Guild Wars 2

Zero Solstice.9754:

I did in fact forget about the health and toughness reductions, so it’s fair to call it a nerf, but to be fair it’s also not a healthy type of skill to have in the game, hence why they nerfed the scrapper version Bulwark Gyro as well. Having free passive damage mitigation that requires no real input isn’t a rigorous or skill-intensive design. The fact that Necromancer as a class has so few defensive capabilities beyond Shroud is a major issue, so this nerf combined with the previous change to Infuse Terror hurts on the surface, but in total it just requires more active play on your part to have sufficient survivability.

You mean like the generally higher necessary skill necros have needed to survive since day one that no other class needs? “Just requires more active play” indicates that that is an easy thing to do for a class that has less than a handful of defensive abilities, active or otherwise. It’s utterly inequitable that necros still have limited defensive options compared to all other classes.

misterman.1530:

Might be with you all there. This has gotten ridiculous. Perma-stealth thieves and mesmers…and yet no real QoL for necros. No leap abilities, no port abilities, no real charge abilities except for Reaper Shroud skill 2. If we are in danger, we are screwed.

The fact that a necro doesn’t have some sort of stealth (Walk Through Shadows) is ridiculous.

I blame PvP for these changes. Nothing else makes sense.

Specifically, PvP QQ about Necro “cheese”

misterman.1530:

Charblaze.6958:

How can it be a a QoL patch when they touched up unused skills that will still be unused after?
They could have at least reduced the baseline DS degeneration, nerfed Vital Persistence of a matching amount, so Spectral Mastery finally was a viable choice.

As usual what works got nerfed.

My thoughts exactly. QoL patch? I don’t think they know what that means.

How about letting Marks hit downed enemies in WvW? Every other AOE from every other class does, why not Necros?

And the nerf to Rise? Really? What made them think that was required.

Horrible patch for Necros, yet again.

To Anet: does ANYONE on the staff main a Necro? Anyone? Especially in WvW?

Especially anywhere

Zero Solstice.9754:

The balance patch was perfectly fine. Nothing got nerfed, while at the same time a number of skills got buffs or QoL changes. The change to Rise means that Reapers need to take more damage, but that also means that the minions stay alive longer. The change really only made it so that it becomes harder to sustain, but the amount of damage that Rise mitigates is still roughly the same.

Rise was our only significant clutch defense skill. It’s a pretty meaty nerf

Ravezaar.4951:

yea left game 4 months ago and today I checked for Balance Patch: all I can say Iam happy I left the game.

I’m in the same boat. One of my favorite shouts was nerfed (one of our only real defenses) and a bunch of unused stuff got tweaked. I’m just going to be doing Living World stuff and then leave again.

Fingers crossed for something getting done to axe

DKShang.8792:

Vydahr.4285:

Right now, my time on varies greatly. Which is why I’m looking for a guild, that way there’d be incentive for me to be online more often. But I can tell you I’m on the East Coast, if that helps any

Yeap, that helps. I’ll look you up tonight so we can chat. I was looking for you last night but got pulled into another SAB run then some fractals and next thing you know it’s midnight.

Is there a time range you’ll be on? That way I can make sure to make some time for it

Klaeljanus.7695:

Actually, yes, that screenshot does say that Necro is not OP.

It would say that Necro is SEEN as op, but is actually balanced. I mean, look at the scores. It suggests that the blue ranger and only one of the other necros worked very well together(just the two of them alone beat your team’s score), with the 2nd good necro helping out slightly better than you did.

Took the words out of my mouth. This is where we’ve always wanted to be as necros, and as reapers. To be strong and balanced, fitting in any group to a decent enough degree to be useful in our ways. Honestly, I love that screenshot. Because it’s a kitten good sign that we got what we wanted after years of fighting

Athrea.1629:

Sure, we use teamspeak.

I sent you a pm asking a few other questions

Do you guys use any voice chat for various adventures?

What server are you guys on?

