Reaper's Shroud, What if...

Hi, fellow Necromancers!

Before we start, I'm mainly talking about power reaper in Raid and Fractal situation. Not sure if this idea has been posted before, if that's the case, I apologize. Also, I'm not a pro player so this idea probably isn't a good one haha..

What if we get a trait that, says

• Remove the 2nd heath bar function from Reaper's Shroud, the damage you take while in Reaper's Shroud now applied directly to your health bar.
• And give +X% power damage (maybe condition damage too) while your health is above X%(maybe 80-90%) threshold.
• The rest mechanics will stay the same.

The point of this trait is to make Power Reaper in line with other Dps classes, by eliminating the 2nd health bar..With this trait you'll become squishier (because you can't use the 2nd health bar to soak incoming damages anymore.) and encouraged to avoid getting hit to keep that juicy +% damage mod uptime. High risk, high reward. You can choose not to take this trait, to get more survivability from the 2nd health bar, in exchange for dealing less dps (same dps as of now)..Not sure where to put this trait though. Replacing the Soul Eater trait (Reaper trait line, middle column, the upper one), maybe? I don't want it to compete with the grandmaster traits, they're too good hahaha..What do you guys think? Is this possible to implement? Will this break the spec? Is this a bad idea and anet should just buff the numbers instead?.In any case, Have a nice day/night for whoever reading this. XD

I say that it wouldn't put the reaper in line with other "dps classe" because it wouldn't have any access to a form of mitigation. But more than that you're suggesting a trait that basically remove a part of the class mechanic and ANet explained that the way they coded professions at the game release make any change to the mechanisms extremly difficult to implement and can easily lead to major errors.

Also, Soul eater is the "shout" trait of the reaper, it's inappropriate to remove it for such trait. And it's even more inappropriate since it's one of the few last traits giving some survivability to the reaper. Survivability which have been reduced to a dangerously low level already.

Just Increase the damage multiplier on soul barbs for PvE, easiest way to make power reaper competitive.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:I say that it wouldn't put the reaper in line with other "dps classe" because it wouldn't have any access to a form of mitigation. But more than that you're suggesting a trait that basically remove a part of the class mechanic and ANet explained that the way they coded professions at the game release make any change to the mechanisms extremly difficult to implement and can easily lead to major errors.

Also, Soul eater is the "shout" trait of the reaper, it's inappropriate to remove it for such trait. And it's even more inappropriate since it's one of the few last traits giving some survivability to the reaper. Survivability which have been reduced to a dangerously low level already.

Augury of Death is the shout trait.

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:Just Increase the damage multiplier on soul barbs for PvE, easiest way to make power reaper competitive.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:I say that it wouldn't put the reaper in line with other "dps classe" because it wouldn't have any access to a form of mitigation. But more than that you're suggesting a trait that basically remove a part of the class mechanic and ANet explained that the way they coded professions at the game release make any change to the mechanisms extremly difficult to implement and can easily lead to major errors.

Also,

Soul eater

is the "shout" trait of the reaper, it's inappropriate to remove it for such trait. And it's even more inappropriate since it's one of the few last traits giving some survivability to the reaper. Survivability which have been reduced to a dangerously low level already.

True, soul eater's the "GS" trait... my bad.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:Just Increase the damage multiplier on soul barbs for PvE, easiest way to make power reaper competitive.

@Dadnir.5038 said:I say that it wouldn't put the reaper in line with other "dps classe" because it wouldn't have any access to a form of mitigation. But more than that you're suggesting a trait that basically remove a part of the class mechanic and ANet explained that the way they coded professions at the game release make any change to the mechanisms extremly difficult to implement and can easily lead to major errors.

Also,

Soul eater

is the "shout" trait of the reaper, it's inappropriate to remove it for such trait. And it's even more inappropriate since it's one of the few last traits giving some survivability to the reaper. Survivability which have been reduced to a dangerously low level already.

I agree though. Removing a sustain trait for more damage is bad and reaper master tier already has enough damage traits. What OP is proposing is more fitting for a grand-master anyway, but I think removing the shroud health is too much. It could be done similarly, in a more reasonable way, by increasing the damage out of reaper's onslaught while increasing the damage in. Maybe a 10% damage buff while in shroud, while also receiving 10% more damage.

