Guild Wars 2

Jackums.3496:

I’m using ascended Sinister trinkets because with the +20% condi duration from Viper armor/weapons, I have +100% fear duration, +80% confusion duration, +70% bleed duration, and a +50% duration for all other conditions (with consumables).

Basically I wanted to hit the +100% fear duration mark for synergy with Terror, then I invested the rest of my stats into offense via Sinister prefix.

How’s that setup working for you? Are you enjoying it more than straight Sinister?

“Blighter’s Boon” as a name would fit even more so. While “boons” as a category in this game are basically “buffs” in another game, the definition of ‘a helpful thing caused by harming other things’ definitely fits…

I can understand this change, but hope it leads to more healing through shroud options coming from other players.

Bhawb.7408:

Edit: Reaper’s Shroud ressing works exactly the same as Death Shroud, but the non-res healing only affects allies within Soul Spiral’s shorter range, the tradeoff being an extra few ticks of healing.

The non-res healing has the same 600 range and number of pulses in either shroud form; in Reaper’s Shroud it heals farther away than Soul Spiral does damage. Transfusion itself doesn’t change.

nekretaal.6485:

Is it possible to resurrect players in Reaper Shroud?

If no, that’s a big problem.

Transfusion works the same way in Reaper Shroud. Same distance, number of pulses, etc. It’s just available more often.

If you mean walking up and interacting with a player in order to manually raise them, then yep, works the same that way too. Even better, since you can give yourself stab for it!

striker.3704:

I don’t particularly much care for threads like these as they are pretty off topic. But whatever good luck and all that.

I bet you are a very well adjusted and happy individual. Thanks for spreading your cheer!

Akrasia.5469:

I’m thinking Ghostly Death Knight. I think the white to to black contrast when going into Reaper Shroud will be awesome. I’m so glad I got Chiroptophobia. This is going to be an awesome sword for a fearsome necro.
Not sure which shoulders to go with.. What do you think?

Looks pretty neat and different! If you could dye the phantom hood glows different colors, that would be even better.

Dinks.2478:

http://i.imgur.com/Lp2lJ1k.png

Pretty spoopy.

Tim.6450:

I can’t decide between two looks. First is a bit more simple and formal look but it looks kinda battle ready while not going full heavy armed or I go with a more monster-themed, armored look. If I’m going greatsword then the first look would go with belinda’s greatsword and the second on with the ceremonial scimitar, modniir sunderer, ogre longsword or pirate slayer.

The second, with the mask, speaks to me.

I’m actually really curious why those who don’t like the class, and haven’t liked it for a long time, are still playing it? What is the draw?

As for Reaper, feels a little early to tell. I’d definitely like to see changes to axe, scepter, staff, and damage mods / active survival, but I don’t think anyone’s had enough time with the spec and matchups to determine it better or worse.

Seems fine for DS, though I would welcome transfusion being usable more often.

I almost wish power/healing Reaper had a better way to proc Blood Bond than equipping a staff, though. :/

^ Such a QoL improvement.

It’s not ideal. : (

I found myself going back to dagger for general pve in the new zones.

You sound like a fun guy.

Cool. So if it wouldn’t change for you with this other option, then it shouldn’t affect how you see it, eh?

I used it while I didn’t have enough Hero Points to buy all my shouts. Soon as I got 2 shouts other than the heal, I went back to Augury.

I’d almost prefer it not have the requirement of chill being present to proc, just so I felt like it did more than just an aoe auto attack.

Buuuuuut myyyyy faaaaaashion waaaaars.

I can see what you’re saying, but you could just dye both sections the same color if that’s what you wanted. For everyone else, they could dress the hood up.

So uh… it looks amazing, but it’s hard to slot into different clothing options when it only has one dye slot. : (

If it could have the fringes and perhaps a stripe up over the top of the hood that’s tied to a different dye part of the hood, that’d be great.

I was using it in preparation for CttB.

I got CttB.

I kept using Golem.

It does so much work on the new content.

spoj.9672:

Maybe this bug is a good enough reason to get the aftercast reduced?

How do I +100 this

Poison wasn’t reduced on RS#4. It was always 12. You were probably getting whirled poison bolts.

Soul Eater healing seems to be higher by about 90?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3pwdzu/new_stats_and_specialization_runes/

Quadox.7834:

Glov.5342:

As a necromancer, I am nearly crying.

