Next on the List of Necromancer things to look at is the reaper. The reaper is supposed to be a power house. And it should feel like it. I wont deny that in open world roaming it feels just fine, however when trying to do other content like fractals or raids the reaper is clearly a choice people don't want to bring. Its DPS is much too low and even though it'd make for a very successful tank, groups don't want a tank that can't also support. However there is no room in the reaper's design for support. It is purely a heavy damage and tanking spec. So since its later role isn't desired lets focus on the damage aspect of this. As always, this post will be primarily geared toward PvE and is not looking at PvP.

Greatsword

The Greatsword is a slow weapon that is supposed to hit hard. So the question is why does it in some cases have a softer hit than a warrior or Guardian greatsword? Its speed should be considered in its design and Coefficients. Some skills have a much lower max damage then that of the warrior's greatsword yet it takes an eternity to use. If anything each of these skills should have a higher coefficients for a majority of their skills due to the time dedicated to using those skills. The most important aspect of this weapon is time. If the skill takes longer to activate, takes longer to finish its damage than its DPS should be higher. All of the skills need a boost to really make them worth using. Another thing Anet seems to miss is just how risky using greatsword as your DPS is. Necromancer has really poor defenses if they're not in shroud. And Greatsword demands that you are not in shroud to get the max use of it. So when a Reaper is using this weapon they are literally shields down. I've often found that the DPS difference between reaper's shroud and greatsword wasn't significant enough and it was just easier and safer to stick in shroud. A player should be rewarded for going into shields down mode.

Reaper's Shroud

Primarily I want to look at a couple of skills with reaper's shroud. Soul Spiral and Executioner's Scythe. Although each skill could use a bit more of a boost, these two are particularly bad offenders for what they're expected to do.

• Soul Spiral as a skill doesn't add much in terms of DPS for a power build. I've run the numbers multiple times and adding this to a rotation on a power spec rather than just auto attacking with Dhuumfire. The reaper's strongest DPS before gravedigger is the life rend chain with dhuumfire traited. This is not something that should be allowed to be true. Soul Spiral has a pretty poor Damage coefficients on the power end of it while on its condi end it seems pretty solid, the power is very lacking. And the bonus damage from poison on a power spec just isn't worth it. Since a power reaper wont invest in condition damage this should be fairly high in terms of its damage to entice a player into using this as a part of their rotation. It should pull the necromancer away from just auto attacking. A criticism that has plagued the necromancer for years.
• Executioner's Scythe Is a slow, long recharge, stun. And once again its damage isn't that enticing. On top of that for how long it takes to actually cast this skill the stun is fairly weak. Considering I've the past couple of years running reaper in things like fractals I'd often find that a reaper's scythe wasn't nearly enough to break a bosses break bar even when the bar was fairly low. Combine that with its slow cast time and the overall popularity of reaper in open world and Big bosses that required break bars to be destroyed and we can often find ourselves in fights were the reaper's lack of solid break bar options that aren't just slow is extremely limited. The stun on this skill should be at least 2 seconds, although I feel we could go up to 2.5 seconds and still be fine. As it stands, Mesmer pistol does a better job than reaper's scythe and it doesn't have nearly the heavy investment into the attack. beyond just that the Executioner's Scythe needs much higher damage, especially as the percentage of health drops below the threshold.

Shouts

The shouts are mostly utility and can be quite good in many situations. However some issues arise from a few of them as taking them seems to be a poor option when you could get better utility or DPS on a power spec by taking something like minions. "Nothing Can Save You!" being the first should I'd like to mention as it is a really cool skill. The issue? it disrupts the flow of combat with its cast time. Some way to improve this skill in more situations since enemies don't usually block is to increase its damage by quite a bit. I don't mind the cast time but it should be worth it in more situations than against enemies who block all the time. And rather than removing boons they could take a page out of the scourge's book and convert them into chill which would be useful in further aiding the chill spam of Reaper. "Chilled to the Bone!" is a pretty hard core skill but what it needs is to have its cast time reduced a bit. Even in PvE I've found myself getting interrupted countless times when trying to use this skill. Its cast time is just too long for what it does. Beyond that it would sit pretty nicely as competition as a stun elite against Flesh golem, depending on what you need more. Single target or aoe.

