Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

No. FitG is a great trait as is, why would we slap something that has a massive drawback to using it on it.

Because its current bonus is pretty crappy outside of the break stun factor. 3 seconds of stability is way too short and its more than likely to just flat out expire before one can make use of it. Plenty of times ive broken stun and thought I would be fine and dandy only to be hit with a cc moments after the stability expired. Or hit but 2 cc’s quickly following one another. Consider shiro right now he cant remove a bonus stack meaning that one stability is useless. Thief can steal from you daze you you pop DS to break the daze early well oops venom now applies for 2 strikes. The first eats the stability the second still stuns you. :/ FinG is good but could be so much better like about 70% of everything else necro has.

Misguided.5139:

spoj.9672:

Im against this. If they made it a breakbar they would slap a huge ICD on it. And FitG is a very good trait as it is right now because it has no ICD. Especially in CC heavy encounters in PvE (not so common right now but HoT has plenty by the looks of it). And fractals has a few places where it is really useful already.

So I say no to making FitG become a breakbar because that would be a nerf. Im all for us getting a breakbar elsewhere though.

How about a breakbar on Plague? It could actually be used offensively in the sense that if the bar gets filled up, Plague ends prematurely, but explodes in a massive death ball thing, applying poison, weakness, and bleeding to a massive area.

This one i disagree unless that break bar can take like 15/20 hits of cc or the following

Unless they buff its condition output to be doing massive condition application for example It would need to be effectively hitting as hard as lich form when using a condition damage build. (5 bleeds that last 12 seconds each per hit at a 1 second application with 3stcks poison, and torment) or something like that. It would need to be a game changing skill with a game changing risk punishment.

As of how it is right now I think, The pulsing stability is actually much better as the way plague sits currently.

spoj.9672:

Im against this. If they made it a breakbar they would slap a huge ICD on it. And FitG is a very good trait as it is right now because it has no ICD. Especially in CC heavy encounters in PvE (not so common right now but HoT has plenty by the looks of it). And fractals has a few places where it is really useful already.

So I say no to making FitG become a breakbar because that would be a nerf. Im all for us getting a breakbar elsewhere though.

You must be insane to be against it lol. Break bars come with a massive risk on using them if they get broken.
AND
DS already has a cd itself.
AND
If you can only get it while in DS and its only up while DS is up plus you have to give up a trait for it i think its totally fair for it not to have a ICD.
PLUS
Once the bar is broken its gone and the only way to get it back would be to re trigger DS which has a 10second cd.

And what are you some insane guy who uses foot in the grave as it is now. Be honest aside form the initial break stun that 3s stability stack is not doing anything for you lol.

Its a clashing effect of an unfinished profession mechanic. The orignal death shrould was made to be the necromancers downed state and later turned into the professions game mechanic. It functions like a downed state health bar.

You can still be hit
You can still be cc’ed
it depletes over time
you cannot us standard healing methods
You cant use utilities
You dont get benefits from utilities.

These little bits of healing they have provided are not quite viable yet and need to be adjusted more. Necro is that mess in the game thats super fun to play but devs dont like touching it too much for some odd reason. ;/ idk

Should at least be like the ele trait for air sense among break bars the devs are handing out super speed to everyone.
Speed of shadows gain increased movement speed -in general- gain super speed upon entering DS for 3 seconds. or some kittenz <lol i like the foum sensor that made my day ;D like that. If not super speed then gain quickness for 3 seconds. I mean something need to give.

Also to the guy who pointed out quickening thirst which requires a threshold restriction of your hp being over 75% (yet another needless restriction making the trait less tempting) To follow that up the blood line trait in general is not good. its pretty wack. Its ok for droplets of hp but its not medi guard who heals massive amounts from simply face rolling on the keys.

Arche.7326:

First of the damage numbers are just pathetic and Range should be globaly increased to 900 on axe, up from 600.

Axe Skill #1, Rending Claws a coeff of at least 1 instead of 0.7. It is on ranged and it is single target, so it should be lower than dagger coeff/s wise. Axe auto seems to be a 1 sec auto with afterswing and so a 1 coeff/s for it along with the vulnerability application seems reasonable. I would also like to see a vuln increase per stack to 3 or an increase in duration to 10 (instead of 7). Preferably the 3 vuln. This makes for a nice setup for burst.

Axe Skill #2, Ghastly Claws deals low damage and generates LF. All it needs is a damage and range increase. The damage coeff should be 4 for the total channel, possibly a bit higher and but definitly not below 4. This skill is similar to Rapid Fire, but it does not apply vulnerability by itself and has a shorter range, cooldown is two seconds shorter, down at 8 compared to Rapidfires 10. It deals more damage at a shorter range and at a lower CD and is also not a finisher.

Axe Skill #3, Unholy Feast is a skill that I thematicaly wondered why it didn’t steal boons. So my suggestion is simple, remove the retaliation part and instead grant the remaining duration of the boon removed to the Necromancer, and of course convert it to a condition on the target from which it was stolen. I would like it to strip two boons on each target (and steal them, of course), but considering what happens if you were to hit 5 targets and steal two from each it might be a bit too strong, increased cooldown to 20 might be a solution. I would also increase the coeff to 1.3 (up from 0.8) and add an additional 0.3 coeff damage when a boon stolen/converted. If you were to steal two boons this way the skill would hit like Lich Form #1 Deathly Claws. I would also like for Necros to have reliable access to blast finishers and this skill would suit it perfectly, make it one. And maybe increase the CD to 20.

But that’s just my thoughts on Necro Axe.

honestly with reaper coming and gaining so much chill i wouldnt mind seeint the vuln completely removed from the axe AA because necro can stack vuln so easily in many other ways. The damange needs to overall be higher and maybe like some one suggested turn it into a chain with the last hit stripping a boon or something more useful.

Lets face the fact here. 90% of necormancers take soul reaping and you get to the grand master traits and you see
-Foot in the grave
-Death perception
-Dhuumfire

I was doing a little reading and thought well -Death perception is awesome as is.
-Dhuumfire has potential but other ds skills need to be adjusted to make use of it outside of having reaper shroud

Now we get to the elephant in the room.
-Foot in the grave
Break stun when entering DS! Cool thats pretty sweet.
Gain 1 stability for 3 seconds :/ ok wtf this is a slap in the face.

err is that it…

ok it seems arena net has been giving out break bars lately so why not.

AT least make this trait worth something. Remove that useless stability and make it a break bar instead that can take x amount of hits of cc’s before it pops and wont reset till you re enter ds.

What are your thoughts

Ardid.7203:

I think its time for ArenaNet to give some love to the RP and social aspect of the game.
Like adding an OPTIONAL emote icons bar over the chat, to make that part of the game faster and more accessible.
Like adding many more emotes.
Like adding custom idle animations.
And a good new How to Dance.

