Guild Wars 2

Using vault looks like an excellent way to get yourself killed. It should probably go back to 6 ini but get an evade.

Should we be getting a skill on our profession mechanic that others get as their elite skill? Also. it takes 1 1/4 sec to cast executioner’s scythe, while it takes 2.75 sec to go through the chain of the thief elite skill. If they make exec. scythe take 3 sec to cast, then I wouldn’t mind the suggestion.

Muchacho.2390:

Mhh that makes greatsword kinda useless against them…

Guess in spvp we will only see dagger/warhorn reapers.

GS feels like a teamfight weapon you want to use to disrupt enemy positioning, AoE blind, and occasionally hit a big-money digger when people are not paying attention. If you want to play 1 v 1, dagger/warhorn is vastly superior. And staff is way too valuable for reaper, so I would never drop it for a d/wh+GS setup.

Tim.6450:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Tim.6450:

Blaine Tog.8304:

The Daredevil looks to be pretty light on stealth.

black powder+ leap on dodge?

Well, if thieves go for SA to get the truly annoying stealth traits along with DD, they will have to give up on CS or Trickery, both of which are excellent offensive lines. So I am not that worried about it.

Backstab+evasive empowerement might hurt a bit though.

Yes, it will hurt quite a lot. This will be one of the specs that will be the hardest for us to deal with because of how evasive and mobile they are, and how absolutely impossible they are to pin down by a necro.

But as I said – I am quite alright with having hard counters. S/D thief has always been a nightmare to deal with as a berserker(Marauder) power necro spec. Tankier builds should do fairly well against it since if we get in a situation where a big fight is going down, Reapers will have a big advantage.

Tim.6450:

Blaine Tog.8304:

The Daredevil looks to be pretty light on stealth.

black powder+ leap on dodge?

Well, if thieves go for SA to get the truly annoying stealth traits along with DD, they will have to give up on CS or Trickery, both of which are excellent offensive lines. So I am not that worried about it.

It will be quite good against reapers, yes, but reapers are supposed to be really good in team fights due to all our cleaves, while this seems like a really powerful skirmisher/1v1 spec. I am alright with having counters, it is not like necro is not a hard counter to many a condi build.

Also – I doubt GS will be a popular weapon in PvP to begin with, and expect many reapers to stick to dagger/warhorn so that they can shroud more often, since it seems like this is the place where most of our power is loaded. So do not be too worried about being unable to ever hit them. If you are playing marauder you will probably have a bad day, but with a soldier/cele amulet you should be alright.

I do not main a thief and only play the class occasionally, but kitten , I look forward to playing this. It should be quite useful for the Stronghold mode with its extreme mobility and the ability to execute the enemy lord with the elite.

nekretaal.6485:

So it looks like the thief specialization will be based on having unlimited dodge, and their dodges will also act as a move skill/dash and will remove chill/cripple.

They’ll also be essentially able to keep up their pistol 4 spam.

So, the new thief will act as a 100% hard counter to Reaper, who will not be able to hit the thief, keep up with the thief, and may even be daze locked by the thief.

If you go for marauder reaper – yes, daredevil will probably make your life really, really miserable. If you go for a tankier variant you could just.. keep standing on point and working on staying alive. In a teamfight you will fare way better than them, so in the long run, you just need to manage to live up until the point your team arrives. To be honest, even the current D/P thief would work as a pretty strong counter to marauder Reaper, so I do not feel too worried.

It is pretty much the same issue that warriors have with the discipline trait “fast hands”. The 5 seconds recharge reduction to weapon swap they get from the minor trait makes the line pretty much mandatory, to the point where many warrior players have asked for the trait to be made baseline for the class. Just like we have a problem with Reaper locking in Soul Reaping for us for PvP, Berserkers are pretty much stuck with Discipline and Defense.

ODB.6891:

-snip-

I play the class primarily in PvP, where its flavour and specific strengths work towards providing an unique playstyle not currently avilable to any other class. Mind you, prior to the specializations update our state was rather poor, but right now between the unique support of blood magic and the heavy debuffer capabilities of signet necro, our viability is better than it has been since the Dhuumfire nerf galore.

We have been in a great spot for WvW for a while now, so I do not have any complaints there either. The ranged AoE capabilities we have have allowed us to remain a meta class.

