Guild Wars 2

Having more luck against them with foot in the grave, lets me get momentum back easier. Also more stuns and chill in build. Not a given by any means but at least not a cakewalk for them.

How does a reaper fight a revenant in PVP? Just seems like endless stream of blocks, followed by their massive dps and stuns. I dont get it..

Called this a while ago.

Great sword is flawed. Necro does not have scaling defense. It does not belong in the front line unless the payback is stellar. But its not. Not to mention you have great melee already with shroud so its redundant.

Reaper shroud, total awesomeness.

Reaper without greatsword = win.

I used to always pack Lich but since they nerfed stability and essentially made “foot in the grave” a bad source, Ive had to switch to plague to get me through the rough spots.

Actually enjoying it anyway… so well played Anet.

No scaling defense is what really kills a greatsword reaper for me. A non-greatsword reaper however.. thats what I’ll be playing.

Stop trying to change plague! Its good as is. If anything a new elite well would be a suggestion but doesnt have to be linked to plague.

Plague form is our invulnerability. Spam #2 and win.

Chill may not affect the distance of leaps anymore but it still affects the recharge. Except thieves of course but they have always been more or less immune.

Really I would prefer they make Moa to not counter elites.

I still get a fair amount of use out of plague to deny points in pvp and escape or push the enemy in wvw. If you wait long enough into the fight the moas are used up and I almost never get a moa. So basically I like it the way it is. I especially like the pulsing stability which is so hard for a necro to get.

nacario.9417:

As a ranger i disagree necro being “lowest in team support”.

Compare ranger warhorn to necro, get back to us with your findings…

Arg, I was really enjoying my chill spam in plague.

Why must you take my happiness Anet?!

Rym.1469:

The biggest problem with CC for me is not even the vulnerability, but kittening Blind when traited with MoC. It makes my old Shroud dancing Power build completly unbearable.

ANet, put even 10 stacks of bleeding on me, but no kittening blind…

Shrouded removal takes care of that blind as soon as you pop into DS.

I thought spite was needed but then decided not. Other lines have good traits too.

You are missing might stacks, but thats what friends are for, and close to death but there are dps adders in other lines too if you look close.

Close to death is a bit overkill usually anyway, if you have them under 50% theyre usually on their way to folding, and will be ganged down.

Crit % can also mean percentage damage added, youre probably not looking at the right stat.

85 ferocity equates to about 5.6% difference so makes sense youre looking at the damage increase not the chance. Also crit chance of 73% is very high so another reason youre probably looking at damage.

Consume conditions with master of corruption. Blind is pretty easy to clear especially if you have good condition transferal (dagger #4, staff #4, plague signet), as you should with master of corruption.

Tried the other heals but just not the same so had to build around the new CC.

Bubi.5237:

Staff/Dagger AA for Life Force, faster/more useful than pressing Finish Him! 2-3 times..
(I’m usually trying to Staff him while capping as I have the feeling it’s more LF ‘cos slower kill.. but never tested/did math, so it’s just a feeling.)

nekretaal.6485:

Dump a well of suffering on the downed. Burst down anybody who tries to Rez them.

Either of these two is my preference depending on situation. Autoattacking a downed (or #2 axe) really is the most reliable way to harvest lifeforce since they cant dodge/LOS, etc but if you need to deal with other things a well will do it for you and is a great deterant to rezzing.

Wells build with blood line works better than ever, cant say im disappointed. Tried other things but nothing brings it the same way as a well that does even more damage.

shhh… its the line nobody seems to have caught onto yet. ;D

Ive actually settled on a wells power build with all the siphoning traits. The added damage from all those traits is very significant… but I use it in a power build not cleric. Add spite in the mix and you can stack up might fast as well as other bonuses when you get some people under 50% in your wells.

Shiki.7148:

Cripple on CPC? I… I.. I just cannot… I don’t even… This skill is already so bad and now if we trait it it kittening makes our immobile selves even LESS mobile?! What the actual kitten.

I agree, but another angle I was looking at this is that when HOT comes out with Reaper spec we can get 100% immune to cripple, so wont be a bad one to take… aside from that it generally sucks anyway.

ok… that really bites. Its doing worse to ourselves than the enemy. With the self bleed too.

“Cool”.. except not. Is the one on plague pulsing? if not no biggie, not like we heal in plague anyway. The blind on CC is kind of insult to injury but the rest I never use anyway. :P

Yea this would be a very nice QoL improvement! Even just make it greyed out but visible still.

Two weeks later…
“knockdowns will no longer affect movement speed”

TheLastNobody.8319:

To be fair, we could just corrupt resistance back into chill. But I do agree, it seems a little insane to make chill convert to…that.

Are you sure we can convert resistance back to chill, I got the feeling it is like “invul” and cant be stripped? If it can be then I agree, not a big deal.

