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“Rise!” sounds like a decent choice for a tank Reaper. Effectively double your armor as long as they stay alive and keep attacking. It’s also a way to “heal” the Reaper’s health pool through shroud, since the minion HP pool is pretty much an extension of your own. Not to mention that you can, effectively, gain 2-3x as much healing from friendly heals with only a few minions out as long as those heals aren’t needed elsewhere.
Not to mention that you’ll likely run Blood Magic for the teamwide sustain boost it gives. Thus, you also gain health from the minion lifesteal.
If someone wants Reaper cast times, DEKeyz posted them on reddit here. Calculated damage values are no longer accurate though as they are still from BWE1. Same with cast time for nightfall, due to the animation change.
Filling out our crit% is already a nice boost, as are Gravedigger hits. Considering that we have evidence of 30k GD crits, with crits going up to 40k being reported.
That alone should give us respectable damage spikes while above 50%, pulling our overall DPS up. Below 50%, we can spam these hits, again helping the rather weak non GD hits out. While I have done little more than Mk1 Eyeballing the numbers, it looks like GS will beat out dagger in pretty much every scenario due the combination of Gravedigger and Nightfall.
That being said, it looks like new PvE encounters will require more mechanical knowledge than straight up DPS. Vale Guardian had a rather small HP pool for its role. 22 million is not that high when you have 10 people and 7-8min to do it. That is going by the one boss encounter we know though. Not enough data for accurate predictions.
As for the Reaper as tank, Death Magic helps, especially through “Rise!” with a bit of Spectral Armor for Protection uptime.
I guess now is the time to voice my own concerns.
Reaper Shroud still feels awesome. No change requested here.
Greatsword feels much smoother than in the first beta. Overall a nice weapon and kitten , I love hitting people with Gravedigger.
Shouts are, again, for the most part fine.
While I won’t go into detail for all the shouts, I want to praise the changes to “Rise!”. This went from the by far weakest shout to easily one of the strongest. The minions on it also look pretty nice.
“Suffer!” might need some work still. Rest is pretty good.
Traits are the only area where I see more than 1 issue.
Among the minors, Augury of Death feels underwhelming in the amount of life stolen because, unlike Gravedigger, you cannot spam them, even when hitting target cap.
I think this trait still needs some work.
Chilling Nova feels like it should be an on entering Reaper Shroud trait to get the chill chain starting. Given that our chills are mostly AoE, with exception of Spinal Shivers and Spectral Grasp, it also ends up being simply an extension to the existing chill.
For the Majors, Soul Eater looks a little bit weird with the lifesteal on the slowest hit but once you realise that it is still the group fight option, it becomes a respectable amount of healing from a single trait. Especially when you factor in Gravediggers recharge behaviour.
Overall, really nice elite spec. Can’t wait for HoT release.
That has been known since the start of BWE2. No dev comment so far but it is assumed that it is intentional.
Looks cool. Why do you have Sigils of both Leeching and Hydromancy suggested, through? They’re both on-swap Sigils and thus can’t both activate on the same weapon set.
That refers to multiple instances of the same sigil. Just tested it with hydromancy and battle, just to make sure. Both work.
As for the build, pretty nice overall although I prefer Death Nova over Corrupter’s Fervor.
You’re right that scepter is now the pur condition weapon that it always should have been.
But the fact remains that scepter scales on nothing right now. The power coeffients are the worst the the game & the condition coefficients are even worse.
Are scepter users supposed to be running Nomad’s?
Serious question.
I’d say we play with the changes, see what works and what doesn’t and then come back to Robert Gee with feedback once we tried a few different builds.
As said by Irenio, there shall be more patches.
So, scepter just got a buff to both its baseline and it’s traited version. Total amount of baseline ticks increase. Total amount of traited ticks remain roughly the same but you stack AA bleeds faster.
Same with Grasping Dead. Minimal damage gain through partial ticks when traited but the baseline is stronger.
