I tested reaper a lot and came to the following conclusions:
Reapershroud
DPS on Skill 1 and 4 is too low. These skills should be quite a bit stronger then its DS counterparts as they are meele.
Skill 2 could use a range increase to 900 because of the casttime and aftercast.
The fear on Skill 3 should be instant cast, most skills in this shroud lock you into an lengthy animation or casttime, making the flow of the shroud really bad as you could use this fear to ensure skill 5 connects, sometimes you want to interrupt a key skill but are locked into skill 2 or 4.
Skill 4 should generate lifeforce, as currently lifeforce is depleted way too fast due to the risk of meele and aoe cleave that naturally comes within meele range.
Greatsword
The flow of the skillset does not feel right, i can use skill 5 to pull my target, even after the pull is successfull i cant combo this into skill 3 or skill 2 because of the long casttimes. In any competetive scenario this weapon is countered way too easy. Switching around the chill application from the AA to another skill would open the doors to making the AA stronger and faster, at the current state the chill doenst matter as you cant apply it at all (from a PVP POV)
AA still feels very bad to use, especially in pvp.
Skill 3 needs to be a more damaging skill in a 360 range cone, as Skill 2 is a onetrick pony thats too easy countered. Reduce the cooldown, the lifeforce gain and the duration of the vuln, trading the utility for damage and pressure. Switch places with skill 2 on the bar.
I suggest making skill 4 a groundtarget AOE, pulses damage every second to help with blinds and blocks, keep the condition application as it is. The base AOE should be 240, increasing to 360 on the last pulse.
Skill 5 could apply a 1 sec imob after pulling.
Shouts
You are all weaklings is good in design, the might should last a bit longer considering the low number of skills we possible could activate within these 5 seconds.
Suffer is still very very weak against 1-3 targets, mediocre at best against 5 targets. The skill lacks flavour, 3 sec chill just isnt worth it. Increase the base transfer to 3 conditions, per 2 targets hit +1 condition, capping the skill at 5 condis, against 5 enemys. This skill should also apply a few stacks of torment to help condition builds.
Nothing can save you Remove the cast time and let this skill apply 2 seconds of quickness. This gives the skill a lot of tactical options as it helps to ensure a quicker unblockable hit with a key skill.
Rise is flawed by design. Its only remotely usefull against 5 targets, if there are 5 targets the minions die passive and almost instant trough cleave and AOE. If you keep this skill in this literation at the very least give us some benefit when the minions die, like the usual lifeforce when minions die (currently these minions do not give lifeforce), or let them apply aoe healing on death to give this skill any sort of use.
Chilled to the bone is not potent enough for an elite skill. Lower the CD to 90, increase the Stun duration to 2,5 and make this stun unbreakable, else this skill is too weak compared to other aoe CC Elite skills, the amount of low CD Stunbreaks, Group Stunbreaks and Counterplay trough block / blind.
Traits
Shivers of Dread Please add something to the skill, fear application is to low as reaper. Let this skill cause fear under certain circumstances.
Augury Stands and falls with the shouts.
Nova Increase Range to 240, increase damage a bit. Its gated by the ICD already.
Soul Eater The lifesteal numbers are way too low considering the hit frequency and reliability of the skills. The CD reduction tied to a single, unreliable skill does not feel good.
Deathly Chill: Its still very weak, even on condi builds. Chill is one of the few condis that people tend to cleanse first whenever possible, a sustained non stacking condition with intended short duration application like chill should do more damage.
It feels like a sinister combination of Cloud and Sephiroth, i really like it. As human/sylvari the size is actually perfect.
The trait has its uses, but needs some more power. Comparing it to terror damage wise, it deals lesser even when being under 50% then terror without any other conditions on the target. Now chill is a lot more common then fear, but the damage is not yet grandmaster worthy.
Wait what? When was this said? All I remember was introducing skill types so that the previously existing (and some new) ones could be used more widely. Ex: Reaper Shouts allow another profession to use shouts for Soldier runes, Mesmer wells would allow for a well-rune to be used by Mesmer/Necro, etc.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/
Here under the point Elite Specialization Reward Tracks
Well its not that simple.
Berserk gear will reliably increase your DPS outside of shroud hands down. When using Berserker gear you also dont have to rely on Decimate defenses, giving you the chance to trait Chilling Victory which equals more sustain trough more lifeforce, and a great synergy with Blighters Boon.
Valk or Cavaliers gear will increase your base surviveability, but almost forces you into taking Decimate Defenses for a good crit chance outside of DS. While you can maintain that vuln stacks you wont notice much of a different, but its highly unlikely that you can maintain these stacks reliable outside of PVE. In DS its a lot easier, but then again you can get flat 50% crit chance in DS.
We got the information that each Elite Spec will come with a new runeset that is based around it. Could we get the details here? Runes are in my opinion a big factor when judging a concept or in this case the spec. I can see the reapers runeset be either centered around chill, shouts or vulnerability.
Getting these Infos would increase the feedback based on the build variety that comes with it.
I really like the way the skill works now! The 4-kittens beforehand enable a incredible synergy with bloodmagic and chilling victory. I would not speed up the animation, as the skillflow is really nice in that regard. Just increase its range to 900, giving it an effective 600 range factoring the actual leap time.
Well the skill feels much more like an Eliteskill then before. It still Requires some tuning though, its too underwhelming for how reliable and frequent you can set it up.
1.) I would suggest to cut the casttime to 1 second flat. That way the skill feels a lot better, a player wanting and planning on interrupting you can still do so, but youre less likely to get hit from some random blind negating your skill.
2) Cooldown should be at the very least cut to a max. 90 seconds. Compared to other Elite skills this does not have a prolonged effect, its main effect the stun is easily negated by a simple stunbreak, given how easy stunbreaks are to come by with the new specs i would more lean to 70 -60 second cooldown. Either that or up the stun duration by 0.5 – 1 second and make it unbreakable. The Cooldown in either case should not be higher then 90 seconds though, its a fire and forget Elite skill that has lots and lots of counterplay to it.
