Guild Wars 2

traviswrdunbar.4780:

In the beta, I was messing around with pow/vit/tough armor, and all the traits dedicated to shroud skills. With as fast as the reaper’s auto is Dhuumfire feels like a must to just pile burning on victims, even if you aren’t spec’d for condition damage.

I will be honest, I didn’t do pvp with it, but I was killing mobs while in Reaper Shroud faster than any other character I’d played yet.

I don’t PvP either, so it’s no big deal.

It does seem to hit hard which is why I’m contemplating if boosting that end of things versus the power/ferocity end wouldn’t be smarter.

I’ve been working on my build (current valk/zerker power-based Reaper with Spite/SR) and for the most part I just sit in RS spamming RS4 and AA unless I have to recharge.

I’m contemplating making the switch to Sinister and a more condition-based build because with Dhuumfire, the numbers seem to show that DPS skyrockets with the higher condition damage vs ferocity. The only thing that worries me is that anything outside of RS (GS and Axe/Focus are what I currently have) are going to simply tickle.

Any thoughts on this?

If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. Just try to make your reply constructive and not rage-filled…

I just finished unlocking my Reaper a few days ago (before the nerf from 400 to 250 HP) and though it had its fun moments I would not want to repeat that on my alts. I managed to solo most of those events by the skin of my teeth and I’m not sure I could do it on my other toons without help…

That said, I am not proposing a difficulty decrease because I greatly enjoy HoT new difficulty, but like many others have said they should at least figure out a way for HP to be soloable (but still difficult) so that when the maps inevitably empty we can still unlock our elite specs.

Possible solution? Followers
If I remember correctly, GW1 had followes and in the story mode you have followers in the sense of your group of lackeys (though they’re iffy). Don’t see why adding a one-follower per person mechanic would be too bad; it would allow people to pick a follower that complements their play-style so they could then to those things by themselves. I would still think they could have better rewards for people who do work together (more xp/karma/whatever) but at least it would be doable.

Some problems with this are obvious:
- Having followers in dungeons (prohibit followers in groups bigger than 2 people or in dungeons altogether).
- Large-scale events and bosses (like Dragon’s Stand) would not require as many people, which some could see as a problem (though most aren’t too difficult anyway).
-WvW and PvP (not allowed seems easy enough unless someone else has another solution).

I don’t expect this thread to go anywhere, but I thought it was interesting and would share and see what other people thought; hopefully this thread remains peaceful :p

Sentinel.5731:

Which I guess makes me one of you now?

- Cheers

Welcome to the club!

Unfortunately, most of the ones who hate the “zerker elitist jerks” don’t realize that there’s a difference between good players hoping to find like-skilled individuals and the nimrods who think they’re good and know what they’re doing, but just kitten everyone off as follows:

Nimrod posts in group finder: LVL 80 Zerker No Newbs Ping Gear or Get Kicked
Player joins group
Nimrod: You have Zerker gear, right?
Player: Gives logical explanation as to why his gear isn’t literally all berseker’s gear
Nimrod: OMG I ****IN SAID ZERKER ONLY WTF NEEEEEEWB. YOURE LUCKY WE WANT TO START NOW OR YOU’D BE SO KICKED
Proceeds to start dungeon/fractal. Nimrod thinks that just have berserker gear makes him invincible and fails to realize dodging and staying mobile are key, leading to him getting group killed.
Nimrod: OMG I TOLD YOU GUYS LETTING THIS KID IN WAS A BAD IDEA KICK HIM NOW ITS ALL HIS FAULT!
Group proceeds to fall apart because either Nimrod attempts kicking them or no one wants to put up with the crap and finds another group

Kinda over-exaggerating, but I’m sure I’m not the only one whose dealt with those people…whereas good players don’t usually care what gear you have so long as you don’t slow things down and cause unnecessary deaths/time consumption. It’s nothing personal – sometimes we feel like helping out people that need to learn – sometimes we just wanna face-roll things.

Clairenix.2780:

I bring staff alot just to build up my bloodlust but it’s quite a bit lackluster in the Maguuma Jungle, I was looking at the axe for another ranged alternative…

Also, I ‘ve been looking at wearing a warhorn so I wouldn’t need to slot spectral walk anymore. The reaper is extremely slow :\

What do you guys think?

I have always carried a gratuitous amount of weapons for different situations. GS is fun and I’ve tried it was D/F, A/F and staff.

D/F provides nice single/dual-target damage, but between that, GS and RS there’s no ranged capabilities.

Staff is nice if you need some ranged, but it obviously has the flaws we all know about

A/F seems to be my favorite thus far, I can build vulnerability and LF with it and it gives me a ranged option when my health gets low. Either way, definitely pumped to finally be playing the Reaper!

