Fear on Warhorn and/or Focus for Necro

I know it has been discussed in the past, but with the recent Dread changes the "issues" of fear come up again. The problem is that Necro has A LOT of traits to enhance fear, yet has very few ways to apply it. Now Dread got reworked, applying fear is actually something many builds could potentially benefit from. The only weapon that can apply fear is Staff for Necro. Furthermore there is shroud skill 3 and that' it. There is Spectral Ring, but that only applies fear when a target walks into it, it's very hard and unreliable to use.

Staff on Necro has not many uses outside of pvp/wvw, which is why I think it would be a great idea to bring fear to an off-hand weapon. Especially with the recent Dread rework, applying fear is not about the fear itself anymore: it's about the boons that it gives you. The quickness helps significantly and the fury is also very nice to have. Giving Focus Skill 4 a fear instead of a vulnerability would be very strong for reapers, since, with the right traits, they could get: Fear, Chill (Shivers of Dread, Cold Shoulder), Vulnerability (Bitter Chill), Quickness and Fury (Dread). Alternatively replacing the daze on warhorn with a fear might actually be worth it now, despite the higher risk it bears.

I get that many people don't like fear, but fear has many counters. Giving fear to an off-hand weapon would mean power builds could start using it, without having to sacrifice a weaponslot for the staff.

Quick addition: I forgot to add that Lich skill 3 also has a fear, and downed skill 2.

I find that in general unless you are trying to CC something, fear is the equivalent of a ranger's knock back when you're trying to kack something. People want enemies rounded up not spread apart or running away. I think it's actually a good thing that fear isn't ubiquitous in necromancer's skills even if it is thematic.What necromancers need rather, is a skill to draw their enemies towards them.

Dread is meant to be only useful on power core and power scourge as these two lack impact (exception: power scourge in wvw blobs) as these two specs have frequent fear access via a low cooldown shroud3 / F4.

The trait is meant to be underwhelming for reaper as reaper has a very long RS3 cooldown. Otherwise on reaper it would be incredibly strong hardbuffing GS cast times and crit chance when casting terrify right before leaving shroud and being able to do this every 17 seconds and with the generally higher shroud uptime and the higher range of the skill like it works for core.

Dread is a burst buff for power core. It's meant to boost shroud1 and to be casted right before leaving shroud again 17 seconds later to be able to burst with axe2 or dagger2.

And of course there is lich, but since this is on a 150s cooldown, it's only a gimmick.

TL;DR: There is no room for an additional fear, otherwise the trait would be overpowered for reaper (perma self quickness inside and outside of shroud).

@"KrHome.1920" said:Dread is meant to be only useful on power core and power scourge as these two lack impact (exception: power scourge in wvw blobs) as these two specs have frequent fear access via a low cooldown shroud3 / F4.

The trait is meant to be underwhelming for reaper as reaper has a very long RS3 cooldown. Otherwise on reaper it would be incredibly strong hardbuffing GS cast times and crit chance when casting terrify right before leaving shroud and being able to do this every 15 seconds like it works for core.

Dread is a burst buff for power core. It's meant to boost shroud1 and to be casted right before leaving shroud again 15 seconds later to be able to burst with axe2 or dagger2.

And of course there is lich, but since this is on a 150s cooldown, it's only a gimmick.

TL;DR: There is no room for an additional fear, otherwise the trait would be great for reaper too, which is not intended.

I am currently running a test with my reaper. I run staff + axe/focus but i could switch that out for staff/gs. My findings so far are quite interesting. with reaper's onslaught, acquired quickness from skill 3 gets "stored" until shroud wears off. the rotation so far is quite complex, but it's working out quite nice. when alternating between staff skill 5 and shroud skill 3, you can have quickness most of the time. When there are multiple mobs around, shroud skill 3 resets very quickly allowing to build up more quickness. I've ended some fights with 9 seconds quickness left. That is in PvE. I'm not really into WvW so cant comment on there. Quickness with axe is really nice because of the fast building of a lot of vulnerability. Quickness staff 1 builds life force very quickly.

If anything, Dread is very good for reaper BECAUSE shroud skill 3 has a long cooldown. whenever an npc dies, the timer gets a -50% recharge which has a bigger impact on reaper than on core or scourge. So far Dread has been far from underwhelming for me as a reaper.

For clarification/TL:DR: GS/staff on reaper. Use skill 5 on staff for quickness, swap to gs. when quickness wears off go to shroud. stay as long in shroud as you can, popping terrify as often as you can. this will happen quite often if you fight many weak enemies. Reaper's onslaught will make sure that your quickness is not going down the drain since it pulses additional quickness every few seconds. while fury is up, fight with GS. when fury goes down, switch to staff. skill 5 might almost be ready. like I said, you can get quickness most of the time, not permanently. soul marks helps a lot. skill 3 on staff is also handy, skill 4 is a condi transfer just in case, skill 2 is a regen when you're in it, skill 1 with quickness builds up life force like i've never seen before.

