Lets Buff Reaper for PvE(some trait targetted buff ideas)

[Lily.1935]

Reaper is a selfish DPS class with some extra bulk but is hard locked in melee combat. It does have a trade off to its bulk with how it has to be in Melee to maximize its DPS and this becomes a major issue in many fights which cause Reaper to be a weaker pick than something like Scourge or Mechanist which can function as well or nearly as well at range and keep heavy DPS pressure without losing too much of their overall DPS. Reaper's bulk might be fairly strong but its not as strong as you might think. Melee means they're more vulnerable to damage than ranged specs since they'll be hit more frequently. So with this in mind I'll be looking at the traits to buff the reaper as opposed to its weapon or shouts. Since I do believe the change to shouts is a step in the right direction as it incentivizes players to use reaper's utility skills which necromancer elite specs traditionally avoid using in end game PvE(excluding Harbinger as that's the outlier).

• Augury of Death: Remove the life stealing and add a 5 second stacking buff which provides 5%-10% damage for 5 seconds + 1 second for each target hit. Temporary buff to damage which can creates an interesting dynamic with the shouts which now would improve the reaper's damage output temporarily for using these skills. The range of the damage is tricky, I'm not sure if even 10% would be enough to make it worth it over wells, but my suspicion is that it might be. Since its stacking you could strike with 3 shouts and gain a 15%-30% damage buff depending on how it works. Alternatively it could just stack its duration so 10% would be fine so you'd try and maintain its uptime rather than stacking bursts of heavy damage. Either change could make a shout reaper interesting to run.
• Soul Eater: Remove the damage buff from this and the healing and replace it with life steal per hit while in and out of shroud while within the 300 range threshold. This is actually pretty close to what it used to do and honestly it was pretty fun to use. You could have it trigger like a stacking buff for life steal packets when you enter or exit shroud or when you inflict chill on a target to be somewhat similar in balance to battle scars. In PvP you could always balance this differently but my goal for these suggestions to to aid all 3 of the reaper builds I've mentioned in another post I've made and this change would aid a hand kiter.
• Blighter's Boon: Slow the decay rate of reaper's shroud in addition to its other benefits. Fairly simple buff. This allows reaper's shroud to be tankier to help them shrug off more hits.
• Chilling Nova: Have it trigger when entering or exiting reaper's shroud instead of on critical hit and allow it to critically hit itself. Chilling nova is the trait of choice for condition and power reaper yet for power it contributes less than 1% of the reaper's total DPS. Which is pretty bad. You could honestly drop it and hardly notice its loss. Making its trigger less random and giving it the ability to critically strike would give it utility on either a wells power reaper build or improve trait synergy with condition reaper since it being able to critically hit means it could trigger sigils or barbed precision.
• Deathly Chill: Add Bleeds you inflict deal 15% increased damage. Synergies with everything condi reaper is trying to do. This would make condi reaper competitive as a DPS for sure and grieving reaper after this might rise to prominence which would be pretty fun in my opinion.
• Deathly Chill(Alternative): All chill sources no longer inflict chill, instead inflict Frostbite for 3-4 seconds. Frostbite: Stacking Condition. Each stack deals heavy damage(similar to burning, might need to be more might need to be less) and reduces movement and skill recharge timers by 1% for each stack(Up to 25%). Frostbite for the purposes of traits, skills, sigils and runes counts as chill. Not entirely a realistic suggestion. But its something I would like to see since it sounds really cool and would be really flavorful and fun to use. The issue with it is how do we balance it because this suggestion is extremely complicated so I want to put it out there but be tepid with its suggestion.
• Cold Shoulder: Damage increase from 15% to 20%. This change I'd only suggest if Augury of death wasn't enough since 15% is already quite high! So this one should be taken with a grain of salt.

This is what I've got for now. I've really shot for the moon on these changes. I figure suggest the strongest changes upfront and let Arena net carve them up or use what they see as useful or appropriate as needed. I'd like to see more diversity in reaper play and these changes do a lot to change the gear and utilities normally used by the reaper.

[Artificer.3468]

Some interesting suggestions to be sure.

I like them

[Asum.4960]

I really like your idea of the Damage buff through Shouts via Augury of Death as it involves at least some active gameplay.

If they made "Suffer!" an AoE Transfer and especially "You Are All Weaklings!" AoE Might, that would certainly help to make Reaper a more attractive option for Groups along it's increased damage. 