Traits

In terms of the reaper's traits there honestly isn't a whole lot to talk about here. Most of them are very solid but I will make 2 suggestions that should help to aid the reaper in its rotation a bit more.

• Relentless Pursuit is a pretty overlooked trait most the time as the augury of death and Chilling nova are just better utility than it in PvE. So My suggestion here would be to have it drop the recharge of reaper's shroud by 30%. If speed of shadows is Fixed than it almost completely negates the use of this trait as is. however, the recharge was extremely important to the necromancer and people have been asking for it back. I agree that it should come back and I feel this would be the best way to do that. Adding it here would give this a means to improve the damage rotation of a reaper. However, this will be the only change here I'll also suggest for PvP.
• Chilling Nova is the second one I wanted to look at. Its Chill duration should be increased for PvE only, back up to its glory at 2 seconds. Along with that a recharge drop or damage boost would be nice to see on this to make it a bit stronger. This is usually the trait of choice on reaper builds, however its not like its the end all be all choice. This change might not be needed if core reaper is improved, however I am set on that chill duration increase for this skill.

With all that said I think this is everywhere I wanted to look at in terms of the reaper. Tell me what you think, anything you'd like to add? Do note that this is PvE changes and not intended for PvP, excluding relentless pursuit. So lets keep the discussion focused on that.

I think they should give some atention for "5" sword too, cuz it is really bugged. And even more bugged when you are in a higher terrain that the enemy or in a terrain that has a lot of "ups and downs"

I like the ideas and the focus points that you are talking about in the posts, and doing it in a very organized way. I really hope devs at least see it and try to give a pump on power reaper, the power spec that deals more damage as condi...

Keep ur job friend ?

I'd say that cast times are fine (and honestly they should all be higher across the board for all classes), but if you want to make a viable power set up amid condi cancer, you need to do what the Elementalist does: layer active damage sources. The ele is a pretty basic babbymode concept: it just draws loads of long-lasting pulse circles everywhere such that as the layering continues, you end up starting to relayer new instances of rotation damage even while older instances are still ticking. It's condi before condi existed. This is the principle which has made staff power ele meta throughout all time. (It also proves that there is no functional difference between condi damage and power damage and how anyone who pushed for condi meta was a dunderhead who simply didn't know anything about balancing video games, but that's another discussion.)

Point is, cast times and delays are fine so long as there is a continuous damage flow. If I were wrong, then nobody in their right mind would ever cast meteor shower. There might not be a lot of harm in just buffing damage coefficients, though. It's the lazy, anet way out, but adding a sense of layering flow might be too much to ask of anet at this point. The alternative to raising numbers is to give necro a way to bolster team DPS indirectly through damage buffs (which is something I talk about in a recent thread).

If you want another take on Relentless Pursuit (since reaper really does need more damage sources, and RP is a perfect candidate for a re-work), I had an idea in the Bloodthirst thread I threw up just a bit ago, although putting the shroud recharge reduction on reaper solves the issue of it clashing with Scourge. Solid idea, but it still needs to bring something else to the table, I think.

@Swagg.9236 said:I'd say that cast times are fine (and honestly they should all be higher across the board for all classes), but if you want to make a viable power set up amid condi cancer, you need to do what the Elementalist does: layer active damage sources. The ele is a pretty basic babbymode concept: it just draws loads of long-lasting pulse circles everywhere such that as the layering continues, you end up starting to relayer new instances of rotation damage even while older instances are still ticking. It's condi before condi existed. This is the principle which has made staff power ele meta throughout all time. (It also proves that there is no functional difference between condi damage and power damage and how anyone who pushed for condi meta was a dunderhead who simply didn't know anything about balancing video games, but that's another discussion.)

Point is, cast times and delays are fine so long as there is a continuous damage flow. If I were wrong, then nobody in their right mind would ever cast meteor shower. There might not be a lot of harm in just buffing damage coefficients, though. It's the lazy, anet way out, but adding a sense of layering flow might be too much to ask of anet at this point. The alternative to raising numbers is to give necro a way to bolster team DPS indirectly through damage buffs (which is something I talk about in a recent thread).