IMO this aspect is so weak right now that we could see it as a debt from Arena Net. But, being more forgiving and as a realist, I would be very happy if I could simply buy this kind of things from the Gem Store.

I dont particularly care about rp in game but I do want more emotes and guesters things of that nature. I do agree that I would rather have them as a command not a book that only works out of combat.

ronpierce.2760:

Personally, I think a hit can get too high. What I believe, and I realize this differs a bit from Bhawb here, in terms of how Life Blast’s cast should be handled, but here’s my list of thoughts:
- Life Blast damage is too high to cut the Cast time in half.

- Life Blast DPS is too low, and as a resource driven class mechanic, much like the soon-to-be Berserker, it should feel rewarding to trigger, even if that means a minor dps drop on weapon skills (I have little sympathy for those who think Dagger 1 spam should maximize DPS, playing both to their maximum utility would be best, though, more Greatsword with Grave Digger being used at optimal times as dagger is purely sustain).

- Cast time should be halved to .5 second cast +.2 after cast (effective .7, doubling the cast speed from 1.4 seconds.) while reducing damage by 40%, resulting in significantly lower burst damage, but a higher sustained output. The “super slow at everything” niche is dated, and slow, hard hits can remain a Lich Form niche that you can opt into.

- Rather than making it a two-hit channel, as a few are suggesting, to allow some traits to hit twice and others only once per cast (likely Reaper’s Might being the biggest issue), those traits that are seen as too strong when coupled with a faster speed (RM, possibly Unyielding Blast) need to be “nerfed” (see: rebalanced) to have lower durations instead.

Note: The reason this needs to happen is because Reaper already has this faster attack speed. If it’s a problem with a .7 cast Life Blast, it’s an issue with Reaper as well. Not to mention Reaper’s Might vastly over shadows Chilling Victory as a might mechanic, holding non-spite reapers back. Plus for a minor adept, its just a touch too good anyways, especially if Life Blast were to be a stronger DPS option.

- Lastly, Life Blast needs to have a baseline pierce. Piercing is already harder to control than cleave and Life Blast is currently lacking in DPS single target, let alone on multiple targets, this limitation and added Soul Reaping semi-mandatory trait should just be taken away. Also, with the piercing part removed, the trait would no longer appear to be half-effective for Reaper and future shrouds.

Sorry if its a bit wordy, I plan to make a write up following BWE2 and will have it cleaned up and discuss with some other Necromancers before hand, but I want to test some things first with Reaper before I get too deep into suggestions, but these are my general thoughts right now.

TL;DR: Baseline Piercing, Double Cast speed of Life Blast, Reduce damage by 40-45% to bring it in line with Reaper’s capabilities, rebalance non-reaper Traits to compensate for the new speed that fits both Shrouds.

Some one who understands thank god.!!! So sick of dagger being number 1 spot of focus and necro should not be locked into use of the dagger for the main source of dps. (i know for a fact one of the devs talked about axe and scepter changes but who knows how far off that will be)

Honestly in the first BEW if you auto attacked with reaper and did not hit a target you got one stack of might per swing. But for me if i hit targets with the melee i only got might on the last hit of the chain attack. I dont want to include the speed of reapers attacks when comparing to life blast simply because this post was made around the topic of base necro not reaper skills. Engi’ can hold 25 stacks of might with the right build out of combat there should not be a problem with necro holding 25 stacks of might in combat I dont know why every one suggest that reapers might needs to be looked at for doubling the effective shots on life blast -shrugs- and chilling victory only gives one might for 5 seconds. Its not long enough to really be a big deal. Might is the only boon necromancers can actually hold in a fight and i don’t see the point in saying its going to be too strong.

Mesmers can hold might pretty well by shattering and ele can hold high might stacks for sure at least 18 or so by just going through rotation and cantrips along with fury, regen, vigor, and swiftness (nearly unlimitedly)

Who using unyielding blast these days? especially with reaper :/ you take decimate defenses along with bitter chill from spite. Pressing 5 will almost insta= 25 vuln. That trait needs to just be remade into something new at this point.

Even on the base neco most use a staff under one of the weapon sets and it pretty much requires you to take soul marks over it. Even speed of shadows is more useful at this point.

You are right the pierce should be made baseline but might nerfing is not really something that needs to be looked at.

Now if we got other boons mixed in on things like syphoned power say vigor, or fury, etc so that the might was not always might or even have it so its something like -Gain might (shorter duration) and one other boon from your foe-(mesmers have a trait like this for what reason i dont know why) i dont know…. Then maybe thats a fair trade. Maybe even the same thing for chilling victory. They done this to prismatic understanding on mesmers so that they didnt get too many of the same boons all the time. More boon variation would be a nice too on necro too. Doing things like this would keep might generation from being too strong sense some seem to think it is while still keeping those traits useful.

You understand that using a profession mechanic should feel rewarding even more so when you have to build it up to use it. Any one who plays warrior knows this feeling.

Bhawb.7408:

ZDragon.3046:

Our point is with things we are missing and should have as a light armored profession we shouldn’t have to have the idea that Some traits will only proc once per every other cast By doing that its a draw back to a buff because in those traits should proc every time you successfully completed the action, not ever other time. Its like saying well if you play ele “We will reduce the cooldown on swapping to water by 50% but now you only get traits that effect water every other time you swap into it.” :/ there should not be a need to limit necro with every buff they get by putting a drawback on it when other light armored professions don’t have these drawbacks. Increasing the speed of life blast shouldn’t have anything to do with Reaper shroud skills so lets not even include them.

IT.
IS.
A.
BUFF.
PERIOD.

Its called balance. Some traits are just flat out too strong to just immediately double because we’re weaker than other professions in some areas. This is not the place to make us better by doubling everything, that isn’t how balance works. Light armor means exactly nothing, stop acting like that should matter. And it is nothing like your ele comparison, this is an auto attack, this isn’t some weird ICD, and it worked just fine on Reaper’s Shroud.

Are other professions broken? Absolutely, that’s why they should be nerfed, not Necromancer made OP. This understanding is why Necromancer is one of the only communities that seems to understand how balance works. Apparently the idea of it is a flat buff in every single conceivable way is a bit difficult, but that’s literally what any version of this idea being presented is, a flat buff in every way.

THEN
BALANCE
THE *
*OTHER
LIGHT
ARMOR
PROFESSIONS
to match necro standards

Yes it worked fine in reaper shroud but you shouldnt be forced into that to make it work. For that very reason i said to leave reaper shroud out of this one.
Im talking about life blast. Yes other professions get unfair changes and light armor does in fact matter every profession has skills that dictate their armor type. Light armor is usually given more boons like fury, vigor, might ,blinks, reflects, tricky skills to get you out of a sticky spot very easily to make up for there lack of armor and natural defense.