The "per Target hit" I'm not a fan of though - this is a mechanic which has to be balanced towards it's maximum potential, just to then be lacking in >95% of actual gameplay cases, and has been crippling Necro for far too long (see the pathetic state of Locust Swarm, or current Augury for that matter). 

Making it a (non-stacking) x% Strike Damage increase after Shout usage for 10 seconds could be fairly fun though, encouraging the timed usage of two Shouts, one before entering Shroud and one after, in line with Necro's general 10 second in and out of Shroud gameplay loop also encouraged by Soul Barbs.

It's certainly more interesting than passive modifiers or the recent trend towards incentivising mindlessly spamming everything off-cooldown.

 

What I'm fairly critical of is in turn your idea for Soul Eater. Life Siphon unfortunately (as much as I like it thematically) just isn't a good mechanic in GW2, at least in this context. 

The reason it worked for Revenant via Battlescars is two-fold. For one, it was far stronger than any Life Steal Necromancer ever got, but primarily through Renegade and it's ability to execute 6+ attacks per seconds via stacking it's Spirit attacks over it's regular actions, mass triggering the Life Siphoning. 

Reaper/Necromancer on the other hand is the exact opposite there, with fairly slow attacks with large aftercasts. 

As such, it also conflicts with your reworked Augury of Death incentivising Shout usage, as this would be favouring stacking the ticking Wells again to maximise the Life Siphon triggers, should the effect be strong enough to be worthwhile (although I suppose one could run Heal Shout + 1 Utility Shout + Darkness and Suffering). 

 

But as we've seen with Battle Scars, tying sustain and damage together is a dangerous game, and having the best damage option also being the best sustain option is bound to be nerfed into the ground. 

 

If they were to introduce an actual strong Life Siphon for Necro, I'd much rather see it as Blood Magic Grand Master over something like Blood Bank. Putting an effect like this into Blood Magic, which never was and likely never will be a Meta choice for damage, probably would be much easier to balance in terms of reasonable sustain option while coming with an inherent DPS loss due to the Traitline it resides in. 

 

For Cold Shoulder, I agree - these damage modifiers are just getting ridiculous, and I don't think it's a good idea to further go down this route. Especially since it's not just Reaper lacking in DPS, but every power option on Necromancer - one look at all of Necro's weapon options in this regard (namely Dagger MH, Axe, Warhorn, Focus) shows how lacklustre and far behind many of these skills are. 

Rather than packing 20, 30, 40% worth of damage modifiers into Traitlines, here it's just way overdue to tackle the core problem, weapon skills, rather than further applying passive modifier band-aids via Traits. 

 

Blighter's Boon imo needs a lot more to be worth consideration in any context. 

For Deathly Chill, I agree with both options, as well as the unlikelihood of Anet creating a whole new condition for this, regardless of how cool that would be. 

 

Chilling Nova, idk, it's a weird Trait. With how short it's chill is, it doesn't contribute much to Cold Shoulder's uptime, and if your Augury of Death rework were to be implemented for Power Builds, Chilling Nova's only use really would just be on condi Reaper to trigger Deathly Chill anyway, so it wouldn't need any crit changes - a single potential thing to crit every 8 seconds isn't going to be noticeable in terms of Sigil triggers either. 

Maybe the 15% modifier to Bleed Damage would be better suited here than on Deathly Chill though, as to not make the reworked Augury of Death the best in slot for damage on every build, separating Augury of Death and Chilling Nova as Power and Condi options respectively.

[Dadnir.5038]

Augury of death/soul eater: I'm not sold on these one, Augury of death is basicaly made into the current soul eater but with the added necessity to hit 5 target every 5s with a shout in order to get the current bonus damage while Soul eater is basicaly vampiric in blood magic but only within 300 range. All in all it feel like a loss on every side.

Blighter boon: We already spend to much time in shroud in general, slowing it's natural decay isn't something needed.

Chilling nova: While I like the idea of making it proc on entering/leaving shroud, the argumentation itself is arguable (also, it would be great if it could crit with this change done). You seem to forget that chilling nova contribute in achieving a chill uptime necessary to get many effects amongst which there is a 15% increase of damage output.

Deathly chill: I guess the suggestion is "ok".

Deathly chill (alternative): No, just no! Deathly chill's damage on chill have been changed to bleed proc for a good reason, let's not fall again in this trap.

Cold shoulder: Nope, thank you. There is a limit to what a minor trait can offer, let's not go beyond those limits.

 

All in all, I don't think any of these is what the reaper need atm. From the very beginning, the reaper's inate survivability make it unfit for being a selfish dps, instead of trying to force this role onto him without care by inflating it's "numbers", how about giving him the tools for the role that fit his design?