Now, the elephant in the room PvE. I have mixed feelings about this mode. The main issue I have with it is that it promotes super glass-canon builds and requires no investment in survivability. The issue is, that our class has a ton of survivability by default, and we are lacking a bit in the damage department. I understand why you dislike our “damage sponge” mechanic and think that the class is fundamentally flawed by the virtue of not being another DPS spam profession. But, to be honest, I really enjoy the tools we have when it comes to other game modes.. Even though we are rumoured to be kitten in PvE, outside of organized hardcore speedclear groups, you will barely notice the difference if you take a necromancer over a DPS guardian or warrior. Our state is not that dire, and the way I see it, making us more like other classes, and us becoming just a dark mage themed warrior, is not desirable.

I might be biased since the game mode we are the most lacking is is the game mode I am not that heavily invested in, but all in all I think that what it comes down to is not issues with the class, its mechanics and capabilities, but with the structure of dungeons and PvE content in GW2. I hope this gets redeemed to a certain point in HoT, but I am not holding my breath for it.

ODB.6891:

What forum post does not boil down to personal issues and opinions…including your own? I’m pretty sure I supported everything I said with factual information as well. I see no problem with that, unless there is something I said that was inaccurate?

Inaccurate? No. Not exactly. Just disputable. While it is true that the purpose of a forum is to share opinions, I just got the impression that your problems with the class.. are the entire class. Do you like necromancer for anything except for theme? It is an honest question.

ODB.6891:

-snip-

Nowhere did I say that all our problems will be suddenly solved soon, and, to be honest, many of your complaints come down to personal issues and opinion. I, however, fully agree that we need a decent ranged power weapon. I hope the axe rework turns out fine.

Dakunaito.9602:

ODB.6891:

I agree that having both shrouds would not be the best solution, since it would pressure all necros to trait reaper…just to have full functionality out of shroud

adding both shrouds would pressure Necros to choose Reaper? have you ever realized that majority of Necros(i can easily say 99%) will choose Reaper specialization on their own? one guy in youtube said: i will make Necro only for the Reaper. i’ve seen lot of pvp videos and people get Reaper specialization just to use RS and shouts. they don’t use greatsword cause they know that it’s horrible, cause the cast times drags you back

Are you saying that since people will choose reaper anyway, we should make it even more appealing than base necro, rather than fixing base necro issues? I disagree.

ODB.6891:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I think that the mechanics of the different professions are too different to make such a direct comparison. We get five extra skills when we go into shroud – this is the amount of skills you get on a weapon, and some of them are really potent. The guardian also had quite a lot of special skills, 3, and they got changed.

Warrior gets an alteration of the burst it already has (1 skill/set).

Herald gets 1 more ability.

Chronomancer gets 1 more ability.

Tempest does get 4 new abilities, but they have a really really heavy opportunity cost associated with them.

I much rather getting a brand new shroud rather than getting a new, 6th shroud skill. while the rest remain the same.

Unless engineers get 10 toolbelt skills with their elite spec, I do not feel like our request is valid. More to the point, our reaper traitline is quite powerful in some regards, mainly by the virtue of being focused towards providing us with the ability to be a melee brawler. I believe that if we kept both shrouds, the potency of the traitline would be toned down to account for it.

All in all – do not focus too much on the “f” button and think about overall functionality. The reaper, as far as I am concerned, will be much more fun and satisfying to play if it is its own thing, rather than getting access to the default shroud.

I agree that having both shrouds would not be the best solution, since it would pressure all necros to trait reaper…just to have full functionality out of shroud. I don’t agree that we get “5 extra skills”…solely because the reality is that we get 5 skills temporarily in exchange for temporarily losing all 10 of our previous skills. That is a distinction that I feel is important to remember. No other profession loses all of their existing skills just to use their profession mechanic. The closest would be engineers…but even they get to still use their utilities when using a kit. Everyone gets to use their profession mechanic, in addition/simultaneously, to the existing functionality…except necromancers/reapers. On top of that, they appear to be content/determined to leave shroud as a dps loss compared to a weapon auto attack. All this negative…in exchange for some extra temporary hp?!? I’d rather not have the extra hp and just have functionality like every other profession. Its that moment when you realize that we are still getting the shaft.

You do not “lose” your other weapon when you weapon swap. Its skills are still right there, with their cooldowns ticking down. Yes, we lose access to out utilities but, to be honest, shroud, especially on reaper, is kind of worth it. The tools it provides us with are quite powerful and useful in many situations, and the extra HP is exactly what we need to be capable of sustaining ourselves as a melee brawler.

Whether or not people are satisfied with the numbers provided by the abilities of our profession mechanic is an entirely different topic – and it has been and still is being extensively discussed in multiple other threads. I understand that the fact that some of the other classes just get extra things added to their profession mechanic might be a little annoying to some, though people need to realize that there is more to a class than the number of “f” skills it can press. I prefer getting nice and diverse traits, utilities and weapon skills instead, which is what the Reaper dev team, with the guidance of the necromancer community, has been working on since last beta. If the update notes Robert posted do not get you excited for Reaper, I do not know what will.