Medium armor seems to focus on evades, some vigor, stealth, etc they have access to boons but can not perma boon themselves like some light armored professions.

Heavy armor professions have much more access to blocks, and skills that allow them to just out right ignore damage. So armor type does matter because if it didnt anet would have said hell with it and allowed any profession to wear any armor type.

Im not saying everything needs to double im specifically in this case talking about the profession base profession mechanic. Theif got the ability to steal once and use the item twice when traited for it just an example (so much for not doubling anything)

As far as not making one thing stronger and the idea that everything should be made weaker thats more work that devs would have to do its eaiser to do it the other way around and making everything weaker would just slow down game play by the minute which is not what the devs want they said that several times. They want more minute by minute change in the play of the game and you cant do that by making everything weaker. Though this is a biased thought and is different for every person Ill just void my own thought and yours as far as this point goes.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Bhawb.7408:

Not sure why everyone suddenly can’t read, by making them hit faster we can more appropriately balance between the two shrouds and their proccing. SOME traits will only proc once per channel OTHERS would proc twice. There is no nerfing going on, only buffs.

(Gives megaphone) I think you might need this.

Our point is with things we are missing and should have as a light armored profession we shouldn’t have to have the idea that Some traits will only proc once per every other cast By doing that its a draw back to a buff because in those traits should proc every time you successfully completed the action, not ever other time. Its like saying well if you play ele “We will reduce the cooldown on swapping to water by 50% but now you only get traits that effect water every other time you swap into it.” :/ there should not be a need to limit necro with every buff they get by putting a drawback on it when other light armored professions don’t have these drawbacks. Increasing the speed of life blast shouldn’t have anything to do with Reaper shroud skills so lets not even include them.

Some one pointed out the buff with the trait quickening thirst Reduced cooldown on daggers skills and increased movement speed (this is a bonus to the profession) But it only works if your hp is above 75% (this is a drawback that should not even exist) It seems that necro is pretty much based on these kinds of things for many traits and skills but the bonuses dont fit the bill of the drawbacks. We have not seen good things come to necro till they started showing reaper stuff. Because these a good bit of these traits are pretty much up to pair and fair with traits all of the other light armored professions have.

IMO traits should never give a drawback to its own profession unless its something super strong and defensive. Take for example Dimond skin Conditions cannot be applied to you as long as your health is over 90% THIS IS STRONG. It means full condition based builds lacking power cant really touch you. On top of that its a defensive trait its drawback being that your hp must be over 90% is pretty well balanced with the fact that you are immune to conditions, but you dont see things like what is done to quickening thirst and some of the other traits on necro done on other professions offensive traits i wonder why :/

Brokensunday.4098:

ZDragon.3046:

Brokensunday.4098:

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

Make unyielding blast baseline this skill is useless 50% on reaper shroud, Make life blast a 2 hit cannel that takes the same time as actual 1.4 secs One hit at .7and the other at 1.4 the other, each blast hits for half the damage of the of actual life blast so you will hit for the same damage if you connect both hits and each hit triggers the Skill 1 traits

Please no we dont need that :/ Will make the traits useless. It would be a buff with a nother drawback which necros already have all over the place heck a whole set of our utility skills is based on draw backs while the benefits are not even worth the risk. This idea is something that would make me just quit playing necro and will force sooooo many players into reaper without a doubt.

actually it will be a buff to traits not a nerf or anything this will help condi shroud build while keeping the power too not sure if a channel would be good but a chain like in reaper would be nice if it activates the traits on each hit, is a suggestion share your ideas too =]

Edit: is the same if you reduce the cast time and damage but you still hit the same of the actuall life blast 50% cast time reduction if you hit 2 time

Still no need to link 2 attacks in one channel cast we want it to feel faster not the same as it does now. While Robert says the damage should be lowered others do have a point many professions weapon auto attacks do more damage than the necros profession mechanic. including most of the necromancers own attacks with weapon skills.

Brokensunday.4098:

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

Make unyielding blast baseline this skill is useless 50% on reaper shroud, Make life blast a 2 hit cannel that takes the same time as actual 1.4 secs One hit at .7and the other at 1.4 the other, each blast hits for half the damage of the of actual life blast so you will hit for the same damage if you connect both hits and each hit triggers the Skill 1 traits

Please no we dont need that :/ Will make the traits useless. It would be a buff with a nother drawback which necros already have all over the place heck a whole set of our utility skills is based on draw backs while the benefits are not even worth the risk. This idea is something that would make me just quit playing necro and will force sooooo many players into reaper without a doubt.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Kain Francois.4328:

Robert Gee.9246:

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

Hey Robert Gee,

While I appreciate that the devs are finally addressing Death Shroud, I do raise the concern that a Thief simply using Dagger autoattack (not even flanking or might!) will do more damage over time than a fully traited Necromancer with Life Blast and Runes of Strength. That’s pretty pathetic, considering an effortless autoattack completely outclasses our profession mechanic.

Basically, our maximum effort, with highest might possible, and 25 Vulnerability, does LOWER damage than someone else’s autoattack with no might.

I know this, because I recorded a video and took down numbers what happened over the course of 30 seconds. Never uploaded it online, but I am willing to re-record just to show how low damage our Life Blast is.

If ArenaNet is satisfied with the damage numbers, then I have no idea what we are doing wrong with Death Shroud, but it’s pretty low damage.

The biggest reason I can think of is simply that it’s because our DS AA is ranged and therefore puts us at a safer distance than the thief who is as brittle as glass trying to AA us down, but said thief is also incredibly evasive and can port, stealth, and teleport all over the place, and be out of range of our LB as quickly as he can get in our face.

Yes but at 1000 range random number life blast is set to deal lower damage not sure why) and at which a ranger with a long bow can AA (attacking faster i might add) and do more damage than LB*(a profession mechanic you must build for to use while being locked out of utility skills and benefits)* So i dont think its simply because life blast is ranged and another weapon skill is melee AA its just the fact that life blast is weak and/or too slow. :c

Bhawb.7408:

Brokensunday.4098:

problem is dhuum fire if it only procs on the second hit it kill condi life blast but agree on rest

No, it would be a flat neutral change. You’d proc dhuumfire once every 1.4s just like right now.

Thats defeating the point of dropping the cast time :/ maybe if burning didn’t stack I would agree with you but now that burning stacks. What you are suggesting is just not a clear viable option wand would be a second slap to the face for the trait making necro’s even more upset.

Nynuwe.5893:

Dakunaito.9602:

zapv.8051:

The skill would be way better with a lower cast time, and the same dps. The only trait that is potentially overpowered is reaper’s might.

