Reaper re-work suggestion

After playing a few hours of SPvP and PvE i feel that the reaper elite specailisation is super underwhelming compared with other Elites. To not just rant i identified my 3 biggest issues and how they can be corrected:

First issue: necro/Reaper is too slow and clunky compared with all the other Elites that seem to have perma dodge, evade, teleport, etc.

Solution: Make the fury and quickness gain from Reapers Onslught baseline by modifying the Shroud knight trait as such: Death shroud is replaced with reaper's shroud, which has more melee-oriented skills. Gain ferocity while in a reaper's shroud. Gain pulsating quickness while in a reaper's shroud.

Second issue: not enough defensives or mobility to make up for it.

Solution: due to the above changes, reaper's onslaught can be replaced with a new trait called for example, Reaper's Protection: While wielding a greatsword gain 33% chance to block an incoming attack (1 sec ICD). After blocking an attack gain Retaliation for 2 sec (No ICD).

Third issue: the life drain of 5% while in reapers shroud is to high.

Solution: modify Infusing Terror skill as such: Shroud yourself with dark armor that grants stability and reduces incoming damage. While armour is active gain 8% life force when taking damage - no ICD (similar to spectral armour, but the LF gain de-activates if you shatter the armour, or it expires). You may shatter this armor to fear foes around you.

This will increase defenses as it will allow you to stay a little longer in shroud when under heavy attack but still not abuse the shroud by perma camping in it.

Of cause comments and other suggestuons are welcome!

• First suggestion is OP: Perma quickness and ferocity baseline would allow to build tanky while still keeping the damage. No trade off is bad design and OP.
• Second suggestion is not in line with the necromancer design philosophy. Block isn't something that the necromancer is designed to do, retal isn't fun to play against.
• Third suggestion is OP. We already know based on experience what LF gain while in shroud whithout ICD can achieve and that's not a good design.

First issue: Mainly need to be resolved by some soft QoL change not by OP baseline damage buff.

• Halve dark pact cast time.
• Speed up dagger auto chain by reducing some aftercast.
• Reduce flesh wurm summoning cast time from 1.5 second to 1 second.

Second issue: The reality is that it is mainly a stability issue.

• Change lich form from a transform skill on a long CD (150s) to a single effect skill (grim specter) on a lower CD (90s) and add to it stability every second.

Third issue: this is not really an issue.

However, if they could grant me a random crazy wish, I'd love for chilling nova to be change to a trait that allow reaper's combo in dark fields to be imbued with chilling energy. Adding chill to the projectile generated by combos and giving frost armor if you leap in dark fields. It would be a lot more interesting than the boring chilling explosion every 8 seconds.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• First suggestion is OP: Perma quickness and ferocity baseline would allow to build tanky while still keeping the damage. No trade off is bad design and OP.I agree this is not a good idea say remove the quickness from RO trait and cut the base cast times on reaper shroud down by maybe 25%-33% Faster but not quite quickness speeds. RO now deals and additional strike when when you land critical attacks every 0.5 seconds / keep the ferocity bonus

• Second suggestion is not in line with the necromancer design philosophy. Block isn't something that the necromancer is designed to do, retal isn't fun to play against.Just give us some endurance regeneration in some way and we wont even need blocks. A little endurance goes a long way and every other profession has this in some form or another. For reaper i suggest deathly chill keep its chill on bleed mechanic and gains, striking a chilled foe grants 2 endurance no icd. (or add this mechanic to chilling victory for 5 endurance per hit but retain the icd. )

First issue: Mainly need to be resolved by some soft QoL change not by OP baseline damage buff.

• Halve dark pact cast time.yes
• Speed up dagger auto chain by reducing some aftercast.yes

Also Remove the 10% healing bonus form vital and put it on the dagger trait in blood magic, (healing traits have no business in soul reaping) allow this to be the function that is there all the time remove the move speed bonus and place it into one of the many other pointless traits we now have.

• Reduce flesh wurm summoning cast time from 1.5 second to 1 second.Make Wurm work like shadow step (no cast time to break a stun ) leaving a wurm in your place Its always going to be stupid imo to make wurm be a telegraphed jump away unless they allow it to break all path rules like mesmers portal did. (it currently does not)

Second issue: The reality is that it is mainly a stability issue.

