Reaper Changes Feedback - 29 November balance preview

[Obtena.7952]

4 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

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

I don't need those things to know you can play Reaper in endgame content and be successful, because people I play with do it, including me. 

4 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

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?

No I can't provide logs and I have no plans to do so. It's absurd to think people can't play Reaper and be successful because I don't log my gameplay or others gameplay to prove it to you. 

4 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

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

Then don't play it if you don't want to drag your team down or play with a team that doesn't care. The fact remains that the game mechanics doesn't prevent you from playing non-optimal specs and allow you to be successful doing so. Nothing anyone is going to say will change that fact. 

Again, if it's deficient, it's NOT because people don't want it for optimal PUG teams or NOT because it doesn't meet the some threshold of performance where using it guarantees failure. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[The Boz.2038]

6 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Then don't play it

What an... incomprehensibely daft reply.

"If you have a problem with X, stop using X, lol."

Truly the acme of reason.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

What an... incomprehensibely daft reply.

"If you have a problem with X, stop using X, lol."

Truly the acme of reason.

But it's not daft ... it's reality (and also, congratulations on taking that out of context as well, because I also said if you do want to play it, you can ... with the appropriate team). See, this isn't a debate about differing opinions ... it's about what is real now in game. 

People saying they can't play Reaper in endgame content and be successful believe this is a compelling reason to buff it. The problem is that saying they can't play Reaper in endgame content and be successful ... is not true. The vast majority of endgame content in this game is designed to not require optimal comps to successfully complete it and even as bad as Reaper might be ... it's still enough to be successful because success in this game is more about knowing the encounter and how your build works, not what build or gear you use. 

Not everything can be an optimally performing choice for each game mode activity ... and if you don't believe that, you haven't been paying attention to the game history. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[XECOR.2814]

Guys, when this guy enters the chat it is time to evacuate. Trust.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Honestly you are arguing with a little league baseball player on why there are rules about bats and pine tar in the major league. Just move on and ignore, further engagement will just pull you down and waste your efforts. Just say in the end your opinion should not matter becaause you do not engage in content that it matter in and move on and stop responding. 

The best way to ruin his prefered end game, trolling on the forums, is to do the same thing he does with our preferred endgame, to not engage in it.

[captrowdy.9561]

I keep trying to play reaper in pvp/wvw and it just doesn’t seem to work. Such a cool class but i dunno. I see others playing it so it can’t be horrible but I also can’t remember the last time a reaper killed me. 

[Nimon.7840]

17 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. 

 

 

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.

 

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. 

 

 

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

 

Just to say it in advance - you don't need more dps on reaper.

 

BUT: it would be nice to deal at least comparable dps like other full dps specs. 

Other specs don't need to deal 37k+ DPS but they do (even heard that deadeye will be around 45k dps after the patch).

 

Sure if you don't have any connection to the other squad members you might not care. 

But lots of players do care.

Cause they feel like they don't contribute as  much to the boss kill as the other squad members do.

Let me take my statics KC kill from this week as an example:

 

I did slightly more dps than our quickness scrappers, but as the name suggests, they give quickness, a reapers contribution to the boss kill is only dps (you can basically take numbers from westet's video).

So for me it feels like I don't contribute as much as I could.

And Anet said it themselves - they want specs to be fun. For me and a lot of other people, it isn't fun to play power Necro in endgame pve as it was for a very long time.

 

Most People like me are not asking to make reaper 50k dps, just around 37k which seems to be the anets standard dps/benchmark range.

 

Why are some people (like you) so heavily against buffing reapers dps in PvE?

Pls don't come up with these points, they are nonsense:

 

- it's good for open world:

It's not even that good for open world - at least there are a lot of much better builds to play solo - for example untamed which lets you do almost raid dps numbers but solo. And open world players probably won't even notice, if reaper would be doing 5k more dps with perfect boons, since you basically never have those in open world (maybe except from meta events, but then everyone of your group has perfect boons)

Also a huge oversight from Anet imo: you have to adjust your gear or traits, if you want to be able to have 100% crit, while one balance Patch this year was aimed at removing the necessarity to swap builds, when playing different kinds of content.

 

- it has a second health bar:

Pls just watch westet's video, it clearly shows, that using shroud as a second healthbar, will lead to a huge dps loss on an already comparably low dps build.

 

So why should reaper not do ~37k dps in instanced endgame content?

 

What you say is true: "you are not handicapping you team by playing reaper, unless you are looking to get faster kills".

