Reaper Changes Feedback - 29 November balance preview

[Acanthus.8120]

5 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

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. 

The kind of discrepancies you describe are actually quite easy to curtail with balance philosophies. Based on PvE, you have tank, heals, support, and boon strip. Each role, with the exception of boon strip, which just requires having skills that do said thing, you have specific requirements or attributes to actually function as that thing.

For DPS, as a dev, you simply have to decide what are the minimum/maximum benchmarks you want to see, then decide what type of builds get minimum or maximum. The easy way to divide it is by overall survivability + ease of application. If it's easy to do and easy to survive doing it, you should probably be closer to the minimum and if it's difficult, it should probably be compensated by more damage. This is partially accomplished by stat choices, but you can also look at active defenses to decide. A class with innately more hp in melee isn't going to be more survivable than a class with extra evades or blocks at range once you pass a certain skill floor. Well, unless the rotation forces you to waste defense opportunity to gain offense, such as mirage.

For Tank, you focus on active defenses to complete your role. In no particular order: Block windows, extra evasion, aoe aegis, reflect/projectile block, crowd control, stability, and stun breaks are all things either required or extremely helpful to performing the role. The most important ones are probably block windows, stability, and reflect/projectile block. The latter is especially important since it lets your protect allies. Stability is just something you want so you don't miss your windows to protect allies.

Support is even simpler to do. Provide boons, the more, the better. Once you pick up an e-spec, your ability to support is determined by whether you can provide core boons such as fury and might, and then either quickness or alacrity. If you can add other boons or barrier on top of those three, you're even more valuable.

Healer is again, simple. Have the ability to provide regular healing or healing and barrier to others. Your ability to do so is usually determined by available utilities and weapon skills. Occasionally traits allow you to add healing to previously non-healing skills like with thief or turn selfish healing into aoe healing like with guardian.

 

Now back to Necromancer and Reaper. If you take what I said above and you look at base necromancer based on traits, utilities, and weapon skills, Necromancers can function as exactly one thing, and that is DPS. Any other role Necromancer gets to play would come from their e-spec. If there was a minimum/maximum based on ease of survivability/application, Necromancer should be somewhere between the middle and bottom levels of DPS due to having a massive amount of base hp and being ranged. However, Necromancer does even less than those who spec into support or tank in many cases. Since Reaper adds a small amount of damage options and no tank, heal, support, or boon strip options, while also losing survivability and with less ease of application (shroud has less damage reduction, Reaper is incentivized into melee range, no increased evasion), Reaper should probably be around middle benchmark, but again, it does less than many supports.

Honestly, Reaper could be fixed if base Necromancer was properly addressed, because Reaper is just conversion into melee and given slightly more damage (not really enough, but still, I'd rather the base traits and all weapons be addressed than pumping Reaper numbers). But if Reaper isn't meant to be a DPS in dev minds, they need to give them some non-selfish tank skills such as reflect/projectile block, more stability, and at least 1 block window from the Reaper e-spec. It has plenty of crowd control. It doesn't need more of that.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Acanthus.8120

[Sleepwalker.1398]

On 11/17/2022 at 8:21 AM, Lahmia.2193 said:

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

From WvW perspective, there are nercos running  power builds with focus and do 8k - 9k Spinal Shivers.
That skill alone scares the crap out of me whenever i play ele.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Sleepwalker.1398 said:

From WvW perspective, there are nercos running  power builds with focus and do 8k - 9k Spinal Shivers.
That skill alone scares the crap out of me whenever i play ele.

It is a problem of efficiency disparity based on the various gamemode, it has always been.

Be it condi or power, the necromancer's offensive skills are, in general, pretty good against players. The main reason being that the players' characters tend to heavily rely on boons and the necromancer's boon hate tend to add damage on the table.

On another hand NPCs don't have a big reliance on boons, relying instead on raw stats and abusive mechanism (defiance) to tank hordes of players, making the boon hate advantage of the necromancer trivial.

The message of the necromancer's community have always been: "We suck in PvE, we need buff there"

To be fair, it's no longer true. Both Scourge and Harbinger are now up to standard in PvE even if they aren't the current favored pick.

