Guild Wars 2

SlayerSixx.5763:

tbh, I prefer jalis over glint, but the herald traits are all (mostly) directed towards using glint and the few ones you can use universally are pretty meh. Jalis provides decent condi cleanse, a ton of damage mitigation, aoe stability in the form of an epic stone road and a trait to passively proc the elite. If people ran this over glint, you’ll find condi and focus fire to be alot less effective, but I suppose people are simply incapable of managing energy. Maybe someone will show it off one day and then the real QQ can begin.

Jalis needs some slight improvements and it’ll be really good. You can run tanky Jalis/glint builds that do really well at point holding. But I’m personally talking about mallyx, probably the most underrated legend in the set. I do think it desperately needs a stunbreak, but perma resistance and ApE condi cleave backed with cele stats and mightstacks is really strong.

Ironically Ventari has the worst self sustain of all the legends. Anything with shield, staff, and soothing bastion has a kitten ton of sustain.

I’d also like to point out that so many people are bandwagoning to revenant and simply playing the marauder build without trying anything else, while some of the other legends are a bit weaker than shiro, that doesn’t mean that other roles that use different legend can’t be played.

Except for Ventari. Comparing Druid to Ventari is like comparing mewtwo to a weedle.

I’ve played signet necro for months. It’s always been able to hit through loS, blocks, and evade frames, but I guess it’s fair compensation for having the most pathetic passive heal of any heal signet in the game across all classes.

A lot of people on top teams in NA are running it, but it isn’t a very good 1v1 build and it’s a bit weak to focus fire and chill condi reaper once it’s diamond skin gets taken off.

I wouldn’t say it’s nonviable, but I do firmly believe that something like a Druid/herald combo would probably be more useful support for your team. One supplies better healing than a tempest, while the other pumps out boons better than a tempest with generally more damage.

When you have capture node gameplay the best builds will always include ones that can hold the point for a while.

That being said theres so much AoE spam on points right now that very few things can hold a point in a drawn out mid fight. Side node skirmishes (2v2s) on the other hand could go on for days if I, for instance run a tempest and scrapper constantly healing eachother.

Using tormented myself for some slight gw1 nostalgia as well.

Its bad because it pigeonholes us into running Spite on builds that don’t necessarily want to run spite.

I’d revisit my opinion if death magic had more boons than 3s protection leaving death shroud, or if curses had more than 5s fury when entering deathshroud, or if blood magic and soul reaping had any boons to begin with besides mark of evasion and last gasp procs but yeah, I’d rather have them just give us some brand new GM trait altogether if they refuse to balance it appropriately.

I mean a 1 second ICD on the original effect probably would have been fine.

Yeah I much prefer staff to sword in 85% of builds when I can help it, it’s just that UA stacks might and is very useful utility and the fact that I can take shield or axe with it that makes me feel forced into it.

I use the same utilities for mastery farming and world completion in jungle grind land.

It honestly depends. If I try to engage in an opening mid fight right at the start of the game and my team isn’t 100% on top of things, I’ll probably go down unless I play a really really tanky build, since not having life force at the start of the game means that an opening burst can end you, and theres only so much that last gasp and spectral armor can do to mitigate that.

Star.8401:

nearlight.3064:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Also who cares that mallyx doesn’t have a stun break when Glint does? Every legend can’t do everything.

As someone who plays spvp in the higher MMR bracket, against people that know how to focus targets, you are often times food in teamfights while you’re in mallyx. The skills are powerful to be sure, but the total lack of active defenses make it very difficult to survive focus fire in mallyx. You essentially become a necromancer without death shroud. That’s not good. Mallyx is strong in 1v1s, which aren’t really part of the meta right now because the expansion has much stronger teamfighters, favoring two point plays instead of three point plays, so you won’t 1v1 as much as you hope you would.

Don’t get me wrong, I want build diversity more than anything. But I’m finding it very difficult to run anything besides glint/shiro, but there are amulets besides marauder that can work well if not better, even if they use the same legends since the other ones just struggle in pvp.

