Blighter's Boon / Deathly Chill ; A suggestion

To make them more appealing/competitive to Reaper's Onslaught, I thought they could both decrease the Life Force degeneration speed.Blighter's Boon could decrease it by 50%, thus allowing for proper tanking/brawling.Deathly Chill could decrease it by 33%, or perhaps 25%.

What do you guys think?

This won't solve the issues of these two traits. These are low damage application when the target is at melee range. And reaper's main mechanic to be viable is high damage at melee range, because higher range is its counter. So you want to be as effective as possible, when you spent ressources to get your target to melee range (pull, leap, chill, cripple).

If you just make a low melee damage reaper more tanky, then it will just get kited for a few more seconds, but will be as insufficient as before. You are just prolonging its death, but don't provide any tools to actually kill the target.

TL;DR: blighter's boon and deathly chill are not viable, because they remove the reaper's only chance to kill a target: melee pressure. This has to be solved in a buff or even redesign of the traits.

It doesn't matter how much yu reduce the degen, if yu pop shroud and get kited, all that Shroud life is gonna melt away anyway.Onslaught gives best Value for popping Shroud when yu do get into the melee killzone.

What does Blighters give? Pretty pathetic sustain which can only be reliably triggered if yu manage to get close enough to hit with yur Shroud 1 autos.

What does Deathly Chill give? Bleed on Chill, which is best applied with Shroud 5 + Shroud 4 which are both in melee range and are used in Condi builds ANYWAY as an option other than Power Reaper.

Deathly Chill could use some buffs, but it's never gonna be a non-option for Condi builds.Blighters just isn't ever useful, even in PvE content.

It's not a good idea to give two traits the same basic functionality just with different values, especially if they are in competition with each other.In PvE, Deathly Chill isn't too bad and it is a must if you are going the condi reaper route. Problem is that the biggest source of bleeds you will be inflicting relies on a field that can be overwritten. I personally think that they should create a unique condi for chilled applied while Deathly Chill is active. That way it can be stacked and treated like any other damaging condition. There's still that whole RS5+4 problem but if the condi itself does enough damage, then it can be considered a bit of a balanced thing.

Blighter's Boon....ye sustain on it's own is pathetic. Combined with blood magic it can be of some help I suppose but at it's level of power it belongs in the master tier not grand master. Maybe it should be something where it restores 10% of your damage done as LF and while in Shroud, 5-10% of damage done as health. Maybe it's too OP in terms of sustain but something doesn't rely on a thing that necro doesn't do too well, i.e. apply self boons especially out of shroud.

If you want to make Blighter boon and Deathly chill appaeling, you need to make the gameplay they represent appaeling. Powercreeping the traits isn't really the way to do so.

• Blighter boon is a sustain trait on a profession overloaded with sustain yet lacking the tools and incentive to truly make this sustain work.
• Deathly chill is a condition trait on an e-spec that's been pushed toward being a "power" spec.

From a PvE point of view, both traits would become more attractive if the necromancer support tools had more value within the gamemode. Which mean that defiance and the environment's condition output need to be seriously looked at (I'll be honest and say that we probably won't see that happen). If ANet had reduced Chilling darkness ICD to 1s in PvE instead of overbuffing well of darkness in all gamemode, DC and condi reaper would probably be dominant in PvE today and we would have pleas all over the necromancer's subforum to buff power reaper.

From a sPvP/WvW point of view the only thing that could make those 2 traits attractive would be a hard nerf of Reaper's onslaught. RO is currently so overloaded with strong effects that taking it is a no brainer (From a competitive point of view, it's litterally worth 3 traits concentrated into a single one). BB might also be slightly more attractive if the reaper/necromancer was less vulnerable to hard CC (but, well, we all know that's not gonna happen...).

@"Dadnir.5038" said:If you want to make Blighter boon and Deathly chill appaeling, you need to make the gameplay they represent appaeling. Powercreeping the traits isn't really the way to do so.

• Blighter boon is a sustain trait on a profession overloaded with sustain yet lacking the tools and incentive to truly make this sustain work.
• Deathly chill is a condition trait on an e-spec that's been pushed toward being a "power" spec.