I think that the mechanics of the different professions are too different to make such a direct comparison. We get five extra skills when we go into shroud – this is the amount of skills you get on a weapon, and some of them are really potent. The guardian also had quite a lot of special skills, 3, and they got changed.

Warrior gets an alteration of the burst it already has (1 skill/set).

Herald gets 1 more ability.

Chronomancer gets 1 more ability.

Tempest does get 4 new abilities, but they have a really really heavy opportunity cost associated with them.

I much rather getting a brand new shroud rather than getting a new, 6th shroud skill. while the rest remain the same.

Unless engineers get 10 toolbelt skills with their elite spec, I do not feel like our request is valid. More to the point, our reaper traitline is quite powerful in some regards, mainly by the virtue of being focused towards providing us with the ability to be a melee brawler. I believe that if we kept both shrouds, the potency of the traitline would be toned down to account for it.

All in all – do not focus too much on the “f” button and think about overall functionality. The reaper, as far as I am concerned, will be much more fun and satisfying to play if it is its own thing, rather than getting access to the default shroud.

HoTline Miami 3

My experience with a tanky reaper last BWE, was that in a 1 v 1 situation. With one particular build, which involved soldier amulet, signets, and dagger/warhorn, I managed to win every single fight against a warrior, even when it came down to getting rampaged twice in a row due to the duration of the fight.

What I am saying is – do not be -that- worried about berserker. It surely is powerful, but warriors are quite similar to necromancer from the perspective of being locked in specific trait lines if they wish to function properly. What that means, is that right now, unless devs listen to their demands and give them fast hands as a baseline ability of the class, warriors can not have FH, Cleansing Ire, and keep their crazy damage modifiers from strength while being a berserker. I think that Reaper vs Berserker matchups are going to be rather entertaining to watch, and believe that they can go both ways, depending on builds and players.

Zalavaaris.5329:

Gonna get nerfed

Because it’s competitive

Then play rev

A-net please no

I think it is the worst trait even and I will not use it in my builds.

Jokes aside – I love it. The fact that you can spam your auto to heal up a bit while waiting in shroud is great – it is a wonderful tool that finally provides us with the opportunity to be an attrition class.

Vydahr.4285:

Necro players may be OP though. I mean, when you’re constantly fighting with one arm behind your back, or with weights strapped to you, or both, and their suddenly removed, well… It’ll be disorienting at first, but watch out when we get used to it ;p

This is the same argument current mesmers are using to justify the current state of their class. I am not saying reaper should or should not be nerfed, I just thought I would let you know .

We already have a thread on that https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Death-Shroud-F1-and-Reaper-F2/page/2#post5371678 .

Vydahr.4285:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

The infusing terror fix was necessary, though it will hit our sustain in PvP significantly (ticks of stability procced Blighter’s Boon healing ticks, allowing us to be quite sustainable in 1 v 1 situations). I will reserve judgement until we get to do more testing, but I will definitely keep an eye out for that. My hopes are that the new functionality of RS2, the reduced CD of RS4, and the hitbox fix of RS5 will make up for it.

If you take spite with Blighter’s Boon, plus Chilling Force actually gives really good sustain from what I noticed in the beta, and I don’t think the change to Infusing Terror will really affect it much. (A few ticks of stability compared to up to, what, 15 ticks of might in an ideal PvE scenario? (looking at you, pocket raptors))

Other than that point, I do think we’re doing pretty well overall in terms of RS sustain with boon healing (better than Unholy Sanctuary, actually. By… A lot (we’re talking 2k healing with a RS 5 -> RS 4 combo against five enemies which takes 4(?) or so seconds, versus 520 from US in the same time frame versus the same five enemies)

The only time US is better than BB is in a 1v1, and in that case, our Shroud won’t burn as fast anyway, so we can still heal decently while in shroud in that scenario, too

Yes, I played a bunch of 1 v 1 as the Reaper. As a matter of fact, this is what I did for 30%+ of my beta time. And to a great success. Once I got rid of GS, which happened an hour in, I did not lose any fights, At worst, they ended as a draw versus equally tanky warriors. Cele eles and guardians did not seem to fare as well due to the heavy boon corruption.

I found the sustain to be quite phenomenal with spite, and the fact that I was running bunky amulets (celestial/soldiers) further amplified that. DS3 heals for a total of 1064 HP if you let it run for its full duration, so having it on a 9 second cooldown (when traited) was pretty good. Perhaps too good.