Feast of Corruption lost what never should’ve been there(power per condi on a condi weapon) and got some conditions and more reliable LF at the cost of max LF generation. Torment not scaling with movement is likely a skill fact bug.
CPC buff quite welcome even if it lost a few ticks in the process though it maintains higher stacks now. I’d say it’s a net gain.
Axe is a step in the right direction. Gonna have to play with it to make further comments.
Rest is mostly bug fixes.
“Suffer!” never granted stability. That was only “You are all weaklings!” and even then only to prevent you from getting CC’d while you cast your stunbreak. Functionality did not change in that regard as it barely covered anything other than the cast.
To the people wondering, RS5 ice field pulses. At least it did in the last BWE.
Might be a bit late but I’d like to see Chilling Nova as an “on entering RS” trait. I bet I’d look really nice and take the crit RNG out. Not sure about potential balance issues though.
Lastly, a question for Robert Gee.
Is it intended that you cannot break the stuns on Executioner’s Scythe and “Chilled to the Bone!”? Due to them placing “Reaper’s Frost” instead of a normal stun onto the target I mean.
It’s a 5 target 2 second AoE almost complete disable since it places an effect called Reaper’s Frost instead of a stun onto the target, making it unbreakable by stun breaks. In addition, it’s the second longest base chill application in the game while being one of the few if not the only one above 3s that hits multiple targets. If used with some people around you, it also gives you quite a bit of stability.
And all of this on a cooldown that can be as low as 78s traited when you use it in the situations it is intended for. I’d argue that it’s strong enough already and further buffing it would put it firmly into the overpowered skills category.
I feel that it’s close to being good, but it’s being held back in one way or another. If the cooldown was reduced to 90s with the chill duration to compensate, it could be more applicable.
I’m also thinking if they want to keep it at 120s, at least change the stun to encasing foes in a solid block of ice like Deep Freeze on Frost Bow. Would be powerful but well justified and add more to the Reaper’s theme of chilling foes.
The stun on it is, at least currently, unbreakable. Was playing around with it on an otherwise empty sPvP server with guildies when some of them noted that they couldn’t break out of it. I would refrain from buffing it even further because it is really strong right now. Executioner’s Scythe’s stun also prevents stun breaks from working. No idea whether this is a bug or intended as it was originally stated by Robert Gee that it would be a normal stun.
For Master of Corruption, I’d like to see a stacking condition damage
(or cdamage+power) buff and maybe a bit LF for every condition that the necromancer inflicts either on himself or draws off of allies, Corrupter’s Fervour style. Possibly on transfers too. That is, have this instead of the higher cooldown reduction.
While I’d like it to be per condition currently applied to the necromancer, like Mallyx, doing so would mean that friendly condition clears turn into a negative experience.
As for damaging conditions not scaling with Necromancer condition damage. Fairly certain that would result in them always working as if at 0 CDamage, even when transferred, turning them from a potential element to use in your playstyle to thematic fluff that is at worst taking up a spot on a transfer or blocks a friendly cleanse.
Guardians get the same passives but the active effects of their virtues are drastically different, essentially turning them into completely different abilities the same way Signet of Spite and Bane Signet are different abilities with different functions despite having the same passive effect.
That being said, I think it’s fine. At least last BWE, I had no problems with only having Reaper Shroud available. It also keeps Reaper from encroaching onto the long range/backline territory of base Necromancer.
This trait is quite ridiculous when paired with someone running boonshare. With a tempest or boonshare mesmer it’s actually pretty close to being broken because you get so much LF. Regroups usually gave me most of my LF back too. My guild group mostly runs 5-10 people and for the most part, I was functionally immortal while running BB.
For other modes though, I wouldn’t pick it and would like to see it changed in some ways so it’s less composition dependent as it basically requires you to run with guardians or eles.