I’ll be taking MoC just for Consume Conditions & Plague form, never mind the utilities (probably wells). Just a necessary part of being a necro now. The other heals suck so bad.

Look forward to it, this a very confusing message anet is sending us with all the self inflicted conditions and rule changes affecting necros (chill, leaps, spectral walk). Are they doing this to get necro back to their original vision or is this a tangent?

Ok, specific things I’d like to hear about is if consume conditions is still worth taking without moc, Or is master of corruption the new must have trait? Are the other heals going to contend at all, assuming there will be many more condition builds?

If we’re going to be getting self bleeds in plague form this means we are going to also afflicted with “combat mode” regardless of whether we are or not in combat. This is also true for many of the new necro abilities, in particular consume conditions. This seems a bit unfair, especially given necros existing poor mobility!!!

I’m already out of luck if I dont disengage and get with the pack in wvw near the front of the line, now whenever I use a heal I will be left further in the dust. We have no burst mobility to catch back up.

Suggestion: Can these self inflicted conditions come with a separate super-speed buff so we can go regular swiftness speed in combat to counteract? Or just make them not put us in combat mode at all, but not sure what code problems that would create.

Thanks for your attention.

Keeping us in combat is the one real thing I dont like. I understand they want to push the vision of necros as diseased and loving it characters that carry lots of conditions and spread them to their enemies, but to use heal and instantly be in combat mode with the speed drop seems unfair.

If this is the vision for necros can we not have a compromise? Make necros not in combat with conditions perhaps. Normal damage would still create combat mode but conditions (particularly self inflicted) not.

On the plus side for plague, it adds a lot of hp so the bleed wont hurt as bad as it would otherwise. As a powermancer the bleeds themselves arent that high anyway, but a condimancer will pay a higher price ironically.

They’ve really put necro as a masochistic type role moreso, I think thats part of the original design intent, they just turned it up to 11.

Yea I’m in the same boat, only builds that use master of corruption (curses master trait) are any good. I lean toward spectral usually but nerfing consume heal is forcing my hand. The 25 seconds seems long sometimes, cant imagine pushing it back further.

At least with master of corruption it will be 24 sec.

Dont know what prompted this but it ruins an otherwise cool move. I think theyve fiddling with it already since its been less reliable for “base jumping” for some time for me, so I dont use it this way much anymore. Not the end of the world but still… :\

Dash every 6s (5s) is going to be a great improvement.

Consider we can get a lot more dashes out than RTL. Also rate of travel is identical, RTL gives 600 unit per second. Mind you they add blink to the mix but lets compare apples to apples.

I feel like more of a nerf but thats as a power necro. Poison, which reaper will be applying on the shroud charge, will be nerfed overall for damage. And chill, which reaper has a lot of access too, wont keep people in place. Necros benefit from the chill/cripple nerf the least of all classes so it feels like a necro nerf. At least thankfully we will have a short leap in reaper shroud.

Sigmoid.7082:

You could make the same argument for dagger since that is a melee weapon. The Greatsword will have its place since there are some very neat tricks you can do with it based on what we have been shown. It also has the highest range of any true melee weapon that has been shown. Most others are at 130 or 150 where as its at 170.

I’m hoping you are right and will definately try it. Greatsword would be very fun and kitten.

Its the difference between having a weapon in your hands you can use and a weapon you cant. Axe still isnt great but its useable. Axe #3 excepted.. thats “rock star” move. :P

nekretaal.6485:

Deaths Charge looks horrible. It has a one second cast time / windup, and the actual charge isn’t so hot either.

Like warrior staff banner charge, the skill is no better than running to your enemy with swiftness. You wolnt be able to gap close with this and you wolnt be able to increase your land-speed with this.

Nor do you get any evade while you are charging. You’re actually a sitting duck like the ranger sword auto attack root.

Also it’s a reaper shroud skill, so you can’t count on it always being available to you. Using reaper shroud to get movement forfeits your defense.

Then when it hits, you inflict not cripple or chill but poison, which does nothing to stop an enemy from kiting you (the whole reason you needed a gap close to begin with).

At least there’s a blast finisher (ofc blasting a water field wolnt heal you).

A couple things here. You can (should) have infusing terror up prior to leaping, which will grant you stability. You can can trait deaths charge to remove boons which should take away swiftness at least. Also you can convert infusing terror to fear which also chills when you get there, if they dont have stability up. Necro has a lot of cc options, we arent lacking in this department. Even use sigil of hydromancy if you have to.

To me there’s no reason at all to take Greatsword. The best goodies are in the Reaper Shroud. The pull on greatsword is kind of cool mind you but I’d rather not be stuck with a melee only weapon when I have lots of melee only stuff in shroud already. Its sticking too many eggs in that basket.