3) Increase the Number of Targets to 10. I found this skill to behave a little bit strange, it does not seem to prioritize your selected target, or player over clones / minions reliably. Furthermore this would make the elite feel more like an elite, i cant give more arguments on this, its just a impression thing for me.
The Greatsword changes are very good to begin with, seems to remove the sluggish aspects while keeping the “slow but heavy hitting” theme, we will see how this plays out.
Shout buffs are nice, i can tell already that Suffer and Chilled to the bone are still too weak (especially with all the means of AOE stunbreak incoming and compared to Jade Winds.
Trait buffs are solid.
Augury of Death- I cant judge about the effectivness, but this trait is boring because its a simple CD reduction. Give it an additional effect like a potent lifesteal buff for you and your allies.
Soul Eater – Im a huge fan of siphons. But not on this weapon :/
Fear is going to be seriously hurt with the coming changes. Fear can’t be applies to a creature with defiance, though it does hit the defiance bar if I’m remembering it correctly. This is an issue for us terror users.
Fear reduces the defiance bar by a rather big amount though.
Somewhat like this guy:
Or in regards to the Greatsword more like this one:
(edited by Brujeria.7536)
Nightfall should work like Locust Swarm. The defensive aspect of this skill is severly limited by the AOE field, sure you can bunker inside it and feel save, but people can simply range you down and you cant retaliate much.
Also simple chill damage and duration increase wont help much. The problem isnt the duration, its the application. We currently dont have any reliable way to apply it or re-apply it given the rising amount of AOE condi cleanse.
Im thinking of a trait called “Winter of souls” granting any or all of the following:
- Grant yourself retaliation when chilling a foe
- Retaliation duration is increased
- Enemys that strike you while you have retaliation are chilled for x seconds y ICD per attacker
- x% of the retaliation damage heals you.
It should. Also it should siphon a small flat amount whenever a condition is applied or one of the applied conditions is removed or expired. This way the trait also has a use when not building for condi damage, things like axe or Staff or Warhorn could benefit really well from this.
- Traits
Fear causes chill isnt really usefull, mainly because we have very limited reliable access to fear as reaper.
Adept
Augury of Death: Give it a higher base cd reduce and a smaller per target hit effect.
Chilling Nova: Nerfed too hard. Give it more damage, 10 s icd and 2 s chill and its okay.
Relentless Pursuit: It’s nice
Master
Soul Eater: It’s not a bad trait on paper but given the number of hits a greatsword can cause it is bad. Also the cd reduce component does not feel right, even if i would be able to cast skills lets say 30% earlier the skills currently cost too much time to cast. CD reduction feels a lot better on skills that are quick castable or more spamable.
Chilling Force: feels very good on paper. Nice synergy with the Grandmaster. Given the speed and possible hits per second on gs however…
Decimate Defenses: Its a nice build up mechanic, can be very potent. Opens up gear variations.
Grandmaster
Blighters Boon: It feels nice but rather unreliable on its own. Necros dont apply much boons by themselves. The skill gets a lot better under certain multiplayer situations, but in a vacuum the numbers are too low compared to similar sustain traits. Maybe change it to get the effects when causing conditions? Suddenly even Axe AA would make more sense.
Deathly Chill: It’s a great idea, but the damage is way too low given the fact that chill does not stack intensity and given the fact how long and unrealiable we can apply chill. Even if i could maintain a 100% chilluptime the damage i would get is far below other offensive Grandmaster traits
Reapers Onslaught: The attackspeed is nice. I would prefer a different secondary effect though. Either allow us to gain lifeforce trough deaths while in shroud or reduce the cd of rs#4 when killing a foe.
- Shouts
All of them are rather weak. I like the idea with cast times compared to warriors and guards, but the effects dont justify the cooldown, the cast time or a slot in my utility bar.
Your soul is mine. A weak healingskill number wise, i like that it generates lifeforce though. It needs to have a bigger baseheal, and a medium base lifeforce generation. Additional it should add lifeforce and healing per enemy hit. Maybe it should cause a 4 sec debuff on foes which reduces the damage they do to the reaper by a small but meaningfull number, you steal souls after all, this should have a negative effect on enemys.
You are all weaklings: The stunbreak and the effects are nice, the might duration is too low given the casttimes of greatsword or any other meaningfull skill. Another boon instead of might would be better, maybe quickness to change the fight momentum and generate additional pressure with faster skill activations? The damage across the board should be higher as well, you could make it hit 3 times for traits like vampiric or to more reliable trigger on crit or hit sigils.
Suffer: The chillduration way to low, the condi transfer is bad. Its basicly useless against one target, even against multiple targets its bad as this would mean you also get more random condis. Also its cooldown is way too long even if you would use the CD Trait.
Rise: against one target its useless, hitting 5 people means the minions will get cleaved down instantly. I have no idea how this skill is supposed to be used.
Nothing can safe you: This one is a bit better, you get a decent base durationof unblockable and the corrupt effect isnt weaker against a single foe. Its feels kinda boring though. Iwould love this skill to also apply revealed to targets hit.
Would fit with the name and the whole moviemonster concept as well as giving us a meaningfull way to counter stealth.
Chilled to the bone: The cast and cooldown is way too long. Comparing this skill to Jadewinds makes me wanna cry. The stun, stability and damage all feel nice, but this skill hasnt a prolonged effect unlike most elite skills, which does make it currently feel like a mini elite at best. It’s also so easily counterable or interruptable. Any 6 second cd blind can completly nullify your entire 120 second cd elite, this should not be possible.
- Reapershroud
Feels overall great, some gameplay mechanics limit its potency greatly. The natural Lifeforce decay untraited feels way too high. Most of the skills have long channel or cast times, it feels like wasting a lot lifeforce while using any skill beside #1 and #3 because of the long animation or cast times.
