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Is power reaper viable for pug T4 and pug raiding?


leunamsil.6742

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Hi, just like the title asks, is Power GS reaper a good char to play pug T4 and pug raids? I'm trying to choose a char to "main", but i'm having trouble finding a balance between a class/spec that i like and something that the T4 groups and ocasional pug raid group would accept. I really like the feel and playability of power reaper, but i'm torn between reaper and holo (i personally preffer reaper but if holo gets me much better chances of getting into a nice group i would just play mey reaper in open world content or T2/T3 fractals)

Tyvm in advance

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@Nimon.7840 said:

@Warscythes.9307 said:Pugs do accept power reaper unless you are trying to do things like Dhuum CM.

In fact Power reaper is probably one of the strongest dps classes in pug raiding and T4

Only if you got very bad supporters in your group

You don't need to be a terrible support to occasionally slip up boons. Not to mention there are frequent mechanic breaks where there classes need a bit of time to catch up. The recent balance changes pulled power reaper very much to viability especially since how it is barely affected by the banner changes make the current version the best it has ever been.

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Depends entirely on the group.

There will always be examples of groups that care a lot about comp and others that realize that, for PUGging, execution on mechanics is more important and that can't be measured by kill-proofs nor by choice of profession.

That said, the closer you come to matching expectations, the easier it will be to find groups. A good programmer is good regardless of how she dresses, but neither would I recommend going to a job interview for a job in the banking industry dressed in cut-off jeans and a sweatshirt.

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I think i will stick with reaper and then, IF i have a lot of trouble getting into groups, then i think of switching to something more "meta". I just like that it brings tankiness and damage and a bit of team support to the table. Plus its fun, which is more than i can say about some other professions i tried out in fractals

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short answer, reaper sucks for organised play

why?

reaper is selfish, does nothing for the team. no boons to share.reaper provides itself with 25 might and quickness, useful in chaotic pug groups as they will allways be top dps by sustaining itself

but

in organised groups (with proper support specs) reaper loses it's selfish value, because might and quickness are provided so reaper loses out on dps that other actual dps specs provide

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@melandru.3876 said:short answer, reaper sucks for organised play

why?

reaper is selfish, does nothing for the team. no boons to share.reaper provides itself with 25 might and quickness, useful in chaotic pug groups as they will allways be top dps by sustaining itself

but

in organised groups (with proper support specs) reaper loses it's selfish value, because might and quickness are provided so reaper loses out on dps that other actual dps specs provide

This sort of thing really needs to stop.

What sort of dps builds that actually provide group boons that people care about? The fact is if people are looking for dps, they just want dps. If they want dps with utility, well there's really only 2 classes that can do this, one is a warrior and the other is soulbeast with spirits which is currently covered by druid for the most part. So really it doesn't matter.

Yes self boon is not as important but it does matter. Mechanic breaks happen and chronos have to split to rebuff, sometimes you have to dodge out of the well and that kills your boon duration. This sort of thing happens not to mention the inbuilt tankiness allow you to dps instead of move out of fire at certain phases. As of now Reaper benchs pretty comfortably at 30.4k, that's around 10% lower than the top non-meme builds like rifle DEs. In fact it actually benches just a tiny bit below power holo which I think is about 30.6k. While I think it can still use a tiny smudge of a bump, the difference right now is minimal people, the biggest hindrance for power reaper right now is no longer Anet but rather community perception. We are literally the reason why some groups say no to power reapers and this has to stop.

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@"leunamsil.6742" said:I think i will stick with reaper and then, IF i have a lot of trouble getting into groups, then i think of switching to something more "meta". I just like that it brings tankiness and damage and a bit of team support to the table. Plus its fun, which is more than i can say about some other professions i tried out in fractals

I think you'll find enough groups won't care. Do pay extra attention to how LFGs are phrased, and use caution with those that imply they are looking for something specific (since that usually means "we expect you to know what we mean").

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@DragonFury.6243 said:the best solution to make necro good for puging you need to rerole to any other profession

however when the new raid wing released some group will ask for a healer scourge for the first 2 to 3 weeks then back to normal dudu

Actually, the best solution is to learn how to play, unlike some people that continually spread nonsense about how necros can't get teams because they haven't done so.

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seems similar to the selffulling 'prophecy' caused by shamans in wow, the players thinking they sucked and thusly made everyone else think they sucked and overlooking their qualities. Reapers needs far less babysitting than other classes, dead dps does no damage. And they perform better than herald revenants.

