Bring back the Pve Reaper

[Josiah.2967]

2 minutes ago, Animism.7530 said:

You can keep calling it a prediction all you want, though there are people here saying they'd play it more often; but not only that.

 

Why don't you look at Engineer and Mechanist instead? As if people didn't suddenly start playing Mech? Was it because it had the highest benched DPS, or because they liked it for a variety of reasons, such as ease or visuals? 

 

To add to the above statement.  I have fun playing Reaper. I love Reaper. I have changed what I played, because it is underperforming. Mech/Firebrand bore me. I am not playing Mesmer. I would gladly go back to Reaper (which I enjoy more) if it was competitive. This has lowered my fun level, and I play less because of this. I also buy a lot less from the gem store, which hurts Arena nets bottom line.

[Obtena.7952]

22 minutes ago, Animism.7530 said:

You can keep calling it a prediction all you want, though there are people here saying they'd play it more often; but not only that.

I'm calling it a prediction because that's what it is. I doubt that Anet is compelled to change the game based on people predicting how a specific change they want will give them the result they desire. That's about as contrived an argument for change that you can think of. 

Let's put it another way ... I predict it won't work out like you predict. That's just as good a reasoning for Anet to not change it as your reasoning to change it based on your prediction. 

22 minutes ago, Animism.7530 said:

Why don't you look at Engineer and Mechanist instead?

because how Mechanist works has no relevance here. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Animism.7530]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

I'm calling it a predict because that's what it is. 

 

Not a useful addition to the topic with people providing a stated intention to play it for said reasons. 
 

[Obtena.7952]

4 minutes ago, Animism.7530 said:

 

Not a useful addition to the topic with people providing a stated intention to play it for said reasons. 
 

I agree ... your prediction that the game will work a certain way based on the exact changes you want is not a useful addition to the topic. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Animism.7530]

3 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I agree ... your prediction that the will game works how you think based on the exact changes you want is not a useful addition to the topic. 

 

It's a request/feedback thread. Please stop deliberately making contrarian arguments.

To sum up; there are stated intentions here as to what would make people play Reaper more - you turn up and tell them they wouldn't. 

 

You edited your last post and I didn't reply to it - 

14 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

because how Mechanist works has no relevance here. 

 

Yes I'm telling you in my opinion it is relevant. Want to know why I think that? 
I started playing it because it was easy high DPS and versatile. If you identified that Reaper could be in a similar position you'd be correct. 

[Obtena.7952]

10 minutes ago, Animism.7530 said:

It's a request/feedback thread.

Yeah, and everyone can participate in these threads, even if they don't agree with the request or the feedback. What's the problem here?

10 minutes ago, Animism.7530 said:

To sum up; there are stated intentions here as to what would make people play Reaper more - you turn up and tell them they wouldn't. 

No, I didn't say changes wouldn't result in more people playing Reaper so I have no idea what you are going on about. Maybe you should go read my posts again before trying to have an argument with me. 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Animism.7530]

8 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

No, I didn't say changes wouldn't result in more people playing Reaper ... not once ... so I have no idea what you are going on about. Maybe you should go read my posts again before trying to have an argument with me. 

...

There are only two potential outcomes to the prediction, and here was yours. 

 

36 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I doubt that Anet is compelled to change the game based on people predicting how a specific change they want will give them the result they desire. That's about as contrived an argument for change that you can think of. 

Let's put it another way ... I predict it won't work out like you predict. That's just as good a reasoning for Anet to not change it as your reasoning to change it based on your prediction. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Animism.7530

[Obtena.7952]

I'm not going to argue with someone that uses their own predictions as factual information to justify their arguments. I was pretty clear in what I said in this thread, just like I try to be in any other. Your predictions don't invalidate my points here. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Animism.7530]

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I'm not going to argue with someone that uses their own predictions as factual information to justify their arguments. I was pretty clear in what I said in this thread, just like I try to be in any other. Your predictions don't invalidate my points here. 

Then we can leave the discussion here and let the wider community and Anet decide. 
Thanks. 

