Guild Wars 2

Staff is garbage, it does not provide real utility, it is boring, and the only reason it is used in builds is because it is our only other choice for condi builds, and power builds often need higher range than Axe (which is also awful).

The “utility” it provides is covered all over the rest of our profession. The fear isn’t unique, condition transfer isn’t special, regen is all over, and chill/poison are common. You can very easily replace that utility, which isn’t true of any other utility/support weapon in the game, they all offer unique packages of skills.

Honestly if Scepter had a better 3 skill and had LF generation, and if Axe was 900 range and had a solid kit, staff would find itself woefully outperformed. It needs help, desperate help.

Leap would be nice, would also be nice if they made his stability work like every other elite’s stability instead of leaving it nerfed to oblivion like they did.

nearlight.3064:

@manveruppd, what do you think necros will run when ele gets nerfed? Also I heard from a popular streamer that the ele balance dev is on vacation right now so thats why it hasn’t been nerfed yet… but I guess it will be soon since vacations can’t last forever.

They’ve been on vacation for two years? Man I want to work at ANet.

Yeah, its strange but a lot of abilities in the game have weird names in the combat log/game files.

Just to clarify, are you talking about ways to take what it already has and make a build that improves the defense? Or are you talking changes that could be made that aren’t larger mechanical ones to make it have better defense?

All sources of life siphoning can stack, none of them overwrite each other.

Son of Urza.1692:

For Soul Spiral, although I did not manage to test it myself, I’ve heard claims that it actually takes longer to complete than the listed 2s. Ideally this should be fixed, or at least the skill description adjusted.

If for some reason it is longer than 2s then yeah it should be dropped.

Son of Urza.1692:

I rather like your suggestion of the third hit leaving a pulsing ice field. It could also stand to have its damage boosted if it is to remain at the same speed (if the field does damage, that might work).

My idea was to give the field damage because it reinforces the idea that you need to run the heck away from the Reaper, while in PvE it is more reliable and so higher DPS.

Son of Urza.1692:

For Gravedigger, I agree that it should be instant-recharge when hitting a low-HP foe. Even with that, I’ve heard it has a substantial aftercast that seriously damages its possible DPS (really a lot of necro skills seem to have this problem … Life Blast anyone?). Either that should be fixed, or the damage should be pushed upwards.

Agreed. Its DPS should be higher than dagger AA while under 50%, anything less makes no sense, though that might make for a boring “rotation”.

Son of Urza.1692:

Deathly Chill could be changed from a pathetic amount of condition damage to a damage modifier (someone else suggested doubling the effect of vulnerability on chilled targets, which sounds fun – especially nice as then the trait can be useful in both power and condition builds)

Not sure honestly. Deathly Chill would actually work as a great setup for condition builds as is, because chill is relatively easy to find in Terror builds. This essentially allows Terror builds to double up on their burst, since every application of fear also gives chill, while also allowing them a nice strong consistent damage source that would give them 3-4 sources of common damage.

That said, it isn’t like you couldn’t change it to a different setup, though I personally wouldn’t change it to be vuln reliant, as condi builds don’t really have good vuln unless they went spite. I think there are ideas to be had here to change it up.

Hammerguard.9834:

- I like Death’s Charge as is. It’s a small dashing skill and I don’t think it needs to be encumbered with targeting mechanics. Especially if a player doesn’t have range limited in the options menu, this skill is going to be godly annoying to use for max distance.

Encumbered? You mean made useful? Right now this skill is not just worthless as a combat skill for anything except running away, it can actively make your situation worse. This makes it work like every single other leap gap closer in the game, the exact thing we’ve been asking for for ages.

Hammerguard.9834:

- No reason the damage on “Nothing can save you” couldn’t be higher, along with all shouts for that matter.

Maybe, but the damage is basically negligible except to proc things that proc on damage for every shout except CttB.

Endlos.4852:

I mentioned this in another thread, and I think it’s been touched on in this one as well, but I think the damage reduction of Cold Shoulder needs divorced from the Chill requirement. It seems fairly widely agreed upon that:

• Chill is pretty difficult to maintain on a target, even if you are trying to build toward as much chill as possible (at the cost of a lot of superior damage options)
• Wearing cloth in melee with no access to passive resistance or avoidance is extremely painful, and Reaper Shroud gets ripped down too quickly

People overvalue light vs heavy armor. Elementalist has been one of the strongest bunkers in the game for ages while having the worst base stats of anyone.

Also the chill is fine, with properly balanced changes you shouldn’t have trouble keeping it up, in fact if Chilling Nova was 10s ICD you could keep up a lot of chill with just that + hydromancy sigils. Its fine for it to be tied to chill, but we need appropriate chill and appropriate reward for having it on.

I’ve got four, my main plus one each of the humanoid races.

Honestly, if all the break bars are going to come with such severe consequences for being broken, I’m happy not having one.