Of course I will keep testing the build, but it appears to be quite strong for now. my original point was though that it would be great to have access to fear without a staff. Reaper can already benefit from Dread, in fact it's logical Reaper would because of the fact that it's in the Spite line. Many reapers use Spite since spite is power focused, and many reapers have a power-build. If they wanted to Dread to only benefit Scourge and Core they would've moved it to curses.

@Obfuscate.6430 said:I find that in general unless you are trying to CC something, fear is the equivalent of a ranger's knock back when you're trying to kack something. People want enemies rounded up not spread apart or running away. I think it's actually a good thing that fear isn't ubiquitous in necromancer's skills even if it is thematic.What necromancers need rather, is a skill to draw their enemies towards them.

I mean, they could inverse the effect of fear, drawing them towards you instead, and call it gluttony or hatred? but that's what taunt kinda is already.

As last addition I would like to point out what I stated in my original post: Giving Focus Skill 4 a fear instead of a vulnerability would be very strong for reapers, since, with the right traits, they could get: Fear, Chill (Shivers of Dread, Cold Shoulder), Vulnerability (Bitter Chill), Quickness and Fury (Dread).

Reaper is, because of Shivers of Dread, tied to fear a lot more than either core or scourge. This is because fear can give them a lot of benefits, just from the minor traits alone. if you specc into it, fear can give especially reapers a lot, so it would be logical that everything that has to do with fear, would be interesting for reapers because they have that passive synergy build into their trait line.

@Obfuscate.6430 said:I find that in general unless you are trying to CC something, fear is the equivalent of a ranger's knock back when you're trying to kack something. People want enemies rounded up not spread apart or running away. I think it's actually a good thing that fear isn't ubiquitous in necromancer's skills even if it is thematic.What necromancers need rather, is a skill to draw their enemies towards them.

combine fear + chilled to limit how far they can go, so it's closest to a stun ?

@Kulvar.1239 said:

@Obfuscate.6430 said:I find that in general unless you are trying to CC something, fear is the equivalent of a ranger's knock back when you're trying to kack something. People want enemies rounded up not spread apart or running away. I think it's actually a good thing that fear isn't ubiquitous in necromancer's skills even if it is thematic.What necromancers need rather, is a skill to draw their enemies towards them.

Good point. Reapers that are throwing around a lot of fear will also throw around a lot of chill anyway. it's like a stun that gives a damage boost.

@Obfuscate.6430 said:I find that in general unless you are trying to CC something, fear is the equivalent of a ranger's knock back when you're trying to kack something. People want enemies rounded up not spread apart or running away. I think it's actually a good thing that fear isn't ubiquitous in necromancer's skills even if it is thematic.What necromancers need rather, is a skill to draw their enemies towards them.

Completely unrelated to OP, but nothing like those players knocking back holograms :D on stampedes. Those die easy, no need to chase for half a map when players keep using knock back skills.

I've tried it. Dread staff + GS onslaught reaper is surprisingly strong even 1v1. That's something I hoped it would happen for years.

If the shroud fear lands, then there is always 5s to 8s of quickness left when exiting shroud. Landing staff5 adds another 5 seconds for a remarkably high quickness (and fury) uptime.

After playing that I would absolutely vote against fear on focus since axe/focus deals a lot more damage than staff and with the expected quickness uptime this would just be broken in any competitive environment.

@KrHome.1920 said:I've tried it. Dread staff + GS onslaught reaper is surprisingly strong even 1v1. That's something I hoped it would happen for years.

If the shroud fear lands, then there is always 5s to 8s of quickness left when exiting shroud. Landing staff5 adds another 5 seconds for a remarkably high quickness (and fury) uptime.

After playing that I would absolutely vote against fear on focus since axe/focus deals a lot more damage than staff and with the expected quickness uptime this would just be broken in any competitive environment.

I'm very happy that you took action yourself and that you tested it! Yes, I have been able to solo a few champions here and there. How would you consider a fear on warhorn, since it lacks the extra chill from spinal shivers? I have to admit that I am very happy that GS/staff seems to be a strong combo for now. As I said, the rotation is quite hard, you have to know what you're doing and you cant really afford to make a mistake if you want permanent quickness. That said, The more I play staff/GS, the more I start liking it. I was afraid that it would be hard stacking vulnerability, but with enough chill skills this seems to be not really a problem.

I read a post later this day about fear uptime in competitive environments and I want to make something clear. I am very much against very long durations of fear. It is not very fun to be walking off a cliff when you cant really do anything about it. I would have no problem with Arenanet changing how fear works. The reason I want fear is because of all the goodness that it gives a reaper. Everything with fear gives fear, chill, vulnerability, quickness and fury when specced right. But yes, the more damage focused nature of the, well, focus (heh) would potentially mean a very hard and potentially broken environment FOR PvP and WvW. For now necro staff might actually have a place in PvE. This is big news considering it was a dumpster fire before.

The offhands are so weak now, I support this. This would be a great way to make them more useful without having a direct dps buff.

Maybe on Warhorn 4 for 1 sec but it would be too broken on Focus.