RS#1 is very nice, combos well with a lot of traits and feels just right.
RS2#2 i like its “unique” way of gapclosing in general. It’s currently not useable though. The travel speed is way too slow for the distance, you can’t cover much ground compared to simply moving forward. It also should apply its damage effects while it travels, this skill could work good with a curses setup, corrupting 2 boons and causing chilling darkness as a reliable active defense on a short cd. Make every pulse do its full listed basedamage but add a 1 second icd per target hit to prevent cases of multi hits against walls etc.
RS#3 feels very nice. It has goodplay to it. Perfect.
RS#4 also very nice. the poison is nice as well for cele or condi builds. Whirlfinisher on Darkfields should work trough shroud. This would open up combo potential. The finisher is wasted when using wells or gs#4. leeching bolts without heal is facepalm.
RS#5 i love this skill. Very obvious call, very potent effect, this skill makes me feel dangerous.
- Animation, cast effects and the look of the new shroud is amazing.
- Greatsword:
Feels way to slow and clumsy for what it does. The damage is subpar for its speed and the effects are to unrewarding for the risk involved. The weaponskills also dont feel like they combo with themself unlike other two handed weapons. Overall it feels like i can’t apply any meaningfull pressure with this weapon, i dont feel rewarded for staying in meele range, i dont get any “movie monster” feel of controlling the flow of the battle.
GS#1 deals way too low damage for its speed, both baseline and with scaling. The chill is nice but really unreliable, i can’t factor it into my build reliable and this feels bad.
GS#2 a executioner style slow hit that deals bad damage. It is like really slow, easy to block, dodge or blinded and even when successfully using it with the cd reduction part it feels very lackluster due to the 1 second gap between the next use. Most of the time i could do more and much more reliable damage with a dagger or an axe.
GS#3 its a nice opener but again hard to use. It’s damage is low which is okay, but the range shouldn’t be that small. The LF generation does not feel good or high enough given its reliability and CD. Maybe make this a pulsing / aoe aura kinda skill? It combos well with some vampiric traits.
GS#4 is kinda bad. It’s a defensive skill thats very unreliable which feels really bad. We dont have the tools to keep an enemy reliable inside it. Also the pulse damage is weird, it should deal its damage over multiple and more frequent hits to get synergy with some traits and to eat blinds, blocks and aegis for the bigger hits we need to land. Maybe attach it to the necro while he moves?
GS#5. a pull with a strange aiming. I needed to play a couple hours to get a feel for it. It’s rather unreliable compared to similar skills like guardian GS pull. The skill does not feel as dangerous as it should feel. Even if the skill connects its cd is way too long to justify the effects.
A bit of Feedback from my side:
Spite is very good, in some cases so awesome that i cant decide what trait to choose from. The Minors define the entire traitline in a very good way. Spiteful Spirit could use a little bit of a buff or something added on top as it feels like the weakest grandmaster, although i love its function.
Curses, despite all the flame feels good. Parasitic Contagion needs a buff and needs to work trough shroud asap. Yes, even Master of Corruption and the dispute of Terror and PoC is fine. I will explain later.
Death Magic: A few things: Why 3 Minion traits? Minions are just one type of utility skills, and as that not even as build defining for every necromancer (like spectral skills are). Make the % modifiers for Damage and Health Baseline, merge the exciting stuff into one Grandmaster trait and come up with 1 new major and 1 adept trait. It makes not much sense that way. It wont be OP though, as Only dedicated minion master will use minions apart from fleshworm, and they would have taken these traits anyway. Swap or merge Unholy Sanctuary with Unholy Martyr, it makes more sense in the Blood Magic Line
Blood magic:
Awesome. They gave the necromancer a own niche of supporting people. Unholy Martyr does not really fit here though as a grandmaster at least, Id like a Grandmaster choice for solo play without wells really. I get its the support line but dont hardfore us 100% into support when choosing a grandmaster, use the opportunity to give us a build defining trait that makes us feel even more like a blood sucking vampire. Mark of blood should be combat only with no ICD.
Soul Reaping: The line was pretty much kept as before. The line feels way too mandatory when playing with a build relying on Shroud. It feels like if you want to stay in Shroud for any halfway decent time, you are forced to go into this line, which is really really bad considering its a profession mechanic. A few things: Unyielding Blast: The pierce should be baseline. Then add something different to this trait. Vital persistence: The degeneration should be halfed baseline, then either make this trait to cause no degenration at all, or add something different. Dhuumfire is not good. Buff or replace it.
Now, as soon as Anet has fixed the powercreep with engies and all other classes, i would feel that we can play with builds that feels like a true atrittion class. Which is great.
However, here comes the real big problems: Weapon and Utility skills. Axe sucks. Scepter Sucks. And thus the weapon traits associated with them also suck, people rant about these traits, but the problem lies on the weapons themself. Engineer has a trait that has a lesser potenty on pistol skills then we have on our scepter skills, but it takes effect on every skill, and these skills where really strong to begin with. Please rework them:
Make Scepter 1 Apply torment, Bleeding and Poison, speed up the attack chain a little bit. Make scepter 2 an AOE field, the first hit inflicts Immob, then the field ticks for a bit of damage and bleed and cripple for every second. The Skill 3 Should cause a condition. Make it a channel with more base damage, generating lifeforce with each strike, increased damage and lifeforce for each condition on the foe, then cause AOE torment based on how many conditions the initial target has at the end of the channel.
Make Axe a power based support weapon, like staff is for condition. Give it a distinct attack chain that causes AOE Damage with a bit of flavour, give skill 2 an additional effect, at the first and last tick of damage bouncing projectiles are launched from your targeted enemy that cause something cool for offensive support. The weapon could be easily used for offensive power support because we gain the greatsword as meele power. The only thing we would then need is a 1200 range Power option.
