Al Masone.1274

That's exactly my point. We already have specs that can play as tanks, but tanking as a role isn't a thing. There are no tanks right, just slight more durable supports. Giving barrier or protection or other defensive buffs to the team isn't tanking, putting yourself in front of the boss and taking the hits is. Yes, everyone can dodge and has some measure of sustain, but the fact that there are actual healer dedicated specs means that there's still room for roles that weren't originally intended. But to have that you have to kinda change how encounters work. You'd have to introduce like unavoidable damage that only a tank could deal with. IMO it would be interesting. And anyway, in the other MMOs, bosses have lots of aoe stuff going around and forcing the whole team to avoid damage as well, but there's still need for a tank to take most of the front damage. Why can't GW2 have something similar? And yes, we already have specs that are designed to "tank", as in, be really tough by avoid/blocking hits and reducing damage. Yet they never have any reason to focus on that aspect, and instead everyone just goes full dps (power/condi) or full boon sharing. Also, another intersting thing, that is already in the game but again isn't explored much, is tanking by redirecting damage: Scrapper has the gyro that redirects damage from allies to yourself, which coupled with tha trait that delayes a portion of damage, makes for an interesting unorthodox tank. Similarly, necro has ways to take conditions from allies to himself, and in death magic you have traits that reduce the damage you take from conditions, along with a trait that cleanses conditions and gives you toughness everytime you cleanse one. I'd like there to be reasons for players to actually use these traits, echewing personal damage in order to relieve the rest of team of unwanted pressure. Otherwise, with each new specs introduced, we get lots and lots of new skills and traits, only to use a small amount of them, namely those that give more damage or more boons to the party, and ditch everything else. What's the point of giving us 9 trait options with each spec then?

I wouldn't say that originality has gone down, since it's easy for things so feel redundant with so many classes and specialisations. What concerns me is the feel that the new specs might easily trump the old ones. Coupled that with the fact that old specs may fallen away from their intended thematic. If I play warrior and want go for dps, why would I take berserker over bladesworn If I play necro, why would I play reaper over scourge or harbinger. Also I remain of the idea that at Anet they keep writing themselves into a corner, by avoiding the holy trinity. It's ok that every spec more or less has a dps option, but over the years we also had a fair amount of specs that are pretty effective at either being a dedicated healer or a support, by sharing boons with rest of the party. So why not make it so that some specs, that are already intended to be pretty survivable, can carve their own niche of taking damage for the rest of the party. We have dps, healers, boon supports, but we don't have tanks. And tanking is a dimensions on its own, that would make for entirely new playstyles, and could only increase the diversity thus the originality, of new playstyles. Yes you can play almost any class as a tank if you want, but it's not something that is actively sought after, because parties don't really need them right now, in any game mode. And I honestly think that's a shame.

Right now I think the Reaper isn't in too bad a place in general, but he definitely could use some improvements in regards to both performance and identity. In raids, its DPS is relatively low, and not only doesn't provide a lot of team utility (which is part of necro's identity), but doesn't benefit much from team support either, which hurts a lot. Condition reaper seems to be working pretty good so far, but it's all about exploiting its own combo fields, while power dps has a better feeling of slow but hard hitting strikes. In WvW, weirdly enough, reaper is kinda squishy. In small scale it's all fine, but in larger groups you can't rely on shroud to relieve pressure. So what do you think could help Reaper in those areas? Personally I think that, in PvE, in general, Reaper could use some number tweaks and some more interaction between weapon skills. I mean, spamming Gravedigger when a boss is under 50% health is fun for a while, but doesn't make for the most interesting gameplay. And in terms of weapon options, axe is only used for skill 2, and dagger main hand has been pretty much forgotten. In WvW I don't know, maybe I'm the one who's playing the wrong class, but I always thought of reaper as the lumbering, unkillable brute, yet the version we have is a far cry from that. One problem I have, it's that he's a bit too easy to push around. The second problem is that reaper might be an ok class in a world where Scourge exists.

Poison would've felt better thematicall, but it's more of a utility condition for the -33% healing, while torment is more of a pure dps condition, especially now that deals more damage if the foe is stationary. A ranged weapon in general makes sense for harbinger, as it's designed to be the quintessential glass cannon. Tons and Tons of damage, at the cost of greatly reduced health. Max blight brings gives you 50% reduced health, turning you into an elementalist without sustain or mitigation. It has a bit of mobility, but not enough to make it a melee oriented spec, and with that in mind I'd rather they give it a ranged weapon rather than using sword at range. This way sword can still be an option for a future 4th elite spec (if all goes well, EoD won't be the last GW2 expansion)

I'm actually looking for a group oriented build. I don't really like roaming, especially with reaper

But there's already unholy martyr for that

A weaponmaster warrior that swaps between weapons unique to the spec (greataxe, spear, or other stuff). Working like attunements or kits. One can dream.