DKShang.8792:

Hey, Vydahr, what times are you on? Just based on your post above it looks like you would do fine with us and we still have a few slots open. Well, one note though. We are not doing raids yet even though we have done a dry run. If you are interested I can contact you in game tonight or you can read more about us at our guild recruitment post <— click here.

Right now, my time on varies greatly. Which is why I’m looking for a guild, that way there’d be incentive for me to be online more often. But I can tell you I’m on the East Coast, if that helps any

bump

Unfortunately, I’m in my early twenties so by default unable to join both jugs and tyrs. However, if either of you know of a guild that is somewhat similar to your own that includes my age range, I’d be appreciative

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Vydahr.4285:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i think the four new stats will be available in the upcoming living story updates.

i think.

You hope? Because I hope. I also hope LW doesn’t take a year to get here. I need to get some sweet pally gear

yeah i hope ehhehe.

well, i think they are working on it (living story) at the moment.
since i think they kinda said they stopped work on new legendary weapons in order to focus on living story.

mercenary
paladin
menders
druid

all nice 4 stats for pve as well !

Do you have a dream build using any of those?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i think the four new stats will be available in the upcoming living story updates.

i think.

You hope? Because I hope. I also hope LW doesn’t take a year to get here. I need to get some sweet pally gear

What server are you guys on?

Is there any indication of Anet making the amulet stats available as armor any time in the future?

I stopped playing gw2 several months ago due to simply getting burned out. I have very few real world friends to play with, and solo play gets old rather quickly.

I main a necro/reaper, and used to be pretty decent with it, even doing well back in the dark days of necro kicking. (The frustration)

I’m looking for a semi-casual guild that does a bit of everything, including raids, that can help inspire me to restart playing what was my favorite mmo a year ago.

I’m on the Northern Shiverpeaks server and would love to be part of a close-knit guild that talks both in game chat, and on teamspeak or something similar

EDIT: Guild found

So, this may not be the right place in the forums to post this, but I mained a Sylvari Necro/Reaper back when i played more, so here I am.

My question is, is there any reason to come back to GW2 after being away for several months? And, secondarily, how’s the state of Power Reaper?

Any news on whether or not the new amulets will be turned into gear sets for PvE? Especially Paladin… I really like that one

Does anybody else really want that amulet as gear in PvE? Because. I reeeeeally want it. A lot. I also like the juxtaposition of a dark reaper and light paladin. Yay wordplay

I’m so glad that power builds didn’t get touched with these changes… -.- I mean, it’s good that condi is helped, now. But man. No traitline fixes/buffs/tweaks? No changed Death Magic, no other real way of gaining boons still, unless you go Spite…. Meh -.-

Sylvari Reaper for me. kitten glowing green cat-eyes and durable as all hell, like an old root. As a necromancer should be.

Frankly, I just wish that we had better boon spam from other trait lines than Spite. While Spite is a solid line, it’s kind of everywhere and not very exciting (still hoping for the day when Death Magic finally shines)

A shout build makes a great camp flipping build. I’ve charged into a full camp (no players around, mind) and taken the whole thing down on my Soldier build. So, basically, Reapers just enhance base Necro’s camp flipping ability

Hey, everyone. Lately I’ve been testing my builds by soloing the Champion Quetzal Commander in Auric Basin (mostly unsuccessfully, and man… it’s a long hike to get back.) The build I have in my signature is the one I can win against the bird with.

This got me thinking, though… How do you guys test your builds? Do you just do dps tests in HotM on golems, do you duel a friend, or find a champ to fight like me?

NeXeD.3042:

flow.6043:

Acotje.5689:

…

messiah.1908:

…

Like I said, I haven’t seen a signet necro in ages, and I regularly play both PvP and WvW.

meow one twenty.4376:

Look at dat team healing…

Healing to Allies includes rezzing, ~500k is still impressive though.

I’m more impressed how he was able to do 500k damage with a settlers amulet.

