Reaper Changes Feedback - 29 November balance preview

[Nimon.7840]

For me the reaper changes feel extremely reserved as well.

While it's good to have a big dmg skill, I don't believe that it's great design to be able to basically only use this one skill below 50% (I know there's shroud as well). It makes gameplay below 50% really annoying...

 

I can only hope that this indicates some huge Necro reworks. In the next balance Patch to come.

 

And not just reaper or scourge, but an overall Necro overhaul.

 

There's something from the balance philosophy post I remember, what they said about healers in PvE "healers, heal and grand defensive boons to the group". Where's scourges defensive boons? Right now it only gives regeneration.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

There's something from the balance philosophy post I remember, what they said about healers in PvE "healers, heal and grand defensive boons to the group". Where's scourges defensive boons? Right now it only gives regeneration.

Scourge heal (grant barrier) and remove the defensive and offensive boons from your foes where other "healers" will heal and grant defensive boons (arguably, scourge can also provide might, regen, prot swiftness and stability). That's it's job.

Yes, it suck in PvE but that's mainly a "defiance" issue and the nov22 patch preview give me hope that they might finally make boon conversion interact with defiant foes in a following patchs.

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

While it's good to have a big dmg skill, I don't believe that it's great design to be able to basically only use this one skill below 50% (I know there's shroud as well). It makes gameplay below 50% really annoying...

Gravedigger's design have always been controversial. And the fact that the devs try to push the player to rely heavily on this skill has also always been very controversial. Both the necromancer's player base and the other professions' playerbases are unhappy with the overly simplistic rotations such design lead to.

 

The truth of the matter is that while the announced change won't make pReaper a competitive dps, they will make it's life easier. Most of the tweak offered won't even be felt by the player, they will just think it's a bit easier to do pretty much the same.

I can see what the devs are trying to do, pushing the players toward gravedigger and executioner's scythe but, even if those skills hit hard, they aren't "feel good" as they tend to break the flow of the rotation for very little benefit which make them low priority skills to use. That said, it's highly likely that executioner's scythe will now be included in the optimal rotation with the stupidly high coeff they intend to put on it (the coeff are so high that they will be worth a tiny bit more than a full AA chain on a more than 20s CD). After the patch it will provide a slight dps increase. It would have been smarter if the ice field had been given 4 lesser pulses of damage after the big hit instead, though.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

I fundamentally disagree - Gameplay is king. 

Again, theme can inform/tweak design at times, but ultimately theme has to follow good game design, otherwise you are setting yourself up for failure. 

That's especially true since theming is vastly easier than good game design. 

 

A fun and effective gameplay mechanic is incredibly easy to theme well - in turn a "thematic" mechanic may be impossible to make into a fun and effective gameplay mechanic. 

 

If a Necromantic themed character/class needs certain elements for gameplay purposes, you give them that and then theme them. Needs a Block? Easy, summons a bone shield, coagulates it's blood, etc. Need an Invuln? Disappears in a pool of blood, becomes spectral/incorporeal momentarily, etc. Needs to support allies? Enhances them via Blood Magic, Dark Rituals, etc. - there are literally countless options to make good, fun and needed mechanics thematically appropriate. 

 

If you start with what you think is a thematic addition, which then doesn't end up working well mechanically for your game, you are now just stuck with a bad, impossible to balance or make fun gameplay element. 

How do you fix that? By designing good mechanics and then theming them.

 

If you go design first, worst case scenario you got a fun and effective skill with a weak theme (which can be flavoured with just a better name and skill effect). 

If you go theme first, worst case you got a bad and unfun skill with a cool theme (which has to be entirely reworked to be worthwhile).

What would you rather actually play with?

You can disagree if you like, but this isn't an academic discussion. It's a reflection of the reality of this game and design DOES follow theme. It's a fact that is demonstrated by how Anet presented the EoD specs (the design ALWAYS followed the theme and it was clear that the design derived from the themes of the specs). This idea that design follows from a concept or theme is actually very standard in all kinds of industries and design activities, so how Anet creates these specs isn't even exceptional. 

The fact so many people don't recognize the importance of the theme in determining the design of the specs is one of the reasons why we see so many nonsensical suggestions to change specs. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Ruisenior.6342]

In my opinion reaper changes are meaningless besides greatsword autoattack minibuffmini. What's the point on increasing the damage from 2 of our utility skills while we are on shroud instead of the ones we deal damage with?

