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Reaper's Shroud weapon damage capped at exotic hammer?


Boh.4568

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I'm a fairly new player, mostly going solo in PVE or doing dungeons, bounties and low level fractals with some IRL friends.I went Necro>Reaper, got full exotic berserk, and now working my way towards ascended stuff, about to get my first ascended GS from the HoT story.I was hyped to get my shroud burst even higher, and then I found out that RS doesn't care about your weapon attack and stats (except for sigils) and turns whatever you're wielding into an exotic hammer.The wiki seems wrong here, as it doesn't mention this in the RS page (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper%27s_Shroud)and all the RS skills 1-5 notes clearly state "Damage value is calculated with the weapon strength of the active weapon before shroud is activated"

But in more than one discussion here and on metabattle I read that calculations ingame were done, and apparently the active weapon gets turned into an exotic-tier hammer upon entering shroud (and you even get hammer achievements for this).So in the end I took my time and resources to craft an ascended zerk GS, hyped for the damage boost, and then I find I only actually get that damage boost outside of shroud, i.e. outside my burst phase, when I'm recovering life force, healing, or buying time to recharge CDs, which is surely a "nice to have", but I don't find it very useful if it's not applied when I need it the most (shroud burst).

Is there an actual reason for this, or anything I'm missing? This looks like terrible game design, because shroud is Reaper's (only) big burst mechanic, with all the nice damage traits that activate only during shroud and the 100000% crit chance, and yet it doesn't matter if you use an ascended GS or a fine dagger, this doesn't make any sense.It can't be for balance because Reaper already has subpar max DPS, and even if it were, they could easily lower the damage coefficient and let us use the weapon we crafted, because now it feels bitter to have earned an ascended weapon, only for it to be downgraded to exotic again whenever I need the big numbers.

Or you could tell me the exotic hammer thing is an urban legend and I fell for it! Please

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I tested it, after reading your comment.

My normal gear is full ascended (legendary). I replaced the legendary greatsword with a white level 80 greatsword.

My results:The weapon strength is irrelevant, but the attributes have an impact. You will deal more damage in reaper shroud with ascended gear compared to exotic gear, but the difference is only based on the difference in your damage attributes (power or condi). That difference is very small.

Example:Full berserk ascended gear: 1381 powerFull berserk exotic gear: 1289 power

As you can see, that's only about 7% difference in power and damage in reaper shroud.

Side Note:Core shroud does calculate the damage based on weapon strength and attributes. Example: If you run staff and axe/focus on a core build, you will deal 10% more damage in shroud, when you switch to staff before entering shroud as two handed weapons have a 10% higher weapon strength than one handed weapons.

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Thanks for the test, so the improved power/ferocity attributes of the berserk GS do count for additional RS damage, but not the improved weapon attack? This makes me sad because at the moment I'm full exotic and the sword was my only ascended gear, and the only damage increase I get right now is from the power attribute difference (only 12 power between exotic GS and ascended GS), rather than the power AND the higher weapon attack value (which is a good 5% between exotic GS and ascended GS, basically an additional free sigil of force). It's better than nothing but it kinda underwhelming for the effort and hype to get my first ascended weapon, I still think it makes no sense from a game design POV.To feel that 7% you talke about I should have full ascended armor, trinkets and weapons right? I'm a very long way from there.

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Yea I meant weapon strength, I'm used to other RPGs calling it weapon atk.When you compare an exotic weapon to its ascended/legendary version for a power build, the main gain is in the weapon strength rather than the power/ferocity attribute. Unfortunately reaper's shroud only makes use of the latter, which is a really tiny damage boost.

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