Malyx gives you better survivability in an actual high tier match because you can completly mitigate conditions while at the same time you can run Glint and decimate foes.

Shiro/Glint gets torn up by conditions very easily.

In high level play, reaper is the only condi build you need to fear, and they’ll just remove your resistance regardless. Shiro lets you use the evade to break the chill and shield 5 can usually let you negate a condi bomb, but again, reapers are about the only thing that can CC through it. The meta right now is 2 point teamfights plays, where AoE CC is everywhere, and many teammates can cleanse condis on your for you.

Like I said, in a teamfights mallyx doesn’t bring the damage or the survivability against focus fire needed to be efficient, a stunbreak would surely help, as would some tuning on embrace the darkness.

Star.8401:

Potato Slayer.3107:

Many of the grandmaster traits need to be looked at to be more in line with other classes.

Provide examples instead of blanket statement. IMO there is only one grandmaster trait that could be looked at in all of the trees. Revenants are more than in line with other classes, if not way better.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Revenant-GM-trait-discussion/first#post5464905

This is a long kitten thread I wrote back in beta 2 about the gm traits. The only one that’s much better off now is reflexive summon since it a total rework.

I think part of the issue is that a well played Druid kinda outclasses aura tempest for support, even though tempest can potentially do more damage if it’s allowed to forecast and the enemy doesn’t have a lot of aoe CC, which is way too common right now. Ventari rev feels like it’s in a similar place of bad frontline support, but at least tempest does it better then Ventari since tempest can actually heal itself and invuln through focus fire while cycling through shouts and overloads whole Ventari is a clunky sitting duck that can’t heal enough.

Cogbyrn.7283:

irishww.7842:

People keep saying the Reaper is good in sPvP, but I see more threads about why they suck in sPvP than I do people posting builds that work. Which is it?

We’ll probably have to wait until the ranked season starts to really get a feel. People claim things don’t work against “good” players all the time, but words are wind. We’ll see how things shake out as time progresses, and I’ve seen a few builds pop up re: sPvP in particular that I think have potential.

Yeah, people said tempest overloads wouldn’t work against good players, but considering how nearly every ele main at the top level on NA is taking up aurashare tempest, that says a lot for how wrong people can be. Just because something is so slow or has a long cast time doesn’t mean it can’t wreck face.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Also who cares that mallyx doesn’t have a stun break when Glint does? Every legend can’t do everything.

As someone who plays spvp in the higher MMR bracket, against people that know how to focus targets, you are often times food in teamfights while you’re in mallyx. The skills are powerful to be sure, but the total lack of active defenses make it very difficult to survive focus fire in mallyx. You essentially become a necromancer without death shroud. That’s not good. Mallyx is strong in 1v1s, which aren’t really part of the meta right now because the expansion has much stronger teamfighters, favoring two point plays instead of three point plays, so you won’t 1v1 as much as you hope you would.

Don’t get me wrong, I want build diversity more than anything. But I’m finding it very difficult to run anything besides glint/shiro, but there are amulets besides marauder that can work well if not better, even if they use the same legends since the other ones just struggle in pvp.

NeXeD.3042:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I just did a few matches of Stronghold with a couple of friends running this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhF6kZTo5GsbTwzGgeTsYNYSBgQ2vKuDOCThUrgYwkC-TZBCABAcCAw4IAkxDAwn9HavMAA

Empty sigil slot is Sigil of Swiftness.

Pros:

• shrugs off soft CC with ease. With a -58% (-81% in shroud) duration on movement impairment conditions plus constant shedding of conditions in shroud, soft CC is virtually a non-factor. Plus, Death’s Charge ignores cripple and chill’s movement reductions.
• High sustain. With high life force generation and Unholy Sanctuary (ticks 200hp/second), this build is almost impossible to outlast. It gets to be extremely durable in the presence of stronghold NPC’s.
• High damage reduction. Rise, 3.1k armor, and Cold Shoulder. Oh, and lower uptime damage reduction from CPC and Beyond the Veil.
• Strong damage. With the ease of hitting 100% crit chance in shroud and easily being able to hit 30+% out of it, as well as sporting 2206 Power (2387 in Shroud) without Might, the build can deliver some decently hefty hits.
• Good stomp denier. With 5 hard CC’s available to deny channels, this tends to work well.
• Good stomper. With good Stability and Reaper’s Onslaught speeding it up, many stomps are picked up with reliability. Chilled to the Bone can also do wonders to secure a stomp in a teamfight. CPC garuntees stomps against Warriors and Engineers as well as negating Revenant Slow. Nightfall helps out when everything else is unavailable.