I have no clue what is going on for Necromancer, only that someone I know is extremely happy with how Robert Gee is responding to Chronomancer feedback and the changes he’s seen.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Oh, I know that the build we played on was an old one, I just have to laugh about it. Hopefully, these “compensations” will be addressed for the next BWE.

Bare minimum, the longer cooldown on Grasp of Darkness could have easily been reverted in time for the first beta, since it is just one number and not a functionality change.

One of my friends who seems to be really good at knowing what goes on behind the doors (no clue how, but he’s always right) says Gee has been listening to feedback and already made great adjustments to Mesmer. I’m confident that I and many others have made great feedback, and we’ve got at least two forum dudes (Rising Dusk and that other guy I forgot the name of) who have been submitting great feedback on our behalf, so I’d say we’re in a very good spot to get changes. Gee seems to be the most willing to implement new ideas in response to feedback, and we have given him a lot to work with.

Only thing that puts me in the top 3 is how much of my life I’ve wasted on these forums.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

“We recognize that this change really hurts Necromancers and are looking into ways to compensate them.”

Compensation: reduced Chill uptime from initial preview by a massive amount. Increased pull recharge from preview.

While hilarious, those changes happened on June 23rd, and we know the beta we played on was locked at least a month before it went out, which means there was only a week or two at most to adjust for the chill changes. That just isn’t enough time.

nearlight.3064:

Okay, now I understand your point. So while it may not be needed to make a good version of one of those builds, it ends up being taken because theres say for example, little point in taking death magic for a well build or curses for a minion build or something of that nature.

Exactly.

bile.7560:

The mm build I use does, personally it’s the best mm build I have tried I’m willing to try others and be proven wrong.

The life force generation from staff, the amount of time you can stay in death shroud and the stability are mandatory for my build anyway.

But my build plays as attrition bunker. Which personally I have found to be the most effective.

I’m aware that MM can take Soul Reaping, but it is as comfortable taking Spite. It shifts the focus of the build, if you go SR you are extremely defensive, you can bunker for ages, and even hold out against multiple enemies, however compared to the Spite variant you will have significantly less damage. What ends up happening is SR MM is great at holding points, but Spite MM is much better at debunking them. One of them prefers to be pretty stationary, holding points your team already has, the other likes to go decap.

My point with it, is that MM has an option, DM/BM are pretty much mandatory, but once you hit that third line you have no more direct minion synergies worth noting. So you have a choice to make: Soul Reaping to increase a lot of LF gain and make DS stronger and you very tough to kill, or Spite to load up on vuln/might and boon stripping to increase your damage. Both work, but SR isn’t mandatory to making MM work.

If Soul Reaping didn’t exist in the game MM would still function as a build, even if it might be weaker. This couldn’t be said of DM though, without DM’s traiting MM can’t work. This is true of a lot of builds, SR is really only mandatory for spectral and DS builds, everything else can use it, but doesn’t depend on it for the build to function.

nearlight.3064:

I’m fine with being proven wrong, but I just honestly can’t think of a viable necro build currently that doesn’t use the trait line as a whole, regardless of last gasp or not. Maybe with reaper and blighter’s boon, it won’t feel as mandatory to me though..

MM doesn’t need to use it, anything support related doesn’t have to either, and well builds don’t have to. Again, less an issue of the trait line itself being needed to make builds work, and more that you’re stuck using it because the other options don’t necessarily boost your build.

DeceiverX.8361:

I disagree with more shout target scaling. I actually found it to be downright frustrating that these utilities were ONLY useful in situations with large numbers of foes.

My thoughts were buff them baseline to still be acceptable, but add in minor effects that ultimately add up with more foes. As it stands, the shouts feal downright weak if not utilizing them against at least three targets. I’d push them more towards the 2/3 target area base, and just add smaller increments per target to still fully reward going up against 5 targets, but not punish the reaper for not doing so.

That’s exactly what I put, raise the baseline on all the shouts so they are useful 1v1, but scale to similar power values as now if you hit 5 enemies.

Coffietire.2783:

I feel that the great sword AA would work better if it had some sort of back up plan like the guardian hammer AA does. Despite having the same weakness, guardian AA has symbol of protection to back up its easy to miss strike.

Perhaps instead of the burst of chill, the 3rd skill in the great sword’s AA chain could leave behind a small field (no bigger than symbol of protection) that does short but constant chill applications (think about how burning is applied when you step into lava).

This means that if your opponent insists on going toe to toe, they will be perma chilled no matter how many condi removals they have. As soon as they step out of that field, the chill will not last much longer.

This further reinforces the idea that the reaper with a great sword is meant to be kited while still strengthening the great sword’s utility.

That is exactly what my suggestion was an ice field left behind with some kind of chill and damage on pulse.

Wait what? Robert just posted like 3-4 times before the weekend, more dev posts than the combined posts of every other profession currently in the game. Sure Revenant is getting a lot of talk because it is new, but besides that we have had more communication than everyone, and if anything he is probably very busy sorting through the feedback and allowing us to hold the conversations ourselves (I’d say we’ve done an incredible job so far without needing help, leaving him to actually compile and start to figure out what needs to be changed). No reason for him to post until he has changes figured out, I imagine he’s crazy busy for a while.

