Reaper in World vs. World

I do understand you guys want Reaper to be a power based spec, so i understand that you guys increased the damage output, but at what price?!?!?! The drawbacks are insane!!!

Speaking about WvW you completely killed the whole Reaper Specialization!!!

You completely killed the Condi Reaper build by changing Deathly Chill and reducing the number of whirl finishers on Soul Spiral from 6 to 4, and please take note, this is not a "nerf", this is a total destruction of the build itself, now no more playeable by any mean.

You also created a new Reaper power based spec, but again with a so fast decay of life force is still impossible to play. You just die out of no where, most of the time not even have enougth life force to complete all the 5 Reaper Shroud skills.

But hey you created a new spec, the Scourge, who is 1.000 times better than as Reaper is now. So, where is the balance? what is the meaning of all this??

power reaper will actually take lifeforce management. A foreign concept to the every day necromancer for sure.

Rise of the Signets

@ilmau.9781 said:I do understand you guys want Reaper to be a power based spec, so i understand that you guys increased the damage output, but at what price?!?!?! The drawbacks are insane!!!

Speaking about WvW you completely killed the whole Reaper Specialization!!!

You completely killed the Condi Reaper build by changing Deathly Chill and reducing the number of whirl finishers on Soul Spiral from 6 to 4, and please take note, this is not a "nerf", this is a total destruction of the build itself, now no more playeable by any mean.

You also created a new Reaper power based spec, but again with a so fast decay of life force is still impossible to play. You just die out of no where, most of the time not even have enougth life force to complete all the 5 Reaper Shroud skills.

But hey you created a new spec, the Scourge, who is 1.000 times better than as Reaper is now. So, where is the balance? what is the meaning of all this??

i can cast all of my shroud skills. power weapons have a very high life force regeneration, so you can use all of your lifeforce per shroud activation, whose duration can be increased by spectral armor. the rotation on power reaper is faster than condi reaper, but not worse.

@Zero.3871 said:

@ilmau.9781 said:I do understand you guys want Reaper to be a power based spec, so i understand that you guys increased the damage output, but at what price?!?!?! The drawbacks are insane!!!

Speaking about WvW you completely killed the whole Reaper Specialization!!!

You completely killed the Condi Reaper build by changing Deathly Chill and reducing the number of whirl finishers on Soul Spiral from 6 to 4, and please take note, this is not a "nerf", this is a total destruction of the build itself, now no more playeable by any mean.

You also created a new Reaper power based spec, but again with a so fast decay of life force is still impossible to play. You just die out of no where, most of the time not even have enougth life force to complete all the 5 Reaper Shroud skills.

But hey you created a new spec, the Scourge, who is 1.000 times better than as Reaper is now. So, where is the balance? what is the meaning of all this??

well i do start thinking we are not playin the same game. Ok for the rotation stuff i know how it works after 6k hours, what i am telling here is that is not possible to stay alive in melee range and since Reaper is melee class this is kinda useless change for both WvW and PvP, also compared to how broken Scourge is. Noone is about to struggle to try to do something with a Reaper as long as Scourge works so well compared. I am talking about diversity and balance, that is something Anet totally miss, i do not know if they do that on purpose or beaoucouse they have no idea what they are doing, still the result is the same. Game is shit as it is now and every patch they turn it even more shit.

if it is that bad in pvp... we will see.in bigger fights in wvw it is a bigger issue (for me). when i was (barely) able to go melee with the firebrands before (because PoF spam) - i have to be extremely careful now. even glass canon herald in melee feels easier for me now.

if the changes are final. i am going to have a very hard time and l2p once more (which is basically the main issue i guess). or stay on herald/scourge. probably herald (better anyway - power reaper was pulling down squad-efficiency quite a bit for almost 2 years already)

balance changes sometimes feel like there is a VERY sadistic and power-hungry person pulling the strings :D"you want something? i will give it to you. BUT i will destroy you (mostly your feelings)... mwahahaha".maybe the changes turn out to be good idk yet

They made Reaper so that the only way for you to Maintain the Shroud is if you auto-attack while in shroud and not being attacked. The idea behind shroud is some sort of In / out sustain capability so you can out last conditions. This has never really worked, but what little that it did work, is now gone. For PVP / WvW i would suggest a Full Zerker build with Signates / Spectral walk and Worm to just burst people and escape. For WvW I would suggest maybe Try a Full Sentinals setup to have Max Life Force using Soul Reaping 50% crit and Blood Magic Vamp Aura / Unholy Martyr to give you some Sustain.