Something that is interesting to note is that Hydromancy inflicts the chill first and then damages nearby enemies. This effect can also crit, allowing it to proc Chilling Nova. Since Reaper Shroud counts as weapon swap, you can swap in,proc Hydromancy which then, thanks to Death Perception benefits, reliably procs CN. Some quick tests before I went to bed put this at around 2.5k damage and 4s chill against the heavy target golems in HotM. This also procs Chilling Force/Victory once for every enemy around you.
It’s not much but it’s more than I expected.
Chill is already extremely strong but some people here seem to treat is as a glorified cripple.
Either uptime severely limits offensive, defensive and supportive actions an enemy can take even at the start of the fight, as they have to take additional care to preserve cooldowns because suddenly, that condi cleanse sits at 60s CD instead of 30s.
This does not seem like a one time opportunity.
I’d say we play the Reaper on the coming beta weekend to get hands on experience with the entire class and then organize some constructive feedback.
What some people miss here is that the values were likely recorded in Heart of the Mists. Weapon damage is lower there. Did a few calculations with my guardian a few days ago and got ~1015 average weapon damage for the GS.
Silverkey’s values are close enough to my own calculations or even the same.
And another reminder that all of this will be resolved in a few days as we will see the skills in the game. Working with values that are likely outdated months already, as is the case with Nightfall, since it got changed, is not exactly recommended.
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… and I wouldn’t hold it pass ANEt to make it so that if we exit reaper shroud during infusing terror, we stop getting stability.
I thought that was said during the stream and that they were debating to remove the stability all together.
No, what they said regarding Infusing Terror was that exiting RS used to remove it but they changed that. Now you can drop out of RS and keep the stability. We saw an old version of the skill.
I never stated that it is a 100% sure way to get your changes or any improvements at all into the live version, just that it’s better feedback for game designers to work with.
I agree with Bhawb. Even if the changes are ultimately correct, we are still in beta and as seen with Revenant and Blood Magic, they do listen to feedback.
Well yes but the feedback needs to fit in with the theme of the class. Just need to keep that in mind when we star to give feedback on the spec.
From what a few game developers told me in the past, the best kind of feedback is just outlining your issues with a given piece of their design. Explain why you think that it’s not optimal and if possible, add some more evidence in form of math, get a discussion about potential applications going, all that stuff.
Meanwhile, jumping straight to “It should be like this instead” or “I want it to be like this” is not considered very helpful.
I agree with Bhawb. Even if the changes are ultimately correct, we are still in beta and as seen with Revenant and Blood Magic, they do listen to feedback.
No, the wiki is wrong. It has been shown as five target cleave but the wiki showed it as 3 cleave right after. Unless there was a dev comment I missed, it should still be 5 targets.
(edited by CCLegion.5936)
Alright, bad news. Wiki lists the chat codes for the traits and they work ingame. I just verified it for myself. Cold Shoulder changes are correct, same with Shivers of Dread, Chilling Nova and Chilling Force, now renamed Chilling Victory.
Gravedigger’s target limit however was wrong the entire time. Not just recently.
Id be more concerned about them putting an ICD on chilling force than blighters boon.
Well technically it already has a 1 second per target ICD, according to the description of the trait on the wiki, but I feel like the traits effects are too weak for little chill most builds not using GS autos will be able to put out.
And so it begins….
Also on the wiki, Chilling Nova has a 15 second ICD.
Looking worse and worse…
EDIT: So, even more lousy news.
- Shivers of Dread: reduced to 2 seconds of Chill on Fear from 3.
- Cold Shoulder: reduced to 10% damage reduction from 15%. Also reduced to 10% Chill duration from 20%.
- Chilling Nova reduced to 2 seconds of Chill from 3. 180 radius.
- No stun break at all on shouts.
- Gravedigger reduced to 3 targets from 5.
- Nightfall does not Cripple, though it does blind and damage on each pulse. 300 radius, 4 seconds
- Executioner’s Scythe is 1.5 seconds of Chill. Not sure what it was before, but this is ridiculously short.
