Guild Wars 2

Currently, GS is used for AoE LF and Gravedigger for the 50% mark. Gravedigger alone makes it fantastic, and will make it meta for pve easy. It also offers a nice built in blind with Nightfall which is very awesome (For 50 fractals that’s very nice)

RS is starting to come together, I still think It needs a buff but It’s getting close. Matched with Dhuumfire/Reaper’s Onslaught the damage is pretty nice. You also can maintain 25 stacks of vuln in reapers shroud.

To wrap this up, DO NOT use GS auto for most of anything besides gaining LF in AoE fights. It’s melee is just too slow to beat out RS auto, It has better damage plain and simple.

Zenith.7301:

Truefrost.6815:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Azure.8670:

I was hitting 12-17k.

Gs is the truth

Yet a Tempest and the Revenant hit in excess of 30 k + crits regularly. GS 2 and 3 are nearly useless and they do not fill up RS quick enough, in fact i found myself switching weapons just to build RS up enough to save my butt.

I think you are confused of the use of GS. It was designed to be an AoE LF weapon, and It serves that purpose quite well. In groups LF gain with the auto is fantastic. Dagger will always be the weapon of choice for single target LF gain, It will also always out dps GS auto. Our intended sustained AoE comes from RS.

Comparing Necro to the other classes is a foolish thing to do. Currently, in the state of pve there is heavy imbalance and in order for that to change it will take time. As for Rev, It’s still in beta so It doesn’t surprise me.

We’re finally getting endgame content, which means Anet now has to ACTUALLY balances, so let’s save opinions until we see what they end up doing.

We’ve been waiting for pve class balance for over 3 years in PvE. The LFG’s haven’t stopped shouting “WARRIOR/ELE/GUARD/THIEF ONLY” in that time.

So I don’t know what the hell you mean by waiting for them to do class balance when nothing has changed for rangers and necromancers until a xpac 3 years later.

The whole point of beta is to give feedback, and classes don’t stand in a vacuum so saying your necro can do gravediggers for x when other classes can do y for more and without the easily interrupted slow animations, people should submit their feedback.

GW2 has never actually had REAL challenging pve content. Because of that Anet hasn’t really cared much for balancing, hell… Pve content hasn’t been addressed in so long It’s often staggering.

Reaper is a push in the right direction, It actually feels like Anet is trying to change things, I think that has a lot to do with having a REAL endgame. Anyway, we don’t even know what this raiding will be like, it could very well change the meta.

I’m not saying it was right of them to ignore this for so long, hell… I’m very vocal about how poor the necro is, but we should wait and see before saying anything. This is a big turning point for GW2, for years the devs have been deciding where this game is going.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Azure.8670:

I was hitting 12-17k.

Gs is the truth

Yet a Tempest and the Revenant hit in excess of 30 k + crits regularly. GS 2 and 3 are nearly useless and they do not fill up RS quick enough, in fact i found myself switching weapons just to build RS up enough to save my butt.

I think you are confused of the use of GS. It was designed to be an AoE LF weapon, and It serves that purpose quite well. In groups LF gain with the auto is fantastic. Dagger will always be the weapon of choice for single target LF gain, It will also always out dps GS auto. Our intended sustained AoE comes from RS.

Comparing Necro to the other classes is a foolish thing to do. Currently, in the state of pve there is heavy imbalance and in order for that to change it will take time. As for Rev, It’s still in beta so It doesn’t surprise me.

We’re finally getting endgame content, which means Anet now has to ACTUALLY balances, so let’s save opinions until we see what they end up doing.

Dadnir.5038:

Well 40k when the wivern is stuned is pretty low… since damage are serverly uped chen the thing is stun.

I tried the GS and it’s disappointingly slow. There is now way it’s PvE worthy. The shroud rock, though. To be Okay, gravedigger would have to do 16k dps (which mean it’s damage divided by overall cast time and aftercast) when your are full buff. I don’t think it’s the case. (and even if it’s the case, it feel so slow, it’s unbearable)

Currently, where GS stands Gravedigger is a damage increase from dagger auto… So yeah, It’s pve worthy. :P In optimized groups It was hitting for 20k+ crits which even with the slow cast speed that is HUGE numbers.

RS is in a good place but I feel still needs a slight increase in damage. I still need to run some more numbers cause Dhuumfire is a thing, you don’t need DP anymore with decimate defenses. (Since now we can sustain 25 vuln in RS with ease.)

I mentioned in past threads about this. I also dislike the size If this thing. WAY over the top, I mean… I don’t care that much about it, but I still agree.

Finally having some time to go over this video. It’s a mess, a giant mess… Not only is this guy pulling math out of his kitten, hes also being a giant kittenbag. Hell, hes being worst then the elitists that he appears to dislike so much.