@Meetshield.1756 said:They made Reaper so that the only way for you to Maintain the Shroud is if you auto-attack while in shroud and not being attacked. The idea behind shroud is some sort of In / out sustain capability so you can out last conditions. This has never really worked, but what little that it did work, is now gone. For PVP / WvW i would suggest a Full Zerker build with Signates / Spectral walk and Worm to just burst people and escape. For WvW I would suggest maybe Try a Full Sentinals setup to have Max Life Force using Soul Reaping 50% crit and Blood Magic Vamp Aura / Unholy Martyr to give you some Sustain.

all good words so i am asking you, why should i get mad to try to fix a build (build who were already working and just go destroyed) while i can use the new super uber Scourge ?

i repeat, reaper was working well, anet just killed it for no kitten reasons of any kind

I also don't understand the reason for the nerf to Deathly Chill, except for the constant asking for it to be changed so that Scourge could be buffed. All of the Deathly Chill discussion stems from a mistake by Wooden Potatoes in the POF Preview Video he posted. He looked at Reaper/Deathly Chill saw it had only 1 bleed (because he was in pvp lobby) and said it would be nerfed to make Reaper a power class, and Scourge a Condi class. I think All Necros are Condi classes, power versions are just meme's. However Anet has decided to finally give in to the massive wave of momentum behind the WP mistake.

There is good reason for you to be upset. I believe the Nerf to Deathly Chill simply makes it easier for Anet to Buff power without a massive backlash because the Condi dmg in Deathly Chill would still be a better choice than the Sustain or the Power options.

How you choose to react to this change, is your choice, no one can change how you feel about something. I will however point out that in PvP Reaper already had this change for a long time and without the power buff to go with it, and with limited armor selections, and it was very dominant in PvP. Players simply worked around the Deathly Chill problem by not using Reaper Runes and not focusing on Condi Damage as the only source of Damage. I had two viable PvP builds before POF for Reaper, one was a burst build with Shouts using Trooper/Soldier runes to clear conditions, and the other was a Minion/Deathmagic sustain build, that focused on clearing conditions with minions and sustaining damage long enough that mele and minion damage killed players. Shroud was being used like an Invuln in both of my builds, and not used as my primary source of damage or sustain.

The new reaper does 30% more dmg and has 50% less survivability. So you can either try to cover for the lack of Sustain with more toughness / vitality and defensive traits, and gain back your dmg from power, or you can focus on the strength and try to overpower your weakness with your strength. Either option is viable, however the nature of power damage is that it typically has Cooldowns and you want to utilize the mobility of Reaper to position yourself to take advantage of your shorter burst. Trying to build a Sustainable Reaper will result in much lower damage, and you will simply be average in both dmg and sustain.

@Meetshield.1756 said:I also don't understand the reason for the nerf to Deathly Chill, except for the constant asking for it to be changed so that Scourge could be buffed. All of the Deathly Chill discussion stems from a mistake by Wooden Potatoes in the POF Preview Video he posted. He looked at Reaper/Deathly Chill saw it had only 1 bleed (because he was in pvp lobby) and said it would be nerfed to make Reaper a power class, and Scourge a Condi class. I think All Necros are Condi classes, power versions are just meme's. However Anet has decided to finally give in to the massive wave of momentum behind the WP mistake.

has nothing to do with WPdeathly chill has been asked to be nerfed by the (WvW !!) community for super long. before PoF launched deathly chill together with condi revenant was completely broken.in small scale, in large scale, solo. in fact it was beyond broken.it should have gotten the same treatment in wvw from the beginning - not just pvp.unfortunatley the new builds promote even better bursts, so the nerf is very late. but the trait is still good enough. if you fight in smallscale grps, the trait is still strong, since it adds up (quite a lot) when you have more than one reaper.and in pve not much changed. its still 3 bleeds per chill and in grps the soul spiral change to 4 projectiles doesnt matter anyway, since 95% of the time there is no chill field on the boss.

