How would you improve Reaper in Raids and WvW?

[Al Masone.1274]

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.

[Wintermute.5408]

I'd throw maybe 1k DPS on top, and leave it at that for PVE. This way it will deal a bit more respectable burst, while still not overshadowing condi with sustained damage.

And weapon reworks - all offhands and staff. That's not reaper-specific, but by god our arsenal is trash.

WvW though can rot. It's fundamentally unbalanced, and trying to make reaper survive the zerg trains, or making it compete with dodge/stealth spam roamers, will not result in anything good.

[Al Masone.1274]

Yeah in PvE I don't think reaper needs much in terms of dps to feel a bit better. What if gravedigger hit harder but didn't refund the full CD? That way you have to use other skills while it recharges. Then maybe add skills to other weapons that are worth using, instead of just axe 2 and the back to GS/Shroud. It's such a shame that some classes have so much weapon diversity and so much interactions between different parts of their kit, while reaper is pretty limited in that regard. 

Stuff has use in pvp and wvw so maybe it's not all bad, dagger on the other hand has been pretty much forgotten.

 

on the wvw side, I guess you're right. They need to make more comprehensive changes to the mode, before dealing with specific class' balance

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Some tweaks :

Reaper's Onslaught ; give the +300 ferocity while under quickness, not under shroud. 
Spite traitlane and weapons : lower the gain of mights or the duration (Reaper's might 10sec for example, and siphoned power 1 or 2 stacks only) then buff a bit base power of weapon. In solo you'll generate less might or slower but DPS will be balanced and nearly equivalent, but in instance with player you'll earn some percents.

May be rework Close to death, or add a  threeshold to 25% HP, +35% DPS.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I would love a trait that disables the passive defenses of shrouds to give more damage. Maybe increase soul barbs to 25% but reaper and core necro losses 2nd health bar, harbringer losses passive healing out of shroud and scourge losses barrier on f5. Give necro more risk reward.

[Al Masone.1274]

10 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

I would love a trait that disables the passive defenses of shrouds to give more damage. Maybe increase soul barbs to 25% but reaper and core necro losses 2nd health bar, harbringer losses passive healing out of shroud and scourge losses barrier on f5. Give necro more risk reward.

 Harbinger already does crazy damage is pretty much a glass cannon even with the healing. Scourge as well doesn't need more damage. 

I'd like them to remove the 2nd health bar on core and reaper not just for more damage, but because it's always been a mess balance wise. If it didn't replace health and had more of a fixed duration dependent on how full the bar is, it would feel way way better, and it would be easier to manage

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Improving Power Reaper in PvE?  I would start with slightly increasing the chill duration on the Greatsword auto.  Just a little bit more for better Cold Shoulder uptime.

[Dadnir.5038]

PvE: Reduce Chilling nova ICD to 5s, PvE only.

WvW: Change Locust swarm back to 1 impact per second for 10s instead of the current 2 impacts per second for 5s.

[Atille.5047]

Critcap it outside of shroud by making either Decimate Defences or Soul Eater a minor trait, if you really want to push it further into being good - reduce CD on Lich or rework it entirely to only be skill 4 or whatever, and make Gravedigger into a chain, since Revs having this animation too now bothers me. Another thing it could get is the idea with a "no defence from shroud" above - big thing that holds back reaper's damage potential is the fact that taking damage to your shroud = a DPS loss, and quite frankly passive arena ticks, mechanics you generally cannot avoid and stuff like VG greens just put you in a worse spot than you should be. You also often end up without Scholar if you end up going to Shroud right after taking a minor hit/tick damage/whatever, which is also really annoying for it's actual in-game performance. 

For WvW, reaper is indeed quite glassy and generally lacks tools to handle more obnoxious roamers outside of mad jukes and outplays. That could be fixed by making shouts actually good, since none of them are for neither PvE nor WvW/PvP whatsoever. Throw a damage mod upon use of "Nothing Can Save You!", maybe would let us ditch the signet/WoD for once? The whole thing of "scales with number of targets" needs to go, honestly, it just ends up making them all worse than they should be nine times out of ten, and they're already underwhelming in most aspects or are literally outshadowed by core utilities. 

By the way, "versatile and durable" is a meme. Reaper isn't anywhere near either, taking damage to shroud makes it perform very poorly so you still can't facetank like Scrapper does and your "versatility" boils down to a free pick in heal skill department and golem vs lich, neither of 2 wells you can ditch (Suffering is damage, Darkness is both damage and chill uptime) and very rarely you can ditch the signet for some heavily situational skill, entirely for selfish DPS reasons (wurm/walk pretty much). While Necro indeed has some good utility options, Reaper lacks the leeway to actually use any of it - both power and condi ones, at that. If you want to keep me at Scrapper damage, make me facetank things as well as Scrapper does, then.