Infect.2738:

Funny enough, transfers use the original owner’s stats. That’s why its possible to kill things like engi’s with their own condition damage even though you could be running soldier. Its quite backwards.

And while cele necro isn’t bad, i don’t think its the strongest build still.

Thusly our leader spake unto us, and by his words did it become law.

The Sylvari aren’t really “dark” in general, their view of Necromancy (lore wise) is one of curiosity and excitement, not brooding “I hate everyone grrr ::paints nails black::”.

I don’t actually think Soul Reaping is mandatory at all, especially not with Reaper. I wouldn’t argue that other lines are taken equally at the moment either, because it can be fit into any build, and as such if you don’t see a trait line providing much for you, Soul Reaping fits anyway. It is less an issue of it being too good to pass up, and rather it fits into every single build and so since it is always an option it shows up more often. This happens for a variety of reasons:

1. It is a nice, generalist trait line that provides both damage and defense that is relevant for everyone, there isn’t a single build that can’t use Soul Reaping
2. Other lines are too specific, often because of GM traits have one or two choices that are specific to skill or build types, and then the generic choice is bland. Soul Reaping instead has a great trait that literally anything can use (FitG), and then one trait each that any power/condi build can use
3. Soul Reaping is based on Death Shroud, which is universal, better DS = better Necro
4. Last but probably most important, Soul Reaping had its balance figured out a long time ago, most of its traits have existed very similarly for over a year, so the recent update was just a polish passover. Other lines had to have their entire setup reworked, and are still in a state of needing to be balanced.

Pulsicle.3192:

How does Unyielding Blast work in Reaper Shroud. What pierces?

Nothing, the piercing simply doesn’t apply.

Pulsicle.3192:

Reaper’s Onslaught – Does attack speed only apply to RS skill 1?
I tested it with other skills and didn’t notice an increase on them. Does it only speed up the animation and not the induction? Bhawb in the OP mentioned it is bugged.

It just flat out didn’t affect attack speed, I tested RS1 chain with and without it, and it was identical (or nearly identical, within experimental error) attack speed.

Pulsicle.3192:

Cold Shoulder – With chill usually having such short durations, does 10% on all applied chills seem unnoticeable? Would longer duration on some chills be better? say, x% chance that applied chills are y% longer. where y could be a much more satisfying number?

Not particularly. Its actually the small chills you wanted boosted the most, since they are the ones that are going to end up “sticking” better. Lots of small to medium chills are much better than a few really long ones.

mazut.4296:

I would love so see “Your soul is mine” to give more life force.

I honestly don’t think it can. As an example, with soldier gear you are looking at an up to 8k “heal” (4k HP, 4k LF) on a 20s CD, which can go as low as 13s with the trait. Even at 20s that is a really strong heal to use.

Comus.7365:

having to deselect a target everytime i need an escape is just annoying.. in pvp i allways have someone targeted. and if it stop on someone targeted while he’s in a group of others all he has to do to negate the effect on his team mates is to step one step closer to me.

That is how every single leap meant as a gap closer works in the game, which is exactly what Necromancers have been asking for. It isn’t difficult to drop target, if Warrior players can do it we can figure it out.

Heneil Stormcaller.2935:

Another idea would be to add a pull to Gravedigger. It would make sense: have you noticed how in the animation the Reaper spins 2 times? If done fast enough it could create some kind of vacuum that would pull enemies in.
So the skill would pull 5 enemies in let’s say 200 units and then hit for a huge amount of damage (as it should be). This would also help solving the issue of Gravedigger being too hard to land.

Gravedigger should be hard to land, the problem with it right now isn’t that it is hard to land (though it could use a small range increase maybe), it is that even if you go through the effort to land it, it doesn’t mean much.

Charblaze.6958:

Overall I agree with your feedback, but why you pretty much trashed my attempt to discuss an alternate change proposal for augury to then say the same things here?

I never trashed it, I said

Bhawb.7408:

Giving it a second effect is too much imo.

And then later in that thread

Bhawb.7408:

I’m not stuck on the idea that it can’t do anything else, I think it might be fair for it to have a relatively small secondary defensive effect, but I wouldn’t give it anything big at least.

Never trashed the idea, just stated that I’m not sure it was important, and now am listing it as a potential option.

…what? You are aware that Gee has worked on us since GW1 right? You’re throwing generic BS and acting like its somehow easy to design for Necromancer, like you could just sit back, take a dump on your keyboard, and somehow everything is perfect.

Doghouse.1562:

What a load of spheroids._

Lmao. Also, the other way to get rid of minions is to simply unequip the skills, and then you can reequip them.

mordran.4750:

As long as i can have a decision and as long as it is not in a way that i stop to move if i hit something on the way, Ok it might be an improvement. But we need mobility so badly in WvW that they should never ever remove the untargeted part of that ability.