The complaint that I have about the condition changes to Reaper are simply that if they were going to gut the damage of Condition Reaper, I would have rather they simply replaced it entirely with Power-based options instead. I would have preferred that the Poison duration of Soul Spiral stay the same, but the stacks get cut in half, so that the skill still maintains the healing reduction utility of Poison while dealing less condition damage in total. I would have preferred to see some replacement of Deathly Chill which causes a power spike rather than bleed, similar to how Pulmonary Impact works.

I think taht reaper is now best class for holding the banners, they lay down all the time stick in ground.

so, anyone figured out a way not to be a rallybot in WvW or i a am the only one having hard times to work out a decent reaper build after the troll nerf from anet ?

No way you can have 6k hours and not have figured out how to survive a zerg fight. Power Reaper is so OP broken right now there shouldn't be any complaints at all.

@Thustlewhumber.7416 said:Power Reaper is so OP broken right now there shouldn't be any complaints at all.Power Reaper is so OP broken right now there shouldn't be any complaints at all.

It was that good that i was forced to dble up.

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Meetshield.1756 said:I also don't understand the reason for the nerf to Deathly Chill, except for the constant asking for it to be changed so that Scourge could be buffed. All of the Deathly Chill discussion stems from a mistake by Wooden Potatoes in the POF Preview Video he posted. He looked at Reaper/Deathly Chill saw it had only 1 bleed (because he was in pvp lobby) and said it would be nerfed to make Reaper a power class, and Scourge a Condi class. I think All Necros are Condi classes, power versions are just meme's. However Anet has decided to finally give in to the massive wave of momentum behind the WP mistake.

I disagree that deathly chill should have been given the PvP 1 stack treatment in WvW.

You mentioned that it is broken with 3 stacks.You mentioned condi rev is broken too.What about condi chrono?Condi thieves? Condi Guards? Condi warriors? Condi rangers?

They are have very good condi bursts. You just don't see them as often as condi Reaper because they all have very good power options too.

Reaper? We only had condi that could compete with them before POF.Now? Our condi is gutted. Our power has terrible survivability.

i started arranging with the new power reaper, running 4 sigents right now. but still think we got a double nerf with the last patch. condi reaper just flat nerfs, power reaper a slight nerf with a trade-off.I started wvw and roaming in 2016 and never felt so weak on my necro in 1v1 situations. its really frustrating. even scourge doesnt feel OP in 1v1 since almost all the other classes are stronger in range and can just kill u from a distance. lets not forget about the (august?) nerfs with the reworks in the soul reaping traitline (taking away 50% reduced LF decay and 7 sec CD shorud)

For me its just finishing the weekly tickets and play proper games after that.

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Meetshield.1756 said:I also don't understand the reason for the nerf to Deathly Chill, except for the constant asking for it to be changed so that Scourge could be buffed. All of the Deathly Chill discussion stems from a mistake by Wooden Potatoes in the POF Preview Video he posted. He looked at Reaper/Deathly Chill saw it had only 1 bleed (because he was in pvp lobby) and said it would be nerfed to make Reaper a power class, and Scourge a Condi class. I think All Necros are Condi classes, power versions are just meme's. However Anet has decided to finally give in to the massive wave of momentum behind the WP mistake.

man, the three stacks destroyed any balance as soon as you grouped up with two more guys. anything that is not solo roaming got spoiled by it.i assume (!) you are speaking of mostly solo experience and forget about wvw as a bigger picture (since you bring up condi mesmer, ranger, thief... which are by no means part of the bigger fights. in fact condi mesmer is dead in bigger numbers: the change to confusion trait that trigger confusion on 5 targets when you interupt ONE is gone. condi ranger was never a thing - it doesnt add anything to the raid/zerg; and condi thief is a cheesy build for catching inexperienced players and adds also nothing to a raid/zerg).fights 25+ vs 25+ is a huge part of wvw and that was the issue (shouts through walls... on siege on top of walls? anybody? 3 bleeding on 5 players on every shout - the amount of condition is mental! and many abilities cleansing one condition only, cleanse the chill because of the way the conditions are applied and cleansed = infinite amount of bleeds) - obviously a bigger issue than a solo roaming build that kinda worked for the VERY few players that do not play a more roaming dedicated profession anyway... i just dont understand why the "nerf" is coming NOW and not when it stressed the biggest part of wvw most.instead it is coming when PoF added so much more aoe and more conditions on an even greater range on every button we press.