• Change lich form from a transform skill on a long CD (150s) to a single effect skill (grim specter) on a lower CD (90s) and add to it stability every second.

At this point i would be fine with that but make the skill slightly stronger as well (pulse faster, or daze foes who brake the link)

However, if they could grant me a random crazy wish, I'd love for chilling nova to be change to a trait that allow reaper's combo in dark fields to be imbued with chilling energy. Adding chill to the projectile generated by combos and giving frost armor if you leap in dark fields. It would be a lot more interesting than the boring chilling explosion every 8 seconds.This would be really neat.

My wish would be adding fuctionality to the traits they just made lazily over passive Gluttony, Soul battery, Soul comp. The ones that litterally serve no purpose other than slightly more LF that is usually not noticeable at all. These need to do something more!! Dx

Lastly rework focus skill 4 to just be purely offensive remove its supportive bounce mechanic and allow it to strike one enemy and foes near by for reduced damage over time. Applies vuln generates some life force. Pretty much turns target into a moderate damaging small aoe for a short time. IF initial hit its dodged/blocked then the skill fails. So ideally its a re skin of guardian focus 4 with slight aoe potential a bit weaker in raw damage but provides the necro with some life force utility as well as vuln application.

I personally agree with dadnir quickness is pretty strong and would be fairly op if we had constant source of it non stop.

@"ZDragon.3046"

• Shroud CD should be affected by the trait that reduce shroud skills CD, honnestly, it work for sand shroud, there is no reason that it doesn't for DS and RS.
• No to additionnal strike when you crit with RO. Seriously, no more procs, the necromancer already have to much of those.
• The necromancer isn't exactly "endurance friendly", I doubt that ANet will change it's stance on this point.
• VP... Ah VP... In fact the idea behind VP bonus is nice but, how do I say, it's probably inappropriate. Honnestly there is a lot of potential in this effect that they added and it promote group play but it might have been better if the bonus had been "selfish" and only increased healing effects that pass throught the shroud by 50% (this would have given more impact to vampirics effect and unholy sanctuary. I do not exclude the possibility of this breaking minion's siphons throught the minior vampiric)
• I don't like the idea of making flesh wurm instant, it goes against the concept of summoning it and switch this skill more toward movement.
• Glad you like the idea on the dark fields (this could be generalized to each e-spec, with scourge making fire combo in dark fields, and maybe the next e-spec making poison combo)
• Passive traits: PvP players don't like traits that "proc" they feel that somehow they are cheated by them. Honnestly the whole patch was "proc" hate.
• Focus#4: While I wouldn't be against it getting the same treatment than guardian's, I wouldn't be against becoming a more defensive skill either. It could be changed to something called "reaper's mien" granting a frost aura that could be detonated into a frost nova that reap life force to up to 5 foes around you (with a blast finisher of course).

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• First suggestion is OP: Perma quickness and ferocity baseline would allow to build tanky while still keeping the damage. No trade off is bad design and OP.

I dont agree that Perma quickness in shroud will not be that OP. In fact we need it just to keep up with just about every other class, we would be more competitive but not OP.

• Second suggestion is not in line with the necromancer design philosophy. Block isn't something that the necromancer is designed to do, retal isn't fun to play against.

I think it is in line with a melee orientated spec. If you going toe-to-toe with your foes you should be able to at least Perry (block) an attack with your sword.

• Third suggestion is OP. We already know based on experience what LF gain while in shroud whithout ICD can achieve and that's not a good design.

The duration of infused terror is not long enough to make it OP and gives an option of trading the LF for a fear

First issue: Mainly need to be resolved by some soft QoL change not by OP baseline damage buff.

• Halve dark pact cast time.
• Speed up dagger auto chain by reducing some aftercast.
• Reduce flesh wurm summoning cast time from 1.5 second to 1 second.

Second issue: The reality is that it is mainly a stability issue.

• Change lich form from a transform skill on a long CD (150s) to a single effect skill (grim specter) on a lower CD (90s) and add to it stability every second.

Third issue: this is not really an issue.