Which lead us to the extremly popular Reaper's spec and the fact that the necromancer's strike damage output tend to be disappointing in PvE. (And I won't go into the details because there is already tons of thread that discuss the problematic and the reaper playerbase disatisfaction)

[Lahmia.2193]

7 hours ago, Sleepwalker.1398 said:

From WvW perspective, there are nercos running  power builds with focus and do 8k - 9k Spinal Shivers.
That skill alone scares the crap out of me whenever i play ele.

Oh that was meant from a pve perspective! Yeah Power Reaper/necro has had a decent history in the other modes.

[draxynnic.3719]

13 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

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. 

The problem is that in endgame content, reaper isn't suitable at any level of play.

For the elite players, it does around 25% less damage than the top DPS practical builds (even the real tryhards don't believe that benchmark numbers are everything) without bringing much else to the table than mediocre damage.

For the common herd...there's a difference between 'you CAN beat it with 30k DPS' and actually doing so. New and middle-ground players still want to actually clear content, and they're more susceptible to dying to mechanics than the top-tier players. Higher DPS gives more wiggle room for timers and DPS checks (especially if you lose a couple of people along the way), and if you kill the boss faster you're subjected to less mechanics (unless every mechanic is triggered by the boss's health percentage, but that's unusual).

Postnerf power mech is a build where you can throw around lines like 'you don't need optimal DPS to succeed' - it's far from optimal, but it's so easy to play and thus it will always fairly reliably get what it needs to. There are other builds that have similar characteristics without being as extreme as power mech, but 34k+ for an easy DPS build is probably a fair yardstick.

Reaper, however, is harder to play and much more situational, and even when played at its best it underperforms against easy DPS builds, and often against DPS supports as well. It also provides little in the way of support or utility, and what it does have, scourge and/or harbinger can do better.

So in this environment, where is the use case for reaper at any level of play? You could replace it with a redundant quickdps or alacdps and still be doing about the same damage, while being far more useful to an inexperienced group. Sure, the damage reaper does might be sufficient to clear any content as long as nothing goes wrong, but when it does less damage than rifle mech without the reliability, why would anyone accept one in their group apart from 'guess the guy who insists on playing reaper is better than 9-manning it' scenarios or outright charity?

Top tier players want high DPS for fast, efficient clearing. Lower tier players want reliability and safety margins in order to maximise the chance of success. Reaper offers neither.

[Obtena.7952]

9 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

The kind of discrepancies you describe are actually quite easy to curtail with balance philosophies. Based on PvE, you have tank, heals, support, and boon strip. Each role, with the exception of boon strip, which just requires having skills that do said thing, you have specific requirements or attributes to actually function as that thing.

Maybe. That's not really the my objection here though. It's easy it's not? I wouldn't make such assumptions. I don't think how easy it would be is even all that relevant. Anet definitely isn't reluctant to implement solution that are hard. 

9 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

Now back to Necromancer and Reaper. If you take what I said above and you look at base necromancer based on traits, utilities, and weapon skills, Necromancers can function as exactly one thing, and that is DPS. Any other role Necromancer gets to play would come from their e-spec. If there was a minimum/maximum based on ease of survivability/application, Necromancer should be somewhere between the middle and bottom levels of DPS due to having a massive amount of base hp and being ranged. However, Necromancer does even less than those who spec into support or tank in many cases. Since Reaper adds a small amount of damage options and no tank, heal, support, or boon strip options, while also losing survivability and with less ease of application (shroud has less damage reduction, Reaper is incentivized into melee range, no increased evasion), Reaper should probably be around middle benchmark, but again, it does less than many supports.

Honestly, Reaper could be fixed if base Necromancer was properly addressed, because Reaper is just conversion into melee and given slightly more damage (not really enough, but still, I'd rather the base traits and all weapons be addressed than pumping Reaper numbers). But if Reaper isn't meant to be a DPS in dev minds, they need to give them some non-selfish tank skills such as reflect/projectile block, more stability, and at least 1 block window from the Reaper e-spec. It has plenty of crowd control. It doesn't need more of that.

OK ... that might all be true. That's not what I'm disputing. I'm disputing the premise that Reaper needs to be fixed because people simply want to join any team they want and meet any requirements those teams have, including performance requirements. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

10 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The problem is that in endgame content, reaper isn't suitable at any level of play.