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@LucianDK.8615 said:seems similar to the selffulling 'prophecy' caused by shamans in wow, the players thinking they sucked and thusly made everyone else think they sucked and overlooking their qualities. Reapers needs far less babysitting than other classes, dead dps does no damage. And they perform better than herald revenants.

not that herald is a viable dps to start with ;p

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@melandru.3876 said:

@LucianDK.8615 said:seems similar to the selffulling 'prophecy' caused by shamans in wow, the players thinking they sucked and thusly made everyone else think they sucked and overlooking their qualities. Reapers needs far less babysitting than other classes, dead dps does no damage. And they perform better than herald revenants.

not that herald is a viable dps to start with ;p

At least rev wont get affected twice by Frailty while necro lose 25% of his LF for fun

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@DragonFury.6243 said:

@"LucianDK.8615" said:seems similar to the selffulling 'prophecy' caused by shamans in wow, the players thinking they sucked and thusly made everyone else think they sucked and overlooking their qualities. Reapers needs far less babysitting than other classes, dead dps does no damage. And they perform better than herald revenants.

not that herald is a viable dps to start with ;p

At least rev wont get affected twice by Frailty while necro lose 25% of his LF for fun

it's fine https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soul_Barbs was reworked, no need to keep perma 50% LFIt's good for fractals, bad for raids cus there are several bosses that phrase and you need to keep up with dps, while reapers damage shines AFTER boss is 50% or less.

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@Warscythes.9307 said:

@melandru.3876 said:short answer, reaper sucks for organised play

why?

reaper is selfish, does nothing for the team. no boons to share.reaper provides itself with 25 might and quickness, useful in chaotic pug groups as they will allways be top dps by sustaining itself

but

in organised groups (with proper support specs) reaper loses it's selfish value, because might and quickness are provided so reaper loses out on dps that other actual dps specs provide

As for this statement you can discredit the might... its so insanely easy to get 25 might on most professions now. The supporters giving might are best usually giving it to things that are not dps classes, tanks, other healers or sub supports, who dont invest in might generation because of their roles. Most class specs built to do damage is likely going to invest in generating (some / most of its own) might naturally via traits or through its play style.

Your points on reaper quickness are correct though. But thats anets quick fix of giving reaper QoL. It would have been better for them to reduce the cast time of all reaper shroud skills by about 33% so all skills are faster but not quickness level fast and this way when they are given quickness it would have had value.

This is not 2015 where getting 25 might was actually a challenge you enter combat now and get to 15 to 20+ might in a few seconds on most dps classes. Might is as free as the air we breath right now.

Another boon of reaper or necro in general is that it can be more forgiving when taking hits where as other professions (usually the ones with slightly higher dps) drop instantly necro usually wont. But because people only focus on perfect play people almost never notice the value in this until you get to pvp then people complain about it.

This sort of thing really needs to stop.

What sort of dps builds that actually provide group boons that people care about? The fact is if people are looking for dps, they just want dps. If they want dps with utility, well there's really only 2 classes that can do this, one is a warrior and the other is soulbeast with spirits which is currently covered by druid for the most part. So really it doesn't matter.

Yes self boon is not as important but it does matter. Mechanic breaks happen and chronos have to split to rebuff, sometimes you have to dodge out of the well and that kills your boon duration. This sort of thing happens not to mention the inbuilt tankiness allow you to dps instead of move out of fire at certain phases. As of now Reaper benchs pretty comfortably at 30.4k, that's around 10% lower than the top non-meme builds like rifle DEs. In fact it actually benches just a tiny bit below power holo which I think is about 30.6k. While I think it can still use a tiny smudge of a bump, the difference right now is minimal people, the biggest hindrance for power reaper right now is no longer Anet but rather community perception. We are literally the reason why some groups say no to power reapers and this has to stop.

I some what agree with this statement. I feel like reaper has the damage but the community has this egotistical way of thinking that having 10 to 20 more percent damage at most makes something 1000000% unviable when its not the case at all.

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This game needs some serious class balance , even wow isnt this bad, and it had so called non viable raid specs. I think its terrible that in the year 2019 game developers still cant make a level playing field for all classes. So sick of the meta, pidginholed into a few classes that are allowed to raid.

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Hey there !

As a necro main (mostly reaper) I think i have enough experience to talk about it ; Power Reaper in T4 fractal (and CM) WORKS and is VERY GOOD (not the best but good enough in 99% of pug group). Power reaper in pug raid (and raid in general) is considered as low tier so I really wouldn't recommand going into raid as power reaper.Now some more details :

1) Fractals : Here I'm going to talk about T4 and CMs mostly because under T4 everything works just fine.In my opinion reaper in PUG is top 3-4 dps ( 1/2 are DH and SLB and 3/4 are weaver/preaper) if you know how the class works and have a good idea of what and when you should do things.In pug the problem is you never know what you will come up with even in 250/300kp+ group. Power reaper is the perfect class to fit in pug because it has a very good uptime on offensive buff (might/quickness) but most of all because it brings a lot of easy CC and IMO, CC is the only problem in high-end fractal pug group and is the only reason I'm putting preaper on the same level as weaver.To be honest a good weaver will outperform any class on dps but the problem is it brings barely no CC in his rotation.A war can't solo break the CC bar himself on some bosses and if he has to CC everything he can't really dps either so in the end it's a dps loss cause : low CC=no breakbar/no war dps/more mechanics to dodge (cause ye pug so don't trust your chrono to block everything).

