing condi, it can stack now, and I believe that is a good thing.

Another thing to note is that in the grand scheme of things, I still hope that the insane HoT power creep continues to get reduced. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Even if this means reaper is temporarily a bit weaker than some others (condi mes, tempest and revenant for example), it just means that hopefully they are the ones who get nerfed next.

So despite being a reaper player, I do think very positively of this change.

It’s not a bit weaker, it’s A LOT weaker. You know the balance change was terrible when your specialization is border line weaker than your base class. Right now I’d say condi reaper is on par with condi necro.

If you image two spectrums, burn on one side and bleed on the other. Why couldn’t chill have played that middle duration role. So it wouldn’t be a quick burst that burn was and not the low and slow that bleed was either. For all classes give chill a base damage and then allow the necro to specialize into it to increase that base.

Now there are also secondary impacts on removing it since other traits/abilities that do things like +1% damage per condi, additional torment per condi and others also had synergy with it. Not to mention condi clears.

Silverkey.2078:

Many of us have been asking for chill damage to be replaced to “applying a condi whenever applying chill”. Most of us suggested torment but well… This was actually the best way to balance it.

It has some downsides (one application of chill results in only 1 stack of bleed) and some upsides (multiple applications like RS 4 into ice field is a nice condi burst, 2 reapers can stack their bleeds, one more condi to cleanse, etc…). It is not anymore a one or nothing condi, it can stack now, and I believe that is a good thing.

Another thing to note is that in the grand scheme of things, I still hope that the insane HoT power creep continues to get reduced. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Even if this means reaper is temporarily a bit weaker than some others (condi mes, tempest and revenant for example), it just means that hopefully they are the ones who get nerfed next.

So despite being a reaper player, I do think very positively of this change.

Oh come on , I really hate this HoT power creep nonsense. Do you know how HOT could not create power creep? Not releasing any new skills or releasing very weak skills, because meaningfull choices->better choices->power creep. Would people like that in their expansion? NO, they would complain and whine that it would be the worst expansion ever and that the devs couldn’t handle the game or didn’t care.

Now with this whine of HoT power creep , we got major nerfs and guess what? People are thinking reaper has no grandmaster, our theme/aesthethics (chill) is getting gutted (our longest chills are actually in the core spec so much for specialising in chill on top of that reaper now has lost its special chill for more bleed like core) and you want even to go further?! When will you be satisfied? When reaper becomes core v2?

Tim.6450:

Silverkey.2078:

Many of us have been asking for chill damage to be replaced to “applying a condi whenever applying chill”. Most of us suggested torment but well… This was actually the best way to balance it.

It has some downsides (one application of chill results in only 1 stack of bleed) and some upsides (multiple applications like RS 4 into ice field is a nice condi burst, 2 reapers can stack their bleeds, one more condi to cleanse, etc…). It is not anymore a one or nothing condi, it can stack now, and I believe that is a good thing.

Another thing to note is that in the grand scheme of things, I still hope that the insane HoT power creep continues to get reduced. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Even if this means reaper is temporarily a bit weaker than some others (condi mes, tempest and revenant for example), it just means that hopefully they are the ones who get nerfed next.

So despite being a reaper player, I do think very positively of this change.

Oh come on , I really hate this HoT power creep nonsense. Do you know how HOT could not create power creep? Not releasing any new skills or releasing very weak skills, because meaningfull choices->better choices->power creep. Would people like that in their expansion? NO, they would complain and whine that it would be the worst expansion ever and that the devs couldn’t handle the game or didn’t care.

Now with this whine of HoT power creep , we got major nerfs and guess what? People are thinking reaper has no grandmaster, our theme/aesthethics (chill) is getting gutted (our longest chills are actually in the core spec so much for specialising in chill on top of that reaper now has lost its special chill for more bleed like core) and you want even to go further?! When will you be satisfied? When reaper becomes core v2?

Diversity is not power creep. The elite specs should provide a different role and thus not compete directly with pre-existing roles and thus be balanced.

For example, necro should be the best 1v1 spec and reaper the best 5v5 spec. Same for mesmer/chrono. DH should be the best offensive spec and guardian the best support/bunker spec, etc… No power creep needed.

The elite specs were suppose to broaden build diversity, give us new niches. Instead, all previous builds have become trash and you are forced to play ONLY the new niche the elite spec provide. So build diversity went down.

On top of that, post-HoT is simply much less enjoyable to me. Even if there was class balance (meaning everyone is OP), it would not be as fun, because of the excess of unfun mechanics (everyone just spams AOE damage, AOE CC, block/invulnerability, boon everywhere, boon corrupt everywhere too).