If you want another take on Relentless Pursuit (since reaper really does need more damage sources, and RP is a perfect candidate for a re-work), I had an idea in the Bloodthirst thread I threw up just a bit ago, although putting the shroud recharge reduction on reaper solves the issue of it clashing with Scourge. Solid idea, but it still needs to bring something else to the table, I think.

Didn't actually say anything about the cast times being a problem. I said that we need to make the investment worth it. Very different.

While I kinda understand why anet balanced all the thing you talk about here like that, I must say that I agree with you.

Dear devs,

I know that chill is a pretty dangerous condition that you value a lot and reaper's greatsword is supposed to be the peak of slowness in the game but Lily have very valid points. We should also talk about those dark field combo that most likely lead you to severly keep in check our very few whirl combo but, let's be honest, there is no reason to nerf a skill by assuming that it should conditionnally achieve it's maximum damage.

It's time to accept the truth, dark fields are unpopular, the life siphon mechanism is indeed pretty dangerous in itself but shackle heavily the necromancer outside of PvP and corrupting boons shouldn't be an easy thing to do. The shroud skills have no way to achieve enough power dps to be of any use in a a power rotation, even with all the traits added together, the power of these skills is just to weak.

The player base that chose the necromancer chose it for it's dark mage flavor and all the tools you gave the necromancer perfectly fit the thematic, and that's awesome! However, no matter how awesome it is, the player base can't help but be shacken by the heavy price they have to pay for the flavor: less dps, less mobility, less defense against hard CC and less offensive support. Complexity? Necromancer are more than ready to have to use the shroud in their dps rotation, look that's what condi reaper does even if it barely help them in PvE.

So please, have a look on dark fields and their linked combo, remove the damage component of siphons to free some room for proper damage increase on the necromancer, make it so shroud become more than a damage soaking mechanism and make boon corruption a tactical tool again. Please, stop overestimating insignifiant and unpopular mechanisms. Rethink them so that they are less dangerous but more attractive without taking the simple road of number tweaking. I know that it's a lot to ask but those thing hurt the game as a whole even if it's a single profession that take the full consequences of it.

Greatsword I agree with it either needs to be slow and more damaging even if by a small amount or be based more on a quicker and lower damage . I am wondering if traiting the grandmaster which gives reaper shroud a attack speed boost would benefit giving the greatsword a small attack speed boost or if the greatsword trait gave a small attack speed boost . Trait wise I kind of wish that trait that boosted attack on chilled foes by 10% had an effect of a special vulrability . Maybe foes chilled by a necro gain a condition that adds 5 stacks of vul that is not effected by the 25 vul stack or something for either the chilled duration the necro added or a couple seconds or something like that to make the reaper more viable . Even if damage from this trait is lowered it would help reapers possibly get a spot in raids just due to It bringing something unique to the table that would help others dps. This change would benefit chilled attacks on reaper their main selling point, help give reaper a bit more damage and giving raids a reason to think hmm maybe we will take reaper they can do more vul on a enemy which means our other dps benefit

Now mind you, I'm not saying doing everything here but I think literally anything here could help the spec out. Right now there's a big issue where Scourge is currently dominating Reaper for its role in literally any game mode, which just ain't right man. As a result, I think if we're going under the notion that Scourge is more support focused, then where the flipping heck is the DPS for Reaper?

On Great SwordOne thing I think should really be considered is swapping between shroud and greatsword for their CDs, and Death Spiral is one of those moves that's numbers definitely don't correlate to how the animation on it feels. While it does have great life force generation, it really does lack an oomph to it. I have no issues with the pull other than maybe tuning it to be less awkward on surfaces.

Auto-Attack chainI have no idea what to do with auto-attack, I think though the end of the chain could use anything right now since it's actually a DPS loss to use it. That's just silly, the third skill in the chain needs to be worth actually using for the build up time. There's no way about it, this skill literally sucks.