It's suitable ENOUGH for people to choose it, play it, like it and be successful with it. Why does anything need to be more suitable than that? Certainly not because the game has mechanics that forces people to play only the highest performance specs. 

10 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Top tier players want high DPS for fast, efficient clearing. Lower tier players want reliability and safety margins in order to maximise the chance of success. Reaper offers neither.

Don't pretend you understand ALL the things players want from a spec to argue Reaper isn't suitable for any endgame play here. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[draxynnic.3719]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

It's suitable ENOUGH for people to choose it, play it, like it and be successful with it. Why does anything need to be more suitable than that?

Given how quickly you responded after I posted, I doubt you fully read my post. Go read it again and you'll see.

But to TLDR it, because by doing so when you could be playing something that's more reliable, easier to play, AND more effective, you're handicapping yourself and, by extension, your entire team.

[Obtena.7952]

6 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

But to TLDR it, because by doing so when you could be playing something that's more reliable, easier to play, AND more effective, you're handicapping yourself and, by extension, your entire team.

That's only a problem if you are trying to join tryhard PUGs .. which actually isn't a problem because they don't want LOTS of things. These teams are particular. Some builds won't be welcome. Not everything it going be meet their criteria for teaming. Anet can't make all specs do this. 

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Dr Meta.3158]

Different classes/specs offer different playstyles that resonate with different people. Wanting to play a class/spec that resonates with you and doesn't bring the group down isn't too much to ask from a video game whose main purpose is supposed to be fun. Arguing otherwise is just Obtuse.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Different classes/specs offer different playstyles that resonate with different people. Wanting to play a class/spec that resonates with you and doesn't bring the group down isn't too much to ask from a video game whose main purpose is supposed to be fun. 

Again, the idea the game isn't 'fun' because you perceive you are bringing the group down if you don't play high performance builds ... depends on the group. If you play with a group that doesn't care, because they know the spec isn't that critical to success, then this is simply about you projecting your spec insecurities on the group. If the group does care and they kick you, you aren't joining the right groups.

Also ... nothing prevents you from choosing to play high performing builds if that is your main criteria for how you define 'fun'. The sad irony is that the ability to play what you want and succeed to have 'fun' is not only about performance in this game, yet we still have people trying to remove performance as a spec choice criteria ... 'because of 'fun'. The fun is already there ... just make honest choices with yourself and play accordingly. 

Some other food for thought ... why do people assume the desires of the 'fun=performance' demographic should be the primary focus of the changes Anet makes to the specs? Like, the mentality of THIS subset of players are somehow elevated above all others, including Anet. That doesn't make sense. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Dr Meta.3158]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, the idea the game isn't 'fun' because you perceive you are bringing the group down if you don't play high performance builds ... depends on the group. If you play with a group that doesn't care, because they know the spec isn't that critical to success, then this is simply about you projecting your spec insecurities on the group. If the group does care and they kick you, you aren't joining the right groups.

Also ... nothing prevents you from choosing to play high performing builds if that is your main criteria for how you define 'fun'. The sad irony is that the ability to play what you want and succeed to have 'fun' is not only about performance in this game, yet we still have people trying to remove performance as a spec choice criteria ... 'because of 'fun'. The fun is already there ... just make honest choices with yourself and play accordingly. 

Some other food for thought ... why do people assume the desires of the 'fun=performance' demographic should be the primary focus of the changes Anet makes to the specs? Like, the mentality of THIS subset of players are somehow elevated above all others, including Anet. That doesn't make sense. 

I can't tell if you're serious, trolling, or don't understand humans. Either way... besides you, I think everyone else is on the same page. We can wrap up this thread.

[Obtena.7952]

36 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I can't tell if you're serious, trolling, or don't understand humans. Either way... besides you, I think everyone else is on the same page. We can wrap up this thread.

Well, since you can't tell, I will tell you. I'm serious. Be on whatever page you want with who ever you want. As long as people are falsely claiming Reaper needs buffs because they can't get teams, I will continue to remind them they are wrong and that they don't get teams because of choices they make, not because of game mechanics. The game simple does NOT prevent people from playing how they want to play. There is no mechanic in the game that forces people to play optimal builds to succeed at endgame content. That's just a whole bunch of self-imposed restrictions and it's nonsensical people do that to themselves. 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Hindenburg.3415]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Given how quickly you responded after I posted, I doubt you fully read my post. Go read it again and you'll see.

