Overall Reaper is a big improvement over the BWE1 version. The damage is much better and quality of life stuff such as Death’s charge target lock are amazingly fun and useful. But there are still some pretty major issues. These mostly come in the form of bugs or unresponsive skill activations due to aftercasts etc.
Greatsword
———————————
Auto-attack
—-
This is much better this time around. The chill uptime is pretty decent and the damage is fair. I still think it needs some quality of life improvements. Maybe reduce the after cast so chaining skills is more responsive. I would do this for a lot of reaper skills as that is the biggest problem currently. The cast times are slow enough. We don’t need the aftercasts causing further problems and preventing skill activation.
Another suggestion that i thought was a nice idea. Move the chill to the first two hits of the chain and increase the backloaded damage. Currently all the bonus effects are on the final hit. It might be good to spread it out a bit more. You could also just put all the lifeforce on the first or second hit. Either way i think there’s a bit too much on the last hit and not enough in the middle of the chain.
Gravedigger
—-
Gravedigger is much better. The damage is really good now. However there is some awkward delay (probably caused by aftercast on gravedigger and other GS skills) which causes a lot of problems. I noticed in HotM against a test dummy i didn’t have many problems with skill responsiveness. But during my Bloomhunger solo it was very noticeable and frustrating. A very slight activation speed increase and removal of after cast would make this feel a lot more fluid and fun.
Death Spiral
—-
This skill still has too short range. It needs to be between 300-600 range and it needs an improvement to smoothness of activation. It also suffers from delay clunkiness (probably aftercast issues again). Also there seems to be issues when not facing your target or while moving it doesn’t activate properly.
Nightfall
—-
I still think the pulses are too slow. I feel it should be 8 pulses with 1 second intervals. Otherwise it doesn’t work very well as a defensive blind skill. Otherwise the new animation is a huge improvement. The initial radius should probably also be slightly larger.
Grasping Darkness
—-
This skill is still unreliable to hit and activate. I also feel this skill should be ground targeted like the new tempest focus skill Lightning Orb. It would improve its functionality dramatically if you could aim it. It would also prevent many of the bugs where it misses. The chill is infinitely more useful than the poison. So i am happy with that change. But aftercasts are again causing activation problems. It also suffers from the same issue as death spiral when not facing your target or moving. It won’t activate properly and is unresponsive.
Greatsword summary
———————————
Currently the greatsword is much better than the previous version. It still has issues. Its far too clunky and unresponsive still. It is also very hard to spam gravedigger even in organised PvE groups because of self interrupts from dodge’s, aftercasts and all the other greatsword skills being clunky. I fully believe the main issue now is the bugs with GS3 and GS5 and the aftercast and unresponsive activation times. Fix those and it will be a very fun weapon and hopefully work much more fluidly.
Reaper Shroud
———————————
Auto-attack
—-
This auto-attack still deals slightly too little damage. And does not provide enough life force on hit. The danger of being in melee means lifeforce drains a lot faster. So i think much better life force per final hit is required. 3% would be my recommendation. 2% minimum. There also seems to be a really annoying after cast issue with it. Using Death’s Charge straight after auto-attack causes a huge delay. However using Death’s Charge after any other shroud skill works instantly (as it should).
Death’s Charge
—-
New Death’s Charge is pretty much perfect. Only issue is there seems to be a bug when casting without a target that causes you to charge in random directions. Or turn around briefly at the end of the charge.
Infusing Terror > Terrify
—-
I think Infusing terror is mostly fine as it is. I would maybe allow the pulsing stab effect to carry over out of shroud. And it could maybe do with being a stunbreak.
Terrify needs a slightly faster cast. As it stands the cast time makes it bad for interrupting or using defensively. And if not then the fear duration should be buffed and it should apply chill as base to completely cover the extended fear duration.
Soul Spiral
—-
Soul Spiral is too weak for damage. Its channel time makes it do less dps than greatsword auto. It needs a direct damage buff to make it worth using. Other than the low damage its fine.
Executioner’s Scythe
—-
Now that gravedigger does better damage this skill is far too weak comparatively for damage. It needs a faster activation or a considerable damage buff (make it at least equal to gravedigger with the below 50% hit). The chill duration could be buffed a bit. Id also like to see the ice field last a bit longer. Because if you don’t cast a finisher immediately after casting it you will miss your chance.
Reaper Shroud summary
———————————
Overall Reaper Shroud is pretty decent. It needs some slight damage buffs and bug/aftercast fixes. But otherwise its really fun and useful.
Shouts
———————————
Your soul is mine
—-
The problem with this shout is that its healing is far too weak. Against large groups it’s still not great for sustain. Its not really much of an improvement since last beta. And its main use of granting life force isn’t amazing either. The base healing and lifeforce needs a big buff.
You are all weaklings
—-
The might on this skill is still far too short duration. It needs to be about 10 seconds and possibly the same for the weakness. The weakness and might might be useful in PvE if it was boosted in duration. As it stands it’s no good.
Suffer
—-
Suffer is basically our chill shout. But it also steps on the toes of transfers. However if we want to transfer conditions we are better off using plague signet. Which does more, is also instant cast and has the same cooldown. So I feel suffer needs to be buffed considerably through its chill potential or other functionality. The instant cast is a big improvement but the cooldown is still too high and the damage is too low. Basically make the cooldown 20 seconds and buff the chill duration to 5-7 seconds. Then it can at least be useful for chill. Even with these tweaks i don’t see it being used much, if at all. So i would add some extra functionality. My best suggestion for this would be a blast finisher.