Take how it works right now. With my change, all you would have to do is not have a target selected, and it functions exactly the same, no change at all in any way. If you do have a target, it behaves like a normal leap and you go directly to and stop at that target. It only adds functionality, everything you’ve been using for it can still do.

Jerus.4350:

I hear ya Bhawb, but for PVE necro an evade… my god an evade, it’d be ohh so nice and something I feel necro is sorely lacking.

Absolutely, its why I put a damage negation effect on Suffer 8 )

We could totally use more though.

KashimKudal.2961:

Bhawb.7408:

Never go off tooltips in GW2, they’re awful. Guardians actual full cycle is 3.7s, Necromancer’s is 3s, and I’m not sure about Warrior.

Yes I heard that most people do you say that, however I just used them for a simple side by side comparison I use the tool tips which should reflect some resemblance of how the skill operates and functions in game. Thanks for bringing it to my attention though and I’ll make a note to test all the AA’s in real time at the next beta with videos.

Something I learned from a long time of messing around with minions. All kinds of issues come along with tooltips, sometimes they are literally just flat out wrong, by a lot (Death Nova for a long time stated only 200 ish damage, and stated it scaled with your power, neither of which was true, it was around 1.2k flat damage).

Absolutely, looking forward to seeing the changes that come through. I’m already going through withdrawals.

xadine.7069:

As few others I do not agree we you on this point. I really enjoy this spell as it is for several reasons. 1) It allow me to jump like a rabbit. Honnestly with the right trait you perma jump in PvE wich give you a lot of mobility and allow you to leave ennemies AoE easely. But if it stop at the first target it touch it lose what make it so interesting to me. 2) It brings “positionning” in the game, at least in PvE (hard to PvP without basic knowledge of positionning i agree). I must confess I may have jump over a cliff several times but this spell remember me of Engi jump wich I enjoy (and may have get me jump over a cliff either…).
But I have to admit in it current state this spell must be a pain in the … in sPvP. On an other hand, it give a good mobility. As someone said I think the make it a skillshot like warrior GS 3 is a good way to change it. This way it become more easy to handle in PvP and don’t lose the “evade” part that is really enjoyable in PvE and WvW.

With the proposed change it wouldn’t lose any of its current functionality at all. If you simply de-targeted anything (no target at all), it would function exactly the same as now, so you wouldn’t lose anything in PvE. If you target something, it functions like most leaps.

The problem with making it work like warrior GS3 is they are skills with fundamentally different use-cases. War GS3 isn’t a gap closer, it is mobility, damage, and evade, you don’t need it to be a reliable gap closer because you have GS5 for that, plus warrior is pretty difficult to kite in general. RS2 however needs to be able to function as a reliable gap closer, as it is now RS2 is literally unusable in combat in PvP, especially if you have slow and end up not just missing your enemy, but moving so far away from them you’ll never get back. Propose change would make it work like Warrior sword 2, GS 5, Ranger GS3, Guardian GS3, and I’m sure a few others, which all still work nicely as mobility but are also good gap closers.

xadine.7069:

I have seen on this forum several time that players are suggesting to get a longer range on that spell. I think like GS3 it would be a good thing, not too many range for obvious reasons.

Could be a good idea, I didn’t personally have much of an issue landing it, I think the first thing to do would be make it worth using. As an example it lists longer range than 100b, however maybe making it 220 range like Maul would be appropriate.

xadine.7069:

Btw I saw someone saying he had a hard time getting aura with RS2 it is easy to get with RS5. I often started my fight with RS5 on the first mob i saw then RS2.

Yeah, I used it like this a bit too, also with RS4 you can immediately start a fight with 25 stacks of vuln on a chilled enemy with spite traiting, which paired with either Chilling Victory or Decimate Defenses has a lot of really nice synergy. You can also get the aura that way. Out of combat though RS2 is so much fun to use, its nice finally being able to get somewhere.

Dakunaito.9602:

both have to be tweaked, not just 1. dmg is weak and attack speed is slow. 1.25sec cast time on Gravedigger? is this a joke? and dmg has to be increased too

1.25s cast time is absolutely fine, see RS 5

Dakunaito.9602:

who the hell is gonna get hit by RS 5? with 2sec cast time it’s easily countered or simply evaded(leap or dodge)

I killed a lot of people with it, people who were watching my stream can attest to this. Its only a 1.25s cast, the only issue now is you can get the full cast off on someone really close, yet have it miss due to a tiny sidestep they did on accident. My suggestion fixes this without getting rid of its counterplay, but as long as it isn’t ridiculous to hit it is an amazing skill and needs that cast time.

Samhayn.2385:

So thinking about it, chillblains on GS 1 as 8s may be a bit much, maybe a lesser version of it but still considered a mark.