I don’t think this is a bug, but I’m having a hard time with it.

I’m working on the Twilight collection and at the point for the Cathedral of Zephyrs, The instance I’m in already had the Cathedral open and after waiting two hours, the “maintain the cathedral” event came up. We succeeded the event, but no chest showed up.

I don’t think this is a bug for certain, but does this require allowing the temple to fall before reclaiming it?

quaniesan.8497:

@OP, does it occur to you that the one who needs to chill….is you?

O.o chill-ception

Labjax.2465:

I hate to harsh your mellow, bro, but if it was like a leveling cap, the elite specs would require XP. I have never heard of a level cap increase that requires you to go do special challenges across four different maps, some of which are gated behind XP just to access them at all, to level up your character.

If you compare it to a level cap increase, then it’s kind of like this: Level up a few times in layer one of level cap increase, so that you can go do a special challenge to level up once in layer two of level cap increase. If you put it in the framework of a level cap increase, it would be horribly convoluted.

I didn’t mean to literally compare it, my bad.

When people level from 1-80 “the first time” it’s usually somewhat fun because people aren’t so focused on the end goal, they’re actually enjoying the content and getting to 80 is simply a byproduct of their questing/exploring. If people viewed the unlocking of an elite mastery in the same way, it wouldn’t be as painful.

I’m not disagreeing that this “you need this to get this to try this to obtain this” method is right and doesn’t need adjusting to make it better, but if we had it unlocked immediately like everyone wants than it kinda defeats the purpose in my head.

Seera.5916:

You’re missing the point of the people who have voiced their displeasure.

They don’t want to play through the new content (excluding elite specs for those who consider them content) with the core specs. They want to play through the new content with fully unlocked elite specs.

ANet has also removed the player’s choice of what order they get to experience the new content. They’ve made map completion and masteries have to be the first two looked at.

To be fair, if you did previous map completion you can unlock enough of the elite spec to still be viable in the new content.

Nonetheless, I agree with you that there needs to be other ways to unlock the elite specialization than what we currently have – I thought that from the beginning. I just think a lot of people are agitated that they aren’t having everything given to them in the first 5 minutes of logging on and it’s a little crazy cause if we got everything from the get-go, we’d run out of stuff to do fairly quick.

Before people go ranting at me, let me provide the scenario:

I’ve owned GW2 since launch, been playing MMOs since 1999 and mostly prefer to solo the open-world content. Like the rest of us, I was pumped to play my reaper in HoT and with the old content, especially considering the boost the base necro still needs.

I log in and, to my amazement, my hero points from map completion were only enough to unlock a piece of the reaper. Come to find out, the only way to unlock the rest of it was to do these hero challenges in Maguuma. Was I peeved – a bit – but I sucked it up, equipped what little of the reaper I had, and went into the Jungle.
“Okay, let’s try this.”

As expected, the content was more difficult. I could solo some regular events and most of the mobs, then I got to my first hero challenge. Champion spawned, got totally annihilated while only bringing him down to 75% health.
“Okay, maybe it’s just this one hero challenge.”

Went to find another one, turned out it was buried under one of those nuhoch things. The only way to unlock it was to travel ALL the way to tangled depths, unlock that mastery line, and level up that specific mastery. At this point I was peeved, I was all for playing new content but having it crammed down my throat in order to obtain a specialization I thought I’d have at the start?
This is the point I think most of you are at.

I logged off an took a couple hours to go do life-crap. As I was out and about, I thought back and decided that I should look at the quest to obtain my reaper similar to my quest initially to get to level 80; a lengthy-ish trek but much more rewarding at the end than simply obtaining it from the get-go. I logged back on, changed my build to a more survival setup, and tried again.

With this mindset it instantly became WAY better to play the expo. I was able to solo all the hero challenges I did attempt (though it wasn’t easy) and I actually took the time to explore the world and do the story, which has been great up until this point. The masteries are unlocking as I play and I’m almost finished unlocking the full reaper, but I still feel inclined to play.

So relax, people. It’s a process no doubt and I’m sure most of you are like me and don’t have tons of time to play the game, but this is the first time in a while many of us have felt we have a goal. Do I think the challenges are a little hard considering many people prefer to solo? Probably. Do I think this should be the total solution when you have so many players who don’t enjoy PvE content? Probably not, but there are other ways for other players. Does it need work? Most definitely, but it’s been three days and these things take time. Besides, if we were able to unlock everything already, people would be complaining about “not enough content.”

TL;DR, relax, put your leveling face on and look at it like a new level cap. Enjoy the content, learn to play with what time you have, and let ANet work and fix what needs to be fixed. They’ve heard you guys, I’m sure they’re qualified to figure it out.