But to TLDR it, because by doing so when you could be playing something that's more reliable, easier to play, AND more effective, you're handicapping yourself and, by extension, your entire team.

 

Or maybe you should remember that it's a game after all.

And not all people want to play "most efficient" spec.

And we don't do it actually because otherwise every raid comp will be exactly the same.

Clearing content in X mins vs X+y mins (in theory ) is not "handicapping yourself"

Replace that reaper in the video with another virtuoso and absolutely nothing will fundamentally change.

 

Not to mention that for absolute majority of players personal skill and encounter knowledge are much more important than spec they use.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That's only a problem if you are trying to join tryhard PUGs .. which actually isn't a problem because they don't want LOTS of things. These teams are particular. Some builds won't be welcome. Not everything it going be meet their criteria for teaming. Anet can't make all specs do this. 

 

I addressed this, you just didn't bother to read my whole post before answering. (I know you didn't, your reply was two minutes after my post, and that time included you finishing a response to someone else's as well as writing your post in response to mine.) You've shown your hand here - you're not giving due consideration to what others say and discussing in good faith, you're just skim-reading for a talking point.

Every group still wants to succeed. The difference between a high-skill group and a moderate-skill group is that the former is generally not concerned about wiping and is more concerned about getting as many kills as possible in a short time. Meanwhile, for the latter, wiping is still a very real possibility, so the priority is less on maximum damage and more on reliable damage and defensive capabilities. Reaper offers neither.

Only time I can see 'well, you can still play it!' actually working is, well, when the group doesn't mind playing at a handicap. That generally means a static who's confident that they can clear despite the handicap and don't mind if some people are playing weak (not suboptimal, just plain weak) builds.

3 hours ago, Hindenburg.3415 said:

 

Or maybe you should remember that it's a game after all.

And not all people want to play "most efficient" spec.

And we don't do it actually because otherwise every raid comp will be exactly the same.

Clearing content in X mins vs X+y mins (in theory ) is not "handicapping yourself"

Replace that reaper in the video with another virtuoso and absolutely nothing will fundamentally change.

 

Not to mention that for absolute majority of players personal skill and encounter knowledge are much more important than spec they use.

 

See my point above.

Regarding raid comps not being the same:

First, I'm going to assume you don't just mean that people bring different builds for different challenges.

This works because in most cases, the differences between builds are relatively small, and when there are larger differences, they're compensated for either by being easier to play, bringing some other utility, or both. You can be agnostic about which heal supports you bring because HAT, HAM, HB, and HAD are all reasonably close to one another. DPS supports are expected to dish out around 30k (or whatever that translates to against the boss in question) alongside their role-defining boon and maybe a bit of extra utility - as long as that's covered, it doesn't really matter which you have. There are a wide range of DPS builds in the 36-40+ range, with lower values being accepted in exchange for factors such as extra utility, ease of use, and range capability - rifle mech having enough of these that going as low as 34k is acceptable for most groups, because despite having a lower theoretical potential it's capable of reliably doing at least close to that damage almost regardless of player skill or the specifics of the encounter, and it often brings some utility as well.

There is definitely a wide range of competitive builds, and while some in that pack might be better than others, precisely which is best can depend on the specific encounter and the player's skill level. But it usually doesn't matter all that much which you take among that pack as long as all the roles are covered. 

Reaper, however, falls well short of this. It has boondps damage output without providing the support. It's theoretical DPS is lower than rifle mech, while also being melee, much less likely to actually get close to its theoretical value, and providing little if any utility. Its performance just doesn't reach that pack of competitive builds. Any group would be better off with a redundant boondps just in case the other dies... or a riflemech or some other high-performing DPS. 

TLDR: I'm sorry, but just because you don't need a meticulously optimised comp every time doesn't mean that you can't have a build which is just plain bad. 

Edited November 22, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Only time I can see 'well, you can still play it!' actually working is, well, when the group doesn't mind playing at a handicap. That generally means a static who's confident that they can clear despite the handicap and don't mind if some people are playing weak (not suboptimal, just plain weak) builds.

