Guild Wars 2

Final Thrust seems like classic Anet thematics over practicality. Sword is a condi weapon and Final Thrust just doesn’t fit in. Give it a Feast of Corruption overhaul.

It can keep the cripple just as Necro sceptre has poison but gain an actual damaging condition too.

Give a bleed or 2 (or maybe a torment stack) to the final attack in the auto chain. Currently it is a dps loss to complete the chain and has been this way since day 1. Necromancer sceptre had a similar problem when it only did poison on its final chain attack but they fixed it a year or so ago. Please make this change for condi warriors everywhere.

Gunk until they added a kittenty ground target to it. Now it’s my least favourite.

I roll full viper ascended with agony/bursting which gives me 42.2% condi duration (82.19% bleeding). That way I can use badge bought WvW food to cap bleed duration and then swap out my sceptre w/agony sigil to my other sceptre w/malice sigil for raids. I personally prefer Thorn runes mainly for the poison duration.

I’d be happy if this just cast on an enemy instead of being ground targeted.

LezardValeth.9453:

Thanks for the response. It kinda irritates me because I do good DPS with my zerk reaper with spite/soul reaping/reaper.

What about my trinkets? What trinkets are best for viper builds?

Unfortunately good dps doesn’t cut it when it comes to raids. Other professions do much higher direct damage and bring more to the party. The main reason necros get a look in is because our condition damage is top tier and for bouncing epidemic (1 condi necro casts epi on main target, then other necros cast epi on nearby targets just after first epi has gone off).

They should add the screaming Sun from Rick and Morty as a finisher.

Same here. It randomly happens when playing general pve, but it hits like a tonne of bricks when I play anything that involves zergs.

With Heart of Thorns Anet introduced a great idea that was mobile fields. So far 5 professions out of the 9 have access to them:
Mesmer: Tides of Time (ethereal field – shield #5)
Ranger: Rejuvenating Tides (water field – celestial avatar #4)
Warrior: Flames of War (fire field – torch #5)
Revenant: Field of the Mists (dark field – hammer #4)
Engineer: Reconstructive Field (water field – medic gyro toolbelt)

Here are a few suggestions that Anet could add to the other professions:
Necromancer: Nightfall (dark field – greatsword #4)
Thief: Smoke Screen (smoke field – deception utility). It could be changed so it acts like Revenant’s Field of the Mists. It could still be used as a source of blasting for stealth too.
Guardian: Symbol of Swiftness (light field – staff #3). No longer would you have to stand still to gain the full amount of swiftness from this skill or place it carefully to gain 2 procs from it whilst on the move.
Elementalist: Ring of Fire (fire field – dagger #4) Fun to combo with various movement skills. Maybe add damage for when a foe moves through said field on top of the burn.

So far with outfits we can only toggle the head piece on and off. It would be great if they would add a toggle for the shoulders and gloves (if applicable). There are 2 outfits in particular I would wear more often if this were added. The Imperial Outfit’s shoulder wings (?) are rather off putting as well as the furry shoulders on the Raiment of the Lich.

Necromancer because I always love the death themed minion creating profession. It makes me o-so happy that they are now the best condi in the game and are meta in all game modes (after what they suffered pre-HoT)

With the current wave of nostalgia from both Living Story and the two gw1 gemstore skins, it would be great if Anet added the old Gw1: Bonus Mission Pack Tengu weapon set as a Black Lion set.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gallery_of_Tengu_weapons

Bonus points to Anet if they have the balls to make the Tengu scythe into a greatsword skin. I would actually reskin my Twilight with it if they did.

I’d like to see a few more scythe skins but as either staff or greatswords.
Specifically the Tormented Scythe and the (already in game) Destroyer Scythe.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/9/9e/Tormented_Scythe.jpg

Things of Note:

No to the Spiteful Talisman change: Your change seems odd and out of place. Getting rid of one of the few Necro damage increase traits is just cruel. We need more, not less.

No to the Vampiric Presence change. It is one of Necros few party support traits and adds up quite nicely with other siphons. Your suggested change would make it utterly useless in anything but pvp.

