Reaper Or Scourge Dead

Hey guys, so I'm new to necro and herd that the necro is useless in T4 and Raids. Is this true?

Depends on whom you asking about this. You can have a hard time to get into PUG's. Imo you got a 50% chance to get kicked for bringing a necro. I do this kind of stuff with my guild. With the right guys/friends also raiding is not an problem. Pugging for raids is a torture as necro most ppl thinking you want to troll them exspecilly if you join as power reaper.I play an necro main since i started with GW2. Do i have the best dps or support? No, but for myself i have the most fun on playing the necro compared to all the other professions. So i'll keep playing necro till the end of time ^^ So if you like the playstyle keep playing, it's an game, have fun.

Create your own LFG and you will be fine. However if you try getting into the cm99/t4 meta blah blah blah, expect to get kicked.

Not useless but definetly worst of all. 9th spot.

Mate. I scourge t4 pretty much daily and have never had issues based on class. I've often been the saving grace due to barriers.Raids atm are improving but pugs still have a harder time than fractals.

If you go into raids and T4 fractals (definitely if you're planning to do CM's as well), I really recommend to save yourself the hassle and try a different class instead. Not only do they perform statistically (benchmarks, dps logs, boon uptime logs, etc.) better than Necros (Scourges/Reapers/Core Necros). You miss out on a lot of grief from the (pugging) PvE endgame community compared to when you would've played Necro, as shown in this example.

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:If you go into raids and T4 fractals (definitely if you're planning to do CM's as well), I really recommend to save yourself the hassle and try a different class instead. Not only do they perform statistically (benchmarks, dps logs, boon uptime logs, etc.) better than Necros (Scourges/Reapers/Core Necros). You miss out on a lot of grief from the (pugging) PvE endgame community compared to when you would've played Necro, as shown in this example.

But if you can find a group to run with again and again and again, taking many necros is way more overpowered than eles. Because of epi bounce.

But yeah. For pugging i recommend playing dragonhunter or holosmith as dds

Epibounce is indeed very powerful! Still not as powerful in Fractals as many would like you to believe though. The build up takes to long to be more efficient than, say the newest META: a Chrono, BS and 3 Weavers. I think there are some videos out there that show that, as well. In raids on the other hand, there are some bosses (I think VG is actually an example of that) that even have new records been set by the Epibounce tactic. But it's hardly usable in a general sense, and conditioned by so many factors. really just a niche!

Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn power reaper is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

@Alehin.3746 said:Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn power reaper is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

As long as you dont get hit while in shroud.One big hit and you will drop out of shroud, which messes up your rotation which makes you loose a lot of dmg.

This counts for both. Power and condi reaper.But power gets hit even further:You need to do a perfect rotation to do good dps.Well you can achieve almost the same dps by just doing autoattacks with holosmith or dragonhunter. So while being locked in some very specific utility skills, holo and dh can bring some teamsupport, while powerreaper only gives protection every now and then.

So yes. It isnt that good

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Alehin.3746 said:Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn

power reaper

is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

It's not that bad either. Sure, one big hit during reaper shroud reduces your dps just like DHs, Eles and Holos go down when they take too much damage. Power reaper have ~29k benchmark dps +2k for allies with vampiric aura, so yeah it's far from being meta but it's still doable if they're not using soldier stats and double staff with on-swap sigils. Also unless you only have HoT or if you want to, there's no point in playing condi reaper over scourge, specially if the player is too lazy to use Executioner's Scythe+Soul Spiral correctly. The only thing condi reaper does better than power reaper is being able to use epi imo.