From a PvE point of view, both traits would become more attractive if the necromancer support tools had more value within the gamemode. Which mean that defiance and the environment's condition output need to be seriously looked at (I'll be honest and say that we probably won't see that happen). If ANet had reduced Chilling darkness ICD to 1s in PvE instead of overbuffing well of darkness in all gamemode, DC and condi reaper would probably be dominant in PvE today and we would have pleas all over the necromancer's subforum to buff power reaper.

From a sPvP/WvW point of view the only thing that could make those 2 traits attractive would be a hard nerf of Reaper's onslaught. RO is currently so overloaded with strong effects that taking it is a no brainer (From a competitive point of view, it's litterally worth 3 traits concentrated into a single one). BB might also be slightly more attractive if the reaper/necromancer was less vulnerable to hard CC (but, well, we all know that's not gonna happen...).

^ Agree

My preference for Reaper is to broaden its utility in group play and buff its condition dps in PvE now that Scourge is no longer a condi-dps spec and is forced to be a hybrid support/damage spec. To do that, I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Blighter's Boon is reworked to improve shouts so that they also flip one condition on up to 5 players each into a boon. Reaper would then become a condition management specialization at a cost of maybe not so much dps because of the utility slot cost. Needing to be out of shroud to use a shout as a group buff would also cost dps so I think this is a fair trade to gain condi management utility such as flipping burning on allies into aegis.
2. Chilling Victory could become something like "critical hits apply might." This would take one aspect of chill out of the equation and help a little against bosses. It would also act as a direct alternate to Decimate Defenses so players can tweak their builds for a bit more variety.
3. Deathly Chill could have its bleed duration lengthened in PvE from 8 seconds to something like 12 seconds but I would prefer if the trait was changed to apply bleeds on critical hits with a small cool down rather than on applying bleeds-on-chill.

If anet really is going to hold to the gist of scourge being the support/maybe condi dps spec, I would rather avoid shoving more support stuff into reaper's GM traits. - why not just give it a durability GM trait option, a condi option (haven't the foggiest idea about the current state of condi reaper, never liked it, Deathly Chill/the whole playstyle could probably use love) and then do...something with Onslaught that involves removing the quickness and buffing accordingly.

People who want support-necro stuff can just go scourge

@"Curennos.9307" said:If anet really is going to hold to the gist of scourge being the support/maybe condi dps spec, I would rather avoid shoving more support stuff into reaper's GM traits. - why not just give it a durability GM trait option, a condi option (haven't the foggiest idea about the current state of condi reaper, never liked it, Deathly Chill/the whole playstyle could probably use love) and then do...something with Onslaught that involves removing the quickness and buffing accordingly.

People who want support-necro stuff can just go scourge

It's a bit more complicated than that.

For sPvP/WvW purpose, the reaper is tanky enough thanks to core traits and GS trait to make BB an irrelevant option. BB support a tanky playstyle but have abysmal impact for the necromancer in this playstyle, this is the main "sin" of this trait. The main barriers for the reaper to "tank" is it's poor ability to handle hard CC and it's lack of complementary support (because where tanking matter, in PvE, being able to add support while tanking is somehow requiered to be competitive on this slot).

BB in it's current form heavily rely on the necromancer's uncanny ability to generate might for himself. Number-wise there is no problem with the trait, coupled with spite's minor traits it's even close to be OP. The issue come mainly from the fact that what it does isn't interesting by itself, it doesn't cover any of the things that the necromancer lack that prevent him from being a competitive tank.

As for Deathly Chill, the trait is also "good", it's only issue is that there is little room for this trait to "breath" since ANet nerfed the reaper's sources of chill and conditions in general in favor of power damage. Personally I think it's efficiency is currently balanced for sPvP/WvW and that if ANet buff this trait it shouldn't be something that "bleed" into sPvP/WvW. As for PvE, it's just to weak, it need more source of chill there because there is no mob/boss that come with the convenient stability, resistance and alacrity to corrupt into chill (fear -> chill) just like there is no vigor to corrupt into bleed and barely any regen or aegis to corrupt into poison/burn unlike when you fight players in PvP content. All while chilling darkness can simply be ignored due to it's very bothersome 3s ICD.