On one hand, balancing such a skill would be a nightmare, on the other, it's not like balance is great anyway... But maybe having ways to decide when each of your minions die (not just the bone minions), kinda like engi turrets, and then a skill that uses your dead minions would be interesting.

OP didn't talk about bringing back that specific trait, but more like making a new trait that improves wells, and I agree in that regard. Could resolution be less OP? Or maybe a unique effect that slightly reduces both direct and condi damage (like 10%). Or even something else entirely. Just a crazy idea, I know it would be broken: have allies transfer conditions to a nearby enemy everytime the well they stand in pulses. Also players were asking for an elite well pretty much from day 1

I've played necro since day 1, and Reaper since I got my hands on it, and thematically it's still my all time favorite spec. That said, what got me to trying it in the first place was the concept of a slow, tough, unbreakable monster that dealt high damage. Overall, I think the general idea of reaper is still there, though it's not incredibly effective nor does it have a very dynamic gameplay. Right now reaper isn't really in the worst place compared to other classes, but it's dps is far from top notch and his survivability is far from great outside of PvE. So while I'm not really begging for drastic changes, I'd still like to write some ideas of my own. The ideas revolve around keeping Reaper great at cleave, but want to give him some more conditional single target damage, and while he should still be easy to kite, he should be feared more, not just in terms of damage, but by being able to better stick to their target once they are close. GREATSWORD GS is a great weapon overall, and in pveis probably the best weapon necro in general has for power damage. That said, the skills could use some more interactions with eachother, and PvP is only ever taken for pure feel and skill 4. So... Skill 1 - DUSK STRIKE unchanged - FADING TWILIGHT inflicts chill - CHILLING SCYTHE deals increased damage to chilled foes and increases the duration of chill on the targets hit. All strikes still generate life force Skill 2 - no longer resets 100% when hitting foes under 50% health, instead: if it hits a low health or downed foe, recharge this skill by 50% and ready CHILLING SCYTHE. Skill 3 - if you hit a chilled foe, increase all damage for the next few seconds. Skill 4 and 5 unchanged. Skill 4 is already the only reason you may want GS in PVP and maybe WvW, and skill 5 overall i don't think deserves changes other than proper pathfinding. REAPER SHROUD Skill 1 - first two strikes are unchanged. LIFE REAP deals damage 2 times if hitting a single target (kinda like warrior's axe 2 but conditional) Other skills are unchanged Skill 3 - TERRIFY - detonate your armor to fear foes around you and gain an ince aura. Duration of fear and aura increase based on how much damage you mitigate through INFUSING TERROR I won't touch shouts as they seem to be a delicate topic. They are supposed to work best against groups, which is part of the reaper's identity, but are useless when used against a single target. Problem is, wells are far better than shouts in all game modes. The only thing I'd change is: Rise: shambling horrors are immune to damage, and reduce the damage taken by their master as long as they are attacking. The counterplay here would be to avoid the critters, instead of just annihilating them the moment you look at them funny. TRAITS Here I have 3 general concepts: Sustain tank/support - Condi Reaper - Power Reaper. Mainly to follow the existing lines. Minor traits Chilling nova - swapped with shivers of dread, and procs on all hits. Still doesn't critically hit Cold Shoulder - deal increased damage from ANY source when striking chilled foes. This I think is a no brainer. If we want actually diversity between builds, we can't have a minor trait that only works with strike damage. ADEPT TRAITS Augury of death - instead of a flat recharge reduction, shouts now may be while in reaper shroud. If used outside of reaper shroud, they now siphon life force instead of health, if used in reaper shroud, they siphon health. (they deal damage in both situations) Shivers of Dread - swapped with chilling nova. The idea would be to promote its interaction with the trat Terror, for condi builds. Relentless Pursuit - Unchanged. Since a tanky build may be more interested in survivability, and a condi build may not need to be 100% on the target, a power reaper needs to be close as long as possible. MASTER TRAITS Soul Eater - Renamed "Death's gift": Shroud recharge time is reduced. Increase your life force pool by a percentage of your toughness Chilling Victory: Chilled foes take extra damage from all sources. The increase would be low, but I'd like to squeeze a minimum of team utility into the reaper, which is better than none at all. Decimate defenses: gain increased critical chance per stack of vulnerability on your foe. Any percentage above 100% increases your ferocity by a flat amount. GRANDMASTER TRAITS Blighter's boon - Renamed "Good Suffering" (hellraiser anyone?"): gain life force anytime you are afflicted with a condition (works even in shroud) and deal increased power AND toughness for each condition on you. This is supposed to synergise both with death magic, that already reduces your incoming condi damage, and blood magic, specifically with Unholy Martyr, for team utility. Deathly Chill: the skills CHILLING SCYTHE and EXECUTIONER SCYTHE deal increased damage to chilled foes based on your condition damage and inflict bleeding (ES inflicts more bleeding) Reaper's onslaught: Gain quickness for a few seconds when entering or exiting reaper shroud. Striking a chilled foe extends the duration of quickness up to a cap. It all felt nice in my head. Is it too busted? Granted, I don't mean to fix the reaper's weakness to being kite, it's part of its identity, but I do want him to be far scarier once it manages to be in melee