BRB rolling a mesmer

Why? I’d go so far as to say well necro benefits much more

“Completing a heroic specialization grants a new, unique piece of armor and unlocks the ability to craft a new rune set for the specialization.” Not sure if they’re account bound after creation, but if you want them outside of pvp, you’ll need to finish off the chronomancer mastery track.

gavyne.6847:

Worth noting there are beta weekend videos of Reaper WvW roaming, you can check them out.

Donee’s our resident Condi Reaper extraordinaire: http://www.youtube.com/donee
There’s always Hollts for good ’ol Power Reaper ownage: http://www.youtube.com/user/HolltsGaming

There are others, these 2 guys just came to my mind for WvW roaming. I’m no celebrity like the other guys above, but I had fun playing cele signet & zerker/valk reaper builds over BWE3. Here’s a vid I made with solo roaming & +1 fights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXiDPZBGURI

Reapers are just fun times, 2 more days!

That framerate… mmmmmmm

Rudy.6184:

Wait, wait. Some folks still belive that necro is worse then other classes right now? Less dmg? Srsly? Cele necro so weak.

Reaper has too much dmg, cause the mightstacking (ppl tend to have 25 stacks at ease).

I see 0 metrics showing what the “too much dmg” is here. This is endemic to the entire thread.

nekretaal.6485:

The real problem, however, is that the choice here is a false choice. Dagger, Greatsword, nd Reaper shroud are all functionally the same thing and that everything else stinks.

#pleaseFixAxeFocusScepter

I agree with this part. Greatsword feels good to me until I use it on Guardian or Warrior (especially with the passive procs they get for quickness). Dagger feels meh. Axe feels like soggy poo. Scepter feels better, but still meh.

I really, really wish we had some form of quickness (Danse Macabre ?) from something other than a 3s proc on a 30s cooldown from weapon sigils. : /

#pleaseFixAxeFocusScepterStaffandPassiveTraits

Rym.1469:

You people are going crazy. It’s 2 days before xpac releases, it’s obvious they don’t have much time and won’t be posting left and right.

I NEED INFORMATiON NOW BEFORE MY FiNGER SNAPS IN HALF FROM REFRESHiNG THE NECRO BOARD.

That was more to ease the idea that it might have been nerfed since BWE3.

My point is, if you didn’t like it at BWE3, you probably won’t like it now. If you did, you will.

Joel said Reaper was approved for launch after BWE3, and that he’s been testing it a lot. Maybe that helps easy your anxiety?

A feedback thread is for feedback from the players, not a response from the devs TO that feedback.

If there are changes, they will be available in 3 days.

Nike.2631:

/Wash voice

“That part will pretty definitely happen.”

/Wash voice

;)

This need to have the change list ASAP is entertaining, though!

Yeah, if we could see release changes soon, that’d be great. Say, a week from now?

Luckily, Dhuumfire is a decent dps bonus to RS autos even in power builds, if you would be full on crit from elsewhere and didn’t take DP.

Charblaze.6958:

I still think the whole life steal on GS idea should be scrapped due to the slowness, unless it’s related to death spiral.

I don’t even think it needs to be scrapped. I think it just needs to scale much, much better with than it does now with both stats AND the skill that’s being hit with. If Gravedigger/AA procced a BIG lifesteal hit that scaled well with power, healed well with healing power, but procced smaller (but still well scaling) lifesteal hits from Death Spiral, then it works well. So far, none of the siphons have scaled well at all short of all vamp effects on a Death Spiral that hits 3 targets in BWE2.

Hell, what if those big, scaling lifesteals splashed healing to allies?

When making claims like that, you’ve really got to show the math used to reach that conclusion.

Charblaze.6958:

I’m still not happy with Soul Eater and Chilling Nova.

Life leach on GS still doesn’t convince me. At least before you could use death spiral to pile a lot of heal, restricting it to gravedigger made it worse. In my opinion Soul eater is a PvE trait, because the other 2 options are too good in PvP and WvW. As a PvE trait I’d like to see some form of party support from this trait. Same thing for Chilling Nova, it should be a damage boost against chilled foes plus AoE chill on crit.