Overall GS kind of just feels like a wet noodle until you can spam Gravedigger, which is oddly hilarious but kind of seems like a dumb notion design wise.

ShroudPersonally for Executioner's Scythe, the ice field should do pulsing damage like a lava font, perhaps even putting a debuff on the target that increases the damage the longer they stack in it to help for boss fights. While I'd love to say it should do a ton of upfront damage, I don't think Anet really likes the idea of it. The windup time for this skill should feel like it's worth pulling off in a game so full of movement.

Soul Spiral is a great skill because it's sustained damage and there's no fear for intense burst damage, there's literally no harm in doing more damage here.

TraitsTrait-wise, certain traits are simply too good over others and that does not mean making them all unattractive to compensate.

Master Traits:Decimate Defenses is great for burst, why not have Soul Eater just be flat out great for sustained DPS instead like increased damage and speed (or just more cd reduction like 50%). Chilling Victory should instead be an aura that shares might on striking a chilled foe, and I literally doubt no one would complain about it considering the DPS sacrifice for it.

Grandmaster Traits:There's a decent enough idea here, Blighter's Boon for survival, Deathly Chill for Conditions, and Reaper's Onslaught for power; except the balance is totally whack for it. Perhaps instead we could go back to the master trait ideas then, DC scales off power and condi for sustain, RO for burst damage. If you really want to go with augmenting damage, make RO use life force on every skill but significantly increased damage at the cost of survivability. The last idea there could not happen without any other changes to the spec though as it'd likely mess up the spec than help it.

Overall, Reaper kind of feels like it doesn't make any sense, it doesn't know where it wants to be outside of open world where you can probably get away with no armor on.

while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

Honestly I wouldn't mind the poison scaling off power a bit more than it does now, it'd be enough to make it nice on single targets.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

I think my idea here was more to have it less tied to Deathly Chill so that Power can take Reaper's Onslaught without having to suffer for it (pretty certain it was tested that DC is still a better dps trait than RO for power ironically). Likewise, pulsing damage in general is a good way for sustaining dps (and avoidable too) without making everything a gravedigger.

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

It'd be interesting to see Shroud work more like a reverse heat mechanic similar to Holosmith, but unfortunately as a shield as well it'd be one heck of a mess to balance.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

Not much to say here, I agree for the most part.

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

Regardless of what you guys think, the coefficients of the reaper skills are lower than what they should be an the buffs on core necromancer are not their to compensate these numbers either. Even if they took what I said to heart it wouldn't be enough to fix all the reaper's problems, but I've already mentioned I'll be discussing core necromancer soon. Its the last one to talk about as I've mentioned scourge and now reaper. Core is the last thing and there is a metric ton to cover which i'm sorta dreading.

As for The Auto in reaper's shroud? when running Dhuumfire it absolutely is our highest sustained DPS on power. That is not debatable, that is objectively true. Using reaper's scythe or soul spiral does not add DPS to your rotation, which is part of the problem. Soul Spiral should be a DPS boost on power builds, it is not. The Power Reaper does have a rotation. with Axe, greatsword and reaper's shroud. The majority of the time you want to be using your reaper's shroud AA. I've tested this over and over again that this is what I've found. the loss of the 30% shroud recharge hurt the DPS pretty drastically because of that.

What I think Reaper wants to do:

• Bunker/Tank, especially good against pressure from multiple enemies
• Hybrid DPS, using Chill->Bleed conversions for damage
• Power DPS

What I think Reaper needs to be able to do these things:

• Death Magic should be improved
• Chilling Darkness ICD removed or reduced; PvE only, possibly
• Change Decimate Defenses from 2% Crit Chance to 1% Crit Chance/1% Crit Damage

What I'd like to see:

• More chill fields & chill field priority; chill whirling is fun
• Rework how greatsword works; Power Reaper needs a playstyle beyond 'set Gravedigger to AA at 50%'

Also RE Relentless Pursuit; change it to "Striking a foe beneath 50% HP causes Crippled and grants you Swiftness. Granting yourself Swiftness cleanses a movement-impairing condition", pick cooldowns and durations you like. Seems to make sense for flavor. Synergizes with Blighter's Boon and Speed of Shadows.