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

Anet decided long ago the easiest path is to force players into their cookie cutter meta classes so they have far less work to do when it comes to balance, unfortunately Reaper is not one of those classes. There have been hundreds of threads with the Reaper player base asking for fixes. THEY DON'T CARE!

[zeyeti.8347]

Mechanist isnt relevant .... ofc it isnt , i never played engi before , because i like more "mage" type class , now that mech is around i just play it when i want to speedrun content , so maybe it isnt relevant TO YOU Obtena , but for the most people here it is !

You can play how you want , is a wet dream , but a dream , just explain why some classes have 11600 hp base and others have 19000 base ? why some classes have heavy armors , and some light armors ? some traits and spec are too old and need a good review/rework and as manys says reaper mechanic is ok for the most of us , they should just bump up the ratio/damage . They are facts , we have new players changing from weaver to mech or virtuoso , and they all say the same :" my god it cut trough everything , and it's so ez to play , i will never touch my ele again" , i will record it enxt time i hear that ...

Mechanist nerf didnt really occurd (lil buggy) even it lost a lil dps it is shown that players are now at 27% in endgame choosing mechanist , and before his nerf it was at mostly 34% , it's a 6% loss ! so people care about dps but no mechanics where changed just damage ratio, the rotation is still the same , maybe you are a strange one trying fancy/goofy/funny builds , but stop talking like you represent 100% of the community ... you are alone here , that should just give you a hint ... but narcissistic pervert , will never agree they are in the wrong , and you tend more and more to be one .

And bring data so we can enjoy you playing a dead class wrecking endgame content , saying i am god 'son doesnt mean anything ... you can be everything you want on the internet , you just have to tell your own brain you agree each other ... facts vs theory ... who wins you guess ? Flat earthed ? 

Edited October 23, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Dadnir.5038]

6 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

why some classes have heavy armors , and some light armors ?

That's cosmetic. Objectively any player that have played GW2 a bit know this much. The value of having an heavy armor over a light armor is null.

6 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

just explain why some classes have 11600 hp base and others have 19000 base ?

Sustain philosophy. 11k hp classes are mainly about avoidance/block while 19k hp classes are about "tanking the hit" (Yes warrior have a lot of avoidance but that's just because tanking hits just didn't work as a design in the early years of the game). All in all, the devs wanted a wide variety of possibility when they designed the game (some things ended up working better than other based on each "era"). Believe it or not there are advantages in having 11k hp instead of 19k hp as, for example, it is easier to bring back a 11k hp character to above 90% health than a 19k hp one. (again, that's comon knowledge for anyone that's played GW2 a bit.)

6 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

some traits and spec are too old and need a good review/rework

Objectively, the necromancer is far from being the worst when it come to traits and specs. Where the necromancer lack is mainly in weapon design (especially the off hand weapons). Unfortunately, It is also lacking in it's general design in many way as the devs made the choice to make him favor debilitating conditions over boon sharing (leading to the creation of the overly bloated harbinger and reduced value of the profession as a whole for PvE end game), condition transfert over condition cleanse and "tanking with health points" over "avoiding hits" (making any necromancer spec bad at properly "tanking" for a team).

6 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

as manys says reaper mechanic is ok for the most of us

It is ok but one have to accept that it need drawback for the advantages it offer which is why the thread is going on forever as people just don't want to acknowledge that it does have an advantage in survivability over a 11k hp glass canon and thus deserve to be lacking in damage compared to said 11k hp glass canon.

People here want reaper to do "competitive" damage output despite him having around 30k effective hp when traited as glass canon (so without any investment in defense) and it would be simply unfair to the other various glass canon that would need heavy investment to match that mount of sustain.

Furthermore, game history already proved that whether reaper have competitive damage output or not, it isn't enough to make him popular/"meta". The spec was dishing out 36-37k dps for a long time yet wasn't even glanced at by the "metaboys". Which mean that contrary to belief, more dps won't make reaper "popular". All it can do is make open worlders "happy" and other professions' mains "angry".