Yes to Putrid Defenses change. Currently it is as its icon suggests. Being able to gain double the current effect would go nicely.

Yes to Beyond the Veil. Currently a horrible baseline Death trait. A nice party support in general with the change.
No to Death Nova change. Your change seems absurdly overpowered.

Soul Eater. 25% seems a little too high. I’ve already suggested making it 10%. Maybe 15% would do?

No to the Signet of Spite change. Only power builds really use it, purely for the passive. Changing it would put it in the corner of uselessness as condition builds have no room for it.

Yes to Signet of Vampirism change. But it seems a little too high damage unless it were to keep its current ICD. Maybe thematically it would be better to deal Life Siphon instead?

Yes to the Well of Power change. Pulsing Stability has been something this has needed for a long long time.

Yes to the “Nothing Can Save You” change. I might actually use it in WvW if your change happened.

KrHome.1920:

Vova.2640:

- Blighter’s Boon should replace Chilling Victory.. I feel like there are enough ways to get might as it is.

This would kill Power Reapers completely as they would lose significant survivability.

You obviously dont’t see the synergy of Chilling Victory and Blighter’s Boon. I run both traits with Sigil of Strengh and Sigil of Hydromancy for Lifeforce generation, improved Shroud Heal, CC and DPS in a full melee Power Reaper Build.

@topic:
GS autoattack is unreliable. But I love this weapon for its utility (skill 2,3,4,5) but then swap weapon or go into Reaper Shroud. That’s why GS+Staff is a bad weapon combo. You deal no damage at all. Better use GS+Axe oder even go full melee with GS+Dagger (Speed of Shadows+Vital Persistence for frequent access to RS2 mobility highly recommended then! – makes you a lot less kiteable).

The skill design on GS is pretty good (esp. Nightfall – I love it!). I would not change it. But the autoattack has to become more reliable. ANet tried to fix this with adding cripple, chill and a pull, but it’s not working properly. GW2 PvP is too fast paced for such slow autoattacks.

So making Chilling Scythe (3rd auto attack ) 3/4s cast and making Reaper’s Onslaught affect Greatsword attack speed would help solve this in your opinion?

otome.2673:

savacli.8172:

otome.2673:

Amaimon.7823:

Now, meta isnt necessarily the best, but its a meta for a reason.

Meta is best by definition.

I think what’s Amaimon is going for here is that “are you picking the best build/skills for the job” vs just blindly picking up a meta build from a site and assuming that will get you through 100% of the content.

A build that isnt best at some point isnt Meta. Idk people use this word without understanding the word itself

I think the underlying point is that a good playing using a non-meta build they know how to play will be more useful than a bad player using a meta build they don’t know how to play.

Kam.4092:

I love core Ranger, and dislike how Druids are.

Is core Ranger ok in T4 Fractals, or would I be kicked?

:/

Run what you like but if being kicked by pugs is something you worry about, go copy/paste a metabattle build.

Ciraph Firenze.8409:

‘Crystal Hibernation’_ is downright insulting in my opinion, having the exact same cooldown time and Block duration as ‘Shield Stance’ and yet also providing Regeneration on top of this? What’s with that?

Conveniently forgetting that Crystal Hibernation roots you and will auto cancel if you accidently try to move.

It’s unlikely we will see another 3 stat set. Anet seems to prefer the 4 stat approach recently.
But yes Condi Damage, expertise, precision would be the best set by far for damage.

Vova.2640:

+1.

I like reaper a lot since HoT came around, and now that my favorite class was hammered to the ground with nerfs, I was looking to get more into reaper.
Personally I dislike the condis in this game that is why I prefer to stick to physical dmg reaper.
I honestly love reaper shroud.. but lets be honest… outside of the shroud itself everything else about reaper is pretty bad.

The shouts are “ok” at best… Chilled To The Bone is prolly the only one I can say that is actually good, but the fact that it takes 1.25 seconds to cast it… ughhh.