I have already played up to the latest living world chapter, and while icebrood saga was a major letdown, season 4 wasn't half bad. So now I'm wondering whether to buy (either with real money or by converting gold) lws 3 mainly for the sake of completion. So I'd like to know if it's any good and the maps it introduced are still played by enough people.

marauder or zerk reaper is fine in both fractals and raids, it just isn't top dps. Just stick to soul reaping/spite/reaper and keep soul barbs always up. The moment you equip any other gear though it starts losing a lot of dps, and since it's not stellar to begin with, you may want to avoid it.

Hi, I'd like to play reaper in wvw without going 100% offensive (zerk, marauder) but trying to incorporate defensive stats if they make sense. I'm kinda looking at knight stats, as necro already has a high base health pool but lacks toughness, and doesn't gain additional stats from bonus vitality anyway. It's true that I lose ferocity, but if I take death's perception and reaper's onslaught that shouldn't be a problem? Reddit says that everything is viable so maybe there is a way to make it work?

Dragonhunter would be your best bet right now. In fact, everyone should just roll a guardian since they can do everything and Anet is never gonna adress that.That said, for the dragonhunter you need to reach level 80 and unlock the spec, which generally means playing through the HOT storyline and doing the HP in the heart of maguuma.As DH you bring a lot of burst damage and crowd control, or you could go FB and be able to pretty much everything else, with a staff to act as a ranged support.I say DH because it's the only melee class with a meta build, that still allows you to change into other roles whenever you want. You could also try the revenant, but people generally want you to spam alacrity on them or gtfo, which limits the fun you're going to have in group content.You could try something like ranged warrior, but doing anythng outside of open world will get you harassed to the point where you may want to uninstall the game.Or maybe I was just very unlucky...

wvw is not pvp, even if it mostly revolves around it. There should be more nuance to it in terms of more reliance on enviromental tools and possibly have a more marked pve element, in terms of npc soldiers and commanders fighting all over the map.If you want to play pvp just play pvp.Worst thing is seeing people "duel" or just squatting in wvw and even get mad if you attack them. They're taking away space from people who actualy enjoy big fights and sieges, because they are obviously afraid of real pvp with any element of competition.

Since when has WSR enough wvw players to remain alone? Not a complain, I'd be actually curious about knowing the numbers

Personally I don't really like the Wurm because it is such a cheap tactic. I'd rather die fighting after the opponents have thrown everything they have at me, than run away all the time. Spectral walk on the other hand feels quite mandatory most of the time, since it does a lot of stuff, and it's one of the best tools to keep up with the rest of team during a teamfight. I do try other things from time to time.Spectral walk and ring are strong and useful abilities, the only thing I dislike is that they have a pretty long CD.Not that I never use them, I just like to switch every now and then to try stuff and get some variance.

Hello, I have almost completed my journey toward becoming a fully fledged battle-chef, which will allow me to sate every group I'll find in the WvW fields. That said, I'm not very sure as to which food effects are the most useful in this mode. I can see the power + ferocity variant to be the most sought after, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best one. I would like your opinion as to which stats bonus could work better. For me, the easiest way would be the celestial food, since it gives everything to everyone, but maybe there are other avenues.Also, I guess it's pretty important the added effect that comes with ascended food: 66% health steal on crit-20% condi duration-10% damage+10% healingregen health every secondHere, I think the contest is between that damage reduction and the condi duration reduction, but again I'm not 100% sure about it and I would like the opinion of more experienced wvw players on the matter.All in all, food seems to be fairly strong, since it's basically like having an additional item equipped, which means that picking the right stuff for the group is very important.Please teach me how to keep my zerg healthy and well fed!

only well of darkness and corruption were affected, and they shouldn't be used for raw damage in the first place. So it's not a really bad thing, and hopelly it will promote some diversity.