You know, there's more and more endgame content coming out. If you want to full clear it every week, you either have to make play longer, or just get faster. But most of the times ist just the second option since it can be pretty hard to coordinate 10 people's schedule.

 

Sure we could also bring every other build down to reapers level and put quickness builds to 24k dps max, that would also be a possible solution.

 

Tldr: all I want to know from you @Hindenburg.3415

 Specifically: why don't you want Necro to have a power dps spec in the 36-37k dps range?

[Nimon.7840]

15 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I don't need those things to know you can play Reaper in endgame content and be successful, because people I play with do it, including me. 

No I can't provide logs and I have no plans to do so. It's absurd to think people can't play Reaper and be successful because I don't log my gameplay or others gameplay to prove it to you. 

Then don't play it if you don't want to drag your team down or play with a team that doesn't care. The fact remains that the game mechanics doesn't prevent you from playing non-optimal specs and allow you to be successful doing so. Nothing anyone is going to say will change that fact. 

Again, if it's deficient, it's NOT because people don't want it for optimal PUG teams or NOT because it doesn't meet the some threshold of performance where using it guarantees failure. 

 

Sorry but here's something I have to absolutely disagree with. 

 

I agree that reapers dps is enough to kill almost every content in the game (I doubt you would be able to kill harvest temple cm with reaper as only dps role > meaning reapers would have to do mechanics).

 

What I disagree with is: "Then don't play it if you don't want to drag your team down or play with a team that doesn't care."

Anet said it themselves: "bring the player, not the class"

I do have a team that doesn't care (and we still managed to deliver decent results in the raid league), but it still feels bad to me, to play a class that does barely more dps on its best power build, than a quickness provider.

I wouldn't care if they made harbinger the power spec, cause I'm a Necro main not a spec specific player.

But reaper is clearly lacking in role. It's neither a tank, nor a dps, nor a bruiser, and definetly not a healer or boon provider. So why not make it THE power dps spec for Necro?

It wouldn't hurt anyone, if reaper would be doing 37k dps benchmark in PvE.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Nimon.7840

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

There is absolutely no reason not to increase Reapers DPS except pure spite or unwillingness on behalf of the devs. Bumping DPS to 37k-39k hurts nobody, affects nobody in a negative way, it just helps the player based enjoy this class. There is nothing detrimental to doing so and this disdain and lack of will to help this class out is why I'm on my way out the door.

[God.5728]

12 hours ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

I keep trying to play reaper in pvp/wvw and it just doesn’t seem to work. Such a cool class but i dunno. I see others playing it so it can’t be horrible but I also can’t remember the last time a reaper killed me. 

 

I do play reaper in WvW. I use it to flip camps, towers and kill veteran monsters or NPCs. But if I so much as see an enemy player running 500 yards away in my direction? I GTFO for dear Reaper life.

The moment anyone land a CC on me esp those roaming rangers, I am pretty much a free walking punching bag at that point.

If running with a Zerg just use Scourge to tag stuff.

Edited November 24, 2022 by God.5728

[Bookah pls.9352]

Sad thing is not long ago reaper was pretty potent in zergs who weren't the "play scourge or kick/pleb subgrp" until they nerfed rise.

Rise reaper was so good. Was even sort of "decent" roamer that could catch people offguard with the dagger immob into scythe combo.

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

 

Sorry but here's something I have to absolutely disagree with. 

 

I agree that reapers dps is enough to kill almost every content in the game (I doubt you would be able to kill harvest temple cm with reaper as only dps role > meaning reapers would have to do mechanics).

 

What I disagree with is: "Then don't play it if you don't want to drag your team down or play with a team that doesn't care."

Anet said it themselves: "bring the player, not the class"

I do have a team that doesn't care (and we still managed to deliver decent results in the raid league), but it still feels bad to me, to play a class that does barely more dps on its best power build, than a quickness provider.

I wouldn't care if they made harbinger the power spec, cause I'm a Necro main not a spec specific player.

But reaper is clearly lacking in role. It's neither a tank, nor a dps, nor a bruiser, and definetly not a healer or boon provider. So why not make it THE power dps spec for Necro?

It wouldn't hurt anyone, if reaper would be doing 37k dps benchmark in PvE.

OK, I don't disagree with Reaper getting DPS buffs ... I never have. I disagree with the justification people are using to do that because it's based on a lie and it doesn't actually solve any problem. It's just a DPS grab. I mean, if Anet decides Reaper is deficient in a DPS role, then yeah, I would assume they would give it more DPS. Funny ... some people don't seem to take a hint here that this hasn't happened in a significant way to solve the problem they say exists. 