The traits are pretty lame as well.
- Blighter’s Boon just doesn’t feel good enough to be a grandmaster trait.. It is okay, but just is not grandmaster tier.
- Deathly Chills used to be crazy good but now its a just a joke…..
- Reaper’s Onslaught is also really underwhelming.. Either make it increase GS attack speed as well or make it also reduce the cool down on shroud skills(+the shroud itself maybe) by like 3 seconds for every kill while outside the shroud.
The one trait that is good is Decimate Defenses but its only good in pve (whereas I am more of a wvw player myself).

What I would like to see for traits is something like:
- Shivers of Dread = make it so that enemies hit by reaper shroud 1, 2 an 4 skills get chilled for 1 sec (no ICD) OR while in Reaper Shroud, chill 5 targets that are close to you (like radius of 180) 2 sec chill every 3 seconds . This will synergize really well with the some of the other traits, like Deathly Chills and Cold Shoulder.
- Soul eater = Keep reduce recharge on GS skills + add GS skills do 10% more dmg (like it is with other GS using classes) and also make GS skills steal a bit of life.
- Blighter’s Boon should replace Chilling Victory.. I feel like there are enough ways to get might as it is. Then make a new GM trait.. Maybe something a bit hybrid between condi and normal dmg… something like dmg amplifications based on number of condis on your enemy? Like +2% dmg for each condition on your target? I dunno…

Lastly, the GS skills can potentially be great but the problem is they are sooo slooow..
Also you don’t get the reset on Gravedigger… you’re done… you have no more dps. I really wish they would make the 1 skill a little faster to fill in for extra dmg… Also maybe lower CD on the other skills by a bit?

These are just some of my ideas.

Deathly Chill was a good balance. It nerfed it in the areas it was OP (pvp) and buffed it in the areas it was UP (pve). The original trait was just a bad design.

I like the idea of Reaper’s Onslaught effecting GS too. As much as I want them to buff Soul Eater, it would mean having to drop Decimate Defenses, so your idea would be a good solution.

Soul Eater doesnt really need to give a damage buff. The problems with GS are not damage but the speed in which it can hit, coupled with Necros lack of mobility.

Your suggested Shivers of Dread buff just seems completely and utterly overpowered. While it would be nice to have something more than just Fear inflicts chill, your suggestion is way too much.

I do love the idea of having our +2% damage per condition trait back though. It was blasphemy that Engineers kept theirs but we did not. Something Reaper lacks is damage increase traits while most other Elite specs got them in some shape or form. I was thinking they could add a +10% damage vs chilled foes to Cold Shoulder but your idea is better.

I’m not saying remove Plague completely. Keep the aspects of tankiness and the stability, but change it so it is no longer a form. My comment was mainly towards Lich Form though. Currently it is used as a gimmick for Jagged Horrors and little else.

Azzer.8137:

Lahmia.2193:

Sometimes you just gotta realise, not every weapon has to be a meta choice for pvp. It’s a casual pve weapon and will probably stay that way forever.

And yet in PvE it’s pure kitten as well, not even casual just pure awfull.

It’s a great afk weapon for Jade constructs.

Get rid of forms all together. Turn it into a party buff skill similar to how they changed Guardian wrath tome into the shout “feel my wrath”.

Vydahr.4285:

Kadin.2356:

Anchoku.8142:

Kadin.2356:

Yea I don’t really understand. They designed the weapon without a niche to fill. It excels at nothing. Dagger has more damage and utility and it’s only a 1h weapon. It’s seriously stupid. Speed up the #1 attack speed, increase damage, add utility like boonstrip, do SOMETHING.

Watch greatsword damage in PvE while surrounded by mobs. Total damage gets very high. Only one mob needs to be below 50% health for a Grave Digger recharge and shouts give great sustain when used in a crowd.

A cleave weapon (power-based AoE) was a massive hole in Necro capability and forced Arenanet to add a single cleave to dagger.

Greatsword has a niche. That niche is PvE crowd control. Expect its usefulness to decrease the farther you go from that niche. Look hard at the traits, too. Every one of them scales up in a crowd.