It makes me really sad, considering that’s the highest I’ve ever gotten on Soldier ammy

Holl.3109:

Vydahr.4285:

Holl, I find Soldier ammy is the way to go for power Reaper. Necros have always excelled with bruiser builds (within their limits) and Reaper uses the bruiser playstyle to even greater success. Also, traited shouts on a Reaper are surprisingly impressive.

I see the point of your build, but I’m wondering if you’ve tried what I mentioned

I’ll be honest, I have not >.> I’m a big fan of ‘go damage or go home’ builds, so I rarely choose soldiers amu. I know the soldier build is good too, just showing off another build

One of my favorite Soldier Reaper moments: Enemy team is zerging in Khylo. This irritates me. I go help a teammate take far and kill a couple enemy fighters. Then I camp their spawn to keep them from zerging. And let me tell you. A Soldier Reaper can be a huge pain in the kitten if played even marginally well in that situation. (Normally I don’t spawn camp, but the little zergers had it coming)

Holl.3109:

Which is why I stopped using traps a loooong time ago :^)

Power BB reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kjGovGs2GwlGgeTsgLYxXxuYYkKN0GeWQXtAQLA-TZRGABA8AA6uMwBnBAQ2fwgDBAA

Condi Curses Reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo2GsvGw5GgeTscMYx5wfYRkaJ8EmVR9stVAA-TZhHwACOEAAeAAILDE4MAAa/BA

I find these builds a lot more engaging to play then standard signets, and both do quite well. Unfortunately power reaper can be easily countered in high tier PvP

Holl, I find Soldier ammy is the way to go for power Reaper. Necros have always excelled with bruiser builds (within their limits) and Reaper uses the bruiser playstyle to even greater success. Also, traited shouts on a Reaper are surprisingly impressive.

I see the point of your build, but I’m wondering if you’ve tried what I mentioned

Cogbyrn.7283:

Vydahr.4285:

Cogbyrn.7283:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Vydahr.4285:

Stand The Wall.6987:

yes its really easy, reroll.

Better idea. Build tanky with Soldier ammy, Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper, take Blighter’s Boon and full shouts. Play aggressive. Granted, you can’t do that much initially, but once you get some life force… Start playing like a rabid honey badger

Did that, took trooper runes and full shouts. Not a single condition stayed on me. It was hilarious when I got loaded up with condis and just used suffer.

I’m going to be trying this soon as well. Kind of excited.

As you can see in my build (signature), I use Scrapper runes myself, but I just switched to using Axe/Focus in PvE and may try it in PvP now. If that is what I do, I’ll also try Trooper/Soldier Runes. Either way, a Soldier ammy Reaper (regardless of rune set) is an absolute beast

What I’ve found with Soldier runes is that condis often cripple me more than power pressure, so I try to help mitigate condis with my rune-ing. I need to start exploring though just to try different variations, just to mix things up.

Realistically, in a situation where you need to blow all five shouts to cleanse 6-10 condis, (in a group of 5 on 1, mind) I don’t know how much you’re going to be able to handle beyond that as is. The way I see it, Scrapper runes give you a bit more pressure with the power stat, and you have enough hp and lf that you can survive all but the hardest hitting condi burst just by soaking it up and going after the condi user. And the extra 7% damage mitigation essentially puts you on par with a heavy armor class. So that helps deal with pressure from non-condi players, or players who run carrion ammy.

Alternately, you could run offhand dagger with axe, but………. That’s going to be a lot less useful than focus on a reaper (7 seconds of chill and up to three boons removed, plus vuln and damage burst at 1200 range on one weapon is, theoretically, really nice on Reaper, whereas blindness and weak-ish condi transfer plus weakness is… Blah, I think)

Cogbyrn.7283:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Vydahr.4285:

Stand The Wall.6987:

yes its really easy, reroll.

Better idea. Build tanky with Soldier ammy, Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper, take Blighter’s Boon and full shouts. Play aggressive. Granted, you can’t do that much initially, but once you get some life force… Start playing like a rabid honey badger

Did that, took trooper runes and full shouts. Not a single condition stayed on me. It was hilarious when I got loaded up with condis and just used suffer.

