Bring back the Pve Reaper

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

44 minutes ago, Vlad Morbius.1759 said:

Well, as I've said they have until November to fix Reaper then I'm gone for good. Tired of the lack of balance, 6 good elites specs 30 kitten poor. Worst overall balancing I've ever seen in an mmorpg bar none!

hey, the current balance team is pretty much new or so they said. Give them a chance.

[Warscythes.9307]

3 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

The easist fix in my opinion is to change defile defence trait from 2% crit chance per vul to 1% crit chance + .5% strike damge per vulnerability.  This would make it a better dps trait than soul eater, but at a trade off of less survivability.

This actually doesn't do as much as you think.

 

You gain +12.5% damage but lose 10% from souleater. You can now use scholar runes instead of thief to perfect cap your crit. This is not going to be that big of a boost.

[anbujackson.9564]

16 hours ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

This actually doesn't do as much as you think.

 

You gain +12.5% damage but lose 10% from souleater. You can now use scholar runes instead of thief to perfect cap your crit. This is not going to be that big of a boost.

They could just switch the trait tiers for one of those traits.

[Warscythes.9307]

1 hour ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

They could just switch the trait tiers for one of those traits.

You can't just randomly swap that, especially because it impact PvP and WvW too. There's way easier number changes, like lily's suggestion of replacing spite minor or buff crit chance in SR.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

18 hours ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

This actually doesn't do as much as you think.

 

You gain +12.5% damage but lose 10% from souleater. You can now use scholar runes instead of thief to perfect cap your crit. This is not going to be that big of a boost.

10% from death perception, 25% from fury and 25% for DD would allow some berzerker peice to switched to dragon and still get scholar runes. 

[Warscythes.9307]

Just now, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

10% from death perception, 25% from fury and 25% for DD would allow some berzerker peice to switched to dragon and still get scholar runes. 

I feel that's going to be some number crunching involved then, at a glance though it doesn't look that great even if is a buff.

Let's set a estimate on how much we think reaper dps is going to be. I am going to say 36k as a lowball. So about 15% damage boost give or take. This doesn't seem enough just from the ability to use some dragon and scholar runes.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

1 hour ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

I feel that's going to be some number crunching involved then, at a glance though it doesn't look that great even if is a buff.

Let's set a estimate on how much we think reaper dps is going to be. I am going to say 36k as a lowball. So about 15% damage boost give or take. This doesn't seem enough just from the ability to use some dragon and scholar runes.

36K would be a good place for a aoe, low skill floor, mass blind high cc class with a 2nd health bar. This is higher than scouge, which give passive barrier, condi removal, and has a free utility slot, but lower than harb which using all utilities and loses a 2nd health bar to get its damage.

Hell i would love a good pharb, but it is held back by how awful dagger and all the off hand weapons necro has.

[Warscythes.9307]

1 hour ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

36K would be a good place for a aoe, low skill floor, mass blind high cc class with a 2nd health bar. This is higher than scouge, which give passive barrier, condi removal, and has a free utility slot, but lower than harb which using all utilities and loses a 2nd health bar to get its damage.

Hell i would love a good pharb, but it is held back by how awful dagger and all the off hand weapons necro has.

no no no let's not bring scourge in this. You have to remember we are talking about bench dps here, scourge is like rifle mech where you can translate your benchmark extremely close to almost all the bosses because you are fully ranged with no projectile issues. Your bench is a very good estimate on how much your dps will do in real fights. Reaper is full melee and have to deal with shroud, scholar uptime when it used to use it, flanking and whatnot. 36k in bench is not going to be close to real fights unless is very static bosses like MO.

 

Ideally I want reaper to be at least 10% above scourge to compensate for this, but that's another topic in itself.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Kaladel.1670]

Power mech (the grenade kit version) does bench almost 38k so Reaper must be higher than that.

[Artificer.3468]

P Mech is at best 34k right now it got nerfed recently unless I'm mistaken 

[Warscythes.9307]

11 minutes ago, Artificer.3468 said:

P Mech is at best 34k right now it got nerfed recently unless I'm mistaken 

That's rifle, I don't know too much about nades but that's honestly not that important because pure bench numbers is useless without context. 

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

SEE?! That's why we need 50% damage increase. We lost a lot of dps just by being a melee spec with no real face-tanking mechanism.

[Radina.6057]

6 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

36K would be a good place for a aoe, low skill floor, mass blind high cc class with a 2nd health bar. This is higher than scouge, which give passive barrier, condi removal, and has a free utility slot, but lower than harb which using all utilities and loses a 2nd health bar to get its damage.

36k would not be a good place.