I’m sure this has been discussed previously, but oh well.

I’ve just finished acquiring the pieces of the reaper line I need for my build and I’m trying to figure out which of these two is better: I’m using full valkyrie armor/weapons with zerker trinkets and consumables in order to bring crit chance to 50% (raised to 100% after using one of the above two traits). I’m trying to figure out which of these is a better choice

1) Decimate Defenses w/ Dhuumfire: 25 stacks of vulnerability is insanely easy to get with the reaper, so the 50% crit chance boost from decimate defense is extremely solid when fighting bosses, especially with Dhuumfire packing a bit of an extra punch. However, this does not scale as well when there’s a ton of mobs that don’t have as much vulnerability

2) Death Perception w/ Chilling Victory: 50% crit boost no matter what and I gain might and life force every time I hit a chilled foe, but there’s no dhuumfire.

Since killing multi-group mobs is a reaper thing anyway and it’s never really been that difficult, I feel like the first option is the better of the two. However, I always appreciate some feedback

Quin.6105:

Are you committed to the points you spend while leveling or can you change later?
And thank you for the explanation. Now if i could just find a decent guild with team speak or etc etc

Once you spend your hero points (the points you get when you level) on your skills or specializations, I do not believe you can get them back. However, you get enough from leveling 1-80 to unlock everything and once you have them, you can switch skills and specializations any time you want so long as you are out of combat.

Each profession/class has five “specializations” that you put points into as you level in order to specialize your necromancer to be unique. The reaper is an “elite” specialization tree that is being released with the expansion and was just beta tested last weekend by the player base. Most of the forum talk right now is feedback on what they liked or disliked about the reaper specialization.

If you just started, simply try all the weapons and see which one you like the best / works best for you. Some are close-range or long-range; some deal direct damage while some inflict conditions (debuffs) to do damage over time; all of them have abilities unique to themselves. Just look through and try which ones you like.

Knighthonor.4061:

Eneldiar.9670:

Definitely Death from Family Guy

You must be very underpowered than… because he couldnt even handle Peter. Didnt he also try to harm himself? Must been a corruption reaper build…

He’s got that touch-someone-to-kill-them elite skill though. Peter’s pretty OP also

Definitely Death from Family Guy

Tim.6450:

Elbritil.3817:

Lets start a petition to anet form power/condi/ferocity stat comb

Why? Reaper with decimating defense and death perception has almost no condition application.

I’m assuming that rather than take death perception, he would take dhuumfire if he were going to use these armor stats. Assuming you keep decimate defenses and have the right buffs (fury, party buffs, food, etc.) you could feasibly get close (if not all the way) to 100% crit without any precision investment. If you could do this, you would achieve the same power-based damage (same power and ferocity, same 100% crit) but now have added damage from dhuumfire and condi damage.

It would be a cool combo, would be interesting to test out if they released it.

First off, I want to say I absolutely loved playing the reaper. Though the GS still needs some tweaks (been covered en masse by others already) I love the concept and the reaper shroud.

My one major piece of feedback (that isn’t as talked about as much) is when it comes to a ranged tactic. I want to use the GS with the reaper (since that’s a major point of the Reaper) but I also feel I need to take dagger as my second weapon because the high damage, focus/warhorn off-hand and life-force generation. Due to RS replacing DS, that leaves me with no ranged alternatives and can be a pain in the butt on certain fights. I’ve been trying to think of things they could do to make this a little better:

1) As many have talked about, make it so that DS and RS can both be used by reapers that use the same life pool.

2) I think buffing the axe would bring a lot for reaper. The life force from axe 2 with the focus/warhorn off-hand would be a solid ranged option if the axe got the right buff.

3) Right now I keep a staff as a third weapon in my inventory. Whenever I go up against a boss or into a hard single-target fight, I will usually switch GS for staff and use staff (although it doesn’t feel all that reaper-esque). Though I have no qualms with this, it would be cool if there was a ranged option that felt a bit more reaper-like in nature.

Based on what I’ve said, does anyone else have anything to add and what you hope to see in this avenue? Let’s keep things polite since that will get us the positive attention we’re hoping for.

I’m thinking about this build for PvE: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB6AVoBrw~

It works similarly to the Spite/BM/Reaper build for Dungeons, but rather than have siphoning I focus on RS uptime and combining Death Perception and Decimate Defenses for almost 100% crit. This means I can take Valkyrie gear instead of Berserker gear and still have high crit with added survivability. This will be my starting point and I’ll make it more survivable if need be.

As an almost pure PvE necro, the most common builds I see in dungeons (outside of condition) are the dagger build and the DS build. Variations of both builds can be found on metabattle.com with specializations, rotation explanation, etc.