I don’t even see it being a PvE trait. It doesn’t add to your damage noticeably, and barely adds to your survivability (5 targets, spammed, is a warriors healing signet). I agree that it was better when working on Death Spiral at smaller numbers. That also helped the weapon to feel less completely weighted behind GD damage. I feel Spiral and Grasp could use damage buffs anyway.

I’d love to see some sort of party support come from it that also just helps you do damage. An attack speed buff that stacks with successive GS skill landings, so the longer you’re in combat with the reaper, the harder it gets to dodge hits that have begun to land faster. Then half/third of this speed buff is given to allies. But this might be too strong alongside quickness (hi Shiro Rev). Or a stacking lifesteal buff caused by GS attacks, but works on all attacks (so you still get the benefit in Shroud). That or what was previewed when Reaper was first shown, X procs of something over Y seconds. This could be lifesteal, so long as it’s strong enough, which the current rendition is not. I think the similar lifesteal amount works better on Augury, because shouts are so much easier to reliably land than Gravedigger, especially on many enemies in a big fight, due to the range and significantly lower cast times.

Was I the only one happy with YSIM when running Augury?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Part of the issue that ANet is going to run into is that they have two roles, “support” and “control”, that are so insanely general that I don’t know how you even begin to balance classes for those roles. “Damage” is damage, and I know there is AoE vs. Single Target, but at least it’s pretty cut and dry.

General, but I don’t know if they’re unable to balance around the ideas.

Control is how you affect enemies, outside of damage.
Support is how you affect allies. (*Possibly outside of direct healing, depending on source and game).

Added to:

Damage, single target.
Damage, AoE.
Survivability (active and passive, though this can again cause a split depending on fight mechanics).
(*Healing).

So the classes have to have enough of those different categories mixed together in order to be “viable”. Though, as you say, some specs will be better at one scenario than others. But keep in mind your other point…

Cogbyrn.7283:

When every class can sort of spec to do basically anything, they fuzz the lines too much to really have a clear vision of balance for PvE.

If every class can spec to adequately fill each above category, you have less fuzz and potentially total balance. Unfortunately, you also get closer to homogenization, where the differences in classes are aesthetic. ¯\(- _- )/¯

Though that brings up an interesting point. How many people would be perfectly happy playing a Warrior that has Reaper aesthetics (animations, scythes, spell effects, etc.)? Or an Elementalist, with the same Necro aesthetics?

Wintermute.5408:

Meanwhile in ele’s forums :P Or any other for that matter

Trying to make a new, balanced addition attractive to those used to running the old and unbalanced has proven predictably difficult. Weird!

Soul Eater could possibly give a pulsing aoe lifesteal that either scales with the number of enemies, or deals/heals for X, divided by the number of enemies in the area, up to Y. (This is while wielding a GS, and in addition to the recharge reduction for GS skills.)

nearlight.3064:

The GS is a really fun and interesting weapon but I fear it won’t be used outside of PvE, but I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that we’ll be using dagger/warhorn in PvP for the rest of this game’s life time. Its just too clunky and slow, even if it does hit like a truck, Reaper’s Shroud abilities are all the cleave we really need.

Unfortunately, I agree. : ( As soon as I got over wanting to hit high damage gravediggers, and went back to dagger MH, I found I was doing just as well by spamming auto, had better sustain with D2 than Soul Eater GS, and had the utility
of the offhands (even dagger offhand on a power build, to get the additional condi transfer). It may not have been ‘better’ in every encounter, but it did feel more consistent. I missed those massive Gravedigger whomps, and camping a downed player, though.

Swinging with a dagger mh will give you higher damage than camping Lifeblast.

I don’t know that there’s much which is overly challenging while leveling. So you could really go with either playstyle and the matching traitline until you reach your third. : D

Were you finding that held true for more than 1v1s? Every time I had a second person hitting me from out of range of my YAAW, and who hadn’t been hit for the weakeing from shroud, I dropped pretty fast. Rise does help quite a bit before the minions are killed though!

I’m a little worried that dagger + warhorn/focus/dagger will end up being better than the Greatsword just for consistency’s sake in PVP if there aren’t more % damage modifiers added, Gravedigger doesn’t hit twice (for half damage each) or have a reduced aftercast, or Death Spiral doesn’t do more damage. I’d really like to see an evade frame on Death Spiral, or see it get some Lifesteal back from Soul Eater.