Low skill floor regarding Reaper is simply misinformation. Getting Reaper to even a 90% Bench is a chore. Why? If you mistime Wells, Shroud, or Weapon Swaps your damage plummets into nothing. You have to align everything with the various unique Buffs Reaper is able to put on himself. Ontop of that you need to animation cancel two of your GS casts every single time. Most of the current top spec like Virtu, SB, Specter, and of course Mech have rotations a dead hamster could play. Reaper requires constant attention and wrecks you for losing it.

You also play the only spec in the entire game that does care about every enemy Void and attack. Tanking even a single one inside your shroud will wreck your rotation. Back during scholar times even a hit outisde of the shroud would be able to end your damage. A hit before going into shroud means no scholar bonus during the whole shroud loop.

High CC is also a gross overestimation. You dont play Golem during encounters. You run Lich Form for Summon Madness. All you got is Executioners Scythe, which has all the trademarks of the usual Reaper skills. High cast time, high CD, low impact. (The Golem is better if you would have to deal 4 million damage at a time. Thats not what happens during instanced content.)

Reaper needs at least 38k, as much as SB and Virtu, to be a valuable pick and not just a side note. And even then Reaper would have trouble catching up to those power specs in a real boss fight, because of lifeforce issues and 100% melee focus.

(The "passive barrier" of Scourge is dead for months btw.)

Edited October 10, 2022 by Radina.6057

[Nimon.7840]

On 10/9/2022 at 7:13 PM, Warscythes.9307 said:

You can't just randomly swap that, especially because it impact PvP and WvW too. There's way easier number changes, like lily's suggestion of replacing spite minor or buff crit chance in SR.

 

Yeah but you have to be aware that it's much harder to critcap in wvw than in PvE, cause in wvw fury only gives 20% critchance.

Full marauder gear with death perception gives you ~71% critchance. So you either need +70 precision food and sigill of accuracy or a rune that gives precision to critcap (unless you are playing curses) and expecting you get fury from a team member.

 

So either:

Full marauder with accuracy sigil and +70 precision food

Or

You play curses, which lets you swap a piece of gear (or maybe some more) to berserker.

Either way you loose something:

Spite: 10% dmg mod or vulnerability, extra power from might, extra corrupt or 20% dmg mod, but you have less power and ferocity from marauders gear.

Curses: extra corrupt, free sigil slot, ferocity food, have more power because you are able to play some berserker gear

[Axl.8924]

Let me explain my position guys why i said yes to something alike of support on reaper: We all know that a lot of tank classes carry support and for reaper to be acceptable in a role or two it needs something to be picked. I as much as any of you don't want reaper to just be going through the hate messages and toxic trolling for trying to play reaper for raids or fractals.

 

I

[SoulGuardian.6203]

2 hours ago, Axl.8924 said:

Let me explain my position guys why i said yes to something alike of support on reaper: We all know that a lot of tank classes carry support and for reaper to be acceptable in a role or two it needs something to be picked. I as much as any of you don't want reaper to just be going through the hate messages and toxic trolling for trying to play reaper for raids or fractals.

 

I

This sentence is somewhat incomplete, I felt. 

 

There is something else there you wanted to say. Is it not?

Care to share?

[Axl.8924]

19 minutes ago, SoulGuardian.6203 said:

This sentence is somewhat incomplete, I felt. 

 

There is something else there you wanted to say. Is it not?

Care to share?

I didn't want to ramble on since i want reaper to be DPS role and it seems less and less likely reaper will be fixed and fit in any sort of role in anything but open world and low tier fractals. The sustain and dps nerfs and getting set to do less dps annoys me and makes me not want to play GW2 seeing how they treat my 2 fav classes: ELE and necromancer hurts me.

It kinda pains me to see people say things like: BUT BUT the second health bar.

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Axl.8924

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

This game is done, they couldn't balance a checkbook. 6 of the 36 elite specs are decent the bulk of the rest are on the mediocre at best in most game modes with the remainder in the toilet not worth playing.  I don't want to hear the "oh we don't know what role they should play" Screw that GW2 was founded on all classes being able to play the way you want, fact is now it's all about trying to integrate the soft trinity which in fact has completely skewed the balance for the vast majority of classes and has ruined this once great game. You can't play the way you like because they want you to play the role they have repurposed your spec for you so play that or too bad, it's ludicrous.

Keep asking for buffs fact is it's too late to fix this mess so either accept that, play one of the 6 or leave because nothing you say here matters. I'm going to try and find something else where devs actually care about balance because 5 plus years of being in the bottom rung is enough for me!

[Axl.8924]

On 10/4/2022 at 11:16 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

Nothing is wrong with. It's just that it's not as simple as people want to make it sound to buff DPS on Reaper. A DPS increase on Reaper does not necessarily result in reliable overall DPS for reaper, even within the good player pool because of the DPS-shroud uptime relationship. I mean, where does most of the DPS come from? In -shroud. 

Again, just another reason DPS isn't a good path for Reaper to take to be desirable as a team mate.. 