Corruption skills dont justify their name, the traits put even more condis on you. Thats fine but the speels need to be stronger to begin with.
Consume conditions is now instant cast, when traited it heals for more, and removes a few condis from nearby allies, but i cant enter DS for 5 Seconds in adition to the condis i get on myself. Corrupt boon now corrupts ALL boons on my target, when i trait it my target cant apply any new boons for 2 seconds. My plague gets traited 2 new skills, (with a cooldown ofc) an AOE fear with 10 targets, and Deathly swarm with multiple projectiles. My CPC applies Poison and weakness every second, as well as 25 vulnerability, when traited it also nullifies every healing done in the area. For such skills i would accept even more conditions on myself, or even health sacrifice, for rhat CPC i would stun myself for 2 seconds, really.
These are my take on the changes, the traits are very very pleasing, but the problems are to some extent much deeper and should be fixed at the root before polishing the traits even more.
(edited by Brujeria.7536)
Just merge Unholy Sanctuary with Unholy Martyr and create a viable 3rd Grandmaster for Bloodmagic.
Blood Magic:
General: Minors look very good. I cant find anything to complain here.
Ritual of Life – Revive traits are boring. Its good for what it does though.
Quickening Thirst – Id love this trait to modify Dagger 2 in a way. Its fitting as it is, but i feel its a missed opportunity here.
Blood Bond – Nice.
Life from Death: Im excited for the scaling. Nice.
Banshee’s Wail: Very potent trait, not sure if it fits in bloodmagic though.
Vampiric Presense: Im excited for the scaling here as well. Its nice that it stacks with Vampiric, gives me the sliver of hope that siphon builds could be viable.
Vampiric Rituals: Very solid.
Unholy Martyr: Its just there. I dont like this trait and it seems like a desperate attempt at supporting allies. Its mostly invisible and doenst really fit the NEcromancer that well. We have a signet doing this kinda thing.
Transfusion: Exciting. If it lets you “drag” downed allies out of the danger zone the amount of support and play this trait could offer is HUGE.
Soul Reaping:
General: Gluttony is bad. Last Gasp is very good, Strenght of Undeath is fine.
Unyielding Blast – Solid.
Soul Marks – Solid.
Speed of Shadows – Would loved some superspeed here, nice though.
Spectral Mastery: Solid.
Vital Persistence: Solid.
Fear of Death: Its a decent choice for condi builds. I would replace the on downed fear with something more usefull.
Foot in the Grave: Its good.
Death Perception: Very potent, rather boring though.
Dhuumfire: Please no. I can see that its a good idea for Reaper but for Necromancer its just plain bad. The Numbers are not right, Engineer ges a similar trait with a higher uptime and additional effects. Would replace this with something that gives Torment in a reliable way + something with flavour.
Spite:
General: Minors look good.
Spiteful Talisman – The CD is pretty standard, the second effect is just plain boring. Can we get “Siphon health for each condition corrupted or removed”? Would have a great synergy with this trait lines grandmasters and the necromancer concept in general.
Spiteful Renewal – Nice, will wait for the numbers and scaling though.
Bitter Chill – We dont have that many ways to apply chill really, the trait would be potent for the reaper, but being a core trait its just not good even as an adept.
Chill of Death: Nice as always
Rending Shroud: I dont like it.
Unholy Fervor: The trait iself is good, axe isnt. The 10 % more damage seems to apply to everything now, not just axe skills or while wielding an axe.
Signets of Suffering: I really love it. Especially the synergies with the other traits that use signets.
Close to Death: Will always be a good choice for raw DPS
Spiteful Spirit: I like this one also, but i feel it needs a little something more. Maybe add my idea for spiteful talisman if its t ostrong for an adept trait?
Curses
General: Its solid and works for both condition and power builds.
Terrifying Descent: As exciting as it could get.
Plague Sending: Nice. Can potentially be used as a stunbreak if you used locust swarm or a well.
Chilling Darkness: Its okay. On core necro we have 3 skills that can blind enemys, only one of them on a decent cooldown.
Master of Corruption: There are better ways to include a secondary mechanic into a cd reduction trait.
Path of Corruption: Solid as always
Terror Competes with PoC. I really think terror is such a core feature of the conditionmancer that it should be made baseline. Theres no “choice” to pick this skill when playing a conditionmancer due to the lack of conditions we can reliable apply in the first place.
Weakening Shroud: Very solid.
Parasitic Contagion: Its okay i guess. I would like to see it giving some sustain even for non damaging conditions.
Lingering Curse: I dont know. Scepter is actually a bad weapon. This makes it less bad. Its not much of a tactical choice, its more like “Hey if you wanna use a scepter you need this trait else it sucks”. The modifiers are very potent but it tries to fix things the wrong way.
Death Magic:
General: Minors look good. Soul comprehension is not good at all.
Flesh of the Master – Why do we have 3 seperate Minion traits in this line? I thought they wanted to have one single trait for each type of utility skills. The traits themself make MM possible, and are decent, theres just no logic behind this.
Shrouded Removal – Its nice, we needed some condi removal in DS.
Putrid Defense – Solid minor, the requirement is fitting.
Necromantic Corruption: See flesh of the master. Simply roll the Base health and Damage baseline, then combine the additional effects into one Grandmaster trait.
Reaper’s Protection: I dont like it. It has a place in condi builds due to terror, but i simply dont like it.
Deadly Strength: Number increase. I miss the amount of creativity from Blood magic in death magic.
Death Nova: See above. No one but Minion Masters will use any of the traits, neither will any other spec will use minions besides flesh worm.
Corrupter’s Fervor: I like that the defensive aspect is not tied to damaging or deliberating conditions. Solid.
Unholy Sanctuary: Its still there. Maybe it will see a use now that you get it for free if you want to skill into DM. We will see.