@Lily.1935 said:Regardless of what you guys think, the coefficients of the reaper skills are lower than what they should be an the buffs on core necromancer are not their to compensate these numbers either. Even if they took what I said to heart it wouldn't be enough to fix all the reaper's problems, but I've already mentioned I'll be discussing core necromancer soon. Its the last one to talk about as I've mentioned scourge and now reaper. Core is the last thing and there is a metric ton to cover which i'm sorta dreading.

That will be a long post. There would be tons of things to say on each and every trait line... I expect a lot ;)

@Sarrs.4831 said:

• Rework how greatsword works; Power Reaper needs a playstyle beyond 'set Gravedigger to AA at 50%'

Yeah, I believe that they fantasized on something like an enraged god of death grinding it's foes to death the moment it see it in disarray but it end up being the funny necrocopter due to how slow gravedigger attack speed is. The way the skill is designed killed by itself the way they wanted it to feel for the player when you reach 50%. It's one of the skill where design and balance fought and balance won, making the design irrelevant but the devs still clinched to it. And it took them 2 whole year to let it go a bit and stop focusing the GS trait on gravedigger.

@Lily.1935 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:I'd say that cast times are fine (and honestly they should all be higher across the board for all classes), but if you want to make a viable power set up amid condi cancer, you need to do what the Elementalist does: layer active damage sources. The ele is a pretty basic babbymode concept: it just draws loads of long-lasting pulse circles everywhere such that as the layering continues, you end up starting to relayer new instances of rotation damage even while older instances are still ticking. It's condi before condi existed. This is the principle which has made staff power ele meta throughout all time. (It also proves that there is no functional difference between condi damage and power damage and how anyone who pushed for condi meta was a dunderhead who simply didn't know anything about balancing video games, but that's another discussion.)

Point is, cast times and delays are fine so long as there is a continuous damage flow. If I were wrong, then nobody in their right mind would ever cast meteor shower. There might not be a lot of harm in just buffing damage coefficients, though. It's the lazy, anet way out, but adding a sense of layering flow might be too much to ask of anet at this point. The alternative to raising numbers is to give necro a way to bolster team DPS indirectly through damage buffs (which is something I talk about in a recent thread).

If you want another take on Relentless Pursuit (since reaper really does need more damage sources, and RP is a perfect candidate for a re-work), I had an idea in the Bloodthirst thread I threw up just a bit ago, although putting the shroud recharge reduction on reaper solves the issue of it clashing with Scourge. Solid idea, but it still needs to bring something else to the table, I think.

I agree with that throughout my entire post. Hence why I mentioned meteor shower.

@Sarrs.4831 said:What I think Reaper wants to do:

• Bunker/Tank, especially good against pressure from multiple enemies
• Hybrid DPS, using Chill->Bleed conversions for damage
• Power DPS

What I think Reaper needs to be able to do these things:

• Death Magic should be improved
• Chilling Darkness ICD removed or reduced; PvE only, possibly
• Change Decimate Defenses from 2% Crit Chance to 1% Crit Chance/1% Crit Damage

What I'd like to see:

• More chill fields & chill field priority; chill whirling is fun
• Rework how greatsword works; Power Reaper needs a playstyle beyond 'set Gravedigger to AA at 50%'

---

Also RE Relentless Pursuit; change it to "Striking a foe beneath 50% HP causes Crippled and grants you Swiftness. Granting yourself Swiftness cleanses a movement-impairing condition", pick cooldowns and durations you like. Seems to make sense for flavor. Synergizes with Blighter's Boon and Speed of Shadows.

Striking a foe below 50% HP for a passive effect is a bad conceot:

• players in PvP can freely disengage with teleports negate huge amounts of incoming damage and their HP bars can jump up and down (none of this is conducive to a reliable means of triggering the threshold proc)
• important mobs in PvE have titanic HP pools which don't allow the trait to even matter for half of a potentially long fight, and the work mindlessly for the entire rest of it (you already complain about Gravedigger enough--for good reason--so why would you make a trait like this?)