Dagger build is fairly self-explanatory, berserker’s gear, Dagger/Focus and Warhorn in second weapon slot, use Warhorn 5 and Focus 4 while spamming dagger AA.

The DS build also uses similar weapons (although the axe can be used as a second main-hand if you really want to) and the goal is to be in DS as much as possible, this ones nice because Valkyrie gear (Power, Vitality, Ferocity) is viable because deathly perception (SR grandmaster trait) can boost your crit to nearly 100% which means minimal investment in precision and more survivability.

Either one does very well, or you can make up one and see how it does :p like I said, deeper explanations for both those builds can be found on metabattle.

Couldn’t tell you weapons, but definitely could give theme ideas and names:

Necromancer: Ritualist
I’m really looking forward to the Reaper, but with it I think there should also be a branch that focuses more on the squishy-mage part of the Necromancer. The staff is already a good weapon, but something to go with it and potentially expand upon it would be cool.

Elementalist: Conjurer
Potentially my favorite idea is to create a class that revolves around pets for the elementalist. It would have to work differently from the necromancer in some aspect because otherwise it takes away from the uniqueness of necromancer minions, but I always thought this would be cool.

Mesmer: Illusionist/Enchanter
As a profession about manipulation, it would be cool to have a class where you can manipulate enemies to fight for you for periods of time.

Ranger: Shapekittener
Not sure as the druid will cover this, but a ranger that can shapeshift into animals (perhaps through stances) would be a nifty addition.

Thief: Sniper
I think giving the thief a solid ranged weapon that can be used from far away would be fantastic. We obviously don’t know the class’ HoT specialization but this would be a cool one.

Guardian: Paladin
Class that focuses a lot on healing while fighting and allow people that thought the Paladin was going to be the original archetype of the guardian to do so.

Warrior: Reaver
It would be cool to have it so that the less health they have, the more damage they do. Not very elaborate but could be a cooll concept.

Can’t think of one for engineer or revenant off the top of my head because I don’t have enough experience with either. Just my ideas :p

As far as specializations go, I could think up specializations for every class for days on end. There are some things I would find cool, however, as time progresses:

Something beyond ascended armor: Now I am NOT saying this as a “all our old armor is worthless now” type of thing. I think they should add a higher level of armor, but it should require the previous ascended armor as a crafting ingredient.
Example: Legendary armor crafting that requires ascended piece + whatever else.
By doing this, you’re allowing more progression to be had without taking away from the players who already ventured through crafting the armor.

More PvE content: most definitely

Alternate Advancement System: I’m hoping this gets addressed by the upcoming Mastery System, but if the level cap is going to remain at 80 (which I’m totally okay with) there’s got to be some form of progression otherwise because if there isn’t, things can quickly become stagnant.

More Quest-Oriented legendaries: Another thing I believe is supposed to be addressed in HoT, but I never liked that the legendaries were simply craftable items that you could really only obtain through RNG and gold-grinding. The idea of a quest-chain or personal-story chain that could take weeks to complete is much more appealing.

Permanent Super Adventure Box: Please oh please

Dual-Profession: I know this will never happen, but it would be really cool if it could.

That’s the gist of things off of the top of my head and these are obviously opinions :p

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

1. I always thought necro was pretty survival thanks to the massive health/DS life pool as well as some tools it had. I will not that I rarely do PvP and WvW on necro so I’m coming at it from a PvE aspect, but the high health and standard dodging do well in PvE.

2. They do have spectral pull, but I do agree that it would be hard to catch somebody already at range without that. You can chill them if you pull them in, but using a utility slot for that may not be worth it depending on the situation, so I would agree with you here.

3. This —> much truth.

4. Not necessarily. If your other weapon has chill you can generate it that way and RS 3 and 5 can chill with the right traits. With another trait, you spread chill on each crit. So yes, GS reaper doesn’t have tons of chill potential without aid other than that final AA strike but it’s still there for the reaper in some areas.

6. This —> more than much truth

8. I think the traits have good synergy with vulnerability/chill/crit chance and things like that with some of the other trait lines. Not sure yet whether that’ll be enough to make Reaper viable, but I have some hope.

Although I feel you’re looking at in from a WvW or PvP perspective and I’m thinking PvE. Those are two totally different worlds that require different builds. Like I said, without playing more WvW on my necro, I couldn’t begin to say what it does and doesn’t need for it to function in WvW.

I feel the same way. I’m pumped to try some reaper stuff and though some of the shouts could be good to try out, that’s not really what makes me so pumped for the reaper.

I wanted a greatsword on my necro for some time now; the idea of a necro wielding Twilight is beyond awesome to me. The damage definitely needs to be right, especially since Dagger AA is way faster and generates life force quickly, but hopefully it makes the cut.