It's not that we want "support-necro stuff", it's that we want the support of the necromancer (boon conversion/condition management) to work as well in PvE than it work in sPvP/WvW. And simply adding more boons on mobs won't fix this when there is this big elephant in the middle of the room called defiance.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Curennos.9307" said:If anet really is going to hold to the gist of scourge being the support/maybe condi dps spec, I would rather avoid shoving more support stuff into reaper's GM traits. - why not just give it a durability GM trait option, a condi option (haven't the foggiest idea about the current state of condi reaper, never liked it, Deathly Chill/the whole playstyle could probably use love) and then do...something with Onslaught that involves removing the quickness and buffing accordingly.

People who want support-necro stuff can just go scourge

Just to clarify, I don't really 'main' WvW (though I've been meaning to get more into it for a while...anyway). I'm mainly speaking from a sPvP perspective.

Mind I'm not saying BB is fine - I like the idea of it, hate the implementation. I hate that it's really nice if you take Spite but unless you cram yourself into some very specific build picks or playstyles it's basically worthless.

The boonflip idea could be added to Augery of Death. We already have a shout-based trait - I think it's an easier option to mess around with that trait instead of BB in that manner. Scourge already has Nefarious Favor, too, so it's not like there isn't an option for necros who want a tanky support spec with a specific kind of support (converting condis to boons for allies).

BB could easily be changed to stick with the original intent (that is, I'm guessing, a 'tanky' GM trait option) in a way that isn't so limiting as the current incarnation where unless you take Spite it's bad. BB is a shroud builder out of shroud and health recovery inside shroud. It could be changed to reduce LF degen in shroud, generate LF based on damage done (or taken, or both, with varying percentages) and then heal based on LF lost while in shroud. Bam, a GM trait that does the same job but is much more broadly applicable to builds and doesn't require specific trait picks to make it work. It took five minutes to come up with that. I'm sure there are other, better options if anyone wants to put more work into it and/or lean more towards filling in the gaps in necro's personal tank kit (like tone down the LF gen/maint idea and add in some stability or something).

I'm all for having more support options as a necro. What I have beef with is trying to cram that support into reaper to the exclusion of what seems (as, obviously, I can't speak for anet devs) to be the original design that I am quite fond of - that 'tanky melee/bursty-ish spec'.

And as I said, I have no intention of playing condi reaper, so I won't be addressing that.

@Curennos.9307 The issue is anet's design of the necromancer's defensive system. What you suggest isn't wrong but your suggestion mean that ressources are precious, while ANet's concept lean toward ressources being cheap.

The thing you suggest mean that the necromancer want to stay as much as possible in shroud, while ANet's objective is that it shouldn't exceed 50% uptime. It's 2 different philosophies. One lead to imbalance and plenty of complains within the sPvP subforum (it should be clear after the february patch and the hate core necro received), the other strive for a theoric balance point that don't quite satify players even now.

Having played with both traits I'll put my 2 copper in.

Blighter's Boon can reach high levels of sustain with Spite. With damage reduced the way it is right now, its almost an unfair trait to take. Is it boring? Yes. Effective though. Reaper's Onslaught just brings better attack speed and more damage via +300 Ferocity.

Deathly Chill, is okay. It honestly could have double the amount of bleed in all game modes and not be OP.

Perhaps the path forward though is to mimic RO and put a stat adjustment into BB and DC.

Blighter's Boon: add in +300 toughness while in Reaper's Shroud.Deathly Chill: add in +300 condition damage while in Reaper's Shroud.

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:Having played with both traits I'll put my 2 copper in.

Blighter's Boon can reach high levels of sustain with Spite. With damage reduced the way it is right now, its almost an unfair trait to take. Is it boring? Yes. Effective though. Reaper's Onslaught just brings better attack speed and more damage via +300 Ferocity.

It's even more effective coupled with rune of aristocracy.

Deathly Chill, is okay. It honestly could have double the amount of bleed in all game modes and not be OP.

Perhaps the path forward though is to mimic RO and put a stat adjustment into BB and DC.