This wouldn’t be the first time he did this though, let’s not go back to his last video before he left the game, something about necros doing better damage then warriors as a DS build. Facepalms

What I find most amusing is I actually once respected this fellow necro, but I cannot respect someone who is clearly dead set on making this stupid point that is clearly proven wrong a thousand times. Our community needs accurate information not this kitten.

I literally could rage for hours about the amount of false information that’s thrown around but I’ll end it here. As I said earlier in my previous post the only thing he had right in that video was the whole Ice Bow rant, but… News flash, we knew that for a long time.

Kitty La Boom Boom.4065:

ronpierce.2760:

They need to add Power Ferocity Condi Dmg gear :P that’s what I need

So much THIS!!!!! I want that so badly. What I decided to try today was Dire armor and Carrion everything else. I used Scholar runes. I’m still playing with sigils. I thought I’d give the Axe/Focus combo a try. I usually do D/WH or D/D, and staff, but I switched out the staff for the GS. The GS seems better this time around, but I’m still not thrilled with the timing. I can be really fast with a staff, even though it might not do as much damage per hit..it hits more often, plus marks.

I’ve got SR: 1/2/3 (because FIRE) but would I be better off with Death Perception?
Spite is: 3/3/3
Reaper is: 2/3/2

I do mainly PvE

I tested both Dhuumfire and DP. DP is pointless in my opinion, while in RS you can sustain 25 vuln easy thus doing what DP does already. Dhuumfire on the other hand, you can reach up to 7 burst stacks (About 5 or 6 sustain) without Time Warp or Feel My Wrath which came up to 1000 damage+ per tick without condition damage.

So yeah, Dhuumfire seems the best choice. The only reason this works at all though is because burning is so powerful. I plan to fool around with going into condition damage a bit and trying a hybrid for kicks, I seriously doubt it will be that great but I enjoy testing.

Zerk is still the best. Even If you take Valk with decimate defenses you’ll fall short with crit, now you can take food/sigil to make up for it but you’ll end up losing out in damage in the end when you go to execute phase with gravedigger.

This is not meant to be offensive but living in this game is a learn to play issue. If you are taking hits too often It’s mainly because you are standing in something or face tanking. Even against the new mobs in VB I had little issue staying alive with the Reaper. Thus there is little reason to use Valk.

Of course this is all from a filthy elitist standpoint!

I’ve run the numbers already, Gravedigger is a gain at the 50% health mark… Easily. Fully buffed with optimized group setup I was reaching 20k. Even with the cast time the damage is large enough to make it worth it.

Although that is the main reason GS will be meta in pve It also has some nice stuff such as very good LF generation in large groups of mobs, a bonus pull (Why the hell not) and low cooldown blind access, which is just fantastic.

Although I agree with the points on the Ice Bow, cause ya know… It’s silly strong, we’ve been down this road before and last time It ended very poorly for this dude and I don’t take much of his info very seriously.

I’m gonna hold off on opinions until I see the counter videos big timers such as Nike will obviously make. I’ve run dps tests on hybrid builds, conditions builds… Hell, everything and they all ended short.

The whole speed of fights is an interesting thought. As for dagger, I hope this guy realizes that there are VERY few fights where you can’t afford to be in melee. Ironically, I laughed when I saw that Molten Twins solo, I ended up having to carry a group somewhat the same, though I did it in melee with a dagger.

This really shouldn’t be too surprising for people. After THREE years of being the bottom of the barrel It’s obvious Anet either has no clues about the pve aspect of the game or just hasn’t cared.

I’m hoping challenging group content will force them to balance pve correctly. They better realize If they fail to do so, our class will basicly be a total no-no for raids merely cause it would be better to take something that benefits the group with both damage and support which happens to be just about ANYTHING else.

No offense to them but having a class be this weak in nearly all forms of modes for three years is completely unacceptable from a design standpoint and honestly just plain rookie.

Anyway, I’m still waiting for Reaper until I can have a full opinion on this. For all we know the future buffs could put us a lot higher. (I doubt it’s enough though.)

Seera.5916:

TheDemonEmperor.6825:

Dinks.2478:

+1 agreed. Rewards needed to be redone. Adding levels, yes. Nerfing fractals into casual mode? no, anet really needs to stop catering to the casual plague on MMOs.

You cant build a bussiness that catter to a few. Sad new for u that a lot of players are cassual. Example, any 1 and almost every 1 would chose the easier content that can be done quicker than the long 1.

That doesn’t mean businesses can’t occasionally throw a bone to the few.

And I’m not one of those few.

I completely agree. That bone is CGC, we’ll see how it pans out after tomorrow though. I’m excited for sure though! Can’t wait to hear about it.

Dinks.2478:

+1 agreed. Rewards needed to be redone. Adding levels, yes. Nerfing fractals into casual mode? no, anet really needs to stop catering to the casual plague on MMOs.