Reapers Might is not overpower and doesn’t need nerf or tweak. Ele has similar trait and it’s stronger cause it gives might from every fire skill you use and not from just autoattack like Reapers Might

My first 80 was an elementalist. I’ve seen it go through all of its stages, and I always try to take that trait whenever I can. It’s just so succulently good. I don’t see why necromancers who have less damage modifiers shouldn’t be able to keep Reaper’s Might.

Consider the following
Mesmer, ele, and necro are light armored professions. So they should kinda all be geared that way in terms of traits and build set ups right? Wrong… necro is clearly nerfed beyond what it should be just as a base example here are somethings that are wrong with the profession thought im not sure how its over looked.

Ele & Mesmer gets these along with fair damage and condition damage regardless on how you build in most cases.
Might generation
Perma Regen +soothing mist (mostly eles in this case and with the low hp pool its kinda fair) Basically in place of the regen mesmers have the access to stealth and attack without revealing themselves by spawning phantoms and clones. In some cases a mesmer at the current time can out stealth a thief
Perma Vigor this is something arena net has been trying to prevent obviously but mesmer and ele still have the power to do it
Perma swiftness (most of the time)
Near Perma fury (some of the time)
access to blocks
access to reflects
ability to have counter play to long ranged attacks.
Fair source of stability

Necromancers get this with power builds and rarely condition builds but its very wack the way you have to set your trait lines up to get them.
Might generation
Some protection
Death shroud which acts as 2nd health pool but locks us into 5 skills with no utilities or benefits from those utilities during its duration. Its something we have to build on to gain access to and acts as a very hard trade off when used.
Overall bigger health pool this don’t mean squat in longer fights where boons on enemies are constantly generating through out the fight.
Well ZDragon, why don’t you just run in and burst them down really quickly before boon application? Because necro is not made like mesmer or ele it simply cannot do it while the foe is above 50% hp.
———
We are missing
we get no vigor why dont we get extra dodging like ele and mesmer
We cant hold perma regen Sure we have blood magic but its not a true regen and in some cases it can outshine regen but its not always the case.
We don’t get perma fury but we have lots of crit bonus traits to help so its not a biggy but still.
We don’t get reflets like mesmer or ele has access to
We don’t get blocking or invulnerability skills like mesmer and ele have access to.
We don’t have any way to counter projectiles like mesmer and ele have the option of doing. -Swirling winds/Mirror on dodge
We get a drop of stability (3 seconds and 1 stack) after being forced to enter ds fore it which we have to trait for limiting what necros can do even farther
Even if necro had some of the above things that mesmer and ele had people wouldnt say they needed more so much but when you line up all the light armored professions necromancer is just not treated like one.
So why its still counted as a light armored profession but shares none of the fairness of those other i don’t know.

Ether way I still love the profession but it just is lacking.

DarkSyze.8627:

Arena net: Robert Gee,

I want to ask you a quick question with answer. Whenever i play necromancer: a enemy player reset my death shroud when i want to activate it.. Is there a way to prevent the resetting of deathshroud of activating?

What i mean by resetting? Full Lifeforce bar to 0 lifeforce bar.

I asked before and i even post in a thread: everyone ignore me.

That is all

I main necro. DS cannot be interrupted. You can activate it at any time, this includes, midair, during stuns, fears, dazes, knockdowns, and knockbacks. what could be happening is you are taking so much incoming damage that your shroud is depleted upon activation. * It can happen under the right situations*

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

Ok the condition transfer is completely understandable when you put things in perspective this way and of course thank you for exploring the options once again.

I agree with a few others here that I would be happy to have the damage dropped some for a quicker cast hopefully this is something played with more in the future. -hoping for a more viable use of dhuumfire- On builds that are not full power.

Thanks for the answer on my post Robert!

ham.8209:

ZDragon.3046:

Why have we not seen this kind of content sold in the gem store more often. Things like instruments are nice and all but im sure tons of players would insta buy things like this if offered more often.

Any chance we could see things like this come with HoT? – fingers crossed -

we can only hope NOT some of us do not want to see this trash in the game .and hope they never add it they do it will only go to kill this game even more

Im sorry but a huge chunk of the game was killed when they took away the ability to use bits and peaces of outifts. So many people left the game based on that alone yet they continued to add outfits that you have to wear all of instead of skin based versions. I dont think a few silly/fun things will hurt at all lol.

Why have we not seen this kind of content sold in the gem store more often. Things like instruments are nice and all but im sure tons of players would insta buy things like this if offered more often.

Any chance we could see things like this come with HoT? – fingers crossed -

TheLastNobody.8319:

zapv.8051:

This actually illustrates the problem with soul reaping for me. Basically, every single build needs vital persistance, and last gasp along with wanting soul marks. For reaper that means you’re automatically locked into 2 trait lines, and since most might generation is in spite you probably want that too. It would be nice if the reaper line provided enough damage, life generation or might to not take spite or soul reaping, but they are pretty much both required.

Agreed, it would be nice if theb2% life force defen was made baseline, or we were given unique utilities in shroud that drained life force and Vital persistence just reduced the cost of using them.

Maybe the 2% degen per second should be made base line for RS only but then people would still take vital and soul reaping line anyways making it a1% degen which is just tooo strong. I would like to have a baseline 2% degen though. But it would only make another useless trait necro would have like Unyielding blast

Brokensunday.4098:

ZDragon.3046:

mazut.4296:

Best change will be if they add aoe on impact. That way Dhuumfire wil be more useful. It can also leave poison field for 1-2sec.

Im not sure I like the idea of aoe on impact because they have a trait that lets life blast Pearce foes. I use to take this trait all the time until the new trait system came along and ruined it. You cant take Unyielding blast with Soul Marks anymore. I do agree necro needs better options to poison which reaper brings yet another reason to forget about base necro and swap over to reaper at HoT.

i have read and say in many post that unyielding blast should be base this skill is so slow that it need that pierce to be base and i agree now that we have soul marks there is no way any 1 is going to pick unyielding blast and that trait if 50% useless in reapers shroud

I agree soul marks is too good and even if one didnt take soul marks with reaper speed of shadows is more of use than unyielding. Unyielding should have been combined with something else so that its at least thought of being used.

Shaogin.2679:

Well first we all have to understand that Anet gave up on balancing underwater combat a long time ago, and Plague Blast is OP as hell. If they did anything to Life Blast, I think reducing the cast time would be great, and as many people mentioned would make it work better with Dhuumfire and make it easier to land hits. However, I feel this would deal too much damage too fast, so a damage nerf may be warranted.

Too much damage too fast? points at the engi pressing 2 buttons and landing 8-10 burn stacks on you.

:I

The only reason not to take reaper is the fact that once you do you have nearly 0 ranged pressure. Life blast and some other skill general filled this role but with Reaper you lose all of that.

