Gravedigger

Can we please see a rework on this skill, Its a boring skill at the best of times. And sadly the thing you should do once they are under 50%. Get rid of the cooldown reset and give it a Damage bump for those under 50%, or It spams life force when hitting those under 50%. Or pretty much anything.

yeah gravedigger's 50% mechanic is really dull in terms of gameplay as far as PvE is concerned. In PvP it's even worse because the cooldown reset is largely useless. Nobody is going to ever let you gravedigger them twice.

I dislike the gravedigger spam under 50% as well and I believe it is one of the major problems with Reaper gameplay in pve. The issue I think is that I am pretty sure a lot of casuals are attached to it already that the backlash for removing it would be insane. So if you do, you would have to stick that cd reduction in a trait or something similar so people can spam it when they want, albeit with less effectiveness.

I think as long as its replaced with a good skill it would be fine.

@Barnabus Stinson.1409 said:I think as long as its replaced with a good skill it would be fine.

Nah, no need to completely replace it. Though to be fair the skill would be pretty boring if there is no cd reduction on it as it would just literally be an AoE cleave.

Replace it with a channel that increases in damage the longer you go, still a spin?

I like the idea of the <50% damage increase.

This increase should be high enough that we can achieve the same amount of damage with an 8 second Gravedigger > Autoattack rotation like we do now with Gravedigger spam within 8 seconds. This would be a lot less boring to play and we would apply chill and gain life force to further increase our damage.

It basically makes it a second auto below 50% in pve. I dislike offensive below certain health thresholds skills/traits in general as they just makes you win more. The offensive ones only really works in raids or fractal bosses in pve where they live long enough for these traits to not be pointless. None of these traits/skills does something interesting for gameplay either. While I do enjoy greatsword gravedigger makes fights in pve boring below 50%.While I haven't really done pvp since season 4 I can't imagine that they are great now either. If you can get them below 50% in the first place you'll not need these traits/skills and if you can't they are useless to you. And in the case of gravedigger you might get one hit in but since it's so telegraphed and slow there's no way they'll allow you to hit them twice as Crinn said. I would really approve the removal of this mechanic from gravedigger for something that actually keeps gameplay interesting and is more useful.

I think you're missing some points on this skill. It's also whirl finisher (self heal with dark field/condi cleaner/dmg etc.) and it does remarkable dmg if you time it right. It also effectively makes you less interesting melee target while casting it. So I think it's also defensive skill rather than just dmg. That's if talking about pvp.

@jalmari.3906 said:I think you're missing some points on this skill. It's also whirl finisher (self heal with dark field/condi cleaner/dmg etc.) and it does remarkable dmg if you time it right. It also effectively makes you less interesting melee target while casting it. So I think it's also defensive skill rather than just dmg. That's if talking about pvp.

Whirl Finishers are largely weak in pvp. Nobody is going to back off because they see you gravediggering, they're just going to dodge it and then eat you. Nevermind that gravedigger is just interrupt bait.

The Whirl part is fine but its just not a good skill. In Pve (Open World) the reset is pointless as is all the other <50% necro things. In pve (Fractals and Raids) Its just dull, Spam 2 and use your utilities on cooldown, come in it hardly interactive gameplay. And in Pvp its either interupted, dodged Which makes the reset pointless again. From a design perspective its not a fun skill.There would be so many other options that would fit with the GS theme and just work better. I have been liking the idea of it almost being a corruption skill. Chill yourself but gain might and quickness. So you land some CC and then can spam out a nice damaging fast autos but you are now very slow so they can position away. In pve works well as it can be nice damage bump with a cost. In Pvp can really reward you for getting that GS5 Hit and punish your foe with good timing.

Get rid of the <50% recharge reduction and raplace it with an armor rending debuff on hit for 8s (the enemy suffer +10% of damage from any source)... make it useful in both in party and in solo.

https://ibb.co/ewYDYm

Ambients fear me.

i would be fine with gravedigger applying +XX% dmg buff lasting 5 seconds instead of the cd reduction. as long as its a buff and not a nerf to overall dps.