I’m going to be trying this soon as well. Kind of excited.

As you can see in my build (signature), I use Scrapper runes myself, but I just switched to using Axe/Focus in PvE and may try it in PvP now. If that is what I do, I’ll also try Trooper/Soldier Runes. Either way, a Soldier ammy Reaper (regardless of rune set) is an absolute beast

Stand The Wall.6987:

yes its really easy, reroll.

Better idea. Build tanky with Soldier ammy, Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper, take Blighter’s Boon and full shouts. Play aggressive. Granted, you can’t do that much initially, but once you get some life force… Start playing like a rabid honey badger

spoj.9672:

Anchoku.8142:

After writing all that, I thought about what are the closest examples to fighting a good AI in this game.

It is events with multiple mobs: each one may only have three skills but, with several types of them and in good quantity, the result is closer to what I expect of a boss with good AI. There is still no active skill countering but the numbers and positioning of multiple, powerful mobs.

Soloing or duoing refugee camp defense offers more real time strategy because of the more random and less predictable elements while being difficult enough due to being grossly outnumbered.

Arenanet could take four of their favorite fractal bosses, a few lower bosses like champs, stuff ten players onto a platform with them, and wish everyone luck. I would prefer that to gated phases and timers. The variety of boss skills should mix things up enough in the chaos.

Its all well and good have interesting dynamic fights like that. But for truly challenging content you need timers and gates as well. Both sides are required to create difficulty. Without them you can just take slow cheesy routes (see safespots etc). And the timers on spirit vale arent even hard gates. So im really confused about all these complaints about “hard gates” and “hard timers”. They dont exist in gw2 raids yet people are implying they do falsely. Im guessing they havent actually played the raids or havent lived long enough to run out of time on the timer so they dont realise that. :P

I’d say the enrage timers are more “firm gates” that, while you don’t strictly have to beat a boss in the time limit, you’re gonna have a hell of a time finishing it off if you don’t down it within the time limit

The build I run is really effective at drawing the Vale Guardian’s attention while all the zerk armor players are throwing everything at him. It’s just a Soldier Bruiser build that I also use in PvP, but it’s highly effective and self-sustaining so everyone else can focus on their jobs without worrying about me too much (see my signature for the PvP build. PvE version is just whatever you want so long as you have the soldier gear. I use soldier trinkets as well, but throw in some valk or berserker if you want)

cakeonroof.7385:

Focusing the necro is known by 98% of all ranked/unranked pvpers. It’s also one of the reason I’m hesitant playing the class outside of a premade.

Yes, all of you soloQing necros have the biggest balls in the game for playing a class that’s known to be the primary target.

So my question is, does playing an Asura make a difference for necro/repear?

I play a Sylvari Reaper. Being tough as an old root helps with the focusing

Vapour.7348:

Firstly, focusing the necro is “grand-fathered” in the minds of Pvpers.

Why?

No reliable disengage. The damage you deliver to necros are never wasted because they cant escape. No escape = easy opportunity for your team to 5v4

We have Wurm which is meh and uses a utility slot. Most classes have some form of disengage or even blocks through weapon skills

I feel like our utility weapon (staff) should get some sort of block/disengage skill. I mean, being useful in multiple ways is its whole purpose, right? it’s not great for power or condi builds, but it’s used by both anyway because it has a lovely set of tools (though, mark of blood just…. sigh) And we need some mitigation somewhere. So… shrug why not there?

Here’s hoping the next big mechanics project is the addressing of subpar traitlines and abilities of core classes

Blaine Tog.8304:

I saw someone in map chat asking for anyone but a Necro for their raid pug… because they already had 5 Necros.

For some reason, I’m okay with this

Cogbyrn.7283:

Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself after reading this thread?

Do we even need to end the “Focus the Necro” mentality? Or is that fine as part of the game?

Personally, I like Anchoku and Dead’s combined answer. It’s a matter of teamplay and/or building specifically tanky to prolong their attempt to burst you. If you prove enough times that them leading on the Necro loses them the fight, maybe they’ll stop.