Nothing can save you
—-
I think this skill is fine as it is. Its more of a PvP skill but its cast time and vuln duration are decent numbers wise. I would probably make it 30 second cooldown though. And maybe boost the damage up a bit.
Rise
—-
New rise is a really nice concept. However the new minions are far too squishy. They need to be very tanky but low damage minions for the skill to be useful. You could balance this by giving them a max duration or constant health degeneration so they don’t remain alive too long. Also this shout does not receive a base effect with no target like the other shouts do.
Chilled to the bone
—-
This elite is totally outclassed by Executioner’s Scythe. And is far weaker than Revenants Jade Winds. The cast time is too long still. The stun duration is too short. And the cooldown is far too long. To make this useful as a stun skill I would buff the damage, reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds. Reduce the cast time to 0.75 or 1 second. The stun duration also needs to be at least 3 seconds just like Jade Winds.
But I would still personally prefer it to be a CC on par with deep freeze but AoE. So make it 5 second duration. Then it actually has a real use as a CC skill. And gives Reaper something really worthwhile in PvE. I think the chill duration could also be a slight bit higher considering its elite status and cast time (even if changed to 1 second cast with 60 second cooldown). The stability per target is fine if the cast is shorter. But there’s not a whole lot of use for stab which isn’t instant cast in this game. Stability is more of a boon you want straight away.
Shouts summary
———————————
The main problem is still their poor effectiveness on a single foe and this a problem with all shouts. There’s not really an easy solution for this other than having inverse exponential scaling (which you did do partially with some shouts). I like that the base effect works without hitting a target now. Unfortunately Rise does not work this way so it needs to be fixed. Generally speaking i still think shouts in general need way more damage and more single target usability.
Traits
———————————
Augury of Death
—-
This trait doesn’t really have a lot of use in PvE because shouts are weak. In PvP it doesn’t make sense because you aren’t going to hit many enemies. Not sure what to do about this other than making shouts better.
Chilling Nova
—-
The lower cooldown coupled with better greatsword chill access has made this trait much better. I still think the chill is a bit too low currently. I would buff the chill to 3 seconds. Or allow 2 procs every 10 seconds.
Relentless Pursuit
—-
Not really a PvE trait but it’s perfectly fine. And good at what it does and will have niche uses in some PvE. No changes needed.
Soul Eater
—-
This trait still has no use. The cooldown reduction is rather pointless. Gravedigger cannot be spammed above 50% health which means you won’t get much cooldown reduction anyway. And below 50% you will only want to spam Gravedigger. So it doesn’t make sense as a trait. Also greatsword is far too slow so the lifesteal is totally pointless. I would change this to work like Zealous Blade. Just give it flat heals of a much higher amount per hit to work better with the slow hit speed of greatsword.
Chilling Victory
—-
The ICD per target totally destroys this traits use in a lot of PvE content. Boss fights are mostly one target. Which means the might gain is really poor for anything other than large groups of mobs. Our chill uptime is better so its not as bad as before. But it’s outclassed by decimate defences both when solo and when in a group. Only way to fix this is to remove the ICD per target. And it should be fixed. I want to have a meaningful choice such as Chilling Victory for solo or when i need might and Decimate for group stuff.
Decimate Defenses
—-
This trait is perfectly fine as it is. Really good trait. No changes needed.
Blighter’s Boon
—-
This trait is also fine as it is. If Chilling force gets improved and chill uptime gets restored it might become a bit strong in certain situations. So maybe a multi proc ICD would be needed. But care needs to taken to not completely destroy this traits solo sustain if you do this.
Deathly Chill
—-
This trait is still far too weak currently. Chill is a duration condition so the damage needs to be much much better. The same can be said for terror since conditions have changed.
Another solution would be to add additional effects. So maybe it should make Reaper’s deal 10% bonus damage and 10% bonus condition damage to chilled foes in addition to chill doing condition damage. You could also make the damage chill does, scale with power instead of condition damage. Or make it a direct damage tick which can critical hit. As it stands it’s weak and needs to be changed a lot to make it better.
Reaper’s Onslaught
—-
Really nice trait. However the 15% doesn’t feel very noticeably. It might need a slight increase up to 20%.
Overall Summary
———————————
In general the Reaper is much better this time around. The damage is much better. But it’s not practically possible to pull off reliably and consistently even in organised PvE. Simply because of how slow and easy it is to self interrupt. The shouts are the biggest problem with the Reaper. And the aftercasts and buggy greatsword skills are also pretty problematic. If those are fixed then the spec will be perfect.
You can see some of the clunky unresponsive skill activation in my Bloomhunger solo below.
https://youtu.be/AmkVfz9pvS8
Another really big issue which is not really Reaper specific. Breakbars being reduced by chill is a huge mistake. It totally destroys the use of a lot of Reaper traits. Including Deathly Chill. Also ive noticed breakbars get destroyed too fast anyway. So removing chill from the list of CC’s that reduces the bar would certainly help. While also still allowing us to use it to affect boss skill cooldowns and movement speed (the best thing about chill).