They should be kidding XD

 

[Asum.4960]

32 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

You can disagree if you like, but this isn't an academic discussion. It's a reflection of the reality of this game and design DOES follow theme. It's a fact that is demonstrated by how Anet presented the EoD specs (the design ALWAYS followed the theme and it was clear that the design derived from the themes of the specs). This idea that design follows from a concept or theme is actually very standard in all kinds of industries and design activities, so how Anet creates these specs isn't even exceptional. 

The fact so many people don't recognize the importance of the theme in determining the design of the specs is one of the reasons why we see so many nonsensical suggestions to change specs. 

I was talking about skills (and Traits and the like), not the process of creating a whole Profession or Spec.

Of course you start with a rough Concept for that. 

But imo Concept->Game Design->Theming leads to far superior results than Concepting->Theming->Designing.

That said, I don't doubt whatsoever that at least some of the devs making these specs theme everything out and just then try to actually make it a working spec mechanically after the fact, considering how many of these specs are broken on launch or even still (in both directions). 

I'm in no way downplaying the importance of theme either, those finishing touches are extremely important to make people actually get invested into the fantasy of the Profession/Spec (and I'm actually particularly disappointed in this area with the EoD Specs) - but that's what they are, finishing touches. 

All the theme in the world is useless if the gameplay is terrible - while theming good and fun mechanics well in accordance to the overarching concept just makes them even better, but they will always at least be good and fun mechanics regardless.

 

 

[Obtena.7952]

9 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

I was talking about skills (and Traits and the like), not the process of creating a whole Profession or Spec.

Of course you start with a rough Concept for that. 

But imo Concept->Game Design->Theming leads to far superior results than Concepting->Theming->Designing.

That said, I don't doubt whatsoever that at least some of the devs making these specs theme everything out and just then try to actually make it a working spec mechanically after the fact, considering how many of these specs are broken on launch or even still (in both directions). 

I'm in no way downplaying the importance of theme either, those finishing touches are extremely important to make people actually get invested into the fantasy of the Profession/Spec (and I'm actually particularly disappointed in this area with the EoD Specs) - but that's what they are, finishing touches. 

All the theme in the world is useless if the gameplay is terrible - while theming good and fun mechanics well in accordance to the overarching concept just makes them even better, but they will always at least be good and fun mechanics regardless.

 

 

I'm talking about the skills too ... because where do you think the ideas behind the skills come from? They come from the theme of the spec. I'm not really sure what your disagreement with me is here. 

It just doesn't make sense to pretend theme is just 'finishing touches'. That's definitely NOT the relationship we saw between theme and class design when Anet did the EoD beta reveals. The class design was derived from the theme. ALL of it, including the skills.

The fact is simple here: Anet isn't doing something exceptional. The class design (including it's skills) is derived from a theme ... a very sensible and typical way to design just about anything you want to talk about. 

Knowing that Anet has properly derived spec design from a theme, the relevant discussion here is if there are classes of themes that are not 'friendly' with PVE in this game. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Shadowmoon.7986]

8 hours ago, Ruisenior.6342 said:

In my opinion reaper changes are meaningless besides greatsword autoattack minibuffmini. What's the point on increasing the damage from 2 of our utility skills while we are on shroud instead of the ones we deal damage with?

They should be kidding XD

 

These patch notes look like condi reaper buffs to me.  We appear to be back in hot era of reaper balancing, where the aoe power mellee class turns into a single target condi class.

[Raizel.8175]

19 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Gameplay is king.

So much this. Especially in a MMORPG where you are supposed to spend thousands of hours in.

Fact is that Necromancer in general is badly designed. We have no viable pDPS build, neither do we have viable cDPS or Support/Heal builds. Scourge is on the lower end of the DPS spectrum and - just like Harbinger - more situational than consistent. Scourge will never be a proper Heal- and/or Support-build due to the lack of role compression and Alacrity or Quickness. Harbinger is - as I've said - situational and competes with builds which are fundamentally better at what they do. Necromancer literally has no identity in PvE at this point besides being the meme-profession.

[Ludark.5732]

6 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

So much this. Especially in a MMORPG where you are supposed to spend thousands of hours in.

Fact is that Necromancer in general is badly designed. We have no viable pDPS build, neither do we have viable cDPS or Support/Heal builds. Scourge is on the lower end of the DPS spectrum and - just like Harbinger - more situational than consistent. Scourge will never be a proper Heal- and/or Support-build due to the lack of role compression and Alacrity or Quickness. Harbinger is - as I've said - situational and competes with builds which are fundamentally better at what they do. Necromancer literally has no identity in PvE at this point besides being the meme-profession.