@"Zex Anthon.8673" said:I agree though. Removing a sustain trait for more damage is bad and reaper master tier already has enough damage traits. What OP is proposing is more fitting for a grand-master anyway, but I think removing the shroud health is too much. It could be done similarly, in a more reasonable way, by increasing the damage out of reaper's onslaught while increasing the damage in. Maybe a 10% damage buff while in shroud, while also receiving 10% more damage.

I disagree on the damage increase point thought. It would just add burst in an area that does not need more burst. The whole issue remain how the shroud is fondamentally designed with how straigthforward the necromancer's way to deal damage is.

The proper way (balance wise) to increase the reaper's damage would probably be to increase it's damage sources instead of concentrating damages on single skills. However, thematically doing this goes against the concept of the reaper. It's honnestly very tricky to touch the necromancer's dps with how the necromancer and it's e-specs are designed designed.

From my point of view, the issue is that the core as a whole is designed with dangerous tools that are necessarily kept weak to avoid imbalance. Be it the shroud or the minions, the weapons, the wells, the corruptions... etc. The tools all pack enormous "PvP" potential that can't be balanced for "PvE dps". I would probably be for the better to reduce the "PvP potential" of those tools and try to increase their "PvE value" but in the context of the necromancer as a whole it would be thematically difficult and it would be an even worse balance nightmare.

It's better not to touch to many things at this point and objectively, if ANet want to increase, specifically, the reaper's damage in PvE it's not difficult. They just need to reduce chilling nova ICD (PvE only) to revive both power (by improving in combat chill uptime) and condi damage (by increasing chilling frequency) in PvE. The only issues of this solution is that it could make reaper's condi spec dominant over reaper's power spec in PvE and it would reduce the perceived level of difficulty to achieve results on an even lower standard.

Don't like the original idea, since reaper only has very poor sustain, and also no blocks to protect the healthbar.If you do this, you need to add invulns or dodges or blocks to some weapon or utility skills

In this burst meta where other profession easily can go high burst and still have evade, blinde, protection, block etc. I do not feel like a Shroud is gonna change much.It can tank a few more hits, and still lock out utility and weapon skill.So removing it is, like other stated, a very weird suggestion.

Did you reasonly encountered a reaper that killed you due to shroud?I find that necromancer could use more active defence, hench my post around projectile hate against Deadeye, ranger and unload thieves where losing LoS might not always be possible.

I think the game has evolved enough to give core necro active defences and teleports/mobility, and let this bleed over to the E-spec.And I would like the playfull synergi from Core guardians to affect Core Necros, making it a tough choice picking between the flavour of the E-spec, or the synergi and power of three core traits.

Necro has 2 dodges, soft CC, and shroud as the core sustain. Without a replacement sustain mechanic with high up-time like barrier, shroudless builds would be super glassy.

sounds good for pve only, so its a no go. gotta look at the big picture.

Truth be told, maybe its better to have the damage outside of shroud?.If necros did most of their damage outside shroud and shroud was only used for sustain, people couldn't cry about necros being able to do op dmg and kill people while having ridiculous sustain.

@Axl.8924 said:Truth be told, maybe its better to have the damage outside of shroud?.If necros did most of their damage outside shroud and shroud was only used for sustain, people couldn't cry about necros being able to do op dmg and kill people while having ridiculous sustain.

Necro already tried having lame damage in shroud at the game's release and for some years later. It was like casting Signet of Humility on ourselves to avoid taking damage. We all complained about it.

@Axl.8924 said:Truth be told, maybe its better to have the damage outside of shroud?.If necros did most of their damage outside shroud and shroud was only used for sustain, people couldn't cry about necros being able to do op dmg and kill people while having ridiculous sustain.

I don't think that would work. You would still face the same limitations. Where the Necromancer is getting the best source of damage isn't as problematic as what the Shroud mechanic does.

@Dace.8173 said:

@Axl.8924 said:Truth be told, maybe its better to have the damage outside of shroud?.If necros did most of their damage outside shroud and shroud was only used for sustain, people couldn't cry about necros being able to do op dmg and kill people while having ridiculous sustain.

Necro already tried having lame damage in shroud at the game's release and for some years later. It was like casting Signet of Humility on ourselves to avoid taking damage. We all complained about it.

Thing is:You wouldn't have a double life bar so to speak if all your damage was outside shroud, so in order to kill people you would be vulnerable