Anet has made it clear fractals is NOT where they want the challenging content to be. That’s why they are releasing CGC. Fractals were easy anyway, even casual players could run them, the only reason most didn’t cause it was a large time investment that most players didn’t want to make.

Where did they say they were nerfing fractals? Nothing is changing besides making them more convenient, giving a better structure and more things to do. Hell, higher levels means they’ll most likely be tougher. They also mentioned achievements that require a lot of team work.

Case you didn’t realize, us more hardcore players are the minority. Most of the core playerbase of MMOs are made up of casual players, people who don’t care to step into the more hardcore stuff.

Lol, I find it terribly funny that I ran a fractal and talked to this person about this just earlier today. I also stated the same reasons as most people here have said but I’ll go over it one more time just in case. :P

Fractals were just too long, they’ve always been too long. To finish all the daily tier runs can take up to three hours which is just stupid for such a pathetic reward. I understand that you enjoy them but that doesn’t change what’s best for them for the game, they are truly under played. (For good reason in the current state)

Honestly, this is a needed change cause we’re already getting a new form of endgame. I think fractals should fall into a dungeon-ish role (Without the whole abandoning part). This way they will gain more attention from newer players or even older ones who never wanted to invest in them.

If It’s true, and you do enjoy fractals even with no reward then just play four different fractals, the result is the same.

Jerus.4350:

I don’t mind necros at all. In fact a 5 necro fractal can actually be surprisingly smooth. Did it a while back with a group that 3/5 of them needed to ask how to set their build up before starting, and we waltz through it easily up until I trolled everyone transfusioning them in front fo mai trin to let her finish the job :b, still didn’t wipe though.

Well, of course… With the stat changes you can pretty much run whatever the hell you want. Even before that content was easy, I had a fun run 50 fractal with my team with all necros and we breezed through it (Of course, didn’t compare to our full Ele run).

Doesn’t change the fact though that necros are very much ‘meh’ when it comes to damage and we offer nothing. VP was a good start to giving us something but even that isn’t very good. The real concern is this ‘Challenging Content’ that we’re getting, cause If it is hard… Necros are going to get boned hardcore because of our lack of everything.

I’m still hopeful that they’ll maybe make stuff like Chill and boon corruption more useful for pve. But honestly we’ll see.

No Pulse.2967:

ODB.6891:

Truefrost.6815:

azizul.8469:

well, Reaper actually kick kitten in dungeon. but, till then , yeah……

Err, what? No it didn’t. This previous beta it was BARELY performing above normal DS build, lol. Dagger build was still better, hell… It was only useful for RS so you could AoE but even that wasn’t so great.

Agreed, they need at least one % damage modifier on RS to make Shroud attacks better than not using Shroud.

Wasn’t the RS attack speed trait bugged anyway?

It was and won’t make much of a difference. It will help but dagger just produces much higher numbers. At least with the coming buffs for the next BWE GS will have a place in the meta with the giant buff to Gravedigger. It will totally become our form of Heartseeker.

azizul.8469:

well, Reaper actually kick kitten in dungeon. but, till then , yeah……

Err, what? No it didn’t. This previous beta it was BARELY performing above normal DS build, lol. Dagger build was still better, hell… It was only useful for RS so you could AoE but even that wasn’t so great.

Dakunaito.9602:

Truefrost.6815:

Gravedigger actually did really well. It does some excellent damage and is close to being worth spamming on targets under 50% health. If they don’t want to make it faster merely increasing the damage and changing it back to 100% cooldown reduction under 50% health, that will make it worth it even with the slow animation speed.

I’ve said this before earlier on this very post, slow speeds are not terrible for pve. They just have to offer the damage to MAKE up for the huge cast time. Which sadly Anet has a great deal of trouble balancing correctly.

as Atherakhia said the Gravedigger has 2s full cycle cast time. no matter what you do(increase dmg or the cd effect), the cast time is very bad for a 1-hit close range skill. as i said in my previous reply, the skill is not channel or throw or multi hit etc to justify the long cast time. Gravedigger is 1-hit skill and 2s full cast time is way too much. rest GS classes don’t have more than 0.75s cast time skill on tooltips. why should Reaper have? this is not fair or balanced

Gravedigger is very easy to balance: decrease the cast time, increase dmg a bit(we don’t have modifiers for dmg, and dmg is low as it is now) and done. autoattack is also easy to balance. full cycle should be around 2.5s instead of 3s, and increase the chill duration to 2s(sword Thief does 2s cripple and weak) or remove chill and add chill field as people suggested. since all GS classes have higher attack speed than Reaper, then it won’t matter at all if they decrease the cast times on GS and it’s faster. it will be as fast as the rest GS classes so it’s perfectly balanced

in pve slow attacks don’t matter cause mobs don’t bombard you with flurry of attacks(unless you draw 3-5+ mobs) and have low AI, but in pvp players use their brains. i don’t care that much how awesome the animation of Gravedigger is, but the skill has too much unnecessary animation and has to go away cause it nerfs the skill by dramatically increasing it’s cast time. even if they add a chill field on autoattack as people suggested, 3s cast time is still too much. hammer Guardian has long cast time on autoattack cause it does “4” extra things: symbol dmg, protection, light field and hits 5 targets. Reaper only does 1 extra thing: Chill. the cast time isn’t justifiable

Although I agree on the pvp part, however this is a pve forum thread talking about pve changes. If you read the top post I mention not taking any pvp changes into consideration.