@"Alehin.3746" said:Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn power reaper is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

Oh wow, and this is a good explanation of how good the Necro is?!? Anywho, if it's all about the tankiness you're after, you should try Spellbreaker, they have the extra base Armor Rating that the Necro is missing (while also having the highest base Health Pool), and they've also got their Full Counter (F2) ability, which pretty much acts like an on demand million damage negating block with massive damage as a counter ... Try that with your shroud! Furthermore, they are META with several different builds! So they're actually asked for in T4 fractals and raids while Necro's are in the exact opposite state and sometimes receive kicks before even starting the fractal/raid.Anyway, if you still don't have enough "explanation" on why I would not recommend to play Necro in T4 Fractals or Raids, have a look at these statistics and see where us necros are at:GW2Raidar, disclaimer: ignore anything that's under 0.20 popularity, cause those don't have a representative 'n' for it to be considered 'real' statistics (imo it has the same 'worth' as any anecdotal story on these forums that starts with: "Me and some of my guildies play ... because ..." :D or "This one time ..." or "Sometimes ...")Snowcrows benchmarksDiscretize benchmarksIf you have to scroll down a lot towards the bottom of these lists before you see us necros appearing, it's because we are at the bottom ... always!

Stop this "meta" -"bad" already. I guess like 80% of players cant reach that "top" dps anyway. And nobody here cant explain using numbers how exactly necro is #bad#. Like raid with X ppl = A minutes. Raid with X-1+necro = B minutes.All that hate cuz SOMEONE said what necro is bad in "hitting golem-thing".

@Alehin.3746 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Alehin.3746 said:Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn

power reaper

is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

Did someone do a new benchmark? I only remember 27k on power reaper..Yes other loose dps as well. But only 10% from scholar rune.But reapers power rota is shroud 4, shroud autottacks, axe 2, gs2,4,5 and some autoattacks.

But if you are missing the complete shroud thing, you will loose way more than just 10% dps

@"Hindenburg.3415" said:Stop this "meta" -"bad" already. I guess like 80% of players cant reach that "top" dps anyway. And nobody here cant explain using numbers how exactly necro is #bad#. Like raid with X ppl = A minutes. Raid with X-1+necro = B minutes.All that hate cuz SOMEONE said what necro is bad in "hitting golem-thing".

Well. Thats what most people experience. I always try everything in real situations, but when it comes to real situation, reaper gets even worse than on golem.

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@"Alehin.3746" said:Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn

power reaper

is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

Then allow me to actually give an expansive reasoning behind playing Necro in fractals.

Firstly, an obvious point to get out of the way is that it will not be optimal; but as with many builds is still very much effective provided you take the time to learn how your chosen build is played/performs.

For both Condi Reaper and Condi Scourge you gain access to Necros most powerful sustain ability in the form of Parasitic Contagion. While this is a 10% dps loss for Reaper and a 15% dps loss for Scourge, it more than makes up for it by converting 10% of your damage back into direct healing, which also directly synergizes with Epidemic usage. Given a Condi Reaper that is experienced can easily get in excess of 25k burst (on a condi build no less) and over 20k sustained damage without much issue in fractals in boss scenarios that is over 2k hp returned per second (equating to 10% of your hp regained per second before outside healing or cleave damage is factored into he equation).

Furthermore, while Reaper will indeed lose damage if you run out of life force whilst attempting to use the "shroud combo" it is exceedingly easy to remain near max life force due to adds dying, as well as being able to use an emergency usage of Death's Spiral both before and after the Shroud portion of your rotation to get Life Force back quickly and easily.

Does you group have no significant might stacking? Then for a minor dps loss you can swap out Soul Reaping for Spite to ensure you always have enough might (though this decision is less relevant for Scourge as it gets additional Might from using Oppressive Collapse.

So not only can it do good damage, the builds can adapt themselves in a pugging environment if certain key roles are missing from a group composition to ensure health gain or might generation are not lacking for yourself (while it is a selfish outlook, doing so means that you can become a one-man carrying machine in any given scenario).

In addition to the Condi builds, Power Reaper also functions well inf fractals. While not my personal specialty, it provides exceedingly large amounts of vulnerability, and has surprisingly high burst damage on a build that ahs to run very little precision due to decimate Defences, which in turn means you can run far more in the way of vitality in the form of Valkyrie gear (should you get a sufficient amount of crit chance from fractal pots/fury/allied unique buffs).