So exactly what path is right for reaper? currently it doesn't have a path it isn't suitable for any role at all really its not a support its a very selfish class it doesn't have the DPS to be competitive versus others in raids and why would they take reaper when another class does 30% more or more than that plus offering support and is more reliably able to keep it? The class can't tank it doesn't have invulns aegis or support to act that way it can't heal. All it has is melee ranged ae which is good on some fractals low tier and open world but other classes can do better.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Axl.8924

[Warscythes.9307]

3 hours ago, Vlad Morbius.1759 said:

This game is done, they couldn't balance a checkbook. 6 of the 36 elite specs are decent the bulk of the rest are on the mediocre at best in most game modes with the remainder in the toilet not worth playing.  I don't want to hear the "oh we don't know what role they should play" Screw that GW2 was founded on all classes being able to play the way you want, fact is now it's all about trying to integrate the soft trinity which in fact has completely skewed the balance for the vast majority of classes and has ruined this once great game. You can't play the way you like because they want you to play the role they have repurposed your spec for you so play that or too bad, it's ludicrous.

Keep asking for buffs fact is it's too late to fix this mess so either accept that, play one of the 6 or leave because nothing you say here matters. I'm going to try and find something else where devs actually care about balance because 5 plus years of being in the bottom rung is enough for me!

lolok, as much as I think their balance team is bad. Right now unironically we have the most array of pretty good specs in the game right now in PvE. 6? What 6? Let me guess, Virt/Mech/FB/Scourge/BSW/SB? I am going to go through every single one in PvE.

 

Ele - Tempest, HA to be specific, condi weaver is good as well  2/3

Mesmer - Mirage/Virt 2/3

Necro - Harb/Scourge 2/3

Ranger - Druid/SB are all good, untamed is difficult that I don't know how an average untamed performs, so 2/3

Thief - Specter but I know people will disagree with me on this so I am going to leave it out, Dagger DE is ok 1/3

Engineer - Scrapper/Mech 2/3

Warrior - Spb/BSW 2/3

Rev - Ren/Vindi/Herald 3/3

Guardian - FB, I think WB is decent as well but I haven't seen enough of it, so I am leaving it out 1/3

 

So 17/27. No I am not going to include core in PvE. That's not that bad especially I am leaving out some that performs ok but I don't really have too much experience on. Every single one of them benches relatively well and can actually perform unlike rifle DE benches or can perform one of the boon role without an issue. 

 

Adding pointless complaints only disrupt the conversation than adding to it.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Obtena.7952]

22 hours ago, Axl.8924 said:

So exactly what path is right for reaper? currently it doesn't have a path it isn't suitable for any role at all really its not a support its a very selfish class it doesn't have the DPS to be competitive versus others in raids and why would they take reaper when another class does 30% more or more than that plus offering support and is more reliably able to keep it? The class can't tank it doesn't have invulns aegis or support to act that way it can't heal. All it has is melee ranged ae which is good on some fractals low tier and open world but other classes can do better.

Obviously as you see, that's a hard question to answer and I have no idea why you think I would have that answer either. Personally, I don't even have a problem with the current situation so ... I honestly haven't given it that much thought and won't be doing so. I mean, it's not a problem for me ... because I play how I want with people that let me play how I want because we all play how we want since the game is designed to play how you want (see what I did there?)

Frankly, for people who don't embrace playing how they want and impose the 'rules' of traditional MMO's on GW2, I don't see a 'place' or a 'role' for Reaper in team instance PVE for those people; that's simply not how the game was designed. Anet would likely have to abandon the 2nd HP bar concept or something changing on the encounter design side that would make more of the Reaper toolset relevant. Whatever it is, it's not just some "add DPS" solution because we already know that's not a solution. 

Even if you want to argue Anet is creating these roles inline with traditional MMO's ... that's STILL not going to ensure Reaper's place in the teams people have problems joining with it. The bandwidth is too small, the competition is too great. 

So, at this point, you get my usual rhetoric; keep screaming at the wall ... or change how you play.

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Axl.8924]

30 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Obviously as you see, that's a hard question to answer and I have no idea why you think I would have that answer either. Personally, I don't even have a problem with the current situation so ... I honestly haven't given it that much thought and won't be doing so. I mean, it's not a problem for me ... because I play how I want with people that let me play how I want because we all play how we want since the game is designed to play how you want (see what I did there?)

Frankly, for people who don't embrace playing how they want and impose the 'rules' of traditional MMO's on GW2, I don't see a 'place' or a 'role' for Reaper in team instance PVE for those people; that's simply not how the game was designed. Anet would likely have to abandon the 2nd HP bar concept or something changing on the encounter design side that would make more of the Reaper toolset relevant. Whatever it is, it's not just some "add DPS" solution because we already know that's not a solution. 