Again, I'm going to quote the design philosophy here: While not every build needs to perfectly fit into a role, these are the most common archetypes that we look at when balancing. Reaper doesn't fill the DPS role in endgame PVE? This statement indicates that's actually NOT a problem for Anet if it doesn't. Nothing in that design philosophy is indicating that every spec must play an optimal role in PVE either. I would say if anything, Reaper is most suited for the roles Anet is defining for WvW and PVP.

Let's talk about "bring the player, not the class" ... what about that statement is an indication to you that Reaper spec should be buffed because it's difficult to get a PUG? I see it complete the opposite way; this statement is a declaration that Anet is making a game where the class/spec/build is not the primary determining factor in players being able to succeed in the game and that the primary determining factor is for players to know the encounters and their builds. This is the kind of thing that convinces me that the deficiencies with Reaper (or any other class) are more about QoL, team interactions and contributions, not just pure DPS improvements.

Again, Reaper is deficient? OK ... but NOT getting an optimal PUG teams with it isn't a reason to fix that. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Nimon.7840]

17 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK, I don't disagree with Reaper getting DPS buffs ... I never have. I disagree with the justification people are using to do that because it's based on a lie and it doesn't actually solve any problem. It's just a DPS grab. I mean, if Anet decides Reaper is deficient in a DPS role, then yeah, I would assume they would give it more DPS. Funny ... some people don't seem to take a hint here that this hasn't happened in a significant way to solve the problem they say exists. 

Again, I'm going to quote the design philosophy here: While not every build needs to perfectly fit into a role, these are the most common archetypes that we look at when balancing. Reaper doesn't fill the DPS role in endgame PVE? This statement indicates that's actually NOT a problem for Anet if it doesn't. Nothing in that design philosophy is indicating that every spec must play an optimal role in PVE either. I would say if anything, Reaper is most suited for the roles Anet is defining for WvW and PVP.

Let's talk about "bring the player, not the class" ... what about that statement is an indication to you that Reaper spec should be buffed because it's difficult to get a PUG? I see it complete the opposite way; this statement is a declaration that Anet is making a game where the class/spec/build is not the primary determining factor in players being able to succeed in the game and that the primary determining factor is for players to know the encounters and their builds. This is the kind of thing that convinces me that the deficiencies with Reaper (or any other class) are more about QoL, team interactions and contributions, not just pure DPS improvements.

Again, Reaper is deficient? OK ... but NOT getting an optimal PUG teams with it isn't a reason to fix that. 

 

I kinda agree. Not every spec has to be good in every type of content.

And I'm not talking about pugs groups here.

I'm almost exclusively doing endgame pve content with my static. And I'm playing my reaper on bosses like, sloth, KC, samarog and CA. But for me it always has kind of an bland aftertaste to do so.

I wouldn't care if core power Necro was the way to go, or power harbinger. I just want a Necro spec, to be played as power spec and being able to do similar dps to any other build that only does dps but nothing else.

I brought up the "bring player not profession" thing because there are still bosses, that are heavily power favored. 

While in the early raiding days there were more bosses that were either condi or power favored, those "boundaries" have been blurred.

Can you clear almost every single boss with a full power or full condi setup? - yes definetly.

Do you want to play condi on bosses like KC or Samarog? - no, probably not, at least not those condi classes, that ramp up extremely slow like scourge.

 

The bring the player not the profession philosophy just doesn't do it for Necro in endgame PvE.

There are certain standards that roles have to meet.

Tank: there is no classic tank in guildwars that just uses taunt to keep the aggro of a boss. 

Offensive boon support: builds that provide offensive boons, but do around 66% of a dps players damage.

Healers: there's no classic heal in guildwars that only heals (well there is, but I'll come back to that later)

Damage dealers: there's two types of dmg dealers, condi and power, while power should be more about the burst, and condi the longtime dps.

 

Now guildwars 2:

It's all about role compression. 

Tanks will always have at least one other role. Being it healer + boon provider or dps, or dps boon provider.

Healers also will always have another role. Boon support.

You could go back to the balance philosophy post and read it there.

 

Now Necro:

Tank: currently Necro doesn't have the tools to tank, since the only way of 100% dmg mitigation are 2 dodges, but those might make the boss move, which you always want to try to prevent.

 

Healer: there is no current heal build for Necro that matches anets design philosophy. There is a heal build that is very good, but doesn't fit in the meta, because it doesn't match anets design philosophy - it's not able to provide defensive boons.