If you are wondering if people in LFG are accepting reaper as DPS, the quick answer is yes. It used to be (some months ago) very hard for preaper to find a spot as dps in CMs/T4 since it was ultra-lowtier dps but now if people don't specify (some people still do) they don't want necro or only want DH/SLB/Weaver you should be able to join any group if you meet the requirements.

Here are some numbers about when I play preaper in CM/T4 (I always do both) :In 0-100kp group : I'd say 80% of the group I'm in, I'm first dps100-200kp group : Usually right behind first dps200-300kp group : In between 1st dps and war (if the comp is 2sup 1 war 2dps) but almost NEVER first dps.

Don't forget that everything i said is for PUG and non-organized groups.

2) Raid : Power reaper is just ... bad. I mean of course if you start raiding and do some pugs with 50Li req max you can be easily in top dps but there are so many class that can outperform preaper so easily that it's just a waste. In the current meta i wouldn't play power reaper in raid and if I would I'm sure I'll be kicked in 80% of the group.

PS: You can always play power reaper for escort hehehe.

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It's a bit like DH, or scourge who just spam 1 :When you see a reaper in group you're like "Meh, pls don't be a noob" and sadly this is often the case.

But it's not bad for fractals, good cleave/aoe, 25 vulnerability, boonstrip, strong CC, easy rotation; Not "strong burst as you can have with weaver/dh/SB, but decent DPS. Reaper might be not "meta" for CMs but others fractals with a lot of adds it's fine.

In raids : you're useless the first 50% of boss, and for the others 50% there are better DPS.

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Pretty much what @virgileboss.2458 said.

Reaper is fine for T4s and by now, most people in fractals are fine with you bringing one to the action. The class brings some nice utility in form of boon corrupt and cc for minimal dps loss. Has an innate self buff which allows it to perform well even if the supports are slacking. Has enough burst and an easy enough rotation to allow people to perform well.

Raids it gets more difficult. If you are a good power reaper, you will outperform a vast majority of PUG mid to low tier dps players (on power fights). Simply because people are trash at their classes. That won't fly at the top end though and you will get outperformed by good players on top tier dps classes. The biggest issue will be to get taken along and show people you can out dps the trash dps in lower tiers, because bad players will be especially demanding on set classes.

Reaper compares to DH in that it allows for easy access to some utility skills (guardian is king with his stability, reflects and aegis), brings good cc and has a good initial spike (though less than DH, a soulbeast or a good weaver).

I run mesmer (chrono support), guardian (FB heal, quickbrand power/condi, FB condi, DH), Thief (DD), warrior (power/condi/spb bs) and necromancer (support scourge, power reaper) in fractals and while I run CMs on DH or chrono most of the time, I have started to take out the power reaper for normal T4s for funsies.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's absolutely fine - I run power reaper in t4s often and it's always smooth runs. Much more important to know the encounter mechanics, strats and being good at the game.

Always respect lfg listing, even if they're silly.

Very rarely some clown who doesn't understand the game because they can't see beyond a spreadsheet and reddit will hassle you for being reaper when you join a dps slot on reaper. If they've enough sense to give you a chance they won't complain again so long as you know your stuff.

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Power reaper in T4 pugs? Might be the best class right now.I did t4s with random people for the last 3 days. I was always top DPS.

Also yesterday was pretty fun. After we were done, someone said: "never was so fast"And another one said: "enemies magically died so fast in cleave"

Well that's reaper right now, if you know how to play.

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Recent buffs have brought Power Reaper on the same level as pre 23/04 patch power Holo. I am always top DPS in T4 raids on my Reaper, both in terms of cleave and single target dps. It is also extra amazing because as part of its damage build, Reaper brings quite a bit of sustain from Soul Eater rendering the frequent complaints by healers how they cannot heal us in Reaper's Shroud moot. We heal ourselves now :P It's not power chrono levels of damage, but since it is so tanky, and self-sufficient, it doesn't have to be. Everyone was happy with having Power Holos around, and since I don't recall power Holo having their build damage altered by the latest patch, Reapers should be just as welcomed.

Of course there will always be people who still think Reapers (or anything necro for that matter) suck because they either do not keep up with changes on other professions than their own or because they never had the opportunity to do content with a good necro player. It is a sad truth that necromancer attracts a lot of new players, which is fine, but then it creates a sense that necro players are bad across the board. I saw this last time in T4 where there was another Reaper in the group and I was typically ahead of them by 10k. It also makes a HUGE difference if a player raids or not. When doing open world content, like HoT metas, you can tell who the people that know their class and raid are from the people that only do open world pve because the former will be doing at LEAST 10-15k boss damage, whereas the latter will be doing around 4-6k.

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