So yes, I do complain and will continue to complain about power creep.

Necro pre-HoT was slightly weak and has a few bad designs. Reaper is an improvement over this, so I don’t want reaper back to pre-HoT necro, but balanced with most other pre-HoT specs (bunker guard, shatter mes, warrior, etc…). And on top, I would love a few QoL improvement on core necro to make it as good as those too.

I do agree that this change was weird but has anyone considered why it could’ve been Necessary? In PvP the change is a huge nerf, really bad, it sucks so much. PvE though only one persons chill really counts., this new method allows necro’s to work together slightly more to increase the damage. HOWEVER it’s still not perfect because Chill does have a hard cap… I dunno I see some reasons as to why they did this but I am salty about it losing a core reason to take Reaper… it was unique but that was kinda dashed.

Riranor.6315:

I do agree that this change was weird but has anyone considered why it could’ve been Necessary? In PvP the change is a huge nerf, really bad, it sucks so much. PvE though only one persons chill really counts., this new method allows necro’s to work together slightly more to increase the damage. HOWEVER it’s still not perfect because Chill does have a hard cap… I dunno I see some reasons as to why they did this but I am salty about it losing a core reason to take Reaper… it was unique but that was kinda dashed.

making chill a staking condition and apply the normal rules of the other damaging conditions to chill for necro but thats to much work I guess

Brokensunday.4098:

Riranor.6315:

I do agree that this change was weird but has anyone considered why it could’ve been Necessary? In PvP the change is a huge nerf, really bad, it sucks so much. PvE though only one persons chill really counts., this new method allows necro’s to work together slightly more to increase the damage. HOWEVER it’s still not perfect because Chill does have a hard cap… I dunno I see some reasons as to why they did this but I am salty about it losing a core reason to take Reaper… it was unique but that was kinda dashed.

making chill a staking condition and apply the normal rules of the other damaging conditions to chill for necro but thats to much work I guess

It’s not that it is too much work so much that it feels weird for all other builds and classes for which do not have chill damage AND is actually a nerf since if it stacks in intensity, it does not add in duration anymore and chill debuff is insanely powerful.

Silverkey.2078:

Diversity is not power creep. The elite specs should provide a different role and thus not compete directly with pre-existing roles and thus be balanced.

For example, necro should be the best 1v1 spec and reaper the best 5v5 spec. Same for mesmer/chrono. DH should be the best offensive spec and guardian the best support/bunker spec, etc… No power creep needed.

The elite specs were suppose to broaden build diversity, give us new niches. Instead, all previous builds have become trash and you are forced to play ONLY the new niche the elite spec provide. So build diversity went down.

On top of that, post-HoT is simply much less enjoyable to me. Even if there was class balance (meaning everyone is OP), it would not be as fun, because of the excess of unfun mechanics (everyone just spams AOE damage, AOE CC, block/invulnerability, boon everywhere, boon corrupt everywhere too).

So yes, I do complain and will continue to complain about power creep.

Necro pre-HoT was slightly weak and has a few bad designs. Reaper is an improvement over this, so I don’t want reaper back to pre-HoT necro, but balanced with most other pre-HoT specs (bunker guard, shatter mes, warrior, etc…). And on top, I would love a few QoL improvement on core necro to make it as good as those too.

So you think that these roles you speak of are achievable when your elite spec has the option to take any weapon from the core any two traitlines of the core, any healing skill of the core ,utility skill of the core and any elite skill of the core. On top of that is has its own healing,utility,weapon and elite skills to chose from.
This inherent skill advantage creates HoT’s power creep even though the skills are balanced: the elite skills of the core don’t fit the current game mode/meta but the reaper’s does well the reaper can take those, the core spec can’t. The reaper’s utility skills don’t fit the game mode/meta but the core’s does well reaper can take those. This is the power creep and the meta clearly showed it: the popular builds ran a lot of the core in it as well.
This advantage will mean that in most cases core specs will fall behind and without it being unbalanced. Restoring the balnce to an equal state means compensating for the inherent advantage for the extra skills, which mean you have to weaken skills to below the lvl of core skills, which is not good. It is also why you see so much ‘unfun’ mechanics because people an now choose the mechanics that fit the game mode best, that is the price of diversity within classes. The only way to get rid of them is to lower these mechanics to until they far less usefull then they should be.
So yeah when you achieved your ‘diversity’ and ‘fun mechancs’ it will mean that a lot of skills are weaker then they should be which is again not good.