The reaper, like it or not, is a spec that have high inate survivability and rely a lot on a crowd control condition (chill). By all mean, it's a spec designed to fit the role of a "tank". The only thing it's missing is the support that would make it attractive to GW2 meta.

Infusing terror: Now grant stability to up to 5 allies within 300 range instead of only granting stability to the reaper.

Blighter boon: The health component while in shroud is also provided to up to 5 allies within 300 range.

Death charge: Replace aoe blind by aoe aegis or simply add aoe aegis for PvE only.

3 simple changes that would make reaper a fonctional "tank" and maybe even a fonctional heal.

 

[Lily.1935]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Infusing terror: Now grant stability to up to 5 allies within 300 range instead of only granting stability to the reaper.

Blighter boon: The health component while in shroud is also provided to up to 5 allies within 300 range.

Death charge: Replace aoe blind by aoe aegis or simply add aoe aegis for PvE only.

3 simple changes that would make reaper a fonctional "tank" and maybe even a fonctional heal.

 

Awful, awful changes. Theming is important and it is a selfish DPS and designed around it as such. This strongly damages the flavor of the elite spec and doesn't serve necromancer as a whole. Stability being granted to allies is something Death magic should do, Not reaper. Its perfectly fine to have a selfish DPS elite spec. Especially since both Scourge and Harbinger are not selfish.

[Lily.1935]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Augury of death/soul eater: I'm not sold on these one, Augury of death is basicaly made into the current soul eater but with the added necessity to hit 5 target every 5s with a shout in order to get the current bonus damage while Soul eater is basicaly vampiric in blood magic but only within 300 range. All in all it feel like a loss on every side.

 

Augury of death is 6 seconds if you're fighting 1 target. So if we're looking at the 10% damage stacking in duration that's 18 seconds of the buff which puts it at 100% up time with 3 shouts and alacrity against a boss. 5 second base +1 second for each foe hit. Not "Each foe past the first" And its not a loss in damage. Consider what you gain. Augury of death + Decimate defenses is a large net gain in raw stats and you're able to run dragons or Valkyrie. Where the numbers need to be depends. Perhaps it needs to be long, but as far as damage buffs goes its net positive.

Soul eater should be less damage over all when compared to Decimate defenses. You should be able to make a choice between the two.

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

 

Blighter boon: We already spend to much time in shroud in general, slowing it's natural decay isn't something needed.

Change isn't for a DPS variant. Its for sustain for kiting or for newer players who need the help for survival. That reasoning might be flawed, however I do not want to move away from reaper's core design philosophy.

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Chilling nova: While I like the idea of making it proc on entering/leaving shroud, the argumentation itself is arguable (also, it would be great if it could crit with this change done). You seem to forget that chilling nova contribute in achieving a chill uptime necessary to get many effects amongst which there is a 15% increase of damage output

 

Reaper can maintain permanent chill uptime without chilling nova. Its not even hard to do without it. And if we're going to use shouts suffer contributes almost the same up time, slightly more. I didn't forget anything. So my point stands, Chilling nova contributes less than 1% total damage to your build. And if you have any other chill sources in the party there's even less of an argument to keep this as is.
 

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Deathly chill: I guess the suggestion is "ok".

Deathly chill (alternative): No, just no! Deathly chill's damage on chill have been changed to bleed proc for a good reason, let's not fall again in this trap.

 

Bleed damage is fine. It isn't elegant, but its fine yeah.

The old version of Deathly Chill didn't stack with other players. Frostbite would have the same stack limits as a bleed or torment. Only its slowing effect hard caps at 25%. The damage does not.

I could understand if you have other reasons for not liking that suggestion. But the reasoning of how it used to function doesn't apply at all. There is no trap being fallen into. Different idea entirely.

[Lily.1935]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

All in all, I don't think any of these is what the reaper need atm. From the very beginning, the reaper's inate survivability make it unfit for being a selfish dps, instead of trying to force this role onto him without care by inflating it's "numbers", how about giving him the tools for the role that fit his design?

 

That's actually what I did. Reaper was designed as a movie monster villain. A Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Candy Man, or Pyramid Head. It was not designed as a support. And shouldn't be a support. As a tank? Sure, however I have many issues with how tanking works in Guild Wars 2 as there is no means to generate aggro from a boss other than just having toughness. But that's not an issue with reaper's design, that's an issue with encounter design. I mentioned Hand Kiter, but a Hand Kiter doesn't need to be a support. It just needs to generate its own boons and be able to survive punishment.