RS is the thing I’m looking the most forward to with my build. Hopefully they don’t nerf any of the current RS stuff because I think that’s what might help make us “viable” again in PvE (even though I couldn’t care less about viability). I’m stoked to try it and see what happens.

I would like to see axes fixed. I’m looking forward to making a reaper when HoT comes out that uses a lot of LF, but I have no idea on my second weapon because it needs to be semi-ranged and staff is iffy. If they fix axe so its 1 and 3 are better, I’d be a happy mancer.

Obviously CoF 1 and 2 aren’t bad, AC 1 and 3 don’t seem bad. I don’t mine HotW paths but I’m sure that may vary on person.

Which paths are easiest and quickest? Looking at it from a farm-gold for as many paths as possible in a day?

Muchacho.2390:

Eneldiar.9670:

I think for the moment reaper has quite a bit of chill if specced right. GS AA has cleave chill and if you have the trait where your crit spreads chill and high precision than you’re doing pretty good. RS 3 and 5 can give chill with rights traits and with 100% crit chance, every AA would give chill.

But the thing with chilling nova is that you would have to give up relentless pursuit. And that trait is in my opinion to good to give up in pvp.

I can see how that would be a crappy thing to give up for PvP.

nekretaal.6485:

Eneldiar.9670:

In my research thus far on potential Reaper builds, I see two main types of builds in existence:
1 – Builds that use the reaper traitline to enhance their current build
2 – Builds revolving around reaper shroud.

If someone goes with the #1 route, then they’ll likely keep their old weapons. If they go with #2 route, Dagger autoattack generates life force whereas GS AA doesn’t (again, this is assuming that GS damage is comparable to dagger and not significantly higher).

What weapon do you pair with greatsword?

Probably Staff. You need the range. You need the conditions transfer and you need the fear (please disable weapon swapping while feared). Both staff 3 and 5 will chill. You’ll want that.

But staff has awful life force generation.

How much of our current life force generation comes from Warhorn? Most of it? You are giving up that and the quick life force from dagger auto.

I don’t think Reaper has enough chill for the chill trait to generate much. (And it will generate life force in ‘snowball’ situations when you dont need it). That leaves the Reaper depending on blighter’s boon. But where are your boons coming from? Do you get boons more than once every five seconds (spite might is snowball situation dependent. It’s not going to help when you need it)

The fix Reaper needs is for anet to finally get up and fix axe and focus.

Axe needs greater damage scaling coefficient and finisher on 3 (it should be a utility weapon because it nerfs your shroud damage. Vulnerability generation is not useful if necromancer doesn’t have the defensive tools to survive in a team fight).

Focus seems to exist now as a “set up an enemy for a team damage spike.” weapon. But if the necromancer can’t survive in these situations, it sees no use. Spike strategies in general are bad in a game with no strong healers.

It should be made a spammy control weapon. No bonus damage, 2 boons corrupt (one less than now), one second less chill, .75 cast time, 12 second cool down on 4. Focus 5 needs to be brought in line with Mesmer greatsword #2. (The Mesmer skill provides its own bounce with the clone, so it’s just a lot easier to use in addition to being better in every other way).

If axe and focus are fixed you could have reliable aimed chill for your traits or could still take Warhorn and a (low) ranged weapon.

A ranged weapon does seem like a must-have for a Reaper and giving up D/W is iffy, but you could always keep a staff in inventory in case you need range.

I think for the moment reaper has quite a bit of chill if specced right. GS AA has cleave chill and if you have the trait where your crit spreads chill and high precision than you’re doing pretty good. RS 3 and 5 can give chill with rights traits and with 100% crit chance, every AA would give chill.

I absolutely agree on the axe thing, though. It gives range, skill 2 can give LF, but 1 and 3 aren’t really that helpful. If axe got a good buff, I would almost certainly use that as my secondary weapon.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Eneldiar.9670:

Rising Dusk.2408:

You generate a lot of LF in PvE as a Reaper. It will be rather difficult to connect with GS3 with all hits to generate LF in PvP contexts. I genuinely still think that WH5 is going to be necessary to build LF to a starting point before trying to generate it with GS3.

Anyway, I fully expect GS to be viable and meta in PvE for the Necromancer. It will not save the class, nor will it give them Elementalist-level DPS, but it will be better than what we’ve got now.

I don’t think we’ll ever get Elementalist-level DPS as nice as it would be lol. Though my necro is FAR less squishable than my Ele so I guess trade-offs are always mandatory. :p

Necro may be able to survive quite well but IDK if I would compare it to a well played ele.

I have seen many an ele survive team fights and focus fire that would flat out destroy a necro due to their aoe healing, aoe protection, CC, damage and ability to escape.