Cons:

• Very little team support. Limited to just a couple of hard CC’s and CPC. Plague Signet passive is not available very often, due to shroud and use.
• Only one stunbreak. Often needed to get rid of a large stack of conditions instead of breaking stun. Mitigated by Runes of Melandru.
• Poor boonstripping abilities. Although I’ve gotten top player for boonstrips in a couple matches, Unholy Feast is the only way the build can accomplish it. You’re looking at luck to get anything worthwhile.
• No Z-axis mobility. Less of a problem in Stronghold, but still a thing.

I first ran the build with Blighter’s Boon, then realized boon generation was terrible and swapped it for Reaper’s Onslaught.

Reaper’s onslaught speeds up stomps?

It does. It functions the same way as malicious sorcery for Mesmer, where it’s been documented to speed up stomps and the speed of utility as well as weapon skills, including the heal. Unfortunately since its in shroud, that doesn’t apply to necro heal/utilities, but it does make reaper the best choice for the primary safe stomper on a team.

I’m not totally sure, but I’m pretty sure the 15% bonus doesn’t apply to rezzes.

My point of view is that mallyx is weak because it lacks a stunbreak, even though it’s condi output is quite good.

Mace/axe is great condi pressure for condi builds, but in hybrid builds I feel as though it’s utter lack of active defense compared to staff and sword/shield as well as low power damage on the autoattack hold it back considerably.

Some corruption traits are good, some are weak, besides the PP bugfix I think it’s the least important issue here compared to the skills themselves.

Hmm, after trying it out I’ve arrived at ventari/glint staff sword/shield salvation 2-2-2 herald 2-2-2 and retribution 2-3-2. I’m also tempted to try out a build with corruption instead of retribution for replenishing despair and a bit more condition pressure in general.

Overall the build feels okay, but a bit outclassed by celestial druid, the burst heals are just so much better than the ventari sustained heals. However blinding truths lets us blind way more often than druids can since the lingering light nerf, so I think it could potentially compete, but its a higher skillcap build for sure.

As a proud owner of howler, I care that warhorn is arguably the worst new weapon introduced by the expansion.

Dead.5829:

nearlight.3064:

I prefer carrion spite/SR/reaper aristocracy/grenth/nightmare runes with heal shout, flesh wurm, corrupt boon, and either rise or plague signet myself. I take spite mainly for bitter chill and chill of death, and then use spiteful spirit for a bit more boon rip.

If running Rise, are you also running Augury of Death? If that’s the case, how much have you explored ‘NCSY!’ as a swap for Corrupt Boon?

You can run rise if you want. As for augury, even with two or three shouts I’d prefer to have -% on movement impairing conditions since if you play condi, you’re positioning is more important for Survival than anything else, and shrugging off that soft CC is huge (especially against immob, since immob=death).

The boon rip shout could work, but corrupt boon is just better since it Gives you more leverage to convert stability off of someone trying to Rez/stomp.

Yeah projectile destruction isn’t that useful in the current meta, a except against dragonhunters.

I’ll try things out, but I’ll probably run celestial since it has healing power and vitality which are too mandatory for this type of build. My friend runs a shiro/glint soldiers build though and it works out really well for him. I guess I just want a dele build that focuses on support and healing instead of being a crazy mightstacking tank.

I didn’t make a revenant until last night because I was afraid that they’d be 100% pigeonholed into Glint/Shiro for 95% of all viable pvp builds.

