As a Reaper Shroud player the last two patches have gutted me.

I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

You don't need to sit in reaper shroud to do open world PvE. Power reaper is bad in PvP and always has been.

It's not Anet's mission to make suboptimal gimmick playstyles a balancing concern.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

Power Reaper in WvW was perfectly fine until this patch.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

Cool story bro. I never said it was a meta build. It is however an extremely popular build outside of elitist raids.

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

Play around with builds some more. While you can't camp shroud as long as you used to, you can build to where you can get it at least sort of close to where it's still fun imo. For better or worse, this is what it is now though, All you can really do is adapt as best you can.

@Eltiana.9420 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

Nothing comes close to the pre-PoF durability in team fights. They are clearly trying to turn it into some sort of effect on shroud build but that doesn't work in group fights unless you can magically kill everyone when you enter shroud.

@Dristig.9678 said:

Cool story bro. I never said it was a meta build. It is however an extremely popular build outside of elitist raids.

"Elitist raids" is the most disingenuous thing I've ever seen repeated over and over. They aren't elitist. They're doing end-game content and want competent players running competent builds to make everyone's life easier. Play enough endgame comment to the point where you're frustrated beyond belief at the average player and you'll understand why this 'elitism' criticism is nonsense.

@Dristig.9678 said:

@Eltiana.9420 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

Ah, was talking open world PVE(which you did mention in your OP), I don't really PVP, so can't help you there.

@Saracen.2691 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:

Cool story bro. I never said it was a meta build. It is however an extremely popular build outside of elitist raids.

This is exactly why i never did raid once and i do not even plan to do it. You want to run your cool ultrapro working end content builds? good for you. I can't care less.

I just want to play what i like to play. So we all happy right? oh no wait i CAN NOT PLAY WHAT I LIKE TO PLAY since anet totally destroyed my build.

Oh and yes, you can enjoy your elitist LFG i hope a day will come you guys have to wait 12 hours to get a party done /enjoy

to sum up the last two patches totally destroyed the following builds:

• Celestial Shout Reaper WvW (due to Deathly Chill nerf)
• Trailblazer Shourt Reaper Roamer WvW (due to Deathly Chill nerf)
• Trailblazer Procmancer WvW (due to Life Force degen increase)
• Carrion Corruptiomancer PvP (due to Plague Sending changes)

what they added? a few DPS who is totally useless for the build listed above.

So my question persist, there is any logical reason to destroy so many working builds at once? i will keep asking till i get a decent official answer.

@ilmau.9781 said:

Oh and yes, you can enjoy your elitist LFG i hope a day will come you guys have to wait 12 hours to get a party done /enjoy

Why are you wishing ill will on people who don't have any ill will towards you? This is part of the reason why other players become indifferent to your problems.

Honestly, this is exactly a change I liked that A-net made. I don't use shroud for defense, I use it as a burst, and with the changes to might made, oh dose it burst :open_mouth: Sure, some people will need to adapt to the change, but I implore folks to take a chance and give it more time, necro's have the highest health pool, to me that is defense enough, and as long as you are not just spamming skills, survivability is not so much an issue.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Ran wvw roaming with this and did some dungeons and not once did I encounter a problem. In fact, perhaps due to my play style, I felt much sturdier and a bit more confident.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Scholar rune seems pretty useless in wvw. Cause u wont be able to be over 90% if enemy engages first

@Saracen.2691 said:"Elitist raids" is the most disingenuous thing I've ever seen repeated over and over. They aren't elitist.

Gear checks and DPS meters spell, "Elitism".

@Nimon.7840 said:

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

But Ferocity and Power still remains.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

You do know the design plan originally for Reaper was Power right ? stop this elitist down looking talk seriously.... and do your research....

Also the Power theme is what fits the best for Reaper... it literally screams power.... GS was not intended to be a condi only build weapon lol

Devs just failed and still failing damn hard and still dont know W.T.F they are doing with Necro as a whole or what they want it to be.....

@CharJC.8365 said:Honestly, this is exactly a change I liked that A-net made. I don't use shroud for defense, I use it as a burst, and with the changes to might made, oh dose it burst :open_mouth: Sure, some people will need to adapt to the change, but I implore folks to take a chance and give it more time, necro's have the highest health pool, to me that is defense enough, and as long as you are not just spamming skills, survivability is not so much an issue.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Ran wvw roaming with this and did some dungeons and not once did I encounter a problem. In fact, perhaps due to my play style, I felt much sturdier and a bit more confident.

Arent you a special snowflake. But roaming solo and 1v1 is a totally different thing then roaming in a small havoc group or running for a big group. You can control how/when you get hit for the most part. When in groups, the eraper falls apart, LF drain coupled with the drain of getting hit but multiple people/condis, makes shroud last a few seconds.

@CharJC.8365 said:Honestly, this is exactly a change I liked that A-net made. I don't use shroud for defense, I use it as a burst, and with the changes to might made, oh dose it burst :open_mouth: Sure, some people will need to adapt to the change, but I implore folks to take a chance and give it more time, necro's have the highest health pool, to me that is defense enough, and as long as you are not just spamming skills, survivability is not so much an issue.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Ran wvw roaming with this and did some dungeons and not once did I encounter a problem. In fact, perhaps due to my play style, I felt much sturdier and a bit more confident.

i would invite you to come and roam on EU tier 1-2 so you can tell me better what exactly you do running around with 1,9k armor and 22k hp.