This is probably too late in the game, but axe animations can be changed quickly eh? :

I’d really love for the animation of Gravedigger to have an upswing, then a downswing, with the up hitting the target .5s or so after the start of the animation, the the downswing being the 1.25s after start. The upswing doing 1/4 or 1/5 of the damage, then the downswing doing the rest would make the swing feel better weighted and balanced between feast and famine based on dodging a lengthy and well telegraphed skill. The opponent could still dodge the majority of damage, but the Reaper still gets something in, rather than spending 1.25 (probably 1.5 or so with aftercast) for nothing.

- An animation that looks like the character is dragging the flat of the greatsword up towards the target with the upswing, then slamming it down on the… downswing would look great for this. Digging the grave, then putting the target into it. (Also, what a fantastic place for a blast finisher, that second swing where the sword is slammed down onto the ground?)

The current double swing whirl animation looks amazing… but awkward for what the skill does. There’s only one hit, rather than two, and the name of the skill is Grave digger not Grave trimmer.

Brayzz.6524:

I dont know the aftercast animation times

I think this is unfortunately a big deal. The aftercast on Gravedigger is quite a bit (I also don’t know it exactly!), and will reduce the dps substantially.

I tried a few variations on this during the weekend. I found that I pretty much had to run tanky as Reaper in order to stand up to… anything. Every time I went with a Marauder’s amulet, I just died. Even Valk felt a little weak on defense in some situations.

This made me come to 2 realizations:

I couldn’t let go of Blighter’s Boon.
I couldn’t use Soul Eater.

Decimate Defenses became almost necessary just to put out enough damage that I wasn’t ignored, since I wasn’t taking precision on amulets (and don’t get enough from Traveler’s runes). I could drop this for Chilling Victory just to be more sustainable alongside Blighter’s Boon, but I could never really get much out of Soul Eater.

Blighter’s Boon felt almost required to make up for dodgy (lolgetit?) Greatsword happenings. I really, really, really wanted to make Reaper’s Onslaught work with Transfusion, but I felt I was giving up too much sustain even when taking Blood Magic, and therefore not Spite, if I didn’t have BB (which should tell something about the self sustain in BM : / ).

The choice of Runes felt like a wash. Traveler’s let me actually move somewhere without taking Signet of the Locust (which I’m also having a hard time not taking), but I missed being able to cleanse with Soldier’s.

Soldier’s felt great, especially with the new Augury making for the most fun builds, but still being without a solid ranged weapon (axe wasn’t cutting it, lolgetitagain?) left me missing Relentless Pursuit here and there. It also felt slow unless I took SotL.

Vydahr.4285:

then run

I didn’t get very far : (

How are you faring against Rampage warriors? I find if I take CttB, run into a warrior, it gets really big and growly, I might as well go get a drink from the kitchen.

I think they all look great!

Augury change actually feels great. If you run a tanky build and throw yourself into big fights, you’re super difficult to bring down.

CttB feels good, but not quite there. Even running into a big teamfight with Augury and firing it off, the cd feels a bit too long. I think maybe 60 could be a sweet spot. This isn’t Plague or even Lich (and definitely not Rampage), the cd doesn’t need to be restrictive to every other fight or two.

YaaW and NCSY feel fantastic. Even YSIM feels great when running Augury. Suffer is okayish, but I feel like the transfer numbers in 1v1 could be higher (I’ve been running offhand dagger with my axe, instead of Warhorn because of this). Maybe it’s trying to do too much between damage, transfer, and chill. Rise feels amazing. Possibly even too good with the Death Magic traits. But since we have to give up one of the MM lines to get it, that’s probably ok.

Soul Eater feels… okay, but I think it contributes too much to the overloading of Gravedigger on the GS.

Greatsword… It’s the weapon we wanted, but I feel like it’s a Gravedigger and Nightfall stick. Grasp is fantastic when it works, but too short-range to really prevent people from leaving the fight with you. Death Spiral gives decent LF and Vuln, but with Soul Eater no longer giving it lifesteal, it feels lackluster. I feel like the 20% cdr + the old (but buffed) lifesteal on Soul Eater would make the weapon feel better on builds where I’m trying to maximize time using it. Keep in mind that this weapon basically just gives damage, chill, and vuln. It doesn’t give mobility or support, so I see no reason that any ability on it should do as pitiful of damage as Death Spiral and Grasp currently do.

Axe could still use some help. :’ (