In terms of tools to be used to mitigate mechanics in fractals, Necro brings Strong CC, Projectile destruction with Corrosive Poison Cloud, Projectile Body blocking for enemies like Horrik and Old Tom with Summon Flesh Wurm, can perform solo panel segments by combing interact-dodging and its various condi cleanses, can solo all four rooms of the Thaumanova fractal (most notably being the southern maze room with clever usage of Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm's Teleport, all on top of being able to alternate pulling mobs with your Mesmer by either using Grasping Darkness or Spectral grasp. Necro can most certainly bring a lot to a team despite it not having optimal level dps, as it can do a bit of everything to an effective standard; and that's very much the name of the game for Necro: Jack of all trades, and master of none, seeing as it can function suitably as a tank, healer and both power and condi dps provided you know what you're doing.

If you want more elaborate examples of what Necro can do you can check the guides on the sites that you yourself linked (with Condi Scourge for raids and Condi Reaper for fractals), spoiler alert I wrote them. And if that in turn is not enough I have a plethora of video footage of myself playing Necro in raids/fractals that I can draw upon due to some of my game time being recorded on the stream of a good friend of mine, in addition to combat logs that I have accumulated as well.

A build does not have to be the best to be good.

Who the fuck plays parasitic contaignon?

Full dmg op. I had a fraktal group yesterday with two of my raidguild members. One of them played heal/buff chrono, the other one and me played scourge full dpsThen we had two randoms, one scourge, that was awfully bad and didnt do much dmg and one that switched between weaver and berserker.

But double full dps scourge can easily carry fractals. Add a chrono for all the buffs.

Dont play reaper. Its way too selfish and doesnt do better dps.

@Nimon.7840 said:Who the kitten plays parasitic contaignon?

Full dmg op. I had a fraktal group yesterday with two of my raidguild members. One of them played heal/buff chrono, the other one and me played scourge full dpsThen we had two randoms, one scourge, that was awfully bad and didnt do much dmg and one that switched between weaver and berserker.

But double full dps scourge can easily carry fractals. Add a chrono for all the buffs.

Dont play reaper. Its way too selfish and doesnt do better dps.

I do. As for an evaluation of it not doing better dps, as stated I can submit logs presenting my performance in fractals.

As for Condi Reaper specifically, don't forget that Parasitic is a 10% dps loss only. If an accomplished Reaper can get sustained dps of 20k then that means you would only have reached 22k dps normally. To essentially take that 2k dps and directly transform it into healing in this case is more than worth it, especially seeing as if one is pugging fractals you don't always know what your party composition is going to be, nor the efficacy of the players involved.

Furthermore, one might play Reaper in fractals over Scourge due to the fact it provides superior CC, and additionally has a faster burst than Scourge. On the flip side if team survivability is an issue or you're dealing with a fractal with many mobs than Scourge would pull ahead due to wielding superior cleave damage.

When it comes to fractals, especially if one is pugging, the name of the game is not neccesarily to be as optimal as possible, but to fit your build to the situation in the best way that you can; and Necro performs remarkably at this. Need more CC? Take Reaper. Need more cleave? Take Condi Scourge. Need higher burst? Take Power Reaper if completely single target or Condi Reaper if there are still adds to epi to involved. No healer? Either run Parasitic Contagion so you can carry the group through or swap to Healer Scourge to take on the healer role yourself (assuming a healer is needed at all). Necro can be very versatle in the hands of a player that knows everything that it can do.