[Radina.6057]

8 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

People here want reaper to do "competitive" damage output despite him having around 30k effective hp when traited as glass canon (so without any investment in defense) and it would be simply unfair to the other various glass canon that would need heavy investment to match that mount of sustain.

Furthermore, game history already proved that whether reaper have competitive damage output or not, it isn't enough to make him popular/"meta". The spec was dishing out 36-37k dps for a long time yet wasn't even glanced at by the "metaboys". Which mean that contrary to belief, more dps won't make reaper "popular". All it can do is make open worlders "happy" and other professions' mains "angry".

An expert Reaper we got here.

 

A) Your Shroud is nothing but a weird Manabar. Loosing shroud equals very bad for your dps

 

B) The standing power of a spec through EHP does not matter at all. Aegis availability, and potent healers being a part of every group content, plus bosses not being able to onehit anything made sure of that

 

C) The 37k on Reaper a year ago was on a condition build that did, for its time, not pull good numbers. That plus the overall difficulty of playing Reaper still let QFBs knock on your door (This is kind of a reoccurring story)

 

D) Power Reaper always sucked for no good reason. A 37k Bench on a PReaper now would be amazing. That would translate to huge burst numbers when played with LichForm instead of the Golem that gets used for PBenchmarks

Edited October 24, 2022 by Radina.6057

[Dadnir.5038]

5 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

An expert Reaper we got here.

Probably more than you based on what you wrote afterward...

For your culture, reaper had 36k pDPS since the well of darkness rework (which happened years ago). And it didn't translate into reaper becoming popular or meta in end game content, however it was very satisfying for open world players. To the point that you were seeing veiled complaints that reaper was to easy for how effective it was in PvE maps here and there on the various subforums as well as youtube and reddit.

Also, the standing power of EHP is high despite what you claim because as a matter of fact it is easier for a healer (or even the player itself) to keep alive a character with a high health pool than a character with a low health pool as they do have more time to react to the impending crisis. And it is this "easy" factor that generate the most complaints and plee for nerfs in the forum (if you want a proof just look at how much people hate on mechanist currently).

Reaper do have a big cushion of HP, nobody can decently argue against this fact. And this is but a single part of the "easy to play" factor that affect the reaper as on top of having a big cushion of health point it also have a very simple and straightforward rotation. For the playerbase as a whole, what you brush off as "nothing" is a huge advantage over other professions.

Obviously, there are disadvantages to balance these advantages as the reaper can't do much for a group beside dealing damage and stay alive. And that's where we are at the point that people like you want to deny: "The selfishness of the reaper make it easy to play both solo and in group and thus this justify lower output efficiency. If one want to increase the reaper's value in group content it isn't by increasing it's selfish output that it should be done. To do that you need to deprive the reaper of a part of it's selfishness in order to increase it's party contribution."

Which lead us to the choice, either:

- Removing the LF shield, making it easier to manage shroud skills at the cost of survivability which would offer some leeway for an increase in damage output (It would make people happy when it come to damage output but unhappy when it come to survivability)

- Replacing blind by effects that properly negate incoming hits and effects in PvE, making the reaper able to properly "tank" for the party. (Reaper have been facing this wall since HoT, designed to be resilient but unable to perform in the tank role due to being unable to properly "fix" the boss throught the various mechanic. Honestly it probably wouldn't even be enough to claim the tank spot nowadays but that's the developpement that fit reaper the most)

- Having reaper offer party support on top of it's damage output. (Probably the one thing that would make it a valuable enough asset to be offered a spot in a meta group as "support" mean sharing either alacrity or quickness. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a valuable selfish dps in the current game, you need to be either a healer or a tank/dps with some amount of valuable support output. Because it's better to 2 sources of alac/quick at 50% output with no investment in boon duration than a single source with 100% output but heavy investment in boon duration)

[Axl.8924]

44 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Probably more than you based on what you wrote afterward...

For your culture, reaper had 36k pDPS since the well of darkness rework (which happened years ago). And it didn't translate into reaper becoming popular or meta in end game content, however it was very satisfying for open world players. To the point that you were seeing veiled complaints that reaper was to easy for how effective it was in PvE maps here and there on the various subforums as well as youtube and reddit.