While Necromancer has its issues for sure. I wouldn't call condi scourge inconsistent. It's dps is on the lower end of things yes (35k bench). But you get 900 range on most of your attacks and they don't even count as projectiles. It has plenty of utility going for it between epidemic, pull, boonstrip etc. Lastly it is an extremely easy build to do decently with, more or less just pressing buttons of cooldown. It is no cvirt or pmech but I don't think condi scourge is in a bad place whatsoever.

 

Harbinger on the other hand I will admit is a bit inconsistent. But I think that if Anet would actually fix its bugs has everything it needs(especially with the planned soul barb changes) to be a strong, selfish condi dps spec. You might still not see it as much due to it being a bit tricky to play optimally but that doesn't make the spec unusable.

[Methuselah.4376]

40 minutes ago, Ludark.5732 said:

It has plenty of utility going for it between epidemic, pull, boonstrip etc. 

Why are you still acknowledging that Epidemic exists?  The skill is useless: only transfers 5 condis at half the original duration. 

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Methuselah.4376

[Dr Meta.3158]

I do agree that in this game, design follows theme. I also agree with that having a design follows theme setup is incredibly stupid and is a large component of the mess of small-minded game mechanics in this game that do nothing but infuriate players and make the job of balance harder for devs. I mean really, necromancers, when is the last time you focused on necromancy in serious content anyway?

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

13 hours ago, Methuselah.4376 said:

Why are you still acknowledging that Epidemic exists?  The skill is useless: only transfers 5 condis at half the original duration. 

 

Still worth using in Souless Horror and Mursaat Overseer.  I agree those are very specific situations, but they do merit the skill's use.

 

If you want to talk about useless skills, let's talk Serpent Siphon and Dessicate.

[Raizel.8175]

2 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Still worth using in Souless Horror and Mursaat Overseer.

Well, you have to stack Epidemics to make that work properly there. That's probably why I personally see more Mechanists and Virtuosus there who make use of their piercing projectiles.

[Methuselah.4376]

3 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Still worth using in Souless Horror and Mursaat Overseer.  I agree those are very specific situations, but they do merit the skill's use.

 

If you want to talk about useless skills, let's talk Serpent Siphon and Dessicate.

It would be far more beneficial to put a shade down. And yes Serpent Siphon is useless. Desiccate can be useful if you're running a might bot...but ye only marginally more useful than Serpent Siphon.

[Lahmia.2193]

On 11/15/2022 at 12:21 AM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

These patch notes look like condi reaper buffs to me.  We appear to be back in hot era of reaper balancing, where the aoe power mellee class turns into a single target condi class.

Anet refuses to let Necro have a good power spec. It's condi or nothing!

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

On 11/15/2022 at 6:02 AM, Methuselah.4376 said:

Why are you still acknowledging that Epidemic exists?  The skill is useless: only transfers 5 condis at half the original duration. 

 

A skill that does 5 stacks of bleed, burning, torment, poison, and confusion is still a pretty solid skill, on top of all of the other disabling conditions that it moves.  

[Asum.4960]

34 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

A skill that does 5 stacks of bleed, burning, torment, poison, and confusion is still a pretty solid skill, on top of all of the other disabling conditions that it moves.  

One thing to keep in mind though is that Epi has to do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to cleave for condi Necro, with Scepter 1 being single target. 

The Voice and the Claw Strike is a pretty good example for this, as this used to be the dream scenario for Epi, a duo boss.

Yet these days, even with Epi and Scourge with it's Shades, I don't think there is a single profession that can't out-DPS Epi Scourge on that boss if groups manage to stack them reasonably well, because they have just far superior cleave. 

 

So while yes, on paper 5 of each condi, even at 50% duration, still looks pretty decent - with how much time Condi Scourge spends single target AA'ing, and with how awful Harbinger's piercing is implemented (with projectiles mostly shooting up into orbit, rather than piercing through multiple targets in a line like for example with Engie Rifle), it's in a pretty sad state considering context. 

 

Even more so with having to sacrifice a Utility slot to gain (now worse) cleave to begin with - not that there is much competition though.

[Hindenburg.3415]

On 11/15/2022 at 8:53 AM, Raizel.8175 said:

So much this. Especially in a MMORPG where you are supposed to spend thousands of hours in.