The only other option I see base necro good for is going 100% bunker BORING!

Other than that Reaper is almost a no brainer and would be foolish not to take it even if you become weak to ranged foes. Unless the devs do something to the base necro DS skills to make it more tempting to use its not going to be worth keeping other than the two above stated options imo.

Reaper should offer another option but I think most will agree with me that it feels more like a total buff we necro players are going to be forced into taking to stay viable. If you look at dragon hunter its awesome but not so awesome that everyone sees its worth taking over base guardian. If you look at mesmer and chronomancer playing one to the other gives off the feeling of “Hey these are cool new options I can play around with!” In the case of necro you take reaper or you become full tank/support or irrelevant. Because to me it felt like Reaper was nearly a whole new profession. “OMG THIS IS OP” not “These are new options i have to possibly work with.”

Just honestly how I feel. :I

sebradle.7034:

So because we have crappy range weapons they should give us both shrouds? How bought they fix our crappy range options instead. By taking reaper you make a decision to give up range prowess for more powerful melee options. So you should adjust game play accordingly.

This suggestion goes entirely against the entire design philosophy of elite specializations. You are suppose to be specializing not getting more tools for your tool belt. Reaper should not be given things to make it a necromancer who also has reaper shroud and greatsword. It should be given mechanics to function in the role you have chosen to specialize in by deciding to take the specialization line. Just like if I want to specialize in a condition necromancer I should probably have curses selected.

This suggestion wants to remove variety and just meld the necromancer and reaper together. That goes against everything they said they wanted these elite specs to do. They even stated they are going to change your profession icon when you select an elite spec to differentiate them from the base class and other elite specs. If you gave reaper both shrouds why would I not slot reaper trait line just for the pulsing stability and gap closer on reaper shroud along with the flexibility of death shroud instant fear and range.

The problem is too many tools were taken from necro’s tool belt over a long time period nerf after nerf after nerf this is why people ask for things like this. As a light armored profession necro is lacking in things both other professions have access to.

ozzy.8059:

thanks for the suggestions i try to stay out of staff for as long as i can against guards now. its not easy =C the guard i was fighting just spammed away with its spin to win combo etc forcing me into staff then when i changed to dagger boom goes the burn bomb with blinds shelter aegis and the heal -.- etc..

it should at least cleanse the condis even if it doesn’t send them for gods sake

as for the blinds not preventing transfers, why do i get “missed” when i try to transfer to a stationary target even a clone when im loaded up with condis way past the skills limits. it doesn’t always happen but its enough for me to notice.

Take the soul reaping line and take the trait “Soul marks” Use “Consume conditions” For your heal. Take your time when fighting heavy burn condition. You may only have a few seconds but if you are blinded and he goes to heal he cant take any other actions. IF they use renewed focus they cant take any other actions. These are perfect times for you to use Consume conditions and get rid of the pesky blinds and burns If shelter is up but you are not blinded use “putrid mark” Because you have “Soul marks” It will bypass his block and transfer the conditions anyways. The only time you really need to worry is when he blinds you. IF its a true condition guard his spin to win wont do much damage. but try to save your dodge for when they teleport to you or jump at you to gap close. In some cases if you want to cast things like “Plague signet” to xfer conditions back you may have to auto attack first to remove the blind then quickly cast it so that it sticks. It just takes time, keep up the practice. Guard vs Necro is not always an easy match up because of how much healing they can put out during a burst.

Krysard.1364:

ZDragon.3046:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I wrote here earlier the key to using condi against a necro is to pre-empt and prevent the necro from transferring the condis back to you.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Condi-transfert/first#post5317240

Sounds like the guardian in the OP post is doing a good job of loading and pre-empting/denying the condi transfer back from the necro.

As others pointed out, if you run staff, you can still transfer it back to a blocking guardian. You can also enter shroud if you have DS and use DS 4 to tank while breaking his focus shield and thus making it transferable again.

As a necro, if the enemy condi player knows how to load and pre-empt you from returning the condi, then you must learn how not to eat the condi so early in the first place.

I think most necros, myself included, fight by eating all the condis then transferring it back. We don’t know what caused the condi burst on us, what to dodge to prevent the condi burst. If the enemy knows how to pre-empt you from returning the condi to him, then as a necro, we must also learn how to dodge their initial burst and taking the initiative in the fight instead of letting him passively load us with condi and then thinking we can transfer it back easily.

As a necro player myself I agree with you generally putrid mark is burned before any signets are and its almost not worth anything else but to run unblockable marks sense this trait also causes them to generate life force. But it can be hard to xfer back to a guard simply because they have high sustain until all skills and utilities are blown and on cd. Which is generally 2-3 full rotations. It can be hard for a necro to live agains that kind of damange honestly the best way is to just tank it till they burn every thing. IF you are running a condition set up as a necro against a guard take signets of suffering or corrupt boon. Most guards will run that one utility that swaps all conditions on them into boons. As soon as you see them do that pop corrupt boon. ITs generally how I kill them.

As for ele’s its not really possible you shouldn’t try to fight an ele in a 1v1 because as a necro you are more likely to loose if lol. I dont know Why you cant xfer blind back to a person cough cough but ele’s are really good at keeping targets blinded with blinding ashes.

Ive made a thred on here about how necros life blast should be updated to its underwater variation plague blast which shoots much faster and xfers one condition per-shot. I can only hope that a Dev or others will see it and give it some thought. IT would make DS *(death shroud) much more effective with that simple change alone.

Before some one says “thats too strong” or “There would be no counter play to it” There is so just dont…. if it was too strong why would they give it to the underwater version if they felt that way. Its just something thats not being used right now because under water combat is next to non existent in the game right now. A change like this could make DS a more tempting choice over RS (reaper shroud) when reaper is fully released. Right now its a no brainer… take RS because as DS sits right now its pretty much too clunky, the auto attack is slow, no stability. RS has stability, better damage, better condition potential, and is miles ahead for a profession mechanic when compared to base DS.

This would make DS insanely broken, I mean, a condi transfer for AA? wow… And the only greater skill of reaper is the stability#3 and AA if running Dhuumfire, all the reaper skills can be so easily kitened (maybe with the chill changes this can work, wew ill see on BWE2).

I think they would not have put it on the underwater version if it was insanely broken. It would make fighting a necro insanely scary as it should be. You should never feel at ease running into fight a necromancer after all they are masters of death. But this is my reasoning for not wanting it to be a AA trait. Just a baseline thing for DS not RS. Because Reaper can be so easily kited is why I suggest changes to DS making the player choose between having good ranged pressure and good brawling pressure. Because necro cannot do both that was made pretty clear in BWE1. I Dont think chill duration will have much to do with being kited because most foes who can kite you have mass amounts of condition clear elixer engi/survival ranger who will never be perma chilled unless you managed to catch them out.

mazut.4296:

Best change will be if they add aoe on impact. That way Dhuumfire wil be more useful. It can also leave poison field for 1-2sec.