Also, the standing power of EHP is high despite what you claim because as a matter of fact it is easier for a healer (or even the player itself) to keep alive a character with a high health pool than a character with a low health pool as they do have more time to react to the impending crisis. And it is this "easy" factor that generate the most complaints and plee for nerfs in the forum (if you want a proof just look at how much people hate on mechanist currently).

Reaper do have a big cushion of HP, nobody can decently argue against this fact. And this is but a single part of the "easy to play" factor that affect the reaper as on top of having a big cushion of health point it also have a very simple and straightforward rotation. For the playerbase as a whole, what you brush off as "nothing" is a huge advantage over other professions.

Obviously, there are disadvantages to balance these advantages as the reaper can't do much for a group beside dealing damage and stay alive. And that's where we are at the point that people like you want to deny: "The selfishness of the reaper make it easy to play both solo and in group and thus this justify lower output efficiency. If one want to increase the reaper's value in group content it isn't by increasing it's selfish output that it should be done. To do that you need to deprive the reaper of a part of it's selfishness in order to increase it's party contribution."

Which lead us to the choice, either:

- Removing the LF shield, making it easier to manage shroud skills at the cost of survivability which would offer some leeway for an increase in damage output (It would make people happy when it come to damage output but unhappy when it come to survivability)

- Replacing blind by effects that properly negate incoming hits and effects in PvE, making the reaper able to properly "tank" for the party. (Reaper have been facing this wall since HoT, designed to be resilient but unable to perform in the tank role due to being unable to properly "fix" the boss throught the various mechanic. Honestly it probably wouldn't even be enough to claim the tank spot nowadays but that's the developpement that fit reaper the most)

- Having reaper offer party support on top of it's damage output. (Probably the one thing that would make it a valuable enough asset to be offered a spot in a meta group as "support" mean sharing either alacrity or quickness. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a valuable selfish dps in the current game, you need to be either a healer or a tank/dps with some amount of valuable support output. Because it's better to 2 sources of alac/quick at 50% output with no investment in boon duration than a single source with 100% output but heavy investment in boon duration)

 

They could ya know just increase DPS out of reaper shroud and  have a separate line for tanking and overhaul reaper shroud moves to be more for tanking with support or something

 

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, Axl.8924 said:

 

They could ya know just increase DPS out of reaper shroud and  have a separate line for tanking and overhaul reaper shroud moves to be more for tanking with support or something

 

I'm sure there are lots of ways Anet could change Reaper to make it more desirable; it's not clear how this idea would lead to one of those. I mean, what problem are you solving here? Making out of shroud DPS increase accomplishes what? Giving Reaper tankier options ... while it's only in shroud ... that seems like a hard sell to a team who wants a real tank and not one that is a tank just part of the time that they can't even heal. 

Dadnir speaks lots of truth and people should listen to what they say. He's outlining 3 options that would be major changes to Reaper and even some of those options are of questionable value to a team. He properly defines the scope of the team desirability problem; it's a spec design issue that DPS doesn't solve that is handcuffed because of its effective sustain. 

I have no doubt whatever the team-desirability fix is, it would results in in some significant polarization of the spec for either sustain or DPS; In otherwords, I don't think we will get a buff to one without a nerf to the other. If you don't believe that there is a price to pay for getting increased DPS, then convince yourself by looking at how many traits Anet has created where there is a sustain and a DPS option. Look at how Scourge has evolved as well. The sustain philosophy isn't a myth, at least not for Necros. 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The selfishness of the reaper make it easy to play both solo and in group and thus this justify lower output efficiency. If one want to increase the reaper's value in group content it isn't by increasing it's selfish output that it should be done. To do that you need to deprive the reaper of a part of it's selfishness in order to increase it's party contribution.

Truth ... even if people want to deny it. People pointing out the the mechanist situation doesn't invalidate this truth either. Obviously anyone using exceptional cases like mechanist to justify breaking Reaper has no interest in balance. 