You're better off with something like:

!Relentless Pursuit (Reaper adept-major)

! Movement skills cure movement-impairing conditions. Striking a foe with a movement skill grants increased damage.! [Crippled] Condition Removed! [Chilled] Condition Removed! [immobilize] Condition Removed! * Relentless Pursuit (10s): 10% Outgoing Damage

because it is far more consistent and tailored to reaper shroud usage (in how at least here we now maybe have a reason to use something other than the auto attack for a moment).

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

okay, i wanna see that "best sustained dps on power reaper in shroud" (not a flame here, dont get me wrong, i am really curious). i pull my (almost) 26k dps (unrealistic buffs) solely on greatsword, minions and one well. whenever i use something else (e.g. shroud or a second well instead of a minion) my dmg drops - no matter if i use soul reaping or not.

and still: i dont think soul spiral "should" add dps to the rotation. it has its purposes and does very good there (awesome centered aoe with many whirl finishers, poison and multiple hits that can proc a lot of different traits in a short amount of time - the utility is great and therefore no additional dps needed). the "dps" skill, if you want, is shroud 2 anyway.

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

I think he means that using auto attack only with dhuumfire is the best dps you can obtain whilst in shroud, not best power dps overall. So adding anything other than shroud auto is a dps loss. But yes, iirc camping Greatsword is still our highest power dps.

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

Reaper Shroud isn't greatsword. The point is that while in shroud, the highest DPS is achieved by equipping a passive procs before combat and then taping your 1 button down,and that's pretty poor design.

@Aetatis.5418 said:

and still: i dont think soul spiral "should" add dps to the rotation. it has its purposes and does very good there (awesome centered aoe with many whirl finishers, poison and multiple hits that can proc a lot of different traits in a short amount of time - the utility is great and therefore no additional dps needed). the "dps" skill, if you want, is shroud 2 anyway.

That is all condi-specific. It's only good for condi despite reaper's spec weapon being power-based. The concepts don't match up at all, and it breaks/mocks power reaper's potential since greatsword is pretty good.

@Swagg.9236 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

@Aetatis.5418 said:

and still: i dont think soul spiral "should" add dps to the rotation. it has its purposes and does very good there (awesome centered aoe with many whirl finishers, poison and multiple hits that can proc a lot of different traits in a short amount of time - the utility is great and therefore no additional dps needed). the "dps" skill, if you want, is shroud 2 anyway.

ofc shroud isnt greatsword. thats what i am saying. i do dmg with greatsword. more than any other spec. if i go shroud-spec i do not do that damage.i am curious on how to do more damage with shroud than with gs. -.-

and no soul spiral is not "all condi dmg related" - poison is also a heal reduction. chilling victory with might and lifeforce does profit so much of an aoe that pulses that often and "can" hit way more than 5 targets if you move. blood magic, despite underperforming traitline, is insane sustain with soul spiral. all i am saying is that some skills are situational and performing very good in that situation. and not every skill has to be more dps, just because ^^ otherwise it would mean, that you have to tune up GS 3 or 5 to be dps increase. or smoke bomb on bomb kit ... (exaggerating on purpose here).since it is a discussion - " I " feel like soul spiral is okay as it is. you dont. both have stated why. somebody else decides anyway (or doesnt do anything at all...).

I have an idea of F2 skill with active usage of life force that will thematically work with reaper theme and give us additional tool.

Chilling Pursuit. Reaper becomes immaterial and flies slowly with increasing speed toward targets. It can pass all terrain and instantly gets to targets who use any teleportation skill. Chills and torments when reach target. It can be balanced so using 70%+ of shroud will always make possible to reach target.

Now, this would be fun in all game modes, giving us some uniqueness instead of different shroud. Reaper lack unique mechanic. Let's change it.

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

1) ghastly claws2) enter shroud3) Soul Spiral4) Executioner's Scythe5) 2x shroud auto chains6) exit shroud7) ghastly claws8) weaponswap into GS9) do normal GS things for 10 seconds10) weaponswap into axe11) goto 1*note: this rotation uses Unholy Fervor and Reaper's Onslaught**note: Unholy Fervor benefits shroud skills as long as you are in axe when you enter shroud.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

That would be true if the trait didn't specifically say: axe skills deal 10% more damage on vulnerable foe.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

Unholy Fervor benefits shroud skills as long as you enter shroud while in axe. It's even mentioned in the wiki article for Death Shroud.