Im not sure I like the idea of aoe on impact because they have a trait that lets life blast Pearce foes. I use to take this trait all the time until the new trait system came along and ruined it. You cant take Unyielding blast with Soul Marks anymore. I do agree necro needs better options to poison which reaper brings yet another reason to forget about base necro and swap over to reaper at HoT.

Zwets.3785:

The reason Plague Blast is better than Life Blast is because Anet forgot to nerf the underwater skills when they were repeatedly over nerfing the necro when they changed DS in alpha and again during the round of nerfs that happened around the time when the Dhuumfire trait was added.

This is why the underwater skills for the necro still have good team condition removal, stack conditions faster, longer CC durations and ample amounts of combo finishers.

How nice it would be to at least have access to combo finishers on every weapon, greatsword and reaper shroud finally allow Necro to make use of the combo system, if someone only plays necro I would not blame them if they did not understand combo fields, we have barely any interaction with them.

Well now necro or at least reaper is being buffed back up to some standard and on par with other professions. But I think reaper is just way ahead of base necro right now and thats not what anet said they were going for. These specs are just here to offer more options not make the class stronger than what it already should be. So base necro needs to be put back in place. Even in Reaper shroud we now have access to combo fields which is nice but where is the love for the base necro. Everyone who is rolling a necro right now will more than likely swap over to another profession at HoT or roll Reaper.

Cecilia.5179:

They’d have to adjust the damage. x2 DS dps on a Power Necro is a lot. I’d be fine with it being an overall 1.5x boost just to make us super scary, but x2 is where enemies literally start melting. The idea of doubling the speed is great because it makes Dhuumfire not stupid on it. The condi transfer is also pretty cool, but I’d have to try it to know that we don’t faceroll condi builds because of a no cd condi cleanse.

I want to say the under water version retains most of the damage as the above water version does. Even if the damage was reduced some more shots per x amount of second is always better. More shots means more opportunities. Its for sure worth taking a look at. ^^

Bacon.1835:

To quote Robert:

• Rise!”: This skill is now unblockable and instant cast. Damage increased. Now creates a shambling horror for each foe hit which lose health every second. These minions place Dark Bond on their master when they hit with attacks which causes 50% of the damage from attacks on the master to be redirected to the minion.

Not sure what a shambling horror looks like but it’s already an improvement on the previous version. The spell has very nice synergy with Death Nova with minions taking increased damage further expediting subsequent explosions. These minions also fit the thematic of Death Magic (i.e. tanky) quite nicely.

Couple of things I’d change:

• Remove the need for minions to attack to apply the dark bond. Have it apply instantly when they are summoned.
• Allow the damage redirection to affect party members.
• Fix minion AI

Thoughts?

Yes apply the bond as soon as they spawn as to spawn them you have to be in combat due to the fact that you have to hit a mob or character with the shout to spawn them.

No These things are already going to be losing hp over time do you really want to absorb party member damage as well i think it would make the summons pointless unless all your party member happen to be necromancers with the same shout. I say let it stay to where it can only work for the reaper and only the reaper who spawned them. He has other shouts to support party members and it seems like none of his shouts are really based on supporting anyways.

Yes Minion AI need to be looked at but this is not a priority thing not something im sure they would invest much time in at this current time.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I wrote here earlier the key to using condi against a necro is to pre-empt and prevent the necro from transferring the condis back to you.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Condi-transfert/first#post5317240

Sounds like the guardian in the OP post is doing a good job of loading and pre-empting/denying the condi transfer back from the necro.

As others pointed out, if you run staff, you can still transfer it back to a blocking guardian. You can also enter shroud if you have DS and use DS 4 to tank while breaking his focus shield and thus making it transferable again.

As a necro, if the enemy condi player knows how to load and pre-empt you from returning the condi, then you must learn how not to eat the condi so early in the first place.

I think most necros, myself included, fight by eating all the condis then transferring it back. We don’t know what caused the condi burst on us, what to dodge to prevent the condi burst. If the enemy knows how to pre-empt you from returning the condi to him, then as a necro, we must also learn how to dodge their initial burst and taking the initiative in the fight instead of letting him passively load us with condi and then thinking we can transfer it back easily.

As a necro player myself I agree with you generally putrid mark is burned before any signets are and its almost not worth anything else but to run unblockable marks sense this trait also causes them to generate life force. But it can be hard to xfer back to a guard simply because they have high sustain until all skills and utilities are blown and on cd. Which is generally 2-3 full rotations. It can be hard for a necro to live agains that kind of damange honestly the best way is to just tank it till they burn every thing. IF you are running a condition set up as a necro against a guard take signets of suffering or corrupt boon. Most guards will run that one utility that swaps all conditions on them into boons. As soon as you see them do that pop corrupt boon. ITs generally how I kill them.

As for ele’s its not really possible you shouldn’t try to fight an ele in a 1v1 because as a necro you are more likely to loose if lol. I dont know Why you cant xfer blind back to a person cough cough but ele’s are really good at keeping targets blinded with blinding ashes.

Ive made a thred on here about how necros life blast should be updated to its underwater variation plague blast which shoots much faster and xfers one condition per-shot. I can only hope that a Dev or others will see it and give it some thought. IT would make DS *(death shroud) much more effective with that simple change alone.

Before some one says “thats too strong” or “There would be no counter play to it” There is so just dont…. if it was too strong why would they give it to the underwater version if they felt that way. Its just something thats not being used right now because under water combat is next to non existent in the game right now. A change like this could make DS a more tempting choice over RS (reaper shroud) when reaper is fully released. Right now its a no brainer… take RS because as DS sits right now its pretty much too clunky, the auto attack is slow, no stability. RS has stability, better damage, better condition potential, and is miles ahead for a profession mechanic when compared to base DS.

The reason you wont see energy traits like that is because revy skills have cooldowns thief skill do not. Unless you are key smashing you should not have a problem with energy upkeep

Nyth.3492:

I think updating LB to have the same cast time as PB would not only make DS more attractive, it would also increase it’s viability a lot for condition specs. Currently speccing into dhuumfire is all but pointless. If the cast time would increase than it gives conditionmancers better access to burning which would help their viability in various aspects of the game.

With Reapershroud coming, you get 2 shroud skills that both are very skewed towards powermancer builds. Tainted Shackles on DS is but a minor thing. So Dhuumfire could be used to make both shrouds a bit more attractive for condimancers by giving them some limited burn potential. RS does this quite okish with it’s fast attack speed and cleave, but DS could definitely improve. Faster attack speed = faster burn application.