I do hope most of you accept the fact It’s VERY possible Anet will not give up on the slow cast speeds for the Reaper, In which case I’m focusing my basis around what they have in mind for the elite specialization.

Honestly, If I could have it my way… I’d throw out this slow attack speed ideal they created. The moment I heard this would be the theme I knew this would end badly. However, I try not to complain too much about what Anet does so I’ll give the best feedback I can with what they give us. But who knows, Anet has surprised me several times in the last few months.

nekretaal.6485:

I still don’t like the idea that I have to take 4-5 traits just to have a shroud that is competitive with what other class’ weapons do without any traits.

Maybe we could get something interesting instead of just a numbers increase.

Funny enough, It’s the lack of number traits that’s killing us. For pve we don’t have enough modifiers. At least in pvp It’s not so bad, but still would help us a lot.

Dakunaito.9602:

Atherakhia.4086:

Dakunaito.9602:

Arche.7326:

Its 2.75s according to wiki. Just wanting to point that out.

still, it’s faster. how much is the cycle of GS Warrior?

2.4…

But at the same time, Guardian Hammer is 3.7, which is also quite common in PvP.

hammer Guardian autoattack gives protection, does high symbol dmg that hits 5 targets and has light field

Gravedigger has 1.25s cast time, and i bet in game it’s easily 1.5s. ridiculous. majority of animation is utterly useless and it solely exist to cover the long cast time. i don’t know where to look for full cycle cast times, but in tooltips there’s not a single 1-hit skill of GS that has longer than 0.75s cast time. 1-hit skills that are used in close range like Gravedigger have 0.5s cast time, and throw, leap etc skills 0.75s. Gravedigger isn’t throw skill to have long cast time/animation. 1.25-1.5s cast time is unacceptable. Gravedigger does a swing in the air that hits absolutely nothing(useless animation) and then the actual attack starts. imagine doing Hundred Blades and first 2 hits don’t do dmg and just slice the air. would Warriors like that? no. then why devs do it on Reaper? players bait from the super-duper-wow-amazing-drooling-kitten animation and don’t look anything else. imo Gravedigger shouldn’t have more than 0.5s(on tooltip) cast time

Gravedigger actually did really well. It does some excellent damage and is close to being worth spamming on targets under 50% health. If they don’t want to make it faster merely increasing the damage and changing it back to 100% cooldown reduction under 50% health, that will make it worth it even with the slow animation speed.

I’ve said this before earlier on this very post, slow speeds are not terrible for pve. They just have to offer the damage to MAKE up for the huge cast time. Which sadly Anet has a great deal of trouble balancing correctly.

Arche.7326:

Lily.1935:

Lightsbane.9012:

the trait reaper’s onslaught should probably be a minor, or at least in a lower tier. and should also affect the greatsword as well.

You mean Adept. But yeah, I wasn’t at all impressed with that trait. It gave instant cool down to a skill with a really low cool down as is and the 15% attack speed wasn’t noticeable in the slightest. Maybe instead of it recharging death’s charge it made your attacks deal 10% more damage against chilled foes?

Edit: Just some I’m perfectly clear This should stay a grandmaster. The 10% damage boost I was suggesting was in that light.

The trait was bugged in the beta if I remember correctly, so it didn’t work at all. 15% increased attack speed equals a 15% DPS increase, so the base for the trait is quite good.

Aye, the trait was bugged. Honestly It’s the best choice for our Grandmaster currently, 15% attack speed is quite nice compared to our other options. I would however change the cooldown reduction to Death’s Charge to something a little more useful. Don’t get me wrong, I do love DC and having some mobility finally is just refreshing… Even If it’s just a little. I do love that they put a projectile block on it though! Fantastic and much needed for the necro.

ODB.6891:

Tristan.5678:

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

My problem with chill is that they built the reaper around chill as a basis for our damage mitigation and group support, but then decided they really don’t want us to have chill before we even got to try it. They didn’t replace it with anything else to fulfill that function (damage mitigation via cold shoulder and enemy attack cool downs). I’m fine with them changing their mind about chill and its function for the reaper, but they need to replace it with something they don’t mind us having in its place….something that fills that same mitigation role…preferably party wide like chill did.

They really are making reapers/necros the red-headed step children of this game…especially with the way they are showering revenants/heralds with all the support and utility that they absolutely refuse to give reapers/necros.