Fact is that Necromancer in general is badly designed. We have no viable pDPS build, neither do we have viable cDPS or Support/Heal builds. Scourge is on the lower end of the DPS spectrum and - just like Harbinger - more situational than consistent. Scourge will never be a proper Heal- and/or Support-build due to the lack of role compression and Alacrity or Quickness. Harbinger is - as I've said - situational and competes with builds which are fundamentally better at what they do. Necromancer literally has no identity in PvE at this point besides being the meme-profession.

 

 What the hell are you talking about ?

No "viable" pDPS builds ?  Reaper can hit like 30k on golem.  This is more than enough to comfortably finish any encounter in the game.

Scourge is on "lower" end ? I mean sure but difference is like 3-5k dps.

It's still more than enough to do everything you want.

🤦‍♂️

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Hindenburg.3415

[Raizel.8175]

On 11/17/2022 at 1:22 AM, Hindenburg.3415 said:

 

 What the hell are you talking about ?

No "viable" pDPS builds ?  Reaper can hit like 30k on golem.  This is more than enough to comfortably finish any encounter in the game.

Scourge is on "lower" end ? I mean sure but difference is like 3-5k dps.

It's still more than enough to do everything you want.

🤦‍♂️

 

Now we're back arguing with Golem benchmarks again - especially benchmarks which don't translate well into actual encounters. It's not like Reaper doesn't suffer from a lack of precision - having to use Thief-runes is a PITA no matter what since the "Thief-bonus" is situational rather than skill-based like the Scholar-bonus - and volatile life force generation due to the nerfs to Reaper Shroud, meaning these benchmarks will be considerably lower in actual fights.

So... Why grief my team with rather low and inconsistent DPS when I can just play the vastly easier to play and far better performing Rifle Mechanist? Raids are a team effort after all and if you don't do your job as DPS well simply because you play a disfunctional build, oh well...

[Hindenburg.3415]

1 hour ago, Raizel.8175 said:

Now we're back arguing with Golem benchmarks again - especially benchmarks which don't translate well into actual encounters. It's not like Reaper doesn't suffer from a lack of precision - having to use Thief-runes is a PITA no matter what since the "Thief-bonus" is situational rather than skill-based like the Scholar-bonus - and volatile life force generation due to the nerfs to Reaper Shroud, meaning these benchmarks will be considerably lower in actual fights.

So... Why grief my team with rather low and inconsistent DPS when I can just play the vastly easier to play and far better performing Rifle Mechanist? Raids are a team effort after all and if you don't do your job as DPS well simply because you play a disfunctional build, oh well...

 

So anything that is not top meta choice is "dysfunctional build"  and "grief"?

I mean why play condi weaver with 38.9k bench when you can play power deadeye with 40.5k bench.

Clearly weaver is "dysfunctional" buld , right ? Why would you "grief" your team with such low dps ?

 

Raids are team efforts sure. but unless you actively trying to finish it as fast as possible there is no "grief" in picking whatever you want.  There are no serious dps checks in this game.  You can solo top fractals , dungeons , strikes, you can do raids with half of a team .

 

 

 

 

 

[Obtena.7952]

11 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

So... Why grief my team with rather low and inconsistent DPS when I can just play the vastly easier to play and far better performing Rifle Mechanist? Raids are a team effort after all and if you don't do your job as DPS well simply because you play a disfunctional build, oh well...

Indeed if you feel like you are griefing your team by playing  non-optimal performance builds or specs and you aren't cool with that ... then don't play that way.

BUT... don't pretend builds or specs that 'grief' teams with non-optimal performance is an indication that they need to be fixed somehow; optimal builds are not necessary to be successful in most content in this game, including instanced team content and not everything can be optimal to compete at that level either. The idea we buff things because they don't 'compete' with optimal builds is a fallacy.

What it IS an indication of is that people should be choosing teams in a way that suits how they want to play. 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[God.5728]

9 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

optimal builds are not necessary to be successful in most content in this game, including instanced team content and not everything can be optimal to compete at that level either. The idea we buff things because they don't 'compete' with optimal builds is a fallacy.

What it IS an indication of is that people should be choosing teams in a way that suits how they want to play. 

 

What a load of rubbish. Builds that perform a similar role (in this case, DPS) NEEDS to be adequate in that role it is supposed to perform in. (Give or take a 10% margin of difference is ok) This is the same reason why Anet is reworking Firebrand because they want to give other supports a more even playing field. The same philosophy should definitely apply to DPS. I don't mind doing 10% less DPS than a well-played Elementalist. But not 20% - 30% less DPS as a SELFISH DPS that offers nothing to the team. Vulnerability? Few stacks of might? LOL

Why play anything else as DPS when you can play Virtuoso and top DPS from 1200 range away, have great sustain (on condi), great utility and easy rotation?