I was thinking in more PvE than PvP or WvW. There’s no doubt that the necro isn’t as mobile as it could be. I think the main advantage of necromancer survivability is that it has a very low skill requirement (lots of vitality) whereas elementalist survivability is almost solely skill-based. With vigor and good dodging/positioning, an ele definitely could have survivability compared to a necro, but it’s definitely dependent on skill.

Rising Dusk.2408:

You generate a lot of LF in PvE as a Reaper. It will be rather difficult to connect with GS3 with all hits to generate LF in PvP contexts. I genuinely still think that WH5 is going to be necessary to build LF to a starting point before trying to generate it with GS3.

Anyway, I fully expect GS to be viable and meta in PvE for the Necromancer. It will not save the class, nor will it give them Elementalist-level DPS, but it will be better than what we’ve got now.

I don’t think we’ll ever get Elementalist-level DPS as nice as it would be lol. Though my necro is FAR less squishable than my Ele so I guess trade-offs are always mandatory. :p

Welcome to the necromancer!

Minions aren’t all that great when it comes to dungeons because of pathing and other such issues, but they are viable if you plan on leveling to 80 by questing. You can change your build easily once you hit 80.

I agree with Blood Red Arachnid that berserker’s gear is rather important and where you want to end up, but don’t worry about rushing for it. When I started, I users Soldier’s gear until I got used to the dungeon paths and when/what to dodge and then I started switching to damage. If you can jump straight into Berserker’s that’s great, but if your dying is taking away from the experience, get some tankier gear and learn how the dungeons work. Also keep in mind that some builds, like the Death Perception DS build, can use Valkyrie Gear because you can get 100% crit chance with minimal Precision, so you can switch precision for vitality.

All in all, do what you want to do. If you want to be an undying force of nature, grab some Soldier’s gear and go to town. You won’t be able to get into heavy speed-running and super high-end fractals, but most PUGs don’t mind. If you want to be on the higher levels, Berserker’s gear or Valkyrie gear with 100% crit from traits is a huge help if not a necessity.

Other than that, have fun with it :p

A lot of these have had topics about the reaper and whether it will be viable (though I think it will be fine) but I wanted to ask what your guys’ thoughts were on the viability of the GS. Now obviously if it does a ton of damage, then it’s gonna be viable but this is assuming that the GS damage ends up not being all that fantastical (we know its possible).

In my research thus far on potential Reaper builds, I see two main types of builds in existence:
1 – Builds that use the reaper traitline to enhance their current build
2 – Builds revolving around reaper shroud.

If someone goes with the #1 route, then they’ll likely keep their old weapons. If they go with #2 route, Dagger autoattack generates life force whereas GS AA doesn’t (again, this is assuming that GS damage is comparable to dagger and not significantly higher).

Just want to know people thoughts on how viable they think the GS will be and what it will take to ensure that it is indeed viable. I, personally, am praying that the GS does well so I can have Twilight on my Necromancer and go to town. Let me know your thoguhts

Brokensunday.4098:

Eneldiar.9670:

What if it was kept separate (reapers got reaper shroud while standard necro got DS) but they shared 2-3 new skills that would be shared across all iterations of shroud to come?

This obviously wouldn’t happen now, but it seems like it could be viable?

you will only get the f2 if you trait for reaper so scince what you suggest is with the rs skills it can’t be done.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re going for?

Currently, DS and RS are both F1 abilities and it is determined by whether you specialize as Reaper or not. My thought was that they keep this, but then say they add skills in slots 7-9…these skills would be the same regardless of whether you use DS or RS. This would allow them to have the same utility skills (whatever those would be) but their 1-5 would still be different.

I’m not sure if you didn’t understand what I said or I don’t quite understand your response. Just wanted to clarify my thought ;p

What if it was kept separate (reapers got reaper shroud while standard necro got DS) but they shared 2-3 new skills that would be shared across all iterations of shroud to come?

This obviously wouldn’t happen now, but it seems like it could be viable?

Bellamy.9860:

Why?

We get decent stability access with reaper. Actually 40% uptime on 20s cd without traits is more than decent. So why would you want a breakbar? Especially since the downsides are not known:

If you break the bar of conquest NPC’s they get stunned for 5 sec. The whole point with break bars is: if you break them you get rewarded. So it could be a 5 sec stun on players too.
Why would you exchange one mechanic with a more punishing one? Especially since RS stabi gets reapplied every 3 sec, making it on par with breakbar regen.

Edit: Since wiki/tooltip of RS stabi is kinda strange on this part. I don’t know how infusing terror will turn out, but in the showcase it stacked up to 3 stacks of stability. Keep that in mind.

You make a valid point, but here’s my current thought process.

