Unpopular Opinion: I like how Reaper Shroud drains faster.

Let me preface this by saying that Reaper still needs work. The lack of damage it does right now should be unacceptable.

However, I actually like how Reaper Shroud drains faster because it opens the opportunity for Reaper Shroud to fulfill a more unique role than Death shroud. It opens the design possibilities for its niche to be something you quickly jump into for specific purposes, using Life Force as an actual resource, rather than just camping it.

For example, you can intelligently pop into Reaper Shroud at jut the right time and pop skill 3 in order to mitigate a big hit. Or you can quickly use #4 to do big damage, #5 for a finisher or CC, and #2 for a quick mobility.

The point being Reaper Shroud establishes itself as something fast that you flash for utility or burst.. It is a great distinction I hope they build upon.

Obviously the numbers are not there yet. Greatsword needs to be buffed some more, and Reaper traits probably still need some work. However, it is a direction I feel will benefit Reaper in the long-run because it opens up a new mindset for Reaper's design.

Just need to decrease reaper shroud cd to 5s (in fact more like 7s as people have suggested). Drop faster than core shroud, but you can use it more often. Then it would really become a flash utility.

Reaper is the best fun to play in shroud....who doesn't like smashing people with the hammer/scythe? It needs a hell of a buff to make up for the increased drain...maybe super-superspeed in shroud?

@leasm.1279 said:Just need to decrease reaper shroud cd to 5s. Drop faster than core shroud, but you can use it more often. Then it would really become a flash utility.

I actually really like this idea of Reaper Shroud being a flash-kit, and it solves a lot of balance issues in the PvE side of things.

@leasm.1279 said:Just need to decrease reaper shroud cd to 5s. Drop faster than core shroud, but you can use it more often. Then it would really become a flash utility.

5 seconds might be a bit overtuned. Maybe 7 seconds like the old speed of shadows.

Reducing shroud time was the reason for the decay rate increase for Reaper. A cool down reduction will probably not fly.

Unpopular traits like Reaper's Protection could be improved to give better CC, dps (Terror), or add modifiers like some extra concentration.

There are all kinds of ways to make Reaper, Necro, or Scourge better that do not require shroud time.

I think the double nerf shroud took after the 7 sec cd removal was a bit much. A change to either of those previous changes i feel would help.

@Quarktastic.1027 said:

@leasm.1279 said:Just need to decrease reaper shroud cd to 5s. Drop faster than core shroud, but you can use it more often. Then it would really become a flash utility.

Agree. Reaper drains faster than core by default, so it's fair to give it 7s cd. That would make the shroud mechanics match in disavantages/benefits.

Of course reaper skills are already stronger than core, but that's a question of melee vs ranged on its own, not shroud mechanics.

We could already do all the things in OP. Only now, there's a bunch of things we used to be able to do but can't anymore.

I have no problem with reaper shroud drains faster. Reaper is not a tank, and if you want to play it as a tank, another hp bar is just not enough. The main problem of reaper and necro in general is mobility. I don't see how dmg buff or reaper shroud drains slower will solve the problem.For PvE, even if you have the same dps as others, most of them can range while reaper has to be melee. It's important in raid since range classes can do dps while take care other mechanics. Not mention that power utility are not support single target focus and minion dmg doesn't scale with power (condi does).For PvP and WvW, if enemy can kite well, more dmg or shroud can't really change the fight since you can't touch them.

I think they should make it drain instantly to nothing as soon as you enter it. NO! BEFORE you enter it! NO! Before that! Before before you enter Shroud it should already be drained. Perfect!

What? We're all saying stupid things aren't we?

Personally, I don't mind the changes too much, as they promote more decisive gameplay.

Yet, Reaper wasn't meant to be an assassin-like character with high burst. It was marketed as and meant to be a teamfight bruiser, look no further than traits and the weapon to confirm it. My fear is that Reaper, now being somewhere between bruiser and an assassin, can mud the waters for both archetypes when it comes to new elite specializations. It would not only have similar role, but also have to compete against more specialized options while being a 50/50 hybrid, excelling at nothing. Renegade - and it's shortbow - is now this for Revenant (apart from pve where damage modifier force carries it into viability).

I think - and hope - that this shift to more offensive style of Reaper is temporary to fill the power gap untill we get an elite specialization designed from ground-up to be more aggressive, faster incarnation of power necromancer.

Svarty gather yourself mate. All this shroud talks got u lickin windows. Its ok i heard the next elite will be shroud shrouder. We combine reaper and core nec shroud and they just feed eachother lf and you dart between the 2 and never get to see what your toon looks like out of shroud ever again. 2000 gems and u can dye your shroud. Holy snap now im talkin gibberish..

I wouldn't mind the extra degen rate if Anet didn't treat Necro's shroud as a second HP bar. Meaning it's supposed to be a defense mechanism of sorts ... it's supposed to buff up that HP bar. So since Anet has treated shroud this way, they haven't necessarily focused on Necro defense/mobility since shroud was the answer to that. But now it seems like they are stepping away from that idea with shroud, with a 10s timer and the extra degen rate, which is very noticeable.