Well, given that Anet RIGHTLY said that Reaper SHOULDN'T be a condi spec, so i am glad that they nerfed that. I do think they went over the top just a little bit with the changes to Power Reaper. Its all well and good having that damage. Being able to deal it before you die is a different matter. It could work "okay" in groups and zergs, as long as you arent targeted or run into the mass of AoE damage and Conditions about. Solo and roaming. Totally different situation. Its death.

You come up against a ranged class 99% likely you'll be dead assuming the Ranged player isnt AFK. This was of course a problem before the changes but its even worse now. Given how easy it is to kite and lock down Reapers (and Scourge) its a losing fight, before its even begun :/

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Well, given that Anet RIGHTLY said that Reaper SHOULDN'T be a condi spec, so i am glad that they nerfed that. I do think they went over the top just a little bit with the changes to Power Reaper. Its all well and good having that damage. Being able to deal it before you die is a different matter. It could work "okay" in groups and zergs, as long as you arent targeted or run into the mass of AoE damage and Conditions about. Solo and roaming. Totally different situation. Its death.

You come up against a ranged class 99% likely you'll be dead assuming the Ranged player isnt AFK. This was of course a problem before the changes but its even worse now. Given how easy it is to kite and lock down Reapers (and Scourge) its a losing fight, before its even begun :/

I saw videos with big numbers, i see ppl going "omg its good now"... so last week i spend my wood to diamond on power reaper.

Solo-roaming.... you can win only against poor enemies or daily runners. Your enemies condi, cc, stealth, mobility....Group play ... as a mellee in pirate ship... you must have a lot of resistance, stability and mobility...reaper dont have any of these.It looks good in theory, but if you push in frontline, stability corrupt - CCed, take a ton of condies, dead. So you are basically mellee midline, taking down leftovers, almost dead ppl running out, finishing downed.

@intox.6347 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:Well, given that Anet RIGHTLY said that Reaper SHOULDN'T be a condi spec, so i am glad that they nerfed that. I do think they went over the top just a little bit with the changes to Power Reaper. Its all well and good having that damage. Being able to deal it before you die is a different matter. It could work "okay" in groups and zergs, as long as you arent targeted or run into the mass of AoE damage and Conditions about. Solo and roaming. Totally different situation. Its death.

You come up against a ranged class 99% likely you'll be dead assuming the Ranged player isnt AFK. This was of course a problem before the changes but its even worse now. Given how easy it is to kite and lock down Reapers (and Scourge) its a losing fight, before its even begun :/

OH FINALLY SOMEONE WHO PLAY MY SAME GAME!!! Tell them how WvW works beacouse here i feel like i am not playing their same game!!

i have spent over 250g in builds and i tested all of them, there is no way to fix that, the 5% is just to much to compensate. There is just one test left and i am now collecting some golds to test it out but i am not really positive. Will let everyone know once done. Fact is, Condi Reaper with Trailblazer was able to play in front lines and stay alive and do damage. Reaper as it is now it is not. I start to belive that best possibile solution is as you said to play it midline, almost full dps with 2,5k armor and 25k life, a couple wells and staff and move in just to finish the downed. So, to sum up, the only way to make it work is to use it as an useless class. This is sad and the reason we are here complaining.

As an exclusive solo/duo roamer myself let me add my 2 cents about where power reaper is right now. This is all coming from my experience, and of course yours may be different.

There are 3 builds that directly counter a power reaper in a 1v1 scenario -S/D power thief - it has immense kiting potential because it can port away after dealing a burst, rinse and repeat.Spellbreaker/core warrior - While spellbreaker is weaker against condi Scourge now, it still wins over a power reaper in an equal skilled fight. Then again warriors are kings of 1v1s.Scourge - At equal skill level, a scourge will win most of the times. Only scourges who are sub-par can be killed by power reaper and even then they put up a lot of fight. Coming from my experience as a scourge roamer, I have never lost a single 1v1 against a reaper (power or condi). It is really frustrating to fight against a scourge and I strongly support toning down Scourge's condition application and boon corruption. Especially the most infuriating part is the constant weakness from might to weakness corruption.