Stability is good and all, but its not too hard to break 1 stack of stability every three seconds. Lich form, despite getting stability every few seconds, can still get CCed rather harshly. Breakbar would require them to put a lot more into CCing us down. Even if they do succeed in doing it, they’ve burned a lot of their control abilities (hopefully) and now the rest of the team can hammer away.

I like the idea of reapers having a breakbar, especially while in shroud.

BraxKedren.8941:

Thanks for the help.

Looking at the builds and how I like the dagger so far, Blood Magic seems to be a build I would be aiming for. Looks like a fun build so I guess I’ll be working that. It might play well with the Reaper abilities once HoT goes live.

blood magic and dagger do go well together. Since you get three specializations, the big thing is to find the balance between damage and survivability for your playstyle and then modify it over time. My first build was almost solely defense and my only source of damage was my high power. As time progressed and I wanted more damage and became more survivable simply with dodging and gaining skill, I switched into more damage.

Dagger was a good weapon choice, though. The only thing that can really out-damage it is the Life Blast in Death shroud but that’s only with the right traits and good multi-target aim.

Khristophoros.7194:

I was using Soul Reaping for a bit and I don’t think it’s worth it for PvE. You do more damage with your dagger even if you have Death Perception.

Foot in the Grave is only one stack of stab, barely matters. Handles light annoyances like the harpies in asura fractal but doesn’t really matter against the really dangerous things that have repeated CC.

And the other trait I used to really like was the one that reduces shroud degen. But I usually use shroud to soak burst so the degen doesn’t really matter.

Meanwhile Curses is a decent supplement to Spite for additional damage so I’d probably take it over Soul Reaping but I am currently Spite/Blood/Death. I don’t have much to say about Curses, nothing too amazing in it.

I’ve never been sure as to whether dagger or DS1 really does more damage. When there’s only two mobs or you’re not acute with aim, then it’s no contest dagger wins. DS 1 has two major advantages that I’ve been trying to compare:
1 – For max DPS, you can be up to 600 range away which gives you a bit more mobility.
2 – If you line your shot and have the right trait, you can hit up to 5 targets with one Life Blast, which increases overall damage significantly.

That said, dagger still does some of the highest damage for necro and I agree that it’s totally viable to simply use DS to soak damage and for some ranged (if necessary). In this case, SR may not be worth it over the other lines.

Necros been my main since release, despite the crap it sometimes gets I like the theme.

Focus and Warhorn are both good off-hands for dagger. Warhorn has the daze and speed boost while the Focus has a really good 4 skill for regen and vulnerability. You can actually use both if you wanted but it would take up both your weapon sets.

For ranged weapons, usually Death Shroud works very well if you’re only going to be ranged a small portion of the time. If you need to be able to spend more time at range, then I find staff to be good cause it has high range and AoE capability. Scepter is good for the conditionmancer build, but the dagger is primarily straight-damage focused.

As for a general build it usually changes from leveling to when you actually hit 80. I was a minion master necromancer until I hit 80 when I changed him to the impossible-to-kill build I used to play with. Finding out which mechanics of the necromancer you like are important, though, cause that will help you determine you’re build.

What if there plan is to make Reaper seem underpowered so all the necros except the dedicated few leave, then at the last minute super-buff them so there’s only a few massive destructive forces out there?

Know it’s not legitimate, but that’d be pretty funny :p

Also for my build, some input on skills:
Weapon 1 – GS (want Twilight on necro bad). That’s a terrible reason, but I also want to test out GS in general and decide if I want it or not.
Weapon 2 – Staff: With Reaper Shroud and GS, would seem smart to have ranged attack. On top of that, Staff 3 chill and staff 5 fear which would inflict chill as well.

Skill 6: Your Soul is Mine: Since I’ll usually be in the middle of things, this will heal and generate good life force to get back in RS
Skill 7-9: Blood is Power could be good for extra might. Well of power for vuln, condition to boon well for condi removal. There are lots of options but those are my first thoughts.
Elite: Contemplating the new shout, but no idea for sure yet.

My girlfriend and I are both looking into Reaper specialization and have come up with two different-ish builds that we wanted to get suggestions on (assuming things stay relatively as they are for HoT release).

My build is Spite/SR/Reaper and focuses on constant chill/vulnerability, some might stack and very high crit/ferocity/DS uptime which will (hopefully) deal hellish damage.