 

Call it whatever you like but ... yes, if you are not going to play optimally, you need to play with teams that don't have a problem with that. You're just reiterating my point back to me.

The difference is that I realize that it's absurd for people to use 'cant team with optimal PUG teams' as a reason to buff Reaper because if you choose to play with optimal PUG teams, you MUST ALWAYS accept there are things those teams don't want you to play.  

Reaper falls short ... but NOT because it can't get optimal PUG teams. Why? Because it's REASONABLE these teams want specific things that exclude a large number of non-optimal specs/builds and not everything can conform to the ideas these teams have about what comps they want. Anet simply can't chase this moving, nonsensical target where everything is desirable by these teams. 

I think what people need to do at this point ... start comparing their ideas about how the game works against the design philosophy. 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Acanthus.8120]

14 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... that might all be true. That's not what I'm disputing. I'm disputing the premise that Reaper needs to be fixed because people simply want to join any team they want and meet any requirements those teams have, including performance requirements. 

It's relevant though. Implementing a good balance philosophy is good for everyone, the players and Anet. It also will directly affect the long term health of the game. When players love a specific class or e-spec, play it to death until end game, and then they are either not wanted or themselves feel not useful, things will go in 3 different ways. 1.) They lose interest and quit immediately. 2.) They go to the forum to try and get attention for the problems they're experiencing. 3.) They switch to another class while feeling bitter about the experience.

I'm a day 1 player. I was originally a Ranger player before there were e-specs. I already did number 3 because I was unhappy with how Ranger was treated back then and fell in love with Reaper specifically when HoT came out. I took a long break when Path of Fire came out because I didn't like Path of Fire all that much and I was unhappy with Reaper's treatment even back then. I particularly liked doing the Bitter Chill build back then, and when Scourge came out, they explicitly nerfed that build to push condi players toward Scourge by nerfing Bitter Chill and Soul Spiral. Now, they did increase power damage in shroud, but lol, Reaper power damage is obviously not there, so we won't talk about that. I came back because a friend of mine told me End of Dragons was much better than Path of Fire. I haven't tried it yet, but I am enjoying Living World Season 4, and the little of Icebrood Saga I've done is enjoyable, so instead of just straight quitting this time, I came to the forums to discuss it.

I hope you realize, that when people come to the forums to complain, it's because they still care. When they stop, they probably quit. Coming in and arguing with people that they shouldn't try to have their concerns answered isn't going to persuade them to keep playing. If you like the game and want it to be varied, interesting, and see development, you should really be hoping devs answer these issues this time around and gain good will from their customers. Which is what we are, customers. They are trading fun for money. I don't have to buy End of Dragons or cosmetics and extras, after all. I have been much, much more frugal this time around because I'm not 100% sure I'm going to stick around. Will I make an alacrity Renegade to do group content? Yeah, probably. Am I pleased that I have to pour gold into an entirely new character instead of using my original one to slowly collect legendaries? No, not really. My progress is delayed because my character is subpar and I don't want to have to be carried. If, then, one day, Renegade gets the same treatment as past Ranger and current Reaper, am I then going to do this again? No. Lots of companies sell fun. I will find one that wants my money.

[draxynnic.3719]

9 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Call it whatever you like but ... yes, if you are not going to play optimally, you need to play with teams that don't have a problem with that. You're just reiterating my point back to me.

The difference is that I realize that it's absurd for people to use 'cant team with optimal PUG teams' as a reason to buff Reaper because if you choose to play with optimal PUG teams, you MUST ALWAYS accept there are things those teams don't want you to play.  

Reaper falls short ... but NOT because it can't get optimal PUG teams. Why? Because it's REASONABLE these teams want specific things that exclude a large number of non-optimal specs/builds and not everything can conform to the ideas these teams have about what comps they want. Anet simply can't chase this moving, nonsensical target where everything is desirable by these teams. 

I think what people need to do at this point ... start comparing their ideas about how the game works against the design philosophy. 

Sure, when you have multiple builds that fill the same role, there's always going to be one that's 5% or 1% or 0.01% better than the others, and sooner or later someone's going to figure out which it is. The smaller the gap, though, the more likely that people will accept a 'non-optimal' build, especially if they know that the player in question favours that build and might therefore be better at it in practice than the 'optimal' build.