However, if they could grant me a random crazy wish, I'd love for chilling nova to be change to a trait that allow reaper's combo in dark fields to be imbued with chilling energy. Adding chill to the projectile generated by combos and giving frost armor if you leap in dark fields. It would be a lot more interesting than the boring chilling explosion every 8 seconds.

I really do like your random crazy wish, it's a novel idea!

@Dadnir.5038 said:@"ZDragon.3046"

• Shroud CD should be affected by the trait that reduce shroud skills CD, honnestly, it work for sand shroud, there is no reason that it doesn't for DS and RS.

Technically speaking desert shroud is not the same as Death or Reaper shroud both of which are spectral forms where as desert shroud is not. Im not even sure why the skill is called desert shroud Scourge technically does not have a shroud which is why it does effect the skill. Spectral mastery should have affected Death and Reaper shroud as they were spectral forms but now that that trait is gone i dont even know. I do agree that something should reduce cd entry on death and reaper shroud but it might be better if they just do a base line change for that rather than locking it behind a trait and thats only because of scourge. That this becomes a conflict, keep in mind this would only shave 1.5 seconds off the entry time if you use the current trait for the same purpose

• No to additionnal strike when you crit with RO. Seriously, no more procs, the necromancer already have to much of those.My only other suggestion would the modification of a skill within the shroud itself when you take this trait just like with how Lingering Curse works for the scepter.

Reaper's OnslaughtGain ferocity while in a reaper's shroud. Hitting with Life Reap reduces the recharge of all shroud skills and Death's Charge becomes Despoiled Hunt.Despoiled Hunt - Shadowstep to your foe and deliver a devastating slash that blinds. This skills recharge is moderately reduced and also inflicts chill if you hit your foe from behind or the side.

• The necromancer isn't exactly "endurance friendly", I doubt that ANet will change it's stance on this point.Which is a problem in itself which is why it needs to change. Necro is starting to get faster when we thought it would never be i dont see why stances on other factors cant change also. In pvp it can be a nightmare to not change stances on 1 class when all other classes continue to evolve over time.

• VP... Ah VP... In fact the idea behind VP bonus is nice but, how do I say, it's probably inappropriate. Honnestly there is a lot of potential in this effect that they added and it promote group play but it might have been better if the bonus had been "selfish" and only increased healing effects that pass throught the shroud by 50% (this would have given more impact to vampirics effect and unholy sanctuary. I do not exclude the possibility of this breaking minion's siphons throught the minior vampiric)

Even with that idea i don't think it belongs in soul reaping its very odd to me.

• I don't like the idea of making flesh wurm instant, it goes against the concept of summoning it and switch this skill more toward movement.You are wrong and right at the same time here.Part of the skill is movement and you cant ignore that. Its both parts summoning and movement regardless i think it would just be better generally if the movement took priority over the summoning. The skill would have so much more purpose and use if that was the case. Core necromancer really need the mobility remember this is a core skill not a reaper skill or a scourge skill. This is one of the few things that can improve core without overly improving reaper or scourge. There is a massive benefit in skills like Blink and Shadow Step simply because they dont tell a foe where you are going to move to when used.

To be frank the skill should work like thisSummon flesh wurm (Instant cast/breaks stun)Teleport to a target location and Summoning an immobile flesh wurm to attack foes at your previous location.If the wurm is killed it explodes dealing damage to nearby foes.Necrotic Traversal (also instant but will not break your stun just as spectral recall does not break your stun)Sacrifice your flesh wurm, teleport to it, and poison foes.

Literally shadow step with a twist while still allowing you to maintain the summoning functionality without directly giving away your break stun or leaving the risk of it getting killed preventing you from using it. Or having a break stun that requires you to wait for a 1 or 1.5 second cast when you suddenly need to get away in a pinch in the case of an extended fight. Or having a path problem when you wonder into an odd spot or simply move too far away from the wurm.