Spite:
Reaper’s Might – Might from DS 1
Bitter Chill – Hitting chilled enemies causes vulnerability
Death’s embrace – Vulnerability applied when hitting low-health foes.
Rending Shroud – vulnerability applied to nearby foes in DS
Siphoned Power – Gain Might when striking foe below health threshold
Close to death – Extra damage to low-health foes

Soul Reaping:
Gluttony – Extra LF from skills
Unyielding Blast – Vulnerability from DS 1
Last Gasp – Spectral armor at half health
Vital Persistance -Increased DS time
Strength of Undeath – More damage above LF threshold
Death Perception – 50% crit-chance in DS

Reaper:
Shroud Knight – Duh
Chilling Nova – Crit on chilled foe chills nearby foes (3 per 10 seconds)
Shivers of Dread – Fear also chills (good for Reaper DS 3)
Decimate Darkness – 2% extra crit for vuln stack
Cold Shoulder – Chill last longer
Reaper’s Onslaught – Faster Reaper DS attacks.

With Decimate Darkness and dealthy perception, crit would be immense and could then invest in vitality (valkyrie) instead of precision (berserkers) and gain survivability. The goal is that Reaper DS 5 and 3 are used to start the chill and then constant crits keep chill up while also stacking might and vulnerability.

Her build is similar, but uses Chilling Force and Blighter’s Boon and Blood Magic instead of Spite. Her main is her ele, but she wanted to see if she could get nearly infinite DS uptime (which probably won’t happen).

Any thoughts? Obviously things are subject to change before HoT release and adjustments will be made. I should also note that this is purely PvE build.

RashanDale.3609:

Muchacho.2390:

Mhh i dont think the reaper shouts would be bad if the numbers were right. Too bad they are not…

I only now realised just how pathetic the reaper shouts are. Up to 1.5s to 2 s cast time? Lol.

And “You are all weaklings!” must be the lamest sounding shout ever.

This last part is so true lol. Other than “nothing can save you” none of them sound all that reaper-like. “chilled to the bone” isn’t something you’d hear from a death god chasing someone down for their soul, nor are most of the others.

I’ve always liked offhand focus for regeneration and vulnerability.

As for soul reaping vs curses, I’ve always perferred soul reaping because I like DS builds. The ability to have a lot of LF, slow degeneration in DS and an extra 50% crit chance (which allows me to build less precision and more vitality) does really well for decent damage/survivability. However, I will admit that I haven’t done much in the new curse line and can’t compare them well.

I would say Soul reaping can be really good, especially for maximizing your DS utilization, but if you don’t plan on using DS curses will likely be better.

Just remember to do what feels the most fun. Most builds can be tweaked to be effective but you won’t be effective at it if you don’t enjoy it. You’re already a necromancer in PvE, which means we get a lot of crap so we’re not aiming to impress anyone else anyway :p

Ashur.6403:

It is curious that both the necro and ele are getting shouts. After seeing this reveal I’m wondering if the ele is getting the shouts and the reaper gets something different. Or if anet just plans to give both shouts. Without seeing the final numbers I can’t say for sure which are better, but given anet’s history of balance, ele shouts will probably far outclass the necros.

This is far from impossible. Reaper was one of the first elites they put out, so if they realize after producing others that the Reaper has weak utility skills, it’s far from set in stone.

I like the reaper, personally. The idea of having a greatsword that’s slow but hits like a truck seems really fun for the “dark -magic/melee” character type.

I definitely agree with you, though. When the Reaper’s shouts were revealed they were rather underwhelming. Though I see usefulness for some of them, it’s difficult to justify most of them over skills we already have even when specced as a Reaper. I haven’t seen the tempest shouts yet, but I’m sure when I see them I’m going to feel the same way you do lol

First off, this is not a rant. I’ve played this game since the day it released and still enjoy it very much! :p

I have played a necromancer forever now and use it for everything PvE related (I know the necro gets hate sometimes, but nobody seems to bug me about it) and I was thinking about the elite specializations coming up. Now I’m a HUGE fan of the Reaper and I am, in fact, already prepared to play a reaper when it comes out because my original hope when buying this game was to have a heavy melee class with dark magics like that.

Here’s my thought, however. From what I’ve seen, aNet doesn’t want the elite specialization to completely take over a class. For example, you’ll still have guardians who aren’t dragonhunters; you’ll still have rangers that aren’t druids, etc. Based on what I’ve seen and heard through my community of players, it seems like almost every necromancer is going to become a reaper upon it’s release. This doesn’t mean I want the reaper to change at all, but I wonder what they could do to other necromancer specializations/skills so that both reaper and regular necromancer are played and viable.

Let me know if you see this as well and what they might be able to do so that regular necros still see game time. For the most part, I PvP and WvW with mesmer (very rarely) so I’m not sure what’s going on there in terms of “necro good, necro not good”. I feel the reaper will hopefully get necros more PvE respect (again, not that it’s something I’ve ever had to deal with) but what do you think could be done to make both necro and reaper more attractive in the PvE world?

Let me know your thoughts, and play nice children :p

Can I get an inv?