Blighter's Boon: add in +300 toughness while in Reaper's Shroud.

Toughness? Really? You suggest such a strong toughness buff after the sPvP subforum litterally begged (and managed to get the nerf) to reduce carapace toughness?

Deathly Chill: add in +300 condition damage while in Reaper's Shroud.

I'd say that the idea is attractive but ultimately dangerous for sPvP purpose, let's not forget that condition damages aren't especially appreciated in sPvP and a 300 condi buff on a reaper shroud that will ultimately mainly apply burns through dhuumfire feel like a pill that's really hard to swallow (thought, even with such a buff players might favor RO for the attack speed which ultimately mean more burn stacks).

I don't think "buffs" to those 2 traits is the proper way to address their lack of popularity.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:Having played with both traits I'll put my 2 copper in.

Blighter's Boon can reach high levels of sustain with Spite. With damage reduced the way it is right now, its almost an unfair trait to take. Is it boring? Yes. Effective though. Reaper's Onslaught just brings better attack speed and more damage via +300 Ferocity.

Deathly Chill, is

okay

. It honestly could have double the amount of bleed in all game modes and not be OP.

Perhaps the path forward though is to mimic RO and put a stat adjustment into BB and DC.

Blighter's Boon: add in +300 toughness while in Reaper's Shroud.

Deathly Chill: add in +300 condition damage while in Reaper's Shroud.

@Dadnir.5038 said:@Curennos.9307 The issue is anet's design of the necromancer's defensive system. What you suggest isn't wrong but your suggestion mean that ressources are precious, while ANet's concept lean toward ressources being cheap.

The thing you suggest mean that the necromancer want to stay as much as possible in shroud, while ANet's objective is that it shouldn't exceed 50% uptime. It's 2 different philosophies. One lead to imbalance and plenty of complains within the sPvP subforum (it should be clear after the february patch and the hate core necro received), the other strive for a theoric balance point that don't quite satify players even now.

Please clarify whether you're talking about necro as a whole or specifically reaper. I assume reaper, but then core necro can stay in shroud for longer than reaper due to reaper's degen, core shroud's dmg reduction, and core shroud's ranged auto attack that gives it a reason to stay in there while reaper with its melee AA and cooldown-gap closer means that it's often more worthwhile to pop out of shroud to do something instead of staying in shroud and losing LF. Whereas reaper has much faster degen, limited damage reduction in that shroud#3 just has a duration and cooldown, and reaper shroud is much burstier.

Also, I think you've...misread my suggestion? Or I need to clarify something, or I'm misreading what you've said here. Either way, what I suggested is basically the exact same as blighter's boon but it works without having to go into spite - a trait that builds shroud/LF when out of shroud and recovers health while in shroud.

That said - I'd like to avoid nitpicking my suggestion. That's the smaller part of what I was saying - that there's a way to expand upon reaper's group support-y options to make it a more viable tank without pulling away from other (imo) core parts of its design, such as just incorporating condi->boon convert into the shroud trait we already have.

Blighter's Boon is fine if you ask me - it's a sustain trait, not an offensive one. As for deadly chill, yeah there a buff is in order. I would think for example increasing condi duration on chilled targets.

If they really wanna make Blighter's Boon better and directly compete with Reaper Onslaught, they should give it strong Life Siphon while in Shroud.

It's a no brainer that this will either force the player to want more burst damage, or sustain, because as it is right now, Blighter's Boon offers nowhere near enough sustain to warrant picking it over Reaper's Onslaught.

A fair amount would be 300 Siphon Damage, and 250 Health Heal in PvE.

And considering many of the Shroud skills cleave well, having too much Health heal would make Reaper sustain a little too well when fighting groups, so it would get a gamemode split with 200 Siphon Damage, 150 Health Heal in PvP.

I don't think Reaper needs more sustain options. I have used BB and it gives berserker significant sustain but Reaper has many sustain options, including chill application. Onslaught needs more useful options to compete with, even if that means utility.

Currently the autoattack chain of reaper shroud takes 2.37 seconds to complete, even though each attack has just a 0.5 second cast time. So we have 0.87 second of aftercasts.