Don’t see a reason to make it a mark honestly, I’d much rather see it function similar to the guardian symbol but without any skill-type attachment that would force it to have a weak base. Just an ice field with small pulsing damage and chill is good enough.

Jerus.4350:

Love your suggestions Bhawb. Really hope reaper gets some coefficient damage love with some of this stuff too.

Yeah I ended up mentioning coefficients because a lot of people brought up that its too low, and after looking over other people’s DPS comparisons we definitely need some coefficient increases.

Jerus.4350:

One thing on Nightfall, am I the only one that felt it was a bit odd there didn’t seem to be any initial effect? Or am I wrong on that?

Honestly don’t remember, usually pulsing effects pulse once immediately and then every interval, but it might not.

Jerus.4350:

Death Spiral (RS2) leap mechanics would work, I still wish it was just a copy of warrior’s whirlwind attack or FGS’s version with the evade + manual targeting.

The difference to me is intent in using the skill. FGS/whirlwind aren’t used primarily as gap closers, they are used as general mobility, damage, and defense. The skill sets they come with don’t need a reliable gap closer on those skills because they have another one (warrior GS) or are ranged (FGS). However, RS2 is needed for gap closing, it is less like Warrior GS whirlwind and more like Warrior sword leap.

Its a decent skill, I would use it over Plague maybe, but I don’t think it fills a similar role to CttB as much.

Nah its not like it was their fault.

They have a bot that is supposed to make sure people don’t troll by going in and say deleting the entire D/D ele guide and writing “smash face on keyboard → win” or crap like that. I was fixing up the MM build (I had been taking care of it after the specialization change), and I was deleting a lot of extraneous explanations I had added in a previous change. It probably flagged me as deleting too much, or I had done something else on accident, and auto banned me.

Never go off tooltips in GW2, they’re awful. Guardians actual full cycle is 3.7s, Necromancer’s is 3s, and I’m not sure about Warrior.

I don’t mean that 10s is necessarily the best final number, but I think it’d be a decent place to start. That gives it 22% chill uptime base (with high crit), 24% if they un-nerf Cold Shoulder, which can go up to 40%, and it has a nice AoE to it. I don’t think it could go too low because of that, though maybe as low as 8 would be fine.

I think he’s got a generally good idea. Reaper looks cool, has a great design, but mostly fails in execution except for Shroud. Nothing particularly new or special, basically everyone and their mom has said it, but it warrants repeating.

Rising Dusk.2408:

It’s not meta at all, it was just used by the Abjured during their win in Cologne. Metabattle users decided that one team using it to win the WTS means it’s a frequently used build lots of players should use, and thus named it meta.

Its worth noting that Metabattle is a community project. The builds and ratings are only as good as we allow them to be. But I got auto banned by a bot on metabattle so RIP 8(

I’d reduce it to 10s first just to see how it goes. I think the preview was way too much, but this is also way too little. But that is what beta is for, Reaper this time around was under-performing, but there is a lot of feedback coming.

Rym.1469:

First could be instant and apply first effect, second would be not and apply second effect.

Not disagreeing that it could be a cool idea, but it is worth noting that depending on how it works, if they have any instant effect and then an interruptable cast time, they would go on full CD whenever they are interrupted. So it would have to be two skills, like you mention with engi.

I think it could be interesting though, only issue would be making sure Soldier/Trooper runes weren’t insane with double proccing if they were two skills, but it is still a fun idea they could explore.

Kaiser.9873:

I still don’t understand why Reaper shouts have any cast time whatsoever. Warrior shouts have zero cast time and Guardian shouts have zero cast time.

Even Tempest has 2 shouts with zero cast time(one of which is their stunbreak), 2 shouts with 1/4 second cast time, an elite shout with 3/4 second cast time(60 second CD), and an heal shout with 1.5 second cast time. Plus these shouts actually give some defenses when used with a frost aura(-10% damage) and Magnetic Aura(5 seconds).

Then ya got the Reaper. Weaklings, Save you, and Your soul sitting at 3/4 second. Suffer and Rise sitting at 1 second. Chilled to the Bone, 2 seconds with 120 second CD.

While I think they are excessive, our heal and elite definitely need cast times (1s elite, heal is fine at 3/4s). But yes, Suffer and Rise are definitely in need of heavy work, not just cast times, and the other 2 shouts should probably just be 1/2s casts. I don’t like having instant cast offensive skills, it breaks the whole point of the game for me where you are supposed to be able to counterplay things, but a lot of our shouts aren’t directly very offensive, but lend offensive buffs to the following skills, meaning those skills should contain the counterplay, not the shout itself.

Narenek.9085:

I really don’t get people asking for the GS to do slightly less damage than the Dagger .. because we complain that Dagger is behind other classes in DPS. We really should be shooting for the GS to be getting us more to the level of other classes not on a par with our already Lower than every one else DPS weapon. It’s not a Support weapon, defensive or condition based.. so that leaves DPS so lets get DPS with it closer to the other classes DPS. We also need more Life force generation on the weapon, but then that’s just common sense if Anet want us to use our ‘class’ mechanic.