It would make since for warhorn 4, not focus or dagger offhands. Maybe even make the trait under blood magic for warhorns, convert the daze into fear, forcing a choice between that and vampiric presence.

I am currently running a test with my reaper. I run staff + axe/focus but i could switch that out for staff/gs. My findings so far are quite interesting. with reaper's onslaught, acquired quickness from skill 3 gets "stored" until shroud wears off. the rotation so far is quite complex, but it's working out quite nice. when alternating between staff skill 5 and shroud skill 3, you can have quickness most of the time. When there are multiple mobs around, shroud skill 3 resets very quickly allowing to build up more quickness. I've ended some fights with 9 seconds quickness left. That is in PvE. I'm not really into WvW so cant comment on there. Quickness with axe is really nice because of the fast building of a lot of vulnerability. Quickness staff 1 builds life force very quickly.

If anything, Dread is very good for reaper BECAUSE shroud skill 3 has a long cooldown. whenever an npc dies, the timer gets a -50% recharge which has a bigger impact on reaper than on core or scourge. So far Dread has been far from underwhelming for me as a reaper.

For clarification/TL:DR: GS/staff on reaper. Use skill 5 on staff for quickness, swap to gs. when quickness wears off go to shroud. stay as long in shroud as you can, popping terrify as often as you can. this will happen quite often if you fight many weak enemies. Reaper's onslaught will make sure that your quickness is not going down the drain since it pulses additional quickness every few seconds. while fury is up, fight with GS. when fury goes down, switch to staff. skill 5 might almost be ready. like I said, you can get quickness most of the time, not permanently. soul marks helps a lot. skill 3 on staff is also handy, skill 4 is a condi transfer just in case, skill 2 is a regen when you're in it, skill 1 with quickness builds up life force like i've never seen before.

I haven't tried this build yet, but I like the experimentation. It's not really convincing me to give it a shot, though. One of Dread's main advantages is the faster recharge with mob deaths. For Reapers, fighting multiple enemies is not an issue; Reapers are already built to excel against multiple foes and it's not something I need to improve in. The traits that would make me interested in changing my build are the ones that help against bosses. Dread does very little on this front, unless I sacrifice DPS for sustain to focus on Dread, Blighter's Boon and Fear of Death. If we could add Dread's recharge ability to also trigger upon a boss's defiance bar being broken, THAT would be a pretty interesting option and hardly an overpowering one.

I'm interested in hearing your feedback though as one of the few players getting good mileage out of Dread so far.

I fully agree, the sources of fear necro has reliable access to is way too low. You also have to account for that fear is negated by all the conterplay forms from both: conditions and stuns, especially with the absurd resistance uptime this is a huge issue.

As for the offhand weapons, focus 4 is a meme, warhorn in general is pretty weak since its "rework", the daze is good but its cooldown is way high for its duration, unless you trait it but that isnt worth it like ever. Dagger offhand was recently nerfed for whatever reason in PvE and also isnt really good unless you actually can transfer condis, qhich at least in PVE is never the case, skill 5 is really dated and outright horrible.

What do you mean when you say focus 4 is a meme?

Dread is more for Power builds that aren't using Reaper imo.Personally, I think it would be better if Dread's effect applies on casting Shroud 3 instead of applying Fear.

It would be so much better to have this instead of forcing the Necro to apply Fear in order to gain its advantages.

@Brujeria.7536 said:I fully agree, the sources of fear necro has reliable access to is way too low.And to compensate that the traits that trigger on fear are extremely strong. 15% life force generation, 50% duration increase, 5s quickness and 10s ferocity.

So we can assume that the current implementation of fears is intended and won't be changed that soon (which is good).

Fear is a lockdown condition that should be very carefully added to the game. Anyone that is serious about adding more fear sources should pick a core necro or a scourge and duell an immob druid for a few hours to get an insight how unhealthy such mechanics are for the experience of your encounters.

@KrHome.1920 said:

@"Brujeria.7536" said:I fully agree, the sources of fear necro has reliable access to is way too low.And to compensate that the traits that trigger on fear are extremely strong. 15% life force generation, 50% duration increase, 5s quickness and 10s ferocity.

@"QuirkyDM.2351" said:What do you mean when you say focus 4 is a meme?

It deals no damage. Its heal is shit. its a strange "niche" slow ass projectile skill on a offhand weapon thats supposed to be a "burst" weapon. The skill is not even able to crit to make any use in power builds or has any reasonable scaling for any other build. Its just "there" without any purpose or reasoning that would justify its existence. Its like a melee healing strike on elementalist staff when attuned to fire.

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"QuirkyDM.2351" said:What do you mean when you say focus 4 is a meme?

At least the old version of Reaper's Touch had times where I felt good about casting it. The new one, I never feel good about casting it.

@Brujeria.7536 said:

@"QuirkyDM.2351" said:What do you mean when you say focus 4 is a meme?

Interesting analysis that I don't disagree with. I use it for the quick Life Force recharge- almost 25% in 3 seconds . (with Soul Reaper) It makes its way into my rotation in PvE just for that.