A non meta thing I'm using for group wvw is the following: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMBmHbjtwKxz+arlD-eI haven't put the itemisation cause I'm still still mixing stuff to see what I like most. That said, I think Knight gear should be the best, possibly mixed with cavalier, and use the Rune of Vampirism. As for sigil, right now I'm using sigil of strength and impact, but I'll prob try other stuff. Basically I wanted to exploit the fact that, as the necro in general lacks stability, he's often the target of cc, followed by burst damage. This build basically tries to get the best direct damage mitigation and just enough personal condi cleanse to survive that first moment when to blobs collide with eachother. The runes of vampirism I find are a great sustain tool once the bodies start hitting the floor.I like to act more or less as a meat shield for my team, taking damage that could've been better spent on squishier party members, and landing as much CC/ boon corrupt as i can.Your damage isn't great (quite the contrary) and I don't expect to survive to most meta builds or duelists, but I'm not doing that anyway."Nothing can save you" I feel works pretty well in wvw, since it has a low cooldown, that gets lower the more targets you hit, is an unblockable boon corrupt, and makes your next attacks unblockable, which I'm 99% sure includes "spectral grasp" and "chilled to the bone" (just don't quote me on that). That means unblockable hard cc, and spectral grasp hits 5 targets at 1200 range. Damage is pretty much secondary, but again, your just is to tank and disrupt, you should think of yourself as a moving well that tries to stick to the opponents. Your sustain isn't very good from the get go, but"your soul is mine" has a fairly low CD, and rune of vampirism works surprisingly well even when a fight isn't going very smoothly for your side. Still, for actual sustained healing you fall back on your team.Shroud I use mainly defensively, and that is why I picked "unholy sanctuary": it's definitely worse than "corrupter's fervor" In almost every situation, but here is a neat saving tool; still, try to use it actively to withstand burst damage that you see coming your way. It reduces all damage by 50%, which stacks with your toughness, albeit with diminishing returns (still good enough though). In any case though, you want to use shroud defensively first and foremost.Of course you don't want to rush big blobs on your own, you need your group to follow, you just act as the tip of the spear, possibly behind a warrior with disenchantment if there is one. Again, I think this is as far from the meta as it goes, but I have so much fun in wvw with this build, acting as a sort of battering ram, and actually surviving many fights.

Well, you can also see things the other way, the fact that we are in a power meta in which players are more likely to encounter power reaper is a good opportunity to play condi reaper and catch them off-guard. As for PvE, condi reaper flirt with the 30k dps potential so it's not a bad option. Do you have any builds to suggest? Though I'm not a fan of a pure condi reaper, I would like a version where you can combine direct hits with some condi damage (think about the Death Knight in wow, for instance), but I can't find anything. I would even try a pure condi build out of curiosity.But to get it out of the way already, please don't give me "open world builds", cause there everything works and it's not a relevant ground for builds. (I don't mean to sound rude, it's just that I'm discovering that an awful lot of people take open world so seriously that they make dedicated builds...)

Today I'm curious about what kind of non-meta builds are used by necros these days.Personally, I want to get as close as possible to idea of the reaper as a durable front line threat, and that concept sadly is pretty far from what we tend to see in wvw and pvp these days. So I'm trying to make a sort of "battering ram" build, a version of the reaper that tries to stay in the frontline as much as possible, and rather than dealing tons of damage, acts as a meatshield/distraction while the rest of the team takes the win. I find I counter conditions pretty effectively, but if more than 5-6 guys focus me then I just crumble :(I know it's not meta, and it might even be contrary to many wvw strategies, but I would just like to be the one who takes most of the punishment for the team and just keeps going forward, and I think that thematically it would fit really well with the reaper.That said, what weird an/or out of the ordinary builds are you trying on your necros these days, and how effective or at least fun are they? Whether it's wvw, pvp or pve.

Thanks.So I guess that's one more reason not to play condi reaper

Title, cause that's my question and I didn't want to accidentally make a "bait" thread.I ask because as of lately I've seen that burning can deal quite a lot of damage with just a few stacks, thanks to reaper's onslaught that speeds up its application. So I wanted to try and dip a bit more into condi damage, but first I wanted to know if Cold shoulder applies to condition damage as well as direct damage, since it would make Fear, with the trait that makes it deal damage, rather appealing as well.To be clear, I ask mainly from a pvp/wvw perspective. I'm pretty sure that in pve a full zerk is still the go to...

I keep hoping that necro will get the shield for the next elite spec and be able to be an effective tank.The reaper is in theory quite survivable, but it's more of a dps spec than a tank one.