While I understand the sentiment, Greatsword’s AA isn’t the place to bring us up DPS wise. The biggest way to do that is damage modifiers, which I’ve edited to mention, as well as things like Gravedigger having a much higher actual damage so that when spammed it exceeds dagger AA, and general increases on damage on GS 3/4, and other skills like that.

Also yeah, I’ve started mentioning general need for damage increases on some skills. Without coefficients its hard to name specifics, hopefully one of the PvE guys got those, I think spoj/Rising Dusk did, because I think it could be increased.

Cecilia.5179:

I disagree with your suggested change to Chilling Nova. The usefulness of Chilling Nova + Chilling Victory + Blighter’s Boon is only fully prevalent when it can be used both inside and outside RS. Limiting it to just RS means that we’d have to invest elsewhere to get boon application outside of RS, limiting the potential self-sufficiency we could get from using RS.

Its only one suggestion, the other is simply dropping the CD.

Dakunaito.9602:

Tempest’s shout Flash-Freeze(AoE chill) has 0.25 sec cast time

So? Chilled to the bone is a 2s stun, the chill is nice but more of an after-effect, the primary thing is that it causes a massive AoE stun that can lock down an entire team, while giving you tons of stability to follow up on that stun with damage that enemies can’t really stop you from doing because they are chilled and can’t CC you. Only problem with it now is cast time, anything lower than 1s doesn’t give appropriate counterplay, and then whether or not the CD is appropriate.

Xaylin.1860:

“Shivers of Dread”

• Indeed not enough sources of Fear to make it worthwhile.
• Add: 2s of chill in 180-240 radius when entering Reapers Shroud.

This is a cool idea, and covers the thing Chilling Nova would be if tied to shroud, so it could be left as is, with a lower CD.

Also, thanks for the feedback everyone. I’m reading through every post and making additions to the main topic when I see good ideas.

punahou.3986:

CHILL
the reapers…… forte?
Give Shroud Knight immuntiy to the current chill nerf. This skill should be unique for the reaper as it as advertised, and as such, current chill mechanics should be negated for the class.

I just wanted to point this out. Its a cool idea, but the problem is having players adapt how they use something basic like leaps against a single opponent. I think that is too much for the kind of game GW2 is aiming for, it is similar to why Hexes weren’t bueno to bring over as a full system.

spoj.9672:

Scary how similar some of the suggestions are to the pastebin i wrote. I was probably a bit more generous with buffing stuff but then i was primarily looking at PvE balance and closely commenting on damage numbers.

Yeah, I think there is definitely room to say damage needs to be increased, but I didn’t have the actual coefficients or anything like that which makes it hard to say for sure. One thing I’m noticing is RS auto might need some bumps, while it does nice damage for me I was using a build built around RS completely. And then general coefficient changes across the other greatsword/shout/shroud skills in order to bump up our DPS without overloading it all onto the Auto, especially for PvE.

Rym.1469:

1. Reaper Onslaught instead of resetting the cooldown of #2 RS on kill (which is imo…intriguing. Shouldn’t the #5 RS get reduced cooldown instead? I mean…it’s executioner…uh) could make RS #2 apply Chill to foes it passes through or something. Make it a skillshot if it has to go in straight line.

2. Shivers of the Dread…Uh, the second minor. Instead of proccing only on Fear, it could proc on all hard CCs Or on fears and Interruptions.

Yeah, Drarnor had mentioned some interesting ideas about having it reset all the skills by a certain amount, something like Katarina’s passive. Basically when you kill a target, have it reduce the CDs of all the Reaper Shroud skills by 5+ seconds (so it always resets 2). I think full resets on a lot of them would be too much, but smaller refunds would be a cool addition, and have synergy with things like Transfusion.

Yeah, having it proc on other hard CCs is nice, the only problem is most of those would already have chill, so it wouldn’t be very noticeable, just additional chill.

Sigmoid.7082:

@Bhawb
What shape would the auto field be? Circular or rectangular?
Though I believe the field should last 2s and provide 3/4-1s of chill per second. Would allow permanent chill with enough duration. I also say the coeff should be around 0.6 or 0.7 per hit. In total the ability #1.3 would do a total of 2.3-2.5 or around a full dagger chain relatively. Same as guard hammer does. Also a 5 target cap on the field.

The field would be the same size as the Guard symbol, so a circle around the impact. I do think there is room to change numbers on the AA as well, I didn’t have coefficients to work with, but I think it should definitely have comparable damage to Guard Hammer.

Nyth.3492:

My biggest issue with the AA is the speed. Maybe it’s just having to get used to it or something, but between dodging, using skills and people simply stepping out of range; I hardly feel like I ever get to the heavily backloaded part of the GS AA.