Well, in all fairness It’s looking like Rev isn’t doing so hot either, they suffer a lot of damage modifiers just like us. From what I saw of them during the beta (One of my buddies took one in) It was pretty awful, however I’m curious to see how they do with the Herald and that boon % increase to the party.

Tristan.5678:

Chill is useless crap…. I beg arena remove this OP CHILL from auto ( how arena thinks ) and give to auto something more useful ……. just hands down for reaper …

Chill is an underrated condition. I like the idea of turning Chill into something more for the class, I think they had the right idea with that however it was done poorly. I think If they expanded on that and made the final chill damage trait into something greater It might not be so bad.

Nyth.3492:

Truefrost.6815:

I loved everything about it, however… It still doesn’t beat out dagger but It can! Increase the RS auto attacks damage and we could finally have an effective alternative to dagger builds.

These are not mutually exclusive though ?

Best setup in this case would be Dagger/WH + RS.

You can buff RS all you want, but it won’t make dagger any less viable as your “out of shroud”-weapon.
Also I think that we should be careful that Reaper shroud doesn’t invalidate Death Shroud. Once it starts doing that to a certain degree, we’re going to be semi-forced into reaper traitline just because of that.
(Not saying RS doesn’t need an AA buff; because DS’s Life Blast should get the cast time of Plague blast really)

Oh, of course dagger will remain in the set there is literally no faster way to get LF then dagger auto on single target. However, that should be what dagger is for in the first place. It’s safe to assume dagger wasn’t meant to be used in the way it is.

As for invalidating DS, we’re beyond that now. DS already is pretty much terrible compared to the Dagger meta. The only real use for it is in pvp. Even in the state RS is in now It’s still better then DS merely for the AoE it offers. So one way or the other Reaper will be taken for the meta.

I’ve said this before, Anet dropped the ball on DS. Hard. They need to go back and fix it up cause It’s awful, It’s sad to see the class mechanic used only for a quick AoE burst and flashing to gain minor buffs (and debuffs). Necro is in a terrible spot and I would be totally fine having Reaper be our fix until they can get around to actually re-working base necro.

ODB.6891:

Truefrost.6815:

For pve slow cast speeds are fine.

So wrong that I can’t believe you actually believe that. Slow cast times are less bad in pve than pvp, but still terrible. No matter what ANET does, pve is always going to be about blowing stuff up as fast as possible. They are always going to try to compensate for that with mobs/bosses that one shot players. Standing still trying to execute slow motion attacks are just asking to get one shot mid cast. Taking forever to execute attacks while the rest of your group is blowing stuff up at light speed is terrible. ANET needs to stop gimping function with flavor excuses. If they want to go with a theme, try going with themes their own game is based on….active defenses, mobility, and group utility.

First off, slow attacks are FINE so long as the numbers add up. Considering most of the reaper abilities you could move with, getting one shot isn’t much of an issue. Hell, warriors HBs is actually quite worse in that regard considering you can’t even move from the spot, It’s just about timing which is easy.

Why speed wins out is merely because Anet doesn’t balance the damage output of slower stuff correctly to the point where It’s just too slow for too little damage. A lot of the problems coming from where pve stands is from what they have out currently, there ARE ways to fix the problems, hell… Me and my team spent a few nights debating this and came up with a full re-made pve system, If we can do it so can Anet. I’d go further into that but that’s not the topic of the thread.

I do admit openly that a lot of the problems Anet has with the necro is because of what GW2 is designed around, sadly Shroud is just not a mechanic that fits well into the game.

Dakunaito.9602:

Truefrost.6815:

I looked over the post, sums it up pretty much on the dot. Honestly, I’ve mentioned this before. I’m completely alright with slow animations, If that’s the theme they want that’s fine, however the abilities have to match up with HIGH damage payoff

you shouldn’t be fine with slow attack speed even if the dmg is high. which is not high. all GS classes do more dmg than Reaper GS and none has slow attack speed. hammer Warrior does autoattack chain in 1.7s, while Reaper in 3s, and hammer Warrior does more dmg. the slow attack speed has nothing to do with theme etc bs. they simple don’t want Reaper to be very good in offensive role, so they say “it’s the theme” as excuse. don’t bait. seriously. the slow attack speed on GS is unacceptable. GS cast times(not all) have to be decreased by 40-60% so that they’re equal to the other GS classes. this is an absolute needed change. it may sound overboard, but it’s the truth. after playing Reaper i’ll stick to staff as 2nd weapon. GS is very disappointing. if it gets tweaked and it’s good, i’ll use it. in the state it’s now, i won’t

For pve slow cast speeds are fine. The damage just has to be tuned correctly so the pay off for said slow attacks can equal that of classes that have quicker ones. Honestly there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s all about keeping the numbers in line and comparing with the other classes. That has always been Anets problem, they have a terrible time scaling slow abilities damage correctly.