Builds that put out a lot of pressure on power Reaper in a 1v1 scenario -Other thief variants - while it is "easier" to deal with other thief variants, it is by no means easy. It often comes down to who gets the clutch final damage burst.Power Mesmers - they can be beaten, but not without the pain of suffering a ton of damage. The key is to wait to go into shroud until they move in and then go into fear and Shroud 4 and auto attack cleave.Holosmiths - I have read that they are supposed to counter Reaper in every way but I have not faced that many good holosmiths till now in WvW. That being said, I can see theoretically how rifle holosmiths can be pain for power Reaper to face.

Other builds and classes are not that difficult to handle. It is possible to win outnumbered fights as power reaper when the enemy group doesn't have a scourge or spellbreaker. That being said, the Shroud degen really needs to be dialled back - atleast in WvW and PvP. I am not talking about shroud camping, but the mere fact that most of the shroud is gone after the first rotation means that the longer the fight is, the less likely it is to win it.

I enjoy playing power Reaper more than I enjoyed playing Scourge while roaming, even though Scourge is significantly more powerful in most scenarios. Let's put it this way, winning an outnumbered fight as a power Reaper takes a lot of work and combos while winning outnumbered fights as a Scourge takes pressing buttons and watching people die.

I really hope that Anet will do something about this and bring the two specs to a comparable level. Maybe a pipe dream but who knows...

@intox.6347 said:I saw videos with big numbers, i see ppl going "omg its good now"... so last week i spend my wood to diamond on power reaper.

Solo-roaming.... you can win only against poor enemies or daily runners. Your enemies condi, cc, stealth, mobility....Group play ... as a mellee in pirate ship... you must have a lot of resistance, stability and mobility...reaper dont have any of these.It looks good in theory, but if you push in frontline, stability corrupt - CCed, take a ton of condies, dead. So you are basically mellee midline, taking down leftovers, almost dead ppl running out, finishing downed.

I am glad that they removed the condi builds, it was never meant to be that. I do hope that they improve Shroud draining. It should still be bit of "omg hes gone Reaper Shourd crap!" With that in mind, they would need to make changes as Reaper (and Scourge) is FAR too easy to kite and pin down that going Shroud means nothing if you cant get near your target to kill them.

Group Play. Its a GROUP. If you aren't getting help from your group. That isnt a problem with the spec. Its a team problem. Plenty of group Boons, stability and such. So if you arent getting that, maybe the groups need changing so you are put with people with such boons to help you.

All of those problems have affected Necro, Reaper and Scourge (to an extent) it kinda feels like (wrongly!) that is what Anet want the necro to be. Weak to kiting. Weak to CC spamming. Weak (in a way) to condis.

@Rudra.6932 said:As an exclusive solo/duo roamer myself let me add my 2 cents about where power reaper is right now. This is all coming from my experience, and of course yours may be different.

There are 3 builds that directly counter a power reaper in a 1v1 scenario -S/D power thief - it has immense kiting potential because it can port away after dealing a burst, rinse and repeat.Spellbreaker/core warrior - While spellbreaker is weaker against condi Scourge now, it still wins over a power reaper in an equal skilled fight. Then again warriors are kings of 1v1s.Scourge - At equal skill level, a scourge will win most of the times. Only scourges who are sub-par can be killed by power reaper and even then they put up a lot of fight. Coming from my experience as a scourge roamer, I have never lost a single 1v1 against a reaper (power or condi). It is really frustrating to fight against a scourge and I strongly support toning down Scourge's condition application and boon corruption. Especially the most infuriating part is the constant weakness from might to weakness corruption.

There are more than 3 builds that counter Power Reaper ANY ranged build. condi or Power counters Reaper. Easy to kite. Easy to lock down. Easy to melt from range.

As for Scourge. They are even easier to kill as a ranged person. I havent lost a single fight to a Scourge on my Soulbeast or Chrono. They have the same problems as Reaper but have less defense (less health due to shroud) Boon corruption i think is fine. A counter to the INSANE boon application, their condition application is good but can be countered quite well.

Reaper dont do much ita pretty weak since anet nerfed it