In regards to the sustain that US is capable of giving – going into the Death traitline is just not worth it right now, so I would definitely rank Reaper’s BB higher. It is my favourite trait from the whole kit by far and I really hope that we will never see it ruined by an ICD.

This is an absolutely amazing list of changes you have there. I was going through Reaper withdrawal symptoms already after being away from it for 4-5 days, now this post only made my itch to get my hands on it once more even worse.

I must say, Robert Gee made a great job at filtering through the suggestions floating around the forum and making adjustments accordingly. GS sounds much better for PvE use with the new and improved Gravedigger. I hope that once people get to testing, Reaper DPS will be competitive enough for us to stop getting kicked out of PvE groups.

The infusing terror fix was necessary, though it will hit our sustain in PvP significantly (ticks of stability procced Blighter’s Boon healing ticks, allowing us to be quite sustainable in 1 v 1 situations). I will reserve judgement until we get to do more testing, but I will definitely keep an eye out for that. My hopes are that the new functionality of RS2, the reduced CD of RS4, and the hitbox fix of RS5 will make up for it.

The new “Rise” sounds quite fun, though I would like to see it in action and see how survivable the Shambling Horrors are. I doubt that MM reaper will be all that great, though I am temped to try it out just for the fun-factor alone. The changes to all the other shouts are really good, too. Having solid base effects is key to making them viable alternatives to our current utilities.

I am excited to check out our new possibilities with chill uptime. I did not focus on the condition much last beta, to the point where hydromancy sigil was my main source of chill application, since it simply did not seem like it was worth it. Now, whoever, the idea sounds much more attractive.

I would actually love to see something weird an unique be done with the shouts. Like having “Rise!” have some sort of weird functionality such as : “Deal (x%) more damage to downed foes. Summon a Chest Burster for each downed or defeated foe struck, which inflicts 1 second of fear to adjacent foes upon being summoned.”. Something along those lines to bring quirky uniqueness to the speck while delving deeper into the “horror” theme. I ma sure the folks at A-net are creative enough.

Zero Solstice.9754:

Iavra.8510:

Dragonhunter loses its old virtues and ele kinda temporarily trades one of its attunements for a new skill. So far only mesmer gains something new for free and there are already discussions over in our forums.

Except Dragonhunter doesn’t technically lose its old virtues; its new virtues have literally all of the same effects, just with bonus upgrades and functionality. F1 still blinds and burns, but now it burns more. F2 still heals and cleanses condis, but now it also blinks, deals damage, and immobilizes. F3 is still a stunbreak with stab and aegis, but now it also creates a shield.

While this is true, these skills are no longer instant-activation, and this is a big deal. While their cast times might seem miniscule, for resolve in particualr it might be the difference between life and death. Justice also has a much more obvious tell to accommodate for its increase in power, and Courage, while also granting a shield now, does have a cast time. Yes, courage can be traited to be a stunbreaker, but it requires a grandmaster trait investment.

Had no problems with it on male Norn. Then again, I am a big fan of what the VA has done so far, the voice truly sounds deep and powerful.

I am definitely not a fan of the idea. I would rather keep both shrouds separate and serve different playstyles. Letting reaper remain a melee-only shroud allows the devs to balance accordingly and give us tools in the traitline that take this into consideration.

Currently, when you go for Reaper, you state that you give up on all the ranger power pressure in favour for more powerful melee abilities and tools to better survive close encounters. It might not be of sufficient level according to some people, but this is a matter of tweaking numbers, so we will see how it goes in the long run. I personally enjoyed great success with soldier reaper, though maybe it was because I did not bring a great sword along.

It is true that two of the other elite specializations revealed so far, Tempest and Chronomancer, get straight upgrades to their class mechanics, but I consider these to be bad implementations rather than good ones. I much prefer the design of Reaper and Dragonhunter.

Do not get me wrong, I understand why people believe that giving us access to both shrouds would help the class in terms of performance, and I am aware that it is currently underperforming in both PvE and PvP. I would just like to see the issue addressed in a manner, different from simply letting us use both shrouds. A-net is afraid enough of us when we have just one.

General thoughts of different aspects of the specialization:

Reaper Shroud – felt great to use. We sacrifice our long range tools, but gain great close-range pressure and stability. It feels really tanky with a good amulet, and allows for some great sustain while you are free to do your job of applying pressure through DS1 and DS4. The necrocopter takes a bit of getting used to, and is not too great to use on-point, but works really well as a quick dash of mobility when switching locations or chasing down an enemy who is just running.