ANet could optimize the aftercasts of the autoattack chain to end at a flat 1.75 seconds for the whole chain and in exchange remove the quickness from onslaught.

This would result in a much faster autoattack regardless which gm trait is picked, but the other shroud skills would be quite slow and easy to dodge. Since dhuumfire and blighter's boon benefit exclusively from the autoattack, all reaper gm traits would be more in line.

Blighter's Boon will still be much too dependent on spite (as spite is the only traitline with meaningful boon generation), but at least viable when combined with that traitline, which is an improvement.

@KrHome.1920 said:Currently the autoattack chain of reaper shroud takes 2.37 seconds to complete, even though each attack has just a 0.5 second cast time. So we have 0.87 second of aftercasts.

ANet could optimize the aftercasts of the autoattack chain to end at a flat 1.75 seconds for the whole chain and in exchange remove the quickness from onslaught.

This would result in a much faster autoattack regardless which gm trait is picked, but the other shroud skills would be quite slow and easy to dodge. Since dhuumfire and blighter's boon benefit exclusively from the autoattack, all reaper gm traits would be more in line.

Blighter's Boon will still be much too dependent on spite (as spite is the only traitline with meaningful boon generation), but at least viable when combined with that traitline, which is an improvement.

That might be the best solution. Just make Shroud AA faster so that the quickness does not feel mandatory. I say put some other form of auto boon generation within the traitline to feed BB though, something like gain fury when you chill a target on one of the traits. I still think DC needs more umph to it though.

Blighter's Boon will always be in a weird spot because of its reliance on spite, and Soul Eater is a significantly more thematic heal anyway.If it was a Shroud CD reduction (like old SoS) it would at least compete with Reaper's Onslaught due to the outplay potential.

As for Deathly Chill if they want to be improve it directly an extra bleed stack at close range would push it into viability. This would balance out in competitive by forcing you to stick to your target, and give PvE better dps for more optimal play.Either that or they could make Chill apply a unique debuff that increases all condi damage to the target, just to force raid comps to include a chill reaper for fun.

I think the problem with Deathly Chill is really the stacks.

Chill is easy to proc on Reaper, yes, but there is no effective way for yu to "Rapidly apply Chill" which makes it simply just not as strong as other Necro builds which can apply Conditions reliably and quickly.

Yur Shroud 5 + 4 combo can get screwed by someone dropping another field on yur own as well.Chilling Nova procs every 8 seconds and inflicts 1 stack of Chill, so it's not extraordinary either.

I think back when Deathly Chill did damage like Terror did, it was pretty darn good, and when Deathly Chill was reworked to apply 3 stacks of bleed, it was pretty good too.But apparently that was "kinda strong" and it got nerfed?

This is just a suggestion which could potentially be broken, but I feel like it will help Reaper out as well as solidify its identity :

Relentless Pursuit is changed to a trait which applies Chill on Shroud 1.Why this change?

1. Relentless Pursuit is kinda er..... kinda garbage compared to a Soul Reaping trait called Speed of Shadows.
2. Soul Reaping being ran on both Condi and Power Reaper anyway wouldn't necessarily make it so that players will "miss" this trait.
3. Applying Chill on Shroud 1 will help solidify Reaper as a dangerous melee character which is hard to get away from, especially since this trait will make the autos apply Chill and make it harder for enemies to run away.
4. Will help apply Deathly Chill's Bleed more frequently

@"Yasai.3549" said:I think back when Deathly Chill did damage like Terror did, it was pretty darn good,

It was "darn good" in 1v1 PvP and uterly bad if you had another DC reaper with you or in PvE. Furthermore, the reason it "good" was that it used to be easier to keep up chill.

and when Deathly Chill was reworked to apply 3 stacks of bleed, it was pretty good too.

It was to strong in PvP/WvW because you could use rune of the reaper and aoe bleed your foes to death in a few seconds with your shouts. It was totally out of control in PvP.

But apparently that was "kinda strong" and it got nerfed?

This is just a suggestion which could potentially be broken, but I feel like it will help Reaper out as well as solidify its identity :

Relentless Pursuit is changed to a trait which applies Chill on Shroud 1.Why this change?