So lets see if thats true or not. Lets turn that meta on its head and see what else we can run. I’m thinking of making a celestial ventari build that focuses a bit on healing with a bit of damage, similar to how druid and tempest run celestial and can churn out dope heals while being tanky and doing reasonable damage.

So I’m thinking cele salvation/herald/retribution (or any of the other traitlines) running staff and mace/shield with either durability or monk runes and transference sigils.

So my question for you guys is, what legend pairs best with Ventari? I assume its Glint, but feel free to correct me if otherwise. What traitline pairs best with celestial and salvation/herald? What are the best salvation traits? I’m thinking about going full out on condi removal and blind int terms of traits.

Also, what are some tips and tricks to making Ventari fun and effective to play? I’m not really sure I’ll enjoy pressing 6 every two seconds to heal people, but we’ll see.

NeXeD.3042:

I’m not sure I’m playing the same game as everyone I see talking about reaper on the forums…

POWER reaper seems to be the way to go for me, condi reaper seems ok in 1v1’s maybe slightly stronger than power but it has a huge drop off once it’s a teamfight. And the only reason it might be a little stronger in 1v1’s is because power reaper is just easier to kite.

GS is good I don’t want to sound like a kitten an tell everyone to l2p but I get matched against pretty good opponents regularly and I’m able to use GS effectively. It’s just a bit situational but I seem to put myself in situations to use it. Your not going to be spending most of your time on GS and you might think I’m nutz but I go full melee gs d/w with 3 shouts 2 signets marauders amulet and hoelbrek runes spite,curses,reaper. This brings me to curses…. it’s an amazing traitline even on power builds I don’t see how anyone could possible think a transfer that corrupts and stacks might, another corrupt, and aoe weakness and weakness on crit could possibly be bad.

Only issues I’ve had with my build has been rangers and daredevils ( regular theives get eaten alive) and the occasional DH catching me when I don’t have a stunbreak.

With the shouts healing me, sol healing me, 2 condi transfers condi duration reduction from hoelbrek and the constant might spam, weakness spam, plenty of precision due to fury marauder amulet and target the weak, boon corrupts for those pesky boon spammer and plenty of cc courtesy of gs, d/w, and of course the damage reduction from reaper line the constant weakness and of course Rise all contribute to what I have found to be the best Power reaper build available.

While I do think marauder reaper is probably more viable now than ever before, I will just say that I feel as though condi reaper has a more powerful niche at the moment. Basically the meta on all the super sustainy builds on other classes has shifted away from maximum AoE condi cleanse as a result of having to drop a line to pick up their new elite specs, such as earth/air cele tempest (beware the occasional diamondskint though) or mesmers dropping inspiration for chronomancer. Also since minstrels got axed, shoutguard and shoutwar don’t really have the base survivability needed to hold a point in a teamfight while rezzing and shedding condis AoE, so they’re much less common. As of now, the most common cele-support build in the meta is druid, and they’re much weaker to condition pressure than bunker guard or D/D ele ever were. As I’ve said, most tempest builds are relatively condition weak, dragonhunter is condition weak if it runs full traps, and still relatively weak with contemplation of purity, herald gets kittened with condis, and scrapper is only slightly less condi weak than normal engineers.

And condi reaper is the best case to deal with these builds because reaper raises its condi damage output through the roof, to the point where you don’t even need terror anymore. Chill is very strong pressure even though people have lots of ways to cleanse it right now, and being able to cleave burn stacks and poison burst is very strong. In fact I think the biggest thing holding condi necro back was base death shroud’s lack of sustained condi pressure, and reaper completely fixes that. I don’t necessarily agree with Nos that full on signets is the best way to go though. I prefer carrion spite/SR/reaper aristocracy/grenth/nightmare runes with heal shout, flesh wurm, corrupt boon, and either rise or plague signet myself. I take spite mainly for bitter chill and chill of death, and then use spiteful spirit for a bit more boon rip. I haven’t felt as much of a lack of pressure in teamfights as I felt on condi necro in the previous meta though.