Traits – A mixed bag. We have some great ones, such as “Relentless Pursuit” and “Blighter’s Boon”, but there are some I feel are a little lacklustre.

• Adept – “Chilling Nova” I believe could use a little bit of a buff in the form of lowering the CD a little bit. Perhaps lowering it by 5 seconds will make it a little bit more attractive, at least for PvE.

• Master – “Soul Eater “is not too amazing, though the reason for this might hide within the weapon required to trigger it.

• Grandmaster – “Deathly Chill” numbers are a little underwhelming. Perhaps they could be upped a little bit so that the heavy melee gameplay of the reaper is rewarded by some serious condi pressure. I am not big on condi necro, so I might be more than a little bit off on that one.

Shouts – The heal is not bad for PvE because it lets you spend even more time in RS, which maximizes your DPS output. The utility ones (except for Rise, which is horrible), have some cool uses, though I would not take more than one of them in my build. I did not get interrupted all that much while using them, though this is probably due to enemy thieves/mesmers not knowing Reaper animations well yet. The elite is fun to use, though I would take Lich over it in PvE, and Plague in PvP (the best PvP Reaper builds right now as far as I am concerned are tanky ones, so it complements them quite well).

Greatsword – slow, clunky, frustrating. I tried to use it in PvP, but switched to D/Wh a couple of matches in and never looked back. Not only does D/Wh provide me with amazing life force generation, its DPS output is better, and its CC more reliable. It is a shame since GS animations are amazing and I would lovee to give it some more use. I will not rant on about the weapon since plenty of community members have already expressed concerns similar to mine regarding it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Thank you for the update, Robert. Seeing that devs still reed the necromancer forum feedback is really reassuring. I am certainly looking forward to the projectile-blocking Death’s Charge.

Just remember that that feature won’t be on the build we’re playing this weekend. Don’t be surprised if you get Point-Blank-Shotted out of Death’s Charge.

You have stab in shroud to deal with PBS.

Thank you for the update, Robert. Seeing that devs still reed the necromancer forum feedback is really reassuring. I am certainly looking forward to the projectile-blocking Death’s Charge.

Vydahr.4285:

Nynuwe.5893:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

But the point is to show off how good GS is, not prove that dagger+warhorn is still better.

I think Andlat’s point is that dagger/warhorn is a frequently played weapon set on necro, so the ins and outs, counters and tricks are all well known, whereas for GS, it’s all theorycraft, essentially. Even the best player ever is gonna have a little difficulty mastering a completely new weapon with all its nuances in a handful of minutes

Not only that, the fast hiting locust swarm is an amazing way to get rid of guardian blocks, and warhorn 4 is a great tool if you want to interrupt shelter. I am not sure in which matchup having a GS would be more favourable than D/Wh, this remains to be seen through testing, but against a mediguard the latter certainly has a big edge.

Some more thoughts on Reaper after watching all the videos available:

Blighter’s boon seems to allow reaper to stay in the thick of things. It has great sustain damage for someone using a soldier’s amulet, and the constant 20+ might stacks allow for burning to deal quite a bit of damage.

Unfortunately, if they nerf Blighter’s Boon by adding an ICD to it, and/or add ICD to Reaper’s Might, the build will lose most of its steam. I suppose time will tell if this is going to happen, but knowing A-net’s history with necro, I would not be surprised.

As it currently is, Soldier reaper seems to be a rather tanky build which provides great AoE debuffing potential with its massive poison and chill applications, while still having decent sustained damage. In addition, its signets can serve as powerful single-target debuffers against targets such as elementalists and guardians.

In a way, it is quite similar to hambow warrior, except it focuses on debuffing rather than hard CC. The build and playstyle appear quite pleasant, and I am looking forward to trying them out first-hand this Friday.

Bhawb.7408:

Wait Blackmoa was there? He’s a very solid Necro, if he couldn’t make Reaper work that doesn’t bode well.

He was doing okay, except for a 1 on 1 fight wit ha mediguard. But, to be honest, the mediguard would be way more experienced at his speck than Blackmoa for obvious reasons, and if the necro was using dagger + warhorn it would have had a pretty good chance to win.

Quite pleased with the way RS2 looks, it actually provides some decent amount of mobility – it will not turn you into a roamer , but it will allow you to at least keep up with people tying to kite you on-point.

The Reaper Shroud as a whole looks really interesting and useful, providing the necromancer with ways to apply even more cleave on-point that usual, making reviving hard for the enemy team. The poison got moved from RS2 to RS 4, so we can still provide heavy AoE debuffing, and we can flip RS3 to get a fear off without losing the stability we have gathered so far.