I've played the Parasitic Contagion Reaper as well (far) back in the day, when fractals was still very new to me, before that, I even had Healing Power on my gear. I get, that if you still learning fractals or the game even, Necro can be well handy to start with. But even in that you get outshined by a Warrior, it has whole traitlines making it impossible for him to die, pretty much. Also an Ele specced in Water / Earth and knowing when to switch attunements is far more tankier than the Necro can ever be. And let's just not talk about the Guardian.But in the end, all that doesn't matter. There is only so many hours/days that you need builds like that to get familiar with the game (fractals), really (atm you dont even need that anymore in Fractals, the most easiest way, is just doing T1 / T2, but hey, we want the rewards, right). And then you get into a phase that you just know when MAMA does its spin attack, or know when Ensolyss does its Upswing one, etc. etc. You can then start to think a step further and think about what's best for your team, instead of only thinking about yourself and about how you survive. And mainly, that means maximizing your DPS or at least the teams DPS. Save for the example where some healing is just mandatory, so you need a Druid to cover that (while also buffing a large portion of the team's DPS). And well, to put it simple, the Necro has a cap at that, be it Reaper, be it Scourge! The lowest cap in the whole playing field (save from that one skill that we have that can pretty much be exploited in some very niche occasions (some raids) to hit like an absolute truck). And if it was only a few % difference between the highest and the lowest, everyone would be more than fine with it. But if you really look at statistics, again, not just anecdotal stories about this one time I was really good on my Reaper, etc. You see huge differences between for instance what a Weaver can bring compared to a Reaper or Scourge. And in some cases like Keep Construct, it can even go up to a whopping 50% difference (if not more)!Don't get me wrong, I'm the first that wished it was different, but the first thing that we as Necro mains should all do, is pull that head out of the sand and stop pretending we're in such a good spot right now. We need (huge) buffs or maybe even a full redesign to get us at a respectable (read: (near) optimal) level (in the PvE endgame).Now only for ANet to recognize this as well ....

@Amerikajinn.4635 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:Who the kitten plays parasitic contaignon?

Full dmg op. I had a fraktal group yesterday with two of my raidguild members. One of them played heal/buff chrono, the other one and me played scourge full dpsThen we had two randoms, one scourge, that was awfully bad and didnt do much dmg and one that switched between weaver and berserker.

But double full dps scourge can easily carry fractals. Add a chrono for all the buffs.

Dont play reaper. Its way too selfish and doesnt do better dps.

Ok sure. But if you are a good player, you rlly dont need that heal.

Lets take my arah run from yesterday. We just bursted all the bosses in a pretty short time. Not having to care for any mechanics. So we couldnt die because of them.Thats also an sustain option ;)

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@"Alehin.3746" said:Nope, this is not true. Me and some of my guildies play scourge. in fractals because they are tanky and have massive condition damage. Greatsword axe/warhorn

power reaper

is strong too, i see them sometimes and they always bring nice damage and are also very tanky. Don't listen to reddit/forum players that say it's bad and don't explain why, they probably have no idea what they are talking about. lol

It's funny how you linked Subli's imgur album, they just prove my point. Necros are playable and they often pull more numbers than weavers because of the easy rotation and 19k hp+shroud. I never said necro was meta nor the most tanky class in the game, i just said it's easy and effective enough to join my party/squad (if they are geared properly).

all this benchmark statistics talk

I don't care about benchmarks tbh, usually i let people play stuff that is offmeta and if they do poor i just ask them to change or leave. I have a friend that plays condi engie, which is ~30k benchmark and have a "harder" rotation, and is always at the similar or better dps as everyone else. Doing mechanics properly and having decent dps is what matters to me.

Now tell me, why would i call bad a power reaper, a power ranger or a p/p thief doing 11k when theres weavers or holos in the party doing 12k on the same boss? That doesn't make sense.

@Alehin.3746 said:Now tell me, why would i call bad a power reaper, a power ranger or a p/p thief doing 11k when theres weavers or holos in the party doing 12k on the same boss? That doesn't make sense.

It doesn't, and you shouldn't. But the fact is (which that album of Subli shows) that it happens. And it NEVER happens to a Weaver (at least not beforehand). Cause we all know, that a good Weaver is able to push out numbers that a Reaper is just simply not able to (and like I showed with real statistics/numbers, sometimes even a far cry of). Physically not! Technically not! NOT POSSIBLE! And that's something that only ANet is able to change!

@Alehin.3746 said:It's funny how you linked Subli's imgur album, they just prove my point. Necros are playable and they often pull more numbers than weavers because of the easy rotation and 19k hp+shroud. I never said necro was meta nor the most tanky class in the game, i just said it's easy and effective enough to join my party/squad (if they are geared properly).

Exactly my point.

all of this over a dps meter that anet should have never allowed to be used with the game in the first place.Its suppose to help people not create conflict the things should just be ego meters because thats what the amount to.

It's been bad since the release of this game. Was the worst class in dungeons, then in fractals and now in raids too!And every time we get a useful build, it gets nerfed into the ground.