I feel for you Necro players

Not tongue in cheek.

Necro is probably my least played class out of the 9 with me dabbling in Scourge and Reaper for a bit when the expansions dropped. I was always turned off by the lack of damage mitigation in the form of blocks, invuln blah blah blah..you've heard it all before. However, with the most recent buffs, I decided to give power Reaper a go in WvW just to see what the state of the spec was. After playing for a week or so all I can say is...I'm sorry. I don't know how anyone stays alive for more than 5-7 seconds in a skirmish or 1v1. Shroud dwindles faster than my attention span during an economics lecture. I'm sure my inexperience is playing a role, but as a vet of the game with proficiency in the general mechanics, I can safely say that whatever buffs Power Reaper received just isn't cutting it.

The Necromancer seems to play more like a 'single-player game' class than anything else; less an MMO class and more a stylized character. Bare in mind, while I believe that the Necro. class can bring great combat diversity to a player's character build scheme, there seems to be a few mechanics that support 'bad' or incorrect play style behavior. And it's this concept that may not be translating well into certain game modes and end-game content in particular(i.e. Raids) -- I would like to state that, for a time, the Necromancer class did well enough in PvP/WvW. Still, it's enjoyable enough for me to use as my main and the content I choose not to interact with as a Necro., I can play as another class. But who knows, maybe in the next Guild Wars IP, ArenaNet can research this 'Holy Trinity' thing that other MMOs have and finally get a handle on the whole 'class imbalance' debacle.

At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh shit" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

Good call mate. Yeah the buffs aren't everything the rest of the community think. Just switch to your reaper when you want to completely dominate open world....

try core nec

@"Asum.4960" said:At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh kitten" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

Lets hope reaper doesn't get nerfed.Already saw a thread of someone QQing about reaper with quickness and doing lots of damage.

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh kitten" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

i'm truly chilled to the bone but they will nerf reaper and nothing can save you, but maybe ,one day, we no longer need to suffer and we'll rise again in a more sustainable way

@derd.6413 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh kitten" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

Why nerf us when reaper duration is short and we can't even hit enemies? How come a stupid deadeye can 1 shot you and mesmer can illusion evade 1 shot but a necro who has a billion couunters isnt't allowed? Its about time us necromancers have our time in the sun, i'm tired of being at the bottom.How about this:how about we make it so every mesmers attack has a 90% chance to miss and they have to sacrifice all their survivability to do that dmg?¨

Also reaper is already below every other class still in pve for the most part, except maybe on par with support class yet we got no support to offer.

Reaper needs the 7 second shroud cooldown back to be truly competitive in WvW solo roaming IMO.7 Second shroud was the most fun I had with Reaper.Shroud flashing just felt so right.Things aren't the same now.

Other than that, in small scale and large group fights, it is still pretty okay with decent support.Also, instead of going full damage, you can gear tanky and rely on your traits to give you your damage boost.For example, I would suggest gearing with Wanderer stats for small scale.Play a bruiser build instead of a pure damage build.

I cobbled a quick build below.I would say you could easily push 3K power and 50-80% crit-chance with it.And with very decent LF and Health regen from Blighters boon.And sufficiently tanky with 2.8K armor and 34K HP.And it packs a ton of boon corruption which every Necro should bring to his party IMO.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndRnc0A12g90Am3A0bilcBLuK2F/iUlh1QzCKA0AKAA-jVBAhAD6DGV+Np+Dw+D0KBBA-w

Pic here to show the stats you can generate with the above build.Very fast and solid might stacks.I gave the build a quick spin and I think it is better to use Speed of Shadows and Soul Eater instead.More movement speed to keep up with your team while roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndRnc0A12g90Am3A0bilcBjaLsGaWxVxs4XEKA0AKAA-jVBAhA0KBB2fYS9nB9BjK/AA-w

@"Wisdom.4712" said:Not tongue in cheek.