Morwath.9817:

nearlight.3064:

How would a sentinel’s shout build that uses DH over valor work? I mean, I don’t think you gain all that much for a bunker build from that traitline going that route, aside from bulwark and shield of courage, but wouldn’t sentinels help you survive the burst better to be able to get rezzes and such?

You give up on sustain, so even if you survive burst, you will die few seconds later once your invuls end. Also you give up on all healing for your team.

Thats true, thought my inital impressions showed me that druid/tempest can heal their team far more than a cleric guard ever could, even in celestial. I’d easily get 3 times as much healing to allies per game on cele druid compared to cleric guard prepatch.

striker.3704:

Rune of the Lich just got removed from PvP, probably to nerf MM reapers. Something literally nobody complained about and it got removed.

GG Anet you really know how to show that you understand what you’re kittening doing. Removing content from PvP without any rhyme or reason and without taking communty feedback on it.

How about you let the kittening game settle and see if Minion masters actually are even USED AT LEAST ONCE in competitive play before nerfing them HUH!? If you’re gonna let elementalists run rampant for literally years then you can let me have fun for once.

China ran an MM necro build at WTS. But they also got obliterated.

I think that decision was to be consistent with removing pirate runes that minstrels druids and staff eles were often using to raise their 1v1 damage while being unkillable on a point.

How would a sentinel’s shout build that uses DH over valor work? I mean, I don’t think you gain all that much for a bunker build from that traitline going that route, aside from bulwark and shield of courage, but wouldn’t sentinels help you survive the burst better to be able to get rezzes and such?

Celestial tempest doesn’t even need water or arcane to be able to sustain and holdpoint in a 2v2 on a sidenode for like 10 minutes. The overloads generally are completed if you have a brain when you decide to pop the overload.

Now that we’ve had a solid week and two weekends to try reaper, and have experienced the nerf of the trait that was arguably the main reason to take reaper, I thought I’d articulate my thoughts on the elite spec as it pertains to organized pvp at a semi-competitive level. Note I pretty much only play conquest, not stronghold.

The Good

Reaper’s Shroud is wonderful on nearly every build. Fast frantic cleave is what we’ve needed for so long, and while some may disagree with me, I feel as though I can’t go back to playing normal death shroud. The two just don’t compare. And stability is extremely helpful for pointholding, sustain, and stomps.

Shout skills are some of the better necromancer utilities since we were able to give feedback and have them tweaked, unlike many of the base class utilities that remain quite weak. In particular, the heal and elite feel at home in any build.

The Bad

Build diversity is at an all time low since the blighter’s boon nerf. We are forced into soul reaping for vital persistance on nearly every build, and spite tends to be the best other option on most builds since without it, blighter’s boon is useless and spite synergizes with chill spam quite well. Death magic is the next most viable line for bruiser builds that don’t use blighter’s boon, that may wish to use shouts instead of signets and want more passive sustain instead of damage. Curses has its problems of having all of its good traits in the same tier, and blood magic is genuinely too situational unless you run wells, and unholy martyr is hard to run without death magic. Even condi builds are dropping curses to run spite, as are some bruiser builds, and every power dps build. The other traitlines need some love to work better with reaper.

The greatsword can’t hit people that move. Greatsword works best in a bruiser/pointholder build, but then it has trouble making the damage feel solid compared to other choices. In particular, there feels to be very little reason to gravedigger spam a downed target with soldier’s amulet, when you can just pop into deathshroud, stun the person rezzing with RS5, pop stability, and stomp (15% boosted stomp speed with reaper’s onslaught too). Gravedigger needs a guaranteed critical hit effect against people that are trying to rez, otherwise it doesn’t output the pressure needed to be good downcleave and deny the rez.

Compared to base necromancer, Reaper works with the following types of builds much better than with base necromancer:

Condition Builds (arguably the best type of reaper build to use)
Tanky-Pointholder in Teamfights
Minion side node holder
Mightstacking soldier’s bruiser

But base necromancer does these types of builds better:

Celestial-hybrid/boon corruption (overly reliant on synergies in spite/curese/SR)
Rez/transfusion/heal support (no room to take blood magic with reaper, and blood magic doesn’t give enough persoanal sustain).
Power wells/lich bomber/marauder (needs more range and needs blood magic).