Onto the bad news – great sword looks extremely clunky to the point where it is nearly useless in PvP. This was expected, but it is worse than I originally thought. The LF generation is horrendous, the long wind-ups never reach the point where we see the pay-off, and the utility skills such as GS5 are rather impotent. I will likely go for an SR build with soul marks, with staff and D/X as my weapons, so that I can maximize the time I can spend in RS. The Reaper seems to be at its strongest there, allowing for some serious AoE cleave DPS while having an auto with a reasonable attack speed.

Didn’t see any particularly impressive reaper performances, though I must say what I saw is pretty much in line with what I would expect, taking the lack of experience of players into consideration.

The downed player cleave seems really impressive, and it might be a really useful role for the reaper to fulfill. From what we saw all the players were struggling versus mediguardian, but this is to be expected – the heavy blocks and blinds are a perfect counter for the reaper and its slow attacks. I would expect dagger to do better against them than GS.

Nyth.3492:

I know that we want the necro’s to make a comeback for PvE (believe me I really want that too). But I’m not sure if the best solution would be to make the GS really powerful and eclipse every other weapon in our kitten nal by default.
I realize that it’s impossible to make every weapon viable for every game aspect. But I think it should be the aim of developers to get as close as possible.

Well, for what it’s worth, dagger is just a mainhand weapon so you could be more versatile depending on what offhand you wish to use. It will still be far more valuable in PvP than the slow and clunky GS, so it will have its niche there, which leaves a spot for great sword to be a strong PvE option.

Another option, assuming GS gets some sort of tweak, is having a situation where it is better to stay in dagger for most of the time, switching to GS only to land some hard-hitters when they are off-cd, before poppin back to dagger and continuing to auto attack. While this works for axe/x + GS warrior, the issue with necro would be that the dagger AA might just be replaced by RS 1 instead, while necros keep staff as their second set as a ranged option for some bosses.

Silverkey.2078:

Dagger AA DPS coefficient is pretty decent compared to other AAs in the game (may even be one of the highest), but most classes have a weapon with strong burst (usually nr 2) on top of a decent AA. Dagger DPS ends up being much lower than the DPS from the best weapons of almost of all classes. GS would look similar to most weapons, with nr 2 being a strong burst, unfortunately it does not seem to beat our dagger AA

Indeed, I would have appreciated it if GS had some good use at least in PvE, since it seems to be terrible against a half-decent opponent in PvP (every attack will be blinded/dodged/interrupted unless you have a teammate to keep heling you set up big hits, and they do not even provide that high payoffs. You are better of taking a warrior if you are playing reaper for the pure DPS output.

As it stands, it will be a great weapon to cleave down trash with, and this is something the necromancer has always been god at regardless. Now that we have reaper shroud, this task will be even easier. Chill. blind and vuln are three conditions we do not have much of kittene for in a PvE group, so the utility provided by GS is not that great either.

I will have to test it for myself, but so far it looks like I will go Reaper because of RS, but use dagge/warhorn + dagger/focus for PvE, and staff + dagger/x in PvP. I hope that my pessimistic mindset skews my perception in the matter, though after years of dealing with A-net, I doubt it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Jayce.5632:

nearlight.3064:

spoj.9672:

Id be more concerned about them putting an ICD on chilling force than blighters boon.

Well technically it already has a 1 second per target ICD, according to the description of the trait on the wiki, but I feel like the traits effects are too weak for little chill most builds not using GS autos will be able to put out.

And so it begins….

Also on the wiki, Chilling Nova has a 15 second ICD.

Looking worse and worse…

EDIT: So, even more lousy news.

• Shivers of Dread: reduced to 2 seconds of Chill on Fear from 3.
• Cold Shoulder: reduced to 10% damage reduction from 15%. Also reduced to 10% Chill duration from 20%.
• Chilling Nova reduced to 2 seconds of Chill from 3. 180 radius.
• No stun break at all on shouts.
• Gravedigger reduced to 3 targets from 5.
• Nightfall does not Cripple, though it does blind and damage on each pulse. 300 radius, 4 seconds
• Executioner’s Scythe is 1.5 seconds of Chill. Not sure what it was before, but this is ridiculously short.

But hey! Chilling Force had its Might duration buffed from 4 seconds to 5!

Reaper will be a noobstomper class. If you do not know how to counter it, you will get steamrolled over due to its high damage. The moment you start being able to dodge/blind all the huge tells, it will become an easy target.