Or they’ll cry for Necro nerfs. I don’t know, it’s difficult to say with MMO PvP communities. But I think that’s the proper course.

TankyReaperMeta2k15 – The biggest pain in the kitten this side of….well. Anything, really

The one to Rule.2593:

rev is in top 3 dps classes, you’ll like it

I’ve mained Necro since I started playing about a year ago.. dps isn’t my main focus xD lol But Rev does seem like it has potential with my playstyle. Just gotta get used to the rotations and everything, I think.

Any advice for leveling a Rev? Hammer/Sword/Axe and Devestation/Invocation?

Joxer.6024:

I too enjoy that style of gameplay and my “main” is also Reaper…tanked up and he owns! But have you tried Death Magic? If you really want to be “tanky” and tough then DM is they way to go, and drop Spite or SR if you don’t use Shroud much but as a Reaper using RS is one of our extra perks!
For my Rev I have gone with Soldier gear and Brawler runes. So far not bad in HoT but haven’t fully unlocked herald so more to come I reckon. Its my 2nd Rev as I thought having a Asura one would be kinda fun and cool, and it is.
My other Rev is full Herald and I must say, they are just what you would like so go for it!!

I did play around with Death Magic some, but find I enjoy the extra oomph provided by Spite, so I guess my “flavor” of build is more Bruiser than Tank. So, that style for a Revenant

Mostly PvE, but I also play PvP on a fairly regular basis

I main a Reaper now that elites are out, but Revenant also has my attention for multiple reasons (the concept, the lore, the interesting combat mechanics) but I like Bruiser builds quite a lot and I have… Well. No idea whether there’s a build like that for Revenant. (Take a look at my signature for my Reaper build to get an idea of my tastes more specifically)

But, I do like the idea of a Soldier/Scrapper rune type build for Rev/Herald

Cogbyrn.7283:

To me it’s like the “Focus the Healer” mentality, adapted to GW2’s difference in style. You pick the class that has a potentially large influence on a fight, that can be shut down, and you shut that class down. It’s the job of the Necro to do what he/she can to survive, and it’s the job of your team to help peel/punish the other team enough to come out ahead in the engagement, even if you die as the Necro.

Embrace the situation and work with it, not against it. Sometimes you and your team might come out ahead, and sometimes you won’t.

Just ran into something like this. Enemy team was zerging in Khylo and aggravating everyone on my team (naturally.) Well, this Reaper got tired of it so camped their kitten spawn. I’m not proud of it, exactly, but if you’re gonna try zerging in PvP, you’re gonna have a Reaper at your doorstep slowing you the hell down

Can’t you swap the stats in the mystic forge anyway, though?

I’ve started leveling/playing around with a Revenant with a friend and I have to say… Rev is a pretty fun class. That being said, even just playing Rev for a short time, if I switch back to my bruiser Reaper I remember why I main it and why I love necro so much. OP, I’ve also played a bit over 800 hours on my necro (out of 1200 total, so… big chunk of my GW2 time) and leveling an alt is a nice way to mix it up a bit. But for me, Rev is probably just going to be a casual character and my Reaper will be for heavy duty stuff.

Because long live Soldier Reapers

OP, you could also just, you know…… Stick to LoL or Dota instead of making GW2 a clone of those games

EremiteAngel.9765:

Very well written reply. Thank you.
Also I wouldn’t disagree with any of your points.
Except for the Reaper.
Just bring a diamond skin ele or tempest and you have a dead condi reaper. even a power reaper will struggle.

A power reaper will only really struggle against an ele if they camp water attunement with diamond skin. Then it’s just a nearly endless war of attrition unless the Reaper can out rotate the ele, or the ele trips. And if a Reaper has full life force, any glass build will go down. Hell, even a DH with all their traps and burst is gonna have a rough time if they encounter a Reaper in its prime

All DH team versus all Reaper team. Let the chaos commence