Overall I’d say reaper is definietly fun to play, but in higher level pvp, I’m worried about it being two polarized, either amazing in 1v1s but risky and hard to use/survive in teamfights (condi) or amazing in teamfights and pointholding, but incapable of killing most opponents 1v1 (soldier’s bruiser with GS). To me, its hard to find a middle ground that will handle both scenarios equally well.I’m also worried that certain sustain oriented bruisers, such as scrapper, tempest, and druid will overshadow bruiser reaper builds, when reaper was billed as a bruiser in esscence much more than the others were, offering “frontline support” and heals. Reaper is just as selfish as base necromancer, but its able to still be competitive by offering the debuff pressure and unblockable CC needed to kill the cele/supporters that rule the current meta. The greatsword offers the most room fot tuning and improvement.

So those are my thoughts, feel free to post yours.

Senario.2038:

Axialbloom.8109:

Warriors are in the same boat with the Berserker, but their dev is Robert so…

I would argue warriors have a half-sound concept though the execution is terrible. A condi warrior is basically what berzerker is and I’ve seen some ppl be successful with it, that said it is a little lackluster though I would not say it is as lackluster as Tempest.

I do think the numbers need tuning but the build seems to be able to stack a whole bunch of burn using sword and rifle. That said I’ll let warriors talk about the spec, they need to find out a good balance between how easy a warrior is to play compared to what they can get.

Yeah I find this interesting. When I look at berserker traits, I see a lot of good and a lot penitential. When I tried playing berserker during the beta, it just seemed to fall apart due to adrenaline management issues that made it clunky and frustrating to play. Tempest is sort of similar but the overload mechanic is gated a lot better than the adrenaline mechanic’s bipolar nature, should I use a normal burst skill now or save up for primal bursts that aren’t worth the build up?

Yeah if necro has taught me anything, it’s that shroud is all the damage and sustain and the weapon skills might as well be utilities designed to help use get into shroud.

While warhorn has overall better utility, as does staff, nightfall and grasping darkness are strong enough in their own right to make GS worth using.

Ara.4569:

nearlight.3064:

Hmm based on my testing and general heresay, it seems that condi-chill reaper will be the most run build in high level pvp, but even then it will be more of a 1v1 hero anti-meta build than an actual meta build itself.

There’s more and more diamond skin tempest. The kittener who designed that trait is a kittening kitten.

Yeah, but they’re easy pickings with chill when diamond skin gets broken in a teamfight, so it’s fair.

Basically run minions and signet of the locust and anything else you want. I personally run the shout heal over blood fiend and rise over shadow fiend (rise is AMAZING when you get it) and I roll with ascended berserker in spite/death/reaper but soldiers is probably better if you want to solo champ mobs for hero points and the like.

Bhawb.7408:

I used to feel like Spite was too overloaded on might, but after using a bit I honestly think its fair, and other lines should just be boosted on their own merit without hitting spite.

Spite’s boosts are heavily loaded onto low health and shroud, which is really conditional setups, and also nicely themed. Having a lot of shroud buffs is nice, because it allows for the Spite/Soul Reaping pair for builds that heavily rely on Shroud as a DPS form, and use normal weapons as utility. Its a unique style, and I think it should be preserved, and I also think it is perfectly reasonable because while strong, it is specifically strong in its niche (against low health targets, or while in shroud).

Other traitlines should definitely be looked at on their own. I’d much rather they be brought up to Spite’s level, especially on a thematic level with Spite having a nicely cohesive setup and both strong and fun traits. And I don’t think this would imbalance anything considering our slightly substandard place at the moment.

Yeah that’s a good point. Anything that gives us more viable build diversity besides spite/SR in nearly every build is good.

Zenith, I think most of us were talking pvp. For PvE I don’t think it matters as much considering ele/tempest will probably be pushed into some sort of semi-healer role for raids. Don’t know about super high level faptals though.