If I could have it my way I would say screw the slow theme, however that’s not what Anet seems to be after. In which case I’d rather them increase the damage by a lot and continue with the theme. The real problem is Anet can’t seem to wrap their brain around the numbers, I do honestly think they don’t test stuff themselves.

Arche.7326:

I’ve posted coeff/s numbers that gives one a good idea of how terrible of a situation it is in, on the GW2 forums and and on this reddit thread along with suggestions on how to improve it. I must say that I was hoping for more coeff theorycrafting, as I am unsure if my views are shared by others.

I looked over the post, sums it up pretty much on the dot. Honestly, I’ve mentioned this before. I’m completely alright with slow animations, If that’s the theme they want that’s fine, however the abilities have to match up with HIGH damage payoff.

As for theorycrafting. As I said I was planning to run some tests but didn’t even make it that far, I had to work most of the weekend. The time I did get I decided to just field test them in fractals, It’s sad when you can literally notice the poor damage.

Silverkey.2078:

Brazil was arguing that the elite shout could be good as a AOE deep freeze (of course quite a bit shorter).

GS DPS needs to be increased, that is quite clear. I feel like the devs put what they thought was a very high damage coefficient (especially gravedigger) but forgot that the final DPS is low because of cast and aftercast… Gravedigger is conditional and takes very long time, it should be clearly stronger than dagger AA…

Eh, might not be bad for a niche use however the only reasonable use is against the average mob which can be negated by blinds anyway and giving up Lich is just a big no-no.

Yeah, I want Gravedigger to be like an execute for our single target rotations (Along with great AoE damage). With some damage tuning and 100% CD with the target under 50% HP, It could be very powerful. But yeah, GS needs some serious number tweaking, I’m fine with slow attacks so long as their worth using.

Before I begin I wanted to state that this thread is about the beta Reaper in It’s current state for high/organized pve. We’ve had a great deal of pvp feedback so I thought I’d make this to hear some of the pve feedback. I’d also like to mention everything I post here is focused on pve without taking pvp into consideration.

Anyway, I’m going to try and keep this short. So, we all know Anet is bringing some form hardcore pve content, along with that It means they have to start ACTUALLY dealing with some pve balance issues, at least they should… That remains to be seen.

Opening:
So! Where does the Reaper stand? Not too good. It took me only a day of fooling around to get attuned to the rotation and abilities. I took my team into some dungeons/fractals to test the damage. We ran a full optimized group comp, I was sad to see the numbers just weren’t adding up, I honestly had planned to hit up the training golems to run some tests but I quickly realized I didn’t even need to do that.

Greatsword:
By far the most disappointing, I pictured this weapon to be a form of effective AoE and Life Force gain in AoE fights, instead It was pretty much just dead weight. The auto is far too slow for how little damage it does. Gravedigger COULD be great but needs more damage and the cooldown needs to be 100% under 50% health. Death Spiral is alright, but I can easily say flat damage increases would be a good idea. Nightfall and Reaper’s Grasp seem decent enough, extra blinds is always nice but for Reaper’s Grasp I’d get rid of that frontal fire effect and make it a targettable skill.

Shouts:
I’m honestly just going to say this, for pve use… These are all quite awful compared to the current utility skill meta. Wells are just too strong compared, and shouts don’t offer anything of use. Hell, I would never replace Lich for “Chilled to the Bone!”

Reaper Traitline:
All three of the minor traits could use a little work for a pve standpoint, chill honestly isn’t that effective but could be changed into something less useless for the minors. However, besides the first three adept traits the others seem quite nice. Decimate defenses is very nice and will solve a lot of crit problems and with the proper buffing to RS Reaper’s Onslaught could be fantastic.

Reaper’s Shroud:
It’s pretty much agreed by all this was the best part of the Reaper, It was also my favorite part. I loved everything about it, however… It still doesn’t beat out dagger but It can! Increase the RS auto attacks damage and we could finally have an effective alternative to dagger builds. I’d also refine Death’s Charge for one, make it more like Whirlwind (Warrior GS ability). I’d also make Soul Spiral MUCH more powerful, It’s honestly very lackluster. And finally I’d make Executioner’s Scythe have a quicker cast time and a shorter cooldown, no offense to the frost field it creates… Just not that great in pve and shouldn’t be the reason It gets a huge cooldown. I love Infusing Terror but I would allow the Stab to stay even If you exit the shroud. I also want to mention I like the proc sigils go off when you enter shroud, keep that.

Closing:
My final notes, I’m sure I missed some stuff… I kinda threw this together. What I would like to see is RS become a new meta setup. I love Shroud builds, and RS is very fun. Some people might disagree about increasing damage too much for a lot of this stuff, but keep in mind… We do less damage then most classes because of our horribly lackluster traitlines. We have tiny modifiers.