Ive been doing more spvp lately and noticed there are some good rangers that really know how to fight necros, if they get momentum they can really clean up.

Preferably you get the jump on them and not vice versa for start, since they can knock back and fear you for a few crucial seconds, then disappear. I find that well of power is very nice when they have the drop since it gives a few seconds to switch it around and take initiative back, as well as turn the usual conditions into boons that help you going forward.

But thats just what works for me, I’ll have to try signet of spite >:)

spoj.9672:

Even if dagger is melee its still vastly superior to axe in WvW. Dagger has two ranged skills that are the same range as axe. Dagger 2 does the same damage as axe 2 but it also heals you. So yeah there really is no reason to use an axe ever. Unless you are abusing the weapon power + axe training for DS damage. But after axe training nerf axe will be gone from “viable” uses. And it will be staff/gs for DS weapon power abuse.

As a power necro I prefer the lifeforce recharge, so as a #2 axe is > dagger #2. I can always use more lifeforce. Axe #3 is really really good in wvw where dagger #3 is single target so meh. Dagger #1 better damage & effects but its melee so situational use for backliner. If Dagger #1 was ranged I would agree but its not.

There is no great single-hand weapon choice for necro, at least in wvw. So its not up against a lot of competition and thats what saves it.

Dagger requires melee which is inadvisable in wvw, and scepter is too low damage for power.

I’ll be more than a little peeved if they push us out of a group spot by simply doing things better.

However I think they compete more with front line classes for their spot, with the cone abilities and defenses, and are a wierd kind of mutually assured destruction counter to condition classes like condition build necro. Just a superficial take on things mind you.

Sigmoid.7082:

Reaper will never back line as well as necro because of lack of range.

Front line is a different story. It depends on build and your team. They should also allow easier dealing with classes that have skills that reduce direct damage to 0 such as ranger and warrior.

I agree with this, I think a backline reaper should definately bounce to front when they can if they want to play it properly.

Second reaper with wells. With the short range on wells it will be nice to have reapers condition mitigation to get you “out of the muck”.

But to answer your question it just might give us another meta as a dps front liner. Will have to see it in action, Im sure some will succeed at it anyway.

The tips are more for fighting rangers that know how to handle necros, noob bearbow rangers arent much difficulty for anyone.

Per the original post, put yourself in the rangers shoes. If they are sitting back surveying a skirmish, of course as soon as they see someone on the ropes with barely any health, thats the person they will load onto with rapid fire which is why you die to it often.

The trick is to know this will be coming even if you arent (especially) fighting the ranger and either los or cc them, or go for them first. Rangers make good priority targets as do necros which is why they choose you to shoot at, and why you need to plan accordingly.

Spectral walk is the only utility besides wells I use. And on occassion sigil of spite (passive only) to give me a bit more power if swiftness is abundant like travelling with group/zerg and I dont need spectral walk.

aspirine.6852:

That is why this class needs some kind of good reflection skill. The fear wall to me seems like a great one for this.

Reflect totally destroys a LB ranger… they are dealing with it from lots of sources already, more would make the class almost pointless. Everyone having reflect isnt the answer.

As someone whos played both classes a lot, the best thing about fighting a LB ranger is they want you at range. They can be very easily LOS’d to draw them in. They will do a volley but its not to bad and their pet is good lifeforce fodder if they send that at you, plus you can proc all kinds of regen off it if its in your face, depending on set up (focus or staff). Volley is on a very long cooldown so they will have to change tactics to deal with you after thats used, since rangers dont have any other means to get you behind cover while necros have a number of things like marks, wells, etc that can be cast while only peeking out a sec.

Its also beneficial if you can single out the pet and take it down quickly as their condition removal is often dependant on that pet. They will switch but once that ones gone they are all yours. This isnt wasted time if you can take the pet down behind cover. They have two pets but the cooldown is very long if it dies.

Also dodging rapid fire and knockdown is very useful as mentioned above. Also dark path is a brilliant move against this class, on par with spectral grasp, and every necro has it.

TLDR: Worst idea: running straight at them. Best idea: get behind cover.

If its wvw you could try spiteful removal (removes 3 conditions on kill), if you tag enough people should be some cleanses rolling in.

Shadow Dragon Ad.2409:

kitten then that makes it the trait to go instead of Terror it seems, bit of a shame really because now it’s not really a choice. Obviously if the numbers get tuned down Terror may be an option again but oh well. Just auto attacking in scepter will be so ridiculous with that trait haha

We’ll have to see when it comes out. I suspect they just mean the sceptre conditions will be doubled in duration as it would be very OP to actually give you +100% condition duration. If I’m wrong, well I’ll be grabbing a sceptre!

Lets put it this way, the main use for great sword will be front line WvW due to all its aoe/cleave.

Anything else you are probably better off with dagger + your choice.