I don’t even need the condition transfer, we have plenty of that already. Just the attack speed.

I agree with you. Even if we couldn’t have both then at least the increased shots per x amount of seconds would be a major difference not only for condition builds but for power builds too! It would really make one think as to if they want to spec into reaper or not because it would make both options very tempting.

As DS sits right now Everyone is going to spec into reaper. RS soul spiral can stack 11-12 stacks of poison easy which is big damage for a few seconds its a really nice burst. I managed to stack a max of 25 stacks on one person a few times during beta weekend. Dhurmmfire with reaper autos is even better with reaper.

Base necro just has too much thats not being used right now because of simple things like this.

Devs need to jump on this >:C

Rym.1469:

Just giving out Plague Blast in it’s current form would completly dumb down all Condition play against ALL Necromancer’s builds. If that wasn’t a problem with things like passive Plague Signet proc already. You could essentialy just spam #1 and get yourself a beer, because nobody using conditions would touch you outside of chain CC or denying all Life Force regeneration.

Here was my proposal on how could Curses traitline work and how could we access Plague Blast to ensure it has counterplay.

I get that but currently there are builds that easily over power necro with condition spam (im looking at you engi’s and condition mesmers) No matter how many clears and xfers you take as a necro you will never be able to really = up to that. I think being able to remove one condition per-shot is perfectly fair considering a nice splatter of conditions from a true condition build can cause DS to deplete in from full to empty in about 3-4 seconds. yeah….

I would say if its not base line then at least the firing cast rate needs to be base speed and the xfer per shot get moved to a trait like unyielding blast or some other soul reaping trait. but the problem with that is when some one takes reaper with said trait the auto attack chain would make keeping conditions on reaper 100% impossible. This needs to be a base necro thing. Necro is suppose to be a master of condition but is miles behind when it comes to it. They only make it so that we can xfer back or convert boons because look at the condition weapon we get its a scepter its slow it only applies bleed and poison. (with short durations I might add) the ramp up time is not worth the reward.

The counter to this is easy. Builds that don’t apply many and or hard hitting conditions. There are builds out there people use that don’t actually apply very many conditions. Warriors, some rangers, some engis, theif! So I wouldnt say there is no counter play and be sides DS skills are the necros f1 skills so they should be fairly dangerous. Don’t want to get shot then cc them, base necro has no stability and no breakstun while in DS. If there was no counter play they wouldn’t have made the underwater version like that to start with.

Brokensunday.4098:

try lb with quickness thats how it should be

Thats my point under water life blast aka plague blast acts as like life blast with quickness with a 100% rate of xfering one condition per blast to the target. It even retains the high hitting damage of life blast out of water. So this is why I’m kinda WTF mode over it xD lol.

We all know with the upcoming of reaper the base necro is looking a bit stale and crusty. It needs some love so here is one big thing that bothers me.

DS-1
Aka life blast

Its good, it hits hard, it tracks very well, and has nice range, and even has amazing projectile speed.

Here is my problem.
Why is the start up cast time so freaking long after all this time its never been adjusted to be better.

Why is it that underwaterDS-1 “Plague blast” nearly the same thing as life blast shoots x2 as fast. Its cast/startup time is literally 100% faster. The damage is still great along with all of the other features. IT EVEN XFERS A CONDITION PER SHOT OHHH MY GOD THATS SO GOOD!!! But how often are we in underwater combat…. not ever hardly not often enough anyways.

Why cant life blast be equaled up to plague blast in at least terms of cast time. For an auto attack in DS its incredibly too slow. If we cant have that can we at least get the transfer per shot. Sense its pretty clear that devs don’t want to give necro more condition variation and want them to be all about xfer and boon conversion I don’t see why this is not a base line thing. IT would make the base line necro something really great if we gained one of those 2 options on life blast alone and while this is not the only thing I really think needs to be looked at it would be an amazing start.

Take the DS-1 Life blast and make it faster or make it Xfer a condition per shot or both just as its under water variation does. :/

I would love to hear feedback on this from all of you guys even more so if a dev would go about answering as to why or why not this has not been a thing with all the skill changes we have seen out there.

ODB.6891:

I’m also of the opinion, after reading the arguments in this thread, that having both shrouds is a bad idea. I’m not saying this with the over dramatization that some are saying…“insinuations that people are wanting reaper trait line to be mandatory”. I don’t think anyone asked for or wants that…the whole reason why people want both shrouds is because the profession needs to be versatile enough to adapt to the encounter you are currently in. It doesn’t make sense to be limited to being able to do nothing….just because there is not an option to attack in melee range. In a pve encounter, sometimes you do have to change tactics mid fight several times. I do see why people are resisting this idea to have both shrouds, looks to be all about not wanting to be pressured to choose the reaper specialization to be equally effective. This is a valid concern and would definitely be undermined by making it possible to have both shroud versions in the same build. I think the real solution is to provide a decent power ranged weapon. That way reaper builds could just drop out of shroud and attack with weapon skills when ranged combat is required.

Let me go ahead (as a person who pretty much plays nothing but necro) address this one. The problem with dropping out of rs for ranged combat is ranged weapon options. We have a staff with a very slow projectile auto and mid to subpar damage, which by the way is also easily side step dodge-able. If the foe is moving you wont hit anything. Marks only do so much and even if you drop all 5 it wont be enough. now for the Axe if you count this thing as an effective ranged weapon you are just being down right silly. Axe has like 600 range and pretty low damage the auto is crazy slow. Effectively DS is the only good ranged option a necro really has. Life blast is a great tool and while it is slow it hits hard.

You drop RS and a ranged foe will still shread you to bits. Ranges and engi’s killed me every day all day of the beta weekend because they had super great ranged game and i had 0 ranged pressure I could apply. You cannot catch some one who speends 70% of there time more than 600 range away from you with RS its a lost fight every time.

I honestly think DS and RS are both needed as a f1 and f2 even if it means leaving one puts both on cooldown. So you cant instantly jump from one to the other ( that would be op)

Treise.6958:

I hope it does get a icon to show it’s taking effect, Fear has one and it works the same way as Fear so… =/=

I used this trait alot during the the beta weekend. You could actually see it tick off the other character but it did not have an icon with it. IT did however show as a number ticking per second. So im going to assume at some point it will be updated to show like other conditions.

Heneil Stormcaller.2935:

Thanks Robert for all the amazing amazing work and changes!

Even though this is a great step in the right direction, and I appreciate you wanting to balance things gradually, I do believe that it is not yet enough. I will most certainly try the changes in the next beta, and only the will I be able to provide an informed opinion, however I do believe that the chill uptime is not yet enough and that damage in RS should still be upped a little bit.