Anyway, all ye highend folks! Post away, give us some opinions. Thanks!

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

What are you even grinding? I’ve been playing since headstart and never felt like I was grinding.

Granted, I’ve never actually played explorable mode dungeons (apart from fractals) so maybe that’s where that was.

But more on topic, the point of legendary weapons IS the skin. The stat bonus is just extra incentive they added later. Having all exotic gear be equal allows for the endgame to essentially be collecting skins and looking nice. Which tbh is much better than “BE MORE STRONGER” but that’s just my opinion.

Hah! That’s actually one of the main reasons I dislike modern MMOs, having to go through the motions every expansion to get new gear just feels silly. I really hope this Mastery system works out, I think there is far better ways to expand a character then new shiny gear.

I do admit there are many problems for the game, I could also make points about the awesome stuff the game offers, HOWEVER… I’m going to save myself the time. Take it from someone who’s played 30+ MMOs, beta tests for fun and just generally has a passion for MMOs in general. Every person is different and thus has different tastes in MMOs, just gotta find the right one.

I will mention, I find the grouping to be very appealing in this game, I dislike having to rely on a healer/tank in other MMOs. But you still keep that team work aspect… Yeah, in pugs you can pretty much just expect every man for himself, but when you have a premade group (AKA friends or guildies) It’s a lot different and more fun. I also find 50 scale fractals to have far more reliable people who work A LOT better together.

Although the Reaper doesn’t fix all our problems, I’m pretty excited for it. It’s finally going in a good direction vs where the class was before, fixing a great many problems we suffered. Though as I always say, I never get my hopes too high.

Mainly being a hardcore power necro since release, I’m all over this theme. And as much as DS gives us problems, It’s one of the core reasons I picked this class so long ago. The shouts could use a little work though, cause… twenty bucks says they’ll be mostly useless.

There’s more to dungeons then that, and as always… It’s up to the player, some people find dungeons more fun and some people rather pvp. I personally have little interest in pvp, I did enough hardcore pvp in other MMOs.

Back on topic! In the average dungeon It really doesn’t matter, dungeons can be easily done EVEN in speedruns with a Necro without losing any real time. Unless your doing record speedruns, It DOESN’T matter. Some people are just elitists and always will be, every MMO has them.

The only real way to get rid of this problem is to give us some group utility or some reason to be in the meta, until then… Join a Guild, find nice people to run premade groups with. If you plan to stick with pugging, avoid elitist groups.

I just… Wow, I have no words for this. What have they done to the axe auto!? ;_;

I hope we’re SUPER powerful and they don’t touch us. >.> Just for once, let us be the ONE.

This is truly the problem though, even If we reach a decent amount of support, another class can do it better without giving anything up. Necros need some form of support that makes them special, that other classes can’t do. Anyway, back on topic!

Depends what you speak of, pve or pvp… Honestly, I think It’s a terrible idea in both, though pve more then pvp. The shouts are gonna end up being useless cause they do pathetic damage because Anet doesn’t want necros to be out of control and minor debuffs, cause… We don’t want necros to be OP. I’ll give you all money these shouts become quickly forgotten, mainly in the pve aspect.

Razor.9872:

Truefrost.6815:

Without group utility we don’t have anything to offer

I wouldn’t say that. It has been pointed out again and again that Necro’s benefit the group through Debuffing the enemy into oblivion. Group utility like protection does not stack really, but a necro can provide the addition benefit of near-constant weakness. It is things like this that necros excel at. Saying you don’t have anything to offer is a bit harsh.

Lol, god… I should keep a counter on how many times I repeat myself. xD Debuffing is weak, It doesn’t even compare to group support, until Anet makes some REAL changes It never will. Weakness/Chill/Blinds all don’t effect most normal bosses

You can all point it out a THOUSAND times, it doesn’t change the facts, Group buffing wins until something is changed. As for fighting normal mobs, Eles can basicly drop ONE ability and perma blind a whole group until death. And of course, thieves can sustain blind without a cooldown. Yeah, we have nothing to offer, and what little we do have… Other classes can achieve with just a little effort but with even better results.

I was hoping for a reflect aswell, we deeply need one but I agree on the putting a reflect on Spectral Wall.

I didn’t miss Anets plan to re-work Blood Magic, in a pve circumstance healing is already crappy as can be. Sure, It might be decent in pvp, but my reply was for what was said about pve. And I’m just gonna say it, unless you are awful at dodging, group healing is meh.

Unless they add some form of content that makes It viable or they re-work healing in general It will continue that way, as I’ve always said… I keep my expectations low, as I’ve come to learn for this class.

You can be as skilled as you want, the limit becomes your class and Necro is the lowest of the low when It comes to pve. Although the Reaper will allow us to gain a little height, once again… Without group utility we don’t have anything to offer so when I say a little we’ll still be the bottom of the barrel. At least we’re getting some mega vuln stacking/cleaving! It’s better then nothing and It’s a step in the right direction!