I think if it is sufficiently rewarding, as I believe an ice field would be, the attack speed wouldn’t be as big of an issue. I don’t think both could exist, if you lower the AS any, you can’t have it be such a strong effect at the end. I’m just trying to stick with their theme of being slow, but making sure that slow speed actually works by smashing people if they let it work.

mordran.4750:

A lot of Dmg ? Compared to Life Blasts the Dmg is really low, if you take into account that i have to be in melee range, balance between risk vs reward is not given.

It gives pretty high cleaving damage that stacks both might and vulnerability far better than Life Blast could ever hope to. However, as many others have mentioned I might have been biased because of my build being focused on RS, so if its damage does need a bit of buffing I’m on board.

punahou.3986:

CHILL
the reapers…… forte?
Give Shroud Knight immuntiy to the current chill nerf. This skill should be unique for the reaper as it as advertised, and as such, current chill mechanics should be negated for the class.

I just wanted to point this out. Its a cool idea, but the problem is having players adapt how they use something basic like leaps against a single opponent. I think that is too much for the kind of game GW2 is aiming for, it is similar to why Hexes weren’t bueno to bring over as a full system.

spoj.9672:

Scary how similar some of the suggestions are to the pastebin i wrote. I was probably a bit more generous with buffing stuff but then i was primarily looking at PvE balance and closely commenting on damage numbers.

Yeah, I think there is definitely room to say damage needs to be increased, but I didn’t have the actual coefficients or anything like that which makes it hard to say for sure. One thing I’m noticing is RS auto might need some bumps, while it does nice damage for me I was using a build built around RS completely. And then general coefficient changes across the other greatsword/shout/shroud skills in order to bump up our DPS without overloading it all onto the Auto, especially for PvE.

Rym.1469:

1. Reaper Onslaught instead of resetting the cooldown of #2 RS on kill (which is imo…intriguing. Shouldn’t the #5 RS get reduced cooldown instead? I mean…it’s executioner…uh) could make RS #2 apply Chill to foes it passes through or something. Make it a skillshot if it has to go in straight line.

2. Shivers of the Dread…Uh, the second minor. Instead of proccing only on Fear, it could proc on all hard CCs Or on fears and Interruptions.

Yeah, Drarnor had mentioned some interesting ideas about having it reset all the skills by a certain amount, something like Katarina’s passive. Basically when you kill a target, have it reduce the CDs of all the Reaper Shroud skills by 5+ seconds (so it always resets 2). I think full resets on a lot of them would be too much, but smaller refunds would be a cool addition, and have synergy with things like Transfusion.

Yeah, having it proc on other hard CCs is nice, the only problem is most of those would already have chill, so it wouldn’t be very noticeable, just additional chill.

Sigmoid.7082:

@Bhawb
What shape would the auto field be? Circular or rectangular?
Though I believe the field should last 2s and provide 3/4-1s of chill per second. Would allow permanent chill with enough duration. I also say the coeff should be around 0.6 or 0.7 per hit. In total the ability #1.3 would do a total of 2.3-2.5 or around a full dagger chain relatively. Same as guard hammer does. Also a 5 target cap on the field.

The field would be the same size as the Guard symbol, so a circle around the impact. I do think there is room to change numbers on the AA as well, I didn’t have coefficients to work with, but I think it should definitely have comparable damage to Guard Hammer.

Nyth.3492:

My biggest issue with the AA is the speed. Maybe it’s just having to get used to it or something, but between dodging, using skills and people simply stepping out of range; I hardly feel like I ever get to the heavily backloaded part of the GS AA.

I think if it is sufficiently rewarding, as I believe an ice field would be, the attack speed wouldn’t be as big of an issue. I don’t think both could exist, if you lower the AS any, you can’t have it be such a strong effect at the end. I’m just trying to stick with their theme of being slow, but making sure that slow speed actually works by smashing people if they let it work.

mordran.4750:

A lot of Dmg ? Compared to Life Blasts the Dmg is really low, if you take into account that i have to be in melee range, balance between risk vs reward is not given.

It gives pretty high cleaving damage that stacks both might and vulnerability far better than Life Blast could ever hope to. However, as many others have mentioned I might have been biased because of my build being focused on RS, so if its damage does need a bit of buffing I’m on board.

The argument for why we had cast times was because having offensive shouts warranted the counterplay of having cast times. Basically, most offensive skills in the game have cast times, in order to provide counterplay so you don’t just get hit with a few thousand damage.

In this case though, CttB and YSIM are the only two that have to have a cast time, one because its a heal, the other because it is a massively impactful elite tied to 2s stun + tons of chill + high damage. The others don’t particularly need a cast time, or at least not a long one, because they deal low damage (Ele has instant casts with more damage than the shouts) and they don’t have an immediate effect: NCSY gives you unblockable to hit them later, but they should deal with your attacks not the shout, YAAW is the same, gives you might but they have to deal with your attacks, and Rise! they should deal with the minions.

Overall, I think some of the shouts should be instant, or at the very least have 1/2-3/4s cast.

It does not, as a note however it is 5 targets.