I’ve always thought they should move some of the might out of spite and into other lines. As of now, 90% Of pvp builds are spite/sR/reaper, and I don’t think that’s fun or healthy build diversity.

What clownmug says. I’m not going to argue with the guy that went all logic bomb on me, but I will say that tempest is fun and it works well enough in pvp that I don’t feel as though I’m gimping myself by not running normal ele. Though personally I’ll be sticking to reaper for tournaments and whatnot, but that has more to do with it being my actual main than it being better than tempest.

Yeah I think master of corruption is the best in that slot, but most high level necros that are reviving condi necro are dropping curses altogether for spite, for signets, chill of death, and bitter chill, and it feels a kitteneesier and works better with carrion in particular, but it still feels odd to run condi without curses.

NeXeD.3042:

nearlight.3064:

NeXeD.3042:

Do not agree condi is where we should be going. Not at all. I’ve also been able to make a full melee reaper work in pvp. Signets blow corruption out of the water. Shouts signets with curses seems to be the best combo for me with either valkyrie or cele.

For me it depends on my team composition. My current teammates like to run glassy S/p daredevil, trap DH, cele scrapper and/or power chronomancer, and one multiclasser. Sometimes we have a D/D ele instead of the dragonhunter, so when I play reaper I play the build that goes best with our comp. if we have enough bruisers I’ll go condi for the damage and aids, but if not I’ll run either soldier shouts or crusader shouts with GS and just tank the node, or alternatively switch to tempest as well.

Noscoc has opted to use carrion signets now, but I do feel as though an MoC build in curses would provided better sustain and similar utility, it’s just the light and free chill prof that you’d miss, but I’d love to hear more about your builds! And yeah condi reaper works because RS just works better for condi than base shroud ever could due to stability and better skills that apply condis AoE.

How does corruption offer more sustain that signets?

20 second cooldown on one of the best heals in the game and 120 second cooldown on plague. I mean this setup would ideally still have plague signet to take on the self condis better, and still be able to spike people with corrupt boon.

Signets feel a lot glassier, but I’m rolling with spite signet instead of locust for max cheese, so that’s probably why.

OP, you don’t have to go into PvE at all if you buy the expansion. The pvp elite specs are automatically fully unlocked in pvp if you buy the expansion.

And yeah, I’d say if you main necromancer, ranger, engineer, guardian or are interested in revenant, you really should buy the expansion. The other elite specs for other classes are arguably on par with the base class, but some like tempest have better teamfight niches while daredevil is stronger in 1v1s than vanilla thief. Chronomancer is a mixed bag. People forgot how fast mesmers die when they have a red target on their head (people die all the time so they don’t get confused by clones) and when their good amount of defensive cooldowns are up. That’s not to say that chronomancer isn’t genuinely fun, or can’t wreck face, but it’s not as strong as people originally expected it to be.

“Tempest is bad” because people can’t adapt.

If you can adapt, you’ll see it strangely fits in the current meta better than D/D ele ever could. You have to throw away every idea you have about playing D/d ele to play tempest well. Tbh, it plays a lot more like a necromancer in terms of weight and feeling and intuition, since it’s slower and more strategic instead of fast paced and rotational,

NeXeD.3042:

Do not agree condi is where we should be going. Not at all. I’ve also been able to make a full melee reaper work in pvp. Signets blow corruption out of the water. Shouts signets with curses seems to be the best combo for me with either valkyrie or cele.

For me it depends on my team composition. My current teammates like to run glassy S/p daredevil, trap DH, cele scrapper and/or power chronomancer, and one multiclasser. Sometimes we have a D/D ele instead of the dragonhunter, so when I play reaper I play the build that goes best with our comp. if we have enough bruisers I’ll go condi for the damage and aids, but if not I’ll run either soldier shouts or crusader shouts with GS and just tank the node, or alternatively switch to tempest as well.