But hey! Chilling Force had its Might duration buffed from 4 seconds to 5!
The wiki has been wrong on several parts of Reaper for a while now but I never felt like correcting them. They are using the outdated tooltip shown for Nightfall since Reaper reveal even though Robert Gee said that the skill changed drastically.
Chilling Force might lasted for 5s in the reveal.
No stunbreak on shouts because they still use the outdated tooltip for “You are all weaklings!” while removing the stunbreak from “Suffer!”, which is correct.
Chilling Nova was 1.5s chill with the same radius in the reveal, which would actually make this a buff but nothing supports it.
There is no evidence for the reductions for Shivers of Dread, Cold Shoulder and Gravedigger as we saw neither GS skills nor Reaper traits since May. Same with the Chilling Nova and Chilling Force ICDs.
Executioner’s Scythe did not change. The chill on it is for the ice field it leaves, which makes it the only AoE part of the skill.
tl;dr: Most of these changes are completely unsupported and I have no idea where they came from.
The aoe pulsing blinds are scaling though atleast up to 5 enemies.The LF generating skills also scale up to 3 and 5 enemies. Not saying it will be enough but you do have some scaling defenses on gs.
It’s actually just a one time aoe blind, and that’s only assuming the targets are in the aoe at the end of its duration.
That tooltip was outdated when they showed off the reaper skills. It’s a 6s dark field that pulses blinds and cripple. They talked about how it changed on the stream. Used it as example as to how their development works.
Now, the calculations are moot as the numbers are more than 2 months old and have very likely changed by now.
This is the concern I have. We need to be able to beta test the reaper far enough in advance of it going live so there is time to correct some things and avoid having another bottom feeder class. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been the case to date and frankly it concerns me that they aren’t doing a broader spectrum test. If they continue to use the same people that currently test the Necromancer we have no real hope of this being viable because they obviously think Necro is ok today. I wish they would do a much better job at communicating their progress on specializations because it is a core part of their expansion and were in lieu of new races people were very much expecting.
I fully expect BWEs to come soon. According to their twitter, they are currently recording voices, which is usually done towards the end of a game’s development cycle.
We will likely get more information about it at GamesCom next week. I’d be surprised if we didn’t.
Assuming that the tooltips were recorded in an sPvP lobby with 1951 power(which was what spoj assumed IIRC), those numbers are wrong. I think he forgot that average weapon damage in sPvP is a bit lower than in WvW/PvE. Around 1015 for greatswords if I recall correctly. Running my Guardian’s GS AA chain through the tooltip damage calculation confirms this.
This would put the GS auto attack chain at roughly 0.85, 0.85, 1.0. According to the wiki, a warrior GS chain takes around 2.5s. In the reaper stream, we were looking at around 3s for the reaper GS chain. Example, 11:32 is the start of the AA chain, which finishes at roughly 11:35. By 11:36, the first strike landed again.
Meanwhile, we are looking at 0.6, 0.6, 1.2 for the RS auto chain, assuming that it also uses your weapon strength. This is over what seems to be around 2.4s though I did not time it that accurately.
Now, the calculations are moot as the numbers are more than 2 months old and have very likely changed by now.
15% of it is added to the class baseline so you don’t have to spec into it to get the benefits.
Works like that for all the class specific stats if I recall it correctly.
Two small things I want to add.
Well of Blood
Turning it into an ice field would fit much better thematically as many of our abilities are already cold themed. Frost aura and additional chills would also synergize with Bitter Chill though the vuln application might be a bit overkill.
Though this won’t work without a few usable finishers so without that, it’s a moot point.
Water would also work and they are stronger but don’t fit as well thematically.
Still don’t know why there’s a light field on a necromancer.
Vampiric
I don’t know why it’s far less effective than completely passive health regeneration options that are in similar positions for other classes even when you take additional traits to support it. Referring to Adrenal Health and Backpack Regenerator here.
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