I find it amusing that most people tend to bury they’re heads in the sand when it comes to balancing. In every MMO there is always the best build, this CANNOT be changed unless It’s changed by the company through buffs to what’s worse, or nerfs to what’s best. Even when that happens a NEW best is created, cause numbers will always be numbers. So for that whole theory crafting bit, It’s basicly what Anet has told us for YEARS now. “You’ve yet to find the true strength of the Necro!” Yeah, no… The best has been discovered, and It will repeat with whatever changes! So go ahead, theory craft all you want. Just know you will never beat a good player with a meta build.

Now this doesn’t mean you should play just the meta, you can do whatever you want. However, as for necros having so much problems, It’s completely understandable. We’ve been the lowest tier for everything. The only thing we’re considered in the meta for is WvW. I personally am not one to complain that often, hell… I don’t even post much, but It’s understandable to those that do.. :P

On to pve! Support is king, that’s all there is to it. Until Anet creates a way for Chill/Weakness/blinds to actually be effective against bosses we won’t have a place unless we GET defensive group support. Offensive support will never beat defensive group support. And for people who do speed run challenges, or high end fractals for fun, that’s frustrating… You cannot have a class that just doesn’t work for a game mode. It’s completely unacceptable.

Necros are NOT fine in dungeons. Yes, they’re fine in casual groups, but in high end fractals they’re basicly useless. Not only do they offer nothing, they also have limited utility to live with.

And no, It’s not a TINY percent. Most of what’s left for the dungeon community are people who are big on group comp and the like, let’s also not forget chances are new dungeons will not be in HoT, but FRACTALS will continue. So even HIGHER level fractals = worse for the poor Necro. :P

If Anet plans to have this ‘Endgame Content’ they speak of, they have to make all classes viable, you can’t have classes that have NO place in a game mode. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those super “They’re so terrible, woe is my class!” types, but 2+ years of this isn’t acceptable at ALL.

I think It’s pretty safe to say the core Necro isn’t going to change. I doubt they’ll ever make us truly viable. Still, at least we’re headed in the right direction. But as always, I’ve learned to not get my hopes up with this class. :P

As for Blood Magic line, they’re gonna have to do serious work to make it good. They can’t just slap on a “Hey! You can Siphon in DS now! It’s viable right!?” Which is what I’m betting they’re gonna do.

Maybe It’s because I like more realistic stuff, but I also agree… I think It’s a bit too large. However, I understand the value of fantasy! So I don’t mind either way.

Honestly, we can’t really tell much until we can actually try it out. So I’d hold off on the ‘OMG U FAILED US ANET’. They gave us a lot of what we asked for, so I’d say everything is going in the right direction.

My only concerns are in pve, we still have the DS mechanic (That spells trouble), we also still have very weak group support, siphoning is still not going to be good vs taking Soul Reaping/Spite because of the lack of damage traits. Just remember, DS is the reason we were in the hole in the first place and It could happen again If our combos are too powerful.

But as I said, let’s all just relax and wait before we pass horrible judgement. I have no doubt we can try it out in the beta.

After maining this class since beta, I’ve learned to not get my hopes up. Let’s just wait and see what they show us tomorrow before we turn into a ravenous mob (Pitchforks included!).

As for what they’ve shown us, I like the idea of Vuln being our thing. However, It’s not enough for us to match up to the top tier classes, even with more damage (Unless It’s A LOT of damage, even above the thief, I HIGHLY doubt it). But at least we have cleave now… That’s one problem solved.

I’m more concerned with Reaper’s Shroud. I was really hoping they’d give us a NEW mechanic for the Reaper, cause Anet can’t balance DS worth a crap. Two health bars DO NOT equal the loss of mobility and good utilities.

Are you kidding me? Two+ years of the same thing? My body is ready!

Not sure why you dislike this OP. Not only does our class have one of the most interesting and active mechanic, but It changes with our weapon. I honestly don’t mind that they aren’t going for something new.

I feel like classes such as Warr and Necro should have a new mechanic for their specialization, let’s face it… Warr having a SINGLE button as the so called “Mechanic” is just boring… Necro is a little better, but DS basicly stops the devs from giving them any form of utility.

We have something really nice for our mechanic and I’d rather see it change in a more dynamic way then have our specialization completely different. Improve upon it, give us more interesting roles within our attunements.

I actually posted on the other Howler bug post, I mainly crafted Howler to match Frostfang (Stacking aura, cause It matches really well.) But I was super excited about the day/night moon, don’t care much for the looping howl but the loss of the moon is just… Sad. Honestly, It was one of the coolest legendaries.

Nothing has changed for D/F, It’s still just as good as It was before. The 10% damage nerf to LW was merely to even it out with the speed increase. The might nerf didn’t even touch dungeons, just not enough to effect us.