Necro is probably my least played class out of the 9 with me dabbling in Scourge and Reaper for a bit when the expansions dropped. I was always turned off by the lack of damage mitigation in the form of blocks, invuln blah blah blah..you've heard it all before. However, with the most recent buffs, I decided to give power Reaper a go in WvW just to see what the state of the spec was. After playing for a week or so all I can say is...I'm sorry. I don't know how anyone stays alive for more than 5-7 seconds in a skirmish or 1v1. Shroud dwindles faster than my attention span during an economics lecture. I'm sure my inexperience is playing a role, but as a vet of the game with proficiency in the general mechanics, I can safely say that whatever buffs Power Reaper received just isn't cutting it.

Its the lack of experience. Even more so when it comes to pvp. Necro has it easier than alot of profession in pve but in pvp necro has no good form of damage denial, invuln, or disengage. In short this means your mistakes get punished very hard.

Out of position means you die.Popping your break stuns at the wrong moment usually means you die (because no stability)not being aware of when your team or allies are going to commit will lead you being focused down

You only get 2 dodge rolls in most encounters so you have to make the most of them. With no easy form of gaining vigor outside of converting it from bleeding this means you wont have the 3-4 dodges some times more per fight encounter that other professions have unless you can stall it out. Even then just consider it like this for ever single dodge you have every other profession has 2.

That said i think reaper is in a "ok " spot for now yes more things need to be changed but thats mostly involving chase potential and the shouts

Any other problems you experience with reaper generally stem from core necromancer which really needs the bones thrown at it more than anything they started that with the recent patch we can only hope its continued.

@"EremiteAngel.9765" said:Pic here to show the stats you can generate with the above build.Very fast and solid might stacks.I gave the build a quick spin and I think it is better to use Speed of Shadows and Soul Eater instead.More movement speed to keep up with your team while roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndRnc0A12g90Am3A0bilcBjaLsGaWxVxs4XEKA0AKAA-jVBAhA0KBB2fYS9nB9BjK/AA-w

Death perception is a pretty big waste of stats here imho. You're looking at a 30% crit chance base with no real crit damage. Even when you crit, it'll only be like a 10% increase in damage. I think FitG is better for group play and Dhuumfire even a better source of damage, especially since it'll ignore toughness/armor/protection gains on your opponents.

But what do I know, I've stopped playing reaper now so maybe I'm off the mark.

Having played core necro until PoF (never liked reaper) and scourge now, I will tell you that when I step on another class I feel pretty immortal. Except ele, I'll never understand how people play ele (necro counters them pretty hard in wvw anyway).

@derd.6413 said:i'm truly chilled to the bone but they will nerf reaper and nothing can save you, but maybe ,one day, we no longer need to suffer and we'll rise again in a more sustainable way

But, alas, until then, You Are All Weaklings.

@igmolicious.5986 said:

@derd.6413 said:i'm truly chilled to the bone but they will nerf reaper and nothing can save you, but maybe ,one day, we no longer need to suffer and we'll rise again in a more sustainable way

And we Suffer, but hold on to the hope that we will one day Rise.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"EremiteAngel.9765" said:Pic here to show the stats you can generate with the above build.Very fast and solid might stacks.I gave the build a quick spin and I think it is better to use Speed of Shadows and Soul Eater instead.More movement speed to keep up with your team while roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndRnc0A12g90Am3A0bilcBjaLsGaWxVxs4XEKA0AKAA-jVBAhA0KBB2fYS9nB9BjK/AA-w

Hey thanks for the input and you may have a good point! I never really counted the difference in damage so perhaps as you said, fitg may just be a better option.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"EremiteAngel.9765" said:Pic here to show the stats you can generate with the above build.Very fast and solid might stacks.I gave the build a quick spin and I think it is better to use Speed of Shadows and Soul Eater instead.More movement speed to keep up with your team while roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndRnc0A12g90Am3A0bilcBjaLsGaWxVxs4XEKA0AKAA-jVBAhA0KBB2fYS9nB9BjK/AA-w

Since Death Perception got changed from 50% Crit Chance to 30% Crit Chance and 300 Ferocity in Shroud, I would take that over Dhuumfire and especially FitG on a Power Reaper.I would also consider Reaper's Onslaught almost essential for another 300 Ferocity and the perma quickness in Shroud, unless you are going for a high sustain build with Blighter's Boon.Right now, I would say your best bet as Reaper is to burst people rather than outsustain them, especially considering every other build you will encounter can either outsustain a Reaper, or escape and reset/range you down.