[Dadnir.5038]

23 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

Awful, awful changes. Theming is important and it is a selfish DPS and designed around it as such. This strongly damages the flavor of the elite spec and doesn't serve necromancer as a whole. Stability being granted to allies is something Death magic should do, Not reaper. Its perfectly fine to have a selfish DPS elite spec. Especially since both Scourge and Harbinger are not selfish.

Look, reaper isn't a "selfish dps". It simply got too much inate survivability to be a "dps".

Reaper's design and thematic extend upon the idea of "outlasting your foe" more than anything else. You can't escape it and it whittle you down slowly but surely. Unfortunately in the game such design is totally useless so the best you can expect is for reaper to make it's allies a bit like himself.

 

4 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

Augury of death is 6 seconds if you're fighting 1 target. So if we're looking at the 10% damage stacking in duration that's 18 seconds of the buff which puts it at 100% up time with 3 shouts and alacrity against a boss.

And you're giving up on other utilities for that, so yes, that's a net loss.

5 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

Change isn't for a DPS variant. Its for sustain for kiting or for newer players who need the help for survival. That reasoning might be flawed, however I do not want to move away from reaper's core design philosophy.

??? Sustain for kitting? While in reaper shroud? Indeed the reasoning is flawed. The trait don't have an effect that would be recomended by the community, the newer players are more likely to flock onto reaper's onslaught than onto this trait with or without the lower decay.

2 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

That's actually what I did

You didn't give any tool. You're just reshuffling what the reaper already have and inflating numbers.

Yes, reaper was inspired by movie monster villains, but that doesn't make it a "dps". Most of these movie monsters are just unkillable "tanks". Unfortunately being an unkillable selfish tank isn't something that will ever be popular in GW2. Worse, it's not possible to have an e-spec truly selfish in GW2 since you can use core tools to provide support.

12 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

I mentioned Hand Kiter, but a Hand Kiter doesn't need to be a support. It just needs to generate its own boons and be able to survive punishment.

That's already what the reaper is and have been since it's release. Guess what? It's not a popular role.

I don't know why you're insisting on having reaper being selfish as it's thematic, but even villains/monsters ultimately join hand from time to time. Heroes are not the only one that get to support their allies.

[Asum.4960]

Especially in a PvP context Reaper is much closer to the "Assassin" Archerype than anything else. It barely qualifies as "Brawler", let alone "Tank", or in GW2 Terms, "Bunker". 

 

In a PvE context for GW2, being a conventional tank is fairly useless. In GW2 damage is king (including at incoming damage and mechanic avoidance), and tanking is only a thing in a handful of Raid encounters, and there has nothing to do with high health pools or the like. 

Also ironically, out of Scourge, Reaper and even Harbinger, Reaper imo has the worst survivability to dps ratio - as in even Harbinger, especially with the ranged advantage of kiting, can be built to be more "tanky/survivable" than Reaper at equal/higher damage output (and much higher group utility). 

For what it's worth, unless one has no clue about buildcraft, innate tankyness in general is fairly meaningless. Even Ele, despite all it's downstate meme's, can be built to be more tanky than Reaper while still providing more Damage and Utility. 

In Group content Supports in GW2 historically are so over tuned that it's of fairly little importance either, save for extremely high end/niche no healer setups. 

 

Even if Reaper had a group stab and aegis source as well as some minor group healing in Shroud, that wouldn't open up any niche for Reaper.

I don't think trying to completely reframe Reaper into that context is as easy as those 3 changes, nor does it make sense on any level - be it mechanical or thematically. 

If you want an innately super tanky Necro spec that's pretty much entirely useless in all of PvE and cried about in PvP, I think Core Necromancer already fills that niche tragically enough on it's own.

 

 

I really don't see a convincing argument here why Reaper can't be a competitive DPS, and imo that's the specs best shot at viability.

 

 

[Lily.1935]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Look, reaper isn't a "selfish dps". It simply got too much inate survivability to be a "dps".

Reaper's design and thematic extend upon the idea of "outlasting your foe" more than anything else. You can't escape it and it whittle you down slowly but surely. Unfortunately in the game such design is totally useless so the best you can expect is for reaper to make it's allies a bit like himself.

 

And you're giving up on other utilities for that, so yes, that's a net loss.

??? Sustain for kitting? While in reaper shroud? Indeed the reasoning is flawed. The trait don't have an effect that would be recomended by the community, the newer players are more likely to flock onto reaper's onslaught than onto this trait with or without the lower decay.