• Glad you like the idea on the dark fields (this could be generalized to each e-spec, with scourge making fire combo in dark fields, and maybe the next e-spec making poison combo)I dont know about doing it with each spec though
• Passive traits: PvP players don't like traits that "proc" they feel that somehow they are cheated by them. Honestly the whole patch was "proc" hate.In a game where all other professions have the option to easily avoid being hit or avoid damage and control effects via blinds resistance and stability i feel cheated when we get lazy traits like 5% more life force pool increase or a 10% gain from life force sources which really translates to less than 1% on a lot of the things that would actually give you life force. Because the gains are so small you dont feel them when you do or dont take them. Mean while you have others professions running around with minors that do what our optional traits do while they have stronger options to choose between.

Against procs like lesser spinal shivers i can understand. But then again we have a few other professions now that have skills that activate additional strike effects on every attack. You already shot down blocks, shunned evades, and even disliked the idea of more mobility so my question is this."What can we have or look forward to improve things aside from QoL dagger fixes and other small stuff similarly that should have been made 2 or 3 years back?"

• Focus#4: While I wouldn't be against it getting the same treatment than guardian's, I wouldn't be against becoming a more defensive skill either. It could be changed to something called "reaper's mien" granting a frost aura that could be detonated into a frost nova that reap life force to up to 5 foes around you (with a blast finisher of course).I would rather keep it as an offensive skill for 2 reasons.Its trait is in the spite line along with axe. Like axe skills it should not be projectile based (the weapons ideally are made to be paired together. )It should apply vuln to pair with how axe interacts with vuln.

Anet logic:

Anet: you want necro buffs?Players: yeah! Much needed!Anet: but you got second health bar!Players: doesn't matter. with nowadays powercreep and mobilitycreep.Anet: ok, it's decided: we nerf necro! While making it look like buffs!Players: yay! ... Wait what?... Facepalm

It's pretty dumb logic. They nerfed all procs and also made necro much easier to read, if the necro plays soul barbs trait.The trait will show your opponent, when shroud is useable again!You now don't even have to count anymore, when necro will have it's shroud back up again, after using it once. The game just shows you.

This seems to be pretty salty, but it shall just show, that I really don't understand this patch. I would if they announced a necro rework, but they didn't

I don't understand how reaper is an elite orientated on melee. In combat we walk at literally half speed while other classes hop skip and jump circles around us like we standing still.

A second life bar that drains 5% per second does not help any more with the power creep. Reaper or death magic needs to be buffed to make us more tanky if we expected to be melee orientated in SPvP.

Therefore I still stand by the suggestions I made. Baseline quickness and fury. Slight LF gain in shroud and a block trait added.

@James.1065 said:I don't understand how reaper is an elite orientated on melee. In combat we walk at literally half speed while other classes hop skip and jump circles around us like we standing still.

A second life bar that drains 5% per second does not help any more with the power creep. Reaper or death magic needs to be buffed to make us more tanky if we expected to be melee orientated in SPvP.

Therefore I still stand by the suggestions I made. Baseline quickness and fury. Slight LF gain in shroud and a block trait added.

Its because we sacrificed our sustain for dmg, and we took more sustain as a tradeoff.

Reaper needs power in fractals/Raids but it cannot have power dmg if it has a shroud that takes forever to drain and tons of survivability, because that would make them too op.

You cannot have tons and tons of dmg and a shroud that doesn't end, because then you would be too strong in spvp and WVW

Its because we sacrificed our sustain for dmg, and we took more sustain as a tradeoff.

Reaper needs power in fractals/Raids but it cannot have power dmg if it has a shroud that takes forever to drain and tons of survivability, because that would make them too op.

You cannot have tons and tons of dmg and a shroud that doesn't end, because then you would be too strong in spvp and WVW

I don't agree with this at all. Reapers damage is on par if not slightly lower in PvP. For example you dont see reapers one-shot others like mesmer, DE, Rev etc.

Besides that lets be honest shroud offers very little protection compared to blocks, evade, invun. Which mitigates 100% damage, while shroud still takes it, and if the fps exceeds the shroud it pops and your health drops. For example I get attacked by 2-3 players and I enter shroud. Even at full LF it takes literally seconds to get burnt down and then no more defends and mobility to escape. Take warrior, gaurdian, thief, mesmer etc besides having almost perma blocks evades and high damage. By the time their defensives are down they teleport, leap or run at double speed to the other side of the map with 2-3 noobs rapidly falling behind hopelessly trying to chase them down.