@Crinn.7864 said:

Whirl Finishers are largely weak in pvp. Nobody is going to back off because they see you gravediggering, they're just going to dodge it and then eat you. Nevermind that gravedigger is just interrupt bait.

youre spamming it when enemies are down to prevent everyone from rezzing

@Namless.4028 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

Whirl Finishers are largely weak in pvp. Nobody is going to back off because they see you gravediggering, they're just going to dodge it and then eat you. Nevermind that gravedigger is just interrupt bait.

While gravedigger is certainly nice for cleaving downs, there are far better methods of cleaving downs than gravedigger, you're also extremely interrupt vulnerable when using gravedigger regardless of use case.

I had an idea for grave digger that makes it a bit more interesting. When you hit an enemy at 50% health, instead of resetting cool down, you gain quickness, making it less of a finisher and more of a means to make following up with the rest of your slow attacks much easier.

Problem is that if gravedigger's changed then we need some form of damage compensation. Might be boring, but spamming gravedigger >50% health is our best power option (weapon wise). It's because of that that power reaper even reaches it's measly 26.7k damage. I personally don't mind the spam because ultimately on a tough enemy like a boss, you're going to still need to do other skills to maximize your damage: nightfall and well of suffering for pulsing AoE damage and leeching bolts, death spiral if your enemy has low vulnerability, maybe even grasping darkness to chill them for the +10% damage if they're not chilled (along with shroud skills and chilling utilities you might have). For me, reaching 50% means I no longer have to switch to axe/focus for 2 and 4 (which does a fair bit of damage along with the vulnerability).

Power reaper just needs a massive buff. I am of the mind that if a profession is selfish then it at least needs to have high DPS, like thief. As such, we need around a 40% buff to be desirable as a pure dps slot.

it should heal for 100% dmg dealt

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:it should heal for 100% dmg dealt

Exactly what we don't need. An outstanding problem for Necro right now is that we don't get to decide how tanky or squishy we are to the same degree as other classes. Adding in more non-optional sustain is not the way to go.

@Amerikajinn.4635 said:

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:it should heal for 100% dmg dealt

That one went straight above your head

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:

@Amerikajinn.4635 said:

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:it should heal for 100% dmg dealt

I disagree, and stand by my point. By all means implement changes like that if we get to decide to forego sustain options like that in favor of larger amounts of team utility/damage. Just adding in more life steal is a bandaid solution that only serves to make it harder to justify adding more damage/utility to Reaper/Necro overall because "it has more inherent sustain/tankiness". Implement stuff like lifesteal into traits (coincidentally like the one that already exists: Soul Eater) that we can opt out of, and implement changes for gravedigger that are better than holding down 1 button after a target drops below 50% hp to just deal damage, either reworking the skill to remove the cooldown to make gameplay for Power Reaper feel less static and dull, or adding in some kind of beneficial effect for consecutive hits that make it feel rewarding to maintain hits of Gravedigger on a target.

That one went straight above your head

Or would proposals like this for how to make gravedigger less dull and more fun to play go over yours?

Attach a debuff/personal buff that makes shroud damage do x amount more per y seconds, or any greatsword skill and It'd allow for some higher skill play/rotation while reducing monotony. The idea is to spread damage around instead of leaving it to one skill and post 50% it increases the x or y, simultaneously giving necro a scaling buff while also giving a harder rotation; doesn't seem like a bad plan.

I heard there's a rework coming this SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!

[Gravedigger]Cast-time: 1¼s / Recharge: ½sPerform a huge swing that deals heavy damage. If you combo this with a dark field, gain superspeed and Gravedigger is instantly recharged. If you combo this with an ice field, gain life force and reduce your shroud recharge.

• Number of targets: 5
• Damage: (3.0)
• Dark field superspeed (2s): Movement Speed is greatly increased.
• Ice field life force: 8%
• Ice field shroud recharge reduction: 3s
• Maximum Count: 2
• Count Recharge: 8s
• Combo Finisher: Whirl
• Range: 170

This skill now only generates 1 Whirl Finisher instead of the current total 3.

The "instantly recharged" mechanic will only fully recharge 1 ammo count.