Even if you want to argue Anet is creating these roles inline with traditional MMO's ... that's STILL not going to ensure Reaper's place in the teams people have problems joining with it. The bandwidth is too small, the completion is too great. 

So, at this point, you get my usual rhetoric; keep screaming at the wall ... or change how you play.

 

Even if you are enjoying it  playing in open world traditional roles exist still for instance take the supports such as tempest with alac hybrid DPS heal hybrid full support full dps these roles exist for a reason. It would be such lets say your playing soccer and you are trash at everything and they ask HEY can you be a goalie and have you ever done it before? you say no i suck hey have you ever done the role of the frontman who scores goals? NOPE defense? NOPE   they are gonna say ok well we don't need you we got others here who can win.

 

Is it possible to win with reaper? Sure but you are gimping your team and likelyhood of winning a raid plus you encourage more toxic behavior of encouraging trash talk to hate on someone because they play X class which further brings a game to dying.

Some people like myself play mostly ele and necro and seeing any of the two becoming anything but desireable might be motivation to stop playing and if enough people do that then the game dies. Raid content should be something that shouldn't be a question of wether or not reaper can do it and traditional roles still exist but they are spread out with more variations such as those with stripping of buffs debuffs CC mobile tanks with support healers etc plus hybrids.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Axl.8924

[Obtena.7952]

Just now, Axl.8924 said:

Even if you are enjoying it  playing in open world traditional roles exist still for instance take the supports such as tempest with alac hybrid DPS heal hybrid full support full dps these roles exist for a reason. It would be such lets say your playing soccer and you are trash at everything and they ask HEY can you be a goalie and have you ever done it before? you say no i suck hey have you ever done the role of the frontman who scores goals? NOPE defense? NOPE   they are gonna say ok well we don't need you we got others here who can win.

 

Is it possible to win with reaper? Sure but you are gimping your team and likelyhood of winning a raid plus you encourage more toxic behavior of encouraging trash talk to hate on someone because they play X class which further brings a game to dying.

Some people like myself play mostly ele and necro and seeing any of the two becoming anything but desireable might be motivation to stop playing and if enough people do that then the game dies. Raid content should be something that shouldn't be a question of wether or not reaper can do it and traditional roles still exist but they are spread out with more variations such as those with stripping of buffs debuffs CC mobile tanks with support healers etc plus hybrids.

 

 

Well, that's your view of the game. Just because there are roles doesn't mean we are regulated to playing that way. In fact, MOST content can be successfully completed ignoring this artificially created role system Anet is implementing (because the content wasn't designed around this system to begin with). Aside from a SMALL fraction of content, you don't need it to win. Even for that small fraction, it's not determined how strictly roles or specific specs are needed to win. 

What I know is that if someone has a problem teaming with a class or a spec, it's because of how they have decided to perceive and play the game. Your post is a good example of someone who thinks they can't play something because it's not desirable to someone else. If everyone you play with plays what they want, then that's just a self-imposed restriction. 

Again, you asked me what the answer is to Reaper teaming (either because you think I have the answer ... or you just want to argue with me ... my bet is on the latter ...) I gave you an answer; radical changes to how Reaper works or radical changes to how content is affected by the reaper toolset. Maybe you just want to argue with me I'm wrong and reaper should have a30% DPS increase. You can do that. You know what I'm going to say. 

In the environment I play in the game, that question isn't even relevant. That question only has an answer for the subset of people that impose a view of the game that artificially limits how they can play it. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Warscythes.9307]

1 hour ago, Axl.8924 said:

Even if you are enjoying it  playing in open world traditional roles exist still for instance take the supports such as tempest with alac hybrid DPS heal hybrid full support full dps these roles exist for a reason. It would be such lets say your playing soccer and you are trash at everything and they ask HEY can you be a goalie and have you ever done it before? you say no i suck hey have you ever done the role of the frontman who scores goals? NOPE defense? NOPE   they are gonna say ok well we don't need you we got others here who can win.

 

Is it possible to win with reaper? Sure but you are gimping your team and likelyhood of winning a raid plus you encourage more toxic behavior of encouraging trash talk to hate on someone because they play X class which further brings a game to dying.

Some people like myself play mostly ele and necro and seeing any of the two becoming anything but desireable might be motivation to stop playing and if enough people do that then the game dies. Raid content should be something that shouldn't be a question of wether or not reaper can do it and traditional roles still exist but they are spread out with more variations such as those with stripping of buffs debuffs CC mobile tanks with support healers etc plus hybrids.

 

 

Mate I think all that can be said is said, no point in going any further than this. 

[Kulvar.1239]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Anet would likely have to abandon the 2nd HP bar concept or something changing on the encounter design side that would make more of the Reaper toolset relevant.

 

That would make Reaper so much better if Life Force was only fuel for the shroud and the shroud was like a firebrand tome (with life force rather than pages).