You didn't give any tool. You're just reshuffling what the reaper already have and inflating numbers.

Yes, reaper was inspired by movie monster villains, but that doesn't make it a "dps". Most of these movie monsters are just unkillable "tanks". Unfortunately being an unkillable selfish tank isn't something that will ever be popular in GW2. Worse, it's not possible to have an e-spec truly selfish in GW2 since you can use core tools to provide support.

That's already what the reaper is and have been since it's release. Guess what? It's not a popular role.

I don't know why you're insisting on having reaper being selfish as it's thematic, but even villains/monsters ultimately join hand from time to time. Heroes are not the only one that get to support their allies.

The issues you would face by trying to add boons and healing to reaper and not damage would Put them in direct competition for roles that Scourge and harbinger both preform and would still preform better with less sacrifice in their personal damage. Your Support suggestion only dirties the reaper class as a whole since it wasn't designed with that in mind. Boon support should be baseline to necromancer, much like how it is for many other classes. The ability to grant specific defensive boons like is something that shouldn't be locked behind an elite spec. Scourge and Harbinger both need that utility and Reaper just doesn't have the support to do that in its design. Shouts were designed to be offensive in nature, the weapon was designed with control and heavy hits, the shroud was designed with aggressive attacking as well. Every element of their design is Hit them hard and sponge hits and over the years its shifted more and more towards DPS. Scourge on the other hand, Every aspect of the scourge was built with support in mind. The only selfish Utility skill scourge has now is Sand Flare and it wasn't originally designed like that. It was the complete opposite design philosophy from reaper.

My justification for Blighter's Boon is the decay rate does cause major losses for potential damage reduction. Reaper's sustain noticeable took a hit when it was increased. This reduces the time Blighter's boon can recover health. Now, I could see adding a function to it that says "Boons you apply to yourself have their duration increased by 100%" so we could gain effectively use traits like Dread more effectively. But a Hand Kiter is already a Niche Build as is. In the perfect world Tanks would manipulate an aggro system that involves active use of specific skills and stats like taunt, pulls or threatening presences like shouts. But that's not reaper's fault.

As far as Inate Survivability for reaper goes? It means very little when their major DPS is on a timer which damage reduces that timer and they have a hard time avoiding getting hit. The balancing act of reaper is that its so heavily locked into Melee. And it should be rewarded for that. Bringing reaper up to 38k DPS wouldn't be unreasonable in the slightest. Would my trait suggestions get them there? Probably not. Not on their own at least. But you're right on one thing. I might be being too conservative with Augury of death. Its duration perhaps could be a bit higher. Cut "Your soul is mine" cast time, increase its damage and use suffer. Augury of death's duration up to 10 seconds which means its 125% up time with just those two. Sure you lose out on 180 power form signet of spite but gain more than that from not having to run assassin's gear. Plus You're overcapping on chill and the shouts are providing more damage than just a passive signet so... Overall it would be a net gain in DPS. Would need to be a minimum of 8 seconds +1 second per target to be permanent uptime with just 2 shouts.

Shouts also have a unique advantage over wells. Low to no cast time. You can use them while using other skills which shouldn't be overlooked. Just to add that.

And the "You just reshuffled tools" is what's needed. Sometimes a more subtle touch is needed when dealing with this sort of thing. Not every elite specialization needs to have some level of support. Bladesworn and daredevil don't innately support allies and reaper doesn't need to either. Both of them can because they have strong core options. If reaper gets to support allies it should be due to core trait choices. Like through Blood magic or death magic. And Yes I believe Death magic should provide support.

Now, I'm tired. I'm going to go to bed. I don't and wont ever agree with you that reaper needs support to be good. It doesn't. It just needs to be better at what its already trying to do.

[Obtena.7952]

You can buff DPS all you like on Reaper, but it's not clear what the goal is doing so, other than power creeping it. There are hundreds of cool ways to imagine how it can get more DPS, so that's not really much value IMO. I think the trick is not overloading the existing features. 

As for the recommendations: 

1. Big nope on removing lifesteal on Augury. It's appropriate to the theme and can be buffed for DPS just by changing the values. 

2. Another big nope on Soul Eater. I think one of the characteristics of a good trait is that they change how you play a build if you use them. A passive lifesteal doesn't really do that. It's also just too similar to Vampiric. The DPS/heal relationship affects to how a person builds/plays. 

3. Blighter's Boon problem is that where it works best, it's redundant (teams with people giving you lots of buffs). Otherwise it's a bit trash trash. I think there is lots of rework potential here, but not for DPS. 