It seemed to work for me, but yes it isn’t the easiest thing to notice, seeing as it varies a lot.

Rym.1469:

3. The idea with Invuln on shout… I’d keep it with Block, but extend the duration or reduce the cooldown. I think it having some counterplay instead of “k m8, now kite for 4s” is more interesting for both sides.

Just a note, it isn’t true invuln, it reduces all damage taken to 0, but all conditions and CC effects still work as normal. So you’re still able to try to kite and CC the Reaper, but the Reaper can also chain it with stability. Honestly feel like the “k m8, now kite for 4s” is exactly what a horror theme goes for.

But I do get the idea, various kinds of damage negation could be used to tune it, I just wanted to enforce the idea of it being actual negation.

Silverkey.2078:

• Gravedigger: this skill just does not have enough damage. It needs to be stronger than dagger AA by a decent margin to make it worth it considering it is SO EASY to dodge. Currently dagger AA is more powerful… if a-net is afraid of high numbers, just reduce a bit the cast time and reduce a lot the after cast.

I disagree, especially if the Ice Field idea is taken. As long as it doesn’t totally get crapped on DPS wise (which it wouldn’t in either of my suggestions), the utility of chill would more than make up for a small DPS loss in anything except PvE.

Silverkey.2078:

• Grasping Darkness: currently fails more often than succeed. Attack speed of the “projectile” needs to be increased.

I honestly don’t think so, it is pretty fast. So long as it is decent to aim it works quite well, not all that slow, but still has counterplay.

Silverkey.2078:

• Are you sure about Trooper rune? I used it in WvW, and while I haven’t really checked, I felt that I was loosing conditions. Maybe someone around me cleansed me…

I was wrong, there was just a weird delay where the condition remains for a moment after the skill finishes that was messing me up during testing. Just checked again and you are correct, edited that out.

Silverkey.2078:

• Soul Eater: considering how slow the weapon is, a weak life steal is really a weird idea. I don’t know really what to have instead: nightfall removes one boon on each pulse from each enemy hit? I feel like reaper trait line lacks boon hate.

I wouldn’t forget the pretty heavy multi-hitting.
1 is 3 possible procs per hit
2 is 5 possible procs per use
3 is 6 procs per person hit, 18 per use (that’s 900 siphon potentially)
4 is 4 pulses which can each hit 5 people, up to 20 procs (1k siphon)
5 is up to 5 procs

Overall you can potentially get around 5 procs per second, and that isn’t factoring in any CDR from the skill. If they made the CDR better and made the changes I listed, especially to 1/3 (the ice field pulsing could siphon each pulse), it would be just fine, especially considering the stacking with other things.

Silverkey.2078:

• Decimate Defenses: I think necro is already over the top in terms of crits. You can get 124% with 2 traits and fury without having crits on your gears. What about a damage modifier instead? 2% crit = 1% extra damage if you have no ferocity so change to “1% damage for each vuln”.

Yes and no. In PvE Decimate might be over the top, but it allows soldier to regularly hit high crit chances in PvP, where fury won’t be common. It also allows for high crit chances outside of DS, which is also very nice; you can hit 100% crit chance in PvP outside of DS and without fury. I really like it as is.

Jackalrat.5493:

I would prefer to see skill #2, as suggested elsewhere, become a channel the Reaper can end prematurely so the skillshot aspect of it remains the same but you can still avoid the overshot, as I enjoy this feature and find it essential to balancing the large damage pay off.

This also works, honestly either one would be sufficient, just some way to end early is fine by me.

Jackalrat.5493:

I agree that skill #5 is excellent, but its targeting needs to be improved, as it seems unable to deal with moving targets at all. Its slow wind up time gives a player plenty of time to escape with a skill or dodge. Simply stepping slowly to one side shouldn’t be sufficient.

100% agree, I had completely forgotten about that but wanted to add it. My suggestion is to allow the hitbox to be the entire field, instead of a very small area, making it fairly forgiving to aim/land, and forcing the enemy to actually dodge/get away/use defense to avoid it, instead of just walking like you said.

Jackalrat.5493:

Only other issue is that you didn’t seem to address the problem of life force generation on the greatsword. I don’t feel the life force generating traits will be sufficient, and this should simply be added to these skills themselves. It does not need to be equivalent to the dagger, but it should not rely totally upon landing GS skills 3 and 5, which are very unreliable in a PvP scenario in their present forms.

Thanks for bringing this up too, because it was another thing I wanted to add but forgot in the process of writing it. I absolutely agree, GS just doesn’t have reliable LF generation, and the little bit it does have basically relies on you hitting 3-5 people every time you use the fairly long CDs. I think LF on AA is really the solution, even if it is only a little bit, otherwise we’re going to go the route of Scepter, which would be a step backwards.

Jackalrat.5493:

Good post, though. We’re generally in agreement about the directions this spec needs to be taken in. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the feedback, you reminded me of two big issues I had forgotten to add.