@ilmau.9781 said:

@CharJC.8365 said:Honestly, this is exactly a change I liked that A-net made. I don't use shroud for defense, I use it as a burst, and with the changes to might made, oh dose it burst :open_mouth: Sure, some people will need to adapt to the change, but I implore folks to take a chance and give it more time, necro's have the highest health pool, to me that is defense enough, and as long as you are not just spamming skills, survivability is not so much an issue.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Ran wvw roaming with this and did some dungeons and not once did I encounter a problem. In fact, perhaps due to my play style, I felt much sturdier and a bit more confident.

My guess is a lot of examination of the scenery in monochromatic tones.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@ilmau.9781 said:

@CharJC.8365 said:Honestly, this is exactly a change I liked that A-net made. I don't use shroud for defense, I use it as a burst, and with the changes to might made, oh dose it burst :open_mouth: Sure, some people will need to adapt to the change, but I implore folks to take a chance and give it more time, necro's have the highest health pool, to me that is defense enough, and as long as you are not just spamming skills, survivability is not so much an issue.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Ran wvw roaming with this and did some dungeons and not once did I encounter a problem. In fact, perhaps due to my play style, I felt much sturdier and a bit more confident.

i do talk about my reality, which is made by fight 50vs50 and ppl who insta kill you in 1 seconds popping out from invisibility

and very often it is a problem even be able to leave the spawn and reach your commander since you get ganked in the process

so based on anet logic the increase of dps and the reduction of the defense would solve those problems, right?

@Dristig.9678 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

And outside raids, anything will work. If you're failing in open world as power reaper, the error is with you not the spec.

Power reaper does extremely well in open world as any other build besides deadeye does.

You don't need to sit in reaper shroud for years, sorry.

@Dristig.9678 said:Reaper Shroud Player

Reaper Shroud is not a class. Reaper is a class that includes shroud but is not exclusively limited to it.

The changes in this patch encourage using all of reaper's tools, both the ones in shroud and the ones out of shroud. This is how it should be. Camping one thing all the time leads to much more flat and monotonous experience for the player, which is why shroud camping should be discouraged.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Dristig.9678 said:I just don't care for the scourge playstyle and LOVE Reaper. But I play mostly open world PvE and PvP Power reaper my personal preference was always to be in Shroud as much as possible. With the nerf to shroud cooldown and the new nerf to decay and Soul Reaping line my favorite playstyle has essentially been removed from the game. :(

okay, lets give elementalist 50% more dmg in water, cut down the heal by 50% (because it is not popular/viable enough for damage and too much sustain coupled with healing skills and other traits) and put the attunements on a shared cooldown of 10sec.

that is what the impact of the last patches(plural) feels like. sure a big part is l2p, i wont deny it.but i really struggle with the uptime of shroud too. in pve in most cases (dungeons, fractals, (forged mobs PoF maps anything besides them in open world is not orth mentioning, its open world)) my shroud gets often killed before soulspiral is done. so the supposed dmg-increase... well... is gone. instead i use it even more often to soak up quick bursts and get a blind off with RS 2.if i have to wait for an opportunity to not get hit and do a burst, i lose the increased dmg at 95% of the fight aswell. breakbars only or content that allows somebody to tank 80% of the fight, so that i can get my burst off, feels bad man.

in pvp - i am not a good pvp player - i struggled anyways. but now the RS 2 HAS to land and hit, because i will not be able to use it a second time - or i use it to get at some distance try to put up an area of denial with aoes and wait for an opportunity to pressure with smart pulls, fear/daze/stun , RS 5 and RS 4... unfortunatelly the shroud doesnt last long enough to get off that burst that is supposed to be the compensation because RS is depleted from my first use + the dmg i get anyway. when i am lucky i can use WH5 or spectral armor (which i might have used already to get out of the first stunlock and got wasted, because my enemy disengaged) and then i can do some serious damage. so much effort for that little opportunity.

i also tell myself that 5%/sec vs 3%/sec is not a big deal... because 20sec + incoming dmg should be just as fine as 33sec + incoming damage. shroud depletes through incoming damage anyway (unless i time it for breakbars only). it just happes to fail - which it didnt before. am i such a bad player all of a sudden?

like i try hard with skills, traits, stats - but i dont get the hang.gonna (have to) practice the next 3-4months i guess - or start playing holosmith/chrono.

not going into much wvw talk here. scourge is so much better - and besides not really liking the new espec, i play it very (!) well in wvw zergs. much less effort (compared to reaper) to start with and much (!) more reward if you put a lot of effort in it by chaining your skills and timing cleanses/corrupts/barriers/desert shroud/shades to get the most benefits on dmg and grp support.

@Svarty.8019 said:

@Saracen.2691 said:"Elitist raids" is the most disingenuous thing I've ever seen repeated over and over. They aren't elitist.

And not everyone runs them... and if they run gear checks they are breaking the rules and should be reported for doing so.

@ilmau.9781 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@ilmau.9781 said:

@CharJC.8365 said:Honestly, this is exactly a change I liked that A-net made. I don't use shroud for defense, I use it as a burst, and with the changes to might made, oh dose it burst :open_mouth: Sure, some people will need to adapt to the change, but I implore folks to take a chance and give it more time, necro's have the highest health pool, to me that is defense enough, and as long as you are not just spamming skills, survivability is not so much an issue.

I use a mix of armor,Berserker's trinkets and weapons, all ascendedMarauders armor, all ascendedScholar runesfull +5 defense infusionsx2 sig of airx1 sig of forcex1 sig of bloodlustgreatswordaxe/focus

Ran wvw roaming with this and did some dungeons and not once did I encounter a problem. In fact, perhaps due to my play style, I felt much sturdier and a bit more confident.

Maybe the problem with your reality has something to do with you ...