4. Chilling Nova is a tough sell to buff with the current game state. The choices there are pretty equal IMO and you want to preserve that. 

5. I always hated the bleed on this but I guess it's good for chill application builds, which I can see people having fun with. I always disliked the idea that small condi apps in a power build are so hard to take advantage of. 

6. I'm on the fence with this suggestion. If the % increase is too high, the trait predominates over build options since it's default, which Reaper actually has. 

Here is what I think:

• Augury of Death - I would increase the life siphon values some 50-100%.  
• Blighter's Boon - I would dump the LF gain on this to make room for a pure  'tank' trait here because getting LF isn't a big deal. I would remove the current effect and have it heal some 2-3K on Fear application. That works in and out of shroud and you can focus a build on that if you want. Definitely will give you a different way to play the Reaper than just Shroud hopping. 
• Deathly Chill - Add a power to condi duration conversion which also is FIRE with Cold Shoulder and has use if you don't apply lots of chill. 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[GoingMenthol.7281]

I'd normally give a laundry list of new or reworked skills to generate a conversation or ideas, but I had a thought for reaper.

We have skills that fully recharge Greatsword 2 when hitting a foe below 50%, recharge shroud skills in general by 1 second per hit, and recharge shouts per hit

What if there was a trait that reduced the recharge of weapon skills when a certain requirement is met? Let's say for example:

"Blighters Boon: recharge your currently equipped weapon's skills by 0.5 seconds for each boon you apply to yourself"

• Reduced skill recharge without alacrity is pretty thematic to Reaper
• It would increase DPS without being just a coefficient bump
• Dread on core Necro recharges Shroud 3 despite Reaper's Onslaught also recharging Shroud 3, so there's already a precedent of skill recharge overlap (for gravedigger recharge and all weapon skill recharge)
• Synergy with boon generation from Spite (might gained in shroud recharges weapon) or Death Magic (Corrupter's Fervor) or Reaper traits and skills (Chilling Victory, You are all Weaklings, Chilled to the Bone)
• Weapon skills are how you quickly gain life force, and life force is used as a defence mechanism. It would make Reaper a little more tough without adding toughness or other stat boosts

Edited August 19, 2022 by GoingMenthol.7281

[Parpage.9867]

On 8/18/2022 at 9:19 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

3 simple changes that would make reaper a fonctional "tank" and maybe even a fonctional heal.

But why tho

[Dadnir.5038]

15 hours ago, Parpage.9867 said:

But why tho

Because reaper is naturally tanky and other players will never accept that something naturally tanky have competitive damage. Building up on reaper's natural strength is the path of least resistance, the path that eventually lead to be accepted instead of being rejected.

[Axl.8924]

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Because reaper is naturally tanky and other players will never accept that something naturally tanky have competitive damage. Building up on reaper's natural strength is the path of least resistance, the path that eventually lead to be accepted instead of being rejected.

 

By that standard reaper will never be good at anything. Can it do fractals low tier? sure but there are way better options.

[Dadnir.5038]

51 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

 

By that standard reaper will never be good at anything. Can it do fractals low tier? sure but there are way better options.

Unless the devs rework totally the reaper's shroud mechanism, no, there is no better options. You amongst many people should know that much. What prevent reaper from being made into this very dps that most people want is the fact that the shroud offer a so called 2nd health bar. We've discussed this over and over for 7 years already. RS and DS way to work are such that you can't expect the spec they belong to to ever be seen as a glass canon, which in return mean that reaper or even core necromancer getting competitive damage output is something that the other professions will always have a hard time accepting.

On another hand, if you offer reaper the ability to provide support, his natural tankiness will be forgiven and as a support he will be accepted.

NB.: Reaper can do all the end game content, the issue have never been whether he can or not. The issue is and have always been whether it's wanted in a group or not. The best course of action is to give him the tools without hurting the frail pride of the 8 other professions who don't have a "2nd health bar".

 

NB²: All those "confused" emotes make me laugh. It's not because I'm saying out loud unpleasant facts that they don't exist. Is it hard to realise that reaper glass canon with 30k+ health is tankier than a glass canon spec with 12k+ health?  

[Asum.4960]

Shroud may have been a justification from launch through HoT, but it's imo not a valid talking point in the current day game after years of powercreep anymore. 

For one, it's a double edged mechanic - you don't want to actually use it to tank damage/mechanics because otherwise your damage plummets, but also plenty other classes have gotten their fill of purely positive defensive mechanisms or boon spam. 