Take chilling dark. Use nightfall or well of darkness. Stack stupid chill amounts due to pulsing blind. Possibly cover with vulnerability from of of the many source we have ( bitter chill every time blind procs chill, deathly shiver ). Enter RS, use #2 to corrupt boons and get poison. Spam 1 to stack burn.
????
Profit??
You forgot the new trait that gives us vulnerability on chill in Spite.
They are pretty underwhelming.
The heal skill is rather weak on the healing side, but can increase your lifeforce by a lot, this seems to be a nightmare to balance right. Even beside that i think it needs a little more flavour. Its kinda hard to add exciting stuff to shouts in general, but it just feels kinda meh, you fill up two bars and scratch an enemy and thats it. The CD is low, which i like, and with 3/4 sec activation time its quite reliable. Maybe add a bit of retaliation per target hit? Maybe add a debuff on the targets hit that reduces the CD of your next ability that hits these targets by a small amount? Lets say a 5% CD reduction per Target, so if you hit all 5 enemies, and follow up with another shout that hits the same 5 targets, (with the reduced CD trait) that shout will have only 40% of its cooldown, and the debuff is consumed, or you follow up with a execute skill for reduced CD. Would reward the offensive aspect a bit more and add a little bit of “play”
“You are all weaklings” Its also kinda meh, Weakness is nice and all, but its uptime is not to great, and 4 stacks of might for 4 seconds per target hit is bad, it overrides might stacks with longer durations, lets say from fire fields, or traited lifeblast. Depending on the way “Blighters boon” will work it could get us a nice amount of healing (if the trait heals you for each STACK of boon you get this would heal us for around 2660 health) but i wouldnt get my hopes up on that one.
“Suffer”, the CD and activation time are too long for what it does. In the worst case scenario the shout isnt even worth using, 3 seconds of chill and a condition transfer for that cast time and CD? Also it requires you to actually have conditions on you, if you dont you just chill them.. Its not even really good in the best scenario.
“Nothing can save you” Is almost perfect, this shout just seems soso made for “revealed”. “Targets hit are also destealthed and revealed for 5 seconds”
“Chilled to the bone” Is rather meh as well. Its a strong CC and disable skill, but with that Cooldown and Cast time everyone can simply dodge it, or pop a stability (or aegis or blind) and completly waste your entire skill cooldown all during a 2 second cast time with a clear tell. Even hammer stun is better for that purpose really. What would make that skill more interesting (at least for WvW) would be an increased number of targets hit to 10, which would also help with the long cooldown in best case scenarios.
(edited by Brujeria.7536)
Well the more i think about it i come to the conclusion that there should be another effect to the shout or a very special minion that gets summoned. In the current way it works its rather hard to use it right.
With Death Nova the minions help us even if they get instagibbed in an AOE cleave, which will most likely be the case if we manage to get 5 enemys within 600 range. However without it, almost every minion will be rather useless in such a scenario, due to the amount of passive cleaves and AOE fields. You can buff the minions base damage and use, sure, but lets say you play against a mesmer with clones, or a ranger, or even a thief with a rock dog the minions would be very strong if they are balanced around surviving a fitting time in a 5 target scenario.
Even then you have to take into account the minion master traits. If the base minions are stronger, the traits improving minions will also make them much stronger as well.
Minions in their current way dont do much in terms of utility without the activation skill, a cripple and projectile finishers at most and thats it.
I’d either add a second effect to the shout itself that is not reliant on Minion traits or create a new kind of minion for this shout that gives some utility besides pure dps. This could either be a on minion creation effect , a on death effect, or a frequent effect with an ICD. The Devs could go crazy here, a minion that spawns a projectile reflecting shield upon its creation, a minion that heales all surrounding allies upon death, a special kind of bloodfiend that sucks up a single projectile at a time from mid air with an ICD, a fleshreaver that charges up its sword with every successfull strike, once it gets killed it drops its sword and the player or allies can pick it up and gain a benefit depending on how much it got charged up. If thats to crazy they could add a minion that redirects some damage the reaper takes to itself, or some other passive effect.
Last way could be to merge the shouth with another one.
Anyway id like to have my Fleshreaver or Aatxe pretty please.
It goes into a nice direction and i feel they actually did listen.
Also i love that they dont shove us into the group support role like all other professions in the same way.
However im afraid the new blood magic ideas will limit our personal sustain at the cost of group sustain. Likewise traits like transfusion should always affect ourself as well. I dont say i dont wanna have support or heal for others, but it should always heal myself first. Healingpower would actually be meaningfull that way in every scenario.
I think Jagged Horrors are fine if they reduced the base CD of the shout a bit. The problem is all the minions that really work passively would be REALLY strong. Flesh Golem is too much, as is Blood Fiend, but Bone Minions are too weak, as are Flesh Wurms, because of no secondary actives. Bone Fiend and Shadow Fiends might work at the current CD, or Jagged Horror on say a 30s CD.
Id love the idea of Flesh wurms, they provide sustained dps at a good range if the enemy decides to disengage, they can combo with ice fields and as soon as one of them dies and death nova gets triggered the other projectile finishers get a effect as well.
Shouts do get a stunbreak, wrong tooltip.
Nightfall does blind and cripple on every pulse for 6 seconds, they just used the old tooltips for the video
I kinda like the new DS, the possible CD reduction for the leap is neat, combine this with the trait to convert boons is huge.
The new traits are blast too, i dont feel theres a single useless trait, furthermore it opens build possibilities, condition builds, tanky cc builds, siphon builds. Its amazing.
Greatsword skills look kinda cool, kinda slow but if they get the numbers right it could be great.
Shouts are kinda meh. Theyre not bad in general but feel kinda boring compared to the rest. I’d like a bit more flavour, like a shout that pulses for a longer time lets say for 10 seconds every 3 seconds with a minor effect, or a shout that can be activated again for a second effect needing some timing to create play.