The Tooltip is irrelevant. I tested this last week.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

i don't know what you are testing, but i spend 50min now testing. 30min dps rotation and 20min sorting out that unholy fervor dmg increase in shroud you mentioned.i dont get the dps rotation with axe and shroud. even if i watch everything super close i get 1.5k dps less compared to just camping gs.30mins however is not very long, so i am going to do some more golem-hitting.

unholy fervor however is very clear to me. it does NOT have any effect in shroud edit1: (and look below, someone else explained WHY, which wasnt clear to me. some lifetime wasted. yay)setup is a 1min 25sec shroud-camp (thats the time shroud falls below 50% when using a traited passive signet of undeath and a warhorn 5 at the start. heavy golem above 50%. although it doesnt make a difference, since i didnt use CtD)did this 10 times. 5 times with Unholy Fervor and 5 times with Chill of Death. axe/horn. i pulled exactly the same numbers ... 10 times: 19.5k dps, Life Reap avg dmg of 11.6k per hit, Life Reap max dmg of 12.6k dmg per hit; and 630kdmg in total (plus minus 5k). and i am alway curious , so i did 2 more tries with gs and shroud: same numbersif the sample size is too low for you, i can do it again wth 15 times or 20 per trait. i doubt there will be much change. or you just do it yourself.edit2: doesnt have an effect on normal death shroud aswell. traited or not... same numbers in shroud. similar setup to the reaper shroud.

i suggest we continue in pm's because its super off-topic now and i am really sorry for hijacking it (unintended ! sorry m8)the "good" part is - the dps-test (more like the interest in getting just a few more dps to prove everybody, a good power reaper can indeed do more than the open world afk-machine) shows once again, that power reaper is in a pretty bad competitive shape in pve.its super tedious to prove that necro is not as useless as people think - over and over and over again

I have to disagree with you on "Nothing Can Save You!" being fine with a cast time. Honestly, it needs to lose the cast time in all game modes because it's a skill taht's supposed to be used with the flow of combat, but instead breaks the flow because of its cast time.

Now, I would like to see it be more of a targeted boon stip, where it will remove Protection, Stability, and Resistance (maybe Swiftness as well) if I had to change the functionality. I really think it would be fine with just being a no-cast time skill.

@Crinn.7864 said:@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kalocin.5982 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:while i agree with some of the brought up ideas - i completely disagree with the soul spiral and executioners scythe "buff".soul spiral:is an insane aoe. look at the range. what do you expect? another gravedigger on steroids? please don't.

executioners scythe:is fine aswell, the amount of cc is sufficient - add the rest of the multiple cc abilities of a necro and this is even more in the right position. (btw the chill field pulses - only chill tho, but it pulses)

shroud AA: while there are SO many (dmg)traits for the shroud, there is zero dmg bonus compared to a bare weapon even IF fully traited towards shroud dmg. i would have loved to see options on the necro either using shroud as main dmg source OR weapon as main dmg source. but again, the defensive power of the shroud in pve is strong and i am not sure more power in shroud is healthy.

the greatsword:is the best power weapon we have. so compared to any of the weapons in the set, it does the most power damage on AA. although i feel, that the 1sec cast on the third hit is too much and is only good if traited with deathly chill... thats a downer!i dont think any "big changes" should be made here. fix number 5 bugs and get something done with the 3rd AA hit. anything, a field that pulses (careful), a 3/4sec cast or slightly (! not too much) higher damage.the issue of the dps not being on par is more a problem of the core necro not having enough multipliers/unique buffs to be more close to pve standards - not an issue of the weapon.

That's because death shroud scales from your current weapon in use. Reaper Shroud counts as a hammer, thus does not inherit the modifiers from UF.edit: Aetatis.5418 corrected me in that Death Shroud isn't effected by it either, but I am still right about Reaper Shroud.