Is it really though? Marks hit 5 targets instead of 3 and refresh before you have to drop out of shroud again. Traited a full round of marks fills up your shroud faster AND applies poison, vuln, chill, condi xfer and bleed. What was that niche again?

I get what you are saying. That’s what it was intended to excell at, but it just falls short. I don’t think power is even close to condi damage output for PvE anyway so that makes the whole thing moot anyway.

Even GS auto does a hell of a lot more damage over that time period than marks. GS does excel at shredding large groups of mobs. Couple that with shouts (and signet of the locust for some speed) and you can take on more mobs at once than basically any other class

As I’ve said before the only parts of pve that matter, build wise, are fractals and raids, both in which GS isn’t viable. As for being a pve weapon, all other professions have greatswords that are viable (or have been viable) in pvp despite being designed for pve.

I think you just need to get used to using it.

Bristleback – Lots of Spikes

A nice QoL change would be to up the number of targets from 1 to 3. This may have just been an oversight by anet when they changed the skill animation but it would make a great change.

So that there is a reason to buy the Noble Folly’s Pass instead.

Lily.1935:

Lahmia.2193:

Lily.1935:

Here is an Iconic Image of a Ritualist. What does that Look like to you? more like a Reveant or more like a Necromancer? I think the answer is very clear here. Look at the coloring. Look at its Spectral skull showing that its a death worshipper much like the necromancer is.

Jalis wasn’t a Ritualist. Neither were Shiro, Ventari, Mallyx or Glint. What is your point?

The image is to convey a theme that the ritualist was hitting. It is a death mage. Its all there, Black and white, clear as crystal. To assume otherwise means you’re not looking. The lore of the ritualist is very clear that they use the dead to power themselves. You know who else does that? Necromancer. It only makes sense that the ritualist would merge into the necromancer who is a death mage already.

Oh ya the original topic. I kinda went off a different path and suggested something more in tune with the story, that’s all.

The only time GS is viable is for parts of the game where it doesn’t really matter what you bring.

Lily.1935:

Here is an Iconic Image of a Ritualist. What does that Look like to you? more like a Reveant or more like a Necromancer? I think the answer is very clear here. Look at the coloring. Look at its Spectral skull showing that its a death worshipper much like the necromancer is.

Jalis wasn’t a Ritualist. Neither were Shiro, Ventari, Mallyx or Glint. What is your point?

Spoilers for season 3
It could be the Lazarus ends up fighting with us (enemy of my enemy is my friend) against the dragons but dies fighting one of the dragons, thus giving us the chance to channel him as a new Elite specialization. Iconic villains are a staple of Revenant channels after all.

Had a pug group complete it lvl 77 last night with no wipes or downs. I think it’s a L2adapt issue with most of those complaining.

Draco.9480:

the raids are a joke compared to raids in cataclysm (wow) and yet people tryhard on ‘em.
first it was the ap and the zerk meta toxic mentality. now it’s li and wannabe pro/delusional tryhards.

Then go back to WoW if you love it so much? Oh wait it’s a joke now too.

bearshaman.3421:

Sororita.3465:

There’s nothing saying you cant use these two together. As stated above the two weapons conflict with each other in their damage output. Condition will be your main form of damage so you’ll be wanting to use scepter as much as possible to deal your damage.

Greatsword can be a great utility weapon. Aoe blind/cripple, a pull and 12 stack of vulnerability aren’t things to scoff at. Of course focusing on condition damage will severely reduce the damage you can apply with your Greatsword. I’d suggest utilizing Greatsword as a set up to augment your Reaper Shroud. Pull them in with Greatsword 5 into a Greatsword 4 then go into Shroud to deal your damage, while the enemy is in an aoe blind/cripple.

Personally, I’d use celestial gear with Viper weapons and condition food/crystal. Increased Greatsword damage so it doesn’t hit like a wet noddle with some added in survivability stats.

… I think you are the first person I have seen suggest celestial for anything necromancer… wow… I know that sounds sarcastic, but I assure you, I am pleased that someone is willing to explore other stat choices.