Blood magic traits: I simply love it. They actually DID listen. Yay.
Bone Fiends would fit nice as we are tanks and these deal ranged damage as well as cripple.
Id like the idea of getting flesh reavers though, doing some neat kind of leap attack when first summoned.
Yeah same here, im close to 6.000 play hours, farmed SW the last week and weekend for over 60 hours, with no portal drop. I kinda understand their intention there, filtering out only well geared max level players that participate in the newest map, but i really kinda feel cheated on this one. OF course i can still hope i get a random invite from the mailing list, but hey, i love this game and id love to farm and to do something for a beta invite, but this seems just so pointless.
Elite Shout:
Grenths Call
Execute up to 3 downed enemys with less then 50% health instantly, you gain double the normal “on death” lifeforce + 5 stacks might for every enemy executed this way.
Yeah, Soul Reaping seems rather solid for that purpose. Some work on Dhuumfire and a little shaving and baseline merges and i would consider this line “perfect”
Minions Movement is sluggish and behaves a lot like the shadow step and teleport skills. If the Minion cant find a spot within its attack reach near the target it will bug out, especially since it seems to respect models, you will never see a minion walk into the model of an enemy player. Ranged minions dont seem to have this kinda problem.
This is especially a issue in the silverwastes, due to all of the stairs and kinda narrow entrances with high monster density. The “check for a new path” mechanism seems to bug out, or it doenst refresh smoothly, resulting in very delayed movement or no movement at all.
I personally would be a huge fan of ranged only minions, Shadow Fiend could create a dark rift with 300 – 450 range in front of him, dealing damage in a line while getting a activate that teleports him on the backside of its target, with a delayed rift behind him that grants lifeforce on hit, additionally the Shadow Fiend taunts the enemy briefly. Bone Minions could puke or spit on range, the activation skill turns them into rocket like projectiles, a big ark, a slight delay, but with increased damage, getting benefit from the necromancers precision and ferocity stats. Flesh Golem would get a greenish goo around its claws, getting increased range and cone attacks, the activation should be the same but the golem does a big attack at the max range, causing big damage and applying a root. It should be a matter of decision, use it against a close target for the cc, or a far away target for the root, providing some play.
Yeah i wouldnt get my hopes up. We most likely end up with some boring shouts and some new F2-F5 skills to consume Lifeforce without deathshroud. This is most likely due to the countless noob necros crying for “we need better team support!!!!11”
Our shouts will focus on debuffing the enemy, the F2- F5 mechanics will most likely be orders, or something similar that puts a necromancer exclusive effect on foes.
Anyways, all of this will be rather obsolete, Mesmer for example is already grad at supporting allies, this gets improved by the specialization even if its not aimed for it.
Their wells are better, “the wells come with a high cooldown”, yeah right, their damage well has almost half the CD of the Necromancer damage well. While they give usefull benefits to themself and allies, we get 5 pulses of AOE Blind behind a huge CD. Yay for balance.
Do players with a Beta Slot (from the Stresstest) also need to gain this item or are they flagged for the beta access already?
Dark Armor
This trait got removed which is kinda sad, it was not picked a lot because it was in a line that was only usefull for the staff traits. Very few build did use much points in this line, the only ones are condition builds and minion builds and they just got better things to pick from. Condition weapons dont have a channel skill to take advantage of this too, so i dont think its a trait issue. Surviveability is just bad, so the best defense at the current builds is kill them before they can kill you, which kills this trait.
My suggestion is to bring Dark Armor back with the same function, add retaliation and stability for the duration and you get a solid trait. If scepter would get a channel for the third skill thisi would be even more viable.
Bloodthirst
For the sake of synergy please let this trait effect food, runes and sigils. The newly introduced rune sets are not tied to any of the necromancers abilitys, we cant block use shouts or use traps. Create the synergy there.
(edited by Brujeria.7536)
I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?
In the current meta other classes can apply most damaging conditions more frequently, if they intend to do so, engineers with grenades spam and passive procs, eles with all of their skills, mesmers can stack very high confusion and torment in addition to non damage conditions. The thing is necromancer only has really frequent use of bleedings and fear damage wise, we have one DS Skill with torment on a hefty cooldown, Dhuumfire barely gets used, and our ways of causing poison are weaker then a actuall weapon sigil nullifying this advantages. Bleed is just one kind of conditionstack that can get removed easily, some traits and condi clears go for bleed first especially, effectively removing most of our condi damage, fear is mandatory here to both, get a second reliable way to deal damage, and to prevent condi clears while doing so. Terror could easily stay a grandmaster trait, if we would have access to a broader spectrum of conditions with our skills.
Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses? Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.
I love the idea of a vampiric necromancer a lot, but curses is the line that has synergy with precision. Precision is usefull for both condition damage and power builds, in the current implementation you feel stupid to choose between 3 condition centric Grandmasters when playing a power build. Blood magic could get a niche function for precision and power, but that would be trough siphons and we all know how that will end.
The new traits simply lack excitement. Even though some of them look very potent on paper, they are just rather boring number increases, or hidden effects or things that could be there by default. The Grandmasters should alter the way you play, but infact they dont really do.
Spite Line:
Traits are either rather boring or based on its functionality not good enough.
Spiteful Talisman: Adds x additional bounces and boons removed increased to 4, in addition to the cd reduce?
Axe training increase the axes range or let the skills work in a cone, give unholy feast a sequence skill.
Death Shiver is intended to increase group dps as means of a support skill. Instead of overusing vuln. let it actually chill, or blind. Every 3 seconds a small aoe damage and a 1 sec chill would help wonders, it helps with blind spam, can remove aegis on a frequent basis and chills foes, this seems to be much more exciting.
Unholy Feast for example is rather exciting for me, but because it has other potent traits rivaling for grandmaster, it wont get picked over Close to Death.Add a synergy with Spiteful Renewal, the minor trait now siphons and transfers a condition.