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

The obstinate posters here (you know who you are) are so bloody detrimental to actually getting some semblance of balance rework it is mind boggling. The Reaper was the perfect tank when it was released and only due to WvW and PVP outcry did it get neutered. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the original build and now that can easily split the skills there is zero reason not to bring it back as it was originally intended. Between the chill skills and the great life force regeneration made a perfect tank/control/DPS combo which was widely used in groups and solo. If it weren't for incredibly vocal PvP community and the complete lack of the developers willingness to split off skills between PvE and other play styles we would still a great tank/control/dps build.

Stop trying to reinvent this elite build, bring it back to where it once was and split off the skills required for those modes in which it was slightly overpowered (doubt very much that is still the case).

 

Those of us who care about this class and who are actually trying to to get it fixed need to be free to express their ideas without the the continued badgering of the contrarian forum trolls.

[Josiah.2967]

Did anyone else see the recent Youtube PVE video on Reaper. The strangest spec uses celestial (for DPS) in OpenWorld PVE. It still worse than a lot of other specs; however, I was entertained. I will still be playing other classes until Reaper is competitive. I just found it facinitating....

[Parpage.9867]

8 hours ago, Vlad Morbius.1759 said:

The obstinate posters here (you know who you are) are so bloody detrimental to actually getting some semblance of balance rework it is mind boggling.

I know right? Not everything has to be meta and i'm fine with it, but leaving reaper at his current state is such a shame. Honestly it was my favorite spec and it still is, too bad that outside of niche situations i can't use it unless i want to grief my squad for end game purposes since a quickness spec can pull off the same dps as reaper and actually be useful to the team lmao

[Parpage.9867]

21 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Having reaper offer party support on top of it's damage output.

Please no. Let reaper be the selfish dps class that it was meant to be, we already have Harbinger and blood scourge for supporting your squad, let us actually deal dps instead!

[God.5728]

17 hours ago, Parpage.9867 said:

Please no. Let reaper be the selfish dps class that it was meant to be, we already have Harbinger and blood scourge for supporting your squad, let us actually deal dps instead!

 

Blood Scourge is not much of a party support. It needs to be able to supply either Quickness or Alacrity to party in order to quality as one. Also.. Blood Scourge doesn't really heal either.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

who cares what others want? Who cares what a party need? Just gimme my 50% damage boost and let's be done with it.

[Parpage.9867]

7 hours ago, God.5728 said:

Blood Scourge is not much of a party support

I'd say that enabling your entire squad to clear without effort most of the content is plenty of support. I wasn't talking about boons, everybody knows that blood scourge doesn't provide almost anything boon wise his thing is ressing over and over again preventing wipes and barrier 

[Frayze.4620]

On 10/24/2022 at 6:38 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

Truth ... even if people want to deny it. People pointing out the the mechanist situation doesn't invalidate this truth either. Obviously anyone using exceptional cases like mechanist to justify breaking Reaper has no interest in balance. 

Mechanist now , after nerfs, is a fairly low tier power dps class and yet remains popular because it is very easy to get good results on. That result, on power rifle, is damage. The perceptio is that it has this insane, crazy dps that, exist not actually true anymore, still means it will get a spot.

 Necro is now in a spot where Harb can offer boon support as well as good dps, and so find it easy to get into groups. Scourge is known for its great wipe prevention abilities, aside from anything else, and also finds it fairly easy to get into groups. Reaper WAS, in the past, similar to mech in that it was relatively new player friendly and gave good results for a new to average player, with that result again being damage done in target. Reaper has never been and nor was it ever “advertised” to us by Anet as being anything but a hard hitting damage dealer. The undeniable truth is that right now it does not do that. And that is, importantly, also the perception of reaper. That it can’t do damage and it didn’t offer anything else either.

i do agree that easier would be well served by looking at some supportive aspects, whether that be boon share, generation or something entirely different. But, at the very least it DOES need improved dps numbers because that is all it ever HAS had in the past. And that part also included a time where reapers WERE welcomed into any squad, not just more accepting ones, because whilst they did not offer boon share, or generation, or heals, or anything else…they DID offer some tasty damage that benefited their group members.