The irony being that celestial Necro was a meta build in pvp, pre HoT.

Minions were designed to be a permanent (if sacrificial) mobile ally whereas spirits were designed to be a stationary buff giving ally.

Ragnarox.9601:

We could have some trait thingy like scrapper heal with swiftness:

Retalation heals you for 200 per tick.
Protection heals you for 150 per tick.
Shield skill #5 when absorbing projectiles heals you for 200 per projectile.
Blocking attacks heals you for 200 per attack.

and so on))

Ooo I like that idea. There’d probably have to be an ICD the blocking heals though.

Tested with Normal, Fast with Range Indicator and Instant. It only happens with Instant.

Vydahr.4285:

As for reaper not being power based… Still wrong. What is Decimate Defenses but a way for a power Reaper to replace some zerk with some soldier or something similar? It makes up for missing precision easily. Damaging conditions have never been the mainstay of Reaper in the traitline, nor in the greatsword, the Reaper’s designed weapon. Condi is condi and it’s a cheap playstyle because of what you mentioned.

Decimate Defenses is both a condi and power trait. More crit chance means Barbed Precision and Earth Sigil trigger more.

Edit: Like many Elite specs, Reaper was designed with many different uses in mind.

Dragonfury on land. Yes please.

Anchoku.8142:

I would like to see Chilling Darkness reverted to when it was stronger now that duration from other chills is nerfed and Elite specializations have that power-creap going.

And it would make Well of Darkness somewhat viable again.

In Beta when “Rise” gave you Jagged Horrors and Soul Eater gave all your attacks life steal whilst using a Greatsword.

flow.6043:

Lahmia.2193:

Give a damage co-efficiant to Darkness (maybe half that of Corruption). This would mean it could also trigger Vampiric and Vampiric Aura.

It already does.

It triggers Vampiric Rituals and that’s it. It did trigger all 3 when they redid the traitlines but that was soon fixed.

It’s not a bug. And its not just for Symbol of Energy. It is actually very beneficial to ground targeted skills when fighting moving foes, once you get used to it. Rather than predicting where the foe will go next, you can follow them with your mouse for incredible precision.

Warcry.1596:

I love Wells. My favorite skills since I started. Use them everywhere. My raid build used 3, changing out Well of Power for something else I need, whether boon strip or might share, or whatever else.

If anything I’d want to increase duration on them by 1 or 2 seconds, but otherwise they’re great

If they did change them (not that I want them to) a decrease in time and increase in effect would be better. Something along the lines of:
Reduce duration to 3 seconds.
Double damage per tick.
Double effects like 2 boons corrupted/2 conditions converted for Corruption and Power respectively.
Give a damage co-efficiant to Darkness (maybe half that of Corruption). This would mean it could also trigger Vampiric and Vampiric Aura.
Double the life stealing from Vampiric Wells.

This would mean more burst for the damaging wells and more effectiveness for the other wells.

Raids weren’t built for “the most”. They were designed for the few people that desire harder content. If you can’t get into it, go do something else.

stale.9785:

2) Mark of Blood – Compared to Lava Font, this is ridiculously underpowered (isn’t everything though, when compared to lava font?) In addition to 2 stacks for 8s of bleed, add 4s cripple, and increase the base damage from 129 (lols) to 1200, to match LF.

Are you high? Lava Font lists all its damage rather than each hit. You want an instant 5 man spamable skill to do 1200 base damage? Lava Font is easy to dodge out of and doesn’t do damage upon cast. Sure Mark of Blood could use a bit of a boost, but your “balancing” is just crazy overpowered.

The best method of money making seems to be Map hopping into Jade armor/UG metas. Lots of gear of all tiers to craft ascended or to sell. Lots of rubies which can be salvaged into unbound magic and traded for material bags. It’s very easy to make money from BSF.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ecto prices dropped 40% at one point.

That’s because people were expecting a nerf to AB multi map, and so hoarded them to make an easy buck with the inevitable spike in price. This didn’t happen so the prices dropped when people started to sell again.