I would love a general synergy between boon removal / boon corruption and siphoning in this line. A trait that would make us siphon x life for each kittenemoved would be a defensive way to increase dps.
Curses:
This Traitline has problems with being too condition centric, its useless for powertraits in the grandmaster department.
Chilling darkness, the trait itself is good, but we lack reliable ways to cause blindness.
The grandmasters lack synergy, uses for powerbuilds and just seem weird, i’d be troubled which one to pick, but not in a positive way. We need terror for our dps due to limited condis, also we need sustain from parasitic contagion, as we lack sustain baseline a lot, but then again i also want lingering curse to improve my bleeds, to keep them viable against the other classes. This kinda feels weird because these are things that should be given by default, the grandmasters dont feel like i can improve a choosen way i play a condi class, but instead pick one of these basic aspects that sucks less.
- Make Terror baseline.
- Give us an increased condition potency. I mean something like, let our chills become a damaging condition that deals increased damage if the target is standing still. Our cripples now deals small damage to walking foes, and a big amount of damage when a mobility skill is used or the target dodges. Our bleedings now scale of power. Our poison decreases incoming healing to 50%. Our poisons last longer and we get any incoming healing that got reduced as healing. Vulnerability deals a small amount of power based damage per stack when its applied and when it gets removed. Any of these things would work, would change the way you can build and causes nice interactions. These are just examples ofc.
Death Magic
This line is going in a good direction, the main problems here are too many minion related traits.
Blood Magic
Despite the flame against this line i dont think it is too far off. Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration are bad because they dont benefit us at all. Unholy Martyr is still bad, this is suppoes to be out sustain line, this basicly hinders sustain as we have no active way to remove conditions while in Deathshroud, reducing our sustain in the end because DS expires faster, we assist our allies a bit, but we really dont want that.
Soul Reaping:
Has much wasted potential. Unyielding blast should be baseline, the piece factor at least, it could have a mechanic like: each consecutive cast of lifeblast reduces the cast time of the next lifeblast. Soul marks is the second trait focusing around marks. Its no exciting way either, although its potent. Id rather have something that modifies the AA component, as the AA feels really lackluster; or something like “Persistent Marks”, your marks heal you for each foe hit; your marks are reapplied after 3 seconds with reduced potency. That would be remarkable and could add tactics. Food in the grave could be baseline, at least the stunbreak component of it, necros still dont have much mobility and with that change i feel we wouldnt need it that much.
Id like to see a GM trait here that modifies Lifeblast based on the Mainhand / Offhand weapon equipped. For example scepter mainhand would cause LB to cause torment, or transfer a condition, dagger would siphon a small amount of life, axe would have a reduced cast time, Staff would it make a ground targeted ability with lower velocity but with higher range and splashdamage.
General issue with the sustain intentions: most of our healing and sustain skills are very risky and based on the actions on our enemies or our status, whereas all other professions heal regardless of what the enemy is doing. This should be considered by balancing both traits and skills.
Would be a solution. I think fear shouldnt deal so much damage though, i dislike the idea that terror makes fear kinda bursty. So yeah, terror is baseline, terror damage reduced by 33%,; fear skills should have their CD reduced, making them more of a defensive option with interrupting while adding a little bit of damage to it.
This would also open a slot for traits that alter conditions like ranger and thief can alter poison. I would love a trait that modifies chill or cripple or poison or weakness.
A few examples:
Chilled enemys take damaged every second, damage is improved when the target is standing still
Crippled enemies take damage while moving, OR crippled enemies take damage when they dodge, use a mobility or leap skill.
Weakened enemies will loose boons faster.
Poisons you apply reduces incoming healing by 50%
Poisons you apply heal the same ammount they reduce incoming healing on the target
Vulnerability siphons a small amount of life if they are removed or expire (per stack)
So heres my 5 cent of Feedback even though i dont think it will matter much. I wont focus on the numbers too much rather on the functionality
Spite
Minors: they look a lot better, the master minor seems kinda off, i dont want more vulnerability if my target is at low health since vulnerability is so common, and if my target is that low its gonna die anyway.
Bitter Chill: We dont have that many ways to chill foes, and i dont think we have problems with vulnerability uptime either. Creates nice synergy with chilling darkness but i dont think that this will fit. Suggestion: A trait that has synergy with boon strip, gain might for every boon removed or siphon life for every boon removed.
Death Shiver:
It’s rather weak for a master trait, vulnerability again, unless they raise the cap of it its rather meh. Suggestion: Keep the pulse mechanic while in DS but change the condi to either chill or blind and add a small damage part.
Axe Mastery: Is kinda weird, you get CD reduction for using the Axe AA, but we really dont want to AA in the first place. (also the %increase seems a little to low compared to other damage modifiers that require a special condition – see thief or ele.
Signet Mastery: I like it. It cant compete with the other 2 grandmasters though, maybe skill changes to signet will affect this.
Curses:
Reaper’s Precision: Its still awfull and not even remotely close of deserving a master spot. Add another functionality or replace it altogether.
Death Magic:
Beyond the Veil: Sounds really nice
Shrouded Removal: needs to be at least 2 conditions to be up to the condi traits of other classes. Suggestion: Remove one condition upon entering DS, the First Lifeblast will transfer a condition to every target hit.
Unholy Sanctuary: Still sucks in this format. It needs a more reliable component added, for example : You also have permanent retaliation while in dS.
Additional: Why 3 Minion traits? You told us there would only be one trait for most specs, yet 2 of our Grandmasters need minions to work out. The same is also true for Staff / Mark traits.
Blood Magic:
Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration and Unholy Martyr: Great in general but they offer nothing for the necromancer, i dislike these because the sustain is already in a bad spot, using the biggest parts of our sustain line for allys only seems misplaced.