I’ll just leave some suggestions I agree with here, for discussion. Most of them are not mine.
If you consider them, probably don’t add all of them at once since it might be a bit op:
1- Add a pulsing effect to RS like rending shroud where it pulses chill (add it to one of our subpar minor traits in the Reaper specialization).
2- Add a damage multiplier to chilled foes (10% or sth) to one of these minors.
3- Increase the amount of chill duration increased by Cold Shoulder (double it at least).
4- Slightly increase the damage done by RS AA and RS4 (this one to match GD, increase de damage coefficient by 0,2-0,3)
5- Add a pulsing chill effect at the end of GS 1c, much like guardian’s Hammer 1c. My idea for this skill (building up on Bhawb’s suggestion) would be to make 1c animation exactly like the current Nightfall animation (where it will root you, a fair tradeoff for this proposal imo). By stabbing the ground with the icy GS, it would leave an ice field (like the guardian’s hammer symbol), that would chill enemies while doing moderate damage every second for, like, 3 seconds (this animation already exists ingame, sth like a smaller radius RS5). Besides that, since by slamming the GS into the ground you wouldn’t actually hit anyone, make it so, when the GS connects to the ground ice spikes surge to hit up to 3-5 targets within the radius for good damage (the same damage GS1c currently does). This animation also exists ingame, since it is basically Ele Dagger Earth 1 painted icy blue. I think the root is a good tradeoff for all of these, and if it still is too much, make it so the actual ice spike doesn’t chill, only the field. It would help both AA damage and Reaper chill uptime.

Anyway amazing changes, keep up the good work. On these tracks Reaper will be absolutely amazing! Afterwards only base necro will be in need of some love…..

I think the current changes need to be looked at first before anything else is changed. While these are some great ideas you have here I think some of them are just out of place to be included in reapers trait line or on reaper overall.

1-RS does not need a pulsing chill. That is way too strong and if they include this it means something else has to be taken away. Reaper already had tons of chill up keep in this first Beta weekend and they are adding more I think at this point chill is going to be right on point. Adding anymore is too much.

2-You will not see a damage multiplier for chilled foes because there is a trait to reduce damage from chilled foes (I would rather have this than more damage) Its vital that necros wearing light armor take reduced damage rather than try to focus on killing some one faster than they would kill them because 8 times out of 10 if you put full damage up against damage necro is going to lose. Running a full zerk necro is insane right now and a very ballsy move. :P

3-At this point we don’t need to do that it would be a waste. We don’t want people complaining about perma chill and then it being reduced back to being useless.

4- The cool down was reduced so no. No more damage here leave it alone.

5- Please no. If I work to land that 3rd auto chain I want all the chill applied at once not a mark on the ground where people can step out of it avoiding most of the chill you could have applied. While this might be a good Idea for pve its horrid for pvp. I would rather not have a guardian copy anyways. Lets just let reaper be its own thing. GS3 is built too much around tools and traits necros couldn’t use before that they can now also (BLIND) who wants to give that up? . It should be left alone as a blind field. As to wether or not a person should be rooted or not is in question yes, but I think its fine as it is Its new and fresh lets not copy ele animations once again reaper should be left as is.

Now I do majorly stand behind you in saying that base necro needs love. There are skills and utilities out there that no one is going to use because they have become completely pointless and or not viable to most situations. (Base necro skills need some revamping guys!!!)

Tempest
I personally do not like the idea of shouts on tempest. I think something better could have been given to them. I almost feel like Anet could not come up with anything to give elementalist because they are already sitting in such a good balanced spot and have access to everything. Even with the addition of the warhorn its skills mostly are just redone things that they already have access to doing. If anything the only bonus that warhorn does is make tempest more support-ish…. with boon sharing and boon extension.
I’m not bashing how you feel on the profession but the reason I think you feel its near perfect is because it already was before they added its elite spec. But then again the elite specs are about adding more options to the game I guess ele just got stuck with the additional “If you want to be more support-ish without a staff” option.

Back to the shouts though. These things could have been just about anything else and I would have been happier. It feels like “Well we gave reaper shouts so lets just give ele slightly better shouts too!”
I’m not even a fan of the shouts on reaper (Cast times are a bit long and benefits are very lacking) I personally like base ele better. It sustains better, does more damage, and can possibly even support better.

Reaper
I love this thing alot despite its trade off effect when one takes the reaper line (ranged foes will destroy you easy if you don’t watch them close or cant catch them.) Its very enjoyable and I couldn’t play enough of it. When I did make other beta characters I always found myself thinking on what I could test to make Reaper better and better. You are so right about the leap on the GS it needs a gap closer that is not a pull. (because the pull is too dang slow, easily read, and tracks so slow that it can be avoided by strafing to the right or left.) We got a low cool down leap in reaper shroud which all the skills in this work amazingly don’t touch them they are PERFECT

Chronomancer
Not a fan but thats mostly due to me not being a mesmer fan… I think mesmer is full of sh…..sorry my pvp/wvw anger was slipping out right there. Its strong and based on what im told its not going to get normalized any time soon. So yeah nuff said.

Revy
I hardly touched Revy because the moment I picked it up i knew the damage was still lacking. Even with some of the nicer traits the damage output even with full zerk is hardly subpar. The traits are too situational and not good outside of specific situations. I think Anet put too much thought into them and that it should be normalized from the ground up but thats very unlikely to happen. I want to play this class i really really do but as of how it sits now I wont be touching it.

I spent most of the beta playing Reaper honestly its pretty much the only thing i touched and breathed for the whole weekend. I think its much much more fun than the base necro and cant stand to play necro without it anymore. It’s much more interactive and aggressive and while there are things i don’t like about it, it was over all a very good experience. I think reaper should get just a tiny bit of fine tuning (chill damage trait is ticks low for a grandmaster option, and GS needs a bit of love, speed or damage out put, one of the two.) but other than that its sitting in a good spot. Anyone who says it needs a nerf is just wrong. I found that ranged foes take em down rather quickly a fair trade for being given such awesome melee options.

I dont get the massive long lag spikes but i do get short ones lasting from 2-5 seconds from time to time. I got them before the update on the 30th but it was rare now i get them every few minutes and ontop of that randomly i get disconnected and get a black screen saying Unable to connect to login server Error code 58:11:5:512:101

Ever sense the last small update i have been getting a error which takes me to a black screen and im given a message saying Unable to connect to the login server.
Error code 58:11:5:512:101

At first i considered it might be due to Anet working on something and the game was just having issues but now its day 2-3 the same issue happening with no signs of improving. I can log into the game and play for some time but randomly it just happens.
Black screen, Unable to connect to login server. IF i do click the ok button to close the box the screen remains black and i have to alt tab out then force close the game. It happens in pvp or pve. Has any one else been having this issue as of recent? Is it going to be fixed?