Don't need to be optimal? Ok next time go and have fun with a team on CM instanced content with a core Reaper DPS pet build and see if you don't get kicked ok?

Edited November 19, 2022 by God.5728

[Obtena.7952]

23 hours ago, God.5728 said:

 

What a load of rubbish. Builds that perform a similar role (in this case, DPS) NEEDS to be adequate in that role it is supposed to perform in.

OK, that has nothing to do with what I said. Optimal builds aren't necessary to complete content in this game. The need for builds to perform at some adequate level for their role doesn't impact that fact. I actually challenge this perceived need, based on the fact the significant majority of endgame content CAN be done with non-optimal builds or complying to this new 'roles' scheme.  

Therefore, when someone uses the premise we need specs to perform competitively with top level builds/specs because they can't play them, that's just WRONG. 

23 hours ago, God.5728 said:

Why play anything else as DPS when you can play Virtuoso and top DPS from 1200 range away, have great sustain (on condi), great utility and easy rotation?

 I've already provided you one ... because it's not necessary to play those builds in order to succeed in content, which results in giving people the ability to choose to play a large variety of things based on how they want to play.

Again, it's up to you to determine how you play. The game design doesn't prevent people from playing  non-optimal builds to be successful endgame. That barrier is completely the result of other players imposing their views on people. 

So somethings need buffs? OK ... but NOT because you can't play them successfully. 

Here is the best part ... you want Reaper to get more attention? It is. It has been. Sounds to me what you don't like is that it's not the attention you want it to get. 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Acanthus.8120]

11 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK, that has nothing to do with what I said. Optimal builds aren't necessary to complete content in this game. The need for builds to perform at some adequate level for their role doesn't impact that fact. I actually challenge this perceived need, based on the fact the significant majority of endgame content CAN be done with non-optimal builds or complying to this new 'roles' scheme... [snip]

Again, it's up to you to determine how you play. The game design doesn't prevent people from playing  non-optimal builds to be successful endgame. That barrier is completely the result of other players imposing their views on people. 

So somethings need buffs? OK ... but NOT because you can't play them successfully. 

Here is the best part ... you want Reaper to get more attention? It is. It has been. Sounds to me what you don't like is that it's not the attention you want it to get. 

What it ultimately boils down to is, Reaper doesn't do as much damage as other specs by a long shot. In a vacuum, this wouldn't be a gripe. The problem is it feels bad to not be able to contribute comparable dps while also not being able to contribute support (boons), and not having active defenses such as block, reflect, aegis, stability (outside of one shroud skill that you need to cancel to fear for breakbars), evades beyond base dodge, etc. so we can't main tank. Reaper feels bad because you feel like a burden in group content. I would be fine never getting higher damage numbers if I was given a proper role to function in group content. Boon strip is a thing, of course, but other roles can do it while functioning outside of that niche.

If you give a spec only one thing (damage) and then it doesn't do that job well, everyone who likes playing it for what it is are going to feel unhappy they have to not play it in group content in order to properly contribute.

Edited November 20, 2022 by Acanthus.8120

[Obtena.7952]

22 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

What it ultimately boils down to is, Reaper doesn't do as much damage as other specs by a long shot. In a vacuum, this wouldn't be a gripe. The problem is it feels bad to not be able to contribute comparable dps while also not being able to contribute support (boons), and not having active defenses such as block, reflect, aegis, stability (outside of one shroud skill that you need to cancel to fear for breakbars), evades beyond base dodge, etc. so we can't main tank. Reaper feels bad because you feel like a burden in group content. I would be fine never getting higher damage numbers if I was given a proper role to function in group content. Boon strip is a thing, of course, but other roles can do it while functioning outside of that niche.

If you give a spec only one thing (damage) and then it doesn't do that job well, everyone who likes playing it for what it is are going to feel unhappy they have to not play it in group content in order to properly contribute.

Sure, Reaper is deficient, but no one should pretend that this deficiency needs to address "Can't play it in a team with tryhards" because that isn't actually a need to be addressed in this game. The threshold for success in the majority of endgame content simply doesn't require all specs to compete at the meta level for people to play what they want and still be successful. 

Here is the even better part: As we get more specs, it's only going to be MORE common to have 'not-competitive' specs as that buildspace gets more crowded. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952