The problem is that reaper isn't 1% or even 5% behind its competitors. It's somewhere around 25% behind. It's a big enough gap that no amount of 'but this person is really, really good at reaper' will close it.

Quickbrand is viewed as the best quickness source, but people still play herald, qrapper, qharb, qcata, even the odd banner warrior. HAM is viewed as the best alacrity, but HAT and HAD are certainly viable, as is swapping things around, bringing a healbrand, healscrapper, or heal herald, and bringing an alacdps such as alacmirage or alacspectre. Because they're all close enough. But you generally don't see reapers because it's not close enough. There's two dozen builds with 34k DPS or more, many of which are more forgiving and/or bring more utility than reaper.

If the only reason to bring it is as a flex or a demonstration, it really needs a solid buff. This isn't about aiming for some mythical perfect balance point where everything is perfectly even. It's about getting it to a point where it's at least in the pack rather than a straggler half a kilometer behind the other riders.

 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Honestly i would love to see some of the killproof.me of the people saying reaper does not need buff.  I suspect one the trolls here  have spent little to no times in raids or strike cms, yet they like to act like the have the authority to talk of such matters.  My advise would be to stop feeding the trolls until they actually show they have some proof they actually engage in end game activities,  to put it in lame men's terms "put up or shut up".

[Hindenburg.3415]

10 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

I hope you realize, that when people come to the forums to complain, it's because they still care. When they stop, they probably quit. Coming in and arguing with people that they shouldn't try to have their concerns answered isn't going to persuade them to keep playing.

 

No one is trying to prevent you from complaining.

I am personally arguing against mindless meta worshipping and calling playing reaper a "grief" or "being carried" or calling it "useless spec".  Because  I am so tired of seeing it in every MMO I played.

It s not "useless" just because your clear time is 2-3% longer than it possibly could have been. Not to mention that clear time probably is not perfect anyway and could be improved in many different ways.

 

40 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Honestly i would love to see some of the killproof.me of the people saying reaper does not need buff. 

 

Or maybe you should pay a little more attention to conversation because no one here is arguing against buffing reaper.

 

 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Literally the only time in my experience that it has been advantageous to have a Reaper in the squad over another build(and yes, I was the Reaper) was a mechanics fail on Conjured Amalgamate where we failed to shield the clap properly, and I happened to be in Shroud with Infusing Terror active at the time.  I was able to remain standing, res up everyone and we got the kill on that attempt.

 

But I'm not going to pretend that that one instance is worth it, even for less experienced groups.  Reaper is a hinderance overall compared to other power DPS.  I just don't have other characters geared properly for power.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Hindenburg.3415 said:

 

No one is trying to prevent you from complaining.

I am personally arguing against mindless meta worshipping and calling playing reaper a "grief" or "being carried" or calling it "useless spec".  Because  I am so tired of seeing it in every MMO I played.

It s not "useless" just because your clear time is 2-3% longer than it possibly could have been. Not to mention that clear time probably is not perfect anyway and could be improved in many different ways.

Problem is that while for highly experienced groups it might be a relatively modest increase in kill time (although if multiple people are playing reapers that increase is going to inflate), for less experienced groups it might be a contributing factor to a wipe (through just failing to meet a DPS check, having to face one more mechanics check and that's the one that fails, not having something more effective at ressing like a blood scourge or scrapper that could have prevented a group of downeds from being defeated, and so on). As much as some people have misinterpreted the argument as being based on what the tryhards are doing, outside of competitions such as record setting or racing for a world first, it's generally the players who are on the margins of succeeding versus failing that are most sensitive to the balance of the builds they're using.

The sad fact is that reaper IS bad enough that you're basically handicapping your team by playing it. Some groups will be able to afford that handicap. Some won't. Some groups will accept that handicap because it's not worth the hassle of telling the reaper player that they're playing a weak build that could reduce the chance of success. Some won't. And, ultimately, the people in this thread are such a tiny proportion of the endgame population that you could argue until the cows come home that people should be more accepting and it won't have any measurable effect on what people are doing in game. But buffing it up to be roughly on par with other selfish melee DPS builds would.