So how is a buff to Reaper dmg an answer? Since the buff doesn't even solve the defense/mobility problem with Necro? More that it now reflects Anets Reaper that was initially talked about when HoT was released. But if they mean it to be a burst now, what other mechanics are there to aid in defense/mobility for Necro? I have tried playing with spectral armor, plague wurm, etc. While spec armor is pretty useful, it still doesn't do enough in my opinion when other classes have full invulns or stealth. Spec armor is a great ability, especially in smaller skirmishes and as a way to replenish life force without the need of staff, but I also think that it should be buffed slightly with its life force gain and possibly even with a short amount of stability or some other boon gain. I also think that a rework of plague wurm would be really awesome ... 600 range isn't that far for such a high CD, and the fact that once your plague wurm is dead, you can't travel. Also that it doesn't recognise the Z axis as it needs a "valid path" in order to travel there, and it halts at stairs/walls or abrupt height changes in terrain, such that if you place the wurm on a rock jutting out from the ground in some areas, and then proc the plague wurm, you will travel to the base of the rock rather than on top of the rock itself. I haven't tried it out everywhere, but I know it is most apparent within keeps/towers where you have a bunch of staircases, walls, and just varying heights in general. I remember when I first started using plague wurm years ago, I actually thought that it was a bug as it seemed essential for me to be able to traverse varying heights in order to have that one skill that Necro could use in order to get away in a sticky situation. If they don't care about a rework to plague wurm to introduce the Z axis, I would at least wish for a smaller CD time ... maybe if the plague wurm timer can be shortened to 15s if you lay the plague wurm for at least 15s after it is cast. So that you have the regular timer of 30s in case you are using the plague wurm as a way to initiate a fight or as a way to get away, but if you have laid the wurm somewhere else for at most 15s, then I think you should be able to have a reduced cd. As well, I was thinking they could increase the range because I have often tried using plague wurm to catch up to people, but by the time it takes to cast the actual ability, if you are walking in that direction you will already have ran 600 range given that you aren't impaired ... so it sort of felt like it ruined the versatility of the ability; as well, it seemed to waste the potential of an ability that could have been an answer to a lot of problems with Necro mobility. Maybe if the range was buffed to 1200, I would feel secure in giving up a slot just for plague wurm since it would actually be a viable escape or gap closer. But due to the high CD time, cast time, and short range of the ability - especially in real zergs/skirmishes where people are constantly moving around - I just wasn't willing to make that trade off. There's also the fact that I might be using the ability poorly ... I mean, there are some really interesting plays that I have made with it, but not enough consistency for my tastes. Maybe I could be more creative with it. Oh, and side note - I also think ghost walk would benefit from hiding your "trail" from enemy players, or even from everyone else except you. I think it would be way more appealing if the enemy players didn't know or had a harder time remembering exactly where you were going to end up if you ghost walked back to your original position, instead of showing them a visual trail of your path that disappears. Just a thought ... since stealth isn't something that Necro had, I thought it would be great if the devs made Necro more of a "fake out" in terms of mobility, where you seemingly "disappear" from sight, much how plague wurm is.

All in all, I think that the degen rate isn't an unwelcome rework to Shroud ... I just wish that they did a bit more with the abilities that we currently have in order to accommodate that play style. I have no problem with Shroud being seen as a burst, but I also think that since they themselves have treated it like a second HP bar for so long, the abilities and traits for Necro have been created with that in mind. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if they just tweaked things here or there. I agree with many other people about reducing the CD for Shroud. If I can be booted out of Shroud by being burst down, not being able to get off a full rotation, or being forced into a frantic, disjointed rotation due to the huge loss of life force from condi, then I think they should allow us to enter it more often. Because the whole thing about the CD - at least in my eyes - was that Shroud was being used as a second HP bar ... so they didn't want people gaining all this life force, using it as a defense, coming out of it, stalling for a bit while regaining life force, and then jumping back in as a defense ... and I support getting rid of Shroud being used that way. But when they reworked Shroud as more of a burst option, they still have changes in place from when they treated Shroud as an HP bar. I think there are ways around this, such that maybe Shroud/life force is treated as a barrier ... but I do quite like Shroud the way it is now, so i think some changes to the CD time and/or life force gain from other abilities could really make their vision of Reaper come to life, instead of feeling like this quasi-modo mechanic that feels like Anet couldn't definitively choose the direction they wanted to go in. Especially since Scourge definitely feels polished - could still obviously use some reworks/nerfs in areas, but generally it is a polished class IMO - compared to Reaper. I'd also like to note that the huge reworks for Scourge are happening within the first yr of PoF ... even less, within the first 5 months or so, which is a really good thing ... yet they took 2+ yrs to finally resemble the Reaper that they had been talking about when HoT was released ... this is why I think there is so much angst with Reaper, since these reworks should have been within the first year of HoT, and that would have given them more than enough time to tweak abilities/traits to suit their vision of Reaper.

Just my 2 cents.

Reaper was marketed as a juggernaut elite specialization. It was supposed to mimic the unstoppable movie monsters, being slow, but always approaching.

With the changes to Reaper's Shroud, we still have the "slow," but now are very far away from "unstoppable," though we do a better job now of actually punishing anyone we do manage to catch. The issue was that Reaper was below par to start with, and they decided to have Reapers make a tradeoff on the balance. That still leaves them below par, not helping their situation at all. Now, this was a buff in PvE where incoming damage doesn't really matter much, but it still wasn't satisfactory.

What ANet really needs to do with Reaper is look to League of Legend's Juggernaut subclass (Garen, Darius, Mordekaiser Urgot, Udyr). These are all fairly immobile champions that nevertheless are hard to bring down and do significant damage. It's okay to mimic ideas from other games when those ideas work well.

Yep regardless of dps count or standing they failed on the realization of the reaper 'concept'. They did however pen a nice blurb about it. Everyone loves a little fiction.