Unfortunately, before that occurs we will see a lot of crying and nerfs. If these notes are accurate, which we will see this Friday, the reaper will be even more of a joke than it already was against any competent thief/mesmer/ranger/zerk warrior/you name it.

Mind you, we have not played the speck, so our predictions might be off, but I have clocked plenty of hours into the game, so I think they will be accurate at least to an extend.

The gravedigger nerf is a shame. Now that it only hits 3 targets, you might as well use dagger auto and achieve the same damage output. Yes, it will only hit 2 targets, but a single blind/rupt will not send it on an 8 second CD. GS looks less and less appealing as a PvP weapon the more I look at it. The 300 range radius on nightfall is quite impressive. And I believe could be the reason behind the nerf on Chilling Darkness.

The heavy reduction of chill durations makes this speck look like it will make the reaper a botched version of a DPS warrior. At least if you want to run it as a DPSer rather than some sort of an odd tank/support character.

I really hope that these notes or my predictions are inaccurate and the speck is actually decent to play, but after several years of playing the class, I expect the worst. Something more – with the QQ coming our way from people standing in range of 8 consecutive gravediggers and they crying about it on the forums, I expect to see even more nerfs to the speck.

/endrant

Reaper might not be top-tier for HoT, though I definitely see it as an improvement over base necro when it comes to PvE content. Having cleave alone will make it much less punishing for teams to take a reaper in their team.

I usually take rangers and necros along with me when I play dungeons because the 5 minutes longer it will take me to complete the instance with them will otherwise be wasted in LFG either way. My main is a necro, but picking a meta class for your daily dungeon rotation makes the experience much less frustrating, skince you will not be blamed for every failure of the team just because “lel, necro sux, m i rito, boiz?”.

As for PvP – meh. Necro is far from top-tier right now, and reaper loos like poor man’s warrior. So I might give it a miss. Unless we get more chase tools, forsaming my one viable ranged power option (life blast) will be a tough deal.

People have to accept two things with the reaper:

1. You will NOT be a good 1 v 1er. You are horrible at sticking to a target which can kite you, and can not survive the punishment of a DPS warrior. Not to mention how mangled you will get by thieves and mesmers with their abundancy of blinds and interrupts.

2. You will NOT be good at roaming and/or chasing targets down. You are too slow for this and people who do not like you will just leave.

What your best case scenario role will be is likely finishing weak targets off. Spin around with gravedigger at a downed target over and over, proc some chill of deaths while you are at it, spread poison so reviving is difficult. You will want to quickly locate targets sub 50% health or near to it, and hit them with all you have to seal the deal in the middle of a big teamfight. You will still be a class that needs teammates to peel for it, and should forget about being self-sufficient – you are a necro, after all. If you want a self-sufficient, close-range brawler you should look at warrior, not reaper.

The speck is really niche and will likely not work all that great in high-tier games, though this is to be expected. The way I see it, it is just another fun way to play power necro. I do not think it will fix all of the class’ issues, and I do not believe it should. The core profession needs to be addressed rather than patchwork solutions being applied through elite specks.

Maybe make it one strong minion (like flesh golem) and make its stats scale depending on how many people you hit. This way it will not be a monster in 1 v 1 while melting by random AoE in 5 v 5. If you summon 5 weenies they will instantly explode in a big fight.

nekretaal.6485:

Stances with a cast time? No thanks

Next necro spec will probably get cantrips with cast times. : ^ )

The impotency of pulls and lack of gap closers, along with the lack of shroud 1 to apply ranged pressure is what is going to make life hell for power reapers. I really hope A-net figures something out so that we are not kited all the time without a chance to catch our opponent.

It lacks a ranged power option, does not have anything to keep it in the thick of things and allow it to stand frontline in the middle of a fight (compare it to DPS warrior, it just does not compare), it is easily interruptable/blinded, and can not stick to targets (chill will just not do the job, you need serious movement/teleportation skills to keep up). In a teamfight, if the meta remains as bursty, it will just get shredded unless you are running some tanky build, in which case you would be better off taking a more potent tank either way. It is also too slow to be a roamer. So for conquest – I really can not see it work. It will lose most of its 1 v 1 encounters purely by the virtue of being unable to stick to kiting/ranged targets, or stand toe-to-toe with melee DPS ones like the zerker warrior.

For PvE – it will be more viable than current necro, but this does not say much, and does not mean it will not remain at the bottom of the tier list, thus getting shooed away. It might bring damage comparable to warrior one at best, but it will never have the support and utility a warrior brings.

All in all – I will give it a shot and the current traits look like you can make some interesting builds, I just doubt they will be worth it in comparison to other meta builds which are around right now. The concept is cool, but this is the problem with necro – theme and concept always get in the way of viability.