Noscoc has opted to use carrion signets now, but I do feel as though an MoC build in curses would provided better sustain and similar utility, it’s just the light and free chill prof that you’d miss, but I’d love to hear more about your builds! And yeah condi reaper works because RS just works better for condi than base shroud ever could due to stability and better skills that apply condis AoE.

Hmm I’ve been using monk runes a lot lately on tempest, but durability looks amazing now that I think about it.

There’s also radiance runes, but the auras are more useful for the applied effects than the the auras themselves, so that’s not an ideal choice.

I also want to note that sigil of transference is a great alternative to renewal or leeching on builds with a good amount of healing to allies, so I run that sigil a lot.

Well on the other hand, almost all of the abjured’s builds from last ESL were nerfed, tempest was the only one that wasn’t nerfed. I mean blighters boon, adaptive armor/hgh and revenant mobility and sustain being a bit to a lot weaker certainly means that their comp isn’t being 100% biased from the devs as much as some people think, but that’s just my perspective as a filthy casual.

Dristig.9678:

I think the key is to not level up to high. Power still works in lower brackets. lol

Then how do you deal with people who are lactose intolerant of you don’t bring enough cheese? Cheese wins tournaments my friend.

Oh yeah, I totally think rabid can still work, its just I generally prefer to have higher vitality than toughness, which helps me during those rare moments my teammates can heal me when I’m out of shroud xD!

On a side-note, I wish some of the new condi amulets weren’t total kitten. Maybe wanderer’s with aristocracy could work when expertise gets fixed for pvp.

Some people have been running rabid spite/curses for maximum cheese, but the sustain just isn;t there without soul marks and vital persistance, so 4/10 I’d reccomend that setup.

And Donee, while I’d love to cheese people with perplexity, grouch has decided that for the health of the pvp forum QQ, we won’t be able to use it in spvp (as I’m sure you know, just saying it hear for general knowledge for others).

Lets talk about runes for condi reaper, considering its the only glimmer of viability left in the reaper elite spec since its sustain got nerfed into the ground.

So considering carrion is likely the best amulet since crit procs are kitten and vitality gives us more death shroud and insurance against burst, what runeset should we use?

The best choice in my opinion:

Grenth: Condi damage and chill duration, a very synergistic choice with the whole deathly chill concept of these sorts of builds.

Aristocracy: Many top tier players are dropping curses in favor of spite to abuse signets and chill of death procs (rip build diversity). This rune gives us condi damage and might duration, being very synergistic with those types of builds.

Scavenging: Leeching procs and highest condi damage stat with carrion due to the 7% vitality to condi damage bonus.

Nightmare: Random Proc fear cheese.

Now lets also talk traits and utilties. We can use either, or some combination of signets, corruptions, shouts, spectral armor/walk, or flesh wurm to run a viable condi build. What combination do you guys like the most?

Personally, while signets seems really cheesey, and therefore really strong, master of corruption with CC, CB, and Plague offers good sustain and spike pressure, while SA helps sustain and plague signet is good on any build. Also Chilled the Bone and Rise and Your soul is mine are shouts that could be potentially useful for sustain and damage with augury.

Let me know your best and cheesiest condi ideas, because lets face it, as reapers, our best way to face the new meta is to be the cheesy chilling antimeta 1v1 hero that is a condi reaper build.

I briefly tried playing settler druid in the beta.

I got 2-shot by a P/P thief unload.

You’re forced to use celestial to have enough effective health power (in terms of health/toughness) to sustain yourself against both direct damage and burst. Thats how kittened up the meta is for build diversity…

Just saying again that my biggest issue with this change is that so many builds that try to support are being pushed into celestial because most amulets like cleric and magi don’t have the right allocation of stats on most classes to survive in this meta compared to celestial, even though celestial has half as much healing power. To me, thats just not fun or interesting. Where’s our 4-stat zealot amulet with vitality? Why did they add useless horribad condi amulets like vipers when it was something that no one needed or wanted?

Hmm based on my testing and general heresay, it seems that condi-chill reaper will be the most run build in high level pvp, but even then it will be more of a 1v1 hero anti-meta build than an actual meta build itself.