Something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBhOD3kZTo2GgeTsgLYxXxvYZE6qFAOAUdh2wzC-jVBXABLrMCAlO1oEsH1fCR3AA-w

Quickly thrown together.Suffer, You Are All Weaklings, Spectral Grasp, Corrosive Poison Cloud, Rise and Flesh Wurm are all valid choices to fill the utilities depending on what you encounter.

All that said, WvW roaming is kind of a joke in the current games state, especially with ranged specs like Soulbeast and Deadeye running around everywhere, capable of unblockable bursts killing pretty much everything else and each other from 1500 range in 2-5 seconds.While Deadeyes at least fall over dead when you somehow get close and tap them on the shoulder, Slb's are also extremely capable in melee.Not that Mirages and co. are much better.

@Asum.4960 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"EremiteAngel.9765" said:Pic here to show the stats you can generate with the above build.Very fast and solid might stacks.I gave the build a quick spin and I think it is better to use Speed of Shadows and Soul Eater instead.More movement speed to keep up with your team while roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndRnc0A12g90Am3A0bilcBjaLsGaWxVxs4XEKA0AKAA-jVBAhA0KBB2fYS9nB9BjK/AA-w

My quote was not referencing reaper as a whole but the specific build/gear setup linked. It has no precision in it, and isn't running high base power to make the low crit chance worth investing ferocity in.

Even if we're generous with a 2.5k AA average in shroud non-crit with the posted build, a 33% crit chance and 70% crit damage yields around a total damage increase of 23% during shroud or about 500 damage - mind you, this can fluctuate down based on variable coefficients of RSAA with RNG of what's actually critting, and I'm pushing what basically amounts to idealistic numbers here as well.

Dhuumfire is basically a 16% gain - a bonus of 400 damage which is only 100 less than DP - but more consistent and still ignores things like Endure Pain, Defy Pain, Signet of Stone, Instant Reflexes, and the Weakness condition; it improves upon hard matchups into warrior/soulbeast/scourge and reduces RNG dependence or Fury from allies to make DP worthwhile, while also offering cover conditions in small group play. And again, the 23% figure from DP is being generous regarding toughness; a higher-toughness enemy with protection and the likes which is what is most common in small-scale will be taking reduced critical damage while Dhuumfire remains consistent regardless of foe.

FitG is just an improvement on the sustain, which the build seems somewhat based around; it procs BB, scales off of the boon duration in the build, and helps into matchups like Holosmith and Mirage which are pretty prominent roaming builds due to their CC potential.

I'll be blunt; I was a pretty prominent Reaper player and stopped playing it this patch because my build is no longer functional due to the DP change; the result was a loss of almost 30% of its damage - even including the quickness gains to RO - and 10% of its max health/life force and it's now hard-countered by scourge and can't fight in blobs like it used to. The only people who got buffed this patch were players in PvE and anyone taking the simplistic and unoptimized marauder setup. Reaper's now basically a OTP on-point duelist into players who don't know how to beat it, and it's gotten increasingly less flexible since the changes to SoS, VP, and RShroud degen. I also don't have the 200+gold to respec because I've had to respec all of my other builds lately from those also getting nerfed in the core specializations to prop up their respective PoF elites.

Reaper used to be extremely good in WvW because of its versatility, but sadly what's happening is that all of the complaints from lower-skilled necromancers are becoming self-fulfilling because the spec is getting increasingly one-dimensional with fewer ways to actually build/trait to cover its weaknesses or play in ways to circumvent them.