1. Relentless Pursuit is kinda er..... kinda garbage compared to a Soul Reaping trait called Speed of Shadows.
2. Soul Reaping being ran on both Condi and Power Reaper anyway wouldn't necessarily make it so that players will "miss" this trait.
3. Applying Chill on Shroud 1 will help solidify Reaper as a dangerous melee character which is hard to get away from, especially since this trait will make the autos apply Chill and make it harder for enemies to run away.
4. Will help apply Deathly Chill's Bleed more frequently

Indeed that's a broken OP suggestion. Trust be told, if anything, for balance's sake, ANet should remove the traits that proc on using shrd#1.

The issue with DC is more that there is a part of the necromancer's community that have pushed for reaper to be "the power spec" and ANet's devs gave them what they wanted because it was better to give a bit of power damage to the necromancer's PvE community than to bear the complains about condi cancer from the PvP community. (At that time player didn't have much complain about power damage, now if someone's hit by a 3k hit he directly goes to the sPvP subforum to cry for a nerf...)

Personally, instead of your change, I'd just add to DC: "Shrd#2 no longer blind foes at your destination but chill them instead". This should be enough to put the DC and RO at the same level. As for the last push needed to promote a Condi reaper, the best way would probably be to change lingering curse in such a way that you no longer need to wield a scepter to gain the condition damage increase.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:

Personally, instead of your change, I'd just add to DC: "Shrd#2 no longer blind foes at your destination but chill them instead". This should be enough to put the DC and RO at the same level. As for the last push needed to promote a Condi reaper, the best way would probably be to change lingering curse in such a way that you no longer need to wield a scepter to gain the condition damage increase.

If that's the direction of yur suggestion, we may as well just have DC make Shroud 4 Death Spiral inflict an additional Poison stack if the target was chilled, making the Shroud 5 + 4 Combo more focused and potent in taking out an enemy.

That would make DC essentially an empowered "Condi Spiral"

Honestly though, I think a good place for Deathly Chill would be to simply be to apply a Stack of Bleeding upon hitting a Chilled enemy, with 0.25 interval.So as long as yu apply Chill to yur target, yu can use things like Death Spiral, Greatsword 3, Axe 2, Dagger 2 to apply a steady amount of Bleeding.

Now that the three game modes receive separate balance adjustments, all Arenanet has to do is add duration or quantity to bleeds in PvE; a "numbers tweak" as they say.

DC is fixable by just adding short-duration chill to RS AA chain. Like half a second each max or like 1/4 + 1/2 + 3/4 on the chain.

This way you get the bleed procs reliably and without insane burst the other 5->4 spam build ran if you were to buff stacks, works with Dhuumfire builds, and can still opt for a tankier BM/DM setup while still actually having damage. It also addresses some of the kiting problems and will cause power to make some big decisions on if it wants to cut kiting or keep its damage via RO.

I will say, RO getting its casts fixed and removing the quickness could be one of the best buffs reaper could face due to the necro/scourge matchup brutalizing the reaper since slow's penalty is bigger than quickness's gains.

BB woudn't suck so badly if Chilling Victory was useful at all and if we were playing release reaper prior to when Spite's might access got nerfed. Reality is that even if the healing was decent, you're in Spite and the might access itself is heavily nerfed. Might as well just play DM or BM with RO and be tankier and with better damage.

It honestly just needs to be reworked into something entirely different. Personally, I think LF generation would be the play here since that way it's self-contained to reaper itself and offsets the penalty incurred via RShroud, and not leaning on other trait lines to fix sustain woes. Usually when this dependency happens, a bunch of bad situations come from it; it's one-dimensional and there's no room for choice/expansion without nerfing the impacting trait line, it ends up gating new mechanics/becoming super OP because of some new implementation (see: Corruption mechanics and Scourge, and MANY issues with Thief over a years with expansions), or it gets nerfed anyways and the trait ends up sucking because it was carried by another trait (like BB right now).

I don't think numbers or strictly more power is really the answer except for maybe helping DChill out a little bit to make condi reaper a viable DPS.