 

What strikes people about Shroud is the fact that it's just there as obvious mechanic, and always has been for Necro. Take away Shroud and give Reaper more sustain/tankyness back in more obscure forms through Traits, boons, blocks, evades, special modifiers, etc., and no one would care that it does Damage too. 

Also just Specter existing as top DPS with a Shroud (on top of a core design not relying on it) breaks that whole argument already.

 

Shroud isn't the be all end all. It's always been a problematic mechanic in that it seems incredibly powerful in very casual/rudimentary play (since it's just there and doesn't require any profession knowledge or buildcraft to get value out of), and then falls off the more top end you go (if not becoming straight up a limitation at times, as it prevents healing and incoming damage can kill rotations and dps uptime). 

 

I'd always take a robust core profession plus a mechanic like Photon Forge (which also doesn't lock out Utility usage and passives) over just a second Healthbar (which also has most of my damage tied to it).

 

Plus, again, Supports are OP in GW2, what predominantly kills players/groups in endgame is not lack of personal tankyness/sustain, it's failing mechanics. Extra health doesn't prevent that (if anything, the Utility and mobility of many other specs/professions helps with that). 

Meanwhile pushing Reaper into a sort of Health Tank/Damage Sponge, which doesn't exist in GW2 as a role, doesn't do anything. It's just an effective abandonment/deletion of the Spec.

 

E:

And to add my point from another thread to this, let's not forget Reaper is almost entirely melee. 

Even if it were to Golem bench similarly to Virtuoso, Mech, Harb, Specter, etc. (and I'm not saying it should be that high), it would still be behind by quite a bit in practice due to far lower DPS uptime in real encounters.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Kaladel.1670]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Is it hard to realise that reaper glass canon with 30k+ health is tankier than a glass canon spec with 12k+ health?  

The problem is that those 18k HP are almost useless outside of competitive and open world. So, when they serve as an excuse to be worse than the other DPS players in instanced PvE, people don't accept it.

The glass canon with 12k health also tends to bring other things considered more valuable by a team than just "I'm a little bit harder to kill" (a thing whose utility is even arguable in some circumstances where bosses or mechanics can kill you, whatever the size of your HP pool).

Of course 30k is better than 12k, that's a fact and you are right about that, but offense is always more valuable than defense. And HP are probably one of the worst forms of defense in the game. So the tradeoff is still a bit hard for people to swallow.

I don't think anybody here is arguing for Reaper to top the dps charts.

But the difference between the best dps build and the worst (dps) are clearly way to huge at the moment and should at least be halved to encourage build diversity and get less "we only take x and y" and more "yeah, this works too, that won't make a huge difference, especially if you know how to play this profession better".

Edited August 21, 2022 by Kaladel.1670
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[Artificer.3468]

What Deathly chill could do is instead switch to inflicting bleed when you hit a chilled enemy and augment executioners scythe to make the ice field last longer.

 

Decimate defenses could have scaling damage based on the number of unique conditions on enemies but only when you're in shroud

 

Soul eater could be a purely sustain trait  maybe everytime you gain life force, you also heal? Unsure about it

 

The reduced cooldown on shouts per enemy hit should be baseline and Augury could add an extra effect to the shouts depending on what they do now. 

 

Of course I dont think any of these will happen but it's fun to theorycraft sometimes 

 

[Nimon.7840]

22 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Because reaper is naturally tanky and other players will never accept that something naturally tanky have competitive damage. Building up on reaper's natural strength is the path of least resistance, the path that eventually lead to be accepted instead of being rejected.

 

With that argument you'd have to nerf every class to the ground, that can share protection or aegis, because they make the whole group tanky.

[Radina.6057]

On 8/21/2022 at 4:53 PM, Asum.4960 said:

And to add my point from another thread to this, let's not forget Reaper is almost entirely melee. 

Even if it were to Golem bench similarly to Virtuoso, Mech, Harb, Specter, etc. (and I'm not saying it should be that high), it would still be behind by quite a bit in practice due to far lower DPS uptime in real encounters.

Reapers damage should be atleast as high as Virtuoso, since they fill the same role.

Supposedly high cleave melee damage, with no boon support what so ever. (Just so to be clear. To describe the current Reaper correctly, you would need to scratch "high", and "damage" from the previous sentence.)

 

Especially if the Shroud doesnt get changed from "second hp bar" to "mana bar". 