4 hours ago, Hindenburg.3415 said:

 

Or maybe you should pay a little more attention to conversation because no one here is arguing against buffing reaper.

If all you do is try to rebut the reasons people give for doing something, that will be interpreted as arguing against doing that thing.

[Hindenburg.3415]

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Problem is that while for highly experienced groups it might be a relatively modest increase in kill time (although if multiple people are playing reapers that increase is going to inflate)

 

True.  But you still will have enough damage to do anything.

I mean there is a video posted recently of full celestial squad doing raid clear including 8 man CM Dhuum.  Average dps is like 12-15k and it's still enough. 

 

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

As much as some people have misinterpreted the argument as being based on what the tryhards are doing, outside of competitions such as record setting or racing for a world first, it's generally the players who are on the margins of succeeding versus failing that are most sensitive to the balance of the builds they're using.

 

True.   Those players can achieve better results using safe and tanky comps and builds instead of full meta glass cannons.

But it only shows that you don't need all those gazillions of meta dps and that mechanics and encounter knowledge are more important than your spec.

11 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The sad fact is that reaper IS bad enough that you're basically handicapping your team by playing it.

 

And again this bs.

No you are not "handicapping" your team unless you have specific goal in mind like do some boss or full clear as fast as possible. 

 

13 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

If all you do is try to rebut the reasons people give for doing something, that will be interpreted as arguing against doing that thing.

 

Only against silly toxic "reasons" like calling it "useless" or "trash" or "getting carried".

[Nephalem.8921]

On 11/21/2022 at 4:58 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

That's only a problem if you are trying to join tryhard PUGs .. which actually isn't a problem because they don't want LOTS of things. These teams are particular. Some builds won't be welcome. Not everything it going be meet their criteria for teaming. Anet can't make all specs do this. 

 

How would you know? You have not a single wingman entry and no kp.me account.

Did you even do cm strikes? Do you understand how bad reaper is? Some specs will do 40% more dmg than buffed reaper after 29th. Can you provide any logs of you being successful with reaper?

Worse than supports. Playing it just drags your team down.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Hindenburg.3415 said:

 

True.  But you still will have enough damage to do anything.

I mean there is a video posted recently of full celestial squad doing raid clear including 8 man CM Dhuum.  Average dps is like 12-15k and it's still enough. 

I've seen it. And from what I saw, they were still using close to meta builds, just with different gear.

Changing gear doesn't change the balance between the professions. Sure, DPS isn't always the only thing. Using tankier gear can be a viable approach to take, especially if you have a group that has their DPS rotation and mechanics down (Teapot et al should not be considered representative of a typical group). But if you're doing ~25% less damage in glass, you're still doing ~25% less damage in celestial or whatever tankier gear you might be bringing.

But a point I've made all along is that reaper doesn't bring anything else to the table. What the specialisation brings is damage and a bit of self-sustain, and scourge has it beat in both respects (and scourge doesn't lose damage output when it gets hit). "Safe and tanky comps" usually means bringing extra barrier, defensive boons, res abilities, additional healing, skills that can block damage from mechanics (ideally for a whole party/subsquad), and the like. Reaper brings none of that apart from what is already on core necromancer, and if you're bringing it for that, again, scourge does it better.

As much as you want to deny it, if you bring reaper, you are handicapping your entire team. Now, your team might be okay with that if they're confident they can beat the boss anyway. Personally, I tend not to question people's build choices until and unless something goes wrong and it's time for troubleshooting. But it's the reality regardless of whether people are tolerant of it or not, and tilting at windmills on a forum isn't going to change that. You can argue all you like that recognising this reality is "toxic" or "elitist" or whichever ad hominem you choose to use, but the turtle moves nevertheless.

Seriously, at this point, we're not even having the same discussion. I'm talking about where reaper fits into the balance (namely, that it's weak in endgame content) and pointing out that a build being weak can be the difference between success and failure if the overall skill level of the group against the content in question is marginal enough*, while you're arguing that people are being toxic if they don't let their party/squad members play weak builds.

*Noting, before someone tries to make a strawman out of this, that this is not the same as being bad players - being marginal in a given encounter could simply be a function of not having much practice at that specific encounter.

Edited November 23, 2022 by draxynnic.3719