This happens constantly for every class expect reaper, when did you ever see a reaper 3/2v1 and still manage to escape vs mesmer warrior guardian etc which do it every arena! We seem to be the Only "melee" class that can't actually melee cause of our shocking defends.

Sorry but reaper is in a bad shape right now and needs an "op" defense buff just to get it to par with the rest of the pack

So in this patch we received a drop in sustain, then obviously we received a dmg buff according to tht logic?

We didnt receive any damage buff. We lost 10% dmg boost over 50 lf untraited, and it was replaced with the need to trait in mastery tier soul barbs, which gives 10% dmg during first 10 seconds in shroud or out with is a dps loss in smart play, non stacking, and now displays the shroud cooldown for all to see. We also lost crit dmg on our chill proc trait with no dmg to compensate in pvp, and the 2 might stack from gluttony.

Since we also lost a ton of sustain and duration without spectral mastery, it has become near impossible to win in mid plat pvp, and all of the players at that level acknowledge this.

Playing a bruiser build with aristocracy runes seems like an alternative but the damage has too little burst to matter at this scale, and your inability to rotate means you are a wasted slot in pvp.

I have switched over to my boonbeast and mirage, since obviously Anet doesnt care about balance, and only wants us to follow the meta.

Apok I play bruiser/aristoc and as you stated the burst has gone on top of all our other failings. They've really managed to neuter us this time around. For the first time I'll admit to us being a wasted slot.

Even if Reaper's DPS sucks again, there is no way RS is going to get baseline Fury and Quickness. That's over a 50% DPS buff. Not a chance. Suggestions have to make sense, not be thinly veiled complaints.

@Axl.8924 said:

@James.1065 said:I don't understand how reaper is an elite orientated on melee. In combat we walk at literally half speed while other classes hop skip and jump circles around us like we standing still.

A second life bar that drains 5% per second does not help any more with the power creep. Reaper or death magic needs to be buffed to make us more tanky if we expected to be melee orientated in SPvP.

Therefore I still stand by the suggestions I made. Baseline quickness and fury. Slight LF gain in shroud and a block trait added.

Tonne of damage haha, man I’d like to know what super build ur playing cuz the reaper full decked out in scholar with all damage trait line does just good damage,certainly not more than most specs ie ranger,mirage,halo etc yet reaper has half the sustain and mobility the others have

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@James.1065 said:I don't understand how reaper is an elite orientated on melee. In combat we walk at literally half speed while other classes hop skip and jump circles around us like we standing still.

A second life bar that drains 5% per second does not help any more with the power creep. Reaper or death magic needs to be buffed to make us more tanky if we expected to be melee orientated in SPvP.

Therefore I still stand by the suggestions I made. Baseline quickness and fury. Slight LF gain in shroud and a block trait added.

We did take a big hit, but look at the quickness thing we have, which allows us to recharge.

Also don't despair, they are probably working on fixing the problem, it will just take a while.

I have been pessimistic quite a bit in the past, but considering that ANET is finally bringing mesmers down to earth and every other class, and actually giving other classes a chance to shine as support, maybe things will finally be different. They did bring reaper very close to the other classes that are meta.

Also unfortunately what obtenna said is true: You can do raids with less dps, its just you have to join a guild.

Wouldn't it be the right time to reduce our rs cd seeing as sustain received a hit and shroud is touted as our defense/2nd health bar. Surely they could readjust or create another trait eg soul barbs. What do you reckon? Or has that time passed and you can see another option via the shift in traits and ideas put down in this last patch.

@dceptaconroy.7928 said:Wouldn't it be the right time to reduce our rs cd seeing as sustain received a hit and shroud is touted as our defense/2nd health bar. Surely they could readjust or create another trait eg soul barbs. What do you reckon? Or has that time passed and you can see another option via the shift in traits and ideas put down in this last patch.

I was thinking that when I mentioned baseline quickness. Either shorter CD's or faster casting skill, especially in PvP.

Also as a crazy wish for Christmas, it would be cool if we could cast our skills while dodging (and dodging does not cancel a cast bar), so we could hit grave digger roll up to the enemy and smash his face in one fluid movement!