 

Offensive boon support: Necro has harbinger, every other spec does not provide any meaningful boons. On first sight quickness harbinger is extremely good. as condi version, harbinger does very good damage. The problem: it basically only provides quickness and fury. If you want to provide meaningful uptime on other boons you loose a lot of damage. And slotting in utility will also heavily decrease your dps, while necros utility is also kinda lacking.

DPS: condi dps is scourge (needs a rework similar to firebrand imo), yes we have harbinger but it's just not worth the effort to play. It was fun for me for a while, but I can get almost the same results with scourge but also provide a lot more support and it's less "sweaty" to play. Power dps?

 

So if anet says, bring the player, not the profession, you feel kinda left out as Necro main.

Since Necro is severely lacking in a lot of roles (that anet defined btw).

I know that anet can't do reworks for every class at the same time.

And again: I'm not saying that reaper has to be THE power spec for Necro in PvE endgame, it just makes the most sense for me, since the build is almost there but not quite yet and you could achieve that "goal" by just adjusting numbers a bit more than anet already did.

[felincyriac.5981]

All these reaper buffs makes me afraid that I will actually out dps some support builds...

 

My reaper RP is in danger, devs please stop buffing us, what else can I use to boost my support player's morale?!!

Edited November 25, 2022 by felincyriac.5981

[Ruisenior.6342]

Obtena take a break

Edited November 25, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Artificer.3468]

Was hoping they would have looked at focus 4, glad we at least got something but would have liked more. Hopefully they also address those spite minor traits eventually.

[Pooh.6897]

I've been looking at reaper today, and i think that, while shivers of dread is not the main reason reaper struggles, it without questions contributes to the problem. it's just so minimal that it doesn't make sense at all. you get 1.5s of chill every time you fear someone. however, fears are severely limited (and rightfully so). this trait has the potential to do nothing at all. if it does something, it is a 1.5s chill. Excuse me but that's just pathetic. Perhaps a good first change would be to replace 'shivers of dread' with 'dread' instead. this would give reaper baked-in access to fury, which would solve the crit chance problem. it would give arenanet the opportunity to change Reaper's onslaught without taking away Reaper's Quickness. It would still have the niche trigger of applying a fear, but it would actually provide a somewhat decent benefit while being completely in line with the fantasy of Reaper.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Darth Pooh.5638

[Obtena.7952]

On 11/25/2022 at 4:11 AM, Nimon.7840 said:

So if anet says, bring the player, not the profession, you feel kinda left out as Necro main.

Since Necro is severely lacking in a lot of roles (that anet defined btw).

I know that anet can't do reworks for every class at the same time.

And again: I'm not saying that reaper has to be THE power spec for Necro in PvE endgame, it just makes the most sense for me, since the build is almost there but not quite yet and you could achieve that "goal" by just adjusting numbers a bit more than anet already did.

That's where I think there is a need for clarification on what Anet meant by that because bringing the player and not the class to ME, means the specs/build/class itself isn't what determines how people can play the game successfully. That's important because it determines if there is a NEED for those builds/specs/classes to perform at some level in the various game modes. 

Necro lacks? It does but until Anet comes out and says "Hey, Reaper needs to compete with DPS classes for instanced teams in PVE", then all we see are people assuming that's the plan (because it's what they WANT) and basing their complaints/ideas on that assumption.

A few points (and not exhaustive) I think that:

1) it's a bad assumption to impose ideas on the concepts Anet has for these classes or the designs that derive from those concepts. That's ALWAYS a road to disappointment. 

2) it's a bad idea that Reaper compete for PVE DPS spots because that role is ALREADY overly competitive with much more desirable classes. DPS is NOT the only factor in why people choose things to team with. 

3) it's going to cost something and I'm afraid that the cost will exceed the benefit. I'm also of the belief that the cost will be on the backs of the current players, not the people wanting the change. 

Yes, it does seems the easy path is to adjusting some numbers (not a bit either, ALOT) that Reaper could deliver competitive DPS. Why are players so afraid to have an objective conversation about why Anet doesn't? Probably because it doesn't sell the narrative those player have for why they think it should. 

What I'm really afraid of ... is that when classes go into pure DPS mode, it actually shows how the aspects of the game where these pure DPS classes excel are, at there most severe case, thin on engaging play. If we simply promote the needs for these classes, then THAT is the kind of play Anet will design because that will be the only place where these pure DPS classes will work. 