If the speck is as bad as my doom and gloom predictions foresee, I am sure A-net will pay attention to necro forums and fix it… /s

Aside from the whole “dodge their burst” advice which everyone would give (because it is essential for not getting instagibbed), I would strongly recommend sticking to the mesmer as best as you can. They usually enter stealth after their invulnerability wears off, so do not be afraid to press that dagger 3 right before their sword 2 animation ends and they press their focus 4. At worst, you will force another dodge off of them before they cloak, which you can try to respond to with some staff marks.

Use their clones to blind them if you are running offhand dagger. At worst, you will blind/kill some of their clones/phantasms.

Flesh wurm is really really good. You can escape their burst after they stun you and switch to sword for the big DPS combo, and then respond to their now melee set with some 1200 range staff marks. Remember that they are really squishy and if you manage to get several good hits through their defenses, you will be in a good spot. They will likely have used their sword 2 in an attempt to burst you with their combo, so they will have to blow distortion. If they use a stealth, you can still hit them with marks.

Runes of Vampirism are really scary against mesmers, so be careful with that. Do not overcommit if you haven’t procced those yet, and make sure you have enough shroud or have cooldowns ready to respond to the mesmer the moment mist form wears off. This is the main spot where I lose against mesmers, because they are usually quite capable of resetting the fight and running around until healed unless I get some lucky hits on them while they are stealthed.

All in all – you are trying to beat a really really powerful 1v1 class with a not so powerful one. Mesmer skillcap is higher than necro one, so a good memser player will have an advantage over a good necro player simply by the virtue of having more tools at their disposal. My advice comes from the perspective of someone who wastes their time in 1 v 1 servers playing a marauder amulet power necro all day, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Is it possible to do something similar with ranger porcine item skills? Put them in some sort of “f” slot so that you do not have to go ahead and physically pick the item up? Just a thought.

In a 1 v 1 skirmish which finishes when one of the two is dead – a competent thief should win 9/10 times. In conquest, since you need to survive as long as help comes, reapers might be able to run around for long enough to live through a thief’s attacks. It will be a really powerful opponent, though, as will power rangers. Being shot at from 1500 range without good ranged options yourself is bout to be unpleasant.

unlucky.9285:

awesome, even more skills that the other professions can dodge and interrupt with little effort nice work

Well yes, but, you know, the theme is cool. At least now we can get some stab in shroud so that we can pull off a consume conditions without getting interrupted as easily. Still possible, but will require a bit more work.

We will absolutely get demolished by anything ranged, though. We do not remotely have enough gap closers, and now that life blast is gone all we have to kill the 1200-1500 range spamming foes is staff.

I suppose that is not supposed to be the forte of the class, so we will have to try and stick with the team, with someone peeling for us and providing support. Maybe the payoff for that would be better than the one for the same effort spent on current necromancer.

Looks like a fun speck…

…for D/P thieves and chronomancers… : ^ )

Even if reapers get all the stability in the world,the blind and dodge spam will do them the number. The one hope is that they will be great at cleaving down PvE mobs on Stronghold. I definitely do not see them as a viable skirmisher.

I can absolutely see us getting spirits. As a matter of fact, this is my main guess for a necro speck. Whether they will be good or bad largely depends on numbers, but I am generally not a fan of spirits due to how useless they are in team fights.

My main issue with it is that we already have AI companions in the face of minions. I see the addition of more AI buggers to follow us around as mostly pointless. Besides, as long as then necromancer remains without a good source of stability or evasion, our utilities will always be dedicated to stunbreaks for 1 v 1 encounters, and wells if we want to go wellbomb a teamfight.

The niche I can see the spirits fulfilling is support, mainly for PvE purposes. However, if the meta remains as it is, and from what we have seen so far it will, people will keep running for warriors and one extra – this extra most likely being a chronomancer considering the high quickness uptime and the recent nerf to frostbow and the easier might stacking warriors are to receive if the changes shown go live.

We are already doing well in WvW, and AI companions are not great there, so I doubt spirits would change much.

The first big thing for our speck will be the GS skills (if we get an evade, mobility, or just like so many other great swords – evade+mobility skill) this will do wonders for power builds in PvP. The second big thing will be whatever they let us spend our LF on other than death shroud. We have no idea what it will be, but it better be worth it considering we are sacrificing our only way to soak-up damage in order to use it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Watch us get Spirits -_-

I expect us to get spirits, judging by the flavour Marjory’s greatsword holds. Perhaps they will be spirits of people like the ones rits had in gw1.