Siphons: Please get the numbers right.
Soul Reaping
Soul Marks: The same as before, can you add something exciting to Staff AA? It still feels so lackluster and boring.
General: I think these changes are going into a really good direction, but compared to the other professions they seem lackluster, either skill wise or because of the amount of play and possibilities they add, the traits alter builds a little bit, but not as much or as exciting as other professions do.
What i miss a bit:
Dark Armor, was actually a nice skill but people didnt use it because Death Magic was so bad and the two staff traits where the reason you spec into this line. Add another boon while channeling (Protection, retaliation or stability) and its a really solid trait.
Interactions and Synergy. I miss a connection between sustain/defense and aggression and condition speciality.
Things like siphon health when applying a condition, gain health every second for each foe that suffers from your movement impairing conditions, siphon life for every corrupted or removed boon, your chill causes damage over time, your chills cause medium damage every 3 seconds, your poisons reduce healing by 50%, your siphons are increased on bleeding foes.
I also miss the implementation of the new conditions a bit, no torment from traits, no slow.
Staff is still a boring one trick pony, can we get more exciting traits like marks heal you for each foe hit? Or something like persistent mark, marks reappear 2 seconds after triggered on the same position with 50% potency.
We would have a lot of Slots for these exciting kinda things in the grandmasters, quite a lot of them are very underwhelming compared to other professions.
Is the difference in maximum dmg output bewteen condi+zerker really so far apart? With condi running full sinster i figured it wouldnt be that far off tbh…..obv not talking about burst dmg though zerk will always win that.
Epidemic. You can swap around conditions extremely quick, with multiple necros and a good timing you could spread a very high amount of conditions very quickly far surpassing the possible damage of zerker builds. But then on the other side conditions clears remove all of the stacks.
I would welcome a small modification on DS#1 based on the mainhand weapon and a small modification to DS#4 based on the offhand weapon. Not to create a power creep but to adapt DS a little bit more to the chosen playstyle .
Personal story:
Not very difficulty, but also rather fast paced, not a big number of trashmobs between the story elements, rather good. The dialogue was also a lot more powerfull then everything we have seen before. The lips of the main character are moving when he speaks, very nice details. Rewards also felt okay.
Masteries:
The descriptions are nice, a good middleway between lore and information. It was confusing to “equip” a mastery, i didnt understand that you need to level these first. I think some pop up notifications providing these infos would be handy, same goes for the difference between HoT Masteries and the Vanilla Masteries.
Hang gliders: Feels good, but is a bit tricky to execute, you sometimes loose quite a bit of distance getting the exact feel for when to press space to activate it. Maybe add a option to “auto hangglide”? The delay before you can activate it feels a bit weird at first, but the masteries should reduce that at later levels.
World / Events: You can easily see that this was a area for demo purposes, the event schedules seemed a little bit too scripted / quick and repetetive. The overall look is amazing, the map feels huge (even the rather small part we where at). The new monster look really really neat, a lot of details at some hidden places, tricky enemies where you would expect them.
Wyvern: The fight was okay, it didnt felt static as the AOE attacks where random. It felt a little bit “meh” though because there is no way to fail it, no timer or blocked waypoints, if you die you jump back in and start again, limiting the “epic feeling of achieving something” quite a bit. Animations where smooth though.
Mechanics:
The break bar was a little bit hard to see for me, the first break bars just passed by me, i didnt realize the bar was already there, might be a matter of getting used where to look. The condition cap removal was huge and a very welcomed step. The game felt really smooth, no fps loss at all, it was a bit laggy for half an hour, it was an stress test so testing that limit out should be the purpose.
Revenant:
Animations are really good, the skills feel kinda fresh and next gen. Hammer AA is a little bit bright, rather hard to notice in brigther areas / camera angles. Overall the skills on the right side of the bar feel more powerfull by far, which is okay, the balance itself is still rather broken in terms of the vanilla classes. I dont expect the powerlevel to be anywhere close to this state at the time of release.
Adventures:
A rather big surprise here. The vine burning was a lot of fun, you expect this to be a “run around and press 1” kinda thing, but its rather challenging, at least if you didnt do it before, the difficult seems good as well, each stage feels like a progression.
I like GS a lot, but i dislike the idea of giving us more group support. Thats just not what a necromancer does imho. We do have a few problems in PVE, sure, but these should be fixed in another way. Foe example by a higher base damage then all other classes, or a stronger self buff.
I hope you’re kidding. Necromancers desperately need group buffs. Yesterday I entered ac p3 “zerk only” lfg (didn’t specify anything else!) and was immediately kicked and PMed “no necros, especially ugly ones”. We are too selfish in buffs and we also lack blocks/evades and mobility.
They should not destroy the class philosophy only to make us fit in a broken dungeon meta.
I like GS a lot, but i dislike the idea of giving us more group support. Thats just not what a necromancer does imho. We do have a few problems in PVE, sure, but these should be fixed in another way. Foe example by a higher base damage then all other classes, or a stronger self buff.
Dreamthistle and Sclerite, i hope they bring these skins back into the game :/
Gwen!
Strange support with flower skills :P
Is there only one specialization available for each profession or are there more? (No I dont want exact numbers or anything like that)
They specifically said that staff will only be available to rangers who specialize into druid. But if there is only one specialization, that means nothing, every ranger will specialize into druid and everyone will have staff. It implies that there will be multiple, otherwise what they said makes little sense.
Yeah, it makes much sense since they are talking about customization, theres no customization if therese just one choice, it would be an addition instead, yet on the other hand, the exact wording was “The greatsword is part of the necromancer specilization”.. not “of one of the necromancer specilizations”.. this worries me.
We know that multiple specializations will exist.
Where do you get this information from? From the reveal at pax it sounds like there will only be one http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/5954011 Starting at 36 minutes.
Did i understand the explanation wrong? (as its not my native language)