In otherwords, if you JUST want a DPS spec, you aren't asking enough of Anet to create interesting gameplay for you or asking for encounters where they aren't just a DPS race. It's crap and GW2 is better than this. 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Reaper lacks? It does but until Anet comes out and says "Hey, Reaper needs to compete with DPS classes for instanced teams in PVE", then all we see are people assuming that's the plan (because it's what they WANT) and basing their complaints/ideas on that assumption.

Then what ELSE does it bring?

Bumping up the numbers is a fairly simple approach. Reworking Reaper so that it fulfils any other role would require a pretty deep rework into its skills and traits. It's not even in a situation like, say, DPS mesmer that can easily slot a valuable utility or two on their bar for dealing with some specific circumstance where such utilities might help.

I'm also not sure how you'd justify reworking a specialisation that is based on transforming into an avatar of death being made into something other than being good at reaping things.

Edited November 28, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Pooh.6897]

5 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm also not sure how you'd justify reworking a specialisation that is based on transforming into an avatar of death being made into something other than being good at reaping things.

The only thing I can think of is to give reaper a lot of (soft) CC and make him a 'support' in the sense that he can deal big breakbar damage and really control its enemies. That would be a thing that would be in line with the power fantasy. I'm not saying that it would be good or not, just that it could thematically be a possible avenue for Anet to take. After all, Reaper already has some sort of a CC -focus built-in with the focus on Fear and Chill.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

I don't want to support; I want to kill!

just give me my 50% damage boost and call it a day.

[Acanthus.8120]

1 hour ago, Darth Pooh.5638 said:

The only thing I can think of is to give reaper a lot of (soft) CC and make him a 'support' in the sense that he can deal big breakbar damage and really control its enemies. That would be a thing that would be in line with the power fantasy. I'm not saying that it would be good or not, just that it could thematically be a possible avenue for Anet to take. After all, Reaper already has some sort of a CC -focus built-in with the focus on Fear and Chill.

Reaper already does that if you're willing to drop Close to Death for Dread. Dread gives you access to a truly ridiculous amount of fear.

[draxynnic.3719]

20 minutes ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

Reaper already does that if you're willing to drop Close to Death for Dread. Dread gives you access to a truly ridiculous amount of fear.

We've also seen that approach with warrior builds toting maces and/or hammer, and they generally need more DPS than reaper currently offers to justify themselves.

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Then what ELSE does it bring?

Right now, in PVE, not much. What should it bring? Depends what the problem is being solved. If the problem is that Reaper is not desirable in endgame PVE teams ... the answer there is team support and utility because DPS role competition is very high.  

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Bumping up the numbers is a fairly simple approach. Reworking Reaper so that it fulfils any other role would require a pretty deep rework into its skills and traits. It's not even in a situation like, say, DPS mesmer that can easily slot a valuable utility or two on their bar for dealing with some specific circumstance where such utilities might help.

I'm also not sure how you'd justify reworking a specialisation that is based on transforming into an avatar of death being made into something other than being good at reaping things.

Sure, it's easy to claim it's simple ... and then ask yourself why Anet hasn't done it for like, the entirety of Reaper's existence. You don't have to worry about me justifying reworking Reaper ... that's not my job. Anet has justified reworking specs in the past when they needed to. I don't see why Reaper is exceptional here. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[draxynnic.3719]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Right now, in PVE, not much. What should it bring? Depends what the problem is being solved. Certainly, if the problem is that Reaper is not desirable in endgame PVE teams ... the answer there is team support and utility.  

Sure, it's easy to claim it's simple ... and then ask yourself why Anet hasn't done it for like, the entirety of Reaper's existence. You don't have to worry about me justifying reworking Reaper ... that's not my job. Anet has justified reworking specs in the past when they needed to. I don't see why Reaper is exceptional here. 

Reaper has been meta in the past, so saying "for the entirety of Reaper's existence" is hyperbole. Most of the time that Reaper has really suffered has been in the period where the balance team was... shall we say, not exactly universally generous in their attention.

The current preview is showing a boost to reaper damage, so it seems that in this case they are doing it. People just don't think they've done enough. You're not even defending ArenaNet here, you're just being contrarian, pure and simple.

But I really don't see reaper getting team support here. Quickness? Would be strange after they made Harbinger do that. Alacrity? Doesn't really fit the concept, but maybe one could twist around some sort of justification. Sustain? Good luck getting around the "scourge just does it better" issue. But the most logical thing for a specialisation based around embodying the Grim Reaper is to kill things, necromancer lacks a good power DPS variant at the moment, and the only thing between reaper and being a good power DPS is some numbers buffs. I really don't see how you can think buffing reaper up to competitive DPS numbers is somehow a bad thing.