Anet wouldnt even have to change Reaper completely for everyone. A simple change to "Reapers Onslaught" that would hand the player the shroud change, plus a massive stat boost ontop would fix a lot of problems and wouldnt enrage the twelve open world Reapers.

[Lily.1935]

I've been doing a lot of testing for the upcoming balance patch and I overlooked a major issue contributing to reaper's low damage. Its Shroud cooldowns. I mean, look at this
 

1. Death's Charge: 6 seconds. Reasonable. Pretty low for a charge skills.
2. Infusing Terror: 25 seconds. Wow... Probably should be dropped down to 15 in PvE.
3. Soul Spiral: 30! it doesn't time well with soul barbs at all. That leaves awkward down time.
4. Executioner's Scythe: 30 seconds! Honestly, same problem.

Like, Soul Spiral and Executioner's Scythe should be dropped down to 20 seconds each in PvE. That would make them line up with the rotation for both condi and power. Like, honestly, that would be a game changer for reaper.

[Asum.4960]

3 hours ago, Lily.1935 said:

I've been doing a lot of testing for the upcoming balance patch and I overlooked a major issue contributing to reaper's low damage. Its Shroud cooldowns. I mean, look at this
 

1. Death's Charge: 6 seconds. Reasonable. Pretty low for a charge skills.
2. Infusing Terror: 25 seconds. Wow... Probably should be dropped down to 15 in PvE.
3. Soul Spiral: 30! it doesn't time well with soul barbs at all. That leaves awkward down time.
4. Executioner's Scythe: 30 seconds! Honestly, same problem.

Like, Soul Spiral and Executioner's Scythe should be dropped down to 20 seconds each in PvE. That would make them line up with the rotation for both condi and power. Like, honestly, that would be a game changer for reaper.

Keep in mind that every full AA chain with Reaper's Onslaught traited reduces all Shroud CD's by 1 second too. 

With Alacrity that means Soul Spiral generally will be at ~10 second CD left when existing Shroud, and be available for every Shroud entry again. 

Soul Spiral is already among the highest DPS contributors, despite it's CD. The problem is just incredibly lacklustre Power Weapon choices, and way to low coefficients and/or too long aftercasts on Necro.

(For example, the Wells state a 0.25 second cast time, yet even with quickness, you can still even interrupt their cast a good 0.5 seconds into it via Heal skill or stow - and that's by far not the most egregious example of how everything on Necro just takes way, way, longer than listed on paper, both in terms of cast times and especially aftercasts)

Edited August 23, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Nimon.7840]

1 hour ago, Asum.4960 said:

Keep in mind that every full AA chain with Reaper's Onslaught traited reduces all Shroud CD's by 1 second too. 

With Alacrity that means Soul Spiral generally will be at ~10 second CD left when existing Shroud, and be available for every Shroud entry again. 

Soul Spiral is already among the highest DPS contributors, despite it's CD. The problem is just incredibly lacklustre Power Weapon choices, and way to low coefficients and/or too long aftercasts on Necro.

(For example, the Wells state a 0.25 second cast time, yet even with quickness, you can still even interrupt their cast a good 0.5 seconds into it via Heal skill or stow - and that's by far not the most egregious example of how everything on Necro just takes way, way, longer than listed on paper, both in terms of cast times and especially aftercasts)

Imo they really should get rid of all the aftercasts in the game.

Having aftercast just makes it a lot harder for new players to understand, what skills are good. But I guess that would have taken too much time to squeeze this into todays patch.

 

Or the game should clearly state the casttime + aftercast time in the skills tooltip.

 

Removing the aftercasts would make some classes a lot easier to play but also lead to certain problems.

You'd definetly have to rebalance all the skills, that got their aftercast reduced.

[Lily.1935]

2 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Keep in mind that every full AA chain with Reaper's Onslaught traited reduces all Shroud CD's by 1 second too. 

With Alacrity that means Soul Spiral generally will be at ~10 second CD left when existing Shroud, and be available for every Shroud entry again. 

Soul Spiral is already among the highest DPS contributors, despite it's CD. The problem is just incredibly lacklustre Power Weapon choices, and way to low coefficients and/or too long aftercasts on Necro.

(For example, the Wells state a 0.25 second cast time, yet even with quickness, you can still even interrupt their cast a good 0.5 seconds into it via Heal skill or stow - and that's by far not the most egregious example of how everything on Necro just takes way, way, longer than listed on paper, both in terms of cast times and especially aftercasts)

Problem is Reaper's onslaught isn't used on condi reaper. And even on power, reducing the overall recharge would still be quite helpful.