Well, I agree, which is why I said unless going for that "high" sustain Blighters Boon Reaper, which imo is worse, especially for WvW, where Reaper never was particularly good since PoF and Scourge taking over the Zerg spot.If anybody let's you wail on them in WvW for you to sustain with Blighter's Boon and apply Dhuumfire, those are the same players you could kill in 3 seconds with the Reaper's Onslaught + Death Perception version. Those that don't, your only hope is to get close once and Soul Spiral with that build as well to burst them.Having spent most of my time in T1 EU, Reaper was never a proper choice to roam. Not that I didn't do it anyway too because it's fun, and there are always other people in bad roaming builds that are worse players that you can kill.

With Bitter Chill and Decimate defenses, Crit chance isn't that much of an issue, as long as you have a reasonable base, I prefer the 100% Crit Chance over comparatively lacklustre sustain and Dhuumfire on Shroud AA's, which you won't get to do much to at all against somewhat skilled players.

For sPvP, where people are to an extend forced to be around you on points, there is definitely a strong case for Blighter's Boon still, and I've made it to Plat playing both builds, last and this season.Personally I find Reaper's Onlaught (but still using Blood Magic) to be the most fun currently, especially with how burst or die heavy sPvP currently is.

It might very well be that if you do Group Roaming especially in lower Tiers, the sustain Reaper is amazing, I don't know.The SoS CD removal still hurts every build to an extend Anet has never, and probably will never realise though.

On a last note, if protection still is an issue to an extend of justifying Dhuumfire, with Spiteful Spirit, Chill of Death, Unholy Feast and Nightfall, then I really don't know.

hmmm, is running blood magic more for group support or can you utilize some traits for personal sustainability?

It's mostly for quick resses with Ritual of Life + the self heal it provides while doing so, although Protection on Wells helps too.

@"Asum.4960" said:At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh kitten" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

i know but when i asked for a projectiles hate for Nightfall almost all say no so i think most necro player is happy about the reaper farmed by ranged or that how i feel at least

@DragonFury.6243 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh kitten" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

Hold on ... just because people didn't like your idea doesn't mean people are happy with necro performance (though in all honesty, necros don't do poorly). It just wasn't a good idea, for many reasons.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@DragonFury.6243 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:At least Reaper has the damage now (in PvP Modes) to compensate somewhat for it's squishiness, but especially in the open nature of WvW and with Pewpew Souldbeast, Deadeye and.. well anything else that runs around with a ranged weapon, you are just a free kill as Necro for anyone who isn't completely incompetent with it, and it will probably always stay that way.No matter how fun Necromancer is, whenever you meet one of those specs, and they are plenty, it's incredibly frustrating to just be killed in 3-5 seconds from 1200-1500 range, with not a single "oh kitten" skill to press on the entire class that could do anything to save you or even win the fight.If they are not stupid enough to engage you in melee for some reason, you can't win.That said, Reaper is really fun now if they decide to do exactly that, even though that still relies entirely on just bursting the opponent down which generally only works because people are clueless about how to avoid key Necromancer skills, be it Soul Spiral, or Desert Shroud before that.

Most tragically, while being probably the squishiest class in all PvP modes, and drastically lacking in group support and utility, Necromancers DPS is also still too low to really be competitive in endgame PvE.But Necromancer is really strong running around in the open world, killing groups trash mobs...! Sooo, I guess that's something?

Seems like a rather small niche for an entire Profession to me personally, but then again, I'm not a professional game designer.

so how you can give projectiles hate and be a good idea in you opinionPS give it to wells will be more broken as they are cast from a 900 radius

No answer I can give you will change the ideas from that thread that demonstrate that breaking Nightfall to give projectile hate is a bad idea.

Though to be fair (in case you missed it) ... @Axl.8924 did point out in that same thread that RS ALREADY HAS this functionality.

@Axl.8924 said:You already have a ability in reaper to destroy projectiles:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death%27s_Charge

I think there is some lesson here for you to learn your class and what it's capable of before complaining about Necro PVP performance and ripping on everyone that disagrees with your ideas about it.